Treptow Park

Met up with some new friends for Easter brunch brunch in the park on Monday. This rather stark example of Soviet architecture and sculpture was lurking amoungst the trees. Amazing place.

Very impressive low relief sculptures

Standing on a vanquished Swastika.

A bit further on was an abandoned East German fair ground. All fenced off but apparently there are tours...

Andy

Street art

This amazing work is on a hostel around the corner from where I was staying last week.Its on Taborstrasse in Keuzberg.

Andy

Kottbusser Damm digs in Kreuz'kolln

This is the view from my current digs on Kottbusser Damm, the border between Kreuzberg and Neukölln. Great area but the apartment is not what I had hoped for. Twice a week there's a Turkish market right in the centre of this photo:

Looking north towards the awesome Oranienstrasse area of Kreuzberg.

  A warm muggy night is perfect for generating a lightning storm.

Andy

New digs and a bit of theatre

A few days ago my CS host told me about a yearly event that happens in the local theatre's.  All the local productions perform a segment of their respective show and you can tour as many as you want in one night. It happens all over the city, costs 15euro  and that includes an unlimited metro pass for the night. And you can buy the complete ticket pass from a metro ticket machine, very convenient. I really wanted to see one that was described as an underwater opera: Purcell's Dido And Aeneas. It was performed in an art nouveau swimming pool called Stadtbad Neukölln. Amazing place but we didn't get in as it was packed when we arrived.
http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/923,arts,underwater-opera

On the way to the theatre event.

So instead we went to a nearby theatre and saw a group of students who were performing various dances, ok. Then we went to see a Brazillian dance troupe. Very interesting but a bit too high brow for me, it finished well with a pyramid of performers, some of whom were in wheelchairs.

Today was a day to walk around the new neighbourhood after moving in to the temporary apartment. On the top floor of a great old building with a good view of the street. This is the building across from me.

A few steps out the door is Gorlitzer Park. Today was spent carrying my suitcase up 5 flights of stairs and then relaxing in the park surrounded by music, hibachi's and dogs chasing Frisbee's. Thankfully those didn't combine.... I got a little bit of a sunburn today, the forecast says 25 degree's on Saturday :)

I have a home!

  Its been a long few weeks. Endless reading, Google translating, replying and visiting WG's (local term for flat sharing). I signed up to the local website where people post their room vacancies and get them emailed to me seconds after posting. Then staying up till 2 am (or whenever the website shuts down for the night) replying to them and then marching off the next day to view... I applied to about 60 and visited 13, lucky 13 was the one. Most are mid 20's students so I don't have much chance of surviving the screening. Obviously, since you are joining a group of folks in one apartment you need to be interviewed and questioned by all. So an obviously older guy isn't going to get many votes when competing against most. Twice I lost out to some young french girl, needless to say the guy's in the apartment were voting with all their members....
  So I have a place starting May 1st! In the meantime I have two other flats lined up to take me through the next two weeks. One near Gorlitzer park (see below) and the other in Kreuzberg. I'll update later with the new place.
  -A word from the experienced, if you plan on moving here, expect much trouble finding a place to live (unless your bank account raises the eyebrow of the local landlord). I don't think Germany wants to encourage people to come here so they've setup this system... Before you can get a job (above table anyway) you must register with the local city hall in the section of the city where you have your apartment. So since there isn't just one city hall for Berlin, if you move you have to re-register with the local city hall in the new neighbourhood. Oh and you can't open a bank account without having a registered address. If you're German and you want to rent an apartment you'll need a healthy bank account statement or a letter from mummy and daddy saying that if you fail to pay the rent they'll guarantee you and pay. Or you'll need a letter from your employer stating that you are employed full time etc.... Suddenly WG's don't look so bad eh?
  Don't worry though, the fringe benefits are worth it. It's Tuesday night, I'm sitting in a local coffee shop/bar/live music venue with a .5 l dark beer in hand (2Euro's) and the Jazz ensemble is jamming in the back. And someone on one of those awesome European bikes with the big wooden bucket in front keeps riding by. He's got a massive sound system wedged in there blasting out club house beats. The club will wait till I recover from the last few weeks. I'm off to see who's in the jam ensemble....  

Prost :)
Andy

A sunny day

 

WOW, when its the first sunny weekend of the spring, Berliner's come out in droves! This is Gorlitzer Park in Kreuzberg. I thought this was very busy but then I went to Maurer Park! There must have been thousands in that park today. Other than the sun it was a because of a combo of outdoor karaoke, impromptu parties, dance, barbeque's and a huge flea market! Oh and all done with beer in hand :)

Andy

Jewelery shop window

Birch bark on a mannequin. Much better than the usual.

Art in the city

Art permeates the city.

Pictoplasma Animation Festival Berlin 2011

Three, count em three days after I get here, I find an animation festival that's about to start! Pictoplasma Festival Berlin 2011.
Pictoplasma.com
Unfortunately the tickets are sold out but there's about 30 galleries in the central area called Mitte that are participating. On display is work from individual and group artists. Some really great work here too:

The registration area behind one of the abandoned buildings, cool!

And the first gallery venue is in a bombed out building next to the registration:)

The artists (Crim Collective Mechanicalism) painted the walls of the basement of this place.

Mysterious staircase heading to unknown realms in this building...

The snowman mascots for the Fest meeting the people.

Raymond Lemstra. Liar Liar...

Its about 2 meters tall and cut out of black paper.

Raymond Lemstra, reminiscent of Moebius.

Matt Jones aka Lunartik. Strange little tea cup toys that various artists paint and design. On the right, Monster Brew!

My fav, oxidized bronze!

Raymond Lemstra

Jeremy Dower. Very trippy series of digital paintings like this.

Jeremy Dower. This one blow me away, the colours were very saturated and the light very well rendered.

Jeremy Dower

Mcbess. Amazing stylized characters. Riffing on the R Crumb era.

The Bee Kingdom. Turns out this glass work was by artists from Alberta.

The Bee Kingdom. It is glass!

This is the awesome Black Heart Gang from South Africa.

I found the amazing animated video from the above print online a couple of years ago and it was done by 3 people, one of whom I met today! Very cool girl named Ree. They had a very nice printed book of the story of this animation but it was 40 Euro's so had to put it down :(
The video is here for those that missed it:
theblackheartgang.com/the-household/the-tale-of-how/

Mcbess. This one will set you back 1100 Euro!

Mcbess

A LOT more photo's of everything here:
www.flickr.com/photos/pictoplasmar

Andy

Potsdamer Platz by night

  I'm updating this blog instead of looking for a flat to rent, ever the procrastinator. Looks like it'll take longer than I had hoped....
  On my last night with Gabriela she drove us down to Potsdamer Platz to see the amazing roof and surrounding area of the Sony Centre. A rather touristy area full of over priced restaurants and bars. You'll be lucky to hear German spoken by a Berliner here :) Great history though.

The original architecture from this spot was bombed long ago so the deal for Sony to develop the land was they had to preserve the surviving parts of the architecture. This fireplace is on display in the large centre, complete with "arty" lighting to jazz it up...

Cheers

Andy

The last day of first weekend

From the roof garden looking west was this amazing sunset.

I almost road away on this gem. What a lucky kid! It appeared in the stairwell to Gabriela's flat one day.

The local feline folk

One of Gabriela's two cats, Pino the friendly one.

And the other is Mausi who is decidedly grumpy.

Berlin Pillow Fight ( The Battle for Alexanderplatz )

  I borrowed my hosts bike to see Berlin by bike (SOOO much better, must get bike!) and also to set off for the pillow fight on Saturday afternoon. I so wanted to make this but was 15 minutes late and everyone had spent their energy by that time. A few sporadic bouts popped up like this one. I tried hunting down a disposable feather pillow but arrived sans ammunition.

The gory aftermath of the battle for Alexanderplatz:

My next place to stay. April 1st-4th

I spent the first weekend in Berlin on Gabriela's couch. She is a wonderful host and with many years experience hosting and showing people around her city. She has an amazing top floor flat in Kreuzberg so that meant climbing 5 floors of this updated Altbau with a rolling suitcase and backpack with camera and laptop. I'm in good shape but with jet lag and a cold (thanks to the flight) I was puffing at the top. Amazing view from the top garden and you can walk out onto the roof of the neighbouring buildings to get a good look at the area.

About an hour after arriving we were off to the pub crawl to celebrate Quentin Tarantino's birthday. I was with Jackie Brown here ;)

Radom find

This is what I love. You can walk down any street, find an open door leading to an interior courtyard and discover cool stuff like this. As you can see by the bikes, he's big.

The first night, March 29th

So, the bags being lost was now a blessing as I was free to go and find my first Couch Surfing host only burdened with my backpack. My big bag would be delivered tomorrow :) This is the entry hall for Peter's place, one of the older buildings referred to as an Altbau. I'm standing in his door way. So not too many stairs to climb but the first floor of these older buildings can be rather cool. Very nice wide staircase.