25th anniversary of the wall -Lichtgrenze

Berlin's infamous wall just celebrated the 25th anniversary of the day it all finally came tumbling down. I spent a few hours exploring the installation of balloons along the inner city area of the wall. The project was inspired by an idea from Christopher Bauder and Marc Bauder and the Kulturprojekte GmbH. More info here


  The idea is good and the installation looks great at night but suffers a bit by day. Of course the best way to look at this project is from a symbolic point of view and in this regard its effective. In most parts of the city the wall is long gone so this ghostly reminder of what once divided serves to cause one to pause and think of what happened here. At all too many locations, there are memorials for the people who died trying to flee the East. In some places its a plinth or plaque or simply a subtle cross incorporated into a railing.

  The big event on the last evening was the release of balloons as a symbolic fall of the wall. I think most were expecting all the balloons to go at once rather than a slow release so it was a bit anti-climatic. There was a light inside each stand so as each balloon left it also left the light and disappeared into the black sky disappointing many photographers :) Considering the incredible speed the wall actually fell, basically a few hours after the news conference, it seemed more apropos to have all the balloons go at once. But that would mean a shorter show for the home audience I suppose...

  Later in the evening a sizable number of people were walking home with as many of the balloon towers as they could carry. I expect a few front gardens to have new architectural details, perhaps a few artists will create something with them as well.

Until next time,
Andy

Neukolln public gardens around the Körner

  A few months ago a friend mentioned that there was a nice clean park in Neukolln. Most parks in the former east are a bit wild and well used so the site of green grass without numerous beer bottle caps meant I would need to find this. I never got around to checking it out till early October.

  Now, there is a palace in Charlottenburg with a large wild garden called Schloss Charlottenburg. It used to be well kept and done up in the traditional style of each royal family's era. Once small section is currently done up in a very geometric style of royal gardens.

  In my opinion, this park in Neukolln is far more impressive than the Charlottenburg Palace park. Built between 1912 and 1914, Körner Park is a sunken garden with a water fall, fountain and at the far end, an Orangery containing an art gallery with cafe. All this in a lower income neighbourhood more know for kebabs and underground bars and clubs. Somehow funding for this park is quite obviously in place, whereas the typical park here is a far cry from this level of maintenance.

Feels a bit like a Parisian park.

A park with enough elevation to have a waterfall, a rare sight indeed.

Gallery and cafe

Apparently the former owner of a gravel pit on the site handed it over to the local city government to be converted into a park (provided it bear his name). Thus the reason for the sunken nature of this park. It was very run down after WWII but in the 1970's was restored and in 1983 the Orangery was reopened. As of 2004, its a listed heritage site.

  On a warm day its got a crowd but not nothing like as busy as Mauer or Gorlitzer parks. A good spot to relax, people watch, sketch, read and plan a lazy day over a coffee.

Cheers
Andy

Ostsee camping trip

A group of friends and I went up north to the beach resort near Ostsee. Its on the Baltic sea so not a super warm Mediterranean type place but still good. Its a little colder (still tolerable) but the beach is huge and very shallow. Its a long curving coast with a few little towns along the way. The full coast spans the German-Polish border and is quite built up in areas. We stayed away from that and followed Linsey's directions to a wild area with long grass and forest behind us on the beach to setup camp.

We took two cars and drove up from Berlin. Along the way were hundreds of wind turbine farms and a few solar farms.

We arrived late in the afternoon and setup camp before it got too dark.

After scrounging for fallen branches, we got the fire started. Some more impressed with the sky than the fire construction:)

Not bad for a bunch of city slickers.

Liam had the bright idea to put tea candles in sand pits and cups to light the camp area.

Idyllic little vacation hamlet nearby. VERY clean place. Every stick and twig was manicured into place on the roofs.

Survivors of the night and the attack of the 50 foot mosquitoes.

  The far western end of the peninsula used to be some sort of military base with an air strip, u-boat base and perhaps a launch site for buzz bombs. Now its fenced off and a nature preserve, much better idea.

  Over all a great night and a relaxing time star gazing and fire watching. After the morning dip and breaky we packed up and walked about 2 kilometres down the beach to the small town and had lunch at a rather posh Italian place. Linsey and I tried our luck ordering iced coffee... seems to be a foreign concept here. We got a cup of espresso and a glass with ice cubes. Not what we had in mind mate.

Until next time.
AJ

May 1st 2014

The 1st of May has come about again, right on schedule. I'm posting photos this time around for some of the new things I found. For those curious about the big party, check out the previous posts here and here.

general ambiance

 Crossing the street on a red signal, Das ist Verboten!

Ready for a climb but anxious.

  This was an amazing setup, a climbing event for kids. A trio of (I assume pro) climbers setup a climbing rope and harnesses on a tree at Marianenplatz. The idea was for kids to strap on the gear and then be challenged to stack beer crates while climbing the stack. Brillant idea and loads of safe fun. Not a chance it would fly anywhere in North America I suspect.

This girl did quite well.

The girl doing the climbing was really....really good, great balance.

However this girl was the champ, they ran out of crates to hand up.

Out of crates, she just leaned back to great applause.

  Great fun to watch each tower crumble and all smiles as each kid was lowered to the grass.

AJ

The big Berlin bike bonanza

Once again the bike protest day hit Berlin this past June 1st. Sternfahrt. Its registered as a protest against car drivers who park in the bike lane as this is the only way the event can go forward with the police blessing. The Police close streets along the various routes and have a police car at the front to clear the way. See the map here

  I met up with a group of friends to do the run this year, about 10 of us amongst a total of 200,000. We started from Elmi and Peters place in Friedrichshain and biked north to a starting point along the route that actually starts at the German/Polish border! No we didn't go that far. We waited for about 15 minutes and then the leaders came by...

Polizei leading the protest.

Part of our crew, I think they spotted the camera.

The next check point where more join the tour.

Stretching the definition of "bike" for this event.

Hang on, look at those tires and peddles, this guy is serious about bicycling. He even had a support bike with a trailer in tow.

Entering Kreuzberg, Elmi, Liam and a rare sighting of the orange clad Scottish lass Linsey. Soon to be an orange blur heading up the road.

Entering the centre of Kreuzberg, long delay here for some reason.

Berlin's version of the ipod, bring the techno beats anywhere you need to go, easy peasy:)

Next year she could break the bank with a mobile Lemonaid stand from there.

The amazing section where we go onto the closed autobahn and enter into a long curving tunnel just south of Tempelhof airport.

Amazing to be in there with the sound of shouts and wind but no engines.

Yes that guy is on a scooter!

The home stretch, the entrance to Tiergarten park.

The Victory column is in sight. Elmi and Peter (aka Mr. Chips) lead the way.

This entire ring road in the centre of the park, normally full of cars was now open to just bikes.

After a lap of the column it was time to head for the finish area.

  Just a few hundred metres down the road was the Brandenburg gate and the finish area full of food stalls, presentations, music and toilets for the desperate.
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I think you'll agree, we took the long route from A to B, about 46 km.

The route (roughly)

   Earlier in the day we agreed to meet up at an outdoor pub/restaurant in Tiergarten Park so we headed off for a well deserved beer (I own ya one Liam). Feeling a bit hungry we then biked down to the Thai Park for a late lunch at about 4pm. Pad Thai, spring rolls, spicy crispy chicken, sweets, too much to take it all in, must go back for more.

  Good weather and a good ride. The only mistake was forgetting the sunscreen...

Till next year, Bis dann...
AJ