Walking Berlin

Berlin was on my trip because I wanted to visit my friend Dimitra, whom I met at London Contemporary Dance School. It was ten years since I was last in Berlin and seen her. How time flies! I realise that I have been a busy boy in the last ten years. I liked Berlin when I visited it ten years ago, I like it even more now.

Having been to Berlin once and since it was a trip to visit a friend, I did not do any planning at all about what to do there. One thing was for sure, I did not want to see any more castles, old masters or crosses. On the way to my hotel, I saw there was a Magnum photography retrospective at a place called CO Berlin. I asked the lady at my hotel where this museum was and she showed me on a free map giving out by Sandeman, a walking tour company. What caught my eye was an alternative tour of Berlin, showing squats, street art, protest points, things you would not see in a regular city tour. And where does the tour start? CO Berlin, where the photographic exhibition was held!

I spent the morning going through the Magnum exhibition and bought a documentary on Magnum. The exhibition showed classics from the founders and newer work by photographers like Paolo Pelegrin and Alex Soth. It was trying to show how Magnum started as a photo journalists collective and how it is developing today in a market where the photo journalistic market has collapsed. Many of the young photographers are journalists/artists. They think as much as doing exhibitions and selling prints as they do of getting their work published in newspapers or magazines. Enlightening.

I had a quick lunch and joined the alternative Berlin walking tour. The guide was an Irishman, Finn, whom was very interested in graffiti artists. The first stop was an artists' squat in east Berlin called Tacheles. Apparently, it will be evacuated and turned into a luxury hotel at any moment, so I was very lucky to see this piece of free Berlin history. As we went along this tour, we were introduced to various forms of street art and their creators. It is interesting that billboards is not a very effective form of advertising in Berlin and major companies have now started to use street artists to paint ads street style. How commerce works eh?

The really surprising thing to me is that Berlin as a city, is 67 million euros in debt. This, the capital of capitalist superstar Germany! But Berlin is a city for artists, with very little industry going on. There are many development plans, but no money to get them going. One quarter of Berlin's property is empty! Hmmm... sounds like my city to do a photographic residency!!! :)

After the great tour I met my friend Dimitra for dinner. Ten years ago she took me for a Viennese Schnitzel that was simply amazing. I tried getting a good schnitzel in Vienna but failed. We went back to the same restaurant and had the schnitzel again. To me, this is the best schnitzel in the world.

I enjoyed the alternative Berlin tour so much that I convinced Dimitra to follow me for the free Berlin tour. And she has lived in Berlin for twelve years. But the guide, Sam, a Cambridge graduate, was great. He was knowledgeable and he could put things across well. Dimitra was impressed by how he compressed German history into 16 minutes. The highlights of the tour for me was the monument to the Jews killed in the second world war and a monument to a massive book burning exercise at Humbolt University. The Jewish monument is thousands and thousands of cement blocks. I did not take a picture of the monument to the burned books, but it is an underground room made of four walls of white bookshelves. These works kind of blew my mind.

The evening was finished with Taffelspitz at another Austrian restaurant. It is boiled beef and does not sound that fantastic. But it is served with horseradish that really makes this a special treat.

So two great days in Berlin and meeting an old friend.

I am now going into the last part of my overland journey, the Baltic states. I am writing this post in Warsaw, on my way to Vilnius in Lithuania. I am still being surprised and educated, but I am a bit tired. I am looking forward to returning to London and sleeping in a familiar bed.