Photo of the Day: TGIF

From Munich

It's Friday. Celebrate.

Berlin Blog with added pictures

Posted this about a year ago, but thought I'd go back and add pictures. Enjoy.

Just in time (almost) for the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Wall, here are some quick notes on Berlin. A city with almost too much to see, Berlin is to easy get around via subway and by walking. It is well worth at least three or four days of exploration. I want to focus on just a few of the sights that are all within very easy walking distance of each other.

In the center of downtown (at the Unter den Linden S-Bahn exit) lies the Brandenberg gate, the triumphal archway under which conquering German armies marched after going to war. It was commissioned by King Fredrick William II in the late 18th century and is probably most famous for its chariot of horses on top, being driven by Victoria, the Roman goddess of victory. Apparently it didn’t provide initial good luck, because Napoleon conquered Prussia just a couple decades later and took the chariot statute and Victoria off to Paris. It was returned a few decades later — after another war, this time won by the Germans.

From Berlin

It is an iconic sight in Berlin. Their is a line in the street on the west side of the gate that shows where the Berlin Wall once ran. The Brandenberg gate was actually in the no-mans zone for those years. Immediately next to the gate is the U.S. Embassy — prime territory in town for one of the conquering Allied powers. Across the way is the French Embassy, in a fairly ugly building that does not refect what I think of when I think France. The prime hotel overlooking these particular sights is the Hotel Adlon, which normally wouldn’t be one any sightseeing agenda, but I can almost guarantee that you have seen it before.

It was from the penthouse suite’s balcony that Michael Jackson dangled his infant child, to the consternation of most of the world watching on television. Ahhhhh, those classic Michael memories.

Right around the corner is the Reichstag, which houses the German Parliament. The building is suitably picture-worthy, but it is the addition that that building that is the real draw. Before the legislative seat of government of Germany was moved back to Berlin, post re-unification, a large glass dome was added to the top of the building. From inside, you can actually see down to the floor of Parliament and see government in action. It really does look like sausage after all. Lines are long to get in — better to go first thing or last thing in the day. Views from up top are spectacular.

From Berlin

Immediately south of the U.S. Embassy and Brandenberg Gate is one of the most moving places I’ve seen on my entire trip: the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. Often mis-indentified as the “Holocaust Museum,” the correct in-your-face name gives an accurate impression of what this site is all about. On the surface of the city block that the memorial occupies are the iconic 2,711 huge stone block that you have no doubt seen pictures of. They stand at various heights and are neatly organized in rows that take up almost the entire block. The architect of the project, Peter Eisenman, has never given any interview explaning what feelings he meant to convey with the design. Walking through the field, taking pictures of the stones with the shadows cast upon them, and seeing others walking in and out of your field of vision is interesting. I wish I had a better word for it, but that’s all I’ve got.

Underground in the small museum. Admission is free and although I hate to be the type of blogger that says “you must do this or that,” you really should take a hour or two out and go downstairs. There are only about five rooms down there. One hallway has the basic history and time line of the Holocaust. One room has maps and pictures of every concentration camps — and there were a lot more than I ever though. One room details how many Jews were killed from each country. But it was two of the rooms that set me back the most.

From Berlin

There is a room where the histories of 12-15 families are laid out. Family photos are on display. Letters. Descriptions of each of the members of the family: ages, professions, schooling, and so on. And then a full explanation of when the Nazis took them to their concentration camp(s) and how they died. Entire families. From Germany, France, Lativa, Russa, Bulgaria, and so many others. Among the reality of millions of murdered Jews — seeing these families stories brought it down to a level I hadn’t thought of before.

From Berlin

The Room of Names is a simple place with no photographs or other displays. One each of the four walls, a person’s name and biographical data is projected. Over the loudspeakers in the room, using information compiled by the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem, an annoucer somberly and briefly details the life, and death, of the person whose name is projected on the wall. On a continuous loop. There are about 700 such brief biographies being looped now and the project aims to expand that to several thousand. When I was there, two women sat on one of the benches crying. They weren’t alone.

I walked out that morning with one thought in my head — I just don’t understand. I don’t mean that in a disrepectful way at all. I certainly understand the facts and details of the Holocaust and the museum was an incredible jolt to my soul. But I don’t understand how people can do that to each other.

On this trip, I’ve been through Uganda, Germany, Cambodia, Sudan and skirted Bosnia. Genocides have happened for thousands of years in a variety of places and are certain to happen again in the future. I am, or at least was, a criminal defense lawyer. I can comprehend murder. Murder for greed, or anger, or jealousy or any of the other thousands of reasons it happens every day does make sense to me — I dispise it, but I can at least comprehend it.

I just cannot comprehend the systematic killing of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or in the Holocaust’s case, millions of people because of their religion, or tribe, or educational background or the other means of weeding out who “must die.” One murderer or a small gang of murderers is something I can get my head around — but genocide is carried out by thousands and thousands of people, at the highest levels of power in their government. How do they get to that point? How is it possible to convince that many people to do something that unspeakably horrible? In the end, I supposed I’m glad that I cannot understand it at all, but I do understand, and believe, in the inscription on the wall I read that day.

“It happened, therefore it can happen again: this is the core of what we have to say.” from Primo Levi, The Drowned and the Saved (I sommersi e i salvati. Turin 1986), Simon and Schuster, New York.

Primo Levi, born in 1919 in Turin, was a chemist. As a member of the Italian resistance, he was arrested in 1944 and deported to Auschwitz. He survived and began in 1945, directly after his return, to write. In 1987 Primo Levi committed suicide.

From Berlin

Photo of the Day: Cute Kid (Germany)

From Various old

how cute is this kid??!!

Photo of the Day: Brandenburg Gate

From Berlin

In Berlin. Heard great things about Berlin before I went. Everyone was right. A wonderful town to go hang out in, and tons of stuff to see.

Photo of the Day: Octoberfest

From Munich

Beer please!

Photo of the Day: Dresden, Germany

From Dresden

A town almost entirely destroyed by some massive fire bombing in WWII (and made famous by Kurt Vonegut). It is an incredibly beautiful city.

Photo of the Day: Eating Babies

From Various old

perhaps my favorite statute in the world, so far

Hmmmm -- that's a lot of miles

OK, I spent all of today (since I screwed up my train ticket and didn't buy it for the right night train -- rocket scientist I am), working out my general plan to get from here to Hanoi by my target date of October 24th. Upon further review, I really do want to make that date now, if for no other reason that to see if I can. The last five or six weeks has been too easy (and expensive -- I need to get to Southeast Asia fast).

I think I left Berlin on the 25th of September, on the day I got my passport back with my China and Russian visas. I took a train from there to Malmo, Sweden overnight. Spent the night with my first couchsurfer (www.couchsurfing.com -- really good travel resource I should have been using more). Took the bus the next day to Oslo. Then the train the next day to Trondheim, where I am right now.

I should have then taken the overnight train that left an hour later to Bodo, Norway, halfway up the length of this long country, but it turns out when I bought my train ticket out of the machine in Oslo, I punched the wrong date and actually had a ticket for the 29th, not the 28th, so they wouldn't let me on the train. So, I'm taking the "correct" train in a few hours.

From Bodo, I will hop on a boat for four days that cruises up the coast to Hammerfest, my destination, the northernmost city in the world. It then continues on over the top of Norway and I get dropped off on the Russian border, at Kirkenes. One of the bonuses of going this way (aside from the pictures I am assuming I will be snapping the whole way), is that it is a working ferry boat that stops at every little town along the way. There are some towns north of Hammerfest -- though they claim they are the northernmost 'city,' so whatever is the northernmost whatever. . . I'm hitting it.

http://www.hurtigruten.com/norway/Fleet/Hurtigrutens-fleet-/MS-Nordlys/

that is the link to the ship I will be on for three nights/four days.

From there I take a bus to Murmansk, Russia. Then a train to St. Petersburg. Short stop there to pay homage to Crime and Punishment, which diligent readers with recognize as one of the banes of my existence on this trip. Then train to Moscow. Then a long, long train to Ulaanbaatar, Monogolia, where I will get off for a look-see for a bit. Then another train to Bejing. Then probably a place or two in China, and finally Hanoi.

In less than a month. This might not seem as difficult to you, as you sit there, as it now does to me, that I have finally researched it. That procrastination thing just puts off the pain of doing or knowing something, it never really does make it go away, does it?

Pull out a map or globe or check out googlemaps online. This is a long way.

I was able to get a very rough idea of the mileage by pulling up a website that has distances between places as the crow/airplane flies. Obviously, my route is going to be a bit longer, seeing as I am more the tortoise than the crow, but it will give you a reasonable idea.

I calculate it at approximately 7,300 miles (or 13,000 kilometers). Some perspective. That is L.A. to New York City. Three times. For my European friends, it is London to Cape Town. . . then back up to Harare, Zimbabwe.

If I make it by October 24th, I am celebrating with a great dinner. Perhaps some good local food, with a very nice bottle of French wine, to celebrate one of the cultures that has permeated Vietnam. And 'cause I love wine.

I'm buying. Anyone up for some eats? There is time to book a ticket.

Notes from a French Cafe -- Berlin -- Nicaragua

"Drunk in a French café. My ipod. Great music – as well all think. Elvis Costello. Remembering san juan del sur, Nicaragua. Powerless nights. Ipod dj’s. then the disco”

So, I was recently getting fairly drunk on some pretty good red wine in French café in Berlin and the note above was what I jotted down. My journal is going to be absolute gibberish to anyone but me.

Not sure if I have mentioned this before in the blog, but I am semi-psychotic about rating all the songs on my iPod. The ratings are on a simple one-to-five star basis and then mean absolutely nothing, except that your four and five-star songs get automatically put on a play list called “My Top Rated” on your iPod. I should preface this by saying I have 7,789 songs on my iPod. My top rated play list is currently at 1,738 songs.

I say currently, because I haven’t rated all the songs on my iPod, though, as I said, I am semi-psychotic about doing it. So, I fairly regularly will run through some albums or artists that haven’t been played in a while, just to rate songs that are not yet rated, even if I don’t really want to listen to them at that particular time. I also regularly debate, and change, ratings on songs that I have previously rated, some times bumping them up from three to four stars to get them on the list. Some times knocking them from four to three and knocking them off.

Even more oddly, sometimes I have a long internal debate about changing a song from a four to five star or vice versa. . . although that has absolutely no difference in meaning for any practical reason at all. But I am sorry, if a five-star song on my iPod is an honor not to be taken lightly.

Is that only semi-psychotic or all the way around the bend?

If it’s not all the way ‘round, I think I might be able to see a curve in the road.

To make a long story short (“too late!”), that is what I meant by the ‘Great music – as we all think’ note. For those of us that love music and have rated songs on our iPod, randomly playing songs off your top rated list invariably at some point causes you to stop, look up and say to no one in particular:

“I have great fucking taste in music. My iPod rocks.”

Of course you do – you self-rated the songs. And this was after you bought them or ripped them to your iPod in the first place. Not exactly shocking that you’d think your own music is fabulous, but I think I’ve said that to myself, while my iPod is on random mode on my top rated list, at least a hundred times on this trip.

And yes, I do have great fucking taste in music.

The San Juan del Sur reference was a couple nights out of the month that I spent there in December of 2007 and January of 2008. There was a nice restaurant in town owned and run by a couple in from Northern California. The food was good, though expensive for Nicaragua, and I really enjoyed their company. She was in her late twenties, and a very outgoing, talkative hippy (though not in appearance) who was the bartender, main waitress and hostess. He was in his mid-30s and a quiet surfer and more importantly, the head chef.

San Juan del Sur was the first time I’d ever been in a town where the power completely went out in the entire town. It happened four or five times in the month that I spent there. Two of those nights were spent in this particular restaurant. As in all locations subject to power outages like this – as I have learned on this trip, being that I’ve been in many more of them – a good business is prepared with its own generator. They, of course, had one.

For some reason both nights, the power going out signaled some internal signal in the three of us that it was time to party. Both nights, I ate dinner up at the bar, read my book by candlelight, and occasionally talked to Claire, when she wasn’t running around. John would occasionally come up in down moments and chat a bit. I let the both of them order not only my meals every time, but also my drinks.

I think Claire took it as a personal challenge to get me wasted. That particular Olympic routine had a very low degree of difficulty, but even the Russian judges gave her good marks.

Side note: as I was just typing this, ‘London Town’ by Wings just got bumped down from four to three stars. Sorry, Paul, you lost one song off the top rated, but I still love ‘ya. Next song up is ‘Personal Jesus’ by Depeche Mode. Solid five stars. Time out while I sing along and freak out some Germans on this train.

OK, so after dinner both nights, the customers would slowly file out as I continued to drink at the bar. When everyone in the place had finished eating, John would close the kitchen down and come up to have some drinks with Claire, me and a few others that had stuck around to beyond the bitter end. Eventually, a few other of their friends that worked in other local restaurants also wandered in, until the total crowd was about seven or eight or so.

I have no idea how it started both nights, but I do seem to recall that it was John’s idea that he and I would have a “Battle of the iPods.” And so we did. The emphasis was on 80s music, because after a dozen drinks, that genre fits the mood for most everyone and he and I had grown up with that music. Bonus points for one hit wonder songs, which was a deep field to mine in the 80s. One iPod got plugged into the stereo for a bit. Then the other. Wine. Drinks. Music. Everyone telling their stories that the songs would pull up from depths of their memory banks. At this point in the drinking, some of the stories were even uncensored.

Both of the iPods gave it their all. And both preformed with aplomb. I must say that he also had great fucking taste in music.

While those two nights would have been memorable if they’d just ended at that point, neither night did. At about two in the morning both nights, their generator ran out of gas and the power finally gave out. He suggested both times that we relocate down the street to an after-hours, all-night, locals disco. The place was about 40 feet by 20 feet. One-third was the bar, one-third was the dance floor and one-third had a few tables and places to stand.

The music came from an iPod plugged into the stereo. There were about twenty-five people drinking and dancing when we walked in the first time. He and I walked up to the bar to order some beers, he reached over and grabbed the iPod they were using over to the two of us and turned to me.

“You ready to take the battle to the people?”

O yea. It’s on, brother.

Germany in one picture.

OK -- two pictures, but one is just a cropped close up.

There aren't many countries where you can summarize the nation's personality in one picture, but I think this does a pretty good job for Germany.



Simply put, Germany is a country of rule followers. This is no better shown that at any an average intersection in the country. You must be at an intersection to see it, because no one jaywalks -- that would violate the rules.

No one, I mean no one, crosses against the light.

As a side note, I dislike when people say something "never" happens or is "the best ever" or other authoritative statements of absolute truth. Look - its not the best pasta made on the planet. Its not the best song ever written. Its not the worst speech ever given or the most stupid managerial move in the history of baseball.

One of the best? Sure. Almost always? Absolutely. I've never had better? Great.

There is always room for a bit of flexibility in any authoritative statement. Nothing is the best anything. No one is the most evil person on the planet. And nothing happens every single time. Well, except that the sun will rise in the east, the tax man is going to want his share every year, no one will live forever, and . . .

Germans don't cross against the light. I have seen this in numerous cities and under numerous situations. Today in Dresden it was driven home once again -- about five or six times, I would walk up to an intersection, see the red light, look around, see absolutely no traffic at all (not a lot of car traffic in downtown Dresden), and walk across the road, usually a pretty small two-lane one.

And no one else crossed with me. In fact, they all looked at me like I was an alien from another planet.

I would so want to see what they think of Cairo or Mexico City. The thoughts running through their heads there must be priceless.

By the way -- here is the important part of that last picture.



And although you can't see far enough in this picture -- rest assured, there isn't a car, bus or other vehicle anywhere in sight.

In the shower today, for the first time ever. . .

I always wanted to be a headline writer. Have always thought it would be a pretty easy, but interesting job.

So I am in Dresden, Germany now. When I was in Amberg, hanging out with Dave and Melynn Roberts for a few days before they moved back to the States, I asked them where I should go in Germany that I hadn't been. They suggested Dresden. I got up the next morning and got on a train and came here.

I had no idea is was way, way over in the former East Germany. I have no idea why, because I usually am quite good with geography, but I'd have guessed it was somewhere in the Rhine valley -- all the way on the other side of Germany. I didn't realize this until I was sitting on the internet last night, looking up places to see, and looked at where it was on a map.

On the entire trip, I don't think I've ever been that off mentally on where I thought I was verses where I actually was.

So, back to the shower today. You may recall from one of my long-ago posts
Germany Ingenunity that I think Germany's efficiency pretty interesting. Now that I am back here for a bit, that particular feeling/observation has been renewed.

Almost all off the public area or community lights here are motion activated. I think that is a great idea that needs to be imported to the U.S. immediately (though the bathroom light issue that I wrote about back in my old blog needs some tweaking). Today was the first time I'd experienced a temporary shower. There has to be a much better name for it, but I only had one cup of coffee today.

Here's how it works. You have all seen the bathroom faucets where you push down on the faucet, water comes out for 20 seconds or so, then automatically shuts off. If you want water for more than 20 seconds, you have to keep pushing the faucet every time it stops.

Same thing today in the shower. Push the button. Get water for about 30 seconds. Water stops. Push again. Pretty good concept, though if you want one of those sexy, hot showers for two that you see in the movies. . . makes for some difficult stop-and-go action.

Leading back into my headline writing abilities. . . Alas, I was solo. But I am clean.

German Ingenunity

There are a variety of things in Western Europe that should immediately be imported into the United States. Some of the stuff they are doing over here just makes sense in so many ways.

For instance, the about-to-turn green signal is genius. A couple seconds before your streetlight is going to turn from red to green, the yellow light comes on along with the red light. It’s the signal that the light is about to turn green. It so expedites traffic at intersections. Also, a good number of the hotel rooms do not allow you to turn on the lights or air conditioning or whatever until you put your

room key (the credit card type) into a device on the inside of your room. When you leave, you take your key and everything in your room turns off. Pretty simple and ingenious way to cut down on electrical usage, and given our addiction to fossil fuels, global warming and the such, anything they come up with that saves fuel is welcome in my book. Most of the places I’ve been have street signs that direct you to local parking lots. That part isn’t anything new or interesting, but what is a great idea is that the signs have a digital and live read-out of how many open spots are in the parking lot. If the lot is full, you know before turning left to head there, which in the world of one-way streets and confusing signs is a godsend.

Not all of the little innovations work as well as that though. In hotels and some other public areas, the lights in the hallways are motion-activated. It is a little strange to have an elevator door open up on a dark hallway in a hotel, but when you get off, the lights pop on pretty much immediately. Again, a nice little way to save on electricity.

My slight problem with the motion-activated lights wasn’t in the context of a hotel hallway. It was in a restaurant bathroom. Seems they decided to put the lights in the bathroom on a motion sensor and timer. No motion for a couple minutes and the lights go off. Normally not a bathroom problem, but the motion doesn’t sense movement in the closed stalls. How do I put this appropriately? Hmmmm. Sometimes I take more than two minutes doing “stall duty.”

Finish in the dark? Get up off the pot, open the stall door and wave a hand out there in the hope of getting a light back on? Wait for someone else to come in? I’m gunna leave the resolution a mystery, but I did make it back to the table, alive, well and otherwise ok. And was a little less certain about German ingenuity.

German trains

German Trains July 14th

I forget the exact saying, but something along the lines of “running on time like a German train.” Nothing could be closer to the truth.

Taking a train back from Vienna today to Amberg, Germany, to hook up with my friends Steve, Dave and Melynn to hit another beer festival. As a sidenote, swapped a couple good emails yesterday with Dave about the evening. The key one being, “still looking for another designated driver to drive back from the festival.” This festival isn’t in town and is apparently a 30-45 minute drive away. The important thing I took from the message was that he at least had one designated driver, most likely Melynn, which meant to me that the festival is a go. Crowded single car is fine by me; I’ll leave it up to him if he can find a second driver. It should go without saying that I did not volunteer.

So when I buy my train ticket in Vienna, the ticket agent was nice enough to print out the itinerary, since I’d neglected to write down the connection cities and times and such when I looked it up online earlier that day to see when I was leaving. Problem was that the printout was all muddled because she had some printer problem. Some of the letters and such were printed over each other. I had a pretty good idea of the two cities I needed to change trains in, but was a little unclear what time the trains arrived and departed. After the first train stop, I figured out that the numbers were juxtaposed. On the printout I had, the departure was listed as 12:03, when in fact the real departure was 12:30. The last two numbers were inverted.

That’s all well and good -- figured it out and such – the platform numbers appeared to be correct, but I look down and see the arrival time and the departure time for the first town I need to change trains in: Regensburg Hauptbanhof, arrival 16:72 on platform 5, departure on the train to Schwandorf at 16:13 from platform 1. Switch the numbers and you get arrival at 4:27 p.m. and departure at 4:31 p.m. A smooth 4 minutes to get from the first train to the next. Admittedly, the train stations aren’t that big and getting from platform 5 to platform 1 at these places, but any platform whose number isn’t immediately adjacent to yours (platform 5 and 6 or 5 and 4 share the same area, depending on the train station), means you have to go up or down a flight of stairs, down a hallway or tunnel and then up or down another set of stairs to get to your platform. A diagram would be handy, but I’m not computer literate enough to put one in here.

I’ve missed plane connections when they’ve scheduled an hour for the transfer AND the plane I was on landed on-time (long, long bus ride in the Charles De Gaulle airport in Paris – I think I’ve written about it). The four minute allotted time that was scheduled for this exchange did not fill me with confidence. If the first train was just a little late. . .

But German trains really don’t ever run late. It is amazing. When they say they are going to arrive at 4:27 p.m. and depart at 4:31 p.m., they mean exactly that. It’s not an estimate, it’s a guarantee. Off the train, up the stairs, over the walkway, down the stairs, on the next train – with at least 90 seconds to spare. Piece of cake. Only an hour and a half away from another beer fest. Frankly, I deserve it.

Of course, I say this and then the next train is actually late. Its not like I’ve taken a ton of trains over here, but this is the first one that was more than a couple minutes late. It was actually about five minutes late. It must be a reasonably unusual circumstance, because right around when the train was supposed to arrive, the Germans all started looking at their watches, and then each other. Got up off the benches, if they were seated. Slung their knapsacks or whatever over their shoulders. Walked right up to the painted white line that marked the area you were supposed to stay out of when the train was arriving and started looking up and down the tracks – back and forth – good God, where could that train be? An orderly little German life thrown a minor


copywrited, 2007, by
Michael S. Hodon