hey blog I didn´t forget about you but ive been busy and there is NOWHERE in barcelona to use the internet or upload photos =( anyway its my last day today im going to go to the beach and paddle and sleep and smile and have some fun! I also bought a Ukelele (?) for ten euros yesterday! such a bargain! I´ve been everywhere in Barcelona worth going , did a tour of the gothic district and went to the olympic stadium, swam in the medditerenean, celebrated st patricks day , saw a lot of Gaudis work everywhere including the park he built and lived in it was so good!
the weather has been awesome too I have tan lines
Friday, 21 March 2008
Sunday, 16 March 2008
yo
hi guys im just letting you know im still alive and im having a wild time in barcelona and saw some touristy stuff yesterday im going to the beach today! ill find somewhere i can post some pictures and stuff
talk soon
Sam
talk soon
Sam
Thursday, 13 March 2008
dark clouds over berlin
hi! today is my last day in berlin and the heavens have opened up :O so im chilling in possibly the cheapest internet cafe in the universe with a coca cola
just round the corner was the egyptian mueseum which has one of the best collections of egyptian sculptures in the world i got a free audio guide there too and it rocked out some really cool information about Egypt 
that night me, Jane & Kate (from australia) and Erin (from montreal, canada) ate at this really cool restaurant underneath one of the train stations it had big high brick ceilings and awesome columns and paintings on the wall and every time a train went over the whole place would rumble it was really cool and had a great atmosphere even though they didn't like giving us tap water, i had like the biggest burger in the world !
yesterday I saw THE TOPOGRAPHY OF TERROR an exhibition about the SS and Gestapo in the excavated remains of their secret HQs basement where they used to intensively interrogate innocent dudes it was very shocking and interesting and well presented, eavesdropping on the tour guide next to me was good too!
after a coffee and cake break we went down to the Mueseum of Jewish History and learnt all about jews and jewish stuff it was in this crazy building designed by a dude called Daniel Libeskind with like these big weird empty voids and disorientating gardens it definitely was moving and informative and not the big dusty boring mueseum i was expecting
after a pretty heavy day of history we thought we would treat ourselves and indulge in some german delicacies at the massive food floors of Ka De We (the german equivalent of selfridges)
we sampled the finest saurkraut ,currywurst (region of berlin speciality basicallz a sausage covered in spicy tomato sauce and curry powder) and rostbratwurst it was super tasty!
then we went to an irish pub drank far too much berlin style beer and rocked out some oasis covers it was fun!
now im checked out of the hostel, my bags are in the luggage store and im ready for my flight to Barcelona at 5 this morning where im meeting this australian girl, Ellen who I met in paris, shes been there for a few days now so hopefully ill get a tour
been doing lots of stuff since I last typed so ill give you a rundown
on the 12th I bought like this Berliner Mueseum Pass it was like 9.50 euros for students and got you entry to most of the mueseums in Berlin for 3 days! Alot of the main muesuems are really close together on mueseum island in the centre of the city so I tried to get round a few!
I started at the national gallery and saw some fine arts nowhere near as impressive as the collections in Paris but still some stars.
then to the Pergamon mueseum which really is like a definite place to visit if you guys ever go to berlin, it houses loads of ancient monuments and stuff that have been excavated and rebuilt in this massive mueseum one of the highlights is definitely the pergamon gate you got a free audio guide thing too to guide you around the whole mueseum so I learnt a ton about ancient history! it really is unlike any other mueseum ive been to!
just round the corner was the egyptian mueseum which has one of the best collections of egyptian sculptures in the world i got a free audio guide there too and it rocked out some really cool information about Egypt that night me, Jane & Kate (from australia) and Erin (from montreal, canada) ate at this really cool restaurant underneath one of the train stations it had big high brick ceilings and awesome columns and paintings on the wall and every time a train went over the whole place would rumble it was really cool and had a great atmosphere even though they didn't like giving us tap water, i had like the biggest burger in the world ! yesterday I saw THE TOPOGRAPHY OF TERROR an exhibition about the SS and Gestapo in the excavated remains of their secret HQs basement where they used to intensively interrogate innocent dudes it was very shocking and interesting and well presented, eavesdropping on the tour guide next to me was good too!after a coffee and cake break we went down to the Mueseum of Jewish History and learnt all about jews and jewish stuff it was in this crazy building designed by a dude called Daniel Libeskind with like these big weird empty voids and disorientating gardens it definitely was moving and informative and not the big dusty boring mueseum i was expecting
after a pretty heavy day of history we thought we would treat ourselves and indulge in some german delicacies at the massive food floors of Ka De We (the german equivalent of selfridges)we sampled the finest saurkraut ,currywurst (region of berlin speciality basicallz a sausage covered in spicy tomato sauce and curry powder) and rostbratwurst it was super tasty!
then we went to an irish pub drank far too much berlin style beer and rocked out some oasis covers it was fun!now im checked out of the hostel, my bags are in the luggage store and im ready for my flight to Barcelona at 5 this morning where im meeting this australian girl, Ellen who I met in paris, shes been there for a few days now so hopefully ill get a touraustralian girls love me!
speak soon
sam x
Tuesday, 11 March 2008
where theres a will theres a whalebone
hooray! I borrowed a SD card reader from one of the nice australians so I can show you guys some ace pictures of berlin!
heres a picture of me all on my own in the airport at approximately 3am it was completely abandoned and creepy i just sat around alot and read some really bad book that I bought from an english bookshop in paris full of french authors work translated badly into English so I didn´t really get it all and in the end just went through adding full stops and apostrophes with my pen.
heres is the Brandenburg gate with our mosher tour guide haha he was seriously really good though and I learnt a load about the history of Berlin that I didn´t have a clue about before. We went around most major landmarks and at one point we were standing above the point of Hitlers bunker, theres absolutely no trace or memorial to prevent any glorification of hitler and as the guide put it ´the communists turned this land into a parking lot where the residents take their dogs to shit´
this is that weird deathstar-esque TV tower thing in Alexanderplatz it has a rotating restaurant at the top and is the second largest structure in Europe. Its funny because the Germans started to build it after the war to show the world they still had advanced technology and engineering skills but half way through they realised that the tower was sinking because they were building on a swamp and had to smuggle in some swedish engineers to help them finish it off! some journalists found out about it and it was in the papers and everyone laughed.
this is a part of the East Side Gallery, the longest remaining stretch of berlin wall which in 1990 was turned into a open air art gallery , theres some really good work there but unfortunately even though it was restored in 2000 so many tourists have decided to leave their own ´tag´ that the whole thing is covered in permanent marker saying like "STEVE WAS ERE"
I took this in the park in Kreuzburg district , often called the Little Istanbul of Berlin it has streets and streets of doner shops , turkish delicassens and shisha bars, its a really nice area and not too busy either.
the awesome thing about berlin is the amount of street art, it is everywhere, there isn´t a street in the entire city that doesn't have a work of art on the wall, that does mean there are a lot of horrible talentless tags everywhere but it evens out by all the funny, beautiful and though provoking work you see round every corner.
seriously I could post pictures all day of nothing but amazing street art and my memory card would be full if I hadn't been resisting photographing it all.
Last night I went here on the S-Bahn to see Band Of Horses play, it was a wild show and the support band 'cave singers' and 'tyler ramsey(?) also made awesome music unfortunately I couldn't have anything to drink because even a glass of water was 3euros! so I survived until I got out again then caught another S-Bahn back to near the hostel arriving back at about 12.50 the german public transport system is weird, theres are no gates or ticket guys they just trust your honesty to buy a ticket but all the machines for tickets don't work or theres a big queue so I couldnt get a ticket anyway!
today I think im going to go down to Potsdamm Platz and see some architecture and eat some schnitzel
see you guys later!
heres a picture of me all on my own in the airport at approximately 3am it was completely abandoned and creepy i just sat around alot and read some really bad book that I bought from an english bookshop in paris full of french authors work translated badly into English so I didn´t really get it all and in the end just went through adding full stops and apostrophes with my pen.
heres is the Brandenburg gate with our mosher tour guide haha he was seriously really good though and I learnt a load about the history of Berlin that I didn´t have a clue about before. We went around most major landmarks and at one point we were standing above the point of Hitlers bunker, theres absolutely no trace or memorial to prevent any glorification of hitler and as the guide put it ´the communists turned this land into a parking lot where the residents take their dogs to shit´
this is that weird deathstar-esque TV tower thing in Alexanderplatz it has a rotating restaurant at the top and is the second largest structure in Europe. Its funny because the Germans started to build it after the war to show the world they still had advanced technology and engineering skills but half way through they realised that the tower was sinking because they were building on a swamp and had to smuggle in some swedish engineers to help them finish it off! some journalists found out about it and it was in the papers and everyone laughed.
this is a part of the East Side Gallery, the longest remaining stretch of berlin wall which in 1990 was turned into a open air art gallery , theres some really good work there but unfortunately even though it was restored in 2000 so many tourists have decided to leave their own ´tag´ that the whole thing is covered in permanent marker saying like "STEVE WAS ERE"
I took this in the park in Kreuzburg district , often called the Little Istanbul of Berlin it has streets and streets of doner shops , turkish delicassens and shisha bars, its a really nice area and not too busy either.the awesome thing about berlin is the amount of street art, it is everywhere, there isn´t a street in the entire city that doesn't have a work of art on the wall, that does mean there are a lot of horrible talentless tags everywhere but it evens out by all the funny, beautiful and though provoking work you see round every corner.
seriously I could post pictures all day of nothing but amazing street art and my memory card would be full if I hadn't been resisting photographing it all.
Last night I went here on the S-Bahn to see Band Of Horses play, it was a wild show and the support band 'cave singers' and 'tyler ramsey(?) also made awesome music unfortunately I couldn't have anything to drink because even a glass of water was 3euros! so I survived until I got out again then caught another S-Bahn back to near the hostel arriving back at about 12.50 the german public transport system is weird, theres are no gates or ticket guys they just trust your honesty to buy a ticket but all the machines for tickets don't work or theres a big queue so I couldnt get a ticket anyway!today I think im going to go down to Potsdamm Platz and see some architecture and eat some schnitzel
see you guys later!
Monday, 10 March 2008
in a dunkin donuts overlooking the tv tower
sup guys im in another internet cafe above the dunkin donuts in berlin but theres no card slot for my camera here either! A lot of fun stuff has been happening !
the bearded floating head on the left of mine is Jeremy Parks from london he´s in an awesome band and was staying at the hostel too until this morning when he left , hes also on his gap year and travelling the globe mainly eastern europe, russia and china! anyway we hung out on the tour and then that evening I met his room mates , two nice australians and then we all went down to the koncert haüs realised we were under dressed and settled on going for a beer then climbing the glass dome on top of the reichstag which is open til midnight! we got really awesome views of the entire city at night! wish I could post the photos!
today I walked all the way down the river spree to the longest remaining stretch of the Berlin Wall which is now the East Side Gallery a long stretch of murals and graffitti art, unfortunately so manz tourists have decided they had to leave their own graffitti on the wall and its covered and spoilt a lot of the murals, the walk itself and the amazing graffitti on the way was much better, then I went and lay on the grass near the reichstag and ate a fine lunch of bread and bannas and ice tea!
tonight Im going to see Band Of Horses play at the columbia club which i think is near the hostel theyre this american indie rock band and are pretty good! im excited!
stay safe
sam x
after i posted my last blog I decided to have a wander around the city before I could check in and sleep. On the streets near KunstHaus Tacheles (this awesome alternative art and culture centre with some mad cafes and a beer garten full of bizzare sculptures and almost the whole building is covered in the best graffitti) I met this dude called Sidney from Los Angeles he´s actually one of the team working for Paul McCarthy setting up his exhibitions and installations in countries everywhere , definitely a cool job! so we wandered aimlessly together he bought me a beer and i went back to the hostel , stormed into my room and just fell asleep from about 4pm to 8am the following day hahah
Breakfast is so much better at this hostel its a big buffet of eggs and toast and salami and cheeses and teas (grüne tea being the best) and cereals and fresh fruit so I been gorging out on all that and its been good!
yesterday I took a free walking tour of berlin which left from the hostel and was like 4 hours long and I got to see so many amazing sights in Berlin (book burning memorial, brandenburg gate, memorial to the dead jews, berlin wall, reichstag, memorial to war and tyranny and of course that hotel michael jackson shook his baby out the window of haha)
heres a picture from their webpage, I look ridiculous see if you can spot me haha
the bearded floating head on the left of mine is Jeremy Parks from london he´s in an awesome band and was staying at the hostel too until this morning when he left , hes also on his gap year and travelling the globe mainly eastern europe, russia and china! anyway we hung out on the tour and then that evening I met his room mates , two nice australians and then we all went down to the koncert haüs realised we were under dressed and settled on going for a beer then climbing the glass dome on top of the reichstag which is open til midnight! we got really awesome views of the entire city at night! wish I could post the photos!
today I walked all the way down the river spree to the longest remaining stretch of the Berlin Wall which is now the East Side Gallery a long stretch of murals and graffitti art, unfortunately so manz tourists have decided they had to leave their own graffitti on the wall and its covered and spoilt a lot of the murals, the walk itself and the amazing graffitti on the way was much better, then I went and lay on the grass near the reichstag and ate a fine lunch of bread and bannas and ice tea!
tonight Im going to see Band Of Horses play at the columbia club which i think is near the hostel theyre this american indie rock band and are pretty good! im excited!
stay safe
sam x
Saturday, 8 March 2008
Gutenmörgen Berlin
I am so tired sitting around an empty airport from 11pm until check-in at 4am really wore me out, I grabbed an hour or so sleep on the plane but now im in the hostel and I can only get in my room at 2pm wahhh!
also the tube dudes are on strike so theres like no public transport running in berlin until like the day I leave which means im going to be doing a TON of walking around
first impressions are good though its such a contrast to paris not only in architecture but on the fact everything is so much cheaper, where I´d be paying about 8 euros for coffee and cake in paris its like 2.50 here! i´ve strolled around the neigbourhood and theres is street art everywhere I´ve already seen a space invader! ate breakfast in some little cafe and now im back in the hostel, german keyboards are weird the x and z keys are swapped around and you can type these ßßßßß things which are like a sss sound
theres no plugs for my camera at the hostel internet cafe though so to post pictures ill have to go further afield I think
anyway i think im going to pass out in a chair, talk to you guys ßoon!
sam x
also the tube dudes are on strike so theres like no public transport running in berlin until like the day I leave which means im going to be doing a TON of walking around
first impressions are good though its such a contrast to paris not only in architecture but on the fact everything is so much cheaper, where I´d be paying about 8 euros for coffee and cake in paris its like 2.50 here! i´ve strolled around the neigbourhood and theres is street art everywhere I´ve already seen a space invader! ate breakfast in some little cafe and now im back in the hostel, german keyboards are weird the x and z keys are swapped around and you can type these ßßßßß things which are like a sss sound
theres no plugs for my camera at the hostel internet cafe though so to post pictures ill have to go further afield I think
anyway i think im going to pass out in a chair, talk to you guys ßoon!
sam x
Friday, 7 March 2008
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