James in Hanover, Celle & Berlin

Gutentag everyone! Wo geht es dir? (how are you?)

Seems like this email list has doubled in size since I left Melbourne over 6 months ago...

It's been an interesting last few weeks, and life has been an emotional roller coaster for me lately due to the passing away of my best friend in a car accident (my thoughts, feelings and details regarding the death of my best friend I wish to not reveal here) and the birth of my sisters first child in Singapore - my first nephew! My parents have flown up from Melbourne to be with my sister and her husband in Singapore for support - they're happy to finally have a grandchild! I am quite envious because I would like to one day settle down and have a family of my own eventually. Maybe I’ll even decide settle down in Europe - you never know what the future holds!

Anyway, after I left Bristol I caught a bus to London, plane to Germany Lubeck, bus to Hamburg, then train all the way to Hanover. Naturally I had to have a hamburger in Hamburg. Just arriving in a foreign country where people speak a different language is quite daunting and scary at first, and trying to ask for a hamburger in Hamburg was more difficult than I thought it would be!

Anyway, I was in Hanover for the CEBIT exhibition show, which was enormous! There are 36 exhibition halls at the show, all the size of a very large warehouse. For Melbourne people, think size of Melbourne Exhibition Building and multiply that 36 times!

Anyway I was there to demonstrate StudyWiz Extranet products for Etechgroup in the Australia Future Park Pavilion. It was pretty interesting, and I got to learn and practice a bit of German at the same time, thanks to John's (my housemate in Bristol) European Dictionary and, learning German phrases from Lynn (German girl working at the Australia pavilion information stand). Because we got free coffee at the place I learnt to ask "Kann ich eine kaffee haben mit milch und zwei zucker und eine pletschein bitte?" = "Can I have a coffee with milk and two sugars and a biscuit please?"

People were impressed with how fast I was learning German since I didn't know any before I arrived, but I’m sure I’ll forget it all once I am in Portugal (which is tomorrow). I'm hoping though that at the end of my big trip I would be able to speak basic different languages. In fact I met this fun pretty German girl Charlotte at a CEBIT party (who is the only person I know outside Melbourne High School who knows the words to Carmina Burana ). Anyway because she can speak different languages I found myself conversing with her in English, Spanish, French and German all at once! "I like to start my sentences in English y termine en espanol!"

The CEBIT show itself was quite an event, especially the parties that went on after each day ended. There would be parties for different countries and companies that were free or by invitation. Free beer and food and music was provided. The great thing about German beer is that you can drink lots of it, it is of great quality, and you don't wake up with a hangover the next morning!

Also tried some traditional currywurst, which is really nice, and simple to prepare. All you do is get a spicy sausage, cut it up, cover it with a ketchup/curry sauce and sprinkle curry powder on the top. Serve it with a brotchen (bread roll) or potato fries with mayonnaise and you're done!

I think what makes travel more memorable and fun is when things don't exactly go to plan and the people you meet. I recall the first night at the CEBIT show my boss Geoff and I were heading home and caught a strassebahn (tram), where I started talking to this German girl Guilia who was heading the same way as us. However the tramline forked at some point and instead of going in the direction we wanted, it went the other way. So we all got off the tram and Geoff suggested that we all walk in the direction we think the place we were staying at was because it wasn't too far off. Anyway, 45 minutes later we all found ourselves standing in front of a large empty field of grass and a dirt track in the middle of the night! It was a miracle we (eventually) found our way home from that point afterwards and is not an experience easily forgotten!

After CEBIT I went for a day to Celle (recommended by John), which is just north east of Hanover. And it was worth it - Celle is beautiful! Walking from the train station at Celle it looks all modern and ordinary, but 15 minutes down the road and gradually it turns into the tranquil old traditional cobbled streets and brightly painted wooden buildings. It was like I had walked into some oil painting or something! Celle is one of the few towns in Germany that apparently was not bombed, so still keeps its original traditional splendour! There are also not many more places like it in Germany these days. It also has a castle, but I was more impressed with the town.

Hanover itself I didn't get to fully explore, but did see the beautiful Herrenhauser gartens (recommended by Lynn) with its marble and bronze sculptures, hidden gardens within gardens and fountains. Unfortunately due to the time of the year the trees were still in winter form so I think I may have to go back and see it again next time I go back to Germany in July!

Anyway, after Celle I went to Berlin....

Ah Berlin! A glorious place, and one of my favourite cities! I stayed there for a week and yet it was not enough - I did not get to see all the things I wanted to see like Potsdam etc.. And I did see a fair amount, from the Tiergarten with the Victory column and the Reichstag in West Berlin with its modern glass dome which you can climb up and see around Berlin, to the Brandenburg gate, Under den Linden, the Fernestrum tower and Alexanderplatz in East Berlin. My favourite building at the moment is the Berliner Dom (Berlin Cathedral), you walk down Under den Linden and see all these classical and impressive looking buildings, embassies, libraries and universities, cross the river and you see this huge neo-renaissance building with it's green, gold and black colours. Whenever I walked past it I just had to stop and look at it. I even went inside which is also impressive, and for a bit of "culture" and also in respect of my best friend sat in to hear a church sermon in German. Quite an experience.

Anyway also saw the areas around Preuzler Berg (Jewish quarter), Kreunberg (south east) and Potsdamer Platz, which has only been built 10 years ago on top of where the wall once stood, and is today one of the most interesting architectural modern buildings in the world! You walk into the Platz and you feel disorientated looking up seeing the different angles and edges and dimensions of the surrounding buildings, with this huge glass cone adjoining the surrounding buildings together! There's also some squatter residences, one place is called Taches and it is an ex- department store that squatters have taken over and transformed into a place where it has it's own cinema, shops, cafe and other things. The building itself is covered with graffiti and is very run down, but it is very impressive.
Of course I also went to see Checkpoint Charlie and places where the wall still stood. Also went to some of the museums (as Berlin is the capital of museums), Charlottensburg palace/gardens, and all sorts of places that I don't have time to write about. In 6 days I did a lot of walking, because Berlin is so spread out, and must have walked the equivalent of 10kms a day! You can also tell the more further in east Berlin you go the more you can see the influence of the communist regime on the place with the high rise commission flat housing and the grey dreariness of the place.

Berlin is actually quite cheap despite being the capital of Berlin. You can easily live on Turkish Kebabs and Currywurst for about 2 euros and they are quite filling too! There is also much history in Berlin, the wall being one. I met up with Gunter, a German friend I made at CEBIT who took me around to a nice pub in Kreunberg over good beer and the best grilled chicken in the world, and he told me stories about the Berlin wall and the people who lived through it, stories that you generally never hear about, as well as the terrible there are some that are inspiring, amusing, and beautiful, demonstrating the power and faith and goodness of the human spirit in times of repression, evil and despair.

Berlin is going under extensive redevelopment and building after being bombed to ruins during WWII. It is common to see huge cranes around the city, and there are these pink and purple large water pipes all over the city, over roads and along footpaths, all to pump groundwater to stabilise the water level while the huge excavation and building work is going on I hear.

The nightlife I didn’t get to explore much. I remember the first night me and Callum (Aussie guy I met at Youth Hostel) went searching for pubs and found ourselves in a gay pub. For some reason it didn't dawn on us when we opened the door to find a red velvet curtain hanging over the door, the absence of females and the looks we got from all the guys at the pub until we sat and ordered some beers! We drank those beers pretty fast! Also went to other places like Hackesher Hofe, Oranienburgerstrasse and kurfenstdammstrasse etc...

I had a Berliner. It's just a jam filled donut.

In a nutshell I was very impressed with Germany. Most people are friendly and can speak perfect English, the trains run on time, everything is efficient...the only downside I found was the bad signage in the S-bahns and U-bahns (subways and underground trains) they were quite confusing and often pointed to the general direction of where you wanted to go rather than the specific. Also having to pay to use public toilets was annoying, and they weren't cheap either! Anyway this email is getting quite long so I’ll write about the different beers and other such German things and observations when I’m back in Germany for a month in July!

Anyway, wish I could write more but I’m out of time. I'm currently in London staying at Emily and Iain’s flat at the moment having been into Bristol a few days ago to collect some things and see John and Donna (friend in Bristol who is currently looking after my guitar and making sure it's getting played in my absence. Sigh, miss my guitar already, shame I can't bring it with me around Europe )

Met up briefly with Jana in London as she was coming back from Slovakia to Bristol. Although we still confessed our feelings for each other, we decided to leave it at that since for many reasons we knew it could not work. For example, she wants to live in Slovakia whereas I’d find it quite difficult to do so. Oh well, gotta keep searching…

Met up with Martin (British friend from the Contiki tour I did when I first got here) and his friends and we went to a London club called "Verge" to experience some very British 70's style electronica - not my style of music but interesting I guess to listen to. British people are quite weird I found, at one point I was discussing with someone about how abusing silkworms by boiling them in the silk industry is making baby Buddha cry. Yes I know. (In fact the topic came about because it was the topic of a very popular song in Britain in 197

Anyway, I leave for Lisbon in Portugal tomorrow - the start of my big trip across Europe, starting in Portugal, to Spain, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Austria, Italy, Croatia to end up in Greece by the end of October! Quite scary actually. It will be difficult in Portugal I think because the language is so hard to understand, in Portugal they speak Portuguese very slurred and fast so even someone who learns Portuguese might have problems understanding it. And I know none at the moment. So fun times ahead hey!?

Tschuss!