Names

I then noticed those little copper plates, probably 4 inches by 4, that you see in the footpaths in Berlin. They are all over the shop really.

The plates have names engraved on them... Names of people who lived in that particular address before the war, together with their fate. The Jews, the commies, the homos, they're all there. On the footpath they used to walk on, on their way to school or to work or to temple. Or on their way back home...

So yeah... Two pretty emotional days. back to fun stuff now.

Piece of Jewish Trivia

(Courtesy of the Jewish Museum)
As it happens, I am not the only Christmas Tree Jew... It is actually (so they say) a pretty cool Hanukkah decoration these days.
I mean green, red and white. Who can say no to green red and white?!

Been to the new Jewish Museum in Berlin today. It's an interesting museum
and all but to be honest I'm not a huge museum person to begin with, let alone Jewish ones... But this one's a little different - what's really amazing and makes the visit doubly worthwhile is the building itself. It's the most zigzagy place I have ever been to. It's pretty hard to explain but the floors go in different slopes and the walls meet at weird angles. Then, because of all this you end u having those gaps or voids that don't serve much of a purpose apart from the obvious symbolic one.

The thing I found probably the most moving is one of those voids that was turned into a artwork of sorts.
There's not much there, just thousands of steel plates on the floor.
Once you walk through it, as you have to, they make this clanking
noise, amplified a hundred times just by the voidness of the place.


And then you also notice that those plates have faces. It's probably
something you have to see and experience to understand. But it's a pretty full on experience. Especially in Berlin.

161 Days

Well that was the original plan.
Looks like I will be extending my trip and it will be more like 200 days and change.
Just thought I'd let y'all know. Will be thinking about you....

And Then in the Basement...

And in the basement under the kitchen, where people would sit peeling potatoes for days on end (and occasionally be drowned in the washing basins as entertainment) they found little painting of flowers on the wall.
Nobody knows who painted it, or indeed how they got the paint, but still - gives you yet another something to think about on the train...

:(

Spent the day at Sachsenhausen, the Nazi concentration camp near Berlin. And I mean near. The slow train gets there in just over 30 minutes, probably half that if you drove.
No matter how many times you heard about it, read about it, visited the sites, watched the docos and read the books. No matter how many stories you heard from friends' grandparents, your own family and complete strangers.
It is still the most brutal kick in the guts.


This wasn't the biggest camp. It was actually minuscule compared to the big ones. They didn't even bother killing the Jews there(they didn't want Jewish blood on German soil, you see). They still went into so much trouble fine tuning every single aspect of humiliation, brutality and sheer cruelty that you are just left speechless at the perversion of it all.

It's pretty amazing to compare the people on the way there (who just seem, well, similar to any people you'd see on a train) and the same people on the train back into the city who are just completely silent.

Was thinking of a night out tonight, but don't think that's gonna happen.

Berlin

Staying at a pretty cool hotel here in Berlin. Basic, but very cool. It's either brand new or had very very very clean guests before, because the place is impeccable. Which is what you'd expect in Berlin I guess.
Not sure why but they seem to subscribe to the double-doona theory. So your queen size bed has
two Single doonas. It makes a lot of sense in diminishing the likelihood of doona hijacking etc but makes cuddling a bit awkward. Or maybe German people just don't cuddle.

The only other place I have ever seen this was at my friend Guy's, but he's a well known territorialist when it comes to bed real-estate.

The other thing worth a mention about the place is how fond its designer was of this shade of light yellow I can only call “banana yellow”. Maybe that's even the official name. Surprisingly it works pretty well... Always looks fresh and clean (well, that's partly because it is clean).
(Mental note to self: consider incorporating banana yellow stuff into own home)

Least Cool Thing About Tel Aviv

Crocs.
Everybody wears them. Not joking. Everybody. All the time.
Walking the dogs in the morning, going to work, going to
the beach, even going out at night.

If you see a Crocs-less person, chances are it's a tourist, someone who's been asleep for the last two years or my sister.

A Few Good Things About Tel Aviv

With all the bad publicity Israel gets, I think the right thing to do would be to list a few of the cool things about Tel Aviv. Not to worry - it won't be a very long list.

1. Movies
I am almost sure there isn't another place anywhere on earth (maybe with the exception of New York. Maybe.) that has as many movies showing at any one time as Tel Aviv. No idea why, people's way to escape maybe, but just is. Obviously it has the entire range of Hollywood blockbusters, and a bunch of local movies (usually about sensitive boys going to war, what else?), but also seems to have every movie made anywhere else in the world in any imaginable language (with big emphasis on Eastern European deep and meaningful movies).

2. Nice Coffee
What can I say - it's nice.

3. The nice restaurants are VERY nice.

4. Weather
It never rains in summer. Never. May to November, you are pretty much guaranteed a dry day. Sweaty, yes, rainy - no way. Pretty cool if you're not a rain person like me. Pretty lame if you're a lawn.

5. Cheap cabs
After a few weeks in Europe you learn to appreciate them. Obviously the flip side is that the drivers will always try to rip you off. Keep trying I say.

6. Like the restaurants - the cool people are VERY cool. The friendly ones are SUPER friendly. And the rest? well they don't belong here.

Istanbul

So the scenes at the airport were just a sign of things to come...

Monthly confession time.
Together with Buenos Aires, Istanbul was one of the places I was most excited about. Pretty much everyone I know told me nothing but fantastic things about it, so I was pretty nearly my armrest with excitement as we landed at the airport.
But here's the weird thing. Istanbul and I didn't really click that well.
Don't get me wrong, it is a stunning city, with some truly amazing historical buildings and all.
But when I was there it was super hot (rarely went below 35-36 degs, that's about 100 Fahrenheit, my non metric friends) and was full to the rim with tourists. And going through Europe in August, I have seen quite a few tourist infested places... But Istanbul was something else. Literally whereever you went you found yourself in a middle of a group of tourists (usually Russian, usually with a very loud guide) or in the middle of a bunch of drunken youth (usually German, and very drunk). Then there were the restaurant pimps, the guys trying to drag you into their restaurants... That sorta thing.

The other thing was that I was a bit sick. Nothing major - a runny nose and an itchy throat... That's never fun, but is really annoying when it's all hot and sweaty ...

So yeah, as much as I hate to admit it, Istanbul and I didn't really get along that well. Maybe I should try it again in winter (or come for Anzac Day). Maybe not.

Guess Who!

So here I am, strolling in Istanbul, and who do I see?
The ladies from the plane. And their shepherds!
Small world, eh?
Well I think it's the same group. It could be some other traveling harem I guess.
They say life is not worth living if you don't take risks... So I hid in the crowd and took a picture...

Arriving in Istanbul

Istanbul airport is pretty schmick actually. Looks nice and new and clean. And it works pretty well too.
Until you get to Passport control that is.
Crazy stuff I tell you.
A billion people in something that has to be a queue, but isn't really. I mean a queue has the property of resembling (more or less) a line. This thing was more of a cube that randomly spits people out in some obscure order.
Part of the problem was (obviously) that there weren't enough passport checkers (lunch time! I should have known better than that!!)
Part of it was the fact that some people were ordered to go somewhere else and get their passports stamped or something and come back. So there was this constant movement of people to the back and front of the queue.
And it was very very very hot.
And the lights weren't working so it was all in semi-darkness.

It was actually all pretty amusing to me to be honest (not like I have a meeting to get to in a hurry) until the fat lady fainted... There was a lot of drama and crying and yelling, and all of a sudden a bunch of passport checkers appeared out of nowhere and within 10 minutes I was in.

Off to Istanbul

Managed to solve the "getting to Terminal 5" riddle, and although it took me about 25 minutes longer than expected, I still managed to get there a good couple of hours before departure.
The new terminal is actually pretty cool, but if at 50% of planned capacity it is already this busy, I'm not that sure it will work too well once the rest of the flights move in.
Oh well - someone else should worry about it. I'm more concerned with figuring out if 9:00AM is too early for a g&t. (*)

The weirdest thing happens on the plane to Istanbul. Just as they get ready to shut the doors, this funky Turkish guy (I think he was Turkish) gets on the plane, herding a flock of 11 women all in head-to-toe black.
Let me paint the picture here in more detail. We have this young guy, jeans and t-shirt and All-Stars, holding a pile of boarding passes, and trying to charm the flight attendant who is checking them. ("So what are you babes doing tonight? Staying in Istanbul?", that sorta stuff)
behind him are 11 ladies (I can't call them chicks, sorry) wearing uniform black dresses, long sleeves, head scarves, that scarf that covers your face south of the nose. All carrying Louis Vuitton handbags and wearing huge Dolce & Gabbana sunglasses (had no idea the prophet Mohammad had such a thing for international labels).
And behind all those ladies, at the very back of the drove is another cool Turkish dude. Probably the first one's brother or something.
And then they all go and take their Business Class seats, occupying most of the cabin.
I really wanted to take a picture, but the Turkish guys (aka the shepherds) gave me a look saying "don't even think about it" so you will have to take my word for it.

I have actually gone through the trouble of checking how much a Business Class ticket from London to Istanbul costs these days (just in case you wanna know, a return trip will relieve you of about $1,200), and I say those ladies must be doing something right.


(*) The answer, by the way, is that no. 9:00 is not too early for a g&t, especially since it is 11:00 in Istanbul, and everybody knows you should work according to destination time.

Yo

There are a few hotels around Heathrow airport, but most of them are a bit crap and a bit overpriced and a bit far and require the special bus to take you there making it all pretty annoying.
And then there's Yotel.
It is a hotel (of sorts) located right inside the terminal. It is not really a hotel. More like a immobile sleeper train.
There's no reception as such, just a terminal where you enter your booking code (that you received when you booked online) and get your room key.


The rooms are a bit like cells, the one I stayed in wasn't much bigger than my bed back home, but still had a bed (surprisingly comfy even), and a shower/bathroom area and just enough space for your luggage. While it was pretty tiny, it was very very cool. The monsoon shower was just that (compared to the usual trickly British-hotel shower) and you could control the lights to suit your mood. I think it looked like a luxury submarine cell would look like (if they had luxury submarine cells)

Plus you can sleep-in the next morning knowing that you are a minute away from check-in.
Well, theoretically.
Before I went to bed I went to the Qantas desk and asked the nice chick what would be the best way to get to my terminal the next day. And she gave me a pretty detailed answer of all my options, which, unfortunately, had very little to do with reality. So the next morning I head (whistling, of course I was whistling!) to the train that was supposed to take me to terminal 5 just to find out that it doesn't go there.

You need to take it somewhere else and then take some other train - the whole thing stretched to about 30 minutes.
Yotel was still the coolest ever - staying there again next weekend on my way to Berlin!!

Bye bye Tel Aviv

For reasons way too complex for a blog, my trip from Tel Aviv to Istanbul had to incorporate a night in London... So a flight that would normally take just over an hour has expended into a five hour flight to London, a night at the airport and then backtracking, this time only four hours, to Istanbul.
I refused to let that get me cranky, thinking that I am, after all, traveling for the sake of travel, not to mention the pile of Frequent Flyer miles involved.

Tel Aviv airport. Probably the one place on earth where it really pays off to be Jewish. And speak Hebrew.
It was jam-packed with Israeli families (rarely less than 5-6 people, usually nan joins to look after the kids) on their way out and tourists on their way back home. And nothing easier than telling them apart. The locals are the ones who get away with the "did you pack it yourself" security check. The non-local are the ones who go through the third-degree, have their baggage checked (multiple times), required to check-in anything that looks wrong (like a laptop) and the lucky ones even get the bonus strip-search.
I managed to pass for a local and headed to the gate to catch my flight to London.
Pretty uneventful- lame movies, pretty lame food, spent most of it catching up on lost sleep. Well, I haven't really been skimping on sleep lately - maybe catching up on lost sleep was a bit of an exaggeration.

I had to spend the night in London and it made no sense to actually go into town at 9:30 at night just to travel back to the airport first thing the next morning. That's how I found out about Yotel...

Phew!!

So my little laptop is beginning to annoy me every now and then. You know, you add a few things, you remove a few things, before you know it the thing doesn't run that well anymore.
So after dinner tonight I decide to put on my geek hat and investigate things.
And you'd be amazed how many geeks have been going through the same sh*t and managed to fix it through super sophisticated hacking.
Now here's the thing about the geeky me. I walk like one and talk like one but in all honesty I am really a geek wannabe. I well and truly suck when it comes to super sophisticated stuff. Which puts me in a funny position... Should I? Shouldn't I? Should I?
So I decided to go for it, but before doing anything I thought it would be a good idea to restart the beast, just in case, you know.
Guess what? It wouldn't restart.
Well it's shut itself down just fine, but when it came to starting - nada. It has the Start screen, then it flickers, then it just goes through different shades of black.
And honest to God - I didn't do any geeky manipulations whatsoever. It's like the thing was saying "let me give you a brief preview of what it would look like if you went down that path, mate". As if thoughts could kill computers.
I tried a few things before realizing that with no keyboard or anything my only options are to
(a) forget about it and get a new one
(b) forget about it and not get a new one
(c) try to stick a screwdriver in it and see what happens
(d) try to restore to factory settings (this one I learned from the geeky forum on the internet. It's kinda cool)
(e) wait till i get to a country where i speak the language and get it fixed

Decided to go for (d) (had no screwdriver), mainly because my assumption was that this would be exactly what the lab would do if and when I go there to get it fixed. And then charge me a gazzillion euros or pounds or yen.

And wonder of wonders - 30 seconds later the thing is as good as new. Literally as good as new. Which is not that awesome - none of my stuff is there anymore. Nothing. Thankfully there wasn't that much in the first place. You can't really fit much on this baby. All in all - it's better than a back screen.

So yeah, thought I'd share the story- it has it all drama, suspense, tears and laughter (at me, not with me. I know). Will be heading to bed now...

Family Matters

Now, are these the cutest kids in the world or what?





Yes, they are my nephews and all, but I think I'm pretty impartial here.
And yes, my sister is pretty hot too. (Can one say that about one's sister?)

Sunday at the Market

The little food market down the hill is definitely where you wanna be on a Sunday.
They're all there. The butcher, and the bottler, and the fruit guy and the veggies guy. And the seafood counter, and the fishmonger and the cheese shop in all its pungency. And a couple of bakers - some more into bread, some more into pastries, and the chocolate shop and the little deli that sells overprices cooked food for those too lazy to cook or those without a proper kitchen.




So all you need to do is spend a few Euros here and there, and get yourself a wine-bread-cheese-ham-cake-more cake combo and head to the bottom of the market for an improvised picnic
And at the bottom of the market is the little (nameless I think) church. And outside the church, every Sunday, is the accordion guy who distributes photocopied lyric sheets to the crowd (most of them in their 70s, who just finished their church duties) and leads the cutest singalong you will ever see, anywhere in the world.


Tacky I know. But cute, and a great way to start your Sunday picnic with a smile.

Paris Revisited - Part 2

So this is where I was staying in Paris.

It's a pretty ordinary street , but at the top of it (and right outside my window) stands proud the Odeon theater in all its glory.

Just across the road there's a cute little restaurant, run by two guys (also known as the one who can cook and the one who can get you the check). It's pretty surprising to see how one person can run the entire food side for the business (and find the time to take a smoking break every 10 minutes).

Last time I had dinner there I made a comment on an old Edith Piaf poster that was hanging there. Well what do you know - the guy told me in great detail how he actually got that signed poster. It has something to do with the guy who wrote her lyrics when she was very old and very ummm fragile (you know, like Judy garland... The gin and painkiller fragility). Well that lyric writing dude is also this guy's best mate. The rest of the details were lost on me - my French is pretty rusty at the best of times, let alone after a 15 hour flight and a bottle of red.
The restaurant at the bottom of the street is more of an institution. Been there for a 150 years or something and had every poor person in history dine under its roof. It ain't that cheap anymore and most people there are American tourists complaining about the small portions (the French would say that they are only small in relation to those Americans) but I guess after a 150 years,nobody really cares.

And right next door, is Hotel Stella. It sounds like a cheap brothel. It looks like a cheap brothel. I'm sure it once was a cheap brothel. But Hotel Stella, with the squeeky floorboards, the house cat and the grumpy lady at the office was where I used to stay in Paris when I was a poor (well, poorish) student.

There you have it. My Street in Paris.

Paris Revisited - Part 1

I know I was very slack with my Paris reports.
It's partly due to the fact that I have been there enough times to take it easy, partly due to the fact that I am slack by nature and partly due to the fact that the weather was great. Who can be bothered with blogs when the weather's great in Paris?
This pic (also the one after it) sorta conveys what I was doing during a pretty chunky portion of my time in Paris....


I think the Parisians powers that be were aware of the effect the good weather had on people's productivity and at some point they installed little wireless internet hot spots inside the trees in the park. Just to give people one less excuse for not doing work/paying bills/sending emails to loved ones. They may look like normal trees, but don't let them fool you - they are cyber-trees!

Driving Around

My only job with this trip to the country was to return the car on Monday.
The rental place was shut by the time we got back, and Will had early meetings on Monday morning, so we had pretty limited options.
I had a bad gut feeling about it - driving in London always scares me - but seeing that SixT was just down the road, maybe a two-minute drive, it would be wrong to refuse.

So next morning I wait for rush hour traffic to calm down a bit and I get in the car. I knew it wasn't going to be easy when from the moment I couldn't get the damn thing into reverse... Stupid manuals!

But I managed to do that, got on road and started heading towards my destination. As much as I would like to think that I looked like an international man of intrigue in that sexy sexy cae, at some point I realised that to the unsuspecting Brits, I probably looked more like Mr Bean. Not only was I having serious issues with the gears (bloody clutch! Who needs a clutch in 2008!), every time I tried to indicate, the screen wipers went vrooom. Didn't feel very elegant at all.

And that's when it got worse. I get to where I'm supposed to return the car, and can't find the door to the garage. So I go around in a big circle (gear noises, car stopping, wipers going around like it's going out of fashion) and look closer, just in case I missed it.
Still not there.
So I go around in another big circle.
And another circle going in the bus lane, just in case.
The whole area is a red zone, meaning you can't stop the (let alone park!) and ask. So I go around one more time. Still nothing.

I go back and call Will, who insists I must have driven past it and just didn't notice. Just to prove to myself I drive there again- still nothing. Will in the meantime calls them to make sure they are open, only to discover that they have moved. Their sign was still on the building, they've moved!

Have you ever tried to explain (over the phone!) to someone who doesn't know your city at all how to get to some random backstreet? It ain't easy!! Will did a pretty good job I guess because I did manage to find the new location and return the car. I think they heard my PHEW all the way to Scotland.

Never driving a manual again. Never.

Flowers for Gladys

Like I said, the BBQ was a huge success, and the next day the place was buzzing with countryside ENglishmen and Englishwomen helping the gracious hosts to clean up and pack leftover food etc.
Yes. There was food left, which is the clear sign of a great bbq.

My contribtion was to help Will's dad get the chairs and tables back to the village social hall and then go and thank Gladys (the keeper of the hall's keys).

Did that (Gladys loved the flowers), got back for a quick bbq lunch that Will cooked us all and then got in the car and started heading south...

Happy B'day!

We interrupt the blogging to wish Jamie and Nathan a happy prefix-changing birthday!
I have been working on convincing myself for some time now that 40 is the new 30, so I guess that must make 30 the new 20... Happy New-Twenty birthday boys!!

Green Green - it's all so green! Can you get Green Overdose?

So we made it to Leeds, Will at the wheel, me in charge of the ipod, had a fancy pub dinner (any pub that has a tonic water menu for their g&t is fancy in my books) and went home for the night.
It was a pretty dark drive back home, plus it was a longish day, so I don't remember much. I do remember the house seemed just as big as it seemed in pics, but that's about it.
And then you wake up.
The first thing you see once you wake up and look at the window is every imaginable shade of green. It's a large property - very large actually - that just goes on and on with cute little sheep dotting it and cute little dry rock fences and peacocks and all. The house itself dates back to the 1720 or something, and really looks like it used to have an army of maids and butlers in the good old days.
OK. I was actually lying about the peacocks. We looked and looked and couldn't find them. The peacocks, as we later learned, are a bit of a sad story... Apparently they have been sashaying in peacock heaven lately. The exact circumstances are a little vague, but it is safe to say that the property is peacock-less.

Now, thanks to the fact that Yorkshire hasn't seen a real drought since the last ice age, it is all VERY VERY green and very lush and absolutely stunning. As you can see from the pics.








My choice of weekend was not really that great though. Will's parents were hosting a fundraising bbq for the local parish that night (if that's not quintessential English, I don't know what is) and the place was buzzing with nice middle ages English ladies debating whether they needed more cheese, or whether there is sufficient pudding for the crowd. Outdoors it was salt-of-the-earth Yorkshire men, erecting marquees and setting up bbqs (to be operated by the young butcher boy). The day's motto (like most bbqs i guess) was something along the lines of "we better have TOO MUCH food than not enough".
And they did. Have too much food that is. My sources do tell me it was phenomenal success, so if you ever drive past the local church and wonder how they paid for recent works - now you know who to thank!
Will and I chose not to join the crowds (it was the age group usually referred to as "59 and above") and have dinner at the local pub with his mate.

Getting Upgraded and Heading North

Confession Time.

Going north was my idea. I have seen some pics parents' estate/farm up near Leads ages ago, and thought that spending a weekend in Yorkshire would be very cool.

And it was.

It even started well. We agreed that it would make more sense to rent a car than train up and down with the masses... So we got to the car rental place early on Friday, and found out they ran out of the car class we booked (aka "C for CHEAP" class) and that we have been upgaraded to a VW Eos. That's the cool little car that can be transformed from a hardtop coupe to a convertible at the push of a button. We both went yay and were on our way.

What can I say? I'm no idiot. I know no car can make you sexy. But I would argue this car kinda makes you feel a little bit sexy, which I reckon is all you can ask for in a weekend car.

The drive up was a breeze. Partly because the car was so cool and fun to drive, partly because Will did all the driving (I suck at driving a stick) and I was in charge of the playlist. Three and a bit hours later we were driving into Leeds looking for Martyn , Will's dad,who spent the day drinking at the cricket... I thought that the Priscilla soundtrack was a good musical choice for that part of the drive, which won us quite a few WTF looks from passers-by.

Found Martyn and his mate John (both pleasantly tipsy) and headed to some very posh pub for dinner, where we were joined by the wives. (I mean Will's mum and John's wife. Not Will's wife and mine).