Travel Archives - Page 3 Of 4

Berlin Metropolis with Wormholes and Dark Shadows

December 18, 2020 by SeanPatrick

If you go to Potsdamer Platz on a warm sunny day, watch the people moving around, and the structures throw fascinating shadows across the pavements, you’ll find yourself in an endlessly changing world of architecture that not only is made of bricks and mortar, but is seen in the shadows, too.

Berlin is a city that changes, warps, with a life that seems to offer infinite possibilities. For some, it’s a place that is full of wormholes to get caught up in.

Potsdamer Platz is a fascinating observation point during the day time. Those gently shifting shadows that form a variety of shapes and forms across the pavement seem like lay-lines of the Berlin map.

The centre of the city, marked by the old traffic lights and clock that still stands at the edge of Stressemann Strasse. Then, as the sun dips down behind the buildings, and the darkness envelops the streets, the shadows disappear and become overwhelmed by the pools of flooded light from street lamps, car headlights, and simple block-boxy shadows that change the tones as each line of cars gush by on the road. Traffic lights come alive. Your eyes are led along by the map of city lights. Feet follow.

Flashing colours that dominate the eyes with garish primary colours always attract the adventurous souls looking for a break from the mundane world of work and toil.

Potsdamer Platz was once the central staging point for people taking a long journey out of the city. The long straight roads that took a traveller relatively quickly out of the city and into the countryside before they reached their destination, made it the perfect point of departure and arrival. Today, it’s seen as a fascinating place to wander around on foot, to poke about in the shops. Lots of tourist attraction shops with a Berlin Tee Shirt, a hat, beer mat, a mug for every occasion with a “I Heart Berlin”, motif to take home to your village home.

Berlin, like any other major European city began life as a centre of trade. Some historians like to take the religious angle, and believe cities are the outcome of churches being founded, then attracting more and more of the faithful to worship and live in the vicinity. I think Churches fed off the business activities that naturally drew crowds, traders, and hustlers to certain points on the map, cities developed through the necessity to stay close to the real action – making money.

Creative people, artists, writers, and musicians, are the same – they travel and discover things about their world. Money, is often their last thought.

In Berlin, you can find some of the best musicians in the world, playing in the clubs and venues.

You can look along the bookshelves of any bookshop and discover how writers have always found new ways to rediscover Berlin, to write a novel, a book of some sort, about their viewpoint on Berlin and see, that maybe, they did catch that passing trend, or the vibe of the times that Berliners were living and enjoying.

Artists are, by nature, searchers. Good artists will go out and look, seek, and find things of interest to take back to the studio and paint, write about, frame, and sing about. That’s what many Berlin artists do, and when they do this, they meet other creative people who are on a similar track. Two worlds collide and create a new set of ideas, and it’s a little like they fell into a wormhole that takes them on a journey.

As time passes, and I get older, I love to walk through the streets of Berlin and explore everything that I think I’ve seen before. There’s a lot of new buildings that replace old slots, long torn down. Commercial life has got its foot into the door, and is now crossing the threshold of personal life, so we are faced with a constant offer of something to buy. Either an object, or a ticket into a room full of exhibited objects.

Monetization of life itself is just around the corner. But the streets are still free to enter and explore as you wish. That’s always my point in these articles on Berlin Notes. You have a choice to enjoy your city as you see fit. Walk it, look at it, think about how it relates to you, and makes you feel better, or take note of what’s disturbing.

Critical thought about immediate life spaces such as what’s outside our front doors is extremely important, that we know what needs to change.

Berlin offers a lot of change. The landscape is always up for re-thinking, as the years pass. But it shouldn’t be all in the hands of the developer, with the city planners only asking how profitable a new project will turn out to be. Berlin is a people’s city, and that’s pretty unique these days, it should be protected.

Explore the city and enjoy what you find, that’s a healthy pursuit that most of us can still focus on in these times of Pandemic, and Corona-19 Virus. Crappy times, but still, we have to be creative about how we live our days.

Walking Notes in Berlin

Berlin Street Stories

Walking Notes about Berlin City

December 15, 2020 by SeanPatrick

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Berliner Dom in Mitte, Berlin

Berlin is a city full of trains and buses, traffic queues and pathways. It’s a place to take notes, and make memories. The pathways where we can all walk, moving around Berlin on foot is a healthy experience, a great way to get some exercise for the mind and eyes.

Berlin has always been an artist’s city. It’s a place to find inspiration, meet other like-minded artists and build some type of art career, if you can. If you aren’t an artists , that’s ok. You can still soak up the inspiration.

Walking in Berlin is always an opportunity for new discoveries. I’ve lived in Berlin since 1983, and there’s lots for me to discover, as well as old haunts that have been redesigned. Berlin is a city that is always in turmoil of one kind or another. I mean building projects, revamps of past mistakes, or bold new projects to enhance an area and finally rid it of the remnants of the past.

The past means something to all of us. When we look at a building, a house, or for an individual to stop in the street and look up at the window of a flat where they once lived, sentiments of the past are visited and felt for a while, this reminds us of the narrative of our individual lives.

The places where we live are full of the web of thoughts that we build all around ourselves. There is always a past for us to rediscover, better seen from a long perspective and understood in context of newly built streets.

Sometimes, we encounter a disaster of a memory. Something spoiled by misuse of a building that holds dear memories.

In Spandau there is an old barracks where I was once stationed as a soldier. In fact, it was considered two barracks, Brook – Wavel Barracks for the British Army.

The guard house at the front entrance of Wavel barracks still bears the pillars first built by the Prussian army when they occupied the barracks. Four or five pillars with reliefs of Prussian soldiers marching.

I hope they don’t get destroyed by some over eager project manager. The guard house was a place where a soldier would book out to go down town, or book in, often plastered after a few beers, after a night on the town. It was also the place known as “The Corner Shop”. The place where each morning on muster parade, at 07.00 hrs, the Regimental Sergeant Major would point at one or two men in the ranks and accuse them of being badly turned out, or of moving while standing to attention. He would call on the R.P., the Regimental Police who stood like wooden guards at the side of the square. They would march on, confirm that they were looking at the right man, and take him away to the corner shop, where he would stay and work all day on mindless duties, or as long as the RSM had decided he would stay.

It all depended on the RSM’s mood that morning. Our RSM had a nick-name, “Garfield”. He sported a massive moustache, squinty eyes, and puffy cheeks that made you think of Garfield the Cat each time he appeared. He was no one to mess with, if you passed him during the day time, and failed to give him a smart and sharp walking attention, he’d jail you. He loved to jail people. Not only that, he was army-barmy, a form of madness that afflicts soldiers who believe too much in army regulations. Everything must be perfect and disciplined. No slovenliness, laziness, or meandering anywhere in the barracks, or especially, in his sight. Men were jailed in the Spandau barracks corner shop, many a time.

There was even one man, falsely accused of a serious crime, investigated by the Military Police and dealt with at court Marshall level, he spent 18 months of his life in the jail house at Spandau Wavel barracks.

One day, on muster parade, The Regimental Sergeant Major dropped his pace-stick. The short polished wooden stick that a sergeant major carries under his arm. It fell clattering to the tarmac parade square; he ordered it to stand up, it didn’t, of course. He screamed at it to get up, it didn’t. He then ordered the Regimental Police to march on and jail the pace-stick. The R.P.s were confused, but carried out the order. I believe the RSM had to spend a little time on Rest and Recuperation after that.

Places of the heart, they can hold good memories or bad. I know that I can walk around in Berlin, and see the entrance to a street that I lived in, or I had a girlfriend who lived in that street, long ago. Memories fizzle, just waiting to be ignited as I walk into the street and start to peruse the buildings, the structures, checking my memory and see whether something has changed. And then, there are some streets that I avoid. Too many harsh memories. I out walking for joy and happiness, not sad reminders of broken hearts.

Walking around Berlin is how we make our memories, too. It’s when we realize that our lives are all about taking action, becoming involved with others, experiencing things alone and together, that we develop healthy lives with a strong narrative. That narrative, the stories of the times we live, are the basis of memories worth keeping. To walk without looking at the floor, but to take a strong interest in everything around ourselves, so that we begin to wonder and question the place where we live, is to discover and understand our environment.

Berlin is a walking city, a place to spend a lifetime where you can experience all the things a human would expect.

Urban Foxes in Berlin

The Express Lounge Café in Berlin

October 15, 2020 by SeanPatrick

The Express Lounge Café

Rain, wind, and wet masked faces mill around the corner of Mehringdamm and Bergmann Strasse. Leaves on the ground are already causing heels to slip. People take shorter steps in autumn, I’ve noticed that.

Mehringdamm

When you look along Mehringdamm, a part of the long road that cuts through Berlin, you’ll see that it caters to every need. There’s a bank on the corner which has been there for so many years it’s become a landmark that you don’t see anymore. Farther along the road you can see a Turkish street vendor selling Doner Kebabs with a choice of garlic sauce, curry sauce or shrimp sauce. It’s a good deal for good food. If you ask him for a special sauce he always seems to have it on hand, as if he knew that you were coming.

As you walk you’ll pass an E-Cigarette shop selling all types of “vape” devices for an apparently non-addictive replacement for smoking tobacco. They do great business, and there have already been a few millionaires made with this comparatively new product.

You keep walking, then pass a Lebanese restaurant, then a coffee shop with seats lined up outside. A type of window frame shop two doors along that has prints of paintings in the window. Those places are depressing. I don’t know why, they just are — maybe it’s the lighting that makes the prints look old and dark.

The Barber

A new barber shop opened a few months ago. Twirly-whirly red and white candy cones in the window — just like in the old days — and leather barber chairs, with a strap hanging from the counter to sharpen the blades. All the bells and whistles a good barber shop must have.

The Café

Then there’s the Express Lounge Café. It’s right in among all the other shops and lock-ups. An inviting place, even in the autumn. Maybe it’s the broad and deep hanging awning that protects people from the rain that makes it attractive.

You can sit outside any time of the year and not get wet. Autumn is a windy season. Uncomfortable for most people. But to get out and breathe fresh air, hear the sound of grit roll against the rubber soles of your shoes, and to see other people’s faces, is a basic need. If you don’t have breakfast, you notice it after a while, if you don’t hear people’s voices and feel the wind of the street, you become stale inside.

Masks leave it all up to the eyes to do the talking when passing. “After you”, “Good morning!”, “Thank you!”, you never know if the voice was too muffled when you were trying to be polite. Hand gestures can easily be misinterpreted, so you don’t see strangers in the street waving their hands at each other.

Café Express Lounge is a meaningless name. Traders started to add the words years ago, “express”, “fast”, “double this and that”, they thought it would attract customers who were in a hurry. They were right. Everybody is in a hurry. Time for coffee and a cake, though.

Each day, at around 5 PM, an old man in a long coat passes the café. He has a tough time walking these days. He’s a tall man, wears a dark blue cap with a peak, and uses a thin stick to steady himself. When he leans into it, you’d think the stick should bend and bow under the pressure, but it never does. Each step is heavy and shaky.

People pass him, dodge him, cyclists ride at him, then they brake and carefully navigate past his frail figure. I imagine when he was fit and young, strong and fast, and he could double almost all of this and that, any time he wanted.

He has a smile for anyone who has the time to look at him and nod good evening. But the pain in his face, the grimace of a long life, causes people to look away and get on with their hurry-up-day. He has a friendly smile worth noting.

The café has exactly ten tables. All of them the same size, with the same amount of wooden chairs surrounding each one. The chairs have seen better days, but are solid and comfortable. The café next door has cheap plastic chairs, on the other side is a small restaurant with fake weave plastic chairs that dig into the spine and make you want to stand up every five minutes.

Café Express Lounge got it right, they stuck to the type of chair that any carpenter would be proud to build. Wooden slats and solid flat backs to rest your muscles.

People come and sit in these chairs for hours. Eat cake and drink coffee, while others drink beer and chat to friends. There are always people passing along the street. Some of them stop and stare at the tables, the doorway, they crane their necks to get a look into the café interior, then sit and wait for service, or just shuffle away. Service is quick. The waiters slip between tables like nimble ballet dancers dressed in white. Always wearing a mask, and carrying a silver tray with one hand. They avoid touching the customers in any way. A waiter can spin gently, then twist her body like an alley cat to ask a question of the customer behind, then go back inside with a head full of new orders to fulfil. Sleek service.

Customers sit content. They can watch the street, the old and the young, the cyclists who whizz by at high speed, the scooters that slalom, a person running for some unknown reason, watch the rain bucket down, or listen to the wind in the trees that line the streets, and stay dry.

There’s a concrete wall that encircles a grassy patch in front of the café. Within it there are bushes, and two trees that have been growing there for decades, so they are already big and broad. They need to be trimmed down to avoid the branches from growing too long and hanging into the three lane road.

Walk past the trees after 5 PM, and you hear birds singing. Sparrows gathered in the branches, chirping and greeting each other. If you look among the branches they seem to be chatting, edging up close to one bird, then twisting around to chirp at the small grey bird behind them. Sparrows are hardy animals and sociable with their own type. They just need to keep their eyes open for birds of prey — which do live within the city.

It’s not all calmness around the Café Express Lounge. Youth will bawl out loud, complaining of boredom, the evening closing in and people change from work-a-day rush to hitting-the-town mood.

I walk past the Café Express Lounge each day around 5 PM, the evening bird song, the shuffle of the old man’s shoes remind me of where I am. Darkness falls and the faces on the café terrace glow in the smartphone’s light.

Wearing Hats in the City

The Rock with Fish and Chips

September 22, 2020 by SeanPatrick

Living and working in the south of Spain opens your eyes to the difference in European cultures.

And how borders can create a strange clash that jars the mind in a few short steps.

I was sent to teach in a university in the town of La Línea de la Concepción. An old town that lies within the region of Cádiz.

Spain — It’s Hot

In August the heat was stifling. The thought that the sea air would shift the wind and create some breathing space was wrong. The moisture and the heat of a blazing Spanish sun adds up to a thick atmosphere of wearing a drenched cotton shirt, all day.

Heat slows you down, disturbs sleep, and keeps the locals up at night — they enjoy late tapas, warm red wine, and talk. The sound of a Spanish street is the animated conversations that echo through narrowed roads.

La Línea de la Concepción

The atmosphere of the La Línea is difficult to catch immediately, it’s a place with a long history, so you’d think that there’s something solid to wrap your thoughts around.

It All Seems so Square

My first impressions were that everything is quite square. Yes, square. A walk through the town, hoping to discover the nooks and crannies that every old town hides, I was met with the design of a perfect grid work of streets.

Easy walking, Easy Navigations

A grid work of streets makes life easy for people on foot and in a hurry. But it sure takes the thrill out of discovery, and the desire to come back for more wanes quickly. It looked like a bad attempt at emulating the modern shopping centre ideas found in most of Europe these days.

Just Go to a Bar and Get Hammered

I’m not being unfair about the place, most people had told me that “La Línea”, is a place to find a bar and get hammered — that way you don’t need to know much about the place, simply stay put and enjoy the excellent Spanish wines. I don’t drink alcohol. Es viva la Horchata.

Holidays are about Getting Lost and Finding Something New

I look for the joy of life in the unexpected. Those beautiful Spanish towns and cities that not only offer a dip into a warm Mediterranean Sea, but also the opportunity to explore and delve into places where tourists seldom venture. In La Línea, that was a tough call.

On my way to the university where I was teaching, I bought a cup of coffee at the “Forcor”, marketplace.

The word “forcor” comes from an Andalusian translation of the English. The Spanish and the Brits had a project in mind. They called it the “Four Corners Supermarket” which would replace the old marketplace.

Beautiful Dialects that Nobody can Understand

Andalusian is a dialect of Spanish that just loves to cut a word down to its first syllable, then pronounce it in a way that baffles the minds of outsiders trying to learn Spanish.

Certainly a case of lost in translation; ask a Spanish person why they call the place Forcor, and they’ll probably be as lost for words as the next person.

Forcor and the New Spanish Marketplace

The old marketplace, Forcor, was designated for upgrading and the locals were promised a brand-spanking-new shopping centre with swanky cafés and a delightful shopping experience that would bring the Spanish people of La Línea into the 20th century — that was the late 1970s.

Off to Work, Not

Work got under way, foundations were laid, pallets of bricks and mortar were placed ready for use, and then nothing much happened.

It’s common in Spain for new funds on a project to mysteriously become depleted before a project begins, or disappear totally. Nobody ever knows what happened.

The Forcor open marketplace still stands, half car park, half make shift car boot sale area. It’s all a bit pointless if you walk around hoping to discover some Spanish gem. The old town structures appear to be in need of a caring architect and builder.

The Beauty of the Past

To look at a few of the older buildings, you get an impression of what was once a grand town, proud of its showy facades, fine architecture, and plazas that once appeared full of colourful flowers and well-kept palms.

The Bay Road, The Border, and a Cup of Coffee

The winding road that runs along by the bay snakes its way along the new town centre — the squared off Grid of Top shops and co. Busy with traffic and pedestrians who want to enjoy that special light of Southern Europe, and the sparkling waters of the Mediterranean. It’s the road the leads to the check point to cross into Gibraltar, the U.K. territorial outpost.

As I drank my coffee on the first morning, looking at the floor, thinking about my students and first impressions, I was a little disappointed at having to be in La Línea. Each minute ticked by on a slow clock that every town like this owns.

Daydreams and the Slow Ticking of Clocks

I raised my plastic cup, took a swig of coffee, and wow, what a sight met my eyes. Sometimes, when we are busy looking at the floor, thinking about work, and staring at clocks, we forget to look up and see what we’ve missed.

Right in front of me, rising from the Mediterranean Sea with its formidable natural power was the Rock of Gibraltar. It’s exuberance, once seen, is nature’s dominance pure.

Although people live and work on the peninsula of Gibraltar, “The Rock”, they haven’t formed and shaped it to their will.

It’s still the wild and solid rock that mother earth formed eons ago.

La Línea residents make the short journey to work on The Rock each day.

They travel on foot which takes about 15–20 minutes, or drive and ride a vehicle across the broad airport runway that divides Spain from Great Britain and this territorial U.K. outpost.

Cheap Booze and Cigarettes

Locals explained that because prices of cigarettes and petrol are much lower in Gibraltar, they are prepared to do a shopping trip each weekend to fill up a petrol tank and a gas can for luck, stock up on goodies and return. Many people do this, and it causes hours long delay at the crossing point.

Off to Work, for Real

My visit to La Línea was on foot. After taking a good long look at the Rock of Gibraltar, finishing my coffee, I headed to the university for work.

Curiosity put the Cat to Sleep

My week stay left me with little time to meander about town — and my curiosity for La Línea had been killed off on first impressions — so I decided that at least I could take a stroll across the airport runway to Gibraltar town.

Airport Crossings

In the evening, the sun still high enough to bake your boots and moisten your shirt, I walked up to the small road that leads towards the checkpoints and airport; you have no choice about it, you must drive or walk across the airport runway. That seemed like a dodgy thing to do, and I could see there were no officials to control foot traffic making their way across.

Heading along the road in, I noticed an interesting statue. A man, in working-class flat cap, holding his bicycle and lunch box ready for the short ride into work.

The monument represents the Spanish workers who tirelessly worked at building Gibraltar before and after World War II.

Walking towards the large runway, the grey Rock in full view, I kept looking towards the sea for incoming planes. On the first look I saw the shadow of a commercial passenger plane that had taken up its low landing path and was now bearing straight towards the landing strip.

So Above, Not So Below

Airports are always very well-thought-out. This one had markings and lines, lights and windbags galore. All markings designed so that pilots can clearly see the what and where of an airport — but on foot, it all looks like crazy paving and modern art.

I just stopped and hoped I wasn’t standing on the plane’s landing path — which I wasn’t. As you walk on you see that there is a big fat white line, lots of zig-zags, and yellow markings which warn the most ignorant that they’re about to walk into a danger zone.

Waitrose and One Small Step into the U.K.

As soon as you see a British supermarket you know you’ve arrived. From Spain, I took a step across a painted line, and landed in the United Kingdom, cool feeling. One country to another in one small step, is weird. A giant rock, a British supermarket, and as I walked along the road, the ever increasing feeling that I was back in Blighty came over me — well, almost.

Ye Little Olde Shope of Whiskey

Gibraltar is full of pubs and cigar & whiskey shops — little “Ye Olde Shope”, type lock-ups that Charles Dickens would have loved. The main plaza is wide and filled with the tables and chairs of cafés and restaurants. It’s a paradise of fish and chips, and a pint of bitter, please.

Gibraltar uses the British Pound as currency, everybody speaks perfectly good English — of course. Products are duty free, which keeps some prices within the wow-factor category.

I walked through the town, slightly up hill, mostly up hill, but with no time to climb the path up to the Rock, I made do with first impressions of Gibraltar’s fish and chips, and glass of juice. A live band played in the plaza, and vacationers sat around on plastic chairs listening to the first couple of songs.

I imagined the famous Gibraltar Apes perched high on the Rock, listening to the evening entertainment.

The Gibraltar dialect, Llanito, is difficult to understand — even if you speak Spanish and English. It seems a far cry from Spanish or English, but is a mixture of both. Like all real dialects, it has developed into a real language with its own way of expressing the mix of Andalusian Spanish and English.

The impressive part of Gibraltar, a town that is really full of bankers and financial companies, is the astonishing Rock that dominates every angle of view as you make your way through the town.

It took me an hour and a half to see what I wanted, that Gibraltar has shops and bars, fish and chips, probably pleasant locals and is a strange little peninsular that the Brits refuse to yield to the demanding Spanish.

A weekend, or an evening of fun, but if I booked a week on Gibraltar I think I’d have to cross back to La Línea and enjoy the tapas and Horchata, the chatter of Spanish voices, and sit close to the locals who meet in the crumbling town square at sundown.

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