:: Tossed Salad and Scramble Eggs ::

:: Sunday, November 14, 2004 ::

Berlin

Last week was reading week, so aside from only being around campus on Monday and Tuesday, Wenesday onwards was spent in Berlin with Wei, Ade, Jen, Rach and Jan. Girls trip out! Or as Jean would nicely coin it – a couple of seniors babysitting the 1985s. Well traveling with a bunch is different from solo expenditions. In some respects good and in some respects not so good. Of course, we lived in pure luxury of a comfortable hotel, perhaps more comfortable by my standards considering the previous benchmark of 12 pounds a night at a student hostel.

Berlin is unique on its own, and perhaps different from the rest of the European countries I’ve traveled to – and of course as most history students would have known what took place there (I have pictures of the Berlin Wall, the Reichstag, Jewish concentration camps, Checkpoint Charlie, and even Eric Honecker’s Lamp where the communists had their day). One can only imagine – literally – of how Bismarck’s Unified Germany would have stood with all its grandeur, of how Hitler’s Germany would have looked like or how Stalin’s regime would have been fashioned. Imagine because what has past have nothing to prove its existence. The lack of preservation of its rich cultural heritage would be a tragedy to any history student, but more a tragedy to the likes of Bala and Thompson.

I noted however (and this by my own observation) that Germany has become a place for modern artists. Simply because after the fall of the SU, the vaccum created with nothing impressive to mark it by had therefore caused flocks of artists coming into this area and graffiti on the bygone walls of the Communist buildings, the rubble which laid stagnant since the end of the second world war, and the torn down Berlin wall. Memorials are made in the most modern fashion for those who failed to cross checkpoint Charlie and even the victims of the Holocaust. I can’t describe it all in detail because you have to see it to make your own conclusion. I found it funny that East Germany seems alot more pleasant looking than West Berlin which is essentially main up of capitalist concrete.

As usual, me and Jan urban trekkers wanted to move around faster while the rest went shopping. Of which, they spent a full day at the same spot we had been shopping the night before. If you asked me for logic, I wouldn’t be able to tell you. But me and Jan went our way and walked around the whole of East Berlin scoring the weekend market and the shops.

There are a few things to note:
1.Germans are the most helpful race in Europe, the French are the worst (except for Helen and Leo of course). The British? I refuse to comment for diplomatic reasons.

2.German pastries are better than French pastries. Now Jan is complaining that she can’t do her IPPT in time because of my pervasive influence of buying-and-eating

3.German is harder to learn than French or Spanish
Live in Germany if you like concrete



Checkpoint Charlie


Berlin Wall


West Germany


Sachsenhausen Jeiwish Concerntration camp

:: Stuffy 11/14/2004 02:17:00 PM [+] ::
...

My dear reader, you would never have fathom what I did this weekend, and when I do tell my mother, she will probably disown me.

I was 'devastated, absolutely devastated' that my coasteering trip to Wales was cancelled because of improper planning by the London Airforce boys. Coupled with that, last thursday I wanted to watch the Arthur Miller play 'Death of a Salesman', only to find out that it was sold out for all five days. I wasn't very happy that night, and so to fill the weekend vaccum, I started to search for something to do.

When I got back last night (Sunday night), Melvin came bursting into my room asking me if I were alright. And Hub told me never to do it again because it was pure madness. I protested, what could I do? Jan had her weekend commitments (but also because I told her about it too late) and Jun Hui and Rainbow had lessons on Friday. I simply had to go whatever the circumstances. The rest of Singsoc? They were just a plain boring bunch of sad people who seek enjoyment by going to London.

Excerpt from Journal...

So I'm sitting here in Edinburgh Scotland in some obscure cafe waiting for the coach to take me to the Scottish Highlands and Loch Ness. I am here. In Edinburgh. In Scotland. I arrived yesterday at 12pm after a 5hr train ride from Coventry. I was anxious about not finding accomodation since it was nearing the weekend, but I was lucky that I found some obscure backpackers hostel at Cowgate and paid 12 pounds per night to share a dorm with six other people. I didn't realise I was literally backpacking, alone, in Scotland.

And so I spent the afternoon walking around Edinburgh city. Edinburgh on its own is unique. Up and down the Royal Mile I went. Its streets are made of cobble stone and cars move at a furious pace across the narrow winding streets. Almost every corner of the Royal Mile (or almost anywhere in Edinburgh) has a monument resurrected in memory of something that happened 'at that very spot'. There is an air about the city, a sort of dampness, a sort of oldness layered with history and tradition. When it is early in the morning, the sky is red, and the tall buildings are shrouded in midst - its almost the sort of thing you see in any Gothic literature novel (Did you know that RL Stevenson is a Scott?). If I weren't so ignorant, almost every street I turned into or any alley way I crossed would have a story of its own. If only I knew those stories and its intimate occupants.

***

There is just so much to tell about my 3 days at Edinburgh and the Highlands. The first night, I went on a ghost hunt to the Coventeer's prison where the famous McKinsey Poltergeist was supposed to be documented. Coincidentally, it was also Halloween night. Of course, like any ghost tour, most of it was merely theatrics at play. But I got to walk around the cemetry at night and glance upon the headstones of various Edinburgh serial killers and Scottish writers, mathamaticians (Dear Mich, do you know that the person who derived Logarithims was buried in that graveyard?).

As for hostel life, although my encounter with my inmates were brief, I learnt alot about the life they lead, which is worlds away from mine. Most of them work in temporary seasonal jobs while travelling Europe, their life is always on the go, and not all of them are the young. I spoke to a 40 something year old Canadian women who seemed to have a heart of a youth. We spoke about things and I learnt about the kind of life she lead. We talked about religion and I gave her my Bible (so now I need to borrow Hub's Bible again to tie me over the next month before I get back). There were also two Spanish and one Australian living with me. True, I have experienced the life of a wondering backpacker, but no matter how adventurous I'd try to be, no matter how much I enjoy travelling, I am still very much a metropolitan 'cafe' (as Sarah coins it) Singaporean. For me, this experience is a novelty, and I'm not sure if I would do it every week, perhaps only in a few months time when I grow dreary of Warwick Campus. Maybe to Brussels? That would be interesting wouldn't it?

Dear Mich, when I was in Scotland, I thought of our William Wallace spoof ('they can take our homes, they can take our money...') and then I remembered when we were younger, we had this ambition to play the bagpipes in Scotland. Well, I didn't get to play the bagpipes, but I certainly got to see the kilt, the durk and the bagpipes.


Scottish Highlands (Glenco, Land of Weeping, Three Sisters mountain)


Me and Edinburgh


Bagpipes and the Scottish Highlands

:: Stuffy 11/01/2004 02:03:00 AM [+] ::
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