Adv. 13 next stop the third largest german city

COLOGNE or KOLN

Thursday: i got on a train early this morning, to start my journey back to Utrecht. At Koln i jumped off the train because i really wanted to visit the Cologne Cathedral. Its the largest and most impressive in Germany. Well... it was cool!!!

Jacqui is in Cologne studying for a semester, so i had coffee with her, which was really cool, good to catch up, see whats the hap. We walked through the cathedral, once again it was very chilly inside...
(left: jacqui and I outside Cologne cathedral)
It was a lovely winter sunny day, and i sat in the square outside the cathedral for a while and did some drawing, it was very pleasant and there were human statues making the people laugh.






(below: cologne cathedral)

























Then i visited the Ludwig Museum. This was cool!!! i wasnt sure what exactly what was there before i went, cos i just looked on the net the day before to see if cologne had anything good. Well i got a very pleasant surprise. It was a last days of the La Gare de Perpignan Salvador Dali exhibition. There were over 150 Dali drawings, prints, videos, paintings. IT WAS AMAZING!! Dali is another of my most favourite artists, so it was cool. (below: a selection of cool Dali paintings)












And the Ludwig Museum also has a very extensive pernament collection. SO BIG!! I ended up there for hours, and missed climbing the 500 or so stairs in the cologne towers (dang) but it was worth it. There was so much art there, im so arted out...
There was a large Pop art collection, with Litchenstein, Rauschenburg, Warhol, Jasper Johns, Richard Hamilton, James Rosenquist, Edward Kienholz
and a large cubist/surrealist era collection, a stack of Picasso drawings and paintings, Max Ernst, Francis Picabia, Giacometti, Hans Arp sculpture, Man Ray, Magritte, Yves Klein, Christo, Duchamp, Braques, Kasimir Malewitsch... it was a lot to take in.
my favourite though was a really beautiful short film by William Kenridge 1994, Felix in Exile. he does really amazing animated charcoal drawing films.

After dinner i got back on the train and arrived safe and sound in Utrecht.
I really loved Germany, which was really great for me, cos i had never considered it before.
I experienced so much in such a short time, and got some great thinking done on the trains for how im going to execute my art school graduating piece.

Now im back in the dreariness of Holland and must do some serious work cos im only here for another 8 weeks (eek) not much time...

Adv. 12 München - Beer Capital

Tuesday: i arrived a bright an early time of 6am after a shortlived attempt at sleep in a half upright train seat. And set off to Munich with Ka because she had a couple of uni classes there. well i could definitely tell the difference in temperature, didnt have to wear gloves or hat even had to take my jacket off at some points. It was a nice sunny day.

I walked around and managed to get very lost because i didnt have a map, and so ended up jumping on and off trains trying to see if i could find any of the places i had written down to see.
well i did see some really really cool rococo churches. AMAZING architecture is rococo. but the thing i noticed most is how cold is was inside. ( right: theatiner St Kajeten italian baroque style)

(left: St Johann Nepomuk Kirche by Asam brothers pioneers of Rococo)

I tried to find some art museums, but the one i finally found wasn't there any more that was annoying.






(left: new town hall)
Wednesday: Ka and i took the train to munich today, we went on the New Munich Free walking tour, same company as in Berlin. we had an Australian guide, who entertained us and informed us of munich history for three hours. she was really good i thought. she spoke pretty fast though, and i think Ka didnt understand all of it, but she learnt some things that she didnt know before, like why when the germans drink beer, they raise their beer mugs, cheers, then plonk them on the table before drinking :) its because they serve beer in 1 litre jugs and back in the day thats what the king did cos it was too heavy for him and all the people copied him!!! (right: ka and I outside new town hall)





well we saw the glockenspeil play on the new town hall (well the australian guide took the piss mostly :) i see why ) we heard all about the history of munich and the kings of Bavaria, we learnt the legend of how the devil helped build the Frauenkirche, Cathedral of our Lady, in just 20 years, ate lunch in the Viktualienmarkt, Munich's famous market square, and went into the Hofbrauhaus: a huge beer hall, with live Barvarian music, guys playing accordian dressed in green kilts :) and heaps of other stuff...

(left: Cathedral of our Lady)





Then we went shopping!!!!

It took us a while to find the art gallery that i wanted to go to, ut eventually we made it to the Stadische Galerie de Lenbachhaus. It was AMAZING!!! they had a really extensive collection of Blaue Reiter works. I went into a room and was surrounded by the coolest Kandinksky works ever!!! that was the best thing that day, he is my favourite painter i think, and these particualr works were AMAZING. there were also some cool Franz Marc works, and Sigmar Polke, Andy Warhol, Joseph Beuys. It was great to see these works that i was familiar with and also to see some stuff that i wasnt so familiar with like, Robert Delauney and Paul Klee, Alexej Jawlensky.
And they had a show of some contempory artists, which was great too.
(above: franz ackerman Tourist 2004)
Franz Ackerman and Andreas Hofer. these actually required me to stop and contemplate for a while what their work was about.




(left: Andreas Hofer, A-man 2005)













(below: Kandinksy)
























So another brilliant trip, Germany really has a fantastic collection of art!!!!

(above: me and Ka making sure we look each other in the eyes when cheering with our beer, so we dont get 7 years bad sex)

Adv. 11 The mish to Berlin

I came, I saw, I conquered...

The Berlin public transport, that is. Berlin is HUGE, and their public transport is the most impressive ive seen to date. I rode the U-Bahn, the S-bahn, the bus and the tram, its brilliant because u can buy a ticket thats valid for all day and on all modes of transport, u just jump on and jump off again, its brilliant because there's far too many things to see if u were to walk everywhere. really comprehensive. (pic above: view from top of Reichstag building, berlin city with german flag)

I LOVE Berlin!!!! I think if i was to ever be a real artist, i would come to Berlin to do it. I had such a blast and learnt alot, there are so many things to see, i didnt even really make it to any gigs or theatre, but its everywhere. Its cheap and its full of young people, its under populated a the moment, and there is still heaps of construction work going on. Its been the european centre for film and art and its taking off again.

Well...
My mission 1 : to see as much as i possibly could that was of interest to me in 5 days...

Mission accomplished!! 5 days was just enough time to see all that i wanted and there's nothing that i didnt see that i wished i had.

My mission 2 : learn about German history...

Mission accomplished!! i think i learnt more about German history, about world war two, the cold war, Stassi, KGB etc in 5 days than i did in a whole year of school cert

My mission 3 : learn about the Bauhaus and modern architecture

Mission failed. the Bauhaus museum was a bit of a disappiontment, and there wasn't really any Bauhaus influenced architecture in Berlin, cos Hitler didnt like it and neither did the Communists. i think ill have to go to america to learn about the bauhaus.

Thursday: I jumped on a 6hr train to Berlin from Utrecht very early on thursday morning, to arrive in time for the thursday evening free museums, of which i saw 5!! of note, the Pergammon museum, which holds the gates of Babylon, one of the seven wonders of the world. and i also learnt some very interesting stuff about Islamic art which will come in handy for school. Also a very cool art museum the Kunstgewerbemuseum, a design and craft museum, which showed functional craft items, like dinnerware and vases and furniture etc from the rococo and baroque period and some renaissance and also really modern design as well. including a range of famous modern chairs, a really fascinating contrast!!!
(above: example of modern design)


Friday: The New Berlin Free walking tours are a brilliant invention!! and the guide that i had was really entertaining, a great way to get an overview of berlin history. including Bradenburg Gate, Reichstag, Hitler's bunker, Holocaust Memorial, Potsdamer Platz, The Berlin Wall, SS Headquarters, Checkpoint Charlie. on friday i also went into the Berliner Dom, a cool cathedral set out in a circle. and i went to the top of the Reichstag (government building) quite architecturally intersting but other than that not worth the wait in the queue. (above: berliner dom) (below: brandenburg gate)












Saturday: the day of 3 more museums, including the best one ive seen so far, the Hamburger Bahnhof, a HUGE HUGE collection of some really famous artists, i liked it because i knew alot about their work and so could understand it a little. there was some really big names, Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenburg, Anselm Keifer, Roy Lichtenstein, Joseph Beuys ( a huge collection of his sculpture and prints), and also a whole massive warehouse space of minimalist artists, Sol leWitt, Donald Judd, Richard Serra, Dan FLavin just to name a few.
(left: film museum) The Film museum was pretty cool too. I decided to fore go the fourth art gallery on my list and opted for a coffee in a really nice cafe in Potsdamer Platz, a good move i think.
And Saturday evening was to be my second tour of the mission, the New Berlin Pub Crawl. This was such a lot of fun, and it was a great way to meet many other people, and see 5 pubs and clubs that you could never find on your own, to dance, see live music and drink the European beer, which tastes so much better than NZ beer, sad but true. (below: shot from pub crawl)









Sunday... a bit slower, because i didnt get back to my hostel till four in the morning...
I went on the New Berlin Sachsenhausen Tour, a 6 hourish tour, including travel time, to the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp on the outskirts of Berlin. Not so much Jewish stuff here, because it was one of the first camps built and was for communists and other enemies of the Nazis, but by 41 there were Jews here also and mass killing devices were being used towards the end of the war, it was a oppressive place to be, and some of the things our guide talked about was really sickening. it was also the coldest day in Berlin, at a chilling -6 degrees, not as cold as it gets there, and i had five layers on, it is really difficult to imagine what the torture of standing at roll call at 5 in the morning with only one cotton layer for normally hours and hours in the middle of winter, with no hope of ever being able to have a warm shower waiting at the end of the day, and all this for years under really harsh forced labour and little food...

Monday: the last day of the Berlin mission. First stop, one of the main reasons why i came to Berlin, The Bauhaus museum... well this was a huge disappiontment.
Next stop, my fourth New Berlin Tour: The Spy Stories!!! This was really fascinating, it was all about the Cold War and secret intelligence that was going on after the second world war, The KGB, the Stassi and the begginings of the CIA in the form of BOB, their triumphs and downfalls. The Berlin wall, its erection and ruin, its purpose and the effect it had on East and West Berliners, the division of idealogies and the recent unification. A definite 'to do' if u ever come to Berlin, and worth every cent.
(left: east side gallery berlin wall) well i still have 5 hours to kill before i jump on a night train, so i jump on a tram and take a stroll down the East Side Gallery: the largest peice of the Berlin wall still remaining.
and then i head to the Jewish Museum. This is also makes the definite 'to do' list when in Berlin. it was amazingly laid out and really informative, really takes your senses into what it was like for Jewish diaspora and the Holocaust. Architecture is brillaint, huge museum all about jewish history, so huge i will go back there one day cos i didnt take it all in.
(below: east side gallery)


























overnight train to Augsburg....

well altogether i went to over 15 museums including the ones in the tours, but only two churches. the churches turn will come in south germany

- The Argentinian Acrobat

Dani,
i think it was a privilege to have met Dani.
He's had it rough...
he followed love to Holland, and got dumped
now he's been here over six years, he came as a total foreigner, couldnt speak dutch, couldn't speak english, the culture was opposite to what he'd ever known.
He learnt everything by himself,

His mind is brilliant. he's nearly 40 years old, but he goes to the circus every week and does acrobatics and somersaults and outrageous things like that. He can be found in the kitchen juggling, or by the back door smoking a joint. He tells me he feels more secure when he is wearing black. he wouldn't really let me take a photo of him, so i had to do it sneakily, this one is at the pub where he was working on sunday night.

What was most interesting when i first met him was the amount of saddness he managed to store inside himself. I like to listen to him talk, he speaks really fast english, with a spanish type accent, so sometimes you have no idea what hes talking about, but he talks enough so eventually you can pick up the gist of it.
and its not like he's just talking rubbish just for the sake of talking. What he says is really interesting, ive learnt a lot about social heirachy and social politics, and about western life from his perspective. We've had some interesting conversations about religion and God. He doesnt like it here in Holland, the Dutch people weren't very nice to him i dont think, people are afraid of the way he looks because he's a bit darker. He got stuck here because he was about to fly away but then september 11 happened, now he cant fly anywhere cos security is more strict and he doesnt have the right papers. But his fire is dying here.
Some days he would just stand and look out the window and he would be close to tears, whenever he talks about it he gets angry and his language is colourful, but its still full of sadness.
He was telling me how he feels, so depressive, like his heart is being squeezed, just wants to cry sometimes, but there is noone here he can trust.
I started crying one time when he was talking, just the amount of sadness that one man could contain... it wasnt pity, it was more a sadness that people can be so broken and so hurting and i didnt know what i could do about it.

After talking to Dani i always have a lot to think about. and i wonder why he cant see God clearly. He went to a Catholic church when he was growing up, and he even admitted that God had helped him out when he was in some rough situations. but all he sees is the world of suffering and arrogant western white man.

I wrote a song about him...

He's been a lot happier in the last couple of weeks because he made a decision to leave, hes been waiting for ages for some friends to drive to spain so he could go more safely, but they've decided not to go. and so he's taking the risk of training to Spain and his ticket is all bought and hes off in a week. I hope he doesnt get caught.
The police have caught him so many times while he's been here, but he's not doing anything wrong, he's no burden on society, and each time the police have let him go instead of sending him back to his country. He seems to have someone looking out for him...

I'm going to germany for a week, and so today was the last time that i would see Dani, we took a walk along the canal and through the 'forest', it was beautiful...
The sun was shining and he was talking the way he always does, he was talking about a lot of different things, about the things he will miss, and thethings he's glad to be rid of. He told me about a few of his lovers, and the one he is going to stay with in Madrid. he told me about some of his nieces and nephews and god-kids... he talked about freedom... and about a bird he once had that was in a cage for seven years. he talked about the way we use our energy and how the mind can be so much more powerful when really conditioned, much more than the body can. He told me about a German girl who he did acrobatics with... He talked about how rich people do not know what it means to be a gentleman... he told me about some of the really differnt and interesting people that he's met in his life, that 'normal' people would never ever meet.

I just listened.

We sat on a bridge for a while, and there were some swans swimming along the river. It was a really beautiful walk with my new friend Dani. I like listening to him

well we both had to go out this evening so we walked our bikes together to the place where we had to go our separate ways, and we said our goodbyes, three kisses on alternate cheeks like the europeans do and one on the lips... it was beautiful.

Dani is beautiful, i am glad that i met him
one day maybe we will meet again i hope


He can't wait to get out of here, he has hopes and dreams for his future, he wants to make something good for himself, something that he cannot do here or would ever want to. it is sad to see him go, i hope he finds what he's looking for...

Adv 10. An Adventure of the Antartic Kind

Rotterdam = (translation) 'big' dam

I went on a day trip to Rotterdam with the ESN group. Rotterdam is the port city in Holland. There are a lot of trading boats etc. I've decided to call it the glass city. The Germans bombed it in the Second World War, the Dutch soldiers on their bikes were no match for the German tanks, Rotterdam was completely burnt to the ground, there were only four buildings left standing. The Nazi's threatened to do the same to Amsterdam, it was then that the Dutch army surrendered.
So they had to rebuild the entire city, and they are still building, its like the city has a itch that they must keep sratching. A lot of the Dutch think Rotterdam is an ugly city, but i think that is just becasue it is so differnt from any other city in Holland. Every other city has quaint canals and small apartment housing. Rotterdam is the city of 'modern' architecture. of odd shaped buildings, minimalistic in style, very 'square' you could say. And buildings with a lot of glass, more than the Otago University Library.

I've decided i dont much like this kind of architecture, its too harsh. The block type buildings are unemotive. too 'design' minded.
However, we did visit some very interesting apartments, these were COOL!!! And so odd.
They are the cube houses, and there is a forest of them, they are like trees. you climb stairs inside the 'trunk' and in the tree top, there is three floors. from the outside they look really small and you wonder how anyone could ever live in there, but inside, is actually really spacious and theres a total of 100m square floor space... go figure


We had a really great day, very long though, and VERY COLD. I think this was perhaps the coldest ive ever been in my whole life. Rotterdam is the Wellington of Holland. My wind breaker i think was the life saver of the day. I had long johns and long socks on under my jeans, i was wearing a skin hugging singlet, two long thermals, a hoody, my big jacket and my wind breaker, a scarf, and a wooly hat underneath two hoods. i could have done with another jumper! I look like a ridiculous eskimo, but at least i got through the day without too much discomfort, and thank God the sun decided to bless us a tiny bit with its presence in the afternoon.

we went to a cool museum, i cant remember the name it was a really long dutch name, but it had a lot of differnt type of art. I saw so many original Dali and Kandinsky paintings!!! these are two of my favourite painters :) so it made me happy, they are so cool. and there was some really intersting conceptual sculpture there also.

For dinner we rode on De Pannenkeokenboot along the Maast canal. This was the best ending to a great day. We had all you could eat pancakes, dutch style. the music was great, the view was terrific, the company was good, and of course the pancakes were delicious.






right: Simone eating pancakes aboard De Pannenkoekenboot









And the Rotterdam architecture looks cool at night.