Life is beautiful

January 31, 2002 • Blog

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World » Hungary » Budapest » Muvesz cukraszda

It was pleasant to notice how some things don't change: Still chess players on the square in front of Keleti Palyudvar, still the same waitresses(!) in my favorite cukraszda, just outside of Astoria, still the same stalls at the same places with the same people selling the same goods.
But because of this, small changes do get noticed: In my favorite cukraszda, the sutemenyek have gotten better, Keleti is no longer being renovated, Chinese eateries seem to have sprung up on every corner, the girls have managed to start dressing even better and prices have risen, although under a stable currency.

The one change I'm not fond of is the huge number of modern shopping malls and multiplexes that have sprung up around town. Back in 1996, when I arrived in Hungary, there were none. When I left, a year later, there were three. Now, there are about 10 big shopping malls, most of them also harboring a multiplex cinema. The unwelcome side effect is that small cinemas can't compete and disappear: More than half of the cinemas in Budapest now had already gone.

Budapest, I think, is one of the three most beautiful cities in Europe, next to Rome and St. Petersburg. The city itself is relatively young, some 150 years, and originally consisted of three independent cities: Pest, Buda and Obuda. The name 'Budapest' is much older, simply because if you look on a map, the cities Buda and Pest were located right next to each other on opposite banks of the Danube.
Buda has always been the more richer part of town, with its castle hill, which functions as a natural fort. Pest claims to have the oldest metro line on mainland Europe (although the Turks tend to disagree), has wide avenues, lots and lots of art-nouveau, many parks and literally bursts with activity.

Budapest is beautiful

It is a pity that 40 years of communism has left the city more gray and run down than, say, Vienna, but at the same time has instilled more authenticity in the city itself. Less modern buildings, less modernization, have made it possible for the city to retain more of its olden character.

Walking through Budapest, I realized, again, that Hungarians, much more then Austrians, tend to act and look like southern Europeans. Particularly the young generation clearly shows Italian influences with their flare, stylish clothing, mobile phones, sipping their espressos at the city's outdoor cafes.
I had to get some new shoes and got hem on Terez Korut. My old pair were later handed over by the sales girl to a bum, right outside her shop.

I had arranged to meet with Eszter, an old friend living just outside of Budapest. Because my plans had slightly changed, I now was in Budapest a month before I had planned to be here, I figured there was a chance she wouldn't have time to see me. Surprisingly, when I called her, she said she had been expecting me that very night and therefore had kept that night free of other obligations so that we could go out for dinner together.
After my professor in 1996 had arranged for a place to stay with an old policeman who drank too much and only spoke Hungarian, I quickly tried to find another place to stay and almost had taken over Eszter's old house before I decided it was way to far from my university. We got along well, and what was originally scheduled as a 30 minute meeting, ended up being a 4 hour chit-chat with dinner and drinks. We've kept in touch ever since.

Now, working at Moret, she married some years ago and is now living in Veresegyhaz, OneRedHouse, just outside of Budapest, where the town's station is nothing more but a concrete slab next to one line of train tracks from where sandy roads fan of in numerous directions, past a Japanese garden, to distant houses.

Going to Gyor

January 30, 2002 • Blog

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World » Hungary » Györ » 1100 year monument

Having some time to myself on the train from Vienna to Hungary, I was able to read up a bit on Croatia, Slovenia and Yugoslavia. A welcome change, since my walking around all day with a heavy backpack in Vienna had given me muscle cramps in my buttocks.
I was surprised at the apparent pricing level in Croatia, Slovenia and Yugoslavia. Expecting Eastern European levels, they seemed to have caught up with Western Europe at least in one expect: Their prices.

While countless modern windmills dotted the landscape between Vienna and Gyor, a friendly Hungarian border guard asked for my documents, typing the information obtained into an old IBM thinkpad. When he saw the picture in my passport, he looked at the picture, looked at me, looked at the picture again, at me, shook his head and grunted disapprovingly.
Asking if I had another document, I went through the other papers in my wallet but all had the same photograph. All, except a discount card for train travel in the Netherlands, which bore a photo that resembled me even less. Still, the guard seemed to be satisfied and we started chatting a bit.
Something I should have done earlier since when he learned I'd lived in Magyarorszag for a year, he was all smiles and when, after a couple of minutes, he had to continue on his rounds, said goodbye in typical Hungarian fashion: 'Hello!'.

According to the Planet, Gyor is much less touristy than Sopron, another Hungarian border town but one I had once spent a night in after hitchhiking back to Hungary from Holland. When I was in Sopron, it was a small town, basically nothing more than a clustered group of cozy houses surrounding an old town square, radiating peace and quiet.
Now, in Gyor, all restaurants carried bilingual menus and bars, like the 'Kazamata', carry hour-long sets of modern triphop of mixed Hungarian hits from five years ago. Not sure if I wanted to see what, if this meant 'less touristy', Sopron had become, I suppose this had to be the price for a bit of development and being so close to the Austrian border.

Then again, maybe things weren't so bad. The Planet's information on Gyor was on to par with the information it carries on most Russian cities in its Russia guide: The map wasn't right, streets don't exist or have different names and many of the cafes and restaurants either don't exist or are located in a totally different location.
Expecting to have to pay through the nose for a place to stay or a bite to eat, I was surprised that both the hotel and the restaurant I ate at were still very affordable.

Gyor is a nice little town. The downtown area, probably with the hordes of tourists in mind that seemingly flock here every year, has been changed into a pedestrian area and is littered with cafes, outside seating areas, restaurants and a huge Kaiser supermarket.
Many of the buildings are actually museums or have been designated as historical monuments. Surprisingly, many of the houses just outside of the city center reminded me of the houses I'd seen all over Siberia, albeit here they were made of concrete, not of wood: Mostly one, sometimes two stories, dark-brown walls with lighter-colored and ornamented woodwork around the blinded windows.

Just outside of the center, there's a big green area from where, in six directions, streets fan out. In the middle of the square, there's a huge monument, commemorating the 1000 year history of Hungary, erected in the year 2000, which is surprising since Hungarians consider the year 896 as the beginning of their nation. That was why, in 1996, when I was living in Budapest, the country celebrated its 1100th birthday.

Thankfully, the hotel I was staying at hadn't upgraded to western standards yet. Right next to the train station, within audible distance of the high pitched signals denoting trains leaving and with floorladies on every floor, the shower area (shared!) had some 5 showers with no shower curtains and a big 'Feijenoord against racism' sticker above the entrance door.
In Matroz ('sailor', Hungarian fishing words lean heavily on Dutch originals), I had a pleasant re-acquaintance with the Hungarian kitchen and, of course, I ordered much more than I was able to eat. The food, including the big mug of beer allowed for the owner of the restaurant to roll me out of his place like a small barrel of wine. But the halusky, pasta with goats cheese, lard and huge amounts of cream was worth it.
Only one of the 15 or so patrons in Matroz was Hungarian. An old, wrinkled man who ate soup with huge but trembling hands and cleaned his mouth after every spoonful with the tissue that lay right next to his tray.

Vienna for a day

January 29, 2002 • Blog

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World » Austria » Vienna » The Danube shore

By taking the night train to Vienna, I was able to skip one nights stay in a ho(s)tel in the already expensive country of Austria. I was lucky for the connection between Feldkirch and Vienna being without any transfers.

While waiting for my train to arrive, I headed for a bar close to the place I got my vegi-sandwich and I realized why I like ‘tacky’ places and, related, Eastern Europe, so much.
A tacky bar or restaurant is generally run down, old, in very bad shape, simple. Because of that, it seems to be more ‘real’, more authentic. People tend to be more ‘raw’ more down to earth. In a way, people in these places appear to be more human.

The bar in Feldkirch definitely was an example of a tacky place. Run down, built in what appeared to be the 60s or early 70s, with mirrors on all walls, dirty red tablecloths covered in even dirtier white cloths on small formica tables with steel, wobbly legs. Some balloons to brighten the place up and drab people with drab faces, greasy hair, unshaven faces and brown hands with looks on their faces that said they’d rather leave today then tomorrow for the big city.
In one corner of the bar, two guys were playing an electronic dartboard as if they had been doing that all their lives and their girlfriends, straight from the German punk-scene of the eighties waiting for them to finish. Meanwhile, everyone was allowed behind the bar to get their own beers.
Luckily, the bar at the train station wasn’t much better, the difference being the looks on people’s faces. Probably because they know they would be leaving for Vienna tonight. Possibly because of the babe serving the beers here.

I love stations. Every station harbors a melting pot of cultures. With its collection of eateries, shops, kiosk and more, it’s a tiny 24-hour economy that caters to all, regarding of race, color or creed. Stations generally have a positive atmosphere to them.

Meeting no-one

The primary reason for me stopping in Vienna was a visit to an old friend. Jason was part of my ‘G2’ group in Ghana, the second group of Geeks that was sent to Ghana by Geekcorps. American, he was now living with his girlfriend who had obtained a scholarship in Vienna.
We had already agreed on me stopping by months ago, but hadn’t set an exact date yet. The problem was that over the past couple of weeks, none of the mails I sent him were answered and, later, it turned out his slightly less then effective spam filter got the better of me. I was going to try and find him. I had an address, but no telephone number.

I figured it wouldn’t hurt to try and reach him again, when in Feldkirch, but both a lovely girl and a lousy old lady told me that, no, Feldkirch didn’t have an Internet cafe. The Internet kiosk I did find, smack downtown Feldkirch only returned multiple ‘File not Found’s.

The ride to Vienna was pleasant and, most of the time, I had a whole bench to myself, being woken up for an hour at around 4am by two older ladies who came into my compartment and kept on chatting continuously. I figured they had to be on drugs.

In Vienna, I managed to find the right address, although the name tag claimed someone else occupied the apartment. Ringing the doorbell didn’t help either and none of the people that entered or left the building seemed to know my American friends. I decided to try and find his place of work.
I vaguely remembered he had gotten a job as something of a ‘resident writer’ at the university his girlfriend was studying at. Vienna has about five universities, so I tried my luck. With no luck. Asked around at three universities and was helped by friendly staff, but finding an American in Vienna seemingly is harder than finding a needle in a haystack.
Later, when back at home, mail messages started to come back from Jason. It turned out, at the time of my standing in front of their door, they were still asleep, figuring that it was the chimney sweeper calling at their door. They don’t have a chimney, therefore…

One final mail message from an Internet cafe close to the train station also didn’t help and I got myself a train ticket to Gyor, in Hungary. Zagreb, Ljubljana and Budapest were all quite unfordable, Gyor manageable.

Having visited Vienna a number of times over the years, only now did I realize that the city easily fits with cities like Prague, Budapest, Bratislava or Bucharest. Vienna is very central European. Lots of art-nouveau in a slightly gray city with lots of green stretches and, of course, a big bursting river flowing right through it.
Waiting for the time to catch my train, eating some bread and cheese on the shores of the Danube, I was approached by a 30-something, clearly homosexual male: “Are you available, perhaps?”. I made it clear I wasn’t and saw him walk up to an old lady, asking her the exact same question. She took it as “Are you married, perhaps?”, to which she replied: “Married, no. Unfortunately not, young man…”.

We’re off to see…

January 28, 2002 • Blog

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World » Liechtenstein » Vaduz » The royal castle

I always imagined Liechtenstein to be similar to Luxembourg. I like Luxembourg, the city more than the country, with it's small town appeal, old town center and beautiful location, on something of a rock, surrounded by a deep valley, fairy tale like.
Liechtenstein, although with its people as friendly as the people from Luxembourg, the country itself, let alone its towns, is much less interesting.

The journey to Liechtenstein was already a harbinger of evil. Hours before crossing the border, it had started to rain badly and temperature had dropped significantly. Arriving in Liechtenstein at 9pm, everything was closed and the weather was even worse. Everything, accept the McDonalds, open till 10pm…
The next morning I had breakfast with the owners of the small panzion I was staying at. Herr und Frau Jaeger were around 70 years old and Frau Jaeger was the one who did all the talking. Her husband occasionally also said a word but was deaf, inaudible and senile, having retained only 3 black teeth of all his dentures. Whenever he spoke, all that was needed was to throw in 'Yes?', 'Well…', or 'No' at the right time.
Him being deaf had proved useful the previous night, when arriving. I had no problem finding the panzion when getting off the bus. I just followed the glaring noise of the television set.

On one of the trains between Goettingen and Vaduz, Liechtenstein's capital city, I sat across a tiny old man, complete with slanted cap and walking cane. After he had entered the compartment, he started to ask everyone if he could join them on their Schoenes Wochenende Ticket and the couple next to me had no problem with that. When the conductor had stopped by and was gone, the old man stood up, took of his hat and made a deep bow to the couple next to me: "Danke".

The Schoenes Wochenende Ticket is great. Although it's price has increased 10-fold over the last 10 years or so, it allows you to travel for one day during the weekend with up to 5 people. Currently, the price is 22 euro, 4.40 per person! You only get to use the slow trains, but who's really counting at those prices?
The girl of the couple helping the old man was a welcome change to the rather drab collection of women on the train. It seemed the people were getting more and more ugly as I was moving southward. Shorter, fatter and with more and more grooves in their faces.

So I was stuck on a long train ride and had all the time in the world to look at the landscape rushing by in front of my window. The rolling small hills, bridges, houses and roads almost built on top of each other made me think of a miniature train landscape.
I also bumped in to three Ghanaians who were discussing the positive and negative influences of Kwameh Nkrumah. Shortly after I joined the discussion, I lived in Accra for three months, I was invited to eat kenkeh, tilapia, greengreen and several other dishes immediately. I politely declined, I had to get to Liechtenstein.

In Feldkirch, where I had to switch from a German train to a Liechtenstein bus, I got myself a vegi-sandwich, in Austria. Walking to the snackbar, I passed a wall where, on two phones, two people were shouting into the receiver. Since they weren't shouting at the same time, not one single time, it seemed as if they were holding a 'conversation' with each other, verbally molesting the other every time they opened their mouths.

The end of Euroland

Euros are only accepted in a handful of places in Liechtenstein. These people easily prefer the Swiss Franc. Liechtenstein doesn't have its own currency, although the country earns millions each year by selling stuff to collectors. Stamp collectors. At Vaduz' main postal office, right next to the postal museum, you can collect all the stamps from any year for 30 euros.

When arriving in the country, I was able to pay for my bus ticket in euros, although I learned later, the hard way, that not all bus drivers were that friendly. McDonalds only accepted euro notes and served me a 4 dollar shake. I immediately looked around for either Vincent Vega or Mia Wallace, with no luck.

And on the border with Austria, but not with Switzerland, passport checks are significant. I had to get off the bus, my luggage was checked, questions were asked but no stamp was given. For a passport stamp, you have to go down to the Vaduz tourist office and pay 2 euros.

Noteworthy

As a whole, Liechtenstein isn't overly attractive. Although the country is small, there's also a relative small number of inhabitants, allowing for spacious town planning and lots of farmland. Most towns lack a downtown area since all, even Vaduz, are basically no more than villages. The few sights are few and far between and some aren't publicly accessible.
Vaduz' castle isn't open to the public either. Not that surprising since the royal family still lives there. The area around the castle, built on the side of a mountain overlooking Vaduz does give good views of the country. It's a pity Vaduz itself, with its tiny financial district isn't very appealing. I enjoyed the sun on a grassy field close to the entrance to the castle in the hope the now 30-year old Tatjana, Liechtenstein's youngest princess, would stop by. Later, I learned she looks more like a farmer's daughter than a royal princess.

Gutenberg castle, in the south of the country in the village of Balzers isn't open to the public either. Although it is possible to get into the courtyard, where, seemingly, a Troy-like wooden horse grins at you for coming all the way to his puny town. The castle, built on a hill in the middle of the village gives you a nice view of the surrounding area, with two large Alpine ridges flanking the village on both sides.

Possibly the only 'tourist' attraction with some international aspirations is 'the Russian monument'. It was built on the border with Austria where, in 1945, the only Russian battalion in German service deserted and crossed into neutral grounds. After two and a half years of negotiating, the Russians were allowed to leave for a country of their choosing. The history books don't say if they moved back to the Soviet Union. Probably they didn't though; Stalin surely would have shot every single one of them.

Although there are only four independent territories in the world smaller than Liechtenstein, the Russian monument is still a long way from Vaduz. I decided to take my backpack, travel to the monument and then walk on to Austria from there. The border crossing that I eventually passed seemed be be unoccupied, although it was forbidden to cross between 8pm and 8am. At first, I wasn't that keen on going to the Russian monument, but when the lady at the Vaduz tourist office told me the site was really worthwhile, I decided to go. She must have laughed very loudly after me leaving her office.

Some years ago, I visited Russia and I had gotten impressed with the typically Russian, imposing, style of creating monuments. I expected something similar.
It turned out I had to walk past the monument three times before I realized it was no more than a small stone slab in between two small threes, next to the road, some 300 meters from the border.

Trink!

Close to the Russian monument, there was something else that did make the trip worthwhile: Restaurant Loewen, Hinterschellenberg. Although, normally, muzak version of 'We are the world' and 'I just can't stop loving you' aren't appreciated, it fitted nicely with the wooden chairs and tables, the maids in costume and all the men smoking cigars.
Normally, I'm the only person in a bar or restaurant smoking a cigar but here all the men seemed to be addicted. I suppose that, considering the relatively high pricing index of Liechtenstein, cigars must be relatively cheap in this country.

When I asked the bus driver who dropped me off in the neighborhood of the monument how far I still had to walk, he told me some 500 meters to the monument and maybe 2.5 kilometers to Feldkirch, in Austria. The monument turned out to be 2km away, Feldkirch about 5 more.
Getting lucky, I got a ride from a hippie to Feldkirch train station. Time for another vegi sandwich.

Crossing the border, I felt a bit like the von Trapp family. Under the cover of darkness, I was crossing into another country past abandoned border posts. A sign next to the border post said that crossing was only allowed with a valid 'ausweiss'. I checked my ausweiss. It was valid.
Right on the border, the three jugs of beer had their effect. I relieved myself next to an abandoned cabin. Seconds before I realized that was the border post itself. I quickly moved along.

Learning bit by bit

January 27, 2002 • Blog

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World » Germany » Göttingen » Gaenseliesel statue

Goettingen more or less was created to be a university town. Ironically, the regular population is lobbying for the university to be either removed or downsized.
The university buildings aren’t very impressive. Most of them date from the middle to late 20th century and are mostly just very boring, rectangular structures. Only the library is a mild exception: Slightly futuristic, at least to early 90s standards, with lots of open spaces, many glass walls and a large bunch of Linux-operated PCs. I decided there and then that, when back home, I would install Linux on my own PC too.

My tour of Goettingen mostly brought me to bars, cafes and restaurants. However, I did learn a couple of things, although I might have been slightly alcohol-induced. Germans, when serving beer, always put a little piece of paper at the bottom of the foot of the glass. I always figured this was to absorb condensed water, trickling down from the outside of the glass, but it turns out it’s actually a relic from bygone times when the glasses came without the name of the brand of beer you’d be drinking. The piece of paper would hold the brand, so you’d know what you’d be drinking.
Another thing is that, apparently, the door to a German bar always opens to the outside. And indeed, at least in Goettingen, all bars, from ‘Villa Cuba’ to ‘university theatre’, all doors opened up to the outside. With doors opening up to the outside, it’s easy to ‘fall’ out of the pub upon leaving, even when drunk. Very useful on this Saturday night.

With a lovely hangover under my belt, we spent most of the next day in Hannoverschmuenden. It’s claim to fame being that it’s the only location in Germany where a river originates that actually opens up into the sea on the German shore. No spring, just two rivers, the Fulda and the Werre, colliding that change into a ‘new’ river, the Weser, upon collision.
At three in the afternoon, the town had already gone completely dead and we decided to go for some coffee and pastry in the worlds smallest Internet cafe: 1 disconnected PC was gathering dust between the Sachertortes and cappuccinos.

Again, partying till late during the night, which meant I was only left with some two hours of sleep before it was time for me to catch my train onward.

Into Bosnia

January 25, 2002 • Blog

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World » Germany » Hannover » Haubtbahnhof

When, in April 2001, I said farewell to my friends in Ghana, it was already clear I had to visit one of those friends Vienna, where he would be a couple of months later. In July I was going in September, I went in February. The added bonus for my delay was that I would now also visit the Balkans.
I told my customers as early as October, that I would leave come February but of course, they only realised late January. So starting mid-January I was bombarded with work, doing 16 hours per day. Still, I was able to advance my departure by a week and on the 25th of January 2002, at 3 in the afternoon, I left for Germany.
In total, I would visit 11 countries, 5 of which were new to me, 21 cities, of which 17 were new, meet many people, make one and a half thousand pictures and write a whole book. It keeps one busy, if anything…

This is the story, the pictures and more.

If you travel a bit and learn of the cultures you experience on your travels, you slowly start to realise that the issues at hand within any particular culture or society are quite trivial, or at least not unique.
Because you can understand the issues from both sides, problems by definition get more commonplace because nobody and at the same time everyone is right. This, because every individual is a product of its own environment which forms the basis for his own opinion and conviction. Conflicts can therefore be only solved when the different parties can open themselves up to the problems of the other.
Forcing this on someone is a sheer impossibility. That is, unless it is forced upon you due to your living conditions, which could be the situation when living in a large metropolis: many ways-of-life live besides each other and must, by force of circumstance, learn to live with one another. This automatically makes people understand each other better and accept each others views more easily.
Discovering the visions and ideas of others is the boon of traveling. That’s why I can’t sit still. That’s why I went to Bosnia.

Stopover in Hannover

Shortly after arriving in Hanover, I was welcomed by good jazz music coming from bad speakers below manholes on the Hauptbahnhof. At first I thought that the colorful ad display in the distance, equipped with TV, was causing this disturbance in the force, but while on my way to the Nordsee for a sandwich of ‘Meerlachs und Eier’, I was startled by the suddenly increased volume when crossing one of the manholes.

A couple of years before, I also had had a stopover in Hanover (link) and since then, many a thing had changed, for the better. The area around the train station had metamorphosed from one big pit of terror into a lovely and well kept airy space, forming an impressive welcome to the city.
Astrid and Kersten had taken me on a ride to Germany. Two former Eastern German girls, now working just outside of Rotterdam. I had made contact with them through a car-sharing website. The girls went to Berlin for a weekend of partying and were able to drop me off in Hanover.

Since I didn’t want to detain them too long, I got off in a suburb of Hanover. The trip from Rotterdam to Hanover had gone much slower as I had hoped, mostly due to the roads between Rotterdam and Hanover having been completely blocked. Apparently not unusual on a Friday afternoon.
I would travel onward to Goettingen to visit my nephew, just before he would move to Berlin and continue his university there. Now, although I had to wait in Dedensen for a local train to Hanover, a positive side effect I endured was the hordes of pretty young girls seemingly coming from the woodwork minutes before the train arrived. Young, pigtailed, with bell-bottomed trousers, long legged, high heeled beauties. An welcome invasion.

The invasion continued in Hanover. It was almost impossible to push myself, carrying a significant backpack, through these crowds of women. And I hoped that the impression of people fondling me was caused by the girls, not the few man in the crowds.

Although the drive was a slow one, I still turned out to be 90 minutes ahead of schedule when I arrived at the main train station. Surprisingly consistent, my intended train from Hanover to Goettingen had a 90 minute delay. I left immediately on an earlier train.

It turned out the train I took was going from Hamburg all the way to Vienna. It was loaded with partying youngsters, cheap ghetto blasters pumping out the latest hip hop tunes, drinking cheap beer and carrying big bags with skiing equipment for the Australian alps.

It took about fifteen minutes of hide-and-seek for me to find a place to sit. I ended up in a compartment with two gay guys. One was a bit over 40, slim, and was dressed completely in black, wearing round, thick-rimmed, red designer glasses. He was making phonecalls all the way from Hanover to Goettingen, telling the person on the other end of the line that he needed to be in the US in 10 days time, for the beginning of the season and ‘do’ the first shows in LA. But now he had to visit his dying father and pick up the table they had talked about before.
I was happy to get out of there.

During my ride from Goettingen to Triesen, in Liechtenstein, later on, I had problems of another kind. I had a schedule that told me I had to leave at 7 in the morning, having me arrive in Triesen at 8 at night. When my ticket was checked on the first train, it turned out that the Schoeneswochenende ticket wasn’t valid for that particular train. I had to get out at the next station. There, a friendly clerk showed me it would be impossible for me to still arrive in Liechtenstein that same day. I decided to try it anyway and was lucky. Using several bus connections, I was going to make it. I finally arrived in Liechtenstein at 9pm. To find everything closed.

Now, however, I had arrived in Goettingen.

Visiting the family

Luckily, I had Jan, my nephew, his phone number, so that I could call him and make him come and pick me up since I was still 90 minutes early. The person answering the phone sounded like my nephew but completely denied being called Jan or knowing me. Assuming I had mis-dialed, I dialed again, and went through the same motions. Wrong number or sick joke?

In case it was a sick joke, I quickly arranged for a back-up. Goettingen has a youth hostel and I decided I would go there if all else failed. Meanwhile, I would stop by my nephew and kick the shit out of him. The German, working at the train station, who gave me a map and pointed out the right street to me, looked like Leni Riefenstahl would salivate over him.
Jan turned out to live smack downtown Goettingen.

On my way to the city’s main square, I walked past a statue of the Gaenseliesel,the ‘Geesabe’ or ‘Geesegirl’. Living in this town in the middle ages, she, supposedly, is the one who told all the stories to the Grimm brothers, also from Goettingen, for which they became famous. It’s tradition to kiss the girl upon graduating from the city’s university.

It is said that Goettingen has produced seven famous people. Fame, of course, is relative since besides the Grimm brothers, Otto von Bismarck was the only one I recognized. More recent locals that have become well known across the world are the Guano Apes. They’re from Goettingen.
I bumped into the band’s drummer the next day, inside the university bookstore. Obviously, he didn’t fit in with his greasy long hair, baggy pants, old leather jacket and 5 day stubble. It seemed he was accompanying his girlfriend.

Some minutes after leaving the train station, I arrived at the alleged home address of my nephew. It turned out to be the university restaurant. Almost. Home numbers turned out to be a bit out of tune and between the doors of two adjoining bars, I found a door with some 25 doorbells, including one that bore my nephew’s name.

Walking upstairs, I stumbled right into a party. A good thing since I had brought some Dutch gin, jenever. The students had just finished a round of exams and were now celebrating their newfound freedom.
I figured I was fooled by someone else picking up the phone earlier, when I called, but it turned out that I simply had the wrong number.

MVD; the Music

January 7, 2002 • Photography

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World » Netherlands » The Hague » Hollands Spoor

An old friend, now CEO of the company Pixelpool with its HQ in The Hague, is planning on releasing a CD with some of his music. The music, along the lines of various famous contemporary Dutch pop artists, should be released in the very near future.

For obtaining promotional photographs, we did a photoshoot of the Next great talent in the Dutch pop scene…

Zetaheal – God with us

November 29, 2001 • Blog

World » Ghana » Accra » Zetaheal church

I received this book back in March when I was in Ghana. Zetaheal is a religious organization/group with its own place of worship in Accra where Islamics and Christians come together to worship their (common) god.

The place was quite an interesting place to visit. When I was there, I also received a book to read, ‘God with us’, supposedly dictated by the ‘Angels of God’, through the profettes, Lehem, who is still alive and whom I met.

The book in itself is rather interesting to read, mostly for it combines Christianity, Islam, Budhism and Voodooism into one all encompassing religion. Not creating a new religion, but placing all these in a context where they all fit together, all worshipping the same God.

The book is also interesting to read as a social statement. Clearly focussed on the people in West Africa, the text is an interesting tool for a better life, promoting cleanliness, devotion and responsible work through a life with God.

Portreat.com: Sintpop 2001

November 28, 2001 • Photography

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World » Netherlands » The Hague » Landgoed Ockenburgh

Portreat.com was a project where photographers took portrait pictures at, mostly, street festivals in, mostly, the Netherlands. The photographs were made available online afterwards. The images were free to download, and printed copies were available for sale.

Portreat.com: Artquake 2001

September 16, 2001 • Photography

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World » Netherlands » Cruquius » Spieringweg

Portreat.com was a project where photographers took portrait pictures at, mostly, street festivals in, mostly, the Netherlands. The photographs were made available online afterwards. The images were free to download, and printed copies were available for sale.

The Dynamic Duo goes to Ireland

September 09, 2001 • Blog • Photography

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World » Belgium » Charlerois » Airport

The amazing airline Ryanair was offering 1 pound + tax round-trip tickets between Brussels South and Shannon. It was an easy decision to spend a weekend in Southwest Ireland, visiting amazing places like the Skelligs and the Ring of Kerry. Taking a picture frame with us. A no-brainer, of course.

On to Ireland

This was probably the first time we traveled with Ryanair, NOT flying out in the early morning, meaning we would not have to stay at some hostel in Brussels to be able to catch our plane at the break of dawn.

The trip was rather boring, as always, which basically meant that, by the time we set foot on Irish soil, our first bottle of whisky had already been downed. It meant that the car we spontaneously rented at Shannon airport was going to be driven by Joost the whole weekend, Joost being the most sober, at that point in time.

There was this one guy from…

While Joost was being called back at Charlerois airport to open MY bag so that customs could check out my toiletries, I had made reservations at some hostel in Limerick, our first port of call. Driving there, from Shannon, turned out to be fairly easy and we picked up two Germans along the way, whom we could convince to stay in the same hostel as we did. Interestingly, they decided to share one single room together.

Limerick itself is not a bad place, although we didn’t see much of it. At least it had a good-bad fish ‘n’ chips place with two amazing women behind the counter. Joost and I called it an early night, inviting the Germans to drive with us south the next day, towards Killarney and the Ring of Kerry.

The Ring of Kerry is known for its typical Irishness. The ‘Ring’ is a ring road in the Southwest of Ireland, some 175km long. On normal roads easily doable in two hours. Here, it would take most of a day. Many of the roads are so small, it’s impossible to fit two cars alongside eachother. And since the whole circular road is a two way street, some interesting situations can occur. As specially when encountering tour busses. The tourist season ends end of August, so we were reasonably lucky.

By far, the most interesting feature on the ring are the Skelligs. Two rocks, off the coast, that housed a convent for most of the middle ages, being one of the few places that saved Greek and Roman writings and books from the barbarous period between 500AD and 1500AD. A pity that the trip, by boat, to the Skelligs easily costs $30.

A night to remember

Our second night we staid in Cahirciveen. A quaint little town with a monstrous 800 inhabitants. Funnily enough, the village even has a pretty big Internet cafe, the Java-Site.ie online coffee house. But since the population can’t really be called huge, it doubles as a video-rental place, a copy shop and a computer training center. The owner and manager, Lynn Weeks, also serves REALLY great coffee.

Armed with the frame, we entered Cahirciveen nightlife, which was surprisingly lively, with live music in more then 10 pubs! Bumping into a group of women working at a nearby hotel, Joost was entertained with the local courting customs, understanding nothing. Having had two women on his lap, one twisting his ears and another punching his cheeks, we went home, baffled.

Dingle bell

The next evening was spent in Dingle, another nice village, on the peninsula of, well, Dingle. Slightly bigger then Cahirciveen, the town really comes alive at night. A pity everything closes at 1am. That is, everything except some nightclub, nothing more than the basement of some hotel. However, we were bounced because of our picture frame. We, as they say, got framed.

Driving to Dingle we stopped at the huge Inch beach. A tiny village, with not much more besides a snack bar with wonderful view of the really large beach and a collection of guesthouses simply called Inchbeach, the location and the setting are simply terrific.

Walking on Inch beach, we bumped into a German who didn’t want to be framed. He told us: “This is too funny for me”.

We never found the Dingle bell, though, the obvious source of that world famous song ‘Dingle bells’, particularly sung around Christmas. We did bump into Rudy, a Dutch guy we had met in Cahirciveen, who’s girlfriend operated the Grapevine hostel we staid in, in Dingle.

Frameboys double up

Considering there was enough time before we had to catch our plane, we also traveled through the Ring of Dingle. At least as nice as the Ring of Kerry, but supposedly much quieter.

Shortly after leaving the town of Dingle we picked up two Canadian hitchhikers, who also wanted to travel the Ring of Dingle. Yoni and Daniella were quite fond of our framing people and happily assisted in framing rocks, grass, Chinese men and women, ice-cream and Germans.

Gallarus oratory

The whole of Ireland, and Southwest Ireland in particular, is littered with remnants from the stone age, Dingle not being an exception. Sadly, from most of these remnants, the tourist board (or the local governments, who knows), also tries to make money, the most interesting being a circle of stones in Kenmare, where the entrance booth, unoccupied simply posts a sign, saying ‘Please insert one pound in this hole’. A video camera was watching over things.

The Gallarus oratory isn’t all bad. In fact, it’s quite nice. The main attraction of the complex is the oratory itself, something of a church, built some 1300 years ago. Pretty nifty built, the building’s structure, called a beehive, makes you wonder what wasn’t passed on to us, from the builders, through all these centuries. Amazingly enough, almost nothing is known of the people that built this complex and many similar to it in Ireland. Like the builders of Stonehenge, their origin and views of life are completely unknown.

Neardeath by Joost

Having a whole lot of fun, we somehow lost track of time when visiting the Gallarus oratory, after which Joost had to drive like Michael Shumacher in order to get us back in time for the plane. Just before the oratory, we also had bumped into the Germans again whom we picked up shortly after leaving the airport.

We offered Daniella, living in Shannon, our point of departure, a ride back to her place since we would literally drive past her home before entering the airport. She gladly accepted and she also was essential in the car to let us stick to a positive view on being able to getting to the airport in time. Necessary, since we realized, two hours before departure, that we still had to drive for about three.

Still, at 7:19pm, the plain leaving at 7:20, Joost stopped the car infront of the departure entrance of the airport. I jumped out, with Joost’s jacket, holding his passport and driving license, and my bag, with my passport. Running into the building and without knowing it, I lost both Joost’s passport and his driver’s license.

Quickly finding the check-in desks, I discovered they were already abandoned. However, a cleaning lady directed me to the other side of the departure hall, were I still might be able to check in. Running up to that desk, a man already standing there, I had no time to wait inline and announced that I HAD TO BE ON THE PLANE TO BRUSSELS. Then I noticed the other man at the desk had Joost’s passport and driver’s license in his hands. Grabbing the paper’s from his hands with a quick excuse, I handed over the tickets, received two boarding passes and went to find Joost, handing over the car keys.

We hurried as soon as we could towards the gate. Only hand luggage, our stuff was quickly checked, after we finally arrived at the right gate. To wait another ten minutes before boarding. We had made it.

Death by Baba

Driving back from Charlerois airport, we had quite a scare. Shortly after leaving the airport area, the roads wet with continuous rain, we made a slide entering a right turn. The end result was a totally wrecked car and a free extension of our holiday by some 20 hours.

We were brought to a Van der Valk hotel, in Nivelle Sud. Maybe not that bad an area during the day, but at 11:30pm we couldn’t even get a bite at the hotel (and everything else had already closed), meaning we had to comfort ourselves with whisky and cigars. Not a completely bad thing, come to think of it.

The next day saw us taking a cab to Zaventem airport, receiving a replacement car there, which we had to drive to Eindhoven, in the Netherlands, were we had to trade it for another car, after which we finally were able to drive home. Well, to the doctor first, to check up on our whiplashes. Nothing bad, as it turned out, luckily enough, although this trip did leave me with a minor concussion.

Not bad, for a first outing of the two frameboys.

Portreat.com: Waterpop 2001

August 18, 2001 • Photography

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World » Netherlands » Wateringen » Hofpark

Portreat.com was a project where photographers took portrait pictures at, mostly, street festivals in, mostly, the Netherlands. The photographs were made available online afterwards. The images were free to download, and printed copies were available for sale.

Firenze

August 11, 2001 • Blog

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World » Italy » Firenze » Youth hostel

After coming back from Monterosso and staying in Pisa for one more night, we moved out early the next morning to catch a train to Firenze. During the day, I had already tried to book a room at one of the hostels in Firenze, but none actually accepted reservations, so you would never know if you could sleep in one, until you would show up on their doorstep.

I choose a hostel that's located quite a bit out of town to diminish the chances of it being full. Luckily it wasn't and, supposedly, the hostel we staid in is one of the most beautiful hostels in Europe. A pity there is no bar, a curfew at 12am and lights out five minutes later.

Still, Firenze, if not crowded, is wonderful. The difference with Pisa amazing, mostly of course because of the many tourists frequenting the city. Many Africans selling expensive bags and sunglasses on the streets, long queues of people waiting to see Michealangelo's David or the inside of the Cathedral, street artists. Yes, a thriving tourist city but well worth the visit.

We had to buy another bottle of that liquid gold and, in a distant part of the city, almost had our face smashed in by an angry Italian with a wrench. To Jim, it was a mystery why he came after us. To me, it was a surprise that Jim so easily forgot he had peed in the man's dustbin just minutes before. Korsakov truly had visited us.

In the evening, after getting back to the hostel and having to go to bed at 12, we first tried to chat up a number of Spanish girls with no luck. Then, still feeling like the evening had only just began, we started a late night party in one of the washrooms, together with guy from Portugal, Ricardo, and a Dutch guy, Sander.

For some strange reason, we were fooling Sander into being Indian (Jim) and Iranian (myself), although we occasionally tried to talk Dutch to Ricardo, standing right next to him. Of course we didn't try to talk Dutch to Sander, at first. Although even when we did he still didn't believe us.

Finishing the second bottle of whisky for the day was just a little bit too much for us to get through our Sunday with no harm. Traveling back to Pisa the next day and in Pisa itself, Jim and I basically did nothing else but sleep. In the train, on any of the benches, fields of Pisa, on the plain, in the car driving back to Rotterdam, etc.

Still, we had quite a bit of fun.

Monterosso

August 10, 2001 • Blog

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World » Italy » Monterosso

Il Cinque Terre are five little villages on the coast of Tuscany, where the houses are truly built inside of the rocks. All five villages are supposed to be truly magnificent, but we only got to see one.

We headed out to the largest of the five villages, Monterosso, since its easiest to get a train going there, many not stopping at the stations of the other towns. However, its supposedly very easy to walk from one town to the next.

The day before, when walking upto the hostel in Pisa, we started chatting with an Irish girl by the name of Florence, whom we also found traveling with us towards Il 5 Terre the next morning. We had already started on our second bottle of whisky and she was appalled at us drinking so early in the day. That is, maybe for 10 minutes, after which she started drinking like a true Irish girl. Florence had a hard time deciding on where to go next. The ticket she had bought brought her to a town just before Il 5 Terre but, on the train, she decided she wanted to go on to one of the villages of Il 5 Terre.

Since we had run into some minor problems with a conductor (you have to stamp your tickets on the train station before leaving, which we didn't know), we talked her into hiding on one of the toilets until we would be at her stop, which, she figured, was going to be the third stop after her original destination. Little did she know, and neither did we, that the train's first stop was going to be the last of the 5 countries. So if she truly hid in the toilet and was counting the stops, chances are she ended up in Genoa, maybe some 50km past her desired destination…

One of the guides we had convinced us Monterosso was being overlooked by gigantic statues cut out in the face of the rock. According to an awkward person at Information, we had to walk up a mountain on the north side of the town, which would be a 15 or 20 minute walk, to see the statues. Walking to the next town, Vernazza, would take maybe 90 minutes.

Supposedly, Vernazza is the most beautiful of the five villages so we decided to first look for the statues and then walk on to Vernazza. By the time we came back from our walk up north, it was more then four hours later. We were dead tired. We were not going to see Vernazza. In stead, we started looking for some supermarket, found a German Spar and ate Dutch cheese. Just before boarding our train back to Pisa, we not only bought another bottle of Whisky, but also took a swim. A nice ending to an interesting day.

Pisa

August 09, 2001 • Blog

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World » Italy » Pisa » The leaning tower

The very first pleasantry we enjoyed when disembarking from the plane was the heat. Although back in Holland the weather hadn't been that bad for the past couple of weeks, it's difficult to beat Italian weather. As specially Tuscany weather. It was hot. I had made reservations some days before at the only hostel in Pisa. The hostel is closed most of every day, only taking bookings between 6 and 8 in the evening. It took awhile before I finally found that out, since they also do not carry an answering machine. Even so, I was happily surprised they still had room. By the time we arrived at the hostel, we already fully understood why they still had some vacancies when I called.

The hostel is located some 30 minutes walking out of town. Additionally, there is truly nothing to Pisa, outside the Campo del Miracoli, the square that houses the leaning tower, as well as a very impressive baptistry and a cathedral. Although you can not say the city is not nice, particularly in August, it's as dead as a city can be.

I have to note here that in August, all Italians, everywhere go on holiday themselves. That is, the only restaurants, shops, etc. that you find are open, purely cater for tourists. Since, apparantly, tourists only visit Pisa for the leaning tower, it was very, very difficult to find anything that was open and not a five minute walk from the square.

Originally, we had planned to stay in Pisa for a full four days, but it became painfully clear that we would not make that. Although the supermarkets did sell very affordable and good whisky, we decided to travel to Il 5 Terre the next day, and Firenze on the third day.

4 days in Tuscany

August 08, 2001 • Blog

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World » Belgium » Brussels » Da Kao

Taking two friends of mine on a short trip to Tuscany, where we visited Pisa, Monterosso in Il Cinque Terra and Firenze. You can never go wrong in Italy, although August, when most shops and restaurants are closed and there really are too many tourists, is probably not the very best time to go.

We started our trip in Brussels, flying RyanAir to keep the trip affordable. And it also meant we would have a decent night out on the town in the European capital

Brussels

Since we were flying with RyanAir, one of the cheapest airlines in the world, we first had to drive down to Brussels, or more exactly, Charlerois, to catch the early airborne bus to Pisa. Since I wanted to make this short holiday an eventful trip, I decided we would drive down to Brussels the night before flying out, stay in some hostel over there, get up early and then drive down to the airport. Ofcourse, even this simple task almost went wrong.

For one, we only went to bed around 3am. Not bad, but considering we had to get up before 7am, this was going to be a short night. In addtion, we wanted to wait till 7:30am for breakfast to be served at the hostel. This was not a good choice, for two reasons. One, the breakfast was of meagre quality. Second, we had to drive like crazy to get to the airport in time. Driving down to Charlerois airport from Brussels takes upto 45 minutes or an hour, depending on traffic. If we had arrived only 5 minutes later, we would not have been allowed to board.

Anyway, we had made it. We hadn’t bought any whisky yet, and we had planned to do this at the airport, something we had done before on numerous occasions. Not, however, flying for the first time with RyanAir to another Schengen country, it turned out that we were not allowed to buy anything at all at the airport,. That is, tax free. We had to wait for the whisky until after arrival. The flight was uneventful if not quiet. Not all seats were taken and I got to take a nap on three seats for an hour or so, the flight taking no more than 80 minutes.

Portreat.com: Schollenpop 2001

August 4, 2001 • Photography

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World » Netherlands » Scheveningen » Zuiderstrand

Portreat.com was a project where photographers took portrait pictures at, mostly, street festivals in, mostly, the Netherlands. The photographs were made available online afterwards. The images were free to download, and printed copies were available for sale.

India vs. Pakistan vs. Baba

July 16, 2001 • Blog

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World » India » Agra » Taj Mahal

I started working for ITPreneurs in May of 2001, as a freelancer and immediately tumbled into a couple of very nice, if not very hectic projects. One of my tasks is to keep communication going between the offices in Holland and the offices in India, where most development is done. ITPreneurs, basically, is a web development firm with a twist; projects are acquired in Europe, development is done in India. Additionally, there is a focus on e-Learning and community building.

To get a better feel for India, culture and business wise, it was decided I had to spend a week in India. Also to meet some of the vendors we would be working with, for one of our projects, building a website cum web portal for a Holland-based UN-organization, CapNet.

Luckily, I guess, I was being chaperoned most of the time. Either by my two direct colleagues, Nitin and Gaurav, or by Sukhbir's parents. Them owning the hostel where I staid in Delhi. Sukhbir is one of the guys that started ITPreneurs.

The only unfortunate about me being chaperoned was that I ate much, much, much more than I usually do. Not only was I presented, each day, with three glorious meals, everything was also unbelievably delicious, making it very hard to not accept all those lovely dishes.

Work itself was also quite interesting. Not in the least because, for example, occasionally we had to drive around town to pick up diskettes since Internet wasn't working, resulting in us not being able to swap files with the vendors. That's also new economy for you.

Expectations

I had read up on India in general and Delhi in particular through the Rough Guide and Lonely Planet, and according to them, I would have to expect the worst possible. Busy streets, high temperatures, chaos abound, etc. Friends who had been there seemed to support that view.

Immediately on arriving, I started noticing that it wasn't all that 'bad'. People at the airport were quite relaxed, the streets weren't that crowded and the weather, actually, was enjoyable. A little bit warm, maybe, but that's the way I like it. Apparently, neither Rough Guide, Lonely Planet or the friends who had confirmed the view of these two travel guides, had ever been to Africa. I have been both to Egypt and a couple of countries in West Africa, and, by far, Delhi was a more relaxed place then most cities in the regions in Africa were I had been.

Work

Since ITPreneurs doesn't have a regular office yet in Delhi, we were working from a temporary place on Lodi Road, on the south side of New Delhi, the area that was built from the ground up by the English. The office wasn't all that bad, if only the computer we had in the room hadn't been restricted to view only Yahoo and MSN.

Gaurav and Nitin were a couple of very smart guys and a lot of fun. Meeting Nitin's wife later in the week even meant a brush with fame for me. In the past, she had anchored a couple of television shows and although she liked it, she felt more at home at the HR department of one of the larger mobile phone providers. I asked her if she was taking any medication. Apparently she wasn't. She had been both a well know singer and dancer, and she preferred an HR department…

The English and others

Delhi, and to a lesser extent Agra, are full with remnants of what the English left behind after they moved out. For one, everything in New Delhi was built by the English. Being the most important part of Delhi, filled with India gate, the parliament and other government buildings, New Delhi is the hub of this city peopled by 15 million souls.

Besides the English, the Moghuls also left quite a mark on this part of India, most of the prominent structures, such as the Red Forts in Agra and Delhi, Jamal Mashid, the largest mosque of India in Delhi and the Taj Mahal all being built in the 1600s, by The Moguls. The Taj Mahal, in Agra truly is very impressive.

The Taj was built as a shrine to Mumtaz Mahal, a queen who died in childbirth. Her husband, who was totally crazy about her had the Taj built as a shrine and tomb to her beauty. It took about twenty years to build the thing and afterwards he had the thumbs cut off of some people, such that he was more certain that building a new Taj by the same people was going to be reasonably difficult.

Still, he also decided that he was going to build a black version of the Taj, just across the water from his beloved wife. Unfortunately, he got imprisoned by his son before he could really start building. Ironically, two things happened. He was imprisoned in Agra's Red Fort, which has a perfect view of the Taj and, after his death, he was buried in the same tomb of his wife, in the Taj Mahal. His tomb totally upsets the perfect symmetry that he had designed for the building. Such, I guess, is life.

Crazy Babak

Wherever I have to use a nickname, on the web for one, I use a nickname. My nickname is MastaBaba, it's based on 'Master Babak', which should be pretty clear in its meaning. I already know for a number of years that 'baba' means 'father' in many languages, Hindi being one of them. I now learned that 'Masta', in Hindi, means something of 'High', or 'Crazy'. So without me knowing it, I choose a truly perfect nickname for myself.

I almost did go crazy for not being able to visit the Taj, though. Because it weekend I had planned to go to Agra was one of those rare occasions where the heads of state of India and Pakistan were going to meet, the whole country was in state of apprehension. You have to know that these countries have been in some sort of cold war for the past 50 years, after the India that the English left behind after independence was split up into what is now India and Pakistan and Bangladesh, that also used to be Pakistan.

Anyway, Musharraf and Vajpayee were going to meet at the Taj, which meant that the whole area was going to be off limits. I tried to make clear to the Indian government that it was going to be either Musharraf or myself. Strangely enough, they decided it was going to be Pakistan's new president. I had to go a day later. The good thing was that, because of the site having been closed for a couple of days, apparently, people had become reluctant to go, meaning the area was very, very quiet. Maybe there were some 50 other foreigners there. On Fridays, apparently, 100.000 to 200.000 people flock the area. This, because on Friday's entry is free. I had to pay a whopping $20. This is not a typo.

Don't have a…

The most wonderful site on the Indian roads, by far, are the cows who appear literally everywhere. They don't care, at all, of any traffic and leisurely can move from one side of the road to the other. In droves. It's very funny to see. Not in the least since nobody seems to be disturbed by this, whereas everyone seems to get VERY disturbed if there's a car on the road that doesn't fully cooperate with their wishes.

Most food is vegetarian and wonderful. Quite amazing, since it always is a pain to get a nice vegetarian meal in the west. Here, practically all meals are vegetarian and also very tasty. How do they do it, you might ask? If only I knew…

kcaB

I staid more than a week, but since it was a business trip, I got to see much less then I wanted to. Luckily, I did find the time to see the Jamal Masjid, India's largest mosque, the Red Fort in Delhi and the spot where Mahatma Ghandi was cremated, but there is so much more to see. Not just in Delhi, but everywhere in India. It seems I truly need to go back once or twice. And maybe stay a year or two.

Portreat.com: Rotterdam Roze 2001

June 30, 2001 • Photography

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World » Netherlands » Rotterdam » Hofpleinfontein

Portreat.com was a project where photographers took portrait pictures at, mostly, street festivals in, mostly, the Netherlands. The photographs were made available online afterwards. The images were free to download, and printed copies were available for sale.

Loveparade 2001

June 22, 2001 • Blog

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World » Germany » Berlin » Alexanderplatz

After some six years of planning to go to the Loveparade in Berlin, I finally decided that this was going to be the year I would truly be there when it happened. Not in the least because there was a reasonable chance that this was actually going to be the last LoveParade in Berlin. Ever.

Because of an issue with the municipal government of Berlin, the organization of Loveparade 2001 had a hard time of finding a spot and a time to hold their yearly love fest. Because some other small organization had successfully claimed the right to demonstrate on the exact day the LoveParade was going to take place, at the exact same location, The LoveParade was in trouble. Interestingly, this tiny organization was demonstrating against the LoveParade.

Many friends showed interest in coming along, but in the end I teamed up with only Wong and Joost. It meant we would have some room left in the car and together with Joost, I came up with the idea of getting in touch with some hitchhikers organization to fill up the remaining seats. No less then eight people reacted to our ad and we ended up with Ivo and Joris, two students at the Academy of Arts in Utrecht, studying documentary photography, whatever that might mean.

Tripping

Not that they were unfriendly guys. 'Au contraire', albeit a little bit weird. During the whole trip, and afterwards, they made no signs whatsoever, not even when pressed, that they were actually in any way interested in a regular bed for the coming weekend. You have to consider here that their trip back to Holland, not with us, was at least two nights away.

Finding the hostel we booked, the A&O Backpackers hostel, was more a question of luck then anything else. Nicely located, with its own sun-loaded terrace, the hostel was quite good. Although the other guests, mainly young and female, helped a lot in achieving that status. A pity that hostel staff was rather unfriendly. Then again, this might have been related to Ivo wanting to steal one of the new mattresses that was just being delivered…

New Berlin

The last time I had really visited Berlin, as opposed to traveling through, had been before the wall came down in '89. I won't digress on how much things have changed, because everyone has been saying that over the past couple of years. Still, this Friday had a twist to it. Not only did we get rid of Ivo and Joris quite easily, the city was also littered with youngsters, in anticipation of the next day. Everywhere, and I mean everywhere, youngsters in fancy clothes were already hanging out, waiting for the big one.

Bread

In the mid-80s, a Dutch band came out with a song about Berlin, in essence lamenting the East-West divide. Since the song is quite fabulous, we felt we had to pay some homage to the song, by acting out some of the actions that are mentioned in the lyrics. As such, we fed breadcrumbs to the birds at Alexanderplatz and the Gedaechtnis Kirche, took pictures of a big Mercedes sign on the Kue-Damm but looked in vain for some nice porno and peepshows.

Meanwhile, although Wong had been in Berlin as far back as 1984, Joost had never been to this wonderful capital. Therefore, we had to see some sites.

Love

The LoveParade was quite nice. I made a bunch of photos for portreat.com, and the whole parade itself was wonderful, with a bunch of naked men being something of a high/low point. Unfortunately, not everyone could take the pressure. If anything, the number of great behinds was astounding. And, funnily enough, the recently deceased Dutch artist Herman Brood had apparently returned from the grave for this parade, just to shock everyone.

At night

Being too tired of jumping around all day, part of the evening was spent watching the totally terrible movie Tomb Raider, only vaguely interesting because of Angelina Jolie's tits, though not enough to save the movie.

The machine

Next day, before leaving, we picked up Miriam who, just like Ivo and Joris, had found a place in our car through some hitchhikers organization. Living on the fifteenth floor of a former Eastern Berlin apartment complex, she had a wonderful view of her surroundings and a garden on the roof.

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