Friedrichshain: Fresh and Photo-Ready

After reunification, low rents and the many empty apartments attracted the attention of West Berlin squatters to Friedrichshain.

Today, more and more people with alot of money are migrating to this part of the city, buying up real estate for business and artistic endeavors. Friedrichshain has a centuries-old working class, residential
roughness
that excites my senses, and makes it hard for me to accept the economic potential of its inevitable urban develop-
ment and class disparity. The description of Friedrich-
shain in Lonely Planet had me thinking it was the center of the punk element of Berlin. But it did not feel street punk to me. Although the grafitti on this Squat gives it that anarchic feel. It's already full of classy boutiques, clubs, restaurants, bars, galleries, and design and media companies, yet they are all are presented in a very quaint way, suggesting moderation yet promising a future of gentrification. It's fashionable but understated, attractive yet repulsive. I would have lived there, but already it's too late.

I had the most tasty fresh "bio" pasta though. There was a photo shoot at this Martella cafe. The photographer let me take a shot of his 'in situ", photo-ready plate of fresh pasta.

And finally, why I follow suit of dividing the city into districts as all the guidebooks do is beginning to feel uncomfortable. So perhaps I should look for another way to describe the areas of Berlin beside the official district designations.I think it will be more accurate to identify neighborhoods rather than districts, but I must return to Berlin before I can do that.

The Art Mile - Auguststraße

And here is my Berlin companion at the Kunst-Werke Institute for Contemporary Art viewing one of the seven channel video installations by Jen DeNike. This installation is called Seasons in the Sun (2005). The Kunst-Werke is a nonprofit gallery founded in a converted margarine factory and located in my most frequented area of the Mitte on Auguststraße. It seems, however, this area of the Mitte is also called the Scheunenviertel or 'Barn District.' Many of the districts have been renamed in Berlin since reunification.

Along the Spree

Here is the Fernsehturm or Television Tower, beyond the Spree River. Rivers tell you much about a city, especially along their banks. For example you can gauge how dirty a city is by seeing what drains into its rivers during a heavy rain, or you can discover forgotten industrial sites or curiously styled architecture that is not described in any guide book that you may have on hand. You see, I find these buildings visually appealing, with blocky pillars that rise up from the river, step by step, toward the sky; and background buildings providing streamlined waves of postmodern contrast. Do these building blend or progress from old to new? Is this'Bauhaus'? I have not yet found any reference to these buildings.


And what about this last building? So modern. As far as the location of these buildings, I think I crossed over the Spree River into Friedrichshain on the Warschauer Str. bridge. If not, then it was Lichtenberger Str. bridge. I should find myself an architectural historian, I think. Any Berliners out there who can help?
... I continue to piece together the puzzle.

Berlin: The Puzzle City

How it is that I have no photos of Berlin's new Hauptbahnfoh (main train Station) I can not explain!!
Maybe because it is so new, so modern, so complete?
To have a photo of this new monstrosity would not quite fit the puzzle that is Berlin. A "puzzle" is perhaps the best metaphor I can find to describe the ever-evolving Berlin.
I refer to the rebuilding of Berlin, the continual process of becoming whole, piece by puzzling piece.

Or perhaps I have no photos because I was promptly greeted at the train station by my friend Norman who swiftly wisked me away to his office in the Mitte district, on Chausseestrasse. It is one thing to arrive, and another thing to land. I arrived at the new train station but I landed at Norman's office. To "arrive," is to be in the act of arriving, entering into a place, any place. (And I must say, arriving in Berlin by train is like entering through a digestive tract, a very narrow entrance that winds through the central guts of the city, past the Bahnhof Zoo and high walls of steel, glass, and impressive graffiti-lathered concrete.)
To "land" is to touch ground, to see and feel the concrete under your feet and be present in the moment. It was at Norman's office where I took in this view, and had a moment by myself to realize I had really landed in Berlin. Okay, big deal! A zen moment perhaps, which had little to do with the view and probably more to do with the good office coffee.
But here is the view anyway, looking into the courtyard from my friend's office, which is part of an old piano manufacturing facility. After lunch together, Norman went back to work and I spent hours walking around the Mitte, exploring the galleries, independent designer boutiques, impressive wine cellars, and other kinds of nonsense accessory shops that give a little insight into the local sense of humor. My favorite place to explore and to return to again and again was the "cutting edge" Augustrasse, where on my first day in Berlin, I found a philosophy/poetry exhibit in honor of Hannah Arendt. What a good sign that I had landed in the right place at the right time!

BERLIN

Iva Nova
My favorite heroins of Slovenian folk punk swaying people off their heels in Berlin, at Kafe Burger. A coincidence of space and time. What delicacy, what luck. What a good call Norman.

Local Anarchy

My Amsterdam friends live in a great neighborhood in the southwest ring just a few blocks from Vondelpark. In addition to the park, another favorite place was the locally-owned wine/cheese store located midway down my friends' street. The store's shelves are filled everyday with cheese rounds of different textures, hardnesses, ages and aromas. I bought a great cheese knife there, one with a specially designed, wooden handle and blade that efficiently cuts thin slices of soft, medium or hard gouda (The knife was one of the few souvenirs I brought home with me, aside from my Czech-made sulfur spring sippy cup that is).

In their neighborhood you can also find the OCCII squat. Like many squats of it's kind in Amsterdam, it offers all kinds of cool activities including childrens' theatre, live music, dance and performance art, as well as being the location of libraries for alternative info, independent presses, and some renowned cafes, restaurants and music rehearsal spaces.

According to Dutch legislation, a house or building must be empty for a year before it can be “squatted”. There is a housing and public space shortage in Amsterdam so sqatting is still fundamentally about needing a roof over your head. But it is my impression that the squatter's movement in Amsterdam is less political than it was in the 80s and is now more of a social and cultural movement. Amsterdam is attracting more youth from the eastern countries who see squats as serving not only as a living space but as way to connect and integrate themselves into the social fabric as community volunteers. And if a group of progressive thinking people can make a claim to their squat as a community center, providing neigborhoods with events and opportunities that the community values, then the squat may acquire a better status approval and become more likely to get city support in keeping their squat. At least this is how it was explained to me. I just know the OCCII was damn cool and I would support it with my volunteer hours if I was actually a resident. As a traveler, I was certainly happy to spend my hard-earned euros at the bar and enjoy alternative music. That's what community is all about, and if squatters are turning abandoned buildings into living culural organisms then I can only shout out : Viva la Squatter's Movement! (Which is basically the statement seen here on the yellow banner.) And then I go home to Vermont and ask how do I start a squat in Burlington? Heck, everyone knows how bad the housing and public space shortage is there!

Thanks to Beth, I am able to recall some finer details of the night we visited the OCCII to see music as part of a benefit featuring three different hardcore punk bands. We had a bit of time finding the entrance, but with a little help of some street guys pointing us away from the sauna, then some spanish-speaking guys, leading us toward the front door, we finally found our way in. To continue to describe this place, I must quote Beth, because it was just as much a discovery for her as for me and she describes it as an informed local who can compare it to other places in the city.. so in Beth's words:




"The bar was actually quite extensive, offering a few different types of beer including a very tasty local brew, scotch, jenever, wine and port and all the drinks were very cheap by Amsterdam standards. The music was loud, fast and raw, bringing back some of my fondest memories from living in Albany, going to all-ages hardcore shows as a kid. After the last band finished and the slam-dancers had retreated to the corners of the room to smoke, people started sweeping up and, upon getting into a conversation with one guy, I came to find out that the place is entirely staffed by volunteers. In fact I was encouraged to join the collective, either helping clean up and man the bar during shows, or help cook in the squat's soup kitchen. I mean, who knew? I certainly didn't! Two years I've lived around the corner from this place, lamenting about the lack of affordable live music in Amsterdam, and it was right around the corner the whole time..."

Awesome huh? This is truly a success story about finding the local scenes that they don't tell you about in the guide books!

As for the anarchist element in Amsterdam's squatter movement. That's a whole other chapter I have yet to write about.

A Czech Flu

So here are more Amsterdam photos just to keep my travel logs moving along while I lay in bed with some kind of Czech flu...So much for the healing properties of Grög!

I Could Live on a Houseboat

I think I could live on a houseboat for awhile. I would keep my kayak on the deck along with my fruit trees, herbs, arugula and mustard greens. I left Amsterdam today. It was sunny and nearly 60 degrees F. Oh, how I wish I could stay.

Endless Improvements

I heard Beth swear in Dutch today. She is miffed by the endless obstruction of Amsterdam's ongoing construction. It seems the city never rests in it's effort to improve what's "already good enough," says Beth. I agree, it is a pain having to get off your bike or to leave the bike lane, or find another side street to get around all the construction. And it's not like the city provides detour routes or markings for bicyclists. Now the idea of marked bike lane detours may seem a bit overkill for people like me from the States; but when you spend your day, your week, your year, commuting by bicycle like so many Amsterdamers do, you might welcome being treated equally to a motorist in a construction zone! But for Beth, the issue is not really about providing detours. The issue is whether the constant improvements of city streets are really needed. As for my opinion on the matter? I really can't give an informed one. I'm simply grateful to my friends for making it possible to spend every day on a bicyle while I'm here..

The Amazing Healing Properties of Grög

I have returned to Amsterdam after visiting Berlin, Dresden, Praha, Karlovy Vary, and Harrachov in the Krkonose Mountains of the Ceska Republica. I might have lost 5 lbs the first week while bicycling all over Amsterdam, but quickly gained it back the last week in Ceska Republica with my friends's family in Praha. I enthusiastically abandonded my vegetarian ways, to survive... (knock on wood- because I mildly fell off Beth's bike today and wracked my wrist and neck a bit).... on a diet of good food, good people, music, minor language challenges, history, post-communism, and forgetting about my real life for awhile. But best of all, I return home cured of all ailments by the amazing healing properties of grög and the life enhancing, river-fed brew of Zdrave' Kvasnicove" Pivo.

Riding in Amsterdam

"Flatlander" is a derogatory term loosely used by some hill people of Vermont for people who live in cities and valleys outside the Green Mountains. I suppose this word could be used for the people of Amsterdam, but after riding bike here, I have decided to redefine the concept in a new and positive way.

Commuting in Amsterdam is a euphoric experience. We could learn a thing or two from these people who "hug the sand." Think about it; the fee required to repair a tire tube or replace brake pads is ridiculously small compared to the European price of gas or a pair of well-treaded, waterproof shoes. In fact, In the four days I've been here, I think I have yet to walk an entire block by foot. Well I know this may not sound all that rad but this is not Vermont, where there seems to always be some kind of weather-, time-, clothing-related, geographical or physical constraint keeping me off my bike.

So when I return home after Europe, I will find me a handsome new set of wheels, a bike that really fits me, with a cushion size seat and handle bars that allow me to sit upright. When I find it, I will marry it! We'll lock frames together and have little "tricycle" offspring and buy a front box for our dog to ride in.... oh what bliss! Unfortunatley, I will have to return to shifting gears! Burlington is not flat like Amsterdam — a city where the act of shifting gears is more of an effort than pedalling harder over an ever-so-subtle canal bridge incline. It may be the only real physical effort a bicyclist encounters throughout the day.

Artists starving... and gnawing... at the bone.

Ampersand
Amanda Palmer Dresden Dolls
(live, Hamburg, Germany)

Love Endeavor
Alice Smith
For Lovers, Dreamers, and Me

Ambitious Orchestra
Seven Deadly Sins

September Clouds (haiku)

September clouds above Lake Champlain;

fall winds kicking up waves;

sailing haven soon to be frozen over.

These Guys

Our last show at the Intervale featured a very loud Jazz Guys to wake up the lazy afternoon crowd (as well as the late-summer sleepy grasshoppers settled in the grasses around the barn).
The Jazz Guys are something not entirely jazz. In fact, they aren't jazz at all. They are more like a displaced Brit-pop-alt-inde band "journeying" through the Green Mountains. And being a "compilation" of two brothers, childhood friends and Johnson State grads, makes them decidedly non-Brit-pop-all-together. In these predominantly downjam band lands of Vermont, this group offers a refreshing heightened upward moving beat, that begins at the achilles tendon and works it's way up and out through every orifice of the head. They were damn loud. And with all their tight-knit boyish punk reverb, they drove out the last group of nesting swallows from the barn's rafters above. Not only should you be willing to go many miles to pay to see this Burlington band (and shimmy your butt off), but you might also consider them for hire if ever you need to clear your attic of bats! And then I imagine them with a bass; with that who knows what kind of creatures could be stirred out of their musical corners....

Debonair/ Without Words

Not much adventure writing to post these days. How about some musings instead?

Without Words

Why this desire to form a language of what is?

Always giving life to words that might rather be unsaid?

Why this need to express, to verbally transmit, to define; to create the metaphors that words allow?

How tainting is this act of always making symbols?

What of the risk of mundane projections and ugly distortions?

What if we let the words rest?

Oh, but how we welcome agile tongues to caress and embrace the visceral experience.

And how else to validate knowledge when we stop making words?

Is it not words telling us we are alive and that love is greater than the mere language we have to convey it?

And what of the fear that love could die by words unspoken?

Seaworthy

The fourth of July had skies of both lightening and fireworks.










By the way, we did finish our kayak stand (except for the padding). And see how Lake Champlain is still very high!







And finally, out to "sea"
(without my pfd?).

A Solstice Jig

Well, life surely does have it's many facets and adventure sports only takes up a small portion of mine. I haven't made it to the Atlantic yet, and the wind is not strong enough to windsurf and I just barely got my kayak on the water! So perhaps I should give a little plug to the great things happening in my own back yard-- The Intervale Center.

I volunteer in my community by supporting local organic agriculture and by organizing a summer music series called "Thursdays at the Intervale. Check it out at Intervale Center. We had our first event of the summer last week with the Irish band, The Redeemers.
Attention all haggard parents; I will let you in on little secret: very small children will dance for hours to Irish music.

Liz Soper, from National Audubon Society was our guest speaker. We had a silent auction to raise funds for the Intervale Farm Programs as well as to help farms recover from losses due to all the rain and flooding this spring. Donations included things such as chocolate, coffee, rare plant species and beautiful original watercolors and prints by local artist Bonnie Acker. American Flatbread was on board too, serving up delicious flatbread baked fresh in the mobile, hand-built hearth. The clay to make the hearth was collected from a river in Waitsfield, Vermont.

Peony Pad

Some creatures spend their entire lives as passengers on other living things. But aren't we all parasites of one kind or another? Spider finds everything it needs to survive on this luscious peony blossom: nectar, water, air... and microscopic larvae for dessert from time to time. Oh, but to find that one vehicle that provides it all...

When the Rain Never Stops

The lake water is so high we ran out of shoreline to build our kayak stand. How do you build in two feet of water? You don't. You move everything back toward the bank. The rain has been relentless for weeks, for months! But finally, we had a 4-hour break from it on Sunday and could start clearing and stake out an area for our stand. Mallet's Bay can be exquisitely pretty when viewed from my cockpit on the water, with views of the 'dacks to the west and Green Mountains to the east, but not so pretty standing on the shore in muddy boots, a hat and long pants on a cold rainy day in June, speculating on the weather and feeling a lot like those abandoned dinghies slumped over on the docks and waiting for summer to begin.

Cold Spirits of Paddlefests Past

It took ALL F'in' DAY to get out of town. Every turn a delay. From a stormpipe burst traffic backup, to being trapped by a stalled car in the City Market parking lot. And a cold shadow visited me that morning. Unforgiving.

Peopleless and raining, Radka rescuing hotdogs with both hands. Me rolling hot tea in my mouth, calling her "kayak" as she waded through discounted clothes, dripping mustard. Shivering.

A foggy drizzle Sunday drive home. Will CK understand how nasty cold drove disinterest in the whole affair? No demos or workshops? Are you crazy? Will she believe the shadow chased us out of Old Forge, only to take refuge in a lonesome float plane on Long Lake? Oh, but by then we were well-fed and warm. We dismissed the spirit's last whispers and looked forward to when cold beer would taste good again.

Paddle Fever

From board and bindings to bathing
suit and boat. It's kayak season!
I will soon return with news on my excursion to the Atlantic coast but first there's the annual Paddle Fest across the Lake in the beautiful Adirondacks of New York (see photo). No, I don't have to paddle across the lake to get there.... So stay tuned for more Travel Rider adventures.

And watch out for my newest sport windsurfing. My Czech friend says it's very dangerous and you can get up to speeds of 50 - 60 miles per hr. So this will make it two new extreme sports learned in one year!! So perhaps it is not so much
the sport that is extreme than my desire to ........

Stratton: Day 2

By day two, my group's riding skills had improved so much that we were considered good enough to ride with the cream of the Burton crop! We rode two hours with Donna Carpenter, co-owner of Burton snowboards. Well, I admit, maybe it wasn't really our skill level that afforded us this rare opportunity but it sure was good public relations on her part, and she gave me great tips on the snowboards I should demo. She's a lovely, laid-back woman, originally from the South, with great stories about this year's olympics in Italy, about travelling and riding in New Zealand and the bad pick up line that Jake used on her in the bar where they met. Donna is peddaling the pink -- expect to see a lot of it in next year's line of Burton women's apparel. Our group actually included a New Zealander named Peta (now a New Yorker, shown here resting). Peta was good at riding her board what our instructor called "la la style" – like a surfboard – something Peta does in her other life, but Maryanne put a stop to that bad habit right away. Like I said, we all have our bad habits.

Stratton: Day 1

Snowboarding is a sport that one can advance in very quickly once past the psychological setbacks of a wrenched wrist, spinal shock or deadly whiplash slash and burn. After four times out on the board at local Bolton, Vermont, it was time to get serious. So I gave my supervisor notice, packed up my borrowed boots and board (thanks Tiff); also my recently purchased "discounted" $80 helmet; and new music by the Dresdon Dolls and Reverend Glasseye and embarked upon my first adventure in travel riding. I enrolled in the Burton Women's Snowboard Camp at Stratton Mountain in southern, Vermont. Not exactly exotic or erotic or far away, but it included free food, free Burton Women's equipment and free guys modeling next year's line of Burton women's clothing....hmm. Here's Maryanne – snowboarding diva instructor extraordinare. She's also co-author (along with husband) of The American Association of Snowboard Instructors (AASI) Freestyle Accreditation program. She also helped design and build the features at this year's U.S. Open at Stratton.

Within the first 10 minutes at Stratton, I decided I didn't particularly like ski resort chic. It wreaks of exploitation of the local worker economy. Except for the unending enthusiasm from the expert instructors in the Women's program and the positive vibe from the Burton Retail employees that fitted me out, I was greeted by everyone else with something other than what I call "customer service".
Does any customer ever enjoy the attitude of a low-waged, disgruntled, seasonal service worker whose greatest benefit (though nothing to frown at, and worth my consideration) is a free ride between two day jobs and a half-priced clinic with a 2006 Olympic champion?
Well, despite my cynicism, here's a little photo of the resort anyway, and of Bromley Mt. beyond--looking a bit more stoic in the distance than Stratton's Village Tower nestled at the base in the foreground.

Here's Hillary at the Burton Demo Tent, setting up the women's Troop board for me.
I unknowingly rode an entire run with the bindings set up backwards, thinking it was a great ride. I couldn't give her any shit though, as she was distracted with the task of recruiting what looked to be a lack of male models for the fashion show that night.

Flying Creatures of the Night

In snowboarding, I've had much to learn and much to unlearn. This is a very good example of my worst bad habit — leaning back off the front leg on the heelside turn and subsequently falling... time after time after time. The upside with learning to ride at night, however, is that no one seems to notice! I am simply just another shadowy mass lying splayed in three directions, disregarded by those who sweep past me through the air in exhilaration. Oh, how I long to be one of those flying creatures of the night!

Pun Intended

My Life-long dream job #2: being paid to travel to remote and exotic locations around the world and write travel tips and reviews on food, music and culture.

After recently taking up snowboarding, I can finally realize my dream and be a travel rider...but without the pay. Oh well, who needs it when you're having this much fun!