Heads Will Roll

Where we left off...

I am headed on a train to Berlin. Without a passport. Im sitting on the train, have my ticket checked, and for once everything is going alright. Then the police get on the train and start to sporatically check passports. Im reading the newspaper and notice that they check the passports of the people right in front of me, as I start to read more and more intensely. Apparently it worked, and I got into berlin with enough time to find a hostel, unpack, have a well-deserved beer, and chat with the people in my room. One of them is a girl studying in Copenhagen (small world), and the other guy was stepping into the west for the first time in 4 years. He was teaching first grade and pre-school in Japan and had just ended his program. We chatted about the culture shock about entering the west again and how it is actually harder to come back than to step into another culture. Given india and japan are very different, but it was enough to have a conversation. And he gave me some great sweet potato cake from japan. I also learned that Japanese kids think that McDonalds is a Japanese company that was exported to the US. Boy do they have something coming.

My first day in Berlin I decided to see the main sights. I saw a section of the berlin wall, and sitting right behind it is a much larger wall slash billboard advertising converse sneakers. The wierd thing was they both showed similar graffiti patterns. Maybe capitalism and communism aren't that different after all. HA. I saw the reightstag where Hitler seized power in 1933, which is now adorned with a beautiful glass dome in the middle of the square stone building. There was also an extremely unimpressive memorial to Jews who died in Europe in World War two, and was full of children running around playing hide and seek.

At this point I was really bored with seeing the "sights" of cities. I am burnt out and upset. So I decide to go on an alternative tour of berlin which I picked up a pamphlet for in my hostel. We meet up and of course it is being led by this Dreadlocked dude from Scotland, and I immediately know this is going to be a good time. He shows us some more of the berlin wall, and then we go to an alternative art space in downtown. This was the building where the first live televised events were shown, in this case the 1936 Berlin Olympics. It is an epically historic and beautiful building, and the city wants to tear it down to build a hotel and some souvineer (wow i butchered that) shops, despite the art squatters. He showed us some work by the revered graffiti artist Banksy. Banksy is from Bristol and makes politial commentary-based works all over international cities. In berlin it was an astronaut 4 stories tall floating through space on the side of a building. PLEASE check out his work here (don't be scared away by the rats, he thinks its funny to have rats doing human things, something based in a post-apocalypse mind state):

http://www.banksy.co.uk/

We went to an Absinthe shop, the "rock and roll" bakery, and munched on the best vegitarish kebab slash falafel I have EVER had. So good I went back the next day to have another, and Berlin is huge. We went to a great thrift store warehouse that sells clothes by the kilo, and I also went back to this spot since I was still short on threads. We went to see some bombed out buildings dating back from WWII. Apparently the Allies bombed the crap out of Berlin just days before the war ended, after hitler had committed suicide. Right next door was where "Pimp My Ride Berlin" operated, and we saw some seriously tricked out cars. We ended the tour at a Reggae beach bar, where I took off my boots and dug my toes in the sand, had a beer, and joined a pickup game of volleyball while a DJ spun some reggae. Finally my luck has turned.

I went to some bars with some people I met on this alternative tour, including a bar owned by the german band Rammstein, completely gothic themed. Then we went to a cool bar pointed out to us on the tour, a ping pong bar in East Berlin. You join a circular game of ping pong, and you slowly get out until just two people are playing, alot of fun. Apparently this place sprung up because you could talk to the person next to you without being overheard because of the sound of the balls, table, and paddle, which was a big deal in East Berlin. Don't want to have a file created on you, and the bar itself was still unmarked.

My last day in Berlin I decided to go to the Sachsussen concentration camp outside of Berlin. This was the model concentration camp that many of the others were designed after, and received some of the first groups of people. It started dealing with political prisoners, homosexuals, and others until finally jews were sent there. What a terrible place. The prisoners tested out shoes there that were crafted in another part of the camp, and prisoners were given heavy packs and made to march 25 miles a day on cobbles in one stretch of the camp to wear out the shoes and test their durability, which were distributed regardless of size. After the war the Soviets used it for their political prisoners. I left Berlin on this somber note.

Back in Copenhagen!!!! Besides sleeping, I decided to do laundry and take it easy. I found out my bag from Bulgaria was missing from the airport, so I had to fill out missing baggage paperwork with Czech airlines. While this was a huge debbie downer, after I got back from turkey they had found my bag, thank God. And I am proud to say I got onto the plane to turkey rested and on time! Maybe a first, but that story will have to wait until I get around to blogging about my Bulgaria trip.

When we get to Istanbul, the sun is shining and all seems good. The group seems like a chill group of kids, and as we drive into town we are passing centuries of history in the form of multiple city walls and gates. The city was started as early as 1000 BC, two hundred years after the trojan wars and when Kings David and Solomon ruled Jerusalem. It also served as the second capital of the Roman Empire when Rome fell, then called Constantinople. Needless to say there is alot of history. It turns out our hotel is smack-dab in the middle of the city, walking distance from the Hagia Sofia mosque and Blue mosque, two of the most visible and epic sites of the city. After a group dinner and a drink on our fearless leader Jakob, we all crash from traveling.

The next day is great. We wake up, have a great meditteranean breakfast at the hotel, and board a boat for a tour of the Bosphorus river. While it was quite chilly, all the turkish apple tea one can drink certainly helped. It was good to wrap one's mind around the layout of the city, and we even saw some greenpeace guys hanging off a bridge. Obama can't stop following me around, and he was actually in Istanbul when we were; we had to change our plans to accomodate his and Michelle's desires to see the same sights we wanted to. This guy is starting to get on my nerves. The greenpeacers were asking Obama to work with the G20 on environmental initiatives, and the police boat floating below them did not look happy.

We spent the afternoon in an immigrant neighborhood talking to Kristin S. Biehl about an NGO and community center there. This rundown neighborhood was a mere two blocks from the center of the touristy area, and was definitely not an area I would have seen without a guide. Istanbul is a huge immigrant destination because of its easy customs, being seen as a bridge between east and west along with being a stepping stone to europe, and the fact that it has much less political and social strife than its neighbors. Ther are immigrants from Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Bangaladesh, Sri Lanka, Nigeria, Somalia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, along with other smaller nationalities. This NGO was actually funded by the EU and provided after-school care for immigrant children, but was in a state of limbo because the area was in threat of demolition of gentrification.

After this we went to a shopping mall, perhaps the nicest shopping mall I have ever been to. Twenty years ago there were no shopping malls in Turkey, and today there are over 120 in Istanbul alone. The idea was to show us a modern turkey, not just the backwards, fez-wearing Turkey many tourists see. This place was huge and apparently designed by a prominent Japanese architect.

We went to dinner at an old Turkish resturant and were quite surprised when the traditional musicians came out. Korai, our guide (who has an uncanny resemblance to Vin Deisel), makes us get up and dance with the musicians two at a time, and who does he pick first but me. Maybe everyone else got a couple glasses of wine before they had to dance, but I was up there imitating some Turkish folk dance with only a few sips. For some reason I am always put in this situation. After shaking it for a while, I sit down and let the others have there turn. After food and raki ( a licorice liquor that you mix with water), the belly dancer comes out. She pulls our teacher and some others up to dance with her, and even gets up on the table and dances. Personally I felt a little uncomfortable since this woman did not seem to love her job, but the group seemed to enjoy it. After all this dancing we couldn't stop, and went to the bar down the corner from our hotel, and turned the place into a dance party on a monday night, eventually with turks joining in.

Dancing for hours can work up a mighty sweat, and a bunch of us decided to go down the street to an outdoor hookah bar and smoke and relax. We get there and sit down on multi-colored pillows, sitting under fleece blankets, drinking tea and smoking shishah. Surrounded by new friends and looking foreward to the rest of the week, while recapping all that has already happened, I realize I am in for an amazingly special trip. My luck has turned.