Adventures in chaos: September 2013

Well, it seems that summer has officially finished. All that hot and sunny weather I've been boring you with for two months is gone, and how better to spend a cool and drizzly day than updating a blog?

I'm determined to stay roughly chronological, so today I'll show you around my temporary home town some more, before we launch into some Eastern European travels in the next posts.

When we arrived in Berlin, one of our first stops was to the Mauer Park flea market to buy a couple of bikes. Gertrude came first.

Me & Gertrude!

Staying in my lane!

Gertrude was soon joined by Mark's bike, also procured at the flea market, which he steadfastly refuses to name (the bike, not the flea market!). No Name and Gertrude (this should totally be the name of a band!) get on like a house on fire.

This is the only pic of No Name, because I'm a bad wife and photographer

Biking around Berlin is so easy, because there are designated bike lanes everywhere, and the traffic is really slow - Berlin drivers don't seem to hate cyclists like they do in Sydney. So, even though I haven't been on a bike in like, 10 years, I happily pedal around the city.

We often ride our bikes to the Tiergarten, which has a lovely beer garden on a lake, Cafe am Neuen See. We've spent many a happy afternoon, playing cribbage and drinking beer here.

All lakes should have a beer garden

Mmmmmm - pretzels....

You're gonna share that pretzel, right?

I've got another favourite beer garden, you might be surprised to learn. Pratergarten is where I learned to love green beer! It's a tradition, apparently, to add a cordial-like syrup to a light wheat beer, making it taste a bit like soda. The green one is woodruff flavoured - supposedly more herbal than the red, fruity option, and very delicious. Plus, you get to drink it through a straw out of a fish bowl!

A fish bowl of green beer!

We've also made our way to a few lakes around Berlin. You can take your bike on the train, as long as you buy it a ticket.

Gertrude is totally legal

On our first train/bike trip, we went to Schlachtensee, a lake with - you guessed it - a great beer garden!

Lovely Schlactensee

The beer garden here was pretty spectacular, so much so that even I was happy to sit in the sun.

Sudoku and pretzels - what a life!

Happy Mark

Another thing I like to do while I'm pedalling around, besides drinking beer in lakeside beer gardens, is look at the street art. Berlin is an amazing outdoor gallery! In the former East Berlin, artists often took over disused buildings and used them as collective housing and impromptu galleries. Some groups of artists lived in the same buildings for years. After reunification, however, these properties are in what are now very desirable neighbourhoods undergoing gentrification, and the artists are being pushed out. Some groups hang on, and all leave their mark.

We all remain

An actual outdoor gallery is the East Side Gallery, where a section of the wall has been retained and serves as a giant art installation. On one side, the paintings are permanent, if somewhat damaged by graffiti and weather.

Currently, the other side is an exhibit about walls that continue to divide us around the world. I was sad to see pictures of the US/Mexico border looking so like the walls in Gaza.

Despite the depressing images, there's something inspiring about seeing them on a wall that was successfully (and peacefully) breached by a city that refused to remain divided. I was left with a feeling of great hope.

The day we visited the East Side Gallery, we also rode over to Tempelhof Park. This former airport was famously used to keep West Berlin supplied with food and other necessities during the Soviet blockade in 1948-49. Now it's a giant park in the middle of the city, where you can fly kites, ride your bike or just laze around in the sun.

You can also buy a beer from the hippies who run a kind of community garden/dance party in the corner of the park. Instead of telling you what you owe, they'll ask you to name a price you think is fair. Be cool, man.

Wherever we go in Berlin, we see these giant pipes painted in bright colours. Mark's working theory is that they are used for gerbil transportation, as it's too dangerous for them to try and get around the city using the crosswalks.

Go gerbils!

Others more knowledgeable about the city tell us that they are used to drain water away from construction sites, as Berlin has a very high water table. You pick the explanation you like best.

And finally, for my friend Sophie, my one and only loyal follower, are some more pictures of German food. I'm coming around to the idea of a German breakfast, which consists of cold cuts, cheese, fruit, and lots of fresh bread, with a strong coffee. I like the breakfasts best, I think, because a) they're not brown and b) there aren't any dumplings at breakfast.

Can anyone (I'm looking at you, Sophie) tell me what this orange fruit is? It's been on many breakfast plates, and I can't figure it out. It has a papery husk, like a tomatillo almost, but it's sweet and tangy.

Well, this has been a bit of a hodgepodge, but I think it nicely summarises our Berlin summer. Next up, visitors and we get back on the road!

So, from Oslo, we headed back south. Our path took us first through Sweden, and we all know what that means...

IKEA!!!!

I was excited...

Mark was not.

Not anything like Australian Ikea!

Pleased with my purchase

I bought a cushion and a blanket, which we are now happily using in our German flat. Mark likes that blanket best, as I knew he would.

I'm certain there's more to Sweden than Ikea, but I didn't see any of it. We stopped at Ikea, a burger place (Max's!!), and that's it. In case you're curious, Swedish cheeseburgers are just like cheeseburgers anywhere. No pickled fish or anything - just artery-hardening goodness.

We pushed on to Denmark, where we searched in vain for a campground. We'd driven a very long way, and I was in the throes of Norway-withdrawal, so I heckled Mark into finding a roof to sleep under. And he did a stellar job!

I wish I could tell you the name of this place, but I can't.

He found a charming stable-type-place that lets out rooms in the summer. We barged into some family's dinner and asked them if we could stay. Happily, they said yes. (If they didn't want random Australians interrupting their meals, they shouldn't have put a sign out on the road!)

Spot the kitty!

My favorite part was the young Max cat hanging around the roof. He greeted us in the courtyard with a mouse he had caught. We said thank you, but suggested he should keep it.

Not-Max on the prowl

Southern Denmark is flat. There are interesting churches and some lovely roads, but don't go out of your way...

I'm developing a slight obsession with taking photographs of roads disappearing into the trees....

After a refreshing night's sleep (and a shower I didn't have to share with the rest of the campground!), we pressed on to Amsterdam, which, by the way, I loved. Much of what happens in Amsterdam stays in Amsterdam, but I do have a few family-friendly snaps to share.

I can't explain my love affair with horizontal stripes, but there you have it.

Flowers!

Monumental sculpture!

Rainbow selfie...

In Amsterdam, our luck with the weather turned, although it wasn't terrible. Just drizzly and cool off an on.

Luckily, drizzle can be pretty!

I loved the Rijksmuseum - it's right up there with the British Museum for me (and that's saying something) - I'm scheming about how I can get back there before we leave Europe. I've discovered a love for Dutch painting!

Paintings of the insides of houses are the best

The Dutch know how to have a good time, am I right?

Even in the paintings that are supposed to have a moral message about how you shouldn't over-indulge in the good life are full of people having fun. Gotta love those Dutch!

They also like cats...

We'd been listening to Patrick O'Brian's Master and Commander novels in the car (which are awesome, by the way!), so I loved all the naval paintings, and the ship models.

And I will have a room like this in my house one day.

What should we find but a portrait of Chris in the museum!

Amsterdam leans - nothing stands up straight.

I visited a 14th century church (note the singular) that had been turned into an art space. The carvings on the back of the seats in the choir stalls were still intact though, and illustrated useful proverbs for the choristers.

Money doesn't come out of your ass.

Something about two drunks being better than one? That doesn't sound quite right.

This was my favourite art installation. I love knitted art!

We also stopped in at the Van Gogh museum. A tip - never ever buy your tickets at the door to these places. We got a museum pass that allowed us to skip the queues that stretched around the block.