Monkey Business

Salü Dear Reader,

Sometimes everyone has to revert back to a state of childlike excitement and wonder...so it was for me on a visit to Affenburg Salem - home to 200 Barbary macaques (cute monkeys to you and I), who live in a special sanctuary just north of Konstanz. Why the monkeys are there I have no idea, but the sheer amount of enjoyment from being allowed to feed them popcorn should not be underestimated. Here are some of my favourite photos from the day (I hope some of their varying personalities come across):

And lastly, spot the odd one out:

Splashing About

Moin Moin Dear Reader,

There are some occasions that happen once, maybe twice, in a lifetime. For this semester, this event was the Venus Transit - the direct passing of Venus between Earth and the Sun, which will happen again in 105years time. Knowing that it was unsafe to stare straight at the sun, we thought we had a genius solution - using the Bodensee as a huge reflection for the sun and the tiny black spot of Venus.

We agreed to meet at Hörnle (a large park-beach area that sticks out into the Bodensee, giving us a view that would not be obscured by artificial lights) shortly before dawn. As compensation for getting up so early and joining me to stare at the sky, my friends made me promise that I would swim with them in the Bodensee while the sun was coming up. Naïvely I agreed to their conditions, having a child-like faith that the clouds would magically clear and I could distract my friends with this astronomic phenomenon, such that they would forget I agreed to swim with them.

This did not happen...the sky remained resolutely clouded over and this is how I found myself going for a clip in the Bodensee at about half five in the morning. Quite possibly one of the coldest things I have encountered but despite this, and the fairly strong current, I did manage to swim out to one of the pontoons - doing a good impression of an overexcited wet puppy, while my friends sped off as though they had grown fins (obviously, they don't share my aversion to the cold water quite so much.

Having complained profusely throughout, I am pleased I have done it - it seems strange to live next to such a beautiful lake for almost a year (where tourists come to in order to enjoy the water). I'm not sure I have the confidence to jump off the Fahrradbrücke into the Rhein though - apparently some sort of rite of passage for Konstanz Seehasen - evidently, I'm not ready for full integration quite yet...

Good Bye, Berlin!

Sali Dear Reader,

Our last day in Berlin came all too quickly (it seems like ages until I will be back in Ox again) and we decided to continue our journey around the Wall. We headed to the Northern bit of the Wall along Bernauer Strasse, which has become famous as being a bisected street - that it to say that the houses on one side were under DDR control and the houses on the other side were under BRD control. This road became popular for escape attempts, particularly in the early days of the Wall.

Some of the videos of people jumping out of windows to escape from the DDR come from Bernauer Strasse. Although the houses are no longer there (the DDR first blocked up any access/windows to the Western side and later tore down the houses), someone has placed markers as to where the various escapees landed, and the lines of some of the escape tunnels.

Wandering further along we came across part of the Wall which had been preserved with Watch-Tower and the dead strip in the middle. Not having enough time to queue for the viewing platform, we instead tried staring through a gap in the Wall - the view was grey, grim and fairly foreboding - an empty stretch of land where everything could be seen from the watch-tower by the border police, helped by lights. The wall itself was quite high and had a curved top to make trying to get over/on to it more difficult. I cannot even start to imagine what it must have been like to attempt an escape through these sections of the wall, or how bad the situation in the DDR was to drive people to do it. Having studied this time period in history lessons, it seems so remote from the life I live today despite the fact it all happened within the last 50years, and I have met people who were born under the Communist regime.

History Lives On

Halè Dear Reader,

After going to the East Side Gallery in the morning, we decided to try out one of Berlin's many museums and, following the recommendations of various guide books and people, settled on going to see the Jewish Museum. The content of the museum was very interesting and I learnt a lot about Jewish history and their religious holidays for example. Yet, it is not so much the content of the main museum that remains stuck in my mind - it is its strange architecture and the amount of symbolism that had gone into its creation.The new part of the museum looks a lot like a lightning bolt from above to the uninformed eye - according to its designer Daniel Libeskind, it is a deconstructed Star of David.

The bottom floor of the museum was split along three axes: the Axis of Continuity, the Axis of the Holocaust and the Axis of Exile. Unfortunately I have forgotten the exact layout, but I believe that the Axis of the Holocaust had the names of concentration camps running along it to a 'tower' - a cold, metal room with strange angles and only a single strip of light a number of stories up. The Axis of Exile had the names of places that Jewish people had fled to, going along to the Garden of Exile - designed with large concrete pillars rising upwards with willow-olive tress on the top. The ground surface (and that within this bottom floor) were not level and subtely sloped, just enough to keep you unaware of where the horizon was and, as a result, a bit disorientated.

Once upstairs within the mueseum, the architect had chosen to cut a slice out of each floor, to represent the missing Jewish people from society. This area was painted black on each floor and had small windows looking into a chute where this area was missing. At the bottom of this chute was an art installation, which made eery and clinking sounds when you walked upon it. Look carefully at the picture and you'll see why it made you feel so uncomfortable walking on it when your steps produced almost high-pitched shrieks coming from the metal...

Following our experiences at the Jewish museum we felt it was time to see the Ostalgic architecture of East Berlin. We went to Karl-Marx-Allee, which has some impressive soviet buildings - though while they look intricate, you realise that when you stare at the neighbouring buildings and the ones across the road, they look almost identical.

Having spent the day recalling the history of Berlin, we felt that we couldn't miss out on a chance to go to Berlin's oldest Kneipe (pub) "Zur Letzten Instanz" opened in 1621 and still going. Apparently this pub is so 'authentically German' that Heads of State are often bought here - although we didn't spot any on this trip! It is also, as you would expect, wonderfully well hidden; so much so, that even the locals couldn't tell us exact directions which led to a large amount of travelling aimlessly on trams, trains and Shanksy's pony trying to find it down a fairly-unlit alleyway. Eating in a place that has fed Napoleon, Mikhail Gorbachav and Angela Merkel, the food was absolutely delicious without being way over budget. We felt it was also time to try out one of the local beers and opted for a Berliner Weisse mit Schuss (white beer with raspberry syrup):

East Side Gallery, Berlin

Jau Dear Reader,
Apologies to you all - I have been very busy over the past few weeks and have only just managed to get time to update the blog, as I am currently too ill to study :(

Day Two of the Berlin adventure and we headed deeped into the former East Berlin area - I'm not sure we spent much time 'in the West' at all! We visited the East Side Gallery, which is one of the longest stretches of the original wall at 1.3km long. Following the fall of the wall, a number of international artists were invited to paint an open-air gallery in 1900. While I was expecting a large amount of highly political and profound murals, the reality is quite different. While some of the pictures are more reflective on the history behind the wall, others included pictures of superheroes and robots. Astonishing is the large amount of graffiti on the pictures themselves, which rather detracts away from the harsh reality of DDR/BRD separation.

Here are a few of my favourites/some of the well-known ones:

Being Tourists in Berlin

Tach Jesacht Dear Reader,
In order to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee in the UK, a friend from university and I agreed to meet up for a weekend city-break in Berlin - the capital of Germany. It was a rather rushed trip to try and cram the whole city into a roughly 48hour period, but I think we saw the main bits (of East Berlin at least).

For our first afternoon/evening, we thought we should visit the main tourist-y and recognisable areas of Berlin, and so headed to the area of 'Mitte', only after having got completely lost in Alexanderplatz and trying to navigate through the streets without knowing any of the street names. It took us quite a while longer than we had planned, but we did manage to find the Ampelmann Shop along the way. The DDR (GDR or East Germany) Ampelmann (traffic light man) has become iconic within Germany because he wears a hat - there is now a bit of a cult following, including a range of household items, sweeties, clothing and bags.
This is the symbol of the DDR:

In the main (tourist) centre, we went to see the Brandenburger Tor (Brandenburg Gate), which is where many of the pictures of the Fall der Berliner Mauer (the fall of the Berlin Wall) are taken from. The border went directly through the line of this gate and it is now seen by many as the symbol of German reunification.

Popping round the corner found us right next to the Reichstag (the seat of Germany's Parliament - the Bundestag). Although we couldn't get in (there are some new security restrictions requiring sign-up online, despite my best attempts at persuading the guard in my bestest German), the view from outside was still quite good. The words over the top of the building read "Dem Deutschen Volk".

Following the line of the Wall, which is now indicated by cobbles on the streets, brought us to the Holocaust Memorial, formally known as the National Memorial to the Murdered European Jews. The memorial consists of 2,711 oblong pillars (looking quite a lot like tombstones), which vary in height and the floor surfaces is curved like waves. It makes for rather eery walking through, as these huge columns tower above you and the horizon is difficult to spot.

We then went through Potsdamer Platz (the junctions of American, British and Soviet controlled Berlin quarters) and headed along to Checkpoint Charlie - the Allied checkpoint between the Western Allies Berlin and the Eastern Soviet Berlin. This is the point on the border where American and Russian tanks faced off against each other in October 1961.

Entering from the East Berlin side:

And the more famous view:

And to end our day, we sampled one of the culinary delights of Berlin: the Currywurst (there's even a museum which sells cuddly Currywurst!)...

Oops...sorry Netherlands

Dag Dear Reader,

OOPS! Somewhere along the way in my blogging, I managed to forget about my trip to Maastricht in the Netherlands - this blog should come between Zermatt and Zürich.

Now that I live 'on the continent' so to say, it seems silly that I have not really taken full advantage of the trains across the whole of Europe. This was rectified however, when I decided to go to Maastricht, Netherlands for the EuroMUN 2012 conference. Somehow, I had managed to convince myself that Germany cannot be that big a country (after all, Switzerland is less than half an hour away from where I live...), but this view was quite firmly corrected on my 9 hour train jouney across most of the length of the country!

EuroMUN is one of the biggest Model United Nations conferences within Europe and I was honoured to be asked to chair the DISEC committee - which is made up of around 60 delegates. I'm pleased to say that the debate went extremely well and we did pass a resolution on the topic of Foreign Military Bases - Impacts and Consequences, which is no mean feat when one considers how much diplomacy has to occur to convince quite a large number of people to agree with you!

Outside of the debate, I also got a chance to explore Maastricht and life within the Netherlands. My host (this was my first experience of couch-surfing) lovingly introduced me to some of the Dutch specialities, such as Vla, which is kind of like a mix of custard and yoghurt, and directed me to the best waffle place in town. In the evenings, I was also introduced to the local beer as well.

Unfortunately I didn't get to spend as much time exploring Maastricht as I would have liked (hence the lack of photos) and most of the sights I passed whilst madly cycling around (yay for flat countries!). I did wander through quite a lot of the old town and went past the European area - where the Maastricht treaty was signed (important piece of EU legislation). I think I shall have to go back and explore properly some time in the future.

A Geographical Confession

Halloechen Dear Reader,
I have a confession to make: despite having lived an hour from Zürich for the past months, I had never actually made it further than the airport until last week. Two Colombian friends had come to Switzerland as part of their Europe-tour, so I really had no excuses not to see them (and Zürich) before they went on to Prague. Zürich is a scarily expensive city, probably because it is a large banking area and home to the leading gold and precious metals trading market. Despite this, it is possible to make it cheaper by taking a packed lunch and spending the whole day outside wandering through the streets.

Zürich is divided in half by the River Limmat, which leads down to the Zürichsee. The centre of Zürich is actually quite small (though perhaps we only went through the Old Town), particularly when one considers that Zürich is Switzerland's largest city!

I think living in Konstanz may have given me a new found competitiveness about lakes. Lake Zürich has been certified by Swiss authorities as clean enough to drink from, but I think I still prefer my Bodensee (especially when going for a sunrise swim in it with friends).

Zürich is suprisingly green for a city and we spent quite a few hours lazing about in the sunshine in several of the parks. If nothing else, I did get in some good people watching...

Of course, no good Swiss town is complete without a selection of churches. If I remember rightly, this is the Grossmünster, which had soimething to do with the Swiss-German reformation many years ago:

Naturally Zürich has more going for it than parks and churches, and in our adventure through the old town, we also came across Cabaret Voltaire, where the Dada art movement was born and a house where Lenin lived prior to returning to Russia for the revolution.

Carry On Up The Matterhorn

Guete Morge Dear Reader,

And finally, the moment you have all been waiting for, my ascent up the Matterhorn - as British explorers, adventurers and mountaineers will tell you, the only reason for going to Zermatt. So having put on my ski jacket and hiking boots, ensured sufficient rations, I set out...

Ok, so I didn't go up the real Matterhorn - only the Klein Matterhorn, which in itself is 3820m high (enough for the air pressure to change and make my crisp packet explode) - and I didn't quite ascend in the same manner as in legends gone by - the Swiss have rather lovingly put in a nice cable car series for skiers, snowboarders and tourists like myself.

The view from the top was absolutely incredible! From so far up it was possible to see Mont Blanc and the back of the Matterhorn itself (which was distinctly lacking in snow). On this photo, the Matterhorn is the peak on the right and Mont Blanc is the flatter looking peak on the left hand side(if memory serves me right):

According to the tourist website, it is sometimes possible to spot the Mediterranean peaking out amid the Alps - I'm not sure it was clear enough to do given all the snow, but have a look at these photos and tell me if you think you can! Note, I cannot remember which direction many of these photos were taken in, so consider this more of a panorama series...

Having been outside long enough for my eyes to start to hurt from the glare (don't worry, no snow blindness here), I decided it was time to venture inside the mountain and into the glacier - 15m below the surface - in order to visit the Glacier Palace, which has been carved out of the ice itself. Once inside, there were a number of ice sculptures (here are a few of my favourites):

Including a slide made of ice, where you come out of a bear's mouth (I've got a few bruises now...)!