Berlin Graffiti and Street Art
I still have some misc. photos that I took on my euroventure. Berlin has a lot of graffiti and street art. Here is a collection of photos that I took during the course of my stay.
Saltly Polish Mines and Pierogies
I know you probably can’t wait to hear about real Polish pierogis, but you are going to have to wait until later in the post . . .
As Saturday was my last full day without travel in Europe, we decided to start the day off right with a bit of the ol’ hair of the dog. The Polish vodka is pretty good, but I’m not much of a vodka fan. Well, as far as sipping it straight out of the bottle and warm, anyway. So on Saturday we tried this cherry vodka. Mmmm, that stuff was dangerous!
We decided to hit one tourist trap, I mean, attraction before leaving the country. We ventured to the Wieliczka Salt Mine which is 6 miles south of the city. The trip down into the mine was made my walking down 380 some odd steps.
Salt was a very important export for Poland for hundreds of years. This salt is very dark due to impurities in it. It was worth enough money that it was sometimes referred to as ‘black gold. This mine has 300km of tunnels, and some enormous chambers. This chamber is a chapel, and is used for wedding ceremonies. There is another big banquet room for the reception. The photography challenges would be interesting, since it’s very dark. But some people must do it for the novelty of getting married 400 feet under ground.
Once down inside . . . Read more
Night Photos from Krakow, Poland
On Friday night we headed back down to the town square to check out some of the local bars and clubs. We were careful not to drink to much, because when you do then you risk becoming an Alkohole.
We cruised around checking out a few of the local establishments, but . . .
The Journey continues in Krakow, Poland
Hi there! I’m writing this from the airplane, a few hundred miles off the southern tip of Greenland. I’m catching up with my final installments of my European Adventure. Deb and I traveled to Krakow, Poland for my final weekend abroad.
We had a lay over in Warsaw, so that gave us the opportunity to sample our first Polish beer, Zywiec. We started chatting with a guy while we were waiting and he told us that this was the best choice. Once again, mostly all Polish beers are pilsners without tremendous differences.
Flying over the country I could see the mostly rural terrain. It was slightly rolling, without much forest left. In the very south there were some snow-capped peaks. I did see a couple in an old VW bug with snow tires and snowboards in the backseat heading for the slopes.
We arrived at night and it was pretty quiet in our part of town. The next morning we awoke to find out that we were in a pretty run down area. I was a bit worried that we had traveled all this way to a dump! All the buildings in the area of our hotel had not been maintained in years. The plaster was literally falling off the buildings. The streets were also very dirty, the cars had dirt all up the sides like they had just driven in a snowstorm in Colorado.
Fortunately we would find out later find out that the entire city was not like this. We were walking distance from the restored historic center of the city, with the Wawel Castle and Main Square enclosed by an ancient circular wall. This area by the hotel was the Kazimierz District, the old Jewish Center . . . Read more
The trip home
I didn’t bring the laptop to Poland, thus the lack of posts this weekend. I’m packing it up here and heading back to the States. See you tomorrow!
Today didn’t go as planned (an Adventure is born)
I was planning on staying home today, resting my foot, and catching up on some computer time. I needed my morning pastry fix, so I set out to go to the shop on the corner. I was walking out and I left the door in the apt building ajar, as the locks are a pain in the butt. Nah, don’t be lazy, pull the door shut . . .
When I came back in I realized I had picked up the wrong set of keys, and only had the key to the building, not the apartment. LOCKED OUT . . . ! I only had 2.55 Euro, no train ticket, no passport, and I didn’t know Debby’s cell or where she worked. I had a whole day to kill and no where to go . . . Read more
Schone Donnerstag! (Happy Thursday Berlin Bike Action)
OK so the truth is that I injured my foot a little bit jumping off the pier in England. It was fine until I did a full day of walking on it. Now walking is a bit uncomfortable. So I got the bright idea to rent a town bike to cruise around Berlin, thereby saving my foot for Poland and also seeing more of the city and maybe even getting a bit of exercise in to boot.
Berlin has bike lanes and paths everywhere; it is very bike commuter friendly. Many places there are brick paths on the sidewalks, and in other places there are lanes in the street.
I found a bit of singletrack in the city!
I rented the bike at the base of the TV tower. It was brilliant, because I could ride anywhere and not get lost! OK click the READ MORE for the rest of the pics and story from my day of biking in Berlin! Read more
There are no bricks in The Wall
I’ve been drinking beer every day since I’ve been here and I’m feeling a lot better. I’ve found that I’ve adjusted to the culture over here. The trains are now making perfect sense. Here is a tasty breakfast morsel for a site seeing man on the go.
With a fresh sugar buzz I headed on out to check out the sites of the city. Unfortunately most of the sites are labeled in German, and I don’t have any kind of guidebook, so I’m not going to bother trying to figure out exactly what they are. Mostly they are big and tall.
This guy here has seen better days. Here’s the inside of the adjacent church.
It’s a good thing the Boulder crew wasn’t here or they’d be climbing this route in no time.
Click the READ MORE to continue on for more pics and stuff! Read more
Back in Berlin on the Potsdamer Platz
Click on the READ MORE to check out my full post and lots more pictures from my third day in Berlin!
London Calling!
Sunday morning awoke cold and frosty. I arose to another smashing bowl of porridge and we headed on down to London. David had a bridal show to attend so we caught a ride to the southern end of the city.
So we bid farewell to Sir David and headed on down to the Tower Bridge. It was THIS BIG.
After that we wandered around for the few hours that we had to spend in such a big city. I took a bunch of fun architecture type photos. There is some amazing architecture down there!
How did I get high enough to be in this photo, you ask? I jumped off the roof of a van then ran away!
There are LOTS more pictures so click on the “Read More” . . .
Fish N Chips
After a day ripping around the British countryside and swerving around knob-gobblers, we were hankerin’ for some tasty fish and chips. We went down to the water in Whitstable, where we could have locally caught fish. It was hands down the best I’ve ever had. The cod must have been caught the same day; it was moist and tender, and the batter was thin and crispy. Mmm, Mmm.
While we were sitting at lunch we noticed that the light outside was looking splendid. We are photographers after all. David is all about collaborating, so we headed down to the water and took turns taking some shots, but most of these are his. And here he is the man behind the myth . . . looking like a salty seafaring lad.
The weather was clear, but really cold. Down jackets weren’t quite enough to keep us warm in the biting wind. Despite this, we coerced Debby to take the coat off for some non Michelin-woman photos.
Click on the “Read More” to continue on with the rest of the meal . . .
Jolly Old England
On Friday Debs and I jumped on a flight over to London to visit British David for the weekend. Lovely! David and I met at the DWF convention in Tampa last last month and had a lot of fun. David lives south of London in the Kent countryside, so the plan was to tour around Kent on Saturday, and then to venture into London on Sunday.
David is also a photographer, so I had the luxury of using his Canon 5D to shoot my tourist photos on Saturday. I made sure to bring my fisheye lens, oh yes! Here are a couple sample photos, click the MORE tab at the bottom to see the full post . . .
There are LOTS MORE PICS and the full story; click the “Read More” . . .
Berlin Round 1 - Jewish Memorial and Club Felix
Jet lag has not proven to be a problem for me. I managed to sleep away my entire first and second days in Berlin. It was cloudy and overcast, which translates to great sleeping weather for Coloradoans. Oh well. I’m off to England in a couple hours.
In the evening we headed down to Potsdamer Platz for some beverages. Becks the the default beer here. I had another kind on draft that tasted pretty much the same as Becks. The Germans like their beer bitter. I will be investigating this matter more in the future. :>)
These pics were taken in the Jewish Memorial. It is a maze of rectangular cement blocks. It’s pretty cool at night, and a great place to get lost if you are 3 years old.
We headed on into Club Felix across the street. Well except for Mike, who couldn’t get in because he wasn’t wearing a button down shirt. Oops.
The Germans are pretty reserved. There wasn’t much crazy dance action or booty-grinding. Well, except when Michael Jackson came on. I made sure to try and freak some people out. I like to think that I succeeded.
This is the side of Shannon’s head. It is always important to bring a professional photographer to your clubbing en devours, or else you could miss out on precious moments like this.
A portrait of Steve, Debs, and lots of Becks. Who is taking the picture anyway?
Back in the Subways heading home after some EuroTrash Clubbing Action. I’m working on figuring out the trains so that I can actually go see some stuff next week. The streets are a bit intimidating since I don’t speak a word of German, and all the streets and buildings kinda look the same. I ventured out around the neighborhood and about got lost 3 blocks from home. OK, I’ll get this figured out. London and Kent, England are up next. I plan to actually do something interesting there. Not sure what exactly, but British David will be the tour guide and I have full confidence that he’ll have some good suggestions.
Guten Morgan from Berlin
Good Morning from Berlin, Germany! It’s technically night here but I’m all out of whack with the jetlag. I’m ready for breakfast but we’re going to get Mexican instead. Just a quick post that I got here safely.
When I was a kid living in New Jersey we used to say that it is always raining in Newark. I almost didn’t make my connecting flight because is was a rainy snowy mess, as usual.
The view over NYC.
The socked in cloud mass over Northern Europe looks a lot prettier from above! It’s a cloud murky mess here in Berlin. But there is excitement in the forcast; London is supposed to be sunny and 50 all weekend! How lucky is that?!