Verboten

There are the things you are not allowed to mail to Germany


Through the US Postal Service here are the self-explanatory ones;
Absinthe.
Arms and weapons, including firearms, parts of arms, ammunition, and imitation arms.
 Human remains
 Live plants and animals
 Perishable infectious biological substances.
 Radioactive materials.

And here are the odd ones; 

Articles bearing political or religious notations on the address side.
-- So no Jesus stationary?

Melatonin.
 -- Why?

Playing cards, except in complete decks properly wrapped.
 --WHAT?!

Pulverized coca beans.
--Again... What?!

There are a few things on this list that I want to hear the story about. If anyone out there can tell me why playing cards and cocoa beans are contraband I'd love to know why.

DHL lists these;

Standard DHL prohibitions plus: Imitation and pirated products, Swastika, Hazelnuts, Peanuts, Brazil Nuts, Pistachios, Figs

--It's odd how they sneak "swastika" in with legumes and tree nuts...

Animal products
Animal skins
Asbestos
Ivory
Pornography
Precious metals & stones

(I guess you can send your asbestos, pornography and ivory through the US Mail)

FedEx has a very long list including;
Fighting Dogs, and Racist propaganda... but nothing about playing cards.

Very curious.

Krakenhaus

It is very possible that I will be the only person on Earth who will find the bit of photoshopping I did here to be funny.

It involves; Harry Potter, Jules Verne, knowing a few German words, and things that you see rather than what there is...
Trust me... it was hilarious in my head at the time.

Street Lights; Duetchland

These two guys are what the walk/don't walk men look like in most of Germany (and in Prague as well)...

These two photos show what the walk/don't walk men look like in East Berlin...

They make me so happy. I Love the little Walk man with his Communist hat and jaunty gait... in fact most of Berlin loved the East Berlin version so much that since reunification he has moved West as well. There are still many of the boring walk/don't walk street lights but there is a lot of Berlin that uses the formerly Eastern version.

müde*

It's my last day in Munich, my last day in Bavaria... what to do? Yesterday I saw the Residenz Palace of Ludwig (pronounced Ludvich) the second.... I'm pretty sure he was the second, and the Haus de Kunst, which was not as impressive as I was hoping for. I walked and walked and frankly tired myself down for little reward. The Residenz was indeed amazing, but everything after that I was running on nothing. Solo travel in a foreign language is already exhausting, to get lost and find that (although I wasn't so lost the first day) I was very glad I brought a compass. Up was down, in was out and I was mostly spinning round and round. I slept in today. I shall endeavor to stop and eat lunch today. I shall endeavor to walk as very little as possible. Stairs? No! I shall take the escalator and ride it, like an old person. I thought about taking another walking tour today but it looks like a lot of the information will be a repeat of my free tour and I'm not sure I want to walk for three hours at a clip. Today I sit and stroll.

The great question of the day; can I buck up for a real Bavarian style meal? It is mostly a plate full of meat. Salad on the side costs a full 5 Euro extra and most people don't get that... my stomach couldn't take it yesterday, partially because of the walking and partly because of all the cigarette smoke. In Berlin there wasn't so much smoking, but here there are vending machines everywhere and smokers everywhere, it turns my stomach and makes me ever so cranky. I hear that Prague is going to be worse in that aspect (Heaven help me).

*German word of the day means Tired

Let's play a game

Who can guess what kind of building this is on and what the second from the right symbol means?

Dienstag

Munich Calling

Berlin was amazing.
Apologies for not updating... wi-fi was not easily available and I would rather spend time with Alex than with the internet so that is what I did. It is processing.
                                                                                 Berlin is complex and poetic.
Berlin was so much more than I expected and at times surprised me by being exactly what I expected... Perhaps at the end of the day when my feet are about to fall off I'll be ready to start talking about it.

When I got into Munich yesterday afternoon I took a train up into the English Gardens for a breath of fresh air.

I then walked South, counterintuitive since all of the water runs in the "wrong" direction by my perception.  Somehow my sense of direction is not dictated by the direction that water flows and instead of being completely turned around by it's contrary actions I just felt that it was doing something unnatural. The air is oddly muggy and looking out over the meadow there is a faint white haze that turns everything into a pastel but is so subtle that it never looks like fog.
This is the place that Mozart makes so much sense.  I put Eine Kline Nachtmusik on the ipod and it seemed like I was walking through a music video for Mozart. Everything smoves in time with his music.

  Alex warned me about the air pressure, there is a name for it and I forgot it... something about a high pressure system that is unique to Bavaria, it gives you headaches and makes you feel sick... it does feel odd I must say I'm glad for the warning because otherwise I might think I was getting sick or old quickly... I walked and walked and my legs started to feel all wobbly... the English Garden is HUGE.  Finally I wound up by civilization, the Haus du Kunst and the Subway... above the subway is this amazing building,

but at the moment I was so exhausted that I just looked up, took it in, took a picture and went to find my train back to the hostel.  Today I will find out what it was.  Now I am off to do the most touristy thing I can bear to do: the walking tour.  Perhaps I will buck up and have a drink at the Hafbrauhaus but I'm not so sure... for now, adieu and good night to the West Coast, I am off to enjoy my Deinstag (Tuesday) and try to increase my German skills (eep).

An omonous trip to the summer palace.

1^st Full Day in Berlin... I spent mostly outside of Berlin.  We took the train to a small town just outside of Berlin called Potsdam to see the summer palace of Frederic the Great... and the less known side of the Brandenburg gate (not nearly as historically important or as pretty as the famous half).

There are many beautiful buildings that are either next to old crumbling communist buildings or that are next to (or part of) construction. 

I vaguely remember seeing photos of this palace and the gazebo in an art history book, but it didn't make much of an impression.  All of the buildings on the grounds are painted in this beautiful Naples Yellow (my favorite shade in my goash  paints)  and there are hundreds of sculptures all over the grounds.  Every building is inspired by the Romans, or the “Orient”.   Below you can see the palace vinyards (they grew a lot of the grapes behind glass so that they don't freeze.

At one point today the sky rather suddenly rumbled and turned a dark grey.  Heavy cold rain burst and we ran for cover in a structure that I thought was rather squarely hideous, Alex thought it was “tasteful” .  Artistic differences aside we both agreed that the gardener who continued to water the flowers in the middle of the downpour was hilarious.

Taking photos inside the palace (on the tour) was somewhat forbidden... so I kept the flash off and took a couple on the sly... I must try to find some photos of my favorite room.  Most were decorated in gold fillagree and somewhat poorly done Rococo paintings (with the exception of two that I think were actual Watteau's) .  The final room was decorated in carved cherry wood sculptures of over-sized flowers, parrots, monkeys and birds, all painted with full color.  This final room was a guest room with a bed sitting in a wall niche.  I wonder how creepy it could have been to wake up in the middle of the night to catch a carved monkey in the side of your vision.  

Tomorrow we are going to a Bach concert... what else?  We shall see... It's supposed to rain so probably something somewhat indoors.

 Internet is somewhat slow, so photos will be a little sparse for a while... Plus, the Z button is where the Y should be... it's trippz.

I've landed in Berlin. I spent nine hours in a plane from SFO to Paris in a somewhat disoriented state from rushing all morning and managing to get through security and gate check in with about twenty minutes to spare.  Found myself on an AirFrance flight where although the flight attendants where all bilingual, my fellow passengers were mostly not.  I wound up using my extensive knowledge of the French language, mostly gleaned from French cinema...  perdone moi, excuse moi, misure, madam, un eau see vous play... oh yes I can say “excuse me I'd like a water” and point like a monkey just fine.  As  I got further and further into my book of choice I became sadly aware of how poorly written it was and I began to try and analyze the passengers around me.  I had the fellow behind me who so badly wanted to be left alone and never have anyone ask him to move or have food or anything that involved moving... perhaps he was hung over or petrified of flying.  I had the nice French couple next to me who I would talk to in English and dance like a monkey and they would in turn talk to me in French and dance like monkeys as well and somehow we could understand pretty well. The woman to the front and right of me I decided in my head was from a communist country.  She was very concerned that she was being treated the same as everyone else and was constantly watching what the flight attendants were doing  (as though they would forget to serve food or drinks to our side of the plane or that someone would get a better meal than the other). I tried to sleep but it was for naught.  I just wound up sitting very still with my blanket on and my sleep mask on listening to the white noise around me.

We had a stop over in Charles De Gaulle airport where there were a lot of  “Bonjour, perdone moi, oui,  and un eau petit see vou plays” and that is about all I could manage... new stamp in the passport... and a wait to get on the next flight.  CDG airport is beautiful, unless you are actually there.  It was full of narrow passage ways and unclear sineage, also it was oppressively hot and humid.  The plane ride had already tired me out and dessicated every cell in my body but CDG was a cigarette scented sauna. 

Happily I landed in Berlin and my oldest and dearest friend was there waiting for me.  There is nothing better than getting where you are going to be greeted by people you love. 

Antici.... (say it!) .... pation.

Berlin...

Munich...

Prague...

                                                                                

(oh yes, guest rooms/hostels/hotels and trains are booked... travel blog coming in 21 days)

Wanderlust

Consider this a warning. I have a vacation planned. Or perhaps I should say I have a plane ticket to Germany and I cannot stop planning. I am as indecisive as my little sister at Halloween; "I want to be a cowgirl, no a ballerina, no a monster, a witch, a ballerina who wears cowboy boots!!!!...."

For some reason, in my brain, getting off of the continent instantly makes the rest of the world easy access.   In my head it's like America has this big bubble over it and once you break free you're in "the rest of the world" and this lovely not America place has magic trains that cost a dollar and suddenly it is possible to travel from Berlin to Jerusalem via Hyderabad in just a matter of hours.  Logically I know this is not true.  A Eurorail pass costs a few hundred dollars depending on how many countries you want to see and the duration of your trip.  A train takes eight hours to get from Berlin to Munich.  Of course considering the train from San Francisco takes twelve hours to get to Los Angeles, it makes it all seem so close!

Right now I pour over travel books, I consult Anthony Bourdain, I somehow try to decide where and how long to stay while trying to keep the magic fairy train out of my head.  If I keep my travels on a schedule and only go to a handful of cities I can keep this trip somewhat affordable. I must remember that it takes time to really see a place so taking my time is better than trying to just zoom past it all. It is so tempting to get the super expensive all access train pass and think that once I get to Munich, I should just hop on down to Italy and from there Spain is right next door... and hell, if I'm in Spain I really ought to travel south for just a little bit to get to Morocco... there's just so much I've never seen.   For once I can say it is good I am traveling on a used shoestring budget and cannot possibly get the super train pass.  I am forced to think this through and plan carefully.

I've got nearly three months left and somehow need to find a way to make myself chill out.  All of this possibility keeps me up far too late at night.