Berlin, Germany

I'm seriously disliking Blogger's photo-management system. Yet -another- batch of photos I picked that got randomly swallowed up by the service. T_T''

Numerous bad request headers. I'll share an album on Facebook and link it when it becomes available. I had some initial thoughts of Berlin typed up, so I'll just mirror them here. I don't think photo-taking was very necessary for Berlin though. The entire experience was very saddening.

1 - Berlin Wall. I watched many videos and listened to audio clips depicting the issue with this divide between East and West. Since the borders between East and West were put up in a matter of hours in 1959, tens of thousands of families were split down the middle. It didn't matter who they were. All of Germany was split. Half of it stayed within the Iron Curtain, half of it in the West. The families and friends would not be reunited until 1989 when the wall fell down.

2 - Jewish Memorial. What's there to say? This was a chilling experience. This was a very simple memorial dedicated to the six million Jews murdered and massacred in the genocide of the 2nd World War. There were no signs, no descriptions, not a single hint of what the memorial was about. Perhaps this is a better way to think about it. Rather than feed us information, it forces us to reflect and try to remember what actually happened. We ought to think about our human capability for destruction so we don't make the same kinds of mistakes again. The memorial itself consists of numerous concrete blocks which grow drastically taller as you walk towards the centre of the square. Since these blocks begin to get taller than you (1.7m) around 1/3 of the way in, it becomes increasingly windy because it all gets channeled at you. Being inside the memorial felt extremely uneasy. It was as if the blocks were closing in on me. Add to the fact that it was rainy, cold AND windy, I caught a minor glimpse of what the sentiments were for the Jews at the time.

3 - Soviet Memorial for the fallen soldiers in the Eastern Front.

This reminded me a lot of the movies we had to watch in Socials 10 and 11. Although I did not really feel too much for the Soviet Union by observing the memorial itself, there was certainly a good history lesson in the little museum which hid behind the memorial.

So you can see - my trip to Berlin was mostly about the war. There was some minor lapses and dips into sausages and alcohol, but that was about it. In particular, Berliner Weiße was absolutely delicious. Also had some liver sausages and blood sausages. Kind of icky to be honest, but I should have expected it since it -WAS- internals that I had.

Country count was upped by two since my stop took me to Riga. :D

Photos: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=560314&id=727335006&l=00c1a639c4

Country count: Iceland, Finland, Czech Republic, Germany, Austria, Estonia, Latvia, Russia(next up!!)

Tallinn (2)

So the following days in Tallinn, I really was quite bummed out because of the weather: Why

does it affect me so? :( In any case, I chilled out at the hostel (Monk's Bunk) a lot. The people were just too wonderful and everyone had so many stories of adventures to share!

There isn't much in photos and all the ones I just tried to upload, blogger(read: google) decided to not upload for me. In any case, my remaining days at Tallinn were surprisingly interesting although all the tours I wanted to go on got canned. More specifically, the gun shooting which I absolutely wanted to do was NA because the place was too far, and no one else was interested, and the transportation there costs about 40e. Then the trip to small town Paldiski where an old Soviet Union sub base existed also got canned because the tour's car broke down. All in all, quite depressing.

His presence is everywhere.

I decided to go out on walks the next day to the not so busy new town area -- it was quite bland since I was basically walking in a suburb. The church I discovered looked pretty cool from the outside, but alas I was not meant to be inside since it was closed. Circling back to old town around lunch time, I ran into a series of narrow back streets and I just had to take some photos. :D

Yes, it was raining hard.

At night, I went back out for more walking. This time, I went uphill and found the PM's home. It looks pretty impressive at night when its perched over the outside of the city. It looks toward the north and the Gulf of Finland, and it was surrounded by a faux moat about 50m below the foundations of the building. Walking up these stairs almost killed me.

White as marble.

Goodbye Tallinn!

I met a Canadian, a Lithuanian, and a German on my last day and we all had a hearty breakfast. Hostels - that's what its all about isn't it? Meeting new people, exchanging contacts, understanding different cultures. Since I was due to leave this day, I wasn't able to go on the other tours they had signed up for. The clouds opened up for a brief moment this day. Specifically, they opened up for the one hour that I would be out by myself, walking towards the ferry terminal. Some things are just magical aren't they?

Country Count: Iceland, Finland, Czech Republic, Germany, Austria, Estonia

Tallinn, Estonia

Interesting town, Tallinn is. Its old city centre (where I stayed) was not too large at all - you can make the rounds in about two hours if you walk briskly. Being a non party goer, I took the opportunity to sort my thoughts out in the mornings by going out for early walks.

Feeding frenzy thanks to a crazy old woman.

Tallinn is full of sculptures, old buildings, and (what has now become my enemy) cobblestone. Not many people know about this city just because its so small with a population of approximately 400k. Of course, these 400k people are squeezed into an extremely tight area thanks to the proximity of the buildings. What's interesting is that there's a law in the city that prohibits the building of structures which are taller than St. Olaf's church. Even if Tallinn is the up and coming high-tech city, there is a serious lack of skyscrapers which you'd expect of such cities. In total, there are six(!!!) skyscrapers in the city, none of which are allowed to be any taller than 130m.

The medieval structure of the old city has carried through to this day. Numerous courtyards like the one below can be spotted. They are literally everywhere in the old town. This particular

courtyard was interesting: I just felt it was the perfect blend of modern engineering blending right into traditional architecture.

I know I should blur out the license plate..

Should I mention the weather? The sun was out the entire time and the temperatures were so comf.... I can't lie. It was cloudy, raining, windy, and absolutely cold. It seems that my last two trips have been like this. Seeing as St. Petersburg is my next stop, I hope that if it does have to precipitate, that it comes down in the form of snow. At least this way, I can enjoy it! Despite being from such a rainy city myself, I find the rain hard to handle when combined with wind.

I returned to the hostel after an afternoon's worth of photo shooting. At the hostel, I met the most friendly people thus far on my trips in Europe. It literally felt like going to a friend's place to hang out and relax. Heck, we even had a communal dinner made by a young Swiss Farmer! Yes we had to pay, but it was interesting sampling a dish from other cultures. I was going to turn in for the night after such a hearty potato based meal, but I decided to venture out again to capture One Shot (:)) before calling it quits for the day.

The city hall with old town square in none of its usual glory.

Tallinn(2/3/4) should be arriving soon with absolutely no photos. Most of the charm Tallinn had was in the people I interacted with and all the various stories which I heard. :) Nevertheless, more updates to follow!