Category: Life

Berlin

I’ve wanted to go to Berlin for a long time. Something about it’s history, the architecture and the culture of the place.
So after a couple of years of procrastination I finally stumped up the cash for a three night break in the Mitte district of the city.
Flights were from Glasgow with Easyjet and frankly they were unremarkable, clean and comfortable enough. After landing at the airport getting to the city proved easy thanks to the fabulous berlin-brandenburg public transport system. An express train every half hour takes you to the main city train stations and from them you can get the underground, the suburban rail, the trams or the busses. I changed at Friedrich Strasse station and took the U6 to Zinnowitzer Strasse station and there I was a full minute’s walk from my hotel.
The hotel deserves special mention – a huge room, with an enormous bathroom and rather nice continental breakfast thrown in for less than £45 a night.

The afternoon I arrived I wandered down from the hotel along Friedrich Strasse, which is now a seriously upscale shopping street – I made it past Unter Den Linden (Berlin’s Champs Elysee) and to the Gendarmenmarkt which is a stunning square with twin cathedrals at it’s north and south ends with a large Concert house in between. It’s pretty stunning. I got the U-bahn back to the hotel after a while and ate at Oscar Wilde’s Irish Bar that night. Actually a pretty low key bar with football on the telly and burgers on the menu. Can’t say it was the best meal ever but it was certainly filling.

Next day I was up and ready for the one thing I had planned – an all day walking tour of historical Berlin. This was an amazing experience lasting over 9 hours which barely left East Berlin and covered only about 400 years of German/Prussian history in the process. There was too much information to ever convey adequately in a brief post but to stand in streets where the Nazis pulled teenage Jewish girls out of their school and sent them off to die in extermination camps or in Frederick’s Forum where Frederick the Great had the Catholic cathedral built next to his opera house to show his religious tolerance (being nominally a Lutheran king) which is also where the Nazis burned 20,000 books in one night and there are two memorials, a small bronze plaque marking the event with a quote from the 1820’s by a German philosopher “He who burns books will eventually think to burn men” and the other is an underground room that holds empty bookshelves enough to hold every book burnt. So bloody powerful. We ate at a turkish kebab shop round the corner from Checkpoint Charlie and saw the largest remnants of the wall left. I stood on top of the bunker complex where Hitler killed himself. We ended the tour in front of the remodelled Reichstag in the pitch black with spotlights in the sky and the buildings lit up because of the festival of lights.
I spent the rest of the evening in a tex-mex restaurant for a drink with two folks from the tour – a guy from Bellingham, WA and a girl from Canada. German beer is good…

I got up late the next morning, sore from the walking and muzzy from the drink. After grabbing breakfast I made my way to West Berlin. The western half of the city is so much tackier. The result of being a commercial centre for 60 years, I guess. I strolled down the Ku’damm which is another upscale shopping street before realizing that the shop I wanted to see – KaDeWe – was in the other direction. KaDeWe is the largest department store in europe and has the most amazing restaurant level on the top floor. After browsing the shops I got the 100 bus which takes you on a circular tour of the heart of the city. I eventually got off at Unter Den Linden again and headed back to the hotel for a mid-afternoon snack. Where I promptly fell asleep until 5pm! I scoured the area for something to eat but ended up chickening out and having a Subway for my meal.

Friday was a case of packing up, checking out and heading back to the airport cos my flight was at 12.30.

Anyway amazing city – never got to see any of the museums I fancied, chickened out of the local food, hardly shopped. So I need to go back to get more of the place. It’s the first city I’ve visited abroad where I thought ‘I can see myself living here’. Oh well maybe if I win the lottery, eh?

San Francisco
I arrived into San Francisco international about 2pm, caught a BART to the city and was checked into the hotel by 3.15pm. I don’t mind admitting that it was a touch on the overwhelming side to be in a strange, teeming, city centre on my own. I basically limited myself to a wander among the neighbouring blocks and buying something to eat.
On Sunday I had breakfast in a 50’s style diner then I headed to the SF Museum of Modern Art . This is a pretty damned impressive collection and building (OK the Tate Modern in London kicks it’s ass, but you would expect it to). I spent nearly three hours in there, and I was particularly impressed by the Modern Masterworks, Cut: Revealing the Section and Lee Friedlander exhibitions. Their general collection of photography is pretty amazing, with some outstanding early photographs and pieces by real masters.
Around the corner from SFMOMA is the Cartoon Art Museum. I spent a good while in here, it had exhibitions on a recently deceased cartoonist for the SF Chronicle, single panel cartoons on sex and sexuality by upcoming female cartoonists and a pioneering cartoonist Craig Flessel, as well as a general collection of cells from animated cartoons from Disney, The Simpsons etc, and a general collection of original cartoons from across history including Krazy Kat and Calvin and Hobbes and all sorts in between.
That night I went to a multiplex and saw the Iron Man movie. It was a lot of fun, but still basically a big dumb action spectacle.
Monday was down as Alcatraz day in my intinerary, as I’d bought my ticket weeks before online. The visit to Alcatraz ending up being pretty much the highlight of the trip. I’ll spare you the full details for now, but I may end up doing a separate entry on it later.
After Alcatraz I headed down to Fisherman’s Wharf. I think it may compare with Times Square in New York as a tacky tourist trap. While I was down there though I thought I’d try the recent winner of best North American fast food chain on ILE – In-n-Out Burger. Just about the busiest burger joint I’ve ever been in, the burger was good and the fries tasted of potato!
On the way back to my hotel I passed through Chinatown and took some photos of the area, but I couldn’t work out what to try in terms of restaurants so I just headed back to the hotel.
It had been a beautiful day and I was very close to being sunburnt, so I just chilled out in front of the TV rather than going the Laura Veirs gig as planned. For the very first time I was able to watch WWE Raw live. Actually it was the first WWE wrestling I’ve seen in years and it was every bit as cheesy as I remembered. I must say that bit of TNA that I’ve seen lately isn’t as far behind as I thought. WWE wrestling is not what it was at it’s popularity peak.
On Tuesday it was time to hit the shops. Fortunately for me the two must-visit shops happened to give me some real sightseeing opportunities too.
First up was Amoeba records, which happens to be right at the top of Haight Street, almost at Golden Gate Park. To get there I took a bus. Public transport in the states is a different planet to the UK. Only the dirt poor take buses. Which lets you see a slice of life you’d otherwise miss.
A fabulous record store, Amoeba, with a huge and varied selection. I managed to limit myself to the ten purchases.
Once I finished there I wandered down to the junction at Haight & Ashbury, famous as the home of the psychedelic movement in the city during the sixties. It’s become a curious mixture of boutiques and cheesy hippy/tye dye memorabilia.
I headed back to the hotel to apply some sun blocking cream.
After lunch I caught another bus, this time to the Mission district. This area is a world away from the city centre. The section I saw was pretty low-rent and rundown but still vibrant and largely Spanish speaking.
I was there to visit Borderland books. This is a specialist Science Fiction bookstore, while not huge, it has an amazing selection of books. The second hand paperback section would ruin me…
Escaping having only spent $80 I pottered about the area for a little while before getting a bus full of school kids back to the hotel.
After having something to drink I headed out the shops around Market Street to do some more shopping and walked away with DVDs, baseball caps and a Nintendo DS.
Wednesday was checkout day and I decided to have a long lie-in and only head out once it was time to check out.
So around 11.30 I headed towards Grace Cathedral, camera at the ready. I ended up taking a walk back through Chinatown towards the Ferry Building at the end of Market Street. After sitting in the sun, taking the occasional photo of skateboarders doing tricks I walked the length of Market Street, pausing only to have lunch before collecting my suitcase and catching the BART to the airport.
The flight home was long, but I did have a very nice young couple sat next to me who just happened to be science fiction geeks too. By the time I was picked up at Edinburgh airport by my parents I’d been up for something like 27, 28 hours and my head was swimming round in circles. I slept for over 13 hours that night.
Overall San Francisco was magnificent and I barely scratched the surface of the city. Which just means I’ve got an excuse to go back!

Seattle
To get to Seattle I had to go through Heathrow. Now I know that there’s been a lot in the press about the problems with Terminal 5, but I didn’t experience any of that. What I can tell you is that Terminal 4 is just plain horrible. A commercial void with no place to sit and so far from the plane that you have to get a bus to it…
The flight itself was fine, even if it was a bit late in arriving into Seattle, meaning extra time in immigration as they were handling two flights at once.
So I arrived on the Monday about 5pm and after leaving my things at my friend’s house we headed to a bar on Capitol Hill to get something to eat. It was nice to relax in good company after the hours stuck on a plane.
On Tuesday we headed to the Olympic Sculpture Park and visited the International District. A visit to the arboretum was followed by some tasty home cooking by my host that night.
Wednesday we headed down towards Mt Rainier. It was a fascinating drive through rural America and some astonishing scenery as we headed up into the Cascades. The dog loved it. Once back in the city we headed out for a couple of drinks and some good conversation.
Thursday morning was spent watching some football. Americans really haven’t worked out how to commentate on it at all. Zenit St Petersburg were well worth their win though. After that we headed out to the Seattle Center and the Science Fiction Museum / Experience Music Project. The Sci-Fi museum was really interesting with a mix of TV & Film props, first edition books and author’s manuscripts. The music side was interesting but was more about interactive stuff and while I would have had a bit of a muck about on guitar it was too busy with kids to do so. Next we visited the Koolhaas designed Seattle Public Library. It’s a really interesting space, but a bit too high for me inside. Then I was taken to Half Price Books, which was tempting beyond belief. I had enough self control to only buy 5 books! That night we went to a restaurant called JaKs where we had mind-blowingly good steaks. Oh and 18yr old Macallan smells amazing.
On Friday we took the dog for a walk in the neighbourhood. After that we took a walk down Broadway in Capitol Hill, interrupted by lunch and later on a couple of beers, into the city proper. We had a light meal at a French restaurant at Pike Place Market overlooking Puget Sound. That night we went to see Colin Meloy at the Showbox (a review of which is forthcoming).
Saturday was getting my stuff together and heading to the airport.
I really enjoyed the stay in Seattle and I especially enjoyed the good company and gracious hospitality of my hosts. Thanks you guys!

Seattle, San Francisco
I’m back from 10 days in the USA, visiting friends in Seattle and doing San Francisco on my own.
I’ve got no clue where my body clock’s at, but otherwise I had a great time.
I’ve got around 440 photos documenting the trip, some of which will make it up to my flickr account and a select few will make my photoblog, CamerA.
I’m going to attempt an entry each for the two cities, so they should pop up later.