a christmas markt

i know i skipped some time. the bloggist that lies within me is a bit reserved, quite scatter brained, and helplessly romanticizes stories that they seem to not make it to real text often. anyways, this past weekend i traveled down south and westward  some distance to a sleepy little town, kindsbach: home to the Tresemers. it was a wonderful time and perfect timing to get away from what has become my life here. work had been hectic and the sun had not shown his (i believe the sun to be male and the moon to be female) face on berlin in a solid four days here.

we had a real american thanksgiving, southern style deep fried turkey and all. we set the table fancy. we played games. we overate and nearly fell asleep watching football. it felt all so familiar and all so out of place. i also found myself missing berlin. i have fallen head over heels for this city and realized i know it better than any other place i have lived in. i'm sure this will change as i move back home in a months time and slowly seek out the crevices hiding in austin. i believe i can attribute knowing berlin well due to my mode of transporting oneself. the cities i have taken up residence and know the least are ones where i was held down by a car - my fault or the layout of the land's fault. denver falls in the middle of the spectrum as i drove mostly, biked quite a bit, and walked a decent amount. though most of the walking was started off with an automobile getting me there. san antonio i know the very least despite living there the longest time. no big plans to return.

i once had a professor in school that said he would walk for 3-4 hours every sunday. three to four HOURS! that is a lot of time. he would travel on different paths and new roads each walk he set out on. he also knew the city of fayetteville like that of the men who drew the city maps (pre-satellite days). i always admired this about him. we take in vastly different perspectives in how we engage with our city by the way we are being carried. even a ritual jog through your local park will be a different sight for your eyes if you are strolling at a slow gait with company by your side. my biking eyes here have picked up on many things my walking eyes never did and vice-versa.

[here are some pics of the first christmas market i've laid my eyes on. heidelburg, germany is was. and the company was delightful]

my little point and shoot camera has died. this is sad news. i still have many days left in germany and quite a few images that need capturing, especially as the barren trees reveal what was nestled behind. it's funny how when you don't have a camera in your pocket you think about all of the things you want to snap a photo of. well, this was sad news for two days until a friend here lent me one of theirs. it is one of those in between easy-to-use cameras and manual fancy ones. i think i will keep it on manual and see how i quickly, or not so, adapt. 

first photo:

on the m-4 tram

kolliwitz platz market

a hill of war rubble is beneath you at this high point in prenzlauer berg. the structure on the left is a renovated water storage now residential building. and we discovered public trampolines. i waited patiently behind the 3 year old for my turn. i jumped and giggled.

snowy view

First [1]

fantastic web-site


Second [2]

we ventured (read: I pulled my flatmate along to my out-of-the-way curiosities) on our way from berlin to dresden to check out a viewing platform. while i'm not entirely sure what over arching category viewing platforms fall under in regards to architecture i'm sure i would be content designing them. i like views. who doesn't like views. i think it is the trip up to the view that most loathe. in this case it was stairs. corten stairs. oh, and a fit of snow, pronounced sneee in german. because of the snow conditions we sadly couldn't 'view' very far. i was content just going. would love to go back on a clear winter day, though not sure that will ever happen as i need a car and am without an international drivers license. 

okay then. pictures do the work here. 

leafage

fall chemtrails

old . new.
(two minutes after i took this photo a man living off of his bike , stopped himself, said a few choice words in german, and proceeded to hit my camera out of my hand. i guess these things just happen sometimes) 

playful lines

bike on leaves

frau jinah

moabit lane

a red reichstag

fall time is underway in berlin and has been for some weeks now. not sure why i haven't noticed the stages of autumn leaves as much as i have recently. they are floating above: changing, they are in the air between head and feet: dancing, they are below as the carpet of the city streets: crunching. on every street here that has trees lining down them is a sea of gold. perhaps it's the combination of city-backdrops and fall foliage that have been stealing my stare. or the hours i spend on my bike moving through this big place. 

september skies at the reichstag

snapped before circling up the glass dome

our other side trip was prague, or as everybody else in the continent of europe would call it, praha. do you know why we choose to change the name of cities? i mean they are already foreign words, right? let us just stick with the original. if we brainstorm for a hot second as which cities we (the english language) have altered we can come up with: munich/münchen | rome/roma | florence/firenze....the list goes on. i guess if you go there you get to choose what you want to call the place. i like that idea.

okay i did some research and it seems a few logical reasons for why the text has changed in city names but i still like the idea of each person getting to choose, which is pretty much what happened anyways, as it 'fit' into the english language more fluidly.

sad to say: praha was swarming beyond bees with tourists. i'm not saying i wasn't amongst them snapping pictures, gabbing non-local language, standing in the middle of the roadway while head buried in  map (just to name a few stand-outs) but the tourist traffic really did a number on the genuineness of the city. i'm sure it is there, just buried. i'm sure praha is lovely. i'm sure it is quaint and has nimble little alleyways to discover. looks like i need a time traveling machine to explore the city in the ways i would like. any folks out there have one? i would like to land in 1885. one hundred years before i was born. don't worry, i'll come back.

so this tourism scene. it is here to stay. it has changed cities like praha and many others. cities have created whole marketing strategies around how they can collect and wrangle as many of these globe-totters as they can. i do not blame the city, it is just not for my most ideal travel ways. however, living is a whole different discussion and might call for a pot of green tea. i'm talking about visiting, the 48-96 hour type, as we were.

i'm not sure who out there has qualms with instagram, but i instagrammed the crap out of one of our days in prague. i had an iphone in my hands and was like a kid who wouldn't let go of their teddy bear. it was fun. now that is over and my point and shoot, currently dying a slow death, will suffice and boy it will.

: instagrammation :

in retrospect: too much blur effect. i'm an amateur.

dresden

dresden military history museum

there is a list of german cities that i would love to walk though and gaze upon. the list is kind-of, sort-of long as well as continually being added to and so presents a small problem in visiting them since germany is not so tiny. on top of which, a normative job is being played out in my days and some weekends you just want to hang around prenzlauer berg and live local. however last week was all exploration in two new cities. dresden was first and instantly had a strong affinity for the place.

we took the bus (read: i told my mom there was no other way to travel; cheap here) and got to dresden in two short hours with bokoos of euros saved. plus, they give you wasser and fig granola bars on the ride. double score. our place was in the new part of town and just a walk away from the old part. this whole NEW part and OLD town is common language in european cities. Sometimes still intact are the old medieval walls that gives one a sense of how compact the city really was. Also to see the growth that happened as the city was bursting out of the seams for more land to live on.  

{break}

play-by-plays are not really my forte as i get on tangents and not sure anyone really cares about all the details, for they should just experience something similar to know how the story goes.

the sketch above is from a building i was completely taken aback by. the ginormous gesture of old and new. a redefinition of worlds colliding and something emerging from them. i believe this architectural move was quite appropriate for what the designer was trying to achieve. many locals are upset. they are allowed to be. the building is begging for an emotional and intellectual focus on history. in this specific case: the history of war.

as we know, dresden was decimated in 1945 at the tail end of world war II. this occurrence totally razed the historic center of they city. it's truly amazing to walk through the streets as it has been restored almost as it once existed before bane.

- - - -

architect: daniel libeskind

completion: 2011

previous uses: saxon armory | nazi museum | soviet museum | east german museum

survived 1945 bombing: yes!
http://daniel-libeskind.com/projects/military-history-museum/images



approach



scale



juxtaposition

[fancy architecture word for one thing next to another]



view to the city

           model © Studio Daniel Libeskind

ode to the open road and what moving oneself to new destinations does to the spirit.

gosh darn-it, who am i?

who are you (yes, you)?

what pieces do we get to pick?

what parts are chosen by nature?

what combinations take root with nurture?

 

ponder.think.dwell

below is part of my ideal existence:

"she is one of those rare people who lead active lives, engaged, alert, slightly reckless and unsettled, open to grief and to joy, and who can then tell you with clarity and warmth about what has happened to them." (on author: dorothy gallagher)


welp, a beautiful lady and i traveled to new berlin locations, dresden and prague. will post soon-ish with a slightly skewed and critical perspective. or at the very least a picture.

reading a thought

" the desire to remember and the desire

to   forget   are  indissolubly  mixed "

 

 

i have been reading more in my life than ever before. mostly non-fiction, but that is usually all i ever read. 

 

sometimes i wish i had the i-phone just to use the notepad app (and maybe the app that tells you where public bathrooms are). not that i couldn't be old-school and have a little pocket book and pen with me at all times, i often do, but in this day and age we most certainly have a handy (german name for cell-phone) with us at all times. it would make for the remembering of little texts and thoughtful words easily available for later reflection since they would be permanently noted. but then i think, if i always had a pen and notepad with me i would clumsily wash my faber-castell black pen too often. yes, it has already happened here which didn't bode well for the small selection of clothes my closet contains.
 

well, about this reading. it is mostly about the history of the city of berlin, or urbanism on a whole, bits and pieces of different critics on the development happening here, german children's books, these sorts of things. since, i believe, there is something so personal to receive from cities, especially one such as berlin, you can relate some hidden pieces of the text about cities to other aspects outside of which they are meant. this is the case at hand. it just takes a bit of sun-staring and chem-trail chasing. or squinting to find the beauty in this city, which to some is not very apparent. but that definitely depends on what beautiful is to you. think about that. i dare you.
 

as the quote mentions, remembering and forgetting are permanently bonded together, our desire to that is. do you ever think about something so much SO that you will never forget it? or why is it that we will never forgot an instance in our life that may have been just a fleeting moment? i don't think we get the choice to forget. but would like to believe we get the choice to remember. however, i'm not certain it works that way. i would be lying if i said that when in the past someone forgot something we shared or experienced together that i feel like i would not ever forget has saddened me. though i'm positive i have be in the reverse role. it's all so personal: it's how we engage with our surroundings, the person in front of us, the landscape we stand in, the repetitive ways we turn our bodies, the context of our conversations. the amazing thing about these thoughts to me, is that i believe, as an aspiring urban designer, our profession could create a place or stage if you will, to grant people the ability to remember with a place/city/park/street/younameit as the setting.

now to create. 

kino international

 

 

i went to the kino. kino is the movies. going to the movies in another country is something i really enjoy doing, i believe it to be cultural. just once or twice. except i saw a not so good movie this time around. better luck next time. i got overly excited too quickly. though the architecture did make up for it. one fine day, on the bike ride from work i bumped into this building for the 3rd or so time, though this day i hit it square on and coaxed me to come have a look. you see, the ride to work is usually unwavering and i have little time for random turns, i have already pulled the 'whoops i got lost card four too many times'. the afternoon however, well that is a completely different genre. my 'commute' home has nearly tripled in time as i lolly gag my way home, with no peeking at the map.

 

this building is truly a gem. built during the soviet era in the 1960's in the international style (modernism) it truly has kept its beauty over the years. it is an ant compared to the other karl marx allee buildings it sits upon. it is calling you to come in with the protruding roof cantilevering over the entry. i did enter and was sold when i was told that the movie showing would be in original version. i still fell asleep.

 

[a few pictures, missed snapping the upstairs pink lounge, will just have to make a trip back. you come. we go!] 

 

 

                                     nov. 1963 image