Sunday, 25 April 2010
Adventures, part 3
Prague.
The train to Prague went via Dresden and ran along the river Elbe. The Czech Republic seems like a pretty run down place, even in Prague, which isn't really a surprise; however, the Elbe was pretty and there was a lot of impressive cliffs along the bank of the river.
When we arrived we checked in at our hotel, the Dahlia Inn, which was a lot nicer but a lot quieter than the East Seven in Berlin. The guy running the place, Mark, was really nice; he gave us loads of information and we had a nice chat about music and whatnot. For the first evening we decided to just have a bit of a wander around, so we checked out the old town and wandered past a really old synagogue and a bunch of poncy shops. We also walked past the Astronomical Clock, which, amusingly, has four animated figures which were added in the 17th century, representing things hated by the Czech people at the time; vanity, Jews, death and Turks. We didn't actually bother to wait for the clock to move on the hour, because it was raining, but also because the guidebook said it wasn't really worth it.
In the evening, we ate at Pivovarsky dum, where the beer was really cheap and awesome, and the meals were slightly more expensive but still pretty good. I guess they do things in reverse to the old scam here of cheap meals and expensive drinks. I had venison, which was pretty tasty.
So yeah, not much happened on the first day; not much happened in Prague generally, although the second day was a bit more interesting.
The train to Prague went via Dresden and ran along the river Elbe. The Czech Republic seems like a pretty run down place, even in Prague, which isn't really a surprise; however, the Elbe was pretty and there was a lot of impressive cliffs along the bank of the river.
When we arrived we checked in at our hotel, the Dahlia Inn, which was a lot nicer but a lot quieter than the East Seven in Berlin. The guy running the place, Mark, was really nice; he gave us loads of information and we had a nice chat about music and whatnot. For the first evening we decided to just have a bit of a wander around, so we checked out the old town and wandered past a really old synagogue and a bunch of poncy shops. We also walked past the Astronomical Clock, which, amusingly, has four animated figures which were added in the 17th century, representing things hated by the Czech people at the time; vanity, Jews, death and Turks. We didn't actually bother to wait for the clock to move on the hour, because it was raining, but also because the guidebook said it wasn't really worth it.
In the evening, we ate at Pivovarsky dum, where the beer was really cheap and awesome, and the meals were slightly more expensive but still pretty good. I guess they do things in reverse to the old scam here of cheap meals and expensive drinks. I had venison, which was pretty tasty.
So yeah, not much happened on the first day; not much happened in Prague generally, although the second day was a bit more interesting.
Saturday, 24 April 2010
Adventures, part 2
Berlin, day 2.
We got up pretty late on our second day in Berlin, having flown the day before. We considered a walking tour, but by the time we got outside it seemed to have disappeared anyway, so we headed for Museum Island to see if anything was open, as prior research had indicated that nothing was usually open on a Monday. Most of the museums were indeed open, so we bought a pass for all of them and headed to the first, the Neues Museum, which for some reason only allows people in at certain time slots, but luckily we turned up right when one of the slots was beginning so we got in quickly.
Having read up on these museums beforehand, I was particularly looking forward to the Pergamon Museum, which was described in the guidebook as being Berlin's equivalent to the British Museum. However, all of the buildings were extremely impressive from the outside, and this area was one of the ones I mentioned in my last post as being a place where you walk down a regular street, turn a corner, and are confronted with an area of several huge, regal buildings. The Neues Musuem was impressive inside also, and had a very large collection of ancient Egyptian art, sculpture and several mummies and sarcophagi. It also had the iconic, 3300 year old bust of Nerfetiti, attributed to the court sculptor Thutmose:
This sculpture, which we actually found kind of scary, had a room all to itself. It was strange to see it, because I didn't know it was in the museum, and I know I've seen it somewhere before but can't think where; as if it was some residual memory from a programme I'd watched, or something I'd read at some point.
Anyway, as cool as the Neues Musuem was, the Pergamon Museum was frankly insane. If you've ever been to the British Museum, you'll be amazed by the sheer size and scale of some of the statues they have in there, like that of Ramesses II taken from the Ramesseum. However, the Germans seem to have gone a couple of steps further, taking entire buildings and putting them inside the friggin' museum. I mean, photos can hardly do it justice, but they might give you some idea:
The Pergamon Altar:
Detail from the friezes which run all the way around the room, just visible at the left of the altar in the above picture:
The Ishtar Gate:
HUGE columns:
There were also a number of huge sculptures, but it's a bit futile to post pictures of all of these things, because they can only really be experienced in person. As well as Greco-Roman and Babylonian artifacts, they have a large Medieval collection and, at the time we were there, an Islamic art exhibition.
So that's what we did on our second day in Berlin. After these two we decided we didn't really have enough time to visit the others, so we went back for the free meal that East Seven were cooking us, Mexican pasta, which was great. We also ran into some of Ed's friends, Fraser, Tom and Richard which was an extremely strange but enjoyable coincidence. We hung out with them for the evening rather than going to the Reichstag as we'd planned, and then hit the hay pretty early.
Day one of Prague in the next post!
We got up pretty late on our second day in Berlin, having flown the day before. We considered a walking tour, but by the time we got outside it seemed to have disappeared anyway, so we headed for Museum Island to see if anything was open, as prior research had indicated that nothing was usually open on a Monday. Most of the museums were indeed open, so we bought a pass for all of them and headed to the first, the Neues Museum, which for some reason only allows people in at certain time slots, but luckily we turned up right when one of the slots was beginning so we got in quickly.
Having read up on these museums beforehand, I was particularly looking forward to the Pergamon Museum, which was described in the guidebook as being Berlin's equivalent to the British Museum. However, all of the buildings were extremely impressive from the outside, and this area was one of the ones I mentioned in my last post as being a place where you walk down a regular street, turn a corner, and are confronted with an area of several huge, regal buildings. The Neues Musuem was impressive inside also, and had a very large collection of ancient Egyptian art, sculpture and several mummies and sarcophagi. It also had the iconic, 3300 year old bust of Nerfetiti, attributed to the court sculptor Thutmose:
This sculpture, which we actually found kind of scary, had a room all to itself. It was strange to see it, because I didn't know it was in the museum, and I know I've seen it somewhere before but can't think where; as if it was some residual memory from a programme I'd watched, or something I'd read at some point.
Anyway, as cool as the Neues Musuem was, the Pergamon Museum was frankly insane. If you've ever been to the British Museum, you'll be amazed by the sheer size and scale of some of the statues they have in there, like that of Ramesses II taken from the Ramesseum. However, the Germans seem to have gone a couple of steps further, taking entire buildings and putting them inside the friggin' museum. I mean, photos can hardly do it justice, but they might give you some idea:
The Pergamon Altar:
Detail from the friezes which run all the way around the room, just visible at the left of the altar in the above picture:
The Ishtar Gate:
HUGE columns:
There were also a number of huge sculptures, but it's a bit futile to post pictures of all of these things, because they can only really be experienced in person. As well as Greco-Roman and Babylonian artifacts, they have a large Medieval collection and, at the time we were there, an Islamic art exhibition.
So that's what we did on our second day in Berlin. After these two we decided we didn't really have enough time to visit the others, so we went back for the free meal that East Seven were cooking us, Mexican pasta, which was great. We also ran into some of Ed's friends, Fraser, Tom and Richard which was an extremely strange but enjoyable coincidence. We hung out with them for the evening rather than going to the Reichstag as we'd planned, and then hit the hay pretty early.
Day one of Prague in the next post!
Thursday, 22 April 2010
Adventures outside the Isle of Disappointment
Heather and I escaped the Isle of Disappointment, Boredom and Mental Anguish for a sojourn around Europe over the last week and 'alf. In total our itinerary consisted of Dundee-Edinburgh-Berlin-Prague-Vienna-Budapest-Munich-Augsburg-Munich-Stuttgart-Paris-Calais-Dover-London-Edinburgh-Dundee.
The last part of this itinerary, from the second Munich visit onwards, was unplanned, but due to certain giant volcanic ash clouds, we had to take the long way home, travelling by train, bus and boat for around 30 hours straight to get back and relieve Matthew of the responsibilities of Jam. As well as this, we had work to get back to, and I have a poisonous toe, which required medical attention, plus we couldn't afford to sit around in Augsburg (as lovely as it was) waiting for Ryanair to put our flight back on.
Anyway, I will attempt to tackle each of these cities and towns in an individual blog post, in a very dull, holiday slide show sort of fashion, in order to document our trip to the annals of history as being the greatest holiday that ever was.
So, in the spirit of getting on with pointless and lengthy tasks:
Edinburgh.
We went to Edinburgh on the afternoon of the tenth of April, later than we should of, being forced to buy new tickets because we had to find a post office that would sell us Euros before leaving. The beginning of a trend of having to spend more money than necessary while in Britain, compared to relatively low costs in Europe.
I know Edinburgh isn't particularly interesting, but it's worth a mention because we had a lovely afternoon in the sun outside our friend Ed's flat, followed by a tasty Korma cooked by the aforementioned Ed, with an early night in preparation for an early light the next day.
This flight had a disturbing contrast between chirpy, cheerful announcements and grumpy twat staff, who repeatedly shouted at one passenger for sitting in a seat that was inexplicably off limits, rushed through the emergency procedure with complete apathy and boredom, and badgered us to hurry up and sit down so that we could get flying on time.
Berlin.
I was most excited about Berlin out of all of our destinations, and it didn't disappoint, although it was definitely different to what I expected. We wandered around lost for a while, trying to find a market that sold old Soviet memorabilia to buy a present for our cat-sitter and accidentally walked straight up to the Reichstag, without even realising where we were. The spaces in Berlin seem incredibly open, and while there was a huge line outside the Reichstag building, it was pretty much deserted otherwise; whether this was because it was a Sunday, I'm not sure. Often we'd walk down a perfectly normal street, turn the corner, and find a massively impressive building, or several all in one place, as with the museum district. I guess no one walks around anyway, they cycle or take the awesome U-Bahn, so maybe that's why there wasn't many pedestrians.
We eventually gave up on trying to find the market and went to the Hamburger Bahnhof gallery, which was the first in a day of really incredible art spaces. This place was flippin' massive, and had a lot of modern artworks by artists who, admittedly, I hadn't really heard of, but which were extremely impressive nonetheless. They did have several Warhol's, which were interesting; I never really get overally excited by Warhol, but I always find myself intrigued and/or amazed by him when I actually see his work. Included was a huge Mao print, the scale of which can only really be exemplified by showing it in situ:
There was also a couple of his Elvis prints, a James Cagney one and a large Flowers one.
Next we jaunted over to the Neue Nationalgalerie, which was, for me, probably the most impressive place we visited on the whole trip. It was full of the works of some of the greatest artists of the twentieth century, including Pablo Picasso, Rene Magritte, Otto Dix, Paul Klee, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Edvard Munch, Piet Mondrian and many others. Here's a few of my favourite paintings from the collection; it's hard to remember them all, because I was very tired from the flight etc., so I hope to go back some time and take a lot longer to browse through:
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner - Potsdamer Platz (1914):
Otto Dix - Card Playing War Cripples (1920):
Barnett Newman - Broken Obelisk (1963):
Paul Klee - The Goldfish (1925):
George Grosz - The Pillars of Society (1926):
A lot of the work in the Neue Nationalgalerie focused, understandably, on the First and Second World Wars, and it was extremely interesting to see artworks from German and other European artists in person; they were certainly as full of horror and disgust at these wars as the works of ally artists like Paul Nash. Many of the works were also featured in the infamous "Degenerate Art" exhibition, held by the Nazis in Munich in 1937. It's amazing to think that the Nazis would even attempt such a thing; one would think that anyone exposed to these works would see their worth, and yet the Nazis were able to turn people against modernism and what they deemed "Jewish-Communist" artworks such as these.
The last place we visited that day was the somewhat underwhelming Kunst Bibliothek (art library), which had an exhibition on 60s fashion photography, and one featuring works by Botticelli, which we couldn't seem to find. By this point we were tired, and overwhelmed by the Neue Nationalgalerie, so perhaps it's no surprise that weren't hugely impressed.
We went and checked in to our hostel, the East Seven, which seemed comfortable and friendly. However, on the first night, we pretty much just got Chinese food and a coupla beers and went to sleep, we were so tired.
Day two of Berlin tomorrow (or later today, if I can be bothered)!
The last part of this itinerary, from the second Munich visit onwards, was unplanned, but due to certain giant volcanic ash clouds, we had to take the long way home, travelling by train, bus and boat for around 30 hours straight to get back and relieve Matthew of the responsibilities of Jam. As well as this, we had work to get back to, and I have a poisonous toe, which required medical attention, plus we couldn't afford to sit around in Augsburg (as lovely as it was) waiting for Ryanair to put our flight back on.
Anyway, I will attempt to tackle each of these cities and towns in an individual blog post, in a very dull, holiday slide show sort of fashion, in order to document our trip to the annals of history as being the greatest holiday that ever was.
So, in the spirit of getting on with pointless and lengthy tasks:
Edinburgh.
We went to Edinburgh on the afternoon of the tenth of April, later than we should of, being forced to buy new tickets because we had to find a post office that would sell us Euros before leaving. The beginning of a trend of having to spend more money than necessary while in Britain, compared to relatively low costs in Europe.
I know Edinburgh isn't particularly interesting, but it's worth a mention because we had a lovely afternoon in the sun outside our friend Ed's flat, followed by a tasty Korma cooked by the aforementioned Ed, with an early night in preparation for an early light the next day.
This flight had a disturbing contrast between chirpy, cheerful announcements and grumpy twat staff, who repeatedly shouted at one passenger for sitting in a seat that was inexplicably off limits, rushed through the emergency procedure with complete apathy and boredom, and badgered us to hurry up and sit down so that we could get flying on time.
Berlin.
I was most excited about Berlin out of all of our destinations, and it didn't disappoint, although it was definitely different to what I expected. We wandered around lost for a while, trying to find a market that sold old Soviet memorabilia to buy a present for our cat-sitter and accidentally walked straight up to the Reichstag, without even realising where we were. The spaces in Berlin seem incredibly open, and while there was a huge line outside the Reichstag building, it was pretty much deserted otherwise; whether this was because it was a Sunday, I'm not sure. Often we'd walk down a perfectly normal street, turn the corner, and find a massively impressive building, or several all in one place, as with the museum district. I guess no one walks around anyway, they cycle or take the awesome U-Bahn, so maybe that's why there wasn't many pedestrians.
We eventually gave up on trying to find the market and went to the Hamburger Bahnhof gallery, which was the first in a day of really incredible art spaces. This place was flippin' massive, and had a lot of modern artworks by artists who, admittedly, I hadn't really heard of, but which were extremely impressive nonetheless. They did have several Warhol's, which were interesting; I never really get overally excited by Warhol, but I always find myself intrigued and/or amazed by him when I actually see his work. Included was a huge Mao print, the scale of which can only really be exemplified by showing it in situ:
There was also a couple of his Elvis prints, a James Cagney one and a large Flowers one.
Next we jaunted over to the Neue Nationalgalerie, which was, for me, probably the most impressive place we visited on the whole trip. It was full of the works of some of the greatest artists of the twentieth century, including Pablo Picasso, Rene Magritte, Otto Dix, Paul Klee, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Edvard Munch, Piet Mondrian and many others. Here's a few of my favourite paintings from the collection; it's hard to remember them all, because I was very tired from the flight etc., so I hope to go back some time and take a lot longer to browse through:
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner - Potsdamer Platz (1914):
Otto Dix - Card Playing War Cripples (1920):
Barnett Newman - Broken Obelisk (1963):
Paul Klee - The Goldfish (1925):
George Grosz - The Pillars of Society (1926):
A lot of the work in the Neue Nationalgalerie focused, understandably, on the First and Second World Wars, and it was extremely interesting to see artworks from German and other European artists in person; they were certainly as full of horror and disgust at these wars as the works of ally artists like Paul Nash. Many of the works were also featured in the infamous "Degenerate Art" exhibition, held by the Nazis in Munich in 1937. It's amazing to think that the Nazis would even attempt such a thing; one would think that anyone exposed to these works would see their worth, and yet the Nazis were able to turn people against modernism and what they deemed "Jewish-Communist" artworks such as these.
The last place we visited that day was the somewhat underwhelming Kunst Bibliothek (art library), which had an exhibition on 60s fashion photography, and one featuring works by Botticelli, which we couldn't seem to find. By this point we were tired, and overwhelmed by the Neue Nationalgalerie, so perhaps it's no surprise that weren't hugely impressed.
We went and checked in to our hostel, the East Seven, which seemed comfortable and friendly. However, on the first night, we pretty much just got Chinese food and a coupla beers and went to sleep, we were so tired.
Day two of Berlin tomorrow (or later today, if I can be bothered)!
Thursday, 8 April 2010
He's a demon on wheels
I've been listening to a lot of MM...Food recently, and it's put me in the mood for watching old, stupid cartoons. A lot of the samples DOOM uses are from Fantastic Four (naturally), and I found this rather amusing clip, featuring a crazy underwater car that walks on legs (and which The Thing refers to as a "jalopy"), and the old classic of reusing the same scene over and over to save money and time drawing new scenes:
I also found this:
It's pretty funny, because you expect the theme tune to be pretty dramatic, and it starts off like some sort of 70s cop show, but quickly turns into something resembling that of a cheesy game show. Also, it's super cheery, even though someone dies in the race that we see Speed Racer in. Even the grim look on Speed Racer's face seems to contradict the cheesy music; as if the guy who wrote the theme tune didn't even look at what the show was going to be like. Plus, Speed Racer's strange mincing walk to his car at the beginning is hilarious, and his pose at the end is incredibly awkward.
Here's the opening track to MM...Food:
I also found this:
It's pretty funny, because you expect the theme tune to be pretty dramatic, and it starts off like some sort of 70s cop show, but quickly turns into something resembling that of a cheesy game show. Also, it's super cheery, even though someone dies in the race that we see Speed Racer in. Even the grim look on Speed Racer's face seems to contradict the cheesy music; as if the guy who wrote the theme tune didn't even look at what the show was going to be like. Plus, Speed Racer's strange mincing walk to his car at the beginning is hilarious, and his pose at the end is incredibly awkward.
Here's the opening track to MM...Food:
Wednesday, 7 April 2010
Pointless
Good lord. Just watching a programme called "Pointless", hosted by Alexander Armstrong, and it's pretty strange. It's kinda like reverse Family Fortunes; you have to guess an answer which very few or no people have said in a poll, but you're not allowed to get it wrong. It's pretty terrible, for a number of reasons; the concept is pretty shit, the co-presenter is a bit of a smarmy twat who tells everyone whether they're right or wrong and adds miscellaneous facts, and the contestants are plain weird and idiotic.
For example, the question I'm watching right now is "Robin Williams Films"; i.e, you have to name films which Robin Williams has featured in, but obscure ones which people might not think of right away.
One of the guys on a team of two old men said "Alien"(!)
As well as this Alexander Armstrong asked a team, who are a married couple, how they are, and they said "well, we're happily married, but we've actually had a very stressful time of it lately and our marriage isn't doing so well, but we've had a pep talk from our 3 year old daughter this morning, so I think things are OK." This didn't seem to be a reference to an inside joke or anything (even though they've been on the show, apparently), it was just an embarrasingly open response to a fairly banal question.
I've never heard of this show, but apparently it's been on for a couple of series.
I can't believe how far Alexander Armstrong has fallen; from almost permanently presenting Have I Got News For You, to doing awful Pimms adverts, to this crap.
For example, the question I'm watching right now is "Robin Williams Films"; i.e, you have to name films which Robin Williams has featured in, but obscure ones which people might not think of right away.
One of the guys on a team of two old men said "Alien"(!)
As well as this Alexander Armstrong asked a team, who are a married couple, how they are, and they said "well, we're happily married, but we've actually had a very stressful time of it lately and our marriage isn't doing so well, but we've had a pep talk from our 3 year old daughter this morning, so I think things are OK." This didn't seem to be a reference to an inside joke or anything (even though they've been on the show, apparently), it was just an embarrasingly open response to a fairly banal question.
I've never heard of this show, but apparently it's been on for a couple of series.
I can't believe how far Alexander Armstrong has fallen; from almost permanently presenting Have I Got News For You, to doing awful Pimms adverts, to this crap.
Monday, 5 April 2010
Saturday, 3 April 2010
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