Bridges are awesome not least because you can come across them virtually anywhere – as majestic architectural masterpieces in large cities or as randomly strewn about planks across a creek somewhere in the middle of nowhere.
This small bridge in Amsterdam’s Vondelpark combines the aesthetic striving for perfection of culture with the beautiful surroundings of nature. Of course it’s not entirely natural, it’s still part of a park and as such quite domesticated. Nonetheless places like these are really important for a big city. They are green little retreat spaces that make you forget about urban noise and agitation.
When I was small I had a children’s book about Claude Monet called „Linnea in Monet’s Garden“. If you have children (or just love children’s books…) look it up, it’s really cute. When I came across this bridge, I felt instantly reminded of Monet’s pictures as I remembered them from the book. It’s really almost as if it was taken out of an impressionist painting.
If you have read My Mission statement, you know why I love bridges. To me they are the most universal symbol of connection, of bringing people together and overcoming anything that may seperate us. I want to present to you pictures of bridges that I really love in places that I really love on my blog every Sunday. If you have a picture of a bridge that you would like to share with my readers as a guest post, feel free to contact me!
The beauty of life is that you always find things that defeat any kind of stupid prejudice about any area in the world that is supposed to be boring, ugly or not worth visiting.
The Ruhr area is Germany’s industrial hub. Coal has been mined in the region since the 19th century. It has a reputation of being quite ugly. North Rhine-Westphalia, where it’s situated, is the most populous federal state, and in the Ruhr, city follows upon city when you travel through by train – and well-known, big ones, too: Dortmund, Essen, Duisburg. All of them have largely fallen victim to architectural catastrophes committed in the 1950s and 60s after being horribly bombed during World War 2. Although the area was Culture Capital of Europe in 2010, it is hardly your most obvious travel destination in Germany.
Yes, the beauty in the world lies in how it surprises you. I at least never would have placed a town as charming and pretty as Hattingen in the Ruhr area if you had shown me pictures of it beforehand.
Showers of rain had come down in the morning, but when Jan and I get to Hattingen, the sun is out in glorious early autumn warmth. The day is bright and beautiful and lies ahead of us in all its weekend peace. The first thing we come across even before we enter the actual old town is a church. We both have a thing for churches, and I don’t see us passing one by in our foreseeable travel life without at least checking if it’s open. This one is. Quite plain inside, beautiful red brick stone buttresses line the cupolas. We stand, just the two of us, and look up quietly. I link my arm in Jan’s and start singing. The acoustics are amazing, and the way the sounds ring through the church makes me feel utter joy. Stepping back out into the sunlight, there is one more little blessing hanging upon this day.
We move on and into the old town. Signs send the visitor through the centre with little information boards that explain any point of greater or smaller interest. I am instantly taken. There are half-timbered houses, some overgrown with ivy or wine, the leaves already changing colour into bright autumn red. The tiny tollhouse – which, we learn from the board, was never used as such – is especially pretty.
Other houses are made of schist (boy, have I never heard that word in English before!), and while I might have thought before that schist would turn out rather dark and dull, it is shimmering in the sunlight. Medieval tiny streets are opening up onto small squares, and there is street cafe upon street cafe.
It’s a lively little town with people all out and about. We window shop our way through the main walkway until we see a tower to the side that looks like it might belong to an interesting building – it turns out to be the town hall.
Saint George, the city patron, sits proudly on its stele in front of it. In fact he is everywhere in the city: as a statue like here, as a mural in the old town, as a bronze in the entrance to the biggest church that is of course consecrated in his name. And that is what we’re off to see now. On we go down the small streets, following the church tower that is slightly bent and crooked.
Finally we pass through a narrow passageway that opens up to the friendly market in front of the church. There’s a noticeable memorial called Hattingia which commemorates the victims of the Franco-Prussian war of 1870/71 that ultimately led to the unification of Germany in 1871. Jan comments that you don’t get many of those anymore. I realize how true that is. Commemoration of the World Wars has almost extinguished a living memorial culture that refers to anything that happened earlier. There are good reasons for that I guess, but I only just now realize that it’s probably quite remarkable.
Lots of little retail shops line the square, not just the big chains you have everywhere. One we enter is, the friendly clerk explains to us, a “shelf shop” where people can rent space on a shelf or two to expose their own handcrafted items. There are scarves, pillow cases, little dolls and puppets, beanies, pacifier keepers, handbags, jewellery and all sorts of cute little selfmade giveaways. It’s incredibly unique and I wonder why us arrogant metropolitan hipsters always think that these things can only be found in Berlin Prenzlauer Berg. I had already noticed the many shops for wool and needlework all over town – Hattingen seems to be a creative place.
The church itself, a protestant one, is yet much plainer than its catholic sister we visited earlier. We don’t linger long but move on through the alleyways to come across more pretty houses, more cute shops, more inviting cafes.
We finally end up at the old city wall. There’s another memorial that shows statues that are… interesting. But maybe I am a philistine. They surely have artistic value – they are supposed to remind of the history of steel refining in the area.
When we feel like we’ve walked the old town thoroughly, we return to the church square for some coffee and cake. The waitress notes our order down on a plate of slate with chalk. When she’s brought us our cappuccinos and cake (which is heavenly, I should add!), she sits with a friend and starts knitting. It’s beautifully down to earth, unpretentious and comforting in its comfortableness.
And at the end of the day, it is Jan again who points out what makes this little town so unique and special. It is a small reminder that everything has always been here much longer than we think. The Ruhr didn’t come into existence with industrialization. It’s been around as long as any other place. And Hattingen shows us part of the region’s history that is much older than 200 years.
Last week, I let you in on how Brussels swept me away with its enchanting architecture and the beauty of some of its main landmarks, the Grand Place and the Cathedral. Today I want to show you another side of the Belgian capital. One thing that all the guide books point out about Belgium is that it is a bit weird – in the good sense of the word. It is that sense for the grotesque, absurde, bizarre that makes Belgium what it is. The most cited example for this is Manneken Pis – the statue of the little boy peeing that is perceived as the iconic symbol for Belgium: small, weird, and leaving you with a slight sense of „WTF?“ While I get that he’s funny, I thought there were a lot of things going on in Brussels that displayed the same thing, but did it with less of a hype around them, which is much more supportive to the nature of the sentiment itself.
It started when I was walking along Rue d’Arenberg, in the very city center, and came across this very cool sign:
Cinema Nova is Brussels‘ downtown non-profit cinema
Looking at it, I felt directly transported into a Tim Burton film. The different figures looked so alive, so full of character, and yet the cinema behind it did not seem to be very prominent or chic. The internet tells me it is a non-profit place, so I would expect a certain level of hipsterdom to be included, but who cares about that when it is so lovingly done. I felt like standing there and having quiet conversations with those little people in the sign for hours, finding out if they carried the character that they displayed on the outside and turning them into a children’s book. I didn’t, but really just because it was so cold that day.
I also fell in love with this dress:
Window Shopping in Saint Gilles – thanks to Jenny and Luise who let me know that the label’s name means „But where is the sun?“ I guess that is a question that has some validity in Brussels.
I would never wear this (apart from the fact that I probably couldn’t, even if I wanted to!), but I thought it was so individual and fun – and I am not a fashion victim. To tell you the truth, if anyone described an item of clothing to me as „fun“ I wouldn’t know what they meant. But this dress – and the ones to the side – were equally pretty and fun. I felt about the fashion at „Mais il est ou le soleil“ that, like many things in Brussels, it didn’t take itself too seriously while still keeping up a high standard.
Something a little more prone to show up in guide books, also very Belgian and a tad funky were the comic strip pictures randomly strewn about walls in the city.
I especially loved the one with the pillar. Very self-referential to draw an edifice on an edifice. The cultural studies nerd inside of me must have come out when I noticed this. In general those little pictures just added something cheerful to the sometimes stern and grey urbanity (because inspite of the architectural beauty I raved about last week, Brussels also has some seriously ugly corners – all part of the absurd mix that makes the place what it is!).
And what do you do in a place like this if you want to have a nice view over the city? No mountains close by (welcome to Northern Europe!). Not really a tower to climb either. Those two options would be too conventional anyway. No, in Brussels, you take the elevater to the tenth floor, that is the roof top, of Parking 58, a run down and dirty car park in the city center, close to the Metro station de Brouckere and just behind Place Saint-Catherine.
View from Parking 58 onto the Cathedral
View from Parking 58 onto Grand Place and the town hall
It is a bit strange to go up in the elevator that feels like it belonged in a museum and might just stop at any second – but the views are stunning indeed.
A place that absolutely amazed me – and in which I thought the amiable randomness of Brussels culminated – was the Flea Market at Jeu de Balle.
Jeu de Balle Flea Market which is on every day – beautiful chaos!
Berlin prides itself in having a flea market culture – but compared to this, Berlin’s markets are commercialized, capitalist shopping malls. Now this was a true flea market. I half expected to leave carrying those little parasites with me. It would have fit. There was anything and everything to buy at the stands, mostly old useless crap, but put together it felt like the entire world was spread out on those carpets and put itself on display in infinite beauty.
Who wouldn’t want a rusty yet charming candelabra like this in their flat? I adore it!
Look at those porcellaine ladies seductively, nay, lasciviously flinging their legs…
My last discovery was at the Christmas Market at Place Saint Catherine. My friend Stan had told me to go to see the carousel. To be honest I nearly skipped it. How interesting could that be? Turns out very! It wasn’t just any weird ride. It was a beautiful old-fashioned carousel with carefully created creatures on it, purposefully looking a bit morbid and run down, but ever so enchanting, with a beautiful nostalgic quality. Even the music that it played transported me about a hundred years back in time, and watching the children ride it with such enthusiasm and pure joy was a true gift on that cold winter day.
Brussels was definitely wonderfully weird in addition to being pleasingly pretty. It had so many surprises ready for me, and I loved its slight randomness and the quirky little things that were to discover everywhere. I am sure there must be tons more of them. I have a feeling that this wasn’t my last trip to Belgium.
Did Belgium surprise you with anything bizarre, wacky, absurd or funny? Have you made random discoveries like mine in any other place? Tell us about it in the comments!
It has been a long time since I wrote on this blog about music, lyrics and language instead of travel and personal growth. Lately I must say that music has grown even more important to me (who knew that that was even possible), and in this end-of-year reflective mood that I am in, I am listening to it more eager to find answers to my questions, inspiration for my quests.
This beauty can be seen at the Musical Instruments Museum in Brussels, Belgium
I have always had a thing for music with German lyrics – not so much Schlager, but contemporary German singer / singwriter music, Indie pop, pop rock and even hip hop (now I know that most people who are not German native speakers do not consider German hip hop to be hip hop. But I think that must be because they don’t understand the lyrics. Bands like Fettes Brot and Die Fantastischen Vier have ingenious lyricists!). When I started writing my own music, it was quite natural for me to come up with German words for them, too. So it is not surprising that when I seek inspiration, I turn to German music again.
For a couple of years now, I have gone to see a specific band in concert between Christmas and New Year’s. They are called Randgruppencombo, and they are a tribute band to singer / singwriter Gerhard Gundermann. Gundermann was an artist from the GDR, the former East Germany, and he continued to be fairly successful after reunification (which is not at all self-understood). Some of his most well-known songs deal with the aftermath of the political change, with the need to find a new place in this new society. His language is clear and simple, without frills. He puts complicated feelings into plain words, and because of this his songs speak to me with great immediacy. One of the songs that I have pondered a lot lately is this one called „Die Zukunft“, The Future – here in a version of the mentioned Randgruppencombo:
Die Zukunft ist ’ne abgeschossene Kugel,
auf der mein Name steht und die mich treffen muss.
Und meine Sache ist, wie ich sie fange:
Mit’m Kopp, mit’m Arsch, mit der Hand oder mit der Wange.
Trifft sie mich wie ein Torpedo oder trifft sie wie ein Kuss?
The future is a launched bullet
that carries my name and that is bound to hit me.
And it’s my business how I catch it:
With my head, with my ass, with my hand or with my cheek.
Will it hit me like a torpedo or will it hit like a kiss?
A lot of things have happened to me this year that I did not see coming, but the lyrics of this song have made me aware at all times that things will come, they will, and there is no way for me to prevent it from happening. But I have the power to form and shape the things that are coming to me. I may like it or not that the bullet will hit me, but I cannot change the fact. I can just (wo)man up and take charge of how I will meet it. I find this thought quite consoling, probably because it empowers me somewhat in times when the future seems worryingly insecure.
The complement to this song is one that deals with the past. It’s called „Vögelchen“, Little Bird, and this is a live version by Gundermann himself:
Wir wollten es fangen, das Vögelchen, in teuren schwarzen Apparaten. Wir kleben Bilder ein und wir suchen blind nach jenen funkelnden Lichtern, die die Mädchen in den Augen hatten auf unseren Mopeds, die lange verschrottet sind.
Da ist es wieder, das Vögelchen – es nistet in den nassen Haaren seltsamer Menschen, die unsere Kinder sind. Und auch die funkelnden Lichter sind dort, wo sie waren, die ganzen Jahre. Du hast sie nur lange nicht mehr angezünd’t.
We wanted to catch the little bird in expensive black machines. We sort out pictures and we are looking blindly for the shimmering lights that the girls had in their eyes on our mopeds that have been scrapped for a long time.
There it is, the little bird – it’s nesting in the wet hair of strange people who are our children. And the shimmering lights are also just there, where they have been for all those years. Just you haven’t lit them for a long time.
The little bird, as in „Watch the birdie!“, refers to a camera trying to capture the moment in a picture. While the song is very nostalgic, it also has an optimistic ring to it that the shimmering lights of hope and anticipation are never lost. It may be merely by association, but I think of a lot of people, friends and acquaintances, who have experienced loss or pain lately, and this song mainly reminds me of one very important lesson in life: Count your blessings.
Those songs thus leave me with two powerful and reassuring thoughts: Take charge of the future. Be grateful for the past. And while those are very important lessons, it is always vital to remember to live in the moment. One of Gundermann’s most famous songs, a song he called a consolation song for a friend, is called „Brunhilde“ and all about making the best of today. I did a cover version of it myself a while back with a rookie keyboard arrangement that is not very professional, but I think the sentiment is clear:
Und was sollte besser sein als so ein Abend im Frieden?
And what could be better than an evening in peace?
Are there songs that guide you and inspire you as you reflect upon your life? I would love it if you shared them in the comments!
I am not a photographer. I am slowly, ever so slowly starting to get a grip on perspective and lighting in a process of learning by doing as I am taking photos for the blog more and more; and I have recently understood that photo editing is something I cannot stay away from forever. But I am still self-conscious when it comes to my pictures.
All the bigger was my surprise that Julika of Sateless Suitcase (an enchanting blog everyone should follow!!) tagged me in theCapture the Colour Photo Contest. While I am most definitely not going to win anything (it must be a huge contest with God knows how many participants), I enjoyed the process of choosing five pictures for their specific colour – a new way of looking at photos and training my eye to see photography as artistry. I chose to show you pictures according to a theme, like I have seen others do it on their respective posts (Julika chose one city for each colour), and am showing you five street art pictures I took this year.
Red
This is a former squat in Tübingen, Germany that is still a self-governed youth center. When I went to school in this cute little Southern German town, I would pass by here on my bike almost every day. I took the picture last March when I went to visit my alma mater. Most of the writing on the facade are slogans of the political left. Tübingen was an important place in the 1968 student movement, and I feel like this place is somewhat continuing that tradition.
Green
This is actually a connection box for street lighting. They are usually just left grey and boring in Germany, but this one in Lübbenau, in the Spreewald region South of Berlin, has been turned into a little canvas for a cute little piece of art. And didn’t I have to love it all the more as it was depicting – a bridge!
White
Gdańsk Zaspa was my street art discovery of the year, and I have dedicated a whole article to it here. It is an area in my beloved Polish city Gdańsk where the socialist concrete buildings have been turned into overdimensional works of art. I love this one because it is so plain and yet so detailed with its sea of drowning houses.
Blue
I took this picture at the demonstration against the partial tear-down of Berlin’s Eastside Gallery. This is the street art you can see on the original Berlin wall – and the hole that was recently made in it in order for an investor’s plans for building large apartment and office complexes in the area. The Eastside Gallery is the longest connected piece of the Berlin wall that is still in place and an amazing document of history as well as an artwork of epic proportions. I hope it will keep being protected by the people and government of Berlin.
Yellow
On my last day in Chicago, my friend Jesse took me to the predominantly Mexican-American neighbourhood of Pilsen for some excellent, excellent Mexican food and a blast of Latino culture. Getting off at the L stop at 18th Street (use the pink line!) alone was amazing – the station is covered in beautiful art that shows the cultural heritage of the inhabitants of this part of the city. I could have stayed and looked at the details forever.
Even before I came here, I noticed in my travel guide that Europe is ever present on the map of Chicago: The Ukrainian Village. Little Italy. Greektown. Pilsen, as in the Czech town. The Holstein Park, as in the region in Northern Germany. Not only were there geographical allusions, but many places were named for famous Europeans: Humboldt Park. Goethe and Schiller streets. Pulaski Park. Dvorak Park (yes, they have a LOT of parks in Chicago!). I thought it was interesting how a country whose population is traditionally made up of immigrants to some extent tries to reconstruct its heritage this way, and I was curious if I would find Europe elsewhere in Chicago, too. I was not disappointed.
The neighbourhoods that take their names from Europen countries or cities are not only named that, but many are inhabited by immigrant population. This leads to funky combinations, like the neighbourhood with the Czech name of Pilsen being inhabited mainly by Mexican Americans today. Also there is the Old Town which used to be the German neighbourhood – and not only do you find a big European grocery store there, said grocery store also has a rooftop terrace on which you can have beer and, brace yourself, Currywurst!
Germany in America: Currywurst with Sauerkraut…
… and a Maibaum!!!
You also can hardly fail to come across signs of the Polish population. At the blue line stop Division, you will find the so called Polish triangle, and there is the renowned restaurant Podhalanka, a place that supposedly has really good Polish food. Along Milwaukee Avenue I saw several Polish Restaurants with Polish names that Americans who don’t share this descent probably cannot even pronounce – or how would you say Czerwone Jabłuszko (Little Red Apple)?
Polish Triangle
And at the Polish Triangle another piece of Poland: The Chopin Theatre! (Yes he was Polish – NOT French!!)
Not only do you see the Polish influence in the cityscape, you can also hear it. I went on the blue line one morning and waited at my stop for the train to come in. Two middle aged guys next to me were chatting animatedly in Polish. The first thing I noticed was how much they cursed. Every sentence was generously lined with the word „kurwa“, Polish for whore or bitch. While that amused me only slightly, my face split into a wide grin when they started discussing about Germany and what a dirty country it is. Sweden, yes, Sweden was clean, but Germany, kurwa, unbelievable, the amounts of rubbish in the streets. I chuckled.
Obviously, all of this stems from immigration, like I already said. I found this noticeable not least at Graceland Cemetery, a beautiful graveyard well worth a visit which I have written about here. A lot of the tombstones displayed foreign heritage, like this one showing that the deceased had been born in Hungary.
Also, the Germans were here again, not only with their names: Many tombstones did note say „born“ and „died“, but „geb.“ and „gest.“ – short for geboren and gestorben. It means the same, obviously, but I found it quite remarkable that the Germans kept their own culture alive to the point of having their tombstones signed in their own language rather than English.
Austria came into play when we went to a cute coffeehouse called Julius Meinl that saved the famous coffee and had interieur that resembeld classical Vienna coffeehouse furniture. The coffee was fantastic, and the menue carried things such as Einspänner, Melange and Verlängerter – with the umlaut writing!
Finally the immigrants have not only named places after people and brought parts of their culture in food and drink and architecture, but they also saw to the fact that their greatest heroes would be commemorated in the city. There is a memorial for Alexander von Humboldt, one for Kosciuszko, one for Copernicus, one for Havlicek, one for Hans Christian Anderson, one for Goethe and one for Schiller – and I would have been bound to find more if I had been able to stay longer, I’m sure.
Have you ever found Europe on another continent? Where was it and what made it so European for you?
Date a girl who writes. Date a girl whose hands are smeared with ink from the pen that she loves to write with, but that keeps leaking. She may not have a perfect French manicure because those long nails would always splinter when she spends nights on her computer typing. But with these hands of hers, she has created whole worlds in her writing that she will take you to if you want her to.
Find a girl who writes. You will spot her by her big eyes looking eagerly at the world, and you will see her stopping and staring at something beautiful, mouth wide open, lost to the world, in awe of something she just experienced. You will feel like you can see cogs turning in her head. That is her thinking about how she could phrase what she just saw so that everyone would be able to feel what she just felt. Maybe she will take out a little dodgy looking notebook with lots of dog-ears and scribble something into it. Maybe she will look up, think, and then sit down in sight of the thing that caught her attention, and repeatedly note down stuff in her book, smiling absent-mindedly.
Date a girl who writes. She will always find beauty in the things around her because she will always look for something that she can shape in the amazingness that is language. She knows that things are of a greater truth when she can share them with her words. She knows that phrasing her encounters will add a depth to the experience. She knows humility because she has met the boundaries of language and felt the gigantic silence that occurs when the world is too big for an expression, when words can never suffice. Date a girl who writes because she will know exactly when to speak and when to keep silent.
A girl who writes will be a girl who reads. She will see storylines in her life and in the lives of others around her, because she has come to know them from her favourite books and wants to put them in writing herself more often than not. Date a girl who wants to see Kafka’s Prague, Joyce’s Dublin and Dickens’ London. She’s the girl who is longing to go to Russia because she wants to see the wide landscapes she holds dear to her heart ever since reading Doktor Zhivago. She’s also the girl who wants to see Colombia because she cried when she read One Hundred Years of Solitude and wants to live the magic that the novel foretold. She even wants to travel to Afghanistan, enchanted by the beauty that the country must once have held and that she’s read about in The Kite Runner.
Date a girl who writes. She has been through struggles with herself and knows that conflict is an important part of life both inside of yourself and with others. She has fought her own wars inside her mind, battling “impressed” versus “in awe”, battling “ecstatic” versus “elated”, battling all shades of colours and all tones of sound that language can express. Date a girl who writes because she will touch all of your senses with language and with her entire being.
Don’t just tell her that she’s beautiful, funny, or smart. Tell her instead that her beauty is that of a red leaf on a golden autumn day being carried by the wind through the streets of a big city. Tell her that she makes you laugh until your tummy hurts. Tell her that her wits make her a female version of Odysseus. Allow her to be part of a creative metaphor. Baffle her with your eloquence. Understand her need for precise vocabulary. Write letters to her. Read her novels and poems. Point out song lyrics that you liked.
Date a girl who writes. She will always share with you what she thinks it is that makes life worthwhile. She will bring beauty, laughter and depth to your life. She strives for a life that is never boring, and with her, yours won’t be either. Listen to what she has to tell you and I promise, it will be worth your time, if only for the sound of the words that she will carefully choose to make you understand exactly what she is trying to say.
Know that you will never have her for yourself. You will always have to share her with her love for the world, with her passion for life, and with her need to be by herself so that she can form words and stories in her mind without being distracted. She and you will never be exclusive – she will always be in love with places, because they make the setting; with people, because they make characters; and with feelings, because they are what makes everything come alive.
One day you will say something to her, and she will startle, look you in the eye, smile and say “That is beautiful.” If you find what you said scribbled on a post-it note and pinned to the wall above her desk the next day, next to quotes by Hemmingway and Mark Twain, you will know you’ve won her heart.
My favorite travel chat on twitter was on the topic of SOUNDS this week, and it made me finally want to write about a force that drives me in my everyday life like almost non other – music. When it comes to music and travel, the sounds of the Balkans have left a deep and lasting imprint in my heart
When I visited Bosnia on my Balkans trip, I fell in love with the city of Mostar. There, one of my favorite hostels in Europe, Hostel Majda’s, was offering amazing tours of the Hercegovina region. As we were dashing along Bosnian freeways through sometimes meagre, sometimes overflowing landscapes, our wonderful tour guide Bata would put on this song:
It is called „Miljacka“, which is the name of the river that flows through the Bosnian capitol Sarajevo, and is sung by Bosnia’s king of folk, Halid Bešlić. It is essentially a love song that tells of missing someone and wanting to be with them, and about betrayed love:
Jednom si rekla, nisi porekla, da sam za tebe jedini.
Mene si zvala, a srce dala drugome, da ga isprosi.
Once you said, and you didn’t deny, that I’m the only one for you.
You called to me, but you gave your heart to another, when he asked for it.
The lyrics are corny to a degree that I can only take in Slavic languages, and they really don’t correspond much with the feelings the song triggers inside of me. It transports me right back into the midst of green rolling hills, to rivers of an unearthly green-turquoise colour, to never-ending blue skies, whitewashed houses and pebbled streets in medieval old towns. All my love for Bosnia & Hercegovina washes over me when I hear this song.
I went to Mostar three times on my Balkans trip in 2010 alone (and I’ve returned there since, if only once). During my second stay, I took a day trip with a Canadian friend I had made in Mostar to the nearby town of Blagaj. We wanted to spend some time in the Tekija which, I swear, is one of the most spiritual, peaceful and truly indescribable places I have been to in my life. But before we treated ourselves to the peace of mind that we knew we would find there, we climbed up the steep hill to the old fortress of Blagaj which used to accomodate the rulers of Hercegovina. It is in ruins today, but it is still mighty and proud. If you know me, you can guess what happened when I got up there. I felt an overwhelming urge to sing. And I did.
And I sang this song:
It is called „Đurđevdan“, St George’s Day, and it was written by famous Yugoslav artist Goran Bregović. Like „Miljacka“, it is about missing the one you love.
Evo zore evo zore
Bogu da se pomolim
Evo zore evo zore
Ej đurđevdan je
A ja nisam s onom koju volim
Here’s the dawn, here’s the dawn
That I might pray to God
Here’s the dawn, here’s the dawn
Oh, it’s St George’s Day
And I’m not with the one I love.
Singing out in nature is one of my favorite things to do. You should try it sometime. It is so liberating.
My third time around in Mostar I hardly could tear myself away from the magic of the place. More posts will have to be written on it. When I finally had made a decision to leave, Bata came to me and told me that there would be a concert the next night by a famous Mostar based band called Mostar Sevdah Reunion, and that I was surely going to love them. Bata knew me well already at that point. Even though I had never heard of the band before, I was sure that if he said I was gonna love them, it had to be true. I extended my stay for the concert and never regretted it.
While the song „Miljacka“ is typical Balkan folk, and „Đurđevdan“ is essentially an old gypsy song that has been modernized and, well, balkanized, the music style you have here, in the song „Čudna jada od Mostara grada“, is very specifically Bosnian. It is called Sevdah – hence the name of the band – which is a Turkish loan word in Bosnian meaning a variety of things ranging from love over caress to longing. The song’s title means „Strange pain from the city of Mostar“, and it is again about disappointed love. In the song, a girl says:
“Mene boli i srce i glava,
Jer moj Ahmo s’ drugom razgovara!”
„There is pain in my heart and my head
Because my Ahmo is talking to another!“
The girl’s mother then tries to curse Ahmo, but the girl won’t let her because she still believes in his promises. It is all very endearing, and granted, the range of topic isn’t huge in Balkan music – it is always, always, always about love – but the drive of melody, the variety of instruments and the spirit that runs through the songs in unmatched elsewhere, I think. Seeing the Mostar Sevdah Reunion live, in Mostar at that, open air, and dancing under an endless starry sky, made the beat of the songs and the beat of my heart melt into one another. The rhythm of Sevdah has never left me since.
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If you are on twitter, you should join my favorite travel chat #RATW, which stands for Reality Abroad Talk Wednesday, when you next have a chance. It is a weekly chat on Wednesdays 12 pm EST which makes it 5 pm for me in Berlin and a convenient end-of-work-day activity. It is hosted by the lovely folks of Reality Abroad who make everyone feel like family and are absolutely worth a follow!
One of the most enriching and beautiful contacts I have made since I first got into the travel blogosphere more intensely is my friend Aggy of DreamExploreWander. We got into talking on twitter and I think she was the first person I ever met online to become someone I consider a friend before having met them. Her beautiful travel blog is both a treat for the eyes, with its gorgeous layout and beautiful pictures, and for the travel-itching soul. Aggy’s posts tell stories of travel with such passion and verve and such a genuine sense of emotion that even if you haven’t yet come to know her, you wil certainly want to be friends with her upon reading her posts, just like I did. In order to do that, you should subscribe to her blog DreamExploreWander, like her facebook page and follow her on twitter. I am honored and happy that Aggy decided to write a guest post for me on a bridge she recently discovered in Lucerne, Switzerland.
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I love the concept of a bridge, connecting two ends. This is why I love Mariella’s mission. Ever since I discovered her enchanting blog and become good friends with her, I now unconsciously look for bridges whenever I travel. This particular bridge I want to share with you caught my attention during my recent trip to Lucerne. Kapellbrücke Bridge is the bridge people look for once they arrive in Lucerne. I honestly didn’t know much about this pretty town, when I told some friends I was coming here in the weekend, they mostly reacted by saying “You HAVE to see Kapellbrücke bridge!”. I was thinking, “what’s the big deal with this bridge anyway?!”.
Spanning across the Reuss River, which is a gorgeous river, this bridge really does attract attention. The bridge is truly one of the prettiest and the most unique I have ever seen. Made from wood and with a roof covering the whole way from one end to the other. I have seen pictures of this bridge in the spring/summer where the side of the bridge is filled with brightly-coloured flowers which intensifies its beauty. Sadly, I was there in the cold winter but nevertheless the wooden structure of the bridge awed me. It is said that it is the oldest bridge in Europe with this kind of roofed structure.
In the past, this bridge acted as a connection between the new and old city of Lucerne. In the middle of it, there is a Wasserturm or a water tower – called this way as the tower looks as if it is standing in the water of Reuss river. From the bridge you can get a peaceful view of the river.
In 1993, the bridge was caught on fire and due to its wooden architecture, it destroyed almost all parts of it. The fire also destroyed the original paintings inside the bridge. They successfully rebuilt it although evidence of the fire still exists. The paintings were also recovered, which is great as you can now still see gorgeous paintings inside the bridge. Each painting is telling a different story, so it’s always nice to take some time inside the bridge to try to understand the meaning behind each picture.
The trip to Lucerne was another solo trip for me. In this particular solo trip, I found myself to be more relaxed and confident in travelling alone, the city of Lucerne certainly helped me. I have always found rivers and lakes a peaceful place to contemplate life. As I crossed Kapellbrücke Bridge, I felt like I was inside a museum and a gallery at the same time. The beautiful paintings captivated me. I stopped for quite sometimes at the edge of the bridge to stare at the calming stream of Reuss River. With the amazing landscape and standing in a bridge which has been through so much history, I felt a strong calmness towards me.
This bridge definitely defines the city of Lucerne and it is also the first roofed-bridge I have been. The paintings, the architecture, the water tower, the calming Reuss river – combinations which make this bridge more than just an ordinary bridge and one worth to take time to absorb its beauty.
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If you have read My Mission statement, you know why I love bridges. To me they are the most universal symbol of connection, of bringing people together and overcoming anything that may seperate us. I want to present to you pictures of bridges that I really love in places that I really love on my blog every Sunday. If you have a picture of a bridge that you would like to share with my readers as a guest post, feel free to contact me!
Surely you’ve noticed by now that I have a thing for history. I think countries are the same as individual people: It is easier to understand them if you know their personal past; their experiences, their baggage, their most wonderful successes and their greatest failures. Germany has a lot to offer in that department, and not only in the 20th century – although that is usually what everyone focusses on, understandably. And German history of the 20th century can’t be seen better anywhere in the country than in Berlin. Some of the places around allow you to truly understand Germany’s past – if you let them.
Standing freely between Humboldt University’s splendid main building and the German Museum of History, across from the State Opera at Unter den Linden boulevard, there is this fairly small and maybe unspectacular building.
Neue Wache (New Guard House)
In 18th century Prussia, the city castle of the Prussian kings was not at all far from here, and this was the armory. Today it is the „Central Memorial of the Federal Republic of Germany for the Victims of War and Tyranny“ – yes, that is its official name. Very long and technical, very German. Most of us just refer to it as Neue Wache (New Guard House), but the long version should begin to tell you about its function which is much more important.
There are specific memorials that commemorate the Jews killed in the Holocaust, the Roma and Sinti, and the homosexuals. There is a memorial that reminds of the burning of undesired books during the Third Reich, and there are living relics of Nazi architecture such as the Olympic Stadium or the airport in Tempelhof. Neue Wache is much less specific, and instead more inclusive. Here, we commemorate everyone who suffered from National Socialism and any form of tyranny and dictatorship before and after. We try to make amends for what this country has done and for what others have done. We include the victims and the resistance, the well-known heroes and every single footman, all countries, nations and ethnicities in our prayers, whatever that means to every single one of us. Personally I have always found this place to be deeply spiritual.
Käthe Kollwitz‘ „Mutter mit totem Sohn“ („Mother with her dead son“)
When you enter the building, it is but one big and almost empty room. In the middle there is a replica of a work by expressionist artist Käthe Kollwitz whose work I love deeply. She was considered a degenerate artist herself under the Nazis. The sculpture is called „Mother with her dead son“, and the intensity of it drives tears to my eyes whenever I go there and take a few minutes to think about what this place means. Buried here are also the remains of an unknown soldier and of an unknown concentration camp victim. The writing next to the sculpture says: „To the victims of war and tyranny“. The memorial is very plain, but it does invite you to linger and think about what it is there to remind you of. Take that moment. Calm yourself. And find in yourself the urge to make this world a place where cruelties like these will never happen again. You will go out a changed person if you allow it to happen.
And then there is a second dark chapter in recent German history – and while I feel that the history of the German Democratic Republic (GDR), or „Eastern Germany“, is a very complex matter that is quite usually immensely simplified, there is not much to argue about the end of this „other“ German State which began by the fall of the Berlin Wall. This event may be the greatest triumph, the most joyful moment in modern German history, and it means the world to me personally. If you’ve got time, I highly recommend a visit to te former secret police prison in Hohenschönhausen or to Gedenkstätte Berliner Mauer (Memorial Berlin Wall) at Bernauer Straße. But if you want the immediate experience, if you want to touch and feel history and find a place where you could imagine what it must have been like, you should go to the East Side Gallery.
There has recently been a fight over the East Side Gallery because investors are threatening to take parts of it down. This is the first part that construction workers moved a few days ago. I took this at the demonstration to save the East Side Gallery on Sunday, March 3, 2013.
The East Side Gallery is the longest preserved piece of the Berlin Wall. It starts between U-Bahn stations Warschauer Straße and Schlesisches Tor, line U1, right on the Friedrichshain side of Oberbaumbrücke. The wall was built in 1961 when more and more people started to leave the GDR. Only two months prior to that, the Secretary of the Socialist Party, Walter Ullbricht, had uttered the famous sentence: „Nobody has the intention of building a wall!“ The utter mockery of it…
The official state boarder at this point was actually on the Kreuzberg side of the river, meaning that the Spree river belonged to the GDR, even though the wall excluded it from Eastern Berlin territory – it was part of the so-called death strip. I read that children would sometimes drown on the Western shore because authorities weren’t allowed to help them once they had fallen into the water.
This is the former Death Strip, imagine the Wall behind you as you have this gorgeous view of Oberbaumbrücke and the Spree River.
The East Side Gallery is famous because artists from all over the world have contributed to its design. The side of it that faces Friedrichshain district holds incredible artwork that usually has immense political power, the way only street art can. I have recently noticed that it feels a lot like the Zaspa District in Gdansk, Poland with its famous murals. This is why most people come here, and it’s well worth a good look. However, I also recommend you pass through to the river side of the wall and into the death strip and think about the fact that this was no man’s land only 25 years back, that you would have been shot immediately, had you been found on this side of the wall coming from where you just now actually came from – the other side.
For many more great pictures of the East Side Gallery, I recommend this post by my friend Sarah at Wake Up Mona.
