In the modern world work is often associated with stress, however for me the past few months have been everything else than stress! I have enjoyed my work a lot to be honest. Now even though I cannot say I share the stress phenomenon with my fellow workers in the world, I can still say that I have become a nine to six worker, meaning that most of my days are spent at the office. Those rare days, sometimes referred to as the weekends, when I do not find myself drinking coffees at the office, I try to make the most of my free time i.e. spend it with friends and perhaps enjoy the night life of Berlin. This is a rather fun lifestyle, have to admit, however the lack of spare time has led to my camera feeling (if it felt anything) lonely on these cold autumn nights. Like a bad lover I had neglected my camera for a long time, but luckily for my Sony, I had enough energy on Sunday to actually go and take a walk in the city and try to take some decent memories of the darkening September nights.
After meeting a couple of good friends for a Sunday drink at Alexanderplatz and having a must have Döner at Mehringdamm (Mustafa’s to be precise), I took the U-Bahn towards the RingBahn which I would normally use to get home a bit quicker. This time however as I reached S-Bhf Tempelhof, I decided to walk outside the ring (funnily enough probably the first time in a month that I step outside the ring) and see if there would be anything of interest to take images of.
Having walked for 15 seemingly long minutes, I hadn’t seen anything that would have sparked my interest…that is until I saw a van, an old neglected delivery van. Perhaps it’s the fact of seeing too many shiny things that made that rusty old van seem like a cool target for snapping a couple of quick photos, or then it was just the fact that I wanted to photograph just basically anything so that I wouldn’t have to go back home empty carded (see what I did there..) . Snip Snap went the shutter and back went the camera into the bag, I was done with the van and moving forward like a determined bargain hunter at post-holiday sales destined to find something cool.
I came to a seemingly normal looking crossroad and just for the fun of it took a couple o’ images to go, before continuing to the normally crowded, but now what was like a wasteland, parking lot of Ikea. There wasn’t a lot of things to take photos of, since the tumbleweeds were moving too fast for me, but I managed to get a couple of pics of the empty lot that belonged to the Swedish Adult-Lego store.
As I came closer to the highway, I already knew that I wanted to take a couple of images having the shutter open for a longer time, and even though it is in nooooo means original to take pics like that… I still think these few highway photos turned out to be the nicest of the bunch, making my Sunday worth while. Having no other pedestrians bothering me as I set up my camera to capture this chilly September night in the form of a couple of flashing photos; it was perfect.
I could now simply put my camera back in my messenger bag and head home, knowing that I at least had one decent pic to take with me. So as to not overwork your imagination, I have attached the photos of the night in a chronological order below so that you too can take a short virtual walk between Tempelhof and Südkreuz on a fresh autumn night.
Even though I am rather good at remembering stuff, I am sure that slowly some images, that were once fresh in my mind, will start to fade away. This is where photos come into play, they work as a kind of a ” defibrillator” to get my memory going again. By simply glancing at a pic, I immediately relate it to some memories and experiences. Often it might be that the picture is not that meaningful even to me, but still I rather have a lot of pictures than too little.
I believe this is one of the biggest reasons why I take a lot of photos, even of objects that seem dull to many. Yesterday my camera was again with me as I was walking through some of the more known places in Berlin. I have to say, I blended in nicely with the tourist groups with my Sony and small Gorillapod.
I found myself on Saturday evening feeling a bit tired after a going away party for one of my Finnish friends. The scorching heat of 30 degrees Celsius did not aid in anyway to get me up and going to actually do something on a Saturday night. As I sat at my desk, browsing mindlessly through different sites, I glanced at my camera and turned my attention towards the beautiful, nevertheless hot, outdoors and decided that I’d take my chances with the hot weather and go walk around the neighborhood to see if I could catch anything interesting onto my memory card.
I felt the heatwave immediately hitting my face as I walked out of my building and I could not help but think that this was not the Germany I was used to. Like an explorer in the Sahara desert, I walked for sometime without seeing anything of interest. I had long planned to go and take pictures of the old Tempelhof Airport, basically next door to me, and seeing that the sun was starting to head under, I ran to the nearest train station and took a train….the wrong train. I ended up back where I had started from, at Schöneberg, only to enjoy a 20minute wait for the next train to Tempelhof, needless to say with the ongoing sleep mode and the oven-like climate, I was not happy.
After fighting my way out of a train that felt more like a cattle transport, due to the amount of people fitted into a single train, Iwas happy to be at my destination, the former airport of Tempelhof, now one of the largest parks in Berlin. Recently, I’ve been trying out creating HDR picture, with success and at times with no success. This Saturday was to be yet another chance for me to learn a bit of HDR photography. As I traveled towards the old Hangars and Terminals, I was excited by even the mere thought of walking on a runway that had once received at peak times a plane per minute and had helped the people of Berlin enormously during the Berlin Blockade.I mean, I know I am a history nut, I get it. On my journey towards the terminal building I also stopped to take pictures of the usage of the airport nowadays:People having picnics, parties and doing different kinds of sport activities.
Even though I had envisioned that I would get cool pics from the Airport itself, I have to say, the Terminal building was rather hard to photograph, being that you couldn’t really get too close to it and thus the angles for pictures were rather limited. Nevertheless, I took a couple of photos and continued my way along the runways, running into an old reminder of the time when the U.S. Army was present. Some plane enthusiasts probably know the model of this troop carrier, but for me it was merely a nice shiny plane accompanied by some stairs belonging also the U.S. Army. It’s sometimes really interesting to think how much of U.S. influence Berlin has throughout the times had, having so many troops stationed here during the Berlin Brigade times, the Americans also partly brought parts of their culture into the melting pot of Berlin.
For most Europeans Baseball isn’t that familiar, which is why the two rather old Baseball fields (ok, one was a softball field) caught my attention. Wearing often baseball fan apparel (especially Redsox gear, go Boston) and having tried to understand the sport more and more, I have to admit that this was my first real encounter with a real Baseball field. Now when I say real, I have to clarify that I had seen these fields earlier this year but not yet looked at them more closely. I couldn’t get too close now either, seeing that both fields were fenced thus making it understandably hard for non baseball players to access the fields at night time. I walked around the fields trying to find a place to get my zoom on and perhaps try and take a couple of nice pictures. I managed to stick my camera through a couple of holes in the fences, so as to have a less obstructed view of the diamonds and the field itself.
Having managed to take a couple of decent pictures I left home in hope of trying out HDR editing on photoshop during the late hours of the night. I know that Berlin has a couple of Baseball teams and seeing that I want to learn more about the sport, I have to definitely look up some of their game schedules. Funnily enough, I left my place in hopes of getting a couple of pictures of old historic places and I managed to do so, however I had not thought that the most interesting place to take pics would not be the old airport, but the sport facilities of the people who used to work there, a long time ago.
Stop and contact the Tower
No planes landing anymore, other than miniature ones.
Flight control has gone silent
The fence gave an unwanted frame to an otherwise ok picture
Wars and conflicts are never a good thing directly, even in the case of a city like Berlin, one can still see some indirect implications from the city being divided for such a long time. Now, often the implications of war and dividing cities and countries are obviously not good, but the one thing that can be indirectly linked to the city being divided is that the rent prices and living expenses have not risen as fast as in some other areas of the country. Why I bring this up is that I have recently gotten the pleasure of enjoying rooftop parties at my friends place, or their “commune”, if you will. For some people rooftop parties might be an everyday thing, more common than the usage of “like” as a substitute for commas in the speech of some unnamed nationalities, but for me they are still a rarity.
In Finland the only people that can afford rooftop apartments with massive terraces, are usually the people who do not have to look at the floor level shelves at the supermarket when going shopping. Here in Berlin, “regular” people can afford to enjoy the luxury of seeing the sun set far away, creating silhouettes of the city on its way down, atop your own apartment. Even though, it is still very possible to live in a rooftop apartment, there are not enough of them to go around for everyone. However, with good luck you might know someone who has a rooftop terrace place, as I did.
It wasn’t the first time I visited my friends pad, but it was the first time I remembered to bring my camera with me. Even though the night started to fall upon us nearly immediately as I had arrived to the rooftop, thanks to my swift moves and fast camera handling, I was able to capture a couple of these “rooftop moments” onto my camera, before the fat ball of fire that we nickname the Sun could fully dive behind the skyline.
We noticed with my friend,after jumping a fence to another rooftop (for a better pic) that the party seemed to follow us and that we had unintentionally created a gathering of amateur photographers on the roof of a curious neighbour, probably wondering why he hears noises of shutters clicking and people laughing through his roof. Nevertheless, everyone behaved and did the same as we, took memories of this great city that one cannot buy from a gift shop at the Brandenburg Gate.
Once again this Saturday had given me yet more reasons to contemplate on staying in Berlin even longer than merely till the end of this, seemingly short, year.
Even though I had mentioned in the previous post that I would be posting pics of my time in Finland, in the next few posts, I have to break that promise. You see, Berlin is just too tempting to capture on a memory card (wouldn’t it be so much nicer to say on film), meaning that I had to go and take a couple of pictures of the capital of the country that I myself have dubbed the economic lungs of Europe. Oh and on another note, last week I finally started my internship, here in the big B. Having hunted down internships like Robin Hood the rich, I am so happy that I ended up where I did. Each day so far has been filled with humor, fun and even work, which has felt more like my thing than padding down people at the airport (ref. to a previous job).
During the weekend I tried to go and take some pictures while the sun was up. My task was seemingly difficult, seeing that it was often rather cloudy and thus the sun was starting to at times feel like a distant relative who never visits, even though you might like to see him/her. I ended up taking a couple of “quick” photos and to my surprise some of them seemed to have turned up to be rather ok. Do check them out and I’ll be adding some Finnyland Fotos (had to continue the F- theme) later on.
Even though I thoroughly enjoy living in Berlin, with all its big city related atmosphere, I have to still say that I have been really happy to be “home” for a couple of weeks.
Here in Finland, where we are used to cold temperatures, the Summer is always an anticipated time of the year when people head to their Summer houses to chill and relax for a while. Sitting in the Sauna and enjoying the peaceful landscapes gives one’s head a much needed rest.
Obviously scenery is always much more impressive, when seen by one’s own eyes, however despite this fact, I attempted to capture the Finnish Summer in pictures, hopefully being able to give you a slight impression of what our Summer here up north is normally like.
I will add in a couple of posts to come some of the photos I have taken here in Finland during my stay, starting today with scenes from our family’s summer house. These photos hopefully not only provide you with a glimpse of what I have been experiencing here, but also for myself they will work as a reminder of what home is like in the summer time.
Our Bus journey accompanied by the exotic movies and loud neighbours went surprisingly well, although at times it did feel like a never ending journey. Alongside the rising sound volume of our fellow passengers we had the privilege of enjoying stunning views from the bus as we passed cities such as Bratislava and others that I cannot for the life of me remember at this stage.
From the bus whilst crossing a river in BratislavaNight falls for the travelers
As we began to get closer to our destination the foreign “adventure” films switched to children’s movies, which continued to baffle us, seeing that by glancing through the bus and its passengers there was nobody of that age who could have requested “the adventures of the random German speaking polar bear” (I’m guessing that was the title of the film). Not only had the movie selection seen a change, but so had the status of our neighbours. From that of speaking a hundred words per second, they had gone to the “laid back”- mode, meaning that they were leaning their seats on top of our knees, thrusting the seats to recline more, not seeming to realise that what stopped their seats from reclining any further were my bruised knees. It seemed as if they cared as much of our thumping on their seats as we had cared for the movies shown on-board.
After coming to terms with the fact that our fellow travelers had no interest in our well being, as if a sign from above we heard the on-board speakers tell us through a lot of words that we were indeed only a few short kilometers from Budapest. At long last, with bruised knees, tired bodies and minds we had arrived at some station in Budapest. Having thought previously that the station would be centrally located, we had not cared to browse through maps or make route plans….we should have.
We found our way in the middle of the night to a metro station, hoping to find a map and clear guidance towards the center. After following a herd of people, we merely crossed our fingers in hope of jumping on the right train which would at the least take us slightly closer to our hostel. I am not a superstitious person per se, but I believe it was the luck of the Irish (or better yet my Irish mate) that enabled us to manage our way through all the crossroads and alleyways safely to our hostel, where our two Slovenian friends awaited us with cold beers, that we had most definitely deserved.
The first night went by quickly as we caught up on missed conversations and had a few pints at a local tavern. We did also have time to acquaint ourselves with the local law enforcement. It is pure commonsense that what goes in must eventually come out as well. As we were browsing around the city at night, one of our crew had the sudden urge to relieve himself and seeing that there was not an open tavern nor a portapotty in sight, he ran to the nearest bushes in a nearby alleyway as the rest of us waited for him on the mainstreet. We found a nice bench on the sidewalk and decided to hang there for a moment. It was not long as we saw our friend appear from the alley, hinting to us that “we should move”. We only realised what he had meant, when we saw two officers appearing from the alley with a batman like serious face on. “Passports”, yelled the older one of the partners, and as if trained dogs we did as told and whipped our proofs of nationality and identity out for them to collect our data. Once they had gossiped our numbers and info to their colleagues via walkietalkies, they left us with valid advice “this street, not a toilet”. Needless to say we kept their advice in mind during the remain of the trip.
The next day we decided to be true tourists, eating a continental breakfast (prepared by ourselves) and heading out to explore the city. Now as most people hopefully know, Finland is not a beach holiday destination ergo we do not have extremely hot weather, aside from the summer time. In Budapest already in the Hostel I had noticed that the weather seemed to be awfully warm, but it did not cross my mind that we would be seeing the sights of Budapest in 36 degree weather (Celsius). As I left Berlin, I had foolishly thought to not even pack my shorts with me. I tried to make the best of my situation by pulling up my pants, trying to desperately make them become the shorts they clearly were not. At this stage I have to be frank and admit that there was not a lot of talking done during the sightseeing day, everyone was merely trying to survive the hot weather, thus I will let the pictures do the talking for this day:
Shorts would have been nice..Statues and HousesView from Buda towards PestGoing to Buda
We spent the entire next day laying motionlessly at a lake we had made our way to by car, only returning to Budapest in the evening to change hostels quickly (due to booking issues) and immediately embarking on a pub crawl as we arrived at our new party hostel. Before we had even really settled at our new residences, we were already enjoying beverages in numerous local bars and pubs, being led by a baywatch-style chilled out Aussie, who seemed as calm and cool as a Koala. Enjoying the comparably affordable drink prices we spent the night touring the nightlife of Budapest, which I have to say was extremely good.
Air conditioning, AC, whatever you want to call it – I love it. The first thing that hit me once I entered our room in the new hostel was the wonderful breeze of fresh COLD air, not coming from the window, oh no, but from our airconditioning. No, it did not remind me of home, being cold and chilly, but rather it gave me the possibility to enjoy a good nights rest, without sticking to my bed linen and becoming dehydrated due to the overwhelming heat. Apart from our room, we also took advantage of the round shaped balcony at our hostel, getting to know other travelers from all around the world, sharing stories and beverages with each other. For me the best thing about travelling and living abroad is the social interaction with other people from different cultures. It is always fascinating to hear about different customs and habits or personal experiences of the people I talk to.
The Legendary Balcony of the Party Hostel
We enjoyed one full day on our multicultural balcony, full of hockey,travel, lifestyle and other random talk. To cut things short I’ll just summarize the last few days with a few sentences. We continued to tour the night and day of Budapest (mostly Pest) for another couple of days, before embarking on our loooooong bus-ride back to the big ol’ B. We said our goodbyes to our Slovenian friends and hopped on the coach, with refrigerated coke bottles. My Irish mate was in luck apparently, since he managed to get a bottle that actually contained liquid, whereas I apparently got a limited edition coke bottle that was full of Ice, rather than cola in liquid form to quench my thirst. The journey back was as long as the way to Budapest, but far more enjoyable thanks to the numerous romantic comedies (not my favourite genre) that were played on-board for our enjoyment in English. As a combo breaker among the films was the more than fitting film “Hangover” which seemed to give a perfect ending to a trip that was to be felt physically for a couple of days to come.
Buda shines nicelyThe same Palace without lightsApparently they have some sort of arrangement in Budapest to turn off the lights at midnight…which was not such a good thing for my photography.
It’s been a while since I wrote a post, mainly because I’ve been occupied by my University studies and the seemingly never ending task of finding an internship for the second half of this year.
Although I have not written here, I have still been actively carrying my camera around with me, trying to capture pictures of this wonderful city that is the big B. aka Berlin. During the past few months I have tried to do some “tourist” stuff, usually without success, travelling around the city with a s-bahn,u-bahn, tram or bus to take me further away of the areas where normally even my own two feet would carry me. Even though I’ve spent literally weeks crisscrossing this city, I still have not seen most of the common sightseeing attractions, which might be my task for the summer. For now I’ll just consider myself as a “Berlinist”, being a tourist within this city seeing sights that no one else actually might think to see.
Without really rambling on too much in this post, I’ll just sum up one of my numerous weeks spent here in a couple of words and pictures: I went to an old Stasi prison, a football match and ended up witnessing a fire.
Phew, that was concise wasn’t it? Now for the visuals ( you can prolly link each picture to the appropriate event mentioned):
I did actually make one trip even outside of Germany during this spring already, but more on that later on.
Last night I was again bored. Running around within the four walls of my room, without a destination.
I decided to make use of this “extra energy” that I had and enjoy the company of my camera in the form of a short walk around the borough of Schöneberg.
As often with my trips, this one got extended as well and went quickly from being a short walk around the corner to a full blown sightseeing tour, spending two full hours walking around Berlin to the beat of some fresh drum’n’bass songs.
Luckily, at least the weather was on my side this time and I didn’t have to seek cover from rain or snow. I played a lot with the shutter of my camera to make some use of my walk, other than the obvious health benefit of walking for kilometers at a good pace. Mr. Self-timer was also with me during this random tour of Berlin and it makes me wonder if I’ve gotten too used to using a self-timer, when I even tell passing by pedestrian that I do not require assistance whilst taking photos, as they offer to take a picture of me. Perhaps it’s just the simple fact that I don’t trust them to do a good job ( as if I was a professional, right…).
Having come home around midnight, I was already able to edit some of the shots, but left most of them for today, since I was a tad tired and didn’t have the energy to focus on editing. At least now I can say that I’ve seen the “siegessäule” statue up-close, since before yesterday I hadn’t had the energy to drag myself to take pictures of it.
Here are a couple from last night the rest and much more can be found in the IamMoments section.
“I’m back!” as if to try and be some sort of movie hero, I shouted these much used words as I entered the 20 square meter room, that is my home here in Berlin for the next months to be. Even though there is only one hour time difference between the cold up north (Finland) and Germany, I still had a strange feeling of “jetlag”, falling to my bed trying to sleep for half an hour, only to realise that my attempt was a failed one.
Today I had the pleasure (strange but yes) of enjoying a flight operated by AirBerlin, a company stuck in an intersection of sorts; not being able to decide whether to turn to being a low-fare airline or premium one. On the flight of this confused airline, I was able to enjoy the “comfyish” seats and non-advertising atmosphere (not to mention having a full 3 seats to myself, being apparently too scary for anyone to sit next to). And wait there’s more! I had even the possibility of choosing my meal! Yes, I could choose the “hotdogish” creation or what I presume was an apple muffin. Now, I know, I know, I shouldn’t be complaining about the snacks, but what I’m saying is that even though the airline was nice and all, it did not quite fulfill my culinary needs, so to speak. Lucky for me I have truly wonderful roommates who suggested that they would make “Flammkuchen” a German/French specialty, which I had once before tried in Strasbourg, the runner-up capital of the EU. Needless to say, I almost cried tears of joy, receiving this kind of a welcome immediately after being back here for only a couple of minutes!
The meal was in short: superb! I had a smile on my face once again and got just the start for my second round of Germany that I needed! Being smart and all, I quickly realised that I would probably need to eat something in the morning as well, as my digestive system surely would break down every inch of the previously enjoyed delightful meal during the night, leaving my stomach rather empty. For those who don’t know, it might be good to point out that Sunday in Germany, is not a day to do your shopping. All major grocery stores, kwik-e-mart’s and you name its’ are closed, geschlossen, as the all too familiar sign says on many store doors. However, as with any major law, this one also has a loophole. Apparently IF a store is located within a railway station it may stay open even on a Sunday (somebody correct me on this if you know better). As if I was carrying a lucky rabbit’s foot in my pocket, my surprisingly good luck seemed to have no end to it. There was a local grocery store, within walking distance of my home, and more importantly within an inner city railway station. I decided to make use of this trip, by taking with me my trusty companion, my camera, in hopes of snapping some random photos on my way to the store.
As I walked in the misty outdoors, which climate wise reminded me more of mid-May in Finland, I could not help but think to myself at times, “where are the people?”. Berlin, a city of more than 3.4 Million people should be buzzing with pedestrians. Still on many streets there wasn’t a single soul in sight. Having spent the last couple of weeks in a Finnish town of 20.000 inhabitants, it was almost funny how similar some streets of Berlin seemed to be to those of Jämsä (The town), in the sense that there were no cars or people moving on them. Frankly told though, the lack of people didn’t really bother me much. I had my earphones on and was clicking my camera to the beat, trying to get at least one decent shot to have fun with on photoshop later on.
After a purposely done detour, I finally put down my camera and headed to the store, where apparently all the people that I was previously wondering about had found their way as well. Happy with my simple choices of a water bottle and some quark for the morning, I went on my merry way and headed home. To my displeasure, I was sad to notice that most of the pictures I had taken were harshly out of focus or otherwise blurred due to possibly the rain that had blessed me with its presence. After playing with photoshop for a while, I managed to “save” a couple of photos which, although are not nearly in the category of great, can be at least looked upon, without having a “frowny face”.
If someone actually had the energy to read through all of that, I tip my beanie/hat off to you, simultaneously chanting “hazaa!hazaa!hazaa!” to magnify this gesture of gratitude. That’s all for now and if you have some opinions on the photos or on life, do share!
IAMJPR 