Scenes from a weekend

Sidewalk Italian dinner on Belziger Strasse with Jay's friend Chris Bartlett from the Boulder days. He just moved to Berlin.

Franzbrötchen and Croissant, secured from the Steinecke local bakery and a staple of Saturday mornings.

Cody is considering getting into making airplane models, like his dear daddy! At the last minute he bought a lego set though.

As we walked out of the Karstadt dept. store, the Falun Gong had taken over Kurfürstendamm with a demonstration against human rights abuses by the Chinese government. 

U-9 car with some color.

Sunday morning Cassandra practiced for her address to the school at the annual Einschulung ceremony for incoming first graders. She's the "Gesamtelternbetreterin!" It went over quite well.

She was among the first ones at school today and definitely the very last one of nearly 400 people to leave, cleaning up the kitchen and getting things ready for next week's Parent's Cafe. The Wangaari Mathai school is lucky to have such a devoted Gesamtelternbetreterin!

I altered my commute route in to work on Monday morning, taking a ride through the Brandenburg Gate. Because it's there!

--

Jay Boynton
http://www.linkedin.com/in/jayboynton

Vatertag Weekend with Rocky & Colleen

Father's Day weekend activities in Berlin:

Got a new camera (to replace the DSLR that disappeared two years ago during our move). We were down at Niederkirchnerstrasse, one of the few places where the Wall still stands, for some suitably sinister and drab Berlin photo-taking. IPhones just cannot do the zoom like a real lens.

Exploring a WWII air raid bunker built underneath one of the main train stations. This is the old ventilation and blower equipment. A group runs tours through these old places, of which Berlin has a few.

"To the Men's Room...Watch out for the steps."

Old tin shield, one of the type they installed around the city when the Marshall Plan money started rolling in.

Cellars of an old brewery that were used as starting points to dig tunnels underneath the Wall at Bernauer Strasse. Met and chatted with robust old guys who had actually dug those tunnels. They had some crazy stories...and it is amazing they weren't all killed by either cave-ins or the Stasi. 

Father's Day present to Daddy and Poppy! We went up the Die Welt tethered balloon 175 meters over Berlin. 

Personal tour of the Tiergarten's Carrillon Bell Tower by the guy who has been donging these bells since 1974. This guy was an incredible piece of work who gave an interesting history of Carrillon towers in Europe and America and the dying art of it all. Basically, they are trying to automate the process and take the 

Bells cast for the 1987 750th Anniversary of Berlin. Paid for by Daimler, who soon lost all interest in further funding of the Carrillon tower or bells in Berlin.

Wandered around and happened into the Bergmannkiez annual streetfest. A concern was renting out these spring-loaded horses.

Thai Park visit with Chris Kishiyama and his 11 yo son Tai.

Train ride, then bike ride, then lake. Berliner summer rite of passage.

Afterwards found a little joint, here Cass peruses a menu.

They had a shady lower area with a bunch of tables next to the lake, so we killed some time waiting for the next train back to Berlin.

Pentacost Weekend in Berlin

Cass and the kids back in the US for the weekend, I stayed in Berlin to save the vacation days for our upcoming France/Italy trips.

Thursday: Family is gone, house lonely. I compensated by just working late.

Friday: House weirdly lonely. Avoiding it by doing various things:

Prater Biergarten in Prenzlauer Berg, near Eberswalder Str U-Bahn. Chris (friend from the old days in Colorado) and Tim (Berlin agency buddy) accompanied.

Prater is one of the oldest continuously-used biergartens in the city. Probably the oldest, dating from 1837. For over 180 years people have been showing up here after work for a Pils.

A few hours later we took Tim's recommendation to try out Rüyam Gemüse Kebap, a classic döner joint near Eberswalder U-Bahn entrance. The original one is in Schöneberg on Hauptstrasse.

A paste-up from El Bocho, a street artist I am documenting. He paints in the studio then prints on large format paper. Putting on the wall takes very little time, hence the utility of the "paste-up" method among Berlin's grafitti artists.

Former municipal buildings that the Soviets used as admin offices. Some buildings in the area had basements converted into jail cells. Now the city is renovating them for the Pankow district. They closed the access doors to the lots after I came in to snoop around, so I had to climb over the entrance gates to escape.

Saturday:

In the morning I went back over to Winterfeldtplatz, my favorite city market. Pastry from one stand, coffee from another one, then sit and watch the people from a stand-up table next to the coffee cart. Great way to start the day.

From there I went over to Hallesches Tor, where Kreuzberg district starts, to check out Berlin's Karneval des Kulturen.

Berlin's Karneval des Kulturen takes place in Kreuzberg all weekend. One of the city's biggest festivals, it pays to go before the crowds come. And it is why we've never been since it is stressful keeping track of the kids amid so many people. 

After that I wandered over to Bergmannkiez to dip into some bookstores. I went into a back Hof (inner courtyard) at one spot and stumbled upon a bike shop, so chatted with the guy about what I am trying to modify on the Diamant and whether it is possible. He said, it probably isn't to change the handlebars to Bull-Horns and still have everything work. Well, interesting courtyard to explore all the same.

After a visit home to start some laundry, I met Jani out in the Tiergarten to have some beers. 

Afternoon sunlight on the Siegesaüle.

Sunday

Met Jani at 9:15 at the Tiergarten Freilichtmuseum, (an open air museum of ~ 100 historic gas lamps from various cities around Germany) for a ride down and around Potsdam. 80 kilometers.

The Glienicke Brücke between Potsdam and Berlin.

Lunch on the deck. I was beat from the ride since I am not really in shape yet this year. After lunch I took a nice long nap then went out to the Volkspark with the guitar and a beer to sit under a tree. First time I've done that in four years here.

Monday

Met Tim and Ilja over at Ostbahnhof to check out the Flohmarkt over there, one of the ones that has been on my list for awhile. While it had some odd treasures, it wasn't hugely extensive and we got through it quickly.

East German "Diamante" bikes

Lamp options. Ostbahnhof in background.

Karl Marx Allee at Cafe Sibylle with Tim and Ilja. Behind the screen of trees lies the big wide street, originally called "Stalinallee" where the East Germans used to run their big military parades. The gigantic buildings constructed along it were the showcase of East Germany's progress.

Inside this cafe is a historical exhibit on the post-war development of the street, similar to the setup of Cafe Haberland at the Bayerischer Platz U-Bahn station in Schöneberg.

Stasi Museum in Lichtenberg. Housed within the former headquarters of the spy service. This is Erich Mielke's desk, the guy who ran the organization. Many of the original furnishings are still present in these rooms, and the whole place has a very deep 1980's smell to it.

Main conference room on the "minister" level. Sliding panels in the wall contained maps. 

Fun exhibits: buttonhole cameras. Operated by a release cord connected to an air bladder that you would carry in your trenchcoat pocket.

The kidnapping van. You could fit five Enemies of the State in the back of this vehicle.

Flaneuring around Mitte we find the Sophien II cemetery just on the East Side of the Berlin Wall stretch at Bernauer Strasse.

"Wer dich gekannt wird, unseren schmerz ermessen. Wer dich gelieben wird, niemals dich vergessen."
(Whomever knew you, knows our pain. Whomever loved you, will never forget you.)

In the death zone between the hinterland wall and the main Wall at Bernauer, a bunch of old Wall panels and the curved top pieces are stacked in a pile. Since 1990, the trees have taken it over.

And then it was back to work..

A look at Cyprus, the divided island

Cody: We should move to Cyprus.
Daddy: Why?
Cody: Well they've got all these ruins to climb on and these geckos. I just love these geckos so much, they are so cute!
Daddy: It is settled. We move here.

Roman ruins, just lyin' around!

Where is Cyprus? See map: It lies off the coast of Syria basically but otherwise smack in middle of the Med. Historical crossroads location ensures tons of ancient ruins and settlement evidence from everybody on back to the Stone Age. Figured prominently in the Crusades. Recent history features the partition of the island into two parts (Turks in the north, Greeks in South) as a result of a Turkish armed invasion in 1974. UN armistice line separates the two factions.

The Greek side of the island is more developed: car rental agencies, hotel chains, air conditioning. Turkish side lacks much of the infrastructure of globalization, but as a result is much more authentic and apparently feels like a bit of a time capsule. We don't know, we were not able to cross the DMZ on this trip. You can't take your rental car across the border area into the Turkish side for one.

Cyprus has a gem of an abandoned/lost places location AND is an example of one of the few remaining divided cities in the world. The "lost place" is a resort area called Varosha on the Turkish side. It was a gleaming beachfront in the 1960's, frequented by the Richard Burton and Liz Taylor jet set, but fell on the wrong side of the armistice line after hostilities ended. Tourism and travel to the island immediately crashed and many of the city's inhabitants and business owners were Greek and fled south. Varosha was closed off by the Turkish military and forgotten. 

The beach at Varosha. The entire place is a laboratory for urban decay, and if you go into explore the Turks will try to shoot you. There are some interesting drone vids of the place though: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXGOb2drpJo

While Varosha is the biggest "Lost Place" on the island, you also have a UN-administered Buffer Zone that splits the island, and the capital of Nicosia, right in two. The UNFICYP (UN Peacekeeping Forces in Cyprus) will take you on a walk into the no-man's land between the two sides to see scenes of urban ghostliness: brand new cars still sitting in showrooms and unwashed dishes in sinks left when the inhabitants fled suddenly. The Nicosia Int'l Airport also sits right in the middle of the zone, which yields additional crazy images (below).

The UNFICYP website offers an ill-defined application process that gives no guarantee they will agree to escorting you in there, but I find the thought fascinating and worth pursuing.

Waiting lounge, Nicosia Airport

Passenger jet in the wrong place at the wrong time in 1974.

Top of the line showroom models, zero miles, just a small bit of dust...

"You're not going back to Cyprus," an agency friend from America told me, scoffing blatantly at my pronouncement of a return trip to see more. "Who on earth actually returns to Cyprus!" It is true, when you live over an ocean in North America, Cyprus is the kind of place you would barely consider visiting even once. But living over here strange things become possible. Bulgaria is another example of a place you don't think about getting to, yet last year I was there twice, so who knows what can happen.

Our trip to Cyprus was booked on a whim during a February evening after the kids went to bed. Cassandra suddenly realized we had no upcoming plane reservations. A quick visit to Easyjet's website found us some cheap roundtrip fares (60 Euro) heading out on a Thursday and coming back Saturday night. We would fly into Paphos, a resort area on the southwest side of the island. We booked a hotel and had the guidebook from Amazon two days later to start figuring out what there is to do. I feel lucky that this sort of thing happens often, although it is quite bad for our carbon footprint.

The day of the trip we arose early and Jasper threw up in the cab on the way to the airport. Then threw up on the airplane multiple times. Then later on some more, although by that time it was just dry heaves since there was nothing left in him. So a slow start to the trip, and it also meant that some of the drives we'd planned were now off the table. Miraculously, he did not shut down and implode while being sick and getting carted about the Mediterranean by his schizo parents.

Hotel view.

Paphos Castle, originally a Byzantine Fort, then upgraded by the Venetians and used variously as a prison and warehouse.

View from the top, with Jasper barely holding on.. Poor Guy!

The kid truly demonstrated amazing constitution, pushing through this. 

Lunch at a nearby cafe. We are quite militant about sun protection.

A great family vacation moment, Cody expressing his displeasure with the decision to drive up to a national park and do a hike. He would rather stay at the hotel and watch local cartoons in Greek. So as a result, he refused to turn around for the picture. Just look at his defiant posture! The little rascal.

A lot of travel is not the perfect sandy beaches and soaring snowy mountains, it is the rubbish-filled, sun-baked pull-overs on the side of the road. You're looking for a view but just get thorn bushes that scratch you for your trouble.

Left-side driving is stressful, especially in the round-abouts. Luckily I didn't have to shift.

At a water source after one of the hottest hikes in my life. Akamas Peninsula. Your options on Cyprus are either 1) Sweating heavily or 2) Heatstroke

Outside Paphos at the archeological park lies a complex full of mosaics that are some of the world's finest examples of Roman work. They were discovered in 1940 by British soldiers digging trenches for protection against German air raids. Now they are much better looked after.

Mosaic that adorned the floor of a Roman nobleman's house. 

We met up with some friends from Berlin who also happened to be in Cyprus: Sophie, Alba and Elijah. Elijah goes to school with Jasper. Sophie (foreground) is French and the last two places they lived in before Berlin: Namibia and China. 

Something about columns that instantly turns things "old."

The tribune that overlooks the Agora of the Paphos settlement.

Some cool spiky-looking desert plants.

Stopped off for crepes in a beachside cafe. Jasper fighting it by falling asleep. Elijah on Gameboy. Cassandra and Alba discussing her law school plans for the fall in the Netherlands.

Corn on the roaster: with an old hair dryer powered with a car battery she heated up the coals and cooked some corn for Cody. He was quite interested in the whole process.

Nothing like the touch of mystery that an old shipwreck brings to a trip: the questions keep coming. How? Why? Will they ever remove it?

There is a rope dangling down that people have used to climb up and explore the 30 degree angle decks. Apparently it was an old grain hauler.

When family pictures are taken in front of rusting shipwrecks, something is probably wrong with you.

Jasper's feeling slightly better. But stay tuned, Cody was about to come down with it!

Saturday afternoon, heading back to Berlin.

Because it is relatively easy to access, I do think about how to get back to Cyprus. The problem is the pile of other places equally as interesting and cheap to get to that we haven't seen. Maybe that's not a problem.

From here, it was three more weeks of school, then summer holidays of six weeks, then back to school the first week of August.

Thanks for reading

Jay