Working on projects

Well, we've been working on our projects now for a little bit. I've selected our pub crawl tour guide as my subject. His name is Mac Redinbaugh, an Australian who now lives in Berlin with his girlfriend. 

We had a meeting the other day with Time magazine's Andrew Purvis. Those of us interested in pursuing careers in magazine and international journalism gained some valuable knowledge. Not being a journalism student, what I learned was almost entirely new.

Last night I went out on a crawl with Mac. Unlike when we went out for fun, this was all business for both me and for the guide from down under. We had something like 35 people on the crawl, as opposed to 9 or so when I went. The bars we went to were different, and the group wasn't as easily controlled. 

Our second stop was a neat bar filled with relics of the East. Despite the large group nearly filling the place to capacity, some of the crawl patrons still managed to find some locals to play foosball with.

Our next stop was a place the course had already visited with Prof. Freeman, Tacheles, on Oranienburger Straße. It is an old department store that is now home to an art exhibition/sale sort of thing plus something like three bars. We went up the staircase all the way to the top floor bar. The walls and even floor are covered in graffiti throughout the building, particularly on the stairs.

The top floor bar is actually outdoors, thanks to some early demolition that was done before the artists saved the building from being torn down in 1990. The lighting was blue/pink/purple themed there, quite pretty, actually. 

There are odd decorations such as old computers and monitors from that era. The bar is unusually small, so Mac only brought the more interesting and friendly people from the crawl to it, while the rest were left to their own devices on the ground floor bar, which is a bit more mainstream.

Mac (wearing the backpack and 'squeak my toy' t-shirt) talks to crawlers at the top floor bar in Tacheles.

Today Mac's girlfriend Lynsey had a painting in a local art show, so I worked it out that I'd come along with the two of them to document his life outside of the tours. We got together earlier in the afternoon so I could get some shots of the two of them training at their regular boxing gym. They make great coaches and sparring partners.

As we walked to the show, we ended up behind a nice little kid walking with his mother while pulling his red tricycle one-handed.

Graffiti is apparently serious business in Berlin. The artist who did this wall (sadly you'll get to see but a portion) signed with their e-mail address, probably to get interested passersby to contact them for their next wall that needs painting.

The art show had a nice selection of paintings, collages, a few photographs, some sculpture, and Mac and Lynsey's friend Val had a textile entry that was quite interesting. The real hit, though, was this piece by a nice young woman originally from New York. The viewer is supposed to participate in the art- Literally getting down and bobbing for the (organically grown) apples. I may not know much about art, but I do like apples!

The text on the floor reads "Please let me see you with both hands behind your back on your knees," describing the traditional apple-bobbing form. Mac tried it and lost his glasses into the water, but got the apple. Some people used the stem-biting technique, which is much easier, but he did it by biting the apple proper, which requires a large mouth, from my experience.

I expect one of the shots of that will make it into the slide show.

Freeman ping-pong Action

Normally I wouldn't clutter up the blog with stuff just about the group, but I couldn't resist.

Tonight we went out to a club we visited on our pub crawl, and we took Prof. Freeman with us! While we failed in our mission to get him to act anything but the perfect gentleman and consummate professional, he proved to be a master of ping-pong and managed to school me at foosball.

At this location, ping pong is played in a giant circle. If you fail to return the ball properly or miss, you are out. You get one hit each time then the next person gets to go. The circle moves around the table and gradually gets smaller and smaller. The final pair of players has a one-on-one face-off for the game.
The almost non-existent light made for some tough shooting, since all I brought was my 24-70 f/2.8, rather than a fast prime. Nevertheless, I managed to get some cool shots.

All in all, a fun night.

Andrew explaining to Prof. Freeman how the special version of ping-pong is played at this place



Freeman getting ready for some game time in the circle




Much to my surprise, he actually was one of the best players there! I believe he made it into the final 3 at least twice, and the final 4 over 3 times.


We even met some Americans while we were there. Here, Professor Freeman talks with Rachel, an American student in Berlin, while cooling off outside between games. She has been studying here since August, and attends Middlebury College in the states.



It's a hit!

Day Four

May 19, 2008

A sculpture of Vladimir I. Lenin on the side of a building- photographed from the bus.

Our fourth day in Berlin already! We'd had enough of guided tours and it was time for an original Freeman tour. I was feeling great in the morning despite the pub crawl. We began by making our way to Kurfürstendamm, part of the commercial heart of the former West Berlin. It really showed- there are shops in just about every building, hocking clothes, electronics, more clothes, and other goods.

We checked out the bombed out Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church. 

The ceiling of the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church

Outside the church, break dancers put on a nice show, though they were quite insistent on getting their €2 from us. After seeing how they treated Andrew when he refused to give them more money, I felt obliged to underpay as well. It wasn't exactly a 2 euro quality dance.

A break dancer dances with his skateboard while warming up before a performance outside Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church

A child stares at a break dancer performing a handstand outside Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church

We headed down the road to KaDeWa, a very large department store. It is the second largest in Europe, and is seven stories tall. We did go all the way up, where we got a look at the restaurant. Unfortunately it was far too crowded to get a table for such a large group.

While walking to the entrance, we passed by a large ad from Vogue that is a bit on the racy side by traditional American standards. Some other tourists thought it was good enough to take a photo of it. 

A man takes a photograph of a particularly visual Vogue ad on the side of the KaDeWa department store

Our next goal was to make it to the Allied Museum (Alliierten Museum), which is at a location that was the former site of one of Prof. Freeman's teenage jobs. After getting off the S-Bahn (or was it a U-Bahn?) we walked through a very pretty residential neighborhood. As we passed near what appeared to be a school, several of us were bombarded with young children who were clamoring to get their pictures taken making silly faces.

One even decided to make offensive gestures at the camera. Quite surprising, given their age group.

We finally arrived at the Allied Museum and saw the exhibits, including a section of the wall (again), a guard tower, numerous relics, and even an actual plane from the Berlin Airlift. 

I've started my correspondence with my subject now that we're facebook friends (free communication!), but he's off work for a few days. We'll see when I get to get on the move and shooting for that. In the meantime, we'll have some free days and a few group events.

Day 3

May 18, 2008

Today we went on a walking tour of Berlin. Personally, I would have preferred to set this up more than a day after our bike tour, but it's a good idea to save as much time as we can later for working on our projects.

One of the first stops on the tour was Museum Island in the Spree River. We saw the Old National Gallery building, surrounded by construction sites where other museums are being refurbished or restored.

A man gestures at the Old National Gallery building while discussing it with a companion

As we walked to the edge of the island, we noticed an elderly man with a young child (his grandson, perhaps?) looking out at a market set up across the river.

We proceeded to the Neue Wache, which means the New Guardhouse, memorial just off the island. I shot a few angles, but my favorite was as wide as it gets from the corner. I had to wait until the entire group left the building to shoot it, though. For details on the competitive nature of this location, see the rest of the group members' blogs. I personally feel that this composition encompasses what I felt experiencing the memorial best.

We were crossing a street a few minutes later when we ran across a pair of children on scooters. It looks like one got a head start when the pedestrian crossing light changed. 

After passing through the Brandenburg Gate, we proceeded to the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, which is popularly, but not officially, known as the Holocaust Memorial. 

A view of two paths through the memorial

I will admit that I was not pleased that so many people felt it necessary or acceptable to jump around the memorial as if it were just a pile of concrete blocks. While I admit I don't fully understand what it meant to me, its intent is clearly stated. I think that perhaps the abstract nature of the memorial is what has allowed it to become such a part of the local scenery rather than an extremely serious place for contemplation and mourning. 

A boy jumps from block to block while a woman embraces a man at the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe

Later in the day, after the walking tour was complete, as well as lunch and our meeting with one of our local contacts, a group of us decided to split off and get ready for our pub crawl. We got a little bit lost trying to find the U-lines at Potsdamer Platz, but our detour through the regular rail part of the station made for a neat shot. 

The pub crawl was fantastic. Our guide, Mac Redinbaugh, turned out to be an interesting character, and has agreed to be a subject for my project. We got to see a nice cross-section of Berlin's night life, and I held my ground for the whole night...and my stomach contents, for that matter. I believe I will experience the crawl a few more times before this trip is out, since it looks like my project will be related to it.

Day Two: Bike Tour!

May 17, 2008
We kicked off day two with an awesome bike tour starting in Alexanderplatz. We went to the Soviet-built World War II memorial. It was one of the most beautiful memorials I've ever seen. Our guide told us there are some hard feelings that it portrays the Soviets in such a good light, given the brutality they showed during and after the final months of the war, particularly rape. Nevertheless, the Berliners are happy to spend time in the beautiful memorial, enjoying the scenery and atmosphere.

Up at the base of the statue, which portrays a soldier carrying a child, there is a room beautifully decorated as part of the memorial. We saw flowers left by visitors, including one bunch left by an older woman escorted by members of her family. It was clearly not just a tourist attraction for some.

After some more biking, we got to a bear pen. The bear is the symbol of Berlin. Naturally, they keep one around in public for effect. It was by far the most human bear I've seen in its actions. If I didn't know better, I'd assume it was checking to see if it smells good.

As the tour wrapped up, we got to a plaza with statues of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. This boy was playing the accordion at the feet of the fathers of Communism, soliciting donations from the tourists of the capitalist nations of the world. 

The art pieces there made for a nice framing for the famous TV Tower, too.

Thankfully for us, Prof. Freeman wanted to make sure we would have enough fun to last us a few days, so we went to a carnival. I had an absolute blast. I'm pretty sure I had the most fun out of anyone, though I did slip and fall down the stairs after one ride. As we arrived, we found some street performers walking around conducting mock fights with one another. 

There was no shortage of those most perfect of subjects, children. These boys watched the bumper cars crashing in front of them for several minutes.

As we left (far too early), it started to pour. I just took it for a while, but eventually I gave in and put on my poncho that I had purchased as 'rain insurance' at the bike tour shop. The rain put a damper on the group's enthusiasm for photos, but not for fun. We spotted some couples sitting on benches in the park we were walking through despite the rain, so I whipped out my camera and captured the moment.

In Berlin

May 16, 2008

Well, I arrived in Berlin from Oslo today ahead of practically the entire group. I colonized my little island in our room and made myself presentable. Andrew arrived pretty much right then, and we went downstairs to collect a few more people for lunch at Döner Kebab down the street. Already we encountered problems with the language barrier, but the food was good and reasonably priced.

When we returned to the hotel, we met up with Ian Johnson, the chief of the Wall Street Journal's Berlin bureau. We learned how he made it from the same background as us, UF and more so for Megan T., Andrew, and myself, the Alligator, to making it big in Journalism. 

Our next item on the itinerary was to visit the Bernauer Wall Park, which has a tower to see a remaining section of the Berlin Wall, plus some exhibits on the site of the Church of the Reconciliation, which was in the no man's land until it was demolished two years before the wall fell.

While in the observation tower, two children walked onto the sidewalk and began playing with a ball. The girl's aim was just a bit off....

The wall still has a certain feeling of loneliness at the remaining locations that are not decorated. It really makes you appreciate just what it might have been like to be on the wrong side for over 25 years.

Our next stop was much more lively than the wall, the Prater Biergarten. It was quite odd to have a window for food and a different window to order the drinks in another building. We stayed put there for some time, which made for some nice opportunities to see some locals with their children there.

While the rest of the group finished their beers, I walked towards their stage and spotted what looks like a soccer ball stuck on the stairs up to a platform that looks like they use it for their light rigs for events. Nobody would dare try and get it thanks to this sign...

After getting lost on the way back following Prof. Freeman, I went out exploring with Andrew, Amy, and Jasmine, then on to the Grad Celsius bar/internet cafe/laundromat for a 'schoko shake'.