The Baltics And Now I Have Serious Question

Beautiful Women...

Flying in from Berlin on a short one and a bit hour flight got me into Riga, the capital of Latvia. This is the first of two of the Baltic states I visited, the other being Estonia. Here is also where I met up with my comrades Arnika and Tom (Arnika who has been travelling all over Eastern Europe -read her blog-, and Tom who arrived from NZ).

Stalin's Wedding Cake, Riga

When people get married they put a lock on a bridge, Riga

Getting off the plane and into Riga the first thing a typical kiwi male would notice is that there is a plethora of beautiful women. There seemed to be a good looking shela every where you looked. It didn't take long for Tom and I to devise a system of working out the percentage of girls that were very attractive and made sight seeing oh so much more enjoyable.

The new architecture of Riga

The two nights we had in Riga were spent at the hostel named Friendly Franks. This was a hostel that we'd normally have not chosen as it was run by Aussies and described as a party hostel, but Arnika booked it after a few Moldavian wines. It turned out to be a good place to stay despite the fact that there were 70 German students there on a field trip who were aloud to drink and smoke with their teachers. The first thing we received upon checking in was a free beer, and the price for a night (7 euro) was a welcoming relief from Germany. That mixed with the social atmosphere made it an enjoyable stay.

The soviet monument, Riga

The red army, Riga

We spent the next day seeing some local sights, the old town with its art nouveau streets, the free occupation museum, the huge soviet monument and the Russian markets. These were all rather entertaining and quite educational into the last 50 years of Latvian life. To then get a feel of local culture, we tried the local delicacy of dumplings (yum yum in my tum tum) and went to a soccer game. Unfortunately Latvia lost to Greece 2-0.

A cathedral in Riga

After two nights we caught the bus up to Tallinn the capital of Estonia. Again the women in my opinion were even more beautiful than Latvia. The city has a similar feel to Riga, with an old town that is good for exploring and a few sights that had Baltic influences. There is also a number of good eating and drinking joints around. Our first Estonian meal was savoury pancakes (I had grilled cheese and bacon which was a bad mistake). Later on we tried to experience the local night life. This was slightly unsuccessful, after wondering around for a while we saw a local beat-box competition that was crazy as the MC's spoke english but all had terrible accents. Arnika then gave up and went to bed without us even finding anywhere to have a drink. So we then went exploring without her, found a nightclub that was $25 to get into so chopped that, then found a big club with crazy medieval guards which also had some weird system we couldn't work out to get in. So ended up at some lounge that was rather classy but free and had a nice drink, followed by finding that all the real night life was only metres away from our hostel and had a final beer in a packed pub before calling it a night without having too much joy.

Getting my tourist on in Tallinn

Two nights in Estonia were plenty especially seeing that we were in the most boring hostel ever, Vanna Toms. Do not stay there... Then we caught the ferry across to Helsinki.

Bizzarre wall mounting, Tallinn

My impressions of the Baltic's were mixed, there is beautiful people everywhere, but the land is poor and there is little to do apart from party and learn lots about the history. But after doing this all through Germany it would be nice to be able to do something active like snowboarding or going tramping. But unfortunately the land is flat and small and we are pretty useless so sightseeing is all we did. Also the place is a lot colder than Germany. The latitude is similar to that of Scotland so temperatures were maxin out at about 10 degrees.

The main square in Tallinn

The most interesting thing was the history though, even after all of Germanys. The baltics were a inconvient mass of land between Russia and Germany so have been occupied by both countries and had years of oppression under the USSR. The land is poor and only now upon pinning itself to the EU has been able to rise into economically stable countries. It would be very interesting to stay here for a few months and get out of the main cities to see the country side where all the industry isn't located. Also would really help to learn a bit of the language so that talking to the beautiful women is possible.

A palace Csar Peter 1 built for Catherine, Tallinn

Costs:
Riga-
Hostel 2 nights: $30
Food: $25
Transport to Tallinn: $20
Soccer Game: $15
Beer: from supermarket $5 for 4, $4 for one from a bar
Tallinn-
Hostel 2 nights: $40
Food: $25
Ferry to Helsinki: $45
Hot Chocolate from a cafe in the square: $4 (best one ever)
Running Total: $4322

East Meets West: Berlin

Berlin loves The Smiths, so do I

Want culture? Want history? Want art in all its forms? Want to party in the best clubs in a world? Then head to Berlin. It is so rich in all of these. I only had two nights in this amazing city, which was definetly not enough. With over 200 museums, and more historical sites than you can ever imagine, it was difficult to even get a glimpse of everything.

Victoria stands at the start of that Avenue where live 8 was...

Sweet graffiti on a big wall

Berlin is a huge city, supposedly covering more than nine times the land area of Paris. I was only able to see around one section of Berlin called Mitte. Luckily this is where all the really important sites are located so I was able to very quickly cover a large number of places within my limited time.

Getting a bit reflective at the holocaust memorial

The holocaust memorial could represent German solders standing in formation while you the viewer might be a Jew being overwhelmed by them

Because of the short period I had here and the amazing story that goes in behind everything I had to do a guided tour. I chose the free bike tour done by newline tours which only asks for a tip to your guide at the end. Although technically a free tour, was actually really well run and the guide was very educated and thoroughly enjoyed her job which made it well worth the small tip I gave.

Self take on the corner...

Bullet holes straight from the Nazis in WW2

The sites visited were all very important, and maybe unknown to some readers so here is a bit of media that shows important events happening and some photos of me there just to give you a good idea of why they are worth seeing.

Reichstag

View from the Reichstag

From inside the glass dome on top of the Reichstag

The Reichstag

The Reichstag is the current parliament building for Germany. This was only recently moved into as West Germany had kept their parliament in Bonn until recent reunification. Yet this building was used as parliament prior to WW2 until Hitler got some communists to burn it down and therefore claim that it was very important he be given more power.

Brandenburg Gate

Me feeling kinda average outside of Brandenburg Gate


Horses are cool at the Bradenburg Gate

Big Bradenburg Gate

This is the symbol of Berlin and Germany. This gate represents a lot to the German people as is closely associated with victory over the city. Napoleon marched through this gate in 1806, the Soviets did the same in 1945, and after years of the gate being blocked by the wall Ronald Reagan stood nearby and said "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall", then shortly after it was marched through with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.

Napoleon Enters Berlin Through Brandenburg Gate

The Berlin Wall

The bicycle tour goes past the Berlin Wall

August 13, 1961 East German troops are ordered to erect a wall that is to keep the people of East Berlin within their city after millions had moved to the west to escape the communist regime being pressed upon them. This wall then stands for the next 28 years until 1989 separating the western world from the eastern world, representing the border of freedom.

Square where a mass book burning was ordered on 20,000 books written by Jews.

Cost Updates:
Hostel 2 Nights @ Heart of Gold = $75 (kinda rude staff)
Tour with The Free Bike Tour (Newlines) = Free + $7 tip
Food = $40 (should have gone to the supermarket)
Transport on local S-Bahn = $8
Running Total = $4104

Dresden, somewhere i'd enjoy living for life.

Jesus on a Horse, 1288 - 1307 AD

Dresden was a welcoming relief, after being in Frankfurt which was pretty boring it was good to be hoping off the train to be immediately presented with sights that you know have a large history and a lot of culture that go in behind them.

Frauenkirche, Dresdens Big Daddy

Golden Man on Golden Horse

The efficient metro system in Dresden and as with all of Germany made it easy to get to my hostel lollis homestay. The hostel is located in the north side of the central city, in hip quarter of Neustadt. This place was where during under GDR rule was home to a few artists and breakaway people who wanted some freedom in their lives. After the fall of the wall, the suburb became a place where all the new liberals hung out. The 90’s influenced this place with the punk/grunge scene and so dreggs of those are still around now. But what makes this place interesting is the buildings, they are all old 4 or 5 storey close quarter homes built after being bombed out in WW2. During the free period of the 90s everyone felt it necessary to express themselves, this came in the form of graffiti. The pictures and writing on the walls of every building tell as much a story about the situation over the last 2 decades as does the buildings say about the last 100 years.

Picture of Angry Communist Man

The Projects, German Stylez

After being a little ripped from the hostel (they kept adding on to the price with you having to pay for linen, breakfast, a really big key deposit) I felt the need to relax, German styles. I need not walk much more than a hundred meters to the local dairy to buy a cool drink (beer of course, 1 euro for a big 0.5L bottle) and then go chillax at the local park with everyone else in the afternoon sun, sipping away on a tasty brew.

Having a Beer in the Park

Historic Panoramic Shot

The next day after eating my rather poor breakfast, compared to the free one at the last hostel, I borrow one of the hostels old bikes and take off to see the sights. The free bike made the hostel worth staying at, as was an authentic yester-year bike complete with a single gear, pedal breaks and curved handle bars. Dresden is a paradise for the eco friendly traveler. There is no need for a car, and biking is very enjoyable as there is plenty of bike lanes, people expect you to ride on the footpath, and you don’t need a helmet so don’t look like a dork. (Many lessons could be learnt for New Zealand).

The Gardens at Dresden

The Norse Gods Came to Town

Using the pedal power I was able to make my way around the old town and see all the historic buildings, which was really impressive especially compared to Frankfurt. Luckily bombing in the war did not destroy all of these buildings, and ones that were partially destroyed have been restored to former glory. After seeing these I felt it necessary to visit some classic communist apartment blocks. I found it interesting that these buildings were now some what a decent place to live in as have been given a new coat of coloured paint and are a lot more individual than any western mass housing project. It again was interesting and partly a shame to see that around the bottoms of every building was graffiti, suggesting the huge change people experienced here in the 90s.

Workers Unite

After a quick ride through the city gardens I took off to the town of Meissen which is 30km west of Dresden. The ride took about 1.5 hours each way, but was thoroughly worth it. Meissen is home to a large castle that was begun about 500 years ago and is still currently being worked on. The town was a small peek into what life was like before cars, and was very interesting to see how towns would have been 150 years ago and you’d almost would be better to live there presently, especially with the ability to train into central Dresden within 20 mins. The day was very hot, so thankfully the ride back was broken in two by a stop at a local beer garden (I really didn’t have any option…). With a tasty half litre of pilsner down in my belly I was able to power home.

Castle Albrechtsburg

Me and the Wall in Meissen

Sunnin' at the Castle

Refreshing Beer on the way home from the Castle

The day had exhausted me, but was definitely the best of the trip so far. Once back at the hostel there was little to do except go buy another beer from the diary and go lie on the grass at the park, it seemed so right.

Horse and Cart at the Castle

Dresden was a very interesting place, it was very forward in terms of environmental problems of large cities, but this is possibly because it skipped the evolution western cities had. The fact I could bike around easily, enjoy a beer in the park, and have easy access to attractions just out of town were all great positives. Although you could start to see that consumerism was starting to take its hold, with new malls popping up in the outer suburbs, and bright shop signs polluting the old architecture. Yet it was somewhat weird, maybe cool, that the people still dressed like it was the 90’s with gothic dress still accepted, and ¾ shorts and sandals still being rocked by the dudes. At least they aren’t trying to be anyone else except themselves.



Costs:
Hostel in Dresden 2 Nights = $80 (huge rip consdering it was going to be $60 until they added on everything else)
Beer = $2 a bottle
Food = $10 (cheaped it up at the supermarket)
Train Ticket to Berlin = $50
Total Running Costs = $3974

Frankfurt-am-main the big smoke.

The skyline is tall for european standards, true story

The main attraction to Frankfurt is that it is the air-transportation hub of central Europe. This provided me with a good place to start my journey towards the main objective of my trip being Russia. Seeing I landed in Frankfurt it has given me good opportunity to go further into Germany and explore around here for a while. I have 5 days to spend in Germany so to maximize what I’d get out of this visit I kept Frankfurt to a minimum as quite frankly it is lacking in interesting things.

The euro is strong in Frankfurt

Arriving at 5 am I booked myself into the Frankfurt hostel for a night. This gave me enough time to see Frankfurt and then an opportunity to catch up on some much needed sleep. Frankfurt itself is the financial centre of Europe only second to London supposedly. This shows in the skyline, it is described as the Manhattan of Europe (nicknamed mainhatten).

Unfortunately it fails to compare to Manhattan. I haven’t actually been to Manhattan, but have been to Chicago, San Francisco, Vancouver, Singapore, all of which are way more like Manhattan than Frankfurt. Frankfurt has only one really tall tower and the small quantity of the rest of them are of average height.

This is a cathedral in Frankfurt

The next biggest attraction of the city is its old quarters and the museums. I did enjoy seeing the few remnants of long ago in the city as it was my first encounter with such old relics, although there is nothing super impressive. I decided to skip going to any museums as all seemed too specialist and small. Side note: you can supposedly by a day pass to go visit all the museums which may be worth it.

The town hall

The queen of Germany or something

By 2pm I was beyond tired, and so went back to the hostel and slept for the next 17 hours to force myself into waking up at a natural time, although this was about 3 pm NZ time, so was very unnatural. The hostel provided a delicious breakfast in the morning (being cornflakes, coffee and toast), delicious because I love cereal and hadn’t had it in a few days. But time being limited I departed on a train to Dresden to see a more interesting city.

Maxin' in Romerberg

Language barriers always being interesting, the ticket collector asked me to show my ticket in Germen. Stupidly I said ‘huh’ which obviously isn’t really explaining that I can’t speak English, and so he thought I was a bit deaf with all the music playing in my head phones so repeated very loudly in Germen again to give him my ticket. Luckily I assumed he was asking this question and so showed him the correct document.

Costs:
Trains: From airport to city 3.50 euro = $7
From Frankfurt to Dresden 82 euro = $160
Hostel 18 euro = $36
Food for one day 6 euro = $12
Running total = $3824

The mix is Singapore

A long flight to Singapore was made better by the showing of the most underrated film of all time (or all last couple months) that being speed racer. I thoroughly enjoyed it, especially for everything that it wasn’t. I felt like it was a trip on lsd combined with formula 1 (is there anything better). Arriving in Singapore was welcoming, made especially by the outrageous airport Changi. This occupied me for a while as I was well hungry and needed to store my bag for the night.

I had about 24 hours in Singapore, I used this time to explore the city and learn about the mix of cultures that makes up this interesting country.

Things I really enjoyed doing and would recommend to others is:
Seeing the city from the ocean along side the esplande mall.

The esplande and ferris wheel

Singapore skyline

Having a meal in a hawkers market, for $4.00 I got a dish of chinese, a really good pineapple juice and a warm piece of watermelon (The water melon wasn't very nice, but everything else was real good).

Hawkers market in Bugis

Having a bit of a barter with some sales people in Sim Lim mall. I got a wide angle lens for my camera for $120 which usually retails at about $200. (Although mine is probably something spewed out a Chinese factory for $5).

Some mall, shot taken with new wide angle lens

I found the mix of cultures quite interesting. The city is a combination of Malay, Chinese, Indian, and Westerners. This makes for some great eating, but I found that some cultures were a bit suffocated by western values. Everyone was trying to be a westerner, the main written language was English, and the amount of American franchises was getting way over the top. It seemed to be looking towards America and saying we want to be you. There is a historical reason for all this happening to do with war and colonisation I guess, but it was just a shame that they feel the way forward is to become American.

What I also found bad was the lack of things to do. For someone living there I'd be bored within a week. Although I don't know exactly what goes on day to day, it seemed people just worked, then shopped and ate. The city is crammed onto this small over populated island, so there is communist styled apartment blocks everywhere which made it feel very compressed. The amount of shopping malls was ridiculous, and it seemed people on their day off from work would just go to the mall (probably the one they work at too...).

Costs:
The Singapore dollar is approximately equal to a NZ dollar, this meant prices were basically the same as in New Zealand although there were good deals to be found.
Shopping: 1 wide angle lens = $120
Eating: Meal in hawkers market = $4
Transport: Train to airport = $1.70
Cash withdrawal fee because my bank isn't in alliance with any singapore banks = $8
Departure tax from Christchurch airport = $25
Total spent in 24 hours in Singapore = $227
Running total = $3609

Things Must End First

View over Fairlie
(click images for full view)

So only a week before I depart the lovely shores of New Zealand. But what a terrible time to choose to go...

Moon Sets at Sunrise, Ohau

Southern Alps Under a Heavy Snow Blanket

New Zealand is a pretty horrible place in the winter. It basically turns into a third world country in terms of living conditions as no one has insulation in their houses. So if you don't want to spend hundreds on power bills you basically choose to freeze. I have been more cold than ever before because we basically don't use a heater in the flat I'm in this year. But the benefit of all of this, and especially this year, is that there has been an incredible amount of snow fall on ski fields here and so has made for some epic snowboarding.

Lake Ohau

The Alps North of Rakaia River

Seeing I had three weeks between finishing work and leaving, I've been using most of that spare time to hit the slopes and get in some of the best riding ever in New Zealand. So while not really anything to do with going on an adventure into ex-communist countries, it is still awesome.

The Pride of New Zealand, Mt Aoraki

Lake Ohau

While down at Ohau Ski Field I made my first vlog, check this out:

In somewhat good news, costs have been down as I've paid for everything I need to before I leave, so from last post:
Travel Insurance: $250
Running Total: $3382

Riding the Triple at Mt Hutt