The Burning Hell
My friend Kevin came to Berlin again on yet another Europe trip - this was the 3rd he'd done since I have been away from NZ, but only the 2nd one where we managed to catch up (though we'd caught up with him in NZ when we popped back at Christmas). The original idea was just dinner, but then he threw in the suggestion of going to see a concert for a band called The Burning Hell that he'd been listening to recently and just happened to be playing the only night he'd be in Berlin. Although skeptical at first, Sasha started playing some of their music for us to listen to and we found that it was actually not Heavy Death Metal as you might presume, but actually quite catchy and pleasant songs (and they're Canadian, not from Germany). So we said yes, I got the tickets, on the appointed day we caught up for dinner at a neat German pub near Jannowitzbrücke and then went to the concert venue.
The venue was not large, but was intimate - it would hold maybe 100 people max, and on the night it was maybe 2/3rds full. There was a warm-up act called Construction and Destruction - to me and Sasha they were not great at the start, but got a lot better once the two performers switched places. The main act though, The Burning Hell were on fire - turns out having listened to their songs on and off over the last month, I actually knew most of the songs! The concert finished off with the first song of theirs we'd heard which is pretty much their signature song (you should listen to it yourself - www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfITqXD6koo). An excellent night out when all is said and done, and a big thanks to Kevin for accommodating us in his schedule and also for the concert suggestion!
Our friend Nicole, who came to stay with us in Berlin (see that post here) was doing a bunch of travels around Europe before heading back to Australia and invited us to meet her in Spain (specifically, San Sebastian) at the beginning of November. I had no leave left, so I couldn't do it - but Sasha did. I encouraged her to go without me, as it would be the last chance for her to hang out with Nicole and have some "girl time" with her on this side of the world. What I think was originally going to be a 2-3 day trip ballooned into 5 because of transportation - San Sebastian only has a domestic airport, the nearest international one is Bilbao which is where Nicole was flying into the day before going to San Sebastian and it worked out best for Sasha to do the same. For coming back Sasha couldn't find decent priced flights, but Nicole was travelling from San Sebastian to Madrid and then further on around Spain and I suggested to Sasha to look at going with Nicole to Madrid and check out flights from there - much cheaper, though it would mean another night away from home. That was fine by me - Sasha had the time and the opportunity and she should take it as far as I was concerned.
So after seeing Sasha off at Tegel Airport for her flights to Bilbao (via Dusseldorf, on Eurowings) I was without her for the rest of the day and the following 4 days. It was Sunday - what to do by myself in Berlin on a Sunday? I'd looked up a variety of ideas, even venturing outside of Berlin but nothing that would work or appealed. So instead I decided to wander around the city as I felt like it, with my camera getting some various photos.
So that was my day - and I had work to occupy my next few days until Sasha got back! Next time I must actually have a plan when venturing out with camera by myself as aimlessness didn't really work!
A bit early, but the Potsdamer Platz Christmas market kicked into life at the beginning of November. It was in many ways a twin of the Alexanderplatz one - its not great, its full of crappy touristy stalls but it has Glühwein and food. Sasha and I went to see Thor 3 at the Potsdamer Platz Cinestar cinema (which screens almost all movies in "Original Version" - i.e. in English, not dubbed over with German as the German's love to do with all TV shows and movies! so before the movie, we visited the Christmas market and got ourselves a Glühwein and a Currywurst basket with an edible bowl - just like we'd had in Alexanderplatz on our first trip to Berlin. Thor 3 by the way was fantastic - Taika Waititi's first big budget movie and that Kiwi humour laced all through it was just so funny. Can't help wonder though, how much of that humour and subtlety would be lost in the dubbed German version - did someone try and do Maori-accented German for the character of Korg, or did they try and do some other kind of accent - Turkish maybe? Also The Sony Center building where the Cinema is looked fantastic all lit up.
Ages ago we got some opening offer tickets for a new attraction called "Little Big City" that was opening in Berlin. Its an attraction owned by the Madame Tussauds group who also do all the Life Aquariums and Life Zoo's, or the Dungeon attractions. Normally we don't go much for those but the Little Big City seemed different, because it would show different aspects of the city in miniature and over time. In most cities that might be ho-hum, but considering Berlin has changed a huge amount in the last 100 years let alone prior to that, it becomes more interesting. So we finally decided to go and see it.
I didn't personally know how I would handle visiting such a place - Sasha had seen such a thing in Australia in a travelling exhibition before, but this place was a fixed museum. Its a bit controversial, sure - is it ethical to do this? the people on display donated their bodies to be used in such a way and are not identified in any way as to who they once were, but still. One thing that I discovered - the actual human bodies were actually few and far between, with a number of them missing for maintenance, but although there was animal bodies also, mostly it was about showing off the organs and how they fit together, what they look like in isolation by themselves, or in some cases all that's left is the network of blood vessels with the rest of the body, tissues and bones removed - which in itself is quite fascinating. We could even take our own blood pressure at one stage, which proved to be a bit funny because as it started gripping tightly on Sasha's arm she started to panic but the end reading was below what she thought her resting heart rate was! Would I go to something like this again? Maybe but I've done it once now and thats probably enough. Even though you could now create all of this with 3D printers and not need actual people or organs, there is something about knowing the difference between "Oh so thats what it is supposed to look like" versus "That's actually what it looks like because that's the real deal - natural colours and all".