Bruges in all its glory

I biked into Bruges via a lovely series of canals past a small village called Damme. It was a bit misty and rainy, but no less beautiful.

As my map so kindly told me: "Yeah, yeah, we know. Bruges is like a romantic movie: full of lovely canals, swans, medieval houses and pretty churches. But wake up: it's a place where people live and we don't drive in horse carriages. Time to start acting like a local!"

Despite this, here are some lovely pictures of canals, medieval houses, and pretty churches. Darn. I failed that directive.

However, as I was cycling through this area, I explored a lot of the back streets and lesser known areas of Bruges, if only because I couldn't figure my way into the city--those aforementioned canals can be a problem when you're trying to cross them, and don't as yet know the gate system!

The city began as a trade powerhouse. in the 13th, 14th, and 15th centuries. Unfortunately, Mother Nature decided to silt up the harbour, and cut it off from the sea. This meant that Bruges (at the time larger than London), basically went to sleep. In the last 100 years it has started to see a bit of growth, as land travel is opened up. Oh, and in 2009 there was apparently a movie (which I missed) called "In Bruges" that has the quote "If I grew up on a farm, and was retarded, Bruges might impress me. But I didn't, so it doesn't." Since this, more tourists (presumably hipsters) have flooded the town.

All in all, actually one of the best places I have visited in Europe so far. I loved the hostel I was staying in, and managed to mix well with a variety of people, all friendly and interesting. The town is beautiful, walkable, and really does have fantastic chocolate. The chocolate shops are these beautiful artistic stores where one feels terribly bad to eat such beautiful masterpieces, until one does. I especially enjoyed looking at what they decided to make out of the chocolate. Asparagus, anyone?

I bought water colours in Bruges, that I should have had for my entire journey . . . but had decided I needed to minimize the things I was carrying. Bad decision. The art is necessary.

Beautiful city, wonderful time.

They like to bike, you say?

The Netherlands is a little bit bike crazy. Just a little bit. It is absolutely wonderful to cycle here. You look in any direction and you can see someone on a bicycle.

However, some things to note. They are very casual about their biking--I was, and still am, just about the only person wearing a helmet... Give or take the puffs of smoke resembling people I see zooming past, that are probably actually athletes training for the olympics, and are undoubtedly sponsored by a helmet company (Linnea, was that you?!). See, even this guy wasn't wearing his helmet. What would his mother think?

Also, they generally have beater bikes with the biggest chains you've ever seen. This tells me that the bike theft problem is no joke. This leads me to the next point. Free inside parking! Amazing. This place was run by the city of Haarlem and was free during the day (.50 euro overnight). Absolutely wonderful to know that Hedgiflora was safe and warm inside before we started out on our journey :)

Ancient worlds, and the museum dilemma

Andrew and I took a trip to the Pergamon on Museum Island in Berlin. It is a renowned ancient history museum, and has beautiful Greek, Roman, Turkish, and Islamic artifacts. It contains reconstructions of actual buildings from ancient times, that must have been shipped piece by piece and reassembled in situ. This made me feel quite uncomfortable. I don't know why, for me, entire buildings are different from artifacts, but I really felt that it was wrong to have these entire buildings living in a museum in Germany, rather than located where they were originally situated. I think perhaps it was more obvious to me on this visit because I had just travelled from places such as Ankor Wat, and the Taj Mahal, and I could directly compare how sad it would be if parts of these were taken and reconstructed elsewhere. However, a beautiful museum, and we could appreciate it regardless of the complexities of ownership and colonialism.

The outside of the museum retains marks from World War II air raids, and during World War II, many items from the museum were taken by Russia. Some of these have been returned, and others have as yet not been. And therein lies more ownership conflicts.

The site, Museum Island, is beautiful, and allows the building to be right next to the water. You have to cross a bridge to enter this museum. There was a small rowboat docked next to the building, and I thought it would have been fun to row up to it, instead of cross the bridge. However, it was not to be :)

One of the first views after you enter the building is that of the Pergamon Alter. The designs on the alter show the battles between the giants and the gods, and also shows events from the life of Telephus, the supposed founder of the city, Pergamon. This structure was taken from what is modern day Turkey, and was justified by archaeologists as saving it from destruction. This may be, or this may not be, but while beautiful and wonderful to see, it is hard to think about a church or cathedral or temple from one's own town, being taken to be displayed in a museum in another country.

Another amazing structure housed in this museum is the Ishtar Gate, an entrance to the city of Babylon. The gate has thousands of glazed blue tiles (ps. why has this architectural practice disappeared? Amazing)! And raised depictions of animals. It is so beautiful. The closeup below is of a dragon.

In fact, throughout the museum, I really enjoyed looking at all of the mosaic techniques. There are so many different ways to use tessella.

This is the Market Gate of Miletus. A structure built initially in about 120 AD.

Here are a couple miscellaneous items I thought were beautiful, but didn't take notes as to what they were (oops).

And lastly, a museum within a museum. There was a wonderful exhibit showing the "Tell Halaf Adventure" in which a museum of artifacts collected by Max Freiherr von Oppenheim which were destroyed during World War II by an aerial bomb, and nearly 60 years later, a massive restoration project began which pieced together the artifacts from 27,000 fragments. That is one giant puzzle. I can't imagine doing the work that these restorers did . . . but in some ways these sculptures were even more beautiful because of it.

 This is a picture of a picture of the restoration process . . .

The layout of the exhibit was especially beautiful, and added to it, I think.

Anyways--debate away--to museum or not to museum. That is the question. I say yes? tentatively? But not everything. Hmmmm.

Ich bin ein Berliner

Whew. Well, I made it to Europe. It is so lovely to see my big brother, and be amongst friends. I made many lovely friends along my travels in Asia and Africa, but there is nothing like someone who has known you forever, can anticipate your menu choices (helpful when they're in a language you don't read), and will always finish whichever Mario Brothers tune you start humming.

Berlin is an amazing city, full of life, history, art and music. It is one of the most affordable capital cities in Europe, and as a result boasts many artists. It also seems to be full of contradictions--spotless metro cars, a plethora of graffiti, fitness-focused/bike riding residents who eat predominantly meats and cheeses and rich breads :) I knew there was a reason I was going to Europe--and that is the cheese. So many kinds. So affordable. So good.

In celebration of this love of cheese, Andrew, Anne, and I went out for fondue on my first night in town. A lovely night of conversation and dairy products. If only I could get them to play telephonictionary with me.

Andrew and I also meandered past the remnants of the Berlin Wall, and looked at the artworks there. There's definitely a lot of history to explore in this city, and a lot to remember about a past that is so full and long . . .  of good and bad . . . but for now, to start with, I'm just going to enjoy spending time with Andrew, his lovely and accommodating flatmates, and the Muras sisters :)

Onwards to Tanzania and elephants peeing.

Our first stop on safari in Tanzania was Lake Manyara National Park. This area is known for gathering animals together--everyone needs water. This is less pronounced in the rainy season, but there was still an abundance of animals that I hadn't really expected.  The below picture is looking out towards the lake . . . you could see (but not discernibly without the binoculars) little pink dots which were thousands and thousands of flamingos along the water's edge.

On our way there from Arusha, we went through many small villages and again I was struck by the colours and life we saw. I took fewer pictures than I'd wanted, as it always felt a little wrong (even though throughout India I was a walking photograph).

Our truck was outfitted with an awesome opening roof, allowing us to stand and look out across the jungle/plains with windblown hair, while still remaining shaded from the sun. Oh how colonial I felt.

We saw many different herds of elephants throughout the day--very lucky, really. The photographs that follow are just a selection of the elephant bonanza photoshoot that went on.

An elephant stand-off

A little elephant love going on in front of our jeep. Adorable.

Then some elephant tree-eating.

Then some peeing. Love the wide-legged stance, and the modest facing of the bushes.

This area is really well known for baboons, and it was so much fun watching them interact in their family groupings. Such personality. You could even see them in groups across the plains.

Here's an example of my photograph/binocular technique. . . makes it feel a little Hemingway-esque, like I'm hunting game. Incidentally, Hemingway's Green Hills of Africa is written based on his trip to Lake Manyara. However, you won't find anyone hunting a rhino here these days, thankfully.

More hippos for Sarah Galbraith!

There were interesting birds that were quite friendly, especially while we were eating our lunches :)

That night we drove back into a wee village to camp for the night, safely surrounded by a walled structure. The camp had a cat, which decided to sleep by my tent in the middle of the night. If I hadn't seen it when I got up to go to the bathroom, I would have been pretty scared by it scratching on the wall of the tent by my head--wanting to be petted at 6am. First cat sighting of the trip :)

 Yup, a little cross-eyed.