Day 50b - My Kingdom For A Nice Surprise

Oy, what a day.

First I figured I'd take the metro to the zoo and walk to the Bauhaus museum. I guess some visiting dignitary is taking a walk between here and there, though because the police rerouted me. I just kept a block away from all the blockades and started working my way around. At one point a low flying helicopter was just hovering in the area for a while. Seeing no nun-cops, I was pretty sure they weren't coming for me. Thinking back, I realized I had seen a flag with a star of david flying across from the brandenburg gate. Checking online, I see that Sharon is meeting with a Brazillian dignitary, so I have no idea what was going on. Regardless, I eventually made my way around to Bauhaus.

The Bauhaus Museum is changing exhibits. Mind you, if they'd put this out on a sign, I would have known days ago and not wasted my time. This from the design school that was supposed to make everything people friendly. They had a gallery of really crappy items with no descriptions, much less english ones, for which they charge a euro. There were too busy selling crap from their gift store to serve me in any reasonable amount of time, so I just went in and paid the euro on the way out. I wish I'd paid on the way in so I wouldn't have known I was being gypped. WARNING: Most of this update is complaining, so if you don't find my complaining entertaining, push forward. Some of the stuff in the gift store was at least interesting enough to photograph. It was generally better than the stuff in the gallery. They had funky versions of most household object. They didn't follow the people friendly, high utility philosophy I thought the school was known for, with the possible exception of the ergonomic silverware, which was cool. They seemed more interested in turning everyday objects into funky geometric shapes, mostly. I will say this, if you enjoy nicotine dependancy and want to impress your fellow tools of Phillip Morris and have a hundred dollars to burn, Bauhaus makes exceptional ashtrays. Words cannot describe my level enthusiasm for a famed design school wasting their time on ashtrays. Well maybe the words NEGATIVE EVERYTHING!!! But that's still a little too mild.

After Bauhaus, it was off to the Gugenheim. The one here is the fifth gallery from the Gugenheim family. I actually ran across one in Venice while I was busy getting lost. Since it was Free Monday, it was actually somewhat crowded. I even saw the gals who work at the hostel there. Many of the works were exactly what you'd expect, so abstract or weird that it's hard to justify the use of paper, much less public adoration. They had some photographs that were pretty cool, though. I took some pictures of both types so any of you who are interested can see for yourself. The display area (at least the front room) was built in a way that reminded me of an Alien hive, so that was cool. That reminds me, supposedly Giger has an exhibit here in Berlin. It'll be nice to skip that extra side trip back to Switzerland. :)

After the Gugenheim I took a tip from Terry. As we were touring the area yesterday, he pointed out a university where the cafeteria was open to the public. It was good and cheap. I had a veggie casserole, strawberry milk drink, and a hardboiled egg. I'd never seen hardboiled eggs just lying around like that before, so it was mandatory to try one. After cracking up half of the shell with my spoon I decided it looked as good as half the stuff at the Gugenheim, so look for the Grinning Egg in my slide show. :) I'll have to make sure to try and get some food in the culinary school Terry mentioned as well, if I can remember where it is. Mmmm. On the subject of food, there seem to be a lot of turkish immigrants in most of europe. I've seen kabob places all over. I stopped into one the other day. They had some rice with chickpeas and green been salad that were really tasty... and cheap. :)

All right. Thus ends the truly productive portion of my day. The rest of it was spent trying to understand why no german internet cafe can put my pictures on a CD. The owner of the place I'm using here said he could, but then disappeared for the rest of the day. Five'll get you ten he won't have the CDs when he gets in tomorrow. I wasn't interested in waiting though, so I went to other places around. Four other shops in the vicinity couldn't do it. None of them even spoke english, which is slightly odd to me since most of the internet places I've gone have been full of english speaking people. I went to the train station area, figuring shops in that area might be more full service. No dice. And when I went to the internet cafe in the mega mall next to the Kaiser Wilhelm church three men accosted me on the way in trying to sell me drugs. I like to think I am not a violent man. But I was so frustrated at that point that I wanted to beat them senseless with my umbrella. How the heck do they get away with that in the middle of a public area? Anyway, I finally came back here, my main internet place in Berlin. The owner never showed. I am running out of memory. I'm hoping mom's package with my 512 card comes soon. I've actually bought a card reader in case his doesn't support XD. It may also come in handy as I get further into Eastern Europe. Anyway, now I figure I'll head back to the hostel, eating some more chickpeas and green beans on the way, watching a movie and sacking out.