Berlin, now Mumbai
Yeah, I haven't updated in a while. Sorry. In Berlin the keyboards had inverted Ys and Zs which drove me to distraction. Also, I felt there wasn't much interesting I could observe about Berlin in a few days, when I didn't speak the language. I wrote this in my journal, which was about the best of my observations, and will probably make it clear why I haven't shared more thoughts:
Amsterdam reminded me of a SimCity city - all those trams. Berlin reminds me of a different sort of SimCity city - the sort where you get bored, and lay down great stretches of the city at the same time, and just hope they'll fill up, then demolish and change industrial to residential and back again, then fill up every hole with parks...
Not too profound, huh. At some point - maybe when I left the English speaking world - it seemed to become less about what Ive seen and done, and more about some sort of interior journey - an exercise in sensory overload and emotional deprivation - and that's all interesting, and I have interesting thoughts, but they're not for here. What else? Great sausages, ubiquitous beer, everybody young, some great neighbourhoods and parks. Still, I was maybe just a fraction underwhelmed, perhaps because it was overhyped to me by everybody and I expected some sort of nirvana, perhaps because I just got sick of switching between the U- and S-Bahns at Friedrichstrasse all the time. When you don't speak the language and have only a few days, any insights you have on a city are bound to seem like faux-wise travel tips from Lonely Planet. Um, what else - German 19th century painting is fucking awful. It's all neo-classicism and peasant romanticism and Bavarian castles at night. Sometimes, these strands are hilariously combined. It made me understand more clearly than anythng where Nazism came from. The Art Gallery had some good stuff, but it was all French - the Rodins and as usual the Cezannes were my favourites.
No such qualms about Mumbai. This is one great, chaotic, shambolic city. Everyone living on any spare patch of dirt, everybody running a micro-business or some sort of scam, the buildings held together with bamboo and corrugated sheeting, the traffic devoid of any rule except "get out of my way, dickhead - can't you see I'm HONKING?"
It's damn hot, though. You know it's hot when even the Mumbaiaikans are bitching about it and mopping their brows.
One of the best things I've seen on my trip - cricket being played on Oval Maidan in the centre of the city. There are about fifty cricket games going on all at once - there's a formal game in whites, with umpires, surrounded by dozens of neighbouring pitches, all with somewhat less formal games going on, though still with teams. I don't know how anybody knows where their own game's fielders are. The rules are a little chaotic as well - tip and run seems a common informal variant, but there's no "over the fence is six and out" - it seems almost anti-Mumbai, somehow. How can Australia maintain its cricketing dominance against so many cricketers playing with such enthusiasm? I would think it impossible, except for one thing: all the bowlers are CHUCKERS. Every one of them. And the batsmen spend all their time trying to play reversed shots.
Amsterdam reminded me of a SimCity city - all those trams. Berlin reminds me of a different sort of SimCity city - the sort where you get bored, and lay down great stretches of the city at the same time, and just hope they'll fill up, then demolish and change industrial to residential and back again, then fill up every hole with parks...
Not too profound, huh. At some point - maybe when I left the English speaking world - it seemed to become less about what Ive seen and done, and more about some sort of interior journey - an exercise in sensory overload and emotional deprivation - and that's all interesting, and I have interesting thoughts, but they're not for here. What else? Great sausages, ubiquitous beer, everybody young, some great neighbourhoods and parks. Still, I was maybe just a fraction underwhelmed, perhaps because it was overhyped to me by everybody and I expected some sort of nirvana, perhaps because I just got sick of switching between the U- and S-Bahns at Friedrichstrasse all the time. When you don't speak the language and have only a few days, any insights you have on a city are bound to seem like faux-wise travel tips from Lonely Planet. Um, what else - German 19th century painting is fucking awful. It's all neo-classicism and peasant romanticism and Bavarian castles at night. Sometimes, these strands are hilariously combined. It made me understand more clearly than anythng where Nazism came from. The Art Gallery had some good stuff, but it was all French - the Rodins and as usual the Cezannes were my favourites.
No such qualms about Mumbai. This is one great, chaotic, shambolic city. Everyone living on any spare patch of dirt, everybody running a micro-business or some sort of scam, the buildings held together with bamboo and corrugated sheeting, the traffic devoid of any rule except "get out of my way, dickhead - can't you see I'm HONKING?"
It's damn hot, though. You know it's hot when even the Mumbaiaikans are bitching about it and mopping their brows.
One of the best things I've seen on my trip - cricket being played on Oval Maidan in the centre of the city. There are about fifty cricket games going on all at once - there's a formal game in whites, with umpires, surrounded by dozens of neighbouring pitches, all with somewhat less formal games going on, though still with teams. I don't know how anybody knows where their own game's fielders are. The rules are a little chaotic as well - tip and run seems a common informal variant, but there's no "over the fence is six and out" - it seems almost anti-Mumbai, somehow. How can Australia maintain its cricketing dominance against so many cricketers playing with such enthusiasm? I would think it impossible, except for one thing: all the bowlers are CHUCKERS. Every one of them. And the batsmen spend all their time trying to play reversed shots.
posted by Nicholas at
11:06 PM
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