After spending a couple nights in Hamburg, my next destination was a six and a half hour bus ride away in Düsseldorf. A long time family friend, Emil Schult, lived there. I had not seen him in more than ten years, but my family had still maintained contact with him, and thus a connection was possible while in Germany. He had actually spent a year living in the US when he was my age, he lived with my dad and his family, so in a small way our roles were switched.

The first night was a bit of a disaster. My bus was already arriving a bit late into the night, so I felt bad for having Emil pick me up. But to make matters worse, I got off my bus one stop too soon. The town of Duisburg sounded very similar over the intercom to Düsseldorf. I was standing outside the Hauptbahnhof talking with Emil, trying to figure out where he was, when I suddenly looked at a carving on the ground that said Duisburg and my heart sank. I looked at a map and sure enough I was in the next town over, another 30 minute drive away. 30 minutes later, Emil, bless his heart, and his daughter Lianna picked me up. But to top things off for how bad things were, that morning I had awoken with a sore throat and a bit of a headache, which had only become worse during the long, uncomfortable bus ride. Jump ahead, this illness lasted my whole stay in Düsseldorf area, very disappointing. I say Düsseldorf area, because as it turns out, Emil actually lives in Viersen, a small town 30 minutes west of Düsseldorf, quite close to the border of Holland. Before you ask, no I did not go to Holland, but I might in June.

Viersen was much more of a rural/country area than I was anticipating. The twenty mile distance outside the densely populated Rhineland area was enough to turn the landscape from buildings to farm fields separated by the occasional small cluster of trees. The first thing I did with Emil the next morning was go on a walk through a field near his house to truly get a grasp of the scenery. With the land being so flat, it was easy to see for miles. The church towers stood out on the horizon and he said that for hundreds of years those chuches were what people around here had used as guides for transportation since they were so prominent.

I was going to make an update but I  can’t find anywhere in Nuremberg to use wifi long enough to upload photos to this frustrating website. So this is a placeholder in the meantime!

(Note: I don’t have a decent word processor on my pc because I typically use Google Docs, so not having wifi makes typing up anything very difficult. Should have planned for this but…)

Today I went to visit the Museum on Communism –

If you return to Prague over the next week and a half, or sometime later in your life, then I would recommend visiting the museum. It’s located on the first floor (think US. 2nd) of a highly trafficked strip mall area; additionally there’s a McDonalds directly 5M away to your right upon exit. The museum itself is gently tucked away into the corner of the building, but don’t let the size fool you–they still found it possible to squeeze in 12 foot tall statues of both Marx and Lenin; along with a theirs busts scattered about the floor.

The content of the museum was fascinating. The walk throughout the space began with an introduction to Czechoslovakia of the early 1920s and the economic and political hardships that were experienced; economically, the shaking of industry that was experienced after the New York Stock Collapse and politically, the rise of fascism and communism. Specifically among the former, the rise of admiration towards the Nazi party among Germans who lived within borders of Czechoslovakia had risen as unemployment and access to basic necessities became more difficult; among the latter, the crisis presented advantageous position for the communist party within the Czech government. From here, the museum winds the viewer through communist political philosophy, propaganda, state violence and citizen uprising.

Below are a few photos I snagged while wandering through (the museum attendant kept giving me funny looks for photographing the informational boards, so I hadn’t taken much down to elucidate more on above. Highly recommend viewing this museum yourself, however.)

Other than this, I haven’t explored much – I did wander through a few blocks of the city before stopping at a cafe to keep working on Kafka and story drafts.

OH, here’s a proof of life:

I have reached my first destination of my wanderwochen, Hamburg! The second largest city in Germany certainly has a lot to offer, and that is clear after only being here for a couple hours. My hostel happens to be only a block away from the bus station I arrived at, so I was able to get situated quickly and meet my hostel roommates. There are a total of eight of us, 7 were present when I arrived, and 5 of us went to go get something to eat together and my request and at the recommendation of the other two. These guys said they had, only an hour or so earlier, eaten hamburgers that were really good at a place nearby. Burgerlich it was called. I hesitated to believe them, knowing full well the reputation that burgers have in Germany. But I thought, if any where in Germany was going to have good hamburgers, it would be the place with its name in the food. They put the Hamburg in hamburger.

Caspian, Ira, Colton, Shelby and I walked through the heart of downtown Hamburg for a couple blocks to get to our destination, when we got there, we were in for a surprise. At this restaurant, all of the ordering was done through tablets that popped up from the table in some crazy new age fashion. It was wonderfully convenient and a real treat. As a bonus the burgers were actually amazing. Expensive and small portions, but they didn’t spare in the taste. It was fantastic. Because it was so small though, I decided that I would need something else to tide me over. Ira told me that there were many places to get Doner down the street next to our hostel. So sure, enough, when we got back, I decided to wander down the street to take in some Hamburg and eat some chow.

Berlin has spoiled me. One of the first things I have come to realize about Hamburg, and I’m sure this will be the same for a lot of places in Germany, food is much more expensive here. For example, in Berlin, I have found Doner for as cheap as 2.60. However the average is no more than 3.00. Here in Hamburg, at least down is street, all of the Doner places cost 4.50!?!? I wasn’t about that and decided to keep walking further to get a better deal. My search was a success as I found Haji Baba on the corner, next to a wonder World of Sex store, (sorry, extra little detail maybe not needed), and Doner was 3.60, by far the cheapest I could find. Saw I got some chow and headed back to the hostel. Now I’m doing work that needs to finally get done, so I can prepare for a fun day of more Hamburg tomorrow. I will spend another night here tomorrow, and leave for Düsseldorf on Wednesday, today is Monday.

over-caffeinated with nowhere to go listening to the new death grips album for the first time staring at some baroque cathedral Wanting to Scream:

Jetzt: billiger und einfacher!

Jetzt: billiger und einfacher!

I’m staying here in Berlin. Something won’t let me leave. I found a room in an apartment only meters East of where the most dangerous part of the Wall used to be. Its all park now, completely absent except for some plaques here and there. A Leviathan erased by its keeper; I may not ever have known.
Some of the Wall still exists, as we know, and is feed for tourists and history lovers (and our group). Curated, museum-like visual aids accompany the space–a small offering to visitors of this palpable memory. I know this is here.
Together, the small presence and massive absence of an important part of Berlin can make the air electric; tense, like the revulsion between the same sides of each magnet. Something is somewhere, and I need to find it.
This vague something is what I will now unwrap for you.
There is a space winding all throughout my head that is completely absent. Memories my own mind hid from me; forgetting as a means of protection, with a few solid pieces as proof to myself that what happened in my life did, indeed, happen.
When latent BPD II reared its ugly head this past fall, I found myself stuck in a torrent of memories. They would strike me down and flee from me in large groups, everyday, and I wanted so badly to keep them somehow, but I was unable to. But being here, in a place in a very complicated relationship with memory, makes me able to, for the first time in my adult life. Already I’ve been gathering the pieces that fly by, scrawling them down in an old notebook. I’d like to turn them into short, more polished pieces, and somehow map them out. Like the U-bahn map, which is linear but curving and moving in every direction constantly. The subway is an important symbol in my life, and it belongs in my project.
Active Memory: finding a museum in each part of Berlin, taking the train there, and spending time in them. Objects hold memories just as much as repeated, familiar actions. Even if you haven’t seen them. I will gently knock on everything I can to see what crawls out and helps me remember.
Daily train-riding and wandering in and out of different stops–I can’t count on the internet to tell me what Berlin is. I have to go there and make it up for myself, search for nothing and everything, drifting through the space in between.
Weekly posts will be made with each piece of writing, as well as drawings of maps of those memories. Psychic maps.

Active Present: To offset the outcome of existing constantly in the past, I will create handmade postcards with found objects–as many as possible–addressed, but not sent, to capture a sliver of the present, destined to become part of the past as well…

Reading list edit shortly