Berlin, day 1

I honestly don't know how to start describing the eventful and emotional marathon that has been the last 4 days. I've not had the time to sit down and write until now as I have had constant company since Friday, and am now left with this mammoth task which I'm not sure I'm going to be able to complete in an informative or interesting way. So I guess I'll just start at the beginning and see what happens.

Its been my third time in Berlin and possibly the most enthrallingly and exhustingly epic. My 3 hour journey from Wolfsburg wasn't so bad, although Braunschweig is as bleak as it sounds, and I met my friend Sach, who had flown in from back home, as soon as I got in to Berlin. We headed to the hostel with the intention of dumping our stuff before going off to explore, but ended up grabbing a few drinks in the sports bar downstairs to watch the cricket for a bit instead. We were soaking up the Berlin culture like champs right then, I can tell you. When we finally decided we'd been English clichés for long enough, we headed up Schöenhauser Allee so I could show Sach some places I've grown quite fond of during my previous visits.

Pratergarten is a really lovely, simple beer hall, and for the first time ever, as it's always been winter when I've visited Berlin before, we were actually able to sit IN the garden. As the evening wound on, and the temperature started to cool, we headed across the road to Hotdog World, which has turned into a bit of a tradition for me. I get a chilli cheese hotdog and a bottle of Augustiner helles beer every single time I go there, and it's awesome. When I went to Berlin with my friends Thom and Mariella they took the right royal piss out of me for banging on about it so much before I dragged them there, but when I text Thom to tell him I was there on Friday, I got a simple 'I hate you' back. I know it sounds stupid to point a simple hotdog out as a highlight, but my mouth has started watering just writing about it. After that, we headed across the road to the Absinth bar, which sounds extreme but is actually quite a civilised place to just sip and be. Yes OK, so my memory gets a little hazy after that, but it's always an enjoyable experience there.

YES!

Some absinthe

Wandering further on, we spotted a bar which was also signposted as a cinema. We went in to get a beer at the bar and to ask if anything was showing, expecting it to be an arthouse film of some kind, but it was actually arthouse "music". I say "music" like that because it was certainly not anything anyone would ever have on their iPod. The first performer played some electronic noise machines whose buttons and knobs didn't seem to make any impact on the horrendous din that was pumping out of the speakers. The next performer up was a girl who played the inside of an upright piano, using spoons, hammers and other lumps of metal to strike, mash and stroke the wire inside. A camera displayed what she was doing on the cinema screen behind her, which seemed to show absolutely no method whatsoever. Where we were at the back, Sach leant against what he thought was a solid wall, but was actually a metal sheet partition, which buckled inwards with an echoing thunk, then loudly popped back into shape as he stood upright sharply in shock. I don't think there was a need for everyone to shush him, as it wasn't like they were going to miss any subtleties in the sound of a girl smashing a piano with a hammer, but after sending a vodka and coke flying all over a bar earlier in the evening, we were definitely living up to the image of the uncouth hooligan Brits abroad.

After that, for some unknown reason, we decided to pay to get into a club called Fraanz where almost everyone was a clear 10 years younger than us. I'm not sure why we thought it was the perfect place to make friends either, but we were brutally blanked by everyone we tried to approach. Realising we didn't belong there whatsoever, we decided to head back to the hostel. For one more drink. Probably not wise.

Wolfsburg

This morning I had a bit of a wander in Cologne before having to catch my train. First I found the Basilica St Ursula which is named after that incredibly famous British Princess that we've all definitely heard of. According to the basilica's info boards, she led a group of late-Roman female Martyrs and is the patron saint of the church. It didn't say what they did to become martyrs, but I'm sure some unjust deaths were involved. Then I walked to the Hohenzollern bridge over the Rhine; it has become the focus of a quirky tradition over the last 15 years, where couples attach a padlock bearing their names to the railings and then throw the key into the river below as a symbol of their everlasting love. Bless them, the smug bastards.

The quieter side of the bridge.
Honestly, the other side was worse

My train should have been direct to Wolfsburg, but the railway is still experiencing issues due to the massive floods that much of Europe suffered a couple of months ago, so I had to change at Hanover instead. This added over an hour to my journey time and also means that my hour train direct to Berlin will now be a 3 hour mission via Braunschweig. If I'd known beforehand, I wouldn't have bothered coming to Wolfsburg, as it was just supposed to be a way of breaking up the huge journey from Cologne to Berlin whilst adding another notch to my city-hopping bedpost. Hanover would have been a much more convenient place to be tonight, but that's what happens when you make it up as you go along.

If you think that because Wolfsburg is a 'new city' it lacks any kind of cultural attraction then you'd be absolutely goddamn right. Set up in the 1930's to house the workers of the Volkswagen factory, the Volkswagen brand permeates the entire town. Much like the Cathedral in Cologne, which is the centre point of the entire city and the most dominant structure of the skyline, visible for miles around, the oppressively totalitarian Volkswagen factory looms over Wolfsburg like an Orwellian ministry headquarters. Volkswagen occupies offices throughout the city as well and the Volkswagen Arena is home to the Wolfsburg football team, whose kit is also sponsored by Volkswagen. As was this paragraph.

The VW factory powerstation

The football stadium

That's not to say that Wolfsburg is without its merits. Firstly, I myself find the factory fascinating to look at and weirdly beautiful in its own way as it reminds me of Battersea Power Station, one of my most favourite buildings in the world. And, again at the hands of Volkswagen, the Autostadt is an incredibly gorgeous place to be; they describe it as their 'themepark', but its more like a luscious, oasis-like garden in a desert of concrete, with million-dollar water features and the best car showrooms you've ever seen. They have a huge collection of historical road vehicles, the most visited in the world, and the majority are probably the most pristine examples in existence. It was the first time I'd ever even heard of the Bugatti Type 57, and it instantly became my favourite car in the world. Its sleek, flared, ostentatious Art Deco styling with the body panels riveted on the outside made it look more like the Batmobile than a real car. I will have one.

Mr and Mrs Beckett...

Acht und achtzig mph

In the children's play area. I don't know what this
is or how you would have fun with it.

The Phaeno is a huge interactive science centre and is housed in an awesomely cool and unconventionally designed building, which I have learned this evening is of a deconstructivist architectural style. Unfortunately, due to the length of my train journey, I didn't have time to see both that and the Autostadt, so that will have to wait until I return to Wolfsburg. Which, unless I get a job with Volkswagen, I can't see happening.

Wolfsburg suffers from Slough syndrome. With no standout cultural tourist attractions, its shopping district has been reserved for cheap tat and bargain bin stores. There isn't much going on apart from the designer outlet mall near the station and the half-decent indoor shopping centre in town. Which, come to think of it, isn't actually like Slough at all, cos we don't even have that. There is also a lack of beer halls and traditional places for food, and the one street I found that has an abundance of bars and restaurants was centred around themed places. Themes that don't include English or Irish, so no cricket for me today.

Cologne

I have mixed feelings about Cologne. I found my hostel as soon as I arrived and dumped my stuff, then went to explore as much as I could in the day I had. I went to the Museum Ludwig first (when I say first, I mean after getting some currywurst - rhymes), which has the largest collection of pop art outside of the US. It also has the largest collection of Picasso work I've ever seen, along with some truly baffling modern art centred around tits and things. I could go into some of my favourites and what I thought was evocative about them, but I feel I waffled on far too much about the Van Gogh museum the other day to maintain your interest in the rest of my pointless drivel. That, and I can't be arsed.

An incredibly imposing room in the museum

After that I had a walk through the cathedral, which is an incredibly threatening structure; it's more dark and scorched than most churches in Britain, and violently pointy. The stained-glass window depictions range from the signs of the zodiac to poor bastards getting stoned to death. The red ropes cut off so much of the cathedral that you really are restricted in what you're allowed to see, and I was in and out in less that 20 minutes. Saying that, I've never been into a church that lets you go down into the crypt before today. Although I've also never been into a church that has automatic sliding doors like some theological quick-fix supermarket.

From there I wandered along the Rhine in the sunshine (also rhymes) to the Altstadt - the old town - for a beer and some schnitzel. It's a bit of a misnomer as the all buildings had to be reconstructed after the war, but they retained what would have been their 17th century appearance. I was glad of the shade as the day had become absolutely stifling, and my walk to explore the Neumarkt wasn't as pleasant as it should have been, especially as I didn't find much there of interest. The highlight was the wedding shop, ironically called a Schmuckgalerie. I also found the shop from where the original eau de Cologne came, which was advertised with a drawing of Russian bloke shagging some bird. No lie.

Sun down by the Rhine

Part of the Altstadt

Eau de Cologne: for the Russian pervert in all of us

Cologne is probably amazing near Christmas with its world-famous markets, but at the height of summer it isn't so compelling, lacking the historic architecture and artistic counterculture that makes the other cities in Germany I've visited the fascinating places they are. Basically, I've been sat in an Irish pub for the last few hours watching the ashes.

Last morning in Amsterdam

The staff at my hostel were friendly and the guy who checked me in enthusiastically recommended tons of stuff for me to see, drawing all over a map of the city. Unfortunately the place itself wasn't good at all, and I'm really hoping the next place will be better. The street outside was very noisy until very late and from very early in the morning. My room was right next to the 24hr reception, and every noise from it could be heard through the ill-fitting door. There was only 1 shower and 1 toilet on my floor, and there was no sink in the loo so I was constantly being disturbed by people using the sink in the room. One good thing about the hostel was that it has a resident cat as well, called Simba. Jill, the lady at Bar Beeren, said it was common for places to have cats because of the large mouse problem they have there.

Simba!

Amsterdam is flooded with British and American people. You can bet your bottom dollar that most won't have bothered learning any Dutch phrases, but I like to think that I'm different from your average tourist. I still didn't avoid feeling embarrassed though, as most people didn't even bother to entertain my feeble attempts and just talked to me in fluent English. Even Jill didn't bother with her customers, and just talked loudly to everyone in English like a true Brit. I've always experienced the same in Germany, although I know a hell of a lot more German and will persevere with my conversations. Probably.

I'm currently on the train to Cologne. I left the hostel at half 7 this morning, the same time as one of my roommates was getting in from last night, and got the train at just after 8. The thing I've noticed about the Dutch countryside from both the air and land is how organised it is compared to the English landscape, like a perspective-driven concept drawing in fine pen of some extra terrestrial landscape by Moebius or Ralph McQuarrie. I'm not talking rubbish, look them up!

The ticket inspector has just been past, which was the first time I've been able to know for sure whether my InterRail pass is valid or not. Onward bound, I suppose.

Amsterdam again

(A DISCLAIMER: I hadn't really thought about this before I wrote about my day yesterday, but I am in Amsterdam, a city renowned for a particular counterculture very different from our own in Britain. I will be discussing subject matter that my family are just going to have to deal with. Let it be known though that I did NOTHING that would be illegal back home. Cos I'm too old for all that.)

I have been an ultra tourist today. Up and out before anyone else in my room was even awake, I predicted the visitor onslaught at Anne Frank's house and headed straight there. I hadn't predicted it accurately enough though, and the queue was up the street and round the corner even when I got there at just gone 9 o'clock. There was absolutely no way I was waiting, not on my own, so instead I headed towards Museumplein where the Van Gogh Museum, Stedelijk Museum and Rijksmuseum are. The square is a gorgeous place and hundreds of people had already gathered on the grass and in the gardens to enjoy the sun. It would have been a fantastic photo op for the tourist board on a day like today, although it's garbage day and there's an unpleasant stink in the air.

The Van Gogh Museum is a fascinating and exhustingly in-depth study of an incredibly complex artist; it's the first time I've ever realised just how broad and contrasting his body of work is, having only consciously been aware of his most famous works. Those works expose the isolation in which they were painted - his self portraits, his representations of his bedroom, his chair, a vase of sunflowers - but so much of his work was of landscapes, agricultural settings and gardens. You can also see the shifting techniques throughout his work as he experimented with his medium, and in the museum famous works by historical artists and his contemporaries sit beside his own to highlight their influences on him. Seeing his fascination with Japanese art and the many replications of Japanese prints he did, suddenly the bold, contrasting and unnatural outlines he painted around his subject matter made sense. His work done while at his various art schools shows very traditional styles and techniques, and his breakaway from that after leaving his education is very apparent. Focusing on the unnatural colour choices he made for his subject matter after learning he studied colour theory and what the most impactful colour contrasts are allows for a much greater appreciation for his artistic technique and his more seemingly-simple work's appeal.

The main issue I had there is the way people went about interacting with the work. Most people were walking up to a painting, taking a picture of it, then moving on to the next one. Some were even taking a picture of the painting, then a picture of the information sign next to it so they could read about the painting they didn't even bother looking at later. When I look at a painting, I want to study the brush strokes and the varying ways in which the paint was applied to the canvas/paper/wood/cardboard/tea towel, which is very difficult when you are constantly being moved out of the way so that someone can take a picture of their snotbag kids in front of it.

After two hours there, I went to the Stedelijk Museum, which houses a massive collection of modern art and design. There was some fantastic things there, ranging from paintings, sculptures, furniture, glassware and kitchenware from movements such as Bauhaus, De Stijl, CoBrA and artists like Andy Warhol, Jackson Pollock, Roy Lichtenstein and loads of others I should be aware of but embarrassingly am not. I know I should have gone to the Rijksmuseum as well, but after 2 hours in the first museum and 2 hours in the second, I really was saturated with information.

I walked up to Rembrandtplein where I got some fries. Not my idea of a great meal, but Holland is famed for their chips and mayonnaise, and man do they drown them in that stuff. After a drink in the sun there, I walked to Waterlooplein where they have an all-day flea market. It wasn't so much of a flea market as a normal tat market that can be seen all around Britain week in week out, but wandering the streets and canals on such a gloriously cloudless day was nice in itself, and I leisurely made my way back to my hostel for a little rest after buying some sunglasses and an Ajax scarf.

It's no secret what the rest of my room have been up to today. Every single one of them comatose by 6 o'clock, and it doesn't look like any of them will be up to much this evening. I headed out by myself, grabbed a few beers, got some food and organised everything for my train journey tomorrow like a proper grown up. I went into a nice bar called Cafe Van Beeren where I asked for a drink in my best Dutch, only to find out the lady behind the bar was from Yorkshire. It has a resident cat, which lounged itself next to me on the bar (awesome).

I had another explore of the red light district to try and wrap my head round it, which I unsuccessfully tried yesterday. Equally as fascinating as all the sordid things on display are the tourists, especially the middle aged couples who point things out so matter-of-factly to each other as they would if they were in a museum. The Theatre Casa Rosso had a queue comprising of both men and women stretching down the street. The bouncer at The Sex Palace was explaining to three American girls what they could expect to see inside. Bars and restaurants lie between the red lights on the main streets as well, where people eat and drink as if there's nothing out of the ordinary going on whatsoever. I've learned that its very fun place to experience with company, but alone I felt very self-conscious and got the hell out of there soon enough.

Casa Rosso

Sex Palace

Amsterdam at night

Amsterdam

I always find flying a particularly nerve-wracking experience. I'm not afraid of flying especially, but its the palaver that precedes the actual take-off that sets me on edge. Catching a train is a rather brainless task in comparison, whereas with a plane there is a very real point of no return and I find myself constantly checking I have what I need again and again. Everything is so regimented and just catching the next one isn't really an option if you happen to forget anything. The build up is for so many hours that all there is to do is worry about what can possibly go wrong, when all you really want to do is switch off. Luckily I managed to catch my flight, I didn't forget anything (as far as I know) and now I'm sat in a bar on a cracking summer's night in Amsterdam.

The flight was super quick - just over 45 minutes - and the attendants reached me at the back of the plane with the beverage trolley just before the pilot put out the '10 minutes to land' call. Obviously I had beer, cos its not often you get a free beer, but I had to neck it pretty sharpish.

The train from the airport runs straight into Amsterdam's central station, and I found my hostel a 5 minute walk down the road. I got talking to an Irish couple, Justin and Anna, who were sharing my room and they invited me along for a little evening wander through the centre of town. First we went to a coffeeshop where Justin and Anna smoked something green and pungent while I had a cup of tea - and the sad thing is, I'm not even lying. After that we had a little walk through the red light district, which is quite possibly the most intimidating place I have ever been in my life, and I'm including Brixton on a Saturday night in that. It's both fascinating and baffling how brazen it all is, with window after red-lit window displaying semi-clad women beckoning you inside as if its the most normal thing in the world. I decided to make as little eye contact with them as possible

It suddenly occurred to me that Justin and Anna didn't know anything about me apart from that I was a guy visiting this place all by himself. I suddenly started to profess my innocence to being some kind of weird sex tourist, especially as I realised I'd also told them the story of when I was on the Reeperbahn in Hamburg and had mentioned I was visiting Cologne next, which Anna helpfully informed me has the biggest brothel in Europe. If they weren't convinced that I was a sex tourist before my enthusiastic, overzealous protests, they certainly were after.

Filling in the blanks

Writing while away in Scotland was a lot harder than when I was off round England. Then, I was travelling by train and had that idle time to think more about what I was writing and what would be the most interesting things to include, with very little distraction. Driving for up to 5 hours a day was really knackering and in the evenings, when I should have been writing, I just wanted some food and sleep. What I did manage to throw together was rushed and pretty weak, and I missed out so many things worth including.

The prospect of exploring Scotland by car was daunting, particularly because I've always found long-distance driving to be pretty tedious. Saying that, long-distance driving is usually done on motorways, which aren't designed to be interesting in any way. But with Scotland's winding country roads to explore and a cool (-er than I'm used to), comfortable car to drive, the long distances were not off-putting at all, and something I actually looked forward to.

Driving during the day and staying in busy towns at night offered a nice blend of quiet, enjoyable solitude in the car and then mixing with company in the pubs and hostels later. Driving with a companion would have been fun as well, but it wasn't something I felt I was missing. Alone, I was free to explore at my own pace, to stop off when and where I felt like and to have total control of the music in the car; with a companion I would have been compelled to share and be diplomatic with my activity. On my way to Callander I considered for a split second picking up a couple of young hitchhiking guys who had a sign saying "we're really nice people!", but concluded that a), only hitchhiking serial killers would have a sign like that, and b) I would be absolutely gutted if I picked them up and round the corner were a couple of hitchhiking American college girls. There weren't, because stuff like that only happens in teen coming-of-age comedy films, but you should never gamble with the universe like that.

I would definitely recommend a tour of Scotland to anyone that hasn't seen any or very little of it before. It has the most beautiful scenery I have seen in Britain (so far), and, looking back, I can't think of anywhere I stayed that I flat-out didn't like. Obviously I had some incredible luck with the weather which definitely played its part in my enjoyment, and seeing Scotland in the sun is definitely the best way; the couple of days when the weather wasn't great I felt like I really was missing out on something. Unfortunately there's no way to predict when the best time to visit Scotland is to get the best weather - it really is just down to blind luck. I just hope my luck continues for the next few weeks...