Summer escapades: Volunteering

As you may have noticed, my blogging has been a bit crap lately. Three months of travelling over summer without a computer stuffed things up a bit, and I haven't been on to it enough to catch up! So yay for sporadic posts!

When we were in Greece, Nicole and I spent most of our two weeks volunteering on a nature park. We did it through an awesome program called Help Exchange, where you work in exchange for food and accommodation. It's the same principle as Woofing: http://www.helpx.net/
For us it was a wonderful way to learn about Greece, meet cool and interesting people and travel cheap!

We were hosted by a lovely couple who run a nature park called Biotopoi (http://biotopoi-eng.blogspot.nl/) that aims to educate people about Crete's environment. The park had tons of plants and animals, and also has a pool and other activities that were part of an adjacent school kid education programme.  We volunteered alongside a Lithuanian handyman and a young Greek couple.

It was a wonderful experience! We stayed in a tent in an olive grove above the park, with an amazing view of Rethymno. We had to walk past all the wildlife at night when we went to bed. The park was nicely set up for volunteers: there was a nifty outdoor kitchen and lots of places to chill out. We got to experience proper Greek food: lots of feta, yoghurt and olives! We spent most of our time outside: working outside, reading outside and swimming at the beach. We were permanently salty-haired and covered in dust, smelling like paint and plants. It was great fun.

Cheers to Nicole for letting me pinch some of her pics. If it's pretty, it's one of hers!

Mihalis and Susanne our hosts :)

The park from above. 

Nicole with Alecos and Elen

Susanne with Vladimir and Maria-Victoria

FETA

Happy kiwis!

The outdoor kitchen

Our quarters

Olives that Susanne and Mihalis had picked and preserved.
My inner olive fiend was very happy.

Nicole and I wondered about the story behind
 this ruin at the top of the hill.

Dodging scooters on the road into town!

The work we were doing was a mixture: lots of painting, feeding the animals, taking the visitors on tours of the park and other odd jobs. The painting was fun in the sun and we painted almost everything in sight that needed a touch up. Feeding and watering the animals was interesting: scavenging plants for the rabbits (and learning about the different species in the process), poking fruit and veges into reptile enclosures for them to snap up. The tours were pretty cool to do too. There were many different nationalities, which made for interesting times!

An example of our painting handiwork

Messy painting!

This was Aphrodite, one of our charges. She was full of mischief.
Once I had to spend a good fifteen minutes untangling her
and her leash from a tree. 

Finding some shade: I wouldn't want to be wearing fur in
a Greek summer

So Crete has amazing nature so there was lots to talk about! I've included a wee snippet of some of the stuff we would talk about on a tour...

Crete is particularly special because 10% of the species present are endemic and 1800 are native, which is pretty incredible. It has many different ecological areas, which is one of the reasons for the number of species.

Here's a surveillance-esque pic of me taking a tour.

The endemic  Cretian Palm, a  slow growing pretty plant.
This one is a five-year-old.

The endemic oak. A baby version anyway! The park looks
after this guy because they're really endangered. 

An olive tree of course!
Greek people consume more olive oil per capita than any other
nation

A fig tree: another quintessentially Greek plant! 

Castor Oil tree. You can probably guess....

An agave, or century plant. It flowers only once, then it dies.
It's related to the plant that tequila comes from.

The carob tree. One of my funnest facts: the seeds
inside the pods were well-known for being
very regular in size and weight, so were used as a
unit of measurement. We still use the measurement
today in measuring gold- the seeds are called carats. 

This accidentally arty shot is of the native Giant Fennel.
In greek mythology, a torch made from these fennel stalks
was used by Prometheus to bring fire to humans. 

Wild thyme: Crete's herbs are notably pungent and strong.
This stuff blanketed the hills in the south.

The park also had some reptiles they'd rescued.
They were fairly friendly animals as you can see! 

Although some people were happier than others with the snakes.

Chameleons!

The chameleons loved crickets!
This was our party trick for visitors to show off the impressive
reach of the little guys' tongues. 

A stately iguana :)

The most dangerous animal in the park, a baby chameleon!
Nawwww. This little guy was the grand finale to the tour.
Seeing people's faces light up as they held him was pretty awesome. 

 Crete is a beautiful island with amazing nature, and we met the coolest people. I imagine I'll be back. Maybe in spring next time, when the orchids are flowering! I'll finish with another view shot. Greece is gorgeous.

Berlin: colour and history

A few weeks ago a few of us went to Berlin for a long weekend. It's been on my list since the start of the year, so it was great to finally get there. It's an awesome city: a quirky mix of alternative edgy stuff and intense history. We spent a lot of time walking around the city, exploring the alternative areas and learning about history. We sampled local beer and did a fun run too.

The Berlin crew :)

First up we did an alternative walking tour to learn about Berlin's street art scene, which is becoming more and more famous. 

Street art is distinct from graffiti or tagging in that it's images not words. Artists use methods like stencilling or paste-ups (glueing pre-painted paper to the wall). These are fast, minimising the risk of getting caught. I got a ton of information from the tour, so feel free to skip the captions if you get bored :)

This is by famous Berlin street artist El Bocho. It's one of a long-running series of paste-ups that
 show a cute wee girl trying to kill her cat in various ways.

Little Lucy cooks her cat!

Hitch-hiker stencil

El Bocho plays with the viewer- sometimes
there's Lucy with no cat, and you have
to spot the poor bugger.

El Bocho again, and another series, this one of beautiful
girls, done as a tribute to Berlin.

A sassy one by Soon, who specialises in black and white pictures with gas masks added

The downside of a paste-up is it doesn't last
as long- this is one of El
Bacho's earlier girls, about a year old now.

Getting creative with the materials!

This one, done with atypical materials,
is thought to be the work of a traditional
artist. Some see street artists not as real
artists, but as upstarts and resent their
success. Because success it is- some of the most
famous street artists sell their work for millions.

Tagging compared with art! Some graffiti artists
are also unimpressed with street artists and their popularoty.
 The graffiti artists were on the streets first, and they see the
methods used by street artists as cheating. The
speed diminishes the risk, which some think is a
 fundamental part of graffiti.

This guy is enormous. The size tells us that it was done with permission of the owner- you
couldn't do this one subtly, that's for sure.

It's hard to see, but this one is done with a

layer of paint over the wall, then a drill

and explosives are used to expose the wall

behind it. Obviously this is also done

with the owner's permission.

If you want to see more, there's super cool blog about Berlin that has a section on street art. Or this vid is cool :) It's a feature-length documentary, but even the first two minutes is interesting.

Then we went to see the East Side Gallery- a section of the Berlin Wall that's still standing, now covered with murals. With plenty of additional graffiti, as you can see below. While the wall was intact, the East side's 'death strip', guarded by soldiers with orders to fire, meant that most people wouldn't have seen the East side of the wall, let along painted on it. Now it's something of a celebration of the wall's fall and a tribute to those who died.

There are a few stories of people escaping and making it over the to West Berlin. Around 5000 people made it, but many died trying. One guy built a hot air balloon and sailed over. Another time a troop of soldiers were sent into the sewers to pursue a group of escapists, but never came back: the troop had defected too.

Marking where the wall stood

Okay, so I didn't take this one. But look, the city's divide is

still visible in the different streetlights!

A less well-preserved part in another bit of the city

Checkpoint Charlie. Now just a tourist trap,

it used to be one of three gates where you

could cross the wall- Alpha, Bravo

and Charlie. 

This is a terrible picture, but East Germany

had different walking lights. They're kinda adorable, with

little hats on.

That night we went out to experience Berlin's night scene. It's famous for its underground bars, and parties that last until Monday! We weren't this committed, instead finishing up the night with something else Berlin is famous for- kebabs. The large Turkish population means there's some great street food.

This is Tresor, a fairly famous techno club in a
renovated power plant.

The next day we went mainstream for a normal walking tour to see Berlin's main attractions and learn about some stuff. I'll refrain from a mega summary because we learnt tons, but here are the highlights :)

The distinctive TV tower and the Cathedral

Us in front of the cathedral

The Brandenburg gate, which used to be a customs
checkpoint. 

This is the eerie Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe

Controversially, the company that provided
the anti-graffiti coating had been
involved in the persecution of Jews. 

This building is typical National-Socialist 'intimidation
architecture'. It was absolutely enormous. Later the Soviets
used it as military HQ

A Soviet propaganda mural on the building

This is Bebelplatz, a square with an opera building, university library and catholic church. Some of the greatest
German minds studied at the university. Sadly, the square was also the site of the Nazi book burning ceremony.
Obviously I didn't take this picture :)

There's a memorial to the book burning in the square:
a sunken room with empty bookshelves. It's crazy difficult
to get a good pic, so you get this one instead- a strangely prophetic
quote from 1821 by Heinrich Heine "That was but a prelude;
where they burn books, they will ultimately burn people also".
And his books were among the ones burnt. 

Walking tours make you hungry, so we had plenty of opportunities to try German food and German beer.

The crew at a market. Here we tried to make sure the
Germans understood that no, we didn't want that half a
cow, we wanted a 'klien' piece please. NOMNOM

German beer and schnitzel yumyum

As if our visit wasn't colourful enough, we also joined the Colour Run, the 'happiest 5kms on the planet'. We got white t-shirts and headbands and ran through people throwing powdered colour at us :) It was a blast! I didn't bring my camera so here's some from the website. Can you see me? We're probably in there somewhere!

There were colour stations like this all through the race

The very last thing we did was visit the enormous Mauerpark flea market. It was a cool mix of random people selling their old stuff, arty stalls and yummy food. There were also plenty of performances; lots of buskers (my favourite!) and in the afternoon there was an open karaoke session.

The karaoke was popular

After a wee walk around the alternative districts, sadly it was time to leave. I spent most of the next week having withdrawals; Berlin is definitely a contender for the best city I've been to. 

So byeee, until next time :)