Eating Turkish food in Deutschland

While researching abandoned buildings in Europe, Amanda found out about Vogelsang.  It's yet another abandoned Soviet military base, but on a much bigger scale than the ones we had been to. We got pretty excited about what we might see here so made sure we added it to our journey towards Berlin.

We found the site no problem, but struggled to find somewhere to park Edward so we ended just leaving him on a forest road just by a gate with 'no vehicles' written on it. We spent an hour or so looking around some barracks and other military buildings then decided it would be best to drive to the other side, cos the place is bloody massive. We were just about to head back to the van when we saw a guy dressed in full camouflage holding a camera and attempting to be very stealthy indeed. He didn't succeed very well, and he didn't notice us dressed in normal civilian clothes talking out loud and not really trying to be stealth at all. We let him be and carried on to find our way back to the van via some old tank garages. I saw the stealthy guy again and he was waving conspicuously so I went over to say hi. He was called Magnus and was down from Denmark. Magnus was very friendly and obviously glad that we weren't security or police. As it turns out he had been on the same website as us and was here taking photos and hoping to find a nuclear bunker and missile launch site. We didn't know there was one here so we tagged along in the hope his research would pay off.

Kitchen

Steam punk as

Socialist mosaics - Note the tooth paste jars

Gun rack - there was one of these on each floor of every building

We found the bunker no problem but it was tightly welded shut. He told us that in the 50's this had been storage for a nuclear weapons cache big enough to send the world back to the dark ages. Scary stuff. Anyway we decided to skip lunch and tag along with Magnus for the rest of the day and make use of the arsenal of historical facts stored in his khaki green covered head. We started walking for the other side of the complex while he told us about what he knew of the history of the place. He also told us to look out for security as they would ask us to leave if they found us. As we were crossing a road I saw a van in the distance and said 'there's a van coming this way'. Magnus was off like a rocket. We figured he knew what he was doing so we followed too. We found a little bush to hide behind and saw an old farmer in a Jeep get out of his truck and start yelling in German. Probably something like "get out of here you damn kids!". Once the old guy had left Magnus came over and stated his plan for seeing the rest of the site. It all seemed a little ridiculous to Amanda and I. We were happy to look like lost tourists, rather be seen deliberately snooping in camo. But we stayed with Magnus because it was pretty funny watching him live out his childhood dream of being in the army. He's now 36 and working in computer science and told us that he would be in the army were it not for his poor eye sight and bad constitution. A few minutes later the farmer went blazing back up the road but we were well out of sight in the forest nearby. Amanda suggested it was weird that he had been down to were our van was parked. I shrugged it off as being his way out of the complex and didn't think anything of it. 

Kosmonaut mural

Where's Magnus?

My lovely horse 

Ghost town vibe 

We think this building may have been a school?

What the....?

Where's Magnus?

Instructions for how to build a Sputnik

Light reading 

There was a giant theatre in this abandoned town. Sweet sloping floor, awesome projection room, wicked light rig and.......

.....a backstage jacuzzi

I've been there, but the names look funny

I think the birds have hurt their necks

So we carried on looking around this place for about 3 hours, found some awesome buildings, including an old theatre, then decided it was getting dark so time to head back to the van. I offered to give Magnus a ride to the nearest train station for being such a good guide. Eventually we got back to the van. Magnus had a laugh at our travelling companion then we piled in and attempted to get on our way. Only problem was the van wouldn't budge. I thought perhaps we were bogged in; maybe I had parked on an iced over puddle and it had thawed during the day? But when I eventually got onto the road and realised it still felt like I was driving through custard, I had a look at the tyres. Bad news. Three out of four of them were dead flat. Who did it? The Farmer obviously. Had he slashed them? It didn't appear so but it was hard to tell in the pitch black of night. Can we get air? No. At this point I thanked myself for having the forethought to pay a little extra for roadside assistance on Edward's insurance. I called up Aviva and they were really helpful. Someone would be out within the hour. Great. Magnus walked to the train station, Amanda played solitaire on her ipod, and I got out the coffee maker. It was bloody cold, so we turned the engine on now and then to thaw out our frozen feet. 3 hours later the roadside assistance guy finally arrived. He was supposed to be an English speaking mechanic but, alas, his English was worse than my fourth form German. But we managed to communicate pretty well. He offered me a cigarette and I declined (being a somewhat reformed semi-smoker), then reconsidered. After the stressful day we'd had, and the fact we hadn't eaten properly since breakfast, it seemed the right thing to do. We stood around speaking broken German/English, smoking darts and slowly pumping up each tyre with a 12v electric pump. Eventually we were back on the road. And starving. But we managed to find a great kebab shop in the next town where we gorged ourselves on deliciously cheap food then found a camping spot in a quiet car park nearby. What a weird day. After several highs and several lows, we'd found out the truth the the rumours of how amazing Germany's Turkish food is. €2 for a bangin' kebab is a good deal in any language. We spent €10 on vast amounts of Turkish food that night. It was awesome. 

F$&(@_@*$_$NT!!!!!!! 

Sehr gut meine Bruder - Danke danke

On our way to Berlin we visited another place which Amanda had found on abandondedberlin.com. This one had been a TB hospital in the early 20th century and there had been a street art exhibition inside recently so there were some amazing art works in the buildings. We had to pay to get in but the money was a donation so the place can eventually be converted into a school, and it meant we were actually allowed to be there. No more running from angry farmers. It was yet another awesome day spent traipsing through a little bit of slowly decaying history. 

The hospital guard dog 

The old concert hall - amazing 

A Trabant - DDR's favourite car, made of plastic and black magic

My lovely horse

We think it used to be Lenin

Arriving in Berlin that night I started to feel optimistic that we could possibly make it back to England with a car that was still in working order. To drive from Berlin to London is about the same as driving up the east coast of the South Island from Invercargill to Nelson. Just a hop, all things considered. Our mate from Dunedin, Nic (Baldy), has been living in Berlin for a year or so and said we could stay at his apartment. It was great to catch up. He took us on a wee tour of the city and invited us to go on a pub crawl that he hosts. The pub crawl was pretty hilarious and we met some interesting tourists. One girl had recently hitch hiked around New Zealand and had seen our good mates Left Or Right playing at The Catlins River Fest. Baldy managed to procure a bottle of schnapps which we dispatched on the train home, before disposing of a bottle of Jager for a night cap. For a hangover cure the following day Baldy took us to an old US spy base. It had been built in the 50's so the yanks could keep an eye on the Soviets over the other side of Berlin. The hill it was built on is basically a pile of the smashed remains of post 1945 Berlin, that was swept up and carted west of the city by an army of woman. The view is incredible up there, it's hard to believe that what your standing on was once the houses, offices, churches and schools of Berlin. The acoustics inside the satellite dish domes were unreal. While in Berlin we also visited some classic tourist spots like the DDR museum (this was frigging awesome), the Berlin wall, checkpoint Charlie and the Reichstag. And a not so touristy abandoned beer factory. Berlin is mental. So much to see and do.

Backgammon in a cool cafe

Spy domes

Spy domes

Inside a spy dome

Two tenors

The two tenors

Berlin on the horizon 

Chode

Contraception and pregnancy tests between
the juice and the beef rolls

An old brewery in Berlin

Berliners go hard with street art

On our way West we stopped at another abandoned TB hospital for a snoop around. Apparently Hitler had been a patient here when it was used as a field hospital during world war one. This place was boarded up like fort Knox which made it difficult to get inside. We had seen photo's of a relatively intact operating theatre, but we couldn't find access to it. A few of the buildings were easier to get into so we still got to explore a little bit. One still had a dentists chair bolted to the floor in the basement. Very, very spooky. We found another cool forest to camp in that night and the next day took a look around the Buchenwald concentration camp. That was pretty intense emotionally. I'm not going to say anything about it because I don't have the words to do it justice. Click on the link, it's a pretty interesting story. I have 3 pictures, all of the fence. It didn't feel right to get snap happy there.

Beerlitz was creepy - especially in the freezing fog

Sad face because we couldn't get in

I am the backstreet dentist,
I'm the last remaining contestant on the apprentice

The moon hanging out in the trees with Jupiter - taken from our bed

Buchenwald - the chimney to the left is for the crematory

Anyway from Buchenwald on it was basically a straight run for London. There were a few fun stories along the way. I'll fill you in more in what will probably be the last yarn of our European adventure.