Interrail: Hamburg - Strasbourg - Geneva - Montreux - Basel - Berlin

Starsbourg is a beautiful city, but a lot of it can be seen in a day or two. Laila and I went to Musée d'art moderne et contemporain to see an exposition of John Hearfield's work over 4 decades I think. Many of the works were satirical photo manipulations from a magazine called AIS in the interwar years.

Strasbourg otherwise had slight tourist trap tendencies already. But it is beautiful, nice buildings, the weather was good and the Flammenküche was good (Tarte Flambée). Laila was sick of Strasbourg and Genève was our destination. So on we went.

In Genève we stayed at the hostel where Eirik, Ivar and I stayed the first days of 2004, arriving one Saturday evening. We couldn't move in to mrs. Nguyens apartment before we had the insurance settled. But anyways, since the dude in behind the counter found my name in his records, we stayed there at member price.

Laila and I went to Palais des Nations, the UN's offices in Genève. I mean Geneva. I had never done that before. We also visited Julia and Fadmar in St. Genis, and fetched the box of stuff I had left with them before I went home from CERN and Morocco, in January 2005. I had almost forgotten what was in the box, so it was almost like getting new clothes! Later that evening we went to see "Inside Man" with French and German subtitles.

After Geneva we went to Montreux! I have been there before, quite briefly, at the 38th Montreux Jayy festival, at a PJ Harvey concert, but didn't see much of the place. The main attraction, though, is the Chillon Castle.

In Basel we had no particular plans. But we had a long lunch with "pain", wine and cheese by the river, and we visited the weird red Rathaus and some atiquity shops. A quite nice city, actually. From Basel, Laila went back to Strasbourg, while I went to Berlin. I have been in Berlin once before, when I was interrailing with Gunhild, and we stopped at Zoo or Ostbahnhof, or both, can't quite remember, but we were just changing trains, but got a pizza and a beer at the station. That's all. But now I'm back. People I've talked with who have lived in Berlin like it a lot. I met a guy on the train who gave me some tips, but even without those tips, I managed to find a 10€ hostel right by the Berlin Zoo. Quite happy with that, although it is thoroughly cigarettesmoked. It stinks. And though Berlin is a nice city with the Dom and the Reichstag and what not: it is a bit polluted. It does hurt to breathe. It's so... filthy compared to the crisp Montreux and Basel.
Today though, I've visited the Checkpoint Charlie museum. It was the thing I most wanted to go to. I just kinda walked past the other museums ;) Don't know how long I'll stay here. See you all later!

Will be in Aalborg within evening April 28.