Dear Bloggers,

So, I know you’ve all been waiting for an update on this crazy new art scene in Neukölln. I had nearly forgotten until today when our chef—who is really a painter—mentioned that he has an exhibition going up this weekend “in a new gallery in Neukölln.”
Surprise surprise.

So, today I’d like to focus on a gallery that popped up in front of my former apartment about a week after I moved out. It’s called Gelegenheiten which means “opportunities” in German. Gelegenheiten is located on the hottest street in the area, Westerstraße. Housed in what should probably be a ground-floor apartment, Gelegenheiten has a small foyer with a bar and three smaller back rooms where visitors can sit in old, sometimes broken, always dusty chairs and enjoy the Bohemian vibe.

Gelegenheiten is open every Thursday and Saturday as well as the first Friday of every month starting at 8pm. But don’t try to impress the Berliners with a fashionably late entrance. Most shows are over by 10:30 to avoid noise complaints from the neighbors. The space is operated by a collective of students in their mid-to-late twenties, most of whom have been in Neukölln much longer than the current art scene.

Guests include everything from local musicians to international video artists and the quality ranges from excellent to trash. The program can be found at www.gelegenheiten-berlin.de and must be checked frequently as schedules are subject to change and invariably do.

The easiest way to get to Gelegenheiten is the U7. Get off at Rathaus Neukölln and walk north until you hit the perpendicular-running Weserstraße. It’s number 50 on the corner of Weser and Elbestraße. And if you happen to see a cute little Spanish girl with a buzz cut, tell Paula I say hi.

Thanks for reading and til next time!
Amy

Dear Bloggers,

It looks like we’ve been talking a lot recently about fancy-shmanzy business and luxury hotels. My apologies. Clearly, some of you have been neglected. For those of you who prioritize savings over stars, pennies over potpourri, let me take a moment to help you learn how to search for a cheap hotels.

The following is a list I made with five methods of finding the cheap hotel of your dreams. This is not easy though, my friends. You must read the list thoroughly and then, you must even do what it says. But if you’re serious about economy and serious about accommodations, then read on and learn.

1. Know Thyself – There are a lot of inexpensive hotels out there. There are also a lot of hotels that are just “cheap.” Before you begin your search for a hotel that won’t run you out of the bank, you need to level with yourself. What do you need from a hotel? What sort of amenities are you willing to forsake? Where are your limits? Once you’ve determined your own personal level of flexibility, then you can begin your search.

2. Pre-Research Phase – It’s not just about finding a hotel that will cost less. As I mentioned, there are a lot of cheap hotels and they’re relatively easy to find. Your goal is to find a hotel in the right location, with the right atmosphere for you.

3. Talk to Friends & Family – I know it sounds old school, but the best advice you can get is straight from the horse’s mouth. If you’re looking for a cheap hotel somewhere, you’re likely to know someone who has already stayed at a cheap hotel in that same location. Ask friends and family about their own experiences. This can be a very fast solution to finding exactly what you’re looking for.

4. Consult Travel Publications – There are a number of excellent budget travel guides that provide personalized, comprehensive information about cheap hotels all around the world. My two personal favorites are Let’s Go and Lonely Planet. Let’s Go is particularly good for students and back-packers, those travelers looking for a hotel with only one recent rat sighting as opposed to two. The book is written by Harvard students who have traveled to and stayed at every hotel mentioned. Lonely Planet has a slightly more gentrified target audience, but they provide great analyses and suggestions when it comes to budget hotels. Pick up a copy of either of these publications at your local Borders or Barnes & Noble and let the reading begin!

5. Online Travel Guides – Online travel guides provide easy access to a comprehensive look at both the broader selection of cheap hotels as well as the specific details about each hotel you’ll want to know before making your choice.

There are generally two types of online travel guides. The first is the online overview. The online overview, sites like Wikitravel, offers a simple list of hotels that fall into your budget price range. Once you have this list, you can then pursue research on each individual hotel by checking out the hotels’ homepages and online reviews. The second type of online travel guide is the travel search engine. Travel search engines, like Kayak.com, are great tools for comparing deals across online booking sites. All booking sites claim to offer the lowest rates, but with a travel search engine, you can put this to the test. What’s even better about the search engines is that once you’ve located the hotel you want, a confirmed booking is just one click away.

Now that you are a master of cheap-hotel-finding, go forth young bloggers and discover the myriad cheap hotels worldwide. Somewhere, I promise, is the perfect cheap hotel for you.

Til next time,
Amy

Dear Bloggers,

Hello again from a darkening Berlin (for all you readers beguiled by Berlin’s momentary trendiness, the city sits at 52 degrees 30 minutes North—that’s higher up than Quebec City!)

As the Winterzeit sets in and 2010 approaches, it’s a good time to reflect on the changes that have brought us to where we are now. Berlin, as many of you know, is a city in flux. Every day a new building pops up, a new restaurant opens and old rents rise. Berlin is still a comparatively inexpensive city to live in, but an aggressive wave of gentrification has ransacked this once Bohemian paradise.

As any moderately informed tourist can tell you, this started out in the former East neighborhood of Prenzlauerberg or “P’Berg” as the Amis (Americans) like to call it. This area has become a war zone for stroller-pushing mommies, organic-foodies and, inevitably, hipsters. Rents in this area have sky-rocketed to over €1,500 a month (you can still can a great, centrally located apartment in Berlin for €300/month).

But in reality, this all happened a long time ago (long being a relative term if you consider this Berlin’s inception as 1989 and not the 13^th century). Since the take-over of Prenzlberg (the slightly more authentic abbreviation), the wave of up-and-comings has flooded Kreuzberg, Friedrichshain and now, they’re standing at the breach of my neighborhood: Neukölln.

Neukölln has long been a bastion of immigrants – mainly of the Turkish variety – and feared by the common Berliner for its rancid Döner Kebabs and Persian-language signs. I’ve been hiding out in this multicultural enclave for almost 4 years now, living off of produce dripping with DDT and buying my bread from a bakery where Turkish is the official, and only, language.

Ben bir ekmek kutular miyim sen?

But things have changed. Drastically. Let me explain. A year and a half ago, I was renting an apartment on a quiet side-street called Weserstraße. At that time, there was one bakery/café around the corner and what’s known as an Alt-Herren-Kneipe (an “old-men-bar”). Fast-forward one year later; there are now over 20 galleries on Weserstraße.

Over the next few weeks, I would like to talk about some of these galleries and their effects on the surrounding community. Come watch the process of gentrification firsthand and learn a little about a neat city you might want to see before it turns into Brooklyn.

Thanks for reading,

Amy

Hello all you enthusiastic and excitable travellers out there! I’m Gerhard, and I’ll be blogging here. So get used to it

You ask: Who is this guy and what exactly is his deal? Why is he writing these public messages about hotels for the entire world to see? Who or what is his muse, and what inspires him?

Flying standby helps keep down the costs.

I once overheard an Australian man who had worked on the railroad there talking to a stranger on a train in Germany. He said, “When you’re young, you’re just odd. But when you get older, you’re an enigma.” In short, I’m hoping to make it to the enigma level.

Anyways, I’m 26, and live in Berlin. I moved here from Tennessee, mainly because I wanted to be a glamorous expatriate writer. I simply couldn’t handle all of Tennessee’s sunshine, smiles, iced tea, and Wal-Mart greeters. The plan was to spend days upon days sitting in cafes lamenting the meaninglessness of life – the dreadful “misère” of it all.

So far, I’ve gotten what I wanted. The weather is rotten, I’m often out of money, people are mean to me on the streets, and I’m acutely aware of the hollowness of existence. And yes, Berlin’s bureaucrats can be described as “Kafkaesque.”

When I’m not working on yet another unpublished novel (world: you don’t know what you’re missing), I spend my days writing about hotels and travel destinations. So what are the first things I look for when I’m picking out a hotel? Well, it’s pretty basic. I’m not a high-maintenance traveller.

1) Inexpensive. I prefer to keep it on a budget… it helps me rest easy at night.

2) Clean rooms. I worked at a motel once, and I know for a fact they don’t wash the comforters more than once a month. So I always remove the comforter from the bed and just sleep on the sheets, which I know they do wash.

3) Good location. It’s nice to be downtown or near wherever you’re planning to be. But inexpensive usually takes precedent.

4) A hotel, not a motel. The standard-fare 2-story motel with the long balcony instead of an indoor hallway isn’t my style if I can help it. I like a real hotel with a lobby, an elevator and multiple stories whenever possible. That way I don’t get car headlights sweeping through the room several times a night. And if there’s a stabbing in the parking lot, I snooze right through it without having to hear the sirens or see the blue lights.

5) Good coffee. I love coffee, and in many hotels now you’ll find a coffee machine in the room. It’s very practical and helps me wake up in the morning. I’m less focused on breakfast, because more often than not the “continental breakfast” is just a stale cinnamon bun or some corn flakes.

6) Restaurant or bar in the hotel or nearby. This helps me out when I get in after a long day’s travelling. Food, drink and a clean bed is all I need. I also enjoy the anonymity of sitting in restaurants and bars in places where I know I’m just passing through.

7) WiFi. If they have free WiFi, that is definitely a perk. Why? Because it helps me when I’m making travel plans. Like most other modern human beings, I’m dependent on Google maps, email, etc.