Botanischer Garten

If you like plants, nature and a pleasant walk in a pretty setting Berlin’s Botanical Garden and Botanical Museum is worth a visit.
In the four hours we were there we only managed to see the greenhouses (which are amazing!) and the museum but I would like to go again and explore the park outside.
It costs €6 to get in but you have access to the whole garden, greenhouses, and museum. The museum is very interesting despite the entrance’s 70s vibe, with the golden aluminium door and window frames. I loved it and we didn’t even manage to see it all. (If I was a kid I would have gone nuts.) They have exhibitions about where different fibers, grains, and fruit came from, very cool dioramas about cotton fields, prehistorical plants and animals, and many, many more.
If you are in Berlin, with or without kids, you should give a go!

Here are some photos taken inside the greenhouses.

Botanischer Garten

Botanischer Garten

Botanischer Garten

Botanischer Garten

Botanischer Garten

Deutsches Technikmuseum

The German Museum of Technology (Deutsches Technikmuseum) if probably the greatest place in the whole of Berlin for anyone that likes trains, airplanes, ships, photographic technology, film technology, printing technology, and much, much more.

I need to go again to enjoy the train collection in more detail. They have real trains from the Victorian age and beyond. It’s fenomenal!

Didn’t took many pictures because I was having too much fun with the trains…

Deutsches Technikmuseum

Deutsches Technikmuseum

Deutsches Technikmuseum

Shame [2011]

Shame Movie Poster

I heard about Shame from a few different people but never had the opportunity to watch it before now. Telmo and I watched it two nights ago and I was slightly disappointed.
I expected it to be a really heavy movie filled with emotion and drama but what I felt was more on the “it’s okay” category. I suspect if I’ve seen it in any other day I would feel different, so I’m saving my final judgment for when I see it again in another state of mind.

I have a few things to say, though.
I think people should chill out about speaking of this movie as if it’s The Sad Life of a Sex Addict. I don’t think he is a sex addict. I don’t even know if it’s possible to be a sex addict. (Maybe it’s an American thing…) When the human prime directive is to have sex and reproduce, can someone get addicted to a prime directive? Isn’t that exactly what is meant to be? He likes porn, hookers and risk taking (by implicitly having unprotected sex). So? He can afford the hookers and he is an unattached adult so quit it with the finger pointing, people!

He is lonely. He lives in a society that exalts monogamy and relationships as the only acceptable model of reality. As we see in the movie, his MARRIED boss is screwing around. Is his wife okay with that?

The pressure of a relationship, any relationship—as we see in the way he deals with his sister—is too much for him. He isn’t a sex addict, he is just emotional undeveloped.

It’s a pretty movie visually and the writing is good. I just need to watch it when I’m not in a funk.

Trailer:

V&A

Last April I had the great pleasure of popping by the V&A with some friends. I really like the museum. This time I focused on their Fashion exhibition because I’m writing two historical romances (both set in different periods of the 19th Century) and I wanted to take detailed pictures of some of the gowns they have there.
I took some pictures for reference and bought their book on the subject. I highly recommend it to all interested in the history of fashion from this time period. The photos are very good, the text is helpful and the whole book is a joy to peruse.

Here are some of my photos (for more go here):

V&A

V&A

V&A

V&A

V&A