19# IDa4 MURAL IN EUROPE: Metropol Hostel Berlin, Germany‎

So we finally arrive back into the capital city to restart our hostel adventure after our wonderful  time at the pfhinst open air festival in Passau.

To be honest it was quite nice to get back to the hostels as this is what we have been doing since September and we are now on our 19th, the plan to have a mural in every country gets a little bit closer...

So after a nice long drive up the countryside we arrive at Metropol hostel which is in the lively district of Kreuzberg.

We were lucky to find out that we had a parking place for a duration of our stay and the hostel was kind enough to give us our private room while we did the painting.

We found out that they wanted the main wall done in the common room/bar area.  

The brief was to incorporate some of the Berlin famous monuments so we chose the berlin television tower, the Brandenburg gate and the Berlin bear.

Ida4 and Rose set about adapting these in to a special Ida4 mural, we wanted to leave something special for the Metrolpol staff and guests I hope they liked it.

Berlin and Pfingst-Open-Air 2013

Pfingst-Open-Air (POA) and BERLIN       

We arrived in Berlin to pick our friend Rose up and set off on a bit of a road trip, we meet up with some old friends in Ant from Newcastle and a new one called Tom who lives on “wagon village” on the outer edge of Berlin,  we also got the brakes fixed on the van and then head off to the countryside. 

We said just outside of Dresden on a camper site before moving on to see the The Bastei Bridge in the mountains in the very south of Germany. 

 After this we decided to cross the border over to spend a few days exploring in Czech Republic, we did some nice walks and climbed trees and stayed near Karlovy Vary.  We set off for the festival in high sprites but as soon as we crossed back over to Germany we were randomly stopped by the police for a search, they searched everywhere, I mean everywhere, but found nothing, oh well on to the festival.

Pfingst-Open-Air Festival 2013

We were invited over to a music festival in Southern Germany, near the town of Passau.  This is a great festival ran by Nick & Burnd.  They have their army of helpers but in reality its like a really big family. 

We were asked to paint the cocktail bar and the “stateopia” park while also giving stencil workshops to willing volunteers.

We started first on the cocktail bar, before the festival started, this was in between the construction and wielding staff had finished building the bar.  We worked during the night to try to get it finished for the opening.  The free food and drinks helped and with a few finishing touches we just managed it, we hope to come back next year to finish it off.

 On the Friday we painted the skate park with IDa4’s political piece from the Olympics, this created a little bit of a stir with the local paper doing a piece on it.

On the Saturday we held the workshops and had some keen volunteer, who we showed how to do 3 to 4 layer stencils on old viynls.  They were happy to find out that they could take it home for free.

On the Sunday we had a little party in the cocktail bar that we help create and then took part in the giant water fight and meet some amazing people.

Thanks everyone involved and we hope to be back again next year

18# IDa4 MURAL IN EUROPE: Backpackers-Duesseldorf, Germany‎

About Dusseldorf:

Düsseldorf dazzles with boundary-pushing architecture, good nightlife and an art scene to rival many higher-profile cities.

 It’s a posh and modern city that seems all buttoned-up business at first glance: banking, advertising, fashion and marketing are among the fields that have made North Rhine–Westphalia's capital one of Germany’s wealthiest cities. Yet all it takes is a few hours of bar-hopping around the Altstadt, the historical quarter along the Rhine, to realise that locals have no problem letting their hair down once they shed those Armani jackets.

                                                           

At the hostel:

 

We arrived to be met by Patrick the owner and person behind the idea for the hostel, he got this idea from when the was travelling around South America and when he got back to Germany gave up his management job to pursue his dream of opening a hostel in Dusseldorf. 10+ years later this hostels is going from strength to strength.   It has a good feel to it, not one of those new modern hostels with no atmosphere, here everyone interacts.  Main places to do this is in the lounge area, courtyard and eating area. 

We meet a lot of different people traveling here, in one conversation around a table we had 2 guys from India, a Swiss girl, a Dutch man, an old Canadian gay, a half German half Japanese guy and us two.  It was sometimes hard to get your point across, but mostly we all agreed on the same issues, just goes to show if you’re a good person doesn’t matter where you’re from. I also have to give a mention to Lyndsey who we meet from Lancashire in England, first time traveling alone and we hope it’s going well and you get everything you can get out of it, she liked our art so much she booked herself on a mini Ida4 art tour around Belgium, hoped you liked our art and hoped you liked Gent and Antwerp too.  She’s a real sweet girl and you should check her blog out too……. http://lindseysagar.blogspot.de/

We were quite lucky with arriving when we did, as it was Japan day in Dusseldorf. (Dusseldorf is home to the biggest Japanese community in continental Europe) this is a celebration of all things Japanese, with shows, music, food and exhibitions.  The young people of the city must take this really serious because I have never seen so many people go to so much effort to get dressed up, the detail and imagination was a joy to behold.  The costumes ranged from Manga inspired to Tokyo Street chic.

 The whole celebration comes to an end with one of the best and biggest firework displays I have ever seen.  Literally awesome.

Hostel Art.

So when we arrived Patrick showed us where he wanted us to paint, which was on the 1^st floor in the main room’s corridor.   We had a whole wall to paint with four doors adjoined.   I think we are quite inspired by the costumes at the Japan day as we decided to go for a comic book style mural with all the characters interacting.  Some of the images are from Ida4 Newcastle Mural on Hotspur Street. He hadn’t used them since and this seemed like the right place to use them.

We used quite bright colours as this room had no natural sunlight.  We hope the outcome puts a smile on people’s faces as much as our time in Dusseldorf.