Christmas in Berlin: Monday

On Monday we went to Carlottenburg to visit the castle. It's a very large and grand building but unfortunately it's closed on Mondays (how very French of them) so we had a quick look round the grounds then went to Gendarmmenmarkt to look at the Christmas Market. We had to pay to get in but it was worth it as it was definitely one of the better ones I've seen.

The highlight for me was the live music, a Ukranian group called the 'Trio Scho'. According to their Myspace page (yes, they have a Myspace, it seems everyone does) they play 'Old Russian Swing'. Whatever it's classified as I like it, it's different to the rest of my music, which is usually a good thing.


After looking round the Christmas Market we went back to my apartment to watch the film 'Cabaret' on my projector:

It is the city of Berlin in 1930, a time when political unrest racks the country, the economy has been destroyed, and millions of unemployed roam the streets. Enter into this chaos an American cabaret dancer, working at the downtown "Kit-Kat club" where anything goes on the stage. Into this young dancer's life come several characters such as a rich German politician, a young Jewish man struggling with his identity, an Englishman teacher from London, and of course the all-knowing, all-seeing Master of Ceremonies.

I very much enjoyed this film and it was cool watching it in Berlin with my family.

Christmas in Berlin: Friedrichshain

On Sunday I wanted to show my parents my apartment and Friedrichsain the area where I live. After showing them my apartment, it was around 11am and thus in true English tradition, time for a cup of tea. Mercifully my parents had brought over a huge box of Twinings English Breakfast tea for me:


After this I took my parents to a local flea market to look round. The flea market in Boxhandler Platz in Friedrichshain is a lot cooler than the one in Mauerpark. There is a nice mix of cheap furniture, random tat and kitch furniture and lighting.

After the flea market my family went back to their rented apartment and I returned to mine. I arranged to meet some people from CS at a local bar. About 8 or so people turned up, including the Australian girl I had spoken to on the Friday. We stayed for a few drinks and some table football before most of the people left for a club. Myself and two others decided to move onto another bar instead and ended up playing darts in a rock bar.

Christmas in Berlin: Arrivals

Before I left to come to Berlin I'd suggested to my parents that we could have our Christmas here. They liked the idea and once I assured them of my determination to still be here they booked their flights.

My Sister Katie arrived last Friday and my parents arrived on the Saturday. My parents went home today and my sister is leaving tomorrow so for the last week I've been spending Christmas (Weihnacten) with them in Berlin. The next few blog posts will follow the events of the last few days.

First off, arrivals. My sister's flight was due to arrive in Berlin at 10:30pm and we would be going to a CS meetup after she'd arrived. Due to the flight being delayed (thanks to Gatwick, not because of the ever efficient Germans) we arrived at Belushi's around 1:30-2am. The bar was still full but people were beginning to leave for clubs. However, most of the people I know well were still there and I was able to introduce Katie to them.

We stayed and chatted to a few people, I got talking to an Australian girl who was couch surfing in Berlin, and she gave me a lot of good places to visit while my parents were staying. One of the highlights of the evening was seeing a Frenchman stagger off drunk and falling flat on his face. It was a proper full-on faceplant, hilarious.

Despite only being there a couple of hours it was a cool event and I was glad to be able to take my sister to a CS meet in Berlin as she had introduced me to it back in Sheffield. If it wasn't for CS I'd probably be mixing with more Germans and although I'd probably be speaking better German I'd definitely have much less of a social life so I'm very much glad that my sister introduced me to it (despite my initial scepticism).

Saturday, this time when we met to the airport to meet our parents they were there and had arrived early (Ryanair, cheap and they arrive on time). We then got the train to go the apartment in Schöneberg. We had to collect the key from the owner from a nearby restaurant. For some reason, she didn't speak English which I personally find unforgivable for someone who lives in Berlin and rents out apartments to foreigners. Anyway, between my Dad and I we managed to understand what she was telling us and were able to get into the apartment.

The apartment itself was typical Berlin, situated in a rather bland, unassuming building it was in fact very nicely decorated. On the days I'd be sleeping at the apartment I had a rather uncomfortable sofabed to sleep on but that was my only, minor complaint about it.

On Saturday evening we had dinner at the nearby restaurant which took a fair effort to decide what to have as there was no English menu. We then had a look round Potsdamer Platz and the various Christmas Markets. My parents were impressed by the buildings at Potsdamer Platz and I would definitely recommend the Sony Centre as a place to see to anyone who visits Berlin.

Still Living the Berlin Life

Although my blog has been quite quiet recently, my life here in Berlin is still very much active and ticking along nicely. Some of the highlights include:

- A Crepe eating night hosted by a French girl. Everyone happily stuffed themselves with sweet and savoury crepes and drank quite a lot. Throughout the night we were throwing the balls from a small ball pool at each other, I vaguely remember it getting a little out of hand at one point.

- I hosted a film night for a few friends and watched The Orphanage. It's a film that creeps you out instead of making you jump but it's a great film and damn eery.

- A friend of mine had his first Poker night. We played two games each with a €3 buy-in. I came something like 4th (of 6) in the first game and 2nd in the second so ended the evening by breaking even, which isn't bad considering what a terrible Poker player I am.

- I hosted a second film night, which I put up on the Berlin CS group for anyone to attend. We watched Oldboy which most people seemed to enjoy, one of the girls who came found it too violent but personally I feel you can never have TOO much violence.

- On the Sunday evening while my family was in Berlin I organised to meet up with a few randoms from CS in Friedrichshain which went well. Almost everyone who turned up I didn't know which is something that's not really happened to me since I first arrived in Berlin. We had a few drinks in a bar called Geronimo then most people headed off to a club and myself and a couple of others went to a rock bar and played darts. Despite being awful I managed to beat an Irishman in a couple of the games so I was pleased with that.

Not addicted

I realise I have not posted on my blog recently. It is down to a combination of laziness and rushing around in the lead up to Christmas. I have not however been addicted to any computer games (namely Team Fortress 2), which is good news.

I will now definitely be brining my PC to Berlin, the only question now is when. I'd like to bring it over as soon as possible, but as long as I have it before February that'd be fine. My parents suggested I should get a job before I bring my PC over which means the sooner I get a job the sooner I get my PC. This will be a real motivator for me and will definitely help my focus my effort. As soon as I've recovered from Berlin Winter Camp and the New Year celebrations I will get straight onto a proper, full-on job hunt in Berlin.

Injection of pure gaming

Part of the reason I bought a Macbook (a decision that has brought much descent from certain individuals) was to avoid gaming as it became a rather large part of my life. I'm still glad that I brought the Macbook with me as it's given me a chance to live my new life in Berlin, but I am now seriously considering shipping my PC over here.

I reckon I can now balance a life and gaming, which is why in part I decided to give Team Fortress 2 on my Macbook a bash. As it turns out, it does actually run. Ok, so everything is on lowest and it's running at 800x600 but it works. What's more it works on the projector:

After such a long time without gaming online it felt great to be playing again, the rush and the mad hilarity of it all. But that seems to have come at a price, after about 90minutes or so of Team Fortress 2 I'm exhausted.

I have a 7 day trial on the software that's letting me play TF2 on my Macbook so it'll give me time to see how much I play and if it doesn't take over like it did before I'll definitely be bringing my PC to Berlin.

Projectors are fun

So the done thing in Berlin is to buy a cheap projector and watch lots of films with friends. I thought that since I'll be here for 2 years a projector would be a good investment. Perhaps it would have been a better investment AFTER getting a job, but there you go.

Anyway, apart from a slight mishap with the DVD player it's been great so far, here are a few photos:

Top Gear. which I have been keeping up with.

My flatmates and I have a list of films that we want to see on a projector and close to the top was Casablanca is a film I've been wanting to see for a while and it definitely benefited from being seen on a projector, 'here's looking at you kid'.

Oh, you betcha, yah

Yesterday I was finally able to see Fargo, another Coen Brothers film. It's a very funny film with some classic quotes:

Marge: Say Lou. Did ya hear the one about the guy who couldn't afford personalized plates, so he went and changed his name to J3L 2404?

Carl: Keep it still back there, lady, or else we're gonna have to, ya know, to shoot ya.

Marge: Oh, I just think I'm gonna barf.

Star Wars Trilogy: Film Night

Last night I went along to watch the original (4, 5 and 6) Star Wars films back-to-back. I've always liked the originals, and I'd say that the first is my favourite of the three, and I do still like Return of the Jedi despite almost being asleep after 4/5 hours of Star Wars films and junk food.

After we'd finished someone suggested watching the Matrix trilogy, I've done this already a few years back and it's not worth it. You end up after 7-9 hours wondering why you didn't just watch the first one and leave it there.

Results

I got my test back and I got 65 out of 85, which is a little over 70% not not too shabby I'd say. I pretty much got wrong what I was expecting to get wrong and so just need to brush up on my Verb conjugations and a couple of other things.

I think my German reading/writing is stronger than my speaking/listening but I'm not surprised at this. When I was learning flash cards back in England I was always better at typing the word as oppose to just saying it. Maybe this along with a typing speed that would put most secretaries to shame is a result of excessive gaming and forum posting, or perhaps I'm just wired this way.

seit zwei Monaten

I've now been in Berlin a little over 2 months. I've just had a look back over the blog and I'm astonished at how much I've done over such a short time. I'm quite sure that I have done more 'living' in the past 2 months that the most of last year.

The only thing missing is film-making, I just need to film/edit something. That said, I do have big plans for a video I'd like to make some time in the new year, plus I still have some footage to edit.

Regardless, if I ever get overcome with lethargy a quick read of some of my old blog entries should kick me back into gear.


(title: 'since two months')

This is Living

I think it's about time I posted up the photos of my new room, so without further ado:

Artwork bought from a flea market, Obama card from Election Night, Cine-Camera

My bed, with it's curtains around it (I need to get some for the end though)

The James Bond poster is German which I got free from a shop. The door leads to Balthazar's room.

View from the balcony.

My desk, recently cleared.

Testing...

Today in my German class we were given a 90 minute written test. On the upside it meant finishing the lesson 90minutes early. It was also not an official test, but just one for the teachers to see how everyone is doing.

Now my past performance on tests has been generally poor. Little revision and my Memento like ability to forget every piece of information I know have been big problems. Despite this, after about 15 minutes I was half way through the test doing reasonably well considering we'd only been told about it yesterday. After 30 minutes or so I'd finished, and with a few exceptions I was fairly confident about how I'd done. Usually for me finishing an exam early means catastrophic failure (my record in my second year of Business Studies at uni was leaving at the first 30 minutes of a 2 hour exam getting a percentage in single digits).

So hopefully when I get the test back later this week I'll have done well.

Back Online

Thanks to our generous neighbours from the second floor, we now have internet. They kindly gave us the password in exchange for €10 for the month while we get our own internet sorted.

So, I'll now be online at home able to chat on Skype and hopefully post a bit more frequently on the blog. Expect photos of the apartment in the next day or so.

Films, films, films

I could probably write a short sitcom based on my rather ridiculous financial situation and the joy of job searching in a city with something like 50% unemployment. As a result I've not been going out a whole lot these last couple of weeks.

On the upside, my two flatmates are awesome and Sophie has a vast collection of films that I've not seen including a lot of Art House films. We've also been renting a films from a rental place nearby.

The films I've watched are:

Godfather 2 & 3
Big Lebowski
Miller's Crossing
Bonnie and Clyde
Burn After Reading

It's a crime that I had not seen the Godfather trilogy and I'd only managed to see the first film (incidentally my favourite) shortly before leaving for Berlin. I thoroughly enjoyed the second film despite it's length. I can see why the third film is generally regarded at the worst of the three, but it's still a solid film. Sofia Coppola should definitely stick to writing and directing though as her acting in Godfather 3 is shamefully bad.

Three of the films I saw this week were by the Cohen Brothers. It would have been four but the DVD of Fargo that I rented was only in German. The Big Lebowski is another film I've been needing to see for a while and it certainly didn't disappoint, very much a Cohen Brothers film. Burn After Reading is a film that is cleverly about nothing, it's good, but not great. Miller's Crossing is a stylish film noir gangster film, which is always good in my books and probably my favourite of the Cohen Brothers films I've seen so far.

Bonnie and Clyde was one of the most violent films when it was made back in 1967 and it's still violent by today's standards. Anyway, it's a very cool film of the romanticised story of the two outlaws and the Barrow Gang.

BVG Redeem Themselves

During my usual internet surfing at priMaria (I don't even need to ask for tea now, he just brings it to me) I noticed an update for my iPhone's Berlin trip-planner app. It turns out that the developer got permission from BVG to use their maps, so I now have them back in my pocket.

I'd like to think it was the strongly worded email I sent BVG that made them take notice.

priMaria Cafe - Friedrichshain

As my new apartment doesn't have internet yet I've been using the internet at a nearby cafe called priMaria. The second time I came here I asked for a tea and to my great surprise and satisfaction is came in an actual mug instead of a glass. It was also quite delicious.

After bringing me the tea the owner of the cafe picked up an acoustic guitar from behind the counter and played 'Losing my Religion' by REM and then continued on to play a selection of other songs.

When I came here today and sat down, the owner came over to order to confirm that I wanted a black tea with cold milk, remembering that is what I have had previously. Now that's service.

So, the priMaria is becoming a definite favourite of mine, I think even after we get internet I'll be coming here often.

Wiedersehen mit Brideshead

Brideshead Revisited is one of those quitesentially English TV shows, which starred Jeremy Irons. There was a recent film remake of this, which I was dissappointed I would miss seeing by being in Berlin, that is until I saw the trailer and realised how inferior to the original it would be.

Safe in the knowledge that this would never see Germany I left thinking no more of it, that is until last night when I saw this film poster:




I can't think of anything less English than a strong German accent and as the Germans dub everything (despite all speaking English) this already poor homage to the original series will be further ruined.

Lovejoy in Berlin

Berlin has a wide and wonderful range of graffiti. In Friedrichshain my new district of residence there is definitely no shortage, including it seems Lovejoy that classic TV character/series:

And the other nearby graffiti is pretty cool too:

I now own a Koenigsegg...

...lanyard.

Ok, so it's not quite the CCX with it's 806bhp and it's (apparently) 259mph top-speed, but I own something by Koenigsegg, that's enough for now.

Double Feature: James Bond + Eagle Eye

There is a cinema in Potsdamer Platz at the Sony Centre that shows English films in English and any foreign films (including German films) in their original language with English subtitles. After finding this out I vowed to go and see Quantum of Solace upon release.



The new film is definitely a break from the old style of Bond but it’s one of the things that I like about it. There is a lot more action in this one than in Casino Royale with is a plus and the special effects are beautiful especially the computers used in the briefing about the marked cash, it’s just so seamless. The overarching storyline does not get concluded in the this film so there is a slight sense of it being unresolved. It’ll be interesting to see how long that takes to get wrapped up and where they take the Bond films once they have done so.

After the first film we headed to a bar nearby where we had some rather pricey but exceptionally good beer (I think there may have also had a micro-brewery there) before Don suggested seeing a second film. The film he suggested was ‘Eagle-Eye’. I’d seen the trailer to this and thought that it looked worth seeing despite probably being trashy. It was going to finish very late so I was the only one apart from Don who wanted to go.

Jerry and Rachel are two strangers thrown together by a mysterious phone call from a woman they have never met. Threatening their lives and family, she pushes Jerry and Rachel into a series of increasingly dangerous situations, using the technology of everyday life to track and control their every move.

It was actually a decent film, naturally it had a cheesy Hollywood ending but then all big films seem to now. The evil computer in the film did remind me of Glados from Portal (for those of you who get that reference). She even sounded similar, although there was no companion cube.

The film finished at 1:30 am and it was past 3am by the time I’d taken the night-bus up to Pankow then walked the rest of the way, so I was ever so slightly tired in my German class the next day but it was well worth it.

Que Pasa + Once

After another Sunday brunch and a visit to the Flea Market, I was sat in a cafe drinking hot chocolate, listening to live acoustic music and chatting with the others trying to think of what to do in the evening and how I could best avoid going back to the apartment. In the course of this Ollie mentioned a small cs gathering at Que Pasa cocktail bar at 7pm.

I arrived early and Dominike was running late, so far so good then. I didn't know who else was turning up so was glad to see a friendly face after 30 minutes in the cold. A few more people arrived and everyone ordered cocktails and a couple of people at one end of the table ordered food. Gradually throughout the night the desire for food slowly spread up the table until everyone had ordered food.

One of the people I got talking to was Don and Irish guy who invited me along to see an Irish film called ‘Once’ at one of the others csers apartments, but I had to keep hush-hush about it as it was a private thing, or there wasn’t enough space or something. I’m not really sure but I was glad of the invite none-the-less, I’m always happy to watch new films.

After getting to Warschauer Strasse we went to a small DVD rental/coffee shop which had a vast selection of English and foreign art-house titles, definitely somewhere I’ll be going back to frequently.

Once back to the apartment, we settled down with food and hot whiskey to ‘cure’ our colds (which worked fairly well I must say) we watched the film. I’m going to be lazy again and just paste a synopsis from imdb:

An (unnamed) Guy is a Dublin guitarist/singer-songwriter who makes a living by fixing vacuum cleaners in his Dad's Hoover repair shop by day, and singing and playing for money on the Dublin streets by night. An (unnamed) Girl is a Czech who plays piano when she gets a chance, and does odd jobs by day and takes care of her mom and her daughter by night. Guy meets Girl, and they get to know each other as the Girl helps the Guy to put together a demo disc that he can take to London in hope of landing a music contract. During the same several day period, the Guy and the Girl work through their past loves, and reveal their budding love for one another, through their songs.

It was a truly exceptional film, which impressively was made with a micro-budget and the main characters being played by musicians not actors. I enjoyed the music of the film so much that I bought the soundtrack from iTunes the next day.

Charlottenburg - The nice part of Berlin

On Saturday night I went along to drinks at a bar in Charlottenburg followed by a late night Jazz club. Charlottenburg is on the very West side of central Berlin and is one of the nicer areas, which also means it's much more expensive. The bar we went to was serving 333ml of Heineken for €4.30. I'd happily pay that price for a good beer like Leffe or Kwak but Heineken is Europe's answer to Carling.

Ben and I, being cheapskates went over the road to get a couple of cheap beers before heading back to the bar and enjoying the free warmth. Before this though I had to withdraw cash (with my new shiny German debit card) and while searching for an ATM walked past a few expensive designer shops with displays in class containers on the street. Some of them contained handbags ranging fopm €500-1000. There was really nothing to stop us simply smashing the glass and legging it as far as we could see.

Around midnight we set out to the Jazz Club, called A-Trane. On the way a few of us decided we were hungry so went in search of food. We went to a place recommended by one of the others called 'Schwarzes Kaffee' (that would be 'Black Coffee') which was playing Jazz music as we arrived, definitely a good sign. The food wasn't exactly cheap but it was very nice and generously portioned. I ordered a club sandwich which ended up being quite cheap as I was undercharged €2.

Bizarrely one of the main talking points of the place was the toilets which we apparently 'had' to visit. My cup of tea saw to that so I decided to 'take a look'. It was indeed worth the trip, the toilet was bathed in dim blue lights with dark tiles reflecting it. The tap in the sink was a long pipe with a faucet handle to turn it on, I audibly laughed to myself as I realised what to do, and then had to point it out to the rather confused looking German who went to use it as I left.

In the end we decided to head home as we were all pretty tired, the free Jazz night at A-Trane is every Saturday so I'm sure I'll have chance to go again. Charlottenburg is a nice change from the trendy but scummy East Berlin, but a bit to rich for me at the moment. Definitely somewhere I'll be going with my parents at Christmas though when they come to visit.

White Trash

Last night there was another big CS meetup in Berlin, this week held at 'Die Turnhalle' bar. After eating and stocking up on cheap beer (0.60€ for a 500ml bottle) we arrived at the bar. It was a very swanky place and also a bit on the large size and as such the drink prices reflected this. So we decided to sit outside with our cheap drinks as it was a very mild evening for Berlin. A waiter came out a few times and complained at us for drinking out own drinks but didn't make us leave and kept clearing the empty bottles so we happily stayed there.

After chatting outside for a couple of hours one of the other CSers told us about a CS house party and invited us all along. We got the address of the place then myself and 4 others went with Ben to get a lift in his car to the party. Melissa called shotgun so the other 4 of us piled into the back with Laura having to lie across us.

We arrived at the address and met up with two other CSers as they got out of their taxi. The CSer who apparently knew the people at the party had not yet arrived but we somehow managed to get in. Upon entering the apartment it suddenly dawned on us that this wasn't a CS party and we were basically gate crashing. Still, the people there seemed friendly enough, there was a large guy wearing a long blonde wig and 'Herman the German' and also free beer in the fridge.

There was one random guy who seemed quite surly. As I was looking through a CD case to see if there was any good music to put on, he snatched it from me and said something angrily in German. I assumed it was his (although it probably wasn't) and resided to listening to the bad music that was playing. The surly German spent most of his time complaining at us all and then told us to leave despite it not actually being his apartment and the owners being cool with us being there. However, we left anyway as the party was a bit shite. This was of course not before Melissa grabbed us another beer each from the fridge.

Dan, Paul, Melissa and I got another lift with Ben to a club called white trash. Despite giving us a lift Ben didn't join us and decided to go home but we went in and stayed until 4:30am after which we walked to Dan's apartment and started watching the Full Monty. Dan quoted the film a little to much but with classics like 'Ay, not so bad thanks' 'Not so bad? That's not much of a chuffing SOS is it?' it's hard not to quote it. We left after a the first 20 minutes or so because we were so tired. I walked back to Alexanderplatz and got the U-Bahn home, trying to stay awake and not miss my stop.

I got back at 6:45am and the door to the apartment was locked and had to be let in. It took nearly 5 minutes before they buzzed me in and I'd obviously woken them up, I'm sure they'd be a lot more annoyed if I'd arrived an hour earlier though.

I have an apartment

I've finally gotten myself an apartment to live in for the rest of the two years. I'll be moving my stuff in from the 12th of this month and moving in properly on the 15th. Which incidentally is when I'm being booted out of where I am currently so it's rather conveniently timed.

Anyway, I'm going out soon for another CS meetup, but I'll post up pictures of the new place when I move in. The room there is huge and it has a very nice balcony and furniture!

A New Dawn

Last night, with one of the highest turnouts ever in an American election people from around the world were watching and hoping that Barack Obama would win and become the first black President of America.

Our night started at '40 Seconds' club near Potsdamerplatz, an expensive glitzy place on the 8th floor of a modern looking building. The terrace had an spectacular view of the surrounding area (which my iPhone has done little to show off):

However, we decided to move to the Babylon cinema at around 12:30. As the tickets were sold out we had to wait for people to come out and ask them for the wristbands they were wearing before we could get in, but by 2am and after a coffee from a nearby bar we got in and were ready for the results to start coming in.

In-between updates from the CNN web-feed there was live music from a band called 'Folkadelic' which played some old American classics and even 'I am a man of constant sorrow' from the film 'Oh brother, where art thou':

As the results started to come in Obama took an early lead which he continued to extend. Amongst the first main victories was Ohio one of the hotly contested states. Then a number of other swing states went to Obama also; even some of the former 'maybe' Republican states went Democrat followed by almost all of the other swing states.

The final signs of victory came when California (a very valuable state), Nevada and the rest of the Western coast all went to Democrat. The landslide victory was then secured when Florida, the state which has been surrounded by controversy in the last two elections finally voted Democrat without the slightest hint of any 'hanging chads'.

Around 11pm American time (5am Berlin time) McCain made his concession speech, which was very honourable and endorsed Obama saying that America needed to work together to solve its problems:

Then at midnight (6am Berlin) Barack Obama made his acceptance speech as the new President of America. The cinema went absolutely wild and it was one hell of a speech:

Click play to view:


As we left, the results were 338 to 156. 270 is needed to win, so this really was a landslide victory.

Today then is a new dawn for the United States.

American Election

Tonight I'm going to one of the many events for the American Election which will hopefully end with the election of the first black American President. Either way, many drinks shall be had and at the all you can eat buffet that is being provided where I'm going, much eating shall also be done.

Melissa's Birthday

On Saturday it was Melissa's 19th birthday. She is an au-pair and lives with the family she is working for. Ben and I were invited to go round for cake in the afternoon. So we hopped on the S-Bahn for the 45-minute journey up to the very outskirts of Berlin. In the woods nearby there are supposedly wild boar running about, but neither Ben nor I saw any and doubt they really exist (which we pointed out to Melissa).

Once we arrived we had a quick tour of the house, which had a small swimming pool downstairs. The parents who were a very friendly couple, had prepared a birthday cake for Melissa and an assortment of smaller cakes and nibbles. After singing happy birthday and scoffing a rather large amount of cake we played board games with Jenny (the 3 year old daughter) and the family.

Once back in the centre of Berlin, we went to a shisha bar where Ben managed to negotiate us a cheap price for the 'Birthday girl'.

After the shisa we went to Cafe Zapata which is a large building with several bars scattered over a few floors and a couple of floors with artist workshops selling art. Ok, that makes it sound all nice and clean, it wasn't. The building was old and run down, and there was graffiti on every possible bit of wallspace and the artwork was weird. For those reasons I loved the place. After having a couple of drinks in the bar downstairs and looking at the art on the floors above we headed to the top floor where there was a small bar and an open view of the city.

As we were sitting, chatting near the bar a strange looking man wearing tinted black glasses and a black hat came over with what looked like a laminated photocopy of the ID part of a Passport, a photo of himself and a leaflet for a gig for the day before. Naturally I avoided attracting his attention as he didn't look like he was quite there. But Melissa started asking him various questions in German which she had to keep asking him to repeat the answers of because he was talking in a low husky voice. After she pointed out the leaflet was for the day before he ripped it up and threw it behind him, stumbling backwards slightly. He then produced a small orange glass ball which he put in my hand and then quickly snatched it away with a look as if I'd stolen it. After Melissa told him a few more times she couldn't hear him he apparently said "You shouldn't talk to me because I'm insane" so we promptly stopped.

We later decided that he was definitely the devil.

After Cafe Zapata the others went to a club (one of them somehow fell asleep inside) whilst Ben and I and went home via Hermanplatz grabbing a Doner on the way.

Oh there it is: Gaming withdrawl

So I fell off my high horse today as the harsh reality of gaming withdrawal finally hit me. I was telling one of my flatmates about Left4Dead and he looked it up and found the following video (the opening Cinematic in HD):

Suffice to say, after watching this I felt the rather nagging urge to play it and am seriously considering trying to get my PC shipped over here.

Thursday Museum Visit & Halloween CS Meet

Every Thursday evening in Berlin the museums open late and allow free entry to everyone. This is a great way for the locals to have a look round without shelling out the tourist prices. Earlier this week I'd received a message about renting camera equipment from a Hungarian girl who is studying Film in Berlin. I arranged to meet her and go along to the 'Alte Museum' to view the Egyptian exhibit along with other Couch Surfers who were meeting there at 7.

Unfortunately I was late so we missed the meetup so it was just the two of us. She spoke German but only a little English which meant I had to make an effort to talk in German, which was actually quite a nice change. Despite my German still being rather basic, I was surprised that I was able to say more than I thought I could.

Annoyingly I'd forgotten my camera so only managed to snap a few low quality pics on my iPhone. On the upside, the exhibition had the information written in English as well as German and was fascinating:

Then on Friday night I went along to the Halloween CS meetup at 'Nah Bar' near Nollendorfplatz. As usual the first hour it was fairly quiet which I'd avoid if I didn't keep going for the pre-meet food, but it got a lot busier after an hour or so and once Melissa arrived the evening got a lot more interesting.

I went to join her and her friend Molly outside while they were smoking and chatted with them for a while. A few people arrived and a couple of others came out to smoke and we chatted with them. One of which was a Swedish girl called 'Cajsa' (pronounced 'Kaiser') who was quite mad. She was clearly very drunk, and possibly under the influence of some other toxin (I'm not too sure which though). It's hard to explain what she was like, but she was just funny because of it.

She also went round hitting on every guy in the bar, including me apparently but I was oblivious to it at the time. Although as the evening went on she became somewhat less subtle, she asked Melissa if we were together and after she told her she had a boyfriend back in Canada she stumbled over to me and asked me a bizarre series questions (like 'Do you live alone?') that were quite clear where she was leading. After being rather definite in answering negatively she got the message and went off in search of some other hapless victim.

Before heading off back home I ended the evening on the small dance floor dancing away to the cheesy music that was being played. It was that kind of dancing you do when you don't care what people think so it was pretty fun, if rather graceless.

Regardless, I'm well on the way to making a great embarrassing Dad when dancing when I'm older.

BVG are a big load of stupid

The incredibly useful Berlin transport trip planner app for my iPhone was today rendered near useless with the removal of the map. This, I have found out is because BVG (the company responsible for running the transport in Berlin) decided they didn't want the map to be included in the app.

They have not released and app of their own, and therefore there is no logical reason for this. So far I've liked BVG, the trains run on time, the prices are fairly reasonable and I've had no run-ins with the ticket inspectors, but this has really pissed me off. The worst thing is, I can't do anything about it, the weather is getting worse here which means getting a bike isn't an option and walking everywhere is just impractical.

So I'm now back to carrying a paper map around with me, one that has considerably less detail detail than the one on my iPhone. Technology is awesome, it's just sometimes people that suck.

Season Tickets

The details for my German bank account arrived today (still waiting on the card) along a rather nice gift. In England when you open a bank account they may give you a Railcard or £30, but DKB gave me three season tickets for Berlin football team for the 08/09 season.

I'm not what you'd call a big fan of football, but it'd be remiss of me not to go at least once and I'm sure I could find someone who'd appreciate the tickets.

Fixed the bugger

You may or may not have noticed that the blog has been missing date-stamps on the posts, and on my side of things the 'quick-edit' button had vanished. This was due to some cock-up on my part when initially tweaking the theme for the blog. Until now I've just left it as I've been too busy/lazy and not wanted to break it. But I've finally fixed it and it's all as it should be.

Catch up

While I have been keeping up with chronicling my time here in Berlin, some of the smaller or less exciting things have slipped through. So I'd like to get a few items posted so everything's up-to-date.

First, I'm back looking for apartments again, I'd taken a bit of time off from it after arriving at my current place as I got rather sick of it before. But as this is only a temporary arrangement I need to be getting back on with finding a longer term solution. It should at least be easier now as university has started so most of the students will have found places to live.

Next, I will be looking into getting a job as I am becoming very aware of my financial limits and not having a bank account is causing a certain amount of stress. Once I have this and a regular income I can more easily live within my means and it will make the idea of living in Berlin for the whole two years much more achievable.

My tutoring sessions are on hold at the moment. I taught two lessons then due to various things didn't teach any more. I'm now waiting for my 'student' to move apartment and some other stuff and will hopefully resume from where we left off.

I have looked into Kung Fu classes in Berlin and managed to find somewhere that not only teaches Wing Chun (the style that I learnt for a year back in York) but the teacher is English speaking and quite happy to speak English if I were to go. The classes are twice a week and I'll be going as soon as my stuff arrives from England.

My German classes are progressing well, I'm starting to be able to form some basic sentences outside of the examples we are given to a fair degree of accuracy, although I sometimes pick a word that is technically correct but is generally not used. A few days ago I added a small bio to the sidebar (see right).

One final thing, my copy of this month's PC Gamer arrived from England and there is a nagging part of me that still misses gaming. But when I'm outside the apartment going out and doing all that I've been doing it rarely crosses my mind. Still, it doesn't help that one of my flatmates has a decent gaming PC and offered to let me play on it if I wanted.

A Long Sunday

After the great time had by all last Sunday we decided to meet up again. This time we arranged to meet at 'Morgenrot Cafe' for a buffet brunch. The way they do things at Morgenrot is rather unique, instead of having a set price for the food, you simply eat as much as you want then pay however much you feel is fair. There is a minimum of €4 which feels like it goes against the whole 'pay what you want' idea but it's still pretty cool. Overall I think there were 12 or so people and we slowly colonised one of the corners of the cafe.

After brunch a few people left and the rest of us were set to head to the flea market, but just a couple doors down from the cafe there was a block of flats that had some really cool art inside the entrance and courtyard so we went to have a quick look:

This picture has a very similar style to Banksy.

Once we got to the Flea market we split up and arranged to meet after an hour and a half. Some of the things being sold were just so random; one stall we saw had a rough pile of clothes with the man behind them shouting 'Ein Euro' with a look that he knew he wasn't going to sell anything and wasn't really trying. Melissa bought a Soviet cigarette case and lighter for €10 which the man then offered to me also, when I said I didn't smoke he said "Ah, but you drink" whilst holding up a hip flask, great salesmanship but I politely declined. One stall did catch my eye though, it was selling cool looking urban canvas art which I was very tempted by. We finished looking round early so we decided to go on some nearby swings. Suffice to say, my inner child enjoyed it thoroughly.

We then walked to a Thai restaurant which was rather expensive and the service was a bit off. There were 5 of us at this point and for some reason we weren't allowed to sit at one of the long tables as they were reserved for couples. So they bustled into a small space next to the door. Laura recommended one of the teas, and what arrived was nice but wasn't exactly what I'd call a tea:

Most of us ordered a desert only and on this front they succeeded in making something rather delicious:

On the way to the Thai place we'd seen a shop selling Ben & Jerry's ice cream so after the bad service and on receiving no change from the bill we felt no guilt in stealing the small spoons to have with some Ben & Jerry's ice cream.

After buying the ice cream we took a pleasant stroll through Prenzlauerberg on what was a very mild evening (for Berlin) and it was still early when we arrived at the Shisha bar. For those of you who don't know, a Shisha (Shicha in German) is a large tobacco smoking contraption with a tube attached that you suck the smoke through. You choose from a selection of sweet flavoured tobacco. We ordered a shisha between us and a few drinks then spent the next hour or so chatting and playing cards.

Surprised at how early it still was (around 9pm) we walked to Alexanderplatz to look at the Festival of Lights which was ending the next day. From there we slowly walked to the Brandenburg Gates stopping frequently to look and take photographs of various things. Katy had a Digital SLR camera with her and is going to host her photographs online so I may be able to post some of them up here at a later date. But for the time being, here's some of the ones I took with my compact:

Part of a large clock projected on the ground by a company called Fossil.

The actual clock-face itself was projected onto the ground.

These ruins used to be the East Berlin government offices, but they are now being torn down. I quite liked how they looked behind the fence.

This building is part of Humbolt University. I was leaning against a tree trying to take this and wasn't able to keep it steady.

I had a small tripod perched on top of a bollard to take this and despite the movement of the people the 2 second exposure has really brought out the detail in the trees.

By the time we got to Brandenburg Tor it was around 11pm so we decided to call it a night and when I finally got back to the apartment it was coming up on midnight. I'd spent 12 hours out of the house and I was knackered but it was an awesome day.