it has only snowed once...
the all too common refrain in berlin at the moment is that it's the "warmest winter on record for a hundred years". it has only snowed once so far this winter, and that was the day before yesterday. it was only for a few hours, but it was still very exciting.
you can see the snow out the window!
alexis and john, treptower park
winter gear for kids
as a damn fine cure for my homesickness, alexis, my sister, flew over from england for christmas, and my friend john came up from france on christmas night. it's been so good to spend time with lex, given that i hadn't seen her for more than a year. and it's been 4 months since i saw john so that has been exciting too.
lex and i spent a lot of time at the christmas markets (Weihnachtsmärkte) which were dotted all over the city until a few days ago. we drank many a gluhwein, ate a few good bratwursts and wandered around. berlin basically went into complete shutdown mode for three days - for the Germans, the big day is christmas eve, and then the following two days are general festive days. so everything shuts down - everything. not even the corner stores were open. the city was deserted, so we have all these photos of us wandering around major tourist spots but with no other people. but while we were at the christmas markets, we spontaneously decided to go on the ferris wheel which was kinda funny. the operator did that thing where they just spin your little seats around as fast as they can before the wheel starts moving, so you're spinning in multiple directions at once. eek. we had to take our gloves off and grip the poles to make it stop. but once we were up there we had a pretty nice view of the city at night.
when john got here, we decided to do a DIY walking tour of the old wall which was pretty interesting. in some places, new buildings have been built around sections of the wall that are still standing.
we also went to see Mozart's The Magic Flute (Die Zauberflöte) at the Staatsoper... well we couldn't see much because we had 8 euro seats - lex and i were walking past the Staatsoper a few days beforehand and saw that it was on. they only had the worst seats left, but they were damn cheap so we bought tickets for ourselves and john.
after that we went to find some food, and ended up getting roarding drunk in a bar in Prenzlauerberg. john and i, neither of whom have seen that puppet film Team America World Police, had been watching some short clips from it on www.youtube.com that day. our favourite clip was the one where the actor is telling osama in a thick southern accent that he had put a "jee-had" on the enemies, and that if osama didn't believe him, he'd put a "jee-had" on osama too... we thought it was hysterical and so we started putting jeehads on everything. it was funny at the time... beer logic. well actually i think we were drinking whiskey, baileys, and for me hot chocolate with baileys IN it. mmm. i had a bit of a slip-up on the tram tracks on the way home, so the tram tracks got a jeehad too.
but speaking of jeehads, it's been interesting in amongst all this to monitor the media coverage of Saddam's execution. (whistle noise) gees, i mean, the day before, people were setting up all sorts of film crews and movie cameras to capture the moment from every possible angle. it would be good to know when george is gonna get the chop. and how's costello, or whoever it was, going on about how the death penalty was "the right of all iraqis". possibly a scary indication of a push to bring it back in australia? i'm not sure.
but back to berlin. after discovering a few weeks ago that my friend gigi has also recently moved to berlin, and is also learning german, we have been hanging out a bit. so me and john and gigi have been exploring some of the party scene here... the problem we have found is that in order to find the kinds of people we want to hang out with, we have to deal with really horrible thrashy punk music. this is a damn shame... what ever happened to booty shaking? we've been to a few queer lefty parties, and it's all head banging and mosh-pit action. in fact, when john and gigi and i went to one of these queer squat parties a few nights ago, some people staged a dancefloor protest. i think as a joke (sadly) the dj decided to put on a backstreet boys track, in amongst the thrashy 'we-make-bikini-kill-look-like-a-walk-in-the-park' rubbish. people flocked to the dancefloor, which had been flagging a fair bit, partly due to one person who was "dancing" a la frankenstein-meets-headless-chook, and without shame were singing along to "everybody! yeah!". but three people who had been doing similar frankenstein dancing though with less vigour, actually sat down in the middle of the dancefloor chanting "nein! nein!" while everyone got their trashy pop rocks off around them. look, as far as i'm concerned, it's whatever floats your boat. but thrash punk hardcore rock just doesn't get my toe tappin. and therefore, as john, gigi and i have concluded, we can't woo anyone with our smooth dance moves. it's a bit of a shame. but the search continues. perhaps - we hope! - new years eve will turn something a bit more exciting up.
but there has been some absolute gold in terms of parties. a couple of weeks ago, i went to a ladyfest (http://www.ladyfest.net/) christmas party which was excellent. lots of really excellent womens and queer trans performances, great women djs, and a special guest performance by rae spoon, a tranny folk singer from canada. i recommend rae to anyone - it's like the best elements of bluegrass and gospel music, but without any of the fundo-christian stuff and it's all been turned around with the lyrics. it's the best - i bought a cd even. it's called big white hearse - you can look it up online. i'm hoping that some of my friends who are visiting canada will get to see her/him. the following night my friend gigi and i and another friend alecia who was visiting berlin got wind through another friend of mine conny (a lovely new berlin friend i made through couchsurfing.com) that rae was performing again in a small gallery in kreuzberg, so we went along. here's a photo:
there was even a bit of yodelling. i think i could now be accurately described as a groupie.
but i've also been doing some other cultural things. lex, john and i went to see an exhibition at the technical museum on the guy who designed about 90% of the berlin u-bahn stations in berlin. but also in the same museum is an ongoing exhibition about the guy who designed the world's first computer, and they actually have the computer there in the museum. sooooo coool. it's a computer geek's dream. they also had a whole section of the museum dedicated to general technological history in the DDR - there was a pretty cool set up of a 1960s east german TV studio. john decided to have a bit more of a close engagement with the historical material...
but one of the most interesting things about the museum is that it's basically been set up in an old train station, and contains an excellent overview of german train history - i know kate f will be especially appreciative of this, but kate sadly there were no old men in long white knee socks with sandals. nope, not a single one to be seen. it was sorta disappointing. but there were actual real trains - at least one for each decade. they had been rolled in on the original tracks of the shed where the trains go to sleep, which had subsequently become the museum. probably the most interesting part was the 1930s and 1940s. they had one of the nazi built train carriages - the ones that government officials travelled in. but right next to that they had one of the cattle cars that jews were transported to death camps in - they had the door open, and some stairs, so you could climb up into the wagon and look/be inside. there were no lights inside the carriage - only the light from the door. it was a really interesting way of allowing people to understand more about the experience of hitler's victims.
i'm also trying to spend more time learning about berlin's history. i'm reading that anonymous journal that was re-published earlier this year, called "A Woman in Berlin". it's basically the journal of a woman who had been a journalist before the war, penned during April 1945 - the month when the Soviet Army rolled into Berlin and took over. it starts about a week or two before the Soviets arrive, and is a day by day account of her experiences. it's really fascinating to get this first hand account of how ordinary people experienced the end of nazi power in the capital, including the end of food rationing, the looting, the sexual abuse and constant rape that berlin's women were exposed to when the Soviet soldiers arrived, the overhead bombing not only by the German and Soviet armies but the Americans as well. as john and gigi and i were discussing, it's hard to imagine what war in a western city would be like these days. it's also interesting to think about how perhaps even the cellar in my apartment building witnessed weeks and months of communal bomb-shelter living. basically the cellar of every single apartment building became the bomb shelter for all the people living in that building.
apart from all that, i'm still trying to find a job - i figure that because it's been christmas that lots of places won't respond to my CV until after new year... this is what i hope. almost everyone i speak to laments the state of the employment market here in berlin! something should turn up though...
also i'm getting excited about going on some weekend trips - the polish border is only an hour away on the train, so i'm thinking of going to poland for a day or something. also, i found return flights from berlin to belfast for 60 euros, so i'm visiting my cousins in ireland at the end of january.
hmm, anyway, as usual it's late. john's asleep and i have to go to bed too. hopefully we can find something fun to do tomorrow night - if i had more friends here, i'd have a party at my place, because at least then we could control the music...
happy festive season to all, and hope you do something fun to bring in the new year too.
til next time,
kd.
you can see the snow out the window!
alexis and john, treptower park
winter gear for kids
as a damn fine cure for my homesickness, alexis, my sister, flew over from england for christmas, and my friend john came up from france on christmas night. it's been so good to spend time with lex, given that i hadn't seen her for more than a year. and it's been 4 months since i saw john so that has been exciting too.
lex and i spent a lot of time at the christmas markets (Weihnachtsmärkte) which were dotted all over the city until a few days ago. we drank many a gluhwein, ate a few good bratwursts and wandered around. berlin basically went into complete shutdown mode for three days - for the Germans, the big day is christmas eve, and then the following two days are general festive days. so everything shuts down - everything. not even the corner stores were open. the city was deserted, so we have all these photos of us wandering around major tourist spots but with no other people. but while we were at the christmas markets, we spontaneously decided to go on the ferris wheel which was kinda funny. the operator did that thing where they just spin your little seats around as fast as they can before the wheel starts moving, so you're spinning in multiple directions at once. eek. we had to take our gloves off and grip the poles to make it stop. but once we were up there we had a pretty nice view of the city at night.
when john got here, we decided to do a DIY walking tour of the old wall which was pretty interesting. in some places, new buildings have been built around sections of the wall that are still standing.
we also went to see Mozart's The Magic Flute (Die Zauberflöte) at the Staatsoper... well we couldn't see much because we had 8 euro seats - lex and i were walking past the Staatsoper a few days beforehand and saw that it was on. they only had the worst seats left, but they were damn cheap so we bought tickets for ourselves and john.
after that we went to find some food, and ended up getting roarding drunk in a bar in Prenzlauerberg. john and i, neither of whom have seen that puppet film Team America World Police, had been watching some short clips from it on www.youtube.com that day. our favourite clip was the one where the actor is telling osama in a thick southern accent that he had put a "jee-had" on the enemies, and that if osama didn't believe him, he'd put a "jee-had" on osama too... we thought it was hysterical and so we started putting jeehads on everything. it was funny at the time... beer logic. well actually i think we were drinking whiskey, baileys, and for me hot chocolate with baileys IN it. mmm. i had a bit of a slip-up on the tram tracks on the way home, so the tram tracks got a jeehad too.
but speaking of jeehads, it's been interesting in amongst all this to monitor the media coverage of Saddam's execution. (whistle noise) gees, i mean, the day before, people were setting up all sorts of film crews and movie cameras to capture the moment from every possible angle. it would be good to know when george is gonna get the chop. and how's costello, or whoever it was, going on about how the death penalty was "the right of all iraqis". possibly a scary indication of a push to bring it back in australia? i'm not sure.
but back to berlin. after discovering a few weeks ago that my friend gigi has also recently moved to berlin, and is also learning german, we have been hanging out a bit. so me and john and gigi have been exploring some of the party scene here... the problem we have found is that in order to find the kinds of people we want to hang out with, we have to deal with really horrible thrashy punk music. this is a damn shame... what ever happened to booty shaking? we've been to a few queer lefty parties, and it's all head banging and mosh-pit action. in fact, when john and gigi and i went to one of these queer squat parties a few nights ago, some people staged a dancefloor protest. i think as a joke (sadly) the dj decided to put on a backstreet boys track, in amongst the thrashy 'we-make-bikini-kill-look-like-a-walk-in-the-park' rubbish. people flocked to the dancefloor, which had been flagging a fair bit, partly due to one person who was "dancing" a la frankenstein-meets-headless-chook, and without shame were singing along to "everybody! yeah!". but three people who had been doing similar frankenstein dancing though with less vigour, actually sat down in the middle of the dancefloor chanting "nein! nein!" while everyone got their trashy pop rocks off around them. look, as far as i'm concerned, it's whatever floats your boat. but thrash punk hardcore rock just doesn't get my toe tappin. and therefore, as john, gigi and i have concluded, we can't woo anyone with our smooth dance moves. it's a bit of a shame. but the search continues. perhaps - we hope! - new years eve will turn something a bit more exciting up.
but there has been some absolute gold in terms of parties. a couple of weeks ago, i went to a ladyfest (http://www.ladyfest.net/) christmas party which was excellent. lots of really excellent womens and queer trans performances, great women djs, and a special guest performance by rae spoon, a tranny folk singer from canada. i recommend rae to anyone - it's like the best elements of bluegrass and gospel music, but without any of the fundo-christian stuff and it's all been turned around with the lyrics. it's the best - i bought a cd even. it's called big white hearse - you can look it up online. i'm hoping that some of my friends who are visiting canada will get to see her/him. the following night my friend gigi and i and another friend alecia who was visiting berlin got wind through another friend of mine conny (a lovely new berlin friend i made through couchsurfing.com) that rae was performing again in a small gallery in kreuzberg, so we went along. here's a photo:
there was even a bit of yodelling. i think i could now be accurately described as a groupie.
but i've also been doing some other cultural things. lex, john and i went to see an exhibition at the technical museum on the guy who designed about 90% of the berlin u-bahn stations in berlin. but also in the same museum is an ongoing exhibition about the guy who designed the world's first computer, and they actually have the computer there in the museum. sooooo coool. it's a computer geek's dream. they also had a whole section of the museum dedicated to general technological history in the DDR - there was a pretty cool set up of a 1960s east german TV studio. john decided to have a bit more of a close engagement with the historical material...
but one of the most interesting things about the museum is that it's basically been set up in an old train station, and contains an excellent overview of german train history - i know kate f will be especially appreciative of this, but kate sadly there were no old men in long white knee socks with sandals. nope, not a single one to be seen. it was sorta disappointing. but there were actual real trains - at least one for each decade. they had been rolled in on the original tracks of the shed where the trains go to sleep, which had subsequently become the museum. probably the most interesting part was the 1930s and 1940s. they had one of the nazi built train carriages - the ones that government officials travelled in. but right next to that they had one of the cattle cars that jews were transported to death camps in - they had the door open, and some stairs, so you could climb up into the wagon and look/be inside. there were no lights inside the carriage - only the light from the door. it was a really interesting way of allowing people to understand more about the experience of hitler's victims.
i'm also trying to spend more time learning about berlin's history. i'm reading that anonymous journal that was re-published earlier this year, called "A Woman in Berlin". it's basically the journal of a woman who had been a journalist before the war, penned during April 1945 - the month when the Soviet Army rolled into Berlin and took over. it starts about a week or two before the Soviets arrive, and is a day by day account of her experiences. it's really fascinating to get this first hand account of how ordinary people experienced the end of nazi power in the capital, including the end of food rationing, the looting, the sexual abuse and constant rape that berlin's women were exposed to when the Soviet soldiers arrived, the overhead bombing not only by the German and Soviet armies but the Americans as well. as john and gigi and i were discussing, it's hard to imagine what war in a western city would be like these days. it's also interesting to think about how perhaps even the cellar in my apartment building witnessed weeks and months of communal bomb-shelter living. basically the cellar of every single apartment building became the bomb shelter for all the people living in that building.
apart from all that, i'm still trying to find a job - i figure that because it's been christmas that lots of places won't respond to my CV until after new year... this is what i hope. almost everyone i speak to laments the state of the employment market here in berlin! something should turn up though...
also i'm getting excited about going on some weekend trips - the polish border is only an hour away on the train, so i'm thinking of going to poland for a day or something. also, i found return flights from berlin to belfast for 60 euros, so i'm visiting my cousins in ireland at the end of january.
hmm, anyway, as usual it's late. john's asleep and i have to go to bed too. hopefully we can find something fun to do tomorrow night - if i had more friends here, i'd have a party at my place, because at least then we could control the music...
happy festive season to all, and hope you do something fun to bring in the new year too.
til next time,
kd.
posted by kd | 11:10 am
1 Comments:
john looks super cute xx
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