Ottawa

I have been going through Berlin withdrawals in my 2 weeks back at home. I miss my friends, the city, the language. I have had time this week to put together a final video, not about anything in particular, for my friends back in Germany. The footage from my first party back here was sparse and dark so I made due with more iMovie effects and practiced my editing.

Kaku-Kaku-Kakuchang! is in honour mostly of Susumu who I miss a lot. He has promised me to come to Ottawa to Dj at one of my parties. I will do my best to make him stick to his word.

Kaku-Kaku-Kakuchang!

In closing, I miss you guys, I love you guys, I can't wait to see you all again. Obviously you all have an open invitation to come to Ottawa anytime you like, and a grateful host to show you around.

Special: Daniel brother, See you Soon! xox eric.

Going Away

I have been procrastinating posting this, the last video from Berlin, but here it is. The final 1 week and a half were fantastic! I went to the world renown panorama bar a couple of times, watched a lot of football with Daniel, Daniel and Jurgen, and had a wow experience night at Dr. Pong with Caesar.

The most official goodbyes came at a going away party Daniel generously hosted with some of his fresh lasagna and leftover booze from the wedding party at the Ost-See. 9 of us fit into his cozy apartment and made a great night of it, which involved lots of alcohol sampling and waving goodbye. The video makes me sad when I watch it but the soundtrack doesn't help either, Jose Gonzales' treatment of the The Knife song "Heartbeats" chokes me up a little on its own. I tacked on some audio from the party of a goodbye song my drunken arm was twisted into playing on D's guitar very early in the morning.

Here is the video starring my friends:

Abel (Holland)
Anna (Holland)
Brendan (New Zealand)
Daniel (Deutschland)
Dirk (Deutschland)
Ena (Japan)
Rebekka (Deutschland)
Susumu (Japan)

Going Away

I don't have time to give this blog the finishing touches I want to put on it, stay tuned for one last post featuring video from my home reunion party - tomorrow night - so my friends back home in Berlin can see my friends back home here in the O.

Last days

I am home safe and sound, however my home does not have internet, so the last couple of videos will have to wait until next week to go up.

I had great going away parties, and cried on the plane home. It is nice to back in Ottawa though.

so,

stay tuned for:

going away

&

coming home

Der Hochzeit

By the time the weekend was over I had stayed up both nights to see the sun rise, been to 2 beaches, watched one football game and played one football game, eaten 3 Fischbrotchen and met dozens of amazingly nice people. A lot of the 30 plus people made the comment of this being a perfect weekend, and it would be really difficult to argue with that opinion; food, wine, beer, music, dancing, lodgings, games, and even the weather, could not have been better. Daniel & Natascha's wedding ceremony was in Berlin-Kreuzberg. It was brief and friendly. This saved more time for the weekend getaway at the Ost-See.

At The Northern Coast of Germany I saw fields of poppies, lots of naked women at the beach, windmills, and the UNESCO designated heritage site: city of Wismar. If you read the history of Wismar at the given link, you will see that it was at one time under Swedish rule. This may be the region from where the name Espig comes from, my swedish last name with only German ancestry - but this is just a guess.

The video of the weekend features some snippets of time from the 3 days, sped up (naturally) and for the lack of a long enough mp3 to fit its 9 minutes, also features music from LCD Soundsystem yet again. So without furthe ado, thanks to Daniel and Natascha for taking care of all of our needs for the party, and sharing your friends and family with me! ***

*** I Recommend watching this video from the original you-tube link in full screen mode if possible as this embedded player plays it back slightly too darkly.

Der Hochzeit

Ost-See

Lots of adventure and great times were had this past week, so much that I haven't had much time for the web log. But, this weekend should provide for a donkey-load (maybe the origin of ass-load? never thought of it that way...) of great video opportunities. Daniel and Natasha's wedding is all weekend long at his sister's place, which is a Commune on an island in the Baltic Sea. I am anticipating nude swimming, Russian Wodka fueled dancing and feats of strength, and observing the coming together of two very different cultures. I am also excited that I will be so close to Denmark and Sweden.



Since Poland, I have met a lot (more) really great people, including a really interesting woman from Ireland, who talked so quickly that I was hypnotized by her. I met her while attending friend Joao's grilin' fest at Treptower Park. It turns out she has big plans and dreams to set up an international exhibition based on a very original and provocative concept. Hopefully I will be involved in the design.

I also went to Daniel's bachelor party on Saturday which started with football at 6:00pm and ended at Karaoke at 6:00am. We had about 12 people crammed into the private room meant for 7 or 8 and trays of tequila kept floating in the door. There was a donkey-load of fist-pumping as I got to sing some German New Wave (NDW) which is always a treat, even for Germans.



here are some random pictures from friends and a link to Abel's Slide show from Karneval Der Kulturen to help tide the blog over until I get back from the north...






For Abel's amazing Karneval Der Kulture Pics click here

Walking To Poland

My first and only trip out of Berlin (so far that is, there is Daniel's wedding at the Ost See to go to and maybe a trip to Prague in the works) was to the Polish border yesterday. The "beautiful weekend" ticket allows 5 adults to unlimited train travel during one complete day. The price of the ticket - 28 Euros - not each, total!!! After doing the math, that meant Daniel, Anna, Abel, Ena and I could get to Poland and back for 5,60 euro! ( ~$8 CAD).

We had a fantastic day together, taking the train to Frankfurt (Oder) which is not the big Frankfurt but another one on the River Oder. On the other side of the river is Poland, which we walked across a bridge, and past the abandoned passport control checkpoint, to get to. The Polish side of the river had a surprisingly small amount of residents many who did not speak any German, or English, or were not able to give change in Euros. The city felt half empty on a beautiful sunny Saturday afternoon.

The best part of the day we spent in a fantastic park on the German side and lunched in private by the water. The running (haha) joke was Daniels allergy to Polen. The video turned out to be a pretty good document of what our day was like as interpreted by the guy who directed The Monkees. Abel took alot of the video and I was happy to see that he enjoyed it so much, I am sure he will pick up a cheap digital video camera soon.

Aktion Poland

A Museum with Ena

Ena, a classmate of mine in German school, is from Tokyo, is stunningly beautiful, and has a shared interest in Berlin history, particularly the Berlin Wall. She is so nice that she did not even mind when I got us lost 3 times, while showing her the S-bahn home, because I was completley distracted by her.

I have been trying to get to Martin-Gropius Bau (designed & built by Walter Gropius's great-unkle Matin) since I came here. It is reputed to be Berlin's best and best looking exhibit space. The Dani Karavan exhibit looked really cool on the poster so I thought I would ask Ena to go with me before our road trip to Poland (we just got back). Happily she wanted to come too. After class on Friday we went out for some Thai food then headed to the museum.

On the way there we walked past the remaining portion of The Wall, still standing as it was, on Zimmerstrasse. The Topography of Terror outdoor exhibit looked excellent and I will have to revisit it before I leave.
I was only able to take some video of Dani Karavan's installation of the upside down tree and the miniature oasis, the exhibit was, understandably closed to photography. So what I wound up with from the day was some video of Ena and I getting to the museum and after, walking past a Trabant rental agency and to the historic Cafe Adler at Checkpoint Charlie. Ena had been wanting to check it out. I took this opportunity to introduce Ena to Schneider Hefe-Weissen and documented that historic occasion as well.

So this video, which was originally going to focus on the Dani Karavan exhibit, now documents
my new friend Ena.

Ena & Me

Coming really soon:

Poland Aktion

Spacemen M3

Last night was the Spectrum/Sonic Boom show at the small-but-rocking Bang Bang Club, found under the S-bahn at Hackesher Markt. Anyone who knows me really well knows of my love of all things Spacemen 3 which last year prompted me to book Sonic Boom (Pete Kember) for a DJ stint at Zaphod's in Ottawa. Meeting Pete, one of my musical idols, and hanging out with him at my place after the show was a really amazing experience for me. What made it even better was that Pete is also a really nice easy going guy and we spent the night, into the morning, listening to records and smoking pot. I have described this as possibly the best night of my life. Needless to say, I was really looking forward to seeing the show and saying hi to Pete again. Considering how often and how far Sonic tours I really didn't have any expectations that he would even remember me.

After the solo show, which was preceeded by the fantastic electro-acoustic shoegaze sounds of MINIT , and the DJing of legendary guitarist and Berlin citizen Tim Gane of Stereolab, I waited for Pete to finish packing up and approached him after a lull in the endless well-wishing of other fans. I went on-stage and extended my hand, introducing myself on the assumption that he had no idea who I was. Pete greeted me with a grin and even though he was pissed off that someone had swiped his irreplaceable matrix of sequencer and synth settings for his set, seemed genuinely happy to see me again. I had just told Susumu I was going up to say hi and we were going to leave right after. So I told Pete I was on my way out, that the show was great and I was glad I had the chance to see him in Berlin. Pete didn't really have time to talk on stage so asked if I wanted to go downstairs with him to the green room for a drink.

"Yeah, sure" I said, as if this wasn't some incredible realization of a fantasy I have had for the past 15 years. I went and got Susumu aka "Kuka-chan" and we followed Pete into the basement where we helped ourself to a free rockstar beer.

This was an odd situation as the 10 or so people in the basement mostly consisted of other like-minded Spacemen 3 fans wanting to hang with Sonic Boom. I had several advantages however. I had no agenda to promote my own career, I had met Pete before and we had catching up to do, I wasn't a drunk groupie, and I speak English pretty well. Pete talked politely to the room, but he talked to me like an old friend. He remembered Ottawa, that it snowed when he was there, that my roommate had an ill-behaved Husky. he even told me that his time there was also special memory for him, or as he put it in his Rugby accent "I go to a lot of places."

The room was filled with hash and pot smoke, we finished off the case of beer as we talked about his woes on the road, Bauhaus in Berlin, looked at his gear. I got to see the first copy of the yet to be released Spectrum album recorded in Memphis. Pete treated me like an old friend, and I felt like the cool kid in the room as everyone suspiciously looked at me trying to figure out if I was famous or not. I just acted nonchalantly kept talking about gigs and records with Pete and let them keep wondering.

The groupie and the young manager of the band Singapore Sling who was also hanging around, were trying to show off to each other as to who could score some cocaine. It was 3:30 am at this point and everyone was going to go to 8mm bar. I decided to call it a night as the drunk groupie was being very gauche and I didn't look forward to the others company and enduring their posturing. I, unbelievably, turned down Pete's invitation to go with them. He smiled and suggested that he wasn't looking forward to where the night was headed. I asked him if he had his lodgings sorted out, of course he did, he seems extremely well organized when on tour. He shook my hand good-bye, and then pulled me in for a hug instead. We told each other how great it was to see each other again and looked forward to the next time. On my way out I stopped by Tim Gane at the Dj booth to shake his hand and thank him for the music, which was outstanding.

I decided against the taking the bus home and walked instead. The night would last longer that way.

The following video is an excellent document of the current spectrum tour, although not in Berlin, look and sound was the same. I left my camera and bag a home as shows here tend to be very crowded and hot.

A Sunday Night Out

Karneval Der Kulturen

Yesterday was long. I worked from 9:30 until 6:00. Met up with Daniel & Natasha and some of their other friends at Karneval Der Kulturen (A multicultural weekend long celebration) street party. Then Davide from Milan who I met at German school this week, joined us. He and I eventually found ourselves at White Trash to listen to some late 70s punk downstairs, and 20s big band upstairs.



Today, I also met up with Ena, another fellow student. We are planning a day-train-trip to Poland for next Saturday. Its only 100 kilometers away.

photorgyphy

So, Karneval der Kulturen is this weekend, and I have to work a lot of work to make Euros for beer and a new bag. Therefore, pictures will do most of the talking in this post. I am grateful that so many people other than myself took photos because my camera was mostly at home. Anna, Aurèle and Daniel kindly sent me some video & pics and here are some of my favourites...

Firstly, Daniels' Anticipated Video Debut...

The Beer Inside Of Us All

Shot in the innovative Beer POV style, this video very effectively make its point, that beer is inside of us all...and on the outside of some of us as well.

Photorgyphy am Gorki-Park

Aletta, Anna, and Lilian, all from Holland, joined Aurele, Daniel and I one night at Gorki Park. We did alot of other stuff together too, like; ate another Southern German meal, went to the Mauer Markt and the Schloss Charlottenburg.
After a few beers and green teas we had a great time taking pictures of each other as we exchanged phone numbers. I think, but am not sure, that this is also the night that Daniel, Aurele, and I went to Keyser Soze bar for a nightcap before going to sleep. The bartender told us we had time for one beer, 30 minutes. We thanked him and sat down at the bar. By the time we left we had not only our beer, but 2 other free beers and a shot of vodka each. It was now about 4:30 am and we had chatted with the bartenders for a couple of hours. It's a really nice friendly spot, which can be tricky to find here (the friendliness that is). Total price for the 9 beers and 3 Grasovka vodkas - 15 euro!!

Slideshows aren't what they used to be.

Even when you had to buy special film, get them processed, buy and set up projectors and screens, and make pop-corn, slideshows never got any respect. You had to invite people over for dinner then ambush them with pictures. These days slideshows are a great shortcut to link to Flickr accounts and thereby avoiding laying out pictures in Blogger's stupid interface.

What you will see in the slideshow are mostly potraits and snapshots from: Club Des Visionaires, Volkspark Biergarten, Holocaust Memorial. I did add some other of my favourites as well, chosen from the photos Aurele sent me.

click to start

Coming Soon:

15.Mai; Sepctrum show at The Bang Bang Club w/ new pal Susumu.

Der Erste Mai

It is really hard to express what the atmosphere is like at this time of year in Berlin. On one hand, it's a giant party, with little-to-no rules, cheap alcohol & free music. It is also a serious time for political demonstrations and marches. It is also a huge draw for hooligans who come here each year for the rioting, car burning and window smashing. It is pretty exciting anyway. Last night, before the holiday today, Daniel and I sat outside and watched people streaming by looking for some kind of action. Regular folks mingled with drunk teenagers and bubblegum punks. Bottles seemed to fall from the sky occasionally and smash around us. You can't be certain that one won't hit you in the head by mistake. or on purpose. Odds are that one won't though and that's just the way it is.

Rather than show video of messy drunks and police barricaded U-Bahn stations which is also part of today, I took footage of the kick-ass party which goes down in Kreuzberg each year. It was really cool to experience. Even though tonight may end with some expensive cars burning and some bank windows smashed, the celebrations today are a great expression of how free, possibly the most free, life is here in Berlin. Any real democracy, by definition, should have some anarchy in it, shouldn't it?

The following video was taking this afternoon on Oranienstrasse in Kreuzberg-Berlin. We hooked up with some friends of Daniel's whom he met in Moscow at some point when studying there. 2 of them, Claudine & Adriane (i hope that's right) were really nice girls visiting Berlin from Quebec City, Canada.
Cool eh?

Der Erste Mai

Stay Tuned For:

Aurele's Visit Part II
(the photographic exposée!)

Things that are cool:

Postalworkers bicycles

Aurèle's Visit Part I

So, Aurèle came here for a week and we had a great time. I wish I had written down everything we did, but here is the short list: A national galarie, 3 Biergartens, Gorki-Park (3 times!!!), a punk show, a squat, a club, a Schwäbisch dinner, a Bavarian breakfast, a flea market, shopping, eating & vodka. We were really excessive for the whole week plus we hung out with Daniel every day, and new Dutch friends; Anna, Aletta, & Lilian, very frequently. Aurèle took most of the pictures, plus the ones I took are trapped on my phone, by my old OS, for the moment. So, once I compile all the photos from Aurèle, Daniel, the Dutch girls and myself, I should have a more photographically representative post to share of most of the previously mentioned people & activities. Also, Daniel has started taking some video with his Handy. Look out for fresh new co-productions featuring his innovative Beer-Cam.

Here is the first video, or what I was able to capture with 1 battery, from our tour of the Neue-Nationalgalarie - a modern to contemporary National Gallerie housed in the fantastic "temple of light and glass" which was designed by Mies van der Rohe. It is home to some of my favourite famous-artist's work such as: Otto Dix, George Grosz, Miro, Picasso, and numerous Bauhaus masters. I set it to the Knife - Bird (2001) because it was really comfortable there, and the collection was broad but to the point. Like a bird's beak.

A Museum with Aurèle

Stay Tuned for:

Aurèle's visit part II
&
Riot Party! Die Erste Mai!

Chromatics

The Chromatics show was great however, I was definitely left wanting more. It was fairly short set considering they were the only live act, maybe 40 minutes. The Roter Salon was a good venue though, it was filled up real good so I couldn't move around very much to record different angles. This was also my first audio capture with the coolpix and the sound clips a lot, so I left the first half of the song "In the City" intact and spliced it together with the studio version. Then I used some of the iMovie plugins to beef up my sparse footage of the show. I did this rather hastily however as tonight is the Holly Golightly show at Knaack and thought I best get this up sooner rather than later. I am meeting Olga and Delphine there and Abel and some friends afterwards. I still find it hard to get over how easy it is to make really nice friends here!

Chromatics Live in Berlin (sort of)

Käsespätzle Party

I had to preempt the Chromatics video for an unexpected Käsespätzle party at Rebekka and Abel's, Daniel's new neighbours, apartment. For those unfamiliar with Spätzle, it is the southern German version of pasta and a staple in their diet. It is also delicious and really good at soaking up gravy, or in this case; onion, bacon fat and cheese!

I met up with Daniel directly after work and we went Handi Shopping, my usual reliance on email as my primary source of communication does not work very well over here, as , unfortunately, everyone else is phone-centric. So I had to cave and pick up a mobile. We managed to find one for 20 euro though. The Ericsson T250i, It's super thin and should last me at least 3 months. It takes pictures too, which is nice because my Coolpix is bulky and if I put it in my pocket, people, conversely, aren't glad to see me.

Unfortunately after a long day at work my head cold was getting the best of me. By the time we got to Daniel's place with the groceries and wine, I felt pretty beat. No problem though! Daniel just gave me some home remedies he picked up in Russia.

Cure #1: A shot of Vodka with black pepper in it.
Cure # 2: Shove a large chunk of garlic into each nostril and breathe deeply.

I felt remarkably refreshed for a good 2 hours afterwards, as strange as these remedies sound, they are immediately and extremely effective.

The dinner party was a really good time, and I got to meet a lot of nice new people, particularly nice were our hosts who put up with me getting in the way with my camera in the kitchen, way too much wine drinking by most of us and Rebekka made us Crêpes for dessert!

The following video is a documentation of Käsespätzle production from start to finish. Thanks to Delphine and Rebekka for helping out with the footage and LCD soundsystem for providing a song that fit not only in length but more importantly, with the spirit of the evening.

Käsespätzle

Pergamon

True, I have been killing a lot of beers & Cuba Libre's at Daniel & Jürgen's Billiard Club "Küh" on Sophienstrasse, but I am trying to fit in some "drier" experiences to keep my remaining brain cells from forming a frat house. Today I picked up my year-long membership to all of Berlin's national museums. With my student card it cost a total of 20 euro! for a whole year! 40 is the normal price. If you are a museum buff you're lucky, as I suspect you will be getting a lot of museum videos from me over the next few months. For the rest of you, I will hopefully have some hot footage to post from the Chromatics show this Thursday.

My first stop was the world famous Pergamon on Museum Island. It was very interesting for me as a Museum Studies student to explore such a high-of-caliber institution. The recreations of Babylonian, Greek, & Turkish altars & walls were overwhelmingly large and lifelike. The tapestry collection was very well presented in the lowest of light conditions. Unfortunately, I found it really difficult to see past all of the conservation and exhibit strategies and simply appreciate the collection. Their recording-hygrothermographs were really more interesting to me! As were their strategies for presenting text. Simple yet effective black lettering on clear acrylic postioned approximately 2 cm from the wall. This gave the text a natural drop-shadow and, I suppose as a bonus to the museum, was difficult to photograph. The abundant use of high-quality scale models was great. It was especially effective when juxtapositioned with the colossal recreation of the Pergamon altar.

Anyway, the following video is from today's visit. I tried to include shots of visitors and of the overall museum rooms when possible, as the low-def video my camera records can not do the artifacts, some of which were +3000 years old, or the recreations justice.

The shots of the statues and busts at the end of the video were from the Hellenistic Art section; my favourite area in the Pergamon.
I saw it fit to included a peppy soundtrack from Berlin's duo sensation "Stereo Total" to liven up the content. Classical music seemed a little too obvious, but really, neither classical or electronic-pop were around back then. The oldest music I could think of which fit was Vulcan folk music, but I don't have any on my laptop.

also,

To Whom It may Concern:

I changed the blog settings so now anyone may comment on posts, anonymously even. Previously it seems it was only permitted for Blogger members. I did not realize that was the default.

Pergamon

Coming Soon:

Chromatics (yikes! she's hot!) live at Roter Salon

A Friday Night

Daniel and I started off the night at 18.30 at the Cinema Cafe, which is an incredibly smokey, but really cool, old cafe on Rosenthalerstrasse in Kreuzberg. It has been around since 1990 which is pretty much as old as cafes like this get in former DDR. After a Hefeweizen (both Paulaner and Hacker-Pschorr are available in Ottawa beer stores. Honestly, if you have never had a Hefe you have never had a beer) we went to a vernissage at the Johanssen Gallery for the opening of the Olaf Hajek - Maskerade exhibit. The art was so-so but the bar included FREE redbull and vodka. This turned out to be important later on in the evening.

The vernissage was very much like one you may experienc at Art Guise in Ottawa. Only way busier. The "art-lovers" along with their drinks soon spilled out of the gallery on the sidewalk, this then drew yet a bigger crowd and we soon took over the street and the sidewalk on the other side. I commented to Daniel that this type of situation would bring Ottawa riot cops unnecessarily to the scene within minutes. I do not feel I was exaggerating either. We were now hanging outside with some of Daniel's Russian and German friends, among them Svetlana, Luba, Georg, Michael, and one name erased by the night.

After the well of free booze ran dry, we all hit a quiet typical old Berlin Pub for a drink before heading over to Clärchens Ballhaus for some dancing and where Daniel introduced me to a new drink simply called "Sekt-Aperol" after its ingredients. "Sekt" is German fo sparkling wine. This is also important as I will now explain:

It was around 2:00 and things were getting very messy in the dancehall, young people believed they could swing dance, english people believed they could talk German, Russian girls thought they could stand up straight. It was this last thought that combined with the speed they put into Redbull. This amalgam allowed Sveta to start dancing on the rickety table. However, It was the Sekt-Aperol which had so thoroughly refreshed me and thus allowed me, without thinking, and with the strength of a soccermom whose yoga mat is pinned under her Prius, to get up on a chair and pick Sveta up and place her gently on the floor - before the bouncers could make it over and bounce us. I am glad she does not know how close I came to falling off the chair and smashing her to the ground. Sekt-Aperol saved us from both humiliation and unintentional brain damage.

Daniel

Georg at the Ballhaus

Accidental "about to makeout" photoseries with Sveta (pre-table)

Sekt-Aperol and A very nice girl who's name I cannot remember (note the before and after effects of the Sekt-Aperol captured by Daniel's Handy)

Bonus Photo!!!

(Secret Hottie)

Stay tuned for:

Berlin Zeitgeist

Berlin-New York Dialogues the music video.

Today, Delphine and I went to the DAZ to check out the free exhibit; Berlin-New York Dialogues, featuring progressive architecture design with a focus on community based initiatives. Very cool stuff. I will mention the floating self-contained swimming pools on the River Spree and "Platoon"; the reclaimed land initiative constructed out of empty shipping containers! only because those are some of the images I stole for the following video. But I strongly recommend checking out the website and visiting this exhibit if you happen to be in Berlin or NYC when it is running.

After the exhibit we went for a stroll, out for Kaffee (read: Green Tea and Hefe Weissen) and hooked up with Daniel for conversation and dinner. The evening/night quickly went by and after the Champions League quarter final football matches, Daniel and I ended our night, once again, at Gorki-Park to chat with Tatijana and to try and help Daniel forget about his big oral exam in Russian comprehension on Thursday. All of this is un-spectacularly captured on digital video, set to a kitschy German rendition of "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" and sped up for my amusement.

So here is my music-video version of the night, made with help from Delphine. The final product is a tribute to early eighties production, budgets of zero, and a newly discovered appreciation of glass washing ...Enjoy!

A Museum With Delphine

Things that are cool:

Invisible power and phone lines
b&w photo booths
3 Euros 50 cents for 1/2 chicken and a salad

Die alten/neuen Bauten

First, I apologize if my German is not correct, I am winging it like I do everyday here. Tonight I made up the word Alcoholmauer (alcoholwall), but Daniel did not approve.

Here is a bunch of footage from the same previously mentioned boat cruise, of old and new buildings next to each other. This is characteristic of the Berlin Style - which I find mind-blowingly (real word!) well executed. I slapped together a "real" NDW (german new wave) soundtrack to go with - it seemed inline with the old/new theme. It is a mix of 5 songs, I am too tired to write them down and do not know if anyone but me cares who the bands are anyway. If you have an interest, or a guess, drop me a line.

I apologize that the order of the footage is not correct, I lost track when editing out the graffiti bits.

Die Alten/neuen Bauten

I am now hitting the bedsac - 4:30 Berlin time, as I am meeting Daniel tomorrow at 13:00 for 5 Euro Sushi! Then a haircut, then a new cafe to check out with Wi-lan access.

I love this city more and more each day by the way, and as a double bonus have just received confirmation that my friend Aurèle is coming here for a week at the end of April!


Coming Soon:

A Museum with Delphine

Spree Graffiti

On Daniel's recommendation I went and did the 3.5 hour boat tour of the city (16 Euro). It was totally worth it. Not at all an overpriced tourist trap I was scared it may be. I knew Berlin had a lot of water - rivers & canals - running though it, but I didn't think about what a great way to see the city this was. While doing so I came to realize just how many incredible buildings and parks there are. And as the ticket-lady said, the price gets you "61 bridges!" I took a lot of video but ended up with 2 projects: graffiti & architecture. As a fan of Bauhaus style in general Berlin has an incredible amount of the original and inspired-by architecture. Of course many buildings have been rebuilt or built-from-scratch since WWII. You really see just how incredibly modern Berlin really is, which is less discernible from the street.

Anyway, that video should be ready soon. In the mean time, here is the first finished (loose sense) result entitled Spree graffiti set to Afrika Bambaata's nod to Kraftwerk - Planet Rock.
The video, in turn, is my lo-fi homage to the beautiful artwork that is constantly changing and literally on every block of the city.

Spree Graffiti

Coming Soon:

Bau Wau Haus!

Things that are Cool:

People don't spit here.

U-Bahn

This is my first video using my point-and-shoot Nikon coolpix 5400.
I have downloaded hopefully better video editing freeware for my second attempt. The titles and audio did not work so well with the iMovie compression, so I apologize to Neu! and the Courier font.

Video does 3 things for me:

1) i can carry my camera and record without feeling too conspicuous
2) i can sit for a long time and edit in cafes for for the price of a coffee and save cash.
3) i can add a german soundtrack

This is pretty pedestrian stuff (haha) but i really admire the german mass-transit system.
The average wait time for a train is 5 minutes, the trains are clean, and cover the city very well.
Berlin also has set very high emission standards for vehicles and you need to buy a special license to drive into the city.

U-Bahn

Stay tuned for:
- graffiti & street art
- turkish market
- museum island

First night out - new friends

Daniel

I first met Daniel Wednesday, my second day here, at the Checkpoint Charlie Museum where I am working for the 5 weeks of my 3 month stay. He is a very friendly Russian-history student from Freiburg. Within 10 minutes he had offered to give me a tour of his University Library. You know where Einstein and Marx studied? cool. Anyway, I was too jet-dragged to accept. We kept talking and the convo turned to football - I can't say soccer anymore - and he told me that Germany was playing Swiss in a European Cup exhibition game. Would I like to go to a pub and watch it with him? Holy shit. This is the kind of humanity I need to experience. Ottawa,(although I have had pangs of homesickness) C'Mon! can't you see how this is better. Anyway, it was a huge relief to meet someone so friendly so soon.

The small pub was located on Kastanienalle, which is also cleverly referred to as "Casting Alley" as it is the main drag of Berlin's hipster central - Prenzlauerberg. The pub can only be described as a sports bar for people who dislike sports culture. All the dudes there wore black hoodies, the small room was comprised of 8 rows of church style pews, the back wall had a two-tier bleacher. All of this faced a digital projection of the game on the back wall. It was comfortable and packed full of people. The self-service (no tip) beer only cost 2 Euros a bottle. Holy shit!

Germany dominated the game so we left before the ending, Daniel is also a very enthusiastic tour guide so I think he wanted to show me this place.

...where we finished our night by about 2:30am.

At the bar Gorki-Park I met the bartender Tatijana, a friend of Daniel's. Since I was kinda drunken and in a communist bar in former East Berlin, the conversation inevitably turned to politics. I have had the Cuba/Castro debate many times with many people and had always shocked acquaintances with my belief that sacrificing some civil rights was necessary for Cuba to survive the post-revolution sanctions. Anyway, I just deleted a paragraph of pro-castro shit, obviously I get caught-up on this topic (p.s watch this film)

Pictures from Daniel's handy (mobile) of Gorki-Park and Tatijana and I.

....anyway, Tatijana is the first person I have ever met that shared my Cuba views and it made me feel all warm inside. We ganged up on Daniel a bit and then we all kicked back with some black russians on ice. delicious.

Friday night Daniel, my new best bud, and I went out on the town. We started off with some awesome german cuisine. You know German cooking is authentic when you feel like drinking some gut burning alcohol (read: schnapps) after you eat to help with "digestion". We then went club/bar hopping to 3 or four places. We ended the night shooting pool at Daniel's billiard club. One of the things I liked most about the German bar scene is that there was obvious little concern about fire codes or food service licenses. In one club that was "illegal" (no license, just set up in a former school) the packed room was doing just fine, a man with a big tray of baguette sandwiches comes walking through and sells the for a couple of euros. He hops from bar to bar like the rose sellers in Ottawa, but way more useful.

I don't have any pictures from this night but we ended by buying a couple of beers at "ben & jerry's eisbar" at 5:00am and drinking them on the tram home. the beer tasted like freedom that makes you burp.


I woke up today, Saturday, to my first phone call - I don't know my phone number yet so it threw me off, but it was Daniel inviting me over for dinner. He also invited Delphine, beautiful name and a beautiful girl, for a three and a half course meal. Daniel is an excellent and creative cook. The piece-de-resistance was his dessert which consisted of strawberries, quark (german cheese yogurt), fresh mint, an after chocolate and balsamic vinegar.

Daniel's kitchen in former East Berlin. His building is so typical DDR architecture that it was acutally used for exterior shots in the movie
"The Lives of Others"
the building across the street was the main characters apartment where much of the story and the climax took place. cool.

Daniel & Delphine

Delphine and I - Delphine also works at the museum and is from Strassburg, France. However, she speaks English with a slight Scottish accent as she studied in Endinburgh for a year. Neat!

Things that are cool:

people stand still on the right side of escalators and keep the left side clear for speed walkers. what a concept.

Friday after work you see people casually yet respectably kicking back with a beer on the subway.

Clothes:

everyone, from small children to old folks, look like they would be comfortable carrying a submachine gun. Stylish clothes in faded army colours are the norm. When you land at the airport they hand you a pair of jeans and a black hoodie.