Java

So, for the last leg of our journey we flew from Singapore to Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia on Java. Jakarta itself is utterly forgettable, one big sprawling heaps of eight-lane highways and modern buildings. Its old Dutch town was smelly and not very interesting and the Monumen Nasional, also known as 'Sukarno's Last Erection' was worth little more than a picture. We did enjoy ourselves though, because we were staying with Joppe and Adama, two friends of ours from Berlin who are now living in Jakarta. They had a lovely house with a pool and made us feel like kings. We also met up with Marc, another friend from Berlin, had some lovely dinners and evenings rich in alcohol.

The four of us took a trip to Carita on Java's West Coast, where we stayed at a decrepit old beach resort, from where we made a day trip to the famous volcano Krakatau. The Krakatau's last major eruption in 1883 is scientifically important because it was the first volcanic eruption ever reported on by mass media around the world. It created ash clouds that were seen in Los Angeles and tsunamis that did damage as far as India. Java's East coast and Sumatra's South coast were ravaged and the event became the subject of many a romantic novel and film. Part of the old volcano is left and a new volcano has been growing threateningly fast since it appeared above water in 1927. Anak Krakatau (Child of Krakatau) is a dark ashen cone with a tiny little tropical rainforest on its southern edge. When climbing it and standing on top of a ridge looking at the top (which is off limits), we felt like being on the moon, wondering about the vents of steams appearing from random places on the ground and the enormous rocks lying around which had obviously come from the crater. Apparently, you can stay overnight on what remains of daddy Krakatau during the rainy season and observe small eruption during the night, although the volcano was sadly silent when we were there.

Back in Jakarta, we went clubbing at one of its upper-class venues and the day after we made a (late) day trip to the botanical gardens in Bogor. The next day, it was time to leave the haven of Adama and Joppe's idyllic oasis and head out to do some more sightseeing around the island. Our first stop was Cirebon, the capital of one of the first Islamic states on the island, of which the Kraton (Sultan's palace) and his Water Palace, a wild water paradise mixed with caves for solemn meditation, can still be visited.

After that, we took a day train across to island to Solo past beautiful green mountains, rice paddies and menacing volcanic peaks. Solo itself wasn't much but we stayed at a gorgeous hotel around a courtyard with banana trees and other exotic plants which had a beautiful pool and free gamelan (traditional music) practice. From Solo, we went on day trips to Candi Cetho, a temple high up in the clouds, and Candi Sukuh, an 'erotic temple' which probably used to be home to a fertility cult, as well as to Sangiran, an important archaeological site where Java Man was excavated but where you could not really see anything.

We spent a night in Surabaya and then went on to Bromo-Tengger-Semeru National Park. If the rainy drive up to the Tengger caldera, a massive volcanic crater created hundreds of thousands of years ago, past terraced rice paddies, rainy tea plantations and beautiful scenery wasn't beautiful enough, the crater itself was amazing. It fills up with fog or clouds most of the time which obscure the three volcanoes in the centre of it. Cemoro Lawang, the village where we were staying was right on the rim and great for foggy excursions. Getting up at 3.30am to pass through night fog on the Laotian Pasir (Sea of Sands) inside the crater and up a neighbouring mountain to watch the sunrise over Mt Bromo et al was definitely worth it.

As we only had one day left before we were to meet my mother and her boyfriend in Yogyakarta, we tried to squeeze in the city of Malang, which did not really work out because of bad connections and we did not see any of it in the end. I did manage to get a massage from a massage centre that trains blind people from all over Java to become masseurs to help them earn a living. We stayed at a beautiful Dutch colonial hotel, which was a positive experience partially making up for the loss of the sights of Malang in the end.

We spent the next few days with my mum and her boyfriend Rob, walking around Yogyakarta with its Kraton and Taman Sari (Water Palace), which unlike the one in Cirebon seemed to be constructed in order to indulge the sultan's sexual fantasies rather than his religious devotion, the beautiful Hindu temples of Prambanan, the somewhat disappointing Buddhist temple of Borobudur and the Dieng Plateau. Yogyakarta was most definitely the nicest Javan city we stayed in and visiting it and the nearby temples with my mum was certainly another highlight of this trip. Let's just not speak of our attempt to climb Mt Merapi, which was cut short due to a recent landslide and torrential rain...

The Dieng Plateau, with its sulphur lakes, red-and-green hills, rice cultivation almost up to the tops of the surrounding mountains and 8th-century buddhist temples was a beautiful final destination for our trip. My mum had unfortunately slipped and hurt her leg, so she couldn't come, which was a shame because she would have loved the serenity of the location. After saying goodbye to my mum and Rob, we got on our last local bus to Semarang - or so we thought. Our first bus broke down shortly after leaving, as did the second one we caught. The third one only took us part of the way before the fourth one finally delivered us at our final destination. We did not really see a lot of Semarang but did do a lot of shopping there!

Please find pictures of Indonesia here: https://picasaweb.google.com/115645655489714063238/Java2012?authkey=Gv1sRgCMz09JCN-fqQwgE

This is the end of my description of our holiday. I sincerely hope you have enjoyed it and feel yourselves tingling with jealousy. That was my objective. ;-)

Myanmar

When we left Kuala Lumpur and flew to Myanmar, we experienced a culture shock once again, a pleasant one - but a shock nonetheless. Having got used to the smooth workings of the successful state of Malaysia, the poverty, low level of development and occasional chaos that is Myanmar were much more what we had expected of Asia in the first place. In spite of its bloody history of military dictatorship, ethnic inequality and oppression of its population, the people were incredibly open and kind and had a smile for everyone (including each other). Whilst writing this, I realise I am echoing something I wrote about two years ago about the people in Cambodia. How extraordinary how both these peoples who have survived oppression, civil war, physical and political abuse, poverty, hunger, living in constant fear of their neighbours and not being able to trust anyone, can have such a cheerful outlook at life, such kind demeanours and helpful characters. The ones of whom one would expect it the least, turn out to be the ones who are the most welcoming and seem to be working the hardest to make something out of their lives.

Of course, Myanmar is not without its problems. They may have had so-called free elections in 2011, Aung San Suu Kyi may have been released from house arrest and Hillary Clinton may have paid an official visit to the country promising an exchange of ambassadors and the relaxation of sanctions, the current 'democratically elected' government still consists of many of the former military generals who made up the dictatorship, the people are still incredibly poor and many parts of the country where minority people live are still off limits to foreign visitors and their populations discriminated against. However, there seems to be reason for hope and it certainly seems local people believe in the possibility.

The first thing one notices when getting out on the streets is the strange traffic situation. The Burmese drive on the right but, as they mostly drive cheap Japanese cars, these cars have the steering wheel on the right side as well. This creates a situation in which drivers have to basically veer all the over to the opposite lane when they wish to overtake, before they are able to see whether their are cars coming towards them on that lane. We did not see a lot of cars accidents, but one did wonder... Another funny fact is the money situation. Hotels and government-run organisations only accept US Dollars, which they have to deposit at a government-run bank. This bank, however, only accepts brand new, crisp, unsoiled, unfolded bills which still smell of the factory they were made in. Any other bills are resolutely yet politely refused. Can you imagine backpacking for a month travelling on bumpy buses and swaying trains, over muddy paths and up and down mountains, in a country where you cannot get money out of ATMs or at banks and trying to keep your Dollar bills in perfect state? Their own money, on the contrary, apparently wasn't of much aesthetic value. Besides needing wads of it, even bills torn into little pieces could still be used when neatly arranged into tiny, bill-shaped plastic bags.

We spent the first couple of days in Yangon and liked it. Even though the city shuts down after 9pm - as indeed does the whole country - it has its own kind of charm with its decaying British colonial architecture, impressive stupas and non-tourist-focused atmosphere. We visited the golden stupas, stood in awe of Shwe Dagon Paya (a 2,000-year-old massive golden stupa, one of the 100 modern wonders of the world according to hillmanwonders.com) and appeased the guardian spirits of the days we were born on. I was born on Wednesday morning, which means my guardian animal is an elephant! Olaf, on the other hand, has to content himself with a guinea pig. The second day we got onto the Circular Train, a slow-moving, bumpy commuter train which took us to a number of sights including a buddha in a glass cage (for it tended to bite strangers) and an enormous lying buddha in some kind of shed.

After Yangon, we went to Mt Kyaiktiyo, on top of which The Golden Rock, a massive gold-plated boulder, balances precariously on a mountain top. This, as is basically every single mountain and hilltop in Myanmar, was obviously a religious site and pilgrims came from all over the country to pay their respects and stand underneath it - not being crushed by the boulders apparently means one is sin-free enough to be allowed to continue one's life. We obviously passed the test, not that there was any doubt of that I am sure. We did get lost on the way back to the trucks and wound up walking all the way back to the village we were staying at.

After Mt Kyaiktiyo, we made a short trip to Bago, which contained some temples and buddhas which were just more of the same and not really worth the stop. The main thing that happened to us was that we both got extremely ill, which made us dislike this town even more. So, on we went on the night bus to Inle Lake, an experience that made a long-lasting impression on at least one of us.

Once the bus had finally dropped us off - 2 hours too early in the middle of the night - we had paid far too much for a taxi ride to the village we actually wanted to stay and we had managed to find a hotel with rooms available (praise the Buddha for Nawng Kham The Little Inn!), we spent the next couple of days loving Inle Lake and recovering. Inle Lake is quite high up and therefore cool, stretches from North to South in an idyllic valley and is surrounded by green swampy lands which make it difficult to see where land ends and the lake begins. We took a boat tour on the lake to visit floating gardens and villages on stilts, cycled around it to see local villages and crumbling stupas, did some great souvenir shopping and relaxed in hot springs.

We then quickly went on to Kalaw, a former British hill station renowned for trekking opportunities through the hills and to neighbouring villages. We were lazy, however, and just around town and towards some nearby sights. We had lost some time being ill and could not stay any longer but would have loved to stay another night at our chalet-like hotel with its lovely Nepali owners (fried eggs on chapatis for breakfast!!)

Our next destination was Mandalay, a name evoking more idyllic and romantic images of a 'quintessential Asia' than the dusty, sprawling, modern city deserves. There was an interesting reconstruction of the former royal palace though and we saw some astonishing teak monasteries. Mandalay itself is also the gateway to the former capitals of Amarapura, Innwa and Sagaing, which we visited on day trips to see the world's longest teak bridge and old temples and stupas seemingly forgotten among the fields and heather. Another day trip to Pyin Oo Lwin turned to be less interesting, although the 'Mini-Myanmar' park with its tiny reconstructions of famous national landmarks and their strawberry juice made up for some of it.

Then it was on to Bagan, the temple-studded plain in a bend of the mighty Ayeryawaddy river which is the site of an ancient royal city of great riches. The around 1,000-year-old temples, some of which are in ruins and some of which have been restored and are active places of worship, are exceedingly scenic and great for cycling around, taking breathtakingly gorgeous pictures of sunset and simply baffling just by the number of temples and the wealth this city might once have possessed. It is not surprising that this was also one of the 100 modern wonders of the world which we are collecting and the days we spent cycling around the temples definitely one of the highlights of this trip. It is impossible to describe the beauty of this site in words, just look at the pictures (see link at the end of this post) and you will understand what I mean.

After Bagan, we managed to squeeze in a day at a beach resort in Chaung Tha Beach, a welcome change after trudging through the dust for a couple of weeks, before heading back to Yangon for a final day and taking a plane to Jakarta. I was sad to leave and would love to come back, especially when I realised how little of the country we had actually seen!!

Here's the links to the pictures: https://picasaweb.google.com/115645655489714063238/Myanmar2012?authkey=Gv1sRgCPnB5eq-vMGhtQE

Stay tuned for another update about our weeks on Java!

Winter holiday part 1 - Malaysia & Singapore

Hey everybody,

It has - as always - been ages since I posted anything here. This is partially because we were on holiday to escape from the winter, and partially because I am a lazy f*ck. I am going to try and make it up to you by overloading you with pictures and stories from our amazing time in South East Asia.

Let's start at the beginning. Only barely having escaped the onset of the Berlin winter (for in truth temperatures dropped to far below zero and it started snowing only 2 days after we left), we arrived in Kuala Lumpur. I was pleasantly surprised at how modern Malaysia was and how well everything worked. We walked around town for 2,5 days, acclimatised to being in our beloved South East Asia, ticked off the Petronas Towers, walked around Chinatown, agreed KL was not as cool as Bangkok but that we could easily live there and feasted on Malaysian food and terribly expensive (well, relatively so anyways) beers.

After this we flew to Myanmar for the next 4 weeks, which I well tell you about in a later post because it really has nothing whatsoever to do with Malaysia (and I need some more time to sort through the pictures). When we came back from Myanmar, we took a bus South to Melaka, the old trading town on the Malacca Strait which was fought over so many people in the course of history that it is futile to start enumerating them (the Chinese, the Malay kingdoms, the Dutch, the English...) and which dominated trade for centuries under different rules until the British eventually started favouring Singapore and Georgetown to piss off the Dutch before later acquiring it for themselves (by trading it with the Dutch for the port of Bengkulu/Bencoolen) and let it slip into history. Melaka has a tiny Dutch centre with some old houses, a ruined church on a hill, the one remaining gate of a Portuguese fortress, a scenic Chinese cemetery on another hill, a lively Chinatown area which nowadays is no more than a tourist trap and reputedly the best food in the world (a mixture of Malay, Chinese, Portuguese and Indian food). We thought it was rather touristy but alright for day and were rather amused when we heard the bus driver correct some local tourists when they said the wanted to go to the Stadthuys (City Hall) in perfect Dutch.

After Melaka, it was on to Singapore. We were only therefore for 24 hours, but were blown away by pleasantly surprising atmosphere of this very Western city. Public transport worked flawlessly, the air was clean, the people were focussed on their careers and having a good time, the shopping was amazing, the food nice enough and the alcohol on the expensive side. It was a breath of Western air which was more than welcome after a couple of weeks of slumming it, but still a city with its roots very clearly stuck in Asian soil and not a bad place to live.

From Singapore, we flew to Jakarta for the next part of our holiday (see another post).

Here is a link to pictures from Malaysia and Singapore: https://picasaweb.google.com/115645655489714063238/MalaysiaSingapore2012?authkey=Gv1sRgCPSep9-gn9eH4wE

Christmas!

Where to begin? It has been over two months since I last posted anything on this blog. I will spare you the usual excuses of having been very busy and having a lot of work - they are all true, but not necessarily the most interesting part of my life. I have worked a lot and earned a lot of money - and let us just leave it at that. On to more fascinating things.

So what has happened of note. Well, we had some guests in October and November. I finally managed to meet the last one of Olaf's international bunch of friends, the lovely Miss Lotte from Denmark. You would think that I had met all of his friends seven years into our relationship, but this one had escaped me on several occasions. I was starting to think she was afraid of me, but fortunately she turned out to be lovely. Olaf's brother Lars and sis-in-law Rachel paid us a visit too and, among other things such as late-night games, good food and too much booze, we went for a gorgeous sunny autumn stroll in the Schlosspark Charlottenburg, of which you can see some pictures here:

As it was my birthday on 28 October (my big 30th!), our wedding anniversary on 30 October and Halloween, we decided to throw a massive Halloween party. I believe we had a fantastic idea re costumes once again and I am very proud of our creation:

We were Edward and Jacob from Twilight who had decided to get rid of Bella (there was a certain body in the shower cabin) and to continue as a couple! For more pictures click here.

At the end of November, we met up with Mickael, Louisa and Gerry in Brussels for a weekend of old-fashioned alcohol-induced fun. It was as if our little group had never fallen apart and we did not live miles away from each other. Always a pleasure, my dears!

We were too drunk to remember taking pictures most of the time, but this one is quite cute. Mickael had the privilege of showing us around his home town. That same weekend, we also took a little trip to Kortrijk to meet Orlando, Belinda and Enrico's new young one. He needed to be pampered and his parents were in desperate need of some adult conversation. Plus, we got to enjoy Belinda's famed lasagne.

This period has also included a lot of reflection and important decisionmaking. After a lot of twisting and turning, hoping and planning, we finally made the decision to remain in Berlin for another couple of years. Olaf accepted a job as project leader at his current institute and will be running a project on terrorism with his own team for at least three years. Please do not think we are done with Berlin or do not like it here, but we have been here for 2,5 years and there are just too many places in the world left to see and live in. In short, we were ready for a new challenge. Now that we have decided to stay in Berlin, we are going to find that challenge elsewhere. Having a baby is quite high on our list.

One of the conditions on basis of which we agreed to stay is that we want to be able to go away for a significant part of the dreadful Berlin winter and this year we are going to travel Malaysia, Myanmar/Burma, Singapore and Java in Indonesia for about 7 weeks! Fortunately, Olaf's employer was quite alright with this and I managed to convey this piece of news just after I had committed to working for my schools for another couple of years in order to butter them up a bit.

And now it is Christmas - or rather, Christmas is almost over again. My Christmas part was wild once again, I ended playing snooker with colleagues until about 4am and smoked a packet of cigarettes (yes, that my thirtysomething definition of 'wild'). I am still recovering from the two wonderful multiple-course Christmas dinners Olaf prepared yesterday and on Christmas Eve. Tuna carpaccio, shrimp cocktail, basil souffles, mint spoom, pear spoom, homemade cupcakes, lobster in vanilla salt, clams alla portoghese and much, much more. I was really happy my brother Ward and his girlfriend Anne were able to join us for Christmas. Thank you guys so much, I hope you like your prezzies, I certainly loved mine!

Oh dear, it looks like our dear Christmas snowwoman Margaret had an eetsy-beetsy too much to drink...

Looking back on this year, I am quite satisfied and look forward to 2012. Bring on the 7-week holiday!!

Before I end this post, I just want to share two of my new favourite Christmas songs:

Jethro Tull's 'The Christmas Song' http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFvth5GWFSw
Amy Winehouse singing 'I saw mummy kissing Santa Clause' http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-pFNsapyTw

Dwindling down

Well, autumn is here, and I must say that, apart from a couple of rainy days, it has been a splendid one so far. It is cold and sunny, the leaves on the trees are quickly turning from yellow to red to brown as they subsequently fall off and dwindle to the ground. The streets are filled with people in thick winter coats, courageously braving the cold to capture those precious rays of sunlight which will most probably be the last ones of this year. The icy cold of winter is rapidly approaching and is likely to descend on us sometime during the next couple of weeks. Looking on the bright side though, Lidl has already started selling Christmas junk.

It has also been a slow month. For some reason, many of my students decided to take their summer holidays in September this year and when they came back it was already time for Autumn break. Yes, I know it is ridiculously early. Can you believe those crazy Germans had the school year begin on 15 August, this year. 15 August!! That was in the middle of summer and robbed a lot of children from a lot of well-deserved sunshine. My Italian teacher had a fit when she realised, she was planning to take her kids to her parents in La Spezia until the end of the month. I can imagine her surprise and disgust, August is the month when everything closes in Italy and everybody leaves the cities to go to the beach, the mountains or relax in any which way they please. 15 August, Ferragosto, The Middle of Summer, is one of the most loved and celebrated holidays in that divine country, but she had to take her children to school...

Anyway, this also means that as soon as part of my students came back from their respective holidays, all those with children started cancelling their lessons because they were leaving for two weeks. Things have started to get a little bit better but financially September was a disaster. Thank God for visitors, trips, yoga, swimming pools and, of course, wine. Steef and Margo came to visit for a weekend of fun and games, Marike popped by for a couple of days because she had a meeting in town and I met up with Wouter a couple of times when he was here for a seminar. We finally made it back to both Milan and The Netherlands for some quality time with friends and family of which we were in dire need. Hugs, kisses, good talks, laughter, massive XL cocktails at La Hora Feliz, fabulous mussels at La Cozzeria and beautiful memories, all of these were had in Milan. NL was mainly focused on family. Because we had been expecting to leave for Asia, we had been postponing an extended trip to visit our Heimat, but the long weekend because of the Tag der deutschen Einheit (3 October, Day of the German Reunification celebrating the day of the signing of the agreement in 1990 when the FRG and the GDR legally became one country again) gave us an excellent excuse. We brought a shitload of presents to make sure all the kiddoes will keep remembering us fondly as 'the uncles always bearing presents'. I for one was already glad that my oldest nephew, Neo, still knew who I was - The first thing he did when we got out of the car was ask 'Present?', need one say more - and to get to know his little brother a little bit better. I also cherished the opportunity to catch up with my parents and brothers, and of course have some sneaky drinks with friends as well. Thanx Sebas for lending me your birthday ;-)

Olaf is in China at the moment for a conference - and to do two more of the modern wonders of the world (www.hillmanwonders.com) without me, the annoying little bastard that he is, The Great Wall and The Forbidden City. Thankfully, he missed his connecting flight in Frankfurt and had to cancel his trip to The Great Wall due to his delay. Serves him right for not bringing me, at least this way we will have to go back. But anyway, this means that I am by myself at the moment, which is suiting me just fine. I have been watching a lot of movies he doesn't want to see, eating food that he doesn't want to eat and doing lots of yoga. I have also been busy trying to sort out my health insurance situation. I have had a British expat insurance plan since I came to Berlin, whose validity has been questioned. It took me a while to find out, but it turns out they actually conform to German law and are legally allowed to offer health insurance here, which is a huge load off my mind. They don't cover some basic things like dental care and going to your GP though, which is why I would like to change to a less dodgy German company. I had a meeting with a lovely agent this morning and it seems that this will actually not be as expensive as I feared.

This weekend is a weekend of total relaxation. I watched lots of movies last night - and can recommend 'O Jerusalem' (2006), a story about the founding of the state of Israel seen from a political as well as personal perspectives - and made myself some gnocchi al pesto. So far, I have spent today doing groceries, reading and taking a hot bath while reading Thucydides, the Greek historian of the Peloponnesian War. At the moment, I am vegged out on the couch with a big pot of herbal tea, looking forward to getting lost in Thucydides some more, going out to the Festival of Lights which is on this week and taking a lot of pictures, as well as some more experimental cooking and more movies. Tomorrow, I have got an all-day yoga workshop lined up, my first workshop completely in German, which should be interesting.

To sum it up, life is good at the mo'. I will be turning 30 at the end of this month and am completely ready. After all, if one can say anything about the lifestyle I described above, one must admit it does not befit a twentysomething to be so incredibly boring. I, however, love my boring bourgeois lifestyle and will be happy to stop pretending to be a hip and happening youngster anymore, but will finally be able to acquiesce into my thirties. In with a bang, and out with pop, I guess that is how it is supposed to be as one quiets down as one settles into working life and serious adulthood. Since it also our 2nd wedding anniversary at that time and, of course, Halloween, there really isn't a reason not to have a party. Bring on 'Haunted Hollywood'!

Pictures - finally!

OK, I got annoyed with Mozilla and decided to upgrade to Google Chrome. At least this way I can post pictures to my Picasa account. So here they are, enjoy!

https://picasaweb.google.com/115645655489714063238/USACanada?authkey=Gv1sRgCMXdl7rsveqn3gE

Unfortunately, our pictures of the upper Hudson Valley, including the Dutchess County Fair and the Vanderbilt Mansion, as well as most of the pictures we took in the Catskills, got deleted by a memory card malfunction of sorts. In case you wonder what we looked like after a week of American food, here's a picture.

PS the open button has nothing to do with having gained too much weight to be able to close it, honestly.

Summer holidays

Apologies for my silence. I have been trying to upload pictures taken during our summer holiday in the US and Canada, but for some reason Blogger will not let me do this. It may have something to do with my new computer, a giant US-born elephant of a laptop named Gail. Anyway, I hope to be able to post them at a later date.

As regards our holiday, it was brilliant. We flew into JFK and hired a car to tour upstate New York. Our first stop was Tarrytown, the town neighbouring Sleepy Hollow, made famous by Washington Irving's The Legend of Sleepy Hollow in which Ichabod Crane is confronted with the Headless Horseman which was rumoured to haunt that vale - which, coincidentally, is a book I just had to buy. This is also the town, where I started my American diet of meat, meat, meat and more meat with a charred turkey burger. After visiting the Old Dutch Church, the bridge and the cemetery featured in the story, we drove further North, following the Hudson as it cleft mountains brusquely in two. The river is impressive and the valley is beautiful. It is baffling to see how soon everything becomes green once you leave the hustle and bustle of New York City behind you, and how much peace, natural beauty and solitude one can find at what is basically a stone's throw from Manhattan.

After stopping for coffee in Cold Spring an idyllic little town on the river with a great view of Storm King Mountain, we went to Rhinebeck to meet some of Olaf's friends at the Dutchess County Fair. The Dutchess County Fair was everything it promised to be. Upstate New York is distinctly rural and the diversity of cows, horses, chickens, ducks, pigs, corn, uncountable types of fruit and vegetable and even an elephant were enough to make our cityfolk jaws drop in astonishment. It was fun to hang out there and see what life is like on a farm - and of course I had to taste a delicacy: grilled cheese (apparently very American albeit not very meaty).

After that, we visited the Vanderbilt Mansion in Hyde Park and drove past the FDR Estates in the neighbourhood. To be honest, the Vanderbilt Mansion was quite a disappointment, it wasn't any more than a big villa. Beautiful grounds and a great view over the valley though. We then crossed the river and left it behind us to go West into the Catskills. We spent the night at New Paltz and after a quick look at the local historic Huguenot Houses (built by settlers with very Dutch-sounding names), it was time for food again. On the menu: a mountain of spare ribs!

The next morning, we left New Paltz quite early for a drive through the Catskill Mountains. We took the little roads and enjoyed the views, the emptiness of the land and the late-summer scent of the trees. After spending the morning this way and eventually stopping to hike to the Kaaterskill Falls, we wished we had more time to enjoy the region, a sentiment enhanced by the discovery of a loss of most of our pictures taken after Sleepy Hollow due to an unfortunate computer glitch. We were on a tight schedule, however, and we wanted to see as much of the state as we possibly could. There was another mountain range we wanted to drive through that day: The Adirondacks. We drove to Lake George and had a look at this tourist-centred fraud of a town which, in spite of the pretty lake, made hurry back to the car after lunch. Blue Mountain Lake was much more quiet and idyllic, and also a place noteworthy for having the weirdest ice cream flavours on offer. One does not get to eat 'Panda Paws'-flavoured ice cream every day... We spent that night in Old Forge, where I had the honour of sampling a cheese steak (which is apparently a Philadelphian specialty).

The next morning, we left the Adirondacks and drove West to Seneca Falls, the home of the American Women's Suffrage movement (to be honest, I had to dig very deep to find memories of history lessons about Elizabeth Cady Stanton), which was very informative, although the visitor's centre we visited was not quite up to the standard we had expected. So onwards we went, along one of the largest of the Finger Lakes towards Ithaca and Cornell University, visiting the impressive Taughannock Falls on the way. I do not believe I have ever seen a university more happily situated than Cornell. Perched on a rock overlooking Lake Seneca and rife with wonderful, deep, rocky gorges (giving rise to the popular phrase 'Ithaca is gorges' which can be seen on many of the T-shirts worn by the student population), the campus consists of beautiful neoclassical buildings and a very friendly atmosphere. If one had to go back to uni again...

We spent that night in outskirts of disgustingly filthy and depressing Buffalo, Tonawanda to be exact. Our motel was in the middle of a formerly industrialised area which appeared to border 'the bad side of town', according to one of the locals. Fortunately, the only bar in the neighbourhood happened to serve food too (Buffalo wings for me, nothing but fried mozzarella sticks for Olaf) and double as the local karaoke bar. Olaf went all out on stage, while I chatted up the local ladies and managed to liberate some of their cigarettes from their sway. All in all, not a bad night.

The next day, it was time for Niagara Falls. What can one say about the Falls that has not been said? They are grand, impressive, beautiful, loud, magical, eerie, divine and terribly touristy. We looked at them from the US side (the upstream side) first to get up close and personal with the falling water and then crossed over into Canada to walk the Scenic Driveway for some panorama shots. Impressive as the falls were, the difference between the US and Canada was breathtaking. Leaving busy, dirty and industrial Buffalo to cross over into a country of glowing hills with farmland and vineyards, was a relief. The food was better - not such a fixation on meat, fresh local fruit for sale at every farm - and who knew Canada produced such lovely wines!

It was time for the occasion we had been hurrying towards. After settling down at the cutest little B&B, we dressed up and walked over to the neighbouring Vineland Estates to celebrate the wedding of Nissrine and Alessandro. It was a small wedding, very intimate and quite possibly in the most beautiful location they could have chosen. The vineyard was on a hill overlooking Lake Ontario and the bride and groom could meander through the vines in sunset, providing them with oodles of undoubtedly gorgeous pictures. The ceremony was short, her dress amazing, her hair up with a feather, roaring twenties style, and their kissing superb. We had been afraid we would not know anyone but the bride at the wedding but it turned out two of our (Nissrine's and mine) former colleagues from Milan were there as well. Besides, everybody there was lovely and we had a great time making new friends.

After brunch, we unfortunately had to leave again the next morning, not having had enough time to catch up with Nissrine and to really get to know Alessandro. We did, however, have a long drive back to NYC ahead of us and had to return the car that evening. We still had two days left before we were to fly to back and wanted to spend some time visiting the city - and catching up with Kuba and Agnieszka and their kids. Or so we thought. A wild Southern lady called Irene had other plans and decided to hit New York City the day we were supposed to fly out. We made it back to the city alright, handed in the car (and we glad not to be responsible for it when the storm hit) and made it to Kuba and Agnieszka's lovely apartment in Brooklyn, when we found out our flight had been canceled. The next two days were spent inside, having stocked up on water and food supplies, batteries and alcohol. We watched movies, played games and got a little drunk - how else is one to weather a storm? A storm, which was quite a disappointment by the way. It was windy, there was rain and some branches got ripped off from trees but that was it. It was a bit over-hyped, if you ask me.

However, as of the day after, summer returned with a vengeance and we managed to get an alternative flight back later that week. We spent four lovely, unexpected days in New York City, in a hotel just South of Central Park opposite Carnegie Hall and went sightseeing and shopping to our heart's content. The result: a trainload of books from The Strand, a new laptop for me and lots of branded clothing for almost nothing at Philene's Basement. We went to a Broadway show (The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert), spent half a day in the Metropolitan Museum and walked until our feet bled to be able to see all the sights. The most memorable ones? For me, it must be Ground Zero, the new tower they are building seems to scream defiance and a refusal to give in, and The High Line, abandoned train tracks high up in the air running along the West Side once used to supply the city with food but now reinvented as an urban park with amazing views. Plus, we got to meet up with Erik for breakfast just before we left.

As I said before, I will try to upload some pictures later. It would be nice to be able to show you some of the beautiful spots we got to experience.

Fire!

Saturday morning, around 5am, we were woken up by a loud pounding sound. When we opened our eyes, they were hit by the copious amounts of smoke that had amassed in our apartment. I got up immediately and ran to the bathroom to check the boiler, which had been making strange sounds of late. It was not the boiler though, but a fireman banging on the door to wake us up.

There appeared to be a fire somewhere in our building but we did not know where. At first, we were told to put on some clothes and evacuate. When had all got dressed (Olaf's brother Niels and sister-in-law Marielle were staying with us for the weekend) and were about to leave the house, another fireman came in and told us to stay inside and open all the windows to let the smoke out. We were dazed and confused, partially from the surreal situation we were in - and partially because we had had too much to drink and had only slept for three hours.

The danger was already over though. As it turned out, some crazy person had set fire to the baby strollers that were parked in the stairwell on the ground floor. Fortunately, one of our downstairs neighbours woke up in time to alert the fire brigade, who happen to be stationed around the corner and arrived soon after. In the end, it was the smoke that caused the damage, rather than the fire itself. Nobody was hurt, although two children had to go to the hospital because of respiratory problems. They have now been released from hospital, however, and are both fine. In the end, we were back in bed less than hour after we had been so roughly woken and tried to sleep for a few more hours.

We were very lucky. There has been an arson spree all over the city of Berlin recently, with apparently separate individuals or groups of arsonists covering different neighbourhoods. There were 11 fires that Friday night/Saturday morning alone, several of which in Prenzlauer Berg and two of which happened in our street. Buildings are set on fire almost every night and they have increased security in our neighbourhood. It appears the police have caught one of the arsonists who was active in another neighbourhood, but the fires continue. Thus far, one person has died and several have been wounded.

So you see, we really were very lucky. We hope this means we will be safe now since they have already torched part of our house. One positive outcome of the whole thing is that they have finally fixed the front door, which did not use to lock properly and which they entered through. Here are some pictures (courtesy of Marielle) of that night and what our stairwell looked like the morning after:

 The front door to our apartment

 Smokey!

 There is a balrog of Morgoth hiding in the deep

 Walls, ceilings, bicycles... all black!

 So much for the view (between ground and 1st floor)

 And, unfortunately, so much for the beautiful stucco on the ceilings, which will most likely have to be removed

And this is where it happened. Those pieces of metal on the left are all that remains of a baby stroller (which was probably very expensive, we live in yuppie central after all!)

But despite the fire, the heat and the smoke our postbox is still functional!

 

  

And the ironic thing was, the police had just put up warnings about the arson attacks in our neighbourhood the morning before, which did not stop them from coming in all the same

Well, on to happier topics. Before this weekend, we had wonderful weekends with Olaf's brother Lars, his wife Rachel and their two adorable girls Leah and Hannah, which consisted of lots of games since it rained the whole weekend. The week after that, Gerry, Louisa and Mickael came for a karaoke and alcohol-themed weekend of fun and surprisingly bad voices - which does not mean we were afraid of singing. We did not want to let the fire and short night get us down and managed to have a nice sightseeing tour by bike with Niels and Marielle. On Saturday night, we had dinner in one of the weirdest restaurants I have ever been to, a garlic-themed restaurant. Everything was garlic-based and I still smell of it, unfortunately the food was nothing special. I do hope Niels and Marielle had a nice weekend with us, although they did not get to relax as much as they had hoped. On the other hand, they did bring us a new garden gnome called 'Piet de Plasser' (aka 'Pete the Urinator'). Do you like him?

.

In awe of a poet

I have done one braver thing

Than all the Worthies did,

And yet a braver thence doth spring,

Which is, to keep that hid.

It were but madness now t'impart

The skill of specular stone,

When he which can have learn'd the art

To cut it, can find none.

So, if I now should utter this,

Others (because no more

Such stuff to work upon, there is)

Would love but as before.

But he who loveliness within

Hath found, all outward loathes,

For he who colour loves, and skin,

Loves but their oldest clothes.

If, as I have, you also do

Virtue attir'd in woman see,

And dare love that, and say so too,

And forget the He and She;

And if this love, though placed so,

From profane men you hide,

Which will no faith on this bestow,

Or, if they do, deride:

Then you have done a braver thing

Than all the Worthies did;

And a braver thence will spring,

Which is, to keep that hid.

This is John Donne's song 'The Undertaking', which blew me away. Donne served as secretary to the future Lord Chancellor Thomas Egerton during the last years of Elizabeth I's reign in the late 16th and early 17th century. He had a brilliant career ahead of him, but he lost it all when he secretly married Lady Egerton's niece and was subsequently fired and imprisoned for a while when it all came out. After some years of scraping by, he found employment in the church and eventually worked his way up to become Dean of St. Paul's Cathedral in London. After the death of his wife, he dedicated himself completely to the church and died a famed preacher, having made a name for himself in the pulpit.

Donne poems and songs are a strange mixture of highly erotic love poems in which he praises women, their bodies and sex in general - which he sees as one of the highest attainable delights in the universe and by definition divine - and devoted praises of God and the trinity. In his poems, you feel him professing his love for his wife as well as for the godhead and this makes into a devoted religious leader as well as a mortal lover and family man (they had 11 children before she died giving birth to the 12th).

This song struck me because it expresses the hurt he must have felt when he wanted to share his love with the world but was forced to keep his marriage a secret from fear of retribution of her family. It touched me in a way and filled me with the sadness he must have experienced. I am exactly sure when this piece of art was created but it seems to me that he was at a point in his life where they were still successfully keeping the marriage a secret and they did not yet know what the future had in store for them. It is a tragic moment, only to be ended with the joy of being able to openly profess his love combined with the loss of all his prospects and confrontation with poverty.

Anyway, I just wanted to share my enjoyment of having discovered this poet. There are other things that have happened this month. Jorryt & Lilian came by, as did Bart & Tineke and Pieter & Nicole after their long trip through South America. For more info on what we did together, I refer you to Olaf's weblog. For now, I have to go teach one more class and then we are off to tour the Netherlands (Randstad only) for the weekend!

My maiden voyage

Wow! There is no other word for it. Just 'wow' - or possibly 'oh' or 'ah' or some other sound that involves opening my mouth in awe and not being able to shut it for a while. Or perhaps no sound would be necessary and the mere silent opening of the mouth would suffice. In any case, I was baffled, dazzled, dumbfounded, stunned, befuddled, astounded, flabbergasted and flummoxed - all in one go.

As a classical scholar, I should have gone to Greece ages ago. It is a country I have dreamt of, phantasised about, longed for and romanticised. I have always loved reading about Greece, studying its history, trying to make heads and tails of the constant wars, flourishing of city states and kingdoms, successions of rulers and seemingly endless conflict paradoxically influencing and/or being influenced by some of the greatest wonders of intellectual development and a plethora of artistic production and a delightfully complex system of religions and mystery cults.

And I loved it - I simply did. Seeing the Akropolis took my breath away, the famous Caryatids mesmerised me with their elegant serenity and the Byzantine monastery of Moni Daphniou amazed me with its piercing mosaics. Walking around the Classical Agora and the adjoining Roman Forum, following the Sacred Way out of the city gates and through the Kerameikos cemetery, watching the sights from up high on Lykavittos/Lukabettos Hill... It was all too good to be true. The weather was great, a very decent 25 degrees all around, quite sunny but not too hot to go sightseeing all day - perfect for admiring the remains of ancient Greece. My favourite part of Athens, funnily enough, was not ancient at all. The tiny, sunken Byzantine church of Hagia Kapnikarea on Odos Ermou (aka The Street of the Flying Cows (Air-Moo)) actually stole my heart...

Delphi, on the other hand, was a bit of a disappointment. We got on the bus to go there well enough but it obviously broke down on the way there. And at quite a conspicuous moment, it turned out. As soon we had lost (?) some part of the bus, we got out and were stunned by the amazing scenery. A high road between mountains with their peaks hidden in low-hanging clouds was going to be the scene of our play, and not a bad site at that, invoking all kinds of Oedipean phantasies this close to the Triodos of ancient Thebes. It almost immediately started raining though and we were happy enough to get back on the bus.

After the surprisingly short period of 20 minutes, a replacement bus arrived which safely transported us to Delphi. By this point, we were quite excited and filled with anticipation. We were going to visit another Modern Wonder of the World (The Akropolis being another one). So we got off the bus full of energy and ready to go exploring the site. We passed the museum first and though the sky looked like rain, we decided to do the ruins first and the museum afterwards. We felt it would be a more logical order - and besides, it was only 2.30pm and our bus back wouldn't leave until 6pm. As we got closer to the actual site, we started feeling the first raindrops but we persevered. What's a little rain anyway, huh?

As we got to the entrance and almost got run off the path by tourists hurrying away from the site trying to get to a dry place, we were told they were closing in 20 minutes. We knew we were not likely to come back any time soon and we decided to go for it. While it started raining cats and dogs, we ran through the site taking pictures at random and getting completely soaked. We made it up the mountain and back down in an amazing 12 minutes, managing to see the whole site except for the stadium, at which point the rain miraculously cleared and we were stuck in that town for another three hours while everything closed. Fortunately, the ruins of the Sanctuary of Athena with the photogenic tholos and the gymnasium stayed open a bit later, but we were simply forced to spend the rest of the afternoon drinking beer overlooking the admittedly very pretty valley that Delphi presides over.

We got the chance to go to Greece because Olaf had a conference in Volos on the Friday and I joined him there. Volos itself, said to be the site of ancient Iolkos from where Jason and the Argonauts set out to obtain the Golden Fleece and ended up with Medea - though evidence is scarce - is nothing but a 1950s post-earthquake waterfront boulevard accompanied by residential areas cramped between hills and the slopes of Mount Pelion. It had a cute Archaeological Museum though, consisting of 5 rooms focusing on a) Stone and early Bronze Age culture in Thessaly and b) Greek grave stele through the ages, a pier with great views of the mountains surrounding Volos bay and a very ugly Jewish Memorial to the victims of the Nazi regime. It being what it was, it provided me with ample entertainment for the three hours I had to spend before being able to meet up with Olaf and his colleagues.

Modern Greeks are scary, by the way. When we got back from our day trip to Delphi, we took a taxi into the city centre. At some point, the atmosphere on the street changed radically and suddenly we were the only car on the road going into the city centre and were met by lots of people running and cars driving in the opposite direction. At this point, the taxi driver told us we had arrived and basically pushed us out of the taxi, made a U turn and took off, only just giving us time to realise there was an angry mob coming towards us protesting against - or for, who knows - something. Fortunately, we were able to jump into a sidestreet which led us to a parallel road where tourists were quietly eating their meals, blissfully unaware of the mayhem that was ensuing 50 metres from where they were sitting.

All in all, it was a great experience, quite refreshing after years of dreaming about a country I did not know anything about. For a selection of pictures, click here (a Facebook album). But let me repeat myself, I loved it - and I took advantage of spending lots of time on buses and trains (Volos > Athens, Athens > Delphi and Delphi > Athens) to read about the rest of Greece in the guidebook and I have decided I definitely want to go back!!!

Pre-summer enjoyments

Summer is approaching! Summer is approaching! And it is fantastic. The delightful month of May is here with all its hot sunny days, warm spring showers and long evenings perfect for watching the sun go down from a beer garden. I have not got that much work but am enjoying the weather - and the other delights this month has got to offer. It is the season for city trips, spending weekends in the countryside and recovering from the profound chill that was the Berlin winter.

As a birthday present - although it is unclear whether it was for my last or for my upcoming birthday - my birthday took me to Madrid for the weekend. It was wonderful. The weather was great, 25 degrees and sunny, interrupted only once by a monsoon-like rain shower which simply induced us to visit a free museum we had wanted to visit anyway. It was not too hot yet, but great weather to be walking around in while taking in the city. We spent half a day at the Museum del Prado, a sparkling gem of amazing works of arts by some of the world's greatest masters - although we unfortunately had to confine ourselves to Spanish painting and its highlights: El Greco, Velazquez and Goya. If only we had had more time... I am normally not that much of a modernist art fan but the Centro de Reina Sofía was a very interesting museum. We saw the entire permanent collection with all its Picasso's, Miro's, Dali's etc. It was very well-presented and gave one a good overview of the development of modern and modernist art (including cubism, dadaism etc.). I might actually understand some of their works now...

And then there was the city itself. It reminded me of Vienna somewhat, in that it was very regal. The whole of Vienna is stately, elegant and haughty, as behoves the seat of an emperor, and Madrid was very much like that, obviously the seat of the royal house of Spain. How different from Barcelona it is! Madrid is neoclassical, stately, traditional and at times pompous and arrogant, whereas Barcelona is fresh, modern and surprising with its playful architecture and sea breeze. I have tried to capture the mood somewhat. For pictures, click here.

Food- and drinkwise, it was wonderful though. The tapas, paella, sangria, Spanish wines and churros y chocolate, were simply bliss. And please don't understand me about Madrid, I enjoyed its stately regality and thought it was very fitting. It is a city in which I could perhaps see myself living someday.

Last weekend, we helped James and Zahra move into their new flat in the middle of the Wrangelkiez in Kreuzberg, a very nice flat in a cute neighbourhood that once again made me reconsider my opinion of Kreuzberg (i.e. that is completely gentrified and filled with yuppies pretending to lead glamorously alternative lives as poor artists) or whether there are still some nice 'authentic' bits as well. On Sunday, we cycled the third leg of the Berliner Mauerweg, from Griebnitzsee near Potsdam in the Southwest to Schönefeld in the South and up to Schöneweide in Berlin. This means we have finished the outer wall (i.e. the one between West Berlin and East Germany, as opposed to the one inside the city dividing East and West Berlin) and have only got a relatively short leg left right through the middle of the city - yet one densely packed with sights. This will make for an excellent trip to make with some of our visitors.

That evening, after working ourselves into a sweat and getting all dirty from cycling through the forests and over sand paths, we went to the Berlin Dom for a special performance of Joseph Haydn's Oratorium Die Schöpfung (Creation) by the Berliner Symphoniker (orchestra) and the Berliner Symphoniechor (choir). They had combined it with classical and modern dance as well as some spectacular visual effects. The whole thing struck Olaf and me as something that could never have happened in Italy, as parts of it would probably have been considered blasphemous. For instance, they tried to include the concept of evolution into the creation of the earth and projected videos and drawings of animals and plants in different stages of development onto the church walls and they also had a live snake participate in the dance symbolising the disobedience of Adam and Eve. All in all, I thought it was marvellously done! Click here for their website with a full description, pictures etc.

Olaf has got a conference in Volos in Greece this weekend and I am going with him. We are planning on staying in Athens and visiting Delphi as well. This is going to be my first time in Greece. Can you believe that? The first time! And me being a classical scholar! I really ought to be ashamed of myself... I am so excited!!!

Easter etc.

Well, Easter was lovely. We walked around Park Sanssouci in the sun, played lots of trivial pursuit, had some lovely Ethiopian food as well as some Thai specialities, drank way too much and had some good conversation. On Easter Sunday, we had a little Easter brunch at our house, where Olaf's parents introduced my family to their age-old tradition of hitting each other on the head with boilt eggs in order to break them. I had been made aware of this funny tradition before, fortunately, but I must admit it left my mother and her boyfriend flabbergasted...

On Easter Monday, after our respective family members had left, we decided to start something we had been planning for a while, which is cycling the Berliner Mauerweg (Berlin Wall Trail). This is a road consisting of mainly old patrol roads and paths through forests following the former Berlin Wall. It is a good 160 kms in total and we are doing it in a couple of legs. On Easter Monday, we cycled North to Mauerpark and then followed the northern perimeter to Staaken (the most western part of West Berlin). Here are some pictures:

 In Park Sanssouci

The Friedenskirche (Church of Peace) in Park Sanssouci

 At the actual Schloss Sanssouci

 Somewhere North of Berlin along the Berliner Mauerweg

 Pretty pink trees along the Berliner Mauerweg

A former GDR watchtower from the death strip

For more pictures, click here.

The weekend after that, our Portuguese friend Marta came over from Porto with her sister. It was great to see Marta again! We always spent a lot of time together in Milan, but we have not seen her enough since she moved back to Porto and we moved to Berlin a bit later. It was great to catch up!

The weekend after that, Jaap came over to Berlin with his new German girlfriend Nicole, whose Dutch turned out to be excellent. She even helped me kick some serious ass at the Dutch game of 30 Seconds!!! We also went to the C/O gallery to look at a photo exhibit about Berlin just after the war and had some lovely drinks at Oststrand. The time for Schöfferhofer Grapefruit-weizen has returned!!!

They left quite early on Sunday morning, which enabled us to do the second leg of the Berliner Mauerweg. This time, we went back to Staaken and followed the Mauer South along some of the lovely lakes in the Havel, such as the Grosser Glienickersee and the Wannsee. It was very strange to imagine that a number of these picturesque lakes were off limits back then because they actually formed part of the border and border fortifications flanked the parts which are now quiet parks on their banks! Also, we discovered some very nice biergartens along the way, which might be one of the reasons we did not actually cycle that far that day...

May, by the way, has arrived in all its glory. The weather is lovely, a steady 20-25 degrees depending on the day and it is great to be outside, to cycle, lie in the park and sit in the biergarten enjoying a cold hefe. Life is good, why can't Berlin always be like this?

This weekend, my mum is taking me to Madrid for my birthday (though neither of us knows which one) and I cannot wait. I have got two more classes today and one tomorrow morning and then it is time for an overkill of architecture and museums, sangria, Spanish tapas and lots and lots of Spanish wine!! See you when I get back!

My dad's visit

April truly is family month. Not only did my brothers grace us with a visit at the beginning of this lunar cycle, my father also came over for a visit last week. It was great to see him again and to catch up. We spent time walking through the city, drinking beer at a beer garden (for the weather was beautiful - and has been ever since) and made a daytrip to Oranienburg to visit the Nazi death camp Sachsenhausen, a chilling yet well-documented memorial. Here are some pictures:

 

I enjoyed our talks about the past, we spent a long time discussing my parents' divorce and the effects that this fact had on us children. I personally believe my parents could not have made a better decision for all of us and think that they handled the following hardships very well. It was hard for both them when they separated, but they both found someone new. Both of them found someone who was a much better match for them than they had ever been for one another. That is what I always tell people when they ask me what it was like for me to go through my parents' divorce - and that is what I wholeheartedly believe. It felt good to be able to tell my father that.

Oh, and of course we went to Prater:

And the good thing is, April is not over. It is Easter weekend at that means we have four days off. But we will not be celebrating these days by ourselves. We are anxiously awaiting the arrival of even more family members: Olaf's parents are driving up as we speak and my mother and her boyfriend could arrive any moment now! This will be a wonderful weekend!

Happy Easter, everybody!

Spring is here!

Well, as it turns out, several sappy romantic costume dramas and a couple of bottles of wine later, I happily drifted off to sleep to wake up to the return of love. That was a good morning!

And a good week, as it turned out. It was the last week of my most lucrative month ever and I am proud to report that I actually made more money than Olaf in March!! OK, it was my gross income (as a freelancer I only pay taxes at the end of the year) and his was net.... but still, it was a feat to be celebrated! One needs these little feats to be proud of, doesn't one...

Anyway, we had the weekend after that to ourselves and spent it doing our tax returns for 2010. I do not say it very often, but Germany truly is a great country. As a freelancer, I can deduct basically anything from taxes, from any books I order on Amazon (for class purposes, of course!) to repairs on my bike (my means of transport to get to my clients) and from topups for my prepaid phone (it's my the only phone I have and hence my work phone) to every single public transport ticket I have bought over the course of the year.

Oh, and have I mentioned that spring has started? My brothers came over last week, because my oldest brother Hascar wanted to run the Berlin half-marathon and Ward decided to taggle on, and it was a gorgeous weekend. We visited several beer gardens, cycled around town and spent several delicious hours on our backs getting a tan in a number of Berlin's excellent parks, while catching up and exchanging the necessary family news. Sitting in Prater Biergarten on Sunday afternoon, after Has had run the half-marathon, we had eaten ourselves into a stupour at brunch, after shopping for vintage items at the Mauerpark flea market and getting a tan in the park itself while listening to the open-air karaoke in the background, we ended our weekend talking about the past and reliving memories of growing up, the decisions we made and the challenges we faced, a conversation which I really enjoyed and which has got me thinking. In short, it was very good to have some quality time with my bros!

On a sad note, we had to say to goodbye to Pieter and Nicole, who left to go on their magnificent trip through South America and will most probably not come back to Berlin afterwards. The city feels strangely empty without them, I guess it is important to have a little bit of home with you when you live abroad - and they were our own little piece of The Netherlands! Have a great trip you guys, I look forward to seeing you in June!

After a little vodkafest to inaugurate Mira and Oles' new place on Friday, we were persuaded to organise a little impromptu cocktail party at our house last night. It was a lot of fun, although we were afraid nobody was going to show up for a while! In the end, it was a select group, but that did not mean the cocktails tasted any worse!!! It also meant we spent this morning lounging in bed and only barely managed to get up to start cleaning the house. But that's all done now, which means it's time for another little trip to Prater!! ;-)

A week by oneself

Olaf is in Canada for work this week - something I am both jealous of and happy about. I would love to see Canada but I am sure it is still much too cold over there right now and I have had quite enough of that. Besides, I was quite happy to be able to focus on work this week. I am still very busy, but it is a good kind of busy. And things will change in about or week or so. I should finish one my intensive courses and will have more time on my hands - right in time for spring!

Besides being busy, the last weeks have brought lots of fun too. Our Sunday trip to South East Berlin with Nicole and Pieter was very enjoyable, although Köpenick was a lot more boring than we had expected and Berlin's 'Little Venice' was actually ridiculous. Some farmhouses on islands intersected by brooks and streams do not constitute a Venice, not by a long shot. We had approached this trip with a healthy dose of sarcasm and managed to amuse ourselves thoroughly nonetheless.

The weekend after that, we flew over to Liverpool to meet up with Matt. We had wanted to visit Liverpool but that weekend turned out to be the weekend Liverpool was playing Manchester United at home and we had to change plans. We assumed that meant Manchester would be quite empty that weekend and we changed our plans to pay a visit to the capital of the Industrial Revolution. I expected it to be very grey and old and decaying but the city was actually quite nicely done up and the old industrial centre has been magnificently converted into a business area with beautiful apartments in old factories and some very good museums. The Museum of Science and Industry was well worth the visit, as was the Manchester gay district - obviously. The fact that they had recreated Roman ruins and put them on display to show what the Roman remains would have looked like if they had survived, did make me question the sanity of the Mancunian municipal council somewhat, though.

 

 I rather enjoyed my lamb shank's pie!

The weekend after that, Jen and Kate came over from Milan. Massimo sadly could not join us and was sorely missed. It was great hanging out with the girls though, I had missed them very much. For a very short time, it felt like being home in Milan again...

This weekend, Enrico and Belinda came over from Belgium with Enrico's photography group. As they went around shooting pictures of Berlin, Belinda and I had a lot of time to catch up and go sightseeing. Good food was consumed and fun was had. They left this morning, which means I am by myself again. Good, I am looking forward to an evening of watching movies that Olaf does not want to see. Wuthering Heights and Sense and Sensibility bring it on!!

How time flies

How to begin? This month has flown by and has not allowed much time for breathing. I may have been bored and wishing for lots of work to be thrown my way, but I was utterly unprepared for having a full - or rather, overflowing - schedule. Don't get me wrong, it is great, but I may have gone a little overboard.

In addition to my courses at Lingua Franca, I have started working for a small neighbourhood school in Schöneberg and they have given me a couple of hours a week, among other courses an EU-funded project to prepare young Berliners for work at the new BBI airport nearing its completion. This is very much a school-like experience with classrooms and people young enough to still be in secondary school. Unfortunately, most of them still act like secondary-school students and don't seem to have a clue of what they want, why they are there and - most importantly - of the importance of knowing foreign languages, and English in particular. To be honest, half of them simply seem to daft to ever get through the basics of the language. This is not necessary satisfying and I am looking forward to the completion of this project four weeks from now.

Lingua Franca has also finally realised they should be lucky to have me and have overloaded me with courses, several of them at the request of students whom I taught once or twice as a substitute for their regular teachers and who subsequently decided they wanted to continue with me. Although I do not believe my way of teaching is anything special of better than that of most other teachers, I am not unaware of the compliment this implies. Actually, I am quite happy about it. Having been specifically requested about 5 times in the space of two months seems to have removed any remaining doubt that may still have existed in the minds of the Lingua Franca staff regarding my not being a native speaker, which, combined with increased demand for language courses now that companies are starting to believe the financial crisis is a thing of the past and are allocating more funds to skill-development budgets, has resulted in my being quite busy.

Though work rather dominated my life right now (I am often away from home as early as 7.30am to as late as 9pm due to distances), it is obviously not the only thing going on. The weekend of January, we flew to Dublin and met up Mickael, Louisa, Gerry and Felix to create some new memories and relive our time in Milan. It was a blast. Lots of alcohol, good talks, way too many cigarettes, the Guinness brewery, climbing a cute little hill on the beach, the old city centre and pubs, pubs, pubs.

 

We also met up with my former colleague Brian and his wife Elisa and met their gorgeous offspring Daniel:

 

The café in the background was actually founded my ex-boss Caroline's great-granduncle, what a coincidence! For more pictures check out this link.

We went to Hamburg for Stephie's 30th birthday party, an 80s party extraordinaire at the beginning of the month.

For more pictures, click here. I had never been to Hamburg before and it turns out to be a pretty sort of city. I really like what they have done with the old harbour (Speicherstadt) and HafenCity. Those old warehouse done up as modern apartment building did look awfully attractive...

Stéphanie and Cindy came to visit us the week after, which was a weekend filled with excitement, shopping, excessive drinking and good quality time with the popjes. Last weekend, we spent a cold and rainy Sunday at the Deutsches Historisches Museum (German Historical Museum), where the modern, accessible, diverse and interactive collection succeeded in making me quite a happy camper - no doubt also influenced by the massive piece of Schwarzwalderkirschtorte I obtained in the café! This weekend is another weekend without guests and went to a Dutch pubquiz last night. Our 6-person team consisted of Arnaud, a Flemish Belgian living in Berlin, Kerstin, a German who lived and worked in Amsterdam for years, Pieter, the only Dutchman actually living in the Netherlands at this time and three Berlin-based Dutchies: Olaf, Nicole and me. We were convinced the composition of our team was a recipe for success but were sorely disappointed only to end up ranking in the lower mid range. It was a lot of fun though, especially when topped off by a couple rounds of my new favourite game of 30 Seconds. As someone who enjoys speaking fast and associating concepts freely, the task of describing as many different people, objects, events etc. within the timespan of 30 seconds is simply bliss...

There are lots of fun things coming up to. Tomorrow, Olaf, Nicole, Pieter and I are going to explore a part of Berlin we have not been before. The Soviet war memorial in Treptower Park, Köpenick and food in the Grefekiez should ensure enjoyment and our learning something as well as exercising our taste buds. Next weekend, we are flying to England to meet up with Matt in Liverpool or Manchester. The weekend after that, Jen, Massimo and Kate and gracing us with a visit, the weekend after that Olaf will be in Canada for work but I will be hanging out with Enrico and Belinda and April is going to be family month.
 
How time flies! February has almost come to an end... I don't when I will find the rest and time to write another update but it doesn't mean I don't want to. Oh, and BTW, we are also looking into our options for when Olaf's project finishes next month. Who knows where we will be this time next year. It's so exciting!!!