Taking a break

I spend Christmas and New Year's at home...so probably no new entries before January.
This last weekend was spent with movies and shopping, and I guess I've never seen that many people on the streets in Berlin before. It was okay though. I gave directions to people again. It's my city :) The Christmas decorations in town were very nice, the best part was in the KaDeWe shopping center with Santa, elves, a huuuuge Christmas tree, people on stilts...It was very nice :) But the prices were very steep, I had to search for a different store.
During the weekend I've seen the movies Hard Candy and Lonesome Jim, both were very good in very different ways. Though Lonesome Jim is very slooooow, it's very interesting. Well... you would have to see them yourselves... :)

So, I'm closed for the holidays, see you next year! I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!
M.

Of Ice and Men

Wednesday seemed a great day for science...erm, ice skating, I mean. There are 4 different places in Berlin where one can go skating, and we went to the one in the Wedding district. For some reason we got discounted tickets, a very good start :) We rented skates, quite uncomfortable ones, and went on the ice. One of the colleagues did speed skating for years, so he felt quite at home on the ice, and the other one was also quite confident even with the ground transformed in such a slippery material. So it was just me who fought with the elements and tried to stay standing with great effort :) After a few minutes of torture I adjusted my skates a bit, and suddenly everything became a lot simpler, and as the minutes went by I was better and better each round. As this was my 3rd time on ice, I had to re-learn everything I once almost knew, but at the end I think I reached at least the level I was at the last time I tried skating. It was very good, and it costs around the same price as it does in Bp., just without the crowd. I think there will be a next time too, but then I will have to try a different type of skates. Probably that won't make me a better skater, but they definitely seemed more comfortable :)
After skating we decided to head out for a beer, and on my suggestion we went to the place with the free foosball, Baiz. For some reason the bar was filled with gay and lesbian people (and no, it's not such a bar), which would be quite a strange sight in Bp. It was quite strange for the Eastern European eye :) We played quite a few games on the kicker table, they call it in German, and even met a Hungarian guy living in Berlin! He's Hungarian on behalf of his dad, and he spoke perfect Hungarian, of course. He was quite happy to meet us, and it was nice to meet him too :) Afterwards we played with an Irish guy too, but he was speaking such a flawless German that it was hard to believe he was from elsewhere :) All in all, the night was very good, meeting nice people and playing quite a lot. The nigth bus was easier to find this time, and we arrived home at around 3am. That left 5 hours to sleep before work. Great :) so Thursday was just a killer. Literally. I was quite annoyed all day, but the day passed well nevertheless. In the evening we went shopping to one Karstadt mall, it was okay, people are a lot more relaxed here than at home. And I bought a great Dredg CD at Media Markt for just 6€! I was quite surprised they have that kind of music on sale here. There were some other good CDs, some which I would not see at a Hungarian Media Markt. Strange. There also were a few DVDs on sale, with both German and English dubbing, I might buy one or two good movies next time I go there. Which probably will happen on the weekend.

No more words for now, I really have to do some catching up with sleeping! (As this was obviously written not on Friday just before 11 am :) )
M.

A long time ago, on a Monday far, far away...

The plan for Monday was visiting Potsdam. But of course first we had to have breakfast, so we went to a small Turkish restaurant close to my apartment. And wow, it was a great choice! THe breakfast was very rich, very tasty, we got 3 different kinds of cheese, cold cuts, different vegetables, olive seeds, butter and some great marmelade, accompanied by an unlimited amount of Turkish bread. It was very, very good. And the service! Nothing too special, I must admit, the lady who was probably the owner too, just payed us attention. And we also got a free tea when we finished. She even asked if we wanted another one, while we were just sitting there deciding if we were ready to go yet. All in all, a great experience, and very good to know I have this place so near!
The highway to Potsdam had very good traffic that day, so we got to the Park Sanssouci quite quickly. We decided not to enter the castle again, we had a walk in the park instead. The weather was okay, with just a tiny bit of rain. Then we went over to the town itself to visit the Christmas market, and to try the Glühwein thez had to offer of course :) I also had a very good ham sandwich, with two very thick pieces of ham. It was delightful :) Then we went back to that great place, the Cafe Laila, and tasted their great Apfelstrudel again... We also wanted to smoke a shisha, but as it was just 5 pm, we had to go out to one of the tents of the cafe. Now that tent was the best experience, it was very simple, but it was furnished in an oriental fashion, and we just lied down on the pile of pillows that were there. The hookah was accompanied by some great tea again, so everything was great. But we had to head back to the city so my friends can visit the IMAX theater, which they did enjoy too. After that, we wanted to get to a bar called Morgenrot, I think I did mention that one before. Well, it was quite a surprise, we went in, I ordered beer at the bar and did it quite loud, too, just before the bartender told me that on Mondays they are not open as a pub. Bummer. But we did not give up the hunt for the best pub, and we ended up ata place with okay priced beer and two foosball tables. Luckily we were enough to play amongst ourselves, as the local guys beat us big time when we tried to play against them. It was a very nice place :) The road home was a bit bumpy, to say the least, as the trains do not run on weekdays at 3am :) But we got to the Alexanderplatz following the info I gathered at a Kebab place. At Alex there was a public transport info desk, open even that late, and the lady gave us a detailed personalised way home in print. It was very surprising :) The night bus was good, took us back home in what seemed a second :) It was around 4am, making my waking up at 8 quite stressy. As I had to go to work... My friends left the apartment later that they, and were kind enough to leave my fridge filled with delicate delicacies :) It was a great weekend, seeing my friends after such a long time and exploring the Berlin night life as well! There should be more weekends like this :)

M.

Waaay behind

I know have still alot write about a lot of stuff... But I'm very busy at work! So I will try to do that later.
One nicee thing was, from yesterday, that I got to take the flight from Budapest to Munich in the cockpit!! It was awesome :) Even though it was a small machine. We had wonderful weather, and the pilots even answered a few of my questions :) So it was a nice way to start the day :) Before I knew where I will fly, I was asked if I wanted something to read - but of course as I've found out what's going to happen, I declined the offer :)
Great trip, great day! But today... not so much :)

Back to the treadmill...
M.

Continuing the recap

One thing I completely forgot to mention is the abundance of Christmas markets here in town. That's where you can get Glühwein and where you can see people dressed as monsters scaring kids :) All the things you can buy is quite similar to what's generally in Hungary at such a market, though the subtle differences are here. For example there are quite a few Arabic or Turkish people selling their products, generally related to water pipe smoking :)
Sunday started late again, and also at one such market, on the Bretscheideplatz, next to the Zoo. This square usually has quite a few shady characters loitering, but now it was all dressed up for the holidays, and that drove out the dark figures too :) I showed my friends the water clock with the green liquid in it, and after having a snack and some hot wine in the market, we headed for the Victory Column, or Siegessaule, with the public sightseeing bus. And on the bus we were overheard again, this time by an elderly lady, who was originally from Hungary :) She was very nice, though she got a bit confused and used German and Hungarian all mixed up :) But for one living in Germany for 50 years now, she spoke her mother tongue a lot better than that waitress from last week did after 4 years of being away... So anyhow, the Tiergarten park and the Column were both great, again, with wonderful weather, the sun shining brightly in a clean sky. The trees are a lot different compared to early October, when I last visited the park - back then everything was still mostly green, but now it's only shades of brown and red everywhere :) It's very interesting to look at the pictures, for me, seeing the same sight basically in two completely different colours. I did not make pictures of the park, though, because I did not want to climb the Column again.
So when all the others came down, we crossed the park and took the Unter den Linden road to the heart of the East, the Alexanderplatz. It was quite a long walk, with a lot of people nearing our goal, everyone out to do some shopping. Because, of course, the shops are open for a lot longer time now that Christmas is here. One interesting thing was a Peugeot showroom, which did not sell usual street cars, but showed off some of the concept cars they have. Nice. You can also buy the in models or buy a Peugeot-branded salt shaker. The price is basically it's weight in gold :)
So, after Alexanderplatz we headed home to give the possibility for the girl in the gang proove once again what a great cook she is :) And she did just that, we had a very good pasta carbonara for dinner. Of course she wouldn't have been successful without our help in removing all those filthy full beer bottles from her way ;)
Finishing dinner we went out to meet a friend of her's who lives in Berlin. This friend showed us a great place where we had cheap, but good Berliner beer, and the foosball was all for free :) We only had to tolerate smoke, but it was okay. She also mentioned one other pub to visit, Morgenrot, which we put on the sights necessary to see immediately :) We were lucky enough to catch a late (or rather early) train home, she was less lucky, she had to take the bus :( I hope though that our company wasn't too bad for her :)
For me the evening ended when we arrived home, thought the other guys went out to find some nice place to wait for the dawn. I slept so well that I did not even hear them coming home. I just woke up for the snoring an hour later :)
The plan for Monday was visiting Potsdam, and checking out Sanssouci. This is exactly what we did and what I'm going to post about next :) Good to see that I'm a week behind myself :)

M.

This is just a placeholder...

...for the post I promised yesterday, wrote last evening and left home this morning. :)
And to lure my regular visitors back for no real reason, of course :)

M.

As for the weekend

Yes, I know it's Wednesday :) But I was so exhausted after the long weekend that I did not find the energy to write anything here. The three days with my friends went very well, I was a bit more prepared for their arrival compared to the last time I had visitors - though my fridge was still not full enough :) But at least it did not hurt that much to wake up at 3 am to let them in. And is it was the birthday of one of them, we had to have a champagne, and while we are at it we had to drink all the beer available :)
In the morning (or noon, rather) we headed out for the generic "first time in Berlin" walk, including the Checkpoint Charlie, the Potsdamer Platz and the Brandenburg Gate. And also a Starbucks :) I was quite confused when the waitress asked for my name when I ordered my White Chocolate Mocha :) But it turned out that they yall you by name when your drink is ready. Kind a useless when you are the only one ordering, or the first in the queue. Anyhow, I had that coffee and a raspberry cheesecake, and both were very, very good. Starbucks seems to be a good place based on just this :) The California Coffee Company, which we have instead Starbucks in Budapest, was not so memorable, though of course my company and the occassion was :)
Sooo, after the sightseeing and the first tastes of Berlin Glühwein (with rum, of course), we headed for the Istanbul Grill, serving the best kebab ever (at least in the vicinity of my apartment). There and older man overheard us talking, and when he found out we were Hungarians, he burst out in tears...He invited us for a beer, and praised Hungary for helping to unite Germany and especially his hometown, which he was waiting for for 30+ years...He was a good guy, spoke a bit English, but I sat to his table and we had a small conversation in German too. A very good experience, and of course he had his own beer on us. After this, we headed for a Hookah or Shisha, an Arabic water pipe. This is usually filled with some fruit flavoured tobacco, and I really like the taste, and the tea we had with it was also good. The place it self was very Arabic, there was even a separated are for the category of people which did not include us, which was even nicer :) The Shisha place was followed by Oranienburger Straße, which hosts a lot of pubs - here we visited quite a few, and ended up in another Turkish place, which had loud Turkish music and dancing :) So it was quite fun :) The night turned quite long, and we got home at around 4 am.

At this point I have to break the story, I will try to finish it tomorrow! :)
Stay tuned!
M.

Off until Tuesday

Just a quicky report - I take Monday free to spend more time with my friends, so I probably won't write anyone anything before Tuesday.

I hope you'll survive :)
M.