Walk on the Wild Side

Saturday is family day! I went out to Alphabet City (where they ran out of numbers and call Avenues A/B/C) to visit my aunt and my cousin (+her son and husband). I found the place easily, it's in a lot more laid back neighborhood as I've seen thus far in Manhattan: in the East Village. It has smaller buildings with a couple of stories each, the trademark wrought iron fire escapes, small public gardens scattered between the houses - it's pretty nice. Unfortunately my aunt's apartment building is being renovated so the surrounding area is a bit of a construction zone, but the apartment itself is already finished so it looks lovely. When my cousin and co. arrived with the little one has fallen asleep on their way, so we decided to go out to the NYC BBQ Block Party just the 3 of us, leaving the Granny home with the baby. So we walked quite a bit from ABCity to Madison Square where already loads of people were queuing up for dozens of different types of barbecue. We tried some varieties of pork and beef, all roasted on open flame or charcoal, and they reached from OK to pretty good, so it was worth it as well. We finished it up with a pint (and with some friends of the husband, visiting Silicon Valley developers), and by the time we walked by the Square again it was completely filled up. We just decided to leave it as is and walked back on a different route to my aunts. The little one was already up and has already enjoyed Granny reading one of the Hungarian story books I brought alongs as a present. He was a bit scared in the beginning of the new "bacsi" (he speaks Hungarian!), but he loosened up after a while and even gave me his pet Flying Monkey to play with. After a while we decided to go over to the High Line (a derelict high rise railway converted into a public part) for a stroll, which was loads of fun! The area is great, the park being elevated a couple of meters above the roads and continuing between the buildings of the West Village - it's really unique and nice. It's littered with modern art sculptures donated to lighten up the place a bit, and musicians and small cafes have already found their place here. Our outing was only broken by the coming rain, so we said our good byes -  but also agreeing on a next time to meet.
In the evening I couldn't just stay at home, so I went to check out the "tramway"leading to Roosevelt Island, which essentially is a cablecar similar to the larger ones one can see along ski pistes. It goes up quite high just to go down again on the side of the island (a 5 minute ride), and provides a nice view of the city as well - for the same price as a subway ticket. The island itself is nothing special, a residental are with luxury apartments, but it hosts one of the most serene places you could find in such a big city: a completely empty baseball greens. I took one of the benches there to have my dinner sandwich and enjoyed the whirr of the city rushing by with noone in sight. I guess a couple of stars must have been visible as well - a nice timeout from the Manhattan lifestyle.
Then, it was only taking the tramway back, not finding a good looking pub in the neighborhood, and falling asleep quickly after a feet-eating day.

M.

Strawberry Fields Forever

No, I did not have a hangover and woke up at 5:45 after getting home at 1 AM. Apparently jet lag and booze don't mix well :) This kinda set the mood for the day, after some not-so-good eggs & bacon bagel I was only ready for a salad for lunch. There was a place nearby where you can select some basic greens and a set of toppings (salmon, eggs, olives, etc) which they basically grind up for you, add a hint of your favourite dressing and you're done! As the weather was nice we just sat outside to enjoy the sun and the salad.
The day moved on at glacial speed, and as it finished I set out for my next quest - the Central Park at night. Again, I did not judge the distances well, so I walked up until about 1/3 of the park only, but it was worth it: I saw so many fireflies! At first, I though it was just a streetlight reflecting on my glasses, but then I saw the little bugs flying around. There were so many! And their light was strong too, a nice fluorescent green. One of them even came up close, and it was pretty big, about the size of a nicely grown wasp back at home.
After I left the bugs to do whatever bugs do I walked up to the Strawberry Fields park, which has a nice "Imagine" mosaic in the middle (not the best thing to make pictures of in the dark). I also saw the Dakota House from across the road but it didn't look anything special so I did not cross. The one strange thing about the park is that it's forbidden to smoke or drink alcohol there, so it's completely different compared to what you'd see at home in the City Park or Margaret Island. I'm sure both ways have an advantage...
After a bit more walking I stepped out of the park to check out the neighbouring streets to the west, but they didn't have much to offer but luxury apartments, so I took the subway home.

All in all, not bad way to finish off a week if you want to do it outside of a bar :)

M

Thirsty Thursday

The good thing about Thursdays and visits to other offices is that they tend to go out for drinks with the visitors. On this lucky week, they even took us out for lunch to a burger place on Hells Kitchen, or 9th Ave if you so prefer. It was a smallish place, so our team just filled it up completely, but still they managed to bring us our burgers at a good place. The food was quite good, I had a bbq burger with some of the best double-fried chips outside of Belgium :) I also tried a root beer with it, which certainly is an acquired taste, but it's not that bad :) One of the guys was wolfing down his food at such an amazing pace and with such enthusiasm, we could only laugh - especially in the ended where he put the dot on the i by pulling down a big chocolate shake with considerable difficulties. Not fine dining, but definitely fun dining, in such childish company :)
After a day riddelod with meetings in the evening we went out for a couple of pints to the Mean Fiddler, an Irish-themed place. BTW, a US pint is a bit less than a the usual Hungarian 0.5l, as opposed to the UK pint, which is a bit more than that - anyhow, a pint is a pint! I got my taste of some Samuel Adams lager, quite good, and also some Smithwicks, which is a beer by the Guinness brewery - not as good as their main show. While we were there, one of the many TV screens in the bar showed a programme about Hungarian football, mostly about Puskas and the Puskas Academy of present day. I was surprised, but the colleagues didn't really believe when I explained why I just stopped listening to them for a moment :) OK, possible not the most interesting thing ever, but quite a coincidence. After a while the place started crowding up with people playing beer pong and waiting for the karaoke night, so some of us decided to leave for another place. This turned out to be a somewhat fancy wine place, where we had a California Cabernet Sauvignon with a special selection of Swiss, Italian and French cheeses. All this stuff had the taste and the place even after numbing our palate with those beers before, so all in all it was a good evening. Well, if you don't count the walk back home, I mis-estimated the distance so I had a nice, sobering stroll on the streets of midnight New York.

Did I ever wake up and did I have a hangover? More about that soon! :D

M

Psychadelikatessen

Freshly up in the right timezone the hunt for breakfast began. I coulnd't care less about the pricy hotel breakfast, so after the usual quick morning rituals I headed out via Park Avenue for a change. That's apparently one of the poshier parts of the city, as I could have bought more Louis Vuitton bags and Ferraris than bagels. Which, in the end, I did not buy (neither one), but went for a bacon and egg sandwich, choosing from a selection of bacon and egg sandwiches in a barely open Pret a Manger. The day went well, including the lunch at Toasties (House Special, hot Pastrami with cheddar and coleslaw in a "Hero" bread) and the following biiig presentation. I held this for the whole NY team some 20 people, so I guess only 2 falling asleep should be kinda OK :) One of the sleepers is a guy remarkably reminiscent of Hugh Laurie, minus the walking stick and the demeanor, which is kinda funny. The only other plan for the day was the evening lunch with Hungarian colleagues out here in the city, which was started in a bit undecided manner - where should we go? We had an attempt on "The healthiest food on Earth" served in a Mexican restaurant, but they have a no alcohol policy so we skipped, and ended up at a hummus place, which served beer for our pleasure in addition to the "amazing fish" (their words - it was actually 6/10). It turned out that one of the guys in the group came at the same time, on the same planes as I did... Which came as a lesser surprise than realizing that the girl behind me at the immigration queue was indeed one London colleague, who incidentally got the desk next to me in the office. So kids, if you see someone you think you know from somewhere, you probably do :)
The dinner ended not too late, so we walked back with the "same plane"-colleague... to the same hotel :) Fortunately it turned out that he does not have the same room as I do :) And now, turning the room's stereo to 11 listening to The Dear Hunter, there's nothing else to do but wait for sleep!

M

Under The Bridge

No really - I was there! Possibly not under the same bridge, but still :) And how did I get there? Let's see... The day started at 4:30, or half past 10 in the real world - no accident that I was the first in the office this day as well. I had some wraps from the day before for breakfast (bought a cup of fruits and a wrap at a Au Bon Pain, but only ate fruits in the bathtub in the end...long story :) ), which had a very strange taste due to the combination of creamy sour cheese and some sweet sauce. Otherwise it was an OK day, not very riddled with meetings so I guess I must have done some real work as well. For lunch I was pointed to a place called Nook, which was kinda OK, even their quiche - only the waiter needed computized assistance to add up 8, 3 and 1, and some convincing not to give 14 bucks of change from a 20. 
The plan for the evening was to cross the Brooklyn Bridge, as I was told that's kinda touristy, but I'm not so sure about that reason now. On my way first I walked by the Grand Central station to check it out, it was grand enough for me indeed (but too dark inside for photos). On the way there I accidentally spotted the Empire State Building. How the hell can the tallest building of the city disappear from a block away, I don't know (other than the surrounding tallish buildings as a reason, of course...). From GC I took the train to the Bridge, where the darkest clouds ever made me worry about my lack of raincoat, but in a fortunate turn of events the clouds had other plans for the evening. So I crossed, unimpressed (the Bridge is being renovated, probably obscuring the wow-factor). On the far side Dumbo was already waiting for me - not the flying elephant, this was before the beer, mind you, but the Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass. This is an area of bars and art shops and in general good atmosphere, a with regular-sized houses and nice dimly lit pubs. The best one seemed to be 68 Jay Street, serving great Brooklyn Lager and Wild Rise pizza. The former is a spicy, flavoury, generally good beer, and the latter turned out to be one of New York's recent sensations - the pizza with the wild yeast crust. All ingredients (as the Elders of the Internet explained later) are imported from Italy, all natural, including the wild yeast which is supposed to give a sour, tangy flavour to the crust. What can I say, it was a good Margherita, but without Google and the pizzaiolo I wouldn't have thought how special it should have tasted. With this behind me I got on the train back home, where finally had a good, full night's sleep. What came next? Check back for our next episode after a short commercial break for all the details!

M

New York City Boy

The strange thing is - walking around in NYC is not strange at all. Probably because you saw the exact same thing a zillion times befor in the movies, but it just doesn't feel completely new. The fact that it's still very unfamiliar just adds to the confusion. Central Park with joggers and bikers in the morning, tourists and locals alike crowding to pictures of some movie shoot, baggy trousers on the silver-colour trains, this is exactly what I would have expected :) It's a bit reassuring at the same time, especially combined with the fact that English is spoken a lot less muddled here than in London. Obviously I'm still a bit lost in a lot of places, one in particular is your usual Midtown deli. For one I can't seem to figure out where they keep the beer. Also I'm not entirely sure yet about the selection of pastries and sandwiches, I can't match up the names on the price list with the actual objects behind the counter. Just this morning I had something made out of too sweet, too crumbly dough dipped in sugar crystals, and I don't know the name of it to make it easier avoiding the same stuff in the future :)
The office is cool, luckily I managed to get out of the "hoteling booth", which is basically an oversized phone booth with a desk and a small single PC screen - I can use the desk of a colleague on vacation instead. There was the usual issue with the entry in the AM where the access card never works as promised but it was resolved quickly. Oh yeah, AM... the jet lag - I always forget which direction they say is worse, but I'm quite convinced it's this way around :) Yesterday I got in after 14 hours of travel still in broad daylight in the middle of the afternoon, so I strolled around the Avenues to fall asleep late enough, and still I awoke at 2AM (or 8AM per my internal clock). Maybe tomorrow will be better :) To prepare for it today I checked out Lower Manhattan, the Wall Street and NYSE with the signature bull, and also the new buildings on Ground Zero. I kinda expected the memorial to be in a more obvious place, but I only saw the arrows pointing towards it after a long walk in the opposite direction. Of course the arrows also mentioned I should pre-book so I just skipped this one. Further south was even better, not that many people at this "late" hour around 8PM. The small parks and the high houses gave that part a nice athmosphere, and I also found the street of Irish pubs for later reference.

Let's close this for tonight and log a quest for tomorrow - to find wifi to post this! (Actually in the end office internet was the Holy Grail - I'll still need the WiFi to add pictures)

M

Oooooh I have to sum up so much! I'll try to be quick, as I'm tired, as usual :) Tuesday... I had another training session, split up in two parts. The morning part was quite boring, just a replay of my last training with more emphasis on some parts. I wouldn't say it was completely useless, but I could have spent my time better. Luckily, it was over just it time for me to reach the loo :) Free drinks have an effect... :) The afternoon part was a lot better, we were given some useful information, which I'll probably use as well during my work. In the evening I quickly summarized my ideas in an email on how to solve a current problem - this turned out quite well in the end.
Oh, and this day I had my worst lunch so far :) It was turkey, supposedly "rosted with honey, with stuffing", and well, it was really turkey, period. No other tastes, and definitely no stuffing :) Even the potatoes were without a taste. I managed to get some very good horseradish sauce with all this, that took most of my pain away :) In the evening I went out to check out the Oxford Circus, and well, it rained :) The tube ride was strange though - this was the first time I left for the inner city right after work, and well, there were a lot of people! I could only get on the second train, which was full as well as the first, and there were people left on the platform... I can understand now why londoners complain about the tube, but my overall observation would be that the people were a lot more patient than they would be in Hungary in a similar situation. No pushing, shouting or swearing, even though I'm sure most travellers will be a lot happier if and when the Crossrail project gets another traffic line to the Wharf :)
So, the Circus was fine, a lot of shoppers everywhere, it was nice to get back home and have dinner in peace and quiet :)
Wednesday... No rain in the morning! I tried to take a photo of the Reuters building, with all the scrolling stock info on it - I think this photo does not do justice to reality, but I was in a hurry :)
Work was fine, lunch was great with a spicey cod steak in the cantine on the 12th floor of our Bank Street building :) We had a great view on the city, though the Eye definitely beats this :) I tried to find the Costa Coffee in our offices, but eventually I had to settle for Starbucks - they give a lot better latte than the free coffee machine does. It costs a quid, but in the "offical" Starbucks it would be more than 2GBP, so whatever... After work I went grocery shopping, tried out the third food store in the area, and realized that the choice in English food is quite narrow... I mean I would be able to buy a lot of things, but German salami and Spanish chorizos would blend well enough with Danish butter in just any other country... I want to eat British stuff! Even haggis, if I have to! Easier to say than do around here...
So at home, I had crab pate form the Hebrids, and then I left to try out that boat ride on the Thames I received a "Free Ride"-coupon for - and it was definitely worth it's price :) I had to go out to the O2 Dome to get on the boat, and it rained again, of course... The boat was very comfy on the inside, and very, very fast - I was told this is because it's a catamaran design. I got off near Big Ben, and tried to get home - I was quite unlucky with that, as the direct tube line was not running due to some train problems, so I had to go around town, with 2 changes and million kilometres afoot to get home eventually. The only thing to do was to write this entry, have some cheddar with crackers and a beer...And then, sleep!
Zzzzzz,
M.

Rain

Sunday started as slow as possible - Saturday's party was not without aftereffects :) I was just sleeping till noon, mind you, no other problems for me this time :) It took a while to decide what I would do in the afternoon, but eventually I settled for Greenwich - it's quite close, and I was looking forward to see the view of Canary Wharf from there. I took the replacement bus for the DLR (Docklands Light Railways, driverless trains which were undergoing weekend maintenance) to get to the Greenwich Foot Tunnel. British people seem to have a lot of stuff dedicated for travelling by foot :) So anyhow, the tunnel runs under the Thames, and it's over 100 years old... It has pretty entry buildings on both sides, and a few years ago they installed elevators for the disabled, elderly and lazy visitors. Even on my side of the Thames the weather started to get exciting, wind was blowing like the world was going down, I guess this is where my photos started to get blurry as I could not stand still :) Also, my pics went even blurrier when the rain started falling and a few drops managed to get on the lens :|
Back to the tunnel for now, though... It was scary :) Not in the "Oh my God the homeless people will eat me" way of scariness, as usual for foot tunnels and subways, because this tunnel was fully lit and more or less clean, but scary because of being narrow and rusty and generally strange :) And it's quite long, too, I'd guess about a kilometre. On the Greenwich side I started exploring as the rain started pouring, pretty soon it was umbrella-time... This part of London is quite amazing, I wandered off the usual tourist path to see a few sidestreets, which was quite fun. I also took some pictures of the view - it's truly spectacular, but I'd need better equipment and weather to show it off properly :) Accidentally I bumped into the Greenwich Market, which was a nice little place - not too big, not too small, and you can buy anything from belts to massage to sushi. It was also a lot less stressy than the Christmas markets and such that I'm more used to. I bought quite a few things (on my scale, a lot!), some smokey Earl Grey tea, a wonderful new wallet, a selection of Italian pastry for half price, some raspberry fudge and a mulled berry drink to get warmed up a bit. It was a nice little trip, but as I was quite tired so I went home. Luckily the replacement buses were not really properly configured for my Oyster card, so I travelled for free :) I guess everyone else did, though. At home, it was sleepy time very soon.
Monday was just another day :) I was at work, solved another important problem, took part in a funny meeting with Budapest (we were drawing on a digital whiteboard to share our diagrams) and a nice sweet chili beef hot wrap lunch. After work, I checked out a bookstore just for the hang of it - it feels good to have that many English books around :) Then, I headed home to taste a very nice dinner based on the Italian bread I bought yesterday. I was told that just by reading me one would think I'm a fat guy... well I might be skinny on the outside, but on the inside, I'm a fat guy who's always hungry :)

The rest of the evening was just peace and quiet, with a small candle burning in remembrance.
Good night, and take care!
M.

Bridges across forever

I guess this weekend is over, and soon I can sleep again :) These two days were quite tiring and touristy, but all in all I had a good time again. On Saturday the plan was to see the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace and then take a ride on the London Eye - so we met up with a few colleagues near Westminster to walk along Whitehall for the Horse Guards' Parade. It must be quite stressy for the guards' horses to stand completely still during their shifts, and even though a horse standing still is just a horse standing still, when there are 15 of them it looks kind of impressive :) Obviously these are not the more famous guards with the furry hats, so we went to see them to - we had to cross St. James Park for this, which was lovely, full of little animals :) There was a man feeding the squirrels, they were basically eating from his hands, it was nice. Strange how squirrels tend to hang around in castle gardens, I have photographed them in Marbork (Poland), Schönbrunn (Austria), Potsdam (Germany) and now here. There must be an international squirrel conspiracy to overthrow monarchies, and seemingly they already succeded in 3 other places already :)
Anyhow, there were all sorts of critters in the park, but we went for the ones with the furriest heads - just like thousands of others did. Basically we did not see anything of the main part of the CotG show, but the band played very good music :) And we saw some of the guards march out afterwards to their barracks, where they had a nice short finishing parade, now that was something noone knew of - so we had that show for ourselves :)
Then, we headed towards Westminster Bridge, crossed the Thames and arrived to the Eye, where I collected the previously bought tickets - it was like 10 seconds, I just had to insert the credit card which I used for the online purchase in a machine, and it printed out my tickets without any human interaction necessary. So that was quick - the queue, not so much. We queued for the actual attraction for like half an hour, but it was okay, and of course the view would have been worth even more waiting :) The Eye is probably in the best possible place to see the bigger and more known monuments of London, and since it's by far the tallest building in that area, you really can see everything. In clear weather, you can even see Italy, or so we were told ;) Sadly, we had quite foggy weather, so visibility and photographability ( ;) ) were both restricted, nevertheless, this was an amazing experience :) Since the whole project runs under sponsorship by British Airways, the whole thing is arranged like it was an actual "flight", they even call your trip a "flight". You have to "board" before, then you get security checked, etc.
So then we walked northwards by the Thames to cross the Golden Jubilee Footbridge, on the way we could see a lot of mimes and other artists, it was more or less funny... the guitar players are usually quite good, too. On the other side of the Thames we split up, the others heading for the Tower, me heading for the nearest hamburger stall :) After that I went over to the Blackfriars tube station (everybody please read Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman - the tube experience will never be the same boring thing again), just to check out St. Paul's, and cross the Thames again on the Millenium Footbridge. When this bridge was first built, it was so wobbly, that they had to redesign it to somehow dampen the wobbliness - on some of my pictures you can see the additional equipment installed for this purpose. On the other side of the bridge there was the Tate Modern and Shakespeare's Globe, neither of which is a particularly nice building, but the internals count a lot more I guess - no time for those though. I took a short walk in the surrounding area to the nearest Tube station to get me home, did some shopping, gave directions to 3 different British people, and did my laundry. Also, as I found the door of the dishwasher broken, I sent an email about this to the aparment owners, so they repair it and don't make me pay the costs :) Then, after all this fun I went over to one of my colleague's, where a few of us had a few beers before heading out to Soho! Soho's amazing, everyone's queueing for a pub, everyone's going for a party. We managed to find 2 pretty bad clubs to pay the entry fee of, so it was not the most succesful night money-wise :) Well, the first pub was a blues pub, which I would have fancied but the others did not, and the other was just not so very good. Basically we just had a few drinks and then tried to find our way home - it was not that easy to find the correct night bus, but eventually, past 4am, I finally fell asleep in my bed :)

And this was only Saturday... I guess Sunday deserves a separate post, and a shorter one, I promise :)

M.

Slipped away

Friday evening...normally, two days of rest would follow, but in my case, there'll be only a lot more sightseeing :) Today was the day of the Tower! Or at least the evening of it... We walked around it, crossed the Thames via the Tower Bridge, and then sat in for a beer near the London Bridge tube station. You would not imagine how many girls are dressed like it was summer! You look at them, and even you get cold...But then again, you look at them a little longer, and it's hot again :) Crazy English people...
I promise I will sum these days a up in a little more detail later, but I have a lot of sleeping to do. I'm sure you can understand that part :) Also, tomorrow is party-day, so don't expect a quick entry. Sunday is museum day, we'll see how that goes and how much time I will have awake and doing nothing.
Oh yeah, and today my direct manager commented on one of my observations with the phrase "Great minds think alike" :) If that's not a praise, I don't know what else would be :)
Some new pics are up again, please bear with me on them...I don't have neither the tools, nor the knowledge for proper night photography. Some of the worst pictures are made during some of my best time...Go figure...

Anyhow. Sleep. You too. Well. Bye.
M.

New sensation

Today was the first day at MS here in London. The walk to my working place was quite nice, this business quarter is quite amazing with all these new and tall buildings.
I was the first one getting my ID card, seemingly the others just did not bother enough to ask what they should do to get theirs :) Kevin, my mentor - project manager (or Buddy, in MS lingo) arrived a bit late to get me to my desk. It's in a huge room with a lot of desks, there's place for about 200 people. Kevin was kind enough to help me find the local AmEx office to get some cash, and also he invited me for a tasty muffin and a coffee. He showed me around in the office, introduced me to zillions of people, and told me a few things about his position and how his team works. He's 30 at most, and he is a very friendly guy, and even he himself wants to dismiss any formalities - this seems quite general with the IT staff here. Basically everyone is encouraged to do whatever suits his own professional development best, and the actual project is almost just second in line behind that. This friendly atmosphere is also part of being an "Associate" of the Firm, not just an employee among thousands. So far I like this concept, though I am aware that this probably ain't the Holy Grail either :)
So back to my story ;) Lunch was again on Kevin, he took me and a Hungarian colleague from the MS graduate program to a new restaurant nearby - I had some very tasty pork cutlets, and Kevin also seemed to enjoy his fish meal. After lunch it was work and introductions again, and even though I faced a few problems which make my current seemingly very short assignment a lot longer than I expected, I don't feel uncomfortable with all this. I finished work at 6, went to the Tesco nearby to get something for dinner and breakfast, and then I joined two Hungarian colleagues for a small trip around the city. We took the Jubilee Line Underground to King's Cross & St. Pancras - the latter is an amazing red-brick building, I will have to go back in daylight later. Then we took a walk (and a beer) to Russell Square, and then a bus near the London Eye. I tried to take some pictures, but my camera is not that well suited for night photography. The Eye, the Parliament, the Big Ben - they are all very, very nice, again I will have to visit them in daylight. After this 2-3 hours long trip we took the Jubilee Line again to get home... all in all, it was very nice, I'm sure I will see a lot of beautiful things here :)
The traffic and the people are nothing special, not counting of course the traditional cabs and doubledeckers - which are of course all driving on the wrong side of the road :) Not so easy to get used to it, at each crossing I remind myself that I have to pay attention to this but concentrating on it makes it even more difficult :)
For the travels we used the so-called Oyster Card, which is basically a prepaid travelcard in London. On each trip you have to hold this card next to a proximity sensor - on buses the fare gets deducted immediately, on the underground you have to check out as well at the end of the trip so the fare gets calculated based on the zones you crossed. The system works pretty well, especially because the daily maximized cost is even lower than the price of a normal day ticket, so it's actually worth using it. Season tickets work more or less the same, but I don't think I would travel enough for say, weekly tickets to be worth their price.
Oh okay, I know this post is a bit mixed up, but it's late and I tried to squeeze in everything :)

Thanks for reading me!
M.

Pictures of an Exhibition

It would have been stylish to finish this in 50 posts :) But since this is the 51th, I have to find new goals in my life :)
So, yesterday evening I visited the Old National Gallery on the Museum Island, using the free entry on Thursdays for the second time. My main goal was to see a few Parisian impressionist pictures, as I by reading Van Gogh's biography by Irving Stone I really got in the mood of this style. I know, it's stupid to like paintings based on what's written about them :) But as Van Gogh met several of these guys during his days in Paris, and described the differences between and the typical style of each of them, I really wanted to see what he was talking about :) (The book is based on Vincent's letters to his brother Theo, so it's more or less okay to consider the words in the book his own words :) )
So. I've visited the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam before, and I am aware that I don't really like Vincent's style of painting, but I remember some pictures by contemporary painters that I liked. But now I needed a refresh of my memories :)
The museum itself is quite small, it took about 2 hours to see everything inside, including reading every label and studying every picture I've found interesting. Most of it is of course dedicated to German 19th century artists, with some amazingly detailed huge canvases, mostly on the royal family or some military-related event.
There are also some sculptures from that era, one of which really amazed me...It was exactly the same figure as one sculpture in the gardens of Sanssouci! Just this one was marble, and the other one was bronze. Here are the photos for comparison :)

So, now for the impressionists: there was only one room with their pictures, a few canvases from Manet, Monet, Cézanne, Van Gogh and Renoir, and a few Rodin sculptures, including a copy or study of his most famous 'The Thinker'. The colours and painting style these people used is really amazing, some canvases have lines that could have been drawn by 5 year olds but colours that take a special mind to come up with. The painting I liked the most was 'Summer' by Renoir, it just looked so real and displayed that exact moment so well...An amazing picture, looks a lot better in real life than on this small image :)
I guess it would be better if I did not lack the words necessary to describe art... :) But still, this was a good visit. Tomorrow I will try to go to one modern art museum too, showing some Picasso and Munch canvases. I hope I will have the time on my last full day here.
M.

Thursday afternoon

I think I neglected this blog for too long :) I posted one backdated entry for 13.02. and also one for last Friday. These were of course written on their respective days, so not much cheating is included :)
This weekend was a good one, I had friends around and we had a good time in a few pubs around Berlin :) We visited and exhibition on the LOTR movies, which was just great, with all the details on the special effects used, the concept art, and all the clothes, masks and other gear from the movie. I spent a lot more time there than my friends, but they were kind enough to have a beer and wait for me while I was sucking up information :) In the evenings, we beat each other and everyone around in foosball, and well, had a lot of generic fun :)
Monday was just a slow day, Tuesday was a day of an IMAX Safari movie (the fishes were a lot better...), Wednesday was just sitting at home, Thursday is just the interim period between 2 projects at work and hopefully visiting a museum in the evening, and Friday will be my last working day Berlin. Want some heartache? I sure got a lot to spare of that...Saturday evening/night we'll have a farewell party, so at least it will be a glorious end :) I wonder how I'll get up Sunday morning to catch the plane :)

Ok, no more days to talk about! Off to work then :)
M.

Another day, another dollar

Wow, this Sunday was long! And it was very good, too! :) As I mentioned before, I woke up, looked at the snow, did my laundry, and was more than ready to start my day rolling. The first step was heading to a 'net café and forget to post my previous entry, so it has to be backdated :) Then, I got a Turkish börek, with cheese, to keep my tummy occupied until dinner, which I was sure will be very late. I ate half of it and got on the bus, heading to the Museum of Photography. The museum is dedicated to Helmut Newton, and funded by the Foundation named after late artist, thus one floor only has the items of Mr. Newton. It's a very good part of the exhibition, gives a good insight on how many beautiful naked models he had the chance to photograph :) He also did quite good portraits, some were on display too. The other part of the exhibition was entitled "Men, war and peace", which had pictures by James Nachtwey, who was there in every region the US had intervened in the last few decades, be it Rwanda, Iraq, Afghanistan or the Balkan, and took very sad and very shocking pictures. I did not really understand how David LaChapelle's extravagant and colourful portraits were related to the title, but I really liked how his flamboyant pictures contrasted the black and white and pale sadness Nachtwey's pictures emanated. LaChapelle made very complicated pictures, using very bizarre setups and figures - of which the best example would be "Xenophobia", showing a black and a white model, naked, with their heads mixed up, seemingly by cutting the head off and sewing it to the other body. Hey, I said it was bizarre :) The third exhibition was about cities of the world, by a French guy with a name one easily forgets (Raymond Depardon, I looked it up). He was sent out by a French foundation with a still and a moving picture camera to shoot pictures of everyday moments in various cities around the world, including but not limited to Berlin, New York, Moscow, Johannesburg, Shanghai and Rio de Janeiro. There were twelve cities, each with around a dozen of photos, and a 5 minute reel. The photos were nice, everyday life at it's best, but the short movies were more interesting. They had 12 big movie screens in one huge room, and the films were running on and on, all at the same time (sans sounds, of course). The artist usually chose a semi-crowded place (he must have had an easy job in Tokyo :) ) and just filmed people running around. He is a man, so he usually followed a nice face (ass, even) or two in every city. Bah, men, they are all the same :P :) Actually I was quite suprised that none of the movies showed the camera being ripped out of his grip and stuck up his ass :) I thought people liked it a lot less to be observed, but it might just be me. I did not stay to watch all the films though, as it was a bit cold in that huge room, so I left to have a coffee before the movie I was going to watch. Right now the 57th annual Berlinale, the Berlin Film Festival is taking place here, which actually is the first film festival I've ever been to :) I watched one of the smaller movies, smaller as in "not part of the main program". It was entitled "The Fall", a film by the Indian director Tarsem Singh, or just Tarsem, as he was credited. And, I must tell you, I expected this flick to be amazing, and it truly was! To sum it up, it's about a 5 year old Romanian girl, living in the US in the 1920s, who is in a hospital with a broken arm, and who meets a young actor who lost the will to live. The actor tells her the most amazing story ever, and the story unfolds visually as if it was taking place in the girl's imagination. The special effects are great, used very well, and only in the necessary amount, this movie truly is something for the big screen. Both characters and scenery change as in the wildest dreams, since it's just that: a wild dream, a child's imagination :) The movie keeps a good balance between smiles and tears, and even though it did not seem to hold a too deep meaning, it was one of the best I've seen recently. After the movie was over, there was a very short Q&A session with Tarsem, which was sadly cut even shorter since the next program was about to start. Still, Tarsem answered a few questions, and as his train of thought rolled on in every answer, it was easy to see why the movie had the flow it had. The most interesting thing in the event was the applause after the movie :) Not usual in your neighborhood cinema :) I guess it would be better if I had allocated more time on this event, but there's always another time, though sadly most probably another place, too.
So, after the movie, I took the longer route back home, just so I become hungry enough for dinner :) I made Sechuan turkey, which turned out quite good (I even dared to add a little honey to the meat, though I did not feel that in the taste...), and sipped a nice Californian Chardonnay with it. I don't think I would spend this much money on a wine at home, but here, the price range at the supermarket is quite narrow, what I consider quality wine is between 4 and 6 EURs. And while at home I at least have a slight idea what regions and grape types mean, here, I only see the colour difference between an Australian Shiraz and a Spanish Rioja.
Anyhow, this Chardonnay by the Gallo family is very good, very tasty, so a good choice :)
Well, to wrap it up...I just realised will only spend one more weekend here in Berlin...next weekend I must go home, work reasons, and then it's only one more left. I guess I just should let go of "Sic transit gloria mundi" and let "Carpe diem" take it's place...
I only hope I quoted the fitting parts from my French cookbook :P
Oh wow this was long. Bye!
M.

Saturday bloody Saturday

Friday evening was nothing special, it was just too cold to move out, and I kinda enjoyed the first evening of the week alone. It was just the usual TV-shows-and-a-tea-evening. And the weekend also started as usual, I went to shop for whatever I'm going to eat during the weekend, and I tried to get a replacement for my lost sweater. Well, they have pretty ugly stuff on sale at Karstadt, so the replacement project will have to wait a while. I don't consider the morning wasted, per say, but I did spend a lot of time on things that were not really necessary. The plan for the afternoon was visiting the Dalí exhibition, so I headed for East Berlin again. 20 years ago this would have been a lot more exciting adventure :) The exhibition was nothing special, sadly, only 50 or so lithographies were on display, and only one single painting. The pictures on exhibit were good, though, they got the "Mad Genius" message through, but still, it was a lot less than I expected it to be. But since these prints were made in series by the man himself, if I had a few thousand euros to spare, I could have an original Dalí at home :) After the exhibition I hurried home, I had to get dinner ready and eaten quickly, so I can get to the last Neal Morse gig on time. So I just ate up stuff that was still in the fridge, and headed for Terra Incognita...Really, the "venue" was pretty far away, and hidden well behind a lot of communism-era 10 story houses. The "church" the concert was held in was just another small building, nothing church-like in it's appearance. Luckily, there was a guy smoking in front of the building, and as he saw me not finding my way, he was kind enough to show me where I wanted to go :) And the gig... Most probably not only the last worship gig Neal had in Berlin, but also the last I ever went to. Yes, he played his rock songs in an awesome way again (what a tremendous acoustic guitar solo!!), but this event was even weirder from the atheist POV than the one before. The church was one youth church, and it was the "let's stand up and raise our hands to the air and shout HALLELUJAH!"-kind :) The "worship" part of the gig was a lot longer than the one before, and the people there really seemed to get that feeling. Neal had a few good and really funny stories to tell, played his songs (waaaay too few of the rock ones, sadly), and then came the crazy part. I think he called it a "prayer", but it seemed more like a healing ritual to me :) In fact, I felt like an anthropologist finding and examining a strange tribe in the jungle :) The people stood in a circle and howled and cried and sang, to ask for the healing of a little girl, as far as I was able to tell. I did not want to seem impolite and leave, or even sit down, but all this was very incomfortable. I am very glad to have seen Neal Morse live, but I will try and pretend not to have seen him act "silly" :)
But well, it was not that bad, all in all, and it was at least not cold in the church :) Sadly it was on the way home and while waiting for the tram - and it was only like -2C! The cold wind only made it worse, though. So I got home, went to bed, and today I woke up to see snow covering everything again :) But now, I think my laundry is finished, so I'll just go and get them, and leave you to do more important stuff than reading me :)

M.

Hymn For A Heathen

Monday, Tuesday, nothing really happened. Monday I got here without problems, Tuesday we shared a bit of pálinka with the German colleagues, that's it. They are a nice bunch, as it turned out, and luckily my Hungarian colleague, who got to have his desk in a room with Germans does a good job in getting acquainted with them. Which is also good for me.
But the event of the week so far was something completely different; yesterday evening's Neal Morse concert. This guy has a very strange background: he was the frontman of one of the best modern progressive rock groups, Spock's Beard, but then he became a "born again" Christian, and released a few solo albums afterwards. Some of his work is worship music, which I'm neither familiar, nor comfortable with, but he released 3 top notch rock albums too (and the 4th one comes end of this month...). So all in all, he makes great rock music, and for some reason he has a soft spot for Germany, so he has a few gigs here each year. Like now. But. These are not "average" rock gigs, but he does solo acoustic shows in churches. So yesterday evening I voluntarily went to church, to see the man live for the first time :) Well. The music he plays is awesome, even though he plays alone on a single guitar or keyboard. And we were like 30 people in the audience. I did not use the chance for a meet-and-greet (but there are 3 more gigs here this week, all free entry, so... :) ), but he was there conversing with people in the crowd and such. The music part was really great, but I did not like the worship part at all. I'm really not familiar with all this, and it just seems like a show to me - even though Neal probably meant all the prayers and teaching just the way he said them. I can easily relate to the merry tone in his religiously themed lyrics, but I am definitely not experiencing the same stuff he does when he performs them.
So, all in all, it was a strange evening, but worth my time. The only problem I had was with the heating, or rather the lack of it, in the church. It was effin freezing by the end of the show...I hope the other churches he performs in are warmer :) I guess I'll skip tonight's show, but I'll be there on the last one on Saturday, that's certain. Friday, I'm not sure yet.

Well, that's all...be well, and eat your veggies!
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.

Recap on the weekend

This weekend was spent alone again. People left on Friday in the afternoon, and I was almost the last person to leave the offices, due to some problems others had with my work. Of course the culprit wasn't me, even though all the traces led to me. I'm not really fond of how the version and project control software works here :(
So after a long Friday I spent the evening at home (I think, I can't really recall :D but hey, it was 3 days ago! ) All I know is that I bought some tea, again, Ostfriesische Blattmischung (translates to East Frisian Leaves Mix) this time, which is very good, and I chose it myself this time. So I'm kinda proud of myself :)
Saturday in the morning I did my laundry (how exciting) and also bought food to cook dinner on the two days of the weekend. I did plan to do some clothes shopping and stuff during the day, so I went to check out the nearby Karstadt. This is basically a big store with a lot of different branches (clothing, electronics, books, etc.) I did find a pair of trousers that would be second best in any competition, but I think I'm gonna look for the winner in some other store too. I also found some scarfs which were made out of the right material, but I did not like the design. So basically I did not buy anything :) But there was also a hairdressers in the store, which I visited, and even though I lacked the words to explain properly what I wanted, the end result does not look that bad. All my ears are still in place and stuff. And with some promotional price the haircut only cost two times the Hungarian price I usually pay :)
In the end I also bough some South African wine in the store to complement, which was quite surprising - it delivered exactly the taste I was expecting. I don't usually get that from wine. It was only a Sauvignon Blanc/Chardonnay couvee, but still, it tasted like it should, and that pleased me.
In the evening I went to the movies to see the Borat movie, which was quite funny, even though it was very weird :) IMHO it was not Borat making an idiot of himself most of the time, but the people he fooled. Though I'm sure some of the were filled in, otherwise they would have killed the poor guy with bare hands :) One surprise in the movie theather (Cinestar in the Sony Center at Potsdamer Platz) was, that almost everyone around was a native English speaker. Though there were some Spanish and German too :) And my German while buying the tickets must have been horrible, the cashier girl immediately asked if I wanted to see the movie in English :P This may be the reason for not having any subtitles on the movie, which was just fine.
Dinner was nothing special, by the way, I just fried some chicken breasts and had some frech fries and barbecue sauce with it. And of course the wine I mentioned. After dinner and an episode of one of my series, I slept like 12 hours. Not that I had to hurry anywhere in the morning or to do anything at night. So anyhow, I woke up and got ready just in time to catch the historical U-Bahn train to take me to the U-Bahn museum and the Olympic Stadium. The train was nice, it had people opening the doors, and there was even a guide who told us the story of the Berlin underground railway system. I chose a non-smoking car in the train, but still, it smelled like an old bum. The ride was not that bad altogether, just the smell and the heat made it a bit uncomfortable :) The museum itself was quite nice, with free entry, as this weekend was dedicated to Alfred Grenander, the architect designing lot of the Berlin U-Bahn stations. In the museum there were the usual things, old U-Bahn-tickets, old uniforms, insides of old cars, and an old Siemens control system for the complex U-Bahn station of the Olympia Stadion. I also got to know that in the 80s and 90s Berlin had a maglev train, the M-Bahn, which was used for normal public transport for 2 years in the late 80s until the Berlin Wall was brought down. It was also interesting to see how the Wall tore the underground network in two, some line were just used on one half of their line, others simply skipped the stations on the Eastern Side. One exception was Bahnhof Friedrichstraße (German link), the so-called Palace of Tears, which was used as a border station and was the place for a lot of sad goodbyes while the city was split.
All in all, it was an interesting visit. After the museum I still had time before the next historical train went back in the city, so I decided to check out the Olympic Stadium. Well, it's big. And now I've seen it, even from the inside. Surely a lot of sport fans would kill me for being so cool about this :) But it's just a stadium ;) I had a lot of time to walk around, I've even seen a football match on one smaller sportsfield nearby, between two smaller teams. The road home was fine, I listened to the second part of the guide's story (the man must have repeated it like 6 times that day...), and headed home for an early dinner. I had the other half of the chicken breasts, but this time with sweet-sour sauce by Uncle Ben's and rice, and some leftover wine. The candle I lit complemented it just fine, and of course I had my private reasons to light it too. After dinner I watched the movie "Proof", which was quite good, only as crazy as it had to be. It totally deserves the 7 points IMDb lists it with. I think the synopsis is quite useless on the movie, though, but that's because the timeline is quite mixed up in the flick :)

Phew, long entry. I'd rather not say anything about today, it was long and boring anyhow :)

Oh, and next weekend I'm gonna have visitors again :D
Great success!
M.

Short report

I'm having my first visitors here! They arrived on Wednesday at 3am, after a long and tiring drive, and will stay here until Sunday. I took Wednesday off (it's a national holiday in Hungary, so it would have been free anyhow), and we visited the Schloß Rheinberg, castle of Prince Heinrich in the late 18th century, where we had a guided tour just for the 3 of us, with a guide speaking a quite strange German. But it was fun, after the repairs going on in the castle insides are finished, it will be a very beautiful building - now it was "only" very nice :) It's strange somehow that this was my first trip outside the city limits in the past 6 weeks, but it was definitely worth it. My friends did some sightseeing yesterday and today, and we're going to check out Postdam and the Sanssouci Castle together tomorrow. So it's going to be an interesting weekend again.
Oh yeah, and it turned very cold this week. I will have to buy a scarf. Which will probably happen next week, since nothing is open on Sunday, the only day I'll spend in Berlin this weekend.

That's all for now :)
M.