Moving pictures

El laberinto del fauno - this was the movie I watched this evening. It's a Guillermo del Toro movie, who's probably not the most famous director around. The movie is not completely unlike The Fall, as both have a young girl as a heroine and both movies unfold as the girl dreams them up. The main difference is that the Labyrinth is a very, very dark movie, full of pain, hopelessness and despair. Some of the images are also quite disturbing, and I did not feel the need to include such scenes to keep the tension up. And of course the movie was in Spanish, with English subtitles (I was expecting German subtitles, now that would have been interesting :) ). I was glad to notice that I did not forget all my Spanish, but without the subs I would have been almost completely lost. Most sentences I was only able to reconstruct after reading the translation. I think the main problem with my Spanish understanding skills, that it takes a lot of time to consume a sentence - I guess I should improve this. Speaking and writing is a completely different matter, right now I am quite hopeless in this field :)
But anyhow, the movie was very good, with good acting again - I guess we'll hear the name of the young actress who played Ofelia in the movie (Ivana Baquero). The movie is nominated in 6 categories at this year's Academy Awards, it'll be interesting how many it gets and in categories. Of course at the time I'll post this entry, written on Friday evening, the Oscar ceremony will be already over.

(Update: Das Leben der Anderen got the Oscar for best foreign movie, and it deserved it, too. I think El Laberinto got one for best mask & special effects.)

Erm, my mind keeps wandering. I should rest before the coming tiring last-weekend-in-Berlin party :)
Take care,
M.

Music is my aeroplane

Well I figured I should just write a short entry on the week so far. Wednesday I went to the gig mentioned, PRR supporting Blackfield. PRR played the shorter show, since it was not "their" gig per say, but they were great nevertheless! Sadly they did not play "Nimos and Tambos", which is probably my favourite song, but they were very good. Strangely they played most of their tracks as a whole, not pause inbetween, so they did not get much applause between tracks :) I hope they did enjoy the show, too. Blackfield was also awesome, Steven Wilson is probably one of the few people I actually believe that making music can be a full-time job. He has like 5 different projects, and Porcupine Tree and Blackfield are both very successful in their respective genre. Their show was great, they played most of their songs, and also "Thank You" by Alanis Morissette. Sadly the tallest people in all Germany like this kind of music too, and they decided to stand in front of me :) The concert ended around midnight, and I managed to catch a train, and also a rain shower before I went to bed. So it was another good evening.
Tomorrow some friends come to visit for the weekend, that will definitely be fun.

And, on other news, my current status here in berlin, at my job is quite confusing. It most probable that I will leave next weekend, but I might get one week more. The former is like 99%, the latter is almost impossible. Maybe someone should make up her mind, eh, Mrs. Boss? :)

So...have a good weekend, y'all!
M.

Silence of the Berliners

I'm back, I'm fine, but not in the mood to write anything...I guess I will know in one or two days what will happen with me in the next month. And tomorrow is Pure Reason Revolution and Blackfield concert time!

So that's all for now.
M.

Damaged people

There's not much to say about the beginning of this week. I finished the two things at work I've been busy with in the last month, and today I had a few hours almost free, as I had to wait for someone to check my work. These last 2 and a half weeks here will be very, very busy, but now I'm at least interested in what I'm doing. It's still not rocket science, but the complexity of my tasks is going the good way.
Today saw two things happening. One was me forgetting to pay at the cantine and just walking away with my tray :) I realized quite quickly, though, the one step of the process was left out, and it was all okay, but I got some strange looks :) The other thing is another new Hungarian colleague arriving. I was asked to show him around and tell him about stuff, and he managed to freak me out by the end of the day. I introduced him to one of the system administrators, who usually gives an introduction how the development enviroment we use works. So they agreed to have this presentation at 3pm. So, at 5 past 3 I checked on the new guy, and he was still in his office, so I kindly reminded him of his meeting. And when I next saw him, a bit after 4pm, I asked how the session went. Well, he told me that he could not find the room where he had to go, so he just went back to his office. Without saying a word about it. At this point he lost me, I don't think there would be any legal reasons to be such an idiot. It's amazing that when we got here the "old" Hungarian guys were all normal, we (probably) ain't too bad as well, and after us 90% of the people are just complete wackos :)
I hope this new guy won't need need much more help, since I don't really feel like I should waste my time on such an ignoramus.

Not much more to say...Tomorrow evening will be spent in pubs with German colleagues, it shall be fun and foosball all night long :)

That's all!
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.

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Quite a few things have happened since I last blogged about anything. We went out to Wednesdays ago with colleagues, both Hungarian and German, and had a good party at a place with a foosball table and later at a place with some good music. The evening was a lot of fun, a lot of German talking experience, and all of this cost me only a lost sweater :) Strangely enough the music place only had and entry fee for people under 27, which I don't really understand the reasons of. But the crowd was not to old this way either, so this strange policy did not cause any problems.
On the Friday of the same week we visited the local Planetarium for a show about Einstein and his theorems, but that was neither very interesting nor did it tell us engineers any thing too new. The show was worth it's price, but not a dime more. Later we checked out a foosball place called Wiener Blut, or Viennese Blood, which was quite fun, we did not even play as bad as I think I would. Okay, we lost all games against the local people, but only by a small margin :)
The weekend I had visitors again, and I was lucky enough to get the keys to the apartment of one Hungarian colleague, so Dad and my brother had a proper bed to sleep on. We visited every single interesting thing in the city, including a few places (e.g. the Reichstag or the TV tower) which I did not check out yet. The weather could have been better, the rain chased us in the IMAX movie one evening, but all in all it was a very good weekend. I had a few problems with taking Monday free, but strangely enough the only boss who was quite angry about it was the one who had the least to do with it :P
This last week was very, very tiring, I had a few 10+ hours workdays, and I was tired enough to have the wrong flight home booked. Luckily it did not take too much effort to correct this mistake and I got home and had the chance to sleep a bit, finally.
So this was the very condensed summary of these last almost two weeks. And now, let my last month in Berlin begin...*sigh*...
M.

Polly wants a cracker...NOT!

Well, travel and flying is always an experience. Time between my last entry and now was spent as usual, no virtual rainforests should be cut down for the reason of archiving those events. But today...I got to the airport early as always, and the gate was changed 3 times in 10 minutes, we were basically just running up and down in the airport :) And while I was waiting for boarding to begin, I was trying to phrase a polite mail of complaint to the operators of the airport, as I noted that the security checks were quite sloppy - airport personnel was checked at the gates, but they were free to go in spite of the gate *BEEP*ing. At Berlin-Tegel, for example, also the personnel is carefully checked, and well, that's the way it should be. So anyhow, I was thinking about this subject, and was interrupted by some girls who asked me if I wanted to fill out a "How satisfied are you with the airport" form :) Hell I did. So now they know :P
Then, we got on the bus that took us to our plane, which was operated by Augsburg Airways (nice historical reference :) ), and was the first turbo-prop plane I've ever flown with. It was a Dash 8 Q400, where the Q stands for "quiet due to installation of the Active Noise and Vibration Suppression (ANVS) system designed to reduce cabin noise and vibration levels to nearly those of jet airliners", which translates to "feels just like the inside of a coctail shaker". The other problem was that we did not get a sandwich for breakfast, but chocolate crackers. They were good, but too little, too late :) And the plane was of course slow like a paralyzed snail, so we were just able to catch our connecting flight. All in all, that part of the trip was pretty bad :) The other leg went just fine, got me to work, where I'll try to sleep stay awake for an hour or two more.

For dinner I will try the sandwich maker I brought with, I hope it tastes good :P Or that at least the sandwiches will.
Take care,
M.

A Hard Day's Day(s)

Catching the minibus to the airport at 4:50 am was just the beginning. The flight, which should have taken off at 7:10 was stranded at BUD for 45 minutes, because the weather was quite foggy in MUC. At least we got an extra orange juice during the wait. Our connecting flight was only 20 minutes late, at least that was written on the board, but the take off only happened like 30 minutes later, again, because of the fog. When I looked out the window while we were on the runway, I did not even see the wing of the plane. That's a reassuring sight, I must tell you :) Going a few hundred kmh with virtually no visibility is definitely a lot of fun :) The layer of fog was only like 10 meters thich though, and the weather was fine and sunny above :) Strangely enough basically only the Munich Airport (name after the late Franz Josef Strauß, minister-president of Bavaria) and it's surroundings were still covered with fog whe we were already airborne, which is either very unlucky or a very bad choice of place for an airport.
So anyhow, the journey ended well, we had a good lunch (lasagne and canelloni at the usual Italian restaurant), and a very exhausting day of bugfixing for me after. I had a good dinner, and just chilled out in the evening for a few hours watching Desperate Housewives, Dead Like Me and reading Good Omens. Terry Pratchett + Neil Gaiman = tons of fun. My colleague, who stayed here for the weekend to get visited by his family borrowed my camera for the weekend, and after work he dropped in to return it, he was quite satisfied with it. I might have convinced him to buy a Kodak :)
Today...Maybe even worse than Monday? :) Crazy bugs, crazier fixes, but it's more or less over for today. Oh yeah, and I guess I did not even mention that on Friday there was not ticket waiting for me at the airport, as promised, so it took a few minutes to sort everything out for my trip home. These last 3 days were not that good for work :)
One good thing might be that I was asked if it would be okay to work on a project in March from here...We'll see how that turns out :)

Well, enough of me for today!
M.

The way to a man's heart...

Yesterday was just one like all the other days. We did play a few games of pool and foosball after work, though, and ate a great Turkish dürüm again. So it was fun. No real reason to blog about it, though :)
But I had a reason to start this entry : Passendale cheese. (The web page is in French, but you can also check it out in Dutch :) ) Passendale is a Belgian cheese company, and they make the greatest cheese I've tasted here until now. Their product is so rich in flavour, it's quite surprising, and still, it does not dominate with it's taste, but perfectly complements the taste of any of the sandwiches I used it for. I have no idea where it is sold in other countries, but I'm lucky enough to have a shop nearby that sells them :)
Oh yeah, the other thing is Rote Grütze, which stands for "Red Groats". It's just fruit with vanilla sauce, but it's very tasty, the ingredients make a perfect combination. That's another thing not to be found in Hungary, that's for sure...
I hope you are hungry now :) Bon appetit!
M.

The weights of the world seem lighter...

...after such a great morning trip. I think today on the BUD-MUC leg our flight took a route slightly to the South compared to the usual, and thus I had great view on the Alps! There were only very light clounds, the sun was shining, the top of the mountains was covered with snow... The fog/clouds was trapped in some of the valleys, and in a turn of one river the fog was just trapped over the water and flowing with it... Amazing sights! I wish I had the equipment to make good photos of this kind of stuff! (Of course I did not even try this time with my camera...The results would have been too much of a letdown :) ) On the second leg from MUC to TXL the weather was very cloudy, not offering much to look at, and I was too occupied with solving the Sudoku in my USA Today newspaper anyhow. There was also an article about the new "No Child Is Left Behind" educational program, and it's criticism: kids have to do to much math and reading, and even have to write tests! Well, when I was in primary school, tests were quite usual, and I guess they payed enough attention to how well us kids individually improved. If I remember correctly. Strangely enough, the Hungarian primary school system is changing currently to put less emphasis on tests. As if the praised (by us :) )European education model would get substituted with the American one, and vica versa. Interesting.
So well, I woke up tired but smiling, and the day started fine. This is going to be a nice week, in spite of the rain, I'm sure :)
BTW the week has a basketball game and a Dali exhibition in store for me, I hope I can visit both! But I will definitely blog on those...

Well, time to work :)
M.

Back in business

With a well deserved time out spent in Budapest behind me, I'm back to Berlin for a while. I will definitely head back home for the weekend and return on Monday, but after that everything is rather uncertain. Well, most important would be to have nice weather throughout January, that would bring the mood to do some quality work and decent thinking :)
This morning started quite early, I was at the airport at 6am already. With everything going fine I arrived in Berlin at around noon, to have a great lunch and start fixing some things that were left unfinished last year. After work I've also found the apartment tidy, luckily nothing crept out of the fridge while I was away. So I just made a quick trip to the store to fill my rations for the week, and started typing this after a nice dinner. Sleep will come swiftly, that's for sure.

Bye-bye und auf Wiedersehen,
M.

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.