Porno = Cool, Festival of Lights and Einstürzende Neubauten.

So, I've heard a few times in Berlin, people talking and ending a conversation or a sentence with "das ist sehr porno". Which I translated as "that's very porno", thinking they're talking about something erotic or twisted. No, apparently, in Berlin, "porno" means "cool". So I'm getting used to hearing that and not have my mind in the gutter!!!

In other news, my German courses are coming along, I'm revisiting stuff I learned in University and it's finally making sense. What a difference having to pay for school makes! Also the fact that I'm 35 and not 18, helps. I'm studying hard and making good progress. It's been good to interact with people and I'm starting to make friends. Unfortunately, I've gravitated towards the French crowd, and so we're not practicing our German all that much :-( However, tonight there's a group activity, which should be cool. The Christmas season starts tonight (no Thanksgiving, no Halloween, might as well). Berlin has something called "Festival of Lights", which as you can imagine is all about decorating houses and buildings with tons of Xmas lights, but also with spotlights and lasers! Think Zoolights meets a Rave. So we're all going around and walking through the city centre (Mitte) and look at these lights and see the sights at the same time.

After that, we're going to Winery, where you pay 1 euro to get in, they hand you a glass and you try a many different wines as you'd like, and then at the end, pay what you think what you had is worth.  So if it's all crap, then you could technically, not give them anything. But I don't think that's the point. So, the Frenchies have decided to try that out. I'll tag along, but won't go to hard at it, as I'm nursing a cold. But it'll be fun to hang out with people.

Today we had lunch and discussions were had about forming a band. So now I need to find a guitar. So I will hunt for that over the weekend. We'll see how that goes. So far we have a singer, a drummer, a guy who says he plays a mean tambourine and me, on guitar. This should be sehr interessant.

And on the domestic front, I am without a bathtub and shower since yesterday. They had to remove the tub to get to the pipes. They put the tub back in, but did no caulking and broke all the tiles around it. I've had no notice from the management company of when they will come and complete the work. I have a sneaky suspicion that I will have to figure out how to ask "Where is the closest Home Depot?". Luckily, this is something I can actually do. I'll have to run it by the owner first though. This was stressing me out yesterday, but today I've decided to just roll with it.

That's it. I wish I had a TV, but it's prolly for the best that I don't.

Oh, and I'm going to see 2 concerts this month. On Oct. 23 I'm going to see Tocotronic, one of my favorite German bands, soooooo excited. And on Oct. 29, I'm seeing Berlin legends Einstürzende Neubauten, for their 30th anniversary concert. These guys are the fathers of Industrial Music. I know most (all) of you have never heard of these guys, but think Nine Inch Nails, but even harder, weirder and darker. For example, some of their songs use jackhammers as the rhythm section, whereas the guitar parts would be played by saws on a piece of metal. I've seen them before in Montreal, and the highlight was one of the guys dumping buckets of rocks on a steel slide as part of the beat. I know, not quite a night at the opera, but if you know me, it's completely up my alley.

So there, that's what I'm up to.