Street Art und Les Copains

Ok, so Berlin is THE grafiti capital of the world I would say. Basically, they change on a daily basis. I live across from a vacant field in old West Berlin that used to be a bit of a No Man's land, by the wall. In any case, on a daily basis, I get to see Berliner Street Artists in action.

So the "bear" wasn't there yesterday. And I'm hoping he'll stick around for a while, but most likely, someone will paint over it soon enough. I swear to God, Kreuzberg reeks of spray paint. But it's so cool, to see this change on a daily basis. There is so much creativity and it's kinda great that Berlin let's it happen.

On a different subject, as I may have mentionned before, I've made some friends, and the core group is Francophones, but to that, we've made some German friends. So, let me introduce them a little bit.

The core:

Me.
Adrien. And he often brings Julna, who's from Lebanon. Adrien and I have very deep and complex conversations.
Romain. And his friend Amelie, who is West Berliner. We're becoming fast friends. I kinda have a crush on both ...
Judith and Jan. Jan is such a nice guy, and Judith is the ultimate French girl. I absolutely love her.

Then, there's Gülçin, who's Turkish, but was born and raised here. She tells it like it is. I also absolutely love her. She's so funny and speaks with a Brooklyn accent.

Then, there are Jan's friends, Max und Christian. Christian wants to take me to his village to show me what rural Germany is. He's from Brandenburg. No, not the state, but the village. As in Branderburger Tor (The Gate to Brandenburg). It used to be a very important place in the countryside.

And Max insisted we find a nightclub to go dancing. And so we did. Til 5 am. I know, early for Berlin.

And beyond that, there have been people in my classes. Some have already gone, but some will be here for a while. There's Dai, from Vancouver. He's my connection home. Nice guy, very committed to learning the language. Always offering a word of encouragement.

Then, there was Berglind, my beauty from Iceland. She is such a character. She left the school to go back and work at Icelandair, but she'll be back in a few weeks. Hopefully she'll stop in to say Go∂an Daginn.

So, that's it. Tomorrow we sleep, but the plan is to meet at White Trash Fast Food for dinner and whatever. We'll see. Julna wants to go "en boîte". On Sunday, I'm thinking of going to Potsdam, the former royal residence. It's but an S-Bahn ride away. I also have to get a "handy". I'll have to figure that out. And also get instruments. We're starting a band. Watch out Berlin.

Oh, and my German's coming along in strides. Of course, I make lots of grammatical errors, but Amelie told me that in Berlin, most people don't care. I keep getting corrected, however, for using the "formal" Sie (plural form of "you", used for formal situations or old people. They drill it into you, as the best way to speak in German). Jan, in particular, corrects me about that. Ich muss "ihr" benützen. I think that's so toll. Super porno.