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.

Le vrai bonheur

Bon, là j'écris en français, parce que c'est pertinent. Il n'y a pas beaucoup de chansons qui me font pleurer, en fait, je ne crois pas qu'il y en ait eu beaucoup auparavant, mais je dois faire mention d'une chanson en particulier. C'est "Le vrai bonheur" de Karkwa. Si un jour, j'arrive à aimer quelqu'un au point de m'inspirer à écrire quelque chose d'aussi beau, d'aussi touchant, d'aussi sincère que cette chanson, j'espère ne jamais échapper ce vrai bonheur. Autant la musique, que les paroles, me touchent au plus profond de mon être. Merci à Karkwa de me ramener dans cet endroit de pureté, d'amour honnête, qu'il ne m'est pas arrivé de vivre depuis longtemps.

Stammtisch

So Stammtisch is a sort of gathering, for newbies at the school I go to. It's 2 am, just got home and I have class at 9 am. Ich werde am gestern sehr müde gewesen. Aber, das ist sehr nett.

The land of no Thanksgiving

No decorations. No day off. No Turkey smells (although I am vegetarian, I used to eat these things and remember that the smell did make me hungry). Yet, still thankful for all the things and people in my life. Tonight, in lieu, I am going to a meet and greet at my language school to - hopefully - improve my German. Or at least interact with other human beings who speak a language I can understand. This morning, for some reason, all Frenchies wound up in the same area. This might happen again. Oh well. Happy gobble-gobble, or as I call it, Yam day.

Gimme 2 weeks and I'll own this town

It's 7:21 am, just got back from my first "night out" in Berlin. Went to TRESOR to see/hear Gus Gus. Got there at 1 am, figuring that was late enough. Not quite. Their set didn't start 'til 4:30 am. Next time, 3 am seems like an appropriate hour.

TRESOR is in an old Power Station, with several levels, with a proper bar on the 1st floor, and something that looks more like a dungeon in the basement. Obviously, the best music was in the basement. I'll be picking out shards of glass from the soles of my shoes for days to come.

Funnily enough, at the start, I was amazed at how bad German boys dance. And my second thought was "they can't all be straight!!". In any case, didn't want to do anything to piss anyone off, so stuck to my own (I'm just dancing on my own ...). The music got progressively better and so did their dancing.

Gus Gus fucking slayed. As opposed to the resident DJs, who stuck to typical minimal Berlin techno, Gus Gus infused a bit of funk and deep house into their set, which was amazing. They only played one track of theirs, albeit heavily remixed (Hateful).

Lowlight of the evening: the doormen didn't even want to look at my ID, they just hushered me in :-(
Highlight of the evening: the big bruiser that was checking me out, despite the chicks dancing with him. He unfortunately took off like a bat out of hell once he realized what he was doing. Too bad, his loss.

Walking home at dawn is always an interesting thing. I saw a cute little bunny who was trying to hide from me in the weeds on the side of the road. Poor thing, stuck in this concrete city. Other creatures of the night I could've done without: the gigantic cockroaches on the sidewalk, near a squat, and the rats chasing each other at the U-Bahn station. Berlin is anything but clean.

Now that I've done the baptism by fire thing, I'm ready to tackle the Mecca of nightclubs: Friedrichshain's notorious Berghain, which apparently has the toughest door policy in the world. We'll see. Gimme 2 weeks and I'll fucking own this city.

Stockholm

Just got back from Stockholm. Check out the pics below.

The Royal Palace, in Gamla Stan (old town)

Storkyrkan (Stockholm Cathedral) in Gamla Stan.

Medieval houses on Stortorget, Gamla Stan.

One of the beautiful old streets of Old Town. Some of these are barely 15 feet wide.

Norrport, the Northern Gate that leads to Old Town. This is part of the Swedish Goverment Building, the Rijkdags. On the north side, is the neighbourhood of Norrmalm, and the pedestrian street Drottningsgatan (Queen's Gate).

Drottningsgatan, this morning. Further up this street is Central Stockholm, Sergels Torg.

Sergels Torg. Central Stockholm.

The Royal Theatre.

Inner Harbour Scene. Stockholm is built on 14 different islands, on the north and south shores of Lake Mälaran.

 Stockholm is very much a mix of new and old constructions. Some of the newer buildings are way out there. In the forefront, the north entrance of the main Train Station.

This was my hotel, by the main train Terminal. This was about the only ugly part of Stockholm.

None of my pictures render the city well, it was overcast and somehow my camera wasn't able to render the colours properly. I went to Old Town 3 times, just wandering the old cobblestone streets.

What the pictures don't render is the amazing shopping. Not only was there great shopping in Old Town, but on Drottningsgatan, and then in Östermalm, all the upscale shopping is incredible. Around every corner there seemed to be a little square, with stands selling fruits and vegetables, and fresh flowers (yes in October, no less!!!).

Oh, and I thought Paris was hard to beat when it came to fashion. I might as well have been wearing a potato sack. I had the be careful to not get cut by the women's cheekbones as I walked by. Holy genetic gene pool jackpot.

Needless to say, Stockholm, I'll be back (with better clothes and more money!!!!).

Routine

Yesterday: laundry.
Today: shopping.
Tomorrow: Stockholm.