26.03.19 - A bruxa está solta

Halloooo,

Lovely to see you t'other day, hope you got back OK.  This week's entry is probably slightly redundant given two of you were here all weekend and already know what I/we got up to.  So for anyone else reading and for the benefit of posterity, here it is in free verse:

Ich bin ein Berliner! Half a duck if you please, and a pint of Malteser. In the Turtle restaurant, under the pipes, which are above the ground. And the sun is OUT! Fortified by kaffeekuchen, flitting through the Tiergarten, walrus moustaches aplenty.  Brandenburg Gate, Unter den Linden, Schlesisches Tor, try saying that five times quickly. Perched on a giant bronze woman, Ramones playing, burgers, trains filing by. Over to Kreuzberg to look at all the lovely things, endless walking, haggling over a paper bag, ceiling art for some, strange masks for others. Down south for a vernissage and a kebab, then subterranean jazz, then bed. Mauerpark the next day, sampling the Flohmarkt wares, a glimpse of the GDR from a Trabi tent at the Kultur Brauerei, Brexit monologue, then the papers and flammkuchen at the Kant café.

It's back to work as usual now, but I've got not one but two new compilations to soften the blow, and my phrase of the day ("the witch is on the loose!") is used whenever there are reports of similar misfortunes befalling a group of people over a short period of time. 

Bis später,

Schadenfred

19.03.19 - Conhecer alguém de outros carnavais

Halloooo,

Hope you had a wonderful, birthday-ish week.  Here in Berlin I've been balancing work with pounding the streets, fending off the constant rain, eating doughnuts etc.  

On Friday night I went on a recce to an open mic night in an underground Kreuzberg bar, and had my first currywürst of the season, then headed off to a cool nearby covered market the following morning, and on to Tempelhof air field to cycle down abandoned runways, which was pretty awesome/windy.

I also checked out all seven floors of the Kaufhaus des Westerns (or KaDeWe pour les intimes), which is apparently the largest department store in Europe and basically the German Harrods, full of people perched at counters eating grilled lobster tails and suchlike - very cool, and absolutely packed. 

On Sunday I went to Museum Island via Hauptbanhof, Unter den Linden and the Bundestag (= "the building of bottoms" in Portuguese), but the rain set in and I had to bail out at Alexanderplatz, heading home for tea and Skype.  

And yesterday I went to see the Junge Deutsche Orchestra in the cheap seats at the Berlin Philharmonic, which was pretty amazing. I basically just went to see the inside of the building, and was expecting to watch a bunch of kids play Three Blind Mice, but it turned out to be an experimental, Stockhausen-esque tour de force featuring 8 double basses and a guy bashing sheets of metal at unexpected moments. The best description I could come up with is "the end of The National Anthem crossfaded with the end of How to Disappear Completely, but with Radiohead edited out entirely". And then a bit of Schumann in the encore to calm down the traditionalists in the audience.

I have made, how you say, eine neue Zusammenstellung, and my Brazilian expression of the day is "to know someone from other Carnavals", which is a wistful turn of phrase for running into an old acquaintance, and seems fitting now that Carnaval season is over and everyone in Brazil is starting the new year proper at the moment.

Ice cream in Berlin in four days! (Or ice cold in no man's land in 40 seconds)

Sigmund Fred

12.03.19 - Como tirar leite de pedra

Halloooo,

Hope all well mit du.  Here in Berlin it's perpetually dark and rainy (with occasional snow) and the work never ends, and now on top of it all I seem to have been kidnapped by my boss and forced to spend the whole of 2019 living out of a suitcase in Europe, although I've since worked out a plan and managed to negotiate some time off in September to attend my own wedding, at least.

Otherwise I made the most of the weekend to get the hell out of the flat and pace furiously around town, gorging on pastries and listening to Berlin-era Bowie. On Saturday I went to an exhibition on Bauhaus at the Bröhan Museum, which was basically just a bunch of uncomfortable-looking chairs, but was pretty cool nonetheless, then wandered around the Westend and briefly into the Haus des Rundfunks, which is fun to visit and to say even (although I apparently need to book the full tour to look around properly).

In the evening I went for a mighty fine burger with my flat/workmates, and on to the Sony Centre to watch the perfectly adequate Captain Marvel on the biggest IMAX screen I've ever seen. Then on Sunday I had a bit of a breakthrough, transport-wise, when I used the Deezer Nextbike app to commandeer a Berlin Velib to the outskirts of Teufelsberg, before the freezing rain drove me back home to regroup. 

I've made a new compilation, and my phrase of the week, dedicated to our increasingly delayed and hapless software developers, means "like drawing milk from a stone", which is Brazilian for "like drawing blood from a stone".  

Tschüss!

Frederhosen

05.03.19 - Cavalo do Paraguai

Hallo from Berlin, city of German people.

I've been hard at work all week with new colleague and housemate Oli, but in between all the cascading spreadsheets and technical reviews, I've been out pounding the streets in an attempt to get to know my temporary abode.  

My wanders so far have taken me to Potsdamer Platz, the Brandenburg Gate, the Berlin Philharmonic, the Tiergarten in its entirety, Charlottenburg Palace and gardens, Checkpoint Charlie and plenty of other far-flung locales.  Of course as it turns out, Berlin is very big, so I'll have to pace myself a bit.

Other highlights to date include:

Viral marketing campaign?

- going to watch live jazz in a tiny bar under some train tracks, basically perched on top of the upright piano; 

- hitting up a German language practice group only to find everyone there spoke much better German than me, and ending up talking to the organiser in English after a few cack-handed attempts to introduce myself; 

- going to the best burger bar in town, in what used to be a public bathroom under more train tracks (I sense a theme developing here); 

- going out for some damn good sushi with Oli and his wife; and, 

- exploring my neighbourhood in search of ever more lavish kaffekuchen sessions, before settling on a relentlessly quirky café that plays Nick Cave deep cuts.

In the midst of all that I've made another compilation (may contain Kraftwerk... and Noah!), and my phrase of the week ("Paraguayan horse") refers to teams which begin a game or a season like a house on fire, only to run out of steam towards the end (ahem).  The implication being that anything sold to you by Paraguayans, crafty scamps that they are, will be inherently dodgy and unfit for purpose, including racehorses.

Speak soon, for the next round of Teutonic tales and Wilmersdorfer whimsy.

Bis bald!

Freidrichstraße