Online Hiatus

Instantes (Instants)

2012-02-25T21:31:00.001+02:00

Instantes by Jorge Luis Borges is relevant as ever. Have to always keep in mind we just get to have one shot at things.

If I were able to live my life anew,
In the next I would try to commit more errors.
I would not try to be so perfect,
I would relax more.
I would be more foolish than I've been,
In fact, I would take few things seriously.
I would be less hygienic.
I would run more risks,
take more vacations,
contemplate more sunsets,
climb more mountains,
swim more rivers.
I would go to more places where I've never been,
I would eat more ice cream and fewer beans,
I would have more real problems and less imaginary ones.

I was one of those people that lived sensibly
and prolifically each minute of his life...
Of course, I had moments of happiness...
If I could go back
I would try to have only good moments.

Because, if you didn't know, of that is life made -
only of moments...

Don't lose the now!
I was one of those that never went anywhere
without a thermometer,
a hot-water bottle,
an umbrella,
and a parachute...

If I could live again,
I would travel lighter.
If I could live again,
I would begin to walk barefoot from the beginning of spring,
and I would continue barefoot until autumn ends.
I would take more cart rides,
contemplate more dawns,
and play with more children...
If I had another life ahead of me.

But, already you see,
I am 85,
and I know that I am dying...

Jorge Luis Borges

Modern Art in Moscow

2012-01-04T19:30:00.001+02:00

Another day in Moscow, another set of museums and galleries. For it's too cold to hang out outside for too long a time...

This one is my favorite. Something about Russian people being supressed and Europe letting go.

A graveyard for Barbie dolls.

A set of sexy bras.

Go vegan/vegetarian!

A lovely Museum of Photography (that sadly happens to be a flame for hipster wannabe moths), a few nice exhibitions there, e.g. first years of photography by Stanley Kubrick.

Moscow vs Berlin?.. Nah

2012-01-03T08:55:00.002+02:00

Well, this past day reminded me why I so prefer to hit the road by myself. When I'm by myself, I'm the one who fully, completely and irreversibly sets the tone for me: I walk as fast or as slow as I damn well please, I eat when I want to eat, spend or not spend as much money as I wish and in general, I have utmost control over the situation. But when someone else is around (especially someone who is so different from me), I have to adjust my likes and wishes with them. Of course we still end up doing what I want to do and going where I want to go (since my friend is lazy enough to even come up with a route or a plan :), but not after some slow walking, coffee drinking, getting cold, complaining, etc.

This is not to say I don't enjoy having my good friend around, it's just I'd do more stuff if I was by myself.

Anyway. Nevertheless the day wasn't bad. We went to a couple of galleries of the local MOMA and most of the stuff they had was quite fascinating. Particularly the Beyond the Oil Route photo exhibition and the accompanying 17-minute docu.

Moscow has surprisingly boring streets and pathways. I thought maybe I was wrong before, but now we both see it. Mostly Soviet-type buildings with narrow pavements, some expensive restaurants and yeah, nothing more to report. Oh, right, also it's a city of Subways. Subway and (questionable?) theaters are everywhere here.

Obviously this city does not even deserve to be compared to Berlin, but I'm even surprised by the fact that Moscow doesn't give off a specific feeling or a vibe. I mean, ok, the subway is monumental and depressing, but that's underground, I don't feel anything from what's upstairs, so to speak. I could literally come up with a hundred epithets for Berlin (have to smile when I think of that place), but Moscow leaves me completely cold, in more than one sense.

I'm curious about modern art produced here, so I'll be checking out some more venues to see what kind of stuff Russian artists come up with these days. My friend would prefer something less contemporary, but since she can't be bothered to go anywhere by herself... modern art it is. :-)

The very distinct, fascinating and overwhelming vibe of Berlin:

Moscow 2012

2012-01-02T09:55:00.002+02:00

Writing this at the start of my third day in Moscow, a city that never really spoke volumes to my heart or brain, but spending 10 days at home with family would be worse, so... Moscow it is.

My friend and I arrived pretty late on December 31, after she forgot her cell phone in the taxi, after the one-hour flight delay, after the airport express dragged on forever, after the hotel check-in lasted over half an hour.. But after leaving home at 1pm, around 9pm we were finally in the hotel.

After having a glass of champagne (or maybe it was two), we reckoned entering the year 2012 could be fun if we did it on the Red Square, at the heart of the Empire of Evil, so to speak. It ended up being one of my worst ideas, because we were cut off from entering the square as were hundreds of other people, people who may have had more glasses of something to drink and didn't understand the Red Square couldn't be stretched to fit all of us in, so they started to push through the barrier and... well, we just about shat our pants and frankly, I'm not even sure how that mess didn't lead to many people getting hurt. I don't fear for my life very often, but those 15 minutes until we were able to escape from that hell were pretty intense...

But... One more lesson learned and no more crowded celebrations for me. :)

On our second day we went through most of the major attractions that leave me pretty cold on a regular day. We also saw quite a decent film, Perfect Sense. It sort of fit well with our current state of mind and it was definitely time well spent. I like the choices that Ewan McGregor has been making: as I go back to Krasnodar, I plan to rewatch Beginners with my new film watching buddies, I first saw it in Berlin with a friend from Istanbul and we both found it to be a great production.

Today the tentative plan is to visit a couple of museums that happen to be free during the holidays.. Unless there are long queues of people everywhere of course, then we might settle for chilling in some bar or maybe finding another solid film to watch. Also on the agenda: a new falafel place and lots of walking.

P.S. Obviously Moscow has the worst subway system I've ever been to. I have yet to see access for handicapped people anywhere, plus it's just so soulless, slow and somehow even demotivating that maybe I will seize to be surprised by local traffic on a regular working day. Who would want to show up for work depressed and demotivated like that.

2011 was a good year

2012-01-01T22:35:00.003+02:00

I recently started a new job in Krasnodar and it’s taking most of my time (as well as some other exciting events), so I did not really have time to ponder upon 2011, but a few days ago I did have a few minutes to myself and well, I realized something. 2011 was pretty much tremendous for me. I don’t like labeling something as “best”, but still I will say it was a fantastic year.

I traveled around so much. I lived twice in Berlin, three months each time. I lived in Istanbul for 2 months. I visited or re-visited (in chronological order) Milan, Cologne, Munich, Karlsruhe, Stockholm, Oslo, Paris, Barcelona, Porto, Izmir, Cesme, Selcuk, Ephesus, Turin, Nice, now I am writing this from Moscow where I arrived on the last day of the year… Throughout my trips, I met several people that I can call friends now. I learned new things about lifestyles in different places of the world. I became a vegetarian and generally more conscious of the world around me and how what I do affects others. 2011 was eye-opening in my ways. I am incredibly glad I took this year off a “real job” and devoted it greatly to myself. I can’t say I really changed or forgot my old ways of doing things, but I did expand my horizons and became more accepting of many things than I’d ever been. To be frank, I am sort of proud of myself when it comes to this. But all of this is thanks to the people I’ve met and the multicultural and liberal city that specifically Berlin is.

And now, after all these travels, after all these experiences and things that happened and things that I saw, I am surprised to state I am definitely not unhappy to be back in Krasnodar. Things took an unexpected turn here of all places and well, at the moment I am happy to report that life is good. I feel good. About myself, about many things. I will travel less, but I will still find time to do so and well, one of the things that I finally learned is that life is what you make of it and how you look at it. I do like to entertain myself with the thought that I have grown and become more mature at handling some things. I still have a short temper, but sometimes, on occasion, I am able to sit back and just enjoy the ride. It’s a great pleasure to stop oneself from overthinking and overanalyzing things, I more or less live in the moment and enjoy and take things as they come. It’s a wonderful, wonderful feeling.

I do believe it’s rather trite to say that one is unbelievably happy, but I do feel content and good at the moment. I’m a little bit afraid to jinx it, it’s almost too good to be true… but yeah, it’s a nice situation to be in.

2012 has great potential to be fantastic, too.

Summer in Berlin: off the top of my head

2011-11-23T10:38:00.005+02:00

As per meutererin’s recent recommendation, I just re-watched Everything Is Illuminated... I like holding onto memories and oftentimes am left aghast when I’m told it’s better to leg go of a memory and then it will come back to you when you least expect it. I don’t know, if I don’t write something down or take a picture of it or have something to remember the event by, there is a big chance I can forget it. Especially when my most treasured memories are connected to travel and since I’ve done so much of the figural tramping by myself lately, I don’t want to take any chances.

So I kept a list of a few memorable things I did throughout July-September, much like the one I had for my first stay in Berlin.

My July flatshare at Kreuzberg 10969. I had a huge room across the apartment to myself, and a fantastic balcony for brunches. A perfect place for entertaining old and new friends. In that same flatshare I learned that some Germans like salads that include raw mushrooms, now I like them myself.
Visited Bread and Butter with Bernardo. I am no fan of fashion, but it was quite special to be at a closed fashion fair located on the grounds of the former Tempelhof airport. All those free drinks didn’t hurt, either.
Went to a gay bear wedding celebration.
Explored some of Berlin’s lakes. Got introduced to FKK (free body culture) there and quite liked it. Who knew almost everyone in the GDR was a nudist!..
Bought a bike and had to replace both tubes and tires on it, but it was liberating and breathtaking, riding a bike through Berlin. Very cool. I loved discovering new routes.
Was left soaking wet 4 times in the 4 weeks of July after cycling in thunderstorm. Not cool.
For August and September I returned to my already familiar vegan flatshare at Neukölln 12055. It felt like home. With my bar table and an armchair that I dragged all the way up to the 4th floor by myself (pffftt). Being vegan is easy in Berlin. Loved shopping at Maybachufer every Tuesday or Friday.
Juls stopped by and we had a fantastic extended weekend that resulted in her almost leaving with my invalid/back-up foreign passport and me keeping hers.
Had a 1-meter pizza with my friends and couchsurfers in Rixdorf, twice. You need to be 7 or 8 to finish it off.
Briefly visited the Berlin Bierfestival on Frankfurter Allee with Bernardo. Turns out, a beer festival is just a place with a lot of drunken people and even more beer. Boooring. And no need to ever bother with Oktoberfest.
Played ping pong with couchsurfers on different occasions. The area around the Wasserturm in Prenzlauer Berg is perfect for it.
Re-established the Wednesday party in Schwuz as well as Soul Explosion in Festsaal Kreuzberg as my favorite Berlin parties. Danced on the stage in Schwuz and felt all vain and good when people had their pictures taken with me (with me and my T shirt, the one that says, a bad day fishing beats a good day working).
Helene visited Berlin and thus me, twice. Fun memories. A lot of conversations about my favorite topics, reminiscing on Istanbul, exploring a couple of exhibitions together, seeing good films, talking life.
Also went to see the final installment of Harry Potter with Helene and her friend. That cost us 12 Euro per person. And I thought 12 Euro for some of the Berlinale films earlier this year was expensive!
Had a nice experience watching the All-German Sunday night TV series, Tatort, in a bar with Helene.
Volksküche!
Went to Milan, Turin and Nice with my mother and had my worst nightmare come to life, we missed her return flight. Bought a last-minute ticket for her to Berlin with me and she stayed with us in our vegan flatshare… Showed her Berlin and introduced her to a couple of restaurants. She is now in love with Berliner Schrippen. As much as I am in love with Laugenbrezeln, still.
Was on the beach in Nice in the evening of August 15, France’s Assumption of Mary holiday. Great fireworks from 3 boats in the sea.
Had an accident on my bike and almost broke a finger on 9/11.
Reconnected with Mandy. Hung out with Lindsay and Brandy, who I’d previously met in Istanbul and again Berlin. Got to know Adam, of Travels of Adam. Got a massage from Andrew “Magic Hands”, a Canadian IT guy and couchsurfer. And… got to know a few other great people.
Checked out a few modern art exhibitions/establishments. Oberbaumbrückegallerie, Based in Berlin, some Dutch exhibition.
Fell in love with Asiagerichte. And finally got over my love for peanut butter.
Kollektivabendbrot with Mandy. A small project café in Friedrichshain hosts a dinner once a week where random people bring food to share and hang out together.
Established Puschkinallee as one of my favorite places to ride a bike.
Experienced verkaufsöffener Sonntag. Let’s call it delayed gratification after all those Sundays when every store in town is closed.
Found Ian through Twitter and interpreted for a Whistleblowers documentary interview with Alexandr Nikitin, the one man who won a case against the FSB/KGB on the grounds of espionage and treason.
After the bad weather that we had in July and August, September was perfect with its warmth and generous sun.
One of my last nights in Berlin spent with Bernardo, Rainer, a bottle of vodka, maracuya juice and a bag of ice on top of a hill in Berlin’s Victoriapark. Only followed by an amazing night of dancing in Schwuz.

Sigh.

Cost of a 2-month trip to Istanbul/Turkey

2011-10-17T21:15:00.002+03:00

It has been a little over 4 months since my trip to Istanbul ended and finally I am doing a round-up on how much money I spent there.

All in all my time in Istanbul was not my best trip. Several factors contributed to this:

1) The weather sucked. I spent 59 days in Turkey (April and May) and most of this time it was rainy, windy or cloudy or a free combination of those. Only the last 10-14 finally reminded me it was spring.

2) I had bad luck connecting with people over couchsurfing. Again, until about the last 2 weeks when I became part of a delightful group of people, both Turks and foreigners. Alas, it was time to leave soon.

3) In order to save money, I chose the cheapest accommodation available and it was a mistake. I went after the cheapness of it, not after location or who I was going to live with. Granted, it was far from being the middle of nowhere, but there was no connection to the central European area of the city. Last combination of boat+bus was leaving at about 21.30, last direct bus from Taksim was at midnight.

I lived with a couple of newlyweds, in their shiny spotless new apartment. They went to work and watched TV. They were sweet. But I had a bed and a wardrobe in my room and that’s about it, I was literally forced to be either in the living room or the kitchen. Part of the deal was that I spoke English with them thus they had some language practice, so basically my 75EUR per month covered only gas, electricity and other utilities, so it was quite a deal for Istanbul. Except it was NOT worth it. My advice to anyone doing a similar trip would be to live in Europe, pay more and enjoy life more.

4) I also had a lot of unwanted male attention. That really unnerved me and brought me down for quite a while.

In other words, my expenses were quite low, but that came at its own price.

59 days in Turkey, including 53 days in Istanbul and 6 days on a trip to Izmir, Cesme, Ephesus and Selcuk amounted to the following sum (in TL, Turkish Lira):

Tickets -------------------------------> 225

Accommodation ----------------------> 333

Food ---------------------------------> 436.22

Entertainment -------------------------> 138.25

Transport -----------------------------> 266.9

Clothes -------------------------------> 20

Travel (intercity bus/train)--------------> 165.5

Visa-----------------------------------> 30

Other (e.g. cell phone)----------------> 98.29

--------------------------------------> 1713.16 TL

At the time 1TL was 1.5USD or 2.22EUR, so the total in American dollars would be 1142USD, in Euro it would be 772EUR.

Daily expenses: 29TL / 19USD / 13EUR

(My 3 months in Europe last winter cost me 27.5EUR daily, a recent summer 3 months stay only about 19EUR per day, report coming up.)

As is obvious from the table above, I did not do a lot of partying. Please refer to points 2) and 3) in the beginning of the post for the reasons. I’m pretty happy with how my food costs turned out, but I did not eat out much. I mostly cooked and every once in a while had some food from a stall. Now, what I am not happy about is the transportation expenses. In Istanbul you have to pay for every change of transport and sometimes you have to change from bus to boat to bus to subway to get somewhere, so it all adds up and money disappears pretty fast. Cost of one trip ranges from 1.65TL to 3.3TL. If you have an Akbil, you can get discounts on every second trip, but it will not be a huge save nevertheless. I tried walking around. It’s virtually impossible to get anywhere by foot. Think long distance and think hills.

My trip outside of Istanbul cost me so little, because I only had to pay for several buses and a train, two nights in a cheap hostel and an entrance fee to Ephesus. The rest of the time I couchsurfed (with a great American guy in Izmir) and had two overnight buses.

...Next time I’m visiting Istanbul (and that will mark my third time), I plan for “entertainment” to surpass all other areas.

Goodbye my friend

2011-09-24T10:03:00.000+03:00

The other day I sold my bike. Sigh. It wasn't the best and the brakes weren't good and I had to cash out several times to fix it, yet it somehow <cheesy line coming> found its way into my heart.

One more week to go now.

The Land of Hipsters and Second Hands

2011-09-07T16:25:00.002+03:00

To produce a rough percentage of hipsters currently living in Berlin would be a bit too complicated, with all the posers, true hipsters and hipsters pretending to have quit the hipster world.

As many cultural things there is to do in Berlin, as much superficiality and "party monsters" there is.

In related news, I have established I am not a fan of flea markets. When I show up there, I just walk past all the stalls with junk meanwhile running into people and make a quick exit. Maybe I need to befriend someone who has a knack for digging out pearls from heaps of crap and I’ll get a taste of it from them.

However, yesterday I finally had luck with second hand shopping – and with Humana of all places! I will be going back for more. I was in Colours on Bergmannstraße twice already and both times remained massively unimpressed. Humana, however, has a lot of clearly frumpy stuff, but some things are actually quite good. Among them jeans from Levi’s, Mustang and so on for 10-16EUR a piece, in excellent condition, too.

I have only recently realized there is life north of Frankfurter Allee (Northern Friedrichshain) and I quite enjoy it. Very DIY there from what I can tell, in a good way. Lots of punks, too. Lots of community-type of stuff. Not a place where I'd like to be based, but it makes for a good visit.

I quite enjoy the Maybachufer market every Tuesday and Friday. It’s more about food there than anything else and I quite enjoy shopping for fruit and vegetables. And always end up buying more than is comfortable to cycle with, of course. Another area I’ve grown very fond of is Treptower Park and Puschkinallee, a very beautiful tree-lined alley. I was there once in the winter and I thought it could easily win an award for the ugliest place ever (it was slippery, snowy and no leafage of course), but now consider me a fan.

One more thing I have to direct my attention at is second hand book stores. I’ve been to a couple smaller ones, but now I’m willing to try a couple stores around Neukölln and Kreuzberg, I’m not sure about the prices yet, but in other places I’ve seen books for as little as 1-3EUR. I realized I didn't read much (except for anything on the computer) at all throughout the last two months, so now I am on a book rampage.

Also, I still have Wedding to discover.

Missed trains and a plane

2011-08-28T15:25:00.003+03:00

So as previously mentioned, I was travelling with my mother August 12-23. We were in Italy and then in Nice, France (which was her last minute decision because she likes that boring and extremely overpriced and overrated place, I actually had flights and a hotel booked for us in Bari).

We had flights out of Milan, hers back to Russia via Istanbul, mine back to Berlin, both within an hour of each other. To cut a long story relatively short, first and then second taxi failed to show up to drive us to the train station in Nice (we were supposed to take 3 trains to get to Milan and then a bus to the airport there), people in the street refused to help us get there (for $, obviously), regular cars wouldn't stop, it was 04.30am, so no public transportation, policemen didn't give us a ride (in films they always do...), we missed the perfectly timed trains and my actual worst nightmare came to life.

I kept thinking that I will probably wake up soon.

If it had been me alone, it wouldn't have been so bad, or me with a friend. But with my mother it was the worst, because, first of all, the stress was enormous for her and secondly, she wouldn't like... run and do something crazy like I would do to make it for the train and so on.

We took later trains, with them we had a small chance of making it for my mother's flight, but the last train was 10 minutes late (I mean this is Italy we're talking about). This was already 8 hours after the day had started for us. From Milan central station we took a taxi to the Bergamo airport (which cost me 100EUR!.. last winter I paid the same amount for 6 or 7 flights with Ryanair) and even though I called the airline and asked them to please hold the check in because "my mother has been discharged from the hospital late", they didn't and we arrived 13 minutes after the check in was closed! Talk about devastation.

My mother had already lost it several times by then and was completely uncooperative when it came to coming up with something, just crying with her sunglasses on which added to the already insane situation. I had only 45 minutes left to check in for my flight and I had to do something. There were options for her to go to another airport and fly from there, but I had no Internet and couldn't be sure there'd be tickets and she'd actually make it, also I wasn't sure my sister was skilled enough to buy a ticket from home without my supervision and so on. Plus, on top of not being perfect with directions, my mother doesn't speak enough English to get by. And I couldn't leave her in a foreign country by herself! I couldn't stay because how else would I go back and we had a limited amount of money on us. Also, we couldn't rebook her tickets for anything earlier than like 5 days from Tuesday, for an enormous fine, and we didn't have enough money for this many nights in a hotel anymore.

This was all happening in an overcrowded airport, 40C/105F outside, etc. etc. Somehow it was extremely emotional and nerve-wracking, I'm afraid words don't relay that very well. Eventually I bought a last minute ticket for her for same Ryanair flight to Berlin (the most expensive one-way ticket I ever bought, 300EUR, I had enough money by accident... I normally prefer not to take a lot of money so that there is no temptation to spend it).

We flew in here, she spent these 1.5 days in our flatshare. And then, on August 25, her birthday, she flew home. We actually had a good time here and except for the lost money, it all turned out fine, but I don't think I've ever been so stressed in my life. I mean, lots of people have missed flights in their lifetimes and probably it's not the end of the world, but it felt like it was...

Milan & Turin, Italy + Nice, France (genius title, I know)

2011-08-22T00:27:00.002+03:00

Traveling with one’s mother is definitely no sugar-coated thing. My mother does not like to walk fast, to walk much, to be in the sun, she wants to live in cheap but great accommodation, somewhere intensely close to the main sights of a certain place. I could go on and on.

The thing is, I had our trip well planned until my mother had to change her mind last minute. We lost 4 plane tickets all together as well as about a trillion of my nerves and hair. We planned to go to Milan, Turin and Bari in Italy. Now we’re doing Milan and Turin in Italy and Nice, France. By chance I found a great 1-bedroom apartment in Old Town of Nice, booked new train tickets literally several hours before my flight out of Berlin (prior to that it’d been a week of frenetic looking for hotels, comparing prices and so on) and off we went.

I’m not a fan of Milan, but it so happens I’ve been there twice in the last year. It’s a good hub for the south of Europe, I guess. Since I’m no fan of shopping anymore (in fact, I find it really hard to make myself go buy some new clothes), Milan is a bad place for me to go because there’s nothing but shopping there (although it’s better in other cities, but somehow Milan has had good marketing). Shopping, Duomo and The Last Supper. But thankfully I only had several hours to lose there and all I did was have lunch with my sister and mother and then I had a short walk in some park where I saw a big fat rat and dodgy looking people. My sister then stayed in Milan for several more days and my mother and I went on further.

Turin was a curious experience. It’s the first Italian city I’ve been to that totally corresponds to the stereotype of being nearly dead in the summer. Most shops were closed, so were many restaurants and it seemed like not many people were around. But it was still quite interesting. They have a complicated bus system there where the map isn’t necessarily up-to-date and the buses are not on time, but that shouldn’t really surprise anyone who’s visiting Italy. It was nice overall, although it turned out to be smaller than I imagined it. They sell lots of good wine there.

Nice, on the other hand… I know it there is a risk of this sounding pretentious, but Nice, France has to be one of the most boring places I’ve been to. Last time I was here was exactly 2 years ago and I was bored out of my mind. A couple of people I was travelling with went to Cannes and I was majorly excited because I’m such a movie buff still, but it was disappointing. Yes, there are palms and there is the sea, but then there’s also the outrageous prices, old+rich people in abundance and that’s it. It's hard to find anything but Italian food here, I'll be honest with ya. Nice is the same. This time around I’ve come to establish that there is some nice live music in the evening about a block down from our apartment and then there's that fantastic posh cemetery with a view on the Mediterranean Sea, but otherwise Nice, France is not my choice for vacation. My mother, on the other hand, has been heard to call it heaven on Earth which just makes me want to chuckle. :) Ah, you know me. Me and my difficult character.

Some price comparison:

Pizza Margherita (not the supermarket version): Nice - from 9EUR (average price 10.5EUR), Milan - from 5EUR, Berlin from 2.5EUR (average price 4EUR)
Tomatoes, 1kg: Berlin - 0.5-1.5EUR, Nice - 1-4.5EUR
Nectarines, 1kg: Berlin - from 2kg for 1EUR to 1EUR per 1kg, Nice - 2.5-5EUR.

And so on.

The good thing is, I’ve been working on my tan. I haven’t been this well-tanned in something like 3 or 4 years now and I must admit I do get a kick out of seeing my skin go darker and darker. I feel a bit like a valley girl when I say and think that, but what can you do. Nothing but keep on tanning and swimming.

Anyhow, in about 32 hours we’re taking a train (or more like 3 trains actually) and then for me it’s a flight to Berlin and my mother will fly to Krasnodar via Istanbul.

As always, I’m happy to return to Berlin. I hear the weather has been good for once. Baffling! It better stay this way so that I can strut my tan.

Microsoft Word is not my friend

2011-08-01T18:13:00.001+03:00

Pfftt... I love it when you bang something out in Word and then want to save it and yet hit "no" instead of "yes" if Microsoft Office asks you about saving. I need a cigarette and a drink now. My life does not depend on it (although for a while it felt like it did!), but it was a blogpost where I described in details the events of the 4 weeks I've been in Berlin. Man. I wanted to scream, but I have three other people sitting all around me in the living room here.

Well, the short version is: all is well and even better. Meeting old and new friends and buddies, going out, hanging out, cycling, swimming, kissing, chilling, slacking off, working, receiving friends, going to art galleries and a supposedly exclusive fashion fair (although that does nothing for me) trying out nudist beaches, eating 1m long pizza and just having an overall good time.

This does not even begin to scratch the surface of the time I'm having, but... I am. Ha. Ha. <Insert funny one liner here.>

I'll be going vegan again tomorrow. Means I'll move from my temporary place in Kreuzberg to a less temporary place in Neukölln. Will have to part with eggs, milk and some other stuff for a while.

Thanks to fleetingness and Andreas for stopping by, again. :)

Mari, I must have overlooked your comment to the previous post while packing my stuff! I studied languages (although, admittedly, I squeezed out more from the Internet than school and university ever taught me re: English) and they are a personal interest of mine, but the overall knowledge of English in the country is far from being great. Although I understand now as US-based social networks are gaining more leverage in Russia, there's some progress in this department. Thank you for stopping by here, though! And here's to Berlin finally having a good ~~hair~~ weather day!

Idle time between my travels

2011-07-01T21:02:00.004+03:00

Well, I have to say that June has been extremely uneventful. I planned to spend 4 weeks at home as last time I was here it was under 3 weeks and it felt they were rushed and I didn't have enough time. I suppose every time is different because now it felt like it's been 2 weeks too many.

I met almost everybody I planned to meet, but yet overall I had little to do. Somehow I found myself in between projects as well, so not only did I not truly entertain myself as most friends work desk jobs and don't have time during the day, but also I couldn't really do anything productive as half the time I had no work to do. That was the time when I was fully invested in my Internet addiction. Of course ironically I will have two simultaneous projects to work on once I arrive in Berlin, so I guess it will not be only fun at first. But I'm not complaining, work = $$$.

Nothing changed in Krasnodar, it's still a lot of umm..showing off and "glamour" Russian-style here. So I will not be sad when I leave. I was really lucky to re-connect with my friends though. I say re-connect because funnily enough my friends don't use Skype and we don't really exchange lots of emails when I'm away, some explain this as them being not prone to writing. (Sounds weird to me, too.) Also none of them really read this blog, which is frustrating, one valid reason is that some don't speak English and a less valid reason is that some don't have the time. Which makes it hard for me because people then want me to tell them stories of my travels in person and there's only so many times that I can repeat something.

I am delighted to be going back to Berlin. I'm happy to say that I have two friends that I can't wait to meet and who seem eager as well and there are some acquaintances that I will get in touch with as well as new exciting CS buddies. Yee ha! Maybe a good friend from Russia will visit as well, that will be exciting!

I can't wait to get a bike and explore Berlin on it. Here I biked to my dacha once (45km in total) only to find out we roughly had 25 cherries from 5 cherry trees. Me = devastated!

I haven't packed anything yet, but I packed and unpacked so much in the last 7 months that it takes little time and effort now. Mentally I'm definitely in Berlin already.

In the meantime, below are pictures from the one weekend trip I took in June. Namely, to the Russian side of the Black Sea. I could actually live there for a while. If they had Internet connection there.

This would be a lovely workplace

Leaving Istanbul

2011-06-12T00:38:00.000+03:00

Well, the ugly truth is that initially I thought I’d enjoy my time in Istanbul more. I loved it greatly when my friend and I first stopped by for 5 days in November ’10, but now I got a taste of life here. Mistake number 1 was not properly researching the area I was going to live in. I was lured in by the cheap rent (guilty as charged) and thought it didn’t matter how far it was from the European side and what the night connections looked like.

I lived in the Bulgurlu area of Uskudar, a conservative neighborhood on the Asian side. I mean there is nothing wrong with it per se, but it is an extremely suburban district where the only fun imaginable is grocery shopping and as a friend put in, you can also rent DVDs in Bulgurlu. That’s about it. I loved our local Thrursday market that was just outside the door and I loved the nearby Camlica Park, but other than that it was a pretty boring part of the city.

Also I had bad luck with the Istanbul Couchsurfing community. I got all those mass emails from the guys desperate to get laid with a foreigner, but when I tried to contact people and meet up and do something together, it didn’t really work out. I met a couple of people (out of about a dozen that I messaged), but it seemed they were a bit busy for new acquaintances, so it ended there. I was a bit surprised as this not the CS that I know and love. And then of course it happened… In my last 2 weeks in Turkey I met some fantastic people, both local and not who made that time great by being around. We shared quite a few experiences together and of course it made me sad to leave.

Still, although I was raging about traffic and the dirty looks from men while I was there, it’s all part of Istanbul and now I miss even the things I wasn’t really fond of. But most of all I guess I miss the Bosphorus and the ferry rides. Those islands in the Marmara Sea. It feels so unusual now without the same amount of water nearby. And without any seagulls. Funny, I was also not happy about the food sold in supermarkets, but it appears I’d grown accustomed to it and now look for similar things in local supermarkets here in Russia.

But… there’s something that really, truly keeps my spirits up and it is my upcoming trip to Berlin. I set off on July 3 or 4 (depending on whether I will fly to Moscow or take the train) and wow, I am sure it will be the best summer in my life!

What I like about living in Istanbul, Turkey

2011-05-28T17:10:00.001+03:00

The variety of fruits and vegetables. Almost everything grows within the limits of the country and although I would be surprised if no pesticides were used to grow at least some of them, I do believe the total amount is far less than elsewhere.

Turkish breakfast. (Again with the food, eh?) I have already professed my love for simit (like a dozen times), but I didn’t mention the bread and the olives. I do now: those olives and that bread with some of that white cheese… Yummy mummy! Best served at home, but do try some places for breakfast around Beşiktaş.

Colors. Istanbul has to be the most colorful city I have set my foot in. Red flags, yellow cabs, grey and pale red mosques, blue strait and seas, green palms, firs and poplars to name a few. All of that thrown in together makes for a vivid palette.

Emotions. This is both positive and negative. When I’m feeling low-key and go shopping on some central market or I’m walking down a touristy street, the last thing I want is the vendors to scream as if trying to save their lives thus advertising their goods or hosts to offer me their overpriced menu in high pitch. But other than that, interaction between people is almost always emotional and a nice to watch. From the side. Mostly no Turkish languages skills are needed to understand.

Sights. Well… What can I say. Istanbul is a city of many, many hills and climbing most of them is a bit of a challenge, but once you’re out there on top, you can see Istanbul as plain as the nose on your face. Another nice view is from the side of Üsküdar (best at night), when you stand directly before the Maiden’s Tower and Sultanahmet is right behind it across the water. Sigh. It’s worth living just to see that, my friends. Or as you’re passing the always busy Bosphorus bridge, glance left and right to be amazed by the natural beauty that is the Bosphorus straight and Asia and Europe.

Water. The Marmara Sea, the Bosphorus Strait, the Black Sea. If there’s one thing Turkey’s unofficial capital doesn’t lack, it is water sources. Cozy cafes by the water are the best, too. Try some in Beylerbeyi or Çengelköy, they are so people-friendly, they actually let you bring your own breakfast and only order coffee or tea. All that for minimal prices and unbeatable views.

Ferries. In a hectic city like Istanbul, seeking tranquility might be pointless. However, it is right here. No matter what water route or direction you take, rest assured that it will be a slow-paced ride (sometimes so relaxing that it makes you doze off). Plus, those views are still there. All for less than 2TL per person.

What I don’t like about living in Istanbul, Turkey

2011-05-22T20:10:00.001+03:00

I have previously written about the things that I enjoy in the humongous city that is Istanbul and now it is only fair that I highlight the negative parts.

First of all, - and it comes first because it’s the most recent experience - no matter what they tell you, Istanbul is not as liberal as some people want it to be. Yes, Taksim is arguably the heart of modern Istanbul and everyone is pretty progressive there, so is Levent and Nisantasi and some other places, but make a step from this liberal comfort zone and you will find yourself in the debris of conservativeness. We’re talking about clothes, attitude and alcohol consumption among many other things here. It is not a pleasant thing if you’re accustomed to wearing shorts in the summer and having a beer at the neighborhood picnic. You will get stares that are bound to make you feel uncomfortable.

Traffic. Wow. Well, I’ve said this before, but do trust me when I say it KILLS YOU here. It fucking kills you. The regular rush hours are 7am to 10am and 5pm to 8pm. But this is just a rough guideline. Sometimes (no, I mean most of the time) there are still traffic jams in early and late afternoon. Want to really avoid traffic? Take the midnight bus. It almost guarantees you a fast ride. Worst traffic day is Saturday. Apparently not many Istanbul people party their brains out on Friday night and then sleep in on Saturday. Nope, most wake up sharply around 8am or 9am and go out shopping, dining and doing other activities that involve creating major traffic jams. It is very frustrating, believe you me.

And the thing is, you can’t walk here. I mean, you can probably swing an hour long walk, but the distances are so vast here that it is your destiny to rot in some bus where some nasty Turkish dude tries to touch your hip.

Your one safety harbor is the ferry boat. They are always on time, efficient and traffic free. Too bad they only serve on water.

Now, this may be controversial. Food. I know many people consider it amazing and it apparently is one of the 3 most important cuisines in the world (after… Italian and French?). So it should taste well. I thought so. But there’s only so many lentils and beans I can eat in my lifetime, you know? I do enjoy the occasional döner dürüm, tavuk dürüm, iskender kebab and some other dishes involving chicken (in that great self-service diner on Istiklal Caddesi), but on the whole, it’s not my type of food. Meat together with yogurt? It tastes weird at first, but then I guess it gets better and so does the combination of some meat-type fastfood (like döner) together with Ayran (the salty mix of yogurt and water), but I don't feel it is in my heart to eat this always.

Also, supermarkets here suck. Have you been to BIM or Dia or Migros or Sok or any other chain? Have you? Well, you’ve been to one, you’ve been to all of them. They all sell the same stuff in every town and city that I’ve been to. And the selection is quite limited, in my humble opinion. Particularly the sweets. I’m sorry, but the selection of candy here sucks (they do not have M’n’M’s here! Imagine that!) and chocolate is kind of expensive save for the cheap chocolate bars for 0.25-0.5 TL that are pretty basic. Really. My sweet tooth has been suffering a lot here. I also miss the variety of dairy that I've seen in other countries, here you get milk, ayran, and (plain yogurt). And a limited variety of cheese.

What every supermarket does offer is great bread though. And simit. But you already know I’m the queen of simits (sesame bagels).

That's it for starters...

Two days in Izmir, Turkey

2011-05-18T15:47:00.000+03:00

Izmir was the first city after Istanbul that I visited in Turkey. And it was lovely.

After Istanbul it seemed very, very quiet. The weather was better. I did not see one traffic jam. Not a one. In fact, the waterfront (Konak) has almost no cars and buses out there and you can sit down on a bench amidst the palms and take in the amazing view and the quietness.

And then an old fisherman buys you tea just because he feels like it. Of course that’s mostly because the tea seller has no change, but it still is pleasant. And then you get two bus rides for free because two bus drivers also have no change. My, it surely is a nice place.

Izmir is a city where life is slow and no one is in a rush. Some areas are a bit like Sultanahmet in Istanbul, minus the screaming vendors, rip-offs, tourists and mosques… Well, I guess it’s nothing like Sultanahmet at all, is it? It is soothing and uplifting.

Izmir is a city where veggie vendors drive around their veggie trucks and housewives buy their salad ingredients from kitchen windows.

Izmir is a city where 3 housewives from two buildings across one other discuss the latest gossip from their windows (it’s a quite a sight!).

Unlike in Istanbul, people cycle here… and not just at night. Barely anyone wears a headscarf, even relatively far away from the central area. People are friendlier.

There aren’t many landmarks overall in Izmir, nevertheless it is fun spending some time there. I especially enjoyed some of its smaller and quieter streets upwards from Konak.

Bus travel in Turkey

2011-05-16T14:45:00.001+03:00

The truth is, I don’t like bus travel. It is stressful. No flight, no train, bicycle or ferry ride can even come close.

I took mid- to long-distance bus rides in a handful of countries (e.g. the U.S., Germany, France, Czech Republic, Russia, the Ukraine) and I can’t think of a good experience. It’s always too little space, someone always snores or stinks, eats, the bus is too slow and then if it’s really long distance, bus drivers are reluctant to let you use the WC inside the bus (because they have to clean it, innit?).

My first bus ride here in Turkey was an overnight trip from Istanbul to Izmir, a total of about 9 hours and 45TL (~20EUR). Frankly, I kept complaining that it was kind of expensive for this country. Until I got on the bus, that is.

First of all, any big bus company in Turkey like Metro or Pamukkale always offers what they call servis or shuttle which means if you buy a ticket in an office right around the corner from your home, if you want, you can use the company’s free shuttle bus that takes you to the bus station of your departure. Same with your arrival, they will take you to the office closest to your actual destination.

Apart from that, the following things were also included in the bus fare:

enough leg space (like, really… I’m 180cm and I almost never get enough leg space, which wasn’t the case here)
water
coffee/tea and snack
entertainment including TV, music, some films (I had Ice Age, Iron Man, Yes Man… none of them are my choices of interest, but they may be up many people’s valley) and radio
also a USB port so that you can charge your MP3 player.

In general it's not too easy if you don't speak Turkish, but sometimes an English-speaking gentleman or lady will appear to help you in the most unexpected of places.

Also, the weird thing was, they didn’t check my ticket both times (I took the same bus back a few days later). Just like Deutsche Bahn around Christmas time.

I have a problem falling asleep anywhere that isn’t a couch or a bed, so I tend to be all zombie after buses, flights and sometimes trains, but on my outgoing trip I actually managed to fall asleep several times and arrived in Izmir all perky and ready to explore. That wasn’t the case on my way back as I was feeling quite hyper due to (perhaps) all the carbs consumed during the day and didn’t get to sleep, but it wasn’t the bus company’s problem.

The one truly negative thing I can say about Turkish bus companies is their stupid, dumbass websites. You get a small discount if you purchase a ticket online and everyone knows it’s just more convenient, but good luck in accomplishing that as most Turkish websites are a complete nightmare. I suspect that even I could’ve written a better code, because those pages just refuse to load ,thus Metro’s website won’t let you buy a ticket. Also, most sites will offer a non-existing English version. The state train company says you have to register before you can even look up the timetable, but of course it won’t let you register.

But once you have a ticket and are all set to go, it's not so bad.

Planning a trip outside of Istanbul

2011-05-09T17:02:00.001+03:00

Frankly, I have become a little lazy here in Istanbul. I find that I spend too much time at home (also read: online) and too much time around the fridge. The distances here are so long (and only made worse by the traffic) that if I want to go somewhere interesting for a walk, I have to be on a bus for a while or on a bus and a ferry, so this has proved to be quite a turn off for me travel-wise. Also, in these 33 or 34 days in Istanbul I have not once left the limits of the city and it is too long a time for my current nomadic lifestyle.

So this night I'm setting off on a trip to Izmir, Cesme and Selcuk (Izmir). I can't say I'm excited because I'm just so lazy and into sitting on my ass most of the day long, but I know it will be enjoyable and I will have a good time, so that's precisely why I am taking this small trip. Later on, I think I'll go to Bursa for a day or a weekend trip.

I have found that location also does matter. I live in Üsküdar that I generally have no problem with, except it has no night connections to anywhere, it seems. So if I wanted to go party in Taksim or somewhere else, I'd have to party till as early as 6am and I don't see that happening. Even the best parties have only managed to keep me interested until 4am (like two times in my life), normally I find I'm ready to go at 3am. So yeah, spending 2 hours somewhere outside in an alcohol-induced buzzy state is non-inspiring. And it's not that I'm such a party girl that I have a need to rave and go wild (although Berlin does that to you), I guess I just feel I'm too settled and maybe even bored which is not something I'm looking for in my travel experiences.

So a trip it is.

How about learning Turkish?

2011-05-02T08:50:00.001+03:00

I have some friends in Russia who speak little to no English and I always laughed it off when they said they can’t imagine touring a foreign country on their own not knowing its language. I always said that hey, I only speak English and German, and I’ve been to many countries where none of the two is the official language. But only now I begin to understand that things aren’t that easy somewhere where people don’t speak English.

Now I have grown to know most districts of Istanbul (and more importantly, how their names sound, because at first it seemed to me that spelling and pronunciation in the Turkish language are two non-related things) and I can say I’m okay with public transportation, but the first couple of weeks I was pretty dependent on my flatmates and couldn’t step away from the path I’d been advised. Since only a rare bus driver speaks English, it was virtually impossible for me to go somewhere unless I’d asked somebody at home.

Also, at the local Thursday market, you don’t have to be genius to say you need 1 or 2 kilos of this or that and yet still it would help if was able to speak Turkish.

I never realized before how far my English took me in places where it’s more widespread. I tend to only ask people in the street the way if I really can’t figure out the map or am just plain lost, otherwise I prefer to navigate on my own and feel almost shy to ask the directions. In an insanely chaotic city like Istanbul, I required guidance several times and I sorta wished my Turkish was a bit more advanced. It is better now when I know left, right and of course the hand gestures help tremendously.

It seems in Istanbul and perhaps Turkey in general it is not uncommon to stare at people. I get different kinds of stares. First of all, it’s the men of course; sometimes if you pass them by, they will follow you with their eyes for a while. As long as don’t say anything or start getting any ideas, it’s fine with me. But then it’s the women, mostly in conservative neighborhoods, who give me this weird look as if I was personally after their men. Yeah, right, that’s exactly why I am here. Most frequently it happens with the cashiers and women on the bus.

Observations from the past days:

Food ordering from home is widely practiced here. In most cases, there’s no delivery fee. Also, you can call a grocery store if you’re too lazy to walk 20-30 meters and they will bring your bread and ice cream to your doorstep. I might become a sloth here. (As if I already wasn’t one!)
Or better yet, some people who live high up in a building have a basket with money they lift down from the window, the delivery guy puts the groceries there, takes the money and the basket goes up. Charming! I simply must own a picture of this.
Another comparison between Berlin and Istanbul. In the German capital literally no one has curtains. So, at night you can comfortably sit back in your unlit kitchen and observe what kind of activities the neighbors directly across from you are undertaking. In Istanbul, everyone has curtains and when twilight sets in and people switch the light on, there are thicker curtains to be drawn so that nobody can catch a glimpse of what you’re doing.

Religion in Istanbul

2011-04-27T08:55:00.009+03:00

Turns out, although religion is a big part of the Turks' lives, for a whole lot of them it’s a personal matter as in, internally they may have a lot of faith, but just like many Christians they are not devout and vocal about their beliefs.

Maybe it is old news to everybody, but it’s a bit new to me. I don’t really watch TV, but I do follow several liberal and independent (at least I like to think they’re independent) media and even from them the impression that I had was that all Muslims pray 5 times a day, basically go on and on about religion all the time and are adamant about Islam being the world’s “best” religion.

Nobody I know here has gone to a Mosque at least once since my arrival. I was surprised to find out people don’t know the times for the 5 calls to prayer. I can tell time by four of them now. Alcohol is not uncommon (although acknowledged as a sin) and every one has their own stance on premarital sex and sex in general.[At the same time, if you're interested, pork is nowhere in sight, tampons are hard to come by.]

Nobody really asks what your religion is and people only talk about their faith when I bring it up (I have tons of questions). I wonder if I come across some atheists with a Turkish passport during my stay here and what their stance is.

I’ve been told Turkey is the most liberal country whose population practices Islam. I guess that makes sense to me now, although I have no evidence to back this opinion up as I have not yet to visit another country with a high density of Muslim population. Iran is the most conservative country.

In the process of writing this post, I was also browsing my Google Reader and stumbled upon this article, The rise of Islam and the future of secularism. In the first half of the article the author expands on the same thing I was just on about and in the second half she states the number of devout Muslims is on the rise, mostly as part of some statement. Curious.

At the same time, I don’t know how I feel about Eid al-Adha I believe it is too cruel a custom. I don’t know if it’s widespread or not, but something tells me it is. Makes me wonder what vegans think of this practice. I find it admirable that the main purpose of this is sharing with the poor, but killing animals and sort of making a show about it is too much for my liking.

And before I forget, two more articles from columnist Charlotte McPherson

Hospitality: all and nothing more

Cultivating the mind

Sev Sen, Istanbul (should translate as: I love you, Istanbul)*

2011-04-25T08:42:00.033+03:00

Some more observations from the land that is in different sources listed as a country located in Europe, Middle East and Asia. Which, coincidentally, translates to the country’s self-identification. Meaning that the country is having a hard time in identifying itself.

On my first trip to Istanbul, I did not realize how liberal it was. In some ways even more liberal than several bona fide European cities that I’ve been to. E.g. headscarfs are actually banned in higher institutions nationwide. However, some neighborhoods do remain conservative and apparently things like killing your daughter/sister for losing her virginity before marriage is not unseen even in the present day and time. Although it appears the attitude to sex in general is pretty relaxed and everyone decides for themselves what rules to follow.

So far I have met incredibly generous and hospitable people and at the same time, in the street somebody will push you hard whilst trying to squeeze in between you and the wall and will not care to apologize. I have also made friends with several local vendors and supermarket employees. Most don’t speak a word of English and I can’t force myself to say those few words that I can master in Turkish and yet we somehow understand each other and they’re being genuinely sweet to me. [I know the numbers though, helps if you can’t see your total on the display.] And yet I’m absolutely stressed out by the yelling and hassling of sellers in some touristic places or at rush hour when you leave the ferry. This is why I’ll probably never go to the Grand Bazaar again after my November experience.

It’s an old and sad expression, “city/land of contrast(s)”. I make a face every time I see it on somebody’s blog and yet I can’t find a better phrase to describe this place. It’s unique. And what makes it even more unique are all the neighborhoods that this humungous city is comprised of (e.g. Bebek, the rich neighborhood between the two bridges connecting Europe and Asia, home to the best fruit and chocolate waffle in the city, Ortaköy with its kumpir, pictured below, the fancy Bagdat street in Kadiköy and so on).

Some food-related observations from the last two weeks:

Turks eat yogurt with meat. Also with a variety of vegetable dishes like deep-fried paprika. It’s not a desert and seems not to be a breakfast thing.
Tea is more of a breakfast drink, coffee is more of an afternoon beverage.
Olives are mainly preserved in olive oil and thus outside the fridge.
Chain supermarkets in residential neighborhoods have self-imposed lunch breaks sometimes. They just close the door for half an hour, pretend they're not there and sometimes leave a note on the door.

Miscellaneous:

I said it before, but… traffic in Istanbul is really, really bad. Better walk between 7-10am and 5-8pm. Also it's pretty bad throughout Saturday. They are currently building a tunnel under the Bosphorus (my brain just collapsed) and a new subway connecting the two sides will launch in 2013.
On my first stay I had the illusion you could not only drive, but also walk on the Bosphorus bridge. Nuh-uh, missy. But they do close the bridge for traffic once a year for a marathon or a race and last time it happened, the bridge was swaying uncontrollably. But people kept on running.
Each crossing of the bridge by car costs 3 Lira.
Turkish MTV airs clips literally at least 20 hours a day. And many are watchable. In addition, I have become a fan of Sertab Erener and Atiye.
Tarkan is still very much a celebrity here and a very prolific one, too.
The world is small in Istanbul, just like in Berlin. At a recent couchsurfing event, I met an American I’d previously met in Berlin when I was living there and she first arrived. We met at another CS party. Umm… yeah.

In related news, my mother will visit me next weekend. She'll stay in a hotel in Sultanahmet and I, of course, will have to assume the role of a guide, listener and hand-holder. I'm already a damsel in distress about it as I have already received many a special request concerning the program. Which include but are not limited to: no long walks, preferably a guided bus tour, a lot of fish, fresh strawberry. And she needs to buy a new bed cover.

We'll see if I make it...

* - of course I had it wrong. :) I love you should read as -> seni seviyorum

Musings from Istanbul

2011-04-13T08:48:00.026+03:00

A few observations from my first days in Istanbul:

Despite the general notion, that all Turkish women are covered from head to toe, this myth is easily debunked if you turn the TV on. Half-naked female singers and presenters just like everywhere else I’ve been to. Frankly, maybe even more so than everywhere else. And no one seems to blink an eye.
The thumbs up sign that supposedly symbolizes sexual desire (according to the Internet)… does not symbolize it. It means great/ok, like everywhere else.
Rush hour is impossible to tolerate. I was in a real traffic jam once so far and that was one time too much. A trip from the European to the Asian side during the evening rush hour will leave you with a couple of new grey hairs.
Passengers are to enter the bus at the front door only; entrance from the middle or back door is allowed when it’s impossible to enter at the front (stuffed bus), in which case they pass payment/transport cards to the driver all the way through the bus. This is new to me as even in Berlin the Turks loved getting on the bus from the back and thud avoiding payment. Also, I’ve never seen buses fit in so many people. Good thing I normally score a seat, otherwise I’d prefer to walk and then swim across the Bosphorus Strait.
It’s uncommon to walk to get somewhere. Anything over a 20-minute walking distance will be a bus/minibus/taxi ride. I think people consider me a bit odd for taking so many walks.
Turkish men only pester women in touristic areas (as if that was expected from them) and they will leave you alone right away if you should no emotions and don’t pay any attention to them. In all other areas, you’ll be getting looks from people now and then because you look a bit different, but generally no one will really approach you in the street.
Love, love, LOVE simit.
Some Turkish women are quite breathtaking. A lot of women in Istanbul are very westernized, blond hair, typical European and American dressing style. Some also appear to be quite emancipated and yet they do enjoy being “led” by men and seem to submit to them upon their own wish.

Coming home

2011-04-11T08:45:00.005+03:00

Coming home is a weird experience. I’m not a fan. On a regular day, I tend to think the grass is greener on the other side. Depending on the length of the trip, my coming home blues kick in a month to 2 days before I’m about to depart for the country that I have to call motherland.

Blues means something different every other time. Can be anything from quiet hysteria to moody swings and mild aggression.

Between Berlin and Istanbul I made a 20-day stop at home (Krasnodar, Russia) and although initially I was not at all happy about having to come back, it turned out to be a nice stop. The main reason I decided to spend some time home, was the fact that my grandmother turned 90 on March 25. I think it was a good reason, I’m truly glad I was there on this day, it was important for both her and me.

I also met most of my friends, some I met every other day as we couldn’t get enough of each other and just had to make up for some of the time that we were apart.

I didn’t mention here previously that I had a surprise prepared for my immediate family. I’d told them I had return tickets for March 25 but came back a week earlier. I like doing things like that for the sheer excitement of this for every party.

I met a friend’s baby for the first time. The kid is only 4.5 months old. I was glad to find both the mother and the daughter in a good place and in a happy state of mind and yet I once again saw for myself that I probably am not the type to have babies. Maybe adoption one day if it feels right, but in general I do not feel am a motherly type although my relatives think I will come back to my senses and my maternal instinct will kick in. Time will tell, I suppose.

All in all, I had a good time with my friends and family, recuperated from all the travel experiences of the last three months… and now, Merhaba, Istanbul!

Russia Loves Innovation - Part 2

2011-04-06T09:30:00.001+03:00

This is a continuation from the Monday post on the same subject. Just some pictures from my homeland.

23. Just some pretty balconies.

24. Pretty roads and manholes.

25. Some more. Plus a pedestrian walk so old you can't see it from afar.

26. Heart of the city, sidestreet.

27. Right next to it, a bank.

28. Two, actually.

29. This is how bank employees park their cars.

30. I mean you have to admit, it's pretty comfortable. Petition, anyone? Let's park on the pedestrian walks!

32. This used to be a playground.

33. These fully legal garages will supposedly have to be demolished (at the cost of the owners) so that somebody's 20-year-old niece slash billionaire could build a house there.

34. Functioning office.

36. Federal Security Bureau (formerly known as the KGB).

37. See the "A" sign? Means only public transport can go down that lane. See the white Audi on the lane? The owner must've wanted to be a bus driver when he was growing up.

38. Some more nifty electricity work.

39. "Police" works in this building. Says everything about the state of this institution, does it?

40. A dog lives here.

41. This used to be my playground.

42. A close-up for the far-sighted.

43. More nifty electricity cables.

Sigh...

Russia Loves Innovation - Part 1

2011-04-04T07:07:00.004+03:00

Russia (or rather the government in Russia and all state organs as well as all state-owned mass media) claims it is rapidly developing, we put innovations to the forefront, take care of our people, build a better country. And so on.

The pictures below were taken at the end of March '11. The city in question is Krasnodar. For an unknown to me reason, some people refer to it as our little Paris. See for yourself exactly how much resemblance to Paris it bears.

1. Russian people love innovation of all sorts. Especially what concerns renovation and electricity works. FYI, pictured is the capital of the region that is going to host the 2014 Winter Olympics.

2. This ain't the 70's or the 80's, more like 2011.

3. Fancy living in downtown in Krasnodar?

4. Comes with a comfy parking space.

6. The roads and, more importantly, the pavements are a delight. Just mind your step, will ya?

7. This is a street exactly two blocks away from the regional administration, by the way. And about 5 blocks away from the President's representative office.

8. Wanna dry clean some clothes?

9. Broken water pipe in broad daylight in the center of the city. Just another Russian reality.

10. Someone couldn't make it to the garbage collector. Probably several people, too. Why bother.

11. These houses are not deserted, someone actually lives there.

12. Same lovely buildings.

13. Russians do love their meat. The title screams FRESH MEAT, twice. That's very poetically queer.

14. Some sexy outfits for your wife?

15. Beautiful construction site in the middle of the city.

16. See these two pieces of crap on the ground? You think they're just lying there? Nuh-uh. That's the way you normally cover a hole in Russia.

17. Market.

18. "Multimedia store: movies, music, computer games". Do stop by. They have all the licenses, too.

19. Now. How else can you stop cars from parking where you don't want them to? Of course you install a self-made barrier, dummy!

20. Dentistry.

21. My fellas, marshrutka drivers on their much deserved break after some hectic driving and rules breaking on the road.

22. All hail to United Russia! All hail!

FYI, Krasnodar and the region are third only to Moscow and St. Petersburg in terms of development, so you can get an idea of how developed other parts of Russia are.

Cost of a 3-month trip to Europe

2011-03-30T07:08:00.008+03:00

Ten days have passed since I finished my longest to date European tour and as always, being outside of Russia was a delight.

As previously mentioned in the post on my travel expenses for a 10-day trip in 4 European countries, I split my expenses into the following categories:

accommodation – this includes the rent that I had for my room in Berlin plus expenses for Couchsurfing (zero), the best travel experience in the world

food – all things grocery

entertainment – umbrella term for a lot of things and could include: movie tickets, coffee&cake or alcohol at cafés and bars, entrance fees, any street food I might leave on – basically any purchase that in a perfect cost-saving world I could do without

transport 1 – airport buses, intercity buses, intercity railway tickets and any single- or multi-trip tickets in any of the destinations I’ve been to (transportation prices in Europe are just too unfair!)

transport 2 – monthly tickets in Berlin

airfare – flight tickets

IT – USB Wireless, SIM-card, emergency laptop adapter…

clothes – it used to be the major spending category, however in the recent months I have found myself to start thinking material possessions like clothing are exuberant and not as important as my travel experiences (although it doesn’t mean I wear shabby clothes, I just don’t shop for the sake of shopping)

other – anything that couldn’t fit into the above category, might include things like shampoo, toothpaste, books, presents, etc.

And without further ado, here’s how much was spent on this 85-day trip (in EUR):

Visa	75
Insurance	14,2
Airfare*	743,50
Accommodation	200
Food	315,61
Entertainment	358,80
Transport 1	228
Transport 2	106
IT	87,40
Clothes	107,52
Other	106,22
TOTAL:	2342,25

So the grand total is 2342EUR which makes my all-inclusive daily expenses 27,55EUR. Or 781EUR per month.

That’s about what I budgeted for this trip, except when I had a certain number in my head, I thought I would spent way, way less than that. But I spent exactly what I budgeted which means for my next trip I will have to budget less money.

I think overall that’s a very good number if I compare my expenses to those of other travelers, some travelers spend way more even in very affordable countries like Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, etc. and we all know prices in Europe are generally high. So I guess I can be proud of myself, except I’m not really – I’ll have to cut down on transport as it pains me to have to spend so much on a service that isn’t even 100% reliable. Generally, discovering Europe by rail is (much) more expensive than flying.

*For this trip I had a total of 18 flights paid for, however I took only 13 of them. I knowingly missed my Berlin-Moscow-Krasnodar in the beginning of January (I could've rebooked them for later, except I didn't know for when and I somehow didn't think of cancelling them), also I had Oslo-Berlin booked, instead of which I ended up flying from Oslo to Paris and then to Barcelona and Porto. And on my last weekend in Europe I was planning to go to Kaunas and Riga, but about 4 hours before the flight I decided to stay in Berlin (and never regretted it!). Overall loss is about 200-230EUR, but these things are mostly unpredictable: if you book too much in advance, you'll most definitely save money and there's a chance you'll want to prolong your stay somewhere else or you can buy tickets last minute and overpay. I haven't found the golden mean yet.

Some statistics from the trip:

Most expensive city: Olso, Norway (go there with your own food)

Least expensive cities: Berlin, Germany and Porto, Portugal

Biggest surprise: Paris, France

A letdown of sorts: Barcelona, Spain (I have Woody Allen to blame for this)

The obvious: I love Berlin

Photo by Incandenzafied

Top 10 Best Hangouts in Berlin

2011-03-28T09:04:00.007+03:00

After the Fall of the Wall things started rapidly developing for Berlin, artists flocked to the city in massive waves and the word gentrification was to be heard out of every window. Nowadays the capital of Germany can still boast a diverse crowd of people living there, a lot of street art, museums that will suit every taste and most importantly, it seems, bars and clubs that still deliver.

Bars in Berlin have characteristically low prices for alcohol, even in areas like Kreuzkölln and Friedrichshain you can find a 0.5l bottle of beer starting at 1.5EUR. Cocktails are available throughout the city starting at 3.8EUR during happy hour (4EUR is the most common price), however this is not to say that if you look hard enough, you won’t find offers for 10EUR and more. Despite the general notion that Berlin is a very affordable metropolitan capital, it can be expensive if you really, really want it to be.

Kreuzberg, Kreuzkölln and Prenzlauer Berg are traditionally considered to be Berlin’s best locations for nightlife, morning paper and numerous food stalls. Most of the hangouts listed below are located in these districts.

Kaffee Burger

Kaffee Burger is a good place to start your time in Berlin. It is currently considered a bit too mainstream by people who previously hung out here and it is not unusual that it is full of tourists and travelers alike and there most definitely will be a queue. However, don’t let this spook you as Kaffee Burger is a synonym to having fun. You might consider visiting the bi-weekly Russendisko party by book author Wladimir Kaminer. Frankly, it is equally Russian as it is Ukrainian and Balkan Beats-oriented, but be prepared for some fun nevertheless. One floor for smokers and one (packed from ceiling to the ground) floor for non-smokers.

Address: Torstraße 60

Schwuz

Berlin’s finest gay club. The German capital has been famous for its respect and admiration for the LGBT community for a while now and still most clubs only organize gay or lesbian nights once or several times per week, however Schwuz is a pure-water gay club that always has your head spinning and your body dancing to its tunes. Three dance floors and relaxed and yet energized atmosphere will make sure you won’t feel like leaving the dancefloor (of which there are three here) for a while.

Address: Mehringdamm 61

Turandot

Now, before you head over to Schwuz, by unspoken rules of Berlin, you have to go to a pre-party or meet up friends for a round or three of drinks, otherwise a party won’t be the right type of party, if you catch my drift. Turandot, located in Bergmannstraße, is surrounded by dozens of other cafes and bars and yet it obviously stands out. To start with, it’s a Kneipe in the true German sense of this word and not a posh bar that has a better interior than beer/wine/coffee. It’s packed even on a weekday night, the staff has a good sense of humor and the joint has a library where you can leave a book you just finished reading (bought it for 2EUR at a used books store, didn’t you?) and take a new one.

Address: Bergmannstraße 93

Rita

An atmospheric café in Kreuzkölln that serves delicious breakfast and perhaps the best cappuccino in the area. Also offering a variety of soups every afternoon and delicious sandwiches to go with them. If you can still walk and breathe after your Saturday night party, roll out of bed straight into Rita for a slow yummy Sunday brunch.

Address: Pannierstraße 12

Fuchs und Elster

Fuchs and Elster (named after a German cartoon) is an arguably interesting place to visit. This might be your night stop after Rita as the two are located with a 5-minute’s walk from one another. Old armchairs, old tables, old wooden floor create a neat look that is popular with local hipsters. It might be look small from the outside and yet there is a hidden basement downstairs where all the magic happens, from live band performances to dance parties. The downside of this place is the bad service, if you don’t mind the glares and the generally rude demeanor of the female bartender, this is the place to be.

Address: Weserstraße 207

Sahara

Sahara is a “Sudanese” fast food restaurant some 50m away from Fuchs and Elster (see, everything is close in Berlin!). It positions itself as a café serving food specialties from Sudan and yet they offer falafel and other Arab and Turkish foods. However, the good thing about it is that almost anything on the menu can be cooked vegan. Try their soups and vegan sandwich-type offerings. The walls feature amazing photographs from Africa.

Address: Weserstraße

Café BilderBuch

BilderBuch is a spacious (two large halls) café in the beautiful Akazienstraße in Schöneberg. Always full no matter what day and time, BB has the interior of a stylish and yet home-like luxurious private library or perhaps a dining hall from some time around mid XXth century. One of the halls has an old piano standing in one of the corners and there are free performance on almost all Fridays or Saturdays. The menu comes in the form of a regularly updated newspaper that somehow helps your appetite kick in. Good for a leisurely afternoon with a friend as well as for a dinner of a group of friends on any night of the week. Particularly recommended are the mixed beer snacks (veggies, delicious cheeses, olives and homemade bread).

Address: Akazienstraße 28

An einem Sonntag im August

And finally we are in Prenzlauer Berg. Just off the Kiez’s busiest U-Bahn Station (Eberswalder Str.) you’ll find this deliciously Berlin-like café with comfortable chairs and even swings outside for people watching when the weather allows and inside worn down low couches that somehow make it extra convenient to surf the internet from the laptop in your lap. Old wooden bar, a great view on Kastanienallee and, most importantly, quiet music that will not interfere with your conversations about how you bought this great vintage bike for 30EUR at Mauerpark last weekend, what the best store for BIO goods is and where to spend Friday night this week.

Address: Kastanienallee 103

Mein Haus am See

Have you ever been to a café with amphitheater type of seating? If not, Mein Haus am See is your choice of location. A spacious and airy place suitable for big companies (e.g. Couchsurfing meetings) that is remarkably good both for people watching and striking conversations with strangers. If you agree with their mottos (Coffee to wake the dead / Internet access available: get drunk and download loads of crap), do pay MHAS a visit.

Address: Brunnenstrasse 197-198

Café Vux

At least every second < 35 y.o. person in Berlin is vegetarian and more and more people go vegan every year. Whether you are vegan by taste and food preference or ideologically so, Café Vux should be your choice for coffee and cake. The delightful taste of strictly vegan cakes and soya milk coffee will remain with you for a long time. Who knew healthy food can also be quite so delicious? And right between Karl-Marx-Straße and Sonnenallee, perhaps Berlin’s two streets with the highest döner kebab density, too! Completely white interior will relax your eyes and clear your mind as a bonus.

Address: Richardstraße 38

Originally written for Got Saga

Best and Worst Airports in Europe

2011-03-25T09:02:00.004+02:00

Pros and cons of travel

As all travelers, nomads and vagabonds will tell you, a life of travel is all they could ask for. It offers new discoveries on a regular basis, friends and acquaintances in places some people have not heard of and the convenience of being your own boss (if you are your own boss, that is). To me, nothing can compare to the thrill of travel, but like with everything else, there are setbacks in travel as well.

For instance, as the title of this post suggests, it is rather unlikely that you will come across somebody who loves hanging out in airports and the airport experience in general. It is always time–consuming even if you arrive right before the check-in ends (which I do not recommend anyway) or, furthermore, have checked in online and arrive only for the security check and the boarding. (Maybe it’s not so bad if you hang out in the best airport lounges of this world, but since I have not joined the elite club just yet, I’m talking about us regular people here.) There will always be a person who will create a queue by either losing his passport or a boarding pass or having twice as many liquids or some other issue, the queue will be getting anxious, tensions will rise, etc.

If you come too early, you might want to work a bit on your laptop. But there’s almost always the socket problem or it will be too hot or too cold or too crowded or too much stuff online and you think, “Down with work! I’d rather just surf!” (or is it just me?) Not to mention airports always insist on having uncomfortable chairs…

The food is expensive, too many boutiques and tax-free shops somehow have double to triple prices on regular products. The list goes on and on.

Here are three airports that I think offer their customer the worst airport experiences:

Worst airports in Europe

Domodedovo – Moscow, Russia

Well… where to begin! It’s both hot AND cold, the prices are ridiculously high, for example coffee will cost you about 6EUR and for this kind of money you’d expect it to be the best coffee in the world and yet it will taste like heated tap water mixed with instant coffee. Mmm… yummy!

Bergamo-Orio al Serio – Bergamo, Italy

I think chaos is not the last word that comes to mind when one thinks of Italy, but chaos wasn’t even the worst thing about this airport. The Service Charter of this airport states that it “operates 24 hours per day”, yet for some reason the airport was almost completely closed starting 10:30pm to about 03:40am with only a very small area available for about a hundred passengers (or more) who had no choice but to stay overnight at the airport. All that was available to the passengers, customers of the airport, was about 20 seats at the very entrance and the floor around it with total length of about 30-40 meters where people were forced to sit and lie on the floor instead of conveniently sitting down in chairs.

All of that was happening when it was about -5-10C outside, so each time the sliding doors were opening, people received a gush of freezing air into their faces, backs and so on.

I actually felt compelled to write the management and ask them what this whole closed airport thing was about. Here’s what I got in reply:

“We like to inform you that Bergamo-Orio al Serio is a “point to point” station not comparable to Intercontinental Hubs such New York, Moscow and Vienna are. Because of no operations are scheduled and no passengers long stays are planned between 23.00 and 04.00, we take advantage of night hours to perform effective cleaning services so just limited areas are available to our customers.”

Station might be the right name for it. It felt like it was a bus station for sure. As I said above, their Charter says it operates 24/7… yet in reality things are a bit different. Complete disappointment.

Vnukovo – Moscow, Russia

Do not expect anybody to speak a word of English. Expect queues at the entrance (due to the recently introduced anti-terror measures *after* an explosion in Domodedovo) , queues at check in, mayhem at the security check after the check-in, queues at bathrooms, confusing signs and overall disrespectful attitude.

Best airports in Europe

Porto – Porto, Portugal

This newly renovated airport is spacious enough to accommodate many passengers, the staff is friendly and actually helpful, the building is extremely easy to navigate. Security check is efficient: I’d previously taken 4 flights with an oversized toothpaste tube in my carry-on and no one noticed. Porto staff made me take it out and while I was not happy at that moment, they were the only staff who actually did their job well. Also, the airport can be reached with an overground subway with nice views outside the window.

Schönefeld – Berlin, Germany

A big international hub and yet it is somehow efficient. Located right outside the city, it can be easily reached with several means of transport and it will not cost you more than 3EUR and is free with a monthly ticket (compare to 11EUR for Malpensa, for example). It is used by low-costs and regular airlines alike, the prices are moderate and the stores somehow unobtrusive… Best airport I’ve flown to and from so far (who knows maybe just as well the best airport in the world?) and it makes the actual physical travel part almost pleasant.

Photos by 1 - BriceFR, 2 - Travelin' Librarian, 3 - tomypelluz

Day 82-85: Berlin: The End

2011-03-23T09:08:00.005+02:00

Well, not really. The end of this trip. It’s not my last time there, so this goodbye thing is just temporary.

I do not like going back home, so the end of every trip, however short or long is marked by me being upset and remembering just how uncool I feel back home. These last days were not an exception, however I mostly could get a grip of myself and only did some minor pining and had just one really bad day.

Other than that, I had a full week of going out every night and enjoying myself.

Bernardo and myself hung out a lot together on those days and the saddest day I had mentioned above later turned into a fun night when we drank Polish and German vodka on Alexanderplatz for several hours and then went to Kaffee Burger (that didn’t last long though) and I’m not even a vodka drinker at all. Bernardo didn’t remember much next afternoon when he rolled out of bed, so I enjoyed reminding him just what/where/when exactly he/we did. It was fun!

We also went to a Couchsurfing meeting together where the people were a nice bunch – as per always.

I didn’t really have a bucket list for the end of my trip in terms of what I had to see/do before I leave, but I did go back to most of the places I like in Berlin and eat some of the food that I liked. Except peanut better. Oddly enough, Berlin made me fall in love with peanut butter which I had the urge to constantly consume during my first 1.5 months there and then I stopped cold turkey because it was just too much.

I can’t say Berlin made me fall in love with beer, but it’s a huge progress that I went from detesting it and calling it names to drinking it every (other) night.

As you may well know, Berlin has a great night life. There are places to go every single day of the week, a party that feels like it’s hand-tailored personally for you and joints to go to before and after your crazy time at the club. Also, places like Berghain offer literally non-stop parties on weekends. If it’s something you’re into, go there and see for yourself. Apparently, the club is a Berlin landmark now and somehow gets money from the state, so it might be worth a visit. Apparently, they have good DJs, too.

Berlin is well-known for its numerous museums and if you only have time for a couple, I would recommend stopping by the following two:

Topography of Terror

and
Berlinische Galerie

I suggest you skip Guggenheim, or you risk being heavily disappointed. I know we were. Of course you also always hear only the good things about the Pergamon Museum, but I never had a burning desire to visit it, so… I didn’t. :)

Sigh.

I had a great time in Berlin. Lived in a vegan WG, started drinking beer, took a couple of terrific trips, started to cook, fell in love with traveling and Couchsurfing even more, met some great people and realized being location independent might be the way to go.

Day 77-81: Berlin: Schöneberg

2011-03-21T09:07:00.005+02:00

In my last week in Berlin I stayed at a friend’s apartment in Berlin (and to continue professing my love for CS, I’d like to point out that we initially met on Couchsurfing) who was gracious enough to let me live there while she was on a trip to Morocco. She's Polish and I'm Russian and we speak German, it's cute if you think about it. I was sad to see her leave as we hung out quite a lot in Berlin, going to the movies, bars, taking walks, looking for coffee with soya milk and exploring the city together. But… we’ll meet again and next time is supposedly in Istanbul some time in May! Something to look forward to.

She lives in Schöneberg in Berlin which a Kiez I haven’t really explored except for one trip to a local café and numerous visits to the friend’s house for dinner or drinks.

Although my entire time in Berlin I lived right off S Sonnenallee (there is even a movie about people from this street: Sonnenallee) and quite loved it there, my friend’s location in Schöneberg close to S Südkreuz proved to be even more convenient, as with public transportation you can be on Potsdamer Platz in 6 minutes (Sonnenallee to Potsdamer Platz is 26 minutes) and although it would take you 17 to 22 minutes to get from both to Alexanderplatz, Kreuzberg is only 30 minutes away by foot from Südkreuz, while with Sonnenallee you would need 45 minutes. All of this is normally irrelevant to me, but not since getting a taste of a decent public transportation system (although sometimes the Deutsche Bahn goes on strike) – it’s nice when you can be somewhere good within 10 minutes in such a big city.

Originally, the plan was that I would go to Lithuania and Latvia for an extended weekend of March 11-14 which would also be my last weekend in Europe during this stay. However, as the day of my departure was about to arrive, I was more and more torn about leaving Berlin for my last weekend. I'd had tickets booked for a month, I had bus tickets and a couch with a hilarious guy. And yet about 4 hours before my assumed departure (the flight was scheduled for 07.50am) I decided I should stay for a weekend (and that actually became a week) of great parties, fantastic weather, good conversations and just some feel-good time in Berlin. And regret my decision I did not.

Bernardo and myself ended up going out every night and having a great time. One of the places that I'd been dying to go to and we finally discovered together was Schwuz – a queer club with three dance floors, where even at 00.30am on Friday and Saturday nights it was a bit empty, but a mere half an hour later it turned into the best Berlin party for me. Among the three dance floors, there is always something up your valley and although I’m not a techno fan, the techno dancefloor was the perfect location to polish off the dance moves after some wild partying on the other two. Great, great place – if only a bit overpriced (for Berlin), entrance on Friday/Saturday night – 7EUR, beer starting at 2.8EUR.

Moreover, their pop music tunes are so good you will never want to stop dancing. Also, you have to see for yourself what it is like when Lady Gaga, Madonna or The Gossip comes on. It is an insanely good experience. I promise you will like it, after 3 hours of non-stop dancing I was exhausted and could barely stand and had the intention to leave the floor "right after the song ends" and then the next one came on and I just had to stay.

Meanwhile… let’s see what Schöneberg is like. I think it is quite cozy.

JFK's Ich bin ein Berliner speech took place here:

Day 69-77: Eternal memory or ..?

2011-03-15T09:06:00.003+02:00

Eternal memory or who has advice on how to remember it all?

This blog will be a good reminder of what I was doing while living in Berlin and traveling, but how can I make my brain remember every single minute of this journey ? I’ve met some great people, I’ve done some cool stuff, experienced some awesome things, hung out in some mindblowing places, barhopped like crazy every once in a while and had a good time overall. And how can I guarantee that I remember every single interesting conversation that I had or every interesting thing that I saw? I sort of don’t want to let go of anything I’ve done so far.

Nan Goldin, whose exhibition I visited recently at the Berlinische Galerie says she was taking so many pictures of people and events because she was obsessed with remembering everything and not losing people (funnily enough, she also adds that these photos now remind her how

much she lost...). If I want to remember every precious moment of the good times in my life, I have to carry a notepad for writing things down, voice recorder for some pleasant conversations, camera for all the beautiful things, have a Google Calendar to track all the meet-ups and events (actually I do/have all that, except for the recorder), but if I devote so much time to tracking my experiences, there will be no actual experiences.

Even now I mostly only remember the really vivid stuff, like

International Christmas dinner in Milan
First falafel in Cologne
A walk in the snowy Englisch Garten in Munich
New Year’s Eve with friends in Karlsruhe
Also seeing the Czychis again in Karlsruhe
Arriving and finding the way to my Berlin home
Getting to know my flatmates, establishing a relationship with vegan food
First non-stop party weekend (Russian Christmas at Judith’s, CS party and Russendisko)
Discovering that some people don’t even own corkscrews (for wine) in Berlin, starting to drink beer (and never stopping)
Getting to know Agata, hanging out on a regular basis, cooking (!), discovering Berlin together
Meeting CS Rinse in Stockholm and finally understanding what the term “to hit off right away” means exactly. Soulmate stuff.
Going off to Oslo (seeing Rinse there again!), Paris (don’t buy those I love Paris condoms…), Barcelona (warm, cheap coffee, endless walks, realizing the Vicky Christina Barcelona is just a movie), Porto (ocean! Portuguese beer, rockband)
Sleeping on the floor in the world’s worst airport (after all Russian airports of course), Bergamo
Discovering Neukölln, Prenzlauer Berg, Friedrichshain, Schöneberg, Mitte, Kreuzberg, Charlottenburg, more or less falling in love with all of them
Pretzels!
Berlinale, goddamnit! Going to Berlinale Nighttalk almost every night. Seeing and listening to a lot of film industry people discuss issues I love (e.g. films). Having what I like to think of as intense eye contact with actress Juliane Köhler and developing a crush of sorts, watching scenes from Aimee & Jaguar over and over again
Seeing some weird and/or good films at Berlinale
Realizing that I love German radio and that you can have a great pizza almost anywhere in Berlin
Meeting and hanging out with great people – Bernardo, Shiv, Erik, Yolanda, Mandy, Christine, Martina, Nicole, Markus, Maeve, Sabine, Caio
My first borsch
CS party at Damian’s and Soul disco
Being sad about Agata leaving (for a while)
Being torn about going or not going to Lithuania and Latvia and finally staying in Berlin to party hard and have the time of my life
Discovering Schwuz
Drinking Polish vodka with a Brazilian dude at Alexanderplatz
…
…

(Damn, am I overwhelmed now or what?)

But what about the rest? It was a bit less vivid, but in no way worse… Sigh. If anyone has a pill for ever lasting memory, hit me up.

17 Faces of Berlin

2011-03-14T09:15:00.010+02:00

Berlin has many faces.

Same as every one of us plays all these social roles. You know, mother, father, daughter, son, lover, teacher, students and so on. Exactly the same can be said about Berlin, only mostly in adjectives.

1) It can be funky.

2) It can be ugly.

Think some nooks of Mitte. Think Karl-Marx-Allee and Frakfurter Allee. I happened to walk almost the entire length of Karl-Marx-Allee on one of my first days in Berlin and this horrible experience will haunt me forever in my nightmares.

3) It can be glamorous (but pretty much only for the Berlinale).

* Note: Picture 2 is a shot of Kino International, one of the venues for Berlinale.

4) It is cultural and full of history, for the lack of a better word. And has enough museums for almost every day in a year.

5) It can be village-like. Pictured is not a suburb, but a neighborhood in Neukölln.

6) Charming and creative.

7) Sometimes Berlin even sells out.

8) But then it goes back to being its lovely corny self.

9) Parts of it are boheme-oriented.

10) Other parts are home-like and all around süß.

11) Sometimes it’s kind of weird. (Enlarge the image to see the amount of satellite dishes.)

12) Berlin has quite some churches, but one wonders if anybody ever stops by as they give the impression of always deserted.

13) It’s very vivid.

14) It can definitely surprise you. (The pictured dump is actually an entrance to a very cool club that hosts great parties and has good acoustics and a large two-storey dancefloor.)

15) It’s also a classical touristic destination, not without some architectural beauty of course.

16) It is certainly… original. Pictured is a church, see the cross on top?

17) It’s beautiful and indigenous and sometimes pretentious and a bit like New York City some 20 years ago, but it’s also kind of… one of a kind.

Berlin public transportation | Deutsche Bahn on strike

2011-03-10T21:49:00.002+02:00

Deutsche Bahn had a huge strike all over Germany on March 10.

It is a well known fact that the French do like to strike, but their German neighbors seem to be catching up. Anyway, the S-Bahn in Berlin is part of the Deutsche Bahn, so local employees were on strike as well, from 4.00am to 10.00am this morning. Of course this means the rest of the day was screwed up, as no transport system can recover after a strike very quickly.

Myself and most other people who had this odd inexplicable wish to use public transportation in Berlin today were not particularly happy about having to make detours on a normally direct and uninterrupted point A to point B route. What normally takes me 9 minutes took me about 30 today. Quelle dommage!

The thing about the Bahn is that it always has problems. In the winter when I came to Berlin and it was cold and snowy, the trains were late all the time and people were very pissed about that. (At first I wondered why they were mad about a 2-5 minute delay.) Later, a new winter schedule was introduced which meant the trains had a different speed and were to travel less often, the S-Bahn head had a lot of curses sent his way back then. It was a much talked about topic on the radio and could only be rivaled by Berlinale talk, a month later. Now the old schedule was introduced again and there was lots of confusion, trains were repeatedly late on the first few days . And now came the strike that left no one happy.

And the thing about this is… Berliners and some visitors are upset about that, myself included. But then I am just reminded how in Krasnodar, Russia there is NO schedule for anything, tram, bus, trolleybus, minibus. I mean, theoretically… there is a schedule as public transportation companies’ employees somehow have shifts and all that jazz, but there is no schedule at stops (and I don’t only mean an electronic schedule, you will not even find a toilet paper like sheet with times scribbled on it). Best thing you’ll know? Which buses/trolleybuses /trams pass this stop on their route.

My 90 year old grandmother is forced to stand at the stop for 20-30 until her means of transport shows up (normally too full), so after remembering this, a 2-3 minute delay and even a rare strike don’t seem so bad to me.

Apparently the DB employees who went on strike do have low salaries and they are somehow uneven for people with same skills, duties and experiences. This sounds surprising to me as DB has ridiculously high prices for their mediocre train service. And then a few people just pocket that and the rest eat crumbs. Sounds shitty to me. Strike on, my Lokführer comrades. (Just let me get to airports safe and on time.)

/rant

Day 61-68: Berlin: a walk in Friedrichshain

2011-03-09T14:11:00.010+02:00

I had some nice walks in Friedrichshain in the last week of February. It's a popular going out area with its Simon-Dach-Straße that has become a bit overpriced in the last years (so I am told), Boxhagenerplatz that is home to a flea market and a lot of street art. Sonntagstraße will offer you a couple of joints with cheap pizza (starting at 2EUR)

Children's playground just off Ostkreuz:

Blue daydreaming dude on Boxhagener Straße:

Intimes Kino. Located right next to a nice looking cafe

with the worst Flammkuchen I have ever eaten:

The one boring corner of Simon-Dach-Straße:

The fun starts here:

I haven't been inside this "Russian" place,

but the prices they have are not aimed at a regular Berliner. It is always full though:

Berlin Nightlife | Best Bars and Kneipen in Berlin

2011-03-07T11:40:00.011+02:00

Bars in Berlin

Berlin is a city of individualists, wannabes, hipsters, people who think they are alternative (the most commonly used word in the neighborhood, I swear), Wahlberliners, artists and other special people.

The awesome thing is that all of these people will find something that suits their interests. Of course the most popular place of deployment for all these types is a bar. Now, a bar in Berlin is something special and stopping by for a bottle or a glass of beer is a must for any person who considers themselves a true Berliner even for a short while (the true species is supposedly extinct, but you catch the drift).

Berlin bar crawl, anyone?

It ain’t hard to go on a bar or a pub crawl in Berlin. All you need to do is to deliver yourself to one of the nightlife packed streets in the city which include but are not limited to:

Simon-Dach-Straße in Friedrichshain
Oranienstraße in Kreuzberg
Oranienburger Straße in Mitte
Weserstraße + Pannierstraße in Neukölln
Kastanienalle + Ebertswalder Straße in Prenzlauer Berg

Once there, you can freely go from bar to bar and establish your own favorite locations, but my recommendations would include

B-Lage

I am slightly biased as I am a Rixdorfer Süße myself, it’s a bar pretty much around the corner from where I am located, but do believe me when I say it is worth a visit. It is spacious and cozy at the same time, the light is just perfect for an evening out with your friends or with someone you have a special interest in. They are open daily from 7p.m. and offer a wide range or drinks and cocktails. They have a wide selection of drinks (and you'll like the prices) and are popular among a young local and not so local crowd.

SPECIAL: Every Wednesday they have vegetarian/vegan Volxküche (in German) which means you can get a huge plate of tasty food for however much you're willing to spend. And my however much I mean 1-4EUR. 2EUR being the net cost. Highly recommended!

Special: Every Sunday you are invited to join the broadcast of Tatort (…German CSI, hello!)

Address: Mareschstraße 1, Neukölln

Soupanova

A Thursday night hangout of Couchsurfers in Berlin. I make no secret of being a screaming fangirl of Couchsurfing and so it would only be logical to include this location to the list. Every week the bar sees from 20 to 80 people show up for the 8pm meet up. There is a separate room with more or less an open mic for anyone who wishes to perform or say what’s on their mind. Every once in a while a nice DJ will pop up or someone will bring equipment for a Silent Disco (something I personally have yet to experience).

It’s not all about the CS community though (although clearly many visitors have it on their to do list in Berlin), Soupanova has something or a party happening every night, so Thursday night is not the only time when you can have fun there.

Address: Stargarder Str. 24, Prenzlauer Berg

Queer bars

Now, the queer scene is not all about leather clubs and other limited-interest spheres. There are a ton and more nice places to start the weekend off (or finish a boring weekday with) and I would recommend the following:

Silver Future

Best queer bar in all of Berlin, hands down. Great music, cheap drinks (beer starting at 1.50EUR), sweet bartenders, good performances, awesome interior. Bonus: friendly atmosphere and frequent visitors' dogs walking around. Every time I’ve been there, it’s always full, so if you want to score a seat, don’t come too late.

Address: Weserstr. 206, Neukölln

Roses Bar

Almost a direct opposite to Silver Future, Roses Bar is a gay stereotype from head to toe. I have one phrase for you: plush pink walls. That’s right. Plush and pink. You want to see it, really. Bonus: hot & well-behaved bar tenders and cool tunes from the DJ. Again, if you come later than 10pm on a Friday night, you’re going to have to be standing against a plush wall with your beer bottle pressed into your chest… Which might not be so bad, honestly.

Address: Oranienstr. 187, Kreuzberg

Have a fun night out, yea?

Day 58-61: Berlin: Rathaus and Schloss Charlottenburg

2011-03-02T09:10:00.006+02:00

As mentioned in the previous post, Charlottenburg to me appears to be a mix of several cities.

Here is Rathaus Charlottenburg (reminiscent of Moscow metropolitan)

and Schloss Charlottenburg (reminiscent of Schloss Karlsruhe)

Day 54-57: Berlin: Charlottenburg, a mix of Paris, Brussels, Karlsruhe and Moscow

2011-03-01T09:07:00.006+02:00

Everything changes when the sun comes out. Previously I only briefly explored Charlottenburg, but now finally had the chance to devote a decent amount of time to it.

Basically, Charlottenburg is home of the rich and is reminiscent of 4 cities:

(Obviously) Paris, as the Kurfürstendamm looks a lot like Champs-Élysées in the French capital. A lot of stores (too much H&M per square meter), starting with youth clothing stores and ending with Gucci, Valentino and the like. Shopping heaven for any type and size of wallet.
Sidestreets, on the other hand, reminded me of Brussels. Quiet and at the same time slightly posh streets with nice-looking houses (as, for example, opposed to the ugly Karl-Marx-Allee, previously officially named and to this day looking exactly like a Stalinallee).
If you have been to Karlsruhe, Schloss Charlottenburg will definitely remind you of the local Schloss. Same style that honestly looks a bit boring for Berlin.
And finally, if you have been inside Moscow subway, Rathaus Charlottenburg will remind you of the some of the metro stations in the Russian capital.

The Paris and Brussels parts are below.

Day 45-54: Berlin: Prenzlauer Berg pictures and the world is small

2011-02-28T09:04:00.004+02:00

Only in a big city like Berlin do you realize how small the world actually is.

For example, I met somebody who on August 2, 2009 was at the Palace Square in St. Petersburg when I was there for Madonna's concert (she was there for The Hermitage).

I met here somebody who knows somebody that I went on a weekend trip with as far as back in 2005.

I met somebody who I was supposed to meet in Prague, but now by pure chance met in Berlin.

All of these situations left me bewildered each time. It’s a nice feeling. And a nice way to impress somebody during a conversation that is about to get boring.

Some more things about Berlin that might be of interest:

If you want to get lost, go to Hauptbahnhof. Seriously. It’s so huge and so clumsily planned out, I thought, that in a short time it’s not possible to find your way around. I was there twice, both times I was a bit short on time, and twice I had the misfortune of getting completely disoriented. The second time I was about to go see a Berlinale movie and I was supposed to change means of transport at the station, but I never found where I was supposed to make it happen, so I had to walk/run as fast as I could.

Speaking of which, I have to run a lot here. Thanks to the schedules of all S-Bahn, U-bahn trains, buses, trams, etc. I have to run because I look up the schedule on BVG and each time I end of thinking I have loads of time left and each time I see myself running to the stop trying not to miss the ride. Without the schedule, I would just shower and get dressed at a regular pace and walk to the stop without any hurry, wait a bit and hop on the train or bus and be on time. But the schedule… the schedule had the opposite effect on me, I’m this close to being late most of the time.

Berlin made me start developing my cooking skills. This has to be the most surprising discovery of all! Me + cooking? It has never been a match. All my family members will tell you so. In fact, my mother will go on to add that whenever I fry potatoes, they’re raw on the inside and burned on the outside. Well, not anymore, mom! Two borschs, countless salads, mushroom stews and so on later I can safely say I’m on my way to being a decent home-based cook. It’s still a long way to being fantastic at it, but I kind of enjoy the process, on a good day.

Yet another great thing about Berlin is that there’s always something to do, always a party, always a gettogether, always an exhibition and people are most always ready for fun. Great free stuff as well! Recently I saw two great documentaries on different subjects: Catalonian human towers called castells (Castells) and gay life in Istanbul (Das Andere Istanbul). It doesn’t get more multi-culti than that, I think. Also great Q&A’s with directors afterwards.

What else is cool? No one gives a shit about Valentine’s day and lots of people (including yours truly with a friend and her friends) end up having a nice anti-Valentine dinner.

…Some Prenzlauer Berg pictures to start the week off:

Day 43-44: Porto: pastéis de nata, catfish and rock

2011-02-24T17:35:00.013+02:00

A few words about Porto, Portugal:

It is charming, cheap and warm. It’s also pretty, charismatic and a little bit village-like. And if you ever wondered if you should stop by and if it’s actually worth it, the answer is a resounding yes!

Portuguese did not sound similar to Spanish to me. It was more like a mix of Polish, Turkish and Armenian.

The city itself has a fantastic old town; the distances are not long, but there are a lot of hills, so you might consider wearing really comfortable tennis shoes or something along those lines.

Pastry is divine in Porto. It melts on your tongue and makes you look up to the sky in delight. I defy anyone who does not try pastéis de nata (it originally comes from Lisbon, but can be found anywhere in Portugal). Of course every restaurant will also offer you their musing on the topic of catfish, just as will any supermarket.

Porto also marks the beginning of my official cooking obsession (more on that in one of the upcoming posts).

If you have never seen the Atlantic Ocean or any ocean for that matter (like myself), you can do so in Porto. And yes, it’s different from a sea, although people might tell you otherwise.

I was hosted by the bass guitarist from The Mad Dogs and he helped me make Porto a special experience, I was present at their Friday night rehearsal where I also realized that I like Portuguese beer and that watching people perform up close is actually kind of fun. Location for the rehearsal? Not a garage or anything dodgy, but a former shopping center that is now home to the rock scene of Porto. Worth checking out if you’re into rock.

But... today talk is crap, I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

Day 39-42: Barcelona: English speakers, La Rambla, sunglasses and sleeping on the bench

2011-02-22T09:02:00.012+02:00

I arrived in Barcelona after 4 hours of sleep in Paris (boy, am I always sleep-deprived or what?) and a slight hangover… after having half a bottle of moderately expensive French wine? That sounds weird to me as well, but maybe it was just something in the air.

In Paris I had my first Ryanair flight delay (by about 30 minutes only) as well as a carry-on size check. Luckily, I was somehow overlooked in the queue and safely got away with carrying my huge DSL in my hands (or rather… stuffed into my winter coat), but having to hide it was far from pleasant.

My little “project” of not reading anything on any destination backfired a little bit as I landed in Barcelona and wanted to go to the center with train only, even though bus was right out there and seemed like a good option. So I had to walk a long way to the train and finally hop on it at the last minute (not without some confusion with the ticket machine beforehand). I knew the airport is not far from the city itself and I saw people massively exiting the train at several stops, but I only realized that Barcelona had been left behind as the train entered some fields... I had to exist in the middle of nowhere and take the train back to town. Which brings me to my next point.

What you don’t hear about Barcelona is that nobody speaks English there (and don't expect to see many signs or hear announcements in English either); it is a fact that the French have a hard time dealing with the world’s most convenient for use language, but you don’t hear that about the Catalans or the Spanish. Well, I am here to break to news to you and wish you good luck in finding English-speaking people. Even on the most tourist-studded places like La Rambla street the only people who can master English are tourists. Horrendous, honestly. Maybe you’ll get a little bit lucky in a bar, but it won’t go further than your order (using international words like coffee and croissant anyway). Ok, my CS host speaks excellent English, but he’s Turkish (and we all know Turks can effortlessly master several languages) and the one person besides him was a young woman who steered me in the right direction on my first night there. Learn some Spanish before you set off, peeps!

Also, I would definitely recommend visiting Barcelona in the winter because it’s still quite warm (although it depends what you compare it to of course). Tourists are still plentiful, but obviously there aren't as many as in the peak season which is something I wouldn’t want to experience. In general, I have immensely enjoyed my trip so far, so I am ready to argue with anyone thinks winter travel in Europe is not worth it.

Be prepared for a very bright sun, bringing sunglasses is a must or like myself you’ll have to squint all day long. However, you can choose to fall asleep on a lovely bench in Parc de la Ciutadella like I did. Or you can choose to close your eyes whilst sitting down to chill somewhere in Parc Güell. Beware of the hills of Barcelona as well, I easily covered at least 10km every day, but the hills were a bit much even for me – by the way, I would recommend using the escalators at the side street (namely Baixada de la Gloria) to get to Parc Güell, they’re available after you already climb up quite a steep hill, but the view from the escalator is very much worth it.

Barcelona contradicts itself in terms of prices, for example a small slice of pizza off the tourist pathway will ring up to 3.6EUR while a cappuccino can amount up to only 1.5EUR in a very touristic place. Entrance to Sagrada de Familia will cost you 12EUR while 10 public transportation trips just over 8EUR.

Nevertheless, it’s completely possible to pull off budget travel in Barcelona. Inexpensive fruits and vegetables are plentiful and supermarkets offer good prices as well, I particularly recommend Carrefour on La Rambla and Dia anywhere.

Barcelona seems to have a lot of hip or pretending-to-be-hip stores of locally known brands that are interesting to look at and even purchase if you have room in your carry-on. Most are located around the area between the University and Barceloneta, naturally this is also the place where you’re not recommended to sit down for a meal.

I personally would recommend walking from the coastline up Avinguda del Paralel all the way to Place d’Espanya and then back by using the labyrinths of small pretty Mediterranean streets. Try not to wander between La Rambla and Avinguda del Parallel though as you might stumble upon the Prostitute Quarter, where, you guessed, women for sale mingle with policemen and some dudes from local stores... It was a weird experience. I couldn’t get out of there fast enough.

One of the other things that might impress you is that in February you’ll see people wearing anything from shorts and T-shirts to winter coats, it’s very common to jog in tank tops and shorts as well. But I understand them, weather up to 18C in this winter month can be confusing...

Berlin Special: Berlinale Palast!

2011-02-21T01:04:00.012+02:00

The Berlin Film Festival is officially over as I write this. It's been a fine week with 7 films overall for myself. The two I saw today Ausente and Un Mundo Misterioso both had full houses and unfortunately no Q&A's as the people involved with the films have already departed.

Ausente deals with issues of breaking the law (namely having a relationship with an underage student), not giving in to feelings or emotions and finally blaming oneself for a bad outcome in a tragic situation. Nicely shot and not too tiring to watch, the public seemed to love it.

Un Mundo Misterioso, on the other hand, wasn't as popular as some people even walked out. It runs almost a full 2 hours and there's little plot development after premise has been set - the girlfriend thinks her boyfriend and her need some time apart. The dependent guy is thrown out of his comfort zone and the film shows his ministrations as he tries to lead his life on his own.

The good thing about the movie was that it was shown in the Berlinale Palast - La Citadelle de Berlinale. I arrived 20 minutes in advance hoping to score a really good seat and found myself queuing up after at least two hundred people, out in the cold of course. We were allowed to enter only 5 minutes after the showing was supposed to start and eventually started 10 minutes later. Somebody relaxed too early, me thinks. But anyway, here is a pictures galore from the inside of this beautiful building.

This is some queue...

The bear from the inside

Notice the McDonalds right outside

Further information on the Berlin Film Festival:

Berlin Special: Berlinale!

Berlin Special: Berlinale Update!

Berlin Special: Berlinale Update 2!

Berlin Special: Berlinale, the winners!

Berlin Special: Berlinale Palast!

Berlin Special: Berlinale, the winners!

2011-02-20T00:08:00.009+02:00

And so the cat is out of the bag, the Bears have been awarded and the full list of the Berlin Film Festival winners is to be found here.

Out of the entire winners list (incl. special mentions) I saw Apflickorna, Stadt Land Fluss and tomorrow I'll be watching Ausente. The one movie I wanted to see and didn't was Tomboy (it went on to receive the Teddy Jury Award), it immediately sprang to my eye as I held the festival program in my hands, but it didn't work out with the showtimes for me.

As the winners were being announced next door, I was watching the Korean Ashamed (Chang-Pi-Hae). I must admit that I always have a hard time with Asian movies and that's exactly why I watch so few of them, but I once again decided to give oriental film industry a chance and try to expand my horizons.

As of a couple of days I have a flu, so maybe that would explain why I thought the film was supposed to start at 7.30pm instead of 7.00pm... [With all my vast movie-going experience, this has never happened to me before.] Of course I only realized that once I was on the bus and wanted to check if I still had the ticket (OCD) It was 6.50pm. Each ticket specifically says there's no late admittance, so I debated leaving the bus and going home, but that would mean I'd miss the Berlinale Nighttalk, so I continued the trip to Potsdamer Platz. At 7.15pm I was there and the two sweet guys at the entrance let me in. Surprisingly enough, I had the entire second row to myself. On a Saturday night, in a Berlinale film showing.

The first ten minutes were a bit confusing and I thought it was because I came in so late, but later it turned out the entire film was like that. It provided some stunning scenes and great camera work, but it was a bit hard to follow the story itself. A synopsis would say that it's the story of love and break-up of two young Korean women, but that would not do the movie justice. Oftentimes the movie jumps from scene to scene, sometimes accompanied by surrealistic dreams, sometimes by flashbacks. I guess it would be right to call it odd and also it perfectly falls into the category of a festival film. It's interesting to watch just the one time at a movie theater and for me personally it's not the type of film I'd sit all the way through at home. But nevertheless, it was mostly fun to watch it.

Berlinale Nighttalk took place about 15m from where I saw the film, so it wasn't hard to find my way around. Today it was extremely full and, so to speak, star-studded, here are just a few pictures:

The Forgiveness of Blood producer and director (hidden behind Knut Elstermann, the host)

Festival director Dieter Kosslick*

Cameraman for The Turin Horse

Audience 1

Audience 2

* Dieter claimed that 99.9% of the tickets were sold out. While in reality, I think, it's a bit less than that -> 3 films out 5 that I've seen so far were not fully sold out.

Further information on the Berlin Film Festival:

Berlin Special: Berlinale!

Berlin Special: Berlinale Update!

Berlin Special: Berlinale Update 2!

Berlin Special: Berlinale, the winners!

Berlin Special: Berlinale Palast!

Berlin Special: Berlinale Update 2!

2011-02-19T11:32:00.006+02:00

Just half a day is left till the closing the Berlin Film Festival ceremony starts and all the bears are awarded to respective winners.

It has been fun. I saw Stadt Land Fluss and Apflickorna the other day, tomorrow I shall be seeing Un Mundo Misterioso and hopefully I'll get tickets for something tonight as well. Tonight Berlinale Nighttalk will the winners over, so I'm looking forward to this show.

Last night the charming Juliane Köhler (Aimee & Jaguar, Der Untergang) stopped by for an interview and proved to be not only a solid actress, but also an insightful person. This year she's part of the Amnesty Jury. She and Nina Hoss, member of the Competition Jury, starred together in Anonyma - Eine Frau in Berlin, so I'll be watching that one of these days.

Looking forward to the final two days of the grandness that is Berlinale!

Further information on the Berlin Film Festival:

Berlin Special: Berlinale!

Berlin Special: Berlinale Update!

Berlin Special: Berlinale Update 2!

Berlin Special: Berlinale, the winners!

Berlin Special: Berlinale Palast!

Berlin Special: Berlinale Update!

2011-02-17T09:47:00.005+02:00

I saw Miranda July's The Future at FriedrichstadtPalast yesterday and it was quite good. Facebook and Internet addicts will find something in common with the two protagonists. The Palast itself is actually a theater with great interior and disgustingly uncomfortable seats, I was reminded of that one drama theater in my hometown...

Later Miranda July (You and Me and Everyone We Know) was present at the night talk with Knut Elstermann and had a few things to say about this feature film where she also played the female protagonist. Turns out she's a performance artist and has a nice looking website, so I'm going to be seeing what else she does when she's not busy making films.

Nadja Uhl was the independent critic for an hour last night, too. I know her from Die Stille nach dem Schuss and turns out she won a Silver Bear for her performance and at the moment is not unpopular with the German film-going crowds, which means it was pretty full in the cafe on Potsdamer Platz, but only until she left. And the "fans" missed interviews with directors of The Forgiveness of Blood (the lovely-geeky globe-trotter Joshua Martson, known for Maria Full of Grace), A Separation, Our Grand Despair; Bombay Beach; Romeos.

It was amazing in the sense that it breaks the walls between Celebrity and the simple folk. Most of directors were sitting in the common area conversing with their friends and colleagues, the atmosphere was relaxed, also no fanatical behavior from anyone. Good times.

The one odd thing that happened was that... beer turned out to be expensive. Expensive for Berlin, anyway. I ordered a bottle for 3.5EUR having come from somewhere where I had it for 0.99EUR. But... I'll live with that.

Further information on the Berlin Film Festival:

Berlin Special: Berlinale!

Berlin Special: Berlinale Update!

Berlin Special: Berlinale Update 2!

Berlin Special: Berlinale, the winners!

Berlin Special: Berlinale Palast!

Berlin Special: Berlinale!

2011-02-16T09:01:00.011+02:00

It’s hardly a secret to anyone who knows me even a little bit that I am a film buff. I do love movies, screenplays, cinematography, good dialogue, the film-watching experience, the way I anticipate a release I think might be good, reading Roger Ebert’s reviews, the credits rolling. I can go on about movies forever and have a thing for actors and actresses (although that might change soon due to my red carpet experience described below - shock, horror!).

As m y plan about coming to Berlin was set in stone, I immediately realized I’ll be around for Berlinale as well and the thought of that made me all warm and fuzzy inside. Now that it is ongoing, I realize it’s different than I expected, in both good and not so good ways. However, it still is a pleasure to witness all of it.

It all started with the Red Carpet. I’d only been once to a festival opening before and that was in Sochi, Russia. I traveled there specifically to see Catherine Deneuve. I saw her. And sat in a row right behind her. Trust me, it was worth the two sleepless nights, the fight with my mother and the 35C-heat dehydration. The red carpet itself was alright if you are interested in Russian celebrities (cross me out). Now, you would think Berlinale would by far surpass Faces of Love (that’s the corny name of the film festival in Sochi), however I can’t say I was delighted. Far from it, in fact.

Berlin Film Festival opened in the evening of February 10 this year. Earlier the same day I was reading an interview with the project manager who is in charge of the Red Carpet at Berlinale, apparently he has been doing this job for 20 years and he’s never had any faux pas or bad experiences in his position. Maybe it was his first time, I don’t know, but I was mightily disappointed with the organization: my biggest complaint was the long pauses between arriving celebrities (and “celebrities”), sometimes breaks reached almost 10 minutes. And if you think that the Red Carpet ceremony normally spans 60-90 minutes, it’s already too much. It was a bit boring, too. There’s nothing interesting in watching people in evening dresses strike poses for 15 minutes to a crowd of photographers, really. I wouldn’t have thought it, but now that I saw it and it just happens so that it made me want to yawn.

So, solely for the sake of shameless boasting, let me just saw who was present at the opening ceremony apart from the festival director and the mayor of Berlin (who supposedly is all about parties and socializing at events like Berlinale other than doing his job): Heike Makatsch (Love Actually), Maria Schrader (Aimee&Jaguar), Jasmin Tabatabei (Mondscheintarif, Vier Minuten, Fremde Haut, Bandits), Wim Wenders, Tom Tykwer, Isabella Rossellini, Jeff Bridges, the Coen Brothers, Josh Brolin and Diane Lane. While I’m at it, let me tell you that Diane Lane got zero attention from the press/photographers. And I mean: 0. She’s a famous actress, more famous than anyone on this list, except maybe Jeff Bridges. Perhaps she was neglected like that because she was there as Josh Brolin’s wife and not as part of any film cast… but it’s a little bit beyond my understanding anyway.

I almost felt special with all the photo snappers around. Interestingly enough, they bring actual ladders for better views -> what is even more interesting, is that they chain their ladders to barriers of backdoor entrances (as if they were bikes) and leave them for the night, only to come back in the morning and mount them again for a photo opportunity. I mentioned this to a couple of locals and they were not surprised, but me, I have not encountered that before. Therefore it makes it all the more great for me to see it from the inside and not from the outside.

Thanks to my love that is couchsurfing, my friend and I both won tickets to a Norwegian movie Jørgen + Anne = Sant that we both loved. The film was followed by a Q&A session with two actors, the screenwriter and the director – thankfully we were in the first row (depends on how you look at it, of course), so we were quite out there. Both the screenwriter and the director are young women and it’s nice to see that women now have more access and exposure to the film industry. The whole thing felt very raw, for the lack of a better word.

On top of it, Radio Eins organizes a live talk show with the cast and everybody involved with films presented at the festival every day at 10pm in Cinemaxx just next to the Berlinale Palast and the event is free to attend. It couldn’t be more convenient to mingle with interesting people and personalities. Last night I went there again and it was a bit more crowded than on Sunday (it's only a small cafe - I'm surprised people aren't hanging outside from the roof yet) and Knut Elstermann had the following guests: member of the Jury Nina Hoss, directors of Wer Wenn Nicht Wir; Separation; The Queen Has No Crown; Sandra Hüller of The Brownian Movement. Impressive list, I think.

While I was attending this show on Sunday night, Angela Merkel was watching Wim Wender’s Pina at the Berlinale Palast amongst the common folk and with NO special security control or restrictions whatsoever. As a Russian, I’m astounded by this, that would never happen in Russia, just take a look at this presidental cortege and you’ll know what I mean.

…Also, there were rumors about Madonna stopping by Berlinale to introduce the trailer for W.E. I was pretty excited about it (yes, I’m putting it mildly) and then she did come. On Saturday night she checked into Soho House and spent all of 3 minutes presenting the trailer at Berlinale. Not much else is known. I debated going out into the street and looking for her in my pajamas, but decided against it. It’s somehow nice to know that she was around for a while though. Made me remember her live on the Palace Square in St. Petersburg, it was fantastic.

I am happy to report that now I am proud owner of four tickets to the following films:

The Future (Competition)

A Mysterious World (Competition)

She Monkeys

Harvest

And all of that only after an hour and 15 minutes of standing on my feet at the ticket office queue. I feel this part is quite poorly organized, by the way.

For instance:

Online tickets are limited and by that I mean extremely limited, I would imagine they do not sell more than 50-80 per film and that’s nothing for this type of scale and level, so the tickets disappear as fast as cold water bottles on a 40C day in Rome.
Also, online tickets are not convenient because you still have to go to the (other) ticket counter to pick them up after purchasing them on the Internet.
Also, online tickets are more expensive... which baffles me! As you know, mostly the stuff you buy online is cheaper and that’s also why a lot of people do a lot of shopping online. Berlinale, however, imposes a fee of 1.5EUR per each ticket (not per credit card transaction). Which, in other words, means they encourage you to queue up and save your rightly earned 1.5EUR.
There are only 6 selling points/cashiers at the main ticket office on Potsdamer Platz. I mean… even in Krasnodar, Russia you have 3-5 ticket selling points in a movie theater and hello, this is the International Berlin Film Festival, one of the biggest movie industry events in the world..?

But… being the positively oriented person that I am (I hear my friends laughing... but Berlin does that me), I have to say it’s all part of the experience. So I don’t mind my feet hurting and a minor case of dehydration, the good thing is that I have the tickets.

I love how the city has livened up even more now! People on public transportation and outside perusing the program, wearing Berlin Film Festival souvenir bags, discussing films. Fascinates me. Glad to be here and to be part of it.

On a side note, I’d like to say that I’m following the numbers for the blog and they’re on the rise! I’m glad people are coming back to read new stuff and there are more and more readers stopping by each week. It’s not as cool with the comments section, so... anyone who has something to say, please feel free and welcome to do so. :)

P.S. Bonus:

Further information on the Berlin Film Festival:

Berlin Special: Berlinale!

Berlin Special: Berlinale Update!

Berlin Special: Berlinale Update 2!

Berlin Special: Berlinale, the winners!

Berlin Special: Berlinale Palast!

Day 37-38: Paris, is it really the city of love?

2011-02-14T09:08:00.004+02:00

The first time around I stopped by at Paris back in 2007 and the impression of the city was not great. It was a sunny day in October, it was warm, trees had a beautiful color to their leafage and yet it didn’t work for me. It was too dirty and too much-ado-about-nothing. This trip, however, was on a cold winter weekend and the trees weren’t colorful, it was only partially sunny and yet I had a fantastic time and I believe I was able to get the city’s vibe. Because this time I involuntarily was able to get over the fact that it’s “Paris, the city of love” and just discover it for myself without looking back at this stereotype. In other words, the weather/season doesn't matter much in the end, plus winter has less tourists flocking to typically touristic places.

Also, I must say I like this two-days-per-city thing that I had going on, I was 4 days in Barcelona and it was somehow too long for me, to be honest. While during 2 days I do extensive sightseeing and walking around and I can freely cover everything I want without going somewhere where I feel I don’t have to go, but do because I’m staying longer than necessary.

I took a flight from Oslo where the night before I’d met my friend with whom I couchsurfed in Stockholm which resulted in me having exactly one hour of sleep at night and leaving for the airport bus at 4.40am. The good thing was that the flight wasn’t full and I had a chance to lie down and take a series of short naps.

Upon arriving to Paris from the Beauvais airport, I met my couchsurfing host who turned out to be one of the kindest and trustful people I have ever met in my life. After maybe a half an hour of conversation, he gave me keys to his apartment and I could stay the weekend there by myself because he had to leave the city to go see his parents. I mean, I don’t think it goes further than that, does it? He had all of his possessions there and he didn’t really know me and although I believe I make a good impression, he was very brave to give the keys to pretty much a total stranger. But that’s couchsurfing for you, you come across the most incredible people.

My host also took care of my entertainment program, he hooked me up with a good friend of his and we hung out most of the first day together and then the entire evening of the second night. The guy showed me around, we had coffee just off Champs-Élysées, walked around Montmartre as twilight was setting in and discussed all things languages, relationships and Paris.

I think Paris as a destination is interesting to listen to. I had no wish whatsoever to listen to my player, because I suppose the city has a specific sound to it: the language spoken mixed together with transport and other street sounds, it makes for an impressive melody of its own.

On my second day I had a very good itinerary: I started off with Sacre-Coeur and Montmartre again, going of into Boulevard de Clichy, then taking the subway to Notre-Dame de Paris, going off to Le Sorbonne, Jardins du Luxembourg, walking rounds in that area, then going back to the river to pass by Esplanade des Invalides to finally reach La Tour Eiffel. All on foot and I think it was at least 12km that I did that day, quite possibly more.

In the morning, I was startled by a homeless guy just off Montmatre. I was standing in the middle of an empty street taking a sip of my tea and the only thing in the vicinity was a long pile of garbage bags. I mean they looked a lot like garbage bags… then they started moving and I thought maybe it was a cat or dog coming from underneath, until I saw a homeless man’s face appear out of there. Turns out, the guy camped out there for the night and the blue plastic was not garbage but his cover / shield from the wind. It was a bit scary at first, it felt almost UFO-like, his appearance, but then it just felt special and quite Paris-like. That day I passed by several homeless people camping out like that.

No more than 3 minutes later an old transvestite offered herself to me in what I guess was supposed to me a sultry voice. I must admit it was kind of freaky and yet there was something that was almost turned me on about it.

All in all, Paris has a vibe that eventually saw me leave the city with a happy smile on my face, it’s certainly a great place to visit. I still do not get the fascination with the Eiffel Tower because it looks too clumsy for my taste and not as graceful as it appears on all those millions of pictures and in movies that you see, but nevertheless the city itself is a must-see destination. Apart from the famous sights, I found the general architecture of the city to be captivating, it has its own style that I believe can be recognized by anyone who's visited here. Originally, I only wanted to stop by because it was cheaper to fly Oslo-Paris-Barcelona than Oslo-Barcelona, so I had very low expectations for the place, however I’m glad I re-visited it as it certainly brought me a lot of joy and fun memories. It was the biggest surprise of the trip.

Day 35-36: Oslo, Norway: expensive and cold, but nice

2011-02-11T09:00:00.003+02:00

Oslo is the capital of Norway. That’s where most people’s knowledge of the country mostly ends. It’s not Europe’s most popular destination as Ryanair’s ¾ empty flight from Berlin shows, however it is a pleasant place to visit for a couple of days.

The journey begins with amazing views from the airplane as you approach the airport (Rygge), a lot of half-frozen islands will present themselves to your view and it might be one of the best landscapes I’ve seen from a plane apart from maybe only the Alps.

Weather: Norway is not a warm country by any means, however what you should know is that Oslo’s dry and sunny -15C actually feels better than Berlin’s cloudy chilly 0C. There is no wind, or at least there wasn’t any when I was there, and I could easily afford walking for 5-6 hours straight without actually even being cold. Of course the usual winter set of a hat, scarf and gloves is required, however you might be surprised how comfortable this weather feels.

Expenses: be prepared to cash out. Coffee and a muffin to go will cost you at least 4.5EUR. My trip to the grocery store saw me empty my wallet for 13EUR and all I bought was 0.5kg mushrooms, some grated cheese and crisps. But I suppose it doesn’t hurt to remember that also is the world’s most expensive city before you book those plane tickets.

Transport: a 24-hour transport pass will cost you about 9EUR. But I wouldn’t recommend splurging on it, because you can freely walk in Oslo from point A to point B without even starting to get tired. That’s why I didn’t really understand why the transport network had to be so extensive in the downtown area as the city is flat and the distances are not long.

The main street of Oslo is Karl Johans gate, it starts directly at the main train/bus station and leads up to the Royal Palace, which, by the way, is the most boring Palace that I have ever seen in my life (I won’t be bothered to even post a picture of it). The exterior doesn’t make it different from any other building in the city, it’s just big, so maybe that’s why they call it a Palace. Akershus Festning, on the other hand, is a location worth stopping by: it is an old fortress that is partially used by the Ministry of Defense at the present time (you'll be amazed by the shabby old buildings that they are based in) and is not only interesting looking itself, but it also presents some great views of the Oslofjord bay.

The Opera House is an interesting building that you can actually walk on. The roof starts at the ground and goes up to the level of the ceiling over the stage. Not far from the central station you can see the Oslo Cathedral, but blink and you won't notice it, it's a small church that looks very tame.

I went to Oslo without reading any travel guides or information about the city and in the end I was glad I didn't, you don't really have to know a lot before you get it, everything is out there in the center, at the airport you should just pick up a free map and you're ready to explore.

Opera House

Breathtaking view from the Opera House

Parliament

City Hall overlooking the bay

Akershus Festning

Oslofjord

Norwegians plug their electric cars into sockets on parking lots, otherwise they won't start

Oslo has some of the fattest and biggest seagulls I have ever seen, they particularly enjoy crowding up on top of the Opera House

Cheap flights or is traveling expensive?

2011-02-09T09:03:00.009+02:00

I do love calculating expenses and it makes me inexplicably happy if I eventually end up spending less than originally budgeted. When I go over my budget even a little bit, not so much.

I think it’s essential for successful travel to keep track of expenses. Because the less you spend on one trip, the more trips you’ll be able to have as a long-term result. At least that’s a philosophy that has been working fairly well for me.

I divide my travel and expat life expenses into several categories, namely:

accommodation – typically the lowest of all when traveling as I mostly use Couchsurfing. I couldn’t praise it more, it doesn’t cost you anything AND you meet the most amazing, generous and evolved people AND you are able to share some great experiences with them

food – this includes my trips to the supermarket and all things grocery

entertainment – this is an umbrella term for a lot of things and could include: movie tickets, coffee&cake at a café, entrance fees and the like

transport – all expenses for transport excluding airfare, typically the category that brings me metaphorical headache as I find most means of public transport severely overpriced

airfare – flight tickets

IT– all things computer and cell phone related, like hours spent at Internet cafes and money spent on text messages

other – anything that couldn’t fit into the above category, might include things like shampoo, toothpaste, books, etc.

And now the breakdown for my 10-day trip to Norway, France, Spain and Portugal in EUR:

accommodation 0

food 54,44

entertainment 6,25

transport 92,25

airfare 114 (previously thought to be 93EUR, but I used a calculator this time around…)

IT 3

clothes 28

other 5,6

Which brings the grand total to 303,54EUR.

Now, I actually think it could have been lower, but I mentioned this some to a couple of friends and they were amazed at the cost. Just a couple of comments:

I feel it's worth mentioning that out of this sum, I spent 70EUR on my first day in Oslo (including return bus transfer from the airport for 29 EUR) on nearly nothing, be careful with this place, it's a destination for oil tycoons.

114EUR is the price of 7 flights with Ryanair, I actually took 6 of them, because the first two I bought back in December were Berlin-Oslo and Oslo-Berlin, but I didn’t take the latter one as I eventually moved to Paris from the Norwegian capital. I do believe it’s an amazing price. That being said, Ryanair is controversial, Michael O’Leary, the CEO, is as well, the environmental policy seems good to me, I don’t necessarily agree with O’Leary on the fact that the global warming doesn’t exist, but he has interesting opinions and a sense of humor. He’s probably impossible as a boss/partner though.

But back to my expenses. Transportation is the one category that I feel discontent about, of course most of that money is the airport transfers and that’s the price you pay for Ryanair’s cheap flights, what I could suggest though is that the EU lowers its insane prices on subway/bus/tram.

But overall, I think it's an okay amount of money spent on a trip covering 4 cities in 4 different countries.

How to pack a carry-on for 10 days (and 4 countries)?

2011-02-07T09:02:00.006+02:00

I just returned from my extensive and eventful 10-day trip around 4 popular destinations in Europe, namely

Oslo, Norway

Paris, France

Barcelona, Spain

Porto, Portugal

and will be posting reports on those locations shortly, however first things first.

A 10-day trip is not an overnight stay or a even a weekend somewhere else, it’s a full-on trip. Especially if it includes so much shifting between climate zones. For example, when I stopped by Oslo, the average temperature there was -15C, Paris was already warmer with -2-0C, Barcelona was almost shocking with its palms and 14-16C and Porto completely knocked my socks off with 18-20C during the day.

It was easier to navigate through such weather changes than one might think though and overall it was an extremely pleasant itinerary for me, except maybe I would’ve taken one day off Barcelona and spent it in Porto instead.

Now, straight to the facts. I own a standard suitcase and a regular-size Puma backpack, regular in this case means 40x30x20cm, so it’s even smaller than Ryanair’s permitted 55x40x20cm and I managed to travel with that for 10 days. It is similar to this backpack here. Looking back, it doesn’t look plausible to me anymore, but indeed that’s all I had for 10 days.

Here’s the breakdown of the things I managed to stuff into the backpack:

passport
insurance
6 boarding passes
Couchsurfing print outs
paper+pen
underwear
socks
jeans
2 T-shirts
light sweater
shirt
light and flat sneakers
additional pair of glasses
ziplock bag: toothbrush, toothpaste, deodorant, shampoo, shower gel
hairbrush
cell phone
cell phone charger
mp3 player and cable
sleeping bag (!)

At the same time, I was also wearing

pants
tights
t-shirt
woolen sweater
scarf-o-hat
winter jacket
winter boots

and I had a wallet in my pocket and a watch on my wrist.

Overall, the weight was 5-6kg and 1.5kg of it was the sleeping bag. Honestly, I could’ve taken many more things with me if it wasn’t for the bag, it took most of the space and I used it only for 4 days, however it proved to be absolutely necessary. As it appears, most apartment buildings in Barcelona do not have central heating and it can be quite chilly at night.

Of course it was always an adventure closing my backpack, I couldn’t sit on it because of its size, but I was squeezing it alright. Things got a little bit worse when I for some reason bought a replacement pair of jeans and 2 shirts in Oslo, which was right after my first flight, so I had 5 more to take. Obviously, there was no more space at all. The old pair of jeans had to go and I had to put even more layers on, even as I went south and I had to have my DSLR camera outside the bag. That could’ve proved to be a problem with Ryanair as they are quite strict on their one-bag rule (you can take up to 10kg worth of stuff, but it has to fit in one bag), so I had to hide it in my huge scarf or dissemble it and put the two parts into the pockets of my jacket… It could have been fun if it wasn’t so stressful. But I made all boardings safely and peacefully.

However, I see this incident as one more reason to sell the DSLR and get a regular camera that fits easily into the palm of a hand or pocket, it makes things easier.

And while I am on the topics of electronics, I should also highlight the fact that I didn’t take my laptop with me. Mostly for the sole reason of lacking space for it whatsoever, not because I wanted to be cut off Internet for a while. But it was a very liberating experience, my time online was limited to about an hour or two on the Internet (which is next to nothing, obviously) and once I even survived the day without being online and that let me enjoy the cities in a much more convenient way, I didn’t have to tear myself away from the screen as I always have to do when I get too absorbed. That said, I don’t think I’ll be brave enough again to leave my laptop behind. It feels strangely weird without the surfing.

To sum it up, I'd say that the answer to the question how to pack a carry-on for 10 days is, just take the stuff you need, no excessive clothing, material or books you won't read, cosmetics you won't use, just take the basics and wear layers if necessary.

And before I forget:

10 Days in a Carry-on - a photo guide to packing the right way, I'll adopt some of the techniques next time I do a similar trip

Day 29-35: Friedrichshain, Falafel, Flammkuchen, Madonna party

2011-02-01T18:30:00.003+02:00

Everything revolves around food, everywhere.

I had my first taste of a falafel here in Neukölln one night as I was coming from some party. It was very good, but would’ve been better without the cheese, so I’ll know better the next time.

A fellow couchsurfer and now a buddy of mine that I regularly hang out with out went for dinner at Friedrichshain the other night and ended up eating Flammkuchen. I was really looking forward to it, because I remember eating that in a little restaurant in Alsace and it was finger-licking good. Berlin’s version of a Flammkucken is a thick pizza without tomato sauce. This is not to say it was bad and I refused to eat it (duh!), but it wasn’t authentic, I like the combination of onions and feta cheese though. It was a place next to a movie theater called Intimes Kino on Boxhagener str., if I recall correctly. They also had no toilet paper available. The demons!

And while I am on the topic of food, I would appreciate it if somebody could recommend one or several places in Berlin where I could have a good tiramisu, I’m a big, big fan.

This weekend also saw me not going to the Madonna party that I’d been waiting for for a while. I burned out a little bit, probably. And also nobody wanted to go all that much. Maybe because the entrance was 9EUR?.. Which seems extreme for Berlin’s usual damping prices. Instead of that, my Polish buddy and I did a mini pub crawl of our own that lasted again until the wee hours of the morning. Prior to that, the same evening I stopped by another Couchsurfer’s meet-up dedicated to Russendisko, a party I promised to myself I will not attend anymore. But the couchsurfers as usual are great people, in my 1.5 hours there I met an admirer of the Russian language who I will meet one of the these days, a Persian guy who seems to like a good conversation and a Mexican guy who brought "real tequila", I’m not knowledgeable enough to be able to tell how real and unreal tequilas are different from each other, but the shot itself was nice. The snack was fried grasshoppers, but I passed. For now. I’ll save that for my stint on Fear Factor.

Day 25-28: Kreuzberg, Checkpoint Charlie, Tempelhof, Berlin bars

2011-01-26T13:07:00.006+02:00

I enjoy being what is called a slow traveler, I have a base in Berlin for a while for the reason of better discovering the location, cutting down on expenses and being in no hurry to cover everything. It also allows me to quite conveniently explore nearby countries and when I come back to Berlin, I don’t run around trying to locate something on a map, I know where I’m going. It feels good calling Berlin home, at least for some time.

Since coming back from Stockholm, I have explored Kreuzberg a little bit, which means I’ve been there at least 5 times, once two times in the same day, I quite enjoy the surroundings there and Oranienstr. which appears to be the main hub for entertainment and drinking and eating. They even have a Madonna bar there, but sadly enough they serve mostly whiskey there (and as you all know I now am a beer fan). Out of the places I’ve been to, I thought Bierhimmel had a pleasant atmosphere. Kreuzberg also has a small joint called Anglio Pizza – well, don’t go there unless you’re really hungry, the pizza wasn’t bad, but it definitely wasn’t fantastic, also smaller than the regular size, so it was a bit of a disappointment for a regular price.

A noticeable trait about Berlin bars and pubs is that they’re almost always cold. Of course it encourages you to drink more, so the reason is pretty clear, but nevertheless when I enter a certain place, I like being warm there and after I’ve made an order, drank it and then only then began to feel the warmth spread through my body.

I have also taken a stroll down the entire Friedrichstr. and stopped by Checkpoint Charlie (with a McDonalds right behind it), a famous landmark that had a group of American tourists stalking the "guard".

In the last week here I have also taken a walk at former Tempelhof airport most famously associated with the Berlin blockade and also boasting a fantastic location, it’s situated almost in the center of Berlin (I could reach it in about 10 minutes with public transportation from my home) and it could have been a good place to visit, except it wasn’t. Nothing to see there except grass and two old airplanes behind a fence, I wonder why they call it a park nowadays and where exactly those investments went – or maybe the money is to be invested, I don’t know. Anyway, it’s pretty boring out there, but very convenient for jogging, cycling and rollerblading. I guess it is sort of cool, jogging down a former runway. Maybe I should do that myself; that or continue to eat peanut butter like the world is about to stop turning.

One of the areas of Berlin I haven’t discovered yet (only very briefly) is Prenzlauer Berg, but I have time on my hands, so one of these days you can spot me in PB snooping around.

Day 22-24: Stockholm and its pretty people

2011-01-25T01:23:00.007+02:00

My trip to Stockholm started with an early flight with Ryanair, an airline that I think has the best pilots. Not that my opinion is even remotely close to being expert on the subject, but it however feels like with Ryanair I have the smoothest take offs and landings.

That said, for obvious reasons Ryanair always chooses airports in the middle of nowhere and Sweden is no exception, we landed in Skavsta. Up until the moment when we finally steered over to the arrival gate, it seemed we landed in the woods far away from civilization. Literally just trees and snow, this is probably what real Russia looks like as well (and I come from the non-real Russia). The airport is about 80 minutes away by bus from Stockholm’s central station.

I guess you know you’re in Sweden when you see a pretty female blonde truck driver racing with your airport shuttle bus. Although apparently it’s still not 100% equality even there, I’m sure Sweden is ahead of most countries on the matter.

I did most of my walking around on the first day and some on the second day, covering Gamla Stan, Drottningsgatan (harbor for shopaholics) and the area around the City Hall. I didn’t expect it to be quite so charming. The pastel colors of Gamla Stan looked rather lovely surrounded by snow even though the pictures don’t relay that very well, I think. It also got interesting when it was time for lunch and I was looking around for a place to have a bite at, I ended up buying sushi/rolls at a supermarket and it wasn’t cheap, I have to say.

Things I find worth reporting are:
prepare yourself for an overload of beautiful people (nowhere else have I seen so many pretty and handsome faces)
don’t go there until you’re ready to cash out (although apparently I am about to find out that Olso, Norway is even more expensive)
a beer in a bar won’t be cheaper than 5-6EUR (in Berlin it starts at 1.5EUR)
most Swedes do have a fashion sense and are pretty showy off about it
much to my amazement, they do love their ABBA and go INSANE when they hear it in a nightclub

The highlight of my stay, however, was my Couchsurfing host who is by now one of the most incredible people I have ever met. He is a Dutch guy who lived in Amsterdam for a while but then decided to relocate to Stockholm which seems to be his favorite place on earth. So flying between Olso where he works and Stockholm where he resides is what he does every week (I can only be envious of that, of course.

A few words about him: incredibly generous; showed me around queer places and we tried to look for uh, interesting people to hang out with but in the end had to entertain ourselves which was also the best possible outcome; fantastic sense of humor (I just typed that out as sex of humor… wonder why?!) that coupled with mine allowed us to establish a quick set of running gags and have a blast in each others company.

We explored the queer scene together (I remember Roxy in SoFo and... that other place with 3 dance floors), R cooked pizza for me, we ate tiramisu out of the package, ate smoked reindeer from the fridge in a supermarket, tried some kind of rare Belgian beer that looked like champagne to me (only couple with kriek for me, of course) and had an all around mind-blowing time together. Sunday was a quiet pajama day with lots of Nutella sandwiches and lying around.

It was so good that it made me think we were either family or friends since many years and who knows if couchsurfing will ever be as good again (I guess I’ll find out this one soon though). It’s not out of question that R and I will meet up in Olso if he’s there at the time and later he’ll come visit me in Berlin.

Those were three awesome days and nights and R couldn’t have been a better host and conversation partner to me. Looking forward to seeing what our next meeting will be like. Location is not important.

How to find a place to live in Berlin

2011-01-18T15:05:00.005+02:00

Renting a room in Berlin

I have been asked the flatshare question several times for the past month or so, so I figured the best way to do this would be to write the answer down as this might be useful to those about to undertake an apartment search in Berlin.

I decided back in November that I would like to extend my trip to Europe now that I don’t have a desk job anymore and can dispose of a one-year Shengen multi-visa.

Like in most other spheres, one has to do some research before taking action. Initially I only briefly looked at the prices for apartments and rooms and set my limit to 300 EUR per month for a room. Later I lowered that to 200 EUR monthly as everything around 300 EUR turned seemed to be overpriced compared to other offers.

Basically there are two ways to find a room in Berlin:

Internet
Friends and acquaintances

The latter would seem the easy way out and had I had an enormous amount of friends in Berlin, that would’ve been prone to work. However, having been 3 times in Germany and not once in its capital, I only had one friend in Berlin who I’d met in Russia several years prior to that at a youth parliament. She asked her friends here in Berlin if anything was available and at the time there was nothing, however later when I’d already found the place, she said something came up, so this option is definitely not to rule out. Also, she graciously offered me to spend several nights at their flatshare if I wouldn't find anything before starting the trip.

Internet is as always a source of both useful information and garbage, in the end I’ve found the following sites useful for my apartment search

Craigslist – I would say it’s tourist-oriented (or perhaps even American tourist-oriented). A lot of ads are in English, the prices are generally not low, it’s half vacation rentals and half flatshares. A lot of scams, but you can see them from miles away either in the actual ad or later when you receive a reply or replies and it’s obvious the sender hasn't read your message at all and suggests you pay via a money wire first and then they will send you the keys with UPS.

Couchsurfing – the devoted member that I am, I couldn’t not look there. Long-term stays and rentals are not what CS is about, but I’d say it’s not impossible to find something there, but you better personally contact somebody who you think might be willing to have you stay for some a couple of months than posting in groups.

WG gesucht would seem the be the most popular place to search. It has the most offers, also pretty user-friendly.

Immobilien Scout 24 is highly advertised on most flatshare sites, but I think it’s mostly apartments for one/couple/family, not WGs. Most are not furnished.

WG Company is where I found my flatshare. Extremely basic interface, but the lowest prices, no vacation rentals offers, not tourist-oriented for the most part. Obviously this is the one I’d recommend most.

In general it’s best for you to (also) be able to speak German, but it’s definitely not obligatory, some flatshares actually wish to speak English (mine, for instance), most young people speak English quite well and it’s not unusual to live in an apartment with people from Portugal, Italy, UK, Finland, etc.

I also have to tell you that I keep hearing that it was unusual to find an apartment via the web without having seen or talked to the person and I quite agree, but I was dead set on already having a place to stay upon my arrival, so I just ploughed my way in, I would say. In the course of two or two and a half weeks I sent out approximately 50 inquiries, about 40 of which never even earned me an answer. I did it the Couchsurfing way though, most of them anyway, it wasn’t just a copy-paste message to the entire planet, but it was a little bit personalized and aware of questions or remarks in the WG offer. You don’t have to bare your soul there or come off as pretentiously interested, but a personal touch will definitely receive more attention than a robotic message.

Apartments are divided into 3 categories, namely:

Zweck-WG / “flatshare with an aim”
“flatshare without an aim”
something in between

"Aim" means you all live together to save money and there’s a high chance that it’s the one thing you have in common. Having no aim means it’s either friends living together or people with similar interests who like to cook together, go out and share their lives with each other. Something in between is a mix both and it seems it’s what most flatshares are or become after having been the first option.

In the end I had two flatshares interested in me. I had a skype webcam interview with a group of people in a WG with a view on the TV tower who later chose somebody who wanted to stay for a longer period; and the one where I live right now. I ended up paying only 100EUR a month and yes, that includes all utilities and Internet. I was a bit baffled too, honestly. And they agreed to have me here after only two emails. That had me worried a little bit, because it just didn’t seem real and I even wanted to pre-book a cheap hotel for a couple of days, but it all worked out perfectly in the end. I live in Neukölln near the Ringbahn which means I can be in any other district of the city within minutes. Plus, there’s a direct bus to the central station (less than 30 minutes) and Schönenfeld Airport (less than 40 minutes) and several supermarkets within walking distance. Also, cappuccino starting at 1EUR in nearby bars/cafes. Plus, I quite enjoy my flatmates, on the one hand, they mind their own business, but on the other hand, we can chat and hang out together and all of it is very relaxed and stress-free. I’m quite delighted.

And before I forget:

This German life: the perfect WG

Day 12-21: Berlin

2011-01-13T15:26:00.005+02:00

So what is there to say about Berlin?

Except that it’s probably one of the few indigenously cool places on the planet right now? Time and time again I hear that people compare it New York City and to be honest in my mind NYC was like this this some 20 years ago.

It seems to be The hub for many expats right now, in less than 10 days here I met people from both big cities and villages in Brazil, USA, UK, France, Holland, Spain, Poland, Switzerland, Austria, Greece, Turkey, etc. I have also already had some coincidental meetings with people I sort of knew from hundreds of miles away. At the same time, at a recent party not too close to where I live right now I met two people who live next door to me and to each other.

In a certain sense Berlin might seem akin to many other capitals, there’s something going on every day and every hour, there’s no need to wait for a specific party for two months, you can go out on any day of the week and find not one but several and sometimes too many parties to go to. And yet it’s somehow different. First of all, you don’t need a lot of money to go out – definitely less than where I originally come from and it’s not even remotes resembles a multinational capital, secondly it’s not posh or glamorous in the sense that you are the expensive clothes and shoes that you wear. It seems like it would be considered much cooler to arrive to a party in a bathrobe than a designer dress.

The transportation system is extensive and quite easy to navigate through; signs, maps, ticket machines are to be found everywhere. And I’m saying that although I took the U/S-Bahn in the wrong direction twice last week. But I think it’s almost like a rite of passage with Berlin as I’ve come across many new Berliners who have had the same fun experience of pretending it’s all cool and nothing happened.

The danger of Berlin is that it’s cheap, but with some people that can lead to spending more.

It also has had an incredible and unexpected influence on me, namely I started drinking beer and I’m now planning a Transsiberian trip. Some people who know me well have been or will be surprised, I’m a very outspoken beer-tastes-like-urine person, but I guess not anymore, eh? I still can’t say I reckon that it tastes great, but I think I’m on the path to discover that it’s not so bad after all. Now all of it tastes the same to me, but maybe it’ll repeat the story of soluble coffee. The story when I was only able to drink coffee machine coffee and then I started to work for a soluble coffee manufacturer and for the life of me I couldn't figure out what difference it had from water or a used teabag tea. Later on, I was able to distinguish between Classic, Gold, Gold Mild, Gold Strong, Gold Montego, Gold Decaf, Alta Rica, Espresso. [The two worth drinking are: Nescafe Espresso, it’s ‘premium class coffee’ and Nescafe Gold Decaf.]

Concerning the Transsiberian trip, just read the description on the right and you’ll see what I mean about it being a sudden change of heart. Who knows maybe I'll start to lead a Simple Life in a farmhouse somewhere in Siberia very soon?.. And I'm only half-joking.

But back to the coolest place on Earth. There’s so much to do that I’m afraid I won’t be able to see all of it, but then there’s always the question of whether you have to see everything? Since several months ago it has finally dawned onto me that quality should come first and I more often than not am content with just sitting back and enjoying the ride. I have a feeling it’ll take me some place nice.

It’s nice to have a stroll down the Under den Linden, from the starting with the Bundestag, then taking a peek at the American Embassy, Brandenburg Gate, Russian Embassy, Berliner Dom, Humboldt University, Opera, bears, walk all the way to Alexanderplatz. It’s funny how Russian and American Embassies are guarded by people with seemingly lots of weapons and who look suspiciously at every by-passer and it’s just embassies, really; Germany’s main building Bundestag is guarded by two police cars with several people and they just sort of blend in without leaving a bad taste in your mouth.

I really can’t believe this city had a wall separating it in two parts and that people couldn’t really see each other and that they were blocked from their relatives, et cetera, et cetera. I mean, it just seems so unbelievable and improbable right now and yet it did happen and lasted for several decades! Because some people were playing politics and just didn’t know what to do with themselves. So, this is a place with incredible history and sort of makes you wonder and question things. Berlin also has some of the greatest street artwork that I’ve seen – of course the East Side Gallery is worth a visit, I saw it at night when no one else was around and suggest others do the same, it might be a bit eerie, but you’ll have this experience (mostly) to yourself. This site here offers great pictures from when the Wall was still intact.

I also like wondering off into streets that aren’t exactly part of most guides. Karl-Marx-Allee will give you a feeling of a boring Soviet Moscow residential area, worth a visit.

I’ll be going to Stockholm for an extended weekend tomorrow. On the one hand, I’m quite excited, but on the other hand, who would want to leave Berlin?! Oh well...

Next on: Neukölln, Schönenberg, Friedrichshain, Kreuzberg, Prenzlauer Berg.

And before I forget:

How Berlin functions - 1 (Berlin’s Underemployed, Well-Educated Expat Hipsters Lend City a Gritty Verve)

How Berlin functions - 2 (Dunkin' Berliner)

The Deutsche Bahn rant

2011-01-08T16:54:00.002+02:00

There was a point in my life when I thought that Deutsche Bahn was the most punctual train service. I thought that for a very long time and I think it’s the popular opinion amongst many people.

My opinion has altered due to latest events though. First my train from Cologne to Munich was an hour late. Then Munich-Karlsruhe arrived 15 or 20 minutes later than scheduled (it’s not such a big deal, but not for a supposedly punctual train service). Of course you have to keep in mind the weather has been terrible, but then again Germany always has snow and it’s not a tropical country, so I would suppose that snow is to be expected as well as railway icing.

But the weirdest experience was my recent City Night Line ride from Karlsruhe to Berlin. The train was about 10 minutes late, so that’s in the present situation quite okay.

So I was waiting at the train station and it was only the first time that I noticed that you can actually know where exactly your train car will stop. Each railway has letters assigned to it and there are boards that where you can see next to which letter your train car will stop, so that you won’t have to run 300m with your huge suitcase once the train arrives. Which is exactly what you do in Russia as you almost never can predict how far you’ll have to run. I was thinking how cool it is to be in a civilized place and then the train car arrived.

I had a Ruhesessel ticket with a seat reservation, which means it’s just a more or less comfortable armchair that leans back quite a lot. I entered my train car and there were just compartments. I was puzzled. I went back and forth at least 4 times, just trying to figure out if I had the number of the car right, if it was actually my train, if I was blind, etc.

No, it was all fine, except there was not a one Ruhesessel in sight and of course no Deutsche Bahn employee anywhere in the vicinity. [What's also odd, my seat number was 67 and there was no 67 at all there. There were places 60-66 and then I think 69-75, etc.] I sat down in the next car, there were plenty of Ruhesessels free there, but did I want to be worried at every stop that the train made that somebody would come up to me and tell me it’s their seat? Nope. Eventually, two stops later and an hour on the road, I went to check out if maybe a Ruhesessel miraculously appeared in my assigned train car… and stumbled upon a DB employee at last.

The guy had little interest in talking to me and for the most part was quite impatient and obviously had better things to do than explain the situation to me, so the best I got was this: yes, I had a Ruhesessel train car with seat reservation, yes, it was the correct car number, no, there are no Sessels here because it’s somehow a different train, so I should just take any place I want in this car. I was a bit flummoxed as again, there could’ve been a problem of somebody showing up and telling me where to go as it was their place, but it turned out that somehow there were no reservations for that car at all. Or something.

Anyhow, in the end I shared a compartment with another confused guy, so it was actually a better option than what I paid for, but that thought didn’t help me fall asleep and arrive all fresh and perky to Berlin. Oh well. I might still give DB another chance for long-distance travel at one point.

Local subsidiaries are not great either, though. The S-Bahn in Berlin goes absolutely not according to the schedule and with long delays, much to the discontent of people who are late to work every day because of this as you can’t foresee such things. But the weather is getting better (fingers crossed that it’s not just for two days) and so maybe Berliners will see the end of their commuting nightmare. At some point.

Day 9-11: Karlsruhe is as great as it ever was and arrival in Berlin

2011-01-06T15:52:00.006+02:00

What is the best way to start your first day of a new year?

Right. Eat. Even though last night you said you were so stuffed that you would never eat even a single crumble ever again. But the next morning you longingly think of food again. Happens every year and yet it takes you by surprise every time.

My friends kindly took me out for New Year’s Day lunch in a lovely family-owned restaurant 40-50km out of town and the good was delicious. The view on the mountains was mesmerizing and it was nice to see people waking up and slowly flocking to the restaurant to have a bite or two. I’m pretty sure they were all thinking the same thing about never eating again the previous night as well.

The same night I felt like going out to see a movie and although I was not alone in this desire (as the movie theater was full), there was literally not a soul on the streets, I understand January 1 is mostly dedicated to hangover and chilling later on. I saw Tykwer’s Drei at my favorite movie theater. It was a good movie, although I imagine it could still be considered shocking by some people? I mean I definitely wouldn’t be surprised to hear that. At the same time, the audience was quite interesting: older ladies, middle age couples, teenagers and twenty-somethings and yet no one gasped or giggled at quite explicit portrayal of gay sex and the like. It’s a positive change from what I’m accustomed to in Russia. Also, I appreciate the silence during the movie. But was amused to find out that somebody people bring in homemade sandwiches and snacks.

The following day I saw my friends (who were my Gastfamilie twice in Karlsruhe/Waldbronn before, in 2005 and 2007), two amazing people with who I always find a topic to converse about. We first spent some time in their cozy home and then went out for some Italian delight. I introduced them both to the CouchSurfing and I think they might try it at some point, as they are quite interested in cultural exchange and travel, especially one who devotes some of his time to developing relations between Germany and Russia (and a whole lot of other countries). Was fantastic to see them again and it definitely wasn’t the last time.

January 2 marked my first visit to a zoo in my life. It wasn’t the best date as obviously some of the animals don’t find cold weather as fascinating (even the polar bear! who I would’ve gladly taken a peek at), but nevertheless it was a nice stroll around with my friend. I later walked around a bit on my own, Karlsruhe stills charms it, I must say. It now seems a bit smaller than I originally thought, but still it’s a place from where I have some very fond memories. Dear to me are also the people are met there, the former Gastfamilie I just mentioned as well as my friend from school and her husband who were thoroughly welcoming and made my third stay in Karlsruhe great.

Therefore I was sad to leave yet again, but the thought of coming back makes me all warm inside, so it’s definitely a done deal. Also Karlsruhe seems to have more bakeries than any other place I’ve been to so far (I’m just saying that so people get motivated to come here as German bread is the best you’ll find).

Next on:

A Deutsche Bahn adventure that was a bit of a hassle… although it all didn’t matter very soon because… BERLIN!

Day 7-8: Leaving Munich, arriving in Karlsruhe for the 3rd time

2011-01-02T02:45:00.005+02:00

How do you know that you’re happy? Me: I’m traveling and I’m simply walking down the street, grinning to myself, enjoying everything that’s going on around even if it’s usually not that interesting to me. That has been happening a lot to me since I set off on the trip 10 days ago.

I do hope this lasts. Obviously that almost entirely depends on me.

On an unrelated note, Deutsche Bahn employees didn’t check my ticket on my night trip from Cologne to Munich, so I wonder if anybody could’ve just gone in and taken a night-long trip. Surely makes for a good adventure.

On December 30 I had a nice 1.5-long walk around Munich once again before departing for Karlsruhe, all of the sights remained just as a beautiful as I remembered them from the first day. It must be a nice place to live. I also had a nice time with my third CS host who has traveled around the globe quite a lot, she also has been a freelancer for a long time, was interesting to discuss this very subjectwith her. Also great English. Although I must say most CS hosts or guests normally speak great English, far above average.

My train left on time and the landscape in front of my eyes was charming all the way to Karlsruhe. Snow and beautiful trees in forests of all kinds make for an awesome picture.

Upon arrival I was greeted by my friend with whom I'd studied briefly here in Karlsruhe and with whom we've kept in touch ever since. She and her husband have a very lovely apartment and are both great to converse with. On our first evening my friend showed me breathtaking pictures from their November vacation in Lanzarote, Spain and I had no choice but to add it to my travel wish list. It looks a lot like Mars - not that I've seen it, but it absolutely fits our/Hollywood image of this planet.

December 31 was of course the last day of the year. In the afternoon we went for a walk, now it needs to be mentioned that I'm not accustomed to this: German (and most EU) stores and supermarkets are closed starting afternoon on December 31 all the way through January 1 and 2. So that's 2.5 days without access to shopping at all! Who could survive that?! But apparently everyone gets by and if you really, really need something, you could splurge on a visit to the train station store or a gas station kiosk. Unbelievable! Around where I live most stores will be open all the way till 8pm or maybe even later on December 31 and will re-open at 11am-1pm the following day.

We walked around for a couple of hours and ended up being tired as if we'd worked extremely hard. The year's end was apparently taking its toll on us. Later on, my friend made a cheese fondue (delicious stuff, I get dizzy just thinking about it) while I was brave enough to make an Olivier. Much to the laughter and hilarity of my friends and family at home. That's a typical Russian salad you eat every New Year's Eve and some people opt for it on all holidays possible, every Russian has eaten dozens of hundreds of kilos in his or her life and it's just too contrite nowadays and yet most people still make it each time. I ate some as well. It's particularly good the next morning.

On New Year's Eve I also got introduced to Wii and have already had some success with tennis, ping pong and rowing. It's actually quite fun, and your arm hurts afterwards as if it were the real thing. We also did a round of Mensch Ärgere Dich Nicht just for laughs (it was especially funny to me because I won, ho ho). Board games in general are popular in Germany - I have also played Memory during my two previous stays here.

An hour and a half before 2011 finally started we were joined by the family's friend as well as somebody I knew from being in KA before. A fascinating person, someone I'd like to get to know better. She brought a fresh kind of spirit to the evening and was fun to watch dancing.

At midnight we all congratulated each other, watched some fireworks, dialed a couple of numbers (that's universal) and eventually ended up watching about half an hour of a live concert in Berlin. (Although to the best of my knowledge it was in real time, but no live singing was going on...) It was bad and trashy. I take most of what I said about Russian New Year's program on TV back, this was a low budget show with old and almost forgotten (and unknown to me) singers and bands as well as David Hasselhoff. Yeah, that wasn't great. But thankfully no obligatory speech by head of the state right before the year started.

Nevertheless it was a good way to welcome the new year, especially in such a great company. Here's hoping it's be a year full of fabulous travel.

Roll on, 2011

2010-12-31T02:12:00.002+02:00

It was a great travel year.

April: Prague, Dresden

May: Kiev, Lviv

June: Several trips around the Black Sea

July: Vienna, Bratislava, Amsterdam, Brussels, Prague

September: Moscow

November: Istanbul

December: Milan, Cologne, Munich, Karlsruhe... and still on the road as I enter 2011!

Not to be omitted are the 160km per day 5 days a week that I commuted 10 months of this year... But that is over with and what remains for now is pleasure travel! Roll on, 2011. :D