A memorable day

Today was memorable for a number of reasons.

Primarily the amount of injury I have sustained to my poor body through ice related incidents.

# of stackings in one day - 3
# on bike - 2
# on foot - 1
# where a Christmas tree went down with me - 1

Also because I had to deal with DHL Express - a courier delivery company through Deutsch Post, and I had a run-in with international import tax for the first time.

My parcel's value: $1000AUD
Amount of import tax I was (I believe incorrectly) charged: $400AUD

It was complicated enough because the abovementioned tax had to be paid in cash only. It didn't say so on the form I received, but the delivery guy insisted for some odd reason. Which meant he had to come back a second time so that I had had a chance to go get cash. Weird.

I am trying not to get too stressed about losing $400AUD but it is on my mind and I'm a bit nervous about trying to argue my case in German with customs people. But it is worth a try... more than a try actually, it's worth written correspondance too if talking comes to nothing.

So after all that I decided I needed a nice Christmas tree and went down to the local markets to buy a proper pine tree. I then decorated it with lights, some really cheap gold ribbon and a couple of glass balls and lit some candles. It's a little skew, but here is the result of my handiwork:

This tree did not come without a small drama :-) I attached it to the back of my bike with the length of my seat lock, which I frankly thought was genius, at the time. At first I just walked my bike, and then I tilted it from side to side to check how firmly in place my tree was. No problems with tilting my bike so I thought I'd give riding it a go. I climbed on tentatively and started riding - no issues whatsoever. I started to laugh at the bizarre ingenuity and feeling the wind through my hair, feeling clever and empowered I rode that bike like never before. Until I hit a patch of ice on a wide turn and stacked it quite badly in front of the Multi-Kulti corner store with all the men outside having a smoke.

It was all over after that. The tree wouldn't stay on the bike, so I hobbled and slipped the rest of the way home my tail between my legs and, with some difficulty keeping the tree together.

Next stop was the Turkish markets for some Christmas goodies. Immediately after buying a new hat I slipped for the second time. It was one of those comic slips where your legs go out in front of you and I thudded right on my back. I am quite lucky I didn't do any damage. Again, a crowd of Turkish men around for all to witness.

At the markets I bought lots of fruit and veg, hommus, traditional German sausages, different types of cheese... I also came across a special type of chocolate which I would like to bring to the attention of my immediate family:

 

 

Caught up with a pal from uni who is travelling in Berlin and we went to the Christmas markets. This cute little Gluhwein cup has made it into my cupboard:

Also finally got a chance to try the chocolate coated strawberries so now I think I've tried everything I need to savour from the Christmas markets, except maybe the Swedish cheesy potato dish, whatever it is. Can't quite remember.

And to cap off the day, here's a really nice snowy sunset from my bedroom window, which I really love looking out (did I mention that?)

CRAZY DAY!

My God what a DAY.

The biggest drama was locking the only key in the whole of Germany to my aparment.... in my apartment. I would have thought there might be a master key, but noooo. So three German men (the landlord and two handymen) drilled big freakin' holes into my apartment door and drilled out the lock. It took them an hour.

What was amazing though was the methodical, unstressed way in which they did it. They just... did it. It took them an hour, and they thought it through quite seriously, came up with a plan, and executed it. There was no drama, no rolling of eyes or angst... just three men and a drill. And here I was rolling about being all sorry and apologetic, and it was just.. their job.

We chose the coldest day of the entire year to do stuff. Today I went for a walk along the canal, went to the Christmas markets, went on an amusement park ride, went ice skating.. walked a pretty long way home. So much outdoor stuff, and it was -12C. -12!!!!!!

It was a stoopid idea to go on the pretty carnival ride, which was elevated about 10 stories high and involved travelling at high temperatures through the wind. My ass cheeks and thigh backs made contact with cold plastic and basically, 4 hours later, in my warm bed, my skin is still red and cold and it feels similar to sunburn. What the hell!? I had tights on underneath jeans but it obviously wasn't enough.... time to buy some thermals.

How is it that tomorrow's low is supposed to be -14 and then Monday's low is -5?!

We went ice-skating.... I suck. I wouldn't have sucked so bad with better shoes - the rental shoes were in bad nick and were way too loose and made my ankles turn in. But yeah, fun with Carolin and Kerry at Alexanderplatz.

Photos to come....

Flee xo

Armida

Well last night was my first taste of Registeater. Sensationalist director Calixto Bieito directed this very special production of Gluck's opera Armida.

The Komische Oper looks like a box from the outside. Inside it's really pretty. I went with John and Erica.

Before the opera started, wondering what to expect

It's all supposed to be a woman's fantasy dream. Armida is a sorceress whose charms never fail to win over many a man, except for that one pesky dude that is simply too focussed on his job, the soldier Rinaldo. So she sets about in revenge to shoot the bastard but then she just can't do it (only in this production.... she does... and he falls down dead... and then he randomly gets up and goes "ta da!!!" and walks offstage.... WTF?? Maybe it was a dream?)

So then she keeps him (alive it seems) in her palace with all her man-slaves and dominatrix companions until one day she has a meeting (at the Underworld) and has to leave him for a bit.

While she's gone Rinaldo's mates come to collect him from Armida's grasp, and he sees them and goes "oh yeah, shit I should get back to work" and despite all her measures he leaves, so she sets about making her dwelling into a miserable desert. Or something like that.

So this director did a production of Mozart's die Enfuehrung aus dem Serail in 2004 that shocked the hell out of everyone. Apparently lots of writhing in blood and prostitutes and heads on platters and other stuff. Because I had heard word of mouth about that production, I had assumed this "new wave" of theatre in Europe was kind of a general BDSM trend. Well actually, it was just the same director that did this production as well. And lo and behold, there's writhing in blood, man-slaves, etc etc etc (more on that below)

I was looking forward to hearing Maria Bengtsson who in all the publicity videos looks like a strong and convincing singer. Instead we got Caroline Melzer. She looked and sounded about 20 years old, skinny as a twig with very little substance in voice nor much character for such a powerful heroine role. Maybe it's just the wrong role for her? She sounded like a student, the tessitura was too high and she had to resort to lots of twig-thin singing just to get through the role. In fact when she first opened her mouth I thought "Oh God she's not going to make it through the night". Unfortunately, her character held very little power, command or sex-appeal either (or desire?) and seemed completely out of place in a room full of naked men..... I wondered at the time if she was a young artist making her debut or something. Hey, that'll be me one day. (not in a room full of naked men... well maybe)

Me in a room full of naked men

 Just kidding mum!

By all other accounts the other voices I thought were pretty good. 

So here's a rundown of what the "woman's fantasy scena" entailed:


Shoe fetish (power dressed woman in heels walks over backs of naked men all lined up on their hands and knees)
Dodgy Las Vegas style pseudo-erotic act with a man wearing zebra striped budgie smugglers and a 6ft snake wrapped around his body
Onstage abortion (while singing an aria)
Lots of oral sex (including cunnilingus while hanging off and swinging from space age pods Kubrick style)
Lesbian sex
Gay sex
Hetero sex, woman on top front centre stage
Orgies
Old, young, fat, thin

Cross dressing (gynandrophormophilia)
Implied lactaphilia
Human sacrifice with eyeball gouging
Autogynephilia
Chronophilia
Dendrophilia (haha! In a spiritual sense... he was singing about a tree, anyway while simultaneously bringing Armida to orgasm)
Strangling (erotophonophilia)
Implied necrophilia
Stigmatophilia...
Troilism (watching others)


Anyway if the production had have been exciting, convincing, dynamic, the singing good, the acting powerful, perhaps it wouldn't have looked so much like a freak show with a superfluous plot thrown in. But they all just looked kind of tired and over it, going through the motions. It kept making me think, how bloody awful would it be to be on stage giving simulated oral sex to the same bird while swinging from a space pod, night after night for six months. You'd just be soooooo over it.

 The space pod

Hmmm... am wondering if my blog will get shut down if I show nudity?


Another Language Swap Party

After the opera I went to Postdamer Platz to the Cinestar Bar to meet an expat crew for a party. Met some nice people, had some good German conversation practice, learnt some valuable words. It's good to formulate exactly how to talk about the opera I had just been to see. There's vocabulary involved that I barely know in English. Discovered on my way home that catching U-bahns after midnight when they run at intervals of 15 minutes is not fun if you have to change 3 times. Should have ridden my bike.

Chocolate Review

Since there is a chocolate aisle at the supermarket I frequent (next to the lollies aisle which is next to the cookies aisle which is next to the cake aisle)  I will be busy for the next 6 years reviewing all sorts of chocolate.

I found Chocolate infused with Apple Cinnamon and Chocolate infused with sea salt. My first impression was "Sea Salt has no place inside a chocolate bar!". I still think I'm right. These bars looked pretty, but were deceiving. The apple cinnamon was sickly sweet and the sea salt was just... weird. And wrong.









Dinner Club meetup tonight at a Brazilian restaurant. Maybe Potsdam tomorrow if the weather is good. Today it is pretty dismal and I don't really feel like leaving the apartment. Bring on the German DVDs!

Fleen

Men Arbeit hier ist gemacht

I knocked off another module for my teaching qual, after my mum read my blog and gave me a kick up the ass.  Hmph. Which means that I have one more subject to go. I am hoping that this last one won't take me as long as I managed to procrastinate on the last one for. In the end I chose a different topic because the SLA Theory I chose (Universal Grammar) was of no interest to me whatsoever. I went for Language Transfer which I have personal experience in and I found it much more relevant and interesting.

The thing is, I haven't had to write a proper essay with inline referencing and properly cited sources in ... probably 8 years! Blaaaah. It sucks. Have to admit I fudged a few books. I mean, who reads books anymore anyway? Everything's on the net right?

More Gym Classes

I tried a Pilates class in German with much more success in understanding what she was saying! My gym is awesome. Last week I watched Scrubs in German (just a little bit wrong) and then "Girls United" which is actually "Bring It On!". Almost made me want to stick around and do more rowing just to watch the rest of the movie in German. Yes, "cheeren" seems to be a German verb. 

Onto more exciting adventures. Like the Boat Party last night, which was on the Eastern Comfort.

They have language exchange parties every Wednesday night. At this party I met a couple of Germans (Carolin was particularly lovely and friendly) and even ran into some people I already know (the expat community is a small one apparently), Sam and Mahmoud. The renowned hommus was in fact quite good and they had free soup. Ahh, youth hostels. It was damn good soup (Tomato and Coconut... when you think about it, how easy is that? A can of coconut milk and a can of tomato soup.)

Some interesting german phrases I've picked up:

Ich mache ein Flakke - I'm making a flake. Kind of like "Let's make like a tree and leave"

Genau - pretty much the response to just about everything positive. Means "exactly"

Eislaufen!!! Ice skating

Nackt - naked

Ich kann es kaum erwarten - I can hardly wait

(These three are in no particular order, believe it or not)

Some german phrases I have used that I probably shouldn't have:

Ich bin offen fur alles: I am open for anything

Ich bin einfach: I am easy

Note to self: must get enough vocab to tell successfully the story about Dr. H and Tokyo. Did not quite work last night. What is "handmaiden" in German, anyway?

Fleen xo

Girokonto, Mikrowelle

I finally have a bank account! It was so easy I wish I had gone into a branch straight away. Never mind. The lady was very friendly: she spoke only in German but we conducted the whole transaction in German and had a few laughs along the way. If I didn't understand something she was very patient, and only had to look up one word (insurance: she tried to upsell me).

Unfortunately I don't get my card and Pins etc for like, 10 days, but I can at least get paid now! Which is a Good Thing.

I then caved and bought myself a microwave, then lugged it home. Carrying a microwave home from the bus and up 4 flights of stairs is not easy, and my arms are sort of shot for the day I think.

Am having a lot of trouble bringing myself to finish this teaching qualification. I have done all the hard subjects and only have 2 left to do!! For God's sake, Fleen, it's only an 800 word essay (1 of the subjects). SO not hard. I used to be able to knock them over in an hour or two. But I just... blaaargh. Its the study of theories of Second Language Acquisition, and I'm writing my essay on Universal Grammar (the brain creates intrinsic rules about how to communicate - which means there are rules that are then universal among all languages. Or something.).

Need to join the state library, do a step class, organize to get my CV translated into German and then going to a party tonight.

Fleen xo

Schlag mich baby noch einmal!!!!

First thing is first. Last night I heard the end of these guys performing an absolute classic. See for yourself :-)



It was at the Gendarmenmarkt - another Christmas market!! but with live performances.

Here is a ripped photo of the Gendarmen Christmas Markets

Met a family friend today and we went to the Hamburger Bahnhof Modern Art Gallery. It is a MASSIVE MASSIVE space with sooo many rooms and exhibitions that we didn't get all the way through it. There was some interesting, and some very odd and sometimes annoying art in there :-) Lowlight was a film that may as well have been called "Man screaming for no apparent reason - 4:27". Still there was some very interesting stuff too.

Had my first coaching today at the Deutsch Oper which was pretty good. Worked on the Countess and Fiordiligi.

Ham Tharn

Oh yeah I thought I'd post the reason for my "ham tharn" the other day. This is about half of the cured meats aisle at my local shopping market.

 

I Got Mail!

I got my first piece of German mail addressed to me today!! I am officially Frau Kathleen Parker. Actually I got two. The first one is my tax number. Woooo! Secondly, a rejection letter from the bank saying they won't give me an account. Hmm... I guess an unemployed expat is not the most attractive customer but still... there was nowhere on their form for me to add that I have regular income even though I technically don't have a job. From doing some reading, apparently a lot of expats get rejected from some banks, but there are some banks who will take anyone. One of them is Sparkasse. So I guess I'll just head down that way tomorrow morning.

 

So plans for the rest of the week: Tomorrow some recit learning, a step class and a boat party language swap at night! Thursday a coaching and English speaking drinks at night. Friday ice skating!! (eislaufen) and I really want to see the Komische Oper production of Armida. Dying to see a Registeater production for a change! Bring on the S&M opera heroine :-)

 

This chick has the best job in the world. Komische Oper's Armida

Saturday night Brazilian restaurant dinner meetup. Sure to be a brunch somewhere on Sunday.

Fleen xo

 

Am Wochenende

Awesome weekend. Stayed in Friday and finally braved a bit of German television. That great movie with Denzel Washington and Angelina Jolie... but in German. Apparently the actors are all dubbed by the same voices every time. What a lucrative job that would be! The ad breaks here are sparser but go for like, 10 minutes.

Saturday night - another ex-pat party. I was really looking forward to test-riding the new bike but it rained pretty much all this weekend and wet wool is just not fun. Stephanie hosted a party for the English Stammtisch crew. They are a really great crowd. Met Carolin, who I am going to go ice-skating with soon. Also met Joern who invited me to drink mulled wine at the Christmas markets on Monday night. It was a great party, good food, no-one was excluded, everyone made an effort to talk to everyone even if language was a barrier. But I lack the stamina to go all night like these Berliners seem to be able to do. They were talking about going out after the party (post-1am) just as I was getting ready to put my PJs on. They tell me I'll get used to it but I just think I value my sleep too much.

Yesterday was St. Nikolaus Day in Germany. The kids usually put a boot out and if they've been good, polite and helpful it gets filled with lollies and stuff. So on my way down the stairs after the party I came across this.

Nur fur dich, Nikolaus

Sooooo cute. Reminds me of when I put out milk and carrots for Santa and his reindeer, and I always found massive reindeer teeth marks in the carrots the next morning. Actually, I think the teeth marks were my job last year with Max. I remember eating a lot of carrot (you need 9 bite marks, right?)

KRAMPUSSE

 

But get this, right. My friend Matt (who I met today for brunch) was telling me about Krampusse. Here is an excerpt from Wiki:

But for many children, Nikolaus also elicited fear, as he was often accompanied by Knecht Ruprecht (Servant Ruprecht), who would threaten to beat, or sometimes actually beat the children for misbehaviour as using this myth to 'bring up cheek children' for a better, good behaviour. Any kind of punishment isn't really following and just an antic legend. Knecht Ruprecht furthermore was equipped with deerlegs. In Switzerland, where he is called Schmutzli, he would threaten to put bad children in a sack and take them back to the dark forest. In other accounts he would throw the sack into the river, drowning the naughty children. These traditions were implemented more rigidly in Catholic countries and regions such as Austria or Bavaria.

In highly Catholic regions, the local priest was informed by the parents about their children's behaviour and would then personally visit the homes in the traditional Christian garment and threaten to beat them with a rod. In parts of Austria, Krampusse, who local tradition says are Nikolaus's helpers (in reality, typically children of poor families), roamed the streets during the festival. They wore masks and dragged chains behind them. These Krampusläufe (Krampus runs) still exist.

BRUNCH

There's a Berlin tradition of a long Sunday brunch. Most restaurants and cafes have an all-you-can-eat brunch buffet for about 8EU every Sunday. When I thought about a buffet breakfast, I think of the whole continental thing, you know, eggs, bacon, whatever. But this is magical. Basically they serve cold salads, antipasto platters, hot meals like lasagne, gnocchi, meatballs and sausages, mushrooms, eggs, etc and then they have the dessert table as well. The place we went to today had a make-your-own waffles table. Deeeeeelicious. Because we were so keen to make the most of it, we got there at about 11, started eating and were still chatting at 5pm. "Brunch" generally goes until 3pm. In fact, some people head out on Saturday night, stay out and have brunch as a social call with friends on their way HOME from last night. Then Sunday afternoon they sleep it off. Madness. 

A typical brunch buffet in Berlin

So... tomorrow I'm going to try a step class in German, join the state library (where I can get access to scores and music), prepare for some coachings... Then I'm meeting John and Erica at their apartment when they arrive. Then if they are totally jetlagged and want to sleep, I'm going to go have some mulled wine with the Stammtisch crew.

Tchuss!

ANMELDEN

Walked to my local anmeldung office in Kreuzberg to register my address. Expected an hour wait, a hostile reception and probably some sort of missing documentation. Instead, I got a 7 minute wait, a cheery German fellow called Herr Goder and actually, it was really fun. He was so chirpy and good humoured that I laughed pretty hard. Got my tax cards and my certificate that says I live here. I sort of expected my certificate to be some sort of sacred looking document, maybe laminated or a little card of sorts, but actually it's a just a boring old printed A4 page off the computer with a couple of boxes and a signature.

HAM THARN

The grocery shopping situation was frustrating at first. Tiny itty bitty little supermarkets with no variety, astronomical prices oh, and you have to weight and package your own veggies. (Did not know that. Sorry, angry line of people behind me.) So when I found a massive supermarket full of variety and gourmet goodness, I was so excited! Until I hit the cured meats aisle. Whoa mamma. A whole aisle, dedicated to cured meats?! I freaked out. There was so much variety and I couldn't really understand the damn packaging. I settled on Italian proscuitto. I encountered the same problem in the cheese aisle. Went for the Deutsch Gouda. I think a different type of cheese every week is in order.

DER FITNESS STUDIO

I joined American Fitness in Kreuzberg. Went to try a class in German which was quite hilarious. The class wasn't really my cup of tea, I prefer Step. Plus she was kind of all over the place, and off the beat. But still, she was unbelievably chirpy. I can't wait to try step next week. I wonder if it will have anything on Shirley's Step class at Bayswater Waves?

Got to say though, the 86 steps I walk up at least 2-3 times every day to get to my apartment on the top floor have got to be worth something. Not to mention the walking everywhere. And now, riding! After today I remember how invigorating it used to be to ride everywhere (in Perth).

BERLIN IS A MASSIVE CITY

One thing that has really struck me is the scale of this city. It's just enormous. When I saw that Kreuzberg (where I live) was the next suburb over from Mitte, I thought "inner city suburb" and figured it would take me maybe 5 minutes on public transport to get there. But it actually takes me 5 minutes to get to the bus stop and the bus takes 5 minutes to get to the U-Bahn station, and it takes 5 minutes to walk from one end of the U-bahn station to the other and then generally about 15 minutes on the U-bahn to get to wherever you need to go. Even if it's the next suburb over. That's the scale of Berlin.

WINTER

It's about zero degrees outside. I have a beautiful view from my window of the canal and the trees, the odd bird on the branch, some kiddies running about down in a day care centre across the road. I really like looking out my window. 

Oddly though, the temperature seems to be increasing next week, back up to about 6-9. 

I haven't quite got the balance right for clothes etc. The trouble is, now that I'm cycling, you get warm really quickly and then all of a sudden you're drenched with sweat underneath all your layers. Really gross. Maybe I should get one of those hardcore cycling jackets? Or maybe I'm getting a bit ahead of myself here. Observe what the locals do. Still need to cover my ears though. Sehr wichtig. All the funky hats I've bought don't cover my ears. Honestly. Why didn't I think of that?

My hat collection: (without ear protection)

RADFAHREN

I just bought a bike!! 

 Not my bike. This is the postman's bike :-)

I did the whole secondhand German classifieds thing and I found a good quality bike reasonably close to me (well, in the same suburb... still 25mins of walking and public transport to get there!). Was a bit freaked out about taking the streets of Berlin but it's easy - the roads are wide and everyone knows you're there. It's just the whole driving on the wrong side of the road thing I need to sort out.

Anyway my bike is pretty good quality, about 8 gears, a very smooth ride, perfect for city riding. Because the seat is new and so special (it's sehr bequem) it has a special seat lock, which is good because I have had my seat stolen before and it hurts when you don't actually realize it's missing at first. 

TURKISH MARKETS

The Turkish Markets are in "Kreuzkolln" which turns out to be a 4 minute bike ride away for me. Every Tuesday and Friday. They're awesome. Just lots of yummy stuff really - all sorts of cheese and olives and cheap, good quality fruit and veggies, turkish breads and dips (soooooo many different types of dips), turkish desserts, seafood, other delicacies. I bought some spinach/fetta dip and some Hommus, an exciting looking dessert, some fruit and veg and marinated olives. Turkish feast for dinner tonight, I be thinking. The Hommus is unbelievably good but apparently I need to try all the different stalls hommus to find out which is my favourite. The fruit and veg was quite affordable, so I am thinking... this might be where I do my fruit and veg shopping from now on. I will have to rid myself of the concept that it's better to get everything all at once (need to do that anyway), and learn how to shop intermittently.

SIE DARFEN NICHT HIER RAUCHEN

Well so much for the anti-smoking legislation of 2005. I remember going to Italy and being pleasantly surprised that smoking wasn't allowed. There were a bunch of people on the sidewalk in the cold, grumbling about it, but they managed to pass it. Then by the time I got back to Australia, they'd passed it there too. Well, it seems Germany caved in. So the deal is, if a bar/pub is over 75m2, serves food or admits minors, it can't allow smoking, or needs a designated smoking room.

So the drinks last night were at a Rauchenlokal. I didn't know what that meant, until I showed up, went "hmmm not my cup of tea", left, and went home and googled it. It means a bar for smokers (or at least a bar where smoking is permitted). It's small and unbearable if you don't like cigarette smoke. Probably should have googled that one before showing up. Anyway, apparently people generally smoke most places anyway in Berlin. They certainly do on the streets, that's for sure. Shall have to be more careful next time in making sure I don't have to sit in a Rauchenlokal.

WEINACHTSMARKT

Went to the Christmas markets at Schloss Charlottenburg which is not only very pretty but has lights that change colour from purple to green, so that the castle goes from looking like the palace from Aladdin to Ursula's Sea Witch castle from the Little Mermaid.

Wandered, ate dumplings with plum jam and hot vanilla cream, had some mulled wine and roasted chestnuts. Very beautiful. I shall be frequenting Christmas markets because I was too full to try the chocolate covered strawberries and bananas. Or the Swiss melted cheese and potato thingy.

Not a great photo... but if I had a castle, I'd light it up green like Ursula the Sea-Witch too.

Plans for the weekend: was thinking I might have a quiet one in tonight with my Turkish spread and some German TV, ex-pat party on Saturday night, and Sunday brunch (a Berlin tradition) with an American opera singer on Sunday morning. Might check out Potsdam tomorrow?

Fleen