Wo chillst du?

So the time has been passing rather quickly and I feel like we're in need of an update... or perhaps this just demonstrates my infinite spare time.

We've been doing quite a bit of walking around the area and discovered some nice looking buildings (and not just one or two... but lots). And one stood out in particular. This building has a little bridge over the road connecting it's two parts (see pic 1).

And where the bottom of the bridge touches the actual buildings there are statues of the four elements. Of course with my interest in the mystical world I found this pretty damn cool.




And thus here you can view Herr Feuer und Herr Erde (aka Mr Fire and Mr Earth)..











And Herr Wasser und Herr Luft (aka Mr Water and Mr Air).







I've also been progressing in my German skills - and yesterday managed to order a mineral water without the guy having to ask me twice... so I'm being understood!

In our German class we have two new girls - Raihnheld from Norway (she's a journalist and is doing work experience at one of the local radiostations) and Lucy from Peru (she's a lawyer who works with indeginous Peruvian people who cut up the Amazons and sell wood to US, etc... very interesting work). We've also been visited by two males - Gurkan from Turkey, and today Alex from Bolivia... it must be noted that both men seem to have no learning ability whatsoever... Gurkan spent a total of about 2.5 weeks with us and disappeared. There's only one word for this - Girlpower!

Another amuzing thing that should be noted is that me and Anna (the Polish girl) talk russian and polish to see how similar they are, and I discovered a new word which will no doubt make all of you Ruskies laugh... In Russian for a chaser we have a special word - 'закуска', well in Polish this word is 'zagryzka' :)

Also I think an exception is owed to the German ability to dance - the lack of which we've whinged about for quite some time now. Yesterday we ventured to Sage Club for TOOL's new CD launch. This club is pretty interesting architecturally because most of it is outside but under an elaborate system of tents, making the whole place seem almost like something out of '1001 nights' - well not really, but I'm trying to be literary and linguistically expressive ;P Anyhoo... the launch itself was rather disappointing, but we did obtain the sought-after item for €15... which today equals exactly $24.9006 AUD... Bargain! And the CD comes with it's own little set of Stereoglasses and funky images in the little booklet. Anyhoo again... back to the point... while the boring launch was happening in one of the rooms there was live rock music in an adjacent room by none other but a band of Moritz - a guy who knows Jack (this was discovered by a fluke). 'Outreech', are a heavy'ish throat-ripping band who sing in english... they're not exactly like Pantera, but getting there. And Deutsches were jumping and going nuts - yey!!! finally!!! so did we of course... I took this opportunity to perfect my headbanging skills for the Tool concert in June - RRRRRROOAAAAAGGHHHHH!

On a closing note I'll give an explanation about the title for this post. This is another one of the numerous bastard children of German and English (aka Denglish)... The question is 'where do you chill out?'... but in the form above this sounds completely awkward. I can only think of one aproppriate comparison with russian where my great-auntie asks at the baker for 'yesterdevskий bread' :)

Adios Amigos!

Copenhagen how pretty though art

Pricey too - 25% GST is not - i repeat NOT a good idea, the overpriced 4€ beer becomes quite quickly unaffordable... Enough of the lows - onto the heights...
We spent the Easter long weekend here with Julia and Zoya (we really cant seem to get away from these two ;-) Zoya was just in Berlin and Julia will be in Berlin shortly. On the upside we can stop complaining that we have no friends).

The Little Mermaid
This little lady has been sitting on her rock here for quite a while (appart from the times drunken louts come along and push her off, lop off her head etc...), taking a photo of her without also capturing the (other) tourists is a bit of an art form in itself.


She is based on the story by Hans Christian Anderson whom we also happen to have run into.









Helsingor
On Sunday we went for a little trip out of Copenhagen to Helsingor, they have a pretty castle with some museums and a chapel - but they also have some of the worlds oldest functional cannons.... mmmm BOOM BOOM. We happened to be just in the right place as they went off for the 21 gun salute for the King's birthday. Polina and Julia were a little cold with the windows open, and closed them - so the warden dude came and opened them again as if they are closed all the glass shatters from the shots. These little puppies were not just pretty loud they were pretty and LOUD!

There are also lots of pretty chanals and churches (including one with the stairs to climb the spire on the outside) etc... we were very luck with the weather over the weekend.

More of my favourite... the little things

Orange People - Berlin is full of overtanned people who frequent the solariums... usually these are also the types to be called in Russian 'Качок' (lots of muscle) and listen to techno music. So every time we pass by such specimen one of us says "Here goes another one..."

Paid toilets - even though Deutsches pay one of the highest rates of tax in Europe somehow that money does not get filtered to provide free toilet fascilities. And one can pay up to 80 cents (about 1.5 Aussie $) to use a loo. What is even more annoying - most bars and restaurants have a person collecting money in front of the toilet entrance. Thus even if you just spent 30 Euros on cocktails, you'll have fork out money to dispose of it.

Useful advice - whatever you do in Berlin, do Not, and I repeat DO NOT abuse a punk's dog. From our recent observations a punk can get rather disturbed should their dog be inconvenienced. On one of our trips on the S-Bahn a girl-punk (GP) completely went off at some poor woman who either stepped on her dog or did something to it by accident. The GP continued yelling and carrying on at least two stops and then upon getting off started kicking and punching the train carriage and doing other violent gestures.

Beggars - due to the fact that in Berlin unemployment rate is ridiculously high at 20% there are a lot of people on the streets and other places asking for money. What is sad and strange is that a lot of these are very young people - ie. my age and younger who seem to be fairly well dressed and asking for small change for what almost seems like going for coffee. A lot of these are in fact professional musicians who come for a couple of months from Russia or other Eastern block countries to make a bit of money. Some people _attempt_ to play a musical instrument, and seem to get money out of pity or for lack of abilities, rather than the opposite. This prompted me to wonder how much would I be able to make in an hour by playing our Bangkok drum... I think may be when the weather gets warmer... around the World Cup perhaps ;)

A touch of class

Not too much mind you... just a pinch...

On 8th April we went to the Berliner Dom for an organ concert. Yes its a tiny bit different from the sort of music we listen to normally, but we'd heard about this during the Long Night of Museums (see a previous post). There was an organ concert then, but as it was an electronic organ this was a little dissapointing.

With a bomb attack in May 1944 sections of the burning dome fell into the Gruft. The cathedral was no longer usable, but the organ was initially preserved. After the end of the Second World War the organ was heavily damaged by vandalism and theft. Until an interim roof was constructed in 1953 the organ was abandoned unprotectedly to the elements. The organ has now been completely restored, and this concert was the (re)inauguration of it.

So this was a bit different to the electric jobie... 7,296 pipes 113 registers, of freshly restored organ. This is one big mama of an organ (please excuse crass phrasing to describe beautiful object) which is quite capable of making the entire church vibrate slightly - and on particular notes slightly more. It is also only this type of organ that can simulate the sound of human voices - which is pretty freaky to hear...

The joys and pearls of German language

It has officially been 12 days or 36 hours that I've been studying German. And I thought I'd share some things that I was amused by. Here goes...

A simple humble eraser for rubbing off grey pencil is no more and no less than 'der Radiergummi'... I mean can it be any more longer or more complicated? It took me at least fifty tries before I could pronounce it reasonably well.

In order to memorise words I make English or Russian associations with them... thus for the adjective 'furchtbar' (dreadful), I remember it as 'fruitbar'.

Following our Aussie tradition of eating plenty of Tuna, and yes Denya - there is no 'T' in Chuna! But here it is called 'Thunfisch'... which naturally became 'Funfish'.


And last but certainly not least - this northern nation seem to have some very obscure associations. Such that to ask someone 'Have you farted?' one would say 'Hast du ein schirm stehen lassen?', which literally translates to "Have you left an umbrella here?"

A visit from cousin Zoya

Well in between the concerts we've also managed to squeeze in a visit from Cousin Zoya. Was very good to catch up and talk sh1te and generally hang around.

Zoya and Polina did a bit of shopping (I have a job to go to and henced missed this wonderful experience - oh drat). They also found time for a bit of culture with trips to Checkpoint Charlie Museum, Topographie des Terror and the wall.

Over the weekend we also managed to visit the Pergamonmuseum which houses several large (and impressive) structures from the ancient near east in almost their complete form. This was definitely a good thing and we will need to come back here again and have another look. Far too much cool stuff to take it all in at once.