Let there be Love...

umm yeah... I s'pose we're a little behind the times here, but our internet at home has been stuffed up until 11:35AM this morning, upon which we signed up with a new provider (the whole story with Vodafone deserves a separate post which I'll leave for Jack to do). In the meantime allow me to write a piece dedicated to Love... or more specifically to the Lurrrve Parade which this year reached 1,200,000 people. But of course pictures tell more than words:

The "greeting committee" in front of the Brandenburg Gate - with their techno music turned up v. loud and dancing around the car. I should quickly mention that the event was taking place in the same street where the Fan Mile was for the World Cup... and the climax of the Love Parade was at the Victory Statue.




there were floats (see pic) driving around from different organisations, each with it's own DJ and, of course, it's own music. Upon it are dancing members. There were about 30 of these floats.





and this is the sponsor of the Parade - McFit (a fitness club - ie. gym)




Attire





And the Oscar goes to...

Hair



Buttocks



Pole Dancing (same, but different)

these boys are a true embodiment of the Aryan race
Crude, yet honest

These boys seem to be just innocently standing around with no shirts on. But if you look closer at the writing on their backs you'll notice that there is a phone number and a single word under it 'Ficken'... hmmm... any takers?



Misc...

and your humble authors...






For me personally this last picture is THE summary of the Love Parade with the Brandenburg Gate in the background :)

PS: for one of our videos of the Love Parade have a look at this link

Can Busters - Dough myth confirmed!

Do you remember that episode of Myth Busters where they try to see whether a can of dough will burst at a high temperature inside a car? Well I can tell you that we confirm their findings - see pic attached. This is what I discovered last night in our cupboard... it used to be a closed can of 'instant croissants' which you unroll and bake quickly in the oven :) EXPLANATION - This week it has been around 35 degrees continuously each day and having no air-conditioner the flat gets quite warm...

Wansee Strandbad or things you don't want to be faced with

This Monday was a 33 degree day, so Julia and I decided to go swimming in a nearby big lake Wansee. The morning was spent bathers shopping (Julia) and learning German (Polina). We then had an abundant lunch of fried chicken and ventured off. Because I haven't been to this beach before I just assumed that it would be in the S-Bahn station by the same name, but after having got off at Wansee station and walking to the lake we saw it being full of Yachts and not full of swimmers. So we worked out from the nearby kiosk that the beach is actually on the previous stop Nikolaissee. So we went back there.

Being a pretty hot day, we were reasonably tired by the time we got to the right stop and when we walked out and saw that it's another kilometer walk to the beach we gave out a group sigh. But our will to swim was strong so we walked. It was actually a very pleasant walk through a little forest and in the shade the temperature was almost bearable. As we got to the entrance we were unpleasantly surprised. Greedy Germans expect you to pay 4 Euros to swim. And thinking that we were going to the beach we didn't take our wallets and between us had only 10 cents which just wasn't enough. We decided to pretend to be silly tourists and just walk through the gate behind someone... Julia managed to sneak through before it closed leaving me behind. But the checkout woman started screaming "karte - wo ist ihre karte?!" Julia put on a very good show looking honestly confused and not understanding what's going on... so the woman yelled "Ticket!" "Ticket!" and after a while Julia had to retreat.

Of course being Russian 'predpriimchivie i nahodchivie' (clever) women we were not going to quit so easily, especially after spending most of the day getting there - by this time it was almost 4pm. My suggestion was just to ask for money from someone, but thinking about it that there probably won't be that many people who'd want to part with 8 EURS we decided to walk along the fence and see if there is another way in. After walking for a while we came across a little clearing with an old twisty gate. It had squished old barb wire on top which didn't look too bad so we decided to climb across. After my school excursion to Pentridge Prison I remembered that it's wise to put something on top of the wire to prevent it from scratching our legs (wearing skirts left us somewhat vulnerable in that department). So we put a beach towel on the wire and successfully climbed over.

With victory exclamations and giggles we approached the beach... only to be faced with a bunch of totally naked old guys! Part of the beach was FKK (Frei Korpe Kultur - Free Body Culture), which strangely mainly contained only old people. After the initial shock we proceeded to have a swim in a beautiful 23 degree lake water, in which we saw a bunch of big fish. However the naked oldies almost paralysed us and we continued to stare at them swimming, floating, sun baking and hugging each other, for quite a while. It's the sort of thing you don't want to see but can't help looking... The End.

Oh, we also got a bit of a tan :)

Prague - one of our favourite cities in Europe!

Ever since coming there in 2004 I dreamed of coming back to Prague - with its beautiful bridges, pointy roofs, great beer and food, and the grand cathedral on top of the opposite bank which you can see from almost anywhere. The train departed Berlin at a very early 5:39AM on Saturday morning and after having slept for a tiny bit we all played a bit of cards and had some sandwiches for breakfast while admiring the forest covered cliffs outside.



After leaving our backpacks in the hostel (it was again the infamous hostel Junior with it's commie clean rooms and commie breakfast - but for 20 EURS a night who's complaining?) we wondered the city. We climbed the hill on the taller bank and walked along the city wall passing the monastery. Had a huge lunch with the infamous beer 'Velikopopovski Kozel' followed by a honey cake 'Medovik', which gave us (excl. Jack of course) nostalgia of Russia. We wondered the streets some more and even managed to see England lose to Portugal while having dinner, the result of the game of course assisted our digestion muchly. The amusing writing on the chalkboard in the restaurant (see pic.) also made us laugh. In german 'ficken' means 'fu8king'... and it had the Party Men to go with it.

That evening we decided to go to the big local nightclub and Julia retired to the hotel for a quick nap before more partying, but Jack and I went on to do a Ghost Tour. The tour was rather disappointing and for 250 kronas (about 10 EUR) we felt slightly cheated. But the very funny accent of the tour guide almost made it worth it. For example the word 'square' (as in 'Town Square') became 'squuur', which took a while to get used to and produced numerous giggles from a few people on the tour. Along the various stages and stories of the tour, her assistant would run out from around the corners in various ghost outfits and "scare" people... very funny.

As the tour ended it was time to go to the club. We were positively impressed - 5 floors of loud different kinds of music and interesting looking lounges. 1st floor - R&B, with VERY energetic teenage girls wearing almost nothing. 2nd - some electronic type of music with no one dancing, but a big stretched out figure out of gold plastic suspended over the dance floor. 3rd - techno with songs like 'around the world', again no one dancing. 4th - the glorious 80s with almost a full dance floor. 5th - can't remember. So we decided on the 80s of course. Jack got a beer and Julia and I got a mojito each... and we found a nice spot to dance almost in the middle of a dance floor. They played a few songs from the Pulp Fiction soundtrack which was a VERY pleasant surprise and made us very happy. But just as we were getting more into the swing of things some guy next to me dropped his glass with beer and little bits of glass decided to find home in the bottom of my foot (I only brought one pair of shoes, which were open sandals - BAD choice for nightclubs)... so slightly bleeding I hobbled to an available chair where Jack tried to get them out... but from walking all day my feet were filthy and he couldn't really see much. So we decided to get a band aid and retire to the hostel. Julia ran around to find one... but apparently the "biggest club in middle Europe" doesn't have a First Aid kit! It also didn't have a working lift which left us hobbling down four flights of stairs where we tried to ask for a band aid again and after a couple of passes from one person to another, some security guy came from the outside with a bemused expression... the following conversation followed:

Jack: "She has glass in her foot - do you have a band aid?"
Security Guy: *looking bemused*
Polina *in a somewhat agitated voice*: "DO...YOU...HAVE...A... BAND-AID???"
Security Guy: "Yes" *continues standing and looking bemused*
Polina: "THEN CAN I HAVE IT PLEASE?" *raised eyebrows*
Security Guy: "Yes" *proceeds to go to some corner to what looks like almost a safe, and produces band aid, bandages, antiseptic and scissors (which he almost dropped on Jack's foot)... Julia was very apologetic and kept saying how they wouldn't give her anything - the bastards!

So anyhow, we bandaged up my foot as best we could, caught a taxi home, hobbled up three flights of stairs and Jack got to reminisce in his SES days while patching me up and complaining how dirty my feet were after walking around all day. I must say he hasn't lost his touch, and after the offending bits of glass were out, I was completely fine the next day! Hurray!

Sunday we spent shoe and crystal shopping, coffee drinking and generally lazing about on the streets of the beautiful Czech capital. We also went to the Mucha museum and saw some of his most famous lithographs - also very beautiful. And then it was time to catch our train home.

Whoever said that Germans are punctual has lied. The DB (Deutsche Bahn - aka. German Train Service) has almost never departed/left on time... and this time it departed 25 mins late... but we were only 10 mins late by the time we got to Berlin and got to experience some friendly (a first) border guards. My Mum suggested that the lack of punctuality must be only in former East Germany and has rubbed off from the commies - it's a good theory.

Rectal Exams or our now-regular visitor from London

Julia arrived last Wednesday and we spent some wonderful time together under the theme of rectal examinations (RE) - why, you ask? No idea really... we kept on wondering ourselves that between the three of us and the amount of university degrees (both completed and not) we should not be so easily amused, but we were. To give you more of an idea of what sort of conversations we were having:

Julia "And some of them are really annoying and ask lots of stupid and hard questions..."
Polina "That's probably because they haven't had their regular RE!" *giggle*

OR

Polina "So what do you want to do today?"
Julia "Not sure - I didn't come prepared this time..."
Jack "Why don't you start by doing an RE?" *giggle*

But enough silliness...

We did a bit of cultural things - such as visiting the Jewish Museum and the exhibition on Psychoanalysis, for the 150 yrs anniversary of Freud. It was a pretty good exhibition and was almost interactive, which always helps enjoyment level. The museum itself is also fairly interesting - made by an American architect, it is an odd looking building (from the top it looks like a zig-zag) and the corridors are named after periods in Jewish History - such as the Axis of Exile. They also have a very tall edgy shaped concrete room which only has a tiny vertical window in the very top - the room is called the Hall of Holocaust, and it's meant to represent the confinement of people... from the room it is possible to hear sounds from the outside but inside it is just concrete. I actually managed to get some time in it by myself and it is not a pleasant feeling... but interesting nonetheless.

We also did a bit of shopping during the day and wondered around Hackesher Markt and Alex (aka. Alexander Platz). Most evenings were spent drinking somewhere or something.. And last Thursday we ventured out to our first home - Friedrichsein, where we indulged ourselves in a lemon shisha pipe, and a large number of very yummy cocktails followed by some wine and cheese plate in Kaufbar.

One thing we did miss out on was sleep... and that showed... I think Jack's dark circles under his eyes have become somewhat a permanent feature... us - girls have make-up. And getting up at 4am on Saturday to go to Prague didn't help matters. BUT it was a very nice trip...