28 Feb 2008
best website ever
nothing more needs to be said other than what's in the title. click here and enjoy. you wont regret it.
24 Feb 2008
i've found work
so i've started working. big motherfucking relief that is. i've been here four months and i've finally gotten a job. if you're wondering what i'm doing, i'll tell you in german. ich bin arbeiten als einen Kellner bei eine IrischKneipe.
it's not that hard to work out, but for those with language troubles or if i've made a mistake (which i do constantly when using my german) it says that i am working as a waiter in an irish pub. yes i found one of the only professions where i don't need to speak german. although i've only worked three shifts so far and i have used german. once because they couldn't speak english and we threw nouns at each other; the second time they were spanish and it seemed easier to work in a language neither of us were familiar with; and thirdly when i didn't want to talk to someone and wanted them to think i was german. oddly enough, this guy was asian and wanted to know where the bathroom was. he said pointing to a door, 'entshuldigung, Sie bathroom.' which basically means, excuse me, you (formal) bathroom. i had to stop myself from giggling and had to remind myself that i must speak like that when i'm drunk too. but i responded with a polite, 'ja, dat ist das toiletten.' (yes, that is the toilet.)
but enough making fun of people, there's going to plenty of time for that, as every second week is known behind the bar as american week. you see they get paid fortnightly and always come in to waste their money on beer. can't wait. odd thing is though, or so i've been told, the americans will always try to speak german at you even when they know you aren't german, while the germans will try english when they know you speak it. i've already seen this happen. an american said to me, 'ein bier bitte.' (a beer please) to which i responded, in my most australian of accents, 'yes, which one, mate.' he looked at me, i stared back blankly and calmly. then he said, 'ein bier... ahhh... guiness, bitte' i smiled and said okay. i seriously thought i'd just have to smile and walk off to pour whatever beer i felt like, then pretend i don't speak english when he questioned it. but enough talking crap for now, i have german homework to do. yes i've enrolled in a course. been doing it for three weeks now. i'm a lot closer to understanding german, but i still find it difficult to put together a sentence. allthough it is gettting easier the more i know. just don't ask me about the gender of things. it's retarded and stupid. i'll post some homework on here one day soon and you'll understand what i'm talking about. it's a killer.
tschus
ps as for my previous post about things to do in the new year, i can now mark off three. i'm learning german, i have a job and i've made some german friends. but i'll talk about my new friends later andone particular drunken night of free alcohol and clubbing that my german school put on. just as totally random info for you, my school is called F+U. no one else finds it amusing, but every time i hear it i think fuck you. hehehe...
it's not that hard to work out, but for those with language troubles or if i've made a mistake (which i do constantly when using my german) it says that i am working as a waiter in an irish pub. yes i found one of the only professions where i don't need to speak german. although i've only worked three shifts so far and i have used german. once because they couldn't speak english and we threw nouns at each other; the second time they were spanish and it seemed easier to work in a language neither of us were familiar with; and thirdly when i didn't want to talk to someone and wanted them to think i was german. oddly enough, this guy was asian and wanted to know where the bathroom was. he said pointing to a door, 'entshuldigung, Sie bathroom.' which basically means, excuse me, you (formal) bathroom. i had to stop myself from giggling and had to remind myself that i must speak like that when i'm drunk too. but i responded with a polite, 'ja, dat ist das toiletten.' (yes, that is the toilet.)
but enough making fun of people, there's going to plenty of time for that, as every second week is known behind the bar as american week. you see they get paid fortnightly and always come in to waste their money on beer. can't wait. odd thing is though, or so i've been told, the americans will always try to speak german at you even when they know you aren't german, while the germans will try english when they know you speak it. i've already seen this happen. an american said to me, 'ein bier bitte.' (a beer please) to which i responded, in my most australian of accents, 'yes, which one, mate.' he looked at me, i stared back blankly and calmly. then he said, 'ein bier... ahhh... guiness, bitte' i smiled and said okay. i seriously thought i'd just have to smile and walk off to pour whatever beer i felt like, then pretend i don't speak english when he questioned it. but enough talking crap for now, i have german homework to do. yes i've enrolled in a course. been doing it for three weeks now. i'm a lot closer to understanding german, but i still find it difficult to put together a sentence. allthough it is gettting easier the more i know. just don't ask me about the gender of things. it's retarded and stupid. i'll post some homework on here one day soon and you'll understand what i'm talking about. it's a killer.
tschus
ps as for my previous post about things to do in the new year, i can now mark off three. i'm learning german, i have a job and i've made some german friends. but i'll talk about my new friends later andone particular drunken night of free alcohol and clubbing that my german school put on. just as totally random info for you, my school is called F+U. no one else finds it amusing, but every time i hear it i think fuck you. hehehe...
2 Feb 2008
new year's eve in berlin - part two
so here we are again, ready to continue on from where i left off with my new year's eve in berlin - part one. i hope you're still comfortable in your couch's arse groove and you haven't eaten all of your nacho hat just yet. you might want to boil the kettle again as there's still plenty more to tell. after all i only just got past telling you about the countdown and the endless spectacle of fireworks in potsdammerplatz, both government planned and publicly procured, and as we all know, new year's is never the shortest night if planned properly or executed in just the right way. so let's start up this sordid tale of drunkeness, danger and stupidity once more... (and if you haven't read part one i suggest you don't cheat and read this one first, scroll down and read it you damn sneak!)
there we were in potsdammerplatz watching fireworks hit buildings, fly through the crowd in a dangerous display that could easily start off another fox reality show simply called 'When Fireworks Attack!' and let's not forget about the poor fools dodging death at every rusted up movement of the ferris wheel from hell. my companions and i were soaked to the bone with champagne, having been sprayed by each other and random showers from the crowd, and in a very good mood as only the consumption of champagne can bring. but being champagne we knew the drunkeness wouldn't last too much longer and we decided to head off to berghain, the so-called undergroundest of the underground clubs that berlin has to offer. now don't get me wrong, the club is awesome and if anyone wants to start up a franchise in melbourne i am all for it, but firstly a word to the wise - never believe a german when they tell you something is underground. it never is. for if something is truly underground you don't have thousands of people trying to get in or advertising that litters ever bus stop, train station and shop window. that's not even including the fact that i heard about berghain on the radio in berlin, cab drivers know where to take you and people everywhere in freakin' australia told me to go there. AUSTRALIA PEOPLE!!! personally i just started substituting the word alternative for underground everytime i heard it. and it was alot. i also came to believe that underground was the new word for cool. like as soon as something is deemed cool enough by the hipsters of berlin and the surrounding artisan universe then it automatically gets an 'underground' status, but i'm getting ahead of myself here. let's get back to this somewhat linear narrative before i go off in another tangent, as i tend to do.
we left potsdammerplatz, avoiding firecrackers shooting off into the crowd and the drunken revellers that the polizei couldn't, and probably more wisely, gave up on controlling. it seemed as though they just decided to watch for any completely idiotic behaviour and ignored the constant sily behaviour. the night had truly spilled out into the surrounding areas and this being germany, there were no public toilets anywhere. all three of us had to go, and after that much alcohol it wasn't exactly a surprise, so we decided to go against a building. now i'm not much of a public urinator, but when you gotta go, you gotta go. i thought to myself, will i get into to trouble for this? and the answer came immediately. you take a quick look to the left and a quick look to the right and judging by the general concensus it seemed you could pee anywhere, so long as there was a wall to pee on. now ladies before you start your 'you're so lucky you're a guy' monologue, consider this - it wasn't just men peeing everywhere. on my walk back from my own peeing adventure, i noticed four other guys doing it and at least two women. how's that for equality? and all this half a block away from the polizei and their watchful stare, but when you see a constant stream (pun intened) of the peeing public using the side of a building to relieve themselves, amusing jokers trying to blow everything up with fireworks and a throng of people trying to break into a locked door of the train station, what are you going to do? answer, ignore it all and just pray to god, allah or whoever that the night will end soon and you can go home to forget you had no control for one evening.
now walking towards the train station, or bahnhof, i decided to call cousin cass and wish her a happy new year. cousin cass and i over a phone call at christmas time had a deal, she would call me five hours after midnight back in melbourne, which would make it five hours before midnight for me in berlin. i really wasn't expecting her to call as she was spending the evening at a burlesque show (which is kind of strange or ironic, or something to that effect, that i would be in berlin, but it would be her doing something completely german - incedentally i never got to a burlesque show in berlin, but then again i haven't come home and there is still plenty of time for that to happen). that coupled with the fact she was in australia and that we do have a loud and drunken reputation to uphold, i figured she was just drunk and forgot or was just having to much of a good time. either of these reasons were fine, as it was new year's and who am i to begrudge someone a phone call, that is if she could even get through. so it was at this point that i called her, using alexis' phone of course because i never had the oppurtunity to get more credit for my vodafone call ya handy because everything is bloody closed. (prepaid = call ya, and well, handy = phone. i am also under the impression that vodafone are a complete ripoff in germany, but as i can't understand the rates i am just going to put up with it. how funny that a former vodafone employee can't understand the phone rates and charges! hehehe...) the phone call went something like this (note, somewhat summarised as i can't remember the exact phone call);
cass (somewhat hungover and sleepy): hello?
tim (drunk and shouting): HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!
cass (still a little groggy): HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! dear god! what is going on there? where are you? what is that noise?
tim: can you hear me? i'm in potsdammerplatz heading towards the train station. this is insanity! i've drunk so much champagne. hahahaha... this is anarchy! there's fireworks going off everywhere, people are fucked and crowding the streets. shit! (to alexis) did you see that? that one nearly hit someone!
cass: what is going on?
tim: can you hear the fireworks? it's like the russians are trying to take back the east! it looks like the french riots a year or so ago, just less blood and way more colourful! FUCK! (to alexis or paul, i can't remember) that one went straight into the crowd!
random female stranger (screaming at me, drunk and looking it): ein gluckliches Neues jahr!!!
tim: yeah, happy new year. (note i had no idea what she was saying until paul told me i said the right thing back)
cass: who was that?
tim: i don't know
the call continued on like this for another five minutes. i enquired about her burlesque, she about my countdown and so forth til i let her get back to sleep and we arrived at the potsdamerplatz bahnhof. and this is where it got a little squishy. if you've ever been in melbourne after the stroke of midnight and tried to catch public transport you'll know what's coming, but even the melbourne public transport couldn't even fathom the pure anarchy of what was going on everywhere. we walk down some steps and into the train station and that is where we have to stop. you see all two point something million people i am certain tried to catch the trains at the same time, and berlin trains, as punctual as they may be, are insane. for example, to get to charlottenberg (major shopping district) from where we were staying near yorkstrasse you had to catch three trains. that's one to get you from yorkstrasse closer into the city, another to get across the city and then another to get from there to charlottenberg. for a comparison let's imagine some mythical trains in melbourne but use the right suburbs for distance - from moonee ponds take a train to central station, from there catch another one over to brunswick and then from there catch the third one back over towards collingwood. it makes no sense at all. i suppose if you consider that the city was cut in two after the war and then had to make do with what they have, plus adding some new ones in without crossing the border from east to west, but then had to join everything back up again it's no surprise. but you try being a tourist and try to figure out where you go and what one you catch! the only saving grace is that a train comes past every station almost every six minutes and they are always on time. beat that one connex! for a city as spread out and obscure as can be, and then to have as many people as melbourne and still run on time without cancellations and without inspectors, it just makes you hate connex even more. if that was possible, that is. but enough bagging connex, it's a fish in a barrel metaphor waiting to happen.
so there we were, wedged into a throng of people all wanting to go the same way but never getting any further. it was strange. it was like a moshpit without music, a shoesale in an all girly town, a UN food distribution in a troubled african village. three words - squishy, stinky and uncomfortable. i felt about four hands touch my arse, some poor woman's breasts in my back, the alcoholic stench of some drunk spaniard in my face and i lost all my friends in the space of three minutes upon entry. it took us about half an hour to get the twenty metres from the door and up the stais to the platform. oddly though, once you reached the top of the stairs it was relatively empty and you could feel a small breeze waft through the place. however during the agonising baby-stepped trundle to the platform someone let off fireworks inside the station. no one could see who did it, and even the polizei yelling at people something i couldn't understand on the stairs couldn't see or do anything about it. i found the whole thing highly amusing and giggled the whole way. i did ask a woman next to me what was going on and if this happened every year. she replied with a smirk on her face, 'it happens every year and she has no idea why.'
when we finally got onto the train and it was more of the same - squished in and more cramped than the actual station was. the only difference was that we were now squished in shoulder to shoulder with a stack of english university students here on a holiday. i so wish i was stuck with germans or even the spanairds again. there's something arrogant and very snooty about hearing an upperclass english accent after a few months of hearing nothing but american and german. alexis likes the accent, but for me personally, i would rather hear a chorus of ballarat bogans singing a footy song than the faux-upperclassness of the british. it probably has something to with the amount of times i've had to watch an english documentary at school or put up with some snooty customer at work deriding my country and it's customs as coming from the colonies. each time i hear that it makes me wanna say, 'it must really burn you up inside to know that america is now on top. after all, they shunned you and let go of all that upstairs/downstairs snobbery.' but that's just me being prejudiced against the english. by the by, i don't mind a liverpool and manchester accent, it's just that snooty one that irks me. you know the one i mean.
but again i come back to the topic at hand, we had a quick train journey and arrived at our destination and met up with a couple of friends. reinaldo, the other guy we were staying with, and ricardo, a friend of alexis' from cuba that we just happened to meet up with by coincidence a few days earlier. now the 'gang' was all together we headed towards berghain and the rest of the party. i think i'll continue the story of berghain another day, as it really does deserve it's own entry. you see anything can happen in berghain, and by that i mean anything.
there we were in potsdammerplatz watching fireworks hit buildings, fly through the crowd in a dangerous display that could easily start off another fox reality show simply called 'When Fireworks Attack!' and let's not forget about the poor fools dodging death at every rusted up movement of the ferris wheel from hell. my companions and i were soaked to the bone with champagne, having been sprayed by each other and random showers from the crowd, and in a very good mood as only the consumption of champagne can bring. but being champagne we knew the drunkeness wouldn't last too much longer and we decided to head off to berghain, the so-called undergroundest of the underground clubs that berlin has to offer. now don't get me wrong, the club is awesome and if anyone wants to start up a franchise in melbourne i am all for it, but firstly a word to the wise - never believe a german when they tell you something is underground. it never is. for if something is truly underground you don't have thousands of people trying to get in or advertising that litters ever bus stop, train station and shop window. that's not even including the fact that i heard about berghain on the radio in berlin, cab drivers know where to take you and people everywhere in freakin' australia told me to go there. AUSTRALIA PEOPLE!!! personally i just started substituting the word alternative for underground everytime i heard it. and it was alot. i also came to believe that underground was the new word for cool. like as soon as something is deemed cool enough by the hipsters of berlin and the surrounding artisan universe then it automatically gets an 'underground' status, but i'm getting ahead of myself here. let's get back to this somewhat linear narrative before i go off in another tangent, as i tend to do.
we left potsdammerplatz, avoiding firecrackers shooting off into the crowd and the drunken revellers that the polizei couldn't, and probably more wisely, gave up on controlling. it seemed as though they just decided to watch for any completely idiotic behaviour and ignored the constant sily behaviour. the night had truly spilled out into the surrounding areas and this being germany, there were no public toilets anywhere. all three of us had to go, and after that much alcohol it wasn't exactly a surprise, so we decided to go against a building. now i'm not much of a public urinator, but when you gotta go, you gotta go. i thought to myself, will i get into to trouble for this? and the answer came immediately. you take a quick look to the left and a quick look to the right and judging by the general concensus it seemed you could pee anywhere, so long as there was a wall to pee on. now ladies before you start your 'you're so lucky you're a guy' monologue, consider this - it wasn't just men peeing everywhere. on my walk back from my own peeing adventure, i noticed four other guys doing it and at least two women. how's that for equality? and all this half a block away from the polizei and their watchful stare, but when you see a constant stream (pun intened) of the peeing public using the side of a building to relieve themselves, amusing jokers trying to blow everything up with fireworks and a throng of people trying to break into a locked door of the train station, what are you going to do? answer, ignore it all and just pray to god, allah or whoever that the night will end soon and you can go home to forget you had no control for one evening.
now walking towards the train station, or bahnhof, i decided to call cousin cass and wish her a happy new year. cousin cass and i over a phone call at christmas time had a deal, she would call me five hours after midnight back in melbourne, which would make it five hours before midnight for me in berlin. i really wasn't expecting her to call as she was spending the evening at a burlesque show (which is kind of strange or ironic, or something to that effect, that i would be in berlin, but it would be her doing something completely german - incedentally i never got to a burlesque show in berlin, but then again i haven't come home and there is still plenty of time for that to happen). that coupled with the fact she was in australia and that we do have a loud and drunken reputation to uphold, i figured she was just drunk and forgot or was just having to much of a good time. either of these reasons were fine, as it was new year's and who am i to begrudge someone a phone call, that is if she could even get through. so it was at this point that i called her, using alexis' phone of course because i never had the oppurtunity to get more credit for my vodafone call ya handy because everything is bloody closed. (prepaid = call ya, and well, handy = phone. i am also under the impression that vodafone are a complete ripoff in germany, but as i can't understand the rates i am just going to put up with it. how funny that a former vodafone employee can't understand the phone rates and charges! hehehe...) the phone call went something like this (note, somewhat summarised as i can't remember the exact phone call);
cass (somewhat hungover and sleepy): hello?
tim (drunk and shouting): HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!
cass (still a little groggy): HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! dear god! what is going on there? where are you? what is that noise?
tim: can you hear me? i'm in potsdammerplatz heading towards the train station. this is insanity! i've drunk so much champagne. hahahaha... this is anarchy! there's fireworks going off everywhere, people are fucked and crowding the streets. shit! (to alexis) did you see that? that one nearly hit someone!
cass: what is going on?
tim: can you hear the fireworks? it's like the russians are trying to take back the east! it looks like the french riots a year or so ago, just less blood and way more colourful! FUCK! (to alexis or paul, i can't remember) that one went straight into the crowd!
random female stranger (screaming at me, drunk and looking it): ein gluckliches Neues jahr!!!
tim: yeah, happy new year. (note i had no idea what she was saying until paul told me i said the right thing back)
cass: who was that?
tim: i don't know
the call continued on like this for another five minutes. i enquired about her burlesque, she about my countdown and so forth til i let her get back to sleep and we arrived at the potsdamerplatz bahnhof. and this is where it got a little squishy. if you've ever been in melbourne after the stroke of midnight and tried to catch public transport you'll know what's coming, but even the melbourne public transport couldn't even fathom the pure anarchy of what was going on everywhere. we walk down some steps and into the train station and that is where we have to stop. you see all two point something million people i am certain tried to catch the trains at the same time, and berlin trains, as punctual as they may be, are insane. for example, to get to charlottenberg (major shopping district) from where we were staying near yorkstrasse you had to catch three trains. that's one to get you from yorkstrasse closer into the city, another to get across the city and then another to get from there to charlottenberg. for a comparison let's imagine some mythical trains in melbourne but use the right suburbs for distance - from moonee ponds take a train to central station, from there catch another one over to brunswick and then from there catch the third one back over towards collingwood. it makes no sense at all. i suppose if you consider that the city was cut in two after the war and then had to make do with what they have, plus adding some new ones in without crossing the border from east to west, but then had to join everything back up again it's no surprise. but you try being a tourist and try to figure out where you go and what one you catch! the only saving grace is that a train comes past every station almost every six minutes and they are always on time. beat that one connex! for a city as spread out and obscure as can be, and then to have as many people as melbourne and still run on time without cancellations and without inspectors, it just makes you hate connex even more. if that was possible, that is. but enough bagging connex, it's a fish in a barrel metaphor waiting to happen.
so there we were, wedged into a throng of people all wanting to go the same way but never getting any further. it was strange. it was like a moshpit without music, a shoesale in an all girly town, a UN food distribution in a troubled african village. three words - squishy, stinky and uncomfortable. i felt about four hands touch my arse, some poor woman's breasts in my back, the alcoholic stench of some drunk spaniard in my face and i lost all my friends in the space of three minutes upon entry. it took us about half an hour to get the twenty metres from the door and up the stais to the platform. oddly though, once you reached the top of the stairs it was relatively empty and you could feel a small breeze waft through the place. however during the agonising baby-stepped trundle to the platform someone let off fireworks inside the station. no one could see who did it, and even the polizei yelling at people something i couldn't understand on the stairs couldn't see or do anything about it. i found the whole thing highly amusing and giggled the whole way. i did ask a woman next to me what was going on and if this happened every year. she replied with a smirk on her face, 'it happens every year and she has no idea why.'
when we finally got onto the train and it was more of the same - squished in and more cramped than the actual station was. the only difference was that we were now squished in shoulder to shoulder with a stack of english university students here on a holiday. i so wish i was stuck with germans or even the spanairds again. there's something arrogant and very snooty about hearing an upperclass english accent after a few months of hearing nothing but american and german. alexis likes the accent, but for me personally, i would rather hear a chorus of ballarat bogans singing a footy song than the faux-upperclassness of the british. it probably has something to with the amount of times i've had to watch an english documentary at school or put up with some snooty customer at work deriding my country and it's customs as coming from the colonies. each time i hear that it makes me wanna say, 'it must really burn you up inside to know that america is now on top. after all, they shunned you and let go of all that upstairs/downstairs snobbery.' but that's just me being prejudiced against the english. by the by, i don't mind a liverpool and manchester accent, it's just that snooty one that irks me. you know the one i mean.
but again i come back to the topic at hand, we had a quick train journey and arrived at our destination and met up with a couple of friends. reinaldo, the other guy we were staying with, and ricardo, a friend of alexis' from cuba that we just happened to meet up with by coincidence a few days earlier. now the 'gang' was all together we headed towards berghain and the rest of the party. i think i'll continue the story of berghain another day, as it really does deserve it's own entry. you see anything can happen in berghain, and by that i mean anything.
new year's eve in berlin - part one
even though some time has passed i want to tell you about berlin on new year's eve. i can sum it up in two words - crazed anarchy. it was like nothing i have ever experienced before. it was the kind of evening you'd see in a end of the world film or hear about about happening to a friend of a friend of a friend, but never something you think you'd expereince yourself. it started off pretty normal, the usual new year's dinner and some drinks, but as soon as we left the house things got crazy with a capital K. (to warn you beforehand, this is gonna be a big post so grab a coffee and relax yourself into that arse groove in the couch homer simpson style. hell grab yourself a nacho hat if you've got one lying around.) okay, let me explain the evening...
so, alexis and i headed out in the late afternoon to go grocery shopping, you know, grab some food, some alcohol and champagne and all that stuff. you see everything closes down in germany on a sunday and public holidays, so we had to grab a couple of things to tide us over for the next day or so. when we got the grocery store we found it to be full of people grabbing at whatever was left on the shelves (there wasn't much) and having a hard time finding anything, we were lucky to be able to find enough food to put together a couple of meals. to give you an idea of what it was like, alexis stole a cucumber out of someone's trolley because there was nothing left on the shelf! it wasn't as mean as you think, they had the last five and we figured they didn't need them all and christmas is a time of sharing after all... but anyway, the store was closing soonish, so we seperated and decided to grab whatever we could. left to my own devices and not understanding what half the things were i was pondering at, i wandered around looking for whatever made sense or i was curious about, and that is when i saw it. a multi-pack of FIREWORKS!!! they are legal here and cheap, so after i pulled a face to convince alexis (something between a sad little orphan and someone willing a dish out a damn good stabbing) we trundled back home through the zero degree temperature, our bags full of food, french champagne (which incidentally is alot more expensive than your basic alcohol), and my beloved fireworks.
skip to some time later and after food had been inhaled and alcohol (beer and wine) had been drunk, it was time for tim to play with the explosives. i was looking forward to this almost as much as the damn countdown. after all i am a boy and boys like explosions of any sort, be they small, big or massive enough to bring down a building. (i secretly hoped mine would have, but given they were bought from a grocery store i thought that would be too much to ask for) so beer in hand alexis, myself and our holiday housemate paul climbed through the window in paul's lounge room to the buildings courtyard to set of the fireworks. all i can say is that even though it wasn't the fourth of july i giggled insanely and totally enjoyed myself watching my store-bought goodies whizz, bang, shoot off into the sky and explode. there was one big one in the pack that i demanded to set off last, hell i might not be able to do this again and i'd be damned if i was going to give away my fun. as it turned out the biggest one wasn't the funnest one in the pack, but it sure as hell went into the sky the furtherest and had the biggest bang. the funnest (is that even a word?) one was this little tiny thing that shot out a fair few sparks and squealed into the night, causing all dogs in a five block radius to howl. but then again i couldn't tell if it was us or the millions of other people on the streets going crazy with their own fireworks. bottom line, it was fun and just the begining of a night i would remember forever. if you ever get the chance to be in berlin for new year's eve, do it!
now skip to about an hour later, we were in potsdammerplatz awaiting the countdown. we had arrived by cab (passing exploding fireworks and drunk euros with champagne in hand) or as close you could get to there by cab and only had about 30 mins til the stroke of midnight to reach the centre. you see potsdammerplatz is in the middle of the city, near the reichstag and the brandenburger tor, and because of the new year's celebration all the roads were blocked off and the streets were full of people, fireworks and polizei. there was an estimated 2 million people on the streets, and for a city that's only about 3.8 million people, that's a hell of alot of crowd to get through. it seemed as if the whole of europe decided to be in berlin for this most intense and insane night and judging from all the languages and accents i heard i wouldn't be mistaken in thinking it wasn't just europe that had turned up. now we didn't have a chance in hell of making it to the brandenburger tor, which for the festivities was decked out with a stage and crammed full of people, so we decidd to stay in potsdammerplatz. it wasn't too bad being there, in fact it turned out to be a brilliant circumstance. potsdammerplatz was the better place to be, even though it was totally full of people you could still move around, like being at the back of the standing crowd at the big day out. sure you were crowded, but you could still hear each other, dance around like a fool and still retain some annonimity without being drenched in the smells and sweat of the throbbing masses. if you've ever been to a music festival you know the smell i'm talking about. ew. it seemed as though whoever was in charge of crowds or whatever knew this 'spill out' from the brandenburger was going to happen and instinctively put some amusement in place for the evening. you see in potsdammerplatz a ferris wheel had been set up. i don't know who would want to be in that thing while fireworks were going to be the evening's entertainment, but they sure must have some kind of deathwish (you'll understand this if you keep reading). other than a ferris wheel there was also little stands put in place that sold alcohol and fireworks, now of course the fireworks had all been pretty much sold out and i don't know how they did it, but the champagne at these stalls was cheaper than at the grocery store. they even handed you free plastic cups. we ended up buying two bottles of champagne and stood around close to the stall, for two reasons (well i had two reasons for wanting to be there), 1) we could always buy more champagne without the threat of losing each other in the massive crowd and 2) there seemed to be some breathing room around the stand. the champagne was even nice champagne, not the kind of stuff you drink cause there's nothing else, or you're told is nice, but the kind of stuff you drink because it's actually good. a first for myself and champagne.
so there we were, three half-cut people in a sea of drunk and disorderlies. it would have been a little scary if it wasn't so damned exciting. you see, you don't walk on the roads in the city on new year's cause that's where you throw the lit fireworks. even the ambulances which drove past every couple of minutes had to manuevour around them. you also had to keep looking up at the sky to check for random shit coming your way. and most importantly you don't go on the damn ferris wheel. more than once i saw brightly coloured bits of flying emergency-room-accident-waiting-to-happen hit the sides and explode. it looked cool as hell from where i was standing, but to be on that thing you'd have to be drunk or a complete moron, or a tourist without the good sense to see what was coming. it's not as silly as it sounds, i saw two little indian women looking very confused and scared standing near us. to balance that out though there was a group of italians on the other side of us and they were having the time of their lives, singing, dancing, showering each other with champagne.
from where we were it was impossible to hear what was going on at the brandenburger tor and the concert, so much so that the countdown to midnight would never reach our ears. but that didn't really matter as there was more than enough fireworks going off and amusement happening around us to fill up our time. now if you remember all this insanity was happening in the space of 20 minutes. it took us about 10 minutes from getting out of the cab to get to potsdammerplatz and from there we were witnes to an amazing amount of near death, explosions and drunken behaviour, but that was nothing compared to what happened at midnight. we're not too sure when midnight was, but from where we stood you could just make out where the brandenburger tor was and as soon as firworks went up in that area it was time. it was like a ripple effect. people all started screaming, hugging, kissing and shaking up champagne to spray on everyone to the screams of happy new year! frohes Neues jahr! feliz ano nuevo! boa passagem de ano! it was exciting. it was crazy. it was fantasic. it was dangerous. IT WAS COOL AS FUCK!!!
this is where the new year's got extra crazy. from that moment on champagne seemed to fall like rain, fireworks from the brandenburger tor concert filled the sky, people were losing themselves in the moment and, most impressively, the general public started to let their fireworks off like no tomorrow. that shit was everywhere. imagine the sydney or melbourne fireworks comfined to a small area, not up and down a river, let off with not a care in the world or any concern for public safety. fireworks shoot off from everywhere. they were thrown onto the road, standing in empty champagne bottles for balance and set from deep inside the crowd. they slammed into buildings, they narrowly missed people, and if you were ignorant or stupid enough to be on the ferris wheel you may as well have painted a red target on yourself as i think more fireworks hit that thing than they did the couple of skyscrapers that scattered potsdammerplatz. but most impressively, the public's fireworks went for alot longer than the official fireworks of berlin. so much so that i heard fireworks going until the morning and even the next day you could hear things exploding and bottles clanking.
we stayed there for about an hour and half watching the insanity that was berlin at the stroke of midnight until it was time to go to the train station and make our way to berghain for the next part of our new year's adventure. and that my friends, will be the focus of the next post, the journey to the train station, the rambling new year's phone calls, the cramped beyond cramped train ride and the eventual arrival to berghain for the first big clubbing hurrah or 2008. i would love to type more but i have an ever growing fear that if i type too much blogger wont let me post. i already have issues with the spellcheck and adding photos, so why rock the boat when the ship's full of holes and a storm's a brewing?
til then
tchuss
so, alexis and i headed out in the late afternoon to go grocery shopping, you know, grab some food, some alcohol and champagne and all that stuff. you see everything closes down in germany on a sunday and public holidays, so we had to grab a couple of things to tide us over for the next day or so. when we got the grocery store we found it to be full of people grabbing at whatever was left on the shelves (there wasn't much) and having a hard time finding anything, we were lucky to be able to find enough food to put together a couple of meals. to give you an idea of what it was like, alexis stole a cucumber out of someone's trolley because there was nothing left on the shelf! it wasn't as mean as you think, they had the last five and we figured they didn't need them all and christmas is a time of sharing after all... but anyway, the store was closing soonish, so we seperated and decided to grab whatever we could. left to my own devices and not understanding what half the things were i was pondering at, i wandered around looking for whatever made sense or i was curious about, and that is when i saw it. a multi-pack of FIREWORKS!!! they are legal here and cheap, so after i pulled a face to convince alexis (something between a sad little orphan and someone willing a dish out a damn good stabbing) we trundled back home through the zero degree temperature, our bags full of food, french champagne (which incidentally is alot more expensive than your basic alcohol), and my beloved fireworks.
skip to some time later and after food had been inhaled and alcohol (beer and wine) had been drunk, it was time for tim to play with the explosives. i was looking forward to this almost as much as the damn countdown. after all i am a boy and boys like explosions of any sort, be they small, big or massive enough to bring down a building. (i secretly hoped mine would have, but given they were bought from a grocery store i thought that would be too much to ask for) so beer in hand alexis, myself and our holiday housemate paul climbed through the window in paul's lounge room to the buildings courtyard to set of the fireworks. all i can say is that even though it wasn't the fourth of july i giggled insanely and totally enjoyed myself watching my store-bought goodies whizz, bang, shoot off into the sky and explode. there was one big one in the pack that i demanded to set off last, hell i might not be able to do this again and i'd be damned if i was going to give away my fun. as it turned out the biggest one wasn't the funnest one in the pack, but it sure as hell went into the sky the furtherest and had the biggest bang. the funnest (is that even a word?) one was this little tiny thing that shot out a fair few sparks and squealed into the night, causing all dogs in a five block radius to howl. but then again i couldn't tell if it was us or the millions of other people on the streets going crazy with their own fireworks. bottom line, it was fun and just the begining of a night i would remember forever. if you ever get the chance to be in berlin for new year's eve, do it!
now skip to about an hour later, we were in potsdammerplatz awaiting the countdown. we had arrived by cab (passing exploding fireworks and drunk euros with champagne in hand) or as close you could get to there by cab and only had about 30 mins til the stroke of midnight to reach the centre. you see potsdammerplatz is in the middle of the city, near the reichstag and the brandenburger tor, and because of the new year's celebration all the roads were blocked off and the streets were full of people, fireworks and polizei. there was an estimated 2 million people on the streets, and for a city that's only about 3.8 million people, that's a hell of alot of crowd to get through. it seemed as if the whole of europe decided to be in berlin for this most intense and insane night and judging from all the languages and accents i heard i wouldn't be mistaken in thinking it wasn't just europe that had turned up. now we didn't have a chance in hell of making it to the brandenburger tor, which for the festivities was decked out with a stage and crammed full of people, so we decidd to stay in potsdammerplatz. it wasn't too bad being there, in fact it turned out to be a brilliant circumstance. potsdammerplatz was the better place to be, even though it was totally full of people you could still move around, like being at the back of the standing crowd at the big day out. sure you were crowded, but you could still hear each other, dance around like a fool and still retain some annonimity without being drenched in the smells and sweat of the throbbing masses. if you've ever been to a music festival you know the smell i'm talking about. ew. it seemed as though whoever was in charge of crowds or whatever knew this 'spill out' from the brandenburger was going to happen and instinctively put some amusement in place for the evening. you see in potsdammerplatz a ferris wheel had been set up. i don't know who would want to be in that thing while fireworks were going to be the evening's entertainment, but they sure must have some kind of deathwish (you'll understand this if you keep reading). other than a ferris wheel there was also little stands put in place that sold alcohol and fireworks, now of course the fireworks had all been pretty much sold out and i don't know how they did it, but the champagne at these stalls was cheaper than at the grocery store. they even handed you free plastic cups. we ended up buying two bottles of champagne and stood around close to the stall, for two reasons (well i had two reasons for wanting to be there), 1) we could always buy more champagne without the threat of losing each other in the massive crowd and 2) there seemed to be some breathing room around the stand. the champagne was even nice champagne, not the kind of stuff you drink cause there's nothing else, or you're told is nice, but the kind of stuff you drink because it's actually good. a first for myself and champagne.
so there we were, three half-cut people in a sea of drunk and disorderlies. it would have been a little scary if it wasn't so damned exciting. you see, you don't walk on the roads in the city on new year's cause that's where you throw the lit fireworks. even the ambulances which drove past every couple of minutes had to manuevour around them. you also had to keep looking up at the sky to check for random shit coming your way. and most importantly you don't go on the damn ferris wheel. more than once i saw brightly coloured bits of flying emergency-room-accident-waiting-to-happen hit the sides and explode. it looked cool as hell from where i was standing, but to be on that thing you'd have to be drunk or a complete moron, or a tourist without the good sense to see what was coming. it's not as silly as it sounds, i saw two little indian women looking very confused and scared standing near us. to balance that out though there was a group of italians on the other side of us and they were having the time of their lives, singing, dancing, showering each other with champagne.
from where we were it was impossible to hear what was going on at the brandenburger tor and the concert, so much so that the countdown to midnight would never reach our ears. but that didn't really matter as there was more than enough fireworks going off and amusement happening around us to fill up our time. now if you remember all this insanity was happening in the space of 20 minutes. it took us about 10 minutes from getting out of the cab to get to potsdammerplatz and from there we were witnes to an amazing amount of near death, explosions and drunken behaviour, but that was nothing compared to what happened at midnight. we're not too sure when midnight was, but from where we stood you could just make out where the brandenburger tor was and as soon as firworks went up in that area it was time. it was like a ripple effect. people all started screaming, hugging, kissing and shaking up champagne to spray on everyone to the screams of happy new year! frohes Neues jahr! feliz ano nuevo! boa passagem de ano! it was exciting. it was crazy. it was fantasic. it was dangerous. IT WAS COOL AS FUCK!!!
this is where the new year's got extra crazy. from that moment on champagne seemed to fall like rain, fireworks from the brandenburger tor concert filled the sky, people were losing themselves in the moment and, most impressively, the general public started to let their fireworks off like no tomorrow. that shit was everywhere. imagine the sydney or melbourne fireworks comfined to a small area, not up and down a river, let off with not a care in the world or any concern for public safety. fireworks shoot off from everywhere. they were thrown onto the road, standing in empty champagne bottles for balance and set from deep inside the crowd. they slammed into buildings, they narrowly missed people, and if you were ignorant or stupid enough to be on the ferris wheel you may as well have painted a red target on yourself as i think more fireworks hit that thing than they did the couple of skyscrapers that scattered potsdammerplatz. but most impressively, the public's fireworks went for alot longer than the official fireworks of berlin. so much so that i heard fireworks going until the morning and even the next day you could hear things exploding and bottles clanking.
we stayed there for about an hour and half watching the insanity that was berlin at the stroke of midnight until it was time to go to the train station and make our way to berghain for the next part of our new year's adventure. and that my friends, will be the focus of the next post, the journey to the train station, the rambling new year's phone calls, the cramped beyond cramped train ride and the eventual arrival to berghain for the first big clubbing hurrah or 2008. i would love to type more but i have an ever growing fear that if i type too much blogger wont let me post. i already have issues with the spellcheck and adding photos, so why rock the boat when the ship's full of holes and a storm's a brewing?
til then
tchuss
1 Feb 2008
movie review - the brave one
last night i watched the brave one. now i didn't quite know what to expect from this movie, as i like jodie foster (except for that horrible flightplan movie, seriously woman, what were you thinking?) and i am a sometime fan of neil jordan (he of interview with a vampire and crying game fame), but i really enjoyed it. even though the film takes place in a post 9/11 new york and can be seen as an episode in carthasis, it didn't weigh the film down or exude any of the obvious god bless america nonsense that seems to be all over the place in american cinema these days. plus it has a morally ambiguous centre that by the end still doesn't have any resolution, which personally i think is a very brave move and makes the film seem that much more realistic because of it.
for those that don't know the plot i'll break it down for you. erica bain (foster) and her fiance (naveen andrews, sayid from lost) are attacked and beaten while walking their dog through a park one night. he dies because of the savage (and i do mean savage) beating and she barely survives. skip to three weeks later and she wakes up in hospital a shattered and deeply disturbed woman who doesn't know who she is anymore (figuratively speaking - not amnesia). so much so that her job of hosting a radio program about her love of walking the streets of new york and just taking in the familiarity and how she feels connected to the city she is so in love with takes a darker turn. she doesn't feel safe and everyone on the streets seems like a stranger and potential criminal. even her style goes from upbeat woman with perky hair and girlish charm (something i didn't expect from foster) turns into a simpler and detatched look, with her hair straight and unkempt, her clothes simple and an expression that makes her seem distant and controlled. as one character puts it, she looks scary. now i don't mean that it's all through her clothes and look, but this is only one example of the ways in which this woman is a changed person. she goes so far as to mention on her radio show that she doesn't know her city anymore, she used to laugh at women who didn't feel safe walking the streets at night and now she's one of them. but that all changes when she, fed up with the inability of the police to find her attackers and the general fear she now embodies, buys a gun. this is where the film in lesser hands would degenrate into a revenge film something in the vein of a brian dennehy (i tried to find a vid of him as john wayne gacy but failed, wah!) film or death wish 6 or something, but this is where the film becomes interesting. i will only tell you a small fragment of this part of the film as i don't want to destroy it. she becomes somewhat of an accidental vigilante. while in a corner store she witnesses a murder. a man bursts in and shoots the woman behind the counter, not for money, but because she is divorcing him and she is apparently getting full custody of the children. while bain is hiding, hoping not to be seen by the murderer her phone rings. he obviously hears it and starts looking for her in the old 'don't leave a witness' fashion. he finds her, but before he can shoot her she shoots him. this scene is the start of something much bigger for her - the feeling of hopelessness is gone and she dosn't feel like the victim anymore. and this is what drives this movie, a feeling of empowerment and the lost feeling she has knowing that her fiance's killers are out there, but also the feeling that she is living in the grey area of justice and even though she has killed someone who apparently 'deserved it' she knows that it is not her place to hand out this particular kind of street justice. this is made all the more obvious in a scene where during her radio program she is made to take calls from listeners about the vigilante, who by now has killed a few people. she is at first annoyed, then disgruntled and finally disgusted by what she is hearing coming from people's mouths. as the calls start with a no one should kill people or yay for the vigilante and end up in the surreal area of i love the vigilante, here's my phone number to i am the vigilante you see bain's confusion and repulsion and finally the realisation that she doesn't know what to do or if she can stop.
i found the most interesting parts of this movie were it's themes and how they were handled. for instance bain becomes somewhat of a serial killer. she inhabits alot of the attributes put upon real serial killers. she has an MO, befriends a cop and returns to the scene of the crime. i don't know if this was intentional, but it does lend itself to the moral ambiguity this film seems to wallow in and is a great juxtaposition bewteen street wise vigilante working outside the law and public menace that's killing citizens in cold blood. i also quite enjoyed that race was never seen to be an issue in this film. almost every character was from somewhere else. bain/foster is obviously from south USA, her fiance arabic brought up in england, their friends a new yorker and an irishman, the cop she befriends is african-american, her neighbour is jamaican or haitian, she buys the gun of an asian guy, her attackers are hispanic... the list is endless, and not once does this become an issue or spoken about. the only time difference is mentioned is when the cop (terrence howard) tells his ex-wife that women don't shoot themselves in the head, but in the heart/chest, and even this is more to do with a plot point rather than sexism or validating difference, as no one suspects bain is the killer because she is a petite woman not a muscle bound type A male, thus allowing her to kill more and slowly descend into her own kind of hell.
as you can probably tell i really enjoyed this movie, i could prattle on about it for ever. about the use of a tunnel as her symbolic threshold into her own dark and sinister (anit-)hero's journey, about her dog being a symbol of innocence and even about the fact that foster was robbed an oscar nomination for this role purely because i'm assuming people just saw it as a revenge flick and not as a character study of a woman pushed to extremes through fear and disempowerment. (stupid motherfucking juno gets a nom but jodie doesn't? are you serious? i can see boring shite like no country for old men being there, but juno? do they let monkeys vote for these things? next you'll be telling me page got a nom for actress for playing an unrealistic smart-mouthed tryhard-punk kid? oh wait... DAMNIT!!!) but anyway i can totally recommend the brave one to everyone. i though it was brilliant and if you've been reading my blog you know that i haven't seen anything that comes close to brilliance in awhile. alot that doesn't deserve mentioning (i am legend, no country for old men, the golden compass), but nothing that exceeds excellence quite like ths movie does. see it now and let me know what you think, i would love to hear from others what their take is.
(ps someone really needs to fix the spellcheck on this thing, i am way too lazy to care that much about spelling on a blog.)
for those that don't know the plot i'll break it down for you. erica bain (foster) and her fiance (naveen andrews, sayid from lost) are attacked and beaten while walking their dog through a park one night. he dies because of the savage (and i do mean savage) beating and she barely survives. skip to three weeks later and she wakes up in hospital a shattered and deeply disturbed woman who doesn't know who she is anymore (figuratively speaking - not amnesia). so much so that her job of hosting a radio program about her love of walking the streets of new york and just taking in the familiarity and how she feels connected to the city she is so in love with takes a darker turn. she doesn't feel safe and everyone on the streets seems like a stranger and potential criminal. even her style goes from upbeat woman with perky hair and girlish charm (something i didn't expect from foster) turns into a simpler and detatched look, with her hair straight and unkempt, her clothes simple and an expression that makes her seem distant and controlled. as one character puts it, she looks scary. now i don't mean that it's all through her clothes and look, but this is only one example of the ways in which this woman is a changed person. she goes so far as to mention on her radio show that she doesn't know her city anymore, she used to laugh at women who didn't feel safe walking the streets at night and now she's one of them. but that all changes when she, fed up with the inability of the police to find her attackers and the general fear she now embodies, buys a gun. this is where the film in lesser hands would degenrate into a revenge film something in the vein of a brian dennehy (i tried to find a vid of him as john wayne gacy but failed, wah!) film or death wish 6 or something, but this is where the film becomes interesting. i will only tell you a small fragment of this part of the film as i don't want to destroy it. she becomes somewhat of an accidental vigilante. while in a corner store she witnesses a murder. a man bursts in and shoots the woman behind the counter, not for money, but because she is divorcing him and she is apparently getting full custody of the children. while bain is hiding, hoping not to be seen by the murderer her phone rings. he obviously hears it and starts looking for her in the old 'don't leave a witness' fashion. he finds her, but before he can shoot her she shoots him. this scene is the start of something much bigger for her - the feeling of hopelessness is gone and she dosn't feel like the victim anymore. and this is what drives this movie, a feeling of empowerment and the lost feeling she has knowing that her fiance's killers are out there, but also the feeling that she is living in the grey area of justice and even though she has killed someone who apparently 'deserved it' she knows that it is not her place to hand out this particular kind of street justice. this is made all the more obvious in a scene where during her radio program she is made to take calls from listeners about the vigilante, who by now has killed a few people. she is at first annoyed, then disgruntled and finally disgusted by what she is hearing coming from people's mouths. as the calls start with a no one should kill people or yay for the vigilante and end up in the surreal area of i love the vigilante, here's my phone number to i am the vigilante you see bain's confusion and repulsion and finally the realisation that she doesn't know what to do or if she can stop.
i found the most interesting parts of this movie were it's themes and how they were handled. for instance bain becomes somewhat of a serial killer. she inhabits alot of the attributes put upon real serial killers. she has an MO, befriends a cop and returns to the scene of the crime. i don't know if this was intentional, but it does lend itself to the moral ambiguity this film seems to wallow in and is a great juxtaposition bewteen street wise vigilante working outside the law and public menace that's killing citizens in cold blood. i also quite enjoyed that race was never seen to be an issue in this film. almost every character was from somewhere else. bain/foster is obviously from south USA, her fiance arabic brought up in england, their friends a new yorker and an irishman, the cop she befriends is african-american, her neighbour is jamaican or haitian, she buys the gun of an asian guy, her attackers are hispanic... the list is endless, and not once does this become an issue or spoken about. the only time difference is mentioned is when the cop (terrence howard) tells his ex-wife that women don't shoot themselves in the head, but in the heart/chest, and even this is more to do with a plot point rather than sexism or validating difference, as no one suspects bain is the killer because she is a petite woman not a muscle bound type A male, thus allowing her to kill more and slowly descend into her own kind of hell.
as you can probably tell i really enjoyed this movie, i could prattle on about it for ever. about the use of a tunnel as her symbolic threshold into her own dark and sinister (anit-)hero's journey, about her dog being a symbol of innocence and even about the fact that foster was robbed an oscar nomination for this role purely because i'm assuming people just saw it as a revenge flick and not as a character study of a woman pushed to extremes through fear and disempowerment. (stupid motherfucking juno gets a nom but jodie doesn't? are you serious? i can see boring shite like no country for old men being there, but juno? do they let monkeys vote for these things? next you'll be telling me page got a nom for actress for playing an unrealistic smart-mouthed tryhard-punk kid? oh wait... DAMNIT!!!) but anyway i can totally recommend the brave one to everyone. i though it was brilliant and if you've been reading my blog you know that i haven't seen anything that comes close to brilliance in awhile. alot that doesn't deserve mentioning (i am legend, no country for old men, the golden compass), but nothing that exceeds excellence quite like ths movie does. see it now and let me know what you think, i would love to hear from others what their take is.
(ps someone really needs to fix the spellcheck on this thing, i am way too lazy to care that much about spelling on a blog.)
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