A personal recount of a life within Berlin, Venice and the EU

Monday, October 23, 2006

On Thursday the 19th there has been the twenty years Party of the Kindergarten where I work...there were almost all the children with their parents, playing and eating some bloody pasta and some nice home-made cakes...everybody was in the garden...there was also a show for children, made by a woman dressed like a tiger....
I was really happy of the whole situation: it was nice to see that the children run to me to tell you just Hallo, that the parents smiled at me, and that the teachers considered me as part of the school, one hundred percent...

But the coolest thing happened when the party for the family finished and I went with 15 teachers upstairs to drink some wine....photos of ten years ago came out, stories of the past, told in this strict Berlin accent, came out as well...and I could feel at a very intuitive level that I am working in Eastern Berlin...I loved it...

Yesterday I went to this German-Czech Jazzfest, that turned to be OK but a bit too poppy for my taste...mostly because when I think about jazz on one side, and about the amazing players that I heard in Czech, I feel like I miss something for sure...and then there is this kind of typical Czech attitude of making charts of anything: when you study Economic History of the previous socialistic Eastern European Countries, it is easy to find some Czech authors who will tell you that Czech was the 8th biggest world economy in the 1920s, in every essay the will write....or that Czech always scored better than any other previous brother-country from any of the European standards - that is actually not true...or that the mountains on the Czech side are nicer...
So it is Ok I guess, but why should I care about the fact that the piano player I am listening was ranked among the best 10-12 European piano players of 2006, according to some magazines...I mean: since he plays a cheasy version of Fragile, full of funny (negative meaning) keyboards sounds...?
Anyway that was the first thing the leader of this band - Shanti (ethnojazz v Ceske Republiky) - said....hmm....


It was cool though: I met a woman from Prague there, who actually offered me a ticket for half of the price: we obviously talked in German: since she lives in Germany since 1966 it was the language we could both talk well enough...

TIPS

Last week I read a book by Agotha Kristof, the first of my life: Hier....amazing, probably less than 100 pages...but so intense and so direct....read it, if you do not have a book on your table right now...by the way she is somehow a product of what happened yesterday, exactly fifty years ago...
Right now I am reading a book by Coetzee: the beginning sounds really good...

So after such a kind pretentious cultural part, a short story to make you all laugh ( hopefully): Lost in Translation

A nice week to everybody...

P.S. It would be nice if the people who read this lunatic blog could post something from time to time...just to keep some more contacts...
Tschüß.

Monday, October 16, 2006

Illness

I cough a lot, I have got a cold as well, on Friday I guess...but I would not say I am ill....anyway I cannot get more than 4 hours sleep since thursday night so I feel like dead...I went to the doctor today and I guess I looked like a very ill person...that is why she gave me three days off...but the thing is: "What should I do?" I´d love just to sleep for ten hours in a row...for three days in a row...not the most likel event in here....

Anyway it is interesting to be home and enjoy all the sounds of my neighbourhood, sounds and situations that I had not enjoyed that much. Have a nice begin of this week you all!

Sunday, October 15, 2006

Sunday ........ Sunday

Once more it was one of those weekends full with things going on...once more it has been one of those weekends in which I work more than 24 hours in 2 days and I cannot get any sleep: would you consider 14 hours sleep in three nights enough sleep?
Anyway I had an interesting day. Since I am looking for a new flat, I walked a lot through areas that I did not know...I saw something new...I went to my favourite bar in Kreuzberg 36 and drank something, while reading the last pages of "White Teeth" (get it! It is amazing!)...the evening was filled in with Czech beers and the need to be by myself...I can state that I love also the Autumn of this city...
I love to be here...I am getitng sentimental.

Friday, October 13, 2006

Tuesday, October 10, 2006

Read it if you understand French

An indipendent point of view on Cecenia

Plans for Xmas

So thanks to my temporary Venezuelan room-mate I bought today the tickets to go back to Venice on the 22nd of December...It is getting normal to miss the Fall in Venice, it is such a nice season...but I cannot complain that much...
Take are you all...

Monday, October 09, 2006

Sunday, October 08, 2006

Make it cooler...hopefully...

As you hopefully have already noticed, I did some changes for this blog...hope you all like it...

Ah ah ah, Sonntag ist da...

Only yesterday evening i finally discovered that the restaurant in which I work is considered - according to the most accountable Berliner Guide for restaurants and bars - one of the best twenty restaurants in town!!! It is really something...and now I see why in the last two weeks we are always full, every single evening...

I have ben working so much in the last two two days...and working as waiter in such a restaurant is a bit stressing...I am proud right now, though, for real...it is definitely not the job of my life but I like to work for five days with the most amazing part of humanity - 2 years old children - and then, on the week-end, living the night life of Kreuzberg...Indeed I got barely drunk yesterday...but we had fun...only my stomach did not like it this morning...but its reaction was really polite: it is learning, finally...

Thursday, October 05, 2006

I like being here from any point of view, but I am always thinking about travelling somewhere else in these last days...I am actually also thinking about the people I would like to have here but I should ask for three weeks holydays in order to meet all of them the way I would like to...
Whatever....
Gute Nacht...