lately
A while back when Pete (another American TAing near Hamburg) came to Berlin to visit, we met this Spanish guy named Luis. We were out in Friedrichshain (one of the "boroughs" of Berlin, in the northeasterly region) at this place that I love. It doesn't really have a name, but people who know about it call it das Loch--the hole. People who don't know about it don't call it anything, cause if you don't know where to look you won't find it. The hole is an opening at sidewalk level, about a foot and a half high or so, and you scoot down into it and land on a couple cement steps which lead down into three or four basement rooms. The ceilings are low enough that Pete couldn't stand upright. The walls are decorated with grafitti and the furniture consists of one couch, some barrels and boxes, and a swing made of a long board suspended on ropes. There's a bar and a foosball ("kicker") table. This is how we made friends with Luis--and his father, also Luis, who was visiting from Spain. Luis Sr. is probably, oh, 60ish. And we met him playing foosball with his son at 4 am in a place they call the hole. Classy guy. He only speaks Spanish, so his son was translating for him from English and German.
We talked to the Luises for a while, and then Luis Jr. said I should come over sometime and he'd make paella, so I gave him my email address. The emails I received from Luis, whose English is rather broken, are a story on their own. My favorite phrase to date has been, "I have a more illusion for see you."
So I finally went over to Luis's apartment last week for paella, which was very tasty indeed. His roommates are from Sweden and Denmark (and I think there's a girl from Japan who wasn't there), all very nice people. It was a good time.
mmm...
I'm not sure whether Luis is expressing how he feels about having his picture taken, or about how much paella he's eaten.
Making international friends makes me happy!
We talked to the Luises for a while, and then Luis Jr. said I should come over sometime and he'd make paella, so I gave him my email address. The emails I received from Luis, whose English is rather broken, are a story on their own. My favorite phrase to date has been, "I have a more illusion for see you."
So I finally went over to Luis's apartment last week for paella, which was very tasty indeed. His roommates are from Sweden and Denmark (and I think there's a girl from Japan who wasn't there), all very nice people. It was a good time.
mmm...
I'm not sure whether Luis is expressing how he feels about having his picture taken, or about how much paella he's eaten.
Making international friends makes me happy!Luis is going back to Valencia until the end of January or so, but he promised to call "in the moment" he comes back, and maybe there can be more paella in the future. Perhaps in the meantime I'll try to remember what I learned in that one semester of Spanish I took...
Not too long ago I also met a French guy named David, a friend of my roommate Henrike's. We went to see an arty film that David helped make, in this theatre stuck back in a tiny little courtyard that I never would have found on my own. The film was fascinating, but I'm not sure I really got it...I'm not arty enough, I guess. Afterward we went to a party for all the people involved in making the film. It was in an apartment, also very arty, on the top floor of a big apartment building, with high ceilings and big windows and lots of euro flavor.
Here's David and (finally! I didn't make her up after all!) Henrike a few days later. David was DJing at a little tiny bar in Neukölln, and Henrike and I went to check it out.
Henrike doesn't normally have red eyes, but David does normally wear his sweaters that glittery. He is very French indeed. (You can tell by his facial hair.)
Last Friday, after a little Kaffee & Kuchen party with all the English teachers from my school at one of their houses, I took the train up to Hamburg to hang out with a bunch of other TAs--Pete and James, a few other Americans I hadn't met before, the Brits I met in Wismar (Andy and Jules), and a Welsh girl (Anna). We stayed at Jules' place Friday night, and Saturday we tried to browse through the Christmas markets in Hamburg, but they were so packed that you couldn't so much walk as allow yourself to be pushed and pulled along with the crowd, so we took refuge in a coffee shop before hopping on the train to get out to Pete's house in Schwarzenbek, a little village that's sort of a suburb of Hamburg. Hung out there Saturday night, and yesterday morning Pete made pancakes. Yum. It was sunny, so we walked through lovely idyllic pastoral and wooded scenes, discovered a circus in the woods (well, we were coming out of the woods, and there it was), and gradually all made our way back onto the train and home.
Here's the Christmas market in front of the Hamburg Rathaus, the only one of my pictures that really turned out:
Not too long ago I also met a French guy named David, a friend of my roommate Henrike's. We went to see an arty film that David helped make, in this theatre stuck back in a tiny little courtyard that I never would have found on my own. The film was fascinating, but I'm not sure I really got it...I'm not arty enough, I guess. Afterward we went to a party for all the people involved in making the film. It was in an apartment, also very arty, on the top floor of a big apartment building, with high ceilings and big windows and lots of euro flavor.
Here's David and (finally! I didn't make her up after all!) Henrike a few days later. David was DJing at a little tiny bar in Neukölln, and Henrike and I went to check it out.
Henrike doesn't normally have red eyes, but David does normally wear his sweaters that glittery. He is very French indeed. (You can tell by his facial hair.)Last Friday, after a little Kaffee & Kuchen party with all the English teachers from my school at one of their houses, I took the train up to Hamburg to hang out with a bunch of other TAs--Pete and James, a few other Americans I hadn't met before, the Brits I met in Wismar (Andy and Jules), and a Welsh girl (Anna). We stayed at Jules' place Friday night, and Saturday we tried to browse through the Christmas markets in Hamburg, but they were so packed that you couldn't so much walk as allow yourself to be pushed and pulled along with the crowd, so we took refuge in a coffee shop before hopping on the train to get out to Pete's house in Schwarzenbek, a little village that's sort of a suburb of Hamburg. Hung out there Saturday night, and yesterday morning Pete made pancakes. Yum. It was sunny, so we walked through lovely idyllic pastoral and wooded scenes, discovered a circus in the woods (well, we were coming out of the woods, and there it was), and gradually all made our way back onto the train and home.
Here's the Christmas market in front of the Hamburg Rathaus, the only one of my pictures that really turned out:
I have to admit my disappointment at your scant coverage of the weekend in Hamburg and its environs. I mean, I know it was a long post and you didn't want to belabor it, but you didn't even mention that you punched me. Twice.
Posted by
Anonym |
7:44 PM
Haha! All right, all right, the punching definitely needs to be written about. Forward me Andy's pics when you get them; the story would be much better illustrated.
Posted by
LP |
7:56 PM