Colorful night homage on my old hood and more scribbles from summer
Posted: October 24, 2011 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Berlin, culture shock, English teaching, Germany, photos Leave a comment »
Franko looked a bit rough today.
I had arrived at his office five minutes early and was walking around the block, utilizing the extra time, as I always do, for further Berlin exploration.
My first time here I discovered the Berlin Wall ran down the street, and I was excited to look around some more.
Alas, upon reaching the first corner my phone rang. Read the rest of this entry »
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Berlin Graffiti: Bald Buzzards, Boomers and humanity as a kindergarten
Posted: October 22, 2011 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: American dream, baby boomers, Berlin, economic crisis, egypt, Graffiti, photos, politics, sarcasm, satire 6 Comments »
The symbol of America’s Bald Eagle has been replaced by a Greedy Grey Buzzard, an aged vulture feeding on the already stripped carcass of the country’s dead dream.
There is no meat left for the children this winter. And that, now, world-wide. Politics aside…business is running the show anyway.
But what do I know? Who am I? If I have a cold day in hell’s chance of figuring this all out, I ain’t aware of it. It’s all very complicated.
I just notice that a few have all the apples…and the rest of us, none. Read the rest of this entry »
keys to the place
Posted: October 19, 2011 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: apartment hunting, Berlin, neukölln, neukoelln, photos, travel writing 1 Comment »
Got me the keys to the new pad.
Now I just need a lightbulb or five. And fixtures in which to screw ‘em. Not a light in the whole place…just bare wires…typical for Germany.
I was lucky the place came with a stove and a kitchens sink. In Germany, the old ’everything-but’ saying goes: you get nothing, not even the kitchen sink.
The irony of that luck is that I already have a stove and a kitchen sink. Now I am the proud owner of two sinks and two electric stoves…but all I really want is a gas stove. Read the rest of this entry »
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Scenes from a summer gone bye
Posted: October 18, 2011 Filed under: Fiction | Tags: Berlin, culture shock, disease fiction, English teaching, Germany, photos, sarcasm, satire, travel writing Leave a comment »
My afternoon student, Magdalena, was apparently some princess of Prussia. Sorry, The Princess of Prussia.
The next in line to the German throne, after her brother, were something to happen to him. If.
“Can I, with thee, talk?” my boss asked. My eyebrows raised, instantly wondering how I had fucked up. “It goes around thine single-student.”
“Sure…one moment,” I answered.
Not that I had ever fucked up, or ever gotten a complaint, at least not yet, but due to reasons concerning my nature, I always feared the worst when anyone said ‘let’s talk.’ Read the rest of this entry »
Graffiti, heartbreak and American preachers
Posted: October 16, 2011 Filed under: Eggs | Tags: Alexanderplatz, Berlin, deutsch amerikanishe beziehung, disease fiction, German American relations, Germany, Graffiti, photos, travel writing Leave a comment »
Up the cool echoing stairs from the U-bahn, pausing to lay a cigarette between my lips, to light, to inhale, to light again, and to take a long, off-work-for-the-day drag off that cigarette—basically, a nicotine sigh—I turned the corner out into the bright of daylight, walking toward Alexander Square, across which I was headed to catch my tram home.
The American voice immediately got my attention.
“Hey, thanks a lot for your patience you guys,” the voice said with naïve sincerity. Beaver Cleaver sincerity.
Patience? Berliners?
Any given weekend (at least if the sun shines)
Posted: October 13, 2011 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Berlin, corporate free, free entertainment, Mauer park, photos, quality of life, travel writing 1 Comment »
Berliners all have their favorite park.
And any given weekend, if the weather is at all tolerable, that is where you will find them.
Well…if the weather is super nice, maybe the Strandbad, as I’ve reported before…but that, of course, is rare. This is Germany were talking. And if the weather isn’t nice, you will find them boozing it up in the club, pub, bar or Kneipe.
Sure…then there is the folks with their Ruderverein (rowing clubs,) car or motorcycle clubs, their medieval and Native American reenactment clubs, their shopping malls and their fitness centers, but such douchbags exist in every city, we’re not talking about them here. Screw them. Read the rest of this entry »
Pictures from a beach and train
Posted: July 28, 2011 Filed under: Lost in Berlin | Tags: Berlin, müggelsee, photos Leave a comment »
Apparently…according to my pictures…I must spend all my time either am Strand or wandering the streets looking for graffiti.
I wish that was the case…but in reality I’ve been working too scheiß viel. Employment induced blog neglect, I think it’s called. I have actually been carrying my camera around with me now and then, taking pictures wandering around the neighborhood between classes…but I’ve had no time to post the pictures.
Below are some I am finally managing to post which I took a week or so back on one of our weekend trips to a lake. This week’s lake? Müggelsee…our new favorite beach. Müggelsee is much like Wannsee…without all the crowds and it’s free. Read the rest of this entry »
Berlin Graffiti, episode two
Posted: June 26, 2011 Filed under: Lost in Berlin | Tags: Berlin, culture shock, Germany, Graffiti, History, humor, photos, politics 2 Comments »
Untenstehend, is another random sampling of Berlin graffiti for your viewing pleasure. Also, I give my broader theory about the graffiti in Berlin. I’ll get to that…but first I want to warn viewers: A Black-and-White, adult-audience CSD surprise lurks at the end of the slide show.
Not to mention, this episode is rather epic. 6o some pictures, all from yesterday…many of them even rather beautiful. I hadn’t even set out to take graffiti pictures, we simply went wandering about, but new work was everywhere I looked, and it was all so fragile and transient…and really, all this was just from shooting as we walked. Anyway…on with the theory.
Berlin Sunday lost and found
Posted: June 19, 2011 Filed under: Lost in Berlin | Tags: Berlin, photos Leave a comment »
Viola, a bunch of stuff I found wandering around today. Nothing of huge import…Green Ducks, my spirit emerging from a bag of coffee, stormy skys and sunny skys, and some shoes hanging over a phone line.
The shoes may be important, however, if I understand the hanging shoe thing correctly…some guy named Brad Downey really wants to buy some crack.
The slide show follows the jump… Read the rest of this entry »
Sunny day at Wannsee
Posted: June 12, 2011 Filed under: Lost in Berlin | Tags: Berlin, photos, wannsee 1 Comment »
“Pack up your swim-trunks…and your little sister…cause today we’re going to Wannsee…”
A translation of a popular German song from the early 20th Century, a song that, still today, every German knows. Strandbad Wannsee was the Berlin lake-version of Coney Island, or say , Blackpool, where the masses went to splash in the sea on hot summer days. Read the rest of this entry »
