StewBlog

My flatshare fell through at the last minute, prompted by me indirectly for not keeping in contact with new flat-mate to be and her thinking I wasn't interested any more... So, I've decided to stay on in the apartment on Sredzkistraße for as long as the landlord will allow. Overall, this is good news as I do quite like living on my own. I've settled in here pretty quickly after the initial few weeks so I would prefer to have a place to myself from now on anyway. The apartment has a spare room and a large sofa bed in the living room which is perfect for accommodating visitors too!

There's a Brazilian guy here at work who is leaving today to go back to his family in Finland. So, we went out for a few drinks last night to see him off. As always, things began in a civilised fashion with nice Asian food at Pan Asia in Hackesher Markt. Next stop was Ambulance on Oranien strasse for shooters, cocktails, beers etc afterwhich we moved on to a fantastic, authentic little Brazilian bar where Luiz knows all the staff. Three chaps were sat in the corner playing the most wonderful samba music, whilst we supped on extremely strong South American concontions made with sugar cane alcohol... When I finally got into my bed in the wee hours this morning the alarm clock read 4:41am

Get up and Go!

After breakfast at the fabulous Anna Blume Matty and I took the U-Bahn a few stops down to Alexanderplatz for a mooch around and to head up the Fernsehturm.

I like these guys...

Just found out that White Trash Fast Food have a live karaoke night tomorrow!

Due to the arrival of Matty this evening, I have tomorrow off! So, today is really like a Friday. I really don't mind coming into the office though. Fortunately, everyone is friendly round here and it's nice that we can just help ourselves to SpreeQuell sparkling water and coffee all day long especially when you've been out on the beers the night before

Kyra sloped off particularly early last night, whilst Milan, Tom and I continued supping... We had a fairly tame night though without bothering any nightclubs. We did, however, hatch a plan for halloween next Friday. It looks like we will go, with outfits, to the apparently brilliant White Trash Fast Food.

Tom, Kyra, Milan and I are heading out straight from work tonight and over to Charlottenberg for dinner and a few drinks. We decided after last Tuesday's outing (which I need to write a post for) that we should make this at least a weekly affair moving to a different neighbourhood each time, so Savignyplatz it is tonight! It'll be the first time that I've actually been out in West Berlin.

With a bit of luck, by the end of the week, myself, Gav, Vicki and Kat may well be all booked up for the coming winter's foray into the mountains. We've already skied/boarded in Alpe d'Huez, Meribal, Val Thorens, Courchevel, Val d'Isere, Tignes, Soldeu, Pas de la Casa, and Grau Roig so we thought It would be nice to go a bit further afield and for a little bit longer. If it all comes together, it will be my first visit to Canada...

It appears that my mate, JB, has launched his own on-line ticketing service, so I'm giving it a plug here! If there are any theatre, cinema, sports, music events organisers out there, take a look...

http://www.stubmatic.com/

The site is designed for those who wish to sell tickets for an event but don't want to pay someone like Ticketmaster a huge percentage of each ticket sold. My mate just charges a small flat fee so your costs are covered by the sale of just a few tickets. At least, that's how I understand it...

Apparently, you call the number on these bikes, tell the person on the other end where you are and they give you instructions to unlock the bike. Then, when you're finished, you just lock the thing up, call the number again to tell them where you've locked it and they charge you for the length of time since you made the unlock call... Sounds easy, so will give it a go once I get round to transferring some cash to my German bank account.

Clearly, the first building pictured is homage to the magnificent Flat Iron Building in Manhattan.

This is a little independent cinema just around the corner from me. They occasionally show films in their original language so I'm keeping a check on the schedule for English-speaking films...

So, Max Planck is a bit of a big deal over here, being pretty much the founder of Quantum Theory and a professor of Berlin University. Chums with Albert Einstein.

From the West....

...and the East

After giving up trying to watch Dr. No in dubbed German and I decided to watch the only DVD that I have here with me in Berlin. Aptly enough, The Lives of Others is set in Prenzlauer Berg in 1984 when the GDR's Stasi were at their most active. I won't say any more about the film as I don't want to give anything away. What I will say though is that I think it's probably the best film I've seen this year!

I guess many people will have seen these before but I'd never even been aware of their existence until I had to go to another building for training the other day... I needed to get to the sixth floor and was greeted with what looked like a dumb-waiter for humans! For those that don't know, a Paternoster Elevator is a constantly-moving cyclic lift with numerous open cabins which you may board and alight as you wish to move up or down between floors of a building - Marvellous things they are! (I'm just a big kid when it comes to things like this...) Found this pic on-line of a very similar looking one, also in Berlin...

Can't stop eating these at the moment... Doner kebabs can be bought for around 2 euros almost everywhere! People quite often have them for lunch round here as well.

CCCP is rather a cool little bar on Torstrasse with a vaguely Cold War theme. It was dimly lit in there and nicely busy with a mixed non-touristy crowd.

A great little Asian restaurant on Torstrasse

I was handed a flyer about a week ago for a night called Kiss My Blood by DJ TerrorWave who is going to be playing Dark/Cold/Batcave stuff... Any ideas?

After a spot of serious retail therapy in KaDeWe (Berlin's equivalent to Selfridges) I am now having to listen to my entire iTunes library (a slight exaggeration) again after humping home my purchase on the U-Bahn - Some Bose Companion 5 speakers which are spiffingly fantastic!

OKay, so the draw will commence in 15 minutes. Normally, I wouldn´t be too interested but I´m hoping that Hertha Berlin will be drawn in a group with one of the English clubs - Tottenham would be good! Find out soon...

Just found out that Germany and England have a ´friendly´ match on Wednesday 19th November here in Berlin... I *will* be there to see that one!

Okay, I´m not entirely sure what this is but everyone in the department has been invited to one next Wednesday in honour of a couple of guests we have over from Japan and the US. I think it involves sitting round a big table drinking steins of beer and eating wurst - Brilliant!

So, I will be moving into 15 Kanzowstrasse on 1st November!

I have just e-mailed the football contact here as I´m keen to start playing again after my summer off. He asked my age which I thought was a bit odd... So now I have been bungled in to the über 30 team Must remember to pick up my kit at the weekend...

Lentil Stew with Sausage ´Knacker´ - That´s gotta be worth a look at!

In other news, it is gloomy and tipping down with rain here today...

Note to self: purchase man-friendly, non-inverting-in-the-wind umbrella

Had an e-mail from Matty this morning to say he´ll be heading over from 23rd - 26th October - Cool!

I´ve kinda realised that moving to a big city where you know nobody and can´t speak the language makes living in your own apartment (even though it´s really nice) a bad idea, at least to start with anyway. I receive letters from my bank that I can´t read and there is only one television channel in English (BBC World). Admittedly, it would be great for visitors, but it´s easy to rent apartments in Berlin for a weekend/week anyway and not very expensive at all. So, I have decided that a flatshare is the way forward, for the time-being at least. So, last night I took a look at an apartment just up the road from where I´m staying now right around the corner from Prenzlauer Allee S-Bahn station. A very friendly German girl with excellent English is looking to rent a large room in her apartment from 1st November so I e-mailed her this morning to let her know that I´m interested. A few other people have been round as well, so I just have to wait on her decision now...