Tag: berlin

Categories
in germany

2 months in berlin

in a sharp contrast with little known slovenia, everybody seems to know something about berlin. people ask us, persistently: have you been to the brandenburg gate? have you seen the berlin wall? what about the holocaust memorial? have you eaten currywurst? did you climb the tv tower in alexanderplatz?

to which we answer with a relaxed “yeaaaah… we’ll get there”. we don’t feel any of this urgency to visit all the landmarks, and do lonely-planet marathons… we’ll be here for a while, so we’re taking our time, enjoying the gorgeous summer weather, riding our bikes up and down the cobbled streets of neukölln. just soaking it all in, sipping coffees in the sun.

so far, so good, i’d say. :)



Categories
in germany

impromptu pillow fights

– there’s going to be a pillow fight in alexanderplatz today. do you guys want to come?
– errr… yes!!!! :D





on our first day in berlin, a dozen shy pillow fighters converged in the square and unleashed their feathery pillows on each others. a sort of an omen, or a toast to the fun times ahead! :)

Categories
in germany

bearpit karaoke

what do berliners do on weekends, when the sun is out? they go to parks and soak in the sun! the whole day, just laying around, lazily perusing nearby markets, drinking beer and roasting their sausages in makeshift grills.

and for the entertainment? well, they have frisbees and kites and there’s always a nearby radio blasting a tune, or, if you’re in mauerpark in a sunday afternoon… the bearpit karaoke!

this was something we saw on our first weekend in berlin and it blew our minds. a massive outdoor karaoke? hell yeah!

it happens in a stone amphitheater on mauerpark, every sunday afternoon. a guy comes in with a set of amplifiers on a bike, plugs his computer, and lets people sing whatever songs they like while a couple thousand people watch and cheer. the results are often unexpected and hilarious. some examples found on youtube:

i may not know much about berlin yet, but this is definitely something you don’t want to miss :)

Categories
in germany

hallo aus berlin


it took us a while to settle down in this city – it’s all too big, too foreign, too bureaucratic, and frankly, more than a little intimidating with its omnipresent obsession with cool. but we’re getting the hang of it.

our new home is a sunny ground-floor apartment with wooden floors and windows on every room. it’s on a quiet little street, so little in fact that it has the word kleine on its name. :)

the house came completely empty, a clean sheet that we are slowly filling with ikea goods, ebay treasures and other things we’ve found on nearby second hand shops. every day it feels a little bit more ours, a little bit more home.

Categories
in slovenia traveling

ljubljana

“When arriving in a city, we see streets in perspective.
Sequences of buildings with no meaning. Everything is unknown, virgin.
Later we’ll have lived in this city.
We’ll have walked in its streets.
We’ll have been to the end of the perspectives.
We’ll have seen all the buildings.
We’ll have lived stories with people.
When we’ll have lived in this city, we’ll have taken this street a thousand times. After a moment, everything belongs to you because you’ve lived there.

It was to happen but I didn’t know it yet.

Ljubljana.
This thing that sounds weird was added to the long list of old weird names that we have somewhere in our brain. Ljubljana, Trnovo, Ziherlova, slightly slipped next to Shanghai, Groningen, Braga, Ermesinde and Porto.

It becomes normal and familiar.”

on the eve of moving, i always come back to adapt this quote from the movie l’auberge espagnole. these streets we’ve walked a thousand times are ours too.

and now, off to berlin we go! :)