When you live in Berlin and when you are not super anti-social, there are always so many people you can meet each day. And sometimes it seems to be so incredibly easy to make dates for coffee, brunch or Friday nights, or whatever. It’s unreal. For all you single people out there, this is a great city. :)

The most relaxed one (no gender hassle :D): Going out for breakfast with friends on Sunday. Not just great to actually meet people outside of office and work, but always a good reason to not sleep the entire day and actually get out of bed somewhat early or at a decent time (11 AM).
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By illtillwillkillbill.

Told you, that I would keep you updated on the “progress” of my invador, didn’t I? Of course I did!

It very much seems like there is a lack of content around here lately. The infamous Sommerloch summer slump has hit our blog as well. Only thing is, there is no summer outside. It’s wet, it’s cold, and there’s even sometimes wind.

After picking up my eBay earlier, I spend the rest of my morning in Friedrichshain today. It’s on the way back to Kreuzberg home anyhow. So I met a friend for breakfast, had coffee, watched people walking by.

We met at this small place at Simon-Dach-Straße called Kaffeeladen (almost literally: Coffeeshop). Sat outside for a while, but it’s just too cold in T-Shirts. People wear longsleeves and sweatshirts mostly, and it’s the middle of August. (rant-mode: ) And people in Friendshain are so stylish. I’d even put 50 bucks on it that they watch themselves in the mirror before they take the trash out.

And then I went home to setup my phone. Yep, that’s it for the day.

Since my plans shifted slightly recently, it looks very much like that I am staying here (Berlin) for another two years (at least). So I decided this A.M. to setup my home phone as my commitment to Berlin.

I actually had the contract since last year’s November, since you can only get Internet access in Germany if you get a phone installed too. Before someone says: “Not true!”. Well of course you can but it’s either expensive or the service really(1), really(2), …, really(n) sucks! Even though QSC is expensive, the quality of service is really good. But I’m cheapskate.

Anyway. I bought this very nifty ISDN-2-analog converter on eBay two days ago and now people can call me at home. Just announced it by email too and so far, two called. Hooray!

Let me tell you something, Berlin is cheap regarding food and the quality you get for your money. Especially the quality over here (West Germany) is sometimes disgusting, there are nearly no good snacks or fastfood available, except from the global companies, which are not on my list of energy suppliers.
Another point I really learned to like about Berlin is, you will laugh at me: Service is surprisingly good in Berlin. So here is the story:
I prefer people doing a good and clean service, even if they treat me a bit like they where something better then me. I totally dislike service personal as soon as it is overmotivated (the standard case over here), too friendly (I just want service, I don’t want to make new friends with waiters in restaurants until I make the step) or just incompetent.
Yesterdays experience fitted all of the above.
He was a waiter who didn’t believe that wine didn’t make it to the menu: “I know it is on there.”
He kept looking for it on the menu in our hands instead of offering a menu that did feature it, after 5 minutes he came back from a talk with the owner to inform us that they forgot to mention wine on the menu (he was grinning, dickhead!). Ridiculous!
We kept calm and asked for his recommendation. He said there were three different white wines and offered a choice from a spanish white wine. that would be a bit like Cabernet Sauvignon, a french white wine that was a bit like Riesling (never heard of Riesling from France, but I might be wrong on that one) or an italian wine that he introduced as something like Pinot Grigio. All of the choices were available for 5 Euro a glas which is naughty. Everything he offered was like something else, none of the offers was something real. It was just like you wanted to get a pair of sneakers and the guy selling them would try to sell you something different telling you it was just about the same thing as the thing you desired. It was a nightmare.
Plus, the wine did taste at it sat in an open bottle for 4 days in the kitchen.
Don’t get me wrong, I can wait patiently for hours if I get what I want, but I get really pissed off when I am treated like an idiot and get stuff that is just bad. If it wasn’t that sad I would laugh all day about it. Just another little story from a big town in Germany that starts with a D.

Even when you are not here. There’s a lot of Berlin outside the city, especially when it comes to Hiphop and Rap music. It’s purely a matter of taste anyhow.

Some impressions of Rapcity Berlin from MZEE’s freestyle battle stage at the splash! festival this weekend. (And here are some more shots, and while I am at it, this picture is also quite nice.)

By illtillwillkillbill.

I think more or less recently, my favorite gas station (favorite as in always open) started charging for gas before you refuel. At least when you go there after midnight. The only one till until now.

The weekend is almost here (Hooray for us!), and I don’t know what Berlin is up to, but I’m going to the splash!. Visiting my home town gives me the chance to say “Hello!” to my mommy and check up on some friends from highschool and see how they are all doing.

If you’d like to come as well, click here for a route and instructions. If you don’t know what I’m talking about (hint, hint), the splash! is Europe’s biggest hip hop and reggae festival. The lineup is to be found here. Word.

When I grew up in the American sector in West-Berlin one of the highlights for us kids, besides being so close to Krumme Lanke and Schlachtensee lakes, was the German American Volksfest. It were those times before La

Dear Kaisers Supermarket at Sch

When I am on the Berlin subway, I enjoy riding in the newer trains. They don’t have separations in between the cars, so you can see from front to back of the whole train. This itself is not so spectacular, but when the train goes throught the twists and turns of the underground system, you see the train bend and it looks as if you are riding inside a wyvern: