Berlin Metblogs » ber_joerg

Yeah right, more castles!

ber_joerg — Tue, 13 Dec 2005 04:35:01 +0000

My mom was in town and wanted to visit Charlottenburg Castle. Know what? We found the best argument against building the Stadtschloss. Charlottenburg Castle has been renovated recently so we expected noble interior, original paintings. We expected to catch a glimpse on royal life as it used to be. So we went for the Audio-Guide and started our walk through what used to be splendid royal appartments. The Audioguy defenitely needed some sleep when he recorded the guide, nearly fell asleep while listening. Worse, not one room in the castle fits with the next one, all the interior you see is commented as “not original”, because the original was burned/destroyed/stolen, i.e. the famous “Bernstein Zimmer” was originally set up in Schloss Charlottenburg before it got lost somewhere between Berlin and Sibiria. In short: The presentation does lack content. How do they think will they fill that newly built castle in Mitte when it is done? Can’t believe this.

As promised

ber_joerg — Tue, 06 Dec 2005 01:07:11 +0000

I visited my neighbour again. Here it is: A picture of Wuschel aka Camilla. Isn’t she sweet?

Kids need your support

ber_joerg — Mon, 05 Dec 2005 21:44:41 +0000

This is something we defenitely have to advertise. Did you know that lots of kids in this town don’t even have enough money to get themselves something to eat? Well, sad to say, it’s like that. spend your talent are doing something about it and are doing it yet again. Nikolaus day, that is tomorrow, they invite all off ya to join their 3rd Charity Event at Watergate, starts 10pm ends late. So, get up off your bed and gain some money for toothbrushes, schoolbooks, clothes, food,… by doing nothing else as you are doing on weekends. This time it is not just for entertainment purposes but you are doing something good. Plus it is St. Nikolaus, so you can be sure that this will get you a massive Karma-Bonus.
Those Kids defenitely need any help they can get and you are one of the chosen ones to support this matter.
Aight? Lets review what we just learned, Q: WHAT ARE YOU ABOUT TO DO ON THURSDAY? A: I AM GOING TO PARTY AT:

BVG increases prices yet again…

ber_joerg — Thu, 24 Nov 2005 23:23:07 +0000

When I left Berlin for a 3 month job in summer the price for a regular ticket for a bus or metroride was 2 Euro, which is in my perspective pretty expensive, but other things are expensive too, for example coffee in berlin mitte is at least 2,50 so I can live with 2 Euros per trainride. Now in September when I got back from D-Dorf it had risen to 2,10 which brings back that damned old “search for coins” game, that defenitely slowed down the process of buying a ticket, plus got busdrivers back into the “I dont take coppercoins” mode, as if that was no money. Now in November, I hear BVG plans to rise price again, this time to 2,30 which will turn the process of buying a ticket into a fight over coins and will make busdrivers even unfriendlier and I ask myself if that is possible and necessary. Whatever, I hereby publicly announce that I will turn into a fare dodger from now on, and if anyone knows of a program that prints out BVG-Tickets and if this application runs under Macos X/Linux…let me know.

GET DRUNK AFTER HOURS

ber_joerg — Thu, 24 Nov 2005 17:14:11 +0000

If you ever have been to Berlin you will know that one of our big advantages is that you are allowed to get drunk 24h a day, there is no closing hour for pubs, discotheques etc. If you are hungry, you might run into a problem, as most restaurants close at latest 1 am if you want to buy milk in the middle of the night, you might have to go to a gas station and buy something they say is milk and that might have been relabeld so if you come home your milk turns out to be sour. But, If you want to get drunk, no problem, just head into the next 24h pub and get drunk, no brown bags needed, no secrecy at all. You are old enough…get drunk. Now from today on, still asking myself if this has anything to do with Chancleress Merkel visiting Great Britain today, the UK allows their fellow citizenship and everyone old enough to do exactly that. The curfew is dead, long live nightlong drinking. So Angie if you are hearing me: turn down the German shop closing hours act in return and we, the people, will happily applaude that Brits are allowed to drink all night long from this day on. May they drown in what they have the balls to call beer (just kidding my fellow Uk friends, I know you can take it).

Day One

ber_joerg — Wed, 23 Nov 2005 17:48:29 +0000

Today our new Bundeskanzleress is making her first two visits to Paris and London with a short stopover in Brussels (why stopover, why there, don’t we have planes that can go from Paris to London nonstop, why doesn’t she use the train, that is an accurate way to save money). Actually she is saying hello at Nato HQ. Seems like Ms Merkel will work all day and doesn’t need any breaks so far. tbc.

Meeting Camilla

ber_joerg — Mon, 10 Oct 2005 15:23:29 +0000

I arrived back home. The fridge was empty, thank you flatmate. good girl cleaned out everything before she left. Went over to my neighbours place and asked how things are, Michael grinned at me, he normally doesn’t. “Welcome, it has been a long time, come in!” This was different, he is the typical Berliner who mumbles something that decrypts as “Come in and shut up”. I knew that there was something special to happen if this guy is so full of “positive energy”.
He led me to the living room and there it was, a terrarium and on a little perch Camilla was sitting and hanging, lounging, it denelitely looked very relaxed. Camilla, also called Wuschel is a Jemen Chameleon. She is green, like the green copper turns to when oxidating too long. She has some grey stripes along her body. Her Feet are just like gaspipe pliers, she is balancing herself out all the time, favourite tool is obviously her tail that is longer the the rest of her body and is reeled in when not needed. Michael explains: “Camilla sits in her glashouse for hours always trying to heat up as chameleons are hematocryal, when she is not warm enough she doesn’t even eat, she just can’t move.” Note: If you run into trouble with hematocryals, cool ‘em down.
Camilla can look at you with her one eye, while she looks at something else with the other, you move on just one side, only the eye that scans this side of Camilla will show a reaction. Chameleons have a field of vision of 342

Coming back home

ber_joerg — Thu, 18 Aug 2005 20:08:37 +0000

wow, it feels good to come homw. Back in Berlin for 5 days and guess what I brought the sunshine. So now you know why todays weather is just perfect. (beautyfull picture, Till). And now lets get on with some advertising: This is a perfect night for a dance, so catch some good old house vibes tonight, this is the Washing Machine at Sommerlager.
See you later…

S.M.S. (save my soul)

ber_joerg — Thu, 11 Aug 2005 21:04:25 +0000

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.

I am missing my home town, a litte bit…

ber_joerg — Tue, 02 Aug 2005 21:17:33 +0000

Isn’t it strange that cities really suck when you are there for a long time, but you start missing them when you have to leave for a while. I left Berlin last week to work in D