adventure to Ngiri, part I

when i came to DRC 3 years ago we had a workshop to identify the most biologically important areas to conserve and protect. one of these 62 areas is the Nrigi triangle, an area in northwest DRC surrounded by the Oubangui and Ngiri rivers and is home to swamp forest chimpanzees, elephants buffalos, and probably a lot of other stuff, but who knows. a few years ago the German government agreed to support the creation of the Ngiri biosphere reserve, and this is one of Johannes' projects.
Less than a year ago, a ranger/research station was completed in a little village called Bobangui on the shores of the Oubangui river. only 2 months later, in March 2010 a little tiff erupted between some rebels and the government military, all the villagers fled to the opposite shore in Republic of Congo, and we heard the Boubangui house was destroyed, the rumours running the gamut from a canoe-launched grenade to a missile attack, to hostile takeover by rebels.
johannes had already tried 3 times to visit the famous Ngiri river ecoystem he was to protect, and he decided ths time, he was going to make it. and so there it was, we would get to the ngiri river, whatever it takes. we would fly to Mbandaka or Ntondo, where another research station is, then take a boat to Boubangui.
the trip was planned 3 weeks in advance along with our belgium cohort and luckily, i secured a spot. a few days before our trip, our logistician, olivier, whose title implies full time assistance with logistics for just these types of trips tells me "there are no flights to Mbandaka this week" which is congolese for "i never made the reservations and all the flights are booked." so we decided to charter a plane to Mbandaka on wednesday, and take the new speedboat we just purchased from the swedish ambassador back down to kinshasa on sunday. we found 2 cute french pilots from Aviation Sans Frontieres to take us to Mbandaka. We picked up an extra passenger and haggled a bit so it was a little bit more affordable.
Flying from the N'dolo airport is one of my favorite things ever. First, there's the drive through kinshasa. in one neighborhood i noticed that every single lady on the street was carrying a huge bin of bread on her head. it was mystical. Geert, our belgian colleague read my mind and pointed across the street "La!." and there is the hq of the factory rthe soze of a city block where pretty much all the bread comes from. that place must churn out over 3 million large format hot dog buns (that's what they call bread) a day and distribute it through various sources, mostly, women's heads.
we get to the small domestic airport to begin the "procedures." these involve a series of doors, offices, whatever through which you must go through to travel to a destination that is not outside DRC. thankfully we were led by Ino, our congolese primate scientist who is the master of local procedure. he has a very african way of speaking ngala without moving his jaw while looking around, scanning the horizon, doing a million things like checking his watch or drinking a beer and without fail it passifies even the most eager of bribe seekers.
we enter the first "office," which is actually a shipping container. some money is exchanged, maybe for the airport tax. i hear my name mentioned, my passport passed around, forms filled out. what are we doing here? i ask ino.
we need to pay for the visa.
"but i already have a visa"
you need a visa for your visa
and i'm about to ask the logical next question as to why you need a visa for your visa and ino waves me away, irrirated, aurelgrooves stop asking stupid questions!
i retreat into the corner with my book.
we exit and enter the next office, and something similar happens, i am uninterested.
next door is customs. customs? we aren't leaving the country. don't ask questions.
there's a booth for locals, and one for foreigners. my name is called and i am summoned to the foreigner booth.
a very serious, borderline angry man asks what do you do, where are you staying. i answer diligently, back straight.
and your birthday?
dude quickly waves me into the booth, pulls out out the id card around his neck and demands "read here" and points to the same birthdate as mine. we are twins! he exclaims and hugs me. this is the most exciting day of his life. i want to tell him how cool it is to have a birthday around thanksgiving and then realize he doesn't celebrate thanksgiving and so we are talking, shaking hands, and then geert comes and knocks on the window and urges in his flemish accent, "eh papa, c'est pour aujourd'hui ou demain?" i get pushed out of the booth, back to business.
Geert gets asked the same questions, his answer "i am the capitan of Flanders, I am staying at the Ritz Carlton and my birthday is none of your business." as the guy is writing all this down i'm trying not to snicker at johannes, who is presuming the ritz carlton is the one between the Macy's and the movie theater.
next step is the hygeine station where a guy with a lab coat inspects you, i guess. all he really does is ask you for a piece of paper than ino has, and then whispers to his assistant who adds another hash mark to her sheet. this sheet is full of hash marks, she must have been keeping score since the day this place opened. the dr. double checks her work by gingerly putting on his glasses which are in his lab coat pocket. they are thick coke bottle glasses, entirely dirty cracked and broken there is no way he can see through them. he proudly waves me by.
the bar is a bunch of metal chairs that are falling apart, and the bathroom is more like a crime scene. we are taken to our truck with our luggage and drive out to the plane. the cute pilots are scanning us with the metal detector wand and are waving it in my face trying to make beep near my nose ring. geert meanwhile declares he is going to relieve himself "a la congolese" and is peeing on an abandoned shack.
we take off, the flight is not very exciting, mostly hazy. we land in Mbandaka which has nothing particular besides a UN building with lots and lots and lots and lots of barbed wire. the airport is an impressivly run down, empty structure with one door that says
entree
baggages
sortie
the door to everywhere! there are people sleeping on different surfaces and a shoeless man at a table, reading the bible and intently making notes. he instructs us to wait. because all zero of the other passengers in this terminal also need to have their passports checked and this means a 35 minute wait. we finally get called into the CGM (immigration or something or other) office and 2 different people write my passport number down. i then realize that the top three congolese passtimes are:


1. sitting in plastic chairs
2. walking while making that despondent shuffling sound with flip flops (like my dad does with his slippers)
3. writing down passport numbers.


we are cleared and then escorted out to the parking lot which is full of armed soldiers. 2 are selected to escort us and thus begins the "formalities."
first visit is to the governor of Equateur province. he greets us in a room that tries to be the oval office in 1/10th of the size. there is a large fancy wooden table that takes up 95% of the room, the rest of it is filled with flags and those fancy boardroom office chairs. you come in the door and you can't move through the sea of chairs. i have a bag and i'm stuck between two chairs. a press guy is there, it's very embarassing. we all do our little speeches, happy to be here, we welcome you to our province, sorry your house got destroyed blah blah blah. the governor's cell phone starts to ring but he ignores it. it's playing the hokey pokey song.  finally he answers and we squeeze back out and buy some cool litchi-like fruit with long spikes from a lady outside. SO yummy.

back in the car, next stop, the real man in charge, the military colonel, who's people may or may have not bombed our house. the colonel isn't there, which would have meant an hour's wait but instead we meet his goofy deputy who has heavy dress shoes 5 sizes too big. same drill, passport numbers written down and he talks and winks at me a few times. he points to his vast empire on a map from 1963 and says he's in charge when the colonel is out. if the colonel knew about this he probably wouldn't be too happy. we then head to the office where we pick up fuel, and more guys with guns.

dirty map of DRC circa 1963

picking up fuel and guys with guns

we now have a 2 car convoy for the 4 hours drive to ntondo.

it's a bumpy dusty road through villages with kids running and screaming "mondele!" we run over quite a few chickens (man they're stupid). apparently, a chicken isn't a big deal but if you hit a goat or a kid you need to stop.

we pass a lot of awesome bicycles, packed to the gills with stuff.
we're driving really fast with guys with guns and so we seem really important. plus, not a lot of cars in these parts, so the guys on bicycles sortof freak out when we pass, it's a little sad. instead of just riding on the right and letting us pass they kind of disperse as if a helicopter is landing, feet come off of the pedals and they scatter in every direction and run off the road and crash into the bushes. they may have brakes, or maybe they don't know how to use them.

i want one of these bikes!

the windshield has a giant crack in it, and the place where the radio would be is empty.

rollin' rollin' rollin'

we stop at crazy markets like this one and the guy with the gun buys what we ask him to

geert starts singing flemish songs, meanwhile the military dude in the back is falling asleep and doing the violent head bob, but his beret manages to stay on. the way his gun is leaning on his knee makes the barrel point straight towards the base of my neck. we're hitting some nasty bumps and i'd rather not think about it. i'm sure that thing has a safety latch or something. he startles awake, looks at his gun and changes the ammunition cartridge. what was wrong with the old one? are you really allowed to sleep while we drive? have you ever shot someone?

aurelgrooves, stop asking stupid questions!

some humans are just savages

i have found out here that for every 3 good days in DRC, you get one bad one.

the last bad one was saturday, when the whole water issue was happening, the next was when i discovered this poor monkey, whom after populat vote has been named "chunky."

chunky is a young putty nosed monkey whose parents were presumably murdered for meat and rendered an orphan and then sold in a market. the brainless, soulless, savage owners of the Luntu Apartment Flats Hotel thought chunky would make an amusing pet and entertain their guests. they quikcly realized that chunky was indeed a wild animal more than a perfectly domesticated pet, and that chunky might possibly bite and misbehave and scare guests and so they decided to lock chunky up in tiny iron cage to spend the rest of his days sitting on a metal bar amidst his own feces, and barely given scraps to eat or water to drink.

the cage is so small he can't stand or stretch, hasn't felt the ground or walked on his own two feet in months. these people think bread is a staple of a monkey's diet. even worse, his cage is right next to a noisy construction site and lit up at night by streetlights so the poor guy barely can't even sleep. chunky never gets a break.

i've started sharing my trader joe's trailmix with chunky - it's perfect because i found out he only eats the craisins, which i don't like, and he hates everything else so i don't feel bad about picking out the almonds and cashews. he makes bird noises when i feed him. i gave him water from a bottle which he slurped up with his little tongue. i hardly see how he can bite given that his teeth are but millimeters long. 

i have repeatedly threatened the hotel owners that it's barbaric, we will call the authorities, no longer stay at this hotel and we are constantly harassing the staff as to why they let this go on and we have repeatedly offered to take it away (where to? what do you do with a monkey, it's like a child!)...yet we are always met with the saddest moment which is when they laugh. silly lady, it's just a monkey.

they think it's funny.

ok, the kite birds with clipped wings are one thing but this monkey is a totally different level. i can hardly understand how keeping this monkey justifies losing $360 a day of my organizations's business but if that's their principle, then i am allowed mine and so be it. so whoever comes across this blog, please, don't stay one single night at the Hotel Luntu Flats in Gombe/Kintambo Magasin as long as that monkey is there. (other choices are African Dreams, Hotel La Residence 165, El Castillo).

there are times when you wonder whether humans can actually stop being human - whatever quality "human" describes? it's not a matter of different culture anymore. i truly believe that the people who publicly torture this innocent animal every day will be punished by whatever god or karma they believe in.

kinshasa supermarket

the supermarket i used to go to is gone. but the big fancy chain supermarket is still there...sorta. it is now rather empty and one of the creepiest places in kinshasa. half of it is totally dark, weirder than the LIDL in Berlin. i'm waiting for zombies to crawl out of the ceiling tiles and chase after me under the flickering neon lights.
the wine section is interesting, dusty bottles with brown rotting labels, none of them younger than 1992. i guess that's a good thing? what about white wine? i bought a 1991 reisling for a dinner party...i think we'll make sangria.

the frozen food and cheese section are a bit of a disappointment.

logical shower debate

it's kinda hard to yell at people and expect them to take you seriously when they are laughing.

so i haven't had a legitimate shower in 3 days. sink trickle jewish bath doesn't count.
my bathroom faucets sound like a 90 year old with emphyzema when you turn them on. but i figure hey, it's the dry season, water is scarce, showering is a western luxury right? you know when little black girls get their braids taken out, and their mom is picking at their hair with a comb, and it is all an unraveled mess? this is my hair.
i wake up late (some guys in the room next door partied until 7 am, even though the sign on the room doors specifically say "absolutely NO occupany by people of the same sex. punishment is a FINE."), but once again, no water. sigh.
i go get breakfast, but they have no coffee, no tea, no nothing, i have a coke. i come back, still no water.
i finally ask them what's up and they are all shocked like, what? no water? 5 guys all come to my room to investigate, hmmmm, indeed no water. "go have another coke and we'll see what we can do."
i come back 30 minutes later and nothing has changed. the still is still mezmerized by "under the tuscan sun," that lame romantic movie with Diane Lane. (they have a tiny 8 inch color tv in the lobby now)  on one really wants to clean my room, but they must.
you don't need to clean my room, i just want to get some work done, maybe take a shower.
"it's the dry season, water is scarce. there is no water. alain needs to clean your room. he will bring you a bucket"
i really don't want the budket shower. i go get another coke.
i come back and alain has stripped all my sheets and is replacing my towel, which i clearly didn't use since tuesday. why are you changing the towel? and the sheets?
"we clean the sheets and towels every day."
what the...are we not the dry season? is water not scarce? and you wash everyone's sheets EVERY day?? do YOU clean your own sheets every day? this is ridiculous! why don't you NOT clean my sheets so i can take a fucking shower??
the people across the hall have all come to spectate and they are just laughing at me.
i look in the mirror, i am a freak. my hair is an absolute disaster, i am wearing no bra, no shoes on my disgusting dirty feet. i'm covered in nasty mosquito bites. and they are supposed to take me seriously? i'm just a crazy mondele. i'm going to get another coke.

bathroom instructions

these signs in the women's restroom are totally something this guy would write. a very convincing debate on why you should flush the toilet when you are finished with your business:

this is my chair

johannes and i fight over who gets to sit in this chair every day at lunch. it's the only one of its kind, out of the sea of plastic chairs in this country, but it might very well determine the fate of our little missionary 4 seater cessna flight on wednesday...

chinese for YUMMY.

johannes and i are feasting on ethnics wonders of kinshasa. who knew this place would have such culinary delights?
on the way back to the hotel there is a newish chinese restaurant with bright red lanterns and lights with DONG FANG written on the wall. we figured why not.
we enter the huge building...into a teeny tiny dining room with glass tables, and all the windows covered shut by thick curtains...we were kinda hoping for a patio but whatever. 
we quickly realize none of the staff speak english, french or german (worth a shot). all the other patrons are chinese, hunkered around various frangrant dishes and slurping out of soup bowls. we get the menu and ask if they have beer. 
beer? the waitress looks around nervous, be-er? totally confused.
she rushes outside and brings back the security guard from the parking lot and stands him in front of us. translator, i guess. 
biere?
oh oui! and he rushes to the cooler to get 2 mützig.
the menu is extensive, page after page, not organized in any particular way, but has large out-of-focus glossy photos of the dishes, their prices, and hilarious nonsensical names like "fantastic fish farm" or "towering castle of radish!"
we choke on our beers when we come across "pepered pangolin" which is a protected kind of anteater found in one of our study regions. i'm fairly certain you could get tiger if you knew how to ask but whatever. 
we pick three random things and wait. 
on the other side of the window there is what sounds like a struggling jet engine. i immediately flash back to our flight here, when i was bored of looking out the window at endless sahara desert and asked johannes to wake me up when we hit rainforest. an hour later i was jolted awake by the screams of the fellow passengers, drinks flying everywhere as we went through some pertty hairy turbulence. johannes relaxes back into his magazine "there's your rainforest!" there was a forceful shifting sound, like the engines are suddenly put into another gear and fighting for survival. you wonder what the pilot is thinking, has he done this before? you grip the seat and closely watch the face of the flight attendants for any hint of fear...anyway, the sound behind this window of our restaurant is EXACTLY the sound of those engines, including the swirling wind part, i'm having a total flashback.
i go outside to find our parking lot attendant/waiter sitting in his plastic chair and ask, what on earth is that noise?.
"those are the ovens." 
i communicate this fact to johannes who says, "that's it, ve are leaving! ve are not eating in a place where they serve elephant!!"
but at that moment our dishes, our fragrant, glistening dishes arrive, and i don't know what kind of meat it was, except that it was dark and fried and tasty and we each picked out all the shiitake mushrooms, which were some of the best ever. they don't exactly sell jars of sweet and sour sauce and chinese vegetables at the kinshasa market, this stuff has to be authentic.
what is chinese for YUMMY? 

s.s. tandoori

this visit is all about re-visits. met up with some young germans introduced by my mother (small world) who took johannes and i to the taj tandoori, the indian place at the top of a building downtown with a fantastic boat-shaped patio overlooking the city. we didn't take the manually operated elevator, as it was out fo service, evident from the screams from the elevator shaft. "hey! pierre! up! up! ok fine, down! just please move us!!"

each of the 8 floors was as mysterious as the previous. there were abandoned offices and desks, a gentle breeze blowing through a blown out wall. does that keep the building structurally sound? hmmmm.

another floor had a long past its heyday shuttered night club, floor 4 had bunch of dudes watching a small tv and one level above, a guy was setting up his mosquito net above his new bed. a weird sortof squat i guess, but at the top you reach the opulent tandoori smelling restaurant with views extending all over. we didn't take the elevator down, either, because i got a glimpse of the mechanism, and the operator getting electric shocks trying to fix it

...no thanks i'll take the stairs!

Platanus temporalis: the time-telling tree

if this tree could talk, it would say "lunch time is over!"

hello luntu!

prices in kinshasa have gone downright apeshit.

it's like someone went and drew 0's after every number they saw.
gone are the days of 50 cent lunches or dollar beers, everything has at least quadrupled, and you wonder how these poor people survive.
our hotel was eager to lead the price fiasco and after dropping $70 US on a bowl of pasta and a small bottle of water johannes and i said that's it, we're outta here.
bare simple rooms have skyrocketed to $170/night, a clear consequence of the influx of UN and aid agencies, little supply of adequate accomodations. sadly, our do-gooder environmental NGO, which probably hasn't been innocent to the mismanagement of foreign money has been wrapped up in the targets of this price gouging. this was a "special price."
johannes was furious. we're going to ruin our budgets if we continue at this rate. do you know of any affordable hotels?
weellllll, i do know one place...as i thought lovingly back to the luntu flats, a hotel i swore i would never return to. i told johannes, it doesn't often have electricity, an apathetic staff, birds of prey as pets and snow white and the 7 dwarf lawn gnomes.
"sounds wonderful! let's go!"
and so here we are, 3 years later, the luntu has transformed itself into a luxury, albeit affordable hotel. there is power, a shiny brand new generator whose services aren't often needed, hot water, internet! one of those gold baggage cart things like you see at the four seasons (but no elevators, and not sure how those roll through the dirt which separates the buildings, but let's not criticize), and of course, the begging birds of prey who have gotten larger and wiser.
sadly, the pool is no longer, it's now a construction site for a new 3 story building, but the lawn gnomes have been redistributed throughout the comlpex, the restaurant still has alush ample patio, classy red table cloths and gold mongrammed plates with LUNTU all over them.
alain recognized me immediately. "do yo have a present for me?? you promised me a present!" shit, i totally gave away all my tiger t-shirts. i think he's going to get my ann taylor loft sunglasses, as i bought a nicer pair at duty free.
they put me in the same crappy room i switched out of before, because it has holes the size of my head in the window screens. those are still there. and no hanger in the closet for any of my clothes. the luntu has welcomed me back with open arms!

the war of luggage

if i may declare one thing about Kinshasa, and that is that the baggage carousel at n'djili airport needs to be lengthened about 14 times its current size.
it is about 20 feet long total. For 200 passengers plus their families, acquaintances, employees, associates clamouring for luggage, this 0.12 inches per person is clearly not enough, and i learned that last time.
moses did not meet us at the airport as i had hoped, instead it was his matriarchal counterpart. a sort of dr. bailey with purple lipstick. normally, moses would be off answering his cellphones and chatting with his friends so i expected to attack the luggage issue myself, but this lady surprised me with a "would you like me to get your luggage, madame?"
she takes me luggage tag receipt, rolls up her sleeves and does a loud finger whistle which attracts 3 eager luggage grabbers. she shouts the baggage tag numbers to them and they disappear into the mob of limbs like those creatures in lord of the rings who can climb vertical surfaces.
after 15 minutes she senses no progress, determines i should help. she grabs my arm and literally shoves me into the human mass. my feet are no longer touching the ground, my weight is supported by the 5 different people spooning me. one of them i find out is my colleague johannes.
hey there!
how did you get here?
i don't know!
there are 3.5 pairs of hands all over me, searching every orifice for money, perhaps my cell phone, but i am smarter than that.
dr. bailey is tring to protect me, complaining loudly in her dialect at everyone who tries to push me, but i am on my own. this is war. we finally float to the front of the crowd and hold our place near the carousel.
there are no bags, just the guy riding the carousel who tries with little effort to push people back. and a few coolers.
some guy in the back screams that's his cooler! which cooler? there are three different ones! they are each extremely heavy, probably packed stiff with meat and vegetables. people team up and pass the coolers over their heads and they are gone.
then there's the box. a plain black box. we wonder what's in that box? it's heavier than the coolers.
i crouch down and look through the little door to see what is behind the scenes and see the guys unloading our plane's luggage from the little trains. they are not unloading the bags directly onto the carousel as you would expect, but forming a random heap which other guys with orange vests are crawling and climbing on. the guys with the vests then get on the carousel and ride a lap, shaking hands with the dudes on carousel island who pull random bags out and hold them there.
there are a few phone numbers exchanged, cool head butt handshakes, and the orange vest guys disappear into the back.
i am not describing to you the 80-odd minutes in between these events but we have seen the black box a hundred times now. i declare that we need to rub the box each time it passes for good luck. the box doesn't really stay in the same place because people flip it and inspect it each time it comes around, perhaps looking for an address label, or maybe rubbing it for good luck. sometimes it's hard to reach it but i make johannes rub it too.
finally, after 3 black box rubs the guys start dismantling the heap onto the carousel.
YES!! here come the bags! this is the most exciting part of my trip. i hug Dr. Bailey and she is holding my hand like we are ready to jump together.
now the people are really shoving. i notice that across from us, people are calmly waiting 3 feet from the carousel with ample space in between them, civilized. oh, and they are all white people. but i will get my bag 5 seconds before they will!! i win! watch me. i grab my bag and get crowd surfed all the way to the door. the little baggage grabber people will not earn their tip today! i give $5 to dr. bailey, float confidently through the crowd of amputees and beggars and SIM card salesmen and find our van with its sleeping driver who has been waiting for 5 hours.
so i guess they could make the baggage carousel at n'djili airport a little longer, but not sure it would be as exciting to arrive to DRC.

you don't need a bar to drink a beer

one of my favorite things about germany is that public drinking is not a right, it's practically a duty. and it seems you don't need a fancy bar with a liquor license to sell beer to patrons, all you need are some chairs.
since the finally above freezing weather has come about plastic chairs and tables are popping up left and right, notably in front of each little store, also called a kiosk, or spätkauf.
this kiosk in my building is great. in the winter they set up a little drab room with chairs and tables with doilies and a little CD player and a laptop in the corner, presuming you'll order a moccachino from the automated coffee machine thing and hang out and watch a movie or something.
now that it's nice out, the owners have moved the chairs outside and hang out every day, all day with their adorable pit bull Apollo who has now started to recognize me every time i come home. they spatkauf dudes say hi, hide their weed (i have a job, i guess that makes them think i'm uptight) give me whatever packages they've signed for during the day and ask what it is, apollo's tail whaps the pavement. i love coming home.
they've started to hand out expired soy sauce with every purchase, and sometimes, a kinder egg.
the spätkauf we went to after a frisbee game was special. literally PILES of beer. no pit bull, but a very nice smelling collie. and it was russian-owned, which meant vodka. don't believe me? piles of beer.

don't forget, there's a 20 cent deposit returned for empty bottles...keep drinkin'...

why i might root for spain

it's a no brainer: rocker dude with the greasy hair (wears no headband, because that's girlie) and the ratty moustache, Puyol just screams New Jersey strip mall tapas bar. And who wouldn't want that to win over the clean cut Dutchboys?   

germans: what's not to love?

when you ride a train through rural germany you might look out the window and think, awww, those poor people, probably immigrants live in teeny tiny houses near the train tracks.
not so!
they are allotement gardens, like community gardens. and germans, being the cute kitchy people that they are turn their little sheds into miniature retreats with lawn gnomes and wind chimes and windmills that they can escape to and drink beer and maybe watch the football game and not get bothered by their Frau. 
the best part though, is that on a sunny day, the old, fat unusually wrinkled and tan ones garden in their underwear.
wish my train weren't going so fast or i'd snap a pic!

weather news

my intern comes in today and declares: "i have news!"
what's that?
he points to the window, zips up his sweater
"zummer eez cancelled."

dohhhhh. but it's 50 degrees and cloudy, 10 degrees warmer than yesterday!

plastic bag

watch plastic bag short film
Plastic Bag by Ramin Bahrani
Struggling with its immortality, a discarded plastic bag (voiced by Werner Herzog) ventures through the environmentally barren remains of America as it searches for its maker.
Go behind the scenes and read about the making:
http://futurestates.tv/episodes/plast...
Learn more about ITVS:
http://itvs.org/about/

hitting the bottle

my cat, sensing no emminent return of her master has quickly turned to the bottle to soothe her anxiety.

stackenblochen

german game show: STACKENBLOCKEN!

my mother would totally win this.

let's get skatological

apologies in advance for today's topic but this has to be discussed: the backwards platform toilets of berlin.
when i was a child i used to draw stick figures on a sailboat. stick figures were happily peeing and pooping into the wavy seas, their brown cacas landing with a colorful splash, much to the delight of my giggling brother.
as residents of the western world, we are accustomed to pooping/peeing into water. the occasional unfortunate backsplash are part of our everyday lives. soooo, you can imagine one's perplexion when, ok, i'm going to come out and say it - you're pooping onto a dry porcelain shelf. what the....?
there it is, your little creation, not floating in water, but rather coiled or plopped, sitting there in open air, probably stinking as it is proudly displayed on a white smooth surface, while the water hole thing is totally in the wrong spot. oh look, i've eaten corn! what the f? 
i've seen a bunch of these contraptions (thankfully not in my house) in the poshier west berlin jaunts, old cafes, pre-war altbaus. i don't get it. are we supposed to inspect our excrement for dysentary or discoloration? could this have been intended to help retrieval of one's family treasures ingested to hide from the nazis or something?
you can only hope that the water pressure flush has enough momentum to move the thing down the pipe, otherwise that's a rather uncomfortable situation i'd prefer to not even think about. shudder.

outdoor ping pong tables

every park in berlin has a slide, some swings, a few drugs addicts in the bushes and graffiti'd...ping pong tables! finally got some paddles and a ball, biked to a picturesque part of the Tiergarten near a small pond and threw down with the breeze in my hair and the singing of the birds. the metal net is a little high, but good stuff, really good stuff. my serve is coming along nicely.

schlesich blau

so last night i wanted to eat at a little place called schlesich blau. a colleague told me about it. i'll take you. it's only open 3 days a week (wed-fri), fixed 4 course with few choices for 15 Euro. They don't publicize their phone number so i had to walk in earlier in the evening to make a reservation. they said they were fully booked (they often are) but that i could leave my name and number and they would call if someone didn't show. low and behold, at 9:15pm i got a call from a lady trying so hard to speak french...
we showed up and had the luke table waiting - above the cellar door. we were warned we may have to move once or twice if they needed to get downstairs. anyway, the place was jammed (size is about 11 4-tops, all old wooden tables, simples cafe chairs, little patio out front but it was raining), no smoking inside (thank goodness, that's super rare) and one of the 3 people working came and discussed the 4 wine options for like, 10 minutes, telling you everything you wanted to know about each bottle, why they have it etc... we picked a cotes du marmandais? never heard of it. i liked it. yummy.
the menu is on the chalkboard, you get soup, salad, and then a choice between sauerbraten, lamb navarrin, a schnitzel, ox fillet, dessert. not for vegetarians!
then we were given the "rules." you are given a shallow bowl, you take it over there and fill it up with your choice of soup from the three big pots, 2 types of - pumpkin, consomme, something else with meat floating in it. then, KEEP YOUR PLATE, you are given a bowl of fresh salad (mache, redleaf, parsley) with oil, and then you go over there and select one of the housemade vinegars (cassis, thyme, sage, garlic, that sorta stuff). then they take your order for the main dish and bring it out. whole time you have homemade olive bread and butter, some of the nicest servers i've seen this side of the spree and they loved the fact that they knew my name.
anyway, they ask you once in a while, ready for the next course? no hurry..they ran out of oxfillet and a bunch of other stuff by the time we ordered so we both had lamb, it was really good. there was a potato gratin thing which had some sortof stinky cheese in it which wasn't my bag, but everyone else seemed to down it. i saw some of the other side dishes that came out, white asparagus (which is everywhere now) with sauce, potatoes, down home cooking.
anyway, we were there for like, 2 hours? with wine (all bottles are 24Euro) it came out to 54E total for two people. not too shabby!

come to prague for an excellent concert..

theories on vertical rotating meat

you gotta be smart about your rotating meat. there's a lot of places to choose from, so choose wisely.

1. if it looks like dog food, it's probably dog food. or dog.
look for discernable layers. the pate-ish ones are mostly filler, maybe cardboard. if you can see texture and pattern, you can rest assured the dog meat is mixed with other kinds of dog meat. or vegetables? even better.
2. the bigger the better
notice the width of the meat tube. if it's like a small hippo, or young american, it's fresh and good. if it looks like a skinny mangled sausage just clinging to the spit, it's been there for a while. go somewhere else, come back in a few days to see the fresh plump version.
3. it's apparently ok if the guy uses his hands
don't cringe when the dude picks up a stray potato or slice of meat with his fingers and puts it in your sandwich, or cuts open your bread with his fingernails. only us foreign americans are all creeped out by bad hygeine. keep your cool, blend in with the locals.
4. make sure it's sliced fresh.
don't get the pieces lying in the pan, sliced during the dude's last cigarette break. point to the meat tube, make slicing gesture. a good place will give you the pieces about 105 degrees clockwise from heat coil.
5. no electric knife slicer things!
that screams "shortcut" to me
6. say no to any tea from behind the counter
if you can water it down yourself (there's a little hot water spout under the tea ball thing) then you're ok. but if you're served it with no option to alter the potency, it's probably the battery acid variety, beware of immediate stomach cramps.
7. try, try again
for statistical significance, your sample size must be twice the standard deviation. you can't pick the best doner after only trying a few of the bigger places. you need to hit every single one, at various stages of progression (see #2). even the one in the u bahn station, even the one that no one else goes to. you never know where the best secret meat tube is hiding.

proof of residency

To: T-Mobile Customer Relations
P.O. Box 37380
Albuquerque, NM
87176-7380

Re: T-Mobile Account # 228132578

To whom it may concern,

This is a letter in response to your request to provide additional proof of residency to have my Early Termination Fee from my cell phone contract waived for reasons of moving out of the country. The person with whom I spoke to before leaving the US said a lease was all that was needed (a 58 page contract on an apartment, signed in triplicate seems pretty good proof of residence to me).

My utilities are included in my rent (see page 32), and my office (whose contract of work I also included in my previous communication) pays my cell phone bill, so I have neither of those to submit.

I am thus including my recent order confirmation for internet service at my residence, where I live, which is at xxxxxxx, Berlin, Germany. I am also including the Berlin registration document, which also has that address, and is legal proof of residency required for all residents, which I must carry with me always. To get this piece of paper, I needed a lease and formal address, a work permit, a bank account (which also requires residency) and 4 hours of standing on line at city hall.
Or, I can provide a recent photo of myself in front of the Brandenburger Gate wearing faded denim, a smug anti-capitalist look on my face, drinking bionade and licking currywurst sauce off the lips of a German guy if that would suffice?

Tschüss,

Aurelgrooves.

german appetizer

it's called a "snowstorm." cream cheese with chives and spices, lemon, and...pretzels. another place served it with red onions. always with a side of cold, stale rye bread.

tatort : boring german crime drama

i inadvertently walked into one of these "tatort" parties, just following the final credits last month and was wondering what the hell was going on in this weird place.

http://www.ichwerdeeinberliner.com/27-tatort
(probably one of the most long-winded bloggers to date. good stuff though)

my new boyfriend..

...is sabah, the septagenarian owner of the junk shop down the street. every day this turkish family sets up a little faux house on the sidewalk with hideous old furniture - rounded leather sofas, wood paneled cabinets with gold trim, tables with wheels.
i finally ventured to see what the inside is like - a sort of rough n ready with an eastern european grandma furniture allure. i found some nice 70's chairs that compliment what's already in my living room. i then discovered the downstairs basement which has an endless assortment of beer mugs, cups, small appliances and stuff arranged into categories: the broken umbrella section, the hardware area, the mismatched shoe collection.
i was told i could pick out whatever i wanted as an extra free gift, so i got a GDR teapot, some bowls. then i was offered some tea in a small glass that had the taste and consistency of battery acid.
we watched a little soccer, i admired sabah's wedding photo album. he was a little touchy feely with all the petting of my hair and calling me "princess." but, he offered me a nice ring and a bracelet so i guess we're legit now. as soon as the tea started wreaking havoc on my insides i had to quickly run home. i have to be careful when i walk by in the morning, because otherwise i'll never get to work on time, or, i might start coughing up blood on the u-bahn which could be uncomfortable.
i think next weekend if it continues to be rainy and grey, a fun activity would be to bring a bunch of friends and see who can find the weirdest item. then, then drink as many cups of tea to see who doesn't get sick. winner wins the items the others picked out.

more coffee talk

we have, yet another new coffeemachine. the latte thing broke on the other one so this fancy company came in and gave us a demo on this bohemoth thing with buttons for latte mocha choco and stuff, like what they have at the 7-11. company guy said, wow, really? like the 7-11? and i tried to explain that wasn't a complement, the lattes from the 7-11 aren't any good, you just order one at the reststop when you're driving all night and there isn't a starbucks nearby.
anyway, there's a round blue light on the thing that glows like a heartbeat when you order your drink. we opened the insides to see if it was a real heart, or some humanoid being like in terminator, and gasp! it uses powdered milk. non-organic, whole, hormoney, powdered milk. we are shocked. everyone has thus been using the the old machine and we're about ready to drop this new one out the window.
mathias came in the other day and wondered if it was listening to us while we were insulting it, and that we were in for some space odyssey-style revenge. it had one chance to redeem itself: to make mathias lunch.
so he leans in and screams into the glowing heart "mochachino! with chicken and aubergine and french onion soup!"
the coffeemachine responded with deafening silence.

everything has a gender

every noun in german has a gender, be it masculine, feminine or neuter. i like how the coffee machine is feminine to everyone. the coffeemachine is pretty high maintenance, you always have to fill the wasstank, empty the coffee grounds, fill it with coffee beans but today it was spraying water and making lots of noice.
so i ask, what is it doing? it says "bitte warten?"
and someone responds "she is cleaning her insides."
sounds dirty.

a HA! always knew there was a little canadian in me...

It’s Not Political, but More Canadians Are Lefties

New York Times
By JEFF Z. KLEIN
Published: February 15, 2010
VANCOUVER, British Columbia — What is the difference between a Canadian and an American? The old question is coming up again here at the Olympics, with answers involving eagerness for war, ketchup, the pronunciation of toque or the ability to identify poutine and the Tragically Hip.
But none may be so simple as how one holds a hockey stick. According to sales figures from stick manufacturers, a majority of Canadian hockey players shoot left-handed, and a majority of American players shoot right-handed. No reason is known for this disparity, which cuts across all age groups and has persisted for decades.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/16/sports/olympics/16lefty.html?hp

my internet sucks

trying to poach off a neighbor but it's not working. so i catch about a second of olympic sports in between minutes of frozen screens (oddly enough, the real world DC episodes stream effortlessly, and i will soon have poked both my eyes out). but the worst is when you're in the middle of snowboard motorcross and....f$%&§§!

lidl vs. rewe

i moved on a sunday. which, in europe is the equivelent of trying to open a bank account on christmas.
thankfully, i found a couple of agnostic turkish students to show up with their van and do the deed, which, considering all of my worldly possessions are bundled into a few trunks and backpacks which exploded in my office, took all of 25 min.
they sorta hung around after i paid them, expecting my phone number and a dinner invite i think, but once i ushered them out the door i was fully engaged into filling my empty apartment with stuff. stuff! stuff which i narrowed down to the bare essentials: some lightbulbs, for the wires dangling from the light fixtures, a stepladder to reach said light fixtures which are about 12 feet off the ground, a chair to sit on, a doormat, and maybe a broom or something to wipe up all the gravel and salt that arrive as stowaways in the cuffs of my pants.
my crusade took me to the ostbanhof, the nearby train station which is always a hub of commercial activity when no where else is. this mall was bustling with travelers from frankfurt and munich, mcdonald's eaters, pharmacies and two supermarkets in the basement, facing off like pit bulls in a ring: the Rewe and the Lidl. both competing for advertising space, each one's posters trying to consume the other, yet they could not be more different.
the Rewe has pomagranates, fancy champagne and recycled toilet paper with green trees on the packaging. the Lidl, which is about equivelent to a chinese walmart on the moral business practices barometer has palettes of whatever was seized at customs that day: rotten apples, screw top sparkling wine and the orange facial tissues you find in the bathroom on the train.
also at the Lidl, a number of savvy drunks who know a good sunday bargain on bottled booze and plastic bottled beer (so as not to hurt themselves?) which they then take out to the corridor where they pandhandle for the euro you get back from returning your cart to buy more booze, turn in their empties for more change and then drink, fight, smoke, and flick cigarette butts at the Rewe.
at lidl i skipped the creepy meats, but found one opened pack of organic pretzels, a gallon of "Dovey" shower gel and 25 assorted sponges which i ripped out of a huge shrink wrapped container, and stood on line for 20 minutes while the customers assaulted the cashier with insults.
At the rewe afterwards, the aisles were sparse with customers and "danke" and "bitte" were overheard everywhere. neither of these places had anything resembling a broom, a doormat, or any of the things i needed, but at this point, i was too distracted to remember i needed lightbulbs. so i went home, and sat in the dark on my floor, this time making a list for what i need to buy on my next excursion, which i now have to pack into working hours.

graffiti sheizer

sheizer.
the other day there was a big soccer (football) game and al these drunk chanting hoardes in the u-bahn. as usual. there i was, minding my own business, leaning up against a side door when i noticed people acting weird. whatevs. arrived to my destination and took off my nice patagonia coat: in bright orange i have the reverse imprint of some vulgar graffiti that i had stamped on my outerwear by inadvertently leaning up against a fresh masterpiece. fuckers. i took it to a cleaner and all she could say was "sheizer."

schmuck = jewelry

anti-fashionweek event: fashion reloaded with do-it-yourself jewelry and clothes making workshops in a converted factory in kreuzberg.

saturday night...

...is being spent analyzing images on google earth, volunteering as an image analyst for imagecat, an organization that is providing data to the World Bank for reconstruction and recovery planning in Haiti.
so i'm sitting here, clicking on damaged and destroyed buildings...pretty depressing...then again, so is my job usually (deforestation, fires...)

answer to everything: hire a polish guy

The answer to everything in Germany seems to be "hire a Polish guy" or, if you're really hardup for cash, an Albanian.
And so they have this thing called myhammer.de which is an ebay of sorts for handymen. I put in "transport a bunch of trunks and bags from a Mitte office to an apartment in Kreuzberg for less than 50 euros" and now all these internet savvy pollacks are bidding for my contract.
I need someone to paint my place, too, and Zoran wants to be my man for the job at 10 euros/hour. I'm wondering what happens if i put in "seamlessly integrate into Turksih Mafia" or "join a Bulgarian circus," maybe that will be tomorrow. Right now i need to take 1000 euros out of the ATM for my deposit and i really need an armed goon to provide security.

revenge is a dish best served cold...

my 3 trunks full of sorely needed winter gear, german/english dictionary and clean underwear showed up today, after 2 weeks in customs.
the fedex delivery guy who brought them was SUPER grumpy, like all sweaty and huffing and puffing and complaining and saying sheizer this and sheizer that..like when he saw that my office was alllll the way at the end of the hallway he muttered what even i knew was a string of obscenites. and i kept trying to tell him dude, they have wheels, see? you can wheel them, like this! easy! but he insisted on lugging all 180 pounds, by himself, all at once, i could hear the muscles in his back tearing apart. whatever.
so once he left our scottish admininstrative assistant apologized for me having seen the worst side of germans, "i hope you don't ever get exposed to that again!"
so then i open the window and look for him on the street, and when he was in range i swept all the slushy snow from the windowsill onto his head. Good fun.

fasten your seatbelt, cello!

i got to experience what it's like to be really fat: asking a svelte german flight attendant for my "seat belt extension, bitte."

cello was a nice traveling companion. a little bulky, but it fun to put it through the x-ray machine and hand the security people a boaring pass with "ms. violoncello" as the name.

ask and you shall receive: bratwurst

bratwurst.

don't ask why the bun is never as big as the wurst, it's been like that for hundreds of years and it will never change. actually, i tried to ask the guy after i took a bite, but i turned around to see him making lewd gestures mocking me wtih his buddy. not cool.

i'm across the street from the best currywurst in town, which i shall sample next time i'm wasted at 3 am (eh, maybe tomorrow?), which is how you're supposed to eat it.

i live in a gay brothel

so, friends of friends of friends recommended a "bed and breakfast" in berlin. hella cheap for a room in a 2 story penthouse in a great neighborhood! but...it appears to be some sort of gay brothel. there's a lot of dudes in their undies, which for germans is pretty standard but here's it's on a whole other level.
i played chess with a guy in a speedo. this other guy who has never spent the night but comes in to take 4 showers a day keeps using my towel.
one guy who was like 8 feet tall, i've only seen twice took one look at me, sighed, and then went and put on some pants. you know, it's not like i've never seen a shlong dude, i don't care. i'm far more interested in the cats. here kitty kitty!

sledging!

everyone calls it "sledging" but i don't correct them. sledging is fun!

rosé rules, i win.

my friends invited me to a big birthday party in paris, some up and coming actress was throwing down. the rule was you had to bring 1 bottle per person. so it's like 11 pm, we've sorta been sitting around, drinking absynthe and not really motivating and so where are we going to get three bottles of booze? we scour the kitchen and find a bottle of smirnoff left over from new years, a bottle of apple juice (it's in a bottle, and juice is always a hot commodity at these types of parties) and a crappy bottle of rosé which my friend brigitte declares, we are NEVER going to drink fucking rosé (she's from bordeaux and is mega snooty about wine) and her husband says "well, i do not want to be the guy who brings rosé! leave it here" and so they look at me. what's the big deal with rosé? and we decide that I get to walk in with the rosé and be associated with it and if anyone asks, blame the american girl. whatevs.
so the party is in this secret rented room thing, just a door onto the street that you enter into a room with 2 bug arab guys and you had to say the password to get in. the password was "blanquette de veau."
we walk in and it's this big red room with a dj, crazy dancefloor, suuuper smoky (you can't smoke in bars in paris, but this doesn't really count as a bar) and a table with candy, cups and where you mix your own drink. 50 bottles of champagne. good stuff, too.
but i was determined to get other people to drink rosé with me, so i opened it and started serving it up and people were all wtf, is this rosé? crinkling their noses. that's disgusting! (it was warm, too) but you know what, it was empty in 3 minutes. and 7 different people high fived me.
rosé rules, i win.

german indian food

met some people today who drove to france over the holidays for some good food, they say germans have the worst taste. i didn't think the food here was that bad.
then i went to the indian place that advertised a "live kitchen!" whatever that is. i saw real indians though and went in.
i got the samosas, wasn't that hungry (huge lunch, as usual) and they were smothered in red sauce. at first i thought, dang, probably spicy sauce but it was like, salty ketchup? and there was stringy mozarella cheese in the samosas? and something crunchy that must have been peanuts? and a sweet cardamom on the exterior? no clue what planet these samosas came from.

first days in berlin

first days in berlin.
first of all, it's f-ing cold. minus 15 or something. there's a permanent grey sky and frozen snow on the ground, and what i saw from the plane, those snowy rooftops and streets looked like those depressing world war I trench movies, and it's pretty much the same from the ground.
people tow their kids around on wooden santa sleds which is cute. people still ride bikes, including the postman on his special yellow-and-blue version.
i'm in a hotel room which is about as big as my king sized bed. they have a tan and turquoise theme going which is all very hip, and there are flat screens everywhere showing a bright yule log fire. it's channel 0 in the room. there's also TV5, which lets me catch up on my chiffres et les lettres (oh there was a good C&L highlight from 2009, when a dude spelled 'niquer' and the judges read out the definition).
the lobby has free internet so i go there to scavenge websites for apartments. i'm certain the waitresses are not turkish, as one would presume being in the kreuzberg, but russian. i ordered one of those mega-tall weissbiers with the drunk monk on it yesterday. i nursed it for a long, long time and nevertheless pretty tipsy and was about to leave. the waitress comes by and i'm all sehr gut! with a double thumbs up. she then brings me TWO more weissbiers, wtf? i gave one to the british guys next to me and had to down the other.
across the street is an 'imbiss' - one of those street takeout places that has currywurst and doner kebap. it's called "the foodbag." it's got a very bag-like see-through vinyl sitting area, and it's packed all the time! i even saw people eating outside at lunch. crazy. i haven't washed my hair yet because i don't have a hair dryer. so i've been wearing my stepmom's old beaver fur bonnet, or the faux-fur ear flap hat from my mom. they both equally crush my hair to make it flat and boring, but i don't care.

$%^&$ la poste!

the french post office, since 2005 renamed "the postal bank" is the absolute epitome of futility, incompetence and reflects the agressive indifference of your typical french civil servant.

my grandmother was one of the pioneering 'why don't i keep my money at the post office, since i go there everyday for stamps?' people and opened an account for me, back when i was 7. a simple no fee kinda thing with no checks or debit card or anything, just a place to keep cash and withdaw. she opened it in Lozere, a very remote underpopulated mountainous region, the french equivelent of montana.
every year grandma would put a little spending money in, give me a check or something. and i would go from our little village into the tiny town of Florac, and Arlette the postal lady would let me cut the line, and slide chocolates through the open slice of the window with my francs. lovely right?
many years later, La Poste decided to take over more major operations, like checking, mortgages, credit, IRAs, and that sortof thing, significantly increasing their banking clientele at the expense of essential postal transactions, like shipping shit.
now, in a town like Florac where only 4 people are ever in the post office at any time, ok, no big deal right? but now imagine you're at a post office in paris, there's always a line out the door, you think it's for food stamps.
you go in and take a number and basically sit forever on a bench. they split people up into different lines according to three options:
1) picking up a package
2) professional/business accounts, and
3) everything else, i'm not joking, it's called "toutes operations."
so these idiots haven't figured out how to separate the line into people who want say, a stamp, from those looking to refinance their homes. and so if there are 3 people working, the people for groups 1 and 2 are just hanging out trying to look busy while a flash mob is waiting for #3 lady, who is just about to go on a smoke break.
one time i had the misfortune on trying to send a package on payday. it was like an airport before thanksgiving. when i finally made it to the counter hours later the lady was all, "duh, don't you know not to come on the 2nd friday of the month?"
so per usual, i'm on the bench with all these people huffing and looking at their watches while dude for line #2 is checking out his cuticles, and the all operations lady's shift is over and she is replaced by her successor - which, in paris apparently requires saying hi to EVERYONE and giving them FOUR kisses each before sitting down to work and then, i swear she's checking her email or something because she's looking at her screen, laughing, typing, clicking, obviously forwarding a youtube video to the people at the other counters.
Finally, my number is called, because the 3 people before me left. i present a WWF calendar i had been meaning to send to my brother.
"oooooh, that is big, and nice" as she's flipping through the pages. yes, it's normal size calendar, whatever. she spins around in her chair to the envelope stash, which consists of business letter size envelopes and...that's it.
"ok, so you're going to walk down the street 5, maybe 6 blocks and there's a lovely paper store that has envelopes of all sizes!"
you mean you don't have a single large envelope, wrapping paper, tube, anything?
"no, we stopped carrying anything other than regular envelopes, sorry."
ok, so, postal transaction failed, let's try some banking.
i'd like to take the pleasure of closing my bank account!
"may i ask why?"
because i've spent over 10 hours on that bench! i've had enough!
"but those were lovely, enjoyable hours on that bench!"
not really, please close my account
"ooooh, i'm sorry, that won't be possible, you'll need to talk to the financial advisor, who is on his lunch break right now [it's 3:30 pm], or, go to where you opened your account, oh, in florac!"
yes, that's 10 hours away, i can't do it here?
"oh, but isn't florac nice this time of year? and the line would certainly be shorter"
and that's when i gave up. i emptied my account, and walked away defeated.
the woman called after me "bye, see you next time!"
so not only are they pathetic and incompetent, they fuck with you too.

le barratin

the barratin shows up on google maps of the 20eme paris with a little martini glass. four of us went there for lunch and it makes me want to hit every little google map knife and fork and suitcase within a 2500m radius.

we showed up for lunch, just before the rush. typical windows onto the street with loud metal framed doors that don't shut perfectly, spartan tables and chairs, tile floor, and a simple small curved wooden bar from which you can see into the kithen.

only 2 tables large enough for us were free out of the 10 total, i wanted the one by the window. "desolee, c'est reserve!"

really?

"one guest is already here" and up pops a little furry happy cat head, "c'est sa place."

so we take a seat in back, in front of the bookshelf with magazines and other provided reading material and glance at the menu, which is a large chalkboard on the wall with imperfect elementary school script of today's 3 course offering for 16 Euro with a few choices.

periodically, one of the waiters climbs up on chair to erase what is 86'd with his sleeve and scribble in its replacement. it's almost like a twitter feed...

we chose a wine from the neighboring chalkboard, and it was served in a simple thick-bottomed bottle. my dining companions had the lentil salad to start, i had very tasty flaky fresh cod-stuffed peppers with endives drizzled with olive oil.
the other's main dish was the same delicious fresh cod on tomato and onions in a broth, i had a vegetable and beef cheek soup with meat so tender i never needed a knife. a bit of salt, but no knife.
all very simple plates, what you could probably make yourself if you really put your mind to it, but let's face it, you'd rather be here in this cozy place, eating bright, perfect comfort food made from items purchased the day before from the market down the street.
an elderly couple had been seated at the table with the cat, who simply looked on as i did, occasionally closing our eyes the way cats do when they purr and are just simlply content. the chef came out from the kitchen to help the waiter when the place became jammed, i kept wondering why that wasn't my brother instead, with heccubus seated next the old people, growling happily, smacking his tail against a purse while constable cuddlesworth plays stupidly with a man's shoelace?