Concert Lights

My camera was going crazy during the two concerts we went to right after Berlin, lights just got my poor Brandon Boyd Salazar dizzy. Concerts were so fun though, FM Belfast on a Tuesday and Broken Social Scene the next day. As usual, I'm so late on keeping up with current stuff... can't wait to post the Reims pictures, I shall leave that for my next procrastination moment.

Right now, I feel entitled to watch a movie and sleep at 10pm! It's complaining time: I've had 3 exposes in the past 2 weeks, handed in a paper today have another due Friday, another due Monday and yet ANOTHER the next Monday. FML badly... I shouldn't feel entitled actually to watch a movie and sleep at 10, but the situation's so tragic I don't want to face, just wanna hide in my blankets cause it's -4 outside! My Costa Rican toes are screaming for warm new socks.


SOOO cheap, toujours.



Waiting for FM Belfast in La Machine










They were so fun, everyone was having such a goood time on/off stage



Broken Social Scene @ L’Élysée Montmartre

Tortoise, opening band. Bridge and I heard a lot of people saying "dude" and talking in English, an didn't realize they were the BSS guys until they left and went directly up to the stage... Also, Kevin Drew, I LOVE YOU, acoustic "Lover's Spit"left me speechless for five days. You can play my piano anytime.




And then my battery died.

Feliz Cumple, Lu.

Mi hermana nació hace exactamente 24 años, 2 años después de que esta foto se tomó.




En ese momento yo estaba a 6 meses de nacer, casi lista, y a Fede le faltaban todavía 4 años más. A Fede todavía ni nos lo imaginábamos, mucho antes de que se hiciera este divino que quería ser carpintero y tocar un tambor.

24, 21, 17… 26/11/86… 26/11/2010. Muchos números, pero de eso se tratan los cumpleaños: contar, contar, contar, y tratar de poner el tiempo en perspectiva.

Hoy es el cumpleaños de Luci, entonces especialmente pienso más en ella, y cómo yo puedo ver también mi vida a través de la suya. Compartimos cuarto por años, casa casi por vida, usamos la misma ropa de St Jack’s, el mismo vestido de Primera Comunión, Papi nos llevó juntas a la escuela por años…

Desde que nací, Luci ha estado ahí! Y por eso siempre va a ser una parte tan importante de lo que soy, y lo que he sido (Mami me dijo que este día Luci iba para un desfile, y yo terminé disfrazada también porque me puse a llorar, porque quería ir disfrazada “como Luci”).



Mi hermana mayor, como la quiero y la quiero! Feliz cumpleaños Luci...

Stay sexy. Grrrrrrrr...

Kk-kkk-KK!

I like how the word "provoked" is spelled with a "k". It makes it so fiery and feisty. Grrr.

I don't know how else you would spell it, perhaps "provoqued"? It looks awful but for some reason the "k" doesn't seem natural. It's probably because in Spanish you say "provocar", and then you conjugate the third person in the past tense "provocó". Clearly would not work in English with a "c".

It's like when restaurants call themselves "La Kasa del Taco", or like those few that write in MSN "ke quiere?"... There's just something wrong there! Except, nothing's wrong with "provoked", only in my Spanish-prescribed mind.

Haha, now I made myself laugh... Well not really because I'm at the library but internally, and I'm expressing it through my keyboard: HA HA HA!

Who knew that I would sit and think of this for some solid 10 minutes just because I'm using the book Rethinking the Development Experience: Essays Provoked by the Work of Albert Hirschman for my paper.

ProvoKed. Grrrr. Provoked, provoked, provoked!

I really need to step outside of the library and get a life.

Once more, provoked. Lost all meaning now.

A Critical History on International Development AND BERLIN

That's the name of my class...

Here I am in the library, just finished an oral presentation on "how the assumptions of development practitioners shape this industry's practices (the industry, the machine!); and moreover, through which way holding these beliefs serves as a convenient tool to rationalize and depoliticize the development project". Ok breathing break after reading this out loud.

Yes, the expose Sebastian and I planned yesterday starting at 7pm. We ended up being kicked out of school and having to take refuge (I keep on using this phrase, but I just love it) in Starbucks. How ironic, after writing a whole presentation that questions the project of development on the basis that it relies on Western constructs, which in turn, reproduce an unsustainable capitalist system.

Little funny, or tragic, contradictions about life we just can't seem to escape from!

This class is interesting, specially because the people in it have such different opinions about the goals and limits of international development. I happen to fall in the category of the skeptical ones, minority but we have some of the loudest speakers. I just love it whenever someone pulls out the "so what do you suggest, should we just let them die" card, and then someone replies "you should maybe join the 'self-appointment priesthood of development' and go civilize the Thirld World!", and so on, and so on...

Actually it is not at all like this, but I wish! We are all very "civilized" in our discussions, and not a lot of radical comments are put forward, but it is still an enjoyable class.


Oh well, this post just turned out to be so far from my initial intention. I just wanted to write a fun, lighthearted story about how the plane from Berlin to Paris left us (or should I say how Tatiana and I did not make in time actually)... and this just took a whole different turn. How to reconcile?

I really just want to leave close the Berlin chapter so I'll sacrifice the nice idea of 'a set of nice logically connected ideas with their accompanying illustrative counterparts per post' and just take pleasure in the randomness of combining my current thoughts on the presentation I just finished with the memory of what Tatiana and I experienced during our last hours in Berlin, already 10 days ago.

So the plane left us, we had had around an hour of sleep, and we had to kill 8 more before boarding... What to do, what to do when you're homeless in a city and all you want to do is close your eyes and sink into a deep sleep. Well the only obvious answer is, go find a library and crash in a couch, right? So we headed back downtown in the search of the Humboldt University library.

We had some obstacles in the way, which turned out to wake us up and give us some temporary energy, like a band of about 12 drummers playing right in the middle of Alexanderplatz. Crowds started to surround them, us included, and we even ended up being invited to dance in the 'stage' with them and got two sets of free drumsticks on the way, score!



Then we were even more tired and determined to find that special place that would allows to enter the land of dreams, but got distracted once more on the road, this time by an artisan market where we both bought some photographies for our Parisian walls.



A final detour....


Until we finally found something even better than the library: a huge lecture hall, all for ourselves for the next few hours.



We owned it, an then, a little less zombie and a lot more human, we returned to the airport and got our flight back home. How comfortable to use transit I understand! Like the beloved RER B, even though I was haunted by the ghost of Cite Universitaire.





Don't know if I should exaggerate on the 'home' issue, but going outside of Paris this time did give me a whole new sense of appreciation for it. I was really glad to see Bridge and the dinner she had made me, and sleep that night in my bed (COUCH).




Voila, it's time for a library break!

The Berlin Series: Nightime

Once the last partner joined, it was time to hit the road for night adventures. Its always the night in a place where it gets dark at 4pm and you cleverly forget to put an alarm clock and wake up at 2pm...











Have some more shots from our last night in Berlin, where we went dancong like we haven't been able to in Paris, but I'll have to steal those from Tatiana's camera. So, someday!

In the meantime, I feel like time is going to "atropellarme"... It's too early to think quick... Ok, got it. In the meantime, I feel like time is going to run me over because Berlin was such a long time ago and a lot has happenend in and out of Paris that I must update with. My photo folders stare menacingly at me everytime I open the computer cause I know they're so bored of being stored there and want to make it big in "that place they call the Internet" (or TOTAL Gas Station, private joke sorry!)

I keep them to stand still, hold their pose and stop eating so much food cause they're gonna look fat when I exhibit them on the blog, but they're getting pretty anxious. I'll finish Berlin but I have to tell one more story, the last story, a tragi-comedy. I'll give you a sneak peek, the poster for the documentary film I'll make about that infamous day in Schonefeld Airport:

The Berlin Series: The Flat

Vincent's falt in Berlin is great. He rents from a guy who's a visual artist and has a 6 year old kid who will soon be my step-daughter, except her dad doesn't know yet... Oh yes, I will learn German for you!

Apartment was great, with plants all over and colores wall and dim lights. You got a nice view of the river from three huge windows. The boys cooked dinner and we all ate and drank wine with my future boyfriend, and his girlfriend.

And then, it was the night again, and Bridgette was about to make her appearance in the Berlin series.

The Berlin Series: Around

Great, we're in Berlin!!!!!!!!! Woo... Ok... Yeah, cool... Sweet, we're finally here Tatiana...


Eh, now what?


I must admit, the first few hours in this city we're a little overwhelming. We got the tickets last minute, booked the hostel the day before, did no research on the stuff we we're most interested in checking out, and just kinda decided to fly and see what we would encounter. We were a little clueless but definitely interesting things stepped into our way, like a free tour in which the guys got the group together, told us to wait 5 minutes for him and then just never came back!

So Tatiana and I were separated on the plane, and... typical this girl, we land and she has made two new friends already! It was thanks to them that we managed to take the train and get close to our hotel, cause the directions I had were clearly not enough and the lay in the info thing in the metro didn't speak English. These guys were the best, they deserve a whole "Berlin Series" just on them. They becames our private tour guides and new best friends!

We arrive so early, we took a nap an then headed out to explore... The guy in the hostel did not speak English either so we had a long sign language conversation in which we had to figure out how much the total would be (easy cause you can write numbers), that we had to give him a deposit for the keys, if we wanted to have breakfast, how much it costes, and the hours it would be open... lots of hand movements, but we figured it out.

First day happened with many random adventures, we ended up going to a really cool bar around our neighnorhood with our newfound friends. And on the way back, we got a little too excited ripping posters off the Berlin walls we found cool... Posters and grafitti is what its all about in Berlin. We ripped off like three blocks of posters while walking home, what rebels, then we didn't know what to do with them (this will become even mora of a problem later when we accummulate stuff during the days and Easyjet only lets us bring a hand lugagge on the plane, but that will be discussed a bit later)

Next day involves a lot of strolling around, checking out different areas of the city, looking at more graffitti and eating good food. Very good start of our Berlin adventure, and now just had to wait for the third member of the team to land in these foreign lands. Next episode will provide an account of the arrival of Bridgette and with her lots of night shots (as in pictures) and German beer as well.

Til then, I'm off to the library...

Damn, I just ended all the coolness I've been trying to build up here.


GETTING THERE
Essential German: "Let's go somewhere quieter"




Hotel window adn Tatiana'a silhouette, the days were gray during our stay, but it fit well with the overall city atmosphere.


Oh yeah, we own this tram! M4 to Am Friedrichshain please, we know our way around Berlin.



Alexanderplatz and the TV Tower, operation central, meeting point, toujours.



Loved those sausage guys, they must be very strong to hold that structure on for hours. Oh yea, Berlin food is so cheap its amazing. I repeat amazing, falafel for half the price as Paris. NOTHING MORE TO SAY.



Stroll down the Karl Marx Allee, "Perfect Socialist Street".


Boxy boxy boxy. Low contrast, very monochromatic.





Shots around town, this one reminded me of a wall Cem and I saw in LA.



Should've bought this T-Shirt and now the specter of Frida is haunting me (Sam has been using this sort of Derriian vocabulary lately)


Looks like every street I saw.



We went in for lunch and the light was like this... (around 2.30pm)



Got out an this is what 4pm looks like in Berlin these days


And just some minutes later, night is upon us, time to find new adventures.