Bungalow art

So, at the student residence: olydorf, there is a Bungalow section, which are like tiny appartments. Here, the students are encouraged to portray their creativity and paint their own new homes, the studentenwerk provides the paint and the material, students provide the imagination. There are some that are quite good and there is a very interesting/amusing collage of styles: artsy, funny, creative, ugly, pretty, corny, dark... all kinds.

More elaboration on my facebook :)

Ponchal: el quarto de siglo

Mi hermanito cumplio 25 años ayer, si, hermanITO, aunque ya sea un hombre de 25 años :)

Debido a mi imposibilidad de presenciar tal evento y participar de las celebraciones, Ponchal me visito virtualmente y me acompañó por todos lados en la ciudad.

Primero fue la celebración de mi visa nueva, lo cual tuvo lugar en los bungalos de olydorf, mi antiguo hogar. Estuvo ahi para el almuerzo de fajitas, los drinks a media semana, en el depa, en mi bar favorito, en la ciudad y asi.

Lo mas divertido de todo esto se dio el miercoles en la noche, durante el pub crawl que hice con unos cuates mexicanos. Empezamos en el Schall und Rauch cerca de la uni y la verdad es que la presencia de poncho cuaso ciertas miradas de confusión emitidas desde las esquinas d elos ojos y asi.. claro, era una presencia un tanto inusual. Los vecinos de la mesa (uno guapetón ^^) estaban muertos de la curiosidad, pero una vez escucharon el motivo, Ponchal fue sensación total e instantanea: todos querian un poco de poncho, una foto, un abrazo, invitarle a cheva, un beso... algoooo

Luego cambiamos de bar, fuimos al schweinbar (bar cerdo jijiji) y ahi... sin necesidad de explicación ni razones, poncho arrasó y hasta fans tuvo. Varias chicas alemanas fueron cautivadas por su vivaz sonrisa y diferente color de piel. La verdad, lo que mas las otrajo fue que lo pensaron inalcanzable!!! Ponchal obtuvo de estas lindas señoritas todo tipo de cosas y favores: cervezas, paletas, besos, abrazos, mas y mas besos... no lo querian dejar ir!!!!

El resto de la semana estuvo mas tranquilo, la ciudad ya sabia k ponchal estaba aqui y cada vez se acostumbraba mas a su persona incorpórea deambulando por las calles.

Ponchal: me divertí mucho mucho contigo esta semana!!! espero que tu igual te la hayas pasado bien bien!!!

new home, new cooking adventure

Yesterday I cooked! I made red grounded meat (my favourite mexican dish ever) with achiote, this special spice from yucatán. I also made some good fried rice and refried beans. One can never go wrong with fried food. I was very nervous cuz this is the like.. the 5th or 6th time I try this dish and even though it's not bad, it has ever been good... until yesterday!! And I was nervous cuz Jesus was going to try it and judge it!

So when Jesus came over, he woooolfed it down; true, he was very hungry, but he ate more than half of all of it and kept saying how much he liked it. Also my roomate Johannes, that is a very very good cook, tried it and liked it very much! It still didn't taste like my mom's carne molida roja, or like Rosy's rice, but it was very good :D

Today I tried to bake some brownies. For those of you who know me, you know this is my specialty, I have been making them since im like... 11 or something. The thing with baking, is that every oven is different and this was my first time trying the one at my new place. 

So there I go, went to the shop and got some pyrex the size and shape I wanted and all, got all the ingredients and stuff and I set to work. Johannes has a veeeeery nice blender and the paste was deeeeelicious and very even and stuff. Then the hard part, the oven. 

All of a sudden, the appartment was filled with this delicious smeel of sugar and chocolate blended together in a smooshness of butter.. so good and appetite opening, everybody's mouth was watering, but then... evil evil untamed oven, went crazy, and only cooked to top part of the brownies, the pyrex were overflown with an ocean of chocolate richness that spilled all over the grills that now I have to clean... so, needless to say, my delicious mixture ended up in the waste bin and no one can eat delicious Lucy brownies tonight :(

Vito Mussollini, der italienischen tigger

So, this week, Georg, a friend of Johannes' (my new roomate), went on vacation and has left us with his preicous and beloved pet... Vito, the cat.

This cat is 18 years old and comes from the beaches near Trieste in Italy. He is very very lazy and fat. Wakes me up at like.. 7 am cuz he wants to be pet. This is good, so I can go for a ride with Rox II (elaboration will be made later), my new old bike.

Vito is like a dictator, he wants to be pet, he wants my chair, he wants in my room so a few seconds later he can ask to be let out. He meows when I'm cooking or just drinking water; attacks my hand while it is restfully lying on the coach.. i mean, i know it looks delicious and spicy.. but come on Shere Kahn, give me a break.

He is also very cute and loving, he looks and feels quite fluffy and has huge, very expressive green eyes.

I love this cat, Amo Vito Mussolini, la  tigre italiana.

the park next door

On monday it was very very sunny and delicious, like 13°C outside under the kisses of father sun, so I decided to go for a tiny walk. It turns out that at the end of my street, there is this cute little park, with a basketball court, fast football court, two ping-pong tables, the scating area with room for trial bike also, some kiddy games and such.. of course, a big green area where I decided to spend the afternoon while writing some postcards.

It was a very nice afternoon. There were two or three groups of cute all-age germans shooting some hoops, some kind of football training for middle schoolers, a group of older girls playing ping-pong. It was very nice.

As I sat there in the grass, I noticed different people that came in the park by themselves or in twos. They all wanted some sun. There was the german suit: power tie, power briefcase and a nice smile; the couple of münchner moms armed with strollers, bottles and babies; and of course the indi-long haired-cute-young-german guy that was talking on the phone the entire time. 

I really like this park at the end of the street... I'll visit it again :D

The year of living biblically

Better late than never.

I read this book earlier this year and it is GENIUS!

So this guy, A. J. Jacobs, decides to do something and then he writes about it, well... he writes during the experiment. First he wrote The know-it-all, where he reads the entire brittanica encyclopedia, he also wrote other books that you can check in the link attached (http://www.ajjacobs.com/books/yolb.asp); and the last one, the one that  I read, he takes the bible and lives it as literally as possible for a year.

It all starts because he has a kid now and he has no idea how to aproach the moral and religion part of education, him being a non-practicant Jew.

He spent 8 months on the old testament and 4 in the new, taking size into consideration.

He stops shaving, stops touching women cuz they might be impure, "stones" an adulterer (not to death) but he was a 70 year old man. I think my favourite part is when he goes to this party only for men, and like... jumps around and dances and feels so free. Reading about his emotions during this part of his year is so funny and envigorating, like, I also got so excited he was dancing and jumping around with 1-foot-bearded strangers jijiji.

The best thing about this book, is that it qoutes so many crazy parts of the bible, parts that one would not imagine they exist, specially in the old testament... I bought a Bible so I could follow, this is how much I liked this book.

Also, I would go around the city, in the Ubahn or the tram and like... laugh out loud, not a simple smile, but a laugh, people would stare at me and then look at the cover of my book and just like.. give me the evil eye or something jajajajaja.

This is a genius book, because regardless of what it may seem, it is not like some mormon coupple beating you with the Bible in the head, no, it has a very funny aproach and one can appreciate the change that he suffers. 

I totally recomend it, it is genius. Thanks Tinabee for lending it to me!

Unpacking my life

Here I am, after a week at my new place and still I am not done unpacking. My room is like a battlefield, boxes, suitcases, (clean) underware, shoes, kitchen appliances... all over the place.

First, was because of Wiesn and celebrations, now its because I am (very) sick and suffering from insomnia, so I am tired all the time. I started yesterday, didn't finish, cuz Jesus came by to take me to this dinner and meet some spanish speaking people. It was fun.

Today is the day i finish! Although, right now, I'm gonna go out and get some food cuz I am terribly hungry: some camambert, fruit and such :D

We will see how the unpacking my life goes this afternoon.. let's face it, I don't wanna do it, I wish it did it on it's own :(

I am a Rockstar!

This past week has been... LEGENDARYYYY.
On monday it all started... I had to do the revisions of my thesis, and incredible amount of changes, apparently I can write a novel about my project but not a scientific document... oh well... I guess I will survive :D. I got ready for long day of work, I was determined to not leave the office until I finished. I started, quite slowly, the muses were not resting in my shoulders and inspiration took some time to arrive. So I went for lunch, and later on to the market to get supplies, it was going slowly but surely, at a nice pace. Then night came, and I was stil there. There are some repairments going on at the office, they started at midnight, and there I was to hear them. I put on my awesome headphones and continued. I finally got done on tuesday at 530 pm! yes, almost 33 hours of continuous thesis writing, with numb buttocks, aching fingers and stiff neck, I sent the pdf file to my supervisor. Naturally, the next step was to go home, take a shower and.. put on my dirndl! yes, I went to the wiesn, the fourth time.
I went with mexican guys, victor and jesus, we went to HB tent, found some I-am-only-gay-when-I-drink guys, some chicks from bulgaria (victor really liked that :D) and stayed there until they kicked us out. I went to bed at like 1 am or so.
Wednesday I woke up at 530 am to pack, cuz see, I needed to move out. So I packed, and packed and kept on packing until 8 pm that thibault got there with his car. Awesome thibault helped me out. So between the two of us and Lucien(german/french), we put all of my junk in thibault's car, went to my new home where victor was waiting and we unloaded all of it. Afterwards, vic and I went for dinner. Got home around 1 am.
on thursday, I woke up again 530, finished getting my stuff, went to the office to dump them, went back to my room, cleaned a bit and took back the key. Then I went back to the office to print out my thesis, took it to get it book binded, went for lunch, turned it in and again... went to wiesn with the office people!! jajajaja, 5th day at wiesn. We went to HB... again. We rocked it, we drank, jumped, sang, got bitten by one drunken colleague that was giving out kisses of death to anyone that came close, aahhhh, good times. Afterwards, some of us wanted to continue rocking it, and well.. I had just submitted my thesis!! so I went, we went to netzer, the awesome tiny rock bar. we jumped around, drank, danced to swing and oldies, until very early in the morning. That day I stayed at my friend casjen's (german)cuz I had no home for one night and he was out of town, so nice of him to let me have his place for a night :D
Friday I woke up early again, I had to go to the office and clean up my stuff, then I took it all to my new place and went to wiesn with lore, marie and gusto. We walked around, got on one of the rides, ate peanuts and all. Then I went home and had dinner with new old roomate, johannes, very good cook. Then I went to sausalitos with lore, gusto and Vic until like 2 am, very nice time.
On saturday we were at one of the paulaner tents at 7 am!!!! otherwise you cant get a table. Got in around 850 or so, french guys finally got there and thankfully they let them in. And it started again, 6th day at wiesn. Drinking, jumping, singing, talking to people, dancing... good stuff. Then some very smart portion of our group went outside the tent. This is terrible, cuz the tents are closed usually on sat cuz there is a lot of people. So I had to crawl in the disgusting floor full of Wiesn slime (vomit, 2-week-old beer stickyness, pieces of food and bread) to retrieve our stuff and all. We all went outside and went to a biergarten where we met Thibault and company. Had more beer. Afterwards we went to the irish pub and, well, lets just say it was an adventure. There was crowd diving with no croud, pole dancing, glass breaking, drink spilling, dangerous french pick up lines, you knkow.. drunken french men are dangerous in everywhere way. Getting them off of girls, off of the stage, off of me, off of the bar, off of everything. Then we went to McDonald's in central station and I witnessed the funniest mayonnaise fight ever. Then we went to netzer and french guys left, they were so tired and drunk. Victor, Hermann and I stayed.. obviously. We met the dirndl of death (see other entry), jumped, drank.. you know the drill; until 530 am. Got home at 6 am. Yes again awake for 24 hours.
Sunday, for some exotic reason that I do not understand, iIwoke up at 1045, washed my wine soaked dirndl, and went for a walk in the city. We had beautiful warm weather, so I sundressed up and went out for a stroll in town. Hung out with lore in the sun before he had to go back to Dresden and then went to the chinese tower biergarten with the entourage. Then we went to wiesn again!! 7th day! Found a table and went on with the routine. Then we went to the most horrible club area: kultfabrik. Went into some bar and well.. the drill again. Got home at like 2 am
On monday I forced myself to sleep later, cuz yes, I woke up at 8, and then got calls and messages and all. Finally got out of bed at 12. Went for lunch and then to the office to get some stuff done. Then I went to... WIESN!!! yes, the 8th day there, 5th day in a row. I went with Jesus and Daniel (venezuela), met Hermann and his friends there, at the augustiner biergarten. After one beer, I joined again Jesus and Daniel and went tent hoping, ended up at the other paulaner. It was so cool, the celebration of the end of the wiesn was great. They get this lights I dont know the name of and sing hey jude. Man, it was great. Then we went out and rode one of the rollercoasters = cool! Then I was going home but I got the awesome idea of texting Hermann.. so of course they came to Hbf (hauptbahnhof: central station) to pick me up. Hermann's cousin owns a biketaxi and he gave us a ride to this bar with a drunken funny old woman of a bartender. It was so funny. After everybody left, Hermann and I tought it would be genius to continue the party, but we got kicked out of this bar, pimpernelle, for not paying the entrace. Then, Hermann's cousin called him to tell him about a party of all the biketaxi people that now that oktoberfest is over, they are loaded and tired. So, of course, we went. I got home at 8 am! It was fun fun. I had to get up early today cuz I had to come to the office to get this paper I need that obviously is not ready, so I went for sushi, came back, and I'm still waiting...
I had a crazy week! I loved it, I am destroyed: I would do it again

Dirndlzilla...the dirndl of death

On last saturday, after a crazy day/afternoon/night with the french guys, we went to this bar, netzer, they only play very good rock music. The french guys left cuz they had been awake for over 24 hours, drove from britanny, went to wiesn and what not.. so yeah.. they were destroyed.
Victor, Hermann(german) and I, however, decided to stay cuz we love this bar. So there we are, jumping around being crazy and all.. all of a sudden, a shudder got hold of all the people inside this tiny bar (cuz it ireally is tiny), the music was suddenly shrilly, the air got heavy, cold shivers crawled up everyboy's spine, and then... Hermann's beer goes flying all over my dirndl (traditional bavarian dress).. what is that? who pushed me? is it a hard metal rocker dude wearing a dirndl?... NEIN!!! it's a woman... DIRNDLZILLA!! the dirndl of death.
This chick was so huge, she was tall and big, looked like a guy from behind, with long crazy curly hair, jumping around, spreading death among the toe community, killing any beer that came close, destroying and barging into groups of people with her fangs... dirndlzilla, the dirndl of death.

the magical WIESN!

so yes... Wiesn = Oktoberfest.
Here I was, toooootally anxious and curios about the oktoberfest, it's been so built up I was afraid I might be disapointed or something... needles to say... I wasn't. I LOVED THE WIESN, and like Victor(mexican) says: Wiesn is a magical event, anything might happen.

I went several times, 8 days to drink and 1 to walk around and stuff, so technically just 8.
In my (vast) tent experience, HB is the most international, the band plays a lot of well known songs, almost no german ones, but the typical ein prositz... (which I tooootally love), but since is the most famous around the world, most of the international tourism goes there.

The traditional wiesn was also very cool and itneresting. I went on opening day there, it was totally worth it but not for party machen, nein nein. The different breweries got together and made one special beer that... SUCKED! but oh well... in general oktoberfest beer has more alcohol than the normal one and well.. is one litter mugs.
The augustiner tent is quite good, although is very traditional, so.. alles auf deutsch, no music that I can sing. It was the pretiest one also, but I left cuz well... I cant sing
I also visited the Pschorr tent, quite good and fun, nothing particular about it but the fact that I went with this new friend I got, ricky (australian) and his friends... so there I was, rocking it with a guy that I had just met and a bunch of strangers, but cool strangers! It was so much fun, this indian guy, Kulpreet, he chugged 3 (maybe 4) masses before 1 pm, of course.. he was destroyed. When people are gonna chug a beer, they stand up on the table and everybody claps and cheers, it's so very funny.
I went to both paulaner tents, the best one was the one with a huuuuge beer mug on top of a tower... yes, a tower.
The spaten tent was laim, but hey... it's wiesn.. so.. awesome anyway.
The first sunday I went to HB with roadtripping friends, jarret and casjen, found the "party animals" from the office and well... I don't know exactlly how much fun I had, but apparently a lot, ended up with some poor irish guy's (very good) jacket that he gave me cuz I was cold, cuz obviously I left the wiesn just like that, left my jacket there and all, oh well... I got a (bigger) better one :D

This year, the wiesn had one extra day cuz it has been 200 years since the first one, so yesterday, monday... yes... I went to wiesn :D It was the best day of them all, the one that I had more fun, the atmosphere was genius! Then I got on the rollercoaster with Jesus (mexican) and Daniel (venezuela).

At the wiesn you can find so many wierd things.. like a group of guys wearing tuxes, and another one on a lion suit.. literally. Flowers go around almost as much as beer, the guys playing in the bands have coreography prepared and all; guys say lines like: oh come on.. it's ok, I'm italian; I'm french, can i put mustard in your boobs?; I will love you forever, let's go to the fc bayern game. And for sure, everybody can find "love" at the wiesn.

My favourite wiesn feature was the hat collection... so many of them, amazing, of course I wanted them ALL. Didnt get any jijijiji, well... while being there I did get some, but well, I gave them back to the guys the hats originally belonged to; I figured one "new" item was enough :D There were the traditional hats, the beer hats, bayern hats, lion hats, all kinds of hats.

All in all, even if Wiesn and I have a passionate, turbulent, sometimes violent, relationship. I think we willl see each other again... I love Wiesn!