Maggie the influencer^^

The day after we went to another museum to see the modern art exhibition. It took awhile before we finally got there and then… it turned out that the exhibition was several months later – apparently S forgot to check the date ;(. So disappointed, we started to look for another museum and we found it. The museum of contemporary art – The Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart. The exhibition was quite interesting and peculiar, as modern art usually is… The museum is located in the Hamburger Bahnhof – a non-operating train station. The most fun part for us I guess was the mirror room where a kind staff member instructed us how to find the perfect photo spot. You can see below the effects of the photo session;)

M and I were quite satisfied with the exhibition, as well as S. Only Mr Kozi complained about the quality of the art presented. Well, I never expect much going to the modern art exhibition:P…

That day we had a delicious dinner in a Pakistani restaurant. I dreamt about that cuisine since the day we arrived. There is a very good restaurant SHALIMAR just next to Mr Kozi’s place but it’s never open;(. So we went to another Pakistani restaurant SADHU which S found online. It turned out to be the right choice. SADHU is located between Kreuzberg, Neukolln and Alt-Treptow on Pannierstraße 54. We shared nice spicy meals and really hot Pakistani bread! To our surprise, they served us with “goodbye shots” or in S’ case a goodbye cocktail (of which I was quite jealous;[).

Fully satisfied, we headed to a rooftop club Der Klunkerkranich in Neukolln Arcade Center for some beers and crazy dances. Actually, according to M, I was a dancefloor influencer. When we entered no one was moving from the comfortable seats, and then crazy Maggie showed her boogies ;D and the dancefloor got full ;DD. Only some exceptions (for example Mr Kozi who stayed still the whole evening) did not follow Maggie the influencer ;DD! (photos will not be disclosed:P)

Berlin junket

For the long weekend in May we decided to pay Mr Kozi a visit. Berlin is a very suitable spot for four of us to meet – more or less in the middle between Dusseldorf and Gdańsk. M and I arrived just after the main festival – at this time of the year M always has lots of work. As S and Mr Kozi said, Berlin was really crowded on the 1st of May and the atmosphere was so chilled. Anyway, we did not experience that.

This time we stayed at Moxy Berlin Humboldthain Park, very near Mr Kozi’s apartment. The location was so comfortable – also near the station. On the left side of the hotel entrance there is a lovely restaurant La Femme. Despite the name, it is not French at all. The place is (surprisingly) Turkish, with really good breakfasts. We ate there twice and the meals were delicious, as well as the coffee (Turkish mocca), which was really well served – with a decorative tableware  and cute sweet and colourful “stones” to eat.

This Berlin trip was dedicated to museums mainly. After the first “welcome” night, which ended up with a hangover, we went to Stasimuseum Berlin  – a museum of a place were the so-called political detainees were kept and tortured during the cold war. The visit was very informative and included a high emotional charge. The museum shop offers some interesting souvenirs, like copy of original pages of old newspapers from the Fall of the Berlin Wall.

After the Stasi museum visit we headed to Kreuzberg for something to eat. Mr Kozi was so kind to take us to a vegan restaurant, taking into account my diet (<3;)). It was quite funny to see the menu which at the first glance seemed like an ordinary meat menu with that slight difference of the quotation marks added to the meat names. It mislead us at the beginning – M was so disappointed when it turned out that all the “porks”, “burgers”, “steaks” etc. were just vegan equivalents of the real meat.

After the meal we took a short walk nearby. Wandering without any particular destination we ended up in some kind of an outer pub. We must have looked like trying to rob a table football game, while fighting with the machine;). Dissatisfied and defeated we returned home/hotel.

On our way back we were interrupted at the station by two nice young gentlemen offering us something cool. What surprised us, their magic was so easily accessible – hidden behind an information sign about the road works! Anyway, our ambitious plans to visit some local clubs in the evening did not come true. After taking a nap our (especially mine:P) motivation subsided and we finished the day in beds:].

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sunday, December 11, 2018

We got up in the late morning, after a well-deserved rest. The evening walk we took the day before, in the heavy rain along the Rhine… a typical English weather, which usually happens in December in Germany I guess…

Putting the rainy memories aside, morning hunger bothered us badly. S suggested a Japanese restaurant with a traditional Ramen, so we headed to TAKUMI restaurant in the Japanese district (Immermannstr. 28) It was recommended not without a reason. The perfect proof of its rank was a long wrapped queue before the entrance. We decided that we were way too hungry for waiting in that queue and found a different place to eat…another Japanese restaurant, surprisingly. There were quite many restaurants from a country of a blooming cherry, as well as the Japanese on the street. We ate a tasty birthday dinner and started what tigers like the most: sightseeing! Ok, maybe not all the tigers, but at least one handsome tiger does;).

Von Fundistephan – de-wiki, photo by Fundistephan, Gemeinfrei, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=786336

We chose the port district Hafen for our destination. This is a new district, created in the former place of marina for barges, and now full of modern office buildings and hotels designed by the top architects (the most famous buildings in the Dusseldorf Harbor are three twisted constructions by Frank Gehry – Der Neue Zollhof Düsseldorf).

It was a great spot for taking “artistic” pictures. Actually, they are pretty good, if one asks me;). You can have a look and judge yourselves two of them;). Which one is better? After the photo session we went to a very elegant restaurant or a night club (hard to say) ROCCA 800°C Maggie, Mr K and I really liked the taste – kind of posh. S was of a different opinion on that matter;P you know the French “pickyness”;).

After a drink or two and a crazy spooky Santa group photo we went back to S’ place. On the way we stopped by our fav pizza place called Pizzeria Minerva. They make really good pizzas there. They use a special oven which looks (and tastes) very professional. Also the sauces they add are really delicious and of a perfect proportion. As I remember, the guys were from Romania, but I’m not sure about it. The cool thing was that they could understand and speak a bit Polish, so a big pro for that;).

At the end, we decided to look at the city at night in advance and went to the observation deck at The Paris Club restaurant at the 25hours Hotel. The view was cosmic, the prices were the same;) so we took some photos and went back home.

Back S’ home, we watched Interstellar online. Maybe “watched” is too much to say because Maggie and I just started to watch and fell asleep immediately. So far we haven’t seen if the movie is as good as Mr K assured…

My Birthday, part 2

After eating the late afternoon breakfast (or eventually taking it to backpack to eat later during the trip) we headed to the Wehrhahn Train Station. We bought daily ticket for 5 persons for 36,40 EUR, which was the cheapest option to get to our destination, and started our half hour trip.

S and Maggie planned for us the journey to the magnificant „Weihnachtsmarkt” in Koln. This is very famous Christmas Market in Germany located in the center of old town, next to Kolner Dom Cathedral. There was a lot of hand made christmas decorations, christmas gifts, bubbles, woodden angels etc. Of course we bought something  – beautiful glass bubble with a little Jesus nad Mary inside and wooden angel (we would not be ourselves if we did not buy anything ;))

Because of the crowds it was very difficult to find a fine place to drink „Weihnachtsmarkt” speciality – Grog Wine. This hot and full of aromatic spices red wine is absolutely „must to drink” on every „Weihnachtsmarkt”. Finally we found our place and enjoyed hot grog wine listening to the christmas songs and talking about meaning of life. After 3 rounds of grog wine and one special Weihnachtsmarkt dish (a piece of pork impaled on the stick, only me and mr Kozi ate it, you know why ;)) we decided to come back home (we were totally wet due to typical German winter weather – RAIN ;)).

We bought something special for our back home trip (you know what – jagermeister and yerba and……. schampagne for girls – in the end it wa my birthday). We spent our return journey on a nice conversation about feminism, equality and ….. I’m joking, we just had a nice time on the train.

After coming back, we changed clothes and bought wine and pineapple juice to make Mr Kozi’s special drink for our late evening visit to S friends – two girls from Scotland and one from Hungary.  I knew that my English was not perfect but it was a real surprise that I completely couldn’t understand what the Scottish girls are talking about. They were talking so fast and with weird scotch accent, OMG. The girl from Budapest had similar pronunciation to mine so I dicided to sit near her and speak about beautiful Hungarian capitol. You probably guess that Maggie used the opportunity and talked a lot to the Scottish ladies to raise her level of English accent (Maggie’s btw: their accent was not English at all; they sounded to me like Kardashians:P But yes, we enjoyed the conversation;)).

My friends made me superb surprise and gave me a delicious ice birthday cake and sang a “hundred years” (Maggie’s btw: actually we sang a “happy birthday”; a “hundred years” is a commonly known Polish birthday song;). It was very nice that they remembered about it. We ate the cake, drunk special wine and decided to go to the city centre, to AltStadt, for a party. The centre of the old town was very crowded. I don’t know what the custom is, but people after drinking beer smashed glasses or bottles on the pavement, which was full of glass already. We thought that the Germans liked ORDNUNG very much, but who knows 😉

In the end, we found a nice bar that brews its own beer. We spent some time enjoying the different types of beer brewed by them. On the way back, all four of us made a pretty long walk around the old town and along the Rhine. We were very tired after the attractions of yesterday and at the same time hungry. I opted for typical German fast food – currywurst with fries and spicy tomato sauce. I do not know if it was so delicious or I was just so hungry, but currywurst disappeared at the speed of light;).
We were all just barely standing (and certainly not because of a delicious German beer) so we went to the S quarters for a deserved rest. It was a very nice birthday evening. After all, all my friends and my beloved Maggie were with me of course.

My Birthday

The next day was my birthday. My humour wasn’t so good as i expected beacause of events of last evening. If someone was drunk and lost last night that wasn’t me for sure 😉

I woke up at 9 o’clock and I left Maggie in bed because apparently she needed a few more hours of sleep. After short morning toilet i headed to the city center to meet mr K who slept in a lovely hostel. Last evening we were planning  to visit the modern art Museum K21.

The building of the museum was the old house of the parliament of North Rhine-Westphalia. It is located in a park with small lake near the Graf-Adolf Platz u-bahn station. We bought special combined tickets, which allow us to visit both K20 and K21 museums at a good price.

There was an exhibition of American artist Lutz Bacher „What’s love got to do with it” and Chinese artist Cao Fei from Bejing. We really enjoyed hammering the nails and screwing in the screws into an installation, as well as  artistic variations of the Donald Trump signature.

Is it really the art to put a dick in a marmalade jar by a naked guy with a mask on his face? – I asked myself while watching the multimedia art displayed on the old television set. Or maybe walking completely naked on your hands on the metro platform? I do not know about it, but it made a big impression on us, that’s what art is all about, so it’s probably the „Real Art”;)

We spent very nice noon in this museum walking around next rooms and talking about things which men always are talking on their birthday – WOMEN of course. Not equalism, not rights of women, not rights of animals …… just WOMEN.  We know each other  from  always that’s why it was very interesting and funny conversation.

But the best was yet to come. Installation of “Tomas Saraceno in Orbit”. It is a steel spider web suspended under the glass roof of the museum at the height of 30 meters. And you can of course walk on that web. We had to do it, after all, it’s my birthday. We had to sign several approvals, stand in the queue, get dressed in special suits and shoes and go through a short training but it was worth it.  It was a wonderful feeling to walk on a thin web high above the ground. I felt like a child, like a spider, I was jumping, running, laying on the pillows. But Mr K wasn’t  so happy as I were. He didn’t tell me that he was afraid of height.  He was green on his face, scared, he crawled and he did not have a happy face. I was grateful to him that despite his fear he did it for me on my birthday. The real friend. Then he broke down a bit, got up on his feet and just got back on the web.

After that amazing experience we had to go back to S headquarters. Girls had prepered a late afternoon breakfast and they would have liked us to come back. On the way back to the subway, while passing through the park we saw something unusual. And I have to remind you that apart from water and a few cigarettes, we did not smoke and drink anything else.  In the park on the trees sat a flock of parrots. Yeah, parrots.  Did anyone see parrots in the park in Germany in winter?

“We have to drink something quickly”, we thought and went to the nearest kiosk.  It is strange that a kiosk in Polish and German is written the same way, but kiosks in Poland and Germany are completely different. We prefer German Kiosk because you can buy alcohol there.

Jagermeister poured into a bottle of jerbamate has one more advantage, except that it warms you up quickly. You can legally drink it in the subway. Drinking  yerba with a Jagermaister, we returned to S lodging for an late afternoon breakfast.

Du, Du, Düsseldorf!

600 thousand citizens, 217 km2 and 1130 km away from our hometown – that has not been the most obvious direction, but it’s always the people who make it worth. That was also the case this time.

I met S in China, while being on University exchange. The language course was intense, as well as the social life. Although S came one semestre after me, we became good friends, and it has been lasting till now. It’s the third time we visited each other after leaving China. First Amsterdam, then Gdańsk and now Dusseldorf.

When M and I arrived, there was already Mr K, an old friend of M’s, waiting for us without vodka we expected;(. On the other hand, we forgot to buy Soplica, so, as S said, we are even;). We had some problems with buying special tickets, which took us some time, but finally managed to arrive at S’ place. Before that, we had a nice dinner with a (or, to be exact, 3:P) 10-dollar champagne. Then, in marvellous humour, we headed to S.

The evening was busy – after leaving our luggage and eating some (or a lot in my case:P) spaghetti that S prepared for us, we went for a party. At the Beethoven pub, a couple of S’ friends were already drinking, so we got inside and started to treat ourselves;). And you should know that it’s been awhile since M and I drank alcohol last time:P. I had some pleasant talks with S’ friends. For example, with a Belgian girl, who shared my views on equalism (but did not share the masculine views of Mr K…) Fortunately, the evening ended well, even though they did not get on well with each other:P.

Oh! I almost forgot about a “loosing M” part (and to be fair, he did not get drunk and did not get lost in fact)! Anyway, it may be better to skip that part, since we almost got into fight because of that episode… When we eventually went back home, S was so nice to offer us her lovely bed<3:]. We deserved that after that exhausting and emotional day:P;).

 

to be continued…

 

 

 

 

The last day

So it has come. The last day of our trip. Morning – packing. Then, gym. Later we enjoyed beer and cocktails in the hotel swimming pool, recalling the supper we had the day before. Actually, it wasn’t only the meal itself that was so amusing, but also ordering the food in Spanish by phone. As they say (or I do:P), you can’t experience foreign country fully without speaking the local language, especially by phone;).

At 2 p.m. we headed to the city centre, where we left the luggage in the storage room, to be free while visiting the last touristic spot. Sagrada Familia – last but surely not least. This Art Nouveau church is really impressive. I don’t know how it may possess a status of the minor basilica, being so huge! Gaudi did a hilarious job here. It took him 4 decades to build the organism-looking basilica, and it’s still not finished! I can’t say much about how it looks from the inside because we decided to see the interior the next time we visit Barcelona. But we had a really good view during our outdoor lunch, sitting just in front of the church. Even though, we had to wait a bit for that perfect spot, we were totally satisfied, sitting in the sun, admiring the masterpiece of 19th/20th century architecture.

Menu del dia, with dessert and drinks put us in a great mood before returning home. After obligatory photo session and luggage collection, we took the bus to the airport, experiencing this weird mix of excitement and nostalgia. However, our melancholy didn’t take long, being quickly replaced by nervousness. As well as before, I didn’t have my ticket printed. I started to look for it, going through my phone, and I got scared that I had forgotten to buy the return ticket. Luckily, it wasn’t the truth. When we made sure I had my ticket, we realised we had already arrived to the airport. Of course, it wasn’t the end of obstacles we had to tackle. Because of the ticket problem in the bus, I didn’t manage to check in on time and I had to pay extra 30 euro for my wool-gathering. But money isn’t everything, right;)? Memories are what counts…  and photos, of course;]!

 

An owl, cookies, beer and the “exes”

We slept so long after swimming naked in the pool during previous night. Finally, we went to Barceloneta and ate delicious paella with seafood in a nice local restaurant. Then we went to the boulevard near the port to buy some cool stuff from the street bargainers. Lots of Africans had their stands still open. The most popular were Messi T-shirts and MK handbags, surprisingly;). We bought some small things, like beer openers, fridge magnets or key rings, nothing special. We were about to go when I noticed it – a beautiful ornamented bracelet. The turquoise owl was looking right at me, I had to have it, for sure.

When I asked the seller how much it cost, I was not that sure anymore. 40 euros??!!! For a bracelet being sold on the street?! Without any taxes??! No way! It’s a robbery! I decided not to care about the bracelet anymore – it was beyond my reach. I looked for the rest of his stuff. A few bracelets were kinda cute, even though a little childish. I decided on one of them – 10 euros. In comparison to the previous price it seemed ok (right now I realise it wasn’t worth that much money). To my surprise, when I payed for the smaller bracelet, the guy decided to sell me the expensive one just for… 5 euros! Excited, I agreed immediately! The first bracelet must have been worth much much less if he dropped from the former price that dramatically….. He even gave us 3 little wooden elephants for free! We must have overpaid so much xD!

Anyway, evaluate yourselves in the picture below;)

All in all, I’m really happy that I got the bracelet eventually;))

After that funny bargaining experience we headed to Bari Gotic, where we grabbed a beer. Then we went to famous La Rambla. We made another shopping. I bought two pairs of charming rompers for my sis’ twin babies – a boy and a girl. They will look sooooo cute in those FC Barcelona tiny costumes;]. We also got a few things for other family members (like a little FC Barca soccer ball for instance).

From the very first day of our stay – when we got surprised with the cute colourful cookies by the hotel staff – I wondered where I could buy such cookies to take home, they were so delicious=P. And then, I found them! Just on the main street, there was a shop full of those particular cookies! How lucky, huh? As it turned out, it was not a coincidence there were no customers inside. When I chose almost all the types (naively believing that cookies sold by weight must have been cheap), I thought I misheard the seller saying the price. 40 euros? Again?! It must be a mistake! Unfortunately, it wasn’t. Well, I still had the right to resign, so I did. Partly… I decided to buy half. It was still a lot to pay, but you know the psychological trick… I was already feeling guilty and ashamed of ordering more than I could manage… so in the end I paid around 20 euros for a few cookies (which later turned out to be as hard as stone…). Well, such things happen when you travel…

We were already in not so good mood after that shopping failure, so we decided to spend some more money in a fancy Japanese restaurant. We were lucky one outdoor table with a view on the main street was still available. The view and the restaurant itself were really romantic. Our moods immediately improved after a glass of large beer (I know, not that fancy anymore:P) that we ordered. We also got some nice tapas like olives and patatas bravas, as I remember correctly. Actually, my memory is not that good because late drinking quite got to my mind. Well, at least that’s M’s opinion on that topic:P.

I was totally in mood when we left the restaurant and pretty enjoyed our way to metro station. But… there is always a but. When we reached the station, we had big troubles with finding one of the tickets (el titulo!). It took M a lot of time (according to my measurement). Finally, we gave up and purchased a new one (a wise decision to make). In the meantime we managed to got into a fight, of course. Being tipsy, I decided to talk about my exes (who had never been “the currents” in fact). That was not that good decision though… You can imagine how it ended…

The source of the picture

Dream about Larnaca

We had lots of luggage and bags, which we hardly carried to the airport. Our stuff was huge and the airplane quite tiny. We arrived late and the last remaining seats were at the very back of the plane. I managed to find a place more in front but there was just one, so we had to stay at the back.

When the plane started to take off eventually, M explain our Tommy in my tummy what was supposed to happen: “Can you hear the engine working? We are about to take off!” – he said excited. Then, something unexpected occurred. The plane started to accelerate, and the moment came when the whir of engines was so strong that it should have risen. It took off a little, then the engines weakened and the plane could not rise at all. M was afraid that we would break up in the shipyard, because the runway was too short and the plane would not be able to land back and slow down. We were literally terrified.

But somehow it slowed down and started taxiing around the shipyard. At some point the plane was so slow that we managed to get out through the back hatch. I went to the port wharf and watched the ships, crouched, and suddenly we had to run quickly to the plane so that it would not run away. We managed it, it was cramped, like in a small car … and M woke up.

How would you interpret that, folks;)?

The match day

Sunday. FC Barcelona – Atletico Madrid match. M is a big fan, so obviously we already had our tickets. In fact, that was what we went to Barcelona for.

From the very morning we were so excited about the match. Dressed in Messi’s T-shirts, with our brand new FC Barcelona scarves (which btw looked like the scarves from Harry Potter movie), we were ready for the big day.

We went to Camp Nou by subway. As I remember it was quite crowded – full of soccer fans. The atmosphere was great, so we expected even more emotions at the stadium.

 

Actually, the biggest emotions we experienced at the entrance. As it turned out, M fell victim to overbooking and he couldn’t enter with his ticket – his seat was said to be already taken (that happens when you book tickets from non-original sources). He had no choice but to pay for a new ticket (we were lucky it was still an option). But the clock was ticking and the ticket office was far away, as they told us. I was waiting for M, who took off quickly in the race for the place.

I took my time to use the washroom. Not only had I problems with finding the ladies’ room, but also with returning to the gate. Fortunately, I managed to be back before M. Even I got stressed if he would be able to buy that ticket eventually. Finally, he got back with the ticket! Uff…..

When we found our seats the match had already started, but nothing significant missed.

The match wasn’t that exciting as the entrance problems. The fans were unusually silent and the game itself wasn’t that interesting either. Even though Barca won (1:0 – Messi scored a free-kick in the first half and then no more goals), we didn’t feel the emotions the way we expected. Actually, as we found out later, Spanish matches are often like that (for comparison, in Poland soccer matches are fool of pseudo fans who fight each other, so even if the game is bad you can still have a lot of fun, as you can see below:P).

and here calm (but full) Camp Nou

However, the most important (at least for me:P) was that we took a cool photo session after the match, and we even earned some souvenirs – many local fans left their FC Barcelona flags which were pretty nice, so we took them;).

(sorry for the mess;P)