I cycled past the tiergartentunnel in Berlin today. This road tunnel crosses under the tiergarten plus a bunch of government buildings in central Berlin. the construction of the tunnel has been completed several months ago, but the opening of the tunnel has just been delayed for another 3 months because the security software is malfunctioning. For me this pretty much sums up the 21st century so far: Paranoia and a tendency of making even the simplest things (i mean seriously: a tunnel! even moles can build them and they are almost blind!) so complex that the software engineers can fuck them up.

Cycling past Alexanderplatz i noticed a group of people standing around a table in an otherwise deserted area on the northeastern side of the place. I stopped to take a closer look and it looked like they were playing some kind of game wile drinking and generally enjoying themselves on this unlikly location. When i approached them they told me that they where cubans and that they came to this very spot every day (as long as ‘the weather did not torture them’ as one of them expressed it to play domino, drink and be with friends. Asked why they had chosen this particular place they told me that this was because of the noise (it is right next to a mayor road) which would remind them of Cuba. Now i have always imagined cuba a bit different but if they say so i am fine with it. The whole thing somehow reminded me of my old mah jong set. guess i have to find someone to play with again…

On saturdays there is a small and – due to the lack of clientele – pathetic food market on the street right in front of our place in berlin. when it started about a year ago it still had many more stalls then nowadays and one of them was offering a ‘juppy menu’ (referring i guess to the acronym for young urban professionals) that consisted of currywurst, cole-slaw, french fries & champagne:

As far as i can remember the stall lasted for 4 weeks or so. By now there are way fewer stalls (something like two vegetable, one bread, one flower, one meat and one fish-stall). Once in a while somebody new tries his luck and so today two nirvana-playing juvenile sidewalk musicians directed my gaze to the current dare-devil entrepreneur. Basically the long gone ‘juppy’ menu offering sans the curry and sans the french fries and sans the champagne:

Looks as if not only the market has suffered some decline, but there seems to be a corresponding decline in the perceptions of the economic opportunities as well. The whole thing kind of reminded me of last years visit to argentina where things are not much better but at least executed with impeccable style:

Saturday the 20th is the premiere of ‘no wonder‘ Constanza’s newest piece at the HAU1 in berlin. I have not seen much of the piece but if the one early run through i have had the chance to see is any indication it will be a great show. No wonder is directed by Constanza but more importantly she is also performs in the piece, which makes me pretty excited.

After the premiere ‘no wonder’ will play on Sunday the 21st and Monday the 22nd. tickets are available from the HAU box office.

Have been on trains a lot the last couple of days. Since saturday i have gone from Amsterdam to Frankfurt back to Amsterdam and now i am almost in Berlin.

Since january i have traveld more than 43.000km by trains. Most of this has been within Germany some of it in Holland and i even took Amtrak from Boston to NYC. My bahn card wich gives me 50% reduction within Germany will expire in a bit over a month and that means that i will need to decide again if ill take a bahncard 50 or if i will go for the luxury of a bahncard 100 (which gives you unlimited free rail travel within Germany for a year and now even includes free public transport in more than 60 german towns all for €3250).

Economically it makes sense to get the bahncard 100 but only as long if i remain going from berlin to Amsterdam and Back three times a month. In other words it only makes sense if my life does not change much. Last year i did chicken out of buying the 100 because i did not trust my relationship or my commitment to my work enough to give both of them another year. Now it is a year further and i need to make this decision again (should have been smarter last year in the first place). I think i feel more confident this year…

Kanak-Attak has started a beautiful poster campaign against the practice of expatriating immigrants with german passports when they also hold another nationality (passport). The campaign uses a slogan and the look and feel of the german television station ZDF.

At tegel half of the people in front of the check in counter seem to belong to one family whose patriarch is constantly busy telling te members of the extended group where they should be (basically the men at the counter and the women waiting on the other side of the hall).

On both flights (half of the passengers of the full A300-600 leaving berlin seem to make up for three quarters of the full A320 leaving frankfurt) the normative system of the family patriarch proves to be stronger than that of Lufthansa’s ticketing algorithm. both flights take of with 15 minutes of delay mainly due to intensive trading of boarding cards that only stops when the patriarchs family is distributed in the plane according to his wishes (basically boys in the front, girls in the back). The whole flight the patriarch is patrolling the aisle of the plane with much more rigor than the lufthansa crew who has been told to be more respectful and friendly (read: bring more beer by the 5 dudes on the 3 place row just behind me). By now they have retreated to the galley and one needs to go there if one wants another drink…. There was a slight escalation earlier when the party crowd behind me was blocking the aisle, but that situation was defused by the middle-aged gentleman from Stuttgart (of all places!) who told the stewardess to ‘smile a bit more’ and ‘leave the young men alone’. this is the same person who – at the check in at Frankfurt – when told him that the flight was overbooked – fell down at his knees and started to tell them that they could not do this to him as his mother had died and was buried tomorrow and that he could not be denied to board the plane…

While i am writing this the guy next to me – who belongs to the clan of the patriarch – is staring at my screen. so i ask him if he is reading what i am writing but he assures me that he is just looking at the clock in my menu bar. Turns out that he is coming back to lebanon for the first time in 20 years (he left the country when he was 6). He seems to be scared, but i cannot tell if it is because of flying or because of the fact that he comes back to Lebanon after 20 years – ‘things have changed a lot since i left’ there is another person that is looking at my screen: the guy in the window seat. from looking at his screen earlier i know that he is working for Microsoft Lebanon. Later i ask him what he is doing for ms in lebanon. He is a technical consultant who came back from canada 9 months ago. Microsoft Lebanon is the regional representative for ms in lebanon, cyprus, syria – ‘but not right now since syria is on the shit-list’ – jordan, the west bank and iraq – ‘but we do not go there, it is to dangerous, but we have a hired representative’. we talk a bit, i tell him what i do and ask him a bit about their operations. They mainly do MNC work but also government jobs. asked about syria he tells me that they do not operate there but upon my suggestion he tells me that they assume that the syrian government also runs on ms software, albeit pirated. I suggest that this is probably also good for them because once the US topples the government there, they will be used to run MS. He tells me that this is exactly how they see it. Before leaving the plane he gives me his card and suggests that i should meet with his colleague Khaleed who is running their educational operations.