For reasons unknown

Cinema paradiso

A small selection of what's showing in Berlin cinemas this week (apart from the regular releases):

A History of Violence (2005) David Cronenberg
Aguirre, der Zorn Gottes (1972) Werner Herzog
The Angelic Conversation (1985) Derek Jarman
Bad Taste (1988) Peter Jackson
Batman (1989) Tim Burton
Batman Returns (1992) Tim Burton
Berlin - Sinfonie der Großstadt (1927) Walter Ruttmann
Berlin, wie es war (1943) Leo de Laforgue
Casablanca (1942) Michael Curtiz
Dick Tracy (1990) Warren Beatty
Fitzcarraldo (1982) Werner Herzog
Ghost World (2000) Terry Zwigoff
Grease (1978) Randall Kleiser
Intolerance (1916) DW Griffith
Youth Without Youth (2007) Francis Ford Coppola
Orphée (1950) Jean Cocteau
Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1974) Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones
Spider-Man (2002) Sam Raimi
Taxi Driver (1976) Martin Scorsese

All in original version, yes sir. :)

Annette and I chose to see the original Batman again, in beautiful Cinema Babylon.

Millefeuille

Berlijn is de stad van de berliner, maar wat ik hier verder wel mis: achtkoeken, éclairs, tompoezen, mattentaarten, rijsttaartjes, carré confituurkes, mmmmm... De taarten die ze hier wel hebben, zijn van die kloeke Duitse monsters, vaak met crème fraîche en meestal met fruit - niks voor mij dus. Ik had me er al bij neergelegd dat ik hier op dat vlak mijn meug niet zou vinden, maar kijk, gistermiddag gevonden: Patisserie Albrechts in de Rykestraße, waar ik een fantastische millefeuille heb binnengespeeld. :)

Dear Diary

Dear diary,

I've been in Berlin for a week now, no longer a tourist or just visiting friends, but really living and working here. Annette did her best to make me feel at home immediately:

On monday morning it was back to work, though. This is my new office:

After a fruitful day we decided to relax with a beer on Deck 5, a bar on the roof of a parking garage:

It was lovely to see the dusk settle over the Berlin rooftops...

On Tuesday we just stayed at home. I cooked pasta and we watched night fall from the balcony:

And sat there, waiting for the heat to diminish, drinking beer and vanillejenever...

On Wednesday evening we planned to go to the Freiluftkino in Weißensee, but instead we ended up once more in one of our favourite haunts, Zu Mir Oder Zu Dir, the place where it all started for us:

Thursday night we went dancing in Sage with Cathleen and her colleagues. I wore Stefano's schizophrenic T-shirt and spoke German the whole night. :)

On Friday we just stayed at home and watched Friends on dvd. On Saturday afternoon we met Cathleen again in Schönbrunn with her new boyfriend Sven:

They look very happy together, and so do we:

Ach, dear diary, I am so happy!

Gand, mon amour

Ch-ch-changes

It's been a month since I last wrote and it's been one of the most eventful months of my life. I am no longer writing from the sofa in the living room of my Gent apartment. That apartment is empty, abandoned. I am now sitting on the balcony of my girlfriend's apartment, overlooking a quiet residential street in Prenzlauer Berg, Berlin.

It's been another beautiful, hot summer's day. I hear birds singing, airplanes taking off in the distance, and the bar downstairs playing Mr Tambourine Man for the third night in a row. Fortunately I like the song. :)

I've made it. It's six months since I put the wheels in motion to move to Berlin and now here I am. There's still a lot to do. I need to find a place of my own, so that I can really call this city home - for now I'm just camping here. And I still need to deal with a few administrative nightmares, something I'm terrible with. But these are exciting times.

I've left a whole life behind and it's a strange feeling. For one thing it's too soon to understand what I've done. I guess it'll be another week or so before it sinks in that I'm here to stay. Maybe then I may also begin to miss Gent and that old life. For now I don't. It seems so remote. The past weeks have been filled with goodbyes, last this, last that... I've felt so much love from friends and family. And I love them (you), so much. I always knew I had a good life, but I didn't realize just how precious it was. Yet it was easy to say goodbye. I guess I also know why it was easy, but it still surprises me...

Hmm, to be continued...

One Track Mind

Ah, I haven't written in so long. Where have I been? Playing tourist in Berlin one last time, watching the beautiful game, having phone dates, going to a birthday picnic and a birthday barbecue, feeding Björn and Elisa's cats, having a grand day out with my darling godson, and a grand day out with friends in Mons, aka adventure capital of Europe.

Berlin was bliss. I am a lucky lucky lucky lucky man. And oh so happy. On the last night in Zu Mir Oder Zu Dir we met Anita, who was there celebrating a friend's birthday. Helped by a fair share of three bottles of Sekt Anita started a conversation with us. Over football, of course. And she said we looked so good together we must be made for each other. And we agreed. :)

Watching die Mannschaft in Berlin and at home I shouted Schweinsteiger! every time my favourite über-German got the ball. Back home watching Nederland-Italia was made slightly more bearable by the absurd sight of a rodent (mouse/rat? you decide) scuttling across the floor of the pizzeria we've been going to for years. Never again. And watching France-Italia at Björn and Elisa's I called the French a bunch of motherfuckers in front of Björn's parents - I'm sure I made a good first impression. But they deserved it (the French, that is).

And today I returned to Duygu's Mons, not really the most adventurous city in Europe, but beautiful in the company of friends. Yes, I will miss this. But never as much as I miss you now.

19 days to you, 27 days to Berlin.

Mia sorella

One night in January a few years ago a girl asked me: Why aren't we best friends? I thought it was a bizarre question. What do you mean, why ? It was also a surprising question. I'd known the girl for only a few months and that night was pretty much the first time that we were really talking. Everything inside me screamed: Stop, this is too fast! But she didn't believe in wasting time. That night was my first clue that this girl was special. And we did become best friends, fast.

Since then my life has changed almost beyond recognition. It's become so much richer, with people, emotions, love. When I think about how or why this is... A huge part of it is luck, for sure. And sometimes I think that I have changed too. I'm still the shy, cautious boy that I've always been, but I'm also doing some things differently from a few years ago. Opening up, taking chances, daring. That is the influence of that special girl I met a few years ago. She inspires me every day to believe that my dreams aren't impossible. She has taught me that life is something to explore and enjoy, not just to undergo. I carry a little bit of her generous spirit inside me. It's one of the greatest gifts I've ever received.

So today I just want to say: thank you, Elisa, for coming into my life. Buon compleanno, sorella mia.

Love,
Renaat

Feesten fever

For the third night this week I can hear live music being played somewhere nearby. I have no idea who or what it is. Usually this type of noise pollution would make my blood boil and ruin my mood for the rest of the night, but now it's only a mild disturbance while I study my German vocabulary.

And it makes me long for July, when the Gent Jazz Festival next door will keep me awake and a little further in town the Gentse Feesten will be in full swing. I'm so much looking forward to those (hopefully) hot days again, when the city centre will be filled with raucous drunken people, my friends and I among them. :) Dancing in the streets, having fun, our shoes getting sticky from all the spilled beer, eating frietjes at four in the morning...

This year will be extra special as I'm leaving for Berlin at the end of the Feesten. I imagine it will make our nights out even more intense. I'm beginning to see some nervousness around me when the subject of my leaving is mentioned, and I'm touched by it. But I guess it's easier to leave than to be left behind. I don't share the melancholy, even though I'm the one who'll be saying goodbye to a whole life. Maybe I'm in for a rude awakening. But I don't feel I'm losing anything or anybody. My friends will still be my friends, and Berlin isn't even that far away. And I'm gaining the chance at a new life, with the woman who's on my mind and in my heart every waking second.

I can hardly wait.

Sold!

So, as it turned out the people who came to have look at the apartment on Monday were the only viewers. They've bought it! Which means I have to move out by September 15 at the latest. But preferably sooner of course. I'm still aiming for the end of July.

It feels good. Somehow the sale of the apartment makes it a little more real. There's no way back now. I'm moving out of the place that's been my home for seven years, the first place that was my own. My bachelor pad. I'm done with it.

Lesbian Spank Inferno

Just after lunch today I got a call at work from my mom, asking if it was okay if a potential buyer came to view my flat at four o'clock. Well...

Since I'll be moving soon, my parents decided last month to put my place up for sale. Of course I knew that meant I would have to keep the flat more or less tidy and ready for viewings, and for a while I did that, but there seemed to be no great interest in the apartment, so the whole thing kind of slipped my mind.

Until that phone call this afternoon. What an adrenaline rush that was, trying to remember how I'd left the place that morning and what personal stuff I'd left lying around for my mom and dad to find when they came over in advance of the viewing. Let's face it, you don't want your mom to be your porn buddy...