For reasons unknown

A Tale of Two Cities

Next spring Christian, Annette and I will be showing a couple of friends around Gent. So on a blitz visit this weekend I tried to imagine my hometown through their eyes. And I fell in love again, as I have done over and over again so many times. This town has centuries and centuries of history - you can't dig a hole in the ground without stumbling across another ancient layer - yet it is still alive and young today. I know these streets so well and I'm so happy knowing that I can always come back here and feel home again. 

But now I am back in my new home and today the eyes of the world are once again on Berlin. This city too is bursting with history, much of it very unpleasant. Tonight we remember Kristallnacht 71 years ago, but most of all we celebrate the beautiful evening in 1989 when my city was finally allowed to live again. And as Annette pointed out to me, we most likely never would have met if that day had never happened. So today we celebrate how the Wall fell for us. :)

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

Browsing through the forums of National Novel Writing Month I get a strange feeling. Some people seem to take this thing very seriously. They have been planning for this for months. They talk of plot outlines, character research and even publishing deals. Say what?

Me, I've got zero preparation, just a few ideas floating around in my head. Hopefully they'll come together somehow. But just in case I get stuck I've got a back-up plan: zombies!

Paperback Writer

As if 178 unread books weren't enough, I'm going to write one myself in November! A novel, no less. Yes, I'm taking part in this year's National Novel Writing Month. I didn't even know there was any such thing until The Icelander Who Must Not Be Named posted a link on Facebook this week. 'It's all about quantity, not quality,' they say. And also: 'You will be writing a lot of crap. And that's a good thing.' Woohoo! Sounds like fun.

So November is basically booked. I've got half a storyline, a couple of unnamed characters, a joke and an opening sentence in my head and come Sunday I'm gonna start shitting words. And hopefully I'll end up with 50,000 or more at the end of the month. I'm not counting on anything remotely publishable, I just hope I'll have fun with it.

P.S. I love you

Postscript to what I wrote yesterday: I was of course talking about my relationship with this city and nothing else. Even if Berlin suddenly turned into the most boring place on the planet, I could never truly be bored here so long as I can share this life with my love.

City Lights

Last week the Festival of Lights was in Berlin again. It was the second time for me, after last year. Which means I've been in Berlin for over a year. Yay! I knew that already, of course, but it was kind of a special feeling, realizing that an annual event here is no longer a first for me. Not that I've become all jaded about it. 'Oh yeah, Festival of Lights again, big deal.' No way, I happily went around town again taking (mostly) shaky pictures of beautifully lit landmarks. I still feel like a little boy who's stumbled upon a secret cave or garden or whatever, something cool and nice. Still so much to explore, so much to discover. Not expecting to get bored here anytime soon. :)

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, part two: Silvia

Meet Silvia, the ugly. Actually, I have no idea what her name is, so I've just invented one for her.

Silvia works in a café on the idyllic Piazza del Duomo in the lovely medieval town of Orvieto. Where exactly, do you ask? Why, here. Annette and I ended up there one afternoon. We just wanted to have a drink, so we sat down at one of the tables on the terrace. Enter Silvia. Thirty-something, fake curly blond hair. We're quietly talking when suddenly bang, two menus are smacked on the table between us and Silvia walks away without a word. What was that? Did we do something wrong? Weren't we supposed to sit at this table? A couple of locals at a nearby table notice our bewilderment. They don't seem too sure what's going on either, but they assure us it's nothing personal and that Silvia is normally a very nice person. Uh-huh. 

A minute later Silvia is back. She ignores us, but on her way to another table she gives a passing comment to the locals. My Italian isn't great, but it's good enough to understand that Silvia is talking about something she doesn't like. And then I recognize another word: tedesco. That would be Italian for 'German'. Aha... Suddenly things make more sense. Could it be that Silvia doesn't like Germans? See, I'm not German, but my adorable girlfriend is. And we were talking to each other in German.

So what do we do? While Silvia is at the next table attending to people who arrived after us, we leave. We're polite people, though, so of course we bid Silvia adieu. In German: Tschüß!

So why am I writing about this little incident now, Silvia? There are much worse things in this world, I know. And there are plenty more nice places to have a drink in Orvieto. We tried several and none gave us bad service because we spoke German, nor for any other reason.

I just don't get it, Silvia. Why don't you like Germans? Is it because many of them are fat and loud? Well, we weren't loud, and I'm just big-boned. Or did members of your family die at the hands of nazis in World War II? Well, you know what? That wasn't Annette. It wasn't even her parents. Grow up. Or is it just the sound of the German language? Fair enough, it's not everybody's favourite. But I hardly think it's worth making such a scene over. Bit of a drama queen, aren't we? (That's okay, I can relate.)

Whatever it was, Silvia, you came off looking really ugly. Oh, and by the way, you might want to ask your boss to remove the German translation from your menus. Because that's just giving out the wrong signal. You don't want to attract more of us, do you?

But hey, you know what, maybe I've got it all wrong. Like I said, my Italian isn't so great. Maybe I misunderstood. Maybe you were just saying that you were having a shitty day, but thankfully you had some lovely German tourists to attend to and they would surely cheer you up. Maybe it even had nothing to do with us speaking German. Whatever it was, if I were you I'd work a bit on my waitressing skills, because your behaviour didn't quite spell W-E-L-C-O-M-E to us. Nor W-I-L-L-K-O-M-M-E-N.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, part one: Roberto

So yeah, Italia. La dolce vita etc. Except it's not all jumping in the Trevi fountain or riding around on a Vespa. Sometimes it's a bit more like The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

Meet Roberto, the bad. Roberto is the owner of B&B Cycas in the small town of Terracina, where we decided to spend a couple of days at the seaside before heading back to Rome. Roberto's B&B looked nice and seemed perfectly situated: just a few metres from the beach and close to the historic centre as well. So we booked a room.

A week or so before our departure we received notice from the Terracina B&B office that Roberto was having some trouble with his family and would not be able to accommodate us. They offered us alternative lodging at another B&B, also just a few metres from the beach, but considerably further from the town centre. Not perfect, but we didn't really see any alternative so we accepted. We did find it strange that they offered us this new B&B at the same price as Roberto's even though it advertised considerably cheaper rates on the internet. We inquired about this, but they sidestepped our question and we just decided we'd figure it out when we got there. The lady from the B&B office said that Roberto would pick us up from the train station and drop us off at the new B&B, so could we please let them know when we would be arriving. Which we did.

So, Monday afternoon, 4.23pm we step off the train in Terracina. We come out of the station, no idea what Roberto looks like and no phone number to call, but we figure he'll be looking for us and we're looking for him, so we'll find each other. Ten minutes later and we're the only ones still waiting outside the station. No Roberto in sight. I think: hey, this is Italy, nobody's on time here. Let's give the guy a break, he'll be here any minute. Another ten minutes later and we're beginning to believe Roberto is going to be a no show. I cross the station square to check out the time table at the bus stop. Can't make sense of it, but it's not encouraging that no bus has passed here yet. After waiting another ten minutes we decide to give up. No use in waiting for Roberto any longer. We figure we'll just make our way into town and find the B&B by ourselves.

More than an hour later we are still walking towards our B&B. With two large suitcases, good for almost 40 kilos. Did I mention this B&B wasn't so close to the town centre? A couple of minutes after 6pm we get a call on Annette's mobile. It's Roberto. Where are you, he asks? At least we think that's what he's saying. His English is not so good. We somehow manage to explain to him where we are. Stay right there, he says, I'm coming to pick you up. So we stay put and wait. We have no idea what car he drives, but he said it was white. So we are on the look-out for a white car. Several pass us by. After ten minutes waiting a Smart stops. It's Roberto. In a Smart. You know, those tiny cars that seat two and have zero trunk space. Roberto, a greasy fifty-something wannabe playboy, orders Annette to get in the car and tells me it's only 500 metres further to the B&B, I can manage with the suitcases, right? Um... I guess.

By the time I get to the B&B Roberto has left and we are in the hands of our lovely landlady, who is exhausting herself in apologies for the evil Roberto. The B&B, Casa Martellini, turns out to be quite nice, except it's a very long walk from the centre of town of course. Our room is small but clean and our hosts are sweet. The landlady does not speak a word of English, but thankfully her daughter does. Over an aperitivo they explain how they had called Roberto earlier to inquire when he would finally be arriving with those guests he'd promised. At which point it transpired that Roberto had of course forgotten all about us. Later our hosts also revealed why Roberto wanted us to pay the price of a room at B&B Cycas (evil Roberto's den) and not the usual price for a room at Casa Martellini: he would collect the surplus as commission for passing on his customers to Casa Martellini...

Thankfully our hosts did not charge us this surplus. In fact they were darlings and did their best to make our stay as pleasant as possible. They recommended us good restaurants and even gave us lifts into town and to the train station. It's only thanks to them that our stay in Terracina didn't end up a complete disaster.

So Roberto, I know you're not reading this, but I'll humour myself for a moment and imagine that you are. You fucked us over, mate. I'm full of understanding for the unforeseen circumstances that made it impossible for us to stay at your B&B. But if you say you're going to pick us up, you don't arrive almost two hours late in a fucking Smart. You had our number, if you couldn't pick us up you should have called to let us know. And you know what a commission is, Roberto? It's payment for services rendered. You didn't render any service, you just fucked us over. If anything you should pay us. By the way, how were we? Any feedback is welcome. You've got our number.

Italia

So, after almost a month my fingertips are still itching to write something about our holiday in Italy. So I guess I should. Ah Italia... It was our second year in a row in Italy, the second year also visiting Orvieto and Rome. So many impressions, so many flavours, so many magical places and moments. I'll limit myself to the top five:

5. Urbana 47

On our first night back in Rome we had dinner in our favourite pizzeria from last year (in Via Leonina, with the very unglamourous name Wanted) and then we stopped by our favourite wine bar around the corner, Urbana 47 in Via Urbana. We just wanted to have one glass and toast our friends  Cathleen and Sven, who had got married a few hours earlier on a beach in Cape Town, but we had a small misunderstanding with the waitress and ended up with a whole bottle. Oops. :)

4. Cinghiale

Pizza, pasta, prosciutto, salami, mozzarella, gorgonzola, ricotta, tiramisù... Italy is culinary heaven and it's almost impossible to pick a favourite, but the best dish I had this year was pappardelle al cinghiale, pappardelle with wild boar. Obélix already knew it: these animals are absolutely delicious! And fortunately it's a local speciality in and around Orvieto. I had pappardelle al cinghiale twice and before we left Orvieto we picked up some succulent cinghiale salami for on the road. It didn't last us long.

3. The Anglo-American Bookshop

 
In the heart of Rome, in the Via della Vita close to the Spanish Steps, is one of my favourite bookstores in the world: The Anglo-American Bookshop. It's not huge, but it's stuffed from floor to ceiling with books. Great books. Books I don't see in Berlin or in Belgium. Like Roger Ebert's Scorsese, or Dalton Trumbo's Johnny Got His Gun. Or beautiful American pocket editions of The Catcher in the Rye, The Talented Mr Ripley and Twain's Life on the Mississippi. I bought 'em all. :) And then I also picked up the latest Amélie Nothomb at La librairie française near Piazza Navona. I love a city with good bookstores.

2. Claudio

On our last night in Rome we were walking around Trastevere when we came across a small bar (Bar Ruscelli, Piazza Sonnino Sidney 11) with a large choice of Belgian beers. We couldn't resist. We went inside and picked out a Chimay bleu and a Leffe Radieuse. The barkeep congratulated us on our choice and when I mentioned that I was Belgian he became very excited and we struck up a conversation in our best French. His name was Claudio and the bar was started by his father in 1947. He had a passion for Belgian beers and spoke glowingly of our trappist beers, our gueuze, our Delirium... And he revealed his biggest dream: to have the elusive Westvleteren in his shop. It was a beautiful encounter. I hope Claudio can fulfill his dream.

1. The Wedding of the Century

In the months leading up to it we jokingly called it the Wedding of the Century because of all the preparations and stress we and others made about it. And guess what? Calling it the Wedding of the Century is no exaggeration at all. I'm pretty sure I'll never live to see another wedding that is so much fun, so grandiose, so legendary, so full of love. Everything about it was fantastic: the days leading up to it, relaxing in beautiful Orvieto, meeting the beautiful family of the bride and groom, making wonderful new friends, seeing wonderful old friends again, the incredibly sweet, romantic and moving ceremony, the unforgettable party, the fabulous food (pappardelle al cinghiale!), and most awesome of all: the love love love of Elisa and Björn for each other. The wedding was fantastic, may the future be even better!

Vote!

So yesterday there were parliamentary elections in Germany, but I - as Ausländer - wasn't allowed to vote of course. It's a strange feeling, not to have any say in the politics of the country you live in. Not that my one vote in Belgium ever made me feel like a power to be reckoned with, but still, it's the idea. So instead of paying close attention to debates, programmes and campaign promises I just went around Berlin taking pictures of the political propaganda:

The time is now

I'm sitting on the balcony of my girlfriend's apartment, laptop in my lap, enjoying the sun on this beautiful Sunday of clear blue skies. This is the last day of our summer vacation. It's been fantastic. Ten unforgettable days in Italy and then another week of sloth and gluttony in our Berlin. There is more to be said, stories to be told and remembered, of gorgeous people and moments to cherish. Maybe I'll get around to telling some of them soon, and maybe they'll remain untold, with just a few words flimsily attached to random snapshots.

Now, though, I'm putting the laptop aside. There's just one more summer day to be enjoyed to the fullest!