Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Berlin

After an excitement lacking, anticipation filled 7 hour train ride, I made it to Berlin last night. I am staying with some friends, Guy and Kyo, in their neat little East Berlin apartment above a shisha bar and a cafe that sells doners and falafels for a euro. Food, and rent too apparently, is incredibly cheap here. Where they live there are a plethora of ethnic diners where three people can dine for under 10 euro. That is unheard of in good old Eindhoven.
It has been grey and rainy so far, giving the city quite a melancolie atmosphere that I feel is appropriate as I check out the East Side Gallery and what not. It got dark around 5pm and this city is somewhat lacking in street lighting so I didnt get to see as much today as I would have liked, but it is still so so cool.
East Side Gallery is the longest remaining stretch of the wall, and for the 20th anniversary of the collapse, artists that had painted works on the wall were invited to refinish their pieces. It was really beautiful. The pieces had so much emotion in them and understanding the social turmoil of Berlin at the time made it quite the experience.
This morning Kyo and I went to a vintage shop called Colors where half the store sells clothes by the kg. Clothes are surprisingly light and I spent under 5 euro for three shirts. The other half of the store has more expensive vintage clothes but on Tuesdays everything is 30% off. I got a cardigan and shirt for Dana, and a fur hat for myself. I had been looking for a fur hat for a while now. Mostly in Paris where my search turned out fruitless as the French are quite petite folk. I am glad that Germans seem to have larger heads.
On that note, there are quite of few rounder people here. Too much currywurst and beer.

I love the font used on the street signs and train stations.


image via Ask Meta Filter
 The train stations are decorated in coloured tile, all different and very pretty. I like them.

This city is huge. I already know that I will need a second visit.

v

Saturday, November 14, 2009

Currently...

I'm making a playlist for African ladies.

Thursday, November 12, 2009

New Stuff

I've been putting off updating because I have so much to write about, but then I decided that I'll just get to it when I get to it. I'll just continue to post day-to-day things for now.

Since I've had some request for it, I've added a subscribe button. I know it works with such things as Google Reader (which you automatically have if you have a gmail account, but probably didn't know about), but there might be an email option (to get emails whenever I post something new), but I'm still figuring it out. Google Reader is actually pretty handy, especially if you check the same sites every day. The reader just keeps them all in one place. To subscribe just click on 'Posts' under  'Subscribe' (in the righthand column), and click on the Google logo. If you don't want to bother with that, there is a 'Subscribe by email' button right under that.

Moving on! I've started a series of paintings called the Dirty Birds of Paradise. I won't go into a full deal explanation but be sure to check it out (the link is in the column on the right).

The Work Situation
This week I've been working evenings at a gallery called Design Huis as part of an exhibition called Glow. Glow is a city-wide demonstration of light and art (since Philips Electronics was started in Eindhoven and lots of light bulbs were made here) so people will wander around the city checking out the different installations. I worked at Design Huis during Dutch Design Week as well, which was pretty boring work. I just wandered around, telling people "neit aanraken astiblieft!" (don't touch please). This week isn't all that much different, but this time I either count how many people come into the exhibit, sell coffee, tea and gluhwijn (mulled wine), or stand at the doors saying "Here for Glow? Trop up en den links" (Here for Glow? Go up and then left) or "Toilette es duur door en den links" (bathroom is through the door and then left). See, I'm learning!

Although most of my emails to companies have resulted in fruitless "thanks for your interest but no thanks we have no vacancies" responses, I've managed to get myself an interview with a cool company called Edhv. They do mostly graphic work, but have openings for freelance designers of all kinds. The interview is next Friday.

I also exchanged a few emails with a local furniture designer by the name of Joost van Bleiswijk about possibly doing an internship with him.

So there are a few things going. I'm happy. Getting a serving job here isn't as easy as I had hoped, as everyone wants you to speak dutch (understandable), so I hopefully will get real work soon.

Life in General
Next week Dana and most of his classmates head off to Namibia for two weeks. Dana's working on a project with a company called Penduka designing a tool to make embroidering leather easier (I'm actually helping him with it). On Monday I'm heading off to Berlin for a few days to visit friends and get out of Eindhoven for a bit. Other than that I just cook, clean, go for runs and do pilates. I feel so very housewifey sometimes.

v