Anna Nymos - a star is born

So we went to the exhibition opening (an exhibition called ANONYMOUS consisting of 17 pieces of anonymous art) in the Schirn and it was totally weird as expected and totally cooler than expected but not because of the exhibition but because of the great wine and the people around...

But let me recap all events of the day first. Let's start with a little something called politeness. If I get an invitation from a friend, I usually tell this friend if I intend to join or not or to f*** off or leave me alone and never write me another email - but I normally never ignore such things. Ok, maybe I am just a weirdo...

Anyway - in the end Maike, Eugenio, Yara, Stefan and Alba showed up, some of us too early, some of us a little later. Some of us did find each other, some left before finding the rest, some left after finding some, etc. In any case - the exhibition was really strange - looking at things without the names of the artists totally puts things into another perspective. You know, like when you are staring at an unidentifiable creation in a gallery and try to appreciate it because it is supposedly art. This time you could not be sure if it was art or some photo taken by the son of the president of the Schirn or whatever. Still the things were quite interesting - a series of photos of stuff outside with holes dug up on every photo - a photo of white cars, a series of boats hanging from the ceiling with little movies inside of things moving suddenly out of the ordinary. Like a turtle or a sudden flame. Did I mention the wine?

So after the exhibition when we lost Eugenio and Maike we went for Chinese and Alba also joined us. We had fantastic food – for sure we will return – and the best thing of the day was, that my bicycle with the stolen seat was still there where I left it – although in August the Ordnungsamt put a sticker on it asking me to get rid of it within 7 days... I am glad the efficiency is not up to German standards. Hmm, wait a minute ...


Click the girl walking through the picture to see the rest of the photos of this fantastic evening!

I see you!

I just got this email and I thought it could be also interesting for others so here goes (I wonder how funny it will be to go to the airport and watch all the people with their little plastic bags dingling in their hands ...):

New hand luggage regulations on all flights originating in EU countries, as well as on connecting flights from Europe

Dear Lufthansa Friend,

With effect from 6 November 2006, there will be restrictions on liquids which can be taken into the cabin on flights originating within the EU, as well as on connecting flights from European airports. This includes all domestic flights.

Liquid and gel products, such as toiletries and cosmetics, are permitted in hand luggage, provided they conform to the following regulations:

- Containers with liquids and similar products may hold up to
100 ml (i.e. the maximum capacity when full as printed on the container)
- All individual containers must be carried together in a
transparent, re-sealable (e.g. "zip top") plastic bag, with a maximum capacity of one litre
- Only one bag is permitted per person
- The bag must be shown separately at the Security Control

Medicines and special food (e.g. liquid baby food) required during the flight do not need to be carried in the plastic bag. However, these items must also be presented at Security.
Items and bags which do not meet these criteria may not be taken on board the plane. A similar regulation has been in force since 29 September 2006 on flights and connecting flights in the USA.

Duty free items may be carried on board, provided that:
- they were purchased at an airport within the European Union or on board an EU airline,
e.g. on a Lufthansa flight* and they are carried on board in a sealed bag, with accompanying proof of purchase dated the same day.

- The bag is sealed at the point of purchase. (This regulation does not apply on codeshare flights.)

Please check the latest regulations immediately before your departure at www.lufthansa.com and take these legal constraints into consideration when planning your journey.** We recommend that hand luggage is reduced to the essentials. This will help to ensure that your flight departs on time.
We wish you a pleasant trip.
Yours sincerely
Lufthansa

* Goods which are purchased on board an EU-registered aircraft can be carried in sealed bags in hand luggage onto a connecting flight from a European airport.

** Lufthansa accepts no liability for items which passengers are not permitted to carry in hand luggage. For items carried in checked-in luggage, the usual terms and conditions of liability apply.

sweat & scary

Sunday the sun was shining. The whole city was running the Marathon. I headed down to Giulia and Alessio to help putting a cupboard together in exchange for a big smile and an Italian lunch – yes, you guessed right - some kind of pasta.

I am getting fed up being fat. My favourite T-shirts do not fit any more. It is horrible. I will have to keep doing more fitness. After yesterday’s 1000 calories and happiness afterwards this should not be so hard though. So anyway – I ended up in the XL-section of my shelf and chose a grey T-shirt with two cartoon squirrels on it. One of them has a scarf cowboy-like covering his lower face and holds a gun towards another squirrel having no choice but to raise his hands high above his head holding a chestnut. I wore this T-shirt already a couple of times so I didn’t think anything ...Twenty minutes later I was sitting in the S-Bahn – which smelt like sweat as could be expected on a day where an average passenger has been running 16.7 kms and was on his / her way home to take a shower. An American family with three children got in. The little girl must have been around four years old and the two older boys probably around the age of 7-8. They sat down next to me into a 4-chair cell and started the usual fight for the window seat. I mean the children of course …

After a while they settled down and the boy opposite to me next to the window (yes, I got also a window seat, ha!) started to become comfortable with the situation. He was looking at me first and smiled. Then his look went down to my T-shirt. I started to become nervous at this moment as I became aware of the cartoon on my chest. The next 30 seconds were really funny and it is a pity that I have not been carrying a hidden camera inside my eyes so I could record it and show you the face of the boy. A big smile went into a sudden shock when he realized what was going on between the squirrels. And I felt awful. I thought of the innocent world I grew up and in and the world today’s children grow up in. I don’t know what effect this had on the boy but I must admit that I felt bad afterwards. I am not sure if this will change my clothing habits, we will see ...

Anyway – this reminds me of a series of photographs made by Jill Greenberg a while ago that resulted in a lot of discussions around the world. She showed little kids a candy and when they went for it, she snatched it away – forcing a reflexive crying which she then photographed. The pictures show an amazing intensity. Click here to see what I mean.

Roberto Saviano

Just read the story on this guy Roberto Saviano on the frankfurtpig blog. I was first a bit puzzled as the petition page is only in Italian so I went further and started searching the net. It turns out there is a lot of coverage - I found this article in the Belfast Telegraph the most interesting, but there are tons of more articles - for example in the International Edition of the Spiegel.

However the most shocking thing is, the guy is only 28! And he cannot go out for a drink or enjoy reading the newspaper or act as a free person like everyone else. If I were 28 and could not walk around freely, I don't know what I would do.

I have signed the petition on the website, if you want to also, go to http://www.sosteniamosaviano.net - if you do not speak perfect Italian like me, you can try reading the automatically translated version

Go Andrea!!!

Last weeks Go-Karting was so much fun that we decided to repeat the event at the go-kart tracks of Flörsheim. Near the airport it was very quiet again, but this time nobody else was there. So we had the whole place for us. We went for a full 30 minutes this time and decided for the red overalls due to our past experience with the shitty white ones. Andrea and myself chose wisely as we went for the Ferraris in the end - here we are climbing the stairs to stardom after our 30 minutes on the tracks ...



But let's start from the beginning. After yesterday's unbelievably great party at Paul’s place and the Chill out session in the Goldfish I went to bed pretty late (or early you might say - hihihi).

Not late though to watch Popstars on Pro7 in the morning - it was a very tragic episode as three pairs of girls had to perform against each other and especially the one that can break dance was devastated to be thrown out so in the end they kept her there. Ooooh - this is getting interesting. I must say, that I do not see the remaining girls being band material (except the Scarlett Johansson type, but in her case I am not sure about the singing qualities) - but the show is great.

Anyway - so after doing my laundry (I can stop being creative and optimize the hours wearing socks as I have fresh ones now!!!) we met for brunch in Harvey’s, where they have terrible food but apparently great breakfast. After breakfast we went to the go-karting place with Jack's great new family car and had a blast.

Eugenio almost hit the guy trying to stop us halfway to properly start the race, Andrea went an extra round and got himself and the car totally dirty by going through the biggest mud hole around the place. I wonder how my back will hurt this time ...

To see all the pics, click on the dirty car of Andrea:

Iceland - here i come!!!!

Just booked my ticket via icelandair - flying on the 10. November, coming back on the 13. november. I hope i will see someting similar to the picture :-)

Shock Quiz

the world changed today. And there is no going back. One of the following statements became true and it shocked us all:

• monkeys fell from the sky
• The water in the Main turned into wine
• Angela Merkel wore a tutu
• we celebrated Paul's housewarming party
• The Grüne Sauce became blue

Check out PeyWay for a hint ...

the devil wears prada and cooks pasta

the day started with a brunch from twelve to three. Yara, Giulia and Alessio were my guests in my slightly clean flat. A trip to ikea afterwards resulted in a red bathrobe, a "Pasta-Einsatz" and two small lamps for the bed, which I have been hunting for for months. Kino in the evening - I really liked the movie as it totally reminded me of Paris.

new pigs on the blog

Newsflash! Alba has joined the wonderful world of blogging!

With raunchy pictures of cheap magazines with a typical italian half-naked lady, a guy with two chicks in a hot tub and some pig torture (physical by a rope around the neck and psychological via the red dress) it is a pretty cool represantation of the internet I would say.

To check for yourself, go to:

frankfurtpig.blogspot.com

keep smiling

don't go to paris if you want to keep smiling.

it hurts. so much. people in paris know how to dress. there is the one or other exception but generally people know what to wear and what not to wear in paris. waiting for my train this morning at konstablerwache this became even clearer to me as i was watching people around me. this is big time bothering me in frankfurt. brown shoes with black trousers and dark blue jackets. purple handbags with light brown jackets. very bad looking shoes. there are no limits. and i don't mean poor people that have no choice. i mean people with leather handbags and the little croc on their shirts. aaaaaah!

home sweet home

I spent my last day in France in Sarreguemines. Looking back at all the adventures when buying tickets for trains or any logistical hurdles of the last week I can I can hereby declare the Germans extremely well-organized and very efficient. I will think twice before complaining about the people behind the desks of the train stations / hotel desks – it is a catastrophe in France – I don’t know how this country can survive.

Let’s start with the Taxi from work to the train station. Now Sarreguemines is a city of 23,202 (Wikipedia). There was simply no taxi available so someone from work had to drive me to the station. Needless to say a city this side needs two of those and so I was driven to the wrong one. Arriving at the station they were unable to sell me a ticket for the train as only the machine can do that. But they could get me a ticket from Saarbrücken to Frankfurt which I however declined as I was about to miss the connection I originally wanted.
Honestly, I wasn’t really surprised. Only yesterday had I experienced something similar in Metz where I spent half an hour at the counter trying to explain them to give me a ticket for today’s trip which I printed out of the internet. Their computer did not find the trains I found on the internet – in the end they existed of course as I saw one of the trains leaving in front of my eyes. Yes, I also missed the train I wanted. And so I had to change my plans and in the end found an even quicker connection which will bring me home 11 minutes sooner!

Another funny thing happened in the Hotel in Paris when I returned from the city one evening only to find two ladies from Japan talking to the night shift about the room temperature in the rooms. They wanted to have a second blanket as the room was apparently too cold. The answer of the guy behind the desk was similar to the temperature – “No”. Not “Sorry, no” or “I am very sorry, maybe I can check if I can help you with the temperature” or anything. A simple “No”. The second question of the ladies concerned their Taxi in the morning as they ordered it for 6:15 and wanted to change it to 7 when they realized that there is no breakfast served until 6:30. The same answer here “No, I cannot change the Taxi, sorry” – oh, and I cannot do anything about the breakfast only. Germany is not a Service-Wüste at all!

To close the past week in France with something nice here are the instructions on taking the escalators in the Louvre:



Don’t take your baby with the trolley. Take it out and hold his / her hand. No poodles allowed – especially not the ones with a shaved tail with the pom-pom at the end. Also please take off your boots and if this is too much for you just stop and turn back!

Ps: I am currently listening to a CD I purchased in Paris called Monsieur Gainsbourg revisited - the songs of Serge Gainsbourg revisited by some of today’s most influential artists containing Franz Ferdinand, Jane Birkin, Placebo, Jarvis Cocker, Portishead, Michael Stipe, Tricky, etc. (I don’t know where to stop copying the names from the cover.) Grooooooovy baaaaaby.

Me so tired

I am very tired today so no long stories. Took the train to Metz from Paris – checked in at the Ibis Hotel and went to see the Cathedral in the city. Turned out Marc Chagall painted some of the windows. Here are the pictures.



Ps: watched Criminal Minds on SAT1 – they mentioned a pretty cool quote from Albert Einstein: Eine Frage raubt mir den Verstand: Bin ich verrückt oder alle anderen im land?

Pret - a - Porter & Nuit Blanche

I started the day like every other Saturday – watching TV ;-) Same shit, different language. It was really hard to get out of my bed but in the end I managed to leave the hotel at around 11 and headed straight to Sacre Coeur. I don’t know if it’s just me or India left a scar but I was so angry at the guys at the stairs greeting me friendly trying to tie some strings around my finger and asking me where I was from and what my name was. Only after telling the guy who already started to make an armband around my fingers that I will not buy whatever he was making did he let go.

I climbed the stairs, went inside, sat on the stairs, walked around the back, did what people do when they are at this place. It was pretty cool and reminded me a bit of the atmosphere at the Spanish stairs in Rome – but that place was cooler. All around the church there were all kinds of small tents selling some regional food and other stuff. I bought three differently spiced salts made via a very traditional collection method - after tasting all of them.



Next on Estelle’s list of must-sees of Paris was Le Bon Marche which was a more-or-less short walk away. It turned out to be a pretty exclusive shopping centre with a very cool exhibition on the top floor. I didn’t buy anything but took some photos and watched a short video in the exhibition on British humour – a movie called “Little Britain” – by Steve Bendelack (my humble British audience will be probably saying something around “that shite?”) I need to check for it on eBay as it was hilarious. There were also many pieces of jewellery presented by little lady sculptures about 20 cm high.



Next was the Jardin du Luxembourg which was extremely relaxing. I almost fell asleep just lying there on one of the chairs so I decided to head home to get some sleep to be ready for the city in the evening. I wanted to take my by this time usual tour via the city when I saw hundreds of people around the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux Arts. It turned out to be a proper fashion show! So instead of walking home I joined the photographers at taking a picture of every celebrity arriving for the next hour. I shot around three hundred pictures of people arriving and leaving an hour later. Looking back at the pictures I still have some potential around focusing with the camera.



I had no idea who the people were – some of them were literally swarmed by all the photographers, some had bodyguards and some were totally ignored. I got totally excited – being “Sensationsgeil” as I am normally I felt great being able to take a picture of all these people. How cool it is to be in the city of Fashion and witness a fashion show! Plus the coolest thing happened as most of the guests left the place and the security people decided to also leave.

I went inside, looked around and met Jean – Paul Gaultier!!!! How cool. To quote Cartman from South Park: “Hey Everybody – I saw the Terrence and Phillip movie? Who wants to touch me? I said who wants to touch me?!??”



I arrived home after 8 and decided to rest a bit. I saw a poster during the week that there is some event called Nuit Blanche in the Notre Dame and they have some kind of show with music at midnight so I prepared to go back to town for just that. I was totally tired because of too much walking so it took me a while to get ready and I also decided to leave the camera at home and just enjoy the show this time.

What a mistake! The Nuit Blanche did not only concern the Notre Dame but it meant that all around town there were hundreds of happenings - sound installations, movies, moving things, all kinds of artistic things basically. As I was walking around the City Hall watching an interview with the organisers I met some people from South Tirol and their Australian friend Rob. Diana moved to Paris a while ago and her sister Christine came over for the weekend from Vienna. Rob works in London and also came over for the weekend to visit Christine. Talking to Christine about Vienna really made me totally home sick, which reminds me that I need to go visit my parents soon!

Anyway – back to the Nuit Blanche (white night). First we tried going into the City Hall but backed off after realizing the hour long queue in front of it. So we headed for an old church towards the Centre Pompidou which was filled with great red light and some bubbles flying around. I cursed so badly for not taking my camera with me and I hope Christine will send me her pictures so I can include them here. There were some short movies in front of the Centre Pompidou and we decided to take the Metro to the Paris Bercy and check out an installation concerning some cats about bulimia and the Bibliotheque Nationale de France. We took the line 14, which goes totally automatically and is the express line among the Metro lines and so arrived there in only 10 minutes. Besides the installation around the cats there was a very cool sound installation in the area in front of the stadium. Around 30 microphones and a video installation of a mouth singing songs together created the coolest Karaoke I participated at. Basically it was mass karaoke where everybody could join in on singing famous songs and it was coooool.

The Bibliotheque was also pretty amazing – even without the sound installation it is an eye-sight. The woods in the middle were floated with fog and some blue and red light. A ladder arose out of the woods in between the buildings as high as the four book-like buildings of the library leading into the sky – the whole thing in connection with classical music and two huge waving flashlights was very enlightening. After being mesmerised for about an hour we headed down to the riverside to a trendy place called La Guinguette Pirate and had some wine. To my biggest surprise they were serving Hungarian Goulash!!! Diana told me this place was buzzing in the summer and I could imagine living here must be very nice. There was also a swimming pool boat – unfortunately the event there required the visitors to get into the water, which we didn’t do for obvious reasons.

We spent the rest of the night walking around the city and in the end said goodbye at Saint-Lazare. I took the night bus N24 to the Champs Elysées to check out some more stuff there and saw some thirty snow bears! It took me another 30 minutes to find a taxi to take me home, which was an adventure on its own as the Taxi driver did not find my hotel and left me in a garage under another hotel nearby. I fell into bed at 5:30 in the morning after a very long day in Paris.

I love this city!!!

Sex in Paris

Ok, ok, calm down people – nothing happened in Paris. I was just thinking of a title for today’s story and looking at the pictures my twisted little mind came up with this as there are lots of photos of the Grande Arche de La Défense followed by a lots of photos of the Eiffel tower. So my sick little mind came up with the truly amazing title for this day – after all sex sells - (I don’t want to hear what a certain Mr. Freud would say about me – I know it by now anyway ...)

So as I moved into a cheaper hotel for the weekend, I rolled my stuff to the Novotel at the La Défense in the morning, went to work in Poissy and came back after work to head for the city. I met Bea on the way back from the office – she is moving to Poissy soon from Rakona plant. She works for QA and we had a nice chat in the train to Paris. As she wanted to go to Disneyland on Saturday, we said goodbye and not see you tomorrow ...

As I had to change trains in La Défense, I walked the last station and took hundreds of photos of the modern buildings of all the buildings around La Défense.

I got to the hotel just before the rain came down. I checked in and honestly didn’t feel like going out any more after the long week. So I decided to take the metro this time straight to the Eiffel tower and not walk around too much. I got off at the Trocadéro station (Thanks, Bea for the tip!!!) and shot another thousand photos. I also spent 11 Euros to get up onto the top floor – which was actually pretty amazing – but also extremely windy and cold. I rediscovered the ISO 1600 setting on my camera which enabled some pretty cool pictures which the natural lighting of the tower.



Some of the shots remind me of the last Alien movie – here is one – click on it for more:

Champs Elysées and more

Another day working at yet another location. As I was working until 9 in the evening I did not have too much time afterwards. Also a funny thing happened. I stayed longer than all my colleagues and when I wanted to leave at 9, I was trapped. The door of the building was closed; I could not call the reception as the phone in the conference room nearby did not work. So I was hectically turning rounds trying to find someone in the office – no success. After about 10 minutes I bumped into a security guy, who - instead of shouting at me - simply helped me out of the building. But only after a 5 minute pantomime session as he did not speak French and my French vocabulary relating to getting outside the building (Accueil & Auxerre) failed miserably. So I followed him hoping he understood where I wanted to go. As we took a route via the underground labyrinth of the site some weird movies flashed in front of my eyes – walking through many corridors I was VERY relived as we ended up at reception where I gladly gave back my visitors badge and left the building. The funny thing was that about an hour later I bumped into the same guy in the underground on my way home. C’est Creeeeepy ...

I was so relieved that I got out of the building that I walked many blocks already when I realised I wanted to take the underground home – and it was a lucky miss as I ended up at the Arc De Triomphe and so only a short walk on the Champs Elysées and an hour later did I go back home.

More than the Mona Lisa

Great. I just discovered that I left my charger for my mobile phone in Frankfurt. How cool. Anyway – today I took the train to a small town called Sens for a day. Great experience – except they did not accept my Rail Plus card for 25% price reduction. As I finally got some time to check the internet for some of the things I wanted to see I discovered the Louvre opened longer on Wednesdays and Fridays. So after work I headed for it.

I took my usual route via Rue de Rennes, Rue Bonaparte down to the river and crossed the Passerelle des Arts to the Louvre. First walked around the area outside; later only did I go inside. 6 Euros for 2 hours is OK I would say – I expected it to be more expensive if I am honest.

I could not take photos of the Mona Lisa or the famous long gallery around it as it was forbidden in that area. They have photos of all these pieces of arts on their website.

I also took a lot of photos of the roman sculptures made by various artists among others someone called Antonio Canova and Antonio Corradini. I have rarely seen so fantastic and beautiful marble art. I spent around half an hour sitting there and looking at these marvellous sculptures. Here is a photo of my favourite one – click on the image to see more:



After the exhibition I took some obligatory photos of the pyramid outside Louvre and walked home.

The heart of Paris

I have not celebrated United Germany this year. My train arrived at 6:58 in Paris l’est train station where I took the underground to Madeleine to go to work. I guess I know now why France is a young city. Old people simply move to the countryside or die as there are no escalators or elevators in the underground. I don’t know how many stairs I had to take while changing trains twice – having a rolling piece of heavy luggage it wasn’t the best trip I had.

In the end I arrived at around 7:30 at the Rue Godot de Mauroy in heavy rain – only to be greeted by the cleaning lady as there was no one else there. French people seem to be taking life easier and go to work later I guess. So I ended up having a nice breakfast at a nearby place. Sorry to say that my assimilation has not started at this point as I enjoyed a non-French breakfast consisting of an omelette with bacon and cheese, some toast and marmalade, an orange juice and some cold milk on the side. It was excellent nevertheless. And to round it up, I read through my first French lesson (Salut, Je m’appelle Gabor, Bon jour, Bon Soir, …)

Working at this location totally reminded me of working in Vienna in the good old days. The office is in the heart of town, just a jump away from the Place Vendome, the Gucci store, Ritz, etc. We had some sandwiches from a nearby store for lunch – a very cool day all in all.

After work I took the metro to the hotel – this time my trip got optimized to minimize the number of changes to avoid the stair climbing exercises in the underground. The hotel was great, on the Rue de Rennes, not exactly central, but I could walk down to the city in about 45 minutes, which I actually did. I went to the Notre Dame and walked around for a while in the city discovering some nice places like the Rue Saint-André des Arts with small artistic and weird shops, the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux Arts in the Rue Bonaparte and the Shakespeare and Company book store.


Check out the pictures for some more impressions (among others a frog restaurant – hmm, I wonder if they serve frog legs inside and a venting machine for books ...)

Couchette to Paris

To save some money and time I chose to go to Paris by night train. So I boarded the train at 22:50 in Frankfurt – expected arrival in Paris at 6 o’clock the following morning.

I guess I will appreciate the CityNightLine trains a bit more from now on. No bed cover sheet, no little fence to stop me from falling down from the top bed. The conductor only speaking French – all in all a strange starter for my tour-de-France this week. Strangely enough – I slept like a baby, arrived in Paris 10 minutes before schedule – amazing!

pink for october

in case you are wondering about the pink background color - I like this idea. read on ...

Dinner with Kasturi and Paritosh

Mareile and I returned from Bielefeld just in time to be invited for dinner to Kasturi and Paritosh - a wonderful change to the happy people at the wedding. At least for some time they were not smiling - a perfect change ... thanks!!!