Alex was kind enough to lend me his tripod as he went on holidays to Boston. I didn’t really get a chance to use it, although I tried braving the minus 5 degrees weather to take some pictures of the impressive looking buildings around Alexanderplatz.
My favourite was this one above of the TV tower brightly glowing in the shroud of mist.
I had a little trouble sleeping on Friday night and being slightly restless decided to have a look at what was going on around Berlin. Looking up Berlin’s famous warehouse club, Berghain, I saw that German House DJ, Ian Pooley was playing at set at their Panorama Bar that morning (3am). I did a bit more reading about Berghain, hearing about the picky doormen, and the potential one hour queueing, something I didn’t really need on a cold winter’s night. Spurred on by the fact that Berlin’s underground operates 24 hours and I wasn’t getting any sleep, I decided to head out.
My trick was to look as least touristy as possible. Shiny shoes are a no go, and I threw on my most casual/alternative clothes. This wasn’t going to be a polished club like some of the ones you might find yourself in London. Fortunately I didn’t have to worry and it wasn’t long before I paid my EUR10 entrance.
Photos of the place inside are not tolerated whatsoever. Although I could use my phone inside (checking the time, etc) I’d read stories about people trying to take photos and then being grabbed and thrown out. On the Friday night, Berghain pretty much only hosts the Panorama Bar with a dance floor and bar on the top floor of the warehouse looking out. The crowd was great – a mix of alternative, hip and people just there to enjoy themselves. There wasn’t any of the pretentious crowds and everyone seemed very friendly. The sound system was perfect – not too loud to deafen you but loud enough to bring everyone into a good mood. I left the place shortly after Ian Pooley finished his set at about 6am and found myself collapsing into bed just before 7. Berlin is definitely starting to grow on me as a place to live and work.
This weekend literally flew by as I returned to London only to pack a backpack before flying out again to Madrid, what I thought was going to be an escape from the cold of the other countries. What I failed to realise, however was how high up the city was and being away from the coastal area, less temperate than some other parts of Spain.
Though not exactly warm, with sub zero temperatures at night, at least the days proved sunny. Much better than what London had to offer and the light snowfall in Berlin. What immediately struck me about Madrid was how closely packed everything was together. A short metro ride drops you off from the airport to the city centre for only €2 and from there, most of the central sights are easy to see. With plenty of museums and various alleyways, I actually enjoyed wandering around the slightly cold, windy streets where the residents went to great lengths to paint parts of their buildings with highly intriguing murals. Some, like the one below a little bit more striking than others.
Reminding me very much Barcelona’s famous Boqueria Market, Madrid has its own version called Mercado De San Miguel. This version focused less on the fresh market produce choosing to offer small plates and glasses of wine and beer to suit the casual and heavy social eating by the locals. I remember coming here quite late (almost midnight) and this place was entirely packed out.
Spain doesn’t tend to be particularly vegetarian friendly and Madrid is no exception. In fact, Madrid in particular seemed to have a huge fascination with ham (Jamon) with many stores like the one below serving many different types of cuts.
Shop after shop seemed to have the Jamon in their names.
One even seemed to be a chain of restaurants, translated as “Museum of Jamon” though I hope they served much fresher versions.
There’s plenty of things to do in Madrid, although this weekend turned out to be much more relaxing as I’m hoping to return later this year for a conference.
The people are friendly, the lifestyle very relaxing and best of all the food and drink is amazing. Did I mention that their a glass of their wine was consistently cheaper than their cerveza (beer) and all very good? What’s more not to like.
What’s this on the table? An envelope?
For me?
Wow. A nice, handwritten note welcoming back to the Casa Camper. It’s the little things in life that delight you.
I’m totally sold on this hotel now, and would definitely go stay at their Barcelona outpost. I also can’t wait to try their restaurant, Dos Palillos.
Work put us in the Casa Camper to stay and I have to say it’s one of the nicest hotels I’ve stayed in for work. Not only is it walking distance to our client but it has lots of things going for it including its lovely design aesthetics when you walk into the lobby, a comfortable stretchy lounge and chair in addition to the bed although the way to a rainwater showerhead.
Breakfast is included in the rate, as is free wi-fi and the breakfast room turns into a comfortable breakout room serving great food the rest of the time.
This last touch makes a big difference when travelling to work and without a proper apartment to prepare light meals. Sandwiches, soup, salads and breads as well as all types of soda, fruit juices and coffee always on tap. Everything comes in designer-small portions but enough to make perfect alternatives to the heavier meals we tend to when eating out.
I’ve been sent to Berlin for work and although not wanting to stay here long term, am trying to make the most of it. My impressions of Berlin are already different from my last experience here, and the city is definitely much more liveable than I thought. I think travelling to a city for work and spending a weekend there gives you a good idea about what it feels like to live as a local (although all areas differ).
The city is much more developed than I remember. It’s still very dark. Berlin’s wide streets appear dimly lit and surrounded by buildings often eerily filled with pitch black windows. The city’s preference for darkness completely misrepresents the lifestyle of the people, with many affordable cafes, bars and restaurants very popular and all very high quality. On the short week we’ve been here, it feels even more diverse than what London has to offer.
Weather has been kind and my new found hobby for running has helped me see more than I otherwise would have, running from my hotel down to the Brandenburg Tor, and on around the famous Tiergarten although most non-concrete paths either still icy or extremely muddy.
We’ve made an effort to try to go to various parts of the city, including a visit to Kreuzberg and we’re working in an area that seems to have a lot of things going for it.
My holiday in New York was pretty relaxed. I didn’t schedule too much because I was busy writing my chapters for a book I’m contributing to. I did get a chance to see the 3D Imax version of TRON: Legacy. I’d read some of the reviews from a number of people, “It’s a terrible movie” or “I can’t believe how they ruined the storyline”, or the best one yet, “What a fantastic music clip though a poor movie”. With reviews like that, I figured it’d be best to see it whilst on the big screen and with great audio at the same time, so off I went to see Tron on the big screen.
Just like in Avatar, the 3D effects strike you from the start, with a flying in movement that literally makes you feel like you’re floating through the air. After a while you adjust and the 3D effects start to become less noticeable.
Even though this latest incarnation apparently “ruined the original storyline”, I kind of liked the movie for what it was. The first fifteen minutes does a good job at creating excitement and wonder.
I had to really question the whole motorcycle chase scene and the breaking into the company but the “broken childhood” of the main character and how those skills are later put to use make a whole lot of sense. It really wouldn’t have been quite the same.
I also appreciated the use of a termail and the “kill -9” process by one of the sideline characters that doesn’t attempt to over-glamourise the techie side to it.
As expected, the movie spends most of its time in the “digital world”, where the club-like UV effects make their most impact on the dark backgrounds and where all the great action scenes come to life. Despite how easily the whole movie could have centred around the action fight scenes created by the light-cycles, I think they did a good job of the cool factor without over-doing it. In fact, I think this underuse made the point very well.
What really stood out for me was the fantastic soundtrack instrumented by French DJs, Daft Punk. Dark, moving, and bass-thumping tracks for once adding that extra dimension to feeling like you were really part of a club. It’d be nice to think that a digital world could be as club-like as they made it out to be 🙂
This isn’t a movie that will win any awards. I think it’s an ambitious project to try to replicate something that already exists. In fact, I remember watching the original as such a young kid I remember nothing to compare it to other than the name, so for me it works.
As far as entertainment it works for me. The story doesn’t take any unexpected twists but you know what? That’s fine with me.
Time to put together the yearly review, first inspired by the great posts Ben and Gerrod posted on their own websites many a year ago.
To put last year into a single word: “Quick”. No doubt you can tell that from the lack of updates, for which I’m terribly sorry for. I can’t say that this year will be any different, but at least it hasn’t been all the same. On to the more detailed version.
Travel
Although it didn’t feel like I travelled as much as I had in previous years, looking back at my calendar, it surprised me just how much I had done. I started the year off mainly in London as I commuted back and forth between Cambridge.
My first “trip” was out to Oxford where I was presenting at a work conference. The whole ash cloud occurred, stranding many of the International presenters and participants and got me a bit worried for my next overseas trip.
This trip, my first big trip saw me head back home to Australia for the first time in several years. Like I had on many previous trips, I stopped over in a country, this time in Thailand, Bangkok where I enjoyed the hot and humid environment. Despite slopping on plenty of sunscreen, my paltry pale skinned, primed by the (lack of) British sun lead to me sunburn by the time I got back to Australia where I spent some time in Brisbane, the Gold Coast before heading to a week of work in Melbourne. The main reason for going back was actually Marc and Amanda’s wedding and it was great to see the lovely couple I’ve known since University finally tie the knot.
Although time wise, three and a bit years seems like a long time, I’m still comforted by how familiar all of Australia is. I think I enjoyed Melbourne the best, lifestyle wise and should I return to Australia permanently, that’d be one place I’d first consider moving.
Dually affected by someone’s kidney bursting on the plane and the second eruption of ash, my return journey took a detour to Dubai where I got to see how fast things had changed in just five years since I first visited.
Just after getting back I was soon off to Trondheim to spend a lovely 24 hours of sunlight in summer with plenty of Norwegians at XP2010 and kick back for a weekend to relax. Thanks to another conference invite, I found myself in Paris in June where the extreme heat took some getting used to whilst being clothed in much more formal attire (these French people take conferences quite seriously!)
July saw me head to Liverpool where I needed to change my visa to Indefinite Leave to Remain (i.e. permanent residency) in the UK. I hadn’t planned much other travel until after that because I didn’t want any complications if I had troubles with the application. Fortunately it went through with no problems.
August saw a celebratory last-minute trip organised to Cologne as well as returning to Marlow for a long country walk with Kath before she departed the UK. I returned to Copenhagen in September when my sister managed to finally get a reservation with the World’s Number 1 Restaurant according to San Pellegrino, Noma before my parents arrived in London. I took another short trip to Amsterdam whilst they visited Paris and then met up with them in Rome. I visited Manchester for a gig in October before another unplanned trip with a friend to Paris.
November saw me return to Copenhagen where my real destination was Malmo for Oredev although I spent another weekend in Copenhagen to hit a few more of their fine-dining venues. The year rounded off with a trip to New York for Christmas and New Year.
Music
My rate of seeing bands seemed to slightly decrease, and this year I ended up seeing Canadian band, The Japandroids, Ben Harper & Pearl Jam at Hyde Park Calling, Aussie band Eskimo Joe, chilled out singer, Jack Johnson and Interpol towards the end of the year.
Health
Most of my work this year centred on being in London and it meant that I could take care of myself just that little bit better. I kept pretty well to my resolution to eat two full days vegetarian. In fact, I started an almost monthly vegetarian outing with a number of friends to explore the vegetarian delights of London (of which there are many).
I spent about the same amount of the time in the gym this year, but my newest activity for the year was running. Most people will know I have very flat feet. In fact, I still remember a Brisbane podiatrist’s comment about my feet along the lines of, “You’ve got the flattest feet I’ve ever seen.” Flattering! Remembering Suzanne’s advice about building up running, I started trying to build it up during the much warmer summer months and even kept a simple paper log of each of those runs.
In 2009 we had some very nice green parklands in Copenhagen to run around and unfortunately Clerkenwell doesn’t have easy access to a green park long enough to run around. My regular running route is therefore, literally pounding the pavement, along the Thames. I attempted running mostly in the mornings to watch the run gloriously rise around the famous London landmarks like Big Ben and the London Eye however I think most of my runs ended up being evening ones because of the timing with work. Nevertheless, I’m pretty happy with where I got to regularly running 16k per run several times a week. My running log from July tracks me running approximately 600km for the year!
This helped me also lose a fair amount of weight (some of which all the fine dining in New York has reversed) and I’ve been the lightest I’ve ever been. I feel better for it too.
Food
Although I believe I ate out less this year, this was certainly the year of fine dining eating out. Mostly out of opportunity than seeking it, I dined at the following San Pellegrino’s Top 50 restaurants in the world (numbers following according to their 2010 list). #1 Noma (Copenhagen), #26 Momofuku Ssam (New York), #45 WD-50 (New York), and #49 Hibiscus (London) out of San Pellegrino’s Top 50 restaurants in the world. In addition to these, I ate at many other Michelin-starred restaurants including Era Ora (Copenhagen), Tom Aikens (London) twice, Gramercy Tavern (New York), Midsummer House (Cambridge), Chez Bruce (London) and the Hand and Flowers (Marlow).
I found myself cooking more, going to buy groceries from the market and supporting local and British producers of food.
Work
Work kept me much closer to London this year which I was very grateful for. Most long travel centred around conferences which I’m more than happy to do as it’s a great place to share and take on new ideas, both feeling energised and drained by new ideas and through refining existing ones. I’ll post more of this in greater detail when I do my working anniversary blog in April.