Dagies Blog

… brings up last year’s shit! Love letters! New Years firecrackers! Cigarette buds!

Longing for new ones 😉

Subwaystation Moritzplatz today: An ATM with a pair of shoes neatly deposited in front. Maybe it’s not an ATM, maybe it’s a beam machine, a time machine, a summer machine, a travelator … something to escape with and leave shoes behind …

Winter continues, snow never ends, the longing for warmth and colors is immense.

Bottles, colors, sunbeams in my hallway.

For the first time in maaany years I (I! The bike rider!) gave up and bought me a public transport ticket for February since it doesn’t look like winter’s going to end or tricky little ice hills on the bike lanes are going to melt. So I travel all through Berlins veins now, stopping at intersections, watching people … Fehrbelliner Platz is a croos station and it has a yummy mediterranean snack shop which I highly recommend – try a Panino Italiano for only 2 €: toasted bread with rucola (arugola), dried tomatoes and mozzarella inside! Mmh!

Later in a drugstore I found shimmering hope, smiling Easter bunnies, spring napkins, newborn colorful eggs, yippieh:

I was so stupid to drop my beautiful Lumix photocamera on New Years Eve, I was not even drunk, just squirrelly, careless. Broken. Release button no reaction, no nothing.
I knew it would be very expensive to have it repaired IF it had a chance … so today I sighed and went to Foto Braune, a shop in Berlin-Kreuzberg/Neukölln (Karl-Marx-Str. 7) specialized on photo and film (super8!), repairs, second hand etc.
And then the miracle happened … me: „I dropped my Lumix, help!“ – Braune-man laid his hand on it, checked it, said: „young woman, it’s healed, it’s ok!“ … and it was!
So here I bow down, flicker squirrellily with my wings and say THANK YOU!

I met my friends Dayna and Mountainman-Gert tonight at Madonna (Wiener Str. 22), a place that seems to exist like forever – my first wine universe in the eighties and my last in the fourties to come for sure. Wednesday! Live music! Dota die Kleingeldprinzessin oder so … sehr sehr schöne 1-Frau-1-Gitarre-Musik!! Unfortunately I dropped my camera on New Years Eve so I can’t provide you with good pictures, only awful mobile phone pictures like this on my way back home through the virgin snow:

For a short moment I caught THE Berlin glimpse: island. Winter. Grumpy but possible.
Explain? Almost impossible …

… means something like Mass Demonstration Against The Situation or something wishy-washy-ish …
Seen on a bench at a bus stop. The thing on the right is a plastic bag containing a banana peel. The stain on the left … nobody wants to know what it is.
I was waiting for the bus close before my nose fell off, so cold, so freezing … mass demonstration against cold, pro banana. Verhäl-tnisse. Cool word. Tnisse! Shiver! Atchooo! Bless you! Gesundheit!

It’s only about 3.500 kms – from a midday plunge in the ocean to a midnight landing in deep ice and snow!

We almost missed our flight, got confused by weird announcings on the departure board (delayed flight because France is on strike, at least air-wise) but thanks to Airberlin’s spontaneity and the Captain who decided to wait for 2 desperately running chicas (if I got it right his name is Bernd Wedekind and I say Thank You again here to you!!) – well, I’m back in ice.

Who cares … got a couple of yellow butterflies inside >>> 2yellowbutterflies.MOV

Dear Anaga Mountains … if you were on Facebook, I would ask you to be my friend.

Writing this, I’m still thrilled by the beauty of the most breathtaking mountains of Tenerife … again we wandered through barrancos and alongside steep sides, stone walls, up and down small goat paths and wider men and women paths.

Meeting butterflies, yellow flower fields, rarely another hiker thanks god, goat milkmen, dripping water falls, lazy doves sitting on a wire staring down 300 meters into the Atlantic, having a perfect lunch break at the only bar in Afur, a tiny town: fresh goat cheese and fresh baked bread and a glass of milk coffee.

Bellezza!

anoher bellezza is having an ice cold Dorada beer after a 9 hours hiking trip, sweating like camels, happy like doves on a wire!!

To be continued … here’s a trip on a small path: >>> enger-pfad.mov

… is one of the oldest villages of the island of Tenerife. I love the name. We hit the road again, crawling barrancos, following goat paths almost indetectible, met Heidis Wandergruppe (an organized group of hikers), said hello and no thank you, we are antisocial today, won’t join you, but thanks, see you again at the Guagua stop!

So we fell into a kind of time and space twister, a weird feeling that, knowing that the last Guagua of the day will leave in 3 hours and we would have to climb over unknown Barrancos (Heidi promised it would be possible in 2 hours time) – seeing green mountain sides far or close, not sure, irreal blue ocean, high glittering clear sky, hearing echoes of chicken and a single bird and nothing really nothing else … well, we made it in time and had one of the most beautiful hiking experiences of our lives.

Gesine filmed the exploring of small private paths of Taganana starring half of the animal inhabitants —> taganana1.MOV

I’ve always known … rainbows begin in the ocean!!

… and a good place to end is La Carta (Calle San Felipe 53; www.promocanarias.com/lacarta) – we had Tenerife White Wine and Salad tonight and it matched just perfect with our salted sunsoaked skin.

… a toilet. I don’t remember where it was, I think Bar Neptune. Light on, music on, light out, music continues —> klo.MOV

They have the highest vulcano mountain of Europe here – the Teide – looks like a breast with a little amount of snow or fog on top! Ten or twenty years ago there was a group of weirdos there waiting for a UFO to take them to a better planet but I don’t know if they ever got picked up or if they did it lemmingwise down the abyss or just got spirited away …

We hiked a nice circle around the breast top across huge lava fields, through magnificent stone cathedrals, frozen lava waves, moonlike sands …

… here’s a café where everyone’s waiting fort he one and only Guagua at 4 pm to take us back down again, after a long hike, steaming boots, having coffee and apple vanilla pie or like those two hardcore guys red wine …

… until we got picked up thanks god not by a UFO but by a Guagua taking us down through different vegetation levels like desert shrubs, foggy pine woods, dry smaller pine woods, down 2000 meters to level ocean with salty air and buzzing flowers again … beauty continues.

Today the two famous Wanderwomen fell in love with the Tenerife public transport system aka bus aka Guagua – a net of green buses (www.titsa.com) with brave speedy drivers inside. Took a ride from Puerto de la Cruz via Icod de los Vinos (where we admired the 2.000 years old endemic Dragon Tree with a mystic history – read below) to a small town called Erjos where we started our jungle hiking trip.

Elvises mark the route!

About 20 kms through misty laurel woods through valleys called Barrancos and cactus fields and stony paths until we finally reached a tiny quiet town called El Palmera.
Next Guagua direction home? No way, we would have to wait 2 hours so we decided to continue hiking to the next big city (Buenavista) and after some kms a friendly farmer grandpa picked us up offering us a ride to the … Guagua station downtown! Thank you Tenerife señor!!

And then again Wuwei hit us in the face with lucky coincidence: the Guagua to Puerto de la Cruz was just about to leave!
We enjoyed the whole trip so much, tried to inhale as much beauty as we could!

Ready for another coincidence? We decided that we felt like craving for potatoes, a specialty called Papas Arugadas served with green and red Mojo, so we just walked around and incidentally stumbled on a Tapas Restaurant (Arcon Tapas, www.arcon-tapas.com) where we had the Papas of our lives! Plus something colorful lovely for the eyes, the park nearby decorated with lots of Christmas lights and symbols which I feel free to interpret as New Year wishes for me and her and him and you:
Red boot is for more travelling; star is for a wish come true; green tree is for nature; the bell is for good music!

Oh yes, the Dragon Tree … an endemism! More than 20 meters high, its „blood“ is red and was used as a curative and cosmetic potion, a subject of legends and symbolisms …

Tegel Berlin Airport 8 in the morning, sun’s not yet up, sitting in a fat plane direction south, waiting fort the de-ice-machines to ride the wings and brush them with nicely stinking defrost chemicals while it snows and snows and snows and snows …

24 hours later I dive my corpse-pale feet in black glittering beach sand smiling like a Honigkuchenpferd (ginger bread horse? Does that make sense?) and the waves wave and the sun makes me feel alive again.

I’m on the isle of Tenerife!

For an internet addict like me there are not so many chances to spread my sprouts … there’s only one hotspot in the city of Puerto de la Cruz where I (and my friend Gesine) stay – McDonalds. But we soon found out: stepping outside with the laptop, across the place towards the church, 20 meters away, sitting down on a stone bench (which is still warm from the days sun mmmh) – the hot spot follows us like a shimmering duckling and we start to giggle and communicate.

2010 is close … I recommend you: wear red underwear this night and you will be lucky next year!!
Italians know and Auntie Wiki says: “Italians call New Year’s Eve Capodanno (the „head of the year“) or Notte di San Silvestro (the night of St. Silvestro). Traditionaly there are a set of rituals for the new year, such as wearing red underwear and getting rid of old or unused items by dropping them from the window.“

Slowly very slowly snow started falling and now the whole city is sleeping under a blanket of fresh white snow powder.

Happy merry lovely X-Mas to all of you readers and friends!
May horizons be open und immer ein handbreit Wasser unterm Kiel which I can’t really translate but which is an old sailors wish about having enough water under the keel. Well, bon voyage then and take care!!

I went to Gigant Photo, one of Berlins best high-end photo and framing and printing companies, to pick up my print of my Orwo-sheep (blown up from a super 8 still). I felt like baaing, travelling with my sheep, browsing on a nervous field with millions of x-mas-crazy contemporaries hunting for the ultimate gift … so I took a break at the Schwarzes Café to see my brother and his love for a relax coffee and some gigantic toasts.
The Schwarzes Café! About a quarter of a century back when I came to Berlin for the very first time it was exactly that place that I stepped in (open 24 hours) after a long hitch-hike ride. I’ll never forget: travelling with my friend, nice drivers (a white Citroën DS) who picked us up in dark Gütersloh when we were already half ready to give up after 1 hour of hopeless waiting … like in a dream the shimmering white car appeared and took us with them all the way to Berlin and spit us out at Zoologischer Garten, 2 o’clock in the morning, a warm glimmering August night, it was then when I fell in love with that city …
Anyway, nice to see that the café still exists!

Swans sleep. Sun rises. Days are getting longer from now on!!

This morning I found ice flowers on my window!
And I really didn’t feel like riding my bike through the snowy frozen city today … so I took the U-Bahn / subway … looping a song in my ears that I love so much, it’s Peace Attack by Sonic Youth. And I realized: the first 2 notes of the song are exactly the same like the Ding-Dong of the station-announcing-voice! Watch the film – and listen (it’s coming at sec 13) 🙂 bingbing.MOV

Incredible, temperature falls down to minus 15 degrees (old-Berliners experienced that and more (minus 20!!!) 23 years ago, yeehaa, Kreuzberg-feeling, fumes of brown coal all around, the typical Berlin smell of the 80es …), so my friend Nadine and me we celebrated the ritual of fighting the devil with the devil or something like that: meeting at GOLDMARIE, drinking white wine with extra ice cubes.

Cheers to all survivors!!

2 JAHRE FERIEN (2 Years On Vacation) is the title of one of the most famous German TV productions of the 70es.
I remember. I was 12 years old. They broadcasted 4 episodes before Xmas – each Sunday, each one 80 minutes long, one each Sunday in Advent. Those days there were only 2 German Broadcasting stations as far as I remember, so it was an attraction all over …

Based on a story by Jules Verne, music by Hans Posegga, directed by Walter Ulbrich and Gilles Grangier and Sergiu Nicolaescu.

That’s where I planted the seed of men that I would love: rather silent then loud. Independent. Deckschrubbend. Deck swabbing. More brilliant than aaaaaaall others. Uncombed hair. Striped shirt. To be continued. (insert some more attractions later)

Couldn’t be more sexy: a group of high educated boys, wealthy background, good hearted though; a bunchful of brave and honest sailors, among them young Dick Sand, orphan, punk, blonde, intelligent, cooool, striped shirt 😉 – the highlight (what ever became of Franz Seidenschwan??) … Two villains, clever and malicious … A treasure map … the sea and the ship … no women 😉

I guess I fell in love for the first time then.

This is how color processing chemicals look like in Germany: black – red – gold like in the flag 😉
I need colors now more than ever. Berlin winter greyness flattens everything: mood, energy, speed … So I spill a little color magic!
And my cat loves to nibble on the leftovers (super 8 film stripe) …

The floral absorption continues! (See posting from September 22.)
The cress is in bright orange flower now!
Will the bike surrender? What will happen when the nights get frosty?
To be continued!

One grey wet day in November, noon, Kottbusser Damm / Kreuzberg, finding shelter from devilishly pouring rain in a very small café whose owner braves all the shit coming from the heavens leaving some chairs and two tables outside. Luckily there’s also a canopy …
It’s simply called Coffee Corner, has no website, it’s on Kottbusser Damm # 1 opposite Ankerklause and Turkish Market, close to the bridge, half way to Kottbusser Tor or Hermannplatz.
Me and Khani we sat there drinking a fantastic cappuccino chiaro (a bit more milk than usual), contemplating raindrops and people, our backs inhaling the Italian warmth coming from inside. Mmh!
And something really sweet: you receive a bonus card with your first coffee there, 10 coffees crossed out you’ll get the 11th for free!

This is how you see things after twoandahalf days of intense film watching: (on my way back to Berlin in the train window) with spider webs around my square eyes – hoohoo spooky bloodred shadowy film hands 🙂

… and all about the sexiness of train stations … Another film festival! 3 concentrated days in a filmish bubble, I like it there, at the „Dokumentarfilm+Videofilmfestival“ and I found a new friend that hosted me for two nights, thank you Martina for your hospitality!

I banged myself with short films. Full speed ahead. The full monty. That’s what a filmmaker on a filmfestival trip usually does: check out what the others do! I enjoy it everytime and I can’t get enough until my eyes turn square. Full inspiration. Thanks festival crew for having invited me and for the good vibes that lingered around 😉

And then there’s this aftercinema party every evening, situated at the Hauptbahnhof, the more or less main station which is quite confusing because it’s not really a main station any more, it’s more like a side station, a cultural art station, check wiki … aaaaanyways, I loved and enjoyed to stroll around with my camera at three in the morning, a bit tipsy, the air full of promising winter-won’t-be-long-feelings, friendly blinking stars and a laser beam above and a peaceful feeling, god this really sounds hippiesque typing it down but … it was just good.

I’m sitting in my command center, stuck to my computer, listening to Sonic Youth, my favourite song of the day is “Hits Of Sunshine (For Alan Ginsberg)“, my eyes wandering around, scanning a little piece of paper with a picture that my little nephew drew for me: an octopus! With only 4 legs, he could not count further I guess at that time heehee. It hangs there and makes me smile. Sometimes life can be so simple and beautiful.

Geocaching time again! The well-tried gang (Bernd, David, Michi, Britta, Marlon and me) who had already solved different puzzles and found several crazily well hidden caches in the past did it again: Today: Teufelsberg (Devil’s Mountain); the former US listening station, quite vandalized by now but still absolutely fascinating to explore! Especially the cupola on top of one building. It is easy to access and when you’re inside you can hear wacky echoes, reverbs, feedbacks of yourself and the other weekend visitors … >> teufelsberg.mov

First snow in Berlin!
Fat wet flakes, quite ugly, bombing down ten minutes long and then they’re gone leaving the city even greyer and wetter. Yes, I’m in a bad mood, yes, I despise this month, yes, I miss colours and the sun!
Yes and I know how to hex my bad mood into a good mood: hold my camera up into the sky, kiss flakes, save grains and pixels 🙂