#you uncultured schwein

[patriciavetinari]

the austrians really went and 'invented' a chocolate cake so dry it's near inedible without side of whipped cream and a cup of coffee, and rather than take an L and improve the recipe just went on and turned up their noses and said 'sweaty it's SUPPOSED to be like this that's the specialité of ours you uncultured schwein' and now feed tourists a shitty dry shoe sole with apricot jam for exorbitant amounts of money

[benjaminsblog]

29 Jan 2020 - Berlin 

I got up early(ish) and set off for some exploring of the German capital; I have been here once before with my graphic design posse, but it was a fleeting visit, and one that didn’t spend a whole lot of time in Berlin itself. So I was out the door before 10 to right that wrong!

I got quickly connected to Berlin’s version of a Boris bike - Donkey Republic - not only is the name a-mule-sing, but the colour scheme is right up my str-ass-e (that was funny and clever, dammit!). I headed off an easterly direction, and whizzed by a ton of stuff, with mixed levels of success; Places like Richardplatz and Insel der Jugend (Island of Youth) both struck me as places that would be much more impressive with people and festivities going on - they seemed a little ghost-town-y to me, and while the weather was dry, it was a bit bleak.

On the way to the Island I took a detour through a small park, and I’m glad I did, because I found possibly the most impressive thing I saw all day - a memorial to Soviet soldiers who died in Berlin during WWII. It is a vast area, both beautiful and poignant with it; the statue above stands at the far end of a lengthy strip lined with weeping birches and various sculptures/engravings. I read the accompanying billboards, which have English, Russian and German translations for visitors; the one I understood was pretty blunt in places about the memorial and the events that it commemorates, which made me wonder how similar the other versions - particularly the German one - were.

I completed my large circuit, taking in the East Side Gallery (the longest remaining strip of the Berlin Wall), Mercedes Benz Arena, and the smallest building with the nerve to call itself a cathedral I’ve ever seen. I don’t feel like it was a particularly satisfying ticked-off-the-list jaunt, but I covered a lot of ground and got out-and-about on day one, so I call that a win. 

After all that gallivanting, I actually did some work in the evening! I took my place for my first shift of snooker, featuring Judd Trump v Noppon Saengkham. Trump is world no.1 and snooker’s current darling, whereas all I could have told you about Mr S prior to tonight is that he hails from Thailand! Having said that, he’s currently world no.33, so he’s no slouch. Having said that, he played pretty poorly, and Trump took full advantage to be home-and-hosed before 22:00! I’m sure this job has some downsides, but I’m still not sure what they are...