30 August, 2009 - Meandering home

August 19. Getting organized #3.

Berlin and getting organized. I must be riding the metro today, going from meeting to meeting, frantically fighting the depression that is luring in every corner of this city. It is dangerous to be here! How exciting! Dangerous, despite all the friendly people that seem to care about you because you can program their computers. ...

30 August, 2009

Berlin, getting organized, KIMA

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August 18. Getting organized #2.

Berlin and getting organized. Welcome back to my depressing transmission. It will become juicy again I promise. Just have to get on the move again. What's wrong with running anyway? And your unabilities, you better understand that they have a function too. Aren't you a bundle of functional fiber? You have to understand the function ...

30 August, 2009

Berlin, death-row, getting organized

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August 17. Getting organized #1.

Berlin and getting organized. Sometimes I think I can't have real interest in anything. As soon as I try to pursue who knows what, the history of the Roman Empire, a specific problem in quantum mechanics, Goethe's Farbenlehre, Hindi, elementary astrophysics, up-to-date fysiology of the brain, Baudelaire's poetry, an exotic class of differential equations, the ...

30 August, 2009

Berlin, getting organized, power level

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August 16. And laziness strikes first…

Good breakfast... oh those lazy days. I try to write at least a bit, but feel dumb due to the lack of many factual knowledge that I once obtained. It is in some coffee house I work and spend my day. It is the same thing I always do, in Buenos Aires, in Seoul, in ...

30 August, 2009

Berlin, lazy, nongermanic

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August 15. Back? Am I back?

Happily I arrive in Berlin, Michelsberg or something, a small village on the southern ring, from where a hypothetical train could lead me to the centre. I sleep on a park bench for several hours, step on the train that has become real dead-tired and go to my friends' place to surprise them. How warm ...

30 August, 2009

Berlin, calm dog, Michelsberg, wasp leg

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August 14. A piece of Autobahn.

Another Lituanian truck driver takes me almost all the way through Poland, and I have dinner in a roadside restaurant that accepts visa. A group of friendly English-speaking Poles offers me a ride to Poznan. One of them has just come back from a ten day hike in Spitzbergen, of which he narrates with excitement. ...

30 August, 2009

Autobahn, bullshit, Poles, Poznan, Russian

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August 13. Hardcore Hitchin’

Hitchin' back to Berlin hardcore. I am a thirty-year-old man and here I am sticking out my thumb in need for a ride back to the city that depressed me so much. I have to get some stuff done, there is a lot of stuff to be done. Preparations. Rearmament. Make sure I'm good to ...

30 August, 2009

Berlin, dead letter, Poland, truck driver

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August 12. Poor girl.

I'll be writing about the awe of being; hence I'll be fine. Hush, hush! Make it denser, perhaps even by adopting a story line. Write with passion, write with heart. Do I envy Jonathan Safran Foer and his brilliant girlfriend Nicole Kraus? They find recognition, the press praising you to into the clouds and beyond? ...

30 August, 2009

Bacharach, Einstein, Nicole Kraus, Safran Foer, Schweitzer, Tallinn

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August 11. Sunny Helsinki. Bookstore.

Helsinki is sunny. That's what it is. I spend a beautiful day walking around the city. My friendly host Hanna has given me a map and indicated some interesting places. This is my second time in Helsinki. I don't feel like a tourist but I see the city museum. Only a few centuries ago, Helsinki ...

30 August, 2009

bookstore, daisy, Helsinki, Turku

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August 10. All about Bragging.

What I also see is a video on Slavoj Zizek. My interest in this funny bear comes back when I hear he married a very pretty underwear model. Zizek's paranoid hyperphilosophy is very sexy but for me just an attempt to make things sound more interesting than they are. He could tell for example that ...

30 August, 2009

bragging, Cyrillic, hair problems, NB, Zizek

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August 9. A short night later.

A short night later, Olga and I say goodbye and I drag my backpack once again through the metro system of Saint Petersburg, this time to hotel Oktobrskaya where the minibuses to Helsinki leave. Olga has even made a reservation for me and a very Russian looking man in a jean jacket approached me and ...

30 August, 2009

busride, Finland, Helsinki

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August 8. Pushkin and the Vegetarian in the box.

Happy birthday Caspar! Saint Petersburg is very pretty. Today, we visit a flea market with many interesting things on display. I remember a Russian magazine with Madonna the popsinger on its cover, lots of old clothes, binoculars, children's toys, old photo cameras, fur coats, vantage prams, records, engine parts. I socially walk on but feel ...

30 August, 2009

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August 7. A Neva ending boatride.

Today we take a beautiful boatride. This is not supposed to be a touristic site but the boatride through the canals of St. Petersburg, passing all the beautiful facades and museums, the rattling Russian voice - don't forget to bring your Russian friends! - explains about the house where Pushkin lived, the tsar's palaces, the ...

30 August, 2009

Dostojewski, Hermitage, Neva, pushkin, St Petersburg

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August 6. St. Petersburg, Parks, Pancakes.

Bryndis comes, the interesting girl from Iceland. Together we explore this amazing city some more, walk through her parks, feel happy as we breathe the atmosphere of this masterpiece of architecture. It is almost unimaginable that this place has been a swamp only three centuries ago. At home I make pancakes, just to do something ...

30 August, 2009

pancakes, park, St Petersburg

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August 5.

And so I arrive in Saint Petersburg. The trainride was nice as always. I have been listening to audiobooks and sleeping a little bit. At the station, Olga, my couchsurfing host is waiting for me. I am so grateful to her! We take a metro to Olga's place. Later we walk around her city. Pretty. ...

30 August, 2009

Putin, St Petersburg

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