Youtube Is My New York

Last week Perez posted a video a New York yoga instructor had sent him and now I'm hooked.

I've been feeling unfit for ages, coz all I do is sit around and read for uni or surf the net. In the past I've done little stretching excercises by myself... much to the amusement of the miaudonna. But to be honest, I did it just once, coz I'm lazy. Watching the clip on Perez's site, I gotta say this is brilliant...



This chick is amazing... and yes I lOVE her hair, but that aside, I find her instructions funny and useful. Yeah, I might look a bit ridiculous coz my muscles are sorta non-existent and I'm not that bendy (if that's the right word) ... but maybe with practice I'll get there one day.

I love the internet! It feels like I'm almost in New York/LA!

Watch This Channel!

Britain's Got Talent is back!

And it's been quite good so far ... Gin, the dancing dog ... Donald who can't sing at all ... a guy who plays all 5 members of Boyzone ... and a balloon man.

So go here and have a laugh...

I'm hoping for some more craziness to come though...

xxx

The Red Lights Gone Out

The brothel across the street from where I live is no more.

It had been there since I moved in 5 and a half years ago. I remember how I was convinced that it was some harmless funky Berlin nightclub and my Mom was like: "No, it's a brothel!"

To my defense: back in the day they had no red lights outside ... they just had some colourful christmas lights. But of course it turned out to be brothel ... as I could regularly see men go inside and young asian women stand outside every now and then.

I'm feeling quite nostalgic now it's so suddenly gone.

No more watching business men walking in there between 10 and 11am and thus no more wondering if breakfast or early lunch break really is a good time to have paid sex with a stranger. No more being woken up by some drunk homeless guy knocking on the door and yelling like crazy when he is not let in at 2 in the morning. No more shaking my head at groups of drunk boys taking pictures of each other in front of the door laughing loudly late on a Saturday night.

Sometime last week I look out of my window and see that the blinds are open (they never were before), the red lights are gone and there is a big sign saying that the place is for rent. Weird!

There are so many questions left unanswered ... I'll never find out if they just moved or if they got busted for something illegal.

And now one of my more serious Plan Bs is no more! The miaudonna and me always planned to take pictures of the men when they came out and then blackmail them. Guess I'll have to find a real job after uni...

Finally

I've been waiting for this moment for 13 months...

Gary Neville finally returned to first team action last night. Sir brought him on for the last 10 minutes and look who's a very happy boy...

And The Sun wouldn't be my favourite tabloid, if they didn't manage to sum it all up in a way that not just warms my heart but makes me laugh as well:

The England right-back came on as an 81st-minute sub to a standing ovation and a cheer louder than that for Cantona — which said everything about how special a moment it was.

Old grumpy chops Neville just about cracked a smile as he entered the fray, took the armband off Rio Ferdinand and got on with the job.

Mind you it was six minutes before he touched the ball, which caused some amusement.

Sir was playing him in midfield of all places... hihi! And every time he touched the ball, there was a gigantic cheer from the crowd... needless to say, I had tears in my eyes by then.

Good to have you back, Darling!

I've missed you LOTS!

My New Neighbour Is Invading My Private and Public Space

Some of you already know about my new neighbours. Here is an update on the situation.

There has been construction work going on in the apartment next to mine for over a month now ... and the lady who lived there, seems to have moved upstairs to live with her mother. It's a bit sad... they both seem to be very ill ... and DEAF! For years the woman next door "terrorized" me with her loud TV ... I mean LOUD, I could clearly hear what the TV people were saying! Now that she has moved upstairs, the sounds come from a different point but they are still there. But I have to admit nevertheless I like these ladies ... in a weird way.

But that new woman next door ... WEIRD!

She moved in and listened to Techno/Europop very LOUDLY on her first day + she has a door mat with a grinning cat on it, which in itself isn't horrible... but she is 35 or something and looks really boring... so the door mat seems out of place!

And now when someone comes to visit us, they need to take a pill against trashy taste before they enter the building, because when I left the house one day last week, I didn't believe my eyes ... but she really put this on the stairs halfway down to the next level...

yes, it IS a fake palm tree and those little dots you see... check the close up

click pic to enlarge

yep, fake little birds!

OMG, she's shameless!!!

She must have moved here from Marzahn or something. This is SO not Friedrichshain ... I mean if this was "sarcastic", okay, THEN it would be eccentric! But the vibes I get through my wall say that she's damn serious about her fake plants and birdies.

The miaudonna wants to pin little messages for her onto the tree every day. I like the idea ...

In An Ideal World...

A girl ... a monkey costume ... Matze S ... a cow costume ... and a happy end.

A Good Deed In The Name of Fizzy Happiness

I like fizzy drinks and in the past I've often been seen clutching a Coca Cola bottle like a baby while watching TV ... it's not consciously ... it's just to keep it close and so that I don't have to lean over to get it every now and then, coz I'm lazy... so I simply secure it by putting my arm around it. Nothing wrong with that!

When I walked down the street to my home earlier this week - with another one of my "passions" in my hand ... cheeseburgers - 2 girls approached me. I'd say they were maybe 11, but I'm horrible at guessing age. Anyway, they held a big bottle of some cheap Fanta substitute out to me and asked:

"Could you open this for us please? We can't get it open."

Now, I do remember the times when I was a kid and I regularly couldn't open fizzy drink bottles coz I wasn't strong enough and thus had been denied satisfying my sudden urge for sweet fizzy liquid until an adult could help out ... so of course I put down my new giant Primark handbag and my cheeseburgers and reached out for the bottle. And then it flashed through my mind

What if this a laborate plan to mug me and steal my beloved bag, money and burgers?

I looked at the girls ... first of all they were girls and then I thought

Don't be silly, you've seen these violent girl teen gangs on TV.

luckily the girls didn't look anything like the violent asbo-tastic chicks on TV... no, they looked nice and proper. And then secondly we were in Friedrichshain ... it's not exactly known for its criminal teenage girls.

But we are standing at a cross-road. They can run in any direction. And I'm slow.
Okay, calm down, you're paranoid.

So I tried to open the bottle, while they were looking at me eagerly ... and I was pacified, I knew the look ... they were waiting for their fizzy fix.

And then I could feel the pressure in the bottle building up ... it made a noise and they were like "OHHH"...

Ohh, NO! Maybe this has been their plan all along! They wanted to get someone random getting soaked in a sticky fizzy mess!

I didn't proceed with the opening and looked up at them

"Did you shake the bottle?"

They looked at me appalled ...

"No, we just couldn't open it. We weren't strong enough ..."

I could see they weren't lieing. And their "Ohhh" had simply been excitement about me being able to open the bottle. So I turned the cap further and the pressure actually disappeared. I opened the bottle fully , smiled and handed it back to them...

They took it, smiled and thanked me, turned around and happily walked down the street chatting away to one another looking like two innocent angels dressed in rose and pink.

I caught myself still smiling, picked up my bag and burgers and entered the corner bakery thinking how I had just done a good deed and helped out some girls who shared my love for fizzy drinks. Thinking about how paranoid I had been, I told myself, that in most other parts of Berlin, I would have been robbed and that I should be happy this didn't take place in Lily Allen's LDN!

It made me very happy about where I live ... and what made me happy too was that the kids had used an informal way of addressing me and didn't treat me like I was an old woman which had happened at Bristol airport when a mother told her child

"Sit down next to that woman"

That's so something that should only be said about someone who is past 35... to kids I should still be a girl.
So I was very happy about the fizzy drink angels.