Aqua Alta

I love Venice!

Since I visited it I watch every documentary about the hazards of future floods. Seems like the current flood is almost what they expected and need MOSE for. If it will finally be quick enough...

Adrian Michaels of The Telegraph has the most usefuls tips if you happen to be stuck in Venice during Aqua Alta

and here is the official weather and tide forecast for Venice. Even though it's dangerous - I wish I was there!

By the way, this is what St. Mark's looks like during low tide:

Filipino will make it

A useful information I almost forgot about - and was reminded, when I met all those filipino sailors in the harbour three days ago - the motto of today's seamen from other territories.
"Filipino will make it!"

Stell dir vor, es ist Revolution und keiner geht hin

Rachel hat sich inzwischen mit einem sehr lesenswerten Blog von den Philippinen gemeldet!

Dort geht es wohl doch viel besorgniserregender zu, als CNN, BBC und Der Spiegel sich in der Einschätzung des Putsches lasen bzw. anhörten. 35 Oppositionelle im Knast ist jedenfalls nicht der halbwegs unspektakuläre Abmarsch, der auf Euronews gezeigt wurde.

Heute geht/ging es vor Gericht weiter, und die taz berichtet darüber in ihrem Artikel Wähler wollen keine Revolutionäre sein.

Ach ja: Die BBC hat hier ein Dossier über die Philippinen.

An Alice-in-Wonderland talent of sliding into dangerous situations

There's many things Rachel and me do share - not only the appartment. It's a slight taste for dangerous travel destinations. 2 days after I visited Moscow the Nord-Ost siege happened. (OK, I wasn't attending the Dubrovka theatre at all.)

Now right on the day when Rachel arrives in the Phillipines , the military stages a mutiny. Being welcomed by the police - that's ironic!

Anyway, good luck, girl!

The news in English
BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | Manila rebel soldiers surrender

and in German
SPIEGEL ONLINE - Philippinen: Militär stürmt Hotel - rebellierende Offiziere geben auf

The Scarfs are vanishing from Konya?

Might Hell as well freeze over?

Today I read this article in the New York Times - and I had to read it twice and thrice:

Have you ever been to Konya? I have been, early in the Nineties and BEFORE the most significant rise of Necmettin Erbakans party. At that time you could go wherever you wanted in Turkey - and it was mostly forbidden in the cities to wear a headscarf as a woman. And no one would have come to that idea anyway. You could rather go to Essen-Altenessen to see more women covered in a headscarf than in all the cities of Turkey altogether.

With one prominent exception: Konya.

But now it seems like the times they are a-changing of all things under the rule of the AKP. Very interesting phenomenon. Seems like it's time to visit Mevlana's tomb again!

Visit Hamburg! It's really nice ;-)

Already plans for your summer holidays? Come to Hamburg!

I really like the Guardian - because of it's British-ness, because of the political analysis - but I hope they are based on a more thorough research than this travel guide to Hamburg: Hamburg | Travel | Guardian Unlimited

And no, I don't mean the fact that it's from last year with lots of plans for last year's Football Championships, but it already starts with the wrong legend to the picture - which is not the harbour but the Lake. Nevertheless, here's the links to the two best cheap accomodations:

• Instant Sleep, a backpackers' hostel about 10 minutes to St. Pauli, near the area called "Schanze"
• Jugendherberge Am Stintfang is a member of the International Youth Hostel Federation - and the best place to stay in Hamburg at all, with a beautiful view over the Harbour. The page is only in German, but you'll get the main point. And they'll answer mails in English ;-)

Read more about them in the Backpackers Network! And enjoy your stay!

Stockholm Nightlife Link-a-dink

Haha, so you think we shopped to the top and then went home?!? Not really. So this is the blog entry about the nightlife!

Already the first evening was spent in the splendid decor of the Debaser club. Literally we rushed over the red carpet to the release concert of Captain Murphy and were transported back to the early Seventies with the minute. Gorgeous evening where we learned about the qualities of Päron Cider and some unknown Snaps I only remember it had more than 50% of a thing I shouldn't have drunk that much of...

Read the whole event in German at Metal-Inside.de

But in fact the reason for us to be in Stockholm was the Close-Up Båten - a metal cruise with six great Swedish bands playing. Again only in German I gave a report in Metal-Inside.de about both days of that frenzy! Ok, it's not fair. For all you English readers - there's a good report about that also in a Last FM journal - but not by me.

The after-boat party was scheduled for the Rocks club. For today: We simply didn't make it inside as the queue was too long in front of it! But from what I've heard there's no reason to be upset about it: The dinner was not enough for all the hungry souls coming off the boat (we had super-delicious dinner in the appartment) and in the end everybody was already shitfaced by 10 p.m. But in MY personal opinion Rocks sucks anyway - a fact the following evening proved well:

The following evening we started in a half-empty Rocks where we took the drinks we could get in the Happy Hour and moved to Engelen Club just in time to party on the Watain Release Party. I especially enjoyed the presentations of opposites: Engelen was an old pharmacy whose figure head was the one of an angel. In the catacombs of such now the satanic black metallers of WATAIN celebrated their well-decorated release. Nicely!

Secondly there was a very strange party going on in the other rooms of the cellar - posh to boringly ordinary dressed people in their thirties were searching for entertainment to the tunes of really bad euro-pop. Put it that way - we would have danced if they would have played Shakira! But because the little Black Metal cellar was overcrowded, metal people mixed with thirty-somethings and horny men in cashmere abandoned their jealous girl friends to flirt with attractive Black metal girls. Very entertaining!

Last but not least, there's something unexpected I really miss from the Stockholm day- and nightlife: 7/Eleven! At least those two which are open almost all night. They more than compensate the lack of good Döner Kebab!

Wanna come with me to Sweden, honey?

Yes, we did it again! During the middle of February Dörte and Sabine abducted me to the Swedish capital Stockholm again. Again, yes! Last year during the Easter holidays we already attended Close-Up Festival. This year our travel took part earlier, but the topic of the travel was close up again. As there are regular and respectable live reviews out in the field (in Legacy Magazine and on Metal Inside, links are upcoming), I'm only focusing on the Gossip side of life here. Yay!

Start with the daytime, first of all: We didn't make it to the Vasa Musum - again! Even though we already planned the ferry from Slussen to Djurgården. Even though we've already had the perfect plan to conquer the warship, thanks to a local. Because the ultimate trick is, to go directly to the video booth and watch the about one hour long documentary about the ship and its history. If you spend additionally 2 hours to follow what you've learned on screen, you can even tell what you see - whithout being lost into the meticulous details.

The next sightseeing we didn't make AGAIN was the Royal Treasury. But at least we know the opening hours by now - last time we were just too late! Well, maybe baby, we were simply not in the mood: Skattkammeren was recommended to us as the perfect spot to see for couples on their honeymoon - wanna come with me to Sweden, honey?

But of course the Palace is a rewarding place to be outside the opening hours as well, as it is a good stage for any kind of photographic arrangements of any kind - not only for Japanese tourists. Their picture of us didn't work out anyway!

To stay with photographic arrangements: While the little Monteliusvägen was in almost every tourist guide of 2006, only one of us went there to look for Snowdrops there this time - why should we tramp on a touristic paternoster we already discovered previous to the hype?

But there was something new to us, too:
It is supercool to go shopping during REA in Stockholm!

Well, maybe not at Acne Jeans. Doh, that was a bummer. Go back to the start, fetch 4.000 SEK and start it over again: We started in Brunogallerian at Götgatan with Filippa K and H&M, our path led us to Gamla Stan, shopped a bit at Sound Pollution's shop in Stora Nygatan and ended up spending the rest of the money at Tyska Brinken: Indiska is just an all-too perfect shop which made-over our style!

47 Bücher spielen in Hamburg (growing list)

Just a short tipp for the page Handlungsreisen.de which is listing novels by the cities in which they take place. Quite interesting to look and choose the next reading!

My Turkey pics got published!

Wow. My pics got published! The editor of Now Public found my Turkey pics on FLickr and asked me to publish them in his semi-web2.0 page. I got proper copyright - so why not. Even though the message is rather scary. Here it is: Turkey fears new homegrown terror threat at NowPublic.com.

Sweet praise for Lokum

While we were rushing out of Eminonü - just in time to catch the tram back to the harbour on the other side of the Halic - we were passing by heaven:
Ali Muhiddin Hacı Bekir is making such a good and famous Lokum even the sultans let this company make it for them. We arranged some spare seconds to have a box of Fıstıklı (=pistachio) Lokum. Of course you can try the varieties in the shop. Sweet, sweet heaven! And of course everything was fresh as just made in the month of Ramadan!

What to do in Treviso?

Our recommendation? Stay at the hotel and read a book! Save your money for the cab back to and fro the hotel (taxi's are as expensive as in Germany on the utmost countryside) for dinner. Have a gorgeous dinner somewhere in the inner city.

Ok. Honestly. As we were over-fed with food during the past days, we decided for a rather cheap Chinese restaurant close to the hotel and even saved the money for the cab.

BUT... we could have done it differently, as in Treviso there's a fine metal club even Bobo recommended us, the New Age Club. Maybe their Myspace page is even more informative...

Two and six weeks ago in Beirut...

Today the current issue of Germany's Rock Hard Megazine has reached the subscribers and will be on sale by tomorrow. Some weeks ago the magazine's editor Holger Stratmann has accompanied Finnish metal-classic innovators Apocalyptica to Beirut/Lebanon. Four weeks later I was about to follow their steps with a band of ours, but unfortunately the festival got cancelled.

I should be glad it got cancelled some ppl told me. But of course I am not! I feel like I've had the chance to visit Beirut right before the missiles destroyed what's left over from and renewed after the war. I feel compassion for all the people who would have come to the concert and wish that all of them will be able to come to the concert unhurt next year (that's where it was postponed to in the first place).

I was already making detailed plans for going out in Ashrafiya and sightseeing in Hamra. Perdu!

The Rock Hard report is ending with the words of the local scout for Apocalytica: "...provided that the peace will last. The seed for the civil war is already sown... A TV station aired some jokes about the Hezbollah and only the next days some cars burned, arsoned by young men, heated by their leaders."

In this more than fragile situation Israel seeks the solution in bombing the different fractions of the Lebanese society together. Together in one boat with Hezbollah, solidarity is a strange power and you can calculate it almost as precise as mathematics. No, I don't really agree with the German minister with the tongue-breaking name Wieczorek-Zeul, who is quoted "Israel's actions are beyond the pale according to international law". Don't get me wrong, my thoughts are with every Israelian citizen who has to hide in bunker not to get his head off by a Hezbollah grenade, and I'm pretty sure that the Hezbollah is the organization who forced this outbreak of war in the first place and which has to be cut off it's supporters and to be run dry. But I'm also afraid that the current action taken is moving the situation in the opposite direction.

The Lebanon & Israel in the news:
Six Days Of War: 200 Killed, 715 Wounded... | The Huffington Post

WGT 3 - Sonja unter Fledermäusen (Day 2)

Auf deutsch geht's weiter, denn jetzt geht es zu Fuß vom Hotel zum Völkerschlachtdenkmal.

Unser Hotel liegt nämlich sehr idyllisch, mitten im Industriegebiet in einem Naturschutzgebiet (sic!) zwischen JVA und Sicherheitsverwahrung - äh, forensicher Psychiatrie. Also wirklich gaanz ruhig. Im Hotelführer werden die Joggingpfade hier gerühmt - aber wenn man ehrlich ist, sollte man eher zur Vorsicht mahnen, wenn einem jemand in der Einöde begegnet...

Mit der Zeit der Napoleonischen Kriege hatte ich mich bisher eher weniger beschäftigt, da dachte ich, das Völkerschlachtdenkmal sei ein guter Anlaß dafür. Ist es vielleicht, aber der Grund, aus dem es gebaut worden ist, lag ganz offensichtlich in der politischen Situation der Planungs- und Bauzeit. Und das ist dann ganz interessant, wenn man auf eine Zeit und Strömung, mit der man sich historisch-wissenschaftlich intensiver befasst hat, durch ein Denkmal geradezu mit der Nase gestoßen wird.

Dieser Ort hat mitnichten einen erinnernden oder gar "weihevollen" Charakter - und Leute, die einen so etwas erzählen wollen, haben einen Specht am völkischen Brett vor ihrem Kopf klopfen: "Sanct Michael" (ist hier der Erzengel oder tatsächlich der Heilige gemeint?) erinnert stark an einen Bremischen Roland mit Flammenschwert. Und das "Gott schütze uns" scheint weniger fromme Bitte als gegenseitige Versicherung: Hatten wir nicht vor 70 Jahren den Allmächtigen auf unserer Seite? Werden wir schon wieder haben. Das alles passierte in einem Kaiserreich, das sich in seinem "völkischen" (so der Fachbegriff) Nationalismus zunehmend in Europa isolierte und damit den Ersten Weltkrieg in kauf nahm, in den es steuerte. Schon sehr ironisch, dass das Völkerschlachtdenkmal, das die politische Großwetterlage im Alltag der Menschen so gut abbildet, genauso stümperhaft geplant und realisiert wurde, wie die sie bestimmende Politik. Lustig und teuer, denn das wird die Sanierung gerade.

So viel jedenfalls zum oberflächlichen Abgeläster. Echte wissenschaftliche Erkenntnis gibt es hier erst, nachdem ich "Vom Kult zur Kulisse" gelesen habe.

Wo ich gerade bei der "Völkischen Bewegung" des späten Kaiserreichs bin, die den Grundstein für die Nationalsozialisten legte:
Auf der Händlermeile kann man am Stand des VAWS die Kosmologie der Blavatski kaufen, einer der Vordenkerinnen (oder sollte man "Vorträumerin" sagen?) der Völkischen Bewegung kaufen. Nein, das Buch ist nicht indiziert, es ist nicht verboten - und die Diskussion über die wirre politische Orientierung des VAWS will ich mir hier auch schenken, das hatten die Grufties gegen Rechts oft genug. Ich finde auch gut, dass man sich Bücher kaufen und lesen kann, die die Geschichte geprägt haben - aber ich möchte auch drauf hinweisen, was man sich da u.U. gekauft und gelesen hat.

WGT day 1 - Sonja unter Fledermäusen

Nee, Alter. Bin jetzt den ganzen Tag auf dem WGT, aber hab noch keine Band gesehen, ehrlich. Erst hat es an der Parkbühne geregnet, dann konnte ich mich nicht entscheiden. Man, und jetzt spielt nur noch eine Band", sagte der Unbekannte, der vor der Agra-Halle auf einer Begrenzung saß, in sein Händi, zündete sich eine Zigarette an und guckte in dieser unnachahmlichen Mischung aus bedauernd und verpeilt.

Dear international readers,
I'm at the Wave Gotik Treffen in Leipzig for the first time of my life. Most of my impression are so utterly German, I'm gonna write them in my mother tongue. If you're interested in them as well, drop me a comment.
Second note: Due to several things, the major of it being work, I was only able to get to Leipzig late on Saturday. So this is where it all starts:

So ungefähr muss es in der Savanne aussehen, wenn eine Herde Nilpferde den Weg einer Herde Elefanten kreuzt: Aus der Tram kommen Trauben von Fußballfans von Lokomotive "Lok" Leipzig, darunter auch der nicht nur hier im Osten obligatorische Anteil von rechtsradikalen Thor-Steinar-Shirtträgern mit Hohlschädel, zur Tram pilgern nicht minder kostümierte Grufties. "Ey gugge mal! Das gipz ja nisch!" sagt die jugendliche Glatze und zückt den Fotoapparat, um das nicht viel ältere Gruftmädel mit Krönchen im Haar zu fotografieren. Währenddessen ist er schon längst von einem dezenteren Gruftie Ende Zwanzig auf der anderen Straßenseite focussiert worden - schön aus der Hüfte mit einer gute Digicam geschossen. Obwohl rein optisch die Tierallegorie nicht stimmt - also: so muss es aussehen, wenn ein Schwarm Fledermäuse eine Rotte Wildschweine kreuzt...

Wie würde es wohl aussehen, wenn man im Zoo mindestens an Schimpansen, Elefanten und Delfine Kameras verteilen würde? Wen würden die aufs Korn nehmen?!?

Apropos Zoo - der Zoo von Leipzig soll "wunderschön" und "super-interessant" sein, sagt Sabine. Wird als Tipp vorgemerkt!

80 kilometers for a "koniglich" weekend!

There's several ways of celebrating the Koninginnedag in the Netherlands. One is doing like a tourist - go to The Hague or like this year to Zeewolde and do Royal spotting. Or do like the Netherlands' inhabitants do and go to a market first - and then get drunk and orange. This year I did that: Went to Alkmaar and went orange. Don't miss out the "Kaasmarkt" and the "Biermuseum" in the Oude Stad. Or maybe your liver and brain scream for mercy as mine did for a minute? Have the best coffee in town at Australian Homemade Ice Cream and coffee... and chocolade... Don't stop for the chocolade if you don't wanna end up buying the whole shop - I almost couldn't stop...

We stayed in beautiful Egmond aan den Hoef and spent already 35 kilometers on bike only getting there and back again to Alkmaar.

The second day we wanted to take it easy in comparison and to enjoy beach life in Egmond aan Zee. So we took it easy, went there and back again by "fiets", went to lunch... and wanted to enjoy the beautiful and wild nature of De Kerf and went along almost half of "de brede duinenroute". To sum it up: Yes, we had a marvellous Duvel in the dunes, had a chilling cold sundown - and ran 45 km on "fiets" again. And: Don't go there - you'll be lost in the dunes when you've never been there before, and in the late evening you'll be frightened by the sudden appearance of the long horns of the Highland cattle in the darkness. By the way - you don't occasionally need a fitness trainer you didn't know about before? Hire us!

Host, Hostage and Hospitality - inside the Hate Crew pt. 1

Preface. Maybe the most important: Don't go to Geiselwind. Until you really have to. Maybe for a p. For example if you're travelling on the Autobahn from Würzburg to Bayreuth. Ok than. Stop at the Autobahnraststätte. Which other reason should someone sane have to stop in the nowhere in Mittelfranken???

Well, maybe I wasn't sane either, because I went there to drive Children Of Bodom to the Earthshaker Festival and back again.

Already getting there is trouble: I looked on the map and Markt Bibart seemed to be the closest railway station to out hotel, even the ICE is stopping there - but you won't get a cab there after 8 p.m. So I was stopping in Kitzingen, and - nice surprise: The cab driver was a very nice lady!

Next surprise: There weren't enough rooms in the hotel next to the festival area, so they booked one "small hotel" with "just 14 rooms" only for the band and crew. I think I wasn't the only one expecting the worst - last time we had such a hotel with Zyklon in eastern Germany there was no bar and even the mini-bars were borne away.
This time the Hotel Ziegelmühle was the complete opposite: A glittering party was already going on in a huge common room with a self-service bar. Everything was decorated in a style of typical German "Gemütlichkeit" - but it fits neatly to the place. The rooms were a blast, all except two were huge apartments and we wasted the space in splendour as "single rooms". The service was friendly, no one lost a syllable on the party's remains the other day - perfect! If you're looking for accomodation in the nature of northern Bavaria - go there!

Unfortunately the local traffic regulator spoiled most of this warm hospitality the next day: The short-cut to the festival area was blocked because of a lack of planning, several other streets were blocked because of road buildings as well - we needed about half an hour from the hotel to the festival site and even longer back again. The place in front of the festival area was a dis-organised desaster, people were running everywhere, there was not even a short cut for the working staff.

And the dis-organisation went on: The only toilets near to the dressing rooms were in the same hall as the event stage, so the artists had to wait in the long queue with the public (hello? did anybody think about the last minutes before stage time?). But really hilarious was the VIP tent: There was extra security in front of the VIP tent even though the entrance was exactly in the backstage, so artists had to stay our if they left their proper passes f.e. in the dressing room. But it was pretty easy to get inside from the festival area, so that lots of fans where in. The one-hour-signing session got a extra-time when the musicians entered the VIP tent to hang around with fellow musicians because people who couldn't get an autograph in the queue got a second chance right now. Running the gauntlet if you had to get to your shuttle or to an interview appointment - sorry to Tom Rune, I think I owe you a beer, but I had to get Roope out in time...

How hilarious that

A more delicious view on Paris

Well, this should be my last record about Paris, I think. To spice it up and make you reading it once more I added some of the pics I took - because I finally found time to edit them on PaintShopPro...

First of all, I think the Tuileries Gardens are commonly underestimated. Yes I know, you've heard about them already in school, enough about that. But that's not true. For me as an asthmatic the dusty, smelly air and the traffic pollution was maybe the worst in Paris from a to z. So the Tuileries was the best place to be, the only place for recreation and the only place where the air was really fresh and filtered in the 1st arrondissement. Well, we didn't try out the banks of the Seine, even though there ought to be some kind of beach party like it is popular in Hamburg and London already for a couple of summers.

And, even though you can nurse a baby for a day in the rest of Europe with the price of just one beer we tried out several restaurants, brasseries and bistros. The brasserie "Le Royal" directly opposite the Louvre on the Place Malreaux fulfilled all prejudices in the twinkling of an eye: the breakfast was ok, the assortement of cheese gorgeous, the clientele a mix of tourists and strange business people, the waiters - unfriendly, what else? - and it was not very clean compared to the price niveau. Very much more nice was a cafe close to the Place de la Madelaine on the backside of the Rue de l'Arcade: working people from the shops left and right, only a few tourists, lots of expensive clothes to admire - that was state of the art.

One of the excellent restaurants I can highly recommend was the Au pied de Chameau. Hey, all the colonializm and imperializm has to have at least one good side - that you can at least have one kitchen even better than a french one in Paris.

And for the great final: Opposite the "Le Royal" still at the Place Malreaux there is the "Cafe Ruc" - double the expensive, but much neater. And here I say bye, bye to my Napoleon:

Fini.

In the 1st line of the tourist trap - visit Paris

Isn't it funny - the Frenchies successfully defied the Americans to take over their "culture". But they didn't fight off the Brits. Now the Brits managed to take over where the Americans (and the Germans, of course) failed, and they are more then present in any angle you might view in the middle of the 1st Arrondissement of Paris. And they conquered really the heart of it, it was so much fun to go shopping in the Virgin megastore in the basement of Le Louvre. Ha! ;-)

So, we basically stayed in the 1st arrondissement anyway - or, as it's called in the Time Out Guide (another very friendly take-over by the Brits): The Louvre & Les Halles. Our hotel was the Hotel Saint James & Albany - which is charging a ridiculous amound of money for using their "business center" called internet room. Don't miss the flagstores of all the famous labels in the Rue St. Honore if you're already close to this area. At least it was an experience that the staff of the store said they're sorry that I didn't fit into one single piece of their expensive fashion. Wow. Never experienced that before, others would blame it on the customer to be too fat. But next time I'm gonna get me this little helper before I try to fit into some Gucci: Where to wear should be showing some shops for taller women as well, I've been told.

I thought I already suffered enough of bad jazz bands when I was in St. Petersburg/Russia, but Ed proved me wrong and guided me to Le Duc des Lombards. Ok., it was interesting to learn to know about the wild and exciting history of Jazz of the city, but those guys were far from that. Maybe we'll first check out what's the program and who's playing in before here or at CitizenJazz.com.

On our way back from this rather "interesting" than good gig we went into the opposite world of experience. If you - as a metal head like we both are - ever want to experience the narrow minds of the scene go to a metal club in a different town in cloth which would fit to some different occasions like your hotel or an expensive dinner and which don't show that you're metal as well on the first glance. It took me some 10 minutes to get some expensive beer, and Ed in his very new Gucci shirts was not better off. Haha. What a pathetic attitude. I was even dressed in Scandinavian leather, but obviously that wasn't rough enough for the strict dresscode of the rather gothic style waiters and their friends. Haha!

Finally, to give an end to a legend: I was disappointed a bit when travelling with the TGV - I was always told that the TGV is so much more comfortable than the ICE. That's simply not true. Taller people like me have much more space in the ICE. So much for the 3-day-plan!

Paris was a woman? This bitch!

... back from Paris, still in a train... and everything's different. Not everything. But a lot of things. No, I didn't fall in love with this bitch blasé. While I was the one and responsible person on the bus during the four previous days, the mature female mate in Düsseldorf and still the good-looking girl to go out with in Belgium I felt like an awkward child in Paris. Of course my cloth weren't expensive enough for our 5-star-hotel, but did they have to call me fillè? On the other hand – hey, I'm gonna be 30 in a few weeks and those professionally trained eyes adress me still as underage. Hihi. Compliment? Dunno. But not this bad.

I started reading "A Year In The Merde" by Steven Clarke, and it seems to me like the motto to my trip. Well, I didn't get this far - I am not an sexual frustrated male brit abroad, so I don't get the humour in all of his flirting accidents, but the rest seems right to fit to my situation in this strange metropolis as well.

Gran Turismo or: vakantiereis in Vlaanderen

It was a spontaneous decision - a friend of mine was travelling the same direction anyway, so I had a lift - I had an invitation. Yeeha, so I was on my way to Kortrijk in Belgium. Nice holidays with nice friends, a big CHEERS and THANKS! In Kortrijk was a fun fair going on this week, so we spent a lot of time at funny things like shooting games.

And of course I spent some money in the local record store...

The sunday started with a seemingly major event in the region - the Ronde van Vlaanderen. I saw many famous racing cyclists - but I recognized only a few, among them Jaan Kirsipuu - and Erik Zabel, who later scored no. 4.

Well, so much about Kortrijk - next time I'm gonna take a closer look at the River "Leie" or "Lys" as it is called in France - or "The Golden River" as it was called during the high times of the linen industries. And the Linen Museum.

Also I'm gonna search for the traces of Breydel und Coninck next time I'm gonna visit Kortijk. Both were leading the Flemish in the Battle of the Golden Spurs or "Guldensporenslag" which the Flemish won against France. The "Guldensporenslag" was the prelimenary for the 100 Years War, but we don't wanna talk about it now, well?!

To the five Burroughs...

This is an excourse about the different parts of a German city in general and Hamburg in special. Hamburg is divided in seven districts (German: "Bezirke"). The next structure beyond are nearly 100 neighbourhoods/barrios/quarters/whatever you wanna call it (German: "Stadtteile"). I lived in St. Georg for 5 years, before that I lived in Borgfelde for 4 1/2 years. The origins of those names differ - while Finkenwerder, Moorburg or Altenwerder for instance were fisher's villages for ages, Altona was a town of it's own till the Nazis melted it together with Hamburg. Altona was a part of Denmark til 1866 and secured freedom of believe for all inhabitants. Between Altona and Hamburg was a kind of "buffer" - the world famous quarter St. Pauli. St. Pauli lay outside the old city walls, on the west side, and at the harbour - where the hookers and the foreign seamen stayed, where people have to come through when they were on trading business - and where people stayed, who had to hide from parts or inhabitants of the inner Hamburg. St. Georg was the eastern part outside the town walls, here the citizens of Hamburg sent all their folk which was ill or who were too poor - the pestilence quarter, later a kind of early quarantine - but the water flowed first across the shores of St. Georg and then in the old town, well, think about it...

Both parts of Hamburg have still a lot in common. In both parts there are whorehouses in the first floor of seemingly "normal" buildings, there's a lot of prostitutes and a lot of the same problems. Well... But now I'm gone, looking what the other "St." will bring.

Ah, yes, and there's no "five burroughs" of course, but three bigger cities and a lot of smalltowns, villages and else melted together for one big Hamburg.

(Written offline, see date below, published way later...