I'm Ines and this is my blog. I'm twenty and I currently live in Berlin, Germany. I love music, art and the simple pleasures of life which is basically what this is going to be all about.
(Jasmin as a sailor, Mikey as a Scotsman aka. himself and me as a cowgirl.)
I do admit it, Karneval is a pretty weird event. If you, like me, grew up with it you barely question it and it makes perfect sense: Once a year you dress up, party on the streets for five days in a row, dance to party songs, go to parades where people throw candy and just genrally follow a mad tradition without really knowing where it actually came from. It doesn’t matter anyway. As a child you love it, as a teenager you are annoyed by it and as you get older you fall in love with it again because it reminds you of home and good times. You can sing along to every song and you feel how it connects everybody on the streets, just like that. In terms of these things, Cologne is probably the most open-minded city I know. Karneval connects us all and even though we like to deny it, deep inside we’re all patriotic as fuck. I can’t wait to hit the town tomorrow and celebrate!
I’m a walking cliché. I never thought this would ever happen but now I’m moving to Berlin in two weeks time. I’m not sure if I’d call it moving, it’s more going somewhere for a certain period of time without knowing how long this certain period will actually be, but anyway, I’m leaving this place at some point in mid-february.
I have a nice flat in Wedding, twice the size of my current one and in an old building with high ceilings. I will only take as little of my stuff as possible, I haven’t made any plans whatsoever and I will just wait and see what happens. I’m tired of making plans, things usually happen when you least expect them anyway. I got the feeling that it’s gonna be good so I will trust my intuition. See you there.
I saw Local Natives on Wednesday they were pretty amazing. “Airplanes” has been stuck in my head for a while now so I decided against lots of sleep and a night in and joined Sina. The club was surprisingly busy and they played for about an hour.
I’ve really missed going to good gigs lately - you know you haven’t been to a lot of gigs in a while if your back and feet start to hurt, if you can feel the bass tearing your ears apart even when you’re watching a folky indie rock band and the spotlights make your eyes water. Just saying. Maybe this is me getting old.
I’ve been a lousy blogger recently, I just don’t feel like writing because it feels like there is nothing going on. But in fact a lot is happening, so many thing are happening in the background and I can feel the change coming up. I’ve always seen change as an amazing thing with lots of great opportunities, although - I’ve probably said that lots of times before - I’ve learned changing my external circumstances will never change anything about me. It will change other circumstances, it might be exciting at first but as soon as the first flash of enthusiasm is gone I find myself in the exact same position. A different location won’t do the job, but other things will. And they might actually happen.
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In other news, I finally found a topic for my bachelor thesis, I bought a shiny white MacBook and switched my digital life to Apple, I quit my first job at LUSH, still work a lot at my second, designed things, improved my still extremely poor Spanish skills, discovered new music, spent a weekend in Berlin, froze my arse off and planned things.
I re-watched this film the other night. I like it although it leaves out the whole background of the story and only focuses on drugs, desperation and David Bowie (which is not a bad combination either).
I’m walking through the Park of Human Rights. It’s not actually a park, more a bit of green with a hospital on the left and a big street on the right which I walk past pretty much everyday. “Right to Equality” is carved into a paving block I step on, I’m walking slowly so I don’t slip on the frozen ground. It’s cold and slippery, there’s so much snow everywhere, white, greyish, black, frozen and crunching under my feet. I’m bored of it already. I inhale the cold air and walk on. “Freedom of Speech”. Human fucking rights.
I can’t wait to get home, collapse onto the couch and do absolutely nothing. “AREN’T YOU FUCKING FREEZING?” a girl shouts at me. It takes me some time to realise she’s probably referring to my black nylon tights. With my pale skin shining through them it must look like I’m practically naked, although everyone knows tights keep you warmer than trousers, it’s a fact. I feel warm muffled up in my winter coat (which I temporarily ditched my leather jacket for), a wool scarf wrapped round my head and Doc Martens on my feet. Jealous bitch I think as I walk on.
I’m back from Amsterdam and the few days felt like a movie. You know the feeling when you experience things and all of a sudden you realise that it’s so amazing, yet very cliché and just like one of these film scenes that are totally fascinating but still seem pretty unreal, simply because they’re so brilliant and cool? I’ve probably said that before but I think that might even be the point when you actually start living.
Anyway, I stayed in a nice house with my Dutch friends and a three guys and two girls from Slovenia who came over for New Year’s as well and were a pretty cool bunch of people. On New Years Eve we first hung out at our place drinking and playing silly games and I ate my very first oliebollen (Ima: “You have to eat it, otherwise you’ll have a bad 2010!”), it’s some Dutch speciality and it actually tasted pretty nice.
Shortly before midnight we went to a private house party on the other side of the road, it took place in a big building, a former squat and now gallery or something. The best part of it was that it had a roof terrace from where you had a 360° view over Amsterdam. It was amazing. We went upstairs and watched the fireworks while a band was playing on the roof. The fireworks, the people, the music, the atmosphere, it just blew me away.
We stayed up all night, it was great. Not such a bad start into 2010 and quite promising actually.
A new year means as much to me as my own birthday (practically nothing) but then again, it’s a nice frame for a part of your life and a good opportunity to start things. I always need events to change things. Or at least try to. I’m not saying I constantly make changes, it’s so hard to change things about yourself, even if you want to, but having an event makes it easier. Next year everything will get better - I keep saying that to myself all the time.
I spent New Year’s 2007/2008 in London, we stayed with a friend and went out in Shoreditch that night, missed midnight and saw no fireworks so we went home and joined the house party. 2008/2009 I was at home in Cologne. I had just moved houses and I was pretty down and depressed that day so I was planning on staying in. Friends eventually convinced me to come to theirs where we had sparkling wine and German New Year’s Eve traditions, we later went to a club and it turned out to be a pretty strange night out. At least we had fireworks.
This year I will go to Amsterdam, hang out with our Dutch people, relax, have fun and just let everything pass. Even the new year. It’s two thousand and ten already and it feels weird, I still remember the “Millenium” ten years ago - people wearing funny 2000 glasses and Robbie Williams singing on TV. Now another decade has passed.
Fucking hell.
