Der Himmel über Berlin

I have been boring y'all with too many words of late. Have some pictures instead.

This is Palolem beach, where we are staying until tomorrow.

Sunset on Palolem beach. And yes, I may or may not have consumed a Kingfisher.

A wonderful Christmas crib. What a pity that it is next year's.
Cows, cows everywhere. Even the beach.

This is all blurry because I couldn't hold my balance long enough for the sister to focus properly.

The shave of my life.

Apologies that the quality isn't great, I haven't been taking many snaps and these are the best of a bad lot.

A week has passed since I stumbled blearily into the Berlin winter to make my way to the airport. Saying that that now feels like a world away is quite the monumental understatement.

The days here are shamelessly lazy and self-indulgent. Not to mention sweat-filled. I have always been a fan of sweat, however that was when it was a by-product of some achievement or another - a well-played game of football, a quick run, or some other bout of adult activity.

Here though, it is your annoying neighbour who pops unexpectedly by for a pound of sugar and a gossip just as you are about to sit down to your favourite TV show, and just won't bugger off. Mix it in with mosquito repellent and factor 50 suncream, and you've got quite a goo cocktail to wash off at the end of the day.

I'm whinging rather a lot, aren't I? You'd imagine I'd be a little more contented with my lot, wouldn't you?

Truth is, I don't really know how to react to this lifestyle of beautiful vistas, outstanding (OUTSTANDING) food and mind-expanding experiences. I think it's the good old Catholic guilt again (and if it's not, let's blame it anyway) - finding fault with near-perfection makes it easier to avoid thinking about why you probably don't deserve it in the first place.

Well, I think the best way to to deal with this is to continue enjoying the culinary delights, get more barbers to give me the shaves of my life, go on more hair-raising bike rides in the countryside and take more barefoot early-morning runs on the perfect beach.

And, failing that, I'm sure that there is a Hindu god somewhere that wouldn't begrudge me a bit of pleasure.

The news stations on the televisions in Mumbai airport had me believing that I was boarding a plane to a corpse-strewn war zone rather than the idyllic sandy paradise that Goa usually claims to be.

"Goa and Dehli on high terror alert! Christmas revellers at high risk!", the headlines bellowed at us. Hard to take seriously though, when sandwiched between headlines about India's latest Bollywood sensations.

Still, my main worry was that this intense scaremongering was hitting Europe. The last thing we wanted was for our folks to get mixed up in the frenzy and spend their festive period worried about us.

Initial exploration forays into the village of Palolem left me pleasantly surprised - it's full of tourists, but Western tourists are certainly not in the majority as I expected they would be. My sister assured me that this was also true at the Taj Mahal - it seems that Indians love being tourists in their own country. Hardly a surprise in such a culturally, ethnically and linguistically diverse nation as this though.

At night, the mood remains relaxed. A few bars brashly play loud music, but these for the most part remain quite empty. There are no large crowds, no obnoxious drunks, and, thus far, not even an inkling of any sort of aggression.

Maybe this has to do with the heavily armed military personnel that patrol the beaches and resorts once night falls. I find their presence more creepy than reassuring. As horror stories of police incompetence continue to leak out from Mumbai, I would prefer to place my trust in my own desire to avoid crowded areas to keep me safe.

That shouldn't be difficult to achieve - crowded is something that this particular idyllic sandy paradise is not.

"Inhaale deeeply, exhaale compleeetely", the yoga dude droned, as we lay on our backs, allegedly meditating, or visualising our completely relaxed bodies, or something.

"Your boody aand miind aare compleeetely aat eease", he assured us. It was true, I did feel pretty relaxed. Still, I opened my eye sneakily to make sure he wasn't looking before swatting irritably at the mosquito that had been buzzing at my ear. I wondered what a real yoga master would have done in that situation. Let the little bastard bite? Or incorporate a fatal swat into an elaborate stretch? Or just be so in touch with his own body to be able to will the mosquito away by the power of thought alone?

I would like to say that time will tell, but that is optimism beyond my or any yoga master's capabilities.

My enormous shortcomings were evident from very early on, as I was told to lie down and not participate in the first exercise. How come mine was the only body undergoing full-scale spasms from a couple of (seemingly) straightforward thigh and groin stretches?

Things didn't get much better from then on either. He began to sneak up on me and push my legs/arms/hips/chest/arse up/down/left/right/inside out/upside down, since my own levels of stretchability were clearly insufficient. Just as well I was so bloody relaxed, or I would have lamped him one.

"Doon't leet yoour miinds waander", he warbled in the warmdown an hour later, so I mentally chastised myself for being halfway through composing this blogpost, and instead focussed on my toes and how relaxed they were, moving limb by limb up my body and trying not to laugh at his pronunciation of 'butt-ttocks'.

I'm so disrespectful.

It was wonderful and I feel like I truly benefitted from it. I just hope the next session will be a little less embarrassing though. Considering that I managed not to fart accidentally in this one, I feel that there is still a lot more embarrassment to be endured.

I have always been adamant that I don't like travelling, and I have never made a secret of the fact that I have never been outside Europe.

Until my arrival here two days ago, I had never spotted a correlation between these two statements.

On the one-hour drive from Dabolem airport to Palolem at 0700 on Christmas Eve, I saw a mind-melting number of things I had never seen before. Herds of raggedy cows and dogs roaming the streets. Hoards of men pissing by the roadside. Shacks, shacks, shacks. Flora and fauna that were almost possibly familiar. Sunrise sunbeams filtered through palm trees and smog. The colours, oh the colours! Saris, soil, the sun, it was too much for my travel-fatigued brain.

Our driver was a balding, wizened old-timer. He sat hunched over the wheel, both hands at 12 o'clock. His elbows, therefore, lay on the centre of the wheel, strategically placed right on the liberally-used horn. I didn't manage to figure out whether it was being used as a greeting or a warning, or something in between. He simply beeped at everything and nothing.

As we careered wildly from one side of the road to another with utter disregard for traffic laws, and, seemingly, human life, I couldn't help but notice that his exaggerated wrenching of the wheel actually did very little to alter the trajectory of the flimsy vehicle. Thank goodness that the eighteen-hour journey I had just been on had significantly dulled my sense of danger and impending death.

At one point we got stuck behind a large truck carrying a load of fish. He nattered to us about them in his own language (well, I presumed he was talking about them due to his eating gestures and subsequent wild giggling) for a while, then began to get antzy and swerve to the other side of the road to see if he could get past. After a few rather alarming false alarms, he sprung at his chance with one arm shielding his eyes from the glaring sun and the other slammed triumphantly on the horn. Later, he cheekily re-overtook a bus that had overtaken us moments earlier.

A man of pride and principle, I like that.

I think I like this place. Maybe travelling's not so bad after all.

Last night, Christmas Day 2008 arrived with me standing ankle-deep in the Indian Ocean. It was midnight, high tide and decadently warm.

Santa's sleigh flying overhead wouldn't have seemed out of place.

Happy Christmas!

I have everything that I need to bring to India laid out on my table. Diarrohea tablets, check. Deyhdration preventers, check. Vaccination passport, check. Christmas presents, check. I am also bringing two cartons of gluehwien, which will be warmed up on Christmas Day by leaving them sitting on the beach.

This, of course, presuming I am alive on Christmas Day. I am not taking this for granted, bearing my travel itinerary in mind. It is as follows:

0730: Plane to Munich.
1130: Plane to Mumbai.
2340: Arrive Mumbai. Meet sister. Loiter around Mumbai airport for five hours until
around 0500: Plane to Goa. I say around 0500, as there is no time outlined on the ticket. This bothers me slightly now, but I'm sure by the time I won't care less.
around 0700: Arrive in Goa and then set off on a two hour trip to wherever the hell we are going.

So, if I am utterly, utterly dead on Christmas Day, I will have a valid excuse.

Anyway, yes, the packing. Everything's laid out, but I can't be bothered packing it. It's such a chore. And I am afraid the gluehwien will explode and ruin my life. It's wrapped in my towel and should be safe. Also, the pocket knife that I got my sister (her request, I just do as I'm told) won't flip shut. I don't think I'll be able to wrap an open blade. I hope it doesn't go anywhere near the gluehwien.

I am excited though. Really very excited. Oddly, I have vague mental images of palm trees and glorious beaches and little Indian dudes trying to sell me stuff, but I can't...merge them to form a coherent image. Throw in three pale Micks and it's almost impossible.

Anyway. Who knows when I will be online again. Happy Christmas to you all!

I could write a well-thought out passage extolling the virtues of my friendship with kendersrule.

I fear my words would be inadequate.

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I could tell you what sort of person she is, why blogland is better for her presence.

Why take my word for it though?

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I could tell you of my intruige at the idea of meeting her someday at some blogmeet or another.

But who would care?

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So, I am going to take a very big step. To wish this lovely woman a happy Christmas, I am going to do something that I vowed I would NEVER, EVER, EVER, EVER do.

I'm going to post a LOLcat.

A very happy Christmas to you, my dear.

So you can now see the last thirty search phrases that linked to your blog. I'm sure many of you had this feature before from third-party software, but I didn't.

I can't believe what the top search phrase for my blog is.

"French people".

Yes, fucking French people.

I'm disgusted. That bloody guy in the cable car in the Alps is to blame.

Also featured: "squelch riots" and "bang bong porn".

This might be the first BCUK new feature that I don't really like.

I'm going to be checking it every day from now on despite that.

Remember the €100 I found on the street last June?

I handed it in to my local police station and pretty much forgot about it until I got a letter this morning, telling me no-one had claimed it (surprise surprise) and that it was mine to pick up.

So I just went and picked it up this afternoon. It will be invested into two large Christmas dinners, one tomorrow night with my housemates, and one at the weekend with some buddies (oh and if anyone has any tips on how to make a vegan Christmas dinner, I'd very much like to hear them.)

There'll be plenty to go around, so feel free to drop by.

Since everyone is posting such wonderful and attractive pictures of themselves in hats, I feel the overwhelming desire to buck that trend by posting a mildly hideous one.

It was taken 3,544m up in the air. That's my excuse and I am sticking to it. Like frost to eyelashes.

1. What did you do in 2008 that you'd never done before?
Feel really, really low.

2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
Yes, the majority of them. One of them was to climb Mont Blanc, which I did not achieve despite my very best efforts.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
A friend is giving birth probably right as I type this.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
No.
Oh shit, I'm a bad person. On rereading this, I remembered that my uncle died in June. But we weren't close. I didn't even go home for the funeral.

5. What countries did you visit?
Germany, Italy, Czech Rep, Sweden, Ireland, Switzerland, France, Lithuania, Latvia. And in two weeks I'll be in India.

6. What would you like to have in 2009 that you lacked in 2008?
Hmm, tricky. More time in mountains, I suppose.

7. What date from 2008 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
There isn't any particular one date. January 1st was interesting though.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Returning to my normal self. Actually, scratch that, I improved myself quite significantly.  Becoming Normal Rampie v2.0.

9. What was your biggest failure?
Allowing things that aren't important to have much more of an effect on me than they should.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Yes, fecked my ankle pretty badly in June.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
Probably my Wales football jersey. It's a thing of astounding beauty. And the concert tickets to Jenny Lewis and Frightened Rabbit were great investments too.

14. Where did most of your money go?
Mont Blanc, other trips, football jerseys, boozing, concerts.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Mont Blanc and India. Although I am still really, really, really excited about India.

16. What song will always remind you of 2008?
House of Cards - Radiohead
Twist - Frightened Rabbit
You Really Got A Hold On Me - She and Him

Compared to this time last year, are you
17. Thinner or fatter?
Thinner.

18. Richer or poorer?
Financially much the same but in just about every other way I am a man of significantly increased wealth.

19. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Mountain climbing.

20. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Sitting in front of my computer wasting time.

21. How will you be spending Christmas?
On a beach in Goa.

24. What was your favourite TV program?
The Office (US), Dexter, Californication

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
No. I have never hated anyne.

26. What was the best book you read?
It's the one I am currently reading, Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts. Life and Limb by Jamie Andrews was also very good, but for very different reasons.

27. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Frightened Rabbit and She & Him.

28. What did you want and get?
Me back again.

29. What did you want and not get?
France and Poland's highest peaks.
An iPhone.
A certain female. Or couple, in fact.

30. What was your favorite film of this year?
I think it's from last year, but The Science of Sleep was outstanding. Also Be Kind, Rewind. Yes, I like Michel Gondry's films very much.

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
Haven't had it yet, but I know that I will be 25 and that I will spend the entire day on a plane to India.

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Climbing Mont Blanc and Rysy.

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2008?
Umm...football jerseys and jeans with holes in them.

34. What kept you sane?
Mike Jones.

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Umm, don't know much about public figures. Scarlett Johansson always gets the blood flowing, but I don't think she's been in the news that much. Oh, wait, Zooey Deschanel too. She's amazingly gifted and also rather attractive.

36. What political issue stirred you the most?
The Lisbon Treaty and the negativity it provoked in Germans towards Ireland. I am also surprised at how much interest I took in the US Presidential Elections.

37. Who did you miss?
Mike, Kurt, my folks and my sister. Myself and rational thinking, early in the year

38. Who was the best new person you met?
Hmm, a few candidates there. Oana, Cathrin and Emma are the ones I feel I will remember most.

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2008
No matter how utterly, hopelessly shitty things are, they get better. You just have to ride the storm.

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:
There are a few:
"Every heart is a package tangled up in knots someone else tied."
"It takes more than fucking someone you don't know to keep warm"
"Twist and whisper the wrong name, I don't care, my ears don't care"
"I'd rather be the one who loves than to be loved and never even know"

That was fun.

The other night I was out for some din-dins with some buddies when one of them mentioned in passing that learning German over the last two years was the hardest thing that he has ever done.

Made me think about what's been the hardest thing I have ever done, and I have been thinking about it ever since. I'm pretty much drawing a blank. I think this might be for a couple of reasons.

1) I am lazy and avoid doing things that I find hard.
2) When I actually do something that is hard, I generally end up looking back upon it fondly as I usually learn from it.

I think it is likely to be something physical though. There definitely was a point in the Alps last September, when I was stuck on a 60° ice slope with only an ice-axe and my own (very limited) physical strength keeping me from falling, when I felt large amounts of extreme petrification and physical pain. That was definitely tricky.

My uncle's death in 2001 was quite hard too. He was the the first, and to date, only very important person in my life who has died. Actually, the run-up to his death was even harder - the death itself was a relief in many ways. This is not one that can be looked back upon fondly - there was nothing to learn from it apart from that life is pretty unfair sometimes. Still, it hardly counts as a personal hard experience - death is simply a fact of life and it would be quite arrogant or me to presume that it was harder for me than anyone else.

The break-up last winter was, I am ashamed to admit, worse in some ways. The misery was more prolonged and I felt a lot more alone. However, with hindsight, I can already see that it was one of the best things that has ever happened to me. There's nothing like deep, profound misery to help you get to know yourself pretty well, and now I am really grateful that it happened.

So, hmm, I really don't know. I am vaguely thinking about doing a half marathon next April, work permitting, and I have a feeling that that will be very high up the list. Probably even before I'm at the halfway point of the bloody thing.

Maybe 2009 should be The Year Of Doing Hard Stuff That Might Or Might Not Improve Me As A Person. Has a ring to it, doesn't it?

I teach a class of old people every Monday morning. When I say old, I mean old. They are pensioners, and they are hilarious.

They get such a kick out of me, and think it's fantastic when I show up hungover or late. 'Oops, one of the thirty beers much have been bad!', one of them shouted one morning, as I came in utterly reeking of stale booze from the previous night.

We had our annual Christmas party this morning. It's just the same as a normal class, except they all contribute and provide loads of cakes and biscuits, and, more importantly, flasks of steaming glühwein.

They conspired to make sure my mug was never empty for the duration of the ninety-minute class. With the result that I am currently a little tipsy. At midday on a Monday morning.

I think it's going to be a good week.

Last night I think I got the best Christmas present in the world, ever.

Yes! Red and yellow cards! I am going to bring them everywhere with me, and book people that are annoying me a little. If they continue to do so, they will get the red. I am already imagining them as a wonderful teaching tool. The kids will love 'em. Actually, that's not true. They'll hate them. I'll be booking everyone.
Maybe this is giving too much of an insight into my twisted mind, but I think they will be an excellent flirting tool. "You there, you're too hot. I'm booking you. Name and number please?"

There was beer, there was Glühwien, there were sausages, there were cakes, there were old and new mokonos and there were presents for all.

Happy, er, pre-Christmas!

I went to the cinema last night, to finally see Burn After Reading.

Enjoyed it, I think, although I don't believe anyone has ever created a more dislikeable cast of characters since, well, probably the Coen Brothers last film. The rage-filled alcoholic, the cold insensitive bitch, the adulterous womaniser, the painfully stupid musclehead, the cosmetic surgery-obsessed materialist, the pathetic lovelorn (which covers pretty much all of them, in one way or another) all combine to show us the worst of humanity. I also like the slant of how the shady authority figures were almost portrayed as virtuous, the upholders of justice and righteousness while the normal folk on the street lied, cheated and murdered their way to what they wanted.

Damn. A tangent. I'm not here to talk about the film.

Anyway, upon purchasing my ticket, I was presented with a little plastic bag full of vouchers and a little box of mints. 'Hurrah!', I thought, especially triumphant since I had forgotten to eat dinner. I know, I know, mints are hardly the world's most nutritional foodstuff but seemed like a better idea than rancid and expensive cinema nibbles.

I plonked myself down in a better seat than the one I had paid for (ooh, how un-German of me!) and rustled through the goodies. Hm, Burger King vouchers. Won't be needing those. Hm, €10 off a new iPod nano. Won't be needing that.

Got settled in and shook the box of mints. Hm, odd, no reassuring minty rattle. They must be really tightly packed in there.

Started pulling at the box to investigate further.

It was then that I realised that it was an individually packed condom.

As my alarm went off at 0745 this morning, in time to get me up to make it punctually to my Italian class, I made a deal with myself.

As a lot of you know, I am obsessed with Italy and Italians. This causes me to go somewhat weak at the knees, and more importantly, weak in the brain, when confronted with attractive Italian females. There is a lot of evidence to support this theory.

There's a great pizza place right beside blog HQ. Real Italian style and very cheap. Run by Italians. The pizza girl is, shall we say, despicably hot. Wonderfully cute Italian accent in her German. And gives me pizza. I don't think it's possible to get more attractive than that.

So, my deal with myself.

I can skip my (admittedly useless) Italian class if I talk to Hot Pizza Girl.

This immediately raises a number of large obstacles.

1). Which language to do it in?
Italian is the obvious choice, with my Irish accent certain to pique her interest, but would have the danger of me nervously stammering and making me seem like some sort of dribbling lunatic, forcing me to run screaming out of the shop and never coming back.
German is an option, but then fails to portray the amazing thing we have in common and that we are clearly soulmates and that I should spend the rest of my life licking pizza sauce out of her bellybutton.

2). The fact that anytime I have done the chatting up, it has never been successful. EVER.
This is a big obstacle. The only real solution I can see is represented by the idea of blasting a target with a shotgun. If there are enough pellets, one is bound to hit the target sooner or later, even if it is at the expense of my personal dignity.

3). What to say.
Being Irish, I am loath to admit it when I like someone. So I like to have some sort of pretence to fall back upon so they can't immediately tell me to feck off, you speccy Irish drunk. So I was thinking of the good, old-fashioned English-for-Italian swap. But then if she doesn't want to speak English? Stevemachine-for-Italian swap doesn't sound quite so enticing.

4). How to stop my brain turning to mush.
Another very sizeable obstacle. I'm not sure that drinking anti-freeze is an option. Maybe a quick beer might make things run a little more smoothly. Of course, this increases the chances of a 'feck off, you speccy Irish drunk.'

Bloody hell. I think I'll just get up for class next Tuesday. Less bloody stress.