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Category: Countries
Name That Doggerel
In response to comment from Philip Newton, here is a closeup of that house-identifying doggerel. (It was actually next to a cafe, in an awkward vault location): Over to you!
Jottings of Amsterdam: Rusland to Centraal
The title is a reference to McGonagall, and is about as well-informed… If you’re not live-tweeting your photographs into interwebosphere, doing a blog based on your photos three days after the fact is something of a challenge. Let’s just see what I can throw at the wall and make stick. Did I fall in love […]
Anderlecht
Life, it is a giddy thing. Yesterday, I was in Amsterdam, where Dutch is spoken. Today, I am in Brussels, where Dutch appears on some shop billboards, and is the third language after Arabic. Yesterday, I was walking down the Zeedijk, where the first language was English. Today, I’m in Chaussée de Mons, where the […]
Χαῖρ’ Ἀμστελίου φράγμα, τό μοι ζῦθον διδάξαν!
Hail, Dam of the Amstel, Which hast taught me of beer! (Because for an exceedingly long time, including as I was growing up, the only beers you could get in Greece were Amstel—named for the river that Amsterdam dams—and Heineken (or as the Greeks call it, “the green one”), founded on the Amstel by a […]
Terminal 5, Heathrow
Hwæt! Ic eam agin in Engelonde gecuman! Ond ic wille agin to Mancestre Or Summeþinge Aeroporte, þæt mannum Terminale V yclept is! Right, that’s enough fake Old English unaided by a grammar or any understanding of Old English. The bus to Terminal 5 still takes 18 minutes, the security video in the bus is still […]
Berlin, second photoshoot
So where was I? About to be dislodged in Kreuzberg, I think. Of course I don’t remember much at this far remove, but walking down the Kreuzberg street to get to Chez Gert und Laura was quite pleasant: lots of three, four storey houses a couple of centuries old, which gave the neighbourhood the kind […]
Berlin, first photoshoot
I’d already summarised my sojourn in Berlin as a timeline and a report. Having left it for so long, the experience is awash and faded enough that I can get away with just one more posting about it. A long posting, with pictures. And some ill-founded cultural critiques. [EDIT: Crap. I have only one post’s […]
Hot Bruxelloise Babes
OK, one anecdote while I’m still shifting back to my normal, antipodean, boring lifestyle. Remember gueuze? I had, as you’ll recollect, formed an unhealthy attachment to this most excellent of lambics when I was in Brussels. On the evening of July 9, I was back in Brussels from Athens, in order to fly out the […]
Berlin: A first report
The Berlin experience started with me getting off the plane, and into the ramp tunnel thingy they attach to the plane, manufactured by a company based in Baden–Württemberg. Krämer, I think. The company saw fit to advertise not just itself (Krämer Men installing lightbulbs, Krämer Men cleaning up a party, Krämer Men being Krämer Men), […]
Berlin: A chronography
It was quick, but very much worthwhile. In fact, reporting on Berlin will take up several days of Greek downtime. Be warned, my German is a lot worse than my French, which impose a layer of haze in my interaction with the outside world. I was sublimely lucky that Gert and Laura were prepared to […]