On Coffee

In Berlin people gesticulate a lot when explaining the flavors present in your coffee. You're also considered to be very cool if you adjectivate your coffee, specially after drinking it and while returning your cup to the hipster coffeeshop owner.

The adjective doesn't necessarily have to match the reality, you just need to come up with something nice (nice? Telmo!) and serious enough in order to convince. Even if the owner doesn't agree with your point of view he won't tell you that, instead he will take it as a perspective. Afterall nobody knows how your tastebuds work, right?

— Oh yeah, I chose this one because the other ones were more than five euros. Oh yeah, it was slightly sour with some notes of red fruits and hazelnuts.

It's also very uncomfortable to drink your coffee because you feel pretty much observed by the people behind the counter. As if they were trying to read in your eyes if the roasting process was done nicely or if the infusion was made at the right temperature and the right time. The slightest wrong expression can be dangerous and result in the owner coming to your table and ask:

— Excuse me sir, is there something wrong with your coffee? We apologize if the taste is not accurate enough, we've been trying to improve the infusion since we're working with different roasteries and suppliers.

To which you have to answer:

— Everything is fine compared to the Mokambo I'm used to! Oh no, don't worry, it's perfect! I love its sourness with some notes of red fruits and hazelnuts. Trust me, all the flavors are in there.

The coffee that is said to be the best in town is always, for some weird reason, served in the coffeshops from which hipsters can easily be seen from the storefront windows. People grab their coffees on the counter and go sit, strategically, by the windows, pretending they're in the middle of their work break, when in fact it's monday 10am and you know that their still searching for an internship and seeking for a sex partner.

As soon as you finish your coffee, someone would immediately come to take away your cup so that you either buy something else or just go away. The secret here is to drink it slowly, as if you were a coffee connoisseur, when it fact the reality is that you're broke, with no job and no sex, and it's so fucking cold outside that that little cup of hipster coffee is your only hope of postponing your miserable life.

This post mentions Telmo

but it's mostly about cities.

POZNAN (I can't write it properly with my keyboard, but the last "N" has a little thing over it.)

I went there for a training on Hate Speech and Hate Crimes. To be honest, before going, my expectations were really low. Both towards the training and the city. I figured Poznan would be a small place in Poland with nothing that interesting going on.
I also had scary flash-backs of my EVS training week in October. 
I just don't like playing team-building games and talking about feelings, ok?

But after a week there I was in love with the city and super excited about everything in the training.
The workshops and discussions were interesting and everyone else was really cool. Me and Ceren both felt we will miss having a big noisy group around us while having lunch and dinner. After months of silently eating tupperware food in the office, it was a real change!

I didn't have much time to see the city. But went for a walk on the first day, with Ceren, and we both concluded that Poznan has a really pretty old town and sex shops on every corner.
 
During the time of the training we mostly stayed in the same street, where the hostel and conference room were. But, even in that one street, there was a vegetarian restaurant, a cute coffee place filled with hipsters (I've been in Vilnius for time enough to actually be surprised to see hipsters and feel a weird urge to hug them all), a shop/restaurant with gluten-free food, a really cool bar for shots, a nice italian restaurant we went to one of the nights, a organic cafe, a second hand shop... know what I mean? Poznan is like, a smaller cuter Berlin.



BERLIN
After the training, I went to visit Telmo in Berlin.

I had never been there, and I feel like I'll disapoint some of my berlin-enthusiast friends when I go back and tell thenm I didn't do any crazy partying and the closest to a night out was me and Telmo eating cheesecake in a dark bar and talking about feelings, plans for the future and learning how to love oneself.

To explain how I felt about the city I'll first talk about Sandra Juto.
Those who know me for some time are familiar with my issue with her. Sandra Juto is my pet hate. The poor lady doesn't even know me. It's the most idiotic form of antagonism: I hate Sandra Juto because DEEP DEEP DOWN I wish I was her.
I generally use her name as an adjective. So, if I had to describe Berlin, I'd say Berlin is very Sandra Juto. Which makes sense, since she lives there.

In her website, Sandra Juto introduces herself as a "blogger, graphic designer, online shop owner, artist, illustrator, photographer and crocheter." She's not exceedingly good at any of this things, but managed to get this ridiculous expensive wrist warmers business quite popular.

She has a blog depicting her perfect instragram-coloured life. Her apartment is neat and white and nicely decorated. She doens't have tampon boxes and supermarket discount flyers laying around. Her landlord didn't left any collection of pots, or butterfly decorations in the house that she can't get rid of and are awfully ugly.

She always eats amazingly good-looking food, and goes for coffee with her friends. 





 I believe everyone in Sandra Juto's world dresses well. No one wears Slipknot tshirts, they don't have unflattering haircuts or an ugly handbag that I-got-it-for-free-why-shouldnt-i-wear-it?

She's always in nice photogenic places. Sandra Juto has never been spotted in a lame pub with mirror walls, dolphin shaped dream-catchers and unflattering fluorescent lights.

So, in one of the days walking around the city, I sat on the subway and noticed people around me.
Everyone looked like her.
They all looked like someone she knows.
They probably all ride bikes and buy nice things in flea markets and sit in cafes and listen to Bon Iver while smoking rolled cigars.

Maybe they're even vegan.