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.

This post is mostly images because I'm too lazy to write.

Yesterday I stayed home and watched Spice World.
It's not an adult channel, or an indian cuisine tv show. Yes... it's the Spice Girl's film.

I finished watching it feeling like owning very pair of shoes Geri wears and was completly imersed in the film's let's-make-friendship-bracelets vibe. So, I decided to give you, in my opinion, the highlights of this masterpiece:

 1- Roger Moore, as Spice Girl's boss, talks only in riddles, while petting a white animal.

2 - Spice Girls playing chess.

3 - Hugh Laurie as Poirot (yes, this is as random as it sounds.)

 4 - There's a part where the Spice Girls complain they are tired of being stereotyped and decide to dress diferently for a photoshoot.
"Can't I be Sporty-but-actually-interested-in-other-stuff Spice?" says Melanie C before dressing up as John Travolta in Grease.

she never fooled me.

5 - Bob Geldof with a Crazy Spice hairstyle.

6 - All the wardrobe of their manager.

7 - And, finaly, the scene where aliens come down to Earth merely to ask for the Spice Girls autograph.

As you can see, it was totaly worth it.

I got a winter jacket. One of those water-wind-cold-everything proof. --> I think it looks like this.

Which is great, since it keeps me warm in the -16º outside, but I'm pretty sure this is the most unflattering piece of garment I've ever owned.

But I wasn't happy just with the lumpy winter coat. I went and bought snow boots that match it completly, both in terms of cozyness and uncoolness.
Now it feels like I'm wearing a sleeping bag from head to toe.
Unfortunately, it also LOOKS like I'm wearing a sleeping bag from head to toe.

You know how people have guilty pleasures, like eating chocolate, reading slash fanfiction or secretly listening to One Direction?
I have a thing for confortable clothes.
If I could have my way, I would dress like this all the time:
 

To be honest, I think it's not even a question of confortable clothes.. Because my clothes ARE confortable. It's more like a not-feeling-like-getting-dressed-i-want-to-keep-my-pyjama-for-the-rest-of-the-day thing. (i think i just broke a hyphen record)

Sometimes I lay in bed thinking about ways I could tie the bed covers to my body and wear them outside.
Everytime I go to Primarck, I stare at those one piece polar fleece pyjamas with wonder, until Sofia drags me away by the arm.

 

and I know she's right.

My need for confortable attire has, to certain point, to be restrained, because I kickly slip into scary degree of lazyness.

So.. yesterday, as I walked out of Deichmann rejoicing on the confyness of my new boots, I looked at myself in reflection of the windowshop (very cinematic, i know) and thought:
shit, I'm sinking in the spiral of pratical clothes again! Soon I'll be going to work with my pyjama..This must be stoped!
And then decided to run to Maxima and restore some of my futility by buying a nice lipstick.
I may still look like a Michelin man for the next few months. But at least I'll have sexy red lips to counterbalance.

We don't have a lot of readers.

So when one of them proposes a theme for a post, I take it under consideration.
Sofia suggested that I should write about lists, and here it goes:


This week Moritz came to visit me. Before he arrived, I was freaking out about all the stuff I had to do: emails to answer, illustrations to finish, texts to translate... aaaah!
Last saturday I curled underneath the bed covers in panic...

and wrote a long list of tasks, arranging them by colour ("-draw valentine cards for 14th of february action" was written in pink, but "-buy lentils" was green)  and with little arrows pointing at the most urgent ones("- buy snow boots", "- wash underwear")

I was also worried that Moritz would find nothing to do here, and he would think Vilnius is boring, and hate Lithuania forever.

So I made him a list. And this is kind of a transcription of it:

FUN THINGS TO DO IN VILNIUS

- go to the National Gallery
- KGB Museum - ok, it's not fun. at all. it's sad. but people seem to like it.
- sit reading comics in Mint Vineto.
- have a beer in Bambalyne.
-visit the CAC and its library
- borrow a bike and have a hardcore riding marathon in the snow
- go to the little castle on the hill.
- bring your tupperware food and have lunch with me in the gay league. (we have a microwave.)
- small galleries:
        vartai
        malonojai 6
        akademjia
        there's probably more I dont know.
- steal me a book from coffee inn.  (it's not really stealing, I'll take it back after reading.)
- use my transport card to go as far from the city center as possible.
 - go to each and every church and rate them in a scale 1 to 5.
- walk along the river, Marta says it's very pretty.
- go to the Rasos cemetery and leave a candle to the heart of Marshall Josef Pilduski.
- read the constitution of Uzupis.
- send some postcards to your mum.
- walk Literatu gatvé and choose you're favourite piece. draw or take a picture of it.
- search for the statue of Frank Zappa
- buy a stupid hat/ pair of glasses from Tiger and use them for the rest of the day. (I'm planning to do this myself and it's better if i dont do it alone.)
- find a music shop.
- spend a morning in Trakai. (but don't visit the museum in the castle. it's not worth it)
- learn some lithuanian and try to chat with a local.

Mariana took this picture of me and Joana on the second year of school, I think.
At first glance it looks even a bit romantic, till you realize that actually I'm pointing the camera to my backpack. Sad, but still good friendship moment.

2013

AAAAHH!
It's a new year!


I'm so glad 2012 is over!!
A year ago I was watching the fireworks in Aliados and crying like a baby. Not that I was moved by the beautiful lightshow, but because I KNEW this was going to be hard year.

and it was.
But now I'm doing a little crazy dancing for having survived and welcoming the new year with that productive rush that makes you want to clean all your room and make lists of all the things you want to do.

Anyway,
a few weeks ago I started noticing that all supermakets had this new small shop at the entrance, selling fireworks.
I thought to myself "People here aren't even alowed to drink outside. Are they really going to permit shooting fireworks in the streets?"

Turns out they do.
Unlike Porto, Vilnius doesn't seem to have an official fireshow provided by the municipality. Instead, they have aglomerates of slightly drunk people lighting up fireworks all over the city.
it's so awesome!

Partly because we were so close to the fire and could see things bursting all around the city, and partly because there was a real life danger to it which made it more exciting.
 
Truth is: I like to see things burning up! Any party/celebration/holiday that includes fire or exploding stuff, I'm in. Probably watching it from a distance, rubbing my hands and smiling like the little pyromaniac creep I am.

After the fireworks we went to an undergournd squat and danced amongst very drunk punks.

and that was fun, too.

While dancing I decided on my new years resolutions. Here they are:

1- drink less

2- don't quit the gym

3- be more patient with myself

4- stop being so lazy about shaving my legs

What about you people?
Did you do something special for New Year's? Want to share with me (and the world) your resolutions?