Trip to Berlin 21-28 oct. and Warszawa 28-29.

Döner. Omarito! kitchen talk every day before sleep, with Southern Comfort, Balzam and Diesel. Saturn, a new/old Tuxedomoon album with CD and DVD. Dussman: a Kurdish Sprachführer and a new novel. Heilerde. Duncker, and yes I can dance, and I did. Flohmarkt too crowded to be enjoyed. Indian restaurant (okay, Maharadscha ist no real original name...) with plenty of food, a hot vindaloo. Xtrax. Apotheke (Bullrich). Comicstore Grober Unfug (55 € more comics). Asia Laden – hot Korean noodles, Indian and Korean and Japanese all kinda food for 50 €. A’ Màgica, superb, gorgeous, delicious ai formaggi pizza with Omar and Ieva’s parents. Turkish market. Martial Arts store: bought a knuckled kubotan and 2 rattan sticks. A belt too. We discovered that Sudanese shawarma with haloumi and makali and peanut butter sauce is one of the tastiest things on earth. Balzac – like one year ago – before the Throwing Muses’ gig. So great! T-shirt and 2 Anthology USB sticks. Talked to Kristin, which I did not when I saw her in 1991-1992 at yet another Thowing Muses’ concert (also in Berlin! is it destiny?) nor at her solo gig in Barcelona in 2000 (or so). Reminds me of younger earlier times, when I talked to Beate Bartel (and she sent me postcards afterwards), Kim Deal, the Noir Désir drummer (who proposed for eel (now ScalinE) to play as the support band for their next concert), Nina Gordon (Veruca Salt) (who then spoke French with me and invited me to have a drink), Steven Brown (whom I gave a tape of Quelque Chose de Bleu, my first music project) and Chan Marshall (whom I gave a tape of eel, and wouldn’t look me in the eyes hiding behind her hair – as she then was used to do). Memorable. KaDeWe (they do have Mountain Dew in Berlin, and Dr Pepper). Saturn again. KFC (no such thing in Riga!). Ullrich. Ate a stomach soup for the very first time at a Turkish restaurant – well, not sure I’ll try again, but it was worth it nevertheless. A new diary at Dussman. Three more comics. No Pergamon (too expensive). Persian restaurant Roya with the parents – maybe not as tasty as Indian food (question of taste of course) but interesting since it was a first time, plus I got to say a couple of sentences in Persian to the waiter, who replied in Persian once too. Plus the restaurant is decorated by a Farvahar, like on my left inner arm.

Italian restaurant in Warsaw: I did miss you, spaghetti... Rarely slept as well as in that (a little bit hard to find and isolate) hostel. My first visit of Warsaw, a much more modern city (not a *town*!) offering a lot more, culturally and culinarily, than Riga (bet kā savādāk?). It does motivate me to restart learning Polish this year, and – maybe? – to move there next summer. Bought two more language learning books with CDs, and four Polish movies. Polski bus Berlin-Warszawa was so great a trip compared to the tiring Warszawa-Riga........ Back in Riga, uploaded some of the pictures, organised all the newly bought stuff in the cupboards, and this means back to TV shows and translations too, as well as language learning, now with Polish added (again) to Persian – any time left for Zazaki? And no good gigs till the next trip.