December 23, 2002

a little list

some of the things i learnt during my stay at sir toby's:
• how to play chess
• how to cook tofu
• how to utilise the free food cupboard to maximum effect
• how to wallpaper a room
• how to play the chords to you may know him by cat power
• that any given word has an origin in greek

Posted by pipstar at 06:48 PM | Comments: *

 

phew II

yep, i'm back in berlin!

there was a moment there when i thought i'd have nowhere to spend christmas. but aidan came through with the goods and called to say that he'd organised for us to meet up in berlin.

complication: my email account never received the emails which told me this information.

so i had to catch a train to berlin today without a clue of where i'd be staying tonight.

luckily aidan sent an email through to one of my other accounts and i now know where i'll be sleeping for the next couple of days.

Posted by pipstar at 06:43 PM | Comments:

 

December 22, 2002

phew

i'm pretty sure that mary and joseph breathed a similar, aramaic sigh of relief when they found a manger to sleep in.

after 30 hours of stress waiting for aidan to get in touch with me, i finally know where we're going to be spending christmas!

it's back to berlin, two weeks after i left! but i know that it's going to be brilliant there.

and cold.

btw: thanks to everyone at sir toby's who prevented me from going mad today.

Posted by pipstar at 09:32 PM | Comments:

 

christmas potluck

i love sir toby's. out of more than 30 hostels so far on this trip it has come out as number one.

as of today i've spent the greater part of a month here. 22 days in fact.

yesterday i was finally ready to leave.

i'd drunk many cups of tea, helped cater for the manager's birthday party, hung out with the staff and other guests on a number of different occasions and even helped wallpaper one of the rooms with old communist newspapers and maps. i gave up going to budapest so that i could hang out here.

but yesterday was the day when i was going to head off to olomouc to make a trifecta of chilled czech hostels (sir toby's, krumlov house - cesky krumlov and poet's corner - olomouc). and on monday i was going to head from olomouc to krakow to meet aidan for a freezing cold, potentially white christmas.

but i'm still fucking stuck in sir toby's. it's not the fault of sir toby's, or me, or aidan. and i love sir toby's. i just have to leave.

but i can't. i don't know where i have to go.

aidan was refused a polish visa for stupid minor technical reasons and now we can't spend christmas in poland. we can't even spend christmas in prague or cesky krumlov because he wouldn't be to obtain a czech visa soon enough.

which brings us to a major problem... where are we meant to spend christmas? we've both had ideas (strasbourg, vienna, interlaken, back to paris), but we haven't had a chance to actually speak about the ideas and decide on them.

then there's the battle of accomodation... and the potential that once we get accomodation we'll be unable to get train tickets to said place.

aargh!

Posted by pipstar at 01:23 PM | Comments:

 

December 16, 2002

wandering star

i'm happy to say that my little brother alex has made it through his back surgery and although he's in pain (he gets morphine!) he can still feel his hands and feet (paralysis was one of the major risks as his spinal cord was at risk of being damaged in the process of straightening out his spine.

and i'm still in prague. i came through for a week a while ago, but i've come back and i'm still here at sir toby's.

is it the people? the city? the kitchen in the hostel?

i don't know, but the kitchen is a main factor in my presence in prague.

gel and i have produced some pretty exciting meals, of which the standout is fried tofu, ginger and mushrooms and scrambled eggs with canned peas.

but i've been getting to bake.

normally i'd have helped mum bake many different christmas treats, so i've had to improvise in the kitchen and made just brownies and almond peanut cookies.

and i've learnt (finally) to play chess, and it really snowed last night. big flakes which stayed on the ground and my nose and eyelashes.

Posted by pipstar at 03:27 PM | Comments: **

 

December 12, 2002

i thought you'd be interested

alex my little brother will kill me about this, but he told my mum last night that he's getting facial hair.

my little bro, with a bumfluff beard? weird.

Posted by pipstar at 01:04 PM | Comments:

 

December 09, 2002

il neige!

the weather has been so so cold here in berlin. my ears have been hurting, my hands feeling numb. and it didn't look like there was going to be any snow.

:(

but this morning i woke up and looked out the window to see tiny bits of white flying past.

a pigeon being attacked by a cat?

construction work?

snow?

yeah!

it felt dry and you could see the way the crystals formed into snowflakes. so so pretty.

i've finally seen snow fall!

Posted by pipstar at 11:07 AM | Comments:

 

December 06, 2002

berlin

yeah!

Posted by pipstar at 02:23 PM | Comments:

 

December 05, 2002

living on the edge

for the first half of my trip i managed to drink alcohol at most once a fortnight. but since arriving in salzburg a couple of weeks ago, i don't think that i've had one alcohol free day.

even after i got horribly drunk on absinthe and vomited, the next night i drank beer. because it's cheaper to buy a 0.5L beer than a 0.2L coke.

go figure.

i got very little sleep last night. i figure that when the inevitable i'm run down illness hits, i'll be very, very sick.

Posted by pipstar at 03:24 PM | Comments: *

 

December 04, 2002

der rosenkavalier

i just saw der rosenkavalier at the vienna opera house for three euros fifty.

funny and beautiful. a bargain.

Posted by pipstar at 12:48 AM | Comments: *