january jones, vehicular form

 
next important task on our list - get a car. Must we publish to the world my array of chins? 

we'd been keeping an eye out on the interwebs while in berlin, seeing what would be a reasonable deal for us. we need a wagon for all the shit we carry around - i'm partial to discarded logs on the side of the road amongst other potential sculptural materials - and something reliable for a weekly trip back and forth to melbourne, not to mention, general awesome shit that tends to take our fancy, such as gigantic secondhand armchairs and hat stands. 

our budget was basically confined to whatever spare change we had leftover in our pockets. so we scraped together a couple of handfuls of euro cents and realised we were kinda fucked, to be frank. but, i'm not one to let a lack of finance stand in the way of a necessity, so credit card options were put into the background as last resort and we set about scrounging around for cash underneath couch cushions, hidden in boxes and god only knows where.

 this is pretty much every last cent we own, plus some extra we don't technically own, ready to trade it all for a car.

we've got one week to survive on the james family freezer food (hello super mystery casserole items!) until my next scholarship installment, which should keep us alive for another week.

it's 'seat of the pants' stuff for us on this adventure!

We were so nervous about carrying around this cash, that we opted to withdraw it from the Toorak Road  bank rather than Prahran, lest we get jumped by a junkie or desperate pensioner on our way out. If anyone is wondering if there is such a thing as a bank with no lines, it is in fact, the Toorak Road Commonwealth bank, where staff to customer ratio is 5:1 and the amount of space is about 7 times the size of our flat in Berlin. The place is filled with arm chairs and muffled silence. 

anyway, as far as cars go, we pretty much settled on an old subaru, maybe a camry. and by old, i mean like late 80s models, maybe early 90s if we were lucky. we narrowed the search down to a couple of cars and set off to do some test drives.

we drove a sooby (subaru) out in braybrook way, which was ok, but had about 330 000kms on it. which is actually pretty good, considering it was over 22 years old. it seemed all right and atleast confirmed that soobies were ok to drive.

but then we stumbled on a 1990 sooby, with half as many kms and it drove like a dream. it seemed remarkably well priced for what it was, even if it was at the slightly higher end of our $2-3k limit. so after we both checked it out, we snapped her up!

so there it is!! She so fine! We've named her sweet-ass Betty (hence Kent's longwinded confusing title - I expect no less). We have managed to convince ourselves that our slightly odd car-salesman (well, aren't they all?) keeps a sack of white hair and lint in his desk drawer so that he can sprinkle it throughout the cars he sells, to legitimise "aaaw yeah, little old lady owner, barely drove it." Needless to say, the clumps of hair are an issue. 

It's funny coz my first car was a white station wagon, lucy's first car was a white station wagon, and now our first car together is also a white station wagon. weird, no?! Maybe we just like white station wagons. Well, that, and the fact that they seem to represent the dorkiest cars in existence, thus the most reliable and affordable.

Home Sweet Home

(apologies if this post doubles up - blogger has been playing up lately)

after some research, we narrowed down the hunt for a home to Kyneton, Castlemaine, Daylesford.

all but the latter were on a train line into the city. but what daylesford lacked in trains, it compensated with beauty and 'vibe'. Amazing trees, hills, gorgeous houses ... num num num!

we should also point out, that in the back of our minds, we are planning to open a shop/gallery in the future, and this bears some weight on the type of town we wish to live in.

in a nutshell, here's where we got to, after our first visit to just kyneton and castlemaine (daylesford comes later):
 - kyneton seemed very nice.
Wow, that is a tiny nutshell Kent. 
 - castlemaine seemed a little less so.

now, we're casting very wide generalities here, based on an hour or so in each town, and some minor interactions with the locals. Yeah, you can tell we totally did our research. 

 - kyneton had a nice strip of cafes, restaurants, and shops
 - castlemaine was more of a grid layout, older style town, more stock-standard shops
 - kyneton had a younger vibe, i don't know how i can explain this properly, other than the type of shops    and the people we noticed. Maybe not so much a younger vibe, but perhaps a more creative and gourmet and luxurious vibe? Can you have a gourmet vibe? In terms of a small town, particularly along the Piper Street line, it did feel very indulgent. 
 - castlemaine seemed more of a working, old fashioned town (amazing buildings ... drooly drool.)
 - kyneton food and coffee was lovely and expensive but also lovely
 - castlemaine charged us $27.50 for a couple of boscastle pies and three sheets of lettuce, which pissed us off no end. Castlemaine, that was your big mistake. 

there were more houses available in kyneton, but the quality was rougher. And they never seemed to be available when we wanted to look at them, realtors seemed to forget to ever ring us back, or houses advertised were already taken by the time we got on the phone - it felt just like Melbourne!
castlemaine appeared better in that regard, but there was only one in our range. I think we also felt very uncomfortable at the inspection, where about six other prospective tenants milled about, cackling about Jeneane's pasta bake from last week, and that terrible taffeta thingo that Sheree wore to Fazzo's wedding.  They all looked perplexed at us huddled in the corner, in all of our towny fear. We were quite surprised at the limited amount of houses and the extreme competition. 

now, we're going to be making this assessment only on the available rental properties in one very limited timeframe - early May. so, we're dealing really with what's on the market at that time, and luck is going to play a big hand here, we realise.

Anyhoo, we trundled off to an inspection in Daylesford a couple of days later, a street that we had previously had an amazing spa experience in last year. Anyway, as we're driving down the street, we start thinking that the place we are going to view will be really close to the massage studio.  We had possibly the loveliest realtor show us around (A very new experience for us - Melbourne rental realtors, in a word are ... ****s.) this old house. The entire place has been refurbished, so what appears to be a wee shack is actually a gorgeous, light, bright, airy, re-carpeted, re-floorboarded, re-bathroomed house of joy. AND IT'S OURS!!! 

Sorry, couldn't hold it in any longer. We totally got the house. Stoked!


I should note that we did look at another house later that afternoon, that should have been better - it was bigger, more facilities, modern. 

But Kent and I are pretty sure someone was murdered there or something - some really bad juju going on there. So by the time we had mentally moved all of our furniture into the Queensberry house, and were developing tics and regular heart palpitations, we finally found out yesterday that the place is ours. 

The whole renting experience has been so different from Melbourne for us - the realtor showed us the place like she was selling it, not like we were privileged to set foot into it. this has to be the single best experience with a real estate agent ever. she was so friendly, helpful and open to all our queries - even open to considering changes to the state of the house and the price! unheard of in melbourne. She then called us a few hours later to see how we were going making a decision, and had already told the landlords all about us. We were in! 

Unlike other places we've looked at and lived in, this place feels more like a home than any other - it is so stripped back, with no personal affects, that we really can make it our own. Don't you hate it when you move into a place and they think that you LIKE the lace curtains and that sparkly pink hippo figurine? I mean seriously - I think most investment property owners really must treat these places like a tip for unwanted christmas gifts. 


such a buzz. it's funny, we had a feeling about this place for a variety of reasons. the fact that it's next door to the day spa we went to last year, the place where we had the single most amazingly relaxed and joyous experience of the countryside ever, was just one factor. also, when we drove up to look at the house, there was a giant eagle flying directly above the house - it was so huge that the 2 magpies who were trying to swoop it and annoy it away from their territory were mere specks, like dragonflies hovering around a bear. i'm a bit partial to natural omens, in the way of homeric tales and ancient mythologies, so this was some sort of sign to my mind.

another type of traveling

And, Melbourne rents smack us down once again. 

Just coz we're back in Melbourne town, doesn't mean the adventure is over! We're currently having a 'holiday' at Chatau de Jamez - e.g. house sitting for my folks while they galavant amongst the Scottish Highlands. Their place is truly amazing - wow I wish I could have a place like this! Perfectly reno-d, smack in the heart of South Yarra (awesome coffee but a 14 second walk away). These guys have taste, and they have also set us the challenge of eating our way through the pantry so they can 'start afresh' when they return. All I can say, is that is a whoooole lotta condiments. Mum and Dad have only lived in South Yarra for about 4 years, however I still seem to discover items that passed their use-by date in 2002. 

Here is some fancy images from a fancy magazine where their courtyard was featured. If you look veeeery closely, there is a little sploodge of red in the distance, where we created a bespoke mural for their wall. I would feel bad about stealing images without crediting them, but seeing as the photographer quite happily sampled our artwork in several of his/her shots, sans credit, I'm not losing sleep over it. 


But as you can see, we seem to be continuing to score some pretty sweet accommodation. 

so - we're changing tack here, in more ways than one.

back from our wonderful european jaunt, refreshed, stimulated, motivated (soothing water fountains and luxury pillows helped) and ready to pursue life with vigour and focus, some new things are on the horizon. Oh are they ever!

when we left to go on our honeymoon, we were expecting to come back to melbourne, after our 3 months of experiencing the northern hemisphere, and find a place in the inner northern suburbs to live. This was an awesome, no fail plan. we wanted a house of some description, maybe a backyard, but something with enough room to work in, given that we both work at home. for those that don't know, we're both artists, and we also work freelance doing editing and proofreading work, and for one semester a year, i teach art history at uni. lucy managed a clothing store for a while, when we lived on the southside of the river, but we're now looking to prepare to develop our own enterprise.

we were expecting to live in coburg, maybe thornbury or northcote. most of our friends live northside and there's a strong artistic/creative vibe in that area. but after keeping track of the rental market on the internet, while in berlin, our hearts plummeted as it became super obvious that weren't going to be able to afford anything close to the sort of house we needed. we could stretch it, financially, but we'd be living by the skin of our teeth. In case you guys haven't noticed, Kent and I like our creature comforts. It has taken us 3 months of personal reflection to admit to this, but now we can quite confidently say that we prefer 'light and bright' over 'dingy shit box'. 

I confess, it never actually occurred to me that houses were going for THIS much in Northcote these days - by about March, we had given up when they soared well past $400, and sought the 2-3 bedroom option for $400 in Coburg. Sigh. 

somehow, without knowing how, we got to talking about living outside of melbourne. (I'll tell you how, 100 screaming children and a television set next door that only came on after midnight on volume 78 - I don't think volumes even go that high, but it tried.) we started to think that even if we did secure a place in coburg, we'd be commuting 30 - 50 mins to the city. if we wanted to go southside, which is where my uni is, it'd be an hour at least! so if we were going to travel nearly an hour, on average, why not make it 90 minutes and live on a proper houseblock, in a 3 bedroom house (equalling one studio each in which to work from - mmm!), with fresh air and parrots in the trees?

we started to look at houses that were about 90 mins drive, in towns along train lines. this lead us to castlemaine and kyneton, where 3 bedroom houses were $100 cheaper than coburg houses, per week. over a year, that's about $5000 - the price of a basic second hand car. we'd lost our car just before our wedding, when a complete douche bag ran a red light and totalled it. so we need a car, as a well as a house anyway. So really - how about this being the best plan ever? 

Hello, is that more bedrooms, more backyard and about a third of the rent? I think it might be! 

after many hours of discussions, thinking about what we wanted out of our next few years, this option became more and more attractive, particularly as developments in running our own business are coming underway. Not to mention the large property sizes, awesome surrounds and low rent. HELLO! 

when we got back to melbourne we took off, up the calder highway, to check out the area ...

where? further, frank, further.

Terrible title Kent. Everybody groan together now. 

i am the pun god - bow before me!

How about the pun turd?

today was a much more exciting expedition around the ol' frankenfurter. Ra-ther.

first, we strolled our way through the museum fur moderne kunst and were well impressed.

although, as luck would have it, pretty much every single gallery and museum we've been to has been either closed for repairs and renovation or in the process of deinstalling their last exhibition and preparing the next. our luck, in this regard, has been so abysmal it borders on the comical. Big sigh.

on this occasion, the museum was in between major shows and we just missed 'form without objects' or something 

similarly exciting, and were a week early for a showcase of the best of their collection.

nuts!

the upshot of this affair was that we scored free entry and saved ourselves 12 euro.

the gallery spaces and the building itself was quite a treat in its own right.

lots and lots of rooms, curiously shaped, with ample light and flow.  

The whole experience was like a labyrinth - while in its best form, I imagine the gallery has quite a concentric flow. Due to so much of it being closed, we were faced with many dead ends, which somehow made the experience more exciting - sort of like an art treasure hunt!

on show was a great collection of photography, a gregor schneider installation, a james turrell work 

and a couple of other bits.

but it was the photography that was truly exciting. i'm not normally a big art photography but almost every 

single image on display was worth a good hard look and offered something to think about.

there was a room full of jock sturges' photos - images of young people, incredibly stunning - that we are pretty sure would have trouble getting a showing in australia, given the conservative bent our sexual mores - to be fair, they were pretty raunchy, and by young, we're talking much in the way of pre-puberty -

which is a damned shame coz the images were spellbinding. I think we both found it quite confronting how beautiful these images were. They were absolutely stunning. They were also coupled with a collection of some pretty alarming images of areas of Kosovo, Albania and Bosnia, blown to smithereens. However, every single image was again, spellbinding.

we stumbled into the darkness of the james turrell room and were again fooled by his lighting wizardry.

what appeared to be a glowing light cast on the wall, was in fact a hole in the plaster, the size of a small cinema screen. we knew this was probably the case, given a previous viewing of his work in venice, but still, you get fooled again by the whole brilliance of it. What was more brilliant was Kent walking into a wall on our way in. It gets pretty dark in there. Turell's works are so weird in that you inch toward them cautiously, bit by bit, with your hands out ready, and then all of a sudden it seems to be only a few feet away, though you swore it was metres, and while you are having this perplexing argument in your head, your hand disappears right inside the work, because it is actually there, not there. At this point (as I have done before in these situations) is gurgled "that's fucked" and hurry away, because all my senses have been completely befuddled.

we spent a good amount of time in the museum and came away quite enthralled.

AND, I know I seem to go on about toilets a lot in this blog, but this one is extra legitimate! Just as we were on our way out, I ducked into the ladies, and was greeted with a pretty cool Pipilotti Rist video/sound installation in my cubical. Lots of 'la la la' -ing and some frolicking in meadows. (If I was thinking I would have checked what work it was, but I was too busy basking in the colourful lights.) What a treat! 

 

and then, as we were heading off to check out the local galleries in the area, we were greeted by the sight 

of a delightful old chap in wonderful pants...

hahaha - genius!

Hahaha! Still looks like a bare bum!

so, we thought we might cross the river to the other side of town, hoping that maybe the soul of the city was over there, away from the empty void of the shopping malls and the bank headquarters.

on the southern side of the river there are a number of museums so i was going on the theory that where there was art, 

there was probably vibe. you know, like boutiques, cafes and ambiance.

once across the bridge i was already feeling something a little more vibrational in the air.

Isn't he a smug bastard? I can assure you this whole 'theory' was well verbalised throughout our journey.

and then, in homeric fashion, was a sign from the gods that we were totally in the right area...

a handful of baby goslings waddling about on the riverbank.

cute, no?

GAH!!! ADORABLE!!! I AM ACTUALLY DYING! 

It's the first time I have run in the entire trip - and wow. I am out of shape - because I was worried that 

the goslings would have jumped back into the river by the time I got there. 

then we found our way to a beautiful meal at a cafe, chicken breast pasta and 

zucchini crepe. (Currently salivating over food memories. gaaaaah.) really delicious food. 

It was so good to have some proper indulgent food - a great way to celebrate all of our hard work 

of being on holiday the last three months. Hehe.

from there we found ourselves a little district with some nice boutiques to peruse.

in one, we got blessed again with the cash sitch, coz the dude totally gave us an extra 10 euro in change from the presents that we bought for the dads. 

nice.

back across the bridge, chased by thunder and snow storm of hayfever inducing fluffy pollen we ventured back into town for a final attempt at some shopping and soaking up of the general foreign-ness of germany before heading home to melbourne town.

 artful sculpture right next to the central bank. imagine putting up a giant dollar sign in canberra ... uber-tacky, no? Classy shit.

anyway, after trashing frankfurt and its general soullessness and boringness yesterday, i can safely report that there is actually some soul in the town and a quite nice vibe, if you get out of the city itself. It seems pretty safe to conclude that Frankfurt city has no permanent residents, and the worst pedestrian setup I have ever experienced (totally stupid and badly designed). It truly is a city of international businessmen and cars - an urban plan that puts people before cars is clearly the only proper option for a better cityscape. However, it has made us really appreciate the local areas we have spent the last three months exploring, and made the trip back home to Melbourne town that much sweeter. We can't wait to see you all!

We are both still amazed at the generosity of our friends who sent us on this adventure, and we thank you kindly for your awesome-pants wedding gift. It has sent us to a dozen awesome cities and towns, given us cushy beds to sleep in, taken us to a stack of museums and galleries, and financed some pretty kicking threads. Not to mention a wide variety and number of daily coffees. 

And as for the rest of you - all I can say is that we can't wait to start the next adventure. The prospect of finding our next home and getting to unpack the stunning array of goodies we received from you, is making Australia seem very very exciting. Thank you!  So in all in all - kick-arse wedding, best honeymoon ever, and our friends and family ROCK. 

here here.

a thousand glowing thank yous to all and sundry who have helped us on our way this honeymoon.

we are truly very grateful and humbled by your thoughtfulness and your generosity.

its always impossible to quantify the benefit of travel but i assure you all that this trip has been fuel for our souls, and has enriched our personal growth and our marriage by vast magnitudes.

next stop - a country home, a business venture and many more exciting creations.

epic love !

xxx

You're. A. Hotdog.

So today we well and truly departed Berlin - tear.*

definitely a little sad. berlin was great and more than anything, kinda felt like a home, of sorts. 

But, like all good places, we will be back. Foh Sho!  

We had to get up at the crack of dawn (Berlin time at least) to finish packing, cleaning and fetching of coffee and breakfast. Our landlord's assistant arrived in impeccable German time (this punctuality thing with the germans is really impressive), with a nod toward the table and "deez are zee keeze? Gut. Here ees zee depozit. Goodbye." He then stood there with his arms folded, which I quickly realised was him saying 'please get out now.' So in good spirits we shuffled our bazillion bags out and got to our train with an hour to kill. 

after the issues we had when we arrived (wet laundry, no heater etc) we were half expecting some sort of problem on our check out. maybe something like a raised concern over a scratch on the wall, unmopped floors, unclean shower. 

nup.

simple swap of cash for keys and off we went.

easy! 

I soon got myself into a right panic when I realised we had to change trains at Liepzig with 6 minutes to spare for our connection. I managed to sit still on the train for the first hour, clammy and with lips pursed. 

really, lucy is no good if things are cutting it close to the bone. much stress.

Hey, I think we can agree that I am SO good - I got us here didn't I? Yes, yes I did.  

this laptop was owned by a 12 yr old kid. this is where we're at with the future of sexuality. a golden era? probably not.

After an hour, the man sitting next to me gasped "Are you American? No? Oh. Sorry. Wow. You don't sound Australian." And then proceeded to describe all the places in Australia that he'd been to, particularly in penthouses, and parties where he was guest of honour. "Australians do love to party!" "Australians do love to travel!" He was quite an expert on our culture. I think he hadn't heard English speaking anyone in the two weeks he had travelled, and was positively bursting with a fortnight's worth of his life to blurt. However, he was a very friendly man and we enjoyed chatting with him! 

look at the palpable sense of relief - turns out we had to travel all of 4.6m across from platform 9 to platform 10 (for all intents and purposes, the exact same platform) to catch the connecting train. I hate this photo.

Anyway, we made it onto our connection in perfect time (it may have been on the same platform, ahem) and had a grand old time playing cards, reading books and snoozing with the old ducks we were sharing a 4 seated table with.

this is really the most civilised way to travel. smooth, quiet and roomy.

the occasional castle sliding by through the windows, rolling green hills, quaint little villages everywhere. 

Travelling by train is the shit.  

the view from our hotel window

Which is a good thing, because Frankfurt is kinda bleh. Not as bleh as I thought it would be, but I still don't feel better being able to confirm its bleh-i-ness. Concrete jungle filled with cars. Such a massive contrast to Berlin, where it is so pedestrian/cyclist based. Frankfurt, while it manages to still have a gorgeous array of gardens, parks, beautiful pre-war buildings, is still cement pit. Having said that, I have been most impressed in the few hours of exploring, in the pretty diverse architecture here, particularly in contrast to the old. Some buildings were obviously badly damaged and near destroyed, but instead of pulling them down and starting again, or recreating the same building, modern design has been built into the original architecture. The result is awesome gigantic collage buildings! Love it! 

Aside from that, we seem to be faced with a kinda soulless city, lacking in vibe, interesting spaces and interesting people. 

an example of the revamping of the old

yeah - we're both totally agreed. it's ok, there's some nice bits, but there's no soul in the place. of course, that's pretty rich coming from some dude who just rocked up like 5 minutes ago and wandered around the old town for the afternoon. but still, after travelling around a bit, you get a sixth sense about whether there's a good vibe in a place, and really, we aren't feeling it here.

having said that, which i feel sounds kinda bitchy, there are some interesting sights.

 one of the intriguing things is the juxtaposition between old and new.

there's lot of modern skyscrapers in town, some are quite interesting looking 

nice bit of contemporary architecture - although, it happens to be a facade for a shopping mall 
- yeah man, it's awesome! SUCKING YOU INTO CONSUMERISM!!!

 this was in some sort of corporate plaza in the banking district. i really like it - kinda art nouveau-ish.

the total lack of people our age here obviously makes it feel a little less inviting. 

but there are some characters about that keep us engaged. 

  nothing says 'anarchy' like a politely requesting t-shirt slogan. except maybe if you're also carrying a chain-store shopping bag from the mall.
We saw her twice! So exciting!

we took off out of the old city area to get some dinner, on the way we noticed this u-bahn entrance...

 

cheesy enough for ya? haha - love that 'fresh wind' talk!

bye bye berlin!

 

aw yeah that's noice. 

They look like two completely different streets - but nay!

going to miss the joyous transition of a european spring.

whilst not the same thing, small compensation comes with the fact that we have an australian spring to look forward to on the other side of ... gulp ... winter. 

After a winter in Copenhagen, an Aussie winter seems like a piece of piss though really.

anyway, before all that happens, we have the last few days of berlin to enjoy and then a quick stop in frankfurt.

the other day, we took off to the nikolaiviertel, which is like where the old city of berlin used to be.

but, like much of the city, it got trounced during the war. in fact, this area was particularly badly hit and almost entirely obliterated. 

 check out the bullet holes in this building, one of the few left.

so, all the really old little buildings, the windy little cobblestone streets, the alleys and the generally cute european town-ness of the city on the river were converted into bullet-riddled piles of bricks and blood. bit of a shame really. war eh?!

anyway, they patched up what they could save and set about resurrecting what they could and trying to keep the charm of the wriggly little streets and shops. Finding narrow streets that didn't fit cars was quite the novelty really - they are truly a rarity in this part of the country.

unfortunately, it was on the east of the city, and as a consequence, in the hands of the communists, and they really made a hatchet job of the whole affair. 

Here here. Sorry guys, but you fuglied it up good.

I mean, what is that concrete shit?! 

check out the concrete monstrosities in front of the church towers. Ew!

nice try but minus five points for you.

still, it must be said, the sheer higgledy piggledy nature of the streets does lend it some charm, and there's the spree running eagerly by, and some nice old buildings next door on museum island, so it ain't all tragic.

and when the sun is out, everything feels just fine!

For the record, I am not naked in this shot. Just momentarily without clothes.

no less than 100m away we found a lovely little patch of grass by the river for a picnic in the sunshine.

that's the cathedral in the background, that's on museum island, from an earlier post, with one of the big museums further in the back, with all the columns.

 

What a fucking awesome spot for picnicing joy!

every so often a little tourist boat would drift by and an automated voice would espouse the 

highlights of the area to its clientele.

and on the other side of us was the famous alexander platz and the tv tower that looms over you at every turn, like some sort of weird sentinel of the city. Yeah, it's gonna feel weird not being able to see it to determine my position - it is like the sun. I'll miss you TV tower!

 this was a super pleasant little stopping point. we watched a dove collect twigs to make its nest, discussed our plans of moving to the bush and opening a store, and devoured some pretty average back-factory rolls (so wrong they were right, you know?), washed down with mezzo mix - a cola delight.

ok, so i have been getting totally sick of my hair lately.

it's just terrible. It really is.

something in the water has turned it lank and nasty. Yeah 'the water' pfft!

plus, probably, an advancing collection of years and hereditary male pattern baldness.

such is life for the virile man!

Just face it Kent. You OLD! So no more hair for you.

anyway, after many offers, i enlisted lucy's help and she took to me with her magic scissor hands.

Yeeehaa! Let's have some fun! It's great cutting boy-hair, because it grows back so quickly, if you make any BIG mistakes, it can be shaved like that. Heh heh. What a satisfying afternoon.

this is the most images i'll ever post of myself - it being only necessary for the proper communication of 

the story at hand.

rum and ginger ale soothed any apprehension i (we) might have had.

Had to water Kent up good to relax him really. 

there were one or two worrisome moments, when lucy went all freehand with her technique, (What the shit I was a PRO!) and the rum was dulling out my senses a little (mine too - like I was going to cut his hair without any liquor in me!). Luckily, coz I accidentally gave Kent a couple of racing stripes above the ear on the other side - mmm, hello fresh bald patch! 

Bit close up don't you think? It looks way better when you are standing a regular distance away.

but all's well that ends well!

a terrific job (ah-thank yaw),

We now have a regular Tin Tin!

especially with minimal tools and client that kept taking photos of himself from different angles 

so he could check on the progress and offer any advice. 

Whatever - you just love yourself Kent.

With a visit from the cute as Eliza Skinner, we had some simply lovely last stops at some of our favourite spots. Lunch at YamYam (don't eat there early, you will get a seat, but somehow it doesn't taste as good when you don't have to fight for it.) - broiled beef on rice of course, followed by a lazy meander back toward the station. 

shit - i forgot to pinch another set of steel chopsticks so that we had a pair. bugger!  Oh Kent.

Some kicking paste up of artist Ai Weiwei - we hope China lets him out of jail soon please! He's a good guy! 

seriously china, get a some human rights clues already. Right on. 

 So, the last couple of days have mostly been consumed with wandering through our local streets, having colossol breakfasts with friends and savouring our last St Gaudy coffee today - sob sob - we will miss you Johnny! Best coffee man evaaaah!

Breakfast for four is really breakfast for twelve - we did not finish the platter. this was consumed with our new friends ariel and andrea from berlin/melbourne (and before that, like chile and hungary). they run pandarosa - great peeps, talented as shit. down on oderbergerstrasse, under the shade, on a blue sky day. We hoed at it for a good two and a half hours before giving up and stumbling back home for a ten minute breather, before heading to Gaudy for some coffee. Made it just in time for the thunderstorm to roll its sweet self in, without drenching us. We had a great view into the bucketing rain, flashes of lightening and some pretty epic thunder. Awesome-cakes! 
totally brilliant.
proper bass-rolling thunder, flashes of lightening - like paparazzi. Um.

 The crows here are grey and black - very street.

next day,
we wandered our way through mitte again - hunting out some last minute gifty ideas.

there's about a million things i wanted for myself, or for us, and it seemed like everything was perfect for sarah [James], somehow berlin seems like a sarah town... but there's only so much room one has in one's backpack, and only so much weight allowance on the flight. oh well. we'll live.
Sez, you better come back soon - this city really was built for you!

A shot of a garden, oh, just out the back of a shop in Mitte. Yes, this is so like Alice's experience with the garden through the little door. Only, it was an overpriced denim shop (and some leather shoes, of which there was a killer pair of work boots for 300 euro), and the doors were MASSIVE and the garden was RIGHT THERE! Absolutely stunning. If only the sales staff weren't so suspicious of us gawking (and probably photographing), it would have been even better. 

they got especially concerned when i photographed their jellyfish aquarium.

it's probably a bit hard to make them out, but there's little jellyfish in there. 

they almost looked like they were luminescent. pretty amazing. 

How cool is the sideways seaweed?! 

it think maybe it had some black light going on.

the aquarium was about 3m x 1.5m x 0.5m. and this image is taken from the narrow end.   

Shawarma plate at Babel - good shit.

And last, but certainly not least, a revisit to Babel for some Killer lebanese food - nom nom nom! Not really the best place to go when you have 'kleine hunger' but some how we managed to polish both platters off - must be all that hard doing nothing we've been so busy with!

Now we have to pack our bags and get on a damn train to Frankfurt. Berlin - it's been very sweet. x