Gute Nacht Mein Berlin

Rolling Rolling Rolling

There is something for everyone in London. Basically that’s what makes it a little bit bizarre. Yet when you walk into this place it just seems absolutely normal, and you genuinely believe that this is what your every Joe and Josephine would do every single weekend after they knock off from Happy Hour.

Take 500 people dressed in highlighted lycra, tutus, hot pants, afros, glitter, etc etc etc team it with flashing roller blades (not blades) and a dash of beer and a DJ or two, throw them into two rings (one slow for the less suicidal and one fast for the show-offs) and dim the lights – hey presto YOU’VE GOT ROLLAAAHHHH DISSCCOOOOOOHHHH!

For an unusual but extremely fun night out - check it out: http://www.renaissancerooms.co.uk/?section=club&action=home

My Big Fat Half Ethiopean Party

It was my landlady Vicky's birthday and she threw a humongus party for her collection of very interesting friends.

If I calculated correctly (because I am too scared to ask, and she is too precarious to tell) according to her claim that she was born in the year of the Rabbit but she is older than my father, then she would have just turned 69.

What a kick arse number.

The Night Before
The festivities started the night before with the preparations that reminded me of the days when I was a child and my grandmother used to gather the family around the round table and form a production line making dumplings, wontons, sushi, bamboo leaf parcels (for Dragon Boat festival), a real ritual around food preparation and special times in the calendar to give meaning to mundane things like the passage of time. Vicky had gathered around 4 or five girl friends of hers all buzzing around the house slicing and dicing and marinating bits that make up of what I can see as a mountainous amount of food.

And then we kinda got drunk. Well, I had two glasses, no more than the others, except they are all about 40 years older than me and they had all been way too tired. So the evening ended slightly grimly with the mentioning of a few infamous events of various peoples lives and some vile cursing. Suddenly having realised that she had just cursed a few of the people that she in fact actually love very much (don't we all get that some times??) my landlady presented us with a vessel of water in a bottle made into the shape of the Catholic Madonna. 'This is Holy water from Mother Teresa - we must put it on our head to chase my curse away'. I have never really been that religious in my life but being slightly amused and tipsy at the time it just kinda made sense (and to be polite) to just slap the water on my head.

The Morning
I spent the morning giving out Berrocca tablets to my landlady and our various house guests, who at 7am in the morning went back to work on the mountains of food but obviously still suffering from the over indulgence of the night before. One of them that wasn't there last night (but was cursed at - I didn't say anything, of course) turned up with the flu. So I administered Lemsip and some phenylephrine action and wrapped her in a towel. She said Vicky would never talk to her if she didn't risk her life turning up to her party. Then there was the scratched elbow of Vicky's Jamaican Vegetarian son that needed a bit of Antiflame and patching up. Some one else had a burn that was also bound to happen and I whipped out the ice pack, and then the timely attendence to a cut from a broken plate. I do feel like a nurse. At lease useful because they won't let any one 'junior' near food preparation, even though I am the only one in the room that can boast a food blog. I do pride myself in my culinary skills, but given that there are five large elderly ladies yelling at each other welding their knives in the air in a very small kitchen I thought it just wasn't really my place unless was called upon.

The Party
Ding dong --- I think that was a flash back from one of the skits from 'Who's Line Is It Anyway' where you had to guess who exactly the party guest was and stuff? From 3pm they streamed in and the party was in full swing. Vicky has a pretty active life in her retirement, apart from being very active at her Church and the Ethiopian community, she does everything from yoga, bridge, acupuncture, majong, meals on wheels, the retired staff club, the Apartment Council, the anti-Madonna-adopting-Ugandan-Baby action group, and making her own curtains. And being both Ethiopian and Italian she feels like she has to invite everyone she knows. But because she is so eccentric and peculiar, not everyone and anyone are actually friends with her. so you can guess that the characters that filter through the system to be very very interesting. Particularly at the age of 60 - 90, a lot of these individuals have lived very full and adventurous lives. Some of them have not only lived through WWII, but things like the Hungarian Revolution, the Ethiopian Revolution, the golden sixties in San Francisco, deaths of their own children, suicides of lovers, bankruptcy, divorce, drug overdoses, rubbing shoulders wit the rich and famous, plane crashes, miracle cures and sordid affairs... So what's me the young lass of 28 to do when an oldie sits me down to dish out the dirt of their lives?










On the right is only a very small part of the spread. The Ethiopian curries spice the room and bring out some tears, while the Italian classics fill everyone up with comfort and satisfaction. My highlight will have to be the soft, moist Ingera bread (seen here rolled), the most typical Ethiopian carb, dipped in a prawn and octopus coconut seafood fanfare. And the Strawberries in Cointreau and orange juice is the recipe I'll be taking home with me.




























This is a bit of dancing action later on. Don't you think Vicky looked pretty hot in her bright green designer frock for a Nana her age??






Late into the evening
The dusk sank into a smokey grey and only three guests remain. Two very well dressed Ethiopian grandmas who sit very gracefully with their small handbags tucked on top of their closed knees, nodding to each other as they discuss family affairs, and Mrs J the 75 year old widowed Irish lady, who had just finished a conversation with poor Emma, who looked like she fled the party.

Mrs J said, as she sat me down, 'I thought your friend was only 15!! I didn't know you were the same age!! I'm sorry I gave her brain damage, haaaa haaaa haaaaa!!'
('Great,' I thought to myself)
'I'm a Catholic, but not a very good one. I wasn't a virgin when I got married. I started having sexual intercourse when I was only 17, when I moved to London. But it was all about just intercourse. I never loved any of them. '
To my absolute bemusement she went on to describe every detail of her sexual activities with her late husband, particularly elaborating the fact that he was very 'well-endowed'.
'You know, Sarah Brightman wrote in a newspaper article that although the marriage to Andrew Lloyd Webber ended badly, she enjoyed life with him because he was well endowed. And I think that has everything to do with sex with a man, don't you think dear?' She said.
'Musicians are generally renowned for that sort of stuff, I guess, Mrs J.' I replied.
'The ecstasy and excitement of having him inside me just made me want to forget myself. I would never want to look at another man again. I decided that it was then I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him. Have you felt that about a man before my dear? Well I guess you are still young, aren't you dear?'
I am speechless, I am blushing, the proper Ethiopian ladies are blushing. I am suddenly feeling like I am the biggest prude in the world because I am too shy to over talk a 75 year old widow on the simple matter of sex. When did they become so liberated and I so dull???

The Aftermath

They have all gone and its 1am. I am still eating and candidly making a small rocket fuel concoction in my goblet. Vicky pulls out her shisha and we have another good puff.

Apart from a slightly smaller mountain of food left over there is also a small mountain of empty plates. I am thinking of the conversations we are going to have next.

'They came, they ate, and drank, and then pissed off. All I did was clean up and worry and stress and stuck talking to people I don't even like. This is the last party I am ever going to have.' She said.

'They told me that's what you said last year.' I replied, exhaling.

Taiwanese Banquet

Aunt Jean's Bank Manager (guy singining on the right) took the family out for a banquet the other night, slice of life for you. And yes without fail I did smash Sinatra once again.

At It Again

Just couldn't help m'self. Kareoke is one thing I avidly love, so thank you kindly to Margaret & Peter for organising the fantastic evening where about 25 of their students as well as some of the newly arrived French exchange students turned up at Huanledi KTV bar for the unforgettable evening of esophagus stripping. I watched myself demolish My Way for the 123rd consequtive time, but it was no where close to Cindy and Brian, who did a Chinese song called "One Night In Beijing" which was a mixture of american pop, Beijing opera and Hong Kong ballad. Brian especially on the high pitch opera screetching, WOW.

Pleasure No.5: Going to the Ball

Ops... passed out in my new sari and self embroided blouse ;-*

On my last night in Bangladesh T&I went to the Acid Survivors Foundation annual fundraising ball. I didn't know that Bangladeshis 'cut shapes' too, but man, they are pretty on to it!!

Pleasure No.2: Beach Holiday Adventure

Who you are is who you know. T knows L who is another Australian living in Cox’s Bazaar who knows a local M who knows a hotel owner’s son, so we get to crash at this hotel for free for a few days. Bonus.

Out and about
M is a Mecca born Bangladeshi, and a very talkative English teacher at a local high school – I think he’s got the hots for L. He took us for a bit of a trip around town on the first day. Cox’s Bazzar is on the Burmese boarder, in fact, quite a few UN agencies here look after the stateless Rohingya refugee camps not far from here. There is a huge Burmese community here with their own temple and stupas, and a “Burmese Market”, which we went and checked out. The Burmese women wear crazy white powder on their faces and are quite plump compared to the Bangladeshi girls.

M took us to the local Bangladeshi markets to check out some local produce. Dried fish seems to be a staple here. Then there’s a huge strip of houses completely free of furniture and interior deco – each of the entire house is hung with giant pearls of bananas at different extents of ripeness, basically when they are ready they get taken away to the markets. Next to the “Banana Street” there was a fairly large rubbish dump in front of a small stretch of land you need to walk in order to get to a line of boats – we got cornered by a number of children diving for mud fish in a square waterhole. We then took a big CNG ride around the quiet beaches and climbed up a hill top with sweeping views of the Indian Ocean. It is actually quite amazing to see open space in Bangladesh for the first time without cluttered houses and crowds of people. The scene reminded me so much of the tramp up Mt Pauanui when I was young.

We took a walk down the beach - I didn't think that the Bangladeshis would like the beach given how they don't show much flesh, but I was totally wrong. Particularly young people like to walk around, children swim and most others get up to their knees. And just like beaches in Europe they hire out little benches you can lounge around in, so we got one and spent an afternoon watching the world go by there drinking coconut juice. Oh man, life!!
Night out at Mermaids
Mermaids is a strippers bar in Wellington, so when I hear of the name Mermaids I always think “dodgy!!”. But Mermaids in Cox’s is quite a different establishment. Its an ex-pats oriented beach front cafe run by a German-Bangladeshi guy, its probably the most worldly and internationally looking establishment I've come across in Bangladesh. Its a classy and lovely little hide out with relaxed deco, a beautiful sand garden and fantastic indy music - and a sit-down toilet, would you believe! We met L there for dinner (it was average, I must say) and some strawberry shisha.

We were meant to leave before midnight but it started to rain pretty heavily, so we shared the rest of the smuggled in beverages with the staff, who were fantastic party animals and didn't treat us like foreigners. As they don't get alcohol very easily here the boys really did appreciate it and were totally in the mood to go hard. I think we almost broke the wooden floor... At one stage the cafe dogs (aptly named Shakira, Yellow, and Brown) came up and danced with us for a wee while before heading back into the garden to guard the place. We raid the kitchen for some light midnight snack. Its pouring down like mad, and the pitch black sky beyond the beach is hollow like the desert ... must be time for midnight swim. I haven't been in such a good mood for ages. The dogs are calling out to me from the beach... aroooh, aroooh, don't go too far so we don't have to come get youuuuh~~

............

I woke up at 6am in a completely foreign hotel room at a different end of town, and there's a fucking cockroach crawling across my chest. My wet clothes in a soggy pile on the floor. Hmm. The entire room smells like five month old jungle socks and there's broken glass and rusty steel frames lying around in the hall. Well, at least its T who's asleep in the same room and not the guy that likes "Malaysian girls". T&I settled the bill downstairs and hop onto a rickshaw and headed back to our original hotel.

Its not a holiday untill you've had a fight with locals

The rickshaw lad refused to take our money even after we insisted three or four times, and just rode off. It was quite a weird situation, but we were too tired and hung over to chase after him so went back to our room to catch up on sleep. We re-emerged outside at 12pm quite shocked to find the young bloke waiting for us in the dead midday heat. He demanded something along the lines of 5 hours of pay - - - we of course didn't think it was particularly fair, and this kerfuffle of the three of us "negotiating" drew a huge crowd of other rickshaw drivers to his aid. I felt like a pompy Hollywood actress trying to fight off the paparazzi - I should just really learn to accept this sort of occurrence given the situation.... we finally sorted it out with the hotel staff - the guy thought it might be a good way to earn dosh by waiting for us at the place he dropped us off so he could take us to the next spot, and charge us for the waiting time as well, not knowing that we'd be gone for half the day. While I really did feel sorry that he'd missed out on half a day's work, its kinda quite stupid that he'd think we'd fall for his little plan. We agreed to give him money for the ride plus an extra bit just to cover for his "losses" and he left with a bit of a sigh.

above: naughtiest kids I've met so far are from Cox's Bazare

GLASGOW 101: Jane's Bday Bash

Moooooooooooove ovahhhh Posh and Katie, cos Jane's 'Welcome to Glasgow' Birthday Party has definitely upstaged your meekly little 'Welcome to LA' Party'. reporting live...

1) 10:05 am. Barras Market
Despite heavy storm warnings and reports of danger lurking in the streets, a large and growing group of party goers mainly from the pro-Scot colony of New Zealand set off early on Saturday morning into the unknown of Barras Markets, their first stop of a weekend long education about Glaswegian life.

Yes, this is definitely a B grade or worse version of Paddy's Markets in Sydney. Think plastic guns, pirating, passed use by date food, deep fried mars bars, bones for your dogs, ginger wigs on pom pom hats, backyard fudge etc etc etc. My outfit today tried to replicate the French Revolutionaries, in honour of the Parisians I left behind a few days ago. However, perhaps due to the largest number of kiwis I've seen in four months, I ended up feeling a bit like Jake the Muss and low and behold was mistaken as Jeff da Maori by one of the locals almost immediately.

2) 11.34am. Mission Impossible

They were then given a list of tasks whilst in the underground system to undertake in order to familiarise themselves with fine Scottish traditions such as music, attire, beverage, theatre and, of course, procreation.

Ok, so I am thinking the dead baby scene and no probs with number 5 cos I have my lucky undies on. Will work on the others for now. NB: ginger is pronounced 'gh (as in gh in gherkin) ing - ah' in NZ.

3) 12.29pm The Primo Kelvingrove Museum and Art Gallery

The party goers attended a self guided tour of Kelvingrove Museum and Art Gallery, one of the oldest and finest institutions for historical and cultural preservation in Scotland. They were treated to an organ concert worthy of a standing ovation.

This must be where they keep all the heads of Englishman they chop off... Highlights for me were a) the giant prehistoric moose, b) Robert Burns's sexual exploits exhibition c) the very very large key to a chastity belt. ouch.

4) 1.45pm The Pub Meal & Whisky

A light lunch at the local pub, another old and fine institution of Glasgow, took place at The Primary, followed by even older and finer whisky at the Uisge Beathe. A small break away group then terrorised local children at the Kelvingrove Park with decomposing leaves. A young Glaswegian lad also reported a missing ice cream. So far no arrests have been made but those withholding information are encouraged to come forward.

Meat-and-three-vege. Excellent. But my hang over from the night before was starting to catch up with me after the first drink of the day and I don't remember much of the next three hours. Except for that I was teased. On the way through to the next of many pubs to follow we staged an amusing rendition of the breakfast scene from Trainspotting at the park as no one else was keen on sourcing a prop as a dead baby. Nevertheless, tick one.

5) 6.20pm Guinness World Record Haggis

A locally sourced and produced portion of haggis was then sampled by the revelers at The Goat and an environmentally friendly method of cleaning was employed for the silvery. The incredible amount of kilojoules provided by this fine Scottish staple led the party goers to perform what is known in the Southern Hemisphere as the 'Bird Dance' in the middle of busy traffic. No kiwis were killed.

Next thing I knew a very very very large portion of haggis preordered by Jane was served and demolished within 3 minutes and 43 seconds. It was so creamy, fatty, salty and good that we did some spoon and plate licking. I weep over the fact that I was completely cheated on my first afternoon here by eating that big piece of deep friend mongrel haggis served in the alley way behind Buchanan Street. I believe this was when the idea of an invisible bagpipe orchestra was first floated. Tick two.

6) 8.00pm Dooon a Booorkie
Soon after 8pm in the evening, an alleged male Australian was seen purchasing and distributing swig-fulls of an infamous local fortified wine commonly known as Buckfast to under aged female near the junction of Byres Road and Argyle Street in the well reputed West End neighbourhood by a motorist.

Woo hoo finally found some Buckfast!! Tick three. It actually tastes ok.

7) 9.00pm Ashton Lane
Unfortunately our reporter was barred from entering the Brel in Ashton Lane and lost the party goers for the rest of the evening and unable to complete the rest of the report.

Ashton Lane: we came here to drink a bit more and check out the cool kids. Head nodding Cooool. And enjoyed a bit more of that Scottish rain in the beer garden.

8) 11pm Cutting some kiwi shapes at Otago Street Yep this is a pretty hardcore house party. Best and hardest I've seen for about five months. I was almost about to give the Party-hard award to Canadians on this trip but I think Kiwis are back in the game. Jane you out did yourself, and kudos to the DJ and the hosts (Rachael, Lucy & Don) particularly for putting up with the mirror shattering, bathroom trashing, pizza passing and kilt peeping (oh, tick four) antics. There may even have been some homesick tears in my eyes as we head-banged to the beat of 'Victoria' by the Exponents, but I know I am really becoming to love Scotland. Ahh haa haa, even got a scottish battalion flag as a prize!!

And I'll leave tick five to your vivid imagination.