A run at the end of the year...
I went out for a run today...it was some month since i did it last time, then in Taiwan..
It was a cloudy morning, but after lunch it became sunny...my neighbours have a nice house...
I also ran to alingsås, to the beach...
It was pretty empty...some times in the winter, I see people kite surf...
At the camping out siude the sity people were having a new years fire...
Might be a barbeque before tonights party...
Day before new years eve
I went to gothenburg last night...
I saw the best movie in the world...according to imdb.com...
I also tried ome IPA...
Listened to some house music...
And saw a funny T-shirt...non religious...
I also ate a non-kebab pizza...that was unique...(in scandinavia)...
When finished the movie, I found 7 years in tibet and legends of the fall to be better...
I also took the tram...
To a pizzeria, and finally tried another kebab pizza...
Real kebab...
Its nice to be home...
Omg, a kopparberbs cider car...
My old friend Ville arrived home, after helping his brother in Särö...
We tried some IPA...
This one was good, some vanilla character...
He had a recently bought 55 inch smart TV...
He also conected it to his couch...
My flash made his eyes close...
I later on took the train back to alingsås...EU regulations, made it easier for east europeans to come to scandinavia to beg for money...its very insteresting, since the welfare system in sweden, made begers very rare since everyone gets money from the government, if they are unemployed...(my friend who doesnt like to work gets 7000SEK per month for doing nothing (almost 30000NT), thats a salary for a bachelor of science in taiwan...ofcourse ppl wants to get money but they dont want to pay tax...so some people think that it is very frustrating when people comes to sweden to get welfare....without paying tax...
This lady did not speak swedish nor english...I wonder what she was saying...
Well at home, Christian visited me...it was fun, I havnt met him since Taipei this summer...
my sister also decided to not go back home to stockholm tomorrow...
I ended they day by making a pizza...it was super good...
The annual turkey dinner/lunch.
Every year my mum has a turkey dinner, or lunch where she invites her relatives from her moms side...
This yeas was no exception...and some food had to be done...
I was asked to assist...
Making some cake, however, ot space for creativity, it had to be the cake she wanted...
Me and my guest helped her...
My nephew wanted to eat...
But he didnt want lasange...
He wanted yoghurt...
A range of food is available in the kitchen...
I also made some potatoe in the oven...my mom cut her finger in the kitchen door...so I had space to make it my way...
I also spent som etime in the garden...watching the lake...
Tne pier...
The sauna...
Some times randim people are walking in the garden...since the law in sweden says that everyone has the right to walk on anyones property, except gardens near someones house...someone put up this sign...
The apple tree stil had some apples left...
The strong autumn winds are taking amny trees...
This is one of my favorite places in the summer...its very peaceful...
with plum trees...
I always had an idea to have hens here...my father didnt have the same opinion...
Omg, my mom is back from the hospital...
Except from a right hand that is not 100% working, she can finish the dish...
The table has "red" colour today...many times she has golder colour on it...
I made the sauce, I think she was afraid of failing with it, eventually I succeeded...
And it was time for the guests to come...
The potatoes were almost done...
Time to take a seat...
This is the "kids table"...(read: me and my sisters etc)...
Same food as every year...at the turkey dinner...
And non alcoholic wine...
The cook book was avaible to show the ingredients...
My mom often saves old magazines with different dishes...to be able to offer a broad range of dishes...
My nephew were playing with toys...lego...
And my sister and her boyfriend joined up...I barely saw them attend the dinner...
We also ate some ice cream called "new york", it was an interesting recipe, saying "socker" wtice (it means sugar)...
Later on it was time to make the dishes...
And eat the left o vers...my tawianese friend posted some swedish dishes on her facebook...
My sister seemed to enjoy making the dishes...she looks so happy...
I also spent some times taking pics with my fathers camera...on art etc...like this pic...
We spent alot of time in the kitchen that day...
Later my taiwanese friend left to gothenburg...her sweden tour continues...she signed the guestbook at my parents house before she took off...
Adventures in Alingsås
An old friend visited me recently...
And tomorrow my mother will have many people at home for Turkey dinner...
Many people are joining up for then...
But today I visited another old friend outside Alingsås...near Anten...
They have old trains over there...
This is Mikeal....
He works with these trains on his free time...
And showed old equipment that had to do with trains....
They were interesting...
And some Märklin toys...
And old trians, in the museum...
This one is about 1 meter big transformator...
And the old sign for the government owned train company...
We were the only visitors for the day...
And paid a short visit to gräfsnäs...
Its an old fortress that burned a couple of times...
Heaviny wind makes the statues fall...
And there is old island out there where the old queen of sweden use to come from...
Later I also visited my cousines house nearby...
To see if they had any recent wold boars...but I only found deers...
It was pretty Christmas like...
And they had a painting, which we also have at my parents house...of some ancestor...
In the evening I made meatballs...
Just like I did in taipei some month ago...
They were ok...
I used bought meatballs as a bench mark...
And then fried them...
And my parents put all the attention on my nephew...
Full swedish dish...meatballs, mashed potatoes and some brown sauce...
Time for dinner...
And some foccacia...
The christmas tree in Alingsås downtown...
And Johan Alströmer...the guy on the square in Gothenburg and alingsås...
The main street on Alingsås by night...
And System Bolaget...where drinks with more than 3.5% of alcohole can be bought...
And "Hallbergs blommor"...a store which I see when I watch Alingsås trough webcam...
Alingsås wants to be famous for all the coffee shops...
I think the webcam is in this window...
Fredrik was lying in the couch the whole day...
A quick visit to gothenburg...
I made q quick visit to gothenburg lat night...
People in Sweden are 77kg...
Christmas view from my borthers appartment...
I missed the tram in the night, and the bike had a flat tire...So i had to walk...-
It was a nice walk...
On a sundays the bus wont go as late as other days...
Some are at Gothenburg downtown...
I met my sister in downtown...
They have a highchair in the front seat...in my parents car whey they come for a visit...
My batman painting is still in the old fireplace at home...
I also did some scones in the afternoon...
It was with cream inside...it was nice...
My mom is using wooden spoons when my sister is home, else she prefers to use plastic spoons...I dont understand why. its more toxic...
Day after Christmas...
I started they day by doing some lemon confit..
It was instersting...
Containing alot of lemons and salt...
It will take some month before it is done...
We will see what happens...
It is pretty rainy here...aoubnt 5 degrees...
I also paid a quick visit to the super market...
They had Pripps blå, it was sold in 7-11 in tawian this summer...
And Crocodile, which I could find in carrefour...
The post office is found at the supermarket in sweden, that is confusing for many foreingers...
My mom wanted to use the quick check out at the store...
At dinnertime, I tried 2 beers...swedish and belgian...
And some wine...
Later I headed to Gothenburg...
Omg, my fold friend Daniel had a party...
Many people were there...
He is a partender...so he was mixing drinks the whole night...
My cousin erik was also there...
It was pretty crowded so people were dropping glasses etc on the floor alot...
Mingleing in the bedroom...
My frned Anders looks alittle like Justin Timberlake...
More mingeling...
Daniel also had some bikes...impressive...
And many costcards...
Erik lived in London, and comes home once in a while...but this day is the day where he meets most ppl...
Olof was alos there...he is super nice,,,
Viktor was also there.I havnt seen him for some years...
After a whle it was pizza time...
This guy was from australia, but lived in Berlin...
This guy had some weed...
I found the same spirit that I sell in Taiwan...cool...
And this drink was super nice...banana, kahlua and vanilla icecream...
These are normal homemade cigarettes...
Wops, another glass dropped on the ground...
We were recommended to wear shoes...
I also asked my friend, which was his best song...he said "Better in the Dark" with say lou Lou...it is pretty good...
More drinks were made...
Laste year they had a paper where people could draw comments...today they had a typewriter...
The girls were chilling on the couch...
And Anders joined them...
Olof were writing something...I also made a Limerick...
Later Erisk started to wrestle...
Not sure why, maybe he was bored...
The "drink table"...
We went to the 24 hour convenient store before we went home...
Mingleing with the police...they thought we were polite for being party people...the have prejudice...
I had a french hotdog...
Christmas eve...
After trying the ham last night...
I found it pretty dry, my brother in law recommended it to be dry, due to some personal preference...I didnt have any opinion...
I went all in on cheese instead...
On Christmas morning, I visited my aunts place...she has a new hottub...it was nice...I want one then I get old...
It was a littlebit rainy today...people were going for a walk...
Just showing the hot tub...
Super isolated...to save energy, I like that...
38 degrees...
My aunt had a fjällräven bag...
They also had a christmas tree at their garden entrance...
The tree was in a puddle...(rainy christmas)...
Later we went for a walk...
Omg, some root...for the wild boars to eat...
And some information sign from some forrest company...
Some people walked faster, and some slower...
Signs from an old mill...
I was wearin a christmas tie while walking...
I found many new hunting towers on the way...
A typical thing in sweden...a football goal...
On a typical swedish garden...
Later we had a snack at home...
And I went to the store...omg, so many kinds of beer...
I also painted my ginger bread house...
It was fun, but i didnt have any nonstop-chocolate candies...
Later on the christmas table was done...
With a range of dishes...
And since my fathers parents are from some part of Småland in the south of sweden, we have a tradition to eat cheese cake on christmas...
and later there were some christmas gift exchange...my sister and her husband exchanged alot of gifts...
No rhymes......
I also gave some...
Later I had some kilkenny...
And other beers from Thailand and sweden...
I ended they day by eating ice cream...it was nice...
The day before christmas...
I started they day by driving my brother to the airport, he is heading to africa...
Later I went to Gothenburg to visit Vlad...driving car...not accepting cash atht eparking lot...and also charging for enterint the city by car...
Me and Vlad went to an indoan resturant at hisingen...
The coke tasted like diet coke...wierd...
My 50 note had a metallic stripe on it...if it didnt, I need to use it before the end of the year...else it wont be valid to use anymore...
We also had a coffee and walked along the river side...it was nice...
Vlads office...
Well back home, I had some chocolate...
On christmas its ok to take fomr the other layer I heard...
I also enjoyed seeing my packages from taiwan, including a gift :)
Later on, I went to some christmas gathering...seeing my cousin Erik...
And some other cousins...
It was nice...
Many family photos...
Typical swedish christmas tree...
And more mingeling...
And eating...
And signing the guestbook...
My parents also have a guestbook at their house...
We later on went to Östad...for gingerbread baking...
Typical patterns...
And scary masks...
Sister and cousin...
And some gingerbread house preparations...
And family gatherings...
Omg a "crispy one"...
A pile of ginger bread...
Later on we went back to some other party do pick up some leftovers...(that my friend left)...
When home at my parents house I I finished the gingerbread house...
This is the result...not painted yet...
Back to sweden....
Im heading back to sweden...
Many ppl were carrying luggage on the train,1 out of 3 swedes might celebrate christams abroad...europeans are a travelling people...
It was werid....on my ticket it said max 12kg in luggae, but i got 20 kg limit when I was there...
Discriminating customs as usual...carrying a tie, and blazer its easy to walk right through...else they might stop you...
Camel sponsored a smoking room
Why doea KLM have bikes on their cups?
Nice sunset pver holland...
I will check where this is on google map later...there was no GPS on this plane...
Strange...I had D71 as gate on my boarding pass...
...but it said D81 on the screen...
Schiphol had christmas feeling...
This guy was nice...he helped me to get a socket...
Watching the christmas calendar while waiting...
And reading my "travelling book"...the guy who walked Argentina-England...its a nice book...
3 phones...for 3 countries...
Nice to be back...the place where things usually works...
Ok, im home...Time to investigate: Supply no1 - Check!
...Supply 2 - Check!...
...Supply 3 - Check!...
...and supply 4- Check!...
A visit at Alex place...
I had some bottles to recyle yesterday...i cant find where to put glass bottles...so I usualy just drop them nearby the recycling machines...
I had 2 bags of them...
Later Jonatan paid a visit to the office...I helped him to sew a button back to his jacket...
He did it pretty well...
Later we went to Alex place...he is moving in 2 days...
They had some nice paintings on the wall at his entrance...
And a pretty cozy room...
He also had some german books, but on some upper level...
We just had some drinks and listened to music...
And tried some colombian anis drink...i think it was the same as i tried when my friend Ramioro was here, in a colombian bar...
He also had an old Absolut Vodka bottle...
And he "had" chocolate...
My friend professionally did some herb preparations...
Omg, experience...
Alex often host couchsurfers...he had to mattresses at his bed...
Viola, done...i think...
It is always intersting to see other cutlures...so far from what Im used to at home...
I tried some interesting chips from colombia instad...
And some other local things...
And playing music all night long...
Some other potato:ish thing...
And later we were even treated pasta with cheese...so nice...
And more songs...technog, house, trance, rock, eurotechno...
The appartment had some intereting art...is always inspiring with new designs...
And a sign of colombia...which belonged to the appartment...
Watching the Advent calendar show on TV...
Every year the national television in Sweden shows daily episodes of a from 1st of dec until christmas...this year I heard that it was extra good...
I spent some hours recap from episode 1 until today...it was fun...
An attempt to visit club Gibson
There is a club in Frankfurt called Gibson, which had a special offer, "free entrance before 21..."...been there heard that...
It was a queue on 30 mins when I arrived...
Wtill waiting, was suppose to meet my friends 20.45...thy came a little late...
This queue made the bartender in the all you can drink club in Taoyuan some years ago to feel fast...maybe 1meter/minute...many people dropped off...
This is the club...
And some brave ppl who still wants to enter...at 21...but no free entrance...
Me and my friend went to Rewe at a nearby mall...I wanted to buy some Paulaner beer I never tried before...
And some sourcream and onion chips...they are very good here...
The mall is kind of interesting...some glass design shaped as a web...
We tried to go to the roof top...and took a super long escalator up...
More glass webb ceiling...
They had alot of space here...
It reminded me of the mall "big city" in hsinchu, they even had some train that drive on a christams themes rail...
And suddenly we found some salsa event...what a surprise...
It seemed to be a class there...
Looking out I still saw the long queue to club gibson...
This guy walked around trying to recruit more people to join the salsa class...
Not sure how many people he succeeded to convince...
They even had a stand for hanging jackets...
This girl was also asling people to join the class...
Alex said he was not that good in dancing salsa...
But the girl told us alot about the salsa scene in frankfurt...they have events 5 days per week...
And here are the brave ones who joined...it was a little like brass monkey in taipei...with class first and open dancefloor later...
After some introduction about the steps, they started to dance togetter...
And many people stod at the side watching...
And queuing to hang their jacket...
They also promoted some upcoming events...
And now the open dancefloor started...
Many paople suddenly showed up...
They also had a dancefloor nearby...a smaller one, that played songs that were slower in the beat and more popular in south america I was told...
We went down to the bar after a while to buuuy some more beer (read: we went down to the super market Rwere at B1 in the mall)...
The staff had redbull and vodka at his chair...maybe he was preparing for the night...
And then we took the long escalator again...
It was interesting that the burgerbar was called "Gute burger", similar to the place where I almost come from in sweden...
Omg, super many people...at the salsa dancefloor...
I also tried Veltins beer...it was "ok"...
The hosts also promoted upcoming salsa festivals in frankfurt...
They also had some other bar open where people bought snax...
Wow, evenKatherinne was here...we found out that she has been emailing with Alex before...they are both from colombia...
Maybe she was also here for dancing...
Even the small dancefloor had many people now...
With music sounding like:
Aventura - Obsession...which is one of my spanish favorites...
More body contact than salsa...
Back to the bar...
Omg, it was a long queue to the bar...
I always carry a bottle opener seems like a strategic correct choice...at places like here...
Later we joined some other guys...out somewhere...
Leaving this mall...Alex told me that it is problems here when it rains and snows, since the water goes down on the pavement...at the entrance...right on people entering the building...
The others wanted to go to some australian bar...
Still super long queue to Gibson...I wonder why...
Some more mingeling...all spanish speaking people...Colombia, Argentina, Equador and Spain...
Suddenly some critical mass look-a-like people on inlines passed by, playing nice trance music...
They surely got everyones attention...2013 continues...
An attempt to visit Club Keller
Last night i planned to visit Club Keller, they had some wednesday club there...
I was suppose to meed my friends at Lokalbahnhof in the south of the city...
Omg, only me here...we were suppose to meet 22.30...one guy cancelled it...we heard later...
This it club keller...one can bring their own beer there...
I did not want to stay for too long...so we headed to the bar street that we had a pub crawl some weeks ago...
The couchsurfering society had some events here...
Me and alex had a beer there...even if he is from colombia, he didnt want to go to the colombian bar nearby...
Many english teachers...
Playing dart etc...
Omg, almost in bull´s eye...
John seems to be good in this...
Alex was also ok...
Many trophys on the wall...
It was many people here, i guess most people who work for german companies already started their vacation...
The mens toilet was interesting I was told...
It was a door leading outside...
I guess that the guests will get wet if they need to pee when its raining outside...
Omg, this girl had a big hair...
I met a polish guy whos been to many south east asian countries, as well as sweden...he seemed intereting...
A blur pic of some skyscrapters in frankfurt...but no building is allowed to be higher than the "Messe"...
A visit to Frida 116
My friend invited me to a political meeting last night...
A dark pic of 4 airplanes in the air...hard to see...but worth taking a picture...
There are always many people at the christmas market...
AT Frida 116 they had many logos...I remember my old roommates at NCTU having a T-shirt with this logo...
They had old posters everywhere here...
From old eventsand music groups...
It was also a bar with beer...
Here are some spanish speaeking people...
And the presentaiton started...it was all in german though...
And a german speaking kurd sat there...togetter with a german girl...
Talking about the kurd society...
And the history of kurdistan...
It was not easy to understand everything...
But many german people found it interesting...
I liked when they showed pics from the place...
Wow, I want to go there...
They also collected money for the kurdish society...
Jonatan did not understand much either...
Sometimes some strange music started in the background...it was this DJ equipment that started...
Juan and his argentinian friend...
More logos on the wall...
Some info about this place...
The presentation ended with discussion...and then we went to the bar...
Jonatan was on the move...
A quick visit downtown...
I visited an old friend today...
And got to try some interesting food from northern china...
土豆炖芸豆 (tudou dun yundou)...
I also passed by this steak house, I want to try this steak some time...It reminds me of good moments...
Strange impact...on some area (to long to be causes by some warm water pipe) there was no frost...and later it started again...maybe its the wind that melts it...better keep focused when cycling...
Swedish food...
I just saw a swedish program on internet...
They said that "pig feet" is a swedish dish...thats interesting...then the Chalmers office can buy "typical swedish food" in any "large" nightmarket in taiwan...
A daytrip to frankfurt.
It was a nice december day...
An Australian flag...I wonder where this leads...
Omg, ABB has an office here...thats cool...
I later met Micheal , he has a metal detector...thats cool, I also wanna have one of those...
I also met a guy exersicing down at the riverside...it seemes cool...
He did many acrobatic things...it was impressive...
We later joined Michael to the train station...
A cool skate board park...
Jonatan in action...
The highest building in Frankfurt is known as the "messe"...
It was a nice moon today...
Jonatan took many pics today...
A visit to Aurora, a russian party...
Last night I visited a party with russian theme...
It was at a night club called "orange peel"...
My friends told me 22.30 first...
The club opened at 23...
I saw a cowboy on the streets...
AT 23 some friends showed up...we went to a near by convenient store...
And I had Apfelwein, thats as close to frankfurt it can get...
We went for a walk while waiting for some other people...an at the red light district which is as central as it gets in frankfurt...there was some police operation...6-7 vans were parked...
"Red light district"...such an interesting place...
I also tried to find cheap train tickets home...it was more expensive than airplane last time I checked, but I got the advice to go to denmark, only, and from there by another ticket up north...but I couldnt get any info today, it was strange...
We headed back to orange peel later on...
It was dark, but an intereting club...
I had some strange beer...
At entrance floor they had another club with Hamburg inspiration...
They played classic disco hits like, "be my lover", "losing my religion", its the finaly countdown", with a russian band...it was interesting...
This clubs name was Aurora...from a russian cruiser:
Same name as this "tequila sunrise" taste-a-like drink...
Omg, my friend often manage to strip when taking of his hood-shirt...
But the dance floow was full, of russian people...
We also got a ticket when we entered, later on we were told that it was a lottery for a T-shirt...
They also ahd a display with some german movies, for people who were bored at the party...
Just before the drawing, we gave them our tickets...
...but we didnt win...
At 4 the metro started to go, so my friends left...
Also time for my sorti...
A night Frankfurt south
I was suppose to meet some friends in Bockenheim...
Omg, a tibetian restaurant...thats cool...
We went to a local Rewe...where I found a brend of Jagertee that I never seen before...
I also found out that its says in the san miguel label that san miguel is from spain...
Looking on non-reliable sources on internet, I couldnt find that it was...
Also a spanish verstion, thats not availble in english says that the beer is from spain (atleast the head quarters)...
Later we went to some house party...
They had strange photos on the wall...
I med Hakon from norway...except from the drunk business man at on tap in taipei, I havnt met a norweigan outside scandinavia since vietnam in 2009...
He was doing an internship in the finance industriy...commerce bank i think...
They had "happy birthday" decoration at the window...
This is a korean guy and ukranian...they live here...but have to move before the end of the year...some company bought the whole buidling...
We also got some ginger bread...
More people...mostly foreigners...
This guy reminded me of oscar juarez from NCTU...but i think he didnt understand spanish...
They also had free wifi...I like that...
My friend alex from colombia has a mom from russian...so he is fluent in russian aswell...I pushed him to talk it...just for fun...
Juan spoke spanish with other ppl...
People were running around...back and forth...
In the basemet it was a dancefloor...mostly electrical music...
My norweigan friend was playing around...
A guy approached us asking for a lighter...after som talking we found out that all he needed wa a bottle opener...lucky him, that I had one...
A guy had a braid, alomot like the one I use to have...
When people were about to leave it was confusing, since people locked the doors...so everyone were looking for the people acctually living here...
Blur pic of me, a korean and a brittish guy...
Drunk scottish and brittish people fooling around...
Interesting pick of the cleaner...
Sour cream and onian chips...are soo good...especilaly this brand...
Look that the guy to the right...he is the most dutch looking guy i ever met...tall and reminding me of tiesto in the face...
Later on ppl started to get a little tired...my ukranian friend almost fell asleep in the chair...or atleast it looked like it...
Using flash on th edance floor...my dutch lookigin dutch friend...
Juan and alex mingeling around...
My norweigan friend is still in the move...
And one of the britts started to strip...not sure why...
"ja!" is a very cheap brand here in germany...luckily its also tasty...
This place reminded me of a dorm amny times...it even had "house rules"...
We ended trying to go to a kebab place, but no on was really hungry...maybe tomorrow I will get a german kebab...
A demonstration downtown...
Its hard to get visa to sweden right now, syrian refugees has priority, forcing many other people to wait, among them some taiwanese friends that I have...
But far from many countries welcomes refugees...today there was a deonstration...to accept more syrians...
Also the christmas market was crowded...
Some funny person locked their bike to a pole...I didnt check, but perhaps someone can just lift the bike right up...
We went to some after party for the demonstration in the evening...but they were not ready yet...
Some of the people supporten anarchy...
They also had some bar...
Axzess...reminds me of "andra långgatan" in Gothenburg...they have alot of trashy places...
Application time
Some courses are coming to an end...
...others will start...today I checked university courses for next semester...pphilosophy were one of the courses I focused on this time...language courses were pretty hard to find now, since I was pretty late off with applying...
December days passing by
It is in the middle of december...
My diet is bread sausage cheese, coffee and alcohol drinks everyday...I have an interesting lifestyle right now...
Advent means "waiting"...
In northern Europe, starting from the first sunday in december, there is a counting, until the forth sunday, "the 4th advent"...from some cultural/christian reason...
Today I spent my evening "waiting"...in good traditiona menner...with some beer...almost like the trappst beer that is on my bucket list...
I ended with a weissbeer that I tasted before...2013 is soon coming to an end...but still continues...
Some monday in decebmer....
Yesterday I spentmost time reading...
I had some homework I needed to hand in...
Today jonatan passed by...
We bought some bread and cheese...
He cycles here...almost like me, like to exercise...
Stupid inbox
I am using hotmail once in a while...
I got this message since some month ago, that my inbox is almost full...even if i have deleted messages for several 100mb, the yellow box number keeps in increase...what is the purpose of asking people to delete messages when it wont help?
Ramiros in town...
I saved all my bottles from these days i spent in germany...
But the cleaner who did my room, took them all... :S
In the afternoon I read some course literature...and had some wine...its the 1.99euro wine from chile...amazing how cheap...
I later headed downtown to meet my friend Ramori from Bolivia, ironically enought, some indian band were playing abba...where southamerica meets sweden...
And some santaclaus was doing breakdance performance...
I was suppose to meet ramiro at this place...
Later I went to find some thing to bring to the event we were heading to...
Many people were at the christams mrket downtown...
We wanted some gluwein and sausage...
It was good...
Many people were here...
They had heaters where we stood...
Later we headed to the south district, for the christmas event...in a bar that I think was latino...
My friend suspected that the three hosts got commission for all the guests they brought for this event...
One is the mariecan guy standing up, there were also a bolivian guy and some german girl...
Many people,it got crowded pretty fast...
Ramiro and Marvin...
And latinos...
They were dancing...
I guess many are heading home for christmas...so it was like a "last goodbye"...
Juan came later...20 minutes before we were told that the pub crawl continues...
People started to move...
We sat there for a while...not only in taiwan, but also here I would be better of by knowing more spanish...
It was pretty cold outside...
We chilled there for a while...
This is the first bar...Sapo Rey means "frog king"...
The next bar was an irish pub...
Very crowded...
We went outside...
I parked my bike outside...many people passing by...
And we all brought some gift...that we put in a bag when we came...this (dark shaded) bolivian guy was carrying the sack with gifts throught-out the crawl...
Some random drunk german guy peeing in the bushes outside the pub...
Later we headed back to the colombian bar...
The witress was wearing santa outfit...
We had some binding, its the local beer...
Group photo...
And Ramiro told the staff that it was marvins birthday, so they started to play "happy birthday" in the background...(just like we did with my old classmate Henry in taipei some time to get extra service)...
And more witresses came to sing...
It was fun, even if the spanish guys prefered house or something...
And some "birthday dance"...
And a "memory from frankfurt"...
Omg, popular marvin...
Maybe many people will celebrate their birthday here...
We also had some Aguardiente, which is some anis flavoured shot...
Many jokes...I also tried to joke, but but i failed with the punch line...
Later we went donwn on the street...
We treid to see where the crawl was heading...they were in an even smaller bar (the route was announed on some site on internet, and the time, so we could easilly join and leave)...
I tried a corona at the colombian bar when I returned, as a contrast to the german beer...
I also mixed the mexican beer with some german beer...corona is lighter...
Many latinos were now joining the bar...
It was a fun view, we could also see how it looked like, downstairs...
I felt like i was in south america for a while...to many foreigners to make it feel like a latino bar in taiwan...
Dancing and dancing...
Later they played Dansa kudoro etc...it was fun...
The spanish guys were not much into latino dance...
We went back to the other people who now were at the last pub of the event...
This place even had a dancefloor...
But we didnt stay there for long, instead we went outside enjoying the free wifi, and waiting for the gift hand-out session...
2 surfers in a dark alley...
Studio tropical...bars here has so interesting names...
And then, finally it started...
...everyone took 1 gift...
I got some big one...
The others got interesting things...
not sure what they got...
Playmobil was mine...perfect, now i have something to play with...
Ramiro got some snowman, that shifted colours...
Red, blue, etc...
Yellow, orange...
It was a fun event...
I hope ramiro liked it here...he spent 1 week, but we only had time to meet 1 night...
And he also got some souvenir from the city...
"No gifts left"...we were told...
This vietnamese guy got marvins USB...
It contained some company promotion...
Interesting...
We also gave him some business cards...he was happy...
Some drunk locals were mingeling...
...we headed to a local kebab place...
Ramiro said that he felt like beeing home...except for the cold weather...
A local guy whi wants to practice englissh started to talk...
We recommended him to start practice his english today, he wants to go to australia in some years...
When heding home, 4-5 police cars had stopped at Zeil, the main street in frankfurt downtown...
Some drunk guy were there...
Im back to where the night started...at new zeil mall...lets see what heppens tomorrow, I have some homework to do...but still there might be a critical mass again...
Critical mass in Frankfurt
I joined another critical mass last night...
It was said to start at 19, but didnt start until 20...I have to keep these things in mind...I hate to wait...
Some interesting people...
Nice fountain...
And the guys from last time...looking at wikipedia, critical mass is mostly to provoke people in cars...
And these people told me that their childhood was hard...so this is there time to revenge on someone...
The music guy...eveny one smokes here...
And santa claus brought hise christmas bike...
time is 20...nice people start cycling around the fountain...
We are on the move...
Alot of traffic this friday night...
In dark alleys...
And santa is also doing pretty well...
I should get a bike like that some time...
He had a battery in the wheel...
Both wheels...
And the low bike was there this time as well...
And the music was playing interesting german rap...
And the bikes in the front loves to block the road for cars...just because the can...
Another bike to block cars...
"Critical mass" people screams on the bridge...just like last time..lifting their bikes up...
We probalby cycled for 1-2 hours...
My friend had problems with his disk brakes...
We stopped at a kiosk in the south of frankfurt...
Looks the same as the kiosk last time...with many kinds of beer...and the clerk was indian...I said "namaste"...
And had a beer i havnt seen before...but my friend siad it was a common one...
20 bikes blocking the pavement...
One guy, who use to join these events with different bikes...brought gluwine today...
My sedond beer was a mexican beer with tequila flavour...(it more or less tasted like lime)...
The gluwine was gone...i didnt try, but no need, I will have glögg later on this year...
Juan with his che guavara look...
More cycling in the dark...
Heading to downtown...
My camera became better...omg...
20 laps in a roundabout...
And some road blocking...
And a christmas like alley...
Later we went to a "vernissage" (read: a reason to drink on the street), on the way there I saw advertisement for ice hockey, so interesting...
My friend had an electrical bike...impressive...
The vernissage was at the metro station Höhenstrasse...
Many people were there...I thoguht they were waiting for the doors to open for some store...
But it was german style...
What does this sign mean?
Piblic toilet...?
Its not illegal to drink on the streets in germany...but the police will come, if people make to much noise...
So germans make reasons to meet...like a "vernissage"...
Many wierd people came here...(maybe I fit right in)...
Here were some random clothes hanging...
Interesting patterna...
And soe pitbul, with a stereo playing german music...
I was told that one time, a DJ brought a radio transmitter, and all the guests brought some small radio...in that way they had a huge danc floor, and when the police came, they couldnt confisticate any equipment...
Some germans started to fight...
Later we went to a hamburger bar for some kebab...
My friend said that Lahmacun was good...
For 5 euro...
It was a kebab roll with curry flavour...or something...
Omg, candles on the tables outside...so romantic...
A visit to circus to se open mic stand-up...
I went downtown today again...
To a place called circus...
It started 20 it said, but later i was told that it was 21...
Well...barely any germans were there...mostly spanish people, and some people from portugal...
And the guy with the west...he was finish...
The host was indian...it was all in english...
I had a beer, while waiting...
More waiting...
Then finally...
Someone was asked to tell a joke, but no one in the audience entered the stage...this guy was first in performing...
Second one...
This guy was super funny...he wa from USA...
This guy was also pretty funny...
The performers of the evening...
Maybe I should try some day...but I often fail with the punch lines...
High on caffein...
I drank coffee until 14-15 today...
Except beeing high on caffein right now, I also enjoyed some peanut butter and white chocolate paste...it was nice...
Around 16.00...
Germany is rather south...it gets dark around 17...
Some couch surf gathering in Frankfurts downtown
I was invited to a couch surf gathering today...
Omg, my friend was half an hour late when I was suppose to meet him up...I hate to wait...
I kept moving around...it was subzero...
This was the place for the gathering...
The bundes liga was on TV...
Different bar had different games...
Many foreigners...mostly europeans, but some from south america...
And Jonatan...
I had som ekristall weissbeer...
They added a piece of lemon inside...it was nice...
Many of these people ofteh come to the couch surf gatherings...
Juan was also there...he was the one who invited me...
Omg, I remember this steakhouse from september...those were they days...
Sometimes I wonder, is it culture, personality or genes...
Visit from US...
I had a visit from my friend from US today...
We bought some beer...and other malt drinks...
And i "semi studied"...
Weissbeer is pretty nice...
I also had an interesting talk with my spanish friend who works in ireland...
- He gets extra paid since he works over christmas, but its a good pay, so he does it for free...
- I work for a taiwanese company in germany, I wont get any vacation during christmas, and if i want, I need to take vacation days from 2014, since they even refuse me to work from home, or giving me once single day off. I heard that they complined that germans doesnt wanna work for them here...I wonder why...haha...
No christmas holiday
I am in germany, with no christmas holiday. This is holarious. no consistency, people see things twice...
December in germany...
Another day ends in germany...
I wonder if i will get any vacation during christmas...no expectations - no disappointment...
Today another article about sleep was announced...about that 7 hours sleep is better than 8 hours...
I guess it is individual...but still a new goal...17 hours of non-sleep...
I ended my miseries with some polish beer...
I also srated to finish one of my universitiy courses...the last assigment is to analyse some special feature about germany...I picked the history and life from 1914 to 1933...it was the only book I could access from here...thats the tricky part in taking distance courses...if you are not willing to buy the books...its not easy to borrow...(even though I managed it in Taiwan last year pretty successfully)...
Since I was a kid i was irritated on my mom, who used plsatic spoons when making food...i even made a wooden spoon for her to save us from plastic compunds...
this article confirms my thoughts...we get sicker from plastic materials that touch our food...
Critical Mass in Frankfurt
I got a book from sweden today...
Its to finish a course im taking about german society and culture...study is fun, when you dont need to...
HEading downtown by bike...I was still looking for the market..to find a pump...but only saw a christmas market...
And outside the opera I found some bikers...to attend the critical mass event..at 14.00...i was almost late...but others were later...
Some people having a guided tour in the city...
Omg, a guy had a bike like a chopper...
I asked if i could try...
It was fun to ride...
This is kind of what I was looking for in taiwan some years ago...
More bikers joining up...
And finally I found a guy with a pump...nice...after some try outs...i managed to pump my bike...
Also some bikers brought music...
And then we started...usually by cycling around the fountain...for some laps...
Round and round...
Until we headed east...
Critical mass...if we are more than 15 bikes, we have the right as a "long vehicle"...but at the intersections some bikes were blocking for cars...just in case...
Some car drivers were not happy...
2 bikes brought music....this was the bigest stereo 75A-hour battery, so that he can play music for 10 hoiurs I was told...mostly playing lounge music...
Another intersection...
Maybe we were 50 bikers...or more...
I was not sure abou the road...the guy to the left on this pic use to live in USA...
Many cars drove fast when passing by...
Some times we even crossed red...since we were a long "train"...of bikes...
At the bridge corssing Main, people lifted their bike up in the air...not sure why...
My spanish friend Juan had some problems with getting the bike down...
Continue on the south part of the city...
Another red crossing...
This guy had a police sound equipment...just for fun...
And this guy was some professional biker...
Doing the "titanic" move...
For some while...when before we headed north again...
Red lights...
And irritated cars...
This guy wasnt reall attending the event, but he joined us anyway...he has a fixed gear bike..thats impressive...
The stereo is still going strong...
Using an iPad to pic songs...
No christmas song...but some similar remixes...
And on some maze of bike path...
Juan and Jonatan...we were like 7-8 foreingers at the event...
More road blocking, while we passed by...
And we ended up at this kiosk...
Not sure what to do here...
But they had many kinds of beer...
I had a binding, since its local...
And some sausage...
The owner must have done some good deals today...
I was told that in summer they continue for quite some while...
We also got some christmas cookies...
My friend was smoking weed...
Heading back soon?
Suddenly some bikes startd to cycle around a tree...that was the sign that its time to go back...
But with our lamps on...
Waiting at a traffic light...
And heading downtown again...where the christmas market is...
Some car driver was angry, and his mirror broke after almost hitting a bike...
Its ok...it cant be easy to know all the traffic rules...
Many people had racing bikes...
Music still going strong...
This was the end point...
I gave my business card to some people...
We also tried to check the sound...it died for some reason...
Now it works again...
These local guys were the ones who brought the music...
Some other foreingers joined up to talk...
We also headed to the christmas market...
Many people...
And the ginger bread I saw at the oktober fest...
Crowded...
Nice hat...
I had some christmas hotdog...cotaining nuts...
After some minutes walking...we headed back...
Omg, this scene reminded me of home alone...
My american friend also lived in the north part of the city...
He has only lived in frankfurt for 2 weeks...he was here 2 years ago...and will study german now for some month...
I also had 1 M&M peanut butter...they are very nice...
