Rehashed

© Joselito Briones

Don't even start with me about the photo... I just don't have anything else to put here, OK? It's an old picture, one that I took in Greece, a slide printed on a non-color-reversal paper (hence the negative effect).

Today I'm officially lost in my German lessons. Genitiv? What the crap is that? I must've spent the whole class time with my mouth open and my hands constantly scratching my head (and I swear I washed my hair this morning).


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Delineated Sunset

© Joselito Briones

This train station is somewhere in Germany, of course. I wasn't paying attention when I took this digital snap, and I was probably half asleep, so I didn't see where exactly.

The only thing I find interesting in this photo is the geometirc sunset, which is the reflection of the overhead lighting inside the train on the window, through which this is the view.


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No more classes, No more books, No more teachers' dirty looks

© Joselito Briones

Well, one more day. On the 7th of next month. But next week is Bavaria's fall break for schools, and this includes us. So, yay! The next level starts on the 10th. Not much time in between. Aline, our Lehrerin, said though that unless there are more than 10 students in class, there might not be a class for the next level. Petra, our other Lehrerin, is leaving after this level, to teach high school. Me and my classmates (picture, left), the beautiful women of Wysteriastraße, planned a farewell potluck for her, on the 7th.


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Right smack in the middle of nowhere

© Joselito Briones

In the absence of anything even remotely similar to New York's Century21, the closest thing that comes close here in Erlangen is the Adidas and Puma factory outlets. It turns out these two brands were actually founded somewhere close by, and still have their main headquarters here. It's about a 15 minute drive from the apartment, in Herzogenaurach, in a very modern-looking building in the middle of farm fields. Like an alien spaceship found this deserted spot and decided to land here, to sell sports outfits for cheap. We ended up not buying anything. Not because it was so cheap. Because we spotted an announcement saying they'll have special limited sales, starting Monday. We'll be back.

Before we left, the someone from Ben's Balikbayan Services picked up my box... let's see how long it takes to reach Carmona.


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More of Erlangen

© Joselito Briones

If only the weather can be like this always...

I went to the post office right after German class, to pick up a package that was supposed to have been delivered last Saturday by DHL. We were having breakfast when the delivery guy came. We heard the buzzer, and, in less than a minute, the time it took to get to the intercom system in the reception area from the kitchen where we were having breakfast, he was gone. He must be in quota system, or just very very eager to go home. When we picked up the intercom from the reception and heard nothing from the other end, we even went out to the balcony and yelled a loud "hello?!?". No answer. The time it took for him to ring the bell, write the note that he left on the mailbox notifying us to pick up the package from the post office, and be beyond the distance where he could hear our "hello" could not have been any longer than the time it took for us to get from the kitchen, pick up the intercom, and yell out from the balcony.

© Joselito Briones

From the post office I passed by the city center and got myself a Leberkase sandwich. That's meatloaf sandwich in plain kitchen speak.

I then went to Frankenlabor, after dropping my bag in the apartment, to pick up some films, and on my way there took the pictures shown here. The first is a Siemens building, next block to the apartment (city blocks here tend to be big). On clear days like these, the stark contrast between the silvery metal of its enclosure, with its yellow awnings, against the clear cloudless sky is very striking.

The bottom picture is of a residential development. I always pass by here in between Frankenlabor and Handelshof. Next to it are huge areas of land that are currently under developement. In the next few years the whole area will become one huge suburban heaven.



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She should be glad...

© Joselito Briones

I dropped by Handelshof this afternoon on my way back to the apartment from Frankenlabor. When I was emptying my bag on to the merchandise belt by the cashier, I noticed that the bag was wet, and the contents of the oven cleaner that I wanted to buy was all over it. With the politest German that I know, I asked the cashier if she had some paper towels so I can salvage the other items I had in the bag. What did she do? She sneered at me and told me to twist the bottle cap tight. That freakin' beeatch! Like it's my duty to check that all their merchandise is properly closed. If I were fluent in German I'd have told her what a piece of contemptuous shitty twat she truly is.

Anyway... food update again: Pictured, left, was last night's dinner: farfalle in onion and cream sauce, with grilled shrimps (marinated in ginger, lemon rind, and coriander), plus butter and garlic baguette. I know, the sauce looks a bit icky.


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Here's something slightly amusing.

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Herbst

© Joselito Briones

I went to Frankenlabor again today (I'm becoming some kind of a daily fixture there) to bring the film rolls from Prague. I like this lab, I think they've got really good and professional service, and Andreas, the guy I always deal with there, is very friendly. I only had a couple of rolls for processing, it was way too dark and gray in Prague the whole day that we were there, I only took pictures mostly of Fred and Ginger.

As if the color shift on the leaves everywhere isn't enough to show everyone that autumn is here, the clouds thought they'd reinforce the season by going crazy (pictured, left). It's nice and cool again, but I'm apprehensive about the coming cold season. This will be my first winter in Bavaria, I'm just hoping it's not gonna get any worse than New York. Eric told me that there's a mild winter forecast in your side of the pond this year.

© Joselito Briones
Btw, about the lamps that we installed (pictured, left), It was a nice surprise to see that even during daytime, when the lights are off and there's brightness coming from outside, the lamps still look nice and very light and not chunky at all. Am very pleased with the result.


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Meet T-Bo and Yumi

© Joselito Briones

My feet were in so much pain from so much walking that I didn't really want to get up so early today, only I really had to go to my German class because I've been absent the past couple of days. Right after lunch I went back to Frankenlabor to pick up T-Bo and Yumi's pictures, including this one (left).

Frau Mueller came in again today to help us with cleaning the apartment (okay, fine, she did all the work). And surprise! She brought us some spring rolls (lumpiang shanghai) ready to fry! Eheheheh, nice. She prefers to be called Cathy Rose. Which reminds me. It was Cathe's birthday yesterday... wonder how she's doing.


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Gray Day in Berlin

© Joselito Briones

Nothing's quite right today. I woke up with a headache. It started before I went to bed last night, there was no place I could go to to buy some paracetamol. Or maybe I just didn't know where, but sure enough I asked several places. I went out after shower, hungry for breakfast, determined to go to the first place I see that serves anything digestible. The sky's gray. My only full day here in Berlin and the sun decided to play hide and seek. Bleh.

© Joselito Briones

First thing I saw was KaDeWe. Sure, those Dior clothes look yummy, but not in a nourishing way, the opposite actually, it made me want to not eat ever again so I'll fit in them. I'm sure though that if the store was already open I'd have gotten in and procastinated on getting headache relief. Thankfully, the KaDeWe apotheke around the corner was already open, so I got myself some painkillers.

© Joselito Briones

I wasn't so lucky food-wise. The first place I saw was McDonald's. I had mcMuffins. It did the job. It didn't stop me though from stopping at several wurst vending places while walking and talking pictures all day.

© Joselito Briones

These are all taken with a digital camera, the one I got as a present on my birthday. As you can see, in all the pictures, the sky is consistently gray.

© Joselito Briones

First two pictures, left and above, are of the same building, in the Museum island, something something dome, my map said. The first one was taken while I was walking along the river bank, just before it rained. I let the rain pass while having espresso in a sand bank (made to look like a beach) cafe, then continued on to the island itself, the next picture.

© Joselito Briones

I went around the island, until I got to where I started, the east tip of it, and took this picture (left), which I'm sure so many others have taken before, a visual gag trying to make the TV tower look like it's on top of the dome of another museum. I think this is going to be the theme for today: taking cliche' pictures. Only doing worse version... one with gray sky on every picture. Hmmm... come to think of it, this had always been the theme of all my pictures. Oh well...

© Joselito Briones

The digital camera actually adjusts the brightness, so that instead of dark gray which I see in reality, the images have a very bright gray sky.

© Joselito Briones

It's all museums basically, this area, so I decided to go somewhere else, and headed towards the Reichtag (left). Last time I was here in Berlin was 1999, and the only two places I remember from then is Liebskind's Jewish Museum and this, the Reichtag. The rest are all a jumble of cranes. This city was full of promise. And if anyone's to gauge its fulfillment, now's the best time.

© Joselito Briones

The next few pictures were taken in the same area. Except for the last one and the one before that, taken in Mitte, and the third one from the last picture, taken in Galleries Lafayette (designed by Jean Nouvel), close to Unter den Linden, where I bought a couple of socks.


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2006.12.01
As you may well know by now, i've reformatted my blog, and some pictures are too big (and I now deem unnecessary) to put here, so if the text refers to a picture that isn't shown here, that's because I've taken it off.


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Photographer, interrupted

© Joselito Briones

Photo, above, are wild flowers that simply refused to be contained by the fence, in a construction site.

I wanted to go to Milan today, for the weekend. It was mainly to test the theory that Germany being central enough in Europe, one can just hop in on a bus and go to any major European city. Almost got away with it too, no advanced booking, no advanced planning. How far did I get? Nuernberg. I'd have made it to Milan too, had I left the apartment an hour earlier. By the time I got to the bus station, the ticketing office was closing in five minutes, and they had no more bus connections from Nuernberg to Munich, where the bus going to Milan is originating.

I could also have bought a bus ticket from Munich to Milan and just take the train to Munich, but I didn't have the train schedule with me, and there was no time to check before the bus ticketing office closes. So in theory, I could've also made it if I left the apartment only five minutes earlier, and took the time to get the train schedule from the Nuernberg Hauptbahnhof for trains going to Munich.

Oh well, next time. At least I didn't bother to unpack (there wasn't much to pack to begin with), just in case.


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Everywhere Objects

© Joselito Briones

I've started a series of photographs of everyday objects in the neighborhood... objects that are so commonplace everybody barely notices them.

Something that one sees everywhere here in Erlangen... bicycles. This one is parked in an unmowed lawn of dandelions. More to come in this series.


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He just had to be in the picture (A major disappointment)

© Joselito Briones

So I was taking this small gate of one of my neighbors, and this kid just sped through, which is just as well, the version without him had absolutely nothing going for it.

You'll just have to get used to these pics. I haven't been doing anything else lately but take pictures and scanning them, so if I don't write to you about them, I've got nothing else to write about.


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Oh yeah, major disappointment yesterday. I did this competition piece for a furniture design. I finished it yesterday, after about two weeks on picking on the details. Surprise, surprise, when I went to the DHL center they told me they don't have overnight delivery. HA! I shoved my entry in the bottom drawer.


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Cross processing

© Joselito Briones

Something new today. I decided to have a roll of film cross processed, one I took same day as the Erlangen canal ones. It came out very greenish, but there's something about this screwed up colors that I like a lot. I'd almost say it's got a retro feel to it, like those 70's photos, but in green instead of magenta. Anyway, it's the best image of Erlangen that I've taken so far.





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Yet another old building

© Joselito Briones

This one's right next to the Asian grocery where I buy Thai vegies.


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Beetle

© Joselito Briones

It's the color that caught my eye.


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An old building

© Joselito Briones

An old building by the city center, in Erlangen.


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More from the recent B/W batch

© Joselito Briones

I like the way that the tones came out on this one.


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More black and white photos

© Joselito Briones

I was able to take more photos yesterday, and had them developed last night. This time I made sure not to forget to presoak the film...


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Bad Chemistry

© Joselito Briones

Last night, I dug up an old bottle of Rodinal (after having read that it has like a gazillion years' shelf life), and decided to develop the Tmax 100 films that I exposed a couple of days ago when I went walking around Erlangen. It was a disaster (or so I thought). I pulled out the strip from the tank and what came out was this really really thick underdeveloped film. I scanned the negative and added a warm tone with photoshop, and here's the result. Could've been better, but I guess it's alright after all.


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Roxy

© Joselito Briones

I finally got to see "The Da Vinci Code", courtesy of the only theater in the vicinity that shows films in their original language, "Roxy" (most films shown here are, obviously, dubbed in German).

Frankly, I don't see what the hoopla is all about. Unless you're a religious fanatic, you'd see quite easily that this is just a slightly above average hollywood movie (above average because of the polish with which the movie was made). Okay, Tom Hanks is obviously miscast (sigh of relief when he walked away at the end of the movie, instead of locking arms with and kissing Audrey Tautou), but that is balanced enough by Ian McKellen's eager performance. And yes, another waste of Jean Reno's talent, but then again, he seems to be very willing of late in wasting such talent, so nothing new in this one.

In the end, the movie is exactly what the book was about. I'd guess that the people who had a problem with the movie were the same ones who had a problem with the book to begin with. In which case that's another matter altogether. The subject matter has been exhausted that adding anymore will only add to confusion, or feed the propagandists' work (yes, both sides).

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