Nico leaves Williams

Nico has officially declared that 2009 is his last season with Williams.
Firstly, I win that bet. I knew he would leave.
Secondly, what are the odds? Is he replacing Kovaleinen at McLaren or Barrichello at Brawn next year? Who wants to play? Paul, dare I say you and I might be on the same team next year?!
I'd prefer him to go to Brawn honestly. I'm quite certain that the McLarens will be back on pace IN A BIG WAY next year, but I my reasons for wanting Nico to race for Brawn are 3 fold:
1) I don't want to be a McLaren supporter. Really. It will pain me.
2) Barrichello needs to get his ass out of a race car and into some random commentary box a la DC. I am so over that small Brazilian.
3) I'm just not sure Nico can pull off the orangetastic garb those McLaren boys wear. I love me some Brawn.

Realistically, as it stands, I can see the following happening:
Nico takes Heikki's place at McLaren
Heidfeld takes Nico's place at Williams
And new boy on the block Bruno Senna gets his first F1 drive for Brawn. He tested for them last year. They can't possibly let another F1 season go by without getting that kid in a car.
Having said all that, my hope is still for a Button/Rosberg Brawn team. Can you imagine? I am hyperventilating just thinking about it.

Mother of the Blueness

I’ve been eating speck and barley soup and drinking wine. I am bringing wine back. My body feels like the wasteland where complex carbohydrates have come to die. It’s all I can think to do. It’s winter and I want wine and soup. You can buy beautiful soup green bundles here. At Winterfeldt Markt in West Berlin they sell them all bundled up for a single Euro; two carrots, a leek, a few baby parsnips and a chunk of celeriac wrapped in twine. (Shelley would love them) A bit of speck (when in doubt, add smoked pork product to everything) and a handful of barley and you’ve got yourself a postcard worthy winter in a cup. Something about the soup makes me think of Glamorgan Road and for a few moments I am sitting at the table next to Craig eating soup out of those blue bowls with bread slathered in thick, cold butter, Matthew and Robin mercilessly making fun of us. I love winter food. Its richness, the comfort of it. How it tastes like nourishment.

Though it is technically fall, the ankle deep autumnal mulch underfoot a testament to the fact, I am already in winter mode. It’s a season for hats and scarves and popping the collar of your jacket up to shield you from the biting wind. It’s weather that makes me long for the rabbit fur snood Magpie and I are currently co-coveting. I love the smell of winter. Every time I leave my apartment I am assailed with the warm scent of firewood flooding the courtyard. It smells like trout fishing weekends and fireplaces so big you can sit inside them and nod off against the warm stone walls and card games and copper tables and glasses big as bell jars. I love the way the winter mist makes a haze of the wide streets and fogs up the headlights of the cars and make ladders of their beams. And tucking your hands into the sleeves of your jersey and sitting outside cafes with blankets over your knees, drinking hot black coffee, your breath blowing silver from your mouth.

Still, winter girl though I am, I can’t help but succumb to the mother of the blueness some days. (This by no means is something true for only winter. But I digress....) Today I went walking to try and shake it off and clear the cobwebs in my sleepy, sullen head. But I only ended up being followed half way around Prenzlauerberg by a creepy man in some sort of industrial waste cleaning uniform, who kept trying to get me go into large, wooded areas with him. After fifteen or so tense minutes, I tucked the blond bit of my hair into my bowler hat, pulled the old Rope a Dope and faked right when I in fact went left and ducked into the courtyard of a pretty church. Satisfied I’d lost the creep and happy to see there was a small organic market set up on the other side of the church, I spent some time wandering through the carts, admiring the stalls selling 12 types of apples, 54 kinds of meat. Though starving, I didn’t buy anything. I couldn’t face it to treat myself, thinking of my poor book left unloved most of last week. Terrible writer. I smack myself on both wrists and stare sullenly at the cold, unimpressed smirk of my blank notebook. It is not buying my “But I had visitors” excuse, and like a scorned lover, turns away from me and edges to the other side of the bed.
Later, I rode the U-bahn with no real destination in mind, listening to The National until my i-pod battery ran out, the unmistakable rough tongue of miserablism licking my neck. By the time I got home it was dark and cold. And I walked into my apartment and found it warm and smelling of European indoor heating. (a ridiculous sounding, but completely true phenomena. No other central heating smells quite like ours.)

I can’t help but notice that my time here is dwindling to weeks and soon those weeks will become days and then I will gone from the wide roads and the late night Turkish beer stores and the taste of winter on my tongue and soup greens wrapped in bundles and red paved cycle paths and smell of firewood in the morning...

Disclaimer: This is a reenactment

MzTanya goes hobo outside the Gay Vampire Bar. Shockingly, this is not from Friday night. No, this was on the (comparitively) sober Saturday night, when we thought it would be a scream to capture what could have been/almost was. Taking this photo without the bar staff seeing us was challenging. I am behind the lens. Hiding behind a car.

Friday was a MESS.

It started innocently enough. Tanya and I got up earlyish and went Second Hand Store crazy. First, we went to the five story monster Humana near Frankfurter Tor (spiritual home of the brightly coloured 80s leather jacket) and then the smaller, somewhat cheaper and less hilarious store near Alexander Platz. After we tore through Humana at lightning speed (purchases: Tanya: amazing tiny, fitted denim jacket with stretch cuffs and a double zip, black scarf, rock rock forever t-shirt, child sized zebra costume for Halloween. Eloise: double strand of buttery cream coloured pearls, ornate jewelled clasp. ridiculously underpriced.) we needed to stop by the bank so that Tanya might exchange some cash. As we walked into the bank, we spied an odd sight. The front counter, which would usually serve as an information point, was decked out for a party. There were bowls of sweets, leaflets, goodie bags of some sort etc etc. I looked closer. There were glasses. There were ROWS AND ROWS OF GLASSES. THERE ARE BOTTLES. The smiling woman behind the counter was handing out red canvas bags with the bank’s name on them. As I took a bag, I studied the scene more closely and it dawned on me that we have stumbled into what I can only describe as the Holy Grail of the finance calendar: Free Champagne Day at the Bank. It is about 2pm. Between queuing up to exchange money (wechseln, bitte!), loitering a tiny bit and pocketing the leaflets, sweets and balloons that had yet to be blown up, we managed to polish off three glasses of champagne. Each. We were in there for 20 minutes at the most. The glasses were not tiny. We had not eaten. Do you see where I am going with this?

We proceed to The Ramones Museum in Mitte where we were due to meet Nat and Sarah. The museum has a cute little cafe at the front of it and since neither Tanya or I are desperate to see the actual inside of the museum we decide it best to continue what we started. We order Irish coffees (It was COLD out) and sit back and wait for the girls to arrive. We are starving. But the whiskey lashed coffee is hitting the spot. The girls are nowhere to be seen. An hour and a half passes before they arrive. By this point, Tanya and I have settled happily into our drinking boots and the warmth of the interior of the cafe coupled with the comfort of the couches has resulted in afternoon inebriation. Everything is hilarious. We are starving.

After Nat gets her Ramones fill (the only of the four of us with sufficient love and dedication to the iconic punk band to willingly part with her money to enter the little museum) we head home, stopping at a supermarket on the way home to pick up some bits and pieces for dinner and some wine. Becuase this is what we need. Wine. We hang out and talk shit and drink and finally get some food into ourselves. As the night draws on, Tanya, Sarah and I decide to go to a bar. Because that is what we need. To drink more. (Nat is a clever girl and stays home to have a little sleep. This was to be the beginning of a vicious 48hr bug that flattened her for two days, but more about that another time.) We go to Habarmeyer on Garntnerstrasse (home of the DJ BEAST who had been playing there the Friday before.) Alas. DJ Beast is not there and neither is the incredible selection of music he plays. Still, we stay. A less beastly DJ arrives and plays and the music is good and beer is cheap and the people are nice to look at and you can smoke inside, so we stay. We stay a while. Eventually Sarah, having just landed that morning, calls it a day and heads home to bed. Tanya and I do no such thing. We continue. We tell hilarious stories until we cry. We tell sad stories until we almost cry. We drink some more. We realise that I do a pitch perfect Bronx accent and I spend the rest of the evening talking as though as I care/know anything about the Yankees and live somewhere above East 132nd Street. Eventually, we leave. On the way home, we stop for drunken falafel. This naturally comes with a side order of beer. As we are finishing said falafel, Tanya says, “I could really do with a whiskey.”
When you are drunk and really don’t need anything more to drink, a night cap before going back to your apartment seems like the best idea on god's green earth. So we stumble up the road. We are plastered. We are doing that thing that girls do when they are hammered, holding hands and walking in something of a zigzag, all the way keeping our forward motion. Something is hilarious. I have no idea what. But something certainly is. I am still talking like I come from the Bronx. “I don’ wyatch it, but if yoo wanna wyatch the gyame, I’ll fuckeng wyatch it!” My stomach hurts from laughing.

There is a bar literally opposite my apartment block that I have been wondering about for a while. It looks like an unassuming old man’s pub and some boys I met from Sweden a few weeks ago told me that they had ended up in there almost every night before returning to where they were staying, a block away. It stays open until 5 or 6 or some ungodly hour and those boys were Mark Twain Cool, so I assumed it would be safe enough. It was quite easily decided that this bar would be the spot for our last drink of the evening.

We open the door. We walk in. Somewhere in the distance, a fruit machine plays a tinny tune. The air is musty, the faint smell of stale beer. A tumble weed blows past. We’ve opened the door. The bartender has seen us. There is no turning back. Our steps are impossibly loud on the floor. This is no cool after hours drinking dive. No. This is Not. Where. We. Are. Supposed. To. Be. There is no music. The room is tiny, a small wooden bar along the one side its main feature. Propping themselves up on the bar are an old homeless man with a plastic bag full of possibly shoplifted items he tries to sell us and the bartender at random intervals (contents include 54% Rum and a tray of Belgian chocolates) and on the other end of the bar is a very boring and simultaneously massively creepy looking 50ish man. The bartender looks at us with indignation. We should not be here. We know it. He knows it. We just don’t know how to leave without making the situation even worse. Let me state that I was at first convinced the bartender was a masculine woman. Tanya was convinced it was a feminine man. I eventually conceded that he was in fact male. He was rocking some fierce guyliner. Not drag queen make up, rather, getting up and fixing your face for the day makeup. You know, basic foundation, liquid eyeliner lids and a lick of mascara. His shirt was red satin with a black fringe, pearl snap buttons and patterned, silver collar tips. We were very possibly in the scariest gay bar in the world. The bartender was hating us. The other guy was hating us. We were by then hating ourselves. Only the homeless man found our presence entertaining and would every so often, point at us and say something in German and laugh hysterically. We were all thinking it. He was only one crazed enough to vocalise it. It was the single most awkward drink I’ve ever had in my life.

When we were done with our drinks we paid and walked as casually as possible toward the door. As soon as we were out of it, we sprinted across the street and into the safety of my apartment building. In hysterics, we climbed the stairs, trundled into the apartment and collapsed. As it stands, ‘Funfundreissig’ or ‘The Gay Vampire Bar’ (as it is now known) is not on my list of bars to frequent.

Needless to say, we slept in on Saturday.

Art Beast.... and miles to go before I sleep

On Thursday afternoon the girls and I were walking down MainzerStrasse on our way to an alcohol induced something or other. Passing by the Milkabilly Rock n Roll Milk/Soda/Waffle Bar and a tattoo parlour, we spy a small art gallery. Zozoville Gallery. A Mecca of galleries. No snotty assistants, no severe haircuts, no stark white walls, no abstract anything. Instead, it’s a small room that looks warm and inviting, a bench outside to cater to passing smokers in need of a sit down. The gallery appears to be run by/feature the work of two artists: Johan Potma and Mateo Dineen. We go and have a look around and we are all enthralled. The work is beautiful and a little comical and sometimes sad and whimsical and often, the tiniest bit heartbreaking. The girls love Johan Potma's stuff, who seems to specialise in fanciful furry creatures and somewhat endearing monsters while I fall utterly in love with Mateo’s work. It’s acrylic (I am almost certain, thought not enough of a connoisseur to be of a definite stand point) on various surfaces. Some are on standard canvases, but they also have paintings done on the back of geometry set tins (remember your first day of high school and your shiny new maths set?) the tops of old wooden chests, armoire doors and the rogue covers of DDR era fridges.
On the wall, on the back of a box top, is a small painting of a small man under a night sky in a forest, his chin in his hands, looking into a campfire and birds nesting in his white bear hunting style hat. (I pause to notice how I own a similar hat., sans birds.... sometimes....) I love the picture. I LOVE IT. and then, as I am swimming in its delight, I notice how at the bottom, a phrase is inscribed:
“...and miles to go before I sleep...”
This piece of work that I am so instantly and utterly drawn to is not only one of the most beautiful pieces of art I have seen, it is also INSPIRED BY A FUCKING FROST POEM?!I am undone.
I must have it.
I need it.
it makes me want to have a permanent address so that I might have somewhere to hang it. This Mateo, he of the beautiful beautiful art, knows Frost?
Tanya sees a piece that she loves and inquires of the price. It is 2500EUR. Holy God. That’s half a years rent in Berlin. I am afraid to even ask the price of my painting. I know I will not be able to afford it and I know that the disappointment of the concrete fact will crush me. So instead I go over the boxes of prints and sift carefully through. Woe is me, the print is not there. The girls find other prints they love and purchase them. They pay their money to a tall blond man who is, typically for the city, far too good looking for his own good.. Sullenly, art printless, I start to leave the shop and then ask, in a fit of optimism to the blond, “You don’t happen to have a print of the Frost painting some where?”
He says, “Actually, I made some of those today. I haven’t put them out yet. Do you want one?”
Firstly: Holy hell, YES.
Secondly: Is this hot blond Mateo? He of the penchant for whimsical heartbreak and Frost?
As he goes into the studio or back room or whatever magical Alladins cave it is that holds these treasures, I lean over the girls and whisper, “Art. Beast.”
He returns with my print. I attempt to pay him and find myself quite suddenly with too many thumbs and an alarming lack of dexterity. Put me in fumbling distance of a talented beast and chances are I will indeed fumble. I berate my hands. I momentarily loathe myself. As we leave, he says, “We are having a gallery party here on Saturday night. There will be music and food and a silent auction. You girls should come.” I make some noises that seem to be a garbled vocal agreement to the flippant invitation and stumble out into the freezing Berlin night, my Frost print close to my chest. Mateo, the boy genius with the love for frost is a 6ft tall Californian Art Beast? If I didn’t love Berlin before, I am pledging allegiance now.
Anyway, Saturday night rolls around and we head over the gallery to find it RAMMED. there was literally not even space to step inside. So Tanya, Sarah and I decide to go get a drink and a bite to eat and head back later and see if anything is still going on. I can’t even see my Frost Painting on the wall and I feel myself jonesing. I want to see it again. Just like the way Shell can’t go near the Tate Modern without spending some time with “her” Monet. We agree to return post sustenance. Dinner is fantastic and delicious and in a restaurant with a black and white checked floor so beautiful I want to press my face to it, but for the sake public decency, don’t. More about that another time. After we eat ourselves into an Italian coma, we trudge back up Mainzer Strasse (this time slightly heavier with wine and pasta) and find, joy of joys, the gallery still open and with somewhat more room to manoeuvre. We go in. The painting is there. I spend a ridiculous amount of time looking at it. A man who works there asks Tanya (who is armed with her camera) not to take close ups. I spy Art Beast. Inexplicably, I am smitten. Or, completely understandably. Depending on how you look at it. The Frost quote on the painting has been up on my (kill me now) book mood wall since I got here. I feel a cosmic alignment I want to hold onto with both hand followed swiftly by a brief wave of sobriety and I know that the cosmos has fuck all hand in this. Lots of people like Frost. Not as many as should, but a lot, none the less. He is wearing a polka dot shirt and being the artist of the hour. I want to go up to him and get aggressively in his face about the painting and ask if he has a Birches inspired painting in the works and if so, how much will it be, so I can start saving now. [side note: an old friend of mine from NYC, SS, is an INCREDIBLE artist. Unbelievable. I went through a good few months of being, quite plainly, obsessed with Birches and as a result of my obsession, she painted the most beautiful piece, over the prints of emails I had sent her quoting the poem. Even my typos were included. It was extraordinary. It’s been two years since I’ve spoken to SS (heartbreaking in itself, I am sure with good reason but sadly ones I know not of) and I cannot even hear Frost without thinking of her and what was to me, a simply awe inspiring work of hers. Anyway]
I don’t go up to Art beast. I salivate over the Frost Painting. I tentatively ask the dude who works there of the price. He tells me it is 2450EUR. FUCK ME. Worth every penny, I am certain, and if I had it, I would buy it. But I am dealing with discount supermarkets here. I really should not even be allowed in galleries at this point.

Tanya and I get a drink and check out more of the work and she buys a bunch more prints (from the other dude Johan Potma) and a t-shirt (been there, done that, yadda yadda) and we go and smoke a cigarette on the thoughtfully laid out afore mentioned benches. It takes us a good fifteen minutes to eventually drag our asses out of the vicinity of the gallery and head (the whole three and a half minutes) home. Every time we go to leave I need to see my painting (“my painting?!”) one more time. We look at the painting, we take six steps out the door, we turn, we look at the painting again, almost leave, go back to look at the painting, repeat ad nauseam.

We went home. Print safely in my possession. Art Beast and original art work still at large.

Things I LOVE/HATE about Berlin. Part 2

Things I Love
The Beasts of Berlin.
I know I have spoken of the aforementioned beasts previously, but since then I have had more time to further process and hone my, frankly bordering on vulgar, perversion. I have invented a new game whereby once a beast is spotted he is nicknamed and given a place in the pecking order, of most beastly to least beastly beasts seen that day. At the end of the day I award a small prize award to The Beast of The Day. The Beast of the Day award is for the large part a redundant exercise. There is no physical proof of it, no certificate. It proves absolutely no purpose except to entertain myself and whoever I am with.
Last Friday, for instance, Tamaryn and I partook in beast spotting all over this fine adoptive city of mine.

Potentials for Beast of the Day were:

Preemie Beast
Young enough to do without shaving. Not so young it was illegal.

Lord Beast
English Aristocratic god with Rod Stewart hair in navy McQueen coat who asked us for drinking establishment recommendations. Wore brogues.

Blond Beast
Possibly wearing foundation. Didn’t detract from his beastliness. That is saying something.

Waving Beast
Driving past us on Unter der Linden. Checking us out checking him out checking us out. He looked first. Awkward ‘deer in headlights’ moment as both parties realised we were busted mid scope. Beast smiled, waved. Charmed.

Beast on a bike
Possible cycle courier. possibly rocking a half shaved dread locked disaster on his head. Didn’t even care.

DJ Beast
Playing 60s Motown and swing beats in fantastic bar in Friedrichshain (aka my hood), black shirt buttoned all the way up, severe moustache. Most certainly in the Top Ten Most Beautiful People I Have Ever Seen In Real Life.

DJ BEAST WON! Hands down. It was not ever FAIR to the other beasts.

(side note. My dad reads this blog. Sorry dad. I swear I am also writing a book and being productive. Also, any distractions this city has made me succumb to I blame wholeheartedly on my genetic coding. I am a de Fine.)

Nat is here now and we spent the evening eating Thai food, walking around Friedrichshain, drinking rice beer (me) and lemon grass tea (her) and explaining the rules of Beast of the Day. She has proved to be an apt pupil. One day initiation done and dusted, tomorrow we hit Prenzlauerberg. Five bucks says she spots the winner. I am a wonderful teacher.

Things I Hate
The goddamn early flights that arrive in this city. This morning I went to the airport to pick up Nat. I only got three hours sleep before having to get up and go through to the flughafen. That’s right. That’s some elementary German right there. Now Nat is one of my best friends. We have been through some things together. More trips to New York than is healthy, delicious eggs, more hotel bars in more cities I can begin to count, road trips, whipsnade, bars, chemo (hers), shaving heads (hers again), recovery, bars, more bars, more treatments, less bars. She was the girl who helped me with my broken heart. I was the girl who made her wear skinny jeans. We are a team. And I am honestly so so happy to see her, but this morning, on the S-Bahn back from the airport all I could do was yawn and shiver and feel that awful prickly feeling I get when I am desperately in need of sleep. And for a few awful, awful hours, I was a terrible friend. I was not a hostess with the mostess. I could see Nat look at me in that way, arching her eyebrow as if to say, ‘Are you fucking kidding me? I come all the way to Berlin to see you and you can’t even get it together to PRETEND to be excited to see me?’ Shame washed over me. Hot prickling shame. Embarrassed and apologetic, I locked myself in my room for a one hour disco nap. When I awoke, it was as if it was a new day. I bounced out of bed, my hair awry, jumped on her bed, accidently sort of bit her arm in my excitement and hugged her. I am sometimes a bit shitty, but I make nice when I can. Needless to say, I’m ecstatic she’s here and cant wait for our friend Tanya to come and join us from NYC on Thursday. Bastard flies in at 7am and I have to go get her from the airport. Expect repeat scene. Balls.

My final word on 'The Skirt'

Completely inappropriately, this bizarre little dance was captured at the very sombre and fascinating 'Holocaust Memorial.' I promise that the image captured is not at all reflective of my feelings about the memorial, the travesty it spoke of nor the shitty weather we were experiencing at that moment. Frankly, i don't know what is going on with it. However, it does show my skirt. Corlia, I have no more to say on the matter.

Poor but sexy

How to eat your way through three days

I am cutting teeth. One would hope at my age that such glories as pushing new bits of dentyne and nerves and enamel through sensitive gums would be a thing of the years past, but no. My wisdom teeth are making their presence known. It hurts. it feels like I am chewing on a mouthful of gravel sized glass. In what I can only assume is some sort of reaction to it, I have also taken to grinding my teeth/clenching my jaw in my sleep. When I wake in the morning, I have to literally pry apart my upper and lower jaw with the use of my hands. Needless to say, I am somewhat unhappy with the whole situation.

Anyway. Enough about that. This past weekend was graced with a visitor so therefore I spent more time concentrating on eating and drinking than I did on my teeth. Tamaryn was in town. She arrived on Friday morning and we spent the morning taking in a whirlwind tour of the city. It went something like this:
Checkpoint Charlie
Course of wall
Holocaust memorial
Brandenburg tor
check, check, check, check.
Can we start eating yet?

Our first food stop was to eat some currywurst. Berlin is famous for inventing the snack, credited to a Charlottenburg woman called Herta Heuwer sometime after WW2, using the ketchup and curry powder she acquired from British soldiers to dress the plain old pork sausage up in new, post war garb. I tried currywurst a few weeks ago from a place called ‘Konnopke’, arguably Berlins most famous currywurst stand and was UNDERWHELMED. nothing about it was good for me. it wasn’t inedible... but it wasn’t good either. The sausage was rubbery, the curry was nonexistent, the ketchup was an unnatural coloured, watered down mess usually found at Wimpy restaurants. Currywurst, I decided, was a tradition the germans could keep for themselves. However, I read about this place called Wittys. Wittys is an imbiss stand (a sort of snack hut) on the northwest corner of Wittenbergplatz. Its specialty is, of course, currywurst. I heard that the chips were the best in the city, the wurst delicious. But it was something else that piqued my interest. Everything was organic. So I thought, if I was going to foray back into the wurst thicket, I would do so with organic intent.
After our whirlwind sightseeing tour, we hit the imbiss stand. And on my days. OH MY DAYS. It was so delicious I almost wept. The chips were thick cut and golden, crispy on the outside and light and fluffy on the inside, the sausage was soft, flavorful and spicy, the tomato sauce was deep red – clearly made of real tomatoes. Having eaten Wittys currywurst, I do believe I understand why Germany sells 800 million servings of it a year.

After our delicious lunch (that I won’t lie to you, we flat hand shoveled into our mouths) we headed across the street to KaDeWe, up to its heavenly 6th floor food hall. KaDeWe (Europe’s biggest department store) is, if I am well behaved, where I am going to go when I die. Picture miles and miles of marble counters, champagne bars, sushi, pretzels, fresh pasta, oysters, bird of paradise coloured exotic fruit, whole counters dedicated solely to eggs, wraparound counters of cheese, cheese islands even, the smell of baking bread, chocolates, truffles and cured meat. One of my favourite things to do is to drink champagne in lavish food halls. I love everything about it. The man sitting next to you polishing off a 120eur bottle of rose champagne alone, the ladies what lunch with their white china tureens of steaming soup, their diamonds glinting in the store lights, the smell of Chanel as you walk past. I love the sound of cracking lobster claws a few counters along, the tempting call of the cheese counter from the next room, and knowledge that if you take two lefts and then a right you will end up at the canapé counter where the swan shaped profiteroles swim idly by on silver trays. Food halls are my heaven. KaDeWe might have surpassed Paris’ Galeries Lafayette as my favourite.

Other food highlights from the weekend include but are not limited to:
Afternoon tea and cake (or champagne and apple tart) at Opernpalais on Unter den Linden
Peanut butter and chocolate cupcakes from Cupcake
Long and lazy Sunday brunch that included hearty portions of stuffed deep fried artichoke hearts
Raclette from Winterfeldt Markt (the most delicious and extraordinary food market)
Sweet, crunchy pears the size of rugby balls
Cheese, figs and pretzels before going out
A drunken 3am hunt for falafel that ended in a drunken 3am molestation of burgers, chips and sugary soft drinks. Seriously. How can something so bad be SO GOOD?

So Tam has gone back to London and I am tired, kind of bloated and, to be honest, strangely hungry. I am doing my utmost to hold off for few more days until I venture back to Wittys. But I’m not sure just how long I can hold out.

If you don't care about cars, look away now.

Interlagos BLEW MY MIND!

Some highlights for me included:

Reuben’s rather suspect pit stop with 8 laps to go. I love it when Ross Brawn plays favourites. (Actually, I now know that Reubens had a puncture and therefore had to get new tyres.... but I like my original evil thoughts better, so I’m sticking with them.)

Kimi’s incredible start. Kimi was on fire! Fantastically, after a fuel hose malfunction courtesy of the I believe soon to be unemployed Kovalainen, Kimi was literally ON FIRE. Imagining that moment in Kimi’s helmet is hilarious. Do you think he even noticed?

The fact that it was the Brawn mechanics who managed to detach the fuel hose from the McLaren.

That hilarious little tussle between trulli and sutil after they both konked out of the race. Jarno, the 'wraparound polarised lense sunglasses most often seen on cyclists' wearing Italian has NEVER been a favourite of mine and to see him stand up on his tippy toes and reach up as far as his little arms could go to push the calm and well behaved Sutil around was GOLD.

Jenson’s aggressive overtaking. The man was inspired.

Kobayashi’s showing on his first race. We’ve had so many driver changes this season and the Japanese replacement for Toyota’s Timo Glock is the only one who hasn’t left me feeling distinctly underwhelmed. Jaime Alguersuari might be a treat to look at, but that preemie beast sure knows how to finish a race dead last.

Heidfeld running out of fuel. Let me say that again. Heidfeld. Ran. Out. Of. Fuel.
Idiot.

The smile and shrug thing Nico did after his gearbox went and he was forced to retire. One day, he will be in charge of our children’s manners. He has class.

Brawn’s inaugural Constructers Championship.

Jenson Button, the new world champion. I knew it was going to be a good day when I saw his pops sitting in the garage, wearing that pink shirt. I am SO SO happy. Seriously. You'd think I know the dude.

So tonight, in celebration of two championship titles and a ridiculously good race, why not make like Kimi Raikkonen and get fucked up with a Flaming Ferrari?

Flaming Ferrari
Ingredients
3 oz. Dark Rum
3 oz. White Rum 2 oz. Blue Curacao
Instructions
Pour the white rum into a glass. Add the dark rum. Pour the Blue Curacao into a separate shot glass. Light the rum mixture and suck with a straw. Whilst doing this, pour in the Blue Curacao into the glass and finish. ALWAYS USE CAUTION WITH FIRE.
(Recipe from http://www.barnonedrinks.com/)