For the last three days. I love Whitney.

“I know somebody’s gonna make love to this song tonight….”

The idea is simple: go to 1 place, ask 50 people 1 question, film their answers and get a glimpse of how marvelous life is. “Fifty People, One Question” is a wondeful video project I just discovered. It is about us, our lifes, our wishes, dreams and fears. It is about getting to know people without really knowing them, it is about feeling for and with each other.

It is beautiful. The editing is amazing, the music grabs your heart. I fell in love with the individuals in the clips, with their honesty. This just made my day!

I love Berlin. I really love it.

What I love most about it is the fact, that there is always something to discover. I’m a car girl, I mostly drive through the city. I have a bike now, so sometimes, if the weather is nice I’ll ride that. But I just realized that in Berlin you still “find” areas that you’ve passed a million times but once you WALK through them it’s a whole different story. You don’t even have to drive all the out there, mostly it’s right in front of our nose.

I took a stroll through the Mitte/Kreuzberg area right behind Spittelmarkt the other day and booooy, Berlin suprises me over and over again. That area is not so”kiezig” as we’d say. In a way, it’s empty. The wall used to go through that part of the city and you still feel the notion of it having been a somewhat deserted area for years. You have tons of industrial buildings that are being reconstructed, old impressive houses and then unexpectedly fallow land. It’s amazing. And this September has been just beautiful!

Berlin, I love you!

I’ve been meaning to post this and introduce this dapper gentleman for quite a while now. Finally came around it. Please meet Stones Throw’s newest musical gift to the world: Mayer Hawthorne. He’s talented. A great dj turned soul singer who brings back some sort of decency to the out-of-control-in-and-out-of-jail-in-and-out-of-rehab music scene. I like his style – musically and fashionwise!

His album “A Strange Arrangement” has been out for 3 weeks now, I urge you to go and get it!

You’ll love this guy! Promise. I mean, I love him. And how couldn’t I: He released his first single on heart-shaped vinyl!

I usually never want to meet my idols or heroes.

I’m always scared I’ll be disappointed, always scared I might not like them. You have a perfect image of someone in your head and don’t want that to be ruined…. Sometimes you do get to meet the people you admire and everything’s just great. They are nice, amazing and afterwards you like them even more than before (hello Flava Flav). But sometimes you meet them and they turn out to be real douche bags (hello Ludacris).

So last week I was at some award show and *BAM* there he was! 74 years old (his birthday is a day before mine) but still there was no doubt about it – it was him! Dieter ‘Didi’ Hallervorden. The guy that made me laugh when I was a kid, the guy that still makes me laugh. I held my breath. My first intention was to go over there and say something. Tell him that I was a huge fan, that he was so important to me when I was little, that it meant so much to watch him as an immigrant kid in the 80ies. To this day I think that Dieter Hallervorden is the only comedian my parents know by name. We watched his films and my parents learned German with Didi. One facial expression was enough to have the entire family rolling on the floor laughing!

Now fast forward 25 years.

I’m sitting opposite to him. He’s with a woman. I’m wondering: is that his wife? Are they sharing a pivate moment? Would it maybe be just rude to go and talk to him? Maybe he doesn’t wanna be bothered. He was in a conversation. What if he was unfriendly? I’d be crushed. I was battling with myself for more than 40min. Discussing that question with my friends. You had two camps: some where saying “Go! How could he possibly be unfriendly or rude if you’re being honest and sweet enough to talk to him?” The other camp was a bit more hesitant saying something like “Don’t you think it would be just weird to pop into his conversation and give him this awkward fan-moment in a situation where he’s just not expecting it?” Hhhhhmmm. Maybe. But if there’s one thing I really hate it’s asking myself the what-if-question. You won’t ever know what would’ve happened if you don’t just do it!

So I took a deep breath, went over there, tapped him on the shoulder, introduced myself and started bubbling about……everything. I think I repeated the phrase “You have no idea how important you are to my family” about 50 times. And him? He was amazing! He listened to me and smiled. Then he told me how honored he was and that he was very happy to hear whatever I had to say. We talked about his new job as the owner and director of the Schlossparktheater in Berlin. He invited me to see the next play he was going to be in, asked me about my job etc. My heart was beating like crazy, I was sweating and through our entire conversation I was cheesing like a little kid on a sugar high. It was great! I asked him for a picture and he was more than pleased to pose with me!

I felt invincible all night and somewhat proud to see that, after I broke the ice, all of a sudden everybody started a conversation asking for a picture. I had mine. And most of all I have an even better image of Dieter Hallervorden in my head. Thank you Didi for not making me regret the fact that after all I’m still just a fan! Oh, and how I love the funny face he’s making!!!

Yes, again, I’ve been a lazy chick when it comes to my blogging game. I know, I know! But since August was just wonderful, I wanted to take some time off and just enjoy summer. And damn kids, what a summer it was!

We had wonderful Sundays out on the lake (Thx Omy, Bee, Dave, Big L, and Robsen):

We had lovely Sundays out on the flea market (Thx Romes & Kalle):

We saw cool performances like Chrisette Michel’s gig in front 25 people (Thx Gab, Chantal & Oz):

Spent nights blocking the streets of Berlin just to get a glimpse of Parra (Thx Ruthi, Koala, Romes & AM):

We had good food (Thx Nenna, Bee, Omy, JT & Zycho):

After a looooong search I finally found a bike (Thx Henne, Stefan, Arun & Fabi):

We played the first PX Basketball Tournament and won (Thx Nico, Phil, Bianca, Emily, Nora & Annabel, the Amsterdamned, La Famille Parisienne, Cranktown and Stuggi):

We celebrated my love’s wedding, which was just amazingly beautiful (Thx Dee & Pee):

And I turned 30 and decided to bring in the new decade with a *BANG* (thx Nora & Big P):

(pics by Robsen)

(pic by Heiko Schäfer)

After this amazing summer (not talking about the weather here – more abot the stories, emotions and feelings) we’re all ready for fall. My song for the summer of 2009? There can only be ONE answer:

Fall – let’s go!

It’s amazing, but right now everything is good. My parents are healthy, my sister’s about to make me an auntie, my brothers are both with me, one of my best friends is about to marry the love of her life, I’ll soon have my Nati back, Ruthi is happy with her job, Ms. Slick is about to make me a godmother, the girls are all doing their thang, the ones I thought I had lost I will never lose, I have plenty of work, I eat, I’m free, the sun is shining, I feel blessed. This would be the perfect time to say: “Thank you, dear universe!”

HELL YEAH, the rims match!

I’ve never EVER seen a little (can I say white?) girl dance like this! Still trying to figure out, if i like it or not! After all, how old can she be? I always feel a little weird when I see young kids move like this, but then again: the dancing is still amazing.

Thank you soooooo much Amechi for sharing this!

PUUUUUUULL UUUUUUUUUUP!!!

ABSOLUT threw a party last night at the Spindler & Klatt. Wolfmother were performing, Julian Smith played as Smith & Drums. Almost all of Berlin was out and ERRRRRRBODY went crazy! I was totally happy, that my two brothers were there, my favorite DJ was spinning and Yue and Sophie had a kick ass farewell party since they returned to Paris this morning with probably ZERO sleep! What else? Feride celebrated her birthday, Dana, Jamie, Chantal, Sarah and Karina basically killed the dancefloor, Reaf lost major weight, Danetic will probably never give me back those DVDs he borrowed in 2002,  Phillo is Polish, Omer showed up and danced, David actually can dance, Marina, Elina and I realized that thanks to globalization the world basically has become one small village. INTERCONNECTION GALORE! I love it! Oh, one more thing: GIRLS, GIRLS, GIRLS, GIRLS!!!!!!!

I’m entirely taken by this song! It’s Marcela Mangabeira’s version of Michael Jackson classic “Human Nature”. Now “Human Nature” has never been my fav MJ tune, but this interpretation of it just stole my heart! It’s interesting to see how you sometimes only start recognizing the true beauty of a song if you hear a totally new version of it.

Blame it on the weather, blame it on summer hormones, but the Bossa Nova is really doing something to me!