Post Titled: United Nations Plaza

(Foto: a Police paper door seal on a club called Zum Patentamt which was closed- then "sealed" - literally, by the city officals...

Went to a thing at the United Nations Plaza tonight, we arrived a bit late and could already hear the lecture going on as we walked up the stairs. Poking my head through the entrance I saw that there was a panel of three men sitting at a press conference-type table at the front of the room, whit an audience sitting on white boxes or window ledges all packed in the room. Of the panelists themselves, one in his late 20's who looked like a german student- far receeded hairline, tiny round glasses and thinning disheveled blonde hair... the man in the moddle looked like a dishwater blonde and gray reproduction of Bob Geldof, and the last was a professor-looking fellow with a kind round face and glasses. They were talking, pausing to drink water and clearing their throats as a normal panel of academics might and the sound of all of this boomed through the room through speakers, except it was not quite syncronised with reality. The panelists were lip-lynching to the sounds coming out of the speaker, and had timed their water breaks so well that sometimes it was almost impossible not to believe that these sounds were not theirs, except they had a plastic waterbottle and the sounds was that of a glass waterbottle being set down on the "table" (or sound of a table). Don't know what he purpose of all this is actually, but after a few minutes, I found that I was able to watch is as a notmal panel, the shock of the absurditiy of it had worn off and I was able to swat and capture the art theory jargon burping out of the speakers. I really only understood about HALF of what was being said, but I'll blame that on low blood sugar.

We flooded a dinky little sports bar afterwards, the kind of place that never has more than a few random old losers was suddenly filled with 40 artsy-fartsy folks from the show, this was very intertaining. I bumped into Alicia from work and had a lovely conversation with her- it is funny how you come across expatriots who youare on the same level with and others who are greatly MOR or LESS integrated into the foreign society. Alicia, like Amelia, is fairly well-integrated and speaks very good german with a noticable american accent, but more power to them. Makes me want to kick myself- people find loopholes and ride them out... all in good time.

But really, all was well on this Thursday night, I walked for hours and met friends of friends, another Paul and Jes (just moved here from California) who turned out to be hilariously clever, good good.

In morning news: wow, Medhi Army chills out, didn't see that coming.