Free weights on the curb (STUTTGART)

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I found free weights on the street -- literally. People in Germany are always setting out perfectly useable stuff on the curb for, ostensibly, trash collection. Of course they know passers-by will kindly 'assist' the City with the trash removal. Such a strong sense of civic duty!
As the saying goes: one man's trash is another man's addition to his home gym. Something like that.

(click here to see my bike & other gym equipment)

The dumbbells are less than 10lbs each but I make good use of them nevertheless. High series and/or high repetitions does the trick. Anyway, resistance - and good form - are the principals to keep in mind. Plus a daily regiment. I've been training at home for the past six months with no immediate gym membership in sight so these babies come in handy. I tried installing a pre-made pull-up bar but it just didn't fit with the old structure (translation: wide) of my apartment door frames. So I took it back and got a refund. And you know this, man! But with a strong adherence to calisthenics and physical activities I don't have to deal with the nagging excuse of not having a local gym. Don't get me wrong: I like working-out in a hardcore gym but 1) there's a dearth of hardcore gyms and 2) whatever...my physique is still tip-top. Hello! 

one man's trash is another man's 
addition to his home gym

  

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A hassle hustling to Stuttgart

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On SATURDAY I answered a housing ad on a German website; on SUNDAY we Skyped and on MONDAY I was "Stuttgart Or Bust". And I came close to busting.

slept through my connection [and] was nearly to Switzerland by the time I awoke!

I contacted no less than eight rideshares and no less than eight ignored my calls. Assholes. Checked out of the hotel and tried my luck at the train station at Zoologischer Garten, hoping some drivers might be heading my way. There was one -- but his car was already full. Then I hopped on the subway and went to the bus terminal in West Berlin to snag the 3.30 - and last - bus to Stuttgart. It would cost more than carpooling but, hey, it was uber wichtig - very important - that I get there by morning as homeboy was leaving on Wednesday. My German is crap but I did not know it was so crappy: totally misread the bus signs. Instead of sitting by the "Aus Stuttgart" Stop my ass ought to have stood in line at "Tubigen" as Tubigen is the south route which passes through Stuttgart whereas the former "Aus" means from. (Shit I thought that was von meant that.) Doh!

Having completely missed the bus right under my nose I had one sure option remaining: the train. It was the most costly option -- right behind flying (yeah, I even hustled to Tegel Airport out of desperation). By the way, did I mention it was raining? Talk about a Monday morning! After waiting 40 minutes for my number to be called I finally paid 115 euros - Jesusfuckinchrist! - for a seat on the night train.

I reminded myself: But after the day I would have an apartment.

waiting at train station: nothing to do but cool my jets

 

The night train was very comfortable and cozy. So comfortable, in fact, that I slept clean through my 0540 stop and missed my connection. I was nearly to Switzerland by the time I awoke! Evidently, train conductors don't wake up passengers. I set the alarm feature on my mobile but the damn phone alarm didn't do shit. (Before the new day was done said mobile would be a heap of plastic and electronic smithereens on the hot pavement.) At this point I hopped off the train in a panic and was obliged to buy another ticket to get me back on track to my missed connection in Karlsruhe -- oh and wait an hour until then.

 Stuttgart-Or-Bust

When I reached my destination it was 10 o'clock TUESDAY morning (instead of 7am of the initial ticket). First thing I did was to eat a big ice cream sundae with whipped cream topping and chocolate sauce. Priorities. Then I contacted the renter. At noon I visited the apartment and we shook on it. On WEDNESDAY I moved in. 

What.A.Trip! 

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Rude German lady on the bus

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In my politest German I asked a lady on the bus the cost of regular bus fare?

"Ask the bus driver," she replied. "It's his job, not mine!"
What?!
I ditched the foreign language and pointed out the obvious in English: He's driving and I don't want to distract him; especially as we had just entered a tunnel.
So I stood near the front waiting for the tunnel to end and to have a chance to speak with the driver (I boarded the bus from the side door) but then I realized the next stop would be mine so I thought, Screw it.
Before leaving, though, I turned to the ornery jefa and said, "Y'know what: that's why nobody likes German women. You're mean and sure as hell ain't sexy!
She made a sound that implied, Well I never!
On that we could both agree. 

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Frankfurt, Germany (PICS)

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It's a rainy weekend in Frankfurt Am Main. Hope the water doesn't rise like it did in 1347!
 

Doesn't look so colourful to me....

Here is the covering of the Haupbahnhof (Hbf; main train station). Let's hope it doesn't prove as poorly managed as the still unopened airport in Berlin and the still unopened opera house in Hamburg...expensive projects which have been

going on for years and years and years and years. 

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My reasons for home-training (PICS)

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I have no gym membership. They cost a big chunk of money and the environments are increasingly an extension of social media and social 'networking'. The trend is also growing ever more effeminate; which is to say the atmosphere is, pardon my French, full of pussies...with their antibacterial wipes, iphones, brand new matching 'gym' outfits, and roaming eyes.

When the season changes and the temperature dips then, yeah, I'll hunker down and buy a short-term membership (assuming I'm somewhere cold and snowy). I do miss working out at the gym because I like training with weights and smelling the testosterone in the air...or what used to be testosterone. 

In the meantime I train at home with resistance bands, furniture, calisthenics and the outdoors -- and my physique is none too shabby for it! It's doable when one knows what he's doing and can concentrate on doing it.

 Training at home; here I am doing push-ups.

I wear a posing strap or bathing suit to 

allow for freedom of movement and comfort. There's no

need to wear clothes when you're at home.

 Training at the park; here I am mornings using

 the soccer goal post  to do a variety of exercises like

chin-ups (back, chest, hand grip)

wall-sits/wall squats (quadriceps, core);

I can go for 4mins! if I don't do other

leg drills first e.g., burpees or regular squats

 pull-ups (biceps, hand grip).

Of course one wears clothes in public!

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There is a time for departure even when there is no certain place to go.

- Tennessee Williams

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Harlem, NYC (PICS)

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Snapshots from my last trip to NYC

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Home training pull-up bar

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Bought a home training apparatus that fits in the door frame, enabling one to train his back, chest, bicep muscles; and when placed on the floor you can train triceps, abdominals, and leveraged push-ups. All this for only 25 euros!

One hitch, though.

The multi-rack doesn't fit in the door frame. Doh! In fact, all the doorways in the apt are too wide! Oh well.... At least I didn't buy it second-hand. The lesson? KEEP THE PURCHASE RECEIPT; because this baby is going back in the box and back to the shop. Hello!

In the meantime I still have my resistance bands.

if it doesn't fit, you must give up the shit

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Dorset, Minnesota has a baby mayor

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I've never been to Dorset but it's tiny mayor sounds like my kind of guy: ice cream, fishing, taking long walks.
I love to eat ice cream. I eat it all over the world! I hate fishing but, hey, two out of three ain't bad.
Read how this real town wound up with a mayor who is all of four years old -- literally.

(USA TODAY article)

 

my favorite food

 



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Torre David at Aedes Gallery (BERLIN)

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In Prenzlauer Berg at the Aedes Gallery is an exhibit on the phenomenon of Venezuela's Torre David.

Built during the booming early nineties when Venezuela found itself rich in natural oil and appeared to be formidable on the world stage, Torre David, nicknamed after investor David Brillembourg (some sources also list him as the  architect) was intended to be the flagship of Caracas' financial district. But instead of a Latino Wall Street it became the only skyscraper in the world with no elevators!

That's because, four years in and 90% complete, Sr Brillembourg up and died -- followed soon by the nation's banks. The gov't took it over -- but let it sit abandoned for over a decade. Then poor people thought, Wtf? I don't have a house, and, in short order, hordes of them wandered into it and began squatting. Thus Torre David went from being one visionary's gem, to an unavoidable eye-sore, to the largest vertical slum or, according to Urban-Think Tank, a living model of a social cooperative. There's some merit to that latter claim: residents have installed running water and sewage systems, bodegas (mom & pop stores,) building security, basketball courts and, of course, televisions. No matter how poor a ghetto is there are always working televisions! It's telling that Hugo Chavez, for all of his populist rhetoric, never troubled himself to complete the Centro Financiero Confianzas,  as it was to officially be called, but, instead, let it become a skyscraper cum slum. But, unlike most slums, Torre David is one in which its residents take a great deal of pride in calling home.

More of the Aedes exhibit (with pics)

 

Here are snapshots from the exhibit at the Aedes Gallery:

  home sweet home

 

"Bogota = 11,163 per sq mile"

precisely why NYC and Paris rank low on my ideal cities

and I have scant interest in visiting any of the other ones

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My communist bag

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While in Schoeneberg (Berlin) I came across a sales table outside of an Oriental shop and picked up this interesting shapeless bag.

 light, durable, expandable

Ching choing quang ching; translation: 

"Made in the Peoples Repulic of China"

 perfect for on-the-go travel,

even inside free capitalist societies!

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