Karl Stanton

Berlin and a Happy New Year.

Happy New Year.

Fi & I had an awesome time in Berlin. What an amazing city, obviously it’s drenched in history, however the most eye catching details are on the trains, in the subways, on the street, in the parks and in empty lots. Graffiti and street art rules this town. It’s the most bombed city I’ve been too. I mean everything is totally trashed, but at the same time it makes the city so unique. It’s finally finding it’s voice and it’s letting the world know. So much creativity is now reaching the outside world, or maybe we’re just now able to peer inside.

Berlin looks rough. Litter lines the streets, everything is tagged or vandalised in some way, however there is no threat of violence and we never felt unsafe. We met a woman on the flight from Stockholm who said she feels safer walking through parks at night in Berlin than she does in Stockholm.

We couldn’t have picked a crazier time to be in Berlin. NYE went for 3 days. It started on NYE with people setting off fireworks and firecrackers non-stop until the wee hours of the 2nd of January. As you can see above, we joined the party. The youth are rebels at heart, and the older generation are grumpy which makes for an interesting mix as the youth are running the town, and the oldies are just putting up with all the chaos.

What’s interesting to note is that we didn’t see any authority for the entire stay. No police, no met-cops, nothing. In fact, you don’t even need to swipe a met card to get into the subway, you just walk in and walk out. Apparently met-cops bust people constantly, however we saw none of that, and the trains run all night. We made it across the city at 7am with no problems what so ever.

Anyway.

I made the awesome mistake of booking a hotel on the other side of the city from the airport, but it was the only place I could find on such short notice. Seriously, it was like landing at Tullamarine and getting public transport to Frankston, just check the amazing view from our hotel window.

We saw Checkpoint Charlie, saw the wall in various places across the city, and walked, walked, walked to a point where we were both dizzy from lack of energy. We refueled on beer and Japanese. By the way, watching Japanese speak fluent German is a trip, especially when trying to order since they don’t speak English and the menu’s are in German! Tasty, though.

We caught up with a friend of a friend, who also is a stockist for NiceProduce in Berlin. If you’re ever in the city, make sure you pop into Van Liebling and say what up to Chris, also check the NiceProduce in the front window (nice!). He was kind enough to invite us over to his friends house for a NYE party. We of course were the only Anzac’s and the best english speakers at the party, so you can imagine the types of broken conversations we had. Kangaroo’s and koala’s (not koala bears damn you!). I also learned the hard way of setting off bottle rockets. Use a bottle. The New Year came around and the custom is to kiss and hug everybody in the room, a strange thing for strangers!

After getting up, we dragged ourselves back onto the streets and headed over to Mitte, a very trendy, highly fashionable and beautiful part of town. We found a lovely pub which used to be a laundry, a coffin maker and a bakery. It’s now one hell of a good find for some hungover tourists. Bratwurst, parma, stout and house red. It was snowing outside, and we were toasty inside. Amazing. Fi even let me break my stout-drought, as apparently my stout-pout has dispersed since moving to Hugo land. Check the hair. It’s gotta go.

We got back to Stockholm to find it well into the minuses and snowing, a lovely omen for us as it snowed when Fi came and it was snowing when she left. It’s a lovely reminder from now.

My friend Gustav is a waiter at a popular restaurant called Grill just off Rådmansgatan. I had the first steak since living Australia and Fi had an amazing seafood skewer topped with all her favourites. We drank a bottle of Chile’s finest and several cocktails which later led to midnight snow angel making, good times!

Now for a little bit of geekism…

Click the image to view a little larger…

This is Schlesisches Tor U-Bahn in Berlin. I wanted to try out the merge photos as a panorama in Lightroom, and I must say it’s pretty damn good. I’ll be out trying some 16mm shots around Stockholm soon to try to flex it’s muscles a little harder.

So that was NY in Berlin in a nutshell. I could type all night but it’s always too much to take in at once. Perhaps I’ll dribble more over a cold beer back in Australia some time, until then I’m sure Fi will be updating her blog with her version of the trip soon.

Work starts tomorrow, will be good to get back into the swing of things. Speak soon.

Best Christmas present, ever.

God Dag, Solsken!

This is the mood I’m in. Oh sun, how I’ve missed thee!

Hej! It’s 4:30pm and pitch black, and suddenly I’m extremely tired. I’m thinking it’s because it’s been a very busy weekend.

It started on Friday morning when I woke up to find out it was my birthday. I spilt coffee over my keyboard before work, and ran out the door. Great start! Friday was a normal day at F-I, however it was the last day of the working year and at 5pm, out came the Glögg and gingerbread.

We had a lovely visit from Santa Claus who all gave us kris kringles. I received an all in one tool kit for my bike which is a very thoughtful gift. Thanks “Secret Santa” . My favourite part of the night was realising why everyone was going outside to get beer. The Swedish fridge is out there. Slabs of beer keeping cold in the frosty night air. Ace!

We jammed on Rock Band, I played drums and lead, and sucked at both. We drank copious amounts of Carlsberg and gin, we (Daniel C and I), kicked butt at foosball, and I bailed to get ready to p-a-r-t-y.

We ended up going to some bar (I can’t remember let alone pronounce the name of it), to see a Swedish DJ called Martinez, who was very good. Lots of people, lots of dancing. I was abandoned and left to fend for myself at around 2am, so I decided to call it a night, getting a hot dog on the way and only realising once I was on the subway that most of it had ended up on my jeans. Nice look.

I got home to jump online to say hi to my Aussie friends and loved ones, but couldn’t log into my computer. I thought I had forgotten my password, or was just too drunk to type it in. It didn’t occur to me that if you pour coffee into your computer that the keyboard will be fried. And it is. So yesterday I jumped out of bed, rode to the office to borrow a Mac keyboard which is what I’m using now. Apparently there is a store around the corner which can fix my Mac tomorrow. Yay.

Last night I was dying a slow horrible death, but I got a call from my friend Filip who dragged me to a bar called Pleasant. It was a Christmas party, so who turned up? You guess it, Santa Claus once again. Everyone in the bar received gifts, all themed around Doctors and Nurses. Interesting. I got a stethoscope and ambulance. My friend got a phone to dial 9-11. Filip received a collapsible plastic knife. Also interesting!

We left at around 3am, I walked home and crashed.

I was awoken by a very lovely phone call from my friends Al & Jules, (was awesome to talk to you guys!), and a beam of sunlight was hitting my face. Sunlight means outside. So I jumped on the bike (so glad I brought it with me), and rode to Cafe Frankfurt for a lovely coffee and breakfast.

I then road into the sunlight, sat on the docks and enjoyed the warmth. It truly was a moment.

I caught up with Filip once more and we rode around and saw an amazing sunset, like nothing I’ve seen before. The sky was pink and purple, the water was reflecting it and thus the water was pink also. If it’s a nice day tomorrow, I’m going out with my Canon to take some proper shots. Here’s hoping.

Fi lands on Wednesday, and I have a lot to organise. Tomorrow will be a busy day indeed, and that’s also the reason why my posts are a little sparse or vague. I’m busy all the time! The holiday is definitely over. But trust me, I have lots to show and tell.

Enjoy the flicks from the F-I Christmas Party on Kontain, and a few other snaps from the weekend.

All the best, and keep in touch all!

x K.

Home cookin

Dispite what some of you might think, Stockholm actually has quite a lot of fresh and delicious produce which can be bought from supermarkets and markets alike. This image is the calm before the storm. I over cooked the rice, but the rest was lovely.

Living (essentially) on my own, well, definitely cooking for one, gives me a bit of freedom about the kitchen, but also allows me to stuff things up royally without worrying about anyone else eating it.

Soon, I’ll be cooking a roast Chicken or maybe Christmas styled chicken meatballs with Fi. YAY!

While you were sleeping.

Yo. You’d never guess what I’ve been doing while all ya’ll Aussie have been snoozing. That’s right. I made my very first Svenska Meatballs. I went to the store, I bought the meat, I bought the onion, I bought the right to get down with the local Svenska people. I am now, a meatball maker. BOIK BOIK BOIK!

So, here are some nice pictures of my food. Please enjoy the pictures.

Needless to say, we were happy. Meatballs, mash, and pickles. Proper.

Adjo! x

Our new office. Well, soon to be new office.

Our new office is taking shape. We hope to move in by the end of January. The last one will be the view from our desks. We’re on the top floor, and it will look great once it’s all put together.

(By the way, the camera on the iPhone is a joke. I haven’t seen this much grain since breakfast.)

My Saturday ride (in the mud)

As promised.

As promised, I have uploaded a few snaps from my ride through Stockholm on Saturday.

It had been the driest week since I have arrived, and who would have thought, it rained most of Saturday. Now, the rain doesn’t bother me when riding, I had a lovely wet winter riding through Melbourne, but here it’s a little different.

The council lay gravel on the bike paths in anticipation of snow to help with traction. This means I have to roll at a lower PSI then usual which makes things a little sluggish. There’s also mud and dirt all over the place, and I got covered in most of it. The bike looked like I just pulled it out of the creek! Not fun. To top it all off, I wake up to another lovely dry Sunday. Meh.

I took a ride through Gamla Stan or “Old Town”. Old Town is a small island in the middle of Stockholm. It’s tiny twisting streets offer lots to explore and lots to photograph… however… normally the city is pretty quiet through the week, but the weekends are insane. Tourists from all over packing the streets to capacity. It was like a festival was on. I got pretty frustrated and returned to the safety of my apartment.

I think I’m going to return during my Christmas break on a weekday to try and capture it empty, that, or do a 3am mission when rolling around one of the many (many) pubs that Gamla Stan seems to contain. It’s like something out of a pirate movie. Pubs, long winding alleys, and more pubs. Ace!

Last night I caught up with my friend Hannah and her friends Thérèse and Bernado. We had lovely homemade soup and drank glögg which is very delicious mulled wine. Again, you have to buy it from The System if you want to get any enjoyment out of it!

Back to work tomorrow. Looking forward to it. Until then!

My first week…

So, it’s the end of my first week of work here in Stockholm. I’m sorry for the half-arsed posts, but I’ve been really busy, thus really tired.

I have hit the ground running. I am caught up in a new project for EA which is quite massive, and I’ve spent most of my time developing plug-ins for jQuery, which is really exciting for me as I do enjoy component work. Lots of little tiny projects that turn over quickly keep the days rolling fast and the hunger to develop strong.

My new team totally rock. A very (very) talented bunch of people who are experts in their respective fields, whether it be Flash Developer, Designer, Producer, HR, Office Manager, whatever, people are here because they love it, you can see it when you walk in.

One of the best things about working at F-I and I guess Stockholm in general is the no-shoes custom. It’s much like Japan (excluding restaurants and bars) where when you enter the office or home, you remove your shoes.  It certainly makes for a lot of sliding around hardwood floors and comfort when sitting on your ass all day. I guess the real reason is that you don’t drag snow and slush through the entire office or house.

I can dig it.

As for the picture on the right here. This is my work MSN list. If there was any better way to keep thinking about you-know-who (and who needs to be reminded really… miss you!), then this is it.

The weather has been dry these past few days, and hopefully it stays this way on the weekend so I can clock a few K’s on the pushie. I have a nice 20km round trip which gets the heart started, so I look forward to that.

I also will be joining a gym very soon as absolutely no exercise is getting done. It’s all work, eat, sleep, work, eat, sleep, and, in the dark! I need to start exercising or I’m going to blow up like a led zeppelin.

Now that I have my AU -> EU adapter, I can shoot lots of photos for you all. I promise to get a nice set down after the weekend is out.

Stay in touch.

x

I feel like an addict.

Meet ‘The System’. It’s the man. The System. The alcohol monopoly of Sweden, and I’m in the queue. Like an addict.

Watch this to get a better understanding of why it’s running things.

Basically, since a long time ago, Sweden was the highest consumers of alcohol in Europe, much thanks to the vikings. Now, it’s the lowest, no thanks to the System. The monopoly was put in place to control the consumption of alcohol. Back in the day, you used to have to keep a log book of your purchases, so that the System, and effectively, the Government, could keep a watchful eye over your alcohol consumption.

Now-a-days, we stand in line, like rats at a food dispenser.

But, it’s cheap. Like, really cheap. Like, beer for AUD$2.00 a can cheap.

This is because the System also, while owning the alcohol retail industry, also is not for profit. In other words, the alcohol is cost price. The System doesn’t believe in profiting from alcohol. This is good for me, because I can buy what would be AUD$40 Wyndham Estate Bin 555 for around AUD$10.

That’s right.

However, the Swedes think the System is expensive and are constantly trying to boycott the institution. But, from an outsider looking in, this is one of the best ideas a Government can come up with.

Not only is alcohol related death, injury, violence (domestic and street), and sickness at an all time low in this country, it is also well respected by it’s consumers and never abused.

Confused? Me too. I waited for 20 minutes in that line only to scurry around the beer and wine isles like a crack addict scurrying for 10 cents.

Same same, but different. Naa mean?