Tagged: Berlin
Weekly Photo Challenge: Summer (or, Chasing Usain)
This week’s WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge theme is summer; for the past several that has meant chasing Usain Bolt, the world’s fastest man.
This was taken from my press seat when he returned to the track a few hours after his 100 meters world record at the 2009 World Championships in Berlin where he clocked an otherworldly 9.58 seconds. A quick breakdown of what that means more precisely: Bolt covered the distance in 41 total strides at 4.28 strides per second, his average speed was 37.6 kilometers per hour, and he reached a peak speed of just under 46 Km/H.
If you’re a fan, here’s another pic I posted of Bolt taken a year ago after a race in Ostrava, Czech Republic. All things considered, it’s my favorite shot of Bolt. A few more are on my flickr stream here.
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Berlin Quickie
Here’s a 4min&8sec vidblog from Berlin, the latest in my small –but growing!– Piran Cafe City Quickie series.
Berlin has long been on my short-short list of favorite European capitals – I’ve visited about a dozen times over the past eight years and always feel revitalized by the city’s unique energy.
These videos are not trying to be all-encompassing ‘destination’ pieces. They’re simply short visual notebooks from the road, shot quickly from the hip and then quickly-edited, attempting to provide a modest portrayal of a certain place at a certain time. Please let me know if, and when, I succeed.
Shots from 9-12-Sep-2011.
A few quick note on a few of the ‘cameo appearances’:
- German Piratenpartei, or Pirate Party. In the 2011 Berlin State elections, held on the weekend following my visit, the party took 9% of the vote and won 15 seats in the Abgeordnetenhaus, or State Parliament, of Berlin. [Engilish wiki] [Party website][PPI - International collective]
- Andrea Fischer, former member of the German Bundestag, campaigning for the Green Party at the Brandenburg Gate. The Greens took 11.6% of the vote, upping their number of seats by seven to 30.
This episode’s epilogue is at the Marx-Engels-Forum featuring some Asian tourists.
And the cool soundtrack is Yes, Inform by Christopher Mollineaux Carson aka Throcke from his album Sometimes not Unpoinful. Check out more of his work. (CC/Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License)
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Previous City Quickies:
~ Lille, France
~ Sarajevo (a series of timelapses, actually)
~ Rabat
~ Ljubljana (a 40min bike tour sped up and condensed to just over 5min)
~ Doha’s West bay area
Five Minutes to Midnight
This is a detail from Slovenia’s offering to the United Buddy Bears exhibit that was on display on the Ku’damm in Berlin from 26 June through 3 October.
Said Berlin-based Slovenian artist Marjan Kekec-Ogradni who painted the bear:
Our unique globe is composed by the four elements air, water, fire and earth. The increasing exploitation of our nature and the growing number of wars is an immense threat for our planet. If we want the earth to continue to be worth living on, we have to act quickly, as it’s already five to twelve. Representing this apocalypse is Death on the front of my bear.
Man can work against this apocalypse using his heart and his courage. The first commandment should be practising tolerance in dealing with our environment and our fellow human beings. A global human line under the flag of tolerance could be a first and important step towards the common preservation of our planet.
A few more pics of Ogradni and his bear are here. Ogradni’s website is here.
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June Pic(k)s
Spotted these gems at the Berlin Hauptbahnhof on a busy Monday morning on my way out. Crisis or not, I could easily find better ways to spend €30 or €50.
Anyway, they made me chuckle, so they made the cut for my personal favorite pics shot in the merry month of June.
This along with a few others shot in Berlin, Ostrava and Pardubice, Czech Republic, along with Idrija and Svetina, Slovenia, are included here.
Previous pic(k)s of the month: [May 09] [Apr 09] [Mar 09] [Feb 09] [Jan 09] [2008]
Berlin 040, originally uploaded by pirano.
Among EU Capitals, Berlin’s Roads the Safest, Ljubljana’s Most Dangerous
Finally, something beyond my anecdotal rants about the maniacs that are on the roads in Slovenia.
According to a study of accident rates in EU capitals released Wednesday by the European Transport Safety Council, Berlin has the safest roads in 2007, with 1.64 deaths per 100,000 residents, just ahead of –oui, c’est vrai!– Paris, with 1.70 per 100,000.
Bottoming out the list was Ljubljana, which tallied 12.98 fatalities per 100,000, edging Vilnius, Lithuania, which scored 12.09 last year.
The safest of the safest? Maltese capital Valletta, which hasn’t seen a death on the road since 2001.
In pure numbers, Athens witnessed the largest number of deaths last year with 226, just ahead of London with 222.
Overall, the number of deaths in the capitals fell from 1,881 in 2006 to 1,560 last year.
Lausanne 027, originally uploaded by pirano.
September pic(k)s
September was brutal. Between the 1st and 26th I spent just four nights at home while bopping between eight countries across seven time zones. I’m still recovering. And I also took nearly a 1000 pictures.
This one, of a woman enjoying a smoke break from the tedium of her job, was taken in Zurich, and I remember being really pissed off when the car went by. So the result was quite a pleasant surprise. The rest of my personal faves shot during the month are here.
Previous personal pick pics – [August] [July] [June] [May] [April] [March] [February] [January]
Radium theatre (Zurich 04), originally uploaded by pirano.
30 Second Cheap Hotel Advisor – Berlin
Sachsenhof
Motzstraße 7
Berlin
Stayed 4 nights, 15-19-Sep 2007
Roomy! Airy! I really enjoyed this place. Great location, just a short walk from the Nollendorfplatz U Bahn stop, nice neighborhood, and a sushi place across the street run by a friendly Vietnamese. Big minus is no internet access, but there’s a cheap internet cafe (open 8 am to midnight) just up the street. With advanced booking, as low as 50 EUR/night.
I shall (absolutely) return.
Sachsenhof-Berlin, originally uploaded by pirano.
Gadling pic of the day
This shot of the Holocaust Memorial, or Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, was selected as Gadling‘s Photo of the Day today. Thanks! More about the memorial here.
Sobering, provocative, and in an ethereal sort of way, quite relaxing. A must-visit.
Berlin, 17-Sep-2007
Holocaust Memorial, originally uploaded by pirano.
Post card from Berlin
Been in Berlin the past several days, quickly becoming my favorite European city. This is Berlin’s Olympic Stadium, recently rennovated, but it still breathes history.
Berlin, 16-Sep-2007
Berlin Olympic Stadium, originally uploaded by pirano.
Berlin Hauptbahnhof.
Less than eight months after it opened, Berlin’s Hauptbahnhof, Europe’s largest –and at a cost of €750 million (USD 900 million) certainly the continent’s most expensive– rail station, hit the headlines today after Storm Kyrill apparently knocked a two-ton steel girder from the building’s facade.
Only opened since May, officials wondered, wind storm notwithstanding, how something so new could begin falling apart so quickly. From Spiegel:
“In truth, something like that should never have happened,” said Berlin’s Interior Secretary Ehrhart Körting, in something of an understatement.
The station was closed and evacuated because of the storm at the time, so no injuries were reported.
While the merits of spending that kind of money on the station have been and continue to be argued, it’s not debateable that it’s an absolutely stunning metal and glass architectural gem spawning yet another example of impeccable German efficiency. When I passed through on an early September day –along with about 320,000 others on that Monday– I was struck by its immensity, and it’s locale: the Reichstag, Potsdamer Platz, the Federal Chancellery and the Holocaust Memorial are just a short stroll away, making it a destination in itself.
A few more pics:
Some construction pics here and more about the station here.
