a bit of this and that

Yesterday I wrote about this lebanese dish called fatteh, I googled it and apparently it is a breakfast dish; but anyway it is good at any time of the day. Where A. and I ate it is this small, almost a hole in the wall, lebanese snack place, but the food they prepare is just superbly delicious. The place is not pretty, but the men are preparing the dishes while one orders, so all is fresh and the tea is on the house. I love this small hidden food places where mostly locals go and when I say locals I do not mean berliner but arabs. I live in a neighborhood with a high, very high, immigrant population; around 154 nationalities live here in the ´hood. Lots of turkish, arabs from different countries, asians, africans, croatians, serbians, a few latinos, and some americans. So as for international cooking, this is the place, no fancy touristy places, but the "real" thing. I like my neighborhood, it has a bad name in Berlin, but that is changing, a lot of students are moving in, also a lot of artists because the rents are still cheap, some independent designers and a lot of people who are busy creating cultural activities. I think a lot of the "bad" reputation has more to do with stereotyping or plain racism because so many immigrants live here. It is true that one can see the occasional alcoholics in the subway stations or outside the supermarkets, but that is almost all over Berlin. There is unemployment, but so it is in the whole city - Berlin has a slogan: "poor but sexy". And the streets some times are dirty. But I feel more at home in this neighborhood than in any other at the moment, because I am also an immigrant.  I like hearing so many languages in the streets, I like seeing the muslim women going shopping in the morning, I like that the eastern european baker makes great rye bread and gives Fermin always a piece of ham when I go by, I like going to the turkish vegetable shops with their loud vendors and get beautiful fresh peppers, on Sundays I like seeing the women from India  with their elegant saris and in summer the african mamas with their complicated hairdos and colorful dresses. The most amazing public swimming pool is here, a protected architectural monument, with its roman columns and mosaics. I like it here despite what many germans say about it. I do not care if it  is not cool or hip enough, it is just what it is, how I live it. We are all foreigners, but we have become also neuköllners.

As for the drawings, a bit of this  and that: Axel trying to put together an Ikea shelf thing, Fermin sleeping and moving everytime I try to draw him, some people from my german class (not live sketches, but more as what my memory tells me about them), muslim women with different headscarves and some free small watercolor faces.