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Yesterday I took pictures of a shoemaker who has his little store in our neighbourhood. He is incredibly good at what he does, in fact the best shoemaker I ever met. He’s been working in this store since he was a little boy. Back then, his father still owned the store. All of you who have a great shoemaker in their lives–apreaciate them! They are a dying breed!

Check out his website: http://abgelaufen.com/

And if you ever get to Kottbusser Tor in Berlin–pay him a visit!

Peace

Nothing much has happened on this website in the last 12 months. I was busy with other project and had some things to figure out. But now I am coming to realize that there are many things other than work that are important to me and so I decided to take way more photos in the future and put them all on this blog.

Don’t forget to enjoy life ya’ll!!!

Peace out!

Nika

Gestern war ich mit meinen Girls Silvia Maria und Dina bei der Eröffnung eines neuen Bruger Restaurants auf der Oranienstraße. Der Laden trägt den etwas unglücklich gewählten Namen “Ketchup & Mayo”, ist aber richtig geile Burger Cuisine inclusive vegetarischer Varianten. Wir haben die Burger getestet - extrem lecker, unbedingt probieren!

My Girl Silvia Maria Spieß hat die wunderschönen Lampen für den Laden gemacht. Wenn ihr also Licht für euer Business oder euer Zuhause braucht, kontaktiert sie einfach auf Facebook.

Meine liebe Dina ist übrigens eine erfahrene weitgereiste Tourmanagerin, wenn also noch jemand eine Tourmanagerin sucht, bitte melden!

Peace
Nika

Yesterday, I went with my friends Dina and Silvia Maria to the opening of a new Burger restaurant on Oranienstraße. It has the unfortunate name “Ketchup & Mayo”, but really is a nice burger place. We tried them, they are delicious!!! So go check it out! 

The beautiful lamps in the restaurant are made by my friend Sylvia Maria Spieß - so in case you need lamps for your business or your homes, contact her on Facebook.

My friend Dina is a very experienced far travelled tour manager, so incase you lookin for an excellent tour manager, let me know!

Peace!

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Feel free to use the photos, but please give me the proper photo credit:
© nawteeneek.com

Yo whassup everybody! I am back in Berlin! And I am happy to be back! The trip was the most wonderful experience and I made lots of friends, but Berlin is an amazin city, it’s summer and I have lots of friends here too. We are exremely busy as we are working on the We B*Girlz Festival which is gonna happen in less than 4 weeks!!! I am still trying to update all the posts from my trip, please have mercy, sooner or later, everything will be up!

Yesterday I went to the Graffiti Box Jam with my girls! Will upload the photos tomorrow  am tired and wanna go to bed…

Nighty Night!

Along with the Festival of San Juan comes another weird tradition. Just as the one with the bull penises, this one is said to have come from Spain. I went there with our cap driver Donaldo and at first it looks like a regular old fair. But then I saw the horses, a guy with a weird metal glove, and a duck dangling high in the air, hanging from his feet with a shaven neck looking utterly confused.

Long story short: It’s a game on horses and it’s all about the ducks. The guys - and girls - gallop on the path underneath the duck and try to rip its head off!!! Most of them bare handed - I only saw one guy with metal glove. I don’t know how the duck feels about that and I don’t know how long it takes till they are succesfull and the poor fucker is finally dead. I did not stay for the spectacular. Just snapped a few pictures of horses and ducks and then got the fuck outtta there…

The whole scene reminded me of the phrase that Marty and I keeep for the worst occasions: “Fuck a fucking duck!”

Peace!

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Our driver Donaldo took us to San Juan. We had heard there was a church festival taking place and we wanted to check it out since we had heard the weirdest rumors about what was going on - something involving penises…

When we got there, everybody was stil inside the church, so we went to a shop were they are selling ceramics and we were allowed into the back and check out the process of making the pottery. Very interesting and I just loved the intricita patterns and bought 3 beautiful bowls - all of which I then broke in Costa Rica….

We then walked the village and found people playing at a tiny “ring-the-bell” game. Thomas and I played and I won a little cruzifix while Thomas won a pretty hairclip!

People were at ease with being photographed. Some even demanded that their picture be taken. Otheres did not appear to be so keen and needed persuasion from their girlfriends - maybe it was the teeth?

Finally the church doors opened and the procession came out. They carried a couple of statues down the street and were lead by a bunch of guys with swords and a guy in a horselike costume.

Now I’ll fill you in: As I was told, it is a Spanish tradition - weird people these Spaniards - guys (and girls, but I didn’t see any) go at each other with sword-like thingies, that are actually dried bull penises. They really beat the shit out of each other and the bull penises leave marks and sometimes even scars. The horse-guy is there to go inbetween them and split them up if it gets too vicious. Holding up your arms and giving up also should stop your opponent.

That doesn’t always work though. I saw one guy hitting another with such fury, I wondered what that dude had done to him. He sent horse-man and a couple of other people flying, who had tried to split them up. They had to practically peel him of the other guy…

The guy in black is supposedly the best bull fighter in town and treated with much respect - still being challenged at every other street corner though. And don’t think you can just grab any old bull, chop off his penis and join in the play - nooooo! You need to apply for it and then the bull penins maker will handle the process and it has to be brought to the church to receive a blessing and all sorts of things. Crazy shit going on in Nicaragua!

HIT ME BABY ONE MORE TIME!!!

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Ich bin heute etwas quengelig. Sitze seit 3 Tagen im Pizza Hut in Tegucigalpa und arbeite vor mich hin. Ich habe einen aufgeblähten Bauch, seit einer Woche Durchfall und mir tränen die Augen von der AC. Eigentlich wollte ich nochmal tauchen gehen, aber die Zeit läuft mir davon. Ich habe nur noch 5 Wochen und habe noch so viele Länder vor mir. Vielleicht muss ich Panama einfach ausfallen lassen und dann nächstes Mal in Panama anfangen. Mal sehen.

Die Leute ziehen sich hier schon zum Frühstück die Belege rein das es die wahre Pracht ist. Ich habe gerade ein etwa 4-jähriges Mädchen dabei beobachtet, wie es 5 Minuten gebraucht hat um ihren total übergewichtigen kleinen Körper auf die Sitzbank zu manövrieren. Grausam!

Hier gibt’s ne Salatbar und daher bestellen sich alle die Combo mit Salatteller. Echt besser als Fersehen, den Leuten zuzukucken, wie sie kleine Mengen Gemüse und Unmengen von gekochten Eiern, Kartoffelsalat und Nudelsalat gekonnt auf ihre Teller türmen wie kleine Pyramiden - das ist echter Sportsgeist!

Wow, 4 Wochen kein Eintrag! Na da habe ich dann wohl mal Urlaub gemacht

Naja, zumindest auf Caye Caulker. Danach war ich 2 Wochen in San Salvador, wo ich viel gearbeitet habe und außerdem viel Zeit auf dem Klo verbracht habe.

Jetzt bin ich in Tegucigalpa Honduras und werde versuchen euch upzudaten und meine Fotos hochzuladen. Habe heute den ersten Teil meines Belize Artikels auf www.redbullbcone.com gepostet, solltet ihr mal lesen.

Peace

Nika

San Salvador is bombed! And I don’t mean only tags and throwups, I am talking pieces everywhere—and not just legal ones. There is a strong writer scene going and there definitely is a lot of talent out there in this tiny country! I didn’t take many pictures cuz I mostly saw them flying by from a bus or cab, but hell ya, that shit is bombed!

And it’s not for lack of threats either! Because of the gang problem and all the gang graffiti, they really tightened the graffiti laws. You can actually go to jail for 5 years when caught bombing! Most cops realize though that these kids should not be in jail for 5 years—especially not with the gang members—so what they do instead of taking them in is teaching them a lesson—being caught for graffiti in San Salvador, chances are the cops will give you a nice beating or cover you in spray paint from head to toe, face, hair and everything. Rough manners, but I guess everything is better than being in a Salvadorian jail! If you wanna know what it looks like inside, check out Ross Kemp’s “Gangs in El Salvador.” Not the place you’d wanna be!

The day after the dance battle a graffiti battle was being held in the skate park Parque Balboa. Because of being really really hungover, I got there late. It was actually already over and the guys from Guatemala were throwing T-Shirts into the crowd – damn, I didn’t get one – shoulda been on time! Since the jam was over, I hopped onto a pickup truck with a bunch of writers and went back into town. Part of the crew was DJ Freddie B from Guatemala, who had been a very successful DJ in LA and now moved back to his home country. He was supposed to DJ at an event this evening, but the event got cancelled – don’t ask me why…

We went to eat and then to a shop called “Brooklyn Bridge” because the writers from Guatemala wanted to go shopping there. Boy did they have nice stuff – I bought tons of bling – 4 necklaces to be exact. Well, hadn’t really bought anything before, so gave myself the ok! The shop is in the Metro Centro – it’s a huge mall, ask for it if you’ll ever be in San Salvador!

After the compulsive shopping spree, we went to Oscar’s house for a private party. To lessen Freddie B’s frustration, the guys set up the players and Freddie was rockin’ da house and boy did he ever DO rock the house – a small one, but nevertheless, we all enjoyed it very much. And hey thanks guys, I got some really nice black book scetches! Check out the one I got from Hobbes!

I had a great night with everybody and hope I will be back soon!

Shortly there will be an article about El Salvador on www.redbullbcone.com!
Check it out!

Peace!
Nika

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