Tas Firini Uzun - Turkish Pide Restaurant (Mannheim)

Hands down. This is the best Turkish restaurant, I've ever been to. They have the best pide and lamacun of all times. My boyfriend and me usually have a butter cheese pide and a large lamacun together for only about 10€.

The only downfall is that the restaurant just doesn't look too nice. But it's always crowded. So the owners probably don't really care if it looks appealing from the interior design aspect.

But let me tell you something... Most restaurant that look really stylish have a bad chef who can make tasteless stuff but makes it look really beautiful. This restaurant is exactly the opposite. It might not look too special but the food is amazing. The best thing is the stone oven. It is huge! Three men work altogether. Everything is soooo delicious. So if you're in Mannheim, go visit and see for yourself. The dishes are very affordable. Most dishes cost about 5€.

Tas Firini Uzun

G5, 12

68159 Mannheim

 

On Fire

Yesterday, I was out in Mannheim. Looking up into the sky I thought it was going to rain...

 

That was before I turned around and saw this... Really scary big smoke. I was afraid, it was something close to the main station but it was even in the next city.

Later that day, the news revealed there was a big factory fire in Ludwigshafen which was very persistent. It took several hours to kill it.

 

I don't actually know, how long people were supposed to keep the doors and windows shut... But even when the smoke disappeared in the evening, it still smelled like burned plastic and there were black ashy drops on all the parked cars in the area. Hope it really isn't toxic as they say in the news. Fortunately, nobody got hurt.

 

Cirque du Soleil: Immortal World Tour

Julio got 2 tickets for Cirque du Soleil from his Salsa class. These people are amazingly generous... Tickets were sold around 100€. Let me start off by telling you, it was incredible. I haven't seen anything like this before. Cirque du Soleil is supposed to be like that, thus our expectations were rather high and we were not disappointed.

Here are the two of us... Matching colors red and black ^.^ for Michael Jackson... I wore an all black outfit with black Buffalo pumps, a red clutch from H&M and Mac's Russian Red lipstick. Julio wore a red scarf to a black outfit as well...

The Immortal Tour is all about Michael Jackson. And they raised the bar. I'm pretty sure, Michael would have loved what they did. Even some of his musicians went on tour as well. Unlike most Cirque du Soleil events, there was a lot more dancing than acrobatics. I'm scared as hell, whenever I see people hanging on strings under the ceiling doing their tricks... But fortunately, everything went well, no tangling nor falling...

Dancing-wise we were most impressed by the pole dancer Felix Cane. The girl was hanging on her pole, 5 meters above the floor, only supported by her ankles - no hands - doing a split at the pole and rotating around it with her upper body perpendicular to the pole. This is way to artistic to only be shown in strip clubs. Felix is a true artist, she even choreographed the latest Cirque du Soleil: Zumanity, a very sensual show. Here's a link to a YouTube video of her...

Other highlights were the b-boy Jean Sok who only had one leg, the flexible bookworm Baaska Enkhbaatar who turned the pages of an oversize book in the most unbelievable ways, the tango dancers who danced on strings up in the air, changing chairs and women within the blink of an eye, and the contemporary dancers who jumped as if they wanted to dive into the stage but used the momentum to get up from landing flat on their bellies... There were also lots of popping dancers. They were very in sync and even the main character Salah is a famous French popping dancer. He was very clean and stood out :) Also great were the break dancers and tricking people.

The stage was amazing - so huge and all the lights, the curtain, the electronics. A part of the floor could be lifted and turned into monitors, they also changed colors, when Salah stepped on them... Words could not describe how great everything fitted together. They even had indoor fireworks at the end. Very impressive!

So now to the things that weren't as great...

First, I was quite disappointed, I didn't see Les Twins. I was so looking forward to seeing them on stage and then, they quit... Their replacements weren't even half as good but anyway, they wouldn't be on top of the dance community if they could be replaced with anybody, right? Anyway, I think they are too big of a star to be dancing in Cirque du Soleil every day of the year. They have too many projects and I have wondered all along, how they could handle everything. As they seem to be all over YouTube every day...

The locking dances were weak. I can't understand how they put that on stage, if they're so perfect at every other point.

I didn't get why there were singers on stage. The main voice was Michael Jackson. Why the need for anyone else? I couldn't recognize their voices either...

Well, we also saw, it was the end of the tour because the normal dancers weren't really all that excited anymore. They danced well and in sync but not like they wanted to impress everybody. But that's maybe hard to maintain when you dance the same show every day of the year...



But in the end, it was still an amazing show. I haven't seen anything as big in my entire life! Their were a lot of highlights and those were really bright, still impressing us now.

The Long Night of Museums

I went to the event two weeks ago. Shame on me, it took me so long to write this blog post. I didn't take too many pictures but here's the "Studentenkarzer" from the University of Heidelberg - it was a prison for students who stayed for a duration of 1 day to 1 month. Every time I came to this place, it was closed but this time I was lucky - especially because it was already dark and mysterious... It's perfect for this kind of museum.

The variety that was offered was insane: Not only museums, but also tons of events from music to dance to theater...

Here's Lorenzo Guillén and his band << click >> at Treffpunkt Kunst at Untere Str. 21 << click >>. They play Latinamerican music like salsa, merengue, bachata, chachacha, rumba, etc. It always lifts my mood. My boyfriend also plays some percussions with them every now and then, as during this event. Lolo is such a funny person - you should meet him in person! He's a great musician, too, of course.

The art in the background was from a Mexican artist. Btw, look at the floor!! Isn't it beautiful? What a great idea for an individual floor... I love it!

Autosymphonic

 

This week-end, I went for a walk with my boyfriend. At the water reservoir in Mannheim, there was a huge event, called Autosymphonic, because of the car's 125th birthday. It was the world premiere of a multimedial symphony, including "Die Söhne Mannheims", a choire, orchestra and real cars which were used as instruments throughout the piece. I took a couple pictures from the light beams because they were so strong and beautiful...

Uninformed as we were, we didn't know about it and didn't buy any tickets. Unlike the first rumors, they were not as expensive as we heard - starting from around 27 EUR (but up to 195 EUR for the VIP). There were white screens all over the place so that nobody could really sneak inside or even watch for free... But even outside, there were tons of people sitting in the grass and just listening and watching the light beams.

The music was contemporary like in "Donaueschingen Festival" but not as crazy. It is a huge project incorporating visual effects as well but I didn't find it very special. Cars as percussion instead of trash cans. great... oO

But anyway, I read a lot of positive comments about the visual effects. They made the water reservoir turn in an illusion. Sitting inside, it must have been a great.

Edit: Just watch the video below... soooo impressive... wow