I'm a Prime Number Now!

So birthday weekend/kinda week is officially over, and I have had quite a nice time. Philippe came into town on Saturday evening, and we stayed in and watched a movie, because both of us are exhausted after traveling a while. We spent most of our time just wandering around town or sitting in coffee places doing work (he has conferences and I...like doodling). On Monday I had to go to school for the first two hours, which means that I had to wake up INSANELY early and get going. Class was only 90 minutes though, and they were with me most of the time, and then I started asking around to the teachers "Will you need me to be here on Tuesday? Should I show up for 5th hour?" and my adviser got the hint and said "You know, I don't think we'll need you tomorrow, so you just don't have to come to work." YAY! Kate gets the day off! So Monday night Phil and I went out to Prenzlauerberg to hit some bars, and the next day we were going to celebrate!

So after breakfast on my birthday we came back to the house to work/write/read (I'm so into graphic novels right now it's a little wacky...but I heart Daniel Clowes) when this knock comes at the door, and there's a man with these:

aren't they pretty?

Jon sent me flowers!!! And they are SO pretty!!! So that was amazing. Philippe and I went off to Kreuzberg to get some lunch (Indian food) and returned for Philippe's homemade birthday cake. Observe:



It's a carrot cake, and I DO think he deserves to look
this pleased with his work. It looks amazing!


Bon anniversaire a moi!

After that we went to--and yes, I know it's dorky, and I don't care--the Museum of Musical Instruments attached to the Berlin Symphony. There were things that looked like boxes with mouthpieces, hybrid brass-violin things (gee, wonder why those didn't take off), and an organ that purported to have all the instruments in a regular orchestra...incorporated into the organ itself. Yeah, odd.

The evening was dinner at an Italian restaurant and then A-Trane for a concert from this Japanese quartet. It was rather sad, it being a Tuesday there wasn't a big crowd, and the leader, a student of Ornette Coleman, started off in his cute little accent with his tight tie and business suit "It is vehry good to play for this...packed house" awwwwww. But it was actually a great concert, with not one but TWO basses


This guy's name was Akiro, and he was
totally better than the other bassist

This is Soon Kim of the Soon Kim quartet/sometimes trio, rocking it

Of course, some people liked it...
...more than others

This was Kim's manager...totally asleep at the club