Cityscape

Budapest on the ground: Eurogeneration on the move

Spock — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 21:20:00 +02:00

Last week, four journalists, one photographer and me, beeing in charge of this project, discovered Budapest on the ground, successfully hosted by our Budapest team.

The first meeting between the participants and our hosts is in a restaurant in the city center: Who are the babelians from Budapest actually? Three of us arrived together at the restaurant, we see a guy in the inside who is looking at us for a few seconds and then immediately joining us at the front door: “Yeah, you are from the cafebabel.com team?” is he asking us. “Sure” are we nodding, and soon our photographer Gonzalo from Spain joins us – he has been quite sure that we are the babelians too.

Actually it is very easy to recognize on the ground journalists from cafebabel.com – talking several languages at once in order to communicate, being part of this eurogeneration who in living Europe in their daily life, we are quickly introduced to new people and always looking forward to discover other Europeans. It’s a way of life actually and we all share our passion about this unique magazine – how different we might be, whatever we are doing in our lives or how different our political views are.

Here we are late at night in order to exchange our impressions and discussing life in Budapest with the local team members.

Some impression of places where we met. Here we are in a Serbian restaurant.

See here the Budapest team mixed together with the EOTG team gathered together for the traditional brunch at the end of each Europe on the ground. Have here a look on the Budapest city blog and the profile of the team members.

The cafebabel.com team (French, Spanish, German journalists and photographer) have been in Budapest for our 'Cities on the ground' editorial monthly project. Watch out for our special city edition published on 27 May 2008 (Photos: ©Monika Oelz & Gonzalo Ovejero)

Paris on the ground: backstage view

Spock — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 23:30:00 +01:00

The Paris local team organized last week a Europe on the ground in Paris. Have here some insights about what happens during an EOTG.

Arriving on Wednesday evening or Thursday morning, the EOTG journalists have 4 days on the ground. During the day and with the help of our local team in Paris, the EOTG participants could concentrate on their investigations.

But how to discover life in Paris when you are coming from another European city? - That's where the local team has the key role: They can introduce them to it:

Restaurants, bars, nothing has been left out in Paris

On Saturday, a debate about "Which urban policy for which city?" within a European perspective has been organized by the local team. Check it out here:

Pierre MANSAT, deputy mayor and Maurad CHEURF, associated director of MConseil , an agency specialised in urban policy and the outskirts of Paris as well as Fernando NAVARRO, Spanish editor of cafebabel.com have been discussing the issue widely with the public. Ruth and Jean-Sébastien from the Paris team and the blog « La Parisienne de cafebabel.com » moderated the debate. They focused on the European point of view of our cafebabel.com journalists and comments of the visitors.

The journalists are now preparing the articles for our Paris on the ground dossier which you will find in 2008 in our City Pages.

Next city to explore will be ... Strasbourg from January 31 - February 03 2008!

Prishtina: impressions on the ground

Nabeelah — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 13:39:00 +01:00

45 years of Communism, 10 years of Milosevic. The current 'UNMIKISTAN' that is Kosovo has a lively, bumping, coffee-city (Pristinali are mental for macchiatos) for a capital. There are pungent social stains on everyday life - daily electricity cuts, a lack of heating, ditches on streets everywhere and an irritation of a boulevard that is the Mother Teresa main street, which has been under construction for four years and has done its bit to stifle traffic in the tiny city.

But the people from Prishtina are creative, dynamic and forward-looking - the friendly, open and positive vibe is infectious, and natives live peacefully alongside a notable international community. Some impressions of the city's character and its characters:

White Prishtina: view of the city from a flat in the neighbourhood of Dardania - 4 degrees weather brought us snow on the weekend

French or German buses run through the city: Europe's hand-downs. A bus line was installed only recently; near the Bill Clinton boulevard (peppered with a Hillary boutique) you see people queuing for the bus by the roadside with no bus signs in sight

The main university and most shops and restaurants have generators to manage losing electricity and avoid eating your pizza in the dark. Insides of bars and the like are usually quite dark, candles always on standby and heaters prominent everywhere to warm up from the cold (pictured: Aroma cafe off the main boulevard)

The left bank of the Seine is this local, tiny little cafe off the main Mother Teresa boulevard - a true reflection of the city's cosmopolitan cafe-intellectual culture, which was fully in swing even during the 1999 war. The cafe owner has been in business for thirty years, serving meat to hungry Pristinali sheltering from the cold, sun and rain. Amongst eminent customers I am introduced to are the ex-director of the Kosovo museum, a notable composer and an ex-war photographer who now shoots for the main 'Koha' daily. There's also a lame cat sniffing around who has been taken in by the cafe and is duly fed by visitors

One of the cafe's customers is introduced to me as a stereotype of a Prishtinan woman - smoke whilst you eat!

The cafebabel.com team (French, Catalan, English and Italian journalists and photographer) have just come back from the latest 'Cities on the ground' editorial monthly project to Prishtina. Watch out for our special city edition published on 2 January 2008

What is Europe on a local basis?

Spock — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 18:17:00 +02:00

If we put Europeans in a box – isn’t the same result than living in a city like Paris where people all over Europe have to deal with each other because they don’t have a lot of space on their own? What about starting an experiment on the ground: Let us start with Paris, where the cafebabel.com’s headquarter is located.

Paris off the journalistic record… or how the French are more European than they think

First of all on the cultural agenda: You can go in Paris to operas and to concerts – they will be on a European/International standard. You can watch European movies in Paris because the European cinema is flourishing in the French capital. Whatever you wish to see, you can find it here in Paris

Let’s investigate on people who live in Paris: many come from abroad. They work for different NGO’s or for international companies. You will find Europeans all over Paris. Personally I know for example that the German community is not that small in Paris.

Food: How is it possible in Paris not to talk about it? – Exactly: It isn’t. You will have to deal here with a great choice of restaurants - even if they are quite pricey!

(credit photo: gnisley/flickr)

But to treat Paris on the ground means to come closer and to go beyond the beautiful hotspots: You will soon be confronted with full metro lines, typical french “banlieus” where you have to deal with the pollution of circulating cars and you might find yourself walking along motorways. You might have to distinguish between the cliché of having a cheesy wine meal in Paris and the reality if finding many tourist-food chains: They stand for bad quality and for being overprized for what they offer.

Paris on the ground means also looking for hidden secrets beyond tourist crowds at places like Tour Eiffel and Notre Dame. On cafebabel.com it means looking for European Impacts on a daily basis - which does exist! Paris for example is the most visited city in Europe, if not in the world: Europeans know the images of Paris cityscape, they share its cultural and historical background.

Europe 'on the ground'

Nushka — Fri, 04 May 2007 17:41:00 +02:00

Want to discover the 'European' side of a city? Want to go beyond the tourist traps and get to the real picture? This is the place for you! This blog accompanies cafebabel.com's innovative European journalism project - 5 journalists, 4 days, 1 city: Europe 'on the ground'!

The results of these excursions are published in the magazine's Cities section, but to go even further, the journalists involved will add their thoughts, photos, videos, sounds and experiences to this blog.

Follow them to the suburbs of Seville, to the hotspots of Lisbon, to a lovely little place in the backstreets of Bucharest...Their trip will be your trip - minus the travel sickness!

Every month - a new destination! Feel free to share your own experiences, give us your travel tips, places to visit, interesting developments that merit a trip to your city!