What I really want

OK, I figured it out. I want a set of underwear (say, 6 pairs) that have the basic thesises of my friend's dissertations printed on them. A different thesis on each pair. With exclamation points. And the phrase "on the go." Like:

Dutch ships were on the go!
Colonial-originated ideas of religion were on the go in the English Civil War!
Mississippi locals were on the go in Wednesdays in Mississippi!
Single women were on the go in Indochina and Paris!

Waffle: Just say YES

I think it is like: "'Oh, you went to Amsterdam, nice." [person thinking]I bet you smoked a lot of pot and saw a live sex show!.' Cause that is sort of the reaction of people from North America; they are like, "Oh, Amsterdam...[long pause]."


But I want to say that I did not do drugs because drugs are lame. (Lame, kids!) And I did not see a live sex show. There are so many more things to do Amsterdam.

Like interact with the Mighty Empire (see figures 2 and 3).


Like eat a lovely chocolate-and-whipped-cream-covered waffle! (see fig. 1) And visit the homo film festival where I saw Bad Girls Behind Bars featuring Pam Grier. (no fig. but you can imagine I'm sure.)

I also learned some Dutch. Like when this woman said to me in Dutch, "Where is my T shirt?" and I said in English, "What?" and she said in English, "That was Dutch. The word for T-shirt is the same in Dutch and English."

(I did not say but I was thinking, like, I know dude. I mean, that's about all I know, but still.)

Canals, bikes and all that Christmas stuff

Best holiday wishes and merry X mas

The red light district!


A flower stall. Happy holidays kids.

Proof of lizards

Dude, totally note magestic lizard statue to the right. For real! I did not see Zwarte Piet yet. I forgot that the holiday occasion for the racialized anti-Santa is in the beginning of December. But I did find out that Holland does not equal the Netherlands. Tomorrow I may eat a chocolate covered waffle. Nice.

Lizards!

I am in Amsterdam and there are these statues of lizards all over this park near the apartment! Look, this is me and them together.

A very special D.Y. Christmas investigation

Due to interest on the part of dear reader, this blog will be sending top staff member(s) to the Netherlands (aka Holland?) this Christmas to investigate the Dutch racialized anti-Santa Zwarte Piet. And to investigate other Dutch (Hollandish?) stuff like legal prostitution, those hats with points on them, whether "the Netherlands" and "Holland" are the same country, and beer. Merry holiday my lovely! If you're feeling down about Katastrophic Klimate Krisis (formerly "global warming") or KKK!!!, oh my wee friend sitting around with no snow in spring temperatures, do check out the bizarre denials on the talk page of the Zwarte Piet article. Or, for a reality check...

In other news, a shameless capitalist and intermittent but enthusiastic reader of this blog has started a rockin' online business that sadly at the moment only sells stuff that I do not want. But it's fun to use the zoom feature.

Archival scandal

Look--this is it!



What a blogger, eh? I break all kinds of rules about not taking photos to bring my reader the juicy immoral details.

I let Germans cut my hair

It's kind of a big step. I mean, getting a haircut is terrifying enough in one's native language. 'Cause in general those stylists are just too stylish and try to cut my hair all girly, and I can't stop them because I don't know the lingo (like, they always want me to buy a hair-ironing thing--what is that for? It seems dangerous) so I can't object when things start to go very wrong but am reduced to surreptitiously tilting my head away from the shears in a doomed attempt to avoid the bad haircut.


But when the German stylist was like, "these levels are so different and this piece is so long--what should I do?" I guess it's not so different from when the English-speaking stylist says that. In both cases, I told them to do what they thought was best. What else can one say?

The other issue is that Berlin is the domain of the lezbo mullet. I said to my roommate that it seems to me that all German lesbians have the same haircut (the mullet). She replied, 'Well, but how else can you cut it besides short in the front and long in the back?'

Do I look German?

I found something at the archive

Well, I found something today at the archive. I found a comdom. It is in a Prussian Justice Ministry file. The file is very thick and contains many fascinating documents about "offenses and crimes against morality." It also contains this condom, which is circa about 1928. It's in a blue-and-white wrapper. They collected it because they were busy worrying about whether it was against the law to advertise a condom.

Merry racist Christmas

I will be celebrating/ignoring the holidays in Germany this year, so stand by for more information about all that, as in the following.

In Germany, there's a holiday on 6 December when a Santa Clause-like figure called St. Nicholas visits to put candy in the shoes of children. (But he is not Santa Clause/Father Christmas. Not the same person. Though they dress alike and have similar life-goals and both visit in December.)

As this charming custom was explained to me I was also told that St. Nicholas is accompanied by a black man, Knecht Ruprecht. If you've been good that year, St. N. leaves the candy in your shoe. If you haven't been good, the black man, Knecht Ruprecht, beats you with a club.

I read about this online at the link above where the author claims that in the past, Knecht Ruprecht was known as a black man, but not anymore, of course, in these enlightened times, etc. But my roommates confirmed sheepishly that current lore has it that he's a black man and lives, as you might imagine, in either the Black Forest or on the Black Sea.

And then, I was in the airport and this guy dressed like Santa Clause cruised by accompanied by women in black face, dressed in something like an elf costume (red, white fur trim).

Well, so merry racist Christmas.

U.S. citizenship

What does U.S. citizenship mean, exactly, when the government can hold a citizen, Jose Padilla, in solitary confinement for years without charges? Not to mention what the government does to non-citizens. Oh, and note that as has happened in the past, the serious charges against Padilla, which showed up all over TV in administration soundbites, are no where to be found in the actual indictment of Padilla.

[From the article]
"Mr. Padilla’s situation, as an American declared an enemy combatant and held without charges by his own government, was extraordinary and the conditions of his detention appear to have been unprecedented in the military justice system.

Philip D. Cave, a former judge advocate general for the Navy and now a lawyer specializing in military law, said, “There’s nothing comparable in terms of severity of confinement, in terms of how Padilla was held, especially considering that this was pretrial confinement.”"

Reader-pleasing golf report

Due to demand from reader, here is more on parental golfing.

What's the Mom and Dad golf rule? You make the call.

Mom's ball was sitting on the fairway "in a nice spot." Dad hit Mom's ball "and sent it SIDEWAYS into the rough, about 10 feet from an alligator-infested pond."

Should Mom hit the ball from that spot? What would have happened if the ball had rolled into said alligator-infested pond? Does Mom get a free drop?

Mom: "I was so mad that I dropped my ball back onto the fairway."

This ideal community that I call home

Some problems with this whole communal living house include:

When in a fight with all of the roommates, dinner in the communal kitchen becomes tricky.

When feuding with all other roommates and you do not feel like doing your cleaning job, will they be even angrier?

When they all go away for the weekend together and you do not due to said fight, you finally have the house to yourself. But they took all the food.

And some common solutions!

Eat dinner at 10 pm. Instead of pasta, delicious cereal.

Maybe no one remembers which cleaning job is yours!

Don't worry; within a few hours, ex-girlfriend of one of the roommates will show up with a box of food to move in for the weekend. Unlike communal living house (central heating) her apartment has a coal furnace.

Berlin in November

From the classified ads of the English-language magazine

Animal Lover? You have a soft spot for cats and dogs? Petbakery/Petservice in Prenzlauer Berg is looking for assistance. Small company, gay friendly. [telephone and e-mail.]

A friend of mine called. It's a guy who wants to bake dog biscuts.

Why dogs hate Halloween

I am going this year as The Emotional Trama of Over-Education. (But to the archive, where instead of candy there's only old newspapers written in German.) Germans don't have Halloween aparently. The closest thing around here that I know of is the Purim party thrown by the local ex-pat Israelis last year, to which an Israeli friend of mine went as Hitler.

This is taking too long.

Canoe counselor left. We had such a wonderful time together! And I fell over by accident and once again, she came to the rescue and caught my head. But now she is flying back on a plane and all I want to do is fly back on a plane too! Why is it taking so long to research a dissertation???

Vote the vote.

Look, Kid Showbusiness--I voted against those verdamnt 'publicans! And I voted for more parks and less police. And for the future possibility of gay marriage in Virginia and sexual diversity!

My roommate was like, 'isn't it ironic that you get a vote on whether to spend more money on parks, but not on whether to buy more weapons?'

Guess what!!

Canoe counselor is coming to visit me!

If I didn't want a cake made out of monkeys, I wouldn't say that I wanted a cake made out of monkeys, OK?

I know it is funny--oh so funny!--when I talk in German, but I am getting a little tired of my roommates laughing at me. On Sunday night, people were like, let's have dessert. And I happened to know that we had like 20 apples. So I said, let's make a cake out of apples!

Apfel (apple)
Affe (monkey)

I said "Apfel" not "Affe"! I did not say that we should make a cake out of monkeys. But everybody in the kitchen is rolling on the floor like it's the world's funniest joke.

Actually, I just looked up the correct spelling of both words for this post, and I realized, that "monkey" actually sounds nothing like "apple" in German. And I didn't say monkey! So now, I think they are just making fun of me for the fun of it.

One time, I did call an airplane a "flying train." But the word for "airplane" is one letter different from the (not existing) word for "flying train." In fact, until I was mocked about this, I thought airplanes were called flying trains in German.

I complined to Tom and he said that when this happens, I should "stick to my guns" like it wasn't a mistake, and I really said on purpose, "Hey guys, let's make a cake out of monkeys!"

Wohngemeinschaft

I live in a Wohngemeinschaft. That can (I guess) be translated "living community." It's a style of living together (I have 5 roommates) that developed in the German left/student movement of the 1960s--Kommune 1 , they of the revolution against bourgeois sexuality and the attempt to assassinate the U.S. vice president with custard--are cited as the first WG. WGs were supposed to replace the awful bourgeois family. But WGs are still popular and no longer necessarily radical--the newspaper just did an article on WGs (as they're called) and apparently something like 50% of women and 33% of men think that WGs for older people are "the living form of the future." (Tagesspiegel 21.10.2006) (Of course, our's is very radical.)

It's not just having 5 roommates--it's supposed to be a community. On the one hand, the work of daily living is divided--we all have cleaning jobs, we take turns shopping for groceries. But it's more than sharing work. We have breakfast together (often). When someone cooks dinner, she cooks for everyone who happens to be home, and we end up eating together.

One of my national traits is supposedly independence/individualism and selfish competitiveness that conflicts with the building of community (or so I've learned from talking to people who know a lot about Americans). The example to illustrate this that was offered by one of my roommates is Subway. Where everyone can get their sandwich just the way they want it. But there you are with your individual, unique sandwich, but aren't you lonely and dis-located from your fellow humans, forlorn American?

(This loneliness may be what makes us want so badly to collect all the world's oil.)

Check out what I got in the mail

This thing totally rules! It came in the mail across the ocean.

Taking the fun out of the Funicular

In Quebec City I was being showed around by my canoe counselor, who also sometimes doubles as a Quebec tourguide. She mentioned this fun thing that she always used to go on when she was a kid and visited Quebec City. It sounded to me like some kind of amusement park ride? But better. It was the Funicular.
CC.: Oh, this is very exciting, here's the Funicular. I used to ride it every time I came to Quebec City. It's so fun.
YSA: Wow, what is it?
CC: It's like an outdoor elevator that goes down the cliff. It's so great, you can see the whole old city and the river.
YSA: Funicular?
CC: Yeah, it's great. Do you want to go on it? I always used to ride it.
YSA: It seems cool.
CC: Yeah, it's a lot of fun.
YSA: We could go on it.

CC: I used to go on it every time I came here.
YSA: Why don't you ride on it anymore?
CC: Well, a few years ago it crashed and killed 4 people.
YSA:.........
CC: Do you want to ride on it?
YSA: No.

[Later]
CC: After the accident, the government made them fix it. It is probably safer now than it has ever been.
YSA: ..........
CC: Do you want to go on it?
YSA: No.

The Signage of Quebec City

I went to Quebec City this summer. This was part of my vacation. I really like vacation. On my vacation, I went to like 6 states and 1 province of Canada. But most of the states I drove through in the middle of the night and didn't stop in. I did not see a moose, but I saw and was frightened by a flashing moose warning sign.

Anyway, in Quebec City this warning sign was affixed to the door of the bathroom. I am not sure what it says, but I think it means that you should pay attentioin because sometimes people totally smash people in the face with the door! And wreck their entire bodies. Woah. This made me respect Quebec City and the power of people opening doors there.

A humpback whale?

In this story about a woman who goes to a lesbo bar that I was reading was this sentence that was like (in German), "I stepped onto the curbside and ______ed a taxi."
I looked up the verb I didn't know ("_____ed a taxi") in the dictionary. The first result was "pec-waving or pec-slapping (of a humpback whale)."

Another wack German holiday

Today's wack German holiday is the Day of German Unity. I am celebrating by wearing this hat.

This might please my German roommates, one might think, but so far they only seem puzzled.

Are the stores all closed? I'm guessing yes and that for the third day in a row, I will continue to not own shampoo or soap.

Update
Roommate: Weren't you wearing that hat last night?

Reading about Naughty Berlin

Hey, it's my first day, and I'm doing some work! (See fig.--Reading Magnus Hirschfeld via my new dictionary.)

What was that swimming rodent?

I canoed the Delaware Water Gap yesterday. The canoe counselor in my canoe spotted something swimming in the water. The river was flooded and moving fast, but we paddled after the swimming animal and drew near. What was it? It was small, swimming slowly but frantically and trailed by a long bushy part that floated in the water. I was like, "furry water snake?"

But no. It was a swimming squirrel.

Tom: "I would almost have to say that you're lying about the swimming squirrel. It's totally preposterous. Squirrels don't swim! Wouldn't their tales get full of water and pull them to the bottom? Did you take a picture? It's possible you've witnessed the something squirrel researchers have debated for years... "

Family sports strategy

In other parent sporting news, my Dad won the local triathlon (he won his age group). He won by passing the guy in front of him about a quarter mile from the finish line. Dad and other guys in his age group were featured in an article in a local newspaper, and from this article Dad knew that the guy whom he beat had broken his hip last year.

Dad put all this together in tune with our family sports strategy: We, as a family, specialize in beating disabled people. More specifically, we specialize in passing them right before the finish line.

This was true when me and Dad did the New York Marathon together, and "smoked" a group of blind people who were running together just before the finish line. The NYC Marathon takes a photo of you when you finish, and in our finish photo from that year you see the group of blind folks, raising their hands triumphantly and weeping as they prepare to finish, and me and Dad looking very serious and competitive as we elbow past this group to cross the line.

With my sister, we also "smoked" Rhino Man (pictured) in the marathon one year.

It's like, we can't beat everyone in the race. But we can beat some people, such as those in 40 pound rhino costumes, or those with hip replacements. And we're proud.

Actually, the guy Dad beat in the triathlon was doing pretty well, so I don't know if he really counts. The blind people in the marathon had like a 2 hour head start on us.

What a bummer

I'm not convinced that it's at all useful for us in this country to, on this day each year, re-live the hijacking-suicide attacks. I feel for the families and friends of people who died. But does having sympathy and respect for those people really entail round-the-clock news coverage of the memorial, complete with archive footage of the buildings on fire and all that? It's traumatic and I don't see what purpose it serves besides, perhaps, to whip up more support for the "war on terror."

Speaking of which, I heard a dude on the radio asking whether it makes sense to have a war on an emotion like "terror" rather than on the small and clandestine organization that carried out the hijacking-suicide attacks that killed thousands of people (which organization, apparently, is now mostly based in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border area).

Well, that I dunno about. But then it got me thinking and I realized that the Bush Administration hasn't been attacking most of the things that terrorize me in my daily life.

Things that terrorize me:
#1 Sharks
#2 Relationships
#3 Not having my prescriptions covered by my health insurance
#4 Reckless drivers

Which of these things have been attacked in this war on terror? Man, not even sharks! And who isn't terrorized by sharks?

Voyage to the Isle of Rushin

As some of us paddled down the Delaware (while others of us drank, smoked and dragged their legs in the water) Rushin sighted an island. From about a quarter mile away, this island seemed like a good place to stop. The trouble was those rocks (pictured). When you are not wearing shoes, they really hurt to walk on. Sometimes, you fall. And for about 100 yards around the island, the water is very shallow and the raft can't sail over these rocks, so one must get out of the raft and walk to the island (which also consists of these rocks). But it was Rushin's birthday and he had no shoes, so he demanded that people with shoes pull him in the raft over the rocks to the island. Rick said we had to do what Rushin wanted because it was Rushin's birthday.

Some people gave up and crawled to the island. Crawling on the rocks was not a big improvement versus walking on them. This island exploration trip took about an hour and our raft was more than an hour late for the pick up bus.

But Rick did eventually stop crawling and drag Rushin, in the raft, to this island. This island is known as the Isle of Rushin.

Yoga

What was he talking about?--you make the call!

[Dad--walking hunched over.]
Me: Dad, you should take yoga classes like your sister said to. Then you will not be so stiff from running.
Dad: Yeah, that reminds me. I was stretching after running the other day, and about 20 yards away from me, there was this dog that somebody was taking for a walk. And the dog was just fascinated by me stretching. It just stared and stared at me.
Me: What does this have to do with yoga?
Dad: Its owner tried to pull it away, but it was just staring and staring at me stretching. The owner tried to pull it away. She didn't pull it awfully hard, but she pulled on its leash pretty hard. [Demonstrates with hard, but not awfully hard, pulling motion.]
Me: [Abandoning "yoga" as a topic of conversation] What kind of dog was it?
Dad: A golden retriever or something like that.
Me: And what do you make of this?
Dad: I don't know!

White water rafting

People may think when you say to them, "I went white water rafting," that you are hard core and that you like, went down a waterfall in a canoe and wrestled a sea otter.

But as you can see from these pictures, the reality of white water rafting is that it's an enormous physical and emotional challenge compounded by beer consumption.

One problem is with people who fall into the raft and can't move their heads. There is about 2 inches of water in the bottom of the raft, making this a drowning hazard.

Like a spa with a canoe

I am going canoe camping in Quebec. My fellow canoe-camper thinks I bought too much food at the grocery store, but I did not come this far and overcome all those adversaries to starve in the woods in Quebec. OK?

Gendered borders, gendered boundaries

This is a picture of the U.S. -- Canadian border that I drove across a couple of weeks ago. When I got up to those toll booth things, (pictured) the Canadian border guard asked me some tough questions, which was a bit unnerving because, being guilty by nature, I already felt guilty and supicious even before the border guard third degree started. He was like, "Where are you going?" I said I was going to Montreal to visit my girlfriend who lives there.

Border guard: "Is this your first time in Montreal?"
Me: "Yes."
Border guard: "How long have you and your girlfriend been dating?"
Me: "Like five months."
Border guard: "You've been dating five months, and you haven't been to visit her yet?"

I guess they get a lot of hozzer-beast Americans going across the border to break the hearts of true and innocent Canadians, 'cause then he was like,

"Do you have anything in the car that's going to stay in Canada?" (which they always ask, but then he added) "such as a present, or flowers?"

So, next time in Canada, bring flowers.

Explanation of cat relationship

Some people have asked about the relationship between myself and the cat who lives with me. One person (and happy birthday to him!) was concerned that by describing this cat as "the cat who lives with me" I'm failing to respect her identity. She has a name, this person noted.

(She does--her name as far as I know is Lucy Bear Tigerpants Cat. She used to have an additional middle name (Fuzzybutt) but I think she's dropped that one due to the fact that the person who named her that turned out to be a cat-abandoning biatch. As you probably know, cats commonly carry the last name "Cat.")

I don't want to make it seem like the fur face doesn't have a name. But I can't call her "my pet cat" (as someone else suggested) because on ethical grounds I reject language that implies that I own Lucy Tigerpants. If any entity can be said to "own" Lucy, certainly it's Lucy herself. In line with this idea, I won't describe myself as her "mommy." I have no interest in being the "mommy" of any creature. But more importantly, Lucy Tigerpants already has a mother, and the relationship between myself and Lucy is not a maternal one.

Rather, Lucy and I form a cat-human partnership.

Office hour

I have to have at least one office hour per week for the class I am teaching. Not having an actual office, for the office hour I sit at the local coffee/pastry shop. After announcing like 20 times to my class that my "office hour" will be at the coffee shop, I realized that I was implying that the coffee shop was in fact my office. The next time I announced it, I muttered that my office hour will be at the coffee shop, "where I also sell delicious pastries." They thought that was funny. So now, whenever I announce the hour, I talk up the "delicious pastries" and "refreshing beverages" that "I also sell" at the coffee shop. But they don't laugh anymore. Weird, huh? 'Cause now I am getting really into this whole owning the coffee shop scam. I might start using "my" coffee shop as an example of things in European history, like how the Bolsheviks initially let the peasants own their own farms, just like I own "my" coffee shop. Though that doesn't make complete sense, because "my" coffee shop is a national chain.

More on cat witchcraft

This cat apparently does have witchcraft. Its witchcraft is to keep vampires away. This is clearly the case, according to the person who lives with this cat, because not a single vampire has been sighted in the vicinity of this cat, ever. Thanks to J.A. for this additional information about cat witchcraft.

Cat witchcraft

This cat probably has witchcraft. This is the cat that lives with me. I thought that her witchcraft was weak and ridiculous. In fact, I have never noticed anything supernatural that she did. All she does is bite my ankles and drink from the toilet as discussed. So far, no witchcraft. I haven't generally been worried about her cat witchcraft.

But then someone pointed out that maybe this cat makes her witchcraft seem weak and pathetic so that I won't be alarmed, but is at the same time putting spells on me.

I made her this toy out of the fan. See how pleased she seems?

Cat water mystery solved

The cat I live with doesn't seem to drink water except from my water glass when I am eating dinner, and from the sink when she can get me to turn it on for her. I have yet to see her drink from her water bowl. I thought maybe she does not need a lot of water? Maybe cats are camel-like and I don't know because I missed that day in high school bio class?

Then, the "free" wireless I use became only available in the bathroom of my apartment, so I now have to perch the computer on the towel shelf and stand in the bathroom to check e-mail (at least I don't have to bike to Potsdamer Platz anymore).

So. The cat drinks out of the toilet.

Science on short notice

I got into a postition in my class I'm teaching the other day where, due to an interesting question raised by a student, I was, immediatly and with warning, called upon to explain Darwin's theory of evolution.

"OK," I thought silently. "Evolution." As often when I panic, a diagram seemed like the solution. The face of my highschool bio teacher swam before my vision. Students in my class sat unmoving, pens poised over their notebooks to take down the essential explanation of Darwin's theory.

I steeled myself. I drew two turtles on the blackboard. One had a normal shell, the other had a big curling spike on top of its shell.

I told how the turtle with the spike was a mutant. But--lo!--the turtles lived on an island where a giant bird was in the habit of attacking turtles by landing on their shells and then commencing an attack (of some sort, attack details not important, class). And the mutant turtle's spike foiled the attack bird! Thus, the mutant turtle would have many small turtle babies, while the "normal" turtle had fewer. Evolution.

Jealous of our freedom: the international theme song

My reader may recall when I was hangin' out in a beer garden in Berlin near the zoo (don't try to pronounce that word for an animal park in German) with other people from the U.S. and our fellow beer garden patrons were giving us dirty looks (probably due to our excessive frivolity, but of course not excessive to me!) and we realized that it was because: They were just jealous of our freedom.

Recall this?

I found out lately when one of the other people who engaged in frivolity at the beer garden went to yet another foreign country that: some English guy in London made up a song about this to that song that is like "don't you wish your girlfriend was hot like me?"

The song goes:

Don't you wish your country was free like me?
Don't you wish your country had democracy?
Don't you? Don't you?
Don't you? Dont' you?

You were not a dork! As far as we know.

I would say, for sure go to your 10 year high school reunion. Even if you were a total dork in high school. 'Cause if you were a total dork, you'll probably find that it'll take at least a day for people to realize that you were a dork, because they don't have any memory of you. Only until you hail some totally lame dude as "a total player" will your former classmates around you recall that yes! you were a dork--that's why you think that guy was a player! And they will politely point out that the guy you named a "player" did date a lot of women, but they were all freshman when we were seniors, and they all went to other high schools. And everyone know what that means.

It was a cocktail party with 100 people, some of whom you are best buds with now, some of whom you haven't talked to in years but happen to recall are totally cool, and some of whom are total tools (and you just avoid that last crowd!). And, your fantastic date! (One guy wrote on his nametag "insignificant other" of an alum). Oh, and a few teachers boozin' it up. I apologized to one for completely disrupting her class when she taught me sophmore year, but she didn't seem to hold it against me. Anyway, she wasn't the teacher whose houseplants I tossed out the classroom window (thereby garnering the esteem of my peers).

Did you see that head butt??!

I told everyone that I was cheering for France because Italy plays so dirty. Hmm, maybe not so much, eh?

The bounty of the ocean

In German class this morning, one of my fellow students was describing edible ocean-dwelling creatures such as shrimp and scallops, known collectively in English (on menus at cheesy Italian restaurants) as ´the fruit of the sea.´ In German it´s also called "sea fruit." The guy in my class, however, called it (in German) "lake vegetables." But, I mean, you could tell what he meant--"sea fruit," "lake vegetables," what´s the difference really? Aren´t we all living in one world? Let´s all get together and love another. Right now.

German, the language you already speak

I saw this poster at the college where I started taking German, it said "German: The language you already speak!" It had a picture, for example, of a bed (das Bett), a bus (das Bus), a dog (das Hund).

Then I got to Germany and found that in fact, I do not already speak German.

A few days ago I was chatting (in German) with my friend and I wanted to tell her that something "seemed to me to be..." But instead I alarmed her by saying: "It is looking at me." She was like, "What is looking at you? Something in the air? Is "it" all around? Does it always watch you?"

Es seht mich an, folks. What can I do?

Delinquence

This sadly neglected blog has only the blogger's lack of access to e-mail to blame. I resolved to stop paying the surly man at the internet cafe 1 euro per hour and instead to bike up to Potsdamer Platz where Sony inc. kindly provides a free wireless network. But my laptop battery only lasts about an hour and a half, so I don't get much of a chance to blog.

Pictured is the house where I'm gonna live in Sept. See the giant rose bush growing over the door?

In other news, I have undertaken the usual summer experiments, such as 'how long can I go without washing my hair?', 'can I stand to eat that for the fourth meal in a row?', and 'is it possible to schedule my laundry so that I arrive back in the U.S. with only clean cloths?'

I have some complaints about soccer: 1) penalty kicks and 2) bad calls by refs that decide games--they need the replay! But I'm unable to stop watching soccer, whenever a game is on I drop everything. Too bad that I will miss the final, which is in Berlin, and during which the accursed honking may "reach its crescendo," as Mom said.

Cheering against everyone

Something that is new to me, here in the middle of the World Cup, is triumphant driving. When a team wins, its fans hop in their cars, drape their national flags out the windows, and drive around Berlin honking. (Actually, the Brasilian fans start the driving before the first half of the game is even over--I saw this.)

When Germany wins, as you can imagine, the triumphant driving reaches its apex (see picture--this kid was in a car with what seemed to be his entire family, driving a circut around Kreuzberg). Groups of flag-drapped teenagers stand on the street corners and cheer for the passing cars. This lasts for at least 3 hours after a game. It's legal to drink in public here, something that generally improves the quality of life, I think, but I'm also seeing lately why legal public boozing isn't always such a bonus.

I've become annoyed by this nationalistic driving and am now openly cheering against Germany. Apparently everyone's quite surprised at the extent of the flag-waving in Germany (where since mid Century a lot of people have been very critical of nationalism); it's called the "new patriotism" and the new Bundeskanzlerin said it was OK. But I just read a lot of books about nationalism and now I a) am sick of nationalism and b) think it's almost never a good thing, no matter the country (and of course, c) know it was mostly made up in the 19th Century.)

Anyway, a lot of people in Berlin are critical of the nationalism, the triumphant patriotic driving, and other associated things (like capitalism). Hence the poster pictured, which calls for Germany to lose in pool play (sadly too late) to stop the honking, drinking, and love for the "Fatherland." Note that it's the FIFA logo, except the faces are frowning. Frowning on capitalism!

It is to late, I won the fight to comment third

Have you checked out the benjicourt blog? It totally rules and I won glory by writing its third comment and using no foul language. Wow, I also totally rule. I rule together with this blog, peacefully. Like the European Union, except there are only two of us and we don't have our own money.

Super Dude Man Ultra

Check out this totally awesome blog, Super Dude Man Ultra, the existance of which may partially resolve aforementioned comment problem on this here blog. But if Super Dude Man Ultra also covers breaking news in Mom's golf game on his blog, this blog's reader might jump ship! Cra--er, gosh darn it!

Arg!

Please stop, whoever is doing it (my nephews, I suspect) flaming (cussing) in the comments section on this blog. I set it so that people can no longer post anonymously because I'm weary of these censored-profanity posts about how dumb other comments are. This is too bad, because I think a lot of people probably don't want to bother to register with Blogger to share their thoughts (and some people who are not so good at email may not even be able to figure out how to do this). Alas, sigh.

I Luv Soccer

Photo credit: JM

Mom's Golf Game

Have you noticed, valued reader, that my Mom's golf game is the most-commented on thing on this blog, by far, even surpassing the popularity of CBAM's contreversal first post and subsequent debate with Skinnier Than You? Please stand by for more information about Mom's golfing as it becomes available.

Remembering the Battle of Berlin

The Fan Mile runs right past the memorial (pictured--see the huge statue on the pillar?) to the Red Army's conquest of Berlin in 1945. I read somewhere that this is the only memorial to a foreign army in a European capital city. Note the thoughtful-of-history look on this face (pictured)? Soccer and European history are not mutually exclusive after all.

The Fan Mile

We went to the Fan Mile last night to watch the U.S. play Italy. The Fan Mile is a mile-long stretch of the main road through the Teirgarten (big park) that they've blocked off and filled with giant TV screens and beer stands. Many people I know have horror of the Fan Mile due to the heavy drinking, machismo, and nationalism that it seems to promote. And they are right. But the Fan Mile also totally rocks! Even though the street was oily with spilled beer, and an obnoxious U.S. fan yelled in our ears the whole game. And what a crazy game! Sorry, Italians.

The Hof

Hofs are courtyards. This is the one in the building I am subletting in. This Hof is maybe the nicest I've ever been in. Some of the women who live in the building tend the gardens. The daisys seem to be growing in the lawn on their own, though.

Hofs are good places to lock your bike up and also to sit and read, when it is not raining.

The apartment building is a lesbian social outreach project. I'm still working out exactly what that means. The building is all women, and there's a women-only cafe and a women's travel agency on the street side. The other night, they were having a women-only ballroom dancing class in a big room that looks over the Hof. A couple of apartments are set aside for teenaged girls who are having troubles at home and come to live here under supervision. Some of them live right below me and blast cheesy American rock into the Hof. I can have men come to visit, but if they stay for more than a few nights I am supposed to write a note on the blackboard by the front door explaining to my neighbors who the guy they may pass in the stairwell is. A yellow cat also hangs out in the Hof and at night makes a disturbing cat-noise that I guess means he is looking for a love relationship with another cat. The noise sounds eerily like a child mewling. One of my neighbors chased the cat out of the Hof the other day because, she told me, he doesn't belong to anyone in the building.

Bike Repair

I stopped at a bike shop after class to fill up my front tire. But I was so excited by the fact that I know how to say in German "Can I use your pump?" to bike shop people, and then by the strong suspicion that in fact I said to the guy "Can I use her pump?" and then wondering what he thought that meant, that I pumped up the back tire instead.

But I figured, no big deal, just pump up the front tire and be on your way.

Five minutes later, as I rode proudly down the street, reflecting on how much faster the bike goes with rock-hard tires (and how maybe with this new speed, I could even pass the guy I saw riding in the bike lane yesterday and towing behind his bike a cart with a bale of hay on it), an ear-splitting bang rocked the neighborhood as the inner tube of my back tire exploded. I sheepishly dragged the bike onto the sidewalk, where I guy who must have seen me pump the tires up said (I think) ´Hey, too bad, must have been too much pressure, eh?´

Thus began an afternoon of bike repair in various Hofs. It was in the 70s today, really lovely weather to get all greasy and replace both inner tubes. And, after riding like 4 blocks to this internet cafe, so far neither has exploded. Though I realized a few hours into the repair job that in the first few exciting minutes of repair, I threw away a piece of rubber that protected the back tire´s inner tube. So another back tire explosion may be on the agenda for tomorrow.

Thank You For Reading

Though my associates are hard at work making sure that you, the reader of this blog, have pictures to look at while you read about the thrilling adventures in the German mundane, it has been hard of late to put pictures up because my sublet has no email as of yet. The software that I would have to use to get the email going in the apartment is in German. And doesn´t seem to work. Or is it my German? Well, the other option is to bike a long way to internet cafes that will let me plug in my camera. Today, long distance biking was hindered by a new exciting adventure, see above.

But thank you for reading without pictures. And if no one reads this, then I take back the thank you part.

Oh, and an update on the previous post: today my classmate showed us a picture of the British hooligans surrounded by German police, which he took with is phone. He explained that the younger hooligans ran away for the police came. So it was not just 50-year-olds. But it was all guys.

Fußball

The World Cup started a few days ago. A guy in my German class witnessed a fight between British hooligans and other fans. He said that the Brits, who were weilding broken bottles near the Zoo subway station, were like 50 years old! They´re older, mature dudes, not 20 year olds. He said that some fans from Cameroon or somewhere were watching the fight and began to yell "God save the Queen!" which enraged the Brits.

There are 3 games a day. Every bar, ice cream store, or drink and cigarette store has a TV out on the sidewalk.

I watched Angola play Portugal last night. We all wanted Angola to win. You can always cheer for a former colony against a former imperial power. When this was pointed out to me, I thought, Hey, I can maybe get a bit excited about this soccer. But Angola lost. I ended up kind of despising Portugal. They showed a brief clip of the capital of Angola, and those folks are not enjoying the benefits of capitalism, thanks in part to Portugal´s imperialism.

It's because Canada is such a peaceful place

S.C. is, according to an e-mail, in some fear of being robbed, and so, she reported, has armed herself "with a stapler."

Fuzz floating in air

It hasn't rained here for 3 days! Woah, exciting! But, now these crazy trees are shedding fuzz all over the place. What kind of trees are they? When you bike, it flies
into your mouth.

Lovely Kreuzberg

Hey, it's the view from the outside tables at the cheap and nearby Indian restaurant in Kreuzberg 36 (one half of Kreuzberg, the Berlin neighborhood), the restaurant where last summer, the waiter remembered me from the summer before. The restaurant where I learned to say "tap water" in German.

Mom hit 100 yards

Mom's new golf clubs totally rock, and she lately drove 100 yards. Here she is in action. Now Dad has new clubs too and they are going to be tearing up the driving range together.

The Bike

Shirly loaned me a bike. It is about 50 years old. At first, this was a huge plus, as a guy who was biking beside me down Unter den Linden called out "What a cool bike! Where did you find it?" and then we had a whole conversation about the cool bike at a stoplight. The bike is pretty awesome looking. It even has a leather saddle, probably circa 1954. Check out the new bell I installed.

But, the bike is pretty slow. I get passed all the time on the bike path. A woman rang her bell at me yesterday to tell me to move to the right so that she could pass (I think that's what she wanted; as discussed, she may have merely wanted to say "hallo," which is what she said as she cruised past me, though I think it was more of a "hallo??!")

And here is me and the bike in front of the Brandenburg Gate. Maybe it seems like the Brandenburg Gate is ubiquitous in Berlin and that every time one takes a picture no matter where one is, the Brandenburg Gate is in the background. But actually this is not the case. I got this picture because I was walking the bike through the gate (due to heavy police presence around the World Cup stage and hoopla in the area of the Gate--it's illegal to bike on the sidewalk) some tourists in town for the soccer asked me to take their picture in front of the giant soccer ball that's right behind the gate. They agreed to take my picture in return, but seemed surprised that I wanted a picture of myself and bike in front of the Brandenburg Gate, not in front of the giant soccer ball. Friggin soccer fans, no respect for German history.

Here, just for your information, is the ugly, giant soccer ball.

Wack German holiday

Today is Pfingsten Monday, so everything is closed and we students cannot take part in our usual activities such as shopping for cheap shoes or buying groceries (or going to school). What is Pfingsten? This was explained to me (in German) and I gather that yesterday (Sunday) was Pentacost. They take the Monday off too. Not that they´re all that religious. Germans generally don´t seem to know what Pfingsten is.

I think Pfingsten is dumb.

They also take the day off for (literal translation) "Christ Flies to Heaven" Day (the Ascention) but luckily I missed that one.

Tschuss, Palast der Republik

Berlin was divided into east and west according to what was occupied by the Red Army when the war ended in '45 and what was occupied by the Brits, U.S., and French (yes, they gave the French a zone of occupation). The Red Army fought the battle of Berlin, so they had the best parts of the city under their control. As the 1940s wore on, the split became permanante. So, the DDR got the best parts of the city--the main drag (Unter den Lindin) with the major government buildings, the cathedral, the university, the opera house, and the library. West Germany built new versions of these things.

The communists tore down a baroque 19th Century castle to build their new capital building, the Palast der Republik. (Down with the monarchy, up with socialism!) But it was the 1970s: it's got bronze curtain walls, and clashes with its 19th C surroundings. After communism fell, the Palast was deserted save for the occasional rock concert. They found asbestos in it. It sat across from the cathedral and rotted away, the ruins of East Germany. I thought it was grand.

But now, they're tearing it down. There was a big debate over whether to keep it as a historical monument (I mean, duh, obviously that's the way to go). But, guess what. The parliment voted to demolish the Palast and to reconstruct the 19th Century castle that it replaced. Talk about whitewashing German history. Below, it's the demolition work from the canal side. You can see in the first image that they've torn the whole front off it. Do you still believe in socialism?

History of pile climbers

Before I left for Berlin, we climbed the New Brunswick dirt pile. You know the one, the 30-foot-tall one near the Rt. 18/Rt. 27 junction? This extremely dangerous climb demanded all the dirt-climbing skills of the international team assembled for the expedition. After a dramatic freak-out 10 feet from the summit, we made it. The view from the top was pretty cool. Dirt piling is mainly a U.S. custom, I learned. They don't pile in Canada.

Hallo Karl und Friedrich

In the old downtown of East Berlin, there's a park, and in the center of the park, there are two huge statues of Marx and Engels. I've always wanted a picture of myself with the guys. I went running by the park the other day. There was a big group of tourists taking pictures with the statues. I had my camera, so I figured what the heck. I asked this guy to take my picture. Not only did he oblige, he had his entire tour group jump in the picture with me. So here is me, a bunch of Israelis, and the fathers of scientific socialism.