Wet socks

It is raining and unseasonably cold here and my feet are wet all the time. Here is the U Bahn station Kottbusser Tor, Kreuzberg at night and the new center of the city near the Reichstag (taken from the subway) during the day.


We are so cold that this is what we wear to bed.

The Canadian image in the German mind

This billboard, which I walk by on my way to the language school, may elucidate the enduring popularity of Canadian women in Germany.

Small replica stadium where you dont even have to watch soccer!

I got a tip that another reader might start reading this blog, so I thought I better write something even though I forgot my camera.

So, they are going to have the World Cup (Weltmeisterschaft!) here in Berlin starting in a few weeks. Forget about getting into the stadium here (built by the Nazis for the ´36 Olympics, by the way) but we are in luck, because the government built a smaller replica of the Olympic Stadium right in the middle of the city, and instead of having soccer inside they are going to have lots of beer-drinking, TV screens showing the games, and the Black Eyed Peas are going to play. How cool is that? I mean, who will want to go into the actual stadium? Jess said I have to pick my top 3 teams in order to get all into World Cup soccer with her, but I think really all I have to do is drink some beer.

In Berlin

This blogger is now in Berlin. Here is me just before getting on the plane from JFK.

And bottom/in brown sweater, me after the trans atlantic flight and the 4 hour layover in Zurich. My first trip to Switzerland! See the Swiss Alps behind me?

So, the flights were OK, I probably gave everyone within 4 rows of me on the plane the nasty flu bug that´s plauging me. Good young and hot Jennifer Miller picked me up at the airport in Berlin, and we went out to a beer garden with Jess and her brother David and then to Amrit, the best restaurant in the world. Not a bad way to spend the evening! And when Germans made fun of our accents, we knew it was because they were jealous of our freedom.

What a party

The decorations for this bachelorette/bachelor party are mainly to CBAM's credit. She dragged me to buy penis-shaped balloons (sorry Mom, but it is sadly true), penis-shaped drink stirrers, penis-shaped candles for the cake (luckily Devon brought penis-adorned noise-makers and the penis pasta pictured at left).


But CBAM's big genius moment was buying the sparkle column, which has nothing to do with penises, and is still hanging from my living room ceiling.

Congratulations, Darcie and Aaron!

No net loss or gain in girlfriending today

Today, I had a big win as a girlfriend: My girlfriend came upon me at a reception happily and nonchalantly eating the vegetable plate that said girlfriend had brought to the reception. "These are great vegetables," I said. She seemed pleased.

But then, a big loss: I chickened out on her invitation to have dinner with her family, telling her that I had already met them once and hadn't made a fool of myself, and that I thought therefore that I ought to rest on my laurels.

I think these two incidents cancel each other out, and that today there was no net gain in girlfriend points.

I petted an alpacha

An ill-tempered alpacha was hanging out in the "petting zoo" (or, small fenced-in area set up in front of the liquor store on 4th Street) at the street fair today. I paid $4 to pet it and its animal associates (including 3 goats, a sheep and a donkey). The Alpacha was the fuzziest animal in the "zoo," so as you can imagine, I wanted to pet it most of all. But, it was suspicious of me and gave me many skeptical looks while keeping as far away from me as it could, as you can see (left).

Finally, I bribed it with food.











My sister heard part of this story and said she always knew I'd pet an alpacha.