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.

Awesome new knife!

Tom got me an awesome new knife that is so sharp that some people are afraid to cut with it. But I love to chop tomatoes with it. I took these pictures of my first tomato-cutting with the awesome new knife. Thanks, Tom!

Also, I passed my exam! Woo hoo!

CBAM Called Pretty at Dentist's

I just received a text message from CBAM. In service to this blogging community, I'm posting the details, which I'm sure CBAM will address herself in a future, prolix post. Apparently she is at the dentist's office. She wrote at 9:47 am: I am at the dentist & the hygenist called me a pretty girl.

I was once a treehouse, I lived in a cake, but I never saw the way the orange slayed the rake

Maybe one of the best song about fuzzy llamas, ever.

Self-congratulation escapes scathing mockery

I'm pleasantly surprised but a little alarmed by the absence of scathing mockery after I posted about how great this blog is. Even someone who was identified as early as 1995 as "a major practitioner of mockery" raised only a muddled, toothless complaint.

But this supportive blogging atmosphere extends, apparently, to CBAM's You Could Be A Model, where CBAM finally gave in to what must have been a bone-deep urge, and blogged for 5 paragraphs about the TV show Veronica Mars.

My comp exam is now in three days (counting the day we're currently in). It wouldn't be a major academic hurdle in my life if I didn't realize at the last minute that there's a book about Hitler that I desperately need, but can't get because all the bookstores/libraries are closed or won't deliver in time. But luckily the Princeton Library seems to have it, so I'm gearing up to spend Saturday in bougie P-ton.

In Canada, they have McDonalds, but they are super-fancy. This one (right) has a chandelier.

But, just in case you suspect that the Canada theme around here is an attempt to avoid the comp exam, see (left) I got a lot of studying done on that trip!

Trees: Not the smartest

Here is a picture of (insert superlative) Canadian kissing an Arbutus tree near the Empress Hotel on her birthday. Arbutus trees foolishly but endearingly shed their bark instead of their leaves.

This Blog Rules!

Wow, my blog is so great! Especially now that I got the camera and went on an exciting adventure to Canada. I rule!

Uhm, ok. Back to the 19th C. Did you know that in the 1880s through 1907, in Paris the morgue had a big window where they'd put unidentified bodies, and crowds of people used to go to gawk at them? That's my favorite part of the 19th C so far (that and the tours of the Paris sewers in the same period).

The British Empire

Here's the Empress Hotel.


There are fur trees in front that look like dinosaurs, but you can't really see them here 'cause it's night.

Cougar!

Here is the cougar we saw. These guys caught it. Note sunset behind magestic cougar.

Well, actually this is a picture I took of a picture that's hanging in the Empress Hotel (the lavish and very British 19th C railroad hotel in downtown Victoria). The cougar showed up in the hotel's parking lot in like, 1985 (judging by the haircuts in the picture). Plucky Canadians traquilized the cougar and saved the city. But it just goes to show you how many cougars there are out there if they occasionally take trips to the Empress Hotel.

Sooke has an 'e' at the end

OK, this is the rainforest in Stanley Park, Vancouver. Readers will recognize the Vancouver forest from Dana's funeral on The L-Word. (Except for those readers who refuse to watch L-Word.)

Like you said, trees

East Sook park. Note the trees, which as was noted, are characteristic of the Canadian wilderness.

The Null Century

My plan to skip (that is, not study) the 19th Century for my comp exam (which is in less than 10 days) underwent radical revision last night after I noticed that one examiner's questions all begin with a phrase like "In the 19th Century..." Though this century is known by many for its lack of history, and indeed was hailed "the null century" by a woman I met at the coffee shop a few days ago, I am now reading about the revolutions of 1848. What is this world coming to.

The Mountains

On a hike in East Sook park, looking east from Vancouver Island across to the Coastal Mountains on the mainland. The mountains were pretty amazing to me who grew up in flater places.

Bald Eagle, Mom!

By far the most exciting animals sighted, in terms of lording it over my family, were the two bald eagles we saw on the ferry ride through the San Juan and Gulf Islands from Victoria to Vancouver. (Bald eagle lower left, baby!)

OK, I know you can't see it so well in the picture above (although in person, I clearly saw the white head and feet feathers, causing me to burst into the national anthem, which rather shocked my Canadian fellow-passengers on the ferry) but then the thing totally landed right near us.
(below--note glorious sunrise behind magestic eagle)

269 pictures of Canada: to the reader

We did not just take 269 pictures of public transportation, British Columbia, and my face close-up. We took 269 pictures of Canada in the service of several highbrow themes!

Two themes dominate: vehicular transportation and (related) the VW buses of British Columbia. Here (right): the train to the airport.

But, knowing the interests of my reader, I will cut right to a secondary theme: the potentially dangerous/occasionally slightly threatening plants and animals of Canada. Yes, CBAM, nature.

Back from the true north

Your blogger is now back from the Canadian wilderness so you can stop staring sadly off toward said wilderness and wondering forlornly if a cougar has eaten me yet. But now I'm about to be eaten by my comp exam, which is in a week and a half--yikes stripes fruit gum! (as a colleague, skinnier-than-you, put it.) Stand by for way more pictures than you want to see of me and fellow traveler on various modes of transportation and interacting with Canadian plants and animals.