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.)