If I Were to Become a Stand-up Comedian, This Is the Kind of Material I Would Want

That is in fact, a sale at a dollar store. I witnessed this in a suburb of Houston, about three years ago. Jenny, Sasha, and Rose saw it as well, and they to will be happy to tell you about it, Les Miserables (we had come down to Houston to see it), and the black maze of Texas death. Those were harrowing times, dear readers, harrowing times, made all the worse by the fact that the windows of Jenny's car would not reliably roll back up once they were rolled down.

Double Header

For the 4th or July I went and spent the day with family and friends. Since I stayed for fireworks, I didn't get home until late, hence the lack of a photo yesterday. Today I have two to make up for it.

This is from my first, and so far only, attempt to use the fireworks setting on my digital camera. I think the woobly line effect is kind of cool looking, but a google image search turns up well over two million pictures of fireworks that do not look like something went horribly wrong at the silly string factory. That makes me think that maybe my fire-picture-taking-fu could use a little work. I don't think I'm really going to bother with it. This picture is not actually of the 4th of July anyway. It's of the opening party for the World Cup on Strasse der 17 Juni last year in Berlin.
I was happy to be in the States on the 4th this year. Last year, I was overseas at this time. It is such the strange feeling, because outside of this country no one cares. I don't know why that should seem so odd to me, I mean it's not their national holiday, why should people in other countries care? Americans living abroad typically go out of their way to make a party, but for the locals it's just another day.
The picture above was taken on 10-day, and shows the American Embassy in Prague. Especially given how long I was away from home, it was always comforting to find the embassy and know that home wasn't so very far away after all.

This is just to say

This is just to say that the new Transformers movie is all kinds of awsome.
This 4th of July, remember this lesson on inalianable rights, as taught by a giant robot/semi-truck: "Freedom is the right of all sentiant beings."

Poke Poke

I'm making yet another attempt to resucitate this blog. We'll see how far I get this time. I havn't been writing as much as I want to lately, here or on anything else, and I aim to fix that. My plan is to post a different picture everyday and a paragraph or two about it. For now, I have more than enough pictures saved on my harddrive to be getting on with, but soon I'll find my camera and take some new ones.

Day 1:
The Egyptian Museum in Berlin has, amongst other cool things, a collection of papyrus. This particular one is relativly recent, for starters it was written on this side of the AD/BC break, sometime in the 7th Century. It is writien in coptic, and is a record of a debate between St. Cyril and a group of pagan philosophers about the sole existance of the Christian God.

Yet Another Crazy Adventure

Well, I learned something new tonight. Apparently, the big red thing in the cabinet full of duct-work above the stove is a fire extinguisher full of vinegar. If it is set off -- by say, me resting my head against the corner of the vent/hood thing so I can see the pot of pasta that my crazy roommate put on the back burner more comfortably -- there's a loud *POP* and a bunch of vinegar flavored steam as a non-existent grease fire is extinguished.

The campus safety guy didn't know that thing was up there either, until I told him. Their advice was to put in a work order, which I did. The thing is, it's FRIDAY NIGHT. That means, that the earliest anyone can come work on it will be Monday, and then there will be a wait for them to get in the appropriate part. In the mean time, Genesis and I have to clean up a vinegar covered stove. The good news is, we don't have to worry about ants on the stove for a long time now. The bad news is, I think the fire extinguisher may have tripped the circuit breaker in the stove, because now the oven clock is out, and I have no idea how to reset that one.
This is a close up of the stove, and our (ruined) dinner, complete with vinegar-puddles.
This is the culprit, lurking in my cabinetry.
















And this is the whole deal, you'll note the newly non-functioning oven-light.

The Die Is Cast

Well there have been a few major developments here at the apartment this past week.

The first is that I had my interview to be an RA next year. I should know before Spring Break (so before next Friday) if I got the possition or not. I'm nervious, my application looked good, and I had good references, but I was a little shakey at the begining of my interview. The last part of it was not a problem, but the first two or three questions I gave crap answers for, so I don't know. *knocks on wood*

The other big news is that Jenny is done with her THESIS! She printed it off this morning as I was heading to me first class. She'll have turned the thing in before I see her again this afternoon, and returned her library books as well. This morning she made a show of removing all the sticky notes from her references, because she doesn't need them anymore.

Later,
Yami, who will try to post more frequently.

News from the Test Kitchen

I return after a month long posting hiatus to tell the world about my dinner.

I approach cooking the same way I would approach mad science (or alchemy even, cooking makes about that much sense to me), that is I dive right in and worry about the instructions later. The kitchen is not supposed to have any order to it, I say, otherwise one would not conduct mad science there. I usually prepare dinner by making ramen by starting with some basic ingredient (say, chicken) and adding additional elements (spices if you will) to the dish until I get board or turn the frying pan into gold. Sometimes this works well and I get yummy goodness. Sometimes it works, but ends up nothing like I had originally intended, such as the week before last when I made something akin to funnel cake out of fry bread dough. Sometimes I eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and call it a success because I did not have to call the fire department or poison control.

Tonight's experiment resulted in yummy goodness, I am happy to report. Here's the recipe for Pineapple Honey Curry Chicken Salad, such as I can remember it.

1.)Marinate one chicken breast per person with honey, cilantro, and mild curry. Cut the chicken into chunks so it will absorb more of the marinade per bite, and also cook faster.
2.)When you get to hungry to let it sit any longer, open a can of pineapple and pour enough out enough of the juice to cover the bottom of your frying pan. Turn on the heat (I've got an electric stove, and use five out of a possible ten).
3.)When the juice is hot, add the chicken and the marinade to the pan. Fry it until the chicken is cooked through, adding more juice as necessary. Once I decide its done, I usually continue to cook it until all the remaining liquid has boiled off, since it makes cleaning the pan a lot easier.
4.)Remove the chicken from the pan and set aside while you get the rest of the ingredients together.
5.)In a mixing bowl, add a bag of salad (the leafy kind with that weird purple lettuce and baby spinach thrown in, iceberg lettuce need not apply), feta cheese (the kind I used had Mediterranean spices added, according to the container, as near as I can tell this means little chopped up bits of olive), pecans, and the chicken.
6.)Mix it all up well, and eat it. Have the pineapple from the can you opened earlier for desert. End of story.

The future is a lot closer than I thought

I have been quite disapointed since the year 2000, that I do not have a flying car, or a space ship, or a telaporter, or any of a number of other cool things that Science Fiction has promised me over the years. This gives me hope at last. God bless America.

Third Time's the Charm

It's NaNoWriMo time again. I still can not quite believe that this is the third time I've done this. It's Monday, and I'm at 10,046 words, which puts me slightly ahead of the goal for today, but not as far ahead as I would like to be. This year's effort has been christened with the working title of Peal Dust and so far it is going well. *knocks on wood* Here's the one sentence summery: When Sleeping Beauty doesn't get a fairytale ending, a group of gentlemen of fortuine -- who are utterly unsuited for the job -- are called in to save the day. So far it is going pretty well, I had thought that this first bit between the fairy tale prolouge and our hero's arival on the scean would be hard to write, but it has actually been easy going. I just don't know how to tell all of these villagers that they are red-shirts and that most of them will not live to see part two. -_-; I mean, if the teenagers, who go at night to see what is up with the creepy ghost thing on the other side of the vally is, won't die, who can you kill off?

Additional exploration of this subject will have to wait until tomorow, because I have a paper to write for Medeival Lit that is due in another 22 hours. It's hard to analyse poetry that you are absolutly indifferent to.

I'm writing something else so the last word of this post will not be a preposition, so there. :P
-Yami

I'm spoiling my system here...

Two years, and not one quiz do I post here, and now I go and ruin everything. Way to go me.

Take the quiz at dicepool.com

[This Space for Rent]

Well another week, and another recording for the UD radio. It's not up yet of corse. The school has to sort out something with its broadcasting liscence. -_- When things finally get up and running I'll tell people.

There's only eight days left until National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) starts again, which would also mark the two year aniversery of this blog. I can't believe I've kept this going that long. I can't believe I'm a junior. I can't believe Italy won the World Cup. There's a lot of things I can't believe. I've got some pretty good ideas for this years NaNo, but I'm not comfortable with my lack of outlining for the second half. I know what has to happen, but only in the broadest sense, like I'm staring at a wall that I know needs to be painted, but I don't know what color to paint it, much less where I hid the brush. I think part of it is that I'm not as familiar with my supporting cast as I have been in previous years. The main character is Aihan once again, and the female lead is one I created for an RPG back in high school, so I have a good enough grasp of her character to be getting on with, its everyone else creating a problem for me.

The good news is that Dr. S., my new favorite proffessor, has agreed to take an excerpted/abridged/edited 10,000 word cutting of my novel as my term paper for Philosophy of Language. Best. Paper. Topic. Ever. Now I defeinatly have motivation to finish this year.

-Yami

Look Ma! i'm on teh Internets!!!!!1

UD Radio is radio in name only: the last vestiges of a dying technology. Soon campus radio will be remembered only as a quaint tradition we used to practice back in the benighted days of the Eisenhower administration. Soon after that, its name will be changed to UD Podcasts, or whatever new technology will replace this.

Genesis and I recorded the first session of the Groundling Revolution today. Sometime tomorow it ought to go online, and you will all be able to listen to it at http://www.udallas.edu/radio. Make me happy listen to our pitiful efforts to work the computer. Our show is comprised of showtunes, and we started things off with songs about revolutions, or at least really big changes.

It took us two hours to record 45 minutes worth of programing. Hopefully someone will appriciate it.

-Yami

Good News, Bad News

The good news is that the spider (or whatever it was, I didn't see it) that bit me yesterday does not seem to be of the killer veriety. I am not dead yet, and my arm is no longer all tingly like it was last night.

The bad news is that I do not seem to have developed any super powers. I'll give it another day or two, just in case.

Hal, Hal, Why Hast Thou Foresaken Me?

Who ever did the wireing in the Student Apartments made some crazy decisions.

We have for instance, not one but two over head lights in the living/dinning room, but the bed room is illuminated only by a single wall-sconce. That's right, the room we live and study in came equiped with a 60 Watt bulb cleverly hidden behind a frosted shade.

We also have a power outlet which is controled by the lightswitch. When the light is off, the outlit has no power. We discovered this the hard way when Genesis turned off the lights and her computer when *whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaam* and shut off with out so much as an 'are you sure about that?' prompt.

The think that is really driving us nuts however is the Internet. We are college students. We live, sleep, eat, and breath online. The school thought it would be funny to install one ethernet outlet for twopeople. We got a spliter from the school, which naturally failed to work. We dragged up the wireless router I used in the quad last year, complete with all the cords and drivers. It failed to work. We hauled out the wirless router Megan used in her appartment last year, and wrangled together all the associated pieces and parts. It failed to work. We called Andrew in, and he worked with it for two hours, and was not able to figure out why on God's green earth it wasn't working. Andrew has promised to return and try again. Stenoh and Pyro have both promised to take a crack at it. We're all strating to fear that this may require a sacrifice to the dark gods before this starts working properly, and have started to compile a list of freshmen no one would miss.

All we want is for both of us to be able to get on line at the same time. Is that to much to ask?

-Yami

Gadeamus Igitur

Well I’m safely back at school, and things are off to a roaring start. By that I mean things are going well, and my cooking has yet to start any fires, although the olive oil in the skillet likes to hiss. I got my schedule finalized today, and it’s looking like a fun semester.

I’m taking Medieval Literature with Dr. K, and we’re currently reading all sorts of lovely old Anglo-Saxon things including “King Edwin’s Council” and “Caedmon’s Vision”. Also, I have finally learned to spell Medieval on the first go, a truly wonderful thing since I’m concentrating in Medieval and Renaissance Studies.

Then I have German with Herr Dr. E. The topic of this semester is German Culture and History from 1900 to 1918. Last fall, you might recall, I had a course about the Weimar period, which means I’m moving backwards in time at a rate of about 20 years per semester. If this continues, by the time I graduate I’ll have gotten to 1840-1860 which includes the first rounds of revolution, and major literary players like the Brothers Grimm. It also means that in order to study the Goethezeit, I’d have to stay on the six year plan. -_-; Hopefully the trend will be broken. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the German Lit Trads will be offered again next year. Herr and Frau Dr. E both seem nice, and after two days his class is still interesting, and I already have a number of quotes worth remembering.

Principles of American Politics with Dr. Mi seems like a breeze after taking so many higher division courses, but watch me eat those words come mid-term time.

Phil of Language, with Dr. S. sounds really interesting now that I’ve had one class and read the syllabus. I really want to take Linguistics now, hopefully it will be offered again soon. If it’s not, I may petition to have it offered before I graduate.

My fifth class was going to be a politics class about Machiavelli, which would have filled another requirement for Med and Renn. I went to the first class on Wednesday (it’s an hour and a half, MW) and I was there five minutes before the posted start time. I would like to stress that I was not late. Unfortunately, Braniff has these long skinny rooms with the doors at the front, which means that when someone walks in, everyone stares at you. The room was already full of graduate students with beards, none of whom made any noise as I shuffled in to a seat near the front. (All the good spots in the back and by the windows where already gone.) One guy did arrive after me, with the clean shave and the giant coffee mug identifying him as someone who has returned to school for a second degree, but is still working in a field where the grad student beard would not be appropriate. Then Dr. de A arrives, introduces himself and the course and calls roll. I am the only new face to him, and he messes up my name even after I say it for him. Then, he launches into the lecture, begging with “I assume you all have read The Prince” and “You should have read the Dedication, Preface, and first Chapter of Discourses on Livy.” He then proceeds to lecture in a fast, monotone voce about this reading, comparing and contrasting it to similar sections in The Prince, and making what would probably have been very pithy comments if I had any prior knowledge whatsoever on the subject.

I went home and tried to do the reading, and it started to make more sense. I thought about the rest of Wednesday evening. I thought about it all day Thursday. I thought about it most of the day Friday. Then I went to my advisor and talked about changing my schedule. When I pointed out that even though I was taking it on the 4000 level, the course was also listed with at the 7000 level, he conceded that I was probably in over my head. We came up with a couple of options for me, one of which required changing my whole schedule around, and another that required a signature from an instructor to get into an already over-full class. In other words, take either Music of the Western World or History and Theory of Gregorian Chant. I decided to try for Gregorian Chant before the other one. I went to the Registrar for the add/drop form, filled it out, ran over to the music department, and was told by the administrative assistant that Father Ralph would be in by 4:30. I thanked her, came back at 4:30 and talked to Father Ralph. He agreed to let me in the class, even though it was already three people over the class limit. So, I start Gregorian Chant on Monday, and I’m determined to do well, so I don’t make the saintly, 80 year old Hungarian monk regret his decision.

Until later,
Yami

Theater of the Absurd

In Weimar I spent the afternoon with a couple of guys from the Music Composition course named Glen and Nathan. We were in search of a concert of some sort to attend because Weimar is the center of German high culture and going to concerts is the sort of thing that one does when one visits Weimar. Our search reveals that anything really interesting will be happening next weekend, which doesn’t help us any, so our choices for that night ended up being 1.)a mass by Handel or 2.)an electronic music recital. We weighed our options carefully: Handel didn’t have any particular connection to Weimar, unlike Back or Lizit, both of whom lived there, and a ticket to this concert would cost 12 EUR. The electronic music concert however was free, and was someone’s final project at the Franz Lizt conservatory, and we all kind of liked electronic music, so we went to that.

Now when I think of electronic music, what I have in mind is some sort of techno derivative (alas, I am an uneducated louse who can not differentiate the myriad of techno genres). Since the poster and the information guy at the school both said that a violin would also be played at the concert, we went in with no real expectations for hearing art, but thinking that this would be some sort of techno + violin combination that had a potential to be really interesting.

These people were definitely in the possession of the latest noise making technology. Unfortunately, they got so wrapped up in making all kinds of cool sounds that they forgot to actually write any music. The most entertaining bit was in the last piece when the girl spent about twenty seconds playing a putty knife. Then she picked the poor, abused violin back up and it was back to screeching. As a whole the concert represented everything I hate about avant guarde art and violins. Luckily, we were able to get out the door without talking to anyone, because none of us at enough good will left to even complement the violinist’s dress.

We scooted from the conservatory to the town square, which is the public viewing place in Weimar for the World Cup. We got there about five minutes into the USA-Italy game and were able to snag seats on the fest benches. It was a pro-Italy/I’m-just-here-to-watch-football crowd, but there was a sizable American contingent (mostly FUBiS students) complete with flags and painted faces.

Half time rolls around and the commercials start rolling. I should say commercial. It was for beer. Scenes of suspiciously good looking farm hands harvesting something, probably hops, were cut with scenes of a remarkably good looking man, presumably the land owner/brewer ridding a horse through the fields. The last shot is a family gathered around a table toasting something with glasses full to the brim with beer. Either the sound was turned off, or it was just down very low, because I could not hear the thing. This played through twice, while a band set up on the stage in front of the big screen.

It turned out that the band was a South Korean group playing modern songs on traditional instruments. They were stopped in Weimar or a visit before going on to Leipzig to play for the South Korea/France game. They weren’t bad, I might even say that they were good, except that their drummer had no rhythm at all, and rhythm is pretty much the most desirable characteristic of any percussion player.

I couldn’t really see the band very well, because it was about dusk by that time and the powers that be decided not to turn any lights on for the stage. The band was back-lit though, because the screan behind them was still playing the beer commercial on a continuous loop. Off on my right I could see the small TV in the beer tent, where the usuall half-time replays and analysis were running. Behind me there was a larger than life statue of Schiller and Goethe looking on. This random South Korean band playing bizare pop music was playing its heart out and the whole time this beer commericial keeps playing over and over and over and over and over and over behind them. It passed the realm of advertising, went through propaganda, and then straight on into absurdity.

No one thought it was as funny as I did.

[If I cared, I'd find some sort of logical transition to put here, but since when have I cared?] Berlin, and the rest of the country too, is getting more and more Cup Crazy with every day. Take for example the victory dances of German coach Jurgen Klinsmann: in the first game against Costa Rica, he just did this little fist pumping number for each goal. Over the course of the past three weeks this has gotten more and more elaborate, to the point that last Friday, when Miroslav Klose scored the tying goal in the game against Argentina, Klinsmann ran the length of the bench, kicking up a wedge of turf in the process, and jumped into the arms of one of the substitutes, before turning around and hugging the assistant coach as well. I’m getting into this as well, I’ve learned most of the words to the chorus of “Weltmeister” and the “Finale in Berlin” song gets funnier every time I hear it.

In attending* different games I’ve noticed that the fans of the different countries all cheer differently. The Italian cheer book consists of one verb (forzza, which means GO!), thee nouns (Italia, Ragazzi, and Azzuri, Italy: guys, and the blues, respectively), and inarticulate screaming. The goal for them is to make as much noise as possible for as long as possible. The Mexicans have a few chants, most of which I can’t understand because my Spanish vocabulary is all about food, but their favorite is the one where they spell out Mexico. For the USA, when we remember that we have a soccer team (which isn’t often) we just chant “U! S! A! U! S! A!” for as long as we feel like doing so, this is the way we cheer for every sport except football and basketball.

When the name of your country is Deutschland however, spelling doesn’t make for a good chant. The do however have a very long book** of catchy chants. Unfortunately, it can be hard to understand what exactly they’re saying since as a rule no more than 30 people are ever using the same chant at the same time. So to help you blend in with the crowd of German Football Fanatics, I’ve put together a do it yourself list of phrases which can be assembled in almost any order to make an acceptable German cheer:

*Deutschland
*Olé!
*Sha-la-la
*Weltmeister (world master = world cup champions, in German the World Cup is the Weltmeisterschaft, lit. world mastership)
*Schwarz-Rot-Gold (black, red, and gold, the national colors)
*Seig or Seiger (victory or victor)
*Champions
*Tor (goal, which also means gate, many puns are bandied about at the Brandenberger Tor, where the fan mile begins, puns are a major part of most German jokes)
*So schön’ (so pretty/cute/beautiful)
*Any explicative starting with S
*The name of any player

Just mix those together with your favorite adjectives and conjunctions, and any conjugation of the verb sein (to be) and you have a cheer. If you really want to get fancy, sing it to the tune of “Michael Row the Boat Ashore”, “My Darling Clementine”, or “Stars and Stripes Forever”. Here are some examples:

The olé song*** (German version): Olé, olé, olé, olé, wir sind die Champions, olé! (Olé, olé, olé, olé, we are the champions, olé!)

For the big goal scorers: Lu! Lu! Lu! Lukas Podolski!
Miroslav Klose! *clap clap* *clap* *clap clap*
Michael Ballack! *clap clap* *clap* *clap clap*
For the goalie: LehrmanLehrmanLehrmanLehrman or
Hans Lehrman *clap clap* *clap* *clap clap*
The favorites: Deutschland, Deutschland, Deutschland, Deutschland!
Tor!
Berlin! Berlin! Finale in Berlin!

If you’ve got that pretty well handled, then you might also try to lend your hand to taunting your defeated opponents. When a player on another team is sent off with a red card, yell Auf Weidersehen (good-bye) in your best taunting sing-song. When Germany wins, parade through the streets and sing: “Schade [Gegeners Name] alles ist vorbei! Alles ist vorbei! Alles ist vorbei!” ([Tough] shit [insert name of opponent] it’s all over! It’s all over! It’s all over!) or “Geht’s schön’ nach Hause!” (It’s nice at home!)

That’s just the basic guide. If you get out to the middle of the crowd and you can’t remember any of this, then you can’t go wrong with inarticulate screaming and wild clapping. Booing the referee and yelling “Blind!” (the word is the same in German) can’t hurt either. At the end of the game, don’t forget to sing the olé song and Queen’s “We are the champions”

-bis später, Yami

*OK, watching them on TV with thousands of other people
**Except it’s not actually published anywhere
***In the States, the only word to this song is Olé.

Prauge Report

Last weekend I went to Prauge, the last of the group trips. It was fun, and nice to see the places I visited back in March, now that they are actually doing business.

A couple guys brought a German/Czech phrase book, which was a source of amusement on the trip down there*. The first three questions the book teaches the reader to ask are (and I would like to stress that I am not making this up, I acually read the page with my very own eyes): 1.)Are you married? 2.)Do you have any children? 3.)Do you have a sister?

The cover of this book featured two guys, one playing a string bass and one playing somesort of woodwind instrument, who are evedintly supposed to be folk musicians. The think is, on Saturday, we saw these guys playing on the Charles Bridge. This is one of the main pieces of evidence for the "Charles Bridge = Trap for Lost Souls" theory. Obviously, these guys offended an evil sorcerous (or more likely an alchimist, this is Prauge after all) with their alleged Folk Music and were cursed to remain on the Bridge for all eternity unable to leave it: not to the west bank, not to the east bank, and definatly not to the next life. The second piece of supporting evidence for this theory comes from one of the two tour guides the group had. She led her crowd through the castle, down the hill, to the Charles Bridge... and disapeared. This poor wandering spirit is doomed to stay in Mala Strana, leading groups of English-speaking ammature photagraphers around, with an umbrella raised high. But she will never be able to cross the river to freedom, oh no, because the Charles Bridge has trapped her.

The other guide, the one I was assigned to, was entirely gold. She had a very dark (fake) tan, lighter around her eyes, where sunglasses have given her a sort of raccoon face. She had very pale, shiny makeup. Her hair was bleached blonde. All her close were shades of beige. Her finger nails had gold polish. I could not look directly at her when we were outside because she actually shone in the sun. On the other hand, it was really easy to find her in a crowd.

-Bis Spaeter,
Yami



*a trafic jam and a long wait at the boarder turned our 7 hour trip into a 10 hour trip. :(

Reporting Live from Weimar

I'm on the second of three weekend trips organized by the University, this one to beutiful, historic, tourism-driven Weimar. The bus driver for our little trip was quite the entreprenuer: when he wasn't driving us around he sold drinks -- water, fruit juice, and beer. The list of places where it is not sociable acciptable to drink in Germany is quite short. -_-; Places that would be alcohol free in America are not here, such as Burger King or a suburban bus at 8 o'clock in the morning on a work day. The security check at the Brandenberg Gate is concerned with keeping out nutcases with AK-47s and glass containters, not drinks.

Speaking of the Brandenberg Gate, the reason there is now a security check neat it is beacuse it is one end of the Fan Mile. As the name implies, one mile of 17 Juli Straße (from the gate to the Victory Column in Tiergarten) has been blocked off to automobile traffic, giant TV screens have been set up so ticketless pleblians (like me) can watch the games of the World Cup (in German the Welt Meisterschaft, or WM). Also, food is sold there for almost double the normal price. There are other public viewing areas, like the Addidas World of Fottball (a scale model of the Olympic Stadium), the Sonz Center in Potsdamer Platz, and the Kultur Brauerei, for example, but the main advantage of the Brandengerg Gate is tha admitance is free, and everz place else either charges zou 3 EUR admittance, or (in the case of a Knipe) insists that you buy a drink.

When I'm not watching footbal or in class... that doesnät leave much time for much except sleeping. Fortunatlz, my classes make frequent excursions into the city.

With the German class I spent a day exploring the neighborhood of Prinzlauerberg*, which is home to the Kultur Braueri and Berlinäs best Currywurst Stand. That afternoon (a week ago Wednesday) I also went on a river -boat tour of the citz on the Spree, so there was a nice view of the Reichstag, the new Parlimentarz Library, and the Tiergarten. Then, this past Wednesday, we went to the Gorki Theater (in Mitte, near the Museum Island), one of the 4 state threaters in Berlin. We had a short tour of the threater** and spent the rest of the day doing a workshop on Kafka's Amerika which was the play being performed that evening. I thought about going to see it but 1.) I donät like Kafka well enough to sit through a 2 hour play without an intermission and 2.) the Germany/Poland game was that eveing. I'm happy with my choice, it was a really exciting game. :)

With my literature class, weäve been making a small expidition every day that hasbeen more or less related to the topic. We read a short storz by Kleist and then went to his grave. We read a poem by a Jewish yuthor and then went to the Jewish Museeum. We read a poem by Rilke about a panther and when to the zoo in time to see the big cats get fed. Today we were reading works by the expresionists and the escursion was to the museum of expresssionist at. I was unfortunatlz unable to go beacue the morning class went long, and I had to run in order to meet the group foing to Weimar.

I also spent a day in Dresden, thanks to the University, where I took a walking tour of the city, went to the old masters gallary (I am now in lover with the work of Gerrard Dou), and saw the crown jewels of Saxony.

As ever, I promise to have pictures up really soon, but I canät upload any until I get back to Berlin.

-Later

P.S. forgive me if there are a lot of Z's where there should be Y's or # or ä instead of '. I'm using the computer at the hostel and the German Keyboard is set up oddly.


*but if you really want to sound like a Berliner you'll say Prinz'berg or P'berg
**which didnät take all that long since it's really small, it only seats about 400, as it was origanly built for choral concerts

I love IKEA

I’m settled in to my room in the Studentenheim here in Berlin. Berlin is made up of a lot of neighborhoods which have grown up and fused together over the years to form one massive city of 3.4 million people or so, but each neighborhood also clings fiercely to its own identity. I’m in the part of town called Stegliz. It’s a quiet residential neighborhood in the south-west part of the city about half-way to Potsdam. Dad tells me it’s in the old American Sector.

I have my own room, and I share a kitchen and 1.5 bathrooms with five other rooms. There is one more American, Ben, who is also in the Summer Course, and the others are full time University Students at FU*. There are two Germans (Raif and Suzi), one guy from Morocco** (Madhi)***, and one guy from Cyprus (name unknown, lets call him Mr. X until I get around to asking). I’m not sure where the Greek girl or the Japanese guy actually live, but they’re over here all the time as well.

The Unknown Heathen With the Ukulele* (lets call him Mr. UHWU) was at it again the deay before yesturday, when I first wrote this post. Apparently the rain did not discourage him in the least. As soon as the clouds passed on I heard that infernal *plink, plink, plink* floating in on air that had just been scrubbed free of cottonwood.** One of my suitemates decided to combat this racket by turning on the stereo in the kitchen, and managed to find a station playing jazz. As long as I concentrated on the saxophone it was pleasant, but as soon as I let my mind wander the twitch in my left eye came right back.

Tuesday was the first day of my literature class. The title of the course is “Boarders and Crossings: German Literature from Romanticism to the Present”. The class itself is quite small. Dr. Peggy is the leader of the Vanderbilt contingent here at FUBiS, she’s taught this class for several years in the past, seems quiet knowledgeable, and is very enthusiastic. Including me, there are four students in the class (the class on Understanding the EU sucked up most of the other students). The other three are Vivian, Jen, and Bridget (I’ll call her Bridg to avoid confusion with the one at UD, my roommate last year). Vivian was sick Tuesday – she ate a bad Doener*** somewhere and got some sort of stomach bug – Dr. Peggy called at lunch to see how she was doing and told her to stay home and get some sleep. We all want to know which stand she went to so we don’t go there ourselves.

Jen did something to her ankle and left at lunch to try to go to a doctor, didn’t return in the afternoon, and wasn’t answering her phone, so when it came time to go on our excursion into the city it was just me, Bridg, and Dr. Peggy. For class today, one of the texts was a short story called the Marquise of O— by von Kleist, an early German Romantic*, so this afternoon we took advantage of a break in the clouds to go out to the Wannsee** and see his grave and the place where he committed suicide.*** It was pretty (the lake, not the grave so much, although that wasn’t hideous, just hard to find) and Dr. Peggy and Bridg took pictures, which they promise to send to me. We’ll see how that goes.

After class my friend Joy (who is in my German class) and I made a run to the nearest of Berlin’s three IKEAs. The apartments came with a lot of things. I have a desk with a drawer that locks, a lamp, and a bed which is too low to the ground to slide Big Bertha under it*, a duvet with cover, a couple pillows, a fitted sheet the standard IKEA cabinet/closet, and 6 wall mounted shelves that I can adjust along their little tracks. I was also given a frying pan, a sauce pan with lid, one butter knife, one spoon, one fork, one tea spoon, one lunch plate, one saucer and one T-cup. That’s a good start to a room, but there are some things missing. Like a spatula for actually cooking things with, or a knife capable of cutting something that is not butter, or a cup that can hold more than two sips of liquid at a time. Also while the duvet is nice, its June, and the weatherman swears it will get warm soon. Right now we’re suffering from a freak cold snap that has left temperatures hovering around 50 degrees. Of course, the weatherman also said it would be sunny on Tuesday, which it was, when it wasn’t raining. If the promised summer conditions ever do materialize a down filled duvet will be far too hot, even with the seersucker cover. For these, and many more little things like that, Joy and I decided we did need to go to a store and buy some stuff. But we did not want to spend a lot of money (mostly because we don’t have much to spend, but also we didn’t want to have to worry about not being able to take it back to the States with us). A short moment of thought (“Where can I buy hangers really cheap?”) and a consultation with the Internet led us to the Templehof IKEA.

Making a list and bringing a friend are to important things when going to this place. If you have a list and stick to it, you can control your spending easily. If you have a friend, then you can split the cost of things that are only sold in packs of more than one. The IKEA steak knifes for instance only come in packs of six. Neither of us need six steak knifes. We each needed one, but for 2 EUR a piece we could split a pack and have three apiece. [If any other FU students see this and need a steak knife, come find me. I have two extras that I could sell you real cheap.] And for that price I won’t feel guilty about having spent the money when the time comes to jettison most of this stuff.** The extra-basic plain white plastic power strips come in packs of two. I don’t kneed two of the things. I don’t even need all eight of the outlets that are on one. I just need a way to plug the lamp that came with the room, the cell phone charger, and my computer in at the same time, and some moron decided that each room in the Studentenheim only needed one plug (so only two devices could be used simultaneously). However Joy and I split the pack, and for my share of 2.50 EUR I know have a surplus of five outlets.

I spent just under 50 EUR, and now my room and kitchen are both useable and I have no qualms what so ever about leaving all this crap here when the time comes. If I decide that I really like something, I can by another one just like in the IKEA in Frisco when I get home.

-bis spaeter










*die Freie Universitaet. I am not making this up. I might even have to shell out the 12.50 EUR for a T-shirt, if I can figure out when the University store is open.
**more specifically, from Casablanca, he says he hasn’t seen the movie, but everyone always asks about it
***if that’s not the correct spelling of it, it’s totally my fault, he even spelled it when he introduced himself

*or ukelele, dictionary.com says both spellings are correct
**an even bigger menace than football hooligans in this part of the city
***basically a gyro on a bun instead of a pita, this wonderful meal has been spread all over Europe by Turkish immigrants, and Berlin has the third largest Turkish population in the world. Constantinople is the first largest, which begs the question, what is the second largest Turkish city?
More importantly, could I buy a Doener there for less than 1.50 EUR?

*a literary movement which has nothing to do with being in love
**one of the many lakes in the area
***he lived in Berlin, in the winter, during the period in which the French occupied what is now Germany, he was deeply in debt and the English Romantics had already taken all the good places to live in Rome. He did have a pretty depressing life.

*according to the scale at the Milan airport she’s 7 kilos overweight, at a rate of 6 EUR for every kilo over. That’s better than Ryan Air. They charge 8 EUR. Bertha is going to loose some weight for the return trip, even if it means leaving my toothbrush here and wearing four shirts on the plane home.
**Bertha is full, and they won’t let you carry steak knifes on airplanes. They show them in the little picture of sharp objects that you're not allowed to have

I hate the Ukelele

After an exausting Italian sojurn with Mom and Kathi in Rome and Florence, I have arrived safely in Berlin. I'll have more details to follow soon, but for now, a note on musical instruments.

At UD, the random instrument that you occassionaly hear around campus is the bagpipes.* We have one piper and he practices in the woods near the Art Village. Here, there is a guy who plays the Ukelele. For two hours. The same song. Over and over and over and over. The music sort of worms its way into your head and pitches a tent there, so even after the finaly stops it bounces around your head going "plink plink plink". If I didn't think it would have bothered my suitmates I would have played my own music loudly, but my headphones are broken and I had to settle for nice pretty soft music. It was an improvement, but only just.

Bis Spaeter,
Yami

*and loud Tejano music from concerts at Texas Stadium