O, Tanenbaum!

i don't even know where to begin. blogging is a funny thing in that the longer you put it off, the harder it is to start because every day is something more you have to write. and while this is more for me to chronicle my time here than anything else, it is tough to keep up. so i will do my best to get up to speed as efficiently as possible.

three things before i start that i keep forgetting: (1) there are more beautiful girls in berlin than i could have ever imagined. (2) i'm officially a coffee drinker - don't know when that happened, but it has. (3) i've become a big fan of prosecco, although i've never liked wine in the past.

the weather still sucks, and it's probably going to continue to suck for a while. it's not that it's any worse than evanston - in fact, it's quite a bit better - but it's not like you can just walk down the hall to your friend's apartment and sit around and drink hot cocoa. you have to go outside in the cold and put in some effort in order to have fun, which isn't as easy in the wintertime. but i'm surviving (and just waiting for spring...).

been watching a LOT of prison break lately. it's not very well written at all, kind of like a cheap thriller novel, but it's so exciting and crazy that you can't stop and it's the bulk of what i've been doing with my time in the past week or so. i've also kind of stopped boxing; i guess i just got bored with it, the people, it wasn't really going anywhere. not to mention i kind of have to be in the mood to fight, and when i'm lying in my bed on a friday morning, maybe after having been out on thursday night, and the choice is between staying under my warm covers or getting up, going outside in the cold, getting on a train for twenty minutes, walking ten minutes, then getting punched in the face, the first option almost always wins. and on top of that it's not really furthering my meeting of people and all that - boxers just aren't really the sort to go grab a cup of coffee after practice, if you can imagine - so i plan on doing a climbing class and maybe hip hop dance next semester. these seem a little more conducive to making friends.

but let's rewind a bit.

on the wednesday after my friends left i went with my friend sabine (a real german, mind you) to the cabaret - how berlin is that? it was a female comedian/singer accompanied by two incredible classical guitarists. she was hilarious, the songs were really well written, and the guitarists, as part of the show and in their solo work, were masterful. it was a cool place called "bar jeder vernunft", which means "lacking all reason", and the space was a simple theatre with food and drink - all in all just a great atmosphere.

that week i also went to an information session with the berlin food bank in order to look into doing some volunteering, and after speaking with them, it looks like i'm going to be using my amazing english fluency to translate their websites into english. sounds like a cool project and i'm excited to get started.

the following weekend my friend amelia visited from the states. this coincided with my uncle charlie coming into town on business, so friday night we just combined forces and all went out to dinner at a chinese restaurant called CHINA CITY. apparently my uncle saw a recommendation for the restaurant on the window of the restaurant?... at any rate it was good, and we just hung out and had a good time. once again did the tourism thing, and then saturday night went to a real live european absinthe bar. i tried some blue stuff, tasted like licorice - i suppose one must when one is in europe. good times had by all.

the following wednesday i went with sabine to a bar called zosch where they have free live dixieland jazz every week, and it was really awesome and we met some people from greece and some other people from france. it seems like a hotspot for international folk and the music is fantastic and i most certainly plan on going back in the future.

then on saturday the family came into town for christmas. woohoo! i stayed in a hotel fifteen minutes from my apartment, which is kind of funny, but it was quite nice to take a little vacation. once again we saw the sights, including the berlin dome (church), which has the most incredible organ i've ever seen and i really want to hear it play, but we also just did a lot of hanging out together at the hotel room, watching movies and playing games and eating food. i got to go to real restaurants for the first time since i've been here! real food!

oh but i should relate the stories from the steak house we went to. first of all the burger i ordered came out on top of one slice of bread, and when i said to the guy that i was confused and thought it would have a bun, he promptly informed me that that's how you eat a burger at a mcdonalds and this is how you eat one at a restaurant. i then asked if i could maybe just have another piece of bread but he just walked away confidently, saying "you eat it like this, you'll like it." and then when the waitress brought out our desserts and i informed her apologetically that i had forgotten to tell her we wanted them to go, she snarled "well you didn't tell me that" and literally threw down our check and stormed off to the back to box them up. she did not receive a danke schön from me. woohoo german customer service!

we also hit up a few of the quaint little german christmas markets around town where they sell little gifties and roasted almonds and mulled wine. had a hot spiced cherry beer which was really delicious. and we saw the pergamon museum, which has an imported ancient greek temple (the real deal), very cool. christmas morning took place in the hotel room with the hilarious fake tree that betti provided us and i got some awesome presents including a lolcats book, some onion-chopping goggles, a chicago flag to hang up in my room, some real american helmann's mayonnaise, and a mouse pad with a picture of my pug printed on it. not bad at all.

two highlights involving small children: (1) on the first day the family was here we came to my apartment to pick up my things and as we exited, two little german girls with umbrellas RAN past us screaming the song "o tanenbaum" (the original "oh christmas tree", if you don't know) at the top of their lungs. pretty much the most adorable christmas moment of my life. (2) there are always musicians on the train cars in berlin that play and then ask you for money, but this time a fat man with a saxophone got on with his fat little mini-me son. the son said something incomprehensible in turkish-german, an introduction of sorts, and the father began to play with a kitschy backing track. but what was so great was this chubby little boy dancing around the train car keeping time with an egg shaker. he then came around to collect money and we just had to give him some - it was too entertaining not to be properly rewarded.

so all in all the family visit wasn't terribly eventful, but a lot of fun and it was really great to see everyone again. with that, i'm spent for now, but i won't leave you without an addition to my list of THINGS GERMAN PEOPLE HATE:

#18: Answering Stupid Questions
This sort of goes under the heading of customer service, but it's important enough to give it it's own number. Now, Americans are fine with this - if you work in the service industry and somebody asks you a question, you damn well better answer it with a smile and a can I help you with anything else. But not so in ze Deutschland. They HATE answering questions that have a pretty obvious answer - ya know, the kind that you ask "just to make sure." You remember that mean lady at the store in Akron, Ohio who responded to your query about store hours by pointing at the sign on the door and telling you to put on your reading glasses? That's most people in stores in Germany! Like when my mother asked someone at the airport in Frankfurt, just to be certain, if their bags were checked to Berlin, and got the response "Is that what it says on the tag?..."

#19: Lemonade
My little sister, as well as I a few months ago, was astounded to discover that they don't have lemonade here. In fact, I don't even thing they know what it is. They have limonade, but that means soda, so any talk of lemonade would make them think you want a Fanta or something. It's disturbing, and I don't know how it's going to affect my summer.

oooookay liebe leute, that's all. new year's eve is coming up and i heard it's cray here in berlin. so who knows, maybe i'll have a good story in the near future. in any case, i hope everyone had a merry christmas and/or is having a happy hannukah (and/or a krazy kwanzaa?) and i will talk to you soon. frieden und liebe.

Passwort, bitte.

sheer laziness has kept me from writing, but now the looming threat of homework has spurred me on to blog! funny how that works.

so picking up where we left off: saw the magic flute at one of the opera houses here in berlin two weekends ago. the performances, on a whole, were great. so were the costumes. but the set designer literally must have just been drunk when he designed the thing because there was a life-size tree at the VERY FRONT OF THE STAGE. and if you were sitting on the left side anywhere above the first floor (like i was), then 70% of the action was played behind said tree. i wanted to kill myself. but more so i wanted to kill the set designer. but maybe even more so the director for (a) allowing something nonsensical like that to occur and/or (b) not directing around it. not to mention the fact that they actually needed a tree in the show for about three minutes, five minutes before the end of the opera. i want at least seven of my thirteen euro back as reparation.

then i think i had a pretty normal week of class - i dunno, can't remember. but that might be an indicator that it was normal. the birthday party i spoke of was out in bumblef*ck berlin, like a village that got gerrymandered by the city some years ago or something like that. so my friend and i took the train like forty minutes to get there, walked down a pitch-black country-type road (don't worry mom, i know kung fu!), and found the house. we proceeded to play wii for a while while waiting for others to show up, and some did, but they were all guys and then we continued playing wii. eventually i set up the beirut game that i had brought as a gift, and we played, but the germans DIDN'T GET IT. they were like "vy iss zis game taking so long?" and i'm like cuz it just does, stop offending my culture. if anyone who is in or recently got out of college is reading this, you know what i mean. so anyway it was a weird night.

saturday was the performance with the irish dance group. and this time i took the train to an even bumblef*cker part of berlin, i.e. an hour and fifteen minutes outside of the city center, where it was taking place. my friend lives there, and she told me that there are wild pigs in this part of the city. and i was like stop playin, this is not berlin. but it was. technically. the actual performance was at a christmas market, so we all went out there in the freezing cold and did our thing - i in my kilt, mind you. it was fun, the crowd enjoyed it, and then we went back to this girl's house and drank glühwein (german spiced wine, a christmas favorite) and ate baked apples. not bad.

last wednesday i was invited by a friend of mine from spain to go to this underground club that you need a password for - ooh intense. we met up at his house beforehand, and three more of his spanish friends came. and they spoke a lot of spanish and i felt dumb for not understanding more than i did, because my spanish is terrible right now. but anyway we read the email where the weekly password is sent out and it was like "come quietly and lock your bikes up away from the entrance, etc" and gave us the password. so we walked over there and crossed this creepy bridge to the entrance where we gave this burly bouncer the password and went in. we then went down like three flights of stairs into this basement storage area underneath the railroad tracks. very cool space, legit, lots of junk piled everywhere and water actually dripping from the ceiling. only three euro, actually, and the music was good - salsa, old hip hop, etc - and there was a pool table and a ping pong table. a very cool place overall. only problem was it was pretty much ALL SPANISH PEOPLE and i understood very little all night because they all spoke spanish the whole time. i did meet an absolutely stunning spanish girl, and we talked for a while, but theres not much more to that story. at least not yet! sha-ZAM!

though i'll probably shortly retract that sha-zam.

any rate, on friday my friend james daniel and his cousin morgan came to visit. we started off their trip by drinking hefeweizen in the train - a very german thing to do. we then met up with a couple of my german friends (a long with some americans) and went to karaoke. it was a lot of fun, we sang mambo number five and i want it that way, so you can imagine it went well. i was missin' my theatre gays, they would have definitely enjoyed it. and germans doing karaoke is really hilarious - the get really, really into it.

saturday we did a lot of sightseeing, got in most of the major points in the city. then that night we went and saw a rockabilly show at my favorite venue, wild at heart berlin, which turned out to be pretty good. sunday morning was flea market, which was actually cold and miserable and sadly turned up nothing for the first time. then, after a long journey to get them a bus ticket to prague, we were well exhausted and didn't feel like doing anything so we just ate and watched kung fu panda, which was a pretty freaking great movie.

otherwise all is pretty much quiet on the western (or eastern, depending on how you look at it) front. the weather continues to be cold, wet, and dreary, so there isn't a ton of motivation to leave my apartment, or to do much of anything. but i shall continue to find fun things to do and use them as an excuse to get off my ass! never you worry. i aaaam pumped about next semster, though, when it's warm and spring-like, because i've heard that the city just does a 180. rockin'.

oh and at i'm no longer going to ireland, but stockholm, and then granada for two weeks. third leg of the trip is still unknown, but i'll figure it out eventually...

right so honestly i don't have a THINGS GERMAN PEOPLE HATE this week - i guess i haven't been very observant lately. but i'll get you one soon! i promise. for those of you who have sent me emails and stuff, thanks very much! and for those who haven't, i'd love to hear from you!

take care, liebe leute, and i'll talk to you soon.

"Zweite Kasse, bitte!"

Damn son, I haven't written a blog in forever. Every time I wanted to I was like "Oh but I have so much to write and I don't have time now..." so then I didn't write it and then it just got more and more difficult because more and more stuff happened and...well basically I've decided enough is enough and I just need to suck it up and DO IT. So I'ma do it. But to much shtuff has occured in the last two weeks or so for a very cohesive narrative, so this one's gonna be rather stream of consciousness. Oh and I'm tired of using caps so I'm probably not gonna anymore. just so yo ass know.

right so i think last time i wrote was right before my friend emily came to visit me for the weekend. she actually knows my friend hilly here (who also knows two of my friends from college, a friend from high school, and my cousin...just weird), so we all went out a lot to a couple different clubs, went to a hookah bar, and ate döner. wait have i never talked about döner before? it's an amazingly delicious fast-food-type item that originated here in berlin. it's kind of like a gyros or a schawarma - they use meat cut from a spit in the same way - but it's got a slightly more savory yoghurt sauce and instead of pita they use grilled flat bread. then they put onion and lettuce up in there and it is warm and DELICIOUS. it's a seriously filling meal for €2-3. and for all my NU people: you know how after a night on the e-town it's 3 in the morning and all you want is some chicken fries or something at ye olde BK Lounge? well that's what döner is here. you know what i mean. i don't know why it hasn't caught on in the states, but i plan to bring it to college towns nationwide.

but i digress. emily and i also went on a really, really great FREE walking tour of berlin (just gotta tip at the end), which i wish i had done right when i got here, because it gave me an appreciation of the historical and cultural significance of the city that i hadn't had before. and our guide was awesome, even though he had been an econ major in college. hmm...maybe a future job? if an econ major can be a compelling tour guide, just IMAGINE what a theatre major could do! oh and then we went to the flea market again and i got some seriously rockin' boots for like twenty bucks and i was a happy, if slightly poorer, camper. sometimes you just gotta do what makes you happy.

the week thereafter was pretty standard, just class and such and such. trying to think if anything interesting occured...but nothing's coming to mind so probably not. right, that friday i went out with an italian guy from my german class and some of his german friends to a soul-music party at this really cool club. it was a great time, especially getting to speak german the whole night. the rest of the weekend i was a bit *ahem* out for the count, so i mainly just sat around, watched some german movies/tv, did homework, etc.

this past week was a bit more action-packed in the sense that i had a whole mess o' work to do. went to the irish trad session on monday, which is going great. boxing on tuesday made my arms and my face hurt. and then wednesday in german class i got screwed because the day i signed up for my presentation happened to be the same day as our first test. oops! but for my presentation i just did a short introduction of the bodhran (i.e. the drum i play for those of you who may not know). since i had already done the same presentation in freshman public speaking, powerpoint and all, all i had to do was translate! woohoo! but presenting anything in a foreign language while a professor is sitting right in front of you writing a note every time you make a grammatical error is neither easy nor fun. but it went well, played a little bit for the class, all that jazz.

and on THAT note: i just got invited to play bodhran for a semi-professional irish dance troupe here in the city! hilarious! turns out my "language tandem partner" is part of this troupe and when she found out that i play, she told her director, who then asked me to play for them! maybe on a regular basis, who knows. but i'm definitely going to play for their show next saturday, and i'm even getting paid for it (not a whole lot, but hey, if it pays for my hefeweizen i'm all up on it). and who knows, maybe meet some cute german mädels... in any case, i'll probably get to wear the beautiful new kilt my dad had made for me, so it's a win-win situation. SHA-BAM!

yesterday (thursday) i had a LOVELY time at the berlin customs office. my dad, as above stated, had sent me my new kilt and i received a notice in the mail that i had to go to customs to pick it up. wonderful. first of all, the office is in the most horrible part of town i have yet to experience, and it is also impossible to find. i wandered around for about twenty minutes in this cold, dark, awful place until coming upon the building. i then waited for an hour, after which i was called up to be told that such an expensive item (the worth was declared by my father at $250) to be shipped by post means it is automatically counted as a "gift" - even though i lied to them and told them it was just used, personal clothing - and as such will be taxed at a good-old 13.5%. after screwing up the euro-dollar calculations, thus extending my stay another fifteen minutes, i paid my 26€ and left.

let us hope that i never, ever have to go back there again.

on a happier note, tonight i'm going out with the host of one my friends in the program. she's young and very cool and she's going to show us some good spots around town. should be a lot of fun. and tomorrow i am going with one of the german people at the program to see mozart's the magic flute at the state opera house. so excited! magic flute is amazing, for those who don't know it. it's gonna be great. and for next weekend i got invited to a german birthday party (should be interesting!) and then saturday is the performance with the irish dancers. so, big plans.

i've also been spending a lot of time lately making travel plans for the weird two-month semester break. it looks like this right now: i'll be back in chicago from february 18th - march 3rd, at which point i will fly to ireland. gonna spend a couple days in the tiny village of doolin, which has become a great place for traditional music, and the erstwhile home of john williams' family, the amazing accordion player who leads the trad sessions at nevin's pub. so i plan on seeing the aran islands and a couple other things, and then playing music at night and all that. should be a good time. from there i'm hopping a flight to granada, spain, where i'll spend two weeks at a language intensive working on my spanish. after that, i'd like to try to see both sweden and austria, so we'll see if i have any money left over...europe is some craziness fa sho!

okay look y'all i gotta go hit the club. but before i do, i have a super-special extended version of THINGS GERMAN PEOPLE HATE:

#15: Getting a Room
Okay so a little PDA every once in a while is fine. But a LOT of PDA ALL the time is a little much. And oh, how the Berliners/Germans love their PDA. You can literally be sitting directly across from two people on the train and they will be straight up sucking face. They don't give a damn if you're looking straight at them. I mean, a week or so ago I saw a couple making out while waiting at the bank. Really? Now on the flip side I have seen a couple gay/lesbian couples being openly affectionate in the same way, so I gotta give mad props to Berlin for its openness. But gay or straight...come on guys, get a damn room.

#16: Finishing "mm hmm"
This is more just an observation, I guess. In the States, when we're expressing understanding of what someone is saying on the phone, we say "mm hmm...mm hmm...", but here, I dunno, I just found it odd, they only say "mm...mm...mm". I guess it might be hard to imagine without actually hearing it but trust me, it's weird.

#17: Waiting in Line at the Grocery Store
I've heard other people talk about this, so I know my experience wasn't an isolated incident. You know how sometimes you're standing in a huge line and there are registers not being worked and you're like "wtf why won't they get someone up here this is ridiculous"? Well the Germans don't just think about it, they do something about it. If someone is of the opinion that there are too many people in line for one cashier to sustain, they will yell out "Zweite Kasse, bitte!", which means, "A second register, please!" Ahh, German bluntness. Sometimes you have to admire it.


And that's all for now, liebe Leute! Sorry this one was super long, but I hope you enjoyed. I still like getting emails from my lovely friends back home! So do send me one if you have a moment! Okay but anyway you rock - yes I'm talking to you. Mach's gut und bis bald.

Rock n' Roll

I would like to start off by extending my warmest congratulations to MOTHAF*CKIN' PRESIDENT-ELECT BARACK OBAMA HELL YEAH!! America didn't screw up this time! We did it!

As much as I would have killed to be back in the Windy City last night, it's really quite amazing to see the reactions over here. People are more excited about a foreign election than I could have possibly imagined. All of the election-night parties I went to last night had more Germans and other Europeans than Americans, without a doubt. One of them had like a thousand tickets and they were sold out the day before! Just ridiculous. Two of the German girls in my Spanish class who had previously spent a year in the States stayed up all night to watch - one of them even had a "Proud To Be An American" shirt on today! And the girls I was talking to in a bar tonight were just screaming about how excited they were that Obama won.

I, like them, was up till 6:30 AM to make sure I got the acceptance speech, missed class this morning, and it was 100% worth it. I also have a fantasy that the "puppy" he promised his daughters will be a pug, because the "first pug" would just be the best thing ever. Also, fun fact: In 2007 I attended the press opening of Broadway in Chicago's stage production of High School Musical with Natasha, Malia, and Michelle Obama. We also kicked it at the after party. GET IT!

So anyway...man, it's been a while, got quite a bit to report. I'll do my best to remember it all. First of all, as promised, here's the link to my pictures from Dresden, Oktoberfest, and beyond:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2156662&l=cc5dc&id=2418535
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2156716&id=2418535

Classes are fully under way now, and I'm not gonna lie, it's pretty effing tough. Sometimes I'll leave a lecture being like "I...have no idea what just happened." My head often feels like it wants to explode. But I guess that's just the feeling of learning! Hopefully after a couple more weeks I'll get used to the style and the speed an all that, and if I'm lucky, I may not fail.

That's mostly for my two lectures at the university, though. My language courses are GREAT. I've met a couple very cool lads from different countries in my German class, and a couple of very cute girls in my Spanish class. German is great because it's all people from different countries, so it's easy to get to know new people and your common language is German, which forces you to use it. Spanish is also a lot of fun because (a) for some reason it feels super unstructured and very easy, and we just kind of go around and do speaking exercises and such all day and (b) it's the one subject where I'm on the same page with everyone else and/or Germans are actually asking ME for help, which is also a great way to meet people and talk to them, etc. And as a plus, I've seriously never had that many beautiful women in one class in my life. (German women are, on a whole, quite gorgeous - now I just need to man up and ask one out or something). So though there are good days and bad days in terms of class, overall it's quite good.

Oh and someone brought a BABY to one of my lectures this week. As if it wouldn't continuously shout "MAMA" during the entire hour and a half. It's like bringing a baby to the movies, except this time you're ruining people's educations. But the class was ever so amused - it was like Mary and her Little Lamb who made the children laugh and play.

Oh SNAP and I forgot I got these ridiculously awesome motorcycle boots at the flea market for 20€. They're waterproof and lined with fur, which makes them amazing for winter, and completely rock n' roll, which makes them amazing for always. A crazy gypsy lady sold them to me. Thanks Babuschka!

Went to another rockabilly concert at this awesome rockabilly club in Kreuzberg called Wild at Heart, this time a local Berlin band. Very cool once again, and the German language also rather lends itself to the style. Oh and then there was another the following week, a little more traditional/country-style but still quite good, got some gospely tunes going on. At any rate, I'm getting into the scene here and I hope to catch more shows in the near future.

I (with a few others) also planned a Halloween party for my program, which was pretty wicked stressful considering that Halloween just started here about seven years ago and finding black and orange streamers is literally impossible. The most you're going to get is one relatively small section of Halloween stuff on one floor of the largest malls in the city. No party stores, no decorations at the dollar (euro) store, nothin'. But we fudged it and we ended up pulling off a pretty good party. At least, if you can judge how good it was by the fact that a girl in a Slutty Santa costume vomited on the floor, it was a damn good party. I mean, I snapped into StuCo producer mode for the whole thing (for those of you to whom that means something), but people had fun, which means I had fun. I'm going to end up in events management, I just know it...

In terms of extracurriculars (not those kinds of extracurriculars...): I box twice a week, which is nice and gives me a good outlet for some of the stress I build up. And it's cool because we got right down to sparring on the first day (don't worry Mama, I wear a mouth guard!), and the coach for some reason thinks I'm going to be a Chicago boxing champion. I guess he has faith in me. Which is actually kind of cool, as silly as it is, because he himself was a two-time East German National Champion. And two of the guys in my class, as I found out, are members of a pretty famous German rap group called KIZ. Craziness. I have met some cool people, but let's be honest, boxing fellas aren't really the touchy-feely "oh fabulous let's hang out after class!" type, not to mention we spend most of the time punching in and around each others faces, so...we'll see, maybe I'll meet my new best German friend after all.

I finally found an Irish traditional music session here, went for the first time on Monday to play. Actually quite a high level of playing, nice people, and they made certain to invite me back for next time, which was cool. Oh and free drinks for the musicians - so sláinte!

Other than that, tonight was the first night of the drum circle that I've started. I looked all over for one, realized that none existed in the city, so I sought out people, found a location, put up flyers, and bada-bing, there you go. There were only three of us tonight, but I know for a fact we're going to have at least six next week, so it should be quite good. The third guy (the second being my friend Anna) was a guy named Mark from Northern Ireland. Very nice fellow, just moved to Berlin with his band. We went out and grabbed a pint afterward, got accosted by a ROARING drunk group of southern-German girls on a week-long school trip to Berlin who were ever so excited by the fact that we spoke English, and we had a very amusing time. Though that lot were a bit young for us, it seems that the key to success with women here is speaking English. Ah well.

But enough of that nonsense - here now is the latest installment of THINGS GERMAN PEOPLE HATE:

#13: John McCain
Haha with his stupid fat lying face and his fearmongering and his brainless running mate whats-her-name... Okay I just wanted to throw this one in. But seriously, they really don't like him and they LOVE our boy Obama and YEAH PRESIDENT OBAMA!! Deutschland liebt dich.

#14: Sticking to One Item of Denim
So on a whole, German people (at least the young ones) are very snappy dressers. However, along with the mullet, there's one thing they haven't quite figured out: namely, the fact that one simply should not pair a denim jacket with a pair of jeans, especially not when they're the exact shade of denim. And especially especially not when that pair of jeans is, say, a floor-length denim skirt. Sigh.


All right liebe Leute, that's it for now. Hope everyone is well and feeling happy. And as much as I do love it here, I miss home and everyone there and EMAILS ARE ALWAYS APPRECIATED!! Seriously I'd love to hear from you, so send one along. It will make my day, I promise.

Alles Gute.

Classes and Punk Rock and Dresden - oh my.

As I sit here not doing my reading for class, I think about the - dare I use the word - whirlwind week I have had. I only hesitate to use the word "whirlwind" because it is excessively dramatic and contrived, but I digress. It is quite late, and I am quite tired, so this isn't going to be terribly long, but it has been action packed so I wanted to get it all down.

This past week was the official start of classes at the Humboldt University, where I am studying in conjunction with my abroad program (IES, which also offers college-level courses). I've decided, in contrast to what I had expected to be doing, to take four courses at the university and only one at IES. The classes at IES are pretty terrible, so I dropped all of those I was taking but one (which I actually really like - German Pop Culture). So at Humboldt I will be taking: History of the German Language (woohoo!), Popular Music of the 20th Century, German (language course), and Spanish. Seems like a pretty cool course load, and maybe a little harder than what I would do at IES, but hopefully and seemingly more rewarding.

Monday I went to my first class, Spanish. And when I got there the woman said "Oh, language courses don't start till next week." So I left, all of my preceding anxiety for nought.

Tuesday I actually went to my first official German University lecture, which was History of the German Language. It was a very interesting first lecture, and I spoke with the prof afterward and she seemed very cool and nice and willing to work with me on taking the class.

Wednesday is German and Spanish, so no class this week.

Thursday I was running late in the morning, and I literally had to run from the train station to the building where my class was. I got there at 12:05 for a 12:15 class, and the room was seriously chock full - people were sitting on the floor, wandering around looking for a seat, grabbing extra chairs and stuffing them in corners. I finally found a place to sit when the asst. prof got up in front of the class and was like "Hey, I'm very sorry, but class doesn't start till next week!"

So although it's been crazy, I can't yet say all too much about my new classes, since, well, I have only had one. But German universities classes (those that aren't language courses) are kind of great in that they meet once a week for an hour and a half and there's no graded assignments or midterms. Sha-bam. But more on that next week.

Thursday I went with my German friend Jenny to a rockabilly show, saw a band called Thee Merry Widows - very cool, and some really great music. Friday night I went with my other German friend Rainer to see a street punk / oi! show, which was also a lot of fun and super intense. I expected all punks with mohawks and such, but it turned out to be almost all anti-racist skinheads (oh they certainly exist, Wikipedia that shit). A cool experience, and interesting to see a different side of Berlin. I foresee more concert-going in the near future.

Saturday I (with IES) left for Dresden, a city about two and a half hours south of Berlin, about a hundred km from the Czech border. It was definitely a tour-group-type trip, but it was a gorgeous city with more baroque architecture than you can...shake a stick at (I don't really know what that means but it sounds right). We saw a number of palaces and old churches, which I won't describe at length because photos are forthcoming. Suffice it to say it was all beautiful stuff. Saturday night I went with a couple people to see Mozart'sDon Giovanni at the big Dresden opera house. Not a great performance from all sides - costumes and set unimaginative, acting pretty non-existant - but it did really get me in the mood to get back to Berlin and go see more (hopefully good) opera, seeing as you can get a student ticket here for under 10€ if you're lucky.

And now I'm back in Berlin and the real world. By the end of this week I shall have finally been to all my classes, so that's exciting and terrifying at the same time. In fact, I'm off to Spanish right now (ironic?), so I must say goodbye. Unfortunately no time for a THINGS GERMAN PEOPLE HATE right now, but I'll send a note when I've posted my pictures and hopefully have a clever new quip for you at that point.

Lots of B-Town love.

¿Por qué, Dios?

As I sit here, eating chicken soup for the fourth time this week, I wonder why God would see fit to grant me with two separate illnesses in two weeks. I literally had one for a week, and the moment I got better I developed the other one. I imagine my body saying something like, "You have defeated the common cold, young one, but let's see how you match up against a STOMACH VIRUS! MWAHAHAHA!!"

So yeah, last week I was hacking up a lung, and this week my stomach is killing me. That's my excuse for why I haven't written in forever. But it's probably for the best because I've barely done anything fun in the past two weeks and it would have mostly consisted of things like, "Today I blew my nose twenty seven times." And you don't want to hear that.

The fun/cool things I have done in the past two weeks are:

(1) Saw Bertolt Brecht's Threepenny Opera at the Berliner Ensemble, which is the ensemble Brecht founded back in his day. It was AMAZING, seriously one of the best pieces of theatre I've ever seen in my life. I'm not going to expound upon it here, but it was truly an experience.

(2) Participated in an anarchist political rally / techno dance parade. I didn't actually know what it was about - I think they were calling for the dissolution of the German state or something like that - but my friend from Berlin said we should come and check it out so we did. There were a TON of people, dressed in black, just marching through the streets of Berlin, shouting slogans and such. But the part we were there for were the trucks that had DJs on them, playing techno and rap and punk music and what have you, and it was basically just a big dance party. All in all, a good time, and pretty funny to be rolling through a yuppie neighborhood at night while blaring dance music.

(3) Went to the flea market again, got a nice wool scarf and a sweet blue plaid umbrella for super cheap. Sha-bam.

And that's about it. Classes have started, blah blah blah, going to check out a couple at the University next week, so we'll see how everything turns out.

I did have a funny realization, while looking up at the Berlin Fernsehturm, that I'm living in Europe! That's crazy! I know that's not really news, but it's the first time that really hit me. I guess it's because Germany is just a bunch of white people that dress a lot like Americans (though they do dress a lot better than Americans, as a whole), and a big city that could maybe be Chicago or Minneapolis or whatever, so it doesn't have that "exotic" feel that maybe Venice or Granada would. But whateva, I loves it. And I'm living in Europe for a whole year. Madness.

But I know you didn't tune in this week to hear about me, liebe Leute, and I'm fine with that. So at this point in the blog I'll just give you what you want- the next installment of THINGS GERMAN PEOPLE HATE:

#11: Variety in their Slang Words
Curse words not included, these people seriously have two slang words that they use for EVERYTHING: krass and geil. And I don't pretend to have mastered their usages, but they're weird, let me tell you. Krass can mean awesome, cool, etc, but then it can also mean bad, unfortunate, shitty. What? And then geil is even stranger: it means cool, sexy, and horny, and not at the same time. So all I have to say is, WTF.

#12: Any Possibility of Confusion at Check-Out
Germans are absolute fiends for that little plastic thing that you find at the check-out counter at the grocery store. You know, the one that separates your groceries on the belt from the groceries of the person in front of you. Well, don't even try to get away with not using it in Germany. Even if there's like, a foot of space in between their head of lettuce and your box of noodles, they will make absolute certain that there is no confusion by placing the little plastic thing for you. Because they don't want some noodles on their bill.

That's it for now. Much love and alles Gute!

Heilbronn

Well my pretties, I suppose it has been a while. I blame that mostly on the fact that I have just returned from a week visiting my former exchange partner in Heilbronn in the south of Germany, where I didn't have my own computer. Thus, I shall attempt to recap all of the wild and crazy things Alex and I got up to this past week...

Took a train to Heilbronn which lasted about seven hours in total. Not terrible, slept a good bit, and saw the German countryside which is really quite beautiful. I also felt pretty cool crossing the country via train - you know, old school, like one of those things you do when you're in Europe. La dee da. For the record, I spent three weeks in Heilbronn the summer after my junior year as part of an exchange. So it was pretty funny going back and kind of remembering everything, all of the stupid crap we did as sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds. It just deepened my hatred of teenagers, but we'll get to that.

At any rate, the week wasn't actually too loud and rambunctious, but that's fine, it was really cool to get out there and see them again. I also got to speak German for five days straight with pretty much no English - it's probably the first time I've spent an entire day speaking no English. It was pretty challenging, going out with his friends, them all speaking at once, not directly to me. I felt like a dumbass more than once, but I guess that's all part of the learning pro-cess. They also spoke with the accent of a dialect to which I am not accustomed, namely Swäbisch, and that made it more difficult. FOR GERMAN SPEAKERS: My best example of the difference would be that the sentence "Wir sind gestern nicht durch den Park gelaufen" would become "Wir sind geschtern nett durch den Park g'lofe'" AHHHH.

So anyway let me think...Saturday I arrived and we just hung out and watched some stand-up on TV (which I understood and actually found hilarious!). Sunday Alex and I went to his friend's Chinese restaurant and then saw BABYLON A.D. starring the sexy and talented Vin Diesel (in German, of course, which was pretty amusing). Monday we just kind of watched some movies and then went to hang out with his friends at a, get this, American sports bar - they hang out there all the time. I ate a hamburger and fries. Go figure. Oh but it should be duly noted that there was no semblance of American customer service...

Tuesday was the big one. OKTOBERFEST!! WOO WOOOOO!! It was me and Alex and two of his friends, and none of them had ever been. I had no idea what to expect, but I figured if you're in Germany, you have to at least check it out. Well, I must tell you, it's pretty much a German county fair. There are carnival rides, games, sugared almonds, overpriced food. I ate a half a chicken and a big pretzel and bough a souvenir bottle opener (I had to). Of course the big difference, and what Oktoberfest is famous for, are the Bierzelte . They are MASSIVE tents filled to the brim with Bavarians in Lederhosen and tourists from all over the world. Each brewer has a tent, thus you can only get one kind of beer, and the only size you can order is a liter-sized Maß, so you'd better come thirsty. And with a lot of Euros in your pocket because it is mad expensive. I drank but one, as I didn't feel like spending all that money, but I figured I was paying for the experience. Oh and yes, you can rest easy, there are plenty of real-live beer wenches running around. And they can hold that many Maß at once. That's a pretty necessary skill when the old Irish guys behind us ordered TEN OF THEM AT ONCE. No joke. That's almost 90€ worth of beer in one swing.

All in all it was a pretty hilarious experience, one which I see absolutely no need to repeat. If you're ever in Germany around Oktoberfest time, I wouldn't saw don't go, but don't waste more than three hours there.

To top off the week, on the last night we went to Stuttgart to see a soccer game. Not the most exciting game in the world, but we were in the section with all the serious hardcore fans, so that was fun. They had more chants than I could ever think up in a lifetime.

And now I'm back in good ol' Berlin. Even though I've only been here for a month, I was already kind of missing it when I was away. I guess that means I'm getting settled in and it's getting homier, which is good. I'm starting to get all teary eyed and sappy, so I think this is a good place to end. And so as not to disappoint, I will end with the next installment of THINGS GERMAN PEOPLE HATE:

#9: Reigning in their Teenagers
They're seriously out of control. Now I know you, Gentle Reader, already hate teenagers as much as I do - they're loud, obnoxious, and think they're the coolest damn thing in the world and want you to know it - but mix that with legal drinking and you've got yourself a whole new level. If I have to be on one more bus with a group of ten German teenagers on the way to whatever stupid club they're going to tonight, hormones raging and already drunk, I think I might hurt somebody.

#10: Letting Go of the Mullet
Speaking of out of control, this is seriously out of control here in the Germany. They call it a Vokuhila, which is short for "vorne kurze, hinter lang" (front short, back long). I have seen more "cool" young people with mullets in my one month here than I ever needed to see in a lifetime.

...and that's all for now, liebe Leute. I'm hoping to get up some Oktoberfest pictures soon, so keep it here.

The beginning of something beautiful

TUESDAY: As I sit here drinking coffee (I've been doing that more and more) and eating a peanut butter and banana sandwich (hot DAMN I haven't had one of those in forever, and they're so good - you know what I'm talking about, don't lie), I realize that today essentially marks the point that says this is longest amount of continuous time for which I have ever been out of the country - three weeks. Thrice huzzah. To commemorate, I thought I would put to pen something I've been thinking a bit about, namely a list of THINGS GERMAN PEOPLE HATE, through which I hope to illuminate the differences between us "normal" Americans and those "wacky" Germans - in no particular order. I know it might be nicer to go with a Things German People Love list, and they're not always going to necessarily "hate" the things on the list, but a little negativity never hurt anyone so we're just gonna go with this format. It might be a little long, cuz I've been savin' em up, ergo I ask you to bear with me. So now, without further ado, the first installment of...

THINGS GERMAN PEOPLE HATE

#1: Peanut Butter
We've already sort of gone over this one, but they seriously, seriously do not get peanut butter. It's not available in a lot of grocery stores, and when it is, it's expensive and in very small containers. Not only that, but I have had to staunchly defend my, and all God-fearing, flag-waving Americans', love of peanut butter not once, but three times in three weeks. I feel like peanut butter is running for political office and I am trying to sway people to vote for it. I tell them (a) it's full of protein (b) it's delicious (c) you can put it on pretty much anything and that thing will become more delicious (d) it lasts pretty much forever and (e) in less than two minutes you can combine it with jelly on bread and have a pretty rockin' meal. Thus far my sound and righteous arguments have fallen on deaf German ears.

#2: Customer Service
I think I've already got this one pretty much covered.

#3: Fabric Softener
This is more to say that dryers pretty much don't exist here, so everything gets hung out to dry and comes out not-so-soft. I admit to being a big baby in this regard, but for those of your planning on coming to Germany, you have been forewarned.

#4: Restrictions on Dogs
Germans take their dogs freakin EVERYWHERE. It's incredible. They take them on the train, into the grocery store, into the department store, into the bakery. A lot of them don't even have leashes - they're just perfectly well behaved. I guess that's German engineering for you. But seriously, don't tell a German he can't bring a dog into your store, because he will not be a happy camper.


#5: Giving You Enough Space When Talking
You know that weird kid in elementary school who got way to close to your face while talking to you? Well multiply that by like a million and you're in Germany. ...Okay it's not that pervasive, but some of the people here are serious close talkers.


#6: Jaywalking
Jaywalking, while a joke of a law in the States, can be serious here. I've seen people get 20€ fines for it. Some people walk on the wild side, but it's not uncommon for there to be nary a car in sight and have people waiting patiently for the Ampelmännchen to turn from rot to grün.

#7: Spoiled Milk
Who doesn't? But the Germans have taken it a step further by creating super-mega-hardcore pasteurized milk that lasts for over a year unrefrigerated. Kind of scary, but hey, when in Rome.

#8: Hookers Who Don't Wear Fanny Packs
Okay I really just wanted to tell you that all of the working girls in Berlin wear fanny packs. And yes, it is that hilarious. Thought this fashion item was the territory of old tourists in Hawaiian shirts? Think again.

...and thus ends this week's installment of THINGS GERMAN PEOPLE HATE.

To conclude this monstrously long blog, I'll give a quick recap of last Friday to now: Friday was Fidelio at the Berlin Staatsoper (State Opera House), which was very well done with some beautiful performances. Set was breathtaking, costumes left something to be desired. Saturday night I hung out with a friend of a friend from school who lives here (a real live German!) - very cool guy, hopefully we'll chill again soon. Sunday I went to THE COOLEST flea market I've ever been to in my life. It was seriously incredible, and larger than I could see in two hours. I got a messenger bag for 1€, an cool retro duffel bag for 2.50€, and an old-school skateboard with a satellite on the back (you're jealous) for but 5€. I'm obsessed and there will be more to come as far as that goes. Today & Yesterday consisted of cooking chicken and rice and going to a boxing club to check out how they do things - nice folks, hopefully that all works out.

Tomorrow is set for a jazz club, Friday for Karaoke, and Saturday I leave to see my former exchange partner in the south. Stories shall be forthcoming.

So liebe Leute! That's all for now. Thanks for hangin' in there, and much love to all.

P.S. Some weird elf sewed the wrist part of the sleeves of my sweatshirt down, I guess because they were fraying. I sincerely have no idea how it happened.

Oh and as a final note, that club across the street from my apartment building is definitely a Puff.

Putting it all together

WEDNESDAY: I've been spending a lot of time lately "setting things up". I've been researching boxing gyms, emailing the stage combat club, calling up Irish pubs to find sessions. So basically right now I'm doing all the prep work for all of the things I'm going to do in the future, thus I don't have as much time right now to actually do things. However, I will do my best to recap the weekend and beyond.

Saturday night I went to see some twenties-style Dixieland jazz. It was the weirdest venue EVER - more kitsch on the walls than a TGI Friday's, lights blazing, and full of old people - but the music was seriously smokin' and I had a great time. After that I went to this old abandoned building wherein are housed multiple different clubs, in addition to lots of graffiti and art studios (mostly in use during the day). Anna and I ended up forgoing the cool kid clubs with the cool kid music and headed up to the very top floor where they were playing a mix of ska, oldies remixes, rock n roll, and jazz, and we just danced like no one was watching. It was a pretty cool place and I definitely plan on going back.

Sunday, went to a flea market where I bought a couple old jazz and blues records - turns out I have a record player in my room (did I already mention that? whatever), so I'm gonna buy up a lot just for fun. The rest of that day was REST because my God have I been tired lately. Monday was pretty chill, did some drumming in the park by my house, and Tuesday I made a Shepherd's pie. Tonight a couple friends and I went to part of a German film festival, which was very cool, and literally a three minute walk from my house - definitely plan on going back for one of the other days - and then left for the Turkish Quarter (Kreuzberg) for an "International Party" on a boat, sponsored by the University's International Club. It was free, so that was nice, and we met some nice kids (who each spoke at least four languages, I felt like an idiot), but unfortunately what we thought would be an opportunity to speak some German turned out to be an English language party! WTF. The saving grace, and the most hilarious thing I could imagine, was the fact that the live band was a hardcore trad country rockabilly band from Tennessee! Pompadours and all. Apparently there's a good rockabilly scene in Berlin, according to the bassist, so I'm planning on checking that out. We didn't stay long, because country music makes Anna's French head hurt, but all in all it was a good night.

Things are getting better, I think, knock on wood. Been speaking a little more German and feeling a little more confident about it. I'm stressing out about which courses to take at the university, etc, because it's INCREDIBLY confusing, but I'm sure it will all be sorted out soon and I can stop worrying. I also can't wait for things to settle down and get figured out so I can start doing all the things I'm setting up to do. More on that as it comes.

First Round of Photos

Hey Party Peoples, check it out, posted my first round of photos. Whether or not you're on Facebook, you can use the following links to view them - if you are on Facebook, leave some comments and some love. Hope you enjoy.

GERMANY ALBUM 1: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2149924&l=39f90&id=2418535
GERMANY ALBUM 2: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2149921&l=4ac79&id=2418535

Trying to settle in

TUESDAY: So, I guess I've been freaking out a little lately. I suppose that's normal, living in a new country and all that. I just feel like my German should be better than it is, even though it shouldn't really necessarily. And of course I'm not going to befriend twenty Germans right away. But it's still a little tough.

I haven't been feeling great the past couple of days (Mom, relax, I'm fine), just stomach weirdness, probably from stress or the tap water or something or all of it. I've also had trouble adjusting to the fact that SALESPEOPLE ARE NOT NICE. In general, that is. They don't want you to ask them questions and they definitely do not want to escort you to the cereal aisle to show your where the cornflakes are. They would prefer to roll their eyes and point. I had tried two grocery stores up until today - which has been doubly stressful because I have no idea how to actually shop for groceries - and they both kind of sucked. There was an Asian one that I thought the people were nice, but they just didnt really understand me and turned out to be mean; and the one across the street, Netto, is a COMPLETE shithole. They have 0 selection, it looks dirty and unkempt, the people are mean as hell, and its just a horrible, awful, terrible place. And I assumed this is what they were all like, so I flipped out...

However, I just got back from the Kaiser's grocery store, and it was seriously like heaven. It was clean, well-organized, nice lighting, they actually had thing (including peanut butter - which, you all should know, is a rare delicacy here), and one of the people smiled and answered my question and asked if I needed anything else (that's customer service - which, you all should know, is a rare delicacy here)! So basically, Kaiser's is like the Michigan Avenue to Netto's Cabrini Green. For those of you not from Chicago, Cabrini Green is a horrible, dirty ghetto with lots of drugs and violence.

I also found hommus at a little stand outside, which was great, because I later found out that "hummus" in German basically means "fertilizer" - so no wonder I didn't get it when I asked the Asian grocer. And speaking of which - and to top off my mood-improvement for today - I found a package of cheese advertising its extra thickness, but the translation for that was "EXTRA DICK!" ...Insert puerile giggle here.


SATURDAY: I think I've figured out the crux of my problem: whereas German used to be "fun", it is now purely necessary. The novelty of "Huzzah I get to use my language skills!" has worn off, and now it's the big leagues. I imagine it's something like an artist deciding to go professional and then realizing it's not as fun when you have to do it. Or something like that.

In any case, Berlin is still as hoppin' as ever. I've met some cool Americans - we've been going out and having dinner parties and it's all very much like freshman year all over again, herds and all. But really, they're very nice. Wednesday night I went to a poetry reading (ooh la la, how cultured!) at a pub close to me. Didn't understand all of it, but it was a lot of fun and most of it was very funny.

Yesterday I went to the twice-weekly Turkish market with my friend Anna. We've been hanging out a lot - she's super cool, very much into arts and such, and she plays drums, so we're planning on joining or making a drum circle or something of the sort. At any rate, the Turkish market was very cool, a LOT like Morocco (fam, you know what I'm talking about - I even got that great bread we ate all the time!). Big moustachioed men yelling "Lettuce! Lettuce! Cheap cheap cheap! Tasty tasty tasty!" You get the idea. Anna and I got some good deals and then had a lovely time sitting on the river, watching swans and eating figs and goat cheese. That's European. The funny thing was, once we sat down, this Mexican band from Oaxaca started playing Indian-Mexican fusion music on the bank where we were sitting. It was really great stuff, and we ended up talking to them in our collective broken Spanish. We may end up getting together with a couple of them for some drumming, so that's pretty cool. The switching of foreign languages did indeed confuse me a bit, but I definitely want to continue with my Spanish. If I come back with a lisp, you'll know why.

So, liebe Leute, that's more or less all for now. Hopefully the culture shock will subside soon and I can go even more wild and crazy if only to bring you wilder, crazier stories. But don't worry, Mütti - we'll make sure to keep it safe.

Bis dann, Tschüss!

Die Ersten Tage

Right now I'm sitting in the IES Abroad Center eating cold leftover schnitzel because (a) I'm cheap and (b) there's no microwave here. But everythings really great in Berlin so far. At first i was walking around and like "holy shit im gonna be here for a year im freaking out," but then I took a breath and realized that it's all going to be okay. My host is a very nice old lady type named Betti, super sweet and helpful, and my living situation is pretty great. I have a really big room with a nice bed, fold-out couch, TV, refrigerator, plenty of space for my fabulous clothes, etc.

UPDATE: Betti got a lot of sweet-old-lady points for sewing a little loop on to my towel so I can hang it up in the bathroom, without me asking. We also had "Kaffee und Kuchen" (coffee and cake) with one of her other guests - she rents out the other room in her flat - and that was a very cute and gemütlich and very German thing to do.

The area where I live, Prenzlauer Berg, is also lovely. It's really close to this park called Volkspark Friedrichshain, which is sort of Central-Park-ish - huge, with a lot of beautiful old statues and stuff, ponds, cafes, tennis courts (SAMMI), a skate park, fountains, grills, etc. Gotta take a walk around there soon. There's also a couple of really old graveyards right by the crib, which I'm way into in a photographic sort of way. I'm also right across the street from a grocery store, around there corner from a bank, I'm down the street from one of the main shopping centers (Alexanderplatz) there's a freakin' night club across the street, a bakery, a fruit shop, and I'm about five feet from the tram.

Speaking of which, public transport is AMAZING. We all got monthly transport passes and that is all you need to get anywhere in the city at any time of day. Everything is super punctual, and dont even need to show your ticket unless a scary plainclothes controller asks you for it. So basically you don't have to think twice about going anywhere, you just go. As long as you can deal with obnoxious German teenagers dressed to the nines for the club, thinking they're super cool with their mullets and their designer jeans, then you're golden.

This is all kind of boring stuff, I know, but it's still all very preliminary - all we've done is orientation-type stuff. I did go out with some friends last night to this really nice little pub, nice atmosphere, leather couches, etc. People here are generally very nice, and I'm definitely holding my own with the German speaking. I still get unnecessarily frustrated with myself, but it's only the third day and hopefully things will keep getting better. At any rate, IES is taking us on a pub crawl tomorrow, so maybe there will be some fun stories from that.

Until then, bis bald und alles gute!

Willkommen in Berlin

Well, I've finally arrived in Berlin. It took about eighteen hours of travel and I think I slept for one of those hours. I'm trying my best to just push through until tonight, but we'll see how long that lasts. I'm currently in the hostel I'm staying in for one night before registration, and what the hell, it's run by hardcore Spanish punk rockers. No effing joke. I guess that's Berlin for ya. I don't trust them, because I don't trust Spaniards in general -- just kidding, I actually don't trust punks, but that's because I was friends with a lot of them. The fact that they're Spanish is pretty much inconsequential.

I can speak German! Within my first hour I got two compliments. Pretty schnazzy. At any rate, this post isn't very interesting, because I haven't done anything yet, and if there are typos it's because I've changed my keyboard to the German setup. When in Rome.

I'm off to get a cell phone, but more stories as they come. In the immortal words of Cabaret, "Velcome to Berlin, Herr Bradshaw...velcome to Berlin."