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.