Friday, July 20, 2007

The Neo-Nazis are coming to Tübingen

The Neo-Nazis are coming to Tübingen and we're fighting back with the P to the A to the R-T-Y, yup, we're fighting back with a big party.

The JN or the Yound National Democrats (aka the Neo-Nazis) are coming to Tübingen, which is a widely accepted "left stronghold", to strut their stuff, win new members, and I'm assuming to give the finger to the well-established anti-fascism movement in Tübingen. Lucky for us that the city was quick to take action, and creative action at that. First they tried to forbid the meeting, but I believe the JN fought the "Verbot" and is allowed to have their march. They won't, however, be able to march when the entire city is covered in a giant party. At that point the police will be obligated (and all to happy) to stop the JN out of concern for an escalation of the conflict. This is, in my opinion, a brilliant way around the JN's freedom to assemble -- assemble more. So, this Saturday there will be a huge "Citizens Festival" in Tübingen to celebrate diversity and have a good time fighting evil. I was perusing the list of activities and groups that are participating and was most tickled by the following entried: "dressed up dwarfs", location: overall in the city; "Dance Away the Nazis"; and "The Chaise Lounge Offinsive", which I believe features everyone in Tübingen who owns a reclining lawnchair in Tübingen bringing it and a beer and plunking down for the afternoon.

I'll be running around having fun and taking photos, so hopefully you'll see what I'm talking about.

Friday, July 13, 2007

Only because Jean rocks, not because I like to talk about myself or anything

My cousin Jean (well, my cousin Alex's wife Jean, who I like to call my cousin) tagged me on her blog, Stimeyland. What? She told the blog-reading world 8 random facts about herself and now I should do the same, because I have been tagged. You know the game. If you know me personally then you probably know that I'm not against talking about myself, so away we go!

But first, the rules:

1. Let others know who tagged you.
2. Players start with 8 random facts about themselves.
3. Those who are tagged should post these rules and their 8 random facts.
4. Players should tag 8 other people and notify them they have been tagged.

The facts:

1) I love to watch ducks eat. It is one of my simple pleasures in life -- watching their funny feet wave in the air as they peruse the bottom of the pond/river for bits of food.

2) I live in Germany (not random or new information) and I have found that I do not like to try new things (things that are new to me, that is) without some kind of German supervision. For example, I was interested in buttermilk drinks for a long time. I didn't really know what they were but I knew they sounded gross. I waited for months and told several people that I had never tried the buttermilk beverage until someone bought one for me and shared it with me.

3) Another thing about Germany. This one actually just occurred to me the other day. A question that people ask me all the time in Germany (and I do mean several times a week) is why I came here. Until recently I had always started with taking German class in school, which I pretty much remember doing because it seemed easy (good call, Claire). However, I have been thinking about it more and I would now say that I probably started taking German all those years ago and then came to Germany because my cousin Alex did it. And what Alex did was cool. So here I am in Germany.

4) I have really incredibly square feet. In fact my orthapedic specialist took a photo of my feet to use in his lectures.

5) I think that I have a very acute sense of smell.

6) I love nicknames but I suck of thinking of them for other people. For example, I call my friend Kristen "K". Way to be creative. My very favorite nicknames that others thought of for me are Staniel, Clarity, and Princess Poodle-Dee-Poo.

7) My dentist once told me that I had some of the best oral hygein he'd ever seen. That was in the 8th grade and I've felt very proud about it ever since (that's about 12 years of feeling proud about clean teeth and healthy gums).

8) I truly believe that I have the coolest parents ever and feel competetive with others when they try to tell me that they have cool parents.

Woo hoo! I did it. It took me two day, some beer, and a bunch of chocolate, but I did it. Now I shall tag people.

1. My favorite married person, Sarah over at Mysterious Objects at Midnight.

2. My favorite almost librarian, Alli over at tales of a traveling (almost) librarian.

3. My favorite international journalist, malaria expert, and shoe fiend, Katie over at Oogling Uganda.

4. My favorite scrabble partner and knower of so many words, Maria at Brigands and Nabobs.

5. My favorite resident of Toronto, Meghan at Meghan's Tumblelog.

6. My favorite arm-fat-toucher, Joyce at Joyce in Okinawa.

Yeah, those are all the bloggers that I really know, so six will have to do. I think it would be very cool if others answered since random facts are fun and amusing.

Tuesday, July 10, 2007

I suck at this

You guys have probably already heard the news, but I suck at blogging. Don't know what happened, but I've lost my drive. Well, my computer is also on hiatus (that's a very optimistic way of putting it) making it harder for me to become one with the internet as often as I'd like. And also, it's so incredibly cold and rainy that I just don't feel like writing. But wait, wouldn't cold, rainy weather make you stay inside and blog more? Ummm . . . interesting question, next please!

In light of the lack of interesting stories I have to tell, I'll tell you about the delicious spread I just made. As you may or may not know, Germans love bread and Germans make delicious bread, better than most Americans can even dream of. And for those Atkins folks out there, I'm not talking bread out of a bag made with lots of crap white flour, I'm talking whole wheat and all sorts of crazy grain flours like spelt and such with whole nuts and seeds inside -- I'm talking hearty, healthy, delicious bread here. Both breakfast and dinner are often bread-based meals, which is nowhere near as boring as it might sounds. At breakfast expect some cheese, meat, jam and at dinner an extravaganza of meats, cheeses, spreads, veggies, and the like. Enter delicious spread.

I'll call it Red Lentil Delight. It's healthy, delicious, and easy to make. I think that it should be eaten quickly but I have no idea since the first time my roommate made it I ate the whole jar of it in a day. Here's what you have to do:

ingredients: red lentils, 2 carrots, fresh ginger, some finely chopped cashews (use your best judgement on amount and chopping size), vegetable stock, curry powder

1) don't worry too much about amounts or times or whatever, I think it will turn out regardless of what you do. Just try it and be creative and taste it while it cooks.
2) First I fried some of the ginger with the lentils for a few minutes in the pot
3) Then I added the vegetable stock, enough to cover the lentils
4) Then I finely grated the carrots into the pot and let it boil, then turned the head down a bit
5) At this point I just kind of kept tasting it, adding more veggie stock as necessary
6) After maybe 15 minutes I put in the nuts and added some extra ginger
7) When everything started getting as soft as I wanted (Since it's a spread I wanted most of the lentils to mush together a bit) I added the curry powder
8) Put in jar or tupperware, enjoy

Yup, that's how you too can make delicious spread. I bet no one will do it, but oh well. Actually, I could imagine Maria and my mom doing it . . . we'll see what happens.