Claire in Tuba Town

Surprises from the White Supremacists

2008-11-09T12:46:00.002+01:00

My good friend and colleague, Alan Fortuna, recently referenced this article on his blog and, since the photo I took in the train of child vandalism didn't turn out and since that was going to be my next post, I've decided to steal Alan's idea.

In a very small sample of people, Esquire Magazine found that many white supremacists would vote for Obama. Now, I have no idea if they actually ended up doing so, but they seemed pretty convinced. Their argument: Obama is a racist (I disagree, but that's not the point) and it's better to vote for a black racist than a white person who isn't in touch with "white racial identity".

By posting this, I am in no way saying that I think white supremacists are cool for voting for Obama, rather, I just thought it was interesting and surprising.

I'll try to get on that same train again to nab a photo of the cheery child vandalism that I saw last week. Damn that'll be a great post if I can find it again . . .

John McCain's New Campaign Slogan: Yes, we will.

2008-10-15T08:05:00.002+02:00

This morning, during my daily stroll through various online media sources, I came across an article discussing what McCain's possible strategy will be during the final Presidential Debate tonight. And in the first paragraph the author mentioned McCain's new slogan at some of his speeches and rallies, which is, get ready for it, "Yes, we will."

C'mon, McCain campaign, this is ridiculous. First you start using "Change" after the Republican Convention and now you're taking "Yes, we can". Oh, of course, it's not exactly the same as the slogans of the Obama campaign. . . except it almost is. Regardless of which party you support, the lack of creativity and of a unique message for the Republican candidate is just sad.

Oh yeah, by the way, I'm back.

Blog-cation

2008-03-07T16:38:00.002+01:00

Hello friend,

I'm here for just a few moments to tell you that I'm on a vacation from the blog, a so-called blogcation. I'm working on my thesis now and will be for the next few months and so there isn't too much time for blogging. I hope that something interesting will happen when my thesis is done so that I can write here again and tell you all about it.

I hope everyone is doing well and wasting their time reading other blogs in my absence.

Fungal gnats -- as gross as the name suggests

2008-02-15T11:47:00.004+01:00

Please do not look down upon me, dear readers, but I have fungl gnats.

Well, I don't have them as in "they are on my person", oh no no no! My houseplants have fungal gnats. After repotting my plants in anticipation of the growing season, I noticed what looked like fruit flies in my room. I tried some plant pest spray that we had around the house but it didn't seem to do much good. Of course my search for a solution lead me to the internet, where I very quickly learned that I (or my seven plants) have fungal gnats and that they are the result of contaminated soil.

So first off I'll like to thank Hornbach, which is the German Home Depot (not like it's just another big hardware store; it really is the Home Depot, same signs and store layout), for selling me contaminated soil. The next order of business will be to buy new soil and repot all my good friends again, which I can't really imagine they will like, since I'm sure there were just getting comfy in this soil. Oh yeah, and then there are the potatoes. In my internet search I also found a number of organic methods of pest control, one of which is to put 1/2 inch potato slices around the base of the plant. The gnats will then either lay their eggs in the potatoes or the little larvae will wiggle in there because they are potato-lovers (I'm not sure which). My job is then to throw the potato slices away each day and put new ones out, thus throwing out their eggs and halting their reproduction, at least in my room. It's a strategy similar to the Tübingen pigeon house (we got another one, so there will be another post soon!).

So that was a nice topic for a blog post . . .

Ah the joys of getting screwed over . . .

2008-01-30T15:54:00.000+01:00

I'm an Ebay fan. I really am. Love it. Haven't had any experiences to make me want to stop hiting the Ebay. Well, what's going on at the moment could make me hate Ebay if my Ebay love wasn't so strong. (Yes, now is an appropriate time to be creeped out by how I'm talking about Ebay.)

I'm selling my computer on Ebay because it's loud and, I think, in retrospect, I was asking to much for it (Buy it now). Which is precisely why I was so surpised when someone bid on it. Let me digress . . .

If you are an Ebay buyer, have you ever seen a message like "Won't ship to Nigeria" at the end of someone's auction? I have and I thought to myself, how sad that one bad experience is turning everyone against Nigeria. Well, I'm starting to see what they're talking about. Let us return to the story . . .

So I was surpised that someone decided to "Buy it now" especially since there was the option to suggest a price. Shortly after the auction ended I got an e-mail from a "woman" in Canada who bought the computer for her step son in Nigeria. I'll have to admit, she seemed surprisingly well-informed. She knew she needed my BLZ (German bank code) and IBAN and SWIFT numbers and she knew that I should look at deutschepost.de for shipping costs to Nigeria. So I went to the website and the post office. I got the shipping estimates for her. I got all the silly international banking numbers for her. And today her "bank" called me, probably from their cell phone in Nigeria from the sounds of it.

"We sent you an e-mail"

The e-mail was from the woman's address, not a bank's.

"No no, just listen. We have the payment here and just need your shipping receipts in order to transfer your money to you. You will receive your money in three weeks."

I think he meant was "We'll be long gone in three weeks, living it up with your computer."

Also strange was the fact that the "woman's" name had changed in the third e-mail.

Alright, so it's prety obvious now that this is a scam and, because I'm not a moron, nothing will happen to me. I'll even be able to get my listing fees back from Ebay. Pretty much the only thing that will happen is that I may start writing "Won't ship to Nigeria" at the end of my listings.

Obama is rockin' the Reggaeton and other thoughts on candidates

2008-01-27T13:40:00.000+01:00

Yes folks, in case you haven't heard, Barack has his own Reggaeton song and you can listen to it at Amigos de Obama, but you do have to register first.

By the way, not that it is at all relevant to his bid for president, but did you know that Barack Obama has a lovely singing voice? While listening to the NPR Day to Day podcast, I heard him trying to sing in Spanish and while his Spanish was pretty pitiful, I was impressed by his ability to project and carry a tune.

Another bit of intereting candidate information regards Ron Paul and this does have to do with his candidacy. Last week I was again listening to the NPR Day to Day podcast and heard an interview with James Kirchick, in which he discussed his most recent article, Angry White Man , in the New Republican. In both his article and the interview, Kirchick discussed the newsletters that Ron Paul distributed monthly starting in 1978. "What they[the articles in the newsletter] reveal are decades worth of obsession with conspiracies, sympathy for the right-wing militia movement, and deeply held bigotry against blacks, Jews, and gays."(Kirchick, 2008, Angry White Man). Paul denies that he wrote offensive articles, stating that he didn't actually approve everything that went into the publication. But really, who puts their name on a publication and then doesn't give a hoot what kind of bigotry goes into it? Not really the level of responsibility that most people are looking for in a president. Since publication of the article, Ron Paul has "disavowed moral responsibility" for the newsletters published under his name. That's just ridiculous if you ask me.

So, that's the end of my random thoughts on presidential candidates. Back to work.

Back in the classroom

2008-01-23T15:51:00.000+01:00

Last night I started teaching again. I hadn't taught in about six months and was nervous. I'm not even really sure what I was nervous about . . . failing I guess. Isn't that what one normally gets nervous about?

At any rate, last night kind of sucked. For some reason there was another class in our classroom (booking fluke) and we had to hold class in this large lecture hall of sorts. Not everyone had the same book because the institute I work for, for some stupid reason, uses different versions of the same book for different classes, meaning that some people had the 2nd edition and some had the 3rd. This does, believe it or not, make a pretty big difference. So I abandonned my lesson plan (I also had what was eventually deemed the 'wrong' book) and winged it with the 'right' book. This lead to my leason being a little more frantic than usual and I think I overwhelmed my beginners. I think I also didn't realize just how beginner some of them are. At the end of class students started complaining about the book and about the padagogic principles of the book, uuugggghhhh.

Upon leaving, I ran into my friend Monica, another long-time teacher who had just finished an equally trying 1.5 hours "in the pit". We walked part of the way home together and bitched about trials of teaching. It helped.

And this morning I taught my seniors beginner class and, to be honest, I rocked it. This seems to be an ongoing trend in my seniors' classes. I'm not sure what it is, but we have a certain affinity for each other. So I'm going to take my senior confidence back into the classroom with me tomorrow when I teach the group from yesterday again. They will be wowed, oh yes, they will.

Pine Cone-ette: The importance of the state brewery

2008-01-22T08:02:00.000+01:00

This is an ordinary bottle of Germany beer. I'd say it's one of the most popular beers to drink around here. It's reasonably priced, has a pleasant, mild flavor, and the label kind of makes me laugh with it's strange, geometrical lady and pine cones. And another thing that is cool is that it's called Pine Cone (Tannen Zäpfle, well it's a regional diminuitve, but that's another story all together). I guess that in reality it's called Pine Cone-ette, which is nothing short of great.

And wait, this beer gets even better! Take a close look at the picture below (I hope that your screen is bigger than mine so that you can see the details. Due to some computer selling and buying, I'm not using my computer right now and don't have photo software.) At the bottom of the bottle you will see the word "Staatsbrauerei" which means "State Brewery". Yes, my friends, this beer is produced at the Baden State Brewery. Baden is the region next to ours', Swabia, and together we make up the state of Baden-Wurttemberg.

What does this say about the importance of beer in Baden?

The tastes of home never tasted so good

2008-01-21T13:15:00.000+01:00

On Saturday evening I prepared meatloaf and sweet potatoes. I can, without a doubt, say that I have never tasted anything more like home before. As I slowly and purposefully ate my meal (wouldn't want it to be gone too quickly), I was overwhelmed with the feeling of pure bliss. It was a comfort food experience, the likes of which I have never experienced.

To be honest, I do not know why I have never prepared this meal in Germany before. Meatloaf calls for mixed ground meat (1/2 pork, 1/2 beef) and that is most of what is available at the store here in the ground meat section of the store. Meatloaf calls for onion soup. Well, Knorr, the company that often makes onion soup in America is German and probably invented packaged onion soup. And really, what it comes down to, is that meatloaf is actually just "Fleischküchle" or "Frikadellen" (German version of meatloaf, pretty much the same ingredients, but made in meatball size and cooked in a pan on the stove) prepared in one big mass and done in the oven.

Any-hoo, hoorah for that delicious meal and the great feeling of home that it brought on!

The place where the books live

2008-01-20T22:11:00.001+01:00

Today Christian asked me, "Why is it pronounced 'lye-berry' when it's spelled 'library'?"

January 22, 2008 - Post Script:

After reading the comment I got on this post, correcting that pronunciation of "library" I realized that, for those of you who don't know me, this post needs clarification. I thought it would be funnier without clarification, but whatever, you don't get it, I'm not funny, whatever.

Christian is my boyfriend. He's German and his English is excellent, which is what made it so hilarious when he asked me, with all sincerity, about the pronunciation and made this error, which children commonly make.

That's why I posted it.

Top Christmas Card of '07

2008-01-18T10:31:00.000+01:00

I got this card from my dearest friend Zosia this Christmas season and I'm still laughing about it. What could be funnier than this alien and/or robot celebrating Christmas in space with mistletoe in hand?

Thank you Zosia for brightening every day since I received this card with your utter comedic genius (I really do look at it every day and laugh).

Hello Kitty takes a turn for the worse. Or was this always a part of her evil master plan?

2008-01-17T17:46:00.000+01:00

While glancing at my new, rather snazzy, Google Sidebar, the headline "The Hello Kitty Assault Rifle that actually exists" caught my eye and I, of course, had to click on it. The link took me to a blog by the name of Crave, which explained how, some time back, photophopped photos of such a rifle paraded about the internet. Well, someone took their cue from those original doctored images and actually made one (I didn't actually realize that people actually made their own rifles).

So here it is in all of its totally disturbing pink glory (glory?) This has just gone to show me that gun nuts are even creepier than I had previously believed.

I really hope I don't end up on some sort of Gun Lovers hit list now . . . sorry for that morbid thought . . .

Pretty much the most resilient grandma around

2007-11-29T19:00:00.000+01:00

Today is Thursday. Today my grandma was up at 6am, she made herself breakfast, she helped my mom feed the dogs, she put away dishes - aside from not lifting anything over 15 pounds with her left arm, she's living her normal life. Why is this of any interest to me or anyone else? Because my grandma had a modified radical mastectomy* on Tuesday.

Yup, a surgery that I thought would have her down for at least a few days barely phased her. She of course spent the day of the surgery in the hospital bed, but that was the beginning, middle and end of bed rest for her.

Yesterday my mom came into town and I was to pick her up a the airport. Of course it wasn't in the books that grandma would come, but since she was feeling so good, she decided it would be great fun to surprise my mom at the airport. I was going to go into the airport and grandma was going to wait in the car and we were looking forward to the look of surprise on her face. Now, I say that my grandma was feeling good, but I didn't realize how good until we were at the airport. I go into the airport, wait for my mom and we walk out of the airport together. Then I decide to walk to the back of the car, since you wouldn't see grandma as well until you actually got to the car, thus keeping the surprise until the last moment. Well, we walk around the back of the row of cars, look down the row, and see my grandmother - my grandmother who had a breast removed the day before! - crouched over, sneaking behind the back of the car. To clarify the image, she looked a bit like Golum from Lord of the Rings. She had been peeking out in front of the car to see if we were coming and then ran to the back when she saw us. It was pretty much the funniest thing I've seen all week and definitely assured me that grandma is doing pretty damn well.

* A modified radical mastectomy is the removal of an entire breast and the lymph nodes under the arms and is in contrast to a radical mastectomy in which the pectoral muscles under the breast are also removed. In keeping all that muscle, the patient is saved a bunch of time in physical therapy, learning to do things with a whole section of muscles missing. Modified radicals are far more common today and the traditional radical mastectomy is only performed when the cancer has spread to the surrounding area.

Back from the Love Boat, uhhh . . . I mean Peace Boat

2007-11-08T14:08:00.001+01:00

So I finally made it back from my 3.5 week journey to Jordan and the Mediteranean region. I'm still working on getting photos together from everyone -- I forgot my camera in the US and am just collecting photos from all my friends and hoping from the best. But, just to give you a taste of what's to come, here is a picture of me with some of my fellow students on board the Peace Boat. By the was, it's harder to breathe in a kimono than you might think.

There will be more soon!

I am the auditor

2007-09-27T15:09:00.001+02:00

I love the absurd. My lovely friends in Victoria also love the absurd, the silly, and the utterly offbeat -- that's why we are friends. So while I visited Victoria in August, it was no surprise that while at a cocktail bar, we found a drink called The Auditor. Now don't tell me you don't think this is completely silly, because it just is. It is almost as enjoyable that there is a drink above it on the menu called The Larry. I myself had to go for The Auditor, because what a better prop for posing for pictures could there ever be?

The menu.

Me--the auditor--considering the numbers.

Oh! Something is amiss! I've found some botched numbers!

Nazis suck . . . and I stole these pictures from the newspaper

2007-09-25T15:11:00.000+02:00

So way back when in July, some Neo-Nazis decided to come to Tübingen for a rally. Why did they choose the peaceful, left-leaning university town? Because it's a peaceful, left-leaning university town. And because, much to most Tübingen residents surprise, the city is home to a prominent right-wing extremist publishing house. Probably the only intelligent thing this publishing house does it to keep a low profile.

At any rate, I had written to inform you that this rally was happening and at that time promised photos of it all. Well, here they finally are, although they are taken from the local newspaper, as Sarah and I, in the excitement of the moment, both forgot to take cameras.

The rally against the rally, that is the peace rally that was organized in response to the fascist rally, started out in the Main Square of the city, where there were speakers, music, and lots of people handing out sunflowers, probably as a sign of peace and beauty.

We then walked down to the train station and stood around and waited for the Neo-Nazis. I was in this big crowd of people. There was a lot of music and people trying to have fun, but there is only so much fun to be had when you're packed into the bus station parking lot for six hours. Yup, we waited six hours for some people whose point of view we think is insanely uncool.

This is a scene we didn't see: the fascists arriving at the train station. This is actually probably what it looked like for a lot of the day, because the police did a great job of doing what they could: slowing those jerks down. Many people in the crown were calling for the police to stop the rally, but I must remind all citizens of democratic countries that the police don't make decisions, they only carry them out and if they were making decisions on their own about such things, that would be a reason for concern. At any rate, over a thousand police were there that day and they did a fantastic job.

Here are those cute Neo-Nazis again, surrounded by tons and tons of police officers. This was part of the efforts of the police to protect everyone involved in both rallies.

Here we see the police keeping the area in front of our group free. Technically, the Neo-Nazis had the right to march in front of where we were standing but the police thought it would be too dangerous for us to all get that close to each other and we whole-heartedly agreed. In fact, we never even saw the Neo-Nazis. For a few minutes at one point we could see their flags, but in the end they only got to march by the train tracks.

Here they are again. Pretty normal looking folks for the most part, except that they are holding a sign that says, "We can do everything except speak Turkish." This is a take-off on a popular advertisement for the state of Baden-Württemberg which jests that "We can do everything, except speak high German", which is the form of German that all Germans should be able to speak despite having different dialects.

At the end of the day, the Neo-Nazis left Tübingen and had a spontaneous rally in a near by town. The police there let them have their rally, but they weren't allowed to leave the train station parking lot, so I'm sure that was stirring. I think we were all glad about not having let them really enter our city at all, but it remains discouraging to everyone that such movements still exist.

Under Construction!

2007-09-12T21:37:00.000+02:00

Please excuse the current strange-looking Claire in Tuba-Town. I'm (slowly) working on improvements and learning how to make it look snazzier.

The Badlands -- Not bad after all

2007-08-24T17:22:00.000+02:00

Dear Readers,

I'm back.

Actually, I'm not really back in a physical way, as in being at my home in Germany or my home in Milwaukee. I'm in Cranbrook B.C. in a hotel with Miss Lewis, awaiting the wedding of our dear friend Marnie. On the way here we passed through the Badlands, which didn't live up to their name at all. They were beautiful! And to make the whole thing even more exciting, the Badlands National Park threw in some prairie dogs and buffalo! Just feet away from our car! Yahoooooo!

The Neo-Nazis are coming to Tübingen

2007-07-20T11:35:00.001+02:00

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.

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

2007-07-13T17:02:00.000+02:00

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.

I suck at this

2007-07-10T11:03:00.000+02:00

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.

Oh, I see, it was all just a big confusion!

2007-06-23T18:02:00.000+02:00

My friend Christian cares about the truth. As one of the head mediators in our upcoming mediation simulation, Christian is responsible for clearing up misunderstandings and helping people with differences understand each other. In that light, he sent me this video.

What this terribly informative video has taught me is that what many of us think of as pollution is actually life. Yes, it's really quite simple. Thank you, Christian, for bringing us the truth. Watch and learn.

Solar panel installed on my leg

2007-06-20T17:25:00.000+02:00

Yesterday I had this solar panel installed on my leg. It collects energy from the sun and powers a heater that provides my entire body with heat all day long.

It has also transformed my ankle from a collection of muscles, tendons, and bones that can move at will into solid mass. Since last night, I've thought of my foot at "club foot". While cleaning my room yesterday, I realized that I was using my club foot to slide things around on the floor. So, along with heating my body, it's also a useful tool. How cool is that?

These are the people in my neighborhood . . .

2007-06-18T17:18:00.001+02:00

in my neighborhood!

in my neigh-bor-ho-ood!

I live in a pretty typical residential neighborhood in Tübingen. Most of the houses are either single-family or houses with 3-4 apartments in them. They have gardens. A canal/little river runs along the street. It's normal.

Thank goodness for the characters in my neighborhood. I can think of four people in my neighborhood that I see frequently and am 1) highly amused by and 2) who make the song "These are the people in my neighborhood" play in my head. Unfortunately, I'm too polite and/or wimpy to take pictures of them for this blog. I'm so sorry. You'll have to make do with my artful descripions.

The Absent-minded Professor: This name really says it all. I probably don't even need to describe this guy to you, but I'll just do it for the sake of posterity. The professor is an older gentleman, probably in his late sixties, and goes for frequent walks with his obese, wirey-haired dog, which appears to be a dachshund or something of the sort. He himself has a large mass of gray wirey hair, causing him to kind of match his dog. I have never seen him without a three-piece suit on. The absent-minded professor isn't all that strange, but rather a delightful and intriguing character.

Woman who should probably be institutionalized: Woman who should probably be institutionalized is probably in her late thirties or early fourties and can be spotted most any days wearing clothes which are quite innapropriate for the weather. Mostly she just talks with herself, but once, while I was sitting in the car, getting ready to drive away, she walked by the driver's window and smacked my window quite forcefully. I don't mean to poke fun of the mentally ill, but it was pretty amusing.

Skirt Man: If you were to just look at a headshot of skirt man, you would probably guess that he worked in a bank or something really normal like that. Maybe at the train station. At any rate, he dresses in full goth garb, including a long black skirt and reidculously large platforms with metal plates on the heels.

Model Man: Model man is my absolute favorite neighbor. Model man is tall, skinny, and not remarkably good looking. Yet, whenever I see him his hair is perfectly styled and he's got the full-on catwalk gait going on. Regardless of the weather he dons sunglasses and always has the perfect runway straight face. Love it, love it, love it.

So if you haven't visited yet, you should. We could sit down with some gin and tonics at the bus stop across from my house and just watch these people. I'd really like that.

The Joy of Jumping (for photos)

2007-06-12T08:22:00.000+02:00

Unfortunately, I am not of the opinion that jumping is, in and of itself, a particularly fun activity. I'm sure there are plenty of people that would disagree with me, but I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that 95% of them are under the age of 10. At some point I think jumping become a reminder of how heavy or breakable you are. And from recent experience I can tell you that jumping is pretty strenuous, not only in terms of energy expended, but also in terms of impact on joints and feet.

But enough of me being down on the jump because the point of this whole post is that jumping makes for cool pictures. On our way back from Bron-Yr-Aur (remember, the cottage where Led Zeppelin stayed for a bit) we took the following jumping shots and I am pleased both with how they turned out as well as with how good I am at jumping . Until now I was always under the impression that me feet barely left the ground when I jumped.

The Moustache Series

2007-06-11T10:55:00.000+02:00

A rainy Sunday in Brighton.

Maria took me out for a traditional Sunday roast at a very hip pub in the (maybe) North Lanes of Brighton. Her cousin Bruce came along and we had a lovely afternoon over a lovely roast. After we had eaten and drunk to our contentment, we decided to take a stroll through the Lanes and do a bit of shopping in the few stores open on a Sunday. One of these open stores happened to be a costume shop and there I found a lovely fake mustache, which I bought without hesitation.

The following is a series of self-portraits taken the day of the mustache purchase.

There are many more mustache stories and pictures to come. So many more.

Three's the way to be

2007-06-07T19:38:00.000+02:00

In the planning of this trip, Maria went out on a limb. She decided to invite her old friend Eric from high school to join us on our journey to Wales. Why do I say that she went out on a limb? Well, because friends of friends don't always get along. I'm not suggesting that the chances of us really not getting along were all that great, but it was certainly possible that Eric and I wouldn't hit it off or that the dynamics between the three of us wouldn't be that great.

But as I think you've already guessed, that wasn't the case at all.

Eric met us in Cardiff on Wednesday evening after the last exam of his undergraduate career and the next morning we left bright and early for Wales. Although Maria and I had already been contemplating a trip to Wales, it was Eric's pilgrimage to a cottage where Led Zeppelin wrote some of their best tunes.

So off we went to the small town of, eep, I can say it but I can't write it, to visit Bron-Yr-Aur, the little cabin where Led Zeppelin chilled for a few months. Yup, the picture below is the famed (not really) Bron-Yr-Auer.

We did a bunch of other stuff on the trip, but if I told you all about it now I wouldn't have anything to write about tomorrow. So for now I'll have to leave you hanging and say that there is more to come.

Point of this post: traveling with Eric and Maria rocked and I'm looking for ways to go on vacation with the two of them again one day. Thanks you two!

Tea Time!

2007-06-06T19:20:00.000+02:00

As I may have already mentioned, I didn't expect much from British food, especially tea time. Not expecting much can be a fantastic thing though, as it sets you up to be really pleasantly surprised. And surprised I was when I partook in my first afternoon tea.

So the tea part is pretty standard. Very good black tea, sugar, and milk. Then comes the excitement:

Cucumber sandwiches; fruitcake; and scones with butter, jam, and the piece de resistance, the clotted cream. Now I know that the name "clotted cream" sounds horrible and you might be considering upchucking, but wait, not so soon. Clotted cream was sent from heaven to make people happy and probably to give them heart attacks. Scones with butter, jam, and clotted cream was one of the most purely delectable things I have ever placed in my mouth. Then some tea and cucumber sandwiches to clear the palate . . . divine! The fruit cake could be cut out of the equation if you ask me, but apparently the tea house didn't ask me, so I ate part of it.

So in case you haven't picked up on it by now, I was quite taken by the British tradition of afternoon tea. I do however hope that the Germans do not sell clotted cream because I don't think it should be an addition to my daily diet or my waistline.

Me in the midst of it all!

The famed cucumber sandwiches -- simple, elegant, delicious.

Treacle or Spotted Dick?

2007-06-04T17:17:00.000+02:00

I didn't go to Great Britain with high hopes about the British cuisine. Was I expecting a wide array of Indian and other ethnic food? Yes. But good British food, not really. Well, for the most part, the Brits did some pretty good cookin', due much to the fact that they have warmly embraced fusion cooking (was it really a choice or more of a necessity?). However, a trip to a British restaurant or the grocery store will take you back to the old standby stereotypes.

Treacle and Spotted Dick.

A few days before this picture was taken Maria and I were eating at Wetherspoons, a popular UK pub chain. We weren't stuffed after our meal and thus, in the tradition of the trip, decided to get dessert to ensure we were adequately gorged. I ordered some chocolate ice cream concoction and Maria decided to be daring and order the Treacle Sponge. In retrospect, the name should have tipped us off to the badness of what was to come, but I guess it seemed intriguing at the time. At any rate, it turned out to be a big mistake and Maria suffered from 'treacle belly,' an ailment in which evil treacle releases its spongy rage on you, for the better part of the evening.

On my second to last day in the UK, we made a trip to the grocery store to stock up on Twinings tea, HP Sauce, and lemon marmalade. While strolling through the isle we saw the strange and disturbing pairing of treacle and spotted dick on the shelf. What does it all mean? Not really too sure. Luckily, Wikipedia has come to the rescue again and has informed me that spotted dick is "a steamed pudding, containing dried fruits, usually currants. The dessert is especially popular in the United Kingdom, usually served either with custard or with butter and brown sugar. Spotted refers to the currants (which resemble spots) and dick may be a corruption of the word dough.It is also known as spotted dog, plum duff, figgy dowdy, as well as plum bolster, and Spotted Richard." I'd say that the fact that it is also called 'Spotted Richard' kind of debunks their dough story, but what do I know. All I could learn about treacle is that it's just a word for molasses.

Moral of the story: don't eat treacle sponge and steer clear of spotted dick . . . although I'm guessing that won't be too much of a challenge.

Share with me your wisdom, oh wise ones!

2007-05-02T15:52:00.000+02:00

I know you've all been anxiously awaiting my Easter entry, but it's going to have to wait. I need advice! My digital camera is starting to get seriously finicky and I suspect that he/she is approaching the end of his/her life. I, on the other hand, am still kickin' and taking photos left and right. I am also going on a very cool trip in the fall to Jordan, Egypt, and the Mediterranean area aboard the Japanese Peace Boat (more on that later) and want to take wicked cool pics of everything while I'm there.

Soooo, the point of this is, I would like your advice about digital cameras. I was somewhat in the know three years ago when I bought my beloved Canon Powershot A80, but things have changed and I fear I have been left behind. Do you love your digital camera? Do you hate it? What rocks about it? Tell me!

Thanks!

My teeth are cleaner than your teeth

2007-04-25T23:01:00.000+02:00

My teeth are cleaner than your teeth. Unless you're German, and in that case, you could possibly have teeth as clean as mine, but not cleaner, oh no. To be honest, I can't really fathom cleaner teeth than mine.

You see, yesterday I went to the dentist and shelled out 80 Euros for a professional cleaning. Unfortunately, the term 'professional cleaning' doesn't really convey to the average American reader (or to anyone who hasn't had one before) the true significance of the procedure. It is serious. (Caitlin, I'm still undecided about if it's fucking around or not fucking around about fucking around.) The procedure began with a supersonic or ultrasonic cleaning. I believe that the purpose of this was the shake the plaque off of my teeth. This was followed by a step which was comparable to sand blasting but which was carried out with lemon powder. Then came the part I was familiar with -- the polishing. And last but not least came the fluoride treatment that smelled like nail polish remover. All of this stuff was pretty horrible. I yelped in pain more than once.

But I would do it again. I will do it again in the recommended amount of time because, sweet jesus, my teeth have never been this clean. My respect for German dentistry has skyrocketed and I'd like to invite any of you to come by and see my dentist for a cleaning.

Oh sweet Jesus, thank you for jogurt cheese

2007-04-23T20:05:00.000+02:00

Yogurt Cheese.

Say it again.

Yogurt Cheese.

Yup, I said yogurt cheese. And I will follow that with a big MMMMMMMMMMMMM! A big shout out goes to the Moosewood Cookbook for introducing me to yogurt cheese, my new favorite food. Think good plain yogurt, tasty and sour, but the consistency of cream cheese. Who needed all that water anyways?

Yogurt cheese was easy as can be to make, as well. All I had to do (and all you would have to do if you decided to make yogurt cheese) is to put a few coffee filters in a strainer, put a bowl under it, put yogurt in the coffee filters (gelatin free please!), cover the whole shabang in plastic wrap and let it go to town! After a few hours it is advisable to drain the water from the bowl so that it doesn't get super full and touch the yogurt cheese.

I'm not exactly sure what the many uses are for yogurt cheese are yet, but I enjoyed it with a spoon quite a bit. I am a cheese-loving Wisconsinite though . . . Brown rice came to mind . . . what else? Curried veggies . . .

I'm open to all suggestions, just try some yogurt cheese. By the way, I used full-fat yogurt, but you could also use low-fat yogurt if you're a big sissy or something.

PS Maybe this is kind of like quark, the stuff that German people eat loads of . . .

Ah yes, the next entry will cover the incredibly current topic of Easter. Start checking in regularly again, I'll be posting!

Let us examine a jar of peanut butter

2007-04-10T13:35:00.000+02:00

Thanks to Jack for this video tip and to Chuck Missler for finally setting me straight about that evolution crap.

So very reminiscent of a Peter Gabriel music video

2007-04-05T12:25:00.000+02:00

On Sunday I was in Stuttgart with my friend Dan and while walking by the new castle, our attention was caught by an orange street performer. His first act was my favorite because of the fact that it was reminiscent of a Peter Gabriel music video. Unfortunately, I only remember that I had my camera along at the very end.

Wow! I spawned a discussion!!

2007-04-02T22:37:00.000+02:00

One of the things that I do to waste my time and to feed the obsessive element of my personality is to look at my blog counter. I can see where the visitors to my blog are from and how they got to my site.

Today I saw that someone from France had looked at my page, and since I don't really know many people in France and don't have many readers in France, I thought I'd take a closer look at how they got here. I clicked on the page that linked them to my blog and was shocked to find that one of my blog entries about Germans loving Lauryn Hill had been posted on a Lauryn Hill web forum and had generated a bit of discussion. I'm so very honored! I was also incredibly thankful that I wasn't torn to shreds by the critics . . .

MC Rove

2007-03-30T19:06:00.000+02:00

MC Rove

This link constitutes one of the strangest and most disturbing things that I have seen in a long time. Throughout this 2.5 minute long video I was tempted to turn it off because it was just to strange (and I'm generally a fan of the odd and outlandish) but I held out and you should too, because this video takes our current administration to a whole new level of absurd and sinister.

And then it rained deodorant . . .

2007-03-28T18:28:00.000+02:00

I had just gotten out of the shower and was going through my usual routine of putting on lotion and deodorant. All of a sudden I felt many very small particles falling into my side and back. I was terribly confused.

But really, at this point I should take a few steps backwards and tell this story from the very beginning.

The very beginning of the story is that I've become European in another way: I use and enjoy using spray deodorant. Of course there are some Americans that use spray deodorant, but the majority of them prefer solid or gel deodorants. It certainly took me awhile to warm up to the idea but I'm totally sold now. In fact I had even begun to take spray deodorant for granted until numerous North American guests commented on the strangeness of my deodorant preferences. So that explains what I was doing with spray deodorant in the beginning.

Now comes part two of the story: the words that kept ringing in my head. The day that Johannes left for New York he asked to use my deodorant because he had packed his, so I handed over the can. He took it, lifted his arm, sprayed and then wondered aloud, "Why isn't it cold?" He tried again and this time a pleased look of contentment spread across his face as if to say, "It's cold now." I am of course referring to the coldness of products that come out of pressurized cans.

So here we are in the moment directly before it started raining deodorant on my body. I sprayed my armpit and then heard those fateful words again, "Why isn't it cold," and I decided to spray again. That's when the rain started. To be honest, it totally freaked me out. I felt it first, then looked down and was completely terrified to see little white flecks all over my body. I thought that perhaps they were falling from my nasty foam-core ceiling. But no, it was just way too much deodorant. Way way too much deodorant. My shock multiplied when I looked at my armpit, because it was totally white as well. Have a look for yourself:

The armpit.

That's me looking kind of shocked and freaked out about my armpit and having been rained on by deodorant.

This is the culprit, Rexona Girl. Covered user in white flakes? Check.
I bet that's what the check mark on the bottle is for. Seriously.

Germans take the song "Eye of the Tiger" to a whole new level

2007-03-26T13:22:00.000+02:00

This past weekend I traveled to Speyer to visit my old host families and to go to my host brother's graduation dance/dinner. In most regards this dinner/dance was quite comparable to prom. The most notable difference is that the family and friends of the graduates are invited and the graduates put together a bit of a show for their guests. While I wasn't all that impressed with the planned entertainment, I was terribly amused by the reaction of the audience to the song "Eye of the Tiger".

Everyone on the dance floor did classic parter dancing. Everyone. Maybe you too have tone some classic partner dancing to "Eye of the Tiger" and don't see it as a particularly strange thing to do. I, on the other hand, have only ever witnessed people "rocking out" to this song -- bouncing head, jumping, possibly moving arms about wildly -- and was thus quite shocked (and maybe in some way pleased) to see "Eye of the Tiger" accepted into the world of pairs dancing.

Two couples "rocking out" German style to the 1982 hit, "Eye of the Tiger".

A note of clarification: calming words for the masses

2007-03-20T21:58:00.000+01:00

Today my friend Alli left a concerned comment after the hot water bottle post. It reads as follows:

"I feel like I need more details.

Do you boil water? That kind of hot?

How long does it stay warm? I mean, is it lovely as you're going to sleep and then, you wake up in the wee hours, and your bottle is cold, and it makes waking up just that little bit worse because you remember when it was warm?

I'm worried."

No need to be worried, Ms. Larsh! Yes, I usually boil the water and then pour it from my kettle into a small pitcher that has an excellent spout, which is much better for pouring into the small neck of the hot water bottle. Then one inserts the bottle back into the stuffed casing and gets into bed, as outlined repeatedly in the last post.

The great thing is that is stays warm for hours. If it stays under the covers with you, it may still be warm when you wake up. If not, it's usually not cold enough to actually make you cold. By then you are usually in your warm sleeping mode anyway and it's ok. At that point, the bottle continues to be nice to cuddle with because of it's mass. I'm not sure why this is so, but it is.

Alli, if you need me to send you a stuffed water bottle friend, just let me know. I'm here for you.

One small step towards German-ness, one giant leap towards warmth

2007-03-19T22:53:00.000+01:00

For times like this when I have little to report about the events that fill my days, I like to delve into the photo archives and into my memories as well. The topic of this entry is the hot water bottle. The purchase of said water bottle was a major event in 2006. And really, when I say 'small step towards German-ness', I really mean 'freakin' huge step'. In the same respect, when I say 'giant leap towards warmth', I mean 'is warmth in its essence and entire being.'

Now I know that hot water bottles aren't just German. I know that we have them in America too (by the way, I like to pronounce 'America' like this: a-merrr-ka) but who have you ever seen using a water bottle? I believe the last time I even heard about a hot water bottle was in a Judy Bloom book about the start of menstruation. If you're cold in A-merrr-ka, then to the best of my knowledge you warm yourself with electricity or fossil fuels. Although my family insisted upon keeping the house at frosty temps to save on heating bills and maybe to be environmentally friendly, we were no strangers to electric mattress pads or electric heating pads in general.

Thus, when I moved to Germany so many years ago, the hot water bottle was truly a phenomenon. A phenomenon which took me about seven years to approach and get to know. Seven years. Think about all the fear of the unknown that develops in seven years. Really, think about it.

Then, one day last spring I was in the grocery store of all places and they had hot water bottles with snuggly animal cases for just 3 Euros and I knew I had to act. However, after purchasing said snuggly hot water bottle, it sat on a high shelf in my closet through spring, summer, and fall. I thought about using it and then at the last moment I always turned away, for doing something for the first time can just be daunting at times.

In December I was visiting my darling host sister, Anna, when I was overcome with illness. Anna, being a good German, gave me a hot water bottle to sooth my aching body. And voila, I was in love!

Throughout the cold winter (ok, it actually wasn't that cold) I diligently filled my little ducky with hot water, crawled into bed, and had some of the most glorious nights of sleep of my entire life.

Thus, when Maria came to visit over Christmas, I knew that she must also have a hot water bottle. Because wouldn't it be cruel to fill up my snuggly hot water bottle each night, crawl into bed, and have the best night of sleep ever, while next to me, a cold little Maria lie awake) (OK, the awake part probably isn't that likely, but I digress.) And to be honest, the thought of just giving her my hot water bottle for the duration of her stay was far too much for my fiendishly warm egocentric self. And so, for her birthday, she got this little lamby.

And that is the story of the hot water bottle, one of the little things that makes me feel more German . . . and warm.

Long walks and SHEEP!!

2007-03-14T16:30:00.000+01:00

The sun is back, the days are getting longer and the weather is borderline warm -- time for walking. During a warm spell in the winter Kristen got me into walking. In over two years of living in Tübingen and being surrounded with big hills all covered in woods, I had been walking in the woods maybe 4 times, max. I am indeed quite lucky that K tuned me onto the wonders that are just feet away from my doorstep because climbing those hills is not just good, knee-friendly exercise, it's also an incredible sanity builder. Got a problem? Feeling neurotic? Feeling down in the dumps? Mad at someone? I suggest a walk in the hilly woods! (Even better is to start with a nap, wake up, have a light snack, and then head out to the woods.)

Anyhoo, I'm getting off track here. The thing I was actually really excited about was the sheep. I got to the top of my big big hill, looked up, and saw sheep sheep sheep! Yahoo! You might not know this about me, but I love sheep. I think they have great faces, I love wool, they say great things -- what's not to love? Actually, when I got to the top of the hill and saw the sheep I actually uttered the words, and pardon the language here, "F#%k yeah" because (1) I was really happy to see sheep and (2) because they seemed to me to be a sign of good things to come.

So, in conclusion, yeah to walking and yeah to sheep.

This is a picture of me making a sheep face. Not quite as good as my toothbrush cover impression, but not so off base if you ask me.

My Favorite German Tradition

2007-03-12T08:56:00.000+01:00

Weisswurstfrühstück!

Weisswurstfrühstück, or a breakfast of white sausages, is one of my very favorite German traditions. The picture of Johannes above pretty much sums up the Weisswurstfrühstück experience: white sausage, wheat beer, and big pretzels. The breakfast/brunch is traditionally served before noon, although I don't think we pulled ourselves together in time for the deadline. Carina and Ari did come over at 11 but it seemed that the only things we had were pretzels and sweet mustard, thus lacking the key ingredients of sausage and beer.

I kind of forgot to take pictures until the breakfast was well underway . . . so it's a bit meager looking. Actually, Weisswurste and co. never really look good . . . they just taste delicious. Also featured on this plate is a pile of white which is Johannes' onion dip -- delicious.

Here Carina executes an excellent Weizen pour. The rule was that you had to drink one beer (1/2 liter) for every pair of sausages that you ate . . . oh my.

The preparation of the pretzels! Big big salt! If you've never had a big German pretzel and you're thinking that it's maybe like big pretzels in America, please think again. They are not comparable.

After our breakfast we went for a short walk in vineyards to, you guessed it, keep drinking beer. The sun was shining and tons of people were out walking, hanging out with family and jogging. We were the only people we saw sitting on a bench with beer . . .

In conclusion, I recommend all of you to come to Germany and have a Weisswurstfrühstück with me. Don't be daunted by how icky Weisswürste look; I can assure you that they are delicious!

Berlin Highlight #247: Glasses

2007-03-03T16:01:00.000+01:00

It is no exaggeration to say that my trip to Berlin revolved around glasses. Two beautiful specimens owned by Matthias, Caitlin's beau. One doesn't just wear these glasses; one wears a persona. Donning the glasses means adopting a new personality or simply realizing an previously ignored aspect of your own.

Wearing the glasses is a form of self creation of self recreation.

Wearing the glasses is the ultimate disguise. You become utterly unrecognizable.

Wearing the glasses changes how you are seen by others and by yourself. They change the way you walk . . .

. . .and the people that will talk to you (Do you honestly thing Paris would hang with Matthias if he was glassesless?)

The glasses add a newfound element of seriousness to your life and to your being.

Glasses.

You can say that again

2007-03-02T11:42:00.000+01:00

In Berlin, I saw two signs that I really enjoyed.

Wait a minute, you moisturized with text books.

Unfortunately, this ad isn't as funny as it seems; in reality it is encouraging us to spend less money on beauty products and more money to help children fulfill their basic needs.

This one is pretty self explanatory and EXCELLENT! Sorry that it's a bit blurry, but I took it with my cell phone.

You love cheerleaders!

2007-02-28T11:40:00.000+01:00

You love cheerleaders!

This was my mantra as I tried to convince three young men to get out of bed on a Saturday morning to watch my friend Caitlin and her fellow cheerleaders at a promotional event. You wouldn't think that young men, or men of any age for that matter, would need a lot of prodding to go see some cheerleaders, but these men were no easy sell.

First of all, they're German. I believe they saw the cheerleaders as a strange and misplaced form of American culture, which they are. I however, tried to use this as its quirky selling point. Furthermore, these are smart masters student boys who like history and culture, so cheerleaders might not have done it for them quite as much as say, the Pergamon Museum for example.

Benny, Johannes, and Christian waiting for the show to begin.

In the end, however, I won. I'm not sure if they accompanied me because of the boobs and the midriff tops or if they were somehow unable to resist my feminine charms or if, perhaps most likely, they just went out of pity for me.

So what was this cheerleading extravaganza?

E-Sports Tournament

Huh?

Yeah, that was my reaction too. E-Sports are electronic sports, as in video games. And this was a tournament of the best video game soccer players in Berlin, the region, the world? I dunno. Can't really tell you. Caitlin and her troop were, however, really cheerleading, not e-cheerleading. They were there "for the men in the crowd", although I think the average age was like 11, so I guess they meant for the guys with me and the dads. Unfortunately, we had to wait for ages for the cheerleaders to go on and the whole thing to begin because Giovanni, the B-rate celebrity that was hosting this thing, was taking his sweet time getting there.

Giovanni being a bad ass on the red carpet with his cheerleader escorts.

For this picture I asked Benny to make a pissed off face. The thing I like best about this shot is the fact that we interpreted pissed off so differently but both look really pissed off. We were sick of waiting.

I think this is my favorite picture because you can just feel Christian's excitement about the cheerleaders.

In the end we went into the movie theater, listened to a bunch of crappola about eSports, saw one dance from the cheerleaders and then got the hell out of there. I managed to waste a good part of everyone's day, for which I very much hope they will someday forgive me.

Oh yeah, I got some free popcorn too. That was kind of cool.

I heart Berlin

2007-02-26T10:30:00.000+01:00

Berlin was, as always, a good time.

The field trip (i.e., the reason for the trip) was a success, albeit a pretty silly one. I say silly because it is not only the streets of Berlin that are filled with goons, but the political foundations, international organizations, and television stations as well. We had two jam-packed days of activity, including the Federal Foreign Office, Deutsche Welle TV, the Arab League/League of Arab States, the Heinrich Böll Foundation, the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, and the IfA gallery.

I'd like to write more about the trip but lesson planning is nipping at my ankles, so I'll have to save that for later. In the meantime, I invite you to look at the few Berlin pictures that I took.

Berlin, Februar 2007

Pretty much the greatest music video, umm . . . EVER

2007-02-24T00:48:00.001+01:00

OK Go - Here It Goes Again

Don't tell me this doesn't terrify you

2007-02-20T23:55:00.000+01:00

Yes, it's true: these pictures are from my home. Sent to me by my dear parents, they document the stunningly terrifying Moon/Antarctica cross-over that is Wisconsin. Amazing really, since we've barely felt winter at all in Germany.

The funny thing about not really having winter is that I have begun to convince myself that I can handle the cold. I believe that the reality of the situation is another -- it's not actually that cold outside and thus I'm not freezing. No actual adjustment has taken place in my body. Most unfortunate really.

Any-hoo, I'm off to Berlin tomorrow and have no idea what my time, motivation, or internet access will be. We'll see what happens, but I wouldn't worry about it because I'm not wild about being away from the dear blog for all that long.

Goodnight my friends; sweet dreams!

who did they made the tuba

2007-02-17T02:02:00.000+01:00

Well my friends in Mundelein, Illinois, I don't know. Your question, however, is valid: Who did they made the tuba? And yet I still wonder: Did you find the answer to your query on my blog? I would dare to say, no.

The title of this blog entry is the string of words that a person/some people in Mundelein, Illinois typed into Google and to which my blog came up as one of the top hits. And so the question is raised: How do strangers find their way to my blog. Until recently, my blog was accessible mainly to people who knew the URL. Then I got greedy and decided that I wanted more readers (more readers, muaahahaha!!!) and made the blog public. Since then a slow trickle of readers has appeared, among them our curious friend from Mundelein, Illinois. The interesting thing is that I can see the terms used to search for a webpage in google. And thus I found the search phrase "who did they made the tuba". This is how people come to my site. What does this mean about me? About my site? About my readers?

I dunno, but I'm going to bed. Thanks for all the advice about my sore bum. My almost doctor friend, Kai, totally backs you up on that going to the doctor thing. I'm going, I'm going.

How long should this hurt?

2007-02-15T18:40:00.000+01:00

Around Christmas I fell on my bum. The situation was this . . . wait . . . this might get embarrassing fast. The long and short of it was that I fell out of my chair once and then my friend Stefan thought it would be funny to pull the chair out from under me when I was getting back up. Haa haa.

My bum still hurts.

Well, not my bum exactly, but my tailbone. Is this normal?

I looked on the internet and it said that a bruised or fractured tailbone could hurt for ages and, get this, that I should be sitting on a donut cushion while it heals. I don't know about you, but that sounds slightly demeaning to me. But who am I kidding, I'm the one writing about my bum on my public blog.

Anyhoo, if anyone has experience with such things, let me know. You've all got bums, so I'm sure one of you has bruised it before.

I'm saving my own life!

2007-02-13T10:36:00.000+01:00

My good friends at Harvard University just let me in on some great great news: I'm saving my own life! And how am I saving myself? No, I haven't accepted Jesus Christ as my Savior and I suppose doing that only promises to save your soul, not your life. I take naps!

"A study that followed more than 23,000 people for six years showed that regular napping can cut deaths from heart disease by as much as 37 percent, providing a benefit in the same order of magnitude as that linked to lowering cholesterol, eating a healthy diet, or exercising."

And what I think I like most about the study is that it was carried out by Dimitrios Trichopoulos, a Greek scientist. The reason I love this fact is that my friend Stelios, a Greek Cypriot, is the biggest advocate of the siesta that I have ever met. You've got a problem? Stelios will advise a siesta. You just ate? He'll tell you to take a siesta? You're nervous? Siesta. It's Tuesday? Siesta. You get the point. This culture appreciates the joy and practicality of the nap.

So do something good for yourself without even feeling guilty -- take a nap!

The hidden evils of Ladie's Night

2007-02-12T13:17:00.000+01:00

Thank God injustices like this are coming to the forefront.

Christmas Food Come to Life

2007-02-12T09:15:00.000+01:00

After a long stretch of avid blog writing, I seem to have entered a short phase of writer's block. Well, not really writer's block. That might imply that I had some ideas but just couldn't get them on the page. No no, this is the far simpler problem of just not having any ideas at the moment.

However, this isn't your fault and you're obviously upset about it. I get comments and e-mails either encouraging me to write more or commanding me to do so. And I hate very much to disappoint my readers because it is very kind of them to read in the first place. To remedy this problem I decided to look at Maria's blog for ideas. Mainly I was looking for pictures of our weeks together that would make me laugh and think of a story to tell you. It took about 36 seconds for me to find such pictures.

The theme of today's entry, as you can see above, is 'Christmas Food Come to Life' and documents the animation/reanimation of two items of food, a cookie and a tomato. The cookie was meant to have personality--that's how we made him--but the strength of his personality and his liveliness could never have been predicted. My friends, I give you the Italian moon man.

Needless to say, we ate him last.

Our second case of food come to life is this tomato from our deeeeee-licious Christmas pizza. Now the amazing part about the tomato is that neither Maria nor I can really take credit for his creation, he just was. What is somewhat alarming, however, is how a creature that came into being through the creation of a delicious pizza would look so terribly angry. He too was eaten in the end.

So there you have it, Christmas Food Come to Life.

I knew there was something fishy about Google

2007-02-08T22:11:00.000+01:00

The technology behind Google's great results

As a Google user, you're familiar with the speed and accuracy of a Google search. How exactly does Google manage to find the right results for every query as quickly as it does? The heart of Google's search technology is PigeonRank™, a system for ranking web pages developed by Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin at Stanford University.

Building upon the breakthrough work of B. F. Skinner, Page and Brin reasoned that low cost pigeon clusters (PCs) could be used to computer the relative value of web pages faster than human editors or machine-based algorithms. And while Google has dozens of engineers working to improve every aspect of our service on a daily basis, PigeonRank continues to provied the basis for all of our web search tools.

Why Google's patented PigeonRank™ works so well

PigeonRank's success relies primarily on the superior trainability of the domestic pigeon (Columba livia) and its unique capacity to recognize objects regardless of spatial orientation. The common gray pigeon can easily distinguish among items displaying only the minutest differences, an ability that enables it to select relevant web sites from among thousands of similar pages.

By collecting flocks of pigeons in dense clusters, Google is able to process search queries at speeds superior to traditional search engines, which typically rely on birds of prey, brooding hens or slow-moving waterfowl to do their relevance rankings.

When a search query is submitted to Google, it is routed to a data coop where monitors flash result pages at blazing speeds. When a relevant result is observed by one of the pigeons in the cluster, it strikes a rubber-coated steel bar with its beak, which assigns the page a PigeonRank value of one. For each peck, the PigeonRank increases. Those pages receiving the most pecks, are returned at the top of the user's results page with the other results displayed in pecking order.

Integrity

Google's pigeon-driven methods make tampering with our results extremely difficult. While some unscrupulous websites have tried to boost their ranking by including images on their pages of bread crumbs, bird seed and parrots posing seductively in resplendent plumage, Google's PigeonRank technology cannot be deceived by these techniques. A Google search is an easy, honest and objective way to find high-quality websites with information relevant to your search.

Data

PigeonRank Frequently Asked Questions

How was PigeonRank developed?

The ease of training pigeons was documented early in the annals of science and fully explored by noted psychologist B.F. Skinner, who demonstrated that with only minor incentives, pigeons could be trained to execute complex tasks such as playing ping pong, piloting bombs or revising the Abatements, Credits and Refunds section of the national tax code.

Brin and Page were the first to recognize that this adaptability could be harnessed through massively parallel pecking to solve complex problems, such as ordering large datasets or ordering pizza for large groups of engineers. Page and Brin experimented with numerous avian motivators before settling on a combination of linseed and flax (lin/ax) that not only offered superior performance, but could be gathered at no cost from nearby open space preserves. This open space lin/ax powers Google's operations to this day, and a visit to the data coop reveals pigeons happily pecking away at lin/ax kernels and seeds.

What are the challenges of operating so many pigeon clusters (PCs)?

Pigeons naturally operate in dense populations, as anyone holding a pack of peanuts in an urban plaza is aware. This compactability enables Google to pack enormous numbers of processors into small spaces, with rack after rack stacked up in our data coops. While this is optimal from the standpoint of space conservation and pigeon contentment, it does create issues during molting season, when large fans must be brought in to blow feathers out of the data coop. Removal of other pigeon byproducts was a greater challenge, until Page and Brin developed groundbreaking technology for converting poop to pixels, the tiny dots that make up a monitor's display. The clean white background of Google's home page is powered by this renewable process.

Aren't pigeons really stupid? How do they do this?

While no pigeon has actually been confirmed for a seat on the Supreme Court, pigeons are surprisingly adept at making instant judgments when confronted with difficult choices. This makes them suitable for any job requiring accurate and authoritative decision-making under pressure. Among the positions in which pigeons have served capably are replacement air traffic controllers, butterfly ballot counters and pro football referees during the "no-instant replay" years.

Where does Google get its pigeons? Some special breeding lab?

Google uses only low-cost, off-the-street pigeons for its clusters. Gathered from city parks and plazas by Google's pack of more than 50 Phds (Pigeon-harvesting dogs), the pigeons are given a quick orientation on web site relevance and assigned to an appropriate data coop.

Isn't it cruel to keep pigeons penned up in tiny data coops?

Google exceeds all international standards for the ethical treatment of its pigeon personnel. Not only are they given free range of the coop and its window ledges, special break rooms have been set up for their convenience. These rooms are stocked with an assortment of delectable seeds and grains and feature the finest in European statuary for roosting.

What's the future of pigeon computing?

Google continues to explore new applications for PigeonRank and affiliated technologies. One of the most promising projects in development involves harnessing millions of pigeons worldwide to work on complex scientific challenges. For the latest developments on Google's distributed cooing initiative, please consider signing up for out Google Friends newsletter.

So if you saw this when it came out on April Fools' Day in 2002, you're way cool. Oh wait, you forgot to tell me about it? Not cool. Many many thanks to Fabi for the heads up! Ah yes, here's the link to the original.

PS If any other blogger can tell me why the text spacing is irregular in some of the paragraphs I may well bestow upon them my eternal love.

You'll never know fear or pain like this

2007-01-30T10:59:00.000+01:00

Dear fellow iPod owners,

I guarantee that you have no idea how dependent you are on your iPod. No idea.

Until Monday evening, I was also in the dark about my intense emotional dependency. I was at the grocery store, doing what one does there (y'know, buying groceries and listening to music), and I heard a *crackle crackle* mixed in with the music and then silence. I was immediately certain that it was the headphones. "Crap headphones," I thought to myself, "I'll have to get some new ones ASAP." I think I then added a mental "Stat!" to really hit home the urgency of the situation to myself. Later that evening I thought of going to the gym without my headphones and it instantly became clear that I could never stay put on that crap elliptical machine without either some rockin' tunes or This American Life, so I asked Patty if she had any headphones. Indeed she did and she was cool with lending them too me, even though they were the kind that go in your ear and she doesn't even know what kind of ear hygiene I have (by the way, I have really good ear hygiene). New headphones in hand, I decide a test run is in order: I plug them in, I scroll around on the strange little iPod wheel to find a song, I press play, I wait, I wait, I wait--you get the point. Nothing. I try plugging it into my speakers. Nothing. I start to shake. Stay calm, Claire, stay calm. Look for iPod box, find iPod box, look at receipt and warranty information: warranty ran out on January 3. Shaking resumes. Depression sets in instantly. How could this be? Just one year with my iPod and this is it? I felt like I had been dumped by my soul mate--how could I continue living without the iPod?

Now this is the part where most of you are thinking "Claire, you are just way too nuts about your portable MP3 player" and this is also the part where I tell you, if you are a portable MP3 player owner, that you just don't know what it's like until you go through it.

Alright, to make a long story, well, not short but less long at least, I can tell you that I eventually got the idea of restoring the factory settings and low and behold the iPod caressed my ears with its sweet sweet melodies again.

Moral of the story: To avoid immeasurable pain and anguish, make sure your iPod is still under warranty and if it is, buy the extended warranty. And just acknowledge to yourself the fact that you are totally in love with it and couldn't live without it.

The bliss of an iPod brought back to life.

A appreciative snuggly moment with the iPod.

Finally a good wine came and found me!

2007-01-29T18:45:00.000+01:00

After almost a year of living in my current apartment and thus shopping at my current grocery store (because it's by my house, duh), I have finally located a cheap and tasty wine there. You may not know this, but Germany is a country which is filled with good, cheap wine. Maybe not as good and as cheap as . . . well . . . actually it's pretty comparable to the other European countries I've been too and far far superior to the United States. For those of you who are not from the United States, you may be shocked to learn that we pay a minimum of $7 for a bottle of wine. It is usually bad wine. In Germany, I generally refuse to pay more than 3.99 Euros for a bottle of wine, unless perhaps a really hot guy is coming over . . . then I might pay upwards of 4.99 Euros. So anyways, the point I'm trying to make is that although this country generally has an abundance of cheap, good wine, the wine buyer at my grocery store has generally proven himself to be a complete loser in the white wine department. Until today when an innocent, and very cheap bottle of Graubegunder from the Pfalz (Dad, you may sadly remember that there is almost no wine from the Pfalz in Baden-Württemberg) found me and delighted my palette with a crisp, dry flavor. It's a delightful light, white wine that will surely become a part of daily life here on the Steinlach. Thank goodness for the Pfalz!

My life, it's a good life

2007-01-28T13:24:00.000+01:00

I know, I know, I've been ranting a lot about pigeons lately. But most of you know me and you know how I am -- I get excited. I got excited about pigeons and excited about ranting and I went with it. It did, however, finally occur to me that you might be interested in what is going on in my life and so here it is, Claire's life update.

As you may have seen in a previous post, 2007 started with a bang in Barcelona, where I had a marvelous celebration with Maria and all of our great Dutch friends. Since then, my classes at the university (all two of them!) have gotten up and going again, as have my English classes.

Although the uni stuff is less than thrilling this semester, my English classes for the quarter are very promising and I think that they'll be very fun and rewarding. Mondays I teach Business 3, which is small and not very exciting (sorry Business 3 folks!). Tuesdays I teach Business 1/2, which is a pretty large class (10-11 people) but one which I hope will be rather lively. Then Wednesdays I have the seniors, who are a beginner bunch and as the name implies, are all over 60. This class is a new one for me (the others carried over from last semester) but I love them after just one week! It's a group of just five students but they're very sweet and quite funny, so I'm looking forward to all we have to teach each other in the coming months. Then Thursdays I have the aptly names "Thursday Morning Conversation", which has been my favorite class for quite some time. This class is coincidentally comprised of just women and we have a fabulous dynamic together. We have a few new comers to the group this quarter and I'm optimistic that they will only add to our group. These groups classes plus my two privates make for a pretty intense English schedule, but I like it and it pays the bills (well, some of them), so that's a positive thing. I also get an incredible high from teaching. I don't know many people who get all wound up from being at work, so indeed I am a lucky lucky lady.

As you may have seen on the "What's Hot" List, I got a fantastic book called Stitch 'n Bitch from Sarah and have been spending quite a bit of time drooling on it. It's a very hip and very fun book about knitting with cool patterns and the key to true knitting empowerment: how patterns are made and how to change them. So pretty much all I think about now is knitting and if it were possible or not idiotic, I would quit school and become a craftswomen. That would rock.

Hmmm . . . what else is new? Well, my parents finally got Skype, which is exciting because it means we can talk on the weekends when they are in the phoneless world of the cottage. And . . . ummm . . . well, I think that might actually be about it. And it's my bedtime, so I'd really best be heading off. I hope that everyone is keeping their chins up during these cold, dark months!

Smooches!

Clueless

2007-01-27T18:51:00.000+01:00

I officially have no idea who the 1000th visitor to my blog (since November). Said visitor was viewing my page from the Saarland and running Windows in German (yes, the truth comes out: I know these things about you). And to be honest, I don't really know if I know anyone in the Saarland. Yes, I've been to the Saarland and I know some people there, but I don't think they know of my blog or are interested enough in me to be reading it . . . so if you feel like it, 1000th visitor, identify yourself and you'll get the prize. If not . . . well, then I'll keep the prize.

Be my 1000th visitor! Win fantastic prizes!

2007-01-26T09:09:00.000+01:00

Ladies and Gents,

I'm proud to say that we are nearing the 1000 guest mark! Well, to be honest, I imagine we've long since past it--you see I only started counting in November. But I'm missing the point here: 1000 is an exciting number! Thus, the 1000th guest will receive a pair of white cotton gloves to commemorate my Christmas fun. Think of the wonderful soft hand you will have with your bandmaster glove on and all the marching bands you will be able to direct! I can probably figure out who you are from the blog counter, but if you happen to notice the number 1000 on the counter in the lower left-hand corner when you're on the page, give me a heads up in the form of a comment!

Village of the Winged

2007-01-24T14:41:00.000+01:00

In the comments for the last post, Maria requested that I share the movie that I made for her birthday last year about pigeons with you. What follows is the product of much love, many hours of procrastination, and months of annoyance caused by pigeons directly outside my window.

Just to explain a few things:

- Staniel is on of Maria's nicknames for me.
- I know that it should be "Alles gute" and not "gutes", whatever.
- I had to put this video on this IFilms online thing to put it on here and since yesterday, two people had watched it and gave it 3 our of 5 stars, which I think is actually pretty good.

Pigeons: To what end?

2007-01-22T23:59:00.000+01:00

"Pigeons are gross and fairly ubiquitous in all metropoli, leading me to wonder who would buy one? You could just walk up two blocks to Plaza Catalunya and catch a gimpy one for free. But to what end?" - Maria Gruending, January 21, 2007, comment to last blog post

The sale of pigeons does indeed raise the question of why one would want one and what one would do with one when one had one. My first thought was to send messages with it. You know, the old carrier pigeons -- you could tie a note to its leg and it would fly to the desired person.

Now this thought of carrier pigeons led me to do some pigeon research and the results were alarming. Absolutely alarming. In what way alarming? The quantity, the sheer mass of information on pigeons.

The first thing I read about the pigeon didn't actually surprise me, because it is something that I became alerted to by being a German speaker, and that is that pigeons and doves are in the same family. In German, both the pigeon and the dove are called "Taube", which I find most insulting to the doves of this world, but the Germans pay my words no heedance. At any rate, their are more subspecies of pigeons and doves than I care to count and they all look suspiciously like pigeons if you ask me.

The common pigeon, which we all know (and hopefully despise), is called the rock or feral pigeon and it is native to Europe, North Africa, and Southwest Asia. By some streak of bad fortune or more likely stupidity, the rock pigeon was introduced to North America in 1606, more specifically, to Nova Scotia (a shout out to all my peeps in Canada!). And while I dislike pigeons very much, I was quite impressed to read that among the things that pigeons have been trained to do is to differentiate between impressionist and cubist paintings, although on second thought, that's really no great feat . . .

Also fascinating are the efforts to rid cities of the pesky animals. In Tübingen we have a pigeon house that is used in pigeon population control. You see, they lure the pigeons in with this cushy mansion of a place and then steal their eggs and replace them with plaster eggs. Imagine waiting weeks and weeks only to find that your 'baby' is simply made of gypsum. And considering pigeons ability to differentiate between different periods of painting, they may well be able to differentiate between real and plaster eggs. Although really, the fact that they're still living there says a lot. Either they haven't noticed or they think they've hit the jackpot -- lay all the eggs you want and no kids to take care of (they're not called kids, they're called squeakers or squabs).

Ken Livingstone, London's mayor, has issued a ban on feeding pigeons in Trafalgar Square. Brilliant idea, Mr.Mayor, brilliant! If only the animal rights activists didn't feel the need to write a musical number about it . . .

Alright, so at this point both my depths of my distaste for pigeons as well as my wealth of interesting pigeon information is coming to an end. But before we go, did you know that pigeons, like flamingos, produce "crop milk" to nourish their young? They make this "crop milk" stuff by "a sloghing of fluid-cells from the lining of the crop" which is an upper part of their digestive track -- yummy.

Which brings us back, although I'm not at all sure how, to the carrier pigeon. I left this for the end because of it's totally freaky and disturbing nature -- you know, for effect. Here, my dear friends, is a picture of a carrier pigeon.

It doesn't even carry anything! It is actually the homing pigeon that can carry important messages written on thin paper very long distances. If I were the homing pigeon I would be pretty t'ed off that the ugly carrier pigeon took the good name, but who am I to say, maybe the carrier pigeon has a superior personality to the common and homing pigeon and isn't actually as despicable as I assume.

Also, for more interesting and helpful information on animals, see my previous post on porcupines and hedgehogs. The comments after it are really fantastic as well. During the course of my research I also found this blog about pigeons -- once again, not sure what to think. Certainly someone on the other side of the debate but even though I'm a pigeon-hating extremist, I can still listen to what the other side has to say.

Do outdoor pet stores fascinate you too?

2007-01-20T16:59:00.000+01:00

This is an outdoor pet store in Barcelona. Las Ramblas, the main pedestrian street of the city that runs from the middle of the downtown to the Mediterranean, is loosely organized into different sales areas: there's the flower sales area, the tourist crap sales area, the street performer area, and the outdoor pet store area. Actually, the outdoor pet store area is pretty much at the beginning of the street and was thus one of the first things that I saw in Barcelona. I was then and remain today completely baffled by this phenomena.

As you may or may not be able to see from the pictures, these are pretty much fully functional pet stores. They've got toys, cedar chips, fish nets, leashes, food--pretty much the whole shabang. And they have a surprisingly wide array of pets: fish, bunnies, turtles, gerbils, hamsters, etc.

And then there are the "specialty" store. I noticed that one outdoor pet store seemed to have pounced on the niche market of poultry and fowl. They had a pretty decent assortment of not only chickens and roosters, but also quails and the kind of birds that you really only think about in connection with rich British people wearing smart hunting jackets, sleek boots, and of course a hat, accompanied by teams of well-trained dogs on some kind out for a hunt on a brisk British day . . .

And then came the really and truly alarming part of the whole experience: they sell pigeons! Those dirty, idiotic birds that I do detest! Perhaps even worse than pigeons and people who feed pigeons (see the What's Not Hot list) are people who sell and buy pigeons.

So what do you think of the outdoor pet store? As previously mentioned, I'm completely captivated by the whole thing. Somehow it is just far enough outside of the realm of my known world to really tickle me.

May I remind you that buttermilk is not a sports drink?

2007-01-17T23:33:00.000+01:00

Dear Friends,

I'm here with a public service announcement: Buttermilk is not a sports drink. Water is a sports drink. Gatorade and its electrolyte-filled friends are sports drinks. I'll even give you protein shakes if you're a body builder (or maybe just a poor student rower). But I hate to break it to you that butter milk, pictured here in its German version: Buttermilch, is not a sports drink. It's not refreshing and for all I know all that lactic acid might make your muscles more sore . . . although actually, I don't know that to be a fact or even scientifically defensible.

At any rate, I saw someone at the gym today drinking buttermilk and I was shocked and appalled. Let me repeat, shocked and appalled. As a child, my friend Sara and I payed her little brother, Travis, to drink buttermilk because we found it so revolting. He went for it. Today, living in Germany, I find that many people actually enjoy drinking buttermilk. In fact, the geoscientists that I used to work with claimed to be addicted to drinking buttermilk. It's just not right! Buttermilk is for pancakes and . . . uhh . . . I don't know what else, but definately pancakes. If this upsets you too, give me a shout out because you guys have gotten a bit lax about commenting lately and it's gettin' me down.

Man from the internet enjoying buttermilk, thus giving consumers the false impression that it is delicious and refreshing.

Mostly it's about wigs

2007-01-16T08:26:00.000+01:00

What's my blog called? That's right: Claire in Tuba-Town. And what's it about? Right again: it's mostly about wigs.

Well, it turns out that my life is actually about wigs. Not once, but twice recently, I have been accused of wearing a wig.

Wig accusation #1: Walking down my street a few weeks ago to the Christmas market, a man I was about to walk past looked up at me and shouted, "It's a wig! Of course, I knew it right away!" (rough translation). In this situation, I was so taken aback that all I could really muster out of me was, "Uh, actually, no." I'm sure he was convinced by that one.

Wig accusation #2: Sitting in a bar in Barcelona and chatting with friends and one non-friend, a heavy, sweaty and unattractive older British man, who thought he was all that but, as previously mentioned was a heavy, sweaty and unattractive. "When you walked in here, I was sure it was a wig. I would have bet on it."

So readers, what do you think, how should I take this? As a compliment -- my hair just looks so perfectly styled that I could have bought it that way? As an insult -- you look like a bald person and you're hair is so freaking poofy that it couldn't possibly be your own? Seriously, I need your help to interpret these incidents.

Missing Photos -- Take that Blogger!

2007-01-12T18:12:00.001+01:00

Ok, Blogger tried to take my photos away but I won't give in that easily. Oh no, not old Claire Rose. The pictures are back and better than ever. So take that Blogger!

So you want to hear about Barcelona, eh?

2007-01-10T21:29:00.000+01:00

I've been getting requests for a post on my trip to Barcelona. I'm not really sure why I haven't written about it yet. Perhaps because it wasn't the most typically touristy trip. Perhaps because I don't know if any story I can tell your or any of the pictures that I have can even begin to convey the feeling of the trip. But, because people are asking, I'm a tellin'!

Maria and I arrived in Barcelona on the afternoon of the 27th, checked into our centrally located pension, and hit the town. We headed to the nearby main drag, Las Ramblas (or La Rambla or Les Rambles . . . as you like). Las Ramblas is a busy street with a huge boulevard made for pedestrians. Along the way we stopped at a chic city market, where we saw both amazingly gorgeous fruit piles and very strange but also somehow striking candied fruits, both of which are shown below. One of the most notable factors of Las Ramblas is the abundance of pet store kiosks, but considering the strangeness of this phenomena, it'll get its own post in the near future. So we walked all the way down Las Ramblas, from the middle of the city to the Mediterranean, where we sat for a bit and pondered the greatness of the city.

Then we decided to give Maria's old friend Vincent a call. The two of them had met two years ago when Maria and Vincent were studying Spanish together in, of all places, Spain. Vincent now owns and runs a beautiful bar that goes by the name of Nakupenda which means "I love you" in Swahili. Vincent invited us to visit him at the bar right then and there and so the first of many evenings was spent in Nakupenda. When you're getting free drinks, it's hard to leave a bar in less than 4 hours . . .

Day two of our trip involved Gaudi and cooking. Barcelona is speckled with the distinct and stunning architecture of Antoni Gaudi (whose picture on Wikipedia is worth a look) and Maria and I spent most of our second day checking out the Sagrada Familia church, Casa Batlló, and the Park Güell. The next two pictures are of the two contrasting sides of the Sagrada Familia which was started in 1883 and is still deep in the midst of construction.

You can walk through the Sagrada Familia, even though the entire insides are under construction. Inside are large information boards about the many aspects of the church construction. Among the copious amounts of information about stones, I found this beautiful and thoughtful quotation from Gaudi.

Maria at Park Güell.

Barcelona and the Mediterranean from Park Güell.

This pictures brings us to the part in our second day which was most certainly occupied by cooking. Because our generous hosts had let us drink on the house the night before and because we were probably intoxicated at the time of negotiations, Maria and I had managed to commit ourselves to cooking dinner for Vincent and Eric. This is easier said than done. We were staying in a pension (a slightly more private version of a youth hostel) and had both limited ingredients (you know, no spices, no oils or vinegars . . .) and limited cooking tools. Nakupenda doesn't have a full kitchen. We tried to get out of cooking by arguing that we had no tuperware, but Vince whipped out two tuperware containers and our argument was defeated. So, with scant supplies and our outstanding cooking and problem-solving talents, Maria and I created a fantastic fajita dinner, which we managed to transport to Nakupenda (on the subway) in two tuperware conatainers (ok, it's true, I may have taken some guacamole in a mug in my purse . . . but I digress) and which was met with rave reviews. It was another late night at the bar . . .

Being the troopers that we are, Maria and I dragged our crapulent (horrid word) selves out of bed to go see La Virgin Negra, the black virgin. Here, Maria's blog entry on this part of our trip:

"Spain is sort of a funny place. On one hand you have the vibrant metropolitanism of Barcelona, where everyone looks way cooler than you could even imagine yourself looking. Fusion cuisine, avant-guard music and New Left social activism are norm. On the other hand, walking down the streets you will still see groups of young nuns coming out of dark doors, giggling among themselves. I felt like me and Claire's day at Montserrat summed up the sombre/moving side of what to me is Spain.

Montserrat, along with being the name of a neighbourhood where I briefly lived in Buenos Aires, is the name of a monestary nestled high in one of the oddest geological formations I have ever seen. It's on a mountain that looks nothing like the surrounding hills and more like someone inflated a deformed latex glove then put some trees on it. The monestary is the site of a famous icon: the black virgin of Catalunya. How they built it I haven't the foggiest - the mountain is so steep that we had to go up in a cable car. But once we were up we found ourselves in a little village that included an unbelievably grand cathdral. Inside were a number of wonders, from dozens of delicately welded light fixtures to the famous little lady herself. The black virgin is holding a globe in her right hand and the baby Jesus in the left. He is also holding a black mini-globe. I can't really explain why it's so potent but it is. I can understand why it's one of the top pilgrim destinations in Spain, a country of pilgrimages.

Claire and I were not in complete health when we went but we climbed up to the top of the mountain (slowly) anyway, where there was what I think were some monastic cells built right into the cliff side. There are times when architecture and geography merge in a harmonious way and coming down the hill with Claire at dusk, I felt like this must be one of them."

Here we see Maria in the cable car. Interpret this face as you will.

Montserrat

Me ascending the mountain, once again looking suspiciously similar to my toothbrush cover.

Outside of the cathedral where the black virgin is housed.

Inside the cathedral.

The Rest of the Trip

I don't actually have a lot of photos from the rest of the trip, probably because we weren't so much doing typical touristy things, but just walking around and enjoying the city. So here is a smattering of photos to show you just a few highlights of the end of our trip.

This is me angrily eating a chorizo sandwich (my last one) at Miro Park, which I thought would be a park in the traditional sense with trees and grass, maybe a flower or two, but which was actually just a slab of concrete with a phallic Miro sculpture

My new Dutch friends, Nicole and Roy, just after the strike of midnight on New Year's.

Maria's new slippers. The slipper on your left says: "Sometimes I think I have the worst job in the world" and the right one says "Yeah . . . right!".

So that was Barcelona. It may not look like much, but it's a hell of a city and Maria and I had quite a time there, quite a time indeed.

PS Does anyone know why the beginning of this post is 1.5 spaced and the rest is single-spaced?? It's driving me absolutely mad!

New Hat!

2007-01-08T15:25:00.000+01:00

Knitting project number two of the season is completed and I'm oh so pleased with it. I'll soon draw to a close with project number three, although until that other knitting needles reappears, I guess it'll have to be put on hold. The strange thing is though, that other needle really can't be anywhere else but in my room and yet I've crawled around on my floor several times looking for it . . .

I just have to say that it's rather difficult to model a hat on one's own head.

Bandmaster Claire thanks Santa for the Christmas Cheer

2007-01-06T13:38:00.000+01:00

The band shall play a jaunty tune in honor of Santa Claus, known to all the world over as my dear parents!

There are moments in life when one cannot deny the distinct possibility of divine intervention. One such moment was when I opened my Christmas presents from my parents. The order in which I opened them made such perfect sense, that one could almost see fate's little hands tinkering away. Let me elaborate:

Package number was unwrapped and one pristine pair of white bandmaster gloves drawn out. Now some people might tell you that such white cotton gloves are used to moisturize severely dry hands by applying lotion in the evening, donning the gloves, and giving your hands a 6-8 hour moisture party. Once again, my dear readers, I must advise you to ignore the hoo hah, blather, and poppycock of the masses and to continue diligently reading my blog. These are most certainly bandmaster gloves made of lightweight cotton for optimal summer band direction. Needless to say, I began directing immediately. And really, who better to direct than one's self. Oh dear, I'm getting ahead of myself now. We'll move onto gift number two now and everything will become so crystal clear to you.

Scrawled on the top of gift number two in my mother's lovely penmanship was "For an Os Mutantes Christmas". For those of you unfamiliar, Os Mutantes were a Brazilian psychedelic band in the late 1960s. My parents and I got very into the music of Os Mutantes this summer, basking in their amazingly refreshing take on their American and British musical contemporaries, adding unconventional instruments such as the slide whistle. Although there was no question in my mind of who Os Mutantes were, the message remained cryptic, until I opened it. Inside was a red slide whistle; a plastic, lime green, see-through recorder; and a tin whistle. Maria and I proceeded to play both along with Os Mutantes and to compose our own pieces. Maria, as it turns out, is both a recorder and tin whistle virtuoso, but that didn't stop me from getting in the action.

Gift number three could only have been the grand finale--it wouldn't have fit in anywhere else. Gift number three was a stuffed pomeranian dog purse. Yes, a perfect replica of a pomeranian with a zipper on its back and a short leather carrying strap. I dare not try to explain too much, for it might ruin the simple humor and absurdity of this gift. Instead, take a moment to observe the purse and its owner in the pictures.

With bandmaster gloves, our arsenal of instruments, and a pomeranian purse, Maria and I danced around, tooted our horns, and laughed hysterically until 2am, when the downstairs neighbors pounded angrily on the door and then scolded us for being so loud. I really regret having all that fun . . . NOT! But really, the night wasn't over quite yet . . .

In the end, things got pretty saucy under the mistletoe . . .

Burg Hohen-what?

2007-01-05T00:29:00.000+01:00

Burg Hohenzollern of course!

Maria's visit has motivated me, as well as my pal Stefan, to do touristy things in the area that we had never done before. This includes (maybe exclusively . . . we're kind of slow) visiting the Burg Hohenzollern, a fairy tale castle in the Schwabian Alb.

You may wonder what one does at a castle and you are right to do so. A lot more goes on there than you probably know about.

Drinking a beer at the castle's small pub is a suitable pastime for a cold, or warm for that matter, afternoon. Our tour didn't start for nearly three quarters of an hour, so really, what choice did we have?

Another favorite hobby is gazing at the shapely bums of the guardsmen, which have been so thoughtfully immortalized in stone.

While learning about the long history of the several castles that stood on this same spot, Maria took some time out to do this brilliant impersonation of this tidy little jacket.

A romantic pose with a romantic view. Actually, Maria wasn't so hot on taking these cuddly pictures with me, but I had really hoped to visit this castle on a bit of a date awhile back and I wasn't about to let lack of male accompaniment ruin my romantic visit to the Burg Hohenzollern!

I think this one speaks for itself.

I can say without reservation that our visit to the Burg Hohenzollern was a smashing success! We all had a lovely day and were mighty glad that we had braved the cold and climbed up that big-ass hill. I was so happy that half of my head disappeared into the sunlight.

Back from Barcelona: I've got beef with the dictionary!

2007-01-03T17:39:00.000+01:00

You want to hear about Barcelona. You want to hear about Christmas. You want to hear about Maria's visit.

I want to tell you about the dictionary.

While Maria was here, we went over to dinner at our friends' Stephan and Karla's apartment. While there, we made a few very geeky discoveries. The first was that Karla and I have the same favorite dictionary. Yup, dictionary. We both favor the Longman, also known as the DCE, or Dictionary of Common English. It's a fantastic dictionary with descriptions of words in plain English. I started just recommending it to students, but since then, I've fallen in love with it myself. At any rate, we discover that we both love this dictionary and a moment later both Stephan and Karla have run to get their copies. They each own one. So there we are at the dinner table, with two of the same dictionary, expounding upon their greatness with excitement.

Then came incredibly dorky moment number two: the discovery of the mistake.

As you can see in this close up to the right, the word "don't" is spelled with two t's.

Oh the pride! The pride! The joyous honor, the delight, the glory of finding a mistake in the dictionary! "Why, only incredibly smart people find mistakes in the dictionary", I thought to myself.

In retrospect, the correct thought was probably, "Only rather obsessive people who read the dictionary find mistakes in the dictionary," but no need getting down on myself now -- I did, you know, find a mistake in the dictionary.

My identity was stolen . . .

2006-12-24T12:12:00.000+01:00

by my father.

Yesterday night I got an e-mail from MySpace. It was a very normal e-mail, the kind a MySpace users get frequently, one informing me that I had received a message from another MySpace user. Except that this time I was informed that I had received a MySpace message from CactusClaire--that's me. How had I received a message from myself? Upon logging into MySpace, I saw that I had received the following message from myself:

Hi Claire,

Chuck and I are spying on you. Are you there?

Doug

Doug is my dad; Chuck is a good friend of his, someone I see as a family member really. The two of them are up at our cottage for the weekend, spending some quality guy time together before Christmas.

After reading this and laughing hysterically, I received 5, count 'em 5 further messages from the two of them. Here are the highlights, I think they speak for themselves:

subject:i am not who i am ... yet
	but i have always wanted to be your Myspace friend even before there was Myspace i have reinvaded your father's life because it is necessary to our mutual salvation or destruction we were a gay couple in our last incarnation now we are drunk

subject: RE: RE: i am not who i am ... yet
	We here drinking, yakking, and roasting a bird. Bird is toasty. Wish you were here. Love, Doug Claire, Once again he insists on feeding me, as though I am not fat enough. This time it is a chicken.

The Baum has been smücked . . . finally!

2006-12-23T16:26:00.000+01:00

There is, after a week of not blogging, much to report, but first things first: the tree!

To the non-Germans out there, to "smück" is to decorate and a "Baum" is a tree. And for those of you who are German, you may have noticed the English-style past tense--deal with it.

After trying for almost a week to find a date when Maria, Patricia, and I could all decorate the tree, Maria and I took charge and started to smück!

We quickly realized that this would be no easy feat: the tree proved to have killer needles, razor sharp and capable of protecting the tree from any lights or ornaments that might compromise its security or personal, tree integrity. Lucky for us I had my handy falconry gloves on hand (quite literally) and . . . oh wait . . . what's that you say? Those don't look like falconry gloves? Speak up a bit, please? Oh, you say they look quite a bit more like ladies driving gloves? Well, my dear readers, I can see you don't know much about the honorable pastime of falconry, but that is neither here nor there. At any rate, the gloves allowed us to safely adorn the tree with lights, garland, orange slices, Chinese lanterns, bells, one piece of chocolate and a small Santa Claus ornament. Ah yes, let us not forget the straw star topping the whole thing off.

If all goes as planned, Maria and I will spend as much joyous time together as we did with our first Christmas tree. Let me elaborate. Three years ago, when Maria and I lived together, we were given a fiber optic Christmas tree by my mother. The tree was plastic, approximately 2 feet tall with short pieces of fiber optic tubes through which a rotating multi-colored light would shine. We laughed at it. We may have even mocked it. Then we finally put it up and we fell in love with it. The tree charmed the pants off us. We spent countless hours sitting in the living room with the lights off, gazing at the tree, drinking egg nog and talking. Holiday spirit at it's best. Although our tree may be a bit classier this time around, I'm hoping for similar results.

Oh Naked Tree, Oh Naked Tree . . .

2006-12-14T18:35:00.000+01:00

Stop the obscenity now!

Deck the halls!

Schmück that Baum, ASAP!

As you can see in the picture to the left, Patty and I (and soon Maria, too!) have this lovely, tilted Christmas tree, which is horribly naked! We're thinking that Sunday will be tree-decorating day, but until then, we'll be forced to continue lowering our gaze as we pass the unabashed naked tree.

On the agenda for the tree are some orange slices, small round ornaments, and possibly some cinnamon sticks. Any other suggestions? I'm also thinking that taking down that bulletin board in the background might be appropriate. While I'm at it, I guess I could move the kitchen timer and throw out that old cilantro . . . this is turning out to be a boat-load of work, jeeze.

PS My blog is currently featuring Christmas colors. Sorry all you Hanukkah and Kwanza folks.

Dad, is there something you want to tell me?

2006-12-12T18:30:00.000+01:00

Just moments ago I received an e-mail from my dear Alisha, which sent me into an intense laughing fit. It was a forwarded article from the New York Times entitled "Gay and Evangelical, Seeking Paths of Acceptance" and the message from Alisha read "The picture that goes with this article (which i haven't read) shows a man in a yellow sweater reading a bible who looks startingly like your dad."

Now, I started laughing before I had even seen the picture, since Alisha and I have a history of finding men in ads that either look like one of our fathers or a combination of our fathers, but I had to laugh even harder upon seeing the photo. My dad really is wearing a yellow sweater and sitting on a couch reading the bible with his partner! Who knew. Mom?

I just want you to know, Dad, that I support your decision. Wait, let me specify: I support your decision to come out, but not to be evangelical. That's just too much for our family.

Proudly braving the cold, head held high, goggles in place

2006-12-10T18:56:00.000+01:00

Janosch usually arrives in a classy, thigh-length, gray, wool coat. I think that he usually wears a scarf too. Yesterday, however, he arrived at my house wearing a bright bright bright yellow jacket with goggles. Built-in goggles.

Needless to say, I had to try it on, and while I may have poked fun of Janosch a bit for owning such a jacket, I must admit that my inner Canadian longs for such a jacket. When I think back on those -40 C days living at Hogs Back, I think a jacket like this would have been pretty rockin. So bring it on Canada, while I might not have the tools necessary to brave your frigid temps, I at least know what they are now.

Quite possibly the most depressing idea I've ever had

2006-12-08T14:09:00.001+01:00

Like my dear friend Sarah Leadly, I like lists. I feel that lists help me to recognize and consequently realize my goals. Today, in preparation for a seminar that will be starting and basically ending in January (yes, that's right, an entire semester's worth of work will take place on a few short days in January) I made a giant list of my readings to hang on my wall. It turned out to be, as the heading suggests, the most depressing idea ever. I am now faced with an enormous reminder of how much work I have not yet done. Patty tried to cheer me up with different systems of checking off readings that I had done in the past and the readings that I had done now and what I had taken notes on, but alas, the dark cloud of the list can only be listed by speedy, intensive reading.

Said list

2006-12-08T14:09:00.000+01:00

Wild Boar Hunt in Germany!

2006-12-05T10:08:00.000+01:00

I know you've all been asking yourselves, "When is Claire finally going to do some wild boar hunting?" and I finally have an answer for you: this past weekend. I visited Sarah in Marburg this weekend for her birthday, where the yearly wild boar hunt took place. This wild boar hunt wasn't exactly your traditional wild boar hunt, however. By that I mean, we weren't really hunting wild boars. Ok, I'm starting to sense your doubt, your confusion. Let me elaborate.

The Wild Boar Hunt is a game. Granted it's a game that not many people, not even Germans, know about, but it's great. A well kept secret really. Here's what happens: You get together with your friends on an evening in late fall or winter; put on your warmest, darkest clothes; fill your thermos with some hot, mulled wine; bring your garbage bags (preferably unused); and head for the woods. When it's totally dark, you head out to a predetermined section of the woods and form teams of two. All but one team heads out into the woods and finds a good hiding spot. This is the point where the garbage bags come in--they are good to lay down on. These teams are the wild boars. The last team of two is the hunter team. They wait about ten minutes and then head out into the woods, sans flashlight, and try to find the wild boars. Every five minutes, the hunters can yell "light!" and the wild boars have to shine their flashlight in the air for five seconds. When you've been caught, you head back up to the grill hut where you continue drinking warm, mulled wine and eating cookies. When everyone has been found, you start all over again.

Great fun in Germany! Great fun indeed!

Another item of great fun is one of my favorite holidays of the year, St. Nicholas! Do you guys celebrate St. Nick's? I sometimes have the feeling that this may have been some kind of German anomoly in Milwaukee, as I have met many an American and Canadian who have responded with a confused and quisicle tilt of the head when I mentioned St. Nicholas. St. Nicholas is celebrated on December 6 and it is traditional to put your shoes out at night. If you've been good, you'll awake to find treats and small presents in your shoes. If you've been, the obligatory coal is to be expected.

My sisters (some of them at least)

2006-12-05T10:03:00.000+01:00

The picturesque city of Marburg

2006-12-05T09:58:00.000+01:00

Rich parents for all!

2006-12-05T09:56:00.000+01:00

I feel that this sign could be commenting on one of two situations in Germany. Most likely, it is reference to the impending implementation of tuition at German universities. Rich parents for all would thus make payment of said tuition easier.

I also think that this sign could be commentary on the educational gap between rich and poor that is a problem, well, most everywhere as far as I can tell. However, I think that this is less likely the intended meaning of this sign and more likely the meaning that I would like to ascribe to it, seeing that the educational gap between rich and poor is one of my pet peeves/favorite topics.

Germany: Enjoying the classics or painfully stuck in the past?

2006-12-04T16:51:00.000+01:00

2 Notes before we start on today's post:

Thank you so much for the amazing response to the oh so hot topic of twin eggs! A reader participation record was certainly set there!

Secondly, a warning that this post may be rather generationally limited. If you weren't listeng to popular music at the end of the nineties, then you might be a bit lost. Sorry Grandma and Grandpa, I'll try to make the next one intergenerational again. With that said, here we go.

Today's Post:

Germans love Lauryn Hill. I know most of you over there in America are still stuck on the idea that Germans love David Hasselhoff, which they do, but that is neither here nor there. Germans love Lauryn Hill.

Let me specify what I mean by love. Germans actually love Lauryn Hill in the same way that they love David Hasselhoff. If you ask your average German if they love David Hasselhoff there is a 90% chance that they will say "no". If, however, you ask your average German to sing or hum part of a David Hasselhoff song (yes, he was a singer here), there is a 90% chance that they will be able to do it. So what I'm talking about is a more passive kind of love. A simple, long-lasting appreciation. A refusal to forget.

And so, in that sense, Germans love Lauryn Hill. When I get together with my old Gymnasium (German high school) friends, we still listen to Lauryn Hill. I was out at a pretty cool bar in Marburg over the weekend and Lauryn Hill was playing. It doesn't matter if we're talking about early Fugees or the Miseducation of Lauryn Hill--the Germans love it all. Germany refuses to let go of Lauryn Hill.

I suppose this interests me so much because it is in such stark contrast to the new-music-cult of America. The constant search for new music that no one else has heard and the pressure to know all the newest names. Maybe it's just the posse that that I run with, but knowing the lastest music trends is just part of the game. And yet, as I lightly poke fun at Germany, I cannot say which I prefer. While I miss the constant influx of new music very much, I also feel way more cool in Germany, where I rarely run the risk of outing myself as someone whose knowledge of music is a few weeks behind.

The Twin Egg Debate

2006-11-30T11:54:00.000+01:00

Hot or not hot, that is the question. The object in question: twin eggs.

Over the weekend I bought a small, six-piece carton of eggs. They weren't organic, but they were free range. Now, I generally buy medium eggs because it seems to be the most common size here in Germany, but on this occaision the XL eggs caught my eye. I'd never seen such a thing. Let me rephrase that: I coulnd't remember ever having seen such a thing. I have undoubtedly bought XL eggs in the US, but memories of grocery shopping fade fast. I peered into the carton; I liked what I saw. Six enourmous eggs. Visions of over-easy eggs and toast starting dancing through my mind.

The next morning, I cooked up an over-easy egg for myself. As I cracked it open, I was quite surprised to see that it was a twin egg, featuring, of course, two yolks. A fluke I thought. Later that day I was making banana bread and found that eggs number 2 and 3 were also twins. As were eggs 4 and 6. Egg number 5 was the only one-yolk baby in the bunch.

What does this mean?
Does this somehow point to genetic engineering or chicken fertility drugs? Or are large eggs just by nature likely to be twins? Can two chicks grow in one egg? Isn't it possibly that they would injure one another with their sharp little beaks or claws?

Is this hot or not?
The answer to this question is very much dependent on the answer to the first question. Without knowing the nature of twin eggs, I am unable to judge their hotness or lack thereof.

To my German audience (which may very well be composed of just one person): does this fall into the category of a German topic? It was inspired by an incident in my oh so German life. I might be able to get more German inspiration for my blog if I went to places of interest near Tü, like Burg Hohenzollern for example (cough cough, nudge nudge).

"Do you like This American Life? Because if you don’t, you may be asked to step off to the side"

2006-11-27T12:02:00.000+01:00

I recently asked my friend Katie if she thought that This American Life is the best radio show ever. I asked her this for several reasons. First of all, Miss Lewis is an accomplished radio journalist in Canada and I know that she very much appreciates the art of radio. Secondly, as a Canadian I hoped that she could give me a somewhat unbiased opinion on a show with a very American name. Thirdly, I know she loves the show and I guess I knew that she would give me the answer I wanted to hear. So there goes all of my scientific method out the window. At any rate, right I was--Katie pulled through with clear-cut "definitely". She went on to write that liking This American Life was becoming a requirement for her friendship.

"Do you like This American Life? Because if you don’t, you may be asked to step off to the side," wrote Miss Lewis.

Quite precisely, my dear Miss Lewis! Quite precisely! My sentiments exactly.

If you aren't familiar with This American Life, you should aquaint yourself immediately. If you live in the United States, then your local NPR station probably broadcasts it, most likely on Sundays. If you don't live in the US, then I would suggest listening to the show on the internet. You won't regret it. It is absolutely informative, emotional, intimate, hilarious, tragic, heart-warming, quirky, honest, and some other powerful adjectives. It tells the stories of people's lives, of countries, news events, events that didn't make the news, comedians, and normal people with a microphone and a tape recorder.

Thank you, Miss Lewis, for once again being the inspiration for a post. You will most definitely not be asked to step off to the side!

Testosterone

2006-11-25T19:25:00.000+01:00

Some fantastic musings on testosterone from Ira and the gang.

2005, Episode 220, aired 4/30/05

How did they keep this a secret from me?

2006-11-24T12:58:00.000+01:00

Governments lie to and hide things from their people. That's what they do. All of them. And mine is probably one of the most successful at this lying and hiding game. When it comes to a scandal or some corruption, I'm not usually too shocked. And then there are the things that shock me. Listen up people, there are some strange things going on in the United States and I'm here to inform you about one of them.

The Presidential Turkey Pardon. Yup, you heard me, the Turkey Pardon. Via her blog, Miss Lewis alerted me to this strange tradition, which has been taking place, unbeknownst to me, since 1947! Each year the president gets a turkey and then "pardons" it, letting the turkey live a long and peaceful life and eventually die a natural death. Now I'm not the biggest animal rights activist and have been known to partake in the force feeding of geese, but nonetheless, it does seem cruel to tell a turkey that you're going to kill it when you have every intention of not killing it. What we have on our hands here is a clear case of psychological violence (for a hilarious account of some Dutch psychological violence check out the Episode 201, Act 2 of This American Life, aired on 12/7/01). But in light of the treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, I guess I shouldn't be surprised that the US government would emotionally abuse a turkey.

By the way, did you guys know this was going on? And if so, why didn't you tell me?

Today today, what a day!

2006-11-23T16:35:00.000+01:00

I just got off the phone with my parents. As my mother put it, we hadn't talked in 20 million years, which is actually true if you do the proper calculations, taking into consideration the physical distance between us, the fact that I am an only child, my height and weight, the current length of the days, and the position of Jupiter. And man oh man did the parents pull through for me today. Here were the highlights:

I asked my father what he might like for Christmas. He thought for a bit and said that there probably wasn't anything that I could get him that he would be interested in, other than $100 million. He then proceeded to tell me that the one and only thing that he wanted for Christmas was an infrared meat thermometer and that he had already asked his mother for it. Let's take a step back here. I did indeed say infrared meat thermometer. I was told by my father that one must simply point it at the meat and it tells you the temperature, not just of the outside, but all the way down to the bone. In retrospect I should have asked if this worked on people and animals too, but at the time I was too busy giggling. At any rate, my father was recently reading a book from a chef that he likes about everything that a good gourmet kitchen must have and suddenly realized that he had everything, except for the infrared meat thermometer. I agreed that if the only thing that you could think of for your Christmas gift was an infrared meat thermometer, then you probably really didn't need anything else.

My mother's shining moment in the conversation was when she told me about the 91 year old man who was hunting with a shotgun by our cottage last weekend. Apparently Hunk, the granddad of our neighborhood, told this buddy of his that he could do some hunting on the land around our cottages, with his shotgun. Although two of our neighbors and close friends hunt frequently on this land, they do so with crossbows, a hobby which is far less disruptive to people in the area. So this 91 year old man caused quite a ruckus all day and was also so hard of hearing that when my parents, on separate occasions, returned from running their errands, they had to inch behind them in their cars as he walked down the road because he couldn't hear them. My mother reported that she almost had to bump the man with her car so that she could pass. Eventually he turned around and notice the car, and my mother noticed that his fly was down. Good that a man with a rifle is so aware of himself and his surroundings.

If you know the parents of the Claire, then those stories are probably pretty amusing, if not, you should really meet them. The parents rock.

I hate to sound all new agey, but I think that I was somehow aligned with planets or something cosmic today. I'm not really sure what it was, but as I walked around the city today I felt totally energized and present. Then I came across a box of free ribbon (curling ribbon to be exact) and I knew it was true--today is my day. I now have over a kilometer of ribbon (fuchsia, black, and white) and I feel great about life.

PS Timothy, if you're out there and reading, I think that the sushi district in Tübingen is at my house. If you want a lesson, I'm here for you. You just have to bring the wine.

The Schwaben Quellen were really disappointing . . . NOT!

2006-11-21T09:36:00.000+01:00

Good day, dear friends! We've got two issues on the agenda today: the Schwaben Quellen and not jokes.

Many of you may remember anecdotes about the German baths/saunas that I frequent in the winter. You know, tales of old naked Germans in co-ed textile-free saunas--tales that don't quite fit into our puritanical American modesty, and thus evoke giggles and wide eyes. Yup, those are the ones. Well let me tell you, there is a whole world of said saunas which have been, until now, just waiting for me to discover them. Until recently, I had only been to one bath/sauna in the area, mainly because I knew where it was and how to get their on the train. I was content.

And then came Sunday and the wellness adventure.

Sunday afternoon I received an text message from a friend, inquiring if I would be interested in a wellness adventure later that evening. And you all know me; I hate wellness and relaxation . . . NOT! So, off we went to Stuttgart, to the Schwaben Quellen (the link is to their English page, so don't be afraid to check it out), where I was wowed by sauna after sauna, steam room after steam room, pool after pool--right, you get the idea. Let me try briefly to paint a picture in your mind this relaxation paradise. After putting your things in a locker, stripping down to your birthday suit, and donning your robe, you stroll out of the standard locker room environment into what can perhaps be described as a classy version of a theme park. The main hall is decorated with a tiki flair and from here, you can wander in most any direction to discover a myriad of other whirlpools, cold pools, saunas, steam rooms, relaxation rooms, and showers. Although many of the design elements could be categorized as kitsch, the fact that you are completely warm and relaxed really allows you to look past the fake bird noises and enjoy the whole experience.

The end. . . NOT!

In case you haven't checked out the What's Hot/What's Not list, not jokes are so not hot . . . NOT! Anyone above the age of 20 is used to the trends of their childhood being brought back in a slightly altered form to sell to the youth. It's happened with every era: When I was in high school, the 60's fashion revival was in full swing and we were all clamoring for bell bottom pants; in college the decades made their brief comebacks and we embraced the 70's and the 80's, with brief stops in the 30's and 40's. Much to my dismay, we've been caught in the 80's/90's for quite some time and until now it could be ignored. I could ignore the tapered jeans; I could ignore the horribly cut 80's skirts. Not jokes can indeed be ignored . . . NOT!

Borat has revived the not joke. Dare I say "revive" in my current setting? I would tend to say no. You see, dear readers, not jokes are making their debut on the German scene. Germany was apparently too busy speaking their own language and thinking about that wall of theirs to even notice the not joke trend that swept through the US, or at least it's 10 year old population. And so it is with great pleasure that I witness a whole new generation of not joke users explore the seemingly limitless potential of the not joke.

Temperatures are dropping, excitement levels are rising

2006-11-16T16:52:00.000+01:00

Yes folks, it's true, Patty and I are now the proud parents of a small freezer, which will soon be stocked with frozen veggies, ice cream, frozen pizza and maybe some meat that we won't be using immediately. The decision to purchase the freezer was made after a brief period of mourning for our deceased dishwasher. While the dishwash is dearly missed, we're proud to announce the arrival of this new appliance into our small and humble home.

Vive les appareils!

16 glorious degrees in the middle of November!

2006-11-15T13:39:00.000+01:00

For those of you not so up to date on your celcius, it's 61 F here in Tübingen today, the sun is shining, and a light breeze is keeping the smell of autumn fresh in the air!

While I have nothing of great interest to report, life in Tübingen continues to get better and better (although not surprisingly, since I wasn't at all thrilled about being back at all when I arrived a month ago). My classes, both taught and taken, are progressing well and I feel that I am getting better at managing my time with regard to leisure activities, exercise, school, work, and friends.

I do so very much hope that all of your lives are equally fulfilling at the moment.

P.S. Did I mention how much you guys rock at commenting? It's like Christmas every day!

P.P.S. Just a animals were an ever-present feature of Maria and my What's Hot/What's Not list at 259 Bay St, grown ups on scooters will also forever be on this blog's What's Not list. Every couple of weeks I see an adult on a motorless scooter (you know, a board with four wheels and a stick that you steer with) and am overcome with the feeling that it is not only not hot, but downright not right. Take that scooter people!

and just one more thing before I go: Today I learned an important rule for life: wear socks and wool clothing in months that have the letter "r" in them. If that's not a rule to live by then I don't know what is.

Sushi sushi sushi in my belly!

2006-11-12T22:53:00.000+01:00

I'm so perfectly filled with sushi and so absolutely delighted about it, as well. While I'd like to be able to afford lots of expensive and fancy sushi, I'm also pretty content with my homemade maki and the occaisional nigiri. Making sushi was really a wonderful end to a wonderful weekend.

Friday I had dinner with my friend Emily and then went out with some friends. The cold, gray and rainy Saturday was spent reading a novel, a luxury that I rarely grant myself. And Saturday night was spent at a great house party and the delightful dancing extravaganza that is the Funk Explosion at the Bier Keller. Sunday was slightly less exciting, but was at least relaxing at had the previously mentioned excellent sushi ending. I think after this weekend I actually feel ready for the week ahead. Rested and relaxed.

Word of the day: crackerjack

2006-11-10T18:19:00.000+01:00

Yes, the word of the day on my google homepage is actually crackerjack, meaning "of striking ability or excellence". Well let me tell you that the teaching workshop that I went to today was great, due to our teacher, who was absolutely crackerjack. This workshop got me absolutely giddy about teaching and language learning.

PS What do you guys want for Christmas?

Sprechen Sie Deutsch? . . . Uhhhh, maybe

2006-11-10T00:32:00.000+01:00

Remember how I used to speak German well? Yup, it's over. I'm past my German-speaking prime.

Due to all this English teaching and intensive Skyping with the Canadian people, I am officially out of practice when it comes to the German thing. I went out with some new friends tonight and, through lack of coherent speech, managed to portray myself as either shy or boring, neither of which are adjectives that I would generally choose to describe myself. I'm sure that every foreigner and expat has this feeling now and again, but I've generally prided myself at my relative aptitude at switching between my two tongues and it's got me a bit blue.

This is pretty much all I eat

2006-11-08T17:09:00.000+01:00

Well, the heading basically says it all. I eat pumpkin, lots and lots and lots of pumpkin. I didn't actually know that I liked pumpkin until about two years ago. Actually, I take that back. At the Nelson's house I ate Terry's pumpkin pie and liked it when I was about 10 but she's an exceptional baker so I think that I just figured I liked it because she made it, not because of the the pumpkin itself. At any rate, I think pumpkin is a veggie to be celebrated and since it's only around in the fall, well, it's time to party hardy! The next time I'm back in the states I think I'll bring back one of those kids pumpkin carving knives, as I think they might be one of the most effective ways to carve a pumpkin. Who'd a thunk it?

Tink visited and I have proof!

2006-11-06T16:39:00.000+01:00

Hey Everyone!

A most exciting weekend it was indeed! My dear old friend, Tink, came for a visit! Tink's real name isn't actually Tink; it's Ragnhild, however, I and everyone I know is so bad at saying her real name that we all just call her Tink. So anyhoo, Tink came all the way from Norway to pay me a visit--our first visit in over six years--and it was great. We spent the weekend eathing yummy food, hanging out, walking around, drinking coffee and generally amusing ourselves. Nothing could have been a better end to the week of 7th and 8th graders.

Tink eating a mound of cake . . . that other mound of cake is mine

2006-11-06T16:37:00.000+01:00

Tink on the Neckarinsel

2006-11-06T16:35:00.000+01:00

High on lesson planning . . .

2006-11-01T23:45:00.000+01:00

Or is it the permanent markers?

No, I'm here having a great time planning my lessons. I'm on my 6th or 7th hour here at the desk/computer and I think I've really hit my stride. We'll see if I actually enjoy being in the classroom with the pubescent monsters tomorrow, but I just might. I'm finally getting the hang of what these little buggers need: the perfect mix of games, very structured worksheets and grammar activities, activities that remind them that they don't actually know how to use what they think they know, and discipline. Yes, it's true, I often try to remind them that they don't know things. I know it sounds horrible, but it is one of the only ways to make them listen. Their propensity to cockiness is unbelievable, due mainly to the fact that they are good at worksheets and structured situations. What they are not yet so good at is actually using what they have learned. So we go back and forth between speaking and writing practice, and the rules and worksheets.

In other news, my palm needs a new pot; it looks really squished.

8 heart-warming comments!

2006-10-31T22:17:00.000+01:00

Cheers to all of you fantastic commenters out there! You guys really are swell and I hope that you keep it up. And to those of you who have not yet commented, it's not too late. You'll have new opportunities every week to, in the words of the Germans, give you mustard. That's just a nice Deutschie way of saying "to give your opinion about a certain topic". So keep the mustard coming everyone!

As for me, I've made it through two days of the 7th and 8th graders. The first day was rough, the second a considerable improvement, yet I still have no plans of persuing any kind of career involving pre-teens ever. Ever ever ever. I was terribly worried about teaching this class, although I always had this hope in the back of my mind that they wouldn't be as horrible as I thought, that they would secretly be well adjusted and lamb-like. No cigar. They confirmed all of my stereotypes about that age group. However, it should be taken into account that they are paying for me to spend New Year's in Spain with Maria and thus I can't really complain.

Well, it's about time for me to fall into bed and pass out after two of the hardest days I've had in a long time.

A request to all family members and pals

2006-10-28T19:21:00.000+02:00

Please leave comments! I live for your comments!

Ok, so that might be a bit of an exageration, but I really do enjoy comments and it lets me know that someone other than myself is looking at my blog from time to time. A very big thank you to those of you who do comment.

At any rate, not much is new here. I'm in the midst of planning a class that I'll be teaching next week for 7th and 8th graders in their fall vacation. We'll be covering a variety of topics, including Halloween, Harry Potter, celebrities, flirting and possible some American Civil Rights history. Wish me luck!

Other than that I'm just chuggin' along.