28 July 2011

Au Pair Fail

So today the charge and I went to the supermarket to pick up some strawberries for today's sophomore attempt at fruit leather.  Long trip to the hippie conference tomorrow, so I figured fruit leather would make a good snack.  While we were there, we picked up some ice cream.  They were all out of Gone with the Wind ice cream, so I went with the second choice; vanilla-orange ice cream with chocolate pieces in cherry sauce.

Once we got home, host mom had to head off to a conference, so the child and I decided to celebrate his not-screaming with some of the newly-bought ice cream.  I scooped us each a bowl, and we dug in.

Halfway through my bowl, I said to myself, "With my spidey sense, I detect a strange taste.  If I didn't know better, I would say there was alcohol in this ice cream.  But that would be impossible, because I bought this in the supermarket and it was sitting next to the fruit pops.  Nothing that sits next to fruit pops can have alcohol in it."  But just to be safe, I pulled the ice cream back out of the freezer to double check.  And there I saw these words: Vanilla-Orange Ice Cream with Chocolate Pieces in Sherry Sauce." 

I gaped at the ice cream mutely for a few seconds, before I remembered the two-year old. Horrified, I looked up, just as he triumphantly slapped his bowl on the table and screamed "MORE ICE CREAM!"  He was so enthusiastic about the fact that I'd just fed him alcohol-laced ice cream that he threw his spoon at me.

Au pair fail.

25 July 2011

Random bits of information

Truly nothing interesting has happened the last few days.  Whereas Satan is currently punching you all in the face with 200 degree weather (or so I hear), it's been 55 degrees and raining here, so basically, I'm freezing and I want to die.  What else?  Hmm...I was bored today so I baked homemade fruit roll-ups, and they're delicious.  And it turned out to be ridiculously easy.  All you do is chop up a shit ton of fruit, stew it in  a little water until it's super soft, add sugar, then blender it (or, if your host family is lacking a blender, mixer it).  Then you spread it out on wax paper, throw it in the oven at 150/170 degrees, and bake.  For 8-10 hours.  Until it's leathery.  Then cut.  So really, make sure you have a lot of time to kill.  But the end result is most excellent!

In other news, from what I understand, America is currently about to explode because there's a debt ceiling problem?  I don't actually know that much about it, because our news is consumed with the bombings/shootings in Norway, and when Debt Ceiling conversations do happen on the German news, they're filled with such technical economical lingo, I check out almost instantly and go back to reading my second-grade-level story book.  So if someone wants to explain it to me in a nutshell, I'd be thrilled.  Basically what I need to know is: should I convert my entire bank account to euros before the dollar hangs itself?

What else what else.  I'm showing up uninvited to the Portuguese consulate later this week, in the hopes that I can get a Portuguese ID card and sort of my visa issues.  So basically, it's sure it be a disaster and stay tuned for the good stories.

Grad school applications have got me so anxious I don't know what to do with myself.

Did I mention it's been 55 degrees and raining and I'm ready to send myself the same way as the dollar?

Things I want:
--a summer
--the dollar not to implode
--a puppy, or at least a fish.

I did actually try to buy a fish the other day, but the shemale at the pet store told me a) that beta fish are happiest in pairs, b) that they need 30 gallon aquariums, and c) fishbowls are a myth that exist only in tv and films.  My fishbowl at home takes personal offense to that.  So I must go on a quest to find the Elusive German Fishbowl, and also wait until after we come back from Denmark so my fish doesn't starve to death.

Also, Claire and I Skyped last night, and it was glorious.  I also got really teary when I saw her face, which I wasn't actually expecting, seeing as I don't actually like her very much.  I could smell her over my internet connection.  The moral of the story is you people should download Skype and talk to me goddamit.  It's freeeee!

OH!  Remember the Is it Gay, or Is it German guy from this post?  I saw him again today, standing on the side of the highway, wearing the same clothes I spotted him in initially, talking to someone who wasn't there.  As it turns out, he wasn't gay or German, he was just insane.  So the IIGOIIG scoreboard is currently at 1 for German, 0 for gay, and 1 for crazy and homeless.

Umm...here, this song has been on the radio and I can't get it out of my head.  Not sure if you've been getting on the American radio stations, but it's really catchy:

I'm out of straws to grasp at.  Hang in there, America!

22 July 2011

Nothing major.

Q:  Hey Tina, what did you do today?

A:  Oh, nothing major, just booked a plan ticket to Sweden.  Totally whatever...

...FUCK YEAH MARINA AND I ARE GOING TO SWEDEN!

21 July 2011

Chickens and IIGOIIG, part 2

I decided yesterday that today I was going to attempt the ultimate comfort food, and all-around best meal on the planet: portuguese chicken soup.  So, I emailed my mom, got the recipe, and headed off to the supermarket to buy a chicken.  With the two-year old in tow, we hunted all up and down the aisles until we found a whole, frozen chicken.

Feeling supremely self-confident of my cooking skills, I successfully defrosted the chicken this morning, opened my mom's recipe back up, and was faced with a quandary.  The recipe called for three to four pieces of chicken, namely, the thighs and wings.  Except I was looking at whole, defrosted chicken, and I had no idea how to take the pieces off.  I tried pulling gently and asking politely, but nothing happened.  Also, the chicken skin had hairs on it, and I was grossed out.

I went to Host Mom, but she had no idea how to do it.  So I turned to the internet, found a handy-dandy informative site on how to properly separate a chicken with minimal waste, and felt confident.  I picked up the butcher knife.

The next forty-five minutes can only be described as an exercise in utter terror, whereby I pulled, pushed, and twisted until bones snapped and tendons were ripped apart or hacked in two.  I was covered in chicken pieces.  I was panicking.  I was trying not to cry.  I was in such a state of disgust and base horror I didn't know what to do with myself.  With every terrible screech and squeek (which I didn't realize chicken bodies were capable of producing), I apologized to the chicken for offending it's earthly remains.  I cursed everything related to chickens and Portugal that I could think of, and then some others that I made up.  Finally, I got off the thighs and a wing, and then gave up before I threw up.  I came to the conclusion that 21st century living has softened me.

The soup actually came out just fine (most delicious, if I say so myself, but still not as good as my mother makes it), but the problem now is that there's 3/4 of a deceased (and recently mangled) chicken sitting in the refrigerator and I'm afraid to look at it.  I'm also irrationally terrified it's going to jump up and come after me in revenge for what I did to it's limbs.

Pre-cut chicken from here on out.

And now...the second installment of Is It Gay, or Is It German?

The scenario: a giant man wearing ankle boots, socks that come up to mid-thigh, and really short shorts that barely covered his ass.  Also sporting a full beard, sideburns, and a leather shirt.  Is it gay, or is it German?

19 July 2011

How I Know I'm in Europe

Host Mom and I were over at She Of The Infamous Crepes Station's house, when Favorite Six Year Old overheard her younger sister make some comment about marriage, to which she responded "But...two women can't get married to each other!"  At which point all the adults in the room rounded on her and positively yelled "YES, THEY CAN.  AND SO CAN TWO MEN."

In Jersey there would be that awkward pause while you try to remember how conservative the people around you are, and how much shit you'll take if you thrust your pinko-commie views on an innocent child.

I love, love, love, Germany.

Lüneburg got rescheduled due to rain, but the host family and I did go on a day trip to a farm-museum-thing, the highlight of which was the ten minutes where I played on stilts.



Also, I've spent the last two days watching Favorite Six Year Old, her sister, and the charge while their mother was running errands.  They live in a tiny little village on the outskirts of Celle, which was lovely.  We ran around, saw cows, and put our feet in the Aller river.  All in all, good times!





And now, back to your regularly scheduled programming.  Adios!

17 July 2011

Ah, horse shows.

Nothing like a German horse show (where everyone is tall, blond, and wearing tight pants and tall boots) to make you feel less like the exotic black swan you tell yourself you are, and more like a short, chunky, Mediterranean monkey.

I'm exhausted.  I'm sunburnt.  I forgot to eat.  I spoke so much German my brain hurts. There was no shade.  Around 4 pm, dehydration punched me in the face with a headache so wicked, I could barely see, and there was no respite until 10 PM, when I came home and was like, "Sorry Host Parents, love to chat, but I need to consume a liter of water and two Advil before I die."  So all in all, it was a really successful horse show, and I had a blast!

I learned much this horse show (aside from vocabulary), the highlights of which I have arranged below in list form for convenient reading:

--I walked a cross-country course, which I'd never done before.  In between gawking at the four foot tall tree trunk the competitors had to jump over, and listening to stories about "oh, hey, remember that one time that horse fell on the fence, cut itself open, and bled to death on the field?" I realized I am not, have never been, and never will be, brave enough to jump fences that don't fall if you hit them.  When it comes down to you versus Four Feet Tree Trunk, and you mess up, I'll give you a hint at who the winner is: not you.  When I told Riding Friend this, she said "It's all about having a trusting relationship with your horse."  However, I trusted Austin to do a lot of things, but "carrying me over giant logs" was not one of them.  It also probably didn't help that he was terrified of things you normally find on a cross-country course, such as trees.  Final verdict: protective riding gear my ass, I'll stick to my colorful poles and collapsible fences.

--I was surprised, yet again, by how many men ride in Germany.  SO MANY OF THEM.  It was downright distracting.

--95% of the trailers were 2 horse, and the only ones larger than that were vans.  Also, the Germans have made them lighter and more fuel-efficient by doing away with the frivolities packed into American trailers, such as safety padding.  Because when the half-ton animal in the enclosed metal box decides to freak out, it's much better he does it in an aluminum death-trap sans anything that would save him from cutting himself/you open and bleeding to death in the trailer.  Wouldn't want to mess up the padding, you know.  Better to do without.

--The ribbon colors are completely different, which lead to my complete and utter confusion when the winning team was handed third place ribbons.  Instead of going blue, red, yellow, white, pink, green, like American horse show ribbons, German ribbons go gold, silver, white, blue, red, green.  So when the Celle team came in fourth, and was somewhat disappointed with their blue ribbons, I said (helpfully, I thought), "Don't worry, that means you won in America.  Just tell everyone that's where you competed today."

--The riding outfits are different.  I saw only white breeches, no tan ones, and not a single tall boot with laces on it.  Also, the riding jackets aren't like ours, they're 100% polyester and feel like a real jacket.  Also, only white shirts.  Also, not a single GPA.  Also, no animals dyed colors.

--If I ever compete in a German horse show, a little American flag will appear next to my name when I ride.

That's all I can think of right now!  If you're dying to know anything in particular about the horse show that I forgot to mention, hit me up in the comments and I'll get back to you.

Adios!
Tina

15 July 2011

Bite Me, Separable Prefixes.

Well, as of today I have been in Germany one entire month, and, though the month has flown by, much has happened.

I'm still having visa issues, and am now trying to get in touch with the Portuguese consulate in Hamburg, but, surprise surprise, they are impossible to get on the phone.

This upcoming language test has got me a hot anxious mess, even though I don't take it til November.

I fight with German every day...in particular, the passive voice, which I want to set on fire, and the goddamned separable prefixes.  For example, kommen is the verb for "to come".  But then you have mitkommen (to come with), abkommen (to get away), zukommen (to approach), ankommen (to arrive), aufkommen (to jump up), hinzukommen (to accrue), vorkommen (to appear), vorbeikommen (to come by), umkommen (to go to waste/die), nachkommen (to comply with/ to discharge), durchkommen (to come through), zurückkommen (to come back), überkommen (to creep over), zusammenkommen (to come together), unterkommen (to find accommodation),  entgegenkommen (to oblige), gleichkommen (to be tantamount to), herkommen (to come here), heraufkommen (to come up), herauskommen (to come out), and hinwegkommen (to overcome/ to get over somebody)...just to name a few.

AND, like the name suggests, they separate.  Which means that "Ich komme über," "Ich komme her," "Ich komme heraus," "Ich komme vorbei," "Ich komme um," and "Ich komme unter" all mean different things.  Which isn't too horrible, until the sentences start getting longer, for example: "Ich komme bestimmt morgen um halb zwölf an." Then I hear the last prefix, have to scramble to remember what the original verb was, and how the addition of this prefix now changes what I THOUGHT the sentence was trying to say in the first place, and, oh look, the conversation moved on five minutes ago and now I'm lost.  Fuck me.

However, slowly but surely, I am reaching the magical threshold where words are starting to come faster in German than they are in English.  Sometimes I open my mouth with the intention of speaking English (to the child, or to an animal or something) and German pops out instead.  The other night I was Skyping with Shane and I could not for the life of me remember what the word for Rührer was, and I had to look it up (it's a mixer).  Likewise, just now I had to look up "trennbare Präfixe," because I couldn't remember what they were called in English. So yes. Slowly but surely.  Even though I still want to set the passive voice on fire.

Nothing too interesting has happened the last few days, but tomorrow the barn down the street invited me to accompany them to a horseshow, which will be exciting!  And Sunday I'm heading to Lüneburg with Marina, assuming the weather does not shit on us.

New favorite song!  Marina and I were singing it all last weekend.  The video is totally cheesy, but the song is still nice:



Adios!
Tina

13 July 2011

From the Bucket List

4)  Start a n English language SILLY BANDZ trend.  Check!


The kids at the daycare are highly entertained by mine, but they don't exist in Germany.  With the possible exception of the international airport, where Favorite Six Year Old spotted them yesterday, and had such a freak-out, her mom bought a pack for her and her sister.  And now all the kids at the kindergarten want them


I am proud of myself.


In other news, today I learned that somehow, in all my years of childcare, I missed the crucial lesson called How To Deal With Small Boys, because I've really only taken care of girls.  Today I took the charge over to his friend's house, and watched children while the friend's mother packed things.  My charge's friend has a seven-year-old brother, who was pretty reserved until I started kicking a soccer ball around and pretending like I didn't know he was paying attention.  And then we were best friends, and I was applauding my own wit and charm, until:


At one point all four of us were up in the attic--each child was occupying himself differently, and I was just sort of chilling out on the rug--when suddenly, the Fates deemed that all three children would desperately my require my individual attention, at the exact same time. The next thing I knew, I had one child screaming to read him a book, one loudly explaining the inner workings of his ghost-pirate Lego set, and one chucking packing peanuts at my head while hollering "It's snowing!  It's snowing!"


I was not prepared.  But I was also highly, highly entertained.  

11 July 2011

Portugal, eu te amo.

Olá!

Hold on to your petticoats, because I have an important announcement to make: I am officially Portuguese.

That's right, for better or for worse, there is one more Portuguese person on the planet, and that person is me.  The consulate has come through, and I am holding my brand-spankin-new birth certificate, that identifies me as a member of the great, albeit slightly-past-it's-prime, nation of Portugal.  And as it turns out, the whole process was relatively painless!  The hardest part was trying to get the consulate on the phone. After that, it was just a matter of showing up with some papers, signing some other papers, telling everyone of my plans to study in the great, totally-not-past-it's-prime nation of Portugal, and then forking over $372.39.  And now I belong to the same country that produced Magellan, the lobotomy, and the transatlantic slave trade.  Go me!

So, what does this mean for me?  Not actually much.  The way I see it, my new dual-citizen status afford me several perks in life, these being:

--I can now live and work anywhere in Europe without jumping through the imploding hoops the Germans call the visa, but the rest of the world calls the "black pit of death, despair, and red tape.  Abandon all hope ye who enter here."
--I can get in the EU express line at airports.
--I can vote in important elections that determine the fate of nations, such as the Eurovision Song Contest.

In addition:

--My dad will be mad at me, and accuse me of only being Portuguese when I find it convenient, which is entirely true, except I like to call it "shamelessly taking advantage of all available resources in order to lead a more kickass life."
--If I date a celebrity, Portuguese magazines will applaud that celebrity's excellent taste**.
--If I die in a plane crash or a shipwreck or something, Portuguese newspapers will count me among the 3 Portuguese dead, and bemoan my fate in a language I understand barely, and even then, only when I deem it useful.

EPIC WIN!

It doesn't sound like much, but for someone planning on living, working, studying, and travelling in Europe as much as I am, EU citizenship is like the Holy Grail of Everything, except more practical and Jesus doesn't make a habit of bleeding on it. Now if you'll excuse me, to celebrate my citizenship, I'm going to go do really Portuguese things, like lay bricks, eat octopus, and slap my wife around.

Adeus!

**looking in your general direction, Hugh Jackman    

10 July 2011

Weekend Update with Marina

Warning:  total photo overload.

You know what constitutes the best day ever?  When your mother's package, AND Sam's letter, AND your bank card, AND Marina all arrive in the same day.  Which is exactly what happened on Saturday.  First, my mom is brilliant and sent me a package of all things I forgot, PLUS a surprise package of Wheat Thins which made me so excited I didn't know what to do with myself.  So I'm rationing them.  AND SAM SENT ME A LETTER THAT I LOVED, complete with poems, Where's Waldo, and an informative sheet on worm mating habits!  And I have a response in the works for you, woman!  And the bank card means that I can get paid.

Then, Marina came!  And it was wonderful!  We immediately set out into town, where we were determined to do every exciting thing there is to do in Celle, and all in the six hours or so we had before the grill party the family was throwing that evening.  Because writing it all out in complete sentences would keep you here until tomorrow, I'm going to list everything.  And attach pictures.

Every Cool Thing There Is To Do In Celle:

First, we walked around and looked at buildings.


and Marina posed with statues:


and I was so happy, I couldn't contain myself:


We took a picture with a guy dressed up as a raven, and gave two random girls who stopped us marriage advice for a video they were making for the one girl's friend.  My advice was "Be nice."  Profound, really.


Then we did a horse-drawn tour of the city,




followed by GERMAN MEGA ICE CREAM!



We took awkward group shots by the castle...


and eventually went inside, where we were so bored, we took pictures of dogs outside.


We goofed on on the castle grounds for a bit:


and then went back into town, where we got our styles pimped,


almost had our souls saved,


and hung out with statues.



Eventually it started to rain, so we decided to climb the church tower, for a nice view over Celle.


It was rainy...


and also


Then we saw what I call the sperm fountain, so named because the water shoots out of these,


played on jousting stick things,


and hung out in the French Gardens.


Then, we came home, grilled with the family and friends, played with my favorite six-year old ever (who's the daughter of She of the Infamous Crepes Station), before heading back out into town, to drink these:


I would like to say that while I was at no point drunk, I did eventually start making WWII jokes, before I lost my ability to speak English completely.  This was a poor idea, because, in the words of the ever-amazing Mike H. "You look like the star of the Lisbon Repertory Company's production of The Diary Of Anne Frank."  Also, the guys next to us were scandalized enough to leave.  My bad.

Eventually we came home and ate Gone with the Wind (Vom Winde Verweht) ice cream that I had bought.  It's chocolate pieces in raspberry ice cream, topped with white chocolate bits in strawberry sauce.  Also, it has a picture of Vivien Leigh and Clark Gable staring at each other passionately.  It's also delicious.  

Then, this morning we were woken up at an ungodly hour by Schützenfest, which is some celebration that apparently involves a parade at 6.30 AM.  We slept for another hour before waking up, and heading off to the train station, where we were bound for the nearby town of HAMELN.  Which has nothing going for it, except that it's the town the Pied Piper saved from the rats.  Also, there's a store that will buy your gold, even if the teeth are still attached:


Okay, so Hameln.  There are rats embossed on every surface, including little rat stones in the street.


But the buildings are lovely!


And did I mention there were rats everywhere?


The biggest drawn for Hameln is that every Sunday, they host a play-reenaction-thing of the Pied Piper coming to Hameln, drowning the rats, and then getting fucked over by the townspeople when they refuse to pay him.  So instead of charming the money out of their pockets, he charms all the children into the hills, where they all disappear, with the exception of a blind one and a deaf one, neither of which can tell the townspeople what happened because sign language was apparently not invented in those days. The moral of the story is a) never trust a man who plays a pansy instrument like the flute, b) rat poison makes everyone's lives easier AND stops the spread of the plague, and c) if you can't hear, learn sign language already, so you can tell people where the pansy flute asshole took everybody.  And now for more pictures:

"We hate rats."


"I take out my anger at never learning a manly instrument on various household pests."


"I'm a dick, and possibly a pedophile."


All in all, it was wonderful fun.  I've missed Marina like a fiend the last few years, and it was just wonderful to see her again.  We danced, we spilled things, we practiced each other's accents, and it was brilliant.  Just divine, dahling.  

That's all for now folks, hope your weekend was BANGIN.

Adios!

EDIT:  In case I did not make myself clear, I rather like the flute.  But when it's paired with Joseph's Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, I gain the right to make as many pansy jokes as I damn well please.

07 July 2011

on culture shocking and horses

Happy slightly belated birthday, America.  Sorry I was so busy concerning myself with attack-rodents that I forgot to say it sooner.  Hope you all had a lovely fourth!

The story of my life is that the last few days have not been particularly interesting.  I was ridiculously productive today, running all sorts of errands and being a general fiend.  I finally got around to opening a bank account, which I have to pay 6 euros for monthly, which is LAME.  What a stupid-ass banking system.  I'm also having Epic Visa Problems that will probably get their own blog post, if and when they are ever solved.  My ace in the hole is my Portuguese birth certificate, so if all goes to according to plan, I'll be able to circumvent the system and all the shit the German government has put me through already.  However, everything had been going to plan, until the moment it stopped going to plan, namely, when my visa spontaneously combusted in my face.

As far as culture shock goes, I've found it's thus far been to limited intense and terrible moments, and triggered by something completely innocuous.  Then I find myself inwardly retreating to some dark place where I wish bad things on the world because I am incapable of living in it.  Like when the recipe called for the 400 degrees Fahrenheit, and I turned the oven on only to realize it was in Celsius.  Or when the guy at the Alien Registration Office saw the look of horror on my face as I sat there staring at forms, and I had to ashamedly confess that I had no idea how tall I am in centimeters.  And he had to measure me against a wall like I was at a doctor's office. Or when I went to buy flip flops, and had to try on every single size starting with 35, because I don't know my European shoe size.    

But the good thing is, it doesn't last long.  I always take a deep breath, grit my teeth, hate everything, and figure it out--mainly because I don't have any other option.  400 degrees F is a little over 200 degrees C, I'm 162 centimeters tall, and I'm a 40 (in flip flops at least).  But even though I still don't understand the metric system, I remain a deeply anxious human being, and my self-esteem is directly connected to how well I feel I've accomplished Living In Germany on any given day, I still wouldn't change my situation for anything in the world.  It may rain more often than not here, but at least I'm being rained on in Germany, and I try to keep sight of how cool that is.

My favorite moments are the delayed reactions to the normal, that tell me it's getting easier.  Like today when I was at the bank, and there was a dog behind me trying to wrap itself around my legs, and my first thought was "what an adorable dog."  Five minutes later I realized I was standing in the middle of a marble-floored, gold-countered public establishment and hanging with a basset hound, and I hadn't even batted an eye.  Because some of the weirder it's-so-German things are magically morphing into it's-so-normal things, and that's neat.  I like those moments.

In other news, I went back to the barn today to help out.  I longed a three-year-old around for a little while, and then they threw me on the buffalo Haflinger, who truly is a buffalo.  A lazier horse I have never encountered in my life, but I'm a happy camper. Sometimes I think I'm okay without horses in my life for extended periods of time, but then I get my ass beat by a golden buffalo, my legs have already started hurting, and I smell like horses, but I still skipped all the way back to my bike.  The awesome thing is that the barn is less than a minute's bike ride away, and the people are lovely.  I gave the daughter my phone number, so she can call me whenever they need help with feeding or longeing, or whenever the buffalo-thing is free.  Plus she told me I can come by whenever to hang out.  So...yay!  I even learned lots of new words, like longieren (longeing), Trenze (bridle), and büffelig (...buffalo-like).

So...yes!  I have horses, I have a pretty awesome family, and I have people that are quickly turning into friends, and all of these are wonderful things.  I never claimed that moving my life 3,915.89 miles away was going to be a cakewalk, but I'm still really happy to be where I am.  The government hates me and my masters degree depends on passing a single test, but I'm really, really content with my life, which I haven't been able to say for a while.  So this is a good change!

04 July 2011

A Weasel ate our Car.

No, seriously.  A weasel ate our car.

Yesterday: on the way back from Göttingen, the brand-new, just-bought, gute-deutsche-Qualität car all of a sudden started making funny noises and lurching.  The dashboard lit up like potheads in Colorado, sending Host Mom furiously searching through the manual for what all the beeps and blips and your-car-is-fucked lights meant.  In short, they translated to: your car is fucked. Keep in mind, this automobile is less than three weeks old--we picked it up two hours after they picked me up from the airport.  Host Parents were, to say the least, not pleased, thinking they had inadvertently been stuck with a Montagsproduktion--a really shitty car made when the factory workers were still hungover Monday morning that starts having problems almost immediately.

Fast forward to this morning, when I come downstairs to learn that, no, it was not hungover assembly liners, it was a weasel-thing.  A marten, to be exact.  These little bastards are the scourge of Germany, costing car-owners an average of 40 million euros per year.  Because they feed on cars.  Or rather, they dine on the circulatory systems of autos parked in their territory that smell of a different marten. Apparently, Oma and Opa's marten was offended by our marten's stench, and took revenge by chowing down on 360 dollars worth of engine tubing.

All around the mulberry bush
The monkey chased the weasel.
The weasel ate the monkey's car
So the monkey set it on fire.

03 July 2011

Comparisons, Göttingen, and Girlmanthings

Things That Are Better in Germany

--  Yogurt, bread, cheese, and chocolate.
--  A reverse yellow light that signals when the green is coming, which I find both handy and entertaining.
--  Hippies.  Nothing like a German hippie to make me feel like the world still has a sense of humor.

Things That Are Better in America

--  The weather (can you say, I've-been-here-for-eighteen-days-and-fifteen-of-those-days-have-been-55-degrees-and-raining-and-I-only-brought-a-light-jacket-to-Germany-because-I-expected-summertime-in-June-I-know-who-does-that-anyway-the-point-is-I'm-dying?)
--  Cheesecake.  And brownies, come to think of it.
--  Music and television.  Just saying.

Started off the weekend with a summerfest at the child's day care, even though it feels like winter.  All the parents brought something (I cut up a watermelon), and one of our parent-friends had a whole crepe station set up, complete with an obnoxiously giant jar of Nutella.  Which made her coolness factor, in my book, go up x100.

Then we were off to Göttingen, where I want to study, and where the mom's extended family lives.  It was a great time, everyone was super nice.  At first I was shy, as I always feel weird talking to older Germans, because all I can think about is whether or not they're thinking about that time that their country tried to kill everything, and my country tried to stop them by dropping bombs on their civilians.  And then I think about if they're thinking about me thinking about this, and whether I should just introduce myself as "Tina, sorry my country dropped bombs on your house 70 years ago," but that seems awkward, and it's just a vicious cycle.  But anyway everyone was lovely, we did not talk about WWII, and the grandmother is an amazing cook.

Saturday we woke up bright and early, ate breakfast, and then ran around the city for a bit.  It was freezing, but still attractive.  Göttingen, unlike Celle, is a university city, so it was nice actually seeing people my age out on the street.  We didn't actually do much, just wandered around, but I did take some pictures for you.  Oh, and Claire, I finally solved the age-old problem of Heidi's footwear, because I found a T-shirt of Heidi, and made a point to double check.  You know what?  She didn't have appropriate footwear, because she didn't wear any.  Her grandfather made her go barefoot, the asshole.

This is a dummy, not some random person's boobs.  Just so we're clear.


When you get your doctorate, you have to kiss this statue.  It's tradition, apparently.

Gee, this building looks old...

...because it's older than America.

Afterwards the family asked me: "What would you rather do this afternoon, go to the European Bread Museum, or see wild pigs?"  Clearly, there's no choice there. Unfortunately, the pigs were huddled in a pig-like-mass way back from the fence, so you can't really see them in the picture, but we did hang out with deer and cows.

 Pigs, sort of.


Deer, definitely.

Yay, cows.

After dinner, Host Mom decided we were going to have a girls-night-out in the city and go to a bar.  As soon as we parked, we were accosted by a bachelor party.  Unlike the one in Celle, these guys were not dressed as nurses, but rather, as hot-pink fishnet-wearing, blue-wigged, over-blushed girlmanthings.  And Host Mom bought be a bottled shot of vodka from them.  It's currently sitting in my purse, waiting for an appropriate time of crisis to be used, like a wound infection or the end of the world.

Today we went to the Wilhelm Busch watermill thingy.  Wilhelm Busch wrote comics, and his watermill milled things.  That's about it.

Anyway, it was a good time, and now I'm back.  Hope you all had lovely weekend, without the girlmanthings.

As a random sidenote, it is terrifying driving by yourself in a country where you don't understand the road signs.  It is also impractical to not realize this until the first time you drive by yourself.

EDIT:  According to my sister, one of the photos she took of me and Stretch got added to a Flickr photography group called "Hot Farm Girls" that consists mainly of naked women in cowboy boots.  I consider this a personal victory, even though I have a dress on.

EDIT EDIT:  JESUS CHRIST WHY ARE THERE SO MANY NAKED PEOPLE IN COWBOY BOOTS.