December hath come and (almost) gone...

I’m sitting on a train somewhere between Lausanne and Bern. Somewhere around here the announcements will be in German first, then French, instead of the other way around, but train is train is train. Muddy snow and the occasional light display are the only indications it’s working towards Christmas. Tiny country, many languages, strange politics: welcome to Europe. “What are you getting your family for Christmas?” “Chocolate.” Welcome to Switzerland.

Everyone pretty much went or is going home, a mass exodus of foreign students because no one is actually ever from here. The cité universitaire (the dorms) are haunted only by the forlorn echo of a door closing somewhere above or below you, and the hush of a big building with few people. Most anyone who’s left is doing laundry, and tinny Christmas music blares from the foyer. I wonder how much the receptionists hate it.



For my part, and I likely speak for my colleagues, not having anything to do is an unaccustomed and perhaps somewhat uncomfortable feeling—life is no longer predetermined, and there is no polycopié inducing guilt from the bookshelf. You can tell how the semester is going by the collective note of panic in everyone’s facebook statuses, reflecting long hours at the library, too many papers, a triumphal word count update or occasionally the expression of pure misery. The general burst of euphoria following the end of semester gave way to a general perplexity and a communal “…now what?” I don’t know either.

And I’m homeless again. In the hope of finding someone to take my room while I’m gone I packed everything I owned, distributed it among various friends who were maintaining their rooms, and cleared the premises. For the next two months I will live out of a backpack that is already too full without having much in it. I forget Christmas is next week. I felt like I’ve barely seen the sun for weeks, and my sudden parole has left me unprepared for the holiday spirit. Though I am going to Germany where, in my opinion, Christmas more or less is done properly (replete with Christmas markets, kitsch of all kinds and pre-Christmas Advent and St. Nicholas celebrations), I’m not going to any place I would call “home”, instead shuttling around among couches in a country which once was mine but to which I by all rights no longer belong. But I will be among my adopted my family, by which I mean that community of individuals who have taken such good care of me for all the years I’ve been a vagabond, a packrat, a holiday orphan, or just passing through. These days it seems all I ever do is pass through, and any time I start settling down, the little voice in the back of my mind starts encouraging me to pack my bag and move on.

(time elapses)

In Bern my trip took a turn for the worse. I was supposed to change in Bern to Basel, so, toting various backpacks, laptop bags, plastic bags with extraneous food products including a very large quantity of chocolate, I exited the train at Bern, happily took the escalator up to the main platform….to discover my connection had a 30-minute delay. There was no way I would make my connection (what to do what to do what to do what to do what to do) to the other Basel station (frustratingly, there are two train stations in Basel, the Swiss one and the German one, and you can’t all that easily from one to another). The train of which I had just gotten off would continue on to Olten and Zürich, and I remember having gone through Olten (what to do what to do what to do what to do what to do) on my way to Freiburg once, so…. Hectically I dashed down the platform to the train I had just gotten off, finding no maps no departure no other information, no ticket taker who could have helped me, no no no no no nothing (what to do what to do what to do what to do what to do!!!). Still unsure I went back up to the main platform—still dragging sundry and all baggage, resulting in a noticeable tilt to starboard due to my laptop bag—and found a map showing Olten to be more or less (what to do what to do what to do what to do what to do) between Bern and Freiburg. On a wing and a prayer I decided to risk the train to Olten, with the possibility that there would be no trains to Basel or that I would get to Basel too late to get on to Germany (what to do what to do what to do what to do what to do). Deciding to give it a go, I dash back down the platform where, by some miracle of which I was undeserving, the train I had just gotten off of was still there. I hopped back in, coincidentally in the same compartment, and spent the next twenty minutes desperately trying to connect with someone in Germany who would tell me when and if I would ever make it to my destination.



I was so preoccupied with my possible timetables and would I make my connection in Olten that I almost forgot to get off at Olten, and barely managed to collect my belongings and fight my way against the stream of boarding passengers like a giant malformed red salmon. I hurried three platforms over in the hope of catching a connecting train 3 minutes later, which turned out not to exist, which meant I had then to change seven platforms in the other direction to wait for my next train to Basel (Swiss). Upon boarding the train, upset, flustered and tired and looking forward to the yoghurt I had packed as at least a minor improvement in my evening, I discovered that said yoghurt had responded to Newton’s Third Law, which states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Some action must have compressed its fragile plastic domicile, and in lawful reaction it exploded all over everything. They say yoghurt is good for the skin and I hope they’re right, ‘cause I kinda had to use it as hand cream (no Kleenex at hand).



Basel, of course, was a continuation of my previous disaster, as the S-Bahn over to the other Basel station is at the very very end and somehow half as long as the others, so a very hectic and almost painful odyssey over there made defeat all the more bitter when I discovered I had missed the transfer by about two minutes. Thankfully, in some last-ditch attempt to refute Murphy’s law, there was a (fast) train to Freiburg some minutes later. It is, of course, considerably more expensive than the train I otherwise would have taken, but at that point there was nothing I could do to change that.

The first stage is denial

She saw the ad online somewhere, probably one of those really stupid-looking little blurbs on your email or somewhere that no one ever clicks on, except people do, or else they wouldn't be there--businesses don't run on optimism. Anyways, the product was certified and guaranteed and moreover recommended by several popular TV shows--and available at the drug store. So the next time she was at Murray's she found the little blue box and bought some. You know, just to try 'em.

They were little patches that you stuck onto your hip or your arm, giving you a badge like that of a recent ex-smokers. The package promised first results within a week, and she was excited to see what happened. After all, it was perfectly safe, or they wouldn't have been allowed to sell it. The package promised five a week, and she actually would only need maybe two weeks, maybe three before she got where she wanted--no extra work involved, no foregoing, no exertion of any kind. In fact, exertion was discouraged, which was fine with her.

And it worked. By Thursday she thought she could feel a difference, felt lighter, livlier, not so weighed down. By saturday she was borrowing Lisa's dress, Lisa, who was at least two sizes smaller--ok, the dress was still to big for Lisa, and a bit tight on her, but whatever.

By Tuesday she had to go shopping, which she did every Tuesday, and Monday and Friday and Saturday and Wednesday and Sunday and Thursday--but she was edging towards the rack of 'smalls', gingerly feeling the patch at her waist. That spot was a bit tender, but you can't have everything, and compared to months at the gym this was nothing.

By Friday she wasn't feeling hungry; an added bonus, making this all the much easier. She didn't have much farther to go before she was perfect, just another week or two. Sunday she passed on ice cream with Sonia, looking at the other girl with a mixture of pity and slight disgust. "Ice cream is the last thing *you* need," she joked, turning away, not noticing that Sonia didn't think it was funny.

Wednesday she didn't feel like getting out of bed. Nauseous and weak she lay there, remembered having read something about side effects. Temporary ones. Friday wasn't much better, and by Monday she was down fifteen, perhaps twenty. Her hipbones jutted out of her skirt and she wore them proudly as long as they hid her patch, and the bluish-purplish bruise that had been there for the last several days.

Thirty down. She was astounded at how well they were working, the little patches. She decided she'd done enough, and stop wearing them. But within the hour she began to feel as if she had been blown up to twice her normal size, and she stuck on another patch and immediately felt better.

Forty-five. Ordinarily she'd be proud of the fact that the size 0 hung loosly from her frame, but to be honest, she couldn't get up the effort to care. She didn't actually have the energy to to anything at all, and though she had resolved to stop using them, after much exertion she managed tiredly to pull back another wrapper of another patch, and to try to find a spot on her body not bony and bruised. Her skin felt loose and listless, but it didn't matter, she was skinny, she was beautiful. She pulled back the wrapper and stuck on the patch, waiting for the exhilirating rush. And she disappeared completely.

DISCLAIMER: I just found this in the archives of my blog, and it is, 100% honestly, a thought experiment. I think I wrote it after seeing a few emaciated pictures of unhappy otherwise well-fed Americans (equally applicable to other OECD countries) who starve themselves to be thin, compared to pictures of emaciated children in Africa who just don't get enough to eat and die of malnutrition. How is it that the US (and some large portions--no pun intended--of the rest of the world) suffer from obesity, and in other places people starve? Here's a new diet plan: spend less on fast food, send the money somewhere where people need it. Even better: stop subsidizing American and European agriculture, make us pay a bit more for food so perhaps we eat less, and allow all those subsistence farmers a market for their goods.

A conversation

Subtitle: let's not kid ourselves.

What you say (what you mean)

A: Hi (hi.)
B: Hi! (hi.)
A: How have you been? (haven't seen you in a long time and have no idea what's happened to your life.)
B: Pretty well, thanks. Yourself? (well, my boyfriend/gilfriend just left me and I need to find a new place to live ASAP. I hope your life is worse than mine, so I'll feel better.)
A: Doing just fine. (except I'm broke and have had the flu for two weeks. But your lot sounds worse off, so there's that...)
B: Good to hear. Crappy weather we've got. (I can't think of anything to say.)
A: Yeah, no kidding. Hasn't rained like this in weeks. (I can't think of anything either.)
B: Supposed to get better tomorrow. (Ummmmm.....)
A: Yeah, we'll see. This rain sucks! (Ummmm......)
B: Well, I've got to run. We should catch up sometime... (This is getting awkward, so I'm bailing. Let's not have this conversation again any time soon.)
A: Definately. I've actually gotta run too, but I'll drop you a line sometime. (Yay, an exit. Don't wait for my call.)
B: Excellent! Yeah, well, take care! (Glad that's over with!)
A: You too! (Finally got that tosser off my back!)

Why is it that we default to talking about the weather when we've got nothing to say? I don't even buy the argument of weather as the lowest common denominator--why do I write about the weather to penpals or friends far away? It has no actual relevance to anything whatsoever, and why can't we just say what we're thinking?

Spiegelein, Spiegelein an der Wand...

Es ist ein bisschen schwierig mich auszudrucken. Ich wollte es nicht sagen, konnte es nciht sagen, brachte es einfach nicht fertig, den Mund aufzumachen und dir zu sagen dass ich gehe. Und wie. Ich verlasse dieses Land und diese Stadt und diese Straße und diese Wohnung und dieses Zimmer und ich werde, höchstwahrscheinlich, nie wieder zurückkommen. Ich sage das so, so beiläufig, so nebenbei, weil ich es mir jeden Tag eingeübt habe. Ich saß, seit zwei Wochen saß ich im Wohnzimmer und habe es vor mich hin gesagt, habe der Luft vor mir gesagt, ,ich gehe’. Es dir zu sagen ist etwas schwieriger, denn im Gegesatz zur Luft, also im Gegensatz zu mir selber, hast du etwas dazu zu sagen. ,Nein’ hast du dazu zu sagen, also dagegen zu sagen. Du willst nicht, dass ich gehe. Sagtest du.

Bei ,nein’ kann es nicht bleiben, so einfach ist diese Sache nicht. Du verstehst mich nicht, du willst mich nicht verstehen, das Einzige, was du verstehst, ist dass ich dich verlasse. Dich verlasse ich nicht, also nicht mit Absicht, aber da du mit diesem Zimmer und dieser Wohnung und dieser Straße und dieser Stadt und diesem Land auf Ewigkeit verbunden bist, gehörst du zwangsläufig zu den Sachen und Orten und Leuten, die ich verlasse.

Ein Geheimnis habe ich für dich, eingepackt und eingeschweift wie Lebensmittel, wie Fleisch, das nicht verderben soll. Mein Geheimnis soll auch nicht verderben, also darfst du es nicht auspacken, sondern aufbewahren für immer und ewig und mindestens bis nächster Woche. Ich sage dir nicht, was drinnen ist, denn es ist ein Geheimnis, oder? Ich lege es dir hin neben dem Waschbecken. So. Siehst du? Genau da. Vielleicht hinter dem Wasserhahn ist besser, oder im Schrank? Vielleicht vergisst du es, wenn ich es in den Schrank stecke—ich lass mein Geheimnis hier neben dem Waschbecken.

Wir kennen uns seit zwei Tagen. Oder zwei Wochen. Oder zwei Jahren. Mir ist nicht so ganz klar, ich nehme es mit den Daten nicht so ganz genau. Du weiß das, nicht wahr? Wir haben uns nur zufällig kennengelernt, zwei Einzelpersonen, die jetzt Zweipersonen sind. Oder so ähnlich. Zwillinge sind wir, denn wir sehen uns sehr ähnlich. Wir sind sehr ähnlich: gleichaltrig, beide mit braunen Haaren—meine sind links gescheitelt, deine dagegen rechts—und mit leuchtenden, blauen Augen. Sommersprossen haben wir beide. Darüber bin ich froh, denn die anderen in der Schule machen sich über meine Sommersprossen lustig, und es erleichtert mich, dass du meine Last auch teilst.

In letzter Zeit, zumindest seit der Schule wieder angefangen hat, sehen wir uns seltener. Früher sahen wir uns morgens, abends, mittags, manchmal vor- oder nachmittags. Manchmal sahen wir uns mitten in der Nacht, manchmal trafen wir uns mitten in der Nacht, wo der Mond vom Fenster über meiner rechten—deiner linken—Schulter uns beleuchtete.

Jetzt ist es aber morgen, es ist der Morgen, an dem wir diese Wohnung, diese Straße, diese Stadt und dieses Land verlassen werden. Wir fahren mit dem Auto, hat Mama gesagt. Ich will aber nicht, aber sie hört nicht auf mich, sie sagt, dass wir gehen müssen. Es ist Zeit, dir zu sagen, dass ich gehe, aber wie gesagt, gerade das fällt mir jetzt schwer.

,,Peeeeeeter!” das war Mama. Sie ruft mich. Sie steht schon vorne, vorm Haus und vorm Auto, und wartet auf mich. Nur ich fehle, und sie ruft nach mir. ,,Peter!” sagte sie wieder. Sie steht hinter mir, hinter dir auch, und lächelt mir zu. Sie ist nicht böse, aber sie wird böse, wenn ich nicht mitkomme.

,,Mama, ich will nicht gehen,” klagte ich, wimmerte ich, aber sie begann trotzdem mich—dich—langsam aus dem Badezimmer zu zerren. Ich sah, wie du dich wehrtest, aber sie war kräftig und stärker. Fast warst du aus meiner Sicht verschwunden, da schreite ich dir, wie aus der Ferne: ,,ich muss gehen! Ich komm nicht wieder. Es tut mir Leid!” Und ich sah auch, wie du mit offenem Mund mir auch etwas zu schriest. Ich habe dich aber nicht gehört, nichts gehört, überhaupt nichts.

,,Peter, wir müssen gehen,” antwortete Mama. ,,Ach, was soll’s,” sagte Mama. “Ich werde es nie verstehen, wieso du ständig im Badezimmer stehst und mit deinem Spiegelbild redest! Aber wir müssen los!” Und als sie mich noch einmal zerrte warst du weg, verschwunden.

Remember remember November november

I haven’t written much recently, as I haven’t really had much to write about. I am, after all, a grad student, and my life is marked by the boring monotony of readings and seminars that seem to take up 95% of my waking hours. To be fair, I spend a fair amount of time trying to make myself work, which is more or less directly euivalent to the amount of time I spend reading webcomics and checking facebook (because, you know, something might have changed in the last 30 seconds). It’s a bit pathetic, really, but the lure of shiny pictures and contact to the outside world is a bit hard to resist.

I have to admit, I really hate the library. Coming from a (former) librarian, that’s a harsh statement, but I’m quite anti-library. Even when I worked (read: lived) in one I still couldn’t stand the place and was nevertheless constantly there—but only to work. I cannot study in a library; library, to me, speaks of dusty books, poor lighting, sterile environment, uncomfortable chairs and a dearth of electric sockets. Compared to my desk at home replete with surround sound speakers, coffee maker and the opportunity to take walks in the fresh air, I can’t imagine under what circumstances I could be induced to leave my little 8th floor sanctuary.

In addition, the library has a certain air of frantic desperation to it which I find offputting (mostly because it gives me a guilty conscience). Everyone is frantically doing something, buried in readings, meandering lost through the stacks (why do no two libraries use the same cataloguing system? Am I spoiled by the American 2-option system of a) Dewey or b) Library of Congress?) or taking constant coffee breaks. In fact, I am quite sure there are several people whose coffee breaks exceed the time they spend studying. Mostly, my life right now just makes me want to go AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!
It’s obvious I don’t get out much, and I like complaining.

Occasionally, however, I do manage to make it off my butt to go do something. Satuday we went to a concert at au Chat Noir, a bar in Carouge, which was featuring a brass/funk. It’s the kind of thing which is either amazing or ridiculous; you either love it and you dance, or you hate it and you leave because there’s no middle ground. Of course, the place was almost empty, and we joked it was a private party just for us (we were what, 10 people?) and as the crowd trickled in, it became a mix of us and people twice our age.

The band consisted of seven-odd frenchies in their mid 30s acting like they were in their early 20s, playing tuba, saxophone, drums, drums, trombone, turntables and banjo, playing stuff ranging from uptempo funk to big-band rap with jam riffs. The kid playing the turntables was slight and rather scrawny, and like anyone I’ve ever seen do ‘tables he bobbed back in forth almost hypnotically with the music, hunched to one side, one hand turning and one hand flicking switches. The frontman was as ridiculous as they come, a saxophone player who looked about ten years older after taking off his hat and hoody, dancing along to the music and eventually leading the band off of the stage and into the crowd where they played jam-style. It reminded me of the soccer games this summer; at one point everyone (including the band) would crouch down and the pressure would build and build and the music would crescendo and speed up and everyone would leap up and jump up and down. After all of that I just had to go home, but everyone else stayed out and the night apparently turned into a minorly epic odyssey, trying to find some bar that was open, rescuing a drunk guy trying to walk to Annecy in the snow with no shoes, etc.

random

Vrrrr-VROOOOOMM…purrrrrr…ka-THUNK, ka-THUNK….vrrr-vrrOOOOMMM!!! Vrrrr-VROOOOOMM…purrrrrr…ka-THUNK, ka-THUNK….vrrr-vrrOOOOMMM!!!

Watching a Maserati go over speedbumps is kind of like watching someone cut vegetables with a weed whacker--- can anyone say overkill?

And does anyone know what:

NO POGOS

ONLY THE REALS DANCING

--thank you

could possibly mean? It’s on the entryway to a club; usually, that location houses a “no smoking” sign, until it was recently replaced by this one.

Banana me...

This might just be the most hilarious thing that has ever happened to me, and I almost fell off my bike laughing when it happened (although it was slightly less amusing as I was carrying my bike home…). In any case, it all started out one not so fine and not particularly sunny day when I, in a dearth of pretty much anything edible whatsoever in my little monk’s cell, determined to go grocery shopping on my way back from an appointment I was convinced I had but actually didn’t. I managed to collect the essentials (or ‘the usual’, as I pretty much always buy the same things…), pay, and in true German style pack everything in my backpack before the checker was done checking (if you’ve ever been to Aldi and in danger of having your purchases more or less pushed off the counter for not being fast enough, you’ll know what I mean). Everything fit except the bananas and the baguette; I had managed to stow the heavy, indestructible objects a the bottom of my backpack, the box of fresh figs on top (PS, for those of you in Switzerland, currently ‘en action’ at Migros this week), and in true German fashion had even brought my own plastic shopping bag in case it didn’t all fit in the backpack (again, veterans of deutsche Discountmärkte will know that additional bags cost money). Under the weight of my several kilos of müsli, coffee, carrots, milk, and god knows what else I bought I stagger outside, unlock my bike, push the bike across the street so I am set up to start riding in the direction, jump on, start riding and…

…that’s when it happens. I often boast of being able to transport much of anything on a bicycle, as if dangling all manner of baggage and accoutrements looking like I’m carrying all my earthly possessions in one go is some kind of virtue despite looking utterly ridiculous. So I figure one backpack, one plastic shopping bag would be no problem. And it usually isn’t: ask me about transporting a flat of strawberries, several watermelons, or bottles of wine and we can talk about ‘difficult’. In any case, I start off, and in the first five or so yards as I am gaining equilibrium, the bag dangling from my handlebars keeps touching the spokes, generally just making a terrible noise and damaging the bag for which I at one point paid money. All of the sudden, pendulating as it was, the bag suddenly swung into the spokes with enough force that the bag was essentially grabbed and swallowed by the front wheel like a wood chipper, as my bike manages somehow, in the space of about 8.2 seconds, to puree five bananas and half a baguette before I could get stopped and sort it all out. Unfortunately, this had already broken a bracket on my fender and managed to wedge the thingie holding on to the bracket under the front wheel, meaning I had to literally carry the bicycle—dripping banana—home in heels.

LATER THAT DAY: I did manage to fix my bike, but it involved taking off the brakes to get to the fender to get to the bracket to put it all back together again. Go me. And I have no bananas left ☹

Je voudrais que quelqu'un....

My new pet peeve has become: upon someone finding out I’m American, they immediately ask “have you voted yet?” to which I reply, “I’m still waiting for my ballot.” To which they hysterically screech “but you need to VOTE!!!” As if I had any effect on my ballot not being there. Yes, I damn well KNOW I have to vote—you think I want a repeat of the last time around? You Europeans seem half convinced I voted for Bush the last time…

Americans find it off-putting abroad that pretty much everyone and their grandmother wants to know your voting preference. Money, religion and politics are not subjects openly discussed, I suppose, and I would never consider asking another American how they voted / are going to vote. Germans have no problems asking that, nor how much we earn, nor what religion we are (though the concept of religion in Germany has less serious connotations than in the States, excepting Bavaria…). It also perturbs most Americans that your average European knows more about American politics than the Americans do…

Other new pet peeves include:
- paying ridiculous amounts of money for nearly everything;
- the cleaning ladies who absolutely have to clean our kitchen at the exact same time as I need to make my sandwich for lunch, regardless of what time of the day or night;
- the crackheads at cité at 2 AM on weekends (explanation: the seediest club in Geneva—where people go when nothing else is open or they can’t get in anywhere else—is located under my residence, conveniently right next to the bicycle room in the basement. That means I have to pass through clouds of weed smoke and drunk kids to put my bike away if I come home on weekends);
- people who automatically switch to English when we start to speak and think they’re doing me a favor
- 6:30 AM plus Garbage men = me not much sleep
- not having enough coffee (am sadly back to being coffee dependent… welcome to grad school)
- having the linguistical ability of your average eight-year-old—if that.

Mais en effet, ca va. Parfois.

En Suisse

Frequent comment: “Are you going to take your bike?” (incredulous look at either the weather or what I’m wearing; I have a penchant for skirts and heels). “Of course I’m biking. I always take my bike.” (that would be why I am standing here holding the bike….) The next morning: “Did you make it home okay?” “Sure, I was home in 10 minutes, you?” “I hiked for 45 because I missed the last bus/tram and couldn’t find the night bus.” “HAHAHAHAHA…sucker.” Buy a bike, people, it makes your life worthwhile.



Europe is fun for its internationalism: there are so many little tiny countries all over the place. It’s like you can barely sneeze without it landing on someone from a different linguistic group. In the distance from California to Kansas City you could drive from Stockholm to Rome, New Mexico is about as far away from New York as Poland is from Portugal, and Colorado has 75% the land area of Germany, and 1/16th the population. I like to try to impress people with my a) basic math skills, b) tenuous grasp of geography, and c) conviction that spending eighteen hours in a car to go on vacation is FUN. It’s considered quite bad form to make fun of the Luxembourgians, Andorrans, Liechtensteinians, or for that matter the Dutch of the Belgians for how unbelievably tiny their countries are. Luxembourg, for example, has as a population comparable to a mid-sized city—and that’s the whole country! Somehow they still feel compelled to have three official languages—and one of their own!



I am an equal opportunity offender, so I try to spare no punches, (particularly in light of the crap I get about my own country, about which everyone is a self-styled expert without the most of them having spent more than a two-week vacation in either New York or Las Vegas/California.) Super tiny country jokes always go over well with these citizens, as well as the accusation that their language, be it Dutch, Flemish or Luxemborgish, is actually an f’ed up dialect of German. Asking the Swiss (or Bavarians for that matter) if they speak “normal German” is something they might take from me but never from an actual German. I think for both of them (the Belgians, the Dutch and the Swiss, and certainly the Austrians) the Germans are just annoying and overbearing, and nothing would be better than beating them at football or being able to definitively prove that one’s own country has the best cheese or chocolate. Because noting else matters. Beating the Germans at football (soccer) wouldn’t be bad either. From the German perspective, the Dutch make cheese and live in trailers, the French make cheese and complain a lot, the Austrians just talk funny, the Swiss are arrogant and the Belgians are supposed to be nice but a bit linguistically and politically confused, and they have good beer, and apparently the cities are pretty as well but you wouldn’t know because Germans don’t ever go to Belgium. I was greeted with outright incredulity when I said I went to Belgium on holiday, as if I had suddenly become a head case. Conversely, the Dutch and Belgians I had met had pretty much never been to Germany either, except perhaps as a child with the family in one of the aforementioned trailers.

This all has absolutely nothing to do with the Swiss, for the sole fact that the Swiss don’t much notice that the rest of Europe exists. They have large quantities of melty bubbly cheese which smells of feet, they have chocolate to rival the Belgians, and yes everything is horrendously overpriced but they are living in the best country on earth, so there. For the rest of Europe, though, they are serious (more so than the Germans) and rich. That’s bad enough, they speak funny German, slow French, Italian, and something else which no one can remember what it’s called.

Q: What does the postcard from a Swiss vacationer say?
A: Having a wonderful time. Where am I?

Q: What do you get when you cross a Swiss and a lawyer?
A: Well…there are some things even a Swiss won't do.

Q: Did you hear about the new epidemic among the Swiss?
A: It's called MAIDS - if they don't get one, they die.

A Swiss guy, looking for directions, pulls up at a bus stop where two Englishmen are waiting. "Entschuldigung, können Sie Deutsch sprechen?" He asks. The two Englishmen just stare at him. "Excusez-moi, parlez-vous français?" The two continue to stare. "Parlate italiano?" No response. "Hablan Ustedes espagnol?" Still nothing. The Swiss guy drives off, extremely disgusted.

The first Englishman turns to the second and says: "Y'know, maybe we should learn a foreign language…"

"Why?" says the other, "that bloke knew four languages, and it didn't do him any good."



In Heaven the cooks are French, the policemen are English, the mechanics are German, the lovers are Italian, the bankers are Swiss. In Hell the cooks are English, the policemen are German, the mechanics are French, the lovers are Swiss, and the bankers are Italian.

...enter the bicycle

I’m pretty sure the species of small children are closely related to the species of zombies: as soon as you have been discovered by a small child, particularly one of an inquisitive nature, its face breaks into a lopsided grin and it begins to stagger towards you, its motion unhindered by and unheeding of obstacles in its way. You may observe the Zombie Effect when riding a bicycle through the park: all of the sudden, garishly clad small creatures start wobbling, scenting a live one and moving in for the kill. As a person, I love children and I love dogs, but as a bicyclist, the two things I hate most are… children and dogs. Dogs on their own are bad, but as soon as they figure out you’re bearing down on them at 20 kph they move out of your way; the only problem is knowing where they’ll go. The only hitch: dogs on leashes. The dog notices you’re coming, and often the owner as well—and then the owner goes left and the dog goes right and you get clothesline. Children are worse; they lack the situational awareness, keen senses and self-preservation instinct of your average pooch, they move erratically and you have no idea in which direction they will move next—and unlike dogs, they often don’t respond when you call them.

Biking in Geneva has been fun. Compared to Germany the place is either a biker’s paradise or anarchy, depending on your view. In Germany, it’s considered a moving violation to cross ON FOOT against a light; therefore, the joke is, it’s always the Germans waiting at a deserted streetlight at 3 AM for the light to change. Doing so on a bike can cost you 90 euros. I couldn’t imagine biking in Italy or even in France; there, traffic is so chaotic as to make the endeavour practically suicidal. Geneva is the pleasant mix of the two: there are bike lanes and traffic lights for us—but basic traffic rules seem to be generally disregarded by bicyclists. You look, if no one is coming, you go, and you expect traffic to yield to you---and it does! However, the traffic in Geneva is worse than in Freiburg, and it is likely you will cross intersections with two tramlines, four lanes of traffic coming in at odd angles, and a mass of pedestrians, and the tram tracks provide interesting spice to your navigation of traffic. My one and only bike wreck involved me diving full-on into a creek when my tire got caught in the track on a rainy day.

I’m getting better. I can make it to class in 20 minutes and home in 25, if I’m in a hurry—and I seem to be perpetually in a hurry. I feel like I should wear motorcycle leathers, though, or a bike messenger bag instead of my usual skit and heels.

random...

No one told me grad school would be like kindergarten, and all of this was of my own free will so I can't really complain, but I have mostly done nothing today but read, eat, read, read, run, read, and go grocery shopping. And read. If, for some reason, I had to leave my room for some reason I could imagine you would find residual skin left over from where my fingers were glued to my computer. But I actually LIKE this stuff, or else I wouldn't be here, so it's all good.

In other news, I, like every other foreigner, have discovered what I would dare to term a Swiss phenomenon (please correct me, ye Suiss allemands, if this does not pertain to you) to require several passport photos for absolutely everything. I almost feel as if grocery shopping requires several pass photos, which are conveniently available at a passport-photo booth on every other street corner. I have absolutely no idea how many of my pictures are floating around Geneva, but I swear, for some things I've even had to give four or five, in several different sets. Just in case someone wanted to forge my identity at the office of sports, donchaknow...

Apparently there is no such thing in French as Suiss francophone, extrapolated from Suiss allemand (German-speaking Swiss), it's called suiss romande.

Other funny things I or other people have said in French:
-- ,,j'ai une tete ouverte" to which my teacher replied if we really had an "open head" (intending to say 'have an open mind') we would be in the hospital.
-- the words for pear, (bell) pepper, scallions, and (seasoning) pepper are easy to mix up in French.

Um....

Swissnotes--- for the under-motivated

So I went and moved to Switzerland. I am still getting over that one; every other time I’ve moved abroad (and there have been three of them) I’ve been moving to Germany. Now I speak German quite well and am so used to both the language and the culture that I don’t notice if I ask what time someone wants to stand up in the morning, bring my shopping bags with me and wait at red lights at empty intersections in the middle of the night without thinking twice. (But before I let you, dear reader, go on thinking I have nothing left to learn in German—which I may, out of hubris, occasionally claim—let me offer the following sentence uttered to explain that my friend had previously helped me move before as evidence that I am not and should not be mistaken for a native speaker: ,,Er hat mich schon mal umgezogen.” The verb ,umziehen’ refers to moving—and also to changing one’s clothes. Unfortunately, my usage of the verb points exclusively to the second meaning, implying that my friend has changed my clothes for me before.)

Here I am in a new country with a new bureaucracy, new rules and a new language with which I am not entirely familiar. I had long forgotten the days when I didn’t understand everything and where my verbal and written output was on intellectual par with your average four-year-old, except with less eloquence. It’s hard to get much beyond “I want, I need, I am, I won’t!” particularly as everyone here seems to speak English perfectly (and everything else too). Polyglots, I hate you all.

They say the bureaucracy here is typically Swiss—in that everything has to be done properly and orderly and with three copies to all relevant offices—and typically francophone, in that no one has any idea whatsoever how things are supposed to be done. Acquiring a residence permit for Switzerland is an exercise in patience, persistence and tenacity. I can only imagine what it’s like for those people who speak no French whatsoever….

J'suis arrivée!

J’habite en Suisse, c’est-à-dire je me suis installée à Genève, à cette ville où l’on a presque le niveau de vie le plus haut du monde. Après un long et bon séjour sans maison (depuis mai 2008) je suis fière de dire que j’ai une petite chambre à la cité-u. Tout d’abord, quand je suis arrivée, je n’était pas heureuse de voire cette petite boite où je passerai la prochaine année mais maintenant, après avoir parlé avec des autres dans mon cours d’études, je suis tout à fait satisfaite. La ville de Genève est au bord du Lac Léman, appelé du monde anglophone comme « lake Geneva » et est entourée de la France aux trois cotés. Le fleuve, « le Rhône », partage la ville en deux moitiés : la rive gauche et la rive droite. L’institut IHEID, où j’étudierai, est dans la rive gauche près de l’Organisation mondiale du commerce (engl. WTO) et de l’ONU (engl. UN), la croix rouge et plusieurs autres organisations non gouvernemental. L’institut est au bord du Lac dans un grand parc. À coté du Lac, à la direction de la Vielle Ville, sont le Bain de Pâquis et la gare de Cornavain. Sur le Rhône est le quai de Mont Blanc entre la rive gauche et la rive droite. Dans la rive droit il y a la vielle vile, le « shopping district » de Genève avec plusieurs magasins connus, le Jet d’Eau, et les districts de Carouge, Plainpalais et Champel. J’habite à Champel et j’ai besoin d’une demi-heure pour traverser la vielle au vélo.

La cité universitaire est située presque le bout de monde (marquée sur le plan de Genève comme « le bout de monde ») en dessus d’une berge très vertes. On peut y bien courir, faire du tennis, du football ou du basket-ball et la vue vers l’extérieur des fenêtres est tellement jolie. Il y a aussi une salle de séjour avec des journaux, les places dehors à manger ou jouer, le resto-u, un automate de café et de timbres, et une cuisine, deux toilettes et quatre douches à partager entre seize personnes. De plus, quelques-uns de mes amis y habitent aussi et on va manger ou passer le temps ensemble. Je me semble bien.

L’institut à mille étudiants dont environ 60 doivent apprendre le Français avant de commencer leurs études. On les a partagés en quatre groups d’un niveau débutant au niveau avancé. Moi, je suis dans le groupe le plus avancé et nous y parlons seulement en français. Mes compatriotes viennent du monde entier : de l’Argentine, Honduras, Russie, Vietnam, Italie, Afrique du Sud, Brésil, Kazakhstan, et des Etats-Unis d’Amérique. Le cours de français dure trois heures chaque jour et l’après-midi est libre. Nous avons assez à faire et tant de travail en recevant notre permis de séjour, ouvrant un compte dans la banque (plus difficile pour moi que j’ai attendu), trouvant un téléphone portable…. Nous avons passé un après-midi à la plage, avons fait les pique-niques ou sommes allés dans une boîte de nuit. Le temps faisait toujours beau et chaud, entre 25 et 28 degrés, la soleil brillait…

Our trip to Budapest

“Wait! Where are y-you g------oing?! There is a beeeee-u-ti-ful view and sights of the river and the parrrrrliament building! Over heeeeeere!”

The wailing and slightly wheezing imploration issued from a gaunt gentleman of indeterminable age brandishing an hungarisn tourist guide’s ID as if it were a weapon. His voice had the rough quality of an old chalkboard with all its redeeming qualities, gaunt features and some mannerisms reminiscent of a marionette, and his occasionally jerky manner added extra emphasis to his accented but enthusiastic English, marred by the occasional physical and vocal tic:

“I will show you, I will, I will……. Excuse me! EXC--------USE ME!!!” (this is conducted in a penetrating whisper as he leans in to recapture our wandering attention: mummy always told us not to talk to strangers; we pretend to ignore him.) “I will show you a tour of Budapest with in-for-may-shuns you will not find an-eeeeeee-where else in an-----y tourist guid-E! For only….. excuse me! EXCUSE MEEEEEEE!!!!" (I didn’t know it was possible to wail and whisper at the same time time, but it apparently is.) “For only two thausAND----”

“No. We’re not interested.”

“No, no nononononono!” His voice bordered on a wail and he seemed to be getting quasi hysterical by this point, and I was kind of worried he would go all crazy Edward Scissorhands on us, acting like a demonic wind-up toy on adderol. “NO! I cannot-----I cannot------ I cannot (EXCUSE ME!! EXCUUUUUUSE ME!) communicate with these creatures. With human beings I can communicate, but with these, with these prrrrrrimitive species I cannot communicate.” And he flounced off, muttering angrily. No joke.




-- Tickets please. May I see your ticket? (says the stout Hungarian metro worker)
--- (we hand them over)
--- (she examines them) This ticket is not valid.
--- (uhhhhhhh) What do you mean?
--- This ticket is not valid for your journey. From what station do you come?
---
--- When you transfer you must validate another ticket.
--- But we asked someone from the train company and he said it was valid!
--- This ticket is not valid.
--- Well, we have a book of tickets, we can give you the tickets we were supposed to have used. (angry look, angry shake of the head)
--- This ticket is not valid. You will have to pay a fine of 6,400 Florins. Per person (angry look)
--- But we don’t HAVE 6,400 Florins per person! (shrug). What do we do? (shrug) (she finds a traveler to translate for her)
--- Do you have a credit card? (of course we do, but I’m not about to tell her this.
--- no, no credit cards. At the hotel. (a lie)
--- Do you have a bank card?
--- Yes.
--- You will have to pay the fine. Two of you stay here and one will go to get the money (I feel like we are being robbed: Your money or your life!)
--- We can’t withdraw any more money from our account. You can only withdraw a certain amount each day and we have already withdrawn the maximum for today. We can’t take out any more money!
--- (shrug, angry look) Your passports!
--- At the hotel. (not a lie, but the last thing I am going to do is hand over my passport, which honestly wasn’t on me at this point anyways) (she consults briefly with the other controller, who had been stifling a smile the whole time).
--- Give me the tickets! (we hand them over, she rips them and we go on).

Whew. Welcome to Budapest. In their defense, it said we had to validate a new ticket each transfer on the back IN ENGLISH. In our defense, these were tickets out of a booklet of 10, and I had read the back of the individual ticket purchased from the machine and it said no such thing, so I assumed these would be the same.


The good experiences: When we arrived in Budapest we stumbled upon a folk festival selling overpriced handicrafts and random junk no one ever needs. WE listened to some cool music and also to the fascinatingly irritating bird calls that everyone and their grandmother seemed to be selling and which I would only give to the child of someone I hate. We had a stunning view of the parliament from the chain bridge and set off on an epic trip to find Liszt Ferenc tér, which happened to be right near our hostel. We had an excellent dinner at a gorgeous restaurant before meeting up with some contacts from Couchsurfing---who took us to pretty much the coolest bar ever. We wandered the castle district (overpriced and touristy), got swindled at lunch, tried to look for and eventually found the baths, and we went back the next night for dinner at the same place the next night before hiking up to hero’s square.

We don’t speak Slovakian either

The first thought I had getting off the train in Zilina is that we had made a terrible mistake and shouldn’t have come here. We had practically traveled halfway across Slovakia to go to this tiny town which may or may not have a castle, where we would be picked up by unknown persons (our couchsurfing hosts) who would put us up in an unknown location. To top it all off, we had wittingly taken the slow train, unwittingly dooming ourselves to four and a half ours of Slovakian countryside instead of one and a half hours on the fast train. We should have stayed in Bratislava, we should have planned for Trencin, we should have done this or that or anything else. The train station in Zilina looked somewhat dismal, and we still didn’t speak Slovakian, and everything seems a bit gloomy and foreboding if you aren’t comfortable where you are and are unsure about the future.



But our couchsurfing hosts rode to our rescue, or biked rather, but before we knew it we had our bags stowed in the ticket office and were off, bicycle and dog proverbially in hand, to go visit ‘downtown’ Zilina. After a somewhat complicated maneuver, we managed to send our bags off with the father of our host, leaving us free and unencumbered and able to hike into the old part of the town (pop 100,000) for a short tour, the obligatory photo, and some beers at a local restaurant.



I must say, I am completely a fan of couchsurfing. As much as I love my travel companions, I see them all the time; as much as enjoy the interesting Brits and Americans you meet at your average hostel (and particularly in Prague), we didn’t come halfway across Europe to meet other Americans or just talk to each other. We had the opportunity to sit at this restaurant, actually have someone order for us in the native language, and talk about everything from language to culture to whether or not you say “cheese!” while taking pictures (you do. It’s called syr). We learned how to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ and ‘3 beers please’ and ‘I don’t speak Slovak’ and the nearly unpronounceable word for ‘ice cream’ (zmrzlina). And they swept us off to our family home located deep within the Soviet-style ‘suburbs’ (by suburbs they mean rows upon rows upon rows of unimaginative Soviet flats, nicknamed the Great Wall of China for its improbable length). Our hosts, a young couple, introduced us to his father and mother, neither of whom spoke anything other than Slovak and Russian. But the father, an incorrigible troublemaker with an eternal twinkle in his eye and an easy manner (reminding me of a wonderful French gentleman whose acquaintance I had the pleasure to have made), made us feel right at home. We concocted some kind of pudding (Dr. Oetker) with fresh blueberries (also practically unpronounceable), grapes, and Nilla wafers (Slovak style) and we toasted with homemade cherry liqueur. After our sumptuous dinner of venison and rice for everyone and salad and rice for me, followed by some kind of goat cheese which made our teeth squeak (no joke—but it was yummy) and fresh tomato salsa stuff, we set in on the puddings and homemade cherry/blueberry/apple cake with Slovak-style Sprite.



Couchsurfing lets you really get to know people from other countries. We heard about life under the Soviet system, with Slovak-East German football cooperations, no dishes without meat, how the school system, and pretty much everything else we could think of to ask. And this morning, our host took us on the most amazing hike ever, up a hillside overlooking a beautiful valley of verdant fields, tiny villages and even tinier people. And after that... the castle!

More later.

We don’t speak Czech

It wasn’t until after we left Prague for Brno that I really had the feeling of being in the Czech Republic. Prague was beautiful, Prague was romantic and interesting and living, Prague was touristy and mostly in English. Which is convenient, seeing as how we don’t speak Czech. Still, there were more tourists than locals and reminded me strongly of Venice, though I like Prague considerably better than I liked Venice.



Brno, however, is not Prague. Its buildings are a mixture between old historic apartment blocks, Soviet-style apartment blocks, baroque and modern all mixed into one, centered around a beautiful, triangle-shaped central square in the old town beneath the castle. Brno was tourist-friendly without being touristy; a walking tour accompanied by informative signposts explained just what some of these cool buildings were as well as some of the stories and legends associated with them. And it was all in Czech. In Prague we would ask “English or Deutsch?” and usually find someone more than capable in one of the above languages. In Brno we ask “English or Deutsch?” and we receive a slight shake of the head accompanied by two fingers held up about a centimeter apart to indicate that the individual didn’t particularly speak English OR German. Merde. And due to our apparent incapacity to remember much more than ‘hello’ (Ahoj) and ‘thank you’ (dekuje, after several days of practice and several reminders) much less numbers 1 – 3, “may I have the bill please?”, “how much?” or anything else that would have been remotely useful, there was much pointing and smiling involved in ordering anything. We stared helplessly at the (presumed) cleaning lady who came to our rooms, at the blind boys asking for directions (perhaps? We foisted them off on a nice passing Czech lady), at the gentleman at the train station, and at the restaurant servers on most occasions…

There were, of course, some misunderstandings. One evening we were sitting outside on a patio drinking half-litres of Czech pilsner, having waved off the waitress who (we presume) asked if we wanted another round, intending to go for ice cream and then move on. I went to the restroom (apparently the wrong one, as my compatriots found out when my directions to the rest room led them to a old man empathetically pointing to the restrooms a floor above where I had sent them. Oops). At my return I was greeted with the somewhat chagrined or perplexed expressions of my companions—and another round of beer. Which we hadn’t wanted, hadn’t ordered, but had come anyways. Other times we spent several minutes painfully trying to get the beer menu explained to us in capable but halting English by the poor waiter only to discover he had left us with an English-language menu as well. Our last night in Brno, the girls set off for the bar with the goal of coming back with three *different* beers to try, resulting in two bottles, two glasses, and one which appeared to be 90% head.



Getting to Brno involved taking the slow train through rolling fields and little hamlets, hanging our heads out the windows like oversized dogs, sleeping nestled into a corner of the compartment, stopping at this and that tiny village, rolling through fields and hills, reading, taking pictures. The landscape looked a bit like the Shire from Lord of the Rings, and everything seemed to have a slight sepia tone to it. Brno itself is a typical college town, insofar as I could make the generalizations across two continents and several countries, but the size and the feel of the place, the many cafes and lively bars, the friendly atmosphere are all similarities shared among towns (or small cities, to be charitable) of significant student populations. We enjoyed cruising the shoe stores and the supermarkets, made a point of visiting pretty much every church in town (having completely neglected to enter any church at all in Prague). Continuing our beer tour, we tried varieties of pilsner of the varying local brew with anywhere between 5 and 8% alcohol (indicated by the proof, for example “Strastobrno 11” or “Strastobrno 12”), rich lagers (going on 16%), cut beers (half and half), and most anything bottom-fermented and filtered.



Our inability to speak Czech certainly hindered our interaction with the locals, though we managed to have our table besieged and successfully invaded by a young guy with about 8 words of English. And his twenty friends: “you are three?” (questioning look, nod in assent). “can you….?” (motion of hands compressing together, nod of assent, we scoot together). About three minutes pass, as his friends and compatriots and distant relations and everyone’s grandmother and second cousin and best friend and some guy they met on the corner and about seven or eight Asians slowly file in and try to fit at our table, eventually pulling all available chairs from the vicinity. Our ‘new friend’ turns to us: “over there…. Place for three people…” (points to table, nod in assent, we move over to a table where a slightly shady-looking man and a youngerish lady are engaged in the kind of activity for which a hotel room is usually suggested, but as all hands are above table-level and visible, we decide it’s okay).

But now it doesn’t matter, as we are in Slovakia on the train on the way to some small town with a castle. But we don’t speak Slovakian either…

From Prussia to Bohemia

It's pretty hard to find someplace in Prague not inundated with tourists, without English-language menus and extra assistance for the poor lost non-Czech-speaking masses. The Charles Bridge is one solid mass of camera-toting visitors filing along as if at an open-coffin funeral augmented by the carnival atmosphere of souvenir hawkers, street musicians, and the general hubub of humanity. The main squares seem to acquire flocks of tourists blindly following a pink umbrella or a large sunflower or a plastic toy on a stick, learning about a history which they will promptly forget and didn't really care about to start with. But this, my friend, is Europe in the summer. It seems like every capital and much of France is actually one giant tourist park. But we skipped all that, we avoided lines and tourist attractions and "doing" Prague like most tourists do, instead wandering the streets, searching for interesting hidden nooks and beautiful places--and we were largely successful.

This is not to disparage Prague. I absolutely love Prague, I love its flair and style, its cleaned-up bits and its run-down bits, art noveau, neo baroque, classical and baroque all mixed together, its stylish cafes, parks, quirky stores and comfy pubs. The people have all been friendly and helpful and accommodating of the fact we don't speak Czech, and while not at bargain basement prices, drinks and things are cheaper than Germany and everything else is comparable (without paying capitol-city prices).



In the castle district of Prague there is a greenbelt stretching the length of the shore hosting masses of travelers and students sleeping or picnicking, dogs and their walkers, and pretty much everyone else. A creek running parallel to the river makes the place actually a small island, driving water wheels and hiding the cute little cafe where our Czech couchsurfing contact brought us after a hike up to the metronome and the world fair building.

Last night we opted out of the pub crawl organized by the hostel and went out in search of a pub on our own, somehow managing to find a lively and homey pub frequented mostly by locals where we, understanding nothing on the menu, attempted to sample Czech beer and were in the end quite successful. In addition to pilsner they also have a rich dark lager and a 'cut' beer, half lager and half pils, and a Belgian wheat at half the price of Belgium served in what appeared to be a giant-sized water glass (it takes two hands to drink from). We also sampled orange spice cappuccinos, the best iced chocolate probably ever, some kind of sesame croquant ice cream and Lebanese food at a restaurant highly recommended by some (new) friends.

This is the first time I'd stayed in a hostel for a while, and it is one of the nicer ones I have been in. Everything is new and shiny and the internet is free (though breakfast is expensive and not included), and the hostel does a good job of organizing social activities. Traveling by oneself presents no problem as you can easily meet other travelers, but to be honest, I don't come to Prague just to meet Brits and Americans, so I would probably prefer the Couchsurfing method in the future.

Today we are off to Brno!

You Beach!

Everyone hates tourists. I love traveling more than most anything and even--or particularly--I hate them. It's not just a selfish desire to keep the prettiest views, the best restaurants or the special discoveries clear of the guidebook-toting masses--though that is a viable concern--nor just of accidently being identified with a group known for being (alternatively) culturally insensitive, poorly dressed, clueless, ripe for exploitation, full of money to burn, loud and obnoxious, or simply too much traffic. Being a tourist is just not belonging; you visit some town or city or country and look through the window at other peoples' lives, take pictures of things you don't really understand or particularly care about but Lonely Planet says you should, and buy terrible souveniers which no one wants which are cute in their ugliness and otherwise remind you of your vacation, for better or for worse. There are lots of pictures taken of buildings, attempts to capture the moment into something that may be printed up and foisted on unsuspecting relations or visitors in the form of a two-hour monologue ("and then we went to Notre Dame, and then we went to the Louvre, and then we went to..."). From the side of the tourist, I dislike feeling unanchored and somewhat slighted by the locals, I dislike needing maps and being expected to go to museums (don't get me wrong, I love museums. I just don't always want to go to them just because they are there). From the side of the locals, tourists are just in the way, clog up everything useful (try grocery shopping in northern Germany-- you have to wait behind the Swedes and Danes with their three shopping carts of booze in order to buy a kilo of tomatoes and some cheese), are sometimes obnoxious and the rest of the time just tacky, and (in Europe) require use of your English-language faculties which you are universally expected to possess.



Beach tourists are another breed. These tend to arrive in campers and motor homes, or live in any of a number of hotels and vacation apartments notable for their hideous architechture and their proximity to the beach. They build forts out of lawn chairs and their family structure seems to consist of several small half-naked sticky children burnt a nice sienna brown, running about and terrorizing the other tourists, one or more tired-looking women desperately trying to tan sagging breasts and cellulite away, the man of the house suncreaming his baldspot and surriptiously searching for any female (preferably topless, though we have more sense than that) above 15 and under 45, and occasionally a granny with burgundy-died or permed hair and a bathing suit at least fifteen years out of style. In Heiligenhafen they built a kind of tourist-town just for the beachgoers, with ice cream parlors, restaurants, a shopping centre and an activity place for the kiddies, bowling and bumper cars, and anything else the tourist's heart might desire.



Our beach vacation involved watching the lifeguards fish the jellyfish out of the water. The place is innundated with them, most of them harmless and some of them not. The lifeguard would wander off and return bearing a net and a blob of quivering red jelly which he or she would proceed to bury among a crowd of excited children, until enough of the stingers were found to close the beach.

Ask the oracle:
- tides in the Baltic
- why some jellyfish are red

So where DO you live? - Part II

I'm not really a tourist any more in Germany. Sure, there are lots of places I haven't been (M-V, much of eastern Germany, most of Bavaria and NRW, Bremen, Saarland), and lots of places I have (everywhere else). There are lots of aspects of German culture left to be discovered, I am sure, but I am generally familiar with life in Germany. Now I have a visitor from the US here, with whom I am touring most of my old haunts, and I am remembering what it was like when I first arrived here, what things fascinated or confounded me. I remember loving red tile roofs, being constantly perplexed by the toilet flush mechanism and the window openings, overwhelmed by the cheese selection and floored by the multitude of instructions on everything. Now I get to see all of this out of the eyes of a 'tourist' long after having forgotten them myself. Sometimes I feel I am overbearing in my commentary, over-explaining aspects of culture that are obvious or self-explanatory, and other times I forget to impart crucial information such as basic traffic laws while bike riding. Oops.



We've been doing the tourist thing, which in Germany seems to mean German retirees. We took a cruise on the Rhine river to see the castles and the scenery, we went to Lake Constance (where I had never been) and to France (to Colmar, where I had also never been) and the Baltic (where I definately have been).

Sometimes I forget that German people have a sense of humor. Perhaps it's different in southern germany, but most of the time when someone yells out something to me, I expect it to be some kind of complaint or criticism. Yesterday we were jogging and I was surprised when someone yelled out that it was high time to buy a bicycle. Bicycling itself has been fun, particularly the look of sheer terror on my friend's face when riding in traffic....



There is apparently a kind of tequila ("gold") which is served with orange slices and lemon. And it is possible for seven people to eat two cakes in one day. Yesterday we went riding and rode down to the beach in order to ride the horses in the water. My friend's horse wasn't particularly interested in touching the water, stubborn as she was, so I traded my pony for hers because mine had been happily splashing his way up and down the coast and scaring off the swedish tourists. And indeed, as soon as we switched he continued splashing happily up and down the coast and out of the water, where he executed a sharp turn to the right and left my friend looking like the sandman on the ground. Oops. We tried to go sailing later in the day but there was a tear in the mainsail, so we could only sail with the jib (the sail n the front) and still made 6 and a half knots.

Things to wikipedia:
- physics of sailing
- the Hanseatic League
- Alsace Lorraine
- where cobblestones come from
- how the bells fell down in Lübeck
- jellyfish - do they run in flocks?
- terms in English for english tack and sailing :) oops...

So where DO you live? - Part I

Ein kleiner HINWEIS: Since I last posted, I have been quite a few places. I spent time in Ghent, Belgium, went on a crazy 3-day trip to Paris with my new friends from Bruges, went back to Ghent for a festival and on to Amsterdam before returning to Germany. My Ami-friend in tow we cruised the Rhine, chilled in Freiburg, sightsaw in Konstanz, did a wine-tasting in France, sailed the Baltic and will be off soon to Berlin via Hamburg and Prague via Dresden. Whew.

Therefore, ladies and gentlespoons, I present to you for your entertainment: all that I remember from my trip. More or less.

Alsjeblief means PLEASE in Dutch and is not a sneeze. Interestingly, Dutch is not German and Flemish may or may not actually be Dutch. Watching the movie 'in Bruges' WHILE in Bruges is pretty cool, but some of the jokes don't translate. But just because Colin Farrell is Irish I could marry him...



The Gentse Feesten is a music festival in Ghent. I was only able to go for one night but it was absolutely amazing, and we listend to a salsa band while sipping Mojitos. Interestingly, we managed to make the alcohol tent shake by jumping up and down on the concrete block anchoring it to the pier. People kept looking around, confused, but no one figured it out that it was us, mwa hahahaha. I didn't get to bed until 4 AM, and somehow thought I would be on a train to Amsterdam at 6.30 the next morning. Think again. Interestingly, the day after I was there a building blew up when a truck hit a gas can, but thankfully only two people were injured. Still, Ghent was gorgeous and the music was fantastic. I know what I'm doing next summer....



Paris, and likely France as a whole is one giant tourist destination. What, pray tell, is the point of building Disneyland Paris if the entire fricking country is a theme park? Visiting Notre Dame is like touring Epcott itself---tourists of the world, unite! Still, there are lots of lovely corners not innundated by sneaker-toting, overweight Americans (watch ,,In Bruges'' for lovely commentary on tourists, heh). After a few days of Belgium, though, it was nice actually speaking and understanding the language de jour--my Flemish leaves lots to be desired, though my French was okay. I even played tour guide for a bit, though I was apparently unable to find the Notre Dame. We spent our evenings on the banks of the Seine and at Montmartre with some bottles of wine, some Belgian beer, baguettes, cheese, and snacks. There was a firebreather at Montmartre, and on the Seine there was the (somewhat random) combination of tango, folk dancing (looked like organized hopping around), and a bachelor party. There was also some young dude distributing hand wipes, who ended up (later in the night and severly inebriated) telling me his life story. ,,je suis chanteur, je suis skateboarder..." and even had (half) of a skateboard to prove it.



The hostel we stayed in in Paris was quite good by hostel standards and phenomenal by Paris standards (woe unto ye who does not read hostel reviews.....eeek). Only downside: a bit far out on the end of the metro in the 20th district, which wasn't shady, just--- far out. But the metro runs until 2 AM, so you can always get home--- except on the days it doesn't run until 2 AM, namely Sunday, which is when we were on Montmartre. We found ourselves considering several closed metro stations and a bus stop at Pigalle, where we considered the merits of taking a taxi halfway across Paris for seven people versus taking the night bus. I argued for the night bus and figured out which ones to take, but the whole project took about 2 hours and involved stuffing the ladies of the group (interestingly, there were two named Kelly and two named Agnieszka) into a phone booth and letting the guys drive off the homeless dude at Gare de l'est at 3 AM. Yay. He was harmless, homeless, and annoying.

Amsterdam is gorgeous. It's called the venice of the north, but I prefer it to Venice because people actually LIVE in Amsterdam. Lots of bikes, canals, bikes, canals, bikes, water, weed, bikes, and canals. I had an amazing host (all of my hosts were amazing) who took me to a singer-songwriter evening at her favorite place in A'damm. We also went to some fantastic cafes (NOT coffeeshops) with ecclectic furniture, fantastic food and great atmosphere. Must go back, must go back.



More coming.

En Belgique

So I made it alive to Bruselas, which is what the Spanish call what the French call Bruxelles and everyone else calls Bussels. I didn't want to actually GO to Brussels, just to Belgium, but the place is so small it was hard to avoid. After an email mixup I had to be rescued by my couchsurfing host, J., who picked me up from Charleroi to avoid sending the poor tourist alone on the trains. And also because he had some kind of train pass. Anyways, we made it back to Bruges okay and went by the pub to meet some his friends in his VW bug (confusingly, the kind with the trunk space in the front and the engine in the trunk). The car is like the love child of an angry motorcycle and a bumper car, with enough noise to scare the pedestrians, the appearance of going twice as fast as it is going, and only half a seatbelt. The first pub we went to was full (it only had about six tables and was located in the smallest street in Bruges) and the second was closed, so we ended up at a third one, and a fourth one... Anyways, my goal in life became to try as much Belgian beer as possible, and we started a list. As the two days in Bruges progressed, I think my hosts were proud of how far I'd gotten. I only have about 340 kinds left. The farther we progress in the evening, the worse the handwriting of the biere du jour.



My tour of Bruges was eclectic and lovely, passing canals, old gates (more on that later), old buildings, more old buildings, and lots of restord guild halls, courthouses, pubs, stores, and everything else. The place is like a living museum, full of picture-perfect buildings and masses of tourists. I can't help but take pictures, but at least I had a local guide to tell me everything and order things in Dutch if we wanted them. We ended up at the brewery in Bruges (Brugse zot beer) where we shared a table with some French tourists from Caen, a young couple, and a Belgian friend of my host. Our conversation was mostly in French for the benefit of our guests, though J., his friend A. and I all spoke english to each other, I spoke German with A., and J. and A. spoke Flemish to each other. Confusee... anyways, we agreed to meet the Frenchies at the main square at 9, and J. and I went home.




I wanted to go for a little run down the street, but J. had a better idea and told me to change and get in the car for a mystery trip. We drove through little hamlets and villages, between fields, left right left right ("where the heck are we going?" "I'm not telling, you will see"). We parked in a little town called De Haan (I think) which has won awards for being the prettiest coastal Flemish village. How you evaluate something like that is beyond me.... in any case, the place was out of a postcard and possessed several kilometers of wide beaches, firm sandbars and little streams running though it, which resulted in the best run I've ever had--absolutely gorgeous scenery (welcome to the North see!), great ground, perfect temperature... several people were riding or driving horses on the beach, and it was absolutely lovely. Makes me want to learn Flemish and move there. Anyways, it was a bit of a run to make it to the market on time, but we found our French friends and went back to the tiny pub of the night before, where you could get a paricular kind of beer only available at this pub and of which you are only allowed to drink three as they are so strong.



After the Frenchies left we went to another place, the Marquee, of the night before, and "on the way home" we landed at Bras, from where we tumbled out several hours and several rounds later. On our bike ride back we passed the old town gate which, miraculously and without explanation was unlocked, so we felt obligated to fully investigate and climbed up the tower (this is not for tourists, so don't get any ideas!) for a good view and some sleeping homeless people. We found a bicycle in the basement, which we liberated before setting off home.




We tried to get out relatively early the next morning, as I wanted to go to Ghent, but as we had gotten home at 5 AM it was a bit hard and we were a bit tired (though not as tired as M., who had been with us, as he got home at 5 and had to work again at 8 AM). We visited him at the supermarket where he worked, and he brought some pastries which we ate at one of the tables of a furniture store, known in the town as being the owners of the wooden monkey statue that someone liberated one night and put in the town roundabout. It was eventually returned but after public outcry the owner himself returned it to the roundabout. And then I went to Ghent.



I had a bit of an issue with the bus system in Ghent and ended up in Zjinwarde or somewhere that wasn't Ghent and was spelled with too many js for its own good. Feeling very lost and out of place I approached the bus driver with my destination "zuid" written on a piece of paper, at which he violently shook his head, told me to get off (in the middle of nowhere) and carefully told me to take bus 5 back to town. But I made it and my host V. picked me up at the bus stop. We spent the evening doing a walking tour of Ghent, visiting the old Nunnery and the old town, the canals and some of the unviersity buildings. We had a drink at a pub on the main square, we walked farther and here and there and took random streets. Ghent has many, many beautiful streets full of old buildings, but also does a fantastic job of combining old buildings with modern or renovated buildings, and the whole place (being a student's city) is full of life and people and cafes. There are almost 300 cafes in Ghent.




We went to an art gallery-cum-restaurant for dinner, where I had a lovely little omelette and salad for the whopping price of 4,50 euros. After dinner we had a drink at V.'s local bar and dodged the rain. Back at her place we played a bit of guitar and collected some warmer clothing before heading out for another stroll through the old town and another drink at a tiny tiny pub which looked like an ecclectic mixture of grandma's pottery and a biker bar--rock music and blue fillegreed tiles. The pubs and the bars here are amazing and each one is practically a work of art. There is one which plays baroque music and has rococco architechture, another with 70s sty;e kitchm and lots of homey, friendly places. I had a beer called Kwak, which is known for its peculiar glass. Some cafes make you give them your shoe as guarantee that you won't steal the glass:



Our walking tour of Ghent the next day commenced early, and I am pretty sure we walked down every street in Ghent at least once, some of them twice or three times. We visited the castle and the cathedral and the churches and the squares, guided by a map for alternative travellers which guided us to such destinations as the "lovliest tree in Ghent" and the place with the "best vintage postcards" and crazy small hole-in-the-wall shops and places. We discovered a statue of one of the noose-bearers (apparently some people were about to be hanged and were paraded about town, and someone liberated them but they were already dead, and then the liberators themselves were executed, or something like that...) with a cast-iron hard-on. We found quiet streets next to the water and watched the preparation for the Ghent festival, which will be the next ten days or so and will make me rearrange my plans to see it for at least one night on my way back from Paris.

Viva Espana

A friend of mine once ran away to Spain. I was kind of hoping she would stay there, because she had caused or been involved in quite a bit of trouble in Germany, but she came back. And stood on my doorstep. And rung my bell, to ask if she could stay. And I had to take her in, but she had to leave the next morning. It was awkward. Anyways…
I wasn’t running away to Spain, but going on vacation—I’d been invited by a friend of mine from the States, who is half Spanish and spends her summer with her European relations, of whom there are many. So I flew to Madrid—my second time ever—and my friend picked me up at the airport. I’ve been in quite a few European cities and capitals, as well as those few American cities graced with subways and undergrounds, and I must say I was quite impressed with the Madrid metro. Clean, smooth, fast—no clattering carriages or perpetual line closures of the London Underground, no endless connecting tunnels as in Paris, making you feel more a hamster than a passenger. If only there were wheels….



I was welcomed into a spacious apartment in Western Madrid, full of maiden aunts (four) and their expatriate relations (also four). And me. I had a bit of trouble keeping the aunts separate, but there was one who was a nun in Paris forever and spoke French, one with salmon-colored hair, one with curly hair and an incorrigible smile who asked me, slowly and smiling, “how…. do…you….do?”, and one other with curly hair, neither Spanish nor English, and less of a smile but a dry sense of humor. I’m no longer used to grandmothers and not used to masses of relations (my friend’s mum has four sisters and two brothers), particularly ones with whom I have no common language, so our connection is somewhat limited. And since we have no common language, and borne of my inability to understand even the simplest instructions given regarding someone else’s belongings in a different culture of which I have no foreknowledge, it is inevitable that I will, eventually, screw something up unwittingly (as I did this morning, as one of my ‘translators’ smilingly informed me on behalf of one of the many aunts as I happily munched on cherries for breakfast that the fruit available for breakfast included basically every possible fruit out there except cherries, which were for lunch). It is the stuff of nightmares—mine, at least—to be chased by an elderly lady in a floral dress (possibly a hairnet, but I don’t know the ladies in question well enough to assert this one), brandishing a toaster (not the electric kind) railing at me in a language I don’t understand. But before you get the wrong impression, no one has been anything but nice to me. Still, hairnets and floral dresses and and and and…




The bus came for us at 8 Am, but first we had to get there, across Madrid towing luggage and bearing lunch like a string of sleep-deprived, slightly lost and directionally challenged ducklings. Bus terminals are bus terminals, busses are busses, and ours distinguished itself in no feature whatsoever, perhaps only in its lack of TVs every eighteen inches. And lack of bathroom. Six hours, six hours, six hours turn into a long stretch followed by a desperate wish for a bathroom, a picnic lunch, and a repeat of the above, excepting the picnic lunch. Finally, after our music and our tempers were exhausted, we made it to Peniscola on the coast between Valencia and Barca. Our house, somehow made available to us due to the fact that the French-speaking aunt is also a nun and somehow has access to such things (apparently she has really the highest connections, or even nuns need weeks at the beach to better commune with God), had a living room larger than most student apartments in Germany and enough beds to house an army and somehow not enough for us. A tiny kitchen and one bathroom were to be shared among us seven, and a polish nun was occupying the downstairs mother-in-law apartment. A slightly musty smell pervaded the courtyard, provided by a mess of cats and kittens who had taken up residence there between the pool and the Chinese restaurant. And then two more aunts arrived, and we started stowing people on any halfway-comfortable horizontal surface available, which were few as the place was tiled and the couches musty.

A week of lather, rinse, repeat: breakfast mid-morning, when people get up, consisting of toasted baguette with olive oil and blackberry jam, perhaps a piece of fruit and coffee. Beach time until lunch. Lunch, served at three in the afternoon, is the main meal of the day and may contain several courses and for me, the vegetarian compromising for Spanish standards and eating fish, the meal invariably contained some kind of seafood. And baguette. After lunch: siesta. Considering how blistering hot it gets in the afternoon, it doesn’t seem like such a bad idea to sleep off your big meal before heading back to… the beach. Then dinner, which may be hot or cold, usually includes a salad, perhaps some fish or tortilla and finished off with fruit and cheese. And baguette. We had calamari pasta, omelette, tuna fish potato salad, fish steaks, normal steaks, chicken breast and other things, and chocolate or marzipan for desert sometimes.

After dinner we take a walk down the beach or up to the castle, to the jewelry-sellers. Spain doesn’t seem to come to life until 10 or 11 at night, when everyone heads for the promenade. Clean, well-dressed and well-styled families stroll along the beachfront promenade, past the caricaturists and painters, past the grandiose sand statues and castles lit with candles, the puppet theatre and the comedian, past the jewelry stands and restaurants and ubiquitous Africans selling knockoff handbags and sunglasses; music drones from one or many bars. The possibilities for evening entertainment are endless:

My friend’s little sister and cousin, both nineteen, had met some guys here on vacation four years previous, and these guys were still here. Like many small towns with locals with small dreams, a job that pays halfway well is reason enough to stay. (Here I must qualify my comment—this is coming from someone who sees no reason to stay put in any one country for more than a year or three, much less one town: therefore, take with a grain of salt). So they stayed. And the girls recognized them, which was reason enough to meet up again for a drink. My friend and I left, giving the sister the house key. The ladies left for their night on the town and we went home, but we unfortunately threw the extra bolt on the door, meaning that regardless of them having the key, there was no way they were getting in. So they had to scale the awning to get on to the second-floor balcony and its attendant door at five in the morning, possibly (though I have no verification and do not wish to make undue accusations) inebriated. Still, no fractures and no harm done…

…and even more fun when it was our turn a few nights later. Less inebriated but still without keys, it was up to my friend’s brother to scale the wall from the downstairs window, hoist himself onto the neighboring balcony and clamber onto ours.

I am the only person present who doesn’t speak Spanish. Even the polish nun, holed up in her downstairs apartment against the deluge of our delegation, even she speaks Spanish. It’s a giant game for me, to see whether and how much and what I can understand of the conversation. To make it more difficult, the conversation topics change as often as a fifteen-year-old going on her first date. What is yeast, whether Russia is next to Southern Germany (the French-speaking nun is known for her inane questions and questionable grasp of geography. And of card playing. And of history—she claimed Germany still forced-sterilized the mentally handicapped), cooking tips, latex allergies, vegetarianism, you name it. Sometimes I get the drift, much of the time I have no idea whatsoever, and the complete lack of logical connection confounds the foreigner. Watching TV is even better, because at least there I have pictures to help me out on the contextual clues. I can sometimes even follow the news, though of course I miss all the (important) details. It’s not the first time I have sat at a dinner table in someone’s house in some country and understood nothing. It doesn’t bother me to not understand. Personally, I thrive on mixed-language conversations. I don’t know any Spanish myself, though, which while reducing my opportunities for causing hilarity / humiliation, also limits my ability to contribute to the conversation without explicit translation. Sometimes, when I make a wrong guess, it’s like watching a movie with the wrong subtitles on, as if the picture were from one film and the subtitles from another.



One of the aunts—I am not sure which one, but I am pretty sure it’s not the one who speaks French—argued that this is not Spain, this shows me (the real tourist) nothing of Spanish life, of Spanish people. So many French tourists, some Danes and Swedes, there is no authenticity, no culture. I am aware of this. This visit is not like my visit to Seville, filled with ancient courtyards and reeking of slightly musty tradition and orange blossoms. Awash in light and sound, filled with browned and tanned tourists, the impression I have is of a picture come to life—everything perfectly designed for description on a postcard: “hi Mom, we’re in Spain, the weather is great, the water’s great, we’re having a blast. Lots of love!” Little variation, much enjoyment, and a sun tan to make anyone jealous. Unless you burn. In awkward places. Like I did. This is vacation, this is beach, this is Florida and Ibizia and SoCal and Cote d’Azur. This is sand and sun and brown little children eating sticky sandy chocolate and sand-filled SANDwiches. This is my grandparents’, this is many things, many vacations, many places.

....and why are you here??

I've enjoyed being the foreigner again, rather than "just another american", or, as it is more likely consciously put, "just like everyone else". Here I am "the" american, and if a qualifier is necessary, I am "the" american who speaks Germans well. I'm quite confident it is the sole reason they invite me to parties and dinner and such--there has to be SOME reason why people put up with me. Not to make fun of my Germany, but to rather be surprised by the random words I happen to know. It becomes a kind of game, to see if they can throw some word at me and I can come up with the english equivalent. Or a battle of aphorisms, to see who can come up with the most proverbs in a row, in a singular non sequiteur:

Me: "a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush"
Them: "oh yeah? well, the early bird gets the worm"
Me: "yes, but a penny saved is a penny earned"
Them: "absence makes the heart grow fonder"
Me: "all bark and no bite"
Them: "as much use as a handbrake on a canoe"
Me: ARRRGH

I usually lose. I don't have a quarter century's experience in collecting curiously coined phrases pertaining to time-honored wise-cracks. Usually I come up with something utterly bizarre which, while technically an expression in the German language, is so obscure and outdated that one might, perhaps, a very long time ago under barely memorable circumstances, have heard it from one's grandmother. Which makes it therefore hilarous coming from a 20-something American.

Then there are my "legendary" language mix-ups. I once tried to execute (as in, death penalty) a bit of mobile shelving (I wasn't even angry; the word I was looking for was to "erect" the shelving, which is unfortunately closely related). I told someone that there were condoms in my marmalade (preservatives are things used in jams and jellies, but Preservativen are condoms in German; Konsivierungsstoffe are used in German jam. Oops. There are probably dodgy jokes that may be made of this.

Anyways, I am flying to Spain tomorrow and coming back to good ol Germany by way of Belgium and Holland, where I've never been but where it rains a lot and I hear they have smashing chocolate. Oh, and it rains. The bikes are nice, too. And sometimes it rains. So in order to make myself familiar with the netherlands, I youtubed around and ended up with....this:

To those of you familiar with Dutch camping vans on the Autobahn:


And I wanted to write more, but instead I ended up watching youtube videos about Fernando Torres, whom I swear I am going to marry if I can ever meet. ANYways... saluto et goodnight.