Generation I(-pod)

Yes, I've now joined it, thanks to mom and dad--a shiny new 20GB I-pod in the mail, already loaded with tons of cool music from home. And a cool German phrasebook/dictionary to replace the one I, uh, forgot on the airplane.... Vielen Dank, folks.

I'm glad Alena and Dad were able to place the title of the last post, and it just popped into my head, no special reason for it. I'm disappointed, though, that nobody even tried to guess what Desperado could be! So I'm not telling yet. Start guessing. And I don't really know how to spell Hennie's girlfriend's name either, but yes, he's still with her. And I've mostly recovered from whatever ill feelings I had--I had to cut wayyy back on the tea and such, and drink a lot more water to rehydrate, plus Brigitte got me a bunch of different things to take.

Well, tomorrow's the big day--hopping on a train to Freiburg and moving into my dorm, where I'll be living for the next 3 and a half months. I'll finally have a Handy (cell phone) again, which will be nice, even if it's just so I can tell the time without a watch as usual, haha. I'll also finally be able to use the internet on my own laptop again (I assume!), which means I'll finally have to put my pictures where my mouth is, or something. And maybe even some Instant Messenger so I can talk a little more directly to some of you. I've never been without it for 2 solid weeks, brr. Sooo anyway, Brigitte's doing laundry for me today, and later I'll do some packing so I'll be ready to head out tomorrow. And perhaps some more movie watching, I've already watched 5 in the last 3 days I think. As usual, hope all is well with you guys, and talk to ya again soon.

Ciao.

This One Goes To Eleven

Hey, World. It's Monday morning-ish and I'm at Thorlef and Brigitte's. In response to Mark, my German is still not great--I can understand a decent amount of stuff, but still have trouble speaking and such. I imagine this will change once I get to school and have a month of intensive language study. And the food is awesome, of course, but it seems to be catching up to me, as I'm finding myself running to the bathroom too often the last couple days. Which is why Brigitte and I didn't end up going to Mainz today--I didn't think I'd survive. It could be the beer, too--at least one gets consumed per day, but it's not quite the same as Natural Light. That means the brewers don't get their water downstream of a small community who has no toilets and just uses the stream. But that's probably enough on that subject.

So I'm just hangin' out I guess, which is relaxing. I've played tennis a couple of times, although I don't provide much more than cannon fodder for my relatives. Maybe a swim later, and hot tub action, but I don't think I'll try the steam room again just yet, that thing was too much for me. Watch some movies, or more German MTV, which is a lot like American MTV if American MTV still played music videos--that is, the majority of music is in English. I've been makin' some musik on the piano, too.

Saw cousin Hennie yesterday, although not for too long--he's a workin' man, which is hard to believe but true. He studied in Freiburg for 2 years so he was telling me about it. Saw cousin Philly a few days ago at Britta's, and it turns out she'll be working at a hospital in Freiburg for a few weeks starting today I think, so it's great that she'll be there for some of the time I will. I still have a ton of great pics to put on a website, but I'm waiting for the chance to do it all from my computer rather than dealing with this German computer/internet stuff for some pics, so unfortunately you still have to wait half a week or more.

Just a few funny things before I go. One, I get e-mail newsletters from this site Tremor, which isn't the point. The point is that in these newsletters, which I don't usually pay attention to, I've noticed that they like to put "Fun Facts" at the bottom. I'd like to share with you two of Tremor's ideas of Fun Facts:
Fun Fact With three or more teen passengers in the car, teen drivers are 20% more likely to be involved in an accident. Study by the Southern California Injury Prevention Research Ctr, Dailynews.com 6.18.05
Fun Fact The most painful areas to get a tattoo: 1. Ribs 2. Top of feet or hands 3. Knee 4. Elbow 5. Triceps ESPN THE MAGAZINE 8.1.05
Weren't those fun, kids?

And I'll be leaving you with this: I haven't seen the actual product, but there are commercials on TV advertising an alcoholic drink called "Desperado." Can you guess what Desperado is? Don't search for it, just take a moment and try to guess what it is, and I'll let you know next time. Adios, amigos.

It's A Girl!

But we already knew it'd be a girl. Anyway, baby Josefin entered the world at around 3 AM yesterday (Thursday) morning. There are plenty of pictures, but as with the other pics, they'll have to wait for now. BUT (yes, there's a but), if you go to www.born-in-peine.de you'll be taken to the Born In Peine (that's pronounced "pine," she wasn't born in pain...) website where you can see the first ever pic of baby Josie, or Fin, or Finny, or whatever nickname the family decides upon. Just click something on the main page, it should bring you to the pictures section.

Ingölf (I hope I didn't just butcher the spelling) and Doris came for a while yesterday, and later on Philly did too. It turns out she'll be in Freiburg for 3 weeks starting Monday, working at a hospital, so I'll be there for 2 weeks of her 3, which should be fun. I was supposed to leave Wednesday, of course, but I didn't want to miss Josie's big day, and Eric Spickschen told me he had a meeting in Hanover today, so he's coming to get me afterwards.

Okay, that's all for now, folks--bis bald!

Bin ich dran? (Is it my turn?)

Guten Abend, oder Tag, depends where you are--here, it's 18:24. "Here" is Britta and Wolfgang's house, and I've been here since Saturday. I'm not gonna write too much, because I'm just now rediscovering how different the German keyboard is from the American keyboard (I'm on Jonder's computer). It would take me all day to recount my adventures thus far on a normal keyboard, which means it would take me a week on this keyboard, unfortunately. Suffice to say everyone treats me like royalty (they're too good to me!) and I'm having a great time.

I just wanted to check in and let people know I am alive. I've been taking some pictures, and Wolfgang has taken a lot since I've been here, so at some point I'll get those online, but it prrrrobably won't be till September, when I'm in Freiburg. No baby Josefin from Britta yet, either, so I'm trying to wait that out. Anyway, hope to get a chance to write more soon and to talk to people, but until then, leave me some comments or e-mail me with your news from Amerika so I'll see it next time I'm on here. Auf Wiedersehen.

Smoke Rings Rock

...And Bobby and I taught ourselves to blow smoke rings at the hookah bar last night. Also, there are containers of bubbles everywhere, which means you can blow smoke into bubbles. I don't know if it sounds cool, but it's freakin' sweet.

Yeah, Portland has a hookah bar now, who'd a thunk it? It's called The Purple Caterpillar, and it's quite purple and freaky. It's open really late, too, even on Sunday--we didn't get there until 12:30 AM, and we left around 1:45. For a while they were playing Pink Floyd, which worked well, but then the Rocky Horror Picture Show soundtrack came on and that reeeeally sucked. It's a sweet deal though, $10 for a pack, which could easily take care of about 6 people, as determined by Bob, Rus, and me after finishing one ourselves. When I went to one in NYC it was much more expensive, so that's cool, and those mugs treated me anyway, so can't complain. In summary: smoke rings and bubbles, good; The Purple Caterpillar, good; apricot tobacco, good; Rocky Horror, crap.

In fashion news, I bought a new wallet yesterday. $10 at TJ Maxx, can't beat it. And I was checked out (well, she was the check-out person...) by a chick who looked like Paris Hilton and had some foreign accent. I was totally smooth too. European Paris Hilton: "Will you give me your phone number?" Me: "Uhhhh, unlisted. (thinking only of my poor parents being hassled by telemarketers)" Yup, totally smooove, man.

Let's see, I got an email today from the IES program with a schedule that mostly tells about the first few weeks, but it's all in Deutsch, so I'll probably never read it. Just kidding, but I'll probably put it off for a while anyway. And finally, T-minus about 50 hours until I leave for the Land of Beer and Chocolate--wunderbar!

No Real News, Just Filler.

It feels like ages since I last posted on this thing--maybe because I got hassled by my darling cousin who-will-remain-nameless for not updating every day. I doubt I'll be posting every day though, especially for the first stretch that I'm in Germany. Not only is that way too much writing (you all know, of course, how I hate writing and cherish number-crunching), but I'll be visiting relatives for the first two weeks, and not necessarily sitting down to a computer all the time. I don't even know if Tante Hasse and Uncle Gerd have a computer at the farm, but I do know they have a tractor I plan to drive, aww yeeah.

In fact, I might be feeling fairly cut off from the outside world for another reason. Namely, I won't have a cell phone for the first two weeks that I'm in Germany, either. Gasp, the horrors! Well, all this will mean is that none of you have to feel bad about not calling me anymore, since you couldn't even if you wanted to. (Put away the rum, that's no cause for celebration.) Yeah, I'm not taking my cell phone to Germany because the IES people make each student pay for a cell phone they assign when we arrive September 1. But until then, I'll basically be living in the dark ages again, which I heard were sort of dangerous the first time around. I'll be okay, though, I promise. (Seriously, put down the rum, I'll let you know when it's time to celebrate.)

A couple of minor updates to the page: I tried to get a working pic for my profile, but it doesn't seem to be working well. Which is unfortunate because I make a dashing pirate. I added an audio clip which has been exploding across the internet and some tv commercials, so enjoy that, please. I slapped a link to the LEO English-German Online Dictionary somewhere off to the right, so when I start losing my grip on the English language a couple of months from now, you can try to figure out what I'm saying still. I'd say that's it for now, and since this crazy guy is making me really hungry, I'd also say it's time for a snack. Tell all your friends, and Stay classy, tiny contingent of Surprise Witness readers.

First Day of the Rest of My Life

Or at least the first day of whatever portion of my life happens to involve this blog. And while I'm being completely honest, it's really the first night, since it happens to be after 10:00 and dark out. Before I find myself describing every insignificant detail of my life, which happens to be pretty uneventful at the moment, I'll say that the main goal of this blog is to alleviate my reporting duties while I'm in Freiburg, Germany for the next 4 months (as of Thursday, Aug. 18). Hopefully, instead of constantly emailing, IMing, and calling various interested parties, I can direct said parties here, where I will take the stand and tell some version of the truth.

A big assumption here is that there are, in fact, interested parties. If you decide that you're among them, go ahead and leave me occasional feedback, or else it's possible I will lose control of my tearducts, and if the Germans see me cry, I'm afraid to think what my fate will be. Sure, history has shown them to be a gentle, peace-loving people, but some things are simply verboten.

Anyway, by periodically touching base here at The Surprise Witness, you should be able to learn when there exciting new developments such as updated pictures, fresh Wienerschnitzel, and D+ test scores. Court is now in session.