Ohboy

The title is an inside joke from an awful German movie we saw last week called Stadt als Beude (maybe it was Beute...), but it also sums up my feelings about German speaking exams--rough. Ha. Ha. Ah oh well, it was okay, and pretty short, and now it's over. In response to Carley: I tried to leave you a message on AIM the other morning (well, afternoon here, but morning for you) cuz I've seen you on without an away message a couple times. Basically, I didn't see many girls I could readily identify as French, since we were in touristy towns near the German border, so I can't tell you if they're all as skinny as people apparently say, but I'm sure they've got nothin on Texas girls, if that helps.

Now some friends are waiting for me--we're off to get ice cream to try to make up for that speaking exam, and it's a beautiful day, so whaaaatever. I'll be checking mail and perhaps posting again tomorrow since we're not leaving until Sunday (wow, I got to sleep in today and I will tomorrow too!), so leave me some comments or email me some personal news. You live vicariously through me, it's time to give a little something back. Tschüss out, playas.

I'm Dumb

Jeez, I forgot to actually post the link again and I messed up the permanent link. Thanks for pointing both of those out.... I've fixed the permanent link on the right side of the screen, and in case you still wanted it in post form, it's http://community.webshots.com/user/bleibcool

I just finished with the written part of the test a little while ago. It wasn't fun, but tests rarely are. I think I did alright, though. Just have 10-15 minutes of speaking test tomorrow at 1:15, so at least I can sleep in. I'm hoping my speaking skills won't embarrass me too badly.

Made myself salad, bratwurst, and grilled cheese last night, so I was pretty proud of that. I'm learnding. Then Dave, Rachelle, and I went out for a drink to a bar called the Augustiner, which was cool cuz they had fußball playing on a huge screen and people were gettin' all into it.

Anyway, not too much else to tell, plus my brain hurts from pointless German testing. Till next time, keep watching the stars.

Plop Plop Fizz Fizz

Guten Tag, meine Daamen und Herren. What's goin on? I don't know why there have been so few responses to my Oktoberfest post--I guess you were all shocked and awed into submission. You might have noticed that I turned on the Word Verification system for the comments, which is to keep automated comment spam from getting in. But in case it kept you from getting in, all you need to do is write your comment and then look at the graphic they give you and make sure you type the letters you see into the space that's provided. I don't know if that was the problem you had, mom, but I'm glad you finally were able to work it out. For the rest of you, if my mom can do it, so can you.

Onto other news: Oktoberfest pics are up. Go check em out--the link to my pics is always on the right side of the screen (pretty obviously labeled), but if you can't seem to find that, it's here too:

There aren't a whole lot, which was pretty nice for me posting them, actually--it takes so long. But they're pretty cool, and once my friends get their acts together and perhaps post their pics online, I'll try to get those to you, also.

I hope those of you who needed to did remember my big sister's birthday Sunday--I forgot to post about it, but I did send her a postcard last week, so I'm hoping she's gotten it by now.

Gotta study some German tonite--the written part of the placement test is tomorrow, and the spoken part is Friday, and I really want to pull myself up by my bootstraps and leave the lowest German class, because the teacher is not very good, to put it nicely. I don't expect to advance, but oh well, gotta try anyway. Last night Dave and I made dinner together and planned to study German too, but the studying stuff didn't happen. Dinner took a long time, schmeckt gut, though--pasta with sauce and shredded gouda, a salad, and wine. Afterwards Rachelle, Jamie, and Kristina came over and we baked cookies and proceeded to eat them. That was tizight.

Anyway, check out those pics, post some comments so I know you can all handle it and that you're paying attention, and I'll check y'all lata, aight? Bleib cool. Bleib super cool.

We Came Here To Party

Wow, what a weekend. Turns out I'm an idiot, we weren't actually going straight from Switzerland, we went back to Freiburg on the bus, but then we left that night, our adventure started at about 10. Switzerland was alright--unfortunately the weather was pretty crappy so we all had to go to Luzern, instead of having the option to go hiking in...Grenzwald, I think it was. Luzern is just a huge tourist town, so it was very nice and everything, but a bit disappointing, especially with the gloomy, rainy weather. Plus we were there for like 6 hours, which was wayyy too long.

Speaking of wayyy too long, we started on ou way to Munich at 10 PM Saturday night, and we didn't arrive until 9 AM Sunday morning, haha. There were 9 of us who went together Saturday night; we bought two "Schönes Wochenende" passes, each of which costs 30 € and works for up to 5 people. But because we were traveling in the middle of the night it was really difficult to find good connections and stuff. We ended up going to Karlruhe a ways north of Freiburg, then to Mannheim, where we went to the most awful Irish pub in the world. It was nice enough, but it was the name that killed us: Murphy's Law. If you're not familiar with Murphy's law, let me state it roughly for you: Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong. Brian and I fought vehemently against going in for a drink, but we were overruled by the majority, so of course our trip was jinxed from then on.

The next place we went to was Stuttgart, although that wasn't necessarily the plan--we accidentally got on a train that wasn't allowed by our S. Wochenende passes. A ticket checker than informed us of this, charged each one of us 25.30 €, and made us get off at Stuttgart, which was only a few minutes away. He wouldn't let us just get off at the next stop, we had to pay and get off. It was really lame. So basically at this point, it's around 3 AM, we were just charged and then kicked off our train, and now had to wait 3 hours for the next train that we could take to Munich. Luckily the police didn't kick us out of the train station once we told them we were actually waiting for a train, so we ended up lying on a train station floor sort of sleeping but mostly just huddling together for warmth. We definitely looked homeless. And, while it sounds like an awful experience, it was actually sort of hilarious at the same time, so whatever.

Anyway, we finally made it to Munich, and followed a couple of friendly old American men (who actually have lived in Germany for years) to Oktoberfest. If you're my parents or anyone who won't enjoy hearing about how much beer we had, you should probably skip ahead a while. For those who are still with me, we drank our first Liter of beer at about 10:30 AM. We were in the Paullaner "tent" (these so-called tents are just like huuuge restaurants with tables everywhere). The liters in each place ranged in price from like 7.10 to 7.50 €; expensive, but not as bad as I would have thought, and there was no deposit on the drinks, which seemed unusual, but allowed many of us to swipe a liter glass. Oktoberfest was an interesting place: it was like a huge carnival, complete with rides and food stands and stuff, but mostly people just hang out in the tents drinking. From Paullaner, we headed back outside, and then decided a second liter was in order at the Löwenbräu tent. Löwe is lion, by the way, which hopefully helps you understand why Löwenbräu is a must drink, since lions rule.

We hung out there for a long time, then we wandered for a while, but I was kind of losing track of time, so I'm not exactly sure what the schedule was like after that. Nikki and I left the group because we were waiting somewhere to be served and it was taking too long, and we wanted a 3rd liter, so we went to some place whose name I forget. It was incredibly packed, which was actually nothing compared to the day before, according to the Australians and New Zealanders with whom we ended up standing. I ended up drinking at least 2 more liters while I was there. That makes 4+ liters, for those of you keeping score at home. Our train was leaving at 5:51, and once I finally left, I had to stumble through town trying to find the train station. I asked around a lot, and somehow I made it to the right place about 2 minutes before the train left. I was a bit of a mess, but I did it! We got home at around 2:30 AM this morning (Monday). Basically, we were awake for 43 hours, with slight naps, and far too many liters of beer, and far too little money afterwards.

But it was worth it.

Definitely an awesome adventure. Anyway, I don't think I can write any more now, and I doubt you can read anymore, so I'll be stopping now. Catch ya on tha flipside, which will probably be, like, tomorrow.

Bleib super cool

That's merely one of the many delightful phrases my friends and I learned when we saw the movie Mr. and Mrs. Smith auf Deutsch. That, of course, means "Stay super cool," roughly. Others included Ich geb auf (I give up) and Ohne Scheiß? (Which in polite company might translate to "Oh yeah?"). The movie was decent, mostly just full of action and some comedic relief, but it was definitely better to see it in German. It was more interesting that way, held the attention better because we all had to work at translating everything. Plus it wasn't any sort of mind-boggling plot line, so it wasn't difficult to follow. Oh, and I've been to two different German movie theaters now (the first was with Lisa and Jonder when we saw Charlie und die Schokolade Fabrik), and they rule American theaters. The seats are large, cushy, and fantastic, with stadium seating. Plus commercials are better when they're in a foreign language.

After Herr und Frau Smith we went out to dinner. The place was called Schnitzel Paradies (I think you can all get that one). It doesn't get much better than a house of schnitzel, and it was indeed good eats and cool atmosphere.

At 7:00 this evening we're going to a German movie for class, I don't remember what we're seeing but hopefully it will be fine. Afterwards we'll go to a bar for some drinks with our teachers, which should be interesting too. One of our teachers (yeah, we have 2 for some crap reason) is awesome: his name is Kai, and he's originally from Texas, but he's been in Germany longer than I've been alive, I think, so he's very German. He's a great professor, very interesting and engaging. The other one is Evangelia, and she's basically a kindergarten teacher, because we mostly color things and throw around big fuzzy dice. That's all I'll say about her. So anyway, after drinks it's time for Karaoke night at the Dubliner, an (obviously) Irish pub. Can't wait for that.

Aaaand finally, we're going to Switzerland Saturday, but then a bunch of us are going straight from there Saturday night to Munich for Oktoberfest, woooo! Yeah, it starts Saturday, and actually ends sometime in October. The trip there will be like 8 hours, but we'll just hafta sleep on the train and whatnot. We'll head back to Freiburg Sunday night. It's definitely gonna be an adventure.

As usual, hope all is well, and see ya later.

Oh right, the link.

I forgot it!
http://community.webshots.com/user/bleibcool

OMG PICS PPL

Go here: Hooray for pictures. With captions and everything. They might not be hilarious, but I don't want to hear about it, ingrates. I still have plenty more and will continue to take more, and also get links to the pic sites of my friends so you can check those too, but that will, as usual, have to wait. Umm, Freiburg, and Germany in general, rules. The alcohol is really cheap and delicious and doesn't give you hangovers, so of course I never touch the stuff. I have my language class from 9 AM to 1 PM every day, so then we have time to walk around the city or do whatever. The public transportation rules for the most part, I take a bus from my dorm into town, and it takes like 7 minutes, then hop on a tram (Strassenbahn) for a few minutes to where my class is. We went to France this past Saturday, that was pretty sweet, although the French seemed really annoying. Those pics will be coming later. I gotta go get pretzels now, so I'll hopefully talk to people again soon. Guten Appetit!

I'm Alive

But it hardly feels that way without internet access in my room. Just kidding, it's alright, except for the fact that it makes it very tough to update this or get on AIM or anything. But hopefully I'll be able to do both things a little more, since I now have access to wireless on my laptop as long as I come to this IES building or any University building. Anyway, it's better to spend time in the world, rather than racing back home to use the comp.

Well, I have promised pics and stuff so I still intend to get on those, and tell a bit more about my experiences at some point. Suffice to say, Freiburg is awesome, and I'm loving it here, and of course I miss everyone, but instead of me coming home, you should all come here. The American kids in my program are awesome, and we have tons of fun. My German is improving, but slowly, so I still get really frustrated with it. Anyway, even though I don't have enough time at the moment to tell you all about my life, I still get to at least check email daily, so I'd love to hear about what's going on with everyone, if you get time to post or if you want to email me at MonkeyBitesKlown@yahoo.com.

Once again, sorry I've been so lame with this whole "communication" thing, and not posting here or any pics, but I'll see what I can do.

MfG

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.