Mush-a-boom
September 7, 2008
Yesterday Wolf and I woke up earlyish and headed just outside of Berlin to pick mushrooms. One of the great things about German cities is given the relative lack of suburbs, its pretty easy to get yourself out of the city, amongst trees and other foresty things. We ultmately collected a sizeable pile of mushrooms and while the camera didn't quite make the journey to the woods, itdid make it into the kitchen. Thusly, here is a little start to finish slideshow of the mushroom presentation: eat your hearts out!
Posted byKari at 11:28 PM 5 comments
6 Reasons...
August 27, 2008
WARNING: This post has the potential to be sticky and sweet (not unlike Madonna's new tour) and have a slightly gooey consistency. Avert your eyes if you're adverse to such things.
6 Reasons why I'm happy:
1. I'm packing - I always get a little sentimental when I'm packing. Well, doesn't everybody. A little Dar Williams, and I'm singing cheesy songs about traveling and curling my pants into fist-tight rolls. Plus, one of my first blog posts was when I was packing to come to Germany. Life is like all circular and stuff.
2. I'm packing because I'M MOVING TO BERLIN ON SUNDAY. Not only am I way over Hamburg, but I'm way into many, many things in Berlin.
3. I have a ticket to Seattle, Crotch-chester, and NYC. While the ticket itself isn't so exciting, the people on the other side are. Saying I miss them doesn't even touch it.
4. The NYT has confirmed one of my core beliefs. Once they write something equally snarky about France, my life will be complete.
5. Cool things coming up: Tour of a HUGE East German bunker, a super cool Berlin street festival, Jewish-y festival in Berlin, trip to a strange German country estate, trip to Scotland to meet a fellow whiskey aficionados, and painting Wolf's kitchen princess pink.
6. Being in Germany has been 6% beyond awful, but 94% pretty damn good. Seems like an okay relationship to me.
Posted byKari at 9:31 PM 1 comments
The Klempners are coming!
August 25, 2008
So, my shower broke. Mysteriously, without warning, and most certainly unrelated to a certain young man feeling the need to retrofit the shower to his own showery needs. I'm moving out of my flat in under a week (yay!), but it didn't quite feel right to force the next guy to shower on his knees. Given that my explanation of what is wrong in English would sound something like "the clampy-screwey-holdy thing is broken", its easy to imagine how painful my conversation went with the apartment manager. He got the point eventually (DUCHE KAPUT) and offered to come by tonight. There was also some mention of a Klempner. Both sounded good to me.
He stopped by and promtly suggested that I shower while sitting on a stool. Once I nixed that idea, he kindly offered to come by every morning and hold the shower head nozzle while I shower. I shot that one down too, and he brought up the Klempner again. Now is probably a good time to mention that I have no friggin' idea who or what a Klemper is: animal, vegetable, or mineral - all the same to me. See, this is how I've recently decided to make living in Germany more fun. While there are abundant resources for, say, translating unknown words, it simply makes life less interesting. Hell, most Germans would even be able to tell me what Klempner means in English. But, that is boring. Its much more fun to imagine them as lederhosen wearing, green, shower fixing fairies who come to the aid of confused Americans. Anyway, the exciting news is that the Klemner will be coming soon, and then my shower will be fixed.
If you know what Klempners are, please don't tell me. I'm going to sit around and wait for them to show up. Hopefully they'll be green.
Posted byKari at 8:22 PM 0 comments
Trip Photos
August 21, 2008
Here are a couple of photos from my recent trip - they are more or less in order (Sydney, Singapore, and then Vietnam). Note that I've only included 2 of the 50 or so koala pictures I took.
Posted byKari at 10:36 AM 1 comments
Sometimes a Girl Just Needs a Little DDT
August 18, 2008
I'm back from my little adventure in Australia and Asia, but here is something I scrawled on the back of a piece of paper while waiting at the Singapore airport....
Everybody has these moments in life when they find themselves thinking or uttering absolutely surreal things. After noticing the quizzical look on the Singapore customs officer's face while thoroughly examining my passport, I said "I'm American, but I live in Germany...on my way back from a conference in Sydney, well...on my way to Vietnam." That cleared things right up. Also, wandering through the Singapore Airport, I could not help but mutter to myself, "I WILL NOT LET BED BUGS RUIN MY VACATION!!". I don't think you need much more detail on that last note, other than:
- Bed bugs are fairly precocious creatures that can inhabit even the swankiest of hotel beds (and subsequently your clothes)
- Bed bugs are undaunted by multiple international journeys
- 2-4 days after getting a few bed bug bites, one's whole body can theoretically break out into a red, itchy, totally awesome rash.
Wooh, my flight just got called.
Back to itching mself.
Posted byKari at 4:29 PM 2 comments
Bad Breakfast Boundaries
July 31, 2008
Yesterday, as I raced down the steps of the train station to to catch my train to work with a spicy Italian beef sandwich in my hands, two things occurred to me:
- Living in Germany has all but eradicated my previously held boundaries around what exactly constituents breakfast food. See, this sandwich was consumed at 9:45 in the morning. I will now happily stuff down sandwiches made from the stinkiest, strongest cheeses for breakfast. Reheated Thai food at 8 am (Yum! or... Gross!).
- Upon ordering the sandwich, without even thinking, I unrolled it from its wrapper, removed the top slice of bread, grabbed a napkin, and shoveled off what was easily over a tablespoon of butter on a fairly small sandwich, tossed out the napkin, and commenced with the eating. Gross!
Posted byKari at 2:21 PM 2 comments
Summer Heat Wave
July 29, 2008
As I sit at my desk writing this, the sky is painted with dark blue and purple rain clouds. This appears to be the end of the Hamburg summer heat wave. Given the German's apparent distaste for air conditioning, fans, and even ice cube trays, its been pretty a pretty sweaty couple of days.
Seeking a way to escape the heat this weekend, my charming partner-in-crime and I did a bit of research into possible watery escapes. While there is lots of cool options nearby (North Sea, Baltic Sea), it turns they are not so nearby as to make for a pleasant day trip. We ultimately decided to keep tings simple and toss our bikes on the S-bahn and take a 40 or so minute train and bike ride to a local nature preserve that doubles as popular local swimming spot. In addition to being lovely, it was very, well, German. As in the very naked kind of German. Many hoo-hoo's and haa-haa's were spotted and I left feeling like I could easily go 2 or 3 years without seeing another naked person.
After fleeing the nakedness, we biked back to the train and then once back in the city, biked over to my favorite fish restaurant, where I spent a very embarrassing 15 minutes gushing about the 'European lifestyle'. While there are plenty of things here that annoy me, there is something so unabashedly wonderful about how easy it is here get out of the city, ride your bike through rolling pastures, go swimming in a lake with about 200 gay men, and be back in the city for a fish dinner by 7.
In exciting Berlin-related news, I'm moving to Berlin in early September, where I will shack up with the aforementioned lovely partner-in-crime.
Posted byKari at 8:09 PM 0 comments
