29 June 2008

Flowery Gnomes

We went to Insel Mainau today! Insel Mainau is a really beautiful tropical-ish island on the Bodensee, and when we registered for the city we got coupons for it. And the weather was absolutley crazy beautiful, so we went!

Highlights of the day:

--We ran around on the kid's playground for awhile, and they even had these weird wooden raft gondola things that you could take around a big pool, so we did. It was a pretty sweet playground.


--The view from the island was crazy gorgeous. Plus they had giant flower sculptures, including a particularly awesome one of a gnome and a happy flower:


--We saw miniature ponies and baby goats:


--There was a butterfly house!


-- We also ran around like idiots in the sprinklers (because it was mad hot, and just really, really fun), and Marina took this video of us:



Then when we came back, it was the Germany/Spain Finale of the EM, and, of course, Spain won. There aren't that many Spaniards in Konstanz, but they are all going CRAZY. Meanwhile, everyone else has the my-family-died-in-a-flash-flood look on their face. Sorry Germany, better luck in four years.

Other than that, really nothing new cool or interesting has happened. On the bright side, CLAIRE is coming in a little over a week. WOOT!!

26 June 2008

Let's Have a Horn Party

WOOOOOOT!! DEUTSCHLAND HAT GEWONNEN! Germany versus Turkey, and there was some baby mama football drama going down. For one, both teams scored super early on, so it was 1-1 the majority of the game. Then, in the last like ten minutes, Germany scored and everyone figured we had it in the bag. But with like 7 minutes to go, Turkey evened it out, and then, with like 4 minutes til the end, Germany made it 3-2 and therefore put us in the finals.

So, needless to say, there was some rioting in the streets, so Marina, Michigan Friend, The Roommates and I all piled into Fabio's car (quote of the night: "Let's have a horn party.") and did lots of screaming and flag waving and horn honking. I got to stand out the sunroof for awhile waving a flag, which was pretty SUH-WEET!

Finale Sunday versus either Spain or Russia! Oh snaps.

YES MY BIKE HAD A BELL ON IT. NOW IT DOESN'T.

25 June 2008

I am a victim of thieves

So I realized today that someone stole the bell off my bicycle. I'm not particularly irritated, but I do find it vaguely amusing that they only took the bell. Like seriously, if you're gonna steal shit, at least take the basket, it's more useful. Or really, if we're thinking practically, just take the whole bike.

Dear Bell Thieves,
I'm glad you didn't take the whole bike or the basket, but the bell was screwed on. Seriously, if you're going to put that much effort into stealing something, and least still something worthwhile, but preferably not from me.
Love,
Tina

As a sidenote, mosquitos here are mutant poisonous beasts that make me swell up and itch like no mosquito has done before.

24 June 2008

Hairnets

Okay horse people, guess what? They don't wear hairnets in Germany. Yeah, I KNOW.

The reason that this gets it's own entry is because a few weeks ago I sat down after riding at the table where the rest of the team was, and took my helmet off. When it was revealed that I was wearing a hairnet, they all went nuts, and everyone simultaneously burst out with "So that's what you're doing with your hair!" "I couldn't figure it out!" "How do you do it?" And I had to demonstrate.

Then again today I was sitting with a girl, and started to put my helmet on, and she was absolutley fascinated by me putting on the hairnet Okay, and I've gotten quite good at doing this on the first try (RU horseshows! No more will you laugh), and it takes me all of about 50 seconds, but she just didn't understand. "Why do you do it?" she asked, "It just looks so overly complicated." And I, totally at a loss as to how to explain something as fundamental as hairnets, just said "I don't know, tradition I guess." And she said, "How silly. Usually we're the ones with stupid riding traditions."

Stupid riding traditions? But it's just, like, a hairnet!

What do they do instead? They don't do anything, they just let te ponytail hang out the back of the helmet. I'm all for embracing anything and everything European, but Not Wearing A Hairnet has officially joined Going Topless in Public on the list of things I absolutley will never ever not-even-if-you-paid-me do.

New favorite song: http://youtube.com/watch?v=zzqLtbdH1gs

23 June 2008

Minor Points of Horseshow Interest

Horse show was nothing particularly special. It was a big international show, as opposed to the last student crazyfest, but here are some minor points of interest for you:

I slept in an attic for two nights.

It was so so so hot, and there was no shade whatsoever in the ring where I did manual labor for three days. This means that all the Germans I was with currently look like tomatoes on fire (despite bathing in sunscreen), but thanks to my solid portuguese bloodlines, I forgot my suntan lotion and just got ridiculously tan, as in, tan enough to freak myself out when I looked in the mirror today.

In 2 and a half days I drank five liters of orange fanta and three litres of water by myself.

I made friends with a photographer who had been a flight attendant in the US. He kept calling me Jersey girl, and when I asked him if he knew what it meant, he got all freaked out because he thought he'd offended me. Personally, I embrace the fact that I can't parallel park, ever.

I made friends with the Irish, and it was more effort understanding their English than understanding other people's German.

What's a weekend without people thinking you're Spanish?

My Adopted Motherland (Spain) just beat Italy in the EM.

I've decided to stop lying to myself and just admit that German's aren't actually all that friendly. Well, they are, but it takes you like 80 billion years to get to know them, and then they're the nicest people in the world. They're kind of like coconuts...like they have really hard outer shells you have to pound at. But being a foreigner and a non-native German speaker, we don't get to start out by the coconut tree like normal people, we have to start like five miles up the beach. Hopefully that made sense. However, the really cool ones (i.e, all the ones I'm friends with) have all studied/backpacked abroad. I think this definitely improves their open-ness levels.

I overheard two girls talking about the so-called "ghetto" in Konstanz, and I got really interested because I've been looking for it since I got here. According to them, Wollmatingen is the ghetto, and they got "Ooh, don't go there," about it. However, I drove through Wollmatingen on the way back from the horseshow, and it is picture perfect houses with flowers on the windowsills and a few office buildings trading good clean money that has never seen the inside of a stripper's G-string. In my humble opinion, that is a CRAP ghetto.

That would be all.

19 June 2008

Às armas!

So the Motherland got their asses royally handed to them by Germany 3-2. Schweinsteiger (who my sister eloquently describes as a "freaking ninja, who comes out of nowhere like a pop up book from hell.") scored the first goal, and then Ballack scored some, because they both suck. Needless to say, I was one of the only people dressed up for Portugal, and I got lots of glares. One man cursed at me and told me to go home. I completely missed it, but Vegemite turned around and yelled at him for me.
I did, however, make friends. There was a group of Portuguese kids across the tent from me, and we waved flags at each other (because we were the only Portuguese fans there) whenever Ronaldo came on screen. I also made friends with a couple of sympathetic German old people, as well as with 80 million pre-pubescent French kids. It was actually quite cute, at half time my friend and I were walking to get ice cream, and the giant train of French ten-year-olds passed us going the other way. When they saw I was holding the Portuguese flag they went nuts, "Oui oui Portugal! Oui oui!" I (now) love the French.
The Motherland was a bit of a disappointment today. On the positive side, all my friends will still speak to me, and, because I rooted for Portugal, my parents will still my pay for college education. And I don't much care what anyone says, the Portuguese national anthem is WAY more kickass than the German one.

Contra os canhões marchar, marchar!

Horseshow all weekend, interesting stories should ensue. Adeus!

18 June 2008

WCFWRHU

Okay, funny story:

So Fabio and I were walking down by the Rhine, when all of a sudden this kid in a (tight) blue leotard riding a unicycle came unicycling towards us. I opened my mouth to make fun of Kid on Unicycle, when Fabio started waving. Confusion? Nope, apparently they're in the same class at Uni, so they chatted happily for a few minutes while I stared at the unicycle and contemplated being unable to afford a bike with two wheels and handelbars. After they parted ways, I was asking how they knew each other, Fabio told me, and then threw in for good measure "He's the world champion of unicycle riding, and the former world record holder." I had to stop my bike at this and get him to repeat it very slowly and carefully to make sure I'd heard correctly, which I had.

I've met alot of cool and famous people in my life (Hurricane Schwarz, Barry Croll, Bruce Springsteen's daughter, Laura Chapot, Mike Teel -who-I-didn't-actually-meet-but-Jean-
says-we-saw-him-at-a-halloween-party), but I can now say I've stood in the presence of the World Champion and Former World Record Holding Unicycler. What happened to The Longest Acronym's world record, you may ask? Apparently some Asian guy's got him recently beat. This is probably not information you mention in his presence.

I know you guys are jealous. Maybe if you all came to Germany, you could meet the World Champion and Former World Record Holding Unicycler too. That's motivation to visit if I've ever heard it.

16 June 2008

Tina in a Tight Spot

Germany beat Austria, 1 to 0. This means that Thursday night it's the Deutschland versus the Motherland.

Should I be for Portugal by association, or Germany by adoption? This is a tough decision, but I've got both flags.

GO WHOEVER WINS!

14 June 2008

3 Incidents in the Space of a Week

In my speaking class:

Teacher: Today, class, we'll be talking about what the university systems are like in everybody's home countries. Tina, start us off by telling us about universities in Spain.
Tina: I don't know.
Teacher: What do you mean you don't know?
Tina: I have no clue.
Teacher: But you're from Spain!
Tina: No I'm not.
Teacher: You're not?
Tina: I'm American.
Teacher: ...Oh.

Signing up for a new Tandem Partner:

Tina: Hi, I need a second tandem partner, if that's okay.
Lady: So you're signing up for a Spanish to German partner, right?
Tina: English to German.
Lady: But you speak Spanish.
Tina: No I don't.
Lady: You're not from Spain?
Tina: I'm American.
Lady: ...Oh.

Getting in the elevator with two random old German ladies:

Old Lady: Nice weather we're having.
Tina: Yeah, it's pretty nice today.
Old Lady: What part of Spain are you from?
Tina: I'm not from Spain.
Old Lady: You're not from Spain!?
Tina: I'm American.
Old Lady: Really? You look like a Spaniard!
Tina: Yeah, I get that all the time.


Huge party on our floor tonight, should be fun. Adios!
--The Resident Spanish Impersonator

13 June 2008

Croatia: 2, Germany: 1

And all across the country, Germans mourn and curse their eastern european neighbors.

Tina: You know, I think this whole Europameisterschaft really just spawns hate. Like until next year, you all will hate the Croatians--
Fabio: We already hate the Croatians! Because they're only like ten years old, they should still be part of Yugoslavia, and they can't play football.
Tina: And until next year, all the Poles hate you because you beat them on Sunday--
Fabio: The Poles have hated us since the WWII, because when we invaded, we had tanks and they had horses, so we shot their horses with our tanks **.
Tina: I see.

CRAP, can we talk about how seriously Germany takes football?

So minus that I had to sit for another ninety minutes and watch football, I now have to deal with grief-stricken German friends and roommates. Please please please Germany beat Austria, because I can't deal with how pathetically sad everyone is. From the look of people, you would guess their families had been washed away in a flash flood...but actually, the football team just lost.

Adios amigos.

** This is, naturally, the only reason Poland hates Germany.

12 June 2008

Some things new

Here are some things that are currently interesting in my life:

1) Extensive traveling for the last month and a half, plus me forgetting about the weakness of the american dollar bill, means that I'm currently broke. If I ever thought I might have been broke before, it was nothing compared to how broke I am now, as in, people as broke as I am are usually living on the streets picking food out of garbage cans, and that's not an exaggeration. No worries.

2) I rented a really sweet movie from the library, "Die Fetten Jahre sind Vorbei." I think the Englisch title is "The Edukators"? Has anybody seen it? Anyway, here's the trailer with subtitles: http://youtube.com/watch?v=MB1UMfC8koc Definitely watch it (the whole movie, not just the trailer) if you get the chance.

3) German plays Croatia tomorrow night, hooray.

4) Portugal is now in the quarter finals, because Ronaldo does not play football like a little girl.

5) My eye is still a little swollen and painful from my bike crash way back in March. Also, I still have the gravel imprint on my skin.

6) I've learned lots of new words this week, including "soul", "destroy", and "capitalist dictatorship."

That's about it. Adios!

11 June 2008

HAPPY BIRTHDAY AMY!

It's my sister's birthday today! Technially yesterday, but it's still June 10th where you all are, so it totally counts.

Dear Amy,

HAPPY 16th!! You can now officially drive and date, neither of which I will ever allow you to do. And officially (because it is your birthday), I thought I would give you a present:



Here, have Cristiano Ronaldo, he's all yours.

Germany wishes you the best 16th birthday ever, all my friends say happy birthday in their respective native languages, and thanks for walking all the way out into the field in your white flip flops so that I could talk to my horse on the phone--you're the best!

Liebe Grüße,
Tina

P.S. New Favorite Song of the Day (may or may not be a little obsessed with this band). But this video's sing-a-long style, have fun:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=ZI1SzBPVF4o

09 June 2008

French Hippies, Portuguese Flags and German Soccer

FRANKREICH!!

What else is cooler than picking up and going to France? 3 hours on a train takes you to the land of croissants and model-dating presidents, and it was awesome.

The weekend started ridiculously early Saturday morning, when, as is customary for every single time we travel, it was raining. We also missed our train at the Bahnhof, had to wait over an hour for the next one, and I put my bookbag down in vomit. But I did buy a really funny book called "Auslaendisch fuer Notfaelle" (Foreign Languages for Emergencies), which teaches Germans useful emergency phrases. Some example from the english-speaking countries:

AUSTRALIA
"What is the sun protection factor of kangaroo blood?"
"Quick, get the jaw-lock for alligators!"
"Watch out, your digeridoo playing is an assault on my peace of mind."

ENGLAND
"If necessary, could your porridge also be used as insecticide?"
"Are there any other ways of contracting foot-and-mouth disease apart from contact or smear infection?"
"Will the hooligans let go of me earlier if I inflict a heavily bleeding laceration on myself?"

USA
"Would you please exercise a bit more care when voting for the next president?"
"You have my word of honor that I do not have any Arabian relatives."
(Underneath a picture of a jar of honey, a knife, and a stick of dynamite) "How can I persuade this grizzly to leave my tent?"
(Under the sub-heading 'Shopping in the Bronx') "One mace, brass knuckles, and a taser please."

SCOTLAND
"Ah doot it'll tak mair nor three harpoons tae fell this sea beastie."
"Ah dinna think the bus driver should be jinin in the whisky saumplin."
"Wull ye gie me ma chynge at lang last?"
"Hoo mony fowk a year are killt bi hielan kye?"

The book also teaches you how to say "Gandolf is an asshole" and "Excuse me sir, but is this your ring?" in Elvish, and expressly teaches you not to say "Allah is great and Mohammed is his prophet," "I'm on the pill," and "I prefer pink condoms," in the Vatican.

Okay, so anyway, France. I, like the brilliant one I am, forgot my passport, which meant some anxiety crossing the border until we realized there was no security whatsoever. Sweet. We immediately hopped on the tram (and everything was in French!) and headed over to our couch surfing find.

For those of you who don't know what couch surfing is, it's the free alternative to hostels where you find people online to host you for the night. Safe? Who knows. But I officially take back anything bad I've ever said about French people, because the girl we stayed with was the epitome of Awesome. Her name was Florence, and she was a 22 year old hippie-artist-French chick who gave us lots of sweet advice on things to see, and then invited us to this market thing with her friends later in the day. And we were off! Running around, exploring churches, going on merry-go-rounds, and basically being tourists. I also bought a Portuguese flag, because with the huge soccer Europameisterschaft thing going on, I felt obliged to show a little love for the motherland.

And then we met Florence at the market! Her English isn't all that good, so we didn't really understand what was going on, but it turns out the "market" was actually a group of hippie friends who lay alot of old stuff on blankets and if you want it, it's yours free. This means that we all took free souveniers (I got a weird owl statue thing), and got to talk to French hippies for a few hours. And they were very cool! One lady asked me where I was from, and when I told her the US, she immediately launched into a rant "Oh, you need a new president, I will not go to America until you change presidents because I am afraid," and didn't stop for like a half an hour. I learned all about why she thinks the US is messed up (but she made very sure to tell me that she knew we weren't all bad, just our government), and at the end of the conversation the group of us that had been talking exchanged emails, and we promised the next time we came back to Strassburg, we would get in touch. It was pretty sweet:

Then, as a thank you to Florence for hosting us, we took her out to dinner, and later went to a hip/hop electro concert. Then we had to walk an hour home at 2 AM which wasn't all that much fun, but I did get some sweet night pictures of the church:


The next morning we said goodbye to Florence and went on a boat tour. Then we missed our train again, waited an hour and a half for the next one, and finally got back to Konstanz. The last hour or so we went a little stir crazy, and amused ourselves by taking pictures with the Portuguese flag, i.e, looking like badasses:

Naturally when I got back I was so exhausted I thought I was going to die, but is this the end of the weekend? Of course not, because Germany was playing Poland in the Europameisterschaft, which translates to Vegemite dragging her TV into the kitchen and Tina being forced into watch soccer and drink alcohol for ninety minutes with a bunch of Germans. Germany won (woot!) 2-0, and even Portugal won yesterday against Turkey, even though, according to Fabio, "Cristiano Ronaldo plays soccer like a little girl."

So that was basically my weekend. I realized today that I've traveled somewhere new every weekend for the last month and a half, which means I'm definitely looking forward to a relaxing weekend staying home. But that won't be next weekend, because my choices are a) fly to spain for five days, or b) drive to the heart of Swaebisch country to stay with my roommate for two days at her house. I'll probably wind up choosing the latter. I know it's awful, but I love being in Germany so much, my wanderlust to explore other countries has been effectively destroyed. No worries.

Anyway, that's the story of my weekend. Go check out more pictures (soon) on facebook, and for anybody who'se been following my new favorite songs, here's the next one for you:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=TvTQ8KELUC0

EDIT: I forgot to mention! I finally (finally!) found a beer that I like. It's called a Radler, but unfortunately my beer victory was somewhat stolen when it was pointed out to me that the "beer" is actually only half beer; the other half is lemonade, and therefore, it's "little girl's beer." I personally am unbothered by this classification. My logic is, if I can buy it off the beer menu and buy it in the beer aisle, it's beer. I don't care what German men trying to be macho say about it.

EDIT EDIT: Sorry this post is so long.


06 June 2008

Happy D-Day!

Tina: Happy D-Day!
Fabio: What's D-Day?
Tina: It's the anniversary of my country storming the beaches of Normandy and beginning the kicking of your country's ass.
Fabio: So do you guys celebrate and drink lots of beer?
Tina: I think actually we recite speeches, memorialize the fallen, and watch footage of veteran's reunions on TV.
Fabio: Crappy holiday.
Tina: Yeah.

So for the anniversary of D-Day, I thought it might be high time for some reflection on being an american in germany. Really, I've been here for three months already, and I think I've learned more about my own country than I have about this one, and my attitudes towards the US have changed accordingly. Definitely when I first got here, I would say I was rather unenthusastic about being from the US (i.e, when people asked me where I was from, I tended to mumble something unintelligible and then got off the bus as fast as possible), then I was somewhat in denial (and told people I was Canadian), and lately, because I tend to get grilled on the elections every other day, I've noticed myself getting a little defensive, as in:
German: So, where are you from?
Tina: Bite me.

That aside, I think it's Story of the Day time.

So today for my speaking class, the theme was Traveling in Germany, and my teacher decided to be extra-clever by setting us loose for fifteen minutes on the Uni, armed only with a set of questions with which to assault some poor unassuming German student. That was the assignment: Operation Find a German and Ask What's Cool to See in Germany. So me and an american friend took our notebooks and carefully scouted out the lobby for a victim, eventually settling on a dorky looking kid eating a sandwhich alone in a corner. And like the beasts that we are, we cornered the kid and got him to talk to us. Except trust us to find the ONE Swiss kid that goes to this school. He turned out to be quite nice, and after we had interrogated him enough, he asked where we were from. I said I lived two hours from NYC, and he said "Really? How was 9/11?" ...um? I told him I wasn't directly affected, but I knew several people who were, to which he responded, "We had a school shooting in Switzerland once, I hear those are quite popular in America."

Listen Swiss Kid, all I wanted to do was ask you about sight seeing in your native land, and somehow you have managed to apocalyptically throw in 9/11 AND school shootings three minutes into the conversation. I would say "typical German" to this, because truly it is, except he wasn't German.

How do you answer a question about the popularity of school shootings? I should be racking up points or something for the stupid things I have to deal with.

Anyway, adios amigos. Tina over and out.

03 June 2008

Roommate Update

So my internet has decided not to function the last few days, which means I'm currently using the school computers, with their misplaced y's and z's. Forgive the future spelling errors.

I realiyed I haven#t much spoken about my roommates in awhile, so I figured I#d update you all on their various activities.

Vegemite is currentlz in the process of coming up with reasons for me to stay, and excuses for me to tell my mother so that she'll allow it. These range from the quite possible ("Just don't come home.") to the doubtful ("Tell her you're in the hospital, and the doctors say you need to staz an extra semester to survive.") to the improbable ("Tell her if she doesn't let you stay, you'll throw her body in the woods when she dies.") Have I mentioned Vegemite is a little out of her mind? But in the best way possible.

Mr. Personality is really anti-american, but not in the burning-Bush-in-effigy sort of sense. He just really dislikes what he sees as american culture infiltrating his solid german culture. He hates English words in German, American products, etc etc, and is all about the nationalism. Which is why yesterday was hilarious: my door had been open the whole time, but he managed to sneak by me and down the stairs, and I caught him by the oven very quietly cooking.

Me: Hey! Whatcha making?
MP: ...Nothing *shoves box behind the counter.*
Me: It looks like pizza.
MP: Oh? Yeah. Maybe.
Me: What sort of pizza are you making?
MP: Oh just...regular pizza.
Me: Can I see the box?
MP: No.
*minor box tussle ensues. Tina emerges victorious*
Me: Hey Mr. Personality...does this say "American-Style Pizza?"
MP: Um...
Me: And it's in English! Are you making american pizza?
MP: No.
Me: You so are!
MP: No.
Me: You are!
MP: ...I LIKE THE CRUST BETTER, OKAY? It's got a thicker crust. I just like the crust. It's good crust.
Me: ^_^ Enjoy your crust!

Kitchen Klepto has been quite quiet lately, and so far no more kitchen appliances have done a disappearing act on account of her generosity. I don't really see her much, but lately she's had every Chinese girl in Europahaus over for parties, and I always here them yelling at each other. My new hobby is to read the English translations on her Chinese products, they always make my day.

01 June 2008

Weekend-ness

Hi Everyone!

Seriously, June already? Holy crap, time flies like no other out here.

So, the weekend. Friday night Vegemite and I decided to have a party for no reason, which was really sweet. It pretty much consisted of us buying a ton of alcohol and chips, and inviting about 80 billion people, and wound up being really really fun, even though it was so packed in our apartment you couldn't really move.

Saturday a bunch of us went to Tuebingen, which was sweet. I, unfortunately, was running on about an hour and a half of sleep, but no worries. The town is really nice, smaller than Konstanz, but quite pretty. We rented rowboats which was cool, and my boat made friends with a German family in a paddleboat because they had a dog. Then we explored the castle, watched a bit of some strange dance festival, ran up and down a little island on the river, and climbed under a bridge. Overall, pretty sweet.

I also almost got grabbed by a really crazy man who was cracked out on something special, which was a little freaky. We also almost got attacked by a swan during our row-boating, but New Michigan Friend's quick paddling saved us from certain feathery death.

On the way back we were stopped in Singen waiting for the return train to Konstanz, when this random German guy heard us speaking English and came over. "Are you guys American?" he asked. Two of us were, so we all started talking, and turned out he'd worked in Ireland for a few months, and was on his way to Konstanz to visit a friend. After we all got to Konstanz we decided to eat dinner at my place, and we felt kind of awkward leaving New Dude behind, so he came along. Half an hour later we were all eating noodles and hanging out, and it was quite fun. Everybody else left, but me, Michigan, and New Dude decided to head over to the Biergarten to celebrate an (american) friend's 21st. Only stayed for about a half-hour (because me and Michigan were beyond exhaustion and into the realms of feeling-like-death). Michigan went home in a cab, but me and German Dude walked back to my apartment, because he'd left his book-bag there. And then he started really obviously fishing for an invitation to stay the night, but I, in a demonstration of how much I've learned since getting here, pretty much put a "hells-no" on that one, and then locked the door behind him.

Today me, Fabio and Michigan went to a giant flea-market they were having in town. Watching a movie tonight, and that's about it. Weekend was lots of fun, go check out more Tuebingen pictures on facebook, and adios!

New favorite song: http://youtube.com/watch?v=OCDl1jBAup0