30 October 2011

Halloween, Snow, and a PSA

Happy Halloween, my American friends.  I hear it's snowing in New Jersey and people are without power and being buried alive by avalanches!  Guess what the temperature was here!  SEVENTY DEGREES.

No, I'm not at all bitter that you guys had a hot summer while I was dying wearing two hoodies.  Or that we had to turn the central heating on in July.  Of course I feel terrible for you.  What gave you the idea that I didn't?

HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA ISN'T THE COLD JUST FABULOUS?

In other news, this week has consisted of very little, other than recovering from Sweden and laryngitis.  Yesterday I went to a bar with Other American and some of her friends, but I died before we hit the club and had to come home at midnight like the star of the Lisbon Theater Company's version of Cinderella.  Except in this version of the story, Cinderella sounds like a man-eater who accepts money from Prince Charming for quickies in the bell-tower.

Host Mom's parents and grandmother came over for a visit today.  They brought a crap ton of food, and Host Mom baked a cake with orange Fanta and mandarins, and it was possibly the best thing ever.

As a quick public service announcement, I would just like to remind anyone and everyone who texts me on my American phone that I am six hours ahead of you.  This means that when you text me at midnight your time, I get the text at six AM.  And since my American phone is my alarm clock, it sits right by my head, wakes me up, and then I go back to sleep fantasizing about procuring a giant pit of quicksand and throwing you in it kicking and screaming.  By the time I wake up the next morning, I've usually decided our friendship should not be fed to the death sand, but it's always close.  My sister did this to me last night, but it's happened two dozen times since I've been here.  I love you all, but stop texting me at ungodly hours.

Here's my new favorite song.  I like this version much better than the original, because it's so much happier and more up-beat, I keep doing stupid dances in my chair.  Then I realize I'm dancing to a song about school shootings, decide this is probably an indication that I'm hell-bound, and decide to be sober and serious.  But then I start bouncing again.

27 October 2011

SWEDEN! Part the Last!

If you have made it this far, I am superbly impressed!  Go you guys!

Day 4.  Sunday, October 23.  Really Random Shit.

For our last full day in Sweden, we decided to do more running around and trying to kill ourselves.  So, we met up with Magnus again, and did exactly that.  Our shenanigans started with going to a cafe, where we ate cake for breakfast:

and where Marina suffered an attack from the robber.

I'm not sure what this is, but I think it's funny:

Then we decided to go Swedish shopping, and since there were no Ikeas in sight, we went to H and M, which also comes from Sweden originally.  

AND I BOUGHT A SWEDISH HAT.  I mean, if you want to get technical, it was probably made by underpaid children in Bangladesh, but I bought it in Sweden, and that's what counts.

After shopping, we discovered a Halloween store, and more or less went to town in there because Marina and I in particular were suffering from the complete lack of Halloween enthusiasm that is Germany.  So here are some superbly attractive pictures of Marina and Magnus:



and me in a superbly sexy flamingo hat:

At some point, Magnus took us to the library so that we could print out our boarding passes for the next day.  While Marina was hunting the printer down, I took the liberty of checking my email, and what did I find, but an email from Mega Stare Guy himself.  It was titled "Fake Portuguese..." and consisted of three lines.  "It was nice talking to you.  You seem cute and funny.  You need to learn more languages."  Remember what I said about Swedish honesty?  I debated internally whether or not to take offense to this, and then I decided making fun of people is the answer to everything, so I responded, "Cut me some slack, for an American, I'm doing pretty well.  Most of us barely speak English."  Whatever.  I speak way better German than him anyway.  He speaks conversationally, I speak real.  Shut it, Swede.  Your flirting is a *throws arms up over head* CATASTROPHE!

Then it was unfortunately time to put Magnus on the bus back to his real life, and to cheer ourselves up afterwards, we decided to go see The Three Musketeers, made possible by the fact that Sweden subtitles it's American films, not dubs them like Germany.  To make a long story short, The Three Musketeers was almost almost as bad as Twilight and just as hilarious.

Afterwards, Marina and I spent a bad 40 minutes in the supermarket, hunting down cream so we could cook for Couchsurf Boy.  Which we did, and he was a good sport and ate it, even though we bought coffee cream instead of heavy cream.  Oops. Dinner turned into card games, first Shithead, which I learned from 2 Dutch girls in Bolivia, then a round of Mao (I told them they would hate me, and they did), and then a Swedish card game called Hej Knecht.  Card games turned into building card houses, which devolved into flicking cards at each other after I kept playing the Big Bad Wolf and blowing everyone else's card palaces down.  Then flicking cards somehow morphed into flicking cards while tennis grunting, for extra authenticity.  Then we all snuggled up on his bed for a movie, followed by stargazing, followed by telling mind-blowingly hilarious ghost stories about moose in the dark.  At some point, two terrible jokes emerged: one about Chinese people crawling into your bloodstream, and one about killing your fellow Couchsurfers and putting them in the fridge.  I don't know how it happened, but we hung out for eight hours, staying up until 4 AM laughing our heads off.  It was an absolutely perfect last night in Sweden.

Day 5.  Monday, October 24.  Very Sad to Leave

We got up early Monday morning, cooked the only thing we had left for breakfast (pizza), and then hit up the airports.  I crashed at Marina's flat, and then headed back to Celle the next morning.  

Some final notes on Sweden.
Really, truly, it was brilliant, and I've decided after my master's degree, I'm moving there.  Feel free to not believe me,  but the first time I came back from Germany as a 16 year old, I told my friends and family I was moving to Germany one day, and everyone told me there was no way I would.  And look where I am now!  So Sweden, we are hanging out again on a more permanent basis, in approximately three years.  You heard it here first!

In other news, Marina and I have both been to Denmark, and now Sweden, so we've decided we need to hit up Scandinavia one country at a time until we find the one with the most attractive boys.  So Norway, watch out, we are coming in the spring of 2012! 

Kudos to all of your who actually read through the whole Sweden entries.  If you for some reason want more Sweden, check out Marina's blog, she's more concise than I am: http://allthingsmarina.blogspot.com/

Hej då!  That's Swedish for adios!

26 October 2011

SWEDEN! Day 3!

More Swedish madness!  If you haven't already, go back and read the first post so that you get the references.

Day 3. Saturday, October 22.  Seeing Stockholm and Vikings.

For our first full day in Sweden, Marina and I got up far, far too early, to meet up with Magnus.  We grabbed breakfast in a cafe, and then hit the streets.  Like I said in my last post, Magnus is the greatest tour guide ever, and in following him around, we saw pretty much all of Stockholm, including...

the palace (not particularly imposing),

the Swedish Reichstag (I forget what that's called in English), 

the skyline,

and basically everything worth seeing.  We also played around in some parks: 



and hung out in random tunnels.


Magnus also knows half of Stockholm, so we kept running into his friends on the street, which was really cool.  We also entertained ourselves by taking picture of the robber in terrible places.

The robber is a hand puppet belonging to the charge, and his parents have started taking it with them when they travel and posing it.  Much like Pirate Duck and Dragon, except less cool.  In Stockholm, he got posed in some pretty awful spots.  Cases in point:

Here's the robber in a square where you can buy drugs.

 Here's the robber at the site of Sweden's one and only terrorist attack.  It is okay to make fun of this attack, because no one was actually killed, with the exception of the suicide bomber.  Apparently, had he walked 20 meters further, he would have killed a ton of people.  I said this was proof that, in his heart of hearts, he didn't want to kill people.  Magnus said he was probably cold.

The robber at the site of an assassination.

This went on for a while.

Then, while wandering around the old city, something amazing happened.  We saw this guy standing in the middle of a square:


"LOOK MARINA A SWEDISH VIKING!" I yelled, without commas.  She whipped out the camera for this photograph.  As she turned around to walk back to us, I saw the Viking launch his attack, and by attack, I mean he booked it for Marina and roared. "MARINAWATCHOUTTHERESAVIKINGTRYINGTOKILLYOU." I screamed, but it was too late.  Next thing we knew, a giant Viking, complete with terrifying red contacts, was all up in our faces, snuffling, waving his skull walking stick around, and making angry sounds.  "Donate to me," he snarled, "donate to me now or I will kiss your friend."  "No way," said I, refusing to be intimidated by his fake beard, "kiss my friend and then I'll donate to you."  And that's how I paid a Russian guy dressed like a Viking 11 kroner to kiss Marina.  Whatever.  She liked it.

So then the Russian guy and I got to talking, and I asked him what he was collecting donations for.  His response:  "I'm writing a book about getting drunk while dressed as a Viking, but I need money to drink first."  I told him I appreciated his honesty, but his bright red contacts were freaking me out a bit.  "Wait," he said, "here's what I look like without the beard," and proceeded to show me pictures of himself on his phone.  "Not bad, right?" he said.  "Nope, not at all," I agreed, "but can I take a picture with you dressed like this?"  "Of course," he said.  Then, handing me his skull staff, he said, "Here.  Hold my father."  

Aaaaaand...scene.


Having survived our encounter with the Viking, we met up with a friend of Magnus, a Bosnian guy who speaks eighty million languages.  With him we generally ran around some more, including through the smallest alley in Stockholm, which is only 90 centimeters wide and it's smallest point.  Here's the entrance:


Then Magnus took us to a hot chocolate bar, which consisted of about 12 tables crammed into the smallest room possible, and it was awesome.  I had a white hot chocolate, and it was the second most delicious hot chocolate I've ever had, the first being the one in Paris.  But this one had about an inch of melted white chocolate to scrape from the bottom of the cup.  DELICIOUS.  Now I want another one.

We ran around the old city some more, and finally found a Swedish moose.  Moose are everywhere in Sweden, but unfortunately distinctly lacking in Stockholm, unless they're stuffed:
  

At this point in the evening, we split up.  Magnus and his Bosnian friend stayed in the city, while Marina and I quickly ran back to Couchsurf Boy's place to pick up food. Magnus had bought all our drinks the night before, so to pay him back, Marina and I decided we were going to cook for him.  We met back up with Magnus in the city center, took a bus to his dad's apartment, and hung out there for a few hours before deciding to meet his friends at a bar.  They were quite nice, even though they encouraged Magnus to tell terrible, terrible jokes.  But he's so happy when he does it, you can hate the joke, but you just can't hate him.

Afterwards, Marina and I went back to meet up with Couchsurf Boy at yet another bar, before deciding we were dead and required sleep.  And that brings us to the end of Day 3!

Up next tomorrow: Cake, Halloween, really bad movies, and hanging out with CB!

SWEDEN! Days 1 and 2

Let me begin this blog post by throwing a few disclaimers out there:
1)  Sweden was, hands down, one of the best weekends of my life.  So when I go off on tangents to consult the thesaurus for other words for "amazing," feel free to skip those parts.
2)  Lots of highly entertaining, but also highly embarrassing things went down in Sweden.  In the interest of full disclosure, I'm just going to tell you everything, and I would appreciate it if you would at least make an effort not to laugh at me too hard.
3)  There are a TON of Sweden stories, which I am going to spread out over a few blog posts.  Even such, this will still be something of a novel.  With a hella lot of pictures. So it's more like a really, really really overachieving picture book, only with more profanity involved.

Ready?  Here we go.

Sweden was fucking amazing.  No, really, it was absolutely spectacular, absolute perfection, and I couldn't have asked for anything more.  There was pizza.  There were boys.  There were Halloween masks, a robber, and racist jokes.  Marina and I spent a good part of the weekend periodically looking at each other and then saying something alone the lines of "I can't believe we're having this much fun."  I'm still slightly euphoric from the Ben and Jerry's and lack of sleep, but I know awesome when I have experienced it, and Sweden was AWESOME.  There's a lot to cover, so I'm just going to break it down day by day for you.

Day 1.  Thursday, October 20th.  Pre-Sweden.

I took an evening train out to Lübeck, to meet up with Marina and her coworker Chris, the other half of the Charina experience from Köln.  We all went out for pizza, and then were faced with a problem.  Our plane left for Sweden (well, technically Belgium, but whatever) at 6.50 in the morning, but the buses from Marina's flat to the train station stopped running at midnight.  So, we (logically) decided the best option was to squat at Marina's job in the city center (she has keys) until 2.30 in the morning, whereby we would then walk to the train station, catch a 2.50 bus to the airport, arrive at 4.30 AM, and then hang out for two hours.  We did it.  We did not sleep at all.  At some point in the middle of a conversation, my voice suddenly dropped two octaves, in a particularly wonderful case of laryngitis that left me sounding like a bad phone-sex operator.  And when we walked down to the train, we discovered it was also arsch kalt outside, which meant that poor Marina was somewhat dying in her very fashionable, but very un-windproof bomber jacket.  I on the other hand had my super duper LL Bean coat, courtesy of my mom, which is meant for -40F conditions.  I had a voice like a hooker but I was snug as a bug, and had zero issues rubbing it in Marina's face, while managing to sound like I was on cigarette break between blow jobs in Atlantic City. Win.  

Day 2. Friday, October 21.  Arrival (and parties) in Sweden.

The first thing Marina and I noticed when we arrived in Stockholm was that the men were beautiful.  Like, it was like we'd stepped into a Disney movie and everyone was a prince.  Fitted jeans, scarves, really attractive facial hair...it was wonderful.  Also, the Swedes are currently rocking a weird hairstyle, where they shave the sides of their head quite close, but leave the top long and then slick it back.  This sounds hideous, but in practice, Marina and I had trouble concentrating on important things like where we had to go because we were too busy being distracted by the Swedish hotness. The second thing we noticed was that we a) did not speak Swedish, and b) had no idea what we were doing.

Eventually, with the help of some super Swedish nice-ness (they're attractive AND friendly!), we located our couchsurf's building, snuck in, and then realized we didn't know where he lived.  It was six stories, all with names on the door, and we went door-to-door like trick-or-treaters (not that they usually go sounding like AC hookers, but whatevs), up and down all six floors, looking for his name.  No go.  So we decided to call him.  Except I couldn't figure out how to dial numbers to Sweden from my German phone, and eventually Marina had to step in and set me straight.  As it turned out, he lived on the top floor, so we traipsed back up all the stairs and met Couchsurf Boy.

Our initial impression of Couchsurf Boy was that he seemed quite nice, and had the fabulous Swedish hair thing going on, but he was rather slow to warm up.  But he invited us to go with him to the supermarket, which we did, and then we separated for a bit so that he could actually get shit done while Marina and I ran around on an island.  Things we did not realize until we saw Stockholm from the air: the entire city is build on an archipelago.  So you can basically island-hop as you please, much like in the Pacific Theater during WWII, except with less body parts being blown in your face. The island we wound up on was called Långholmen, and it features some rocks, some trees, and an old prison that's been converted into a hostel.  Totally badass.








Then we headed back to CB's place, and hung out there for a bit before deciding to run around the city a bit. CB told us all the places to go, and all the places to avoid, and we were off to see the city by night.  And it was lovely!


Around 9PM we met up with Magnus, a friend of ours from way back when we all studied together in Konstanz.  Magnus lives two hours outside of Stockholm, and has been saying for the past three years that if we ever came to Sweden, he would meet us.  And he totally did, he borrowed his dad's Stockholm apartment for the weekend, so we got to hang out EVERY DAY.  I can't properly put into words how wonderful it was to see him--it's always awesome to see old friends, but we get on with Magnus so damn well, it was magical.  Plus, the boy more or less grew up in Stockholm, and it would have been impossible to ask for a better tour guide.  

Magnus immediately took us to a bar on the 26th floor of a skyscraper.  Superbly posh Swedish rum cocktails and panoramic views of the city that were amazing.  Then he decided we were going Swedish clubbing.  Here's where it gets entertaining and awkward.  Hold on to your pants.

As soon as we walked into the club, there was a boy staring at me.  I'm usually pretty oblivious when it comes to these things, but not even I could miss that particular look. It was serious.  But I was all "Meh, whatevs," and the three of us just sat at the bar drinking, until Marina decided to whip out the camera and start taking pictures. Except Marina has terrible aim when it comes to group shots, and someone's head kept being cut out of the picture.  I turned around to get my drink, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw Marina hand her camera off to someone.  When I turned back around, who was our photographer but Mega-Stare Guy himself.  Smooth, Mega-Stare Guy.  Well played.  Here's the picture he took before he started hitting on me. Note that everyone's heads are in place.


Mega-Stare Boy's opening line was to tell me I had fairy-tale hair, which I found amusing.  Like all Swedes, he spoke better English than we did, plus German, plus French.  I talked to him for a while, then got hit on by his friend while he disappeared, only to reappear a minute later with a round of shots.  For the record, I may be college-educated in Jersey, but I can't do shots.  I embarrass myself, always. ALWAYS. Then he (followed by his friend) asked me to dance, and I was all "No, really, I'm a terrible dancer."  He made me give him my email address.

Sometime later, after those two had disappeared, Marina and Magnus forced me to dance, which I only reluctantly agreed to, because Marina had more or less threatened to kill me if I didn't.  And let me say it again:  I CAN'T GODDAMN DANCE, PEOPLE. The stages of my dancing can roughly be broken down into the following cycle:

  

However, this piece of awful did not stop Plaid Shirt Boy from dancing with me.  Plaid Shirt Boy was, as the name suggests, wearing a Plaid Shirt and rocking the weird Swedish hair.  He was very nice, very drunk, and thought I was much funnier than I actually am.  He also thought it was cool that Marina and I live in Germany.  Then his friend showed up, kicked Plaid Shirt Boy aside, and danced with me.  Plaid Shirt Boy's Friend was very nice and kept touching my hair.  Shouting over the music, he told me all about how he's half French, lives in Paris for most of the year, is generally badass, and likes my hair.  Yep.

After he wandered away, I danced (read: sprinklered) over to Marina, who was watching Magnus impress two Swedish girls with a home-grown dance move he called "milking the bull," which you can probably picture in your mind.  Marina and I ran off to the bathroom, and thirty seconds later, we found ourselves joined by Magnus' dancing partners.  "I know you!" yelled the one girl, pointing at me.  "I saw you dance.  Your dancing is a--" here she raised her arms up over her head, "--CATASTROPHE!"  As it turns out, the Swedes are almost as honest as the Germans.

It should be noted that for the rest of the trip, whenever any of us needed to reference any vague problems, such as train tickets or expensive food prices, we did it Swedish style.  I.e, throwing our hands up over our heads and yelling "CATASTROPHE!"

After we rejoined Magnus on the dance floor, Plaid Shirt Boy danced (read: stumbled) his way on over to us.  Grinning broadly, he threw his arms around Marina and me, and yelled, "Look!  It's the Aryan Sisterhood!"  Which left me completely floored.  I stared at him for forty-five seconds with my mouth hanging open, trying to figure out how one reacts to being referred to as the "Aryan Sisterhood."  Then I burst out laughing.  I figured it anyone questioned me, I could just blame Mega-Stare Guy's shot.

Suddenly, I felt someone touching my hair.  I spun around, and Plaid Shirt Boy's Friend immediately kidnapped me, and wouldn't let me leave until the club closed.  I ran into him at the entrance after picking up my coat, and he said, "Let me kiss you on the cheek!"  So I did.  Then he said, "Now both cheeks, like the French!"  So I did. Then he said, "Now on the mouth!"  And I went to say something along the lines of "Wait, what?" but I was too late.  Like the graceful swan I am, I may or may not have freaked out and then scampered.  It's how I roll.  

Marina and I said goodnight to Magnus, and my bad dancing/surprise Swedish stealth kiss had gotten my blood pressure elevated, so I threw my fairy-tale hair up with a pencil.  Marina and I met up with Couchsurf Boy, who pointed out astutely that I had a pencil in my head.  "Yes," I said, "it's so that whenever I feel like desecrating walls or graves or general public property, I always have a writing utensil handy."  He said, "I feel like doing that RIGHT NOW," pulled the pencil out, and graffitied "Stockholm Rules" on a particularly attractive piece of blank wall.  Note to self: next time, put hair up with a can of spray paint.

And that's Day 1 and 2 for you.  Marina and I were running on 36 hours sans sleep, and fell asleep as soon as we crawled onto our air mattresses.  Up next tomorrow: That Time I Paid A Russian Dressed Up Like A Viking To Kiss Marina.

19 October 2011

The Sweden Itinerary

Here's the Sweden breakdown!

Tomorrow:  Hop an afternoon train to Lübeck.  Eat dinner with Chris and Marina.  Do random crap, like pose with suggestive statues and sing The Sound of Music while skipping around in circles.

Tomorrow night: Midnight train to the airport.  Camp in the airport until 6 AM, when our flight leaves.

Friday-Sunday:  Arrive in Sweden!  Search for polar bears, make fun of Skandies, and crash at Max's house.  Max is some guy we found on the internet.  Marina wants to date him.  Fingers crossed he's not an axe murderer.  At some point we are hanging out with Magnus, our Swedish friend from when we studied in Konstanz.  Navigate a Swedish supermarket and cook food, because Sweden is horrendously expensive. Drink fifteen dollar cocktails.  Get into general trouble.  Avoid being arrested.  Tame aforementioned polar bear, and figure out how to get him to Germany.  At some point we're supposed to try a food called blåbärspaj.  Bonus points to he who knows how to pronounce that.  Or even what it is.  

Monday:  Last minute madness in Sweden, and then arrive back in Germany at 11 PM. Take a midnight train from the airport to Uelzen.

very, very, very early Tuesday:  Sit in the Uelzen train station for two and a half hours. Try not to get killed doing it.  Arrive back in Celle at 5 AM.  Say hello to the host parents as they get ready for work, and then die.  

It's going to be epic.

17 October 2011

aaaaand the horse is Grand Prix.

Today I randomly ran into my half-lease's owner on the street today, and she invited me in to say hi to the new baby (exciting).  She also showed me pictures of the mare in action (very exciting).  Things I didn't know: I'm half-leasing a Grand Prix horse?  I knew the owner was Grand Prix...I didn't realize this was her Grand Prix horse.  At least now I understand why the horse is so batshit insane all the time and has epic meltdowns over cavaletti: it's because she (over)jumps six foot fences for a living. Good to know.

However, the horse had a pretty awful rider for a few years who took her courage and kicked it in the face.  Now the horse needs a confidence boost, which is where I come in.

Favorite song of the day is...Coldplay!  I am aware that Coldplay consists of douchecanoes who search for baby-name inspiration at the local farmer's market, and I am also aware this song is not new.  But it's been following me around, first it was on Glee, then the X-Factor, then Boyce Avenue covered it.  I'm just spreading the follow around:

 
Super exciting things: I AM GOING TO SWEDEN ON FRIDAY.  AHHHHHH!  I'M GOING TO BRING BACK A PET POLAR BEAR.

That's all I got.

15 October 2011

The Fashion U-Bahn

Let me share with you a topic that has, as of late, consumed much of my thoughts, and a lot of my dollars: European Fashion.

We all know that I am not the most fashionable siren on the rock.  That being said, I don't think I dress badly--I wear tight jeans and shirts that make it look like my boobs are bigger than they actually are.  In comparison with the people who go to the Walmart in Camden, I'm a regular supermodel.  But there can be no doubt that I'm not particularly Fashion Forward.  That would imply, if not driving the Fashion Train, at least being in first class, and I am clinically unable to match my socks.  I also can't say that I'm Fashion Backwards, because that suggests at least being aware enough of the train to run in the opposite direction.  I'm not even Fashion Misguided, because they just got on the wrong train.  It's more like I'm Fashion Blissfully Oblivious.  I'm too busy looking at the birds and the clouds and the dragons to realize there's a train in the first place, and why don't I take a nap on this comfortable piece of railroad.  Do you hear something?

So I decided I need to get on the Euro fashion train.  Maybe not the high-speed rail, but at least the subway.  This much I can manage, I thought.  Except I had even less of an idea what was fashionable in Europe than I did in America.  At least in America I had Claire for that shit, but here I was all by myself.  But I was college-educated, this couldn't be too difficult, right?

And in that thought, I saw a solution--I was college-educated!  And if there's one thing that an anthropology is good at, it's observing people.  And if there's one thing I'm good at, it's making highly unfair and vaguely racist judgments about the people I observe. Put the two together, è voila!  THE FASHION U-BAHN IS NOW BOARDING.

So I bought an ice cream, sat on a park bench, and really creepily observed everyone walking by.  I even went to the bookstore and flipped through the German edition of Seventeen, which highly embarrassed me, so I hid the magazine in between a giant book of world maps.  And then my college education kicked in, and I realized I had a problem: the average age of young people in this city is seventeen.  And I am neither seventeen, nor in any rush to dress like one.

Thus it was back to square (or bench) 1, and I set about data collecting take two (read: hunting down the people in my age group and taking mental notes on what they were wearing.  I disregarded everyone who was had multiple piercings, a panhandling sign, or an unneutered dog).  Then I did a general sweep of the clothing stores in town (after first sitting outside them and making sure they were not old-lady stores) to see what was in.  Then I went shopping.  Then I wrote this:

AN AMERICAN'S GUIDE TO EUROPEAN FASHION
AS INTERPRETED BY TINA 
who takes no responsibility for the accuracy of her observations
and would appreciate you not making fun of her
I hate everything.

Things that are "in" in Europe:

--skinny jeans
--giant scarves that are not warm
--anything knitted
--flat shoes
--ankle boots

Fabulous!  I decided it was time to start buying shit.  And then, to embarrass myself further, I decided I would put the pictures of what I bought on my blog.  You know, Euro fashion visuals.  So we shall take this on a case by case basis.  

Exhibit A:



Exhibit B:



Now to break it down!






And there you have it!  So the next time you feel like dressing like a European, you can tell Heidi Klum I sent you.

You're welcome.

12 October 2011

Three ways I have changed since moving to Germany

Every so often I get to thinking on this particular topic, and whatever shit goes down in my head usually winds up making it on here.  So, Tina presents...

THREE WAYS I HAVE CHANGED SINCE MOVING TO GERMANY!

1)  I eat better.
This is not actually by choice, it's just because my family is all into the organic-movement, which means that when I get hungry throughout the day, I have to snack on raisins and yogurt.  But I guess, all things considered, it's a plus.  Also, how did I go through 23 years of my life without realizing how delicious raisins are?

2)  I'm in better shape.
Not that I was ever in bad shape--I think compared to your average American, six to seven days of riding a week put me above average on the fitness level.  But I've packed on like five pounds of muscle since arriving here, or at least, five pounds of what I am pretty sure is muscle.  My clothes still fit, and I did seventeen miles on my bike today without elevating my heart rate.  That means muscle, right?

...or I could just be fat.

3)  I'm more direct.
Not German direct yet, but I'm getting there.  I've started having to proofread emails and Facebook comments for American rudeness.  Also, I've stopped saying 'I'm sorry', but only because you can't slide it in as easily in German as you can in English.
  
In a fit of patriotism, I decided the charge and I were going to CARVE PUMPKINS OR DIE, even though carving pumpkins isn't big here.  This involved hunting down pumpkins at the local outdoor market, and then hacking away at them with butcher knives, seeing as how pumpkin carving kits are unheard of.  Well, I hacked, he painted.  Here are the finished products:
For the record, my pumpkin was supposed to be French, not a victim of bad plastic surgery.

Also...I'm in the newspaper again?  Nobody, including the original author, knew that when we opened up the paper, we would find this:

It's not actually about me, it's just about au pairing in general, but they used my pictures.  Hooray!  Yet another day of "Did I see you in the paper yesterday?"
That's all I got.  Singing lessons start up tomorrow, so HOORAY FOR THAT!  Also, the Epic Sweden Trip with Marina is coming up, next weekend!  YAY FUN THINGS!

Also, here's a video of my charge bouncing around on bubblewrap.  Sometimes, it's useful to have an American au pair.  And a mother who sends you bubble-wrapped mugs that say "I'm not yelling, I'm Portuguese."

That's all I got friends!  Adios!

10 October 2011

Packaging Adventures

One more reason why Germany is retarded: because you have to pay an import tax on gifts from your mother.

I got a notice from the German Zollamt (customs agency) that my package had arrived, but they were holding it until I showed up in person to pay taxes on the contents.  "Eughm quois?" said I, "I didn't order anything, my mother sent it to me, for crying out loud.  Asshats."  So, I went into the office armed to the teeth, ready to do battle with The Man.  And by "armed," I mean with a) my passport, b) my driver's license with my home address on it, and c) my portuguese Ausweis that has my mom's last name on it.  And by "to the teeth," I mean that these three documents put together are basically the paper equivalent of a Gatling gun.  Shit gets stuff done.

As it turns out, I didn't need it, the customs officer was superbly nice.  When I arrived, he said he felt very bad for me, but let's just see how bad the tax will be.  19% of the package's worth according to my mother added up to fifty-three dollars, JUST to pick up my own goddamned present!  So I did my best "I'm a foreigner, I don't understand this country, I'm really sad, it's a package from my mom and I miss her, look how low-cut my shirt is," the result being that the customs officer suggested we unpack the box and see if my mom had "overestimated" how much everything was worth.  So we opened everything up, I smiled a lot, and he kindly decided to overlook pretty much the entire box, except for the winter parka.  And even thought that still had the price tag on it, he decided the jacket was really only worth $150 dollars, bringing my taxes owed down from $53 to $29.  I still think the concept is total bullshit, but I can't really be angry about it because Customs Guy totally punched the system in the face for me.  Well, now we know, gifts can't be worth more than 60 dollars or the customs agency goes all taxation-without-representation on your ass.  BUT, on the plus side, I HAVE CHEEZ-ITS AND WHEAT THINS.

At the barn tonight, I was approached by a random lady who said, "Did I see you in the paper the other day?"  Yes.  Yes you did.  "I knew it!" she said, "My daughter came home from riding the other night and said 'Mom, I saw this girl at the barn, I don't know who she is, but she rides like an American,' and I said, 'I bet it's the girl we saw in the paper!'"  Then she asked me if I'd taken my riding test yet.  My what?  Apparently in Germany you can take a test to see how good you are, and she suggested I take it just for fun.  Two judges come in, and you have to do a dressage test, jump a course, and then take a theoretical test.  I might just take it for the hell of it slash so I can shove it in German faces every time I get that "You learned to ride in America? ...Oh." This way I can be like "Look bitches, I took your goddamned test, and I kicked it in it's goddamned face.  Go sit in the corner and eat sauerkraut."  I asked if riding like an American would mean failing the test, and the lady said it's not a bad thing, even though it's super obvious.  Fabulous.  There is also the small matter of how I've never done dressage in my life.

I also talked to the other girl about how we ride the mare, and she said the first time she sat on the horse after being away, she thought there was something wrong with it because it goes so well now.  So this is a plus.  Cantering is still a bitch, I need to fly Di over here or something so she can hang out with me and tell me how to fix this thing.

Hung out yesterday with some couchsurfers, including the other American.  She and I made plans to hang out this week (hooray!  Friends I can speak German with!), and I got permission from Host Mom to have a Thanksgiving dinner party at our house.  So that's super exciting!  Now I just need to figure out how to cook a turkey.  Or cook in general, really.

Boyce Avenue and Tyler Ward are coming to Hamburg, and I'm trying to find someone to go with me.  In celebration, here is some Boyce Avenue doing Journey.  Instant win.

08 October 2011

Things I learned today

I enjoy the fact that I never seem to stop learning over here.  Here are some new things I learned today:

1)  Germany's place in the riding ring is backwards from the American one.  In the US, if you're walking, you take the rail, and the people trotting and cantering take the inside track.  Here it's the other way around, which explains why I was getting so many dirty looks while riding in the indoor tonight.  One of my barn friends pulled me over and explained it to me, which I hugely appreciated, seeing how as a general rule no one explains shit here, they just yell at you.

2)  King-sized beds are, in Germany, made up of two twin-sized beds placed right next to each other on a king-size mattress frame.  At first I thought this was only in my family, but then I asked Host Mom.  Apparently it's the norm because it's healthier.  What I want to know is how sex works if you're sleeping on two mattresses, but that's not a question I felt like posing to Host Mom.

In other news, I've been getting recognized by total strangers as "that girl in the paper" left and right, which is kind of freaking me out because I didn't think anyone actually read the paper.  Now the whole TOWN thinks I'm obsessed with this nougat-cream shit.  Sigh.  I find the entire situation awesomely hilarious, so much so I can't take it seriously.

Appropriately, this is my new favorite song.  Most likely, Death Cab is referring to normal beds with normal, undivided mattresses:


Meeting for ice cream tomorrow with fellow couchsurfers in the area...hooray!

06 October 2011

I'M IN THE NEWSPAPER!

First things first, a review of the Bucket List, and all the things we've already crossed off:

1)  Be mistaken for at least six different ethnicities  3/6 completed
2)  Be physically assaulted by a PPB (which Sam has defined as punched, kicked, or slapped, which is a much better alternative to what I thought she initially meant.)
3)  Give a stranger a flower
4)  Start an English language Silly Bandz trend
5)  Make a Tina video
6)  Wear blue nail polish and convince everyone that that's what Americans do
7)  Be/meet a German soap opera star
8)  Stall out my manual transmission in a highly inconvenient place
9)  Wear the German flag colors/wear a flag as a dress
10)  Go Christmas caroling
11)  Climb a German mountain (clothing optional)
12)  Get into a magazine (preferably a golfing one)
13)  Learn to sail
14)  Go to Iceland
15)  SHBF
16)  Discover the difference between Euro and gay, and be able to spot it at 90% accuracy.
17)  Meet Angela Merkel A Ugandan Mayor
18)  Go to the British military base
19)  Do the Deb voice somewhere, to someone who doesn't know what it is. 

And now, we can officially cross off number 12)  Get into a magazine (preferably a golfing one) newspaper!

That's the super-exciting thing I couldn't tell you..I'm in the newspaper!  And not even like a little blurb thrown between the obituaries and an advertisement for Johanna's Boobs, Bier, and Brauhaus.  I'm talking all-out, full-frontal, newspaper madness!  So much better than Johanna's.  Pictures below for your enjoyment:




I can't even say it's an article about au pairs in Celle, which is what I thought it was originally.  It's an article about me.  Just me.  CRAZY!

Some minor points of interest about the article:
1)  I speak much better German in print than I do in real life
2)  There are some fabrications, like that I attend a German course, and eat tons of this nougat-creme, which, for the record, I don't.  

So that's it!  I'm in the newspaper!  Neat!

Edit:  There are more pictures, including ones with the horse, that didn't make it in the paper.  Email me and I'll send you them.

04 October 2011

A Weekend of Lots of Things, but Mostly Crime

Weekend update!  We hit up both Köln and Düsseldorf, and discovered both cities kind of suck.  But we had fun anyway!  Here's your official rundown and all that jazz.

Saturday I got up bright and early to train it to Hannover, and then hitch a ride to Köln. My ride's name was Robert, my age, studies at the university I want to go to, and was ridiculously attractive.  I spent most of the three and a half hour ride flirting in German, and I got a hug for my efforts.  Success.

Then Marina arrived, with her coworker Chris in tow, whose talent for accents I found mind-blowingly brilliant.  Awesome, awesome, awesome sauce.  There were hugs all around, and then it was hostel time.

We knew we had to switch subway lines a few times, and subway tickets are so goddamned expensive, so we made the conscious decision to be Schwarzfahrer. Literally, "black riders," expect we were trying to find the hostel and not the One Ring. Schwarzfahrer are the people that take advantage of the fact that in Germany, you don't have to feed a ticket into a machine to get onto the subway platform. Schwarzfahrer do not pay for tickets.  And it's fine, because no one ever checks you. Technically there are random sweeps and what not, but I have Schwarzfahrered my way across almost every city in German and I have never been caught.

So, as Schwarzfahrer, we got ridiculously lost, wound up going in the wrong direction like twelve times, but eventually found the hostel.  Which was quite nice, although our roommates, though absent upon our arrival, had left a ton of UK newspapers all over the room, which lead to me swearing to sell my soul if they turned out to be Scottish.

At this point, we were all starving, so we decided to find a restaurant and eat food. When we sat down, Marina and I almost had heart attacks, because we realized we were surrounded by absolutely gorgeous men.  Everywhere.  Everyone in the restaurant was super hot.  Everyone in the restaurant was wearing V-necks.  Everyone in the restaurant was...gay.

Damn.  But it was still a good lunch.

We ran around a little more, and checked out the super-famous Kölner Dom, which, for the record, is staggeringly beautiful.  I'm not one to be impressed by big churches, but this big church was hella sexy.  Here, have some pictures:





Marina and I actually wound up going back to see it again the next day, but the only way we could get in was to say we were going to the church service.  And that's how, for the first time in my life, I voluntarily went to church.  But only until they started singing, and then we jetted.

One of the coolest things about the Dom was what happened at night: namely, that when they lit up the church, a massive flock of batbirds swooped out from the spires and flew around the cathedral like champs.  It was absolutely beautiful.  I say batbirds because what kind of animal it was is still up for debate.  Marina swears to high heaven they were bats, but I say they were only bats if science has decided to rename the pigeon.  They were too big to be bats, I swear!  Actually, they looked more like seagulls, except not even I, with my talent for explaining away the ridiculous, can come up with a plausible explanation for why a flock of seagulls would make camp in a cathedral.  

Eventually we did meet our hostel bunkmates, who were, disappointingly, not Scottish. They were plain old English, and made it pretty clear when they came in drunk at 5.30 in the morning, knocking things over, cursing loudly, and saying "I'm from England mate," just in case no one had already figured that out.

Sunday we decided we were tired of Köln, which is a) not attractive, b) boring, and c) filled with mean people.  So we bought a train ticket to Düsseldorf, with the sole goals being drink beer and find this building:


which we did, so we took fun pictures in the curvy metal sides.


Düsseldorf was really only noteworthy for two things: the train ride, and petty crime.

On the way there, the two Brits and I got into an intense debate on American geography, because I was arguing that american regions are written more by culture than geography.  Like, for example, how Florida is technically in the south, but it's not really considered a part of The South.  For reasons unknown to the world, Marina had a map of the US in her purse, so I broke it down: New England, East Coast, The (Deep) South, Florida, The Midwest, the West, the West Coast.  Like a champ.  And they did not believe me.  Which resulted in a riotous argument that half the train car was listening to, and laughing at.  

Düsseldorf is also where tag-team Chris and Marina, hereafter referred to as "Charina," decided to start stealing glasses from the restaurants we went to, while I pretended I had no idea what was going on.  They proved to be quite successful, and Charina has upped their beer glass collection by three.

Monday we bee-bopped around Köln some more while listing all the reasons we hated it.  We decided to catch a subway to the center of town for more bee-bopping and complaining until it was time to head out.  The stop before we got off, a couple people got on the train, including one obese and particularly bitchy lady right in front of us. Chris turned to Marina, nodded at a lady further down in the car and said "Hey...is that a ticket checker?"  Impossible.  No one ever checks tickets.  Then the lady right in front of us turned around and said "Tickets please."

Well, fuck.

I did the only thing I could think of, which was to pull out our train ticket to Düsseldorf from the day before and swear to all the gods that hate me that I'd never do anything bad again if we could just get out of this without being fined.  She looked the ticket over carefully and said, "This ticket was only valid yesterday.  I'm fining you each 40 Euros."

There are some occasions where it's useful to be a foreigner in Germany, and freaking out that the guy who sold you the ticket told you it was good for the whole weekend is one of them.  Namely because then you can play it off like your German isn't good enough to understand basic things like the days of the week.  We all vehemently swore up and down that our status as foreigners had been taken advantage of, we'd been duped, Germany hates us, etc etc, the result being that Bitch Ticket Lady flexed her mercy muscles and only fined one of us, instead of all three.  We split the cost of the fine, I did some quick math, and we discovered that, even though we'd been caught as Schwarzfahrer, we'd still saved money on transportation.  Fail/Win!

After that, none of us felt like illegally taking the subways anymore, so we walked back to the Dom.  Considering we were black riders, we appropriately found Gandalf there.


And then I hitched a ride back to Hannover with a vet student, and shared the car with her two guinea pigs.  And that's all we talked about.  For four hours.

The end!

P.S.  If you want more Köln from a distinctly British perspective, tell Marina I sent you: http://allthingsmarina.blogspot.com/2011/10/one-where-germany-loses-cool-points.html