Mircrobe Man & Central Heating of Death

Yesterday I was sick so I spent the whole day watching Moyashimon which is an anime series about a guy who can see microbes (adorable adorable microbes). You can watch it here the next time you're feeling under the weather and want to celebrate how cute the microbes infecting your weak, useless body are.

This "morning" I woke up at 3pm. The jet lag is lovely.

I checked my email and in my regular newsletter for White Trash Fast Food (a club in Mitte that indeed serves white trash fast food and does live music performances) I came across a flyer for a band called zentralheizung of death (Central Heating of Death). Not sure if I'll go to the show but I sure do appreciate the concept.

Our heating bill for the year was $2,000. I'm pretty sure part of this is us ending up paying for someone else's heat as we didn't keep record of the heating BEFORE we moved in (stupid expats) but there is, as usual, nothing we can do about it but zahlen.

Good news: the weather in Berlin is lovely. It is sunny with a dash of lightning storms.

Back in Berlin

Got back to Berlin yesterday ohne luggage. Our 4 bags got misplaced somewhere between here and Amsterdam. Los suggested that perhaps my new cocktail dress ran into his grey velveteen smoking jacket and decided to high tail it to Tahiti together, taking their comrades with them. They are back in our possession now having been dropped off by some long, skinny deutschers showing the effects of the lightning storm earlier this morning. The apartment is super clean thanks to our subleter Dolby Anol who now lives just down the street. Bandita is pudgy but happy. I am sick with something that I hope to hell isn't swine flu. Only time (and tea) will tell.

For those who are interested in seeing some nice shots of Berlin and Berlin-like-people, take a look at this short film by a good friend of mine who happens to have an excellent sense of humor: http://www.thirteen.org/sites/reel13/category/vote/

May Day

Today is May Day. A day when young people fill the streets in celebration, angst, and comradery- throwing bottles and punching each other in the face. I just saw about 40 cops go by on motorcycles, in cars, and vans. We leave for Praha in a couple hours. It is rainy.

My Big American Shopping List

Before I begin the list, let me note that the conversion rate from euro to dollar is pretty horrendous. It has been getting worse every day since I arrived, meaning that my rent goes up about $10 per month. The rate is now somewhere around 1 euro = $1.60. Hence, all the ridiculous shit I need to buy from home (I've included the price change in parenthesis so you can see what I mean).

Things To Buy (price in Berlin noted- to be continued)
ROOT BEER (non-existent)
Tortillas (5 euro =$7.50 for 5 flour tortillas in Berlin- corn tortillas non-existent)
Refried Beans (vegetarian / canned) (non-existent)
Bottles of Tylenol / Ibuprofen (9 euro = $12 for 18 caplets)
Sammy hair gel (non-existent)
Biore strips / face wash (non-existent)
New shoes: boots, sneaks (50 euro - 80 euro = $75 - $120)
Socks (4 euro per pair = $6.00)
American to European Adapter (Carlos needs it for his "gear")
Shower Rod (it's like $45 here! Dude!)

Things to Bring
Carlos's XLR Cables (Brandon has these)
My backpack
Tape measure
Carlos's rice cooker

Things I Need To Do
-Get a hair cut (30 euro here = $45 although the real issue isn't money but explaining to the hair dresser what I want. Carlos thinks this is silly and that I should just get "the Berlinette" cut:)

-Get a new copy of my Driver's License (mine is wrinkled and bent from stuffing it in my pocket all the time!)

Ich bin Auslander und spreche nicht gut Deutsch.

So I started school this week. It is interesting... The VHS (Volkshochschule) is something like a community college where people come to learn everything from knitting to cooking to, in my case, intensive German.
Today we sang a song to the tune of "She'll be coming around the mountain when she comes..." which went:
"Ich bin Auslander und spreche nicht gut Deutsch...
Ich bin Auslander und spreche nicht gut Deutsch...
Ich verstehe nicht was sie sagen
Bitte, sprechen sie mehr langsam
Ich bin Auslander und spreche nicht gut Deutsch."
Half of the class is Italian, and half are Turkish, and a small percentage are various other things (yes, there are three halves to my class). There is only one other American and native English speaker in the class, but all the Italian folk speak English quite well. They also seem to hate me. I think it is because I am borrowing Carlos's camo-print bag until I can afford to buy my own. Perhaps they think I'm some kind of war loving crazy?
That's not all. Yesterday the teacher asked me how many states were in the United States now (because it is plural - DEN USA) "56?" She asked. "More!" I said, making a joke about her overestimate. "No, no," she responded, "Iraq doesn't count."
Another faux pas was made earlier this morning when I suggested to one of the Italian students that they install a good ol' cafe / restaurant in the school, preferably one serving scrambled eggs. The joke was not responded to in kind. He said, "But you are in Europe now and we don't eat those things. If you want scrambled eggs then maybe you should go to London."
The Italian students are somewhat hard to relate to. For one, the Italian breakfast consists of cigarettes and black coffee. I think if I was from New York maybe I'd be able to fit in a little more. At least we both share a love of abstract art and electronic music. Oh yah, 30% of the class are electronic musicians. Apparently you can't call yourself an electronic musician in Deutsch because "musician" only applies to people who play classical instruments: piano, guitar, etc. Instead, you are supposed to refer to yourself as an "electronic music producer." Sure, sure.
I ran into one of my fellow classmates at an Indian restaurant today. Apparently he is a chef there. He gave Carlos and I 2 rounds of free highly alcoholic drinks, some extra naan, and changed the price of our normal dinner to a "kinder dinner" knocking off about 50%. I will buy him coffee tomorrow as a way of saying thanks.
Travel plans: 1. I'm going to Prague May 1 - 4. May 1st is a disaster in Kreuzberg, the somewhat more angsty / punky part of Berlin where I happen to live. It is a kind of "hate day" where people parade, riot, party, and generally EXPRESS their angst over whatever it is they are angsty about. Bottles are thrown. Cars are tipped. And so I intend to get the fuck out. I'll be visiting my friend Tom who I haven't seen in a bunch of years. He's super chill. It'll be good to see him.
2. I'll be in the states from May 11 - May 18th (or around then) as it turns out I have no school this week due to Pentecost. See you soon meinen freundin!

Tonight Packing, Tomorrow Berlin

Tonight is our last night in this apartment. We're leaving at 6 in the morning to go to the airport. Checking in may be a problem as we have one-way tickets, but I've gathered quite a thick packet of documentation to argue with in case we need it. Another problem may be the weight of my suitcase. I have no idea how much it weighs. That's how heavy it is. I'm only bringing one checked luggage though, so hopefully they won't give me much trouble and if it's a female representative, I can just tell her it's the shoes and she'll understand. Carlos is still packing. The apartment is messy despite all efforts to clean it. I feel exhausted from carrying things to and from the garbage, leaving things out in the ally, and generally running around tearing my hair out. Tonight there were so many things we had to get rid of that I put them all on Craigslist under the free section. For those who aren't familiar with the crazy people on craigslist, allow me to enlighten you. Craigslist is full of jobless, worthless, extremely horny people, several of whom's only purpose in life is to troll the free section looking for junk. Once they find it, they wait outside your door, salivating at the mouth, screaming at you "Where's that toaster you said you had? Where's the fucking toaster??? I drove all the way from El Cerito!" This is why we don't put a "reply to" address, and heaven help you if you should leave your phone number. Yikes. We were planning to go out to Ryoko's tonight, our favorite sushi restaurant in the San Francisco. I've heard Berlin has one sushi restaurant as well, and that it's okay. And for dessert we have a bottle of port that we got in Napa quite some time ago. But this is provided we can take care of everything that needs taking care of. Carlos swears he will haul the mattress downstairs at 6 in the morning. We shall see. All n' all, I'm part scared, part exhausted, and part curious (that's 3 parts!) about how smoothly this all will go. The flight itself is a monster- 1. San Francisco to Seattle where we have a 6 hour layover 2. Seattle to Copenhagen (Denmark for those who are terrible at geography) where we have only 55 minutes to get through EU customs AND catch our next flight from 3. Copenhagen to Berlin Germany upon where we will take a rather expensive cab ride to our boarding house in Kreuzberg, shower, and collapse exhausted in our new land. Till we meet again, USA!

We're Going to Marrakesh

Marrakech or Marrakesh (مراكش Marrakesh), known as the "Red City" or "Al Hamra," is a city with a population of 1,036,500 (as of 2006) in southwestern Morocco, near the foothills of the Atlas Mountains. Marrakesh is also known as "The City of Gold." ... And we are "going there" on the 27th of March, or at least so it will look to anyone wanting to see our travel itinerary. Why? Because Carlos and I made the mistake of getting one-way tickets into Germany. Silly us, we wanted to save a few hundreds of dollars, but have since learned that it is possible to get deported if you do not have a return ticket when traveling to the EU. Although it is unlikely that they will even ask us to see a return ticket, if they do we can now at least say that we're exiting the EU. The tickets were only 25 euro (including taxes!) on Ryanair.com- they had other tickets that were actually 0.01 Euro (no shit) but these were for single passengers only, and we thought it might look suspicious if we took seperate flights. This is the weirdest solution to an honest problem I've ever come up with. It still might not work, but it's more likely to work than having our tickets leave us in Germany. Am I going nuts?

2 weeks

I am leaving in 14 days. Packing is almost done already, despite having had a sprained ankle for the past week. I wish I hadn't packed up my hair dryer already and definitely should have eaten lunch today. The people on Toytown tell me there is no peanut butter, root beer, or nachos in Germany. They suggest I try to blend in and develop a taste for curry wurst. Through the glory of the internet, I've met an Aussie who is moving to Berlin in March. Maybe we will be friends.