Hamburg!!

Warning: Totally Crazy Last Minute Ridiculous Girls Weekend Ahead!

Somehow I ended up in Hamburg and Kiel this weekend. These places are in the north of Germany, right on the sea so I basically got to drive from very south in Germany aallll the way across the country to the top!

Yes, we DROVE! On the autobahn at that, 5 girls and too many clothes, shoes and snacks crammed into a golf averaging at about 160-180 km an hour all the way there (about a 7 hour drive). We definitely had it going over 200 km an hour at times, the fastest I've ever been in my life. Sometimes the car started to shake... I think it was trying to tell us something.

We sang. Turns out multiple tone deaf girls singing at the tops of their lungs is not a beautiful noise, but it was fun anyway. This is Lillan, me and Emily rocking out in the back.
We played road games, we ate constantly, we drank. Turns out you can do that in the cars here. It's a good thing too, because on the way back the heat blew the cork out of a bottle of champagne we had in the back. Clearly it was a sign that we were meant to drink it. I am soo getting arrested when I come back to Canada. They also sell 1 liter cans of beer in Germany...that was an exciting discovery.

Alright, enough sounding like an alcoholic (I swear I'm not mom), we did lots of other stuff too.

One of the girls I was traveling with was actually born in Germany and her cousin in Hamburg who was leaving for the weekend was awesome enough to give us the keys to his apartment.

I was the only girl to come out of the weekend without a pair of Birkenstocks. I guess they're made here and so they're CHEAP! Didn't have my size. So ya, we shopped. And ate some more. Hamburg is a really modern city as it was so extensively bombed during the wars, and is totally different from the south of Germany. I can also actually understand the German there a little better. Swabian is very very slurry.

In the evening we headed back to the apartment to relax, get pretty, play an all revealing game of "Never Have I Ever.." which I usually reserve for playing only with strangers... (needless to say, hilarity ensued). Then around midnight we headed out for a night (morning?) on the Reeperbahn.

What is the Reeperbahn? Well, what ISN'T the Reeperbahn. This street was alive, so, so alive and we had a ridiculous good night. Hamburg has in fact the largest Red Light District in all of Europe. There's even one street that you aren't allowed to go down unless you're male and over 18. Everybody keeps asking me if I went down it...HELLO!? Do I look like an 18 year old male to you? If your answer is yes you better keep it to yourself.

This street is filled with people at all hours (we tested it...said goodnight to the sun before the night was through), sex shops, strip clubs...you name it, you can get it on the Reeperbahn. We danced like crazy at a couple of rock clubs. The second one we went into, the sun was already coming up and it was pretty empty but we got the dance floor going and it actually filled up a little bit. Here's Lillan, Emily, me and Allison and some randoms who jumped into the shot.
Next stop: The famous fischmarkt, or fish market if you prefer English. It was about breakfast time and the thing is pretty much over by 8 a.m. so Lil, Les and I thought we'd go find it and bring back some breakfast while Em and Alli went home to pass out. Or tried to go home. We sent them on the wrong train. Oops.

Alright, so we're asking randoms where the fischmarkt is. Apparently "Wo ist die fischmarkt" is Turkish for "I want you to come home and sleep with me". I learn a lot on these trips. One guy we asked actually followed us off the sbahn and had his hands all over Les despite the enormously negative responses we were giving him. I actually slapped him to get him to leave. So, we go into a gas station, ask somebody else, walk down by the harbor...NO FISH MARKET! I guess it's only on Sunday's. You'd think at least one of the 8 million locals we asked could have told us that.

Alright, so the sun is up, there is no fish, people are out walking their dogs. It's time to go home to bed. BUT we get back to the sbahn station only to find we have quite the wait for the next train. I use my time productively by catching some zzz's on a bench. I felt and looked like a homeless person, and all I could think was "My mom would be proud of me right now".
The train comes. We get on. It takes us back. We get off, look right and there are the other two people we separated from AGES ago getting off the same train. We all break down in fits and giggles. No fish and little sleep makes for some giggly girls.

Up we get the next day, much later than we'd planned and head for Kiel. There was some sailing thing going on and a big festival so there was lots to see and do. "Never Have I Ever.." seen such big boats before in my life!!!! The harbor was fantastic. We watched Germany kick Sweden's bum downtown, an enthusiastic electric air guitar sent my camera flying across the street, I saw a hot air balloon shaped like a fork lift...what a day.
Here we split again, 4 of us grab some food and watch the Mexico vs. Argentina game (really wanted Mexico to win..Germany is going to have to FIGHT for the next round against Argentina) while our 5th went off with some German friends. Some middle aged men came in and sat in our way, and then proceeded to get us free beers since they apparently knew the owner of the establishment. Highlight of this, was the free beer. My German is less than respectable, to say the very very least and these guys did not speak English. One guy's dream is to move to America and open a Doner kebap and pizza shop. Reach high... Another guy took a liking to me...but as we couldn't communicate he just kept saying my name over and over and OVER again, waving a noisemaker in my face and touching my arm. He said he'd teach me German. My first lesson would be the word 'To Kiss'. Ick. Ickickick.

Alright it's go time. Mexico loses, the beers are empty, and we need to meet up with our friend at one of the 8 million H&M's they have in every city in Europe for the drive back to Hamburg. While standing there waiting I learn to tie cherry stems in a knot with my tongue.

A random approaches. Enters our circle, and just looks at us. Can we help you sir? "When I was a boy I went to Africa and....". Whhaatt?!?! So this guy was loaded, couldn't find his car, and his friends had all left him to go to bed or something and he had no idea where they were or where he was. Hilarity ensued. After meeting up with our 5th and ditching hammered guy we realize that even though we are sober and know where all of our friends are...where we left the car is another matter. Dammit.

Some time later we find the car. It's right where we left it. I sleep on the way home and then we visit the harbor in Hamburg at 2 a.m. This was really amazing and I'm glad I got dragged out there despite the fact I couldn't keep my eyes open at this point. The lights were gorgeous, the boats were gorgeous, apparently the sea smelled gorgeous but I really couldn't smell anything so I have to take people's word for that.
Oh right, during our time away from Stuttgart hundreds of English Hooligans (Hooligan deserves a capital 'H' I think) infiltrated Stuttgart, got stupid drunk, chanted horrible songs about the war (I believe one was something about two World Wars and one World Cup), understandably pissed off the Germans and caused a riot. Somewhere between 250 and 300 English were arrested and JP found somebody lying in the street in a pool of their own blood. And we missed all of it. Dammit.

We tried to make it back in time for the English game but were too late. We couldn't find home, and I think the aforementioned champagne and beer slowed us down too. Sooo many bathroom breaks.

Believe it or not this was the first all girls weekend of my life, and I think it was a rousing success :)

Viva Deutschland! And girls! Girls are pretty great too.

Learning English Part 2: Mugging English

Ok, so here's some more very important English phrases and dance moves to go with them. This one is really practical, because now you know the choreography for if you get mugged.

If you really value the next 5 minutes of your life, don't click here.

But I'm guessing that you're checking my blog because you're looking to kill some time. This video is guaranteed to kill it deader than dead.

Umm...what?

Here's a video to help you Japanese speakers out there learn English.

It teaches you the most important phrases.

Click me for a highly educational experience

World Cup Madness!

First of all, I still sometimes find it hard to believe I'm actually living my life in Germany right now. And then on top of things I'm lucky enough to be in the country hosting the 2006 Fifa World Cup, which is pretty much considered the largest international event.

I think I can speak for all of Germany but Stuttgart at least is absolutely ridiculous right now. There are people everywhere, the atmosphere is electric. You have no idea what it means to be a soccer fan until you experience the people here.

Last night was an experience I don't think I will ever ever forget.

They've set up three enormous screens in schlossplatz downtown (the main square, outside of a castle). It's all fenced in and is supposed to hold 40 000 people, but I'd put money on it that there were waaayyy more people than that inside last night. For the opening Germany game there were 80 000 people downtown, and I KNOW last night was WAY more crowded. You can also see the screens from outside the Fan Fest area so there are people everywhere. Making your way from one end of the street to the other is nearly impossible, people are all decked out with flags, face paint, jerseys of the teams they're supporting...there's more spirit here than I've ever seen in my life.

Last night was the Germany vs. Poland game, and it was TIGHT. It was tied 0:0 all the way to the very end and when Germany scored a goal during stop time....you have NO IDEA what it was like downtown.

I have to admit I'd been a little apprehensive of what it would be like. There's always a risk of rioting and violence right.. Well, last night was indeed chaotic. BUT, it was German Chaos. And German chaos, just like everything else German, is very orderly.

I was in shock and awe. I literally could not close my mouth and if my eyes were any wider I'm sure they would have fallen right out of my head. Thousands and thousands of people yelling and screaming in the streets, black, red and yellow colours everywhere...flags, face paint, jerseys... aannndd much rocking of the unfortunate cars that were driving through the streets nearby the big screens. Some of them had little kids in them, but most of them were smiling and honking and just reveling in the insanity, only a few people were royally pissed.

But there's what I mean about 'German Chaos'. There really was no violence or destruction that I witnessed or heard about. We saw a big group of police just sort of watching, they didn't do a thing. Which I think was probably smart... With all the energy it probably wouldn't have been a good idea to step in and try to stop it, especially since nothing really bad was happening.

I'm in Germany and the World Cup is in Germany and everything is crazy and amazing and I love it and I'm pretty much just really really lucky and really really happy to be here and experiencing this.

Dress for the moment.

I was in a clothing store this weekend and saw an ad with the phrase "Dress for the moment" on it.

Dress for the moment. Do we ever actually dress for one single moment? Does wearing a rain coat count as dressing for the moment when it starts raining? No, because you've actually dressed for the whole time it's raining, which is more than just one moment.

Ok, so maybe what it really meant was dress for the occasion. If it's going to be cold, put on a sweater, if you're going to the beach don't wear your snow suit, etc etc.

I can see a clothing ad company working with that. But when you put the image in this ad together with the phrase this is when the total, utter, and complete confusion sets in.

I can't for the life of me figure out what 'moment' this girl was dressed for. She was stretched out on her side in a pair of panties and a bra in the middle of a desert surrounded by small bushes and tumbleweed.

What is the moment here? First of all, if you're in the desert I think you might want to cover up a little more or else you're going to get a nasty burn or worse, a full fledged case of sun stroke. Yes, I am the function over fashion type. I've racked my brains and I can't come up with a moment when it would be necessary to just chill out in your underwear in the desert. Maybe she was doing her laundry.

If it were my ad company I'd fire the moron who created that ad. Actually I probably wouldn't, but I'd definitely give them a complete list of what's appropriate to wear in which situations, because if this person is under the impression that underwear is good desert attire they're probably regularly getting themselves into awkward situations. This guy would be the guy in the snow suit at the beach, dressed like a biker at a cocktail party, or worse, wearing socks with sandals.

I actually used to do that last one. My mom hated it. Now that I'm older, wiser, and not always right I realize that in this case, she was.


This is my new favorite site: Sandals & Socks 4 Ever

Ulm

I've decided that for the second half of my stay in Germany I'm going to travel less. I want to stick around and get to know Stuttgart and Germany itself better. There are a dozen small towns and cities nearby that are supposed to be really nice, so I'm going to take day trips on the weekends to visit them.

I am also broke. There's something about traveling to 9 different destinations in only 11 weeks that stresses out the wallet. Therefore me and my wallet have reached a mutual agreement to stick around Germany.

The first adorable German city to be crossed off the list is Ulm. It's about 100 km south-east of Stuttgart on the Danube river and it is abso-freakin-lutely adorable. The buildings were so picturesque ....so fairy-tale-esque.

Something sort of exciting, EINSTEIN was born in Ulm! Ok, so he left when he was only one years old but still. Somebody thought it'd be a good idea to climb the memorial...

Funny how people and places try to claim famous people as their own. When Hawksley Workman first emerged in the music business my highschool made a big deal out of the fact that he went there. What they didn't tell us and I found out later was that he only came for a semester before going to Huntsville. And if they'd known he was going to suck I'm sure they wouldn't have claimed him at all.

The only real tourist attraction is the Ulm Münster. It's a big gothic chapel, and in fact the tallest church in the world. The steeple is 161.53 m high and I climbed all 768 spiral stairs all the way to the very top. You'd think the engineers would have thought to at least reverse the direction of the spiral every so often. I almost fell down them on the way back down because I got so dizzy.


We saw some traditional dance going on in the street on arrival, that was fun. And then we also saw this crazy advertisement that wasn't standing still. It was moving around. Of course, this was fascinating so we stopped to watch it and tried to figure out what was making it move. Then I had the idea to surround it and see what would happen. So that's what we did! Eventually we found the guy with the remote control off in a crowd somewhere, but how brilliant is that marketing technique! Create an add that silly people like us will chase around . Too bad none of us could actuallyread it.

Next a crazy doctor blew me a heart balloon flower thing, it was very romantic. Or it would have been if I wasn't a bit of a globophobe, and wasn't afraid that he was going to turn around and try to charge me 15 euros for it like the bracelet guys in Paris.

All in all it was a really nice day. We took a stroll along the top of the city wall along the river, ate some traditional Swabien cuisine (Swabia is the area in Germany I live in), and I did not get a sunburn.

Alles gut.

Joining the Circus

Didn't I just write a post not too long ago about feeling better about not having a clear career goal?

Every year, all it takes is the looming date of my enrollment appointment to send my head spinning off my shoulders and down a long, tree covered hill, over the edge of a cliff into a river full of piranas.

Dramatic much?

This is the one time of year when I'm utterly and completely jealous of anybody with a clear goal or plan or idea or dream concerning their career. Because, I, do not have one.

So if anybody talks to me between now and June 14th, if I seem a little crazy it's because my head is in a pirana pool. Consider yourself warned.