Paul Upgrades a.k.a that Cashier Definitely Thought I was an Alcoholic

Single malt Scotch. Having purchased my first bottle, I now feel more and more like a man (a motif of the trip). Plus, it was only 1,50€ more than the bottle of Johnnie Walker, so a very cheap upgrade. And it's delicious. And Scotch is one of the only beverages which drinking it can be considered a hobby (other than like wine, but who am I? a woman? my dad? European?)

So when I went to pay, though, I had organized all my purchases from heaviest to lightest, since that's the way I have to bag them (yea, no bag boys). Thus, at the front were my bottles -- the Scotch, two beers, and two Mixery. A little farther were my other groceries, at the front of which was a little bottle of schnapps (real schnapps, not fucking apple schnapps...) -- what? I need something to fill the schnapps into for my hiking trip this weekend. As the cashier scans my purchases, she stops at the end of the bottles. And I say, "No, the rest, too." And she says, "Oh, you mean just this, too?" pointing to the little schnapps bottle.
"No, all of it... the cereal, the yogurt, the meat..." I was slightly offended that she thought I came in with only the intent of purchasing a whole bunch of boose. C'mon! Even alcoholics need cereal, yogurt and meat...

Define: coolest city in the world

This picture speaks louder than any words ever could. That beer was given to me for free on the streets of Prague. Let me reiterate that: free Czech beer being given out on the streets of Prague.

I mean who cares that the country doesn't even have an officially codified language... they give out FREE beer. And this isn't like a house party... this is like walking down the street in the middle of the day, and someone being like "hey, have some free, cold, delicious beer!" "Well, if you insist." And then you can continue drinking the beer without having to slip it into a paper bag and looking like a complete fucking hobo. (I know I've already mentioned the lack of drinkin-in-public prohibitions in Europe, but c'mon!)

I guess there was that one guy who shook his head at us when three of us were walking around with open beers in a classy part of town, but what was he gonna do? "I thought this was America, I thou..thi..wa..America.."

So the Czechs don't like to be though of as "Eastern" European, but rather "Middle European," because of the negative connotation of the term "Eastern Europe." I'll let them have they're Middle European title, since they not only let me have free beer, but also let me eat half a pig for about $7, and a delicious fried cheese sandwich (Smažený sýr) for $1.

Since my eastward travels have been quite fruitful so far, I think I'm going to venture farther through Middle and into Eastern Europe to see if things only get better...

Funniest perp walk EVAR

Well, I'd like to start off by apologizing for using Brian's "hip" spelling of the word "ever," but I assure you, it is apt for this story.

So this weekend I was in Amsterdam... saw the legitimate sights, like the Anne Frank House, the Van Gogh Museum, the Heineken Experience and the canals, but then half-way through the day on Sunday we ran out of things to see. By late afternoon, museums, shops and bookstores started closing. So I was of course totally up for the one Amsterdam site that is always open, always free (for window shopping at least), and always interesting... the Red Light District.

There's no real need to detail the overall concept or my impressions of the Red Light District or the novel concept of window prostitution. But, as we were walking down Oudezijds Achterburgwal along the canal, we saw, on the other side of the street, what I at first assumed to be a John, fully clad in motocycle gear, negotiating with a lady of the evening ("She performs illusions for money." :-p). My keener colleague :-p noticed that this was in fact a motocycle cop, getting the lady's information, as she was filing a police report.

While the policeman was noting the information, a man behind him, who I assumed to be a passerby, kept interrupting him, and the officer became more and more agitated, until eventually the officer put the man, who turned out to be the actual John, in handcuffs. Putting myself in his shoes, I thought, "Man, things just stopped being polite and started getting REAL." :-p

It was then clear that this man was under arrest. The problem with motorcycles cops anywhere in the world is that they can't take perps in; they always have to call for backup. That's what this cop did, too. However, his backup arrived in the form of two bicycle cops. I thought to myself, "This isn't helping the situation at all!" But, little did I know, this is apparently a normal procedure in Amsterdam. The two bicycle cops then forced the perp, handcuffed behind his back, to walk between them as they slowly road their bicycles up the canal, in one of the busiest tourist districts of Amsterdam.

It was by far, the funniest perp walk EVAR.

I'm not quite sure what got this John into this situation, but from the fragments of the exchange among the lady, officer and John, I pieced together that the John had not paid for the services he received, but in lieu of payment offered the lady his passport. Apparently passports aren't legal tender...?

Love the people, hate the people

There are different benchmarks for gauging your fluency in a foreign language. Some say that you are truly fluent once you've had a coherent dream in that language. I say you're fluent when you can come up with a witty comeback when a native foreigner makes some jackass remark to you.

Most people I've randomly run in to (not literally) on the street or in stores or in public tend to be jackasses. And by people I mean Germans. From the contruction worker who told me the sun wasn't shining when I was riding my bike with my sunglasses on on a cloudy morning... I'm sorry; I don't like wind in my eyes, and I'm not about to go out and spend 15€ on a pair of lightly tinted sunglasses... asshole. ...to that lady in the bakery who cuts in front of me in line, and then claims she was in front of me the whole time... I didn't call her out, because I'm not a jerk... or better said I'm not a Gerkman, but she called me out on my, in her eyes, cutting in front of her, when I tried to order at the same timer as her.

Okay, so your country has a population density 8 times that of the U.S. and most of you still have a complex about your predecessors trying to exterminate an entire race of people... that doesn't mean you have to be an asshole to everyone you run into on the street. And they're not jerks like New Yorkers either, because with New Yorkers you can't really take them seriously... it's all tongue-in-cheek. But Germans take themselves so seriously that I have to be offended when they're jerky to me.

You can say all you want about them being coconuts and us being peaches... but I still think they're jerks. Even if I'm supposedly being shallow when I smile at someone on the street, at least I made that person's day a little brighter, or at least left it unchanged, as opposed to ripping out that person's heart and peeing on it. I guess that's a bit of an exaggeration, but you get my point.

But as a counterpoint, I must say that every German I've had personal interaction with, whether he/she be a family member, family friend, coworker or friend, was extremely nice, kinder, in fact, than most Americans I know personally. So I guess the coconut/peach analogy may be more apt than I give it credit.

The problem with brief public interaction and the jackassery which stems therefrom is really rooted in reactive personalities, which aren't exclusive to Germans. I mean I wouldn't be so pissed off by them if I didn't have a reactive personality. Bringing it all full-circle... I'm not at a point of fluency where I can easily verbally react to Gerkmans, so I just end up brooding about it for a few hours and writing a blog post.

Cows can't go through turnstiles

So my blog has really gone to shit the last few weeks. That's because I've been travelling every weekend, and I've had more important things to do in the evenings like cook, eat, sleep and drink, and I was always hesitant to blog from work because I didn't want to get fired. But I'm 2/3 done with my internship now, so I could really care less.

There are a few back-logged topics I could write about like the random-ass people I've met, like Hansi Müller, the former East German who approached us at McDonalds, showed us his soccer bruises on his groin and then told us how he used to work for the the CIA. Then there was DJ, who we met at the bus stop, and he told us how he once lived in the desert, communicated only by hand signals, and had to wait for a bus there for 3 days.

But back to the real post... cow's can't go through turnstiles. That's something I learned on my hiking trip last weekend in the Bavarian alps. I also learned that cows aren't smart enough to not lie down in piles of other cows' shit. And sheep aparently think the best grass is on the steepest slope of the mountain. I really, really wanted to see a sheep just slip off the edge of a cliff. I'm not sadistic... can't you just imagine one flying through the air, rotating, and going "Beehhhh! Beeehhh!"

All in all though, hiking was fantastic.

Well, I'm going to see how I can kill the last 2 hours of my working day now...

A man's man's pantry

There's not much to this post, but I didn't have any time to come up with a good topic since I spent so much time stocking my pantry!

That made me feel like a man

This weekend I got to go to a German high school dance. Not half bad, although I did feel kind of weird as a college sophomore/junior surrounded by a bunch of German highschoolers. I mean, a number of these kids were pre-pubescent, but you can’t argue with 1 Euro beers. And it probably wouldn't've been appropriate to hit on a girl who's still in braces… yea… But it did end about as well as any high school dance could have…

…with me grabbing some douchebag by the neck and yelling “Cut that shit out!” (in German of course). They were playing that (fun) game where a bunch of guys start body-checking each other on the dance floor. Needless to say, it pissed me off, and straightening that kid out made me feel like a man. In fact, it's probably very similar to how Charlie felt here (fast-forward 49 seconds), only I wasn't as cool as Charlie since I went straight for the neck, and I didn't say "Cool your jets!" But some things just don't translate.

"Now that would make a good blog post, minus the Paul in Love."
--Brian