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

Gots to get my prōt

So whenever you travel out of the country for an extended period of time, you typically worry about being able to purchase certain comfort items that you've grown accustomed to living in the U.S. Traveling to W. Europe, it's not as big of a deal, since all essential items are available, although not always where you think (e.g. for contact lens solution, you have to go to the optical shop. That might seem obvious to some people, but in the U.S. it's available at almost every grocery and/or drug store. Anyways, it's not like contacts are a necessity.). And it's really becoming less and less of a problem since Europe continues to become more and more culturally American with each passing year.

To my actual point, one thing I've gotten accustomed to is protein... whey protein. "Anybody got any whey protein?" Haha. Inside joke. But seriously. And in a country where the diet is considerably more carbohydrate rich than what I'm used to and where all food protein tends to have a disproportionate amount of fat attached to it (e.g. bratwurst), I gots to find a way to get my prōt. Luckily, German supermarkets have started stocking WHEY PROTEIN. It's a little more expensive, but it's also a little more concentrated. I am the kind of person who would find the price per gram of protein, but I haven't done that yet. But beyond just having prōt in supermarkets, they even have protein shakers (which is lucky, since I wasn't about to buy a blender and anyone who's ever made a protein shake by stirring knows why that's not an option). I mean, the protein shaker was sold as a salad dressing shaker, but the functional anatomy was the same.

Anyways, I just thought I'd pass that information along to anyone else who works out, and who needs their prōt to do so more successfully, and is thinking about coming to Deutschland.

Yes, I did actually write a post about whey protein.

Make-out parties at work

In an earlier post, I mentioned how I saw my boss brushing his teeth during the middle of the day. Over the past week or so, I've noticed more coworkers doing this and on a fairly regular basis, mostly before meetings. So I'm as aware of bad breath as the next man, but unless people sit a lot closer at meetings over here than in the U.S., there's only one other logical conclusion I can draw about all this teeth-brushing... these so called "meetings" are actually just make-out parties. I mean, a one hour make out party in the middle of the day? What middle-schooler could say no? Then again, all of the workers in my office are dudes... nerdy dudes...

Füd is so good

So I haven't posted in over a week, cuz I've been busy, lazy, not great at time management. Today was a holiday... unfortunately the last holiday of my internship.

A slight aside... I've become an MRI test subject. I get a free movie pass for every scan. (Plus it takes up work time!) I hope they'll let me keep some scans so I can, idk, put them on my wall, and tell people, "That's what I look like on the inside!"

But really what this post is about is... food. I find myself eating much better, meaning healthier and better tasting food, than I ever did in the U.S. (including when I lived at home). Partially I attribute this to the fact that I live right next door to a supermarket, so I go shopping every day (except for Sundays and holidays, when stores here aren't open...). Also, the food in Europe in general is just better tasting in my experience. I think part of that is because regional cuisines exist here to a greater degree than they do in the U.S., and the types of food are not as homogenized as they are in the U.S. (or at least my part of the U.S. and food that I consider to be in my price range).

To make somewhat of a counterpoint though, a German intern told me that a lot of what people eat here is determined by what the supermarket stocks. We reminisced about foods that we used to eat as children that are now much less common because German supermarkets stopped stocking them. I don't think this is that much unlike the U.S., although we (Americans) have the benefit of larger, more fully stocked supermarkets, so we're less likely to be affected by individual items no longer being carried by a given chain. Overall though, I am more pleased with the selection of supermarket food, slightly more limited as it may be, than in the U.S.

More asides... I still don't know who turned of the light in the bathroom my first night in the apartment. I have however now met both my roommates. One is a hardy-partying polisci major and the other is antisocial "Informatiker" (computer scientist). I'm guessing it was the latter who gave me that scare.

I finally have a working bike and have started biking to work... 6 km (3 ¾ miles) each way. I guess when I get back I might be so used to this that I might start biking up to North every day... but then again maybe not.

And I'm going to München (...Munich...) this weekend with some other students, which should hopefully be fun. When I schedule it into my calendar though, I came to the sad realization that I only have 5 free weekends (i.e. ones where I don't have other trips planned) left while I'm here. I know that may seem like a lot, but when you start with what seems like an infinite number, it's really not that many. But then again, from a cost perspective, and considering I haven't gotten paid yet, a finite number of "mini-Eurotrips" might be a good thing.

Oh yea, and then the last thing I wanted to mention is how awful weather forecasting is in this country. I guess I assumed it would be easier forecasting weather for a country that's about the size of Montana, but I guess it isn't. Also, each major city does not have "Dopper k*10^n" Radar as we do. But basically German weather forecasts, in my experience, are only accurate for about 24 hours into the future... beyond that you might as well roll dice.

Beers with the boss

So Thursday was stressful and creepy (see That was weird), and Friday sucked knowing I would have to work a whole day and then ride the train for 5 hours to go back and visit my family in Saarland for the long weekend.

So I'm there, at my desk (well, not my desk, but the desk I get to use while some co-worker is on an unusually long vacation...), drudging along as usual... every so often drawing some circuit element or something. Then I hear my boss. He had only been here 2 of the 9 days I had worked so far. I think he was on vacation or at a conference or some combination of those two. Then I heard someone brushing his teeth at the lab sink... due to an identical experience later in the day, I'm going to assume it was my boss brushing his teeth.

Anyways, about 20 minutes later, he goes around and invites everyone to the Bergkirchweih, with the plan to head there at 12:30pm. The Bergkirchweih is one of the biggest draws of Erlangen, it being the 3rd largest Volksfest in Germany. It started the evening before, and riding around on the buses with my luggage I got to see droves of people flocking there. All the teenagers in town seemed to be drunk, and it was great to see drunk bike riders weaving through traffic (Erlangen is a huge bike town). It looked like a whole lot of fun, and I was sad that I couldn't partake :-(.

Anywho, hearing my boss's invite totally made up for all the stress of Thursday and the not being able to attend the night before. I mean this was a chance to go to the Fest and miss work and drink while doing so! Later I even learned that my boss was buying! So we get there, and most people ordered non-alcoholic beverages or Radlers (half beer, half pop) or smaller beers, but I ordered a Maß. Most of my coworkers looked at me, but they didn't really care that much... after all, I was an American. (You'd be amazed how much you can get away with for that very reason.) I also ordered bratwurst and sauerkraut, just to totally German it up. Then of course, I got a picture with my boss, both with our beers, just to immortalize this story. (I'm obviously not posting it here though...)

I had originally intended to end the work day after the mid-day excursion, but after a liter of beer, I decided to go back to work for an hour. When I got back, I saw my boss brushing his teeth at the lab sink. About 5 seconds later I found out why. The odor of beer, sauerkraut and bratwurst was now on my breath. I went to talk to my boss to ask him about an assignment he had given me, and noticed that his breath smelled minty fresh (unlike mine). Then I went back to work, doing vector wave field calculations for an elliptical cylinder (a.k.a. God knows what) for an hour, with a reasonable buzz still on.

That was weird

So I finally found an apartment after I had been working for 10 days...
I could have rented the apartment 10 days earlier, but it's a long story and then the super went on vacation for 8 days (back to my point about vacations here...).

Then Thursday was AMAZING in that after work I got to move my 3 suitcases across town on the bus. It took multiple trips. But so I'm in an apartment with two other guys. I met one guy when I visited the apartment 10 days earlier, and he seemed pretty cool. The other guy I have yet to meet. On Thursday the super told me that it was likely they were both already gone for the long weekend (yea, we have a long weekend here too, but it's for Pentecost, not Memorial Day).

So yea, I move my stuff in. My bedroom is unfurnished, but you know... I needed a place to live. It did come with a semi-soiled mattress and a guitar with 5 of its 6 strings. Thus, I am significantly closer to my dream of living in an opium den.

But anyways, after sitting around for 2 hours, I decided to shower (or better said, take a bath since the shower head seemed to be broken...) So I take my laptop in the bathroom, to put on some 24 while I bathe... I mean, I need something to keep me occupied... bathing simply is not engaging enough on it's own. Then after about 5 minutes, I hear someone enter the apartment. I hear him walk in the hallway, jiggle the door handle to the bathroom (luckily I locked it), and then turn the bathroom light off (the switch was on the outside). So I announce that I'm the new roommate (and get no response), get dressed (only half bathed), and go outside to try and introduce myself. I look around and see that no one is in the apartment. Both other bedroom doors are locked. I look in the keyholes of both bedrooms, and there's a light on in one of them... the bedroom of the guy I haven't met. I ask if anyone's there, but no response.

Then I finished bathing, got ready for bed, and slept... not really sure if there was another person in the apartment or not that night. What added to the "suspense" was the fact that my bedroom door didn't have a lock, but rather was a flimsy plastic folding door. But as far as I know, nothing happened to me at night.

But yea, that was weird.

...all my troubles seemed so far away

Ever try moving 3 suitcases when the only transportation you have available to use is public transportation? You have to do it in phases, and store stuff in a train station locker (which are still great for trading illicit goods, imho). Then you have to not lose the key to that train station locker (just as with the illicit goods trade). That's where I messed up. But luckily here the fee for losing a key is 9 Euros as opposed to the $75 at LifeTime Fitness...

That pretty much summed up last night and today... Oh yea, and then I had to pick up my TBE vaccine from my friend's house since I don't have a refrigerator, but then I ended up standing at the wrong bus stop (which brings me to another point that I'll get at later...), so I missed the bus. I got on a different route and tried to run the half mile to the bus stop where I had to change busses... needless to say I didn't make it. So I stopped at a nearby döner stand, where I purchased a döner kebab sandwich and a beer (yes, Germany has no laws about drinking in public, but so far I've only seen myself, hobos, and shady dudes do it).

Well, then I had to keep the TBE vaccine cool so I went to buy the cheapest ice cream at the store in the train station... 0,50€ it was labeled, not to bad, until when I go up to pay, she charges me 1,-€. I try to argue, but it's futile. Apparently there's no Michigan bounty over here.

Anyways, I made it back to the B&B, alive, so I'll still label today as an overall success.

This is costing me how much???

So today is a holiday in Germany, meaning I didn't have to go to work... whooo! But it also meant all the stores were closed.... booo. I was also only able to eat one meal today, but that's probably a good thing. Also, since the bus doesn't really come very often on holidays, I spent all of today in my room, except for the time I took my trash out and ate.

But more to the point, today I found out how much this room in the bread-and-breakfast is costing me: 48€/night! And the earliest I can get out of here is Saturday because I can't move all my luggage out of here by tomorrow morning cuz I have work, and the only place I could store it is at a friend's house who is kinda far away.

I did find a room in a WG (Wohngemeinschaft) that I liked, but it's in an apartment building and the super is on vacation for a week so I can't rent it or move in until he's back. So I'm prolly going to get a private room in someone's house (which isn't an uncommon thing over here) for 15€ a night.

On the topic vacation... everyone here seems to take a lot of it. The law sets the minimum number of vacation days as 24 days/year, but most places give you 30 -- that's 6 working weeks of paid vacation or about 11% of the working year. And that's not including all the national holidays, 9 of which fall on weekdays this year (vs. the 5 national holidays in the U.S. where you get work off). Unfortunately, as an intern, I'm not entitled to any vacation time, but on the bright side, it's a 35 hour work week here vs. the 40 hour back home.

The bike fell apart

So Matthias is my aunt's neighbor's son from back in Saarland, and he's living in Erlangen right now too. Tonight he invited me to come into town and hang out. Unfortunately, the next bus wasn't coming by until 10:30pm, so I decided to try and bike it. I brought my cousin's bike up to Erlangen with me, but I was only able to ride about 100 ft before the dérailleur (gear-shifting mechanism near the chain) just completely fell off, along with the chain. So I had to carry my bike back to the bed-and-breakfast where I'm staying, and I pretty much looked like a terrible bike thief.

So this is my blog

So that last post did nothing but explain the name of the blog... it contributed, like all blogs, no useful information to the Internet, but rather impeded, and will continue to impede, mankind's pursuit of knowledge, peace and happiness.

So this is where I explain the rationale behind my blog:
I'm in Germany. I'm doing an internship. This is like a journal -- but everyone can read it and comment on it -- like all blogs, meaning it's just about as lame as every blog out there, but enough deprecation of the medium.

The next few posts will be in rapid succession because they're things I've meant to write about over the last few days, but until now didn't have the wherewithal to do so.

And alas this post is rather useless, as well.

All the names were taken

You have no idea how hard it is to start a blog...
For days I had been planning to do this, and I had my title all picked out, -- "Socks and Sandals," a little esoteric, but I liked it -- but as luck would have it, the name was already taken. So I go with backup choices: "I Hate Blogs," "For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge" -- get it?, "I Hate Pants," etc. All taken. Then, like all people looking for an original idea, I chose to draw from personal experience...

So today after work, I got on the bus, and an elderly man got on after me. He seemed like the average, nice old German gentleman, but then he sat in the seat next where I was standing. That's when I noticed his smell. I mean, I'm pretty much O.K. with most body odor (although the more time I spend in the U.S., the more sensitive I become to it when I return to Germany), but this was no ordinary body odor. It smelled like this man hadn't showered in a month, hadn't changed his clothes in a month, and whenever he took of his clothes, he must have left them in a warm, dark, damp place.

You know there's regular BO, and then there's that kind that just makes you gag? Like not even a stronger version of BO type 1, but just entirely different. Like when you leave your clothes in the washing machine too long and they start to smell, but 100x worse?

I would've gotten off the bus earlier, but I was too lazy to walk 7 blocks to where I had to go, so I just stood there. I though about breathing through my mouth, but I mean, those smelly particles he was eminating, even at N ppm, would still have entered my body. Gross.