Eating my way through Germany

In chronological order, these are a few of the Facebook status updates I made on my trip.

12/28 (midday): having a gigantic breakfast with like five different kinds of cheese prepared for me, sitting around listening to reggae, and there is a picture of a topless asian chick scotch taped to the toilet. life isnt easy in germany!

12/28 (night): Today: french fries with mayo, giant piece of cake, western style sushi, dark chocolate spread on bread with Brie, and I bought a wheel of goat cheese. Got a KONNICHIWA from an employee at a sword/weapon shop too but I shouldn't be surprised.

12/29 (morning): I would talk about all the cool things I have been doing but honestly I can't think of any. Just eating bread and cheese 5 meals a day.

12/29 (afternoon): Yesterday was pretty good. Pizza, chocolate twice, a giant taco thing, a tuna melt with onion rings at an American diner, beer, red wine, absinthe, and mead straight from the bottle. Oh and a giant bowl of pasta with salad right before bed

12/30 (afternoon): officially splitting buttons on a dress that fit perfectly yesterday. brunch today: chocolate spread, Brie, aubergine cream cheese, hot mustard, jam, sun dried tomatoes, cucumber, dill, fried tofu, clementine orange, espresso, and approximately an entire loaf of bread. and yes it is 3:30 pm

12/31 (morning): Heute gehe ich nach BERLIN!!! Was kann ich essen da?!

Top Five: German Food

#1: TORTENBUFFET. I don't even need to say more. Cake buffets are the best invention of all time.



#2: Käsespätzle. Cheesy egg noodles topped with fried onions in a big bowl. Just a big bowl of carbs and fat that will probably give you bad breath. I'm already waiting in line drooling into my drool cup.




#3: Nordsee. The only other fast food I get this excited about is In-N-Out Burger in California/Arizona/Nevada. Nordsee sell fish, shrimp and other seafood in sandwich, patty, filet and recently sushi form. I'm a fan.



#4: Flammkuchen. From what I've read and seen it's similar to a thin pizza and can be topped with anything. I can't wait to actually taste one!


#5: Currywurst. It's really just a crappy hot dog with curry powder and ketchup on a paper plate, but it represents so much more. Currywurst is the iconic sausage that stands for Berlin, and Berlin is where magic happens.

Why can't I quit you?

I'm going to Germany again. This will be my fourth time in less than three years, and I have not lived on the western half of the Eurasian landmass for any of those three years. I'll be there over the New Year holiday in Frankfurt and Berlin. As if that weren't awesome enough, I will be accompanied with three of my best friends from Japan, who all happen to be English and therefore already nearby for Christmastime. To say I'm excited would be an insincerely understated lie.

It's funny how any given place represents different things for everyone. For a friend who will be joining me in my travels, Germany is synonymous with uptight boring people who wear socks and sandals. For plenty of Americans, the first things that come to mind are Nazis, shit porn and Oktoberfest. For me, it is (incorrectly) a futuristic haven of minimal techno producers with cool names, power plants, Kraftwerk, and kinky shit. I studied the language rather casually and by this point speak extravagantly poorly - just well enough to survive, file a police report, and say "tee hee" to cute strangers.

Obviously it is just a country, with all sorts of variations in language, dress, geography and politics. In my short but sweet times there I've watched the sun rise over Berlin on New Year's morning after in the company of a druid, danced the night away at a pro-Israel/USA communist squat, and I've also been yelled at by a cranky middle aged woman on a train for having my feet on my own seat.

It's these mundane occurrences that become "unforgettable experiences" and define how we think of X locale, and this update exists solely for my own purposes. I'm including a few photos from the prior three trips that I find particularly nostalgia-inducing or representative. Enjoy!

A chilly pond by Ravensbrück concentration camp memorial site: Brandenburg, March 2008

Revelers at Icon, first "real" clubbing experience in my lifetime: Berlin, March 2008

TV tower in Alexanderplatz on a snowy New Year's Day: Berlin, January 2009

Summer flowers on top of a mountain: Baden-Baden, August 2009

Maren, a notably excellent Couchsurfing "coffee or a drink" host who introduced me to some lovely people: Munich, August 2009

A German memory

Delirious with the flu and a cough racking my entire body in Heidelberg, Baden-Wurttemberg, August 2009. We had spent the day with my mother sightseeing, climbing mountains, and downing a few beers at an Irish pub. She hobbled off to bed in her old age, and we sat by the bridge getting reacquainted as we had not seen each other since the year kicked off. It was a chilly night and you wrapped me in a rain poncho and then made fun of me because I looked ridiculous. I coughed and coughed like a terminal lung cancer sufferer and you took me to a shot bar to drink chocolate rum. Spirits were low as I had to see my mother off in the morning, and my fever was steadily rising.........

care package

My mother and I have a very special relationship that consists of approximately 50% what Commonwealth English speakers refer to as "taking the piss" and 50% (sarcastic) womanly gossipy love. We have gone on several package-tour vacations to Europe together and managed not to kill each other - a real growing up rite of passage, considering that about 7 years ago I was a "spoiled little bitch" and she was a "heartless slave driver" if I recall them correctly. I can always count on her to laugh heartily at my petty misfortunes, e.g. that fateful time I waxed my crotch incorrectly and ripped off all my skin in the process, and she's always got some juicy hometown gossip (often about the 8th or 9th neighborhood kid who has been diagnosed with Asperger's) whenever I call. She's a thin but mighty woman of principle who eats 100 calorie lunches, majored in math as a feminist political statement, and is completely convinced that Israel=yes, Palestine=fail. We've had our noisy battles and debates over whether or not affirmative action is reverse racism (it's sooo not!) and we make fun of each other's clothes from time to time, but generally she knows me and what makes me giggle, gasp and tick.

I have my packages delivered to me at school because I hate playing phone tag with the post office over failed delivery notices, and this always creates a moderate buzz in the teacher's room. Today I received a care package from my mom.

Inside:
-A news editorial written by Charles Krauthammer about why Israel is right and Palestine is wrong
-My German textbooks from college
-Two bags of candy: Target store brand gummy bears and Reeses' Peanut Butter Cup hearts (she loves to harp on me to lose weight, but always sends me food and candy)
-4 pairs of black underpants, neatly folded in a Zip-loc bag so as to look less conspicuously like underpants
-The Vassar alumnae quarterly magazine
-Newspaper clippings on topics ranging from the new Doctor on "Doctor Who" to a famous cat at the Schenectady train station and the fateful day Denny's restaurants nationwide gave out free Grand Slam breakfast
-A huge Zip-loc bag full of tampons - I'm betting there are at least 108 or 144 in there (Tampax tampons come in packs of 36)

While the underpants were probably the highlight of this particular care package, I was also really happy to have a new distraction at work. I started reading "Treffpunkt Deutsch" from the beginning as I have shamefully forgotten all but the bare essentials of German. Soon I hope I will be onto more interesting conversations than Herr and Frau Ziegler fussing about the weather. Though I have to say, the phrase "was für ein Hundewetter" really does apply to today. A little less cold and a little more spring-like warmth, please.