Duty Free

LIVE BLOGGING THE ROYAL WEDDING

2011-04-29T08:41:00.001+02:00

Sundood

2010-09-05T23:59:00.001+02:00

Just when things were starting to get really real with thesis proposals and second majors (done and almost done!), I had a very vivid dream about Berlin, and I skyped with my old neue Vater (their new neue Tochter is a vegetarian year-long student--suckaa), and out of the blue I got an invitation from Felix number two to another concert near the powerplant in Lichtenberg.

Now I'm reminded of the simplicity and duty-freeness that I had momentarily forgotten about, caught up in the realness of real things. But everything's fine again--once more, I can sit around eating Kalona cheese curds, "little balls of cholesterol," as Brooke describes them; and listen to Run-DMC; and talk about diarrhea (sick, not my own); and put off my TFA application until the next 11:59 PM deadline. Just kidding, Dad! I'll get right on that.

The dood abides

2010-08-29T23:00:00.010+02:00

Although I've long since departed from Germany, certain tendencies remain--like leaving parties to talk about Nazis outside, and struggling to feed myself. Seriously, while Hannah's at home making zucchini and goat cheese tarts and bean-tomato-onion salad for the rest of the BW clan (at least until she moves to big Brooklyn on Wednesday), I'm eating dinners that look like this:

That's a handful of blue corn chips, four prunes, a pile of smoked almonds and half a frozen banana. Mommy helped a lot with move-in, mopping the floors and doing the dishes in this sticky new house, but when she left I realized that the only edibles I had were Fiber One and a handle of Hawkeye. Then there was the Iowa egg recall, which made even my go-to dinner of eggs (easy to borrow from my often absent, in-season athlete housemates) unappealing.

But things have gotten much better. Claire started coming home, so we made this yummy pizza one night. We even got a little daring, like when I bought three bunches of kale for five dollars (it seemed like both a good deal and a good idea at the time), which yielded some really salty kale chips and a weird Saturday lunch of plain pasta with sauteed kale, and marked the first time my housemate Kale ever tasted his verdurous namesake. Still, one bunch remains. Tonight we dabbled with Hannah's asian-style curry. And the coming weeks hold a lot of promise thanks to today's acquisition of a George Foreman grill.

Yes, it's true that I live just across the street from the Union Pacific Railroad, along which very loud freight trains chug at all hours of the night. And it's also true that my housemates blast contemporary country music and talk about which songs made them cry most at Country Thunder. And that a pack of feral kittens has been clawing holes in our garbage is true, too. It's true that the mailman and I had an awkward encounter the other day as I stood on the porch in a bikini--from across the street where he held my gaze, it would have looked like I was just in my underwear. And it's true that I recently observed a neighbor getting out of his pick-up truck carrying a rifle.

But all of these perhaps unsavory truths are balanced by the pleasant things life these days has to offer: the new waterpark, where one can laze in the Lazy River for hours on end. Or the double chocolate chip cookies provided by the professor in my Stalinism seminar. Or the fortuitous discovery that Kale is also a big fan of Electric Light Orchestra. Or being mistaken for a freshman by a professor, a slight relief for my constant age crisis. Or living with a strong, brave football player who gladly advises me that pairing snakeskin with floral makes me look like a crazy person--"in a bad way."

Serendoodity, again

2010-08-18T23:32:00.001+02:00

Every year I prepare for my return to Iowa by playing a few Dar Williams songs over and over again. This year was no different--I put my nostalgia for the Berlin semester on hold and got into the groove. "Iowa" is just as poignant year after year.

But when Mommy and I were driving in from the Des Moines International Airport on Sunday, it wasn't Dar Williams that came on the radio but rather (what else?!) the 10,000 Maniacs song that I couldn't help quoting back in July when I was certain that it was written specifically for me.

If that's not a sign that the duty free-ness of last semester lives on, I don't know what is. Seriously, this topic is a little sappy for me but it has to be covered. After all, as Natalie Merchant sings, "Hear the signs and know they're speaking/To you, to you."

Doodbye, Dood York

2010-08-15T05:35:00.004+02:00

Across the street from the Museum of Natural History today a man in a bucket hat bumpin' to gangsta rap smiled and winked at me from his big SUV. Ben said, "That man smiled at you." New York, it's been fun!

On to Iowa in the morning. I've clearly been struggling to keep up with Duty Free since, well, even before I left Berlin. I think the fast-paced lifestyle I've been caught up in (...) hasn't been conducive to reflecting on what it really means to be duty free.

But ten days of slow IA summer before the semester starts should be more than enough time to sort it out. The readership dwindles, but I think there are some exciting revelations a-brewing.

Feelin' doody

2010-08-07T17:32:00.009+02:00

This morning the refrigerator repairman asked me if I sing--" because you have a nice voice," he said. What a first!

For a rainy dood

2010-08-06T10:30:00.002+02:00

I've been stockpiling rainbows for a while now, and what better time to share them than in the wake of California's victory?

It's dood to be home

2010-08-02T01:34:00.008+02:00

On the nine hour plane ride from Madrid to New York, the flight attendants walked up and down the aisle asking, "Duty free? duty free?", and I worried that my reintegration would signify the end of my six-month duty free hiatus. But so far it's been smooth sailing. I overcame my jetlag, broke out a fresh pair of jorts and kicked back with some free boxed wine at a Chinese restaurant.

It's nice to be back in a place where glasses of ice water are refilled compulsively in restaurants, and where the streets are filled with Jews on Shabbat, and where lab mixes named זהב, Hebrew for "gold," play in the dog run outside the Museum of Natural History, and old ladies push old wire-haired dachshunds in baby strollers on Columbus, and people hang out on the street blaring loud rap music and speaking English!

More dood come,

2010-07-29T01:28:00.005+02:00

but for now, I'm suffering from some pretty severe post-nasal drip, and I think I'm allergic to cherries and seafood (but as Maxwell once wrote, "Lucy is extremely neurotic"), and Sophie tried to make a dirty joke at the dinner table and I had to explain it, and we got food poisoning in San Sebastian (or maybe just drank too much sangria). Ugh and it's HOT here.

But really I'm not complaining! Spaniards are H-U-N-N-I-E-S, let me tell you, hunnies if I've ever seen them. And we eat a lot, gazpacho y patatas y solomillo and a miguelito here and there, y después tomamos siestas. And we visit museums and we get complimented on our Spanish and swim in pools and make lots of friends wherever we go.

Back to New York in two days and I can't wait, but this has been a pretty great interlude, full of first-class dining, naked old men on the street, half-naked young men on the beach, mediocre overpriced food, pastel sweaters in Basque country, mullets, dreadlock mullets, keyboards with the letter ç (it's never been easier to type "façade"), Ñs, hunnies, huññies, sunshine, rainbows, and peace. What more could we ask for? Stay tuned for photos.

Sin dooda

2010-07-19T23:47:00.003+02:00

There's nothing that could soften the blow of yesterday's heart-wrenching goodbye with Berlin quite like cerveza y sangria y tinto de verano, tapas y tostadas y jamon, gazpacho y chuletitas y patatas. The group of dreamy Spaniards who don't let us touch our wallets also add to the charm. I'm telling you, we're duty free.

Yes, Madrid has been an appropriate place to drown my sorrows, but my mind is still a muddled mess of Spanish and German and sometimes even Hebrew, when I get frustrated and confused enough that that old favorite (and only) sentence of mine, אני אוהבת שוקולד, works its way into my thoughts.

No matter, because tomorrow Sophie and I are off to Barcelona and then to San Sebastian, where no one will expect us to understand the respective regional dialects of Catalan und Basque. Wish us luck.

Doodbye Doodtschland

2010-07-18T23:12:00.001+02:00

I write from the airport, where Sophie just witnessed an almost-tearful goodbye between me and my neue Vater, complete with excessive over-the-shoulder glances as well as two-hand waves, and where we now wait in anticipation of our departure for Madrid. Things have been getting really sentimental lately. At first glance one might think we're all just in a dehydrated daze from the constant sweating, but no, it's really much more than that.

I will retain a handful of memories from the past few months as emblems of what life in this city has meant to me. For example, there was the time that we were sitting on the grass in Görlitzer Park, deep in conversation about Nazis, of course, when a man interrupted to gently proposition us: "Excuse me, does one of you girls have an hour or two for ze sex?" But not one of us did.

There was my recent final brunch with Hannah, during which we ate an entire platter of yummy German brunch food, like this one,

then proceeded to tear up and tell each other how proud we are of one another. This semester has been the first time in almost five years that she and I have lived in the same city for an extended period of time, and certainly the first time ever without our parents. It was almost like real life, and really great… most of the time.

There was my highschool hunny from the bakery who, and I report with a broken heart, I didn’t get to say goodbye to despite his last proclamation, “See you next time.” I’m pretty sure that now that school’s out for summer, he’s off doing deeds and earning points and learning to tie knots or whatever, on his way to becoming an Eagle Scout. Whatever. Like I even care. All he was good for was giving me discounts on overpriced hunks of dark German bread called Ostblock (ha-ha). How much bread was I supposed to consume to earn his love? It was never enough.

There was the last of Herr Professor Doktor’s lectures in “Vergangenheitsbewältigung,” during which I struggled to understand his summation of theories about post-1945 memory politics, catching the English phrase “crimes against humanity” here and there (what else is new?), while watching the kid in the next row disregard the lecture altogether and instead browse Google images for a sausage-themed photo before settling on a pornographic shot of a voluptuous blonde, mouth open wide, preparing to swallow two German wursts whole. Talk about crimes against humanity.

There was lots of wonderful time with friends, a lot of carbonated water, some homemade Weinschorle, a few new Berlin discoveries, a pair of heartwarming youtube videos about cross-species friendship… I always hoped to avoid quoting 10,000 Maniacs, but there's really no way around it. Wikipedia says the lyrics to "These are Days" are "essentially ruminations on the present," but as far as I'm concerned, when Natalie Merchant sang, "These are days you'll remember/Never before and never since, I promise/Will the whole world be warm as this..." she was reminiscing about her experience studying abroad in Berlin.

A little embarrassing. Anyway, though it hasn’t quite sunken in that I’m leaving for good, the past few days here have provided some closure for this Berlin chapter in the Duty Free book that is life. Certain motifs resurface and I can’t help but recognize meaning in them and be reminded of what I’ll soon return to-—like this homemade smoked salmon freshly sliced by a Norwegian in my Deutsch als Fremdsprache class

or a presentation in the same class about communal living (“gemeinschaftliches Wohnen”) projects similar to the BW family endeavor in Fort Green (ask about it).

But for now I’m sad to go. My neue Vater and I drank our last coffee together and he bestowed a few final tips about life to me, before storing my bike Ruby in the basement for my eventual but still very hazy return. Natalie Merchant was right: “And as you feel it,/You'll know it's true/That you are blessed and lucky/It's true that you/Are touched by something/That will grow and bloom in you...” So sappy but I don't even care.

Stay tuned for the next chapter, Spain, in which I will meditate on applying the tenets of a duty free lifestyle to everyday interactions while struggling with the issue of multiple language barriers. Or something. What I'm saying is, Berlin is over for now but the duty free adventure continues...

The final countdood

2010-07-12T13:13:00.003+02:00

In six days I will bid my final farewell, for now, to Berlin, as Sophie and I make our departure for the land of the Weltmeister. I have lots of feelings which, thanks Mommy!, I am fully prepared to discuss:

I feel LONELY. My neue Eltern are off tramping through their Dorf again and they left me here, alone, just like they did back at the end of March. My wonderful neue Vater is coming back on Saturday for our last hurrah coffee and dinner date, but a week of alone time in this giant apartment with creaky floors is really sad for me.

I feel HOT. It is HOT. I can't describe it without saying bad words or "balls," and considering the readership that would be inappropriate. It's probably not even that hot, but we were still wearing winter coats at the beginning of June, so excuuuse me but this feels really HOT.

I mean of course it can be fun to lounge around in my underwear and listen to 10,000 Maniacs loud on a loop, and drink wine and not wash dishes and play "Heart and Soul" and that Knuckle Song on the piano all while pretending I'm a successful German with a giant rent-controlled apartment and Kandinsky prints lining the walls. That's what gets me through the LONELY and HOT feelings.

But then you know what happens? The Tochter of my neue Eltern, the one who travels all the way from Munich to take baths in Berlin and not lock the door, who I resent for that awkward yet avoidable encounter, and also for being their real daughter, shows up unannounced with a group of cute German hunnies in tow. It was not my best moment. Maybe my sweatiest. I feel VIOLATED.

It's all okay, though, everything's okay, because I woke up to a package of smoked salmon in the fridge. I don't plan to eat it, it's not mine, but it's a sign. I'm being summoned back to New York.

Dr. Doodlittle

2010-07-10T12:06:00.001+02:00

Thanks for getting me through the tough times, friends!

By the grace of Dood,

2010-07-06T22:43:00.006+02:00

I passed an oral exam for which I was thoroughly and embarrassingly unprepared. With flying colors, even! It was for the Hauptmann und Mann lecture, and when Herr Professor handed me my Schein with my grade, I bolted out of there.

A student orchestra was practicing a really upbeat piece at the very moment that I finished this last academic obligation for the semester. Triumphant music cascaded from the open windows of Dorotheenstraße 24 as I made my exit. It was really grand. I biked a new route, through Spittelmarkt, which is totally weird, and past the Spittelmarkt Best Western (Daddy! Ben!).

I locked my bike in Hannah's Hof and yelled her name. Then I knocked on her door. She wasn't home. I decided to check her local haunts. Surprisingly, I didn't find her at the chicken place downstairs, but rather at Cafe Dilemma watching soccer with Chris. She gave me her key so that I could eat the leftover chicken she roasted last night. We drank beers. Yes, life is grand.

Doodapest Abenteuer

2010-07-04T23:18:00.005+02:00

This weekend Mariana and I ate Lángos, "some kind of deep fried dough with cheese and sour cream that is supposed to be good" according to Hannah, who read about it on Chowhound but didn't get to try while she and Chris were in Budapest this winter. Great tip, Han. It was good. Sooo good.

We also ate: pork rinds, stuffed cabbage on a bed of sauerkraut, 1 bacon-infused puff pastry, many other types of puff pastries, goulasch soup, crepes filled with meat, three slices of fancy cake, some sweet pastries, ice cream, and more savory pastries. Among other things. When I went for my second bowl of Goulasch soup today, Mariana got a salad. Boring!

We didn't get to eat liver, which Hannah recommended, or rooster balls, which Chris really liked (rooster balls--who knew?). But we did get to go to the Szechenyi baths, where we burned our feet on the tile floor and our butts on the wooden benches of the sauna, and where the sight of roly poly Hungarians prompted a resolution to start exercising regularly upon our return to Berlin.

Hannah reads aloud from her fdood journal

2010-07-02T01:53:00.006+02:00

A food journal isn't private like a regular journal is, so I think this is allowed.

Born in the Dood SA

2010-07-01T14:16:00.001+02:00

Yesterday I couldn't help but overhear this snippet of conversation as I walked by a coffee shop: "Yeah, well, I actually do know a lot of other Jews..." I chuckled to myself and continued on my way, until I heard what came next: "...'cause I'm a Jew, and I'm from New York..." I stopped dead in my tracks and turned towards the guy, arms open and gesturing wildly: "I'M a Jew, and I'M from New York!"

"Oh, really?" He said, surprised and slightly amused. Then I realized that the conversation I interrupted was likely about Jews being few and far between here in Berlin, and that my exclamation came at an un-ideal time as he proved his point to the blond German lady to whom he was talking, and that he was also probably flirting with her, and that I was standing, eyes wide, knees bent, arms waving, looking kinda nuts. So I said, "Yup, well, BYE!" And gave them the two-hand wave and scurried off.

Handcuffed dood History

2010-06-30T16:20:00.019+02:00

"Handcuffed to History" was the title of the writing assignment for our "Midnight's Children" unit in high school. It was so catchy and applicable that it's also been the title of, like, every paper I've written since then. In it's most recent incarnation, actually, it was something like "Mit Handschellen gefesselt zur Geschichte" or "Untrennbar mit der Geschichte verbunden" or "Unentwirrbar angeschlossen an Geschichte." I don't remember which one I settled on, and ugh, who really cares? None of those options are nearly as lovely as the original phrase. Good thing Salman Rushdie didn't write in German.

Speaking of high school, Charlotte visited for approximately 48 hours a few weekends ago. It was just like old times! We slept in my big bed together (my host mother is suspicious) and drank wine and lamented about the Big and Uncertain Future Ahead. Then we drank coffee and ate brunch and reminisced about the Dood Old Days. Also speaking of high school, Charlotte had the pleasure of meeting my uh boyfriend, that hunny who works in the bakery, who we are almost 100 percent certain is still in it. High school. Whatever.

High school, high school, ALSO speaking of high school, I got an email from Ben A who's in Israel and who seems to be in sort of the same crisis that Charlotte and I are in (see "Big and Uncertain Future Ahead" above). There are big things to ~~think about~~ start working on, like applications for things we don't know we want to apply to yet, and thesises whose topics are still undecided, and future and real life plans to figure out, but what are those things anyway? Is everyone in this same crisis, always? Oh but life is weird.

But then really what is real life if not this?, Leah says it's conically shaped and I believe her, but which end is the present looking forward and which end is the future-present looking back?, and, blah blah blah, give me a break doods, I've been writing about Nazis for weeks now! We're all a little handcuffed to history, what else can we be? And at the same time we're handcuffed to the future, much more than we are to the present, I think, but really blah blah blah. All I have to say is, when Mommy asked me to live with her forever--jokingly, maybe?--it made me hope I'm never actually that handcuffed to ANYTHING. xoxo Number One Mom, but no, never.

Dancing dood

2010-06-27T23:27:00.007+02:00

I have a big paper to write. For now, enjoy this video of a dancing dood in an enviable outfit.

Morning coffee tradoodtion

2010-06-25T23:17:00.006+02:00

On Tuesday my neue Vater returned from his ten day brocation on the North Sea. We missed each other so much we even hugged! (That is a big deal.) Then during our reinstated coffee hour he pulled out his camera and started snapping pictures of me in my breakfast spot. And a video: ~~my life in Berlin~~ mein Leben in Berlin.

Congradoodlations on fifth grade gradoodation

2010-06-24T11:33:00.001+02:00

Baby BW graduated yesterday! He was just a shmushy little baby with a saggy butt and a goopy eye when I made my own Abschluss from fifth grade ten years ago. But he's grown into such a hunny! Hopefully the next six or so years of his life won't be as painfully awkward for him as they were for me.

Baby BW, congradoodlations!

Happy fathers' dood!

2010-06-20T22:55:00.032+02:00

Dear Dad,

I'm sorry that when I was a baby I made you think that I liked Mommy better than you. A quick google search reveals that "fathers are likely to feel 'left out' of the deep, unexplained connection that most mothers experience with their babies," so, like, don't worry. And anyway I think we've come leaps and bounds since those days.

You are the best, the very best! You tell me when my blog posts border on inappropriate and when I should take them down. You lightly pressure me to think about my future while simultaneously reassuring me that I'll be okay! (What a balance! That's really helpful these days.) You are a wonderful cook! You are so cool!

You have the best taste in music. You are the most rational and reliable person I know! (Except for that once you lost track of time at the J.Crew outlet and we waited for you for hours and hours--that was a fluke, could happen to anyone.) You didn't say "No" when I recently asked for a hippopotamus, but rather acknowledged that we would need to widen the doorways. So accommodating!

So what if you don't love Abba? I can look past that. Like me, you like to watch "Dirty Dancing" on the TV Guide channel! And you love Karaoke! You are secretly really good at Hollywood trivia, and also at Hispanic pop star trivia! You have a flare for adventure! You take us on the best road trips!

I have long since forgiven you for not letting us stay at that cute little B&B in, uh, Vermont, was it?, in like, 1995 or whenever, even though Hannah and Mommy and I really really wanted to, because it smelled like pancakes and was basically a full-sized gingerbread house. "Please? Pleeeeease? Please can we stay here?" We pleaded. "No!" You snarled (at least that's how it's collectively remembered), "We're going to keep driving and find somewhere better!" By "somewhere better" you meant a matchbox room with wood-paneled walls in a Motel 6 that, now that I think of it, may well have been the set for the scene of the crime in, uh, every horror movie ever (and also maybe some real life crimes?).

Where was I? Oh, uh, I have long since forgiven you for that. Yeah, so over it, I guess. But for real, Dad, you are the best. Sometimes you make funny faces:

Other times, you just look pensive and cool:

You glow like an angel in the sunlight, and you bake bread in the sweltering summer heat:

You and Ben make a pretty cute pair:

A++, you are an all-star Dad, Dad!

Undoodage: A Retrdoodspective

2010-06-18T23:50:00.008+02:00

Last night I awoke in a panic from a dream about, what else, mortality. I lay awake for quite a while contemplating the meaning of life. Then--as if I weren't buggin' enough about this aging process! As if I needed to get even more sentimental!--while I showered someone practicing piano in an apartment nearby went from playing Moonlight Sonata to playing "Yesterday." I sat down in the tub and cried. (Uhh just kidding?) And when I came upon this supine fledgling this afternoon, I couldn't help but recognize myself in its tragic state.

Don't you see the resemblance?

But for real, guys, twenty-one has thrown me through a loop. While the day itself was pretty anticlimactic, I mean, besides the Brazil-North Korea soccer game, twenty-one as a concept is really difficult to grasp. When I try to imagine life as a twenty-one-year-old in the USA, my mind is blank. I am perplexed! Being underage has been a major theme in the past seven or so years. Allow me to reflect fondly on those bygone times:

...Wait, reflect on what? I've never even tasted alcohol before! As proof, watch this video of me drinking my first ever alcoholic beverage on Tuesday. It's true! See for yourself!

See? It's the truth.

Birthdood worms and woes

2010-06-14T23:41:00.006+02:00

I found a worm in my hair today. Well, I don't want to be dramatic--it wasn't exactly a worm, really more of a larva of sorts, maybe a baby caterpillar, a quarter-inchworm at best. And it wasn't IN my hair, per se, really just wriggling around on top of my bun, as though it was lightly brushed there by a low-hanging branch only moments before. I was briefly troubled by the worst-case scenario--a colony of caterpillar eggs embedded in my scalp, reaching maturation--but I have something more worrisome on my mind.

Yes, I've been preoccupied. Is it the pages of handwritten Dutch verse I'm trying to translate and incorporate into a final paper? (Ha-ha, get it, everyone? It's funny because I don't speak or read Dutch!) Or the BW family shield whose concept and motto I've been laboring over for weeks now? Maybe it's just that tired subject of missed friends and family. Or the one about how quickly time flies and those untouched Berlin-related to-do lists.

Is it having to reconcile my feelings about my ever nearer departure from Berlin, or planning the tramp across Spain with Sophie that will follow? The conversations about real life future things that Hannah always somehow engages me in? Or navigating the awkward situation since I opened the bathroom door while the daughter of my neue Eltern was in the tub? (Seriously, can you think of a moment of more self-imposed vulnerability than when you're laying in the bathtub? If she had just locked the door this could have all been avoided. Plus she doesn't even live with us, so I mean come on.)

No, I don't think any of those things are the problem these days. Something much more serious is weighing on my mind.

Oh wait. Did I say "on my mind"? Oh, no no no, I just meant "on my head"!

It's not a pube, doods, it's a gray hair. From my HEAD. How would I have time to worry about a tiny Wörmchen, or any of those other distractions, when there's this disaster to deal with? On the eve of my twenty-first birthday I'm clearly in crisis mode. TWENTY-ONE? I may as well be thirty.

Some preemptive doodstalgia too

2010-06-13T18:19:00.004+02:00

I got some concerned responses to my last post. But no, I didn't want your pity. Those were hardly legitimate complaints. Claire sent me an email telling me, essentially, to snap out of it, buck up, embrace my duty-freeness, and to live it up while I can. Too true, girlfriend.

So in trying to seize the dwindling days I have left here in Berlin (like sand in a hourglass, I tell you), I've started thinking about the things I will miss once I'm gone. It's not Carpe Diem either, but I think it's a positive start.

I will miss hardly being able to tell the difference between 10 PM and 4 AM:

And I will miss the quaintness of this basket of walnuts we keep in the pantry:

And I will miss having this most wonderful excuse not to shower:

And I will miss the dogs in the U-Bahn:

I'll miss having confused Germans mistake me for a Latina (it's like all my Boriqua fantasies are coming true!) And having a well-heated bathroom. And no dryer. And delicious bread. And the hunny who sells the delicious bread. And drinking lots of fizzy water. And living close to Hannah. And ah the simplicity of life.

Blah blah blah. See? Of course I miss home people and home dogs, but really things are great.

Feeling a little doodstalgic

2010-06-07T23:51:00.003+02:00

With only a month and a half more to go here, I find myself feeling a little bit homesick for the US. I know, it's so lame. You must be thinking, "But Lucy, what happened to Carpe Doodem?" I know, doods, I know. I'm all talk.

It seems like a lifetime ago that I donned my American flag windbreaker and traipsed across the Iowa plains singing "America the Beautiful." But reminders of that life that's worlds away have been rushing back to me lately. On Oranienburger Tor prostitutes stand outside trashy bars bumping "Empire State of Mind," and I, in my fragile condition, get all fehklempt at Jay-Z's references to Dominicanos on Broadway and melting pot and crack rocks.

And there was this, a scene from my Deutsch-Amerikanische Beziehungen class,

during which we listened to Herbert Grönemeyer's uh brilliant and synth-fueled critique on American Cold War-era foreign policy. (And of course a reference to Udo Lindenberg was made, to round out the lesson. It's not a proper class period if "Sonderzug nach Pankow" isn't mentioned.)

There are little things, too, that make me miss the States--like being directed to youtube videos only to be notified that "This video contains content from Sony Music Entertainment. It is no longer available in your country." And it seems everywhere I look I see the song of last semester, which, in its familiarity and its lyrics, reminds me so much of newspaper and all-nighters and friends and family and all those important things that are so far away.

As Claire, curled up on the couch at 1010 High St with Augustus and Brooke and Nick and "The Joy of Cooking," documents her settling-in process, I try to comfort myself about missing out on making our home together:

But it turns out that "Das große Handbuch der guten Küche" is not that comforting after all.

Ducksomething with pistachios?

Whiting in aspic? BWs are generally experimental, gastronomically speaking. Maybe I'm just feeling bitter these days, but all I have to say is SICK.

[Doo]D-Day

2010-06-06T15:06:00.014+02:00

On this fine June afternoon Hannah and I sit outside at a cafe contemplating the largest amphibious invasion of all time. No, just kidding, we're talking about jumpsuits and people-watching.

The weather's improved and the Germans are out in full force. There's an overabundance of mustard pants--linen, corduroy, you name it--frequently mismatched with tangerine tee shirts or patterned short-sleeved button downs.

I wouldn't want Daddy to think that those years of bringing home fat "For Office Use Only" issues of InStyle were for naught. Mustard? Really? Sooo summer 2007.

Triumph und Tragdöödie

2010-06-02T22:00:00.009+02:00

Last night I joined my neue Eltern in watching "Die Kennedys - Triumph und Tragödie," part two, in which JFK dies, MLK dies, RFK dies, Obama is elected, and Teddy dies. Needless to say, my eyes welled up frequently.

Berlin is still buzzing from a recent triumph of its own--Lena Meyer-Landrut of Hannover won first place for Germany in the Eurovision Song Contest 2010! This is, you know, one of those crazy European things I don't really get, but it's kind of a big deal. There are groups of adolescent girls all over this city chanting, "I bought new underwear, they're blue/And I wore 'em just the other day" and "I even painted my toe nails for you/I did it just the other day" and "Whether you are sweet or cruel/I'm gonna love you either way." So triumph or tragedy? Difficult to say.

It has to be a triumph, though, because there's already a big tragedy to deal with. On Monday night I came home to a somber household. My neue Eltern were watching the news in the dark living room and they hardly acknowledged my cheery greeting. "Have you heard what's happened in this country?" my host father asked me. He was, of course, talking about the president's resignation that day, a development which continues to dominate the news. But let's be real--read any BBC article, or the Wikipedia page for "President of Germany," and you'll know that the president's role is "largely ceremonial." So is this a tragedy? Not really. Give me a break, though, I've got a theme going.

I have some triumphs and tragedies of my own, you know. Triumph: the Euro has been hovering around 1.22 dollars, even dipping to 1.2155 yesterday. Now, I'm certainly no economist, but I think I'm supposed to like this. Tragedy: it turns out I have some real things to do, and I've really been neglecting them. I won't go so far as to say I'm not duty free--I am, as we all can be, more on this topic to come (yeah, what's up Diddy, who's inspirational now?)--but I do have some Big School Things coming up.

I've tried to get into the right mindset to get work done, Mommy and Daddy, I really have. I should have taken it as a warning sign last week when Herr Professor Doktor quoted neither Gerhart Hauptmann nor Thomas Mann, but rather Udo Lindenberg. It's difficult when I show up for his intimidatingly German lecture resolved to learn something about "Der Ketzer von Soana" or "Bahnwärter Thiel" (yeah doods, I don't even know) for my upcoming oral exam, only to realize he intends to project videos of Hansi Hinterseer (click it! There's yodeling!), A-ha!, waterfalls and Italian mountainsides for 90 minutes. Triumph? Tragedy? Triumph? Tragedy? No one can be sure.

Doodn't want to be all by myself

2010-05-30T16:00:00.008+02:00

My neue Eltern have forsaken me for the Dorf again. Besides the one night this week that we ate dinner together and watched part one of "Die Kennedys - Triumph und Tragödie" (which is worth viewing if only for the totally homoerotic reenactments) I've hardly seen them at all. Hannah and I were involved in a bit of a stand-off after her return from Istanbul. And with everyone feeling a little antsy and frustrated at this point in the semester (or am I projecting?), I was on my own for a while.

Uhhh alone time--you must know it's never really been my cup of tea. But there's been a lot of it lately, and it's been mostly okay. I take long walks in my neighborhood to places I've never been before, and wander aimlessly, too. I've been reading about Aileen Wuornos and watching Natalie Merchant music videos. I've taken to the popular German crime show "Tatort," which some compare to "Law and Order," but if the intro is any indicator, it's really more like a hilARiously bad 1970's crime drama.

And all this time away from my regular sustenance providers has required that I take initiative in feeding myself. I've been grocery shopping. Oh wait, no I haven't. It's either like this: realize the only food I have is prunes and expired eggs, make a comprehensive mental grocery list, walk into the horrible grocery store, hear crying babies, pick through broken eggs, can't find canned tomatoes, forget everything on mental list, buy bananas and bell peppers. Or like this: walk into the horrible grocery store, become overwhelmed by a sudden, desperate need to pee, leave. Either way, then I get home and cook expired eggs for dinner.

Sometimes it's difficult to know whether my meals really taste good, or if they just taste like success. Not this one. This one was neither. Sick. So gross. Obviously I was just going for a rainbow. I don't think I'll be able to eat bell peppers for a while.

The alone time was getting kind of old. I bought five euros worth of bread from the cute boy at the bakery just because I wanted to talk to someone. (Just kidding, obviously I bought it because he was SUCH A HUNNY). It was not sustainable. But it's all okay now. After a little parental prodding, Hannah and I are happy to be sisters again. She makes lavender mojitos and we sit around ~~laughing about how in one year I'll probably have to move back in with my parents because I have no marketable skills~~ discussing my future. What's not to love?

Forget Stdoodttgart for now

2010-05-24T22:00:00.004+02:00

See, the thing is, I've been feeling funny. It could be the documentary about conspiracy theories I've been watching in ten minute segments over the past few days. Ten minutes is all I can handle because, well, that stuff's so silly--except that the moon landing was a hoax. I'd believe that. Or it could be all these articles I've been reading about the heroin epidemic plaguing American teenagers--what?! It could be the leftovers from the weird tofu dish I made a couple days ago--totally not blog-worthy. It could be this sick Berlin weather:

It could be the pains in my lower back reminding me that I am nearing the sunset of my twentieth year, nay, of my youth. It could be that I missed my '10 friends' graduation today, or that, this will sound lame if you don't understand, I miss Iowa. Time is flying, doods, but in a really weird way. Is it already the end of May? Or is it only the end of May? I'm confused. I feel funny.

But there's nothing like rainbows to brighten a blog post! Luckily I've been saving up for a rainy day such as this one. Here are three!:

We just want to be doodgether, part dood (or "Duty Free, Stdoodttgart edoodtion") I dood what I want

2010-05-22T22:22:00.003+02:00

Okay okay, oh my gosh. I've really been struggling these last few days to find the words to describe our trip to Stuttgart. I'm worried that my long silence has caused readership interest to wane, and I'm overwhelmed because I know I'm going to have to make a bomb-ass promotional video to win it back. So the pressure has really been looming. Over the past few days I've been working hard to find the right song for said video, to perfect my iMovie technique, and to expand my collection of video clips (which, oh my god, now includes a trio of German boys singing "Super Trouper," so, whoa, I couldn't ask for more).

But my involvement in this new project means that I've really been neglecting the Stuttgart saga--it's been over a week now and I'm worried it's going stale. Stuttgart--what a time! Where should I begin? Luckily, those awkwardly translated episode titles (z.B. "Then they thought of Frederick," "The dead are not always dead", "Someone was supposed to say the magic word") from "Deutsch - warum nicht?" will really lend themselves to my narrative, I think, and help me describe the adventure.

Oh, wait, but not now. The words still aren't coming. It's all still marinating. Speaking of marinating, Hannah and Chris have been gone for a week and I've been left to my own cooking devices. But it's for the best--she took a break from gallivanting around Istanbul or lounging in a night club, or whatever, to report:

"I am not sure whether you would like it here or not. Today I ate cornbread with anchovies, spinach and onion in it (I can see the face you're making) and I've gotten sort of into marzipan."

Ugh, anchovies and marzipan? I'm totally better off on my own:

We just want to be doodgether

2010-05-17T22:52:00.003+02:00

While making room on my hard drive for the many Megabytes of video clips that will be incorporated into a promotional Doody Blog trailer set to premiere at some future point--stay tuned--I came across some podcasts from a series called "Deutsch - warum nicht?" I downloaded them sometime last semester while I was still in beautiful Iowa, when Berlin seemed worlds away and I was content to sit alone in my single, watercoloring and listening to slow German dialogues instead of doing homework. Oh, but how that was ages ago.

Anyway, don't let me get all nostalgic--the point is, these podcasts have very silly titles. Take Chapter 9, for example: "Bananas for me!" Or confrontational Chapter 10, "You always want to know everything." Chapter 15 is "A man by the name of Mack the Knife," Chapter 19 is "How do you speak to an emperor?" and Chapter 25, "Can you give me some more hand towels?" Someone over at Deutsche Welle really knows how to get to the point.

Which I clearly don't. The real point is, in the wake of this recent trip to Stuttgart, I found particular poignancy in some of the episode titles: Chapter 5, "A bus can't be charming!" Chapter 26: "The trip to the Loreley is wonderful." And from series 3, Chapter 26: "We just want to be together." But there's no time to blog right now, this will have to be a two-part post. For now, if you need something to do, I recommend you "join Andreas and his mysterious ex on their exciting adventures"--Deutsch - warum nicht?

Dooderraschung!

2010-05-12T17:00:00.001+02:00

May 13th is Himmelfahrt--ha ha, isn't that a funny German word? Well, don't let Jesus hear you laughing on his way up to Heaven tomorrow. That's right, it's Ascension. Wikipedia can explain it better--you know how I feel about the New Testament.

For me, Himmelfahrt means a long weekend. Time to get out of Berlin, see the world, experience a new kultur. Last week we sprang for forty euro roundtrip tickets--a pretty good deal. Um, but there's a catch when booking this sort of flight, which we fondly refer to as an "Überraschung flight": it's blind booking, so you don't find out your destination until after you've paid.

Oh and there's another catch--if you wait to book your tickets until only a few days before you travel, all the surprise flights out of Berlin might be full. In this case, you might convince yourself and your friends to ditch the idea and make a different vacation plan altogether. That would make sense. But, no, that might be too sensible a solution--it sounds like something your father might suggest. No, who wants to be sensible when you can be ~~completely insensible~~ spontaneous?

So, naturally, we decided to book an Überraschung flight out of Hannover--which, as it turns out, is not quite as closely situated to Berlin as we may have thought. We were hoping to be pleasantly überrasched with tickets to an exotic and new metropolis--Istanbul, Lisbon, Dubrovnik?

In two and a half hours, Taryn, Leah and I will board a bus bound for Hannover. After the three hour journey, we will meet Mariana (smart girl has a train pass) and, uh, find something to do around the train station (Dad, you're loving this I'm sure) until 4:30 AM, when we will make our way to the airport for our 6:45 AM Überraschung flight to a booming and outlandish destination....

Stuttgart Himmelfahrt 2010, baby!

...uh

The doubledood curve

2010-05-11T23:31:00.004+02:00

I've clearly been suffering from a bad case of Blogger's Block--this update is long overdood. It's just, I've been riding the W curve, as Claire would say, though I'm pretty sure this is just a silly study abroad way of saying that we all have our ups and downs. (I hate to burst Claire's bubble, but now that she's as finished with her semester in France as I am with my midterms, I'm not afraid to tell her what's up.)

For a while I was feeling like this:

The first of May brought Nazis and rioters and loud metal music to the streets--and none of those are really my thing. It was stressful and made me feel a little funny about this city. Hannah and I have been doing some research into our family history, and while we've come up with some surprising and hopeful information about surviving relatives, it's still a difficult and emotional task. And of course there's been one very serious issue weighing on my mind: the impending launch of "Diddy Blog" and its implications for the future of "Duty Free"--perhaps soon to be renamed, as per Claire's suggestion, "Doody Blog." A recent visit to diddyblogdotcom prompted this warning:

An attack site? I don't know if typed the URL in wrong, but even so, it's difficult not to feel as though I'm being directly threatened by Diddy himself.

So, as you can understand, I've been greatly preoccupied by many things. But then we went to Lutherstadt-Wittenberg, where in 1517 Martin Luther nailed his 95 or so Theses to a door, and where just this past weekend I picked up a flyer for an Abba revival tour.

Loyal readers will recall my March 13th divulgence of the fact that I listen to "Abba Gold" when I need to wallow and mope. But seeing such a familiar symbol in as unexpected a place as Lutherstadt-Wittenberg was actually quite comforting.

Don't you think?

In dood company

2010-05-06T21:04:00.007+02:00

P. Diddy is really upping the ante for bloggers all over with the um trailer for his new blog that he tweets will be "the most positive inspirational BLOG in THE WORLD!!!!"

www.diddyblog.com from Diddy Blog on Vimeo.

Man--I surely can't compete.

Happy [belated] Cinco dood Mayo

2010-05-06T11:13:00.013+02:00

Uhhhh tequila, uhhh Gilbert's.

Those who know me well must be familiar with my high bilirubin levels and consequential difficulties processing alcohol.

It's 'cause I was a Jaundice baby, guys. I can't help it.

How can I tell dood...

2010-05-01T12:12:00.000+02:00

But I can't think of right words to say? I'm no lyricist, so a photo dump a la my Bekannte Maxwell is the most doodable alternative to a song.

Zweimal rainbows bitte:

What could these doods be discussing?

This elicits some discomfort for me:

This couple was really going at it. This isn't an invasion
of privacy because they're totally humping in public:

Ehhhh you know?:

The luscious Weg to the U-Bahn:

Hannah's excellent dumps (really quite delish):

Playing American drinking games at an international party. Classy stuff:

Walpurgisnacht in Mauerpark:

I call this one "The Hippie and the Polizei":

A culinary doodyssey

2010-04-29T12:23:00.000+02:00

One doesn't become Deb, or more relevantly, Hannah BW, overnight--believe me, I've been trying for the latter for many years now. Common sense in the kitchen is a skill that I clearly lack. Why did I think a giant pot of chili and 500 grams of pasta was an appropriate amount of food for myself?

But it turned out to be for the better, because I brought my leftovers to Hannah's house on Monday, and we did this:

And do you know what she said? "Yum, Lucy." !!! And now everything is changing--it's finally happening to me! What's happening, you ask? Listen:

I thought Tuesday was going to be a pretty normal day--it began like any other, with Nazi propaganda. Nothing new these days. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary during "Vergangenheitsbewältigung," either--I spent the full ninety minutes pondering the likelihood and logistics of Herr Professor Doktor's affair with the TA. To be expected, right?

But I started to get hungry in "Hauptmann und Mann." While Herr Professor Doktor (yeah, they're all called that) lectured about Hauptmann's faulty rhyme schemes, I considered my dinner options. And I realized that I didn't want Falafel, or Döner, or some other street food--I wanted to cook. I wanted to cook! To be specific, I wanted to cook the eggs poached in tomato sauce that Hannah's been raving about, with a side of refried beans.

So I cooked! Don't you see? It's happening! The ultimate BW rite of passage--more noteworthy than puberty! I'm taking an interest in cooking! All because of Hannah's small words of praise. Now who needs common sense when you can have passion? Certainly not me!

Dooding big things (or "The fdood blog prevails")

2010-04-26T22:49:00.010+02:00

Since my neue Eltern got back from their vacation a few weeks ago, I haven't been doing very much cooking. Which is fine by me--I struggled very much to sustain myself in their absence, so now that they're back I am evermore grateful for their tasty gratins.

But on Friday they had plans to go out, and they were concerned that I wouldn't have anything to eat. "No, no, no," I told them, "I'll figure it out." They looked at me skeptically, maybe because a recent sequence of moldy-food-in-fridge incidents had blown my cover and made it clear to them that I'm really quite clueless around the kitchen.

So I went shopping and I cooked myself lentils. The next morning my host father thought he might be at the onset of Alzheimer's because the kitchen looked slightly different than he had left it--a more reasonable explanation, to him, than the possibility that I had been using it. Needless to say, my neue Eltern were indeed shocked when I told them that I had cooked.

Imagine their surprise, then, to learn that I cooked again the following night! That's right--I, Lucy "Can I stir the rice?" BW, am becoming a gastronome in my own right. Check me out:

What's that you say? Is that vegetarian chili?, you ask? Oh, well, yes, in fact, it is.

Addoodndum

2010-04-24T20:44:00.004+02:00

Certainly you've been wondering how the old people dancing in Treptow from a few posts back stack up to my own abilities on the dance floor, which I touched upon back in March. Now seems like a good opportunity to address this important question, on the eve of our return to Treptow in hopes of joining the party. So here is a quick recap and subsequent analysis:

I harbor dreams of being as skilled and confident on the dance floor as the round-bellied man in blue, and fears of being as creepy as the man in the beige linen ensemble who alienates all neighboring dancers (though I do admire his expressiveness). But I think it is obvious that, for better or for worse, my place is with neither of these men but rather with the fist-throwing, booty-shaking Typ with the long gray hair. We have a connection--and it's not just the hair.

Carpe doodem?

2010-04-22T13:09:00.008+02:00

Blahblahblah, Berlin, blahblahblah, great time, blahblahblah, loving life. Wie immer. This blog isn't called "Duty Free" for nothing. But I'm starting to feel a little antsy about having so little to be antsy about, you know? So to make myself more/less comfortable, I pretend that I have Very Important Things to be doing, and I make to-do lists (-get school supplies. -get yogurt. -send emails. -send postcards. -get prunes--they're really a very tasty snack, by the way.), and I let the items on my to-do lists accumulate so that I constantly feel overwhelmed by all the very urgent/completely trivial lingering tasks. I feel much better and simultaneously much worse this way.

Otherwise, I am really all about seizing the day. Yesterday I was craving pudding, and I got it! A four-pack for sixty-nine cents. Because you only live once. I preregistered for next semester, and do you know what I signed up for? Aerobics, Conditioning, and Beginner's Yoga--ugh, and Statistics. I don't know, in the moment it's what I wanted.

Well let's be real here--my examples of seizing the day are pretty lame. I guess I'm not really all about Carpe diem. But I would like to find a balance in my struggle between needing to feel bogged down by unanswered obligations and wanting to be truly duty free.

How do I plan to do this? Well, first of all, I think I have to stop listening to so much Dusty Springfield. "Wishin' and Hopin'?" "I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself?" "Give Me Time?" These songs are not good ones to incite proactivity. But the dramatic instrumentals are too good! No, Dusty will have to stay. I think I just have to try to keep my options open. Perhaps I will respond to this email I recently received:

Subject: Dearest
Hello
My name is Hassana,after reading your profile,i will like to have a relationship with you, can you write me at(hassamadee@aim.com)
we can start from there, also i will send you my picture,Miss Hassana Deerow.A good looking baby?

She seems to offer a promising opportunity. Hm, but, no, "A good looking baby?" That's a whole other kind of doody I'm certainly not ready for.

I will start small--maybe next time Felix number two invites me to a party at "a place right before the powerplant 'kraftwerk klingenberg'" I will accept, instead of envisioning a warehouse kidnapping scenario and staying in bed.

Mercury might be in retrdoodgrade...

2010-04-21T18:54:00.005+02:00

But things are still going pretty swimmingly. Today was the first session of my weekly four-hour Grammar class at the university, and it was surprisingly pleasant. Teacher-lady is a BABE. I am the only American, which, strangely, makes me feel very exotic. To top it off, there were rainbows all over the classroom!

On Monday I biked to school without getting lost or hurt--an unexpected and delightful feat. Fahrrad zu fahren is liberating and makes me feel very European--and I didn't eat it on the tram lines either! This city is very disorienting, full of diagonals and circles and Plätze, and it really doesn't make much sense to me, but I somehow got to class with time to spare. I'm sharpening my directional instincts and even starting to get a handle on which way is North (turns out moss will actually grow on any side of a tree it pleases--thanks for nothing, Audubon Camp).

Yesterday I attended "Gerhart Hauptmann und Thomas Mann," a boring-sounding lecture class instructed by a man whose name is preceded by the menacing title "Herr Professor Doktor." But it wasn't boring after all, and Herr Professor Doktor was just a big softy who, during the break, asked if I was from Spain (what is that about?) and patted me gently on the shoulder. I am, of course, adding this interaction to my short list of "Germans willingly and affectionately touching me."

Naturally, there are some speed bumps along this otherwise splendid path. For instance, Hannah eagerly wielding a sharp knife:

And I almost had a panic attack yesterday during a class called "Vergangenheitsbewältigung" when I found myself sitting in the middle of the row, surrounded by hundreds of German university students, no way out because of those damn lecture hall desks, watching Youtube clips of the Buchenwald liberation and a Re-Education video called "Death Mills." Whoa--heavy scene.

180˚ (Hundoodachtzig Grad)

2010-04-19T12:37:00.007+02:00

The weather has been beautiful, and thus condoodcive to fun- and adventure-filled days. Take yesterday, zum Beispiel. Taryn and I explored our neighbordood--we sat in a park, walked through a cemetery, contemplated the local sex club,

and drank coffee served by a man who talked about Michael Douglas and "Falling Down" and something about Spanish people in the Bronx--we think he was trying to ask if I was Puerto Rican! A great start to a great day.

Then Leah and I met up at Görlitzer Park and decided to bike to Treptow, expecting the usual heavy Soviet atmosphere. As we biked past the Grieving Mother Russia nothing seemed out of the ordinary, so we continued up the river and were just turning our bikes around when--what's that?--we heard music coming from just a little farther. Should we? Do we dare? We deliberated briefly and decided to check it out.

And boy, were we glad we did. We came upon just about the last thing we were expecting to find in Treptow, former district of the DDR. Yes, upriver from an abandoned amusement park that "was the only constant entertainment park in the GDR," according to Wikipedia; downriver from an indoor flea market where one can eat "the freshest falafel balls," according to Hannah, while perusing tables exploding with broken first generation gameboys, not to mention a vendor dealing exclusively in used remote controls; Southeast of the colossal and dare I say dated monument to bygone Soviet greatness, marking the grave of 5,000 Soviet soldiers, we saw a most unexpected sight.

You guessed it! A Biergarten-turned-Diskothek full of old drunk Germans dancing in their Sunday best!

Fdood-blogging my sorrows away

2010-04-17T18:28:00.000+02:00

Claire's visit was wonderful and also quite convenient for my new fdood-blogging hobby. It seems like every moment was a gastronomical adventure! Now I find myself traumatized by her recent departure, and all I am able to do to offset the pain is provide bland descriptions of things eaten in the past four or so days.

On Wednesday night Chris invited us over for some tofu curry--Hannah had been in New York for a few days and apparently he was getting so lonely that he even wanted to hang out with me, his least favorite person. Or he knew I'd bring beer. Whatever. The curry was a joint effort and turned out pretty well, although we were unsure as to whether the tofu should have gone in before or after the coconut milk. Hannah?

Claire ate the rest of my flat, dense, dry, old banana bread and lauded it with the occasional compliment. She doesn't even like bananas! That is a good friend.

On Thursday we filled the week's fried chicken quota.

The next day was the usual, a gözleme at the Turkish Market (Spinat mit Käse for me, Kartoffeln puree for Claire), and then a falafel on Adalbertstraße, which was a little unnecessary. But the french fries were excellent.

Hannah made delicious pasta and artichoke hearts for dinner. Claire ventured alone into the Baklavalari downstairs and, in spite of the language barrier, succeeded in purchasing delicious treats for us while I waited outside with our Unterwegs biers.

But now Claire is gone and I am going on a liquid diet--and I don't mean my usual liquid diet of wheat beer and tequila. Uhhh just kidding, Mom.

It's a dood life

2010-04-15T09:32:00.003+02:00

Claire is here, and Hannah's back from New York, and we are going to eat so much fried chicken in a few minutes! Things really couldn't be better. Best friend! Sister! Chicken! What more could a girl want?

Real life things started this week, but, like, whatever. I admit that I am stressin' a little bit about registering for classes here--it's intimidating--and about preregistering for next semester. But to be honest, the most nagging source of stress right now is the knowledge that I have many months of blogging ahead of me and the worry that I am running out of doodable titles.

Online dooding, for real now

2010-04-13T11:41:00.007+02:00

Leah has been busy picking up American boys at flea markets and German men at bars and doesn't even bother to mask these courtships by calling them Tandempartners--that hussy! So it must have been out of pity that the other day she sent me a link to a Jewish dating site based in Germany. I don't think she was really suggesting I sign up, but I can't be certain. But for the record, readers, a search for "Lucy BW" will not be turning up results anytime soon. Unless there's another Lucy BW on there. Which, now that I think about it, is quite possible I guess.

But no, that's not for me. I'm too busy trying to figure out Real German Things for that sort of ballyhoo. For example, why was there no baking soda for my banana bread? This is Berlin, not Ancient Egypt--leavened bread is sort of in these days. And why is the only measuring cup in this house the Most Confusing Measuring Cup In The World? Sub-question: how does the metric system work? Also, can we call rabbit "the other other white meat?" And why did I eat potatoes and hard boiled eggs in mustard sauce for dinner?

No, I am very busy, very very busy, particularly with the transformation of Duty Free into a fdood blog in its own right (how do you like me now, hannahbw.com?) I have a refrigerator full of black beans that I fear will have the same fate as Hannah's chickpeas, so I make myself lovely lunches

of eggs and rice and beans. I have half a loaf of flat, dense banana bread that my host parents keep saying they'll probieren, but they must be very skeptical because they haven't touched it yet.

Weellll, that's about all I've got for fdood-blogging. Not my thing, I guess. Hannah wins again.

Things come doodgether

2010-04-11T22:12:00.003+02:00

Today I was running out the door, a week's worth of trash bags in hand, when my neue Eltern came huffing and puffing up the stairs with all of their vacation supplies. We had a hurried interaction during which they spoke to me auf Deutsch and I stared blankly back, too horrified that my hands full of garbage would reveal my eleventh hour cleaning attempt to put any effort into understanding what they were saying. They noticed my bewilderment and asked whether I had been speaking only English for the past two weeks, to which I answered, "Ja, natürlich," and, flustered, bolted out the door.

Besides a brief conversation we had when they Skyped me from the Dorf last week, my neue Eltern and I have had no contact since they left. It's been difficult. They hugged me goodbye (uhh yeah it's a big deal) and were gone, leaving me to fend for myself. They return just as I begin to get accustomed to my indoodpendent life here--allow me to reflect on the past two weeks without them.

At first I mostly ate meals like this:

But then I bought myself a bag of pasta, which lasted many meals. And of course Hannah was usually around to feed me curry or bread salad or polenta. I learned how to multi-task, sort of, in that I figured out that to make the long trek down the hallway from my room to the kitchen and bathroom only once I would need to let my coffee brew while I showered and then eat my breakfast in a towel.

Slowly but surely I've been figuring more things out. Okay, so I spilled boiling water and coffee grinds all over the kitchen--it only happened once. Yeah, I kept a head of lettuce so long little black bugs started living in it--they have to live somewhere! All right, Hannah's chickpeas stayed in the fridge a little too long and started bubbling ominously in their airtight container--what do you want from me?

But yesterday really represented a turning point in this Bildungsroman. I cooked black beans and rice and banana bread, and friends came over and ate!

Well, the beans could have soaked for longer. And it was 22:30 by the time I started dishing them out. Also, there was no baking soda to make the banana bread rise. And every time the doorbell rang I had to run out of the apartment and down the stairs because I haven't figured out where the buzzer is. But for the most part I am fast becoming a pro in the kitchen. Don't I look it?

"Doodited States of Melting Pot"

2010-04-09T22:01:00.007+02:00

I woke up yesterday morning to Leah in my bed and also to this email, sent from her Blackberry sometime the night before: "Just a reminder: you said 'united states of melting pot.'" Sneaky.

It had been the Goethe Institut Stammtisch, which also happened to be the eve of Ashley's 21st birthday. What better reasons to celebrate?! We started the party at a Spätkauf-turned-bar of sorts--no no, please don't misunderstand, a Spätkauf is not a bar, it is a convenience store. And a Spätkauf-turned-bar is just a convenience store that we stand inside of drinking our beers until the clerk brings over a bowl of peanuts. It was an unusual and friendly gesture.

Then we moved on to the Stammtisch, where I spoke for a while with Fhaudel from Algeria, covering diverse topics such as the Israel-Palestine conflict (consider it solved), Jewishness (a favorite subject of mine), the similarities between Hebrew and Arabic (neither of which I speak), etc. He was very adamant that I should be able to speak Hebrew, so I charmed him with my one line: אני אוהבת שוקולד.

I quickly became indignant when Fhaudel said that I don't look like a typical American. That's when I started sputtering, gesticulating wildly and roaring, "WHAT do you MEAN? There's no such THING as a 'typical American'! We're a MELTING pot! The UNITED STATES of MELTING POT!" Perhaps it was a little over the top, and also perhaps it didn't make any sense, but "not a typical American" is a reaction I've been surprised to get pretty frequently here. Fine, last weekend when I wore my Indian-printed, pony-bead-tasseled, Goodwill-purchased, favorite-shirt-in-the-world shirt

to a bar, I should have realized I would be inviting questions. ("Excuse me, can I ask you a question? My friend and I made a bet--are you from Peru?") Yes, that wonderful shirt may have confused the Germans. But other than that, I think it shouldn't be so impossible to believe I'm Amurrican. Our great nation is beautiful and diverse, and our people cannot be so easily categdoodrized--which indooditably makes the stuffy Germans uncomfortable.

Stdoody abroad... not

2010-04-06T22:56:00.000+02:00

Spring break is wrapping up. Break from what, you ask? Well well well, what a good question. I've been here for almost two months now and classes only just started today. Of course there was the three week intensive grammar course, but that was really more like a three week intensive course in German pop music.

So what, then, have I been doing, exactly?

Really, the past few weeks have been nothing short of an in-depth study of Berlin's food and drink scene. Leah and I discovered a great brunch buffet with an expansive spread for 3,90 €. We went twice in three days. I drink dainty cappuccinos and large wheat beers. I eat Wienerschnitzel and Schweineschnitzel and pasta with squid in fancy restaurants! I spend my days moving from cafe to cafe to falafel joint.

I am not leading a sustainable lifestyle, economically or nutritionally. But the fun's over now anyway--I had class at 8 AM this morning. Serious business. Sort of. We still listened to German songs and talked about feelings. But Leah and I celebrated our new role as penniless students by sharing a tupperware container of cold leftover spaghetti on a park bench.

Exdoodus (from Egypt, remember?)

2010-04-04T18:48:00.002+02:00

Speaking of bunnies, before they left me all on my lonesome my host parents gave me this wonderful Easter basket full of chocolates,

perhaps to help me drown my sorrows in their absence. And they invited Hannah and me for Kaffee und Kuchen, a lovely time, much of which was spent describing Passover customs and fondly recalling Pesachs of the past. I had previously tried to describe the meaning of Passover to them--the salt water for tears and the bitter herbs for suffering were easy--but I got stuck at Elijah, "der Mann, der kommt und man kann ihn nicht sehen aber er trinkt und er isst..." Who is that guy anyway?

Anyway, I was really looking forward to using this "Exdoodus" title in a post where I could give a full description of the Seder Hannah and I hosted. Passover in Germany could've been kind of a big deal. But now I have to admit it--we didn't end up doing anything at all. Well, we had fried chicken on Friday night, you know, like, for Shabbat. But no brisket, no bellies bloated with Manishevitz. It turns out that there aren't very many places to buy matzoh and gefilte fish here. Where's the Jewish presence in this freakin' country?

...Too soon?

But! Worry not my dear, probably Jewish (let's be real), reader! I am still proud to represent the Jewish people. Take, for example, this photo from just last night of the contents of my purse. It is full of restaurant bread (give me a break, I have to feed myself for two weeks). As Leah's sister Cora (happy birthday!) put it, "It's the most Jewish thing I've seen all day."

Dood Friday

2010-04-02T13:09:00.000+02:00

Leah hasn't seen the East German film "Das Kaninchen bin ich." She went shopping for groceries. We were going to have chicken for dinner. But it looked a little funny in the pan. A strange cut, maybe? But really, it looked very strange. That's when she pulled the old google search and learned that "Kaninchen," printed on the package sticker, means neither "chicken breast" nor "chicken thigh," but rather "rabbit."

But at least it tasted like chicken, sort of.

Alone, doodgether

2010-04-01T13:42:00.003+02:00

This morning as I was walking home from Leah's, where I slept after a long night of clubbing (I don't want to talk about it), I stopped at the Turkish Market and bought three avocados for a euro, and almost some pineapple too, not because I wanted it but because the vendor was calling out, "Ananas, so weich wie mein Herz!"--"Pineapple, as soft as my heart." So hard to turn away!

But then I reminded myself of my quest to live and shop for groceries like a real person, and decided that a pineapple would really be more of a hindrance at this point. The dishes are stacking up in the sink. That head of lettuce, untouched, is wilting in the refrigerator. On Tuesday I bought a kilo (that's 2.2 pounds, America) of bananas, of which I've only just now eaten one while the rest quickly turn black. I also bought three grapefruits, all of which are still sitting on the kitchen table. I'm glad I didn't buy six kiwis for a euro, or three mangoes for a euro, as difficult as the temptation was to quash, because, well, then I would have six kiwis and three mangoes (and I would certainly not be doody free, if you know what I mean).

But, really, things are great! Hannah made yummy curry for dinner last night. Peter is visiting from Oxford. That rainbow car lives in my neighborhood so I get to see it practically everyday,

and rainbow things in general are everywhere if you just keep your eyes peeled,

so that's always uplifting. Plus, my game is really improving. I've begun to embrace my awkward young Amerikanerin-ness, and, as it turns out, "We can be Tandempartners!" is quite a successful pick-up line. I'm collecting them left and right! Wait, but I really do just mean Tandempartners.

... Sort of... ;-)

Experiment in indoodpendent living

2010-03-30T12:05:00.000+02:00

That's sort of what this whole thing was supposed to be about, you know? But as it turns out, the lovely people with whom I live (my neue Eltern) have taken me under their wing and so I really haven't been doing much independent living at all. Which I've been more than fine with--in fact, it's been so wonderful. But they left Berlin yesterday to spend two weeks in the Dorf and I'm suddenly on my own.

Of course my first course of action was to go grocery shopping. What did I buy? A head of lettuce, some yogurt, eggs. Because those are things real people buy. This morning I made myself coffee for the first time since I got to Germany. It was a little weak.

But I think I'm getting the hang of it! Look, Mom! I've almost learned to feed myself breakfast--already!

Too dood to be true

2010-03-28T22:48:00.000+02:00

RAINBOW COLOR! MY FAVORITE COLOR!

Shake your dood thang

2010-03-28T09:07:00.000+02:00

Last night I made a gross/groß miscalculation and wore snakeskin on plaid:

I'll never make it on to Stil in Berlin at this rate!

But despite this fashion faux-pas I still somehow managed to enjoy myself. I met two Felixes at one bar! Felix number one was very sympathetic towards the plight of the young American trying to make German friends. He told me that Germans are like coconuts and Americans are like peaches. I, a little tipsy I admit, ran with the metaphor--"But coconuts are hard and hairy and difficult to crack, which makes it that much more satisfying once you break through!" and even went so far as to quote "Prufrock." I have to work on my game.

Felix number two was the DJ who told me he admired my moves on the dance floor, but who I am certain was just making fun of me. He said he would be my Tandempartner (ooh lala, know what I mean? No but seriously I really only mean Tandempartner.) and I said that if he didn't follow through on this promise I would seek him out at his next DJ gig and yell at him. Um well yeah I definitely have to work on my game.

But let me just say, I have never felt like I fit in anywhere quite as much as I did last night on the dance floor. I feel it's my doody to give you, beloved reader, an idea of just what caliber dancing I mean, so that you can understand how fateful it is that I find myself in a land where I feel comfortable dancing in public. So, here, I offer up my last bits of doodnity to you with this video, and I ask you to imagine an entire bar full of Germans dancing similarly.

Yeah, I know. I love it here!

Doodliners (James Joyce)

2010-03-26T18:09:00.000+01:00

I realize it's been days since my last post so to calm my mother's nerves let me just say that I met with my Tandempartner and alles ist gut. I wouldn't say we had a rockin' good time, I mean there were some definite awkward moments (zum Beispiel, an hour and a half into our meeting, he notified me that he had had a recent romantic tryst with a woman sitting at the table behind us). But I didn't end up running off with him, and he didn't lock me in his basement, so in my book that means everything is good.

Since then, my days have been filled with Kultur, Kultur, Kultur. It's to be expected, I guess, as I am a very cultured Fräulein. We sat in the nosebleed section at the Staatsoper and saw the opéra comique "Carmen," with scrolling subtitles in German, of course. We went to a two hour modern adaptation of "No Exit"--entschuldigung, "Geschlossene Gesellschaft"--pardon, "Huis Clos"--in which the Kellner (Valet? Garcon?) is a serious one-man-band. And Claire is visiting soon so this French thing I have going won't be subsiding for a while I guess.

Also, I met a very drunk Irishman. Klar, this cultural encounter lends itself to the title of this very blog post (maybe the recent lull in consistent posting has to do with my struggle to find doodable titles, you know?) Paul from Dublin loves Ronald Reagan and we spent too long practicing the right way to say "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" Paul from Dublin had never met a Jew before, said he was glad that we don't live in Old Testament times (God was much less forgiving then, he said), and seemed very downtrodden when I reminded him that Jews don't go by the New Testament. But Paul from Dublin gave me a beer and then some forehead kisses when he left, and promised that we would meet again in Heaven because Jews are the chosen people and God has promised us all spots up there. So I'll catch ya on the flipside, Paul!

wtf dood?

2010-03-23T23:24:00.000+01:00

We all thought Hannah had made a German friend. We were going to hang out! We were on our way to establishing a Freundschaft instead of just a Bekanntschaft, if you know what I mean. But it turned out he was looking for neither friendship nor acquaintanceship, but rather a girlfriend, so when he found out that Hannah was off the market he sent some sassy text messages and I was left third-wheeling Hannah and Chris' backgammon date.

And now we are back to square one.

Not really though! Tomorrow is Wednesday, which means it's Goethe Institut Stammtisch day, which means I get to go speak imperfect German with Italians and Spaniards and Greeks, etc, and listen to New Orleans jazz. What a perfect setting to create a meaningful Freundschaft! Of course this will be after my eighteen o'clock meeting with my dreamboat Tandempartner, so my day will just be chock-full of awkwardly flirtatious German encounters.

Which brings me to a matter of utmost concern: Can I even speak German at all? Sometimes I find myself nodding along, really believing that I know what's going on (sort of like this one time at the Stammtisch I listened in on/participated marginally in an entire conversation auf Italianisch), but then when I think about it I realize eigentlich I have no idea. This is, in many contexts, problematisch. But as long as I tell myself I know what's going on, I think maybe I really do.

In one of these moments of extreme confidence in my language ability, I asked my host father for book recommendations. Now I have a tall pile of fat books about Berlin on my desk. A good comprehension test, I guess.

Online dooding

2010-03-21T17:30:00.000+01:00

Or, online dating. Which is sort of what I'm doing these days. No no no, not really. I'm just looking for a Sprachaustausch, someone to drink coffee and speak German with. A Tandempartner, if you will--doesn't that sound dirty? Well, it might be. There are many Mensches who seem suitable--"offener Mensch," "aufgeschlossener Mensch," "überlockerer Typ"--and people looking to "meliorate my english." But they use so many winky-faced emoticons, send messages subject-lined "coucou," and trail off with ellipses so frequently that I know it can't be all business, if you know what I mean... ;-)

But what am I going to do? Here I am in Deutschland, and I want to verbesser mein Deutsch. So I'm treffing mit Paul on Wednesday before his Yoga class. This won't be like the time I flaked on all my Craigslist "interviews" because I decided that the "nice families" who were "looking for babysitting" were actually serial killers luring me in with the promise of a job in a bad economy. No no no, not this time. I imagine that in the moment I might feel similar to the way I felt that time I old-lady-sat--I am much closer to Austria now, after all. But no, I think I will be okay. Don't you?... ;-)

Familial doodies

2010-03-20T21:38:00.000+01:00

Earlier this week while talking to my host father I referred to him and his wife as my "neue Eltern." This moment was a big one in our relationship, as I have of course been throwing the term around in other circles but had yet to introduce the idea to them.

But I think it went over well because today on my way home from a sleepover with Charlotte I got a call from him--he was checking in to make sure I was gesund and hadn't been abducted. Like my own real father! (Except not at all, Dad, don't worry. Well actually sort of, in that he makes lots of cabbage salads and scalloped potato dishes with cheeses. But you are my dad for life, Dad, and he is only my dad til July.)

Anyway, I felt guilty for not having told them that I wouldn't be back so I tried to say I would call them next time this happened. But then I think they felt bad for treating me like a daughter instead of a Mitbewohnerin, and they said no no no that I didn't have to do that and that they wouldn't call me or bother me next time. And I said I didn't mind--they are my new, if temporary, family after all.

Call of doody

2010-03-19T02:33:00.000+01:00

Well it turns out this might be real life after all. Maybe. I don't know. It's just, I have things to do--homework, and responsibilities, and expectations to fulfill. And there are some things wrong with this city that have become more apparent in recent days, and it is hard to shrug them, starry-eyed, off.

But today I went back to Treptow to show Charlotte and Ben and David and Alex the Sowjetische Ehrenmal. It was warm and sunny and we even got to take off our coats! I looked out at the expansive grave of 5,000 Soviet soldiers from my seat at the foot of a giant Soviet crushing a Swastika and rescuing a baby. Who would have thought that huge Soviet monuments could help so much to put things in perspective? Bi-weekly trips to Treptow could do big things for my peace of mind, I think.

Knowing me, knowing dood

2010-03-16T16:43:00.000+01:00

It's time for me to start playing Abba Gold on a loop, if you know what I'm saying. Das Wetter is so schlecht! Yesterday it started snowing, sort of, well I don't really know what to call it because it was the most unpleasant type of snow. Is there another word for that? No? Well it was horrible. Leah and I ducked into a cafe to take a break from the wintry trek to my house. Well, no, that's wrong too, "duck in" connotes a subtlety that we just didn't have. No, we didn't so much "duck in" as stomp in covered in ice, dripping water onto the floor. We got sympathetic, if fleeting, gazes from Germans--possibly the kindest looks that we are going to receive for the rest of our time here.

We sat in the smoking section of this coffee shop for an hour or two, which was about as long as I could keep the image of my lungs turning black and shriveling up into prunes because of second-hand smoke (that's what happens, right?) out of my head. I don't think I'm going to stop stinking anytime soon, even if I institute a more regular bathing routine (but let's be real here). It's going to take a lot of frische Luft to get this stink out.

But it's not all complaints over here. Friends from den USA are here! And it's supposed to be partially cloudy on March 23rd! So we have that to look forward to.

"Dood Ya"

2010-03-13T12:04:00.000+01:00

Yesterday began with a scavenger hunt in which we were forced to talk to strangers in German, and it ended with German speed-dating of sorts. I always knew I didn't like talking to strangers, and I learned that speed-dating is also among my least favorite things. It was a very humiliating day to say the least, and I've been reeling ever since.

But I woke up this morning and decided I had to get over it. So I threw on "Strange Magic: The Best of Electric Light Orchestra," which is my go-to album for when I need some feeling better. I know, you might think that "Abba Gold" was my go-to but actually I use that one for when I want to wallow in sadness (so reassuring to recognize parallels between, say, "Knowing Me, Knowing You" or "Money, Money, Money" and my own life).

Anyway, now "Turn to Stone" is playing, and I am getting dressed, and Hannah and Alec and Chris and I are going to go to Treptow to hang out at the Soviet War Memorial. I can already tell today is going to be so much uh more fun!...

In the line of doody

2010-03-10T17:22:00.002+01:00

Today was a really epic day. We got out of class at thirteen o'clock like we do everyday, and then decided to hang around for five hours until the museums were free. Turns out we don't really like museums though, and we didn't really want to wait around for five hours. So my neue Bekanntin and I went home to my house where she met my neuen Eltern, and then we ate delicious (Hannah I will get you the recipe) leftover potato soup that had been sitting in the windowsill for 24 hours--refrigerate, shmeshigerate, that's what the Germans say. Then we watched Donna Summer "Love to Love You Baby" and Stevie Nicks "Edge of Seventeen" on youtube to get pumped up for the evening before we went to Hannah's apartment and took celebratory tequila shots with Alec.

Okay well obviously it was not epic like I first described but what? Am I not going to embellish? It was a pretty good time for a regular Thursday. Oh, and we walked past this um brothel maybe? which is only a few blocks away from my house! Women get free entrance and free drinks from Monday through Sunday--great! But besides the fact that it is most likely a BDSM joint, it advertises itself as a locale for people who have "keine Lust auf Disco"--and, for real, that is most certainly not me.

Kitchen doody

2010-03-09T23:09:00.000+01:00

More rainbow things off the streets of Berlin:
Also, Hannah made garlic soup for dinner. Uhhhh, I know, right? When I got to her apartment there was a pot with some garlic cloves and a big leek floating in boiling water, and Hannah was crouched dramatically on the floor:

But then I worked my magic in the kitchen, and showed her how cooking really should be done:

And in the end we had a lovely meal, with many different types of dranky drinks to choose from:

All in all I'd say that once again I saved dinner with my expert culinary skills and supreme gastronomical instinct. I don't think I'm being at all presumptuous when I say that Hannah would have to agree.

In the dood for love

2010-03-08T19:56:00.000+01:00

I had some midday beers today and then I came home for dinner. The trajectory of our Abendessen conversation went something like this:

We discussed what color their Volkswagon is--deep red.
I asked if there are many alcohol-related accidents due to the drinking age being so low--probably not.
I said I would like to drive "sehr schnell auf der Autobahn" in their car--awkward laughter.
I asked what the interesting spice in the salat was--curry. Sehr interessant!
I asked what the vegetable in the salat was--chicory, which, apparently, is endive here.
My host father dug the leftover chicory out of the trash to show me a Beispiel.
My host mother berated him for having wasted so much of the vegetable.
I suggested they get a hamster or two to give the extra vegetables to every night--I even offered to keep it in meinem Zimmer.
We discussed the word "to waste"--verschwenden--which, my host father told me, can be used for food, money, air, etc.
The example of wasting air got me thinking about an episode of Xena, Warrior Princess that I once saw in which a bunch of people are trapped in the cabin of a sinking ship and one very bad man tries to keep the diminishing air supply for himself by pushing the other people under water.
I asked if they have ever seen Xena, Warrior Princess--"mit einer Schauspielerin, sie heißt Lucy Lawless"--they have not, and look at me very strangely.
I move on and ask if they've seen 30 Rock, "eine sehr sehr lustige Schau." They haven't but still, I continue on to describe Tina Fey as a "sehr gute, err, um, Rolemodel?" and praise her for her role in creating the show. They nod along.
We get into an argument over chicory versus endive and resort to a web search. Still, I am not sure what the final word is.

Ich weiß, dass my word order and my verb tenses are very schlecht. But these shortcomings can be very well explained: first, I have to fully immerse myself in my neue Kultur in order to perfekt my Deutsch--I have to give it my all. Second, I am full, full, full of falafel and beer! But these two excuses are really one and the same.

Yes indoody

2010-03-07T20:54:00.000+01:00

I'm easing into the European lifestyle with a multi-faceted approach--faceted like a Marquise-cut diamond, I like to think. First, I am extending my nights later and later, and hopefully soon I won't be going to sleep until 7:30 AM--the mark of a true European. Second, I am drinking beer on the U Bahn like the real classy Germans do. I told my host parents this and they were very disapproving--but I just laughed and told them I had to "einmal probieren" in order to truly understand their culture. (Also, road beers are so convenient!) Third, I am going to the big Flohmarkt at Mauerpark to buy old German junk--oh wait no, that's the mark of a true tourist. Well, I guess I still have some work to do.

Real life starts tomorrow, sort of, in that my 9 AM to 1 PM daily language course begins then. It's going to be weird to, like, um, have something to do everyday, and a set routine to follow--I haven't had that kind of responsibility since early December when I was still in Iowa. But if there's one piece of advice that I'm really going to try to adhere to over the next four and a half months (listen up, Mom and Dad!), it's that nothing is really important while I'm here, and that I should be doing whatever I want. One of my wisest friends and the most trusted of my advisers imparted that gem to me. So actually, real life doesn't start tomorrow, it might never start! Fingers crossed.

Serendooditous occurrences

2010-03-06T15:58:00.000+01:00

My program just started on Tuesday so I'm beginning to settle in with my new comrades. Everyone seems great--one in particular seems to be a good match, as she, like me, is small, Jewish, attends a liberal arts college, studies German and History, and even has a sister in Berlin. I know this isn't the biggest deal, I mean, at home this is sort of like everyone I know. But yesterday it was established that this pair of sisters, like the Bloch-Wehba sisters, periodically sing the Irving Berlin classic "Sisters" from--what else?--the very non-Jewish, I think, "White Christmas." This is a coincidence, no?

I continue to settle in comfortably with my host parents. This afternoon my host father and I walked through the neighborhood Flohmarkt together, where I picked out a can opener for my own sister and he bartered it down from 3 euros to 2 euros for me. Then we decided to walk to Südstern so that I could meet the berühmten Nudeln-maker, Isidoro, who comes from Italy. We sat and had a lovely cappuccino and I nodded along with Isidoro's very, very fast German--I was totally unsure whether he was asking me questions or just talking to me, but I did catch a reference to Al Capone, and I even got to make a joke about New Yorkers being the best people in the world! (Not really a joke.)

On the walk home my host father and I talked about the abundance of Bäckereis in Berlin, Bäckereis which, he says, are often empty. The reason, he believes? Ja, natürlich, they are most likely Geldwaschereien--selbstverständlich. I stopped in my tracks and laughed and laughed and told him that he sounds just like my mother, who is constantly hypothesizing about money laundering scenarios. This is all just too good to be true.

Dood you really want to hurt me?

2010-03-05T16:27:00.001+01:00

Since I used up all the money on my pre-paid phone card (but how, you ask, Dad? I just don't know), Hannah and I had been communicating only by email. Our correspondences were pretty frequent and usually went something like this:
Lucy: No money on phone! Can't call! I'll put more on soon!
Hannah: You are dumb and I am the better BW. Put money on your phone.

Obviously there were variations, but that was always the general sentiment. But then Hannah STOPPED RESPONDING TO MY EMAILS. This was a very irresponsible move on my sister's part, as she of all people should have known the great amounts of stress and worry her sudden silence would cause me. When she didn't respond to my first email in a timely manner I became somewhat concerned. When she didn't respond to my second email, I became panicked and began considering the horrible things that were likely to have happened to her, which included but were not limited to:
1) the "nice Fräulein" whose apartment Hannah is "subletting" is actually in the business of human trafficking and has set her up to be kidnapped;
2) Hannah and Chris, inebriated, walking a dark alley at night, are mugged and forced to lead their assailants back to their apartment, where they are robbed and tied to chairs;
3) carbon monoxide poisoning.

I know these are really horrible things to imagine--especially when I will have to be the person to discover the truth when I break down the door to the apartment after a few more days of not hearing from them. But I have never been able to help my over-active imagination. Just today I was considering how many more days/hours I should give them before I share my concerns with say, die Polizei, but then Hannah finally responded to my last email: "sorry, i didn't get your email until today. i don't just sit around waiting for your emails! gee whiz." What--so nonchalant?! But, also, a great relief to neurotic me. Perhaps I will have to pay a visit to the Psychotherapeutin downstairs...

Doody and the Beast

2010-03-04T21:16:00.001+01:00

Tonight at dinner we discussed the dangerous "Wildschwein" that are invading Berlin and eating people's gardens up and causing traffic accidents, and I couldn't help but be reminded of the savage packs of beagles terrorizing Long Island. But wild boars? Naturally I laughed imagining wild boars roaming the streets of Grunewald, wouldn't you?, but this was frowned upon as, apparently, it is a very grave situation indeed.

We also ran into some comprehension difficulties when I was trying to describe St. Patrick's Day, "mit den Leprechaunen? Und jeder trägt etwas Grünes, und die Leute trinken viel Bier, grün Bier, und sie machen die Flüsse grün und die Bagels grün..." But I guess there isn't such a large Irish population here, and my host parents (who I love love love dearly!) seemed very perplexed, especially when I started talking about Regenbogen (meine Lieblingssache!) and pots of gold.

Of course, our communication barriers are becoming less and less crippling with each hour spent drinking coffee and talking about wild boars and equality in education and Hannah's pasta-maker. Still, it is frustrating and tiring and all this causes me to send emails to Hannah (who I can't call because I can't figure out how to aufladen my neue Handy) with sentences like this: "the machine in the u bahn wouldn't take my dollas so i still have no money on my phone but i miss youuuu both and also had delicious delicious handmade spinat ravioli tonight, isidoro made it, i don't know isidoro but he makes pretty good ravioli and kalle made a lovely pesto/sun dried tomato/kalamata olive sauce to accompany it and a nice grünkohl salad mit orangen." I just want someone to understand me! And perhaps I am on my way to starting a food blog of my own...

How dood I forget to mention?

2010-03-02T20:55:00.000+01:00

On my day alone in Copenhagen I almost walked right past this rainbow building without noticing:

It was definitely a sign--not sure of what, but I mean come on.

Doodbye for now, Copenhagen

2010-03-01T01:22:00.000+01:00

Last night Claire and I stayed in a hostel, and despite its creepy name, "Sleep in Heaven," it was actually a pretty good time. You know, meaning gets lost in translation, I guess. As we were falling asleep we could hear "Born in the U.S.A." playing in the lobby, which, at the time, I thought was endlessly meaningful. I was very tired.

Claire left in the wee hours of the morning, and when I woke up I was in the 9 bed room with only two other people: one giant (and I mean GIANT) Russian man and one pretty average-sized Russian man. Then I putzed around a little bit and went to the big cemetery to see Hans Christian Andersen's grave. It really wasn't as exciting as I expected it to be. I was expecting it to be much more celebratory--I mean, it's Hans Christian Andersen (Andersen that's me!).

Later, at the airport, I'm pretty sure I went to second base with the TSA agent. Even though I was quick to point out that it was the big metal buckles on my boots that had made me beep, and he said I was probably right, he still copped a surprisingly thorough feel right there in front of everyone waiting to go through security. I haven't decided yet whether the very public nature of this makes me feel less or more violated. Maybe it didn't make a difference since I would have had a middle-aged Danish man cupping my breasts and patting my upper-inner thighs either way. Ew.

Then I sat in the airport among magazines that cost about 20 USD (!!) practicing my Danish airport phrases--"Bagageudlevering" and "Rullende fortov" and looking forward to my return to Berlin, where I'm starting to feel a little bit at home. Being so clueless about Danish has, I think, given me more confidence in my German. Maybe. I even bought myself a German newspaper, das BILD, maybe the intellectual equivalent of the New York Post, but I was too embarrassed to read it because I realized (only after my purchase!) that it said "Wählen Sie das Februar-BILD-girl" and had naked women on the front page. Oops! Better save that for the privacy of my room.

Wonderful, wonderful Doodenhagen

2010-02-28T00:32:00.001+01:00

Well I know that this title is a little bit of a stretch. But let's be real--there's no reason for all my post titles to include (incldood?) dood. Whatever.

ANYWAY Copenhagen is a GOOD TIME! Besides the fact that everything costs a bajillion Danish Kroners and that is so much money, Copenhagen really didn't disappoint. I would say that that is really my only complaint, well that and that the keyboards are sneakily different from the ones I'm used to, in that, like, there's no "@" so I have to copy and paste that and "ø" is where the apostrophe is supposed to be.

But these are petty complaints. Two thumbs up to Denmark!

Doodifully yours

2010-02-25T22:49:00.000+01:00

Today I spent:
128 Danish Kroners on a ticket to Malmö, Sweden
50 Euros on 443 Swedish Kroners in Malmö, Sweden
118 Swedish Kroners on two sandwiches and two Kaffes
90 Swedish Kroners on two Heinekens
78 Swedish Kroners on two Mariestads
90 Swedish Kroners on two... more beers in the train station
But it's okay, because, like, this isn't real life. Then Claire and I took the train back to København and met up with Lil and drank many more beers and ate falafels and trekked around in the spitting rain. Now, water and bed.

Yeah doods

2010-02-24T14:34:00.000+01:00

Today I am off to Copenhagen to remind myself that I once upon a time not in Deutschland had friends. Just kidding--I have at least one friend here, that is my host father, with whom I spend multiple hours a day (two hour breakfasts, hour and a half lunches) struggling to communicate. It is so wunderbar! He corrects my word order and looks up words for me in his pocket-sized Wörterbuch. Just now I gave him a virtual tour on Google street view of my street at home and also of Grinnell. We are getting to be the best of friends!

On doody

2010-02-23T15:54:00.000+01:00

Today on my way back from the Jewish Museum I could've really used a pick-me-up. And then I found it, just a few blocks away from my house:

RAINBOW IS MY FAVORITE COLOR!

Then I bought myself a Dürüm Döner and sat at the counter by myself, and then two big Turkish men in leather jackets came in smoking cigarettes and went straight behind the counter and poured themselves tea and then marched into the area that was marked "Privat--Eintritt verboten." And then I bounced, obviously.

Doody free

2010-02-22T18:17:00.000+01:00

This morning I had a two hour conversation with my host father about lots of things and also maybe about knee replacements? I'm not sure. Turns out I can't really speak German after all!

But I did learn that the German title for "What's Eating Gilbert Grape" is "Irgendwo in Iowa." I didn't even know it took place in Iowa! Oh, the things I'm learning here.