I am in America, waiting to eat a slice of my dad's deeelicious blueberry pie!
I came back to Ohio for a week to visit my family in Mecca and Stephanie and Karen in Columbus, and I've been having a good time in this strange culture (I know I make that joke every time I come back to America, but it is just So Funny. AND I really don't know where else you could catch a ballroom dance competition on TV where the couple is dressed and dance like robots!! Salsa dancing robots!). Steph and I spent a whole day bumming around town, seeing how much the Short North is somehow becoming crazy expensive and less gay. (sigh) Then, I went out for sushi with my brother, Elaina, and the aforementioned friends, and it was absolutely fantastic to joke around in English for an evening with a whole table of people that I love and haven't seen in a long time.
Life at my parents' has been über-relaxing. We're all watching Stargate right now. Other than that, my mom and I have been plying our needles! She made the cutest Pooh Bear pillow for my cousin Shan's new daughter, and I have started knee socks (with the yarn you gave me, Karen!).
Pictures of the knitting projects coming soon...
Kudos to Stephanie Lynch's blog. Oy, so witty.
Next time, I will tell the tale of the Nürnberg dance rehearsals... I think I will only be speaking German with the choreographer. Will that cause any funny situations, I wonder?
Friday, February 22, 2008
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Pittsburgh in Cologne
Check out this cute explanation of Cologne carnival from the point of view of the Pittsburgh Symphony!
Sun! Gorgeous Sun!
The last few days in Koeln have been fabulously sunny and even a little warm. It is amazing that you can feel the happiness in the air. People smile at each other (or I imagine them smiling-- I have an active imagination). It has been simply delightful to ride my bike around town.
To catch you up on the end of the Krazy Karneval, we went to the "Umzug" (Parade) last Monday, but the weather was AWFUL! It rained almost the whole time, so Jeremy and I kept ducking into the cafe nearby to warm up and stay out of the blasted rain. The floats are all pretty similar (and the whole thing lasted 5 HOURS)-- lots of giant paper-mache (too lazy to look up the proper spelling) giant people doing German things, marching bands, and some people riding horses. On most of the floats, they throw candy, and one is supposed to yell "Karmelle!!!" to get them to throw candy to you. Some enterprising people hang out of their windows with upside-down umbrellas on strings to catch the candy. They also throw flowers, but if you get one, you should give or blow the person a kiss. We actually didn't go to the burning of the scarecrows because it was at 11pm (I had German class the next day-- NERD!), and we were kind of over the whole Karneval thing by then.
I just found out that I will be dancing in a baroque ballet pantomime in Nürnberg next month! Yipee for work! It's with a choreographer I have never met, but I was recommended for the gig by the choreographer I worked with in Italy last year. Thank heavens the baroque world is so small.
To catch you up on the end of the Krazy Karneval, we went to the "Umzug" (Parade) last Monday, but the weather was AWFUL! It rained almost the whole time, so Jeremy and I kept ducking into the cafe nearby to warm up and stay out of the blasted rain. The floats are all pretty similar (and the whole thing lasted 5 HOURS)-- lots of giant paper-mache (too lazy to look up the proper spelling) giant people doing German things, marching bands, and some people riding horses. On most of the floats, they throw candy, and one is supposed to yell "Karmelle!!!" to get them to throw candy to you. Some enterprising people hang out of their windows with upside-down umbrellas on strings to catch the candy. They also throw flowers, but if you get one, you should give or blow the person a kiss. We actually didn't go to the burning of the scarecrows because it was at 11pm (I had German class the next day-- NERD!), and we were kind of over the whole Karneval thing by then.
I just found out that I will be dancing in a baroque ballet pantomime in Nürnberg next month! Yipee for work! It's with a choreographer I have never met, but I was recommended for the gig by the choreographer I worked with in Italy last year. Thank heavens the baroque world is so small.
Sunday, February 3, 2008
Alaaf Riot
Happy Karneval everybody! Swig those koelsches and burn those scarecrows!
But first, a pic from the Robert Burns night. This was a slightly more refined get-together (what with the poetry and all), even if it was rather soaked in scotch.
Alistair addressing the haggis
Now Karneval!
On the first day, Wieberfastnacht (something about girls' night-- I'm serious), we went out in the afternoon suitably attired and walked around our neighborhood to see everyone's costumes. My favorite was a girl dressed up as Little Red Riding Hood (Rotkaeppchen). There were tons of sailors and pirates, Native Americans, 70s guys by way of Wes Anderson, and a surprisingly large amount of people dressed like plants. Then, we met up with Jer's friend Axel from the lab at a local watering-hole-turned-disco. When I say "met up" I mean "waited outside for an hour to get into the place in the cold because it was completely packed". While we waited, we were entertained by a Baroque Buffoon Band.
Inside the disco, it was 500 degrees (Celsius), but we had lots of fun dancing around and pretending to sing the Koelsch songs.
The next day, a joke presented itself:
So, a Caveman, a Mexican, a Geisha, and a Cowgirl walk into bar...
A Sushi bar!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
On Saturday and Sunday we decided to lay low.
Tomorrow we are going to the big parade, and on Tuesday they burn the scarecrows. You know, the kind of scarecrows that collect all the bad things you did on Karneval. When you burn them, your soul is fresh and clean for Lent.
But first, a pic from the Robert Burns night. This was a slightly more refined get-together (what with the poetry and all), even if it was rather soaked in scotch.
Alistair addressing the haggis
Now Karneval!
On the first day, Wieberfastnacht (something about girls' night-- I'm serious), we went out in the afternoon suitably attired and walked around our neighborhood to see everyone's costumes. My favorite was a girl dressed up as Little Red Riding Hood (Rotkaeppchen). There were tons of sailors and pirates, Native Americans, 70s guys by way of Wes Anderson, and a surprisingly large amount of people dressed like plants. Then, we met up with Jer's friend Axel from the lab at a local watering-hole-turned-disco. When I say "met up" I mean "waited outside for an hour to get into the place in the cold because it was completely packed". While we waited, we were entertained by a Baroque Buffoon Band.
Inside the disco, it was 500 degrees (Celsius), but we had lots of fun dancing around and pretending to sing the Koelsch songs.
The next day, a joke presented itself:
So, a Caveman, a Mexican, a Geisha, and a Cowgirl walk into bar...
A Sushi bar!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
On Saturday and Sunday we decided to lay low.
Tomorrow we are going to the big parade, and on Tuesday they burn the scarecrows. You know, the kind of scarecrows that collect all the bad things you did on Karneval. When you burn them, your soul is fresh and clean for Lent.
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Dairy Disaster
In the last two weeks I have had a couple of dairy disasters. Bizarre.
Last week, it was very windy, and I was going home on my bike with the groceries safely (I thought) tucked into the string bag I made. I stopped at the bank machine to get out some money, and of course, my bike fell over, spilling everything. The milk opened and a pool of white liquid collected on the sidewalk. I had to walk the bike home with the offending carton of milk in one hand.
Two days ago, I was once again going home from the supermarket with all my
stuff safely tucked away in my string bag (will I never learn?), and as I climbed the stairs to my apartment, I noticed strange white drips following me. I searched through the bag and drew out the offending container of cream (they put it in plastic cup with a foil lid)-- it had gotten punctured on my bike ride home. I continued a little less merrily up the stairs mumbling under my breath about stupid German packaging, but when I got to my apartment, I noticed there was ANOTHER trail of cream!! I had bought two containers (I was making a bad, bad cake) and they were BOTH punctured! So, now I took off my coat, grabbed the paper towels and Meister Proper (or Mr. Clean to you Americans), and set off to clean EVERY STAIR in the building. Naturally I was wearing a sweater that I had "re-designed" to have a plunging V in the back. Why not? After two floors of hands-and-knees stair cleaning, I remember that I had forgotten something. That's right, the keys to the apartment. So, after I finished cleaning all
the cream off the stairs, I had to walk to Jeremy's laboratory-- without a coat, without any money or identification-- to get his keys. Nice guy that he is, he walked back with me and let me wear his coat.
Of course, today I feel like I'm getting a fric-fracking cold.
Last week, it was very windy, and I was going home on my bike with the groceries safely (I thought) tucked into the string bag I made. I stopped at the bank machine to get out some money, and of course, my bike fell over, spilling everything. The milk opened and a pool of white liquid collected on the sidewalk. I had to walk the bike home with the offending carton of milk in one hand.
Two days ago, I was once again going home from the supermarket with all my
stuff safely tucked away in my string bag (will I never learn?), and as I climbed the stairs to my apartment, I noticed strange white drips following me. I searched through the bag and drew out the offending container of cream (they put it in plastic cup with a foil lid)-- it had gotten punctured on my bike ride home. I continued a little less merrily up the stairs mumbling under my breath about stupid German packaging, but when I got to my apartment, I noticed there was ANOTHER trail of cream!! I had bought two containers (I was making a bad, bad cake) and they were BOTH punctured! So, now I took off my coat, grabbed the paper towels and Meister Proper (or Mr. Clean to you Americans), and set off to clean EVERY STAIR in the building. Naturally I was wearing a sweater that I had "re-designed" to have a plunging V in the back. Why not? After two floors of hands-and-knees stair cleaning, I remember that I had forgotten something. That's right, the keys to the apartment. So, after I finished cleaning all
the cream off the stairs, I had to walk to Jeremy's laboratory-- without a coat, without any money or identification-- to get his keys. Nice guy that he is, he walked back with me and let me wear his coat.
Of course, today I feel like I'm getting a fric-fracking cold.
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Bits of Questionable Interest
First of all, I have to remind myself to point out to those folks at home the strange German things that may be interesting. However, now that we have lived here for a year and a half (!), things no longer seem so strange... But one thing you have surely never seen, unless you've been in an old German governmental building (like the Volkshochschule or the Auslanderamt) are the crazy elevators. In these buildings, there are usually two elevators-- one up and one down. They are constantly moving, have no doors, and when you want to use the elevator, you just jump on! These things are a little bit scary to me (are they insane? jumping on an elevator??), so I always take the stairs. Another thing is the German habit of staring. A fellow Auslander pointed this out to me, and now I notice everyone doing it. It's not rude, they just don't have that aversion to looking people full in the face for several seconds at a time. I have to admit that I did notice this when we first moved here, but I thought it was just because I dress funny.
Tomorrow we are taking part in another Robert Burns Night, the fabulous Scottish holiday where everyone reads poems out loud and eats haggis. Oh, man, my mouth is watering just thinking about it. (really! Haggis is delicious! You should try it!!). Jeremy was trying to discourage me from reading anything this year-- ha, just try and stop me-- because last year I read both To His Coy Mistress by Andrew Marvell and Meditations in an Emergency by Frank O'Hara. I did manage to restrain myself from also reading T.S Eliot's Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. Hee hee. Maybe this year I will do Shakespeare's Sonnet #147 ("for I have sworn thee fair and thought thee bright/ who art black as hell, and dark as night" It was a great inspiration in my "Armida") or something funny by Roald Dahl.
And Karneval starts next week! Slightly less literary, but I think it will be fun. Ummm, I hope it will be fun. If you haven't read Jeremy's excellent, all-encompassing entry last year for this event, I will inform you that (to an American) Karneval is lot like Halloween but with more drinking and less scary pretense (although I think plenty of scary things happen, just not with witches and goblins). The thing lasts FIVE DAYS, and the whole city closes down. No school (not even my German class or ballet!), no work, and I fear the grocery stores are also closed most of the time. We are going to have some fun stocking up on food with the rest of the city before the whole thing kicks off next Thursday.
Tomorrow we are taking part in another Robert Burns Night, the fabulous Scottish holiday where everyone reads poems out loud and eats haggis. Oh, man, my mouth is watering just thinking about it. (really! Haggis is delicious! You should try it!!). Jeremy was trying to discourage me from reading anything this year-- ha, just try and stop me-- because last year I read both To His Coy Mistress by Andrew Marvell and Meditations in an Emergency by Frank O'Hara. I did manage to restrain myself from also reading T.S Eliot's Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. Hee hee. Maybe this year I will do Shakespeare's Sonnet #147 ("for I have sworn thee fair and thought thee bright/ who art black as hell, and dark as night" It was a great inspiration in my "Armida") or something funny by Roald Dahl.
And Karneval starts next week! Slightly less literary, but I think it will be fun. Ummm, I hope it will be fun. If you haven't read Jeremy's excellent, all-encompassing entry last year for this event, I will inform you that (to an American) Karneval is lot like Halloween but with more drinking and less scary pretense (although I think plenty of scary things happen, just not with witches and goblins). The thing lasts FIVE DAYS, and the whole city closes down. No school (not even my German class or ballet!), no work, and I fear the grocery stores are also closed most of the time. We are going to have some fun stocking up on food with the rest of the city before the whole thing kicks off next Thursday.
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
German Class Home Renovation Extravaganza
We finally tried to sort-of in some way make this crazy German apartment more of a home. Right after New Year's I made it my mission to slap paint on the walls and cover up the weird spot in the wall (the hanging fabric is very clever, no?). That horrifying light is still there, but we have decided that we are too chicken to do anything electrical. With time...We both love it, and when I am working at home, it is much more cheery.
On Jan. 7th I started my German class, and I am so sad that I haven't been able to do it earlier! It is bizarrely fun-- it feels a little like a very international 2nd grade. Today we were talking about food, the food pyramid, etc (along with sentence constructions that second graders would probably already know, but feel very important and difficult to me). I sit between a girl from Iraq and a woman from Turkey, and Mexico, Morocco, Afghanistan, Khazakstan, Pakistan, Latvia, Poland, and Nigeria are all represented. I think the class is especially funny because while teaching language, the book is also trying to integrate everyone into German society (family life, carnival and the Berlin Love Parade: girls with purple hair, hotel customs, etc.). In the meantime, I get to satisfy my voracious appetite for learning about other cultures because the teacher asks everyone how things are done in their home countries. All in German!
I'm already starting to see some results-- I have been blushing and stammering less when speaking to strangers! Even though I still make about a million grammer mistakes a second.
Jeremy's heading off to Bavaria tomorrow for a couple of days to give a talk. What a guy.
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