Weihnachtsmarkt Berlin

Damn, do I enjoy Christmas markets! Everyone milling around, breath coming out in great white clouds, snacking on a variety of yummy things.

Speaking of snacking...I love the food at Christmas markets. So, so much, I had the best kartoffelpuffers of my life there, and also delicious crepes with nutella, and soup and stuff like that. And I can't forget the heiße shokolade! Mmmm!

The shopping is great. A lot of the things you can get at the Christmas markets are handmade, though not all. Candles, ornaments, jewelry. And, of course, the ready made stuff like purses, hats, etc. I am/was broke as a damn joke, but I got some good stuff for my family and friends.

One of the things I had to try while there was glühwein, which is a mulled wine with spices. It was pretty horrible, actually, but I finished my glass. I drank it mostly so that I could sit around the big fire pit and warm up, cause omfg was it chilly out there!

I really love how everyone is friendly at the markets, it's one big communal fun time. There's none of the shit we have in the US, where you can't say Merry Christmas any more because someone might get offended. I never understood that anyways-I get it, you don't celebrate Christmas, but it's just like someone saying have a nice day. It's a nicety. Get over it. It's Merry Christmas to everybody, and everybody appreciates it.

I love, and the Germans do too, being outside with everyone and being part of a community. It's comforting.

I didn't realize

Wow. Just wow.

When I logged in today to do at least a little catch-up blogging, it brings me directly to my dashboard. Which says that I have done 99 posts. So this is my 100th post :)

When I think of what the other 99 posts are though, it makes me sad.

Instead of typing this from Germany... I'm sitting in Vegas.
Instead of sitting on a train or in a park...I'm sitting at the desk in my old bedroom.
Instead of eating potato pancakes for breakfast...I'm having tortilla chips.
Instead of bullshitting about gnominjas and giants with Jen...I'm getting peed on by a little white dog.
Instead of being effortlessly happy...I'm having to force myself to make the best of a shit situation.

But I'm being unfair. It has been great to see my mom again, and I really appreciate her taking care of me. It has been great to see my babies again. It has been great to see my friends and know that they're just a (local) phone call away. It has been great to see blue skies and not have to drag an umbrella with me everywhere I go.

Still...

Exactly one week ago... I was on a very nice date with a very nice guy in Frankfurt.
Exactly two weeks ago...I was heading from Berlin to Prague after a crazy afternoon, eating gummis in the car with Jen.
Exactly one month ago...I was in Munich, probably tarting up to go out, or thinking about how to woo the guy from Tengelmann's.

*sigh* thinking about that sort of this isn't going to make being here any easier, so I'll think of it like this...

In one week...it'll be Christmas. Yay to being surrounded by my loved ones for the holidays! And hopefully have some transcription work to do.
In two weeks...I'll have been dog-sitting for a few days. And it'll be officially 2010.
In one month...hopefully I'll have a job in Germany, and a definite date to go back. This is what is really keeping me going.

Anyways, this is kind of fitting for the 100th post, I suppose. Up next.... catch up blogs! With pictures (I got the blackberry connection to work finally!)

Zweite Zeit

My trip to Berlin on the 2nd was pretty epic.
Firstly, the guy driving, Steve, was the best looking man I'd ever laid eyes on. Tall, muscley (he had perfect shoulders), blonde hair, blue eyes...he was an Aryan god. Holy crap. I spent the entire trip in awe of him. He *might've* glowed a little. Even the other passenger was adorable. Taller, lanky, blonde and blue. I was pretty much the luckiest girl in the world.

But the trip was sad. It was sad leaving Munich, my adopted home. It was hard leaving the apartment. It was like shutting the door on Bavaria, which I've come to love. Jen and I were texting (she was on the train) about missing it already.

Secondly, Berlin is great. Our hostel was pretty sweet, and we had our own room and bathroom (that's a big deal!), which was in a cool location right near the Zoo and a huge Weihnachsmarkt (christmas market). Plus, the market was surrounding on of the most awesome things I have ever seen, the Kaiser-Wilhelm Memorial Church. It had been bombed in 1943, and you could still see the damage as it had been preserved.

Thirdly, met some cool people. Jen met up with the tour guide we'd met the first time there, and he ended up being cool, and I met a nice Berliner while wandering out for some late night food. We had a McDonald's and a Burger King within 100 meters of us-yay!

Fourth, West Berlin is very cool. We stayed in East Berlin the last time, and the 2 sides are definitely different. I wandered down Kurfürstendam (probably spelled that wrong), which was lined with trees that were lit up with thousands of tiny white lights. We went to KaDaWe, a major mall, which was very opulent and extremely busy.

Lastly, we just had an absolute blast. The last day was crazy, but we saw more of the city and we both had last minute dates before heading to Prague. But mine was in "denglish", what the Berliner called the mix of deutsch and english he spoke. And that I spoke lol! But I love Berlin, I could easily see myself living there as well.

P.S. The stain on Jen's bed is body oil, not urine. It was hilarious :)
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Bye, awesome apartment!

December 1st sucked. Like, really, really sucked. That was the day we had to leave the best apartment ever :(

We had to get an early start. Jen fucked up her knee, so it was hard for her to do much, so we had to call in reinforcements. We had to pack, clean, take out trash, do laundry, bring all of our extra shit to storage...it was a damn mess. Our friend Natalie was a huge help, but we were still really pressed for time. And we had a ton of crap to haul to storage! Seriously, I haven't bought much of anything for myself, but all of a sudden I had the luggage of a large family. Whatever.

All of that wasn't too bad. Chores are chores. The worst part was leaving the apartment behind. We had so much fun there! I can honestly say that that was the best 2 months of my life. Whether we went out partying or stayed in, we had a great time.

Random apartment memories:
*"Vesta/Jenny is in the kitchen/bathroom/on the balcony!"
*Radlers on the balcony
*Laughing til 4 or 5 am, on multiple occasions
*Map of awesomeness. A lot of in-depth conversations happened because of that map, like...
**Renaming the bays and seas
**Adjusting the Canadian/American borders
**"T with PT" land- AVOID!
**Cultural similarities and differences (this is what happens when an anthropologist and a psychologist get together!)
**Color-coding, dots and check marks...
*"It was going great until the fire..."
*Father Ted!
*Kicking that dudes ass playing hockey on the PS3...couldn't hit the puck to save my life, but I could brawl
*Spongebob! Mantracker!
*Stroh-inspired leg chopping
*Cryptkeepers
*Rapist basement
*Johnny Cash haters
*Our different styles of making messes
*Outlandish scenarios involving giants, like...
**Giant skeleton on a bike on the balcony
**Giant wars
**Giant bait (chunks of meat on string) (which the cryptkeeper would then steal to make soup)
**Hypothetical giant destruction
*DJ/bartender Jen
*"My pasta, I need my pasta"
*Giant peanut eater!
*Random hand of desire
*Making the huge crashing noises to wake 5S to no avail, then laughing our asses off about it, which worked
*Tengelmann's stalking
*The gardener getting his daily show
*Wanting to save the piglet
*Hot dude taking a pee (I fell in love)
*Stalkers with lawn chairs and binoculars
*The big heart of vapor that follows us
*Gnominjas, giant buttocks, flying mustache, razor wire, snipers and beastie
*Drunk mouse leaning on his buddy
*The Canadian sniper going to a Bryan Adams concert with Mantracker, getting everyone else drunk and off their game
*Sorceress pants
*Dirty cookie pictures
*Fire vs water
*Huge bucket of candy (smarties? rockets?)
*Pouch!
*Electrical graveyard
*Ah, those couches!
*Larvae
*Half an hour early? Omg, go go GO!!
*Random weeds
*Ballet and Deutsch
*"Fuck these stairs!"
*Crawling on the floor
*Stealing then returning the walk of fame mat
*Pre-gaming!
*Donnie Darko, and the 90 minutes that followed
*Hiding mice
*Shooting mice
*Hiding Harrison Ford
*Gummies!
*Peppers and penis pasta
*"Potato pancakes?"
*Search history....oy
*The BBC
*Die Simpsons
*Toilet cleaner or men's' cologne?
*Epic hair ball in the shower

That's all I can think of for now. But I will always remember wanting to get back home after being out, and being so happy to be there. I will always remember what it felt like to be able to say absolutely anything that came to mind and being able to run with it. I will remember sitting in the sun on the balcony and being totally, perfectly content.

*sigh*

Disco ball Jesus

This is something we wanted to do for months, since first seeing the Jesus statue with his arms spread at Sendlinger Tor. It just begged to be decorated!

We *think* it was inspired by a drag show that had spilled onto the street nearby, and the Jesus there only ever gets candles and flowers, nothing exciting. Hence disco ball Jesus was born!

So, on the 29th, just a few days before we left, it happened...we'd been at the Irish bar near Frauenkirche, and Sendlingerstraße was on our way back. He was hidden by the empty Christmas market stalls, so we had the perfect opportunity. Jen, being a giantess, got to climb up and bless him with disco.

She also may have groped him while doing it. We aren't sure. (Actually, Jen just said "I know I touched penal area". She said it, not me!!) Anyways, her knee has been messed up ever since. Jen has paid for her insolence. Apparently Jesus doesn't like disco.

Picnicking @ Perlacher Forst

It was a beautiful day (the day before Thanksgiving), so we decided to go out to the forest and have a picnic.

But...our lazy asses didn't even leave the house until 3. Sundown was around 4. We were enjoying hanging out on our balcony and checking out guys on the street too much. That happened a lot.

So we went to Mangfallplatz, our old stomping grounds, and walked the 10 minutes to the forest. It's really cool-the street just ends and bam, there's a forest.

It got dark and cold in there, but the forest is beautiful. We found some stumps we could arrange into a table and chairs and chowed down. We kick ass at making picnics!

And thank god for my Canadian guide...she got us out of the forest, in the dark. Sweet!

We then partied with a random street cat on the way home. Apparently he's always there, and is super friendly. Made me miss my pets back home...he was like kitty methadone lol!

Schulbus 69

This was a constant joke between Jen and I...we kept walking by it when going to the store. Which I started doing a lot more than necessary lol ;)

Anyways, how sketchy is this!! It's a serial killer van with cartoon characters on it! And 69? Is that a joke? Who lets their kids get in this thing?

We imagined a trail of candy leading to a seat inside with handcuffs welded to it.

It may be legit...but I doubt it.

11/17

Wow...

I'm way behind on blogging...I have at least 4 partially composed blogs that I need to finish and send.

I'll work on it tonight, I swear.

In my defense, it's been very busy and also emotionally trying. Leaving Munich and our apartment was hard, and living out of a backpack is rough.

But I'll work on it tonight. I swear :)