lars in germany

2008-12-16T22:50:00.000-08:00

my mom says i should update this.
well, i'm down to my last three days with the family and am very excited about it.
my dad gets into town on friday, my sister on sunday. sunday we're having a big 4th Advent celebration with lots of relatives, and the on christmas its just going to be immediate family. I might be heading down south to bavaria towards the end of next week, but that depends on how persuasive my sister is.
sorry about not writing christmas cars or sending special gifts to everyone. 1) I'm too lazy, and 2) shipping things from germany to the us is crazy expensive.
so very few will be getting cards.
Hellen, when you see till sometime remind him to give you your b-day/christmas candy. because you are pretty much the only one getting anything.
well, it's off to the "Buergeramt" for me to do my "Ameldung". yeah.
If I don't write again before Christmas: Frohe Weihnachten!

2008-11-28T07:25:00.000-08:00

just some quick pictures:
johanna after killing a baby bird (pomme granate)

lukas, johanna and the pet hedgehog

and my best friend growing up and me. she was in town for a few days so we got to catch up and it was really fun.

new picz LOL LMAO

2008-11-23T10:50:00.000-08:00

it's been snowing off and on since friday. most of it melts during the day, but it's still pretty exciting. saturday night i went out with two friends and we got caught in a bit of a snow storm as we were leaving the bar. it was pretty crazy, within ten minutes a couple of cm of snow had fallen. the bad thing about snow is that's it's really rally cold (maybe even freezing...), so i've been bundling up as much as possible.
i just wanted to post these pictures from the okkervil river and shearwater concert last week, and then some from this weekend.
does anybody even look at this? oh well, i'll pretend you do.

this was last night at intersoup, a really neat bar/asian food restaurant.

we got caught in the snow...

that's all.

2008-11-16T07:39:00.000-08:00

i had a pretty fun weekend, friday night i went out to a club with some friends. it still throws me that bars don't ever close, you end up staying out way later than intended. saturday my friend steff had a party. it was really fun and german. from 90s pop to david hasselhoff, just like you'd imagine.
today i've just been relaxing and reading comics. here's a couple of pictures.

2008-11-15T18:15:00.001-08:00

the new watchmen trailer is AMAZING!

stammtisch

2008-11-13T10:59:00.000-08:00

last night i went to the weekly "new in berlin" stammtisch (gathering involving drinks), and it was pretty fun. last time we were about 25 people, this week it was up to 50. we got kicked out of the first bar, but found another place that had enough space for everyone.
so here is some pictures of that. apparently i use my hands a lot while talking. other than that i just try really hard to look like a total nerd.

got my hair dyed today. it's darker now, still reddish, or brown, i don't know.
can't wait for tomorrow night, except i already got drafter for babysitting friday and saturday night. but once the kids are in bed i can go out.

weekend 2.

2008-11-09T08:02:00.000-08:00

i had a good and relaxing weekend. friday night i stayed at my grandparents and hung out with my aunt, and my bff michel.
this is him.

my gandpa and me also took some glamour shots.

saturday night i met up with my friend steff and we got a few beers in prenzlauer berg and it was really nice to just talk and hang out. it's good to know that i have people out here i can just hang out with. other than that i don't have much to tell right now, but i'll keep updating if something happens.

oh, and jesse, can you believe it lights up!? beautiful, huh?

2008-11-06T23:20:00.000-08:00

It's been a rough week here. I'm trying to make the most of my time here, while being really homesick and not feeling that comfortable in the family. I don't think I will stay here till april, the situation just didn't turn out to be right for me. I don't feel any regrets about coming here, but I know that if I were to stay I would be really unhappy.
so things are not that easy right not, we're trying to balance my wanting to leave, and the family wanting me to stay.
Yesterday I finally went to that Jeff Koons exhibit I had written about the other day. It was really neat, he's a funny guy. there was also a really big Paul Klee exhibit in the same museum, it was neat, but just too much for me. I like looking at maybe twenty drawings but when there is hundreds of them, and they are all supposed to be meaningful and extraordinary it just gets phony in my opinion. i have a hard time being impressed by stickfigure sketches on old napkins. There were so many people and they would spend such a long time on every piece of "art", i just kept thinking how everybody was just trying to impress everyone else by seeming so interested in the art. that's a weird sentence, but it makes sense in my head.
today i might go for a run, right now i'm doing a pro and con list in my head, trying to convince myself why it would be a good thing to do. it just seems that there is more cons (including that it's cold outside and a new episode of californication is up).
I'll leave you with a picture of one of the Koons sculptures.

they are big and shiny, and i like that.

2008-11-05T04:21:00.000-08:00

I am so stoked about this election!
I'll write more tomorrow.

2008-11-01T04:47:00.000-07:00

so jesse is back in arizona and i'm having a fairly hard time adjusting.
it's hard being alone. people have told me that right around three months is when you get homesick the most, so i guess it should be getting easier at some point. i don't feel very integrated into the family here either, which doesn't really make it much easier.
at least i've got a few friends out here, but i generally only see them once a week, because i don't have time off during the week, and they live in different parts of the city.
sorry this blog is such a downer, i'll try to be more positive next time.

i'm trying to decide wether to go see the jeff koons exhibit today, or see these multimedia constellation pieces by a contemporary russian artist today. maybe even both?

back in berlin

2008-10-25T05:31:00.000-07:00

after a pretty long drive we got back to berlin last night.
we spent a day/night in wuerzburg with robert, and then continued to ramsau (austria), where we stayed in my great aunt & uncle's house (my grandma's brother) and just had a really great time. the weather was sunny and much warmer than expected, we did a little bit of hiking, visited the world's largest ice caves, ate tons of "kaiserscharrn" and "Marillenknoedel" and drank almdudler. we also got caught up on german tv (the family i live with has no tv....). i think jesse was a bit bummed he didn't have a mountainbike with him, but i didn't really mind. hiking was exhausting enough. turns out i'm really not in that good of shape. after about two minutes of walking uphill i was out of breath. i need to work on my fitness.

we stopped at the chiemsee on our way back.

in the background is the "dachstein tauern" with the glaciers.

this was on our way up to the icecave.

one of our hikes, up a canyon. silberkar klamm.

wuerzburg with robert and our mummy friend.

2008-10-17T23:27:00.000-07:00

jesse and i are leaving for our austria possibly czech republic trip today. we're going to pick up our rental car in a bit (a smart), and then i need to get over my autobahn fear. since jesse lost his wallet he also doesn't have a drivers license, so i will be doing most oder all of the driving, and i think most of you will know how unhappy i am about this.
last night we went to see caspian and this will destroy you, they were both really good.
besides that not much else is new with me. i'm excited for a week off, the last week or two have been really crazy and i'm definitely ready for a break.
i'm not sure when or if we will be able to use the internet on our trip, so this may be that last update for about a week.

2008-10-12T12:16:00.000-07:00

sorry no pictures, jesse has my camera.
i've heard from him a few times, he's doing well. he is in madrid with sean, apparently skateboarding a lot. i think he gets back to berlin late wednesday, so by thursday you can expect an update.
i've been doing well, not too much exciting things happening. i made a couple of new friends and we went out last night and that was really fun. the morning hangover was less fun, but i'm dealing with it.
the kids are off school the next two days so i need to think of some fun things to do with them. on tuesday it's the 12 year olds birthday and we are going to some climbing park. that should be awesome.
so that's all. more when jesse gets back.

massive picture upload

2008-10-05T00:43:00.001-07:00

so the internet is actually working fairly well right now, i had to use the chance to upload as many pictures as possible. hope you are not too bored.

this is jesse with his good commie friends marx and engels.

last night we met up with some friends at this british pub called white trash fast food. a swiss "brit pop/rockn roll" band was playing, it was a pretty good time. they reminded me a lot of till during his neckscarf/neckerchief phase. that was a good phase.

sadly we did not order their fish and chips, but i agree, fish should really learn to breath air, bitch.

and then we almost froze to death walking home. also some drunk guy puked all over the subway and we (along with everyone else on the train) almost died from the stench. so we came close to death twice in one night.

cool post. jesse is making fun of my blog-skills.

we continue (there is a maximum of five pictures per post)

2008-10-05T00:34:00.000-07:00

so, we went to the DDR (GDR) museum, the playground, the zoo, then we moved on to dead animals at the natural history museum. the berlin one comes in as a close second after the harvard natural history museum (luisa, if you get a chance, check it out. the animals are all falling apart there, and are stuffed to maximum capacity). that was a little NHM (natural history...) joke on the side. Yesterday we went to the egyptian museum and saw the berlin bust of nofretete/nephertete and other really old things. i liked anything to do with cats.

just a few more pictures now...

the last week

2008-10-05T00:02:00.000-07:00

started off on sunday with the berlin marathon, 50.000 runners, even more people watching. it was pretty fun, and the weather was awesome.

after that we had a few lazy really rainy days, not much to tell. towards the end of the week it cleared up but got pretty cold. jesse and i had some playground fun with the kids, and went to the zoo. i finally got to see KNUT (i know at least lauren and my family know who i'm talking about here), dissappointgly he was neither very white or fluffy and was making noises like he would like nothing better than to kill all the kids watching him. don't know if i could blame him. his keeper (mr. doerflein for those who were ever into the knut-mania) had died a week before, so the whole area was covered in candles, letters, photos, and flowers.

pretty terrifying.

also, it definitely is fall.

2008-09-27T13:53:00.000-07:00

today we felt like jumping.

we also felt like taking a trip to potsdam, to see palace sanssouci and the huge palace gardens.

jesse liked her

I liked him

we had a good day.

in the afternoon we got deal with screaming kids. that was less fun, but we managed. now we're too exhausted to party.
berlin is treating us well.

2008-09-25T02:03:00.000-07:00

so poor jesse has had some complications in holland, aka a stolen wallet.
if western union comes through he'll be able to get a train pass today and be back in berlin by tonight, we will see. i'm not sure what his plans for the next few weeks are, i guess it all depends on how quick he gets new credit cards.

i just went on a walk around the nearby lake, and then had some second breakfast (cake!) in a really cute little coffee shop/bakery. the weather is absolutely perfect, it's a bit chilly, but if you walk in the sun you don't need a jacket. it's supposed to stay like this for a few days, so i am (as is all of berlin) making the most of it, trying to spend some time outside. the leaves are starting to change, still very green but you've got a hint of yellow and red in between. My host-family is now fostering a young hedgehog, we found him in the yard a few weeks ago, and he was acting very non-hedgehog-like (by this i mean he didn't run away immediately). so we took him to the "hedgehog rescue" (yes there is such a place) and he stayed there for a few weeks till he gained enough weight. so now he's back and he lives with the rabbit and is gaining weight on his catfood and rolled oats diet. if he gains enough weight to over winter on his own we'll release him, if not he has to wait till spring. i should get some pictures of him, i'll work on that.

"liter of cola"

2008-09-23T03:45:00.000-07:00

my first real rain-day
it's been raining all morning and it feels like fall. it's beautiful gray and everybody had this lovely grumpy expression.
it made me happy in a sarcastic kind of way. i realized that being tall sucks in the rain, because everyone's umbrella is exactly at about face height, you're forced to learn to dodge pretty fast.
i tried to get a phone today, turns out i need my passport. so again tomorrow. but it seems that phones are ridiculously cheap, the one i picked costs 4.95 and already comes with a 5 euro prepaid card. sounds like a deal to me. that's about the only thing that is cheaper here though. for example i want to go see calexico in a few weeks, and tickets are 30 euros. crazy.
other than that not much news.
i'm happy here, but i miss going out in tucson. i think "SPRINGBREAK!" would only attract negative attention here. does somebody know when jenny h. comes to europe?

another weekend

2008-09-21T07:23:00.000-07:00

so jesse is still alive, i got an email from him, it said he's in muenster. that's all i know, though.
robert came out to berlin yesterday (he's studying in wuerzburg) and stayed for a night. i'm getting a bit better at the tourguide thing, and i can find my way around the city fairly well now. this morning we visited the old jewish cemetary, it was really sombering and impressive. i'm sure robert will post pictures, i didn't take any.
so for now that's all, i need a nap right now.

posting pictures

2008-09-17T04:50:00.001-07:00

today i'm posting pictures...
jesse just left for his bike tour, he was pretty excited. i hope it doesn't rain the next couple of days, but either way i think he'll be really cold. we had a really fun week together, and i'm already excited for him to come back.
this is me with two of my cousins

these are my two german/canadian friends sarah and daniel

jesse and me really cold and really scary looking

ridiculously happy. i have gums.

and jesse and a terrifying jesus sculpture in the german history museum

weekend 2.

2008-09-12T23:22:00.000-07:00

Just a short update. Jesse got here on wednesday, without his bike and after a very long flight. his bike did arrive later, but without some of his gear, due to the huge hole lufthansa had torn into the box. way to go, lufthansa.
i've shown him some of the biggies (brandenburg gate, potzdamer platz, friedrich str., oranienburger str, holocaust mahnmal, reichstag, etc) and yesterday we went on a really beautiful bike ride through the grundewald (berlin's forest) and along the havel (really big lake). today we are going to see my mom's side of the family, and hopefully go to a museum or two (or if i get my way, go to the zoo).

also, i think jesse will be updating his blog periodically, so if you want to follow along his bike trip, this is the url. http://www.jessepeck.blogspot.com/

weekend.

2008-09-06T11:00:00.000-07:00

i'm trying to decide wether to stay in, or go out tonight, but am tending towards an early night with some reading, chocolates and a glass of wine. which means i'm going to have to blow off my plans with an old friend i haven't seen in about six years, but fact is that i don't think i can make the trip into the city without passing out on the train (something i've come very close to all day).
last night i met up with this girl sarah, who used to be an aupair with a family in the area. she ended up staying in berlin after her time as an aupair and has been living in the city for about three years now. we went to a great thai place for dinner and connected right away. felt great having someone to talk to and just have a good time with. afterwards we ended up at this random "s-bahn ring party". --> berlin has a big subway (u-bahn) and lightrail (s-bahn, not really a light rail but that will work for now) network and one of the routes goes in a circle around the inner city ( http://www.vbbonline.de/download/pdf/liniennetze/su_berlin.pdf ). it's called the ring bahn. now the goal of a ring bahn party is to make it one full lap, however when you're on the train a die (dice sp?) is rolled and that's number of stops you stay on for. then you get off and have to find either a bar (kneipe) or a late-night liquor store (spaet kauf) and get a drink (or more). then everyone gets back on the train and the steps are repeated. we were in a group of about forty (most being international students, so everyone was very open and eager to meet people). Anyway, I made it about halfway and then decided that it was late enough, and i was drunk enough to make my way home.
so that was my night.
this morning i got up early to get my hair cut and colored (it takes a lot longer than i imagined to get to certain parts of the city, for some reason the buses and trains aren't timed very well. if you want to follow along on the map, my nearest station is Nikolas see at the bottom left of the B area, and i was going to eberswalder strasse, top right (on the red line) of the A area.) Anyway, my hair is now redish brown, not sure how i feel about it yet. afterwards I treated myself to a late breakfast in the prenzlauer berg area, then went to see my grandfather in tempelhof (Alt Tempelhof, bottom center in B on the purple line).
finally got back home around 6pm, and immediately passed out. woke up about an hour later for dinner, and now i'm ready to go right back to sleep.
Jesse gets into town on wednesday! i'm really excited!
ok, enough for now, this is getting too long.

pictures

2008-09-02T06:34:00.000-07:00

Hamburg

baby cousin and really good outfit

german/mexican food

reunited

clouds

nice living

09/02/08

2008-09-02T03:01:00.000-07:00

A little update.
i've been in germany for almost three weeks. so far: i've started to familiarize myself with the berlin public transportation system (though the buses are still giving me a hard time), have visited a good number of museums and galleries, walked all over the city, eaten bad fish twice (and thrown up bad fish twice), met up with my good friend kerstin, spent four days in Hamburg and Kiel, and moved in with the family i'm working for.
i'm starting to adjust, and while i'm still homesick it's not as bad as it was the first week. i'm trying to keep myself busy and positive. it's absolutely beautiful here, the family lives on the outskirts of berlin and everything is green, and if i just walk five minutes i'm in the forest. i've been going on runs and finding little lakes and secret spots. the leaves are already starting to change color a little, and the weather is still very mild. last night i walked home through really thick mist rising from the meadows and woods, it was really eerie (sp?) and beautiful.
i think the biggest challenge is going to be making friends. people aren't that outgoing (but i've been told that it's even harder in other german cities) and you generally have to make the first step. last night i made my first friend at a concert, and the mom just gave me the number of another aupair my age in the area. so i'll give her a call and see where that goes. other than that i've been spending some time with my aunts and grandma, and getting to know them is really nice, too. it helps with the homesickness. sunday night my aunt vio and me made dinner together and then watched the german answer to csi (tatort -> crimescene). it was pretty great.
ok, now i'm going to try to upload some pictures of the house, the family (sunday breakfast outside), the view from my room, and my trip to hamburg to mee my baby cousin marlene.
i miss tucson!

uploading is taking a while... more later.