Top Rope Tough Guys

If you haven't seen this yet, you're welcome! And if you've already seen it, you're still welcome.



I actually, literally, laughed out loud at the "masterpoint".

Brand loyalty

This is the kitchen ceiling in Beni and Tobi's WG. The mural goes up one wall, across the ceiling, and down the other and is made entirely of Ritter Sport packages! Epic, n'est-ce pas?

Much like an old-world cathedral, this mural came into being thanks to years of dedication and sacrifice, which means you can track the evolution of Ritter Sport packaging as you move from the eastern to the western wall. It's practically a museum.

Springtime for Kristina and Germany

I have to say something unpatriotic: I hate spring in Canada. It's all melting and freezing and thawing and refreezing and sludge. It's squishiness underfoot and the smell of stuff defrosting. In short, yuck.

So I never understood why people were always yammering on about "rebirth" and "the world starting anew" and so on. But springtime in Germany is the best, and not just because it reminds me of this, which makes me laugh.


It's sunny! And the mornings are cold and the afternoons are warm and there are flowers just popping up in the middle of the grass, for no apparent reason. Like, did someone plant them there? Who knows? Who cares! It's like a unicorn habitat out there, is what I'm saying.

Begone

Ask me what I hate about Germany. Go on, ask me!

The pillows. I hate the freaking pillows. I would say that German pillows are like someone took a giant square bag and half-filled it with feathers, except that "like" implies a comparison and I just told you exactly what German pillows are. No matter how you fold, knead, squish, squash, or shape them, your head just sinks right through. And on a related note - why are they so gigantic and square? A pillow is for your head, not for your ENTIRE UPPER BODY (a fact that should be abundantly clear to Germans, seeing as the word is Kopfkissen - headpillow).


Anyway, I finally asked Tim to bring me some £2 grocery store pillows from England and they're better than any 40-Euro ergonomic feather nonsense. If it were up to me, I would cultural imperialism those pillows right out of Europe. Seriously, they're the worst.

YouTube knows what I like

First I laughed. And afterwards I was like, "Well, if YouTube recommends it..."

The dark side

Every time I walk past this ad in the Erlangen train station (which is often, since I've commuted through Erlangen twice a week for the past 6 months), I wonder why an ad for Erlangen Tourism would feature Darth Vader chilling at an outdoor festival.


Check it. That is definitely Darth Vader chilling at an outdoor festival, is it not? Just this week, I got closer and finally realized that "Darth Vader" is, in fact, a lady wearing a black straw hat and a black fleece jacket. I'm not sure whether to be reassured (that this ad makes sense again) or disappointed. But seriously - how did this ad make it into production without someone (anyone!) going, "Uhhh, guys..."

Memorials 101

You'll see these all over Germany if you're looking for them - these ones are in a small town called Dinkelsbühl, but I've seen them in many other cities and towns as well.


They're set into the pavement in front of houses and apartment buildings, and each one gives the name and date of birth of a Jewish person who once lived at that address, along with their fate (in this case, an entire family - including a 7-year-old, an 8-year-old, and a 9-year-old - was deported and killed in concentration camps).

It's going to sound weird when I say that I love these memorials, but what I mean is that I think they are so much better than a big, ostentatious statue in the middle of town. Most people (especially in Germany) have a pretty good idea of what happened during WWII, but it's pretty remote from our daily lives. These memorials are something subtle that remind us that bad things don't just happen far away.

As promised

I'm loling for sure.

Apartment tour, part 1

I live in a WG, which is short for Wohngemeinschaft, which basically just means a shared apartment. Who wants a tour? Everyone? Excellent. Let's start in the bathroom!


Our bathroom is klein aber fein (small but nice) and everything matches, from the little green rug, to the little green hand towels, to the little green garbage can, to the little green GameBoy.

And yes, I have thought about how it's kind of gross to have a GameBoy in a bathroom, but THEN I thought about how much I like Super Mario and that was that.

Make it longer. Longer, I said!

I know there are a lot of jokes about ridiculously long German words, but guess why? It's because a lot of German words are really freaking long. Take this sign at the organic supermarket near my apartment.


They want to let you know that they're there for you if you have an intolerance to certain foods. It's just that in German, the word for "intolerance to certain foods" is Lebensmittelunverträglichkeiten.

Making it all better

So last night, during a games night where quite a lot of wine/schnapps was consumed (and no games were played), Alex offered to "repair" my favourite boots. The upper has been separated from the sole for about two years now, but they're still completely wearable, as long as it's not raining. Or snowing. And as long as you don't go anywhere near gravel.


Problem solved.

Glühbirne

In the interests of giving you something to talk about at cocktail parties (you're welcome), I'm going to teach you some of my favourite German words.

First up (and closest to my heart) is the German word for lightbulb - Glühbirne (glue-beer-nuh) - which literally means glowpear. Because it's shaped like a pear and it glows, see?

In German, all the nouns (as opposed to just proper nouns) are capitalized. The more you know! Which brings me to a joke with two punchlines:

Q: How many Germans does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A: One.

Q: How many Germans does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A: Ve are asking ze qvestions!

New. Skis.

My "new" touring skis came in the mail yesterday! I would be excited if only I could figure out how to get them out of this overenthusiastic packaging job. I've tried every knife in the apartment as well as mummy-style unwinding but, so far, no luck.

Lolcar

Bet you thought I just misspelled lolcat, eh? WRONG.


The licence plate game is more fun in Germany, because every city and halfway-decent-sized town has its own letter(s) and then they just throw some more letters in there for fun. Nuremberg's letter is, creatively, 'N'. Fürth, a few kilometres from Nuremberg, has FÜ and I'm just waiting for the day when I see FÜ CK 293. Apparently they're out there, so if I don't stumble across one soon I might have to get on my bike and track one down.

Fun fact: Although FÜ CK is apparently just fine, there are banned licence plate combinations, most of which have to do with the Nazis (shocker). NS (national socialism) is banned, as are SS, SA, HJ (Hitler Youth), KZ (concentration camp), HE IL, and IZ AN (Nazi backwards).

P.S. Please do stay tuned for German lolcats.

Ritter Sport

Ritter Sport (aka God's gift to Germans) was on sale last week for 0.59 Euros instead of 0.95 Euros, which is, like, 50% off.* Om. Nom. Nom.


*I'm not math-challenged; there's a difference between 50% off and, like, 50% off.

So this is where I'm at

In case you've forgotten (or never knew) where exactly I've been for the last three years: GERMANY! Specifically, a grrrreat city in Franconia/Bavaria (more on that later) called Nuremberg. Back in the day, Nuremberg was famous as the home of the Nazi Party Rallies. The Nuremberg Laws were enacted about 300 m from my apartment (not cool, guys) and after the war, war criminals were tried in the Nuremberg Trials. These days, Nuremberg is famous for lebkuchen (kind of like gingerbread) and drei im Weckla (three sausages in a bun). How times change.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't

This music video is from a German band called "Die Toten Hosen" and the song is called "No Alcohol is Not the Solution Either". I was introduced to it by a friend trying to convince me to go drinking, although I'm not sure that's exactly what it's advocating.



Either way, I like it...

Tiny bicycle alert

Step 1. Look at this tiny bicycle!
Step 2. Acknowledge that this tiny bicycle is awesome!
Step 3. Admit that 'acknowledge' is hard to spell and you needed some help from spell check :(.

A friend of mine is studying engineering and got this on a factory tour designed to seduce students into working for a company that uses lasers to make tiny useful things as well as tiny student-seducing bicycles. I got it because apparently I "seem like the sort of person who would value a tiny bicycle". Correct, good sir!

Ta daaaaaaaaaaa!

Welcome to my blog. We're going to have so much fun together!