Since we didn't do anything fun last weekend...

Last weekend our beautiful summery weather took a turn for the worse, namely a rainy, cool turn. So we just sat around home and tried to decide what to do, and ended up doing nothing except a little cleaning. But so that nobody thinks that we're suddenly incredibly boring, here's something we did a couple weeks ago--a little trip to the Dresden Botanical Garden. It's tucked in a little corner between the Volkswagen factory and the Großer Garten, with its entrance on Stübelallee. And it's free of charge to go in! I never knew this, and that's why I never went there before-- I preferred to save my admission money for other things like the zoo or museums rather than just some plants...





































































These are some of the more colorful things that struck my fancy, but are not by far all of the most interesting things. They have a whole tropical house, where the turtles also live, just full of neat-o plants and fish, as well as a cactus house, which pretty much knocked my socks off. We saw many of the same kinds of cacti with which we stuffed an entire suitcase on our return trip from Barcelona, as well as a lot of the same plants that we also stole...or borrowed, or maybe liberated is better...from the Canary Islands. It seems I've become a bit of a plant enthusiast in the last years, so I wonder why I didn't go to the botanical garden before. Probably just because nobody said "We're going, do you want to come?"

And to answer what is probably your most burning question right now: no, I didn't steal anything from the Dresden Botanical Garden. But I know somebody who knows somebody who dressed up in a white lab jacket, went in there, opened a terrarium and got away with a special kind of cactus...but this was years ago, when Dresden was a little bit like the Wild West.

Another Marathon Tour

Last weekend, in honor of yet another holiday weekend in Germany, aka "Workers' Paradise", we biked/skated to Meißen. This constituted a round trip of approx. 50 kilometers once again. It was a lovely day and because of my allergy to sunscreen (I get red itchy welts, it's fantastic) I am actually getting a decent tan for the first time in my life. Enjoy the view even if you didn't work your muscles or get a sunburn on the way.














No, I didn't edit this picture to make it look more interesting, that patch of bright yellow is a rapeseed field, of which you can see many these days due to organic fuel production.















We don't need that silly World Cultural Heritage Site in Dresden, you have nearly the same view on the way to Meißen too! Build the bridge!













This sign was spotted along the way at a (not so famous) bridge construction site. Just in case you don't happen to notice the painfully obvious fact that the bridge is not even near completion, they put up this sign.
















We arrived in Meißen, took a couple pictures, and turned around for the ride back...



















It's balloon season again! On a different majestic spring day, we spotted a whole bunch of balloons getting ready for takeoff by the Elbe. This particular one tipped over a couple of times while the passengers were already in the basket. I think I would've disembarked at that point...
























Here's another one the same day floating by the Frauenkirche.

On the wrong side of the tracks in Senftenberg

Yesterday we planned a sporty day at the Lusatian lakes (Lausitzer Seenland), which are actually flooded strip mines. It's a string of many lakes with bike and skate paths more or less around all of them. We mistakenly planned to start at Senftenberg, leaving Dresden-Neustadt at 10:52 on the train and arriving in Senftenberg at a little after 12:00. Just running to catch the train was enough exercise for me. First I felt optimistic about seeing a new town, but slowly my optimism faded as we wandered through the town looking for the Senftenberg lake, seemingly going in circles. When we finally found the lake, the bike path, which is supposedly also a skate path, was actually not so good. It was no problem for me and Willy on the bike, but for the two skaters among us, the bumpy brick path was not ideal. Then it started to thunder and get dark. We consulted a restaurant on the path about where the good skate paths are (this area is advertised as a great skating area) and they had no idea. Luckily after nearly losing all hope, some other people on the path stopped us and said we were going the wrong way, because soon the path would turn to gravel. Fantastic. Thanks for the tip. So we got out of Senftenberg as quickly as we could, locating another bike path which would take us to the next village, Kleinkoschen or Grosskoschen or something like that. Here we could supposedly start on the great path around Geierswalder lake. Well, after someone on the street sent us in the wrong direction, we finally found the path, the start of which was a lovely slippery mud. After getting through that, all hope was nearly lost because there was no place to sit and have lunch, and then we saw a police boat on the lake seemingly searching for a corpse. So we pretty much just sat in the mud and threw back our sandwiches, and after consulting on whether to just turn around and go home or continue on and try our luck, we tried our luck. We were able to ride/skate for about 15 minutes on a really good path and started to feel better about our trip when we reached the street and what seemed like the end of our nerves and the path. We checked the map, and it looked like we could continue on (but the paths in Senftenberg were also marked as good skate paths on this map, so who knew?), so we continued on. And as luck would have it, we finally found the good paths! From here on we were able to bike/skate around 2 lakes, we also finally had sunny weather and better moods. Finally we were able to really just ride and ride for about three or four hours.



















It's actually a very picturesque area when you finally get there. It's also good for amateurs because the landscape is very flat, thus making the ride easy.




















This rock is in memory of the villages Sorno and Rosendorf, which were where that water is now. Apparently the people in those villages weren't too well informed about the plans for their towns, they just weren't allowed to make any major repairs on their houses starting in the 1960s and were told to move out in 1970 to make way for the coal mines. I guess that's just the way it is when you live in a communist dictatorship where everybody owns everything and nobody owns anything.
























Here's a closeup of an informational sign on the path, you can see how they mined the area. These machines are like the ones we saw on display in Ferropolis.
























We found this little gem in Sedlitz, a monument to the founders of the German Reich. These actually aren't as rare as you might think considering their historically loaded symbols, there are lots of them still existing in villages. It was erected in 1911 and says "In memory of the fallen, in recognition of the living and to the emulation of following generations." And Sedlitz was the end of our journey around 7 pm. We'd hoped to find a watering hole where the boys could drink a beer and I could get some ice cream, but we only found a closed restaurant and another shady little dive with a private party. After getting stared at by the townies, we called it a day and just waited around at the train station until our train came.

Remember White Rabbit!























This white rabbit was spotted in the Bahnbogengalerie by Bahnhof Mitte in Dresden. Not only is this outdoor gallery worth seeing because of the white rabbit, it's all around pretty interesting because it shows lots of Saxony's and Dresden's sights in a nice artistic presentation. This one is one of the less colorful pictures, others are more colorful and in different styles. It's a good use of otherwise boring old walls.

Nice legs?!?

Today it happened again...I was riding my bike and some construction worker whistled at me. I looked around to see if maybe some attractive young blonde in a tank top and pants was riding around flashing her muffin tops, but no, I was the only person for miles around. Maybe there was some interesting news on the radio in his truck? No, I didn't hear any radio playing. So he must've meant me, because I saw him look out his window at me...maybe he's legally blind. Come on, what's there to whistle at about me? I'm wearing my fat pants today, the ones I bought this weekend because all of my other pants are either worn out or don't fit me any more after having a kid, breaking my knee cap and being sick for a week and lying on the sofa and eating ice cream the whole time. Perhaps he had his beer goggles on?

This happened to me about a month ago, too. I was riding to one of my classes in Striesen, and I'm sure you know by the end of that ride I was huffing and puffing and sweating in the shape that I'm in. Well, some construction worker was standing by his truck and yelled "Nice legs!!" I had a skirt on, but a long one that covered my knees even on the bike. Maybe he was joking? I looked back, and as he was staring I just laughed as loudly as I could. It must've been a joke. And good lord, both of these times I had on my very sexy and attractive bike helmet too. What is wrong with the world?

Either way, after putting on my fat pants and sweating my a** off on the way to work, it does feel kind of nice to be objectified a little...

This is Colonel Sanders. I'm pretty sure he didn't come to Dresden and give somebody a crash course in frying chicken.

Friday's lesson

Since today too is a day off for my students due to my illness, I thought I would keep up with what I started on Wednesday, that is an online lesson so you can learn something even in my absence. This is hopefully the last one of these, as I will be returning to work on Monday, as long as I don't get sick again on the weekend.
Today's lesson is:


DFC - WTF??


A while ago, maybe a couple weeks ago, while strolling along Königsbrücker Strasse I noticed that a new place would be opening up. The windows were all covered, and one could only read the sign "Coming soon: DFC" I thought, "Oh great, Dresden fan club or Dynamo fan club or some such idiocy. A bar for football rowdies just around the corner from my house. Fantastic." Well, it turns out my suspicions were unfounded. This place is something completely different: Dresden Fried Chicken. And this leads me to the core of today's lesson. Upon hearing the words "Dresden Fried Chicken", I immediately asked myself "WTF??" I believe I even said it aloud, out of earshot of my child of course. The words to this abbreviation are "What the f*+/k?" You see this abbreviation often in rather lower class English "literature", websites and email. But I mean really, you have to admit, you'd have asked yourself the same. Come on, we're not in the South here, we're in Dresden, about the most white bread place I've ever been to. So who knows how to make fried chicken here? I'm pretty sure it's not Colonel Sanders. I know they have a long tradition of broiled chicken here, stemming from DDR days. You can even still see the broiler vendors at the street markets, selling hot broilers to the hardcore Dresdner even on icy cold days. And don't ask me what got East Germany hooked on broilers, so hooked as to even use the English word for them (and this is a phenomenon that really only is in the East). But that's off the point. There's a big difference between broiler chickens and fried chicken. I'm a vegetarian and even I know that. So what's up with this place? I think I'll have to go into the field and do a photo expose. Who wants to bet me that what they're actually selling is broilers under false pretenses? Any takers?

Thursday's lesson

Since I had so much fun writing yesterday's lesson, I thought I'd do one for my Thursday students who are missing out on my presence today. Today's lesson is

Feed a cold, starve a flu.

This is a common saying you hear (or at least that I heard) in the United States when cold and flu season rolled around. I realize that it is actually the end of cold and flu season right now, but a lot of people are sick again, if not with a cold or a flu, then with German weather disease, due to the constant changing of temperature, precipitation and sunniness.

This saying is, in fact, a myth. I often heard that one should really do the opposite, that is, starve a cold and feed a flu. That too is a myth. In reality, what one should do in either case is to eat enough to satisfy your appetite, and drink even more. But not alcohol! That dries you out. You need to be drinking water and tea, especially.

Unfortunately, I only just found out that this saying is a myth a little too late. I have been really feeding my cold with the hope of recovering faster in relation to how much I eat. I tried to improve my chances of recovering faster with calorie rich foods, such as chocolate, ice cream, popcorn, grilled cheese sandwiches, creamy soups, gummy bears... So maybe when I reappear to the outside world, you will find that I have recovered and gained a nice set of muffin tops, too. (See below)

Today's Lesson

Sadly, since I lost my voice due to this nasty cold I've come down with this week, I had to cancel all of my classes today and tomorrow. But that will not stop us from learning! Though I can't tell you any funny stories this week, I can write you something from which you can learn. So, this week we have an online lesson, honoring my new favorite English term:

Muffin Tops

In its original, literal meaning, this term refers to, logically, the delicious, crispy tops of muffins. See below. They are better than the bottoms of muffins because they are crispy but not dry, and not so moist and possibly unbaked like the rest of the muffin, usually covered with the muffin paper.











In these pictures, you can see that muffin tops come in different shapes and sizes, some flat, others round, but all delicious. There are some places where you can buy just muffin tops with no actual muffin. I do not believe in this. They might it well call it what it really is, a cookie.

Now, we continue on to the figurative meaning of muffin tops. This is a relatively new slang term, originating in about 2003. Muffin tops refers to that fat that sometimes peeks out of one's clothing when wearing tight, low-cut jeans and a shirt that does not offer enough coverage. This term emerged at about the same time as the fashion trend for extremely low-cut jeans and pants. Older terms for this same anatomical phenomenon include "spare tire" and "love handles".









As with literal muffin tops, you can see that these come in various shapes, sizes and colors. This fashion problem can happen to men as well as women. The figurative muffin tops are usually not crispy, unless sunburned, and are certainly never delicious.

I really, really want this t-shirt. Oops, does that tell you something about my voting preference? I hope I'm not breaking the law by writing this.

Mom: What's your favorite band?

Willy: AC/DC!

Mom: What's your favorite song?

Willy: Big Balls!

This is an actual conversation which we had this evening at the dinner table. For the uninitiated, Willy is only 22 months old...

Connoisseur









These are not only a few of my favorite things, but also Wilhelm's. In keeping with his taste at the age of 2 weeks (see Rock'n'roll baby, June 2006), he is a great connoisseur of music, demanding "muckes" or, starting today, "music", whenever we enter the kitchen or living room, our prime music rooms. Of course, I ask what he'd like to hear, maybe the Beatles? "Beatles, ja" he says. How about Belle and Sebastian? "Still blue" he says, reciting the lyrics of The Blues are Still Blue, one of his Belle and Sebastian favorites. (I am not exaggerating, he really recites that song.) Then I suggest Sufjan: "SUF-jan!" he says. "Ja! SUF-jan!" So I guess that's what we'll play. Then the whole thing continues. We don't just listen to the music, Wilhelm then goes to the speakers and greets the music, saying "Ooooh! Muckes!" then comes to me, hugs my leg, and pleads "Dance!" Well, what can I do? I pick him up and we dance. Then he looks deep into my eyes and says "Sing!" This could go on for a good hour or more. And I can't really complain, the kid has good taste.

In search of the illusive fashion herb















We went to Polenztal in the Sächsische Schweiz yesterday, braving rain and cold in search of the very fashionable Bärlauch, aka wild garlic. This time of year you can get rolls with wild garlic, cheese with wild garlic, every foodstuff you can possibly imagine, all with wild garlic!! This has only been going on for the last couple years, as far as I can remember. Supposedly, it tastes like a mild garlic (which it does) but doesn't stink like garlic (which I contest, as do some of my students). You can see it above, that lovely long leaf in the middle. At least that looks like it. You see, wild garlic has a wicked little Doppelgänger, the pretty and highly poisonous lily of the valley. Last year at the same time we had to throw away a whole bag of leaves that looked like wild garlic because I also picked a whole bunch of lily of the valley leaves. Oops. So what we did this year, which is probably pretty forbidden, was dig up a couple of the little guys and plant them on the balcony to see what they turn into - lilies or Lauch? We already had some wild garlic, but with our lovely German weather this spring, it started growing and then got frozen.
What we did get yesterday and eat was a whole bag full of watercress. My in-house chef turned it into a delicious salad with endives and some homemade dressing. It tasted good, but if I die suddenly, you'll know he didn't clean it well enough and I got a fox tapeworm. My life is so adventurous!















I stayed out of the herb collecting this time around, what with my massive failure last year, and hung out, looked after the kid, and took pictures of the scenery, asking myself the whole time: "Why did we bother going to Gomera for Christmas when we can see all this cool moss and rainy forest scenery right here practically in our back yard, with way easier trails?"




















Everything was so green!




















And so fantastically mossy!















Then we got stalked by some ducks. I think they had rabies.















We were even lucky enough to see this precious little doc hopper.
By the time doc hopper hopped along, I was getting hungry and moody, because I hadn't expected the herb collecting to be so successful and thus take so long. But all the waiting and picture taking (...without my regular camera, because I thought it was broken. It turns out I just forgot how to use all of the settings. The frog pictures could have been so much better...) paid off! We went to the Czech Republic, to Decin, a super beautiful city on the Elbe River with big supermarkets that are open on Sunday and are full of delicious exotic sweets we don't know in Germany and can't pronounce in Czech!

Last Weekend's Adventure




















Stop! Only beavers are allowed down this trail! But I guess I'm allowed, since I am from Beaverton...

Last weekend we attempted to visit the beavers in the Dübener Heide. I say attempted because they are very elusive little guys, only emerging from their dams in twilight. We thought maybe we heard some after waiting around for nearly an hour in what we thought to be the twilight, but we sure didn't see any beavers. The only beaver we saw was on this sign. Though we did see some funny beaver traces, as you can see below. Or maybe these were also made by the park rangers to give the illusion of there actually being some beavers around.





















Hey! It didn't fall down! I bet the beavers were confused when this fencepost didn't fall over.

I have to admit, I was a little disappointed in the Dübener Heide, because it was very flat with not-so-exciting scenery. I think it's worth the trip if you actually get to see some beavers, but otherwise I'm not so sure... My husband said the best part of the Dübener Heide is Wittenberg, where we stayed on Saturday night. I was really impressed with Wittenberg, this is a very beautiful small city where you get American-style portions of food at prices which seem cheap compared to Dresden. And the food is really good. And even our three star hotel was very nice, clean with a very friendly staff and a good breakfast. We were wary of three star hotels following our three star experience in Berlin, which was not so good. It wouldn't have surprised me to find some body outlines on the floor of the hotel where we stayed in Berlin, if you know what I mean.

Anyway, on to Wittenberg. This is where the reformer Martin Luther lived and nailed his 95 theses to the door of the Schlosskirche. Unfortunately, the Schlosskirche to which he nailed his theses burned down, but you can see a door embossed with the theses at the same location. You can also climb the tower of the church for just 2 Euro to get a great view of the city.




















Schlosskirche tower















The roof of the Schlosskirche.

Wittenberg is full of Martin Luther stuff, since he is the city's biggest claim to fame. You can see his house, the church where he preached, his pulpit and all that kind of stuff. The city's other, newer claim to fame is the high school which was redesigned by Friedensreich Hundertwasser, that crazy Austrian architect. This colorful assymetrical school is a refreshing change of scenery after looking at lots of historical buildings and churches and cozy courtyards. This school was originally a pre-fab building put up in the GDR times, and there were lots of other schools around that looked exactly the same. The students had the idea to ask Hundertwasser to redesign their school in the 90s, and he did it free of charge. Below are some pictures.
































































Finally, to top it all off, we visited Gräfenhainichen, where there is a "City of Iron": Ferropolis. This is a display of old coal mining machines, also from GDR times, and boy are they big.




























If you look closely, you can see some people in the pictures, so you can get an idea how big these things are. You could go on the second one and have a look around, and I felt like I was going to puke. I'm a little afraid of heights, and it was windy up there. Unfortunately, this place could have given some more information for people like me who don't know so much about coal mining. It's neat to see the machines, but I'd like to know more about the whole situation and what the mines looked like and all that sort of jazz. Oh well, it was the end of the day and we were tired anyway.

My Easter Report

These are my real live German Easter eggs, colored myself, using wax and egg colors. A painstaking process, inspired by the Lower Lusatian tradition and my mother-in-law.

Finally I have something interesting to write about, something with substance: not just my boring neighbors or my swearing kid, though I could write more about them, but a fun and varied weekend.

Since we had a four day weekend for Easter, we decided to use it wisely with as much fun activity as possible. First, on Good Friday, we decided to use the weather which appeared to be good to go to a labyrinth near Bautzen. When we departed from Dresden, it had just started to rain, and when we arrived at the labyrinth, everything was muddy and it was still raining. Quick change of plans. We decided to go to Bautzen and get some food, look at the city, and hope the weather would improve. In Bautzen we were adventurous and tried Sorbian food, which seems pretty similar to German food, but in a funky traditional atmosphere. Below you can see the window in the restaurant.

The waitresses were also dressed in traditional clothes as shown in the window, and this fascinated not only me, but Wilhelm as well. He loved the waitresses. And the food. There was a wedding meal, consisting of meat (beef, I think, it wasn't mine) with horseradish sauce, potatoes with parsley and salad, and I had potatoes with quark and linseed oil and a big delicious salad. Mmm.

Then we looked at the city, which is quite charming. The historic center is just full of narrow meandering alleys and beautiful old houses. There's also a castle, a neat church ruin where beggars used to live and where later a water tower was built right into the ruin, and now there appears to be a house built into the ruin. The skyline is amazing because the landscape is a bit hilly, so the city looms on top of a hill with lots of towers and attractive buildings.

Bautzen's skyline

Where there are old houses, they may fall in. So just support them against each other!

Finally, we decided to venture back to the labyrinth, because the weather cooperated and got better. In the end because of mud in the labyrinth we went to the neighboring Saurierpark (Dinosaur Park) , of which I was rather apprehensive. I thought maybe it was just some sort of lame tourist trap. And at first glance, it seemed to be just that. Flashy displays and info-signs, a computer animated dinosaur movie, and lots of playground equipment for the kids. But then we got to the really interesting part, namely the part where it all started: in some guy's private garden. This guy was Franz Gruss, a trained artist, and he started sculpting dinosaurs in his garden in 1978, and he just couldn't stop. Later he was allowed to put some sculptures in the forest neighboring his garden, and this developed into what is now the Saurierpark. But the garden, I can't even describe how fantastic it is. It is absolutely brimming with sculptures of monkey-like people hunting wooly mammoths and eating the innards of their prey, landscapes with cliffs from which these monkey people are stalking their prey, and even some little artistic adventures, like a UFO and aliens, and a sculpture of what a dinosaur which had evolved to be somewhat human-like might have looked like. I highly, highly recommend this place, and recommend starting at the back, at the garden, because it is so full of sculptures that you can't really take it all in after spending the greater part of your time in the main park. Below are some pictures.

Above you can see the dinosaur-turned-man

Here are the aliens in the garden.

These guys are probably my favorites: I really like the tension you can see in the faces of the small monkey-people in back as they look at these Planet of the Apes-like guys in front of them,
thinking "Oh shit! Should I throw the rock? Should I spear him with my stick? What if they turn around?" And the big guys have these looks on their faces like, "Wow, my head is really big, but my brain is just so tiny. I don't even know if I can pick up that rock. I'm so confused."

Another bonus of the lifesize dinosaur sculptures: some of them have their mouths open, which really lends itself to placing a small child into said mouths. Wilhelm seems to still be processing this, because when he's playing by himself, I still hear him talking about dinosaurs over a week later. Hehehe.

The rest of the weekend was also nice. We grilled on the balcony and had a whole bunch of people over, once again throwing together some very funny combinations of our friends, had dinner with the fam in the Ore Mountains where there was still at least a foot of snow and counting, did some cleaning on Easter Monday and finally had some coffee and cake with friends to top it all off. But I think for me, Easter will now always have some connection with dinosaurs. Probably for Wilhelm too, since he was in at least 3 dinosaurs' mouths this Easter weekend...That can't be too easy to forget!

How did I get such a profane child?

I'm sure my mom is reading this right now and thinking "You're surprised your child is profane?", and really, she's probably right. I recall sitting in the backseat of the car on one of our many marathon car trips as a child and being thrilled to see graffiti that said things like "Eat me like a taco", which soon became one of my favorite sayings, and telling my parents in response to something they said "That's nice, and I don't mean the nice nice, I mean the smartass nice." just to be sure they knew what I meant. I guess I'm not surprised that my 21-month-old swears, I'm more impressed with his amazing accuracy.

You see, every time, really every time, I drop something or he breaks a glass or I stumble or whatever, he says "oh, man!"*, "Scheisse"**, or "F*!K"*, depending on the gravity of the situation. It's really amazing, and no matter how often I tell him that only white trash and Asis (German for trash, more or less) use those words and that people will think he's just that when he says it, he persists in his use of such expressions. The trouble is, most of the time, he says exactly what I feel. Often, I could really just say "You're exactly right" when he swears, but I feel it's not appropriate, because a child who is not yet two should not be using these words. I'm not perfect, I use words of this caliber as well, but mostly in appropriate situations, and not usually in public, because, as I always tell Wilhelm, only trash does this. The main battle is now not to get him to forget these words, because I am sure that they are burned into his memory by now, but to get him to use them at appropriate times.

*he did not learn this from me
**he learned this from me

Office Space

In one of my classes we started watching the movie Office Space last week, and I just found some funny things regarding this film. For example, a 30 second version of the film reenacted by bunnies here.

You can buy gear like they have in the Initech office here and here.

There's even a quiz with 100 questions about the film here.

Here you can take a quiz to find out which Office Space character you are. (I am the Bobs, those consultants who come to Initech to fire people...)

By the way, it's called Alles Routine in German.

I love new wave!



I hope you can see this video, if not maybe you have some issues with Java or Flash players or something like that. I don't know if you'll have the same reaction, but mine was some mix of "WTF??" and being proud of Ron and Rob's great work in a sort of teacher/mom way. Hmm.

More stellar sayings of 2007

It's been a reflective beginning of the year for me, and I've realized that I forgot some great sayings of 2007 in my "Year in Review" post from January. So here's some more...

Summer 2007

"Habt ihr euch eigentlich überlegt, was es für die Nachbarn oben bedeutet, wenn ihr auf eurem Balkon grillt?" (Have you actually thought about what it means for the neighbors upstairs when you grill on your balcony?) -Well, no, and to be honest, we don't really care. And this neighbor didn't do himself a favor with his well thought out saying, because now and forever he will be known as "Habt ihr euch eigentlich überlegt" to us, and we loathe him.

"Hallo? Hallo? Könntet ihr bitte dort drüben grillen? Das riecht sehr stark bei uns, und meine Freundin ist vegetarier." (Hello, hello? Could you please grill over there? The smoke smells really bad in our apartment, and my girlfriend is a vegetarian.) -Again, no, but I'm a vegetarian too, so you can come eat with us!

Grilling was a major theme for us in 2007, and the neighbors never liked it. The thing is, everyone grills in our courtyard and it stinks all the time, that's just a part of summer, so get over yourselves and deal with it.

"Could you watch my bike for me?" This was a question from "Habt ihr euch eigentlich überlegt" while we were eating breakfast on our balcony. And you know what we said? No. I'm sorry, but if you're going to run around with that ugly Monday-morning look on your face even on a sunny Saturday, I'm not going to watch your stupid bike just because you're too lazy to put the stupid lock on it. Come on, what're we supposed to do if someone steals it? Jump over our balcony and chase them? Seriously. Hast du es dir eigentlich überlegt?

Fall 2007

A little note on an ugly pink bike in our hallway DIRECTLY IN FRONT OF MY DOOR: "Hände weg von diesem Fahrrad!" (Hands off this bike) Apparently, other inhabitants of our house had been moving the bike and/or letting the air out of the tires (I saw it numerous times with flat tires). My reply, also on a little note: "Then put it in a reasonable place, brain surgeon."

This is a test.

What's wrong with the little burning Earth in the global warming graphic below?