strings

I am sitting on the couch in my cousins apartment, with wet hair and the world at my feet.
I officially am living in Berlin!
So much goodness in the world,
I secretly ordered a Danke cake for my sweet family,
it's vegan and gluten free and I surprise them today,
and then I babysit my wildfire German niece while they have a well-deserved
night in the city.








I met the boy from Minneapolis,
he calls people brother and calls me sweetie. I am both really annoyed by him and find him endearing.

yikes

somewhere between terrified and amused............


mostly terrified,
google translate assisted me with this one:
'Room (20m2) in a beautiful old building freely. Since I am unfortunately possessed by a demon, it holds (for now), unfortunately no one in a long time from me. I am very neat and clear in my moments of a good roommate, but when the demon takes possession of me, the walls shake!
Your room would be lockable, so you could make relatively protected from attacks. A dream would be if you are a Catholic who has been a bit of experience in exorcism. More photos of the apartment and you get way more of me here'

filia

My five year old niece has this cute little habit of grabbing my ears, like a security blanket.

she just told me, in Deutsch, 'Your ear is nice. I am white and you are white.'

She's crazy I like her.






ps
quick story
apartment hunting
wrong door
knock knock
(I hear music. this must be the right one.)
A santa claus-esque man creaks the door open.
He wears only a black thong. Shakira's This Time For Africa plays in the background, like a modern man's crickets.
We exchange quick greetings.
We shake our heads at eachother in mutual discouragement.
He closes the door.

whine whine

Looking up apartments We put the five year old to bed, broke out the wine, settled down for a movie. First thought: I'm staying up with the grown ups! Years and years of being the youngest is wearing off on me.


I love it when they insist on wine. And everyone does, I visit various new friends and it's always, I insist. Adorable. The insisting, it's such a sweet tangible transaction. A social orange slice.

When I'm older I won't let a single visitor leave my place without trying wine

warten

I am waiting waiting waiting for some friendsies to log onto skype, we ate dinner (gemuse, which means vegetables, and sauce and soy bits and rice AND I LOVED IT) and watched a german film (that i liked because it was about women and i am feministish) and then I retired to bed for a little daily facebook stalking, at which point i leapt off of my (super comfy) blow up mattress and hassled my cousin into letting me borrow her computer so I could snag the few babygirls that were still online and see their sweet little faces on skype, but by the time everything was in order (Im Ordnung) no one is online.

And now I feel bad for harassing my dear sweet cousin who is letting me stay in their gorgeous flat with tall ceilings and interesting walls in the ghetto, and am considering faking a skype conversation so she can hear me through the door.


Fall has come, and I've accepted it. I walked through leaves with my giant leather boots, crunchy crunchy, little yellow things blooming on the sidewalk, the first of their kind, sort of like a pleasant appetizer to what I know is to come.

So currently residing in Wedding, which according to various sources is the Berlin equivalent of a ghetto. It's not horrid, in fact it's quite interesting. I went for a long beautiful bike ride today and boy did I see some things.

But I think the fact that I'm quite impressionable mingled with my SAD and thus Berlin is adorable and the sun shined and I squeaked through town on my fixed-speed bike from the 80's.
However, kaput break + flimsy H&M shoes = recipe for pedestrian disaster!

(I was assured that it was an original East German model.)


I'm applying for school here!
I'm in the process of attaining my German visa!
- currently have the 3 month time period in which to enroll in school, give them some money, find health insurance.
All of which can be achieved :)

hocuspocus

I watched this a total of 3 times to absorb exactly how attractive Jake is.
He's the cutest piece of man candy on this earth.
Also, notice: at 1:51 he isn't wearing his scarf while Anne yells at him. Hoping it was out of context and they didn't make such a blatant wardrope mistake.




Went to the circus today.
I tend to overthink too much too enjoy these types of things.

It felt like a cross between a comedy and strip club.

Drip drip drop

It's comforting to sit folded in my nook on the red couch as fall heaves it's stormy rage in choked gasps upon the German countryside, while I listen to the snores of our dalmation-ish dog and sip hot soy milk (ooh I should look for cocoa) and brood/fantasize over my holidays.


I had planned to go to Copenhagen this week but was cockblocked by my aunt, who reminds me oh so much of ny mother, (my uncle is my dads brother) which irritates and comforts me.


I know it's not April but - Bambi.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJZnIHwzvzM&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Biding

walnuts and teaaaa

Sip

silt drape
Slip train
Felt trait
Self portrait

Decay

Detroit

Browsing

I've discovered bunches (like grapes, yes) of subcultures, clumped and hanging from the youtube vines (vibes), pregnancy vlogs and road trip vlogs and girls that talk about shopping in a concentrated video stream, it all began when I was struck ill with mono and I read on the road and I looked up New Orleans on Lonely Planet and fantasized a road trip dream next summer, and wanted the aid of YouTube (I need to note that my iPod autocorrected this capitalization by itself, how does this work, does Apple think of this independently or do they some type of capitalization/promotion arrangement) to do a little research on what it would be like.

These accents!
And the YouTube generation, it shows, (subculture) I watched an older man make a video rant, and it was entirely awkward in a way words cannot explain, because this generation has grown up knowing unspoken cyber etiquette that may never be explained to the relatie Other.
And I'm sure there will be youngins rolling their eyes at me when I get older, impatient with my ignorance to the new culture, the fast paced rolling with the times culture, the sad pale indoors cyber world children, the opinionated educated I'll read and widely knowledgeable babies that I suspect are coming.


My aunt bought some gorgeous fade purpley flowers and they chill in a wide glass vase, and they keep dropping petals and every single time I jump ip because I think it's a spider.

Kerouac

Preface:
I LOVE TO READ.
During the school year, I was continually puhing back my beloved books, taking months to read Lolita, squeezing pages in between my fitful graveyard slumber and anxiety-ridden school day and my sloshy social weekends.

So on the journey, I am a literary animal. I've read some treasures and some muck too.

My most recent

ON THE ROAD BY JACK KEROUAC

(ugh this one absolutely kills me. I'll include a few quotes)



"They danced down the streets like dingledodies, and I shambled after as I've been doing all my life after people who interest me, because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones that never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn..."
- Jack Kerouac, On the Road, Part 1, Ch. 1

"The air was soft, the stars so fine, the promise of every cobbled alley so great, that I thought I was in a dream."
- Jack Kerouac, On the Road, Part 1, Ch. 7

"We fumed and screamed in our mountain nook, mad drunken Americans in the mighty land. We were on the roof of America and all we could do was yell, I guess--across the night..."
- Jack Kerouac, On the Road, Part 1, Ch. 9




I also dearly dearly reccomend

A CLOCKWORK ORANGE BY ANTHONZ BURGESS

"They don’t go into the cause of goodness, so why of the other shop? . . . Badness is of the self, the one, the you or me on our oddy knockies, and that self is made by old Bog or God and is his great pride and radosty. But the not-self cannot have the bad, meaning they of the government and the judges and the schools cannot allow the bad because they cannot allow the self. And is not our modern history, my brothers, the story of brave malenky selves fighting these big machines?"
-Chp 4












oooooh I have to go to a restaurant with my cousins, my life is wonderful and it's a friday (Freitag)

on the road

Possible planz for the Future:

This month - Germany, full of gorgeous German goodness, Berlin°.
October - job, apartment, artists. settle.
Quick flight to Spain to meet my wayward cousin in Barcelona, unless I can go earlier.

November - flock south. switzerland, Italy.
Roam in Italy.
Take ferry to croatia.
Find some Croatian roots.



Istanbul?
Greece?




Portugal



Spain




Specifically, Barcelona










So maybe I prefer to go with the flow.
No Plans. I'll just Float On
Although one dream has stuck in my head....






Christmas in Paris

° "‘Poor but sexy’ really is such a great description for Berlin – a bit unkempt and a little dirty, with the shiny parts looking soulless, Berlin feels like a city to live in, not just an ossified, pretty-ed up tourist attraction. A place where history is recognised as important and real, yet worn lightly. People don’t seem so concerned with looking cool, so they end up being cool. Just like their city."

Moment

You know what I absolutely, uninhibitedly adore, in my crazy songbird way?

That moment, maybe a few blurry seconds at most, of waking up, and perhaps not yet opening your eyes, but listening, new noises, noises you don't expect, and opening your eyes, not too wide yet, just glimpsing a sliver of your surroundings, and you don't recognize this wall, what is this wall doing here, in fact what am I doing by it, and space is merely a whirling whirlpool of preconceived (and this word is important, in terms of wordly conception, the pregnancy and birth of earthly environment) visual and audible and structural design, spinning in space and waiting for the sleeper to adjust to the conscious realm of the waking, so you can squint and feel the panic, the listless instability of not knowing where you are, just for a moment, or a few tantalizing seconds, because folded within the staticy panic is the self destructive desire to possess some sense of belonging, the internal fist left momentarily agape, and you are just a sleepy baby totally at the mercy of everything around you, the substances you fell asleep against, beside, sometimes in a drunken stupor and sometimes in a state of Angellic trust, because when else are we most vulernable but in sleep, and so the rooted build fortresses and stuff them with luxuries and that is where they permit themselves to rest their weary heads, but my current state of sleep is temporary, pretend homes constructed in hostels and couches and train floors, and when I am not sure where I am, just for a bit, I can ride the frantic frothing freedom anywhere, I could be anywhere, and so within my grip lies the waking and unwaking World, allowance for temporary consumption, and it's all up to little unfocused me, soaring high until my mattress catches me, whump.

Brrr(lin)

Perhaps I will take up residency here.




unfortunately I have a deathly aversion to this...



So well see!

5 large mugs

Of tea with calcium-enriched soymilk, 4 chocolate soy puddings, and one nourishing bowl of pumpkin soup later.










I do want to put pictures up too. I do. However my iPod somehow deems it beneficial to slowly refresh the page when I try - so my apologies, dear sweet readers

D.a.m. Confessions

Yes, I did wish had brought my inhaler to Amsterdam.



My train rides were plagued by the loss of my umbrella, a pack of evil smelling hippies, squealing German kinder, botched reservations, and the harmless but insistently agitating Austrian drunk boys coming home for a free weekend from the military.

Yee;

; the Irish equivalent of the German Ihr
And the slangy English Y'all

So some new lovelies explained to the table last night.


'so the ting is-'
'ting?? Hah!'
'yes well, I was going to say, that over there is a Tree, and the number is T(h)ree.'
(I heard only a whisp of a difference. Less a softening of the tongue, maybe more of a breathy respectable pause for the absent letter.)
'i can hear the difference!!!' giggled the fellow Irish lass.
My new friend from the angsty depths of London bellows into unrestrained, almost childlike laughter. 'see,' he manages, 'what I hear is' and his already ridiculous accent takes on a lively twang, 'here's a tree and here's a tree!'

I fall in love easily here. But never the giggly, blushy, middle school or even high school love. It's more of an intense attraction, a fondness, between myself and a whole matter of things - a city, a pair of norweigens, an undisclosed bench by a lake, a hostel manager, an accent.



At the risk of sounding romantic, Europe may have loosened my heart strings.
But it's not the type of relationship where I expect anything in return. There are no confrontations, no obligations. And yet, I fear I might be committing myself for life.