adrian is rad

[I feel a bit odd about this post. I’d just like to note that I’m just try to tell things the way they are here and despite the way that this may come across I don’t mean to be a braggart.]

I’m among the shyest and least adventurous people I know.

I’ve done more adventurous things than many of the people I’ve know, like living in Taiwan and Germany or visiting an island with practically no English speakers. I really like to travel and experience other cultures but that’s not really the whole story.

I know my limitations, at least in some ways. I know if I just did nothing, I’d probably just sit around (and I know I’d live to regret that), so I do things. That doesn’t make those things easy. Among my most flustered, awkward and socially difficult moments in recent memories were due to going places, to being “adventurous”. I compensate for my limitation.

The other way in which my shyness manifests itself in my “adventurousness” is this: I don’t find social situations easy normally, so other situations, which people may say are more difficult, possibly much more difficult, are only marginally more difficult to me.

What I mean is this: going to a party and making small talk for hours is really tough so moving to Taiwan seems doable; that is, it’s only marginally more difficult. (This statement seems difficult as I read it, and while I acknowledge that it is, I don’t think it’s far off the truth.) Similarly, once I was in Taipei and I was having trouble communicating and with social situations nearly all the time, going to a slightly more out-there place like Kinmen seemed doable.

UPS is following my lead!

Last year, it cut 28 million miles from truck routes — saving roughly three million gallons of fuel — in good part by mapping routes that minimize left turns. This year, U.P.S. began offering customers a self-service system for redirecting packages that are en route.

via scott

I lived in Germany during the summer of 2002 and I traveled nearly every weekend. I arrived in Germany May 28 and left August 23. Sometimes I use this blog to put things down that are at the edge of my reach memory-wise, so I can make a record of them. I actually have all of this written down in a notebook, but I can’t find it.

• May 31- June2: Bremen, to visit Colin[1]
• June 7-9: Düsseldorf to visit my Oma[2], Frankfurt to visit Sam Breuning[3]
• June 14-16: nothing
• June 21-23: Solingen, Köln to visit the cousins Füser[4]
• June 28-30: München[5, 7], Bayrischer Alpen[6] for MIT-Germany/ MIT Club of Germany meet up
• July 5-7: Vienne, Strasbourg France for the Vienne Jazz Festival[8]
• July 12-14: Berlin, for LoveParade 2002 and visit with Justus[9]
• July 20-22: Hamburg[10], Lübeck[11] w/ Christian
• July 26-28: Karlsruhe for the “Savage Seven” ultimate frisbee tournament as a part of die Sieben Schwaben[12]
• August 2-4: Romantic/ Clock Road, Rottweil; Stein am Rhein, Switzerland; Rottenburg ob der Tauber w/ Meredith Gerber[13]
• August 9-12: Pittsburgh, USA for Colin and Heather’s wedding. Surprise![14]
• August 16-18: Köln (to see Bugge Wesseltof) and Frankfurt, w/ Sam Breuning[15]

Footnotes:

1. Bremen smells like hops when the wind is the right direction because of Becks. The Schnoor area was neat, with its small and odd houses.
2. My Oma didn’t realize I was related to her for the first hour of my visit; the Alzheimers had started to take its toll. This ended up being the last time I saw her. I regret not having stayed with her for the whole weekend, but at that point I thought I was going to visit again that summer.
3. Sam was a cool British kid also with a German father; he’d been on the Cambridge-MIT exchange. We ended up hanging out a number of weekends that summer. I’ve since lost touch with him.
4. My dad’s cousin (my “Tante”/ “aunt”), her husband and kids (my “cousins”) were all gathered at their palatial family estate in Solingen for a sculpture showing of a local artist set up in their gardens. At one point we all, including the artist, were sitting under some trees eating a snack and they asked me if I liked one of the statues near us. I said, in stilted German, that I did (it was actually one of the few I did). It came out wrong and they made fun. I said “echt!” in vain. At another point this weekend, another cousin-by-marriage of my dad’s who was also visiting announced, after having talked to me for five minutes that I spoke “perfekt Deutsch.” Right…
5. We all met at a Biergarten, all the current students and the MIT Club of Germany members. I was stuck at the Club table for most of the night, which was extremely awkward. At some point I excused myself and snuck over the student table. Seeings as it was social interaction with people I didn’t know well, it was still awkward, but not nearly as much.
6. We went hiking in the Alps and stayed in a rustic ski cabin that one MIT Club member had access to. Sam and I got a ride down with a guy who spoke with a typical German accent except, because he’d spent multiple years as a ski bum in the US, mixed it with ski bum slang and inflection all the time. At the cabin, I learned I was ace at splitting logs with an ax, usually splitting decent sized logs in one swing. During one of our day hikes we stopped at an inn, where a 10 year old kid was drinking a 1 litre “maß” glass of beer.
7. It was the day of the final when we got back to Munich and I had the surreal experience of watching Germany play (and lose) in a World Cup final with 10,000 Germans in a public square where they’d set up screens. Turkey won the consolation match so there was some celebrating. (Note: Turkish is the largest minority in Germany by a factor of 4, at least at the time.)
8. Vienne has a Roman amphitheatre with gorgeous acoustics. Sam knew the mayor of Vienne so we got VIP passes into the events, including into a VIP area the first night where we passed the London Times jazz critic. Vienne was about 450 miles from Stuttgart, a good 7 hours, which we drove non-stop on Friday afternoon, on half a tank of diesel in a pretty amazing VW Passat TDI. We still missed most of the first act. Also, French radio sucks. I bought a CD-tape adapter after this road trip.
9. The LoveParade is a parade along a mile-long route on which 40 heavy duty trucks with world-class DJs and sound systems drive for an entire afternoon. Estimates for my year were 500,000 in attendance. Oh and there were a lot of topless girls there.
10. My (second) cousin Christian lived in Hamburg at the time. He’d stayed with us in America in the early 90s and he was out to repay the favor by showing me a good time. We went out with some friends. On the way there, he’d talked to them and said he was bringing his cousin (”eine Cousine from mir”) with him. We got there and the friend said “this is your hair dresser (Friseur)??” See, they might sound alike on the phone; yes that doesn’t work in English and I don’t care. This was the first night that I drank more than one beer in a night, in fact, probably quadrupling my total beer consumption ever in just that night. The goal was to stay up all night and go to the Fischmarkt when it opened at 6am, but it ended with me falling asleep in a bar at 4:30am, having had multiple beers (mostly Heinikens while watching a crappy, but, let’s be honest, fun American cover band) and a good quantity of vodka. Incidentally, trying to explain complicated concepts in German wasn’t easy, let alone to a group of strangers in a loud bar while intoxicated. And, Malta, I can’t say your name correctly sober either; but you can’t say “squirrel” to save your life, so there.
11. The bells of the main church had fallen and melted from the bombings in WWII. They’d be left as a beautiful and poignant reminder. Lübeck in general is a wonderful small town.
12. “Savage seven” means no subs (the seven you have to start is all you have). Having gotten roped into this at the last minute, I played seven games of no-subs ultimate frisbee in two days. I can still remember the intense pain, mostly in my calves that I felt for the rest of the week. Walking on flat ground and up stairs, my right calf hurt intensely; my left calf hurt similarly walking down stairs. I couldn’t, and didn’t, win. Of course there were 6 flights of stairs between my office and the cafeteria/ train level at work.
13. This was a fun little road trip with another MIT-Germany person; Meredith was in Munich for the summer. We went to some classic historic German places. I also made my only trip to a Switzerland, to the town of Stein am Rhein, which was noted by the “strict” border crossing. “Passports? No, we don’t need to see those. In fact, you don’t even have to come to a full stop. Just roll on through!”
14. After the rehearsal dinner, I had some friends over, got tipsy on Mike’s Hard Lemonades and had to search for the right words to use in English. That I was thinking partly in German was a big step for me and I noted my progress.
15. Bugge Wesseltof had impressed Sam and I with his electro jazz stylings in Vienne. Plus we liked his awesome name, so we drove like maniacs (once again) to get to Köln by show time, only to be disappointed by his collaborative work with a female jazz singer.

My dad’s German and extremely efficient. I’m not German.

However, I do like efficiency. I was quite chuffed with myself today when I figured out the most efficient route to do all my errands: swim, then KZSU, then haircut, then picking up my glasses. It is almost all right turns with the only left turns coming at 4 way stops and a fast-cycling traffic light with a left turn arrow. It also allowed for enough time for my hair to dry after the swim and before the hair cut.

Yeah, these are seriously the sort of things I think about. I’m glad I’m not the only one that thinks about path efficiency.

I’m catching up on a blogging backlog.

Last weekend I saw Das Leben der Anders (aka The Lives of Others).

It’s the story of a well regarded Stasi agent, Gerd Wiesler, in East Berlin (circa 1984) who starts spying on a playwright who they suspect might be a sympathizer. Wiesler learns that the real reason that they are spying on him is that the Minister of Culture, a high ranking official, wants the playwright out of the way so he can make advances on his girlfriend unencumbered. Wiesler becomes more sympathetic with the playwright because of this, even though he’s a strong party supporter.

It’s really an amazing film. The writing and direction (both by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck of the famed Henckel von Donnersmarcks) are both superb. The lead actor playing Wiesler, Ulrich Mühe, has a very Kevin Spacey quality to him, both in looks and some of the restrained, subtle acting he does.

It manages to be a lot of stories in one. It’s at least love story and a political thriller.

After a mostly crazy and ambitious itinerary for the first ten days of my trip, I’ve arrived in Cape Town, where I’ll stay for the rest of my trip.

Dug said yesterday that I looked energized and asked why. I like this city. I like it a lot. It’s definitely in my top five cities ever (though I don’t have time, or really care to make a full list right now).

This city is also familiar to me. I know people here; I know places here. The Cash Converters (thrift store) is still down the street in Sea Point and it’s still a great place to pick up an extra suit case on the cheap in case you bought too much stuff to fit in the luggage you brought with you. The Vondi’s Holistic Pet Nutrition store that I like to make fun of is still here too. I know where to get a good bite to eat and where to do laundry. We’re even staying in the same place
(where my parents have a time share). Perhaps the only other foreign city I have this familiarity with is Stuttgart, where I lived for a summer.

Traveling in a foreign country is largely about learning and experiencing new things, so you may wonder why I enjoy this familiarity. Well, it’s hard being out on the road and rushing around in a very different culture for ten days and coming here has the feeling of coming home and that’s always nice. It’s very encouraging for my thoughts of moving to this city in a couple years.

The water off of Camp’s Bay (Atlantic side) is freezing, but even that was nice somehow. Sundowners on Camp’s Bay is still one of the best things.

The cycling shop that I liked in Sea Point has been torn down though. I don’t know if they relocated or what.

Just a handful more days here. I’ll try to make the most of it, but I also don’t need to wear myself out any more on vacation.

[Oh, Ali’s daughter is on TV. She’s fighting here in South Africa. The other day I heard her on the radio say that she puts Mandela on the same level as her father. Um…Ali’s good and all, but Nelson Mandela’s slightly more important.]

I don’t know if you have been there lately, but Trader Joe’s is overflowing with German Christmas sweets these days. I picked up some Pfeffernüsse the other day and they’re almost all gone. Delicious and fairly cheap!

Today I noticed that they have Lebkuchen and Stollen as well. I also picked up a gingerbread house kit, which I’m going to make with Judit on Monday.

I also have been absolutely ecstatic to open the little doors of my advent calendar these past two days (though as we all know Advent only starts on Sunday (which is still tomorrow to me)). Today chocolate treat was an aeroplane! What’s tomorrow’s going to be??

I wanted to make a list of my overseas/ abroad trips. We always traveled a lot because my parents are from South Africa and Germany and we have relatives in five or six countries (more now) so we were always visiting and whatnot. With my dad’s help, here it is:

• 1982 March-April: South Africa, Holland and Germany, Düsseldorf for my Opa’s 70th
• 1984-85 Dec/Jan: England, Gloucestershire, South Africa (the never-ending Christmas presents in 3 countries)
• 1985 July: South Africa, surprise trip for my Grandpa’s 75 birthday (the last time I saw him)
• 1987 April: Germany, my Opa’s 75th; Holland, Düsseldorf, Köln, Nürnberg, Regensburg (Bischoffshof), München (except Frauenkirche inside*)
• 1988 August: Germany, my Oma and Opa’s 50th wedding anniversary, Black Forest, Düsseldorf, London
• 1991 March-April: South Africa, Johannesburg, Kruger Park
• 1992 April: Germany, Aachen, Holland, Belgium, Düsseldorf for my Opa’s 80th
• 1994 July-August: England and Netherlands with Alex, first trip without my parents
• 1995 July & August: Germany, Solingen, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Austria briefly
• 1995 October: Germany, my Oma’s 80th in Berlin
• 1997 March: Hong Kong and China with my Mom
• 1998-99 Dec-Jan: South Africa, Vic Falls (Zimbabwe, Zambia), Kruger, Cape Town
• 2000 May: Italy, Alex’s graduation
• 2001 January: England, with Andy Chadwick
• 2001 March: South Africa, my Granny’s 90th
• 2002 Summer: living in Germany, Stuttgart, Behr Group, side trips to France and Switzerland (and America for the weekend)
• 2003 May: Greece, my graduation
• 2004 Sept-Oct: South Africa and Tanzania, my dad’s 60th
• 2005 February: Mexico, Cabo San Lucas
• 2005 April: England, London for my cousin’s wedding
• 2006 February: Mexico, Playa del Carmen
• 2007 Jan-Feb: South Africa, my mom’s “40th”
• 2007 Aug-Dec: living in Taipei, Taiwan
• 2007 September: Indonesia; Thailand
• 2007 October: Hong Kong, China, Macau; Kaohsiung (TW)
• 2007 November: Japan (Kyoto, Tokyo)
• 2007 December: Taroko, Kinmen (TW)

The counts are, I think.
Germany: 7
South Africa: 7 (8th in January) 8
England: 5
Netherlands: 4
Mexico, Hong Kong, China: 2
1 each: Hong Kong, China, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Italy, Greece, France, Switzerland, Austria, Belgium, Tanzania, Indonesia, Thailand, Macau.

Averages (per year of my life):
Countries: 1.38
New countries: 0.62 (or one every 1.6 years)
South Africa: 0.27 (or once every 3.7 years) (this will lower to once every 3.3 years in January)
Germany: 0.27 (or once every 3.7 years)
England: 0.19 (or once every 5.2 years)

*The Frauenkirche Incident as I call it. We’d toured Germany and went to famous churches in every town. By Munich, I’d had enough so I said “I’ve had enough! No more churches!” and sat down outside the Frauenkirche. Much to my surprise my parents said “Fine.” and they cycled in with my brother. I still have not been inside the Frauenkirche. It is on my to-do list.

Note: updated 13 Oct 2007.

Note: Updated 22 Jan 2008

I think the Coudal Partners’ Field Tested Books Series is pretty interesting so I thought I’d try one of my own.

Roald Dahl’s Omnibus field tested by yours truly at Schloss Emlau, outside of Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Bavaria, Germany. Early August 1995.

I was in Germany with my second cousins and their parents (my dad’s cousin, her husband and children), the Fuesers. I’d just finished 8th grade and was going to be starting high school in about a month. The Fuesers lived in Solingen near Koeln and Duesseldorf and the like. It was my first trip far away from my immediate family (I’d gone to London and Amsterdam with my brother the previous year) and my German was spotty from three years of slow and substandard German education. Part of the reason to go, I think, was to improve my German. I was nervous and shy about my German skills. I’d think for ten minutes about how to ask someone to pass the chocolates only to have them offer before I asked. Eventually I gave up trying and that turned into a refusal as the trip went along. The Fuesers all spoke English fairly well—they spoke English better than I spoke German certaintly—but it was obvious my refusal to speak German was a strain on them.

After about two weeks in Solingen, we left for the south of Germany, for Schloss Emlau, more of a nice hotel than a castle (Schloss = castle, palace). It was perhaps sometime during the car trip, or perhaps only after I arrived at the Schloss Elmau that I started Omnibus. Most people know Roald Dahl for his children’s stories, but the Omnibus included many of his short stories, including those that he contributed to Playboy. I was no longer a kid and I was reading “adult” stories.

There was a dance in the grand ballroom at Schloss Elmau. I didn’t want to dance. (I wasn’t much of a rebelious teenager, but I say that this German trip landed smack dab in the middle of my three months of rebelion.) Instead, I would go up to the balcony overlooking the ballroom, dressed up in my flannel greys and shirt and tie (because, my aunt decided doggoneit, even if I wasn’t going to dance, I had to be dressed in case I changed my mind) and read the story about a family feeding their weak baby royal jelly only to see it start turning into a bee. Roald Dahl has a way with characters and stories. They’re not subtle or overly complex, but they’re good.

I’d also read at night. My bed was across the room from the son’s, Justus’, and I’d read with the light on while he was asleep. My innocent fourteen year mind absolutely exploded a story about two buddies trading wifes (without their knowledge) for a night. This story is quite possibly less graphic than what ones sees on prime time TV and definitely less graphic than what one sees in any R-rated movie, but my young mind was sent reeling and I had to contend with a funny feeling in my pajama pants.

I read it quite quickly. It was good and I was lonely. All my communications were strained so I withdrew.

On the last day at Schloss Elmau, I made a concession: I went to a class to learn the Schloss Elmau dance with the daughter, Olga, and we danced it at the dance that night in the ballroom. I’d learned all the steps well but it went into a freeform waltz portion at the end, during which I repeatedly stepped on Olga’s feet. We decided to sit down instead of dance that part.

6:58am: roll out of bed. crickeys, it’s early. some days I really think I’m crazy.

7:00am: game starts

7:01am: I don’t understand just about anything these announcers are saying. Oh they just said “Estados Unidos.” That’s “United States.”

7:02am: The TV/Cable signal is choppy. I hope this doesn’t continue. A header gets the ball in the air right in front of the Ghana goal but nothing happens.

7:05am: One of the Ghana guys just got a yellow card for a tackle-from-behind of Reyna.

7:07am: Lewis on the Estados Unidos team just got a yellow card for what appears to be an unintentional handball. Man, I wish I understood what they’re saying.

7:09am: Oh man, they’re giving this Ghana guy a free kick after he totally took a dive. The replay is of him running flat into a US player and then falling over. Kasey Keller’s looks like a champ in goal. Luckily the ball goes wide and he doesn’t need to be a champ.

7:11am: Ghana drives toward the goal but get called for an offsides. I think I finally understand the offsides rule in football.

7:14am: During a free kick stoppage they show the crowd and there’s a guy wearing a fez and playing a lute.

7:16am: Lewis is bleeding. I’m not sure what from because it sure looked like he was faking whatever grievous penalty just happened to him.

7:17am: USA corner kick! header!…right to the goalie.

7:19am: Onyewu just got a yellow card for some friendly pushing.(Both players were pushing, but the Ghanan took the dive first).

7:20am: USA guy has a nice header to block a Ghanan goal. Now there’s a corner kick. Ghana fouls; USA free kick.

7:22am: some sloppy play on the US side results in a breakaway and a Ghana goal. crap. Now the announcer’s going “gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooool!”

7:24am: It appears that Reyna got hurt on that last play. He’s getting carried off the field.

7:25am: USA corner kick….goalie makes a nice stop.

7:26am: The Ghana goalie’s writhing around on the ground. I guess on that stop he dove into a US player.

7:28am: They switched over to the Italia v Republica Checha game to show that Italian goal. They’re up, which is what we need.

7:29am: Ghanan breakaway. No goal, but we seriously need to pick it up here.

7:30am: I seriously don’t understand how these goalies can kick the ball this far. The Ghana goalie just kicked it almost to the other 18 yard line.

7:33am: This Ghana player just put his forearm into an American player’s neck. Yellow card.

7:35am: The USA just set up Landon Donovan pretty nicely but he put it high and wide.

7:36am: A tackle-from-behind results in a free kick fo the USA just outside of the 18 yard box. I wish Kingson wasn’t so good. Another good stop.

7:37am: Donovan on a corner kick…nothing.

7:39am: USA driving down the side. He centers it! to no one!

7:42am: Free kick on a dumb dumb foul. The US player barely touched him! Luckily it goes wide.

7:43am: BEAUTIFUL! Beasly centers it and GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL. Demsey! I love this guy right now.

7:47am: Two guys jockeying for position and the Ghana guy takes a dive. Penalty kick for Ghana. Come on Kasey…Goal. I seriously think these announces are judged by their ability to hold out “gooooool” for the longest.

7:50am: Alright, that’s half. I’m going to shower and grab some cereal.

8:06am: Showered, lunch made and cereal and milk poured. I’m ready for the second half. The players are just coming onto the field now.

8:14am: Alright, done with my cereal. Dangerous kick by a Ghanan, so we’re looking at a free kick from just outside of the 18 yard box. No Americans got to the ball when it was in front of the goal. It’ll be a corner kick.

8:16am: Corner kick…come on, guys.

8:19am: Italy’s still winning 1-0. 12 minutes into the second half, so there’s plenty of time, left, but I’m not feeling good about this. Oh! good stop by the Ghana goalie.

8:23am: These guys are pretty good at this.

8:24am: I’m glad there’s instant reply. It makes it easy to tell who’s totally taking a dive and who’s not. One of the Ghana players just took the funniest dive. He just jumped up, bumped into a US player in the air and then fell down, holding his foot.

8:25am: I have to go! someone tell me what happens. It’ll be a pretty exciting game if the US can pull it off.

[post-blogged]
8:36am: I found the game on the radio in my car. At least I think it was that game. It was in Spanish. It was on 1170AM.

yeah, so they lost. that’s sad. there’s always 2010, America!

I’m keeping track of the World Cup scores on my handy pull out sheet from a Spanish-language newspaper out here:

I was somewhat ambivalent towards it until this weekend’s USA-Italy game, now I want to watch Thursday’s USA-Ghana game to see if the boys can get into the second round. (Italy also needs to beat the Czechs.) I was pretty sad to discover the game would be on ESPN, not ABC, like Saturday’s game, and I didn’t really want to go out at 6:30am looking for a bar or something that was showing the game. Well I was looking through the TV listings today and saw that one of the Spanish-language chanels was showing one of today’s Copa Mundial games. I investigated further and—what do you know!—I can watch Ghana vs. Estados Unidos on Thursday morning on broadcast TV!

Shove off ESPN! Viva Copa Mundial!

So not only is this a sweet german indie rock blog, but it has a bunch of mp3s of a good band, Beirut, who I previously posted about.

I noticed on John Vanderslice’s tour schedule that he was playing at the “Kraftbrau Brewery” in Michigan. This is funny. It’s is obviously trying to be a clever reference to craft brews and German beer. It fails on a couple accounts. Kraft means “power,” “force” or “potency.” Brau means nothing, but braeu, usually spelled bräu means brew. (To their defense it does say Kraftbräu on their frontpage.) So Kraftbräu Brewery means something like Power Brew Brewery.

The funniest thing I ever heard of in terms of misusing words was a place my friend Colin saw in Wisconsin called das Gifthaus (he had a picture to prove it.) Gift means “poison” so this was a “poison house.” Not exactly what they meant, I would assume.

I was just reminded by a voice mail from my parents that today’s my Namenstag.

Happy Namestag to me!

Freuliche Namenstag noch!

Yesterday, while out running errands, Andyl and I were at BevMo just across from El Mercadito Latino in Redwood City. I decided to go in to see if they stock Coke in glass bottles made with sugar (instead of corn syrup). They do. I bought 6 @$1.19. I now have 3 left.

It’s so good. I like the glass bottle. I like the way it feels in my hand— the cold glass with condensation. I like the way it feels on my lips. I like the way it tastes; it’s crisper and less syrupy. I like how it reminds me of cokes I had in bottles in South Africa (and, to a lesser extent, Germany and Tanzania among other places).

An article about Mexican Coke vs. American Coke.

Other things that I like in glass bottles or with sugar instead of corn syrup:

• Straus Family Creamery Milk (for my cereal at work)
• heinz organic ketchup (from Pittsburgh, no less!)
• Dublin Dr. Pepper. The holy grail of sugar sodas. I bought a bunch at the Dr. Pepper Museum in Waco, Texas on my last road trip across the country.

yes, to answer your questions, I am apparently a total hippie.

Non-German speaker Paul Pham, currently in Austria, in a recent email:

p.s. the guys around my lab speak English so I won’t feel left out. This includes cursing. Whenever anyone yells “Scheiß!” they have to remember to yell “Shit!” afterwards for my benefit. It is pretty awesome.

Last night I had a detailed and vivid dream that I pretty much put my job on hold and moved to germany without even knowing where I was going to live. There were other people with me (my mom, I think, was one of them). We went to Stuttgart and went around and it was all very familiar (because I have lived there before) but I decided that if I was going to live in germany it had to be Berlin so we went there. I forget where the dream ended but we definitely got to Berlin, but I don’t think I’d rented an apartment yet or anything like that.

now I’m off to sleep again. We’ll see what tonight brings.

for a day such as this.

It would seem so, except that it’s a depressing indie rock album by Seldom. I haven’t listened to this album much in the last two and a half years and it’s very strange to listen to it.

You see, Dear Reader, I listened to this album obsessively during the summer of 2002 when I was living in Stuttgart. Basically I listened to this and Neon Golden by the Notwist all summer since they were my only new music. When I listen to Neon Golden I hear the (awesome) music. When I listen to Romance I see those streets: the one going by Porcheplatz to Wollinstrasse in Zuffenhausen; the one going by the Bosch headquarters, Mauserstrasse and Behr buildings 3 and 4 from the Feuerbach S-Bahn station to work; the main street near the Hauptbahnhof and Stadtmitte. I’d listen to and from work on my portable CD player and sing along when there weren’t people close by; I’d listen when I went to the city center to see a movie on 4 Euro Tuesdays, buy something, or check my email at the internet cafe. It’s really very strange to listen to this album because in my mind it is so strongly associated with a few specific places in Stuttgart.

Perhaps sometime I’ll write about sense-related memories.

I saw a Afri Cola bottle while shopping at Bev Mo the other day:

[picture taken with the crappy camera on my sidekick]

and it reminded me of my time in Stuttgart. They had afri cola at the commisary at my company which was open daily from 8:30-10am and 10:30-11am. I’d quite often get a bottle for the afternoon.

I bought the bottle at Bev Mo and drank it. It’s actually not incredible soda, but I don’t care.

I was always struck by the incredible graphic design they had. The white palm tree and “afri cola” on black. So simple, but so catchy. I have a shirt that has that design on it. And that bottle!

I was also reminded about this sweet commercial they had of a bunch of people in a line in a train station or something dancing away the time. I was please to find that afri cola has a bunch of their commericials online, including the the one I remember. It’s still fun to watch.

For the non-german speakers Kein Vergnuegen ohne Gefahr (on the bottle) roughly means “no pleasure without danger” and und alles wird afri roughly means “and everything becomes afri.”

After disconnecting my battery to do the starter replacement that I’ve mentioned before on my blog (and that I’m not going to link, because, honestly, who’s going to want to read me writing about replacing my starter), my radio went into “SAFE” mode, an anti-theft thing to prevent it from being stolen, or, rather, being used, if it’s stolen. Easy to fix if you have the correct code to unlock the device.

I, however, did not. The code I had was wrong. I tried many times (which is a pain, because you need to leave the radio on for an hour between every two tries and considering I almost never drive for an hour straight, that’s difficutl.) I went to the dealership* yesterday and they pulled out the radio, found the serial number and the VIN number (on the body of the car, not on the radio) and looked up the correct code, which is not even close to the code I’d been entering.

As it turns out, driving without music sucks. A couple times, I took out my laptop and put it on the passenger seat and played music from that. So much for silence.

Which reminds me of a time when I was living in Germany. Sam Breuning and I went to the Vienne Jazz Festival (an entirely different story), about a seven hour drive from Stuttgart, most of it through southern and eastern France, passing through Lyon and going a little past. I didn’t have a tape adapter for my car so I couldn’t play any of my CDs and as it turns out, French radio is horrible. My next road trip, down to Stein-am-Rhein, Switzerland skirting the Schwartzwald and hitting Rothenberg o.d. Tauber on the way back, I bought a tape adapter and brought hundreds of CDs.

*I link because they did it while I waited, were nice about it and didn’t charge for which another not-so-nice VW dealer was going to charge $60.