Montag, Dezember 21, 2009

Off to Hong Kong and Bangkok

Ladies and gentlemen,

We (meaning my boyfriend and myself) are getting ready for a two-and-a-half week vacation in Asia. Heading for Hong Kong tomorrow night (staying over Christmas), and for Bangkok on the 29th (staying over Newyear's).

Yes, we're going to take a lot of pictures, and I hope that some great ones will be among them. This will be my first time in Asia, and I am looking forward to this first longer time together with my boyfriend, the food, the different mentality, and to experiencing all the things that are different.

Hoping you will be having a marvelous time over the holidays,

Pöt

Freitag, Dezember 04, 2009

Moving Within Frankfurt

Photo courtesy of user Surfguard

Girls and boys,

I'm starting my move very very soon. In approximately three hours, to be precise, and I am pretty nervous. The move has been on my mind for weeks now, and at times I have been very unrelaxed about it, for various reasons. My boyfriend and I planned it thoroughly, and for all I know, we've done a pretty good job.

Regardless, I am nervous right now, and more shaking at my desk at the office than actually doing work.

It is so time for this move to be over, I can tell you. We probably all know how it is when you feel your heartbeat constantly pounding so hard that even sitting down, your body produces much more heat than usual, while you're too nervous to eat normally.

Let this day pass smoothly…

Montag, November 16, 2009

Autumn is Here

Photo courtesy of Flickr user curran.kelleher

Okay girls, this is getting serious. No post for two months; that's a clear sign that something major has changed. Last newyear's eve I had the feeling that something major was going to change for me in 2009, but I had no idea what that would be. I was hoping it would be a job in California and, obviously, after my breakup in July, a new boyfriend.

In the first half year I at least got myself a great new job, my current one here in Frankfurt. It was about time considering the insanity that had been going on at my office at the time. Well so I moved to Frankfurt, no big deal to me at the time. Frankfurt was only 200 km away from Düsseldorf after all. Considering that I had silently agreed to myself to move to California, Frankfurt was almost like staying where I was.

So the new job started, and in spite of all the novelties that the job and Franfurt brought, I was still waiting for the big change. And I am still not sure how big the change has to be to be "the big change" that I had anticipated last newyear's, but what about this:

I am moving in with my new three-months boyfriend, and I am having a great feeling about this. He and I are getting along extremely well, and all my friends and family seem to like him as well. Then again, he is very hard not to like.

Last weekend we were at a dance party, together with my ex-roomy Amalia (who, of course, approves of him as well), and as I was standing there watching him dance I thought, "Huh, and this man over there is my boyfriend." I was proud and happy. Very much.

This move is a major change. For the first time I am in a relationship in which both my boyfriend and I share the same feelings for each other, enjoy each other's company, and are ready to share a 57 m² apartment with each other. And as big this step might be, as simple and natural it feels, unless you think about it.
So from the beginning of December on, I'll have a different address and landline number in Frankfurt. If you don't get an e-mail with the details by the end of November, ask me, please.




For the novelties, I don't know where to start any more. My boyfriend and I have been to innumerable restaurants and bars, seen new movies (such as, "Up" and "Verblendung"), played new games (DJ Hero is the shit!), and made new friends. We're all over the place, and I'm loving every bit of it.

Oh, by the way! If you feel like joining us for our move (technically, it'll be two moves, one on Friday evening and one on Saturday morning), let me know! We're throwing a move party! We'll provide food and drinks, music and Wii games. We can of course use help to carry the boxes and furniture but also to put the furniture together and set up the apartment, and whenever you feel like chilling on the couch and having some food and drinks, you're welcome to. The plan is to have a set up apartment by Saturday night and slip into a regular little housewarming party.

Sounds fun, doesn't it? Believe me, it will be.

Donnerstag, September 17, 2009

Hello Kitty is THE gay sign!

Today I ran into a very odd situation that is, now, after 1.5 hours, making me think.

I moved into another office today, and at the end of my work day one of my colleagues now sitting next to me saw the Hello Kitty sticker on my keyboard. She hestitated and then said shook her head in disbelief. She's a humorous person usually, I have no idea what was so terribly strange about a Hello Kitty sticker. In that moment another colleagues called me, and she answered the phone, telling him that she couldn't believe I had a Hello Kitty sticker on my keyboard, and asked whether he knew about this. They talked for a few seconds, and it was all fun. I like to put people off with Hello Kitty; it's cute.

After those seconds she hands the phone over to me, and I said jokingly to him that I wasn't sure whether I could still work with him. He went, "Uh? Why's that?", and I replied, "Well simply because you don't like my Hello Kitty sticker!"

And here comes the odd thing. He said, "Oh no no, I didn't say anything bad. I just told her that I attributed this liking of yours to your special orientation, and I would never have a problem with that." Or something like that.

Now, here's what made me think. Let's assume that he wasn't only joking, and I am not sure how much joke was in there. I wouldn't have any problem with his disapproval of my being gay. If he wasn't fine with that he wouldn't have to deal with it.

Here's what I find very odd:

This man, apparently at least to a certain degree serious, seems to assume that being gay is likely to make you like Hello Kitty. That is such an odd thing that I don't even know how to start discussing it. Little girls like Hello Kitty. How would a gay man, because of his liking men, like the same things little girls like, especially if he's not exactly queeny, which I assume the case to be with me? And of course he cannot know this but a good straight friend of mine loves Hello Kitty for pretty much the same reason as I do, namely for putting a strong contrast to contexts such as the office.

"Hey, he likes Hello Kitty." -- "Sure he does. He's gay."

/me shrugs, shaking his head in disbelief.

Montag, September 14, 2009

New This Week, Parts 30 Through 37

What you are reading now is the result of countless attempts to write another “New This Week” article. I started some of them at home, some in my head and one or two even at work, the latter of which were, unexpectedly enough, by far the most useless. I can't put into words how hesitant I have been to even get started, and as time progressed it seemed less and less sensible to even try any more. I figured correctly that if I have this much difficulty to even remember one week's novelties, I could as well try to dance on the ceiling if I wanted to recall the novelties of five weeks ago.

So naturally I started thinking about what had been holding me off. One of the reasons is certainly that creating a blog entry with colorful pictures and such takes quite some work. Even browsing Flickr to find images I may use takes quite some effort, and formatting an entry on Blogger is in fact not that enlightening. You have a tiny message window, the interface adds images never where your cursor is but always at the beginning of a post, which causes a lot of effort to move the pertaining HTML space. Not to speak of the fact that the images can't be sized the way I want them for my post by default.

But what's actually much more important is the fact that the original purpose of the novelty listing is not matched any more by simply listing what new bar I went to, or what new food or restaurant I tried. When I lived in Düsseldorf it was alright. When you live in a city for a while and feel like spicing up your standard routine a bit, listing the occasional new bar or restaurant is spicing up your life already. Frankfurt, however, has been challenging and exciting to me in so many ways that listing a few places or events that I attended hardly does my life justice.

So at least for now, the only half-way realistic way to fit my life into this cute blog frame is to concentrate on the things that are really important, selecting merely a variety of novelties and rather sharing my thoughts with you than simply naming restaurants and such. I'm not sure whether I'll keep up the New This Week format at all; time should tell.

I actually wrote this article on the trains from London to Exeter and back. Weird that I have to fly this far to get it done, isn't it?

Frankfurt City

Frankfurt is a fantastic city. Whoever claims different either hasn't seen anything but the junkie-and-hooker area near the main station, or hasn't kept up with the city's pace. In the past years, I am told time and time again, there has been an incredible development, and apart from a few areas that I have seen so far, the inner city of Frankfurt is gorgeous, period. You can get anything and everything you want here, from bars to supermarkets, great architecture, history, parks, all sorts of activities such as street festivals, sports events, and cultural ones too, such as theater and cinema, even in English, or the opera.

And if you happen not to like the city any more, you might have noticed you're in the best-connected city in Germany. Any German million-inhabitants city and various major European cities are right within 4-hour distance by train. Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, Cologne, Dresden, Brussels, Amsterdam, Zurich, Luxemburg, Prague, and many more are right there at your reach. Oh, and do I need to mention the airport serving 125 airlines?

Regardless of that, there are a few things that suck in Frankfurt, the most important of which seems to be street traffic. Car traffic, to be precise. God be my witness, the way traffic lights are set up and (not) synced in Frankfurt must be the worst on Earth, I'm not kidding. And for those of you who assume that this is due to the city's endeavors to make people use public transit, here are two facts for you. The monthly public-transit pass currently comes at, to my knowledge, 72 Euros for an adult. Not quite the price you would assume in a city that wants to drive people to use public transit, is it? And what's more, you cannot cancel tickets anywhere but have to get them immediately before your trip. No books of four or so. If you don't have a monthly ticket, day pass or so, you have to buy your single-ride ticket at the machine before each ride. Unless the city of Frankfurt can come up with a really good financial excuse, this is deliberately planned to drive people away from taking public transit.

However, you can move from side to side of Frankfurt by bike in approx. 45 minutes. Try that in any other city of this format. Weirdly enough, this is assuming that you don't stop at red lights but yield to crossing traffic and go when it's gone. I haven't tested this hypothesis but I would bet that you can hardly make it in this time by car.

Frankurt Citizenship

In the meantime I have officially become a citizen of Frankfurt. And by the way, when I had the city alter my city of residence in my passport as well (on top of my ID card) I noticed that I had in the meantime been in the US with my passport that didn't even state my correct residence in Düsseldorf but my previous one, and nobody gave a sh*t. So it is safe to say that your city of residence really doesn't matter at all in the passport.

Networking Got Me a New Potential Boyfriend

Ladies and gentlemen, I love being vague and making jokes out of everything, sometimes out of my fear of showing interest and affection that might turn out to be disappointed some time later. But I must admit that I have met a very special man about a month ago at a gay birthday party. For the sake of this Blog, let's call him Robert.

Before I share some information about Robert with you, let's do a step back and see how I got into the situation to meet him.

I had gotten to know one of my landlord's ladyfriends – Trish – a while back. He had tried to reach her on the phone several times, and after one of his short visits in Frankfurt she called when he was already gone again. I answered the phone, and as I knew her name and had heard good things about her I said, “Hey there, no, I'm sorry, he's already gone again but don't you think that having heard so much about each other already, we should meet?” She was all up in flames about the idea, and we started seeing each other regular for about a week like we had been friends for years.

I was happy not only to have a chance for a new friend but it turned out she was apparently the fag hag of Frankfurt. She knew tons of gay men. Actually, even now I wouldn't be able to swear that she knew anybody else but gay men. I hadn't moved to Frankfurt because of the gay scene but certainly it wouldn't hurt to be introduced to a variety of friends, amongst which might be my next boyfriend, I thought. So we'd go to gay events for a while, like a spot at the Saturday Konstablerwache wine market or the FVV (gay sports club) forest summer festival where the good old sissylympics disciplines of purse-throwing and other nonsense were celebrated. And on top of all that, it was her birthday with evening party in the first week after our initial meeting that about 95% gay men went to. In short, where gay men were, Trish would not be far. She was popular, I am sure, also because she knew an abundance of lines and jokes that you would otherwise only hear on Will & Grace and Absolutely Fabulous. Sometimes she would go so far as to idealize gay men, which I assumed to have its roots in a series of disappointments she must have had with straight men.

Now, at her birthday party I met a friend of her whose birthday party was coming up on Saturday, and when she suggested I'd come, I assumed it was fine with her friend, and went. I noticed Robert immediately when I came in. He was standing in a door frame talking to people, and I just made sure to include this group of people in my round of saying hi and introducing myself. For the whole evening I didn't think he'd be interested in me, and as an acquaintance of mine had told me before that he had a partner, I didn't think there was a chance of anything beyond a nice talk.

I was talking to a lady acquaintance for a while before I actually made a move towards him. She and I were joking about him, and when she left I told her I'd go over and talk to him, she grinned and said I should have fun with him. I'm sure I made a “You got that right, girl” gesture.

I actually did talk to him and his friends for quite a bit, about where all of us were from, who did what for a living, and a lot about what sparetime activities he recommended I do in order to get to know Frankfurt. At one point when a lot of people had already left the party he and I decided to leave as well, and downstairs when we both were about to drive off to our homes, and gave each other a good-bye hug that was remarkably long.

Ever since that evening, Robert and I have spent the majority of our free time together – not counting the week he was on vacation with friends and this weekend that I had booked already to attend a Demoscene event in Southern England. We have spent various noon breaks together, which gives me a peace of mind I was not familiar with. And being able to get together for lunch just like that is actually a huge novelty for me, just like being able to spend the weekend with each other without having to think about catching a train back home that will take at least four hours is.

Robert is wonderful for a variety of reason, two of which are his smile and wit. When he smiles the sun rises, I'm not kidding. He should be working for solar power companies. And he's intelligent, smart and, by all means, funny. If you ever get a chance to hear him throw lines back and forth with his friends you will wonder whether I can keep up with it. But don't worry about the last part. :)

As many of you must have guessed, he's again older than I, but this time it's only 13 years. Not that big a deal, and we have gotten the oddest comments. One of them was that we looked like we were equally old. By all means, this is just not true but he does look younger than 45, and I have been assumed to be older than I am for years already, so no surprise there.

But he's also great in many other ways. What's also great about him is the fact that he doesn't buy bullshit from me. He can tell when I act in order to hide fears or moods. He also has a great imagination and phantasy, and we agree on many things and levels when it comes to common interests and values. And on top of all that, most of the time he is quiet and centered. Sometimes I get to him though, especially when I pour my heart out about what's been bothering me at work, or when I'm concentrating on negative things. I know I shouldn't do that but it sometimes still happens.

Nothing is carved in stone but the steps we have taken so far are promising, I think, even though we have uttered doubts already that I, however, naïve as I sometimes am, think are minor details that we could easily work on. I am willing to take the next steps, and when I get back home from London tonight, I'd love to see him again.

One Additional Miracle

I had come back from Exeter to London with my friend, and we had hung out at the Westfield shopping mall for a while before he took me to the Wood Lane underground stop. From there, he went home and I took the underground to the Heathrow airport. As I was sitting in the underground and watching the stops go by slooooowly, and the train actually slowing down and stopping time and time again, I started getting worried about making it in time. One hour beforehand you're supposed to be at the check-in, even for domestic flights, and mine was an international one.

My plane was scheduled to depart at 6:08PM, and when the underground rolled into Terminal 1 where I was to check in, it was 5:33. I ran as fast as I could, along the platform, through the tunnels, up the escalators, alongside the check-in counter phalanx until I finally ended up in the Lufthansa check-in room. Tons of people there. My last chance, I figured, was using one of the check-in machines. So I pulled out my ID card and scanned it. “We are sorry but it is too late for automatic check-in. Our staff at the check-in counters will help you.” So I looked around. All counters had long lines in front of them. Wait, not all of them. One first-class counter ticket (not even check-in) counter was free. What the hell, I would surely miss my flight if I didn't try. I went up to the counter. Behind it, there were two women sitting and chatting. “Excuse me, Miss”, I had no chance but to interrupt the first-class one. “I am late for a flight to Frankfurt. Do you think you could help me out?”

She checked my passport in her system. “I'm sorry, sir, but the doors closed five minutes ago.” It was still 20 minutes or so to go before scheduled departure. From this moment on, things went fast and I hardly remember anything. She typed quite a bit on her computer, and every now and then shook her head. “All the flights are overbooked”, she explained her headshakes. I hardly spoke a word but just stood there waiting for what she would come up with. I remembered my friend Larry's words who works for Delta Airlines and who said that check-in personnel is able to do all sorts of things for customers if they want. I was doing my best to be friendly and polite, still breathing heavily from the running.

At one point she asked me to stay there, and disappeared for a short while. When she came back she asked me to follow her to one of the check-in machines where she tried something that anyhow didn't seem to work. As she was trying to do whatever she was doing she said, “I can't do that over there at the counter because we've been telling everybody that the flights are overbooked.” I sensed that she was going out of her way to help me, I just didn't have an idea what exactly that was.

She went back to the counter to do something and asked me to stay there. “I'm trying to get you on the 7PM machine”, she assured. Once more she disappeared, and I waited longer. My breath and pulse were slowly but steadily quieting down. I don't know any more how long I must have been standing there but I think it wasn't more than a minute before I was tapped on my shoulder from behind. It was her, smiling and handing me a boarding pass for the 7PM machine. “There you are, sir. All you have to do is checking your bag over there.” She pointed to the line that I had initially seen, the one that assembled next to a sign saying “Baggage Drop-Off”. I thanked her several times, and I truly hope that my voice showed the relief that had come over me. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

So I took my stuff and went over to stand in line. But not for long, as it would turn out. About five minutes later a female voice said to me, “Sir?” I turned my head, and it was my angel check-in lady again. “Yes?” I acknowledged. “Please come with me”, she said, and I followed her to a counter on the other side of the room, to an empty baggage drop-off counter. “One bag?”, she asked, and I nodded, smiling. I'm not sure whether I asked her why she was doing all this for me, or whether I just thought it and she heard it. “You look like an old friend of mine”, she said. I smiled and put my bag onto the conveyor belt. After about 20 seconds I asked, “What is he like?” She replied, “He passed away a while ago.” I'm not sure whether she heard my “I'm sorry.” but she added, “He had a car accident.” We finished the drop-off, and she concluded our wonderful short encounter by saying, “All you have to do is going through security.”

Thanking her with a smile that must have conveyed both gratefulness and sympathy, I went over to the entrance to security, looking back and catching eye contact with her once more before I walked around the corner.

I did catch the 7PM flight, and when I entered the plane I wished the staff a marvelous evening, just like the one I was having.

Montag, August 31, 2009

My Living Arrangement

I know I haven't written in quite a while, weeks actually. And I'm getting back to writing soon but as I was starting a longer entry on what had been going on in my life, it turned out that most of the things I needed to write about actually dealt with one topic specifically, my living arrangement. So this is something I need to let you know before I proceed with the regular fun stuff.

And yes, I know I shouldn't put too much energy into this but God knows there are some things to be said out loud so that I can let them go.

Have you ever seen a postcard with a grinning couple on it that says something like, “Sorry to see you move but hopefully the new neighbors aren't creepy”? I have. In fact, I have one, and if I had found it in the short run I would've scanned and posted it here.

I know that I have been shouting out loud how great my living arrangement was and how much I felt at home. I did. I don't any more. This place is neither great, nor do I feel home here any more, and it's about time to rethink the whole setup, for a variety of reasons, my neighbors certainly being one.

A few words to start off with for those of you who don't know yet how I got this apartment. My landlord is American, and he had lived in Frankfurt for approximately 20 years. He owns this apartment, and coincidently he was offered a job in Jordan while I was offered my current one in Frankfurt. I heard of the fact that he was moving out and might be looking for somebody to “live in his place” through another American friend of mine back in Düsseldorf. The apartment was supposed to stay, and still is, his apartment. I sleep in his bed and use his furniture (apart from my desk). The remaining pieces of my furniture are in the garage. My rent is way below the market price because we agreed I would take care of his mail and deal with some other things around the apartment, keep it clean and such. We have no written rental contract.

The apartment is on the top floor on the right side of a six-party house, and this house has been strange from the start. Everybody locks the front door 24/7 because they're afraid of burglars. “It happens regularly here”, I have been informed, but when you care to ask how it happened, you always hear that they never get in through the front door but through left-open balcony doors and such. Locking the front door is therefore not only a useless means to prevent this but it is also against the law because you need to be able to get out of the house without a key in case of a fire or so. And here's another thought for those who actually are afraid of burglars: Just imagine somebody armed gets into your apartment, and you're in your night gown and want to escape. If you don't have your key handy, which is rather likely unless you sleep with a key chain around your neck, you end up trying to escape but can't get out of the house. Very handy solution, I must admit. But hey, they lock the door anyway for the good old German reason, “We've always done things like that.”

When I moved into this house, I met two women from the house very briefly, the first of which (pronounce, “witch”) excelled at bad behavior immediately by questioning my landlord about me while I was standing and smiling right next to them. I secretly started calling her “Frau Obersturmbandführer” (a title from the Nazi regime) because of her rudeness. She is in her sixties, extremely slim, and has a face that only a mother can love. The second of the two women had a fake smile but was at least nice enough to let us into the house after I explained to her smilingly and nicely that I was the new neighbor but didn't have keys to the apartment yet. She was obviously hesitant to let my father and me in. After all, you hear so often about people who carry their stuff into other people's houses in moving boxes and then leave without comment only to never be seen again. Who knows, we could've easily been that type of people. I hated having to ask for being let in. My dad and I had showed up on time but my landlord apparently hadn't made it in time. One thing that I loved about that first day, however, was that my dad peed into the bushes at the side of the house when we had arrived and it had become clear that we couldn't get into the apartment. Of course, just that very moment, one of the rude neighbors from the first floor came out and saw him. I was embarrassed at the time but God knows I'm proud of my cool father.

But back to my lovely neighbors. At the end of the first weekend my landlord and I put a letter into all neighbors' letter boxes in which we introduced me to them, giving them my and his contact information and a brief summary of my job background, like I had had an obligation to let them know. No response whatsoever. We sent a copy of the letter to the “Hausverwaltung” (caretaker of the house). No response, other than the request to remove my landlord's business from the letter box sign, “as the home owner's association had agreed”. Strangely enough, the guy on one side of the first floor who had seen my dad pee into the bushes has a business as well, and he has never removed the sign, and nobody seems to care. Makes you wonder, doesn' it?

The Bicycle Affair

Let's move on to an apparently huge deal for the neighbors, and I am actually typing myself into rage with this crap here.

I take my bicycle to work. Takes me approximately eleven minutes because I adapted to the Frankfurt way of bicycling, which is essentially not stopping at red traffic lights. The bicycle has to be kept in a special basement room with all the others. Bicycles that is, not neighbors. Most of them are unlocked, by the way. My landlord's racing bicycle has been there as well. It's relatively old, and if anyone was to steal a bicycle from this room it would very probably not be his.

This is the routine I go through every day, twice when I want to get to work:
  • unlock and pry open (so that I can carry the bicycle through it) the house door,
  • walk the stairs down to the basement,
  • open and pry open the metal door to the basement,
  • then open the wooden door on the other side of the hall,
  • get the bicycle out and put it next to the metal door,
  • shut the wooden door,
  • loosen and close the metal door again,
  • carry the bicycle up and out of the house, and
  • go back and close and lock the house door.
When I get back from work, the order is reverse but the effort is almost the same, with the small exception that when I carry down the bicycle with the right hand I can open the metal door with the left and go through. Neat, huh? Underneath the stairs facing the metal basement door, however, there is enough space to put three to four bicycles. There is never anything there, the space is completely unused. Just keep all this in mind for later.

One month after my move into the house, the dust had finally settled and I didn't spend all weekends away any more. That month I had been dealing with all sorts of things, my old apartment, the remaining stuff at my parents' place, my teaching job at the technical college in Cologne, etc. But I also dealt with a variety of things that dealt with the apartment. One of them was – and still is –

The Guest Bathroom.

A number of things about this apartment weren't done right when it was built. One of them is the insulation of the bathrooms. The guest bathroom has a shower while for some odd reason, the master bathroom doesn't. So of course everybody used to shower in the guest bathroom until about a year or so ago, fungus stains appeared on the other side of the shower wall, in the office. The first owner of the apartment must have forgotten to have insulation put onto the walls, just like he forgot a noise cancellation layer underneath the floor tiles, which I am sure causes Ms Obersturmbandführer to freak out every time I move a chair even though I have attached felt gliders to all of them. So my landlord had to have all the tiles in the shower removed, the walls insulated, and new tiles put on. Too bad that at the time he decided to go for cheap and bad rather than reasonably priced and right.

The guy to do the job – let's call him Jimbo – should've completed his work long before I moved in, but didn't. He also didn't show up after that, or returned my calls, for that matter. I don't know how I managed to get him to deliver the new shower door at all that he had bought because the old one allegedly had to be exchanged, but when he did delivery it I met him once. He was wearing a cowboy hat and should've probably rather spent his life on a cow meadow as well instead.

Time after time I became more unnerved because Jimbo never showed up up to finish the job. He did some work at one point but as it turned out, this was rather an unwelcome opportunity to figure out how little it would ultimately look like it was supposed to. However, I found out how little money my landlord had promised him (and paid in advance), and from this moment on it was clear that we were waiting for Jesus to fall from the sky.

So I suggested to hire a professional to put an end to this never-ending story. My landlord and his expert girlfriend were hesitant because of the good money he had spent on the bathroom already, but ultimately agreed to having me get a price estimate. Like it was my responsibility to arrange for his bathroom to be fixed. Mind you, at that time they didn't know yet how bad the work had been and that the expensive and ill-matching blue glass mosaic tiles would have to come off again, wasting the spent money altogether.

I had been dealing with Jimbo so it seemed just downright appropriate for me to arrange for a craftsman to show up, assess the work and give a price estimate. So I did. It allowed for an expert opinion on Jimbo's work, but on top of being unhappy, my landlord did not seem to be very trusting about the credibility of my word or the craftsmen's expertise. So it was clear he and his girlfriend who had done lots of craftsmen work (I am sorry but that is so cliché-lesbian), would have to assess the situation themselves.

Now, the latter part might sound a lot easier than it is. With my landlord being in Jordan and his friend living about 40 minutes away by train without a car, things are much more complicated than you'd think. You might assume that if she is the expert he trusts, it might just be enough for her to arrange for another appointment of her choice and show up for it, right? Well, that's not counting in the fact that she seems to have difficulties thinking a straight line. I'll spare you the details of this one appointment that I tried to nail down with the sanitary guy, the pavior, my landlord and her a few weeks ago. Let's just say that after about half a dozen phone calls, a short night and having the craftsmen agree to come back in the afternoon when my landlord and she would actually be able to show up, I don't know any more how it worked out. Ultimately, however, they somehow had both come to know that neither any of Jimbo's work nor the new shower door was usable, that all the expensive glass mosaic had to be tossed, and that all work had to be done from scratch again.

Another appointment had to be planned back then, by the way, at which my landlord was supposed to choose a tile for the upcoming work, and we agreed that he should pick it himself because it was his money. Now, does it surprise you that he “couldn't make it”, and instead I had to pick one that should be included in the price estimate? I am still waiting for this estimate, and I can't even begin wondering what's next in the never-ending process of fixing this bathroom.

But back to the neighbors. You were yearning for more, weren't you?

So after this first month I invited all my neighbors to coffee and cake on a Sunday afternoon, again trying to get to know them better so that we wouldn't have the same old misunderstandings that you just have when you don't know who lives next door. After my landlord's warnings about how strange some neighbors were and Frau Obersturmbandführer's odd initial questioning, I should've known better but I was trying to make a change.

For the coffee-and-cake date, only two parties showed up, amongst which were Frau Obersturmbandführer and a woman from the first floor who showed up with her whatever-he-is-as-long-as-he-nails-her-for-good. One other neighbor lady had sent an e‑mail saying that she was away for the weekend, and the lady who let me in the first day said that they had guests themselves and couldn't come.

During this two-hour Sunday meeting, I asked the few appearing neighbors whether they had a problem if I put my bicycle underneath the stairs because it would spare me a lot of the everyday hassle. They replied they “weren't the home owner's association” but didn't mind personally. So I started doing it like this the next day. And you guess it, on Thursday night I had Frau Obersturmbandführer show up at my door in her pajamas, letting me know that “the home owners” had complained about my bicycle. I expected the complaint to come but wasn't expecting her to show up personally like that. I could've hardly cared any less about “the home owners” that were too cowardly to talk to me directly but I told her I wouldn't put my bicycle there any more.

And I didn't. However, some time later I noticed that sometimes the (never locked) door to the basement was pried open without my doing, and I liked the idea very much because that saved me at least one door to overcome every morning and night. So I left it open for a few days when I took my bike.

This time, “the home owners'” reaction wasn't so nice to send Frau Obersturmbandführer. The caretaker sent a letter to all parties of the house in which they were requested to lock the basement door at all times. “The home owners agreed so. Obedience is requested.” Yes, sir! Kill jews, sir! Yes, sir! It's the law! I have no doubt that if things were to get as bad as in the 1930s today, the German people would go to war and kill innocent life again without questioning orders. Makes you wonder, doesn't it?

I was furious. Why would those assholes care about that fucking basement door being open? The house door was locked all the time! And besides, nobody had ever locked the basement door, and what was even more, none of my keys matched the lock either. How were we supposed to lock the door at all? Was the caretaker uninformed or ignorant? I decided to write them an ironic letter in which I underlined everybody's unfounded fear of burglars coming through the house door, asking them to replace the lock and hand five keys to me.

Speaking of keys, here's another nuisance. You remember our friend Jimbo, right? He had a set of keys to the apartment, and now that my landlord's friend is convinced how bad his work was, she wanted to demand him to return the keys as he is no good any more. One other thing I, politely, marvel at is how she was always confident that Jimbo's work would turn out alright (and she had months to figure out how bluntly see how wrong she was), and how now that an expert confirmed my suspicion, she all of a sudden has always known how bad his work was. But either way, she told me she would ask Jimbo to return the keys. I never heard back from her but one day I found a set of keys in my letter box that I assumed were his. They keys looked right but I just wanted to make sure they were. So I was standing in my apartment and tried the apartment key on the inner side of the door. It wouldn't go in. “Oh”, I said to myself, “it is the wrong key somehow. How strange.” But it still looked right so I took my own and tried it in the same lock. Wouldn't go in either.

I was flabbergasted. How on earth was that possible? I examined the lock and saw a small piece of metal in it. Somehow a piece of metal had gotten into this lock. Since the house door is always locked, no matter what time of day, and since my apartment door is made out of metal that would be thick enough to safeguard Fort Knox (and the lock shuts four times when you turn the key), I never lock it from the inside so I had never even tried whether the door would lock from the inside. I remember that guests of my landlord's locked the door from the inside back in May but never checked again.

So I wrote my landlord an e-mail about this, sending along a macro photo of the lock.

But now, back to my crazy neighbors.

Guess what, a few days after my ironic letter to the caretaker I came home from work, and my landlord's bicycle was gone. I checked the other unlocked rooms in the basement and the space in front of my garage, just to make sure nobody had put it there because for some reason they had become tired of “my bike being there unused”. But his bicycle was nowhere to be seen. Somebody had taken it, and since it was one of the least valuable in the room, it was extremely unlikely that somebody external had taken it. The only plausible possibility, I figured, was that somebody wanted to teach me a lesson, whichever that was supposed to be. Frau Obersturmbandführer was in the basement at the time so I went over to her and asked her whether she knew what had happened to the bike. For the first time, my tone was not friendly anymore. I was polite but it was time to let them know that I would not be Mr Niceguy if all they did was pissing me off.

About ten minutes after our neat little talk she was at my door, letting me know that she had a problem with my tone of voice, that if I a bicycle was missing I would have to talk to the caretaker, etc. I didn't argue but fended off each of her sentences with, “OK” and “I have talked to the caretaker”.

So after my last e‑mail to my landlord in which I couldn't explain how the piece of metal had gotten stuck in the door lock, now this one saying, “Somebody took your bicycle” that I also sent to his friend. At the time I tended to send her all e‑mails to him in CC so that she could arrange for things to be done if they saw fit.

That night I was very angry at my neighbors and felt out of place in this way-too-big apartment of which I wasn't allowed to use the office because my landlord wanted this room as a retreat when he'd come by, whose living-room was huge and most of which I didn't even use, and that kept me busy with all the things you now know about. So I decided to go for a bike ride, and I came home pretty late. When I came home I saw a message on my voicemail. It was my landlord's friend who basically said, “WHAT THE FUCK!” Like I knew. But her utterings about ongoing things were always "Yea, that's very bizarre" or "Yea I was like, oh my God, what the fuck", depending on her mood. Until then I would've sworn that only California girls were "like, oh my God!"

And, guess what, it's just not stopping. A day later my landlord sent me a very brief e‑mail asking whether I knew what happened about the bicycle. I couldn't help but think he was suspecting that for a reason still beyond my comprehension, I had taken it. And a few minutes later he replied to my “there is something stuck in the apartment door lock” e‑mail, saying that in June when he had been here for a visit, the lock had still been working, and especially here I could plainly hear between the lines that I had caused this. In my reply I told him that I have a liability insurance that would easily cover for accidents like this, and that I would have no problem whatsoever admitting that it was I. If I had done it, which wasn't the case.

The Caretaker

One of the most bizarre conversations, however, I had with the caretalker himself recently. While I was on a business trip in Munich I saw that somebody whose number I didn't know had tried to call me and left a message on my voicemail so I checked and noticed it was them. So I called them up. The guy told me that the keys to the basement door's lock were in my landlord's possession, which I am sure is not true because if they were he would've told me about it and given me at least one key. But talking to the caretalker already, I assumed it was a good idea to stop the frenzy going on among the bitchy neighbors, so I asked him who had made the input about the basement door, assuming that it would probably make apparent who'd be behind the bicycle theft. The guy answered he wouldn't tell me, and replied, "What kind of caretaker are you? We're talking of a vanished bike here. Somebody took it, and I'd prefer to talk to the person who took it rather than going to the police immediately." And his reponse to that was ultimately weird. It was something like, "Well, if you're claiming theft here, you need to go to the police here. Where would we be if everyone just went from door to door and beat up people? I'm just a Democrat!" Honest to the God I don't believe in, this man gave me the oddest line in a long time.

However, guess what happened subsequently. When I got home that night, the bicycle was back in its place like nothing had happened. No note, no nothing. Needless to say that I informed my landlord and again had no clue of what was going on in my crazy-ass neighbors' heads.

For a while I was pondering hanging up a note in the hallway in which I would let my neighbors know that I was amazed about their bad manners and that my parents had always taught me better than to just take other people's property, which would be called theft in Germany. Then I decided it wasn't worth the effort. But I have made the decision not to interact with anybody in this house any more than absolutely necessary and dictated for good manners' sake. You know, the manners that they don't have. But I want to stay away from their level of behavior as it'll only befoul me if I don't.

And All the Other Things

And all this adds up to the innumerable other small incidents that turn living here into a nuisance, and all those things I have become tired of. There are more, like my landlord, now, after months of me living here, approaching me with his desire to charge extra for heating in the winter that he never used, or with cost for the telephone line, or the fact that his apparently mentally ill ex-boyfriend who used to beat him up and stalk his friends sometimes calls at night to check whether my landlord is at home, always twice in a row, always without caller ID, and always hanging up when voicemail or I answer.

Now that I am writing all this, I am noticing how tired I have become, both in general and actually right now. It seems that I am not supposed to live here for long after all, and strangely enough, I do not care about having to pack everything again. In spite of all the nuisances related to this living arrangement, Frankfurt is after all a gorgeous city, and I have started to feel very much at home here in comparison to quite some other cities I have lived in. It was a good choice to come here, just maybe not this very apartment.

Freitag, August 07, 2009

Bread and Bicycle

I had swung my crazy self onto my bicycle, like I do every morning on my way to work. As I was leaving the house's driveway, sunrays hit me from the side. The sun was as full of energy as I, and once more I loved living in a city with one of the most gorgeous skylines in Europe, and being able to ride my bike to work.

Not even stepping on the pedals on my way down the hill, I was savoring the fresh air and gentle winds that could not mislead me to believe the day would not become as hot as the last ones. I would probably have sweat stains on my ass again at the office that day from sitting on the chair all day.

Slowly descending the hill I noticed that something was odd about the air. It did not have the regular smell of morning dew, rather that of freshly baked sweet bread! I had not had sweet bread in months, knew it from when I was little. My parents used to have sweet bread for breakfast all the time, and there I was, riding my bike to work every morning, with my street smelling tasty in the morning sun. It can be pretty cool to be me at times, I can tell you.

Montag, Juli 20, 2009

New This Week, Part 29

I am bad at making lists and remembering things that happened during a certain time. Extremely bad, actually. I am so bad that I can assure you now that the first thing that will go completely if I happen to catch Alzheimer's is going to be this exact memory. When that happens, I will be very happy to see y'all come for a visit every time you step into the room, so please make sure to say hi, give me a hug, and leave the room again, just to come back a minute later. It will never-ending joy to me, promise.

All this I am telling you because I couldn't remember any of these four things that happened last week before I looked into my calendar what I did that week. Not even the pride event I attended for three subsequent consecutive days I remembered. Part of it might be due to unfocusedness, I admit, but I might be exaggerating the whole being-present-in-the-moment stuff a little.

1. Bar: The Stall
Logo taken from their website.

Yes, the website is probably among the ugliest on Earth but the place itself is actually not all that bad. What have we got? Gay bar, originally from the 50s or 60s, ages old, never renovated or redone. So in a way it is like the website. But that doesn't matter because its charm is said to be exactly that, a slightly sleazy, traditional underground place for cruising. A lot of people go there to have sex or at least the perspective of sex. A huge back wing is allegedly the darkroom. I didn't see that part because I didn't want to leave all my stuff at the bar. I had gone to the place directly after the gym, still sweating like hell and with my backpack.

Nice clientele there, actually, okay prices, and most of the time even good music!

2. Bar: Frankfurt Art Bar
Photo taken from their website.

You live in Sachsenhausen and feel like some live music? This is a neat and cozy place, low-key with not-so-low-key-but-okay prices, food is good, and you'll have live music a lot of the evenings. I went on Wednesday with a friend of mine, and we had Irish folk musicians there, actually playing nice music, not too loud even.

3. Gym: Muscle Weight Machines in Frankfurt gym
On Thursday I had an introductory appointment to the muscle machines at my Frankfurt gym so that I could do muscle workout and not only cardio and classes. Man, you should've see how the appointment came about. Originally I had headed to the gym to do a bodystyling class at 7, then I noticed I had chosen the wrong day, and that night there were different classes on. I then asked at the counter whether I could do a half-hour ab class and then do the introduction. They said yes, me happy. So I go back the schedule and figure that since I have the time, why shouldn't I try Thai Yoga instead of abs? So I went back to the counter, asking whether we could delay the appointment. They said yes, me happy and going back to the classroom.

Standing there I notice that I totally forgot to bring a towel. A fitness class without a towel? No way. So I go back to the counter and ask whether we could do the introduction right away. They said yes, me happy but slightly unnerved. So we did the introduction, and I did half an hour of cardio afterwards, wiping off my sweat with my already-soaking shirt.

4. Event: Frankfurt Pride
Photo taken from gay-web.de.

Pride events tend to be very similar no matter where you go. And Frankfurt is not an exception really. It is, however, different in one regard. I went there on three subsequent nights, from Friday to Sunday, and even after that I am by far not as energetically sucked dry as I have always been after the Cologne pride events. And every night I was with nice people, enjoying the occasional beer or apple wine that is so common and famous in this region.

On to another week of novelties, at the end of which I will get my furniture out of my old apartment in Düsseldorf. Finally more shlepping around stuff, yay!

Mittwoch, Juli 08, 2009

New This Week, Parts 27 and 28

Okay, now things are slowly picking up, not to say exploding here. Frankfurt has so many things to offer, and guys, you do need to get here and spend a weekend. To say this very explicitly: Frankfurt is an extremely colorful and -- to me, at least -- beeeeeauuuutiful city. Whoever says he doesn't like Frankfurt, has most likely not seen it, at least not in the past years. I hear it has improved a lot in the past ten years, and judging from how I saw it about ten years ago, that must be correct.

Frankfurt has a skyline you will hardly find in any other European city. But it also has a very nice old center of town, tons of green areas and parks, and some outstanding architecture, at least to my taste. However, I give you this, if you hate construction sites there is a chance you won't like Frankfurt, as in Frankfurt, they're everywhere. Every-where!

One last thing to note before I get to the novelties. I have noticed that I often don't feel like sitting down on a Sunday to write the weekly novelties down. I am not sure but suspect that it has to do with the fact that at the office I write so much that when I get home, I have no more desire to talk, and writing is basically talking to me (especially since I sometimes read my writing out loud).

This way or that, here's for the news.

Week 27

1. Activity: Friedberger Markt on Friday nights
Photo courtesy gerry_balding
So many people had recommended me to go to the market at the Friedberger Platz that I had been pondering it anyway, but on Friday night that week, we had had a party at our office anyway, and since it was crazy hot in our kitchen where we were partying, we decided to go over to the market and continue there. By the time we showed up, around 11, the booths had long closed but there were still tons of people hanging out there on blankets, benches and such, drinking the booze they had brought from home or bought in bottles rather than glasses before the booths closed at 9.

Regardless of the ever-existing people who dislike it now that it's become so big, this market on a Friday night is must-see, I think, especially on a warm summer night. People are friendly, sometimes even funny because of their alcohol level, and as long as standing around was comfortable, I have had a good time there. Just try to avoid the prissy Lufthansa queens. They're bitter and therefor annoying.

2. Activity: Brentanobad
Photo courtesy of Enitsche Aquatechnik

This open-air pool I went to because a friend told me he was going and had asked me whether I wanted to come along. Curious as I am, I did. It is actually nice. Nothing out of the ordinary, and especially on the weekends you have tons of screaming kids there but we lay in a relatively quiet spot. Nice!

3. Activity: CityFitness Gym in Frankfurt Visited
Photo (not showing the actual gym) courtesy of mikeg626

The lucky man that I am, my Düsseldorf gym has two other gyms that are in bicycle reach for me, one in Offenbach that I have already worked out at, and one in Frankfurt that I had wanted to check out for a while but never actually seen. Now, on my way to the Brentanobad previously mentioned I decided to do a little detour and have a look. It's a nice clean gym with all the amenities that I'd like. No pool but I have never had a pool, and that's certainly not a requirement. And the staff seems to be very nice as well; I love that. Fuck the Fitness First assholes that screwed me for money back in Düsseldorf.

4. Exhibition: Schirn at Night, "The Making of Art"
Photo courtesy of otto_ffm

The Schirn is famous art gallery in the heart of Frankfurt, very close to the "Dom" (cathedral), and I went there with an acquaintance of mine. We had been invited to go there by an American owner of a store in Bornheim who was celebrating her 50th birthday there. And since there was this exhibition "The Making of Art" going on, we decided not to let it slip by, and saw it. When we came out again, however, the birthday kid seemed a little annoyed by whatever, and shook our hands good-bye. I was a little surprised but maybe shouldn't be. Isn't this, after all, the superficiality that Americans are said to have by Germans? God knows what she had intended by inviting us, maybe thinking we wouldn't show up to a lesbian's party, or whatever.

5. Event: Alte Oper Street Festival
Photo courtesy of Wolfgang_Staudt

Did I mention that there are always street festivals in Frankfurt? If not, well, there are always street festivals in Frankfurt. That weekend, among other things such as the Iron Man triathlon going on, it was the turn of the place at the Alte Oper that you see on this picture. Imagine this picture, however, a little less alterated, with a clear blue sky and sunshine that would expect to be rather in California, and booths all over the place selling everything from food and drinks to knick-knacks and other stuff. Oh, and add in your mind a stage where reggae music is playing. And put my friend and me right there onto the border of this fountain, sipping on Caipirinhas, our feet dangling in the cooling water.

Pure summer vacation feeling!


Week 28

1. Occurrence and Drink: Brainfreeze by Mango Frappé from McDonald's
Photo courtesy of Noctis_Lucis_Caelum

I had hints of a brainfreeze before. It just happens when you're too greedy and love dem icecreams too much. But this time it hit me really badly. I was on my bicycle, riding back home from my gym in Offenbach. I had passed a McDonald's and decided to try their mango frappé that they had recently added to their menu. The frappé itself tasted good, and I don't even think I had slurped on it too fast, but all of a sudden my brain started stinging from the icy coldness that had hit it. It hurt for about a minute before the pain finally lessened. You can imagine I drank the rest of the smoothie slowly…very slowly.

2. Bar: Bieresel (Cologne)
Photo courtesy of Gebrüder Dorsch

Yeah, it is what it sounds like, a beer pub. Allegedly the oldest mussel restaurant in Cologne but for my students and me, it was a place to have a few beers at when we had finished our semester. They are so sweet, had given me a box of "Merci" chocolate and a bottle of red wine to thank me for the nice semester. That was the first time students had ever thanked me like that. But it figures since I liked teaching in this class a lot. Thanks again, guys!

3. Web Community: SoundCloud.com
Logo courtesy of the SoundCloud website

Everybody listen up. SoundCloud is a marvelous new community that allows you to share music with everybody so conveniently that you will probably not want anything else for aeons. The interface is smooth and sleak, it's a fast website, and there are not limits to filesizes. Check out the 3-minute tutorial yourself! This is a great great site! I have already stumbled upon several great tracks, amongst which is an incredible Michael Jackson RIP mix!

4. Bar/Restaurant: Mirador (Bornheim)
And finally, my weekend concluded with a very cozy stay at the "Mirador" bar/restaurant in the Berger Straße in Bornheim/Nordend with a friend of mine. It was pleasantly warm on that Saturday evening, and we had a little chicken curry soup and some Äppler (apple wine) that is so incredibly common in the Frankfurt area.

[Subsequent Addition]

5. Bar/Restaurant: Moksha (Friedberger Markt)
Logo taken from the Moksha website

Another restaurant, good food, reasonably priced, mixed clientele. Worth paying a visit!

---

So you see, Frankfurt has tons to offer, and I'm loving every bit of it. Well, except for street traffic. Fuck street traffic in Frankfurt.

:)

Montag, Juni 29, 2009

Vocabulary learned from "House and Philosophy"

Yes, I read. Sometimes. When I have the time. And this time I thought it might be good not only to underline and look up the words I learned from the book "House and Philosophy" but also to share my newly gained wisdom with you. So here are the words that you might also not have known until now.

WordType of wordPageTranslation to German
abolitionistnoun188Sklavereigegner
aboundverb194hervortreten
aboundverb228im Überfluss vorhanden sein
acerbicadjective36bitter, herb, sauer
ailmentnoun237Leiden, Beschwerden
albeitadverb146obgleich, dessen ungeachtet
amorphousadjective202gestaltlos
anguishnoun171Pein, Qual
anticsnoun34Possen
arbitraryadjective141willkürlich
artificenoun35Kunstgriff, Trick
ascribeverb118zuschreiben
at a loss forverb173um etw. verlegen sein
audaciousadjective204mutig, dreist
awryadjective142schief, krumm
balkverb146hemmen, vereiteln
befitverb114sich ziemen
berateverb127beschimpfen
bickerverb219sich zanken
bipednoun189Zweibeiner
bolderadjective204mutiger
botchedadjective120verpfuscht
brazenadjective190dreist
callousadjective50abgestumpft, gleichgültig
caninenoun116Eckzahn, Hund (?)
censureverb34tadeln, rügen
chideverb217schelten
coaxverb66überreden, abschwatzen
coercedadjective142genötigt, erzwungen
coercionnoun151Nötigung, Zwang
conduciveadjective189förderlich
conjecturaladjective58mutmaßlich
consecrateverb96widmen
covertadjective229heimlich
culpritnoun181Übeltäter, Angeschuldigter
defeatismnoun32Miesmacherei
defecateverb189koten
deliberationnoun129Überlegung
demarcationnoun49Abgrenzung
disparitynoun140Ungleichheit
disunitynoun234Uneinigkeit
divvy upverb139aufteilen
eligibleadjective117geeignet, qualifiziert
embitteredadjective198verbittert
entailverb131mit sich bringen, nach sich ziehen
exacerbateverb31erschweren, verschlimmern
fallacynoun158Täuschung, Trugschluss
fidelitynoun206Genauigkeit, Wiedergabetreue
flesh outverb192untermauern
floutverb151verspotten
foiblenoun211Marotte
forfeitverb142verlieren, einbüßen
gleenoun219Fröhlichkeit
grittyadjective38kiesig
gruffadjective220grob, schroff
habitualadjective231gewohnheitsmäßig#
heed a callnoun116einem Ruf folgen
hemlocknoun190Gefleckter Schierling (bot.)
hindrancenoun217Hindernis
hinge onverb218von etw. abhängig sein
impedeverb35hemmen, verhindern
impedimentnoun189Behinderung
impietynoun190Pietätlosigkeit
incarceratedadjective170eingekerkert
incommensurableadjective203unvergleichbar
infallibleadjective195unfehlbar
insubordinationnoun188Ungehorsam
irreproachableadjective204tadellos, einwandfrei
irreverentadjective211respektlos
juxtaposeverb148nebeneinander stellen
keen-wittedadjective64scharfsinnig
languidadjective64kraftlos
languornoun63Schwäche, Mattheit
maroon oneselfverb188sich aussetzen
minusculeadjective146winzig, unbedeutend
mishmashnoun80Mischmasch
mitigateverb42abschwächen, mildern
muddyverb49trüben
noxiousadjective195schädlich
ostensibleadjective231vordergründig
overzealousadjective135übereifrig
paragonnoun226Vorbild
peevishadjective46reizbar, verdrießlich
perjureverb182Meineid leisten
plainclothesadjective182Zivil-
positverb77postulieren
prodigiousadjective15erstaunlich
prone toadjective205-anfällig
propensitynoun212Hang
rashadjective230hastig
rebukeverb182tadeln, rügen
rebutverb162entkräften, zurückweisen
relentlessadjective64unerbittlich
reproachnoun194Vorwurf
repudiationnoun30Ablehnung, Zurückweisung
resuscitateverb154wiederbeleben
retardationnoun162Behinderung (geistig)
run afoul of the lawexpression180gegen das Gesetz verstoßen
scantyadjective46dürftig, spärlich
scoffverb57Spott, Hohn
scornnoun144Hohn, Verachtung
scoundrelnoun213Halunke, Schuft
shamblesnoun96heilloses Durcheinander
sleuthhoundnoun64Bluthund, Spürhund
stancenoun147Standpunkt, Einstellung
stifleverb193ersticken, unterdrücken
stonemasonnoun99Steinmetz
storknoun77Storch
stumpedadjective194verblüfft
subservientadjective182unterwürfig
surlyadjective198mürrisch, griesgrämig
surrogacynoun126Leihmutterschaft
swatverb64(zer)quetschen
tantamountadjective127gleichbedeutend
telltaleadjective117verräterisch
tenurenoun189Amtszeit, Anstellung
tenuredadjective216anstellungsbezogen
thwartverb149ausbremsen
time and againexpression173immer wieder
tomfoolerynoun214Albernheit
tritenessnoun79Banalität
true to formexpression155um sein/ihr Gesicht zu wahren
unconcernnoun119Sorglosigkeit, Unbekümmertheit
unimpededadjective219ungehindert
unrelentingadjective170unerbittlich
unrepentantadjective191reuelos
utilitarianismnoun118Utilitarismus
vagariesnoun47Einfälle, Launen
valorizeverb133aufwerten
vehementadjective170vehement
veracitynoun232Aufrichtigkeit
vigornoun194Kraft
visceraladjective80Eingeweide betreffend
volitionaladjective200willensgesteuert
whodunitnoun56Krimi, Detektivgeschichte

Now go and have a marvelous evening.

Samstag, Juni 20, 2009

New This Week, Parts 25 and 26

Just when I wanted to start my entry with a line like "My weeks seem to be coming back to an at least half-way normal routine" I find myself sitting here not having written again for two weeks. Well, at least it's only two weeks, not four.

So here are the novelties for week 25:

1. Activity/Event: J. P. Morgan Chase Corporate Challenge Run
There is a good chance that you have never heard of it although it is the biggest run worldwide, at least if "big" means "many participants" to you. The J. P. Morgan Chase Corporate Challenge Run in Frankfurt has grown to approximately 70,000 runners, and when it took place this year I was part of it. Along with nine colleagues of mine, I ran in our white rabbit shirts and did my zigzag darts to make the 5.6km in merely 29 minutes. For those of you who think they can do faster, you actually might but the fact that you have tons of people running in front of you can actually give you a hard time running at your possible speed.

2. Occurrence: Handing In Driver's License
I sent my driver's license to the authorities in Cologne this week because I had to hand it in for a month. I had been caught speeding with 46km/h too much. Three points in Flensburg, 160 Euros plus fees and a month of driving suspension. Not such a big deal because I don't need the car for the job or any other purpose in the upcoming weeks at all anyway, and besides I don't like driving.

3. Stupidity: Forgot Debit Card Number
There I am at the Dresdner Bank ATM, thinking I should just get some cash for the errands I wanted to run that Saturday, and I had a lunch appointment with an online acquaintance. So I put my card in, and when I'm asked to enter my PIN, my brain cannot come up with it. For over a year I had entered it automatically, had remembered it by mere hand movement. There I am standing, not having a clue what my PIN is.

So I tried one that felt right. It was the wrong one. I didn't dare trying a second one, knowing that with my spontaneity I'd probably enter three wrong ones, which would end up my card being held back by the machine.

I met the guy for lunch. Not a problem; I had enough cash for it. But I told him the story, and when we walked a few blocks afterwards and I tried getting cash at another ATM -- at the time I was mistakenly confident I had remembered the correct PIN --, I again didn't get any cash. So when I told him about that he hesitantly said, "Well…do you want me to lend you some money?" You could tell he only did it because I must have sounded like I had planned to make him give me money, so I obviously declined.

I decided to go back home and check my papers for the real PIN, and here comes the really incredible part. I went through the paperwork and found it, but I was far from a "God, Frank, you're such an idiot!" experience.

4. Event: Schweizer Straßenfest (street festival)
Some things belong to Frankfurt like to no other city. Like construction sites. But one of the things seems to be that there are always street festivals, at least during the warmer seasons. This weekend was the first one I actually had to myself here in Frankfurt, and I went to two street festivals, the first of which was the one in the Schweizer Straße. I went with a friend of mine whom I knew from college and some of her friends and colleagues. The streets were packed, and we had quite some fun and apple wine ("Eppler"). Be careful with that stuff. It can give you bad headaches. :)

5. Event: Schäfergassenfest (street festival)
Just the next day I went to another one, now a gay one in the Schäfergasse. I stumbled upon a guy whom I had known for years although I still cannot remember how we got to know each other. Anyway, he was hanging out with some friends of his, and we had a blast even in spite of the pouring rain that hit the festival pretty badly. Yippie, I'm finding friends easily here!


And we're proceeding to week 26!

1. Event: mailingtage in Nuremberg
All new at the job, I went to Nuremberg for the mailingtage, a fair on direct marketing through mailing, with my colleagues. Two days of constant talking about what we do. You probably know that I love hearing myself talk, but God knows I had enough of that when we took the train back to Frankfurt. Just the next day, however, I was back at the college in Cologne to teach, and I had no trouble talking for six hours again. Seems like I'm loving these fairs. :)

2. Event: Packed Too Few Clothes!
It certainly happens regularly that you travel somewhere and pack too many clothes, right? We all do it. Our fear of uncertainty is probably a big part of this. Better risking a broken back than ending up somewhere without our oh-so beloved tanktop when going out to the bars. Or something. Well, maybe for the first time in history, I have actually packed too few clothes. Packing for the weekend when I was about to attend a birthday and housewarming party in Cologne, I had already packed a pair of shorts and flip-flops, then looked at the weather forecast and then again decided to take them back out, thinking that the weather wouldn't be so warm after all. I was wrong and ended up buying in Cologne exactly what I had taken out of my backpack.

Shocking, I know. I'm still trembling myself.

On to another week of all of this! I'm lovin' it.