BABYSITTING BULLDOGS

And this is what i did on my first night of babysitting... Ellie was sleeping when I got there, so me and the puppy hung out while watching some fashion shows on German's equivilant to Direct TV.

THE GERMAN GIANT

Now, if i didnt see one in person last year... i would think this were a hoax... So heres the story- beth and I were in Vienna last summer- one day we took a train out to the country (maybe like 40 minutes outside of the city). Gazing out the window i noticed something protruding upward from the bush. And sitting still, about 3 feet from the recently cut crop, was a GIANT RABBIT- we were going so fast, and i was in a daze because of the lengthy ride, so we were never SURE that we saw what we saw- and today- I find out that yes indeed, these things do live - in reality, and not just in the minds of christine and beth!!! wow- its like when the unicorn was found earlier this year! what a great world~



http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-426231/German-farmer-breeds-bunny-big-dog.html
http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/bl_giant_bunny.htm

MY NEW BOSS IS ON WIKIPEDIA

Well I may not be worthy of a Wikipedia Page, but my new boss is.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casey_Jacobsen

...no im not a photographer, or a gatorade girl... im his new babysitter. haha I'm babysitting their 2 year old girl, ellie- shes pretty cute.

I feel like babysitting is quite possibly the best way to meet successful people in this town-
The Jacobsen's are the second family that contacted me to babysit-
the first is a CEO of a company that trys to place Freelance artists into permanant positions in European companies.

Heres his site: http://www.designerdock.de/

he wants me to help him with his next photo exhibition. Nice surprizes. Everything is comin up milhouse!

EVERYTHING IS SMALL HERE!

What if one day, everyone dissapeared from Europe, just like a snap of the fingers- all the people, all photos and historical documents- all memory of such land. Once the cities were 're-descovered', anthropologists would undoubtably believe that the people that once inhabitated Europe were smaller than the people of the rest of the world. I mean what people would own such small things !!!

For the amount of Bakeries there are here- youd think they would need more sugar!- this is a 'large' bag of sugar. the scissors are almost bigger than it!

A standard size frozen pizza....

Their standard milk carton- the bowl is almost bigger than it!And of course, to keep all this small food- their small refridgerators!
-even their ash trays have to be small, but for the amount that Berliners smoke, they would definatly benefit from a larger reservoir.

Charottenburg, Berlin, Germany

-our flat is in Charlottenburg, which is in former West Berlin. The area is a bit touristy, but the architecture here is incredible. My favorite are the block long buildings- kinda like the merchandise mart- here is a church, that's about 2 miles down the street we live, Kurfurstendamm. It is no longer functioning as a church, but just the remains of it after it was bombed during WWII. (notice the missing top)

This is a mix of coke and orange pop- its a Berlin favorite, you see it in all the gasstations, and the Getranken shops (huge stores that sell nothing but drinks- like a liquor store, but with more than beer)- I personally thought it was just okay..

Sprechen ze Deutsch????

My first day of school was quite challenging... Try three hours of lectures and orientation all in German. Yeah, we've been using Rosetta Stone for about a month and a half now- but you seem to forget just about everything when words are spit out at normal conversation speed, and when they arent complimented by nice- narritive images. I came home and had to take a nap from so much brain activity.

The paperwork i have to fill out is just as confusing- this form for example-
is to get 110 euro because i am a student- the top of the form states:

antrag aug gewahrung eines einmaligen bergrussungsgeldes in hohe von 110 euros

and here is its translation it into english:

request August gewahrung a unique mountain smoking money into high of 110 euros.

hmmmm.....haha the language barrier continues...

the people of berlin

They look alot like this...notice: there are no smiles...

Would you rent to us???

heres a like to the website where we are searching for apartments/ wohnungs...
are we marketable enough?!

http://www.studenten-wg.de/mietgesuch_506079.html

Maybe they are going to Sturgis???

We stayed out till 5.30am this morning... trying to embrace the ways of Berliners. But with staying up late, comes waking up late- so thank god these german bikers decided to come down Kurfurstendamm at 12.30. I woke up to endless horns, and noises of this traffic jam- but different from stergis, most of these bikes were crotch rockets. SWEET.
I can really understand the sleep schedules of people who live here- well for the ones who work real jobs anyway. The only way it seems to work- is by sanctioning sundays as a day to sleep- Thank god Berlin is still influenced by Christian traditions. Everthing is closed on sunday- grocery stores, banks, libraries, and even IKEA. So after staying up till 7 or 8 in the AM, you can sleep all day, wake up for a couple hours before nightfall, and get ready for another work week.

Hot Dogs and Hot Dog Dogs

The dog population in Berlin seems to parellel chicago's. Except- the breeds differ from the ones that are prevalant in the states.
All of them seem to be a variation of the 'hot dog' dog, and all the others seem to convey a wiser look- attributed to their greyish, scruffy, longer beard hair.
American dogs seem to have a more vibrant, interactive, nieve, exploritive attitude. The ones in berlin have buisniess to tend to it seems:

they have buses:
http://www.reuters.com/article/lifestyleMolt/idUSL144087920080901

and pay taxes:
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9902E5DA143AEF33A25750C2A9679D94689FD7CF

Berliners like their Vices

There's nothing quite like a warm glass of wine in the morning. Of course I wouldnt know, but Ike felt it was necissary this morning cuz- it was just sitting on the kitchen counter, staling, from the night before.

Theres been a lot of new vices, and things i've seen since the start of my stay here. And in 8 days, i've seen a total of 2 cop cars, Zero fights on the streets, 2 kids doing coke in the midst of the crowd at a electonic club- dog poop littered about, recycling bins that separate green glass from white/clear glass, paper, plastic, and then the just plain rubbish. You can walk the streets with beers in hand, posess an 1/8 of green with no penalty, and you dont get carded for anything- (except for the hard liquors i guess)-

It seems as though people party much harder in Berlin. Any venue where music is being played, is filled, and about 90 percent of people are dancing. 3 o'clock is the appropriate time to go out at night. Anything before- is just plain early!

WG # 1

As romanic and nomadic as a hostel sounds... we were ready to retire to a WG. Its this system that they have - which like many other things here, makes a lot of sense. Its works like craigslist, but its specifically for finding and renting rooms that are furnished, include heat, electric and often include other roomates- and are w/o contracts (its basically like your subletting- but you dont have to bring all your shit there.

And for just 300 euro a month, we get this lovely room decorated with IKEA -its basically standard here- a cool german roommate- named Katha, and all the luxuries of german living, including a washingmachine in the kitchen.

(the first photo is a view out of the bedroom window)

BERLIN!!! but it was a bitter-sweet arrival.

We had finally made it- Deutchland! We got our passports stamped, and now- I have a total of 8 stamps, while Ike made 5. (pretty good for just beginning his international adventures just 3 weeks ago)

The day we were SUPPOSED TO arrive...

Youve heard of the Twilight Zone, even probably seen some episodes... but when it comes to actually being caught in it- its worse than you could imagine. I think we were half asleep the entire 24 hours that we were stuck in Stansted airport- London. We missed our flight to Berlin- on account of Air India. And the Germans had absolutley no sympathy- we lost the tickets. Period.

Long Long story short, we had to pay 800 extra bucks to buy new tickets to Berlin, send our luggage separately and after many many complaints, much angst and sadness, finally arrived in Berlin- 1 day later than expected. And after all the hell that we went though, London seemed much less attractive (as did we after the 40 hours of traveling).