Livid Video
Hey all, it's been awhile since I rapped at ya, but I been real busy.
I'm employing Roni to help me out with the rest of the Germany update. Here we go:
Wednesday, July 3rd (continued)
After we finished eating, the three of us went to CHECKPOINT CHARLIE and killed a few hours over there. We then moved on to Potsdamerplatz, which featured this outdoors mall-ish area between several buildings. A dome was constructed between the buildings and changed colors at different intervals at night. It was still daytime when we arrived, so we admired the architecture and planned on hitting it back up later. Afterwards, we went to this church that everyone seemed to refer to as "The Dome." For an hour or two, we sat on the grass talking and watching street performers in the distance, as well as other general people watching. I seem to recall some little kid bawling because his parents/family pretended to run away from him. After leaving "The Dome," we went to a sort of Japanese sandwich place to eat. I don't think any of us were that stoked on it, but it was fine. We bid adieu to Erika after dinner and then jetted back to the apartment.
Thursday, July 4th
Roni and I woke up a little later than we wanted to after such a busy day on Wednesday. After eating some breakfast at the apartment, Roni and I went to the German National Museum, which was pretty close to the aforementioned "Dome" church. We spent the lion's share of the time in the middle ages section of the museum upstairs, which was pretty awesome. After we wrapped up with the upstairs section of the museum, we headed downstairs to check out the section dedicated to World War I through the present. Unfortunately, the museum closed at 5:00, so by the time we made it down to that section we only had an hour or so to spend there. That section...was fucking crazy. I felt that way after checking out a lot of shit around Germany - the Berlin Wall, the Museum for the Murdered Jews of World War II - it was all really interesting, but you can't help being emotionally crushed by what it all represented. After we left, we bought some candy for our respective families, got dinner (absolutely no idea what/where), and then returned to Potsdamerplatz after the sun had set to see the lights on the dome.
Friday, July 5th
I already updated about the first half of the day (up until I fell asleep on the train), but Kristen and Lars picked us up from the train station and we made our way into Espelkamp. We met Kristen and Lars' respective families/extended families and had dinner with them at the hotel. Afterwards, we walked to the town hall where the wedding would take place the next day so that everyone would know where to go/how to get there. That section of town was set up very much like a boulevard/parkway, so that park benches and playground equipment was in a grassy section in the middle, and traffic was directed in single lanes on the sides. We played on the equipment, got some ice cream (a marionette statue stole the last bit of my cone_, and then went back to the hotel, in which we watched a dubbed-over episode of "The Fresh Prince of Bel Aire."
Saturday, July 6
Roni got up early to take "beauty shop" pictures of Kristen. I was probably 30 minutes behind her, so she prepped me on the continental breakfast situation before she took off and I wandered down to the dining room and ate by myself and read my book (The Extra 2% by Jonah Keri, about the Tampa Bay [Devil] Rays). The wedding ceremony was very nice. Like I mentioned, it was held at the town hall, so it lacked all of the "pretty" decor of a church/temple/whatever. I guess most German marriages are held at the local town hall, which I thought was pretty rad.
The wedding reception took place at Lars' family friend's, like, estate. The Germans referred to it as a castle, but it wasn't a castle in the American sense (or the Gargoyles sense, like I had imagined). I'd say it was more like a much smaller version of Stan Hewett in Akron. It was still a very sizable home on sizable grounds and, of course, very old, but not nearly as sprawling as Stan Hewett. As Roni took pictures, guests were mingling amongst each other. I met many of Kristen and Lars' friends, which was actually incredibly intimidating. Kristen had met many of her friends in graduate school (she was in an English master's program) and Lars had many of his friends in medical school (he's studying to be a pediatrician). They all spoke English, like, better than I did, and when small talk meandered towards what we do for a living, it went a lot like this:
"So what do you do?"
"I work from home, editing high school courses. I'm also just finishing up graduate school for another English degree. How about you?"
"I'm an ER surgeon."
"I'm a doctor in a general practice."
"I'm a neurosurgeon."
I mean, Christ, as someone that considers himself not that dumb, I felt like a slack-jawed yokel. Most of Kristen and Lars' friends were fluent in not only German and English, but also French, Italian, and Spanish. I was suddenly very consciously aware of how backwards the U.S. educational system is. Though I had become a little intellectually self-conscious, I very much enjoyed making conversation with all of them.
You know how in the U.S. wedding receptions usually die out around 11:00PM? You inevitably have a handful of die-hards/wasteys dancing until midnight when the staff is cleaning up and 90% of the other guests have left, but that's about it. Not in Germany. In Germany, the party goes all night and everyone stays. Roni and I stayed until about 2:30AM before we were forced to call it a night because we had to be up at 6:00AM to catch a taxi at the airport. The reception wasn't too different from a U.S. wedding - there were some games played and stuff, but it featured a lot of the U.S. staples, including slideshows, speeches, dancing, etc.
Sunday, July 7th
We woke up early. We caught a cab to a smaller airport, boarded a plane that took us to a larger airport, boarded a plane that took us to Philadelphia, then boarded a plane that took us to Cleveland. All three of our flights were with the band The Devil Wears Prada and various members of their crew. They were all weiners.
Treat others how you'd like to be treated. You're beautiful. Peace.
Yours, etc.,
<3dane
xoxo
P.S. The Blue Jackets smoked the Leafs' dicks down to the hilt tonight, 6-0! Their first shutout of the Leafs in Toronto in franchise history! Byahhhhhhh!
I'm employing Roni to help me out with the rest of the Germany update. Here we go:
Wednesday, July 3rd (continued)
After we finished eating, the three of us went to CHECKPOINT CHARLIE and killed a few hours over there. We then moved on to Potsdamerplatz, which featured this outdoors mall-ish area between several buildings. A dome was constructed between the buildings and changed colors at different intervals at night. It was still daytime when we arrived, so we admired the architecture and planned on hitting it back up later. Afterwards, we went to this church that everyone seemed to refer to as "The Dome." For an hour or two, we sat on the grass talking and watching street performers in the distance, as well as other general people watching. I seem to recall some little kid bawling because his parents/family pretended to run away from him. After leaving "The Dome," we went to a sort of Japanese sandwich place to eat. I don't think any of us were that stoked on it, but it was fine. We bid adieu to Erika after dinner and then jetted back to the apartment.
Thursday, July 4th
Roni and I woke up a little later than we wanted to after such a busy day on Wednesday. After eating some breakfast at the apartment, Roni and I went to the German National Museum, which was pretty close to the aforementioned "Dome" church. We spent the lion's share of the time in the middle ages section of the museum upstairs, which was pretty awesome. After we wrapped up with the upstairs section of the museum, we headed downstairs to check out the section dedicated to World War I through the present. Unfortunately, the museum closed at 5:00, so by the time we made it down to that section we only had an hour or so to spend there. That section...was fucking crazy. I felt that way after checking out a lot of shit around Germany - the Berlin Wall, the Museum for the Murdered Jews of World War II - it was all really interesting, but you can't help being emotionally crushed by what it all represented. After we left, we bought some candy for our respective families, got dinner (absolutely no idea what/where), and then returned to Potsdamerplatz after the sun had set to see the lights on the dome.
Friday, July 5th
I already updated about the first half of the day (up until I fell asleep on the train), but Kristen and Lars picked us up from the train station and we made our way into Espelkamp. We met Kristen and Lars' respective families/extended families and had dinner with them at the hotel. Afterwards, we walked to the town hall where the wedding would take place the next day so that everyone would know where to go/how to get there. That section of town was set up very much like a boulevard/parkway, so that park benches and playground equipment was in a grassy section in the middle, and traffic was directed in single lanes on the sides. We played on the equipment, got some ice cream (a marionette statue stole the last bit of my cone_, and then went back to the hotel, in which we watched a dubbed-over episode of "The Fresh Prince of Bel Aire."
Saturday, July 6
Roni got up early to take "beauty shop" pictures of Kristen. I was probably 30 minutes behind her, so she prepped me on the continental breakfast situation before she took off and I wandered down to the dining room and ate by myself and read my book (The Extra 2% by Jonah Keri, about the Tampa Bay [Devil] Rays). The wedding ceremony was very nice. Like I mentioned, it was held at the town hall, so it lacked all of the "pretty" decor of a church/temple/whatever. I guess most German marriages are held at the local town hall, which I thought was pretty rad.
The wedding reception took place at Lars' family friend's, like, estate. The Germans referred to it as a castle, but it wasn't a castle in the American sense (or the Gargoyles sense, like I had imagined). I'd say it was more like a much smaller version of Stan Hewett in Akron. It was still a very sizable home on sizable grounds and, of course, very old, but not nearly as sprawling as Stan Hewett. As Roni took pictures, guests were mingling amongst each other. I met many of Kristen and Lars' friends, which was actually incredibly intimidating. Kristen had met many of her friends in graduate school (she was in an English master's program) and Lars had many of his friends in medical school (he's studying to be a pediatrician). They all spoke English, like, better than I did, and when small talk meandered towards what we do for a living, it went a lot like this:
"So what do you do?"
"I work from home, editing high school courses. I'm also just finishing up graduate school for another English degree. How about you?"
"I'm an ER surgeon."
"I'm a doctor in a general practice."
"I'm a neurosurgeon."
I mean, Christ, as someone that considers himself not that dumb, I felt like a slack-jawed yokel. Most of Kristen and Lars' friends were fluent in not only German and English, but also French, Italian, and Spanish. I was suddenly very consciously aware of how backwards the U.S. educational system is. Though I had become a little intellectually self-conscious, I very much enjoyed making conversation with all of them.
You know how in the U.S. wedding receptions usually die out around 11:00PM? You inevitably have a handful of die-hards/wasteys dancing until midnight when the staff is cleaning up and 90% of the other guests have left, but that's about it. Not in Germany. In Germany, the party goes all night and everyone stays. Roni and I stayed until about 2:30AM before we were forced to call it a night because we had to be up at 6:00AM to catch a taxi at the airport. The reception wasn't too different from a U.S. wedding - there were some games played and stuff, but it featured a lot of the U.S. staples, including slideshows, speeches, dancing, etc.
Sunday, July 7th
We woke up early. We caught a cab to a smaller airport, boarded a plane that took us to a larger airport, boarded a plane that took us to Philadelphia, then boarded a plane that took us to Cleveland. All three of our flights were with the band The Devil Wears Prada and various members of their crew. They were all weiners.
Treat others how you'd like to be treated. You're beautiful. Peace.
Yours, etc.,
<3dane
xoxo
P.S. The Blue Jackets smoked the Leafs' dicks down to the hilt tonight, 6-0! Their first shutout of the Leafs in Toronto in franchise history! Byahhhhhhh!