Time's Up

Thanks for your patience on the load for this excessively large picture. What you're seeing in the picture above is a clock. Unfortunately many of the details are obscured by the busy background, but I just didn't have the good sense at the time to try a diagonal angle. The large bulbs on the left are filled on the hour and the disks on the right are filled once a minute. This doesn't occur in a trickle fashion. The creator of this clock has worked it out such that the water pressure builds up to just the right level within the labyrinth of pipes and then drains into each disk and then all the water from the disks into the bulb all at one time. This thing is flowing right now, ticking the minutes away liter by liter. I want one of these. Oh, except that I want the pump on mine to be powered by a rotating team of leprechauns in green velour track suits running on a hamster wheel and the water will actually be their green sweat that is collected. Yeah, it'll take a lot of leprechauns, but what else are they doing?

Trading One In for Another

Dear Curious,

Don't come to Berlin in the mood for nachos. You'll only find them at a couple of places. The same thing goes for your American style pizza. Instead, they serve Italian style, on which they consider cheese a topping (so if it's not specifically stated as being on there, it's not). Oh, and burritos are out. I didn't really start thinking about this until I noticed that the chicken wing deficiency is almost complete. They have exactly one flavor, which isn't quite buffalo and isn't quite BBQ. This probably doesn't even register as a problem to a person that doesn't see a trip to Buffalo Wild Wings or Plucker's as the highlight of a month.

But this isn't actually complaining. It's nice to have pizza that doesn't immediately give you the extra weight of a spare tire in the trunk. Not having the option of an all-carnivore meal with the gravitational pull of a super nova likely makes me much healthier at the end of the month and the lack of their spiciest flavors certainly saves my lips and stomach from numerous repairs.

But sometimes things remind me of America. Here the big fast food is Donner. I'll provide a picture later today, but the meat comes off a gigantic piece of pressed meat that rotates around a spit with a heat source on one side. Thus, as it rotates around meat can be sliced off of it in small strips. It is then placed on some sort of bread along with tomatoes, lettuce, red cabbage, onions, and the option of garlic, yogurt or chili sauce. The bread can be either this harder (sourdough like) bread that is cut open like a pita or a giant piece of bread that is almost exactly a tortilla. Thus, for the elusive burrito, Berlin has its substitute, the durum donner.

I spoke to someone about this on Friday night who has lived here his entire life and to him this is not just fast food. It was originally brought over by the Turks, but now Berlin has its own spin on it and, according to him, no one else does it the same. Berlin owns it. Melissa has confirmed this as she cannot get one of the basic options, falafel in place of donner meat, found in Berlin.

I'm enjoying the food here, but because so much of it is based around the sausage, I am excited about seeing what Istanbul has to offer. Mel says that I should be wagging my tail in excitement over the waffles. That's cool. I like waffles.

These nice young gentlemen are silently warning people of the dangers of Scientology.
The Scientologists have a promotional stand just behind these guys.
These gentlemen must wear masks to protect their identity b/c Scientologists don't much like badmouthing.

I join them for a brief second making a nonsense sign with my pinkies.
They were appreciative of the support, but also happy to see me leave.
Their signs read: Caution! Dangerous sect."
and they have pamphlets further explaining their presence as well. 

Sans Wheels

Historic Germany.

I've hung up the key on the bicycle. The problems on that bike make those NEXT Wal-Mart bicycles look like Rolex watches by comparison. I can put up with some difficult stuff, but it's gone too far this time. As I was riding to the Friday night Stammtisch the left pedal started feeling wobbly. I stopped to take a look at it and it turned out that the bolt holding the pedal arm had come loose. I rode onto my destination, but I had to stop to screw the bolt back in every quarter mile or less. This is serious business. If left unchecked, the entire pedal arm could fall off, and since I ride on roads with cars, I decided that this kind of calamity had to be avoided at all costs. 

Today I decided to fix it as much as possible. I spent about two hours adjusting the brakes, dealing with the splash guards that were rubbing up against the tire, adjusting the gears such that I had a 3rd gear (out of 21, that is, only 2 worked before), and of course permanently tightening the bolt on the pedal arm. I was proud of myself. I had taken care of all the bike's deficiencies that made it uncomfortable to ride. To celebrate I hopped on it to go to the soccer cage by my work. 

Lego giraffes don't care if
you pull their tails.

I successfully switched into my 3rd gear (the big one that makes a big difference) exactly one time. The next time I tried it made these clicking noises as the chain inched toward the change position, telling me that it only lacked a small fraction of an inch to actually change, but then never did so. I tested this multiple times, but then gave up, deciding that could continue to live without a 3rd gear. Many people only have one. I should count myself lucky. But then the pedal arm started wobbling again. This is after I had tightened it with a pair of wrenches. It seems impossible how quickly the bolt comes loose. It might as well not have any threads at all. I'd probably be better off plugging it up with a piece of cork. I took the train home, riding the bike only to the station and then to the house from the station. As a final insult, the bike's brakes started rubbing against the tire while in the neutral position again.

This makes me particularly sad because I know I won't be able to ride a bike in Istanbul because of the insane traffic. Oh well. I guess it is better to have rode and lost than to have never ridden at all.

Brandenburger Tor

Found it!

Dear Curious,

There are a crap load of pictures of the Brandenburg Gate all over the internet and elsewhere. Our additions don't add up to a whole lot, except that while many people can say they know what the thing looks like, not so many can say they've seen it with their eyes. We kind of like that last part.

What's difficult to appreciate about the gate from most tourist pictures
is that it has these carved scenes betwixt the columns.
Quite frankly, I think the columns are too close together or
the depicted scenes are too high up b/c it's nearly impossible to get a good look at them.
Wave Mel! Please. Come on! Oh, never mind.

The depicted scenes are a little strange.
In this one a giant baby wrestles with a snake.
Of course.

One of the nice things about Berlin is that you can make money doing almost anything.
Except for this girl.
She's pretty clueless on how to be a statue.
The guy on the far right has got it down, though.

Historically,  the place is pretty darned important. The plaque outside the gate tells me that it used to be part of an enveloping wall, and Wikipedia refreshes my memory by saying it was one of 18 gates of that wall, the last standing. It's been a favorite place for invading armies (we're talking Napoleon here) to march their troops under and be like, "This city is MINE! Understand, fools?" Napoleon also stole the horse drawn chariot (Quadriga) and brought it back to his own country. But history tells us that he didn't account for it not really rolling along like a real chariot and ended up leaving it at a gas station where it was later picked up by a tow truck and returned.

Ugly Bears

Dear Curious,

Today's picture comes from inside a mall. This may sound cheap since most of the tourist attractions, of which there are millions of pictures each, cost millions of dollars to produce, cost thousands each year to keep pretty, and have typically been around for a few hundred years (in Germany, anyway). But this particular picture truly catches some honest Berlin spirit.

What you see seated there is, in fact, a bear. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of these bears scattered about Berlin. This one is different b/c he is not in the typical pose (I'll try to get a "typical" bear picture to you in the future). You may not be able to tell, but this bear is in a German soccer outfit and in trying to make the bear look more human, it became that much more hideous. A wise lesson can be learned by any aspiring genetic engineers: bear human crosses are very ugly. Despite its lack of sexual attraction, however, I really like this bear just because he's so different from all the rest.

Fun fact: this picture happened to be taken on the same day the German women lost to the Japanese, ending their charge for the Women's World Cup.

I want my phone back

I've done very poorly in Berlin. Though I have the power of the internet at my places of work and slumber, I do not have it so constantly at my fingertips. This may make me sound like a yuppy, but I'm damn tired of trouncing around a city without an interactive map. I'm also tired of not being able to check my email or Facebook or whatever source originally told me where the event is at. Too many times my evenings have turned into city wandering as opposed to conversing with friends as I attempt in vain to find my desired location. I'm sorry, but pen and paper, you lose. And so does my memory. Perhaps this inability to prepare enough to find my destination is as much a result of having relied on my phone's guidance over so long as it is the shortcomings of conventional methods of pathfinding, but I don't really care at this point. I'm crippled and I want my crutch back.

There's just not enough room on my body to tattoo all the maps I need.

America Invades Germany

Welcome to Germany. Have an American burger.

I'll admit to not being much of a creature of comfort. I refuse to use a dishwasher because it wastes energy and water. Similarly, scenes like this don't do any particular good for me. Here, we see Checkpoint Charlie with a McDonald's in the background. This makes sense for the franchise, of course. Why not stick a typically American eatery right next to an American "outpost"? I'm sure it does great business.

But this isn't confined to Checkpoint Charlie. It's everywhere. And it's KFC. And it's Pizza Hut. And Subway.

I'm still not bothered too much because it is not Wal-Mart. Germans have rejected the concept. Good job there, Germany. You've retained your identity. But you're slipping into a convenience driven society on a daily basis. 

Take this for a comparison. One day Mel and I brought home a frozen pizza to heat up and enjoy at home (which, by the way is of Italian style--very different from American). Upon seeing it, Monika our landlady, said to me that she doesn't care for "fast food." This surprised both Mel and myself. We'd never thought to count frozen items bought at the store as fast food. We'd reserved that term for pre-made, pre-warmed sandwiches that have been sitting on a shelf, waiting for us to purchase them for up to and including one hour. I don't think anyone I know in the US would have ascribed that definition to frozen pizza, but I now feel it's true.

That's why I'm a bit bothered by these chains. They redefine convenience and make us unaware of our own habits. All this said when Mel and I discovered and enjoyed a little stand that sells brawtwurst, chili (jalapenos) cheese burgers, and fries that you eat right there (in about 2 minutes). We've eaten at turkish donner places and China Box stands all over the city. It's okay that we influence one another because it provides variety. But it seems apparent that the bad habits come first.