Happy Holidays Addition

First and foremost, my sincerest apologies for being pretty absent for the past months. My computer stopped working a few weeks before the Christmas holiday until about a month ago. That among other things, leaves me here with a back-log of things I want to share with you. Let's start with the holidays, shall we?

The holidays have come and gone. Including 3 kings day, or epiphany or whatever you'd like to call it. During those few days in January there were people (usually in groups of three and usually younger than I am) dressed as kings in the metro stations asking for donations. Apparently this happens every year. I don't know where the money goes, but it's probably something good if kids are collecting it.

Before that, there was Christmas. I personally spent this Holiday at home in Pennsylvania. But I stayed close enough to the day to see the streets lined with large buckets, or more aptly, small, above-ground swimming pools, filled with live carp. Now I say "lined with" because that's how I heard it described before the season actually arrived, and I think this is definitely an exaggeration. Sure, the swimming pools were crammed with fish (I don't think they could turn around in there much less swim at all) but there were only two small pools at each spot. And the the density of these, let's call them 'carp stations' was directly proportional to the density of businesses such as supermarkets, drug stores, and other places with the potential to result in someone impulse buying a live fish. Of course if you don't want to take a live fish home with you (and let it swim in your bathtub for three days to clean its system, which is really the best thing to do before eating it) then there are friendly hatchet-wielding workers to lend you a hand at beheading your Christmas carp. Fa la la la la, la la la la. When you do buy it alive, they just stick it in a plastic bag, and you take it home with it flopping around. Apparently you have a couple of hours till you need to put it back in water.

Going back even further in time, we reach St. Nicolas day (or St. Mikulas Day). This year it fell on a Sunday (Dec. 6th) but the night before is when the fun happens. I was lucky enough to be dating someone who is practically a professional at this stuff. What you do is this:

Step One: Gather a group of friends. You need at least 3 in total but it's best if the number is somewhere closer to 5.

Step Two: assemble your costumes. This is what sets you apart from the other groups on the street, and believe me, there are a lot, so don't scamp on the accessories.

Step Three: Make fliers with your contact info on it, and post them around residential areas that are in easy walking distance from your headquarters.

Step Four: Field calls and set up a logical route for the night.

Step Five: On the eve of St. Mikulas Day, gather your friends (see step one) and get in your costumes (see step two).

Step Six: Travel around to the houses that have contacted you earlier in the week.

Step Seven: Stay in character even on the streets and have a good time.

What happens, is that parents ask us to come and scare the shit out of their children. One person dresses as Saint Mikulas, which is pretty much just like the Pope, and then you need some people to be devils and some people to be angels. The Devils go in first, making lots of noise buy hitting things and yelling/grunting. They also carry sacks. They make the claim that the child was bad over the course of the year. They carry around coal to give to the bad kids, and threaten to put them into the sack and carry them away, presumably back to Hell, though that's never specifically mentioned. Mikulas and the Angels just sort of chill in the background for long enough for the kid to start crying (or in one case, pee himself) and then St. Mikulas intervenes, tells the Devils to quiet down, and asks the child what he or she has to say for him or herself. Depending on the organization of the parents, sometimes St. Mikulas was given a specific list of things to mention to the kid. Then there was usually some singing involved. It was pretty heart-breaking to hear a small little voice timidly singing while sniffling and holding back tears, but then St. Mikulas would declare that everything was OK and tell the Angels to hand over the gifts (which the parents also gave us ahead of time). Luckily, as an Angel I didn't have a speaking part. And I could understand the words "Angels" and "gifts" so I never missed my cue. Here's a picture of our crew:

The presents the parents give out aren't the main Christmas presents, those are opened on the 24th in the evening, and not every family participates in this madness. But still, it was quite the experience. We got paid something like 200 crowns a kid (in the neighborhood of $11) so at the end of the night, the 5 of us went out to dinner and then to a bar. Happy-Belated Holidays everyone!

trampen

The cheapest way to get to Prague (or anywhere, I guess) is to hitchhike. I’ve done so twice so far with Miki. He advises against my going alone, for safety reasons. And I agree with him for linguistic reasons. I think I could get myself into the Czech Republic, but seeing as I can only say “My name is Maggie. I’m an American.” and “I live in Berlin.” I don’t think that would really help me get to Prague. Miki has hitchhiked almost every time since the weather got nice to Berlin and back. The only thing is that it takes an indeterminate amount of time, so if you have some place to be that evening, chances are high you might not make it. Miki has a lot of luck alone on Weekdays. He usually goes with truckers. The two times we’ve gone together have been on a Friday that was a German public holiday and a Sunday. Neither of which are the best choices since most of the people traveling already have full cars. So we receive a lot of the “I would take you, but I have no room” shrug and gesture to the back of the car. Regardless, on both occasions we ended up at our destination at the end of the day, and I thought they were both pretty pleasant experiences.

Of course I say that now. However, hitchhiking requires a lot of patience. It’s a philosophy that requires patience, faith, and trust. So says Miki. This past Sunday we stood for almost two hours in Berlin before finding a ride just 50 km down the road. But that first ride is all you need to prove yourselves a trustworthy trekker, because in our new spot, it was obvious someone had to have dropped up off there in a car. We found the next ride within 10 minutes. Here are some helpful hints to keep in mind if you ever wish to hitchhike around Germany. Yes, I know, I’ve only done it twice, so I have no credibility, but most of this is information from Miki.

1. Use signs so it is clear where you are headed. This eliminates unnecessary stopping which could annoy the drivers as well as you, since it gets your hopes up.

2. Stand somewhere where it is easy for cars to pull over and stop, or where they are already stopped (like a gas station or rest stop).

3. Shave. This one doesn’t really apply to me, but in general, look nice. They have to trust you too.

4. When you get a ride, follow the lead of the driver and other people in the car. If they want to start a conversation, have a conversation. If they just want to drive in peace and listen to the radio, keep to yourself. But don’t fall asleep. (Okay, so I broke this when driving from Dresden to Prague on Sunday, but only because it was like one of those sun ovens we cooked pizza in in girl scouts in the backseat. And Miki was in the front seat having a conversation with the driver in Czech.)

5. Know where you want to go. Sometimes people offer their own ideas, and that’s great. But you should still have some idea of where you want to go, and make sure they are going past that before you get in the car.

On both occasions, the first ride was a married couple. The first time I almost didn’t spot him since he was just gesturing us over from the gas station while he was pumping gas with gloves on. But it was a nice quiet ride and they ended up giving us a box of Rittersport chocolates. They took us to the last gas station before Dresden, which also happens to be the last gas station in Germany on the highway to Prague. We found that out with the next couple who offered us a ride. I think he was German and she was Romanian. They were awesome and obviously just liked adventure. They lived in Dresden, but offered to stay on the highway to Prague and take us to the next gas station. They specifically cleared out their backseat for us, which had been filled with lots of lumber, and gave us beer. She kept saying that they would go with us to Prague, if it weren’t for the fact that they hadn’t fed their cat. And her reaction when they accidentally ended up in the Czech Republic was hilarious. The final leg of that journey was on a bus full on 6 or 7 year old soccer players. They were just starting a movie too, and about 10 or 15 minutes into the drive, someone changed the subtitles to English.

This Sunday was a little less exciting, but it didn’t take nearly as long. (We stood in the first gas station in the Czech Republic for an obscene amount of time the first time we went. We got on the soccer bus at 10 or 10:30pm. So like I said, you can’t make same-day plans.) The first couple was nice, but the ride was short. The next guy was the most interesting. He took us to the last gas station before Dresden. He was coming from a poker tournament in Berlin in which he placed third. He was Austrian but lived in Dresden. He’s been to Las Vegas 27 times. He knew Pennsylvania because he flies into Philly and takes a train to Atlantic City. He loves Las Vegas so much, he flew his wife there to marry her in the little white chapel (I pretended to know what that was). The last guy was the Czech who talked to Miki the whole time while I slept. But he seemed nice. He had an ostrich egg in the back seat which I almost sat on. Perhaps I should add that to the list. Don’t sit on someone’s ostrich egg; you might break it. Luckily the egg was not harmed.

Fahrradsicherheit

You haven't heard many bike-tales from me lately not because I'm getting the hang of finding my way around Berlin, or that I've learned how to safely maneuver around curbs and pedestrians, but because once again I got a flat tire...and it's been cold. Also, the two weeks that Monika and Dieter were on vacation, Dieter gave me his Monatskarte so I could ride the subway for free. And since it was January and therefore pretty cold, I took advantage of it. But this time instead of paying 20 euro to have some guy put in a new tube, I bought a repair kit and Miki fixed it for me.

And if fixing bike tires isn't reason enough to love him, hopefully this next bit will win your approval.

Fahrradsicherheit = bicycle safety

Before I blew out my tire again, I was biking to work from Monika and Dieter's (which is less than 4 km away; a nice break from the normal 10+) so that Miki could have the run of the city while I was at work. During this small window of time, my lights officially ceased to function. The front one had been working on and off for about a month, and the back light never worked. This was unacceptable to Miki. My lack of helmet was also unacceptable. When we were in Kaufland buying a water cooker to replace the one I melted, (that's a great story) we looked for bike lights. The lights he had in mind weren't there, but there were helmets. Despite my childish protests about it 'not being cool', Miki clearly wasn't leaving until I picked one out. The next morning he got up and made sure I went to the bike store to buy lights before I went to work (so that I would have them for the ride home). Oh, and he also reminded me to wear my helmet when I 'forgot' it on the way out. I had to borrow 5 euro from him to pay for the lights since they were more expensive than I had expected and the Fahrrad shop doesn't take Visa. When I tried to pay him back he turned it down and said "Consider it my contribution to your Fahrradsicherheit."

So Mom, I have a helmet now! I continue to wear it regularly; it's not as uncool as I originally thought.

Bilder

Click Here! If you want to see pictures from my Christmas in the Czech Republic. Featuring pictures of the infamous Miki. You can see how beautiful he is! It's the same album I posted on facebook so if you've seen it there you've already seen the pictures.

Gefühlssache Revolution

This was the title of our most recent colaboration project with the Blasorchester. They took players from three Orchestras: Zentralkapelle Berlin, Blasorchester das Jungen Ensemble Berlin (the one with which I normally play) and Bläser des Coppi-Gymnasiums, combined with singers for numerous different Choirs around Berlin plus three soloists (1 tenor, 2 basses) and together we performed some sort of Oratorium that was I think written by the guy who directed us. I don't know what it was about because I never read the words, and Miki couldn't get much out of it besides that he thinks it had to do with socialism.

I had gotten Miki a ticket since this was the first night he came to Berlin. The performers were allowed to watch the rest of the performance (our Oratorium was only about 20 minutes long) so I snuck in the side aisle along with a bunch of other young people dressed in black. I had no idea what to expect, because, like usual, I didn't really read up on anything or really pay attention when anyone said anything that didn't relate to when we had to be somewhere (even though I still ended up showing up late every evening thanks to the cat and my incredible cooking skills that set off the smoke detector one night).

**Side Note: I just answered the phone correctly in my office! I am learning how to be Germany.**

As it turns out the second part of the show that I saw (I missed a little during the transition) was at first two battling rock bands, one representing good, and one representing evil. They were getting challenges from the voice of God. He was asking them to answer questions about Revolutions (what makes a good revolution, what was the best revolution, und so weiter). They were earn points after each song and then the points were displayed on the walls (it was a multi-media production) and I learned later from Miki, that all of the point totals that were also years, were years of different revolutions. At this point, I was sitting on the steps and Miki was in the audience. It wasn't until after intermission that we sat together. It worked out nicely since my knowledge of European history doesn't really extend past the German boarders, and Miki doesn't have nearly the receptive German skills as I do (along he's studied it for about just as long). With our powers combined, his knowledge of unamerican history and my ability to understand fast speaking Germans, we were able to pretty much peice together the majority of the jokes.

Oh and I say rock bands because they were rockin'. However, they played a plethera of types of music and the instrumentation: flute/bari sax, 2 clarinets, 3 altos, 2 tenors, 2 trombones, 4 trumpets, 2 horns, 2 tubae, and a rythm section (minus a piano) so I guess they should be called jazz bands. And I actually listed the instrumentation for the band that played the entire second half, but the little bands were like that big one split in half essentially. They were really good. I was very entertained. They played until 11 and the whole thing started at 8, yet I wasn't getting tired or bored or eager to get going or anything. I'm not going to lie, there were some really bizarre guests they had come out to sing some songs. And some wierd costumes and/or videos that accompanied the songs, but that was all part of the charm.

**Warning Adult Content**

The adventure of determining the sex of Litti continues. The main conclusion I have come to is that I should look under Meeko's tail more often. I apparently have no idea how to diferentiate between the gentials of male and female cats. Miki is visiting this week. He got here on Friday (Miki is Olga's brother, he plays the accordion and was briefly mentioned in the Christmas and New Years re-cap. He definitely deserves his own post, but I've never been one to wear my heart on my sleeve, so this is all you're getting.) and has been accompanying me on the cat feeding expeditions. The gender of Litti has been the subject of many debates. Miki (pronounded like the famous Disney mouse, short for Mikuláš, which is czech for Nikolas) has never had a cat though, so he doesn't have much of an opinion. He thinks it's a girl. Since to me the genitals are very non-descript, I decided to check for nipples. Female cats (and dogs, and pigs, and probably a lot of other mammals) have a lot of these. But cats also have a lot of fur, so feline-nipple-finding is no easy task. Litti is not declawed either, so everytime I try to grope his belly to feel for nipples, I end up getting scratched, and then he runs away. I've stopped trying so Monika and Dieter don't return home to an angry cat. And I've also decided that it's a boy. My main reasoning (besides that I think his face looks masculine) is that since they let him outside, I would assume is either spayed or neutered. And Litti doesn't have the baggy skin resulting from a missing uterus like Meeko does. Also, I think I see tiny balls.

Vánoce

It's been quite the Holiday season. I did a lot and for the sake of your time and mine will post the highlights in list form. So here goes...

I did the following:
- Arrived in Prague a day late because I forgot my passport but as it turned out never really needed a passport.
- Successfully ate the Christmas carp without choking on any bones.
- Ate more soup than probably ever before in my life.
- Tried yeast (it's disgusting)(thanks, Olga)
- Played Kuhhandel until 5am Christmas morning.
- Went to a Czech church service.
- Played scrabble in Czech. (I was on someone's team and actually contributed one word: Depo)
- Learned how to say the following words in Czech: cat, mouse, dog, hello, cheers, yes (that's all I can remember)Oh, and Christmas (that's the title of this post)
- Attempted to sing along with the traditional Czech Christmas songs and other folk songs that were accompanied by the guitar and accordion.
- Sang the following with the accordion: The Star Spangled Banner, My Country Tis of Thee (listed in the book as God Save the Queen) and America from West Side Story (I had to teach Miki the rhythm.)
- Played ice hockey on a frozen pond.
- Rode on a Tandem bike.
- Went jogging in the dark.
- Ate my weight in Christmas cookies (I'm not sure that's accurate but it certainly seemed like it).
- Missed a train.
- Missed a plane.
- Successfully didn't cry when the two aforementioned things happened.
- Ate Danish birthday cake and balls (it's what they call buns).
- And most importantly, it appears I didn't forget any German!

I hope you all had a very merry Christmas and a wish you the much happiness in 2009.