Das Echolot

You can't spell Computer without Loser

2010-02-09T11:13:00.001-08:00

Live from a Bar in Potsdam- it's... me!

I have successfully survived the move from Kreuzberg to Potsdam, where I am now within walking distance of my Uni and can wake up at the comfortable time of up to 8:00 AM. Isn't that just spiffy?

The downside to this glorious upgrade is that my new Apartment (or is it a Dorm?) is comparable to that rock the Flinstones live in.

199.00 EU/mo.

My room is large, albeit it could be just "seeming" large on account of being completely fucking empty. It's freezing cold and most of the walls are all walls that go to the outside. My entire apartment is heated by a stove which is located in the kitchen. Any stray warm air foolish enough to wander in the direction of my room will quickly be neutralized by the freezing air generated by my non-isolated balcony window.

But this Blog article isn't about that, it's about the hilarious situation that is my internet- or lack thereof. As I have proven in a previous blog article, in Germany being good with computers is synonym with being a 40 year old Virgin- it isn't something you admit freely, let alone to impress anybody. In an interesting reversal of roles, namely, being bad with computers is kind of the mark of a cool person. Maybe I'm exaggerating.

In any case, when I arrived at my new Apartment, my roommate told me we were getting new Internet this week at some point. Until then, we supposedly had some variation of slow WLAN. Well, as I set up base in my room, I saw that the supposed connection wasn't only unsecured but also signal strength 0, as in, it didn't even work.

When I asked why the signal is so low my roommate just shrugged and directed me to satisfy my own curiosity in the hallway where the "box" (German for "Router") was. Gazing down I saw what looked like some sort of Robot had vomited cables and Routers all over the floor.

I for one welcome our new cable vomiting robotic overlords

Okay, that picture might be from Google, but stay with me. In any case, I got my Laptop from my old Apartment yesterday, so I figured today I could see if I could get a stronger signal by getting closer to the Router. Sitting literally less than half a meter away from the Router with my Laptop, I saw that although my signal strength had gone up... it wasn't full. Which was odd, considering, you know, I was like 1 fucking foot away from the damn thing. I started following the cables from all three boxes, one was connected to the phone- then a router- then a box with an antennae on it that supposedly broadcast the WLAN.

Then I made a funny discovery.

None of the boxes were actually plugged in.

Confused for a moment, I realized that the internet my roommate had been enjoying wasn't actually his, it was some random unsecured network somewhere in the building. Further tests revealed that even while plugged in, no internets were to be had.

When I told him this, he didn't seem to care- not that I expected him to.

Electronics: Working best in combination with Electricity since 2010

The jig is up!

2010-01-21T14:29:00.000-08:00

I walked into the class to have my professor tell me he thought (well, his wife) my blog entry was funny. My first reaction was to be modest- and my second was "how the fuck?" so in a bit of an overreacting panic I just deleted my previous two entries- the latest because I named a few names and the older because I'm afraid my Professor will think I'm retarded.

So now I guess I should probably write about something interesting- like the weather. Hailing from Sunnyvale, California, I can probably count the times I've seen snow actually falling from the sky on two hands.

This probably explains why I ran out of our classroom one day screaming like a little girl. While other people were complaining about how cold it is I was trying to catch snowflakes on my tongue. Fuck yeah, SNOW! Walking down the street after fresh snowfall, it's literally excruciating to resist the urge to just pick up, kick around, jump in or even throw some snow into somebody's face. There's just one problem: I'm almost 21 years old.

Damn you!

Well, lucky for me, winter wonderland didn't last long- that is, the negative degrees are still there, but the snow has undergone a metamorphasis from cool and awesome white powder into a hard-as-rock-shit-colored dirt concoction.

Geologists around the world are trying to figure out what the fuck this shit is
In any case, winter wonderland has become a lot less fun and a lot more "woah I almost fell on my ass that time". But I guess it still has that whole "freezing" thing going on for it. Contrast to California that's complaining that they have too much rain. Yeah, you read that right, California, the state that's been on fire for the past few months, the state that has extreme drought problems.

Pictured above: San Francisco in 2032
In any case, Winter in Berlin is kind of like living in a refrigerator, hoping someone will forget to close the door correctly for a few minutes- you might get an alright day every once in a while, but sooner or later god will notice that I'm only wearing 2 sweaters and turn the dial up (or is it down?). Here's to hoping Al Gore is right and Winter will stop existing soon. Seasons are overrated.

Like Disneyland without the rides

2009-12-07T03:34:00.000-08:00

So after falling victim to what can only be described as a fate worse than rape, not once but 5 times, I thought now would be an appropriate time to write about it.

The fate I am referring to is of course the "Deutsche Ausländerbehörde", or as I like to call it, the "Ministry of Love". Yes, when I first arrived in Germany I heard that I needed to make my presence known, which is completely understandable, to the local "Amt" in my region. I did this with minimal problems, and went on with my life. However, upon the day I was accepted to my Uni and was doing all the necessary paperwork, it dawned on me that I still needed to go to the Foreigner's department for taxes etc.

Looking it up online, I was shocked to see that the entire state of Berlin had but 1 fucking office to visit.

Let me say that again- if you are coming to Berlin for any reason for an extended period of time, you have to visit this one office. One. Office. Imagine if New York only had 1 office for foreign affairs? I'm talking Passport renewal, immigrants, all of that. One office. Try to imagine. It's like Berlin is living in the stone age.

I'm not going to retell my tale of every visit, but here is a typical scenario:

On the website, it says they open at 7. You wake up at 5:30 and get there at about 6:30. Guess what? You're too late. The line stretches from the office out into the street. You will cling onto some vague hope thinking "Well, they open at 7 and close at 2 PM- that's plenty of time, they will be able to process this whole line!". Wrong. If you're halfway out of the office at 6:30, do yourself a favor, turn around and go home.

There's one man in charge of managing the line. He sits at the very front and quite possibly has the worst job in the world. People yell and indeed even cry at him. The line gets very emotional sometimes. I think I've even seen people threaten him. Basically, he lets a few people in, then a few more, then a few more. Then he tells everybody else that they should just go home.

Imagine that you woke up at like 5:30 to go to this place, you get there, wait an hour, maybe even called in sick to work or just didn't go to uni and then some guy tells you to just turn around and go home- when you got to the damned place before it was even open.

That's what going to the Auslaenderbehoerde in Berlin is like.

Now, assuming you actually get a number- oh boy. I hope you brought a snack. I actually think the Berlin Auslaenderbehoerde has developed its own sub-culture of snack ideas- much like Japanese Bento-boxes. I've seen people arrive with pillows and blankets and set up camp inside the waiting room. Most people bring a full flask of joe.

If you got a number, chances are you'll be there for hours. Your day is over. But that's the best case scenario. Most people, and by most I really do mean over 50% who go there just turn around and go back home because they didn't come in time.

If you want to actually get shit done at that place, pitch a tent. No seriously, pitch a tent. Go there at like 2 AM and pitch a tent, grab your sleeping bag and fall asleep in front of the office. It's your best bet. I would love to see the look on the employee's faces when they see a line of tents in front of the office.

If you're reading all this, you're probably thinking "Man, so just make an appointment, idiot". Oh man, if only it were that simple. There are no appointments. Well, actually, there are- but they're all booked out for the next 6 months. Yup, you want an appointment? Hows August for you?

Of course, most people aren't satisfied with the "Just go home" answer. They are furious, which is understandable. The problem lies in the fact that the employees of the place don't really have any say in how long their little office is open and how many people work there. It's understaffed and not open long enough, and too small. These people are yelled at on a minute basis over something they don't really have any control over. As such, yelling at them will only make matters worse for you. On the contrary, I've seen people with small children pleading to the man of the line to give them a number. I've heard the man at the top of the line tell people "if you come with small children you have a better chance of getting in by begging".

What the fuck.

My new flat

2009-10-27T13:09:00.000-07:00

In an extraordinarily useless change of pace, I will now make a post about my room in the new apartment I am staying at.

The entrance.

I am a man of many coats! At least since I came to Germany...

I tend to sleep and read on this surface

Moving right along...

Procrastination Headquarters

Dinner: Unintentional EXTREME "filter" edition

And that about covers it. I really love this place. I wake up in the morning and it isn't snowing in my room. Also having more than 4 minutes of lukewarm water is pretty cool, too. All in all, pretty solid.

The Dark side of things

2009-10-09T07:24:00.000-07:00

Having met a lot of (teenage) German people who live in America in my time, I can tell you that while there isn't much prejudice against Germans, there's often some misconceptions. I've heard some freaky almost unbelievable stories. For example, one girl I've met told me that after introducing herself to some Americans, they asked her if Hitler was still in power. Apparently they were dead serious.

While I find this hard to believe, what I am sure of is that at least half of all German teenagers I know that have contact with Americans at one point had to hear this: "Oh, you're from Germany? Are you a Nazi?"

Now, almost every time someone has to hear this, the person asking is either just joking around or an idiot. No educated person would believe that you're a Nazi because you come from Germany. Still, I've heard way too many stupid stories like this. Why is it a big deal? Because it's disrespectful as fuck.

Put yourself in a German person's shoes. During your education, you have to suffer through up to 13 years of German education which, every year, spends countless hours talking about World War two and Nazi Germany. If you had any idea how much time German students have to spend learning everything there possibly is to know about Nazi Germany, your head would spin. Trust me, as an American in a German school, I sat through it all. They don't fuck around either, you start reading books like "Als Hitler das rosa Kaninchen stahl" in third grade.

The fact is, the German education is packed full of lesson after lesson about how terrible the Nazi's were. Now, you might be saying "Well, why is that bad?"- It isn't bad per se, it's just incredible repetitive.

The worst part about it is, if you're a German and you're watching these films, you are inevitably forced to feel guilty. You feel guilty because of something you didn't even do, just because you are German. Of course, this varies from person to person.

Now, put yourself in their shoes again. You just spent 13 years learning how terrible the Nazi's were, you might even feel guilty it just because of your nationality, and then some idiot who couldn't even locate Germany on a map asks you if you're a Nazi. It's not just disrespectful, it's infuriating. I don't say this because I've ever been infuriated myself- because I'm not German, I gather this first hand from people I know.

I wish I could say there are no Nazi's in Germany, and that that's all a thing of the past. I wish I could say that there aren't 2 armed police officers standing outside of the Jewish Synagogue in Berlin, and another two standing outside of a Jewish art museum. I wish I could say that tomorrow there isn't a huge Neo-Nazi protest about 10 minutes from my apartment, and my I wish I could say that the lady I pay rent to for this apartment hadn't told me that it might not be safe to leave the house tomorrow.

The truth is, there's still Nazi's in Germany. Plenty of them. Germany has it's own "strong-right-wing" party called the NPD which receives an uncomfortable number of votes every election.

Yeah, Germany has it's dark side of things (like any country), and there shouldn't be any misconceptions about it. Still, giving people shit for something they aren't a part of (even if you're kidding) is incredibly lame.

Long time no JAWOHL

2009-10-03T15:32:00.001-07:00

Well it's been a while and what better date to kick off the blog again than the TAG DER DEUTSCHEN EINHEIT 2009. Yessir, it's the day Germany became one, and as a celebration everything is closed.

I've now started studying in Potsdam at a private University, woo. Having a decently long commute because I'm (regrettably) still living here in east Berlin, I've come into a lot of contact with German public transportation. Now, as any American will tell you, public transportation in Germany compared to that in America is fantabulous. But, as a person who has lived in Japan for 9 months, I can tell you it isn't flawless either.

First off, the busses. They aren't on time. In fact, they're hardly ever on time. It might have to do with my specific bus route, or just the fact that the area in Berlin that I live in has a lot of traffic, but really, I don't think a bus has actually came at the time it promised me it would once this entire week. Sometimes they also just don't come period. The other day I got to the station 2 minutes before the bus was scheduled to arrive. Well, it didn't come. The next one came- late, I might add- but really, what happened to that one?

And while we're on the topic of shit just not happening, what's the deal with the S-Bahn. The great thing about Berlin is the many different ways of public transportation- there's the subway (U-Bahn), the bus, the tram and the "Street train" (S-Bahn). Now, while Buses and Trams have their uses, it's fair to say that most of the major commuting inside of Berlin is done via the S-Bahn and U-Bahn. So while having all of these is cool, it's still kind of annoying when something doesn't work, and that's exactly what happened one fateful day when the entire S-Bahn system just went offline. Apparently, from what I've gathered, the S-Bahn had been laundering revenue that should have been spent fixing their trains and keeping them up to date into profit.

The result was that the trains became so shitty that the state had to legally force them to make sure all the trains were safe. To nobody's surprise, some weren't. Of course, inspecting all these trains takes time, and of course this means that some routes are suspended in the meantime. And by some of these routes I mean god-damn near every one. Basically, for the last two months the S-Bahn has been unreliable as all hell. The bitter part is that it really is just their own fault for being greedy assholes.

Now, I'm sure you can find a more informative news articles on this. This has just been my "American watching the situation from the outside" perspective based on what people have told me. Germany news tends to make an agonizingly boring hissy fit out of news, not that I even have a TV to watch it on right now. But German TV is a story for another time- as it encompasses a whole new dimension of fail.

Microsoft is retarded (and also smells bad)

2009-09-02T07:37:00.000-07:00

So, despite the fact that putting together my computer was for the most part quite painless- I've ran into more shit installing the OS than I would have hoped.

After a short fiasco involving me trying to get Windows 7 beta to work, I promptly gave into my computer's desires to only have 4GB of RAM by sticking with Vista 32 bit.

But that isn't what this is about. This is what I don't get:

I have a Windows Vista UPGRADE DVD and of course Windows XP. I fresh installed Vista without a key for starters, because entering the key caused my setup to freeze. Windows assured me I could enter the key later, once my computer was online. Sure, I thought, I'll deal with it later.

Well, later happened, and now I'm stuck with this shit:

"The Software Licensing Service determined that this specified product key can only be used for upgrading, not for clean installations."

What does this mean? It means that although you can fresh install Vista with an Upgrade DVD, you are essentially stuck with a trial version destined to expire 30 days. When installing, Microsoft tells you "You can activate online at any time"- what it forgets to tell you is "UNLESS OF COURSE THIS IS AN UPGRADE DISC, IN WHICH CASE YOU CAN'T, LOL."

So basically, even though I have the XP & Vista CDs right here beside me with keys for both, Microsoft doesn't want them. I can't upgrade without reinstalling- too bad I already installed all my software on this thing.

But you know what the funniest part is? You can technically install Vista fresh without even having anything to upgrade it from (with an upgrade CD).

You can literally install the 30 day Vista trail, and then UPGRADE the trial with your Vista upgrade CD, basically saving you 80 dollars or more. What's the catch? There isn't one, Microsoft is just retarded that way. Seriously, check it out here.

YOU LET PEOPLE UPGRADE YOUR STUFF FOR FREE YET YOU WONT LET ME UPGRADE MY STUFF WITH THE XP DISC

GUH.

Money in the Bank

2009-08-22T13:48:00.000-07:00

One question many people always ask themselves when they're going to any country really, is how expensive the cost of living is. Of course, living more conservatively in any country will result in a lower cost of living (dur) but still, some countries are obviously more expensive than others.

So, is Germany more expensive than America? Well, first of all, the question is faulty already because it depends where in Germany and America respectively. So I guess I’ll ask again: What’s more expensive, Berlin or the Bay area? Honestly, I don’t know. I would say they are almost equal. The Euro is much stronger than the dollar, so it’s easy to think that you’re paying less. But appearances can be deceiving, and paying pennies on the Euro for groceries is nice, the cost of clothing and gasoline is through the roof.

I would therefore say that although the cost of food is about the same, the cost of many other things is much higher. Apartments and space is probably cheaper, and College fees are laughable compared to American ones (yet people here still run out into the streets to protest fees that would in America be considered next to nothing).

No, Germany has it’s ups and downs when it comes to prices. While some things vary, the plus minus isn’t ridiculously high, I’d say.

If you want to really get ripped off in style, though, look no further than the country of pocket knives and dairy products. Yes, Switzerland, my country of heritage, I regret to say, has some of the most out-of-this-world prices I’ve ever seen in my life. I’ve always found comparing fast food prices of one popular franchise to another to be a fun way of measuring the prices of a country. To put it into perspective, a Big Mac menu at Mc Donald’s costs over $11.00 (USD).

Switzerland has the unique ability to demand ridiculous prices for certain goods all due to one thing: tourism. Switzerland is such a hotspot for tourists that stores in certain locations, such as Interlaken can demand mind boggling prices for things. Since the majority of tourists who come to Switzerland are rich and come from far away countries, people will pay almost any price for a piece of Switzerland once they’re there. This is all fine and dandy for the people who have the money to spend, but it makes Switzerland almost inaccessible for neighboring countries like Germany. Nobody wants to go to Switzerland for a week, it’s way too fucking expensive. The train ticket alone goes for about 200 Euros if you’re coming out of the north part of Germany, Hotels are expensive as hell and you’ll be broke in a couple of days if you’re planning on doing anything fun that costs money.

The cost of transportation without a discount is ridiculous. A bus drive for two people is over 11 dollars, a train ticket for two to a neighboring city (two stops away) is over 25 dollars, a gondola ride up a local mountain (one way) is over 50 dollars. Hope you’re planning on walking down, else you can drop another 50.
The only people who manage to live in Switzerland without getting ripped off are unsurprisingly: Swiss people. Because they’re ripping you off. But hey, it is ridiculously beautiful up here.

Row row fight the powah

2009-07-30T05:08:00.000-07:00

Recently, I have been in the market for computer parts. This was mostly due to the fact that I couldn't haul my entire old computer from the states over to Europe. It would have been kind of silly, anyways.

So, this has put me on a search for a new motherboard and CPU to go along with some parts I still scavaged. Naturally, I wanted to browse around a little bit. I've never bought a motherboard or CPU myself, only video cards and such. However, this time around, I thought it would do me good to familiarize myself with all the specifications a motherboard can have.

As I walked into a large electronics store in Berlin, complete with 4 stories of gadgets and gizmos, I discovered a grotesque truth: they didn't have any motherboards or CPUs. "Odd", I said to myself, "what a strange electronics store!". However, as I walked into another store, this time 5 stories tall, complete with dishwashers and other large appliances, I was shocked again. Despite there being rows and rows of different kinds of laptops, there were no motherboards or CPUs. There was in fact about 1/4th of a shelf dedicated to a few video cards.

Blasphemy!

So then my girlfriend urged me to try a different store, known for its electronics and parts. The store seems different from the get-go, less media oriented and more focused on selling parts and things for people that kind of knew what they were doing. At last, I found some mobos and CPUs. And by some I do not mean more than one shelf, containing both.

All of this left me with a bad taste in my mouth, and a shocking realization- Germans were all a bunch of casuals. Yes, entering a store, you can barely find anything that is related to PC only, as everything is built around laptops. PCs are out of style and laptops are in, and I find it mildly disturbing. I have never been a fan of laptops, so perhaps this is why I channel so much frustration into these stores. I simply don't like the idea of purchasing something that I cannot upgrade (excluding hard drive and RAM, sometimes), and nothing frightens me more than an out of date laptop that chokes on its own dick every time I tell it to do something.

Now, I am the kind of person who takes good care of his computer (at least from the inside)- really good care, I might add. So if something isn't working well, I usually like to believe its not my fault. I can't help thinking back to my time in Japan, where my hard-drive mysteriously vanished from the inside of my computer (at least that's what my Dell laptop was telling me). Despite my best efforts to convince my laptop that there was in fact a large, rectangular shaped hard drive with all my stuff on it inside it's plastic exterior, my Dell simply refused to be convinced.

Maybe that's why I just don't trust laptops. I had a bad experience, and since then, I simply can't stand the things. I guess I can also understand why putting together your own PC isn't exactly popular over here- it's expensive and most people don't really need the extra speed for anything. Most gaming over here is done via consoles and computers are left in the dark, forced to be used as Microsoft Office instruments.

60 Kilo Hackfleisch

2009-07-23T14:13:00.001-07:00

So now that I've finished my German college application process, maybe I should talk a little bit about how colleges over here work. The main advantage of studying in Germany is, of course, the cost. German Universities cost much less than American colleges per semester. This may not come to a surprise to some, but it's not really because Germany is cheap but because America is ridiculously overpriced.

In any case, it helps to have a German 'Abitur' to get into College in Germany. It's basically the high school graduate equivalent, but unlike a high school graduate, someone who completes an Abitur tends to be more likely to persue further education.

Basically, an 'Abitur' guarantees you a place to study in Germany. Which is nice. The question is just where.

Every Abitur comes with a final grade, which more less decides how much freedom you have when deciding where to study. While many Universities do not discriminate at all by grades, many have something called a 'numerus clausus' (NC for short), which in laments terms means 'if ur too dum u cant studi here'.

Possibly my favorite difference in application process is the lack of an essay. This isn't to say that Germany doesn't have essays as requirements at some collages. Every one is different and requires different things. But the majority, it seems to me, doesn't require you to send in an Essay. Seriously, what's the point of Essays?

Sure, it's nice to try and guage a student's creativity, but what's the point when their essay could simply be written by anyone? I'm sure that most people don't have their collage essays written by somebody else completely, but other people can certainly help, give them pointers or critique. So really, with that much polish, where's the creativity?

http://www.nigmanoname.com/LEMONZ.jpg

You can't break those cuffs!

2009-07-15T14:16:00.000-07:00

I kind of want to make a new blog post but I really haven't been doing anything interesting on the count of being sick. I'm finally slowly getting better, though. I'd like to give a shoutout to my good friend Otriven. At first I was taking the nasal spray only to discover it wasn't really helping as much as it normally does. For a minute I thought I had some sort of German-engineered über-cold.

Then I checked the vial and discovered that it expired in November of 2006. Woops! I guess for 3 years after the expiration date it still worked surprisingly well.

It is like a gamble, though. Although it frees up your nose, it does so at a price. It's habit forming in the way that your nose can't really recover as well as it would if you didn't use it. In fact, I've heard the stuffs not even allowed over the counter in America. So, basically, I'm currently getting 420 off Nasal spray.

You ever get that feeling where your nose isn't completely clogged but just enough to make breathing only out of your nose feel like you're trying to suck a golfball through a coffee straw? Fuck that.

Well, time to take some 2003 Nyquil and hit the hay.

Wii Woes

2009-07-11T11:23:00.000-07:00

Video games just happen to be my embarrassing hobby, and I did not have it in my mind to leave my Wii in the States. And, while I was expecting some technical difficulties, nothing could have prepared me for the tornado of horse-shit that I must now go through.

First off, I was worried about the RCA cables.

I was to understand that the Wii had a different cable connection to the TV in Europe. So naturally, I went to the store to buy a EU type cable. What I found was a "SWT" cable which looks like this.

There was no other Wii cable connection in the store, so I assumed that this "SWT" cable was the standard for most televisions. When I came home, however, I was confronted with a TV that had no such plugs. Instead, it had something that looked like this, a "SCART" jack. What the fuck is a SCART jack? Who the fuck knows, I thought. Maybe it was because my girlfriend's mom's television was from the former DDR and was just a piece of shit.

However, when I then took my Wii to her friend's house, I was confronted with another SCART jack. What the hell? He then showed me something I didn't believe- namely, this. A RCA to SCART conversion plug. "WOW", I said, "I could have just bought one of these!". So I went to the store and got one. Now, I thought I was all set.

Then I remembered that the AC adapter for the Wii could only handle 120 volts. What a pussy. So I figured I'd buy a EU to US voltage adaptor. So I did. Turns out it was probably broken, because my Wii simply would not start. In a moment which can only be described as pure stupidity, I figured "what the hell, I might as well try to just plug in the Wii with a simple plug converter, I know the voltage is wrong but it won't hurt, right?" Oh how wrong I was.

I managed to blow the out the semiconductor fuse in the whole apartment, in addition to frying my Wii AC adapter. Luckily the Wii was not connected, else I might have completely ruined that, too. But I didn't know if the AC adapter was truly ruined because I had no way of checking because the voltage converter I bought didn't work. So I exchanged it for a new one- and lo and behold- it doesn't work!

Awesome.

Now I get to return my (probably working, but really, who knows?) voltage converter and for store credit and order a EU Wii voltage adapter (they aren't sold separately).

Royale with Cheese

2009-07-09T08:58:00.000-07:00

I have to say, I'm pleasantly surprised with the selection of food here. Maybe its because I'm in Berlin and Berlin is very central, or maybe its because last time I was in Japan and they don't care for anyone's food but their own. In any case, in an ordinary train station supermarket I found Bulls Eye Barbeque sauce, Taco shells, Oreos, American hot sauce and more.

Maybe its just me, but last time I was in Switzerland a few years ago I wouldn't have dreamed of finding that kind of stuff in an ordinary super market. In an American or international store, sure. But those are hard to find anyways. Is it because I'm in Berlin? I'll probably find out soon, because as it turns out I might not be studying right in Berlin anyways.

To another topic; one of the first things I've noticed in Berlin was Graffiti. I wasn't surprised, because in Switzerland Graffiti is everywhere, and I didn't expect Germany to be any different. Maybe its just because I come from a town called "Sunnyvale, California" where everything is all clean and neat in my neighborhood. In any case, I've never been disgusted by Graffiti, but in excess it began to catch my attention. Taking a tour of my girlfriend's sister's neighborhood, she explained to me that people literally Graffiti their own homes in order to prevent the prices of their apartments to increase. I found this idea surprising and interesting at the same time.

There was literally an otherwise spotless apartment building with what looked like 5 or 6 blots of paint which looked like somebody had hurled paint-bombs on the building in an act of vandalism. This turned out to be true- except for the fact that the vandals were likely also the residents. She even told me hat some vandals have gone so far as to ignite expensive looking cars parked overnight in the neighborhood.

In any case, I find the idea of self-vandalism intriguing. Maybe more people in the Palo Alto area of California should trash their homes and set their neighbor's cars on fire.

Gaijin BopT

2009-07-06T02:16:00.000-07:00

Anyone who has ever read Gaijin Smash knows that foreigners are given special superpowers while living Japan. I at first believed the author of that blog to exaggerating to the point of absurdity; it was only until I actually had to live in Japan for 9 months that I realized that almost everything in that hilarious article has merit.

So, naturally, I wanted to see if I had any Gaijin superpowers in my newest country of residence. Of course, it's probably too early to tell, but I can at least give my first impression. The difference between being a Gaijin in Germany and one in Japan is that nobody can really tell from the outside. Being Swiss by blood ensures that as long as I don't clothe myself with the American flag, I should go unnoticed.

But when the truth comes out, one way or the other, through little grammatical mistakes or otherwise, Gaijin powers become enabled. Of course, this isn't Japan, and I don't think it's possible to Gaijin Smash somebody (nor Gaijin Optic Blast someone, my personal favorite), but it does seem like you can influence people in a certain way.

In German culture, American equals cool (most of the time). Being an American, you are therefore the ambassador of Coolland. It varies from person to person, and I don't want to say everyone is weak-willed, but I get the feeling that I can get away with more than the average person.

For example, whilst smoking a Cigarillo, someone smoking a hand rolled Cigarette remarked to me that Cigarillos are lame. I simply replied "No, they're awesome. Try one." In a matter of minutes I had everyone smoking Cigarillos (you're welcome, PrimeTime).

Now, while I'm sure that being an American in any country has its benefits (as well as its disadvantages), I know that Germany holds a special bond with America, one that not every country has. I think its that bond that was established through the West side of Germany's affiliation with America that makes them so eager to know Americans. Hell, I've heard 1/8th or so of Germans want to live in America.

In any case, being able to speak German had its advantages, too. I wouldn't want to pay the American tourist price for everything I buy.

Boom goes the Dynamite

2009-07-03T06:47:00.000-07:00

Well then, first impressions and thoughts

It's hot as fuck and it's humid. Not nearly as bad as Japan, but it's still a lot worse than California. California is really, really hot, but it's also really, really dry, which trust me is a good thing. So, even though it could be worse, I'm not used to it. The subways and trains are probably set up to handle cold and not heat, because Germany is presumably cold most of the year around, and the few weeks of heat and not worth preparing for.

My jetlag is slowly correcting itself. I remember when I was a kid I'd hate going to Europe because I'd always throw up for some reason because of jetlag. At least that doesn't happen anymore.

People in Germany are all so fashion-aware. While this is by no means a bad thing in itself, it has the side effect that you become much more self conscious about yourself when everybody around you seems like they are judging you constantly. I don't think I've seen one morbidly obese or hideous looking person the whole time I've been here... and coming from America that feels really weird (Although I did see some guy wearing a g-string[?]).

The thing I like the most so far is the food. That isn't to say I love German food in particular, I just love the typical food you can find in Germany in general. Breakfast usually consists of bread and jam, lunch of a Doener and dinner of... well, hopefully another Doener.

Introduction

2009-07-03T06:32:00.000-07:00

Hello,

My name is Markus Steiner, I'm 20 years old, and I just recently (June 30th) arrived in Germany. I'm currently looking/applying to Universities in the area of Berlin. I enjoy writing, especially when I am away from hometown of Sunnyvale, California. A year and a half ago or so I kept a small journal while I was in Japan for 9 months, and found it to be fun to write, so I thought I'd better start a Blog up as early as possible.

In the next months to years I hope to fill this Blog with my ramblings as my view of Germany develops. I am fluent in German and have had numerous German friends in America, yet I have scarcely ever actually been in Germany. I am of American/Swiss nationality and just completed my Abitur in a German school in Mountain View, CA.

Well then, let's get to it!