Peas In Deutschland

this is what brought us back to blogging

2008-06-13T13:48:00.000+02:00

belated friday catblogging: honorary birthday edition

2008-05-03T10:41:00.003+02:00

since oscar was originally a stray on the mean streets of chicago before he found his way to us, we have no way of knowing exactly how old he is. the first time we took him to the vet, they estimated his age at about six months, which put his birthday around april 15, 2001. and we've been celebrating his birthday on april 15 ever since, but frankly, income taxes and birthday fun* do not mix! so this year we decided to change his birthday to may 1. here he is basking contentedly in some birthday sunshine!
*in the past we've tried to do communal meals for all three of us -- one time p fried up some eggs to go around, but amazingly oscar didn't eat his! (this from a cat who loves broccoli, squash, bread....) we thought about all sharing some poached eggs this time around, but oscar just ended up stealing some pizza dough prior to our grilling adventure -- and he seemed plenty happy with that!

meatless grillers*!

2008-05-02T20:06:00.004+02:00

oh my god way back in the fall p and i bought a charcoal grill cheap off ebay and yesterday we finally broke it in and oh how wonderful! just look at those eggplants!(never mind the one in the coals.) what a world of new culinary delights has now opened before us! i have to say, it's been perfect spring weather here of late, and the thought of enjoying it outside on the balconies with some beer and the grill over the next three months sounds really good.

*referring to my high school friends' band, not the morningstar farms product.

friday catblogging: stick play edition

2008-04-25T19:30:00.003+02:00

we've had warm weather and an active oscar of late!

Where I've Been

2008-04-25T13:59:00.002+02:00

Big apologies for the blog silence! More or less this is what I've been up to lately: traveling, making plans for our remaining three months here, and starting to think about what comes next (viz., the Toronto book glinting in the stack). I've also been trying to figure out why out of the blue I've been feeling worse the last week - I had been doing really well! I'd been improving even through the flurry of my parents' visit. B and I had even been considering going for a hike! But that doesn't seem so realistic at the moment. As my Dad says, the human body is a strange machine. I'm about to head off to tune up the machine - on doctor's orders, I go swimming in warm mineral waters at a Roman bath in nearby Bad Breisig. Gotta love German medicine!

friday catblogging: hunting rabbits edition

2008-04-18T21:52:00.003+02:00

so why was the little bugger so happy last week? check out the carcass.that's what was left of a chocolate bunny he savaged last thursday. we thought we had it safely stowed away up on the shelves in our bedroom, but sadly, it was no match for oscar's potent combination of shelf-scaling and knocking-things-off skills. hrmph.

an der mosel

2008-04-15T01:11:00.000+02:00

hard to believe it, but it's gotten to be more than a month since the end of kate's visit -- and now we'll finally finish blogging about it! our last big event was a day trip to the mosel river (or moselle, as i guess most americans spell it) to taste wine. the mosel is one of the best places in the world to grow riesling, our favorite grape. but more on that later.

the mosel flows into the rhine at koblenz, about a 45-minute train ride upstream (= south) from bonn. from there we switched trains and traveled about an hour up the mosel to the village of cochem, where we spent the day. the scenery was so gorgeous that it was worth the trip alone -- beautiful dramatic steep hills cut out by the river everywhere you look. here's a random little video p shot from the train which sort of gives you the idea.

we arrived in cochem to find this little cafe at the train station (though sadly it was closed). harry potter fans probably don't need a translation!
this was the view from the riverbank as we walked into the center of town from the station. maybe i'm just hard up for beauty after having been in chicago for so long, but i feel like i could gush about those lovely hills all day!
and here's a shot of cochem taken from the bridge spanning the river in the previous picture. the "castle" on the little hill in the left of the photo is actually not that old -- as our trusty lonely planet guide somewhat derisively puts it, it's "actually a neo-gothic pastiche built in 1877, making it a full 78 years older than disneyland".

ok, now for the important part -- the wine. it was lunchtime when we arrived, and, after asking lonely planet to find us a restaurant, we started with a glass each.after lunch we headed to our first winery of the day. there were a number of them right in town, all within walking distance of each other.we really liked the wine at this place! we've tasted a fair amount of riesling from the finger lakes region in upstate ny, but never anything like this before. delicious mineraly-peachy flavors, mmm mmm mmm. we got to chatting with the winemaker a bit (no one else was there), and afterwards he let us see his "cellar", which was a little cave in the hillside.we hit three more wineries afterwards. it was really amazing how much variety there was between the various wines (we kept our tasting focus trained solidly on dry rieslings) -- so far as we know, the vineyards for all of them are located close by, just right outside town. we especially liked the place in the picture below -- they had one of the best icewines we've ever tried!
from what we'd read beforehand, cochem was supposed to be a bit of a tourist trap, but that wasn't our experience at all (maybe because we went before the tourist season really started). it was actually quite the charming little village! and we ended up with a fine haul of wine to boot!

Friday Catblogging: Wigging Out Edition

2008-04-11T23:22:00.005+02:00

To see why this cat is so stimulated, stay tuned for next week's catblogging.

they're on to us

2008-04-09T08:39:00.000+02:00

check it out.

poechenellekelder

2008-04-06T12:40:00.006+02:00

finally, the end of brussels blogging! our last main stop there (well, apart from dashing into pierre marcolini's right before we left) was a visit to the bar poechenellekelder our last night in town. it's the brick building on the right in the picture below -- right around the corner from brussels' famous manneken pis fountain (click on the photo to make it bigger; and while you're at it, i strongly recommend clicking on the link too. and to make this even more of a tangent, i gotta say, i guess the manneken pis is not just famous, but famous for being underwhelming, and that was right on -- it's so small and kinda cheap looking, in my opinion -- you get there and you're just like, huh? on the other hand, it was very enjoyable watching other tourists go nuts over it). aside from a lovely beer selection, the shtick at poechenellekelder is that, as a decorating motif, it's crammed full of all manner of puppetry and marionettes. for example, this upstanding gentleman joined us at our table.i guess we were pretty tired by that point, so we didn't take many more pictures. but it really was great (and our beers were terrrific!).afterwards the three of us went out for frites (= fries). i guess brussels is famous for them (i think because they typically double- or triple-fry them), but they were, you know, just fries, only we got them with tartar sauce or mayo or something like that. still, nothing like a little grease to top off the alcohol!

whoa

2008-04-05T22:49:00.000+02:00

friday catblogging: self-cleaning napkin edition

2008-04-04T22:30:00.003+02:00

lately oscar's been taking to coming up on the lap during dinner (we think he has a snuggle deficit since we've been traveling so much lately). although he has a hard time restraining himself from going after our food at times, at least there are a few perks for us!

backlog

2008-04-02T23:42:00.003+02:00

good god, we have quite a serious backlog on our hands! we're still not done with the brussels blogging, and then there's our trip to the mosel with kate on her last full day visiting us, and then there's our trip to oxford to see teru and samantha a couple weekends ago, and then there's p's folks visiting us right now, highlighted by p and them (but sadly not me) visiting prague last weekend, and now the four of us are in rome, and while i'm at it, the three of them are off to london this weekend too! hoo! maybe someday we'll get caught up, but i'm getting worked to the bone with mathy stuff, and p's been mad busy with trip planning and getting healthy and all that stuff, so who knows. what's going on with everyone else?

your daily dose of vitamin m

2008-04-02T23:34:00.005+02:00

it's been slim pickings here in rome, but here's a beaut who stumbled across our way today at the vatican. big props to rae for helping track him down.

waiting at the airport this afternoon

2008-04-01T22:35:00.003+02:00

sometimes they line up the shot for you!

la grande place

2008-03-30T12:41:00.000+02:00

at the heart of brussels lies the grand place, an incredibly beautiful and majestic little square (or even better, think of a university quadrangle) surrounded on all sides by buildings of breathtakingly ornate embellishment.the grand place is one of the major tourist destinations in brussels. normally i think i'd find that a bit unbecoming, but not in this case -- it really was spectacular! i think it earns every single tourist passing through.the buildings surrounding the grand place consist mostly of the town hall (the top picture above) and a number of guild halls.the town hall (the most prominent building) was constructed in the first half of the 1400's, and the rest of the grand place was laid out thereafter.
in 1695, the french army bombarded brussels, destroying essentially everything in the grand place except the town hall (which, ironically, had been the main target of the attack). in the next four years, the various guilds rebuilt their halls -- the exteriors of which are basically what you see today. the phoenix atop one of the guild halls in the picture below represents the grand place's rebirth.
check out this cool link to see the grand place in all 360 degrees of its glory!

cantillon

2008-03-29T22:39:00.000+01:00

ok, time to make another push to get this brussels blogging finished off! it's only been, what, a little over three weeks.... anyway, the highlight of our whole trip was quite possibly our visit to cantillon on the thursday we were there (our only full day in brussels).
apart from a couple recently opened brewpubs, cantillon is the only brewery remaining in the city. they brew lambic: spontaneously fermented, fantastically tart, moderately crazy, tastes-like-nothing-you've-had-before beer -- and they're possibly the best at it in the world. in principle, you can brew lambic anywhere, but there's something magic about the senne river valley (the river running through, or actually under, brussels) that seems to make it the only place on earth where things come out tasting good.
strictly speaking, the cantillon brewery is a "museum" -- probably for weird tax reasons, i'd guess -- but it's really just that they give you a booklet at the start and send you off poking around on a little self-guided tour. and i gotta say, it worked really well -- they did a great job with the booklet, and it was so nice to be able to putter along at our own pace and soak everything in.
the picture below is of a giant copper vat that plays a crucial role in the brewing process -- this is where the beer is inoculated with wild yeasts. check out the holes in the ceiling and the vents on the side to allow the air from outside to get in!
here's a picture of some barrels filled with lambic. the beer continues to ferment in the barrel, which causes a lot of foam to appear on the top where the barrel is plugged closed.
and finally, the bar at the end of the tour, where we got to sample some of their beers. so beautiful, and so delicious!

friday catblogging: under the covers edition

2008-03-28T23:59:00.001+01:00

i promise it's really oscar under there!
one of his favorite things to do in the morning is to come under the covers with p, usually after i've already gotten up. he doesn't like it when the covers touch his ears, so p always holds her forearm up to make him a nice little tent! and p is such a champion sleeper that this doesn't stop her one bit from falling back asleep with him (well, she claims that he always steals the oxygen under the covers, which makes it really hard not to fall asleep, but i frankly don't think she needs any help).

to toronto

2008-03-24T18:12:00.004+01:00

looks like our plans for the coming year have really started to take shape: i've accepted the job in toronto and max planck has said no dice on extending our time here, so i guess we'll be moving to toronto around the first of august. guh!

snowing here

2008-03-24T14:48:00.002+01:00

apart from about five minutes right when i woke up one morning, we didn't see any snow at all in bonn before march rolled around. but then there was a good bit of accumulation one day when my sister was visiting, and now check out the scene at lunch today. um, it is springtime, right?

friday catblogging: bonzai kitten edition

2008-03-21T21:08:00.001+01:00

we're away visiting our old pals samantha and teru in oxford at the moment, so here's something we've had sitting in the catblogging can for the past few weeks: the disgusting aftermath of a recent batch of oscar food we whipped up. guten appetit!

delirium

2008-03-16T15:10:00.001+01:00

after a journey that, thanks to a late connecting train and some additional stupidity on our part, took two hours more than it was supposed to, we arrived in brussels in the late afternoon two wednesdays ago. after grabbing an early-ish dinner at a nice veggie-friendly cafe, we headed to delirium, one of the premier bars in the city. (the name derives from the well-known belgian beer delirium tremens, but i don't know if there's an official relationship between the two -- though there was an awful lot of delirium tremens paraphernalia on hand at the bar.)

delirium holds the guiness world record for the most beers available for sale: a whopping 2,004 were counted on january 4, 2004! i doubt there were quite that many when we visited, but the selection was still staggering, if not overwhelming. check out the beer menu!

delirium is split into (at least) two levels: a cafe on the street level and a bar in the basement. we headed downstairs, grabbed a table (which i gather can be quite hard on the weekends, but was pretty easy on an early wednesday evening), and soon were sipping some delicious beers.

we really liked the vibe -- for such a beer-geeky place, it felt really unpretentious, even a bit like a college bar. most of the tables were occupied when we arrived, and then things thinned out some, but then by 10 it had filled up nicely again with many people standing. the decor was really cool -- just about every square inch of available wall and ceiling space was covered with great beer paraphernalia. check out the beer trays on the ceiling.

it was a great way to kick off our trip!

beverages in belgium omnibus

2008-03-15T22:06:00.028+01:00

here's a little montage of the fabulous things kate, p, and i had to drink in brussels. going there was really like a pilgrimage for p and me -- ever since we got interested in good beer, or at least in belgian beer, brussels has been a bit of a mecca to us, calling out from the distance. so it's safe to say we arrived with some pretty high expectations. and now that it's over, if anything, i gotta say that our trip surpassed anything i could have hoped for! belgium is a country of about 10 and a half million people, and the variety and quality of beers produced there is just staggering. and throw a strong food culture and cafe scene on top of that, and you get a city that's just about to die for. here's crossing our fingers that we get to go back before our little euro-adventure comes to an end....

so blume the mullets

2008-03-15T16:25:00.006+01:00

today's the first day that spring really feels like it's rocking -- it's 61 out right now, by far the warmest day we've had this year, and the trees are leafing out and there are tons of people out -- and that means tons of mullets too! yep, good god, i can't believe i'm actually doing two consecutive mullet posts, but p and i just got back from our usual saturday outing in the altstadt and the action was HOT! i'd conservatively estimate that we saw at least 15 mullets during the three hours we were out, but it may well have been more. sadly, it was impossible to photograph most of them, but here's what we got.

first is a group of young lads we spotted in the marktplatz; p did the camera work while i was visiting an atm. not sure if the blond one in the baseball cap is a true mullet or not -- though he obviously has a lot of good stuff coming out the back -- but the one on the right is really solid.we've noticed that typically in groups of young guys here, whoever has the mullet (or the most elaborate mullet, if there's more than one) tends to be the leader -- sort of like being able to identify the chief by the most impressive headdress -- and this was no exception.

and second, the coup de grâce!i snapped this in our favorite convenience store in the altstadt -- i swear, mullets are drawn to this place like flies to honey. i must have seen five in there this afternoon alone! but sadly, it looks like we're going to be cut off from now on: right after i took this, a stern looking clerk came up to me and told me in no uncertain terms that photos aren't allowed in the store. boo! maybe we should do a stakeout just outside the entrance....

mullets abroad

2008-03-15T11:16:00.009+01:00

ok, time to finally start blogging again about all our excitement from a week ago. and really, what better way to kick it off than with the mullet report? here's a fine skullet we sighted two wednesdays ago on the platform in aachen while waiting to change trains on our way to brussels. here's a mullet p spotted across the room in the bar (which was fabulous, by the way) we went to that night in brussels.here's another shot -- p and i went up to the bar and did a little self-portrait there to try to capture him at close range.and finally, here's a young proto-mullet we saw at the grand place the following day.

friday catblogging: sawing lumber edition

2008-03-14T00:32:00.002+01:00

this is what our cat does when he sleeps. (he's on p's lap -- sorry for the bad lighting!)

i cannot prove there is chocolate in belgium

2008-03-09T18:19:00.005+01:00

although the focus of our trip to belgium was squarely on the beer, we did manage to squeeze in a couple chocolate shops right at the end -- you may have heard that priya has a wee bit of a chocolate fancy, no? the best and most famous chocolatier in brussels is pierre marcolini, so that was the top destination on our agenda. i think he's best known for his truffles -- and the ones we've tasted so far have been really good -- but we (especially p) tend to be more interested in straight-up, single origin chocolate, and we haven't sampled any of that to report on yet. but the really crazy part was his shop! i guess it's supposed to be as high-end as you can get, so what would you expect? it felt like walking into an art gallery, or maybe a really sophisticated exclusive restaurant. we had to take an obscure back staircase to get up to the floor where the chocolate bars were -- kinda like going to the vip room. and they wouldn't let me take pictures inside! so all i can show you is the snazzy bag we got.

glug glug glug

2008-03-09T13:07:00.003+01:00

phew! after spending wednesday-friday in brussels -- the finest city for beer in the world? -- and yesterday tasting rieslings on the moselle, p and i had to bid kate a fond farewell this morning. thanks for a great week, sis! here's the take-home damage.
more detailed trip reports are (hopefully) to follow.

509 steps

2008-03-07T23:34:00.003+01:00

kate, p, and i just got back from brussels today, so we're a bit behind on blogging. but before we get to that fantastic little trip, here's a shot from one of the spires of the cologne cathedral that kate and i climbed on tuesday, looking out over the rhine.it was a decent little hike to get to the top -- the sign at the bottom said to estimate a half hour going up and a half hour going down, but i don't think it actually took anywhere near that long. when the cathedral was completed in 1880, it was the tallest building in the world! (the washington monument surpassed it in 1884.)

friday catblogging: bobblehead edition

2008-03-07T22:41:00.003+01:00

such dedication to snuggle!

Mulletblogging

2008-03-03T22:49:00.006+01:00

We staked this one out today in the Altstadt. (While waiting for this fine specimen to emerge from Citibank, we also spotted a child mullet but were slow on the trigger.)
Needless to say, nice pants.

Treatblogging: Mohnschnecke

2008-03-02T15:08:00.002+01:00

Mohnschnecke = poppy seed snail. Flaky croissant-like dough with slightly sweet poppy seed swirl. Yum! Poppy seeds seem to be a common treat theme around here... more poppy seed treats later.

Welcome Kate!

2008-03-02T14:44:00.002+01:00

B's sister Kate arrived this morning from New York - we are excited! We have lots of fantastic things in store for her visit, chiefly going to Brussels to drink beer and going to wineries on the Mosel to drink wine. Guess what we like to do together!

Here's us sitting down to a late brunch of an egg-vegetable gratin and pancakes with berry syrup and brandy butter. Super yummy!

Kate is sleeping now.

The Trees are Flowering

2008-03-02T14:29:00.002+01:00

Yesterday in the Altstadt:

Stupid Subsidies

2008-03-02T14:25:00.002+01:00

Check out this fine op-ed in the Times about how our country's ridiculous farm subsidies make it harder for small-scale farmers to grow fruits and vegetables.

illusions

2008-03-01T22:40:00.002+01:00

really, what better use for the internet is there than the wide dissemination of optical illusions? here's a bunch of cool ones p stumbled across (scroll down to "visual illusions"). we especially liked the cube illusion and the koffka ring.

diwali

2008-03-01T01:37:00.002+01:00

no, it's not that time of year -- but on what would seem like an unrelated topic, who all is familiar with "the office"? my dear sister got me turned onto it (the u.s. version) when i was home for xmas, and now p and i have been catching up on past episodes over the internet. fabulous! we just watched an incredible one where the whole office staff goes to a diwali celebration (one of the characters on the show is indian -- and actually the actress who plays her wrote the episode). indian pop culture references! it had us in stitches -- check it out.

and on a side note, the office aside, why are there so few indians appearing in u.s. tv and movies? east asians became commonplace a long time ago, and bollywood is huge, so what gives? aren't things like ten years overdue?

Introducing Breadblogging and Treatblogging

2008-02-29T21:37:00.000+01:00

This here is a loaf of incredibly delicious altdeutsches Roggenbrot (old German rye bread.) (Plus chopped sage and goat cheese to accompany chickpea soup.) We were kind of gobsmacked by the deliciousness of this beautiful loaf - kinda sour, with wonderful toasted malty flavor, and really complex. That it's organic and whole grain is pleasingly beside the point.

And the thing is, bread like this is just normal here! These Germans are spoiled by this embarrassment of riches and probably take it for granted - and at the same time, the rest of the world doesn't know that German bread is arguably the best in the world! Did you know German bread is incredible, varied, and very different from French and Italian bread? I didn't until I got here, and I'm kind of obsessed with food.

So in a bit of much-needed German culinary promotion, I'm starting a new regular feature: Breadblogging.

I'm far from an expert on German breads - and it may well be that when I talk about "German breads" I really mean Rhineland breads - but from what I can tell, German breads are often moister, darker, and a bit more sour than the breads you find in the US. They're often made with whole grains, and not just wheat: rye and spelt are both really common, and we've had breads made with the "lost" ancient grain emmer. More on breads in later posts!

And what about Treatblogging? Germany has marvelous sweet baked goods, too, quite different from American treats. German goodies are mostly eaten as a snack with coffee or tea in the afternoon (Kaffee und Kuchen), so they tend to be less sweet. Instead of sugar, German treats get their flavor from nuts and marzipan, spices, and fruits. Sometimes the techniques are really different than those used to make American treats; for example, Zimtsterne (Cinnamon Stars), a Christmas favorite here, look like a pretty typical rolled cookie, but the recipe is based on ground almonds and calls for no flour and no butter or other fat! They're super yummy.

There are a bunch of such standard treats here that I'd never heard of before: Nussecke, Bienenstich, Mandel Hörnchen.... I absolutely love them - I feel like they're the baked goods I've always wanted to enjoy but never knew existed. And they taste like real recipes that have been around for many years, not goofy de-sugared versions of treats that are meant to be fatty and supersweet. Hopefully I'll get to blog a great many before we have to leave Germany!

So here's this week's Treatblogging: a giant Lebkuchen man that we hand-carried to NJ for Christmas.
Pure gingerbread deliciousness, replete with candied orange and lemon peel, anise and fennel seed! Keeps (really well) for weeks and weeks, too!

Friday Catblogging: Convalescence Edition

2008-02-29T19:59:00.002+01:00

B's been sick with a stomach bug most of this week, but he's all better now. Here's Oscar providing a healthy dose of Vitamin Cat.

Chapolines* in Burnt Caramel

2008-02-25T19:33:00.004+01:00

Tosci's is in the news again.... So is this what they've been doing with their new lease on life? Blucky!

*=Mexican grasshoppers

for joe

2008-02-24T15:39:00.002+01:00

e-a-g-l-e-s iggles! your 1988 philadelphia eagles:

and congrats on the new kitty!

belated friday catblogging: leaping edition

2008-02-23T11:45:00.004+01:00

sorry for the belated catblogging -- blogger was down last night. anyway, here's some of oscar at his most ideal!

rosenmontag, part 2

2008-02-22T22:39:00.000+01:00

in my opinion, the coolest part of rosenmontag was all the incredible floats in the parade! here's a sampling of photos we took. i don't understand most of them at all, but that's probably just as well.

the next two go together.

the next one is about cologne's famous cathedral: last year a major new stained glass window was completed, only instead of what you'd normally expect from a stained glass window in a world-famous gothic cathedral, this one was a grid of 11,500 randomly colored (by a computer) square panes of glass. i don't know that it went over too well with the archbishop.

the next one is supposed to make fun of typical germans on vacation.
the next one is our favorite -- it's supposed to carry an anti-drug message, with the government official in the front holding up red and yellow cards to the punks behind her (like in a soccer match!), but doesn't the whole thing just make all the stoners, junkies, and freaks look cool? i mean, seriously, which side would you choose?
and finally, another two-parter. don't ask me -- ah, europe....

rosenmontag, part 1

2008-02-20T23:40:00.000+01:00

alas, we've fallen way behind on our blogging: rosenmontag, or rose monday, the biggest day of karneval, was over two weeks ago! we spent the day in cologne for the incredible rosenmontagszug, or rose monday parade. cologne is a city of about 1 million people, and i believe that typically at least that many attend the parade every year. we had really cold crappy weather (it was right before everything turned gorgeous here), but it was still an awesome day.

here's the platform at the train station in bonn, about 10:30 am, as we (and everyone else pictured) were waiting to go to cologne. we'd been told in advance that we might not make it on to the train because it would be too packed. thankfully it didn't come to that, but things were definitely snug.
at this point we were in cologne, waiting for the parade to begin. aside from the handsome bugger on the left, check out the guys downing shots on the right.
remember how we mentioned that the parade is really a candy delivery system? this was an honest-to-goodness candy canon, which actually shot bursts of candy into the crowd.
and on the same note, how exactly do you supply enough candy to last throughout a 4 1/2 hour parade? this is how: a candy arsenal. there were actually several of these in the parade -- couriers were constantly running up to them, grabbing fresh stores of candy, and then making deliveries to marchers further back in the parade.
soldiers and clowns seem to be the most typical karneval costumes in the rhineland, but in southern germany, ghouls and ghosts are more common. this was a marching band from bavaria.cute!these enterprising folks, who i guess were watching the parade from above the street in their apartment, dangled an umbrella out the window in hopes of catching some candy that was thrown. and it actually worked! (though they collected a lot of rainwater too.)and finally the prince brought up the end of the parade! just like in bonn, he was the head dude of the whole shebang (and he also wore incredible feathers in his crown).here's our loot -- that bag was full.after the parade -- which p held up marvelously through -- we went out for dinner and drinks with corinna and her friends. just a lovely evening. here's one of cologne's finer establishments that we passed by.this was the scene in the student quarter at the end of our night, about 12:30 am. yup, things were still totally rocking. everyone was out in the middle of the street, which the city wisely decided to close to traffic for the evening.
and believe it or not, there's still more to come in a later post!

why you should always take your camera when you go out in germany

2008-02-20T22:13:00.000+01:00

today, 2:22 pm, at a convenience/drugstore in the altstadt.

magpies

2008-02-17T18:38:00.000+01:00

on the rooftop across the street.
(photo credit: p)

karneval in bonn, part 3

2008-02-16T22:30:00.000+01:00

and now, finally, for the spectacle that is karneval sunday in bonn! the scene began with a variety of city officials and prominent citizens assembled at the old city hall, or rathaus. the sign with the white background reads Dreimal "Bonn Alaaf", which translates as something like three times "long live bonn".after a few remarks from the mayor, a parade began! i don't think i completely understand it, but i think it was supposed to be a procession of fools and clowns and karneval revelers.here's the prince and princess, the leaders of the fools, who came in with the parade. check out the fabulous feathers!at this point, there was a lot of trash talking back and forth between the prince and the mayor; the prince wanted her to hand over control of the city, but she told him to take a hike. and there were also a variety of performances, as sampled previously in the latter two clips in part two.

after the mayor refused to give up the city, the fools left, but only to be soon replaced by the prince's troops! here's a short clip of them marching in.

here are the troops lining up in front of the rathaus.
and then all hell broke loose! the smoke was from these cannons the troops were "firing", and you can kinda see that people in the rathaus were throwing lots of balloons out the windows. such excitement!
here are the troops storming the rathaus (= climbing ladders they propped up).and then bonn fell to the prince!i think at this point, the fools had reign over the city until the following wednesday (= ash wednesday). kind of incredible, huh?

and a final parting shot (read it out loud):

Friday Catblogging: Rollabout Edition

2008-02-15T23:27:00.000+01:00

job!

2008-02-14T23:33:00.000+01:00

oh my god, i got a job offer today! it's from the university of toronto. it's too soon to know if i'll take it, and i have a couple weeks to decide, but right now i'm just so relieved that i get to keep doing math! and let me share this little horror with you: all i can hear in my head is that wilson phillips song "the dream is still alive". but it's not my fault! why, mom, why did you raise us on that crap? and i was going to try to be strong and not even link to it, but here. at least i didn't embed the p.o.s.

karneval in bonn, part 2

2008-02-09T21:45:00.000+01:00

one of the most characteristic aspects of karneval is its music. i think it's a bit like christmas -- the same songs get played every year, most are quite simple and easy to sing, many have a high cheese factor, but everyone loves them all the same. in bonn and cologne, people traditionally "dance" to the music by swaying back and forth, often with interlocked arms. it can get kinda intense -- check it out.

here's a little more.

and what the hell, here's a different song from later in the day. note how everyone is singing along. it seems that germans simply love to sing together in public.

and finally, check out this super-schmaltzy song with accompanying interpretative dance. how can this be popular?

believe it or not, the song started prog-rocking out right after the video cut off!

spring has sprung, continued

2008-02-09T19:59:00.000+01:00

strange, but the weather here has turned absolutely incredible! winter in bonn is warm but full of gray. but these past few days, it's been like someone turned on a light switch all of a sudden -- gorgeous sunshine, beautiful blue skies, hardly a cloud in sight. and the forecast is calling for nothing but more of the same! (apologies to those enviously reading this from more wintry climes -- i know at my parents', spring doesn't usually arrive till april.)

karneval in bonn, part 1

2008-02-09T18:26:00.000+01:00

last sunday we ventured into the altstadt here in bonn to partake in the day's karneval festivities. karneval lasts thursday-monday, but sunday seems to be the big day here (more on why later). here's a sampling of what we saw upon arriving.

this greeted us in the street as we were walking in (about 1:30 pm).
a big part of karneval is that everyone is supposed to get dressed up in costumes -- sorta like halloween for adults, only people seem to take it really seriously. here's a man dressed up as a kangaroo with a koala in his pouch.
here's a little stand selling these karneval medallion thingies people wear around their necks.a reibekuchen (= delicious fried potato pancake) stand.another food vendor. the sign translates to "the greatest fire tongs punch in the world?", but i have no idea what that's supposed to mean!

belated friday catblogging: hellbeast edition

2008-02-09T09:25:00.000+01:00

this catblogging is about flowers.in addition to candy, there were lots of flowers handed out at the parade in cologne on monday, and we sure ended up with our fair share of them. so we brought them home and put them in some water, and it all was just looking rather nice, you know? and then p had to go out for the afternoon, and i was already away at the office, so, for safety, p put the flowers on top of our shelves in the bedroom.

that didn't turn out so well.while p was gone, the little hellion wended his way up the shelves to the unoccupied one in the upper right, did a pull-up to get to topmost level, and then knocked off three of the four flower arrangements p had put up there, smashing one of our glasses in the process! (though, amazingly, another of our glass jars survived.) (and we know that's how it went down because we've subsequently seen him do it again -- it's kinda terrifying.) what a menace....

kamelle

2008-02-05T19:39:00.000+01:00

good golly we had us quite the karneval weekend! it's gonna take a while to blog our way through everything, but let's get started with... candy, or kamelle, as it's called in the local cologne dialect. we went to the big parade in cologne yesterday with corinna (many many pictures will be forthcoming), but parade isn't quite the right word -- it's really a candy delivery system. i sure remember getting candy at my fair share of parades when i was a kid, but i've never seen anything on a scale like this before. here's our haul.that's about 4 1/2 hours worth of parade work, and we weren't even trying that hard -- there were lots of people (adults, no less) around us who were being super aggressive, lunging after every last piece on the ground or working over the marchers to get them to cough up yet one more treat. you can see from the picture that there was some serious stuff given out -- lots of proper-sized chocolate bars, for example. we even saw someone get measuring spoons(!?), but alas, we weren't quite so fortunate. and i'll have you know that p held up quite well physically!

riesling

2008-02-03T11:43:00.000+01:00

one of the best things about living in germany is riesling -- probably my favorite wine grape, and some of the finest examples in the world are produced in the nearby mosel-saar-ruwer region. p and i cracked open this especially tasty bottle the other night.
we essentially never buy really expensive wine. and before christmas, we'd even limited ourselves to wines under 5€. but one of our big christmas presents was a bit of money to be able to travel around some and enjoy a variety of epicurean delights, so now we only buy wine over 5€. what a huge bump in quality of life!

in rainbows

2008-02-02T12:26:00.000+01:00

i gotta say, p and i have been really getting into the new radiohead album. too early to compare it to other stuff -- i just love the feeling right now, the obsessiveness, the bits of songs stuck in my head all day when i'm out, then finally getting to listen again when i come home at night. so good to be excited about new music. if only we had a proper stereo here....

scalps

2008-02-02T00:24:00.000+01:00

besides just being the first day of karneval, weiberfastnacht has the special feature of being the day when "women rule". one of the most prominent customs is that women get to go about chopping off any tie hanging from a man's neck! check out what i found taped to the door at mpi when i arrived yesterday -- just like scalps on display!
(it's a glass door, in case the image seems confusing.)

weiberfastnacht

2008-02-01T22:15:00.000+01:00

yesterday was weiberfastnacht, the first day of karneval, a massive pre-lenten bacchanal on a scale (at least as practiced in cologne) to rival mardi gras in new orleans. my buddy tasho tells me that by about 10 am on weiberfastnacht, everyone in cologne is typically out on the streets dressed in fabulous costumes and partying away! and the scene here in bonn is nothing to turn your nose up at, either. sadly, p's back has taken a big turn for the worse this past week, so we were unable to partake in any of the revelry yesterday (though there's still the whole weekend ahead -- let's hope she's fast on the mend). here's a little rundown of what i saw on the streets yesterday.

11:00 -- i headed into mpi and the streets had kind of an eerie feel to them -- not a lot of people about and many businesses were closed, like on a sunday. but of the people who were out, a good portion were costumed and obviously excited for action.

1:00 -- first notable public drunkenness sighting: a young-ish guy stumbling along the sidewalk, jabbering on a cell phone and careening into various cars parked on the curb.

3:00 -- a line of revelers waiting to get into a party at one of bonn's restaurants.it's not really clear in the picture, but most of the people in line were middle-aged! i love that about this place -- it seems like in the u.s., things like this are only for the young, but everyone gets in on the act here.

6:00 -- while walking from the university back to mpi, two 8-ish-year-old girls boldly stopped me in the street and asked me something (i have no idea what -- it was in german, right), so i told them that regrettably i don't speak any german and continued on my way. only after a few paces i heard them muttering "aynglish" amongst themselves, and then a third girl yelled out to ask if i speak english, so i turned around and said i did. we had the following conversation.
girl: where are you from?
me: i'm american.
girl (who was wearing these fabulous movie star glasses, no less): i live in hollywood.
me: oh wow, i've never been there.
girl: do you bekannte justin timberlake? (at least i think that's what she said -- this is supposed to be amusing because "bekannte" is the german word for acquaintance.)
me: no, i've never met him.
girl: my dad is 50 cent.
me: you must be very proud.
girl flashes a look at her friends indicating she doesn't know what this means, then gives me a big grin to make like she's in on the joke.

7:30 -- i headed home from mpi. still not a ton of people out, but more than earlier in the day. still, the city had this weird anarchic, post-apocalyptic feel to it. and the place was trashed! garbage, broken bottles, you name it, littered all over the streets. (but amazingly, everything seemed to be cleaned up this morning.) the costumes were out in full force now -- soldiers, dinosaurs, angels, random pink glittery things. i passed by a big drum circle on the way -- everyone was wearing these crazy coordinated shiny green costumes and, you guessed it, there wasn't a soul over 35. we sure hope to get some pictures later this weekend!

sunset tonight

2008-02-01T21:29:00.000+01:00

(photo credit: p)

friday catblogging: woodland scene edition

2008-02-01T20:03:00.000+01:00

oscar investigates a handsome bit of a tree limb p found outside today.

downright homey

2008-01-31T22:29:00.000+01:00

don't know if we've mentioned it yet, but somehow our apartment seems to have kinda fallen into place. now, don't get me wrong, things are still on the spare side -- and since, barring a miracle, we'll only be here another 6 months, i doubt we'll get any more major furniture -- but the furniture we'd already bought did a good job off-gassing while we were gone for christmas, so we now find ourselves with a perfectly usable couch and bed frame -- such novelty! and we even got some posters for christmas to gussy up our walls! things are looking sharp.

midwinter pick-me-up

2008-01-31T22:19:00.000+01:00

a lovely arugula, blood orange, red onion, and olive salad p made last weekend.sure helps to brighten up the gray winter days!

spring has sprung?!

2008-01-31T19:40:00.000+01:00

i snapped these right outside our apartment this afternoon. this has been by far the warmest winter i've ever experienced. and while bonn is supposed to have mild winters compared to the northern u.s., it's been exceptionally warm here even by usual standards -- temps have been regularly getting into the 50's this month. must be the warming....

Tosci's!!!!

2008-01-31T15:35:00.000+01:00

Toscanini's, our beloved Cambridge ice cream and coffee shop, is in the news! ...For being closed down by the state for owing almost $170,000 in back taxes. Whoops! Punks. But oh man, their ice cream is just one of those marvels of the food world. The texture is thick, almost elastic, and the flavors* rock.

B remembers well goading me on about their coffee ice cream sandwich flavor - milky coffee ice cream studded with chunks of ice cream sandwich - about how delicious it is, and how much I wish I had some right now, and isn't it sooooo good?, until I snapped and socked him in the arm. Pretty sure I'd do it again.

Anyway, Tosci's is so well-loved that their customers donated $30,000, I kid you not, over the course of a week, enabling them to pay off some of their debt and reopen. Madness!!

*lemon basil... nocciola... coffee ice cream sandwich... grapenuts... pink grapefruit sorbet... burnt caramel (which earned a paean in The Atlantic)... chocolate sluggo (remember that, Paula?)... etc. etc., plus other "special" backroom flavors involving hazelnut and assorted herbs, alas not for sale.

Nice Color

2008-01-23T18:26:00.002+01:00

Lots of yellow buildings around. I particularly like this one, which is just around the corner from here. Cheerful even against a grey sky.

Twin Peaks

2008-01-23T17:06:00.000+01:00

Is this not one of the best tv intros ever? So stark and beautiful. (And any intro that opens with a thrush is going to win points with me.)

"Twin Peaks," the wonderful David Lynch early 90s tv show, has swallowed up our evenings for the last week and a half. B got the complete series on DVD (a sweet set that came out last year) for Christmas, and we've been working our way through a few episodes per night.

Anyone else remember Twin Peaks? It was all the rage at the time, and Sandya and I were big fans. David Lynch, the surrealist director whose interests include dreams, fragmented perspectives, dwarves and giants, dancing, and the color red, created this dark, soapy murder drama (he along with some dude named Mark Frost). "Who killed Laura Palmer?" Remember that?

Anyway, the atmosphere of Twin Peaks has penetrated our lives, to the extent that on Monday Brian threw caution (re his incompetent sphincter) to the wind and drank a cup of potentially irritating coffee, and today we bought donuts (Berliners, to be precise) to enjoy with our nightly viewing. Priya, donuts?!

In the past several years, I've come to really love David Lynch's films. Mulholland Dr is one of my favorite movies, even though my initial reaction to the film was one of confused disgust at the pompous windbag who would make such an unintelligible film. (Thanks for decoding, Carl!) I find Lynch compelling in a way I can't really articulate - even his mistakes are interesting.

And speaking of his mistakes, we're a bit over halfway through the series now. At this point in 1990-91, the ratings had dropped and the studio was putting pressure on Lynch and Frost, and the show keeps threatening to lose the plot. But it's still great - and I've gotta say, it makes a lot more sense than it did when I was 11.

Friday Catblogging: Dental Tutorial Edition

2008-01-18T23:24:00.001+01:00

Believe it or not, this video of B brushing Oscar's teeth was by request.

NB: Novices should start with the cat in the sink.

p.s. I should explain a bit about this. Oscar has a history of dental problems. In his youth he had to have his teeth cleaned under sedation, and the vet even removed a few of his little front teeth!

Last spring our vet said that he'd have to have another cleaning under sedation. We decided to really try to brush his teeth - previous attempts ended in an ugly battle of wills - with the hint from our vet to put him in the kitchen sink! Something about the sink... Maybe it's that when he backs up, he has nowhere to go, making him struggle less. That hint made all the difference. (Now of course he's so comfortable with the toothbrushing that he wanders all over the counter.)

We hoped that conscientious brushing would fix his dental problems - but the vet said no way, brushing maintains clean teeth but can't repair damage. Well, several months of near-nightly brushing later (and no professional cleaning), Oscar has "clean teeth," according to our new vet here! And Oscar has actually come to like having his teeth brushed!

Hmph

2008-01-18T23:12:00.000+01:00

I found out today that I'm still not on the right dosage of thyroid hormone! Too little, so I'm getting on the next highest dosage, which I'm guessing will be too much - but it'll be six weeks or so before the levels of hormone even out and I can have another blood test to find out either way. So damn slow! I started on medication in September of 2006 (that's 16 months ago, kids) and it's been like this since. Ppppp stupid thyroid.

grrrr

2008-01-17T00:49:00.000+01:00

here's a little news bulletin that did not make our day.... back when i started at max planck, though they originally gave me just a year here, i heard from a few sources that it's pretty easy to get another year tacked on. and the possibility of that second year has come to seem more and more appealing: moving last summer was pretty hellish, so it's not exactly something we want to do again right away; p is still in the early stages of building up relationships with doctors here, and she actually likes some of them, and it would obviously suck to just throw that away in half a year's time; it takes some of the pressure off me job-wise, since who knows if the post-doc hunt is going to go any better this time around; and, despite the evident challenges, living in germany is pretty cool and getting cooler all the time! but but but... well, i naturally started asking around max planck about how this extra year thing would work, and i finally ended up talking to someone in the know yesterday, and the story is that they essentially never give people a second year. quite the disappointment.

Assholes!

2008-01-14T21:06:00.000+01:00

This article has driven me to blog.

It's about fibromyalgia, which is a poorly understood condition marked by widespread pain, fatigue, and other fun symptoms. It's kind of similar to what's going on with me, though I don't think I have it per se; my symptoms run a bit closer to chronic fatigue syndrome. There are no blood tests or other diagnostics that can identify either condition, and the underlying causes of the symptoms are still unknown.

Until recently, chronic fatigue syndrome patients were treated like complainers whose problems were all in their heads. This has been changing over the last few years, as researchers are starting to identify a biological basis for the condition. I'm so glad that I've never had the shock of being told by a doctor that I'm perfectly fine and just need to get over my worries - I've read of so many sick people being treated this way.

Well, it looks like fibromyalgia is still in the dark ages, even though last year the FDA approved a prescription drug to treat it. According to one doctor quoted in the article, fibromyalgia is "clearly not" a disease and people suffering with fibromyalgia symptoms shouldn't be told they have fibromyalgia, because it'll just encourage these people "to think of themselves as sick and catalog their pain." You know, because it wasn't the debilitating pain that made them think they're sick. Right. Jerks.

It'd be nice to see a bit of humility in the face of medical uncertainty.

dear god

2008-01-13T15:25:00.000+01:00

why didn't waan and sudi take us here last summer?

(ok, warning, the link is probably not a good idea on a squeamish stomach.)

friday catblogging: raw chicken neck edition

2008-01-11T20:21:00.000+01:00

this was taken back at p's parents'. guten appetit!

p's back

2008-01-10T19:09:00.000+01:00

yay! p and oscar made it back to bonn today -- not a very fun trip for her, unsurprisingly, but she's intact, and oscar is as beastly as ever. now it just remains to see how much sleep she gets today/tonight (i put in 16 hours when i came back). might even have some catblogging tomorrow!

o ipa!

2008-01-09T13:19:00.000+01:00

this times article is worth it just for the incredibly aggressive pictures at the start (and the focus on one of my favorite beer styles doesn't hurt either).

obama

2008-01-06T18:21:00.000+01:00

i don't know if it's really sporting to blog about politics here, and i've been trying to hold off for as long as i can, but i just have to say that the second emailer cited in this andrew sullivan post almost perfectly captures how i feel about obama right now.

our cat

2008-01-06T15:48:00.000+01:00

i arrived at max planck this morning to find this gem from p in my inbox.

Subject: our cat

when i was at melissa's party (which was really nice, btw) for seven hours, our cat: 1. stole a sizeable bread roll in a bag from the kitchen countertop, carried it up the stairs and into sudi's room, tore a hole in the bag, seemingly pulverized the bread, and ate half; and 2. pissed in a plant pot! what a fucking monster!!

where oh where have we been?

2008-01-06T14:49:00.000+01:00

i for one really didn't mean to have another of our little blogging lapses during the holidays, but circumstances have sure intervened to the contrary! here's what's been shaking.

our holiday plans had originally been to spend about a week and a half at p's folks, and then to head up to my parents' on christmas eve for a week there. but a couple days before we were supposed to hit the road, p developed some debilitating lower back pains, clear out of the blue! it's like, are you kidding me? after all the other health problems she has, now this?

so, round about the time we'd been planning to leave christmas eve, p was instead seeing a chiropractor, and we decided shortly thereafter that the best thing for her would be to stay in new jersey while i ventured solo up to my folks' (only i wasn't really solo, since i picked up my sister just outside nyc on the way, but that's neither here nor there).

i had a lovely time at home -- always wonderful to see the fam! -- but p kept the laptop and the camera, which sure did cramp my blogging style (and of course, p was in way too much pain and discomfort to type away much herself). i headed back down to the jers a week ago today, then hopped on a plane the next day to come back to germany (for those keeping score, yup, that means i celebrated new year's over the atlantic -- but they charged for drinks on the flight, the bastards!), and i've been attending a math conference here in bonn ever since -- which has really cramped my blogging style, since p still has the computer.

and as for p, it turns out the poor kid has a bulging disc! the good news is that this seems like something one can largely deal with, but the bad news is that p is quite young to have it, and it never really goes away. so she has to be careful about making certain sudden movements or overburdening her back (and she's also not allowed to fall on her butt), and hopefully that will stave off future flare-ups. she's still at her parents', and i'm happy to report that she's continued to see the same chiropractor a few times a week and has made loads of progress! just sitting in a chair is terribly uncomfortable and tiring for people with this kind of pain, so you can imagine our worry about her having to endure a transatlantic flight later this week, but hopefully it won't be quite so bad now. (and remember, travel like this usually creams p anyway because of her other health problems, so "won't be quite so bad" should be understood as "won't utterly destroy her".)

p arrives here on thursday, so blogging will be light at best till at least then. can't wait to see you, hon!

tasty cake

2007-12-22T16:39:00.001+01:00

had me a birthday two days ago -- look at the fabu cake p made me!a yummy pistachio cake with lemon icing and chopped pistas on top. so good!

friday catblogging: meaty flecks edition

2007-12-22T00:19:00.001+01:00

if it's not obvious in the video, that's a huge glob of RAW MEAT oscar got on his ear while licking out the bowl after we made him a batch of food this week. siiiiiiick! clean yourself up, son! but the best part was that after he'd finished, instead of immediately cleaning his befouled ear, he just gave his head a big shake, and a little meatwad landed on p's face! can you imagine anything grosser?

guitar hero randomness

2007-12-21T04:54:00.000+01:00

there's been an odd amount of chatter here at fortress narasimhan this week about the video game guitar hero 3 -- so it feels like quite the coincidence to have stumbled across this oddly compelling blog post today.

the grand finale

2007-12-21T04:40:00.000+01:00

a final capstone to the christmas market madness, dug up by priya on youtube, totally random (this was taken at the bonn market):

more christmas market awesomeness

2007-12-20T18:00:00.000+01:00

we left germany for the holidays almost a week ago, but there's still so much i feel i have to say about the christmas markets in bonn and cologne! i've just never seen anything like them. it's hard to know which aspects to focus on to really capture the essence of them. i think one of the most incredible things is the atmosphere at these places -- germans know how to do christmas! the various markets all open around the end of november or beginning of december, and they're basically packed with people throughout the entire month leading up to christmas. i usually leave max planck around 7 or 8 pm, and even at that time on a tuesday evening the streets are choked with people going about their shopping or enjoying glühwein (hot mulled wine) or just soaking up the general festivities. p has observed that christmas in germany is not so much a big lead-up to a single climactic day, but a whole season of sustained merriment and celebration (and she's right).

so what else to say? speaking of glühwein, i have to mention all the appealing christmas beverages on offer at the markets -- in addition, there's hot mead and eierpunsch (egg punch) and on and on. this place was especially tasty:
in some sense, it's not so different from a good bar -- nice selection of drinks, hip music, good vibe. but the mix of people is especially great -- hipsters and middle aged women and old fogeys all crammed together (and i do mean crammed, as it was always packed), all enjoying warm drinks against cold hands. and the propeller moves! actually, so many of the physical booths themselves are incredible, filled with fantastic embellishments and intricate details. it's hard to believe they're all temporary structures.and the items for sale are great too! i feel like most similar "festivals" i've been to have at least a 90% tchotchke rate, but it's more like 50% here (which is damn good if you think about it). so many of the vendors are genuine artisans -- you can watch them blow glass or carve wood as you walk the aisles. one of the bakers even had a small stack of firewood piled outside to fuel the oven.
and yes, the ferris wheel is great too. so sad to think it'll all be gone when we return!

pyrotechnics chez narasimhan

2007-12-20T17:20:00.000+01:00

check it out:

the video is of a floating lantern sudi brought back from thailand -- basically a big tissue paper hot air balloon, powered by a slice of a roll of toilet paper suspended at the bottom and lit on fire. the thing carried on for quite a bit after the video cut off -- eventually it looked just like a bright star in the night sky, and then it twinkled out.

here's the same thing on an incredibly massive scale in chiang mai, thailand. whoa.

a better garfield

2007-12-19T23:34:00.000+01:00

look, i know it's not exactly cool to blog about garfield (though i confess i did have a soft spot for him when i was a kid, and he is voiced by bill murray, the funniest man in hollywood), but this is pretty damn funny. h/t joe.

flaming pudding

2007-12-16T20:57:00.001+01:00

from last weekend's (wholely badass) festivities.(it's a delicious christmas pudding from the illustrious merton college, oxford, hand-delivered by teru and samantha -- danke schön!)

der vokuhila*

2007-12-16T16:43:00.000+01:00

anyone who knows p's family probably knows that they harbor a bit of a, erm, fascination with all things mullet. (and sorry, but if you didn't know that, then i say you don't really know them.) members of the family maintain a high level of mullet vigilance during communal outings. when one is spotted, the rest of the family is subtly (and often not so subtly) alerted, and a curious mixture of evaluation, mockery, and appreciation (again, often not so subtle) follows. there has at times been a fervent devotion to the website mulletsgalore.com.

surely, part of the appeal is that people have largely realized that mullets are actually completely ridiculous, so you just don't see them much anymore, and that makes it weirdly exciting when you do.

everything is different in germany.mullets are EVERYWHERE. this fine specimen was documented last weekend at the bonn christmas market. but there has simply been no end to the number of times p and i have been out and seen incredible mullets and either not had our camera with us or been too slow on the draw. kids have them. punkish young lads have them. just friday we saw a fantastic femmullet while going through the security line at the airport. i think the most jaw-dropping (and offensive) one was a super aggressive early 20-ish looking guy last summer whose t-shirt featured a silhouette of a woman next to the text (in english) "i only sleep with the best".

this post is the first in a series.

*that's "the mullet" in german: it stands for vorne kurz, hinten lang, which itself literally means "front short, back long". mostly i feel like the german language and i don't get along too well, except for times like this, when i love it.

last weekend

2007-12-16T03:23:00.002+01:00

part of our aforementioned busy-ness was a delightful visit last weekend from our old chicago pals dave, teru, and samantha, all of whom now live in britain. such a nice time! on friday we spent the day in cologne with our pal (and native cologner) corinna. and i just gotta say, what a lovely city cologne is! here we are at the middle ages christmas market there (which i guess is like a really cool renaissance fair, if such a thing exists). clockwise from the upper left, that's me, corinna, dave, teru, samantha, and p. props to teru and his steady hand for the self portrait.

friday catblogging (on saturday): high as a kite edition

2007-12-16T03:01:00.000+01:00

hoo! sorry for the long blog silence -- we been busy kids. yesterday we made the trip back to the states for the holidays. that meant a 15-hour turn in his carrier for poor oscar, but the little champ made it through with nary a cry of complaint! so here he is enjoying a well-deserved feast of catnip upon arrival.

it took germany to bring them together

2007-12-04T23:14:00.001+01:00

new jersey's finest, united at last.

Ah, Europe

2007-12-01T22:39:00.000+01:00

...where purple velvet pants on a middle-aged man signify nothing more than a fondness for haberdashery. Ordinary men here put American metrosexuals to shame. And it's not just men - I've seen quite a few pairs of black leather pants on proper middle-aged women. People here wear these things so well, you sort of don't notice until a minute later. You kind of do a double take - like, was that man actually wearing mustard yellow fine wale corduroy, or am I dreaming?

Biermobile!

2007-12-01T22:26:00.000+01:00

I took this photo in Cologne over two months ago, and I can't believe I'm only posting it now. This, dear ones, is the most awesome vehicle of them all: the Biermobile. Powered by bicyclists facing a bar with a duded up gent serving beer in the center, festooned with an oversized steering wheel behind the barrel in front, and made for good times. Love!

friday catblogging: new couch edition

2007-11-30T21:26:00.000+01:00

here's oscar sharpening his rear talons, surely in anticipation of sinking them into our new couch.and that's right, we actually have the cushions inside now! p had the bright idea to put the cushions inside their covers to see if that controlled the stink at all, and believe it or not, so far so good!

david wins big-time

2007-11-30T15:50:00.000+01:00

back during our ikea furniture delivery saga, a hot topic of conversation around here was, "david or goliath -- who will win?" goliath, of course, was played by corporate hegemon ikea. and, in a surprise turn, in the role of david was... the sweet innocent little university of chicago hospitals medical records office!

see, long ago, p requested a copy of her complete medical record so she could give it to whatever new doctors she started seeing here in germany. she even went to the office in person before we left chicago, and they were like "yep, it should be in the mail this afternoon". and about a month later they did sorta mail it, only it went to the wrong address and they left half of it out, so p has had to continue to battle with them to get the whole thing.

and from here there have been enough twists and turns and blinding levels of incompetence that there's no hope of accurately documenting all the atrocities, but let's just say that p has called the office at least 10 times since we've been over here, and when she spoke to them a couple weeks ago the story was that the records had finally been shipped express the previous day via the usps.

(so, right, the point is that at some point we had a nice little race to the bottom between ikea and the records office to see which would be the bigger fuckup, hence the david vs. goliath thing.)

only -- surprise! -- the records never showed up. p called them yesterday to ask what was going on, and they told her -- directly contradicting what they'd said before -- that they shipped the records fedex the day after she'd last spoken to them! bastards! but at least they gave her a tracking number.

so then p wrote to fedex, and... they wrote back saying that while a tracking number had been assigned, the sender never transfered the package to them! i mean, are you kidding me? seriously? and she just got off the phone with them again, and the guy she spoke to (the supervisor, no less) said he personally was the one to fedex the records. but like we believe that for a second.

so that's where things stand now, i guess. i'm not sure if it really comes across how unbelievable this all is. this isn't just some customer service quibble -- these are p's medical records, and she's sick. (i just had p read over this post, and she said it's not nearly fiery enough.) anyone want to set the over/under line on when the damn things arrive?

winnie cooper, mathematician

2007-11-29T20:27:00.000+01:00

while working on job applications today (yes, please gag me), i happened across this little chestnut: danica mckellar, aka winnie cooper from tv's the wonder years, delivering the ucla department of mathematics' 2007 commencement address. wtf? why, danica is a proud 1998 ucla math major herself! and she's even written a book*. i have to say, in principle i actually think this is all really cool, but her address made me cringe so much my face got tired.

i feel like a doogie howser reference needs to be worked in here now, but i got nothing. fire away in the comments....

*which sandya kinda pointed out to p and me a couple months ago.

BEST VET EVER

2007-11-28T21:11:00.000+01:00

wow, p and i took oscar to a vet today to check up on his kidney stone and to get things in order to bring him back to the states next month, and good god what a completely wonderful woman we have found! oscar normally HATES going to the vet like, well, like all the stereotypes say he should, but she practically had him eating out of her hand! (ok, bad cliche, since he'll probably eat out of most anything, but still.) she had such a calm, peaceful air about her, and her catly manner was the tops! she knew just how to pet him to help him relax, and she had the presence of mind to let him sniff her instruments before she examined him with them, and she was even all sweet-talking him in german! it reminded both of us so much of our wonderful dr. curtis from chicago (except for the german bit).

the musical fruits

2007-11-28T20:58:00.000+01:00

incredible! eat your heart (and carrots, and eggplant, and celeriac...) out, brian wilson.

(hat tip to teru.)

(this also reminds me of one of my dirty old grandpa's favorite rhymes from my childhood:
beans, beans, the musical fruit
the more you eat, the more you toot
the more you toot, the better you feel
so eat beans at every meal)

cooing like doves

2007-11-27T19:39:00.000+01:00

peas in deutschland, meeting all your crazy cat sound needs.

(hat tip to rae)

weihnachtsmarkt

2007-11-24T18:35:00.000+01:00

weihnachtsmarkt = christmas market = FUN!
(yes, that's a ferris wheel, viewed from the library at the max planck institute.)
the christmas market started here yesterday, and it is incredible! p and i took a little tour of it today amidst our regular saturday shopping. it mostly consists of lots of little wooden booths peddling all manner of wares and foods. and there are rides too! it's a lot like a carnival, or the county fair (but without the dairy barn or tractor pull). and i guess it lasts from now until christmas. holy crap!
(greeting from the bonn christmas market)

it's been hanging round for days

2007-11-23T22:39:00.000+01:00

the good news: the rest of our ikea stuff actually arrived all the way back on tuesday, way earlier than we'd dared to expect. and at long last i was able to put together our bed frame, but... the bad news: the frame came replete with nasty warehouse/chemical-ly smells that totally leveled poor p. and that sucker's still off-gassing! so we've moved our mattress into the living room and quarantined the frame in the bedroom with the door to the balcony wide open -- thank god the door between the bedroom and the rest of the apartment is really heavy.

in other news of stink, our couch cushions (which arrived in shipment #1) are still not detoxified either.
and we've both been sick with some downright unpleasant colds this week, hence the lack of blogging. happy belated thanksgiving!

friday catblogging: the dulcet tones

2007-11-23T22:33:00.000+01:00

he's been at it again: