Nancy and Sini Talk Themselves Into Trouble

So Sini and I went to Heidelberg, a beautiful college town in the West of Berlin, for our vacation. Now, one would normally call such a vacation scenic, relaxing, and fulfilling, full of the best German schnitzel and white wine. Of course, though, Sini and I always somehow manage to get ourselves into these situations with our unfailing resolve to somehow talk ourselves into trouble, and this uncanny addiction to risk.

So our first days are fantastic- we met some nice people and went to a few bars and pubs, and even found our way into a club that was in a CAVE! And then we decided to take a boat up the river (breathtakingly beautiful, let me tell you). Except as we were boarding, we noticed that the boat next to us was full of guys around our age wearing these funny uniforms. So of course, whenever we reached a lock and pulled up alongside the other boat, Sini and I would lounge on the top deck and watch these nice men wave and tip their hats (yes, they had hats, too) to us. Most people would have left it at that, but NO, Sini and I HAD to go talk to them after. So we awkwardly milled around the area where they were offloading and struck up a conversation. "Why the funny uniforms?" It turns out, Heidelberg was the site of the German national fraternity convention. Yes yes yes, Sini and I LITERALLY stumbled into a BOATLOAD of German frat boys. We were instantly adopted by a nice frat group from Stuttgart, who invited us to their CASTLE. When we asked how far it was, they said, eh, not far. Then they bought us tram tickets, and we all crammed on, and we asked again. At this point they answered more honestly and said, "well, about an hour altogether. Ha, I saw that look- regretting this decision now, aren't you!" And we were, but only for a little bit. Because it turns out that the castle was actually TWO castles, and at the castles was BEER! So there Sini and I were, hanging out with our boatload of German frat boys (mostly our original wonderful Stuttgart friends), running around trying to get as much photographic evidence of the highly improbable event as possible.

The night got even better then! It turns out that in addition to two castles, each frat also has an adopted restaurant in the town, so the Stuttgart frat then took me and Sini out to a fantastic West German dinner, complete with the aforementioned schnitzel and bottomless wine, and the at midnight rejoined the masses to start singing their national frat song or whatever that was. After that, despite assurances they could "find a room for us in the castle", we asserted we had to return home, and even got a ride back! Along with promises of a visit in Berlin and a "good time" should we ever venture into Stuttgart. Sure to take them up on that!




(actually, this guy doesn't drink...)

Awwwwwwwww....
(we were trying to take pictures with EVERY color! This was my favorite :) )

I've got some dirt on my shoulder...

EVENTS POST! Sso I have a compiled list/photo gallery to update y'all on at least a SMALL subset of what I've been up to ('cuz I'm just TOO god damn lazy to write emails), so here we go in a nice tabular form (oh, how German of me...):

There is no lack of arts here. At all. In the past few weeks I've been to the Deutsche Oper to see Carmina Burana, the Stadt Oper to see Swan Lake, a nice Orchestra production of some beautiful piece I'm sure someone else could name,an AMAZING cabaret, Las Vegas Style at the Friedrichstadtpalast, and the Battle of Berlin, which was the most fantastic break dancing competition I've ever seen. Better than the movies, I kid you not.
Of course, ALL of these performance were ENTIRELY paid for by the greatest class ever (and a gender studies GER!)

Of course, Sini and I have established ourselves as the club experts for the trip (by making friends with lots of bartenders with connections and checking out more than 17 of Berlins finest and most eclectic). Our most recent and fabulous finds include the newly re-opened 2Be which serves the hip hop needs of the city and often hosts some pretty bad ass street dance crews, Tresor which is a full on Electro EXPERIENCE (really- light shows like you wouldn't believe, fog so thick you can't see, rib cage rattling bass- its got it all), Havana Club, which has Salsa dance so good you can just sit and watch for hours and then attempt it yourself, Watergate, which is reputedly exclusive so we got in by pretending to speak only Finnish, and at least 13 more with various types of music and atmospheres- recommendations available upon request :)

Having fairly depleted the club scene, Sini and I are moving to scour the good bars (and trust me- if you want a FANTASTIC cocktail in Berlin plus some free shots from a nice bartender, just stick with the two of us). We're bona-fide regulars in several places now, and continue to collect friends as we go out. For example, tonight (ooooh, embarrassing Nancy story! Keep reading!)
So, in the true spirit of my Berlin lifestyle, I hadn't been sleeping much, maintained steady illness for several weeks, been partaking in several unhealthy habits, etc., so Sini and I decided to take it easy tonight and just chill at a cafe/bar. Unfortunately, we're just too amazing to go anywhere unnoticed, so as we tried to leave, the waiter instead waved us inside where he and the bartender were waiting with free tequila shots and just itching to talk to the two pretty girls. Now, this is a fairly common story with us...where it deviated was when I got very light headed and happened to faint...luckily into the receptive arms of the young, handsome bartender! (ACK! Das war mir SO peinlich!) Since it was clear I hadn't been drinking much (not much. The statement "I hadn't been drinking at all" hasn't applied for several weeks now), he and his waiter friend and the kindest, most thoughtful friend ever Sini proceeded to very concernedly take care of me, and now Sini and I have yet ANOTHER amazing bartender friend! Though I prefer our usual method of witty broken German conversations to disease as a path of endearment :)

OK, enough bar stories (though I have many more should anyone express interest). Onto the even more ridiculous vacation story, which I actually think I'll just put in another post. Which I guess will actually show up above this one. Oh well. Fuck you, chronology!

Could you brush it off for me?

So, I've been doing some looking around, and it seems like the focus of many blogs is less "Hey, look at all the cooool crazy shit I'm doing!" and more "let me expound on how I've been impacted emotionally." As much as I'm opposed to soul-searching, I guess I'll give a quick nod to this style with the next post, due to be one of my shorter, and quickly followed by a much more awesome "cool shit" style post:

I have to say, one of the best things about being here is no longer being surrounded by goal/future-oriented, risk-averse Stanford students. I mostly refuse even to spend too much time with other members of the program (besides my Soul Mate Sini, of course) in fear of watering down my experience. Its incredibly nice that when I say to a German, "I want to cut my hair shorter" or "I want to smoke a bit" or "I'm kind of feeling like wandering into this new and potentially sketchy situation," my musings are never countered with something along the lines of "well, watch out, it might not turn out absolutely perfectly, so you probably shouldn't even take the risk." And this Berlin attitude has led me into uncountable RIDICULOUS and AWESOME situations (oooooh, let me tell you...in another post, though).

Anyway, that's my philosophical musing for the month. I've made enough sacrifices to the future, I'm ready to live it up in the now. Which is really not a hard thing to do in this city, which is hands down the greatest city in the WORLD. I wasn't joking, kids- I'm not coming back.