Let's blow this joint

It's time to say farewell, Buchen. Our time was brief, yet I feel I got to know you so well.  I loved how the archeticture spilled out chronologically, ending at our apartment. I loved how when I went downtown, I was reminded that I was a small village in Germany. The local pub, cute and quaint, was almost like being on the set of Coronation street. Although, I don't think their pub smells like a fart.  The discoteck gave me a reason to hate teenagers even more and long for the rules against smoking that Canada has. Something about 400-year-old cigarette smoke seeping into my clothes and hair just doesn't sit right with me. 

Goodbye 9pm curfew! Even though I like visiting grandma's house, it just isn't fun to have grandma's rules govern a whole town. I like being able to get a coke at 11pm if I want to. Also, why is nothing open on Sunday? You'd think at least one store would be open besides the godless McDonalds. Which reminds me, goodbye cashier at Plus who always makes a crack everytime we buy a bottle of wine. How else are you supposed to pass the time in this town?

So, goodbye little town that has accomodated me for the past year. I've heard this story before, young native girl taken from her home country to follow her love only to be holed up in a room and never going outside. I don't want to meet Pocahontis's fate! Wait.. what was her fate. Maybe I should read up on that instead of relying on the Disney version. Anyway, goodbye Buchen. Hello Berlin! I hope Anna's grandma is wrong about us living on the streets because we'll be too poor and since we'll be living on the streets, the nazi's will hear me speak and then attack me because I'm Canadian. I hope you're wrong, Oma. I hope you're wrong. 

Ich bin eine Berliner... almost.

Last week, we went to Berlin to find an apartment. This being our second trip to the East, we were a little more relaxed with our surroundings. We took a bus tour of the centre of the city where we saw where Angela Merkel (www.angela-merkel.de) works, naked bums (literally, assholes) in a park, the pregnant oyster, and a lot of empty parking lots that used to be something beautiful. It was less depressing than the walking tour we took in January. Althought, I was hoping to see more garbage and stray puppies not 'this is the largest shopping mall in Europe' which we went to later and it smelled like rotten cheese. Actually, it smelled like my bathroom after an ex-girlfriend threw up Blue cheese steak and it got stuck in the drain pipes. Delicious. 

We have secured an apartment in Spandau. Since Spandau is about 30 minutes by train from the city centre, I was worried there would be nothing there. It would be like getting off in Maple Ridge and the only feature there is some Horse clock. Fortuantely for us Spandau is just like another little city complete with Malls, Starbucks, and Internet Cafes. Our apartment is about 10 minutes from the bahnhof and just off a main street. It's a two bedroom and has a fitted kitchen! For some reason, apartments don't come with the standard stove, fridge, and cupboards. Instead, you have to buy that shit on your own dime and haul it from place to place. Cupboards!! So it's pretty much a dream when you find an apartment that comes with all that stuff.  The bathroom does not accomadate fat people, they'll have to shimmy down the hallway to the toilet. Sorry. Both floors are hardwood (finally) and there's a nice little balcony that looks out into the street, not into the courtyard garbage bin like the others. 

Overall, I'm very pleased with our find. Every apartment was probably the most beautiful apartment I've ever seen considering I'm from Vancouver and character apartments like this would never be in my price range. 

Teeth & Taxes

My gigantic check list of things to accomplish while in Canada is slowly getting smaller. I am calling this week, Dental Week. I have been to the dentist twice so far and have another visit on Friday. It will be the most I've seen a dentist in about 7 years. Today's visit was pretty fun... I showed up thinking it was my appointment for the second half of the teeth cleaning but no, my dentist plopped me down in the chair then stuck a huge needle into my sensitive gummes. Gummes? Is that how you spell that? I don't know. Anyway, so the dental assistant starts to wedge the clamp for the raincoat on my teeth, but she can't quite get it. After successfully ripping up the gummes around my back molar, I managed to say, "it's fine," and just dealt with the biting pain throughout the session. The filling part wasn't too bad. He had to fix a filling that had come loose. I watched Frasier and pretended that I couldn't feel the drill in my teeth. I didn't want to ask for more freezing, like I usually do, because I didn't feel like having my entire face frozen all night. Now I'm just dealing with a partial freeze. My cheek keeps finding it's way in between my back molars. I'm sure it won't hurt too much once the freezing wears off.

Tomorrow... taxes.

Too Bright lights, too big city

I think it's going to be overwhelming, coming back to the city. I had a friend who moved up island to Tofino. She came to visit in Vancouver, and she said that the city was so scary now. I couldn't understand. How could Vancouver be scary? The hustle and bustle of a city is so exciting. But then, the other day in Heidelberg, I felt myself getting anxious as we moved along with the street crowd. People everywhere. I closed my eyes and tried not to let it affect me. I told myself that it wasn't bothering me. It's just a city, I said. I don't think it was because it was a foreign city because almost everyone was speaking english. 

I've been avoiding people for seven months now. I hate going into town here. I feel like I've developed paranoid skitzophrenia because I swear to god everyone is staring at me. They are. In a town of 8,000 people, everyone knows who's who. There was an informative billboard at the Rathaus yesterday about the the Jewish families that were deported during the war to work and death camps. After Anna translated it for me, she shook her head and said how it must have been really hard to hide considering everyone would know who was Jewish. They probably pointed their fingers and led the way for the Nazis. 

I'm not saying that all the people here are assholes. I just haven't really met anyone here that is nice. Anna's friends are nice but it feels superficial, almost forced. Then again, I may have just gone crazy. Cabin fever or something. Maybe I'll feel that way when I'm surrounded by my friends, and I'll be looking for the nearest exit so I can run home and hide from everyone... let's hope not. 

Homeward bound...

Three more days until I embark on my journey back to Canada. We're going to London first. The ticket was a lot cheaper if I flew out from Gatwick, so I arranged it with Greg for us to stay with him. He was going to meet Anna, we'd catch up, and we'd have our own tour guide for London. Unfortuantely, he has been exiled from the UK and had to flee to Paris a few days ago. It was so dramatic. During phone conversations with him, I felt like we were plotting to escape the war. Thankfully, he still has his apartment in London, so we still have a place to stay. I just can't eat Andrew's cheese. Must make mental note to only eat the Canadian cheddar. Can't be too hard. 

The next three days are full of errands. I need to find a mützen for Eli. I tried to tell him that I couldn't find one, but he wouldn't take that for an answer. He was like, "Well, I'm sure there are a lot of big cities around you. Can't you just go to a bike store there?" Yes, I could... Oh, and I need to buy cigarettes for mom. Even though smoking is pretty much illegal in Canada, I'm sure she'll enjoy smoking her German cigarettes in the privacy of her own home. 

It's definitely going to be weird to come home. Preston filled me in on all the new stores downtown. I enjoyed the stories about the drapes over the cigarettes. Anna and I had an argument last night about smoking. I said if there wasn't a smoke pit at my school, I probably wouldn't have been so tempted to hang out in it and smoke. She said that was stupid. She walked past her schools designated smoke area every day and SHE didn't feel the need to smoke. I guess it's the same thing with hiding the cigarettes. Some will be tempted while others won't.  And the one's that are tempted will be called stupid by their loving wives. Fair enough I guess.

Well, I need to go downtown and pick up the keys for Greg's place at the post office. I really hope he included detailed instructions that a five-year-old could understand...

Apologizing only gets you so far

Yesterday, the Prime Minister gave an apology to the Aboriginal people for the abuse they endured in residential schools. I didn't know he was giving an apology until I logged onto CBC.ca and read the headline. The first thing I wanted to do was call my dad and ask him what he thought about this apology. I wondered if he accepted it--if it was enough.

I read all the comments and related articles. I read the responses the First Nations community had. Some were happy, some were angry, but for all it brought out a lot of emotions. Yesterday was an overwhelming day. The aboriginal community has been trying to get this apology for over a decade but none of the PMs wanted to step up and say, "hey, we fucked up. We're sorry." I was surprised that Stephen Harper was the one who actually did it. Although, many thought his words were empty and the apology lacked any passion. I have still yet to see the video version of his apology. I was too late to watch the live feed, so I only got to read the transcript.

"The government of Canada sincerely apologizes and asks the forgiveness of the aboriginal peoples of this country for failing them so profoundly."

That part brought me to tears. Yes, Canada, you did fail us. You have continued to fail the aboriginal peoples over and over again. I hope this apology helps the Canadian population to see First Nations peoples as human beings. I hope it helps the Candian people to understand the sufferings these people have endured for generations and together we can all heal and move forward. 

This apology isn't going to magically heal the survivors and their families. It is going to take time and effort. I hope the government of Canada isn't going to just walk away now. An apology calls for action to right what you have done wrong. Otherwise, the apology means nothing.

Germany made me ugly

Before I came to Germany, I decided that I would quit smoking. I had my last cigarette with my mom in Nanaimo before saying goodbye to her. Six months later, I still haven't had a cigarette. My lungs feel worse than they have ever felt, and I've gained twenty pounds.  I lost ten pounds, so I guess I gained thirty in all. Germany has made me ugly. Tempted by sausages, chocolate, and an endless supply of beer, I had no choice but to gorge myself while trying to forget the lusty call of the cigarette.

It was only after the long, cold winter, when I shed my winter jacket and tried to put on my summer clothes that I realized just how fat I had become. Usually I would blame the dryer for shrinking my clothes, but we don't have one of those things. I had to face to hard facts--I was fat. 

So now, I'm starving myself because I have a trip home in 18 days. Anna tells me not to worry so much what my friends think, but she doesn't know my friends! Constantly, they're gossiping over whose ass got fatter, who is too skinny, who has shitty hair. Oh, the hair. My hair was so beautiful when I arrived in Germany. Then it started to grow, and grow, and grow. I didn't have my brother to cut it every two weeks, so it grew into this monster. I have a picture where I look like a cave woman playing video games. Out of desperation, I asked Anna to make me an appointment at the hair salon down the street called Krista's. I asked the hairdresser to take off 10 cm. Ten minutes and 20 cms later, she had thouroughly butchered my beautiful locks. It was a bad imitation of a Friends haircut circa 1997.  I have vowed to never let another stranger cut my hair again. 

I'm hoping Preston will cut my hair when I arrive before I'm reintroduced to the general public. I'm also hoping to buy some new clothes, so I'm not wearing the same shit I have been for the past four years. Europe is supposed to change you for the better.. I picked the wrong region. Anna swears we will be skinny once we move to Berlin. I agree. We'll be too poor to enjoy luxeries like cheese, sausages, and an endless supply of beer. 

music music

I erased my ipod today. It seems a bit rash, but I was so sick of those songs. I haven't really sat down and listened to music since I got here. Why? Because all that crap is so old. I was watching a movie that was about five years old the other day and the soundtrack for it was exactly what's on my ipod. Not saying that it's bad to be listening to music that's five years old, I just don't want to listen to it over and over and over again.

Now I have about thirty songs on my ipod. I have been on allmusic.com all day searching for new bands. Some have been really good like Uffie, Yelle, and Coco Rosie, but some have been really crap. I like electro music, but I'm not too into house music that sounds like it should be played at a gay club.

I downloaded some Jennifer Rostock. She's germany's version of the Yeah Yeah Yeah's.  Once I finish German school, I hope to sing along to her music. That is, of course, if I don't find her lyrics super lame once I can understand them. This could be some Avril Lavigne "Hey! Hey! You! You!..." and so on. I'm sure it's not, because she's actually hot and can actually sing. 

Finally legal

The woman at the auslander office doubted me and Anna's marriage. She told this on the phone to Anna after cancelling our appointment that morning. Who does that? Like Anna and I got married as some hilarious joke. I thought it would be really fun to move to some piece of shit town in the middle of nowhere and leave my friends and family behind. Oh! And I also thought it would be really fun to have no money or job for six months while I waited for this visa.

Anna's mom called the woman and sorted everything out. Ida isn't an angry woman. I don't think she yelled at her or anything, but the woman was extra nice when she called Anna back to reschedule my appointment for the next day (Before Anna's mom called, she had said it would be awhile before I could get another appointment)

So, yesterday we took the bus to Mosbach (about 30 kms away from Buchen) and she asked me some questions very slowly in German, like, "What day is it today?" and "Where were you born." I answered them in my pigeon German. When she asked what I had for breakfast, if you translated it back into english, it would've sounded something like this: I have not breakfast because I sleep. Genau.

So breakdown of my waiting.
December: Hand over my passport, give them Anna's id, a copy of our marriage certificate, pictures of me, copies of how much money we make.
January: no answer
Febraury: no answer
March: they send us a letter saying that we need a criminal record check. That's good to know.. three months later. So, go to local police station and get fingerprinted, send fingerprints to Canada
April: wait for fingerprints to come back
May: Fingerprints come back. Send them to their office. They call for an interview
June: Cancel our interview because they think our marriage is fake. Anna's mom sets them straight and I get my visa.

How long did it take for the visa process? Half an hour. Well, plus six months and two weeks.