oh my gosh it's been awhile. and guess what, I've been BUSY. having adventures. climbing lots of stairs. eating so much bread. kissing!
all the little tiny interesting side facts of my stories are probably not going to be squeezed out today, as I sit in front of my work computer again eating peaches and drinking tea. It sounds comfortable but peaches and tea are no substitute for the black beans with lime juice and real tortilla chips that are now sooo close (only a week away) that my tongue is on the edge of its seat. picture that. no but what I was saying about details...they surface again later, in in between moments, when memories know when to pop up again, one at a time. this will be the best I can do in one go. but I hope that my travel memories will congeal a bit eventually into more than a blur of smiles and 'wow's'.
I think it must have been two weeks ago that brandon got off of a train in bremen.worlds colliding. strange as usual. we reacquainted ourselves, I think it always takes me longer. it rained and kept raining. we climbed up the cathedral steps and looked out. I worked. he brought us sandwiches. we drank beer in public and played kicker (foozball). we made out in the modern art museum.
then we went to berlin. I think I once mentioned how you can find rides on the internet here, pretty much wherever you want to go. like formalized hitchhiking. we found a guy who was renting a car to drive from bremen to berlin and back for the weekend and helped him fill it with our two bodies and spare change. We sat in the packed BMW (5 people total) and cruised across windmill studded landscape listening to pulsing electobeats and not saying much. oh but berlin! back in the city I once knew so well, but this time on my terms. no host mother waiting up for me, no school books on the west side. we went out with my old 'high school' friends from my year at the gymnasium in steglitz and wound our way across prenzlauer berg deep into the night. first to an outdoor biergarten with hefeweizen and bratwurst, and then to grab a 2€ falafel (with just enough parsley) from a smiling turk. an oldschool photo booth, a dimly lit tavern with a dog and a shared glass of absynth, and then to 'kauf dich glücklich' where we sat on squeeky low couches under prints of midwestern landscapes, low pink lights, and soft indie pop whispers, eating waffles with figs and honey in the 3 o'clock hour. Brandon amused himself with the scenery as we jabbered away in german (finally it came easily to speak german...to my old friends who knew I could...) But too much detail...this is just the beginning! The next day with luisa (whose hospitality was everything we needed) we toured about, sipping coffee, taking pictures of old chunks of the berlin wall....seeing things. We partied the evening away with a protestant deacon (no joke) who took us to a headbanging hard rock club and explained to us how liberal the church really is...(except for those crazy catholics of course...) With little more than 3 hours of sleep we tried to be good cultured people and go to the pergamon museum, but after stumbling through the gates of babylon and into the islamic art room we both gave up and went to get indian food and nurse our weary heads. Now that's berlin. What a marvelous, gigantic, riotous, beautifully dirty city. I love it.
We didn't last long in Bremen, realizing that the rain just wasn't going to let up and there had to be a way to get out again. My lovely colleague andrea provided it for us. It didn't take much convincing before we had bought train tickets to amsterdam and written down the directions to get to her vacant apartment, right on the kaisersgracht (one of the main canals running all around the city). This was when I actually really got happy. Sitting on the train with chocolate and crackers and beer and a crossword (it's getting to be embarrassingly obvious how important food is to me) and my lover (!) going to someplace I had never been before....that's the first time I felt like I was on vacation since being in Maine. Giddy. The sun shone in Amsterdam and the city was so beautiful. I couldn't stop exclaiming. All canals and rowhouses with giant shutters. Everything old and well maintained. Trees and clouds and bicycles and outdoor cafes. (I love lists). We found andreas apartment, behind the green door and up a real dutch staircase (a mountain with little dwarf steps as steep as you can imagine). The giant windows opened out onto the canal street and the churchbells rang and we said 'Hello Amsterdam!' There we took it easy, going out to dinner, sleeping in late, not worrying about seeing all the sights. We rented bicycles and rode to the flea market. We smoked half a joint and realized why this is something we never do (ick!) we made pancakes and remembered this is something we can't wait to do more.
back in bremen we packed up our things once more. went swimming in a frigid lake and rode home in the drizzle. pooled our change to buy a falafel wrap. we boarded two trains which happened to be connected to each other, one on its way to the airport in düsseldorf and one on its way to paris. We thought we would be able to meet in the dining car and didn't quite say goodbye. Turns out you can't get between two trains that are just hooked together and when I got out in Dortmund in the middle of the night to see if I could catch Brandon before the trains went their separate ways I found only our section going to Paris left sitting on the platform. The flirtatious conductors told me they had seen the young american looking for me...and were supposed to give me a kiss from him. I rubbed my sleepy eyes and felt cheated. But I laughed anyway and stayed to chat. Then back onto the night train, rumbling rather slowly across belgium.
I was a bit worried about my lack of french language skills, but I think Paris has changed over the last few years. English is everywhere and in August there are more Americans and Germans in the city than Parisians themselves, who all know better and take off for the coast. Gaelle, beaming, met me on the platform and our hug was so familiar and comfotable. Since high school I think I've probably seen her more often than any of my other old friends, even though she moved back to the continent and is now studying medicine in Lyon. Almost once a summer we seem to meet up on one side of the atlantic or another. I hope it stays that way. So we had a splendid time in Paris. She talked to the waiters for me and I goggled at the architecture. We wore our poor feet into the ground and saw so much more than I anticipated. We did the guide book (eiffel tour by stairs, louvre, montmartre, notre dame...) and more. Some of my favorite things about Paris: BREAD (yes, dad, we actually did find good bread, much better than anything I've found in Germany, although the coffee is better in Germany), the architecture in general, the balconies, the flowers, the chestnut trees, the jewish quarter, the latin quarter...marais...Right before leaving we stopped into a little movie theater off the champs elysees that was actually really cheap and saw 'paris je t'aime', a collection of 18 short films, each of which takes place in a different paris arrondissement. some of them were in English, and the rest were expressive enough for me to catch on to the general plotline. It was the perfect way to end our little excursion, celebrating paris on screen in french. considering the star studded cast (nick nolte, gerard depardieu, natalie portman, elijah wood, maggie gyllenhal) I'm surprised I hadn't heard of it at all but maybe it just hasn't made it to Germany yet.
So yes, now back in rainy bremen with a week to go and thinking about all the little things to do before getting on a plane. also thinking strange thoughts about terrorism and travel I've never entertained before. But not seriously, just a sidenote. So I'm flying in next wednesday night, moving my moldy stuff up from the moldy basement into my hopefully not-moldy room, then hitting the road for wadhams for a couple days. All the while helping brandon look for an apartment in boston which is still up in the air. Anyone have any leads?
hey, what's the deal with beta?
how are you?
p.s. pictures are coming soon. they're on my camera, brandon's camera, gaelle's camera...so it will take a little while to organize...
