And they still are it seems.

UPDATE: Pictures of Willie’s stash

…damn, dude.

I’ve been doing something in the new apartment almost every day for 2 weeks. I only go home in order to sleep. Yesterday I put down about 40m² of laminate flooring and my knees and hands are really sore. Today I hung some blinds. Tomorrow I might hang some light fixtures. Soon my room will be finished and I will be able to start moving stuff in.

An article about humor under the Nazis.

Some funny stuff. You wanna make Germans laugh about the Nazis? While sitting in a bodenständige Kneipe, take the cellophane from a pack of cigarettes and put it over your index and middle finger. Spread your fingers to make the plastic taut and put your fingers up to your lips. Ta-Da!! Instant Volksempfänger!! Same principal as a kazoo.

Now you can create your own personlized speech from the Führer or his henchmen. Just make sure you play up your most stereotypical German accent.

“From now on, all men who do not or can not emulate the Führer’s moustache, will be required to glue a fuzzy caterpillar under their noses. Caterpillars will be provided at the nearest caterpillar distribution center upon the presentation of the properly filled out forms.”

As stupid as that sounds, it’s a hit.

I know, I know. You’d think they would have sent me home by now.

If you’ve never been to Amsterdam, you need to go. Everything you heard about it is true x10. I’d get into seedy details but what happens in Amsterdam, stays in Amsterdam.

The Dutch are great people. Super friendly and helpful. However, I couldn’t help but notice that things aren’t as efficient there as I am used to. The train station and tourist info office were a madhouse because of the way they were run. Orders in restaurants were often wrong or they just created confusion. Maybe I’m just spoiled from living in Germany for so long. It was kind of like Italy but they spoke English.

The city center is crazy and fun and sometimes dangerous, but once you move away from the tourist fed stench of whore and hash, it is a very beautiful city. The canals and the houseboats are amazing. We saw the Jazz Festival. We saw crazy hen- and stag-parties. It was a good time.

Now we start renovating the new apartment. Hopefully we can get it all done before we move in at the end of the month.

Well we had a great couple of days in Berlin. Lots of all-night parties and crazy antics. We met the girl who does the female voice-over for MTV Germany. She got us on the guestlist for a swinging club. It was sweet. Now we are off to Amsterdam.

Bob and I were walking from Hamburg Hauptbahnhof towards the Rathaus where were saw a guy, who was obviously crazy, go off on this rant that started off with the sentence,”How would you like to see a film in which a man loves a woman from behind”. It was one of the funniest things I’ve seen in a long time and has become one of this trips running gags.

One thing I noticed when I first moved to Germany was that most Germans take driving-and-drinking very seriously. This may have something to do with the severe penalties in Germany. Although there are lots of things in the American media warning about it, it often tends to be ignored or not taken that seriously. That is just from my observations though. I can’t find any statistics comparing DUI/DWI incidents between Germany and the US. Google has failed me.

…than anything else in this world. One is going to the dentist. The other is moving and all that it entails. The dentist visits are the lesser evil of the two. Moving sucks more than anything else in the entire world. But sometimes it just has to be done.

M and I have been looking to move to more roomier digs for sometime now. We looked at a bunch of places over the past 6 months but we didn’t find anything suitable. This past Friday we signed a contract for a 3 story house smack dab in the middle of Lüneburg. The price is right and there is over 130m² of space for us and all of our crap not including the celler, which may end up being the new Chillmost Studios. We’ll see once we get everything moved in and renovated. There is a bit of work that needs to be done before the big move. A few rooms need new carpet, wallpaper or paint. The kitchen needs the most work but once it’s done it will be rocking.

As far as we know, the house is a little over 100 years old. We may have to check the city archives to found out for sure. The bottom floor, which will be my hideout, used to be a bar about 50 years ago. Supposedly, the landlord has some cool pictures from way back taken in the bar.

We pick up the key next weekend. On Saturday I pick up pal:ndrøm at the airport in Hamburg. We will depart on the following Monday on a whirlwind tour of Berlin, Hamburg and Amsterdam. After that I am Nate der Baumeister.

I can hardly wait.

I just wanted to relate a weird experience that happened to me when I was in Copenhagen a few weeks ago. I was riding a Citybike and was waiting on a curb to cross the street. As I was waiting, I suddenly had the feeling that I was being watched. I turned around and was shocked to see that I was being photographed by about 20 Japanese tourists. Huh?

Before I could yell, “I am not the guy from Scrubs!”, I realized their tour guide was explaining the Citybike concept to them. Somewhere there are a bunch of photos belonging to Japanese tourists with a picture of me with a shocked expression on my face that says, “What the fuck are you all staring at?”

On my birthday last Sunday while I was in Copenhagen, I stopped into a pub called Bloomsday for an afternoon pint or two. What drew my attention to this pub from over a block away was the live Irish music coming from inside. Supposedly, sessions happen regularly on Sundays between 3-6pm and musicians just show up, both Irish and Danish, and start jamming. I was lucky enough to have my video camera with me and I was able to record a few minutes for your viewing enjoyment.