Notes from Germany
I am an American expat living in Germany. It's a far away land on the other side of the ocean. It's interesting and often weird here. If you read this and want to comment then email me at nate(the at symbol)chillmost.com. If you find any spelling or grammar mistakes, you can keep them.
Friday, July 30, 2004
28
As of this moment it is officially my birthday. W007!!!11 But I'm still a year younger by St. Louis time. For a few hours anyway.I just saw Fahrenheit 911 a few hours ago. It was pretty tough. Yeah sure Moore has his own agenda and you have to see past, or around, it but, damn... If Bush is elected to a second term we are all in serious trouble. I need some time to sort it out. So if you haven't seen it yet, you should.
Wednesday, July 28, 2004
I'm trying to learn how to play the banjo shown in the previous post. Maybe someday I will be able to play just as good as these guys.
Monday, July 26, 2004
While I was supposed to be taking it easy over the weekend I did do a little home improvement and finally hung some instruments on the wall. I now have lots more space in my room without all those cases all over. It was a lot of work finding the the right Dübel and Schraube combination.
Well the weather is definitely improving. The weekend was great up until yesterday. I didn't really get a chance to enjoy it however because I got some sort of tendonitis (Sehnenreizung is what the doctor called it) in my knee and had to do what I do best: Take it easy. Last thursday my friend had to help walk me home because it was too painful. Now I'm feeling almost tip-top. I was supposed to go up to the Baltic Sea and enjoy some barbecue and beers but it was not to be.
War and Emerging Remembrance (washingtonpost.com): An interesting article about German veterans of WWII and their coming to grips with the war and its aftermath.
" The shifting current funneled the landing craft toward the eastern end of Omaha Beach, where they disgorged men directly below Hein Severloh's camouflaged machine gun nest. He recalls emptying belt after belt of ammunition, raking the shoreline for hours as wave upon wave of American GIs struggled through the blood-red surf."
The effects of the war are still present in everyday live here in Germany. Every once and a while old bombs from allied raids are found in the woods or during construction and have to be detonated/defused. When that happens everybody in like a half kilometer radius needs to be evacuated. M's mom watched Hamburg get annihilated from her attic window when she was a child. There was an anti-aircraft gun about a kilometer from her house. She remembers going out into the garden as she was a kid and seeing a fighter pilot (English or American, alive or dead, I don't remember) hanging with his parachute tangled in a tree. Then ladies in the neighborhood cut down the parachute just to get at the silk.
Crazy.
