Prostitution is legal in Germany. Every town has its scene. Hamburg has the Reeperbahn and red-light district. Berlin has Oranienburger Strasse. Even little Lüneburg has a small street offering käufliche Liebe out in the open. Most of the action is supposedly in small 1 or 2 room brothels. In the street where we used to live, down about 5 houses, there was a Puff. It was very discreet. There was never any shady antics going on other than a few sheepish looking guys nervously waiting around after they ran the doorbell. No one, at least in Lüneburg and as far as I know, has made a fuss or tried to have them shut down.

Apparently there is also a brothel 2 doors down from our new place. Certain clues gave it away: Red lights in the window, a few nervous looking fellas entering and leaving 20-30 minutes later, and the names on the doorbell keep changing every few weeks. It is still very discreet and doesn’t seem to be causing a problem.

Until…

Last week M. was home alone when the doorbell rang. Thinking it was me, she opened the door excitedly. There was a nervous looking middle-aged guy wearing glasses and a hat standing on our doorstep with his face in a shadow.

Uh, ist Matilda da?

Hier wohnt keine Matilda!

Slam!

The poor schlub probably thought he hit the jackpot there for a second.

Oh wie geil! Wah-wah-wee-wah!

I can imagine that he was disappointed when the door slammed in his face and he realized he was at the wrong address.

Oh Scheisse!

No Winter for Europe via SpiegelOnline

Only two weeks before the official start of winter, Europe is sweating. An unusually warm autumn — which was last week credited for Germany’s fourth quarter economic surge — is forcing ski resorts to market hiking holidays, and bears to seek out places cold enough to hibernate.

Won’t somebody think of the bears?

The Goethe Institute held a competition to find the word that would most benefit the English language.

Elaborating she said that “one-track specialist” was not quite right because “a specialist is nobody you would call an idiot. A one-track specialist is somebody who knows a lot about a particular field; a Fachidiot as well.”

“The difference is that a one-track specialist still notices what is going on around him, in the world which has nothing to do with university. A Fachidiot simply does not, or not anymore.”

Read more about it at the EU Observer.

This might seem like what English speakers would call a nerd. I assure you, it is different. An Übernerd perhaps? It’s like Gemütlichkeit. Yes, it can mean cozy or comfortable, but it just doesn’t hit the nail on the head.

This article also mentions one of my all-time favorite German words: Backpfeifengesicht – a face that cries out for a fist in it. Unfortunately, there was no mention of Arschkrampe.

Here is more info about so-called “migrant words” that have German origins.

Here’s a secret for those who kept reading this far….

Germans, when prefixing a word to get the meaning that is intended by English speakers with the prefix Über-, would probably use Ober- instead. In some cases Über- might work, but I find that Ober- is used more often by the natives to express the desired meaning.

At an American office, you might here this: I dunno how the server should be configured. Let’s ask whatshisname in the basement. He’s the übergeek around here.

German: Keine Ahnung wie der Server konfiguriert werden soll. Frag mal den Heini im Keller. Der ist hier der Oberfachidiot.

If you are unsure, just use Mega-. It works both ways and usually leaves no doubt. Hää Alda, Du bist ja ein Megatrottel!

For those that didn’t know, I went to the US for a short visit last week for Thanksgiving. It was my first time celebrating Thanksgiving since 2000. I have been here that long. I went to St. Pete Beach in Florida and visited my parents. It was unfortunately a short visit but it was well worth it. When I got back the Weihnachtsmarkt and lights in Lüneburg were in full swing. Now that I have been back for a week, I have noticed that the weather is really warn considering it is already December. I had a Glühwein the other day with a few friends and it felt weird drinking it while not freezing my ass off.

I’ve been jogging with a group for the last 6-7 months to keep in shape. I think I may have messed up my right foot. After I have been sitting or laying for a while and then I get up, it hurts when I put weight on it. After a few steps and stretching it out, it feels better but I went to the doctor yesterday (waited in line for 2 hours fo a 10 minute meeting) and got a prescription for shoe lifts for running. While I was there I had a whole list of ailments for which I was sure to get ärztliche Überweisungen (I swear, once you hit 30 you start falling apart). As far as I know it works like this here: If you have a problem you have to go to your normal family doctor before you can go to a specialist. Even if you know the doctor is just going to give you a referral, you still have to get it from him first before you can go to the specialist. There may be some exceptions; I don’t know. I also don’t know if a semicolon belongs in that sentence. Maybe, maybe not. Read the disclaimer above.

Right now I am listening to Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here” on vinyl. Earlier I was listening to Willie Nelson’s forgotten concept album “Tougher Than Leather”. It is really good. Meike got these records at a flea market a long time ago but I only just listened to them for the first time after hooking up an old record player she inherited from her grandmother. Yeah.

Somewhere near Spyglass Dr. and Sandestin Dr.

Dönerladen 4, originally uploaded by chillmost.

On Sunday M and I went to Bardowick to look at cars. Next to one of the lots we saw an imbiss that got torched. I had read about it in the local paper a few days earlier.

What’s for Breakfast?

Honey Balls!!

So now the Dems control the House and possible the Senate. Are they really going to be able to make the necessary changes with such a slim majority? We’ll see. For the past year I haven’t discussed politics much here or elsewhere. This is because it makes me so angry. Just typing this I feel my blood pressure go up. I have been known to really raise my voice and start yelling when the subject comes up. I can’t believe that after all the shit that went down in the last 6 years, this is all the Dems can win back? This slim majority? They didn’t lay out any strong alternative policy that draws up support for them. People just voted for them because they were sick of the Republicans’ shit. Jon Stewart expressed similar sentiments when he described the Democrats’ election strategy as “backing slowly out of the room as your sibling is getting yelled at for burning down the garage”.

Something tells me, we’re not out of the woods yet. If they don’t start cleaning house soon and mass mailing subpoenas, they are going to lose what they didn’t work so hard to get.

The European reaction.

Meh!

In our new house, my room is on the ground floor and used to be a Kneipe way back in the day. It used to be called “Viskulenhof” and the proprietor was Heinrich Martens. Here are some pictures of back then….

Date unknown: mid 1940’s perhaps. I’m basing this on the photo quality and exposure settings. Also there are no wrong-way and “Radfahrer erlaubt” signs. It also doesn’t appear to have rain gutters on the roof like in the next pictures.

These two next photos are dated August 1950. I assume this is the same guy. In these pictures he is a little heavier and a little older than in the previous. He is also wearing glasses.

My landlord grew up in the house as did his parents. I’m not sure if Herr Martens was related or not. He recalled from when he was a kid seeing horse-drawn wagons come down that street to deliver beer barrels to the Kneipe and bring other goods to the river which is just at the end of the street.

This is the house today. Sometime between 1950 and today the 3rd story was extended. It felt weird to be standing in the same spot taking the same picture. If walls could talk, I’m sure my room would have quite a few stories to tell.