Bachies Finale

This is the University where I work - it is a castle, literally.

Yesterday was the last lecture of the semester for all the Bachelor students at the University of Mannheim and it was glorious. In case you haven't guessed, this was also the last lecture of the first course I co-organized. It was also the first bachelor class to graduate from the University which sounds crazy but you must remember that Germany did not have a bachelor/master degree structure previously so you could only get a diplom. Anyway, I think I was as excited as some of the students to see the course come to a close and anticipate having free time on Wednesdays again so I can focus on my own research. Of course, there are still grades to distribute and exams to administer and correct but the lectures are over.
During this last lecture I was quickly reminded that there is no such thing as a dry campus in Germany and it was odd. First of all, we noticed a few students with sunglases on inside and a couple who brought along a beer. About 10 minutes into the lecture the class got loud and we heard yelling from the hallway then three students entered. These students were dressed rather unusually, kind of Germany's version of white trash - a wife beater, sweat pants and socks with adidas type slides. They were appropriately accessorized with cliche tattoos, a grocery store bag of "stuff" and large cans of beer (5,0 brewed in Braunscherig), one even wore a mullette wig. They stopped in the front of the class and yelled something in a crazy accent then popped their beers and "prosted" the class in unison. At this point we realized there were more drinkers in the class than I thought becasue suddenly they wanted to be part of the toast. The class erupted in laughter and applause, I didn't know how to react. They just intereupted the professor's lecture and loudly drank beer in front of the classroom but it was funny, but I'm her support staff - can I laugh? I was not confused for long, when I looked away from our visitors, I noticed my professor laughing uncontrollably so much so that she stopped lecturing and asked the students if they had an extra beer for her. It was all in good fun and she recognized that. The students climbed over some empty chairs and "ordered" others to move so they could sit in the center of the lecture hall and maintained character throughout. At one point, they showed their appriciation of the professor by yelling (in the crazy accent) at the rest of the students to be quiet or go home so they could listen and when I needed a volunteer Mr. Mullett quickly volunteered one of his wingmen who executed without a problem. The lecture went off without any (other) major distractions and I learned that drinking on cmpus is not terrible. I really have no idea how this would go oveer at URI, I guess it would depend mostly on the professor and his or her sense of humor and respect for the rules. Who knows, maybe URI's days as a dry campus will soon come to an end with the end of Bobby C.'s reign.
Yesterday was also monumental for our department as one of my colleagues became a Doctor, the first one from our department of which she was a founding assistant in 2005. Congratulations Dr. S if you find this!! It was super exciting/emotional for all of us and motivating to me in a way that i can't explain. Every time I am in the atrium of the building in which the theses defense takes place, I see the candidates surronded by family and friends who have come to show their support (and grad students who have come to say congratulations, maybe fantasize and enjoy the refreshments). These occasions make me think of my family coming over to support me on my day. I don't even know if they will be able to but, I hope my parents and my brothers and my aunts and uncles and cousin will be there to see me become a doctore one day (I have a few years). It means so much to me that I've alread put the bug in their ears and mentioned a trip to Rome as a celebration/bribe. One da it will be my turn but there is a lot of hard work and luck standing between me and that day.
In case you were wondering FoKuHiLa (pronounced as foecoheela) is the Geramn word for mullett which I happened to learn ast weekend. The first letter should be the only capital letter but I capitalized the others to point out that it is actually a word play of sorts comprised of (Forna Kurtz, Hinter Lange) which translates to Front short, back long. Proving once again that Germany truely deserves it place as the most low context culture and a common textbook example.

Finished Product

Today, I completed my chair. I didn't actually build the chair but I gave it a new life.Yay for recycling! This chair was old and wooden with a terrible cork looking (but actually not) seat. I guess I should have taken a before picture for reference but I have another chair just like it so I will try to remember the before picture next time. I rescued these two chairs on my way home from work one day last fall. From the start, I planned to sand, paint and upholster them but they sat in the garage all winter awaiting a nice spring day and a trip to the local hardware mega store for the proper tools. In case you are interested, you would need sand paper, paint, foam and a staple gun. I got the fabric from a textile shop. Total cost of materials for the two chairs was just under 25 EUR but one third of the cost was the staple gun which I can use again.
I know I said I had two chairs but there is only one here and that is where this story gets a bit more interesting. Unbeknown to me someone had completely reinforced the other chair with screws and glue around the seams which means I was unable to remove the cork looking seat. At this point, I do not have the set of two I was hoping for, however, I have two options. the first and plan would be to go through with the sanding and painting of the other chair as is and upholster the entire bottom, not just the seat bit and maybe the top so it matches. This is more difficult because all of the seams would be visible and thus I would need to cover the staples and make sure all of the lines of the fabric line up on two sides. Option number two at first seemed unnecessary but may actually be the easiest. Apparently this was a popular chair style in its day because when we were at Patrick's parents' house last Christmas, I noticed they had one just like it sitting in the kitchen. When I mentioned that I recently picked up two identical chairs his mom offered me hers. Since we were there by plane, I didn't have a way to bring it with me and I didn't really need 3 chairs anyway so it stayed behind. Next week, Patrick will travel to his parents house by car so there is a possibility for him to bring it back this time. I like this plan because then I could have two identical chairs and get a different, black and white fabric to do the third one as a coordination.
I wish everyone could see the Eurovision song contest, mostly for the incredibly ridiculous teal 80s dresses the current group (representing Iceland) is wearing! The lead singer actually looks like she is going to the prom wearing a dress inspired by one of those toiletpaper cover dolls - insane!

Dieter Thomas Kuhn

Last Tuesday we celebrated my friend's Bachelorette days by going to a concert of one of her favorite performers, Dieter Thomas Kuhn. Basically he covers a bunch of 70s' songs and people dress in retro garb. I was told to dress like a hippie so I did. However, I expected pot-smoking, mellow, dirty hippies to be in attendance. It was actually super upbeat music sans drugs, dreadlocks and dirt. Here' what some of my friends wore: Because it was a Tuesday we got dressed in the office and because we are classy ladies, we walked across the city in our outfits, sunglasses down making one stop to buy two bottles of sparkling wine from a discount grocery store. We met up with the MOH and surprised our friend at her house, kidnapping her and making her dress in the van we were on our way. Once we arrived at the concert, I began to notice that EVERYONE was dressed and we were actually a bit under dressed. In keeping with German tradition for a bachelorette party, our friend had a list of things she needed to do in order to be allowed to marry (of course this is not serious but it makes it fun). One of her first tasks was to get men to sign her T-shirt. Check. Next, she needed to get 5 photos of her posing with shirtless men. This proved a bit more difficult and even though these men had nothing to hide, they refused to take their shirts off. I guess they didn't want to remove their green track suits. Apparently the band/lead singer often wears this same track suit to perform but during our show he wore something a little different. In the middle of this task the lights began to flicker so we headed into the concert hall to stake out a good place on the floor. unfortunately, several hundred people beat us to the best spots so we did our best to get close to the front of stage left. This later paid off big time when Dieter entered the audience and our bachelorette was able to talk her and 5 friends onto stage to dance with dieter. I was actually one of those friends, however, I got kicked out before I could get to the dancing part. It was probably for the best because I don't think I could have handled a solo dance with Dieter. Which reminds me, you must be wondering what Dieter wore, wonder no more you can revel in his three piece suit covered in silver sequins. Don't overlook that horrid moustache which was NOT on his face for the promo poster.

Throughout the performance, I thought he was serious and that his fans were insane. Last Friday, I wondered aloud if he wears his hair like that on a regular basis and my friend informed me that the whole show is a joke. Aparently he and his band started in the late 90s as a parody and soon found themselves playing to sold out audiences. After a couple of years, they retired on top convinced this insanity could not sustain its success and determined to quit while they were ahead. After several unsucessful attempts at their own music they disapeared. Recently they put out a new CD and began touring again to solidify their comeback. It is kind of visable that they are not in concert shape and Dieter didn't actually sing any of the songs. If you notice in that second to last photo, I was standing right next to him and could not hear his voice.
After the concert, we went to the impossibly packed afterparty, ditched for some frozen margaritas and capped the night off with a late night Italian dinner. By 4pm I was home in my bed and by 8:30 I was awake and headed to my longest day of work ever. Thanks to a large coffee, an ice cream bar and Coke light I made it through until 11:00pm the next day. I consider that a huge success.

Restoring My Faith in My People

If you live in MA or ME, today you celebrate Patriot Day. Unfortunately for me, I am not now nor was I ever a MA resident which means I don't celebrate Patriot Day and I don't get a German driving licence (but that's another story). In the spirit of this little known holiday,and because I'm a fan of the New England Partiots, let me know you a story.
Last Friday, I left my office like any other day, happy to be heading home after what felt like the longest short week ever, I called Patrick to gauge his arrival at the apartment. Upon closing my phone, a girl from behind asked "Where are you from?". If you are not German, you should know this NEVER happens, Germans may listen to your conversations but they never ask personal questions on the street (or at the strassenbahn stop) which reference said conversations. For a minute, I almost ignored her, not believing she was talking to me but then I caught on and I like new friends so I answered vaguely by saying, the US. She shot back, "I know that. Where in the US?" Already I didn't like this chick with her attitude and the rest of the conversation went a little something like this:
Me: RI, where are you from? Rude Chick: I'm American too, California. Me: Oh, I had to ask since I've met several Canadians in Mannheim (true story). RC: What are you here for, studying? Me: Yup, you? RC: Me too, what are you studying? Me: Marketing RC: That's pretty boring! Me: What are you studying? RC: Graphic Design Me: (realizing the University of Mannheim does not offer Graphic design) where? RC: at the Fachoschule (kind of like community college/trade school), it's just like a college degree.
::Around this time, I am beyond done with our conversation and thankfully see my train approaching, as I try to politely excuse myself to get the train, I learn she is taking the same train, ugg::: RC:(after we go about one stop and she tells me how hard German high school is, she asks) Isn't the University in the other direction? Me: It is actually back by the stop we got on at but I'm not going to the University. RC: What stop are we at? Me: ::reads stop off of the train sign:: RC: oh my stop is next. Me: Thank God! There was a lot more conversation on the train but mostly her telling me how hard her studies are and how she is doing so well in Germany for the past 5 years and speaking German, etc. I never got her name and hope to never see her again. I went home questioning the American attitude, are we really that obnoxious? Have I been in Germany for too long? Fast forward to Monday morning. I walk to my stop on my way to work a bit earlier than normal and sitting on the bench in the stop is a girl who screams AMERICAN. First of all she is wearing a UCONN Hoodie, jeans and sneakers, topped off with a ponytail and rhinestone sunglasses on her head and a mini sport Huskies back pack. She stands out like a sore thumb in my mind but after last week's experience I don't know if I should approach her or even stay anywhere near her in case she catched onto me. For the record, I was blending in rather well with my white pants, black polo, jean jacket and black and white scarf, my hair was in a loose bun with a head band and I was carrying my Longschamp tote. I sat down next to her and took out my keys in the hope that she may notice my Vera Bradley ID holder (only an Amei would recognize a Vera pattern). It didn't work and in an effort to restore my faith in my people, I said excused myself in German and asked her if she was from CT. Apparently she was from MA but went to UCONN and is now in Germany to go to the Music school but it didn't live up to her expectations so she is soon to transfer to Holland, at UCONN she studied accounting and worked as an actuary before deciding to study opera in Europe. Her parents are both opera singers so it is in her blood. Her name is Brittney and we had a short conversation, she was very nice and talked more than I so I kind of know her life story. I guess I just needed a New Englander to restore my faith in Americans abroad. Now I can rest easy once again.

I've got Mail

This morning I was pleasantly greeted with photos in my inbox. The first email was from an MBA classmate who I had all but lost touch with for the past 2 years. She had a baby in March and sent the cutest newborn photos, what exciting news! Following these pictures of the future I had another message with a photo from my past.
One of my best friends is moving across country and in the process of packing things up from his parents house, he came across a pre-digital photo from a high school era party in his back yard. I won't share the photo but will tell you it is of my favorite girls from Pawtucket and we are somehow making a human chair with our arms. Thankfully we had good taste and our outfits are not regrettable circa 1998 summer tank tops and shorts. This picture came with a note, "Wish we could all be back here again for one summer's afternoon". It really gave me something to think about on my morning commute. What are the odds that we could ever recreate that moment from the not so distant past...slim. Of the three of us in the photo, one is in NYC, the other Boston and I'm across the Atlantic, the sender is about to be in San Diego. I started thinking of great high school times I had with these three and it is hard to realize we have all grown up and moved on. It has been 10 years since we were sophomores in high school but so much has changed. We could barely drive then and now we graduated college and past our sophomore years in the real world. Maybe we will all be home for the holidays, maybe we won't. We keep in touch via phone, email and facebook but we miss birthday parties and random meetings. Thinking back to high school and even college, it was so easy to have all of your friends at arms length, walking distance even. Now I am a world away and the distance is increasing. I long for the days of bathing suits and volleyball when Mapquest could tell us how to get anywhere and we could just drive. We worked part time to pay for gas, movies and clothes and did sports every day after school. At the same time, I am happy to move forward, to accomplish things on my own and not need to depend on my parents (although I miss their swimming pool on warm summer nights) but I miss those summer days that often ran long into the night.

What a Wreck

The kitchen was super clean and I just saw a recipie for cherry vanilla cupcakes and frosting today so I thought I would try my hand at making a cake from scratch. Up until now I'd only ever made cakes from packages and used frosting from the can (or whatever you want to call the plastic thing that frosting comes in) so this seemed like as good a time as any to try to bake a cake from scratch. I alreadz planned to bring my nice fluffy cake to work tomorrow and share with my colleagues. Well, as you may have guessed it didn't turn out as I was expecting...or really anything like I could ever imagine. I decided to make a chocolate cherry cake insead of vanilla because, really who does not like chocolate!? I also added a drop of red food coloring since the cherry juice made the frosting look a dirtyish pale pink but none of this mattered becasue the cake looks like this. That leaf looking thing is what I saw when I flipped the cake out of my spring form pan. I know the point of a spring form is so you don't have to flip but I wanted to see what the underside looked like. When I put in the toothpick to test if it was done I suspected the middle to be hallow. I never tried to make it hallow, all I wanted was light and fluffy. This is the most dense cake I have ever made. Oh and the frosting, don't bother. However, I will share my new found frosting knowledge that is is all butter and sugar, eww! So, I had a couple of problems and I think the main reason is that I don't own a mixer so this "cake" was completely mixed by hand with a whisk and aparently I suck at whisking. I should also admit that the frosting was looking more like a cake sauce than frosting at one point after I gave up and added lots of cherry juice so I threw in some flouer to get it back to that icing consisenct. Clearly my colleagues are not getting cake tomorrow but maybe I'll show them what they could have had haha. Betty Crocker is my new best friend. *Edit: I forgot to mention that I broke a bowl (one of my favorites) and spilled half a bag of sugar in the process of making this wreck.

Prague Pub Crawl

On our last night in Prague, we decided it was time to create our own pub crawl/beer tour. There are several of these geared at tourists which range from 3 hours (including dinner) to a full night of clubs. However, it was Sunday night, we already had a favorite restaurant where we intended to eat our last dinner (except it was closed so we didn't) and we knew which local beers we wanted to try so we went rogue on this one with incredible success. There were some ground rules, we could not drink the same beer twice, we each had a must have, we would drink no more than 6 half liters each and a photo must be taken of each beer. The night was about to start off with dinner at our favorite restaurant, Geronimo. This was our favorite restaurant because it was right next door to our hotel, already served us 2 delicious dinners and was super cheap. Besides, they had Patrick's choice beer on tap so we could knock that one out early. I should mention that the Czech Republic, like Germany, is a beer country. That being said, we were surprised to find that each bar/restaurant only had one or two beers on tap. Sometimes one restaurant would have the same beer offered at 2 or 3 different levels of potency (10, 11 or 12 with the price reflecting the increase in alcohol %). Moving forward, we found the Music Cafe where we decided to have dinner and our first beer of the night. The appetizers and atmosphere were up to par (funky but not touristy) but neither of us were satisfied with out main dish. Gambrinus was on tap and we had out half liter but it was not our favorite, it was by no means a bad beer but it didn't leave a lasting impression but I would go back to this restaurant and have the schafkase appetizer with a non-local main dish, I can't handle those dumplings! We were off and looking for Budweiser since it managed to elude us all trip. I observed a sign earlier so we headed to what we thought was a pub. Upon entering, we were told they would close at 9p,. Unaware of the time due to a dead battery in my cell phone, I mentioned that we just wanted a beer and asked if we would have time for a Budvar (the local word for the brand). This is where everything unraveled. The woman who greeted us told me they only had one type of beer, Pilsner Urquell in bottles. Disappointed, we walked out and reread the menu posted outside. It appeared that what used to be a restaurant was now more of a cafe serving cake, ice cream and coffee but instead of removing the light up Budweiser sign, old menu and name of the former restaurant they simply added another (smaller and unlit) sign proclaiming Lamborghini Cafe - only Italians would find this acceptable! After taking the strassenbahn back and forth between the same two stops for 10 minutes, we found another bar very close to our hotel advertising AND serving Budweiser. From the outside this place looked impressive, large light up signs with multiple logos, a fresh coat of paint and a side street location reassuring us it is not a tourist destination. Don't judge a book by its cover. When we walked inside, this is what we saw. It looked like it may have been decorated by the owner of a Greek restaurant complete with pastel walls, random decoration, and blue carpet on the floors. There was also a sectional sofa in one corner and a DJ set up in the middle of it all complete with a keyboard and light setup. But the entire place was empty except for a handful of locals hanging out in a small side room who said something to us in Czech when we entered. I quickly ordered our 2 Budvars and took in the atmosphere...
I'll leave you in a bit of suspense as you will never guess what was about to happen. We were so surprised, we broke one of our own rules and had 2 of the same beers in the same location.