In which Amis are too happy and fingers get cold.

I had an interesting cultural experience a couple weeks ago that I was rather surprised by and then promptly forgot about. It came about when I went to see a performance-art-esque-performance of The Hunchback of Notre Dame at a popular alternative theater space in Hamburg in conjunction with the theater class I audited this semester. It was a very, very interesting show that involved the audience walking in circles around a room wearing mega protective headphones attached to wheelbarrows with string and a lot of impossibly loud bass and fog and costumed persons breaking out of plastered walls and smashing boards over helmeted heads and... cool stuff, really. I went on a whim and hadn't done much research about it beforehand, was open to whatever happened and thus had a jolly good time.

On the bus afterward I found myself standing next to a man from my wheelbarrow pod of audience and he asked me what I had thought of it-- also asking if I was a typical, run-of-the-mill audience member and not a critic or theater studies major of whatevah. Unsure of his motive, I told him that I found it interesting and enjoyed myself, etc. He then let the cat out of the bag and said he was part of a very prestigious organization that provides funding for performing arts groups and had come from Berlin to check out this group after having received a funding request. After asking where I was from (and then asking if I could understand what he was saying and if he was speaking too quickly [ugh, bitte]), he said something along the lines of, "Well yes, that's very typical. Put an American in a room with a little stimulation and they'll be happy." He said this in what sounded to me like a very degrading tone, which I took to mean that American's aren't culturally refined enough to form their own opinions and recognize bad art. I immediately had the urge to defend myself and pointed out that, of course, not all Americans were like that. Then I realized that my reaction to the play that I had just shared with him fit his idea of Americans perfectly, and that what he said was actually somewhat applicable to me. I do tend to be very open to and content with most sorts of performing arts matters and only look for the best in a performance rather than focus on aspects that I don't particularly like. I know that this makes me a terrible critic, but is that necessarily bad? Sure, I know when something doesn't tickle my fancy, but I'm so anti-complaining at the core that I find it much more pleasant to talk about nice things instead. All depending on circumstance, of course. Ugh, now I'm all flustered again. Here, look at these!:

Now for some Hamburgian winter scenes. And before we return to the ice age, let it be known that I'm typing this with the window cracked and birdies tweeting outside about how pleased they are that the snow and ice is already gone (all in catchy statements of 140 characters or less, of course). Most of these were recently awakened from my hibernating hard drive.

< View from my swanky balcony. >

< / View from my swanky balcony. >

And my fave.

In which looking out the window brings a chuckle.

Witnessed 8:42am: Classic Hamburg Parking.

However, I think I'd give the prize for the Most Creative Parking to Smart cars, at least in this fine city. They appear to find themselves far superior to parking laws and whenever a controller struts over to write up a reprimand, the Smart just bats its windshield wipers at them adoringly and thus flirts its way out of a ticket. I have no idea why this association came into being, but whenever I see a wee liddow smaht cah parked diagonally/on a sidewalk/in a shopping cart/on a rooftop/wherever, I am always reminded of the dolphin complaints in Finding Nemo. I mean, really, they just think they're soooo cute.

...At least that's how I feel when I'm driving the paternal parental unit's bright yellow Smart convertible. It fits EVERYWHERE! Why take up an entire parking spot when I could courteously save it for an SUV and make up my own?

...Or not.

In which there is some people watching and a lot of legs.

I'd just managed to snag a forward-facing seat on the train at the ever-bustling Jungfernstieg stop when my suspiciously non-bustling wagon was suddenly innundated by a colorful flood of young hipsters. I braced myself for the wave of noise that usually follows such acts of nature, and when none came I braced myself harder in case the sound had drawn back in a solid tsunami of teenage word gush that would break any moment. Still nothing. Befuddled, I peeked in their general direction and saw that yes, they were talking up a tumult, but seeing as I can't hear with my eyes/don't understand sign language, all that washed over me was the choppy breezing of their handspeak. Two minutes later they all flowed out into the Hauptbahnhof. I watched them trickle up the escalators and sheepishly thought about stereotyping.

Later, the sun's barcode shadows turned the train into a strobing disco as we wooshed past thin, scantily-clad trees. I watched the bumblebee-striped light dance across the first-round rush hour faces and contemplated one of my favorite StoryPeople quotes:   

My favorite time of day is just at dark
when all thoughts of what must be done
stop & small pools of light come alive on
tired faces everywhere.

And on a completely unrelated note, Hamburg's got some supersized arachnid royalty residing in the art musuem.

If I was a spider princess, she said, I
would spin webs the color of sky & catch
drops of sunlight to give to children who
watch too much TV & then everyone
would remember to come outside to play.
If I was a spider princess, she said, things
would be different.

In which we look for Waldo and hope desperately that he'll hang on to his scarf and hat for a change.

Otherwise known as the Alstervergnügen, a.k.a. the "How many hot Glühwein-filled people can you pile on a frozen body of water before it breaks?"-Game. In case you're wondering, the answer is "x > 1,100,000", which happens to be the approximate number of hot Glühwein-filled people that swarmed the Alster last weekend. The icy wind of the past two weeks has been breezing rumors from Hamburger to Hamburger about whether or not, and then later when, the Alster would officially be opened for frolicking. It was finally announced at the end of last week that the ice was thick enough for a mega party and the city, a faithful proponant of festivals both spontaneous and planned, declared Alstervergnügen upon its citizens. For those of you who do not have the regular pleasure of having silly German sounds in your mouth, "das Vergnügen" translates into words such as "enjoyment", "fun", "pleasure", "amusement", and "delectableness". Basically it's like a big block party celebrating how cool it is to have your city built around a buncha watah. There's one every summer, but it rarely ever gets cold enough for the Alster to freeze over, which is clearly a perfect excuse to go spend excessive amounts of time out of doors. ...Right?

In anticipation of this event, I kept hearing people exclaim how the Alster only freezes over around once every ten years and how the last time this happened was in 1996 or some such rubbish. I know for a fact that the Alster was just as frozen and person-bedecked two winters ago, though I don't remember there being any official city Vergnügening, which must be what all the fuss is about. In any case, some friends and I added our footprints to the body count tally on Sunday. I'll tell you what, the giddiness on the ice spread faster than germs in a kindergarten classroom. Just like two years ago.

It was just a Hungry-Man frozen dinner buffet for the eyes. There were all flavors of people, bicycles, baby strollers, giddy diggidy dawgs, sledders, small people that were bundled to immobile extremes, big people bundled in incredible amounts of animal, ice skaters, smoochers and giant squid kites, to name a few. Booths were set up on both sides of the shore selling mulled wine, Wurst, delicious vegetarian curry and all sorts of other yums. Rosy grinning grimaces abounding. 

We mingled with the masses until the great snow-slurping fog replaced the sun residue with purpley haze and we all went home to drink tea and wrap our frozen legs in sweatpants warmed on the heater and snuggle up with the memory of the enjoyment, the fun, the pleasure, the amusement, the delectableness of the day.

Techno-update: The puta's dead like whoa, but thanks to the Mighty Notification Umph of the Book of Faces, a friend heard of my plight and offered to sell me her swanky new Netbook for a delicious price. It basically looks like a regular laptop that someone accidentally stuck in the dryer. A cute little thing that functions well while lacking the convenient burdons of lots of memory space and DVD drives. The keyboard dimensions are teaching my fingers to type in a squished and German fashion, but I don't have any serious complaints. I did lose a very healthy chunk of my research notes and oodles of photos, though I am confident that they can be rescued from eternal hard drive hibernation with some careful techno-spelunking. Now I've just got all these mega terabytes of gratefulness for being back on the bandwagon and nowhere to store them.

In which we experience technical difficulties.

Hey all,
My laptop started smoking this morning (I told it that was a bad idea) and then melted some of its plastic bits and now I, uhh, seem to be laptopless. (Well, my lap still has a top, but the computer that I usually put on it no longer functions.) Does anyone have recommendations for potential new models/anything?
Much appreciated.
Love, m.