i know that some of you here also read my other blog. just for your information: i've uploaded some of the more "artistic" pics - i'm not suggesting quality here, but their function was more aesthetic than documentary - of my stay in the us there along with photos that i took a while ago. you might or might not be interested in swinging by there and checking it out, and as always, i appreciate comments greatly, so feel free to speak out whatever they provoke in you :)
Donnerstag, 15. Oktober 2009
Mittwoch, 14. Oktober 2009
so. chicago.
today, or, by the time i upload this it will be yesterday, i did not:
- go up on the sears tower and take a pic on that glass floor thingy
- go to the planetarium, the institute of arts or the museum of contemporary photography
- go to the millennium park
- buy shoes
- recharge my camera battery before hopping on – i mean: boarding – the train
- have coffee at intelligencia or whatever that coffee bar was called that trevor had recommended me
- have real chicago style lunch as everyone i ever spoke to in the us urged me to have. well, maybe not every single one. but pretty much everyone.
all things that i more (photography) or less (willis formerly known and by me still referred to as sears tower) wanted to do. wow. i think i’ve missed the whole touristy program.
and here’s why:
i got up early after staying up late. i did not make myself coffee, which would have been a smart idea because it keeps me from being grumpy on such days. i had a nice plan, such a nice plan… i had googled where i had to get off the bus which made me feel really local and not touristy at all, apart from the fact, that i had trouble with the complicated money-in-the-machine-putting ceremony. i had drawn a map into my notebook that was supposed to keep me from getting lost. i had a vague idea of the geographical logic of the area. i wanted to get out near union station, take a couple of pics of that because i hadn’t gotten a chance to do so when i arrived as i’ve mentioned before, go to the sears tower, then to the millennium park, downtown, to the aquarium, planetarium and if i then still had time to the photography thing. bunny would get out of work round 5:30, so there was plenty of time, i thought. weather was supposed to be nice and sunny and ideal for taking pics. well, it was, for about the first half hour i was walking around, and then again from time to time – most of the time the light sucked.
anyway: here’s what happened: i got out at the right stop, and i felt pretty much touristy because i did not see how to open the door at first. no embarrassing moments there, but nonetheless: touristy, especially when going downtown from the chicago ghetto area (that’s what the people who live there call it), is not how i wanted to feel. i wanted to be all cool and local and stuff, damn it!
when i got out i realized i needed to do something about my grumpiness. since i was right at the station i went through with the first point on my masterplan: union station
but decided to skip on going up the sears tower – was not my highest priority anyway, and i thought, i might still do that later or never or whenever – and to go straight on to the aquarium, because i love going to the aquarium or, well, at least that’s what i thought at that moment. to make a long story short: i took a wrong turn, did not realize that and walked into the exact opposite direction of where everything of the above was located.
i would not call it “i got lost”, because most of the time i had the feeling to kind of know or be able to guess where i was – but, in the end, maybe let’s just say: i got lost. i was greatly surprised when i came out on canal street – wow. how on earth did i end up there?!? – but then again i didn’t mind at least knowing where i was: about another 2 miles away from where i wanted to be.
canal
street
normal ave
selbstauslöser
anybody tell me please - why no confetti?!?
lake michigan
when i had finally made it to the aquarium it was already round two o’clock – remember, bunnie wanted to pick me up round 5:30…. nice. i went in, it was community something something day which basically means free admission to some parts and discount on the fancy stuff of the exhibition (sharks, dolphins, whales, penguins, sea lions, otters and the like).
lunch
i walked around there and realized i’m not so interested in aquariums anymore, except for the fancy stuff and the giant turtles, cause giant turtles are awesome.
fancy stuff
well hello, handsome fellow - look at how green you are and all...
but what i’m even less interested in is having limited time to try and figure out a way to make my camera take good pictures in the dark with reflecting windows between me and the fishies while the latter ones constantly keep moving. not so much fun. i’ve never spent so much time on editing my pics afterwards to make them look halfway decent.
on the other hand – some of them turned out real fancy and somewhere between artistic and otherworldly:
so, hey, the glass is always three quarters full, right?
okay, so i walked through the aquarium for about two hours, then i had some coffee at the café there – sorry trev, i really had to sit down for a while (i do realize that sounds like i’m sixty-seven) after walking for 6 straight hours and also, to some of the folks who have known me for a while: remember my evil nasty no good knee? it’s returned today. welcome back.
yay, next crisis on – after losing my purse, cancelling my credit card, then having the purse found by daniel, then not being able to undo the cancelation and not having a chance of getting a solid new one around here, having the new card sent to my home, leo had to sent me the number but was on vacation at the time when it arrived – after getting that nice kidney stuff (which is over and all back to good now, as it seems) with my insurance bouncing back – running out of minutes on my phone right at the time when i needed it the most to organize chicago – after the death of my bank card and thus no access to cash – no kidding: i must have really spoiled my karma somehow. of course quite a few of these events – as not to say: almost all of them - were my own, well if not stupidity, then at least disorganization and maybe carelessness: i just somehow don’t really care for any of it, i keep my spirits up and laugh about it all and just hope to find a way of dealing with it and finding some sort of solution, but why is it that i can do that? only because there are so many people around here who constantly take care of me – literally like a net that saves me from falling while i seem to be nagging on it from all sides – without masha and brett and daniel and kalan and bunnie and brian and steve and bliss and leo i would probably be long sitting rolled up under some table or bed, crying. instead i keep having the best time thanks to you – at least now i really don’t see what else there is that could possibly go wrong anymore that does not involve… well, let’s not jinx it. oh my, maybe all that’s how i spoil my karma…. anyway, what i’m trying to say is: i think i’m good now and it’s only another week of anna collecting trouble in the us, so you’re probably off the hook :) just to let you know folks: i really do appreciate all your help, hospitality and generosity as well as your just being there and my friends. i really hope i can give something back at some point, no need to say that you are all welcome to come hang out with me in bremen anytime you like (or berlin from next year on, hooray! and - well. maybe not exactly aaaany time. if i have a major piano exam coming up i can be somewhat awkward ;) ).
but back to topic:
after having that coffee at the aquarium, i went downtown, just checking out the area, seeing what’s there – bunnie had driven me and us around on sunday already, and again on monday when we went to the zoo, to the Italian beef/sausage place, to get some cheddar and caramel popcorn – sounds disgusting/is fantastic – and cruised around the lake shore for a while – but i prefer walking places when i travel: i have the feeling i make the place part of me and myself part of the place, and i only feel like i really have seen it when i walk somewhere (bike might work, too, though): acquirement of area through pedestrian activity (footnote: maybe i should sign up for the army, i hear there are troops who walk a lot and it seems to be a talent of mine. i could get paid for that there).
so, anyway, when i actually knew where i was and there was some life around me (you see, while i was lost i was walking around in an area where almost no people were out in the streets) i felt like i kind of got chicago for the first time.
it is a place with a lively nightlife, famous for its shows and restaurants. i guess if you want to have a fun time with some good people or if you want to go shopping and spend a lot of money, this is a place to go – and it might also have an interesting subculture, but this i only guess from a couple of indications.
i did not get to know any subculture, i would say i had a rather family-like experience, i felt somewhat like a high school exchange student on a two week trip to some place – in a good way, though, i really had a great time in chicago thanks to bunnie and jasmine.
also it was quite fancy riding our bikes through the night time chicago ghetto, i felt all adventurous and such :)
the food is definitely very interesting there – the weird popcorn has been mentioned, but what about eating pizza with mushrooms, spinach and pepperoni (salami for germans) on it dressed up with extra parmesan cheese and shredded red pepper? that’s a whole new definition of extra cheese, and of pizza, for that matter: it might well be that i’ve had the best pizza of my life – or at least for a very long time – tonight.
i am under the impression that chicago has a lot of de facto racial segregation – you know, hispanics in certain parts, blacks in other ones though those two are probably more mixed among each other than any of them with the whites and so on, and that the shiny glass façade the city keeps up downtown is not what it really is about – downtown is a nice but expensive area, as in so many places in the world – but it does really not take a long ride to get out of the perfect picture. maybe that’s why there used to be (or maybe even still is? i don’t really know i must admit) a grand jazz scene there – we actually passed by a duke ellington elementary school, how cool is that! i suppose that today they might have a notable hip hop scene, cause there are a lot of young people there, they’ve got a variety of colleges, too. however i suspect that this is not where the genuine hiphoppers derive from – i’ve met those two friends of jasmine’s who are latinas and from what i’ve seen and heard around the garfield area and from what their perception of life is i take it chicago is not a shiny happy no worries man place.
interesting, because it is a very different part of the us culture i got to know there, i really appreciate that. not that i had never been to a ghettolike place before – come on, i grew up in gröpelingen and such – so i had been acquainted with the general way of expression, like speaking in a different manner, a different register as we linguists call it, than middle or upper class people, getting your cheeks pierced and your ears tattooed, having other expectations from life, hanging out at the gas station at night etc., if not in the exact same way so at least in some other.
still chicago is a whole lot bigger then bremen, but what struck me the most is that racial question, a thing that had never played a role in my life or where i grew up – i used to live in an area with a high turkish immigrant population, but i never felt out of place when i walked around there. interesting.
chicago for the rich
and the not so rich
the pool table at which i sucked playing big time
as of now i’m back on the road, heading to boston. i think i have forgotten to mention: wisconsin looks like podmoskovye (moscow suburbian and surrounding areas) with the exact same vegetation and landscape. look how small the world is, when you come to think of it.
oh yeah, wisconsin by the way connects minnosota and illnois – minnesota being northwest of it, illionis east, i guess. i’m particularly impressed with my newly acquired geography of the us-skills – is there any song or rhyme or whatever they make you learn in grade school to learn all the states by heart? cause there is none for the capitals of the german bundesländer (states) and obviously i cannot learn 16 cities by heart without a song, right, even if three of them are one-city-states and some other ones are pretty obvious. never.
and also i have forgotten to mention: anyone who wants to visit the states and plans on going by train there, do it, it definitely is worth a shot because those trains are extremely comfortable, you almost for certain get a double seat for yourself, they’ve got plugs at some seats (that’s why i had a chance to write this entry and to recharge my camera battery) and they’ve just handed out pillows to everyone, and with the isic (that international student id you get for 12 euros at the asta bremen for instance) you get a 15% discount on the tickets – it’s definitely worth it.
some more chicago for you - i like that one:
or marge, you never know...
scary
lol. yeah, sure thing.
thanks a lot to bunnie and jasmine and toni again, take care and send me your kid at some point – remember: we socialists gotta look out for each other :)
i would not call it “i got lost”, because most of the time i had the feeling to kind of know or be able to guess where i was – but, in the end, maybe let’s just say: i got lost. i was greatly surprised when i came out on canal street – wow. how on earth did i end up there?!? – but then again i didn’t mind at least knowing where i was: about another 2 miles away from where i wanted to be.
canal
street
normal ave
selbstauslöser
anybody tell me please - why no confetti?!?
lake michigan
when i had finally made it to the aquarium it was already round two o’clock – remember, bunnie wanted to pick me up round 5:30…. nice. i went in, it was community something something day which basically means free admission to some parts and discount on the fancy stuff of the exhibition (sharks, dolphins, whales, penguins, sea lions, otters and the like).
lunch
i walked around there and realized i’m not so interested in aquariums anymore, except for the fancy stuff and the giant turtles, cause giant turtles are awesome.
fancy stuff
well hello, handsome fellow - look at how green you are and all...
but what i’m even less interested in is having limited time to try and figure out a way to make my camera take good pictures in the dark with reflecting windows between me and the fishies while the latter ones constantly keep moving. not so much fun. i’ve never spent so much time on editing my pics afterwards to make them look halfway decent.
on the other hand – some of them turned out real fancy and somewhere between artistic and otherworldly:
so, hey, the glass is always three quarters full, right?
okay, so i walked through the aquarium for about two hours, then i had some coffee at the café there – sorry trev, i really had to sit down for a while (i do realize that sounds like i’m sixty-seven) after walking for 6 straight hours and also, to some of the folks who have known me for a while: remember my evil nasty no good knee? it’s returned today. welcome back.
yay, next crisis on – after losing my purse, cancelling my credit card, then having the purse found by daniel, then not being able to undo the cancelation and not having a chance of getting a solid new one around here, having the new card sent to my home, leo had to sent me the number but was on vacation at the time when it arrived – after getting that nice kidney stuff (which is over and all back to good now, as it seems) with my insurance bouncing back – running out of minutes on my phone right at the time when i needed it the most to organize chicago – after the death of my bank card and thus no access to cash – no kidding: i must have really spoiled my karma somehow. of course quite a few of these events – as not to say: almost all of them - were my own, well if not stupidity, then at least disorganization and maybe carelessness: i just somehow don’t really care for any of it, i keep my spirits up and laugh about it all and just hope to find a way of dealing with it and finding some sort of solution, but why is it that i can do that? only because there are so many people around here who constantly take care of me – literally like a net that saves me from falling while i seem to be nagging on it from all sides – without masha and brett and daniel and kalan and bunnie and brian and steve and bliss and leo i would probably be long sitting rolled up under some table or bed, crying. instead i keep having the best time thanks to you – at least now i really don’t see what else there is that could possibly go wrong anymore that does not involve… well, let’s not jinx it. oh my, maybe all that’s how i spoil my karma…. anyway, what i’m trying to say is: i think i’m good now and it’s only another week of anna collecting trouble in the us, so you’re probably off the hook :) just to let you know folks: i really do appreciate all your help, hospitality and generosity as well as your just being there and my friends. i really hope i can give something back at some point, no need to say that you are all welcome to come hang out with me in bremen anytime you like (or berlin from next year on, hooray! and - well. maybe not exactly aaaany time. if i have a major piano exam coming up i can be somewhat awkward ;) ).
but back to topic:
after having that coffee at the aquarium, i went downtown, just checking out the area, seeing what’s there – bunnie had driven me and us around on sunday already, and again on monday when we went to the zoo, to the Italian beef/sausage place, to get some cheddar and caramel popcorn – sounds disgusting/is fantastic – and cruised around the lake shore for a while – but i prefer walking places when i travel: i have the feeling i make the place part of me and myself part of the place, and i only feel like i really have seen it when i walk somewhere (bike might work, too, though): acquirement of area through pedestrian activity (footnote: maybe i should sign up for the army, i hear there are troops who walk a lot and it seems to be a talent of mine. i could get paid for that there).
so, anyway, when i actually knew where i was and there was some life around me (you see, while i was lost i was walking around in an area where almost no people were out in the streets) i felt like i kind of got chicago for the first time.
it is a place with a lively nightlife, famous for its shows and restaurants. i guess if you want to have a fun time with some good people or if you want to go shopping and spend a lot of money, this is a place to go – and it might also have an interesting subculture, but this i only guess from a couple of indications.i did not get to know any subculture, i would say i had a rather family-like experience, i felt somewhat like a high school exchange student on a two week trip to some place – in a good way, though, i really had a great time in chicago thanks to bunnie and jasmine.
also it was quite fancy riding our bikes through the night time chicago ghetto, i felt all adventurous and such :)
the food is definitely very interesting there – the weird popcorn has been mentioned, but what about eating pizza with mushrooms, spinach and pepperoni (salami for germans) on it dressed up with extra parmesan cheese and shredded red pepper? that’s a whole new definition of extra cheese, and of pizza, for that matter: it might well be that i’ve had the best pizza of my life – or at least for a very long time – tonight.
i am under the impression that chicago has a lot of de facto racial segregation – you know, hispanics in certain parts, blacks in other ones though those two are probably more mixed among each other than any of them with the whites and so on, and that the shiny glass façade the city keeps up downtown is not what it really is about – downtown is a nice but expensive area, as in so many places in the world – but it does really not take a long ride to get out of the perfect picture. maybe that’s why there used to be (or maybe even still is? i don’t really know i must admit) a grand jazz scene there – we actually passed by a duke ellington elementary school, how cool is that! i suppose that today they might have a notable hip hop scene, cause there are a lot of young people there, they’ve got a variety of colleges, too. however i suspect that this is not where the genuine hiphoppers derive from – i’ve met those two friends of jasmine’s who are latinas and from what i’ve seen and heard around the garfield area and from what their perception of life is i take it chicago is not a shiny happy no worries man place.
interesting, because it is a very different part of the us culture i got to know there, i really appreciate that. not that i had never been to a ghettolike place before – come on, i grew up in gröpelingen and such – so i had been acquainted with the general way of expression, like speaking in a different manner, a different register as we linguists call it, than middle or upper class people, getting your cheeks pierced and your ears tattooed, having other expectations from life, hanging out at the gas station at night etc., if not in the exact same way so at least in some other.
still chicago is a whole lot bigger then bremen, but what struck me the most is that racial question, a thing that had never played a role in my life or where i grew up – i used to live in an area with a high turkish immigrant population, but i never felt out of place when i walked around there. interesting.
chicago for the rich
and the not so rich
the pool table at which i sucked playing big time
as of now i’m back on the road, heading to boston. i think i have forgotten to mention: wisconsin looks like podmoskovye (moscow suburbian and surrounding areas) with the exact same vegetation and landscape. look how small the world is, when you come to think of it.
oh yeah, wisconsin by the way connects minnosota and illnois – minnesota being northwest of it, illionis east, i guess. i’m particularly impressed with my newly acquired geography of the us-skills – is there any song or rhyme or whatever they make you learn in grade school to learn all the states by heart? cause there is none for the capitals of the german bundesländer (states) and obviously i cannot learn 16 cities by heart without a song, right, even if three of them are one-city-states and some other ones are pretty obvious. never.
and also i have forgotten to mention: anyone who wants to visit the states and plans on going by train there, do it, it definitely is worth a shot because those trains are extremely comfortable, you almost for certain get a double seat for yourself, they’ve got plugs at some seats (that’s why i had a chance to write this entry and to recharge my camera battery) and they’ve just handed out pillows to everyone, and with the isic (that international student id you get for 12 euros at the asta bremen for instance) you get a 15% discount on the tickets – it’s definitely worth it.
some more chicago for you - i like that one:
or marge, you never know...
scary
lol. yeah, sure thing.
thanks a lot to bunnie and jasmine and toni again, take care and send me your kid at some point – remember: we socialists gotta look out for each other :)
Montag, 12. Oktober 2009
happy columbus day
today, the us are celebrating christopher columbus, who, that's what people say, is the guy who discovered the americas. this is not only not true (try and google amerigo vespucci), but also here are some random facts about the guy we're honoring, taken from this wonderful book: a people's history of the united states
columbus slaughtered, betrayed, robbed and exploited the people he found living in the "new world" which to those people probably was not new at all. yay discovery voyages and -gers of the civilized european countries. yay columbus.
so, i apoligize for any upcoming cynicism, but i just have to say: happy columbus day everybody. well, at least some people get a day off. why don't we celebrate a rosa luxemburg day instead? that would be much nicer.
"They (the Arawak Indians) ... brought us parrots and balls of cotton and spears and many other things, which they exchanged for the glass beads and hawks' bells. They willingly traded everything they owned.... They were well-built, with good bodies and handsome features.... They do not bear arms, and do not know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance. They have no iron. Their spears are made of cane.... They would make fine servants.... With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want."also, when one of columbus' sailors saw land as the first man to do so - and the first man to see land was promised a pension of some ten thousand maravedis, apparently the currency at that time, for the rest of his life - our honorable man betrayed his sailor and got the reward for himself, claiming he had seen land before the other guy did.
The Indians, Columbus reported, "are so naive and so free with their possessions that no one who has not witnessed them would believe it. When you ask for something they have, they never say no. To the contrary, they offer to share with anyone...." He concluded his report by asking for a little help from their Majesties, and in return he would bring them from his next voyage "as much gold as they need ... and as many slaves as they ask."
columbus slaughtered, betrayed, robbed and exploited the people he found living in the "new world" which to those people probably was not new at all. yay discovery voyages and -gers of the civilized european countries. yay columbus.
so, i apoligize for any upcoming cynicism, but i just have to say: happy columbus day everybody. well, at least some people get a day off. why don't we celebrate a rosa luxemburg day instead? that would be much nicer.
on the road
"Ich gehe wieder auf Reisen(Mascha Kaléko)
mit meiner leisen Gefährtin
der Einsamkeit
Wir bleiben zu zweien einsam
und haben nichts weiter gemeinsam
als diese Gemeinsamkeit"
i’m on the road again, heading to chicago, going by train – i think, not a single one of the americans i have talked to has ever taken a train anywhere. crazy country! health care reform and public transportation, that’s what you need people, really – please schedule the revolution for some time before my next visit…
and it is a real adventure: first, you check in your baggage. i mean – compare this to my normal train catching routine: oh no. train leaves pretty much now. well. let’s see how fast we can move (quote from brett, but fits to my routine perfectly). here: you arrive at the station about an hour before the train goes. you check in your luggage. you don’t “hop on the train as long as it’s there” – you “board it”. and you’re not supposed to bring any liquids – “i mean, soap and shampoo are okay, you know, but don’t bring anything else” as the nice man at the counter explained to me – at least not in your checked-in luggage. I wonder what they'd do if i filled liquid nitro-glycerine into my 1l (about a quarter gallon) water bottle and took it onto the train in my hand luggage…. “two small personal items, including purses and laptops”, that is.
anyway, you can say what you want about the us transportation system but they do have extremely comfortable trains with legrests and everything.
no plugs, though, that’s sad, but: legrests and a lot of room to stretch out or roll up or do whatever.
and they serve lunch, if only for a certain number of people - you have to sign up real quickly or otherwise you won’t get any. i think for people travelling all the way from seattle that might imply a certain threat, but on the other hand: better a couple of people than none, right. i however was not interested in getting any because i was well equipped with half a loaf of cinnamon raisin bread and a couple of apples and my nitro-glycerine water.
the surroundings are extremely pretty. we’re through wild and rough nature here, a swamp or lake or river appearing on either side every once in a while, and hills by the horizon and autumn fondled trees all around, the sun is shining and the air-conditioning suggests a slight breeze, gently striking through the air.
i’m on the road again and will be, for another week – it’s not even amazing, it’s something beyond, that i have spent the last seven weeks here and now i’ll have to go back to school and life and normality and stuff – i kind of get what jack kerouac and his folks were up to when they kept on going back and forth throughout the us. i will spent an entire day in a train going from chicago to boston – i had to skip on washington, so sorry folks, no pics of me and the white house for this time – and i love going by train, so that’s cool, but still, it is amazing that now everything seems so far away and untouchable and out of sight out of mind but things will go back to normal in a little more than a week. i refuse to believe it for now and prefer staying in this bubble world. i'm on the road, listening to gerry mulligan, to bob dylan and cat stevens - i have a dog and i love him like my wife - or was it the other way around? anyway: if you want to sing out, sing out!
so, once we arrived in chicago – unfortunately the battery of my camera went low, so i couldn’t take pics of the amazing station, that reminded me of a crossing between a very pretty moscow metro station, a storehouse and a mine – i had to claim my baggage, literally like in an airport (cause how would i get it back otherwise, right? stupid sentence.)
anyway, i wanted to get rid of my gigantic backpack since i’m now travelling without klampfi, my beloved 20 euro flea market guitar, but instead with a duffle bag full of stuff (and the backpack, obviously), so i went on a quest to find one dollar bills for the locker. i did this a couple of times until i finally realized that there was a bill exchanging machine right in front of me. well.
i locked the backpack – and with it my camera battery recharger, so i might not be able to take pics of chicago unless i have a chance to swing by the station sometime today, doh! – and now needed to find comrade bunnie without having a number or a phone, for that matter. i needed to call brett in order to find out about that in the first place – remember folks, i had run out of minutes on my phone the other day, right…
and now i was running out of change – right, cause you never do, unless you really, really, really need quarters, of course. i bought some bubble gum and some other random stuff from a vending machine, called brett, who gave me bunnie’s number, who then either didn’t pick up the phone or maybe i’m just too dumb to use a payphone locally, i called brett again, but the phone was apparently broken cause he could not hear me – during this process i ran out of change a couple of times, bought some tictacs at a bookstore and asked the lady to give me as many quarters back as she could. she looked at me in a rather pitiful way and handed me over 7 quarters with which i finally reached brett again who then organized our get together, and without him the whole thing would probably have taken three to an indefinite number of hours (instead of one) to find bunnie or a place to stay. what would i only do without you? :)
well, we finally ran into each other.
so. chicago.
bunnie drove me around downtown and showed me some of the main highlights, then we went to his home. he lives in a neighbourhood that is 99 per cent black and that in his words “has gotten much better, after they built that apartment building over there, no shootings anymore and the constant police presence has scared all drug dealers away. it used to be worse, i had two people been killed in front of my house, they had some quarrel going on with their drug provider” – a genuine american city experience, i take it.
bunnie takes good care of me, though. he lives in a big apartment with his 18 year-old daughter, jasmine, they have a completely out of tune piano and a pool table and they cooked an awesome beens and cornbread and salad dinner yesterday, that was great – also, they try everything to make me feel at home and it works, too. only thing is, i sometimes have a little trouble understanding them – it is a very specific register they speak, one i’m not familiar with. i’m getting in there, but it’s not as easy as has been before – wow, for the past seven weeks i have come to understand a lot about how little english i really knew or know…. sad.
anyway, we played some pool (yes, i do suck.) and then i went to the movie’s with jasmine and a couple of her friends, who have very interesting piercings (spikes through their cheeks – never seen that before) and tattoos (on the upper ear? really? ouch!). we saw a scary movie and you all know how much i like scary movies, “paranormal” – the first half is intriguingly boring, but the rest freaked me out for the moment. was not as scary as the dark knight, though – on the other hand, the latter one has heath ledger starring, so it’s more worth it. well. after that we wandered around the theatre and went straight to the next movie, and yes, i was done with the world by then, but okay, whatever: couples retreat. okayish. funny, in a way, touching, at least it’s supposed to be, but well, i was up for about 20 hours by then and just tired.
so. whatever i’ve seen of chicago so far was interesting, it’s definitely very different from all of the other places i’ve seen here so far, it reminds me more of what i remember from seeing on the prince from bel air (yes i know that’s not chicago, still reminds me), but so far it also has not struck me with impressiveness. we’ll see, i was completely wrong about minneapolis, too, so maybe i’m just a crabby person who always regards things sceptically at first. i’ve never thought of myself that way, but you never fade to learn, right?
i hope i will have a chance to take at least a couple of pics and to recharge my battery – also, because i need something to do on the way to boston, man, 23 hours, my laptop will die after 3.5…. shit.
if i don’t have a chance to take pics, however, i’ll try to do it the old-schoolish descriptive way. for now, i need to get some breakfast. bye folks, thx for reading!
minneapolis
back on october 2nd masha drove us – admirable: me, being sick and apparently at some point becoming cranky (sorry about that again!), grandma and our crazy two year old baby who mastered this tricky adventure in a great way but still is two and crazy, you can vividly imagine this fellowship – from kansas to minnesota, crossing missouri and iowa. we arrived in minneapolis/st. paul round eleven p.m. and stayed with friends of masha, vicky and heinz, who were very dear and kind and made us feel very comfortable right from the very first second.when masha drove us around for a first tour of the city in broad daylight the next day my first impression of minneapolis was: wow, now that’s one of the ugliest places i’ve ever seen.
interesting, isn’t it, how quickly things can change and how nothing ever is what it seems to be? because i fell in love with this city. but let’s keep some chronological order here – that saturday i went over to brett’s place where i would spend another week (instead of three days as i had initially planned). that night we went to a spoken word (for germans: poetry slam without the slamming part) show that also had hip hop performances. the show was organized in memory of fong lee, who was shot by the mpls. police two years ago.
both the spoken word contributions and the music were awesome and we had a lot of fun there. i also got to meet another comrade, dan, who was not extremely talkative that day – but still, it’s always nice to meet people who dislike and distrust capitalism in the same way i do…
anyway: the next day, sunday obviously, we made use of the fact that brett did not have to work and went out to the mill city area, being an old watermill ruin that is somewhat natural and wild but still has this industrial charm to it.
that was probably the moment minneapolis and i started flirting, i think, the city asked me out on a very intense date that day.
we had lunch at a place called the spaghetti factory and then finished watching minority report which we had started watching the day before. we came to the conclusion that tom cruise has got exactly two facial expressions (stoic and yelling) which probably would have made it impossible for him to become a successful actor without scientological help.
we probably watched some more stuff – family guy or whatever, and i believe, brett made me watch the vikings vs. someone football game for at least 15 minutes – or was that another day? might very well be.
on monday i went uptown and walked around half of the day.
i got soaked three times, but i had loads of fun checking out the area, ending up walking around at the lake calhoun and lake of the isles area, taking about a trillion pictures – i’ve found out a lot about the settings of my camera this week, you wouldn’t believe, especially when taking the fact into account that i’ve had it for about one and a half years…. now i know how to get rid of that wide angle if i want to and how the focal width works and i’ve even learned some english photography terminology, yay! – so, anyway, i took lots and lots of pics and walked through the rain and obviously my kidneys weren’t all that happy about that, but i had a fun time and that’s all that counts in the end, right...
waiting for the rain to stop or at least slow down a little bit:
i think that night we got asian food, which we did a lot actually, watched something – something – maybe football or… whatever – and hung out. in fact, hanging out and relaxing is something i really learned to appreciate while being here in the states, i guess i don’t really do that too often when i’m at home.
on tuesday it rained throughout the whole day so we stayed in and watched some more tom cruise (the last samurai – tom cruise is the last samurai, great joke, isn’t it…? nice landscape though), some dave chapelle show, some family guy, and then we went to a branch meeting watching rethink Afghanistan, a documentary about the us intervention in afghanistan: all of you have probably by now heard about obama’s peace nobel prize, trust me, after watching this movie it becomes even more of a farce than it was in the first place.
i had bought a train ticket (yes, there are trains in the us! not very many, but at least they connect the largest places in the north and i guess around the coast areas, west and east) to go to chicago the next day. however, my affection for minneapolis, that had manifested by then, and the fact that i had way too much fun hanging out with brett to move on the next day led to the decision of just simply not going.
i stayed through sunday, missing out the chance of going by a cheap train ticket but instead having loads and loads and loads of fun, an awesome time relaxing and hanging out, getting to know some more comrades, being extremely well taken care of by brett and finding inspiration and new ideas and maybe even some new drive towards artistic as well as political work in minneapolis. i love this place.
however, wednesday and thursday turned out to be rather introverted days for me, i stayed in most the time and worked ( or rather: avoided working) on my leadoff for a branch meeting on thursday which i for some reason had promised to give (german stuff: history of the welfare state shredding, perspectives, development of die linke, youth stuff, far right development, you know the kind: a short history of everything in twenty minutes) – but things went better than expected – and on friday i finally went to see the minneapolis institute of arts to find some inspiration and to take another, well, maybe this time it was only a billion, pictures.
me and mia:
(i apologize for the fact that all pics of me look somewhat the same - it's just a simple fact that most of the time i take them myself and they tend to depend on the length of my arms which does not seem to alter to a great extent.)
i ended up going downtown hopeful to make it down to mississippi river but that didn’t quite work out and i got lost – only once, yay! – walked around for a while, sent a couple of postcards and went back home.
downtown:
that night we hung out with comrade ryan and i had my first back to business – out of meds-beer, that was fun.
saturday was fairly relaxed, we got brett a new fancy camera which is a model close to mine and which i have learnt a few things from, interestingly enough, and later on we went to khans mongolian barbecue, having asian food for the third time that week – it was great asian food, so definitely no complaints on that one, especially because the place was cool. you basically throw whatever you want to have fried altogether in one bowl and put some sauces over it and you hand the whole thing over to the cook who would then fry it for you. the place itself seems to be somewhat outside town, but i can never tell here. it is half fancy with those cool tables and the whole idea of having your asian crab-salmon-shrimp food with customized veggies (that’s what i did, yum) personally fried for you, and half homey-cosy-comfy.
fancy table:
fancy chopstick-technique:
so, after all: what is it that i love so much about minneapolis?
i love that it’s got those tall downtown glass buildings along with old churches right next to them, that it’s green and has all these lakes (“minneapolis, city of the thousand lakes”), the mill city area, the many many trees that will turn all pretty orange and red in a few weeks, days maybe, while it’s got this industrial charm. i love, that it is a crazy, liberal and fun place, that it is somewhat calm while it still has a real city feel to it – something bremen is lacking more or less – i love that there are places that make good coffee, that they have snow and real winters and summers, that it’s very earthbound while still somewhat freaky. people here are not as easy to approach as in the south, yes, i admit that. but then again – the admission to the arts museum is free. and there’s public transportation, at least they have buses and a light rail which is somewhat between a tram and an s-bahn.
minneapolis is awesome.
before i leave you with a couple more impressions i'd once again like to thank masha for driving and keeping spirits up and brett for making my life absolutely carefree and more than enjoyable this week - thank you!
interesting, isn’t it, how quickly things can change and how nothing ever is what it seems to be? because i fell in love with this city. but let’s keep some chronological order here – that saturday i went over to brett’s place where i would spend another week (instead of three days as i had initially planned). that night we went to a spoken word (for germans: poetry slam without the slamming part) show that also had hip hop performances. the show was organized in memory of fong lee, who was shot by the mpls. police two years ago.
both the spoken word contributions and the music were awesome and we had a lot of fun there. i also got to meet another comrade, dan, who was not extremely talkative that day – but still, it’s always nice to meet people who dislike and distrust capitalism in the same way i do…
anyway: the next day, sunday obviously, we made use of the fact that brett did not have to work and went out to the mill city area, being an old watermill ruin that is somewhat natural and wild but still has this industrial charm to it.
that was probably the moment minneapolis and i started flirting, i think, the city asked me out on a very intense date that day.
we had lunch at a place called the spaghetti factory and then finished watching minority report which we had started watching the day before. we came to the conclusion that tom cruise has got exactly two facial expressions (stoic and yelling) which probably would have made it impossible for him to become a successful actor without scientological help.
we probably watched some more stuff – family guy or whatever, and i believe, brett made me watch the vikings vs. someone football game for at least 15 minutes – or was that another day? might very well be.
on monday i went uptown and walked around half of the day.
i got soaked three times, but i had loads of fun checking out the area, ending up walking around at the lake calhoun and lake of the isles area, taking about a trillion pictures – i’ve found out a lot about the settings of my camera this week, you wouldn’t believe, especially when taking the fact into account that i’ve had it for about one and a half years…. now i know how to get rid of that wide angle if i want to and how the focal width works and i’ve even learned some english photography terminology, yay! – so, anyway, i took lots and lots of pics and walked through the rain and obviously my kidneys weren’t all that happy about that, but i had a fun time and that’s all that counts in the end, right...
waiting for the rain to stop or at least slow down a little bit:
i think that night we got asian food, which we did a lot actually, watched something – something – maybe football or… whatever – and hung out. in fact, hanging out and relaxing is something i really learned to appreciate while being here in the states, i guess i don’t really do that too often when i’m at home.
on tuesday it rained throughout the whole day so we stayed in and watched some more tom cruise (the last samurai – tom cruise is the last samurai, great joke, isn’t it…? nice landscape though), some dave chapelle show, some family guy, and then we went to a branch meeting watching rethink Afghanistan, a documentary about the us intervention in afghanistan: all of you have probably by now heard about obama’s peace nobel prize, trust me, after watching this movie it becomes even more of a farce than it was in the first place.
i had bought a train ticket (yes, there are trains in the us! not very many, but at least they connect the largest places in the north and i guess around the coast areas, west and east) to go to chicago the next day. however, my affection for minneapolis, that had manifested by then, and the fact that i had way too much fun hanging out with brett to move on the next day led to the decision of just simply not going.
i stayed through sunday, missing out the chance of going by a cheap train ticket but instead having loads and loads and loads of fun, an awesome time relaxing and hanging out, getting to know some more comrades, being extremely well taken care of by brett and finding inspiration and new ideas and maybe even some new drive towards artistic as well as political work in minneapolis. i love this place.
however, wednesday and thursday turned out to be rather introverted days for me, i stayed in most the time and worked ( or rather: avoided working) on my leadoff for a branch meeting on thursday which i for some reason had promised to give (german stuff: history of the welfare state shredding, perspectives, development of die linke, youth stuff, far right development, you know the kind: a short history of everything in twenty minutes) – but things went better than expected – and on friday i finally went to see the minneapolis institute of arts to find some inspiration and to take another, well, maybe this time it was only a billion, pictures.
me and mia:
(i apologize for the fact that all pics of me look somewhat the same - it's just a simple fact that most of the time i take them myself and they tend to depend on the length of my arms which does not seem to alter to a great extent.)
i ended up going downtown hopeful to make it down to mississippi river but that didn’t quite work out and i got lost – only once, yay! – walked around for a while, sent a couple of postcards and went back home.
downtown:
that night we hung out with comrade ryan and i had my first back to business – out of meds-beer, that was fun.
saturday was fairly relaxed, we got brett a new fancy camera which is a model close to mine and which i have learnt a few things from, interestingly enough, and later on we went to khans mongolian barbecue, having asian food for the third time that week – it was great asian food, so definitely no complaints on that one, especially because the place was cool. you basically throw whatever you want to have fried altogether in one bowl and put some sauces over it and you hand the whole thing over to the cook who would then fry it for you. the place itself seems to be somewhat outside town, but i can never tell here. it is half fancy with those cool tables and the whole idea of having your asian crab-salmon-shrimp food with customized veggies (that’s what i did, yum) personally fried for you, and half homey-cosy-comfy.
fancy table:
fancy chopstick-technique:
so, after all: what is it that i love so much about minneapolis?
i love that it’s got those tall downtown glass buildings along with old churches right next to them, that it’s green and has all these lakes (“minneapolis, city of the thousand lakes”), the mill city area, the many many trees that will turn all pretty orange and red in a few weeks, days maybe, while it’s got this industrial charm. i love, that it is a crazy, liberal and fun place, that it is somewhat calm while it still has a real city feel to it – something bremen is lacking more or less – i love that there are places that make good coffee, that they have snow and real winters and summers, that it’s very earthbound while still somewhat freaky. people here are not as easy to approach as in the south, yes, i admit that. but then again – the admission to the arts museum is free. and there’s public transportation, at least they have buses and a light rail which is somewhat between a tram and an s-bahn.
minneapolis is awesome.
before i leave you with a couple more impressions i'd once again like to thank masha for driving and keeping spirits up and brett for making my life absolutely carefree and more than enjoyable this week - thank you!
Abonnieren
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