GER 4: USA 1

Time’s flying mad fast. Only a week and a half left here in Horb before we move to Tübingen. The Monday after the last post, we went to Tuebingen to take care of some administrative things. We rolled in pretty early because everything around here closes super early.

We had to run around town before all the offices we needed would close – which sucks cause that shit happens at like noon. New passport photos, picked up our scholarship cash, payed student fees, then we went and applied for residency permits and visas. Finally, I opened up a new account and payed my rent for April. All that shit was a pain in the ass, but the cool thing was accomplishing all of it in German. Tuebingen is really nice though and I’m looking forward to moving there in a few weeks.

The rest of that week went by as normal and on one Saturday we went to visit Stuttgart. The public services strike was and still is going on and every week you show up and the shit’s worse. Stuttgart has been hiring private firms to clean up the garbage but after every night you walk down Königstraße and there’s a two inch carpet of garbage on the ground, not to mention mountains of bags piling up around the dumpsters. That’s just for the garbage men…the public health services have had to delay or cancel emergency operations. I guess up in the north ver.di (veroffentlichen dienst – the public service union) and the states have managed to settle things down OK, but here in BW the talks just apparently collapsed again. I think shit’s even worse up in Mannheim than in Stuttgart – they’ve got mountains of garbage piling up too but they also have fucking bird flu there – I think it’s the first European city with infected birds. It’s hard to say who has the right in this one anyway. The issue is basically that they state wants to up the working hours from 38 to 40 per week, without extra pay. At first that sounded pretty ridiculous to have what is now at least a month of a strike, but I guess some people are treating these 38 hours as a line in the sand – especially since most of the belt-tightening, in standard shit-rolls-downhill style is being thrown on jobs like garbage men anyways. But two days ago, University clinic doctors just started striking too and that’s a separate union from ver.di. Either way it’s been peaceful. Paris is burning yet again over a new employee contract. On the upside, I saw some great art in Stuttgart.

Another thing going down right now is that there’s state elections in Baden-Wurttemberg and a few others. Right now is a Black-Yellow (CDU-FDP) coalition, and its unlikely to change – the main question is whether the CDU can get enough votes to drop Yellow. That’d be disappointing since the FDP is the secular check on the CDU. I should mention that my village can feel like 1938 sometimes. SPD posters are nonexistent, FDP ones are defaced, and the majority of them are Republikaner. The Republikaners are far-righters with a platform that consists of populist slogans for which they have no actual plan to implement. The local candidate actually lives right here in Talheim, Franz Nafz. The son of a bitch came to my local watering hole (although I’m sure he’s lived here before the shit was even built) and there was a Republikaner speech and q-and-a session. So of course I went.

It was fucked up. It was mostly old-timers and a couple of unemployed looking motherfuckers and its true that most people don’t take the Republikaners seriously – they get practically no seats as Germany has a restriction (a 5% vote threshold) exactly to prevent idiots such as these from getting into government. Either way, they’re yelling “Stop immigrants!” and “Islam is on the march and Christianity is under threat my friends!” and “End Homo Marriages!” and some asshole is pounding on the table in agreement. There was even a bit of shit-slinging against the old homeland, Bosnia. I just kept my eyes focused on my beer while my forehead got hot. It was interesting in any event and I’m tempted to write more…but enough politics.

The Hungarians left this last weekend. We all got fucking goofy-wasted for their last night. The night even got pretty dramatic which is always great. The next day (Saturday) we went to this place north of Stuttgart called Ludwigsburg to see some palaces and that’s always great too. The highlight of the weekend was that a few of us went over to this city Heilbronn where Stefan, Rafa, and Laura work. We went first over to Stefan’s to drink some whiskey…nobody even felt like going out on account of still being drunk from the day before but Laura basically forced us into it. Anyways, Stefan leads us through the most terrifying dark park and then some alleys to his “apartment.” He opens the door and leads us down into the basement next to the boiler room. His apartment is fucking HYSTERICAL. First of all, its teeny…there’s a table, a small refrigerator, a shelf and his bed. Then he’s got Iron Maiden posters and pictures of naked chicks (when I asked him where the fuck he got all of them, he’s like “I dunno, Playboy’s 50 nicest girls or some shit”) At least cock-rock metal is still alive and well in Sweden. So that’s his little room but its hardly the highlight. There’s a small door that leads to an adjoining room which is unbelievable. It’s about the size of a large walk-in closet. There’s a sink and then right against your ass is a kitchen counter. On the far left of the kitchen counter is a plug-in two-plate hot plate which I guess functions as a stove. The best thing is that right opposite that literally three feet or less, is a shower. You can quite literally take a shower and cook your fucking eggs at the same time. Not only that, you can take a shit on a toilet that lies another two feet further down from the shower/stove combo. So yes, you can take a shit and stir your soup simultaneously, although you will have to close the sliding door that hygienically separates the two “areas.” In the toilet area is some extra storage space…but nowhere to dry your clothes so Stefan took a string off of his fucking guitar and improvised a clothesline. He’s not an engineer for nothing. Apparently Rafa and Laura have nicer places, but Stef pays under 200 Euro for his so that ain’t bad.

We started drinking and then Laura forced us to walk all the way the fuck to some club that was the talk of Heilbronn that had a huge line. We got to the front and started going in but some jag-off bouncer veered Yosuke and Martin out. So a little cussing later, the bouncer’s giving me shit in perfect English (turns out the clown’s from Seattle), talkin’ bout “Hey Man! What the fuck do you think this earpiece is in my ear for? To make me look cool? It’s my JOB pal” What a perfect set up for my retort: “Yeah no shit! What is the fucking president in there?? (slurred) ) What? What? Is there some guy hanging out on the roof telling you who to let in…bullshit…” and so on and so forth. But only me and Stefan had the desire to sit and argue (although I’m positive I could have convinced him to let us in) and everyone starts walking away. So Stefan’s all angry about the injustice that occurred and as we’re walking down this main drag he kicks a light pole. The shit goes out. So we’re like “awwwwww shit” and start running down the goddamn boulevard or whatever just kicking four or five light poles out. Why?

So we go to some other joint and then around 1 or 2 Yosuke and Martin and Stef I go back to Stef’s while the others go to Rafa’s. Stefan packs up a hammer and pretty soon I’m sleeping on an air mattress with my hoodie and Stef’s Spider-Man towel constructed into a blanket.

Walking out like scum in the morning we went out to breakfast in some swank joint. Then we met with all the others and spent some time walking along the banks of the river just enjoying the weather. After a while, Stef and Rafa went to play soccer with some guy’s from work and we decided it was time to get back to Horb. Naturally, when we rolled up to our connection in Stuttgart the train was already moving. So having an hour to kill we split up and me and Maira (Brazil) walked down Königstraße…the shit was fucking lovely. It was amazing weather and the entire city knew it, so everybody came out on the streets to just hang out in cafes in the sun finally. We lay in the palace garden for a while (Maggie you’re right, it is a palace, the Landstag is behind it in a tiny black building) It was a totally perfect moment with the weather, people, and scenery - once the church bells started ringing I practically melted. An hour later we were on the train to Horb on which I finally lost my other favorite hat. Fuck.

Then we ran into a bit of a problem. Me and Maira had no way of getting to Talheim – we missed the last “Freizeit Express” bullshit taxi, we had no money for the 15 Euro cab ride back, and both of our guestparents were away doing fun shit while we tried to think of what to do. Only one option…hitchhike.

So fuckin’, we go to the edge of town that leads to the road out of the valley and towards our village and jam our thumbs out the fuck onto the street. No matter how goddamn charming our smiles our, though, the most we get is a sympathetic grin – if not just straight out pity. So she’s can’t bear the degradation and we start walking up the hill on what’s going to be an 1+ hour walk on the side of the road with no sidewalk – uphill. Through mud and fields. Finally we get to the top of the hill to like this business/sprawly area with a MickeyD’s. One Big Mac later I’m thinking…if we make a fucking sign and stand outside the drive-thru where people have to sit there and look at your stupid pleading face, it’ll be easier to get a ride than when they get just zoom by. Fast forward, I flip over my promotion/tray paper and write my destination politely. So we try that but nobody’s even showing up to the drive-thru. Then we moved operations over to a traffic signal…one car drives by, two…three…red light. Suddenly a green Audi with tinted windows pulls down and this 20 something year old kid nods at me. Word. A few words later we’re steaming through the countryside with Alex and Kostas or some shit – listening to the silliest Russian techno. They’re these slicked-back hair Russian cats with a goddamn laptop for a dashboard, but they went enough out of their way for me to like Russia just a little bit more.

The hilarity of this experience, unfortunately, means that I might be trying hitchhiking a lot more frequently in the future.

What future, I’m not sure…that’s another thing. This last week all us Americans have been trying to get all our Tuebingen shit organized. The program isn’t so streamlined. Basically you don’t know anything – we sent about 1,000 emails a piece to both Ann Arbor and Tuebingen and finally today we just hopped on a train in the morning and went over there to take care of shit. In trying to register for courses though, it isn’t exactly a breeze…you have to go to each faculty building, which are scattered all the fuck over, to sign up for a lot of shit. The Internet is only an option SOMEtimes. Whuddeva.

So I think after Tuebingen I’m going to do this program in Munich until September…and then once again, after that, I still have no idea. Oh well, sticking to life in the short-term: a week from Friday we move to Tuebingen and then a few days later Imma set sail for Florence and maybe a bit beyond in the Balkans. A poorly planned life = more excitement.