back in the saddle
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Monday, May 31, 2004 was going to post but am on shittiest keyboard ever and msn messenger is more entertaining, can´t multitask greetings from berlin, dresden was cool.. will post real post about it all later.. maybe posted by kim | 12:41 p.m.| (0) comments Saturday, May 29, 2004 am in Munich sadly, Michael´s time in Munich has been akin to mine in Madrid a few years ago.. wil elaborate later.. the rest of the time on Lake Garda was very nice, spent a day in Verona and spent the majority of the remaining time there working on my tan and eating gelati. nice. was kept out a day as I had major stabbing pains in my back and was unable to stand up straight. eh, gave me an excuse to lie in the sun. went swimming in Lake Garda, which was refreshingly cool and algae-filled.. don´t know if that´s a good thing.. the 27th was Michael´s (my brother) 20th birthday and we ditched our parents and made our way to Munich.. anyone who knows the Madrid story knows that I spent my 20th birthday in Madrid alone and frustrated and unable to leave the city immediately nor to find a place to sleep.. Michael´s was not as shitty (and really mine wasn´t either, looking back, frustrating, but not shitty), but he has not had a happy time in Munich.. first of all, we stayed in like a 60 bed dorm (not exagerrating) in one of the HI hostels in Munich.. as a rule, I avoid HI hostels, and huge dorms, but we could´t find anything better at the time. we were kept awake all night by hella loud snoring and annoying people. so the next day we were both fairly grumpy. the first night we went out for trad Bavarian food and got really shitty service. the weather was fairly shitty and rainy (although it´s sunny now that we´re leaving).. the next day we went on a fascinating tour of Dachau, which Michael says was the only thing he liked doing in Munich. that night I tried to take Michael to the beer garden in the english gardens so he could have one of those huge beers that Munich is known for, but by the time we got there they were closed already. and we were tired and grumpy. so Munich was nowhere near as wonderful this time as it was last time. abd we´re not doing dorms anymore.. off to dresden now.. posted by kim | 1:50 a.m.| (0) comments Tuesday, May 25, 2004 so I'm in Verona right now, but we're staying in a tourist town on beautiful lake Garda called Sirmione. really don't feel like posting, maybe later. get to go to Berlin soon. yay. yay I'll be home in time to vote. and watch all the exciting debates. posted by kim | 4:25 a.m.| (2) comments Friday, May 21, 2004 John Kery's French Connection don't even start me on how f-ing stupid this is, saw a 5 min piece on cnn about it the other day posted by kim | 3:34 p.m.| (0) comments so I write an amazingly long post and no one bothers to comment. lucky for you all I have stats tracking and therefore know that at least a few of you bothered to read it! left the glorious Altera Pars hotel in Cologne this morning (if you ever go to Cologne and aren't staying in a hostel stay here, the hotel was fairly nice, especially for a 3 star and as compared to the shit hole - they make it look way niceron the site - we're in tonight, and the guy that ran it was super super nice and did my laundry for FREE!!) anyhow, we hopped on a train and came out to bern.. we stopped in Basel for lunch and were going to go look around the city, but the pouring rain kept us in the train station eating pizza. continued onto bern, checked into the shitty and overpriced hotel, called Ursula (my swiss host mother, who lives here now).. went for a glorious dinner of fondue, walked around after to see a few sights, namely the kindlifresserbrunn and the Bärengraben.. went for a beer, had a nearly tearful goodbye and now I'm sitting here. so things aren't too exciting. going to Lucerne tomorrow, hopefully the weather will clear so we can go up Pilatus and I can give my parents a good view of the Alps. by the way, weakerthans are playing in Germany at the end of the month, and if I change my plans ever so slightly I'll be able to catch them in Essen. or was it Dresden. I think it conflicts with bad religion though. If I go I'll see them 2 times this summer, there and calgary folkfest possibly. maybe they'll finally play 'none of the above' live.. wouldn't that kick ass.. posted by kim | 3:05 p.m.| (10) comments Thursday, May 20, 2004 so umm the other day I sat down and typed out this amazing long post that was chalk full with links to everything and was just wonderful and I went to hit "publish post" and the computer froze. and I lost my post. damn was I pissed off. very very pissed off. so I'm going to try it again, but this one will be even LONGER as there's been 2 more days.. so bear with me... after a wonderful week staying with Fari and Marion and being spoiled rotten and doing nothing at all except hang out doing next to nothing all day, I took the train to Frankfurt airport to meet my lovely family. this was Sunday, the 16th. Due to their flight being 40 min late and a €60 cab ride on their part (due to them neglecting to remember which of the 5 holiday inns in frankfurt they were staying in) we missed eachother at the airport and finally met up at the hotel. went out for italian, went to sleep. they were kinda jet lagged. I was just tired, I hadn't slept much the night before... Monday we woke up bright and early. I think my family was up at 4 am. after a lovely breakfast we hopped on a train and went to Bingen (those of you who took germ 359.who the hell knows a few years back may recognise this as the home of Hildegaard von..), where we met Jan, our former German exchange student. From here we hopped on a lovely KD boat and settled in for a nice cruise down the Rhine, presented in at least 5 languages (none of which I could hear all that well, though).. with a beer in my hand I sat on the deck and soaked in the sun, admiring medival castles (and of course the Lorelei - "Ich weiss nicht, was soll es bedeuten.." damn would Mastag be proud!). It was like 25 degrees out. lovely. finally got that tan started. we stopped in St. Goar for a lunch of falafel and döner.. then continued on to Koblenz. had a few beer there, walked arond town, continued on to Cochem on the Mosel, where we found a lovely little B&B for the night.. Tuesday we woke up nice and early and went and rented bikes. hopped on the train and went out to Neef, where we started off. apparently michael and my dad got yelled at by the train driver but have no idea why. sorry I missed it, it would have been funny. my brother is still afraid of being left alone, cuz he might get yelled at. Rode 27 km back to Cochems (although the rest of the family claims it was longer), stopping along the way to go to the wine museum, drink wine, drink beer, eat, drink beer, eat ice cream, admire the steepest vinyards in the world. my parents learned alot, next time you see my mother ask her how to pronounce Riesling. It wasn't near as bad as I expected, and I actually enjoyed myself. plus I got to work on my tan. and drink beer. Wednesday we went on up to Berg Eltz. went on a tour. it was mildly entertaining, the castle was gorgeous and the hike up was also really nice. beginning to think I am turning into sporty spice. afterwards we got on another train and came out to Cologne. I like this city, but then being in the city always makes me a happy girl. went shopping with my mother and managed to get myself a sweet ass pair of black, silver and pink pumas. dude these are hot shoes. even got matching socks. damn am I a hottie. I needed new shoes, my old ones had holes in the soles. honest. even my mother thought I needed new shoes. I was stoked. now all I need is my Freitag bag and I´ll be a happy girl. went for dinner (mm Thai) and beer, then Jan took Michael and I to a party. had a few more beer, went home. this brings us to today. today I hung out with my mom, we went to the chocolate museum (mmm chocolate), then to the Käthe Kollwitz museum (my mother had never heard of Kollwitz but found her work dealing with the war and loss especially interesting). we popped in the Dom for a few min, but as it is some sort of Catholic holiday we got there just in time for mass and therefore felt a burning need to step out. if you know what I mean. am (hopefully) going (all by myself) to see Max Frisch's Andorra tonight at the schauspielhaus. am very stoked. want to see if it compares to us doing it in Swiss Lit. Off to Basel tomorrow. heard the flames have made the finals. yay. thanks for reading this ultra long post! posted by kim | 8:08 a.m.| (0) comments Wednesday, May 12, 2004 hey y'all.. few notices.. I'm trying out the official blogger comments, I think they're the first 'comments'.. so now you can choose where you want to comment you lucky people.. changed the byline to roaming edition to reflect the current situation (as I, unlike my piece of crap cell phone, am roaming...) that is all, going to Bern today to see people that let me live with them for a long time 7 years ago. am very excited. posted by kim | 3:41 a.m.| (3) comments Tuesday, May 11, 2004 finding myself unemployed and homeless yesterday (yay me!!) I hopped on a train and came back to see Fari and Marion in Zofingen, Switzerland.. with all Fari's complaining about me not staying enough last time I knew I was welcome! My last day of work was sunday and was relatively uneventful. Had a few drinks with some friends at night, went home and stressed about packing.. monday afternoon I had to jump through a few hoops to finally get my pay and everything (but was rewarded for my efforts with a walliserhof jacket - I may be a walking advertisment but at least I now have a rain jacket AND a new fleece!! (am trying to figure out how to convert the w in "wellness hotel" to an h, thought it would be funny). My friend Mariana drove me on down to the train station in Bludenz and I made my way here. no one bothered to check my passport coming in to swtizerland. very uneventful train ride. except for when I fell out of the train. you see, now that I'm homeless I have all my crap with me. and I have alot of stuff.. a (relativly small) backpack, and a (medium sized) suitcase.. the suitcase is really f-ing heavy, though.. so I kinda chuck it out of the train when I get out and fall out behind it.. (unless there's some nice young man around to help me that is.. if anyone else offers I can do it myself, thank you very much).. anyhow, in Olten I should have asked for help. I tossed out the suitcase and basically flew out of the train behind it, landed half on my feet, half on my knees, and the front pocket of my suitcase burst open, showering english novels all over the train platform... would have been hella funny, had it not been me... still, being the cool cat I am I calmly picked myself up, inspected the bag to ensure that the zipper wasn't broken (think of how much that would have sucked), repacked and walked away as if nothing out of the ordinary had happend and my knee wasn't bruised to pieces. am staying in Zofingen the rest of the week to regroup, repack, send some crap home cuz I realised after the falling out of the train incident that I have too much, even if I am leaving things in Frankfurt next week, I still have to get it there! will go on sunday to frankfurt to meet my family and start on an oh so exciting bike tour of s. germany (for those of you laughing at the thought of me riding a bike through germany think of my father doing it... love you daddy!!).. then it's back on down to switzerland, italy and back up to germany for me and Michael.. woo hoo.. I get to go to Berlin, which I know makes a few of you jealous.. anyhow, must get back to sitting around trying to figure out what to do with my life now.. posted by kim | 5:41 a.m.| (0) comments Friday, May 07, 2004 hey kidz have found myself in Amstetten, niederössterreich, which is the hometown of one of my friends from work.. we had the same days off and she was going home so I decided to tag along, seeing as I'd never been here before or anything.. it's a nice little town, it's nice to see the sky unobstructed by big huge mountains for a change... we go back to Brand tomorrow, I've got the whopping 5 hours left of work on Sunday, and then I join the world of (temporary) unemployment.. yay!! I don't know if any of you paid attention to the Austrian presidential election - if not, don't worry, it wasn't all that interesting.. especially as the president is basically a figurehead.. anyhow, the reason I mention it is because there was a small part I found interesting - there were two main candidates, a male (social democrat Heinz Fischer ) and a female (Benita Ferrero_Waldner).. the campaign posters were interesting, especially the woman's, which basically showed a picture of her and said 'elect Austria's first female president' as if that's the only reason one should vote for her.. she got an endorsement from Jörg Haider and that was the nail in the coffin, she lost, although it was close. Also interesting was that after the election the victor's campaign team (at least out in Vorarlberg, where I live) went out and put 'danke' (thank-you) stickers on all his posters. I thought that was a nice touch.. posted by kim | 10:01 a.m.| (0) comments |
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