Letters From The Lions Den

2006-11-15T14:39:00.000-08:00

So I've decided to abandon this blog and this story (which I've started and not finished at least 15 times now) and start a new blog.
You can reach me at....http://amidmidlifecrisis.blogspot.com/
Well maybe I'll still do the story. Sometime.
Later

2006-10-15T14:38:00.000-07:00

The line began to move again and Paul's mind drifted slowly back into reality. The woman in front of him was called and she moved forward towards the two grey doors that had come to symbolize escape to all the people stuck in this waiting room purgatory. Once through the doors, they could finally see the all mighty doctor. Like Dorothy and her misfit pals, they'd finally get to meet the Wizard and be instantly cured of all their problems. And as her screaming baby disappeared behind those two grey doors they called his name.
The moment of truth had come, Paul put on a brave face and calmly followed the nurse through the grey doors and into the Doctor's office. She handed Paul a drab, thin, cloth robe that was apparently missing an ass piece and directed him to remove his clothes and put on the robe. She told him that the Doctor would be right in and that he should turn around, lean against the examining table and wait for him. After she exited the room Paul slipped out of his clothes and into the robe. He propped himself up on the bench with his elbows, spread his legs and waited for the good Doctor to come in and examine ass.
His composed exterior may have led one to believe that Paul was quite comfortable with the impeding examination but this couldn't have been further from the truth. Inside Paul was a churning storm of insecurity. Any minute now a strange man was going to walk through the door bend over and look at his most private of holes.
Propped up facing the wall minutes passed like days, his paranoia stoking the fire of his imagination until it finally reached a fever pitch. "You can't go through with this. You were crazy to think that you could. There is no way some old man is going to be prodding and poking around down there," he told himself. His hysterical mind had almost convinced his body to get the hell of there when Paul heard the door open behind him and a voice come from over his shoulder.
"Good day, Mr.....ah....Mr. Harpsing," said the voice as it tapped on what sounded like a clipboard. (As it turns out, of all the sounds in all the world, the taping of a finger on a clipboard just happens to be one of the most distinct and universally recognisable sounds).
The door closed behind him. In Paul's head it sounded like the cold, metallic, clanging of a jail cell. Paul slowly turned and looked over his shoulder at what he assumed to be the Doctor. But when he did, the Doctor was still holding the clipboard up, so Paul still couldn't see his face. All he could see was a bulbous body covered with a white lab coat that hung off his belly like a lampshade.
The voice behind the clipboard spoke again, "So how are we doing today? Ohhh.... not so good I see. Says here that you're having a little hemorrhoid problem. We'll let me just take a look-see. Might be somethin' I can do to help." He then pulled the clipboard down exposing his round, swollen face and disheveled hair. "I'm just going to grab some of these," he said as he put the clipboard down and waddled to the other side of the office, grabbing a pair of latex gloves out of the cardboard dispenser and putting them on with a snap. Then with a bellowing laugh he blurted out, "Wouldn't want me going down there without anything on now would you!". Paul began to sweat. He turned back around, stared blankly at the bare, lifeless, calming white walls infront of him and tried to let his mind drift away. But with another man so close to his back door, Paul's mind was on full alert.
Moving in behind, the Doctor grabbed Paul's cheeks with his rubbery hands and pulled them slowly a part. "Now open up and saw ahhh," said the doctor, laughing again. He felt Paul's cheeks instantly tense up. "Just a little doctor humor there son. No need to worry". Paul tried to laugh.
The Doctor held the cheeks away from each other for a second, nodded, paused and let out a quizzical "Huh". This of course sent a shiver of panic up Paul's spine. He quickly clenched up tighter and this time the Doctor lost his grip on Paul's ass.
"Easy now son, I was just going to remark on what a first rate job you've done back here. Not too many kids your age pay this much attention to their...ahhh...rear ends."
The initial fear that Paul had felt slowly began to swing into a swelling sense of pride, for this was the moment he'd be waiting for all his life. Finally he was getting the recognition he deserved. "Really? Well I do like to keep it clean. I don't want to brag", he shrugged, "but I scrub it at least twice a day".
"That's all well and good, but you got yourself a pea sized hemorrhoid down here!", said the doctor as he clapped his latex hands together. Looks to me that you maybe under a little stress. Girlfriend giving you the gears?" he joked, laughing again.
"No, and I don't have a girlfriend" Paul snapped back. The doctor's laugh was now grating on his very soul. Paul wasn't entirely sure but he did have a pretty good idea as to what was causing the rectal itching. But he'd be damned if he was going to mention his paranoia and the whole ass clenching thing to this man, so he just played dumb. "I can't imagine what it could be?".
"Well whatever the cause, we can't have you running around with one of those. Must be damn near unbearable." The Doctor then grabbed a pad off his desk scribbled something onto it and handed it to Paul. "Here's a prescription for some cream that'll clear this little problem right up!".
Paul took the slip of paper from the doctor and slowly read it over. He then re-reads the note. Anusol, 30mg. That's all it said. "Anusol? Is this.....is this a joke", whispered Paul as he leaned into the bulging man in the white coat.
"Oh, dear no, I should hope not!" roared the Doctor. "Hemorrhoids are no laughing matter. They can cause some sever discomfort if not taken care of right away. You did the right thing coming to me. If you get some of this cream on there ASAP it should be gone in no time. Anusol, that's some pretty potent stuff you got right there", finished the Doctor as pointed at the little piece of paper. He then pulled off the latex gloves discarding them in the waste basket beside his desk.
"Well thanks a lot, Doc. I'll go get this as soon as I get out of here", Paul said as he rubbed his head, the whole time thinking that this couldn't get any worse. But like they always seem to do, things did get worse. Much worse.
As he was walking out of the office and in the direction of the Pharmacy, which just so happened to be across the street, Paul invisioned actually handing the prescription over to the pharmacist. In his mind he could see the whole episode unraveling. The long walk to the back of the store. The waiting in line. The long glare looking up to the old man, with the thick rimmed glasses, looking all smug and superior behind his large white counter. The handing over of a slip of paper with the words Anusol, 30mg scribbled on it.
"Of course he's going to know what this is for" Paul said to himself. "It's called Anosul for Christ sakes!". Yes, it was going to get worse.

2006-09-23T10:02:00.000-07:00

With all the kids at the party now gathered around the kitchen able to watch Paul open his presents, Paul's mother leaned against the counter and calmly watched as each of Paul's friends handed him a gift.
There was your usual birthday fair, a water pistol, an action figure, an airplane model kit, but as the gift giving was coming to a close a drunken Mrs. Harpsing stumbled up to the table and started to talk.
"Wow, those are some great presents guys. What do you say Paul?" she slurred as she held on to the back of Paul's chair for support.
"Thank you", a bashful Paul said as he looked down at the table.
"That's right Pauly. Thank you, guys", added Mrs. Harpsing as she started to circle the table, tapping each boy on the head as she walked around. "And speaking of presents, let me go upstairs and grab my birthday present for Paul".
And with that she rambled out of the kitchen, one hand on the wall at all times and up the stairs to grab the present she had bought for Paul.
But when she got upstairs and into her room, she forgot what she had come up for. Dizzily she looked around the room, searching for some kind of clue to jog her memory as to why she was standing there. Then out of the corner of her eye she saw the laundry basket, and a little white elastic band peaking out at her. Then it hit her, she came up here to teach Paul a lesson.
When she returned to the kitchen, to everyones surprise, she wasn't holding a present but a pair of Paul's dirty underpants in her hand.
"Hey guys", Mrs. Harpsing said as she held up a the underpants for everyone to see, "do you give your Mommy's presents everyday like Paul gives me presents everyday?".
Paul stared at his Mother in terror. He knew this was only going to get worse.
"You see guys. Pauly leaves me these little, brown streaks in his underpants as a present everyday!", she turned the underpants inside out and showed them to all his friends sitting around the table.
Paul's heart sank. He looked around the room at each of his friends. All thier eyes open as wide as they could go, staring at his streaked pair of dirty underpants. Each one of them knowing that all their underpants were exactly the same, but just thankful that their mothers would never think of sharing their dirty little secret with any of their friends.
"It's like it's my birthday everyday!", Mrs. Harpsing carried on, pointing at the brown stains, which were now as big as the Trans-Canada highway as far as Paul was concerned. "I get to clean these everyday! I hope you boys are as nice to your Mothers as my little Pauly!"
Paul ran out the room, straight up stairs and into his bedroom, the door slamming loudly behind him. His birthday party was over.
After Mrs. Harpsing had called all the boys mothers to come pick up their sons, she headed up stairs to apologize to Paul. She tried to open his door but it was locked.
"Pauly, open the door, it's Mommy. I'm sorry about what happend, I'm sure no one will remember. By tomorrow everything will be forgotten. I'm sorry. I love you."
She stayed outside the door for a few mintues, pleading with him to open up but he wouldn't. He was waiting for his Dad to come home so he could tell him, just what she had done to him, how she had embarrassed him infront of all his friends. But as the hours passed, and the hot tears dried on his cheeks, Paul's father never came and he fell asleep, curled up on his bed.
The next day Paul went to school without saying a word to his Mother in the morning. He was still mad at her and he was desperatly hoping that when he got to school everything would be forgotten. But as soon as he boarded the school bus and sat down in his usual seat beside his best friend Rich, who just happened to be at the party the day before, he quickly found out that kids have a knack for always remembering the things that can hurt you the most.
"Hey Streaks, how's it going?", Rich said as everyone in earshot burst out laughing. And for the first time in his life, Paul felt the sharp sting of gentle teasing. For although he wore glasses and his ears were a little larger than other kids, he had until now avoided the unwanted attention and teasing that comes with such easy targets. And as Paul sat there, his eyes directed at the bus floor, surrounded by the penetrating laughter of his schoolmates, he felt pain. It wasn't from all the other kids around him laughing, he could deal with that, it was from the dagger sticking in his back, delivered from Rich his best friend. Paul felt betrayed.
The nickname stuck and from that day forward, Paul was known as "Streaks". And his relationship with his Mother, Rich and his ass, would never be the same.

2006-09-13T17:19:00.000-07:00

Wednesday. Like most Wednesday's it was unimportant, unspectacular, mostly forgettable and unabashidly boring. With one exception. A small house, tucked neatly in the back woods of a small town, which itself was tucked neatly in the back woods of a larger province, in a country that most worldly people felt was just back woods anyways.
This particular small house, tucked neatly in the back woods of a back woods nation, was the exception to the Wednesday rule, for within this house was a small, bespecaled seven year old boy who was about to have his eighth and most unforgettable birthday party.
Being that this was his eighth birthday party, a most unremarkable year if there ever was one in a young boys life, and that it just happened to fall on a Wednesday, you would expect that not much would come of it. Presents would be open, pictures would be taken, loot bags would be handed out and then it would be quickly forgetton. Evaporated in a puff of smoke. Pushed out of memory and replaced with much more important dates, like Thursday and the bi-yearly dental check up. But this was not to be the case. For this eighth birthday party, would change Paul's life forever.
The day began as most Wednesday's did in the Harpsing house hold, not with a blaring alarm from a bedside clock radio, but with blaring alarm of a shouting Mr and Mrs. Harpsing.
"Why the hell did you even bother coming home this morning?" Mrs. Harpsing yelled from the kitchen below. Her robe hanging loosely off her body.
Paul, just pulled out of a riveting dream in which his father was teaching him the proper technique to cook bear toes in a frying pan, rolled over onto his side and tried to push the sound of his fighting parents out of his head.
"I don't know, Deena! I don't know why I ever come home!" Mr. Harpsing screamed back, still wearing the clothes he left in the night before.
Paul had gotten used to waking to his parents fights, infact he had also gotten used to falling asleep to their fights, watching TV with their fights, playing with his friends with their fights.
"That's great Tim. Don't come back, just leave, if that's what you want to do. What does it matter? You're fucking drunk every time your home anyways! " hollered Mrs. Harpsing, just barely holding back tears.
"I'm drunk! Oh that's rich! How does that saying go? People in glass houses shouldn't throw black pots?" shot back Mr. Harpsing.
"You're a fucking idiot, do you know that?" said Mrs. Harpsing shaking her head in disbelief.
"Whatever. And really, that's a great way to talk. You're going to wake the damn kid!" yelled Mr. Harpsing, pointing upstairs.
"That "damn kid"! That "damn kid"! That damn kid is your son and it's his birthday today. Or did you forget? Again!" yelled Mrs. Harsping as she turned her back to him and flew out of the room, running into the living room and diving onto the sofa. She buried her head into a pillow as he chased after her.
Knowing that Paul's room was just at the top of the stairs from the living room, Mr. Harpsing tried to mute his retort. Kneeling down beside the sofa he half yelled, half whispered into the pillow ontop of her head, "You damn well know I forgot. But it's your fault. You never reminded me!"
But even if he had've yelled Paul wouldn't have heard him, he had already run into his closet, closed the door and wrapped his pillow around his head. After years of trial and error he had found that this was the most effective way to drown out there rantings.
Mrs. Harpsing jumed up and threw the pillow at him. "I never reminded you?" she flew at him, pointing her finger into his face. "You jackass! He's your god damn son. I shouldn't have to remind you of his birthday!"
"Fuck you Deena!"
"Fuck me? Fuck you!"
"Well what the hell do you want me to do?" yelled Mr. Haprsing.
"Unless you have a present and unless your sober, I don't want you here. I want you out!", she said as the tears streamed down her cheeks.
"Fine, I'll leave then. You can explain it to him." And then he turned around, walked back into the kitchen, grabbed his keys off the table and left.
And as the door slammed behind him, Mrs. Harsping fell back down onto the sofa. Slumped over, with her head in her hands she cried. She didn't cry because her husband was a drunk, or because he routinely forgot their son's birthday. She cried because after all their fights over all their years together, she had never told him to "get out". And now that she had, she saw in his eyes that he didn't percieve it as a threat but as an invitation and she knew he was never coming back.
She stayed on the couch, crying for another five mintues before she got up, wiped her eyes and nose on the sleeve of her robe and moved back into the kitchen. She reached up above the fridge to the cupboard she usually went to after a fight with her husband. She pushed aside a dusty basket of old keys, dull pencils and half decks of Bicycle playing cards and pulled out the bottle she usually pulled out after a fight with her husband. The bottle of rye.
Turning to the counter and grabbing the coffee she was drinking before her husband came in, she started to pour in a healthy dose of rye.
"Where did Daddy go?" said Paul as he walked into the kitchen.
With her back to the door, she hadn't seen him coming and he surpried her. She jerked and spilled some rye on the counter, then quickly hiding the bottle behind her back she turned around to see Paul, still in his pajama's standing in the door way between the kitchen and the living room
"Don't sneak up on Mommy like that Paul! You'll give me a heatattack!" she said, visibly shaken.
"Where did Daddy go?" Paul said again.
"Daddy went into town to buy you a present! Now you go back upstairs and get dressed. It's your big day today!"
Paul smiled and excitedly ran back upstairs. Mrs. Harpsing turned back around, finished pouring the rye into her coffee, wiped up the spilled liquor, then sat down and calmly started to drink.
By the time all his friends had been dropped off for the party, Mrs. Harpsing had finished the bottle and was now quite drunk.
Still too young to know what drunk was, but having seen his mother like this many times before, Paul knew something was wrong and started to feel insecure. He knew that everytime she got like this something embarrasing happend to him.

2006-08-28T15:06:00.000-07:00

So after months of false starts and voiceless debates with himself he finally headed down to the free clinic to have his rear viewed.
Walking into the clinic, Paul was put off right away, it was pure pandamonium. Endless wales from screaming babies, phlegmy, watery coughs from a wide spectrum of sick people and a horrendous line up that looked like it was going to keep Paul in this poor excuse for a peatry (sp?) dish for quite some time. But after putting if off for so long, Paul was finally here, inside the clinic. He had made the leap and there was no turning back. "Well if I wasn't sick before, I guess I will be now", Paul said to himself as he swallowed hard, bit his lip and moved into the queue with the rest of the sick people.
The line moved like tress grow, very slowly. And after about thirty minutes Paul's limited patience was wearing considerably thin and his determination started to wane. He started to sweat, his breaths became deeper and more pronounced. He started to tongue the inside of his mouth and his head shook dissapprovingly back and forth. His eye looked longfullly upwards and finally, he started to question why he was even here in the first place. "Fuck, what the hell am I doing? This is so freakin' useless. Everyone in this damn place is an idiot, why would I come here anyways. I've lived with this damn pain for almost a year I can deal with it? His chest started to swell. "Hell I'm a full grown man, I can handle this kind of shit!" But just as he thought that very last thought, a sharp, itching pain, eminating from his devil hole came shooting up through his body. Paul winced and quickly remembered why he was here and how much infact he couldn't live with the pain any more.
The pain distracted Paul briefly from his impatience but as the line continued to crawl along, it began to creep back into his mind. "God dammit, what the hell are they doing up there?" He tried to look around the people infront of him to see what was holding up the line. Not being able to see through the woman holding the crying baby infront of him, Paul threw up his arms in disgust,"Fer Chrissakes!"
He shook his head again and closing his eyes he tried to retreat into thought. He needed to think of something, anything to take his mind off this excrutiating waiting.
With out a compass his mind started to drift, it floated around his subconcious errantly, bouncing around from memory to memory, leaping from one old photo to another, until finally it landed on his eighth birthday party. Paul's mind thought a lot about his eighth birthday party. It seemed to want to go back there almost everytime he closed his eyes. As much as Paul didn't want to, as much as it hurt him, it seemed his mind had other plans, it just kept pulling him back there, repeating the same episode over and over. Like reruns of long dead television programs that no one wants to see anymore but somehow end up on TV Land (Maude, Golden Girls...basically anything staring Bea Arthur), Paul's mind just kept showing it.
There was a reason Paul's mind kept thinking about that particular day. It was very important. Well the day itself wasn't that important. It was a Wednesday. Wednesday's are never important. It was what happened to Paul on that day that was important.

2006-08-24T14:25:00.000-07:00

Paul had always been a notoriously clean person. This boozy coating, this monster, this heartless beast that was now crawling all over him, sticking to him, leaking into him, pained his very soul. It turned his stomach into knots and he felt like a prisoner inside his own body.
Normally Paul would've showered this morning. Twice. In fact, his relentless showering and cleaning bordered on obsessive-compulsive. He could scarcely put up with the sweat and dirt while he worked or played hockey. Without fail before Paul ever went out in public he would shower at least twice. Both times making sure to clean his hindquarters with special care meticulously scrubbing it until he was sure that it was unsoiled.
Ever since he can remember Paul has had a neurotic paranoia with his ass even the slightest hint of filth down there would send him running for the showers. After a bowel movement; a shower. A wet fart; a shower. So obsessed had he been with this nether regions that he became a chronic hemorrhoid sufferer at the tender age of twenty two. Paul, in his infinate wisdom, figured that if he tightly clenched his ass cheeks together whenever he was in public or attending any social function (Not when he was playing hockey or working though. He was a little strange but he wasn't crazy) he'd be creating an impenetrable defense against any intruding dirt or sweat that may want to lay claim to the immaculately clean land that was nestled so nicely inside the crevice of his cheeks. But instead the continual stress and tension he'd put on his rectum, caused him to develop a problem usually reserved for much older folks; hemorroids.
All day he'd walk around with his knees locked and hands at his side. He'd take these short strides all the time making sure as to not release the tension in his buns. He tried desperately to ignore the constant itching and pain that the swollen veins were causing him. Still being at that awkward age where any imperfections were grounds for constant teasing and harassment, going to a doctor to see what was wrong with his ass was not an option. Also, having another man, or God forbid a woman, poking around down there would've been too much for his frail little ego to handle.
He kept this up for as long as he could take, the only breaks from the pain coming when he was lucky enough to have a bowl movement. Which unfortunately for Paul was few and far between. Due to his terrible diet of fast fast and beer and his fear of soiling his hole of holes, Paul rarely had to shit. So long had he tried not to go to the bathroom that his bowels seemingly just finally gave up, packed there bags and went on vacation. But when he did poo, look out! First came the gnarly turd itself. The hard studded ridges of a perfectly formed turd would rub up against the vein and ease the pain but for a brief moment. Then came the wiping. Oh the wiping! Sweet relief. He'd pull off a few squares of paper and carefully fold them until he felt it was thick enough and soft enough attack. Running his folded wad of toilet paper slowly across the bump was the only time of the day he wasn't in complete pain. It was utter ecstasy. It was satisfaction. Each pass of the paper was a guilt free frenzy of itching and scratching. Any other time he'd feel like he was doing more bad than good, so he rarely every scratched it, but when he wiped it was a free for all.
But after months of waiting and suffering between each rare bowel movement, it became entirely too unbearable and he had to consult a Doctor (he decided it was better if it was a man).
He'd been going to his family doctor, Dr. Mandelbaum, since he was a kid but there was no way he wanted this getting back to his Mother, so Mandelbaum was out of the question. Not ever having gone to another doctor before he decided his best option was an anonymous one, someone he didn't know and didn't know him. And the only place to find one of those as at the free walk in clinic downtown.

2006-08-23T14:42:00.000-07:00

The summer came early that year. The unusually hot May sun bathed Paul's bare back with an infinitesimal number of rays as he augured another fence post-hole. His exposed skin was glossy with a thin layer of sweat which reflected the sun's tiny invading laser beams.
He'd been toiling restlessly for hours, moving ceaslessly from one hole to the next. As soon as he finished one, he picked up the auger and drove it into the ground and started a new one. Then with each turn of his spiraled metal tooth, he bit further into and then spit away the black earth.
He wasn't wearing gloves, this was his choice, and now his hands were pink and raw. The pain was redeeming. For this was his self imposed penance for another long night of drinking. Each dripping bead of sweat, each new calis(sp?) another step towards personal redemption.
As long as he had been working he had been trying to remember what he did the evening before, but his mind was foggy at best. All he had were random still frames and blurred party scenes of faceless people floating around a house he didn't recognize drenched in inaudible music. He does know it was a particularly bad night though because when he woke up, he was naked, curled up on the bathroom floor clutching his Mother's comforter.
He hadn't stuck around in the morning to find out how he ended up with his Mother's bedspread, he just quickly threw on some work pants and ran out to his car making sure to avoid his Mothers' invading questions.
When he got to his car there was more incriminating evidence; three stuffed Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were strapped in tightly to the car seats. Paul stood in the door-way of his car for a minute and stared at his puffy reptilian passengers, taking off his glasses he rubbed them clean on his yellow shirt and put them back on; he couldn't remember how they got there. Shaking his head he jumped in his car and drove off. He sat silently in his seat, driving to the tree nursery where he worked, trying desperately not to look at his company. How did they get there? What was he doing last night? How was he going to explain this? The questions floated around inside his head one after the other, bursting and popping like soap bubbles until he found himself in a trance just staring blankly out the windshield; his mind now empty. Then it hit him like a hammer to the olfactory, that nauseating odour of smoke and stale booze that seepes out of your pores after a long night of binge drinking and standing in a room full of restless, unappeased chain smokers. His stomach turned as he clenched the steering wheel tighter, white knuckling the vinyl circle until the wave of queasiness passed. He hadn't taken a shower before he rushed out of the house and now he could feel the stench clinging to him like a thick film all over his body. Twitching and shaking he tried to wipe it off and smear it on his seat, but its adhesive grip was too strong.

2006-08-21T15:27:00.000-07:00

So it's been about a month and a half since I've returned to the land of the silver birch, home of the beaver, and I know I said "it was my last post", but I've decided to start dropping in now and again.
Much goings on have transpired since my return. I've been to my old University stomping grounds for the first time in seven years, I attended my first full fledged red neck wedding, I've gotten my first job as a brewer at the Magnotta Brewery, I've visited many festivals, three beer festivals actually, a Jazz festival and hopefully a Pirate festival this weekend, I've been to a good friends stag party, gone back to the bridge a number of times to see the family, I've been kicked out of a restuarant and asked never to come back again, I've been playing some baseball, not well but I've been playing, I've been writing run on sentences that seem to be going nowhere....
Whatever, there was a point but I've some how lost it....
Wait here it is...yes, as I get older I'm going to start forgetting all these wonderful things that I've been doing. So unless I stat to write them down, chipping them into stone or carving them into wood, they are going to be lost forever. Gone up in smoke like so many saturday nights on my couch.
So I've decided that I'm just going to put whatever in here for my own piece of mind. It's not going to be anything exciting like beer school in Berlin, but I'll try to make it interesting.
Think about the last time you ended all your posts with the same "tag line", think about it while I go get a beer.

2006-07-04T02:35:00.000-07:00

So today is my last day here in Berlin, well techinically I'm not leaving until tomorrow morning but for all intents and purposes this is the last hurrah. After I type this last post and this will be the last post on this blog, I will be packing up the lap top and putting it in my bag to take home.
I'm not quite sure what to write, I've been thinking about it for weeks now, wondering how I was going to end this chapter of my life. Should I write something funny, should I attempt to write some sappy, deep and profound essay expounding the virtues of Europe and how I've grown as a person over the last six months, should I talk about my last impressions of Berlin and how they've changed over these six months or should I just write some thing quick and simple.
I don't know. Like I said, I've been thinking about it for weeks hoping the answer would present it self to me, but I'm no closer now than I was oh those many weeks ago.
I do know I wanted to say goodbye and thank everyone I met here, all my classmates who I spent six months learning with, all my new friends who I spent most of my free time with and all the people I met only briefly during my stay here in Berlin. Cause it's not just the people who played a larger part in me enjoying my time here that I want to thank, but also those people that played a smaller role. In the big picture of life there are always those people who help you to draw the bigger part of your portrait, your family, your close friends, the people who outline your picture. Normally you get to say goodbye to them face to face, cause in the end they are there for you. But it's those other people, the ones you don't neccerssarily get to say goodbye to, the ones that you only meet briefly that help colour in those outlines and give your life depth.
Too all those people I say goodbye and thank you.
It's been a lot of fun here in Berlin, I'm going to miss it, but it's time to go home now.
Late last night as I walked home from Prader Beirgarten, my crotch was so chaffed (sp?) that I had to stop and take a rest. Seriously, it's so damn hot here that my swass is just completely out of control, it's like the river Ganges down there. And walking around town all day in the same sweaty underpants does nothing for the inner thighs. I either had to walk bull legged, waddling down the street like a cowboy stepping up to a dual or try to hold my legs as close together as possible and walk like a penguin. It was terrible.
Anyhoo, it was so bad that I had to stop. I spied an old grassy abondoned lot so I crossed the road, walked in about 100 meters and I lay down. The night sky was perfectly clear and even though I was deep within the city, I could still see all the stars. And for the first time since I've been here I saw the Big Dipper. It looked exactly the same as it does back home, but it was just in a different position. I think it was a little more to the right. The point being that although I'm thousands of kilometers from home, in a different city, in a different country, in a different continent, I'm still under the same sky. The Big Dipper is always going to be there and so is Germany. I'm leaving Berlin now, but I'm taking a lot of it with me. So too Berlin and too Germany I say thank you.
And lastly I want to thank all of you that took the time to read my blog over the last six months. Cause chances are that if you cared enough to take the time then I am so how important to you, which makes you important to me. Thank you and I love you all.
Think about all the places and all the people in your life that make you who you are. Think about that while I go get a beer.

2006-07-02T05:28:00.000-07:00

So Friday was my last day at the brewery and it was as hard as can be expected. We did a solid two hours work before we started in on the beer, which we then drank for following two hours before we left to go buy some Canadian beers for Canada Day. We ended up buying three Moosehead Dry, Two Moosehead Pale and Once Moosehead Light for a whopping 16 Euros! They had Canadian but it was 2 Euro 60 for a bottle, how crazy is that.
Anyhoo, after the raping we took at the specialty beer store we headed home to drop off the beer and leave for the FanMile to watch Germany take on Argentina in the World Cup Quater Finals. They said there was 800,000 people there but I don't know how they came to this number, no one is counting and people are coming in from all different entrances so unless someone can count really fast I wouldn't put any trust into those numbers. Either way, there was a remarkable amount of fans out to watch the game and all of them were hoping there hometown heros would walk away with the victory. The pre game buzz was electric, people were singing, shouting and blowing there horns, but when Argentina jumped ahead on an early goal in the second half, the whole mile went silent. The air was sucked out of there like a vaccum and you could've heard a pin drop. This was the first time Germany had trailed in the entire tournament and it looked like no one knew what there were supposed to do at this point.
Then at the 81st minute Klose headed the ball home and tied it up and the place went bananas! People were jumping and screaming, hugging each other and dancing around, it was amazing. The buzz was back!
Germany dominated the rest of the game and as they went into the penalty kicks you could almost feel the victory coming. And when the German keeper jumped out and stopped the second and deciding shot the place erupted. The whole city shook and a tidal wave of black, red and gold flags filled the street. It was insanity, but the good kind of insanity. Beers were spinlled, people were lifted and cameras were broken. The rest of the night we drank and celebrated the German victory, the whole city now feeling that the Germans may actually bring home the World Cup in their own backyard.
Saturday was Canada Day, but I guess you all knew that already. Not to many Germans did. But this didn't dampen our spirits, so Sebastian, Mike, Kristian (the brewmaster at the Pilot Plant) and I headed out to the only Canadian restaurant we could find in the city, Tim's Canadian Deli.
It was an okay restuarant, but they had enough Canadian delicacies to feed an entire hockey team, an entire hockey team or four hungry brewmasters. Sebastian and I split a gigantic buffalo burger, a Montreal smoked meat sandwhich and a plate of pancakes with the smallest portion of Maple Syrup this side of the 45th parrallel.
The food was good and at the end of the meal the owner came over (Tim) and asked us if we were Canadian. I was clearly wearing my Team Canada hockey jersey so this was kind of a stupid question, but we said yes and he bought us a round of tequila on the house to help us celebrate Dominion Day.
After the restaurant the four of us headed out for a rousing game of bocci or boules as they call it here and to drink our extremly expensive Canadian beers. The game lasted about two hours, with Sebastian and I (Team Canada) taking home the victory. The losers (Germarica) had to buy us beers for there embarrassing play.
We gladly took those beers and then headed out to watch the second half of the Portugal vs England Quater Final Match at a small Italian pizzaria. Again, I think I scared the entire staff, with my drunken television shouting. But seriously, those penatly kicks are hard on the heart. Each shot is oozing with so much tension you can almost feel your heart jumping out of your chest. That or the veins in your head poping out of your skull.
But when Portugal finally pulled out the victory, there was much shouting and jumping and lifting up of people. It was another great match in what has turned out to be a magnificant tournament here in Berlin.
Then I got an early Christmas present, my brother came to town! This was both a blessing and terrible terrible thing, cause not three hours after he arrived I discovered that it is possible to get thrown out of a German bar. I'm a little blurry on the details but I've been told that we were actually asked to leave on two seperate occasions. Oh the fun.
But seriously, it was wonderful finally seeing my brother again after a long nine month absense. It was also great to see Shannon again, who I haven't seen since their wedding back in October.
We caught up on what's been happening with our lives in the last nine months, had some beers, got kicked out of Kaffe Burger and then went to MacDonald's and talked some more. In fact we talked until the sun came up a 530am this morning.
I headed back to see him again this morning, but when I got to the hotel he was too busy vomiting, so I said I'd be back in a few hours and we'd do some more catching up.
Think about the last time you hadn't seen your brother in nine months and then he showed up in Berlin. Think about that while I go get a beer.

2006-06-28T07:17:00.000-07:00

So I'm down to my last week here in Berlin. This time next week, approximately 433pm, I will be touching down in the Great White North. The true North strong and free. My home and native land. My heart feels heavy when I write that, buried under the weight of seven days.
Compared with six months, seven days seems like a drop in a bucket, a single, quick second in the passage of a minute. But these will be the longest seven days of those short six months. Not just because I'll be leaving Berlin and saying goodbye to everyone and everything I've met and done in that time. But moslty because I can't wait to get home.
With each long distance phone call home, discussing the plans for my first night back, I get closer to home.
With each email from friends discussing the plans for the first night out, I get closer to home. With each email discussing the fate of The Greyhounds, I get closer to home.
But it's like one step forward and two steps back. I think, "man only seven more days! It's almost here". Then I look up at the calendar and those seven, equally divided squares, seem like giant monoliths blocking my passage home. I wish I could just reach out with my hand and gently flick the first block, knocking it down and sending into the next one and the next one and the next one. Dominoeing my days away in a single second with a single motion.
But this can't happen. And in the long run I probably wouldn't want it that way. For I still have seven days to enjoy this wonderful city. Who knows what can happen in those seven days?
Friday is the World Cup Quater Final match between Germany and Argentina. Will it be my last time to see the insanity of the FanMile? Or will it send 700,000 Germans into an absolute frenzy? What kinda party is that gonna end up being? I'm gonna go out on a limb and say a drunken one.
Saturday is Canada Day. My first one in years outside of it's borders, but it will be an experience non the less. We've already started to make plans for a big Canada Day in Berlin celebration. What kinda party is that gonna be? I'm gonna go out on a limb and say a drunken one.
Tuesday is my last night in town. My last chance to visit all those places I've gotten used to and frequented over the past six months. The Circus, White Trash Fast Food, Kaffe Burger. What kinda goodbye is that gonna be? I'm gonna go out on a limb and say a drunken one.
So there is still a lot that has to be done in those seven days. Heck I probably still have two more of these to write. What kinda ramblings and stories will I have to tell in them? I'm gonna go out on a limb and say drunken ones.
But the funny thing is, you spend so much time waiting for the end to come, that when it finally gets there and the weight of the end is finally upon you, you realise just how fast it came and just how little time you actually had.
Think about the last time the end came and went for you. Think about it while I go get a beer.

2006-06-25T13:48:00.000-07:00

So yeah, I'm down to 10 days left in Berlin and that's about it. It's been a slow week, I don't really have that much too report. I've been posting on this blog about three times a week for the past six months and I'm almost out of things too say. It seems like I'm just repeating the same things over and over again. I'm getting tired of writing it and I'm sure your getting tired of reading it. But whatever, like I said I only have 10 days left so I guess I can punch out a few more of these things.
The first week of work was good, we got a pretty good idea of what the life of a brewer is like. Mostly cleaning. Cleaning, cleaning, brewing, cleaning, waiting to brew, then cleaning, then waiting to clean. It's all good though.
It's funny, for six years, as I sat at my computer desk punching away at the keyboard and answering phone calls, I kept saying that no matter how boring it got, it was still better than manual labour. But now that I'm back doing work that requires some body movement, I seem to like it more than I remember. At the end of the day, it actually feels like you've accomplished something. You have a physical product there that you made (or in our case, helped make) and it's quite rewarding. Also, there is lots of beer on hand that you can drink...that's a plus too.
On Saturday, Sweeny and I headed down to the FanMile to catch the Germany vs. Sweden match, and what a game it was. Something like 600,000 people were there and most of them were drunk by the 10th minute of the game. It was good that Germany came out roaring and scored two early goals, cause I don't want to be there if Germany loses. Something about 600,000 drunk, angry Germans just doesn't sound that appealing to me, infact it sounds down right terrifying. If they do start to lose, I think I'll head for the exits early.
But that hasn't happened yet and everyone is still in a good mood. I hope it stays this way. Cause even when they win, there is still some drunken craziness. Just after half time with the Germans sitting on a comfortable 2 goal lead, a few of the really drunk Germans got a little out of hand. This one guy, shirtless and at this point in time mindless, reached out and grabbed a girls boobs, she of course didn't take too kindly to this and started yelling at him before she proceeded to spit in his face. This of course led to some more pushing and then some of the other drunk guys jumped in. The shirtless guy was visibly drunk, as he stood there , swaying back and forth, trying to hold on to the spinning world that was whirling out of control under his feet, he started throwing punches at who ever was near him. But he was far to drunk and was basically just wailing at the air. But then someone in the crowd pulled out the pepper spray and sprayed him in the eyes, not once, but twice. That more or less ended the situation, that and the police which then showed up and cuffed everyone and led them away. I've said it before and I'll say it again, Germans are awesome. The next game is on Friday night, but I'm not sure if I'll head back to the FanMile, they are playing Argentina and there is a good chance they'll lose. It's just safer this way.
After the game, with a head full of happiness and a belly full of beer I headed to Circus to meet one of the Sam's I met earlier in the year. We met back in January when he was living in Berlin, but then he moved back to Wales as the job situation just wasn't as plentiful as he thought here in Berlin. Anyhoo, he was back for the weekend and emailed me to see if I wanted to grab a beer, which just happens to be something I really like to do. Anywhich, long story short we grabbed a beer, than antoher, than another, then...well you get the point. We got drunk, went to the Russian Disco and then I needed MacDonald's. So at 3 in the morning I was stumbling through the streets hunting the wiley and elusive grease monster, then when like a shiney beacon of light, cutting through the darkened night sky, the Golden Arches shone from the far end of the street and my prayers were answered.
It's always nice to get exactly what you want and exactly the right time. Think about the last time you got something you really wanted. Think about it while I go grab a beer.

2006-06-21T13:53:00.000-07:00

So it's the first day of summer and the sun sat higher and longer up in it's celestial throne today longer than it will at any point this year. And as that hot ball of gas beats down it's rays upon us deep into the night, keeping the temperatures sweltering well past 10pm, it got me thinking. I'm a terrible sleeper. I am no good at sleeping. It's a basic human ability, everyone on the planet does it. And I've had almost thirty years of practice and I'm no better a sleeper today than I was 29 years ago. Infact, I'm almost positive that I've gotten worse, much worse. For tonight when I shut off the lights, turn down the pillow and attempt to sleep, I'll no doubt thrash around, roll back and forth, try out different sides, different pillow formations, different ends of the bed, untangle myself from the net of bedding I've somehow rolled myself into, before I find some comfortable way to finally fall asleep. And that says nothing about dealing with the heat tonight. Cause not only am I a terrible sleeper, I also sweat like a thirteen year old at his first school dance. Every night, no matter what the temperature is, I wake up in a lake of sweat. So with the night time temperatures hovering around 20 degrees, I have to wear a swim suit to bed. It'll probably be a two pillow night tonight. The first one will be soaked right through and I'll have to either strap on my mask and snorkel or switch to a different pillow.
Some people have an inate ability to fall asleep at the drop of a hat. My Dad for example can fall asleep during the opening credits to any movie. You come home from the video store, announce what film you've rented, he yells out something about "really wanting to see that one", so you pop it in the DVD player and no sooner has the opening score started than you hear a symphony of snores coming from his chair in the corner.
Other people, can fall asleep as soon as they go to bed. I heard once that the average time it takes a person to fall asleep is 7 minutes. 7 minutes is the amount of time it takes me to fold my pillow into a pretzel trying to find a comfortable position to sleep in. Then after the first seven minutes have passed and I'm finally comfortable my pillow turns into some kind of spooky conduit for random floating sounds. Cause not only does it have to be dark, a comfortable temperature and position, but it also has to be perfectly quiet for me to sleep. Not a peep. Not a pin drop. And usually before I even dare attempt to put my head onto the pillow I make sure it's perfectly quiet, if there is any sound at all I won't even bother trying. But for some unexplained reason, if it is quite, as soon as I put my ear onto the pillow, the pillow somehow picks up these previously unheard noises and amplifies them into my head. I'm like an acient warrior who puts his ears to the ground to hear the enemey coming from miles away. But instead of the thunderous pounding of a thousand approaching warriors, I hear T.V. commercials and random, mumbling conversations from the people in the apartments adjacent to me. I quickly raise my head off the pillow to maybe hear where the sound is coming from but as soon as my ear is an inch off that pillow the sound is gone, like a whisper in the wind. After I do this about three times, without ever discerening where the sound is coming from, I start to get upset and then I start punching the pillow. I usually work the midsection first and then move on to the sides before I just pitch it across the room against the farthest wall.
Now after the punching and throwing I'm visibly agitated and then the whole mental games start. I begin to worry that I won't ever be able to sleep and my mind starts to race. The longer I can't fall asleep, the more angry I get. The more angry I get, the longer it takes me to fall asleep. It's a viscous cycle.
Finally when I've calmed down enough and I've again found a comfortable position I attempt the whole thing all over again. And it's not until I feel the first dribbles of drool in my gnarly moustache before I know that sleep in nigh.
I'm not even going to get into the whole, waking up fifteen times during the night, cause of either a sound, a dream, a bathroom run or any other of a thousand different reasons, but yes this is basically the same ritual I go through every night. Sometimes I even fear going to sleep cause I know that this whole thing is going to happen all over again and that leads to more anxiety and more sleep deprevation. Twisted I know. But c'est la vie I guess.
The real downfall about the lack of sleep at night is the falling asleep during the following day that can lead to problems. For if you can during the appropriate times it seems quite obvious that you would fall asleep at inappropriate times, like during class, during rock concerts, while driving a car. It can get kinda dangerous really. Maybe I should see someone about this. Or not. Whatever.
Think about the last time you had trouble sleeping. Think about it while I go get a beer (cause it just might help me sleep better tonight).

2006-06-18T03:23:00.000-07:00

So it's back to work tomorrow, the "vacation" is all but over and starting Monday, I begin my short practicum at the VLB Pilot Plant. And it's none to soon either, let me tell you what, this "vacation" was starting to take it's toll on me. The Craft Brewers Course, or "The Dessert Course" as we so lovingly dubbed it, turned out to be two weeks of visiting brewers and "sampling" the products. For example, on Wednesday, which turned out to be our last day at the VLB, we started the day by filling four crates of beer with a wonderful, yeasty, Weizen beer and finished the day with a lecture on "Beer Dispensing" and then unfilling those four crates of beer. And then after unfilling those four crates of Weizen beer while sitting outside in the 30 degree weather and eating tasty BBQ, we moved onto a much stronger, much darker Bock beer. This of course was the beginning of the end. Nothing good ever comes of Bock beer.
After we finished off the bock we headed down to the FanFest to catch the German game, there was the usual Motley Crew of drunken boobs, but we also managed to pick up a German guy along the way...I have no idea what his name was, but he had a funny hat.
Anyhoo, we headed down to the game and tried to find our friend George in a crowd of 500,000 people. George is a small man, 500,000 screaming Germans is not. I have no idea how we did it, but we found him. The game itself was wonderful, like I said, there was 500,000 people there and 499,000 of them were cheering on the homeside Germans. And when they scored in the 91st minute, the sound of 499,000 screaming, jumping, laughing Germans ripped through the humid Berlin night. Truly an awesome sight.
We stayed and celebrated with them for awhile and then Marcio and I (I have no idea what happend to everyone else, not even the German guy with the funny hat) tried to walk out of the crowd and too the subway. But drunken stumbling through 500,000 Germans is harder than it sounds and the next thing we knew, we were 2km from where we started, eating Burger King at the Alexanderplatz...not a bad place to be, but not where we were aiming.
The next day we had to get up early and headed out to the brewery in Potsdam. We were supposed to meet at the S-bahn station at 830am, Marcio didn't make it.
Anyhoo, the rest of the class, minus Marcio, headed out to Potsdam to see what would turn out to be one of the most beautiful Pub breweries these eyes have ever seen. Situated on the pristine shores of the lake, the old converted stone dairy plant, housed a modern brewery, and made some delicious beers that we enjoyed while sitting on their lake front beergarden. Not a bad way to spend a Thursday morning if you ask me!
After taking in the view, and the beer, for about an hour or so, we headed back into Berlin to visit another pub brewery.
This one turned out to be not so beautiful. Infact as soon as we got there and tried the beer, Rene (our classmate, a 60 year old Belgian man) took one sip and then promptly told the waitress to take his glass away from him as the beer was "Undrinkable!". So meekly the waitress gathered up all the glasses (except for Sebastian's and mine. We're Canadians and never turn away free beer, no matter how bad it is) and returned them to Brewmaster. The Brewmaster of course didn't take to kindly to the fact that we basically told him that his life's work was a pile of shit. And being Germans he bluntly told this. The first words out of his mouth when we came in to tour the brewery, that he so kindly invited us to come visit, were "I'm so glad to hear that you don't like my beer." The rest of the tour was a little awkard after that.
Anyhoo, after the tour we sat down with him, watched the football match and smoothed things over, over a couple jugs of beer. We ended up staying there for then next football match as well, drinking and talking away the afternoon.
Not a bad way to spend a Thursday afternoon if you ask me.
The next morning we didn't have school so we headed out to the beach in Wannsee and enjoyed a calm, morning swim. After which we headed back into Berlin and went to our friend George's house for a "Kill Jever Party". What is a Kill Jever Party exactly? Well basically, George, who was performing a study at the VLB on beer bottles, was sent five crates of Jever from the brewery. And after performing the study on the bottles, now needed a hand in emptying said bottles or "kill" the bottles. So being the kind hearted, helpful souls that we are, we volunteered our time, in the name of science of course, to help George in killing the Jever bottles.
Not only did we study the affects of Jever killing on the human mind, but was also sampled some of the oddest snack foods I've ever come across. Peanut flavoured cheesies! First of all, why would one snack food be flavoured like another snack food. If I wanted peanuts, I would just eat peanuts, why the hell would I buy peanut flavoured cheesies. It just doesn't make any sense, who wants redundant snack foods? They are peanuts for heavansakes, they fit in your hand and are ever so easy to eat, why would someone go through the trouble of extracting the essance of peanut and then putting that flavour onto a processed cheesie! It seems like and awful lot of work to land somewhere you never should of gone in the first place. And secondly, they were terrible! I bet you can't eat just one, my left ass cheek. If you could make it through one, you've astounded me.
But I digress.
Anyhoo, we didn't make it through all five crates, but we put our best foot forward and did a damn fine job if I don't say so myself. Also we advanced the study of Jever "killing" by leaps and bounds, which was of course what we set out to do in the first place.
So yeah, that was basically the last of the vacation days, and now it's back to work for the first time this year.
Think about the last time you were on vacation and had to head back to work to get away from your vacation. Think about it while I go grab a beer.

2006-06-13T08:10:00.000-07:00

So it's been a pretty tough few days. After the Friday Fiasco, we decided that we would try to take it easy for the next few days; just sit back, relax and enjoy the warm Berlin summer. And what better way to relax and enjoy then summer than by visiting a good ol' timey Hussite Festival. Nothing says relaxation like Medievel sword fighting! So Seb, Mike and I boarded the S-bahn and headed out to Bernau (a small town outside of Berlin) to take in some gallantry, tall tables, mead and of course meat on daggers.
The festival itself is an annual celebration of the towns Hussite lineage. I don't have the whole story and I won't bore you with the details, but suffice to say there was men in tights, large crossbows, lute playing and an actual Medievel fashion show. Yes fashion show, with catwalk and all. I've said it before and I'll say it again, Germans rule!

We stayed at the festival most of the day, eating, drinking and taking in all the sights and sounds that the dressed up grown ups, could put out.
After the festival, we headed back into Berlin and I went back to FanFest to watch a little of the Argentina game on the big screen. Not a bad day if you ask me, I mean who can ask for more, Medievel Festival and World Cup soccer all in one day! Yes it can happen! And I'm living proof.
Sunday was another scorcher, at least 30 degrees if not warmer, summer had finally arrived. After seeing all those football fans down at FanFest the night before I thought I would get in on the action and go buy myself a jersey! I really can't cheer for Canada as our team is ranked lower than...lower than...well basically lower than the whole GD world. So in lieu of Canada I picked my self up a Portuguese jersey, you know to celebrate my Portuguese heritage...well, not so much mine as much as my wifes, but you get the idea. A weak excuse I know, but an excuse none the less.
So after sitting in the park, reading my book and enjoying the sun for a few lazy hours, I went down to the Kaufhof and picked up the jersey.
Later that day after a jog through the park, Marcio and I headed down to the FanFest to meet up with some friends, drink some beer, play some frisbee and watch Portugal take on Angola.

So far it had been a pretty rough weekend so we were hoping that Portugal would jump out to an early lead and take the game easily. I just couldn't take a long hard fought game, my nerves and body just couldn't take it, I mean I was absolutely exhausted by this point! Luckily they did jump out to and early lead, but the game was far from easy. Although they got the win, they failed to impress and will have to play better if they hope to advance to the next round.
Finally this long, arduous weekend was over and we could head back to school! Monday morning we were supposed to meet out in Spandau at the Brauhaus Spandau to put together another brew. But when we got there the brewery was down and all we could do was take a short tour and then sit on the ample, river side, sun drenched patio and drink a 10 litre keg. I know what your saying, how can they do this to someone who just had such a long, hard weekend, but it's true my friends and get this, it was 31 degrees to boot! Terrible.
So after a hardy Brewmaster's lunch, followed by a desert beer, we decided it best to head to the beach and salvage what we could of the day! Impossible as it sounds we were able to at least enjoy some of the day.
We got to the beach around 4pm, which happens to be the hottest part of the day in Berlin and the water just wasn't agreeing with us. It was 19 degrees for Crimeny Sakes! How can one cool off in 19 degree water, I ask you how! HOW!
Also they made us pay! The audacity of these Germans. Of course I was the only one who had to pay full price, cause apparently I'm too old to be a student anymore. 27 is the cut-off. Old Man Corbeil, that's what they call me.
Anyhoo, even with paying and the 19 degree water, we were able to enjoy a few hours at the beach before heading out to catch the Czechs kick the Americans collective ass down at FanFest.
So yeah, it was a really hard last few days and I for one am glad it's finally over!
Think about the last time you had a few hard days in a row. Think about that while I go get a beer.

2006-06-11T03:47:00.000-07:00

So Friday was Luis' last day here in Berlin. It was also the first day of the World Cup. It was also the first day we got to brew in a different place other than the Pilot Plant. It was also Friday. It was also 25 degrees. Many reasons to raise a few drinks in celebration. And raise a few we did.
We began the day bright and early at the Brauhaus Mitte, a local brew pub that was kind enough to allow our small Craft Brewing Course to come in and brew at their facilities. Well at least we thought we would be brewing. Turns out all we had to do was sit around and drink while their Brewmaster did all the work.
By the time we got there, he had already milled and mashed, which meant that we weren't even going to be able to see anything until the mash was finished and he moved the wort over to the lauter tun. And as I mentioned before, the brewing process allows for many long breaks and rests, the lautering alone takes 2-3 hours and with not much else to do, it's easy to sit down and start enjoying the fruits of your labours. "Idle hands are the Devil's playthings" as the saying goes. And play we did.
We had our first beer at around 1030am while we waited for the lauter tun to work it's magic. Then after we moved the lautered wort over to the boiler, we went back down to our seats and enjoyed a huge meal followed by some more beer. We did stop drinking for a while to pump the boiled wort into the whirlpool and then into the fermenters, but then we quickly ran back up stairs and had some more beer.
It was about this time that Luis finally showed up and we could start celebrating our last day with our little Venezualan friend.
As I mentioned it was a balmy 25 degrees out that day, so with the sun high in the sky, we figured it best to head out to the beach bar and enjoy the first warm Berlin day in weeks.
When we got there the beach was only about half full, I mean it was only 2 in the afternoon on Friday and some people actually do have to go to work. Due to the empty space, we managed to secure a number of folding chairs and a nice spot in the middle of the beach. After struggling with the folding chairs for a while, seriously you had to be a border line genius to figure these things out, we managed to finally sit down, grab some beers and relax.
We stayed at the beach, sipping beers and enjoying the sun for a couple hours, but kick off was rapidly approaching and we needed to head out if we were going to get a spot down at FanFest '06.
FanFest '06 (or whatever it's called) was basically an entire street blocked off from the Brandenburg Gate to the Victory Tower and lined with giant television screens, beer and football paraphanalia vendors, beach bars, volleyball courts, full sized German mountain chalet mock ups, carnival rides and was completely awash in a sea of Black, Red and Yellow hats, jerseys and painted faces. There were a smattering of other countries represented but the vast majority of people out that day were there to see the home town Germans take on Costa Rica.
But the soccer game was not the only competition in town! The World Cup sponsors seemed to be out dueling themselves for precious signage space. Toshiba, Philips, MasterCard, Coke and Hyundai, all had a section of the street blocked off with all types of kiosks and signage directed at the naive consumers. Here's a paranoid thought. Did sporting events bring about the creation of sponsorship or did large corporate giants just create them as vehicles for their ad campaigns? Whatever, enough about that.
Anyhoo, on our way to the FanFest we figured it best to load up on some beers before we headed in. We were told no bottles so we grabbed a few cans. Well apparently they didn't want cans either, so insted of just pitching away perfectly good beer, we stood at the gates and chugged what we had left. So with a solid beer buzz now we set out to meet our buddy Geroge at the "First Berliner Pilsner tent on the right after the second screen". Oddly enough, with just those directions and in a crowd of thousands of people we had no problem locating him.
We got there about a half hour before the kick off and it was a good thing we got there when we did cause this place filled up. I heard the number 300,000 kicked around, I'm not sure if it's true or even possible, but from the look of the crowd and the sheer size of this FanFest I don't doubt it.
The game was great! Who ever said soccer is a boring game is crazy. Germany rushed out to a quick lead and the place went crazy! Truly a sight to see. Costa Rica bounced back with a quick one of their own, but after that Germany basically dominated the game and came away with a 4-2 victory. The whole place was electric, people just screaming and jumping around, it was amazing.
We decided to leave the FanFest before it got to crazy and meet up with some more friends at a bar across town. So after pushing, shoving and plowing our way through a crowd of thousands, we managed to finally emerge from the FanFest. We headed over to Circus #2 and met up with some more friends. We stayed there and watched the first half of the Poland vs Equador game, before we headed up to the Prader Beirgarten to catch the second half.
Luis, a South American himself, was cheering for all the Central/South American teams. So after Costa Rica fell to the Germans he was pretty happy that Equador was able to upset the heavily favoured Polish team and come away with a 2-0 victory.
We stayed at the Beirgarten celebrating and drinking until the lights went out and they told us to go home. But we didn't go home, we managed to make it to a few more bars, before we ended the night at a small Peruvian pub, were we drank mojitos and said goodbye to our little friend Luis.
The last thing I remember is eating Whoppers and taking our shirts off for one last picture, but until I see the evidence I'm going to assume that didn't happen.
But it was a great last day and a wonderful celebration to say goodbye to our friend.
Luis, Berlin will not be the same without you.
Think about the last time you were in the host city of the World Cup, watching the opening match and how much fun it was. Think about that while I go get a beer.

2006-06-08T07:40:00.000-07:00

So here is the official picture from the graduation last Friday. You can either go to the VLB website and see it there, or just look slightly to your left, cause it's the same picture. Damn I'm fine!

Since the graduation day I've been in a bit of a funk. Maybe it's the fact that many of my new friends have left and gone back home. Maybe it's been the weather, it seems more like fall than spring here right now. Or maybe it's been the fact that I've been sick for the last week. My immune system may have been in a weakened state though, so it's understandable. I mean I did drink for a solid seven days in a row and my have slept a grand total of 12 hours in the process. And I did spend the better part of Saturday morning walking around without my pants, so I guess the sickness may have been a little self inflicted. Damn, I must be gettin' old or something. Whatever, I still damn fine! (Did you see that pic? Damn!)

It sounds crazy, but this last week it seems like my sickness and the weather have been completely in sync, like they are some how comsically connected. Like somehow my personal health has negatively affected the high pressure/low pressure systems of North Western Europe. God complex or coincidence? I'll leave that up to you to decide. But Ladies and Gentleman of the Jury I ask you first to listen to the evidence. I think it speaks for itself. The more the mucas in my nose ran freely down my face and hardened my gnarly moustache, the harder the rain pounded the Earth and muddied up the ground outside. The more disgusting globs of phlegm I coughed up and spit out, the harder the wind blew against my window outside. The more I sweat and then broke in to cold shivers, the farther the temperature dropped outside. Spooky. But I digress.

Anyhoo, like I said, I've been in a bit of a funk. But at about 2:37pm today, I looked out the window and I saw the sun! The bright reflection of the sun bouncing off a dark green leaf on the tree outside my window. And then I though of home. I thought of finally getting back home and seeing everyone again. Of not having to call long distance to talk to my wife. Of sleeping in my own bed. Of hanging out with my friends and family. Of playing hockey. Of playing baseball. And I started to feel better.

The sun shone on the tree for the rest of the day (not that I was watching the tree all day, I mean I was in class), the weather had finally broken! And just like before, the weather and my health were, like Ebony and Ivory...livin' together in perfect harmony. I could feel my nasal passages clearing, each sinus cavity finally easing up on it's vice like grip and letting the sweet, sweet oxygen in. I felt the relief deep in each and every aveoli (sp) of my lungs. I felt the sweat dry up, bead by bead across my forehead. And I felt that low down, dirty, funk finally leave my soul, in heavy, window shattering, booty shakin', bassy thuds. And it felt great. And damn I look good!

Think about the last time you went away for a long time and then came back. Think about how good it felt. Think about that while I go get a beer.

2006-06-04T02:54:00.000-07:00

So it was graduation day on Friday. We didn't have to be at the school until 2pm that afternoon so I figured that I had enough time to get everything I wanted to do done. So I took my time.
I slowly got out of bed, read a little, watched an episode of the Simpsons, ate some breakfast, then started to post my last blog entry. I had so much too say, I mean four days on the road, travelling around Germany visiting breweries, magical things are bound to happen. But as I started to type and finished the recollection of the first day of our trip, I looked over at the clock and realized that I didn't have nearly as much time as I thought. If I was going to be able to finish this post, go for a run, call Liz, have a shower and shave my beautiful bald head and get to grad on time, I was going to have to skip a few things.
I blew through the last three days of the trip and as I finished I looked at the clock and saw that I had only an hour left to do everything else. I threw on my shoes and ran out the door for a quick half-hour jog around the city, came back called Liz, jumped in the shower and then hopped out, lathered up my head and face and started to shave. High speed shaving is never a good idea. It is an extreme sport. It should be in the X-games. On the first pass with the razor I cut deep into my scalp. The thick red blood started to stream down my face and drip directly into my right eye, picking up the thinner, soapier, more watery lather along the way.
My head was stinging like a sonofabitch, blood was streaming down my face and my eye was watering like Niagra Falls, but I still had to shave the rest of my head! So with one eye closed, I carefully, but quickly negotiated the contours of my head, making sure to avoid the open wound and finished the job.
I ran back into my room, threw on some clothes and headed out the door. I got to grad on time, but I never got to say all I wanted to say in my last post.
At one point I introduced, Werner, our bus driver and how terrible a bus driver he was. Then I never mentioned him again. He all but vanished from the text. But he was an intricale (sp?) part of the trip, his idiocy lead to some wonderful and some tragic moments. He literrally got lost in every city. Really. He had a map, he had directions, he even had an on board GPS system for cryin' out loud, but he still got lost in each city. Miraculous, truly miraculous.
But not only did he have no sense of direction, he was also a terrible driver and a complete threat to himself, us and anyone else on the road! I can't even tell you how many people he cut off and how many times we got honked at. We did manage to get arrive safely at every destination, but our dear friend Estobahn (Seb's lawn gnome) wasn't so lucky.
While we were at KHS in Dortmund, Werener came in to join us for dinner, when he mentioned to Katrine (one of the profs who joined us on the trip), that while he was parking the bus, he took a turn too sharply and Estobahn was thrown from his seat and smashed on the floor of the bus.
Katrine then went over to Sebastian to break the news. Sebastian was hurt but he handled it well. We went out to inspect the damage and to see if he could be repaired. But once we got on the bus and saw the grisly remains of Estobahn, we quickly realized that no amount of crazy glue, or Kings horses would put ol' Esotbahn back together again.
A truly sad moment in deed.
So later that night, while we drank and mourned our dearly departed friend at a Mexican restaurant, we found another clay statue. This one a little smaller and a little more Mexican, his name was Guan. We decided to take him home with us.
These were very important events on the trip that I had originally wanted to include in the post, but as I meandered through the morning and took my extra time for granted I was forced to rush through the post and I missed some crucial moments.
And this is exactly how I felt about the entire graduation day.
I had five months to get to know everyone. Five months to say everything to my new friends. Five months to experience many new things with my friends. To go out, to eat, to learn about their cultures. Five months.
But in the end I took those five months for granted. It seemed like a life time back in January. Then when the end came so quickly, I realised that I didn't really get to know everyone. I didn't take the time to learn about there cultures. I didn't take the time to become true friends with them.
But isn't that always the way. Such is life I guess.
But never the less, we are all friends and I'm not only greatful that I go to live this experience but that I got to spend it with this group of people. I'll miss each and everyone of them.
We spent the last night, discussing the past, dreaming about the future and how we would see each other again soon. Taking the one last "group picture". Drinking. Hugging. Laughing. Crying.
It was all very emotional and the booze didn't help either. A room full of drunked idiots running around saying their last goodbyes, usually turns into a gooey mass of emotional sap.
But I wouldn't have had it any other way.
Below are some pictures of the festivities. Like I said, there was hugging, singing, lots of laughing, many beers and many handshakes. We drank and partied until the wee hours and as Sebastian, Mike and I, the last men standing, stumbled out of the brewery, we went back to fetch the remains of Estobahn too give him a proper send off. He would be buried at sea!
As the sun slowly came up and cast near perfect reflections on the pristine waters of the Spree, each one of us took a chunk of Estobahn, said a few parting words and tossed him into the waiting waters below. Each piece smashing the mirror like calm of the water and sending ripples to the banks on either side.
While he was tossing his piece, Sebastian gave a little bit too much oomph and tore the crotch out of his pants. Instead of moaning and groaning about it, he grabbed the hole in his crotch and ripped the pants right off his legs then through the remains into the Spree.
So that he wouldn't be pantless alone on a bridge in Berlin, we all took our pants off too. Then walking home through the empty Berlin streets, as the cool, morning breeze blew across our exposed legs, we seperated and went off in our own different directions.

2006-06-02T02:18:00.000-07:00

So today is graduation day. We returned from our four day excursion throughout Germany last night a little tired and a little hungover, but today we have to get right back on that horse, cause we finally get to try the beer we brewed way back in March. My fingers are crossed. Not because I'm afraid of failing, but because I'm afraid our beer will be terrible. A tragedy I don't think I could recover from.
Recovery; that was basically the theme of our little excursion. It was four days of little sleep, lots of travelling, many sites and far too much beer. Each day we got up early, tried to shake off the effects from the previous night, before we got back on the bus and headed to the next brewery. When you only have a few hours in each city, you try to cram in as much as you can.
We left Berlin about 6am Monday morning, we had our first beer at 7am. It was about three hours before we got to the first brewery in Leipzig, the Leipziger Brauhaus. It wasn't a very exciting beer and I didn't include a picture of it. It was basically a large, corporate brewery, nothing to write home about. So I won't.
But after a few beers in their tasting room, we jumped back onto the bus and took another three hour ride to Bamberg and the next stop on our tour, The Weyermann Maltery.

It may not have been a brewery, but this was definately the highlight of the trip. The Weyermann's not only run a great little company but they were some of the nicest most geniune people I've ever dealt with. They gave us a short tour of their facilities and then sat us down for a wonderful dinner accompanied by many, many, many of the fine beers that they brew at their on site Pilot Plant.
After the dinner Sabine Weyermann made a short speach and invited us to come back any time we were in the area. I don't know when the next time I'll be in Bamberg is, but I will definatley stop by there again.
After we left the Maltery, Werner (our bus driver) took us on a scenic tour of Bamberg. Of course this wasn't the original plan, but Werner, just happened to be the single worst bus driver in the history of bus drivers and he got us lost trying to find our hotel. This was only the beginning of our adventures with Werner.
Anyhoo, after finding the hotel we headed out to a local brewpub for some Rachbeir, a local specialty. This is the beer that tastes like bacon. Sounds good doesn't it. Bacon and beer together at last! And it is good, for about three sips....then it's a little...er, let's just say tough to get through. So after one beer there we went to a small Irish Pub for one last night cap.
Bamberg was a pretty little, Northern Bavarian town, with some old World charm, definatley worth a return visit.
The next morning we were up by 6am and on the road by 7am. Everyone a little tired and a little hungover. But we had a three hour bus ride ahead of us to catch some extra Zed's and recover before we hit the next brewery; Pfunstadter Brauerei, just outside of Frankfurt.
By the time we reached Pfungstadter we were all a little better and ready to try some more beer. The tour was nice, but after you've seen one big brewery, you've seen them all. Just pipes and kettles really. It's the small breweries that have personality, not these big corporate giants.
Never the less they gave us beer so we like them. Again, after the tour they sat us down in their tasting room, fed us some lovely and tasty food before they let us sample many of their great beers. Although the brewery was big, bland and devoid of any personality, their beer was great.
We tried their Pils, their Weiss, their Festbeir, their Bock and their Schwartz, before we jumped back on the bus and headed to the next brewery in Dusseldorf; the Uerige Obergarige Hausbrauerei. Oh yeah, the good people at Pfungstadter also gave us a case of beer for the road, needless to say the next three hours passed quite smoothly.

Uerige, although it was only a brewpub, was also one of the highlights of the trip. For like I said earlier, it's the small breweries that have all the personality. At Uerige, they still brew beer with old fashioned equipment and they don't stop serving you until you put your coaster over your glass. And they are so fast with your next beer that you have to beer quick with the hands to get the coaster on there before the waiter has another cool, brown Alt sitting infront of you.

Alt is a good beer too. Like a nut brown ale, it's darker in colour and has a slightly burnt quality to it, very drinkable, very drinkable indeed. I refer you to exhibit A, the photo above. Those were the beer we drank when we were there, I believe the final tally was 92.

After Uerige, we hit the town and tried a couple more Alt beer breweries. I know we went to a couple more but for the life of me I can't remember their names. What I do remember though is that the beer was good. Alt beer is good. Me like it much. It not kill braincells.

The next day we were back on the bus by 8am and heading to Dusseldorf's rival city Koln (Cologne) for some Kolsch beer. In Dusseldorf you drink Alt, in Koln you drink Kolsch and never shall the twain meet. Each city hates the other cities beer and it's a bitter rivalry that has been raging for centuries. I've said it before and I'll say it again, German's rule!

I've had Kolsch before and I really didn't care for it that much, but at the Reissdorf brewery I found a reason to come back to Koln. For you can't get Kolsch any where else in the world but in Koln. It's acutally a law. I refer you to my previous paragraph, German's Rule!

Like the other breweries, they gave us some food, then gave us some beer and then sent us on our way. I think a pattern might be forming here?
After a short bus ride to Dortmund, we went to the KHS factory for what would prove to be the longest, most boring, most dry presentations ever. KHS makes plant equipment for large breweries. As boring as the large breweries are, imagine touring the plant that makes only the equipment. After the tour, they then had a two hour presentation on Labelling, bottle washing and pasteurising. Oh the fun.

But then they fed us and gave us beer and all was forgiven.

After the feeding and the drinking we hit the town. It just so happened that one of our classmates had some friends who lived in Dortmund and another of our classmates had some friends visiting Dortmund on the same day, so our large group got larger.

We went to a Mexican bar and had many beers and tequilas. I brought my umbrella, his name was Thomas. He didn't make it home.

Our last day was just that, a last day. We were all tired and just longing to get home. We stopped at a few more breweries most of us were just waiting to get home.

The first brewery was nice, Pott's Naturpark-Brauerei, it was new and made a few good beers. It also had a brewing museum with an old wooden barrel that had been hallowed out and fitted with a double bed inside. I think I heard someone say, "If Ikea sold that, I would buy it".

Anyhoo, the last brewery was terrible and most of us just wanted to leave and get back to Berlin. So we did.

The last few hours on the bus were great. Mostly Uecker and Beatles songs. We got back into Berlin around 730pm, which gave us enough time to rest up for today's festivities.

Think about the last time you got back from a four day Brewery tour around German only to get back for a party the next day. Think about it while I go get a beer.

2006-05-28T03:17:00.000-07:00

So here it is, the exciting conclusion to The Wacky Adventures of Carlos the Mighty Mexican Matador. I'm leaving tomorrow for our end of the year excursion and I'm too excited by the prospect of visiting 8 breweries in the next four days to write a proper post. So here it is.
As this is the last act of the long and drawn out saga of Carlos I figured I'd write it like a play. I've never done this or attempted this before so if you have any issues you can stuff 'em with walnuts mister.

Act 1 , scene 1 - on a beach somewhere in Eastern Canada. The stage is set with ocean waves in the back ground and the sun high in the sky, sand is covering most of the stage. There is a large piece of drift wood on the right of the stage.

The curtains are pulled back and the stage is dark.
A voice over begins to read the following, while a single spot light shines down on to the waves at the rear of the stage (the waves are pulled back and forth by stage hands, while loud sounds of roaring wind and thunder are heard). The rest of the stage remains dark:
Voice Over: Dear Reader, When last we saw our hapless hero, he was being tossed hither and yon, by the choppy waves of the Atlantic Ocean. When the waves finally realeased Carlos from their icy grip, we find they have thrown him down on to a beach. This is where our next adventure begins.

The stage lights come on and illuminate the remaing parts of the stage. We see Carlos lying prone center stage. His cape is laying across his body in the sand.
Slowly Carlos regains conciousness and he weakly props himself up onto his elbow. Rubbing his hand across his face he looks wearily around the stage, not knowing exactly where he is.
Two voices are heard coming from stage left. They are speaking French.
Carlos hears the voices and turns towards the sounds. His face shows signs of recognition, but he does not fully understand the language. It sounds reminicent of Spanish but he can't quite put his finger on it. The two voices get louder and appear to be getting closer. Carlos tries to ready himself but the night at sea has made him weak.

Enter two men stage left:
Both men where wearing touques and plaid jackets. The man on the right is as tall, bearded man (possibly a giant), with large hands and barrel chest. His eyes are wide and his right eye appears to be lazy. He has the apperance of a slow witted man. He is mostly quiet while the other man to his left, much shorter (possibly a dwarf), pudgier with goatee and a patch over his left eye , gabbers on. In a thick Quebecois accent, the Dwarf is telling the Giant, very animatidly that French Canadian syrup is far superior to that of the rest of Canada. The Giant only nods in agreement.

At first they do not see Carlso, but as they walk towards centre stage they spot Carlos and go silent.

Carlos weakly raises his hand as if asking for help and then falls back to the sand, losing conciousness once again.

The two men turn to each other, shrugging there shoulders and raising their arms in astonishment.

Giant: "Quest que ce?"

Dwarf: "Je ne c'est pas?"

Both men head towards Carlos. They bend over him and examine hime. The Dwarf signals to the Giant to pick him up. The Giant picks up Carlos and slings him over his shoulder. With Carlos with them the two men turn and exit stage left. The stage lights go dark and the curtains are drawn.

Act 2, scene 1 - A bedroom with a hardwood floor. There is a single bed located on the right side of the room, with a night stand beside it. A lamp rests on the night stand. There is a single window in the centre of the back wall, it has flowered drapes that open on either side. A chest of drawers is beneath the window and a large armoire is against the left wall. The bedroom door is beside the armoire. Carlos is sleeping in the bed.

As the curtains open and the stage lights come on we see Carlos asleep in the bed. (Birds are heard chirpping outside) A minute goes by before Carlos begins to stir. Again he slowly props himself up onto his elbow and rubs his face. He looks around the room. Now reinvigerated from the rest and full of energy he leaps out of bed frantically looking around for any sign of familiarity.
Nothing is familiar, we see panic on Carlos' face. With his back to the door and facing the bed Carlos begins to slowly back peddle out of the room.

The Giant enters into the doorway. Facing the other direction, Carlos does not hear or see him. Carlos continues to back peddle until he gets to the door and the Giant rests his hand on his shoulder.

The Giant: (Broken English with a French accent. Speaks slowly and with a deep voice) "Ah, mon amie, you have awakend. My part-ener and I, we were getten worried".

Carlos stops back peddeling, frozen in fear. Slowly he turns to face the stranger behind him. Carlos is much shorter and comes up only to the Giants chest, so when he turns he is but and inch away and looking into the Giants chest. Carlos slowly begins to pan up the the Giants body until he is looking into his face.

The Giant smiles, revealing that he his three missing teeth.

The Giant: Bonjour!

Carlos faints. And the stage goes dark. Curtains are drawn.

Act 2, scene 2 - same bedroom. With the curtains drawn slapping is heard. The curtains are pulled back to reveal the Giant and the Dwarf in the room with Carlos. Carlos is in bed again. The Giant is standing beside the bed. The Dwarf is straddeling Carlos' chest and slapping his face, first forehand, then backhand.

Dwarf: (Broken English with a French accent. Speaks quickly, with a squeaky voice) "Wake up, wake up. Ello in dare, mon amie".

Carlos begins to stir and the Dwarf dismounts, leaping to the floor.

Dwarf: "Bonjour, mon amie".

Carlos faints.

The lights go out and the curtains are drawn.

Act 2, scene 3 - same bedroom. This time Carlos is alone.

As the curtains open we see Carlos in bed and alone in the room. (Chirpping birds are heard again). Carlos begins to stir and again wakes up by propping himself up onto his elbow. He puts his hand to his head and looks around the room.

Carlos: (in English but with a Mexican accent.) "Where am I? Was that, was that a dream?"

Upon hearing Carlos, the Giant and the Dwarf burst in through the door. They stop just inside the doorway and beside the armoire

The Dwarf: "Mon amie, are you OK?".

Carlos reels back in his bed, pulling the blankets up to his chest.

Carlos: "Oh my got! Eet was no dream!" (He looks suspicously over the two men and continues).
"Who are jou? What iz dees place?"

The Dwarf: "Eat is OK, mon amie. We are your, how you say, your friend! Do not be ascared".

Still looking suspicous, Carlos slowly lowers his bedsheets and begins to get out of bed. As he gets out of the bed he becomes visibly more confident. Finally he snaps up to full attention, straightens his back, puffs out his chest and clicks his heels together.

Carlos: "I am Carlos the Mighty Mexican Matador and I have come to your home land seeking adventure!"

Taking one small step forward.

The Dwarf: "I am Jean"

Taking one larger step forward (but staying behind the Dwarf)

The Giant: "And I am Luc"

Moving to centre stage and in perfect unison, like they have practiced it a thousand times, infront of a thousand different audiences they recite the following speech.

The Dwarf and The Giant: "We are dee Dwarf an dee Giant. We escape from dee circus, where we had work since we were dee young childrens. Dee Evil Ringleader, he how you say, steal us from our maison in dee Nord du Quebec. He force us to be, how you say dee freaks.
But together over many dee years, we find dat we have much in how you say, the common.
He like what I like and I like what he like. And den one day we bot find dat we bot love dee Rocky movies! But Rocky V, it is how you say terrible! Den we find dat we bot share a dream! We bot want to run away and start up a Moose farm! So after many years, we make escape from dee Evil Ringleader and we make our way here and start our Moose Farm!"

With his hand on his chin, looking on inquisitively, Carlos nods along with their story.

Carlos: "Where is here, exactly?".

Moving closer to Carlos (The Giant right behind him) he reaches his arm out.

The Dwarf: "We on dee coast of Nouveau Brunswick, in dee Bay of Fundy". You are, how you say, a lucky man?. We cannot believe that you survive on dee ocean. Dee tide here, in dee bay, it drop as much as fifty feet!".

Carlos moves to centre stage. The stage goes dark, except for one solo spot light that shines down on Carlos. Raising his hands to the air, he begins to give an impassioned speech.

Carlos: "Well than I am truly a lucky man and I owe you a great deal for saving my life!. I have travelled across this fine country many times and have had many strange adventures. (Waving his hand across the front of the stage, suggesting the lenght that he had travelled). I have batteled enemies from my past (holding his cape and pretending to do battle with a bull), I have found love (dramatic pause and his head lowers) and lost love (holding his heart), I have made many new friends (pointing back stage towards the Dwarf and the Giant) and I have experienced more here than I ever dreamed (looking skyward). (A look of melancholy comes over Carlos as the realisation that he has experienced all he ever set out to do and more, comes over him.) (Whispering soflty to himself) Mexico. Mexico. (He bows his head and holds his heart)

Carlos dramatically turns back towards the Giant and the Dwarf all the lights come back on.

Carlos: "My new friends, I now realize that I have accomplished all my goals here in Canada and I now wish to return home (pointing off into space). But alas I cannot (Putting his arm over his eyes and turning away, disgusted in himself). (Stumbling over to the chest of drawers and putting his hands on it, he continues with his back to the audience) I am but a shadow of the man I was when I left Peurto Vallarta and if I where to return I would be ridiculed and run out of town (as he says this his head weakly falls). (Turning to face the audience and with his fist pumped into the air he says) For I am Carlos the Mighty Mexican Matador and have a reputation to uphold!"

The Giant moves to the right side of Carlos and the Dwarf to the left. They put their hands onto Carlos' shoulders.

The Dwarf: Do not be afeard mon amie. We can how you say, help. We know many ways to help get people strong!"

The Giant: (Laughing a big dumb laugh and clapping his hands together) "Oui, Oui. We help you get beeg and strong!

Carlos: "Oh thank you. I owe you even more now!"

As the three friends embrace the stage goes dark and the curtains close.

Act 3, scene 1 - a beach. No sand though, just a picture in the background. It's a moving set. Music plays over head. It's the song eye of the tiger. The beach is empty.

Enter stage left, The Giant and the Dwarf running along the beach with Carlos right behind them shadow boxing. As they jog across the stage the set moves behind them. By the time they reach stage right the set is now a frozen meat locker with hanging slabs of meat. They job back to stage left and The Giant and the Dwarf motion Carlos to use the slabs of meat as punching bags. Carlos punches a hanging slab of meat for a while and then they all jog towards stage right again. The set moves along behind them again. As they reach stage right the set is now an city alley way. Chickens are released at the end of stage left. Carlos runs back across and begins to chase the chicken around until he catches one. He brings it back to the Dwarf and the Giant who remained on stage right. Again as he runs back across the stage the set changes to the city hall stair case. A large set of stairs is wheeled out onto stage left. The Dwarf points towards them and Carlos runs back across the stage and runs up the stairs. When he reaches the top he jumps for joy, with his arms raised as triumphant music plays.

The stage lights go out and the curtain is drawn.

Act 3, scene 2 - the beach where they first found Carlos. Carlos is sitting on the drift wood log and the Giant and the Dwarf are standing centre stage.

As the curtains open we see Carlos sitting on the log and the Dwarf and Giant centre stage.

Rising to his feet, with his head bowed and his cape held in one hand, Carlos walks forwad to adresses his friends.

Carlos: "My friends, I owe you so much. You have saved my life for the second time, now I can return to my homeland without the fear of ridicule. You have helped me so much I don't know how to repay you. (Dropping his head and holding out his cape in his outstretched arms). All I can offer you is my cape".

The Dwarf: "Ah, mon amie. We know how much dat cape mean to you. We never take it".

The Giant stood silently beside him nodding in agreement.

Carlos: (turning to face the audience, walking to the front of the stage and clutching his cape closely to his heart) "Ah but this country has given me so much and I am taking so much of it with me, I must leave something for it".

Again Carlos turns towards the Giant the Dwarf and extends the cape in his arms.

Carlos: "Please, I beg you do me the honour of recieving this gift".

The Dwarf: "Eef thees is you weesh mon amie, dan I accept".

He reaches out and takes the cape. He examines it and then passes it off to the Giant. The two of them turn and walk off stage.

Carlos is left alone on the beach. The lights go dim and a spotlight shines down on Carlos and as his sequined Matador outfit flickers in the waining light, Carlos turns and walks slowly off down the beach. The lights go dark and the curtains close.
Some of you may notice that I the two men where supposed to be French and Carlos was supposed to be Spanish, yet they conversed in English. This is a minor detail and if you feel it neccessary to complain you can contact my publisher at:

2006-05-25T01:06:00.000-07:00

So that's that. Beer school is over. I'm finished. Next Friday we'll recieve our "Brewmasters Certificates" and I guess I'll be a brewmaster. But to quote my good friend Mr.Vader,

"Impressive. Most Impressive. But your not a Jedi yet".

I don't for one second believe that I'm a Brewmaster yet. One course does not a Jedi...er...brewmaster make. It's going to take many more years of practice and brewing before I feel even remotely like a brewmaster. I did learn a lot and I'm greatful to the VLB, but like most things in life, there is still much more to learn. But as for now, I'm done.
I spent that last few weeks desperately waiting for this day. Anticipating it, like a kid pulling off the windows on his Advent Calander, I was Xing off each exam as I finished, looking forward to that last day when I wouldn't have to study any more. I thought that it would be a happy day, a day of relief, a day of celebration. And it was. But it was much more than that. The happiness and the relief were there, but they didn't last as long as I thought. Almost instantly I felt remorse and sadness. I've spent the better part of five months with my classmates. Seeing them almost everyday. You kinda get used to people when you see them so much and spend so much time together. And now it's over.
It's like when your at a party and you step up to the keg to fill you glass. You grab the hose and start to pour the beer into your cup, but then just as the beer is nearing the rim and it's almost full, the keg starts to choke. It gasps for air as it empties it's last few drops into your cup, spraying a thick white foam over your hand. You're happy that you got the last beer, but you're sad that there won't be any more.
As soon as we walked out of the exam, Mert (one of the Turks) had to leave to go back to Turkey. He was the first of our class to say goodbye. He had a wonderful reason for leaving, his second daughter will be born in the next few days and he went back to be with his wife. But as great as it was to finish and as happy as we were for Mert, it was sad to see him go. I don't know if I'll ever see him again and after seeing him almost everyday since January it seems odd to say that. He was always just there.
Goodbye Mert.
Our entire class went out for dinner last night to celebrate. Karina, the spanish girl in our class, set up a dinner for us at this great Spanish restaurant. There was much beer, sangria, tapas and fish had by all. It was a massive feast that lasted the better part of five hours.
And what better way to end a massive feast then to head out to the pub to drink 8.2% Adventiuns beer. Almost everyone came out after and we continued drinking, talking and celebrating until about three in the morning. It was great.
Then just like that I learned that Joseph (the Bavarian) would not be coming back for graduation or joining us on our year end excursion. This was his last day here in Berlin.
Another one of our classmates was gone.
I took for granted all the time I had with these people. In January looking forward, five months seemed like an eternity. You couldn't see the end. But then as you sit at a table, sharing a beer with someone knowing that the next few minutes are probably going to be the last you will ever share with them, you realise how short those five months really were.
Goodbye Joseph.
The next week or so will be a long goodbye for many of us. We will do our best to make the most out of these last few days together, but in the end they will pass far to quickly.
I'm sad to see everyone go and end this chapter of my life, but I'm very greatful that I got to have this experience and share it with all of them.
I have six weeks minus one day left here in Berlin and then it's back to Canada. Berlin has been great but with each passing day I look more and more forward to coming home and seeing everyone I said goodbye to five months ago.
Think about the last time you said good bye to some one, not knowing if you would ever see them again. Think about it while I go get a beer.

2006-05-20T07:49:00.000-07:00

So I'm in full study mode right now and I'm up to my ears in soluable nitrogen and kieselguhr, I haven't the time nor the mental capacity to put together a post today. But only four more days of studying and it's all over. So in place of a post I'm bringing back Carlos and his Wacky Adventures. It's been a while since I've put one up but here it is the next episode...

Dear Reader,
When last we left Carlos, our beloved hero was wandering out of the primitive wilderness of British Columbia disoriented from a twisted night of fungi induced halluinations, towards his job at a cherry picking operation. Sure he had found his Tao and was more centered than he'd been in quite some time. But while in the forest he had naively eaten a "magic" mushroom, which lead to a fierce battle with an enemy from his past and a brief encounter with a talking squirrel and a robot king that had been encased in an acorn for many eons. Whether or not any of this actually happened or they were all just dreams brought on by the drugs, Carlos was still unsure of. But either way, he had not fully recovered from the night before and his mind was not as sharp as he thought. And although, along with his many other skills, Carlos was an accomplished outdoorsman, he had misjudged his location and was actually walking deeper and deeper into the thick British Columbian forest.
The more he walked the further away Carlos got from civilization. Minutes turned to hours and hours soon gave way to days. The nights were lonely and cold but he had his trusty cape with him to keep him warm. Finally after days of wondering aimlessly through gigantic trees, shrubs and bushes, eating whatever he could find along the way (except the mushrooms), Carlos finally succedded in mastering the great laberynth that is the forest and emerged in a small town just a few hours outside of Vancouver.
Carlos was extremly tired and extremely wet from his unexpected journey. For although he had his trusty cape with him, we was not fully prepared for the rainy West coast weather. And now still in his sequined outfit he was completly soaked from head to toe and the wet material clung to his body like a unitard, showing off more than the modest Carlos usually likes to show off. But Carlos was wet and after four days in the woods, Carlos was eager to get back to his job. So he swallowed his pride and walked into town, hoping to find some kind soul that would take him back towards the cherry picking operation.
Even with his skin tight uniform Carlos still managed to secure a ride with a friendly trucker who was heading back towards the direction of Vancouver. From there Carlos figured he would have no problems getting a ride up to Burnaby.
The trucker, a slender man with a pencil thin mustache and a baseball cap pulled tightly down to his ears, was a talkative man who seemed happy just to have company with him. Reaching into his breast pocket he fished out two cigarettes and offered one to Carlos. With a smile and a wave of his hand Carlos refused.
"Suite yourself", said the trucker as he tucked the extra cigarette up behind his ear then brought his up to his lips and lit it.
Exhaling, the trucker began to look Carlos up and down. For it's not too often that a trucker from a small town outside of Vancouver gets to see a Mighty Mexican Matador in his full uniform, especially when that uniform is soaking wet and clinging tightly to his well endowed body.
"That's quite the package you're carrying there", said the trucker as he montioned his head in the direction of Carlos' lap.
Carlos wasn't sure what "package" the trucker was talking about. He looked down and saw his cape draped across his left leg and figured that was what he meant.
Carlos explained to the trucker that he usually drapes it over his shoulder but it was still a little wet from the night before, so he was just letting it hang there.
The trucker choked on his cigarette smoke. Caughing he said, "Draped over your shoulder! Damn son, what were you doing with that thing last night!"
Carlos explained to the man that he was lost in the woods and he had to pull it out to keep himself warm.
"I know what you mean man, I've been there myself. Sometimes alls a man can do on a dark, cold, lonely night, is to pull it out and take a nice gentle, tug on the rug", laughed the trucker as he winked and nudged Carlos with his below.
Carlos wasn't exactly sure why he had called his cape a rug and why exactly anyone would want to tug on it. So he then went on to explain that he also had to use it on the bull he had come across the previous evening.
The trucker looked stunned. "Woah, there hombre. I don't know what you goes for down there in Me-hico, but up here we don't play that way with the critters!"
Now Carlos was completely confused. He told the trucker that he only used it to scare off the mighty bull.
"Well I'm damn sure if really is that big, it would scare a bull!", laughed the trucker.
Again Carlos was confused, he had seen many capes in his time and he didn't think that his was any bigger than any one elses. So he explained to the trucker that his was just as big as anyone elses back in his home town of Puerto Vallarta.
"Well no wonders everyone goes down there for vacation. That must be one crazy town you got there!" bellowed the trucker as he pulled his cap off and slapped it across his knee.
Carlos had no idea what the trucker was talking about. He told him that the capes were only used in the Plaza del Toro and no where else.
"Cape! You were talkin' 'bout yer cape! Well I'll be a monkey's Uncle, damn it son, I thoughts we were talking 'bout yer unit" . laughed the trucker as he slapped his hat across his knee again.
At this point Carlos was completely lost, "unit", "monkey's Uncle", none of it made any sense to him, be he figured that the trucker seemed like a nice enough man so he contiuned talking to him. And so Carlos and the trucker talked almost non-stop for the rest of the trip, laughing and carrying on like old friends.
When they finally got into the city the trucker dropped Carlos off at a corner and and as he drove away he leaned out his window and yelled, "Don't you go doin' anything with that cape that I wouldn't do!"
Carlos laughed and waved but he still had no idead what the trucker was talking about.
It had taken a few hours to get into the city, so along with his time in the forest, the day was almost over. Carlos figured he would just find a place to sleep for the night and then try to catch a ride to Burnaby in the morning. So with no where in particular to go, Carlos wondered the city streets for awhile before he stumbled across a friendly looking establishment called Halifax 2. The outside of the building was made to look like an old sea faring shack and the windows were lined with photos of Canada's East coast. Carlos had never seen such a beautiful place, so he ran inside to ask the girl standing behind the bar where those pictures were from.
As Carlos walked into the bar the girl behind the counter immediately noticed him in his matador outfit. She had never seen anything quite like it before, so she put down the glass she was drying in her hand, flung her bar towel over her shoulder, turned to Carlos and said, "Well aren't you quite the sight. What can I do ya fer?"
Carlos quickly asked her about the pictures in the window. "Those pictures, well there are from my home town about fourty minutes outside of Halifax. Prettiest little town in all the East Coast and the best fishin' in all of Canada too!".
Carlos couldn't believe his ears for back in his home land of Mexico, Carlos was not only a Mighty Matador, Mariachi Man and Outdoorsman, but he was also a wonderful fisherman. Excitedly he asked the girl where exactly Halifax was.
"You aren't from Canada are you?" laughed the girl. "I guess I shoulda figured that out from your get up there. Well Halifax is all the way on the other other side of the country. It's the biggest city on the East Coast". Carlos was even more intrigued now and he asked how long it would take to walk there.
"Walk there! Well aren't you just the cutest thing", she laughed. "You can't walk there Hun, Halifax is about 6,000km from here". Carlos was shocked, he didn't know what to do. He had never seen a place like Halifax and he desperately wanted to go there and try out the fishing.
But penniless Carlos had no way of getting across this enormous country. He would have to cherry pick for months if he ever wished to get that kind of money. Just then Carlos remembered something he had heard while on one of his many wacky adventures across the Country. He recalled that many of the transients he met, while he was a bumb back in Toronto, discussed the "good ol' days" when you could "ride the rails" and travel where ever you wanted for almost nothing at all. And seeing as that's just what Carlos had, he figured this was the way for him.
So Carlos asked the girl where the closest rail station was. She told him and he thanked her as he ran out of the bar in search of his next adventure.
In just a few short hours Carlos had not only found a train but had managed to sneek aboard and secure himself a cozy little box-car that was carrying bails of hay. Although there was a bit of an odd odour in the car, these were first class accomodations by Carlos's standards. Not only was it a free ride, but he also got a wonderful little bed of hay to lay his sweet head down for the night.
After a few hours of waiting the train finally started to move. There was a quick jerk and then Carlos could feel the train wheels below him starting to move. But just as he was relaxing and getting to ready to put his feet up for a nice nap, he heard something that sounded like a person running beside the train. Curious, Carlos slid open the car door, and there infront of him, running along side the train was the most ravishing girl Carlos had ever seen. As she ran beside the train her ample bossom heaved and bounced and her golden hair floated through the air, Carlos was mesmerized. But de was quickly brought out of his trance when she yelled up to him, "A little help!". Carlos gave his head a quick shake and then bent down and extended his arm. She grabbed ahold and he pulled her up onto the train.
"Thanks", the girl said as she began to brush off some of the hay the had clung to her as Carlos had pulled her up to the car. "Names Nancy, what's yours?", she said as she extended her hand. But Nancy had an extremly thick accent and Carlos could barely understand what she was saying, he just stared blankly back at her.
"You're not from around here are you?' she questioned. Again he had no idea what she was saying.
Just then a gentle breeze sprung up and carried Nancy sweet scent over to Carlos. Closing his eyes and inhaling deeply, the smell of Nancy's wonderful perfume filled Carlos with extasy. It had been quite a while since Carlos had the pleasure of being with a woman, and her enchanting aroma had all but put Carlos in a trance.
Carlos wanted to approach her and fill her ears with sweet Mexican nothings, but as he took a step forward he remembered that he had been in the forest for a few days and was unable to bathe. Self conciousness gripped him, he became timid and was too afraid to approach her. He didn't know what to do. But as mentioned many times in the past, Carlos was a man with a sharp with and the answer came to him quickly, he could blame his smell on the hay! It was definately not the most pleasent odur and it over powered almost everything. Everything that is, except for Nancy's intoxicating perfume.
Carlos finally spoke up, "I am Carlos the Mighty Mexican Matador, I am here to experience the wonders of your great country".
"Mexican eh?. Well I am a Newfie and I'm headin' back East". Carlos was only able to make out a few of her words, but he clearly heard, "East" and couldn't believe his luck.
"I am also going East aswell. I am going to experience the great fishing I have heard so much about", said Carlos.
"Well isn't that a co-inky-dink, my dear old daddy runs a fishin' boat. Maybe when we get there he'll take you out", she said with a smile.
Finally Carlos understood every word she said and he answered, "You would do that for me? But we just met!"
"Yeah, but you're kinda cute", she replied as she chucked Carlos in the arm.
Although she spoke in her thick Newfie drawl and he spoke with a rich Mexican accent, they both came understand each other perfectly, for they were both now speaking in the international language of Love. All they need do now is look into each others eyes and the love between them became their interpreter.
Over the next few days Carlos and Nancy began to fall deeply in love. At first they just held hands and let there feet dangle off the edge of the car as the stared out across the golden wheat fields into the warm embrace of the Canadian heartand. Then as their relationship blossomed they even went for a "roll in the hay". For hours they would toss and turn throwing the hay all hither and yon across the car. Then if they still had energy left, they would have sex!
At night Nancy would put Carlos to sleep, by telling him stories about all the wonderful trips she had been on acoss Canada and all the glorious countries she was going to visit when she had the money. "I am going to go to Paris, Cairo, New York where ever and who ever will take me!"
Finally after almost a week on the train alone, Carlos asked for Nancy's hand in marriage. She of course accepted and the day they got off the train on the East Coast they went to a justice of the peace and were married.
After the marriage the two of them headed back to Nancy's parents house where she introduced them to Carlos. They hit it off right away, so much so that Nancy's Father even asked Carlos if he would like to help him run his fishing business.
Carlos couldn't believe his luck, not only had he found himself a beautiful bride, but he also found a job that would allow him to fish all day long. Life was good.
But just like a carton of milk, the honeymoon reached it's expirey date too quickly and turned into a putrid mass of white goo. A mere month into the marriage Nancy began to change drastically. She would demand Carlos bring home more fish and money to support her. If Carlos ever had a bad day at the nets, Nancy would get irrate.
"What, What I am I supposed to do with this. How I am I supposed to cook dinner with these puny little fish. You're supposed to provide for me, why do you think I married you? You make me sick. You think I want to stay in this shitty town my whole life? Get out there you worthless bumb, you make me sick!".
Carlos was a patient man so he would put up with her yelling. He would go out day after day from 5am to 6pm and fish. His hands were raw from the bite of the cold ocean water and the constant tearing from the fishing nets. Yet still this was not enough to appease Nancy.
Carlos was torn, he loved Nancy deeply but he couldn't take her constant nagging. She was not the woman Carlos thought she was. And the more Carlos gave into her, the more she would yell at him.
Finally after one particularly bad argument, Carlos had had enough. He decided that as soon as he could, he was going to leave Nancy. But he knew that she would never let him leave, so he came up with a plan. Carlos was going to fake his own death! Just like in that movie "Sleeping with the Enemy" staring the wonderful Julia Roberts. Carlos was going to wait for a terrible storm and then go out fishing. Then when he was far enough out, Carlos would abandon ship and swim back to shore. For you see back in Mexico, Carlos was a not only a Mighty Mexican Matador, Mariachi Man, Outdoorsman and Fisherman but also a champion swimmer! No one could best him, he was National Champ six years running!
So after abandoning the boat and swimming back to shore, the boat would be found with no Carlos in it and everyone would think that he was lost at sea.
The very next week a horrible storm kicked up and Carlos knew this was the perfect opportunity. He took out his boat and put his plan into action.
When he as about a kilometer out, Carlos jumped over board and began to swim back to shore. But the waters were rougher than he had anticipated and although he was a fabulous swimmer, the waves proved too strong and he was tossed back and forth like so much hay while people are having sex in a hay pile in the box-car of a train.
Soon the violent tossing and thrashing became to much for poor Carlos and he passed out.
When he finally awoke, Carlos found himself on shore. The sun shone brightly down on him and he could barley open his eyes, but he could hear people coming towards him speaking a language that sounded very close to his native Spanish. But just as the voices sounded like they were on top of him, everything went quite and Carlos passed out again.
Too be continued...

Epiloge

Well what happened to Nancy you ask. After Carlos's apparent death Nancy was heart broken. She went through a long grieving period over the loss of her husband. The only thing that brought her out of her mourning was when she would go into town to watch the Pan Americam Wrestling League (PAWL) action. The only thing she loved more than Carlos was wrestling.
After going for many weeks running, one of the wrestlers began to notice Nancy and befriended her. Gary Lechance (AKA Gas Pedal Gary), became Nancy confident. Soon their relationship blossomed into a full romance and they married. Nancy became his manager (Nancy the Nerpaler) and they went out on the road together.
Due to their stormy relationship and access to the public eye, they became fringe celebrities. Each day the tabloids would carry a new story about Gary and Nancy. They usually revolved around cheap hotels, doughnuts, fridge doors and police interferance and mustard. But through it all they still stayed together and remained married.
As they grew old Nancy began to see her dreams of seeing all those wonderful countries disappear. She was to old to travel and would die with out seeing them.
But her husband suprised her. Upon thier retirement from PAWL, he moved them down to Las Vegas to work the Casino circut. Vegas, a city that brings all the wonders of the world together in one neat little package. It had everything, the Effiel tower, the sphinx and the Empire State building. Nancy finally got see the world.

2006-05-16T08:06:00.000-07:00

So today was my last day of classes at Beer School. Oh, it seems like just yesterday when we first began our course and I poured beer all over the crotch of my professor (with a soft smile I stare dreamily off into space, pondering a simpler time...a better time) . Those were the good ol' days. Remind me that before I leave (after my exams) I have to pour beer all over that same professors crotch...just for ol' time sakes (jotting down a quick note in my text book.."pour beer on crotch").
So exams start tomorrow and it's going to be a fun filled week let me tell you what. 10 exams in 7 days! Screw Disneyland, this is the place is the most fun place on the planet! The joy I feel is so great that I can barely contain myself (clapping and giggling to myself), I'm jumping outta my seat right now! (jumping up into the air and clicking my heels together like Harrigan the man sized leprachan....H-A-Double R-I-G-A-N, it's Harr-i-gan!) It's so much fun I'm going to end each sentence with an exclamation mark! Our first exam begins tomorrow morning 830am, it's in Microbiology! I can hear you all right now, moaning and groaning, wishing you were the ones lucky enough to be stuck in a lab all morning, staring into a microscope, trying to tell the difference between sacchromyces cerevisaie and sacchromyces uvarum! Man, life is good, life is good!
No really, I can't complain about anything. The last five or so months have been unbelievable and not only have I learned a lot about beer, but I've made so great friends from all around the world. 7 days of exams is price enough to pay for what I've experienced and what I've gained.
That being said, once I walk out of that last exam I'm going to get so drunk that they are going to have to come up with a new word for it -
Shitfaced, pickled, plowed, retarded, destroyed, shitpickled, shitstinkled, stinky, blotto, three-sheets-to-the-wind, hammered, wrecked, off-my-ass, inibriated, done, cronked, smashed, hosed, gone, tipsy, drunk, fucked, gooned, totaled, liquored, rocked, wobbily, stumbly...none of these will do. It will be grand! It will be bold! It will be disgusting! But it will be fun!
Then after a few days off for recovery, our class will be heading out on it's last excursion around Germany, 8 breweries in 4 days. Did I ever tell you how much I liked beer school?
One last whirlwind tour before we come back and have our send off party at the VLB. Apparently this last party is going to be a blow out. Did I ever tell you how much I liked beer school?
Then that's it. It's all over. No more beer school.
Until the following Monday when a few of us begin a two week Craft Brewing course at the VLB.
Think about the last time you finished one beer school only to start another one, two weeks later. Think about it while I go get a beer.

2006-05-14T06:02:00.000-07:00

So I did this the other day;

As you may or may not have read, my posts have been somewhat riddled with booze induced baffoonery as of late and have had little to no reference to the actual reason why I am in Berlin in the first place. And for good reason too, I was drunk for the better part of nine days! But this has passed and now it is time to focus on my studies.

I needed to get it out though, I needed to purge the system. It was the storm before the calm. It was the bender before I straightend out.

So this is my fresh start. I took razor to head and shaved away the past. A new face for a new man.

I have all of two days of class left before exams start. It's time to put down the bottle and pick up the books. Well not completly but you get the point. It's been five long months of learning and it comes down to these last few weeks. So drunk, loud, obnoxious Sam has been put on the back burner and the lesser seen quite, studious, bookworm Sam has been moved to the fore. Luckily this will only be until Wednesday, May 24th.

Before I went into full study mode though I went to see the extremley underrated and unappreciated (excluding indie geeks) New Pornographers and what a show it was. If there is any band out there that can harmonize like them I've yet to hear 'em. They are like Beach Boys good. The pop is so syrupy and sacchrine that my teeth hurt when I left. I have all there discs but I don't give them enough spin time, I think I'm going to start though. The only dissappointing thing I have to say about the show (and it really isn't a bad thing, it's really only a minor complaint) is that Neko Case wasn't there. The girl who stood in for her (not sure of her name) did an amazing job and I'm not faulting her, she was great, I just wish I could've seen the full band. Especially since Neko was playing two days later in Berlin. But whatever. Everything else was great, they played all the songs I wanted to hear and as good as they sound on disc they sounded even better live, good energy and great timing.

One last thing before I run off to do some more studying. In order to celebrate the impending end of our beer course, the Turks went out to a great Turkish restaurant and set up a special dinner for our entire class. Almost everyone showed up and it was good to see everyone together outside of the class room setting. The food was out of this world good, but it was the conversation that was really my favourite part of the evening.

It started when I asked Joseph (Bavarian), who has spent the better part of the past 25 years traveling around the world, what his favourite food was. He thought about it for a while and finally decided upon a Brazilian dish where they have an assortment of meats skewered through a large sword. They come by your table and then just pull the meat off onto your plate. He said it was the best thing he's ever tasted. Sounded good enough to me.

Next I turned to Mr.Chang, a quite, reserved Korean businessman, who is generally rather guarded with his words, and I asked him the same question. He didn't even have to think about it, he just jumped right in and started telling us about his trips to China and this region in particular, Kwang Tong (sp?) where they live by this old saying, "All thing in the world which has four legs can be eaten. Except table." Any story prefaced with that, you know it's going to be good. Anyhoo, while on a business trip in China he had the distinct pleasure of eating a camel foot, which he said was quite delicious. Of course I then added in, "So you ate a camel toe?" Too which he quickly answered, "Yes, camel toe is quite delicious."

"And camel toe is your favourite food?"

"Yes." And then he began to draw a picture of the camel foot.

"Was it meaty? How do they get the meat off the camel toe?"

"It's not really meaty" he says and then turns back to his drawing. "It's more fatty."

By this point, all of the North Americans thought it this was qutie funny and we were all giggling like school boys.

Eventually we told Mr.Chang and the rest of those listening what we call a camel toe and they thought it was pretty funny as well.

Mr. Chang wasn't done though, he went on to regale us with more culinary adventures in China. First he told us about the bear claw he had, and not the pastry but an actual bear claw. Then he came to the topper, the most disturbing food story I ever heard bar none. Once at a very "special" dinner in China, he was at the table when he was witness to the eating of live monkey brains. Yes, live monkey brains. From this particular culinary oddity comes the saying, "Monkey Crying Under Table". Because you see, this is what they do; they carve a hole out of the top of the table and release a live monkey under the table. One man grabs it, while another man starts to bash it on the head with a hammer to get at the oh so delicious brains. Then while the monkey is being beaten, it begins to cry...hence the saying, Monkey Crying Under Table. Then with the head cracked open and the brain exposed, each person leans forward and picks off parts of the brain. At this point all of us were just sitting there with our jaws open and our eyes wide open. I think Holy Shit is quite apt here.

After blowing all our minds with that story he told us about his last business trip to China, where after 5 days he had to fly back to Korea and hospitalize himself.

Apparently in China if you are offered a drink it is considered a great insult if you don't accept it and drink it. So with 5 of his colleagues he headed to China for an important business meeting. And at the first day of the meetings they were each offered a ceramic bottle filled with approximately 200ml of 53% booze for lunch. He never said what kind, just that it was 53%. Of course if they were to refuse they would lose face and their Chinese hosts would be greatly insulted, so of course they drank it. And between the hours of 12p and 230p they were offered three more. So by 2pm they had each drank almost 800ml of 53% alcohol.

He went on to say that by this point one of his colleagues was passed out in his own vomit in the corner of the room and the rest of them were passed out in their chairs. The Chinese business man gave them a few hour to recover and then at 6p asked them to join them for dinner. Of course making them drink the same amount at night.

He said this went on for 5 straight days and as soon as he got home he had to go straight to the hospital where he spent the next three days.

By this point I was crying I was laughing so hard.

But he wasn't done. He said, three months later the same Chinese businessmen came to Korea, where Mr. Chang says they have a drink called the Atomic Bomb. It's pretty much a Car Bomb but with Korean beer and whiskey. He told us that they actually train how to drink them so that they don't get too drunk at meetings.

So with revenge on their minds, they begin to offer the Chinese businessmen Atomic Bomb after Atomic Bomb. They of course can't refuse and after four Atomic Bombs the Chineses businessman were drunk off there ass and passed out.

Mr. Chang said that by the time the meeting was over the Chinese businessmen started crying, "Okay, okay, Korea win, Korea win"

Awesome. The wheels of business are always greased with a little alcohol.

Think about the last time you got drunk at a business meeting. Think about it while I go get a beer.

2006-05-11T09:29:00.000-07:00

So just like a bad horror movie, when you think the evil monster has finally been slain by the trimphant hero, he comes back again for an even gorier, stupider, more blood splattered sequel. Enter Mark.
Day 7: After we put the boys on the plane, Mark and I took a bus back into the city and we jumped off at Kunfusterdam so that I could take him on a nice leisurely walk around Berlin. But as soon as we got to Zoologisher Garden and felt the hot sun beat down on us, we both felt the gentle pull of the beach bar. We are both very weak.
So after a few drinks on the beach we decide to head back towards town to see some more sights. But as we walk into the Market we both felt the gentle pull of the patio. We are both very weak.
So after a weissbeir on the patio we decide to head up towards the hostel so we could find some food. But as we walked through the streets we both felt the gentle pull of the absinthe shop. We are both very weak.
So after an absinthe we are both pretty famished so we decide to get some burgers up at White Trash Fast Food. But as we pass by as quaint little bar we both felt the gentle pull of our bladders. We are both very weak.
So after Mark used the ladies facilities we finally get to White Trash and gorge ourselves on some burgers and brownies. Then we realised that it was Cinqo De Mio and we felt the gentle pull of a Mexican bar. We are both very weak.
But as we walk to the Mexican bar a guy on the street holding a bottle of vodka asks us if we would like to come on a bar crawl, $10 and all the vodka we could drink between bars. We are both very weak.
But we did have a plan, so we went to the Mexican bar, slammed a Corona and then went back to the bar crawl.
After four bars and countless free vodkas, the next thing I know, I've left Mark at the bar and I'm lost on the street. It's late and the only other person on the street is a prostitute. I stop and ask here where I am. All she says is "You want Fucka?".
"What? No, please just tell me where I am?"
"You want Fucka?"
"Can you for one second stop being a whore and just tell me where I am?"
"You want Fucka?"
At this point I just turned and walked away, I figured I'd have better luck on my own anyways. Turns out, I was all of two streets over from my house.
Day 8: I show up at the Circus to see if Mark has arrived safely home. I get the key from downstairs and head up to his room. As I open the door I see that Marks buddy Matt has shown up. So as they slowly get ready, Mark's cousin Taylor shows up...which I guess is somehow my second cousin that I never until that day knew existed. So our little group is growing.
We head downstairs and we find Taylor's two friends Tim and Kate. So now we are six. What better place for six people to go than the Beach Bar!
As we walk to the beach, we all begin to get to know each other as many of us are meeting for the first time. We get to the beach, have a drink or two and exhange some pleasant conversation.
But soon it as time to move on and what better place for six new friends to go after they've been to the beach than the Absinthe shop!
So we go to the Absinthe shop and try some more of the green fairy. But really you can only have one, so we decide to move on. And what better place for six new friends to go after they've been to the beach and the Absinthe shop than the Bob Ross store!
So we go to the Bob Ross store and snap some photos, that got old quick, also Mark, Matt and I had to get to the soccer game.
We drop Taylor, Tim and Kate off at the hostel, grab our Santa hats and head out to Olympic stadium.
The game was a sell out 71,000 fans. Really quite the sight. But none of us are real soccer fans, so we decide to bail after the first half. But before we leave we begin to put our new revolution into movement. The plan is to gather as many adresses as we can from people around the world and just start sending postcards. Everyone loves getting mail, even if it is from strangers.
We managed to get about six adresses. First from this man from Hamburn, then mostly from vendors after that. Then we saw a guy passed out on the cement so we posed for pictures with them.
Then we head back to the hostel as we need to get ready for bowling. We all put on our bowling gear and then head downstairs and low and behold there is Taylor, Tim and Kate. We ask them if they want to join us, they of course say yes and we were six again.
When we get to the bowling alley most of my classmates were already there. Now we were like twenty.
I won't bore you with the details, except to point out that by the end of the match Mark didn't have his shirt on and I was sans shirt and pants.
Bowling is fun.
We decided that we should probably call it a night at this point.
Day 9: The end. Finally. My body is falling apart.
I head to the hostel to get Mark and Matt, we head out towards the beach bar but stop to grab some sweinhaxe and weissbeir first.
Beach bar visit #1. We sit down have a few drinks and enjoy the sun. After about an hour we decide to head out for some more sight seeing.
Mark and Matt pull their pants down in the street and take pictures.
Mark finds a jacket on the street and wears it for the rest of the day. It was at least three sizes too small.
We head to my house and Mark does a guest post.
We decide to go to Prader Beirgarten for some more pints in the trees.
My turn to take my pants off and order a beer.
Mark poses for pictures with a statue. Dirty pictures (ohh, la, la)
We decide to go back to the beach bar.
Sun was on it's way down so it was getting chilly. We didn't stay long.
We decide to go back to Circus and change. I plan on leaving as I have school in the morning.
When we get to the hostel, Taylor, Tim and Kate are there and convince us to have a beer with them.
We drank and talked and then they convinced us to go to Kaffe Burger with them.
It was early and it was Sunday, so it was a little dead. We had a few drinks and then I said good-bye. It was finally the end of a very long nine days. But as we all realised that we probably would never see each other as long as we all shall live, we decided to exchange email adresses. So I grabbed a pen and paper from behind the barman and we all did the exchanging.
And again we said our goodbyes.
As I walked out of the bar putting the drunken nine days behind me, I realised that I still had the pad and pen so I started writting whatever random thoughts came into my head, then tearing off the paper and throwing it into the wind.
In my heady drunken state, I thought I was being really deep and shit. Putting information out the world that only a man on a nine day bender could ever come up with. Sharing wittisisms like a barstool prophet, then tossing them into the wind hoping they land at the feet of someone who really needed it.
Now I just think I was litering.

2006-05-10T08:38:00.000-07:00

So now the exciting conclusion to our epic tale of horror and insanity - The Attack of the Drunken Boobs!
Day 5: Day 5 begins modestly as I had to attend class and the boys took a leisurly walk down to market for some omellettes and lattes. How quaint.
As the weather was supposed to be beyong excellent that day, we had planned to meet up at 1p and head down to the Dom to catch a boat that would take us a swell trip down the mighty spree. How quaint.
I caught the boys as they strolled up from the market and we all shook hands and said the common pleasantries. We all took off our sweaters and sinched them off around our waists as the heat was almost getting to much.
"I say. The sun is exceptionally hot today!", said Mike as he wiped his brow with his hankerchief.
"Tut-tut, Mike. You shouldn't complain about to much sun!", quipped Walder, wagging his finger at him.
"Ah, ha ha ha ha", we all laughed gaily as we made our way down to the boat.
We boarded the boat and took our seats on the cleanest white plastic chairs we could find. Wiping it off with his hankercheif, Mike rudely said, "This is so blue collar!".
"Don't be such a bitch", laughed Mark as he waved his hand at Mike.
The boat started up and moved slowly down the Spree, the waitress came upstairs and asked us if we would like a drink.
"I'll take a shandy!", yells Walder.
"Oh, oh, oh, I"ll have one too", yells Mike waving his arms in the air.
"All we have is beer", says the waitress.
"Oh pooh!", mopes Walder as his shoulder fall to his side.
"Let's slum!", I say, "You know what they say? When in Rome".
"Your're so naughty", laughs Mark waving his arm at me. "Let's do it!".
So we all order our beers and sip it slowly, holding the glass firmly with both hands.
We make our way down the Spree, getting a nice view of Berlin's beauty from a different angle.
But just when we thought it was safe to go out in Berlin, we come around the corner and Bam! There it was. The dreaded Beach Bar! Staring it's sandy brown eyes at us! It's palm trees poised and ready to attack! The beautiful oasis then sent out laser beams from it's waiting beach chairs that put us all under a spell.
"Oh my God, what is that!" yells Walder.
"I don't know. But I think we should probably go there and check it our after", I say almost as if I was't under my own control.
"Yes. I think we should go", replies Mark. His voice like that of an automaton.
We all down our beers and pace impatiently back and forth across the deck until the boat returns to the dock and let's us off.
Like zombies, our eyes glazed and our arms outstreched infront of us we race to the bar.
Through the market, down and alley, through an alley and then there it was in all it's glory. The beach bar!
We rush to the bar, get some beers and slam our asses down onto the warm brown sand.
"Holy shit, I didn't even know this existed", I say.
"Well it's pretty much the balls", replies Mark.
Then we sat there and had a few more beers before it's spell wore off and we headed out to see some more sights.
First Zoo station, then Zoolishergarten, then Checkpoint Charlie and then we all felt something tingle inside us and we were gripped again in it's spell. This time it pulled us in a different direction though. This time it took us to the Prader Beir garten!
Apparently the same spell had gripped my three friends Mike, Mike and Sebastian!
And there we stayed, in the trees, with five hundred other Germans under the same spell, drinking and laughing on picnic tables, watching the sun disappear beneath the beer vendors stand.
Then Rosie came!
Then someone said, "Let's go to circus!"
Then someone ordered two 2L glasses of Weissbier.
Then we drank them.
Then Rosie, Sebastian and I sang the worst version of "Country Roads" ever.
Then Walder yelled, "The Russians are coming! The Russians are coming!"
Then I had to go home.
Day 6: It was the boys last day and what better way to celebrate a week long bender than a Beer Blast! And it just so happend that it was the first Thursday of the month, and you know what that means? It was also my cousin Mark's first day in town and what better way to celebrate the first day in town than a Beer Blast! And it just so happened to be the....you get the point.
So we all meet up at my school but we were a little early so we went to Sebastians house to have a pre-Beer Blast beer. The best kind of beer as far as I'm concerned.
After the beer we headed back to my school for some more beer. And more beer we had!
The weather also happened to be exceptionally warm that day, so the brewery set up some taps and picnic tables out side, so we could enjoy said fine weather.
And since we were outside we had a BBQ! And since we had a BBQ, we had more beer!
4 hours, 5 Kegs and 200L of beer later we decided to go to...you guessed it, CIRCUS! Somewhere in that 4 hours, Mike had to school us on the art of chugging. And how.
But before we could get to Circus we had to have some post-Beer Blast beers for the bus. My second favourite kind of beer.
We had a little trouble on train though as we didn't know that it was out. So we would board the train and it would take us to the wrong station. Then we would board another train that would take us back to the station we started at. Then we would get on a train that would take us to the wrong station. Then we would get on a train that would....you get the picture. We didn't. Finally some kindly gentleman pointed us in the right direction...to the cabs.
So we jumped in some cabs and met back at Circus.
Then we had some more 2L beers.
Then we had some White Russians.
Then I left.
Then I puked on a Police Station.
Day 7: Sad goodbyes. I met the boys at circus, they packed their stuff and we grimly went out to the airport. We found the gate, the boys checked in and we all gave each other those, half handshakes, half hugs that guys do so well. Then we waved and I watched them disappear behind the clouded window of the boarding section.
The End.
Or Was it!
Duh-Duh-Duh!

2006-05-09T09:44:00.000-07:00

So I'll try to condense this one, keep it simple, pare it down to the bare bones and just give you the highlights. Just the minutes and not the minutea.
Day 2: After shaking off the hangovers, moving out of the Pimpin' pad and taking the luggage to the Circus Hostel, we head out for a brisk walk around the town. A merry jaunt through some of Berlins finer points. Unter Den Linden, Brandenburg Gate, The Reichstag, Teirgarten and we wound it up with a beer and some sweinhaxe at the Lindenbrau Brewery in Postdamer Platz. But a three hour walk, a litre of beer and giant pig knuckle on a patio after a cross down bender the day after you land on the other side of the Atlantic is enough to wear any one out, especially Walder. So I dropped them back off at the hostel, with the plan that we'll meet up again in a few hours after they have a power nap and regenerate.
I came back at around 830p that night and walked up to their room on the third floor, the first thing I hear as I step off the elevator is a gentle snore, which proceeds to get louder and louder as I get closer and closer to their room. It was Walder. Then as I open the door a plume of green, noxious gas pours out into the hall way.
"Holy shit you guys stink", as I pull my shirt up over my nose. Apparently the beer, pig knuckle, saurkraut and potato dumplings are a dangerous combination.
"Walder, I didn't sleep one second. You are so loud", says Mike as he rolls his feet off the bed. Walder laughs.
"Alright jerks, let's roll", I say as I plop down the four Jevers and start opening them with my trusty key chain. As they drink the beers and get ready I explain that we are meeting my friend Mike's friend Julia whose sister Miram is having a birthday party up a lounge in Prenzlaurberg. Tenuous at best, but reason enough.
So we meet my buddy Mike down stairs at Goldman's for a beer and then we head up to the lounge, which turns out to be pretty funky little place filled with couches and retro lamps. They played good music and served good beer, so it could've been a hole in the wall and we still would've like it.
After a few hours there we rally the troops and head out to Kaffe Burger. Probably my favourite bar in Berlin. It looks like Archie Bunker's living room and they play great music.
We get there at about 1am and the place is pretty dead, but after a few hours it starts to fill up and the dance floor fills. We dance and drink and the next thing you know it's light outside. We walk out the front doors and the sun is high in the sky so we figure the best thing to do was have a morning doner and beer. It was 7am when I got in the door.
Day 3: As we departed the doner shop we make plans to meet up at 1p and head out to Potsdam, a small town about 30 minutes outside of Berlin.
It was Monday May 1st, which in Berlin means riots, so we figured it best to get out of town.
When we got to Postdam we had no idea where anything was so we just jumped on a bus and rode it until we saw a beir garten. But after we jumped off we could see a rhinoceros hanging from a structure beside a fair, so we went there instead. We found a cuban tent and drank mojitos until we found a restaurant that served some solid German food. So we stopped and had a beer and some fine stew.
"I swear to you, the gravy was like crack", says Mike as licks the last remaing sauce off the plate.
Then we saw a street that was lined with patios and people, it looked like Paris so we stopped and had a beer.
Then we saw a castle so we stopped at the castle gates and had a beer.
Then Walder wanted smokes so we stopped and had a beer.
Then we left to go to a beir garten on a lake so we grabbed a beer for the train.
Then we got to the beir garten in Wannsee and we stopped and had a beer. And as we sat in the trees over looking the lake we watched the lake slowly swallow the sun and we walked to the bar right beside the beir garten and had a beer.
Inside this bar was the gnarliest, most rustic looking, motley crew of locals you had ever seen. As Mike put it, "the gang of Dick Tracy villians".
Although the bar was relativley empty each one of them sat by themselves at a four person table. The first guy, sat there hunched over his beer and with his old, wrinkled, caved in face he calmly chewed his gums between sips of beer.
The guy right beside him looked like Gimley. His legs were no more than two feet long and didn't reach the floor. His belt was sinched off just above his waist and pulled his giant belly into two distinct regions. And as you panned up his barreled chest you came the the biggest, deepest, most stained grey beard you'd ever seen. Awesome.
We decided to sit next to the third guy.
"Nice woods, you got here", I say to him.
"I live in the woods", he quickly replies, without a tone of regret in his voice.
"Ahhhh", is all I could get out, not really knowing how to reply to that.
"Lost my job, my wife, my family and my house and now I live in the woods", he says before I can even finish my syllable.
"That too bad", I say cringing in remorse.
Then he offered us smokes, which Mark and Walder gladly accepted.
We stayed at the bar awhile and then decided to head back to Berlin. We walked down the stairs to the train and grabbed a beer.
Then we got off the train and went to the bar in the train station and had a beer.
Then we went to Circus and had some more beers.
Not to many though cause I had to go to school the next day.
It was a magical day.
Day 4: Not much happened our bodies hurt. I came to the room, went up stairs and found two half drank bottles of liquor on the table. Jiggers still attached. One Johnny Walker and one bottle of Cocunt cream.
The boys weren't back from their walk around town yet so I had to imagine where they got them. I was imagining that I missed a good party and regreted leaving early the night before.
They returned and explained that while the bar tender was away they took it upon thmselves to abscond with them. Silly boys.
Then we went to the soccer game and got balled out by a disgruntled German lady who didn't like the fact that we had to walk past her to get to our seats.
Then the opposing team scored 3 goals. The final was 5-1.
Then we went home.
Okay that was alot. Tomorrow the conclusion!

2006-05-08T07:36:00.000-07:00

So outside of my cousin Mark's (aka Steve Perry, aka the shirtless guy in the leather vest vomiting on the Berlin sidewalk) guest post yesterday I haven't posted in quite a while. I've been somewhat "busy" showing some visting friends and relatives around this crazy city and making some new friends and relatives along the way. It feels like 9 days have been forceably removed from my life. Not with surgical percision either, these 9 days were hacked away and gauged out with knives, axes, shards of broken glass and sharpened wooden sticks.
Here is a brief synopsis of the 9 days in question and by brief I mean long winded and by synopsis I mean a thurough documentation with irrelavent and unneccessary mitue details thrown in.
Day 1: Walder, Mark (not my cousin but the Palistinian Pitbull) and Mike show up unexpectidly at the Berlin airport and force me to drop everything and show them around the town for 6 days. They of course never had anything planned so they neglected to secure any lodgings for those 6 days and we had to do a desperate search for adequate bed space.
Unbeknownst to any of us it was a long weekend and Berlin was hosting the biggest soccer match in Germany, that day. There was literally not a single bed available any where. All the hostels were booked including The Generator which has 800 beds. After much debate and careful considertation the boys decided to extend their search to include places with a little higher nightly rates. So after another, much shorter search, they were able to get a place for the very reasonable rate of 208 Euros a night! But my God, this place was worth it. It was at least the three times as large as my apartment, it had two bedrooms, a living room, a full kitchen with a dining room and a solarium. Also it was right beside the Brandenburg gate. They were big pimpin' in Berlin. And after a little mishap with a lost cabbie driving them all over Berlin, they were able to drop there bags off and enjoy their newly aquired lodgings with a quick power nap.
I showed up a few hours later to rouse them from their jet lagged slumber and begin our first trip around the "real" Berlin. Which basically means running around like drunken baffoons from bar to bar. Which we all just happen to be especially good at. But before we could get to the boozin' we had to fill our bellies and fuel up. What better place to start than White Trash Fast Food, an old Chinese restaurant that plays great music and sells even better burgers. The King Elvis burger is my personal favourite; bacon, cheddar cheese, bbq sauce and saurkraut. Does it get any better than that? We all cram our burgers into our faces and wash them down with a few jugs of "Dirty Fucking Weissen" (their name, not mine) and head out into the night.
At about 2am and after about the third pub I decided it was time they saw a real Berlin nightclub so I took them out to Panorama room. Which in hindsight was a mistake. Cause after waiting in line for about half an hour and finally getting to the doors the bouncer gruffly asks us, "Do you speak English?" I of course answer, "yes" and then he turns his head and says, "We don't want you kind here!" and proceeded to ignore us and talk to the next people in line.
Dejected, we walked back through the line to the street where the cabs were and we meet a group of British guys that had also been turned away for there Englishness. Hurt but still wanting to find a good party, we decide it would be best if we join forces and go to another club. So we all pile into a van and head to Sage Club. Which again turned out to be a mistake cause once we got there they told us it was a private party and turned us away at the door.
But we were determined to keep this night going and I would be dammed if I couldn't get my friends drunk on their first night in Berlin. One of the British guys pipes up and tell us that they were at this club earlier in the evening and that it was pretty good, so off we go. I had never heard of this place and to this day I still couldn't tell you it's name, but it wasn't good. Infact it may have been the lamest club in Berlin, we were clearly the oldest people there. But we payed 8 bucks to get in so we stayed for a drink and a shot of tequila then headed out. By now it was about 4a in the morning and time was running out if we were ever going to get this night rolling. I had 1 last idea. Silberfisch! So back out to the street to hail a cab. Seriously I took more cabs in this one night than I have my entire 4 months in Berlin. On the way over, to the bar "Winds of Change" by The Scorpions comes on and Mark starts screaming like a kid on Christmas. "Oh my God, I love this song!". He's jumping around the back seat, clapping his hands and belting the song out at the top of his lungs..... "I follow the Moskva, down to Gorky Park, listening to the winds of chaaaaaaaaaaange......". For anyone who hasn't witnessed Mark singing, let me tell you, it is magical. Especially, drunk cab singing. It sorta became the theme song for the first two days.
Silberfisch was okay, but it was 430a now and the crowd was thinning out. They did have Adventius though (an 8.2% beer from Schneiderweiss), so we pounded a few of those back before we decide to call it a night.
We stumbled into the room at about 530a in the morning and I passed out on the couch beside Walder....holy crap, that man sounds like a GD bi-plane. Even in my drunken passsed out state I still couldn't sleep in the same room as him. So I got up and went out to the lobby of the room...yes, this room is so big it has it's own lobby and I close the door and try to sleep on the floor. No dice, I could still hear him. So I go to the solarium which is in between Mike and Mark's room and I close all the door and sleep under the table. That seemed to do the trick cause I didn't wake up until noon.
Well, like I said this was not going to be breif and that was only one day. So in order not to bore you all I will recount Day2 tomorrow.
It was even longer.

2006-05-07T07:33:00.000-07:00

So Sunday was the day that we went to the beach bar (said Cousin Mark). The sun is out, I hear it's about 25 degrees...that about 75 for the US folks. After eating pig knuckle and having a weissbeir or so that is pretty warm. But never fear, we have perservered and now we will continue to tell everyone in Berlin how great things are. And that we don't go to bowling alleys and take off our pants. But those are the ways of the town and the Dude abides.
By the way, there are some great jackets on the road that are literally being given away: tweed, leather patches, literally anything. Can't beat the bargain basement prices. But enough about us. We (cousin Mark and Matt) will be here for only so long so we must run off and get some doners and some beers and regale the Berliners with our rendition of "Don't Stop Believing" by Journey. I am Steve Perry reincarnated. Why don't you ponder that whilst we go and get a beer.

2006-04-28T09:31:00.000-07:00

So Sunday was "The Day of German Beers", or the 490th anniversary of the Reinheitsgebot, the German purity law of 1516. And to celebrate the brewmaster at our student brewery made four batches of common German beers, a Bock, a Pils, a Dunkel and a Weissebeir and he invited us all to come celebrate with him on Monday.
The plan was that along with the best of German beers, each student would bring a dish of food native to his or her country to share with the rest of the class. But as things usually go, most of the people bailed and we were left with a plate of French cheese and sausages (provided by an American but he lived in France for 7 years and who wants to eat Big Macs and Coca Cola anyways), a mango dish from Venezuala, a collection of bread, cheese and meats from Spain, some desserts and fish from Portugal (I won't even attempt to butcher the spelling of these) and some poutine and maple syrup and waffles from Canada.
Now poutine may seem like and easy dish to make and not exactly a test of ones culinary skills, I mean it is only french fries, gravy and cheese curds, but Seb and I had a little trouble putting it together. The fries and the cheese were pretty simple; open bag, remove and place on sheet. But the gravy was a little tougher.
Earlier that day, Seb bought a "just add water", instant gravy from the German supermarket, but seeing as neither of us read German we weren't acutally sure that it was a "just add water" instant gravy. We hummed and hawed over it for a bit but figured, "what the hell" and just boiled some water and dumped in the package. The results were, let's just say, less than stellar. I was elected as the first taster and as Seb pulled the steaming hot wooden spoon out of the congealing pot of brown goo all I could see on it was a translucent, slightly off coloured gel. I looked at it and with a weak heart, I extending a shaky finger and wiped off some of the gravy from the spoon. Cautiously I stuck out my tounge and licked my finger. No sooner had it hit my tongue and the disgusting taste washed over my poor poor taste buds, then I proceeded to spit it out the window. Seb saw my reaction and even with the advanced warning decided to take a taste for himself. The results were pretty much the same. The gravy tasted pretty much like it looked, like brown gel. Actually it was more TASTELESS than anything. We started dumping in anything we could find. First the garlic salt, then the pizza spice mix, but nothing doing, it still tasted like brown gel.
Time was an issue at this point though as we left it to the last minute, so Seb jumped on his bike and headed to the grocery store to find something, anything that we could add to this vile brown goo that would make it ressemble something close to the gravy it was supposed to be. I mean, what is poutine without the gravy? We were in dire straights here people!
He came back with, dried vegetable broth, salt, milk and a jar of some kind of meat drenched in congealed fat, which neither of us were quite sure of. But if I were to imagine what a prarie oyster looked like, that would have to be it. We needed the fat though to give our gravy some flavour and substance beyond that of a translucent brown gel, so we avoided the ball o' meat and just scooped out some of the goo from the side of the jar. On we went dumping in a little of this and a little of that into the mixture until low and behold, we dipped our fingers in, tasted it and neither of us wretched or spit it out, acutually it ended up not too bad. The poutine was saved as was Canada's reputation of culinary supremacy!
Even with more than half of the class bailing we were still left with a pretty good spread and of course with less people drinking it meant more beer for us. I may have said that the Brewmaster made four common types of German beer, but there was nothing common about any of these brews. Each one was as delectable as it was intoxicating. The Bock beer was especially good and at 7% it didn't waste any time at going straight to your head. Sometimes Bock can be over poweringly sweet, but this was a well balanced brew and made for great session drinking.
And a session it was! We got there around six and didn't leave until around 1a. There was only about 10 or 12 of us who stayed for the entire evening but the next morning we were informed by the brewmaster that we had drank close to 100L of beer. That's either really good or really bad, depending on your stand point on binge drinking.
Either way, it was another fun night at the brewery with stories and tales from shared amongst our little UN. Tuesday was a little rough, I swear I have not felt that bad since I'd been in Berlin. I may have been speaking the praises of the Bock beer earlier but I didn't have too many nice things to say about it at around 8am the next day. It was touch and go there for awhile let me tell you what. I tossed, I turned, I opened the window, I smashed my pillow into 6,576 different formations just trying to find one that didn't make me want to jump out of the now open window. I tried turning on the TV, I tried chewing gum, I tried chugging glass after glass of water...but nothing was working. It's funny how hard we try to cure a hangover, when the simplest solution is to just not drink as much. You know what they say, "an ounce of pervention is worth a pound of cure!". Yeah well I had about 1,200 ounces of pervention and it didn't cure a Goddamn thing!.
But I digress...Like I said earlier, most of the class bailed and what should've been a much larger crowd was reduced to only the 10 or 12 usual hardcores. In order to make up for this Mr. Chang arranged for a class outing to a Korean restaurant. This time almost everyone came.
It was a huge spread of Korean BBQ, Kim Chi, Korean Sushi and a whole number of dishes I won't even attempt to misspell (did I misspell, misspell? I don't know, whatever). It was good to get the whole class out again to celebrate one of our classmates native cuisine.
Think about the last time you went out with a friend and celebrated their native cuisine, think about it while I go get a beer.

2006-04-25T09:42:00.000-07:00

So we return to our regularly scheduled program and the Third Episode of Carlos the Mighty Mexican Matador and his Misadventures in Canada

Dear Reader,
Since his last Adventure, Carlos has been finding himself somewhat out of balance. He has not felt in harmony with the universe since he gave into the external trappings of the rock star lifestyle and let his ego get the better of him. As was revealed in his last misadventure, Carlos is by nature a naive soul who cares little for the monetary and material things in the world. His only concern is his bullfighting, which keeps him as happy as a new born babe and keeps his Yin and Yang in perfect balance. You see back in his native Mexico, Carlos was not only a Magnificant Matador and Mariachi Man but he was also an avid reader. And one day he came across a strange looking book in the back corner of his favourite used book store, The Taoist, I Ching. He picked it up and began to leaf through the dry, dusty pages. What he read astounded him and he quickly purchased the book and began to read through it consuming each word with furious zeal. The Taoist taught him that we are all born with the same primordial energy of Heaven, perfect Yang, and it is not until we begin to give into the external desires of the Earth, perfect Yin, that we fall out of balance and lose the Tao. It taught him that if we wish to regain the Tao and again become harmonious we must return to the state of the child and desire only the inward, while renouncing all the nasty trappings of the external. Carlos felt that the book was talking directly to him as he felt the same way, he promised from that day onward he would live his life according to the Tao. And it wasn't until his brush with fame that he broke that promise. So now inorder to once again balance himself and again be in perfect harmony with the world he felt that he must give up all the external trappings of the big city which he had so quickly become accustomed too, the swank hotels, posh restaurants and fancy nightclubs and reintroduce himself to Mother Nature.
During his stint in Toronto, Carlos heard many people speak of the wonderful beauty of Western Canada. The rugged snow capped moutains, the crystal glacier lakes and the gigantic ancient redwoods. He figured that if he was going to find true nature any where in this country it would be in Western Canada. So Carlos pawned is guitar, packed up his cape and headed out on the road to hitchhike Westward across this wonderful nation. For he felt that inorder to truly get intouch with nature and mankind he must not drive a big fancy car, but he must walk and depend on the kindness of other people to help him on his journey.
Of course it didn't take Carlos long to get a ride, for wearing his full Matador outfit intrigued people and he was quickly picked up by passers by. Each new ride figured that a man wearing such and outlandish outfit must have some wonderful stories to tell.
So Carlos spent the next week slowly making his way across Canada and quickly making new friends along the way. He hitchhiked by day and slept under the stars at night. He was truly starting to feel that once again he was one with the earth. Sure the nights could get cold, but Carlos had his trusty cape to keep him warm, even in the most fridgid autum evenings, his cape kept him toasty and warm.
Carlos's last hitch was from a two friendly men who were leaving Calgary in their van and were on their way to Vancouver. Carlos couldn't believe his good fortune, this trip would not only take him almost to the end of his journey but it would also take him across the Rocky Mountains, a part of Canada he had longed to see. For from the pictures he had seen, the mountainous terrain reminded him of his home in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.
The men in the van were very kind (and extremly jolly folk, for they kept laughing and laughing) but were extremly dirty (especially there feet, apparently they didn't wear shoes), and had a foul stench about them. They also possesed some of the largest amounts of hair Carlos had ever seen on men. Poor Carlos could barely stand it, but he knew that this was a great opportunity for ride. The inside of the van also had a strange odour, one which Carlos had encountered many times while he was with his old band members.
The men kept telling Carlos who "freaky" he looked and how "way out there" he was. Once while smoking one of their funny cigarettes (which Carlos never touched for it was an obvious extrernal trapping) one of the men waved away the thick smoke that had gathered infront of his face and said, "Dude, I just wrote the most messed up poem".
"No way. Let me hear it man", said the other man as he inhaled deeply on the cheap looking cigarette.
"All right, check it out. But this is some seriously messed up shit." And then he read the poem to the other man -

I started down a road and it lead to nowhere,
but that nowhere was just outside of somewhere,
and that somewhere was just beside here.
And now I find myself here,
just outside of somewhere,
just beside nowhere.

"Holy shit man, that is so fucked up." said the other man as he coughed and ran his fingers through his hair.
"I told you man, I told you".
As the van made it's way into British Columbia, Carlos asked the men if they knew any where he might be able to find a job, preferably one which was manual labour and allowed him to work outside.
The men told him of a cherry picking operation just outside of Burnaby, where Carlos would definatley be able to find some work. Then they told him of the wonderful vegetation in the area, mainly the mushrooms. Both men agreed that they were the best in the mushrooms in the whole land. They said that they were so big and so good, that all you had to do was bend down, pluck them out of the ground and eat them.
Then one of the men looked up into the heavens and said, "Man, I could totally go for some mushrooms right now".
The other man agreed and said, "Totally man, totally".
So at the last minute the two men decided not to go to Vancouver but they would head up towards Burnaby. Carlos was ecstatic and happy beyond words.
Upon their arrival in Burnaby, Carlos asked the Men where the Cherry Picking operation was. They pointed him in the direction and Carlos thanked the strange men perfously, and began walking towards Cherry picking operation.
It took Carlos almost an hour to find it, but one he got there it was just like the men had told him and Carlos had no problem getting the job. He just walked onto the site and he promptly asked the Foreman if he could work. The Forman, a large jovial fellow, grabbed his belly, laughed, made a quick joke about cheap Mexican labour (Carlos didn't get it) and said, "Damn son, a man dressed as fine as you, I should be working for you!".
Then he slapped Carlos on the shoulder and said, "Of course you can work here, just grab a bucket find a ladder and start pickin'!".
So Carlos did just that, he picked up a bucket, found a ladder and he worked all day picking more cherries than any one had ever picked before.
When he returned to the Foreman and told him how many cherries he picked the Foreman could believe it. But after showing him all the buckets the Foreman grabbed his belly, laughed and said, "Damn son, I gotta hire you on full time!". Then he slapped Carlos on the shoulder and said, "You got any brothers or sisters with ya!"
After work Carlso made his way into the forest to find a nice spot to rest for the night. As he passed through the wonderfully large trees, Carlos saw some of the mushrooms those kind men where talking about. He couldn't wait to try some, they men all seemed to love them so much, surely Carlos would to.
So Carlos bent over and picked off the largest cap he could find and took a healthy bite out of it. As he chewed it, he couldn't believe how disgusting it was. How could those men like this? They truly were strange he thought to himself. Poor Carlos couldn't take another bite, he tossed the rest into the woods and continued on to find a resting place.
Not long after he tossed the mushroom into the woords, Carlos started to feel strange. His head began to swim and his feet became as light as a cloud. "Oh my Got", Carlos tought to himself, "I am not walkeen any more, I am flyeen". Carlos put his arms out to the side and began to sore through the trees. The air tickiling his face like a thousand tiny feathers. What a wonderful feeling, he couldn't believe his luck. He had never at any moment in his life felt closer to the earth and more in harmony with mankind. And as he laughed and danced he looked skyward and saw some wonderful clouds. He was so entranced by them that he stopped and just stared. Then as the clouds rolled slowly across the darkening sky they started to take the shape of something very familliar to Carlos. He could not believe his eyes, the clouds were turning into a bull! But not just any bull, they was turning into a bull that had bested Carlos when he was but a young man back in Mexico!
Carlos' mind drifted back to thought of his youth, when he was but a rookie just starting out as a Matador. It was his first bull fight infront of a crowd and he was nervous. The sun was high in the sky, the dry Mexican dirt hovered in the air and slow drops of sweat fell down his forhead as he stood in the ring staring down his first bull. He was nervous, he hands were shaking as he gripped his caped tightly. The bull ran at him and Carlos pulled away just in time, but as he lunged his sword into the back of the beast it did not go deep enough and the bull did not die. The crowd booed and hissed. The bull again turned and ran at Carlos and again he moved to the side and attempted to run his sword through the beast, but again he failed. The crowd was outraged! The called for Carlos to be taken out of the ring and he was. An older more experienced Matador had to be called into finish the job. Carlos was ashamed. And now here he was, all these years later, in another country, with another chance to face the demon that has been hounding him ever since.
Carlos drew his cape and began to call on the bull. "Ah we meet again, you may have bested me last time, but I shall have the better of you yet!". But no matter how hard Carlos waved his cape, the bull got no closer. "You are a coward bull!", Carlos yelled, "You are afraid to fight!". Carlos turned his back to the cloud and proudly walked away.
With a new found sense of pride Carlos walked on through the woods, but he soon began to feel tired and he sat down beneath a tree to rest. Almost as soon as he sat down, his heavy eyes began to close and he started to drift off into sleep.
Then as quickly as he fell asleep he was awakened by a knock on the head. It seems an acorn had fallen out of the tree and hit Carlos square on the head! He rubbed his head and then picked up the acorn which lay beside him on the ground and began to examine it.
But as soon as he picked it up it began to shake and stir like something was inside and trying desperately to get out. As it flailed wildly in his hand, flopping around like a fish out of water, the top burst off and a bright light shone up towards the heavens blinding him for just a few seconds. Then as he rubbed his eyes, his sight returned and there before him stood a majestic, kingly looking robot. His golden casing was adorned with a lovely purple velvet robe, lined with golden tassels and atop his head rested a brilliant bejewelled crown. Without hesitation Carlos fell to one knee prostrated in front of the Kingly robot. And as he did the robot began to speak.
“Raise my friend, do not kneel before me, it is I that should kneel before you for you have released me from the confines of the acorn. I have been locked away in side that horrible seed for many eons. And for the last few centuries my back pain has been flaring up, there just isn't enough room to really stretch out inside an acorn, let me tell you what! Anyhoo, if you wouldn't mind getting up on your own that would be great, I really can't help you up with my bad back and all”.
So Carlos stood up, extended his hand to introduced him self to the robot and he told him that it was just a convenient stoke of luck that he happened to be sleeping beneath the tree and even luckier still that the acorn fell on his head.
But this didn't matter to the robot for he was just so thrilled to be out. He told him that he would be skipping and jumping for joy if it weren’t for his wonky back.
“So tell me”, said the robot, "What do you do for fun around here, last time I was out roaming gaily through these woods, we used to pick up acorns and throw them at squirrels. I was the champion ten years running, that's how I got this robe and crown. But then one day I threw an acorn at a squirrel and it ended up being and enchanted squirrel and he didn’t take to kindly to being struck with an acorn and the next thing you know, here I am."
Carlos listened in awe to the robot as he told him more tales of his heroic squirrel-peg (for that's what they called this game) and soon he was so intrigued that he wanted to try this game for himself.
Carlos begged and pleaded with the robot to play with him but he was adamant about not playing.
“I don't know last time I did that it cost me dearly” said the robot. “I don’t think that my back could withstand another stint in that seedy hell hole”.
But after constant and pathetic hounding the robot gave in.
They both bend over and picked up some acorns and then walked on through the forest until they spotted a squirrel. It wasn’t five minutes before they caught site of their first target. A large black squirrel perched atop a tree branch calmly nattering away on another acorn. The Robot threw first and missed by just a few centimetres, the acorn passing by the squirrel harmlessly and falling back unto the forest floor.
“I must be a little rusty”, he said with a shrug. “I mean it has been a couple eons”.
Then it was Carlos' turn. He took aim and let fly. The acorn struck the squirrel right in the belly sending him flying off the branch and falling onto the ground.
The squirrel let out a mighty yell, "Woooooaaaaa, what the hell was that?" he bellowed.
Carlos' looked on in awe as he had never seen a talking squirrel before, but after having seen what he had already seen today it didn't seem like a stretch.
“Okay, which one of you tossed that?”, screamed the squirrel as he came over to confront them.
Carlos calmly pointed towards the robot and said that it was him.
The robot leapt back in surprise, "What the hell are you talking about,? You threw that you little turd!. Don’t try to pin this on me!" responded the robot.
“No, no it was him, just look at him” Carlos said to the squirrel. "He's the squirrel-peg champion, he’s got the robe and crown to prove it!".
The squirrel looked over the robot and nodded his head.
“I've heard about you, just so happens that my great, great, great, great grandfather was the magic squirrel that put you in the acorn those many eons ago. He told me about this vicious, squirrel-peg game that used to be played by the robots of the forest. But it’s been many years since the last acorn was tossed. Now here you are back to your old habits, I guess you’ll just never learn. Well its back in there with you”.
“No, please no, not back in there anything but that” pleaded the robot. But it was to no avail, the squirrel waved his furry little paw and with a simple poof and a cloud of smoke the robot was once again gone, banished to his acorn jail cell.
The squirrel then looked back at Carlos and thanked him for his honesty and with another wave of his tiny paw and another poof and cloud of smoke he found my self wearing the robots robe and crown.
“He won't be needing those where he's going”, said the squirrel. Then he turned around and bounded off into the forest.
Carlos looked at himself in his new robe and crown and again he was filled with pride. But again as soon as he took a few steps he began to feel tired and he sat down to take a rest. And again no sooner had he sat down than his eyes became heavy and he fell into a deep sleep.
When he finally came too in the morning Carlos looked down at himself and his robe and crown where gone!
"Where could they have gone?" he thought to himself. "Could it have been a dream?" Carlos was sure of very little at this point. But what he was sure of was that he was once again feeling in harmony with the world. He had gotten back in touch with nature, made many kindly new friends and he had even bested the bull that had defeated him so many years ago.
But Carlos did not let the pride go to his head for he was once again in perfect balance and as he walked out of the woods towards the Cherry Picking Operation he felt better than he had in a long time.

2006-04-23T07:05:00.000-07:00

So I haven't quite gotten this whole blog thing down yet so I've been forced to do three seperate posts today, for this I apologise.
Anyhoo, below are a few pictures from our recent trip to Prague over the Easter Weekend.

The first picture is of the street outside our pension. It across the Charles Bridge on the West side of the river. I'm not even going to attempt to spell the name of the river or the name of the district, the Czech language makes German look like childs play. Every GD letter has an accent on it and it in no way resembles English. Whatever.
The street itself bends and twists like a movie set from Alice in Wonderland. With it's medievel architecture the buildings seem to surround you like arching claws, while the cobblestone roads shift and sway beneath your feet.

Here is a picture of Liz and I with the town in the background. I don't know if you can make out the sign in the bottom right, it's an olde timey knight holding a red sign that says Pivo 29kc. This means beer is 29 Krones...that's roughly 1€ for a pint of beer or a buck fourty Canadian. I have to say the best part about Prague and the Czech Republic hands down is their relatively useless and worthless money.

The second best part of Prague, just ahead of it's beautiful bohemian charm is it's love for Alf.
Only Germans hold our favourite Alien in higher regard. This is a sticker of your friend and mine on an abandoned fridge in Olde Towne Prague. He's everywhere!

2006-04-23T06:48:00.000-07:00

So here is the second of three posts from our recent Easter Weekend trip to Prague.

This first one is just a brilliantly lit street on the edge of Old Towne Prague. You can still see the cobble stone roads which house the tracks for a very efficient tram system. I'm not even going to start about how much better it is than the TTC...well I guess I just did start but I won't say any more.

Liz on the Charles Bridge. It's hard to see but even at this time of night there were throngs of people on the bridge, it looked like the DVP at 430p on a Friday afternoon. If only we had a better transit system...er sorry about that I promised no more TTC bashing.

The Powder Tower at night, I know it has nothing to do with the TTC but another fare hike, WTF? When is it going to stop? Do they really think that by increasing the fare they are going to attract more riders? Fools!

Okay, okay I promise nothing more about the TTC. This here is a little water way tucked underneath the Charles Bridge. The candle is from a restaurant just infront of the water wheel. Even with the almost worthless Krones this place was still way to expensive for a starving student.

This last picture is of an Easter Tree at the base of Wenceslaus Sqaure. You could find painted Easter Eggs everywhere and they decorated the city like it was Christmas. Apparently they take their Easter pretty serious over here.

2006-04-23T04:10:00.000-07:00

So I've decided to interupt the regularly scheduled programming to bring you this important news flash. The Misadventures of Carlos the Mighty Mexican Matador will return at it's regular time next week. Sorry for the inconvenience.

So with Liz flying into Berlin early Friday morning, I thought it best to take it easy Thursday night and get myself to bed as early as possible. But as I've said countless times since I've been in this Godforsaken town, "The best laid plans of plans of mice and men....". And so it goes that around 6pm on this particular Thursday evening Carsten popped his head into my room and asked if I would like to join him and his two friends who were about to go "watch" a soccer game. Thinking that they were just going down to the pub to watch the game and have a few beers I figured, "what the hell?" and grabbed my sweater. But as we were descending the stairs I asked Carsten what bar we were going to and he responded, "We're going to Köpenig!". Now having already said yes to the proposed plan, I was far to commited to turn back and I just kinda meekly shrugged my shoulders and quietly said, "oh, great sounds like fun".
So it was off to Köpening to watch two rival Berlin teams in a Division 4 soccer game. Now I don't really know too much about soccer, hell I still call it soccer for chrissakes, but I do know bad soccer when I see it and this was bad soccer.
Now see here, there are four divisions in German soccer, the top league being the Bundes Liga, which top players from around the world play. Then there is division 2 which is a step down from the Bundes Liga, but is still good soccer. After that the quality of play drops off dramatically until you get down to the aforementioned Division 4 which is basically a bunch of short, overweight, slightly older, has-beens, holding onto what ever hopes and aspirations they once had of playing any meaningful soccer. Regardless of the quality of play though the fans come out in droves to see these lunch-box athletes play. And comparing this experience to the Bundes Liga game I saw earlier in the year, I have to say that this one was at least 6,432 times better. The beer was cheaper, the fans were louder and basically it was just hardcore soccer. The game didn't start until the sun was gone, the temperature was hovering just above freezing, it was an open air stadium and it rained the entire game. There was singing, chanting, flagwaving and the announcer kept referring to the visiting Berlin team as "The Berlin Tennis Club"....awesome.
Anyhoo, outside of the regular antics there was some drama thrown in at the end of the match when another Division 4 Berlin teams fans rushed into the stands. Now this probably wouldn't have been that big of a deal, but this teams fans are notorious for being Nationalists...aka pig fucking douche bag Nazis. So as I was tending to my beer and trying to watch the oh so slow paced action down on the field, my attention was drawn away as all the fans in the lower sections rushed over towards one of the entrances only to be stopped by a flood of Riot Police in full on riot gear. Helmets, face shields and billy sticks. The police got themselves in between the Nationalists and the home town fans who had their ire up and started shouting and waving fists in the invaders general direction. The whole ordeal lasted about 10 mintues when the invading fans finally retreated and left the stadium. There was an electricity in the air and the Riot Police remained in the stadium for the rest of the games and walked out all the fans when the final buzzer went off.
After such an amazing experience it seemed a shame to just go home so instead hit the town and we drank until about 3am. This made getting up at 730am to get to the airport a little bit of a struggle. But being the trooper that I am I shrugged off the hangover and made it there in plenty of time. Turned out it was far more time than I needed as Liz was the absolutely last person to exit the gate. She had to stay back and watch the empty luggage carasol as it mockingly turned round and round, never spitting out her last bag. Apparently some other passenger walked off with her luggage.
So after our delayed reunion we went to the lost and found, reported the missing bag and then headed back to my place. We spent the day walking around Berlin waiting for a call from the airport. Luckily it didn't take too long before they called and returned the lost bag.
That night we met up with Rose and Uwe and went to the Magnet Club to watch the Stars and The Most Serene Republic. What a show, neither group dissappointed.
The house was absolutely packed by the time The Most Serene Republic took the stage and with approximately eight people in the band not only was the bar packed but the stage too. I had never seen or heard this band before, but I did read some good press on them. Their music was like the stage, claustrophobic. It was a wall of sound with no breathing room in between any of the notes. It came rushing off the stage like a giant mass, coliding with the sweating, heaving crowd down on the floow, it was amazing.
But as compact and dense as the sound of The Most Serene Republic was, The Stars were almost as sparse and open. Like the lovelorn protaginists in many of their songs, each note came off the stage lonely and loud, perfectly placed. They were so tight, so professional, using the quiet space in between each note to make their muted music seem loud, like they had twenty amplifiers backing them up. Again it was amazing, this was my first time seeing these guys and it ranks up there with one of the bests shows I've seen in the past few years.
The show ended at around midnight but we had to get home as we had to catch a train at 7am the next day to get to Prague.
Easter in Europe is a much bigger deal than it is in North America. It's a full four day holiday and many countries have full blown religous reenactments. In Prague on Easter Monday the boys go around with whips and whip all the little girls legs...yeah I don't get it either.
In between the strange religous acts we managed to make it to a see a few brews and not just beer brews either. We went to five breweries but we also went to a few tea shops as well as a few wine caves. All and all it was a good way to spend Easter weekend.
The only complaint I have is that the room we rented. Now don't get me wrong, the room was a beautiful antique room in a pension right in the middle of Old Town Prague, but being that it was a Pension we had to share a bathroom. This isn't such a big deal to me but I would've loved it if the manager of the Pension had told the people in the other room that they would be sharing the bathroom. The first night, after a few breweries, I awoke in the middle of the night in dire need of the facilities. As I left our bedroom and approached the communal toilet, I could see that the other room had their door open. And as I flicked on the light and closed the bathroom door I heard the other people get up and start shouting at me in the bathroom. I guess they weren't told that anyone else would be in the room cause as I stood there staring down at the white bowl I could here them yelling at me, "Hey. Hey, you in there!". Finally after finishing my pressing business I opened the door and found two guys beside the door perched and ready to pounce on an intruder. I quickly explained that I was staying in the other room and an international incident was avoided.
The next night was almost a complete copy of the first. Again I awoke in the middle of the night and made the mad dash for the bathroom and again the other room had their door open. Except this time I heard a woman's voice say "What's that noise?". And then as I stood their looking over the bowl completely defenceless with my hands otherwise occupied the door flew open and I was staring back at an older gentlemen.
I was a little caught off guard, "What the hell are you doing?" came flying out of my mouth. "I'm staying in the other room!"
"We no share", was his response.
"Well that's good for you, but I'm using the damn washroom" and I pulled the door closed.
They were gone by the time we got up the next morning.
Other than that it was a great weekend and I have more fond memories of Prague.
The rest of the week I attempted to give Liz a crash course in Berlin. We went to museums, took a boat cruise on the Spree, went to many restuarants and bars. I even brought her up to the Pilot plant for our weekly drunkening.
But the week went by as quickly as it came and Liz went back this morning, leaving me more homesick than I was before she got here.
But the end is in sight and I'm down to my final 10 weeks in Berlin. Then it's homeward bound.
I'll see you all soon.

2006-04-18T09:16:00.000-07:00

So this is Episode II of Carlos the Mighty Mexican Matador and his Misadventures in Canada

Dear Reader,
After crossing the Tundra and decending Latitudes as if they were mere rungs on a simple ladder, we find Carlos in a bit of a bind. The harsh weather and rugged terrain of the Canadian wilderness was nothing but a mere nuisance to a man of Carlos' talents but since leaving his native land of Mexico Carlos has been towing an even tougher road than the back woods of Northern Ontario, he's been attempting to live on a strict budget! Carlos has been quickly learning that mountains and ravines are nothing when compared to the rocky road of finance. Being the naive and good natured soul that he is, Carlos had no idea that the puny peso paled incomparison to the all mighty Canadian dollar.
Back in Mexico money was but a trifle to him, he barely gave it a second thought. As long as he was fighting bulls and winning the hearts of people he had all he needed and was as happy and content as a new born babe. Of course it didn't hurt that being so popular and having talents unsurpassed by any man, he was frequently given monetary endorsements to appear at gala openings at local bodegas in his home town. He never touched this money though, he simply put it in a bank and promised himself that he wouldn't touch it until the day the good Lord finally decided to take away his ability to defeat any bull that dared to step into the ring with him.
But upon his arrival in Canada, Carlos has been forced to break that promise and he's had to crack into his little nest egg in order to eat and stay strong. For who knows when a bull may appear and force him into battle, as the old saying goes: "a matador is only as good as his last fight!". So with each passing day and after each hardey meal, Carlos has found that his meager saving are slowly dwindiling and it won't be long before he runs into serious cash flow problems.
Being the quick with that he is Carlos racked his brain for all the different things he could do to raise the much needed cash. Then like the rays of a new days sun, it dawned on him. Back in Mexico Carlos had been not only a Mighty Matador, but also a Magnificant Mariachi Man! He was what literary type people like to call a bit of a Renissance Man. His skills on the guitar were never equalled in his home land nor any where else he had ever traveled and strummed sweet chords on his six string. Now he knew what he must do if he was ever going to survive, he would take to the streets and start playing guitar for cash.
As was recounted earlier, when last we met Carlos he was in Northern Canada but had since made his way across half this great country and he now found himself in the fine city of Toronto. Since his arrival in Toronto he had seen many transients on the street doing the same as he planned on doing, although he found that none of them possesed the great skills that were locked up in his remarkably quick and nimble fingers.
So Carlos took his few remaining pesos, converted them to the Mighy Canadian dollar, went down to Steve's Music store on Queen St. and purchased the finest guitar he could find and then found himself a busy intersection at which to play his music.
It didn't take long for Carlos to attract a crowd. His music was so moving, so beautiful and so soulful that people almost instantly gathered around the Magnificant Maricachi Man.
People were so moved by his musicianship that many were brought to tears just by the sounds slowly erupting from his guitar. Women could be heard sobbing at his feet but begging to still hear more, "Oh Carlos don't stop, please let me have some more", they would cry.
They began to throw money at him. And not just change, but $10, $20 and even $50 dollar bills. He was making money hand over fist.
Word quickly spread across the city of a man adorned in a sequined Matador outfit who could play the guitar like no other. All the musicians in the city were not only intruiged but also a little envious by the rumours and the press devoted to this man. So they began to search each lonely street corner, every darkened alley and all the TTC stops in hopes of finding this Mysterious Music Man and seeing for themselves in infact he was as good as the rumours told. Of course as each musician found Carlos they all fell under his spell and asked nay pleaded if they could be so blessed as to play in a band with him. So it wasn't long before Carlos found himself playing with an entire band of the city's top musicians. Each one saying that they would play for free, they all counted themselves lucky just to be a apart of his wonderful music.
Then came the record producers who all wanted a piece of this sure-fire, can't miss wonder. Carlos soon found himself in the center of a huge bidding war. The record companies were wining and dining Carlos, lathering him luxouious gifts and putting him up in the cities finest hotels. His band began to play at all the top locations in the city, filling all the veunes to capacity. Everyone was coming out to see this guitar god.
But all this quickly took a turn for the worse. With all hoopla sorounding him, Carlos got caught up in the excitment and it went staight to his head. The once naive and good natured man became arrogant and egotistical. He would storm off stage if something didn't go his way. He would go into vicious tirades if his dressing room was't just as he wanted. He even started taking pain killers to deal with the stresses of everyday life and quickly became addicted. Soon those same muscians that had begged and pleaded to play with him couldn't take it any more and left him while on thier first cross Canada tour.
Carlos was devistated and began some much needed soul searching. He had lost sight of his original dream. Instead of just making a few bucks to survive he had become an arrogant money hungery monster.
Eager to repent for his sins, Carlos entered a rehab center and went on a six week retreat in the mountains. After which he returned to Toronto to beg the forgivness of his band memebers for he couldn't have any one hating him. One by one they each forgave Carlos and not two weeks after his return the old band got back together for one more show.
One sunny Saturday afternoon with no warning or fanfare Carlos and his bandmates began setting up their equipment on the stage at Dundas Square. No sooner had they finished setting up then the first sweet notes leapt off Carlos' guitar. They floated and swayed in the air, slowly navigating their way through the streets of Toronto. Almost instantly hundreds of people began to flock and gather around him. Word spread quickly and soon not only the square was full but the streets became pact and traffic came to a stand still. Office building windows opened, stores closed, Goodyear blimps paused over head, everyone wanted to hear the sweet sounds of the Mariachi Man.
The band played long into the night, but no one seemed to care they just wanted to hear more. Then after one magnificant solo Carlos moved to center stage, strummed one last chord on his guitar and went silent. The crowd waited for more but all that came was a loud boom and puff of smoke and when the smoke cleared Carlos was gone. They cheered and clapped and called for more but nothing came. He was gone.
As the steel worm bore it's way through the city a lone man sat in it's hollow belly. Adorned in a magnificant outfit he quietly played the guitar that was slung over his shoulder. The notes floated up and disappeared into the lonely, darkened pathways beneath the city. A happy ending. Or was it?

2006-04-13T08:24:00.000-07:00

So this is cheating, but Liz is coming tomorrow and I'm far to busy to make a new post. So I went all Hollywood on your ass! I took an old idea, one that I did a few years back, pulled it out of storage, dusted it off, polished it up and repackaged it as a brand spanking new post. Bella!
Also, I've been thinking about doing a serial for a while, but I didn't know how to get started. This was an old one I did a few years back so I figured that if I edited it and went through it again maybe I could start up the old engine...who knows....who cares.
And lastly, I plan on being too busy over the next week or so to dedicate any real time to the blog, so this is an easy way to get out of if.
Anyhoo, enjoy. Or don't.

Carlos the Mighty Mexican Matador and his Wacky Misadventures in Canada

Dear Reader,

We catch up with Carlos moments after one of his many misadventures across this vast wilderness they call Canada. Apparently Carlos has just done battle with one of Canada's native and most ferocious animals, the Polar Bear! It seems Carlos had come down with a nasty case of snow blindness and mistaken the poor bear for a his mortal enemy, the mighty bull. And so, as is his sworn duty, he provoked the bear, who at the time was minding his own business, into both a terrific and terrible battle. That crazy Carlos, what will he get himself into next.
Of course when a Mexican Matador, let alone a Mighty Mexican Matador, provokes a resting polar bear in to a bull fight just miles from the artic circle, it can't help but draw a crowd.
Many of the natives (Eskimos), who spotted the snow blind Carlos waving his red cape and yelling at the bear, dropped their fishing spears and gathered around to watch the Mighty Mexican in his outlandish and sequined Matador outfit dance around with the bear. Most of them turned to each other, exchanging quick glances of stunned disbelief thinking, "Isn't he fucking cold?", but that idea soon vanished as they began to watch Carlos's Majestic dance. They were all simply enthralled by how a man so very small and stalky could move so smoothly and gracefully across the snow. The natives may have 86 words for snow, but they don't have but one to describe what they were seeing right before their very eyes. How could such a small man avoid the vicious lunges of the enormous and extremly powerful polar bear, who had now become quite aggitated by Carlos' constant proding and pestering.
In no time he had won over the anxious crowd and chants of "Carlos, Carlos, Carlos" rang loudly across the baron ice covered field. The polar bear, who didn't take kindly to his home town fans turning against him became further enraged. He reared back on his hind legs and let out a ferocious roar that was heard all the way in Edmonton. The wicked artic winds blew and the cold white snow flew in all directions but Carlos was not detered. He calmly clutched his cape and and began to wave it too and fro as if to say, "Come get me you silly bear, I dare you"(insert mexican accent here).
Of course the bear, who had completed a semester in Spain on an exchange program while in highschool, was fluent in cape and was able to assertain exactly what Carlos' cape was saying. Even more pissed that this puny man was taunting him, the bear began to charge with every intention of catching the little son of a bitch, ripping his arms off and beating him to death with them.
As the mighty bear lunged he kicked up a cloud of snow and blinded the crowd to the action which was going on infront of them. A hush came across the crowd as the anticipation captured them. All the natives heard was a loud crashing sound as if some one had just bowled a strike down the "Lucky Lanes Bowling Alley".
As the snow slowly began to settle, the natives could see Carlos the Mighty Mexican standing proudly with one foot atop the incredible beast, which was laying defeated, sprawled out dead on the snowy floor . He had bested the bear and was once again triumphant.
The natives rushed forward, grabbed the proud Carlos and hoisted him up onto their shoulders. They paraded him across the tundra to the resounding shouts of "Carlos, Carlos, Carlos".
After the parade they brought Carlos back to their village where the had a mighty feast in his honour. The feast which consisted mostly of polar bear and a little side of baby seal went late into the night. And as the Northern Lights danced and floated magestically across the sky, Carlos announced that it was time that he was on his way. The natives were heartbroken, the women cried and ripped at their seal skin coats, the men began to squabble amongst themselves, but they quickly conceeded as Carlos flashed his hand defiantly high into the sky as if to say "No, I must go. Please no tears in my account". With that the natives calmed and handed Carlos a seal skin coat of his own to keep him warm on his many journies. He politely accepted their gift, turned and walked off into the cold artic night.
Join us next week for more Wacky Adventures of Carlos the Mighty Mexican.

P.S. No polar bears were harmed in the making of this story.

2006-04-11T06:26:00.000-07:00

So I spent a lot of time complaining about the weather here in Berlin, but it would appear that it's time for me to shut the hell up. For no sooner had the snow melted and the clouds parted than the sun came out in full force and finally warmed up this dreary city.
Spending time in this city, or any city for that matter, for too long is a drag...especially when that heavenly flaming ball of gas is firing it's magical bolts of life affirming vitamin D down on us. So this Saturday after months of hibernation, I decided that I was going to use up as much of this sun as possible, cause who knows how long it is going to last. So I set out on the S-bahn to buy some new and exotic beer then I was heading to the lake.
My first stop was at a local beer store that stocked only specialty beers. I love weissbier and pils as much as the next guy but three months of drinking the same stuff day in day out leaves one wanting.
When I entered the store, I had my iPod on totally concentrating on rockin' out to some Jim Guthrie, but I could see that the proprietor was trying to ask me something so I took out my ear phones to hear what he was trying to say.
"Blah herny shmerndy kerndy lerndy" is what he said. Well not exactly but it was in German so it might as well have been.
"Entschuldigung bitte. Mein Deutsch ist nacht gut" (which is basically all I ever say now) was my only response.
He asked me if I spoke English and I said yes. It seems he was just asking me that if I was going to be looking around, if I wouldn't mind taking off my backpack so as not to knock any of the precious beer over.
I politely obliged and removed my sac. Then he asked me if I was American, which is always assumed when I speak English. I told him I was Canadian and he politely apologised.
I walked around the store admiring the worldly, if not pricey selection of beers, picking up a few and checking out the labels. But I was in there for two specific styles of German beer so I asked him if he had any Alt or Rauchbier. Alt beer I've had before, but I was told the one I had was like the Molson of Alt beers, so I decided it would be best if I were to try another one. Rauchbier on the other hand is a smoked beer and it's supposed to taste, as my friend George put it, "like drinking bacon". Bacon beer! How could this possibly be a bad thing. So the owner took me to the German section of the store and he pointed out a few beers I might like to try. I pulled a couple bottles off the shelf and handed them too him as if I was going to pay. But he took them, cradled the bottles in his hands and held them away from his body, admiring them as if they were two bottles of fine wine. He then decided he would give me an impromtu lesson on beer drinking. Being and ignorant North American he could plainly see that I needed it too. He told me that this beer should be drank at 10°C, "No less!". Then he grabbed his crotch and shook it as if taking a piss and said, "Only in America with that piss Miller and Bud can you drink beer so cold".
I nodded in agreement paid for my beer and got the hell out of there.

From there I jumped on the S-bahn and headed out of the city towards Köpenick, a small lake town about twenty minutes outside of Berlin.
I had never heard of it until that day but according to the map it had a lake, so I figured what the hell.
So off I went hoping to find a beach I could sit on and enjoy my two beers.
When I got to the town, I found out that that the beaches were about another 3km out of town so I gave up on that idea and just headed for the "zentrum". I jumped on the tram and rode it down to the centre of town which not only turned out to be quite nice and just on the edge of the lake, but it was also home to one of the smallest breweries I had ever seen.
I got off at the next stop and made a bee line for the brewery. As you can see from the picture above, there really wasn't much to the brewery, but the beer was good and they had a great view of the lake. I sat on the patio and took my time with the beer. After which I thanked the owner, went for a quick walk around the town, snapped a few pics and then headed home.

That night, our class had a huge spaghetti dinner at Sebastian's house. Most of the class came, along with a few of our Profs.
We went through about 22 bottles of wine, countless beers and a bottle of brandy. We ate too much. We drank too much. And then we decided that it was best if we went out. I got home somewhere around 530a. All and all it was a pretty good day. I'm pretty sure I used up as much of that day as possible. Think about the last time you squeezed every last second out of a day. Think about it while I go get a beer.

2006-04-08T00:29:00.000-07:00

So my last post was the incoherent ramblings of a drunken fool. For that I apologise. I wrote it late in the evening when I thought that the world before me was completely clear. For a few hours I had everything sorted out, it was all crystal. No mystery left to anything in the world, I was so confident that I figured I should get it out before it all evaporated...or until I sobered up.
But I guess that's what happens when you have excellent Turkish food, cheap French wine, bland German beer and tawny Portugeuse Port; you consume so much of the world around you, drink so much of it in, that your mind becomes intoxicatd with the idea that you know it all...well either that or just intoxicated, either way you get the picture.
Speaking of drinking so much of it in, it just so happens that this past Thursday was the first Thursday of the month and as such it was time to party, VLB style! That means sitting around a brewery and drinking until the lights go out. We usually reserve this ritual for post school Fridays, but according to our Profs and other workers at the VLB, the first Thursday of the month is a very special day and should be celebrated properly. Who am I to argue?
So after class we headed to the Pilot brewery and joined many of the employees at the VLB for some free beer and strange food. Seriously, just when I think I've seen Germans eat the most vile, unedible foodstuffs, they don't just push the envelope a little further, they take the envelope, put a 3€ stamp on it and send it to the most remote reaches of the world via airmail. Once delivered to it's destination a small man, no taller than 30cm in stature, walks out to his mailbox at the end of his road, climbs up a ladder, turns a crank that operates the flap on the front of his mailbox and removes the envelope (obviously he is far to small to do such tasks manually). Then he straps the envelope to his back and calmly decends the ladder and takes said envelope out to his back yard and begins to dig. But since he is of such small proportions, he must use a very small shovel and it takes the entire length of three months to dig a hole big enough to fit the envelope. Once the moons of three months are but memories and he has completed his task, he removes the envelope from his back and plants if soflty in the hole. He then begins the arduous task of refilling the hole, but this is much easier and it only takes a single month of work. After which he goes into his house fetches the watering hose and begins to water the plot where the hole once lay. Not long after, the sun works it wonderful magic and throws it's magical sun beams directly onto the newlys watered plot where the hole once lay, small flowers begin to cautiously poke there heads out from the ground. Once he sees the green tops in the plot where the hole once lay, the small but determined man returns to tend his new garden. Like a pround new father the small man nestles, coaxes and reassures the young and shy sprouts and brings them forth out of the ground. Soon the once timid sprouts are pround and erect flowers, standing tall in the air and baring wonderful red and green fruit, which the small man plucks from it's pedals and brings into his house where he prepares a wonderful meal. Each bite a testament to the work and sweat he put into his harvest.
That's about as far as the German's pushed the envelope. Cause Ingo (one of our teachers) came into the brewery, tossed down a big grocery bag and pulled out a large sack of raw beef, mixed with raw pork, it was five pounds if it was an ounce, took out an icecream scoop, pulled off a large chunk of the raw meat and began to spread it over a piece of bread. After which he ate it. Maybe it doesn't seem all that bad, raw beef and all. After I write it, I guess the envelope wasn't pushed entirely that far, but at the time I found it pretty disturbing.
No sooner had he began to eat the vile sandwhich, everyone else in the brewery attacked the sack like a pack of wild dogs. The entire five pounds was gone in less than an hour. It was a sight to behold.
Anyhoo, outside of the raw beef eating, the rest of the night was a mix of conversation and drunken boobery...all and all a success. And it just so happens that the next First Thursday of the month, coincides with the time that a few of the boys are popping over here. So they will get to experience the VLB first hand.
Well that's that.
Oh, one more thing. Yesterday when I was coming home from school, waiting at the S-bahn station for my train to carry me home, I spied something strange on the tracks. A pair of pants. Who loses a pair of pants at a subway stations? How do you lose a pair of pants at a subway station. And how to they end up on the tracks. Seriously.
Think about the last time you lost a pair of pants at the subway station. Think about it while I go get a beer.

2006-04-04T17:01:00.000-07:00

So I will write this quicky, because as fast as it came it will disappear just as promptly. (I'm drunk so pay attention)
It occured to me as I stumbled home through the brick layered alleys of Berlin, through scaffoled(so?), pilons and red tape; that if we decide our fates based upon the flippent toss of a coin we are allaying(sp) our fears and hopes upon a coin tossed in the errant direction of the universe.
For as we toss said coin up and down, cutting the air in a North to South direction... the world is turning on the opposite axis; Left to Right (or if you are in the Southern Hemisphere and abject to the Corelolis Affect Right to Left). And as such our choices...or better yet our chances, are based upon the results of a two sided disc (as all discs turn out to be...I do not decide to forget the reality of the world) passing through the air at a 180° angle to the reality of the world. I cannot think of a better analogy than that.

We try so hard to level ourselves, hoping to make decisions based on ideals and decisions consumated on a level field, but then we see that the world doesn't work on a two dimensional axis. It flips and turns...it decides fates and nothingness on our simple comprehsion of a possible two dimensional world that may or may not surronds us. But the world that may surrounds us is not the world that is concealed inside us. It turns on an rotating, opposite, horizontal, diagonal, vertical, polar axis...it's not two dimensional, it's not three dimensional...it's infinate in it's possiblities.
We can not decide by flipping a coin, we can not decide by chosing heads or tails... these are not decisons, these are results of a failed system.
For we can not know what the right decision is, the right decision is neither right nor wrong...if we flip a coin, it's just the result that we are told. There are two many possiblities to right and wrong...the world is not black, the world is not white...it's mostly grey...with a few hints of grey and possibly an off brown (man I love that new colour that Ikea put out in the KeÖlu Bathroom system, it fits so well with my new baige sink system).
Basically all I'm saying is that we need to realise that the decisions we make are not correct or incorrect they are just decisions and that whether or not they coincide with the life path you have chosen, they are decisions none the less and will inevitably (sp, that is terrible) direct you in the path that you have indirectly chosen.
Wow that was a total mind fuck!

2006-04-02T13:21:00.000-07:00

So after a prolonged pinting session at the pilot brewery on Friday, where much was said and even more was forgotten, our brewmaster informed us that he would be brewing again on Sunday morning and he invited us to come in and help.
Seeing as we had brewed all of one batch of beer since we'd been here, we figured that sacraficing a Sunday to the brewing Gods was the least we could do to gain the much needed experience.
So early Sunday morning, with the sun still low in the sky and the birds heralding the dawn of a new week, Marcio, Sebastian, Sweeny and I made our way into the brewery to help with what would become our second batch of beer.
I managed to remember my camera this time so I could document the brewing process and share with you all the few simple steps in the brewing process. So pay close attention cause I'm about to give you a crash course in brewing technology. I won't go into much detail because first of all I don't think you really care and second of all I've been drinking since noon and I have neither the time nor the patience for such an undertaking. But grab your pencils and your notebooks cause here we go.
First we select our malt or malts as it maybe and weigh in the proper amounts. Then said malts are milled into a fine grist which we bring up to the brewhouse to be mashed.
The mash tun is filled with a certain amount of water, heated to a certain temperature in this case 90L and 62°C, then the grist is added and we begin the mashing process.

Here we can see Marcio, the Portuguese "Ball Smasher", stirring in the mash. We need to remove as many balls or clumps as possible so that we can gain as much sweet, sweet extract as possible.
After the mash has been heated up to the proper temperatures (mashed in at 62°c and gradually heated up to 78°C) in order to maximize enzyme activity, we send it over to the lauder tun. In the lauder tun the mash is filtered through a "cake" of spent grains until it is clear enough to be sent to the wort kettle.

In the wort kettle we cook the wort by bringing it up to a boil and add the hop extract. This boiling evaporates all the excess water, inactivates all the enzymes, coagulates the excess proteins and helps to get rid of that nast DMS-Precursor (if you have this your beer will taste like boiled cabbage - trust me it's disgusting). Also during this step the hops ared added which give us the bittering qualities we love oh so much.

After the boiling the wort is moved to the whirl pool, but as our pilot brewery is a small operation, the wort kettle doubles as the whirl pool.

The wort is spun in the whirl pool for five mintues and then rests for another twenty before it is poured out into kegs where it will rest until it is moved to the fermenting tanks.

Then comes the most important part of the brewing process, the drinking.

Truth be told the drinking started long before the last step, infact I believe it may have been the first and/or second step in the whole process. I just thought I'd humour you and make it seem like we actually are learing something here in Berlin.

As I rode the train home I thought about the day and just how much of a "dudes" day it was. Sitting around a brewery with a bunch of guys, making beer, talking about making beer and drinking beer. So I figured the best way to end the day was to go home make two huge sandwiches with three types of meat and by three types of meat I mean three types of pig, topped with two types of cheese (made from pigs milk), onions, tomatoes and smothered in a layer of sweet mustard, followed by a movie so mindless, so utterly insipid and useless, only a guy could enjoy it. In this case it was The Transporter 2. Wow, I mean wow...that's all I can say. I can honestly say that it may have been the worst movie I have ever seen in my entire life. I may actually be twelve degrees dumber for having watched it. Is there a test for that? I'd really like to see a study done to determine how many brain cells I lost today drinking for seven hours compared to how many I lost in the hour and a half of watching that movie. I bet the movie managed to kill off more. And the product placement...holy shit, I feel like running out right now, buying a six pack of Heiniken, jumping in my Audi, plugging in my iPod and listening to retarded dance music while I get in random karate fights with guys on the street. Seriously are we really this dumb? Do we have such a low opinon of ourselves that we lower our standards to this level and give into such simple devices? Can't we ask, nay demand a little more respect from Hollywood?...........Wait, I'm sorry I was talking about a total "dudes" day and I kinda got off track. So yeah, I came home ate two huge sandwiches, belched, turned off my brain, watched The Trainspotter 2, farted at least twelve times...loudly , three of which I scooped up with my hand and wafted up into my olfactories to make sure they stank just the right amount, scratched my ass and then I wrote this. Oops, just farted again...wait, yep...yep, that's the stuff.

Think about the last time you had a total guys day. Think about it while I go grab a beer.

2006-03-30T06:38:00.000-08:00

So I read over my last post and I got to apologize for all the melodrama. I sound like a whiny teenager, who's looked himself into his room to be "alone with his thoughts". Just picture it, a fifteen year old whiny little turd wearing a black Nine Inch Nails tee-shirt, torn black jeans, black painted fingernails and arrow straight, jet black hair and he's buried his pale white face and hands in his journal (which has really "deep" song lyrics written all over the inside cover). He's hunched over in the corner of his room furiously writing down how "unfair" the world is because he has a zit on his forehead and that cute girl at the record store hasn't noticed him yet even though he's buying all the really hip indie rock CD's in her "Employee Selections" rack at the store.
So for all that depression bullshit, I apologize. Really what the hell do I have to be depressed or bored with anyways? I'm in freakin' Berlin at a beer school. I'm surrounded by a beautiful city and I have really cool people from all over the world to share it with. My wife is coming to visit me in two weeks and then two weeks after that I have more friends coming to see me. What the hell can I possibly complain about?
Like Bruce Mcullough said in that brilliant Kids in the Hall sketch, "Lifes a pretty sweet fruit".
I love that sketch man, "it's so true!...".
So no more boo hoo hooing from me I promise.
And to show how sincere I am about it, I'm going to take the saddest news I've heard all week and put a cheery, ain't-life-so-grand spin on it.
On Tuesday night as I rode the S-bahn to meet a few classmates at a local brewpub, I picked up a discarded newspaper and started to flip through it. I don't really know why I did cause it was in German and I can't read bloody German...I guess I was just killing time. Anyhoo, I was glancing over some of the bi-lines and I noticed some words that I actually knew; Stanislaw Lem (he's one of my favourite Science Fiction writers). So I flip to the page that was listed under the caption and begin to read the article. I made it two words and once again realized that I couldn't read German, so I just kinda stared at it hoping maybe something would jump out at me. And something did. Well two things did, two dates; 1921-2006. I didn't need to read German to know what that meant. Again I hopelessly tried to find something in the article that I could decipher, but alas nothing. I resolved to Goggle his name when I got home and get the scoop.
So when I got home I did the goggleing and indeed Stanislaw Lem had passed away on March 27th. At first I was saddened, but then I read his life story (which was pretty amazing) and realized that he had lived for 84 years. That's a pretty good run. Nothing to get upset about.
He had survived the Nazi invasion of his homeland of Poland. Only to have to escape the communist regime after Russia annexed his territory. He studied medicine but didn't take the final exams to avoid becoming a medical doctor in the army. He then went on to publish almost 40 works.
At one point in his career he was the most read, non-English science fiction author in the world.
I haven't read too many of his books, but my favourite is The Cyberiad. I still remember reading it; I was in the back of my brothers 1972 Volkswagon van, driving across Eastern Canada with Liz, Jed and his girlfriend at the time Kaoru. I can remember laughing out loud at one of the stories (the book is a collection of short stories) because a dragon had flipped the bird to a robot...or something like that. Whatever. It's a fond memory of mine so back off.
Anyhoo...he's dead, but he lived a full life and that's nothing to get sad about. If you get a chance pick up one of his books, they're great.
One last thing.
I read this article the other day that stated Tom Hanks and Gus Van Sant had signed on to make a movie about a memoir for man that has yet to be written. Here is a quote from the article, "The premise of the memoir was enough to convince several studios to pursue the blueprint for a film, based on the timely subject of mature execs who must re-start their lives when they're made redundant from their jobs."
Does anyone see anything wrong with this?
Basically they are saying right to our faces that demographics and dollar bills dictate what it is we are going to watch. I know this is not a new idea. But WTF? They aren't even trying to hide it any more. They come right out and tell us that because the Baby Boomer generation is getting phased out and they are such a prominent and affluent demographic, that they are going to start making movies soley for them to be able to relate to. And hopefully they will be able to profit from this.
Whatever, I'm not going to get mad about it, I said that I had nothing to complain about and I don't, these kinds of thing happen every day so c'est la vie.
Well my fingers are tired so I'm going to go get a beer.

2006-03-28T04:23:00.000-08:00

So something has occured to me as I stand here on the crest... the Wednesday...the "humpday" of my six month trip to Berlin. It's hit me as I start to peer over the top and towards the downside of what was once my long trip here and what will soon become my long voyage home. Everything gets old.
When I first arrived in Berlin I attacked this city with zeal. I rushed forth like an open dam covering as much area as I could in as little time. I went to this sight and that. I walked around each part of the city, consuming every new street with my eyes and snapping pictures at a furious pace. I went to bars each night, but not just any bars, I went to bars that I'd never consider going to in Toronto and I loved it. Everything was new. Everything was fresh. But the waters have settled. The rushing water that once came barreling through the dam has settled on the lake below and the current has slowed to a dull trickle. Everything that I once thought was new and fresh, everything that I once thought was exciting and I desperately needed to see is now old and stale and I no longer have the driving desire to experience it.
Like the half eaten doughnut you left on your desk at work yesterday. When you come in the today it will be rendered unedible and unwanted. You will disregard it with a heavy "thud" as it lands inside the brown wastepaper basket beside your cubicle.
Like that one-last-beer you so badly needed after you got home from the bar Saturday night and passed out with half drank in your hands. When you woke up Sunday just the smell of it made you almost throw up, so you rushed to the sink and poured the flattened, oxidized liquid down the drain.
At one point you so badly wanted these things, but now thanks to the natural processes of time and oxidization, you are gladly tossing them aside. And that's the sad part. The one thing that gives us life is slowly taking it away. The very oxygen you need to breath, that you need to live is breath by breath slowly turning your once proud and beautiful face into something that will someday only cause you remorse and disdain. As you live life, the very act of living is making you old and making everything around you seem stale and unwanted.
When I first arrived here I rarely sat inside and watched T.V or read or watched movies. But as time passed and I started to fall into a routine or even more correctly as I fell into a rut my desire to go out and experience things died. The city that looked so alive to me, the very city I'm looking out the window at right now has become stale to me. It was inevitable I guess, everything eventually does.
As a completely random example, let's examine The Simpsons. This show once proudly wore the badge of Originality. It was so new and exciting when it first aired those 16 years ago. And it managed to stay fresh for many years with it's innovative, irreverant and funny story lines. Remember the first time The Simpsons went to... (place city name here)? Or remember the first time Marge threatened to leave Homer because he did something stupid and down right selfish? Or do you remember the first time Lisa questionsed religion and they ended up putting the blind faith of religion on trial against the blind faith of science? These were all good episodes.....the first time they aired. Now after 16 years and countless episodes with the same basic plot lines, the show that once had a badge of Originality, now has a scarlett letter of Repetitiveness (I know that isn't a letter, but you get the point) painted across it's chest (I know that a TV show doesn't have a chest, but you get the point). The Simpsons got stale. I used to anticipate each Sunday, anxiously waiting to be surprised by what crazy antics they'd get into. But now I don't. I still watch it, but it's more out of a sense of loyalty than anything else. I don't have the drive to watch it anymore. It got old and I don't want it any more.
Don't get me wronge, I still think that Berlin is a great city and I think that everyone should experience it at least once, so maybe it's just me. Maybe I just need a little change. Liz is coming in a few weeks and maybe having someone here with fresh eyes, someone who can stir me out of my routine and pull me out of my rut, will rekindle my fire to and verve to see the city. I don't know. But I hope so.
On a lighter note, Walder A and Mikey B just had birthday's so shout outs to you boys on your birthday's (woot, woot; woot, woot). I heard you both had kick ass parties and I wish I coulda been there...but I couldn't, so to celebrate your belated birthdays I'm going to go out have a beer!

2006-03-26T04:03:00.000-08:00

So the malt has been milled, the grist has been mashed, the mash has been lautered, the wort has been boiled and the yeast has been pitched. Now we wait. In 5 to 7 days, as the yeast eats through all the lovely food we gave it and poos out the lovely alcohol we so desperately want, the first batch of CCCP beer will be ready. The Canadian, Canadian, Canadian and Provost (or Poligamy which ever part of Utah you like better) brewing team went into the brewhouse on Saturday, March 25th at 8am and started to brew their first batch of beer. And seven hours twenty three mintues and countless beers later, they finished. For two of those brewers it was their first brewing experience ever and you know what they say, "you never forget your first time". The other two had made beer in the past but I'm sure that didn't make it any less special for them.
For two and a half months we waited patiently our hands and minds busied with learning the ins and outs of the basic raw materials. Learning the different enzymatic activities durning the many stages of the brewing process and learning intamately the equipment used in the creation of the beer. They were a long two and a half months but they were worth it and now I can finally say that I made beer.
It was a long day, there were some tense moments early in the morning as we shook off the ill effects of the prior evening. But nothing a little sweat and some hair o' the dog couldn't cure.
As Thomas, our brewing instructor, handed us our first beers at approximatley 10am, my initial reaction was a faint hearted "no". But apparently it wasn't really a questions so much as an order, as the beer still ended up in my hand. Shaking, I brought the beer to my lips. Sweat was building on my forhead as my stomach did backflips. The cold beer hit my lips and I slowly poured it down my throat. I closed my eyes and hoped for the best. I was picturing a sudden burst in my stomach and a mad dash to the Winston Churchill (WC, bathroom, head, loo...whatever), but instead the beer calmed my stomach and dried my forhead. I guess the whole hair o' the dog thing was true. And as the brewing process offers many possibilities for resting, we managed to make it back to the taps for a few more throughout the day.
But this Saturday wasn't about drinking the beer, it was about making it....well maybe a little about drinking it, but mostly it was about the making. At the end of the day we came out with 100L of our own beer, Comrad Pilsner (or something like that), I think we decided to call it.
And after those 5 to 7 days when the fermentation is all done, we only have to use 5L for testing and the remaining 95L are ours to do with what we please.
I can think of only one thing.
Think about the last time you had 95L or beer to do with what you please. Think about it while I go get a beer...my own beer.

2006-03-21T06:02:00.000-08:00

So it's finally here, after months of anticipation and bemoaning it's absence, it's finally here. The last remaing piles of snow have begun to melt and seep into the waiting ground. And from the newly moistened soil the Earth has given birth to Spring.

It's a beautiful day outside,
Times passing you by.
Come on out,
Don't just sit there catatonic,
I'm feeling supersonic.
A warm wind is sweeping by,
The sun's full in the sky.
And theres no way of knowing,
No way of too know,
Know how long it will it last.

Yes go outside. Just like the song tells us, go out and enjoy the sun cause who knows how long it will be here. Cause just like Winter and just like Spring; like days, weeks, minutes and seconds, they are all fleeting and soon they will disappear. Gone. Like the red clay cliffs of Prince Edward Island that receed each year, erode and assimilate into the big blue puddle at it's feet. Each single red crystal dissolving into an ocean where individual grains are lost, never to be seen again.
In the same fashion our time on this planet is taken away from us. It slowly trickles away from us, right on our heels. If you look back you can see it floating away, second by second dissappearing, dissolving into a void of memory.
But this is Spring, a time of new beginnings, a time of new hopes and aspirations. So instead of trying to hold onto those inevitabley lost seconds that are falling away at your heels as I type this, look forward and don't ever look back. Focus on the thick red clay cliffs ahead of you. Grab a chunk of it, the biggest chunk you can fit in your hands and start to mold it. Begin to twist it, turn it and shape it into a something you really want. Something that when you finally finish it, you can look at and be proud of, cause this is all you are ever going to get. This one lonely piece of clay. You can't go back and grab some more. And if you're content to hold it up to the ocean and watch it melt quietly out of your hands, fine. That's your choice. But I'm going to hold onto my piece and I'm going to start to mold it. I don't exactly know what it's going to be, but I guess that's the best part of clay; it's plyable. It can bend, morph and change into an infinite number of shapes and sizes. So maybe right now I'm not sure what it's going to look like, but that's for me to decide. One thing I am sure of though, I'll be damned if I'm going to let any stupid fucking ocean take it away from me.
Think about your clay and where it will bend you next while I go get a beer.

2006-03-19T04:52:00.000-08:00

So I'd like to thank everyone for their concern and helpful emails with tips and home remedies on how I could correct my little blockage problem. You'll be glad to know that the problem has been solved and all monitored systems are functioning within acceptable parameters. Apparently it was nothing a little Tex-Mex and a few draught beers couldn't handle. Beer; is there anything it can't do? And lest we forget Mexican food, that delightful, flavourful and oh so varied cuisine of the Mexicans. Seriously, is there any real difference between an Enchilada or a Burrito or a Taco or a Chimichanga or a Quesadilla? They are all the same basic ingrediants with a few minor tweaks to the recipies here and there. One has the cheese melted on the outside and one has shredded cheese on the inside. One is wrapped in a tortilla and one is baked in a tortilla. One is deep fried and the other not. It's like they found the best possible basic ingrediants, changed it up a few times and then just stopped. Figured that the shit was good enough the way it was and why mess with perfection. And people come to Mexican restaurants, stare at the menu and hum and haw about what there going to have. IT'S ALL THE SAME! JUST PICK ONE FOR CHRISSAKES!
Sorry about that, kinda went on a rant again...seems like those are becoming more and more frequent?
Anyhoo, where was I? Yes, alas another Patty's Day has come and gone, vanished into the land of ghost and wind and we must wait another 364 days until we are graced by it's presence again.
This was to be my first European Patty's Day and outside of not having any of the usual cohortes with me, it was still a resounding success.
For many of my classmates, this was infact the first time they had ever celebrated St.Patrick's Day, a few of them didn't even know what it was. Poor fools. Some on the other hand knew what it was, but thought that it was a celebration reserved only for the Irish. The Brewmaster at our Pilot Brewery even asked me why we celebrate it. I told him it was basically just an excuse to get drunk. To which he answered in his proud, gruff German, "I do not need an excuse to get drunk!". Truer words have never been spoken.
So after a few warm up pints at the Pilot brewery, said Brewmaster invited a few of us over to his house for a few more warm up pints (Apparently our description of Patty's Day convinced him that it was worth checking out) . You really should warm up before you get into any strenuous activity. Proper stretching before a vigurous work out can help prevent any unneccessary injuries from occuring later. You know what they say, "An ounce of pervention is worth a pound of cure." Also his flat was about a five minute walk from the bar we had decided to go to that night, it was called...now get this...it's very unique...you won't belive it even after you read it....The Irish Pub.
Like most bars on Patty's Day the place was packed with revellers of all ages. I think we got there a little early though cause most of the patrons had a few years on us. But as the hours passed the ages kinda leveled out. The only complaints I had about the bar were the prices and the music. A pint of beer ran over 4€, this may not sound much to Torontonians who regularly pay $5-6 for a pint, but in Berlin this is outrageous. And the music...they played mostly country music. WTF? It's St.Patrick's Day for cryin' out loud, where's the "Wild Rover", where's the "Seven Drunken Nights', where's "Molly Malone"....alas it was not to be. But these were minor concerns and despite the high prices and shitty music we were still able to have a kick ass time.
As the hours passed, as the beer flowed and the dance floor was properly shredded more and more of our friends showed up, even a few of our profs showed up and partied to the wee hours. And like most Patty's Day when most people are a wee bit more "friendly", we met many people from around the world who were in Berlin for a good time and a few beers. Mostly Americans, British, Scottish and Irish folks but there were a few others from different countries. All and all it was a great time.
But like I said earlier, I did miss the usual crew and it's at times like these that you really appreciate the friends that you have and the experiences you've shared.
Think about all the good times and all your good friends while I go get a beer.

2006-03-16T05:10:00.000-08:00

So I haven't shit in the past four days. The whole system has gone on strike and I'm backed up from here to Uranus. It's like my Dad used to say to us every Friday when my Brother and I would make our pizza (Friday was pizza day in our house, it was like a religion. You could eat anything on any other day of the week, but Friday was pizza day, you didn't mess with pizza day, it was sacred!) with way too much cheese; he'd look down at the pale crust topped with it's shredded crown of golden cheese, purse his lips, shake his head dissapprovingly and say, "That's gonna bung you up tighter than a snare drum." We'd laugh it off then, but I tells ya I ain't laughin' now.
I'm not goin' lie to you, I still go to the bathroom every once and a while but it's like going to see a bigtime summer blockbuster Sci-Fi movie, sure there's lots of wizz-bangery, with really cool sounds and explosions, but in the end it just leaves you wanting. It's just an empty waste of an hour and a half.
It's gotten to the point that my sides are starting to hurt, my stomach has become tender to the touch. Every once and a while my side starts to tremble and twitch, and I walk around with the fear that at any moment, I could explode in a fury of guts and excrement. I'm a goddamn ticking timebomb. If someone get's too close to me I tell them that for safety reasons they should probably keep their distance.
Sleep is even becoming difficult. I can't lay on my side and God forbid I turn over on my stomach. I have to sleep on my back at all times lest I roll over and foul my bed. But sleeping on my back apparently leads to me having some really twisted dreams.
Last night I was dreaming about these big blue bowling balls that I had. I must've had a hundred of them, all lined up in a row on a wooden, railed rack, each weighing about sixty pound and filled to core with coarse grain sand. Then with a quick unexplained twist, as is only possible in dreams, I learned that if I drilled into the center of these balls and poured a certain amount of water into them, that I could create living breathing worlds inside these balls. It was simple! I couldn't believe that no had thought of this before. The water would turn the sand to mud, then due to the pressure created by being inside a bowling ball, the mud would in turn become clay, and as we all know man was originally created from clay. All I had to do was pour in water and sooner or later I could create a man inside these balls and he would then turn the inside of the ball into an entire world! Like I said simple.
So off I went and started drilling all of these balls, pouring water into each and everyone of them. And as I went on in my Dr.Frankenstein dementia I started to have delusions of grandeur and I imagined my self saying, "I can create life with my balls!". That's when I woke up.
In my half awake, half asleep state I started to rehash the dream I just had, trying to figure out how my subconcious ever came up with such a perverted tale. The bowling ball part was easy, I had just bowled on Saturday night and it was a great time, so obviously bowling was still on top of my mind. I even came up with an explanation for the clay thing. I was watching Dr.Zhivago earlier that day and there is a scene in the movie where one of the characters yells, "We all come from the same clay Zhivago! We all come from the same clay!". So there you go. But the whole creating life thing? When did I ever have a God complex? I tried to shake it off by turning over on my side and fixing up pillow into a more comfortable position, but no sooner had I done so that my stomach started to churn and bubble. "Uggh." I let out a uncomfortable sigh followed by a weezing fart, "Christ, I can't even create one small little turd let alone life", I quickly rolled back onto my back .
I've had enough though and I'm putting my foot down. I need to prime the pump. I need to ignite the pilot light. I gotta do something, anything to get the system back up and running again. I'm pulling out all the stops on this one. So tonight it's Mexican for me. No more painful stomach! No more ticking timebomb! No more empty go no where farts! No more twisted dreams! This is the end of the line, I'm purging the system. It's time for a little spring cleaning.

Oh, one last thing while I'm on the subject. Tomorrow is St.Patrick's Day and I wish you all a good drunkening! But anyone who says, "Top o' the mornin' to ya!", or "We're all a little Irish today" or anyone who drinks green beer...well they need a good ball stomping with a steletto. For the love of Pete, you aren't Irish! You don't speak Irish! and no and I mean no one on this goddamn planet drinks green beer.
There I said it. Now with that I would like to restate my hopes that each and everyone of you has a great St.Patrick's day and wakes up Saturday morning with a wonderful and fully earned hang over.

2006-03-14T03:43:00.000-08:00

So I haven't done this in a while....
As the two brothers slowly walked down the street towards their destination, Tom looked back anxious that they may have made a wrong turn at the last street.
"Andy, do you think we should've gone left at the Elm? I think we should've kept going for a couple more streets." asked Tom, still worried that they were going be late for their appointment.
"Dude trust me, this is a shortcut I come this way all the time", reassured Andy stuffing his hands into his pockets, not even bothering to turn his head.
"I don't know" said Tom, still looking back over his shoulder, "I'm pretty sure that this is the wrong way."
Andy rolled his eyes but didn't bother to answer him, he felt something loosen on his right foot so he looked down and found his shoe untied. He cursed as he bent over to tie it up.
Still anxiously looking backwards, Tom narrowly missed running into his prone brother, jumping to the left, dodging him at the last minute.
"Woah! What the hell man!", shouted Tom. "We gotta keep moving!."
Again Andy didn't answer him. Still hunched over he spied something half buried under a melting pile of snow. It looked like an old photograph. He reached out to grab it.
"Hurry up", blurted Tom, "we're going to be late!"
"Chill the fuck out man, we got lots of time", answered Andy a little annoyed at his older brothers constant pestering.
He pulled the photo out from under it's snowy blanket and brushed off the dirt which had gathered on it. He thought about the difference between the snow in the city and the snow from back home. At home the snow was always soft and pure, but in the city it's was never white, it was always heavy and brown, covered with a thick layer of dirt and slush.

Still kneeling down he examined the photo, it was of a young child. He wondered how someone could leave a picture of their kid buried in the snow.
"Who tosses away a picture of their kid?" said Andy rhetorically, not really expecting an answer.
"I don't know and I don't really care. Let's just keep moving."
Andy looked back at Tom, "Fine, let's go" and he stuffed the picture into his pocket.
After a few more blocks Andy fished the picture out of his pocket and began to look it over again.
He looked over at Tom and asked, "Do you remeber that guy who used to come around our table at the market and buy those old black and white pictures from us. The crazy one with the big grey beard that was stained all yellow around his mouth. Oliver I think his name was? Or something like that...well at least that's what I heard his name was, he never spoke so I never got it out of him."
"Sorta, I guess, I don't know" answered Tom quickly, trying to drop the subject so they could keep moving.
"He used to buy those pictures off me every Sunday. You know the ones Mom and Dad found in the basement when we moved into the old house?." Tom didn't answer, he still had his head down determined to make it to the appointment on time. Andy didn't miss a beat and kept on with his story.
"It didn't matter what they were of either. Coulda been of a mountain or an old family photo of people he couldn't possibly of known. Didn't matter, he'd just flip through the pile of them, stop at one and take it out. He'd do this until he had about five or six, pay me and then leave. They were only a dime or something so it didn't matter but I always used to wonder what he did with them. Then outta the blue he comes back one week and gives me one of the photos, but attached to it was a story. I asked him what it was for but he never answered me. He just handed it to me flipped through some more photos, took a couple, paid me and left. Then he started doing it each week, I guess he was making a gift out of them. You sure I never told you about this?".
"I said, I don't know." snapped Tom. "Now can we hurry the fuck up? If were late, I'm screwed. You know how long it took me to get this goddamn appoinment and I can't wait for another one."
Andy ignored his ever increasingly annoyed partner and kept on with his story. "Some of the stories were pretty good too. One of my favourites was attached to this photo of an old stone statue, I don't think I'll ever forget it. The statue was of a guy with wings and the story was called, "The Boy Who Had Wings but Was too Heavy too Fly", it was good. At least I thought so. It had to do with a boy who was born with wings, but because he was a freak his mother sold him to the circus. She was one of those religous types and thought it was against God or something to have a freak for a kid.
But then the boy became really famous, travelling around the country in a cage. People came from all over to see the boy with wings and they paid handsomly for it too.
The people in the circus treated him like dirt though, he was just a money maker to them. And too make sure he could never leave they kept him locked up in a big metal cage all the time. So even though he had wings he never learned to fly.
Then one day, the Mother found out how famous her son had become and so she set out to get him back. Figured she deserved a cut of the money. She snuck into the circus one night and told the boy that she was sorry and that she really loved him and never meant to give him up in the first place. Apparently money was more important than her religous values. Apparently money was more important than both the father and the son.
The kid, who never had a Mother, believed her right away. No one had ever loved him before so he told her that he would go with her. So that night they broke out of the circus and he left with her thinking that he was going to be loved and treated right for the first time in his life.
But he never did get that love he so dearly wanted. All she did was parade him around and around from talk show to talk show. First it was daytime talk shows like Maury and Jerry and then they graduated to early fringe programs like Oprah and Dr. Phil. She was making money hand over fist with this kid, so too make sure he would leave her, she told him that she was very sick and that if he ever left she would surley die of a broken heart. He wasn't in a physical cage anymore, but he was still stuck in one place and so he still never learned to fly.
Finally one day, while his was in the green room of one of the day time talk shows, he met a man with no arms or no legs. He asked the man how he ever got from one place to the next and the man told him that he could go where ever he pleased, beacause he had a wheel chair that he could control with his mouth. The boy was amazed, here he was with a pair of wings but was unable to even leave his mothers side. And beside him was a man with no arms or no legs but was free to go where ever he liked.
Just then his mother came bursting in, yelling and screaming at the boy to stop talking to that no legged freak and to get ready to go on stage. But the boy had had enough. He calmly told his mother that he was leaving and that she would never see him again and that he didn't care if she lived or died. The strode over to the window, perched up on the sill and jumped out into the open blue sky.
But he never learned to fly. And instead of soaring into the heavens the boy fell like a stone staue and plummeted to his death."
Tom stopped dead in his tracks, "That's the story? That's the end of the story"
"Yeah. Well he wrote it better, but....why don't you like it?", answered Andy a little dumbfounded.
Tom reached out, grabbed him by his coat, looked right into Andy's face and started screaming "No, I didn't like it. In fact I fucking hated it, I thought it was terrible! I don't understand why he had to die at the end and better yet I don't care. I don't care why and I don't want to know why. Now can we please get going!"
He let go of Andy's jacket, turned forward and marched down the sidewalk towards their destination.
Andy and loosened his ruffeled coat, "Geez, take it easy. Why are you always in such a fucking rush? It was just a story...God, we're going to get there."

Tom didn't answer he just kept on walking.

After a few seconds Andy put the photo back into his pocket and started to quietly follow him.

After they had walked a few more blocks Tom stopped and let Andy catch up, "Sorry man, I'm just a little stressed out and I want to get there as soon as possible. You know how it is, I didn't mean to snap at you."

"No worries dude, let's just forget it", replied Andy. The two of them continued to walk on in silence.

They walked for a few more blocks and then Andy pulled the photo out of his pocket again. "You know what I never really understood about this guy?" asked Andy.

"What guy?"

"Oliver, the crazy old guy with the pictures I was talking about before."

"Ugh, this again? Can't we just drop it?"

"No wait, one last thing I promise."

"Fine what. What don't you understand?"

"Well, he always wrote so beautifully, his stories were always so artistic. But his penmanship, my God it was atrocious. It was like bloody chicken scratch, you could barely make out what it said. I never understood that."

"Why not? Why do you have to be able write well to be able to write well?"

"I don't know, just seems like you should I guess". He paused for a moment, "I mean a baker has to be able to mix his batter properly if his cake is going to turn out, right?"

Tom slowed down and thought for a moment before he answered, "Sure, that may work fine and good for the baker, but take musicians for example. Look at Neil Young or Bob Dylan or goddamn Louie Armstrong. They don't exactly have the most angelic singing voices in the world but they still write and sing beautiful goddamn songs. I think that even it's more beautiful that they aren't great singers and that this old fart had terrible penmanship. It makes them more human. Who wants perfection anyways? Fuck perfection. You can have all the Britney Spears and Jennifer Lopez's in the world, with their great voices and over produced music, but does that make it good? No, it makes it shit."

Andy continued on silently before looking up from the picture he was holding between his hands, "I guess your right, I never really looked at it that way. Maybe it was better that he wrote terribly."

"Tom." he continued.

"What?"

"Why did you wait just there, before you answered. You never do that."

"Well I guess if I had of taken my time and waited in the first place, I wouldn't need to be rushing so much right now."

"Yeah, I guess not" replied Andy solemly.

Just as the last words fell out of Andy's mouth they came around the corner and there was the office building they were looking for.

"Fucking finally," blurrted a relieved Tom as he pushed open the doors and walked inside.

The two of them walked over and sat down in the blue vinyl waiting room chairs. Tom leaned forward and picked up a three month old issue of Home and Garden off the brown faux wood table. "These rooms are always so white", he said flipping through the pages, "white and quiet."

Andy was still looking at the picture in his hands. To busy trying to imagine what wonderful story Oliver would have created from the picture, to reply to his brother. His arm holding the picture fell loosley to his side as he sighed and began to look around the room. First from the white walls then to the reception desk and the back of the fat receptionist milling around behind a pile of papers, then to all the other sad faced people anxiously darting their eyes around the room trying to avoid awkward eye contact with the other patients. His eyes came to rest on the young women sitting directly across from him, she had a young boy with her. Her eyes were heavy, turned down at the sides. Her shoulders hung low, sagging and burdened. The boy sat quietly in the seat beside her. She did not hold his hand.

He raised his arm to look at the photograph again.

He leaned forward holding the picture out and said, "I think this belongs to you".

2006-03-12T09:39:00.000-08:00

So it seems that as the months grow warmer and the girls start to wear a little bit less, the minds of men turn towards thoughts of the finer sex. Not that they aren't already thinking about them most of the time, but maybe just a little bit more in the summer. Cause if I'm doing my math correctly and count back nine months from mid March it lands you smack in the middle of June, just before the official start of Summer.
And using our little VLB class of eighteen students as a sample for the entire population of the world, (which is well within my powers to do so) there must have been one hell of a lot of birthday parties this weekend.
From that small sample of eighteen we had no less than three birthdays this weekend. March 10th was Özlems birthday (Turkey), March 11th was Mr. Chang's (Korea) and March 12th was Sebastian's (Canada).
And to celebrate this little trifecta of international birthdays we had threw the first annual Berlin Bowlfest!
It was of course a costumed event.
We decided on bowling because:
A) Bowling kicks ass
B) You don't really have to be an athlete to do it
C) You can bowl and drink beer at the same time, infact there is a direct co-relation between increased beer consumption and increased scores
And D) Bowling kicks ass
The one thing I don't get about bowling is; why don't I ever get any better? All you do is throw a damn ball down a damn alley, over and over and over again. Nothing changes. There are no variables. Theoretically, I should be able to the exact same thing everytime. The alley doesn't move. The ball is always round. The pins are always in the same place. I don't get it?
It's not like golf, where you have to account for wind or your lie. It's not like hockey, where you are actually playing against someone else, it's just you and the damn pins.
If you do the same thing each time, you should get a strike each time....but I don't. Infact, I suck. What? Where was I? Where am I going with this? That was a bit of a tangent there, let me get back on track....no wait, while I'm out here in the wide open expanse of this tangent, I have one last grievance to air about bowling. Bowling is quite literaly a pain in the ass. The day after a bowling match, my left ass always hurts. My left ass being my left ass cheek. I walk around all day with a limp, because it feels like I've been kicked over and over again in my left ass. This is bowling for chrissakes! It's one of the reasons it's such a fun game, you don't have to be an athlete to do it. So why does it feel like I've been doing squats with my left leg all night? No offence to all you bolwers out there, but it's not like you have to be in peak physical shape to be a pro-bowler. The only athletes who can afford to be in worse shape are baseball pitchers, eg - David Wells. I'm almost certain that if they created pro-bowling trading cards, instead of ERA or Save Percentage like you'd find on baseball or hockey cards, the main stat would be percent ass cleavage.
There I think that just about does it for that tangent....

We all met a Sebastian's flat for some birthday cake and pre-bowling beers around 7ish and then headed out to the local bowling alley where the real fun started. Like I mentioned in my earlier posts, it's rare that we get most of the class out for such an outing, but we managed to get almost everyone out for the 1st annual Berlin Bowlfest. Not only that, many of them actually wore costumes.
We had some wonderful prizes up for grabs too, three small Canadian flags attached to silver cardboard! Really, who could ask for more?
The first and largest flag went to Best Highest Score, Marcio's cousin who just flew into Berlin from Portugal the day before, took that prize putting up an impressive 149. The second and slightly smaller flag, went to Best Lowest Score which Özlem took with a 58. Still no where near the lowly 25 which Rick put up on our BV group outing o' those many years ago. A feat of such utter ineptitude, I'm sure it will never be bested. Keep practicing Rick, keep practicing. The third and even smaller flag went to Best Style Hands Down, which went to Marcio for his most wonderul costume. He's the pretty little red head that you see in the pictures.
It was a fun night with much bowling and even more beering...is beering a word? If not I think it should be and I will be using much more frequently in the future.
All in all it was a great night and I think we may all meet again next year back in Berlin for the second annual Berlin Bowlfest.
How awesome are annual events? Think about that while I go get a beer.

2006-03-09T06:30:00.000-08:00

So it seems that the wind suddenly picked up and blew another month away into memory. It's now been two months since we began our course at the VLB and to celebrate our class headed South to Bavaria to attend the 93rd Brewing and Engineering Congress in lovely Regensburg.
Regensburg is a small city on the Danube, a little over an hour North East of Munich. With it's narrow cobblestone streets, ruins from a long ago Roman occupation and it's large gothic cathedral in the town centre, Regensburg was much more like the Europe I have seen in my former trips to the "Old Country".
Bavaria is much different from the Northern Germany I've been living in for the past two months; I think our tour guide at the Krones plant said it best, "We are not in Germany. We are in Bavaria!". The context of the last statement was this...he was trying to explain to us that Bavarians need to drink beer at certain times of the day, so they installed beer vending machines at the plant to keep the workers happy. A happy worker is a productive worker! He also went on to explain that they have never had any problems with drunkeness at the plant. Anyone over there in Canada at the worker safety board hearing this? I think I see a new trend in the future.
Krones, is one of the worlds largest suppliers of plant equipment in the brewing and beverage industry and this was our first stop on our class excursion. After the six hour drive from Berlin to Regensburg we headed straight to the Krones factory for what turned out to be a two and a half hour walking tour of the plant. Luckily for us they had the beer vending machines that I mentioned earlier scattered throughout the plant, so the two and a half hours passed relatively quickly.
After the tour Krones threw us a welcome party with a huge meal and as much weissebier as we could drink (supplied by Bischofshof). The first picture, is of many of my classmates sitting down to enjoy what would turn out to be the first of many weissbiers that evening. The beer was good but the food, my God the food, was excellent. I am so tired of frozen pizzas and dinners that come in a bag that as soon as I saw the spread they had laid out I went to town. Plate after plate, I just kept stuffing my yaw until I could hardly move, it was wonderful.
Then after the party it was off to a local bräuhäus, where we sat down on some long wooden tables and enjoyed some most excellent bock beer.
Later that night as we walked home through the snowy streets of Regensburg we had a drunken snowball fight, a regularity for many of us, but for some it was a first. Some of our VLB classmates are from parts of the world that don't exactly get that much snow, so for them this was a new experience.
The next morning we had to go to the "Kopinghaus" for the congress at 830am. This proved to be rather difficult. I don't know about you, but trying to listen to a lecutre on the "Trends in technology that could influence the filling of beer and beverages in the next years", on four hours sleep, while trying to fight off a wicked hangover isn't exactly my idea of fun.
I sat through the first lecture, my eyes half open and cold sweat dripping from my forehead but halfway through the second lecture on "The Introduction of a long-term maintenance and service concept for filling lines" I had to bail out. Wiping the sweat from my brow and holding my stomach, I rushed out of the hall and headed for the coffee station. Luckily for me Temel, one of the Turkish fellows in our class was apparently having the same troubles as I was. We had a few cups of coffee and discussed our native lands before the conference hall emptied and the rest of the congress participants poured out into the lobby.
After the coffee my hangover had subsided a little but the thought of sitting through another fourty five minute discussion on "A new generation of aseptic filling lines for H202" threatened to bring it back. I had to leave. So a few of us headed out to see the town. We walked around Regensburg and visited a few sites before heading back to the congress before lunch.
When we got back, Josef the only German...er Bavarian in our class explained to us that in Bavaria you must have your first beer before mid-day. It was going to be tough but you know what they say..."When in Rome". So just before noon we choked back the first beer of the day.
This helped the rest of the day go by just a little smoother and at 430p we headed out for what turned out to be the highlight of the trip, the brewery tour at the Schneider Weissbierbraurerei.
A family owned brewery, Schneider-Weiss helped save Weissbier from extinction during the last century. With it's frothing open fermenters and it's modern bottling line the visit to Schneider-Weiss was definatley one of the highlights of the trip. One of the brewmasters even posed for a picture with LOBO. Checkout the wicked throatee on that guy...awesome!

After the brewery tour it was back to the Kopinghaus for another wonderful dinner and more weissbier...tough few days I know, but these Bavarians can be very persuasive. We stuffed our bellies with food and plied our minds with beer and then headed out to the best Irish bar I've been to yet in Germany, "The Irish Harp". You just know it's going to be a good night when you walk into a bar and the band is playing Tenacious D.
Inside it's rustic wooden interior, our entire class (it's rare that they all come out at the same time) sang and drank the night away before they turned on the lights and kicked us out into the streets. Luckily for us Sebastian had purchased a small bottle of whiskey for me earlier in the day and I still had it in the pocket of my jacket. So stumbling through the darkened streets of Regensburg, Sweeny, Kolin, Sebastian and I passed the bottle back and forth, swigging whiskey and singing to the stars.
When we finally got back to the hotel, Sebastian went and got his guitar and we all stayed up singing songs in the lobby until the night watchmen finally gave us the hook. It was fun while it lasted though as more people joined in as they stumbled through the revolving hotel doors, some of the professors who were also staying in the hotel even joined in.
The next day proved to be a repeat of the morning before. I woke up after only a few hours of drunken sleep and then headed out to the congress at 8am. The topics of day were much more interesting than the day before, but still not exactly riveting material.
The day wrapped up around 430pm with the tasting of a new style of beer called "Weissbierpils"...a mixture of Weissbier and Pilsner. Wasn't all that great but by that point I wasn't exactly pining for another beer.
After the congress ended we piled back onto the bus and headed back to Berlin. All in all I think the conference was a smashing success. But even after a days break I don't think I need to go have a beer.

2006-03-04T03:56:00.000-08:00

So I went to the movies last night and saw what was probably the best commercial I'd ever seen. I came home and edited my last post, I tacked on the commercial to the end of the post.

So apparently it's Spring in Berlin. Hooray! The Germans don't wait for the earth to reach the Vernal Equinox, they just tell the earth when it's Spring. Someone from the German weather bureau goose stepped outside Wednesday morning, sternly looked skyward, cocked an eyebrow, pointed up to the heavens and shouted "IT'S SPRING!". He then pulled down on the waist line of his jacket, tightening it to his body, turned on his heels and camly walked back inside. And so it was Spring. Since then, I was told by a few Germans that March 1st was the first day of Spring, I didn't want to argue with them I just nodded and agreed, it's easier that way.
But just telling the sky it's Spring and having the sun actually pass the celestial equator are two different things. As Nice Guy Eddie so eloquently put it "...he'll tell you he started the goddamn Chicago fire, now that don't necessarily make it fucking so".
Usually the first day of Spring is one of my favourite days of the year. First thing in the morning, I throw on the Gandharvas "First Day of Spring", put away my winter coat (putting away the winter coat maybe on of the greatest feelings known to man) and pull out the spring jacket. I dig out my sandals, throw them on and go outside and enjoy the new weather with a nice springtime stroll. This didn't happen. There are no buds on the trees, the ground is still frozen, the air still has that winter bite to it and it's been snowing on and off for the past three days. And to top it all off, I don't even have a spring jacket, I never packed one. If this is Spring in Berlin, I'll take Winter back.
Other than the declaration of Spring, it's been a relatively quite week, not too much to report. Which is good as it took me a few more days to recover from Köln than I originally anticipated.
We didn't even get to visit the pilot brewery this Friday. It was the Russian courses (there was a Russian Brewmasters course running at the same time as our, but theirs was only two months long) last day and they were having their going away party in there. We tried to crash it, but no dice. So at 230pm on Friday, we found ourselves standing outside the brewery completely at a loss for something to do. Going to the brewery after school has become such a routine that when faced with the dilemma of actually coming up with something else to do, we were at a complete loss. We just kind of stood there in the freshly christned Spring air, kicking stones and looking at our feet. We stayed like that in our quite little circle, until our Chemical Analysis teacher came around the corner and asked us what we were doing. We told her about our dilemma and she bluntly answered, "Well there are a lot of bars in Berlin." And so off we went.
It became somewhat of an impromptu bar-crawl. We eneded up going to a few pubs we hadn't been to, before we ended up at our usual haunt, Circus.
It was a fun night, we had Luis there to entertain us. But I think the rest of the weekend will be quieter still, as on Monday morning we leave for our class excursion to Regensberg. As I mentioned earlier it's a "beer conference", which roughly translates to "beer sampling"...I think it may be fun.
Oh, there was one other thing of note that happened yesterday...actually it's a pretty big thing, my other brother in-law Mark, got married. His fiancee...er...I guess wife now, Chi Chen flew in from Taiwan earlier this week and the two of them got married down at the Toronto City Hall yesterday morning. It was a small ceremony with only the immediate family in attendance. So shout outs to Mark and Chi Chen on their recent (very recent) nuptuals (woot, woot). Congratulations.
Anyhoo, that's it for me...have a good weekend and I'm going to go grab a beer.

P.S.
Opening Scene:
Panoramic shot of Mid-Western US mountain range. Crystal blue sky, snow capped mountains, vibrant green meadow nestled at the foot of the hills. A booming soundtrack of epic strings plays over top of the scene. The camera slowly pans across the range and then moves down to a rushing creek lined with banks of pure white snow, as a pack of wild horses goes splashing through the icy water, the strings reach a crescendo.
A disembodied voice booms down from the heavens. Deep and bassy it speaks to us, like an all knowing, all seeing God:
"No roof but the sky"
The camera pans back up to the lightly powdered mountains as two large eagles swoop down into view, only to fly off into the expansive blue nothingness.
"No walls but the wind"
Again the camera moves down into the emerald meadow, showing the wind rustle through the wooded area near the icy creek. It slowly pans away from the thin speckled birch trees and we see the wild horses again running through the creek. This time followed by a lone horseman. The scene is again filled with the sound of strings.
He's wearing his three day shadow like a badge. He moves out from behind the pack of horses and heads up the crest of a wooded hill atop his mighty steed. The trees begin to thin out as he reaches the peak of the hill. The camera follows up from behind him as he comes to a stand still on the crest, revealing a lush green clearing with a rustic log home at it's centre. A plume of white smoke billows out of it's stone chimney, and snakes it's way skward.
The voice speaks to us again:
"Some men call this home".
The camera zooms in on our lone horseman as he pulls down on his large suede hat and pulls up the collar on his lamb skinned jacket to cover his chisled jaw. He stares down contentidly at his little piece of paradise, carved out of the rough and rocky mountain terrain.
Beside his log home is a corral where two horses run and play. The camera moves with the two beasts and the action moves to slow motion, capturing their sinewy muscles every move beneath their shiny brown coat. Dust is kicked up into the crisp mountain air.
The camera cuts back to our horseman as his eyes move from the horses and onto his dog which is lying down outside the corral. The dog spots our horseman and like the loyal companion he is, springs to life and begins to run up the hill toward the him. Upon reaching him, the dog jumps up and cries for attention. The horseman offers his hand before he grabs the reigns and speeds off toward his home, his dog following closely behind.
The voice booms again:
"This is Marlboro country"
The camera cuts to our horseman, who is now at a stand still as he puts a long white cigarette into his mouth and lights it, his hands still wearing their brown leather gloves. The strings are again reaching a crescendo. He inhales deeply on the cigarette for a few seconds and then releases a thick breath of smoke into the cool mountain air.
The voice booms one last time, exhaling a long, lone word as if he too were smoking....
"Marlboro"

2006-03-01T08:35:00.000-08:00

So I was out running through the streets of Berlin the other day and I finally understood a poem that I heard years ago...

Catharsis.
My arse is,
Capable of more flush

I knew what Catharsis meant, I've even written in the past that I thought it was one of those words people use just to seem smart, but I never really "got" the poem.
The poem itself comes from the opening of a Hip song, Gord just kind of adds it in. I'm not sure what song, but I think it was on a live album. I've probably heard it a hundred times, but never gave it more than a passing thought.
Catharsis is basically an emotional dump, a cleansing of your internal turmoil, usually experienced from watching or reading about someone elses terrible fate. But for simplicity sake, let's just call it an "emotional dump". Hence the "arse is, capable of more flush"...A DUMP, get it! Simple now that I see it. But then again, I guess that I was never really looking before.
Catharsis is something that I've been thinking alot about lately; the cleansing of the mind, body or the soul and how each of us goes about doing it.
Now don't get me wrong, I've had my share of bowel purges that have left me more than slightly satisfied, by I don't think I'd call them cathartic.
For me it's running. Sure I say that every Friday we go out and drink our week away, but that's not an emotional dump, that's just a piss up. Drinking doesn't help get things straight. Anyone who says that drinking clears their mind is a liar. I'm not saying drinking isn't fun, cause it is. But it's not cathartic. Running is, and that's what brought me to the understaning of that poem, the catharsis of running.
For fourty or so minutes it's just me and my thoughts. Sure I have my iPod with me, but the music just fades into background noise, a soundtrack to my therapy. It's my thoughts that keep me going. Those fourty minutes every two days gives me time to peel away the weekly worries and woes. Tackle the tension that's been building during the day (sorry for all the illiteration, I'll stop now).
When you run, it's just you against yourself. There is no opponent but your own physical and mental state. You run as long as your body will carry you and as long as your mind can stay focused. Like I said, I usually run for about fourty minutes, I top out at an hour. My lifestyle does not allow me to run any longer than an hour, I drink far too heavily and eat far too much for anything more. But that's also another reason I run. Not just to flush my mind of the mental poisons, but also to expel the toxins I rutinely pour and shovel into my body. Every Sunday as I bound atop the cobbled sidewalks, I can almost feel the booze beading out of my body. It's heavier than sweat and it clings to my arms and legs, leaving a sickly smell that I'm sure the passing pedestrians don't care for.
But it's that mental flush that I really look forward to each time I strap on the Sauconies. With each new street I run down, I can feel another worry or problem float away and drift off into nothingness. Every minute I run longer than than the usual 40 minutes, a mark that looms heavy in my mind, I feel a sense of accomplishment that sends my confidence soaring.
Running this is my catharsis.
Above and beyond the mental and physical purges, those 40 minutes also give me a chance to listen to records that I haven't heard in a long time. Albums I've buried away under mounds of new artists and selections. I said that the music becomes background noise, but sometimes when you hear a great album or song that you've forgotten about because you haven't heard it in two years, it's a wonderful feeling. I pick up my iPod, give the wheel a spin and see where it lands, today I listened to NOFX - Punk in Drublic. A throwback punk album from my highschool days. I defy anyone not to have a giant smile on their faces after listening to Fat Mike belt out Jeff Wears Birkenstocks, a minute and a half of pure punk fun. As soon as I heard the first few chords I just started to run faster, my feet took off on their own. Luckily for me the songs only a minute and a half, cause my heart probably could not've taken any more sprinting.
Every one has their own form of catharsis, their own emotional dump. Maybe you play hockey, maybe you pick up an instrument and just jam out, maybe you pull over on the side of the road, walk out into the middle of a farmers field and just start yelling at the cows...whatever, I'm not judging. But it's something that you have to do if you want to stay sane. For me it's running.
Think about it, think about what you do to stay sane while I go get a beer.

One last thing, it's my brother in-law's birthday today (30th) so shout outs to Steve (woot-woot) and further shout outs for his recent engagement to his bride to be Raynu (sp?...sorry) (woot, woot).
That is all.

2006-02-27T10:02:00.000-08:00

So on Friday night Sebastian and I flew into Köln to celebrate the yearly Karnival festival. A week long celebration (the second cousin once removed to New Orleans' Mardi Gras) that sees thousands of costumed locals and tourist decend upon the banks of the Rhein for too much Kölsch and not enough sleep.
But before we left, we took part in our own weekly post-school celebrations at the VLB Pilot Brewery. We had to cut ourselves off after a few hours though, I was in no mood for another Memphis incident.
So half drunk and with blury eyed visions of golden streets lined with a constant stream of partiers we headed out to the airport. We probably should've brought directions.
When we landed in Köln, we SMS'd (ooh look at me all Mr.Tech savvy) our friends that we were meeting and told them that we would meet up with them after we dropped our stuff off at the Hostel. An hour tops.
10pm
After deciphering the hyrogliphics that was the Köln subway map we managed to get down to the main station in the center of town. Upon arrival Sebastian pulled out what was supposed to be our directions. All we had was a subway stop, a street name (or what we thought was a street name) and the name of the hostel (or what we thought was the name of the hostel).
We decided not to mess with the Subway system and just asked a cab to take us to the subway station.
He drove us across the city, over the Rhein, past the Dom and as far as we could tell he just dropped us off at an intersection in the middle of no where. We asked a guy if he knew the hostel. He didn't.
1030pm
We went into a bar and asked the barmaid if she knew the hostel. She did. Or at least she thought she did. She drew us a map on the back of a coaster and by map I mean a square box, two lines indicating the Rhein and another line indicating a bridge. Turns out the Street name was just the name of a bridge, again another good reason to learn the language. Beside that she wrote down a subway stop.
So this time we decided to take the subway. But instead of listening to the barmaid, we decided that she didn't know what she was talking about and got off a stop before the one she mentioned.
Again we walked around and couldn't find anything, so we went into the bar and asked one of the patrons if they knew the hostel. He told us that it was 200m down the road. Pfft, stupid barmaid, we showed her who knows Köln better.
11pm
So off we went down the road. It wasn't the hostel. It was a hotel. It was closed.
Apparently two guys who had never been to Köln don't know the city better than the local barmaid who has probably lived here her whole life.
So now instead of going back to the subway we decided to walk across the bridge to the subway stop. Now I'm not sure how many of you are familiar with the Rhein but it's a big river. A very big river.
When we finally reached the other side, we found the large box the barmaid had drawn. Well, not an actual box, we found what the box was supposed to indicated, a large building with AXA written atop it. It was like a beacon shining through a foggy ocean night. We ran towards it, giggling like school girls. And there it was just around the corner, exactly where the barmaid told us it would be.
1145pm
We dropped our stuff off and met our friends down town at the Dom station at approximately 1230pm, two and a half hours after we landed.
Apparently Germans like beer. Yeah I know, I was suprised too. And on our subway ride down town the street car was filled with the voices of young, costumed and really drunk Germans singing song after song. A wonderful thing that. Again, we started giggling like school girls.
After meeting up with our friends we headed out among the throngs of Clowns, Bees, Frogs, Giant Afro Wigged Fools, Elvis' and Court Jesters too find a suitable place to drink.
We finally found one. Or six, I'm not sure. The point is we partied until about 6a.
In the first photo you can see Seb and I in our costumes, mine was called Darryl. He was a duck. Or a chicken. I'm not sure. Seb was an unnamed Elephant.
The next day we headed out at about 130pm into the bright, sun drenched Köln city streets. Sometimes the problem with sun is that it sheds light onto a city that looked otherwise clean while under a vale of darkness. But under the prying eyes of sunshine, the once clean streets become littered with glass shrapnel from discarded bottles of Kölsch. They become home to thousands of tossed aside Döner wrappers and a graveyard of unwanted beer boxes.
Ontop of the garbage, the streets became a river of wigs and makeup. Rushing along with a crowd of drunken tourists and fun loving locals. And along the banks of this river, were hundreds of booths and kiosks selling Kölsch, sausages and all kinds of costumes you could imagine.
We got caught up in the river for a while but decided the best way to dry off was too step inside the next bar and drink until the raging river died down to a babbling brook of drunked idiocy. We figured that wouldn't take long.
One of the great things about Germany is the regionality of the country. Each area is very unique and has it's own customs, as well as it's own type of beer. Pils is pretty much a national drink, but other than that many of the areas drink local brews. Bavaria has Weissbier, Dusseldorf has Alt, Bamberg with it's hundreds of local breweries has many types but one of the unique kinds is Rauchbeer (sp?) and Köln has Kölsch.
Kölsch is sold in small 200ml glasses and tastes pretty much like nothing. These tiny little sample glasses are gone in three sips tops. You can drink it all day long, it's not a very demanding beer. After this weekend I'm sure I could go the rest of my life without drinking Kölsch and be happy.
I would also be happy if I never heard German music again. Sure it starts off fine, but the romance of it dies remarkably fast. Each song starts off with a few notes from an acordian, sometimes followed by the picking of a mandolin. It's all very folksy and sounds like the Celtic music you'd hear at any Pub in Canada. Then after a few bleeps from a trombone or a few harrumps from a tuba, the gruff, angular German vocals kick in. Then the whole thing just goes to pot. Everything just starts to meld into the same song you heard not three minutes earlier. And the lyrics, they are absolutely terrible. One song (our friends provided the translation) was about a man and his three chest hairs. Oh, how proud of them he was. They were quite puffy and soft he told us and the ladies, well they just loved them. WTF?
After spending the next ten or so hours jumping from bar to bar hearing the same songs over and over again, I'm pretty sure that I'm through with the German music.
But all in all it was a fun weekend. Darryl never made it home, I lost him on the dance floor somewhere. But maybe it was for the best, it wasn't working out between us. We'll always have Köln though. We'll always have Köln. And besides, on the way out I met Constance. She's the jester on a stick in one of the above pictures. She seemed more agreeable and came back to Berlin with me.
Well that was a little long. I apologize and now I'm thirsty so I'm going to go get a beer.

2006-02-23T08:32:00.000-08:00

So I guess everyone woke up with a hangover this morning and not the good kind of hangover either. Instead of a boozy haze and a dry taste in your mouth from a night of "okay, just one mores," it was a punch in the gut and a bitter taste left from an unimaginable defeat.
I'm sure that you're all tired of hearing about it all ready, but I'm not their to share in the united grief as we watched our hockey heros fall far too early. In fact, I've never seen our hockey team celebrate or go down in defeat on native soil since they've allowed NHL players to participate. 1998, I was in Mexico. 2002, I was in Japan. And now in 2006 I watched from a German television as we limped through another long and scoreless game.
I'm sure you all saw the same front page of the Toronto Sun as you walked to work this morning. Some lame ass headline, written in big yellow block letters splashed across a picture of some Canadian player with his head hung low skating off the ice.
It's really hard to fathom how this team did not do better. On paper we clearly had enough fire power to bring down any other nation. But their is no direct translation from paper to ice.
I'm sure there is a lot of finger pointing and arm chair GM's saying, this guy and that guy shouldn't have been there or this guy or that guy should've been on the team. Seriously, if you looked at the list of guys playing on this team how could you ever imagine that they would go scoreless in 11 of the last 12 periods of hockey. If you say that you knew, you are either a pshycic or a liar and I'll go with the latter.
This team had so many proven and young new talented players that it should've succeded, but they just couldn't come together and get it done and that's the bottom line.
Danny Heatley, one of the games brightest young stars. In the last few World Championships (which he won't be playing in anymore as he plays for the Senators and not the Trashers) had shown that he can excel at the international level, being one of the top scorers in that tournament. But he just didn't perform this time.
Joe Thorton, at the World Cup 2 years ago when he got his first chance to play for Team Canada, he changed his game from finess scorer to hard nose grinder and he played superbly. Where was he this time?
Rick Nash, another young player with a natural ability to find the back of the net. He scored in bunches at the World Championships last year. This time around it looked like he had the weight of an entire nation on his stick each time he touched the puck.
Joe Sakic was Joe Sakic, Ryan Smyth was Ryan Smyth and Martin Brodeur played like he always does; amazing. These are the guys you can always count on.
Maybe if Scott Neidermayer hadn't gone down with an injury he could've helped quarter back our powerplay, with his wonderful skating ability. But who knows.
Out of all the guys that didn't seem to show up or just couldn't get it going, the one that surprises me the most is Jerome Iginla. Jerome, the next in line. The next one who will wear the "C" and lead this team to victory. Where was he? Last year he lead his Calgary Flames to the Stanley Cup finals and was applauded for his leadership skills. Four years ago he was one of the scorers in the gold medal game against the Americans. And two years ago he helped us take home the World Cup. Where was he?
Maybe it was the pressure? Four years ago, Neilsen estimated approx. 11 million people watched the Gold Medal game in Canada. That's not including bars and families gathered around television sets across the nation. But lets just use that figure of 11 million as a jumping off point. That's the weight of 11 million people resting on the shoulders of less that twenty men. That's an enormous burden to bare. Think about everytime you attempt to do something in your life. First you think about not letting yourself down, then you think about not letting down the your family and friends. How many people is that? Not 11 million. These guys not only wanted to win for themselves but they had to not let down 11 million people. And when they lose everyone turned and said that these guys didn't have heart or didn't play their best. I find that hard to believe. Do you really think that they didn't try? Do you really think that they didn't know how much this game meant to our country?
It's a game and they didn't play their best. That's that. It happens. That's why we play the games. If you always won, where is the fun. It's what makes losing so bitter and winning so sweet. Trust me, I'm a Leafs fan. We're stupendous losers, we've been doing it for 40 or so years. But it's great! Each time we win anything, one playoff series, we celebrate like we've won the Stanley Cup. Waving our flags, pouring out of bars and into the streets, jumping on cars, running up and down Yonge Street. We know just how sweet and fading that feeling of victory can be. I mean we can't play Ottawa all the time can we?
I'm sure you've seen all the papers and news reports. Watched the highlights on The Score or TSN over and over. Heard Gary the office idiot talk about how this team was "Hands down the worst team ever". So I'm sure you've hear/seen/read these thoughts a thousand times so I apologize if it's redundant. But I don't have anyone to bitch too over here. No one cares about hockey like a Canadian and there just isn't enough of them in Germany. So I apologize and it will be the last time I use this as a forum for my hockey ramblings.
Anyhoo, while I'm on the subject of Canadiana...I was in a record store today and I came across a few choice Canadian bands that somehow managed to make their way across the Atlantic and into a German used record shop. The Grapes of Wrath and The Northern Pikes. WTF? They couldn't sell records in Canada, how did they ever make it to Germany. Is this what they think Canadian music sounds like? We can oly hope.
Well after all this typing and griping I really need to go get a beer.

2006-02-22T06:21:00.000-08:00

So the first round of exams are over and I'm still alive. All in all they weren't that bad and I'm pretty confident that I did well enough to pass (knocking on wood). We actually got one of our test results back today (Malting Technology) and I got the second highest mark in the class (yeah me!...sorry, I'll never do that again).
We went out last night to celebrate the end of our exams and by night I actually mean that we started at noon and just drank the day away.
After a weekend locked up in our rooms, with our heads buried in our books, we all needed to get out for a big piss up. That first sip of beer was like a giant sigh of relief, I mean how can you go to beer school and not have beer for almost a week? It was unbearable let me tell you what. Also, it was one of the Turkish guys' last day (he was only there for the first module), so we all went out for Chinese food and German beer. The lunch lasted long enough (my past six years working in media has fully prepared me for "three martini" lunches) that us four North Americans went straight from lunch to a bar to watch the Canada vs Czech hockey game and I use the term "hockey" loosley.
This was the first time I actually got to watch an entire game and not just read about it on a "live blog". It was not exactly the experience I was hoping for. Lets just say that there was a lot of yelling. The two Mikes and Seb witnessed "Yelling Sam" for the first time, I know many of you are familar with the "Yelling Sam", but this was the first time he's been out since I got to Germany. I try to hide him, tucking him deep down inside me, but with the right mixture of beer and bad hockey he usually makes an appearance. I mean it's not exactly my most appealing feature. And it wasn't just Yelling Sam either, it was Yelling Sam and Drunk Sam all wrapped up into one screaming, arm flalling, hat tossing, constant stream of expletives package. When you get that many internal personalities exploding out at the same time, it's like a science experiement gone horribly wrong. The wrong and volitile reactants are mixed into one entirely too small 250ml Erlenmyer flask and the next thing you know, you have a new purple fluid foaming and spewing out over the top. But instead of a purple fluid, you have a purple faced Canadian, flaling his arms and screaming words that should not be repeated in mixed company. I think I scared them. I think I scared all the Germans out of the bar. But can you blame me? How bad was that game, I mean WTF? How is it possible that we have some of the best players in all the world playing on our team, we're oozing talent out of every position and yet me still manage to play absolutely terrible. What are the chances that they would all forget how to play hockey at exactly the same time? They couldn't even put two passes together. Getting out of our end became reason to celebrate. 2 shots in the last period. Again, WTF?
Where is Joe Thorton? Where is Jerome Iginla? Where is Danny Heatly? They're all transparent on the ice, it could of been anyone out there, not the best players in the world.
They've showed no reason why they should even be playing in tonights Quater Final. I can't see any way that the team that played last night is going to make it to the medal round. It just won't happen, the Russians are going to mop the floor with us. I hate typing that, but it's true.
And who put Brian McCabe on this team anyways? How many terrible penalties did he take last night?
Okay, okay...I'll stop now. I'm ranting. Maybe even boarding on raving, Yelling Sam is being rearing his ugly little head again!
"Down boy. Get back in there. Easy now, put down the knife...put it down...put it down. That's a good boy. Now crawl back in there...yes, yes...there you go. That's a good boy"
Okay he's hidden away again. No more hockey talk, it's not good for my heart. Back to brewing.
And that's exactly what we get to do in the next module, BREW BEER! Finally, after two months of waiting patiently we finally get to brew our own beer. First we go on a class excursion to a beer conference in Regensberg, a town in Northern Bavaria (beer conference=drunken baffoonery, seriously our schecule reads something like this -
1.Get Together Monday night, drinks
2.Welcome party Tuesday evening, drinks
3.Technical presentations at the Kolpinhaus
4.Drinks and lunch on Tuesday and Wednesday
5.Technical visits to breweries including bus transfers
6.Farewell party, drinks)
and when we get back it's brewin' time. I can't wait.
I mean when was the last time you got to make beer at school? Think about it, while I go get a beer.

2006-02-19T00:23:00.000-08:00

So I've locked myself in, hunkered down, battoned (sp.) down the hatches and got down to some serious studying this weekend. The only thing I hate more than studying, is studying Chemistry. But it's all for the greater good and it's a neccessary evil.
I've been in this room since Friday night (It was sister's Birthday on Friday. Shout outs to Sarah on her Birthday....woot, woot) the only break I've taken so far was desperately running around town trying to find a place to watch the Canada vs Swiss game yesterday. No bars were showing it, as Hertha was playing at the same time, but Eurosport did manage to show about ten minutes of the second period. Instead I read most of the game on an live blog! Wow, the excitement never stops. Nothing like reading six lines and then pressing refresh every two minutes until a new posting comes up, it really highlights the fast paced action that hockey is known for. Also, it didn't help that Canada played absolutely terrible (and the ref was a joke...not blaming him though Canada deserved to lose that game) .
Anyhoo... staring at those lined pages, writing and rewriting the same notes over and over again, hoping to fill my head with as much knowledge as possible has forced me to purge my brain of any excess, unneeded or unwanted information. I need every available braincell working at full capacity for the next three days. So I'm dumping this story, I'm getting it out of my head...I don't need it, it's useless and serves no purpose in the brewing world.
It needs work.

I woke up this morning and I could feel "it". "It's" growing inside of me. Eating, eroding, gnawing away at my insides. I don't know what "it" is, but I imagine "it" as a black oil stain leaking out of my internal organs, ruptured from my spleen and gushing like a geiser. "It" scares me cause I know what "it" wants me to do. "It" scares me cause I want to do it.

I woke up this morning and all I could think about was "her". "Her" eyes; blue as a prarie sky. They don't stop, the blue just goes on forever. I've never felt this before; this pain. I know I'm happy when I think about "her", but my stomach twists and all I feel is pain when she isn't near me. I want to tell "her" how I feel, I want to do it but I'm scared.

I walk into the bathroom and I see myelf in the mirror. "It" rushes up into my throat and I can taste "it"; "it's" bile and "it" burns. Every moring I see my wretched reflection and it's the same, a rush of acid burning the skin off the inside of my throat, eating away at me from the inside out. My reflection causes me pain, it disgusts me, because it knows I'm afraid. It knows I can't do what "it" wants me to do and it mocks me. I hate my fucking relfection. Instantly I know what I must do, I must destroy it. I smash the mirror with my fist, splintering my disgusting reflection.

I walk into the bathroom and I see myself. I see that I'm not a bad looking guy, for an instant I even imagine myself as handsome, but then I retreat from that idea. I continue to stare at myself, I start to think about what I look like on the inside. Not the internal organs inside, but my soul inside. I'm I a good person? If I were "her", would I like me? If I were "her" would I want to be with me? My mind races with all the Dr.Philisms I could think of, little morsels of knowledge like, "Before some one can love you, you must love youself first!". I decide that Dr.Phil is an asshole and I start to shave. I nick myself with my razor.

The thick red blood runs slowly off my hand. I watch it drip into the sink, I can almost hear the splash as it hits the clean white bowl. I watch the cut waiting, hoping to see "it", waiting for that black oil to come leaking out of my body. But it doesn't come. I turn on the tap and put my hand under the running water. A shiver of pain runs through my body, but it quickly fades and turns to pleasure. I smile and watch the water quickly thin my blood. The once white bowl now painted in my red blood.

A small drop of blood builds on my face. I turn my head to get a better look at it in the mirror. I curse myself for my stupidity before turning on the tap and running a torn piece of toilette paper under it. I dab the now moist paper on my cut, holding it there until the I think bleeding stopped. I can't believe how such a small cut can sting so much. I pull it away and again tilt my head to look in the mirror. The bleeding had stopped. I look down at the white paper with swirls of red on it and quickly toss it in the toilette, flushing it down the drain and out of my memory.

I walk back into the bedroom and look out the window to see what the weather is like; it was grey. Another grey day, it's always fucking grey in this city; rainy and grey. I feel "it" again, bubbling inside me. I clench my teeth and grind them as hard as I can. With my teeth locked together I begin screaming in my head, screamming as loud as I can; FUCK, I hate this goddamn city.
I rummage through my clothes to find something to wear. I decide to wear the same thing I wore the day before.

I walk back into my bedroom and look out the window to see what the weather was like; it was grey. I shrug my shoulders and decide to my self that it'll probably getting sunnier later in the day, it usually did.
I start to look through my closest for something to wear, the whole time not dressing for me, but dressing for "her". I decide on the suit that I wore the first time we met.

I walk outside and I feel a strong bite of cold. It feels like the first pangs of winter, my shoulders tighten and I clench my fists. With my tense body I begin to walk towards the subway; I begin to feel "it" again. "It" begins to warm my insides and my body loosenes. A calm comes over me as "it" takes over. I realize that I'm not scared any more. "It" has full control of me now and I know what I must do.

I walk outside and feel a strong bite of cold. I tighten my coat around my neck and think about the coming winter as I walk towards the subway. I moved to the city in the summer and had never experienced a winter here, I thought about the prospects of this new experience and it began to warm me. The idea of winter didn't warm me, it was the idea of something new that warmed me. I think about "her" and a calm comes over me. I realized what I must do and I wasn't scared any more. She was a new adventure and I had to tell "her" how I felt.

I hear it first and then I see them, the dull yellow lights of subway car as it enters the station from the far end. It can't come fast enough, I feel the anticipation because I know this car brings me closer to "it".

I hear it first and then I see them, the bright yellow lights of the subway car as it pull into the station from the far end. It can't come fast enough, I feel the anticipation because I know this car brings me closer to her.

The time has come, my fear is gone, "it" tells me to jump. I don't think about it, I just do it. A horn blows.

I see him jump onto the tracks. I run up and extend my hand. I don't think about it, I just do it. A horn blows.

What is he doing? I see his hand. These seconds are like hours.

What is he doing? Doesn't he want my hand. These seconds are like hours.

I turn to see the train screeching. I turn back and grab his hand.

I can't turn, but I hear the train screeching. He grabs my hand.

He tries to pull me up but I pull down as hard as I can.

I try to pull him up but he pulls me down as hard as he can.

I think about "it" and everything goes black.

I think about "her" and everything goes blue.

Well that was it. That was my story and now I can go back to studying. Crap, when was the last time you studied? Think about that while I go get a beer (and then go study)

2006-02-16T08:11:00.000-08:00

So that blonde guy holding the Teen Wolf picture, that's Martin the guitar player from Depeche Mode.

Sebastian and I flew down to Munich last night to catch the show. Now I'm not a big Depeche Mode fan, in fact even after seeing them last night, I don't think that I can name two of their songs...but that being said, when Sebastian asked if I wanted to go how could I refuse.

It turns out that Seb's old girlfriend is Martin's new girlfriend and she was able to get us free VIP backstage passes for the show, all we had to do was get there. Well, how rock'n'roll is that? Fly out after school on Wednesday night, go to the concert, party all night with the band, get on a plane and fly back the next morning in time for school. That's hardcore. Even if Depeche Mode isn't.

Martin turned out to be a really nice guy. Before the show, he came down to the hotel lobby and had some beers with us (Seb, Adelle (sp) and myself). When we first got to the hotel we didn't know what room they were staying in, so Sebastian walked up to the counter and said, "Hi. I'm looking for Martin, he's in Depeche Mode can you tell us what room he is staying in?" Now, this was a pretty swanky place and both of us didn't really look like we belonged there, so when Seb asked for the bands room, we were promptly asked to leave the hotel. Fair enough.

We had was Martin's cell phone number, so Sebastian tried to call it, but no dice. So we left the hotel and looked for a place to have a beer and wait for Adelle to call us and meet us out front. Luckily for us the hotel was right next door to the Hopfbrauhaus. So off we went in and pulled some steins before the show.

We weren't there twenty minutes before Adelle called and when we met her out front, the hotel doormen were now more than eager to help us. Jerks.

Like I said, Matrin came down and we had a few beers with us (along with a few other band members, crew members and wives...they were all really nice people...well everyone but Andy the keyboard player, he was an ass) then we loaded in the van and headed for the show. It was out at the Olympic Stadium just outside of the Munich downtown core. We went in the first van while the rest of the band went in the second. Of course when we got to the show, there was a crowd of people waiting for them so when our van pulled up they tried to snap a few pictures of us...I'm not really sure if they know who Seb and I were, but they seemed pretty happy non-the-less.

We were led out of the van and into the bowels of the stadium, where Darryl the security guard and all around good guy, led us to the bands pre/post show room. Free beers, some food and some foozeball. Really could you ask for more? We hung out their until the show, when Darryl went and got us our passes.

We watched the show from the stadium floor, neither of us really cared for the band so we just hung back amongst the crowd. With their faces veiled in darkness everyone looked like young typical concert goers, but as the beams of light sprayed and splashed across their faces I began to see older wrinkled foreheads, crows feet around many of the eyes and deep laugh lines around all the mouths. This was definately an older crowd. But this isn't a bad thing, in fact it's quite the opposite. It reassures me that people are only as old as they feel. You can still be young and go to rock shows and pump your fists no matter how old you are. It's becoming quite clear to me that I'm going to be that old guy at the shows soon and it's reassuring to know that I won't be alone. We are a long time dead, so enjoy life and youth as long as you can.

Even though I'm not a big fan of their music (although I apparently knew more songs than I thought...maybe not the names of them, but I definately recognized a few) I have to say that they did put on a pretty good show.

After the show we joined Martin and a few more of the band members (along with a gaggle of groupies and Andy the ass) for a post show party. Some more beers and some more Lobo shots. Apparently they went pretty hard the night before so the party didn't go all that late...at about 1a we headed back to the hotel and drank some more beers in the lobby on Depeche Modes bill of course (again, since we pulled up to the Hotel in the band van there were more dissappointed people snapping pictures of us). That ended at about 3a, but Sebastian and I still had to wait until about 5a before we could leave for the airport as our flight didn't leave until 7ish. So we hung around and drank some more then stumbled to the subway and took off for the airport.

All and all it was a great time. I mean, when was the last time you can say that you flew into a city, went back stage for a rock show, partied until 5a and then flew back home? Think when the last time was that you could say that. Think about it while I go get a beer.

GO CANADA GO!

2006-02-14T09:26:00.000-08:00

So a bird shit on my head the other day. I went down to Potsdamer Platz to see what all the hubaloo was about for the Berlin film festival and all I got was a nice splash of bird turd across my newly cleaned hat.
And I thought a bird shitting on your head was supposed to bring good luck? Apparently not.
Monday morning I left the house in plenty of time to get to school, but as I was riding along on the tram, I got so lost in the book I was reading (Lolita - Nabakov) that I totally missed my stop.
Unfortunately the end of the line is only two stops after my school, so by the time I realized what had happened I was in the middle of nowhere, surrouned by trees and strange bulidings. Unbenkownst to me the tram had turned it self around, since it was the end of the line, it had to turn around and head back the way it came. Again I was reading and hadn't noticed, so when it finally came to a stop, I looked down at my watch and saw that I only had five minutes to get to class. I asked the driver when the train was heading back but all I got was a tirade of German shouted at me. I didn't have time to even stare blankly at him, I just ran off the tram and began sprinting towards what I thought was the direction of my school. It took me another five minutes and a highway that I'd never seen before I realized I was running in the wrong direction. Not a good start to the day. It took me another five minutes to run back to where I started and another one sided argument with a tram driver before we headed get back to my school. I'm a Corbeil, I hate being late. It's in my blood.
I was late again today. The horror, the horror. This time I just totally misjudged the time and ended up being 10 mintues late again. Bird shit is good luck my ass.
Then to top it off, I tried to phoning my brother like 15 times yesterday on three different numbers and couldn't get through on any of them. Hondouras has a wonderful telecommunications system let me tell you wat.
It was his birtday you see (shout outs to Jed on his Birthay...woot woot) and being that he and his wife Shannon are on the other side of the world all on their lonesome...I thought a call from the big brother on his birthday would cheer him up a little.
You see, it doesn't matter if your on a tropical island paradise in the middle of the Caribbean; it doesn't matter if your in a great city with great people getting drunk every weekend, as long as your not with the people you love, like your family and friends, you feel lonely. All the other stuff; the sun, the beaches, the city, the beer; these are just distractions as you try to kill time until you can get back to the people who really matter, the ones that make up the twisted insides that is your life.

But I digress...back to the shit...

And it's not just bird shit either! Running through the streets of Berlin is like negotiating a mine field. You have to keep your wits about you. There a little mounds of dog shit every where, just waiting for any unsuspecting rube to come along and BLAM! It's all over. You've been hit. The inside of your shoe is sprayed with a nasty brown shrapnel and if it's a particularly nasty one, the inside of your leg too.
It's funny, Berliner's are so conciencous about picking up all their garbage. They never just discard it on the street, they always throw it in the proper receptical. If it's glass, they put it in the glass container, if it plastic, then to the plastic container it goes. But picking up their dogs refuse...never! Instead, they'd rather walk around the streets with their eyes on the sidewalk, constantly on the ready to leap out of the way of another unseen shit bomb.
Anyhoo, before I run off and start some studying for my exams next week (wish me luck), I have one last little tidbit to share with you. This is awesome. Well at least I think it's awesome.
Shut up if you don't.
Okay, here it is...the only Wal-Mart in Berlin is on Karl Marx Allee! How awesome is that. One of the largest Western capitalist whores...er I mean institutions (Wal-Mart) is on Karl Marx Allee. Oh have times have changed. Karl Marx Allee runs down the middle of what used to be East Berlin, one of the main arteries on the communist side of the wall. Funny, I don't remember anything about Wal-Mart in the Communist Manifesto? And now on the street that bares his name stands the representation of all that is Capitalism...and all that is wrong with it.
Think about that while I go get a beer.

2006-02-12T01:36:00.000-08:00

So I woke up Saturday morning and my shoulders were aching like I'd been carrying a bowling ball on my back for seven hours. I winced in pain as I sat up and swung my legs over the edge of the bed, putting my feet onto the cold bedroom floor. And there it was, quitely sitting underneath the coffee table, nestled up against the wall; a large blue bowling ball, it's three black eyes staring back at me. Apparently I had been carrying a bowling ball on my back for seven hours.
It's become a "so-called" tradition (I say "so-called", because all Germans say the "so-called" this and the "so-called" that...it's really strange. I' m not sure if it's a translation for something, but they use it almost off-handidly. Our Profs stand up in front of the class and say, "The "so-called" rootlets appear during the third day of germination". WTF? It is a rootlet. It's not the "so-called" rootlet, it is the goddamn rootlet. They even write it, it's in all our text books..."The so-called grain elevator"? Ahhhh) that on Friday afternoons after we finish our Chem labs, our class heads off to the Student Pilot Brewery for some end of the week cheer. The Germans have a word, "Freireabend (sp?)" that means "The uniquely festive mood that overtakes people at the end of a work day", I guess this is how we celebrate our Freireabend.
We usually only stay for a few beers and then head off into the night, letting it take us where it may. But this Friday, we ended up staying for a few HOURS as we were entertained by our German/Scottish Proffesor who pulled out his bagpipes (oodlesak (sp.) as it's called here)
and played dirge after dirge on that most unique of instruments.
As the bagpipes quited down, there were still a few of us left in the room, many of us from different countries...Canada, US, Germany, Turkey, Portugal, Venezuala, so in our heady and now musical moods we began to go around this little UN of ours and sing our respective National Anthems. Luis, again stunned the room with his rendition of the Venezualan anthem.
Anyhoo, after the singing we decided to head out to the bowling alley (somewhere along the lines we picked up a christmas tree...but that's another story) to further celebrate our overwellming feeling of Feireabend.
The bowling was ugly. The high score for the night was 116. We are not good bowlers. We are even worse drunken bowlers. But the bowling was fun. It wasn't so much about the bowling as it was about the bonding. After every shot, gutter or strike, there was a round of high fives and fireman carries awating the bowler as he turned to face his compatriots.
We only played two games, but we probably took thirty or fourty pictures and as a further souvenier of our first German bowling night, I stole a large blue bowling ball which I stuffed into my backpack and carried around for the rest of the night.
(I've just now decided to name the ball Yorrick (sp.)...the whole boreing the ball on my back and all.)
The rest of the night was good, we threw on our lab coats and sung song after song on the subway, to the chagrin of many of the German riders , the whole time carrying that ball on my back.
We ended up going the wrong way on the subway for about half an hour before we realized that we were at the completely opposite end of the city from where we wanted to be. But it was okay it just meant more singing and more bowling ball carrying.
From there we just went to the pub and had some more drinks, it was fun but this night was about the bowling. By the time I got home I'd been carrying Yorrick on my back for about seven hours. Think about that, a bowling ball on your back for seven hours. Think about how much that would hurt your shoulders. Think about it while I go get a beer.

2006-02-09T09:08:00.000-08:00

So like I said, it's been a month since we started the schooling at the VLB and to celebrate we went on a good old fashion class trip. Where does a class room full of beer students go to celebrate? A brewery of course.
So after everyone got their parents to sign a permission form, putting their lives in the hands of some more than capable profs., and we got enough volunteer parents to chaperone, we were good to go!
So on Wednesday afternoon, right after our microbiology class ended, we all piled onto the big yellow school bus and headed down to The Brauhaus Mitte in Alexanderplatz.
The bad kids went to the back of the bus, while the goody-goody kids sat at the front and sucked up to the teachers.
It was all hootin' and hollerin' at the back of the bus, let me tell you what. Whenever we passed a trucker, we would all gather around the window clench our fists, bend our arms and give the old "toot-toot" pull, in hopes that the kindly truck driver would reply with a pull on his fog horn...oh the trouble we got into at the back of the bus. Such shenanigans. Some of the really bad kids even smoked. Not me though..I'm like LUBA man, "Break-free, and go your way, break-free!".
Anyhoo, once we got to the Bräuhaus, we were greeted with a beer (Hefe-weisse, always the Hefe-weisse) "to lossen up", as the brewmaster put it and then he took us on a tour of the facilities. It was a nice little brewery, relatively new, with four or so beers on tap.
After the quick little tour it was back up stairs for some more beer and food.
And the food, oh my god, the food. When they brought out the plates I thought one plate was for the whole table. But this is Germany my friends! It looked like they just hacked off the back quater of a pig, threw it in the oven and then stuck it on the plate. It was the biggest hunk of pig I'd ever seen and each of us got one. Remeber at the beginning of Rocket Robin hood, when Friar Tuck just grabs a hunk of meat by the bone takes a bite of it and throws it over his shoulder before he starts eating the grapes? That's what it looked like. It was huge.
I did my best my friends, I swear I did, but I was not a member of the clean plate club this day, not by a long shot. Along with the chunk o'pig, there was a mound o'potatoes, a pile o'peas and a mountain o'saurkraut. I worked on that thing for like half and hour and barely made a dent in it. But it was good and I never complain about free food. Or beer.
We stayed at the Bräuhaus for a couple more hours, drinking and talking (I love drunk talk. Basically it's everyone sitting around a table shouting over each other, trying to tell more stories about other times you when they were drunk.) before a few of us headed out to a jazz club Sebastian and I had spotted the other day on a ramble around Berlin.
In between the Bräuhaus and the jazz club we stopped at my place for a round of Thumbmaster...that never helps. We jumped into the grocery store, grabbed 20 0.5L beers for 6€ (yes, you read that right, 6€) and then went up to my flat. Their were 4 countries represented and everyone had their own rules, but cause it was my house and my cards, we played the good old Canadian way. Like I said, it never helps.
So once the beer was gone, we headed off to the club. It may be the most out of the way, hidden club ever. Down an alley, around a building, through a passage and then into a courtyard, were you meet a old bearded man crouched over a walking stick and draped in a cloak, who asks you three questions; if you get the three questions right you are allowed safe passage, if not he transforms into a mighty beast which you must destroy if you hope to pass. And since we had all been playing Thumbmaster, none of us were in any shape to answer any questions let alone duel a mythical beast. Like I said, it never helps.
So after we failed to get a single question correct, the old bearded man let out a devilish laugh, threw off his cloak and in a puff of smoke transformed into a mighty beast bent on destroying us.
In a drunken haze the five of us looked at each other, not knowing what to do. We were done for.
But the fates were on our side my friends for Luis was with us! As I had mentioned in previous posts, he has the voice of an angel. And as the mighty beast reared onto it's hind legs, breathed a mighty breath of fire and showed us his ferocious talons, Luis began to sing.
"...Oceans apart, day after day, and I slowly go insane,
I hear your voice on the line, but it just don't seem the same,
I see you next to never, how can this be forever,
Where ever you go, Whatever you do,
I will be right here waiting for you..."
The beast froze. Stund by the Luis' beautiful singing.
A single tear dropped from the mighty beasts eye before Mike picked up a rock, hucked it at the beast, hitting square between the eyes, sending the beast spiralling to the ground.
As the beast lay on the ground the five of us made a mad dash for the club and got in just in time. We could feel the wind as the beasts claw came rushing in behind us.
The rest of the night kinda went down from there. The jazz was good, but not as good as Luis' singing.
Think about the last time you had to duel a mighty beast...think about that while I go get a beer.

2006-02-06T10:41:00.000-08:00

So as I was sprinting back to my flat this moring from the Nordbahnhof after I realized that I had forgotten all my money on the bedroom desk, I glanced down at my watch to see if this minor setback was going to make me late for class. It wasn't. I miss judged the time and even with the retracing of the steps I was still probably going to be 15 mintues early. Ah, to be a Corbeil and early for everything. But upon that casual glance of my watch, I caught a glimpse of the date and after doing some quick math, realized that it's been exactly one month since I landed here in Berlin. One month down and five more to go. I've still got a lot more time before I darken the towers of the Great White North again, but man that first month went fast.
Throughout the day, I thought about what I've learned in my first month at the VLB, what I've learned about Germany and how my perceptions of this city have changed since I made my "Early Impressions of Berlin" post.
First of all, like many first impressions, mine was way off. Making generalizations about a city that you've been in for all of three days, or making gerneralzations about any thing for that matter, probably isn't a good idea. With out all the facts your just making prejudicial statments about something that you have extremly limited knowledge on. At that time, I may have seen about one percent of the city and was basing my entire idea of Berlin on the tiny portion of Prenzlaurbeg that I had seen.
There is much more to Berlin than Prenzlaurberg. Like West Berlin.
West Berlin is different than East Berlin. I think that I can make that I can comfortably make that statement. West Berlin, or at least the parts of West Berlin that I have seen, is much more...well it's exactly that, it much more Western. It's commercial.
In West Berling, the streets are lined with trendy American and European franchised stores like H & M, Starbucks and Subway. In East Berlin, the streets are lined with small cafes and art studios.
In West Berlin there are wonderful old buildings and the architecture is art. In East Berlin the run down old buildings have art on the architecture.
But here I go again, making all encompassing statements about a city I'm just getting to know. Heck, we barely just met. I've still got a lot to learn. Let's just say that Berlin has a lot to offer and in my time here I hope to get to know it a lot better.
Now for the VLB. Basically I learned that much like the city of Berlin, I've got a lot to learn. First of all, there is a whole bunch more science than I ever expected. I don't know what I expected but spending full days in the lab wasn't it. I was kinda hoping it was just going to be Old German men, with wicked mustaches and lederhosen, playing the acordian and telling us through song and interpretive dance that beer was made from a magical fruit grown from an ancient tree found only in the most remote areas of Germany. Alas, this was not to be.
Instead what we get is tasting classes with beer that tastes and smells like cabbage. DMS (Di-methyl sulphate) is a compound found in all beers, but through the boiling of the wort, most of it evaporates. But if you mess up and do it all wrong, you get cabbage beer! The flavour threshold for DMS is 50 ppb, they gave us a beer with 300 ppb DMS. It almost turned me off beer for ever. Almost.
Here is the description, as found in our text books, for two other off flavoured compounds found in beer -
Caproic acid - Ram-like, goaty, sweaty
Capylic acid - Billy-goat, harsh
Ram-like? Billy-goat? Is there really someone out there that knows the flavour difference between Billy-goat and Goat? Let alone Ram and goat? Where do you learn this? Do I really want to learn this? Have I ever eaten, smelled or touched a Ram?
Like I said, I have a lot to learn.
And lastly, what have I learned about Germany. I've learned that I should probably learn the language before I go shopping.
I bought a pizza. A ham pizza. At least I thought it was a ham pizza. It wasn't. It was a tuna pizza. When you are expecting a ham pizza and you get a tuna pizza, your mind doesn't know what to do. Tuna don't taste like ham. They don't call it the swine of the sea. You bite into it thinking that it's pig, your brain is expecting a big, but it doesn't taste like any pig you've ever had. You swish it around in your mouth, swirling it back and forth, gnawing on it a little trying to decide what it is. Little circuts in your brain start to crack and fizzle as you jump from idea to idea. This isn't ham? What could this be? Did I poison myself? Finally as the smoke starts to pour out of your ears, you look back at the package and see a word that resembles TUNA but it isn't quite Tuna cause it's in German. You look at the picture on the box and now you can clearly see that this is infact Tuna and not the pig you had been expecting. You make a mental note to bring your German to English dictionary with you the next time you venture into the supermarket.
And I also learned that Germans will drink anything (I guess this may be constued as an over generalization, but we'll just let it slide this time). I saw a bottle of rum on the counter, not just any rum though, Captain Jacks Special Blend, 54% and only 5€ for a 26er. I asked Carsten what he mixed it with. He says "wine". I say "wine?". He says "wine!"
WTF?
Apparently it's a very popular drink called Glüwein. They drink it at Christmas. And by they I mean everyone.
Carsten made some for me.
He bought the best 0.90€ box of wine he could find (It came in a tetrapak!), put it in a pot and heated it up on the stove. Then he poured the hot wine into coffee cups and added about three ounces of Captain Jacks rum to each of the mugs. We drank two each. Knocked me on my ass.
So I guess I also learned that I would drink anything too.
I just realized that I forgot to end my last enty with "I'm going to go get a beer"...damn, couldn't even carry it on for a month.
Don't you hate it when you plan on doing something and then you forget. Think about that while I go get a beer.

2006-02-05T09:25:00.000-08:00

So I woke up this morning and I had this nagging pain in one of my molars. Like a chancher (sp?)soar I kept poking it with my tongue, pushing it just hard enough to see if it still hurt. Finally as I sat on the tram heading off to school (Sunday, I know, but we are finishing off our malting project. Today we took the barley out of the kiln then cleaned and sorted the kernels), frantically tonguing my soar tooth, I managed to free the largest chunk of meat from between two of my back molars. It took some doing though I had to work that thing around, pushing it and flicking it with my tongue, until I had most of it out. I could feel it with my tongue but I couldn't get it out all the way out, it was too big. I actually had to get my fingers in there to pull it out and finish the job. It was so big I think I actually heard it come out. The release of pressure was astounding, the pain just went away, plus I got to eat a piece of meat...win, win!

The meat was a left over piece of duck from our visit to the Tafelrunde Mittelalterliches Gasthaus the night before. Roughly translated thats Round Table Middle-Ages Food House. As you can see from the pictures we had a grand old time. You got to drink Mead out of a horn, eat with your hands, or better yet with the daggers they gave you (you could literaly just stab your food), they had giant stiens of beer and a traveling minstrel who came by and sang songs...Good old fashion traditional German drinking songs like "Country Roads"! Apparently it's a huge song in Germany, John Denver is like a god to these people. ALF ain't got nothing on this guy. I asked Carsten if he had a copy of the song and he quickly answered "Why of course! Everyone has a copy of Country Roads. " Once the minstrel started in on Country Roads the whole room joined in, grabbed their daggers and started singing along and banging them on the table. Everyone in the room knew all the words, it was magical.

After the minstrel moved on from our room in the restaurant, the knight came in and called one person from each table to come up to the front to be knighted. Yours truly got the honours from our table. Basically the whole thing was, you drank some more mead from a horn, blew into another horn and then got down on one knee and he tapped you gently on each shoulder with his sword, then gave you a dandy little certificate saying that you are now a knight. So I would appreciate it, if from now on you can refer to me as Sir Sam Corbeil.

Not only did I get knighted but I met a new friend too! That little boy holding the Teen Wolf photo (sorry LOBO) his name is Ole. Not Ol-ay but Ol-uh. It's an old timey German name, that means something or other...I don't know Carsten tried to explain it too me but I think I may have had too much mead by that point or maybe he was drowned out by another rousing course of Country Roads. Either way, he was a cute kid and he really seemed to enjoy the whole Middle ages thing, I think we all did. And as we left the restaurant and headed back into the city, we met some more nice people at the station that were more than happy to pose with the Teen Wolf picture and join us in a few more rounds of Country Roads. As the train barreled down the tracks burrowing it's way through the Berlin underground our little car boomed with the sound of 15 or so John Denver fans bellowing out their best Country Roads at the top of their lungs. Like I said, it was magical.

2006-02-01T08:04:00.000-08:00

So I was reading my buddy Mike D's blog last night (you can link to it by clicking on deejoes.blogspot.com, if you haven't gone yet you should, the service is excellent) and he was discussing Canadian television and how far we've progressed since the invention of the camera.
I was going to write this as a comment on his site, but as I started writing it, it got a little long so I decided to move it over here...sorry.
Anyhoo, the whole time I was reading it and he was going off on our less than excellent production values, all I could think about was how much I missed it...well I mostly miss the Englishness of it, but I miss it non-the-less.
All I have right now to keep me in touch with the New World is BBC News, CNN and in frequent repeats of "Pimp My Ride" on MTV Germany. The best part is "Pimp My Ride" gives me more information on the state of the Americas than either CNN or BBC News...but that's another story for another day. My point is, I would kill for some "Red Green" right now, possibly even some "Train 48"...yes, even "Train 48".
As lackluster as Canadian television is, German television is like TVO compared to CTV or Global. It's terrible, even the Germans hate it...and they have to pay for it.
And the shows that are produced here are gawd-awful. Even though they are in German and I have no idea what is going on, I can still tell that they are shit...imagine what the Germans think. Hell, even the talk shows over here make Mike Bullard look like Johhny freakin' Carson.
Most of the time all they do is take American sitcoms and dub them over in German (you don't have to point out the fact that 90% of the TV we watch in Canada is American...I know, just bare with me here) and not even good American sitcoms...The King of Queens for God sakes! Why?
And guess what I saw yesterday morning...yep, ALF! I guess it's just really popular over here? First the movie poster and now the television show, apparently German's can't get enough of ALF...he's like David Hasselhoff or something.
And if they aren't dubbing American shows, they are just stealing their ideas and turning them into crappier German versions. Okay, who decided "Pimp My Ride" needed a spin off series called "Pimp My Whatever"? A frickin' genius that's who. So what they do is; they take anything in your life that you think is not cool and they send in two German VJ's and a crack squad of cooler-than-thou-dressed-all-up-like-the-Strokes douche bags to come in and make it cool...right before your eyes! It's just like the original but without X-hibit.
The episode that I saw had a brother and sister write into MTV Germany and basically plead with them to send them some help for their utterly uncool little brother.
And like Batman to the Bat-signal, MTV Germany was there to save the world from another non-comforming, individualist who just needed to be shown the way of the cool.
Basically what they did was ridicule everything this young man held dear (it was in German so I really just tried to follow the moving pictures)...his trophies for public speaking, his framed photograph of him meeting an ex-Chancelor of Germany (I believe), his clothes and of course his selection of music...which seemed to the source of most of the ridicule. Then they took all this stuff, put it in a box and trashed it.
Then ta-da! They transformed him!
First, they tought him to dance...properly, which in Germany is breakdancing of course...no seriously. Then they showed him what to wear and gave him a "Faux-Hawk", along with a cell phone and a cell phone charger! Followed of course by Washboard lessons in a German Country Band.
Finally after an hour and a complete over haul, MTV Germany re-introduced him to his brother and sister who declared him completely cured of his disease of individuality and deemed him worthy enough to enter the world of the mindless clones. Thank You MTV!
Wow, I kinda went off there...
Well while I'm on the subject. Today when I was sitting on the train coming home from school, this German guy came in and sat down directly in front of me. The nerve of him! This may not seem like such a social faux-pas...but trust me it was.
Okay...listen, I was sitting in a four person section; Two seats, side by side, directly facing two more seats. Literally inches infront of each other. The rest of the train was made up of long bench facing each other...but on the opposite sides of the train. So anyhoo, I'm sitting there in my four person seat, with no one else in any of the other four seats, when this big, bald, German dude sits in the seat directly infront of me. Not the seat diagonal of me. Not the seat beside me...the seat right in God Damn front of me. WTF? His knees were litterly touching mine. And to top it off, the train was at best half full. He could've sat any where else.
So there we are, knee on knee...staring at each other. I gave him one of those "Are you serious?" looks, but I guess something got lost in the translation.
So the whole ride home I'm trying desperatly to focus my gaze on anything but the man in front of me. I'm shifting my eyes awkwardly, first to the windown, then to the advertising on the walls (which of course I can't read), then to all the empty bloody seats all over the train.
Finally, we reached my stop and I gave him the, "Thanks, you Jackass" look and then exited the train.
Next time your on the subway think about where you are sitting and look at the person next to you and see what they are doing with their eyes. It's like that old adage about actors..."The hardest thing is knowing what to do with your hands" (or something like that). For subway riders, the hardest thing is knowing what to do with your eyes. Think about that while I go get a beer.

2006-01-30T08:28:00.000-08:00

So I'm pretty sure I can die a happy man now. I've heard the greatest thing ever and I'm pretty sure nothing will ever top it. One day, if you're lucky enough to hear it, you'll understand.
On Saturday afternoon, five of us headed towards the outskirts of Berlin to Olympic Stadium to watch Hertha BSC (Berlin's soccer team), take on Hanover. There was supposed to be seven of us, but due to the goings on of the night before, we had two fallen soldiers and they were unable to make the game.
As of this morning, we still had no idea what had happened to Sweeny (one of said fallen soldiers). For two days no one heard hide nor hair of him. When last we saw him, he was fighting for conciousness in the back corner of the Circus bar..that was Friday at around 1am.
Saturday morning he didn't show up for his malting project, we figured he just had a little touch of the bottle flu and we'd probably see him a little later at the game. He didn't show. Still not that much to worry about, he's a grown man and could take care of himself. Then this morning we found out that he didn't show up for his malting project on Sunday either. Now we started to worry. Luckily someone had his number and Sebastian was able to give him a call.
As we all huddled around listening to Sebastian talk to Sweeny, we tried to decipher what was going on by his facial expressions, then Seb blurted out, "So you're insurance will cover that right?". We all looked at each other wondering what could possibly have happened. Finally, as the conversation was ending we heard Sebastian say, "Well as long as you are alright. Okay, talk to you tomorrow". As soon as he hung up the phone we were all over him..."What happened, give us the details". Turns out, he caught a bad case of reoccuring pneumonia and hospitalized himself Saturday afternoon. We aren't sure if Friday had anything to do with it, but if I were a betting man....And what about the other guy?...well he just bit off a little more than he could chew and ended up sleeping through the game.
What was I talking about? Oh yeah, the best thing I ever heard. Right. So before the game we headed over to Seb's place to drop off our bags. The first picture..that's his place. Those legs, those are Dolan's. The gnome, that's Estobahn. He lives in the corner of Sebastians house.
Then the four of us, Luis (our Venezulan friend), Dolan (our American friend), Sebastian (a fellow Canuck) and myself headed out for a pre-game feeding (We were meeting Carsten at the game later).
Now in Berlin, if you want to get quick, cheap food there is really only one choice, a Döner. You can find a Döner stand on pretty much every corner. It's a Turkish sandwich that basically resembles a Donair, but everyone claims that they were invented in Berlin. Where ever they were invented it dosen't matter, they are damn good and they only cost 2€. I had three of them this weekend.
So as we are walking down the street headed towards the Döner stand, Luis starts to sing. And this is it people...until you hear a short, mustacheod, pot-bellied, Venezulan man sing Elton John's, "Candle in the Wind", you ain't heard nothing. It was as if the angels themselves were singing down to us from heaven. It was beautiful. It was magical. It was breathtaking. It was a Venezulan man singing "Candle in the Wind". And now I can die happy.
That may have been a little anti-climactic...you probably had to be there. Like I said, one day if you are lucky enough maybe you'll get to hear it.
As for the game, it was alright. We had good seats (about five rows up from the field) and it was exciting enough (well as exciting as soccer can be...man I miss hockey) but damn it was cold. It's January and it's in Berlin and we're outside watching soccer. The only positive thing about being outside was that your beer stayed nice and chilly.
Think about watching the Leafs outside in January. Think about how cold it would be. Think about how many goals they'd probably lose by. Stupid Leafs, they'll drive you to drink. Come to think about it, I'm going to go get a beer.

2006-01-29T09:33:00.000-08:00

So it's been brought to my attention that many of you out there don't believe that I'm actually going to school but have in fact just gone on a six month bender in Berlin. This sadly is not the case. Now I'm not going to lie to you and tell you that I haven't had my fair share of drunken baffoonery (is that a word and if so is it spelled right?) here in this fine city, but it has been balanced with a serious amount of school work too. Yes, it is beer school, but it is school non the less and I'm there six to seven hours a day.
As you may or may not have noticed, many of my posts to date have revolved around said drunken baffoonery and not too much has been said about the actual reason why I'm here in Berlin in the first place. But when I sit down and recall my day and then decide what I'm going to write about in my blog, I gotta think about the entertainment factor. I'm not to sure how many of you out there are going to want to read about enzyme creation and the degredation of complex starches into sugars durning the barley malting process. And I'm almost positive no one would be coming back to read my next post if all I did was describe what yeast cells look like when viewed through a microscope. Riveting material it ain't.
So those of you who are worried about my general health and state of mind, rest assured I am learning many new things at the VLB, it's just not anything I think you'd really care to read about.
Would you rather here about carbonate hardness and the residual alkalinity in german tap water, or would you rather hear about how when we left the bar last night and started heading home, some guy yelled down from his window that we should come up to the party he was having in his flat. The party turned out to be mostly wicked...they were playing a lot of AC/DC, the beer was free and they had this awesome soup.....trust me the water stuff isn't as interesting...in fact water has never seemed so dry.
But seriously, the beer school is great and they are taking us through the background science before we get into the hard core brewing. Once I get to the brewing I'll be sure to let everyone know. Until then, you're just going to have to put up with tales of random drunken baffoonery.

So far the one thing at the VLB that hasn't been dull at all are the people. The Profs and the lecturers are great, each and everyone of them a character.
Our Malting Technology prof is this tall German man that speaks English with a Scottish accent. Brilliant. The first thing he read to us was the poem "John Barleycorn", an old scottish tale by Robbie Burns. And since then he has regaled us with tales of his budding beer belly and stood up infront of the whole class and sung old Scottish drinking songs....he's also tought us a thing or two about barley. And his dress! Oh my, this guy wears more leather than Van Helsing. He pretty much comes to school everyday wearing an entire cow. He has leather pants, knee high leather boots, a leather vest that's about two sizes to small and pinches out his beer belly just above his pants, a full length leather coat, topped off with a wide brimed black hat. Ohh, and his shirt...he wears a puffy shirt a la Jerry Seinfeld. This man is unique.
Then there is our Chemisty/Sensory Analysis (basically beer tasting course) prof, Prof. Hardt.
A squat man, shaped like a pear. He sinches off his pants just above his belly button and wears light blue translucent dress shirts. Just see through enough so that you can see the outline of his wife beater and his pack of Camel cigarettes that he keeps in his left breast pocket.
Our Microbiology Prof. Dr. Hinrichs, has a wonderful little tick. I don't know if you would exactly call it a speach impediment or not, but at the end of every sentence he makes this noise...it's in between a HUH and a MMM sound, but it's very pronounced and distinct. Every sentence. Really. One time he just went off and strung together an incoherent babbling sentence of HUH's and MMM'S. HUH, MMM, HUH HUH MMM MMM MMM HUH. It was a sight let me tell you what.
Then there's Roland Pahl. A thick barrel chested man, with a bald head and a full goatee. His neck is a wide as my thigh and he looks like he could pull the arms off a man. I spilled my beer in his crotch on the first day. I'm lucky he's a nice guy.
And that's just a few of the Profs, I haven't even begun to talk about my classmates....they are a wonderful and diverse crew with backgrounds spanning the globe...but I think that's enough for today. I'm sure their names will be popping up more frequently in my drunken baffoonery tales. Cause drunken baffoonery is always more fun when you have other drunken baffoons to share it with...don't you think. Think about your last jaunt into drunken baffoonery and the people that were there with you...think about it cause I'm going to go get a beer.

2006-01-26T10:36:00.000-08:00

"So what's the deal with moderation anyways, I mean what up with that?"" says the comedian as the joke drops from his mouth like a giant stone. The only thing heavier than his last words, is the horrible feeling of self-doubt that's quickly building on his shoulders. A lonely cough echos through out the bar. With his fat sausage fingers, he nervously adjusts his tie. Someone plays with their drink and the rattling ice cries out like a symphony.
The spotlight beams down on him like an interigation lamp. The sweat begins to build on his brow. His mind is racing, but words are escaping him. He looks out into the darkend room and sees the smoke rise up from a cigarette and slowly snake it's way up to the ceiling, merging into a thick cloud hovering above the seated crowd.
"Your fat", yells one of the impatient bar patrons.
"Show us your tits" cries another.
Panic set in. The bar became a vacuum, all sound was sucked out of the room. Time stood still as his mind began to race with images of all the events that brought him to this very stage on this very night. He began to regret anything he ever did that brought him there.
"You're not funny" he said to himself, "What ever made you think you could do this? You're a useless, fat piece of crap. Run. Just run away. Cut your losses and just run, you fat turd", he went on berading himself as he stood there on stage staring out at the crowd.
He had confidence. Before he came out on the stage tonight, he had confidence. He had worked on his act for months. Perfecting it. Writing and rewriting the jokes, making sure he used the right word at the right moment. His inflections, his timing they were dead on. He had confidence.
His friends always told him, "You're a funny guy man. You should be a comedian", but he just laughed them off. Figured they were just being nice. But after years of hearing it, he began to believe it and he actually started to right down jokes and jott down the little things he noticed about everyday life that made living just so gosh darn funny.
Then when he finally had what he believed to be a "pretty strong set", he practiced it in front of his friends. They all laughed at the right jokes and seemed to enjoy them selves. Afterwords they told him how much they liked it and couldn't wait to see him at a comedy club.
But this time, they were lying. Something just wasn't right. They all saw it. He was holding back, sure his jokes were funny but the guy they knew and laughed at everytime they got together was funny because he was outrageous and spontaneous, not because he had a rehearsed set. His friends laughed at him because of who he was, they laughed at him because he didn't take himself seriously, they laughed at him because he was the guy that would do just about anything to make someone laugh. He loved to make people laught and he never held back. Life and laughter spewed out of him. And this rehearsed set was just that; rehearsed.
And as he stood there frozen in a room full of headlights, thinking about how he got here and what ever made him think that he was funny enough to do this; it snapped. The self-doubt got so heavy his ego just snapped. Like the picnic table bench last summer when he had one too many of his Mom's famous hamburgers and he sat down a little to quickly, it snapped and the pressure just started to float away. And he was free.
"You want to see my tits?" he replied back to the faceless man in the crowd. "You want to see my fucking tits?", he yelled as he tore open his shirt releasing two of the biggest man boobs ever to be seen on the unsuspecting crowd.
As he stood there bare chested on stage, his breasts glistening with sweat, shining from the spotlights glare, he looked out into the bar and began to see the faces of the people in the crowd.
He took his breasts in his hands and cupped them gently, looking back and forth, from his right breast to his left and said, "What, you've never seen any of these before?". He began to jiggle them in his hands, "I call them my MAN-mory glands". There was a spattering of laughter. The confidence he once lost began to return.
He leaned forward and pressed his boobs together, thrusting them towards the crowd, rubbing them ever so gently back and forth.l He stuck out his tongue and licked his nipples.
"I only kept 'em in there cause I didn't think it was that kind of bar. I usually only do this down at the Silverpole Saloon on Tuesday nights, but what the hell, it's like my Mom always said, "Harry...your a dumb piece of shit. But if you keep your mouth shut and just show your tits... you'll make a million!".
And from there he just let go, he held nothing back. Nothing was rehearsed, everything just flowed out of him. He was outrageous, he was spontaneous, he was funny, he made people laugh...he was himself.

Why do people always hold back? Why do they always keep themselves in check? Why are we constantly moderating ourselves?
Just let go. Be yourself. Do EVERYTHING too much.
If you love to do something do it. Why are people always telling us not to do this or that too much. "Too much of a good thing...blah, blah, blah...". What? What happens if you have to much of a good thing? If you love to smile, smile as much as you want. Is that going to kill you? If you love to watch movies, watch as many god damn movies as you want. Your eyes aren't going to fall out.
Be yourself and do what you love to do and do it as much as possible.
Think about what you love to do and now think about why you aren't doing it right now. I love to beer so I'm going to go have a beer.

2006-01-24T07:47:00.000-08:00

So I finally headed out this weekend to walk around and do some "touristy" sight seeing. I had been here for over two weeks and I hadn't seen anything but the big Television tower at Alexanderplatz (it's like the CN tower, you can see it from everywhere) and the inside of some local bars. It was time.
Of course I picked the coldest day of the GD year to do it...-20C. According to one German guy at my school, it's the coldest winter Berlin has seen in 11 years. Now I've never won the lottery bought I got think that it's got to feel a lot like I did when I found that out.
But I digress.
Now Listen. Apparently there is far more to Berlin than the grafitti stained, bullet riddeled walls I have been complaining about for the past two weeks. There are actually some really nice neighbourhoods in this city, with some beautiful and some terribly wretched sites to see.
First the beautiful. Pariser Platz, home to the Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag, it is a beautiful sqaure lined with cafes, restaurants and of course souvenier shops. Like Homer J said, "The all ighty ollar",.. you just can't get away from it.
The stone Statue you see being pulled by the four horses is what adornes the top of the Brandenburg gate. Then just off to the right of the gate stands the Reichstag (the photo of the large pillard building). If you pass through the gate and head down the road, you'll come upon the Siegessäule, a tall pillar in the middle of the Grosser Stern with a golden angel (I think?) atop it. I started to head down there, but it was just too damn cold, I took two steps and gave up. But then off to my left was a nice wooded path, so I snapped a quick picture.
Due to the cold weather I decided to cut short my stay at Pariser Platz and head over to Checkpoint Charlie, the most well known border crossing between East and West Berlin. Now all that stands are a few signs and a small white hut. People pass through the gate with ease now, but until 1989 it was the site of many daring escape attempts. Some successful, some not so much. If you could get across that thin white line you were free, if not, you were probably shot dead.
The checkpoint stood as the barrier between the US held West and the Russian occupied East. Between democracy and communisim (I'm simplifying here). There isn't much of the US presence around the gate anymore (other than the freedom to pass), but here you can find a few Russian soldiers still holding up the old Russian flag and a few street vendors selling all types of Russian head gear.
As you step back from the gate and look up you will see a faded, worn and tattered red flag with a plaque nailed to the wall beside it. On the plaque are the words, "last flag to fly at the Kremlin". Whether or not it's true, it's still serves as a left over relic from a once proud regime that has since become faded, worn and tattered itself.
Now comes the wretched.
My last stop was at a still standing section of "The Wall". It was just two streets over so I figured I could deal with the cold for a little while longer.
See the picture...that's me being all artsy. Ohhh it's black and white, he must be really deep. And it say "Madness"...whoa man, whoa.
The section of the wall is only a few hundred meters long, but for what it stands for, it might as well be the full 155.0 km it once was.
I wish I could show you all the pictures that line the bunker just below the section of the wall. There is a little display there call "...of Terror" (I can't exactly remember). They were possibly some of the most disturbing photos I've ever seen. They weren't sensored. They were unabashedly real. The one I can't seem to get out of my head was the picture of five or so soldiers holding guns to the back of a row of prisoners kneeling infront of them. The soldier to the far right had this smile on his face, the kind of smile you only have when you are posing for a picture. Everyone has a picture face. You know when you stand in front of the lake in the summer and someone yells cheese. This guy had that smile on his face. He was about to shoot someone in the back of the head (I have no doubt in my mind that he did) and he took the time to pose for the picture.
The rest of the photos in the display were much like this one, except many of them actually had real people, spilling real blood out of the real bullet holes in the back of their real heads.
I think the hardest part for me to believe about all this is the recency of it. The wall went up in 1961...my Dad was 11. The wall came down in 1989, I just turned 13.
These are not atrocities done in a time long ago, so far back that you can just pass it off as a tale in a history book. These things happened in our parents life time.
I thank my lucky stars and more recently I thank ALF every morning that I was born a Canadian. I've never felt the fear that these people must have felt. I have never felt the utter desperation and helplessness they must have felt.
Think about that for a while, just think about how lucky we are..take your time, cause I really need a beer.

2006-01-23T08:28:00.000-08:00

So I'm finally comfortable enough to sleep naked in my new bed. It took sometime but last night for the first night since I've been here I was able to sleep free and clear.
It wasn't like that at all with the bathroom, we hit it off right away...no stage fright at all. You know how it is, sometimes when you get into a new relationship with a toilet, you're a little scared to open up completely right away. You struggle at first, looking for some common ground, mulling over something that you can talk about and share before you can open right up and let it all out. Not this time though, me and the new guy clicked right away, we got along swimmingly from the very first day. It's a wonderful relationship, completely give and take. Well he does most of the taking and I do most of the giving, but it's understood.
The bed though, it's been tough. Maybe it was the week long affair I had with the bed at the hostel? She wanted me to be a little more demonstrative, get naked right there infront of all those people...I just wasn't comfortable with that. I'm a more private guy and I like to keep what goes on in the bedroom between just me and the bed. Well you know how it goes, the next thing you know we get into a big argument and I just stormed out of there...haven't been back since.
I think it put me off beds for a while? With this new one, I just wanted to take it slow...you know? I didn't want to rush into things and do something we both might regret later. But last night after a long debate I decided the time was right. I just stripped down, jumped into bed and let the night take us away.
Woke up this morning with a big smile on my face and more relaxed then I'd been in weeks.

"But you know the funniest thing about Europe is? It's the little differences. I mean they got the same shit over there that we got here, it's just, it's just over there it's a little different"
Vincent Vega

So I went to the movies for the first time last week and it's like Vincent said, "over there it's a little different".
First off, you pay extra for better seats, 1€ extra if you don't want to sit up at the front. We didn't pay the 1€.
Then when you get into the theatre, you actually have assigned seating. I don't know if this is the same in all European countries, cause I've never been to the movies any where else, but it's remarkably annoying. You see some of the seats are joined, there is no arm rest. It's like your own personal love seat at the theatre. We got one of those. Now I'm pretty comfortable in my
sexuality, but I barely know this guy...it's just too soon! So we decided to shift a few seats down, cause at that time no one but us was in there. We found out why.
There is about 15 minutes of ads running before the movie. I know, I know, we have those too...but not this long and not this German. Of the commercials running before we even got to the previews, 2 were for cigarettes (think about the last time you saw a televised cigarette ad, let alone an out of home ad or a print ad) and 2 were for beer (also, you can buy beer at the movies)...the rest I'm not sure about cause they were German, but at least two of them showed dogs having sex. Really.
Finally after the commercials were finally over, the bloody lights came back on! Down came the consession guys yelling, "soda, popcorn, licorice"...except in German.
When they finally left and the rest of the movie goers started to pour into their seats, it was pointed out to us that we were sitting in someone elses designated seat. The theater was half full at best. Leave it to the Germans to always follow the rules. So up we got and moved to our original cozy little love seat.
Even with the close quaters the movie was enjoyable..so next time you think we got it bad at the cinemas in North America just think about what I just told you. Or you can think about it right now while I go get a beer.

2006-01-21T02:23:00.000-08:00

So I learned how to upload pictures to the blog (Yeah me!), now not only will you have to deal with my ramblings, but now my ramblings come with pictures! It's like Christmas all over again.
The first picture you see (the one just above us there...the one to the left) that's the Berlin Transit map. Take a look at it. It has more colours than a Church Street Flag.
Toronto has two subway lines (I don't count the little line sprouting out of the Sheppard Station like some Chernobyl growth as a subway line), Berlin has two Subway Systems, the U-Bahn and the S-Bahn.
Toronto has a street car system that goes across like 5 streets, Berlin has a tram that connects all the subways to each other.
Berlin and Toronto are basically the same size (roughly 3 million) people. Why is it then that the TTC sucks so completely? Why does our system pale to theirs? I don't get it. If you are catching any train, tram or bus it has a sign posted next to the stop telling you how long your wait is. And the signs are never wrong. If they are they shout at you in German and they tell you that they are right, it's your eyes that are the wrong. I don't get it.
Of course our subways don't come with wicked graffiti like the picture here to my left.
I'm glad that the English language is getting picked up by so many people around the world, but why is it that they only learn the bad words first.."Fuck Cops"...ahh the English language at it's best.
Graffiti is everywhere here. It's on apartment buildings, street signs, stores, constructions sites, hell the graffiti even has graffiti on it. And so much of it is random, just words like "Atari" sprayed across a wall. I don't know, maybe something gets lost in the translation.

So here is the only thing that was hanging on my wall when I got to my new flat..."Alf Der Movie",
I'm almost positive it's the greatest thing ever. First of all, who actually knew there was an "Alf Der Film" and secondly, who enjoyed so much that they would go out, buy the poster, have it mounted, put into a frame and then proudly hang it from their bedroom wall? Someone supremely wicked, that's who and I for one am glad he did.
Every morning when I wake up I pray to the AlienLifeForm on my wall and everyday may prayers are answered...Alf is Budda, Jesus, Kali and pretty much every other deity ever to be worshipped wrapped up into one nice puppet package. Seriouslly, if you are looking for salvation, turn no further than ALF.
Actually, I lied when I said it was the only thing I had on my wall...I also have my Napolean Dynamite calander on the other wall. When I was hanging it up Carsten (my roommate) was in the room with me and I asked him if he knew the movie. He looked at the photo (the one with Napolean twitchig as he holdes the time machine between his legs) and says "Is that Stephen Hawkins". Awesome. Not as awesome as the all poweful ALF but awesome non the less. Just for future useless-trivial-pop-culture-knowledge...did you know that Martin Sheen was in ALF. Yes, that Martin Sheen. Did he see the script? At what point during the filming of ALF Der Film did he start thinking, "Maybe this wasn't such a good career move?". But I digress.

This picture...the one to the left is lovely Berlin. A typical street on a typical Sunday.
No one lives in houses here, every one lives in apartments. I have yet to see one house in Berlin.
Some buildings in East Berlin, like these ones, have been renovated and fixed up to look nice and "perty", but many in other neighbourhoods still bare the scars of WWII. Pocked up like Seals face with bullet holes and chipped mortor (I'm pretty sure I have terrible spelling so you'll just have to excuse me). Like I mentioned in an earlier post, it's pretty scary and intimidating but as you get to know the city, it's charm starts to get to you.

The other picture, the one way back at the top....now that you've gone back and looked at it...it's just a random photo. Nothing to report.

One last thing...so last night, we weren't allowed in a club because we were English. Really. The guy at the door told us they were full, at least that's what the guy behind us told us (who of course they let in right after) because the doorman was speaking in German. Everyone, beside us, around us, behind us, was let in...but not us. There was some yelling and then we had to go.
That's the bad part of Berlin.
Then as we stormed off through the streets complaining to ourselves, we realized that we were lost. We had taken a cab there (a friend of mine from the hostel told us to go to the bar) and had no idea where we were. So we stopped some people on the street and asked where the closest U-Bahn was (unlike the TTC there are stops everywhere and can take you where ever you want to go) and told them of our brush with prejudice. They felt for us I guess, cause they told us they were going to this reggae party and asked us to join them. We did.
The party was fun but by 3a I was pretty beat so I left...again I had no idea where I was, so I just started walking. Eventually I realized I was lost, so again I asked a person on the street. I stopped this girl and asked here where Invalinden Strasse was, she not only told me where it was, but she actually took me to the street. She walked like 10-15 mintues to take me to the street.
That's the good part of Berlin.
Anyhoo, I've rambled enough, but just think about that. Would you go out of your way to take someone, a stranger non the less, to the street they are looking for? Think about that while I go get a beer.

2006-01-19T07:33:00.000-08:00

So this was my dream last night. It's not real so I can name it. It's called A Fond Farewell.

The air around our house was heavy. Everyone walked around with their heads down watching their feet, trying not to make eye contact. They all knew what was coming. But with things looking better they didn't want to jinx it.
The population in our house had inflated as more Uncles, Aunts, Cousins and siblings began to show up. Some of them could handle it better than others and some of them couldn't handle it at all, so it was best to just try and avoid everyone as much as possible. The slightest remark or glance could set someone off.
My brother and I spent most of our time in the basement. It was a retreat from the summer sun but more than that it was a retreat from the invading family members.
We didn't do too much talking as neither of us wanting to discuss the topic. But we both new it was all we were thinking about. So instead of conversing we just watched old episodes of Barnaby Jones or Columbo on A&E's Muder, Mystery Theater.

My Grandfather was a strong man. He wore his age well. He showed no effects of aging until recently. The first 78 years of his life he had been in relatively good health, but over the last year his body had begun to fail him. The one thing that he been been able to depend on had was abondoning him.
He refused to give up though. Not use to being held back by physical weakness he continued to get up every morning and collect wood for the fire, or rake leaves, or do any other job that needed to be done around the house. Sometimes it would take him a while and he'd have to take breaks (some lasting hours) but he just wouldn't quit. Any offers of help he would take as pity and would flatly refuse. This was until about a month ago. One day he just didn't get out of bed.
We called for a doctor and when he was through examining him, he came out of the room and gave us the prognosis. It was't good.
The news rippled through our family with the tact of a tidal wave. Relatives from all over began to show up at our house not wanting to miss any opportunity to spend a few more moments with him.

My Grandparents moved in with us when my Grandmother complained that Grandpa was getting tired more often than usual and sometimes wouldn't be able to do the things he once did.
Although he tried, it just wasn't there. Like I said, this was just about a year ago.
She figured moving out of the city and into a relaxing country atmosphere would be good for him. He wouldn't have to do as much around the house and he could just spend some time with his grandchildren.
To make room for them I moved into my brothers room, which wasn't so bad as we got along pretty well.
When they first arrived we tried to pamper Grandpa; whenever he needed something we would get it for him, if he asked to help with something we told him that we would take care of it, basically all he had to do was sit in his chair. He didn't want any of that.
Instead of asking if he could do something, he just did it. Like I said, he was strong.

Grandma didn't complain, she could see that being waited on was making him miserable and really she just wanted him to be happy. They had been married for over 50 years (they never did give us exact dates, we just kinda put it together) so she knew when he was happy and when he was miserable. If he wasn't going to relax at least he was going to be spending time with his Grandchildren.

Things were different in rural Canada 50 years ago. If you were born in a small town you would stay in that small town. And towns were much smaller then. You couldn't afford to be picky either, there just wasn't the population to support it. They met each other when they were 17, they were married when they were 18, my Dad came at 19. Apparently they moved much faster then too.
Because it was the only place they ever lived, they figured they would be there forever but jobs were not plentiful and with my Dad in the picture my Grandpa was forced to take a job in a city on the other side of the county. Even though they were going to a big city with many people, it would just be the three of them and they would be alone.
And like it usually does, being alone and having no one else too depend on, brought them closer together. They had three more children and their loved for each other grew with each one of them. Even after all the kids had moved on and all the years passed by, you can still see it in my Grandmothers eyes, this man was here world. The one thing that she could depend on was abondoning her.

As strong as my Grandpa was physically, my Grandmother was emotionally. We never saw her cry. Not once. When she heard the news she just closed her eyes, took a deep breath, thanked the doctor, went in, sat in the chair beside my Grandpa's bed and just held his hand.
She hasn't left his side much over the last month and since Grandpa sleeps most of the day, sometimes she does nothing but hold his hand and stroke his fine white hair. If there was a moment left on this planet with him, she was going to be there. Love.

Over the last week Grandpa's health was starting to luck up, he was even able to get out of bed and walked around a bit. For the first time in a while their was hope. Cautions hope, but hope none the less. Grandma was even comfortable enough to leave his side now and again.
My brother and I were in the basement watching Barnaby when my Dad came down to announce that my Mom and Grandma were heading out shopping and would town for a few hours, he asked us if we could drive them. He asked us, but we both knew he was telling us.
So we took Mom and Grandma into town and drove them from shop to shop picking up their supplies for everyone at the house. A few of my Aunts had tried to tell my Grandma that they could run in for her, but she felt the time away would be good for her.
After an hour we headed back out of town and towards our home, we lived about a ten minute drive out of town.
As I headed up the first hill out of town I could hear a siren coming from behind me. I checked my speedometer to see how fast I was going then into the rearview to see what it could be.
It was an ambulance. I knew instantly where the ambulance was going. My heart sank.
Within seconds the ambulance was on top of me. I moved to the side and let him pass. As soon as he passed I began to speed up. I looked back again in the rearview to my Grandmother in the back seat, I could see the sadness in her eyes. She knew where that ambulance was going too.
I drove as fast as I could, if there was one good thing I would ever do on this world it was to get my Grandmother to our house as fast as possible.
Like I said we lived out of town and the roads were windy with only a 60 km speed limit. I was doing 120 but the ambulance was still pulling away.
I pulled into the drive way and we could see the commotion of bodies around the side of our house. The ambulance drivers were already up on beside our house and performing CPR on my Grandfather when we got there. As we ran (the others ran ahead, I held my Grandma hand and moved as fast as she could but my Grandmother was old) up to the crowd of people gathered around the side of the house we could see them pressing on his chest and desperatly trying to breath life into his dying body. I turned to look at my Grandma, she just stared on and squeezed my hand. Seconds past like hours. We could see the the one ambulance driver look at the other and shake his head. They backed away. Every thing went quite.
Then he moved.
My Grandmother let go of my hand pushed aside the ambulance driver and bent down to his body. She took his head and held it in her hands. He opened his eyes and looked at her.
He feebly began to reach into his pocket. He pulled out a crumpled piece of paper and began to read aloud. Each word was a struggle.
"Lola. I have had the opportunity to love you for longer than I deserved..."
I started to cry. Everyone started to cry. He continued to read but I couldn't hear what he was saying over the sobbing, but I knew he was saying good-bye.
I regret in now, but I turned away. I had never cried like that before, I didn't know what to do.
When I turned back around I could see my Grandmother cradeling his head in her arms. His arms fell to the side and the paper floated to the ground. She took his empty hand in hers and with her free one began to stroke his fine white hair. Love.

I don't know why I dreamed this but I guess it has to do with all the people I've been meeting recently and all the times I've had to say good-bye.
Some people think that introductions are hard. You're taking a big leap when you say hello.
But I think farewells are harder. You just never know if that's the last time you will ever see that person again.
You can think about that, I'm going to get a beer.