Wilkommen in Frankfurt am Main

So pretty much everyone who visits Germany flies into Frankfurt am Main (literally, "Frankfurt on the Main.") It's a medium-sized city that for some reason has Germany's biggest and busiest international airport. It's kind of strange - imagine if Indianapolis were the largest airport in the US.

But Frankfurt is a nice, manageable city. It's also the only European city with a skyline - most other cities like Paris and London relegate their skyscrapers to the outskirts of town, so the original medieval city can be preserved. Not Frankfurt. Tall buildings everywhere:

If it looks cold in these pictures, that's because it was. The first night I was there, they got about four inches of snow. The German word for snow is "schnee," and this schneestorm was pretty serious (they called it "schneechaos" on the news). Some other cities lost power for most of the day because the powerlines iced over and collapsed.

More views of the schneechaos, although by this time it wasn't too chaotic. It was actually really quiet and peaceful (and cold as anything, too.):



In Germany, even hell is attractive (or attraktive, I guess):




I didn't spend too much time in Frankfurt, since I visited there last year and there's not much for tourists to do. It's a huge banking and financial city, so the place is crawling with businesspeople. I did visit the Christmas Market, which sells a lot of Santa-related trinkets as well as delicious bratwurst and hot apple cider. I'm not one for Santa trinkets, but I had a lot of cider and sausage.

Coming up in part two: Jamie goes to Berlin. Stay tuned.

Ich jetzt flog züm Deutschland, und meine Arme sind müde

That's German for "I just flew in from Germany, and boy are my arms tired."

So I landed at O'Hare last night around 5:30pm. I'm still kind of a zombie, but trooper that I am, I'm at work now. I think I'm getting better at this jet lag thing.

The trip was great. I spent some time in Frankfurt (where I went last year) and then went to Berlin for a few days. I took a whole mess of pictures, which I will crop and post for the gang here, along with insightful commentary. I'll do my best to match Andrik and Jen's witty assessment of Costa Rica, but no promises.

A Taste of the Mysterious East

Meet Kaila Yu. She's a former Playboy model who has decided to branch out into the exciting field of producing phenomenally bad music.

Her latest single, cleverly titled "Let Me Get Up On You," combines traditional R&B with Eastern influences, bringing a new slant to the traditional act of getting up on someone. With a catchy chours ("heyyyy, uh huh uh huh") Kaila certainly seems determined to reach her goal. And with witty lines like "what i'm trying to say, is pass me the Courvoisier," she can't fail.

I support Kaila for thumbing her nose at the traditional "model minority" stereotype and proving that Asian American women can be just as vapid and hackneyed as anyone else. And their music somehow even worse.

Editor's note: when I did a Google Image Search for "Kaila Yu," I had to go through three pages of images before I found one where she had all her clothes on. Best of luck, Kaila.

It must be time to visit.

I saw this article in my morning surf of the NYTimes online.

My question is: why is the Times writing about Evanston? Aren't there plenty of other suburbs that are doing interesting things?

Also, the fact that I read the whole article makes me think that it is probably time to come back and visit E-town, just to get a feel for all the changes.

I don't get it

I don't understand this blog. Naked woman with sushi gets 1 comment in several days, from my husband b/c I was sad that no one had responded. Ma-na ma-na (doot doo, doo doo doo) from Beanie gets three comments in a few hours and andrik's "we are nuzzling" post gets 11 comments? What is wrong with this crowd? :)

My day is made

Statler and Waldorf review movies! Ha!

And, for your continued annoyance:
Ma-na ma-na (doot doo, doo doo doo)

Try to get that out of your head.

A bit belated, but...

... did anyone catch last week's episode of "Trading Spouses" on Fox? I ordinarly don't touch that show (the name makes it sound like some kind of swingers' party). For three weeks, though, they'd been showing preview commercials with a screaming grotesquely overweight woman.

It was priceless. Did anyone else see it? Let's try to limit the conversation to the grotesquely overweight woman, and not get off on tangents like why I was watching "Trading Spouses."

And to clarify, the show's full title is "Trading Spouses: Meet Your New Mommy."

Hey Dirty

Did you write this letter to Cecil, asking for homework help?

Don't lie, we all know it was you.

Any one up for lunch?

Does anyone else think this would be the weirdest way to eat sushi ever? For the low low price of $500, you too can hit a Chicago hot spot and eat sushi off a model.

I just keep thinking about that poor woman. It must be so uncomfortable to lay there and have people eat raw fish off of your body. At least the money is good.

For more pictures, go here. I don't want to ruin it for you, but you should definitely read the article that goes with the pictures.

Must be time for lunch

Misheard lyric of the day:

Hello hello
I bring you lettuce from the man you used to know

Damn sapplings these days!

Today, I as I walked outside, I saw something appaling. The gardners had done their jobs, like good immigrant workers, and raked up all the thousands of leaves that are falling that presidentail approval ratings these days.

Now, everyone knows that you are not supposed to mess up these piles of leaves because they take so long to compile. Well, what I saw filled me with horror:

Do you see how brazen this is? In broad daylight, none the less! Who the hell does this tree think he is, just wading around in a pile of leaves like that? What nerve! Wouldn't you think that someone who has been around as many years as this tree would have a little more consideration than that. If so, you'd think wrong. I hadn't seen such disrespect since our sitting president puked all over the chinese guy (emperor?). Anyway, who lets these trees get away with things like this?

Next thing you know, the oaks will be egging the library. Where will it stop?

Veganza

It's just like the original, but without the Spanish subtitles.

Me and my tree

So I have this palm tree that I bought at IKEA (and you thought they just sold flimsy pieces of particle board with veneer glued on the outside.)

This tree is amazing. I ALWAYS forget to water it. In the past two years, there have been whole weeks where I've forgotten to water it. Other weeks I get overzealous and drown it.

Every few months I take it into the bathtub and give it a shower to get the dust and bugs off of its fronds. Other than that, we pretty much have a routine where I forget to water it and it keeps growing.

I went to Nashville this last weekend and (of course) forgot to water the tree. This after a week in which I watered the tree *maybe* once. When I walked back into my apartment, the tree had put out about five new fronds.

I'm going to be a fantastic parent.

Maybe this will motivate someone else to post, so you don't have to look at it.



(from Wonkette)

we are nuzzling

HA!

What's his name?...

That guy that lived in Sargent across the hall from us? That guy that joined Delta Chi. That guy that would come into our room and say, "It's the coolest!". That guy that found a mass of balled-up newspaper in his room early one morning during finals week.

What's his name?

I saw him at our TG last Friday. He's in seminary at Princeton right now. He plans to get a PhD in Philosophy after that. He says "Hi".