My New Haircut and Other Assorted Thoughts

So this has been a pretty good week, but before I get to that I just have a few things I'd like to mention:

1. First of all, thanks to all of you who have been following my blog and subsequently for your kudos on both its content and my ability to craft prose. I cannot tell you how much this ego-stroking has meant to me. Your praise has inspired me to consider writing a novel. Yes, a novel. Based loosely on my life and my social commentary. Unfortunately, my upper-middle class privileged lifestyle does not provide a whole lot of adversity, so the book is going to focus more on witty commentary and amusing shenanigans more then actual hardship. I'm think of calling it, "Liquor Before Beer and Other Things I Wish I Still Believed In," and I'm already anticipating a best-seller. Or at least a spot on Oprah. You'd pay to read my thoughts, right? Well, maybe not since I'm delivering them here for free. Shit.
2. Health Care. I just wanted to say I am tired of reading about all this bitching, particularly from Eric Cantor, Mitch McConnell, and Blue Dog Democrats. I'm sorry, this thing is going to happen with or without you. The American public is now strongly in favor of passing health care reform. While I admire you for sticking to your fiscally conservative ethos, the fact is that you are responsible to your constituents and the want reform. And they want it now. I now deep down that you all recognize that its going to happen with or without you, and by posturing like this you are setting you and your party up for 2010, but really, if 2008 showed us anything, its that the people of our great nation are tired of this political bullshit. I mean, don't get me wrong, I love the game and I can't wait until I'm neck-deep in it, but on an issue such as this its time to stop dragging your feet and do what is best for the country, not for you or your party. The same goes for the new climate change bill. While it's not everything I'd hoped for, it's a start. And in politics, something is always better then nothing, so I'm not really complaining here. But seriously Republicans/conservative Dems: you are on the wrong side of history. Oh and stop bashing the Recovery Act. It's been 4 months. Chill.
3. Hooters in Berlin. To all Berliners - my sincerest apologies on behalf on America. I am sorry for giving you what could perhaps be the end of civilization as you know it: women who dress like hookers but (most likely) wont have sex with you, American beer, and greasy buffalo wings. I know many of you here are excited about its grand opening, but believe me - stay away. When people talk about the downsides of globalization, this should be a prime example.
4. Dave Chappelle. Those of you in Portland know what I'm talking about. I am so bummed I missed his surprise appearance at Pio Square. My only reaction of course though is, why, of all places, Portland? Didn't he quit his namesake show because he didn't like that his entire audience was 20something white affluent males (read population of Portland)?

So like I was saying, this has been a pretty good week. My weekend was pretty mellow - I was hoping to go big and do some clubbing or something but it just never materialized. Instead, I wound up seeing Brüno. While I don't think it was quite as good as Borat, I still enjoyed it. But I think I liked it 10x more because I saw it with Germans. There is nothing like the "oooohhhh daaayyyummmmmmnn" from a theater full of Germans when someone on screen makes a Hitler joke. Priceless.

Anyway, the rest of my week looked like this:

Monday - Went exploring and wound up at a lake on the outskirts of town near Wansee. I took a walk around the lake and wound up renting a row boat. It was pretty cool. Also, at the insistence of people I met at a biergarten there I had Radler, or beer mixed with Sprite. I was hesitant at first, but found that I actually really enjoyed it. Later confirmed my suspicion that Radler was in fact a "bitch drink" similar to Mikes Hard Lemonade. Don't really care, and I'm bringing it back with me to Portland.

Tuesday - The Kapitän's (department head) last day of work before he goes on vacation. We celebrate by having Belgian chocolates and champagne in the afternoon. Work ended early on Tuesday.

With my new free time however, I decided that I was in need of a haircut. I wound up going to this place in Kruezberg (once super ghetto, now super hipster) that I found on the Internet. The place is a one man shop that also serves as this dudes' art studio. It was funky, but all the reviews said it was good so I thought, why not. When I got there, instead of paying for the trim, he said that instead he would charge me for a piece of his art that was of equal value to the work I wanted done and he would then give me the cut for free. It seemed like a rather complex way of saying, "for the 35 euro haircut I will give you one of these pieces of art that I made in less then 2 minutes." But whatever, I thought this guy was just eccentric and artsy so I just went with it. I told him what I wanted done, and he proceeded to do pretty much the opposite. Needless to say, when he was done I definitely was rocking some serious euro-sleaze. The top of my hair was about 3x as long as the sides. I was not down.

After some serious freakouts about it (thank you to Amelia and my father for putting up with me), I decided I needed to have something done to it. Fast. By the time I made it to the salon down the street from me though, they were already closing for the night, so I had to a whole day with this ridiculous look.

To give you some idea of what this haircut looked like, think of it as the European version of "My New Haircut." It was about as skeezy as you could get. As my boss put it when he saw it the next day, it would "make me popular...with the German girls..." (note the trailing off). He also mentioned that it sort of looked like a toupe.

Wednesday - I went back to the salon, but of course they didn't speak any English there. Thankfully a client was able to translate for me and for 4 euro they fixed it. It was a crisis diverted. Thank god.

Thursday - It was extremely hot and the trains continued to not run on time. Still a good day though, mostly because I was no longer freaking out about my hair (yeah so what, I freak out about my hair. Deal).

Friday - Wait that's today. I rode my bike to work and that was a lot of fun. Also since its Friday and my advisor is taking off for his vacation on Wednesday I'm currently in no-work-but-still-have-to-show up limbo. I stayed through lunch then went for a ride through Tiergarten before coming home and writin' this thing. Mayme gets here around 8:30 tonight and I'm sure we will do something worthwhile of a blog entry sometime soon.

I realize I kind of don't really like this post. I'll try and do better next time.

One observation though for any of you who have visited/planning to visit German and/or know a German person who speaks English. Ask them to say a word that starts with "v" in English, like say for example, "visitor." Germans pronounce 'v' like we do 'w'. It can be quite entertaining. When I first got here, I got confused when my boss told me that we were having a "wisitor" (which I mistook for 'wizard' the first time he said it). Just thought I'd share.

Oh and about that novel. Odds are I will never write it. Even in writing this blog post I have already decided that coming up with interesting this to say is far too time consuming and psychologically draining. It was a good idea while it lasted though, right?