Life is good once again... ?

Well yes and no.

It's a strange thing, really. I came back to Canada with a lot of fun things waiting for me... but my life is empty once again. I have it all, I am back in my comfortable setting, but I am still depressed. So it doesn't make sense... why was I depressed in Germany without my computer, and am still the same now that I am back to normal? The answer is not obvious to me at all. Everything is supposed to be better here... I love eating my bacon and eggs in the morning, or just downloading movies and not worry about an internet firewall blocking my every move. I prefer my mother's cooking to my grandmother's, although it's not much of an improvement. I've just gotten so used to it that it has become mundane and boring. I crave the excitement of being independent, and not having to worry about what my parents think.

I knew that when I came back life would be different, but not so soon... my parents are already talking about me having to get a car and find a job. That's because I only have 1 class in school which isn't even every week, so I sit at home a lot and carve a niche into my computer chair. I've started organizing all my movies and games into big black folders, and that takes up some time as well, as well as making an Excel list of every video I have. But the fact that my parents want me out soon is a scary thought... I don't like that Real Life Syndrome is catching up with me... that I'm getting fat from all this non-exercise when I've been depending on my fast metabolism until now. I hate growing old... I try to slow it down by buying lots of video games, but there is no joy in it for me anymore.

At school I am with a bunch of guys working for the Department of Agriculture Canada. We are working on interfacing an RF Heater with some form of controller in order to maintain its temperature and flow rate. That's the basic idea for the project, and we have to start working on it right away. But I'm still in my lazy summer mode and don't want to do any work yet. This week we will get security passes to the facility so that we can have access any time we want. It was funny showing the authority my papers because they are all German... everyone wonders why I haven't become a Canadian citizen yet after 21 years living here. I tell them it's laziness, but is it really that, or is there something else behind it?

Yeah there just might be something that is pulling me back over there. I am used to my life here, but all my relatives live over there. Sometimes I'm confused over why my parents decided to leave the country at all... we could have lived a nice life over there I think. Now I face the dilemma of being torn between two countries... and it really hurts me on the inside. Every day I walk around with an empty feeling inside of me, as if something I need desperately is missing. I have been so deep in my computer world that I haven't realized that there are people out there trying to 'interface' with me so to speak, to try and communicate with me and get to know me. I don't know why people care about me at all, I'm kind of a loser.

My attitude going to Germany was that I would talk to nobody, make no friends, make no business connections, work only the bare minumum at work, and just get out with no loose ends. But there is an invisible rope that was tied to me over there, and it is still around my waste and I can feel the tugging of it sometimes... I'm trying to get over it but no matter how much I try I still think about my time there. I remember all the good things... the bad things have been erased from my memory. I remember the nice people, the close relatives I haven't had contact with for years, the amazing landscape, the nice clean european cars, the beautiful architecture in the old parts of cities, the greatest train system in the world, the tasty bretzels (only in Schwabenland), the sweet smell of the Döner (which I never tasted), the funky Euro-Pop on the radio (of which I have downloaded many songs and videos in the last couple of weeks), the strange 220V plugs with the humongous prongs, the cool currency EUROS, the interesting dialects of German heard everywhere, and yes I even miss the cigarette vending machines of all things. It's not fair... no matter how much I try to forget about it, I still remember them and I hear that little voice that beckons me to come back. HOW DID THIS HAPPEN? HOW DID I GET THE GERMANY VIRUS?

Anyway, now that I am stuck between two great countries, it's hard for me to decide where I want my life to go. Something that would really pull me back for good would naturally be a nice girl, but unfortunately nothing in that area happened over there. Strike 1. I screwed up at my job and didn't try hard, so they won't want me back. Strike 2. The German road system scares the living daylights out of me. Strike 3. So you see, I'm not cut out to be there... it is not my place. And no country is perfect and everyone has its own problems. I might as well deal with the problems here around me than over there. That empty space in my life will get filled up soon enough, it's just taking its sweet time, that's all. I just have to be patient and keep living my life the way I'm used to.

I think I will leave this journal up for all to see it. I know by mistake I accidentally told somebody from Germany about it, and he told one person and then he told the next, so in a chain reaction everyone at least from the youth group at the church there knows about this site. I had written some stuff here before about how good the girls looked and then erased it after, because I was too embarassed to leave it up there. It was written in the wrong frame of mind anyway, so it's better not to be left there. But I will probably not add any more information after today. I will continue to write a journal though as gay as it sounds, because it helps me sort out my thoughts and is just something cool to do to spend the time.

The other day I looked at the journal I had started when I was going out with a girl, and it was neat to see what I was thinking back then in 1998-1999. But that was all written by hand, not over the internet for the public to see. I might make a new website though, I have plenty of time and I finally have a little drive to do it... although ultimately I have no motivation for life. The weird bumps on my neck are still there but I am too afraid to tell anyone about it, but as long as I don't experience pain everything's ok. Now that I have a gameboy advance SP I play games on the way too... I was thinking of buying a notebook computer but some friends told me that was a stupid thing to do, so I'll just buy a regular desktop PC worth around $2000. That will make me happier I think...

So that was the last 4 and a bit months of my summer in Germany. It was good and bad, that's what I tell people. But it's time to move on and open up a new leaf in my book, because I can't stand it anymore with my old routines... it's almost as if I am moving backwards in life, always going back and reminiscing the good old days. I had been stubborn before and not wanted a girlfriend, but now more than ever I really feel that is what I'm missing. But the most important thing is my walk with God... I have neglected that portion of my life in a very big way. My Bible sits dust-covered under my bed, just begging to be opened. Perhaps I shall delve into it again. Yes I am a Christian, or at least I'm supposed to be one. I haven't exactly lived the perfect example, but I know what's right and wrong, and being a fence sitter isn't going to get me anywhere. I know The Truth, but I have never embraced it.

So long, farewell, aufwiedersehen, goodnight.

-j

I'M BACK IN CANADA!!!

Wow that was quite a ride. 4 months alone (almost) in the strangest, most wonderful land I have ever experienced. As I look back at my previous entries, I am a little worried about how strong I expressed myself in various instances. But I think it's wrong to just go back and start editing and sensoring everything. In real life you can't change the past, so I will leave it the way it is. I did change some stuff though, here and there, usually to protect people's identities or to soften up some harsh criticism. I have no idea if I will continue this journal now that I am back in my domain (by the computer, with games and videos to keep me busy), but it all depends on my free time (which as it turns out I have a lot of this semester), or my general passion for it.

Well the last couple of weeks in Germany were actually pretty good. I was going to go visit that family again, but I was too afraid to set up a train ride to go there and so forth. I hate how I am such a scared little person, afraid of making steps forward in life. I am happy in my comfort zone and never venture forth into the unknown. That is why I'm afraid I will probably never get a girl, because I will never even have the courage to ask her out! Yeah that is pretty sad indeed... some say my immersion into the computer culture has destroyed me as a living functioning human being. I hope that is not the case, because I would hate to let go of this little 'hobby' of mine.

I finished my work without a hitch, saying goodbye to everyone in my section and so forth. That was pretty uneventful to say the least, some workers didn't even know it was my last day! That's how separated I was from the other employees during my work term there. I will probably never get hired by them again, but all is my fault for sure. I'm just a little man afraid of communicating via voice with people. Scary fact.

So I basically sat around doing nothing the second last weekend in Germany. I did take the train all the way to the Stuttgart Airport though, that was a bit of an event. The Stuttgart Airport is really neatly laid out in several levels, sort of like concentric circles if you view it from the top. It has a very nice design and is also very small. I had to pay 2 Euros to go onto the observation deck, which I thought was rather appalling. And once I was there, 2 meter high railing that looks pretty much like a jail cell obstructed my view of the planes. But I guess they gotta be careful that nobody falls down from there, so that kind of precaution is necessary. Going home I witnessed a funny scene in the S-Bahn: a lady with a walker came into the train and wanted to sit down. So the gentleman sitting in the seat next to the door made room for her. But it turns out he made room for her on the wrong seat, because she couldn't set her walker in the right position! So she started cursing and complaining really loudly and everyone looked towards the scene to see what was happening. Eventually the man was fed up with her and went to sit in a different area! A girl sitting in front of me started to crack up, and I almost laughed too at the humourous situation unfolding before me. The icing on the cake though came when she wanted to get out... the man actually got up off his seat and opened up the door for her! I couldn't believe it, this guy who had been totally razzed by the lady turned the other cheek and gave helpfulness in return for rudeness. So the lady suddenly changed her attitude and made some friendly chit-chat with him while he helped her outside the train. It was a very interesting comedy routine for me.

So now comes all the good stuff. On Tuesday, right before lunchtime, me and my grandparents headed out to the waiting bus that would take us to the camp. It was a sad time for us when we said our goodbyes, because I had the feeling I would never see them again. They are already well over their 70s, and it's a good chance I will see them the next time in another place besides this earth. My gramma especially had been really nice to me those 4 months, and I was glad she washed my clothes and made me dinner every day. Although I didn't like her cooking especially, I got used to it and even liked some of the stuff. That day I also had my last German Pretzel, with butter smeared in the inside... mmmmmmm I can taste it right now how good it was. Just one of the many things I will miss from Germany, the Schwäbisch Bretzel.

The Freizeit (camp in German) is located in Bad Endbach, a little town about 30km from Marburg, which in turn is about 100km away from Frankfurt. It is a nice little place where you can relax and enjoy your time there. Basically I paid around 200 Euro for about a week, which includes food and bedding and so forth. There are lots of nice places to take hikes and the actual house has a volleyball court outside, along with some hilarious copies of basketball nets that look nothing like real North American ones. When we got there we bumped the ball around without the net. But I am getting ahead of myself here.

Although the church that I attended was boring for me, this place was always interesting every day. I thought I would hate the camp but I really liked it, and it was a nice conclusion to my rather disappointing visit to Deutschland. I actually found out a lot about myself and got to know some of the young people there and their stories. It turns out the church services are boring because all the elders are too bent on their traditionalistic ways, but the younger generation that will lead the church eventually are completely cool. They have a vision to break down the rituals and laws set by the older generation, which is very promising. Although they are really good Christians, they want to move forward and let go of some of the old ways; for example: the girls are expected to wear a head shawl when they pray, wear long skirts all the time, keep their hair at least past shoulder length in a braid or pony tail (no flowing hair that's a no-no) and wear no make-up or jewelry!! That's insane I think, and thank goodness none of the girls were too bent on those rules when I was there. But they didn't go completely opposite by wearing piercings everywhere or wearing tight revealing clothes or anything.

The entire youth group was actually really cool. They seemed to get along really well and they always did activities at night when I was trying to sleep. I would always go to sleep at 9:00pm sharp, and they would come back around midnight to 1:00am and wake me up! So eventually I just gave up and stayed awake listening to loud music while I waited for them to get back. I was in a room with 3 other guys, like any typical camp girls and guys are separated which makes sense of course. Anyway the one guy let me use his laptop and play games on it, that was nice of him, and his brother helped me out with the German train system and set up my complete train route and connections so I could get to the airport! So they are a really nice bunch of people and I always felt good and accepted amongst them... the last day I was actually forced to come see what they did at nights, and we played some games where I had to act out a scene in pantomime where someone has to guess what I'm trying to do. That was fun for me, and once they saw I did some funny acting they kept asking me to perform for them! Eventually I got tired of that though, and was totally drained out at the end. When I left the room where they had met, I put on my PJs and wanted to go to sleep. But they surprised me by showing up outside my bedroom door and personally saying goodbye to me every one of them. They even gave me a goodbye card because I was leaving early in the morning the next day... it was happy times for me, and I *almost* forgot all the pain and suffering I had gone through this summer.

The older ones in the youth even did some presentations during our evening services, which were always interesting to see. They were pretty much based on the theme of how amazing God has created the animals of the earth... one particular 2-part presentation talked about the box jellyfish from Australia and how a guy had been killed by one and come back to life! No joke! His name is Ian McCormack. We watched a video of his testimony (he is a Kiwi, so I understood what he was saying, and the translator in the video actually mistranslated some things) of how he died from the jellyfish stings and saw hell and heaven and then came back! It was pretty bizarre, but I believe it is true because of how sincere he gave his personal story, and how he came to Christ after he was brought back to life.

As for the dreaded sports, they ended up being not too bad. Volleyball on hard asphalt was the main sport played, and even I can play that to some degree. So it was not bad. Other events we did together was taking a trip to Marburg and climbing to the castle there on top of the hill... hundreds upon hundreds of steep steps with no elevator in sight! I wish I had pictures, oh well... maybe next time eh.

The church services in the mornings were interesting too. There was a pastor there from Slovakia named Alexander Barkóci that needed to be translated while he preached, and he talked about things like driving demons out of people in the name of Jesus, which is always interesting to hear. He spoke on the theme of putting on the Armour of God, from the 6th chapter of Ephesians. And lo and behold, none of the services were boring for me! And since I understand some Czech, which is the sister language to Slovakian, I even understood some of the things he said right when he said them without having to wait for the translation. His family was there with him too, and his oldest son especially, he was like a prodigy and could play the piano by ear completely. Some girls from the youth performed a small ensemble piece with him, playing their flutes and violins and guitar, it sounded pretty sweet.

As a whole church community (including the middle-aged parents and the older folks as well), we didn't do that many things together. The only one I can remember is taking a walk on an old railroad line that included marching through a 700m long tunnel completely in the dark. The good news about the whole camp experience is that is was captured by several digital cameras, and eventually I might even post some pics here if they send me the picture compilation CD. Yeah so all in all, the camp was one of the many highlights of my time in Germany, and I will miss the youth from there especially all the pretty girls, but my place is here in Canada and I gotta do what I can with what I got here. Yes there are nice babes in my area too, but I will always compare them to those German gals. Heh heh I am so pathetic, I'm trying very hard NOT to come across like a perverted old man when I say these things, but I can assure you that I am completely pure in mind about this matter, so think what you will, Jesus knows my true thoughts. I almost cried when I had to say goodbye to all of them.

The last day in Germany was interesting for me, because I had to take a train (InterCity) for the first time and it was LATE by 10 minutes!! The whole time I was on it I was shaking all afraid that I would miss my connection to the Frankfurt Airport, because this particular train only went to the main Station instead of the airport. I accidentally sat in the SMOKING car of the train, but since I had my suitcase and bags and I was tired, I didn't bother changing cars. I endured the clouds of smoke with much determination. Oh yeah an interesting thing about Germany: lots of people actually ROLL THEIR OWN CIGARETTES!! It's funny to observe them doing this, it almost looks illegal to me but it's probably not. Anyway the train was a nice smooth ride, better than the regular trains, I could barely hear the wheels grinding on the track. There are different levels of trains, this one wasn't even the best one. The best train is the ICE(InterCityExpress), which goes really fast up to 250km/h I think. I never got to ride one of those but maybe next time... they also look really sexy, especially the new aerodynamic model ICE-3, I have never seen such a nice design for a train, not even the ones from Japan. So I arrived late in the main station and didn't even get to look around, I had to RUN with a heavy suitcase past 6 tracks, and when I got there one of the train personel said no worries, they are not leaving yet! So all that running for nothing. When I got on the train I discovered I was in the car with reserved seating, so I just went to one of the doors and stood there with my baggage for about 10 minutes to the airport station. At the airport I headed towards Terminal 1, being stupid and not taking one of those luggage waggons. It was a long walk indeed, and I had to stop several times to collect myself... not only was my bag-suitcase-thingy-hybrid

ripped in one area, one of the wheels was busted and it was exteremly awkward to pull it along. My flight ticket said that Air Transat was in Terminal 1, but it turns out it was in Terminal 2!!! So I had to take an airport shuttel to that terminal. Once I got there I had to walk all the way to the other end of it to get to the check-in area, only to have to wait behind about 30 people or so. That took a good hour checking in the baggage. But it was nice hearing people speak English again, at least the ones standing in line. At the Frankfurt airport they actually check your luggage for illegal materials right in front of you... I got to see the monitor and was amazed how sophisticated the x-ray machine was, it could see everything!! As I waited for my plane to board, I went to a German McDonalds for the FIRST TIME!! Yes I had to do that at least once. McDonalds' current slogan in Germany is 'Ich Liebe Es' (I love it). The menu is based upon the American one I think, so there was no Big Xtra (my fave) in sight. Therefore I picked what looked the closest, a burger called the 'Hamburger Royal TS'. It tasted close enough, but I didn't like the fries too much. After that I found a Samsung Internet Station (free, for reasons following), and checked out all the emulation news I had missed out on. As it turned out, not much... MAME v. 0.73b had been released, other than that nothing. I tried to send an email to my brother via Hotmail, but it was strange: the mouse pointer periodically became an hourglass while I was typing... it was almost as if I was being spied by the STASI or something, making sure I wasn't writing some bad stuff!! And the A and P keys didn't work to well, along with the spacebar, so it took a good 15 minutes to write a short 1-paragraph message! Then after my fun I headed thru customs and waited for the plane boarding to begin.

The plane flight was pretty uneventful. No delays, no turbulence, smooth sailing through the clouds. The inflight food looked terrible so I always refused it when they tried to force it upon me. Only at the end I took some NASTY pretzels that stuck in my teeth, and a mint and water on the rocks. Inflight movies were Bringing Down the House (which sucked really bad unfortunately), The Italian Job (which I slept through, unfortunately, because I was dead tired at that point), and get this: FINDING NEMO!!! As soon as the PIXAR logo showed up I frantically unravelled my headphones and was actually expecting an old classic, not this completely new film. I liked the film, but I felt I lost something from it because it was in full-screen format presented on a wide screen, so major stretchy issues, and the sound was mono (booo), and the colours washed-up, and I had to stretch my neck to see it because of bad line of vision. So I will see the DivX of it which my sister thankfully downloaded while I was away. Our intermediate stop was in Halifax, and more than half the people left. That was cool because we could all choose window seats, and I picked the seat right by the left wing emergency exit. We were flying an Airbus A310 I think, with a 3-3-3 seat configuration. This family of three actually wanted to sit where I was, but the girl was too young to sit there because that particular area has huge leg room because the door is between the seats. It was amazing seeing all the cloud formations from above, and it took F-O-R-E-V-E-R to get to Toronto. It seriously seemed to take forever, I was so anxious to get home. Another highlight from the flight was catching a nice long glimps of the NIAGARA FALLS, which I recognized almost immediatelly. They looked so small and unsignificant from roughly 20,000 feet in the air. Especially the American side, heh heh (burn). I had to fill out some customs stuff on the plane, typical Canadian Protocol BS, that was not fun. "What is the net worth of items brought in from international..." BLA BLA SARS BLA ETC. I also had to wait for my busted up bag-suitcase for almost an hour because of an unexplainable delay, and then I walked out... walked out into my country, the place I call home.

Once I got home I finally got to see all the presents I had ordered for myself while in Germany... lots of games, dvds, game books, Lego, etc. And yes it was a tearful reunion with my PC. Tearful because she was hurt by nasty worms and virii, something which I got to fixing straight away. Now she is back in nice running condition, it's just my internet was supposed to have been upgraded over the summer and it is still the same speed!! So I gotta deal with that issue still. Other than that, I am happy to be back in familiar territory, and if I could do it all again? I would have bought a digital camera, maybe at least talk to one nice girl, and maybe get out more among people instead of sitting at home doing nothing..

whew that was long. I should get a t-shirt that says "I SURVIVED DEUTSCHLAND"

Well that's all for now.

-joRAM

The last message from Germany

Well this is my last journal entry for this month, as well as the last one from good old Deutschland. That is because the last few days will be hectic, finishing all the things I left for the last minute! I guess I will always be a last-minute-type-person for the rest of my life, if things keep going the way they are.

I finally got some new stuff to do, but it's not "new" per se, it's just that the program I was writing a help file for got a major overhaul, which means taking new screenshots, adding new HTML directories, and basically shuffling a lot of things around. It's definetely busy work, and I technically shouldn't be even writing this update because I need to get to work!

My manager left yesterday for his holidays, so I won't see him anymore. He was an ok person, just too busy most of the time and really awkward to talk to. Things just didn't gel very well between us it seemed. But the Germans are really careful when it comes to criticizing somebody's work, so he never actually told that I was doing a lousy job, he just kinda gave me a vibe like that. He said maybe we'll see each other again sometime in the future (ie. when/if I get a position in the company), but he didn't sound too confident in that.

The head boss guy gave me a job this week for the first time, it was just translating a document into English. Problem was, that it was edit-protected, so I couldn't change any of the writing. So we had to call up some lady and make her take off the protection. Wow how boring can life get... but I don't understand why I'm getting all the busy work AT THE END, why couldn't they find stuff for me BEFORE??? That irks me just a little bit.

I did not go see Terminator 3 and probably won't. Even though Arnie is speaking his native German in it, it's not actually him. They got some other actor to dub the voice of Arnie who can speak German very well! I don't get it, but it must be some licensing issues. Or money issues. I know this because I saw commercials for it when I was at my uncle's, and that was definetely not his voice.

I have looked at my bank records for the last 2 months and about $2000 has left my bank account in that period of time. Yikes. That's all I have to say about that. I know I spent a lot but I wish the summaries were more verbose, so that I could tell exactly what I bought with the money, instead of just telling me the store name. I thought banks were supposed to be cutting-edge these days.

I have really lost my sense of humour these last few days. I can't really laugh anymore, I'm starting to get the shakes. Why? Well I'm afraid I'm going to die... for real this time. It all started last week when I noticed some odd bumps on the back of my neck. Every day there were more bumps, now there are like 7 there. I have no clue what they are and I asked some people, who told me I should have a doctor check it. Unfortunately, health care is not free over here so I can't just do that without shelling out huge coin. Anyway, the bumps seem to go along a major artery on the left and right side of my head, and they are evenly spaced from my colar bone to the middle of my head. I'm really scared about this, I hope it's not an incurable desease or something, that would truly suck. And the last few days they have started to hurt a little as well, when I move my head around a lot. So that is why I can't come up with funny things to say anymore, because I am afraid I am living the last few moments of my life!!

Well that's it. I just have to wait about 2 weeks from now until I'm on my way home, back to reality I guess I could say. In school I have a huge design project to look forward to, with a bunch of people who I don't really know their work ethic... so it could be interesting. Also the Christian camp next week will probably suck, because they do things like sports there.

If this turns out to be my last message ever, I just wanted to say thanks to the peeps who emailed and messaged me over ICQ over the summer, you really kept me on the sane end of the spectrum. I'm glad we had the contact, it's something you take for granted until you are far away and alone. Yeah that sounds so cheesy I know... also my sister told me my computer's broken, another thing I get to look forward to when I come home. Weeeeeeeee.

see ya'll LATA (or in the afterlife?)

-Joram Andreas Nowak

Another good weekend behind me

Well the message pretty much says it all. It's a good thing I have my Aunt and Uncle around, or else Germany would have been an utterly dull experience for me. During the last week I mostly just hung around at home watching TV or playing on Pascal's computer. I installed Grand Theft Auto Vice City on his comp and played it a bit. It's an amazing game and deserves all the high praise and grades it has received from the press. But Pascal plays it even more than I do, he's on it all the time. I also downloaded around 400MB worth of Capcom games (cps1 and cps2), as well as some others, and played those too while I was bored. But nothing will ever "top" this weekend, and that pun doesn't become one until the following paragraphs.

Last week my hosts were debating about where to go for the weekend. They just kept making suggestions and I kept on agreeing with everything! I am a very indecisive person, so they were a little annoyed about that. But when my Aunt started to steer towards a shopping day in Munich, I had to voice my opinion: I wanted to see nature! I mean, at home in Waterloo we've got some of the most boringly flat landscape I've ever scene, and I am so close to the Alps that going shopping in a big city somewhere would seem like a waste. So my Uncle suggested why not go to Bavaria and some of Austria to the highest point in Germany, the Zugspitze. And what a great suggestion it was indeed, because 7:00am Saturday morning, that is where we went.

The drive was pretty uneventful. Of course there were some nice scenery here and there, and we also drove through a little village called "Wank", which I thought was pretty funny, although the germans didn't get it. We also took my aunt's mom, so we were 4 in the car. Pascal didn't want to come. We kept driving south and suddenly the landscape began to get more hilly and some hills looked like mini-mountains. Most of them were green though, with huge pine trees growing all over them. There were some pretty cool long tunnels under the mountains as well. After one such long tunnel, we suddenly ended up in Austria.

Austria is very similar to Germany. The only difference I noticed were slightly different licence plates, and the road markers were opposite colours. Also gas was cheaper so we gassed up, but not until the end of the day. When we finally got to the highest mountain in Germany (which is Austria on one side and Germany (Bavaria) on the other), we were dismayed to find out the cable car (gondola thingy) was in repairs and wouldn't be fixed until mid-August. This brought my Aunt to high heights of anger, and she stormed out of the car and demanded from one of the construction workers (amidst signs of "Danger: explosives"), how we could get up to the top. Luckily she came back all happy, saying that on Germany's side there was also a way up. So we had to drive around the mountain to Germany again so we could get up.

The town at the bottom of the mountain, Grainau, had two options to go up: cable car or cogwheel train. We thought the cogwheel train was a cool thing, so we decided upon that. Also, my aunt's mom was a little afraid she would get all dizzy by the speed the cable car would go up. Now the kicker: €43 for a return-trip ticket to the top. My Uncle practically exploded in anger and disagreement, refusing to go up. Even my Aunt and her mom said it was way too much. But I didn't want to give up that fast: I told them that it was worth the price for me, because I have never even seen mountains, and to come this close to going to the top and not going, I wasn't going to do that. They were actually all surprised that I was so pationate about it, and that I didn't care about the price, being a "poor student", so they agreed to go up, as they wouldn't let me go by myself. Unfortunately my Uncle was still mad, so he decided to stay on the bottom while we had our fun.

This whole debating while we should go up or not and the eventual buying of the expensive tickets all happened while the train was getting filled up and ready to go. So we naturally assumed the train would leave without us and frantically rushed to get through the turnstiles to get in. I put my ticket in quickly and the lights flashed green and red. I pushed the bar but it wouldn't budge! So I kept trying and kept getting the flashing lights, so thinking the train was about to leave pushed the bar forward, and with some force applied the bar turned slowly and I got through. Later I found out I had put my ticket in the wrong way, and had not noticed the arrow.

The train actually ended up leaving 10 minutes after we got in, probably to wait for more customers (or suckers I guess). The cogwheel train has several cogged gear thingies running through the middle of it that grip on a special rail in the middle of the track so it can do practically 45° climbing with no issues. It felt pretty much like a roller coaster when it climbs to the highest point of the track, and probably uses the same system, only it takes 35 minutes. As we kept climbing higher and higher we saw a nice lake on the bottom, the Eibsee, which looked pretty nice. One time we had to wait for a train that was coming down, because it is mostly only one track the whole way up, except in certain sections where it splits into 2 to allow trains to pass. About 1/3 through the ride we came to a long tunnel. You could almost go insane in the tunnel, it is about 20 minutes in there and it's dark, with only dim lights in the train to see things. So naturally when we got out of the tunnel, the light at the top was blinding.

Once we got out of the train I put on long pants and a jacket, but that ended up being too much so I put the jacket away and left the pants. The air was so amazing near the top. I was surprised to see only rock, and hardly any snow at all. I guess the warm summer here even took it's toll on the highest point in Germany. There was a restaurant chalet type house there, where I could smell tasty fries, and basically you could walk around anywhere. There was even a small chapel that you could walk over to, and also an 8-seater ski lift seat, that was put out of commision and just there to show how it was before. Or something. But the view was not so good, because we were not at the complete top yet. The only way up was a gondola on a cable, and my Aunt's mom did not want to go on that. So just the two of us went up and from the bottom you couldn't even see the top because there was a cloud in the way!

The gondola ride was really smooth and only took about 3 minutes. Once we got to the very top the air was even better and the view was spectacular once the clouds moved out of the way. There was also an observation deck and restaurants up there, with people everywhere. The cool thing about this though, and the highlight of my trip, was an offshoot area where you could climb and the authorities held no responsibilities if you fell. It was pretty much ladder rungs and a steel cable that helped you get up. There is a cool cross that stands on top of the highest rock there, it is painted gold and has lines coming out the top that make it look like the sun is shining behind it, and that's where I was going. I made my way up carefully, and ended up being in a traffic jam with people wanting to get down! Once I finally made it to the cross, my Aunt took several pictures of me so that I had some proof I was up there. Maybe I will post them on this site one day. That was the coolest experience ever though, being at the very top of Germany.

When we drove home that day, we stopped at a restaurant and wanted to eat outside. But there were so many wasps that we started to complain, except for my Uncle who kept calm and laughed at how we were afraid of little things like that. I ordered water and naturally got carbonated mineral water, and some schnitzels with fries. It was pretty good. Later that night (it was about 10:00pm), we made a short - unnessesary might I add - stop at the Bodensee, the largest lake in Germany. It was useless because we only stayed for a few minutes and then left for home. The only other notable thing that night was stopping at Burger King. What is so strange about that? Well there were huge tvs showing music videos in the corners, people were allowed to smoke in there, and there was an Internet Machine too (a box with a coin-operated computer that lets you surf the net for an hour), which I had never seen before. I also tried their really cheap slurpee-wannabes, which were horrible compared to the Real Deal at 7-11.

So that was my weekend. Well Saturday only but Sunday was so boring it's not worth mentioning. I hope that I get to experience more fun times again this summer. My boss gave me some new work to do so I should be (semi)busy until the end, which is August 22. Woohoo only 3 weeks of work left, and then the last week is at a Christian camp. That should be, um, interesting I assume. No more video games though as far as I can tell, in Germany at least, so I'll miss that. Today it's back to gramma and grampas place, with an overstuffed backpack full of dirty laundry.

-Joranium

Good thing the emailing has stopped...

...because there is nothing really new to report. I am bored as always, taking it easy at work every day. But this week has been different. My bosses have been starting to pay attention to me, realizing that I have been without work for a long time now, and tomorrow I will have a discussion with one of them concerning this fact. At least I think that's why... there might be some other things that might be addressed, such as my anti-socialite behaviour, and my general disconcern for everything around me. But we'll see, it should definetely be an eye-opening experience for me. Either the Germans completely retaliate once they realize their employees are doing no work for money, or they work out an agreement that benefits for all. Either way I'm really nervous about tomorrow, because I really have no excuses why I've been doing nothing but surfing the Internet for the last couple of weeks.

The worst part about work is seeing all my colleagues doing important work around me while I do nothing. I could really be helpful in many situations, but they somehow don't want to include me in their projects. It is also my fault for not talking to anyone, but I can't put the blame squarely on myself. There needs to be some communication to move things forward, IMO.

My family as of today is gone on vacation. They were staying with my grandparents the last 2 weeks but now they are headed to Austria and the Czech Republic, to visit friends and family and also to just relax. That's just my parents and my little brother, who I'm sure will be a lot of fun to have around. 8-year-olds can get on ones nerves and I'm glad he'll be gone the next 2 weeks. They will come back again during the first week of August with my sister, who has been singing in a choir for the last week. Some people get all the fun... but at least I'm making some money out of doing nothing all day.

I have started to get addicted to Internet purchases. I throw my Credit Card number around like it's a frisbee. I have spent upwards of $1000 already on all sorts of crap, ranging from DVDs to games to LEGO, of all things. Yes, the childhood plaything that I so loved back then, it has come back with a vengeance in the form of a cool Lego Racers F1-racecar. It is modelled after the Williams/BMW F1 car, and at 1483 pieces it costs about $200 CAN!! Calling me stupid and crazy for purchasing it is an understatement. It was an impulse purchase. My main problem with buying stuff online is that I buy from the most obvious choices, instead of looking for deals. This has probably cost me 100s of dollars in the past, and will be my downfall later in life (ie. buying a car or a house). I'm just really terrible with handling money, I guess.

Now that July is almost over, I am afraid of what August will bring. Perhap (gasp!), actual work? I'm keeping my fingers crossed for that possibility, but as I said before, only time will tell what is in store for me. One thing for sure is that if there are no more entries from now on, I am either really busy or have been laid off. Those are the only two options I can see now with my limited vision.

Well I'm sorry this post hasn't been so entertaining, it is mostly for me anyway, being the selfish individual that I am, as a guide post of what the situation was like on this day. All my posts are a sort of mural of my bleak life here in Germany, and my slow progress towards insanity. I wish they never would have given me this stupid documentation-editing job, because what I did with the work I did very poorly. First of all, I don't understand the software that the documention is for. Secondly, my grasp of written technical German is very poor, and the additions I made are embarrassing to read even by me. I can tell when something is written well or not. If you contrast my stuff with what was already there, it is very easy to see what stuff I wrote and what the previous guy wrote. So in short, it's a hack job.

I think that's all I can think of for now. Sometimes I think I'm in the movie Office Space, because I have all these bosses over me I don't even know who to answer to anymore. On a final note I hope that things get better from now on, in the last stretch before I come back home to reality. At least I have unlimited bandwidth and a faster connection to look forward to once I get back, I'm glad Bell changed their ways!

-J.A.N.

Finally something new to report!

Well today something unexpected happened. I was sitting in the train as usual looking out the window, when in walks this really nice looking chick and sits in the bench across from me! I always dread these moments because then I can't look ahead without making it look like I'm checking them out, so I just kind of take quick glances every now and then. I also use the reflection in the window to my advantage ;-). She was about 160cm or so, sort of red-dyed brown hair tied back behind her, beautiful hazel eyes, full lips, a ring pierced through her cute little nose and yes she also had a nice body to complement her angelic face. She wasn't wearing anything too revealing though, just sort of a grey track suit.

So as I'm checking her out in my non-obvious manner, she proceeds to unzip her top to about mid level, revealing a plunging neckline that gave me a tease peak of her cleavage. That completely took me by surprise, and at first I thought she was trying to seduce me but she didn't really look at me. If only she would smile at least once, I would have melted right there. Of course being me, I didn't try to make eye-contact and just kinda enjoyed the moment, hoping my zipper could withstand the pressure. When we got out in the main train station I was afraid I wouldn't be able to walk without obvious crippling effects, but I think I made it out ok. Wow... I desperately need a girlfriend I think :-\ (or I should buy that digital camera I've been talking about!) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-)

Well now that I've revealed my desperate side (I am human after all, forgive me), here is the story of what happened on the weekend...

My family took me with them on a trip to the western area of Germany, namely the states of Rheinland-Pfalz and Nordrhein-Westfalen. It was neat seeing the slow progression towards flat-country as we drove along. I also liked the many tall wind turbines, I thought they were kinda neat. They are about 150m high and have rotor blades with a diameter of 70m. Every one of the three blades weighs about 8t and is about 34m long. If you're wondering why I know all this it's because I did research on the internet, www.nordex.de.

The car has no air conditioning, like 90% of all cars in Deutschland, so it was open window times the whole way. Our plan was to go north and visit my dad's cousin's family, then an old school friend, next a missionary who had been in South Africa, and to finish the trip with a visit to a family I had stayed with last time I was here (7 years ago).

My dad's cousin let us sleep over at her townhouse for 2 days (friday & saturday), while we would go home on Sunday. We got there an hour late because of some construction work on the autobahn. Anyway, the house was a virtual junkyard inside. There were so many odds & ends sitting and hanging around everywhere that it was hard to breath. I don't know how these people lived there. All the food we ate was terrible and stale, and I was glad to get out when we did. The only good thing inside that house was an old european SNES, which I played with as much as I could get. The kid didn't play anymore, he is more into skateboarding now. How can somebody just give up games like that?

That day we visited my dad's old school buddy from 30 years ago. He is now one of the big bosses of the WITTE company, which designs, tests, and distributes locks for all the major car manufacturers in the World. It was amazing to see how the people worked there and how much went into designing locks and mechanisms for the automobile industry. The simulation and testing machines were just mind blowing into how much detail they went into testing parts. There was even a cool laser machine that could etch out a super-complicated part in just a few hours, whereas it would take several months to design a machine to build the same piece! They did this because they need prototypes quickly, and what did this machine cost? Oh just €2-million. !!! So this dude (his name is Mr. Rückhert), is now the head guy in this company and is responsible for over 2000 workers! Meanwhile my dad works for himself...wow I feel so proud! Actually my dad's cool, he just hasn't had that much luck. We drove to the production plant too, in his nice Audi, and saw them producing the parts in the assembly line. The factory was HUMONGOUS, but he told us that there is one 8X bigger in the Czech Republic where they do most of the production. My dad's actually going there in the next few weeks, perhaps (?) I will join him. So that was a fun day.

The next day we went to the Rhein River with my family and looked at some of the ships in the harbour. That was ok I guess, the harbourfront had a big water lock that was probably made in the 1700s that showed all the previous highwater levels of the Rhein. Some notable heights were like 9m above regular level! Then after lunch we went to visit the missionary from Africa. We watched a video of his time there, and the african people live so plain but yet they really get into it when it comes to a church service. He has a 16-year-old daughter there that me and my sister talked to for a bit. She knew English (British, nice accent) and German, so we talked to her in english. Yes she was kinda cute and blonde but unfortunately not within my age range, so I didn't make any advances.

Then we went to the city of Wuppertal, which has a really cool suspension railway that runs through the city. It goes mostly over the Wupper river, but also goes over a street a little bit too. There was a huge accident there 4 years ago where some people died, but I felt safe on it. It hung from the rails and only had two small waggons. The first way it was really crowded, but then going back to where we left the car I got to sit right behind the driver. The view was pretty cool hanging over the river, and in the corners it also rocked to the side. It was nowhere near as fast as The Vortex at Canada's Wonderland, but had a similar design. Outside at the last stop I also saw a bakery that was called "Nowak's Bakery", that was pretty sweet. So Saturday was also a fun day, but nothing prepared me for Sunday.

On Sunday it was planned that we would go to this church that the family I stayed with 7 years ago went to, and then afterwards stop by their place. I remember the good times we had with the kids back then. It was only me and my oldest sister, and at the time they had 5 kids. To make a long story short, I kinda fell for the second-oldest girl of the family back then.

She is blonde and sort of green-eyed, with an awesome smile and a really athletic body. The most important thing though, was that she made me feel good back then, building up my pathetically small self-esteem. We used to laugh a lot and have fun, and once we got to know each other more (we stayed there 2 weeks), we started to hug and stuff. Remember I was 16 and she was 12, so I was always too afraid to move forward at such a contraversial time (puberty, heh heh). But it seems girls mature quicker than guys. I felt like we had a spiritual connection, like we were meant to be together or something. Yeah I know that's cheesy. But dammit it was my first infatuation, and I'm not embarrassed about it. When we left for Canada back then, she gave me a really long hug and I remember feeling her long hair on my arms, and feeling like electricity was running through my body.

So you can understand how nervous I was to meet with this family again after 7 years. We lost our way to the church because of some shoddy directions, and had to ask people a lot for the way. When we finally found the church and walked in, I saw HER there. She was playing the bass guitar in the worship band, and she looked exactly like I remembered her. Only now, she is 19 years old, so the situation is different... or so I thought. After the church service all the now-older members of the family greeted me and I recognized them all. The only one that didn't greet me was her... only from far off, she mouthed the word"Joram". That was it!? I was so disappointed, and I had a gut feeling at that moment that would later be confirmed... she was taken. :-( :-( :-(

It turns out the oldest sister was gone that week, so I never got to see her. Other bad news was that the father, who I had looked up to, had died from cancer. As we followed the mother's van to their house, I thought back on the good times we had had, and if they could ever be repeated again. The times were so good that I had actually even temporarily forgotten about (gasp!) computer games!! Of course I got back into video games once I was back in Canada almost instantly, but for those brief weeks of bliss, my mind was free from them.

A new girl had been added to the family, so now there are 6 kids. She and the second-youngest look almost exactly the same exept for the size difference. She is only 6 years old, so it must have been really tragic losing her daddy at only 3 years of age! It almost made me choke back tears thinking about it.

So they still lived in the same place. It is a little village called Guldental near the healing springs city of Bad Kreuznach. Some roads leading up to the house were at 45°, I swear! (and yes that is a degrees symbol, the Germans have it on their keyboard why don't we???) Wine country all over that place, where backyards are full of grapevines. Really scenic! We had a barbecue that afternoon, with some really tasty meat and everything was perfect...except that 'my' girl now had a boyfriend. He came with her, and as it turned out, he was my arch-nemesis from 7 years ago! I remember he was really rude to me back then, making fun and just not being very courtious to the Canadian visitor. So that made me sad... she never really talked to me either as she was too busy with him, putting her arms around him, touching him, letting him put his hand on her leg, etc. She also hardly ever smiled anymore, and I was pretty depressed about it. That's why the whole experience there was bittersweet for me. It was a happy reunion, but with reality-bites-type stuff thrown into the mix. On another note, even if she would have been single I don't think I would have made a move anyway, because well, I'm me after all.

I did talk a lot with the third-oldest sister a lot though. I had been good friends with her back then too, but never was infatuated with her like with the second-oldest. We talked about things like old times, careers, school, life. It was the highlight of my time there. She asked me if I still draw, and I told her yes when I'm super bored or want to show off! She is a brunette and looks like her mom, while the other one is more after her late father. They are both pretty girls IMO, but damn these european chicks need to learn to shave their armpits. I think only like 50% of them do, as far as I've seen. It's just nasty, but I guess I'm just conditioned that way. I felt something between us, but I don't know about these feelings anymore. They betray me more often than not...

The only boy in the family is taller than me now at only 14 years of age. He is into skateboarding too just like all his cousins. He has darker skin that looks like a permanent sun tan, with light patches on his knees and elbows. Maybe it's some kinda weird skin condition. Him and my brother and his cousins played games outside, running around the house with wooden and plastic guns and pistols. I just sat listening to people speak. There were about 5 families there, and we were the only family that wasn't related. One cousin of the family I had stayed with had this really hot blonde girlfriend, but she didn't seem too smart to me. That was just my impression, I could be wrong though she could be a genious for all I know. Blonde is good, but intelligence makes it even better!

So in summary: boyhood crush destroyed! But you know, I think it was never meant to be. Why should I be with a German girl if I'm not going to live there? It doesn't make sense really... to tear a girl out of her homeland and force her to live in North America, no I'm not that cruel! I will try to visit the family again this summer, and hopefully I will mend my relationship with the one that I had liked (who was cold as ice this time round), and maybe develop something stronger with the family that goes beyond a dreamlike fantasy world.

To this day I will never understand how people without a tv and video games (them) can have such an enviable lifestyle, so free and content. I mean, I didn't even notice their father had died by the way they acted. My only explanation is that they got Jesus, and that's all they will ever need to live a rich, fulfilling life.

This has probably been my longest entry yet, but I'm glad I did it because I had to get a lot of things off my chest. I feel like these journal entries are a good way to organize my thoughts and learn about myself (after I read them again), and maybe some people who read them might find them amusing, or if not, well screw you nobody forced you to read it!! HA HA HA just joshin.

-Joram "Keep it Real" Nowak

The hate swells up inside me more every day

I woke up today wondering what I was going to do at work today. I am now sitting here doing nothing at all, except editing the stupid manual again. The dumb thing is that other people in the department are writing manuals for the same thing I'm doing, but they are way more technical because they understand the software. I don't know how I will get through 2 more months like this, something has to give soon.

On Friday we had a little party to inaugerate the new hall across the street. It's pretty much a big warehouse where they put machines together and test them out. There are also some offices at the top with a nice view into the main area, if that is your definition of a nice view. There was some speeches at the beginning by some of the head people, including the boss of the company. He's not the big boss of teamtechnik, just of this particular location. He showed a bunch of statistics and stuff and how the company's growing. Some other guy also mentioned all the new workers since the last time they had an assembly, and I was mentioned as someone from Canada doing a practical course. WHAT?? They don't even know what I'm doing here, I thought at least somebody knew. Oh well I guess I'm the most expendible person in the company. That just confirmed my usefullness to me, and I felt even worse than usual. He also mentioned that internet use at the company will have to decrease, so we are only allowed to surf during our lunch break now. That's ok I guess, but I think I will die without a constant stream of internet all day. Then we got free beer and food, but I just ate some food and then left. It was raining like crazy, but the rain here in Germany is pretty weak compared to real rain that we know, I barely even felt it!

Gas is so expensive here I noticed the other day. About €1.15 per litre, which is about $1.70. That's crazy, so most people have diesel cars, except even that fuel costs more than our gasoline. Cars also seem weaker here, even though there are steeper and more frequent hills to get over! Sometimes I'm walking and I hear a weeny engine behine me, expecting a Mini or something. But then I turn around and it's a huge van! I don't know how they do it seriously.

The reason why I don't have any work is mostly my fault though, now that I look at it. I'm too afraid to confront my manager about more work, because I like taking it easy. But there is a limit to how easy you can take things, especially if you are milking your work to every last drop. I'm afraid that the new work will be hard stuff, and I will actually have to think about something. I am sort of on vaction from work, and they think I'm doing a practical course here instead of really doing something. I was supposed to prepare a list of problems I found in the program, as well as topics that needed descriptions. That was done more than a month ago, and I still haven't showed it to anyone. I'm too chicken to go out of my little comfort zone, and I think it will cost me big time once my manager finds out I've been doing nothing but generating fake work all over June. I'll just wait and see what happens like always.

Well that's all of my boring life for now. There's really not much more to tell. Life sucks, and will only go downhill from here... now it's back to taking it easy and pretending to be doing something useful! weeeeeeeeeeeee

-Jack 'a' Ninny

Well another week has gone by...

...And there is seriously nothing interesting to tell. The truth is, there is always less and less to tell in these updates, and I'm getting tired of them. I will probably not buy a digital camera to get pictures, unless there is a good deal somewhere.

If there isn't an update here in a long time it means I either got bored or lost iinternet access. I know it looks really GHETTO right now, but there are links on the left so you can read whatever date you want, and my email's there too.

I wanted to apologize to the readers of my previous entries if they were somewhat exteremely negative or offensive. I just wanted to let out some steam, so I did it. Maybe I regret writing some things down, but the fact remains that I don't like it here very much at all.

Things have improved, though. I took the username/password of the public access internet computer at work, and applied them to the PC I do my work on. Voila! Instant Internet access. And I finally activated MS-OfficeXP, which only had about 10 days left or so. So I've been catching up on my surfing now ;-) Unfortunately, the Network Admin has locked out lots of stuff, namely Kazaa, Emule/Edonkey, mIRC, FTP, etc. It's terrible not having access to stuff, but I got around some things. The FTP issue has been solved by using an HTTP FTP service, which is luckily free.

I am still kind of stretching out my work that I got from the first day! I am adding new stuff to the help file and making sure everything matches up when I compare it to the WordDoc help. So far they are almost exactly the same, except I gotta add some more stuff to the Word Doc. I even wrote a list up of ideas of things to do, and I think the stuff I came up with is good for taking up time. But I will concentrate on getting everything done that's necessary first, and then later on add the extra things if they still haven't found new work for me to do.

As far as non-work stuff goes, my mom and my youngest brother came on saturday and Tommy's been bothering me since he first saw me. It's just like old times, except I'm in no mood for games these days. So I played a little game and locked him in my room. That scared him straight and now he leaves me alone. But he'll be back to torment me again soon, I know it. Soon my dad and my sister will join them and then 5 of us will be here in Germany for a while, at least in July.

I've been able to track down some things that I thought were not in Germany. These include peanut butter, Pringles, Subway (which I mentioned earlier), and water. They are a little hard to track down but they are there. My sister also sent me some tasty toffee treats, that'll last me for a week or so. Thanks for that btw, sissy. The water was actually there the whole time, it's still called "Mineral Water", except the label says "without carbon dioxide". Then it tastes like really good spring water! So now I take 2 water bottles to work every day, and that's GTHBA. So it's not all that bad anymore in the drink aspect of things.

I think I am starting to accept my doom here more than I used to. After reading some emails, I realized my having a job at all makes me fortunate. So I will make the best of the situation and try to find more work to do around here, once I stop being such a pansy.

It has been really hot the last few weeks without hardly any rain at all. I come home sweating like crazy every day. Here is where a shower would come in handy, but no, grandparents only have a bathtub. So it's a little awkward. When I was at my Aunt and Uncle's, I showered twice every day!

Today I met a guy at work who is part american and part german. I have seen him around the office a lot but never actually talked to him. I was shocked when he suddenly spoke perfect English to me with no trace of German accent at all! But he speaks really good American AND German, where I speak good Canadian and passable German. He is from Pennsylvania, but I can't remember his name. :-P There is a guy here from Australia as well, we get along pretty good, and speak English all the time. His name's Kristian. He's a pretty quiet type guy, and I can't understand him sometimes, but it's all cool. I need to keep speaking English or I'll come back to Canada with a screwed up accent.

I enjoy surfing the net and I hope that they won't take it away from me. It's almost like old times of summers gone by, accept for the fact that I can't access mass-downloading software networks. Oh well, I'll be sure to catch up on my DivX, Isos and mp3s when I get back.

Well June is almost over and it seems I've lived through almost 2 months. It's kind of crazy if you think about it. I hope the next two months will prove interesting rather than boring, but at least with Internet I'll be able to live through it no matter how it turns out.

-joramee out

Random musings of the past month or so...

I've enjoyed typing out these long-winded entries as much as receiving feedback from people. It's nice to know that there are people out there that are interested in what you're doing all the time, even though it's not that exciting. The fact is, I'm a pretty dull boring person, so there's not really that much that goes on in my life. But when there is something, even something small, I must write about it. That's why I like to write these updates.

I know it would be cool if you could reply to the messages inside the actual webpage, but I just don't know my way around those Bulletin Board programs enough to do it. Maybe if I'm really super bored, I will actually learn one of those programs and you might see a surprise one day, but as for now, this page will stay in a simple table format.

I know all this stuff is self-involved, and pretty lame as well, and it might seem I'm thinking highly of myself by assuming somebody actually cares about my entries by posting it on the Internet, but please understand: I am in a land of mineral water here folks. I'm dying slowly every day at my boring job, and I need some kind of an outlet!

I also like the idea that I will be able to read these updates/entries myself after the summer is done, and see my progression. The other thing is that maybe some of you could tell others that I forgot to include in my emails, or people who's email I didn't know. I hope y'all realize if I had my computer and the Internet at home I would never in a million years be doing this btw!

Well this past week was something else, that's for sure. Once again I was reunited with the marvelous inventions of TV and computer (in a games aspect). Video games were played, shows were watched, and good times were had. But that's not all I did... I even did some things I have never done before, ever. Like go on a bike tour in the Rems Valley. Or go to a Biergarten. Or go to a German movie theater. or ride on the backseat of a motorbike to Heidelberg. Or eat pizza with hot peppers on it.

Yes it was definetely good times at my Uncle's place last week. I am still staying for tonight, but then it's off back to the grandparents place, where the boredom never ends. My Aunt and Uncle made a big effort to get me out away from the computer though, and they certainly did a pretty good job of it. I'm glad that I got out, but of course sitting on a bike seat for a long time causes major bruising issues.

I already mentioned last weekend a little bit, but I will expand a little here. We also did some mini-golf on Monday, but that is nothing too interesting. It was really hot the last week, so it was hard to sleep sometimes. The Germans have these weird roll-shutters on all their windows, so in the morning you can hear them rolling up on all the houses. They even have them over glass doors that lead to balconies. Anyway, that day I also had my first water-based popcicle in Germany, except it was nowhere near Rainbow Rocket quality. It was pretty small too, and looked like a hand holding up a finger. I'm not sure which finger... I love chocolate, but I'm not a fan of chocolate popcicles. It's a weird thing really, but that's just it. So at least I can cross one of those missed snacks off the list!

Then on Tuesday I think it was, I sat on a motorcycle for the first time. It was not so bad, but I hung on for dear life 'cause I was a little scared of going down. We went to a nice park where there is a pond beside a mini-palace-thingy. It was pretty cool, and there were ducks there that were fighting each other. Or playing. I couldn't tell. My Aunt and Uncle both ride Suzuki Intruders, the only difference is one has 1400CC and the other has 800CC. It's not bad riding on the back, except I don't really feel comfortable sitting so close to someone stradling their, um, back... but I learned to ignore that little issue after a while. And it gets REALLY uncomfortable after about an hour or so.

Then nothing much happened that week, because we all went to work that week. I tried some Italian pizza, and ordered pepperoni on it. But pepperoni is something else here in Germany, so what I got was hot green peppers (like jalapenos practically) all over the pizza, and it was pretty nasty. They weren't even cut up, they were whole! But I'll remember that for next time. I also want to try a DÖNER some time as well, they are kind of like hamburgers. They look good as well. The only american fast food places they have here are McDonalds and Burger King, and I haven't gone to either yet. It should be interesting... apparently everthing there is 2 or 3 times more expensive than in Canada, but tastes WORSE! We'll see. Also there is apparently a Subway in Stuttgart, I gotta check that out sometime.

Then Saturday came the big bike ride to Heidelberg. I can't remember if it's BERG or BURG, oh well. The difference is 'hill' or 'castle', but it could be both, since the city is in a valley with hills around it, and there are also lots of castles! The ride there was pretty scenic, we went through some nice areas. Another guy came with us, some Czech guy that my Uncle knows. When we got close to Heidelberg, it began to rain, so we stood underneath a bridge until it stopped. But because of the stop, we could only stay in Heidelberg for a little while. There were lots of American and Japanese tourists there, and one little American kid told its mom "I want to go on the canoes!", but they were actually professional rowboats. I thought that was funny..

Heidelberg is a city that's divided by the Neckar River, and both sides have hills on them, so the houses are all on the hills. One side has rich people's villas on it, the other side has the regular houses and tourist places, as well as a cool castle on the hill. I should have picked up some brochures or postcards, but I forgot. Then on the way back we took the Autobahn, and that's where I nearly went insane. My ass started to hurt so much I just started talking crazy things to myself. Nobody could hear me, not even myself, but it was fun. I was so thankful to get off that bike, and it seemed forever that we were on the Autobahn. And we drove so slow too... at least it seemed that way, since everybody passed us. But my uncle told me afterwards that we went 120kph nearly the whole time, in the slow lane! Crazy.

So during the times I was at home I mostly played computer and watched TV. As I reported earlier, Pascal doesn't know anything about computers, he just wants to play games. He's really into Magic: The Gathering cards, he says it's really popular. I don't know if it's so big anymore in Canada, but I'm out of the loop as far as those things go. He's also into DragonballZ, so he has a whole row of German translated comics in a shelf, about 30 of them, like fat graphic novel types. It was nice playing the emulators and roms with no slowdowns, as his compy is slightly faster than mine. I played Super Metroid for him and showed him what it was like in the good old days. He seemed kinda interested in it, or maybe he was just humouring me, but I didn't care. He also has a wireless controller, and I enjoyed using it. I think I will get my own once I get back, it's nice not having the wire limiting you all the time.

As for TV, my uncle has satellite with a lot of locked out channels. In all I'd say about 150/500 channels work, and some of them are just doubles. There are some english stations too, like NBC-Europe, and CNN. I usually watched those because I need the English connection really badly. I hate watching movies in german though, the voice actors do a decent job but their voices all sound the same somehow. Actors have disctinct voices that set them appart, and once they're dubbed over it ruins the movie or show. Yep, no subtitles here except for some rare examples, such as the Ali G show, which was funny. Also the channel surfing was weird, you have to press down to go up a channel, and up to go down a channel. That was odd at first, but it made sense somehow because the list starts with channel 1 on the top and goes down to higher channels, like an ascending sorted list.

Another cool thing was the racing channel. You could actually select different cameras and stuff during a Formula 1 race, which was pretty sweet. We watched Michael Schumacher win a race in Montreal. Here in Germany he is really popular, he's like a big celebrity, and they call him 'Schumi'. Oh yeah, and sensorship is really loose here too. They are allowed to show breasts and even full frontal nudity (quick flashes). Some of the late night callgirl commercials were a little more, er, risque than the ones in Canada, that's for sure. Not that I watch those... all the time. Also it's possible to catch naked breasts even on big ad posters at train stations. Rated R movies can be seen at 16 years already, instead of 18. And I saw an Eminem music video, and no swearing was bleeped out. The Germans use foul language really losely, it's not that offensive to them. They never say 'poo poo' or 'fesces' or 'crap', they say 'shit'. It's simply like that... I was a little taken aback at first, especially by words like that being used in a professional working environment, but I'm getting used to it. Not that I will use those words myself, but I understand now the cultural difference gives them some leeway.

And that was pretty much the whole week. Lots of things happened, and once again I am sorry I don't have a digital camera or something, that's really hurting right now that the only memories I have will be written down. I will remember for next time I guess... or maybe I should just buy a camera. I have the money for it... well we'll see. These wordy updates would certainly be a whole lot more interesting if there was visuals included!

I will try to update every week or so. If by some kind of miracle I actually get real work to do, the updates will be fewer and far between, but I have no fear of that at the present time.

Ciao,

JoWak

So many holidays in June!

Next week will be the second holiday in June, and May had one in the last week. That's crazy in my opinion, the weeks are just so short these days. But after that there's nothing in July and August, so full 5 week days are ahead of me. I've decided that even though my work sucks, at least I don't have to think while I'm doing it. I'm not big on thinking, so that's a plus point. I will try to see the good side of things from now on, and simply accept my fate of office lackey.

I went motorbiking on Tuesday with my Aunt and Uncle, they have 2 Suzuki Intruders. I think that's what they're called. Or Invaders. Whatever. It was pretty cool as I haven't sat on a motorcycle before. It's like a bicycle but faster, which is pretty much logical. I kept bumping helmets because I was too afraid to fall down. It was nice being cooled off on such a hot day, though. It was super hot this week hopefully it'll cool down soon.

I thought I might make some more observations regarding differences in Germany.

As some of you know already, cars drive pretty fast over here, even though curves and hills outnumber straightaways 100 to 1! Cars speed like crazy, especially in areas where there are no speed limits, like the Autobahn. Cars go 200kph easy on there, even cars that aren't sports cars.

Also, Stop signs are a joke here. They are so rare, and when you do see them they are just there to serve as 4-way stops when the traffic lights malfuncion, so you basically drive through a stop sign when the light is green. It's a weird feeling. The yield signs are in places where there should be stop signs, and places that should have yield signs, have no signs at all! Well some have these signs that are circles with a cross and an arrow pointing right. That means the car on your right goes first. But what if there are four people in the intersection at the same time? Also all the cars are standards, but I think I mentioned that already, and they mostly don't have air conditioning in them.

And some intersections are super complex, every single lane has their own light, so left, straight, right for four directions, that's 12 lights. So you'll never see someone trying to turn left on a green sitting in the middle of the intersection waiting for an opening. The pedestrian signals are a red dude standing and a green dude walking. Makes sense. Except the red dude just appears and stays solid, there's no flashing before hand. And of course no turning right on a red signal, that's obvious. The actual lights are on your side of the road too instead of on the other side, so you gotta duck down and look up to see your light change. Some even change backwards, so they go from red to amber to green, like in a race.

Curbs are made out of small 2-foot sections instead of a long continuous band of concrete. And there are lots of cobblestone driveways and parking lots, not so much ashphalt except on driving roads. The city center in Stuttgart is almost impossible to get through with a car. There is a big street called the "König Strasse" which is there for pedestrians only, so basically imagine downtown Toronto (Yonge Street for example), only instead of cars and people it's only people!

All the houses look the same too, they have one flat colour for the outer wall, and a pretty steep roof covered with rounded brick tiles. So no aluminum panelling or brick layers or sandy roof shingles over here. Windows are funny, you can either open them sideways like a door, or if you turn the handle 90 degrees you can pull them open so they tip towards the inside. I haven't seen one sliding window yet, except on cars. Also all houses have intercoms on them and lots have gates in front, locks all over the place. The Germans are paranoid somebody will get in, or maybe they just like it that way. You don't see lots of tall 13+ story appartments either, instead there's just lots of houses bunched up really tight. They cram them full of people, and the roofs usually don't have an attic so you can see the tip of the roof from the inside if you're on the top floor. Toilets don't have handles to pull down, instead they have buttons built into them, that you depress to start the flushing process. The button is sometimes about as big as my hand, but others are just little buttons. Either way, they are built into the toilet. Refrigerators and stoves are really small, they are even built into the kitchen decor sometimes to make it look like they're not there. For example, you open a random cupboard and whoa! You just opened the fridge door. Or hey! you opened up the stove vent!

I might have mentioned the lax cigarette and alcohol laws here, so you can skip this paragraph if you already know. But it's unbefrickenleavable to tell you the truth. They have cigarette vending machines on every corner. Each pack is 3€, which is about 5$ Canadian I think. So any little kid could buy them, and they are also in the cash checkout line in the grocery stores. Alcohol you can have when you're 16. It's all about the beer here of course, you can even drink it in public areas, like in the train station or bus terminal or anywhere you want. So lots of people drink and smoke here.

The stores that have grocery items also have everything else in them, including motor oil. So imagine Canadian Tire, Chapters, Zehrs, Sears, the LCBO, the Beer Store, and Future Shop all mixed into one. And they call all cereals Corn Flakes! So the original Corn Flakes are called 'Die Originalen'. Most people eat lunch and supper backwards, so for lunch they'll have a huge warm meal while for supper it's just bread with cold cuts and stuff. It screwed up my whole metabolism process, now I'm getting fat because of it. I'm 80kg now and I was 70kg when I came!

Well I've pretty much run out of crap to say now, but I will come up with more sooner or later, that's for sure. These journal entries are simply fuelled by immense boredom and lack of real work, so that's why they are so long and may repeat things now and then. And you don't have to email me about them if you don't want to, just if you got some comments or questions.

well that's all for now

-joramee

Matrix Reloaded thumbs down :(

Well I caved and went to see the movie in German!!! I just didn't want to miss it, that's all. Unfortunately, the action scenes were ho-hum as far as martial arts goes, and the bullet-time crap got boring really fast. It's not new enough and they didn't introduce anything that really made a big impact on me. Also some parts had lots of confusing talking in it that I didn't understand, and to tell you the truth even in English I don't think I would get it. The stuff about 6 different Neos or something... hopefully all who read this have seen it and and I haven't spoiled anything! The only part I liked was the two semis crashing head-on in slow-motion, that was pretty neat.

I went to see it with my uncle's girlfriend's God-daughter. If you think there are wedding bells in the air you're way off base because she has a boyfriend. She was also a little, um, big. Even my uncle made fun of it when she wasn't in hearing range, and I must admit, I laughed! Other turn-offs were that she was taller than me and smoked a lot. Otherwise she was pretty decent, and it was interesting talking to someone around the same age as me again.

So yeah last weekend was Pentecost weekend, and in Germany it is a big holiday weekend. I am now staying at my Uncle and his girlfriend's house, but I will just call her my Aunt now. They got everything, including a nice satellite setup. But I don't care about TV that much, specially crappy german TV that dubs all the american movies and shows over, that is an unforgiveable offence! Everyone is supposed to speak English, for crying out loud!. Oh well...the TV-commercials are funny too, they have a really over-excessive style to them, and sometime there are 10 minutes of commercials. The Germans are also more loose with naked images so sometimes you see bare-breasted ladies on TV in the middle of the day!

My Aunt has a son from a previous relationship and he is 14. He's already taller than me, which means he will get really tall. He's pretty spoiled since he is an only child, so he has lots of cool toys. He is a Nintendo fan like me so he has Gameboy Advance and Gamecube. It's funny seeing the games in German. Thankfully he is a pretty nice kid and lets me play, and I introduced him to emulation with the few games that I brought with me, and he is pretty interested in it, which surprised me since punk kids these days can't appreciate old classics. His name is Pascal, which would sound pretty weird in English, but apparently it's a common name here. I fixed his computer since it was in a a sad state. He has Windows Millenium, which sucks really bad. His mom was amazed I fixed it (all I did was re-install Windows!), and thanked me for saving her from a costly repair bill. The ONLY bad thing is that he doesn't have Internet access, not even modem!! It's mostly because his mom's afraid he'll download pirated stuff and share it with his buddies and then she'll end up in jail! She should hear my crazy download stories...

We went on a bike tour in the Rems river valley on Sunday, and I must say the scenery was nice. The only bad thing is I didn't buy a camera, so the memories are only inside me. We also had some beers on the way about 3 times because Germans are all about the beer. It wasn't complete beer though, it was mixed with Sprite, and they called it "Radler", which pretty much means "bicyclist". I think it's only a sorry excuse for a bike rider to drink beer! I only drank it once though, afterwards it was only Coke for me. Coke is good stuff but it wasn't on-the-rocks, so that made me a little sad.

I will only stay there at my Uncle's for one week and then go back to boring gramma and grampas house. It is really close to work here, I could even ride my bike here practically. Too bad my ass is all bruised from the weekend. I haven't ridden a bike for that long in a long time, so after a while I was sore and now I got to live with it. It's sort of like when I went snowboarding for the first time and I fell a lot. So it hurts to sit down now, possible need some Preparation-H , but that won't help I don't think. .

I gotta ask for more work soon from my boss or else I will go insane I think. But I'm too much of a wiener to do that, so hopefully he will come to me and give me stuff. The MS-Office XP he gave me will lose its 45-day trial soon. I tried putting in random numbers for the activation but it didn't work, and since I don't have Internet on this computer I can't activate it! I downloaded lots of ROMs and burned them already on the public computer. I had to erase my traces after because it looks pretty bad when all the history links are game-related. Today I wore my cool casino shirt but nobody noticed... but I felt like a star anyway.

Some of my family will be coming here over the next few weeks. I wish they would bring me presents of Gameboy Advance SP and a laptop computer, but I just don't see it happening. I am still sick from hay-fever related symptoms, and my eyes are always red. It looks live I've been doing some hard cocaine or something, not that I know what it looks like, I just heard offhand...

I know this entry is a little early in the coming, but there is finally something more to tell so I gotta let it all out at once. I wish I had some water, mineral water is the Devil's Drink, it's supposed to have healing qualities but I think it's poison swill from beneath the earth where liquid hot mag-ma dwells.

I finished reading Lord of the Rings. It was way better than the movies so far! I wish they wouldn't have made the movies so deviated from the books. But hopefully the third film will wrap things up in a nice way that doesn't skip too many good parts (like Shelob).

-joram

Have you ever seen snails?

It rained here in a Germany for a few days and I saw snails all over the sidewalks when I was walking to work. It was weird because I've only ever seen them in pictures, not actually in real life. There are more of them here than earthworms. Some are almost 20 cm long, and they leave this long line of ooze behind them as they slither forward. There were some slugs too, but the coolest were the snails with their big shells.

As you can tell I am really bored right now. It's getting worse and worse over here as I slowly lose my mind. I am still working on the same project that I was a month ago, continually adding more and more stuff to a help file. It is as dull as anything, but I'm afraid if I ask for more work they will think I'm ungrateful, or else give me something too hard to do. It's really a strange situation.

The upside of work was that I found out my computer is actually pretty decent. It is a PentiumIII 1.0GHz, but it has a really bad graphics card. It actually does have a soundcard and I managed to find out what make it was and install it, so now I've got Winamp running all day. Some co-workers asked if they could get my songs, but they didn't appreciate my taste in music once they heard the strange mix. One guy invited me to this concert for a german singer (Herbert Grönemeyer), but it sounded like really cheesy music once I heard the mp3s, so I said no. My headphones are too short, so I have to turn my computer box around 90 degrees to have a decent slack on them (it's a desktop). The soundcard is kinda bad though, the bass and treble are horrible, but at least it brings me through the day.

There was a holiday in late May on a Thursday, and everyone worked more that week so they could have Friday off too. But I didn't, and I came on Friday and there was nobody here. It was cool, I downloaded a game and played it all day. I will never get that chance again, because there are no more free days coming up except one on a monday. As I sit here depressed I wonder how things could get worse. I guess I should be grateful that I have a job at all...

Some food/snack items I'm missing here in germany: peanut butter, slurpees, water-based popsicles (like the rainbow rockets, popsicle pete, etc.), water (they mostly only drink mineral water), good pizza (like Pizza Hut, Little Caesars, Pizza Pizza, etc.), KFC, Macintosh's Toffee, any Frito-Lay chips product (Tostitos, Doritoes, Cheetos, Munchies, Lays, etc), Tangy Taffy, concentrated juice cans (the ones you buy frozen and add water), Mr. Christy Cookies (including Oreos and Chunky Chocolate chip), Dentyne Ice gum, Skittles, Tim Hortons Donuts, Krispy Kreme donuts, Taco Bell, Harveys, Subway, AND... the list unfortunately could still go on for quite a bit!

Yes I miss all those things and that's all the more reason not to live here. Of course the Krauts have their own selection of goodies too, like really good freshly baked Pretzels, they taste pretty good they are huge like my hand. Of course all the above items are not necessities of life mind you, but I certainly realize that they aren't there when I want them. The drinking water thing is weird too, people do carry around bottles like in Canada, but it's not spring water but carbonated mineral water sewer backwash. And when you ask for water, that's what they give you. It's frightening. So I have to resort to drinking tap water, but the next day I was sick so I didn't do that any more.

My uncle told me the other day that the birds talk to him. I should have left the room right there but it was funny so I listened to him. He told me he has scitzophrenia, and he told me stories of what it's like, he says it's almost like when you're really drunk. It was a little sad but he was laughing about it, so I laughed with him. I don't know how I could live hearing voices all day, but he's managed to do it thus far. I just wish he would wash himself though because his B.O. sticks to the walls when he walks around the house, and it stays in the room for like 5 minutes before it dies off. If you want to know what he looks like, just imagine Santa Clause but with dark hair, and only half of his teeth. Yeah that's right...it's freaky. My cousin's 3-year-old son calls him 'crazy paul'.

My cousin came from Australia during the last week of May. It was cool talking english again, except sometimes I didn't know what he was saying because of the accent. Also there are different words for things, they mostly use the British terms for things rather than the American ones. He is a business-type person and he has all these big plans with real-estate and stuff, I didn't understand half of it but he is a cool guy. He is married with 2 little kids, and they came too, and sometimes I wonder how someone so much better than me in every way could be related to me.

I still sit at home bored a lot, but last Sunday a family from the church invited me over for the afternoon and there was something to do. I still wish for my computer a lot, and how good of an item it is to have when one is bored. I've started to accept my doomed summer though, and I might as well keep on living. Deathwishes have crossed my mind, but I always overreact like that, I'm like a spoiled child. I have been sick and stuffed nose issues all of May, I don't know why, probably side-effects of my hay fever. Hopefully it will go away soon...

Well I'm going to write these entries at random intervals whenever I can. Some of you haven't even replied to my first entry yet, but that's ok, I'll keep writing them anyway, for myselfI don't think I ever want to live here because things are just worse here in every way, but if things start to look up I might consider it. The way I see things is that if you got a decent computer and a fast internet connection, it doesn't matter where on the globe you are.

-German Joram

Joram's in Germany!!!!!!

Well I’ve been here in Deutschland for about 4 weeks now and let me tell ya, it’s way different. It’s cool seeing the different landscapes and architecture. Road signs and cars and city planning is completely different, and everyone drives really fast around here. The roads are so narrow too, two German lanes make up one Canadian lane in most places. But the hills and trees and trails where you can go hiking are amazing. There’s just so many of them, and there’s even special lanes just for bikes, so you hardly ever see bicycles on normal roads between cars.

I haven’t really gone out much, but I never used to do that when I was back home, so that's no big change. It will take some time yet to get me out of the house. I’m staying with my grandparents right now, and they’ve got no Internet, no computer, no TV, no stereo, no shower, no concentrated juice, and no air conditioning. I have to take baths, which is not very pleasent. As Kramer would say, "It's like swimming in your own filth!", or something along those lines. So it’s pretty bad staying in that house.

My bedroom is in the storage room, so there’s matresses and food and old clothes and lots of dust all around. Every hour or so the house shakes, because there’s a major rail line a few yards away from the house. I’m also on the third floor, so I gotta walk up these winding stairs every day. It is also super hot up there, compared to the ground floor. When I walk in the house after work, it gradually goes from like 20 degrees to 30 degrees as I walk up the stairs.

So for my free time I do nothing except read a lot. I’m about 2/3 through the Lord of the Rings novels because I haven’t read them completely to the end yet. So far it's interesting to see all the differences and stuff Peter Jackson left out of the movie. All these years I've been playing games and never had time to read, so now when I'm reading a book again it's going pretty slowly! Every Sunday I go to this really boring church where I watch the paint dry. The only good thing is that there’s no preacher, it’s just random elders that go up and talk, so at least there's variety.

I got my job at a company called TeamTechnik through my dad. He designed some stations for one of their machines, and asked them if I could come and work there over the summer and they said sure why not. Because of that, it’s obvious they don’t really need me here. They have problems finding stuff for me to do sometimes. My computer also has no internet access, and it’s slow, and it’s just plain bad with WordXP (which is a major memory hog). What I’m doing is updating a help file for a program they use to control their machines. It’s so boring I sometimes just type one letter per minute to see if anyone will care. Even now as I write this nobody is paying attention to the fact that I’m doing no work, they’re so busy with actual work. Everyone here at work speaks in a weird german dialect (Schwäbisch) instead of real German, so I can only understand about half of what everyone says.

Well May is almost done and I’m missing two cool movies, Matrix Reloaded and X-Men2 because I outright REFUSE to see them in a german theater with all the actors dubbed over in german. I will get the dvd or divx (whatever comes first), that is the only way. At least I only have to work from 8 till 4, so I can be home by 6. Oh yeah, there’s an actual lunch menu that gets passed around each week. We get to choose from about 6 or so different meals for every day. So far all the food I’ve tried is passable at best, and I remember the good old summers of days gone by where I would have delicious Michelina’s microwave food, which is about 10X better than this stuff.

So every day I go home all depressed and hoping a car runs me over as I walk to the train station, because hey it could happen, because the roads are so narrow and I’m a small guy, and there are lots of corners everywhere, so maybe one day I’ll get run down by a typical German driver. The cars here are almost 90% european: VW, Audi, Opel, BMW, Porsche, and Benz represent the Germans, and then Fiat, Renault, Peuogeot and Citroen represent the other European countries. Some Japanese and American cars are here too, about as many as European cars you see in Canada. There’s some pretty ugly cars like the ‘Ford KA’ and the ‘SMART’, check those out on the Internet some time to see how crappy they look. It's funny how they love to drive standard here, even the minivans and family cars like that come with a standard transmission as a default.

Right now I’m copying and pasting crap from a help file into a Word document to pass the time. I wish I had at least a Gameboy Advance SP but I was stupid and didn’t buy one when I had the chance. A laptop would be really sweet right now, maybe that would have been a better investment than a GBA-SP. The Germans run on 220V power and their electrical outlets and plugs are way different, they look really old school, shaped like a circle about 1 inch in diameter. As a result the power bars look pretty funny. They’ve got a crazy keyboard layout too. Everything’s out of whack, mostly the fact that the Z and the Y are switched, which screws me up sometimes. Luckily I can switch keyboard modes through the click of a button, and then my keyboarding skills come in handy because I know by memory where most of the keys on a US keyboard are.

Let’s see what else is different... oh yeah there are no gates that separate the outside from the inside at the train station. You can just walk right in. If you don't have a ticket you have to pay €40 as a fine, but essentially you could ride the train for free if you have the guts. Ticket inspectors dressed in civil clothes get on the trains on random days and check for tickets. The train I take is called the "S-Bahn", which is something between a subway and a real train, because it looks and operates like a subway train, but travels mostly above ground and goes over a larger area than the one in T.O. One time I had to show a guy my drivers's license, because the monthly ticket (145 euros) I bought needs an ID with it to be valid, and he thought I was from the USA!! I was a little insulted at his ignorance, but it's typical to be confused with the Americans over here. There's literally hundreds of graffiti-art along the traintracks on my way to work, it looks really cool. They are mostly just big block words with really undecipherable letters, and lots of colours. The other day I saw grafitti sprayed on the side of a train, coloured in the style of the American flag, that said "Fuck Bush!". It was hilarious!

So yeah it takes me 2 hours one way to get to work and 2 hours back, feeling sorry for me Yet? No? Well ok read on then. It’s so boring that I count the threads in my jeans. The office operations here are so weird too. Every day when a worker enters the office he has to shake hands and say good morning to every single worker in the whole section. It’s so annoying it makes me want to scream... but instead I put on some Rage Against the Machine and that does the trick. Oh but wait I can't even do that, because my computer has no sound card. So basically I get everyone's germs on my hand every day. The situation is actually similar to two years ago, where I took one piece of work and stretched it out over 4 months. But at least then I had high speed Internet and I could download playstation ISOs all day instead of counting the pixels on the screen like I do now!

Well I hope all you who read this are having a better summer than I am. They are paying me €10 per hour to work here and I get to stamp a digital box every day when I come and go to make sure my 8 hours are accounted for. But they take almost 40% off the 10 euros for taxes, so I'm left with about €6 in the end, which is about 10 dollars. In the end if they keep me here till the end of August (!!), I will have made around €4000 . That is about 6400 canadian dollars, which is a little lower compared to the 9000+ I made last year in a smaller company doing MORE work!! So essentially I’ve moved down instead of up.

So my advice is, don't go into something you have no idea about, and do some research before you get trapped in the land of cigarette vending machines.

-Joram

ps they have eliminated Coke cans here. So now you only get Coke in glass bottles.