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