this schmecks awesome!

I am full of sandwiches right now, filthy from my voyage to Frankfurt (8 hours on trains in 2 days? WORTH IT), and it's our last Monday in Schwaebs. Pretty unbelievable. That's all you're getting in terms of an introduction, onto the body paragraphs:

I WAS WITHIN SPITTING DISTANCE OF JENS LEKMAN AND I DON'T THINK I HAVE EVER BEEN HAPPIER. My roster of Indie Shows isn't anything to be ashamed of, but it's definitely pretty meek in comparison to people who live in cities that bands actually tour through (see also: Not Tulsa, Oklahoma). And I've been that close to the stage before - thrashing my brains out basically on stage with Man Man, trying to touch Thurston Moore's sneaker at Cain's, within paper-airplane-flying distance of Stephen Malkmus in a crowd of 1 billion at Pitchfork - but this was pretty phenomenal. I took off for Frankfurt on Sunday afternoon, discovered that my hostel, while very near to the train station, was also surrounded by sex shops, and that Frankfurt itself is pretty seedy and bum-addled, and took to the streets like a vagabond in search of food and photo opportunities. Ambling by myself is almost preferable, because I really don't, and didn't, care where I ended up, so long as I made it to the show - so I had myself another precious and over-priced bottle of Arizona Green Tea (trendy sandwich joints tend to import the stuff), ran into a church, went into another church and quietly watched a Catholic Mass auf Deutsch, bought some postcards, and had a long ramble along the river. Frankfurt's skyline is straight out of Metropolitan, but I was more impressed with my own ability to ask a stranger for the time and interact with dog-walkers in German. And the weather - Germany's under a false spring right now, making my Paddington toggle coat too heavy, and I've busted out that old brown corduroy pocketful jacket from my Booker T days, because its collar is so very pop-able.

So. The show. I got there, after a magnificent cross-city quest, bought a celebratory beer and a T-shirt, and then there I was, against the stage itself, in a crowd full of polite Frankfurtians who did not steal my spot even when I ran back to the bar for another beer. Jens himself was surrounded by beautiful Swedish girls who did not look real or like they were actually playing their instruments, but did look like they modeled for American Apparel in their spare time, and they launched into "I'm Leaving You Because I Don't Love You" which became "The Opposite of Hallelujah" and basically I died of sheer joy and jubilation. Afterwards, I ran into some fellow Yankees and we all made our pseudo-tipsy and meandering way to the U-bahn, and aside from sleeping on a bed that felt like it was made of rocks, and by sleeping I mean lying, and by lying I mean trying to ignore the fact that the bed was made of rocks while some Italian girls whispered and giggled all night, it was pretty goddamned awesome.

When I saw Modest Mouse, before "Lonesome Crowded West" became the soundtrack for my rapid descent into potentially-Accutane-induced insanity of senior year and when we all just thought Isaac Broke was shouting "PIES BURY ME WITH THEM," I was pretty satisfied with the show, but I thought, Damn, they didn't play 3rd Planet. And then, Encore Time rolled around, and whammo--they played it. The exact same thing happened at the Jens show - though he went through all my favorites, I was missing Pocketful of Money, and then, for his 3rd encore (3rd!), we were all singing the chorus and it was glorious. Also: Jens Lekman soloing on glockenspiel. At least, I think it was a glockenspiel. Also also: Jens Lekman WILL YOU MARRY ME AND TAKE ME TO SCANDINAVIA?

The weekend alone was pretty damn glorious, too. We screened The Third Man on Friday and all I wanted to do afterwards was run around Schwaebisch Hall and cast huge shadows and shoot at things and pretend I was part of a penicillin racket. On Saturday we lived decadently, feasting on Chinese, going back to the castle-church in the next town over, and getting the inaugural gelato.

AND ON THURSDAY WE ARE GOING TO VIENNA.

pear nectar, too.

A List Of Good Things That Were They Were Bananas, I'd Have A Whole Damn Bunch, And Then I Would Make A Banana-and-Nutella-on-Toast-Sandwich Which If You Haven't Ever Had Is Delicious Beyond Description, I Highly Recommended It:

(otherwise this entry will be, unsurprisingly, utterly incoherent)

I. Feeding Ducks. Today marks the second day I've gone down to the river in the afternoon, bearing some stolen Brotchens from breakfast, and made friends with the fleet of ducks who go about their duckly business right by one of Schwaeb's many covered bridges. What is there not to love about duck-feeding? GAR NICHTS, that's what. The trick is to feed the ducks without feeding the pesky flock of pigeons that invariably swoop down and peck at your sneakers. All in all, something I plan on doing as often as possible.

II. GOING TO VIENNA IN ONE WEEK. How did that happen? Two months already? But it's true - one week from today, we're shipping off to Austria. And then two weeks later, it's Spring Break. And then three little months of Vienna. And then July. Damn!

III. The Third Man. We're having a private screening of it tomorrow evening and I cannot wait. While we were in a Central Abroad meeting to plan for our internships, I happened to glance over and see my own info-sheet, and there, under how much German I'd studied in the past and what my professional goals were, it said: Third-Man-addict. Das stimmt. A lot.

IV. The ridiculous show I'm seeing the day we get to Vienna: Frog Eyes (who I'll actually get to see this time, considering last time I had to bolt back to the train station to make it home to Hyde Park), Deerhoof, Six Organs of Admittance, Dirty Projects, and Final Fantasy. The Canadian with the violin, not the video game. The line-up is ridiculous and I am crazy amped.

V. Remembering, after forgetting, as I inevitably do, how actually insane it is that we speak only German for 5 hours every day and it makes perfect sense. Right now I feel like I'm flirting with fluency, and it's a dangerous affair to have - because someday I will be old and on an island and surrounded by dogs and think, "Once I knew German. No longer." And then I will be filled with regret. But MAN The Never-Ending Story auf Deutsch is HARD TO READ. I've made solid progress on "The Little Owl," though. And I've watched every Little Bear and Little Tiger video that the Mediothek has.

VI. Banana-and-Nutella-Sandwiches-on-Toast. SELF-EXPLANATORY.

VII. Getting crazy amounts of writing done, despite depriving myself of smokes and consequently still coughing all the time. High five!

Speaking of which, I ought to be a human being and go out into the Schwaebian Streets and, I don't know, seek some adventure or something. GENAU.

strategies when the weather just isn't enough.

After blatantly stalking the blogs of some of my fellow Hamiltonians, I've decided my life in Germany is about as cushy as they come and that I need to MAN UP and GET AMPED and all those other HARDCORE PHRASES that mean BUCK UP SPORT since there's no reason to be moping. I mean - I sleep in an actual bed, in a room that has a little refrigerator that I keep stocked with beers, and the most dangerous thing that's happened so far has not been pick-pocketing or "auslander" slurs, but a bus nearly killing Rob and I because it was too polite to honk. After that same incident, I fell into hysterics on the bridge and frightened away all the ducks in the river.

I am, however, in the midst of my semi-annual "Rachel Smokes Too Much" sickness, which is good for my wallet and bad for my lungs. See also: coughing like an old man all the time, and skipping school today because the lining of my esophagus is trying to escape and no one wants to see that, or probably read about it, so I'm sorry for the details. But this could be a permanent change, and the only souvenir I get for anyone else considering I'm penniless, if that makes sense.

It was a combination of circumstances that pushed me down, and a lot of it was myself pushing myself down, as I am invariably wont to do. The boys go hide in their rooms to Skype their girlfriends, I sit up and read Steinbeck alone. I slept through the Goethe Party on Friday night, missing out on all sorts of shenanigans. I tried to buy some new jeans in town only to find out, the hard way, that I'm pretty much built like a pioneer and better start darning the holes in my American jeans. My Tandem Partner, a native I meet with once a week to practice my German, is pretty much the Anti-Rachel - doesn't drink, hates smoke, is pretty and petite and perfectly put-together. Things that could be funny in the right light, but were just lame in reality.

But there are counters to all of those, too - I bought myself a red plaid cashmere scarf because Tommy kept stealing his back, and now I feel like a little British boy ALL the time. We all went collectively, primevally insane with ennui and malaise one evening (that sentence probably makes you want to gag, whoever you are out there), so we booked it to a bar and were hollering and falling on each other the whole way. We ate a lot of cake baked by Schwaebian Fraus.
Rob and I went on a long wander yesterday, and then I went on an even longer wander afterwards, walking right out of Schwaebisch Hall. I think it was Chutney who told me the sky would just be bluer in Europe, and that's true. We've had uninterrupted sunshine for a week, now, no snow on the ground, hardly any rain. It's Minor Field weather.

And I'm going to Frankfurt on Sunday to see Jens Lekman, and, after doing some research, I am obviously going to go see THE HIVES in VIENNA because some 15-year old version of me will have a conniption at seeing PELLE. PELLE!

Also, everyone should shout "TOR!" much more often. Even when there is no goal to be had.

DON'T HATE ME

But this is my Spring Break plan:

FRIDAY, MARCH 14th - SUNDAY, MARCH 16th: Vienna to Prague, Czech Republic

SUNDAY NIGHT: Night Train across Deutschland to AMSTERDAM

MONDAY, MARCH 17th - WEDNESDAY, MARCH 19th: Amsterdam, The Netherlands

WEDNESDAY NIGHT: Night Train to Copenhagen, Denmark

THURSDAY, MARCH 20th - SATURDAY, MARCH 22nd: Copehnagen, Denmark

SATURDAY, MARCH 22nd - TUESDAY, MARCH 25th: Stockholm, Sweden

TUESDAY, MARCH 25th: Stockholm to Oslo, Norway

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 26th: Oslo to Bergen, Norway

THURSDAY, MARCH 27th: Bergen

FRIDAY, MARCH 28th: Bergen back to Oslo

SATURDAY, MARCH 29th: Flight from Oslo to Salzburg, train back to Vienna


HOLY COW THIS IS ACTUALLY HAPPENING. I'm gonna stand on some fjords, smoke some Hollandish weed, and I don't know, have the best spring break in the universe?

EVERYONE SHOULD COME WITH ME!

EDIT: Congratulations, Rachel, you are officially broke as of today. Also it is Valentine's Day. Kisses are free but kind of hard to come by. Good luck with that. Sincerely, YOUR BETTER SENSE.

because the sun is shining, because ich bin verliebt.

Yesterday the gaw-damned internetz was completely busted, so I sat in the kitchen for far too many hours looking at the photo of young Orson Welles I tucked into my wallet. Yes. Orson Welles (CIRCA The Third Man and not the Muppet Movie) is in my wallet, smoking a cigarette and looking OH SO COY. Reason the First why yesterday was pretty good. But the point of this paragraph is that I just woke up, the sun's out for the third or fourth day in a row, and all the thoughts I thunked yesterday are murky in my groggy, 11 a.m. mind.

But here's the main one: I know I've done a Fervently Eclectic show about "Home" songs, but there was a big one missing. All Hail West Texas is probably only bearable if you're a fan of the Mountain Goats, and it's probably only enjoyable if you know what West Texas is like, but "Riches and Wonders" is a pretty poignant song. And I've listened to it around a dozen times, because the refrain is simple: "I wanna go home, but I am home." And that is about the summation of my attitude when we tromp back to the Wohnheim with our groceries in tow, Lucky Strikes in our pockets and Haaler Loewenbraeu six-packs under our arms. It's a sad and a simple fact - I want to go home, but I am home.

On the other hand, cars are really fucking cool, as proven by the Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart. Someday, when I make my bajillions, the first completely exorbitant purchase I'll make is some souped-up old car that gets horrible mileage and holds only two people but is red and curvy and basically the sexiest thing on the road. And yes, I saw THE POPEMOBILE. Photos to follow. Further proof that insane things are always happening to me (see also: my parents and that night my Dad and I had Diner Breakfast at our own kitchen table when we were drunk, my run-in with the Nazi, basically everything ever), I was ambling around the basement of the place which has a Benz dealership in addition to the usual museum gift store when some old man comes bounding over to me, pumping my hand, saying his name was Walter and he built rockets, he was on some list to go to Mars soon, was I English, no American, what was I studying, Writing huh, like Shakespeare, to be or not to be that is the question, did you know women couldn't write back in those days, oh my name's Rachel, like the Beatles song Baby You're A Rich Man which he proceeded to sing to me. Walter from Transylvania. Transylvania is full of insane people. It would have been hysterical if I wasn't already late to catch back up with the group.

I'm off to caffeinate myself and get some sunlight drilled into my skin.

p.s. Annie's blog is still LAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAME.

EDIT: Mike just walked into the kitchen with this incredible German eagle tattoo all over his back. Holy cannolli. This tattoo business is intense. Actually I just wanted to edit and add a few Oscar-esque thank yous.

To anyone who is reading this, thanks for putting up with me and my sporadic wordifying.

To the Tulsa chickadees who fbook m'd me (that's awesome-talk for sending a message via facebook), I love yer faces, wish you was here, we will have ourselves a time in Oklahoma come summertime. Vanilla Coke will be had a-plenty - something tells me it goes pretty great with booze.

To my ridiculous parents, who are not reading this because I haven't sent them the link, thank you for being absurd. I called them tonight and spoke to my mom in the first time since I've been here - within a moment, she was swearing she wasn't drunk, even though I have never accused her of being so, and then she asked if I'd ever had a Buttery Nipple. This is my mother, by the way. My mother wants to make me a Buttery Nipple because it's apparently delicious. Also, my father is awesome, and promised me we'd go to Senor Tequila's when I got back, considering I'm legal tender these days, and if we all got too Rochestered on liberally-liquored margaritas in tropical flavors, we'd take a cab home. We live approximately one minute away from Senor Tequila's. Basically I am going to be hammered in a cab in Tulsa, Oklahoma with the people who created me. HYSTERICAL.

A big UN-THANK YOU to the IMF for booking awesome bands while I'm away. Whatevs. I'm gonna go see Jens in Frankfurt, thank you very much. (No, really, I'm glad the IMF is alive and well, but damn I am jealous.)

And anyone who isn't on this list and wants to be, hell, thank you too.