the end, for real

i am no longer in europe; ergo, this is the final entry of this blog. it's been a good run. thanks to rick, my mom, grace, joel, joanna, alex pasternack, matt's dad, matt himself, my dad masquerading as a cat, and everyone else who's read it.

embarrassingly, this is not the end of me blogging. the adventure continues in my new exciting american-style blog:

<http://superactionplant.blogspot.com>

a thousand huzzahs! awright i have to go write the first entry of aforementioned new blog.

besos y pesos,
le jesse

last call

i just had my last falafel at mo's imbiß (the king of falafel), which is the falafel place near our apartment, and in true king form it took them an extremely long time to make it. the king and his wife (the queen; he is syrian, she is russian) are always confused by the falafel-making process. always. here is how it went this time:

1. the king repeats my order in the form of a question. "yup!" i say, in german. "what?!" blurts the king.
2. the king locates a pita and eyes it doubtfully.
3. see 1.
4. the king examines his bowls of vegetables and fishes out some tomatoes, cucumbers, and mint leaves. he puts them in the pita. then he rearranges them. at this point five minutes have elapsed. the king then goes to work on a syrian edible-paste plate that someone else ordered. this person is slumped face-first onto the imbiß's single table. the king is singing tunelessly to himself.
5. the queen emerges from the back and asks what i wanted. "i think he's having a falafel," says the king.
6. the queen constructs falafel balls and puts them into a pot of boiling oil. an argument ensues over which pots have the burner on under them, and which do not. the king says something dismissive in russian. the queen shrugs fatalistically, pulls the falafel out of the burning oil with her bare fingers, inspects them, and puts them back in.
7. the king asks if i've ordered yet.
8. i emit screams.

earlier today i put some clothes in a box, in order to bring more things home, and brought it to the post office, where there was a line; when i got to the front, the postal worker said it would cost 2,40 to send it to the u.s. sweet! i pulled out 2,40 in coins. the postal worker eyed me. "i said 42,00," he said. it's worth pointing out that these numbers sound similar in german, and also that the box was small. "2,40 would be kind of cheap," he added, by way of explanation. "42,00 would be kind of expensive," i rebutted, wittily. this did not get a reaction, so i softened the blow: "3,20," i offered, and shortly thereafter we were no longer on speaking terms.

later today is last-minute gift-shopping, and then tonight will be a night of one-last-beer-with-over-twenty-different-friends, so it should come as no surprise to you if the next blog entry is about how i missed my plane. ha ha! in fairness, some of you may find that ridiculous, specifically the assertion that i have over twenty different friends. this is sort of fair; a number of these "friends" are more along the lines of "brands of beer," such as "warsteiner," who is both a fellow tour guide and a clear, hoppy pilsener.

the leaves have fallen. the winter coats are out. the city is starting to feel very soviet again. it was like this when i came in december.

then: had no work permit
now: have work permit
then: starry-eyed, idealistic
now: pragmatic, battle-hardened
then: terrified of spiders
now: somewhat less terrified of spiders
then: had had no triste with danish girl
now: again, she was 29 years old; DAMN
then: cold
now: cold
then: unaware how to cook lentils
now: arguably more aware of above
then: had composed one song that could be classified as "rockin"
now: have composed twelve such songs
then: did not know how reservation software worked
now: still have no idea how said software works
then: did not know how to crash reservations computer
now: am comfortable causing any computer to crash at any time
then: virgo
now: still a virgo

fin.

j

different area codes

i discovered, at some point giving tours, that i use the phrase "game over" a lot. generally it's to convey, in a story, that via a specific incident, this or that historical course has been definitively set, e.g., "the reichstag burns, hitler takes advantage of the constitution's article 44 and declares martial law: game over," or "i'm hungry, and i refuse to continue talking until someone purchases a pizza: game over."

now it's game over for me in europe. no more getting up at 1pm and playing mac brickout for three hours, no more wrangling with the german bureaucracy, no more professionally recommending places to get cheap and life-changing falafel, no more awkwardly ephemeral contacts with english-speakers who are leaving tomorrow but already think berlin is amazing, OMG, which is flagrant hypocrisy on my part because i felt exactly the same way within 24 hours when i first came here four years ago; no more stumbling home under the stars to admiralstr. 22, grimly determined not to pee on anything except the inside of a toilet; no more cute poignancy of being domestic and foreign, cooking and cleaning with german consumer products; no more loud internet cafes, no more cobblestone bridge; no more kaffee und kuchen, no more flucht nach vorn.

i realize this is kind of unbearably introspective, and will probably be again on monday, when i plan to write next, but there's little else i can write about right now.

"flucht nach vorn" was coined during germany's brief flirtation with colonialism, around the end of the 19th century, when the national feeling was that the country was bottled up by its own borders and needed to escape and expand via occupying other parts of the world. it was later appropriated to classify the post-war reaction of germans and germany to their recent, horrifying past; it means, roughly, "escape forward," and that is what germans did. they escaped nazi germany by creating another germany that came after it.

i was thinking of my grandfather while wandering around bavaria last week--among other places in the alps of berchtesgaden, which is heart-breakingly, tears-producingly beautiful, and which is also where hitler built his famous eagle's nest hideaway, which he also famously did not spend much time in. the inhabitants are quick to tell you about this. most visitors are aware of its existence before they come, i would think, but the locals like to make sure. the owner of the little pension where i stayed could barely contain himself, over breakfast--"there are hikes here, yes," he fulminated, a short outdoorsy man with a chaotic beard, "and there is also the kehlsteinhaus--and that is where adolf hitler had his headquarters." he said this in a tone suggesting disbelief. i only realized later that he must say it just about every day.

my grandfather's reaction to my interest in germany--and especially my powerful fondness for germany, as it quickly became--has always been skeptical. he is upfront about the job he had when he was my age, or younger: "kill germans," he told me when i was maybe 12 and doing a school project that required me to interview a war veteran, and then as a sort of afterthought, "as many as possible, each day, without getting killed." he was wounded in the ankle in the battle of the bulge and has a large, dark wooden box full of medals commemorating his bravery. i don't believe there is an argument that he wasn't fighting as noble a fight as anyone has ever had opportunity to join.

it's not difficult, at all, to imagine a wwii vet's continuing distaste for all things german, and especially a vet who is jewish, and especially a vet who toured concentration camps after the war's end. all i can say--and i accept if it doesn't change his mind--is absurdly, kind of pathetically, coming from an anything-but-worldly 23-year-old: thank you. what you did was worth it. it worked out the way it should have. the reasons for why i love germany are the results of its liberation. berlin epitomizes all of them, for me. you can generalize about a city: berlin is tolerant, liberal-minded, deeply and innately skeptical of ideology, goofily nonconformist, orderly without being boring, culturally rich to an almost paralyzing degree. thank you, over 60 years later. i hope there's no statute of limitations.

and so sometimes flucht nach vorn can be good. it depends on what one is escaping. my flucht nach vorn is over, because it turns out i had nothing to escape, and also because if i eat one more falafel i will be given an honorary lebanese passport, which would get me thrown into jail immediately after getting off the plane.

in a couple of days i'll write something less weepy. in the meantime, i'm coming back home. game over.

it must have been something other than love

...but it's over now.

i said my goodbyes to camilla this morning. for those of you who have seen camilla's name mentioned and are wondering who she is, here is the lowdown:

- camilla is a girl from denmark.
- camilla turns 30 in august of next year. i did not know this until a week and a half ago. i thought she was, at oldest, 27. was my outward reaction to this one of admirable calm? yes, it was. on the inside, was i seriously freaking out? regrettably, i was.
- camilla and i had a humorously brief relationship--it really doesn't deserve the word "relationship"; perhaps "vaguely, fumblingly romantic acquaintanceship"--that ended when she returned to denmark in june or so to try to get a job and care for her dying cat.
- camilla returned to berlin for about three weeks this month.

this would have been okay, except that every time we hung out it was Unbearably Poignant Nostalgia Hour, and it wouldn't necessarily have been, except that every other comment out of her mouth was something like, "it is so strange to be back now. only to have to go once more." or "it is truly wonderful to see you again, and i imagine that it is the last time we will meet in this world or the next." we were conversing in german, too, which is a language in which i can order falafel with extreme fluency, but in which i have trouble expressing emotionally difficult concepts. for that matter, so is english.

camilla: o jesse! i have missed you.
me: on monday, the steelers were triumphant in a game of american football.
camilla: and then again, i am not sure that we were ever meant to be.
me: i wish i had more money. i would buy a hammock! and i would never work again, in the manner of: WEEEOWWH. [air guitar motions]
camilla: sigh.
me:
camilla, appraisingly: what are you thinking right now?

i'm thinking, i need to take a vacation. i work for the last time tonight--jared at the bar roped me into one final karaoke DJ gig, which will hopefully be more emotional and fitting as a farewell than the nightlife tour of last week, which was one of the most stressful things i have ever done--i don't want to talk about it, but suffice it to say that five people out of seventeen, in three separate instances, managed to get lost, and three other people vomited, not on purpose--i also want to point out that the tourgoers loved every minute of it; they were uniformly positive in their feedback on the tour: "THIS IS THE MOST AWESOME TOUR EVERRRGH; [falling down, perhaps also going to sleep]" was an observation made numerous times, to me, loudly--it should also testify to the unbelievable mind-killing inanity of the entire night that i am looking forward to karaoke DJing now.

then tomorrow i take a train to bavaria, where i will wander among the mountains and reflect upon how unbelievably rocking our band will be when i get back to boston in a week. this reflection will take the form of singing lyrics i have written, loudly, to passersby or free-range livestock. "when life gets to be / kind of a drag," i intend to bellow at them. "you gotta eat gummi candy / STRAIGHT OUT OF THE BAG."

which pretty much sums up everything i have learned during my time in europe.

more reflections later this week, or next week. it is also worth pointing out that after the discovery of coconut milk, i am the god of thai-style curry. last night i put on a clinic. jeremy and katherine can testify.

yours in unimaginable poignancy,
alf

nostalgie

rick, in email to me: update your blog! you can't do this to your poor mother.

my mom, in phone conversation: also you haven't posted anything to the blog recently, and rick must be worried.

all right!

my mom again: also, you're coming back to boston to do what again?

start a rock band and try to get my novel published and now also perhaps attempt to get revenue from an online comic strip that jeremy and i used to do in college.

my mom: your father would like to talk to you.

my dad: i'm sorry! i didn't quite hear that! please try again.

[mumbling]

my dad: SAY IT.

my intentions are to seek a respectable career of some kind.

my dad: that is what i thought.

i have three more days of work in berlin, and then two weeks of trying to get paid for everything that i've done, and then i come home. today's work is undoubtedly the best: a (surprise!) nightlife tour that was thrust upon me last night, instead of the normal karaoke-djing adventure. apparently no one else is available. our nightlife tour is highly controversial, in that we charge €12 and don't offer the magical array of free-vodka-down-your-throat-until-you-beg-for-mercy-or-death that other tour companies provide. those are "pub crawls" and we have nothing but disdain for them. on our tour, you get:

- information about nightlife, both historical and contemporary!
- awesome uniquely berlin places to go and drink!
- "drink offers!"
- "free entry to bars and most clubs!"

no one contests our superiority with the first two, but the latter two are the sources of controversy. here's what tonight's tour was going to have:

- absinth shots are €2 at one of the five places we go to.
- um... also around midnight i give everyone a tiny bottle of kümmerling.
-
.-
- did i mention that the information is both historical... and contemporary?!!!
-
- also the only place on the tour that actually charges cover does not plan to make an exception for us.

this last thingy was too much for me, so i delivered an ultimatum to my boss: we pay the cover ourselves, or i announce mid-tour that it is No Pants Time. there is no way i am ending a 12-euro tour with a demand for cover, especially when it's something we can obviously afford. this happened last week and someone made the tour guide cry. no joke! you may imagine my hysterical laughter when a tourgoer suggests that i have the sweetest job in the entire world ("you get paid to drink with people!!!"). then again, it is kind of sweet.

long story short, i got my way, and so we'll see how my last tour ever turns out--i would love for it to be a nostalgic, god-we-will-miss-you kind of tour, but it's a nightlife tour and that is not how those end. they tend to be more like, YOUR [sic] THE GRETARETEST!!! BARFF

even if my last tour won't be a high note, i've gotten a few items of tour-related thank-you mail recently, some of it ego-boosting, some of it not in the greatest english. here is my favorite. i am completely for real about this.

Dear Jesse

Hi, it’s me, [name] who attended to your walking tour at the end of August. Tall Korean girl. J Do you still remember me? And did you enjoy photos that I sent the other day? I hope so.
Today I revisited your website (brewer’s Berlin tours) to remember good memories in Berlin (Berlin remains very impressive to me.) and I saw your picture next to your profile. That’s exactly what I really wanted to do! I regret what I didn’t take a photo with you, didn’t ask you to have dinner with beer and didn’t catch a chance to talk with you after the tour. Actually I regretted what I didn’t do at the tour during the rest of my trip (so stupid and shy girl!!), that’s why I sent email to you a month ago through this website’s email. I’m not that good at speaking and listening to English, maybe that’s why I was shy and spoke not so much(Do you remember that, everyone except for us(me and my friend) was native speakers. It made me feel like that much more)
Oh--, anyway, the fact is I lost many chances to be friends with you! I should have told how about drinking beer! Let’s take photos! not thinking my english — But it's just an excuse now. T.T
Even though I didn’t talk much conversation with you (actually I lost chances), you’re also so impressive to me like Berlin.

it continues in this vein for a while. i am touched, korea.

suddenly, berlin is filled with friends i have that aren't just inherited from nate: jane, calum, katherine, katherine's obnoxious boyfriend, camilla. camilla is back in town for a couple weeks. this is sweet but awkward. you can imagine how i am handling this. a number of adverbs come to mind; "well" is not one of them.

more later. sorry for long absence. i think about you daily. all/both of you.

besos y pesos,
jesse

i haven't washed my hair in months!

jane is learning german. to that end, sometimes jane and i watch german television. sometimes, specifically, we watch children's shows, and i translate:

children's show: [rapid talking]
me: okay. the obnoxious little guy is angry because there is another dragon hunter in the land, and he is ruining their business. he says they are as poor as church mice.
jane: who's that guy.
me: that guy is... he is seeking a dragon hunter with a mustache. the obnoxious guy is angry because that other dragon hunter is knitting, and the new guy thinks that dragon hunters don't knit.
jane: understandable.
children's show: [stirring music, pronouncement by dragon hunter]
me: the one who is knitting says that the important thing is to be true to yourself.
jane, writing in notebook: dragon... hunter.

this is what i do on my days off. that, and cook meals involving potatoes. i have about forty potato recipes, and they do not vary much. sometimes i go through recipe books and think: hey! i should totally make this. then there are a series of poverty-related questions that need to be answered:

1. does it have meat or shrimp? those are expensive. perhaps we can replace them with rice.
2. are there more than two ingredients that we don't have in the house already? are either of them potatoes? i can get 11 lb. of potatoes for two euros. let's pretend that they're potatoes.
3. that sauce/broth looks complicated. perhaps it is just olive oil and garlic in disguise. perhaps salt, too, is involved, although NOT MUCH. that needs to last us until i get paid again. fuck, maybe i should put some of it back in the salt thingy.

yum! sometimes i go all out and purchase an onion.

i'm still not sure what to do with my last month. i'd travel, but i don't want to spend money. jeremy is coming to berlin in a few days and says we should start doing our <comic strip for the crimson> again. i'm like, jeremy, we graduated. jeremy's all, that strip was tha bomb. im like, jeremy, you livin in tha past and that shit is depressing. jeremy all, hey why dont u draw that strip 1 time. im like, this conversation is termin8d.

again, sorry for the delay in sending out the second draft. it's coming maybe tomorrow. also, sports are way stupid. that is all.

yours in perpetuity,
ruthless wainwright

setbacks

so i bought my plane ticket for boston, and i arrive at 6:30pm on nov. 1. will there be a welcoming party at the airport?, you ask. i say: you have to show up to find out!!!. humorously, this makes YOU the welcoming party, and me a latter-day God of Almost Unimaginable Craftiness.

within 48 hours of buying my ticket, it was brought to my attention that:

- whereas i thought i had an apartment in boston, i do not
- whereas i thought i also had a way-sweet editing job lined up, i do not

the former is my fault. i was going to live with the other members of the taste explosion--you recall, undoubtedly, the inventive instrumental mostly-us-banging-on-stuff stylings of the taste explosion--but i failed to tell them that i was definitely interested in sharing the taste explosion house until recently, when they had already found someone else who wanted to stay there.

this is just as well, due to the latter: it turns out pearson, which has enticing jobs for battled-toughened career editors, doesn't take people on until january, if then. as it turns out, i'm going to spend the first few months in boston living in the taste explosion basement, next to the drumset, paying a somewhat more forgiving rent and doing laundry WHENEVER I WANT.

it's all good. i have plans. i have plans i can't even tell you about. we will see if they are successful; smart money is on "if like last time it involves a 'pet hotel,' probably not." the 2nd draft is now finished, although it's definitely not the final draft; i just want feedback on it. those of you who have requested copies will get one via email in the next few days. those of you who haven't may well get your credit rating altered online. the first 40-some pages of godspeed, aka novel #2, are also available to those of you who are huge fans and don't especially care for characters who are not identical to me.

now is also a decent time to point out that i have become disenchanted with work and am looking forward to life as a celebrity, which will happen when the band gets successful. doubters have but to listen to our demo, or me singing loudly at them for hours at a time. honestly, there is no way being an international rock star will be worse than what i've been doing recently. tour-guiding and receptioning have their problems.

1. tourists are dumb. there are a few classes of question that i deal with, as a tour guide, that fill me with rage, or occasionally just profound depression.
badly informed: "so... why did the nazis... i mean, why did they even build the berlin wall in the first place? it doesn't make any sense." sometimes they're not even questions. they're just assertions of stupidity. "prussia and russia are the same thing." please talk among yourselves for five minutes. i have to go take up heroin.
wrong-headedly editorial, as well as not a question: "it seems from all this that germans, like... i mean it seems like they don't like remembering, uh, what happened. can you, uh. can you answer that?" good. that's a really good, careful observation that (interpreted generously as insight into, succinctly put, the responsibilities of the son for the sins of the father, which it is not) in no way would take, at the very least, half an hour of respectful treatment from any responsible student of history. also, not a question. "would you say that berlin suffers from its past? or does it even, uh... does it even think about it." i'm glad that we're treating "berlin" as a single, coherent entity. you should be shot.
foreign: "I AM THINK, IS INCREDIBLE SO MANY THINGS! HAPPEN HERE ALL IN SAME CITY!" this may not seem like a question, but it is posed as one. "THIS MEMORIAL I THINK IS TERRIBLE, WHY YOU BUILD IT?!?!" good point.

2. no one says please. i counted once; at reception, people asked for things fifty-two times, in four hours. "please" was said twice. "i'll have a..." was said, please-lessly, fifteen times. here is a piece of advice to you, if you are planning to travel: learn how to say "please," or i will claw my initials into your face. frequently it's possible to say it in english. i can't believe no one does this. "i think i'll have a beer." that makes one of us. "i'll get a towel." here you go! i've been peeing on it, intermittently, since 8 in the morning.

there's more--there's a lot more (germans have no conception of how traffic lights work)--but i have to go. we will revisit this topic, because it is of great importance to me. so, good. in the meantime, may the steelers' holy season of dominance continue with a victory over the loathsome patriots next weekend.

i'm richard quest, and this has been "business traveller."