vom Unglück verfolgt sein

Living in the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern is very much a double-edged sword. There are lots of things about MV that either sound great but in reality are shitty or vice-versa. For instance, there are almost no English speakers here, which sounds lonely at first, but in reality it means that my German has improved loads, and I am making German friends. Another example is that MV is almost nothing but farmland, however this means that a plant biologist like me always has fun stuff to see. Finally, this state is the tourism destination in Germany, which is great until you realize that almost all of the industry here is in one city and is devoted to tourists, which can make finding a job rather difficult. On the balance though, once you get to a bigger city here, the benefits outweigh the drawbacks.

That whole tourism thing that I mentioned is what I want to talk about right now though. MV is an absolutely gorgeous state to visit. It's hard to find an area of the US to compare it to. Whereas Bavaria looks almost exactly like Kentucky, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern is similar to Minnesota in that it has over 2000 lakes, but it's flat and fairly treeless like northeastern Kansas. So you might think it's like the American midwest, but it is coastal, which, in addition to giving the area a whole different vibe, also means that the summers and winters are really really mild. Finally, and this part I'm still not used to yet, we are at the same latitude as lower Alaska. The sun officially sets at 9:50pm, but it's not really dark until around 11pm. Sunrise occurs at a painful 4:40am, but that infernal morning twilight (and the birds chirping) begins at about 3am.

So suffice it to say that I find the area rather unique and very pretty. I wanted to take advantage of that in my time here, and I've had one goal (to rule them all). That goal is to see a national park by the name of Jasmund. This park is (supposed to be) breathtaking. It has bright white chalk cliffs that soar over the sea, fields of flint stones, and amber floats in the water there. The park is located on an island called Rügen. I tried to reach the park last winter, and I made it all the way to the biggest city on Rügen and then it started to snow, and since I was not prepared for snow and had to turn back. I was pissed!

Last weekend, I resolved to right this wrong and travel back to Rügen. I also wanted to see a few other things on the island, and I figured I could easily kill a day there. Sunday morning, David and I set out at 7 with the train to a tiny town called Binz. Binz is the prototypical coastal German coastal town. Very similar to Graal-Müritz, it's got thatched-roof cottages, steam trains, and is just very quaint. Near Binz there is a small hunting lodge that is now a museum, the Jagdschloss Granitz. Once we were in Binz and had gotten our bearings we set out on foot for the lodge. The trek to the lodge is through a forest and up what the locals called a “mountain.” While the lodge was technically at a higher altitude than the city, the mountain was really more of a hill. During this forest trek, I noticed that it was starting to rain, but I really didn't mind since the trees covered me. The forest, though, was very nice. It was very orderly with paved paths and had clearly been manicured. It was peaceful and in certain parts you could smell the pine trees. The hunting lodge itself was very cozy. Comapred to the other castles I've seen, this seems like one that I could actually feel at home in.

This is the outside of the lodge. We were very disappointed to learn that the building is actually pink, a decidedly unmanly color.

The staircase leading up to the tower of the lodge. The figure in the center is  some raptor  attacking a pike.

Just a few of the trophies hanging on the walls of the lodge.

The weather was sort of shitty, as I mentioned, but you can see here how flat MVP is.

You can also see how many lakes there are.

We then trotted down the “mountain” back into Binz. On that way back to the train station though, I noticed something that blew my mind!

It should say something that the store is proud that it is open for a total of 5 hours on Sunday.

See, in Germany like I've mentioned, the whole country shuts down on Sunday. Like, god help you if you have a heart attack, because the doctor will be like, “Sorry, it's the Lord's day. Gotta keep that sabbath holy.” So seeing a supermarket that is open on Sunday, even it it's only for five hours, is earth shattering.

David and I then hopped on a train to take us to Prora, which has a giant series of vacation homes built by the Nazis.The Nazis had this great idea that in order to conquer Europe, you would need a well rested workforce, so they built an enormous set of vacation apartments on the coast of Prora for all of the workers of Germany. It was part of a project called “Kraft durch Freude” shortened KdF, which means something like “Strength through Joy.” Right now, the vacation complex is sitting mostly empty. Weird that no one would want to spend their free time in a huge Nazi building. Who knew? The buildings also play house to a museum about the KdF project and the Nazi times. I would definitely recommend the museum if you're in the area.

Seeing Hitler in a knight's uniform was hilarious to me.

These things are huge and extend all along the coast.

This is, I hope, a play on words. It could either mean something like "...is a vacation" or  something like "Authority vacation", considering it's a sign about the Nazi vacation houses, I really hope they intended the play on words.

Around about the time we were arriving in Prora, the rain had started to pick up a little bit. I didn't have a rain jacket, so I looked like a drowned rat after we walked along the beach trying to find the museum. By the time we were done with the museum and ready to set out toward the coveted goal of the national park, David was starting to give me looks and ask some leading questions, “what do you think about the rain?” "are you getting cold?" The park is in Sassnitz, but the chalk cliffs and anything worth seeing is a good 5 mile hike away from the town.

I really hate to give up on my goals, especially since I'd already made it that far once and had to turn back, but I eventually came to the decision that hiking onto a cliff made of chalk after 12 solid hours of rain might not be the best idea. This is especially true since parts of that cliff break off all the time, and just last year a huge section broke off and buried a ten year old girl. It was with a heavy heart that I decided to head back to Rostock...

So all in all, I'm sort of pissed. I mean, yes I got to see a cool museum and hunting lodge, and got to spend more time with David, but I've been to Rügen twice now and have yet to see the Chalk cliffs. Today's word means “cursed with bad luck” and that's how I feel about this damned Island of Rügen.

einen Hafen anlaufen

Ever since I lived next door to a Dane, I've always found Danish men mysteriously attractive.

For me the Danes are the epitome of European manliness. Maybe it's the conspicuous amount of facial and chest hair, maybe it's their smokey language where they sound like they are trying to clear their throat and talk simultaneously, or maybe it's the nautical vibe they give off. Regardless, I hear “Danish” and I think “MAN!”

The fact that the Danes invented Legos doesn't hurt their case either.

Over Memorial Day weekend, David and I decided to take a trip to Copenhagen. Copenhagen in Danish is København, which translates as “merchant's harbor.” Today's phrase means “to put into harbor.”

Looking at a map, you may think that getting to Copenhagen would be easy for me since I am right next to the place. You would be half right. The journey itself is not hard, but it's long. The first leg of the journey is a ferry from Rostock to the town of Trelleborg, Sweden. I don't speak Swedish, nor do I intend to learn, but the phoenetics of Swedish are totally beyond me. “Trelleborg” for instance does not rhyme with morgue, but rather with glory....I found myself thinking of the Swedish Chef from the muppets the entire time I was in Sweden. He actually approximates Swedish quite well.

This scene essentially played out before our eyes in the bus station

The ferry ride started at 10pm and took 6 hours, during which time David and I planned on sleeping, which we did, with gusto. We slept so long in fact that we almost took the ferry back to Germany. After this near miss, we stumbled through Trelleborg to find the bus station. Upon reaching the bus station we were greeted by a small flock of chickens who seem to have free reign at the bus station. No bullshit there were easily 15 chickens in this place.

Cock of the walk, indeed

Then we heard this weird call from some animal, and since we had 20 minutes to wait, we went to investigate. This is what we found.

Yes. That's right, we found chickens and a damned peacock in the bus station. You can't make this shit up, people!

Taking our leave of our feathered friends (read: ravenous beasts) we departed for Malmö, Sweden, where we would grab a train to Copenhagen. Malmö was finally a normal town, like it had pigeons and magpies, not chickens and peacocks, in the train station.

We arrived around 9am in Copenhagen and set to work checking the city out. But not before David enjoyed a good sit in the complimentary couch in the train station.

We've been doing lice and scabies checks ever since we took the picture.

Walking down the main drag in Copenhagen was pretty run of the mill. That is, until we realized that we had unintentionally picked the weekend of Copenhagen Carnival for our trip. So I heard some kick-ass music and naturally started walking in that direction, and what did I discover?

Showgirls. That's what I discovered.

Naturally, a drag queen was there too.

And then the Peruvians...holding Danish flags.

Once we got off the main drag, Copenhagen got a lot more beautiful. First of all the city is absolutely full of bikes. Children on bikes, old people on bikes, bikes with cargo containers, bikes with strollers. The bike lanes in Copenhagen are wider than the traffic lanes. I don't know if it has to do with the bike riding or not, but the Danish men wear some damned short shorts. My jaw hung open the entire weekend. Think Daisy Duke, but provocative. I was pleased with the fashion choices of the Danes.

This was the parking lot at a fairly small train stop.

Also, I don't know why exactly, but the architecture of Copenhagen is very pretty. I mean, of all the things I expected to be nice looking in Copenhagen, somehow the buildings weren't the first. It's certainly modern, but it doesn't look like an art school project; it looks smart, but progressive. It all seems very forward looking, but without losing a sense of classical style.

The half-timbered house style, seems to be the exception, not the rule.

David and I did the city totally on foot. Now David grew up on Sicily, which means that his olivine skin is impervious to sunburns. I, on the other hand, after a year in north Germany, have the complexion of a naked mole rat. So these two marvelous days in Copenhagen left me with a killer sunburn. That's right, I travel to fucking Scandinavia and return with a sunburn. Still Copenhagen is a very walkable city. The one thing that people kept on recommending that we see was this Mermaid Statue in the north part of the city, so we set out to visit her. Two hours later, we arrive, and the statue is choked with Japanese tourists. Now I'm thinking this must be a nice-ass statue. I finally cut through the crowd, and the statue is about 3 feet tall and is some pitiful little mermaid just siting there. Not doing a backflip, not swimming, not even emoting. Just sitting there. I was so crestfallen that I refused to take a picture of the hoe.

David and I also checked out the hippie commune of Christiania. It's kind of a cool place. You're not allowed to take pictures, so sorry about that in advance. The main “street” in Christiania is called Pusher Street, for obvious reasons. The last thing the hash dealers want is photo evidence of their merchandise. It's a cool area though. I was getting a contact high just walking through the grocery store there with these people.

On Monday, we retraced our route back to Rostock, but I spent the entire weekend looking for this picture in Copenhagen:

Something's rotten in the state of Denmark!

Oh and finally, we got to see sunset on the Baltic sea, which was gorgeous.

die Besessenheit

I am slowly catching up on the backlog of blog posts that I need to write from the month that I spent travelling and being otherwise preoccupied. As anyone who as ever been in my bedroom in the US will know....

You need to squint to see what it is, but it's a 6' tall pixelated image of Spock's face made out of paint swatches I took from Lowe's. This hangs in my bedroom.

I am kinda of...

Lord. This needs a post of its own. It's a scientific poster I made describing how warp travel works. I have a 4' version in my room.

A huge Trekkie.

Today's word means “obsession” and I am obsessed with Star Trek.

I've known forever that there are Star Trek fans around the globe, and from the moment I got to Germany I started looking for a Star Trek Convention to attend. I went to one in Chicago in 2006. I skipped a week of school. I said my grandma died...again. Whatever. My professors didn't miss me that much! The convention in Chicago was a big step for me to take. Going to a convention is like taking the final step into Trek-dom, like a coming out ball for a Southern debutant. It's like the difference between having a cat and having cats, if you get my drift. There are loads of people who've seen the movies, but there is something about shelling out money, travelling, dressing up, and geeking out with other trekkies that really separates the fans from the Trekkies. That Convention was awesome, but like I said, I was scared and didn't dress up. I regret that in hindsight, because there were some awesome costumes!

He's wearing a late 23rd century uniform.

We start them young.

The woman in red is holding a tribble and wearing an early 23rd century engineering uniform and holds the rank of lieutenant. The other two are wearing 24th century uniforms. The chick is a science offices (also a lieutenant) and the dude is an engineering officer, but I can't see his rank.

Yes. That's right, this lady has blue face. She is an Andorian.

The mom is a Vulcan, but somehow her kids are not. Someone was lied to.

She is dressed up as Seven of Nine, a cyborg and the hottest plot device ever created..

This old bird is also dressed as a Vulcan, and is giving the Vulcan salute.

Another Seven of Nine, the lady was Australian if memory serves. and the dude is dressed like someone from the 23rd  century mirror universe...don't ask.

Anyways, getting back to my point. Once I got to Germany I started searching like a starved jackal for a Star Trek Convention. I only found one that was worth mentioning. It is called FedCon and takes place in Düsseldorf every year. I immediately looked at ticket prices but was disappointed to discover that they were between 109€ and 399€ for the weekend, plus the hotel. As a person living on 220€ per month, this was out of the question. Then I thought, “Oh hell, sometimes if you check the English version of a store's website, the prices are the same just in dollars.” So like with iTunes, in the States a song costs $0.99, but in Europe they cost 0.99€, and in England they cost 0.99£, which means you actually pay anywhere from $0.99 to $1.60 for the same song depending on where you live (which is utter bullshit, but if it works in my favor I won't complain too loudly). In this case, the price was converted so there was no “discount.” I did notice though that the English version of the website was incomplete and poorly written, and I thought, “well if I can't get in, at least I can help them be successful.” So I shot them an email offering to translate the website into English. Their response was “That sounds great, do you want like a free ticket for doing that?”

…

I nearly passed out.

Last month my dream came true, and I visited the convention, this time without lying to get away, and it was awesome! There were 5,000 other fans there to enjoy Trek-dom with. I stayed with the host family of a friend, all of whom are also trekkies!

I don't know if you know how a convention works, my guess is no since almost everyone I tell this to has asked me what the hell one does at a convention. Basically it's four solid days of Q&A rounds with actors and directors, presentations about SciFi and fantasy stuff (Mistakes in Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica and Mormon Theology, The End of the World in SciFi, etc), a costume contest, a merchandise room, several parties, photo and autograph session, and mingling with fans. You have to make a plan of attack before you go. Schedules are sent out in advance for this purpose. No bullshit.

During one of the question rounds with Dr. Frasier from Star Gate (btw, despite the name, it's not just a Star Trek convention, but a general SciFi and fantasy convention), I got up to ask a question. Now the Q&A rounds are conducted in English since most of the actors don't speak German. This means that everyone asking questions has a thick German accent. Everyone that is, except me. So I walk up to the mic and say, “I've always wondered if scifi actors...” and the actress cuts me off “Where are you from?! Not Germany.” So I tell her I'm from Kansas, and then everyone in the room laughs at the way I said Kansas. Then she said, “Boy, you're cute, how old are you? What”s the age of consent in Germany?” I then said that I'm old enough and then that I'm single. We flirted like this for about 3 minutes in front of 5000 other people. Then I asked my question, she answered, and then she asked my name. I told her, smiled, and walked away. I thought this would be the end of it. Then during another Q&A, the actor who played Doral on Battlestar Galactica pulled the same thing...sadly without flirting. After this, I was officially known as “Alex from Kansas" around the convention grounds. No less than 4 people came up to speak to me just because of this, and in the grocery store outside the convention, I overheard two different groups of people saying in German, “oh yeah that's Alex...she was right; he is cute.” So that's how I got thoroughly embarrassed at a Star Trek convention.

Ok now you can enjoy the photos.

Thunder-Thunder-Thunder Cats. HooooOOOOO!

Alien vs. Predator. They were married. and their son was a small predator.

Fry, Zap, Nibbler, and Amy

For all my friends playing Settlers of Catan, you can get a Star Trek Version now!

Fraking Toaster.

I think this might have been some sort of bondage relationship, since the slave Wraith had the collar on all weekend. There were more Wraiths, and it was hilarious to see them just chilling outside the hotel smoking a cigarette like it is the most normal thing in the world to have 20" dreadlocks, blue faces, and fangs.

One of my people on the subway toward the Convention site.

Who you gonna call?!

A Gorn talking to a Vulcan. The actual fight scene with Capt. Kirk and the Gorn is such a shitty scene. But so shitty that it's good.

More fans, along with the guy who held the talks on Temporal Logic and Mistakes in Star Trek. Both in German. Temporal Logic was a kick in the head at 9:30am. OH and the SyFy channel was there giving out goodies. One of the goodies was a condom...as if anyone is getting laid at a Star Trek Convention....

Any Mass Effect fans out there. to the left we have Shepard, and to the right we have a Quarian.

One of the Star Trek make-up artists did a tutorial that took this dude from normal to Klingon in a hour. The trick: paint the prosthetic piece blood red, and then apply the skin tone make-up.

R2-D2 was rolling around like a pimp. I'm not sure of a midget was inside controlling or if it was remote controlled.

This lady was kinda strange to talk to, but he costume was impeccable.

Sadly the only picture of me. The woman is a Trill. I am dressed as a 23rd century science officer (commander). My mom made the costume.

I am so addicted to conventions now. I am already planning my next costume. Unless my mom can either sew leather or tease leaves into a wig I may have to do this one on my own.

der Legostein

I was a weird kid when I was younger. I nourished myself almost solely with coca-cola and cake frosting, I refused to wear jeans as I was convinced they were made of metal, at the age of 6 I made napalm, and for a good two years of my childhood, my mother had resigned herself to the idea of having an autistic son. She (tentatively) was later proven wrong. Despite my...erm...idiosyncrasies? one part of my childhood was very normal. I loved to play with Legos. I still have a giant box of them in my room and my various Lego spaceships completely with Lego crew are still docked at my Lego space station.

About three weeks ago, I went to visit my very good friend David in Ulm. The goal was that I would meet his family, throw paper airplanes from the highest church tower in the world, and generally make Ulm a little insecure. We did all that of course, but then David dropped a little surprise in my lap. It turns out that Legoland Deutschland is only a hop, skip, and a jump from Ulm. My tail began to wag at the first mention of Legoland, and I got this dopey grin that I couldn't get ride of when I found out that he and I were going to visit it.

The church tower in Ulm. One of my paper airplanes reached the Danube...another one reached the police station.

See, I've always wanted to visit Legoland. The original one is in Denmark, but it's just slightly to the East of the Middle of Nowhere, Denmark, so a trip there was infeasible, and I had all but given up on the dream. I knew there was a Legoland in Germany, but I had forgotten about that one since I'd been living in northern Germany.

Legoland was awesome. I probably would have gotten a very little bit more out of it had I been an actual child, but that would only have been because I could have ridden more rides. I was beside myself with enjoyment as it was though. There are a couple of roller coasters, but since the median age of Legloand patrons is somewhere between 7 and 11, the coasters aren't too scary. The first thing we did was get on a roller coaster, which also doubled as a haunted house type thing. We all got high-fives from the roller coaster operater as we passed by. My guess is that I wasn't the first conspicuously old person to ride the coaster. Afterwards we hit up another ride themed around “Ninjago, Masters of Spinjitzu.” I have no idea what spinjitzu is, but somehow it lends itself to a bucking carousel ride that resembles a tie fighter. The seats also had wings that you could steer. This gave you just enough rope to hang yourself, so to speak. If you tilted the wings just right, you could make your experience significantly more terrifying than your neighbors'. There was another ride that was some sort of robot arm that tossed you around like a rag doll, I cut in front of easy four 2^nd graders to get the best spot.

The park also has a movie theater, which was kinda lame. Go figure. The show factory was pretty cool to see, though. Ohh wait I just remembered something about that damned factory! Ok, so the tours are in groups and are all started with a short film about Legos. We waited in line, during this wait a child and I played around by jumping back and fourth with one another. Then the doors opened, and our comeradery dissolved as I basically palmed him and two other kids into the pavement to be the first one inside. The door man was handing out souvenir Lego bricks and I stood there expectantly awaiting my Lego brick. The man looked at me and said in a dismissive tone that only the children get the bricks. I thought about arguing but the last thing I wanted was to get thrown out of Legoland over a goddamned Lego brick, so I sighed, conspicuously loud, and went inside. Bullshit. Today's blog title means “Lego brick” by the way.

By far the coolest thing about the park was the miniature world. The imagineers have recreated a handful of cities around the globe in Lego form and the amount of detail is awesome.

This is the Lego version of the Castle Neuschwanstein. To get an idea of the size,  my friend David is standing in the background taking a picture and he is about 6'2". The plants are all real. I managed to corner a gardener in the park and she told me that there are only 20 gardeners who take care of the entire park.

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This is a Lego version of Römerplatz in Frankfurt. It's not totally accurate, but Lego is an imperfect medium. Oh, and my (other) friend David, who is a Frankfurt tourguide, told me a story about a man in the Frankfurt city hall who would spy on important meetings, and on the real city hall in Frankfurt they have a small statue of him, which the Lego designers recreated!!!!

Berlin in Lego form. This is specifically the Berliner Dom and the TV Tower, which I captured in my own travels to Berlin.

The is the German Parliament. I haven't seen this technically, yet, but I will be seeing it next week. The short (Lego) woman in the snazzy jacket can be no one other than Angela Merkel (a fellow Ossi, I might add)

This little gem was found in the recreation of Schwabenland, I had to photograph it since both my aunt and David's mom are named Sonja.

I liked this mostly because I utterly hate pigeons. The woman's book says "Pigeon recipes"

Oh lord. Ok, so hooking is legal in Germany, and the city of Hamburg (recreated here) is famous for  the Reeperbahn, an area dedicated to quite literally hookers and blow. So the Lego imagineers recreated Hamburg, complete with hookers.

No, this isn't New Orleans. This is Venice. The ships in the model really do float and travel along the canals. David (the first one) noticed that the 'Italian' music playing in the background was utter gibberish.

I am no fan of Munich, but even I have to admit that this recreation of Allianz Arena is pretty baller. The whole thing is about 7 feet across, and glows at night. They had to design a special kind of brick that was translucent in oder to get the proper effect.