First weekend

Saturday, I try to sleep in but since I'm still time-shifted I wake up at 7. Breakfast at home. Toast (thanks to a generous donation from our caring secretary Susanne, (she's an angel!!!), I have a TOASTER!! I am re-initiating my teapot. Now I am really here. No tea-candles though and the water is boiled in a cooking pot instead of a water-and-water-only-waterkettle. Well these are the start-up compromises. Being a tea-snob is hard when not settled in.

Then I take my -currently one and only- nice shirt to the cleaner: turnover time one week, not really impressive. 1 Euro 10c, thats good. The elderly lady spends the first 5 minutes trying to fix the paper-roll of her cash registry. 

HERE A WARNING:CREDIT CARDS ARE RARELY ACCEPTED IN GERMANY, THE COMMON FORM OF PLASTIC MONEY IS THE "EC-CARD" which can be used essentially like a debit card (money comes off the account directly) Unfortunately, one needs a PIN for it which is sent separately from the card and cannot be changed even at the bank... and I DO remember seeing the paper with the PIN short time before I left SD (my friend Wolfgang even pointed it out: "hey, that looks important", because I was 100% sure (yeah , right!) I wrote it down in my "Important numbers" file in my laptop. Therefore I just put the paper in a "safe place , that I will remember for sure!" (Oh, Thomas, will you ever learn????) Unfortunately, didn't turn out that way... guess what? (see previous post): 10 WORKING DAYS for a new card!!!!! CONSPIRACY!!!! I knew it!!!!! Well, I'll save money that way, because its harder for me to spend. So it forces me to think twice about unnecessary purchases. Ah well. even bad things have a good side if you force yourself to discover one!

After the cleaners stop, I wander by the little shops of the neighborhood: The "Outlet King" offers an impressive variety of little items with no obvious common theme. I am buying a lighter, a triple-outlet-socket ("Mehrfachsteckdose"), address labels (for the doorbell and the mailbox, after all I am eagerly awaiting a DSL Modem) I am tempted to get incense sticks, but I resist: "Outlet King" is not the place. I do get teacandles and a lighter for 70c though. I decide to ask my nice and mellow neighbors (Radna, I forgot her husbands name, I'm so bad! her name is on the doorbell, so thats easy.) for temporary access to their wireless. But then, they will miss me at the Milkbar, now that I finally became a fixed item of the furniture. Lets see, if I meet the neighbors, I'll ask if not I'll wait for the "real" thing, and keep on drinking Lime/Lemon smoothies. And "Caramel Lattes" (my little US-perversion... yes, some things stick to you after such a long time). But no: I will NOT visit Starbucks here in Hamburg! Support your local coffeehouse!

Yesterday, (Friday night, after all!) I went to the movies: at the 3001 cinema (picture on top), I watched "Madboy", a very raw, semi-amateur, but very entertaining local movie about a want-to-be-musician/small-time-criminal from Wilhelmsburg, a rather run-down working class-low income quarter of Hamburg. I would love to send it as a DVD to some friends who (I know) would appreciate this one VERY much!

Go check it out:

http://www.madboy-derfilm.de/

WATCH IT when you have the opportunity, there is a lot of unexpected talent in new German Cinema.

And hey, I forgot the best: FINALLY I CAN HAVE A "MOVIE-BEER" AGAIN, one of the things I REALLY missed in the US, the land of misunderstood "Family Values"...

Today is also the "Schanzenfest" a street festival at my local neighborhood, which is a grafitti-laden alternative, left-wing-unrestly-kind of neighborhood. I only learned about the festival from the radio:

"2000 Policemen were put on call to secure the peaceful course of the "Schanzenfest" tonight. Last year at the same occasion, there was a large amount of unrest and police and demonstrators engaged in lengthy stone-trowing battles".

I'll check it out, but of course I'll stay out of the "activities". But I will have a beer during the peaceful part for sure  (maybe I will meet some old friends there?)

At least my time here does not seem to become too boring, I only wish I had a phone to be reachable.