T̶w̶o̶ One p̶e̶r̶p̶e̶t̶u̶a̶l̶ ̶e̶x̶p̶a̶t̶s̶ immigrant settling into home country number five.
After a few hours in Halle I jumped on a train to Dresden to meet up with my friend Natale, who was eager to see a piece of the GDR after reading Stasiland, an excellent book about an Aussie who explores the East after the wall fell. I warned her in advance that we may … Read more
On my way from Berlin to Dresden, I couldn’t pass up the chance to go visit my old home Halle an der Saale, which I hadn’t seen in six years. I don’t have much to report, especially since I was only there for a couple hours, but it was at least worth sharing some photos. The … Read more
We spent Easter weekend in Berlin with Kesha and her giant husband (who, by the way, looked quite reasonably-sized among the Germans). I lived in Berlin for the summer of 1997, and hadn’t been back to the city since 1999, so I was eager to revisit my favorite parts and see how the place had … Read more
(Alternate title: Switzerland is a first-world country, I swear) We haven’t had any hot water in our building since Saturday. Thank goodness Scott was able to get in a luke-warm shower after his run that morning (or I would have had to banish him to the balcony for the rest of the weekend), but that … Read more
Yesterday Ali and I visited the exhibit ‘Gay Chic’ at the Museum für Gestaltung in Zurich. The show highlighted how gay has become mainstream in music, film, fashion, and television in European and American culture. This thesis was backed up with pictures of RuPaul, Wham album covers, video installations of Absolutely Fabulous, movie posters for … Read more
For a little change of pace, my friend Ali and I took off to Bern this morning. From the moment we stepped off the train I was in love. Bern has an adorable Altstadt (old town), full of porticoed sidewalks and statue-topped fountains, and an ambiance that lured me in from the start. After wandering … Read more
No, no actual riots occurred (until the following day, at the May Day presentations). Turns out it was a Tokio Hotel concert. Tokio Hotel is something like the German version of N’Sync or Take That, except there’s more instrument playing and yelling, and less synchronized dancing. Same number of shrieking pre-teen fans. I think they … Read more
‘Schwiizerchrüzli’ is a good one, too. I’m starting to love Swiss German.
Last night we went to the opening of “After the Curfew”, an exhibit of the work of three Iraqi artists (Wathiq Al-Ameri, Wamidh Al-Ameri, and Ali Al-Fatlawi) who fled their home country during the regime of Saddam Hussein. After a long and difficult journey through Jordan, Sudan, and Libya, they eventually came to Switzerland and … Read more
Ah, the age of globalization. It means you can get peanut butter in Berlin, Dunkin Donuts in Prague, and fresh mozzarella in Chattanooga, Tennessee. So you’d think it wouldn’t be asking too much to expect to be able to enjoy a decent margarita in the extremely international city of Zurich. I know there are Mexicans … Read more