After a strenuous last few hours, I finally made it to my dorm room. I’ve been carrying two huge baggages of luggage around all day which means I’ve done the equivalent of 10,000 shoulder shrugs, or roughly ½ the amount Tom Hardy did daily when preparing for The Warrior. Due to the growing income disparity in America, I find the sociology of different countries incredibly intriguing, especially because of the Eurozone debt crisis. Coming into Frankfurt, I couldn’t help but notice some of I guess what we would call “slums.” However, living up to its heralding as one of the best countries for baked goods, every house looked like a half-eaten gingerbread house. I’m aware that income disparity in Germany isn’t even close to that of America which is on par with Pakistan and has grown increasingly since the 80s (who was president then, conservatives?), but wait, never mind that’s just a sign of economic prosperity. Thank you Rick Santorum, you’re free to go off and delete e-mails supporting an individual mandate for the healthcare system, as well as throwing away some of the diapers Chris Meyer left at your house.
I digress.
Braunschweig, on the other hand, was a much nicer city, albeit small. I walked in a loop that would give any compass vertigo and invariably ended up lost quite a few times. However, like Edison said, “ I didn’t fail, I found 1,000 ways not to get laid because I was trying to find a fucking reliable carbon filament.” The culture in Braunschweig revolves around the The 12th century Duke of Bavaria and Saxony, Henry the Lion. After a short period of being inconsolable upon learning all of the lion statues weren't because this was where Sinba was born, I was rather drawn into the history of the city. 80% of the Altstadt (old city) was destroyed in World War II. Which, if you don't know much about history, that was a period in the 20th centruy where 6 million Jews were no-call no show at work because they were vacationing in the Cayman Islands and somehow, somebody mistook their absence as being murdered, they showed back up as bankers on Wall Street...just a big mess. So basically the city resembled Lindsay Lohan's vagina after the war, and now, the combination of more modern buildings and early architecture really gives you that "Demi and Ashton" feeling.
My biggest blooper of the day was unrivaled by all of my other shenanigans in that I tried buying a pre-paid phone, and for some reason it came out to 999 euros. It said 16 euros on the shelf. Anyway, it took an unnecessarily long time time to tell the clerk I didn’t want it after she failed trying to explain to me why it rang up to be so much. And by tell her I didn’t want it, I mean nodding and looking at her boobs until she took it off of the register.
I plan on going out tomorrow night for the first time, hopefully squired by what is supposed to be my advisor, but she took me to the bank after hours if you know what I mean. Like she went and helped me get a bank account because I can’t speak German very well…but she totally liked it……hmm.
One more note, I paid .50 euros for a trip to the restroom at the mall. Now before you get all defensive about your fecal and urinary privileges, I will let you know that there was a sanitizing, automatic toilet seat rubber thing that was concurrent with the flushing action. Now I don’t mean the bubbles scrub so you don’t have to. This was 1950s housewife, just got done cooking supper and nursing the 3rd child so I decide the toilet needs a clean scrubbing action. In my book, that kind of confidence in the cleanliness of the area in which my balls will inevitable brush by at some point is well worth half a Euro.