skiing
swiss alps
snow
seven days
super duper

location: ssssssssssssss mood: silly music: ssssssss

whew i bought a plane ticket. feb 5th. less than two months from now i will be i missoula montana. i dont yet know if that is good or bad, or both. or neither...because recently i decided there was no such thing as good or bad. but if there is no good, and no bad, can there be neither nor??

and if there is no bad, then what do i think about moving back to a country with a drinking age which i do not exceed? exceed? i duno if thats the right word, english is no longer easy for me to think about. or in other words, i acutally have to think about enlgish now, and therefor have trouble using it.

i am getting an ipod for xmas, which i am not supposed to know about, yet. but i do, and this is good (if there is such a thing), and i will name it rufus secondus (thanks summer)

actually i just remembered i figured the whole good and bad thing out. i do not believe in absolute good and bad, or relative, but i will accept personal (for example it is good for me that i am getting an ipod)

and it is a good idea for me to quit writing now

music: seeed

well. the first thanksgiving without family celebration followed by friends, weed and munchies, alcohol and dizzyness, turkey and mashed potatoes. the only thing i dont miss about this day is pumkin pie. i hate pumkin pie. but its ok because katie was always there to eat my slice. my slice eater is unfortunately down under, but at least we are sharing feelings of missing thanksgiving (and eachother) together.

i havent been especially thankful today. but i did get a package in the mail with warm clothes and cello music from my father. thanks dad. oh and new cds from curtis. thanks curtis.

and i am also very thankful that you just read this!

oh and happy birthday trebor. i hope you have a great birthday and eat lots of good food. and i am thankful for all the good times we had together, especially the cinco de maio party at your moms house.

thank you pot, for sending me a happy thanksgiving greeting through my space. i wish i could smoke you right now, but i am still thankful others are fufilling this wish for me.

thank you kief for getting gmail so we can cyber. thats just hot.

and thanks hallmark for exploiting this holiday to the point that i actually miss it.

mood: thankful

well guess i jinxed myself. i was so happy yesterday that i decided not to be homesick anymore (it was pretty much psychological anyway) and then later that night my host parents and i had a talk. and it looks like im coming home early after all.

since susu, the 12 year old, now lives at our house (her dad lives here, mom is divorced and lives in another town, until this year she was only here on weekends) she "fills the holes" when the parents arent here to watch lenneka. also, my parents need me most in the afternoon, but my german school is ONLY in the afternoon three days a week. therefore they dont see me as useful anymore. that sounds evil, they were really nice about it, but pretty much they would be happier if i left.

im not sure how i feel about this yet. on one hand i can come home and work my ass off and actually make some money, it means i can come back sooner. i can hang out with friends again, which i have missed dearly (with my friends, who WOULDNT want to come home and see them?!?). i wont have to live with a family in the middle of nowhere again. i can integrate myself again into the (small but nonetheless helpful) music scene in missoula, where here there is little chance to play with others. on the other hand, i love germany and i worked hard to get here, and i feel like i totally failed. cant wait to here my parents tell me that too. and i will have little time to study with my new teacher, who has much to teach me.

my german school ends on january 26th. it seems like a long ways away, but that is only 4 weeks, then my parents come and im on vacation skiing in switzerland (which doesnt count for any days because that time will FLY by) and then 4 more weeks. then i come home. february. i will only have lived in germany for 5 months. i will lose my german skills (well i wouldnt call it skills quite yet, but i will forget lots of what ive learned). but as long as i get all the shit worked out with the schools here and i plan to come back next summer and do auditions, then i think this might be a good thing. whew. it seems like i have so much to write, then for months nothing, then all of a sudden news news news. is life always abrupt like that?? or do i just drive my life like i drive stick shift??? (ive been learning how here, quite unsuccessfully...ahah)

dear stella:
(this part is just for you, baby....muah)

cello lesson went well. it was almost three hours long, and worth every euro penny. his name is othello liesmann, and even though i have to call him "herr liesmann" i love and wish i could call him just "othello". he is much like ken, except more serious about technique. he studied with enriquo minardo (holy shit!!!! and, did i spell that right??!) in three hours, he totally reorganized my technique, including posture, endpin lenth, and every last muscle in my left hand. my right hand didnt "need" much adjusting, but we worked on bowing for a good 30 minutes at least. its gonna take awhile to adjust, but i am already in love with how this guy works. he broke his neck when he was 18, and since then he has studied cello technique in a completely "cant remember this word in enlish...help!" body compatible way. for example, my favorite thing i learned was how to "hang my fingers" on the fingerboard, instead of "clenching" my thumb together with my other fingers. like a monkey hanging from a tree. that way its easier to work around my ugly embarrasing and yet unchangable hitchhikers thumb. on the right side of things, he suggested (as well as a bow hair change....how embarrasing) using all the hairs instead of tilting the bow towards me. weird, but then the tone quality immediately gets richer. anyway i had a great time, and am still working on sorting things out in the left hand, it will probably take a month or two. ALSO i just got my package of things that i left at nics house, with most of my notes. oh i am in heaven. for further news....read next lines

dear everyone else (i dont think anyone else but stella reads my journal, but anyhow):

in other news, my homesickness is gone. fwweeeuup. sucked up like a piece of dust in a vacuum. following my trip to france (yesterday to today) to retrieve my luggage. useless but meaningful things retrieved that are responsible for curing my homesickness completely for the meantime include reagan youth shirt, mf doom cd, and green loofa (all three stolen from kief, sorry kief), queen best of, sushi socks, jacket and lighter holder courtesy of nug nasty nate (applause, thank you nathan), and last but not least my gershwin piano book, gift of the girl with the most beautiful smile in the world, abby pletscher.

i am listening to queen, wearing sushi socks and an old reagan youth tshirt, and no longer missing my friends because i have a little bit of each one right here.

i love my friends, and you should too.

tags: why are all my posts so long??

first of all thank you hrothgar for the delightful commentrary-filled constitutional abbreviation. have you checked out "best story ever sold" by (sorry i forget who).....

whew. well despite the fact i am living in a different country, things have really settled down. i have a weekly routine, and the days go by. i have made friends in köln and often go out for the weekend. last weekend was karneval, a huge party in köln, similar to halloween in the respect that everyone dresses up in costumes, gets wasted, sing drunken songs in the street, and stay up all night for the sake of some sort of holiday (which one is not important after about 2 am)

had a good time. got kicked out of a reggae fest by a very intimidating bouncer and proceeded to buy consume and consume again multipule illegal drugs. and legal ones. went to a shisha bar and didnt smoke shisha. danced with german men until 6 am. including a "bar stool dance" with a friend of mine, valentine (i was therefore all night a saint(ess), because i was accompanied the whole night by two men named constantine and valentine...) watched south park (in english!!!)and smoked pot until 7:30 then passed out for a coupla hours. woke up and watched more south park while sucking on a hooka. went to a christmas market in brühl, where constantine lives. ate apple strüdel and coffee...spent coutless hours in trains. got to gummersbach, (closest city to my house, but 30 minutes bus away) and visited the brewery until 10 pm. got picked up by parents. watched sex and the city in german. went to bed.

that, in a nutshell, is my typical weekend. typical week includes endless hours of housework, babysitting, and going to german class. oh and of course playing cello. i have my first cello lesson today with a well known teacher, who is actually perfect for me because right off the bat he told me how fucked up my playing was, that i would never get into a good school, etc. finally a teacher who will motivate me to learn something. he also has close connections with the conservatory for music in köln, so i should get some good tips from the guy.

i am learning how to drive stick shift. i was never meant to drive stick shift. the good news is i havent crashed the car yet.

i am desperately trying to hide the fact that i am homesick. i am in the process of sorting out what i want to do from this point on, because this situation is not working out like i thought it would. i must decide soon when i am coming back to missoula. anywhere between march and july. reasons to come home early: i dont make enough money here to put anything away for college, in fact i barely have enough to have cello lessons and pay back my debts from this summer. i can make more money in missoula, and will have to come back this summer and get a job anyway because i wont have enough to move out here and find and apartment right away. also, my host parents are not supportive of my "preperations for college" while i am here. they specifically told me the other day that "you must choose between preparing for uni or being an au pair. both do not work together"....well thats not a hard decision the reason i came here in the first place was to get into a university here. thirdly, the earlier i come back and start making money, the sooner i can return to germany to go to school. fourthly, i didnt actually admit this, but i want to come home. i miss america (i never thought i would ever say that, but its true). reasons why i should stick it out here: although we dont have a contract, i feel that i would be dishonoring my host family by dropping out of the job early. i am the third au pair and the last one had to leave early as well. i dont blame the parents for wanting an au pair all the time because their kid is a monster. secondly, i am really stubborn and hate giving up. in my mind coming home early would be giving up, no matter what the circumstances. i hate letting myself down, and i have this great fear that i am getting further and further away from getting into school, and that i will end up never going to school and becoming a starving alcoholic bum. thirldy, i will forget all my german, and regardless that i nearly have my german certificate (i take the test at the end of jan...) i wont be practicing german anymore and will have to work it up again. fourthly....i really do like it here, and i like my family.

hmmm, decisions decisions. the most important input, however, comes today from my cello teacher. i dont even know if i want to go to school here, i heard from a couple other cello teachers here that the music programs have high standards, but the teachers dont really care about actually teaching, just pushing kids through the motions. i dont want that. my cello teacher will probably tell me today if germany is right for me, and if it isnt than i will be coming back to missoula in early march. gut instinct: go home, carmen, go home.

mood: contemplative music: j5

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!!!

my favorite holiday is going to waste, but my spirits are always high on this tricksy holiday. germans dont exactly celebrate halloween, although we are having a bbq. no trickrtreating, no scaring people, no dressing up, no stuffing candy down my throat while having shopping cart races down the streets. no smoking pot in my favorite potsmoking tree (a halloween tradition) and no drinking rum (also, more or less a "tradition"), no seeing friends, and no smashing pumpkins and performing amazing deeds of terror and vandalism

just livejournal. wow i am a nerd.

but it doesnt matter because its halloween! so all of you missoulians (and, well, americans) better get off the damn computer , put on a bloody zombie mask (or shaina, hana, your amazing nun costumes) get out on the streets, and celebrate! because i cant.

follow up....what was your best halloween costume ever??

mine was pippi long stocking (katie and i both....we even had the little monkey and our hair stuck out!!)

there are some things that happen in life that are so painfully irreversable that you think over and over to yourself "no, this is not true, this did not just happen" and then you remember it happened. and this cycle just hovers in your head like a pack of flying vultures preparing to eat bloody dead things.

this is how i feel after my brother told me that he deleted all the files on our computer at home and reinstalled everything from new.

all my pictures that i ever took are now gone. poof. if i were not so mad i would cry.

i should have known the german police arent fond of strangers

more orgasms!!!! yesterday randy crawford and joe sample trio played at the köln philharmonie and i pretty much died. her voice was so incredible, it was like honey, except for smoother and more consistant, maybe like melted marshmallows (ya know when you make rice krispies and right before you pour the melty goo on the krispies) thats how smooth her voice was.

and and and shosto symphony on the 15th yay!!!!!!!! (5th)

and and and and STEVEN ISSERLIS is playing with köln on the 22nd and i MUST get good seats.

i will be forever broke in this city of constant worthwhile musical occasions

allright, well if you dont really want to read this post you just saw the word orgasm and wondered what was so exciting in my life (no worries, i didnt actually have sex with music or make music orgasm for that matter) the main theme of this entry is that i am enthusiastically content with the music scene in köln.

for the true readers:
last night was my first night out in köln without the folks. they dropped me off at a concert where dendemann was playing, a guy i had never even heard of until i read the news that morning. some mc from a german hip hop band. well, cant be sold out i thought, if the tickets are only 13 euro.... . wrong. so stranded with only money and a sexy hat, i wandered to the market across the street and bought some beers and a cigar. then i took a seat outside the entry and waited for something amazing to happen. which it did. i befriended a couple of other guys who also didnt think ahead and get tickets earlier, and after some more beers and brainstorming we decided we better not try to sneak in (we checked it out, but heavy security all around). luckily, they ended up letting about 15 people just buy a ticket even though it was sold out because köln is cool like that. the guy i ended up talking to the most, his name was...i-forget-something-sexy-sounding-in-german and he had amazingly hot dreadlocks. so we walk inside feeling all ganster like we just robbed a bank (because of our cool, persuasive ways of getting into sold out concerts) and he immedietly whips out a tin filled with fresh bud. tells me "hey look at this!?" and i say "hey! look at that!" and he tells me "ya, this is mine i grew it and i just harvetsted a half kilo!" and i said "hey not bad buddy". and thats the end of that swerve in the story because the main point is dendemann turned out to be the shit. and one hell of a rapper, and the atmosphere was great, even though i had to concentrate really hard to understand german rap.

90 minutes later, the story takes a turn for the worse. at first i thought some drunk guy was trying to kill me, because some one was yanking on the back of my sweater. then i turn around and "surprise!" its my host dad. evidentilly i didnt answer my phone calls and evidentilly i wasnt keeping track of time. but the night ended quickly, i wasnt able to say goodbye to the good looking good dancing hell of a guy, (although i had already scored a number from him), and i got bitched out by a tired and cranky overly aggressive 40 year old man. luckily for me i was still in the musical orgasm stage that it didnt really affect me. plus i couldnt really hear anything after being in such a loud environment. thank god for big stereos and loud rappers.

thank god for music in köln!!!!

p.s. jurassic 5 plays here next week and i am picking up tickets tomorrow weeeeee!

today i made peanut butter cookies, an adventure consisting of mixing the dried ingredients (i always make the same stupid mistake, ALWAYS) and then coming to the realization that the house had a serious lack of eggs. 5 minutes later and an awkward conversation in german with the neihbors, still no eggs. florian has one car at work and cayen has the other at the gym, so i take the mountain bike pedal to the medal style and sweat my way into gummersbach and back, made it in a record round trip 1 hour 5 minutes (the fastest ive ever done it since yesterday, when i tried it for the first time and almost died of exhaustion). i only needed two eggs, but i bought 6 anyway. then i got home and realized.......no butter. fuck. well the cookies are edible, and (despite my families "oh, yum!") im not convinced that american recipies are safely converted into metric system afterall...especially with the use of lowfat margarine. but after all that work for 2 eggs, you better believe i ate my share. next time im gonna make something a little more safe, like a pbj.

mood: jubilant

the plug to the computer stereo is broken and fucked up and all the music is fuzzy and distorted at best. it would be better if it didnt work at all, but since it plays music just very annoyingly my stubborn soul still listens on. i am gonna go kill kittens now, k bye

well. three days down in good ol deutschland. tonight was one of a kind. i just spent the last 5 hours getting wasted with my host parents and my host grandparents, and then had a jam session with a bunch of middle aged german dentists. talk about culture shock. it even hurts writing this because i have open blisters on my left hand (from a drunken story in marmaris turkey that i probably shouldnt go into in public) and new blisters on my right hand from playing the bass for the first time in months. i am so satisfied right now i cant even explain it (especially in english, which i am losing quite quickly), to have played music with other musicians (despite they were drunk old german men) for the first time in 3 months. i forgot how much enthusiasm i have for music, but it all comes rushing back in this instant. man, i dunno how i will wait 10 days to get my cello back. i already have an invitation back to my hostgrandparents house to have a "real" jam session, which i will look foward to with accelerating enthusiasm.

question of the day from my tainted brain: who should win the election in brazil...lula or chuchu???

mood: drunk music: 12 bar e major blues theme..in head

oh ya....so. after the crazy scrub (its vigirous) you lay back down on the hot stone again and then comes the soap foam. its pretty much the best thing that ever happened to me. they take this pillowcase thing and dip it in ultra soapy foam water, and somehow trap the air so its a balloon, then rub it all over you....gallons of foam going everywhere and you become engulfed in a soapy blanket. of course its so soft you cant really feel anything with your eyes closed. then they massage all the soap into your body and it feels oh so good. to top it off we all got 30 minute full body oil massages. and orange juice.

so that was that. anyone that goes to turkey, please try it out, its way cooler than the mausoleum.

lets see. a couple of drunken stories come up next, otherwise i would sound boring. we were trapped in a small harbor for 3 days from bad winds, specifically körmen (near the city of datcha) and the only building was a restaurant. in that restaurant was a 19 year old bass player who was working there for the summer. thats damn good luck if you ask me. anyway the second night we went out to datcha to party i got way too drunk and probably made a fool of myself dancing in the bar where no one else was dancing (damn tequila just makes me groove!) and then proceeded to waste 30 euro on vodka after vodka shot. somehow i got back to the harbor but unfortunatly my luck ran out once i got there because i fell off the ramp to the boat and "splash!" down i went. the last thing i remember about that night was that i couldnt feel the water and that was weird. next morning i woke up and took account of the damages. i was still in wet clothes....and shivering cold. i didnt throw up, which was a welcome surprise. i had lost one shoe, my moms cell phone ("oh shit i fell in the water didnt i?!"), my underwear (and im still pissed about that....my favorite italian lingerie), and the feeling in most of my right hand. the good news is my friend, whose name i cant pronounce özjak, had my phone. i traded it for the wet tablecloth i found on the floor beside me, which i assume i was given because i fell in the fucking ocean.

bad hangover. embarrasing questions from parents that formed in a conversation like this: Q"so....why are you all wet?" A"because i went swimming" Q"huh?" A"long story" (smirky smile and stifled laughter from parents) Q"and why exactly did you go TO BED in your wet clothes?" this one was a little harder to answer but something like "because i was wasted" came out in mangled german. third repercussion, possibly permanent loss of feeling in right hand. (i fucked up a nerve and i can feel exaclty the nerve all the way up my arm...my hand works fine but feels funny and its not going away...maybe schedule doctor appt??)

god i am so retarded when i am drunk.

i am home!!!!!!!

home is rodt, germany. its beautiful. and green. and the sun is shining, shining but for once not hurting me from its intensity.

i used a flush toilet all day. the even better part of this story is i put the toilet paper INTO the toilet and flushed. that is a liberty that i havent had for two months.

so.......i would go into a long boring itinerary of my adventures "cello goddess takes on greece and turkey" but as i said before i am lazy and so are you, you really dont want to know every detail. trust me. here are the ones worth telling:

1. turkey is better than greece. not only are the people way nicer, the men are....well...ill leave creativity up to the reader on that one. keep it positive folks. if any of you hot ladies travel to the mediterranean, i highly suggest turkey.

2. travelling by boat is the way to go. sure...cramped quarters are crazily annoying, but being able to get out of the highly touristic parts of turkey and greece are worth it. for the most of the last three weeks (a.k.a. turkey) we were travelling through mostly nowhere. sometimes a little village, sometimes a cafe and a hotel, sometimes just some little fishies and a beach.

3. i saw an ancient world wonder!!!!! the mausoleum in bodrum, turkey. actually, it wasnt very impressive because there was nothing left, but the pictures were great, and the historical information was dry but nonetheless in english. plus five points for turkey. what actually should have been the world wonder of this country was the "hamam" or turkish bath. it was the first time i had been high since i stopped smoking weed. and i didnt even toke. the first time we went was our first day in turkey. we had just had a hard sail from kos, greece, and were nice and dirty. a shuttle taxi sent by the hamam picked us up. we were escorted bumpily through the dusty streets of bodrum, listening to traditional turkish music (my favorite turkish instrument is the sass, mother of guitar). the doors were opened for us by ushers and we were led by the red carpet into reception. shoes were left at the door. we were taken into a room and given the "relax and forget about the shopping list just breathe" spiel, and then we changed into our bikinis. traditional hamams are gender separated, but this one was a little touristy and hence we were escorted into the family bath. essentially a big sauna, round and made of stone. around the circumference were small sinks accompanied by bathing bowls. it was hot and steamy. in the middle a huge stone that heated the whole room. the technique is to lay on the stone in the middle until you cant anymore (quite hot) and then cool yourself by splashing cold water on yourself with the bowl by the sink. once one is thoroughly soaked, the cleaners come in. as you sit there melting, they scrub every inch of you down with a rough glove (i though i was gonna get this really hot dude but at the last minute this old gross guy took over...sigh)

oh shit here come relatives more later

so........stuck on an island 10 km long and 35 C degrees hot...i take my last bill of money, a 5 euro (its blue) and tramp down to the icafe. only to discover its always the same. i am still in the middle of nowhere greece, stuck for the 4th day on this island (leros) from bad winds, i still have a 5 year old as my only companion...my bedroom is still a coffin....i am still more homesick than i have ever been in my whole life....(despite my stubborn "i dont get homesick" line)....i still havent smoked weed (its been somehting like 3 months now)....and it has been weeks since i got laid (damn dirty greeks...damn small lonely islands with no men between the ages of 20-25).....

and i am still having the time of my life. yay greece.

where are my friends??? where are you guys???? i get tired from squinting all the time and i stand on my tippy toes to try to see around the curving smooth line of salty water...but all i see is blue. im lost at see....man overboard style

but at least i get to sail with dolphins!!!!!!

mood: bouncy

ok well now that i checked my email and finished the x number beer, ireally have to pee and dont want to journal. but...i am in greece, it fucking rules. my family fucking rules, and the men FUCKING RULE. the weather sucks though, its 42 every day....in celcius..i dunno in farenhiet, but fuck its hot enough. yesterday i almost got heat stroke. yesterday i went and saw a play at a 2000 year old amphitheatre that fits 14000 people. it fucking ruled. and mythos greek beer fucking rules. and it fucking sucks that i miss everyone so much and no one ever comments on my posts. more that i miss people than no one comments though. hm what else, i am stuck on a 10 meter yacht with three people i met last week, luckily they fucking rule, but im fucking lonely for 1...my cello....2....my friends...and 3....my friends that play instruments with me.


plane tickets to germany are pretty cheap, you know.

my brother has floor seats to rolling stones in missoula. that fucking rules.

mood: drunk music: metallica