Friday, December 21, 2007

Wowzers

My Lord have I been busy. We have so much to cover and so little time! I think that the best way to bring you, lovely reader, up to date on my joyous journeys is through vignette form. Here are a few select instances in the past week that stick out in my mind:

1. I sat down for a wonderful European breakfast at this trendy little cafe the other day in Berlin (when I say "trendy" what I mean is that the service sucks, the people pretentious, and the portion size particularly puny, but the coffee is killer). To me, a European breakfast consists of an assortment of breads, cheeses, and maybe a little fruit. Everything the body needs! So, I order it up, wait for way too long, and then the waitress bring it over. Hoorah! A veritable orgy of proteins and carbohydrates awaiting consumption! Methinks I am a happy boy. I pick and sample, combine and spread, drink and eat. Ohhh... what is this? Obviously this is a European cheese I have not tried yet! Experimentation galore! I shall test it.... Hmmm... it's very soft and a bit slimy. I like that. It's kind of salty. Interesting. Try a bit more... wait a second. This isn't cheese. Shit. I just ate about a half a stick of butter.

2. I went out to a party with a co-worker of mine. It was a birthday party for his friend and I spent the next two hours sitting in a chair (a chair that was too good for me. We were all sitting in a room and I happen to pick the best chair in the entire house. I felt extremely uncomfortable. People are sitting on the lamanated wooden floors, and here I am, King Matthias I, seated atop his throne; I felt like an idiot), not saying a word. I couldn't understand anything. I just sat, like a moron, trying to gauge if a joke was told, to which I would slightly jiggle in faux-laughter. Torturous. We ended up going to a bar afterwards. A very Berlin underground bar. But, thanks to that wonderful Social WD-40 known as alcohol, pretty soon the entire room was speaking English like we were at the Queen's court. I made friends with a dude who spoke terrible English and tried to help him through it. Even in his barely comprehensible state, he made a profound statement. Something along the lines of "all we everybody needs is food, drink, house, and sex." It's poetic in it's simplicity. Regardless of Muslim, Jew, Indian, or Eskimo, we all need the same things. What is left after that is just icing on the cake, but it also goes by another name... "culture".

3. I blew it with the flate-mate situation. Big surprise.

4. I am reading Moby Dick for the first time. Wow. The classics used to scare me. They were an inaccessible myth. Something that only English majors read. How wrong I was! This is fantastic! Poetry in every paragraph! I often have to put the book down for a few moments in between sentences, just so I can reflect and savour what I just read. Magnificent.

5. I flirted with a waitress at a chic cafe the other day. She gave me the "ask me what I'm doing later" eyes (the kind where she doesn't break eye contact as she walked away from my table). Hot. Her smile... let me tell you about her smile. It was the kind of smile that can bring a strong man to his knees, lift his gaze skywards, and thank God for his worldly existence. The kind of smile that makes me think that love at first sight is a reality. The kind of smile that can bring world peace. The kind of smile that can start wars. She had the face that could launch a thousand ships. I kind of fancied her. But, I am in this funk where I acknowledge that I am leaving a given place soon, so I am unwilling to even explore a potential "situation" because I am afraid that I will actually really like her and then have to leave.

THIS JUST IN-- There has been a sudden scarcity of balls in Matt's pants. If you find any, please send immediately.

6. I took a road trip from Berlin to Munich. I loaded a mini-van-type thing with tour guide crap in Berlin, hopped in, turned on the radio, and took off. Let me tell you: The autobahn ain't worth the hype. Most people go at around 70 mph or so. Yeah, occasionally some Audi TT will blaze by at 150mph, but it's rare and fleeting. In my sexy man-van, I was chuggin at 73mph. More than that and I would have been on the evening news. I arrived in Munich in one piece, more familiar with the German countryside (beautiful), German radio (better than the US), and German drivers (worst on the planet).

That's all for now. I am in Munich doing all sorts of administrative crap. I enjoy it though. The business world gives me a little adrenaline boost. Must conquer and destroy competition. American imperialism at it's best. I'm off to a lunch date. Have your people call my people.

Cheers,
Matt

ps. I actually heard somebody in Berlin say, with disgust, "I fucking hate Pikies." I smiled with glee. If you have not seen the movie Snatch... go rent it right now.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

your sphere of influence will extend beyond your earthly years