a schwabisch thanksgiving

so our thanksgiving party was a smash. we planned for everyone we knew in germany to come to our apartment and it worked. good thing we don't know too many people. we cleared out everything we own and stuffed it into the bedroom to make room for the food, and people. the food was delicious and we have a lot of leftovers. i made mac and cheese and it was gone at the end of the night. guess that means it was good. we had a "white elephant" gift exchange too. i don't know who's idea this was but it was fun. i got a turkey carcas! curtosy of joseph! thanks man. a lot of people made the trip to little schwäbie so we showed them a little of what we have to offer. but we really didn't leave the house. good music, good food, and good friends. i had a great time. by the end of the night we found ourselves in the kitchen dancing and singing samba music with all of our brazillian friends.

hans the snowman

say hello to hans. he says hi. last night i ventured out to aalen, germany, which is about a 20 minute train ride from little schwäbie. my friend paris lives there with his aunt and uncle. i took all my drity laundry -literally- and hopped on the train. when i got there he had beer and a comfortable house waiting. we had a good night just relaxing and talking. his uncle is a hunter and has an entire house of deer skulls and furs from everything. they have a german wirehair hunting dog. she's a sweetie. we took her for a walk last night in the snow. there are a ton of paths out behind the house so we went out for a bit. then this morning when i woke up there was about an inch of snow on the ground! it was really nice to see. if it's this cold it better snow! we ate breakfast which was a traditional german one. bread, meat, cheese, an egg and coffee. i don't drink coffee so i had water. but it was great. it was cool to experience a "real" german house. so after breakfast we took the dog for her morning walk. this time we bundled up a bit more (in my clean clothes!) and walked to another area of paths. it was a huge field with walking and bike paths cutting through it. it was so beautiful to see all the tree branches covered with snow. my camera ran out of batteries so i don't have any pictures. so i'll leave it to your imagination.

this is how i've been passing the time if you're wondering:

1. wishing my girlfriend was here.

2. listening to: aqualung, weezer, andrew bird, jack johnson, cary brothers, death cab for cutie, supergrass, christmas music (i love christmas time. i'm pressing it this year cause i can't wait)

3. watching movies: wedding crashers, usual suspects, september sessions & garden state.

4. walking around thinking and trying to get motivated to design.

DOWNLOAD NOW: pharrell;can i have it like that. juanes; la camisa negra

german radio ( if you want to hear what i have to put up with ) tokyo hotel and US5.

first snow

yesterday i woke up to that white stuff that i haven't seen in a while. this week has been getting progressively colder and it was bound to come sooner than later. it only snowed a little as you can see but it was beautiful to see the mountain sides covered. i love living in a place with mountains. i've always wanted to. sometimes i don't even notice them though cause i'm here everyday. last night we all had dinner with matide and violine the girls from france. they made a french dish for us that had a lot of cheese and ham. i don't remember what she called it but it was delicious. a couple bottles of red wine later it was a great night. we listened to french music all night too. it's nice to be able to do that here. i don't think i've hung out with any germans yet. all my friends here are from brazil, france, costa rica, mexico or the us. it's kind of strange. but i'm just glad i made good friends here. it would be really boring otherwise.

i only have 5 weeks left and they are going to fly by. tony's dad comes to visit on monday and we're going to have a huge thanksgiving bash on saturday. we've invited more than 30 people. it's going to be a full house. but we're having everyone make food from their country so it should be great. i'm in charge of making mac and cheese! then the weekend after that. i'll be in africa. cassablanca to be exact. i can't wait to get to warmer weather. plus sitting on a beach in december is fine with me. meghan you're lucky!

i've actually been hard at work on some design projects. i've been developing graphics for an alarm clock instruction manual. it's different and harder than i thought it would be. but it's a good challenge. i'm also designing travel posters for the cities that we traveled to. they are comming a long. i've been designing some tshirts. the instructor has been sick for 2 weeks so we can't get into the studio yet. i hope we get to print before we leave! i'm really looking foward to it. and in my other class i've been developing a book layout with violine and paris. i've never designed with a group before for an entire project. it's different. but i'm getting used to it. we're redesigning an i.m. pei book.

today i'm going to relax and watch some movies...

after a day of listening to german

ich kann zeichnen

one down two to go. this thursday was my last 7.5 hour drawing class. this is the only class i've accomplished anything it so far. we began drawing profiles without help then drew them again at the end. here's my progress using different techniques.

1. profile without instruction (first day of class)
2. profile with a circle technique (last day of class)
3. profile with a sketch techinque (last day of class)

berlin

we i finally made it to berllin it was great! every train we took beginning friday in gmund was delayed. we were scheduled to arrive at brian's door at 11:30 we didn't make it till 3 a.m. i'll let you imagine how upset and tired we were. BUT: we had a chance to do laundry! as you know there are no laundrymats here in gmund so we all took our entire wardrobes to berlin. i haven't carried a pack that heavy in a while. it's so nice to smell good again. mostly i smell here. not by choice. europe smells like an ashtray and B.O. plus we have to hand wash our clothes so they really don't get all that clean. but i'll be clean for a while. once in berlin and awake we met up with dan, kelsey, and joe. we walked around all day in sprawlling berlin and saw the sights. that night the girls and tony decided to take a night train home. i wished they could have stayed but they had to do "homework". whatever that is. anyway i planned on staying till wednesday because of the donavan frankenriter concert on tuesday night. so the next day brian, meredith and i walked around some more and found the bauhaus archive. i bought some really cool posters. it was a great change of pace to be in berlin. it was a lot like new york in the way that we had to take the underground everywhere and walk a lot. brian and i went for a walk around potsdam the next day. potsdam is bigger than gmund but there is less to do if you can believe that! it got really cold the first night we were in berlin. i think winter is here so we found a winterfest and had some hot apple cider.

i had a great birthday in berlin. the night of my birthday we went to dan's apartment and hung out then went out. we found this great club with a band. our german friends, brian and i were the only ones who wanted to go in. so we did. the band was great. they were american and played 50's style-hair-slicked back music. complete with an upright bass. we had a great night. that night we stayed out too late and missed the last train back to potsdam so we ended up staying up till 7am and catching the first train back. for my birthday brian and meredith took me to the hard rock cafe for a tasty burger and fries and all the ketchup i could eat.

the last two days i spent in berlin were the best. we went to see the blue man group. to my suprise we got fourth row seats the same day of the show and at student prices! it was an amazing show. it was all in german and halarious. but i'm sure it would have been even funnier if i understood what was being said. the show was about 2 hours long and totally interactive with the crowd. they came into the crowd 3 or 4 times and near the finally they strung these white banners all the way from the rear of the theater to the stage. music screamed from the stage as strobe lights flooded the theater. it was crazy and a great finally that brought everyone in the theater into the show.

my last day in berlin, the one i'd been waiting on, didn't let me down. brian and i borded a train a few hours before the show and got off at the last stop in east berlin. east berlin is still really different than west berlin. we stepped out of the train station to find the venue and it was right there. we thought we'd have to search all over town for it like everything else but this time it was easy. we had about 2 hours to kill before the show so we walked around this shady part of berlin with street markets then ended up just chilling at the train station. we had a pizza and some beck's. we went to the venue at 7 and were very suprised at how "cool" this place was. it was normally a dance club that they turned into a concert venue. the lighting was low and colored. there were black leather sofas lining the back wall and two bars. white buffalo opened the show. he was pretty good. he looked like santa clause and had a hell of a smokers voice. donavan and his band took the stage around 9 and played an incredible set. i would say there were no more that 150 to 200 people in the entire place. so it was a comfortable show and enjoyable. all the germans knew every word of every song. i was impressed. it was a great night. the next morning it was time to head home and do "homework".

welcome november

wow. i can't believe it's november. i always look foward to november cause of my birthday. 4 days! wahoo. actually i don't really care that it's my birthday. it will just be another day i'm afraid. i'm leaving for berlin on friday to hang out with brian and see what there is to see in berlin. we're defiently going to see donovan frankenreiter http://www.donavonf.com/homepage.htm on tuesday night. i'm so excited. i really wanted to see at least one concert while i was here. i miss live music so much. at home i can entertain myself but there are no drums here. although my friend margo is a drummer and she wants to get together and bang on some pots and pans. ha ha. atleast i have my harmonica and we have a total of 4 guitars between the exchange students. so i'm looking foward to that. just wanted to let everyone know there is a really easy way to clean your tv if it's dirty. tony and i stayed home one day last week and cleaned up after our sheading rugs. you'd think we have a dog here or something. the other picture i wanted to show you is how they teach us to draw here. they lock us in a studio for 7.5 hours and make us draw on ourselves. i guess it works. i haven't seen much improvement yet...