Also denn!

Wow do the Americans ever suck at soccer. Culture separations always confuse me. I don't understand how we can be completely separated from the rest of the world from things like soccer. They love it! It's not even just a sport to them. When they are cheering for their country's team, they are cheering for their country. They are being patriotic. I swear governments over here might decided wars with a football game. It's not even close to the Olympics--ten times greater. So I was watching the US football game yesterday, and the Germans I was watching it with were laughing at us. 0:3. ouch. I do believe they said the team played like a bunch of little girls. I'm wondering if maybe we're so bad because we changed the word. How did that happen, anyway? The whole rest of the world calls it football. Especially the English speaking countries. So how in the world did we end up calling it something different?

Ah, so now I've already gone on my rant and then decided to look it up. Too bad for you that you have already read the rant. So here it is: http://www.wordorigins.org/wordors.htm scroll down to soccer . . . There you have it. Who'da thunk?

So that was yesterday's excitement. Today was a little less exciting so far. I was a little worried when one of the Germans here asked me to do him a favor. He needed me to read over his paper which was written in English. I did, but I am honestly not entirely sure what it was about. Add to that the fact that I can't write myself, and also can't spell (I told him to replace one word with another word, and I had spelled it incorrectly--he noticed; I didn't.), and I'm wondering whether he would have been better off if I had just told him no. Tonight's the night the international student of RWTH all get together for a BBQ. It should be fun, and there should be plenty of choppy German to go around, so I won't feel too out of place. Wish me luck

Kendall

Music: Random! the whooole playlist on random! Meat loaf came up "And we were glowing like the metal on the edge of a knife!" and 3EB and Maria Taylor and I think some Journey oh and Chicago-the musical and the Police! awesome stuff

A boring weekend

So I've got a good internet connection at work now, and I think I might've solved my wireless troubles at home with some new software for Europe from Dell (knock on wood), but we'll see. Maybe the gods of the internet will take pity on me a poor student who needs to spend more time scyping which is free and less time calling people which is not. Also, the pictures still don't seem to be working like they should--even with this new fast internet connection I have a work, so maybe I'll give up soon and just put them in my album and link to them. Also, I've kind of messed up the days down below. Not sure what I did to make that trouble, but it still works, so I'm happy.

So this weekend was interesting. Saturday I slept in for awhile because I had stayed up until almost 3 due to the Locksmith ordeal. After the sleep, I went shopping and bought a raincoat (which is the only sure way to make sure it never rains--sweet) and some funky sunglasses. They like those really big ones over here, I tried to get some that weren't too big, but I'm not sure I succeeded. I stopped in a music store and was quite surprised at the setup. Under "Indie" they had Blink 182 and Green Day alongside Bright Eyes and a German band called Die Happy. I laughed at them, but there was more. All the rap was labeled "Black" and all the R&B (or maybe it was just black musician's pop music) was labeled "Reggae." Then I saw this boy band I had never even heard of with the gelled-up, two-toned, spiked hair of the late 90s. It was really funny.

On Sunday I decided to do it like the Germans and go out to a park. There were about 2 hundred people in this park, and they were all in their bathing suits tanning in the sun. Maybe the sun isn't normally out as much as it has been the past week, but I still thought it was also funny. Here's a picture of the hill in the park where everyone was laying:
http://web.mit.edu/kmwerts/www/album/Germany/Sunday/slides/Sunday%20001.html
I just sat and read my book for awhile tried to tan a little in my short sleeved shirt, and watched all the people. Quite interesting. Hopefully this weekend I can do something exciting since it is a 4 dayer. Can't wait.

Kendall

Music: Bloc party, Damien Rice, Modest Mouse
PS. Maybe this music thing is kinda hokey, but I guess if you know the band, it shows you what kind of mood I'm in . . .