Oh my god! That is so awesome!

I think I've found my new catch phrase. It's so much more exciting to emphasize the funny parts of stereotypes while ignoring or just kind of forgeting the rest of them. I love to use this to my advantage, as I'm sure, many of you have already figured out. So I was exstatic (or however you spell that) to find that the word "awesome" and the phrase "oh my god" was considered genuinly american. (Can you even imagine where I could run with that??) The fact that I already use those words just made me ten times more excited. now whenever I say that phrase, I'll just say it really loud. The Germans think it's hilarious. It's a great conversation starter. I was at a party last night, and this guy said something pretty cool (I've no idea what it was, so don't ask), and I said, "that's awesome." He laughed at me . . . I was confused, then I remembered that at lunch a few days before, the girls had heard me say the word awesome and laughed and explained to me how american it was, along with the phrase "oh my god!" So of course I have to milk it. After the guy at the party laughed at me, I mentioned how it was so easy to make Germans laugh. "All I have to do is yell (I yelled this part) 'Oh my god, that is so awesome!' " I made a few more friends after that. Haha. We discussed Johnny Depp and how many movies he's been in recently and what the heck the subtitle to the newest Pirates of the Caribbean movie is. Apparently edward scissorhands was called Edward mit dem Scherenhänden in Germany.

Anyway, right now I'm torn between learning German and learning Germans. OK, that sounds better in another language, I'm sure. Right now it seems like the Germans are winning. But I'm working on it. I'm sure there's a happy medium, but I should find it fast since I just realized I'm a third of the way through this summer. wow.

More exciting news. I watched the Germany-Argentina game in a lecture room (not a big one--smaller than 36-123 but with the same number of student--there's a lot of room in 36-123) with at least 50-100 other students. It was awesome. They're crazy. They've got chants and cheers and things, and that's cool and everything, but they're crazy. Yelling at the TV screen is one thing. It's crazy enough as it is, but chanting with everyone in a lecture hall
. . . we used chanting to get pumped up in volleyball matches . . . because we were playing. Football games also . . . because we were there, and they could hear us. Haha, it is really cool (I mean awesome) that one guy can start singing a chant (one of about 400 they have, I'm sure) and the rest of the room knows the chant and starts singing, too. Very cool. like they're all part of one big country or something . . . haha. They won! I hope you saw it! it was sooo exciting. and the goalie, Lehman, wow. Anyway, soccer is awesome. love it. Wir fahren nach Berlin!

alright. time to go. and by the way. if you absolutly have no other options, Gouda isn't horrible in mac and cheese. but I have discovered that they make special "melting cheese" or smeltzkäse for just this purpose. oh goody.

Kendall

Music: right now . . . Dixie Chicks. sorry. that's the truth ;-)

PS. my MIT locker is full! argh! that is why I can't put my pictures up! but don't worry I'm working on moving a few things around!

PPS. I met a guy who's learning American English! ah, I don't feel so bad anymore.

PPPS. I found Dr Pepper in the grocery store! no mt dew yet, though . . .

Munich!

I went to Munich this weekend! It was a nice little 6 hour train ride down there, and a nice little 6 hour train ride back. There were so many people trying to get around, they had 2 super-long trains attached to eachother. Which is why I got lost. I was supposed to meet Sam and Ling on the track to depart from Köln, but my train was a little late getting in, and by the time I got to the right track, most people had boarded, and I needed to hurry and hop on. I thought it wouldn't matter where I got on, because one can pass through all the cars while the train is running. I didn't realize that they had more than one train, so I searched and searched for Sam and Ling, and was a little worried when I didn't find them. But it just so happened that the train car I boarded at the changeover was the same one Sam and Ling had boarded! very lucky indeed. We made it to Munich, and we stayed on the floor of a dormroom of one of Ling's friends.

The next day, we slept in until noon, because the "blinds" on the outside of the windows are really just like those metal doors they pull down over shops when they close at night in the city. We couldn't see any sun, so we had no idea what time it was. It was actually kind of cool. When I'm trying to catch up on sleep at MIT, I think the sun coming in the windows is one of the more annoying things in the world. But we went to a nice bavarian style restaurant for lunch. Here's the hall * We didn't actually eat there, because we didn't see anywhere we could all sit, so we went upstairs where it was much quieter and got a good german meal.

After that, Germany was playing (in Munich, too!) so we all went to a biergarten
http://web.mit.edu/kmwerts/www/album/Germany/munich/slides/munich%20011.html
to watch the game on their huge big screen projectors. I'm not good at estimating, but I feel as though there had to have been at least thousands of people in that one biergarten--it was really big. I'll have to say, that was probably the best experience watching Germany so far. Cheering along with thousands of people is kinda fun. The people went crazy after they won, too.
http://web.mit.edu/kmwerts/www/album/Germany/munich/slides/munich%20025.html
We walked around the streets of Munich afterward, and there were people everywhere
http://web.mit.edu/kmwerts/www/album/Germany/munich/slides/munich%20043.html
waving flags and singing songs and chanting. "So was hat mein Augen noch gesehen! So schön, so schön!" which means "Oh what have my eyes seen! so beautiful!" Ah, I just found out that this is wrong. They actually say "Oh was hat mein Lange nicht gesehen" which means something to the effect of "Oh look what happened that hasn't in a long of time." haha. And "Berlin! Berlin! Wir fahren nach Berlin!" which means "we're going to Berlin!" because, they are! next game is in Berlin, and also the finals are in Berlin (at which I will be!).

We saw the big park there, where there were several unfortunately naked old men and some people riding horses around and still celebrating.
http://web.mit.edu/kmwerts/www/album/Germany/munich/slides/munich%20052.html
After that we went to Olympishestadium which is where the Olympics were held in 1972. They spruced it up for the World cup and also added a huge projector in an enormous amphitheater. The guards there really didn't like us, but we went in and sat down to watch the last half of the Argentina Mexico game with about 3000 other people (again, that's just a really bad guess--to make it better for you, I'd say this was at least 3 times as big as Kresge--maybe more--how many people does Kresge seat?). It was kinda late after that, so most of us went home, and the other half went out partying and got back at 6 am. I was really tired, so I went home and slept.

The next day we woke up at 9ish and went to the old art museum for a few hours. It was very nice and had a lot of stuff, and there were about 3 more museums in the city. I think you could spend weeks just at the museums. After that, Sam, Ling, and Bao insisited on jumping into the channel in the park. They didn't have any bathing suite with them, but that didn't stop them.
http://web.mit.edu/kmwerts/www/album/Germany/munich/slides/munich%20056.html
I stayed dry and took pictures. They're all on Sam's camera right now, which is probably good, because there's a few of him and everyone else in their underwear. We walked around the park a bit more after that, then we went back to get our stuff, stopped by some souvenir shops to buy postcards and stuff, then ran to the train hopped on and left. 6 hours back and here I am.

Well, actually it's monday now, but nothing too terribly exciting happened today. I just bought some meat. I wasn't sure what exactly it was, but I cooked it up and ate it just the same. It was pork. and good, too! I'm off to bed now so that I can get up early for work tomorrow.

Kendall

Music: Third eye blind. For just about the whole Munich trip. Right now, though, my whole library is just on shuffle. all 18.6 gigs of it. No wonder the harddrive on this thing is so full . . .