I am not a kitty piddler, I swear

I Just completed the first leg of my journey. You know, when you aren’t drinking, it makes for a very boring vacation. Like, what do you do when you aren’t spending all night in a club getting fucked up and dancing the night away? Oh, I know, internationally blog.

It was my first time back in Germany since I “studied” (using the term very very loosely) abroad there almost four years ago. At first when I arrived, I felt eerily comfortable, I somewhat understood what people were saying, I was familiar with the neighborhoods, the subways, the culture—never cross against the light, or else the police will ambush you and write you a ticket or you will be tsked and chastised by the Germans who you are standing around with. But then as my few days wore on, the feelings of “Auslander”—the German word for foreigner but literally translated means outsider, began to take hold. It’s exciting being a foreigner, hiding behind language difficulties when the homeless ask you for money, but it wears off when all you want to do is go into a pub and randomly chat up strangers.

Evidently not many people in Germany go running outside. And of the few that do, tend to be people who can speak the language.

When I go out running, it’s like a spiritual journey for me. I put on my music loud, tend to dress really poorly and a bit shady as when you have to keep warm fashion is the last thing that you are thinking about, and huff and puff for about the first ten minutes. I went running through the park by my friend’s place, getting into the zone, lip-syncing to Sean Paul, and I see a bunch of children taking a class trip through the park. They couldn’t be more than six years old, and were really cute—especially when they all turned around in unison and looked at me with a hint of fear in their eyes. As I was running a little girl drops her hat, now keep in mind I speak no German and I look a bit scary when I am exercising. I pick up the hat and run towards the girl, “Sie hatten! Sie Hatten!” Now, keep in mind that the word “hatten” I just made up, assuming that the word for hat had to sound just like its English world, but angrier. And nobody in their right mind would refer to a small child as Sie (polite you) As an aside, hatten loosely translates into have, as my friend told me later. S

As I am running towards the little girl roughly saying in my broken German, “She have, she have” the children take off and start to run, and this captures the eye of their teacher who gives me the German leer—the same nasty look when you cross against the light. I give the hat to the little girl, and the teacher looks like she is ready to pounce and prevent me from molesting her, and all I wanted to do was to giver her back her hat.

In Prague and off for my run this morning and then sightseeing. Will put up pictures, and I am safe, and didn’t drink last night. Instead I sat around on the internet in my hotel room—fucking not drinking blows.