you know what i mean, happy loving couples in matching lamb turtleneck sweaters reading ideal homes magazine

I swear I have a life outside of writing rambling blog entries.

I had a lovely weekend. Thursday I had my first classical guitar lesson. (Music career update: I really did not enjoy playing the accordion that much. I wished I did, but accordion lessons just weren't as fabulous as I'd hoped, so now I've decided to pursue the classical guitar instead, and I'm really really happy about it so don't criticize.) The lesson went as follows:

Guitar teacher: Hello. Let's say "du."

Me: Good.

Guitar teacher: Do you already play the guitar?

Me: Not really. I can play C...G...D...

Guitar teacher: Do you play another instrument?

Me: Yes, I play the piano.

Guitar teacher: So you read music?

Me: Yes.

Guitar teacher: Here are some papers. This one has a list of notes and where you can find them on the guitar. Here's some music. Now play. (Guitar teacher wanders away to the other side of the room and stares at the wall. Apparently I'm supposed to pretend he's not there.)

Me: (Plays pathetically.) Ummmmm.... (Starts over. Makes mistakes.) Uhhhh... (Plays the song through once. Makes more mistakes.)

Guitar teacher (returning): You're strumming with your thumb. People don't do that in real life. That's why you have fingers.

Me: Uh, OK. (Tries again.)

Guitar teacher: OK. That's enough for today. You did good; you can already play a song. Have a nice weekend. Bye.


So, not a complete failure. I have played the song lots since then and now I can sort of play it, but the strings buzz and I don't like holding the guitar classical guitar-style. But really, I am so motivated and excited to start playing the guitar because I love the guitar, especially mine at home, and finally I'm learning how to play something other than "The Times They Are A-Changin'" and multiple stupid songs I wrote. I also bought a UKULELE last week and I'm having fun; at first I was sure that I'd ended up with one of those awful untunable ukes (not surprising for 30€) but after a few days of tuning and re-tuning, it actually holds a tune okay, and five months without a ukulele has completely rekindled my love for the instrument.

On Friday I hung out with Alisa. She came to Pforzheim and we went to Konsumat and went shoe-shopping. I tried on some amazing shoes that I could not walk in, and she bought two pairs of shoes, and the woman working at the shop was nice. We went to the Pforzheim library, which is small but awesome, and I checked out an English book and two movies. Then we went to Karlsruhe, had pizza in a really nice restaurant, and went to a Kareoke bar. The Kareoke was fun, but I was recovering from being sick, so by the end of the night my throat was killing me, and it still hurts a little today. We were there with a couple of her friends, and we tried to find songs that we all knew... so unfortunately I didn't get to sing "Brandy (You're a Fine Girl)". The people there were mostly groups of five or so teenagers sitting together, except for this one man who was completely alone, and maybe 45 years old, with big glasses. He was an awful singer and he sang only totally German Volksmusik, so in between teenage girls singing pop songs there would be these ridiculous Volks-Lieder!! The other really funny thing was that the videos playing were not the real videos from the songs; they were terrible quality and often simply bizarre -- for example, accompanying the song "Candy Shop" was a video of Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum. Whoa, that's just not right?! Lots of ridiculous zooming in and out.

I slept over at Alisa's house and then drove back to Pforzheim. As soon as I arrived in the Bahnhof I heard people yelling. I assumed there was some kind of political protest going on, but no, it wasm the football fans. At least 50 guys yelling happily and waving blue-and-white flags passed by me on their way to their Bahn. I went to my bus, and five or six people inexplicably dressed as woodland creatures soon joined me. This is why I love living in Germany, guys.

When I got home, I asked my host family, "Did Karlsruhe win something?"

"Later," said Hans-Peter. "They're playing at 3:30."

Alex said, "Why?"

I said, "The men in the trainstation were very happy. I thought maybe Karlsruhe had won. I always know when they have lost, because sometimes I come in the train from Karlsruhe in the night, and they are drinking beer and screaming, and sometimes..." I made a hand motion as if I were slamming a beer bottle over someone's head.

My host family laughed. Hans-Peter said, "But Hamburg is also blue and white. They were probably here for the game, for Hamburg."

Me: "How do you know?"

Hans-Peter said completely seriously, "Oh, the Karlsuhe fans don't start so early."