all is well in b-town

this week it's been three months since i've left LA and returned to my natural habitat in germany. and so far my accomplishments here have amounted to creating a sizeable paper trail in the jungle of german bureaucracy, furnishing my new digs in IKEA-chic and snogging two guys. so it's time for further reflection. but let's begin with my actual return.

it was crowned by a short and perfect lay-over in dublin. and i don't wanna brag here, but as soon as i set foot on the irish soil, days of dreadful rain came to an end and the sun smiled upon me and all those irish people running around. so i hopped onto a bus to town and went to "Maguire's" which was recommended to me by a nice irish man on the plane. after a yummy lunch and a smoooooooth glass of guiness, i went to a gift shop and bought a pencil which is topped by a sheep with a shamrock tattoo on his right hip. so adorable. though my evil greenpeace-activist-roommate upon whom i will reflect later on, calls it "the girlie pencil". anyway, it was time to return to the airport and as a dutiful and punctual german i did just so.

upon my return to my vaterland i stayed at my parents' house for a good six weeks that sometimes felt like six years. there i went right back to my german habits of spending the days rinsing out empty yoghurt containers for better recycling, listening to ABBA and Queen on the radio and being repressed. but all was not peaceful during this particular christmas time. in fact, december 2006 will go down in history as the time when the whole country of germany was overcome by a collective fear of cinnamon. yes, cinnamon. because cinnamon is deadly, at least a certain kind of cinnamon if consumed in big quantities. that's at least what some german newspaper said. now you have to know that some of the most popular christmas cookies in germany are cinnamon wafers. and they're truly yummy. but during this particular christmas time people kept sniffing at them and when they were given as a gift, they were generally received with suspicious glances and the gift giver was put down on the potential mortal enemy-list. yes, germans keep track of those things. they're very organized in general. some incredibly thoughtful german mind eventually came up with the rule that it was safe to consume up to three cinnamon wafers daily. the size or thickness of the cinnamon wafer was left out of consideration though. i myself braved the whole controversy by indulging in a complete bag full of cinnamon wafers in one day. and voila, i'm still standing!