Monday, May 19, 2008

I went to Germany


I had an AMAZING vacation! It was so chill and everybody was extremely positive the whole time that I probably had one of the most perfect vacations of my life. The best part was all the food! When we weren’t sampling the top cuisine France had to offer, Mrs. Tyler was cooking the most delicious food anybody has ever eaten. Nothing makes me happier than a full stomach, so I can say without a doubt that I spent my vacation EXTREMELY happy!

On my third day in France I got an email from a friend in Berlin. Back in 04 I spent a year at university studying art and I made a lot of very awesome friends I haven’t seen in a very long time. This friend of mine was showing at a gallery and wanted me to stop by to check out his stuff. I immediately made plans to end my trip in Berlin and fly home from there.

It was very surreal seeing my friends again after sooo long. Everybody seemed so adult this time around with their wives and kids and beards and fancy clothes. Lucky for me the guy whose art show we were all here to see was still single, beardless, childless, and seriously lacking in the fancy clothes department. So I wasn’t alone feeling a little out of place.

Catching up with my German homies was awesome! We went to this cool hipster restaurant in the art district and drank beers and reminisced. At first I was having trouble keeping up with the conversation because years of marijuana have made my internal Spanish to English to German translator a little slow (German is actually my 4th language, so when I get flustered I totally forget that I even know the language at all!). But after a few hours you couldn’t shut me up to save my life. At some point during dinner, one of the wives wanted to know how an American came to join this group of Germans that have been friends since before college. And so began the millionth retelling of one of the most frustrating and uncomfortable moments of my life…

We were all in the same art class taking a photorealism class and it was my second week of class. I don’t exactly remember what the professor was saying, but I brought up, The Wizard of Oz, and NOBODY knew what I was talking about! The whole class looked at me very quizzically, and for the next 10 minutes I stumbled my way through the most convoluted interpretation of, The Wizard of Oz, EVER. Using my high school German that was extremely fuzzy after 3 years of sex drugs and rock & roll, I told a story of a man missing his head (I didn’t know what the word for brain was) and a man that didn’t have a heart going on a mission with a girl who dropped a house on a “bad lady”. I am sure it goes without saying that NOBODY had any idea what I was talking about!

I was getting extremely flustered, and I realized there wasn’t even the smallest possibility I was going to be able to find the words to describe flying monkeys, a melting witch, and a woman who floats around in a pink bubble! I wanted to let it go, but they wouldn’t let me! So I told them to give me the rest of the class to draw a few of the main characters and see if we could figure it out that way. I drew the wicked witch on her broom, the scarecrow and the tin man together, then I drew Dorothy and as an afterthought I added her little dog next to her. As I was going through naming all the characters one of my now friends stopped me and asked about the dog, because I hadn’t given the dog a name. So I told him that the dog was Toto. It all happened at the exact same moment! EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM knew the fucking dog Toto! I was so happy that they finally got what I was talking about but at the same time completely pissed off that after all the drama all I had to do was mention the goddamn dog! Thinking about it now still causes me anxiety, but it’s kind of funny, and if it had happened to somebody else I would totally be laughing about it!

After everybody was done having a good laugh remembering my inability to articulate my thoughts, we went to the show. The pieces were truly amazing and made me seriously remember what it was like to be around REAL artists. Afterwards we left the ladies and we all went out for some beers. Just in case you guys didn’t know, drinking beer with Germans and trying to keep pace with them is NEVER a good idea; especially if you are a 130lb Asian man. This happened 4 days ago and I am still feeling it!

I have been home for a few days now and I am loving it. As much fun as I had seeing old friend, nothing beats coming home to Bradley. I hate to sound all cheesey and gay, but being around him makes me feel so happy that even thinking about him right now has me smiling from ear to ear. We have spent almost every moment together since he picked me up from the airport, and I am really enjoying all this extra attention! ANYWAY! I am going to go watch me some sports and drink some beers and do other manly things.

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