Bring on the wall

I decided that watching a bit more German TV might strengthen the linguistic part of the mind (albeit at the cost of every other part).  So I tried out some Friday night primetime viewing.

It was actually better than I had remembered it.  There were two moments of particular note, which will no doubt have me tuning in again:

• A sort of poker-inspired challenge game (My Man Can), in which glamourously dressed women drastically overestimate the competencies of their spouses in such challenges as identifying languages, beating malevolent children at dodgeball or (my preferred candidate for a spin-off show) blowing a tissue against a wall for 7 seconds (he managed 6.3 seconds, if one is being extremely generous).

• A German comic leading a clearly bemused David Hasselhoff - yes, David Hasselhoff - in a game of transferring-the-bikini-clad-girl several feet with or without the aid of a wheelbarrow.

Sometimes it seems like foreign TV is less classy than TV back home.  But at other times this seems like it may be an error.

Regrets

Sometimes, when I walk to work before really having woken up, I faintly catch the scent of events going on around me, but saunter sleepily on without paying any real attention to them.

Then, a few steps later - when it's too late - I suddenly realise that, actually, the scene was intriguing enough that it really would have been worth checking out more carefully.

That I will now never know the story behind the morning with the lady, the older gentleman, the brushes and the mysterious tantalising cloth is one of my bigger regrets in Germany, and in life generally.

The musical relationship

After watching a little girl drum up quite a bit of support, I have concluded that there exists an inverse relationship between the innate cuteness of a street musician and how talented they need to be.

Ought to be able to hold a violin, more or less unaided.

Should be able to play pretty well.

Must be incredible.

Although there would then be a lower bound, below which musical talent is no longer particularly necessary.

May benefit from an ability to hold eye contact.

The Printer Room

When I was in the printer room, gathering up my freshly printed goods, suddenly the door flew open.  There, in the entrance, stood a girl I had never seen before, clearly also with printing on her mind.

She smiled at me, with a short, delicate smile.  We were alone in that small room: just her, me, two printers, a photocopier, and a giant plotter.  One rarely experiences such poetically perfect moments.  It was fate.  She felt it too.  Probably.

In a moment, a thousand pictures of the future flashed and danced before our eyes: the shy, uncertain getting to know one another, the discovery of unexpected commonalities, the superfluous printing trips, the surreptitious letter-writing, the growing affection, the nervous exchanging of our stories, the active listening, the hair-stroking, the comforting, the perfected affection, the house on the island by the river overlooking the meadow between the forests, the forgetting of a birthday, the music wafting around the campfire, the silly argument in which I was right but magnanimously don't dwell on too long, the paint on the walls, on a canvas, on a cat, the passive speaking, the new ways of thinking, the forgiveness, the end.

But sometimes a moment is simply too huge, feelings are too strong, possibilities too deliciously boundless.  One gets scared.

This, I can only assume, is why she quickly gathered her papers, turned around, switched off the light, and left me alone in the dark with my thoughts, as if I hadn't been there.

The Offer

Recently, there were several people on the main street holding signs to indicate their participation in the Free Hugs Campaign" ('Free hug' being translated as 'Umarmung umsonst' in a less huggable language).

It's a very beautiful idea: random(ish) acts of kindness to promote connectivity and an appreciation of self and others.

It is only if one starts to assign too much worth to the identity of the hugger that the delightful purity of the empathetic endeavour is somehow diluted.  But one must admit: the hugger's identity does in large part dictate whether or not 'free' is good value or not.

Examples of instances in which sharing a 'free hug' might still be considered a net loss.

Hair

I'm planning to return home for a week or so at the end of August.  I intended to come sooner, but didn't quite figure out the details of that sensibly in advance.

The planned visit is, obviously, primarily for the delight of seeing family and friends, followed by the relief and joy of interacting in shops and restaurants with less confusion, eating entirely recognisable things in a fully equipped kitchen, and being able to go to the toilet in a house without having to first swing my sink into the shower.  Nevertheless, it's not quite irrelevant that I need to arrange regular trips back home in order to avoid a regression back to the fateful 'long-haired months' of 2006/07.

I really don't want to go somewhere here to get my hair cut.  I try to avoid situations in which I might need to talk too much to strangers without any clear idea of the outcome, or explain anything more complex than could be expressed by pointing and grunting if absolutely necessary.  I've only just recently managed to pluck up the courage to ask for bread rolls ('Brötchen') in bakeries, partly because I've been told foreigners pronounce it amusingly (we do) and partly because there is a risk of follow-up questions*.  Nevertheless, shops generally aren't the worst.  It is comforting to know that, if the required interactions go badly, at least I can leave a shop fairly quickly.  What I don't want is to know that, instead, I will have to stay seated, replaying the foolishness in my mind while caped like a superhero whose only power is linguistic incompetence, as a stranger touches my head.

But, realising that the trip won't be for some weeks, and inspired by the unexpected support of my mum (a sure sign that my hair must have been getting pretty unruly), I finally mustered the courage to implement the emergency plan of shaving my head myself.

It was arguably the most difficult thing I have ever attempted.  Arms do not contort enough, eyes cannot see far enough, two mirrors cannot be arranged well enough to make this really possible**.  It was early the next day before I was finally able to stand triumphantly in my hair-lined flat, and even then uncertainty was a more dominant emotion.

I don't know for sure whether it worked.  My mum was able to offer vital advice and diagnoses through video-conferencing at important stages, and in the end she said that she thought it had gone all right.  But I knew that it was somewhat like an expert trying to judge the severity of an oil spill from BP's grainy footage.  It wasn't quite the same as seeing it in person.  So now I need to wait until Monday, and hope that my colleague's honest side will overcome his mischievous side when I solicit his opinion.


*-I'm getting better though.  Last week I asked for sunflower-seed bread, which is 'Sonnenblumenkernbrötchen'.  Yes.  One word.  'Sonnenblumenkernbrötchen'.

**-I realised later it might have been better to try it in Cafe Extra Blatt.  Here, if you choose the right (or, if you're paranoid, wrong) seat, there are enough mirrors around that I once calculated you can see yourself from approximately 10 different angles just by moving your head slightly - thereby making it the ideal cafe for the self-obsessed cubist.

Means of Transport

While walking everywhere, I've noticed a propensity among Germans to find any alternative to relying upon feet alone.  The following is a short inventory of representatives of various modes of transport that I have seen since coming here:

The Skateboarder

I like the skateboarders close to Bismarkplatz because they are resilient.

Twice in six months have I seen one of them flip his board and land on it again, rather than land just beside it with a frustrated grunt, or fail to effect any sort of flipping at all.

We were all so shocked on those two occasions when it worked that I don't think any of us knew what to do.

I pretended not to notice in case clapping would have seemed sarcastic.

The Swivel-Boarder

I tried to draw this after seeing one at a great distance.

As far as I could tell, by gyrating his body he was able to propel himself in a perpendicular direction.

It looks a bit like surfing, which goes to show that a lot of the coolness of surfing originates from the water.

The Scooter

When I first saw her scooting past me while I was on my way to work, I remember thinking to myself that it looked quite silly for a fully-grown woman to be on a scooter, and I wondered why she did it.

By the time I had finished verbalising this thought in the privacy of my mind, she was at the end of the street and I was still grumpily lumbering along.

Particularly good for someone with one energetic leg, and one strong, but lazy, leg.

The Unicyclist

Apparently these were all the rage in Heidelberg for a while.

Not outrageously practical, but not bad.  This typically looks slower than other options, except when one is about to fall off, when it can be very fast.

(It seems that whether one actually is moving in the desired direction of motion or quite the opposite at any given moment on a unicycle can only be calculated probabilistically - but the experienced unicyclist usually gets there in the end, albeit after more peddling than was strictly necessary.)

The Cyclist I: The Arm Folder

What happens when ordinary cycling is practiced by the extraordinary.
For when a loss of control and a considerable amount of extra wobbling is deemed an acceptable price to pay for a look of skill and forced nonchalance.

The Cyclist II: The Promiscuous Leg

The most widespread of all the 'looks', and simultaneously my most and least favourite.
It is ideal for opponents of symmetry, or anyone with only one presentable leg.

Back in Germany

So I came back to Germany in January - as you probably know if you are reading this, since if you are reading this you probably know me (and will hopefully at least have noticed you haven't seen me in a while), and if you don't know me you probably aren't reading this (although if this applies to you, then clearly you are reading it, but I just don't know it).

Anyhow, I decided not to write on this more extended trip to Heidelberg.  But it turns out that, given time and freedom and a whole new country in which to do anything, I still don't do a lot.  So I'm starting again, in a slightly different and considerably reduced way, and adding it here rather than cluttering up some other part of the digital universe.

Admittedly, a large part of the inspiration is that I started some German writing (which, as yet, has both a confirmed readership, and potential counting error, of one) in order to get some more language practice.  I wondered if Google Translator could make it comprehensible in English.  It could not.  One or both of Google Translator and I aren't very good at German and/or English.  So I'll translate it or, more accurately, rewrite it here using a refreshingly less taxing language.

There are more pictures this time because, always wishing to line up birds like skittles so that I might knock down as many as possible with the fewest stones of effort, I'm trying to incorporate my drawing practice, executed in Heidelberg's coffee houses and restaurants and mostly inspired by whoever I happen to have seen on the street.

Hello.