Sometimes I Question My Own Judgment

Me, Saturday night, around last call: You mean you're getting kicked out of your apartment? You can stay with me if you need a place to crash. I've got all kinds of room. Yeah! Cheers! Another round of shots!

Annoying fellow-American co-worker: I might have to, hehe. lol. OMG! IMHO!

---------

Me, tonight, carrying bag after bag (after bag) of her shit into my apartment: So how long until you move into your new place?

She, with even more bags and a smile as big as Texas: Hehe, this place is so cute! OMG! I want to stay here forever!

Me: *Rolls eyes* *Dangerously audible groans emit from mouth*

Can't Everyone Just Leave Me Alone?

I finally took some pictures of my neighborhood. That's Vincent Square...

One of the things I knew I'd like about living in big cities is the relative anonymity it affords. Unlike most people, I don't mind feeling like I'm only one of millions of people trekking through a city each day. I actually prefer being left alone with only my iPod and judgmental thoughts by my side. It may be because this couldn't be more different from how I grew up, where it's more common than not to run into friends, family, or friends' family around town. I'm convinced my parents get most of their social interaction at the grocery store (always keeping me abreast of my high school friends' happenings - 8 years later). The last time I made a call (from London) to a local flower store in my hometown, the woman immediately recognized my name and chatted me up about her daughter, who I graduated with. Like most of my friends from home, she's a homeowner, married, and well on her way to having a minivan family. Crazies. I prefer being left to assume that most of the kids from my graduating class are unemployed and depressed as punishment for their suburban living. Just kidding. Sort of.

What I'm realizing about anonymous city life, however, is that it quickly becomes, well, nonymous? By my third year in New York, I'd frequently see my landlord and roommate's family on my weekend coffee and bagel jaunts, cross paths with co-workers during my runs in Central Park, and find myself running into nearly everyone else I knew during my subway commute. I'll have to admit that, at first, I felt a bit like New York had breached its "beat down" contract with me. You know, the one where it promises to deliver weather only in extremes, subway trains only at the most inconvenient times (with long stoppages while in between stops), and down-to-earth girls only when you're too drunk to play nice for them. Ok, maybe that last one is an addendum to my own personal contract. After countless run-ins, I reluctantly bought in to my new neighborhood feel. It added a personal facet to a city so notoriously impersonal, and kept me honest. Trust me, it's pretty embarrassing running into your friend's parents at Food Emporium when you're buying only a 12-pack and Doritos. For dinner. On a Wednesday.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised that London wasted no time in ruining my idyllic anonymous existence. With it's peaceful neighborhoods, disdain for high rises, and transient global population, it's simply far less surly when it comes to newbies. That said, this week was the first where it became blatantly clear that I had lost all hope of not being recognized. I'm now considered a regular at my local (and quite possibly the city's only) Mexican restaurant. They know my order and tolerate my remedial Spanish (I've yet to visit with my drunk Spanish, which trumps the sober version hands down), and better give me free guacamole next time or I'm removing them from this post. I've also got 2 new girlfriends at my local Starbucks. Or, well, one of my 5 local Starbucks...es. They get my coffee ready for me when I come through the door and always ask me what I'm listening to on my headphones. I've thought about responding with something sort of lewd and suggestive (like "Sexual Healing", or better yet, "Ain't No Fun") but they're not really my type. One has hypercolor red hair, and the other is cross-eyed (Again!). I hate when that one works the register. Man. Eye contact. Let me tell you.

I'll be moving back to New York in a few months, and may find myself in a new neighborhood with a fresh anonymity grace period. Within a few weeks though, I'm sure I'll wind up high-fiving the newspaper stand guy or running into friends from college. And with that, all hopes of anonymity will once again be doomed.

Eff the State Pen...

Maybe I should just give in and only post after traveling...

There are a lot of famous losing streaks in this world of ours. The Orioles lost 21 straight in 1988 to set the bar in Major League Baseball, Susan Lucci returned home from the Emmys winless for 18 years, and hell, yours truly has gone countless months without some good lovin' from British women (anyone? anyone?). This past weekend I witnessed what I hope will become another infamous losing streak, as my Michigan Wolverines defeated Penn St. for the 8th straight time, in Happy Valley (aka Nowhere U.S.A.) no less.

My jet setting weekend (coach is so comfy!) kicked off in NYC, established itself as first-class in Happy Valley, and concluded depressingly at Newark...ahem...Liberty International Airport Sunday night. In fact, those of you who still read this probably got a phone call around the time I was waiting to take off, as is requisite for airport time. Along the way I caught up with some old college friends from yesteryear, most notably the $5 Pitcher and $1 shot. What? Real life is overrated.

Penn State's campus was of Big (11) Ten caliber, and at the risk of being cliche, I'll note that college girls have indeed stayed the same age. Don't get it twisted, there were some misses along the way (most notably my punk ass landlord's college girl referral. I've never been more happy to NOT have dibs. Ugh.), but for every dud there were innumerable hits. We crashed a Penn St. family tailgate, beat our Happy Valley alums 5-3 in flip cup, caught up with some of our college friends (yeah, we're old), and generally annoyed people around us. A perfect weekend.

Septemberfest Oktoberfest

A bit overdue...

Endless mugs of beer, shameless singing and dancing, cleavage baring waitresses. These are a few of my favorite things. Which is why my trip to celebrate Oktoberfest in Munich will be remembered (albeit vaguely) as one of my best weekend jaunts to date. Amazing weather and great company also didn't hurt. And did I mention the beer?

In an uncharacteristic and short-lived money saving campaign, I found myself on a 5:00am bus to the evil Stanstead airport (previous experience chronicled here) on Saturday morning to easyJet my way into Munich for two days of celebration, Bavarian style. We launched our drinking efforts at the Theresienwiese at around 3pm, where we were welcomed by a plethora of beer tents, bratwurst stands, and a host of what I now recognize as "bierleichen" - translated quite literally as "drunk corpses". (Although we felt like late arrivals at the time, I can now look back to our 3pm tee time as nothing short of a godsend. No one passed out all weekend, and only one of us puked. Um, in the hotel lobby. In her defense, my co-hort insisted on a riding a roller coaster prior to calling it a night and she wound up paying the price.) Our two days consisted mainly of life's necessities - eating and drinking - in a festive atmosphere. I devoured no less than 5-6 brats and 3 full chickens (so good), not to mention the beers, which will remain undocumented for the faint of heart.

Anyway, a few highlights from the trip:

-Meeting Randoms. I can't be the only one who could spend hours meeting random foreigners, right? We wound up toasting hometown Germans, friendly Portuguese, ubiquitous Aussies, and a fair number of obnoxious Americans and Brazilians. Or maybe that was just my friends. By the time we got to the airport Monday, we were already reminiscing about the "lap sitter" (who, as the name suggests, insisted on sitting only on the laps of willing dudes, and after further review, shared my exact same birthday - year and all), the "fat cousin" of the lap sitter (he was not impressed with her antics at all), the "hot chick with the piercing" (fat cousin was equally unimpressed with our flirtation with the H.C.W.T.P.), and a brother and sister tandem that seemed to have some Flowers in the Attic isht going on.

-Leading Revelers in Song and Dance. After a few liters of brew, I found myself really getting into the "raise your mug and sing songs thing". Aside from German songs I didn't understand, we discovered that the crowd loves them some Country Roads, Summer of 69, etc. Hilarious.

-"Borrowing" Souvenirs. Despite a crackdown on the practice, I was able to orchestrate the ultimate beer mug heist with a little help from a friend. The mug served as my water jug that night, and now sits on my kitchen table waiting to be called to duty. I see myself getting a lot of use out of this thing.

Drinking aside (for a second), Munich itself is also a very interesting city. Its streets share a unique assortment of traditional buildings and uber-modern architecture due to damage from the second World War, and there has been an obvious emphasis on renovation of surviving landmarks. They've made most of the city centre pedestrian only, which makes for a lot of sidewalk cafes and general foot traffic. A worthwhile weekend, indeed.

And again, did I mention the beer?

Sunday's Best