I made juice early in the morning for Oma, Zane and myself. Oma came down just as I was leaving to Armin's to help him make beer, Zane was lost somewhere in the depths of his mind, curled into a ball, half exposed and half buried beneath the blankets. I left the juice on his night stand and took the car to Armin's without waking him.Armin was having breakfast when I arrived, he was happy to see me, "Lisa and Manuel are still asleep." He said with a laugh. "Yeah? Is that normal for them?" "Ohh yes! Happens most of the time." I had a mango and some water then helped him carry some pots and equipment into the garage. A short time later Lisa and Manuel came down for breakfast as well. They were quite surprised to see me. "Aren't you tired after last night?" "Not really.. But I was lucky" I said, with a rather humorous tone, then I joined Armin again in one of his many man caves, spread throughout the kit house he built himself. I've brewed beer a few times myself but Armins methods are far in advance of those I've used. It was a pleasure to see him work, and actually get to know him much better. We drank beer that he had previously made and talked about all kinds of things he's into. The five hours I spent making beer with my Uncle Armin is the most time I've ever spent with him alone, before that it was probably only 20 minutes! Crazy!!Before the batch was ready to poor I had to leave to buy Veggies from Edeka and return home to make more juice and get Zane for a meeting with Luisa Green a good friend of mine that I was introduced to through my mom. Luisa has had dyed green hair for over 10 years, is a huge Doors fan and is very skilled with baking. Her dream is to open a bakery in Amsterdam and live there. I can't wait to go their when she opens it up. Louisa's mom and my mom have been best friends since they were in Kindergarden here in Beitighiem, they both ended up in design. She's a clothing designer and my moms a website designer. Zane and I walked over to Luisa's place and chilled out, listened to the Doors, talked about travel and ordered up some Pizza from the local delivery place. Louisa had just gotten back from Amsterdam with her friend, who has had blue dyed hair for some time as well, they were both tired from their journey so we took our exit que and walked home. The next day we had a very early 2pm dinner at Armin's with Dani's father Ludwig, whose nearly blind, mostly deaf, and loves to talk about the past in terms of how it should have been the future. "Back in those days we knew what needed to be done, not like now, then we knew, now we've forgotten. We should be like we were then." The past really does have a long hand into the future. Living in the present, free from the clutches of the whats come before, or whats to come. It's a freedom few enjoy, fewer still for very long, but some have mastered it, we call these people enlightened, and rightfully so!After dropping Ludwig off at home, where he lives alone despite being blind and deaf, Zane and I watched Strange Days, a very interesting science fiction film with Ralph Finnes, written by James Cameron, that has aged without loss of credibility or interest from the passage of time and advancement of technology, as most dated sci-fi films seem to do. Tomorrow we leave Beitighiem and head for Austria, were Zane's girlfriend Zuzka will pick us up and take us back to her home of Bratislava, Slovakia.
It's Friday in Bietigheim
Its friday in Bietigheim, that can only mean one thing. Oma will have coffee and cake at Armin's and we'll all be going. Once were there everyone will get into the usual business of disseminating the newest local gossip. How bad the new parking laws in town are and what a catastrophe it is. Whose died over the passed week and what effect it's had on those left behind. Inevitably these topics are followed by someone saying, "Jesus mary!.." Or "its unbelievable! Or "children of men!" Ahh the German vernacular, what a gem. In small towns such as Beitighiem gossip is the original telegram. Its a system with very limited accuracy and tends to cause more issues than it solves but in the long run, its a cultural item not likely to ever fade away into antiquity. While everyone busied themselves with bread, milk, sugar, and caffeine I partook of the pineapple resting shyly on the table. Cutting it into small pieces and placing them into the bowl it previously occupied as a whole. Once the work was done, the bread and sugar were abandoned until the pineapple was no longer available, then their consumption was resumed.We talked about education in Germany and Americas failure with it in every sense of the word, or more accurately I talked about it and they listened. A situation I have successfully avoided more and more these days, in favor of listening, which is hard for me, but due to considerable gains attributed to this new skill, I have learned to bite my tongue, many times nearly biting it off in the attempt, especially if it becomes political. After this we returned home. I had made plans to go out with Sophia Green, Luisa's younger sister and a designer to be, following in her mothers foot steps. Coming along with Sophia were Jule, a tough and beautiful young lady. Also in the car were friends of Sophia's I met at a party on the Rhine last summer. My cousin Lisa and her boyfriend Manuel also joined us. The plan was to go to the Brauhause in Karlsruhe. Although we left before my cousin, and Jule was driving the backroads like a nascar driver, they arrived there before us. We ordered pizzas with Gin and tonics, and before I knew it we had left the Brauhause in a friendlier, more acquainted group. Lisa and Manuel went home and the rest of us went to a fancy bar inside of a hotel. They brought Zane and I gin and tonics but when I set my drink on an empty table right next to us and went to the bathroom it was gone when I returned. I asked the waitress where it went and she had no idea. When we all vouched for the situation she magically remembered that she had taken it and put it on her desk.My drink was then returned and we went home in the same nascar fashion that brought us to Karlsruhe and easily faded into deep sleep in the attic of Oma's cozy home.