So Many Choices...

I have been out of town for the last week, so my blog has been getting a bit neglected. I am at work now and therefore can't tell you all about what I did in Utah and how it all went, but I have time for one small golden nugget of my trip.

After a nice trip to the odd town of Manti and the beautiful castle temple that resides in it, we were peckish, so we went to find a place on the road. The best we could find was a place called "Bare Naked Chicken". With a name like that, it has too be good. I ordered the funest sounding meal, reguardless of what was in it - "Cock-a-doodle-Moo". The girl who looked far too attractive and mature to me to be wearing a "class of 2005" t-shirt (I must be getting old...) leaned out of the drive through window and asked me what kind of sauce I wanted with my meal. I had no idea what a place like this could have.

"What are my options?"

"Well, we have...ranch...and...crap..."

My responce came quickly, "I'll take the ranch!" Then I thought about it some more, "Actually, is it freshly squeezed?"

It wasn't.

"Well isn't this place a geographic oddity. Two weeks from everywhere."
- George Clooney as Ulysses Everett McGill from O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000)

I am pretty sure that the person who wrote that line in the movie MUST have lived in Laie for at least one semesters worth of time...

The Pluralality of Hypochondria...

"Everyone thinks I'm a hypochondriac. It makes me sick."
- Felix Unger from "The Odd Couple" (1970)

Just a couple of days after returning from Europe I began to become ill. It reminded me of the head cold I get from time to time. I slept right when I got home from work at 5pm Friday until 5am Saturday when I had to go back to work. That whole day I had the worst chest pains and soreness. I think I slept wrong and was so tired I didn't wake up to move. The biggest mistake I made, however, was not sleeping on my side all night. It was letting my mother know about it.

She asked me if I was feeling better knowing that I was sick the previous day. I said that the illness seemed to have faded, but then my chest felt constricted and sore. She jumped into action. You see, my mom is what I call a Vicarious Hypochondriac. Basically, she is never ill. She could have a lung hanging out her nose and she'd go to work and come one and mow the lawn after. But if I so much as have the sniffles she calls the cast and crew of "Outbreak" to quarentine the area.

She told me I had "pluralality". I told her that's impossible, I'd have to be married at least once to have many wives. Apparently, she meant something other than what I thought...

She grabbed a whole bottle of Vitamin C's and dumped them into my hand. I think she was trying to give me Vitamin C poisioning. I told her 2 a day would suffice. Then she called my Grandpa, who apparenlty had "pluralality". Unfortunatly, the symptoms of the actual ailment (which is like pneumonia on the outside of your lungs) was extreemely similar to what I felt like. So, then she had the state of Utah praying for my body and buzzards flying overhead. I had to quell this. I reminded her that I was no longer insured and would not be until I returned to Hawaii. Having spent way to much money in Europe, I thought the pocket book issue would do the trick. It didn't. She remembered a free clinic that is open on Tuesdays. She talked me into going. An hour later, Grandpa called back to tell me not to play around and get it taken care of as it is a serious illness.

I am usually not given to freak out over small discomforts, but all of this death paranoia was starting to get to me. I'm mostly finnished with my will. I accept bribes now. You will get your money's worth in the future.

I also decided to write my own eulogy. Who else could do it any justice but me; myself? I think what I will do is perform it myself as well. Then fall into the open casket in a graceful swan dive and be barried right there on the spot. On second thought, open casket for a few minutes first. I want to hear any and all good things others may have to say. If I don't like it, I text message my lawyer to cancel the inheritance. Flawless. And then my mom can finally be vindicated in her vicarious hypochondria.

It's now Tuesday. I am fine.

Finally; your pics...

Well, it took forever, and I only have the pics that I took with my cell phone, which isn't great quality. Here a few decent ones:

Me at Crazy Ludvig's Castle. It was the castle Disney used for thier castle and for Snow White.

The quaint town of Hamlen Germany where the legend of the Pied Pipper originates.

This is the tower of the walled city of Friedburg Germany.

My mom at the famous Netherland windmills, located in Kinderjick (pron. Kinder-yuck).

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggidy Jig...

Well, I'm back. Back in Arizona that is. Being here is almost surreal. I had a long and gruesome series of flights back home. I was offered $200 in flights from Delta for giving up a seat in Georgia for a flight. I took it. As a result, my luggage was lost AGAIN (shortly after I got it back). Luckily, I eventually found it in a glass case sitting to the side. If Lamb who picked me up at the airport hadn't seen it, I'd never know.

My fist night back was Sunday. I was tired. Lamb hung out with me at my house for a while and I looked through some of my sister's pictures. I went to bed at 10:30, but it felt like way past 2am. I woke up at 2am, and it felt like 10am. I forced myself to stay asleep (or in bed atleast) till 5am when I gave up and started cleaning my now over cluttered room thanks to my parents' and sister's storage need. I decided to go to my old station KFYI to say hi to my old friends and see what was new. I got there by 9am and before I left, I had TWO jobs!

I had already pre-arranged to get some small pickup hours at WestStar this summer. Seeing Barry had confirmed that. Then, just as soon as he said hi, Chirs, my former supervisor, had asked me to start work. I was working at both places the next day, and am writing this from KFYI right now, while working on the Rush Limbaugh Show.

I also enjoy seeing my family again. I saw Wendy and Rob's kids yesterday. I joined Connor for his first coach pich baseball practice. While sitting there on the bench with his father, the "team mom" comes up to us and asks,

"Are you Connor's parents?"

She was very accepting. We declined to go with the joke...

Being home is nice, but like I said, surreal. As much as I like it, it has occured to me that Arizona is no longer my home. I come here for a break, like a vacation spot, but it's just not my home anymore; it's where I'm from.

After I graduate, I have no idea what I will do or where I will go. If I do get married, then that will greatly effect my choice of locale. Also, I will likely go where the money is. I will apply to some stations in Hawaii. I also get the feeling that if I ever need it, I can find jobs here in Arizona without much effort.

For now, I sleep on storrage boxes and soak up what fun and memories I can while I can. And it is good...

Uno Memento Pourfafour...

Nothing makes you feel like you are better at adapting than your own family.

My mom is the closest thing to the real Peggy Hill from "King of the Hill" that exsists. She's a teacher, she has big feet, and she speaks a broken Spanish that she assumes all others can understand. The big joke of our trip was that she would go around Europe speaking Spanish to everybody. In German you want 1 of something you say, "Eine". Please is, "Bitte". Mother would walk up to strangers and say, "Uno, memento pourfafour..."

"Mom, they speak German here. Spanish is of little help."

"Well, it sounds close to French."

"Then ask for it in French, but they'd speak English before French in Germany."

We had that conversation many, many times. She would eventually give up. I took two years of German in high school and know some very basic phrases. When she wanted something and didn't want to start a conversation in Spanish she'd turn to me. "Can you ask her for 3 of those danishes?"

"Sure." (To the worker) "Ya, I'd like three danishes, please."

She forgets that every single person in Germany took English in school and they can atleast understand our number system...

Gotta love her.

Planes, Trains and Automobiles...

In the last 3 weeks, I have traveled by almost every known form of transportation known to man, and numerous times.

• Planes
  
• Trains
  
• Automobiles (and on the Autobahn as well)
  
• Trams
  
• Trollies
  
• Subways
  
• Escelators
  
• Motorized walkways
  
• Buses
  
• Boats
  
• Gondillas
  
• Ferries
  
• Car Farries
  
• Cable Cars
  
• and of course, Feet.

Rossie O'Donnel was talking about her spoiled child once and asked him, "What it is you want so bad in your life that you have never gotten?"
His reply, "I never got to ride on a Submarine!"

I think I know of one more form of transportation I need to make this trip complete.

Berlin...

We are staying in Frankfurt mostly, but we make day or 2 day trips accross the country or into others. We recently went to Berlin. If you have never been there, you should. If you have, you need to go again because you won't recognize it.

So much history has happend there. Both world war 1 and 2 started and ended in that one city. As a result, much of the old buildings do not exist. The ones that do are most likely rittled with bullet holes. Everything of real note happend in a short amount of space and traffic is horrible, so we took a walking tour. It was really the way to go.

We met up with a group and the tour guide took us to all of the important spots. It's a good thing we went with that plan, you can never see all there is to see without help finding it. First you walk through an insignificant looking park which is where the swampy farm village began. You walk to the old capital, you see the giant holes that Hitler had dug for his great momuments that never got built. He panned on making a building resembling our white house, only over 5 times bigger. He also broke ground on another site chosen for a new Arc de Triump that would be 49 times larger. That's stinkin big. We walked to the infamous Berlin Wall. Where ever the wall once stood, the government will have a line in brick or concrete to mark the spot. We walked along it and accross the once fortified terrain. We walked to where Hitler's bunker lay. We stood on the very ground were he ended his life.

There is no marking. There is no monument. There isn't even a plauqe. There is a sidewalk over it and cars carelessly parked next to it. Had you not known, you'd think it was a sidewalk like any other. The bunker has been destroyed, only 2 metal floorboards now burried remian. He shot himself down in that bunker, his freind carried him and his wife - both died of suicide. He of a bullet shot to the head, her of a poison, which was used two days prior on thier dog to make sure it would work. All three of the Hitlers (dog makes three) were brought up to the surface above the bunker and lit on fire. They were torched so well that they needed Hitler's own dentist to declare it them. The friend who burnned Hitler died just 4 months ago.

The spot is barren, by a dead end street. A fitting end to a dead end man.

Checkpoint charlie is now a spot for Indians to sell fuzzy Russian hats, and that is about it.

The city is now in a rebuilding phase. East Germany is still dark and drab. You can feel and see the dramatic change between the two halves even if they are politically one now. You see an old building with part of the Berlin wall standing, and a brand new one, all glass shinning accross the street. Old parts are being torn down or restored, new commercial is moving in. Things change so fast, even the tour guide was amazed, pointing out a building that was about to be destroyed here, and a hole in the ground Hitler had made, being being developed for good with a building going up next week.

Berlin is a dicadomy of itself. Old fighing new. If you want to see Berlin, never wait for the right time - changes faster than it can keep up with.

A Little Bit...

I have spen't nearly one week in Germany now. Everywhere we go, the people speak German, obvously. But most everyone also speaks English. It is required of school kids and essencial for buisness men. I have deduced the very first English phrase they teach.

Try this expirement and you will have no doubt in your mind that I am 100% correct. You walk up to any German, young or old, male or female, homless or wealthy, and ask, "Do you speak Enghlish?"

Swift will come the reply, "A little bit..."