moving on

Hey, so Im in Germany. The z is where the y should be and who knows where the apostrophe is. However I can make lots of ööös and äääs. Even the blogger menus have morphed into German. This should be fun.

The Max Planck (hereafter referred to as the MPIZ, said M P I Zed) is a white walled well-gardened oasis in the middle of a bunch of wheatfields. Of course, since its Europe, theres a subwaz (u-bahn) not too far away. My room is very pristine with complicated windows and the tiniest fridge I have ever seen. Once I get a login to the wireless up there, Ill post some photos (and regain the skills to apostrophe)

All i really have done since I got here is unpack and go grocery shopping with a coworker, also new to Germanz. The supermarket has the most complicated shopping cart system I have ever encountered. First, to get a cart, you have to stick a coin in the handle and yank hard to detatch your cart from all the others. But, if you dont do this quite right, these big plastic appendages on the wheels will lock up and you have to scout out an employee to unlock them with a big black plastic key. All this is complicated by the fact that the only way to enter the actual store is through a one-way shopping cart turnstile. So when you get stuck with the cart with locked wheels on the wrong side of the turnstile... it gets sticky. And thats before we got to the shoppingcart escalator. Luckily we made it out of the store without looking like complete nuts.

Another country means another hunt for tofu. I think vegetarianism and world-travel are becoming less and less compatible. I was able to ask for tofu in german though and I discovered that while the stock-guy didnät know if they carried tofu, if they did, it would be next to the quark.

Tschüss!