Timber!

It's been a good 3 weeks without a post, sorry. I guess I was a little uninspired for a little while.

Anyway, the other day my host brother and I took on a rogue group of trees that were taking over the area near the trashcans. Armed with a branch cutter and a handsaw, or mission was clear, and within a half hour we had succesfully eliminated all three targets.



The Target
Locked and Loaded


Moving in for the kill.


It had to look like an accident.


A more space-efficiant, German Christmas tree.

A Tour of My Notebook.

I thought that since I have not written much about my school time so far here in Germany, I would give my readers a full tour of my school notebook, complete with full color photos and even a video!


This is the first page of my notebook. You can see that I had attempted to actually take notes and understand what was going on, but I gave up pretty fast, in this case a history lesson that went right over my head. (this was still the beginning of school). One day when I was just doodling, I rememebered doing this cool designs in math class a long time ago, so I thought I would try to do it again, and it worked. I created this one using a ruler and a pen, all of the lines you see are straight! Unfortunatly, it was not perfect because someone (I won't write his name for his own protection) decided to add a few of his own lines.


This next page is a rare site in my notebook, an entire page full of writing, almost completly lacking doodles (I don't know why I had to go and highlight my name in the bottom corner, ruining an otherwise pristine page of work). The next page in the notebook is covered halfway with writing on the same subject, and without any doodles. It may look great, a whole page of writing about a Franz Kafka parable, but it is in English and it was for the most part incorrect.


This design is one of my favorites. The sheet started out as notes on the formation of volcanoes, but once I lost track of what was going on, I think I mentally gave up on the notes and started doodling. the color was an afterthought, and I didn't finish it because I am not yet sure if these drawings are better left black and white or not. I think it would make a great stained-glass window.


I sincerely thought that this was the given assignment that day in German. We were told to listen to a parable from Franz Kafka and write down pictures that we get out of it. I guess in German, the word for picture is the same for "word picture", so in the end I was wrong, once again. For a little background info, the parable was about how the narrarator would love to be an Indian, blah blah blah. (I say that only because I didn't understand much more than the title.).


This masterpiece took a few class periods to complete. It was done completely freehand. Unlike other doodles, this one has it's own dedicated page. I opened to a new page to start taking notes, but there were no notes for me to take, so I did a little doodle, then I opened to it again the next class to take notes, and again there were no notes, so I started to expand the doodle to fill the page.


This last page is a page of notes from Philosophy class. I felt bad that I was doing so much doodling, so I decided to aim my doodles towards the class subject. Because the school makes you choose between philosphy or religion, I thought evolution would be fair game. I like how my little comic strip came up, and I even made a video of it!

Go here for the video.

Who knew that Hamburg was a beach town? This weekend I went into the city with some fellow schoolmates (Kevin right and Felix left). We walked around some parts of the city, and they showed me some places. We went to the infamous Reeperbahn, although at three in the afternoon, the only thing going on is cleanup from the night before. Maybe I will go back sometime at night. From there we walked by the fishmarket, which opens on Sundays at 5, which I hear is a cool place to go, it's not really that much fish I guess, but kind of an after party for people who spent the night on the Reeperbahn. After that we hit up this beach! There are a handfull of these "beach clubs" once you pass the Harbor in Hamburg.

If you look at if from this view though, it doesn't look as much like a party. The same "beach" from the picture before is right next to the parking lot, overlooking the river and "Blohm und Voss"'s gigantic shipyard.








That's it for now, more stuff when I get more pictures!

-Kevin

A little bit about German candy.

I found something to write about this week, German candy and chocolates. I have only been here for a few weeks, but I have tasted some pretty tasty snacks. Most people know the line of "Kinder" chocolates; different shaped cookies or chocolates with chocolate cream or milk cream. One of the more popular are the "Uberrashungs Eier" (Suprise eggs). Here is a picture for you poor soles who have never had one.


The eggs have a thin chocolate shell, lined with milk cream. This milk cream is in many German candies. It is kind of an opposite of chocolate. Many people would say vanilla is the opposite of chocolate, but the milk cream seems to fit once you taste it. Once you eat the chocolate-milk shell (which is made from super delicious milk chocolate) there is a little container in the middle, like you would get for a quarter out of the machine at a supermarket. Inside the balls are little toys, here are some examples that me and Heiko (host brother) recieved. They are from a series of goodies that when placed in the sun for a while, their big noses turn red, like a sunburn. I have heard that there are some collecters that will pay alot for certain toys out of these eggs, similar to collecting Happy Meal toys or Beanie Babies.


Another brand of German candy I really like are Ritter Sport chocolate squares. They are like chocolate bars, but square shaped. Each color wrapper is a different type, so when you see the display, it presents you with a deliciously overwhelming raindow of deliciousness. The flavors range from Alpen Milch (milk chocolate with milk from the Alps), to chocolate with strawberry flavored cream and little crunchy strawberry bits, to my personal favorite of dark chocolate with marzipan.

On the line of marzipan, it is awsome. If you don't know what it is (which I think you should), marzipan is a super sweet, sticky, almond paste that is found inside of alot of chocolates and candies. It is really rich, and really tasty.

Today I found a new snack, Heiko showed it to me. It is called Koala "Kakao" or "Milch". The box is full of little cookies loosely shaped like koalas, with little koalas drawn onto them. They cookies are filled with chocolate or milk cream, both of which are delicious. The koala cookies also came with little toys, I got a snake and Heiko got a koala princes.