Germany day two: It ist verboten!

Germany day two: It ist furboten! + Yes, I’m Jamaican dammit!



I’m a little unhappy that I wasn’t’ able to talk about the small things I noticed in France. I did mention the toilet thing, where you pull a knob upwards to flush, but I didn’t mention that the bottled water I had in Cannes tasted horrible, and it was hard to find anything with rice in in… anywhere. It was all cheese and bread, and Englishman would probably say it was “god awful”.

The first thing I have to chalk up to the Germans is efficiency. When I was in France, I used a power converter to power my laptop. The first time I plugged my laptop in, noticed a strange sensation when I ran my fingertips over the surface of my Macbook. It was a buzzing feelings, like rubbing a vibrating surface. I researched this phenomenon on the internet and voila! It was a power conversion issue. Essentially what I was feeling was a mild shock. There was too much power coming into the macbook book and the metal surface was conducting it.

In different buildings throughout france I had the same problem. This even occurred when I hooked up a printer (macbook as not plugged in) to my laptop! On day one when I came to Germany and plugged my notebook in, I noticed there was no shock. What I received was proper, and highly accurate power conversion. There’s one for the Germans. In fact, this whole “efficiency” thing isn’t a joke. I’ve never received change so quickly in my life. In numerous stores, wherever I buy something, the price is calculated and my change is delivered within seconds.

Other than that, my day has been pretty uneventful. I went to a place to get a Bike today (Berlin is too f-ing huge to walk around). For the healthy sum of 38 Euros, I ge a bike of my own (including lights and a cool locking system) for five days. I was riding around a little today, marveling at how large and alien Berlin seems. Berlin reminds me of DC, if DC was three times as big. There is so much SPACE wherever I go. Space for joggers, cyclists and cars… everywhere. I ask a girl who looks like a tourist to take a picture of me. She’s a cool English chick who’s in town for a few days from Krakow, Poland. We snap pictures for a while and visit a few museums. We don’t actually see anything because every museum requires 8-20 euros to see their priceless artwork. I guess DC spoiled me.

At some point, she links up with her fried, aptly named “Massive”, who is an Italian fellow with an Aussie accent. I find the term “massive” funny because I’m taller than massive, but I guess I don’t want to dig too deep into that story.I’m starting to get tired of explaining why I speak “proper English”.

I really don’t know who spread the word to every person on the planet that ALL Jamaicans speak like the guys from Cool Runnings, Bob Marley, or any number of Rastamen on the North Coast, but they did a damn good job. Every person, even people who barely speak English, keep saying I sound American, or ask what the native language in Jamaica is.

The first few times I happily explained that there are different regions in Jamaica and people speak differently. But now, people are starting to say I sound American, which bothers me. Its almost like saying, “If you seak proper English without having an English, French, Aussie, or otherwise popular country’s accent, then you must be American.” As a Jamaican this makes no sense of course, but this seems to be what everyone believes. It seems people would rather run into Jamaicans they can barely understand than one who speaks clearly. Every American I’ve met knows immediately that I’m not America. Alas:

Stereotypes rule.

I went to this place called “Yaam” today which is like something out of a werid movie. I’m in the middle of Berlin and I’m standing in a place filled with sand, and walls covered in Graffiti that has the classic Ethiopian colours. There are African beers on the menu, people playing volleyball on the “beach” and Jah Cure was playing over the radio. It was weird. Jamaica really is the center of the universe!

Tonight the plan is to head to some pubs and do a “pub crawl”. I’ve heard for an interesting area to check out: Kreuzberg. Apparently there’s enough going on there to create significant mischief tonight. The plan ---





Whooops my roommate just walked in. They are going on a pub crawl. I’m out!