Then I got sick.

Went to camp.

Got even more sick.

And had to leave…

going to camp - and nothing to wear

Dear Friends,

it took month of persuasion and one long night in a beerhall but finally I gave in:
I’ll partake in one more true American institution called Summer Camp. I have absolutely no idea what it will be about, all I know is everyone is crazy preparing (not sure what though) but I guess it will be my one and only great last chance for:

Hey Ho Let’s Go! Gal Fatal in Foolio Land!

Apparently the two chief summer camp ladies hand pick who is allowed to come and I got a thumbs up assumingI got the new kid bonus…

For my personal safety I want you to know that in case you don’t hear back from me anytime soon after Monday (Memorial Weekend – unfortunately I’ll miss all the big sales cause that’s what it is apparently all about, just like Martin Luther King Day was) I am to be found somewhere in New Jersey. Seriously no one is giving me any details! It’s like – being a kid!
Except that there will be 50 grown ups. Yes 50.

So as for now I am going to leave you with the theme song that just reached my mailbox and people please, do pray for me!

Sorry upload doesn’t work I’ll give you an excerpt of the readily attached lyrics to learn on the road:

Verse 1:
Well boys and girls, we are at camp.
We are all sluts, jerks, douches, and tramps.
Our youth is gone, but we are here,
so what the hell, let’s drink some beer.
CHORUS:
Now here we are, alcoholics,
and some of us, are druggies too.
We gather here, to fuck and frolic,
and to cling to our youth.
O, to our camp be true!
Verse 2:
We’re losing hair, we have back backs,
and saggy boobs, and balls, and plumber’s cracks.
We once were hot, we once were hunks,
but now our beer guts, obscure our junks.

etc pp

P.S: Yesterday I went to Fulton Stree, a shopping street that is known for satisfying my enthusiasm for hip hop couture to buy some Camp suitable leggins (I am NOT doing shorts, to early into the season). When I entered a run down store named “Pretty Girl” where I was wellcomed with a friendly “Hey white Lady, how ya doin?”. (Here I’d like to point out that it wasn’t me who needed to make a remark about me being one of probabely 0.2% white customers p.d. and ask for “white leggins” or something… We have come a long way since Detroit!) Half way into the endlessly deep store I saw a guy sitting on a very high ladder, first I thought he was taking a break from fixing something then I realized he was actually looking for thieves. It struck me as pretty third world. Imagine him throwing stones at people to stop them stealing. Almost all the way to the back there was another guy who sat on a bar stool which was tied on a pedestal. As I came closer I suddenly see the guy slowly falling off the chair ONTO a customers back. The chair broke. I don’t know. I thought that was worthwhile sharing…

Nudist in Boston

Hey hey!

What’s up everyone?

The Gal Fatal’s Travel have finally brought her to Boston where she has been provided with a food and party spree she hasn’t quite recovered yet (hungry all the time now).

Friday night: Leslie’s students threw a party. After that we had a nice dinner close by…

Saturday: Antonia reconnected with Boston after ten years. That means I must have been – 17.
Leslie and Matt had friends over for a barbecue in the garden with attached indoor fireplace session in their new house. Great!

Sunday: After a hearty dosa breakfast Matt prepared I went over to Max’ and Marcus’ house for dinner preparations. To be fair I left the cooking to the Italian and devoted myself completely to telling stories from the foolio travels. Boy, we had fun!

Monday morning: I stopped by a gentlemen’s outfitter and alienated the two old guys in there with my youthful feminine excitement. They really have all the good stuff: tweed, salt n’ pepper, fishbone, and my new favorite madras. Honestly if every man had suit jacket from Havard Sq the world would be a better place. And I could finally give way to just judge a book by it’s cover only. Seriously, I’d be a sexist in no time… I almost cuddled with the racks.

Oh well, then it was already time to hop on the Fung Wah bus (Chinese bus drivers who don’t really speak English…) again and I was kinda sad to leave everyone behind so quickly but that’s the way the story goes I guess. And there is a lot more to come that way since I have 11 days left…

P.S: Sorry for the blurry pics someone apparently made a ‘fingerdapper’ on the lens…

As people might know I have been hiding from my hometown for almost four month now and haven’t been missing it at all but looking at pictures from the 1st of May (worker’s day) my Berlin teenage rebel heart ached quite a bit. This is a weird one since even some people from Berlin don’t understand my fascination with the day that used to start with a demonstration, now a street party and always ends in riots. FUN!

Maybe you need to know that I spend my entire teenage years on demonstrations against the cold war, Germany’s reunion, anti racism, Nolympia, the war in Irak (first time around), you name it to understand what it means to me. It was the early 90s and there was aways something to protest about. Almost every weekend. You went there with your friends instead of hanging out at the mall I guess. I remember an anti Irak war demonstration tha had several hundered thausend people while a normal one would be in the thausends (estimated number of participants always varied widely wether presented by the police or the organziers).
There was a whole ordeal to it, what to wear (heavy shoes, a scarf not too big otherwise it would get confiscated because of the ban on face coverings, a hooded sweater, everything possibly in worn out black) and how to behave (do not call your friends with their real names in case you get seperated, “Idefix” was quite a popular name people would shout to find their friends in the often tumultus circumstances, do NOT bring your bike into the demonstration, link arms with your fellow protesters, do not run in case of a panic etc pp). You could get in serious trouble with the police or the older and cooler protesters (my sister’s husband used to be one of those) if you didn’t obey the rules. The whole point of those demonstration was seeking trouble. I personally never caused any – never threw a stone, raided a supermarket or set a trash can/car on fire (even if I got arrested for a few hours once but that was rather silly) but to the day get a tremendous kick out of staying till the last minute.

In the meanwhile times have changed and people do not really protest or know how to protest anymore and the borrough of Kreuzberg (or Xberg), still the home of aging leftwingers and a big Turkish and Arabic community, is putting a lot of money into a street party called Myfest to keep the a growing number of riot tourists at bay. But they haven’t even once succeded in keeping the party trouble free despite the police introducing a new deescalation plan each year. Word is that the German police force needs the 1st of May celebrations to train the border patrol anyway but that could be a cold war myth.

So imagine a scenario like this: you are sitting in a park that is overcrowded with mostly young people, more and more hipster lately but also familys, dogs, strollers etc. The square is lined with street fair stands selling all kinds of foods and drinks imaginable and handing out leaflets of obscure left political organisations from all over the world  – having a beer in the sun with your friends while listening to a most likely awful live band. Suddenly, from far you hear a noise that can only described as “disturbance”. You look up and maybe 300 yards further there is a dusty cloud moving towards you – not unlike a huricane I imagine.
Since I am old-school I get up but do not run unlike most people including the older head scarfed Turkish lady I saw last year who was only a little taller as the fully equiped raw doner kebab skewer she was carrying and seeking shelter for. Next thing you know a group of a hundered armored police men with bats is laying the place in waste you were sitting just a minute ago.

Usually the water canons move in rather quickly and then you really get should get yourself out of the way since I have seen those white street vendor tents turning into a rhombus under their force  – the chinese lampion decoration dangling cheerfully.

Now is time to move to a bar in one of the streets where you know the trouble is headding and find yourself preferably a good window seat. For the next four hours you will be perfectly entertained by the bar talk, the cats and mouse game in the street and the poor bar tender who needs to open and close the shutters every ten minutes and the noise the flying stones make when they collide with the just in time shut shutters.

One time, I might have been a little drunk already, I found this a spot behind a palm tree outside a restaurant where I had the perfect view on everything what was going on in the street. After walking through the ongoing trouble  back and forth several times to get more beer the police decided to clear the street entierly. I wasn’t too eager to give up my out-look easily, so when the police finaly came I got up but asked “Why can’t I sit here?” The answer came rather quickly “That’s why!” and I got pushed away – in the face. The next day I awoke with two bruises on my cheekbones.
I know it sounds brutal but really I blame myself. If you have been cheering criminal behavior for the last hour and get asked to leave – leave. It is the rules.

The day itself doesn’t really mean anything anymore but for me it is Berlin training for worst case scenario, too. You know, if things go wrong you at least know how you make yourself seen and heard – in case anyone has anything important to say that is… because that’s exactly the part that seems to be missing lately.
The weird thing is I am 100% sure there would be a way to take every last kid that just bought himself a kifaya scarf at the street fair off the streets but they won’t. They let us have it.

I know it’s stupid but I love it. My guilty pleasure.

For atmospheric imagery click here, here (left wing district mayor says he needs to personally witness what’s going on and not to be dependent on the media) and here.

And this has everything: the song by Ton, Steine, Scherben, the place, the mood… must be early morning.

nice sweat stain

Yesterday I had the great honor to accompany not one, not three but five men to my first sports event EVER! It was a Mets vs. Nationals baseball game at the brand new Citi fields stadium in Queens. Gabe’s mom gave him tickets for his birthday in an area where it is most likely to catch a ball (you know Pamela Anderson got discovered that way) but unfortunately no ball came even close to our section. And no one catched a Pepsi shirt either which Mr Met (the mascot) shot in the audience during especially designated ‘Pepsi T-Shirt Breaks’.

Even if I got told that we watched a particularly ‘uneventfull’ game (the Mets lost 7 to 1 – I think) I came to realize that going to a baseball game is not really about watching the game all the time. I would even go as far as saying it is more about hanging out, drinking beer and eating hot dogs with your friends most of the time. But then again suddenly everyone focuses on the game and cheers some action I had a hard time following. Especially since often I had no idea where the ball actually was. It’s really small, no joke. But sitting in the blinding sun at 34C having beer does not make your eyes focus any better – I admit that. So things weren’t working well for the Mets and someone behind me kept demanding a ‘brain transplant’ for someone in the field.

Needless to say I had a great time! I liked best the way each time the person on the bat changes they play the favorite song of the new hitter when he walks to his position. Mine would be ‘Who’s that girl’ by Eve if ever that happens…

Even if Citi Field is located right beside the old Shea Stadium (they were still working on the concrete hill created by it’s remains) it’s oddly surrounded by car part dealers. No bar, no hot dog stand, no nothing. The boys were in the mood for another beer so we kept stumbling around in a neighbor hood where it became apparent that a) we stuck out as being very tall and very white compared to it’s population as well as b) despite being named Corona  – there weren’t many bars around. I was already working on a plan how to become insanely rich by opening a beer garden beside Citi Field when we finally found a nice little place where the boys ordered buckets of beer.

At the end the boys for some weird reason had sambucca. I settled for vodka. Back on the 7 train we rode into the sunset.

I love baseball!

I had really planned on not going to my Romance Novel Class cause I only had slept about four hours. Defenitely not enough to fully reverse the effects of the last vodka pepper shot Trevor from my writing class had given me as a ‘present’. Thank you Trevor! But the class is SO GOOD and as I lay in bed I started imagining what I would miss out on so I swung my new buff 27 year old body out of bed and made my way to school. Once I got there I was greeted by this sign. Most likely I was still drunk – the fact that – it doesn’t matter. I nearly died.

Here some pictures of my second 27th birthday in NYC.

Adorned with a slinky second hand Calvin Klein dress I bought with Stella (I call it ‘hugging the behind’), the  jewellery Alison’s assembled for me, some ballerinas for the subway ride (I put the stilletos on when I got off the subway – otherwise I would have been at least an hour late) and my beloved bomber jacket (well I didn’t have anything more fitting – call it style…) I set off to Von’s.  Got a crazy meringue pie for Gabe on the way that gladly survived the little incident where I got stuck in subway doors. Huh!

Unfortunately no one really saw my outfit because the air conditioning was breathing down my neck so I needed to wear a jacket all night… but apart from that it was a lot of fun. And a very long night…

My so called ‘landlord’ Genevieve who is also an old friend of Avi’s is recording an album and I had the pleasure of helping her to come up with a style, a theme and a cover shoot for it. It is going to be called ‘Songs From T h e  L o n g i n g  I s l a n d’ and that’s where we went for the shoot. Long Island. On the first really nice day of the year. I had persuaded a friends boyfriend to come along to take the pictures so we got out of bed at 5.30 and headded out of the city to catch some morning sun.

I don’t know what you think of the pictures www.ologie.com/Gen but I think they are pretty damn cool and they are not even the real pictures just the digitals. It was such a pleasure working with the two – it was the most perfect setting, Gen did a great job modeling even if she had never done it before, Dan was such a cool photographer and I take personal pride in the fact that I got Gen hooked on her first stilettos ever.

After taking advantage of all the morning sun (see my burned feet below) we had lunch and a glass of wine with a lot of old folks in a Soprano’s setting typ of restaurant. Loved it!

A little tipsy we went back to the city and right when we crossed the bridge and took a turn on Clinton the car started fuming -  the cooler liquid was boiling. Dan had to walk his two heavy equipment bags home while Gen and I were hanging out at a street corner waiting for the AAA (ADAC) when Gianfranco the Italian manager of a bar came out and brought us iced cappuccino. Nice! We watched a little boy go up and down the broadwalk on his scooter for about an hour till the tow truck finally arrived. First the guy was a little grumpy but when he heard that Gen was a singer he lighten up quite a bit. Looks like he is lifting the car himself in one of the pictures…

I took a ride with the tow truck till close to my house and then got off.
Nice cab ride!

Maybe not for the car but: What a fantastic day!

Sorry, really quiet at the posting front but once I arrived in NYC (they gave me the hardest time at the immigration office, I can’t come back for a year!) there was just too much going on, writing to catch up with for class (a never endeing stream of homework), also I am working on a concept for a cover of an album the girl I am renting the apartment from is recording etc pp and inbetween I am extremely busy lingering on a chaiselounge drinking bloody marys.

No, actually that was Easter brunch at Alison’s new place where she lives with boyfriend Mark now. As you might know I am not exactly what you call conservative but recently I have seen some strange thigs happening: I am turning in one of those immigrants that leave the country because there is nothing left to and once abroad they cling to every tradition or idea from home there is and might it be cheap, ugly footwear.

The most recent incident of this development made me rise early on Sunday to prepare my first ever Osterzopf for the brunch while watching the Ostermesse by the New York’s cardinal on tv. Yes, that’s how bad it is.

The Zopf turned out ok, I did not really have enough time to let it rise. I will never be conservative enough to make myself get up before 9.30 on a Sunday. Well. I am saying that now…

Attached some misc pictures…

Hangin' with the royals

Early Thursday morning I touched base with good old Berlin. The city showed some respect by displaying the season’s typical weather which goes by the name Very Grey.
My mom, dad, sister plus a friend showed at the airport and we all went for some breakfast afterwards. At the cafe either the phone rang or the the juicer was in full force – so we actually started wondering if people ordered orange juice over the phone since there weren’t that many guests apart from us. And we didn’t have any.

Looking out of the window seeing some really strange apparel my friend Tine came up with the bon mot

‘Jo is denn heut’ scho Fashion Week?!’

Sorry untranslatable but I nearly died.
Later that day she dragged the little old mare Galfatal to the Luxembourgian embassy (one of Europes smallest but richest country. Average income 120,000 € p.a. Let’s all move!) for a reception. As you can see I had the pleasure of meeting the ruler of Luxembourg and his wife and I was happy to have my little arrival speech prepared… I felt so royal the camera captured a virtual monocle.

After squeezing the last drop of cremant out of the open bar at the embassy we went to the weirdest places with people I didn’t even know we had those in Berlin. Probabely our equivalent to your guido’s. Explanation: I am staying at my mom’s in Charlottenburg (West) not to far from the embassy which might be the equivalent of the upper eastside of New York. I usually live in the East of Berlin. It is a different world.
So basically this less feels like being home but more like an extention of my travel!

P.S: G&T’s are for sissies over here!