Dis.place.ment

One tiny action, which seemed more like common sense to me seemingly was a bit of a politically risqué move apparently. Things in internet land are incredibly irrelevant and comically inexistent, however creates such a stir regardless.

My incredible crime is that I joined a group, on facebook no doubt, in support of Canadians against the NAU. The Nihilistic Advocacy Utopia. Or was it the Nutella Action in Uruguay?

Ahh silly me. Okay okay, it was the North American Union being the acronym. I have yet to be completely revealed to as to why there was the fuss against me protesting the agenda of the corporate/financial/military elite of North America planning to unify Canada, USA, and Mexico into a new continental block with a fancy new border around the perimeter of North America. To put it in short that is. Not to mention the shiny new military plans etc. and while none of it is democratic to begin with. If/when I do find out what the fuss is about, I’m sure I’ll let you know.

Could it be that after moving to Germany, I need to give up my identity as a Canadian, and because I’m lumped into the generic whole of North America as it is while I’m here, what’s the difference between Canada and the US anyways? And just add in Mexico because they’re cheap labour. It’s time for me to drop my u’s, my new colours, whoops…colors are yet to be defined. Red probably….umm….white and who knows what else.

I admit I continue to have tiny identity crises since being here. I’ll never be German, (well…unless I decide to be incredibly dedicated and not leave for the next decade and give up my Canadian citizenship of course) and yet I don’t know when Canada will be my home again. Then again a country doesn’t define who you are, but it can be a good place to start. Don’t we all need something to hold on to? I seem to have let go, and I’m not entirely sure where or if I’ll land. Oh how deep.

It is true though, being displaced from everything I’ve ever known and the decision to live here has made me more self reflective than I ever remember being. I have opportunities and choices that I never had to deal with before. Join a circus? Not an option, so don’t dream about it. Anyways. I’m going to the beach. And discovering myself.

You seem to have a Sylt infection.

Well. Here we are. I seem to write that far too often. News news. Well. (un)Luckily for you I’ve had a few blog worthy experiences between last night and this afternoon. After a week and a half of living at the circus, (thanks to those of you who cared to notice by the way) I find myself with less exciting news than well one would seem, living at a circus and all. So here’s the scoop. Besides the fact that I could seriously indulge in some sort of icy creamy substance at the moment. Weather report by the way. I’m feeling a little bit ADD in terms of writing as you’ll soon notice. Weather report! Who doesn’t love to talk about the weather? I know you do. It’s funny how it’s the worst excuse for a conversation we have. That, and how long my hair is. And Brittney spears. But more on her later.

Okay. So the first week I was here, we had torrential downpours everyday. Cold, torrential downpours with thunder, and rain so loud it wakes everyone up in the middle of the night threatening to claw through the roof and instead actually just pooling up so much it finds the cracks and slowly drips a few inches away from your head as you sleep causing you to wake up in a mildly damp pond of ceiling/roof whatever rainwater. So we moved luckily. We as in myself and the three girls I’m sleeping with. Well, not sleeping with in…umm…sleeping with like sleeping in the same room together, not together, together…(unfortunately). Anyways! These storms were so extraordinary that when you look out the window, there is no longer rain, it’s more or less just all water falling from the sky. Well that’s what rain is. Obviously. What I’m talking about is the effect of standing under a swimming pool. Alright, so this swimming pool is suspended, and you happen to be under it as whatever was holding all that water up decides to disappear. This was not rain, this was the North Sea being relocated. Seriously. I’ve never witnessed something like this before. This was a very regular occurrence and I was starting to think that I had just moved to an island for the summer where I will be wearing my winter jacket for the entire duration. Today however, it’s decided to be +35. Nice breeze, blue sky, cloudless. Of course the sky is blue, irrelevant…would it change colours on an island of northern Germany? Well...actually…

Okay. So what else. Actually, what spurred me to write in the first place was my Friday night. Last night actually. Well, think of Germany. Not large lederhosen wearing, accordion playing men with absurd facial hair drinking beer and bratwurst, but rather the geographical blob that is the Germany. Now Germany, go up to the very top and you’ll meet the Danish border (you learn something new everyday) Under this border, about an hour away on the coast you have chunk of “anchor shaped” land suspended in the North Sea, completely and utterly self obsessed, to nearly a fetish but I’ll get to that later. Okay so on this tiny, I mean, miniature chunk of land, one can drive from the top to the bottom in less than an hour- that kind of tiny. On this flea of geography, there is the main village of Westerland, outside of Westerland is another village, Wenningstedt beside that village is where I live. Today however there was some sort of deal happening in the village outside the village. For those who are familiar with the shanty of Lumby, you may relate to this. There was a yearly summer event in the villiage of Wenningstedt today, in which I was actually asked to perform in with the circus, and would have been happy to do so if they had not asked me to do so last night. Anyways. This was worse than Vernon. Worse as in only one bad waterclour stand to look at instead of four, and the usual gem collectors, bored elderly making crafts out of bizarre things etc etc. It was quite the party. A party nearly half a block long. A party with the average age or 60, sort of like where I went last night, but we’ll get to that. I did however learn some fun facts while looking Wenningstedt up on good ol’ wikipedia though. Wenningstedt is known for the red cliff and the Denghoog stone grave, a walk-in grave made of huge stone walls from 3000 BC (fun fact, I can see the Denghoog from the door of my trailer). Sylt (the island), which occupies an area of 38 square miles (99 square km), is connected by rail with the mainland via the 7-mile- (11-km-) long Hindenburgdamm (causeway). A magnificent beach extends along the smooth west coast, where the Red Cliffs of glacial moraine rise to nearly 100 feet (30 metres). The island is dotted with prehistoric megalithic tombs and other structures. Blah blah blah, also symptoms include being suffocated in Sylts self absorption, trampled by massive, looming, obnoxious and absentminded tourists, drowned in overpriced everything, sneezing, painting your white picket fences whiter once a week and joining a circus. Funny how things work out eh? Prehistoric megalithic tombs don’t have to eat the same bean salad for lunch everyday at least. I’ll be so full of absurd glee when I’m able to cook for myself once again…food with real flavours and all sorts of crazy things.

So it turns out that you’re going to have to wait like the patient little audience that you are for the next installment on the Friday night to remember due to my battery doing its little flashing dance thing. Ta~

Ner.d.

Alright. Well I'm staying. Honestly. I was formally accepted to my school last week after an entrance exam, and I finished my final exhibitions yesterday so it's done. Somewhat like dinner. I start school again at the end of Sept and until then, I'm moving to a tiny island in Northern Germany called Sylt and working at a circus school teaching children. That about sums up life. I feel you need to be informed about my new found home, now that it's official. I'm also a nerd, and do this kind of stuff in my free time, and decided to post it instead of telling everyone my facts in person. Here we are.


Vernon to Hamburg:

68844.4 football fields
8.26132e+6 yards
152062 pools
4.43840e+6 smoots
1.64179e+7 πεχυα
4078.92 nautical miles
8.03650e-10 light years
1.39833e+7 black cubits

You can fit 27.96661821013329.....etc Germany's into Canada: 9,984,670 km² (Canada's size) 357,021 km² (Germany)

Canadas population: 33,315,000
Germany's population: 82,217,800

• After Irish, Germans are the second biggest consumers of beer in the world. The average beer consumption of the country is 119 liters per person per year.
• Angela Merkel, elected in the 2005 elections, is first woman chancellor of Germany (she's a big football fan too, heh)
• Berlin became home to the biggest train station in Europe in the year 2006.
• Football is the most popular sport in Germany and ‘The German Football Association’ is the largest association of its kind in the world.
• German Autobahn is the oldest, and one of the densest, motorway networks in the world.
• Germany...
• became world’s first country to adopt Daylight Saving Time (DST), in the year 1916.
• is a member of NATO, G8, G4 Nations and the European Union (EU).
• is one of the few countries of the world where Holocaust Denial has been declared as a crime.
• is the homeland of numerous renowned scientists and theorists. They include Albert Einstein, Max Plank and Werner Heisenberg.
• is the largest economy, and the second most populous nation, of Europe.
• In case of iron, steel, coal, cement, chemicals, machinery, vehicles, machine tools, electronics, food and beverages; shipbuilding and textiles, Germany is the largest producer in the world.
• Many great philosophers of the world, like Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche and Heidegger, were German.
• The tallest church in the world, Ulm Cathedral, is in Germany. It is 161.53 meters (530 feet) high.
• The Wurzburg Residence of Germany boasts of housing the largest fresco ceiling in the world, measuring 7287 square feet and done by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, a Venetian painter.
• World's most colorful caves (as per Guinness Book of Records), Fairy Grottoes, are in Germany.

Hamburg <3>Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg (German: Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg).

• 1,8 million inhabitants – second largest city in Germany
• an average of 340.000 visitors per day
• 6,44 million overnight stays in 2005
• 20,7 million business dayly-visitors
• 8% of the city area are waterways
• 22% take up modern and historic park grounds
• Hamburg is the third largest Musical city in the world

Me being silly:

Time Zone: GMT+1 ( daylight savings: GMT+2 )
Country Code ( telephone ): 49
Area Code: 40

Currently Hamburg has 79 museums.
Hambubrg has nearly 4o theaters.

41% of inhabitants are Christians, 10% of them being Catholics. Muslims (mostly Sunni) are 12% of the population. About 39% profess no religion. There are also large numbers of Hindus and Sikhs.

Hamburg is the birthplace of the Hamburger. This is not a myth. The beef patties a German immigrant from Hamburg sold in the 1850s in New York allegedly were named after the butcher and then became a generic term.

Hamburg is famous for kicking off the Beatles' musical career in the early 1960s. They often played at the Star Club located in the St. Pauli district.

Hamburg is the birthplace of Alsterwasser (a reference to the city's river Alster with two lake-like bodies in the city centre thanks to damming), a type of shandy, a concoction of equal parts of beer and carbonated lemonade (Zitronenlimonade), the lemonade being added to the beer and has me mildly enthralled.

The many canals in Hamburg are crossed by over 2500 bridges, more than Amsterdam and Venice ombined. Hamburg has more bridges inside its city limits than any other city or town on Earth.

Lastly but not least...

The longest German word verified to be actually in (albeit very limited) use is Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz. [which, literally translated, breaks up into: Rind (cattle) - Fleisch (meat) - Etikettierung(s) (labelling) - Überwachung(s) (supervision) - Aufgaben (duties) - Übertragung(s) (assignment) - Gesetz (law), so "Beef labelling supervision duty assignment law".]

*sigh* I'm in love.

Alright, so here we are and to finish this sucker off, I'm going to woo you with a few photos:

I didn't take any of these by the way, because I'm lazy and instead of editing mine, I decided to borrow...it gives a better idea of Hamburg...or something...I'm just being lazy...

Anyways, thanks to the lovely people on Flickr for lending their arts



THE Hamburg Beer...


Main Station

City Hall


If you take the train on the right, you'll get to my place.
Or take the left and transfer to U2 at Berliner Tor.

On the Harbour