Gay or European?

To my loyal blog followers (even if it's just Mom and Dad): Sorry I haven't written in a while, it's been a crazy past couple of days what with starting class and everything.

When I had last written I mentioned that Saturday night I was going a club where Pam's host brother had gotten us on the guest list. Wow. Is all I can say. Just wow. It was in a super touristy part of Berlin. You know that cellphone commerical where he has no bars in Amsterdam, so he's in a Hostel with Slav and Peter, the techno twins, and they're like these Swedish guys dancing with ribbon dancers. That pretty much is what club qdorf is. There are like 4 dance floors, one is hip-hop, one is house like techno, there's a saloon type western thing, and the main dance floor that played American eighties music (Wham! for example). There were a bunch of people on staff dressed up weirdly: like male clowns with no shirts who were dancing, female clowns in tutus dancing, a mascot bear, people in leder hosen, strippers in moulin rouge-esque corsets. WHERE WAS I?! Oh and the people attending, it was "Slav and Peters" and then like European guidos and guidettes with fake tans, spiked hair, muscles and mini-skirts (respectively). Bizarre. It was so fun though. I got pulled up on stage and I danced which was a lot of fun, and Mills and I ended up staying there until 4:30am.

So Sunday, needless to say was low-key while I recovered, and then at like 8, my friend Kaegan said he wanted to meet so he and I met on Shoenhauser Allee, and we were looking for an open bar to sit and have a drink and just hang out, but it was Sunday so the pickings were slim. And it was FREEZING, so I saw this Bar called "The Bear Bar" and Berlin's symbol is a bear so I was like whatever, great. And Kaegan says, "There are Teddy Bears on the wall, I'm not going there" and I say, "Oh come on it's just a Berlin thing. I'm freezing, it's fine." We get inside, and I start looking around, and not only are there a lot of teddy bears, but also a lot of flags. Rainbow flags. It's a gay bar. And even though my gaydar is usual in tune, it gets a little murkier in Europe because all the gays sort of seem gay through an American perspective. But I mean, some of these guys were holding hands. That's usually a good clue. Kaegan and I sat in the corner and tried to be inconspicuous but basically we weren't because he had a huge backpack (like Jeanie's) and we were speaking English and I was the only female. Good times.

Yesterday (Monday) was my first day of classes, and while I HATE first days in general (all the inane questions and just reading through the syllabus) I have high hopes for them. My Identity in Europe will deal with different minority groups and we will visit a Stasi prison. My film and literature class, well it was different... The Professor is super artsy seeming and she asked us to do some "creative writing" about our first impressions in Berlin. I wrote about how I thought the appeal of Berlin is this glamorized Bohemian lifestyle. Where one can reinvent themselves. Like, I'm a Midwest girl, but I can pretty easily imagine a life for myself in Berlin living in an artists loft with an Italian lover or something. But the difference is, while I see that possibility, it doesn't seduce me. Yet I'm sure there are a ton of people would be seduced by that. So anyway, I wrote that down and after we had written our teacher goes, "Ok, who wants to share first." Obviously no one. We didn't realize this was going to be made public. So I decided, "fuck it, I'll go first". And I read mine and I thought it was ok. Then my teacher says, "How would you artistically represent that?" Um....what? And she elaborates, "A Novel, a dance, a film, an essay, a short story, a monologue..." Oh ok, a novel. Who would your protagonist be? A girl studying in Berlin. Would it be autobiographical? Sure. If were a film who would play the role of you? Simbad, lady, I don't know. So she is one of those "art people" and some of the films she discussed in terms of, "well you may not like the film, but the goal is to learn from it." Shit. It's going to be those kind of movies with 20 minutes of a scene involved worms in a gutter or something that symbolizes abortion. I might hate that class.

Today I had my first Women and Gender Studies class and I think it will be really cool. We're covering women in Cabarets in the twenties, women in fascism, women today, legal prostitution, GDR women, etc. Which all sounds great and right up my alley. The teacher, however, is kind of awkward. She has HUGE teeth, like, just escaped from the horse races, huge teeth, and she seems nice enough, but she asked, "Do you have any questions about gender" and then just sort of stared at us. Like that was going to generate conversation. Eventually after like 15 painful minutes we got a dialogue going. I don't know if she likes me or will like me. I mentioned how it seems completely un-masculine to Americans that guys in Germany pee sitting down. For hygiene. Have I mentioned that? In one of our opening presentations that was mentioned by a host mother. That apparently she has experienced in the U.S. guys stand up, but for "hygienic purposes" she would prefer the men sit. How pussy is that?! And to the Germans that's normal. Seriously, no wonder in the U.S.A. we can't tell if a man is gay or European....

Oh, also today, I got a haircut. It was so scraggly and out of shape I couldn't handle it anymore. It's in a much short bob, longer in front type of deal. But that lady did a really good job for only 14 Euros! CRAZY right? I have some homework I need to work on...More later.