Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Home Improvement




If my thumbs were nails I'd be a carpenter...
Some current projects here at Erzbergerstrasse 33 (aka "33 EZ street"):

We start with the big storage room... since we're already paying to store everything we own (save that whopping dictionary) at a warehouse in Crown Heights, we turned it into a walk-in wardrobe (trappings of the rich and we don't even know it):

before...



now...






To the bedroom...


we started off woody guthrie style:
"make me a bed right down on the floor...I'll lay my head in a bed on the floor"


Then we learned how very involved the bed-buying process is here in Deutchland... Many parts, all sold separately.



Approximately 65% of Lily's summer vacation was spent obsessing about German curtain technology.

Then she found some billowy white numbers at a thrift store... More white! We live in a cloud... relaxing in the waiting room for heaven, reading a two-month old Sports Illustrated, listening to an endless loop of Herbie Mann's "Memphis Underground." In other words, just to my liking...



Found on the street for free (on my birthday, no less)


Cheap metal legs (White, of course) on an old slab of wood... Ikea's good for something!


Then we got the internet... DeutschTelecom sent a waifish techno musician to our apartment to hook up the router... I was almost late for German class because dude wanted to download his new trance single off the internet so I could hear it... It was, ermm, "very electronica." He also asked the same first question all people in Kassel ask us: "what are you doing here?" followed closely by "do you think 9/11 was an inside job?" I was finally able to shuttle him out the door...

Monday, September 10, 2007

Good Company

This year's Models...

Ben. Leyla.



Elisabetta. Cesar.



Evangelos. Found bird.



Brea. Johannes.



Pin-Chieh. Ben.



Mats. Szu-Wei. "Yeah, Son!"



"Yeah, Son!" Elisabetta. Ben. Julian.



Kristin. Julian.





(postscript: Herr Zuniga left for India this weekend... back before the end of the year)

Desk

Four days after our arrival, with no furniture to speak of, Lily and I were walking through a steady rain (it always rains here) after signing me up for Deutchkurs A-1 (sprechen like a child), when lily turned and saw a bunch of furniture chucked in an alley.

"OOH, DESK..."

We were ten blocks from home... all uphill... (did I mention it was raining)... but lily's got that superhuman strength that says "we ain't payin' for shit!"



Puddles aside, it was in surprisingly good shape.




It's amazing what a little sandpaper and olive oil can do.





Poetry gods shining through the downpour.

Thursday, September 6, 2007

First Takes


We set out early...



leaving behind friends, family...






babysitting opportunities...






On arrival...




visibility was clear...