change for the sake of change

you might have noticed a couple of small changes on here. firstly i now have a picture of me on here. at first i didn't want to do that, i wanted to stay somewhat anonymous. i'm not too sure why, it was just a gut instinct to hide myself on the net when i started. being invisible allows you certain freedoms, ie the ability to pick something apart totally and give bad reviews to places or events without and kind of backlash in the real world. other than that, it just felt like the right thing to do. however, i am now back tracking on this decision and am putting a 'sort of' recognisable picture of me looking out over the town of heidelberg from the schloss. i decided that i needed to give a more personal look to this blog and hence the picture. plus, as a total starfucker and camera whore, i want people to recognise me from this blog in the unlikely event that anyone from heidelberg germany reads this thing. i seriously doubt anyone would as it's sort of too diary/i'm on holidays for the general public to be that interested. plus i don't think i'm that exciting of a person that people would want to read my censored exploits on here. if anyone, in the most unlikely event, does live in heidelberg and reads this, if you ever see me down the hauptstrasse at a pub come over and, after explaining yourself of course, buy me a drink and i'll be sure to tell you about the things that have omitted from this blog due to varying reasons.

second change, is that i now, in my list of blogs people should read, have a small explanation of what the blog entails. it looks a bit wordy, but if you're reading blogs, then you shouldn't be afraid of words. or else why are you reading to start with?

and lastly, in an attempt to start making any kind of money on this damn thing i have added a 'news' feed thinger under my generic photos of heidelberg. just click the titles at the top and the articles will change. any ideas for other topics are welcome, but just to let you know, anything that includes something a little un-PC or dirty will get a giggle from me and then be forgotten about.

if you don't like the changes let me know. if you like them let me know as well. i'm all for praise and criticism, well mostly praise. and if you feel like donating to the 'keep TJ of the streets' campaign just click the adds and news articles till your finger aches!!!

photos from the hauptstrasse

because blogger wont let me add pictures to my last entry, i've decided to just add the pictures here. i'm not going to explain that much about them because i explain everything in the last post, just a short note to let you know what's what. enjoy...

this is the entrance to steingasse through the keep, which then leads to the marktplatz and the hauptstrasse.

this is steingasse, on the left about half way down the street is where we stopped for beer. mmm... beer

this is the church in the marktplatz. very gothic, especially the little german gift store at the bottom. for some reason they sell flags from all over the world, not an australian one though. but i did find a new zealand one. very odd.

this is the knights hotel/pub. crazy.

these are just some of the christmas decorations to make my mother insane. the whole shop was full to overflowing with madness. it must be absolutely insane in there around mid-december.

just another shot of the haupstrasse. you can see alexis, matthias and one of his boys in the foreground.just a final shot of the north side of heidelberg from the side of the river neckar at the end of the hauptstrasse. the town is beautiful.

supermarket? not while there's photos to be taken!?!

i was suppose to go to the supermarket this morning and pick up some things. after a disastrous attempt at going to buy shampoo and conditioner yesterday, (it took me twenty minutes to distinguish the conditioner from other hair care products - i laughed insanely the whole time, and i think the woman behind the counter thought i was high. i would have thought i was high.) this was not a trip i was looking forward to. i was almost fearing it to tell you the truth. i know how to say how much is that? and so forth, so it wasn't going to be too bad, but i just had this feeling i'd be there for hours trying to find the things i needed. and without annoying the staff by having them drag me around like a blind dog, i was walking with some trepidation. however, after asking the guy at reception where the nearest supermarket is i was off. but before you can say zeig heil mein fuhrer! i veered away from the path and was lost in a mass of old-school buildings in the middle of a fancy residential area of frankfurt taking happy snaps of buildings. so i still haven't gone to the supermarket. haha. but i have some brilliant shots, which to be honest isn't that hard when you're in a town that looks like the opening credits to La Law and schindler's list had a fucked up baby.

my walk went for about two hours, which makes my future 2 hour walk with the hostel kind of redundant, but i'm going anyway. it's a chance to see things i missed, get the names of things i saw already (if you are a friend of mine on facebook, look at my frankfurt pics - i have no idea what half the things i was looking at were. they're very pretty though!), and, most importantly, make some new friends. it's kind of hard to do that here, when you're avoiding americans, aussies and everyone else speaks different languages and is afraid to talk. apparently the thing to do is smile and nod and say hi very quickly before running away. i'm not having a go, because i've done it too! (there was this one guy though, and this is a complete by the by, who came in this morning wearing an american jacket with USA written on it and all the stars and stripes and usual fanfare that adorns such patriotic nonsense that america spews. how many friends do think he'll get? i'd wager not many if he keeps that jacket on. is he aware that america bombed the fuck outta this town? that's like going to hiroshima and wearing a USA hoodie. yeah, thanks for the atomic blast, all our children's children have cancer you bastards!)

anyway, two things happened to me on my walk this morning. one amusing and one creepy. the amusing thing is i was mistaken for a german by an old lady. she looked at me at asked for directions in german - a whole lot of german. (before i go on, please be aware that i don't know how to spell big german words. and they have a lot of them) i responded in german by saying, 'enschuldigung, mein duestcher nicht so gut. sprechen sie englisch?' she responded, 'nein.' and then a shitload more german before walking away. now, it was about two blocks down the street when i realised that what i had said was literally, 'apologies, my german woman is not so good.' i giggled to myself and realised hey, she understood me despite my incorrectness so my german can't be that bad. it gave me some hope for later on when i will have no option but to speak german.

the second and creepy thing that happened, was when i was walking through a statue filled park, taking photos and enjoying the serenity, i noticed a guy apparently peeing in the bushes. now i thought nothing of this, because hey, every guy once in a while has had to go the bathroom at a time when there's been no toilets (that's another thing, frankfurt seems to have no public toilets. unless of course they don't have pictures, only words saying toilet? interesting...), but as i was walking past another guy walked past me and straight up to him. now walking guy grabbed a cigarette out of peeing guy's mouth, lit his own cigarette with the end, before putting it back in peeing guy's mouth. nothing that strange, well okay, it is strange, but i'm in europe, so hey, stranger things are bound to happen. now this would have been fine if that's all that happened, but it wasn't. walking guy, from behind, then looks over peeing guy's shoulder and at his dick. he then stands directly beside peeing guy and undoes his pants. peeing guy then smiles and does a 'reach across'. it is this point where i realise peeing guy is actually MASTURBATING GUY!!! now what kind of country is it, where at 11 in the morning you can pick up another man in the thinly spaced bushes of a public park, where people are constantly walking past, none of whom seemed shocked or frightened or disgusted. it was as if this is a normal occurrence here. just to let you know, on the other side of the thinly spaced bushes is a main road. a jam-packed, full of little german cars main road. and anyone who's been to frankfurt knows that if it's a main road, it is a busy as fuck main road. cause everywhere else is one way and incredibly small. think the movie ronin with robert de niro.

anyway, that's it for now. the one thing i learned about germany so far today, is that apparently you can do anything you want and no one cares. which i must say, gives me hope for the future. especially with the nightlife. hehehe...

a brand new day

i slept pretty well last night. i was going to go out and either see a rock band from sweden or go to a metal club/bar that the girl at the counter told me about, but apart from the fact it was on the other side of town, i passed out at around 9:30pm german time (5:30am australian time) and slept for about 10 hours. i guess that just made up for the sleep i missed out on during the trip here. i'm still a little tired, but i can push through that today. as the title says, it's a brand new day and without the sleeping pills effecting me and with a shit load of sleep under my belt, i don't have to fear looking like a junkie or zombie. and who knows, i might even try some of my dodgy- as german.

last night i decided to be boring and have mcdonald's for tea and it was funny trying to order. i asked the girl at the counter, 'sprechen sie englisch?' to which she replied a little. i then said, 'ausgezeischnet!' (that's excellent and spelt wrong. lol) and clapped. she just giggled and then in broken german/english we figured it out. so today is all about getting my bearings and trying out some german. i'll let you all know how it goes. i might head down to the supermarket later, but my real plan is to go on the walking tour of frankfurt at 4pm and take some photos, make some new friends and then maybe convince one or two of said 'new friends' to go for drinks somewhere. i can't keep to myself for much longer otherwise the first person that shows me any kind of friendship is going to have to put up with an out pouring of chatter from yours truly. and anyone who knows me, will know that if that happens i may not stop. haha...

anyway, today is photography and german language day, not to be confused with international talk like a pirate day, or international toilet day. which are real days, but have to have the stigma of not being cool enough for a place on calenders or diaries.