Ok ok ok. Fine! I get it! I have not posted for a very long unacceptable amount of time. I’m constantly hearing from people who miss me updating this blog. Thanks to my dad, my mom, brother-in-law Andrew, his sister Allison, my aunt Karen I think?, my sister, my Uncle Herbert, Teresa, my wonderful cousin Dave and his wife Trina, and whoever else has asked me to update my blog in the past… oh how long has it been… oh krikeys, about two and a half months - this blog is for you guys.

I guess my problem is that I don’t feel like my life is so interesting that I should post about it. After seven months in Germany, it’s hard to be excited about my life here the past few months.

This is about as exciting I get, folks!

Don’t get me wrong, though. I still love living in Iowa. Rachel is a wonderful roommate, and we enjoy living together. We don’t see each other that often, because it seems like we work exact opposite hours.

I work at Culver’s.

It’s kind of an upper-scale fast-food restaurant. Ours (compared to every other culver’s I’ve been to) is especially classy, if that makes you feel any better about me being unexceptional these days.

Here is me and Floyd. I have lunch with floyd at least 2 times a week… he’s one cool fellow.

I was promoted to be the “In-Store Training Coordinator” (or at least that’s what I think my official title is? I have yet to receive my new name tag).

Basically I get to read three huge books, answer a lot of questions, and know everything there is to know about Culver’s including the correct procedures on cleaning the bathroom, to which size cups we use for beverages, to the exact contents of our butterburger meat, to what percentage of our custard is butterfat, to what kind of cheese tops our French Onion soup. I get to learn how to do every position at Culver’s, so that I can train anyone to do any position.

I know, I’m very impressive. *sarcastic face entered here*

But I like my job. The people I work with are quite entertaining. And I am definitely the queen of making the prettiest yummiest desserts.

Beyond work, there isn’t much to say. I have been working on art - finally bought myself a sketchbook, pencils, canvas and brushes… but my current project isn’t ready to show :). Instead, here is a small study that i made in order to work my way back into painting.

I’ve also started drawing. I’ve always been a horrible drawer… I’ll admit that now. What can I say? I am a painter! But I am working on my drawing skills… *sigh*. Here is a small sketch I did of my sister.

Hmm… it looks a little better in real life. A little. However, right before drawing this picture of Rachel I had drawn a picture of myself. I just started to realize exactly what in our faces in similar.. and yes, it is a bit scary.

Speaking of looking alike… my mother visited me and rachel… a while back ago. Shoot… I am really late in writing this post, aren’t I? We had a great time with her.. she definitely cooked up a storm for us! It was AWESOME! It was a very enjoyable week with my mommy.

Also in things that have happened…. Rachel and I hosted Pumpkinfest! Basically I made everything possible that I could think of that is made out of pumpkin.

I even invented my own recipe for pumpkin chip dip! A friend of mine brought a really yummy spicy chip dip to the last pumpkinfest… and I wanted to do it again, but I couldn’t find where he got the recipe online. So i made up my own version of it… and it if I could brag, it was DARN good. It was gone within 24 hours of being made.

Anyways… not much else to say. Today is Thanksgiving. Still sore and tired from closing Culver’s last night (we had a killer night and were way too understaffed), I plan to relax a bit, clean the house and then head up to sioux falls to have dinner with this charming fellow:

That’s Matt. He’s a great guy… and puts up with me remarkably well. He’s definitely one good thing to look forward to in this over-worked and under-creative life of mine.

Ok since I haven’t posted in so long, that also means I am lacking the the Explodingdog.com posting for once. (explodingdog.com is an artist who draws pictures based on titles that people email him. His drawings have been one of my favorite things about life for the past 4 years )

ok ok… just one more? Please?

Ok that’s all I have to say! I’ll try to post more often. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving, y’all!!!

_The Deeds_

Well I have been living in Iowa for a week now. i am still trying to get used to wearing jeans and t-shirts again… two articles of clothing I stopped wearing by the end of my stay in Germany. Actually T-Shirts I stopped wearing in January… so this feels weird.

Not much to say.  Moved into my apartment, interviewed for a job, looking for more jobs, hanging out with friends, and I bought a new car.

Let’s start with the car. His name is officially “chimichanga”… because he kind of looks like one. Here is Chimichanga. He is a 2002 Ford Taurus.

He’s a big car… but looks brand new inside and out, drives like a charm, and can carry 6 people. Amazing, I know.

He is a lot bigger than Lucy, Rachel’s car.Her’s is red, mine is … chimichanga colored.

I applied for a job at Staples- they need a graphic designer in their promotional division. I am one of many who applied, so I am pretty much feeling like I won’t get it. It seems like a stressful job, but one that I would enjoy and would give me a lot of much-needed experience.

In the meantime, Rachel and I are all settling into our new apartment. It’s cute, small, and well… cozy.

Here is the outside (this house contains two apartments. The two windows you see are both ours.):

Living Room (LOOK! WE HAVE COLOR SCHEMES!)

Miniscule little bathroom

kitchen

Bedroom… taken from Rachel’s bed viewpoint. Isn’t my bed pretty?

Ohh and today Rachel and I went garage sale-ing. I bought a junker of a bike that will be my inside of Sioux-Center transportation. Both my dad and my cousin Dave (the hard core bike fans in my life) are probably gagging at the ugliness/impracticality of my new wheels…. but I like ‘em.

Here is my roommate… and some dude that’s been hanging around here lately.

Me and Dave!!!

Josh. Looking all ready to go to school.

Anyways… that’s what I’ve been up to. I am going to be crashing an art-major bon fire on Saturday, and I need to keep up with the job search. We’ll see what happens!

In the meantime, have a good weekend!!

Deeds

My apologies. I guess some people aren’t as big of ABBA fans as I am.

Well let’s do the basics. I turned 22 on July 24th. I’m old. I finished classes in Bremen, and then directly went to Berlin where I have the most friends. They threw a little party for me in a nice very trendy cafe, with cheese cake and chocolate cake and yummy coffee. We stayed in the cafe for about 6 hours, just eating cake. There were seven of my good friends there, so it was nice.

Here is us crowded uncomfortably on a couch:

We also went to go see some really cool worldwide sandcastle contest.

It rained.

I then went for a few days to my uncle Herbert’s house in West Germany. He took me to a really neat circus with big animals and horseback acrobats. In many ways I was more impressed with Circus Charles Knie than I was with cirque du soleil. I have a feeling it had something to do with the animals.

rarrrr.

After a few days with uncle herbert, I took a night train to Milan. It’s an ok city. I wasn’t very awake for most of it, so I didn’t take any pictures. But here is what the cathedral in milan looks like:

The next day I was off to Rome. Rome is an impressive city. I walked the entire day, and about every 10 minutes I ran into a famous historical landmark. Here is a few of them:

The Pantheon

The Trevi Fountain

The Roman Forum

And then I went for a day to Florence. It was a nice smaller city, and I was getting a little sick of traveling. I went for a small walk, looked up, and saw this in front of me:

Why hello david.

Florence has a beautiful cathedral…

Then it was a few days in paris, where I spent the time mainly just roaming around, seeing sights, and wishing my eyes weren’t so sensitive to the sun:

I left paris and spent a few more good days with my uncle.

So then, with a lot of complications, I finally made it home to the usa!!!

Yayyyy!!!!

What have I been doing:

Playing with the Nephews

Going to the Beach

Playing with Rachel

Getting pedicures with my mother

Babysitting the Nephews

Getting Sick

Getting Better

Attempting a Hike with my dad

Here is my beach pictures. Sorry if you have seen these already, because Rachel posted them a while ago .

Mee Mee loves to kiss.

Me and My Patrick Boy

MeeMee wanting food

Mee Mee wanting more food.

Mee mee not being fed fast enough.

Patrick and MeeMee love each other

Running into the tide

The happy baby owners

Rachel and Ethan

And here is a picture of Samuel wearing his birthday present from me. Doesn’t he look stunning? My very own German Football player. :)

Well summer is almost over, and everybody has been asking me my future plans. I am finally ready to say it with confidence:

On September 3rd I will be moving into an apartment with my sister Rachel in Sioux Center, Iowa.

I have a few job interviews, and I have high hopes to work as a graphic designer. I also hope to work on my fine art portfolio, and continue to apply to graduate schools.

I could use prayer as making this transition! Iowa is a bit different than Germany.

Sorry that it took so long to post. I should be more regular now that I am back in the USA and getting settled!

Love,

Deeds

So, yes! I’m still alive! I know it’s been forever since I’ve last said something, but unfortunately I got to Bremen… and there is no internet. Darn.

So I go to the Goethe institute, and there is Internet, but I need an internet password. Darn.

Everybody got their internet passwords last week. Mine wasn’t there. Really Darn.

A nice American/German guy in my class gave me his password because he has internet at home. Yay!

My teacher is a very strict, quite boring teacher who always has a displeased and arrogant look on her face. She pretty much pummels kids when they get the wrong answer. For example, some poor fellow hand the wrong answer, and she answers (in German which sounds 100 times more mean than in English) “WHAT? What did you get as an answer!? NOOO! That is impossible! That can not be!” Our class is becoming quite bonded over this common problem of the “Hexe Lehrerin.”

Oddly enough, I have never had so much homework since I’ve came to Germany. I pretty much do homework all the way up to going to bed.

I said I was only going to speak in German when I came to Bremen… but unfortunately a huge road block happened.

She looks like this:

Yes, I have a roommate.

Nicole is American, and is at the very beginning level of German… so the whole speaking German thing had to go out the window. I need to get along with the person I am living with. However, to make up for it all, I help her learn German by making her listen to German things. I also help her with her homework, and it’s really a good practice for me as well.

But it’s really nice that I have someone to cook with and entertain myself with when there is so much homework for me to do.

Here is me cooking. Yup… semi-homemade food for once, can you believe it?

Here is our apartment:

We share a homework table, and we built the “Bremen wall” so that no one steals the other side of the table.

Sometimes the wall likes to move… and usually to make east bremen bigger. Here is East Bremen.:

And here is the oppressed West Bremen:

Sometimes East Bremen gets sick of homework and tries to escape:

Besides homework, to relax I read this book that I bought (I have a copy that is translated into German), that describes the life of a young woman who moved from the USA to Germany and all the problems she had with adjusting. Reading it makes me smile, because she is talking about all the things I had to get used to since January, and now I see how much progress I’ve made with becoming “Germanized”.

I’ve also bought “The Little Prince” in German, and have made progress reading that.

Finally, I bought a collection of Fairy Tales from Hans Christian Anderson, The Grimm Brothers, and other European Fairy Tale masters that I am really enjoying listening to before going to bed.

The town of Bremen is very nice. It’s small compared to Berlin but I think it will be very easy to get to know in only a month. Here are some pictures:

And here is the famous bremen musicians! If you grab the legs of the donkey, it’s supposed to bring you good luck. And indeed, I finished my homework in record timing that night! I even had time to read calvin and hobbes for a while!

On the fourth of July I simply went bar hopping with my roommate and two other friends. It was nice and low key. No fireworks. No Star spangled banners. Quite a lovely evening without anything actually american except some of the people.

So yes, I am doing very well here in Bremen. Only 29 days until I am back in the USA, so I’ve got to make the most of my last month in Germany! I will try to update more regularly from now on now that i have internet!

Much Love,

The Deeds

This is nice:

I also like this:

And why not this as well:

There are no subliminal messages in this blog. I promise.

My song comes from the New Death Cab For Cutie CD “Narrow Stairs”. I never listen to the radio in Germany (something I really need to change)… but the first time I heard it in months, it was playing a song (”I will possess your heart”) from this CD. This CD is barely even a month old - WHAT? How did 1) Death Cab for Cutie hit the mainstream Radio??? and 2) How did it hit Germany so fast? We used to joke that all the music comes to Germany in a rowboat… maybe that isn’t so true anymore?

Anyways. Enough venting.

Today was my last day in Intermediate German class. Apparently I am now an Advanced German Student. Yes ladies and gentlemen, I have been approved to go on to the very scary class level of C1. (The levels go from beginner to advanced: A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, C2 -each level taking two months to complete)

I remember being in A1 and thinking “man… those C level students know so much German. I’ll never be that good.” But right next to me I have a paper that says that not only did I pass the B2 level… but I passed it with a good grade of 1,4 (An “A” or “sehr gut” ) They were broken down in five categories. 1=A/Very Good : 2=B/Good: 3=C/Sufficient : Here is how I did:

Listening: 1,5

Speaking: 2

Reading: 1

Writing: 1,5

Grammatic: 1

I had no idea that I would get that good of grades, so I am actually feeling confident. I never would have earlier considered myself good at Grammar, so that makes me smile.

In order to boost my lowest grade in Speaking, I have decided to not speak any English for the month of July. That means… Diane’s gonna have no friends! Haha just kidding… I really want to be able to speak well, and it’s my last month to do hard core practice so I can talk nothing BUT German with my dad when I get home… right dad?

Today in our last class, we had a little goodbye party. Everybody was supposed to bring something typical of their own land. Not really wanting to give up my Mac&Cheese just yet, I bought these suckers:

Yes, I am amazingly creative.

One of the other American girls made Guacamole. I am ever thankful… I LOVE GUACAMOLE. Yummmmy! (Look closely to see me sneaking a bite of it)

We also had lots of German, Swiss, Japanese… well, we had a lot of food. Another American girl brought Gushers and Fruit by the Foot… it made my day.

And speaking of which, if you are a lame American, you don’t know that the Europäische Weltmeistershaft is going on (FUßBALL! SOCCER!) But Germany is doing very well! We are in the semi finals along with Turkey, Russia and Spain!

Germany plays against Turkey tomorrow, and I am sooo pumped to see this game

It’s going to be awesome to see this in Berlin, because Berlin has the largest Turkish population outside of Turkey… so either way there is going to be a LOT of action in Berlin! It might get dangerous!

When Turkey won last Friday against Croatia, I went to the busiest part of the city and had fear for my life… the Turkish were so happy to win that there were crazy drunk Turkish people everywhere. So I have decided to watch the next game in the comfort of the Mormon church with my friends.

Here is me and one of my mormon friends, Kajsa. I like them, they are nice people. :

oh and last but not least, I dyed my hair. It’s now a great darker brown color. I decided that there are enough blond Americans… and Germans… so I decided to make change!

Here are the obligatory beauty shots:

Ok enough pictures of me!

Well I move away from Berlin on Sunday. It’s definitely a bitter sweet feeling - I am SOOO excited to go to Bremen, but i am SOOO sad to leave Berlin. I am going to do well with this change though, I know it.

Well have a wonderful week everybody! I am assuming my next post will be in Bremen… we will see!

Love, Deeds

I had a wonderful weekend. I only have two of those left in Berlin, and it makes me very sad to think that I am going to be moving in a few weeks. But I am almost feeling ready to go back to the USA.

Kind of scared about it though… I currently have three REALLY good options of where I want to live after Germany. I find it funny because most people have trouble finding options… I have trouble deciding between the ones I already have. So prayer would be a wonderful thing for me - I have no idea where i am wanting to go.

I have a picture that I forgot to post last week. Here is me, Hiroyuki and Narja at the Neue Nationalgalerie. I think we are a piece of artwork, don’tchya think?’

I’ve been craving Teriyaki chicken since I’ve come to Germany, so I convinced Hiro to take us to a Japanese Restaraunt. The chicken still wasn’t nearly as good as the stuff we get at home (waaa ) but it was nice to hang out with good friends.

On Thursday was Narja’s birthday, so we went out to Indian food and drinking Caprihinas

We also went shopping in order to prepare for her birthday party. Here is us on the way back to my house:

Yes! I found a greek man of my very own!!!

The next day, In our class we had a small birthday party… which means CAKE

I threw a small party for Narja in my apartment. My hostess was gone on a trip, so we had a few friends over, made Twice-baked Potatoes and Pizza, and had fun drinking beer, dancing, and talking.

The next day, we cleaned the apartment and made a big breakfast together.

So yup, life is going well. Here is me being all happy. That’s a real smile, folks. It’s no longer going to be a smile in 2 weeks when I have to leave Berlin. Waa.

I’ll be home in a month and a half… it just seems so weird. I don’t feel like i’ve been here for as long as I have.

Well, until next week!

Much love,

Deeds

SO let’s just say I had quite the weekend.

I kind of realized that my days in this wonderful city are limited, and so I went on a cultural explosion.

Five museums. Yes folks, five.

I will have reviews of all of them in my art blog by the end of the week, but here is the quick overview:

Museum #1: Neue Nationalgalerie (Been here before, but it’s a good collection of 20th Century Art)

Museum #2: Bode Museum (Sculpture particularly from the renaissance. They also have a great big huge coin collection)

Museum #3: Berliner Galerie (The only criteria for art in this museum is that it is artwork that was produced (actually physically made) in Berlin. Oddly enough, my favorite work in this museum was created by an American.)

Museum #4: Käthe Kollowitz Museum (Kollowitz is a female artist who portrayed the hard life of WWI and WWII from the eyes of a woman. Her son and her grandson both died in one of these wars)

Museum #5: Altes Museum (There is a particularly good ancient Egyptian collection that will be there until next year.)

This star of this exhibition is obviously Queen Nefertiti…

but I personally liked the slaughtered cow sculpture:

and I couldn’t help but think of my mother when I saw the cat gods.

But I really do recommend all of these museums to anyone who finds themselves in Berlin.

Anyways…

I’ve also been hanging out with cool people. Here is me and my Japanese friend Hiro:

And my Brazilian friend Paulo:

I also managed to finish another painting. It’s called “Berlin”. I will also write something about it in my art blog by the end of the week.

On Saturday night, my hostess had an Argetinian band over for a party. There were about 10 of them, and they were really really good Tango dancers. It was fun to be a part of this party

And here is my hostess and her boyfriend. I really like them

Yup so it was a busy weekend.

Oh and as I was on my way to the Berliner Galerie, I found this:

It made me a little sad. Someone was having a hard day.

Anyways I was incredibly sick yesterday, and now I’m a little better but not all the way.

I’m going on a day trip to Potsdam this Saturday, and on Friday I’m throwing a birthday party for a good friend of mine (Narja, the Brazilian girl.) So I will report back in a week!

Or because I had to give a presentation today. I did my presentation this time about Abstract Expressionism, my favorite art movement. Here are some examples:

Hans Hofmann

Mark Rothko

Kline

Frankenthaler

So yay that that is over with

As I said last weekend, I went to München this weekend. Here are the photos:

Marienplatz

HB beer hall! “Unser zwoate hoamat” (Bayerish for “Unsere zweite Heimat”) which means “Our second Home”

The Germans are very protective over their beer.

I also went on top of the Olympiaturm. That was nice.

Ok… well this is a boring post… but the heat in this room is making me feel like i’m going to faint if I think any longer.

I promise to do better another day.

Wie gehts?

It’s time for Diane’s weekly update.

I had quite the weekend. It started out with a dance on Friday night at the Mormon church. Yes, mormons dance… how come Presbyterians don’t dance? Anyways, Friday night was absolutely hilarious. I wish I took pictures to show all of you the wonders of people semi-ballroom dancing to horrible 90’s music, but I will resist. Don’t get me wrong though, I absolutely loved it.

On Saturday morning, Narja and I went to the Berlin zoo. It was AWESOME! I loooovvveee the zoo. I took over 100 pictures.

First we saw the big cats. Every time I saw one, I thought directly of my mother’s cat, Katze, and wondered what would happen if Katze were in the cage with the other cats. Sorry, Mom… I don’t think Katze stands a chance.

And then there were more animals!

Some black bear was just hanging in the tree (if you look closely enough, he has his tongue sticking out )

And I got to sing the Kookaburra song to a Kookaburra! And it didn’t attack me! (haha, Mom!)

Find the monkey in this photo! (She stayed like this for a looonnggg time… it was kind of creepy.)

And here is the famous “Knut”! The polar bear that was born in Berlin!

And I discovered very weird ice creams… like BumBum. My friend Narja titled this photo “Do not feed the animals” Gee thanks. :

and then I discovered the most amazing animal of them all: The Brazilian Female

Yup… she’s in Front of the elephant. The elephant is pretty cool too.

It was a great day.

Besides that not much else is new. I am going to München this weekend, so good stuff in my next week’s post!!!

Much Love,

Deeds