Con 2: Crap Music

There was a time when Germany made some of the finest music in the world (Beethoven and Bach were both Germans), but sadly, that time is past. Today Germany is world-renowned for producing music that is complete crap.

One genre Germans are crazy for their techno/trance/house music. Please watch the first 60 seconds of this video to get an idea of what this all about. But for heaven's sake don't watch it to the end. Your brain will liquify and drip out of your nose. And this is some of the better stuff.

Techno is to Germany what hip-hop is to the U.S. It's what leaks from the crappy ear buds of every fake-baked, tight-white-pants-wearing, over-gelled-hair-rocking, eyebrow-waxing, Euro-trash young person you will encounter in Germany. I'll try to snap a few spy photos for you of these people, but pretty much if you watch this video you get the right idea. The prettyboy in the yellow shirt spinnin' the beats is a textbook example.

Here's my favorite thing that the teen/tween techno fans do. On their cell phones they have this neat little function where they can play music through these miniscule speakers, which, you can probably imagine, sounds a little bit like a wasp dying in your ear canal. And when these teens get on the tram in a group, they always think, "Hey, you know what this party needs?" (survey crowd of elderly people, mothers with children, and me) "Some juicy beats!" And they crank that itty-bitty speaker as far as it will go with the most mind-numbing song they own and favor us all with a little taste of their coolness. And it's all I can do to keep from gettin' down right there on the tram.

Or stealing their cell phone and crushing it in my teeth.



JEM

Con 1: slugs

I've been meaning to start an ongoing pro and con list of life here in Germany. And since I'm having kind of a crummy day after getting splashed by a big truck while waiting at a bus stop in the rain, we're going to kick it all off with a con: slugs.

When I was little my family moved from Eastern Idaho to Washington state, where we lived for two years before returning to the same Idaho town. During those two years I acquired a phobia of slugs that, I kid you not, borders on clinical. I remember walking with my family down a trail in the woods one foggy day (could've been any day) and spotting a little black slug. Then, like in a horror movie, the camera panned out and I realized they were EVERYWHERE. They were on every tree, every rock, all over the trail. I was completely surrounded. I stood there, frozen, and screamed and screamed. My dad had to carry me out.

This phobia perpetuates. However, I've been able to avoid slugs by living in dry climates. Until now. They're everywhere. And most of them are fat and orange. I had a nightmare a couple of weeks ago that one was wrapped around my wrist. So far I haven't had to be carried anywhere, but don't put it past me.



JEM