Mommy wow! I'm a Hamburger now!

Well, I still don't have a permanent place to live, but I am in Hamburg, for better or worse.

Trying to find an apartment is proving difficult. It doesn't help that classes start on Thursday and that Tuesday is a holiday. Oh, and that Germans don't work on Sundays.

In the meanwhile, I'm staying with a really great family that I found via Hospitality Club. It's in the links list on the right. I'm hoping to find something by the second week of October, so that the friend who's storing my stuff can help me move, as he will be home visiting from Hungary!

I'm looking at living south of the Elbe, or in the area between the North-South Elbe split. I'm quickly getting a hold on which areas are where (and where it is best for me to look), though I still have no idea what each area is like.

Good news is that my University transportation card is valid starting tomorrow, so I plan to get out and explore regions I'm interested in. Yesterday I walked around Harburg (near S-Harburger Rathaus) and visited a somewhat scary, absolutely smoky apartment that I definitely won't be renting.

I'll let you know when I've found something; until then, keep crossing those fingers for me.

Teaching Old Dogs New Tricks

This post is dedicated to a dear friend of mine from high school -- in fact, a friend of mine still stuck in high school because he works there.

Having been born a generation too soon, he is uninitiated in many of the beneficial elements of the web. I'm taking this post to welcome him to my blog (I can't remember the negative phrase with which he dismissed blogging or I would turn it here), as well as to list some of the most basic yet influential webtools one should have at one's disposal. For anyone born after 1975, some of these may be a bit obvious. Add your own useful links in the comments section, as I'm interested in what others have distilled from the void.

The kids are blogging and networking at Blogger, LiveJournal, MySpace, Friendster, and Facebook.

Google is the best thing since sliced bread. Don't know it? Google it. Also useful for stalking old friends and lovers -- and your own web presence. Google is developing a lot of neat tools -- Maps, Images, Earth and the like -- which are often overlooked, even by extensive Google users.

Wikipedia is where you go when Google can't find what you're looking for, or any time you want the encyclopedia version of something.

Please tell me you know everything is for sale at Amazon, where, if nothing else, everyone can claim (via yours truly) only *two* degrees of separation from the #2 Amazon reviewer?

Good deals on shoes are to be had at Sierra Trading Post, Footprints, and Zappos.

Podcasts via iTunes You don't need an iPod to enjoy many of the benefits of digital media. Hundreds of Podcasts -- ranging from NPR broadcasts, to university lectures, to Italian lessons -- are available for free download once you have iTunes on your computer. An iPod just makes the whole endeavor portable.

Hospitality Club is a great way to find interesting people and interested hosts for the cities and countries you're longing to visit. The best part -- they let you crash for free! Travel longer and smarter.

LP's Thorntree A bulletin board site, allowing you to post questions to natives and travelers about the places you're planning on visiting. Usually thoughtful and helpful; another site that allows you to meet travelers or find hosts, if you're receptive.

Project Vote Smart I interned at this organization, based in the Montana Pintler Range. There are a lot of dedicated people working to save democracy, one iota of information about each candidate at a time.

Pandora is intuitive internet radio, shaped by your preferences.

At TimeAndDate, you can figure out what time it is in my part of the planet, countdown how many weeks, days, hours and minutes until whatever date you wish, know the day of the week of your conception, your birth, your graduation, anything.

The Universal Currency Converter will tell you how many dollars to the lita, how many litas to the pound, how many pounds to the dollar.

Check for flights using Orbitz and cross-check them at Kayak and the website for the airline you're searching.

Find out which cheap airlines in Europe fly where at WhichBudget.

I enjoy the weekly travel chat at The Washington Post.

Freecycle is a good way to get and unload the necessities and detritus of life by helping and being helped by others, free-like.

Find recipes by ingredient at RecipeZaar.

Find German words or their English translations at Leo. Find translators for myriad languages at Babelfish.

And this one, just for you Doc -- Make. Readers of Make Magazine submit their various and sundry projects, often complete with detailed instructions for you to follow along at home. For the geek in all of us.

There are naturally websites that I'm forgetting in my haste to post this entry. I'll add to the comments as I remember them, and hope others will do so as well.

Welcome to the Blogosphere, Doc!

Lists and Stuff

Before moving to Germany, one of my many (uncompleted) tasks is organizing my room. When I first arrived home, I was greeted with a half-collapsed closet, dumping most of my clothes and boxes of possessions in front of the closet door. While I have cleaned up most of that mess, there are just so many things that still need to be moved around and sorted into boxes from the other corners of my room.

That said, I have come across a number of items which I seem to have an inordinate amount of:
+ Bookcases (and I bought another today)
+ Sweaters
+ Pajamas
+ Lip Balm
+ Lotion
+ Shoes
+ Notebooks
+ Scrap Paper
+ Pens and Pencils
+ Linens
+ Pillows
+ Travel guides
+ CDs

Then there are the things I find it difficult to part with:
+ Anything I've received from my best friend
+ Stuffed animals
+ High school and college papers
+ Things I intend to someday organize and paste into a scrapbook

And the things I will never throw away of my own accord:
+ Letters and postcards -- yes, every one you've ever sent me is filed away in my room.
+ Computer files (emails)
+ Photographs and negatives

I have long said that I have enough stuff to fill (and tastefully decorate) a house, whenever I finally get one. However, Mr. Right will have to bring all the furniture, because I have only a nightstand, shoe storage units, and the aforementioned bookcases. In return, I promise years of free softened hands and moisturized lips. What a steal!

I have always had a lot of stuff, and I feel more than ever sorting through it the strength of my emotional attachment to so many different items. It doesn't help that most of the things that are already in storage are sorted not by type, but by time -- a box of things from that summer in West Virginia, or from a specific year in Grinnell, or things I tossed in a box after returning from Russia. Opening each one is like uncovering a little bit of myself from a former time. At the same time, there are many things purchased or saved as "presents" to my future self -- the one who'll someday have a house with lots of wall space and with rooms to develop different themes and color schemes.

As you might imagine, it is sad to leave all that stuff -- and those intended self-images, imaginings, plans of a sort -- behind every time I move abroad. As difficult as it can be to haul one's stuff from place to place, in many ways it is easier than starting mostly new every year or two. Though I'm moving to Hamburg for the first time, it's comforting to me that some of my things are already waiting there for me; a German friend of mine was nice enough to move my things along with his from Frankfurt and store them alongside his own in his parents' house (and before that, three Germans were nice enough to store those same things for me while I was in Russia). I'd be more comforted if I had a place to stay lined up, but that is fodder for a different post entirely . . .

We all have differing relationships to belongings, and I will be the first to admit that I'm a hoarder. I probably place too much value on *things,* though the value is largely emotional and not material (because I'm cheap and a romantic). I understand the burden that possessions can place on ourselves and our loved ones, I admire people (and cultures, be it Finnish or Mongolian) who live simply -- and yet, I know that I will never be among them. There are too many things I long to keep near to me. Years from now, you will find me dead, buried under piles of lifetime collections, memories, and good intentions.

What does the stuff you keep say about you?

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