Pantone Merkel

This week, the fantastic color chart of Angela Merkel's suits has hit the internet. While she may not have much variety in style, it's an impressive array of colors! Besides...she's a little busy with other things to be spending much time on fashion...so I applaud her for likely having just bought the same suit in myriad colors. 

The neatly arranged color chart that's been best described as the "Pantone Merkel" actually is part of a larger project by Dutch graphic designer Noortje van Eekelen.  Her graduation project, "The Spectacle of the Tragedy," contains this and other collected images of key players in the Euro crisis. 

As described on her website, "The Spectacle of the Tragedy tells a visual story about the politicians that navigate the Euro crisis,"  It shows us what is happening behind their political smiles and gives us an insight into their irresponsible behavior. " It's a "Visual database of the European Show and its Leading Actors."

In addition, you can also find the "Extraordinary Romance" of Merkel and Sarkozy, the "Girls of Berlusconi" (unsuprisingly, NSFW outside of Europe), and my second favorite..."The Carla Bruni Handbag Collection".

Enjoy!

Paulaner's Words of Wisdom

On an old poster displayed at the Paulaner am Nockherberg:

Der echte Trinker niemals weicht,
Bis er das höchste Ziel erreicht!

Translation:

The real drinker never gives up,
Until he reaches the highest goal! 

The Great Towel War

Probably the biggest stereotype about German tourists is the one of the German father who gets up at the crack of dawn to lay towels on the best lounge chairs by the pool for his family, then leaves for several hours of sleep, breakfast, and siteseeing.  

And it's a particularly strong stereotype among the British tourists, who have fought against the Germans for decades in The Great Towel War. Since the 1960s, this war has been fought summer after summer in Spanish resorts. 

In 2005, German attorney Ralf Höcker researched Spanish and German laws, concluding that leaving a towel on a chair was not legally binding.  Obviously this had no impact, as two years later a Welsh tour bus driver took matters into his own hands.  After two days of taking the towels off the chairs, dumping them in the pool, with the German tourists getting up even earlier to claim chairs, he set fire to the towels. 

A few years ago, German travel agency Thomas Cook came up with the brilliant idea to allow its customers to rent a lounger for €3 per day.  You can also rent your strandkorb on Sylt for the day, so I'm not really sure why more places don't do this. Seems like an easy solution to a common conflict!

Anyway... we saw this old Carling beer commercial on a German TV show last night, making fun of the stereotype.  I'm sure we could spend a week or two talking about the stereotypes about other tourists...especially Americans...but for now we'll just enjoy Carling's clever use of this one. 

My New Scarf

So, work has still been kicking my butt. Between work and moving, we haven't been doing much travel or photography. We have assembled quite a bit of IKEA furniture, but that's been the extent of the projects.

The one thing that does fit into the craziness is knitting. As I had bought twice as much yarn as needed for Herr J's scarf, I decided to make one for myself.

Finally, scarf #2 is complete! I've made some good progress while on the train to Frankfurt the past couple of weeks.

I loved the colors in this wool, but didn't want to be the silly couple with the matching scarves. So I made a thinner, ribbed scarf with fringe. I hadn't realized it would be so narrow with the ribbing, so I made it long enough to wrap around twice.

I'm looking forward to wearing it with jeans and tall brown suede boots!

(For those of you who knit, it's a simple pattern: repeat K2, P2 8 times, then K1.  On next row, K1, then repeat P2, K2 8 times)

The Bike Bell

Anyone who has spent time in a German city knows about the bike bells.

When Herr J first moved to Germany, he took his rugged hybrid bike to the store for a tune up. The store also checked that everything was up to code for city laws and made a few adjustments. Which was how he found his manly bike having a bell like all the little girls' bikes in the suburban US.

Here, the bells are a safety feature necessary for riding through city streets. Some cyclists use it a convenient warning to pedestrians walking in the bike path, and then there are some who seem to use their bells to get our their aggressions. But we've become accustomed to looking out when we hear a bike bell.

In Japan, one clever guy has taken it a step further and walks through the street ringing his bike bell.  The bike bell seems to work better than Pavlov's dinner bell.

We should try this here on a Saturday and see if it works enough to clear out some walking space in the central Munich shopping district!

Dirk's Daily Reading

From the man who sings Hasselhoff hits to himself at the freethrow line, a dramatic reading of Oops, I Did it Again.

More signs of the Apocalypse

Twilight branded hair styling equipment.

Sorry, Twilight "Sparkle" hair styling equipment. Even scarier.

As seen at Best Buy