Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Arriba!


Okay, I’m going to confess something: I’m not sure which sound I should be making for Morocco. Instinctually “Arriba” feels both appropriate and completely wrong. I guess this means I shouldn’t be wearing a sombrero either. (Side note: I tried to write “misfitting” and the Mac, being all ignorant, corrected it to “mishitting” which I read as “mis-shitting.” Tee hee).

Aaaanyway, the main thing to take away from the first paragraph is that tomorrow night Mark and I are flying to London Stansted (where we’ll spend a lovely five hours touring the airport and sleeping on seats) before heading to Morocco. Arrrrrriba!

Sorry, again.

I shall report on how we both came down with a terrible case of something unpronounceable when we get back.

In other news – I hope you’re near the toilet because I’d hate for you to soil yourself with excitement – we are no longer homeless! We signed a lease for a two-bedroom apartment in Schwabing West today. Our landlord is all kinds of lovely and went to great lengths to explain the contract to us. We didn’t really need the explanations (our gazillion or so sub-leases have practically made us experts in the field of German property law), but it was mighty entertaining anyway. At least two of his examples involved a mysterious death in the apartment. Who knew legalities could be so much fun?

If all goes according to plan we’ll be picking up our keys on the 26th of April and moving in promptly afterwards. If somebody could call Ikea and forewarn it about the tornado of flailing, excited limbs that are about to hit it, that would be great. 

Monday, April 16, 2012

Friendship contract; an explanation

Hey gang (aka Yuri)!

Do you remember Yuri? He’s pretty special, so you should remember him. You should also notice when he gets his hair “cut” because the extra 2mm of growth really makes a difference to the dimensions of his face

For those of you who have never in fact met Yuri, let me explain. Yuri has short dark hair. Legend has it that when grown out, it turns into a beautiful afro (although we’re still waiting to see that miracle transpire). It is the one thing that I really want from Yuri for my birthday, and just in case you’re not on board with that horrendous event, you should know that I’m turning 30 in just under 9 months. Ew.

It goes to follow that if Yuri really loved me he would grow his hair out and allow me a few moments of true happiness before I realise that my 20s are over and sink into a drunken stupor. But Yuri refuses to grow out his fabulous fuzz on the grounds that when it reaches anything beyond 7mm, it has a devastating effect on the rest of him. I believe I can best illustrate his exact argument through pictures:

Yuri with hair 7mm or shorter:


Yuri with hair longer than 7mm:

A few weeks ago I told Yuri just how much it would mean to me to see him with an afro (a proper one) for my birthday. He fell into a blind panic. Not wanting to refuse the tragic birthday girl-to-be, he did the only thing he could think of: he tried to buy me off and play Simon against me. It didn’t work. Disheartened, he sought comfort in mojito cocktails. After a couple of long, terror-filled hours he came up with another plan: he borrowed my eyeliner and lipstick and drew up a totally adorable friend contract.


It reads:

„The parties to the contract, Agnes and Yuri hereby enter into the following agreements. In consideration of Yuri’s enduring love and affection, Agnes agrees to remain friends for life notwithstanding any straight couple and children.“

He then made me sign it with a kiss (that giant red thing on the right...poor Mark). Do you know what this means? I can no longer threaten him with the termination of our friendship if he doesn’t grow an afro. Quite ingenious, really. But you know that if he loved me (really loved me) he’d do it. Right?