America is pervert

Here are a few updates on life in the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg (Hamburg's official title):

This past Friday I went to the Reeperbahn Festival with a couple other Fulbrighters. The festival lasted the whole weekend, with three days worth of music featuring artists from all over the world. The Reeperbahn is Hamburg's red light district, and one of the big nightlife neighborhoods (the other being Sternschanze, which I wrote about a couple posts ago). For 29 Euros you got a wristband for the night and could go into any of the clubs and bars and check out the music. There weren't any huge acts, but Cee Lo Green (the singer in Gnarls Barkley) did a show at 11:00. He has an unbelievably high, clear voice, and Gnarls Barkley is an awesome band, so we all decided to go check him out. The concert definitely didn't disappoint. There were a ton of other people there, the set was really solid, and I even got interviewed by a German news station while I was waiting in line outside. Quality evening all in all. Here's a link to one of Gnarls Barkley's big singles, and a link to one of Cee Lo's singles.

So far as apartments go--I thought I found something pretty solid, but a second visit to the apartment totally changed my mind about the place. For one it got more expensive between visits; originally the room was 370, but one of the current roommates moved into that room, and their old room would have been 410, which is more than half of my stipend. Plus there were a few things about the place that might have made it tough to get rid of if I didn't like it, and I was getting some sketchy vibes from the roommates, so I had to say no. Yet another reiteration of a timeless lesson that seems to pop up over and over: there's no such thing as a done deal.

I did look at another place last night which actually seemed really great though: 300/month, and only about 20 minutes by bus and subway to the school, which is awesome considering that my current commute is 50+ minutes with two bus lines which are always late. Told the guy yes this afternoon, and he's gonna call me back with his decision on Thursday after he meets and greets with a few other people. Fingers crossed.

Also had an interesting experience in one of my 11'th grade classes today. We split the class up; the main teacher taught one part of the class, and I showed a small group a short BBC video about violence in Johannesburg, South Africa, and lead a discussion about it. Which, by the way, I did a fantastic job with considering I only found out what I was supposed to be doing in class about 45 minutes beforehand, but I digress. We strayed somehow to where I was from (the USA), and one of the girls (not the strongest English speaker in the world) told me that "America is pervert." When I asked her to elaborate on that...rather opinionated statement, she said that she saw all sorts of perverted things on MTV, which I guess lead her to assume that all of America is totally immoral. I tried to explain to her that America is just a country like anywhere else on the earth, but she wouldn't have any of it.

It didn't particularly offend me, and that's the first thing I've ever experienced in Europe that even comes close to anti-Americanism, but it was still a little disappointing. I'm pretty well traveled and educated, so I've definitely got a better perspective of the world than a German teenager who's probably never been outside the country, so I suppose I can't fault her for it. I suppose she'll (hopefully) learn the truth one way or another, but it gave me pause to think about what different cultures perceive as perverse. If your experience with American culture consists entirely of Lady Gaga and Jersey Shore, then you're going to get a distorted view of things. It's also very interesting that someone who lives in a country where topless women are pretty standard advertising tools and where prostitution is legal (and taxed) could ever call the United States, a country full of Christine O'Donnells, Baptist churches, and anti-obscenity laws, perverse. That would be a good lesson/series of lessons to do--different perceptions of perversity and morality between the United States and Germany. I'll have to ask the teacher if we can put that together after fall break or something.