People, I’d soon shit as look at ya, as my dear departed grandfather was fond of saying to us grandchillens. There’s just nothing quite as awe-inspiring as a good ol’ blue funk at the beginning of the week. Today, despite being Tuesday, was Monday here in Germany, for all intents and purpose. The long weekend was over, and I enjoyed three days of true sloth, the likes of which I’ve not enjoyed for quite some time here. Yesterday was the Tag der deutschen Einheit, or German Re-unification Day, and therefore a holiday. I don’t have a television at the moment, so I’m not quite sure how the yokels down in dogpatch celebrated, or if they celebrated. The closest I’ve heard to someone marking the occasion was a documentary on the Columbine massacre that was on one of the state-run television channels last night; I guess replaying the awe-inspiring “Tear down this wall” speech would’ve been regarded as sycophantic. They could’ve maybe just shown the thousands of Pershing II protesters instead of Reagan, just to be fair. I mean, despite popular misconceptions to the contrary, there wasn’t just bottomless love and gratitude for Reagan here in the 80s; there were also some nay-sayers.

So, 15 years later, what have we got here? The Wessies (West Germans) hate the Ossies (East Germans), the Ossies are all Nazis, the country’s being run into the ground by Greens and Socialists, and Rube’s got a headache to complement his weird-ass earache. And the beer? Color me unimpressed. Sell me on it, people, it takes more than beer to offset an 80% tax burden. This isn’t really blowing my skirt up. Maybe it’s time for an “OK, Mr. Gorbatchev, you can put that wall back up” speech, and a new Cold War to stir the drink. Gorby’s going to be here in Augsburg on Saturday, so maybe I’ll give it a shot.

I’ll soldier on. Europe’s OK, despite my visceral hatred of cold weather and accordions.