TQE | That Queer Expatriate

Expatriate, not ex-patriot: I'm a progressive liberal and queer American in Berlin, Germany. My roots in include 18 years in Denver, 6 in Laramie, Wyoming, 6 in Bloomington, Indiana, and 6 in Weimar, Germany. Sense a pattern? Don't want to leave a comment on this blog? Email scintillatingme at gmail.com, username "elmadaeu"

Random Thoughts for January 20, 2013

My Wyoming Cowboys won their basketball game against #15 San Diego State last night. Given the scheduled game times, I tend to sleep through the vast majority of the games – February 16th is the most plausible game for me to watch/hear live, if it weren’t for the fact that I already have plans [...]

Coolest thing I saw Wednesday: A fem in a short denim skirt.

Since I am flying today (Thursday), I went out for a late lunch Wednesday at my nearby excellent Indian Restaurant – it’s a few blocks away and I seem to go there for a meal the evening before most major trips.

Normally there’s not much to remark upon – the food is excellent and I [...]

18:00 CET Times Two – 10:00 in the Mountain Time Zone

Sorry about my silence, but I’ve been without Internet access since leaving Laramie, and, as such, have a pile of email to look through.

As such, this will be just a quick run-down of what I’ve been up to at 18:00 CET/ 10:00 MST for three days straight.

The Saturday photo would be here, but [...]

18:00 CET: Packing to go…

I leave on vacation later this week – and so tonight was the designated “packing night” and I have to say that I’m simultaneously happy and unhappy with the results of my effort.

Honestly my serious photography hobby has thrown a wrench into my plans and is, unfortunately, causing me to take my big suitcase [...]

It’s 182 miles, 3 hours and 20 minutes from Fort Wayne, Indiana, to Bloomington.

I know this distance because I just looked it up and because I paid for a FedEx 2Day Envelope that weighed 0.5 lbs (0.2 kilo) to travel this distance.

Naturally I didn’t know that the envelope was going to come from Fort Wayne – but the envelope holds a ticket for me to see a [...]

Budget Car Rental gave me 10% Off! … Not!

After renting my cars last September with Budget, I was happy with the service, and so when Budget Deutschland sent me a survey, I replied that I was quite happy with the service and that I would use them again – and, for participating in the survey, Budget sent me an e-coupon worth 10% off [...]

Figuring out Cheltenham Spa’s Public Transit requires too much patience.

Next week I am going on a brief vacation.

I’ll be flying to London, where I plan on spending a few hours perusing the Tate Modern before heading over to my favorite English city, Cheltenham Spa. Once there, I’ll be visiting friends and otherwise enjoying what the city has to offer.

Unfortunately, like all good [...]

It be VACATION season in Germany!

Funny enough, despite living in Germany for 8 summers, this summer is the first summer that I’ve really noticed tourist season.

You see, August is the month that Germans go on vacation.

Living in Weimar this was hard to observe for a couple of reasons: First, Weimar is a tourist trap – in particular a [...]

Planning my Rhode Island Vacation: Newport suffers from my childhood memories.

I’ll soon be taking vacation and heading across the pond to my native land. While there I have a number of exciting activities planned, friends to see, and vacation to vacate.

As a part of the vacation, I’ve decided it’s high time to knock off my 48th United State, Rhode Island. It will leave me [...]

No time to write.

I noted recently that since moving to Berlin, my life’s become busy.

So, rather than ramble on and on about crap, here are the highlights of my life, right now:

First, the weather, although warm, is much nicer today than it was yesterday. Yesterday Berlin was a humid mess and it was sticky just walking [...]