Pickpocketing Pocket Stealer

Well heres a random one. In english class we had to define english words. On of the words was Pickpocketer and one of the girls in the class wrote "someone who steals pockets" which I found rather funny so I wrote a newspaper article about it. Enjoy.

Pocket-stealing pickpocket

In a bizzare turn of events today, pockets from all over the city have gone missing. The police issued a statement warning the citizens of Ludwigsfelde that a literal "pocket-stealing pickpocket" was on the loose, though police hoped to have the culprit in custody within the next 48 hours.

"This kind of criminal is the worst and is not welcome in this city." says the chief commissioner. "It is a constant frustration when petty thieves cross the line and go to the next level. Instead of being happy with taking things out of the pocket, they have to take the whole pocket which is just not acceptable"

Experts are predicting major consequences and after-effects of this vicious crime. The victims are finding themselves standing in the street, exposed to the crowds.

"The levels of exposure vary," explains leading expert of pocket disappearances, Kip Tekop. "For example, it the victim was wearing cargo pants and one of the lower pockets is stolen then the exposure is at a minimum and has no lasting effects. However, in the more extreme cases, a back pocket is stolen and exposure is extreme with the victim inadvertantly baring all."

Due to the new threat of involuntary exposure, demand for underwear has more then tripled. It seems that our citizens have taken to the thought that if they are exposed, at least they will have something nice to show off. Also, some extremists have taken to wearing more then one pair of pants. Not only has this lead to a bizzare new fashion of wearing shorts overtop trousers overtop longjohns but is also believed to have contributed to the increase of emergency calls regarding people collapsing on the street.

"People are just not being responsible about the weather," commented one paramedic today. "Of course if you go out on a warm summer day with 3 or 4 layer of clothing then you are going to overheat.

The paramedic preferred to stay anonymous but did say that his real dream was to become a mechanic.

And finally, world-renowned jeans label "Levi" are being sued on charges of false advertising. In Levi's string of commercials that were recently released, Levi jeans are proclaimed to be "tough" and are likened to such materials as leather and four-wheel drive vehicles. The individual suing the company say the ads are misleading and "are not nearly as tough as shown, trust me I know".

Though details were not given in regards to the comment, it is believed to be connected to the pocket stealing pickpocketer.

Well, there ya go. Hope you have been warned...

Newspaper Article

Ok so there have been a lot of newspaper articles about the asparagus queen but they have all been in German and so I havent bothered to put them up. But now the local newspaper in NZ wrote an article so I thought I'd put it up.

North student crowned in Germany

Asparagus Queen Rebecca Blankenbyl

By Saskia Konynenburg

19jun07

Forget parading in a bikini to win the title of Miss New Zealand - a Whangarei student has been crowned the Asparagus Queen of Germany.

The bizarre title was given to Rebecca Blankenbyl - who is on an exchange project in Germany - as part of the asparagus season celebrations.

"I thought it would be a lot of fun and thought,`What the hell, I'd never do it if I were in New Zealand.' So we rang up the boss and put my name forward.''

The Pompallier Catholic College student said winning the title had helped with her studies. ``I've met so many interesting people and my German has hugely improved after having to speak with reporters from newspapers and also having a TV interview with our local station.'' She celebrated her title at the German Agricultural Day event where she met other German queens and Alan Cook, New Zealand's Ambassador in Germany.

``Germany is dead keen on its queens. At the agricultural day I met the Harvest Queen, the Egg Queen and the Fish Queen. The Harvest Queen told me she had once been to a get-together of all the queens in Germany and there were over 500,'' Rebecca said.

Rebecca is staying in a town called Ludwigsfelde in the Brandenburg region, where they are asparagus mad from May till the end of July. However, Rebecca isn't so keen on the vegetable. ``The season is really important because when it is over there's no more asparagus for the rest of the year. ``This means that everyone eats as much asparagus as they can stand during the season but I've had enough and refuse to eat any more.''

Overview

OK, so basically I’ve been pretty hopeless at keeping this blog updated as I’m sure you have all noticed. Therefore I will now proceed to give you a complete overview of what I have done so far.

Also (pronounced owl-so), on Thursday the 12th of April I went to the zoo with 6 friends (3 germans and 3 latinos). That was cool, though was sad to see all the animals couped up like that. Would honestly have to say Auck zoo is better, at least by way of space for the animals. We got to see Knut, the little polar bear that was born in the zoo. He has become a bit of a celebrity in Germany; so much so that you can buy Knut shaped marshmallows and Knut sausages. Crazy, I know. We didn’t actually see him properly, as the line to see him was about 300 metres long, but we did get photos by jumping into the air with the camera above our heads and taking a photo just as we were at our highest. Was rather interesting but you can definitely see him!! Oh yea, and there was also a big Kiwi there, kindly donated by good ‘ol Aunty Helen.

On the 23rd of April I went to Potsdam with friends to check out the Lord of the Rings exhibition. It was the exact same one that they showed in Te Papa Museum in Wellington, though I didn’t see it there. Was really funny to hear Peter Jackson talking cause I could totally hear the NZ accent, which I never could before. After 4 months (nearly exactly!!) with German accents, you can really hear the NZ one!! So yeah, that was a good day out. One random thing tho, is in the entrance to the exhibition was a huge life sized model of the dog thing from “The Never Ending Story” movie hanging from the roof. I mean…what the heck right?? After Potsdam we heading back home via Berlin and met heaps of crazy soccer fans. See, there must have been a big game on cause there were all these drunk as fans in the trains and in the train station. They were all singing and happy as, not dodgy at all which was good. Anyway, we boarding the train home and found an empty room. So we got seated then suddenly 10 or so fans came up the stairs, singing and yelling and having a good time. Rowdy as but all in good fun. Their team obviously won and they were very happy about it. One guy actually got kicked off cause he got caught smoking in the train which is not allowed.



On the 27th of April I went to a “diskothek” (night club) with 2 other exchange students in Potsdam. It wasn’t fantastic cause it was a “bass and drums” night which pretty much meant every song was the good ol techno beat “boom ch boom ch boom ch” (like my onomatopoeia?) Didn’t get home till 4 so was pretty tired the next day but held up. I went with Anke and Hermann to an art market that was pretty cool, all sorts of wacky stuff for sale. Then on Sunday I went to the “baumbluten fest” in Werder. Literal translation is “tree blood festival” but it was similar to Octoberfest in the way that everyone was there to get drunk. But if you didn’t want to get drunk (like me) then there was still plenty to see and do. You could even do the bungy from a crane if you wanted!!



On the 17th of May I met Lauren from New Zealand and spent the day with her and her host family in a film park in Potsdam. Lauren lives in Bremen and she was in Berlin for a weekend with her fam. The film park was ok, though not really what we expected. It was more to do with the making of movies then like rides and stuff, but was good to hang out with a fellow nz student for the day and talk about how it’s going so far. There was a cool 4D movie we went to, with wind and stuff as well as 3D glasses. Also, King Kong graced us with his presence. At the end of the day there was a big stunt show on and one of the guys was from NZ so we chatted with him for a bit. Interesting story actually, he was in uni studying mechanics, found it boring so became a stunt man. Lol.




On the 18th of May I had an Asparagus Queen appointment and met the NZ Ambassador and his wife (Mr. and Mrs. Cook). They were both really nice and I sat next to Mrs. Cook at lunch and chatted to her. They live in Berlin and she told me to pop by sometime :P Also met Germanys Minister of Agriculture and a lot of other important people from the parliament. It was a big conference and I had to sit on the stage with all the important people while speeches were made. I also met the Harvest Queen, the Fish queen and the Egg Queen. Don’t ask.



On the 24th of May I went to Nordhorn for the weekend to meet and stay with Hermann’s parents. While there we went to my first ever handball game. Its gotta be the second coolest sport (rugby first), and Nordhorn was playing so there was a big fan group with drums and chants and things. We won 30-29. I also went to Holland (10 min drive) while we were there to visit my Uncle and Aunty and Cousin so that was really good to see family. We stayed for 4 days and then headed home.




On the 10th of June I had my last Asparagus Queen thing and had an interview with the local tv station. Then on Sunday I played in the musik school summer concert. I played the bongo drum and it was really fun. In June we get to go to a big music weekend with 2500 other teens to play, so looking forward to that!




And this weekend I have another AFS camp with all the exchange students in my area so that will be heaps of fun!!


Well, I hope you are all now well informed!!

~B~

Photos...Finally!

Well, heres the living proof:

Me and 2 "blokes" from the parliment

Me, the 2 blokes and the Mayor of my town.

Me and the 2 old Asparagus Queens

Me and the Mayor. And Spargel.

Me, Anke and Hermann

Me and the Mayor again.

So, there you have it!!!