barbie and the cadillac of card games

***
note: i have changed all the videos to higher quality so that hopefully you'll actually be able to see what's i'm talking about...

happily you have found me at my new home - and boy oh boy do i have a treat in store for you this evening...

since i have arrived here in berlin, you see, i have had the pleasure of visiting the funny farm each week for *games night* hosted by the oh-so-fantastisch laura and her supercool beau, gordon m. who make this event a veritable treasure trove of Schmackhaftigkeit*.

WEEK 1:

on my first games night, laura and i played a game of sprachenspiel**, a fun but non-competitive board game that teaches you how to speak german. and i actually did learn some very useful german vocabulary, such as:

schwarze johannisbeere: black currant (lit. black johnberry?)
allein: alone
dorf: village (try saying it - you'll never go back.)
er hat gelt: he has money
fester Freund: boyfriend (not the most romantic-sounding expression, but whatever...)

apparently "boyfriend" is actually pronounced boifrännd:



(seriously, though: the game is A LOT more fun than it sounds.)

later that evening, we played some excellent rounds of pictionary - highlights are here...



and



and my personal favourite:



but the highlight of the evening was the 3 a.m. game of charades which i was having way too much fun playing to have photographed properly. in the end i managed to catch a couple, including what must hold the record for fastest charade ever solved (and they swear they weren't cheating):



and this one which i call, "buddha rhymes with what, now?":



the second week was quite a different story....

WEEK 2:

now, it's a little known fact that laura and gordon host THE coolest underground bridge game in berlin (if not the whole of continental europe) in a psychedelic-tiki-zombie-meets-dandy-surrealist sort of way. and seeing as they say that bridge is the "cadillac" of card games (i think that's supposed to be a good thing?) i thought it would be fun to try.

as of late, the "regular" games night bridge players have been:

the dapper gordon m.

the larger-than-life gordon w.

the dandy and skillful an te

and the accomplished, no-nonsense ira.

you need four players for bridge, and the intimidating part (besides the bidding, counting and scoring) is that you have to play with a partner. who you don't want to piss off. in other words: to play bridge at funny farm is to contend with the "big boys" - which sounds like a job for...

berlin barbie!

so last week, it happened that ira was out of town and i was allowed to sit in and learn the ropes. i'm certain that the boys expected me to underperform (and who could blame them, considering the blonde hair and bubbly personality?) but in the end, berlin barbie did einen klasse job***.

in all fairness, everyone was very patient with me and were incredibly generous with their knowledge and advice. there was a great deal of illegal table talk (often accompanied by refrains of 'oh my god, if ira were here he'd kill us') but it helped me learn, and by the end of the evening i was feeling pretty good.

laura doesn't like to play bridge and mostly hangs out with her neverending stream of supertoll**** visitors (like charlie, below) and makes fun of us in a "bridge is for 'old people'" kind of way:



but she is a flawless hostess who - as usual - crafted the perfect atmosphere.

case in point:

the tablecloth, in case you forget the rules of bidding...



or of scoring...



and the bridge lampshade (a laura original):



frankly, the rules of bridge are insane but the terminology is SO AWESOME. on that note, i proudly present to you a series of concise, highly edutaining videos with excellent soundtracks that will provide invaluable bridge playing advice that you can use to impress all your friends:

1. how to bid classic stayman (both vulnerable with a game on):



2. yodeling the weak club convention:



3. doubletons, tripletons, and laura dancing up a storm:



isn't the music überrad? dj laura always supplies irritainment at its very BEST (btw, william shatner's cover album ROCKS.)

i will be back soon with more fun and frolic. until then, happy bidding :)

xo,

baby blackwood barbie



BARBIE GLOSSARY:

*Schmackhaftigkeit (ger. sl): nuttiness, deliciousness.

**Sprachenspiel (ger.): language game.

***Einen klasse job (ger. sl.): a damn fine job.

***Supertoll (ger. sl.): kick-ass-awesome.