Today is my last day in the apartment. Actually, it's down to 2 hours and 10 min. Ack! I still have lots to clean. It'll get done.
So, goodbye apartment. It's been great. I hope your next renter treats you well. :)
I will have very sporadic web access for the next couple of weeks, so no complaints if this blog goes blank. Okay? We're heading to Scotland for 5 days. I've been taking lots of photos (and will take lots of photos), but no time to download, mess with and upload them. I will post a gallery of the best or most representative though. :)
See you guys later, the kitchen and the fridge are waiting to be cleaned......
Today is my last day in the apartment. Actually, it's down to 2 hours and 10 min. Ack! I still have lots to clean. It'll get done.
So, goodbye apartment. It's been great. I hope your next renter treats you well. :)
I will have very sporadic web access for the next couple of weeks, so no complaints if this blog goes blank. Okay? We're heading to Scotland for 5 days. I've been taking lots of photos (and will take lots of photos), but no time to download, mess with and upload them. I will post a gallery of the best or most representative though. :)
See you guys later, the kitchen and the fridge are waiting to be cleaned......
Today is my last day. I think everythings going to hit today. It started yesterday - I was walking back from the dentist office and thinking - "wow, I probably won't see that again for a while, should probably get a photo", or "I won't be able to listen in on German conversations for awhile", etc, etc, etc. Started chocking up. Sigh.
BUT, thanks to my very good friends, the three S's, I can remember Frankfurt everytime I play Monopoly now. They gave me a Frankfurt Monopoly game last night! All the streets are Frankfurt streets and various well known Frankfurt institutions are also represented. Totally cool! Thank you! :D
If you complain to an American that Americans in general don't like to discuss politics, don't spend the next 20 minutes doing American bashing. Without conceding any points that she makes. And then don't go all quiet when she tries to discuss how the EU is falling apart and how German contractors were complicit in helping Saddam remain in power. Apparently American bashing is considered "discussing" politics. NO wonder no Americans want to discuss politics with you. If you're going to get up on your high horse and talk about moral high roads and talk down to the American about her/his country, well - you're not going to get much of a discussion. Your going to get an angry American. Or an American that walks away and won't discuss politics with you.
And say you're 17-19 years old. You're on a European trip (5-6 countries in 2.5 weeks) with one of your High School teachers - one of the coolest and nicest teachers you have. With about 100 other of your (not so) closest friends. Do you:
* enjoy this (most probably) first trip out of the United States, soaking up the cultures and sights.
* discuss what you've seen and how different it is from your home country
* shop for presents for family members back in the States
* or, pretend this is an all-inclusive Bahama vacation and see how many beers you can drink, different drugs you can try, how many hangovers you can get, how obnoxious you can be, oh and wander around one of the prettiest medieval towns in the country with your RAP music blaring through your headphones?
Of the 100 or so students, I'd say 80 are doing options 1-3 to varying degrees of success. It's those 5-6 who seem to be stuck in option 4 (plus the other 10 or so who like to wander in that direction every now and then), that REALLY give your tour, and Americans in general, a bad name. Stop it.
I just saw, for the first time in my life, junkies shooting up on the street. It's disturbed me a bit.
Now, I know junkies shoot up and I know junkies like to hang around the bank on the corner (my bank). I've even seen crackheads lighting their little pipes in the subway stairwell corners and furtively smoking them.
But to see another junkie swab anothers neck down and then stick a needle in it while yet a third watches....that's something else. All in bright daylight in the middle of the street right in front of the bank.
It's disturbed me.
I have a Foxtrot cartoon a day calendar on my desk. A co-worker and I read it everyday - it's become a ritual for us.
This last week, one of the cartoons made a funny about Paige writing a Haiku for English class. The funny part was the dialogue was written as a Haiku. It took me a minute to realize this, then I asked Stefan if he got it - thinking of course he did, I'm dense.
No! He'd never heard of Haiku! Wha? Okay, it's one of those standard poetry forms you learn in high school English class, right? Then I thought, okay, I know computer geeks love Haiku's (a generalization formed from the Slashdot crowd), so I thought for sure a different co-worker (hi Ralf!) would know it - he's a trivia buff and physicist - Dr. even. Nope! He didn't know it either. Turns out nobody in my office knew about Haikus. That is weird.
If you're interested, go read about Haiku's here (auf Deutsch) or here (auf Englisch).
By the way - how do you translate "foreign concept" auf Deutsch? I thought Fremdkonzept would be the correct translation, but LEO doesn't know that. And LEO is the site for English/Deutsch translation.
We have a new pope! Joseph Ratzinger von Deutschland. I have a feeling that Germans will be proud to have a German Pope in Rome. They may disagree with him - one of my co-workers already expressed disappointment because "he's too conservative", but I have a feeling the general feeling will be one of pride.
Of course, I could be completely off base here. But I'm sure my readers will tell me if I'm wrong.
I have to make a point to watch the German Nachrichten this evening. Before Desperate Housewives (auf Deutsch!) comes on.
One of my packages finally made it to it's destination! Woo hoo! It only took two months to get there! I mailed it two weeks before his birthday, so it arrived 6 weeks afterwards. Sigh. It give me hope though that the other three packages that were sent afterwards should be shortly arriving at their locations. 8 weeks for an advertised 7-10 business day shipping is outrageous.
Speaking of outrageous - my student loan people decided I don't live here anymore. That, or the USPS did. They've been sending my bills here no problem for almost two years, and all of a sudden my mail was returned as undeliverable. So what do they do? Send a nasty gram to my parents. And revert my address back to my Tampa address - that hasn't been good for three years!! The lady even confirmed that the address I gave her on the phone is the same one that's in the computer.
Either they screwed up and sent it USPS national mail (Sears did that for months - they couldn't seem to understand a person living outside of the States - even their customer service reps asked me what State Germany was in! sigh), or the USPS is in the middle of changing contractors again for international mail. It happened three years ago & it took a package my Mom mailed me about 3 months to reach me. Unbelievable!
When an email comes in 30 min before the official closing time and causes you to still be at work at 11:30 p.m. doing yet another hot fix,
WORK SUCKS.
Oh, and the boss has already left. An hour ago. Sure, he's working from home, but well.....it's HOME.
In the past two months I've sent out three packages and one padded envelope via German ground mail to the US. So far, only the padded envelope has reached it's destination. I'm soo frustrated. One of the boxes was sent a whole month before the other two - ie, it's been underway two months now. It's a birthday present for Bill's son. Who's birthday was a month ago. :( The other packages are secret pal things. This is frustrating. I hope they get there soon.
Via Boing Boing, learn German from audio downloads from Deutsche Welle.
Isn't that cool? Isn't Bloglines great? (I swear I don't know why I couldn't get the hang of using it before.)
Amanda asked if the snow ever got pretty and if I took photos of it. I managed to take one photo before it all melted. This is my street the morning after all the snow fell.
We ended up with about 2-3 inches and it lasted about a day. Of course I looked out the window this morning and was amazed to see that we'd received more overnight! Less than an inch, but it's all white out there - it's frozen! My thermometer says it's 0 degrees Celsius outside and the radio is saying it's -8 and -9 in some of the towns about an hour from here. And Marvie just emailed me saying that they've got about a foot and half of snow and it's still coming down! Man!
Looks like Winter's being serious this year.
Update: The temp is now a -2 and we have snow falling steadily. At times horizontally like Jay says in the comments. It all really fine though and the sun is shining too, so I don't know if it's going to stick or not.
I crochetted myself some wrist warmers last night - they really really helped with my feelings of warmth. I wore them to bed. :)
I wrote this at 11am. However, my internet connection is deciding to randomly work so I couldn't post it until now.
My front door buzzer just buzzed. This doesn't happen that often - nobody I know comes to visit me. So I'm naturally a little suspicious when this happens.
Everything below was spoken in German.
Person outside: "Hi. You don't know me, my name is Mr. X. President Bush recently visited and as you know, people are always searching for a good world government. What is your opinion?"
Me: (cynical chuckle): "Because of President Bush's visit in Mainz, you're asking me what a good world government is??"
Person outside: (repeats what I said) "Yes."
You'll be happy to know I gave a very grown-up, very "give a good impression for my country" answer.
I told him to "Fuck off" and hung the intercom phone up.
The question has nothing to do with President Bush's visit. Unless my opinion for President Bush is supposed to influence my answer. And the US government is by no means a "world government". We have no world government - much as it pains Kofi Annan and UN lovers.
The whole premise just ticks me off. Especially as I'm fairly certain my buzzer was buzzed because my last name is obviously either English or American. (It's happened before - a very nice American lady and her German husband wanted to talk to me about Jesus.)
If you want to ask me what I think a good world government is, 1) frame the question better, and 2) don't make it dependant on the Presidents visit.
Just in case anybody can use this: today is Free Package Friday at the Deutsche Post.
They're celebrating being 10 years old and, with a special sticker, are allowing you to send a package - up to a certain size and weight - free anywhere in Germany.
Man, if I'd known this before today....I don't know what I would have done. Probably nothing. But still, maybe one of my German readers can use this information sometime in the next three hours.
The POTUS spent the day in Mainz today. I am amazed the lengths the German government and Polizei have gone in order to secure the area. I really think it's a bit overdone.
Even though the President landed in Rhein Main and then flew by helicopter to Mainz, the Autobahn was completely shut down along the route. And the trains didn't run for a short period of time. Air traffic and airport were shutdown for an hour. (A total of 92 flights have been cancelled today because of his travel here - not enough space, delayed flights, etc.).
In the towns near were he's visiting, the owners were order to remove trash cans from the streets and empty their garages or allow the police inspect them. While the President is driving through or in the area, they were encouraged to not look out the windows or even open their windows.
I'm not really affected by any of the measures, but two of my co-workers live close to where he was visiting and their commute was/is affected. They had to leave home an hour earlier in order to get here. Many people living in the area who commute through there simply took the day as vacation.
For more information on the security measures, visit Jay's blog.
Is this normal for Presidential visits? Or is it just normal outside the US since 9/11? I can't imagine these kind of measures being taken in the US. Or maybe they are and I've just never heard of it before? Were these measures done at the request of the US Government or did the German government take them upon itself?
My goodness. This weather is driving me batty. For the last three weeks it's been cold and gray. Maybe some sunshine, but not much to speak of. The temperatures are freezing or below at night and its windy. On top of that, it can't decide if it wants to snow or not. Light Snow/Light rain/mix. Repeat for five days. Let an inch or two accumulate, then warm up to 50°F to melt it all the next day. My hands are so dry, my thumbs are cracking - I've resorted to putting Vaseline on them at night - which is helping.
Right now it's doing a heavy wet snow rain. And the sky is a lovely shade of pre-thunderstorm yellow. Very odd.
Snow before Christmas is charming, delightful, welcomed. The third week in February is "my goodness - could we have some warmth already??"
Update (17:40): It's seriously snowing now. We have a good inch or more on the ground. If it stays, it'll be pretty.
I have an appointment with my tax guy tomorrow afternoon. I went to see him about a year ago and gave him all my tax info for the last three years. He had some questions, asked me to gather some receipts, we parted ways. I've been meaning to look for that stuff and send it to him, but well.....I didn't. So now it's a year later and between one thing and the other, I decided I probably should really get those taxs done. You know for the last three years now. Sigh. Nothing like sticking your head in the dirt and pretending it'll all just go away!
I made an appointment for tomorrow. I still need to look for those documents - ok, I know where they are. They're in the big towering pile of paper over there. That I've weeded through about three times but never actually, you know, put it away. Filed it.
So what am I doing? Sorting other things. Looking through old craft projects and discovering about 15 year old cross stitch things I never finished and another project that I bought all the stuff for, just never did. I'm going to start that this year - it'll be a perfect present for the person I had in mind. :)
Er hmm.....yeah, so now I'm blogging about this. :whistles tunelessly: I'm going to do it - really!
I'm off do that that now....just have to check my email one more time....
Via Ministry of Propaganda I found a new American expat blog - Stringbean abroad: From Dee-triot to Germany. This is great cause she's at the point I was at 3 years ago (yes - I've been here just over 3 years!), so it's like re-living those new expat experiences over again.
Check her out and give a shout out. Let her know she's not alone. :)
My West Wing Season 2 & 3 DVD's arrived today. Woo hoo! :)
However, I had to pay €14.33 in Customs for it! What?? I think that's a ripoff. You don't have to pay customs when you order books from Amazon.com. And Amazon.com didn't mention anything about a possible Customs fee when they shipped it to me.
Does anybody know (assuming I still have readers) if this is correct or not?
And now, because I have a gutter mind, here for your viewing pleasure......a naughty example of DEnglish:
Explanation: Dick means thick/big. They're advertising that the packages of cigarrettes now have 4 more per pack - they're thicker. So why do they have to have "BIG" written on there too? Either all German, or all English people. Cause Big Dick means something completely different in English. :)
Today was my last day of work before my Christmas vacation. Tomorrow I fly off into the "wild blue yonder" on my way to the States to visit family, friends, and my man!
All around, today was a lovely day. I finished up a project, made progress on another & handed it over to another developer, was able to painlessly exchange a shirt I bought on Saturday for one of a smaller size, and it was our Christmas party this evening.
The entire company went upstairs, had a delicious catered dinner, drank wine, chit chatted, and played Roulette. The top three winners after an hour of playing won nicer presents and the rest of us has to settle for Apple iPod Mini's. Big cheesy grin/happy girl squeal!
Yes, you read & see correctly, my company gave 14 of us Apple iPod Mini's for Christmas. The other 3 people - Stefan being one of them, lucky dog - won the Apple Photo iPod's. Mine was originally silver, but I exchanged it for Sandra's champagne colored one - I could have cared less & frankly, I like the champagne better than the silver. Then I saw that there was a green one and tried exchanging my new champagne colored iPod for it, but both people with green liked it better than the champagne. You know what? I don't care. I have a free Apple iPod Mini. All mine. 4GB of MP3 goodness. :-)
There are days that I truely love my company!
I'm charging/installing/downloading all my MP3's at this very moment. Can't wait to play with this puppy on the plane tomorrow!
It looks like the German supermarket LidlAldi has made it to Lileks neighborhood in Minnesota. He describes it perfectly. Cut-rate products at cut-rate prices. Except in Germany, you actually see name brands occasionally. Lidl makes a living at buying bulk of whatever is the cheapest this week and selling it like hot-cakes to cheap German consumers. They even sell computers & furniture, but you have to get there the on the first day of the sale, or they're gone. All the German hausfrau's get there and buy them out the first day. Anyway, they've been slowing branching out into the US. I think this is hysterical because they look EXACTLY the same. They have the same hours (9-7 M-S, closed sunday), the same format inside (wares in boxes on the floor) and the same pay-a-quarter for the buggy.
I hate this place. I do not like shopping at Lidl or Norma or Aldi or any other varient of this kind of store. I prefer to shop at Toom. Great selection, big store, decent prices. This preference was one of the reasons my (former) German boyfriend called me "expensive". Me? I am one of the least expensive people you know.
Update: Scott is correct, Lileks went to an Aldi, not a Lidl. Still, everything above still applies (except Lidl's opening in the USA, that's strictly Aldi).
I was just reading over at NYC a Paris how he and others feel like their French persona is different from their English/American persona. I don't get that feeling in German. I occasionally feel frustrated in expressing myself in German, but I don't feel like I have a different persona when speaking German. I'm just me. I have noticed my English effected from my German speaking though. And my personality in general is effected, but in German or English, I'm still Anna.
What are your experiences? Do you change your persona when speaking in a different language?
A co-worker set this to me. It's cute. An understanding of German helps.
Ein kleines Weihnachtsgedicht (A small Christmas Poem)
When the snow falls wunderbar
And the children happy are,
When the Glatteis on the street,
And we all a Glühwein need,
Then you know, es ist soweit:
She is here, the Weihnachtszeit
Every Parkhaus ist besetzt,
Weil die people fahren jetzt
All to Kaufhof, Mediamarkt,
Kriegen nearly Herzinfarkt.
Shopping hirnverbrannte things
And the Christmasglocke rings.
Mother in the kitchen bakes
Schoko-, Nuss- and Mandelkeks
Daddy in the Nebenraum
Schmücks a Riesen-Weihnachtsbaum
He is hanging auf the balls,
Then he from the Leiter falls...
Finally the Kinderlein
To the Zimmer kommen rein
And es sings the family
Schauerlich: "Oh, Christmastree!"
And the jeder in the house
Is packing die Geschenke aus.
Mama finds unter the Tanne
Eine brandnew Teflon-Pfanne,
Papa gets a Schlips and Socken,
Everybody does frohlocken.
President speaks in TV,
All around is Harmonie,
Bis mother in the kitchen runs:
Im Ofen burns the Weihnachtsgans.
And so comes die Feuerwehr
With Tatü, tata daher,
And they bring a long, long Schlauch
An a long, long Leiter auch.
And they schrei - "Wasser marsch!",
Christmas is - now im - A....
Merry Christmas, merry Christmas,
Hear the music, see the lights,
Frohe Weihnacht, Frohe Weihnacht,
Merry Christmas allerseits...
I tried making German cookies on Sunday. The end result was a success, but not exactly what I was trying to make.
I was trying to make the Ingwermuerbchen (Ginger Balls?) recipe from Dr. Oetker. My co-worker made them & they tasted good, so I asked for the recipe. And Sunday I tried making them.
First, I couldn't figure out what the abbreviation Msp. stood for. It's Messerspitzte or a knifeful. It means a very little bit. I only found this out after going upstairs and asking the neighbor. Couldn't find anything in the internet.
Second, I realized after I dumped two teaspoons of Nutmeg into the batter, that I'd falsely translated Ingwer. It's ginger, not nutmeg. And I knew that. But I kept thinking "nutmeg, nutmeg". I decided to soldier on.
Third, the recipe calls for flour, sugar, & butter. Oh, and a little ittle bit of Vanilla Aroma - something like vanilla extract. I mixed & I mixed, but it was still dry! I don't have an electric mixer, so that butter wasn't going to get the dough any wetter very soon. After consulting Dad, I decided to put an egg in. Then it was too wet. So I added more flour.
I finally had something that looked like cookie dough, so I made the cookies. And you know what? They weren't bad. People at work even claimed to like them! One guy (hi Ralf) even claimed they smelled like Marijuana cookies. Lol. Um, no. I've never baked or smoke or touched the stuff.
So, all in all a success. But an Adventure ™ none the less.
Today is St. Nikolaus Day here in Germany. It's Santa Claus, but he comes a little early to see if you've been naughty or nice. Children leave their shoes outside the door the night before and the next morning they find a treat inside. Either they have a switch if they've been bad, or some treats and a maybe a gift if they've been good.
One of the things I love about my company is that they always take time to do little nice things on the German holidays. Today I had a Gingerbread House & a chocolate Santa waiting for me at my desk from Saint Nick. And I didn't even leave my shoes out! Hee hee.
I took a photo but it's at work. I'll upload it here tomorrow.
Is anybody familiar with using Ebay.de? Specifically for selling articles? I have some things I want to sell there & I'm going to start fumbling through the process, but if anybody has any good tips, I'd love to hear them!
That title should bring interesting Google search results here. ;)
A few weekends ago I went to a disco with the three S's from work. The disco was a lesbian & gay disco event. I had so much fun! I didn't write about it at the time because, well, I try not to write about sex & things here - my mom reads this! And now one of my Aunts does (Hi Aunt Candy!). However, Sandra seemed a little offended that I didn't write about it and made me promise to write about the one I went to last Friday night. And really, why not? I obviously don't have a problem with their lifestyle - they're my friends & hey! I went to the disco - so why not write about it?
The best part about the disco? No pressure to flirt or worrying about scuzzy guys coming on to you or dancing with your butt, etc. Just fun! Dancing to good music with friends. One thing I noticed the first time, but didn't see too much of this last time, was lesbian couples dancing to rock music tunes like they were slow love songs. It cracked me up. :) Seeing the girls kiss was a little erotic, but what really got me heated up was seeing two buff guys kissing. Wow. What made it even more erotic was the feeling behind the kiss - they were obviously in love & in lust. Sigh. Made me miss Bill. I miss kissing him like that.
The music at the disco a few weeks ago was mostly current hip hop & dance tracks. Friday night the music went through three stagess - 80's, 90's/00's, then just plain dance tracks. I wish we could have skipped the first stage, but it was all fun.
Even though the discos are lesbian & gay events, not too many guys show up. I'd say the ratio of women to men was along the lines of 100:1. This means the mens bathroom isn't used - at least not by men. I couldn't pass up the opportunity! I used the mens bathroom. :)
I totally enjoyed both disco's & look forward to going to more with the S's. :)
Awhile back, I mentioned discussing the differences between German and American Milk containers. This generated comments asking what were the differences?
Well, here is your common variety, generic, American milk jug:
Most often seen in 1 Gallon sizes, although the 1/2 Gallon is also common, while the 1 Quart size is rare. The most common varient is 2%, with 1% and Skim running a close second. Whole milk is not that common, and more often seen in the rare 1 Quart size. Notice the plastic shell, the convenient handle. This milk must be refrigerated and has a typical shelf life of 3-4 days.
On the other hand, here is your common German Milk Tetra Pak container:
The only size this comes in is 1 Liter (about 1 Quart). Maybe 1.5 Liters also, but I'm not sure on that. This milk comes in the common varients of whole milk, 3.8% and 1.5%. According to this "Bio" site, H-Milch (ultra-pasturized) is good for 6-8 weeks un-opened. Once opened, the milk is good for a week, week and a half. And it doesn't need to be refrigerated, but it's better if it is. Notice the convient rectagular size, perfect for stacking in cupboards or squeezing into the half sized fridges that are common here.
While H-Milch is the most common form of milk sold, they do also have regular milk, sold is glass bottles, most commonly 1.5 Liters, although I think 0.8 Liters is also available. Sorry, no picture, I don't buy this kind.
More than you ever wanted to know about Milk & it's containers, nicht wahr?
When I arrived, there were two groups of people who had their own specific guides. There seemed to be a group of free floating people who were waiting for a guide, but no obvious guide person to lead them. When I paid for my ticket, the lady asked if I was with a group and I said no. I expected to be told where to wait for said guide for the open tour, but she didn't say anything. So I asked. She looked at her watch, waved her hand in the air, and said the guide is supposed to be Mr. So and so, but she didn't see him. That was it. So I hung around for a few minutes waiting for an obvious guide and then I just walked through on my own. I stood on the outskirts of a couple groups for a few interesting works and then moved on.
The exhibit was split in two floors and of the two I liked the upper floor better. There were more photographs or photo-realistic works there that I could relate to and appreciate. The ones I liked the best were large blown up photographs of the interiors of museums with visitors peering at the art. The lower floor was mostly filled with abstract political works. One artist seemed to be obsessed with crudely painted sitting nude women who he then turned on their heads. And oddly enough, it seemed they were painted upside down because the paint dripped down from their heads. It was supposed to take the object out of context and focus on the meaning or something. Yeah.
All in all, I didn't have as interesting of a time as I thought I would, but it wasn't a total wash.
You did remember to set your clocks back, right? I didn't, but I knew about the change.
Good part of fall daylight saving time: get to sleep an extra hour.
Bad part: It's 6pm and it's full dark now. :grumble grumble:
This is the part of fall I don't like. Waking up in the dark, getting to work in the daylight but by the time I leave work it's full dark again.
The funny part about the spring daylight savings time change is that it happens on different weekends in the US and Germany. In Germany it's always the last weekend in March, in the US it's the first weekend in April. So for a week there is a seven hour difference between my parents and me. In the fall it's the same weekend.
Yesterday Sandra invited me to Darmstadt for breakfast and some sightseeing. I'd offered to make pancakes before, so she suggested I bring the mix along to make for brunch.
I have to say I had a wonderful time! Cooking the pancakes and the breakfast conversation between Sandra, Bea, and I was great. We covered everything from Walmart, the eatting styles of left handers, their Australian trip (they took off for a year and camped around Australia), milk containers & styles in Germany/America, and hair products. A wonderful breakfast!
After breakfast Bea let me borrow one of her bikes and off we three went. We rode through Darmstadt and visited the Russian Kapelle, the Hochzeitsturm, and the Hundertwasser Waldspirale (also here). All wonderful buildings/places in Darmstadt that I never knew were there.
Sandra and I took lots of photos. Unfortunately, I left my camera cable at work Friday. So, I'll retrieve it tomorrow, download and share the photos then.
I'd been in Darmstadt a couple of times before, but I just wandered around the shopping area. I didn't know anybody in the area and was new to the Frankfurt area anyway. Frankly, I didn't find Darmstadt that interesting before. Now, I have to say it's a lot more interesting. I'll have to visit again!
Afterwards we went to a nice cafe for Kaffee und Kuchen. Mmm, gibt's lecker kuchen dort! (Delicious cakes there!) I'll have to ask Sandra for the name so I can recommend them.
Finally, Sandra and I sat in her apartment, listened to music and flipped through 1000 Places to See Before You Die while waiting for the time to come for my train. We discussed places in the US, in Asia, trips we've taken, places we want to see. Time flew by.
I had such a good time! Thanks for the invite Sandra! :)
Oh, I liked the "1000 Places" - I'd seen it before and my friend Janine talked about it - so I went and bought it from Amazon.de. It'll probably arrive in a couple of days at work.
Last night I accepted a spontaneous invitation from Simone to go see Doro Pesch in Offenbach Capitol. [As a side note, the Capitol is an interesting building by itself - it was a Jewish Synagogue in the late 1800's and early 1900's. Now it's a sometimes used concert hall for not-so-successful acts.]
When we first got there, a Nickelback sounding English speaking band was the warm warm up act. Not too bad, but not great. They set up for the orchestra and then a Japaneses singer came on. She was ...um...different. Not in a good way. The music was okay, but that was the orchestra. Her voice was just a bit flat. And then she did a spoken work beatnik kind of song. Um, I'm sure she does well in Japan, but the German metal crowd was just waiting for her to be done. They did clap and give her praise for speaking in German though.
The next act was Blaze Bryson, a former lead singer of Iron Maiden and Wolfsbane. He was pretty good. (In case you haven't figured it out, I'm not much of a metal fan.) What I liked best about his performance, oddly enough, is how I could tell he most likely pratices Tai Chi or some other esoteric form. He would plant his feet in a centering stance (taking root) and sing from his root. Um, I know that sounds dirty, but it means he was projecting all his enery from his center. Coupled with that was his arm movements - I could see the arm movements of the classic Tai Chi form echo'd in how he moved. Sure, all the metal fans were rejoicing and rocking along when he sang some well known Iron Maiden song, but I was looking at his body movements and the orchestra (specifically the cute cello player). Yes, I'm that weird.
Finally, Doro came on stage and the crowd really fired up then. Doro Pesch was the lead singer of a German heavy metal band called Warlock in the 1980's. She's one of the first metal lead singers and she was very popular here in Germany - among the metal crowd anyway. For lots more history and fan club/picts/tour info/etc, visit Doro.de. Anyway, I'll agree she looked good and sang well, even for sounding and looking like an 80's metal rocker. Her band was really into the gig - the Percussionist guy Johnny was bouncing all round his platform playing the tamporine and symbols. He was a BUNDLE of energy! If I'd grown up listening to her music, I'd probably have been a lot more enthusiastic about having seen her. I can't say the evening was wasted though. I had great fun people watching and the music was okay.
I have to say though, for such a well known and loved German metal rocker, the crowd didn't really get too energetic. Oh sure, there was the core group on the floor in front of the stage that kept putting their hands in the air and singing along. However, the other 80% of the crowd stood there and bobbed their heads, occasionally singing along. Is this as much as the Germans could loosen their public persona's for a favorite metal rocker in a concert venue? Or was it just that there wasn't enough of a mass in such a small venue in a suburb of Frankfurt to get the energy flowing?
Dugging dynamic code, buying a coke for a homeless guy, a ranting Sbahn driver, and political snail mail! All in one night!
First off, I was late at work figuring out why 4 rows were missing from a query. Two reports that should show the same number of flights were showing different numbers. It took a couple of hours of scratching my head and doing querys to get on the right track. Except the right track didn't seem to work. So I had to dig deep into dynamic code to figure it out. Searching through code to find the table where the real table name is stored along with the where clause, etc. I know, too geeky. I found it. And it was a silly error - nothing I did though, thank goodness. But nothing that was immediately obvious either.
By the time I triumphantly found fixed the error, it was 9:30pm, so I headed to McD's for dinner. As I sat there eatting my two cheeseburger meal and reading a news article, I noticed a guy hand another guy french fries and walk out. That's out, I thought. And then I noticed that the guy was practically gulping the fries down. He looked like a clean cut 20-ish young man, but if you looked, it was obvious he was homeless. He must be newly homeless. As I was debating whether to approach him and offer to buy him a hamburger to go with the fries, he approached me. I was disappointed when he gave me the line about trying to go home to Stuttgart and just needed some money for the ticket. I offered to buy him a coke or hamburger instead. He took the coke. Then he says "oh, you don't believe me and don't want to give me money! Well, instead of a coke you can buy the ticket for me. I have money, I'll send it to you." Um sorry, no thanks. Here's your coke, keep the change. The money to buy a ticket home line (and send you it back) is a crack addict ploy. Another girl used it on me before and I saw her slowly denegrate over a couple of months. I'd like to give him the benefit of the doubt, but I'll settle for buying him a coke.
The sbahn ride home was an adventure too. Somebody stuck their foot in the door in order to allow others on the sbahn. The driver came on over the intercom and gave that person a smack down. At the next stop they must have said something to the driver because he came back on and said something again. They finally got off at the third station and the driver said good riddance to which they must have flipped him the finger because he said - over the station intercom, not the sbahn intercom - "Verpiss dich". Which is the German equivalent of "Fuck off". LOL.
Finally, I know the Florida Voter's Registration people received my absentee ballot registration. How do I know this? Did an absentee ballot arrive in my mail? Nooo, but a political postcard for the woman running for the local appraisers office did. So, they have my correct address and must have received it at least a week ago. Where's my ballot? I have the emergency backup one, but I can't vote for the nice local appraiser lady if I don't have the official ballot, just President. Come on people.
Okay, I'm off to do something other than sit in front of the computer. Or maybe just read other blogs. Agggggg, crazy crazy night.
Once we finally found how to get to the Golfing Range - there was construction around the entrance, we had a lovely afternoon golfing. The weather was perfect - sunny and slightly warmer than chilly. Perfect for walking around a 9 hole course. I have to say I had a lot more fun than I ever expected. Hitting a little white ball around a green isn't as easy or as boring as I've always thought it would be. Still, it's probably not a sport I will take up for sport. Tagging along every now and then to hang out with friends would be fun though.
After hole 7 we allowed the couple directly behind us to play through. They started about 40 minutes and five holes after us, but were playing a lot faster than us. While we waited, we popped open a bottle of Crémant and toasted Simone's birthday - the reason we were there. The two glasses on an emtpy stomach went straight to my head and made the last two holes very interesting.
All in all, I didn't play that bad for my first time. My best effort was 5 strokes, but for eight holes I did and 8 or 9 and only on one hole did I do the maximal 10 strokes. Hey, at least I didn't lose three balls in the water like Stef or Simone did. :)
Click on "continue reading" for the other photos from the day.
The driving range/9 hold course where we played.
Simone and Sandra warming up. Stefan took this photo - the pink sweater on the left is me.
The fifth hole with the Frankfurt skyline in the background.
Sandra making a picture perfect tee off (see the ball in the air?).
Simone practicing with the locals looking on.
Today, I'm off with the three S's to play golf. Stefan and Simone are experienced golfers while Sandra and I are newbies. Never played in our lifes.
We're going to a training course with 9 holes and a driving range. Since it's a training course, Sandra and I don't have to pass our theory test before going on the course. Yes, a theory test. Real German golf courses and clubs require you to take a test before going out on the green. Because you can't just have fun you know, you have to know the rules - and obey them!
For my GWOD fans, some golfing terms:
golf - der Golf, das Golfspiel
golf club - der Golfschlaeger
golf course - der Golfplatz
I'll write up a report at the end of the day. Tschuss!
Throw a birthday bash. Mix three, four - or was it five? - strong Long Island Ice Teas. Give to Anna. Watch Anna have a gooood time. Watch Bill watch Anna bemusedly as she and her friends/work colleagues talk about just about anything (including politics) while fluidly switching between English and German (with some occasional French).
Then watch this morning as Anna tries to drag butt out of bed and out to work. Bleh. No headache but slight dizzy feeling and the feeling that if somebody turned me real fast I'd have to fight throwing up.
This morning was fun trying to get to work. I got to the Sbahn and almost immediately heard an announcement that the Sbahn in my direction was temporarily only going two stations further because of an accident further on. My work is six stops further down the line. Great. So I stood there a minute deciding what to do and did my good samaritan deed of telling the Lufthansa guy who came after the announcement.
I decided to try going to the main train station in my town and taking a Regional Train to the main train station in Frankfurt. However, the next bus was in 15 mins and while I knew (because I called work) that a train left there in 18 mins, I also knew three mins wasn't enough time to get there. And since I know that trains also start running about once an hour after rush hour, I decided to try another route. Off to the bus stop (a few streets over, but closer to my house) that will take me to a Ubahn stop. Ah....I missed that bus by 5 and it doesn't run again until another 20 min. Sigh. Sit and crochet for a while. Then I decided that maybe the Sbahn was running again, and since I still had 15 min to wait for the bus, I could go check. So I did, and it was running. Yeah. It only took an extra half hour and lots of extra walking to get to work, but I made it.
However, somewhere along the way my grocery bag with lunch in it disappeared. :( I might have left it at home, but I'm not sure. Sigh.
I'm watching a German TV show about housing/building code problems. People with problems getting sub-contractors to finish on time, new builders not building to code, owners with problems with neighbors (house too close, not up to code, etc). I think it's funny. Only Germans would think it interesting to follow a building inspector around as he visits various problem sites.
Wonderful. Now Deutsche Telekom is spamming me through my voice mailbox. I got home to a message on the phone saying something about a "Gewinnenspiel" (Prize Game).
I already hate the bleeping thing. If I didn't have a mother who loved to talk to it (and tell me who is in the room with her while she talks to it) because I'm not home all that often, I'd probably get rid of it. If somebody calls but doesn't leave a message, it records that as a "message" anyway and will keep calling ME to tell me I have messages (yes, it calls YOU). And it starts calling within five minutes of the person calling me. Which is really annoying if you've JUST missed the person and called them back. Because the TNet box decides to call you in the middle of that call. And will keep calling even if you hit reject. It seems to know just when you've gotten home too. Fortunately, it doesn't seem to call in the middle of the night to inform you of your non-existant messages.
Oh, and I loved how they changed their menu a few months back. The number 7 used to delete messages. Now it's used to automatically dail the number back - for a charge of course!
Schröder has successfully blocked the publication of a novel in which a fictional German Chancellor, co-incidentally from Schröder's hometown of Hamburg, is murdered by an ex-chemist blaming the Chancellor for a bad economy.
Okay, I understand that there are safety concerns for the Chancellor - the character is basically him. However, I just have to wonder what would happen if the President of the United States found out that a German director had written a screen play that has a VP that looks and acts amazingly like Cheney and a President who's mostly silent but looks and acts a lot like President Bush. And in this screen play, said look alike President was killed because of a freak snowstorm supposedly caused by his administration's environmental policies. What if the President of the United States decided to try blocking this screen play from being made into a movie? Um, he'd be laughed out of court and you'd be hearing about suppression of first amendment rights, etc.
Okay, okay - in this instance, the POTUS is killed by (freakish) natural causes, not a malicious murderer with a political grudge. [Although you could argue the screen writer is a malicious director with a political grudge.] I suppose you could say the circumstances aren't the same, one is definitely more personal and malicious than the other. But, I think it bears thinking about.
Oh, and I could write a whole diatribe against said movie director who hates the US environmental policy so much he had to fly cross country every two days to check up on special effects work being done at seven different companies and loves to drive down the California coast to his office in his cute little VW Cabrio. Oh, and how he looks up to Ghandi and hopes his puny little film will have an effect on the election in the fall. But I won't.
Deutschland tied their first game against Holland. Which isn't too bad. They were winning 1:0 until the 85th min. Bwah.
I met my upstairs neighbor and her boyfriend tonight. She's American, he's German. And through them I've met another neighbor, the guy under me. Anna and I (she has the same first name) are probably going to hang out a lot this week. Which is cool - after living here for almost a year and a half, I've met nobody. In one night I've met three new people, with the possiblity to meet more in the coming parties. :) They've lived here six weeks, had four parties, know the owner of the cafe, half the people in the stairwell, plus all their friends from Frankfurt.
So, I've drunk a bit of wine, talked a lot, watched a German Fussball match, I smell like a chimney (French people have NOTHING on German smokers), and I'm tired from the return train trip from Paris. Sorry, no Paris blogging adventures tonight. [Bill and I had a GREAT time.] I will post a photo though. Another Ducky one. :)
News account from Spiegel Online in German and Deutsche Welle in English.
From Spiegel Online we learn that the bomb was filled with 10cm long, finger width nails. Ouch. 22 were injured, 4 severely - one might have to have his arm amputated. Of the 22, three were women, and one was pregnant.
However, the police no evidence of a motive "although they said they had no immediate evidence of a terrorist attack". What, a nail filled bomb isn't enough evidence? What constitutes a "terrorist" attack then? A note claiming responsibility? A website saying "Yoo hoo! I did it!"? Sigh. Or is it not "terrorism" until it's definitely perpetrated by a Muslim extremist group? And since they don't know who did it yet, they can't call it by it's proper name?
My boss just offered up two tickets to see Klaus Birk in Mainz this evening. His wife's brother won them on the radio. Now, I have never heard of this guy, but he seems to do a standup comedy act somewhat similar to George Carlin - from what I can tell from his website. Also, I've never been to Mainz since moving here, and I have nothing else to do tonight other than surf the internet or study for the GRE/GMAT. So....I'm off to Mainz this evening!
Update (11:47pm): I just got home. I forgot to figure in the fact that after 10pm, no fast trains go to Frankfurt from Mainz. However, the Sbahn that does, also goes right to my stop, so I didn't have to transfer trains. It did entail a butt-numbing hour ride though. Ug. On top of that, I seem to be suffering another allegry attack. [Note to self: call stupid allegry specialist names doctor gave you and make appt.]
Anyway, the comedian was good. Not George Carlin good, but funny. He talked about Stuttgart and Schwaebisch people alot, which I gather is where he's from, so he can make fun of it. Schwaebisch people (Schwaben is a region in southern Germany) are like the Scottish for Brits or Poles for Americans or Aggies for Texans - the nationality/ethnic group that gets dumped on for being stupid. Lots of jokes about declining birth rates in Germany, the trouble of relationships, and what to do with a child once you've actually had one. A couple of really laugh out loud funnies. :)
The audience was interesting in itself. For the first half, they didn't laugh much. At first I thought it was because they weren't really finding him funny, but after looking around and seeing smiles and nods, that wasn't the case. After the break though, they really loosened up and laughed a lot more. Either he got funnier or they got less self conscious. Probably a combo of the two.
The only really annoying part of the evening was when I arrived and picked up the tickets. See, because I work in Frankfurt and had to take a train to Mainz (which ran about five minutes late) and then walked from the train station to the club, I arrived five minutes before the show started. The guy behind the cash register chastized me for arriving so late - in fact, he'd just deleted the tickets because he thought nobody would be showing up for them. Next time, I should try to show up at least 15 min beforehand. Ja wohl! Then I tried to sit in the wrong show which I only discovered after trying to sit in a seat that was already occupied. And here I thought I was something - first row seats in what looked like a sold out 200+ seat show. Cool. Um, nope. My show is up the stairs. To the maybe half sold out 50+ seat show. Great - so I got grief about the tickets for NOTHING.
A nice night, but now it's time for bed. *Yawn*
Micheal Ballock is a member of FC Bayern Fussball Team. I first learned of this dreamy guy during the WM 2004 finals where he was a star player on the German team. Shortly afterwards, FC Bayern signed him up, taking him away from Bayer Leverkusen. FC Bayern is the Yankees of German Fussball. Since then it seems he hasn't played up to his promised star potential. At least that's what I gather from the little news blurbs I catch now and then.
Anyway, I just caught a news clip of the German Europaliga Teams game today (they lost 0-2), and wow, did his hair look Uugly. Like a bad frizzy perm. Yuck. Fix that 'do dude.
Not that anybody cares or anything. :P
Offenbach is celebrating 50 years as a "Grossstadt" - big city. I don't know if they re-zoned or incorporated 50 years ago, but the city has definitely been around longer than 50 years. At least 100. In any case, to celebrate this momentous event, they've been have a city festival for the last few days - bier tents, live music, food kiosks, information booths, etc. And today they allowed the shops to open from 1pm to 6pm!
I thought this was on top of normal store hours, but apparently not - most stores that now stay open until 7 or 8 pm on Saturdays were closed by 6pm (when I finally got back to Offenbach). The grocery store was still open though, so I managed to get my "weekly" shopping done. I say "weekly" because what I buy on a weekly basis end up being mostly snack food for Saturday and Sunday and breakfast for the rest of the week. Have I mentioned how much I like cooking? {sarcasm} Actually, I don't mind cooking, I just can't think of anything to cook for one person that I'll actually want to go through the effort of cooking.
Anyway, where was I? Oh, shopping on Sunday. So, since I couldn't pass up the opportunity to actually set foot in a store on a Sunday - without going on base with Bill - I went shopping. Would you believe I've never seen Offenbach so full? People out with their kids, Grandparents, teenagers, etc. Lots and lots of people. Maybe there was this many people at Christmas time in the fest area, but the people weren't just at the fest. Crowds of people everywhere! I bought some shampoo, soap, and scrubbies and then went shoe shopping. I was in the mist of trying on various sandles and had just found a nice pair of sporty comfy flip flops that I was deciding if I really liked them enough to pay 25Euro for them when at least three sales people came by and informed me that they were closing in five minutes, would I mind heading to the head of the store? Sigh. I'm not making a snap decision, so I put the shoes back on the shelf and walked out.
I have to say I find this very annoying that German sales people have determined that the closing time is their get off work time. This means that they are cleaning up behind you when you walk in the store ten minutes before closing and giving you impatient looks. Often when you come up to the door five minutes to closing time they will simply turn you away. Bill has told me of experiences in Ktown where sales people have walked up to Americans, taken the merchandise out of their hands, and said "We're closed" the minute closing time rolls around. Obviously, not every German store is like this. But it happens often enough to be very annoying.
Anyway, it was a lovely day, and hey! I got to shop on a Sunday! :)
First photo inside the stadium. One hour to game begin.
Back to my place. The teams are warming up. Far left in red and blue is FFC Frankfurt, right in black is Sweden. Thirty mins to game begin.
The second rate "pop star".
The teams lining up before starting the game. Obviously, they are facing the seated patrons.
Penalty shot. They're waiting for a player on the sidelines to be checked by the medical staff.
I made it into the game yesterday. Getting there was a little bit of an adventure (as always!). I'd looked up the stadium location at StadtPlanDienst, so I new the general area it was in. I figured if I went to this area, it would be OBVIOUS where the stadium was, so I didn't both remembering the stadium name or street address.
Since the UEFA website was saying that the Frankfurt Womens Soccer Club was expecting a sold out audience, I left my house at noon (for the 14:30 start) so I could be early for buying a leftover ticket. Good thing I gave myself two and half hours to get there, because it took me and hour to find the place! I got off at the correct stop for the bus, and then went across the street into a big park there. While there are spots there for pickup soccer games, um, no stadiums. Wait, there's something over there on the other side of the park, maybe that's the entrance. Walk over there....no....that's the Homeless Shelter buildings and a cafe that must cater exclusively to Homeless people. Hmm....what to do. I KNOW I'm very close in the area. I could ask one of the clients at the cafe, but I'd rather not do that. Ah hah! Call Stefan, my co-worker. :) He knows where EVERYTHING is. Yep, he knew, or rather his boyfriend did. They weren't quite sure where I was, but could give me directions from my starting point. I'd gone in completely the opposite direction. So I retraced my steps to my starting point and started over. Of course by this point there was a stream of cars all heading in the same direction, so that was a helpful confirmation that I was now headed in the correct direction.
Once at the stadium, a guy standing right in from on the gate offered to sell me his standing ticket (you had the option of a seat or a standing place) for three Euro less than the Stadium price. Okay. I got in for 5Euro instead of 8Euro.
They had wand security just past the gate so I had to empty my pockets (my two little hair clips in one pocket and my phone in the other set the wand off) and show the contents of my purse. Pretty easy. Then up the stairs to the standing places and done! Since I got there an hour early, I had my pick of spots. However after sitting there for five minutes I started wandering around and found where the food stands were. A bratwurst and cola later, I also found where the free sit-apon things were being given out, snagged one, and made my way back to my side of the stadium. Another thirty minutes later, the play began.
But first, this second rate "pop star", whose done back up for Mariah Carey, Micheal Jackson, and sung in many many theatre productions, and is a native of Frankfurt, will sing two themed (strong women) appriopriate pop songs! Woo hoo! :)
The play was pretty exciting. Frankfurt had a good offense (or Sweden had a bad offense), kept the play mostly on the half containing their goal, but they just couldn't complete a single play. Corner kicks either got head butted out by Sweden or just went way past the goal. Or one Frankfurt player would get caught up in play and wouldn't pass to another player outside that didn't have three opposing players on her. Or passes would be ineptly handled. One particular player, number 19, kept getting offsides called on her, and kept choking when trying to score a goal. The play ended with a score 0-5. Ouch. For some reason I haven't figured it out yet, Frankfurt had to win by four (9-5) in order to win the UEFA Women's Cup. The woman next to me explained it as a total of goals - since the first game against Sweden was 0-3, Frankfurt was down by three already. I tried asking if Frankfurt had scored at least one goal in the first game, would that game have been the only game and made this game moot? However, she didn't understand and just re-explained that Frankfurt had to win by four in order to win. Okay.
All in all an exciting adventerous day. I'm glad I went. Pictures from the game to follow.
This is too funny. Found via Dave Barry, natch.
(Side note, I was in the Sbahn a couple of days ago and started a conversation with an older woman and her son - they asked me directions - that were just travelling through Frankfurt on their way to Tel Aviv. This older (60-70) year old woman used "Natch" in our conversation. Blew me away.)
I'm busy writing up a specification at work (in German, but there's not much actual text, so I'm okay) and I knew the word I wanted to type, but Word underlined it as incorrectly spelled. I tried the grammer checker in Word, but apparently I really mis-spelled the word because it couldn't find it. My normal course of action is to go to LEO, type in the English word and from there I find the correct spelling. However, I thought, why do that? When I don't know the spelling in English I don't go to a translation engine to find it, I go to a dictionary or dictionary.com. So I went looking for a pure German dictionary online. Gibt's nichts! Doesn't exist! Wie kann das sein??!! How can that be??!!
Update: my co-worker just found this link: Wortschatz Deutsch that seems to be what I was looking for.
Ritter Sport - yummy and sweet/cute. [that ue in Suess is the u umlaut, not Dr. Suess. I can't figure out how to get my English keyboard at home to do those characters.]
Speaking of ducks (I know, it's a picture, still), I saw the most adorable ducklings this morning. I took a 40 min walk by the river before work this morning and on the way back I saw two duck families. One family (six or seven ducklings )was sleeping/sunning itself on the banks and the other one was in the water. Dad duck was watching from the side, but Momma duck was in the water with her 14 (!) ducklings. Wow. Such a big family. And soo cute! :)
And speaking of walking, why is it that laufen means both "to run" and "to walk" in German? I told a colleague "Ich habe heute morgen am Main Ufer fuer 40 Minuten gelaufen" ("I walked for 40 Min. on the Main riverbank this morning") and he asked "Joggen?". Um, no. This girl does not jog. Maybe if she's been working out for awhile and is feeling adventurous on the treadmill - then it's just a really, really fast walk/slow jog. Otherwise....no. These boobs don't flop like that.... Um, so where were we? Yeah, laufen. It's not the first time I've run into this dual meaning. How are you supposed to specify just walking? It seems that laufen in any exercise sense means jogging.
On my way to the Schirn Kunsthalle this evening (see entry below), I saw an ad for a Womens Soccer tournament game in Frankfurt on Saturday. FFC Frankfurt (Frauen Fussball Club Frankfurt) is playing a Swedish team. It's either the final game in the UEFA Women's Cup or one of the final games, I can't quite tell.
In any case, I thought it would be interesting to go and see it, so I looked up their website. Ug, that site is ugly and HARD to navigate. The closest information I could find about this Saturday's game is on this page and it's just a footnote at the end of the article (upcoming games). Apparently they only post about games after they happen.
Hmm, a further Google search for "UEFA Women's Cup" leads to the Official Website (here), and yields some more comprehensible information. Like apparently this is game two of the final, And when the Cup was started two years ago, FFC Frankfurt won the cup and the number two team was the same Swedish team they are playing this Saturday. So....it should be interesting. :) I'm going to try going if the weather isn't horrible.
I went to the Schirn Kunsthalle this evening. They have an exhibit there titled Art - A Child's Play. It's full of toys designed and made by various famous artists - Picasso, Warhol, various members of Bauhaus. In Warhol's case, it was an art exhibit he designed for children. It looked interesting. It turned out to be great fun!
First, coming up out of the Ubahn next to it was interesting. There is this huge two story escalator/staircase you have to go up to get to street level. In the past the wall of this staircase has just been a huge ugly blank spot. Well, the Schirn Kunsthalle has transformed it with quirky sayings painted in their typeface. As you go up the stairs, you are greeting with "Climbing Stairs is not Art", "Buying a Ticket is not Art", "Sweating is not Art", "Going to Schirn Kunsthalle is not Art". Funny and something to keep you interested in as you climb the stairs when the escalator is broken. :)
Inside the exhibit, they've arranged everything to be a bit like a big playroom with everything displayed on, in, or under big gray squishy building blocks. They've really tried to make it fun for kids to visit - things are about their height, a couple of the exhibits are under the floor so they can down at them. And many of the toys exhibited are also available in a couple of recessed play areas. I had fun playing with a spinning color wheel top and a stacked block set.
There were two really interesting pieces in the exhibit. The first was this interactive art installation. The lobby of the Schirn is a hole and the upper stories of the museum look down into it. In the childrens toy exhibit, they took part of this space (about 60 ft long, 5 ft wide) and filled it with colorful bungee cords, spaced about three inches apart. That was fun trying to get through! One of the curators had to keep telling people they could walk through. I giggled a lot trying to get through there. :)
The second really interesting piece was a movie. One of the artists who started in the 1920s liked to make wire frame animals and he used to put on a whole circus show for friends, family and grandkids. He had this elaborate act full of music and tricks. There was a lion tamer, a monkey that jumped on a galloping horse and a very elborate high wire act. It was amazing the detail and work he put into this little hobby. And all with a liberal dash of humor behind it.
If you're going to be in Frankfurt anytime from now until the middle of July and are a kid at heart, I highly recommend going to this exhibit.
Today is PfingstonPfingsten Montag (Pentecostal Monday) or better known in these parts as "ring the freaking loud church bells every thirty minutes and send your children out to terrorize the neighbors drive the demons out by making an ungodly racket". I was sleeping just lovely until an hour and a half ago.
On the plus side, today is both a German AND American holiday, so Bill and I get to share our three day weekend. The day is lovely and we're planning on going out exploring.
Update: Thanks to Karl's help in the comments, I corrected the spelling of Pfingsten. :)
The building next door is being completely rebuilt, minus the front facade. Today they have decided to do .. SOMETHING .. on the side that adjoins our building and right on our level. Jackhammers galore and they sound like they are going to come through the wall.
I promise never to complain about the stupid drummer on the other side again.
Update 1 (15:10): Well, they DID come through the wall. A brick came through anyway. I took pictures. I'll post them when I get home. Ah, at least it's quiet now.
Update 2 (15:33): Noooo.....they just started up again. :(
Update 3:
Here's the photos of the wall breakthrough. It was really funny how I found out that it'd been broke through. The colleague who sits facing this wall all of a sudden yelled out "Mahlzeit!". That's not so odd - it was lunch time and that's what you say at lunch time. It's like a very informal "Enjoy your meal." It's also sometimes used as a greeting. And the fact that he was yelling it wasn't so odd either - we had to yell to hear each other two feet away. So, I yelled back "Mahlzeit!". :) Then he yelled it again and said "Noch ein stuck bitte! Ja, dankeschoen! Mahlzeit!" ("Another piece please! Thank you! Mahlzeit!") Okay, that was weird. So I went to go see what was going on, and this is what I saw. In the third picture you can almost make out the head of a construction worker looking back at me. :)
Today is Christi Himmelfahrt - Christs Ascension or "Christ drives to Heaven", and therefore a National Holiday here in Germany. Woohoo! No work today. At at least I wasn't supposed too.
After a leasurely wake up and a couple hours reading, I met Bill at his work for lunch. Spent a couple hours just eating lunch and chatting with him. It's nice to see him in the middle of the week and spend time together. Then I made my way back home. I was just finishing up my book and getting ready to put some laundry in and go out for a walk when the phone rang. Work calling.
A database the we depend on crapped out early yesterday morning. A hardware failure. Our poor sysadmin was at work until 1am or so working on the problem - the tech support people still hadn't shown up by 6pm yesterday when I left. Anyway, this morning the machine came back on, and Stefan worked on getting all of our processes back on line. It took awhile, and then of course, it wasn't running so good. An error that kept coming up in our online processing. So he called me and for the last two and a half hours we've been on the phone and trouble shooting. We found the error. So weird though because it's something that should have been causing an error before now, but hasn't ever caused a problem. Until now. That part of the source code wasn't changed recently. No clue. But we fixed it, tested it, and viola! it works. Sigh.
I'm going for a walk in the sunshine. It's a lovely day here. :)
For the last two days, my new neighbor upstairs has started vacuuming at 7:30am. Ug. WHY?? And it's not a quick hoovering before heading out the door for work. 45 min. later it's STILL going on.
That or they're sanding the floor. But I would think that would make much more noise, even through thick German concrete walls.
I think the person is American. Or has an American boyfriend. We saw an American guy and his car (military US plates) helping a girl move in.
Don't they know you're not supposed to make ANY noise before 8 or 9 am? If it happens a couple more times, I'm going upstairs and doing a very German thing. Leaving a note.
Update: It wasn't vacuuming and it wasn't from upstairs. It was workers clearing out the store on the ground floor and finishing the walls and floors back to their plain white concreteness. Wow, the vibrations managed to go through the concrete walls up five floors and sound like they were originating from above. And since it was German workers and it's started exactly at 7:30 each morning, I guess that's when you're allowed to start making noise around my apartment.
Anybody want some Kinder Egg Toys? I love the little toys, especially the ones you put together. However, after a week or so, I just don't know what to do with them. So, I took a photo of the ones I've collected over the last two years (admittedly, I haven't eaten that many - I send or give away WAY more that I personally eat), minus the ones I actually do want to keep. Anybody want them? All or seperately, it doesn't matter. Leave a comment and we can work out arrangements for getting them to you. Click on the photo below for a larger version.
I don't know about YOU, but this sounds like a funny name for a Bistro - literally translated it's "Bistro You You", but well...try reading it with an American accent. ;) Yes, this is the token juvenile post for the day. :)
Apparently the writer of the Sassor Worm was an 18 year old German HS student.
A yearly survey determined that Frankfurt was the German Crime Capital in 2003. In fact, that's a dubious title that Frankfurt has had for every year since 1976 excepting the last three years (Berlin took over the title). Overall though, crime is down - only 110,000+ reported crimes last year versus 140,000+ crimes in 1987. And hey! Overall in Germany, murders are down. Cool!
Seriously though, I feel 95% safe living here. The only times I get a little dubious is when walking through the Hauptbahnhof area during the less populated times of the day. And then I'm uneasy because of the number of vagarants around, or the openly plying her wares prostitute (gee - she was wearing a bra and panties covered by a very open lacy dress - what do you think she was doing?), or the occasional strung out - spinning like a top - walking like a monkey drug addict. But that's not everyday.
This time, in GERMAN prisons. Gasp! Found here. Actual article (in German) here.
Not to compare the incidents, but it's just to say that Americans aren't the only civilized nation with a few bad people in positions of power that abuse it.
Ich habe heute gegen Mittags das Offenbach hatte ein Erdbeben gestern gehabt. Das finde ich erstaundlich! Ich hatte es gar nichts bemerkt, aber das sagte nicht weil ich seltem daheim bist. Ich habe gesucht fuer ein Nachrichten ueber das und habe diese Nachrichten im Hamburger Abendblatt. Es sieht als ich wurde das sowieso nicht merken weil 1) ich war um schlafen und 2) es war nur ein kleines Erdbeben - 2,4.
At lunchtime today, I found out that Offenbach had an Earthquake yesterday. I'm very surprised by that! I didn't notice it, but that doesn't mean anything since I'm not home all that often. I looked for a news article about it and found this article in the Hamburger Abendblatt. It looks like I wouldn't notice it anyway because 1) I was sleeping and 2) it was only a small Earthquake - 2,4.
I'm seriously considering getting a subscription to a weekly news magazine in German. I really need to 1) read more news sheets and 2) read more in German. This would solve the problem on both hands. And since I have a 30 min (total) Sbahn ride everyday, this is the perfect amount of bite-size reading time for reading a news magazine. My problem? Which German news magazine. In principle, there are two: Der Spiegel, a very anti-American news weekly (the current cover shows the current hooded Iraqi torture victim with the title "US Soldiers in Iraq: The Torturers of Iraq", nice and very objective don't you think?) or Focus, which either isn't anti-American or at least not very openly, but seems kind of bland. But I've only read an issue or two of each. Honestly, der Spiegel's anti-American stance turns me off. But it's very highly regarded as a news source here - kind of like the New York Times of German news magazines.
Any German readers out there with recommendations?
Update: According to german.about.com, Der Speigel was the ONLY weekly magazine until 1993 when FOCUS started up as competition. And FOCUS is kind of considered McJournalism. It does mention Der Zeit is a weekly too, as Scott points out below. I'll have to do some comparison shopping in the newstand this week.
According to this Reuters article, a German woman's neighbor sued her for laughing too loud. The case was thrown out.
I got off the Sbahn on stop early today so I could walk a little outside in the nice weather (my allegries are FINALLY calming down). One stop before this, the Sbahn cops got on and started checking tickets. I know my ticket's good until the 30th. Cool. Get out the wallet, flip it open, start walking to the door. Right before we stop, I show the guy my ticket. Except the date he reads is WRONG. It's a Weekly ticket from a month ago! Arghh! I forgot - I took the monthly ticket out on the Night of the Museums and put it in my pocket so I wouldn't have to take my purse. It's still in that pocket. I sweet talked the guy into letting me get off there anyway, and he just waved his hand. I think he didn't completely understand my half German babbling and didn't want to bother with a fine since I OBVIOUSLY thought I had my correct ticket.
Whew.
Night of the Museums. Last night all the Museums and a few Galleries opened their doors from 1900-0300 to the city. For an 11Euro ticket, you had entrance into every Museum open and access to a free shuttle bus.
I started out here in Offenbach with three Museums right by me - the new City History Museum, Klingspor Museum (a museum dedicated to books and font/typeface design), and the Leder (Leather) Museum. The first showed little models of how the city looked in the 1800's - very interesting. The abandoned/graffiti'd bath house behind me used to be directly on the river - it's now about a kilometer away. Also old letters, Offenbach currency, oil paintings, and pre-historic artifacts found in the area.
The Klingspor Museum had an exhibit of work done by the NYC design firm Pentagram. Very nice, co-hesive designs. Not much else to be said here.
The Leder Museum was interesting. Half the museum is a shoe museum. Everything from peasant sandals to high-brow high heels and boots, all from the last two hundred years or so. Plus much art work done in leather. I got tired of it after awhile and moved on.
While waiting for the next shuttle bus, I learned that there was an exhibit at Museum fuer Angewandte Kunst about the Kinder Ueberraschung Ei (Kinder Surprise Eggs). Apparently the Egg turns 30 this year! The exibit was full of little yellow eggs and collections of the various series, a few toy conceptional drawings, models for the toys, and assembly line pieces. It was neat to see everybody looking at the toys and saying "Oh, I have that one" or "They used to make more of these kind when I was a kid".
After the Egg exhibit, I wandered down to the next museum on my list. To get to it though, I had to pass by the Museum fuer Kommunikation. The Deutsche Post is either a big sponsor of or the founder of this museum. They had people outside handing out postcards, stamps, pens, and key chain necklaces. They also had a booth set up to accept the postcards for mailing. So I used my postcard and stamp to mail a quick note to my parents.
On to the Staedel Museum. This is the museum Bill and I went to for the Art after Work event. They had their usual paintings (a few Degas's, Renior's, Monet's, etc), a photography exhibit, and a special painting exhibit. I looked around a bit and then decided that was the end of my night. So I waited around for my bus (it took forever to arrive, and was packed) and got home around 2am.
All around a good evening.
"You? 27 years ago you said you didn't have any small change on you. But you would go get some change and come back. But you didn't. You can't shit here!"
I love this cartoon. :)
My brother Norm sent me this link about why Kinder Eggs are illegal in the US.
I did not know that they are illegal in the States, just that you cannot find them anywhere to buy. To quote the article:
I guess the Birthday and Christmas presents will continue to contain Kinder Eggs for the foreseeable future. Just means everybody will continue to be glad to see me. :D
It seems the new deposit the German government implemented on non-recyclable bottles last autumn may be determined to be illegal. Or at least the way it is implemented. See this story.
It's sure a pain in the patootie. You can only get the deposit back by returning the bottle to the store you buy it at (as opposed to any store that sells the same product). Consequently, sales of those products have gone down.
I found this news article on Yahoo! Bizarre News a couple of days ago. Can you just say "D'oh!" Um, HELLO. :)
Today (sorry, it's already yesterday) is Gruen Donnerstag (green Thursday). Other than the fact that Germans seem to eat green things on this day (for example, green sauce and eggs, a Frankfurt specialty), nobody could tell me WHY it has this name. So I went searching on Google and found this, a theological site auf Deutsch.
It says that first of all today is a day of Remembrance in the Church because it's the day of the Last Supper, the washing of the feet, and Jesus's night of fearful watching. However, where the Green part comes from is a bit of a controversy. It either comes from a bastardization of the old German word "grunen" which means to cry or whine (for Jesus's plight), or it's because of all the new green growth in Springtime . And green signifies hope and new life.
So there you go.
Happy Easter! I have a four day weekend. :)
In Eastern France/Germany last Monday! You know, come to think of it, sometime early last week Stefan asked me if I felt any tremors. We noticed the blinds slightly swaying and the lamps shaking. And if I concentrated, I could feel little tremors.
I put it down to the construction going on next door. Literally. The building next door has apparently been empty for a while and they are gutting it. There are no interior floors or walls left in the building and all we hear most days are jack hammers ripping the walls down. This has caused a couple of cracks in our walls and an engineer came by on Thursday to inspect the damage. Nothing serious, just little cracks in the plaster.
Guess I'll have something to talk about tomorrow at work!
Found via Anne
It is snowing today. It snowed yesterday. It's not sticking, but it's continually snowing. Actually, yesterday evening it WAS sticking. We had almost an inch by the time I got home. Nearly all melted by morning though. I don't think Frankfurt has seen this much snow in a long time.
I went bowling this evening with Sandra and Stefan. We had fun! The lanes were a bit odd - the approach is fore-shortened, there are tables directly behind the lanes where it's perfectly okay to drink and eat, and the pins kept falling down - but we had fun. I bowled a 155, 133 and 108. Stefan, on the other hand got progressively better: 75, 99, and 102. Sandra averaged a very firm 59: 55, 66, 56 (or numbers very close to this). I'm going to see if we can get together about once a month to play. :)
This bowling alley also has house leagues and I might join one. They play every Monday or Tuesday and play four games each night. I'm used to three games, but I'll get used to four. I have to come by the next Monday they play and see if they'll accept me (they seem to be highly resistent to single players, they want whole teams - we'll see).
