bumming around

Goofy is visiting me.  This is awesome mostly because when I am awake at 7am and want someone to play and drink copious amounts of coffee with me, I have TWO victims upon whom I can train my stare of death.  Of course, it’s troublesome to run back and forth between two rooms, waiting for someone to feel the stare, but completely worth the extra effort.

Also, tomorrow we take advantage of DB’s Italian special and head to Florence for the week.  Because while spending the day in our pjs reliving Britney’s career highlights and despairing over the fall of a pop idol is entertaining, even more so if we were concurrently eating gelato and buying handmade stationary.

no stupid questions?

One of the great chores of being an expat is the expectation to rise to the defense of your country when someone else starts knocking on how Americans don’t travel outside their country or Iraq or Starbucks.  And while I don’t normally sport the ‘I heart USA’ shirt in public, I have to admit that I don’t really mind gathering previously-idle miscellaneous facts to form some arguement why said criticisms are not only untrue, but we are in fact the best country in the world. 

Suggested speaking points: League of Nations (later the UN, disregard the Senate’s refusal to ratify as hypothetical conversation partner likely knows nothing of the sort), top ranked higher education institutions, the entertainment industry, chocolate chip cookies, and the blue states.  Also, sarcasm.

Points to avoid: war (or, as some may spin it, encouraging everyone else to put their best foot forward), junk food (but hey, clearly, we’re not the only ones who like it!), and monolingualism (c’mon, at least we aren’t single-minded enough to declare one, solitary, national language like some other countries I know).

Oh, the point being that I thought I was used to people remarking about the heimat, but last weekend, someone at a party asked me if it was true that Americans didn’t use real dishes and ate everything off paper plates with plastic utensils.  As a great American once said:

If knowledge is power and power is knowledge, then how so many idiots be graduating from college?

- Coolio

lines of defense

I think the repetitive and adamant statements that Munich is one of the safest cities in the world are finally sinking in.  Helped by a liberal dose of policemen whose only job appears to be ticketing the odd cyclist who veers out of the bike lane or rides the wrong direction.  In just a few months, I have noted the following drastic changes:

- Walking alone at night no longer requires a death grip on my rape whistle in one hand and my cell phone scrolled to the ‘emergency dispatcher’ number.  Nor does running in the early morning along a tree-shaded river involve numerous encounters with a questionable and vocal homeless population.

- I have encountered nodisruptions on public transportation!  None!  No crazy strung-out drunk and looming people.  Not even quiet-yet-creepy drunk people.  For that matter, not even strung-out and obnoxious, yet ultimately a mere nuisance, teenagers!  It’s incredible!  Do these people all have their own cars or do they just not ride the U-Bahn?

- The postman/flower delivery man regularly stops by the apartment asking if he can leave something for someone else in the building not at home.  The first time it happened, I thought I just didn’t understand him.  But it turns out that these nice trusting men are perfectly content to sign over flowers, mystery packages, and something that looked temptingly like a large, flat-screen TV, over to my greedy little hands.

- Along that vein, clearly I have changed because today the garbage man came to my door asking if I had a key to open the trash room, as it had not been left open.  And rather than not answering the door for strange men, feigning ignorance, or even going outside with him, I actually handed over the key to my home and trusted him to return with it.  And he did!  It’s madness, I tell you.

Speaking of safety, my greatest fear is that a fire will start, the German will have a seizure, or some other emergency, and I will not know what number to dial.  Because, while I accept that there is a different emergency number, there’s also the added twist of three numbers: fire, hospital, and police.  I know one of them is 112, but unfortunately have no idea what that is.  Note to self: sign to be posted by phone ASAP.  Or at least before any future BBQs or candlelight dinners.

verboten!

Yesterday, while picking up Herr Vater from the Hauptbahnhof, I was beyond thrilled to notice that the H&M banners adorning the ceiling had been replaced by giant no-smoking signs in accordance with new German laws.  Pat on the back, Angie & Co.  Well done.  Get yourself a treat.  Maybe a €14.90 dress from H&M, now that you’ve caused them to scale back the advertising.

In two months, I have only had my U-Bahn ticket checked once.  The fine for “Schwarzfahren”//”black-riding”is a mere €40, far less than what I’ve spent on tickets in this time. And of course, it was my dad making the argument for playing the odds and black-riding away.

Aside from suggestions for how best to break the law, it’s also nice to have my dad around because he is able to back my claim that frequent commercial breaks in American football are a good thing, thus enabling us to squash the German’s hopes of selling us on the merits of “soccer”.  In addition to allowing for food, drink, restroom breaks and phone calls to recap the latest great plays, it was also pointed out that commercial breaks offer prime gambling opportunities on subsequent plays.

Dear German weather control:

Okay, I admit it.  I may have whined a little bit when it was overly warm and humid a few weeks back.  I had been walking all day!  In direct sunlight!  But I understand now that my complaints were insensitive and impolite.  I apologize.  Now, can you please stop raining every day with temperatures so low that newscasters are reporting snow and advising us not to go outside if we don’t have to?  I understand and respect your absolute authority, however, I ask you to take into account my large skirt collection, single puffy jacket, and lack of new boots.  Thank you in advance for your consideration of this request.

Best regards,

Your local Californian in Munich

in memorium

Every now and then, we must come together and mourn the loss of a truly great person, someone who has made an immeasurable contribution to society.  A person whose life is worthy of fame beyond being question 4, round 3 of 560 Club’s Sunday Trivia Smackdown or a blurb in the back of the Bay Area section.

And that time has come with the passing of Alfred Peet .  If you don’t know who that is, stop reading immediately.  You are not welcome here.  Unless you have never been to California, in which case you are exempt.  Although, if you have never visited California, shame on you too.

Alfred Peet was a Dutch immigrant who saw an opportunity and community for appreciation of quality coffee.  He opened his shop in Berkeley in 1966, and coffee in America hasn’t been the same since.  In the world, for that matter.  You might think I’m just up on my American-hegemony soapbox, but a)I don’t have one and b) the first Starbucks was founded by two former Peets employees, served Peets coffee for many years before developing their own, vastly inferior product, and avoided opening stores in the Bay Area for ten years out of respect to their superiors.  Starbucks owes virtually all of their success to Peets (hey, I didn’t say all of his contributions to the world of coffee were good).  The rest of their success can be credited to McDonald’s, for paving the way, Howard Schultz’ treaty with the devil of 1984, and the inherent human desire to go with the lemmings crowd.

Of course, Peet’s now has a chain of stores stretching along the state, and can be found in airports and college campuses, much like its wicked stepsister.  In fact, I suspect that soon the only difference between Peets and Starbucks will be the proportion of Berkeley-educated limousine-liberals amongst their customers.  Even the Republicans are doing it (now that it’s a publicly traded company on the NASDAQ).  If residents of Texas and Ohio can be Peetniks too, the sad fact is that it’s no longer the secret place to go for coffee after grabbing a slice at Cheeseboard or a special event worth a hiking trip to the Ferry Building.  But even as Peets slides down the slippery slope to mass production and cookie-cutter outlets spaced one block apart, the store and the man still hold a special place in the hearts of Bay Area residents. Or actually, the central nervous systems.

rocky top treats

We went to a new supermarket over the weekend and it was basically the best discovery of my life (yes, it’s sad, i know).  Not only did they have every spice imaginable (and bags of peppercorns weighing up to 5 kilos), they also had gargantuan candy aisles (yes, plural), a huge aisle of Asian food that included Thai chili sauce and spring roll wrappers, and, second most importantly, you were not required to weigh your produce (German supermarkets have this crazy system where you weigh all your produce and put your own little price sticker on it, which would be great except there’s usually only one or two machinese for the entire produce section.  And also, like I really noticed which of the 15 apple varieties I took).

But MOST importantly, was the international food aisles (again, with the plurality!), that included an American food section!  Granted, the majority of items were things like Bubble Yum and Cheetos and Hershey bars that I didn’t even buy in America.  But they had baking soda (arm and hammer, even), marshmellows, and refried beans!  I know there’s nothing like true refried beans that have been sitting on the stove for a full 24-hours, and also am well-aware that they can’t hold a candle to black beans in all their fiberlicious glory, but for kids who grew up in California, refried beans are right up there with mac-and-cheese on the list of comfort foods.  Mmmm…i love me some refried beans.

I attended a birthday party this weekend at the home of a lovely couple with a two-year-old son.  I may have been tested last weekend by that 4-year-old and her kindergartener graps of architectural vocabulary (see: wall), but I definitely had one over the 2-year-old.  I even held conversations with Oma and other party-goers not in diapers.  The new ways in which to measure a successful night out.