life on the farm

As an epilogue to the strawberry festivities, I went to pick my own blueberries this weekend as well.  Let me tell you, those suckers look small, but they really fill up your buckets .  But after I filled my bucket, I just kept picking and depositing them in my mouth instead.  Which was fine, until my tongue turned bright blue and the German said, “okay, when we pay, let me do the talking.”  That would have been fine too, except I had forgotten on the way back I was supposed to visit the hotel where we’re holding a conference this week so I had to talk to the hotel organizers while keeping my mouth as closed as possible.
Also, I want a blueberry plant.  After an hour of close study on Sunday, I’ve decided it is possibly the best berry to grow on your own.  Not only is it full of the requisite antioxidants and fiber, it freezes beautifully for later consumption.  And the plant itself is very friendly and sturdy.  No messing with bushes and wires or worrying about thorns.  No squatting on your knees and digging in the dirt.  In fact, the motto of this farm is: pfluecken ohne buecken (picking without bending).  And a tree holds a LOT of fruit.  Unlike strawberries, where we had to fight off the small children and troll for rows and rows to fill our little buckets, with blueberries you can stand in front of one tree for ages.

So far this week we’ve had smoothies, yogurt and blueberries, and blueberry pancakes (that’s breakfast AND dinner, thank you).  Once we polish off the rest of the NY Times ‘Best Chocolate Chip Cookies Ever’, blueberry muffins, tarts, and coffee cakes may be making a cameo as well.  But now that the pancakes and parfaits are wearing a little thin, I need your help!  What can I do with the remaining 3 kilos/6.5 pounds of fruit?  The Iron Chef kitchen also includes a stash of lemons, one banana, two kilos of frozen strawberries, and a fully stocked pantry of baking supplies.

a day of mourning

Women of San Francisco, a moment of silence as dreams of spending our lives as Mrs. Gavin Newsom are shattered.  For the second time.  Although, the first one only lasted three years, so there’s hope for us yet.

Place your votes here:

Kimberly or Jennifer?

Make whatever Skelator jokes you will, but I would marry her for that outfit alone.

As The Gav plots his upgrade to The Guv, it’s funny how all around California people are saying the idol of San Francisco liberals could never win over those Orange County Republicans.  When in fact, many San Franciscans consider him to be one same-sex wedding away from being a Republican.  Or at least, you know, Rudy Giuliani.  Talk about knowing your audience.  But you’ve got to admire a guy who gets divorced, has an affair with a married woman, admits alcoholism, dates 22-year-old hostesses, marries again, and still maintains 70% approval ratings.

Gavin Newsom…not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but he sure is the shiniest.

Ich bin der Messiah

Obama made his long-awaited appearance in Berlin this Thursday.  We subscribe to one of the most popular Sunday papers and a news magazine, both of which featured photos of Obama (Deutschland Sucht den Superstar).  According to one article, if an election was held in Germany, Obama would beat out McCain with 76% of the vote.  That’s more than he gets in Illinois.  Granted, these polls are completely useless, but it did lead to a long conversation with my colleagues about why Germans love him so.  As the German never saw black person until he was 18, I like to say it’s because he’s the first any of them have seen.  But since my colleague is from Berlin, novelty fails to explain the phenomena.

The common consensus was that it’s not so much that they love him, but that they feel Americans deserve better than Bush and they’re happy for us because we have found someone who is not perfect, but better.  Kind of like when you end an abusive relationship.

Anyways, given said Obamamania, of course his speech was televised on no less than five German news stations.  I was straining to hear the English under the German dubbing and alternately thinking “this is so irritating” and “I can’t believe these guys are just translating non-stop without a script!”  I was unable to catch much beyond “Ich bin der Messiah…we are the ones chosen to tear down walls” but halfway through the German came home and said, “Why are you watching this in German?  Isn’t it on CNN?”  Not my finest hour.

The level of interest in the American election here is amazing.  And as much as Team Obama would like to take credit for this, it’s really true for all elections.  I wish every American could travel abroad during an election year to see how people in other countries are at least as informed as the average American and have a vested interest in the outcome.  Maybe that would provide more incentive than an ‘I Voted’ sticker.

sachsen, sachsen, wo die schoenen maedchen auf den baeumen wachsen¹

Spent last weekend in Dresden with the fabulous C. Charuhas, and am just now getting around to blogging about it.  I made a library trip to stock up on English books, and the very next day, by boss returned from her American adventure with another stack of books for me to read.  For anyone who knows me, this combined with rainy weather and a extra-dark chocolate layer cake, is heaven.  Unfortunately, the week isn’t even over but the chocolate is gone and I only have four books left.

But, Dresden!  Although I was receiving an illegally imported camera and memory card, bringing a converter escaped me.  So sadly, no pix of a truly beautiful city.  No wonder the panorama was deemed a UNESCO world heritage site.  It reminded me a little bit of Vienna, in that it’s full of all these huge grand buildings.  Except that it’s a teeny city of around 500,000.  So basically you have all these huge buildings that could nearly fit the entire city’s population.  The best by far was the newly rebuilt Frauenkirche (completed just 3 years ago).  Although I’m skeptical of the claim that all the old bricks were put back in the same location (the German:  “German engineering!  German engineering!”), it is still quite impressive.  All the fancy paintings and gold and balcony seating…I thought only Catholics had that kind of bling, but apparently not.

After wandering around the Altstadt (highlight: seeing the Semper opera house featured in Radeberger beer commercials.  ProSieben – we love to entertain you!), we headed over the the Neustadt, which felt like a trip back to Berkeley, complete with ethnic food, teenage punks, graffiti and pot.  Oh, Berkeley.

So, a lovely city I would highly recommend visiting.  Take a camera – and a fully charged battery.

¹”Saxony, Saxony, where beautiful women grow on trees”.  Another reason to visit.

einbuergerungs

The German government has instituted a new citizenship test.  You are randomly given 33 questions out of 300 and must answer at least 17 correctly.  Out of curiosity, I wandered over to Der Spiegel online to check this out.

I scored at 29 out of 33.  I rock.  And clearly, some people applying for citizenship are complete tards, if you only need 17 to pass.  And they say Harvard has too many curves.  Memo to German politicians railing against the unfairness and difficulty of this exam: stop. now. please.  Your perceived IQ is falling by the minute.  Okay, there are one or two difficult questions about legal process, but the majority of questions are more like, “How many states are there?”  Speaking of which, who saw interviews of Germans on the street providing gems such as “Population of Germany?  Uh….50,000?  3 million?”

Also in the news, general outrage and concern over the rising number of uninsured.  Yes, there are still people in Germany without health insurance, and apparently that number is rising by the minute.  Glowing reviews from the US tend to lead other expats to decry high costs of health care in Germany and point out that despite mandates, there are still uninsured.

To which I say, yes, we do have to pay something.  All of this comprehensive coverage and hospitalization and paying of salaries during three years of maternity leave is not free.  And yes, that is so hard and so sad.  But since I pay less than 150 euros a month (pre-tax), I’ve managed to get over it.  And as for the rising number of uninsured in Germany, this is bad, true.  But 300,000/82 million = .004% German population uninsured while 45m/300m = 15% uninsured.  Not to mention, in the US, there are people who are insured but woefully under-insured.  Whereas I already have the cheap-ass basic public insurance and I can go off and get mono and cancer and and cross the street without looking for buses all I want (not that anyone in Germany does this).

The German health insurance system is not without problems, and Germans love to talk about the Nordic countries and how they have true universal health care.  But to expats who think America is so much better – get pregnant, contract cancer, lose your job, and then come back and tell me how much better it is.

setting limits

As many of you know, I am finally making a pilgrimage to the promised land this fall (that would be California, not Banana Republic).  The German, in classic fashion, has bought a California travel guide to prepare.  This despite the fact that I already have far more than three weeks worth of activities planned.  Most of which involve seeing friends and family, eating, and shopping.  None of which involve visiting such fascinating sites as Vallejo, Joshua Tree National Park, and Bakersfield.  If Vallejo wasn’t bankrupt, I would think these people are paying Baedeker for positive press.

Anyways, after four days of “Can we go to Salinas?  Can we go to Mount Lassen?  Can we go to Glendale?” I have fallen back to repeating my mantra of “Remember, we can go anywhere, but we can’t go everywhere.”  Yes, I am the least fun person in the world.  But seriously, people!  More looking at maps before asking these kinds of questions!  My only concession so far has been Yorba Linda, granted due to it’s location in Orange County and possession of the Richard Nixon presidential library.  I can never resist a presidential library.

Making a trip to Dresden this weekend to meet up with the most fabulous C. Charuhas.  If anyone has sightseeing, eating (vegetarian), and shopping suggestions, pass them on!  All I know so far is from the “Travel” chapter in my German 2 book.

eww!

One of the great joys of MTV is that while their “shows” may be tacky, mindless, and less substantial than bubble bath, it is the only source of English language TV aside from CNN.  And a lazy Sunday accompanied with mountains of brownies, espressos, and homemade ice cream just cries out for insipid frivolousness.  So one can only imagine my dismay upon discovering that The Hills, which I have been unable to catch since my days of unemployed sloth, is now DUBBED!  Apparently, it has gotten popular enough so that English-with-German-subtitles just doesn’t cut it.  LC, how could you do this to me?

I hereby begin my petition to end the farce of shallow blond teenagers in LA speaking perfect German.  Not only is it against my self-interest, it’s also bad educational policy.  Did the German education minister not read my post about the amazing fluency of Slovenians?  Do you think they accomplished mastery of English, German, and Italian by dubbing their TV shows?  No, my friends, they did not.  Think of the children.

Grassroots political action aside, the weekend was fairly uneventful.  But next up: Dresden adventures, Metzingen outlet bonanzas, and the return of the company picnic!  Do they do sno-cones in Germany?

warm fuzzies

When I’m whining about the dreary dark days of Germany and wondering if it will rain before I leave the office (IN JULY), there’s nothing like having a roasted chicken, stuffed with fresh herbs and scattered with veggies, or a big bowl of mac and cheese right out of the oven. Comfort food, right? Except, I sure didn’t eat any of this stuff growing up. The only mac and cheese I ever had was blue on the outside and neon-orange on the inside. And I think the first roast chicken we ever had at home was when I was already in my twenties, after my sister went to college and came home armed with new “American” cooking skills. So what is my real comfort food?

Fried rice, the “junk food” of chinese cooking?

Dumplings? Maybe if I didn’t have to make the freakin wrappers from scratch due to a severe lack of a Ranch 99 outpost.

No, it’s soup. Soup, soup, soup. One of my cousin’s recently got married to a Cantonese guy and was asking me and my mom for tips on getting along with her new in-laws. Yum tong. Cantonese mama’s boys should carry around flash cards with that phrase to pass over with the ring during proposals. She waltzed off, thinking those were the easiest instructions in the world, only to come back later and say, that stuff isn’t soup. And anyone who has had grandma’s special concoctions of bones, lotus root, dates, various funghi and more knows what she means. Non-ABCs, please skip to next chapter.

So it’s not so much a recreation of grandma’s soup that warms my belly in as much as tortilla soup that I first made with Smelly when I visited her in Boston. And it was about six bazillion years and most of America from when I first sat next to her in 7th grade reading class, but so many things were still the same. Wonton soup, made from my frozen stash of dumplings that remind me of random outlets in Chinatown, where the line was always out the door, prompting my dad to say (every time), “What, are they giving it away for free today?” Sweet Potato, Kale, and Turkey Sausage soup, developed in the period after Bonnie and I read SuperFoods RX and started counting how many superfoods we ate in a day and maximizing the amount in everything we cooked. “Hey, let’s put flaxseed in that pumpkin-black-bean-turkey-sausage chili! Then we’ll have FIVE! Quick, let’s make blueberry oatmeal cookies for dessert!”

So, on the 4th of July, while I should be dreaming of corn and BBQ and things-on-a-stick, I mostly just want to get home before the thunderstorm and have a big bowl of soup. Although ideally, there would be corn, BBQ, things on sticks, AND soup. That’s some real patriotism right there.

“mediterranean” holiday

Just came back from a week in Slovenia – best country I never thought about visiting before I moved to Germany.  I know all Germans and British aspire to retire in Majorca or Malta (UK only).  But seriously?  Slovenia would be ten times more awesome.

The crazy thing is, despite Munich being a mere 3 hour drive from Ljubljana, not many people seem to have visited.  My coworkers were all “what?  what’s in Slovenia?” and the German’s co-workers thought it was a communist wasteland.  But as fun as visiting a communist wasteland would be, instead I spent the week stuffing myself with delicious pasta, pizza, fish, and gelato, and spending many lazy afternoons at trendy river/oceanfront cafes.  And even lazier ones lying out in 30+ weather.

Basically, this country is the size of New Jersey, but with the diversity of California.  Not in ethnicity (don’t be silly), but meaning the Alps, national parks, beaches, and cities all within a few hours of each other.  Plus, TV channels in six different languages – no wonder everyone spoke perfect English and much better German than me.  And I mean everyone – not just university students waiting tables in the middle of Ljubljana, but also Omas working at a family restaurant in a coastal town with a population of 1,000.  MTV – It’s better than Berlitz.

We kept saying we were visiting from Germany, which lead to a lot of complimenting on my English skills.  One day, I was even told twice what good English I speak.  Ahhh, thank you, I know, I studied very hard and am naturally brilliant.  I love when people compliment my English skills.  God knows they’re never going to do that with my German.

But now, sadly, back in Munich.  Guess I can start planning my next holiday….to the USA! USA!  (To do list: buy “I heart USA t-shirt”)