californiaaaaa

I am fully recovered and now on to the next great adventure – California!  Yes, next week I will be making my first pilgrimage home since I moved to Germany last June.  Very, very exciting.  To my amazing friends and family: send in your gift requests now!  To my wise and ever-helpful expats: any gift suggestions?  I realize I should have taken the opportunity to stock up on Christmas trinkets during last weekend’s Salzburg jaunt, but I naively though I could find all that here.  In October.

Speaking of my Salzburg trip, taken in complete violation of the US Embassy’s “your passport renewal will only take two weeks can’t you just not leave the country for two weeks” mandate, major props to the US Embassy!  I received my passport yesterday, exactly ONE week after I dropped off my application.  I heart you all.  Speed, accuracy, and a free NYT, all for the low cost of 50USD.  Unlike, say, the TortureAmt, where I must go next to renew my work permit.

no good very bad day

Warning: disgusting anecdotes ahead

Records shattered today
30 hours – longest period ever without eating.  This record would also have been shattered around the 10 hour mark.
2 – vomiting episodes.  My first since the age of 8.
2 – Cokes consumed in ONE DAY.  My first in at least five years.

What can I say?  As I lay on my deathbed with horrific stomach cramps and nausea, I am reduced to the most desperate of measures.  And the German is traveling, so no one is around to bring me buckets.

This coke stuff has more sugar than most chocolate.  If my stomach recovers, I probably still won’t be able to eat as I won’t have any teeth left.  But my boss, the mother of two children, swears by a regime of Coke and the BRAT diet (Bananas, rice, applesauce, toast).  My German colleagues, of course, swear by a strict pretzels only diet.  Maybe I’ll put that on the list for tomorrow.

Another warning message to expats in the Munich area – I think there’s a virus going around.  Not only was the German stricken with the same problem last week (silly me, I thought lack of fever and coughing/sneezing meant I would be immune) a few coworkers have succumbed as well.  Although no one has it as badly as my incredibly helpful colleague, who not only got me to the bathroom before my first vomiting episode, but went home to find her boyfriend vomiting as well.  With days like that, you might as well go into medical work.

celebrations

The German’s brother is off and married, the cakes have all been eaten, and anyone who needs to creatively fold money into a bouquet of flowers can contact me for future events.  One thing Germans and Chinese have in common – the belief that gifts of cash are always best.  My friend and I were talking about new trends of couples registering for honeymoons, houses, or other ways of trying to ask for cash without being tacky.  You want cash?  Invite more non-Americans to your wedding.

Speaking of cake, the bride and groom collect snakes.  Everything from little garden squiggly bits to enormous 5 meter pythons.  So the cake, of course, was a 1.6 meter long snake, complete with grassy bits on the platter and a pink flicking tongue.  When they were cutting it open, I said, “it should have been a red velvet cake, like the armadillo in Steel Magnolias!”  Unfortunately, I was the only one who got that reference.

Anna is here now and we have spent many glorious days lying around the living room, eating cake, and watching movies.  There were goals made and research done to go out on the town on Saturday night, but we ended up watching ‘Bring It On’ in our jammies.  A few minutes into the movie, the German said, “this is hilarious!  why haven’t we watched it before?  there’s a 2 and 3?  let’s rent them!”  We capped off the evening with by donning our Berkeley hoodies and giving a demonstration of Cal cheers and songs and American Football 101.   We are so ready for homecoming.

its the end of the world as we know it

All day, there has been a lot of discussion (at least in our European offices) about the possibility that the world will end. As much as people are fretting about, you know who must be the most torn up about this?  Tom Hanks and the producers of Angels and Demons.  Whoever failed to notice this was happening and synchronize the movie premiere with this event deserves to be fired.  Think of the missed free marketing and press!

Someone tried to tell me they wanted to work from home tomorrow in case of imminent death.  Until I pointed out that their home is closer to Switzerland than our offices.  Nice try, buster.

Anyways, in case the world does end, I added extra bacon to my pasta sauce tonight, so I am content.

think of the children

During a recent conversation, two German mothers were discussing a young playmate of one of their children.  Apparently, the family is from Turkey and only speaks Turkish at home, saying the children will learn to speak German when they get to school.  These two women were appalled that the parents, who are able to speak German, would let their child go off to school unable to communicate and so far behind the other kids.

Speaking as someone whose mother forgot to teach her English until 15 minutes before the first day of school (Mom:  What do you say when you want to go to the bathroom?  Me: Apple juice!  Mom: NO!  Me:  teeheehee!): chill out.  So I couldn’t speak English on day one.  Big deal.  By the time kindergarten rolled around, I was the only kid reading books instead of eating paste, so I don’t really think it matters.  In fact, as I pointed out, any kid born and raised in a country is going to speak the language.  They just are.  You cannot be born and raised in America, going to school for twelve years, reading Seventeen, watching MTV, and somehow end up without a command of the English language, no matter what your parents do at home.  I’m sure there are some Turkish grandmas here who don’t speak a word of German, prompting this parental concerns, but please.  Grandma came here when she was 70 and doesn’t need German – who is she going to talk to?

A child of immigrants is far more likely to not speak the mother tongue than the language of their home country.  And are the German schools going to help all these Turkish people in their twenties learn more about the motherland?  I think not.  I could spout made up facts (but based on long-forgotten news articles and psychology textbooks) about how learning multiple languages actually increases mental capacity, but this criticism of parenting (in the interest of the child, of course) really offends because makes me feel like what they really want to say is no immigrants – especially those that do not speak our language or have exceptional technical skills that can be exploited by Siemens/Daimler/BMW.

smashing sucess

Polterabend (n): polter, to make lots of noise (see: poltergeist).  abend, evening.  An evening in which you make lots of noise smashing plates, pots, toilet seats, and watch the soon-to-be-bride-and-groom sweep it all up while you drink copious amounts of beer and varieties of wurst.

The German’s brother is getting married next weekend, so today we headed over to partake in the Polterabend.  Germany’s answer to bridal/engagement showers (although rest assured, bachelor/bachelorette parties are still given a special spot), the evening includes everyone invited to the wedding and more.  Hundreds, sometimes.  And you break plates.  When I first heard about this, I thought I could show up with my old chipped coffee mug or one or two plates smuggled from the overflowing office kitchen.  But when they say you’re supposed to bring dishes, they mean it.  I was completely amazed to see couples and families turning up with laundry baskets, crates, duffel bags, and wagons overflowing with porcelain goods.  Not just plates and cups – there were full sets of dishes, various plant containers, and yes, at least two toilet seats that met untimely ends when faced with the concrete barn walls.

In a word, this was awesome.  All the fun and family gathering of a wedding, except you wear jeans!  And there are no speeches – you get there, smash your dishes to bits, and go in for some beer and food.  Plus, everyone who isn’t attending the wedding itself brings you gifts.  The only people who were more delighted than me were the group of 3-5 year old children who clearly thought it was the best day of their lives – not only to be allowed to break things, but encouraged!  I bet there was some confusion at the breakfast table the next day though.  “But last night you said we were supposed to throw plates on the floor and jump on the shattered pieces….?”

More on the German wedding front next weekend, but another difference between Germany and America – there are often a dozen cakes at the wedding, baked by close family and friends instead of one big wedding cake.  The German kindly volunteered to bake one for his beloved brother.  On the way home yesterday, he goes, “so, what kind of cake should we make?”  Whoa….playing a little fast and loose with the pronouns there, buster!

two steps back

Watching Sarah Palin makes me wish she was remotely as awesome as some other Republican women.  Such as Ainsley Hayes, who is incredibly smart, loyal, a smoother talker than Sam Seaborn, and hard worker.  She is also not real, but no fear!  I have a friend (non-imaginary) even MORE smart, loyal, articulate, and hard working as Ainsley who is also a Republican!  I know!  Republican Friends in the Bay Area are like Gay Friends in other parts of America.  Similar rare specimens include the Friend-With-An-SUV and the Friend-Who-Doesn’t-Care-About-Food.  There are only one or two, so you better lock them down quick.  I’ve had mine for 8 years, and since her touch-up stint at USF Law she is as good as new.

Aside from the glasses, I don’t really see much of myself in Sarah Palin.  She hunts, she believes in creationism, she tries to ban books.  She’s probably as crazy as that other Republican who hunts and believes God decides all and doesn’t read.  But the rampant sexism and racism behind Bristol Palin’s pregnancy has irked me to no end.  First, the sight of the GOP closing ranks and talking about family values and 17 and 18 year old teens getting married and “doing the Right Thing” is enough to give me morning sickness.  Because if it was Barack Obama with a pregnant, unwed, teenage daughter, I am so sure Karl Rove would still be all about family values.  As opposed to say, throwing around the terms “baby mama” and “welfare”.

And this is before the whole discussion of “can-she-raise-five-kids-and-still-be-vp” /”if-she-can’t-control-her-teenage-how-can-she-control-the-country” business.  Because Rudy Giuliani sterling family life really ruined his reign as mayor of New York and Presidential campaign?  So, when John Edwards runs for president despite his wife being diagnosed with incurable and fatal breast cancer, he is a patriot achieving one of their shared dreams but Governor Palin running for VP with a special needs kid is being selfish?  I’m gonna have to repeat that one a few times before it makes sense.  Okay, she may be a bad mother for giving her kids names like Bristol, Trig, and Track, but certainly no worse than Angelina Jolie and Democrats are wetting their pants trying to get on her good side.  Nancy Pelosi’s five kids and seven grandchildren certainly didn’t stop her from becoming the highest ranking woman in the history of American politics.  She even has time left over to go to the symphony.

The German cowers on the sofa at night during my daily rantings on Evil White Male Privilege, but has managed to create a shelter for himself by decrying America as a backwards and pointing out the ways in which Germany has progressed further.

German (from behind sofa cushion barrier):  30%+ of the Bundestag is female.  It’s not so great,but it’s increasing…we have all these laws protect women’s jobs….we have Angie!