spring forward, fall back

I start looking forward to the end of Daylight Savings Time every year around August.  A whole extra hour!  The magic of time travel!  All this coming to a Sunday near you.  But this Sunday, it just wasn’t as magical as in years passed.  I woke up, looked at the clock and thought, great, it’s really only 6.30am.  Except, that clock changes automatically.  And by the time I had breakfast, read the paper looked at the photos in the travel and style sections, did two loads of laundry, finally put away my US loot, did some work, read a book, and watched some weird sci-fi movie about people trying to put a bomb in the sun, the day was over already.  Ok, I guess that extra hour still helped.

I might have gotten more out of my extra hour if not for die Lange Nacht der Museen, which was Saturday night from 7pm-2am.  It’s a great event, with dozens of museums involved.    We visited the new BMW museum, which was new and shiny, but ultimately nothing to write home about.  We also saw the Munich city museum, which was a little random, but fun.  A lot of old photos and maps of the city, and every known rendering of the Münchner Kind.  Various sections included theater, sports, and photo gallery.  By far, the best part was a 10 minute film showed in a round room modeled to be like the Allianz Arena.  It really only included recent history (basically, from the invention of film onward), but had great highlights of the Olympics, FC Bayern accomplishments, political events, and more.

Although, if we were in America, they would have realized this movie should be reproduced and boxed for gift shop sale to the masses.

au naturale?

As you know, I like to put on my pink apron and play Martha when I have the chance.  And I generally believe that with some time and quality ingredients, most food tastes better when homemade.  Plus, being able to make it at home provides you with a constant supply of the food in question.  The problem is, every now and then, the desire to recreate at home is pinned on an item with questionable ingredients.

Two that I’ve been pondering for some time are Caesar salad and Vietnamese iced coffee.  Both things I am happy to eat every day when provided by someone else.  But actually putting a raw egg in my salad dressing?  Or pouring condensed milk into my own glass?  I don’t know if my brain is capable of wiping itself blank between the steps of creation and consumption.

Good thing we’re have goulash for dinner.

from my dark and gloomy office

By now forgotten in this age of the 24/7 news cycle is the three-day-old spat between Obama-McCain about equal pay for women.  In the worst defense ever of equal pay practices, the Obama campaign responded to recent allegations of women in his staff earning less than men by retorting that McCain “has more women in senior, higher-paid positions – not that women are being paid less than men for the same job.”  Maybe it’s just me, but isn’t that the point?  Sure, I care that the female intern is being paid a full 8.65/hour, just like the male intern, but I certainly care more about women being in senior staff positions that actually make a difference (not to worry, interns, your efforts count too!).  But to dish it out equally, I also relished in the NYT attempt at snarkiness in critiquing Sarah Palin’s wardrobe, rather than focusing on the $150,000 used to acquire it.

Munich this week has been grey, rainy, and depressing.  It’s as if they knew I would be back from California and made sure to eliminate any drop of sunlight from the city before I returned.  You know how I told you all about how it’s a great city and so close to the mountains I can see the Alps out my office window?  Yeah, this week I can’t even see sunlight out my office window.  It’s all fluorescent, all the time.  I’m turning whiter every day.

The entire first week I was home, I kept on being amazed that everyone could speak English.  The guys at the winery – English!  The nice waiters – English!  The people you make fun of at Target – oops, English.  I am essentially surrounded by English speakers here, but it was so much more amazing to be in America where you can take it for granted.

Another thing you can take for granted – friendliness and customer service.  Oh how I love those salesladies who take your hangers and set up a fitting room and bring you skirts they think you might like and new sizes because the jeans you have are weirdly baggy.  Oh how I love the way they wrap and bag everything so nicely for you and compliment your hair/outfit/name.  I love the friendliness.  Except that one woman at Betsey Johnson who may have been on drugs, but everyone else?  Love ya.  Even the customs guys at the airport – the way they always ask about where I’ve been in a genuinely polite manner (as opposed to German customs and immigration) and wave you off with a “Welcome Home!”.  Is this just SFO, or are all employees of Homeland Security so nice?  Certainly not the ones on 24.

take me home

I just returned from California, land of sunshine, beaches, malls, and ethnic food.  So naturally, all I want to do is plan my next trip back.  Or at least future vacations.  Luckily, this coincides with my task of coordinating all public holidays in Europe for 2009.  So I wander online to check out the calendar and what I find makes me want to move back to America.

Good thing about Germany/Munich: We have 13 public holidays.  Those lucky ducks working at banks (and some other places) get 15.

Bad thing about Germany/Munich: Holidays that fall on weekends, or on the same day as another holiday, are discounted.

I discovered last year that this is true for all of Europe, except the UK, I think.  This means that once you take away all those Saturdays and Sundays, and changing religious holidays that fall on real secular holidays, in 2008 we were left with a mere 10.  In 2009, the schedule is as follows:

Jan 1 (New Year’s Day)
Jan 6 (Epiphany)
Apr 10 (Good Friday)
Apr 13 (Easter Monday)
May 1 (Labor Day)
May 21 (Ascension Day)
Jun 1 (Whit Monday)
Jun 11 (Corpus Christi)
Dec 25 (Christmas)

NINE DAYS?  And as August 15, Oct 3, and Nov 1 had the nerve to fall on the weekend, it is going to be a long six months between Corpus Christi and Christmas. And we’re even better off than all those Protestants in the rest of Germany.

But hold on, kids.  I went to check out 2010 to get some reassurance, and much like your daily retirement fund check, the news keeps getting worse.

2010 Bavarian Holidays

Jan 1 (New Year’s Day)
Jan 6 (Epiphany)
Apr 2 (Good Friday)
Apr 5 (Easter Monday)
May 13 (Ascension Day)
May 21 (Whit Monday)
Jun 3 (Corpus Christi)
Nov 1 (All Saints Day)

EIGHT?  I might as well be back in America.  At least there would be massive sales to go along with my eight holidays.

More updates to come once I finish sulking…