obviously

This week I heard two things that were so German they made me laugh out loud.

1.  During the winter, the city spreads this gravel and little rocks all over the streets to melt the snow and keep people from slipping.  According to a recent news show, at the end of winter they actually collect all these little rocks, wash them, and store them to be reused next year.

2.  I work near the big convention center in Munich, and always see software, travel, and other trade fairs going on.  This week, they are hosting the “free time” trade fair – topics covered include hiking, biking, and more.  Some prepare for the summer with diets and shopping, others with conventions to plan the spending of one’s free time.

But as much as I laugh, I also spend much time reading US news and laughing as well.  Like the continued debates over the banning/charging for plastic bags.  “Seattle residents furious over proposed 5 cent charges!”  People, we pay 20-50 cents for bags here and this encourages us to remember the bring them.  See how that works?  And somehow, we still manage to have an entire kitchen shelf full of plastic bags.  Just because Safeway stops handing them out doesn’t mean everyone else will too.  Those Gap tshirts have to go somewhere.  Plus, to those who complain about the indignity of facing extra charges during a recession – 5 cents?  I have to pay for a bag about once every three months.  If that.  So we’re looking at 2 bucks a year, max, and at the measly 2-5 cent charges suggested in the US, that works about to about 20 cents.  What else does one even buy for 20 cents?

best popular

Reading up on World Nutella Day, I was surprised to hear that it is ranks #3 on Facebooks “most popular” list.  But not nearly as surprising as numbers 6-9, 11, 13, and 15.

1.  Barack Obama.  Obviously

2.  Coca-cola

3.  Nutella

4.  Pizza

5.  Homer J. Simpson.  Homer’s middle initial is J?  Seriously?  Does this stand for something?

6.  Mr. Bean.  Do people really like this guy??

7.  Cristiano Ronaldo.  How does this random soccer player have so many friends on a website started by WASPy Harvard kids?

8.  Chocolaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaate.  How do people know the cool group is the one with 17 “a”s and not 15?

9.  Kinder surprise.  The European chocolate products are really cleaning up here.

10. Facebook

11.  Windows Live Messenger.  Who uses this product?  Where’s Twitter?

12.  Michael Phelps.

13.  Sid.  I had to click on the link to realize this is the weird creature from Ice Age.  He has a name?  And 1.97 million friends?

14.  YouTube

15.  Boo.  Ah, the days when you had to be enrolled in select universities to access Facebook…not so much select preschools.

Frankly, this list surprises me almost as much as the fact that Facebook itself has not gone the way of Friendster.  The lesson to take away here is that it really pays to target WASPs instead of Asians.

two more years

Last Friday I successfully renewed my visa for another two years.  After three failed trips, the German convinced me it was time to get serious.  Despite him having Friday off, we got up at 6am, put on suits, tie (him), heels (me), and went down to “show them who’s boss” (his words, not mine).  I don’t know if the clowns at the Torture-Amt were swayed by the clothes or the sudden introduction of fluent angry German into the equation, but we came out a mere 20 minutes later, clutching my passport in my grubby little hands.  Has anyone ever been “helped” there by someone not rude or incompetent?  They certainly seem friendly enough when they’re chatting with each other and going out for coffee and cigarettes instead of working.

In case anyone else out there is thinking of moving to Germany, here’s an overview of the process:

1. Find a job.  You think this is the hard part, what with not speaking German and not having a master’s degree in engineering, but it’s not.

2. Have your company fill out the twenty required pages of paperwork.

3. Bring to the Torture-Amt, only to discover that they need one more piece of paper/don’t approve of your picture/are only open from 10-12am.

4. Grumble about taxes and beamten.  Repeat until Friday (the only day they open at 7).

5. Drop off paperwork, try not to respond to the question “why are you here when your permit still lasts for 3 more months” with “because you’re an incompetent moron” and be repeatedly assured that they will contact you in two weeks.

6. Call repeatedly for a month with no response, only to go in person and find out said paperwork has been “misplaced”.  Think about how if you were in China you could just bribe someone and be done.

7. Repeat steps 2 and 4.  You thought you could cleverly skip step 2 by making photocopies of everything before handing it over, but no dice on photocopied signatures.

8. Be informed by rude/incompetent employee that in fact you only needed one single sheet of paper which you had on day one to renew your permit, even though the same individual sent you away last week with more paperwork.  Try not to punch them in the face as they are actually issuing your permit.

say what?

In the “funny things from Germans” category: two times in the last two months, I have had colleagues mistakenly use the word “turkey” instead of “Turkish”.  I battle with my conscience about whether my personal entertainment is worth the cost of someone walking around telling people that his wife is a turkey.

Just this past weekend, I was at Tommy Hilfiger thinking how much more I like their clothes since moving to Europe and wondering if my tastes have changed.  But then I found it, it’s not me, it’s them.

It has come to my attention that I need to file a US tax return, despite not earning any money in the US this past year.  Actually, I’ve always known this, it’s just come to my attention that I have to do this now.  I roughly translated my Lohnsteuerbescheinigung and sent it off to my CPA (aka, DAD).  Is this sufficient?  I thought the US embassy had tax nights where they held your hand and helped you fill in the highlighted area, but I couldn’t find anything on their website.  Advice?  Although if Obama’s people are any measure to go by, it seems like this is an optional exercise, so maybe my concern is unfounded.