Heidelbergerin

Tidbits for the weekend

2009-07-04T19:59:00.004+02:00

* Happy 4th of July!

* Okay, I've been holding back for a week and a half now but I can't anymore. I gotta complain about it. It's too humid!!! Please stop with the humidity already!! Our bathroom fan broke a few weeks ago and in our cavelike, ventilation- and airflow-free apartment, this is the worst possible weather in which to not have a fan in the clothes-washing/showering/pooping room. Seriously, there is NO movement of air in here. We have one window and one door to the outside, and they're right next to each other. The bathroom is nowhere near them. MIEF. Everything in here is sticky and disgusting, laundry is piling up like mad because everything has to be washed more often and it's not drying fast enough on the line, all food has to be in our tiny fridge or it will rot quickly, mildew builds up in the bathroom faster than you can clean it, etc. The temperatures aren't even that hot, really.

* The $ key is easier to find and type on the German keyboard than the € key. You have to use a special shift called "Alt Gr" which is used less often than regular shift (which is what you need to get the $).

* Last night we were at a big party where the DJ went way off course, first skipping around a few not-too-danceable hip-hop songs before going into a 25-minute streak of only Latin music, follwed by AC/DC's "Thunderstruck", followed by one of my least favorite songs from high school, the completely undanceable Counting Crows with "Mr. Jones". This is possibly the most bizarre string of music together ever, and I have to say, the dancefloor was suffering for it. :/ He tried to revive it next with "Billie Jean", but too late, buddy!!! But could this be totally cultural? Maybe "Mr. Jones" is a totally iconic party song in Germany.

* Check out forvo.com - it's awesome.

My Experience in a German Hospital, Part III

2009-06-29T22:33:00.004+02:00

Back to the clinic for me. This time it was in full swing, rather than abandoned. I was examined pretty quickly after arriving, then had to wait in the hall on a cot waiting for some test results. While I was lying there, both of the doctors who I'd seen in my first hospital visit came by. They must just live there. They recognized me and were interested in what was happening. After the test results came back, the Oberarzt who did my operation consulted with the head of the department about my case and they decided to admit me to the hospital again for medication and observation.

I wasn't there for more surgery, but there was again no space on the wards for me, so I was admitted to a bed in the same post-op area I'd been in before. It was nice to already know the nurses, but I had a distinct feeling of not belonging there! The Oberarzt came by and sat down to tell us everything that was going on in detail. They wanted me to stay overnight for observation and have some medication.

That night I stayed in post-op due to the continued lack of space on the wards. Not much was going on with me but I appreciated their abundance of caution nonetheless. I actually suspect there was some friction between two of the doctors - the surgeon who operated and the doctor who was rounding - about whether I should remain in the hospital and how long.

The next day, I was moved to the wards. The room was really big and shared with two other patients. It was in an older building, but you couldn't tell at all from the inside. There was a table and chairs, which I really appreciated, because by then I was feeling too well to be sitting in the bed all the time. I also spent a lot of time in the hallway looking out the windows. Being in the hospital is very strange indeed. Life had come to a halt for me. I did Sudoku puzzles and wrote Christmas postcards and napped all day while everyone outside went to work, shopped for Christmas gifts, and drank Gluehwein in the Uni-Platz. I felt bad about feeling this way, though. I was clearly one of the healthiest people on the ward and had no room to complain.

My roommates were two older women, both as local as could be, with accents to match. One of them was nearly impossible to understand. I had to refer to them by last names, of course - very formal, despite getting to see their bums and pee-filled catheter bags and whatever else - it was interesting to cling onto that piece of dignity. Speaking of names, I was amazed that I never had an identifying wrist band during this entire experience. There was a label hanging on the end of my bed to identify me!! I think a system like this could actually cause a US hospital to lose accreditation.

Anyway, the women were both really nice and put up with my horrible German very gracefully. At one point one of the nurses had left our bathroom light on and as I was up walking around, one of the ladies asked me to turn off the bathroom light. These are very simple words that I know, but I could not for the life of me figure out what she was saying. She just kept at it over and over and I still had no clue. Finally the other woman, with her slightly clearer accent, told me that she wanted the bathroom light off. Then they proceeded to explain that one should not leave the lights on because electricity is very expensive. That was such a cute German moment, that they cared about the hospital's electricity bill, and they were going to make sure that I was informed on that matter. The woman with the clearer accent was a hoot, too. She loved to gab and gab, and her favorite word was gell, a sort of regional word that's somewhat like tacking "...right?" on the end of sentences. In her case, on every single sentence. When she talked I started to dream up goofy images of us all drowning in a sea of gells, being buried under an ever-growing pile of gells, gells oozing out from under our hospital room door, dodging swarms of gell bullets...you get the idea.

I was on the wards for two uneventful nights, being observed. I needed so little from the nurses, but this was a good thing, because one of my roommates needed direct attention from multiple nurses about half the hours of the day, it seemed. She had IV port troubles, bed sores, couldn't get up alone, etc. I had the sense that the hospital was very understaffed, nursing-wise - there were plenty of doctors. A couple of times when I did need something, I had to remind them again to finally get it...and that's only if I knew I needed it. At one point I was chided for not wearing anti-blood-clot socks, which I never knew I needed. Apparently this was a major breach of protocol, even though I spent most of the day wandering the halls and probably didn't have a very high risk of thrombosis. But, how would I know? It was an overworked nurse who dropped the ball there. They told me at one point my blood should be checked, but no one came to draw it. One of the other patients explained to me that competition in Heidelberg for nurses is pretty stiff because there are so many places for them to work. Overworked nurses are a big problem in the US too, where there simply aren't enough of them in the pipeline.

One of the nurses was obsessed with American presidents and really wanted to discuss them with me at every possible opportunity - in German, of course. (Not as many people on the wards were willing to speak English as in post-op.) I now thank my high school history teacher, Mr. Peterson, for forcing us to memorize all the American presidents in order, because this guy "tested" me on the presidents by asking me to name them by telling me their number in the sequence. Yay for managing not to perpetuate any stereotypes about Americans being stupid!

I think I was in the hospital too long unnecessarily, but again, when contrasted with the US problem of being kicked out of the hospital too soon, I'd rather be stuck there too long. It just amounts to less worry for me, despite knowing all too well that hospitals are probably not the least dangerous place a person could be.

In the mail I received the doctor's letters about the surgery and the second hospital stay. I received two hospital bills. Not multiple claim letters, not denied claims that had to be sorted, not long scary itemized lists. Just two pieces of paper, one for each stay. The surgery, the bed, the care, the medications, the meals, all just 10 EUR per night plus a 10 EUR fee per stay, for a total of 70 EUR. I paid it and that was the end of that. For follow up appointments, the usual protocol for doctor's visits was followed: you must pay a 10 EUR copay for your first doctor's visit each quarter - so four times a year at maximum. There's no copay for any further visits in that quarter. I was impressed! Damon and I were, at the time, covered under voluntary state insurance which matched what I got when I was employed earlier (I was not employed in December). For both of us it cost around 150 EUR per month. (When you are employed, you pay a portion of your insurance cost and your employer pays the rest.) After my experience in the US with health insurance - I had what's considered very good coverage there, but had to pay more for everything and they constantly made 'mistakes' on claims that I had to call in to argue with them about - I think the system is much easier to navigate here, and far less stressful. And everyone knows - stress is not good for your health. ;) Here's an interesting article on the positives and negatives of the German system.

Still, not everyone has experiences as positive as mine. I think there may especially be difficulties in the states of the former East. Here's a less favorable hospital story from Dresden (scroll past the first entry).

I know others who read here have also posted hospital stories. If you could give me the links, I will add them here. :) Stories from all countries welcome!

AmiExpat's Bickbeerpfannkuchen Challenge!

2009-06-29T20:51:00.003+02:00

This weekend we had the time to remember to try to get back on the wagon for AmiExpat's next recipe challenge, Bickbeerpfannkuchen, or, as she translated it, bilberry pancakes.

First off, I have never heard or seen the term Bickbeere before. I have only known this berry as Heidelbeere. And to add to the berry fun, I have never heard the term bilberry before either! I only have called them huckleberries. (According to dict.leo.org, I might be wrong in doing that.) Either way, we didn't find any, and made this recipe with regular old blueberries instead.

Damon enjoys making pancakes and charged forward with the whole project before I even knew what was going on. Apparently it was quite easy, with the exception of beating the egg whites by hand, but we're getting used to these recipes always requiring serious mixing action. The only screw-up is that he was too gung-ho to read carefully and mixed the berries in with the batter, instead of adding them only after putting the batter in the pan. I doubt this made too much difference, but it did take a little bit of the fun away, as that was about the only thing unusual about this recipe.

They were good - pretty much the same as any good fruit pancake recipe - nice and fluffy. The powdered sugar was a good touch, to keep it from being too boring. Nothing groundbreaking, but simple and tasty.

My Experience in a German Hospital - Part II

2009-06-29T12:01:00.002+02:00

Damon walked home alone through the abandoned streets of Heidelberg. There was my curry, sitting there on the counter. (That recipe still reminds me of going to the hospital.) I can't imagine how he must have felt, but I know that if I'd just had to leave him behind in an operating room, it wouldn't be pretty. He gathered up a few things for me - like a stuffed animal that later caused the nurses to remark that coming to my bed was like visiting the childrens' ward - and came back. He was there when I got out of surgery.

I was really shocked to wake up somewhere other than my own bed. I was being rolled down the hall to the post-op area. The first doctor I had seen was waking me up and telling me that everything in surgery went perfectly. Surgery? Oh yeah. Effing surreal.

They asked me if I had any pain. I did, a little bit, on the left. They told me there was a drain in there. Whoa. I thought I couldn't feel my right hand, but it turned out they'd stuck an IV port there in the back of my hand sometime during the surgery, and that was why my hand didn't feel right. (By the way, if anyone reading this is ever in a position to determine where an IV port is placed in me, I would like to make note that the backs of my hands are strictly off limits!) My legs were shaking like crazy and I couldn't control them. They said they were going to give me something for that, and before I could ask what, it was already going in the IV port. I wondered if it was Demerol, a drug I was pretty sure was used for this sort of thing, and a drug which the director of pharmacy at my old job had repeatedly tried to have removed from the hospital formulary (because of some side effects - but to no avail, the doctors were fans of it and for this use it's still considered fine by most people). Whatever it was, it worked like a charm.

By this time, it was about 2am and they again made Damon go home, telling me that I would sleep better without him there anyway. Very funny. I spent the entire night awake, counting the hours. I had a great nap under anesthesia and wasn't really tired. I can't sleep on my back, but had no other options with all the fresh cuts on my belly. I was shocked at what had just happened to me. The woman in the bed next to me clearly had much bigger issues than just post-op recovery. About once an hour or so, she woke up and began moaning loudly while shaking the side rails and the bar above the bed. It was really dreadful. Around 8am, I just started crying from lack of sleep and shock. The nurses were in such a hurry to make sure I wasn't in any pain that they just assumed that was the problem - I was trying to tell them it wasn't, but I doubt the situation was helping my German - and gave me an extra shot of pain medications. (Later I found out one of the other patients in the room was wondering why I was crying so much. What the hell? Is emergency surgery and being in the hospital not enough!?)

I was allowed to eat breakfast and have some water, which was great! The only thing on the plate they wouldn't let me eat yet was some dark bread. The surgeon who operated on me came by to chat about how it went. After lunch, I got to stand up with the help of some really great, patient, English-speaking nurses and wash up at a sink. No modesty here - it was an open area with four patients and plenty of nurses wandering around. Visitors aren't allowed at this time, though. They also took me down the hall to use the real toilet instead of the commode. Woo hoo! For this I got two hospital gowns to wear to be totally covered. The gowns were nicer-looking - big white poofy things - than the hospital johnnies we had where I worked in Boston. Also, I was surprised that my IV drips were just that. There was no pump. I did notice the woman across from me had a pump, though. Maybe I didn't have one because the drugs I had infusing weren't particularly dangerous. I don't know if the hospital where I worked before still ever did IVs without a programmable pump, though.

I was bored and the hospital was near my former (and now current again) office so I texted my friends and a whole bunch of them came to visit me, bringing fruit, plants, and magazines! I couldn't keep the plant with me because it was a post-op area and not a regular ward, though. They let me keep it in the hallway outside the room. At this point I should have been moved to a ward, but there was no space up there, so I was kept in post-op. This is an extremely common problem in US hospitals, or at least the ones I knew anything about. In the US, it's because many hospitals were closed during a certain period, when people thought the trend would be toward less hospital usage and more home care, and also because smaller hospitals in the US often cannot stay afloat financially. I don't know the reason for this problem in Germany.

Thankfully, the woman who was in the bed next to me was moved away and replaced with a different patient. This one was an American woman from the military base, here to get an operation which is apparently not provided by the American hospital (or she didn't want to get there, or something). She was very nice, but spent most of the time sleeping.

The hospital food followed a typical German pattern. Breakfast was bread and cold cuts or jam. Lunch was a big hot meal and dessert. Dinner was bread and cheese or cold cuts, a vinegary salad, and possibly a cold Wurst chunk. (Dinner was definitely the most depressing meal of the day.) True to stereotypes, the food was really terrible. I think the worst was a green soup with an entire Wurst sitting in it. Is that healthy?

I spent one more, much better, night in post-op. They had told me on Friday that they thought I'd get to go home on Sunday. But on Saturday, things looked so good they let me go home then. Later I looked up my procedure on the internet. In the US, it is an outpatient procedure and they send you home to deal with all the misery alone. You might get guilted into going back to work three seconds later, too. I got a letter from the doctor saying I should be excused from all school expectations until the end of January. I prefer the more conservative approach.

They sent me home with a little plastic cup with a couple of doses of paracetamol and another with a couple of doses of potassium. Electrolytes and paracetamol were, with the exception of surgery and the maybe-Demerol, about the only drugs I got in the hospital, too. They apparently don't move up to the narcotics for pain unless necessary. My instructions were to come back to the hospital in case of certain problems. That was it.

Certain problems came along at about lunchtime the following Tuesday.

My Experience in a German Hospital - Part I

2009-06-28T12:28:00.003+02:00

On the night of my mom's birthday, December 4, my husband had just come home from work. I was feeling vaguely unwell. He was hungry so he heated up some leftover curry we had made the previous night for both of us. While it warmed up on the stove, I felt progressively worse. I ended up never touching my food.

We took a cab to a nearby hospital. My husband had called them to let them know we were coming, so the woman at the desk was expecting us. I was limping in pain, and she acted like it was no big deal. She sent us to wait to be seen outside an ambulatory clinic in the basement. Damon helped me down the stairs, and we were a little surprised she just left me to try to get down them without any hospital help. Meanwhile, she called for someone to come see me.

The hallway in the basement where I had to wait was dreary and abandoned and the clinic was locked. We weren't even sure we were in the right place. I sat there for about 10 minutes, waiting, wondering if I was just being a hypochondriac or if I really needed to be there. Being sick when you're young sucks - you always wonder whether doctors/nurses just think you're crazy or attention-seeking, because who gets sick at your age? Is that why no one was coming? In reality, 10 minutes is nothing to wait for emergency care, but it felt like an eternity.

Finally, a nurse who was clearly suffering from some kind of upper respiratory infection sloooooowly made her way down the hall toward us. Slooooowly she unlocked the clinic door. We followed her in. Slooooowly she took my TK (insurance) card, my blood type card, and my other information, and she explained that if I wasn't admitted to the hospital I would have to pay a co-pay for coming to the clinic in the off-hours. I was sure she thought I was a hypochondriac because she acted like nothing could possibly be wrong. Then she sent us back into the hall to wait some more for a doctor to come. After a while, we heard the door and I got hopeful. No, it was just her again, to take my temperature. (Sloooowly.) Then more waiting. Again, it felt like an eternity, but was probably just 10 - 15 minutes. Finally a doctor came and they called me back in to be examined.

She did a lot of various things and asked a zillion questions, but was mostly quiet and looked a little concerned. I started to get concerned too, especially when she asked me how long it had been since I ate or drank anything, and whether I was sure. Then she said she had to call the Oberarzt - the head doctor. Oh shit.

The head doctor showed up pretty quickly, did all the same examinations as the previous doctor, and was halfway through explaining that I needed surgery immediately while quickly and painlessly installing an IV port in my wrist before I realized what the heck was going on. Damon came over to the side of the bed from his position off to the sidelines. He looked green, like he might pass out, throw up, or both.

Everything happened very quickly. I signed papers consenting to surgery, saying that I acknowledged all the risk and dangers that go along with surgical procedures and general anesthesia. I could get an embolism, I could have a deadly allergic reaction, I could need a blood transfusion that gives me a disease, etc. I should mention here that I used to work in patient safety when I lived in Boston. My job involved reading all the reports when things did go wrong in the hospital. It will suffice to say that I'm terrified of surgery and general anesthesia. But, it seemed there was no choice; the risks were far greater if I didn't have it. It's probably best that it was an emergency, reducing my time to fret to mere minutes.

They provided all the information in English to me. I got a sheet explaining the procedure, with the disclaimer that I might not have time to read it anyway before going in. I had to go to the toilet, but wasn't allowed, because I could pass out. (I hate to think what happened when the anesthesia kicked in...) I had a lot of questions, only because of my former job, another aspect of which was to drill into patients that they should always be a part of their own health care and ask questions! They took it to mean that because I was an American, I looked down upon the German health system and didn't trust them to do a good job. They assured me that they were very experienced, the hospital had all the best technology, and that this was the best and least invasive procedure for my problem. All of which I had never had any doubts about.

I was wheeled into a pre-op area where I got a hospital gown and special anti-blood-clot socks and they took all my jewelry and stuff away. I recalled all the reports I'd read at my old job about people's personal belongings getting lost in the hospital. Then they told Damon that he could not wait there and that he might as well just leave. I thought I was going to die of misery. The nurses, however, were so sweet and sympathetic.

Damon disappeared and I was wheeled off to the operating room. It was well-staffed but so, so cold. I was still in a lot of pain - nothing had changed there. So I was shivering like crazy and guarding myself and they thought I was a nervous wreck. Well, not that I wasn't. They had me lying there all ready to go and the surgeon (the same Oberarzt who examined me) had to run to quickly attend to another problem. All the OR people spoke to me in English and were really friendly. They gave me a big hot blanket and then, because they thought I was so nervous, told me they were giving me a little drug in my IV port while we waited for the surgeon that would make me feel sleepy. I didn't get sleepy. They gave me more. Still not sleepy. I wonder if it was a placebo. I am, sadly, somewhat placebo-resistant.

Finally, they said the surgeon was on his way. Anesthesia time. Ugh. Before looking at the big green mask they told me to look at, I glanced at the clock. It was almost exactly midnight. Just in case of surgical disaster the likes of which you only see in the news, I tried to think of my family, but the nerves were totally scrambling my brain. Then I went under.

So, uh, Heidelberg...

2009-06-25T23:10:00.005+02:00

...what's up with the bright green lighting on the tower of the Heiliggeistkirche? It's been up for a while now - is it temporary? Was it a mistake? Because it looks really goofy. We thought the Old Bridge's new lighting was too cheesed up, but this would take the cake. This photo doesn't even do the goofiness justice (it's that green thing that appears to be to the right of the castle):

The weather has been really cruddy this week, but on the upside, it caused a rainbow today in Heidelberg while I was walking along the river! I took a photo on my cell phone, but I can't figure out how to get it on my computer or if that's even possible with my phone/phone plan. As I held up my phone to take it (I always think people look like they're doing something really ritualistic holding up camera phones like that) a guy whizzing by on his bike yelled at me to take a picture of the rainbow. I couldn't tell if he was mocking me because that's clearly what I was already doing, or if maybe he really was thinking I might not have seen it and was just taking a picture of all the nice hills.

In other news, my coworker remarked to me last week that she gets "only 20 days of vacation a year" (this is in addition to all the German public holidays). Hahaha! Oh, Europe.

Commencement

2009-06-21T00:19:00.004+02:00

This morning we went to a friend's PhD commencement at the University of Heidelberg.

Graduation is not a big thing in general here like it is in the US. For instance, I've never seen graduation cards or displays in stores (but am open to correction - maybe I haven't been looking hard enough). So, we thought it would be interesting to see what a graduation here does involve - one type of graduation, anyway. She got her PhD in epidemiology, which falls under the medical faculty, so the ceremony was also for those earning their MDs.

Graduates sat in the front few rows, and each got to invite three people to come see them go up for their diploma. There wasn't any checking of tickets or anything, though. The graduates just dressed nicely - no funny robes or hats. There was one Scottish guy in a kilt. The program opened with some Beethoven on a piano. Nobody processed in, everybody was already just sitting there. Next, a guy with a cool bow tie and hat - the only guy who had any remotely academic costume going on - welcomed everybody, presented something to a couple of the graduates (frankly, I didn't find this part important enough to bother trying to translate it in my head), and introduced the main speaker.

We thought the speaker would say something relevant to the occasion of graduating, receiving a higher degree, education these days, the philosophy of the practice of and research in medicine, or something. But, the talk was actually about dementia. Not that dementia is not an interesting topic, but I totally failed to see how it fit with graduation. The speaker was totally full of himself, but it was at least amusing to watch him up there making animated academic-looking gestures, the likes of which you normally only see in comedy, quoting Latin and English, and being generally dramatic.

Halfway through his incredibly long speech, unfortunately a woman in the audience actually had a seizure and her friend called for a doctor. I think 3/4 of the room stood up. We were also entertained by some cute little bat that found its way into the auditorium and then just couldn't get out again.

After the speech, there was another piano piece, followed by an opera selection from The Marriage of Figaro. Again: huh? The singer and pianist were great, but the relevance of all this was still failing me. Then the graduates received their degrees. First the summa cum laude graduates were called up individually and received diplomas placed inside black folders. Then the rest of the graduates were called up four at a time and received their diplomas stuck inside a plastic sleeve with binder holes. Even though they were called up alphabetically, no advance effort had been made to seat the graduates in any sort of order, so they had to clamber over each other to get up to the front when called. There had also been no effort made to ask the graduates how their names were pronounced, so the MC had to stumble through them on his own, and it wasn't pretty. After this, yet another irrelevant opera selection, then we got to have some champagne and pretzels in the lobby (best part!!!). In all it took two hours.

We saw a group of four students put on mortarboards afterward and get their photo taken. The people behind us commented that they must be Americans. My friend (disclaimer: she is not German so this is more-than-secondhand hearsay) said that in Germany they used to do the whole robe-and-hat thing, but due to student protests at some point, they ditched it. We can only guess at why students would want to get rid of academic dress/ritual - to quit the pretense? If that is the reason, then why do they do such seemingly pretentious things as have opera performances and separate out cum laude graduates with different diplomas and by calling them up first and separately?

I can only compare the experience with undergraduate ceremonies in the US, because we left the country before the date for what would have been Damon's doctoral commencement when he got his PhD. (Graduate degrees are definitely not as big a deal in the US as undergraduate, when graduation ceremonies are concerned, but I don't have any personal experience, so I'm not sure what the differences are.)

At my undergrad commencement, we had to process in, wearing black robes and mortarboards (it was really hot!!), behind some guys playing bagpipes and a whole bunch of university officials wearing full academic regalia - the doctoral robes, hoods, and cute hats they earned when they got their graduate degrees. If you know a bit about them, you can tell what school a person graduated from and what field they were in from the costume. We were arranged by college and name, so we could be efficiently called up one row at a time to walk across stage and get our degree. The degree came in a leather folder. Everyone's name was prepared in advance - they asked us how we wanted to be called. There were two speeches by fellow graduates and one speech by a guest speaker. Our guest was Hanna Holborn Gray, who wasn't so much of a guest because she used to be president of the University - but this guest speaker is at many universities a famous personality, including even the President of the US if your school is into that sort of thing and you are lucky! The speeches were all relevant to graduating, the state of education, our school, and what an awesome distinguished group of alumni we were about to join. Then we all processed back out (way less formal than the way in) and had champagne. Pretty much everybody in the class was there, and the whole shebang even has its own website. My husband went to a larger university, and his was a little different. The colleges of the university each had separate graduations because it was so large. As each graduate received his or her degree, they also mentioned what the graduate's future plan was. (Everybody clapped when someone had secured a job working as Mickey Mouse at Disney World...as a job for a graduate of the College of Agriculture...) He had a robe and mortarboard too, plus some ropes for graduating with honors. Many students at his university didn't bother to attend college graduation. His was entirely pretense-free - alas, with the bagpipes, mine probably wasn't - but I did like them!

I guess the robes and stuff are pointless, but they can be kind of fun. Not really any more pointless than opera singing and speeches about a single medical problem.

I see France!

2009-06-18T20:54:00.004+02:00

Last weekend, we got together with three friends to rent a car and drive to Colmar, a town in the Alsace (German: Elsass) region of France, just beyond Strasbourg. We didn't really know very much about the town, except that every once in a while someone in Heidelberg mentions having gone there and raves about it. With five people, renting a car saved tons of money over taking the train.

On the way there, we managed to get lost somewhere near a town called Schutterwald, which sounds a lot like Shittywald if you're not paying attention. So, it took us almost three hours to reach our hotel north of Colmar, the Fasthotel. It was only 39 EUR for a double room!! Of course, it was clear why, as the hotel is located in a depressing shopping and industrial zone nowhere near Colmar. The rooms are tiny and the bathrooms are little plastic pods with towels about one third the size of what you'd expect. It looks like it could burn down any second. But, the price was right and the guy at the front desk was super, super nice and helpful!

We drove into Colmar and parked in a free tourist parking lot near the center. Yay for free parking, which does not exist in Germany! We were immediately latched onto by some guy on a bike who rode around trying to get money from tourists by orienting them as they arrive in the parking lot. Actually, it did help us get our bearings and he gave us a map which we would have had to walk across the center for otherwise.

Colmar Jun 2009

We spent the day wandering around Colmar, enjoying some Flammkuchen for lunch and taking lots of photos. The place was jam-packed with tourists and the weather was sunny and perfect. Colmar rivals Strasbourg in cuteness and...photogenicity? Is this a word? It's very photogenic. It's also considered the wine capital of Alsace, hence our grand plan to taste some wines, buy a whole bunch, and then take it back to our hotel to imbibe.

The plan worked out pretty well. Right in town you can visit the Karcher winery and try some wines any time they're open. We went in and it was empty. We tried to see if the guy would speak English or German to us, but he reported only that he spoke perfect French, and served up our first sample. He seemed grumpy, but the samples were pretty generous. Five or six later, we were more than happy to buy up and the guy was liking us more, too, and even using some English. We ended up buying six bottles for possible consumption that night - 2 Riesling, 2 Rose, and 2 Gewurztraminer, plus another bottle someone bought to take back to Heidelberg. Then we had a really great dinner at a restaurant along Colmar's adorable little canal (well, adorable in the touristy spots anyway...kind of stagnant and gross in places though) that the wine guy recommended to us before we left. We picked up some plastic glasses and snacks at a grocery store and then went back to our hotel.

The awesome Fasthotel front desk guy was still there. He and a guy from the bar opened our wines for us and let us sit on the hotel restaurant's patio even though we weren't ordering anything. Yay! Alas, we were all exhausted and only made it through three bottles. Damon and I paid the full amount on the other three and brought them home! :)

We'd decided we'd seen enough of Colmar and the next morning at breakfast, we randomly chose a town off an Alsatian wine map we picked up somewhere the previous day: Kaysersberg. We knew even less about it than we'd known about Colmar, but we hit tourist gold. It was packed too!

Kaysersberg Jun 09

The weather held up pretty well most of the day and we enjoyed yet more Flammkuchen and picture-taking, plus another wine tasting. This one wasn't as nice - nowhere to sit and the samples were about a third the size of the place we went in Colmar. But, we all bought some more wine to take home. We really need to replace our stock because we take wine to parties and serve it here a lot. This is a habit we're going to have to ditch if we ever go back to the US, where wine is much, much more expensive than it is here. :(

On our way north back out of France, we wandered off to one more stop, a castle called Haut-Koenigsbourg. We knew nothing about this either but figured it would be up on a hill and we could get a nice view over the valley from up there. We ended up having to walk about 15 minutes uphill from the parking lot, then we discovered that it is actually a really huge, restored-to-look-medieval castle which has a 7.50 entry fee! I was expecting some kind of half-assed ruin that you can just wander around for free, a la half the castles in Germany. But, it did look kind of cool and we needed some refreshments, so we paid and went on in.

Haut-Koenigsbourg Jun 2009

The cafe inside is a little too expensive but overall the castle was interesting, and worth at least 5 EUR of the entry fee. The only problem was that it seemed to have a very serious bee problem going on. They were swarming all over the place. We had great views over the plains of Alsace! I am surprised we never heard of this castle before.

On the way home we got lost again. I think it's because I am the best navigator but I was stuck in the backseat because there was another person taller than me who needed the front. ;) Tee hee. Enjoy the photos!

Never slow down on your blogging.

2009-06-10T11:35:00.004+02:00

Lesson learned! Still, I'm quite busy, so this little blow to my ego is going to have to go ignored anyway.

AmiExpat's Blankenhainer Kirschkuchen (Cherry Cake) Challenge!

2009-06-07T22:09:00.006+02:00

Okay, we're getting back in line with AmiExpat's cooking challenges this week with Blankenhainer Kirschkuchen! Per the recipe, it was the favorite cake of Germany's beloved Friedrich Schiller. (I mean beloved. Every German town and city has a Schillerstrasse (Schiller Street)!) Would this cake turn us brilliant as him? Time to find out!

First, we had to decide whether we wanted to invest in a cherry pitter. I looked around online for any suggestions of how to quickly pit cherries without one. There were plenty of ideas, but most places seemed to say that it was just worth it to buy a pitter, even despite the fact that it's annoying to store the thing all the rest of the year when there are no fresh cherries. We searched all over Heidelberg, finally buying the last cherry pitter at the Kaufhof in the Bismarckplatz. It was a little on the expensive side, but at that point we'd invested too much time in looking for it and just got the damn thing. (Although there is no logic in that, is there?) We got our fresh cherries from some grumpy dude selling them on the Hauptstrasse across from Butler's (where we were looking for a pitter).

Pitting the cherries was a breeze with the cherry pitter. (The German name for this instrument is Kirschentkerner - awesome word.) Getting the egg yolks and sugar all foamy was not bad. Beating the egg whites stiff was getting into painful territory! We both took turns at that and finally managed it. (We have no mixer or handbeater, which I am sure has already been mentioned at some point in this recipe series!) To the right you can see pretty much all the cake contents lined up to go - cherries, yolks/sugar/flour/cinnamon mix, beaten whites, and ground almonds (found in the baking section in the German grocery store). No butter in this recipe!!

After this everything is just folded or mixed together and then baked! Very easy! It took about 10 extra minutes in the oven over what the recipe said. At the end, we dumped some sugar on top. I was hoping the cake would be more moist and the sugar would stick to it, but it actually just sat on top.

The cake was pretty good - the nutty flavor and juicy cherries were really fantastic. I had been expecting it to be more moist, though, for some reason. I think if we make it again maybe we'd cut the cherries in half to spread them out a little more. I also wonder if using brown sugar would be good. It definitely needs something. Sorry, Schiller!

EDIT! It's the next day now and I think the cake seriously improved overnight! The cherries might have oozed some of their moisture into the cake. It's much less dry now and I approve. :)

We can vote!

2009-06-07T22:01:00.003+02:00

Or, I should say, we could have. Election Day was today. (A Sunday, so most people aren't left out of voting because of work.)

A month or two ago we got brochures in the mail along with some kind of voting card. The brochures were about voting and I figured they had just made a mistake in sending them to us, since we're not German. Then I realized the brochure was in three languages - German, English, and Turkish - so it couldn't just be for Germans.

It turns out that Heidelberg has a Foreigners' Council, which can advise city council and organize various intercultural things, and the members of the council are voted on by Heidelberg residents who are not citizens of an EU country. Pretty cool, eh?

We didn't vote, though. I think this is the first time I've been eligible to vote for something and didn't do it. The council is a cool idea, it just didn't seem like anything influential enough for me to do all the research about in time to vote. I never heard of this council before now, and certainly don't know anything about who's running. Still, it's great that there is such a thing and they can be chosen by actual foreigners.

General Notes from the Scotland Trip

2009-06-07T16:08:00.002+02:00

Tips for travelling in Scotland

* Allow plenty of time for driving, especially in rural areas! Like, maybe an extra day or two more than you expect! You may be itching to just step out of the car now and again not just to explore, but to have a break from the bumpy, twisty roads. Passing is often difficult, too. People warned us the same thing about Ireland, but we turned out to have extra time there. So, we didn't heed the warnings for Scotland. In our experience, the roads in Scotland were much slower to get around than Ireland.

* Ticks! Don't be like me and forget, now doomed to obsessively monitor that spot for funny rashes. Sheep and deer make the Highlands tick city. Use repellent, tuck pants into socks/shirts into pants, check yourself for ticks at the end of the day, and bring tweezers or a tick removal tool with you just in case.

* See a gas station and mayyyyybe need gas soon? Get gas now! Gas stations are few and far between (apparently this is a general UK problem). You'll be sorry you didn't spend the extra couple of pounds on more expensive gas when your car is running on fumes with no town in sight!

* If using the train, try to book at least 24 hours in advance for a better shot at cheaper fares.

* Small towns no one has ever heard of = cheap and friendly. They may be half shuttered up and not be that generally interesting, but they will probably treat you more nicely than the average person trying to get down the sidewalk quickly in the city and it won't cost much!

Funny things we noticed

* More than once, we actually saw signs hanging in places reminding customers not to abuse employees. The first time it was just kind of funny, but seeing it more than that, we really started to wonder. It imparts this image of the UK as a country full of bullies just waiting to abuse some hapless person whose job it is to be nice to them. That's not cool. Really, is it a big problem there?

* CCTV EVERYWHERE! There's no public place you can go without being watched by cameras. Even the trains all have them. While we were there we caught a news report about how they were catching and punishing litterers using CCTV. And, it was pretty clear while we were there why there would be a litter problem - garbage cans are really few and far between!

* Diesel trains! What's up with that? There's a huge gap between the train and the platform a lot of the time too - no wonder the "mind the gap" thing.

* After Edinburgh, if I never see plaid again it might be too soon. Although we liked it, the sheer touristiness did take a little bit of the sense of adventure and excitement out of it.

Actually, Scotland may well be fictional

Scotland boasts what may be the world's highest concentration of Places and Things That Sound Fictional. First, the fort we visited in Kilmartin Glen, Dunadd? That was the capital of the ancient Kingdom of Dalriada. This existed?? It sounds straight from fantasy. The Isle of Skye - are there unicorns there? Later, after we'd already discussed this topic, we were walking around Edinburgh when we saw a sign that said Midlothian on it. Damon: "Wait...there's really a place called Midlothian?" It started to get a little hard to distinguish Scotland from Middle Earth at this point. As for the Stone of Destiny, yeah. That sounds like something you'd have to sink 80 hours of RPG playing into to finally earn.

Scotland doesn't have a monopoly on these places though. We thought of some more. Add to the list, will you? :)

The Isle of Man - sounds like a philosophical concept rather than a physical place.
Moldova - easy to confuse with that fictional water-logged country in Dilbert.
Transdniester - and it doesn't sound any less fictional when you actually read what it is.

Notes from Edinburgh

2009-06-02T22:53:00.005+02:00

The drive to Edinburgh was much shorter than I expected. Scotland really isn't that wide. We didn't want to mess around with having a car in the city, so we'd arranged to drop it off at the airport upon our arrival. Then we took a super-convenient airport bus into the city - it stops all over, runs every ten minutes or so, and only cost 3.50 GBP!

We got out at the Haymarket stop which was only 2-3 blocks from our hotel, the Ballantrae West End. The hotel is on a quiet, completely residential crescent-shaped street. At check-in, they upgraded our room for free! We went from a 'junior double', whatever that is, to a double with a leather couch, fake fireplace, and jacuzzi. It was in the basement which is a little weird, but it was as bright as any hotel room. And, the sink had a mixer tap! These are a little too hard to come by in the UK. :)

We left the hotel and wandered up to the castle via about three million stairs from the back side. We were immediately struck by the sheer numbers of tourists, and secondly by how many of them were American! Up until this point, we had been around tourists, but not hordes of them - and we'd only run into one other group of Americans the whole time. Most of the other tourists we saw were English. There were also plenty of other Europeans, especially French.

The castle was pretty impressive. It's more like a big fort with lots of different buildings inside, much like Prague but without the big cathedral. There's only a tiny chapel, and also a relatively modern war memorial. The view from the perimeter is amazing on all sides. You can also wind your way through a maze of murals to see the Stone of Destiny and the crown, scepter, and sword of Scotland.

Edinburgh May 2009

After taking in the castle, we wandered down the famous Royal Mile, a stretch of road that goes down the spine of the giant rock on which Edinburgh's Old Town sits, leading from the castle to the Palace of Holyrood. The density of tourist shops is completely overwhelming. We have never seen anything like it in any other city we've visited. Even seeing the throngs of tourists, I still cannot understand how this one city can support so many whisky, kilt, crap-with-your-clan-name-on-it, mug, fudge, bagpipe music, and t-shirt shops. It's truly amazing.

After eating dinner at some pub along the Royal Mile, which was surprisingly cheap, we went to the Waverly train station to buy tickets for our return to Manchester the following day. The train station sits at the foot of the giant rock, under a bridge leading from the Old Town to the New Town. It cost 51.50 GBP each for the tickets! So, the trains there are no cheaper than Germany! But, at the desk they did say if we'd arrived before 6pm we might have been able to get a cheaper rate. So, if you plan to buy train tickets in the UK, get them in advance.

We then wandered into the New Town and walked along Princes Street. It's famous for its shopping and its truly striking view of the Old Town. Right now, it's all torn up as a tram is being installed (cool!!) but this doesn't hurt the views at all.

[Later, back in our hotel room, we found The Village playing on TV. Wow, it really is as bad as they say. That plot could have been so much better handled.]

On Wednesday morning we had continental breakfast at our hotel. Only cold breakfast is included in the price of the room; hot breakfast can be ordered for a pretty steep price. We were able to store our luggage at the hotel to avoid paying to store it at a train station.

We wandered over to Blair Street to book a tour of the South Bridge Vaults with Mercat Tours. South Bridge was built to connect the giant rock with the outlying university neighborhood. After it was built, buildings were built right up against it, and the spaces (vaults) under the bridge were completely enclosed (with the exception of one, which a road goes under) and used for various purposes over the years. They were excavated in the 1980s and now are parts of clubs and restaurants. The part we toured belongs to the tour company and is mostly empty. There wasn't much to see down there, but the tour guide was very knowledgeable about the history of Edinburgh so it was interesting. The same company does a lot of "spooky" tours of the vaults as well, if you're into that kind of thing. We went for the straight-up ghost-free historical tour.

For lunch we went to an Indian buffet near the university, Suruchi, for only 6 GBP each! Not bad, at least right now while there's not a big difference between the pound and the Euro. We then walked down the Royal Mile to Holyrood (we hadn't made it that far the previous day). It was closed, but some kind of changing of the guard was going on, so we hung around to watch it before going back into the Old Town to wander around some side streets and little alleys. Edinburgh is full of tiny alleys called closes, which are really just little passageways with the buildings right over them. It reminded me a lot of Lyon!

Not long after we needed to head back to the hotel to pick up our stuff before taking the train to Manchester. I think one day was plenty to just get the gist of Edinburgh, but of course city tourism is always much better when you have extra time for museums and outlying neighborhoods, and best if you know someone who lives there and can show you some of the really cool things they've learned about the place. City tourism can be sort of unpleasant without that insider to help you out - city dwellers are usually a lot less fond of the people traipsing all around their place and getting in the way than people in smaller towns. I guess I know because I've lived in a tourist city myself - Boston. And, I didn't find Edinburgh to be so friendly. I even got flipped off taking a photo. It's just that it's a regular city, not a place where you want to have a naive tourist air about yourself, you know? Still, I liked it a lot. Cities are better when you live there and aren't a photo-snapping dork from somewhere else. I would go again. I ~~would~~ already did encourage my husband to try to find a job there.

The train ride back to Manchester was uneventful. I actually slept through most of it. Our hotel at the airport, Bewley's, was much nicer than I was expecting, given the price relative to the other airport hotels. It was completely pleasant. A hotel shuttle with an especially jolly driver picked us up right from the train station. It was perfect for our needs - getting in late, and getting out early (7am flight!).

The airport was terrible, though. They now have these giant dispensers selling plastic bags for your liquids/gels/pastes/whatevers for one pound per bag. Please! Someone was telling us even lipsticks and glosses have to go in a baggie. A woman in front of me asked about the lipsticks in her purse, and they told her to buy a bag. I have a lip gloss in my purse all the time and always take it on planes. I decided it wasn't worth a pound to me, so I didn't get a baggie and just went right through security. They never checked and I still have my gloss and didn't lose a pound. What a freaking racket. Then after security, we had to walk directly through a giant duty free shop to get to the gates. Some lady tried to offer me a spritz of perfume. At 6am? Please, I can't stand that stuff at a good time of day. Gah!! Another damn racket. Like Heathrow, they don't announce your gates until right before boarding so you'll hang around the shops and maybe buy something. Oh, how I hate airports. Our Lufthansa flight was just lovely as always, though. :)

Whew. Finally, two weeks later, done with all the grisly Scotland details. A summary post to follow then we can get on with whatever other topics come to mind. :)

Notes from Kilmartin and the Kintyre Peninsula

2009-05-29T20:27:00.006+02:00

The weather was terrible - sheets of rain - and we were in a hurry to make it to Kilmartin at a time somewhat resembling what I'd told the B&B proprieter, but the scenery on the way there was amazing. We arrived slightly late in Kilmartin at the Rosebank Argyll B&B. After making it clear that she thought we were insane for taking our friends to Glasgow instead of telling them to get a bus (!?) because Oban is only a few miles from Kilmartin, the proprieter told us where to find the only supper in town and we were on our way. Kilmartin Hotel has quite possibly the coziest pub in all of existence, and we enjoyed dinner there with a fireplace, lots of locals, and a pile of worn atlases and world record books (pub quiz? settling bets?) next to our table. Kilmartin had pretty much already won us over at this point, only an hour after arriving!

Our B&B was really something to behold. Our room was all pink and full of stuffed animals, figurines, and other things an expat can easily forget the existence of (who could move all that stuff!?). But, we did have to remove the batteries from the Disney princess alarm clock overnight so the ticking didn't drive us crazy. I was happy to see the room had a tub!! That's something I really miss not having in my little German apartment.

Breakfast the next morning was just huge, plus there was a great cereal selection! (Another thing I miss in Germany - many types of cereal just don't exist here.) We poked around Kilmartin for a hour or so waiting for the local museum's shop to open, hoping it would have an area Ordinance Survey map we wanted. They didn't have it, so we just went on our way with a free map we got in a brochure at the B&B.

Our goal was to visit Glenbarr Abbey on the Kintyre peninsula south of Kilmartin. The Abbey is now the center for Clan MacAlister, which is the only Scottish ancestry I have that I know about. It's located next to the teeny tiny town of Glenbarr. The peninsula had lovely views out over the sea to some of the Hebrides, but appeared to be pretty much devoid of much tourism industry. When we arrived at the Abbey, we discovered its hours had changed since the printing of my guidebook, and it was closed all day!! Doh!! I should have checked the website, eh? Since the book was written the head of the clan, who was the one who gave tours, actually passed away, so I imagine that affected the schedule. We walked around it a bit then went into Glenbarr itself to stop for a drink and of course a Rice Krispie-based snack, something I probably could have just lived on for the whole trip. Glenbarr was tiny and unassuming. It reminded me a lot of some of the tiniest towns in the part of Iowa that I'm from. There was a tiny grocery and convenience store which led to a courtyard, where there was a coffee shop/community hall/gallery/gift shop sort of place. On our way into the courtyard we ran into a guy and Damon asked him if the coffee shop was open (I suppose feeling he had to say something, the guy looked really friendly). He said yes, "it's open because we need the money!!" When we went to pay for our stuff Damon realized he'd left his wallet at the B&B!! Ah, scientists.

Kilmartin, Kintyre, and more May 2009

We headed back north from Glenbarr, stopping in Tarbet at Lite Bites for lunch. It was so cheap!! I had a turkey and cranberry wrap which was delicious and only 2 GBP or something, and they had a huge variety of home-baked goodies to choose from, so we stocked up for later. (Later being about five minutes, despite better intentions.)

When we got back to Kilmartin Glen, we spent the afternoon checking out ancient sites - forts, standing stones, stone circles, cairns, cists, rock art - the glen is full of all kinds of these remnants of previous civilizations. Many of them are publicly accessible and there are free maps in Kilmartin to help find out how to get to those ones. Many more are on private land. We got to hang out with the sheep maybe a little more than we wanted to when we found out the path we were supposed to take to see a few different sites, a narrow lane between two fences, was being used by a herd of sheep moving from one field to another. There was no other way, so we took the path, but inadvertently separated three sheep from the rest of the herd. Most of the sheep were ahead of us, but the other three were behind, and they were not happy about this situation at all. With no way out we just kept going, turning around to try to scare them back when they started running at us - we didn't want to get run over by some crazy ass sheep!! Poor things. At the end there was a little corner we could back into to let them pass, and then all was well again. By the way, sheep make grass look so totally delicious, don't they? They eat it like it's soooo good. The field with the standing stones had a fresh, mutilated sheep carcass in it...this was seriously disturbing. I don't want to know what that was all about.

After all the tromping with sheep we got dinner at the Kilmartin Hotel again. The owner was working and was really helpful with various beer and local questions.

Back at the B&B I decided to have a bath since there was a tub!! This is when I discovered something on my knee. I remembered seeing it earlier, but I couldn't remember when. I thought it was a tiny scab and when I brushed at it earlier it hadn't come off, and so I left it alone. Now that I was in the bath I figured it was ok to try to get rid of it, but when I picked at it, I thought I saw a leg. Yeah, you read that right. I tried to remain calm. "Damon? Could you come in here?" He came in. "Can you look at this thing? Is it a tick?" He looked at it and poked at it. "No, I think it's just a scab." Poke, poke. "Wait, no....it is a tick." EW! I usually have good luck. This is the first tick I remember ever having. We had no tweezers or tick-removing devices so Damon decided to try pulling it out with his fingernails, which worked. Whew. Now to wait and see if I get any funny rashes. Normally I am so paranoid about ticks, but on this trip I had just completely forgotten. I didn't think about it at all. I wasn't wearing any bug/tick spray and I hadn't tucked my pants into my socks when we were out in the fields. How could I not think about it? Again with the ah, scientists. Unfortunately it could have been there for quite awhile since I knew I'd seen it before and couldn't remember when.

The next morning we started our journey to Edinburgh, first stopping for gas in Lochgilphead.
On our way to Kilmartin two days earlier we'd noticed that a town we came through, Inveraray, looked really cute, so we decided to stop there on our way to Edinburgh.

Inveraray + Road to Edinburgh May 2009

When we arrived we were surprised to discover that it was full of tourists and tourist shops! This was the first place on the whole trip that actually felt touristy. Even on Mull, where we did meet plenty of fellow tourists, Tobermory didn't feel touristy at all relative to Inveraray. Still, Inveraray was very cute and friendly. The main street is symmetrically laid out and all in black and white, with a courthouse-like building at the end of the street right in the center of the road. There's also a cutesy castle with big cone turrets which is the center for Clan Campbell. We stopped for coffee and Krispie treats again, then headed onward toward Edinburgh.

Notes from the Isle of Mull

2009-05-29T19:01:00.004+02:00

It was a long drive up to Oban, a town on the coast of Scotland which serves as a ferry hub for the Hebrides, from Carlisle. We wanted to catch a 6pm ferry, and needed to arrive half an hour early since we were taking the car with us. Thankfully, we reserved a spot that morning by calling in - the website didn't say anything about whether one was needed, but when we arrived in Oban, there were only six spots left! Because time was short, we didn't get to make any spontaneous stops on the way to Oban, with the exception of a lunch stop at a restaurant on the shore of Loch Lomond, north of Glasgow. (Note: starters are cheaper and are all the food you need for lunch - this seemed to be the rule everywhere we went! In the photos you can see Damon's lunch, which was on the menu has a haggis starter.) It would have been nice to stop more often, because the roads are tiny, bumpy, winding, and busy and all of us felt really carsick. Getting on the ferry was such a relief after all the time in the car - the ferry is huge and the ride was smooth as glass. It has tons of amenities, including a large bar, a cafeteria with full meals, and a gift shop.

The ferry docks in Craignure on the Isle of Mull, so we had more driving to do when we arrived, to the town of Tobermory where we had reserved rooms at a B&B. Nearly all the roads on Mull, even the major ones, are single-lane. When meeting another car or passing, one must get into a little bulbous tumor-looking lump on the road marked as a passing place. So, it requires constant vigilance to make sure you take advantage of the passing place if necessary before ending up in a stand-off and having to back up into one.

My notes from the drive between Craignure and Tobermory just say, "BEAUTIFUL!"

Upon arrival in Tobermory, we easily found our B&B, Copeland House, in the upper part of town, which lies on a cliff above the bay and the main part of town. The rooms were huge and beautiful, the bathrooms recently renovated, and there were delicious homemade cookies waiting!! It was so wonderful to see after the previous night's experience, which had actually cost more! (Note: the cookies are refilled every day!!) We had dinner at the Mull Pottery shop/restaurant, where we had a Latvian waitress who was really nice. I got scallops and bacon with salad and it probably was one of the best things I've ever eaten. The meals were served on pottery made in the shop, which had a lot of interesting things for sale.

The Isle of Mull (+ some extras) May 2009

The following day, we'd hoped to drive all the way around the island on a road mostly following the coast, stopping here and there to hike around or grab some food or coffee, and checking out the view of Iona from Mull, starting from a road leading west from Tobermory. This is not possible! Do not plan to do this! The road west from Tobermory down the west coast is very small and winding and has only one lane. There simply isn't enough time in a day to drive down all of it plus the rest of the island (which has somewhat better roads) unless you never want to leave the car. But, we did see quite a lot despite not making it all the way around:

Glengorm Castle - this is very near to Tobermory and you can rent rooms there. It's not that exciting as an attraction, but the views of it from the down the road are beautiful, and there are nice views up the coast from there.
Calgary - this little tiny town, just a few houses, gave the city of Calgary in Canada its name! It has a small beach with bright blue water. We stopped there for lunch at a small gallery/cafe which had good treats! In the area of Calgary we also stopped to see some ancient standing stones, which were in a forest clearing just off the road. It was windy and the forest was really creepy and cool. (And mossy! I love moss.) Somewhere along the way we witnessed a massive single-lane-road-driving fail, with two drivers refusing to budge from their positions on a curve up a hill and having a little standoff!

When we met up with the bigger road we gave up continuing on around the coast and seeing Iona and crossed the island back to the eastern side, where we paid a visit to Duart Castle, the clan center of the Macleans. Admission was 5.30 GBP. The castle was more interesting from the outside than the inside. Inside there were some dungeons and wax models on the lower floors, followed by a massive collection of the treasures of Clan Maclean, in addition to lots of family pictures of the Macleans of today, and a special highlight, a Boy Scout uniform worn by a Maclean! Oh boy! But, in a really lucky moment, we got to see a rainbow or two from a giant window overlooking the sea! (You can see it too if you look at the photos.)

After the castle, we explored the grounds a bit then stopped for a drink at a crowded little pub in Craignure, then had dinner at Sagar Indian restaurant in Tobermory. Indian food in the UK is much better than in Germany! I had the vindaloo (which the waiter informed me was "too spicy" and wondered if I still wanted it) and got to enjoy the spicy-food-high for the rest of the evening. We spent it in the Mishnish pub on Tobermory's main street, where the TVs were all showing....EUROVISION!!!! (My friends seemed to think I was the only one who watched this crap, but not so, hehe!!) We got there around the time of Estonia's performance, about halfway through, so we missed quite a few acts. It was fun to watch in English - the commentator didn't take it seriously, commenting for example after Germany's horrid song that "the low point of the show is finally over."

On Sunday, we drove down the east coast of Mull in the direction of Iona, to see if we could make it there on the faster road before having to catch our ferry back to the mainland. We didn't make it, but got to see some cool new landscapes on the way! We took the ferry back to Oban, where we stopped for lunch at the Kitchen Garden. At this point I learned about all the different mayonnaise-based sandwich concoctions available in the UK, all with fancy names like "Coronation Chicken" (chicken salad) or "Prawn Marie Rose" (shrimp salad). I had the tuna and sweet corn, which didn't have a frilly name, but did have an awful lot of mayo.

Our friends were flying back to London from the Glasgow airport, so we headed back the way we came, past Loch Lomond. At some point, as the car was warning us that we had less than 100 miles of fuel left in our tank, we passed up a gas station because it was slightly more expensive than gas we'd seen elsewhere. But, the next down had no gas station, and neither did the next, and pretty soon the car started to panic. Where it normally said [Range: X Miles] it now said [!!!Range!!! Refuel!]. Nothing like seven exclamation points to drive home the fact that passing up gas earlier was, in 20/20 hindsight, a poor decision. Luckily, our friends had brought a TomTom and it took us right to a gas station after many, many miles of panicky car, and we didn't run out of gas. Our friends were successfully dropped off at the airport, and we still had over two hours of driving back the way we came from to get to our next destination, Kilmartin.

Notes from Manchester and Hadrian's Wall

2009-05-27T21:25:00.004+02:00

I've waited too long to update and lost followers again. Oops!
We've actually been back from our trip since last Thursday and I'm still not done sorting through all the photos. Rather than wait any longer I figured I better just start posting what I've got!!

This trip was the result of a Lufthansa deal posted on Regensblog in December. They had fares around 100 EUR to various destinations and I'd just had a crappy month and was looking to plan our next escape. The deal included Manchester, so I decided to book it and then decide later what we wanted to do from there - and we ended up deciding on driving up to Scotland!!

So, we flew into Manchester on Thursday morning. As usual, the airport was hell. No drinks through the security check, of course - and there are usually two security checks for flights to the UK. There's so little for food/drink available behind the second check that we stood around outside it chugging all our water so we could go through and have a seat and our lunch in peace. (The sign said we couldn't take food through the check either, but we asked the guy about it and he let us take it in.) I really hate the airport. All the ridiculous security just serves as a giant reminder that some people are such worthless assholes that they would try to hurt each other on airplanes. If humans just weren't so prone to being dicks, boarding a plane would be as easy as boarding the train.

All was well once we got on the plane, though. I love Lufthansa. Big snack and free wine on a one and a half hour flight = win. Forget all those crappy American airlines. I did laugh in the airplane bathroom though - there was a no-smoking sign right next to a sign indicating the location of the ashtray.

Upon arrival we were greeted by a giant glowing UK BORDER sign above passport control. Very dramatic. There were also brochures everywhere about not spreading swine flu around. They asked a million questions, like whether we had any friends who lived in the UK, what kind of scientist Damon was, etc. We were dorkily thrilled, though, that while asking all the questions, he took the time to find the earliest possible empty box in our passports for the stamp. So often they just skip to a fresh new page and stamp there and I'm trying to hang onto my clean pages and put off the trip to the embassy for new ones as long as possible.

We arrived in Manchester around noon, but would be picking up friends at the airport around 9:30 pm with our car rental to head out immediately to our hotel for the night in Carlisle, two hours north of Manchester. But, we'd booked the car well before all these plans were created, so we were due to pick up the car right after our plane arrived. Whether they made us actually hold to that reservation would determine how we spent the afternoon.

I've been in Germany too long. I was sure that the rental people would tell us we had to take the car when we said we would. But no!! When we arrived at the desk to see if we could pick it up that evening, they were completely casual about it. In Germany they'd have looked at us like no one had ever asked to do anything so completely absurd. It was no problem to change the pick-up time or the drop-off time for the car! They were friendly too. I texted my friend that we'd arrived in her country and were enjoying the customer service. So, we decided to pick it up later and take the train into Manchester to check it out.

The Manchester Airport train station is connected to one of the terminals, so very convenient. We had no idea what we were doing when we arrived so we went up to the desk to ask some guy what train to take and to get tickets. He treated us like idiots for our basic questions. Oops, so much for the customer service. Still, we got the info we needed so it was all good. Manchester Airport is a major terminal and all the trains leaving from there stop at Manchester Piccadilly station in downtown Manchester. For both of us it cost 6.40 GBP round trip and took 20 minutes.

Around this point I have a note that says "lots of British looking people!" - hehe. Go figure!

Manchester & Hadrian's Wall May 2009

Upon arriving at the station downtown, we tried to find a place with a map we could pick up to figure out where we were and where we might want to go, but the only general info desk was shut down. We ended up wandering off in a direction that generally looked promising and eventually came upon a map on the street. Using that, we decided to check out something marked Chinese Gate, just on a whim. And, we discovered there's a little tiny Chinatown in Manchester!!! Woo hoo!! This means dim sum, moon cakes, sesame balls, and maybe some cute stationery (if there's a more Asia-wide shop). We made a note to come back there later and moved on toward the city hall. On the way, we stopped for coffee. The goodies in the coffee shop looked so good and so different from what's in Germany that we had to get something, so I got a little tiny piece of chocolate-covered cheesecake. Damn!! It was completely different from German Kaesekuchen - so much more rich and sweet, more like what you'd get in the US. So began a week of cramming my face with all kinds of treats on an island that knows how to do sweet snacks. Hell yes.

Anyway, we moved on to the city hall, and on the way finally found a tourist info stop and got some maps. From there we headed toward the cathedral, and on the way went past a street market selling all kinds of goodies, including fresh donuts! But, we had to save room for some goodies in Chinatown later! Manchester's downtown is a very Boston-like mix of old and new (see photos). Some is very new, as there was a major IRA bombing in downtown Manchester in 1996.

We got some shrimp dumplings, barbecue pork rolls, and spring rolls at a place in Chinatown called Little Yang Sing. It was so super-formal - the waitress insisted on unwrapping our chopsticks for us - but everything tasted amazing, probably because we've been totally deprived. It's kind of weird how excited I get about finding a Chinatown. I didn't realize how much all my fun Chicago and Boston Chinatown memories affected me until getting to Germany and not having anything like it around. Afterward we loaded up on goodies at a Chinese bakery and stopped in a couple of shops (none of what I was looking for, though).

By the time we finished in Chinatown it was time to head back to the airport to pick up the car and all the luggage that we'd checked at the left luggage there (5 GBP per piece). The left luggage place closed at 8pm, so we had some extra time at the airport before needing to get the car and pick up our friends. We waltzed into a sit-down restaurant in the terminal like we owned the place, until a waitress stopped us halfway through and asked, "Uh, do you need a table for two?" Oops...you can't just seat yourself like in Germany! (That one I never managed to get over the whole week. I kept wanting to walk right in. I like picking my own spot!) We wasted some time there, then headed to pick up the car, just in time, as our friends' plane came in a little early. But, as we tried to get over to their terminal to pick them up, we were attacked by a crazy roundabout and ended up instead on a motorway, speeding away from the airport with no clue what was going on. Doh! What a mess the roads are. Anyway, we managed to turn around somewhere and get back to the terminal within around 10 minutes, then off to Carlisle!

Our home for the night, the Pine Grove Hotel, had insisted we call with our arrival time because we would be getting in so late and someone might have to get up to let us in. We did so, but when we got there a big party was happening in the lounge, so I guess we needn't have worried! Our room was a blast from the past (see photos) - with the most unfortunate feature being the carpeted bathroom. Think of all those pee dribbles....ugh. Our friends, however, had a completely different room - it came with a frilly canopy bed, goofy period phone, and other bits in line with a sort of princess theme. So, some variability there, eh?

The next morning we all enjoyed breakfast before driving off to check out Hadrian's Wall before continuing north to Scotland. We just set the TomTom to Brampton, and once we arrived there, followed some signs toward the wall. It was incredibly cold and windy! Spring wasn't nearly so progressed as in Heidelberg, either - rapeseed was still bright, bright yellow (it had already faded here) and some of the trees were still nearly bare! We checked out some bits of wall and stopped at one former turret where there was a cafe and gift shop. The people working there were as friendly as could be and Damon and I spotted some kind of bar in the cafe made of Rice Krispies and chocolate!!! (Rice Krispies are a special treat in Germany only to be had for a high price at the import shop.) It was delicious (of course we got it!!). We also stopped at a priory ruin, which still has an operating church and of course a little gift shop. Be sure to check out the photos, so that I didn't spend all week poring over them for nothing. ;)

By the way, does anyone know: why are all the tables in the UK sticky? I thought it was just a problem at the first place we ate, but actually, they're all sticky everywhere, like it's a special kind of finish or something.

Intermission

2009-05-13T15:42:00.003+02:00

I'll be away from the blog for a bit! In the meantime, here's a whole bunch of stuff to keep you entertained - should last a few days, unless you've got a huge backlog on your blog reader like I do!

First, check out the Eurovision post again - I added some videos!

There's been lots of news lately about how the downturn is affecting people in the US versus how it's affecting Europeans. I had just been pondering that things just didn't seem as bad here as the stories I was hearing from home, but wasn't sure if it was just because the downturn is catching up to us more slowly here, or if it's because of the different ways the countries are run, and the differences in people's behavior. These are worth your time!
From the Wall Street Journal: US, Europe are an Ocean Apart on Human Toll of Joblessness
From the New York Times: Going Dutch
From MSNBC: In Europe, social safety net softens the slump (includes a fellow expat in HD!)

Here are some blog posts I starred in my reader recently!
PhD Comics: Budget Cuts
Opinionistas: Chicks are People Too
The Lint Trap of My Mind: Germans Have More Free Time Than the Rest of the World
Strange Maps: A Russian Professor's Prediction of How the US Will Split - Kentucky in the EU!?
Benperry.net: Why European Mobile Calls Don't Get Dropped
Love Is a Journey: Florida or Germany?
The German Way Expat Blog: Where My House Is My Home
Overheard In New York: Dr. Ruth Was a Challenge to Raise
Bad Science: Experts say new scientific evidence helpfully justifies massive pre-existing moral prejudice
Waterloo Birdhaus: In the Supermarket - Cool American-flavored chips and more!
Euro Like Me: Whatever - I used to be cool too....
K. Rae: Dating Americans: A Guide for Foreigners

Alright, better stop there. The internet is full of great stuff.

And, a few things things that have been in my head a lot lately! Enjoy!!

So, all this should provide plenty of reasons to come back to my blog and click on something every day while I'm away. :)

Eurovision 2009!

2009-05-12T22:34:00.004+02:00

**Now edited to add some videos!! Yay!**

Well, I will probably miss the Eurovision final this year. How could I possibly schedule a vacation over Eurovision weekend!? I clearly was not thinking! We watched the first semi-final tonight as sort of a consolation prize. This is all thanks to Adam, without whom I probably would have never even realized it was happening this week. (I also forgot my oldest friend's birthday this week. My mind is toast. Do I blame the upcoming vacation? Age? The new job? All the damn Zyrtec I've been taking?)

Anyway, I love the big European bonding moment and all the drama and goofiness that is Eurovision. I didn't really prepare to take notes or anything tonight but here's what I remember of the acts in the first semifinal! Asterisks for those that made it to the final.

1. Montenegro - Kind of a dancy thing. The lyrics were too repetitive for even me, and my love of repetitive music is a joke among some of my friends!

2. Czech Republic - This guy was dressed in a superhero outfit and I thought it would be bad in a good way, but it was unfortunately only plain old bad.

3. Belgium - Bad Elvis impersonator. Ugh!

4. Belarus - Yessss!! The totally horrible cheesy drama that makes Eurovision so awesome. There was a guy standing on a pedestal holding two big sticks, and a big sheet was covering him and blowing back in a wind machine with some fire and stuff projected on it. I wish I could describe it better, it was so ridiculously dramatic. The white-suited singer looked a bit skeezy. Too bad they didn't make it to the final so everyone could enjoy the madness.

5. Sweden* - Opera singing over disco with blinding white lights (Damon liked them, I didn't). It alllllmost worked for me, but not quite.

6. Armenia* - At first it seemed kind of boring, but ended up being a decent one of those standard Eurovision ethno-dance tunes. I might even listen to it myself.

7. Andorra - To me, it sounded like very American radio fodder. I wonder how many musicians there are in Andorra. It's tiny!!

8. Switzerland - A completely unmemorable rock band. I don't think rock works well on this show.

9. Turkey* - This was a pretty decent ethno-dance thing too. They always do well, even if they're not very good.

10. Israel* - This was just blah. Can't believe it made it to the final!!

11. Bulgaria - OMG! Dancers on stilts that look like peg legs!! It would be a great spectacle, but the singer was just painful to listen to. Very bad.

12. Iceland* - This was a boring girly number, but it turned hilarious when this ultra-kitschy - not the good kind of kitsch - Lisa-Frank-esque dolphin arced across the big screen. NICE!

Soaring dolphin at 1:53:

13. Macedonia - Rock band warped in from 1989!!

14. Romania* - Brilliant lyrics from a Mariah Carey lookalike: "Balkan girls like to party like to party like nobody." Bleh.

15. Finland* - This song was okay overall but it had some rap sections that just didn't fit with the rest of the song and were terrible. But, the show included cool fire sticks so it's all good!

16. Portugal* - This was a cute little pop-ish song with cute little rainbows and clouds in the background. I fell for it and was really glad they went to the final - I didn't think they had a shot!

17. Malta* - Snooze.

18. Bosnia-Herzegovina* - Overdramatic - everyone in white, doing some kind of statue/marionette act...I don't know, not my thing, but this stuff seems to go over pretty well.

AmiExpat's Erdbeer-Bowle (Strawberry Bowl) Challenge!

2009-05-11T16:22:00.009+02:00

This week, AmiExpat let us off easy with this very simple recipe for Erdbeer-Bowle! I first tried Erdbeer-Bowle at a festival in Mainz, where I was staying with a friend after classes were scheduled particularly late one day. This recipe doesn't look anything like what I saw them make in Mainz, which was full of juice and sugar. AmiExpat's recipe has only three required ingredients - strawberries, wine, and champagne.

A friend of ours was having a little housewarming on Thursday night so we decided to take it there. She has a small kitchen and was going to be cooking, so I cut up the berries in advance in our work kitchen right before leaving for her place. I cut all of them, large and small, into quarters for maximum juiciness!

Note on the strawberries: I went to buy the strawberries that morning and it was the first day I saw German strawberries at Rewe. They were sitting alongside Spanish strawberries. I couldn't decide which to get. The Spanish ones looked more ripe and were cheaper, but German strawberries have been sooooo good to me in the past, plus it's nice to buy local. So I ended up getting a half kilo of each. Oh German strawberries, why did I ever doubt you? They were incredible. I'll never be able to go back to California strawberries shipped for days in a truck to the midwest or east coast.

At my friend's place, we dumped the berries in a giant 3-liter bowl and poured on the wine. I guess the label's not really legible in the photo; it's a sweet wine from the beautiful Mosel Valley. We also made a second, non-alcoholic Bowle because one of the guests couldn't have any alcohol. For this one, I got white grape juice in place of the wine. Then we had to remove shelves in her little German fridge to fit the bowls in there to chill for an hour while we all ate.

After an hour, we pulled the bowls out of the fridge. To the real Bowle, we added the champagne; to the non-alcoholic Bowle, sparkling water. Turns out this recipe has a seriously high ratio of strawberries to liquid! This is also pretty different from Mainz, where a glass was about 1/4 - 1/3 strawberry. These were so full of strawberries they were practically dessert. Yum!! Both versions got good reviews so I recommend this to strawberry and champagne fans everywhere. Enjoy!

Beliebte Vornamen 2008 (Popular First Names 2008)

2009-05-08T23:03:00.006+02:00

I mentioned a bit ago that name nerdery was nigh, and here it is! As in the previous two years, here's a comparison of the most popular names for the newly born in the United States and Germany in 2008.

A bit on the sources: The US Social Security Administration collects first name data and releases it on their website every year. However, multiple spellings of the same name are not combined, therefore the list isn't entirely what it seems. Per the SSA data, the most popular name given to baby girls in 2008 was Emma. But it comes in at a lower position when multiple spellings of names are combined. I combined spellings myself and present here my adjusted list of most popular names. Go to the SSA site for the original, with all spellings of a name listed separately. Combining spellings is a subjective practice so everyone's mileage may vary.

Germany does not collect official first name data. I usually use this hobbyist source, but there are other lists out there that are not exactly the same. If you've got another source, let me know about it!

(Number in parentheses = number of variant spellings included in Germany top 500 / US top 1000, if more than 1.)

Maedchen
1. Hannah (2)
2. Leonie (2)
3. Lea (2)
4. Lena
5. Mia
6. Anna
7. Emilie (2)
8. Lara
9. Laura
10. Sarah (2)
11. Emma
12. Lilli (3)
13. Marie
14. Lina
15. Maja (2)
16. Johanna
17. Sophie (2)
18. Nele (2)
19. Sophia (2)
20. Amelie

Jungen
1. Leon
2. Lucas (2)
3. Luca (2)
4. Tim (2)
5. Finn (2)
6. Luis (2)
7. Jonas
8. Felix
9. Paul
10. Maximilian
11. Max
12. Niclas (2)
13. Julian
14. Ben
15. Elias
16. Jan
17. Noah
18. Moritz
19. Philip (2)
20. Jannik (4)

Girls
1. Sophia (2)
2. Isabella (3)
3. Emily (5)
4. Madison (4)
5. Olivia (3)
6. Emma
7. Ava (2)
8. Abigail (4)
9. Hailey (8)
10. Madeline (8)
11. Kaitlyn (7)
12. Chloe (3)
13. Addison (5)
14. Brianna (4)
15. Sarah (2)
16. Elizabeth (2)
17. Natalie (5)
18. Kaylee (9)
19. Lily (3)
20. Samantha

Boys
1. Aiden (10)
2. Jayden (10)
3. Jacob (2)
4. Michael (2)
5. Ethan (2)
6. Joshua
7. Alexander (2)
8. Daniel
9. Christopher (2)
10. Caden (9)
11. Anthony
12. Matthew (2)
13. William
14. Andrew
15. Nicholas (4)
16. Joseph
17. Christian (3)
18. David
19. Noah
20. Jonathan (4)

Can we get some hot water please?

2009-05-06T20:55:00.006+02:00

I'm working back at the same place as before. I didn't miss the bathroom there. First, there's only one toilet, and it's always cold in there for some reason. But the real issue is that there is no hot water at the sink, only ice cold!! This is actually a pretty common thing here at public toilets. It's okay now and then - saves them the money to heat the water, I guess. But at work I get seriously chilled washing my hands in the cold water and I feel like I never recover from the chill, then just have to go back in there again later, and wash my hands in the cold-ass water again, and get even more chilled...brrr!! I so look forward to going home at the end of the day to use my own bathroom and use some nice warm water. :) Still, our offices are in a building that is at least interesting and is convenient for me, so I can't really complain otherwise.

***

In other news, it's almost name-nerd Christmas!! On Mother's Day the new name statistics for the US for the previous year are usually released. When they are, I'll post them here in a comparison with the most popular German names. In other name news, the German Constitutional Court ruled yesterday that people can't have triple or higher hyphenated last names. From the article:

Frieda Rosemarie Thalheim, a Munich dentist, wanted to take the last name of her husband, Hans Peter Kunz-Hallstein, to become Frieda Rosemarie Thalheim-Kunz-Hallstein. The case brought Germany’s minister of justice before the court in Karlsruhe for oral arguments in February to defend the ban on what the Germans call “chain names.”
By a vote of five to three, the court refused to budge, ruling that ballooning names “would quickly lose the effectiveness of their identifying purpose,” and declined to overturn the law on the grounds that it infringed on personal expression.
In a telephone interview, the couple’s lawyer, Rüdiger Zuck, said his clients had no comment on the ruling, but added, with what sounded distinctly like a note of resignation, “The Germans are old-fashioned.”
Germany takes a highly regimented approach to naming. Children’s names must be approved by local authorities, and there is a reference work, the International Handbook of Forenames, to guide them. Jürgen Udolph, a University of Leipzig professor and head of the information center there that provides certificates of approval for names that have not yet made the official list, said that “the state has a responsibility to protect people from idiotic forenames.”

The United States, of course, does not have naming laws of any kind - anything is fair game for a first or last name - and I doubt they ever would. It would not suit the American attitude. ;) As a consequence of our naming freedom, we have a reputation for using weird, wacky, and meaningless names. (My parents did a good job, though. Thanks guys.)

***

I've had this in my head all week. Note: you need a high tolerance level for annoying music to click this.

American Bread

2009-05-05T22:22:00.003+02:00

You can find lots of bread marked "American" here: the square sliced white kind, hamburger buns, and hot dog buns. Germans think American bread is terrible. They're not wrong about that. But, American bread is not as terrible as the stuff marked American bread here!! I had a hankering for maidrites (that's my-corner-of-Iowa-ish for "sloppy joes") today and got the hamburger buns and was reminded again of what I already learned a few times. That bread is so light and dry it just falls apart if you put anything on it. Buns actually made in the US seem to be built to take the addition of meat and condiments a lot better!

Hessische Bergstrasse Weinlagenwanderung!

2009-05-03T12:58:00.002+02:00

On May 1 every year the Hessische Bergstrasse celebrates spring with its big Weinlagenwanderung, wine hike! We did this two years ago with a group from the university international house, and decided to do it again this year on our own (with friends). This time, with the previous experience under our belts, we were much more prepared, with a good lunch, water, sunscreen, and hats!

Hessische Bergstrasse Mai 09

As usual the photos give the full story so check them out!

We started in Heppenheim, just as we did last time. The stretch between Heppenheim and the first wine stop is just too gorgeous - I didn't want to pass it up in favor of the unknown parts of the trail up near the other end in Zwingenberg. The weather was more hazy and a little less hot than last time, which worked in our favor - we made it to six stops instead of just four! You can get a stamp at each stop and with six stamps you can be entered to win one of 100 prizes, ranging from two nights vacation in the Hessische Bergstrasse to a bottle of wine. Parts of me are still sore, however. ;) Including getting to and from the train stops, we must have walked around 20km up and down hills. All kinds of people can be seen along the path - retirees with their amusing Nordic walking habits, parents with strollers, hen parties, teenagers getting progressively sillier (I think the age to buy wine is technically 16? but in wine country, seriously, who is going to ask?), and on and on. It just reminded me of another difference with the US - where alcohol can only be drunk within a fence or wall, everyone is IDed and the drinking age is much higher, everyone would have to have bands on their arms, no one would want to deal with taking little kids along, there wouldn't be any public transit to the countryside so there would be higher drunk driving risks, etc. So, I am determined to enjoy as many wine walks this year as possible in case we have to go back to the US at the end of the year!! I've already found a couple we've never been to by poking around the intarwebs, plus we can't forget the super awesome one in Freins heim in fall!! (DAD, I'm looking at you...last weekend in September... don't you still like Riesling? ;) )

If anyone can recommend a wine fest they find especially great, please leave me a comment!!

Yesterday was a beautiful day in Heidelberg (well, today too). It was also the long night of shopping as I mentioned in an earlier post. It's very cute how a really big deal is made out of the shops being open past 8pm. There are candles lining the sidewalks outside the open shops, food stands, promotions like DJs and drinks and food in the shops - it's very festive!! We went out to get a Wurst at one of the food stands and enjoy the evening, and I was looking for some Sharpies so we stopped in a couple of shops. I didn't find any Sharpies, but the paper store on St-Anna-Gasse had free Sekt (champagne) and snacks for just walking in the door. I got some Edding and Stabilo pens instead. I'm not sure Sharpies are available in Germany (boooooo!) and I needed to restock on several colors of the ultra fine tip. I'll see how the Stabilo ones are as a substitute. They kept trying to give us more Sekt, so I totally recommend shopping during these things! :)

There was also some extra hullaballoo in Heidelberg because the mayor set up tonight to show off the fancy new lighting he had installed on the Old Bridge. After much blathering on over a mic, they turned on the new lights, which are....something we'll have to get used to. There is just a lot of lighting now, highlighting every inch of the rail along the bridge. It's kind of overkill, but, maybe I'm just being too conservative and will get used to it with time. We already know I don't like the new benches over there and the tunnel under the city idea is theoretically cool but in reality a total disaster waiting to happen. I think the mayor's a little goofy...but he does seem to be a man of action.

I just signed my life away!! With special SWINE FLU bonus!

2009-04-30T15:37:00.005+02:00

...well, 50% of it, anyway. For the next eight months. I'll be working again in the same place I worked previously, half-time because the position can only be full-time if I have a yet higher degree.

Jobs are very strictly defined here, I find. Certain job titles can only be given to people with a certain degree - full stop. No amount of prior experience in the field, no amount of proven intelligence or ability to be trained, nothing can substitute for that degree. I was talking to a German friend about the work I did when I lived in the US. Job titles there are all over the map (within a company, or especially within the government, perhaps rigid, but on a grand scale, wide open to interpretation). My job title there was analyst, the day-to-day work of which she thought made it a match to the German position known as Wissenschaftler(in) - scientist. So she couldn't conceive how it was possible that I worked my analyst position in the US - with job duties similar to a scientist position here - without having had a degree higher and more specific than bachelor's. Here, that just couldn't be done, no matter one's previous experience, without the right degree. It's interesting. Most jobs in the US will require a certain degree, but it can be substituted with years of experience (often much more useful than the degree anyway). Also, I find they're often willing to work with you if you appear to be someone who will learn quickly and can be trained or went to a good university.

Now I am qualified to be hired as a scientist in Germany, which I wasn't before. The bonus of such a position, which falls into a special group called "highly qualified", is that a non-German, non-EU person can be hired for it without the position having to go through a long wait/review by a special German work board that decides if the job should/could go instead to a German or EU citizen. So, I got to go to the Auslaenderamt for my work visa just yesterday and skate right through with no wait, sign the contract today, and start work Monday. Nice!! Also, now that we've been here more than two years, I can be here on my husband's visa and, with the permissions I got there yesterday, work any job. No need for an extra sticker in my passport saying I can't work any job except for the one specific one noted on the sticker. I'm glad for this since I'm running really low on passport pages!! (I will need a page refill before the year is out. I heard Frankfurt is not a nice place to go for this service? Anyone?)

I look forward to the income and having continuously career-related stuff on my resume. But otherwise, meh. I am quite worried that the half-time hours are going to turn into full-time hours with half-time pay. Few things infuriate me more than working over what one is paid for - in my world, everyone would be paid hourly. Of course the US only moves ever more toward salaried workers.

---

In other news, Mary asked:

As a capstone to your MS, how about a post on swine flu. Is this really something to be worried about? I can't tell if it's a serious disease, or just a widespread one.

I don't think I can really add much valuable to what's already in the news. I don't think there's enough data yet to know how serious it is as far as the mortality rate. We know there were a lot of deaths in Mexico, but how many unreported cases that didn't end in death? Ben Goldacre over at Bad Science had a very good post about the portrayal in the media and the fact that it's really not known what will happen.

I would just encourage you to follow the link but I'm afraid no one will, so here are a few snippets. It's better if you go there and read it all. Some context: Goldacre's job is usually to write about how poorly and inaccurately science is portrayed in a sensationalist media - so he's a very good person to be commenting on the matter.

. . . I have been genuinely weirded out by the number of people inviting me to be a naysayer on the aporkalypse. I’m not, it’s a genuine risk. . . .

First it was the emails, and the tweets. This is all nonsense about the aporkalypse, surely? Just like with Sars, and bird flu, and MMR, is this all hype? The answer is no, but more interesting is this: for so many people, their very first assumption on the story is that the media are lying. It is the story of the boy who cried wolf. . . .
. . . All people have done is raise the possibility of things really kicking off, and they are right to do so, but we don’t have brilliantly accurate information. Someone has said that up to 40% of the world could be infected. Is that scaremongering? Well it’s high, and I’m sure it’s a bit of a guess, but maybe up to 40% could be. Annoying, isn’t it, not to know.

Someone has said 120 million could die. Well I suppose they could: I’m sure it was done on the back of an envelope, by guessing how many would be infected, and what proportion would die, but I don’t think anyone’s pretending otherwise.

. . . Everyone is just saying: we don’t know, it could be bad, and the newspapers are reporting that. Sure there’s a bit of vaudeville in the headlines, but they’re not saying things that are wrong, and do you really know actual, real people, normally pretty solid, who are suddenly now panicking?

By Tuesday, pundit-seekers from the media were suddenly contacting me, a massive nobody, to say that swine flu is all nonsense and hype, like some kind of blind, automated naysaying device. . . .

I assumed they were adhering, robotically, to the “balance” template, but no: he kept at it, even when I protested and explained. “Yeah, but you know, it could be like Sars and bird flu, they didn’t materialise, they were hype.” Simon Jenkins suggested the same thing. It’s not true, I said. They were risks, risks that didn’t materialise, but they were still risks. That’s what a risk is. I’ve never been hit by a car, but it’s not idiotic to think about it. Simon Jenkins won’t be right if nobody dies, he’ll be lucky, like the rest of us. . . .
I just think it’s interesting: because not only have the public lost all faith in the media; not only do so many people assume, now, that they are being misled; but more than that, the media themselves have lost all confidence in their own ability to give us the facts.

Assorted Recent Happenings

2009-04-28T17:33:00.006+02:00

On Friday I passed my defense and oral exam, finally putting all the torture of my master's degree behind me. I was tired and distracted and don't remember much about the experience, honestly. My mark was a clear pass, but I thought it should have been higher. I think my bad week and my lack of familiarity with the exam format did me no favors. I was not interested in arguing about it because I just wanted it to be over and besides, does it really matter if the mark reflects how well I know the material? I am confident in my knowledge. However, today when I ran into my past and future boss and had to tell him my mark in person, I was kind of wishing I had argued. His surprise and disappointment were apparent.

On Friday night, some friends and I celebrated at Merlin. They have some pretty good specials, including salads for only 6 EUR on Fridays from mid-afternoon until 7pm. My salad was pretty good, and our waitress was so friendly I actually suspect she was American. My mojito was more on the limey side, when I prefer it more on the minty side, but it still did the job so that's not really a complaint. ;) I also had a white russian, and this was the first time I've seen one served layered in a martini glass with no ice! (Also with some of those ubiquitous cape gooseberry things stuck on top.) I've been thinking about doing a short run-down of all the places we've eaten/drank in Heidelberg sometime...but we'll see.

On Saturday, we met with the lovely people behind SoJo at Cafe Burkhardt. It was fun...and if you get the table in the back left of the room, try checking the drawer. ;) The service there is totally average, but they have a great wine list and I think the booths are really cute. They also have a little courtyard in the back. It was kind of cool so we didn't sit back there, but it looked oddly peaceful when I took a look out the window at it after sunset. (Oddly, because it was in spite of all the noise coming from the Untere Strasse!)

On Sunday, we decided to take advantage of the continued great weather to bike out into the fields west of Heidelberg. From the train you can always see people biking and walking along these trails through the fields and it looks so idyllic. We've been out there before but wanted to go more in the direction of Schwetzingen this time. We have a bike map from ADFC which turned out to conflict with posted bike route signs and we didn't exactly get lost, but we had a lot of trouble and ended up not going where we had really been hoping. Still, we had a nice ride. Tons of people were out. This time of year is just really beautiful here. Just stepping outside the door, you can smell flowers in the air even when there aren't any nearby. Everything is blooming! Also, out along the Neckar near Wieblingen we heard the bird that says, "Cuckoo!" (Is it just called a Cuckoo?) It sounds just like the clocks. ;)

Last night we went with a couple of friends to see a documentary playing in the Cine Latino film festival at Karlstor. The documentary, Mi Vida Dentro, is in English and Spanish (subtitles in one and speaking in the other, alternating), and covers the trial of an illegal Mexican immigrant charged with murdering a boy she was babysitting in Austin, TX. It's not clear from what is shown whether she was guilty as charged or not, but parts of it are pretty painful to watch. Not least was the scene where the state prosecutor, who is totally grating every time she appears, questions one of the witnesses and asks, "Is it true that even though she comes from Mexico, the defendant is very intelligent?" Anyone still want to claim that Germany is more racist than the United States?

Today at the grocery store the woman in line two people ahead of me was a pain in the ass. She was bagging up her groceries slowly and the checker was already checking through the next guy's stuff (the guy ahead of me). Then she decided she wanted to pack the rest of her stuff directly into her bike basket, so she left to go unlock her bike and roll it over to pack the rest of the stuff in it!! She still had her shopping basket and could have put the stuff in there and taken it to her bike, but no! By the time she was back and packing up the rest, the guy ahead of me was trying to pack up his stuff too and it was my turn. The checker started tossing my stuff through and it got mixed in with his. I only realized later he made off with my can of tomatoes!! I'm sure it was an accident, but grr! I only noticed when it was too late! All because of the bike lady...please people, be considerate of each other at the grocery store.

Upcoming stuff you might want to know about if you live in the area: this Saturday, May 2, is Heidelberg's Lange Nacht des Einkaufens, long night of shopping, where stores will be open until midnight (later?)! This is super-luxurious since everything usually closes at 8pm. Plus there's usually a Feuerwurst stand in the Bismarckplatz - yum. Friday, May 1, is the wine walk in the Hessische Bergstrasse, which we did two years ago and hope to do again this year if the weather cooperates (so far it looks like it will). You can start the trail in Heppenheim or Zwingenberg or pick it up somewhere in between. Also, the night before May 1 there's usually a ginormous party on top of the Heiligenberg at the Thingstaette. I can't say I've ever been up there for it, but if you go take a flashlight or something. I heard it's hella dark.