A lot going on for us at the end of June. We celebrated (and are still celebrating) my and Susanne’s birthdays, Germany is one step closer to the World Cup title and we actually got out of town 2 weeks in a row!  Oh, and my training is over at my job and I have been on the clock for two weeks now. INCOME! Our second year here in Germany is starting out with us moving up and out getting settled here to moving forward towards our goals. We decided to take some time for ourselves and stop working non-stop and wow has it been fun! I actually shut off the computer, get up and walk away from the computer without getting the shakes and running back to it! I am beginning more myself again. I am taking time to drum again and am working out regularly. I have no idea if I am loosing any weight but I sure as hell feel fit again. Fat and Fit. The new motto! I think I might be loosing a few inches here and there, but I am beginning not to give a crap about that anymore. (Well actually I do give a little crap, but  less than before! ).

So we went to Dusseldorf for my birthday and took a boat ride on the Rhine, then walked through the old part of town and then up one of my favorite streets, Königsallee. The lux shops are there; Tiffany, Chanel, Gucci, Armani etc… I usually don’t like to window shop but I make an exception in this case. After that we met friends over in Essen for dinner. Germany had spanked England in the World Cup match and everywhere people were out in the streets waving flags, driving around with carloads of people shouting, honking horns. Germany is one big party when their team wins. It is a thing most Americans don’t get to see unless you get out of the country. In football, the teams are American, and it involves one country- America.  Even though I was rooting for Brazil, I am having a blast watching all the excitement of the games. Totally cool.  So this weekend we finally made it up to Hamburg and visited a friend there. We did the tourist thing on Saturday, took a couple of boat rides around the many waterways of Hamburg, We saw the port where our stuff  we shipped from America spent some time. I didn’t know that Hamburg actually has more canals than Venice! And they have the most bridges in Europe ( if I understood the guide correctly). It is a cool city, a bit too many people for me but none the less, I would like to see more. We watched the 2nd half of the Germany- Argentina match in a Thai restaurant. I swear the flat screen tv sellers must have make a fortune when the WM comes around. Damn near EVERY restaurant has a flat screen tv for viewing the games.   The outdoor seating is to capacity as well as the indoor seats.  Some restaurants will close early so their employees can see the game. The nation comes (nearly) to a stop for a couple of hours during the  matches. Half the restaurant was filled with Asian people and they were cheering Germany. It was quite funny to see. We actually found a few seats in the back, so we got to eat and see the game. Germany won big again, 4-0, I don’t think Argentina knew what hit them! Germany plays on Wed. against Spain, I have to work but I don’t know if anyone will come watch the movie, If they do,  I should be out of the theater before 9pm. In any case, I’ll take a radio. After Hamburg, we went on to Lubeck, northeast of Hamburg. Susanne’s friend lives there.  We got to see some of the city, the old part of the city was absolutely beautiful. Everything an old European city is. It has tons of charm, beautiful old buildings, the tiny alleyways that lead to  charming courtyards filled with many, many fragrant rose bushes and flowers. Damn, I sound like Rick Steves! Anyway, I highly recommend this place for vacationers. I have pictures, I will probably post them later this week.

Summer is here and our little apartment is a hotbox. I love the heat, but I have never experienced it in an apartment on the 3rd floor with no air conditioning (thank you Florida for spoiling me!), and west facing windows. WE get all the late afternoon sun and we have big windows. I bought a fan last week, we have beach towels in the windows because the double windows get so hot, I can barely touch them and it helps keep the place at a cool 82 degrees!  LOVE IT!  I am seriously thinking about not cooking for the rest of the summer and we will just eat salads and sandwiches. It’s hotter than hell in the kitchen with the stove on.

Well it’s almost 10:30 and I am still worn out from the weekend. Must be getting old. I will leave you with a couple of dance sides from the 70’s, I love disco and am proud of it. Since I can’t figure out how to put two in the right column, I’ll just put 1 here and 1 there. Then I will give the lightbox plugin another try. Hopefully I will have it working and can display my pics in style for the next post.

Lata! Go dance!

KAREN YOUNG – HOT SHOT

I have caught the fever! Now that I live outside the States, I have become more of a soccer fan. I am definitely into the world cup matches. I like Brazil and am rooting for them and France. Not to say that I am not a baseball fan anymore, I still am a set in stone Yankee fan ( who won the world series last year!?!?!), but now that I am outside the states, I have a new perspective on the game. Whereas baseball is pretty much an American game (with a few other countries that play ball also), soccer is world wide. Baseball’s world series should be called the US series in my opinion, how many other countries send teams to the “world series”? None. Down in South Africa are teams from all over the globe competing for the title. I think it is very cool and I somehow makes me feel like I am more a part of this big world and all of the people in it. People are VERY PASSIONATE about the game, their teams. I have no soccer jersey yet, I am thinking about getting one.

Other things going on besides soccer, I am progressing quickly in my new job. I am still in training, which means I am not getting paid, so I am learning as quick as possible so I can start working on my own and finally start making money. Working with the film and the projector is great, this past week I learned how to take apart a movie, put one together and change the trailers at the beginning of the movies. The movies come in film canisters, usually 5 or 6 canisters for 1 movie. The particular movie that I helped take apart or “un-build”, was Barria, an Italian movie 2 1/2 hours long, 9 film canisters. It took awhile to take the reels apart, but I’ll get faster and I can bring some music with me to play while I work, because it is after the theater is closed. As a kid, I often wondered who worked up in the projection room in the movie theaters. I would ofter look up at the long window, the light from the projector flickering as it played the movie. I never saw anyone though. Now I get to look out that long window down at the audience! WOW!

So I am training a few times a week, nothing is hard, it’s just I have to do everything  by myself in the small theater, lots of small things to learn, from building film to getting the cash drawer ready for the next day and stocking the candy and pop. Thank goodness no popcorn, the theater is easy to clean that way. No plastic cups, the soda and beer (that’s right beer!) come in bottles and the people bring any bottles and candy and ice cream wrappers back to the desk as they leave. I started training with the guy who speak some English, he spent time in Utah studying, so I was able to learn faster with him explaining things to me in both German and English. I trained this week with the son of the man who owns that theater and a few more in Essen and he speaks no English. So I am having to accelerate my language comprehension and speech dramatically. I am still in the integrations course for the moment. I can finish the current module, Susanne and I got that worked out the other day with one of the directors. After that I will have to find another course to register with. There is a morning course at the same school, which would be great, but I have to be on a waiting list to get it. It begins in October, so maybe I’ll get lucky. My brain is tired though, it is working overtime trying to learn the language at school and then use the language at work.

And high fives to Susanne, she finished her US taxes and they are on their way to America! Living here gives us an automatic 2 month extension for the US taxes. Susanne has gone through a mound of German tax forms, American forms, booklets and lord knows what else. Take about a process! we have to file both here and in America, but there is an exemption thing that says if we make under 60,ooo euros, then we don’t have to pay US taxes, but we still have to file. I make close to nothing, I have one W-2 from Fedex and that’s it. Susanne has made money in both countries. The first time she looked at the German tax forms she cried. Lots of pages of incredibly long words that she had no understanding of. She had a Steuerberater explain things to her to help her get started. Then she had to file twice, here you can file online, but you still have to file a paper copy with EVERYTHING attached! So I ask, what in the hell is the point of filing electronically, when they want (and will) go through every friggin  piece of paper you send? Not going any farther with this. The paper systems here are enough to make you tear your hair out!  We are not sure if she will have to pay anything.  There are no calculations or adding on the form, you just put the numbers in and either a person, The Steuerberater( which costs  lots of money) or the tax office after you have sent the forms in. Then they do the math and send back your forms and whether you owe or not. She found out that the tax bureau is having computer problems so she won’t get her forms back for 2 -3 months. OMG. Can things get any slower here?

For the people in America, consider yourselves very lucky. In most instances in the US you don’t have to wait long for things to get done, that is unless you live in a very rural area. I filed my taxes and got them back within a week! Just moved and need your lights turned on, phone, internet? A few days. Not so here, I know some have disagreed  (see post “We’ll Get It When?”) with me, but for us, our experience has been, THINGS TAKE LONGER HERE, PERIOD.

Maybe I’ll write a sequel to the We’ll get it when post. “Yea, we got it- 2 months later!” lol

Later!

Music Post Today: (look in the sidebar)

I’m feelin’ a little Millie Jackson  like today. Millie was a one of a kind singer back in the day! Some real old skool stuff. Enjoy!

A little word, 3 letters, J-o-b. I may indeed have one finally. I start a probation period next Tuesday for helping out in a small movie theater around the corner. I will be learning how to run the huge projector, splice the reels of film together and other things related to the projection room. I addition to that I will also be at the front desk selling tickets and refreshments. It is a REALLY small theater. The one Susanne and I went to, to see Coco (Channel)and Igor (Stravinsky) had only 45 seats, still had an organ in the corner and the guy who ran the OLD projector also came out right before the movie started and took our money and orders for ice cream and cokes. Back to my job. I went to my interview yesterday and it went well. The woman who  called me last week to set up the interview was a bit skeptical about my ability to do the job. Not so much the technical part but the speaking to the customers, which of course I would have to do in German. She was a bit more relieved as we talked in person. I guess she thinks there is promise with me. I ain’t so sure, I still don’t understand some of what people are saying. At the interview I had to fill in (in my head), what I didn’t understand with what I thought she was saying to me. Scary! I wasn’t even sure I had moved to the next step, the probation period when I left the interview. Always an adventure!

So I start next Tuesday and train a couple of days a week. The woman, Ingrid actually found one of the workers who can speak some English to train me, which is good, I need to understand how to run the projector and the other equipment otherwise one mistake and the film is kaputt. The movies cost over 2000 euro. I will let you know how I progress. With the job comes the decision now, what to do about the integrations course. I asked about what I can do today during break at school and Herr G. said I should stay until the end of June when the module we are working in will end. I can’t just go 3 days a week, so I am probably going to have to stop going there and either find another class in a different school, a morning class, this class is smack in the middle of the day from 1:30 to 5pm, or maybe get a private instructor for a few days a week. I need to continue to learn while I work.  I will get fluent faster that way.

So how is class going? It is okay. We have had a lot of holidays this month. 2 days off for Christi Himmelfahrt, two this week for Phingston, both are holidays connected to Easter. Yes Easter. I don’t know much about it, not my religion. All I know is that I get to stay home and get something done for a change. Class in the middle of the day sucks, quite frankly.  We had another one of those group things, this time we had to get into 4 groups and draw our dream house. Yes folks, I am paying money to draw pictures in class. This time we could pick our groups at least. The teacher told Herr Bomsouhga and myself to not be in the same group because it wouldn’t be fair to the others, he and I can draw pretty well. I said to myself, “screw this, I am not going to have the same thing happen like I wrote about in the last post, so I just sat there until every one had picked their groups (of course with their friends). That left me with the guy who could draw well. Mission accomplished. We made a nice house, he did the exterior, complete with balconies, play areas in the backyard and mountains in the background. I did the floor plan of whatever we decided the house would have. I made a real floor plan, doors, windows,  walls, stairs on both floors, etc… It wasn’t exactly my dream house, mine would have looked like a villa with an indoor lap pool and Roman bath. Oh well, at least it was a much better experience than last time. I actually got up with one of the other guys from our group and described what we had made, which was the point of all this insanity.

Other than that, I am still working on my ecards, I finally figured out (with the help of Susanne), that I don’t have to make every card a process and hammer at it for weeks on end. The cards that are the simplest to make seem to be the best. I made a card for a birthday that took a few days, I worked on it a few hours here and there. She loved it, Susanne looked at it and she loved it. I thought it was not good enough because it didn’t have a gazillion effects in it and it took so little time to do. Just goes to show ya that sometimes simple is better. I am in the middle of another one, this one for the ecard site. Working this way, it is fun again, I can probably get more cards on the site now.

I am getting tired, my eyeballs are not focusing anymore, I have been working on my animations a lot today.

So bye for now!

It is May and it is very green here in Germany. The park on the other side of the river is beautiful, I get to walk through it every day on my way to and from the integrations course. I love the smell of the flowers and listening to the birds, watching the ducks and swans on the river. Unfortunately the weather has decided that is doesn’t want to be spring anymore and has reverted back to late winter. In some places overnight it was -2 grade, about 30 degrees Fahrenheit. I have my thermal sweatshirt on toady and the heat is back on. Sucks. In Ft. Lauderdale it was 74 degrees last night. I have moved back to Oregon.  We moved to Florida because we were fed up with living in damp cold weather all the time and now here we are again. Only for a few years though fortunately, then back to warm and sunny Florida!

So whats been going on here since the last time I posted? Susanne decided she wanted to get back in to dancing and went to check out a dance school around the corner. She went to the introductory class and decided it was okay and she wanted to register. She came home with the registration form to fill out and started reading it. Of course they want her to pay by taking the money directly out of her bank account, which is normal here. Its just that when you have the rent, electric, health ins. and lord knows what else coming directly out every month, you feel like everyone has their hands on your money. If  she paid in cash she would have had to pay more. Not sure why, not even going to go there. The registration form said that she had to sign up for a minimum of 3 months and she would have to give 4 weeks notice if she wanted to drop out of the class. Why? I don’t know that either. Usually when one drops out of the class you (out of courtesy) tell the instructor and then stop going. That ” usually” for America. This “usually” is for Germany. I guess this is the norm. Than if she, for some reason, wanted to go back to the class before the three months were up, she would have to pay an extra month. (This is the “roll your eyes part”). Needless to say, she felt like she would be trapped in this class, which was a video dance class, the students watch a video (ex. Micheal Jackson video) and then do the moves. The instructor stands around until the last 10 min. when she then teaches the students 3 new moves. Whatever. She is back to dancing in the little apartment for the moment. The incredible part was that when she asked why there were so many rules for signing up for the class, they guy there said their school had the shortest minimum sign up times most other schools have a 6 month minimum for signing up!

My integrations class okay, there are great days and really, really boring days. Sometimes I feel like I am back in the 2nd grade. But the pros still outweigh the cons and I am learning alot. Yesterday I got all bent out of shape over some stupid group project which I should have just laughed off. We finished the last chapter of the second workbook, it was about how to write and understand an invitation to a wedding or birthday party, etc…Oh boy! After the break, the teacher said we were going to to a group activity. Oh for joy. Some group things are okay I guess, others are really lame. This was really lame. We were given little scraps of paper and on them were 4 types of events: Birthday, Wedding, Summer Festival and a New Years Party.  Who ever got Birthday had to get together with the others who had the same event. So I got up(unwillingly) and went over to my group. Each group was supposed to make a invitation with some colored construction paper and crayons and glue and scissors, Did I mention that sometimes it felt like the 2nd grade? Let me downgrade that to…………KINDERGARTEN! I didn’t know there was colored paper and apparently neither did anyone else in my group, so we got whatever was left, ie. the ugly colors nobody else wanted. For Frau Kay and I (Frau Kay was a clothing buyer back in her country and has a sense of color and design),  this meant having a shitty card. For the other two Mr X and Frau B. who have skills in areas other than, say, design, feel for what colors go with what, that sort of thing ( I did say that nicely!), they just wanted to dive in and start putting the shitty colors together. I had them slow down a bit, I tried to explain that we should take 5 minutes and get some idea of what we want it to look like, than I would sketch it out on a piece of paper first. Then we could start cutting and pasting and decorating the card. Frau Kay liked the idea, the other two geabbed the crappiest color for the card, some god awful yellow-orange thing and and then started cutting the blue sheet of paper and pasting it on the god awful yellow-orange thing. At that point I (mentally) threw up my hands and said I want nothing to do with this endeavor, I don’t want to be associated with butt ugly. At this point, Frau Kay was still trying to talk some sense into Frau B and Herr X, she was still trying to participate.

Now the god awful yellow-orange and blue card is underway and the other woman, Frau B. decides to cut another piece of blue for the middle of this monstrosity for the text- the invitation text. Mr X thought we should use the dark purple for this. I had to say something, I told him that the text would be harder to read on the dark purple. He didn’t get it at first and continued to shove the purple sheet of construction paper at Frau B. who was going use the dark purple paper until I said something.  Frau Kay helped me on this point and they ended up using the blue. at least it matches the blue triangles on each of the 4 corners. Before I could say, “okay, Frau Kay and I will work on the design and you and Herr X can do the lettering, don’t glue anymore yet”, Frau B. had already glued the piece of paper for the text to the middle of the god awful yellow-orange piece of paper (the larger one) and she and Herr X proceed to take 30 min. to do the text. It should have took 10 min -at most. How to write the invitation was in our work books. All she would have to do was copy the words and add a date and time and perhaps a name or two. Then we could have gotten on with making the god awful yellow-orange and blue piece of paper pretty. But since it was all now glued together and Frau B was covering the rest of the card with her arms, Frau Kay and I sat there while she and Herr X tried to figure out what to write for the invitation.

So I doodled for a while, someone asked me what I was doing, I just said I was drawing an idea for the card, actually I was just bored and then I  drew a guitar for one of the other groups while I waited for them to finish writing the text. Frau Kay, I noticed have given up and was just sitting there not saying anything. She looked defeated. Then the group I drew the guitar for decided they didn’t need the light purple sheet of construction paper and gave it to us. NOW YOUR TALKIN’! Frau Kay and I perked up. We had two colors that went together, the dark purple and now the light purple. I told Frau Kay, “you know, we can make another card in about 15 minutes!”. We were in motion, we would make the basic design we already had on the god awful yellow-orange and blue piece of paper and then add a cake and some gifts and confetti, nothing too fancy, but it would look good. I was about to cut out the pieces for the card when the teacher comes over and says, “you don’t have enough time to make another card”. WHAT!!!!  Weren’t you the same person who calls me a “profi” (because I  do websites and graphic design) and said before this little project that whatever group I landed in would be the lucky group??? Than let me do my thing, I can throw something together in the next 15 minutes before we have to stop, this is what I do! (of course I said this in my head). So I stopped, Frau Kay and I sat back down and watched the other two still trying to finish the text.

They finally did finish about 5 minutes before we had to stop, I drew a cake and cut a little confetti up, I wanted to cut more but the instructor had by then grabbed up all the scissors and glue. We finished and had the crappiest card in the class. Someone from the group was supposed to do a quick presentation with the thing, they pointed to me, I didn’t gat up, just shook my head no and tried to talk Frau Kay into doing it. In the end the card was just passed around. I sit there thinking to myself, now these people think this is all I can do. I am supposed to be a “profi” (professional) designer. It just goes to show how much an ego can get in the way sometimes. I was mad that the card looked the way it did, if I hadn’t of been so upset, I might have made the the god awful yellow-orange and blue card into something that look half way decent. I had some ideas about how to do it, instead I just gave up.

I would prefer though not to do these stupid group projects, it was a waste of time to me, I know the instructors are trying to have fun in the class but really, we could play some fun word games, light learning. I guess I should get over it, I took is waaaaaayy too seriously!

If it is still hanging up next Monday (yes the teacher hung them up so now other people who have class in the same room can see then too!), I’ll grab a pic of the god awful yellow-orange and blue card and post it!

The other day I was thinking about what kinds of cloths that are common in America, but not seen here. It dawned on me that since I moved here I have not seen one pair of underwear sticking out over the belts of the boys/men’s pants here. How nice it has been! I never wanted to see people’s underwear in the first place; I saw them whether I wanted to or not, sometimes the same underwear for a few days! (No comment!)  Here, there is no ‘prison fashion”. I think part of that is due to the fact that you really don’t want to end up in prison here or anywhere else outside of the US. It ain’t  just 3 hot’s, a cot and a weight room.  No oversized pants, tee shirts, and no pants down to the knees. I have to admit that I like it.

Another thing I noticed is that I don’t see the daily car chases, cops chasing the bad guys. Back in Ft. Lauderdale it was a daily thing to see on the news, I think is has become a national sport in America. Really, it is a very common occurrence these days on America’s roadways. In fact, I think it ought to have its own channel, Catch Me! TV or something. Here though, there is the Autobahn and the outrageous speeds. People aren’t running away from anything, they are just trying to get from point A to point B, very fast. There is a feeling pride here that they can drive faster here on the freeway than we can in America, but the other side of the coin is the accidents. When I see one on the news (and that is daily), they are horrible. The cars/trucks are unrecognizable, piles of mangled metal, the result of traveling at the speed of light. I don’t see how anyone can make it out alive from one of these accidents.

Other things I haven’t seen here, pimped out cars and trucks, except on tv, there is one show wit this big biker dude hosting it. Sometimes they have low riders bouncing up and down. I think the show is from Munich. I don’t see a lot of spaceship sized RV’s and motor homes. If they are here, someone brought them over on a ship. They don’t exist here, autos and trucks are scaled down here, and there is just not a whole lot of room for really big, gas guzzling vehicles. No big huge plates of food in restaurants and no one (at least from what I have seen and heard), takes a doggie bag home. You eat what you ordered. Period. Though I have heard that the potion sizes have gotten bigger here, Germany is now the biggest as far as weight sizes, in Europe. I read that French people too, are starting to get overweight. Last time I was in Paris, I felt like a cow because everyone around me was thin, they know how to eat sensibly. Or did. McDonalds is there and I read that French people love McDonalds.

And speaking of eating, I gotta eat lunch, the integrations course starts in a little while.

Oh, one more thing I haven’t seen yet. Rick Steves. You know, they guy with the backpack he can live out of for several months. I don’t know what he has in there; it never looks full. I think the bag is a magic bag. New clean cloths appear in it, along with money, a travel guide for wherever he is traveling through and a book of bad jokes. Rick, I know you are out there somewhere! If you’re ever in the Essen area, lets get together and have a cup of coffee. We’ll talk about that backpack of yours!

Later!

They keep telling me it is spring. The calender says so, but is was still cold here until  yesterday. The sun was out all day long and it FINALLY warmed up in the afternoon. Today it will be a whopping 20 degrees Celsius, which is around 70 degrees. I am tempted to dig out my shorts and wear them to my class this afternoon.  I know this won’t last and it will be cold again. YUCK, I really miss Florida weather. It is a lovely 80 degrees there, My integrations course began (again) last Thursday. I like it, the people in my class are friendly and the instructior has a bit of a sense of humor, which is good, she has a hard job teaching adults German. Most of the people are from Turkey, 1 from Morocco, my friend Joel from Portugal and some from Russia, Croatia and Bosnia.  Susanne is back to being my husband because I don’t dare come out to most of the people. In Turkey, I think  they still put people to death for being gay. I don’t want to alienate the people in my class, foreigners here have to stick together and help each other out. I will pick my time tell them. So I am starting at the A2 level of the language, it is a little boring at times, I have learned enough myself and from the teacher I had for a week to be at the B1 level, but I need to speak better. Oh well, I learn something new with every class and I finally get to be with other people learning the language. On break, we have to talk German because everyone speaks a different language, no one else speaks English and I  (at least not yet) don’t speak any Turkish or Arabic or Russian. Communicating is a learning experience, I have to think of how to say something that people can understand because I can’t fall back to English, it sound like gibberish to them.

Easter was okay, lots of chocolate again, like Christmas, we are both over chocolate for a while. 3 days of easter, Friday is a holiday, Sunday and then again on Monday. Lots of holidays here,  it is still amazing to me that anything gets done between all the holidays and all the vacation time people get. I went with Susanne and her nephew to pick up her neice coming in from France. We drove to Holland (an hours drive) to Eindhofen, There is a tiny airport there, only small jets can land and Ryan Air seems to be the airline of choice. It is cheap and serves most of Europe. It was nice to get out of town for a while.

It’s time to stop, I have a quiche in the oven and I gotta get ready for learning German for 3 1/2 hours. The first few hours are okay, but the 45 mins gets to be a bit long, I am ready to run for the door at 5. We get a small amount of homework per night, I do more because I want to learn fast. So off I go!

Auf Weidersehen!

I have a love hate relationship with my can opener.  It is not the best can opener, it is one of the cheaper models,  the ones with no plastic on the handles. It opens cans slightly better than a using a hammer with a screwdriver. I could have opened the can with my Leatherman but I didn’t want re-fried beans on my knives and I had a P-38 army can opener, but I haven’t seen it since we moved. I used to keep it on my key ring, in case I had to open a can of something somewhere, even in Florida (part of my brain apparently thinks that I still live in the backwoods of Oregon and that I need to keep items for survival on me at all times!) Anyway, I love the can opener because because it opened the can of re-fried beans last night, the beans were a splurge because they are exotic here (Mexican food is exotic here) almost 4 euro a can. I hate the can opener for the reasons stated above.

By now you are probably wondering, “what in the hell do can openers have to do with television”?

Absolutely nothing.  I was making nachos last night before sitting down to watch tv and I was using the damn thing. Call is a cheap lead – in. How can I sum up my tv experience here in Deutschland? Here are some descriptive words: interesting, boring, repetitive, informative, enjoyable, entertaining and downright stupid. In other words, not much different from tv in America. Our cable comes bundled with the rent so we get a basic package. Lots of public broadcasting, which can be great at times, I can learn a lot, but other times boring. They repeat a lot of shows, over and over and over and there many shows with people sitting around talking, talking, talking.

There is one channel- Center TV, I equate watching this channel to watching paint dry. Or maybe I should call it the “just shoot me now” channel, because if I had to watch it for more that 15 minutes, just shoot me, do me a favor. Most of the time all I see on it is camera shots of various nearby cities. They stick a camera on the sidewalk and you watch people walk by, sit at tables outside of restaurants, shots of a factory building, cars in the streets, people eating bratwurst, people shopping, combing their hair – AARRRGGGHHHH. In other words, whatever is going on in front of the camera, no dialog, just people walking down the street. BORING!

There is a lot of soccer of course, handball (like basketball with a soccer net instead of a basket), lots of biathlons and ski jumping. There are also the “watching the paint drying sports”, curling, darts, competitive badminton. I am liking world cup soccer, I like Brazil and Spain. There is baseball at all, no football (I have seen adverts for the Football League here, but I haven’t seen any games), there is basketball, but the professional level is more like college ball in the US. Lots of American movies though, of course over-dubbed in German, so when you see Eddie Murphy, he sounds like a white guy. All the black people in American movies and tv shows are over-dubbed by white people so it sounds funny. The other day Forest Gump was on, of course, no southern accents either, makes for an interesting take on the movie. They like American comedy shows here, King of Queens, Two and a Half Men etc… and love American detective shows. Lots of “crimis” both made here and America, for example, CSI. There is Hanna Montana and Desperate Housewives and a bunch of American cartoons.

They also love reality shows, Big Brother Deutschland is here, it is different in that there is much more sex and nudity shown. We have Germany’s next top Model, Project Runway, and the German version of American Idol, Deutschland Suche Dem Superstar. The same format, singers competing for something, I don’t really know what they get when they win, no recording contract, the guy mentioned something about them getting the love of all Germany. NO COMMENT!  The talent is not as good, I listened to the new Idol contestants online from the Amreican show, and they sound like they are recording now, they all sound great! The contestants from here would have been cut from Idol in the first few weeks, with the exception of two guys who can sing and dance. The French station has a version of The Great Race, but it looks like they only travel around one country and lord only knows when the show actually ends. Looks like it goes on forever. I got bored with it after a while, too long and drawn out. Lots of music programs, I skip most of them, just not that into the music here and I am not going to get started with what they call “Schlager” music, I’ll just say four words, “just shoot me now”, and move on.  There is also many, many programs about WW2, (too many if you ask me), and Egypt and Mongolia, they seem to like these two places here which is cool; I love anything about ancient Egypt.

All in all it is cool to see different things, they are not uptight about the human body here, I have seen nude women and men in commercials, movies, game shows,  it is refreshing not to mention humorous at times!  But like any cable channels, you can flip through the remote and find absolutely nothing to watch too. I watch the music channel Viva, a lot when there is nothing on, it is like MTV, but sadly they have no “Pimp My Ride”!

Wow!  Time has flown by, I can’t believe it has been almost a year (April 30th), that we have been in Germany. Incredible thing is that we stuck it out and are still here. When I say it was a rocky road to get to now, I mean ROCKY!  More like a mountain. The  Rocky Mountains, yes, that’s what it has felt like at times, going up the Rocky Mountains on roller skates.  At times very heated arguments, thoughts of going back to the states and just chucking it all.  The hoops we had to jump through seemed endless and the vision of what I thought would be our life here has morphed into something totally different.   I am saying thank you to Jennifer Hough and Joe Noonan for helping us stay focused,  to stick with our intuition and say yes to living with passion.  THANK YOU JENNIFER AND JOE!  Thank you, thank you, thank you. We sometimes listen to the CD’s from old Quantum calls and the Get Out of Your Own Way course by Jenifer back to back the whole day and it makes a difference in getting out of a funky head space and getting  the energy flowing again.

Last year this time, I never thought I would have started making my ecards and would actually have people sending them.  With Susanne’s help,  this dream I had for the past 3 years is now a reality and I am working on a HTML version of the site so that all can view it and hopefully enjoy the animations.  I am also using the degree I got back in Oregon to do web web design, I have made a few small websites for someone here in Muelheim.  Susanne is making incredible applications for a company in Krefeld that allow people to upload photos for printing on various styles.  She has gone from small projects to working with an application with over 2000 lines of code. She is making herself cloths also, she recently made a pair of pink (what other color is there?) pants and she already has someone interested in making a pair for them.

We survived the winter which was, from what we have heard, a rather exceptionally long and cold one. I am sitting here in shorts as I write, spring is visiting us for a while, it has been in the high 50’s most of the past week. Last year, anything below 60 degrees was chilly after living in So. Florida, but now it is a frikkin’ blessing. I don’t need 4 shirts plus a thermal jacket to go outside anymore and I am not freezing when I am sitting at my computer by the worlds most draftiest door. Susanne is not freezing at work and the sun (when it is out) shines into our apartment again, making it warm in the afternoon. We hesitate to turn off the heat though until we are sure this weather is going to stick around.

I also can’t believe it has been so long since I have posted anything on the blog. I told myself I would not start it then let it fall by the wayside and forget about it. But I tend to put it off nowadays and work on the ecards instead. It feels good to do a bit of writing again, hopefully I still have a few readers left. I haven’t abandoned the blog, just been busy elsewhere and now I gotta go get busy making nachos, Susanne is subtly letting me know (by saying nachos repeatedly), that I should get my arse in the kitchen and start cooking. Good night!

So I go over to the Volkshochsshule this afternoon for my Integrations class, all set to learn something new. We had all just got seated when one of the instructors came in and said that the tests from yesterday had been graded and that the following people on her list needed to gather up their stuff  (including their  little name plaques) and gather outside the classroom in the hall if she called out their name.  I am thinking that we will be divided into groups according to the level of German each person knows and that I either did pretty good or I bombed miserably. She calls out a couple of names then mine, and I am thinking to myself “ what group am I going to be in now?” I noticed that the people that hardly spoke any German were not in the dozen or so people she called out so that was a good sign. At the very least I would not be stuck in the beginning German class; that would have sucked.

I watch the woman come out and pull 3 people to the side to talk to them. I could hear her say that they had very bad test scores and they needed to do a lot of extra work outside of the class to keep up. Then she sent them back in to the classroom and called me and two other guys over to talk to us. My jaw nearly hit the floor when she said that we had the highest test scores in the class! WHAT?!?!? Here I am thinking that I did okay, not great and here I got better scores that some of the people that had been in Germany over 10 years (they are doing the course as a requirement for their permanent visas)! So the three of us are going to go into the 2^nd level course, I am not sure where that starts off, probably at the B level of the language ladder. A is the basic level and if I am understanding this correctly, I only have to do 100 hours instead of 600 which translates into a 500 euro savings (100 euros per 100 hours). Wow, I can’t say much more than that now. I am by no means fluent, my speaking isn’t very great, but I understand a lot and I do good tests apparently.  The course starts in April so I have to wait (again) for another month. She also said to me that I need to work on my accent, I have an American accent and I will get points off on the exam if I am pronouncing words like a American. So I have to work on that and she mentioned that Susanne had a bit of an American accent too, which I guess was bad for me to learn from. I don’t know all that she said, I didn’t understand a bunch of it, which was really funny since I am there in the hall with one of the best test scores in the class. LOL!

After she sent us on our way, I walked back towards home with Joel, one of the other high scores. He is from Portugal and we talked about how we both were ready to be in class learning and not waiting around for April. But on the other hand, it is great to not have to do the whole 600 hours. We exchanged numbers and I think we will get together and work on our German from time to time until the class starts. Very cool, looks like I made a  newfriend and I find out that I am better at learning this language than I give myself credit for.

The first class of my Integrations Course started today. It was pretty cool sitting in the classroom at the Volkshochschule with 29 people from various counties. We had to introduce ourselves (of course in German), and there are people from Portugal, the Dominican Republic, Russia, Yugoslavia, Bosnia, Kenya, Turkey, Iran, Morroco and another from the USA. We didn’t do too much, they collected money, 100 euro for the first 100 hours, and then everyone took a test to see what section they will be in for language. I have been watching/ listening to tv constantly for the last 2 weeks to get really used to hearing German and it has paid off, I could understand the instructor for the entire time  I was there. It is becoming easier to understand people when they are talking fast. I may not understand every word, but I hear every word now instead of a bunch of sounds. Finally something to write about again, it has been pretty quiet here, I have just been working at home on websites and my ecards and not doing anything new except teaching myself CSS.  Every day from 1:30 – 5pm I get to go learn more German and for 45 minutes out of that time I am learning about the German culture.

We got a new lamp ( actually just a lamp) from Susanne’s parents for the kitchen. Since we moved in, the kitchen has had nothing but a bare bulb hanging from the ceiling, I actually forgot about it, I don’t look up much when I go in there, I just cook or wash dishes.  The 70″s lamp ( it looks like it was made then, really), made the room a tad bit darker but it does look better now. The weather has turned around, I never thought I would be happy to see a gray rainy day, but I am now! It is not snowing and the temp’s are up in the 40’s and lower 50’s at the moment, I feel a bit closer to getting the shorts out!

Susanne has been adjusting to the German office life. In her last post , Susanne’s page, she wrote about her co-workers being really sensitive to food smells. It turns out that it may not be a German thing, perhaps something more local to the  Krefeld area and more specifically to the guy that doesn’t like her that she has to work across from. She was talking to another woman who works in the building and this woman said she considers it rude when someone eats something with garlic in it the night before and comes to work the next day. Like she can really detect that someone has eaten a minute amount of garlic the night before! Give me a break!  No wonder the food here is so bland ( my opinion only).  Even the cayenne pepper doesn’t seem hot, I have to pour a lot on something to actually make it hotter. Oh well, I keep a bottle of hot sauce in the fridge, maybe one day I’ll have my brother send me some Dave’s Insanity Sauce. You only need a couple of drops of that at any given time, so it should last a while.  While I am on the subject of food, what is with the Gerber Greens? We were given something that tasted like greens spiced up with bacon recently. I couldn’t tell it was greens though, they had been put through a blender and looked like baby food. Food weirdness. I tasted it, it was okay, a bit on the greasy side with the bacon taste but if I had to eat it again, I probably could. Susanne didn’t like it at all.

Well that is it for now, there is something wrong with the T-Mobile internet connection, since the weekend everything is taking forever to load. I have a hard time looking at my ecard site because it takes minutes to load and I am having a hard time saving this post,  what should take a second or two to save is taking a few minutes, so I’ll wrap it up for now, I’ll be writing more about my new class and (hopefully) the progress I am making in it.