This morning, while down in the storage room in the celler rooting around for my mukluks and the harness for the sled dogs, I thought to my self, “What in the hell am I doing here?” Back in Ft. Lauderdale it is 88 degrees with a low of 79. Here it is about 50 or so degrees, to me it feels like one step away from snow after spending the last 4 years in Florida. It has been gray for a number of days, the floor is cold, I have wool blankets on the bed already and fall has just started.

It feels like upstate NY, where I grew up, when I go out now days. And I have to go out,there is no supermarket in my living room. It’s kind of like sticking your hands in the luke warm dishwater to fish out the spoons on the bottom. You can’t see but you can feel the peas, noodles, loch ness monster, whatever floating around in the depths of the grimy water. So you make your best yuck face and plunge your hand into the murk. That’s what I feel like when I go out into the cold grey weather, plunging myself into the murk. I knew that it would be cold here but thinking about it in sunny warm Florida is one thing, actually living in it is something else.

So now it’s winter here, I still have no job yet, down to my last hundred dollars in the bank in US and soon that will be gone. Susanne is paying rent and buying the food now and the train tickets. My three month extension is almost up, so I gotta find work soon but I will not put my energy into imagining what can happen if the extension runs out and I have to leave the country with no money! I managed to pull off two possible jobs at the last moment to get the extension in July, unfortunately neither worked out to be anything. So here we go again. I am trying to get my money out of my 401k from FedEx, but it is not easy, especially when the new contact information I sent them (human resources) never got entered on my account and emails never answered. I will have to call Vanguard and beg to get the money out and into the bank, it’s not a whole lot but enough to give me a little breathing room for a month and since I cannot roll it into my Roth, might as well use it. So yea, it is another fine dreary day and I am feeling pissy.

I know the job will come soon, I have my motion graphics reel almost done and I can replace the 4 not so good clips I have up on my site now and I have business cards now but getting the “no’s” out of the way to get to the “yes” is workin’ my last nerve! I am bucking the odds here being older than your average student and trying to get a job in a country where they encourage women to retire at 40. To me,that is pure bullshit.  I am just getting going with a new career, I certainly don’t feel like I am supposed to retire, in fact just the opposite! I feel more alive than I have felt in years. I loved being back in school and being in Florida, now I am in another country living a new life with a plethora of new experiences. I LOVE doing motion graphics and compositing, making digital art. There is so much to do, I’m not going to let anybody tell me I need to be put put to pasture. HELL NO! In fact, once I get working I want to get another set of free weights and start pumping iron again! On of my favorite actresses, Mae West, lifted weights well into her 80’s. Helps with keeping strong bones and I love having muscles.

Wow, I don’t feel so pissy anymore, I feel a little charged up, ya know? (I am playing the first tune off of my disco page, Good Good Feeling, oh yea, feeling better now!) Being here has been a challenge, not easy but still well worth the effort. Susanne and I did it the way “your not supposed to do it”. Moving without any real plan other than wanting to go. If I were to post something about this on one of those expat sites they would eat me alive, tell me that I was supposed to have researched this or that (like I don’t know this?), made plans in advance, called me stupid, yatta-yatta-yatta. Yea, so what? I am not everybody, where is the adventure in being like everybody else?

This will work out, the journey is pretty damn exciting and growing to meet the challenges along the way is even better. To me that is what I am here to do, create my art, push myself beyond what I “think” I can do, go explore my world and in some way contribute to humanity.

Well enough for this post and being pissy, I gotta find the hunting socks and see if the parka still fits!

Ok, I know there are many types of sausages in this world, but how many kinds of bratwurst does one country need? I was pursuing the local supermarket adds the other day, it’s a good way to learn what the names of things are because there are pictures. One store had 2 pages of bratwurst. 2 pages! I have found a few that I like, most I can do without. I do like some of the polish sausages though, I grew up eating Kielbasa, my dad loved it. Especially the spicy ones.

I tried a few bites of currywurst two weeks ago, I have found out where the barbecue sauce that is missing on the spare ribs went to. The sauce on the currywurst tastes like Bullseye. So whats on the ribs? I don’t really don’t know yet but when I make them, what ever they touch leaves an orange spot. My guess is lots of paprika and spices,  anyway they are pretty tasty. There is some beef here but the pig is the main animal. I love the cheese selections. Lots of soft smelly ones and I love the aged cheeses. I have found only a couple of cheddars (the package said Irish but I still don’t know for sure) and didn’t like them much, way too mild. I like extra sharp cheddar so I’ll keep looking.

The other day Susanne asked me which foods I missed the most. When she first got to America she missed the sour dough breads the most. America makes more yeast breads. The sourdough is king here, like the bratwurst many different kinds of it baked daily.  I have not acquired a taste for it yet, in fact just the opposite. I like the heavy darker breads with seeds. Dunkel brot. Good stuff. Lets see. the food I miss the most: a variety fresh greens year round- frozen spinach is about all I have found plus a little chard. No kale, collards, mustard or turnip greens. I miss Mexican food and the jerked foods from Jamacia, South American foods and of course soul food-southern cooking.

One great tradeoff is the hugh variety of baked goods here. I confess that I have eaten ALOT of great cakes, pastries and chocolate goodies. Goes well with coffee you know! Nothin’ better than a little kuchen (cake) after the noon meal. Hits the spot. Going to the supermarket is always an adventure, I am still doing the trial and error thing to see what I like and don’t like. I get to bring home some interesting stuff sometimes. I brought home a cut of meat I wasn’t too familiar with to try it out. I asked Susanne what the packge said about what part of the animal it came from. She read it and said it was some part of the stomach of the pig. Hmmmmm, tried it, tried to like it and then made an offering to the green can with the yellow lid (the garbage can). Trial and error can suck sometimes.  The local fruit is wonderful. I can still get local berries (organic) and I can get the local berries on cake too . I guess as time goes by, I’ll come to like a few other things, I cannot guess what they would be yet. I will have to write another food post in about 6 months and compare this with that one. Until then, the food odessy continues!