My childish sense of humor



















"New from America! Penis enlargement without surgery!"

Call me childish, but this ad campaign cracks me up. Especially the "New from America" part, maybe it's because we now belong to the ranks of tuned-Ami-auto drivers in Germany. The really funny thing about this is that there is an online magazine catering to German Ami-car drivers, and they find this campaign truly disturbing and are upset by it. Loosen up, guys, and have a sense of humor. Sure, the joke is old, but the ad sure did get your attention, didn't it?




















"New: Viagra for women."

I don't know about that, and I don't really care about Viagra. But still, call me a motorhead if you want, I would have nothing against driving one of those.

Yay!



















We got it! This is our new place, yet to be finished. Apparently, a woman and her son lived there forever and ever, and our friend with the flower shop down the street said she always just stared out the window. It's being renovated right now, new flooring put in and all that jazz. And soon it will be ours! We were worried about some stiff competition to get this place, it's in a great location on a quiet street right exactly in the neighborhood we want to be in, and the garden out back, which is actually bigger than depicted, makes it very attractive to families and hippies who like this neighborhood. The front rooms are sunny and bright, the garden shady, quiet and cool, perfect for grilling, pet bunnies and playing children! Plus there are windows all around in every room, which was another very important factor for us. I have this crazy tic about letting in fresh air, and someone else has a crazy tic about having south-facing windows, and here we've got it all.
The really neat thing about this place is not only its proximity to the forest, the park and the new supermarket that people protested and smashed the windows of (and now all the protesters shop there, because it's kind of far and annoying to go to the other stores by foot from this part of the neighborhood-I know, I lived not too far from here for a while), but that it is an addition to a normal old row-house, and we have no neighbors upstairs or downstairs, and have our own separate entrance.
Hooray! I couldn't believe our luck this morning when I found out it's ours! Now I can have 3 bunnies!

I love Socialism!!



















It seems like the buzz word on the lips of all the Republicans in the United States nowadays is about what a "socialist" President Obama is and how the evil Democrats want to take everything away from the rich people and give it to people who don't earn their keep and bla bla bla cry cry cry. It's a bunch of annoying bellyaching in my humble opinion. The hot topic at the moment is Obama's goal of instituting a national health care plan and, oh my God!!! What a socialist thing that would be! "A national health care system is something for whimpy Europeans!" they say. "We should be able to choose what kind of care we want and pay for it if we want." It would destroy the great expensive American health care system, and America has the best health care system in the world! We don't want to destroy that! I disagree. Tear down this system that doesn't work and leaves people out in the cold and build a new one from the ground up!

Apparently President Obama's plan would not involve instituting a plan to cover everyone, but a plan to make health care at least accessible to people who don't have it provided by their employers. This is a whole lot of people who work in capacities other than regular old full-time jobs, and a lot of people who are being laid off, fired or otherwise having their work or benefits reduced in these hard times. So there would at least be a reasonable, affordable option for people who don't have health insurance as part of their benefits package from their job, but people would also (maybe) have the option of choosing public or private plans, hopefully resulting in some competition on the otherwise ridiculously competition-free market of American health care. American health care is crazily overpriced. Even if you have "good" insurance as I did, you still pay an arm and a leg for things that are really not that involved or expensive in reality. My "benefits statement" from my health insurance in America quoted a price of over $500 for a prenatal doctor's visit that lasted maybe 20 minutes including an ultrasound. I had to pay about $50 out of pocket for that, which is still too much in my opinion. My direct comparison for this is my experience in Germany, when I was pregnant with Wilhelm in 2006. Exactly the same appointment cost about €50 in total, and the doctor listened to me and treated me like a human, not just scribbling stuff in my chart. And my insurance paid 100%. Another interesting fact: my American insurance supposedly cost my employer about $12,000 a year. My last insurance in Germany cost me not even €2,000 per year, including vision, dental and medical insurance, and 100% coverage, no ifs ands or buts, no fine print, no funny business, no runaround claims or pre-approved ambulances or any of that B.S. No insurance companies are going broke in Germany, nobody is declaring personal bankruptcy because they can't pay their medical bills. How can this be?

I had an amazing experience today. Since I am currently pregnant with number 2 and we just returned, we had to get our insurance situation straightened out before I went to the doctor. Not that I was particularly worried about the doctor's bills, we entered into this move with the knowledge that should we not get coverage, we can pay the bills out of pocket and still come out ahead of where we would have been in the United States. Anyway, we went to the (in the Republican's eyes) "socialist" health care company, got signed up for family insurance, and are all set. No problem. The pregnancy is covered, we are all covered, and will not see a single medical bill. Incredible! Is this socialism? Ha! It's a system that works, call it what you like. You pay into the system via deductions from your paycheck and are just covered. If you want, and you satisfy the income requirements, or are self-employed, you can opt out of the public system and insure yourself privately if that makes you feel better. That's where competition comes in. Private insurance pays the doctors more than the public insurance, and might pay for some additional treatments or a private room in a hospital, but by no means are publicly insured people being shortchanged. I was previously privately insured, and got great treatment, but Wilhelm was always on the public insurance and got the exceptional treatment that he really needed with his hard start in the world, including tons of tests and physical therapy, the whole nine yards. And we never paid a cent out of pocket, it was all covered! No one gets sent away from the hospital, no one can be denied care. I don't know what some people in America think, but here's a pretty good example: in Michigan when I was at my first prenatal appointment with baby 2 I asked about travelling during pregnancy because we have a wedding coming up in the German family in September. The nurse looked at me as if I had lost my mind, and informed me that they recommend that pregnant women not travel outside of their home state after the 25th week of pregnancy. Then she asked, "And who knows if a hospital in Germany would even admit you if you went into labor while you were there!" I looked at her and said, "I'm really not concerned about that. I could go to any hospital I want and pay for the birth out of pocket if I had to. Unlike here." I quoted some prices and told about some treatments I had had (acupuncture during pregnancy!) in Germany, and she was stunned.

In other news, I visited the doctor today to check on number 2. He was stunned that up to this point I had only had one ultrasound so far during this pregnancy. I am stunned as well, considering that I was receiving care in the country with the best health care system in the world, and the ultrasound machine was always just standing there in the corner, unused. Must not have been covered by my "great" insurance. But anyway, we got a look at the kid today, all is well, he or she all one piece and seems fine.

And this is why I love socialism, at least with the meaning that Americans throw the silly word around.

Her Maiden Voyage























The last time we saw the Sebring, in Newark, New Jersey, before she got put in a container with a Porsche Boxster and a Mercedes and on the ship to the old world. Too bad Porsche and Sebring didn't make any babies, they probably would've been pretty sweet!

Let me just start with this: Never before have I adored a car as I adore my Sebring. She is reliable, looks good, and drives so smoothly! It made me very sad, and pretty mad, when I hit that stupid deer back in April. Never before did I want to kill something like I wanted to kill that deer! I never thought I would become a person who likes driving a 6-cylinder or even care, but it really does make a difference. And for those of you tree-huggers who are thinking "A 6-cylinder! But you're killing the environment!" No, I'm not. This car gets the same or better gas mileage as our old Volvo, and way better than the Jeep Grand Cherokee, which we sold not so much out of our wish to conserve gas, but more out of our wish to conserve our Euros.

Sebring arrived last weekend in Bremerhaven, Germany. All the paperwork was finished pretty quickly, and Sauer Kraut went to get her yesterday. Sebring arrived mostly unscathed, she got a couple little dings on the way, but no paint damage, and who knows, maybe the tiny dents were already there before she left the new world. Fortunately, Sebring did not suffer the fate of a Corvette at the same agents':




















Ouch. Something fell on that car's roof! The owner was circling the car with a VERY sour look on his face...

Customs in Bremerhaven was no problem, we had all of our paperwork in order and since this car was brought as part of a move and we have owned it for nearly a year, we didn't have to pay any import tax. The first thing I heard about Sebring's maiden voyage: "It drives so much better than the BMW!" (S.K. drove a rental car to get the Sebring) The drive went well, Sebring likes the Autobahn. Then, later on, about 59 kilometers from Dresden, I got a call informing me that something metal just flew off the car and whatever it was couldn't be found. Maybe it was the antenna, the antenna broke off because of a crazy wind situation due to things attached to the luggage rack on the roof. Huh. About a half hour later, I got another call that the car quit on the A13 Autobahn. Excuse me? This made me kind of sad, thinking that this may be Sebring's first and last tour in Germany. I had to call ADAC and order a tow truck or a "yellow angel", the guy who comes and helps you when your car dies. So, the yellow angel arrived quickly, and I also received a call pretty soon: The car is running again! And guess what the problem was: the gas tank was empty. That was a pretty expensive fill-up courtesy of ADAC. Apparently, the gas gauge did not show that the gas was nearly out. Maybe it's just confused because the shippers had to pump out the remaining gas to ship the car. Or maybe they filled up the tank with contraband and forgot to take it out before giving us our car back. This really did happen not too long ago in Michigan: a man bought a used car, and the gas gauge always showed a half tank or so. Finally, he got the car checked out, and the gas tank was full of cocaine.

Today we had some things to do in Dresden, and it is just amazing how people stare at our car. For me, she's just a normal car, but for the Dresdner, it's something like a UFO. I think it's because she is lower than most cars, like Passats or even Mini Coopers, and she is long and sleek, so she has the essence of a race car. In the parking garage at the supermarket, some guys were staring at her, and got these goofy smiles on their faces as if they just fell in love with Sebring. Give me €10,000 and in a year, she's yours. Before that we'd have to pay some major tax for selling her. No, not really. I think I'll keep her. She's something special, not only good looking, but practical. You should see her trunk!

Numbers 9 and 10!
























This whole thing is starting to puzzle me. This morning we went out for a walk, and on the sidewalk next to our current undisclosed location in Dresden, I found four leaf clovers numbers 9 and 10. First one, then the other jumped out at me. They are currently in the kitchen in some water, but I will add them to the collection of dry ones in my notebook soon. Why do I need so much luck this summer? Or does it mean we are doing everything right?

Where did Sauer Kraut get his name?
















This is just an informational post so that no one thinks I am being mean or abusive to my husband. There are actually 2 phases that relate to the history of his being dubbed Sauer Kraut.
Phase 1 involved my parents visiting Germany for our wedding. He was preparing some food in our kitchen, and it involved large amounts of sauerkraut, so there was a big bowl of sauerkraut on our counter. He pointed to the bowl and said "See? This is why we are called Krauts!"

Phase 2 came shortly before our departure from Michigan. We were not so happy with our situation right then, and some even came to believe we were somewhat soured by the whole experience. My brother informed my mom one day that he had had my husband on his sandwich. She didn't understand, and asked for clarification. He explained that he had had a Reuben sandwich for lunch, this consists of rye bread, corned beef, swiss cheese, sauce, and, you guessed it, sauerkraut. And hence, the title, "Sauer Kraut".

The most beautiful dairy in the world
















This is an interior view of Pfunds Molkerei, also known as the "Most beautiful milk shop in the world" according to the Guiness Book of World Records. It is located right in my neighborhood, tucked in a little place on Bautzner Str. It's easiest to locate by following all the tourist busses on Bautzner Str., they are certainly headed there. Or to the brewery. Anyway, what's so special about this place is that it is completely tiled in gorgeous hand painted porcellain tiles. And they sell all kinds of delicious cheese! One disadvantage of this place: it doesn't smell very good in the summer.

Anyway, my Sauer Kraut had a little run in with the milk shop today. He was headed to the butcher shop with little Kraut in our latest undisclosed location, in the same neighborhood as the most beautiful milk shop in the world. On our current street, which is a pedestrian zone, he was stopped by an unsuspecting non-native English-speaking tourist. Sauer Kraut was in an especially fun-loving mood today.

Non-native English speaker: "Excuse me, where is the milk shop?"
Sauer Kraut: "Well, there are lots of places to buy milk around here, but it's 6 p.m. on a Saturday, so most of them are closed."
Non-native English speaker walks away with an annoyed look on her face.

S.K. was pleased with these results, and glowing upon his fruitless return from the butcher shop. You see, it was 6 p.m. on Saturday, so the butchers were all closed.

What a lucky day!
























My new bunny looks something like this, only a much lighter gray, almost white. We stopped by a friend's house today after looking at an apartment (where I just so happened to find four leaf clover number 8 in the garden) to visit and see his bunnies, since I had heard there had been great bunny changes at his house. Wow, have they got bunnies! 2 litters to be exact, and at least 2 pairs of adult buns. One litter is 6 weeks old, the other litter is a little older. The precious creamy gray bunny is currently 6 weeks and will be available in 2 weeks! She was spoken for, but since the person who wanted her has gone bankrupt and left behind a really nice apartment on the top floor of my friend's house, she won't be able to take the precious bun. We would also love to take the apartment, but it is currently a bit expensive for us. But we will see if we can work something out. Precious bun is ours!

Did you know...

that in Germany if you find an empty parking spot on the street and your passenger jumps out to stand in the spot while you turn around to drive to the spot, it is legal for another car to come and slowly drive into the parking spot, making contact with the human standing in the spot and pushing him/her out of the way with the car? There have been court cases regarding exactly this, and the person pushing the other person out of the way in the car won.

We're baaa-aaack!

After nearly 24 hours of being in transit, from our hotel in New York to our temporary place in an undisclosed location just outside Dresden, then a couple days of lots of sleep, we have arrived.
Being away for ten months now just seems like a blurry memory, or a half forgotten dream. In our undisclosed location, our gracious hosts even unpacked some of our old furniture and Wilhelm's toys, so we really feel at home. And yesterday afternoon and evening, there was even a big surprise party for us, with a large number of the colorful characters who were a part of our daily life before and the whole family. Not to mention large amounts of very delicious foods.

Wow. It's kind of overwhelming, and neat to be back in this home away from home. It's different from when I came here before, it's not this prickly exciting new adventure anymore, it's a place I know better and feel far more comfortable in than my original home in many ways.

On another note, I found my 6th four leaf clover this summer yesterday in our undisclosed location. Number five was found at my parents' house the day we set off on our drive to New York. We must have used the luck of that one either for not having to unpack all of our belongings from the car at the Canadian border or for not getting shot in East Orange, NJ, while searching for our hotel, then deciding we'd better just look for something in a better neighborhood.

New York City























That's the truth! We have been deprived of city life for too long. We drank in New York today like water for people who are dying of thirst. New York City is incredible. For whatever reason, it has the reputation of being fast, cold, harsh and unfriendly, but both times I have been here, my impression and experience has been exactly the opposite. If someone sees you looking at a map they ask nicely if they can help or if you're lost, if you've got a kid who needs a toilet, they will let you in wherever and comment "I can't blame you for not using the Burger King restrooms, they're pretty skeevy." Maybe the bad reputation is just a way of keeping people from absolutely overrunning this fantastic metropolis.



















We took a great walk from Battery Park around the southern tip of Manhattan via the Esplanade, winding up in Tribeca. This frog was spotted in Rockefeller Park, just one sculpture from a jam packed little area of sculptures by Tom Otterness. For more, go here. All of the little guys around the bigger figures remind me of scenes from the animated film Fantastic Planet, in a way creepy, yet endearing.



















We also went to Central Park, since I hadn't been there yet and really wanted to see it. It was way more than I expected. The landscape is just beautiful, it's full of rocks, trees, water and people people everywhere!

We also saw the Trump Tower, the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island (from a distance), and were in Greenwich Village, Soho, the Financial District, and the future site of the "Freedom is not free" monument, or whatever they are currently calling the former site of the World Trade Center. This trip has resulted in the decision to definitely take at least a week vacation in New York City sometime soon. Like our cab driver said tonight: "You could stay here for a month and still want to see more."

Our cab driver was full of wisdom. We mentioned that we were leaving Michigan to move back to Germany, and were just on vacation here for a couple of days, and he said "Michigan is like a ghost town. All they do there is build cars." To which I couldn't resist replying: "Not any more! Now it's just a ghost town!" This resulted in roaring laughter and 100% agreement. He also agreed that "Chicago sucks", confirming what I've heard before about New Yorkers disliking Chicago and Chicagoans disliking New York. This guy got a good tip, unlike the guy yesterday from New Jersey who was a total d!$% and did not even help lift suitcases into the trunk, just stood there with crossed arms smoking his Parliaments. Like I said when he called back wanting detailed directions to the place where he was to pick us up: "The address is XYZ, I see an exit called Fish House Road, there are no special landmarks, that's all I know. That's why I call a service to come pick me up." Why don't you have a GPS that works? And why are you driving a 300C and not a Lincoln Town Car like we ordered? You can get more luggage in a Chrysler Sebring than a 300C, that big, ugly, boxy car is a joke.

Taking leave of this place

We are on the road again, and, well, just about off the road. We dropped off the car to be shipped to a far away place and will be boarding our plane for a far away place soon. But first, here are some sights from our trip through MI, ON, NY, PA, NJ and back to NY.


















This is a sight from somewhere in New York or Pennsylvania. There are just too many things about this scene that I love.
























Fries Poutine. An eastern Ontario delicacy best eaten after drinking large amounts of alcohol, at least according to insiders. It consists of fresh cut french fries, warm cheese curds and beef gravy. Mmmm. I actually tried it, and in my hungry state, didn't mind it, though skeptical at first glance.


















Big Turk, Canadian candy bar. Highly innappropriate by PC German standards. Very delicious by my standards. Inside German sources say it tastes like Gelee Bananen. We'll see about that when we arrive. My description: chocolate covered gummy bear in bar form. Mmmm.



















Insert "don't" here. Sorry Michigan, but it's true. Some people have been known to say, and I quote: "The only good thing about Michigan is that when you leave, you know you can't be going anywhere worse."



















Turtle crossing in Kingston, Ontario. On first glance, I thought: "How nice of them to think of the turtles!" Upon commenting on how I like their turtle crossing to a Kingstonian, I was told: "You don't want to hit one of those with your car! They're huge! They can do some major damage!" So I guess it's more to protect the motorists than the turtles, unlike Germany's frog crossings.

Sauer Kraut at Harley Davidson gang run junkyard today: "I need a loud horn for my car. I'm taking it back to Germany and there people just walk out in front of you, and I need something that will make them jump out of the way."

Harley gang: "Why don't you just run them over?"

Sauer Kraut: "Well, I can't do that. I don't want any legal problems."

Harley gang: "We just put loud pipes on our bikes so people get out of the way."

Sauer Kraut: "I had loud pipes on my bike in Germany and lost my license for two years."

Harley gang: "Go out back, there are some old Cadillacs out there, you can take a horn from one of those."

Sign on the wall in Harley gang's office: "Wanted: old motorcycles. No Japs." Good think S.K. didn't mention what kind of bike he had those loud pipes on, they would've kicked him out. Or run him over.

What question could I have asked this 8 Ball one year ago during the planning of my move from Dresden to Michigan?

a. Will this move make me lose my mind?

b. Am I ever going to have more children?

c. Will we ever move back to Dresden?

d. All of the above.

Sorry to get all hocus-pocus on you and start writing about silly things like four leaf clovers and 8 balls lately, but I am feeling kind of hocus-pocusy. I guess being nearly six months pregnant will do that to you. Oh! That gives away one answer: b. could have been a correct question for that 8 ball answer. It's true, there is a baby on the way, and in honor of that, a baby joke I heard today:

Two babies were lying in the nursery of a hospital. One looks at the other and says, "I'm a girl!" The other says, "I'm a boy!" The girl asks, "How do you know that?" The boy says, "Come here, take a look" as he pulls down his blanket. "See! I have blue booties on!"

Ha ha ha. That one is from the Danish mother of a wife of a colleague, imported straight from Denmark.

Anyway, back to the hocus pocus. Along with all the four leaf clovers (see previous posts about my finding of 4 of them in the past week), all fortunes from fortune cookies at every delicious Chinese restaurant I go to have been telling me that prosperity is near, and soon you will be sitting on top of the world and stuff like this. Huh, well, we'll see. I quit my job today, so that won't be making me prosperous any time soon. It may be a surprise to some that I quit my job, but it really is for the best. You see, I feel like I am losing my mind once again planning yet another intercontinental move...so answer a. above was also correct. I probably did lose my mind last year during intercontinental move #1. Big news for those not yet in on it! We are returning to Dresden! And now, a little Westernhagen (or is it Nena?) in honor of this:

"Ich bin wieder hier

in meinem Revier

war nie wirklich weg

hab mich nur versteckt

ich rieche den Dreck

ich atme tief ein

und dann bin ich mir sicher

wieder zu Hause zu sein"

I know my readers could probably all qualify as members of Mensa, otherwise you wouldn't be reading this, so you've probably figured out that answer c. from above would have also been correct last year had I asked the 8 ball that particular question. And from the Dreck part of the song, you probably also figured out that we are returning to the Neustadt! Hooray! We're not there yet, so I can't smell the Dreck (dirt) just quite yet...but soon enough. July 9th, I will officially be smelling the smell of Dresden again!

Soooo, in all truth, the 8 ball could have just said "All of the above."

Things I can't wait for:

-delicious German baked goods

-going to the Plus Markt and having the cashier throw my purchases for me to bag them myself (I'll tell you what, that's a lot more efficient than the slloooooooww cashiers here, and I can deal with my thrown purchases much better when tired and hungry than with some friendly cashier chatting with me)

-giving people dirty looks for anything and everything (I've already been practicing, I am sick of all the niceness around here!)

-letting Wilhelm scream in the store and getting dirty looks

-did I mention sunflower seed rolls? Quarkkuchen? Roggenbrötchen? Kuchen? Any kind of Kuchen? Schokoladenbrötchen? Oh yeah, baked goods!

-my bike

-Panama

-the tram

-delicious milk products

-Kartoffeln und Quark

-Rahmspinat

-the smell of the bakery in the morning, oh my god

-the lack of fast food restaurants

-Neustädter Diechl!

-Bagel's!

-Frank's!

-the playgrounds and all the über-moms there

-Softeis!

-being sent to the butcher to buy some meat products I know nothing about and will not eat, looking and pointing at the totally wrong thing when placing my order

-mmm, the cheese! All the wonderful cheese!

-people outside walking, biking, running and skating everywhere, even in the rain!

-all of the sounds, the angry tram drivers and their angry bells, car horns honking, dogs barking, people talking, church bells, the music in the cafes...

I could go on and on, but it's getting late and we have a big day of packing the car and dealing with the debacle that that is sure to develop into tomorrow.

Good Luck

I walked out the door today, and what was staring up at me from the lawn? Another four-leaf clover! The fourth one in a week. We must be heading for some luck, or needing some major luck soon...

What's going on?

We must be doing something right, because today I found my third four leaf clover this week. How can that be? Are these things really lucky? Do I need all of this luck, or is it a sign that we are just doing everything right? Some very big decisions were made and finalized this week, then I started finding these! One on the 17th, one on the 18th and one today. And it's just when I am walking along, looking down at the grass, they jump out at me, I don't sit and search for them like I did when I was a child (when I also found several). On the 17th and 18th, I was walking from the car to the house, and there they were. Today I was walking over from my neighbor's garage, and there was one. Huh. The really funny thing is that I haven't found one for years, and now 3 in one week.

C'mon Dresden...










The whole world cultural heritage site thing is getting old. For those not in the know, Dresden's Elbe Valley, a nearly 20 kilometer long part of the Elbe River Valley (it's the red outlined part on the map of Dresden above), was declared a UNESCO world cultural heritage site a few years ago. Now the title is in danger because the citizens of Dresden voted to build a bridge at one point within this area. Indeed, the planned (and currently under construction) bridge is not a pretty one (see below), and its planning has some flaws, but how can this bridge lead to the removal of the title of world cultural heritage site?










By definition, a world cultural heritage site is a cultural landscape in a large city that has been used and formed by humans. I know, I know, the UNESCO has 6 criteria all written out in pretty language describing how this cultural landscape is to be, but basically, what I wrote above is what it boils down to. The criteria are written in such a way that one could understand them to mean that the new bridge in Dresden, just as an example, is acceptable or unacceptable (the architecture in the area unifies one or more significant cultural epochs) . It all depends on how you want to understand and view the whole thing.

How can one ugly bridge ruin 20 kilometers of an incredibly beautiful landscape full of architectural and natural treasures? There are other existing ugly bridges in the 20 km stretch of cultural heritage. Everyone claims how these incredible meadows that are so nice for picnicking, etc. are being destroyed. But do you know what? I rarely saw people picnicking or playing sports where this bridge is being built. You know where the people are picnicking? By the other bridges! People put cows out on these meadows to chow on the grass, and bale it up when the time is right, but that is still doable when a bridge is there. You can still go for a walk down there by the Waldschlößschen where they are building the bridge, it will just be a bit louder, but guess what everyone, you're in the city, and it's loud in the city. Should they close the Königsbrücker Straße in the Neustadt because it's loud and it stinks? NO! I live on a quiet road in the country right now, and I am losing my mind. Bring on the noise!

My main beef with the Waldschlößchen bridge is that I hear it has no opportunity for pedestrians or cyclists to cross. Also no trams. Please correct me if I'm wrong on this point, but I find this unacceptable and silly. Of course, that is just in my own personal interest, as a pedestrian and cyclist. In my current life I am forced to drive a car, but at heart, I am a pure pedestrian and cyclist, and would love to bike across this bridge to work or wherever I might need to go on that other side of the river. It would be much more convenient than biking over one of the other bridges and then rattling my brains out on some of those cobblestone streets they've got over there. Why not build big with space for pedestrians, cyclists and a tram that could be added later should the need arise (though the need is probably already there)?

Maybe the whole thing is just a set up, maybe someone in Dresden paid off the UNESCO to give them the title then threaten to take it away (even though they knew upon awarding the title that this bridge was planned) for publicity. I've got to say, if nothing else, this whole debacle is spectacular publicity for Dresden. No one would have even known that the Elbe River Valley in Dresden was a world cultural heritage site if it weren't for the title being endangered by the bridge. A lot of people never would have even heard of Dresden or thought about Dresden had this not happened. The only problem is that a lot of people are probably shaking their heads and saying "Those silly Dresdner!" about the bridge trouble.

Assorted stuff of late

Not a whole lot has been going on around here, but that's probably just the calm before the storm. We had some visitors, a couple of birthday parties, and lots of asking ourselves "What's next?"























I love this sign, it is posted near Beaverton on Dundas Road. Someone really wants to scare people off of their property. But, if you look closely at the lower right hand corner, you notice that this sign was ripped off from the city of San Diego, where, unlike in Michigan, they must actually have rattlesnakes.
























My sailor friend pointed this out to me on a stop in Traverse City, MI. "Oh my God! Come look at this! You've got to put it on your blog!" All I can say is: shame on you, Mother Nature!



















Wilhelm is only 3 years old, and on two of his birthdays, he has had hail storms. What are the odds of that with a late May birthday? On his first birthday in Dresden there was a sudden hail storm, and this year on his third birthday in Beaverton, there was a sudden hail storm. Weird.



















Wilhelm's birthday wishes? Balloons and bunny cake. He got both, and the excitement was immense.

Herding feral cats in heat

Never before in my life have I had to deal with more blatantly disrespectful, nasty, mean comments than as a teacher of middle and high school kids. It is as if these children have no upbringing or have never been held accountable for the horrible things they say. And I don't want to say "well, maybe I'm just taking this all to personally", because is it really acceptable to tell someone to their face (a person who should be a person of respect, haha) that they are "being dumb"? Is it okay to tell a teacher (a teacher of an elective course that these kids are in purely by choice) that "no one cares"? Is it acceptable to constantly interrupt someone who is speaking to you or simply turn your back on them and start having a social conversation? Is it acceptable to blurt out "This class sucks cock"? That one warranted a call home and contact with the office, and things have straightened out, because at least there is some parental support in this instance. Throughout all of these stupid instances and more there have been messages home, contact with superiors, and searches for help and support, but little has helped. Some days I am left after my last class just shaking my head. One very nice student I have said one day, "You know, they are like they are because of how they've been raised". I was tempted to add, "No, it's how they haven't been raised at all." Most of the kids in my classes are like wild animals who just do what they want. A stark minority of them have parents who are really there for them, teaching them things and holding them accountable for their actions. Those ones are great kids, good students, and an absolute pleasure to teach. Teaching the rest of them is like herding feral cats in heat.

And the thing that makes my blood boil is that I know my class isn't lame. As a language nerd, I have been in a number of extremely lame, boring language classes, where you don't do any communicative activities, any projects, anything hands-on. I have all glowing reviews from my three bosses who have been in observing me this year. These kids in my classes are constantly doing projects and hands-on stuff, games, stories, and still they bitch and complain. Probably because they are being forced to think and do something. I was tempted a number of times to go in this year and say, "Well, if you don't like how I'm teaching you, let me show you for a week how I was taught German in school." I could have pursed my lips and turned red every time a kid talked out of turn, sent them to the office for any minor infraction, and had them doing book work and worksheets the whole hour with a strict no talking policy. They would've loved it.

Tales from the front

As the weather gets nicer, the kids are getting more colorful.

Quotes from today:

One student asks another student for a cookie. Student with cookie replies, "The last time I gave you something you tried to smoke it." Student who wanted cookie then states, "No, I tried to snort it." (it was a pack of Smarties) Student wanting cookie then got cookie, ate it, and snorted the crumbs from his paper. This is a true story that really happened today at about 12:40 pm.

Out of the blue, someone blurts out, "If you eat your own leg, would you gain or lose weight?"

Today they called me the "fun Gestapo" because I "suck the fun right out of everything."

Mud Blog

Driving past Lloyd's house on Friday, it seemed that something was in the works, since they had a giant digger in the field, digging the mud pits even deeper. On our way home yesterday, we first heard the roar of engines, then saw the field on the corner full of parked cars, and knew some kind of event was happening. A mud bog. The mud bog is apparently a favorite rural pastime, occurring all around the United States. From what I have observed at our neighbors' house, a lot more preparation seems to go into the thing than the actual bogging itself. The vehicles are constantly propped up on cinder blocks, and the boggers are always working on them, for days and weeks at a time, the bog is constantly being flooded and dug out, and then the actual bogging, the driving of some big, loud truck through the mud, takes a couple of minutes. That is, unless they get stuck or the truck overheats and quits. Then they sit for quite a while, futilely spinning their tires, waiting for something bigger and more powerful to pull them out. We parked on the road, like many other passers-by, to gape at this spectacle of rural entertainment.



















In the left edge of the picture, you can see a Jeep with its hood up. This car had overheated and quit. It sat motionless for quite a while. The orange truck is in the process of pulling the brown truck out of the mud where it got stuck.


















The orange truck was unable to pull out the brown truck, so the big boys had to come out. Big blue was able to get the job done, but only after the overheated Jeep was removed from the scene so it didn't get damaged in the towing process.



















Equal opportunity fun! Even people on crutches can bog.





































Doesn't that look like fun?

Upon leaving our safe parking spot on the road to head for home, we noticed a car turn the corner behind us from the direction of the bog. To be safe, we turned the wrong way and didn't drive to our house, because we were scared we were being followed by Lloyd's friends. They probably didn't like it that so many people in nice cars were stopping on the road, pointing and laughing at them, so it wouldn't surprise me if they were following people to beat them up or do some kind of damage to their vehicles. Also, Lloyd the bogger does not get along well with people who live on our road. It is a different world from Lloyd's, just a half mile away. Well-kept houses and people walking, jogging and riding bikes in clean clothes, not caked with mud. As our neighbor, the man who in hindsight very unfortunately sold Lloyd his property, would say, "Lloyd, the people who live on the river, they have a little bit more money, and they think your mud bog is stupid." This conversation occured after a mud bog years ago, during which Lloyd and his friends drove their big trucks onto property that didn't belong to Lloyd and tore up the land with their big tires.

Viewing this bog and its poorly dressed participants with bad haircuts took me right back to my school days, when people who looked just like them (maybe these same people were there yesterday) used to harass my friends and I, calling us lesbians, breaking and mutilating our things, and committing other forms of abuse. If these people weren't such cruel jerks, maybe I wouldn't laugh at them and how stupid I think they are. Maybe I wouldn't point and take pictures which I plan to broadcast to the world and write sarcastic things about. In the end, I am no better than them, laughing at them and making fun of their silly loud trucks because I just can't understand what they enjoy about doing what they do.



















Haha. What luck. I am stuck stuck stuck.

Chocolate Chip Pancakes, oh my God...





















That's what I had for breakfast this morning.

I'd been planning on making delicious pancakes for breakfast today since yesterday, and when I woke up this morning, I had a hankering for chocolate chip pancakes, because I wanted to use up that bag of chocolate chips that was just lying around and terrorizing me. So I found the easiest recipe I could, and wow...

Here it is:

Ingredients

• 4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) unsalted butter
• 1 cup whole, 2 percent fat, or 1 percent fat milk
• 1 1/4 cups flour
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 4 teaspoons baking powder
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 eggs
• 6 ounces semisweet chocolate chips, or less to taste
• Butter, for cooking

Directions

In a small saucepan, combine the butter and milk. Place over low heat just until warm and the butter is melted. Let cool slightly. In a bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt; mix well.

In a large bowl, whisk the eggs with a fork. Whisk in the milk mixture. Add the dry ingredients and mix just until barely blended. Add the chocolate chips and mix.

Heat a griddle or large skillet over medium heat. Add about 1 teaspoon of butter and melt until bubbly. Ladle 3 tablespoons of batter for each pancake onto the hot surface and cook until bubbly on the top and golden brown on the bottom. Turn and cook until golden brown on the other side, about 30 seconds more. Repeat until all the batter is used up. Serve hot.

from http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/cda/recipe_print/0,1946,FOOD_9936_14767_RECIPE-PRINT-FULL-PAGE-FORMATTER,00.html

----------------

While I did melt the butter together with the milk in a sauce pan, and did mix the dry ingredients as instructed, I did not whisk the eggs or whisk things together, I just mixed them with a spoon because I didn't want to dirty another bowl. It all turned out just fine. I also only used about 4 ounces of chocolate chips, because that's all I had, and it was quite enough. Wow, these are good, though my Hauskraut did say, and I quote: "that's typical American food. Way too sweet. Ugh," with a wrinkled nose. But I must add, he did not eat these with syrup, or even plain, but with butter and SWEETENED CONDENSED MILK on top. No wonder they were too sweet.

It's almost over

Well, the countdown to the end of the schoolyear has begun. I didn't think I was going to make it on many occasions, I thought I might just drop dead from exhaustion or being harassed by some of my lovely students or from getting up at 5:30 in the morning and not seeing any daylight at all all winter long. But I've nearly made it, as long as I don't catch swine flu in the waning days of the school year and drop dead from that. But I've got lots of soap and hand sanitizer and am avoiding kids with runny noses like the plague, so I hope I don't get this one last scourge of the school year. I've been sick enough, either needing mental health days or actual sick days, whether puking, having a fever, hacking up a lung or just feeling like I can't go on. Anyway, there have been a number of funny moments, and that's actually what this post is about.

-Frau R#$*&§?'s Cafe: For those who don't know, I am a German teacher, so that will help these things to make more sense. The kids in German 1 had to make a menu for a fantasy restaurant, then create a dialog in that restaurant, ordering food and paying, etc. After being constantly hounded by the kids about "When are we going to do something fun? When are we going to play a game?" I just looked at them with my darkest look and said "I hate fun." That seemed to sober them up. As a response to me hating fun, one student's menu for his fantasy restaurant was for Frau R#$*&§?'s Cafe, and it consisted of meals such as Dead Children.

-My portrait: While circulating around class the other day, I was having a look at the students' work, and noticed a number of portraits along the margin of one kid's paper. At the top was Hitler. Then Stalin. Then...you guessed it, Frau R#$*&§?. But I only got third place because the kid couldn't draw Mussolini. I would have had fourth. Another student in class placed right after me, he is the best student and consistently has the highest grade on everything. Then another student, one of the worst, and he was saying in his portrait something about "drinking all I can, then drinking some more", which was quite accurate, considering that he usually talks about how long he is grounded for for coming home drunk, and explaining different types of beer bongs and how to use them. Then was yet another student, one who comes in late and often fails everything, very apologetic because he "lost track of time at fast food restaurant xyz" or "couldn't find his book" or "didn't know what to study" and usually just falls asleep. His quote was "Uuuuuh, I lost track of time." Also accurate.

-Yet another portrait. This one came up when doing a little project to practice the future tense, the kids drew six pictures and wrote six sentences about what they are going to do this summer. One kid who is mildly amusing drew as his first item "I am going to the Grand Canyon." In his picture was him standing over a big hole throwing in Frau ... Ummm, excuse me?

-Scribbled on the back of a piece of paper: Frau R#$*&§? = Hitler. Keine smiles. Kein lachen. Das Reich.

Huh, it seems like there are more, but they are not coming to me right now. I will post pictures of some of these items because they are amusing. I am just too lazy and exhausted right now. And anyway, I hate fun.

By the way, I did not put my actual name, but Frau R#$*&§? instead, because I know these kids are just dying to find this blog. Well, I congratulate them if they do, but pray they don't. At least not until I am far away from where I am now.

A joke from one of my highly innappropriate high school students during our Easter Monday lesson today:

What did the egg say to the boiling water?
It's going to take me a while to get hard, I just got laid by a chick.

The Rabbit Died

These rabbits fortunately did not die, they are some of the precious buns who live in the wild on our street.

For whatever reason (maybe because it's Easter), the conversation turned to the "Rabbit Test" while we were coloring Easter eggs this afternoon. I have often heard the phrase "The rabbit died" as an idiom for someone being pregnant, but never knew the horrible truth behind it. In the early part of the last century, a test was developed to test for pregnancy by taking a sample of the possibly pregnant woman's urine, injecting it into the ear vein of a female rabbit, then waiting 36 to 48 hours to dissect the rabbit and examine its ovaries. If the woman was pregnant, the rabbit's ovaries would change in response to the hormone hCG, interestingly enough, the same hormone detected by those trusty pee-stick tests you can get at your corner pharmacy. It seems the rabbit would die regardless of a positive or negative result, because either way, the bun had to be cut open. I can't imagine they'd have put the little guy under anaesthesia, sewn her up and saved her for the next test if the result was negative.

Anyway, happy Easter all, and let's all celebrate the cheap and easy availability of bunny life-saving pee sticks at our local pharmacies!

Haircuts by Bob*

To get my spring break off to a roaring start, I accompanied someone to get a haircut in a town nearby Beaverton on Monday. The sign outside the salon announced a very inexpensive price, so we thought "Why not give it a try?" with the childlike innocence of foreigners. We ventured into the house, which is actually the barber's house, a pretty old house with a funny smell at that. The salon was the front room to the right when one enters the house. We loitered in the hallway next to the stairs after not seeing anyone in the salon area. Out of the kitchen which housed an avocado green refrigerator, probably a collector's item, popped a man's head. "I'll be right up," he announced. So we entered the salon area. Wilhelm was excited to find a cockatiel and parakeet in the corner of the salon, and as I started removing his coat and hat and he was busy peeping at the birds, the barber entered the room and said, "Oh, no, I don't do guys that small, he won't even fit in my chair." Somehow this always happens, at salons people always think Wilhelm's hair should be cut, but we do that at home. Anyway, the correct customer then took out the photos of his best haircut and said, "This is how I'd like my hair." Barber Bob glanced at the photos, tossed them to the side and whipped out his electric razor. "You want a lot off, huh?" was all he said. And did he start cutting! Wow! He turned his customer away from the mirror and shore him like a sheep. His customer had a worried expression on his face, and I probably did too. I decided it would be best to stop watching, and as my eyes wandered through the room, I noticed a giant rifle, much like the one pictured above, standing in the corner of the room. I guess Barber Bob must not get many complaints with that standing in the corner. Or if he does, he takes care of the problem so word of bad haircuts doesn't spread. Or maybe it's there because Barber Bob's shop is across the street from the county jail. Perhaps he has a contract with the police to, um, take care of any inmates that escape street clean up duty. Whatever the reason, it wasn't only the gun that made us pretty much satisfied with the haircut. Where else can you get a haircut for $8.50 these days?

*Barber's name has been changed

A quick trip back to Germany













I can't take credit for this picture, it was borrowed from Mid-Michigan Dining. Go there for a true American perspective on Aldi.

"Are you from Europe? You don't look like you're from here." That was a pleasing greeting from my friendly Aldi cashier today. Somehow it was nice to hear after being fully annoyed this morning doing my laundry and being stared at like an alien in Beaverton, having a gas truck driver pull out in front of me (hey, my car's already smashed up, so what does it matter?), and having some lady cut in front of me in the supermarket line. Twice. Once as I was talking to Wilhelm when she just oh-so-casually slipped in front of me, and the second time when an extra cashier opened up a new lane. I was headed over to the new lane and this spry bun-wearing senior with dyed brown hair hopped in front of me for the second time. Then I saw her in the parking lot and swore at her under my breath.

But back to our little trip to Germany. Aldi is always refreshing, because it's so different. Well, Saginaw is different too. After living in small-town Beaverton and working in white-bread Midland for 7 months, we are sort of losing contact to the world. It felt so nice to be somewhere with such a colorful mix of customers, all friendly, not staring and suspicious like the Beaver-townies, or even the Midlanders. And everyone says such bad things about Saginaw, but everyone was very nice, returning Wilhelm's shoes to us when he kicked them across the store in a fit of rage, or asking if other dropped items were ours when the child screamed.

At Aldi, it feels so nice and homey to have to put a quarter deposit in the shopping cart to unlock it, rather than just grab a cart and leave it stranded in the parking lot somewhere as at all other American supermarkets. And not to have the cashier pack my items into 10,000 plastic bags (of which I now have a collection of probably a million overflowing from under my sink), but into another cart and let me fend for myself on how to transport my goods home. The Aldi shopping experience in America is pretty authentically German, with two major differences: the cashiers and the other customers. The other customers are nothing like German Aldi customers. They aren't complaining about some weird obscure price problem, or just about any other thing from the store to their health to the weather, they don't have sour looks on their faces, and they don't push and shove other customers or stand too close in line. They actually say "Excuse me" if they would like to get past you, or just wait patiently while you block the aisle, knowing that at some point, you will move. The American Aldi cashiers are also always very nice, with a friendly greeting and they will often chat with you about your purchases, or whatever else may interest them about you, as mentioned above. American Aldi cashiers seem genuinely nice, whereas cashiers at other retailers seem fake nice. Maybe my perception is altered because of the excitement of shopping at a German supermarket chain, but in my few trips to Aldi, I have had nicer, chattier cashiers than in my thousands of trips to Wal-Mart or Meijer. Yay, Aldi! You made my day.

My poor car was once so handsome, now it has an even more broken up grill (on the left) and that big fancy dent in the hood from the car-deer impact. Like I said, it could have been worse. A lot worse.

I hate deer
















Unfortunately, the one I hit wasn't that far away when I saw it. It was right up against my windshield.






















This is not the deer I hit, but very similar. It was dark when I hit "my" deer, and by the time we got back to take a picture of it, it had been reanimated and had left the scene. No, it didn't die, which is very disappointing to me. Never before have I wanted something so dead as I wanted that deer to be. But it was just in shock and later jumped up and ran away after defacing my car.

Well, today is another day of firsts. I hit my first deer today. Fortunately, it was a small one, and fortunately I was able to brake when I saw the idiot jump out of the trees on the side of the road, but it still screwed up the front end of my car. Honestly, it could have been worse, but I still cursed like I think I never have before, using words in front of my son that probably made his tender ears burn. But, other than burning ears, no one was hurt, so all is well. The car still drives, you can still put the hood up, it just has a bit more character now.

The whole scene was quite comical. Driving home from my brother's house, we were on a curvy road and apparently this deer was scaling the bank of the river, because it came running up from the bank of the Tobacco River. I saw it, honked and braked, but the stupid idiot just kept going, and ran right in front of my car and I hit it. Because my car is kind of low to the ground, the deer flew up onto the hood, against my windshield (which fortunately didn't break), and was projected 2 meters up into the air in a great arc to the other side of the road, where it landed. We drove back and the stupid thing was just lying next to the road gasping for air. However, 5 minutes later upon our return to take a photograph of the deer, it was gone. It had fled the scene. Never before have I wished that I carried a rifle under the seat of my car as my grandfather did, because I would have loved to have really done that deer in.

Ice Mountains on Saginaw Bay

Last weekend we drove to the Bay City Recreational Area to have a look at all of the ice that has been pushed up from Lake Huron onto land. This didn't only happen here, but also in some residential areas where ice was pushed up into houses, through windows and walls. There were some photos in the newspaper of people with ice in their living rooms. We didn't see any of that, but from the shape of these ice mountains, you can imagine how that could happen if your house was very close to the shore.



















Here you can see over the ice mountain out onto the Saginaw Bay. There are more mountains of ice out in the bay.



















The surface of the ice had a neat crazed pattern, and was very glassy.



















Here is some older ice, it looks more white than clear. And you can see the sheets of ice that have been pushed up from the water.



















Here are some more crystally, sparkly, glass ice mountains. When the ice started to fall down like an avalanche, it even sounded like broken glass.

As seen in Bay City, Michigan

Living in a bunny's paradise









These guys are the only thing to make life in Michigan bearable. The bunnies. After noticing bunny tracks in the snow all winter, we weren't surprised to establish that there seems to be a high concentration of bunnies in our neighborhood. We were surprised, however, that these bunnies are not only Eastern Cottontails, as pictured above, but precious dwarf rabbits in black, gray, and white with black spots. In all my previous life in Beaverton, I had only witnessed Eastern Cottontails, and now living on the other side of town, I am seeing precious, multicolored dwarf rabbits in the wild! One of our neighbors even reported that years ago, these rabbits were so abundant that they were hopping around everywhere in the morning when he went to his car to go to work and wouldn't even hop away from people. Could we have found heaven?
The current bunnies do hop away, and seem to only live near vacant houses. I am pretty sure that one of the people on our street thinks we are sizing up the houses on the street to break into them and steal stuff, because we regularly drive and walk down the road to check on the bunnies, stopping in the middle of the street and staring onto property that does not belong to us. That is suspicious in America. You are not normal if you go out and observe precious bunnies in the wild, you are a burglar.
The biggest bunny news today: not only did we see all 5 of the precious buns (the gray one, the two brown ones, the black one and the one with cow spots), we also found baby bunny tracks in the snow on our front step! We had a tiny bunny visitor this morning who hopped right up onto our front step! The prints were very small, but definitely from a bunny, so we are very excited. Our master plan of capturing a baby bunny and taming it will soon be reality.

The Bread

After eating lots of bad bread that tasted of dough conditioners and other assorted additives, and basically had no texture or substance anyway, someone started baking bread. After a few months of experimentation and travels from Gladwin, Michigan, to Windsor, Canada, in search of the perfect flour, here are the results:

germanbread.blogspot.com

Who knew I would marry a passionate baker?