So on this side of the pond, I dig out American media coverage of the elections through youtube. Not that there aren't plenty of soundbites on the radio over here -- not to mention magazine and newspaper articles -- but there's something to be said about listening to the sound of candidates' own voices instead of German voiceovers.
Besides, Saturday Night Live (<-- fyi, a video) isn't broadcast over here. :oP
Anyway, so one of the tidbits I found was a recent interview of Obama -- by Bill O'Reilly.
I've found O'Reilly's bullying, arrogant style off-putting in the past; and as I clicked on the interview, I cringed to think of that petty nastiness in the same room with reason and dignity.
But if you have time, seriously check it out. The two are great opposite each other. O'Reilly is aggressive, but not mean; he interrupts a lot, but remains respectful and self-deprecatory enough to balance it out. And Obama handles himself like a pro. His responses are pointed, educated, honest, and wise (I think it's safe to say I'm now quite in love with him). You can see how the two enjoy the duel; at the end, O'Reilly even spontaneously challenges Obama to a basketball game. "You've got height," Obama shoots back without missing a beat, "but I've got speed." O'Reilly returns with, "If I win, I get to be Secretary of State." The interview is tough; but, impossibly, ends up leaving both parties very likeable.
Too bad we don't see this more often in American political discourse.
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Friday, September 12, 2008
Happy Birthday Dad!
The world has now officially been a better place for 50 years, since my Dad was born on September 12, 1958.
There are lots of things I wish I could do to honor the occasion.
For one thing, I would give him this:
Which of course would be in the middle of: 
Where we could go for a walk in: 
After which we'd race our: 
But I guess all of those things would be rather heavy to ship overseas.
So instead on your birthday, I wish you:
And
And
Wish I could be there to celebrate with you! Have fun until I can get there in a couple months!
Love you, Dad.
There are lots of things I wish I could do to honor the occasion.
For one thing, I would give him this:
Which of course would be in the middle of: 
Where we could go for a walk in: 
After which we'd race our: 
But I guess all of those things would be rather heavy to ship overseas.
So instead on your birthday, I wish you:
And
And
Wish I could be there to celebrate with you! Have fun until I can get there in a couple months!
Love you, Dad.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Catching "cold"?
So everyone here still seems to adhere to that old folk wisdom that being cold will make you sick.
You've all heard it: "Don't go out in the rain without an umbrella, you'll catch a cold." "Put on a jacket, you don't want to catch cold." Part of the reason Germans won't let you walk around their houses without slippers on is that allowing your bare feet to come in contact with the cold floor will certainly mean having your death of pneumonia on their consciences.
Yet I've just never quite been able to buy this. I understand how being cold might make you feel susceptible to bugs and viruseses -- you're shivering and weak, just like you also shiver and feel weak when you have a fever. In addition, if a fever heats you up to fight off bugs, then perhaps it could stand to reason that, conversely, not enough heat means not enough bug-fighting.
But even if we accept that being cold weakens the immune system, don't you still have to come into contact with an infectious disease before you get infected? Can you really just pick up a cold out of nowhere because your socks get wet? I can see how wet socks might correlate with other factors that have historically encouraged sickness, such as poor/unhealthy living conditions, but I can't believe that it's the wet socks themselves which spontaneously generate a virus.
So enter last weekend, when we were in the Erzgebirge to celebrate two of Bert's friends' birthdays. In a fit of sentimentality, everyone decided to engage in an old pasttime: sneaking into the village swimming pool after midnight and skinny dipping under the starlight.
It was actually really fun. The stars were bright and thick that far away from any city, and the night was warm -- but the water was icy cold! So naturally, Alex was just sure that we'd all get sick. "Quatsch!" I retorted. "Temperature does not make you sick. Germs make you sick!"
Well... am I just as clueless as I'm accusing everyone else of being? Yesterday, I started to feel a tickle at the back of my throat; and today I'm pretty sure my body's fighting something off. Is this coincidence? Or was Alex right?
You've all heard it: "Don't go out in the rain without an umbrella, you'll catch a cold." "Put on a jacket, you don't want to catch cold." Part of the reason Germans won't let you walk around their houses without slippers on is that allowing your bare feet to come in contact with the cold floor will certainly mean having your death of pneumonia on their consciences.
Yet I've just never quite been able to buy this. I understand how being cold might make you feel susceptible to bugs and viruseses -- you're shivering and weak, just like you also shiver and feel weak when you have a fever. In addition, if a fever heats you up to fight off bugs, then perhaps it could stand to reason that, conversely, not enough heat means not enough bug-fighting.
But even if we accept that being cold weakens the immune system, don't you still have to come into contact with an infectious disease before you get infected? Can you really just pick up a cold out of nowhere because your socks get wet? I can see how wet socks might correlate with other factors that have historically encouraged sickness, such as poor/unhealthy living conditions, but I can't believe that it's the wet socks themselves which spontaneously generate a virus.
So enter last weekend, when we were in the Erzgebirge to celebrate two of Bert's friends' birthdays. In a fit of sentimentality, everyone decided to engage in an old pasttime: sneaking into the village swimming pool after midnight and skinny dipping under the starlight.
It was actually really fun. The stars were bright and thick that far away from any city, and the night was warm -- but the water was icy cold! So naturally, Alex was just sure that we'd all get sick. "Quatsch!" I retorted. "Temperature does not make you sick. Germs make you sick!"
Well... am I just as clueless as I'm accusing everyone else of being? Yesterday, I started to feel a tickle at the back of my throat; and today I'm pretty sure my body's fighting something off. Is this coincidence? Or was Alex right?
Wednesday, September 03, 2008
Zwei Jahre in Deutschland
Two years ago yesterday -- September 2, 2006 -- I landed in Germany with Shauna (and a bladder infection, haha!).
Funny how I ran across our flight itineraries just now while reorganizing some old papers. Tucson to Köln. How can you feel so old looking back at yourself from only two measly years ago? I remember dragging those huge bags to the Tucson Airport in the dark of the early morning; Mom taking pictures; the three of us giddy with nerves and excitement and exhaustion and the attempt to avoid looking too closely at impending separation. Sitting jetlagged in the window of the hostel in Köln, staring at the Rhein river and the unknown future.
It was a pretty self-conscious reverie, too. "Gosh, in a couple years I'll look back at this and think of all that's happened since then!" Well, you called it, self.
Bert and I just got back from an absolutely amazing ten days in Greece. (I'll have to blog about the trip in another post!) But landing in the Frankfurt Airport this time was a weird experience, in that it was so... absolutely un-foreign. Not quite like coming home -- that's more of a landing-in-Seattle feeling -- but definitely similar. We were walking from the baggage claim out to the trains and I was struck by Frankfurt's sheer normalness compared with the hot, wild, ancient, Mediterranean culture we had just left, with its fascinatingly unfamiliar alphabet and undiscovered corners; and I was surprised by a sudden itch to pick up and move to Athens, to go do it all again and start from square one and figure out how people live their lives there as well as here.
And then I looked at my tall bearded Saxon. And I heard the announcer in the train thank us for "träweling vis ze Deutsche Bahn;" and I realized that Athens can wait, I'm exactly where I want to be.
Funny how I ran across our flight itineraries just now while reorganizing some old papers. Tucson to Köln. How can you feel so old looking back at yourself from only two measly years ago? I remember dragging those huge bags to the Tucson Airport in the dark of the early morning; Mom taking pictures; the three of us giddy with nerves and excitement and exhaustion and the attempt to avoid looking too closely at impending separation. Sitting jetlagged in the window of the hostel in Köln, staring at the Rhein river and the unknown future.
It was a pretty self-conscious reverie, too. "Gosh, in a couple years I'll look back at this and think of all that's happened since then!" Well, you called it, self.
Bert and I just got back from an absolutely amazing ten days in Greece. (I'll have to blog about the trip in another post!) But landing in the Frankfurt Airport this time was a weird experience, in that it was so... absolutely un-foreign. Not quite like coming home -- that's more of a landing-in-Seattle feeling -- but definitely similar. We were walking from the baggage claim out to the trains and I was struck by Frankfurt's sheer normalness compared with the hot, wild, ancient, Mediterranean culture we had just left, with its fascinatingly unfamiliar alphabet and undiscovered corners; and I was surprised by a sudden itch to pick up and move to Athens, to go do it all again and start from square one and figure out how people live their lives there as well as here.
And then I looked at my tall bearded Saxon. And I heard the announcer in the train thank us for "träweling vis ze Deutsche Bahn;" and I realized that Athens can wait, I'm exactly where I want to be.
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