Italy was great, but we wore out our welcome. So we packed up the wagon and headed north to the Vaterland. Read along as we navigate the bergs and burgs of Germany and try to discover the soul of the country.
Drat, thwarted so close to freedom’s sweet caress… I dreamed for but a taste of the decadent west, and now my eulogy is sung by guard dogs and alarm bells.
I found this site while drifting through the interwebs and thought enough of it to share it on here. It's from a site called "Яolcats" that is somewhat of a parody of the "lolcats" phenomenon that can be seen on sites like ICanHasCheezeburger and others. The idea is to take Russian captioned lolcats and put funny soviet-era mis-captions under them. The site is pretty simply laid out, but some of the "translated" captions are hilarious.
By the way, the "translations" aren't real. Some of the people on the comments have either failed to realize this, or are simply being trolls. A third possibility is that they are actual Russians that have stumbled upon this English language website and are incapable of grasping the joke. Not that they would to begin with. It's a proven fact that Russians are incapable of actual humor. For example, the above picture's actual translation is something like this:
"Boxer: How should I deal with insomnia? They have instructed me to count till 10 but right after I reach 9 I immediately jump on my feet."
If you didn't squirt borscht through your nose after reading that, don't worry. I didn't think it was that great either. Plus, why would anyone want to ruin all that delicious borscht?
1. I made another quilt. It is not your average t-shirt quilt, made from Aidan's old shirts and jammies. I was waiting to get some non-Spiderman materials, but I gave up and just made it. The front was 100% free- well, let's say the cost was covered by Aidan's wardrobe allowance- and the back is an old set of Spiderman sheets. The binding is from a bed skirt (which I didn't need) that came with a bedspread (which I did). I used this recycled plastic material as the batting because the fabric store here was out of Warm and Natural, my usual pick. Anyway, he really likes it and that's what counts.2. I started my student teaching! Yay! I am hella busy, but it is the final phase of my program, so I am pushing through to get this done. I am working with a 7th grade English language Arts teacher on post, whom I like well enough. The biggest part of this is that I am also trying to get my certification in Georgia (huge pain), because...
3. Joel was accepted into the Bioengineering Master's program at GA Tech!! Yay!!! We are still trying to figure out how everything is going to work, but it is pretty much a done deal that we'll be in GA in the fall. Of course, this is going to be a hectic move... Joel is allowed to leave the Army around August 8th and he starts school a week later; I need to find a job and a house and cars and daycare and kindergarten by myself before Joel gets to town. So, wish me luck!
4. We went to Belgium and Holland with some friends last weekend. It was fun, but a little hectic with six kids and six adults travelling between three countries. We went to a fun flea market in a Belgium town called Tongeren, and then ran across the boarder to a town in Holland where my friends lived several years ago so we could peek at a windmill.
Also, we are switching phone companies, so we didn't have Internet or phone for a while there... but all is good now!
I saw this article on reddit, and was initially pretty depressed by the outlook for the U.S. I know, I know... everyone loves to be a reactionary, and I probably shouldn't start stockpiling rice just yet, but this constant stream of distopian predictions is wearing on me! So, I decided to read more of the article, trying to find something that would be really over the top and discredit the "trend forecaster" Gerald Celente in my eyes. It took most of the article, but I found it. The context is that the outlook will be far worse than the Great Depression, because people today are using drugs and prescription medicines, and are therefore much more dangerous. I quote:
"So, you have a huge underclass of very desperate people with their minds chemically blown beyond anybody’s comprehension."
Chemically blown beyond anybody's comprehension?? You jumped the shark, my friend. I'll sleep more soundly tonight. Zzzzzzzzzzzzz.....
OK, I was doing, ahem, RESEARCH on amazon.com, and saw a link for a book quiz. Not really a quiz-taker, I was persuaded into taking this one. Just check off the things you have done, and it tells you "what kind of person you are." This struck me because, in the car yesterday, Joel asked what I was thinking about. "What kind of person I am," I said. Why waste my time with introspection?? Here was my answer! God, I love the internet. So, I check off the things I have done, and this is what is says:
You are a Romantic Tree Hugging Money Manager
0% of the 35785 people who have taken this quiz are like you.
Zero???? Out of over 35,000? I find this ridiculously supportive of individualism. I will have to ask Joel to do some math on this- out of 43 items, what are the odds that someone would get exactly the same things as you? Math is so tricky- maybe that is a very reasonable number. Anyway, here is their ad. Take it and see if you are the extreme individual that I (supposedly) am... lots of zeros would make more sense.
And, as a footnote, it didn't occur to me to wonder, "Am I a romantic, tree-hugging money manager?" in the car, I was actually thinking about consumerism and some of Joel's strong views about consumption, and wondering how far down the path I think I can go with him in this respect. Yes, DIY Christmas WAS awesome... but I would also like some power windows/locks on my next car, thank you very much.
I took the 43 Things Personality Quiz and found out I'm a
Romantic Tree Hugging Money Manager
***Joel's Math Update***
Jessica just pointed this out to me and wanted me to weigh in on the probability that another person would choose the same answers that you would on the 43 questions. It's actually pretty slim.
First of all, the questions are 'yes/no' types, where only a positive or negative response can be given. If there was only one question, there could be two possible ways for the test to be filled out; if there were two, four possible configurations; three questions, eight configurations; etc. etc. You can see where this is going. The possible unique ways that the test can be filled out grows exponentially with the arithmeticgrowth of the number of questions. If you crunch out the numbers, you'll see that for 43 questions you get 88,000,000,000,000 (that's trillions!) possible ways that the test could be filled out.
So the chances that one of the 35,000 that took the test filled it out the same way as you is almost statically impossible. And just to cover themselves, the folks that give the test tell you that "0%" scored the same as you. For this group of 35,000, 350 people would have to score the same as you to get even 1%.
A few days ago, Ava and I were painting with watercolors at the kitchen table. She was doing her typical abstract work that starts out as fun, colorful zig-zags and ends up being a black or brown puddle, and, to pass the time, I started painting a little portrait of her. I got a head and hair done before she toddled off and it was time to clean up. I left the pictures on the table. Hours later, as I start to clear the table for dinner, I see this: Me: What is THIS? Aidan: DEAD Ava! Me: What?? Why? Aidan: It's just a joke! Ha ha ha ha ha! Me:... It's not very... nice... make your sister... uh, dead... Aidan: DEAD AVA! HA HA HA HA HA HA!
Even in the middle of this exchange, you can see by my gratuitous use of ellipses that I was not sure what line to take on this. Approach #1: "Woo hoo, that is hilarious! She's like a zombie! She's going to eat your brains! Raaaar!!" This is also known as the "Joel Choice." On the other hand, I have friends who have super calm, well-behaved kids, who would never dream of doing this. I have to think they would approach the situation more like this. Approach #2: "Honey, that's not very nice. That makes my heart hurt to see you make a picture of Ava with a boo boo. Let's color this Barney picture instead." BOR-RING! While more age-appropriate, and also morally superior, I really have to go with Joel on most of these. I really value the creativity and imagination that Aidan shows when he does stuff like this, and I know that he is just kidding around. On the other hand, I feel like I have to be the counter balance. I fear for how Aidan might turn out if he had two parents who encouraged him to pretend-kill his sister, make fart jokes, pick out his own outfits, draw on his furniture, pee outside, and otherwise vote the Joel party line. So, I make a half-hearted attempt to reign him in... some. Wait 20 years; we'll see how he turns out.
Today was the last day of my 4-day weekend. We had the 1st and 2nd off from work, so we had some time to all hang out together. Since it doesn't snow a lot in this part of Germany, we wanted to take the kids somewhere that did. Yesterday was our first attempt, but it just wasn't in the cards. We got too late of a start out the door and then accidentally punched the wrong town in the GPS and drove the 45 minutes in the wrong direction. I had been prodding everyone all morning by being the "fun police;" not so much keeping fun from happening, but more like ensuring fun was occurring whether anyone wanted it or not. However, after we got turned around the wrong way, my fun police authority was compromised and we decided to run a couple of errands and regroup for the next day.
So we took off early this morning for the Black Forest in search of snow. We were heading for a place called Feldberg, but we knew we would hit snow before then. After about 2 hours, we reached the heart of the forest and were surrounded by beautiful snowy hills, forests, and countryside. Eventually, we stumbled into the town of Titisee, parked, and explored a little. Titisee is named after the little lake that it sits next to --here's a map with our parking place marked:
It's green in that view, but imagine it all white and the lake frozen.
We bought a little sled from one of the shops and took turns sledding down the hills around there. There weren't a lot of downhill skiers there, but there were tons of cross country skiers. I don't think I've ever seen cross country skiing in person, so it was a little bit of a new experience to me. We'd be walking along the snow paths, when suddenly a couple of old Germans would silently and quickly glide past us. There was something--unsettling?--about it. It didn't stop us from having a good time sledding though. We had done a little sledding in Italy last winter, but Aidan was a little too young to enjoy it. But, he took renewed interest in it this time and we had fun running up the little hills and sledding down.
There was an unexpectedly funny moment when we went out onto the lake to slide around. It was -5 C there, so the lake was frozen solid and lots of people were out there skating and sliding around. As we arrived at the edge of the lake, I noticed a sign nailed to a tree at the edge of the lake. It said, in three languages(!), "Don't go on the lake." Below is the "ironic" picture I snapped with some of the Germans on the lake. I originally thought that this might only apply to the lake in summer, but a look at the German statement makes it clear--Entering the Ice is forbidden! What's funny about this picture is that so many Germans are clearly disregarding the sign. I'm not sure how much you know about Germans, but they are nothing if not law-abiding. There is a special joy that a German gets from following the rules, especially if they are able to correct someone else who isn't following them. So why the sudden departure from their usual law-n-order nature? Is it the cold, the snow, the winter-wonderful-ness? Who knows?
We took a lot of pictures while we were there, but here's a little montage of some of the highlights. Enjoy!
Christmas time is always fun around here, but it has to come to an end eventually. Jessica took all the ornaments off the tree yesterday and packed them up for next year.
We had a real tree this year, but when I brought it home I discovered that we did not have a tree stand. I rushed off to the store, but the only place that I thought would have one was sold out. No problem; I bought a large planting pot and set to remedy the situation. A little potting soil and indoor gardening later, the tree was successfully potted. The only problem is that the pot doesn't hold the tree too well. It has a tendency to tilt when Santa's little helpers get a little over-enthused with tree trimming.
So after Jessica stripped the tree down, it was bumped from it's usual upright alignment and slouched against the back wall. This prompted Jessica to comment that this was the "saddest tree ever". I disagreed. It was sad, but not the saddest; not yet. I went to work with some of Aidan's reams of construction paper and birthed this creation:
I am working on putting together a bunch of old family photos, and I have this one of my mom as a little girl, coloring under the tree with her dad. Cute. What's with using the right hand, mom??
So, I'm a little late with this one. We were very fortunate to have the Springers visiting us for Christmas this year- sorry Justin, I think it's pretty obvious who they love the most- but almost everyone got sick at some point over the holiday. We are fully recuperated, and are now catching up on things like this. Here are some pictures of the kids, no explanations necessary: OK, maybe one comment: Mom, of course Aidan loved the light saber, but you HAD to know that this was coming:And I just want to say those are Christmas presents that we just opened all over the floor...mostly...
I think my teaching ambitions are spilling over into my personal life. Here is a craft/art project I have been forcing Aidan to do for the past two seasons.
Here is our Winter tree, with snowy fingerprints:And here, under our alphabet and other seasonal projects, you can see our fall tree, with leaves we picked up on walks, pressed, painted, and taped on, all STRONGLY against Aidan's wishes. It's good for you, kid! I am already planning my-uh, OUR- spring tree- I see a bird's nest, definitely, possibly involving some weaving, maybe some pom-pom chicks peeking out... this is totally my element.
Well, I made it a while ago, but here is the final product. The front is made from Ava's receiving blankets from when she was a baby, and the back is some crib sheets I pieced together. It is really no great example of terrific sewing, or quilting, for that matter, but I was happy to make it for my sweetie pie. Of course, the first thing Aidan said was, "Where's MY quilt?!" so I am already planning a superhero one next. You can see the back better here:
My "little helper" pulling it off of the crib... thanks a lot!
We went to Stockholm last week, continuing our tradition of being international over Thanksgiving. 2006: Italy; 2007: England; 2008: Sweden. We have almost forgotten the American traditions at this point... what is it you all do, eat a chicken or something?
So, here is a picture of the little apartment we rented. I am standing on the stairs taking the photo, there is a tiny bathroom and kitchen counter to the right... and that is the entire downstairs. Good thing we like each other! We went to the Junibacken, which is a museum dedicated to Swedish children's authors. It has a Pippi Longstocking house, two adorable playgrounds that look like some other stories, and a ride through a pretty dark story called, "The Brothers Lionheart." It is about some brothers who die and are reunited in the afterlife, where they must fight an evil dragon, who paralyzes one, and then they commit suicide. Talk about goth. On a lighter note, here is a cute mobile of some characters from the playground room: Ava hiding in a giant mushroom: Aidan, Nordic skiing: On to the Vasa Museum. They brought this 300-year old ship up out of the bay about 10 years ago. Apparently, it sank on its maiden voyage, before it even left the bay. So much for being the prize of the Swedish navy at the time...
OK, next day. Cute architecture in Gamla Stan ("Old Town"), followed by the little Christmas market there. Aidan ate three waffles, and Joel bought reindeer meat sausage. Yum! Changing of the guards at the Royal Palace: And, finally, trying to ice skate with Aidan. I only fell once, which is a miracle, because I think he was only on his skates for about 8 seconds at a time. It was pretty fun, though. I liked being the one to go do something with him while Joel waited with Ava. By the way, this picture was taken at THREE P.M.!! Sweden is freaking DARK.
This is an actual window sill that we saw in Verona, Italy while we lived down there. The house lures unsuspecting vagabonds in through the window with the scent of delicious pasta, then eats them.
This is actually my listing. I was searching for a tea set for Ava for Christmas, and somehow I came across a set of six POM tea glasses, with no lids, that were selling for over $60. I have no idea what the final price was, but I can not imagine why someone would pay so much for used drink containers. For those not in the know, these are just the containers that the tea comes in when you buy it at the store- like the old glass milk bottles. Whatever the reason, I'm cashing in.
A few months ago, I had a bunch of these, and thought they were cool, so I saved them. When we moved, Joel freaked out that I had moved "trash" to another country. I saved six and recycled the rest. So, now those six remaining glasses will finance a huge chunk of the kid's Christmas gifts. AWESOME!! To quote Steve Carell on The Office, "How do you tell someone you care about, 'I told you so?'" Indeed.
Oh, and to any hipsters reading this- ahem, Byroms- here is the link for you to get your bid on.
After dinner this evening, the kids and I watched a couple of monkey movies on YouTube. Aidan was thrilled with the idea of having a monkey movie on the computer that he decided to make his own with some stuffed monkeys that he had. This was the result:
It's worth noting that Aidan has never seen Terrance and Phillip. I guess that form of humor is just universal.
I had the day off today as part of the Veteran's Day holiday. Aidan had pre-school this morning, so Jessica and I were able to go have a coffee and strudel at the mall with only Ava to watch. While we were there, I saw this cafe:
That's right, Wiener Cafe. No, it's not a gay coffee shop; Germans just like to put "wiener" into the titles of many different things. I submit for your approval: the wiener schnitzel.
In a previous post, Jessica had mentioned my current fascination with "hypermiling". I read a story about it in Popular Mechanics, or some other such magazine, and it seemed like an interesting idea. Unfortunately, I was unable to accurately track my MPG due to the way that we had to get fuel in Italy. It's a long uninteresting story, just take my word that it was not feasible.
Germany, on the other hand, is another story entirely. Once we arrived here, I was able to accurately track the amount of gas that I was getting at each fill up. So after being here for a couple of months, and having multiple fill ups, I'm able to present some of my initial results from my hypermiling.
This chart shows the first four fill-ups since I arrived here in Germany in on June 1:
I should preface that chart with some facts about the situation. I have a '94 Fiat Tipo (four-door compact). My driving is almost entirely city driving to and from work; it's about a 7 mile commute through stop and go traffic. My best MPG was 36.07 on 31 Jul, and my worst was 30.28 on 1 Oct. The average of the four months is 32.67 mpg. I'm a little stymied that there was such a drop from July to Sept, but I attribute it to the move up to Germany in June. The mileage that I used in my first July computation included the mileage for the autobahn driving on the move up from Italy. I think I must have been getting much better mileage during that trip, which accounts for the unusually high MPG for the first month.
But overall, not too shabby. Considering that I'm getting almost as good MPG with a 14 year old car as some get with a brand new hybrid is pretty noteworthy. Not only that, but I paid €600 for my car, as opposed to $22,000 for a new Prius.
So many have heard by now that this year was an election year, and in the U.S. we had a presidential election between an old guy and a black guy.
I'll save you the suspense: the black guy won.
I voted for the black guy, and I hope the best comes from it, but I'm not getting my hopes up. More on that later. One of the biggest reasons that I voted Obama this year was due to the extremely poor decision made by the McCain campaign in selecting their VP nomination. It's no secret that I'm not a big fan of Gov. Palin. McCain's choice of her demonstrates, to me, that he failed at one of his biggest decisions of the campaign, and was not ready for the "big show" of the presidency.
I've gotten some feedback that my assessment of Palin may have not been "balanced". I think I backed up my inquiry of her intellectual capacity pretty well, but I guess those documents could be "doctored". So for those people needing a more "balanced" source revealing Palin's ignorance, I present to you Mr. Bill O'Reilly:
For those that can't/won't watch this clip, let me sum it up for you:
- There was plenty of in-fighting in the McCain camp about Palin. McCain's campaign manager was initially against it and thought it was a "hail Mary" play.
- Palin's knowledge base was "limited" in the following areas: government civics, basic government responsible at the municipal/state/federal level, U.S. and world geography, didn't know the nations involved in NAFTA (U.S., Mexico, Canada), didn't know that Africa was a continent and not a country, and basic tenants of U.S. foreign policy.
- She refused interview preparations for the Katie Couric interview. When the interview turned south, due to her complete and utter failure to answer softball-sized questions ("what magazines do you read?"), she turned on her staff and "suggested that she [Palin] was mishandled."
- Staffers went to meet Palin at her hotel room on the campaign trail and she greeted them "in her bath towel" after just stepping out of the shower. They were taken aback by this "rather uncommon" practice from the vice presidential nominee.
It goes on, but I think I'm going to get nauseous if I have to type any more.
So for all you "fair and balanced" types, there's Bill-O sharing the truth about Palin on your beloved Fox News. But of course, no one will concede that they made a mistake with their candidate, and we continue down the road of political gridlock that's entrenched this country for so long. So it goes.
Earlier in this post I said that I'm not getting my hopes up with the Obama presidency. I know that "hope" and "change" were themes of his campaign, but I guess I'll believe it when I see it. Why my pessimism? Because I know that the government is financially broken. I posted about it earlier. We spend an outrageous percentage (over 50%) of our national budget on defense. We spend more on defense than any other country in the world. Not just that, but we outspend the number two spender (China) nearly 10:1!!! U.S.=$623B, China=$65B. So the argument that Obama is going to "raise taxes" to pay for all his "social programs" a little bit without merit. Even if he started $20B in social programs in his first year, that's only 3% of what we spend on defense.
Unfortunately, I don't think Obama can get away from defense spending enough to make a difference in our overall economic picture. Although he has pledged to get us out of Iraq in 16 months (which at $9B a month will still cost us $144B), Obama has insisted on pursuing the war in Afghanistan. Unless he has a change of heart on this matter, I'm afraid we're going to be facing the same crippling financial situation in the coming years.
Of course, it would have been worse with McCain. How do you propose to continue our level of military operations overseas in both Afghanistan AND Iraq, while cutting taxes for everyone? It doesn't take an economist to realize that high levels of military spending + tax cuts + trillion dollar bank bailouts = poor national economy. I don't see how that made sense to anyone.
