Cheap Gas? In Your Dreams

While gasoline prices have dropped like a stone across the USA, spare a thought for folks abroad, where gasoline is NOT subsidized as it is in the States. This picture shows my gas total for a fill up earlier this week: 55.01 Euros for 45.88 liters, at a price of 1.199 a liter. "Wow! Only 1.19 a liter," you say. Well, let me do the conversions for you:

45.88 liters = 12.12 gallons
55.01 Euros = $69.78

That works out to $5.76 a gallon. And the price has dropped from earlier this year as well. Now you know why Europeans drive such tiny cars like the Mini and Smart car.

Nuremberg Quick Shots: Vice Edition

In this shot we see a few of the unfortunate everyday realities of German (or Northern Bavaria, anyways) city life: gambling parlors and cigarette dispensers. These gambling places (seen on the far left, with the standard blue-orange storefront, click on pic for larger view) seem to be mostly of the video poker and slot machine variety, and there are plenty of them outside of the city core. They must be popular, because another one just opened about 5 minutes' walk from where this photo was taken. And yes, that is no trick-- there are 2 cigarette machines within 10 feet of another, flanking that doorway. The funny thing is that there was a third cigarette dispenser another 40 feet away! In an attempt to deter underage smoking, these machines require an ATM card to be put in before dispensing the smokes-- it is the buyer's choice whether or not to charge the card or pay cash. Average price for a pack o' butts? 4 or 5 Euros-- about $5.05-$6.35 at today's exchange rate.

Nuremberg Quick Shots: Cool Door Handle

Over here on the, ahem, funky West side of town I spied this door handle on the Kolb Pretzel company, a wholesale bakery that sells to street vendors, hotels, etc. (closed for the day when I took this shot). Nice touch. Furtherstrasse, just outside Gostenhof subway station entrance. The bicycle in the shot is a "Hercules" brand bike, quite common here.

Hey Dude, How's Your Language Class Going?

Hard to believe that I'm stinking up my German class, even though I'm LIVING in Germany, but 4 weeks of intensive classes later (5 days/week, up to 4 hours/day), here we are. It surely doesn't help that more than two-thirds of the students in this "beginners" class have taken formal German lessons before in school, or have German spouses/partners at home to practice with (leaving us actual beginners in the dust), and the teachers justifiably feel the need to keep up with the majority... but I'll own up and say that dagnabbit, I'm just not getting it. When I enrolled, I was also told that this was in fact a 1-month class-- which was good: December is shaping up to be a busy time, what with the apartment move-in finally rolling around, plus the usual holiday bustle. Whoops-- now we're all hearing that this is a 2-month course (broken into 2 halves-- I'm at A1.1; the A1.2 unit starts next week), but I'll be spending all of next week unpacking and supervising/assisting two separate furniture deliveries and the arrival of our cargo container from the States, plus the usual waiting around for the phone/internet/cable guys to wander in, and any other mop-up work that a move entails while B is at the office.

I did not come to Europe to be the Ugly American-- that guy who will only converse in English and not appreciate the local culture, and I honestly do want to learn the local language. So my only solution seems to be re-taking the A1 course when it is offered again in January-- because I would be so far behind after dealing with the move (plus the fact that I suck at this already), that taking the final in late December to move to "A2" level ensures failure, and I'd have to take the course again anyways. At least sitting on the sidelines for a month will save me some stress and The Company (who generously offered to pick up the tab) some tuition money. Let the record show that I've failed exactly one class in my life, a college math course 21 years ago that I had no business being in anyways (and as liberal arts student would never use), so this is a humbling and frustrating experience. Scheisse!

Thanksgiving & Holiday wine tips

Just because you didn't ask doesn't mean we are without heavily biased opinions on, well, pretty much anything under the sun. But when it comes to matters of the grape, we here at TAE would like to throw in our 2(Euro) cents to all of our friends back home. Thanksgiving is celebrated only in the USA, and to really rub salt in the wound, my bride will still be in China and I'll be here in Germany hanging with some expat friends, both vegetarians. Sounds like a lovely evening with Tofurkey and gluten-free stuffing in my immediate future-- hence the pressing need for some good booze.

I really can't do any better than to defer to my long-suffering wine go-to guy Bruce Bauer-- bon vivant, sybarite, all-around goodfella, and proprietor of Portland's Vino, recently named one of America's best wine shops. I first met Bruce during one of Vino's first weekends in business, and bless his heart, he was there for me when I wanted to educate myself about wine, yet could only afford $10 bottles. His patience, good humor and decidedly non-snooty attitude kept me coming back. Vino's mantra is "if it tastes good, drink it" sounded like good advice then as now, and Portland (which has its fair share of food and drink elitists) is a better place for it. And on a personal note, his fab Friday Tastings were one of me and B's regular places to start up our weekends during our courtship. Thanks dude!

But on to the subject at hand: Click HERE for a direct link to Bruce's recent guest article to online foodie resource Culinate (a worthy place to bookmark whether you're a whiz in the kitchen or overly-reliant on a George Foreman Grill like me) and his piece "Holiday Wine Choices." As far as individual brands and varietal recommendations ask your local merchant (most already have some wines picked out and featured for holiday meals), but I see that Vino has stocked up on the Louis Perdrier Rose Champagne (pictured above), an unbelieveable steal at $9.95/ bottle, and one that flat-out smokes most $25 sparklers. Champagne/sparkling wine effortlessly pairs with just about any food you can throw at it, which is why it's great to have always a bottle or 3 around. For wine buffs this Perdrier is terrific stuff at a laughably cheap price; for non-wine buffs who only drink Champagne on New Year's Eve or in their Mimosas, it'll be the best fizzy they've ever tasted. And folks let's get over the pink wine thing: True enough, Franzia and white Zin have killed pink-colored wine's cred in the public's eye, but Rose wine has nothing to do with those sugar bombs and is the great meeting ground for folks who love white wines but don't like reds and vice versa. I mean, come on: did you know that the most expensive Dom Perignon Champagne is a Rose? And if I may go a little rogue here: Despite living in a country widely known for its white wine excellence, I'm not a fan of the stuff myself and always look for a red that will match up well with turkey-- I recommend a fun, fizzy Lambrusco-- think of it as sort of a red wine champagne (avoid the overly-sweet cheap stuff and look for the $10-13 bottles-- you can thank me for the lack of a hangover later), or a good Gamay Noir/ Beaujolais, and you're off to the races.

And for all of our foodie friends on both coasts and abroad, read and bookmark Bruce's blog: Eat. Think. Drink. (link HERE), a freewheeling, delightfully opinionated, occasionally profane, rollicking great read from a lover of fine food and drink that singlehandedly gives blogs a good name. Do check it out.

Vacation planning: Greece, South Africa and... Kazakhstan(?) make their pitches

Living in Europe has its undeniable charms, and presents great opportunities for anybody with the travel bug. Being centrally located in Western Europe as we are is a pip: Paugue is a 3-hour drive south; Vienna is less than 5 hours away. We can also leave our apartment here at noon and be in Paris for dinner. So it goes to figure that the tourism advertisements will be slightly different for us here on the Continent than in the Oregonian's Sunday travel section. As I've noted before, we get the Euro/Internation version of CNN and BBC here, and I must say, some of these tourism commercials make a compelling case-- I never knew that Poland (city of Lodz pictured) looked so darn nice, or indeed is one of Europe's up-and-coming economic powerhouses. Other commercials need some work though, or at least need to polish their pitch to viewers. Here are some of the catch-phrases of the countries (or cities) aired daily on English language TV:

South Africa: It's Possible
Greece: The True Experience
Slovakia: Little Big Country
Croatia: The Mediterranian as it Once Was
Yemen: One Country, Many Destinations
Lodz (Poland): Where Everybody Feels Like A Star
Warsaw (Poland): Fall in Love with Warsaw
Gdansk (Poland): We Make Things Happen
Ghana: See The Passion, Feel The Warmth
Aberzijan: The Oriental Charm of Europe
Montenegro: Wild Beauty
Armenia: Noah's Route. Your Route
Kazakhstan: A Huge Country in the Very Heart of the Eurasian Continent

Man, those Kazakhstan guys really needed to use a focus group with that catchphrase, eh? While I must say I never gave much thought to spending any time in, say, Croatia or Gdansk, the commercials made me re-think that-- which is what they are supposed to do. Some of the smaller countries' ads noted above didn't do it for me-- with all due respect, the Montenegro commercial was shot on videotape and basically involved some middle aged dudes tooling around on their mountain bikes with a local folk song playing in the background. Yemen? To be kind, I'll say that while it has a lot of history, it's just too unsettled right now for my tourist Euros, plus some of the pictures I've seen really don't make me want to dig out the passport. We're still picking out where we'll go on our first trip (weekend or otherwise), but in my Yank mindset, I didn't realize all the possibilities available. The nice thing is that with the economy the way it is, a lot of these places (especially countries outside the European Union) are easy on the wallet-- your money goes a lot further, and they are throwing some crazy good packages out there in the scramble to pick up Eurotourists.

Going native, musically speaking.

"Going native" is the internal term used by Peace Corps officials for volunteers who get a little too attached and enthusiastic to their assigned surroundings and culture, and who, instead of building wells or teaching agriculture, start living amongst their charges and participating in their local customs and rituals. By policy, these folks invaribly get "forcibly returned to their own culture," another internal term. Not that I'm going to start wearing lederhosen anytime soon (or even the ubiquitous rust-colored corduroys with wide wales), but I found myself actually wanting, heaven help me... a Falco album since I got here. Perhaps it was the not-bad biopic movie of this Austrian pop star I saw on the flight over, maybe it was the subconscious desire to learn more "everyday" German as opposed to the academic version, but I did the deed, and purchased an abbreviated compilation (culled from his final 2 albums and a few stand-alone singles) of Falco's later, post "Amadeus" material, which showed the guy moving in a darker, harder techo/club direction after his sales declined and the record company basically left him alone. As a new student to the language, I must say that Falco has perfect diction, so I can pick up a lot of stuff. Even though it's actually pretty decent (then again I like techo) I'm still a tad embarrassed to own this, and B forbade me to play this CD in the car. Ever.

One thing we can agree on is the band Deichkind (literally, "Dike Kid"), a German electronic band (they use the term "ghettotech"). Lots of gritty, dirty beats, and an overall sense of humor mixed in with the occasionally menacing music. Unlike Falco, I did not purchase this CD (named "Arbeit Nervt," an excellent disc) for the vocals/lyrics-- truth be told, I rarely listen to lyrics, which is good, because the vocals are buried in the mix here. I first happened across this band when MTV Germany aired a music/fashion clash, with the band and the models sharing the catwalk. These guys (wearing what appeared to black trash bags decorated with day-glo tape) were flat-out wild, and you could tell they were really ticking off the models, which was great. I've sent the video for their single out to a few folks already, and it's really worth a watch-- the fact that they are singing in German doesn't detract from the CRAZY visuals in any way shape or form. Click the title to view ARBEIT NERVT (which, loosely translated means "work sucks"). Strap in for a wild ride.

A minor sin, committed weekly

As I mentioned in a previous post, I'm finding it a little hard to find a decent cup of coffee in this town. This will change when we finally move into our own place and dust off the French press, but for now we're at the mercy of the local coffee shops and cafes. Most shops (and believe me, I've visited a lot) serve a basic black coffee that is highly acidic and bitter, no matter how much milk you dump into it. But I still need to slake my coffee jones, and the closest thing to "meh" quality I've come across has been in the regional powerhouse (130+ locations) bakery known as Der Beck. So 3-4 days a week, I go down to my local branch of this Bäckerei with my books to order a cup of joe and a pretzel and camp out at a window table and study for a spell, an indulgence that sets me back a cool EU 2.20 (about $2.75). Oh, and just as in Asia, the concept of the bottomless cup of coffee is not in evidence anywhere I can see in Europe.

Neunhundertneunundneunzig: actual word or Muppet song? Let's discuss.

Nope, it's a word. It's the spelled-out term for the number 999. It's weird because you have to say "99" as "nine and ninety" in German (all double digit numbers are like this, actually). If that seems kinda long for a word, that isn't so bad-- not when our accountant has the title "Wirthschaftsprufungsgesellschaft Steuerberatungsgellschaft" on her business card. But numbers are easy enough, in that they have a very logical pattern/system with no deviation once you get to the number 20-- it's a breeze after that. Doesn't that image look familiar? It's a still from the classic "Mahna Mahna" song from Sesame Street/Muppet Show. Click here to see the video in all its glory.

I think Steve Martin was channeling my language teacher

Back when he was doing stand-up comedy shows, Steve Martin had this wonderful bit about his frustration over the obtuseness of the French language:

It's like this, let me give you an example: Chapeau means "hat." Oeuf means "egg." It's like those French have a different word for everything!

This quip springs to mind whenever I learn more German vocabulary. I joke that it's an economical language except when it isn't-- the same word (with the same spelling) can mean different things. You are supposed to figure it out through context, but sometimes that can be quite tricky. For example, "Paar" can mean either a few or a pair. "Da" can mean either "here" or "there," which makes it truly one of the great weasel words of any language-- you know, like "where is my present?" "Oh, ist da" (and run out of the room). "Eis" can either mean ice cream or ice cubes. "Bitte" (an everyday word) can mean either please or you're welcome/my pleasure. And so forth-- there are A LOT of examples. This economy of words doesn't exactly make up for the overuse of words in other realms though. The word "The" in German is one of the knottier problems new students have to learn. It could be one of (technically) 16 different words, (but thankfully only 5 different spellings)-- it all depends on the noun and the verb it's used with. You figure out the noun from its article, or more bluntly, ahem, its sex: All nouns are masculine, feminine or neutral, so when you learn a new word, you have to also learn its article-- so the word for car is never just "Auto," it's "das Auto" (neutral). There are no hard and fast rules for masculine or feminine nouns though, and even sexism can't point you in the right direction. Sure, flowers are feminine (die Blumen), but then again so are little boy stalwarts like spiders and snakes (die Spinnen, die Schlangen). Verbs can switch stuff around in a hurry though, but I'd just as soon not go into that right now-- my head hurts. This isn't an easy language to learn, but I'm swinging away.

Can't a guy get a decent cuppa around here?

For all of Europe's history with coffeehouses and cafe' society, there is a distinct lack of places to get a decent cup of joe in the area. Espresso isn't a problem, but a simple palatable black coffee is a rare bird indeed. I've never been a huge fan of Starbucks, but while downtown this past weekend, we happened into their bustling branch (one of four in town) on the edge of the Pegnitz river that bisects Nuremberg. B was immensely enjoying another beverage, Glühwein (hot spiced wine), traditionally served in Germany at open stalls at Saturday market during Christmastime and even bought a special Glühwein cup-- no open container laws here, folks! It was a crisp late fall day, and this shot (as always, click on photo for larger picture) was taken from Starbucks' side patio, with the Fleischbrücke (literally, "Beef Bridge"-- no idea about the origin there) and St. Lorenz church in the background. Much to my disappointment there is no such thing as an Egg Nog Latte, just some regional specialties-- like Dark Cherry Chocolate Latte (a black forest cake in a cup), Toffee Nut Latte, and Lebkuchen Latte (Lebkuchen is a type of cookie available primarily at Christmas that is closely associated with Nuremberg-- it's kind of a soft chewy fruity gingerbread, and it's wonderful). Sorry for the blurry picture of the menu-- the angry mob behind me jostled my camera as I snapped the shot.

Everything I needed to know about language happened by the time I was 7...

So here I am slogging through German class. It's a difficult language with a lot of rules (and just as many exceptions to those rules), and I'm sure I'll be discussing (OK, railing on) this some more in future posts. Due to its sentence structure being completely different than English, our teacher spends a lot of time talking about grammar. OK fair enough, but what trips me up is those terms-- you know, "possessive pronoun," "predicate" and stuff like that. Everybody uses pronouns and predicates in everyday language, but outside of copy editors and language teachers who remembers the exact meaning of the terms? Certainly not me, and I'd like to think I have a reasonably decent handle on the English language. Stuck for a good nuts-and-bolts resource, I called up the power of the interwebs and headed straight for my original teacher in such matters: School House Rock. For those of a certain age, this was education craftily disguised as entertainment beamed into the house every Saturday morning during cartoons, and I can think of no better or longer lasting lessons in numbers, history or grammar. I mean, who doesn't remember "Lolly Lolly Lolly Get Your Adverbs Here?" So I pulled up "Rufus Xavier Sasparilla" to brush up on my pronouns, and "The Tale of Mr. Morton" (a new one for me, first aired in 1993) to get the straight dope on predicates. And just because I was feeling froggy, I checked out "I'm Just A Bill" (about how a law comes into being) and my personal fave, "Three is a Magic Number." The song lyrics are readily available online, and most/all of the videos can be found on You Tube among other places. The School House Rock! collection is available on DVD, and any parent (or nostalgia freak) could do a lot worse than to bring this home. The true kicker is that my German got better after I finally figured out what the teacher was talking about!

Talking bread, talking heads, or bad reality: Our local TV options

G: To paraphrase a Springsteen song, we've got 42 channels and nothing on. Due to the international flavor of this hotel, we get a little of everything here TV-wise: Plenty of German channels, but also Russian, Polish, French, and Italian as well. As far as English-speaking channels, we have CNN Europe, BBC World news and... some MTV. I say "some" because this is MTV Germany, and more than half of their programming is in German. But at least I can actually watch music videos! An alien concept back home, I know-- music videos on MTV?!? Anyways, MTV Germany also airs old reality shows from the American market (from both VH1 and MTV), so German kids get to watch such tripe and long-ago cancelled shows like "I Love New York," "A Shot at Love with Tila Tequilla," "The Hills," "The Real World," "From G's to Gents," "Brooke Knows Best," "Next," and other assorted embarrasments in English with German subtitles. I shudder to think what the Germans think of the USA if this is their primary exposure-- because it shows that young Americans (at least the ones on TV) are a bunch of horned-out, low-IQ, astonishingly shallow famewhores. The real embarrasment? We find ourselves watching this crap, because it's in English, and you can only take so much world news-- if this junk were on my TV in Portland, I'd run out of the room.

One really weird program of note is on the German Kika network-- sort of like Nickelodeon or Disney, in that it's children's programming. At night though, they have been showing the same clip for months, in a constant loop. The character is "Bernd das Brot" (Bernd the Bread), and I could've sworn it was a sponge until somebody clued me in. Anyway, this is a talking loaf of bread, and he's a bit cranky. Supposedly, Bernd das Brot is funny stuff geared for kids, but this one clip seems very, um, existential to me-- mind you I really don't speak the language, but it basically entails Bernd in some sort of purgatory, and trying to escape and then this purgatory morphs into a hipster lounge at the very end. Just the puppet against a white screen. Talking. For 17 minutes. In a constant loop all night long. This must be stoner heaven. For the brave and foolhardy, this particular clip is available on You Tube ("Kika Lounge"), but you'd be better off reading a comic book, doing Soduku, trimming your nails or getting a head start on your Easter plans. Not that it stops me from checking it out when I'm flipping channels-- it's an absolute rubbernecker moment. But then again the only reason I'm flipping the TV is because "Pimp My Ride" is at commercial.

Nausser Haus

G: Originally a residential building facing St. Lorenz Church in central Nuremberg. First built as a fortified residence, subsequent occupants have added to the building as the security aspect became less important. These days, the lower floors house a cell phone shop and a basement pub. Nuremberg was one of the most heavily bombed German cities in WWII, and one estimate I've read has it that about 80% of the original buildings didn't survive (or only partially survived). The city decided to rebuild instead of re-start, and I think it's a much better place for it. But we've gotten pretty good at spotting exactly where the original stone ends and replacement/repair stone begins. Click on the picture for a close-up and you'll see what I mean-- there are wildly varying colors of stone. Also note the sundial (the scrolled paper thing) about 2/3 up on the building. The fencing in the foreground is protecting the newly-laid cobblestones leading up to St. Lorenz. That's right, they replace cobblestones with more cobblestones!

I'm sure this means something different in German, pt. 1

... spotted on the side of an ambulance, Westtorgraben (street), outside the Altstadt. Click on photo for bigger view.

Radio Silence

G: Sorry for the lack of posts this month. Between the interminable wait for our apartment to be ready (latest setback: the floors aren't dry enough to install the tiling... which means that the kitchen can't be installed, or the contents of our shipping container moved into the place, yada yada), I've been taking intensive German language classes-- 4 hours a day, 5 days a week-- in a neighboring town, and the homework assignments can be a grind, plus B's workload has been definitely been kicked up a few notches, so she's been clocking in long hours. Add to this the fact that B will be heading off on business to China for a 2 week stretch on Sunday, which really throws a wrench into our move-in schedule.

But... not to whine. What's the old Chinese curse? "May you live in interesting times." I'll likely get around to fleshing out then posting some fragmentary entries and pictures I currently have saved in "Draft" status, and B will hopefully get enough computer access to post some pictures of China during her downtime there. So... as they say in radio, stay tuned!

Vote. Because it is your right. Because so many people do not have the right. Because our forefathers fought for it. Because our mothers fought even harder for it. Because people both young and old around the world would die (have died) for this opportunity. Because our friends who live in the same country, the same state and the same city do not have the same rights as we do. Because it's today. Because you have time. Yes, you have time. More importantly, because you have an opinion. You must vote. You MUST. Vote.