Random Thoughts

• So on the heels of my thinking, "Okay, now that I've gotten used to it somewhat, this bike thing isn't that bad", well of course I had my first mishap.  I guess it had to happen sometime, and it could have been much worse, but last night I hit the pavement for the first time.  I was on a little side street trying to find an address for a first aid class that you have to take in order to get your driver's license (and if you're going to be here for over six months, you have to get one) and I was ten minutes late to boot, so I was pretty frustrated at this point.  I had a little post-it note in my hand and was looking at the addresses on buildings, when a car turned onto the street ahead of me.  Now, I was in no danger of being hit whatsoever.  But unconsciously, with the one hand I had on the handle bars, I turned sharply and gripped the brakes.  The problem?  The hand I had on the handles was on the front brake side.  Yep, over the front I went.  Like I said, it wasn't that bad, but I've got a bruise on one side of my ribs that's pretty sore, and I ripped a pretty cool shirt that I had just bought within the last week or so.  No real damage to the bike, thankfully, considering how much I paid for that sob, but it still sucked.  Hopefully, I've got that out of the way now.

• I've noticed that dogs are extremely well-behaved over here.  A lot of the time, a person's dog will just be following along-side their owner without  a leash, and you can tell that there's not a chance that it's going to run off somewhere chasing whatever it's seen.  This morning I was sitting outside a cafe getting breakfast and a lady walked in with her dog behind her.  They asked her to leave the dog outside (now, that's not a given - had lunch yesterday at a table next to a lady with her dog inside the place - still very well-behaved, but inside none the less).  So she led her dog back outside, told it to lie down under a table next to the door, went inside, and the dog - well, he just laid there.  Now I was at the table right next to the dog, with a plate full of food, and he acted like he didn't know I was there.  I guess the best way I can think to explain it is that the dogs here are all just like seeing-eye dogs as far as their demeanor.  Very calm, very well-trained.

• The drink situation here just befuddles me (yes, I said befuddled - get over it).  As I've said, it's like they don't really trust the water that comes out of the taps, but at the same time they will swear to the quality of their water treatment system.  So in restaurants, they just don't do glasses of water.  If you do order water, it'll be bottled water (quick side note - I was wrong on the term for non-soda water.  The correct term is 'ohne kohlensaure', without bubbles; mit, ohne - with, without; pretty easy, really, if I'd actually bother to study the freaking language).  And it won't be cheap.  In fact, it seems that it costs the same if want juices, sodas, water, whatever - including beer.  For a half-liter bottle of any of them, it's around €3.20.  Yep, five bucks just for the drink.  So you can understand why I've been drinking a lot of beer - might as well, right?  Now, this is only in restaurants - in the grocery stores and Getränkte Märkten ([ge-train-ke mairk-ten] drink markets - like beer stores, but with soft drinks and juices as well) they are actually very reasonably priced.  Of course, now that I think about it, the prices in the restaurants also include the 19% VAT (value-added tax) and service.  On the other hand, so does the food, and the Mexican buffet I went to yesterday was only €5.90.  Like I said, befuddled.

Nobody Expects the Spanish Inquisition!

I know, I know.  It's been awhile.  I've discovered that this is harder than it looks, and it's been a busy week or so.  But I'm sitting here watching the Cubs, so I thought I'd give it a stab.

Today's topic:  torture.  No, I'm not going to get all political on you, that's my brother's job.  I'm talking about a device that they have here that would do the Spanish Inquisition proud.  I'm not quite sure what the English term is, but here they call it a "bicycle".  

Now, I knew that I was going to be getting one of these before I even got here.  I almost bought one in the States before I left, but then I realized that if I did that it wouldn't get here until the end of this month or so, and I needed some form of transportation before that.  Since I haven't got up the courage to drive here as yet (and gas is around $9 a gallon), I went and got me a torture machine.  I say torture machine because I haven't been on one for around, oh I don't know, twenty five years or so, nor am I in the best of shape regardless.  So yeah, after the first torture session, my ass hurt.  A lot.  And my ass continued to hurt for around two weeks.  And my legs are still pretty much jello.  But I know it's good for me in the long run, and quite frankly, I don't have much of a choice.

That's a picture of my tormentor above.  It's a trekking bike made by Winora, called the Jamaica.  24 speeds, good suspension on the wheels as well as the seat, and the widest seat that they had available.  Now that I've gotten a little more used to it, I gotta say, not a bad bike.  Of course, at the prices they charge for bikes here, it better be.  It's not a hundred percent, but I'm pretty sure that I could have gotten about four good bikes in the States for what I paid for this one.  Part of me wonders whether it's just simple supply and demand working it's magic, with the popularity of bikes here.

Bikes are huge in this town, and I mean huge.  You can say a place is bike-friendly, but you haven't seen anything until you come to Erlangen and check out how the bicycle fits into this town's life.  There are just over 105,000 people here and there are 85,000 bicycles (yes, 105 and 85 - that is not a typo).  However, the place is also designed to accommodate a lot of bikes.  The sidewalks are wide enough for both pedestrian and bicycle traffic, and color coded to boot - red brick for bikes, regular concrete for pedestrians.  And where the sidewalks aren't wide enough there are bike lanes on most of the roads, even though people on bikes go pretty much wherever they want to go anyway.  

And the interesting thing is that they get away with it.  Bikes really do seem to have priority here.  If you're riding on some of the smaller roads in the center part of town where I live that don't have enough room on the sidewalk, or no real bike lane, cars behind you simply follow you (busses, too - that's not unnerving or anything).  They don't honk or tailgate or anything, they just follow until they can either pass you or you can get on the sidewalk.  It takes a bit of getting used to, really.  I still don't trust that a car won't run me down, but every time I get in a situation where I'm waiting on a car, they're slowing down to let me pass first.  It's weird.

So that's that from Germany for today.  I know this one wasn't as interesting as (hopefully) the previous posts, but again, I'm no writer, so give me a little slack.  I'm trying to figure out how to best describe the local beer festival, and when I do that, I'll be back.  Don't say you weren't warned.

Yeah, like that

So here's an annoying little thing that I've run into a couple of times - the water situation.  It seems that they don't drink water here like we do in the States.  By that, I mean that if you go into the restaurants, cafes and whatnots, you just don't get a glass of water like you do in the US almost by default.  You won't find a water fountain anywhere, and they don't even drink it out of the faucets at home.  Even in McD0na1d's (don't start - I've only been a couple of times, and none since I got here for good) if you ask for water, it's going to be bottled water.  And they don't even do that as much as we do.  They're much more into juices and other fruity soft drinks (can you say Fanta!), and they love C0ke and C0ke Lite.  Now here's the rub.  When you do order a bottle of water, you have to be aware of another little cultural difference as well:  mit kohlensaure (I'll spare you the normal phonetics, as I just don't know).  

Let me explain in a way that you'll understand if you're one of those people who weren't born in the South, but moved there for whatever reason.  When you first got there, did you ever go into a restaurant and order iced tea?  And when you got it, you naturally sweetened it up to your liking, just as you'd always done wherever you'd come from?  Yeah, you know what happened next.  You not only got the sugar you put in, but the huuuge amounts of sugar that they insist on adding in order to make it that viscus syrup that they call sweet tea (still shocked that there aren't more diabetics in the South).  

Well, mit kohlensaure is kind of like that, except with gas.  I'm not talking about the kind you excrete behind you, but just normal carbonation.  Yes, mit kohlensaure means 'with gas' as in soda water.  That's right, they love their soda water here, and unless you pay attention, that's what you're getting.  Now granted, the stuff's not going to put you into insulin shock like twice sweetened tea, but it's a rude little surprise when you're expecting plain ol' water.  You can't even tell by looking at the bottle, because it just doesn't bubble up.  I suppose it would if you shook it up to check, but if you remembered to do that, you'd just read the label (very small print, but if you're looking for it, quite obvious once you know the term).  

So that's the lesson for the day:  Beware of mit kohlensaure, and look for stille wasser [shtil-uh voss-air] on the label, or ask for table wasser [tab-el voss-air - and that's tab, not tayb].

'Til next time, Auf Wiedersehen.

A Day in the Park

Well, it's Sonntag (Sunday - [zon-tagk]) here in the new home, and what a gorgeous day.  It's going to be mostly sunny with a high around 19 (yes, Celsius - give me a break, I've got to learn this stuff), there's virtually no wind, and it's just beautiful.  Right now I'm sitting in the middle of the Schlossgarden Universitäte (University Castle-garden - [shloss-gar-ten oon-ee-fair-zee-tate].  Yep that's it, just sitting, enjoying the day.  And really, on a Sunday, there's not much else to do.  The only thing open on Sundays in this country are some restaurants, bakeries, and other various cafes, as well as the gas stations.  Unlike in the US, they take their relaxation seriously here, and they don't want it infringed upon.  Oh my God, you may say.  that's such a waste of time.  You could be getting so many things done, you say.  Yeah well, get over it.  Relax and enjoy the day.  And everyone here is doing just that.  Reading on a blanket in the sun, playing frisbee, knocking around the shuttlecock (no nets, just hitting the little badminton thingy) - that's all, just enjoying the day.  I gotta say, it's pretty cool.  (Okay, one little nit-pick, and that's probably 'cause I'm new at this 'nature' stuff - just had to flick an ant or two off of my computer, so I'll be swiping at phantom ants on my body all day now.  Guess I need a blanket for theses park ventures.)

I'll tell you, after the past couple of days, I need the relaxation.  It gives me a chance to unwind and get my bearings on where I am.  It's remarkable how little I've actually done, and yet how stressed and frustrated I am.  Case in point:  Friday.  I was at my apartment waiting on the phone guy to come and hook up and activate my phone and internet service.  The window I was given was from 8 to 4 (and you thought the cable people were bad), so I had to be there potentially the whole day.  Now, my landlord said that when he got his stuff hooked up, the guy showed up at around 10.  Well, he obviously doesn't know me and Murphy.  Yep, the guy never showed.  Now, to the phone company's credit everyone seemed genuinely surprised when told of this, but that doesn't do me a damn bit of good, now does it.  So I spent the entire day in a completely empty apartment - no internet, no phone (don't even have a cell yet), no connection to the outside whatever.  Couldn't do a damned thing.  Luckily, I did bring my computer with me, as well as a couple of books to read, so I had music and something to keep me occupied.  But I couldn't even go to lunch, because you know if I did, that's when the guy shows up.  Luckily for me, my landlord showed up and I was able to go get some food at around 3, but still - whole day basically wasted, and not a thing I could do about it.

Anyway, I'm done bitching for now.  For now, mind you.  There are a couple of things that I'll get off of my chest, but I'll save those 'til later.  And keep in mind that while I may bitch, so far I wouldn't miss this for anything.  I'm guessing that the initial two weeks or so are going to be the hardest, getting everything set up and getting myself in a routine of some sort.  That's one of the big reasons that I made sure that I don't have to start work until the middle of the month.  Well, okay, that and the local beer festival that starts on Thursday.  More on that and other stuff later on.

Auf Wiedersehen.