Renovation Tales

These days I sport what could almost pass for a French manicure – if it wasn’t for the telltale white paint streaks all over my hands, arms and the occasional snow white strand of hair. These signs betray the fact that I did play with paint, rather than nail polish, and lots of it.  In fact, 4 big old 11 liter paint buckets. All white.  All used up but for a small remnant.

Now everything is white, every last wall in the apartment, all the ceilings plus the curtains and the linen (not from paint of course), I covered the wooden headboard with a vintage linen as well. It looks nice and clean especially compared to the old wallpaper, in faded shades of peach, yellow and beige. I hate peach, pastelly yellow and beige with a vengeance especially mixed and faded.

Today I was on the quest for a night stand and found – a grey couch.  High up on a pile of other stuff in the warehouse of the Goodwill equivalent.  I couldn’t believe my luck.  I haven’t had the chance to inspect it in its entirety.  It was close to closing hours and not even the prospect of what must be a larger sale in the context of the local Goodwill equivalent was enough to convince the employees to stay a little longer.  It’s Germany after all and when the store closes, the store closes – and that is that.

Now the guys at the warehouse at the local Goodwill equivalent are fast becoming my best friends (in addition to Helmut,  the paint guy at the local hardware store) and I have gained regular access to the warehouse despite the fact that it is strictly speaking “verboten” to be in the warehouse.  So my new best friend today promised to hold the couch for me until tomorrow morning.

Assuming that there won’t be a huge red wine stain on the part I haven’t seen yet I have just scored one of the big remaining items I need.  Keep your fingers crossed that my new best friend will indeed be loyal and not sell the thing the minute before I get there.

That leaves me to sort out the carpet situation.  Tricky one. There are red, classically patterned carpets to be had everywhere, plus the usual “modern” ones that delight – not – with their absurd choice of colors (purple, orange and beige with black stripes anybody?) and  patterns.  Bleaching and dying a carpet seems to be a rather intimidating process with little chance of success – or so I read online.  And since I am not much into knitting and crocheting carpets that whole carpet situation is still somewhat up in the air.  The closest I have come to a cheap solution is a piece of artificial lawn.  I hear they come in different colors – but not in hot pink – and somehow the idea of a hot pink piece of artificial lawn as a carpet with all the white and grey sounds enticing.

I am sure you agree, right?

It’s getting real again

We tried last year and failed to make the temporary move to Germany. Many things conspired but this years the stars seem aligned, well, at least more aligned than last year.
The biggest hurdle was to find an apartment in our town of choice, Konstanz, my home town. I kid you not, finding an apartment here makes finding one in Manhattan seem like a walk in the park. Seriously.
It is one of those situations where there is hardly any inventory, even throwing money at the problem is only partially useful, if there ar only 5 apartments to be had in the appropriate size at any given time chances are that somebody else has more money to throw.
It does not help that Germans openly discriminate against families with children. Even my one, quiet, well-behaved almost 10 year old geek boy who wouldn’t dream of ever kicking a soccer ball unless forced by his cruel mother, was appartently unacceptable. Replies just stopped coming after the question “do you have kids?” was answered with “yes” even the quick “but he is sweet and quiet and likes reading and abhors soccer” did not help. Middle- aged couples, no kids are in demand. Pets are more acceptable than kids, it seems.
After an prolonged and very taxing process I did manage to secure an apartment, even a very affordable one. Let’s not, for now, speak about the furniture that I stand to “inherit” from the previous occupant, a 94 year old lady. Let’s not, for now, speak of moving back even temporarily to my home town close to my parents after living 6000 miles away for the last 15 years.
Right now I am tiered and happy to have a place, half the size of our house in California, but who is measuring? I have some furniture although from the looks of it a serious amount of spray paint, glue, wall paint, fabric, creativity and tons of determination will be needed to make this place even remotly fit my idea of design.
Its going to be an adventure for sure – you are welcome to come along.

It is getting real

“The Golden State” – what’s not to love about it?

What I thought would be the biggest obstacle to our move has almost overnight solved itself.  A combination of my superior powers of persuasion and tenacity (in other words, staying on my mom relentlessly to use her network) and dumb luck (or as my highschool drop-out father likes to say charmingly to his Ph.D. daughter “girl, you got more luck than smarts”) I found us a house to rent.  It is expensive and compromises will have to be made but to the utter disbelieve of my local friends I found us a house in one of the most desirable neighborhoods.  I should be ecstatic.

I am glad.

I am freaked.

I will have to leave California.  I am not sure I can.  I love California.  The weather is wonderful and where will I get sushi, and Pho and there are no TJ’s in Germany and I can’t go shopping on Sundays and – oh my god, the weather, its freezing there now and I walk around in a short sleeve T here.  For a year I won’t see the Pacific, or the Sierra Nevada (Alps, I know), no Yosemite, no desert, no Redwood trees, no San Francisco, no … so many things.  I don’t know where to start.

My liberal friends and I (just to get one thing out of the way, I wear the label liberal with pride!) have complained so many times about politics here in this country but now I am thinking, it ain’t so bad, there are idiots in Germany, too, who have a tendency to flock into politics.  Moreover I don’t really live in America.  I live in California, coastal California.

It’s stupid, I know, I should be thrilled and on one level I am but the idea of leaving California is very unsettling.  I keep mumbling to myself  “I’ll be back” and then reminding myself that I really shouldn’t quote Arnie, like, ever.

Today I hit on another permutation of the theme.  We went to have Mexican food for lunch.  Not my favorite food but I do love Mexico.  We spent quite some time there years ago.  So I started thinking “Germany is so far from Mexico.  I’ll miss Mexico, darn, I miss it already”  and then went back to the comfort of  “it’s only for a year.  I will be back.”

Maybe I was right when I first came to California all these years ago and thought, knew and felt instinctively  “this is where I belong.  If live was fair, this is where I would have been born.”

Glass Half Empty

This very typically little story happened to me just the other day and I thought it was, well, very typical of the difference in culture between the US and Germany.  So here it goes.

General German sentiment: things will be worse tomorrow and even worse later.

I am on the LinkedIn Alumni list of my old/first university, the one in Germany.  As you might or might not know alumni relations is rather new to Germany, and in general people graduate and then pretty much forget about their universities.  So when they slowly started building closer relationship with their alumni I felt honor bound to at least sign up and participate.  The group is not very active but every once in a while an interesting post comes along which is worth reading and commenting on.

So the other day I saw that somebody had posted a ranking of “new” universities (those less than 50 years old) and my good old – or should I say new – university secured a spot among the top 15.  Pretty darn good, I thought for a small university in a provincial town in southern Germany.  I commented positively and tweeted the article.  Exactly the behavior that is expected from and commended in every good American.

The reaction I got should not have surprised me but still it did: the next person responding to my comment basically wrote: it ain’t all that great, in 5 years the university will not be “New” anymore and where will that leave us?  On the list of all universities this places is only “whatever not so stellar number) and the German universities in general aren’t doing so well, worse than the Dutch, blablabla, etc.

How very German!  Instead of focusing on the positive, the good ranking now and thinking that we have a few years to improve the overall ranking the focus is on the bad, the negative, the problem.  Maybe the typical American focus on the forever positive outlook, the incessant “everything will be alright” attitude is not realistic and at times outright annoying but the relentless focusing on the negative, the automatic assumption that whatever can go wrong will go wrong and that it is downhill from here is depressing. Why is that the automatic negative reaction, why forever focus on the bad?

I hate to say it, but it seems almost German nature.

Weather

You have no idea (or maybe you do) how many time I had to have the weather discussion.  It goes like so:

Person: “Oh, so you are German.  Why did you come to the US?”

Me: “To go to graduate school in Boston.  Afterwards I came to California.”

Person: ” Oh, interesting.  Why did  come to California.”

Me (thinking “duh”): “Because the weather is better than in Germany.”

At this point people reliably think I made a joke – not a very good one, but a joke nevertheless.  Thing is I didn’t, I meant it – Weather. Is. Important. Period!

It ain’t quite that bad in Germany – most of the time. but stil …
Pic: thegoddessblogs.com

Of course, weather wasn’t all, there were many other factors involved in the decision to move to california, but the weather, honestly, played a big part for me since I am one of those Vitamin D deficient, seasonal-depression-suffering sun lovers.   Since I came to California I have only been back to Germany twice in winter.  Once early on – and regretted it immediately and vowed to never repeat that foolish mistake again.

Just last week, though – mid-November – I had to go to Germany for a conference.  Why anybody would chose to hold a conference in November in Germany is a mystery to me, there are lots better places I can think off,  southern Spain, for example.  The whole experience was – frustrating.  I am just no longer used to freezing temperatures and what the Germans I spoke to considered fairly decently warm weather almost froze my behind off.  I no longer have long underwear type things, the soles of my shoes are thin and 90% of my tops sleeveless.  Here I thought I was doing a decent winter packing job by bringing a jacket and an overcoat, a scarf and shoes that do not fall into the strappy sandals category.  After 10 minutes waiting for a taxi cab I was frozen stiff, the cold air literally crept into the sleeves of my coat making me realize how useful long underthings can be.

I am back now in California and sitting here in a sleeveless T-shirt and barefoot, it isn’t really warm – only about 20 degrees Celcius and the sun is shining.  I am loving it!

Tipping

What is enough and what is too much or too little? pic: people.howstuffworks.com

Tipping is a well-known contentious  issue between Americans and Germans.  Americans tip a lot and find Germans and their tipping habits (or lack thereof) cheap bordering on the offensive and Germans find American tipping habits patronizing and claim that they ruin the prices for everybody (and that, of course, everybody should be paid a decent wage so you don’t have to tip somebody so they can pay their rent).

Now, none of this is new.  If a German planning to visit the US picks up a travel book it will have a section about tipping and it will clearly state a number between 15 and 20% as the expected amount.  Likewise an American traveling to Europe will find cautionary words about over-tipping.  And still Germans under-tip and Americans over-tip.  They just can’t help themselves.  It seems to be such a deeply ingrained cultural norm that it is hard to shake.

I had an experience along this line a few times:

German guest: “how much should I tip?”

Me: “let’s see, the bill comes to $51 …”

Guest: “How about $55?”

Me: “Ehmm, no, that isn’t quite enough, that’s not even 10% , more like $60.”

Guest: “WHAT????”

Me: “Well, I told you15-20% is normal, so okay, $59.”

Guest: “so you really mean it, you have to tip that much, I really didn’t know that …..”

Me (invisible eye-roll): “We did discuss this before, this is just how it is here …”

Guest: “sure, yes, I just didn’t realize that it actually really is the case, I thought is it sort of a suggestion …” (trails off)

I could, of course, relay a bunch of experience where I am leaving a restaurant/bar after my American company has paid the bill and see this huge grin on the face of the waiter. “Oh oh, over-tipped” I think to myself.  “Didn’t I just tell him/her that 35 Euros is good enough if the bill comes to 32?  Did he/she have to make it 40 again? Sigh!”

Just, those encounters are all around less dramatic and antagonizing.

The thing is, I can’t just blame others.  After all these years in the US I still have trouble with tipping, I, of all people know, how much to tip (and have figured out the trick to make the calculation easy: in California to tip twice the amount of tax you pay – that gets you in the right ballpark) but I have to remind and force myself to do it right every time.

Some things just aren’t as easy as they seem.

Manners

Perfect visual for this blog, pic: labracknell.blogspot.com

My husband and I always staid away from the typical German expats in the US events.  The idea was to live where we are and not trying to recreate a piece of Germany with German friends, Knoedel (dumplings), Wurst and beer.  Having said that, we are not avoiding Germans either and over the year have made a few German friends and acquaintances.

What keeps throwing me off – after all these years in the US (ever so superficial and fake according to many Germans) are the terrible manners some Germans have.  Just last weekend we run into a family we know on the playground, the husband is German, the kids speak German and we were talking about this and that when another couple with a small boy joined us.  They were Germans, apparently acquaintances of our friends , speaking German standing not three feet away from us talking to them about soccer practice and other kids stuff and – never, not with one word or gesture – even acknowledging the presence of the three of us.  I mean, hello, I am 5’10” my husband well over 6′ and my son never stops talking – you can’t miss us!  Ever!  If you do not acknowledge our presence then you do it deliberately and where I live (apparently not where I am from) that is rude – with a capital R.

It has happened to me before – so there is a theme – back on a summer vacation in Germany.  I went to a gym class with my son, my friend and her daughter and a whole bunch of mothers.  We all sit there, leaning against the wall waiting for the kids to finish there class, and nobody (my friend the exception, of course) , absolutely nobody even saying as much as “hi, who are you?  I am Mary, little Timmy’s mom”  to me.  Nothing, nobody, not a word, not a single person acknowledging that I even exist.

Does anybody have even the attempt of an explanation for such behavior?

Call me a superficial fake Americanized Whatever – but a bit of superficial nicety beats heartfelt rudeness any old day – at least in my book.

 
 

Water and Refills

The more I think about it the more I realize how American I have become – or maybe just even more un-German.    I like my water with plenty ice, in fact drinking pretty much anything other than hot tea and red wine not ice cold is unpleasant, let alone the idea of a Diet Coke that isn’t almost frozen.  My German friends scrunch up their faces when having American style water and can barely keep it in their mouths because it is too cold for them.

Water, all cold and free. Pic: Dreamstime

Speaking of water: I love free water in American restaurants and have come to really resent the prices for teeny weeny little bottles of sparkling water in Europe.  I feel like I am being tricked and cheated if I go to a restaurant for lunch, order what seems to be a reasonably priced, sometimes even cheap meal and then end up paying twice as much overall because the beverage costs as much as the food.  If you don’t believe me try going to a restaurant in Germany or Austria (not even talking about Switzerland where everything is outrageously expensive) on a hot summer day with a boy who just finished playing in the sun and downs two large glasses of water/juice before lunch arrives.  He eats his 5 Euro Wienerschnitzel with Pommes (French Fries) but his two large Apfelsaftschorle (apple juice with sparkling water) set you back 7 Euro.

And, behold the beauty of the common soda refill.  What a relief to be able to get another if I am still thirsty and what a relief not to have to worry about ice in the glass (which you always have to worry about in Germany because the more ice, the less beverage – so ice is not a way to increase enjoyment but a way to cheat you).

The question I frequently hear in Germany is “aren’t people abusing that system terribly?” and my answer is – after some careful reflection – always the same “not really”.  Will people get a refill if they strictly speaking don’t need it anymore and leave some?  Sure, they will.  Does it bankrupt restaurants – haven’t heard about it.  Will people drink two gallons, just because they can?  Probably not on a regular basis, although there might be a time in a teenage boy’s life where this might be something they consider – just for the heck of it and because Jack over there does it, too.

But that is a different story and has more to do with teenage boy mentality than with free sodas.

Change in Attitude

When I moved to the US in 1997 everybody back home (pretty much) was envious.

“Wow, great.”, “I wish I could come with you.” “So cool” were the standard responses I got.  of course there where people who thought I was crazy, not so much because I moved to the US but because I went back to school to add yet another graduate degree.  But secretly many of those who made negative comments did so because they were envious – and not the good kind of envious.

These days that is no longer true.  I mainly now saying that I live in California which most people equate with beaches, nice weather, extended road trips in cool cars, famous bridges and celebrities.  Still, people do know that California is part of the US and so increasingly the reaction is

“Really??” in the sense of “How could you” rather than “wow”.

Two words: politics and religion.  Although most Germans do not know the situation first hand enough information about the US can be be found in the news over there for people to realize that things are, well, different here.  For example, the notion of teaching creationism in school is nothing but ludicrous over there.  The idea that a country will not elected a leader unless that person publicly celebrates his/her religion – unthinkable.  The whole health care debate, having people go all their life without health care – I am running out of words for unthinkable.  A presidential candidate who has no foreign policy experience and offends people abroad right, left and center – not an option in smallish countries needing to get along with the neighbors and beyond.

Germans know enough about the US to find a lot of what is going on here frighting and weird.  And the enthusiasm which greets me when I say “I live in the USA, actually California” has markedly diminished over the years.

Parents

Every expats greatest fears evolve around their aging parents (and other relatives).  We live in fear of that 2 am phone call that can’t bring any good news.  My father just had a very big birthday and since I had just spend the entire summer in Europe and the prices for flights hadn’t dropped as I had hoped  I wasn’t there for it.

No, that’s not my mom. I picked the Queen because my mom sure wouldn’t like to be shown on the Internet, but the Queen should be used to it. Pic:britannica.com

He is doing very well for his age, mind you, but just that: for his age and the questions I am inevitably facing is “how many more will there be?”, “How many good years will there be?  Years where he gets around, is mentally sharp and able to enjoy life and his only grandchild?”  Of course, I am facing the same questions for my mom, but she is a fewer years younger and hasn’t had a big round birthday recently so it is easier to ignore the concerns around her for the time being.

And it is not just birthdays that bring the inevitable to mind, everyday problems they are having, with paying bills, cleaning the windows, painting the bathroom ceiling and visiting friends who can’t easily be reached by public transportation, etc.  So fear and a bad conscience at some point are pretty much a constant, albeit low level, companion in ones life. The question of what happens when the parents can’t take care of themselves anymore is best repressed, as there is not answer to it.  There will have to be one, some day, but right now there isn’t.

I have a sister who lives close to home and takes care of things.  She resents me for being so far away and not helping out.  If I think about it, I understand that position.  But I didn’t run away from my responsibilities because they were too much, I left long before old age was an issue, and I left for what I thought would be a better life for me, not to avoid taking care of my daughterly duties.   That gets hard to keep apart at some point, though.  Problem is that by then one is so enmeshed in a new life and new responsibilities, for example towards a child who for all practical purposes is a little Californian, that one can’t just up and go forever.

I am thinking that spending a year there will give me the opportunity to paint and clean and file bills like a mad person – but I do know that it will not be the solution, just something to appease my conscience.