One more thing I learned while in Italy last weekend (and in honor of languages week). We didn't sing the last line - for us it was just filled with la la's so I can't tell you what they are singing.

Constant Craving

ok - maybe only yesterday.

Bacon, egg and cheese on a toasted everything bagel, with a hazelnut coffee.
Mmmmmmm.

Solidarity Delayed

A long, long time ago - June 14th to be exact - International Webbloggers Day was celebrated. (HT: J at Germany Doesn't Suck.) I knew then what I wanted to post, but I was too concentrated on giving a presentaiton in German in front of 90 people. I was just glad to be alive after it was over - but less satisfied with my performance than I had hoped to be. I went to dinner with M.G. and all was right enough with the world again.

There was, however, something I have been meaning to get up here for a while. It has nothing to do with Germany or Expat life, but living over here, one certainly gets plenty of people telling you that your country is crap.*²,³ We are all overweight, poorly educated and beligerant. (Funny how the overweight thing didn''t happen to me til I moved here.) We suck, we suck, we suck (the post-modern mea culpa) now can we please change the subject?

One of the people fond of telling us how horrible we are just did something that I am very proud to say, you cannot do in my country. Well I supposed you could, but you would get a slap-down post haste, even, and I dare say, especially from the supreme court justices whom the majority of people reading this page loathe.

So the next time we head off to a Michael Moore blockbuster documentary, we can remember to be grateful we aren't living in the Bolivarian Republic.




* Not everyone's experience (Heather has an interesting story)
2 I got a copy of this as a wedding present. (Here for the english only folks.)
3 I have had 1 experience in 4 years where someone told me that I was fortunate that my ancestors emmigrated.

Backblog Part I - House Hunting Links

A great deal going on here, without a whole lot of forward movement. How can that be?

We are looking to

1. buy a "Bleibe" (house or apartment, not yet decided)
2. replace my Dell which is just a few final boot-ups from paperweight city
3. buy a car
4. perhaps move somewhere else while continuing to rent

I have been really inspired by Christina G.'s recent post on American food, and will try to add links to useful sites we are using in to resolve problems 1-4.

It's a lot to do and Mr. Moose, a.k.a. My German, spends a lot of time with his nose tucked into ImmobilienScout and the newspaper, the BNN.

The local classifieds listings can be read in a weekly paper called Sperrmüll, but all the hip kids know that the listings can be accessed from your (for a fee) by computer at Quoka.de.

I have also run across Kijiji, but can't offer an evaluation. There wasn't much there that was helpful for us, but this is true of Craigslist as well.

Here is a web site on which houses are sold without a makler - but the geography is wrong for us.

Here is a nifty apartment we found, but the distribution of the rooms wouldn't work for us and the street is not terribly desirable. . . but it's so cute!!

The Search for Moose Lodge

First off, it got mentioned at Girly Weekend, (Jen's new page) that the "joke" in the blog name wasn't clear to everyone. I am writing this all "semi-anonymously", hence Ann on a Moose. It's a stretch, but I once worked for a federal agency with a connection to the great outdoors, so there's that link as well. I do not, did not, will not ride on or advocate the riding oon of meece.

We have started the great hunt for our new "zu hause". On the one hand, exciting, on the other terrifying. What to look for, what to avoid. This will probably be a recurring topic (hope this won't bore you all out of your trees, particularly those of you who already have roofes over your heads.) Some observations to date:

• Germans do not appear to sell their houses privately with any frequency. (Is the realtor fielding a few phone calls really worth 10k to you? (And then another 10k to me btw.)) And if they have more than one realtor, you could get stuck paying it twice. Haven't quite figured out how that works yet.
• I think I could get a lawyer in the states to review the sales contract for a hell of a lot less than 1,5 % of the sales price. My normally mild-mannered German said, "Anwalte - die kriegen so-wie-wo für jeden Scheiss ein Arschvoll Geld." Shocked the britches off me.
• People advertising apartments are sneaky with the living area. Always make sure you get a good look at the size of the place according to the DIN. It's much smaller.
• We hear that prefab houses from the 50's are/can be crap (hell-hörig, schlecht gedämmt).
• We want to avoid buying near a Hauptschule - although it's not a dealbreaker because the days of the Hauptschule may be numbered anyway.

My Ipod Boyfriend

I have an audio crush and his name is David Noon. It's alright I've confessed this to my husband and btw, you can find Dr. Noon's non-loading picture off the link from this page.

There's not much going on in his history class that's new to me, but anyone who can talk about an 19th century assasin wanting to "bust a cap" in anyone's anything or a tenament family being SOL when the place burns down or discusses the virtues of "Opposite Day" before lecture can share my commute with me anyday.

And that's all we have time for this morning!

Apparently he also has his own blog. Plenty of stuff to make Christopher Hitchens happy there, but then, that will make most of my readership happy, too, so there ya go. Should the poor man be reading this, really no worries dude, you are just a coherent, confident speaker - a rare breed, indeed.