Coffee from a Reusable Ceramic Mug

Matthias and I watched a few minutes of a late night talk show last night. The part we saw was when the “Red Hot Chilli Pepper” were on. They did this thing that really annoys me. The host of the show spoke with them in English because they most likely don’t speak any German. Since the host is German and lives in Germany, his English was not perfect, and he made a lot of grammatical mistakes. Rather than just responding to the questions (which were clear even with the English mistakes), the chilli peppers just kind of mimicked the grammatical mistakes as if to make a joke out of the host. Now, for non-native speaks, the jokes don’t make sense, so it’s not funny. To me, it just made the chilli pepper look incredibly rude. When they did actually answer questions, they basically just answered making plays on words, again something that doesn’t make much sense to someone who is a non-native speaker.

I’m sure the guys in the band felt very smart after the interview because they could speak better English than their host, but to me they just looked like bone heads. I think the German host handled it really well, because I think he could tell they were trying to
make a joke directed at him, but he just pushed on.

I think is just one of those cases of people who have no concept of what it means to speak another language. I think everyone in the world should be assigned a non-native language friend. I learned a lot about my own language by knowing so many people from around the world. Even Matthias, whose English is amazing, will stop me sometimes when I use a colloquial expression. Unfortunately, I sometimes don’t even know exactly what the expression means, but I can usually explain the meaning in an
abstract sense. For example, what does it mean to “Eat Crow” or to “have a cow”???

On the theme of communication and understanding, check out the website of Mattie Stepanek. He was an amazing kid who wrote serveral books on peace before dying at the young age of 13 of Dysautonomic Mitochondrial Myopathy. He was one of those special beings born with a clear vision of peace and love. His most recent book was authored with Jimmy Carter.

Here is one poem from this amazing child. He was sixe years old when he wrote it.

Natasha and I went for a long (actually, kind of short) bike ride
along the refreshing, still Danube today. It was beautiful with
all of the trees blooming, the fish swimming along the shore and
the birds pairing up for the springtime. As we sat by the river,
I saw a beautiful bird that I have never seen before. It was
black and white with the most exquisite design. I’ll have to see
if I can find it’s name online.

After the stress of riding the bikes, we decided we needed a beer.
Don’t laugh. Natasha is pushing past her fear of bike riding and
she was awesome today. She even got some great practice with
obstacles when a hoard of toddlers came across the path at one
point. She was craving a Radler, so she took me to a nice little
beer garden by the river.

That’s one thing that Germany does really well; Bier Gardens! In
the spring time, you can get a pint (or more if you like) of cold
beer while sitting in a beautiful garden and chatting with
friends.

It was in the garden when Natasha asked, “What’s with your blog? I
keep waiting for a new post!” (hence, the new post).

I didn’t have much to say, but I should keep you all updated
anyway. I am always awaiting new posts on the handful of blogs I
read. I don’t have much to say because not much has been
happening. I was really sick over the weekend with some
mysterious bug that gave me a fever, turned my stomach and killed
my appetite. Matthias babied me and took car of everything else
over the weekend because he can be so awesome sometimes.

He had a big presentation at work today and he left in his tan suit. I
planned on taking a picture to post, but alas, I couldn’t convince
myself to get out of bed this morning in enough time to do it. My
brain is really good at finding excuses to stay in bed in the
morning.

After leaving Natasha and our very busy afternoon, I went grocery
shopping and managed to get everything I need for a new marinated
fish recipe, except the fish. As the great Obi-Wan-Canola (AKA ‘El
Diablo’) once said “I can be really clever sometimes.”

I did however, learn that I am improving in the fine art of riding
a bike with bags hanging on the handle bars. I was inspired by a
65 year old man (I am guessing) who rode by our place over the
weekend with two grocery bags on each handel bar and was drinking
from a bottle of beer! Germans! Anyway, I am figuring out how to
pedal without transferring too much momentum to the bags. That’s
the tricky part, as when the bags start swinging, it’s all over.
I was very proud of myself when I got home. Luckily, I smashed a
big glass on the floor five minutes after walking in the door;
never want to let the ego get too big.

Just a random fact: Matthias and I have smashed approximately 16
glasses (11 of them wine glasses) in the time we have lived
together.

If you need to break a nasty crack habit, as one of my more brilliant friends often says (and you know who you are), Matthias and I have discovered three wonderfully compulsive activities that could possibly be more addictive than crack, I would imagine. (as a disclaimer for those who might worry, I have never actually tried crack :-))

1. Sodoku: I first came across the game in the fall in D.C. while people were compulsively playing in Starbucks over there lunch breaks. I avoided it because, let’s just say, I have a problem with puzzles. I avoid computer games because I am the kind of person who can obsess over puzzles. However, the last time I was in D.C., I decided to indulge myself and get a little book for the 9 hour plane ride back to Germany. I listened to my I-pod and played Sodoku for over 5 hours. Once I got home, Matthias was also instantly addicted and has now found the website where he has ample supply of the addictive game. If you need something to do with your hands while you think about which numbers to write in your little Sodoku boxes, than you can add the next addiction.
2. Knitting: I remember watching Dorota pull her knitting needles out of her stuffed backpacking on a few camping trips, and now I can see why. Matthias mom taught me some knitting basics over Easter. To my surprise, I learned that Matthias was the best knitter in his elementary school! His hands still remember how to knit really fast though he had to relearn some of the stitches. I am so impressed that my husband can knit! We knitted for several hours over the past few days as we indulged in the third, and possibly most dangerous addiction……
3. 24: For those of you who haven’t watched any of the seasons of 24, my advice to you is don’t! I remember when Matthias’s addiction began in Irvine. I couldn’t watch the show because it just left me feeling stressed out. A couple of weeks ago, Sarah and Natasha reminded me of Matthias’s obsession while discussing their own addictive encounters with the second and third seasons. While I was vising
   my parents last week, I came across the 4th season and thought he might like to see it (yes, Natasha & Sarah, you can borrow it when we are finished). It has been 4 days, and we have watched 14 hours!!!! It’s terribly violent and aggressive, but it’s kind of like watching an accident; you just need to know what happens next! It’s even worse when you have the entire season on DVD because you just keep putting in the next one until one of you passes out from exhaustion!

Needless to say, it was a bit of a compulsive week for us. An interesting side effect to indulging in compulsive behavior is that I have been craving fatty foods (particularly French fries) all week.

I used to worry when I would behave like I did this past week, but I am starting to realize that these things come and go, and they are often linked to the events in life. I am fortunate to have realized that my mind and body comprise the most interesting and
challenging puzzle I have come across, so I know in the end, the more superficial puzzles lose their appeal. In the end, we’ll get back to the important stuff. We are exhausted from the Easter vacation though!

Cammie and I went on a walk to see the cherry blossoms today. Cammie is an awesome woman I worked with at the National Academies in the fall and who is also in the program I am interviewing for. It was a beautiful day, and I will surely have a bit of a sunburn out of it. We saw the FDR memorial for the first time today, and I thought it was worth sharing the fabulous quotes from him that were all over the monument. Enjoy the photos!!

I finished my last interview today, unless I get a last minute request for another one. It has been a really interesting experience, and I have a lot of great options for work next year.

The best question I was asked was, “If your friends and colleagues were here, what would they say about you?” On your behalf, I told them you all thought I was awesome!! (in so many words) I hope you won’t mind.

I will visit with my old boss from the National Academies of Engineering tomorrow, Norman. After that, I can either attend a congressional briefing on science education or I can walk along the water and look at the cherry blossoms. The cherry blossoms are looking good, as I wouldn’t need to where a suit, and hence I could wear my sneakers. Plus I haven’t seen the cherry blossoms here before. They are supposed to be lovely.

They will even better as I walk along listening to my fabulous I-pod nano that Matthias gave me a few days before coming to D.C.! I have 658 songs to shuffle as I take in the natural beauty. Sarah also gave me a pile of hip-hop songs before I left too, so I can dance along in the sun!! I have been train-dancing a bit on the way from Philadelphia already.

Ok, I have nothing else relavent to say…. Actually, none of the above was particularly relavent, but I thought some of you might want something to read the next time you come to the site.

Here are some photos from the Hotel in D.C.

Actually, ‘left on a Jet Plane and landed in Philadelphia’ might be more appropriate. I am at my parents place, and tomorrow I am heading to D.C. to do some placement interviews for the AAAS fellowship. I’ll bee there most of the week and come back up here on the weekend before flying out Sunday night.

I flew business class on the way here! Thanks to some error made on the on-line booking service they use (not very well organized), my flight from Munich was on business rather than economy (which is what I asked for in my search). I’m not complaining though; I may never be the same after the experience.

Imagine, eating food on real plates, eating with metal utensils and drinking out of a glass!! Plus, you get to order off of a menu, unless you have already ordered a veggie meal ahead of time. I asked what the vegitarian meal was, and the guy said it was ‘Nacky.’ I was excited because I never heard of ‘Nacky,’ so I asked what that was. He said it is potato pasta (A.K.A. ‘gnochi’). He made me smile every time he mentioned my ‘Nacky.’

For a person who is 5 foot 7 inches, the leg room is amazing! Plus, the seat is about 50% wider than me! The seats go back far enough to actually be comfortable, and the flight attendants are in a much better mood. I think the US airways flight from Munich is developing a bad reputation for poor customer service because I heard several people complaining, and I have experienced their rudeness a few times myself. They often do that annoying thing I have seen some rude American tourists do to people who don’t speak English very well. They increase the volume of their voice and start to treat the person as if they are stupid. I was pretty amazed to see that attitude from the flight attendants on an international flight! Apparently some other Americans on this last flight witnessed something similar and were appalled having just returned from visiting places where they look stupid because they don’t speak the language very well.

So, on to even cooler news - other than flying business class for the first time, that is. We are going to California!!! We are taking a nice long vacation in June. We will fly through Phoenix to introduce Merri Jo to Matthias, finally, and spend some time with them. It will be so nice to see everyone again. We have tons of ideas about what to do there, but I still like the option of forgetting the big travel plans and lying on a beach the whole time we are in California. Plus, we could go to Costco a few times just for old time’s sake.