What to do Today?

Some may wonder how I fill my day. Each day, I wonder the same thing.

I really like doing whatever I want, when I want to do it. However, often that means that I do nothing. But I am very much OK with that.

The first week I was in Hamburg, I was very sick. I filled my day with sleeping. Last week was the first week of activity. I filled it with shopping. Asmus was a fabulous bachelor. He had plates, flatware and just about nothing else. One day, I bought a pitcher. I decided to create a theme night. He has a weakness for Cuba Libres and I had some ripe avocados, so last Thursday we had Fiesta Latina. I believe that variety is the spice of life, so I made sangria. My plans were almost thwarted by a lack of pitcher. On my way to buy, oh yes, groceries, I stopped off at a department store called Galleria Kaufhof. Fortunately, the housewares department is a few feet away from Rewe store. I bought the cutest pitcher for 4.50 euros. While I was there, I also picked up two black pot holders. I was tired of burning my hands while pulling a pizza out of the oven.

The evening we had steak for dinner, I bought four steak knives and a bread knife.

During my first trips to the grocery store, we bought vinegar, garlic powder, mayonnaise and mustard.

When I made hamburgers on Monday, I purchased ketchup.

We expect guests next weekend, so I am planning a trip to Ikea to buy six wine glasses and six drinking glasses.

Here is the barware that Asmus owns.

I am not much better than Asmus. I just received my beloved glasses.


This single girl has two of each style. I have several styles but not more than two of each [A good friend gave me a set of four glasses.]. Suddenly I am hosting more than one friend at a time. I must upgrade!

Shopping only takes up two hours or so. The biggest chunk of my day is devoted to Howard Stern. Through the magic of the Internet, I listen to the entire show and the Wrap-Up Show daily. Because of the time difference and my lack of obligation to anything, I can listen without breaks. Officially the Howard Stern Show starts at 6 am on the East Coast and 6 am on the West Coast. The show starts at noon and ends at 5 pm here [the Wrap-Up Show, in which they dissect the show that just ended, is actually more interesting than the name suggests. That starts as soon as the Howard Stern Show ends and lasts about an hour.] The parts that I missed when I was at the store can be heard when the Howard Stern Show starts over again immediately after the Wrap-Up Show on the East Coast or during the West Coast Feed. Joining in the West Coast Feed requires a little bit of math [If I stopped listening at 2 pm, that is 8 am on the East Coast, so that means the show had been on for two hours. If I get back in at 6 pm, then that means that it is noon on the East Coast and 9 am on the West Coast. The show is about to start all over again on the East Coast and it has been on for three hours on the West Coast. I choose the West Coast.

[My computer’s clock is tuned to East Coast time. It makes things easier when trying to call people at home or planning things with them.]

I listen to Howard while I lie in bed, get dressed, cook dinner, do laundry, eat lunch. He and the Gang keep me company throughout the day. I get to hear English spoken throughout the day and that makes me feel happy.

Before I devoted my afternoon to Howard, I would watch American sitcoms dubbed into German. I have watched Home Improvement, Roseanne, The Real World, Scrubs, Malcolm in the Middle, According to Jim, The Simpsons and Family Guy im Deutsch. I regularly watched those shows in English, so I can figure out what is going on. I have passed by the Cosby Show, Private Practice, a flavor of Law & Order, Judging Amy, The Hills, Camp Rock, and My Wife and Kids in German.

More evidence of the power of television. On Tuesday, I met a salesman at the Fossil store on Möckenbergstraße [ß = ss in German] who said he spent two magical weeks this summer in Orange County, California. He went because of Laguna Beach. He said it was better than he thought it would be.

The Internet has played a larger role in my German life. I start the day by watching the previous day’s Host Chat from Live Regis and Kelly online. Then I stop by Ross the Intern’s site for the latest Talky Blog. Then I read the New York Times, the New York Post, the Philadelphia Daily News, the Philadelphia Inquirer, People, TV Guide and The Local [an English-language news site] online.

If the feeling is right, I write. I am not legally allowed to work in Germany until I get a residence card, which is a visa that allows me to live in Germany for two years. However, I can continue my freelance writing career. I pitched an article or two. But a big chunk of my life is emailing people. I am getting much better email since I left the United States of America. I read and reply back-to-back.

I spent most of yesterday with Asmus’ mother. A lovely woman comes every two weeks to clean the apartment, Brigitte. Yesterday was her day to improve our lives. I needed a place to go for three or four hours. As much as I love the mall, I don’t need to be there for that long. Asmus' mother was kind of enough to entertain me. I speak tourist-level German [I would like a beer, please. I don’t speak German. One cookie, please.] and she is a step away from conversational English. We shared the German-English dictionary like the three witches in Macbeth. Despite the communication handicaps, she said she enjoyed my visit. I know so little about his family that I am always open to talking. His father was not feeling well, so he stayed in his study. I earned stars for my thorough job of washing potatoes [kartoffeln] and chopping carrots [karotten]. We went into her large garden and she clipped fresh sage, parsley and mint for the vegetables. She told me where to buy a basket for hauling groceries [I complained about the frequency of shopping and she shared that she shopped Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. There will be no shopping on Sundays but I am not sure if she had to go to the market on Monday and Tuesday.]. She told me about her years demonstrating against various causes into her 50s and detailed her various careers. I just ate her food and drank her tea. She seemed to enjoy my enjoyment of her food.

Today, I refuse to go to the grocery store. On Fridays, Howard plays the best clips of the week. I decided to get a pedicure. The search for a reasonably-price pedicure took up way too much of my life. Few German salons have websites, so it took lots of work to find one. Sorta. After a long Internet search, I am going to a place next to the mall I find myself at three times a week. This means that I will have to report about the differences between American pedicure and German pedicure.