Viva la France!

View of Paris from Sacre Coeur

I finally took some time off from my life. I headed to the French capital for a week of foreign food and fun April 16. I started the week with my husband and ended it with a close friend.


When I am in Germany, I sometimes feel suffocated by all the rules and regulations. You can't just throw away your garbage. I have a container for all the packaging on the things I own, paper, food and other biodegradable items, and garbage. If my neighbors don't get me, the government will. In Paris, I missed the order. People walk down the sidewalk in random herds. There are rarely any signs for anything or to anyplace. But all is forgiven when you look around at the art around you.


The architecture, the streetscapes, the museums, the fashion, the food, the music magnificently mix in Paris.

Platform of the Cluny-Sorbonne subway station.

Street near my hotel in the Butte-aux-Cailles neighborhood.

The careful preparation of a crepe with
ham and eggs at Bastille market.

Market day at Bastille.

In the late 1700s until the middle of the 1800s,

French authorities stowed the bones of

6 million people underground.

Skulls and leg bones are stacked artfully

in front of piles of the remaining bones.

Election Day

Yesterday, the people of my home state, Schleswig-Holstein, went to the polls. I am kind of sad because the political posters will disappear. There are no televised political ads here, just posters.

Posters for the conservative party, the CSU/CDU are hard to find. He strikes this Jesus-like pose with one cupped hand reaching out to you and one on the stomach area of his dark suit. Yawn.

The more liberal SPD candidate grins at you while modeling a nice Mr. Rogers cardigan.

The even more liberal Linke candidate is a beautiful headshot.

My favorites. The Pirate Party, as the name would imply, are irreverent politicians. They want more transparent government. They are supposed to be more liberal than others. However, the most conservative German has nothing on your household variety American conservative. Right now, the CSU is promoting the idea of giving 150 euros a month to parents who care for their children at home. The government gives money to parents to help pay for day care. The new proposal is supposed to help parents who watch over their own kids. This is not exactly the way of Cut Down Big Government conservatives in the U.S., so the difference between the Pirate Party and the CSU is not so great to me. However, to people here it is a canyon.

German elections, like elections in most of Europe, are for a party, not a person. There are relatively few posters. You really need one to represent one party. However, the Pirates have several wacky ones that have been tickling me for the last month. They will soon be gone.

Your future. My responsibility. Our Country.

For our favorite state.

Free Life - Vote Social.

Now with more substance.
Earlier, many accused the Pirates of being more flash
than substance. Apparently, they are not
just the the party of hipsters.

I want to live as I am. For Freedom and Self-Determination, Vote Pirate.

We are romantics. Gentle agriculture, instead of industrial mass production.

In spite of or because of these ads, the Pirates got a little more than 8 percent of the vote and thereby seats in the state legislature. With the votes still being counted, the SPD and the CSU are separated by 1 or 2 percentage points.

Rockin' the Vote

I feel guilt. I feel guilt so often that it shouldn't be called guilt. Maybe I should call it "normal."


I stopped voting about a year back. I just felt bad having a voice in how the United States is run when I am not affected by it. I have always been crazy about voting. Voting is power. For centuries, people in power tried to keep poor people, people without property, women, Black people, people who can't read, convicted felons and other groups from the ballot. There is a reason for that.


Because I am not a German citizen, I am not able to vote here, so I just gave up on the dream of practicing democracy.


This year, Newt Gingrich promoted the idea of colonizing the moon and Rick Santorum wanted to make everyone as conservative as him. That made me re-think my vote. I felt like I should do something to make sure those evildoers do not succeed. I think Mitt Romney is pretending to be conservative but I'm not 100% certain. The only way to be 100% certain that the country doesn't move to the dark ages is if I vote.


I dithered on this stance. I asked Americans living in Germany and Germans. Both groups instantly gave the same vociferous response: Vote, you idiot. Maybe I will move back the United States unexpectedly and so I will be directly impacted. My family and friends will be influenced by new policies and I should support them. And, most importantly, I am an American citizen, so I should just vote for goodness sakes.

I sent my application to continue to receive absentee ballots two days ago. In the fall, I will get an email ballot. Cool.

Do you smell that?

Trayvon Martin wearing a hoodie!

Some brilliant comedian said you can never small the stink of your house until you leave and come back. I guess I am a genius because I could smell the stink of America but I got used to it. I knew it had the light aroma of racism but when it got too much we did something about it. When I got to Germany, all I could do would smell the stink. Unfortunately, it has gotten a bit stronger here and in the U.S. lately.


At the end of last year, all these random killings of Turkish people were found to be the work of a group of neo nazis. The government is still investigating. I feel safe. Violent racism seems to be aimed at Turkish people. The everyday can't-get-ahead-at-work, stared-at-wherever-I-go and assumption-about-intelligence-neighborhood-interests racism is my problem. Until now. Last week, a federal court in Germany said it is legal for the police or other security personnel to inquire about nationality of people on trains based on the color of their skin. Yes, racial profiling is legal. Yes, no large group or major politician here seems to be upset about it. In fact, comment boards for an English-language news website in Germany was filled a majority of notes agreeing with the ruling.


That is why I like the racism of America. It can keep you from getting ahead. It can kill you. It can cause you to get stared at but people are not OK with it and fighting it. One group of Americans follows a young Black man when he walks through a nice part of Florida and another group is pissed off about the racist stalking. I am used to this cycle of violence, call for justice and improvement. Reading all the articles about Trayvon Martin causing trouble at school and alleging that he beat up the man who stalked him riled me up. Soon after, I was feeling pride that people across America are taking to the streets to demand justice for the death of a 17-year-old armed with candy and iced tea. I feel proud but I would be feel joy if this cycle would end. If people would start judging people on their content of their character, not the color of their skin.


The logic of the German ruling is missing. A court in Koblenz ruled that appearance can be used as a determinant of whether someone has a legal right to be in Germany. This is supposed to be a useful tool around German borders. If Germany bordered the Mediterranean and there were hordes of African or Asian refugees trying to get in, this would almost be acceptable. However, Germany borders Denmark, France, Switzerland, Poland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Austria, Italy and the Czech Republic. People traditionally from these countries don't look like the Black man whose court case led to this ruling.


Can't we all just get along?

I'm an Alien. I'm a Legal Alien.

One more piece of identification, where I look like a monster.

It's official: I am now a legal resident of Germany.
Last Thursday, I got my unbefristete Niederlassungserlaubnis. I have an unlimited residence permit for Germany. Some residence permits have rules on what jobs you can have and how long you can stay. I married a native, so after three years Germany is my oyster. I can get Hartz IV, the German version of welfare. (I can't really get Hartz IV because we have too much income.) I can get a spot in a kindergarten. (Many day care centers are administered by the government.) (I have no children, so I don't need a spot.) My life is not too different today than it was last Wednesday. The big difference is that I don't have to get my visa updated. That's a big deal to me. I ma so nervous going before the immigration officer. I speak German to prove that I belong here and I am trying to be funny because I want them to life me. It is like a really bad first date. Now, I got a commitment, so I'm done with the awkward meetings.

This is wild as my life can get now. Germany only allows people to have the nationalities that they are born with. If I were to get German citizenship, I would have to give up my American citizen. That ain't gonna happen.

Germany has many faults but difficult immigration isn't one of them. We thought about getting a green card for Asmus. We needed reference letters, a physical, a 10-page form and interviews. The form asked about his education, his parents, his current job, etc. Even after jumping through all those hoops, it's not even assured that you will get the card. However, if you are a normal couple in an actual marital relationship, you are going to get it.

In Germany, I showed our marriage certificate and my passport and I got the first visa. Of course, I had to spend a day in New York going from the city government office, the county government office and the state government office to get an apostille from each for the marriage certificate. An apostille is an official notation that says a document is legal that foreign nations must recognize. Thank God, I am American. Europeans, Americans, Israel, Australians, South Koreans, Japanese and New Zealanders can just show up. People from other questions have to enter the country with some German skill. As a citizen of the United States of America, I had the ability to start life here without knowing any German.
Yes!
USA! USA! USA!

Wir sind jetzt Kielers - We are Kielers now

In 2009, we moved to Kiel from Hamburg because he had a contract to work in Kiel. Because contracts are not permanent, we maintained our cheap little apartment in northern Hamburg. When he was offered an full-time job in Kiel, we had to find an official place to live. We were living in furnished apartments in Kiel and we needed to find our Home.


It is a bit confusing because Germans do not categorize apartments by the number of bedroom. There is no official way to deem that a room is officially for sleep. In Europe, built-in closets are rare [except for newer domiciles], so you can't use the American determinant that a bedroom must have a closet. A friend here, Tanja, said a "room" is any room that you can sit in. Using her definition, a kitchen, a bathroom, a hallway and a cellar are not "rooms." Asmus and I were looking for a three-room apartment. A living room, a bedroom and an office/guest bedroom.


The temporary apartment that we lived in in Kiel sat in the epicenter of Kiel. We walked everywhere and were surrounded by restaurants, parks, water and museums. We wanted to keep that lifestyle. At first, we looked to buy because the prices were so low. However, because the prices were so low, owners don't want to sell. We saw some real crap. We looked at an apartment for 180,000 euros in an apartment missing doors sitting in a building that had mold. As an owner of an apartment in this building, we would have to contribute to fixing this.


We soon gave up and looked for a rental. I saw apartments with no parking; apartments with room for the kind of refrigerator I used in college; apartments without tubs; and apartments with microscopic "bedrooms". The most frequent problem was that two of the rooms were merely separated by pocket doors. It was really one room with a partition.


After almost nine months of looking, we took out a long-term lease on the apartment we had been living in for two years. Our saint of a landlord took out all the furniture, dinnerware, electronics, paintings, sheets, towels, etc. that we didn't want and left all the things we did.

Life is different in Germany.

Obvious, right?

One of the biggest differences is in the fluidity of migration. No one leaves where they grew up or where they went to college. In America, my friends and I followed work. I knew my family and friends would always be there for me but a paycheck was much more fickle.

One of the things that keeps Germans immobile are the tenancy rules. When you leave an apartment, it must be in move-in condition. Spotless, newly painted and empty. Some of the newer apartment stock has FIXTURES. Most apartments come with floors, walls, radiators, sinks, a shower and a toilet. That's it. Tenants bring refrigerators, stoves, ceiling and wall lights, medicine chests, mirrors over the sink, kitchen cabinets, kitchen countertops, and toilet paper holders.

Armed with this knowledge, Asmus and I moved officially moved to Kiel over three months from September 2011 to December 2011.

We personally moved all our clothes on one trip. The DVD player and TV on other. The idea that Kiel was our home was real when we moved our bed. While we spent most of our time in Kiel, we spent a lot of time in Hamburg. "HH" was where family, friends and the bed were. Because of these people, Hamburg was our real hometown. Because of our very comfortable beds, the cozy apartment in the Volksdorf section of Hamburg was our home. Plus, with a bed there, we could stay out all night in Hamburg. With no bed, we had to plan according to a clock.

We put various parts of our life in the trunk and the back seat of our car and hauled them to Kiel over different weekends from September through October.

In our former home, a packing box lay behind the side table we bought at a Hamburg flea market
for the "new" apartment. Our air mattress/bed sat next to our prized purchase.

In the "new" apartment, a packing box, which was waiting to be thrown away, sat on the old sofa and leaned against the new recliners we had bought from Ikea.

When we moved all the things we could, Brigette, Asmus' old housekeeper, cleaned the apartment. Then, Asmus ripped out the countertops, shelves, medicine chests, carpets and mirrors and we hauled things to the dump and to the recycling center. These were long weekends that ended with us sleeping on an air mattress. In November, we hired moving men to take the rest of our lives to Kiel.

With all the furniture out of the way, we started to clean. Without furniture and carpets, all the undercover dirt was visible. We attacked it with a variety of cleaners, chemicals and tools. Before he quit October 3, 2008, Asmus was heavy smoker. The landlord demanded that we get rid of all the yellowing from the years of tobacco. This required some special potion. Removal of the ancient carpet created one set of problems and required a different potion and tools. After these excruciating days, we had to drive 75 minutes back to Kiel. The apartment had no dishes, towels or refrigerator, so there was no living there.

When the cleaning was over, then the painting started. That was easy. We used some industrial strength stuff that only required one coat, so I got sick the first night. The one-coat stuff took two coats in some places, so painting took two sessions. We left all the light fixtures and with the clean up after the painting, we were officially done. November 20, 2011, I left for America.

We are Kielers now. Kielers who are frequent visitors to Hamburg. I have my own bedroom at Asmus' mother's house.

Some More Fort Worth

Everyday at 11:30 a.m. and 4 p.m., about 15 longhorn cows are paraded down Exchange Avenue in the Stockyards section of Forth Worth. The Stockyards section was home to large, working stockyards. Cattle were brought in and out of the area before being shipped across the country in the late 1800s. Later, they were brought to the stockyards to Armour and Swift meat processing plants.

Today's parade is a tribute to that past. Tourists line both sides of the street to watch. I really enjoyed my day in the Stockyards. You can feel the history of Cowtown. I learned that Fort Worth is more than highways and shopping centers.

Here is a view of the pens that used to hold cattle.

Mission Creek flows underneath and behind all the activity in the Stockyards.

On Exchange Street, stands a statue of legendary bulldogger Bill Pickett.

This African-American cowboy invented the bulldogging technique. His method required biting steer on the lips to get them to submit. He learned that from the dogs that helped him in his work.

The remains of the stockyards.

Fort Worth or Bust!

Downtown Fort Worth. Note the tan building on the right and the brick building on the left.

Those are two very popular building materials in those parts.

I had a horrible flight. After flying international, American domestic flights are real letdowns. There is no legroom. No legroom. Right before the woman in front of me went to sleep, she put her chair back as far as it could. That meant that her chair was about eight inches from my faces. When I checked in, I was offered the opportunity to buy an first class for $135. I thought about it but skipped it. I would have paid five times that amount in order to move. There was also no food, no movies, no television shows, no nothing. The four-hour flight from Newark to Dallas-Fort Worth was about three hours shorter than my flight from Germany and I got all of those things.

Texas is blessed to have Dell company call it home. There were computers with free Internet access sprinkled throughout DFW. I sent Kara an email that I was early and my cellphone was not working. I went outside and waited.

After living in brusque northern Germany, it was nice to be inundated with "Please," "Thank you so much," "Have a good day," "Yes, Ma'am," and "Oh, I'm so sorry."

I was met with a world of tan. The outside of the airport was tan. The parking garage was tan. The nearby hotel was tan. I waited and was excited. It observed all the cars. There were a lot of white cars. In northern Germany, there are a lot of black and gray cars. Go Figure.

Kara pulled up in a white car with her young daughter in the backseat. I feel old. I used to hate it when my parents friends used to note how big I had gotten. It was obvious to me that I had not gotten any bigger. I was the same size as always. I was tempted to say this but I kept the words in. It was so relaxed and cool.

I had some goals for my time in Texas and fulfilled all of them.

Eat egg foo young. [This faux Chinese food makes me very, very happy. This delicacy has not made it to these shores.]

Eat big pieces of meat, especially with bones/

Eat good Tex-Mex.

[Michelin recently started awarding Germany a lot of stars. However, these accolades are mostly for gourmet restaurants that serve great French fare. Germany is not an ethnically-diverse nation, so the food reflects it. The most popular cuts of steaks have no bones and no fat. Mexican food has no kick but does have cream in odd places. Chinese food is as bad as it is anywhere but there is no egg foo young. Germany has many "Asian restaurants," serve food allegedly from China, Japan and Thai under one roof. Therefore, there is a variety of bad food to be had in one place.]

Visit one of the amazing art museums in Fort Worth.

See the place where JFK was shot.


Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check.


It was cool to hang with Kara and her parents. Parents make me nervous. I am constantly making sure that my elbows are not on the table. However, Kara's parents are welcoming and interesting. Her mother, Kathy, was sincerely interested in my life in Germany. I felt honored to go to a blues club with her father, Robert. It was like hanging out with Frank Sinatra in 1965.

Kara had so much going on. Graphic design class and coordinating Angel's various lessons was a sight to behold. Plus, she and her husband, Josh, are renovating some cool houses in Fort Worth. Despite all this activity, we talked, ate, shopped. I love gift shops. I was happy that Kara and Angel moved as slowly through the superb Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth as I did.

As polite and delicious as Texas is, I didn't fall in love with Fort Worth or Dallas. From my short, three-day visit, it seems that the area is beige buildings and shopping centers connected by highways.

 

A view of downtown Fort Worth on the way from DFW airport.

I needed to go to the store for some juice. To get to the Albert's supermarket from my hotel, I had to cross over a wide highway without a fence. It was the most stressful that I have done in a long time. I had to do this twice. Residential and commercial areas do not mix.

If you need bread, you need to hop in your car to drive along I-30 to get to a store. Also, museums are segregated. The Amon Carter Museum, the Kimbell Art Museum, the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History, the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame, and the Modern sit away from the houses and stores in city's Cultural District.

While one shopping center looked like the other, houses were not carbon copies of one another. Plus, there were no rowhouses or massive housing projects.

I enjoyed my time in the company of Kara and her family. I cannot wait to see them again. It will happen before 2016.

Back in the USA

A brick from the stockyards in Fort Worth, Texas from the Thurber brick plant.

Christmas just passed but I must mention Thanksgiving because I spent it in the country of its origin. Yes, I went home! Twice in one year. I wanted to take a trip somewhere but not spend much money, so I headed to the United States of America.


I left the hustle and bustle of Germany and landed in JFK a week before the big day. I got the inquisitive immigration officer. But I didn't flinch:


Holding my American passport in my hand, she asked:


Sooo, what brings you here?
Umm, the chance to argue with my family after a big meal and feel awkward in front of an old friend. [Note Bene: Her quotes are real. Mine are not.]




You reside in Germany, right?
Yup.



Do you work there?
I'm a freelance writer and I teach English. The English language.



Soooo, you moved to Germany to teach English?
Exactly, I got tired of using my degree in journalism, so I decided to move to a nation where I am .0000000001% of the population. I don't get enough weird stares here in New York.



OK, have a good trip.





That hurdle was over. Now all I had to do was get my luggage. Yes, my luggage. My dear husband, Asmus, decided not to come with me because he wanted to use his remaining vacation days in 2011 to program in his underwear. [Note Bene: This is not an exaggeration.]


Well, of course, my luggage was in Heathrow, while I was in JFK. That was annoying but fortunate. I planned to pick up my luggage and taking it to a FedEx office near Penn Station after catching a monorail and the Long Island Railroad. Now British Airways was going to send it to my friend Marie in Pennsylvania for me. I just had to stand around for about an hour to discover the loss [Fortunately, I stood at the baggage carousel next to an airline employee. While we chatted about nothing and she pulled suitcases off the machine, she told me that my bag was not coming. I learned that baggage handlers put a little plastic basket on the conveyor after the last bag. The little basket arrived and my little black suitcase had not.


I was late to meet my friend Jennifer for dinner. That didn't matter much because my cellphone didn't work in the United States. I sat in the Starbucks at Penn Station and sent an email apologizing to her and then went to Newark.


I was flying to Fort Worth, Texas, the next morning at 10:15, so I booked a room at Comfort Suites not far from Newark Liberty Airport. Cory Booker is a great man but Newark at night is still a spooky site. It reminds me of Midtown Manhattan in 1989. I hopped in the dirtiest taxi I have ever sat in. I was a shade too tired to argue with the shady cabdriver. A shade. I asked him if he knew where the hotel was and he told me to get in. I asked him if he knew where the hotel was and he told me to get in. I asked him how much it cost to get there. He said ten dollars; I sighed and got in. Five minutes later, we pulled up to the hotel.



The room was huge, takeout food came directly to my room, there were lots of newspapers in the lobby, and a nice woman helped me make my Belgian waffle [a little too much help. The maneuver was quite similar to the contraption we used at college. Every college probably had Sunday Belgian waffles. It is nice but not very complicated to eat on the Lord's day. I took her instructions with a smile]. The heat in my room didn't work but when I asked for help, someone came quickly. When the Wi-Fi went out, someone quickly fixed it. That's all I want for $70 a night.


Then it was off to Texas.


I had never been to the Lone Star State, but I had a good feeling about it. I like places where people are super proud. I had a roommate who went to college in Texas from Pennsylvania and she was always flashing Hook 'Em horns and talking about how Badass Texas is. When people in Germany learn that I moved here from New York, they ALWAYS respond, "Why?"


I was really excited to see my friend Kara. Kara and I fall in and out of each other's orbit. However, when our worlds meet, it was always amazing. I have Spock-like tendencies and experience most human interaction with confusion. People do things and say things that may or may not be true or correct. It takes me a few seconds to understand to separate fiction from non-fiction. I never have to worry about that with Kara. She is real, so I am just relaxed when I am with her. I was going to see her after an absence of about five years. I was 90% certain it would be great


I was 110% correct.

We shall not be moved

Occupy Wall Street protesters were evicted early Tuesday by Mayor Michael Bloomberg. While Zuccotti Park is being "cleaned," American demonstrators can join their German bretheren at Occupy Kiel. Yes, there are people protesting in the capital of the German state of Schleswig-Holstein [Population: 238,000].



There are about 15 tents and, I guess in a nod to the movement's American roots, a teepee set up on the law outside Förde Sparkasse, a bank only located in SH. They are not camped out in front of a national bank because this bank has a space.

About a month ago, there was a lively protest on a shopping avenue. A nice woman offered Asmus and me a flyer against a different bank. As bank's being the source of our income, we kindly declined the offer. Since then, the protest is mostly silent. There was a demonstration last Saturday. Mostly, the protest consists of people sleeping on the grass and slogans spray-painted on the ground throughout central Kiel and signs glued on posts throughout the entire city.

Part of me is proud to see people protesting things in Germany. This nation is a great welfare state. People live, not survive as they do in the United States, for years on government money. Unemployed people have dogs because they get money to feed the dog.

Part of me thinks the protests are funny because there is no 99% versus 1% here. Banks got a lot of money from the government. However, the opera and the ballet gets millions every year. No one seems to mind that. I admire that government wants to preserve the high arts. However, I am not sure if the millions should go to art forms that relatively few people enjoy.

I am not sure about the impact Occupy Kiel is having here, but it is cute, isn't it?