17 Feb 2000
Nuremberg, Germany

So we spent the turn of the century in Germany. Many times when I was a child I thought about the turn of the century but I would have never guessed that I would be spending it in Germany as an ex pat. Pretty kool. New years eve was very exciting. We decided to stay in Nuremberg and go into town to see how the celebration was going to turn out. Well we got more than we bargained for. The town was packed with people so that you could hardly move. This I guess we could have expected. What we did not expect is that most of the people were armed. Not with guns but with fireworks. Not little tiny things but major explosives. People were walking around with back packs with this four foot sticks coming out the back. Attached to these sticks were rockets that would shoot high over the church steeples. There is obviously no law forbidding this and these things were going off in all directions. No one was taking precautions due to the large size of the crowd and these things were constantly whizzing by your head. We waited until midnight downed a glass of champagne and headed home before the town set off their fireworks. The town fireworks would have been anticlimactic at best.

We have had a number of great ski trips including an entire week in Verbier Switzerland. The hotel was full of Americans and it was interesting for us to observe and to take notice of how much we have changed over the last few months.

The skiing is unbelievable but I will not bore you with the details other than to say we literally got lost one day and ended up skiing for about three hours in search of a town or a lift or for that matter any sign of a groomed type ski run. We did find the town and from that point a few runs and lifts and we were back to the town our hotel was in. Very exciting way to ski. Oh about an hour before we got lost we did a very touristy thing and had our picture taken with a Saint Bernard. A couple of times while being lost I was hoping that dog would show up with that barrel around his neck. The rest of the week was not as eventful except we did ski the steepest and the deepest we have ever skied in our lives. For those of you who are skiers I will go on some other time in a bar somewhere because the stories are many and the skiing times magnificent.

The language in Switzerland is interesting. This place is truly the tower of Babel. They speak French, German and then English. They carry this to the extreme so that at one point when you are driving through the country the road signs all turn from German to French. We had one very exciting moment trying to book a dinner reservation at an Indian restaurant. The woman spoke Indian and French only. So I tried my French but out came German then I tried again and out came English. This poor woman was so confused but somehow we made the reservation. Her last confused question to us was "Where are you from!?" After this we decided that we are actually tri lingual, well that is if you only count about fifty words.

Miles and Frank in Montreaux

On the way home we stopped at Montrauex (only about an hour from the ski resort) and walked Lake Geneva.(this lake is another example of a confusing thing with the English giving it one name the French another and the Germans a third name) What a beautiful part of the world with the mountains literally shooting straight out of the lake. The rich and the beautiful also frequent this town and they were very evident by viewing some of the living quarters on the lake. The weather is very temperate and palm tress and other tropical plants were all around. (It was not tropical heat but warm for February) We decided that if we could we would come back for the jazz festival in June.

Now for a few cultural things that continue to amaze us how different this world is than the one we are use to.

You say hello and I say goodbye. Remember this song? I am sure the Beatles wrote this after being in Germany. We do a lot of this. Imagine you are in a dentist office waiting room. You need to say hello to ever person who comes in and goodbye to every person who leaves. You do this in unison with everyone else in the room. This also applies to all other public areas. It can be brutal after a long wait with lots of traffic coming and going. I guess it is nice we are all so friendly but it is a bit much. One day we had a table at a restaurant near the door. Well we ended up greeting and saying goodbye to everyone in that place. How very strange

One of the things that struck us after living in a foreign land for a number of months is that all the things you use are now in German. You may say well that's not such a revelation and I suppose it is not. The fact remains that it is strange because when you move you bring a lot of things with you and as you go through them you slowly but surely turn German. The first things are things like toothpaste, Q-tips, and shaving cream. These items were all things that we brought from home but after a few weeks you need to replace them with German brands. Then there are things like flour, plastic wrap, and even Tobasco. Yes the Tobasco bottle is written in German. There are many more things that fit into this category like cleaning products and spices. What in the world is Zimt or Nusskamuss. Well we have them and had to figure it out. Maybe this does not seem like a big deal to you but somehow it showed us just how much our lives have changed.

Along the same lines These are the things we have not done for over eight months now. Things we use to take for granted. Many we miss many we are glad are out of our lives.

• Used or even touched American money
• Seen a TV show (other than news) in English
• Understood the DJ on the radio
• Seen a baseball or football game
• Gone to a movie
• Rented a movie
• Read the Sunday paper in paper form
• Wandered through a huge bookstore like Barnes and Nobel
• Worked in our garden
• Mowed a lawn
• Shoveled snow
• Drove route 93
• Worried about getting a pencil to someone in under two hours (only United people will understand)
• Drank bad beer
• Worried about LPH (only United people will understand)
• Had lobster for dinner
• Had a outdoor barbecue
• Listened to our telephone answering machine
• Sue has been unable to sit at a lunch table at work and understand the conversation unless someone takes the time to translate. (I do not worry since I eat lunch by myself )

What we have experienced that we feel is very cultural is a German hockey game. What a great show this was. Our team is the Ice Tigers. We are really proud of this team unlike our football team (soccer). To digress for a moment the football team we have not seen. Anytime you bring it up people tell you how embarrassed they are by this team. They mean because they of their record. We think they are embarrassing because they have no name. Really. They are just called FC1. Which stands for football club. When they play the headlines read The Club looses. We find this strange due to the fact that other teams have names. Maybe they will get a name some year and they will be better. As far as the Germans not wanting us to see them because they are so bad, they have no idea that our baseball team has not won a pennant since they were ducking and covering from allied bombers. Oh well we still plan on seeing a game some day.

Back to the hockey game. This stadium rocked from the beginning introductions when everyone in the stands lit sparklers in the darkened stadium while smoke machines were in use so that the players could skate through the smoke and flame machines as they were introduced. All this while numerous drums that the fans brought were being beat and American Rock n Roll from the sixties was blaring. It was really kool. When the game started the drums and the music never stopped. The fans knew all the moves to each song that played and taunted the other team throughout the match. When we scored confetti flew and flags waved. We won 5 to 2 so it was a great time. I give the fans credit there was never a dull moment, even when the other team scored we had a song and a taunting cheer to let them know that would be their last goal for a long time. The train ride home was full of rowdy fans and the conductor kept stopping the train and yelling over the loud speaker. We have no idea what he was saying but the only effect on the crowd was to make them more rowdy. These European sports fans take this cheering for their team stuff real serious.

Well this note is long so I will save our German drivers licesene story for a separate mailing. It may be the strangest thing we have had to put up with to date.