Tuesday, 3 August 1999
Nuremberg, Germany

The saga continues. You would think with the world supposedly getting smaller and smaller that most everyday things in life would be the same around the world. We are finding they are not. Here are a few examples: Sue is noticing at work that everyone is watching the way she eats. She then starts to notice that the Germans never put there knife down. they pick up there knife and fork and use them in tandem throughout the meal. The knife is used as a sort of shoveling utensil to get food onto the fork. We also learn that it is impolite to not keep your hands on the table. I thought this was interesting. Imagine you are a young child growing up in the states your mother is constantly telling you to keep your elbows off the table, and that you are eating like a slob using your knife to shovel food onto your plate. then you move to Germany and hear your friends mother yelling at him for not having his hands on the table and why can he not just hang on to his knife once dinner has started. I think this type of thing answers Rodney Kings question "why can't we all just get along"

Speaking of the name King, it continues to confuse me when I see roads and schools named after Martin Luther. I think how very strange that a German school or road would be named after an American. then I realize that it was an American named after the German. I guess I am just to easily confused.

Another exciting thing about everyday life happened last week when I went shopping for a washer and dryer. It turns out that they are the same machine. That is first it washes then it drys. They do have units that are separate but in a lot of cases like ours there is no room for two machines so they make the same machine do both. Now weather this really works or if they just figured I looked like the guilliable type, I do not know yet but today we are going to find out. The other interesting thing about this machine is that there is no vent for the air. Sue questioned the sales guy about this and he seemed to think it was a strange question. Sometimes I feel like Alice going through the looking glass. Oh, and yes it is Ken and Barbie sized. I think we can wash more than two pair of socks at a time but not a lot more.

We spent a day in what is called cultural training last week. This is a service that Lucent provides to help introduce you to the host country. Well, we have been here for two months and I figured we would not learn much but here are a few facts that surprised us. It is illegal to wash your car on Sundays in Germany. It is illegal to bar b que more than five times a year. I know that last statement just about killed all you Texans and the rest of you are also shocked but that is life in this strange land. If you are asking who is counting we have not figured that out yet, but we are on the look out for a shady looking guy in a trench coat with a little notebook with check marks by all the addresses. It will probably not be long before I m writing to you from a German prison. It will be embarrassing when the bank robbing murderer in the next cell ask me what I am in for and I have to answer barb b queing. Maybe if I throw in washing my car on Sunday he will have more respect for me.

We were also told that Germans do not smile a lot. It was brought out that if while walking down the street if someone of the opposite sex smiles at you they are making a pass at you. Based on this assumption I was molested yesterday. While I was walking down the sidewalk my path and another woman's path crossed. I moved left and she moved left, I moved right and she moved right, then we both moved left again. At this point she looked up and smiled and laughed out loud. I felt so violated!!!

Other news from Germany is that we continue to enjoy ourselves. We travel on weekends and have spent a great weekend in the Black Forest, plus went to see the German Grand Prix. The Black Forest home of the cuckoo clock and big beautiful dark forest where the hiking is great. Getting to go to the Indianapolis 500 and then the German Grand Prix is a racing fans dream. The greatest cars and drivers in the world and on two different continents. Does it get any better? Weekdays we continue to take long walks in the evening and stop at different beer gardens. I hate to become a beer snob but going back to Budweiser and those silly frogs is going to be hard. It is not like drinking yuppie beer here it is just really good tasting beer that is made at each town and it is noticeably better.

Oh I forgot to mention something that will probably put a sardonic smile on all your faces. Remember the garage I told you about. The one that the cars sit on top of one another? One day I go down and push the button for my car. It starts to raise up and then I hear it. A terrible ripping grinding metal noise. there is nothing I can do but stand there and let it happen. The car does come up but with no front end. that has been ripped away. One thing that is universal in this world is that they have insurance companies and the issue is now in their hands. Now everytime I push this button I just cringe.

Language continues to be our biggest barrier to getting an even better understanding of living in this country. We continue to learn but are a long way from holding conversations. I will update you with more later on.