Sonntag, 19 Septembre
Nürnberg, Germany

We have been very busy for the last few weeks. We have had three sets of visitors. The first was Sue's sister and her family from France. It was nice to see them and not be jet lagged. We had a great time even though the total eclipse of the sun was on a cloudy day. The next set of visitors was my brother (Brad) and his wife. They made the most of their two weeks by seeing almost everything there was to see. They purchased a pass for the trains while in the states and made the most of it. Then my parents arrived. They made an effort to really get to know the Nurenberg area as well as some side trips to the Alps and the Franconian country side. Yes, to you New Englanders this is where Franconia really is. It was great being a host and getting to show off where we live. It made us feel that this is our home. We look forward to other visits. We are especially excited that my sister Jana and her family have purchased plane tickets to arrive this spring.

Sue and I have taken up the Bavarian tradition of Wander on Sundays. You pronounce the W as a V and what it means is hiking. It sounds much more relaxed and freewheeling when you call it Wander. Bavarians love to hike and on Sundays you will see many people out dressed in traditional clothing going from town to town. You end up sometimes hiking through towns on roads and other times up big hills in deep woods but always always you end up at a gastthaus or beer garden. Sue and I have not taken to wearing leder hosen yet (although I do like those little hats with the feather) but we do occasionally partake in the beer tradition.

On the day to day stuff we are still finding out that we know very little about how to survive. Let's take something simple like paying your bills. This should be relatively easy. You get a bank account and get some checks and pay your bills. WRONG. There are no checks. So we have this bank account and these bills but we do not know how to get the two to work together. Lucky for us I run into a guy at the bank that speaks English. He explains that in Germany all bills are paid through wire transfers. So when you get a bill you take it to the bank fill out a form and they mail it to your creditor. You can also do this online but that is for another day when our German is better.

The other part of the money issue is credit cards. In the States we would charge everything. It was convenient and a good way to keep records. In Germany about half the places we go will not accept credit cards. We do have this debit card called an EC that some will take but in their infinite wisdom they set a limit on this card. The limit has nothing to do with your credit or how much money you have in their bank it is just a limit. So when you are buying everything for your house like we were it can cause some big problems. We would go to a furniture store (large ticket stores like furniture and electronics stores never take traditional credit cards) and buy a couch then off to the electronics store to buy a TV. Well, the electronics store tells us that our EC card is denied. I know we have plenty of money to cover the TV so I call the bank. They confirm that we do have the money but that we have spent to much money already and that we cannot spend anymore. I complain and tell them it is my money and if I want to spend it I will, yet they are holding the account and they tell me that I need to wait for a week before they will allow more to be spent!!!! Now you can go down to the bank and they will give you cash but they will not allow you to use the card. This is madding but then again this is not the good old US of A.

AH, the post office makes us feel like we are at home. Rude arrogant people who act as though they are the worlds most important people. They have this cute little trick of doubling the amount it cost to send a letter if you use an American envelope. Oh, you say you didn't know there was such a thing as a German Envelope and an American one? Well, the difference is very slight but they have a measuring device they whip out and when they see it is an eighth of an inch to long they double the price with a smirk. So when in Germany leave your American envelopes at home. (I think Karl Malden said that) I also think that Truman and Churchill should have worked out an envelope agreement with everything else.

One thing I do not think I have mentioned about driving. The lights here go from red to YELLOW to green. What this does is cause a driving culture that has us starting to go on yellow. I know in the states that we use the yellow before the red to infer that we should speed up but here it is more like the start of a formula one race. You sit at your red light and wait for the yellow and then throw your car in gear and in most cases never see the green because you are already half way through the intersection before it turns green. I personally think this is kind of neat and have not yet witnessed any accidents caused by this custom.

Language still remains the most difficult thing. Now I think I understand why Oskar elected to just beat on his drum. (extra credit for those who know the literary reference in that line) We are getting better but we are a long way from holding conversations. We can speak in short phrases and we hear more words everyday. I am watching a German soap opera to help improve my pronunciation as well as to practice hearing the language. This is working well but some people think it is strange that I have learned phrases like "The baby is not yours," " Your wife is with another man" and "I have a terminal disease" but to me and my soap opera this is what is important. Sue on the other hand is learning German from other engineers at work. I could never understand that stuff in English and now she is going to start with acronyms in German. I think I will start to tape the soap opera for her so that we will be able to communicate.

In the last few weeks we have taken a boat ride down the Danube, visited the town and castle at Coburg,and have been back to the Alps for a day of hiking. We continue to take long walks at night down the paths that are designed for walking and biking. Some nights we climb up to the castle and marvel at the view over our town. We are also trying to get to all of the 1700 restaurants in Nurenberg. Sue continues to enjoy her new position and my days go by quickly but we still live for the weekends and the trips we can take to enjoy our new country. This has been and we assume will continue to be quite an experience. We are really enjoying noticing the differences between this world and the one we came from. Now we are getting ready for October fest which is really in September. I have to sign off for now because we need to spend time on a strategy that will allow us to drink the most beer at the most places. Life is Grand.