The girls have been back at the International School for a month now and already they’ve posted an announcement about a lice outbreak. Just the thought of lice skeeves me out… tiny little bloodsuckers hanging out in hair & feasting on the blood of their human hosts. Yuck. It makes me itch all over just thinking about it.
But here’s what I’m wondering: why is it still such a big deal here in Germany (my part anyway)? I’ve had kiddos in school systems both in the US and here in Dresden, and I can’t remember ever hearing about an outbreak in the States. There have been at least 4 during our time in Dresden. Why is that?
Sunday: Cut 4 inches off my hair figuring it was good for about a quarter pound. Contemplated doing crunches.
Monday: Great up until 3:00. Then pastries entered my home and willpower left the building.
Tuesday: Decided to eat everything in sight since I’d already blown it on Monday. Then felt guilty after seeing photos of a friend’s skinny wife… pushed plate away and went for resentment walk.
Wednesday: So hungry I considered eating the hair I cut off on Sunday. Hair can’t have many calories, right?
Thursday: Dude’s dog food started looking good. Contemplated shiving the pup for his Cesar Selects.
Friday: Ate everything in sight, Jabba-the-Hut style. Must work on moderating my urges.
Saturday: Mixed bag. Ate fast food twice but also moved from one hotel to another, which was an all day process and surprisingly strenuous. I figure the two cancel each other out.
Sunday: If it’s good enough for God, it’s good enough for me… a day of rest. Plus a lot of yummy eating.
End Result:
I’m down 2.5 pounds. Not too shabby. At this rate I’ll have lost the entire 40 pounds by late June. Wait…. that can’t be right. That’s a long time! Dieting sucks.
Plan Of Attack For Next Week:
Eat less.
Buy workout outfit and visualize myself wearing it while exercising (baby steps).
Avoid chips, cheese and kasebrotchen (damn near impossible).
Take Dude off his leash, scare him, and then run to catch him before he gets away.
This weekend we’re set to move out of the lovely (read sarcasm) Artis hotel and into the lovely (seriously this time, it’s supposed to be lovely) Parkhotel in Radebeul. This is being done for multiple work related reasons by Jim’s employer. And while I hear the new place is loads nicer, I’m ambivalent. First off, a hotel is a hotel in my book. They all start out ok but after a week or so you can’t wait to leave. Did I mention we’re stuck in hotels until early-to-mid April? Then there’s the commute. From where we’re currently staying it’s about 15 minutes to get the girls to school. From Radebeul (a suburb of Dresden) it’s between 30-40 minutes. That’s 2+ hours a day spent commuting to & from the international school. Yowza.
Plus I’m a city mouse. I gravitate toward metropolises (is that the plural of metropolis? Metropoli? I’m confused…). I’ve heard Radebeul described as ‘quaint wine country’… rough translation: tiny village where not much happens. Will anyone speak english? Will anything be open past 6:00 or 7:00. Will I be within walking distance of shops/restaurants/civilization??
Heh, woe is me with all my 1st world problems, right? Break out the violins. I just need to remember that a year ago I would have killed to have this as my biggest worry…
No, this isn’t about anger management issues… those, for the most part (heh), are under control. This is about my weight and not wanting to be the clichéd Fat American living in Germany.
I’ve come to the realization I’ll never be thin-thin. The whole ‘heroin chic’ look fronted by the Kate Mosses & Twiggys of the world just isn’t in my dna. I’m all boobs and butt and curves in an era when ‘zaftig’ is a thinly veiled insult. But just because I’ve accepted that I’ll never be skinny doesn’t mean I want to be fat either.
Does that make sense?
I actually lost a decent amount of weight and felt ok about myself back in 2007. I even managed to keep it all off right up until Jim got the heads-up Qimonda was tanking and it was time to look elsewhere for employment. That was October of 2008. Then a serious case of the self-pities set in: we moved back to America (Mecca for all things fast/junk food); I got a sedentary job that left little time for exercise; I missed my adventurous expat life tremendously (which led to mope-eating)… and all the while food was the salve my soothed my tortured soul.
I mean, whoever said: “Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels” has clearly never tried Taco Bell’s Crispy Potato Soft Taco at 2:00 in the morning.
This was all well and good until my life (thankfully) course corrected. Being back in Dresden again is awesome. I’m picking up where I left off, only with a renewed respect and appreciation for everything. There’s not a day that goes by that I haven’t thought, ‘How fucking cool is this!’
Except for the whole weight thing, that is. I’ve gained roughly 40 pounds over the past 15 months– all I’d lost before plus some. And while I fit right in with Americans, here in Germany I stand out like Kevin Smith on a Southwest Airlines flight, and that’s not the way I want to be remembered.
But hey, the first step to redemption is admitting you have a problem and asking for help, right? At least that’s what all those 12-step programs are constantly yammering on about. So here’s what I’m going to do: so as not to annoy you, dear reader, I’ll try not to fixate on the whole dieting/weight loss here in my blog, but I will be posting a weekly (Sundays) update recording my progress or lack thereof. I do this because I’ve always fared better when I hold myself publicly accountable.
What I ask of you? If you’ve got any dieting/exercise tips, bring ‘em. Even if you don’t, just post and wish me luck, because lord knows I need it. And if you happen to see me lumbering through the streets of Dresden? Don’t point and yell “Shamu!!” before running in the opposite direction UNLESS you catch me gorging on currywurst & fries… because then, hey, I totally deserve it.
Being the parent of a teenager isn’t easy. If you don’t believe me, just ask one (parent - not teen). We’re the poor beleaguered souls in the corner cringing and shaking our heads. We vacillate between scared to death and majorly pissed off. Some days we still see the sweet, helpless baby we cradled so gently in our arms not all that long ago, others we’re mentally counting down the months/weeks/hours/seconds until they’re off to college.
I’m sure a lot of you are reading this in complete disbelief, and that’s ok; come talk to me when your little darling hits sixteen.
The point of my post is this: parenting a teen is hard… that’s a given. But parenting a teen in Germany? Uber hard. At seventeen Robyn can legally drink and has been able to do so for a year now. She’s not technically allowed to smoke until 18, but that’s a joke… scoring cigarettes in Dresden is easier than picking up herpes from Paris Hilton’s toilet seat.
And don’t even get me started on the whole subject of sexuality. Suffice it to say that most of her pals regularly have boyfriends sleep over at their houses, only to have mama/papa greet them in the a.m. with a big smile and a steaming hot cup of coffee. It’s just… the way it is here.
This approach has worked for Germans for decades. Teens go out & drink & smoke & fornicate to their heart’s content. Yet they still manage to grow into responsible adults capable of making rational, well thought out decisions (well, except for the whole voting Hitler into power thing, that is…). I can’t help but feel it’s different for expat teens though; they have to take it to a whole new level because they can. For Germans, it’s just the way things are and always have been… you get to be a certain age and it’s what you do.
But for American teens? It’s all taboo. Suddenly their definition of an exciting night goes from hanging out at the mall with friends to clubbing until 2:00 a.m. while drinking vodka, chain smoking and trying to hook up. It’s like being denied food all your life and suddenly finding yourself at an all-you-can-eat buffet: you’re gonna want to eat your weight in shrimp and, god damn it, no one’s going to stop you.
So what’s a parent to do? More importantly since this is my blog… what the hell am I supposed to do?? Do I deny her the right to go out with her friends? Do I say if I ever catch her drinking or smoking she’s grounded for a yearmonth year? Do I lock her in a gilded cage, attaching a chastity belt to one end and a breathalyzer to the other?? Or do I practice what I’m always preaching: that we should embrace Germany and all its customs and traditions while we’re here. I mean, what’s the point of being an expat if you’re just hanging on to your old traditional views?
When it Rome, right?
Only, this is my kid we’re talking about. And nothing turns perfectly reasonable adults into raging hypocrites quite like child rearing. For now I’ve adopted a military, don’t ask/don’t tell approach to the whole thing. And to Robyn’s credit she hasn’t come home reeking of booze, smokes and regret… yet. But that day will probably come, huh? And right then and there I’ll be forced to take a stand. I just hope I’m ready when the time comes.
And man, what parallel universe am I living in when I come off as the prudish one?? I got a 30 minute lecture the other day from the mother of one of Robyn’s German friends, who claims it only makes sense to give her future boyfriend a key to our flat so he can come and go (no pun intended…) as he pleases.
Quick note: most of these photos were taken early in the day, long before it got too crowded to maneuver and before people were overly amped/spoiling for a fight (there are assholes in every crowd, sigh)…
This was taken driving toward the Neustadt. All you could see was police van after police van.
Even though you can clearly make out five helicopters in this shot, it doesn’t convey how many were hoovering or how incredibly loud they were…
The police were yelling not to take pictures of them or they would confiscate cameras, so we had to snap these quickly:
Protest march along the Elbe.
At the Frauenkirche… which really should be the focus on Feb. 13th:
Tons of people came out on a freezing cold, miserable day because they believed they could make a difference. Imagine if we all got up off our collective asses and fought for one or two things that were really important to us… the world would be a better place.
Looong day. We left at 9:00am, made it back to the hotel at 6:30pm. Our car is still trapped in the Neustadt off of Koenigbrueckerstrasse. There’s no crossing the bridges, trams and trains aren’t running, and the neustadt/aldstadt part of the city (transit-wise) is a mess. Roads are blocked everywhere and I saw people on all sides of the protest acting like angry idiots. That part was disheartening but not unexpected.
We spent the first half of the day with protesters in the Neustadt, where a sit-in (among other things) was staged at the train station in an attempt to keep the Nazis at bay. It was pretty damn impressive, but seeing people setting fire to things and screaming at the police made me wonder if, aside from core beliefs, they were behaving any differently from the people they claimed to hate.
The Human Chain was different… we were over by the Synagogue and the protest had a much better vibe to it. It was supportive, peaceful and calm. It reminded me of those really old ‘we’d like to buy the world a coke and keep it company’ commercials. The only thing that made you aware something serious was happening was the constant buzz of helicopters and a massive police presence.
So which was more effective — the angry and physical blockade @ the train stations, or the peaceful remembrance of the chain? I guess it depends on what you’re trying to accomplish. My mind tells me fighting fire with fire got more done today, but my heart says enough bad things have happened in Dresden on Feb. 13th. And my aching feet and back scream I should have parked my ass on the couch and watched tv all day.
Still, as we were walking home half frozen, with sore everythings, we both agreed we’re glad we got out today and did our part. Now if only we could get the car…
(will add a few photos to this post tomorrow… too tired tonight)
Dresden is about to celebrate the 65th anniversary of its worst nightmare: the 1945 February 13-15th bombings by the Allied Forces. Over the course of 2 days the city (home to countless historic landmarks) was obliterated. First Dresden exploded and then it burned; the fire taking nearly everything.
If you’re interested in an American’s first-hand account of those days, look no further than the amazing Kurt Vonnegut. Slaughterhouse-Five - part fiction, part factual account of his stint as a POW in Dresden during the bombings - probably does more justice to the carnage than anything else I’ve read. When asked about it once, Vonnegut had this to say: “You guys burnt the place down, turned it into a single column of flame. More people died there in the firestorm, in that one big flame, than died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined.”
Powerful stuff.
We’re talking almost four thousand tons of incendiary devices (in-cen-di-ar-y : Military: a shell, bomb, or grenade containing napalm, thermite, or some other substance that burns with an intense heat.) raining down on Dresden. Roughly thirty-thousand people lost their lives in a raid that swings ominously close to the definition of a war crime.
And do Dresdeners hate the Allied forces.. the Brits & Americans… for what happened back in 1945? Some do I’d imagine. Hell, I get pissed thinking about it and I’m not even German. But Germany is my home now. More specifically, Dresden is my home. I’m immensely proud of that fact… love the city, love its scars and its resiliency and its place in history. I especially love the juxtaposition of rebuilt landmarks and intentionally left bombed out buildings. To me it says: ’see? we rebuilt this… we were down but never out. we’ll also never forget; each time we drive by the remains of this church or that monument, we’ll not only remember, but honor those who died’.
This Saturday marks the 65th anniversary of the bombing and should be a time of peaceful reflection. Unfortunately the past few years it’s also been used as a rally cry for Germany’s neo-nazi fringe faction. Every year supporters of the NPD roll into town and makes as big a spectacle as they possibly can. People are hurt, ambulances are overturned, but what’s worse: the real meaning of the day is overshadowed by all the grandstanding. This shouldn’t be allowed to happen.
For decades, the bombing of the city has been marked on 13 February in various ways. Over the past years, right-wing extremists from across Europe have chosen Dresden as the destination of a march on that date. It is one of the largest marches organised by the extreme right wing. For this reason, on that day it is no longer enough for us to silently remember the victims of the bombings.
The human chain is to serve as a symbol for our commemoration of Dresden’s destruction, and as a reminder of the dangers of right-wing extremism. It is to protect the Altstadt in Dresden symbolically.
Who is involved?
The Mayor invited a group of institutions and individuals to arrange the events of 13 February together; they came up with the idea of forming a human chain. The human chain is a civil society project which this group is responsible for organising. Those involved include the churches, the Jewish community, sports organisations, unions and democratic parties on the city council.
Where will the chain be?
At this stage of planning, the route is as follows: Altmarkt – Seestraße – Dr.-Külz-Ring – St. Petersburger Straße – Synagogue. The formation of the human chain will follow a speech by the Mayor in front of the city hall at 1 p.m. What happens after that is still being planned and will be announced before the event.
Roughly 6,500 neo-nazis are expected in Dresden for the march this Saturday.
Will I be there to protest them? Yes. And so should you if you’re in the area, nearby, or so inclined. Is it safe? Probably not the safest, I certainly will keep my mouth shut (tough though it will be…) and do my best not to advertise the fact that I’m American. But demonstrations are never really about safety, are they? They’re about standing up for something… think Tiananmen Square, Vietnam, Myanmar.
Honoring the dead and standing up for democracy in one fell swoop is a hell of a way to spend a Saturday if you ask me…
called 1-800-comcast to see how we need to go about getting a new one. they pretty much told us we had 3 options…
a). go to our nearest service center to switch out with a new one
b). have someone come out to test it, make sure it’s broken and then they can give us a new one… but not until this person forces us to sign up for a service contract for 2 dollars a month.
c). option b except refuse the service contract and be forced to pay up to $60 for the visit
well clearly options b and c piss me off… so i went to the internet to try and find out where our nearest service center is… which i believe is not actually close at all, and not even in our town… which would also make this option not cool.
as i sat waiting for the website to not load… i grew more and more aggravated that this simple thing was going to end up being a pain in the ass… eventually, i found out the info i was looking for and it was as i feared… there is no service center remotely (heh, remotely) close to where we live.
but, before i finally got this info… i had a live chat with damien from comcast (yeah, how appropriate… i know)
it went something like this:
me: hey, can you tell me where my nearest service center is
satan: good afternoon, can you tell me what services you currently have with comcast
me: internet, hd cable
beelzebub: can you give me your address
me: (typed in my address)
prince of darkness: can you give me your zip code
me: (typed in my zip code)
devil: oh hey, we’re just a third party selling plans for comcast… you’ll need to contact your local office
me: yeah, ok… ummm… can you tell me where my nearest service center is
The company Jim is working for is international but his position is ultimately based in America. He’s in Dresden on long-term assignment, and there are pros and cons to this (as with anything in life), though up to this point it’s all seemed doable and fair. Enter health care.
When I heard we were getting Aetna Global I thought it was a little weird… just seemed like such an American company for living in Europe, but I figured everyone knew what they were doing and it would somehow work within the confines Germany’s system. Then yesterday I got our insurance cards and decided to check out what doctors accept our plan… and there is a whopping ONE in all of Dresden. Seriously, just a lone general practitioner and that’s it. Even better: the nearest hospital on their plan is in Berlin!
So if there’s an emergency… say I slip walking on the ice and crack my head open… I’d best not bleed out on my 2+ hour drive to Berlin. Not to mention there are no pediatricians, OB/GYNs, internal medicine specialists, oncologists, etc. Nada, zip, zilch.
Also, everything must be paid in advance by the patient and reimbursed at a later date (there was a vague reference to ‘reasonable expenses’ being repaid, and anyone who’s been to a German doctor knows they’re big on follow-up and return visits, something I doubt an American company — where health care is ultimately a profit based business — would consider reasonable). There was some talk, though the rep we spoke to wasn’t sure how it works, that we could give them the name of doctors here in Dresden we’d like to see and they’d call them to ask if they’re willing to accept Aetna. Even at that we still need to pay all fees up front and submit for reimbursement… something that’s not a big deal if you’re healthy, but the more medical conditions you have, the more often you shell out.. it could really add up.
So please someone tell me you’ve had/have this company and it’s not as bad as I’m imagining? Because I’m guessing going back to Jim’s employer and asking them to switch providers is a little like tilting at windmills, and I’m no Don Quixote…
