Mixed Emotions...

Hey all! It's been a while since my last post, and I have to say that I'm feeling quite out of practice! :) Things have been going well here... I've definitely been keeping very busy! I've really enjoyed being able to spend some extra time with family and friends... But, I have to admit, the time has flown by and, unfortunately, I still haven't had time to see everyone I wanted to see... Crazy!

As for my visa "situation", it looks like the paperwork has finally been processed and everything has been approved... Thank goodness!! I mean, it only took the German government 2 1/2 months to figure out what they had to do... (I'm not bitter or anything! :)) So, by the looks of things, I'll probably be heading back to Germany in the very, very near future.

I have to admit that this whole situation has made me slightly bitter with the German government... It has shed new light on their culture, and it has definitely made me a much prouder American! And, as much as I look forward to going back so that I can see Brian again, I'm having a difficult time with the fact that I have to leave the U.S. and say goodbye to everyone AGAIN. I had a hard enough time saying goodbye back in August, but after being there for a few months, I finally started to adjust to life over there and I was doing quite well... And then they decided to send me back here. And, in turn, I've readjusted to being back here in the good ole USA... And now, I have to go back and do it all over again...ugh! And, don't get me wrong, I really shouldn't complain... It's a great opportunity for us and I truly appreciate that. But, at the same time, I'm still finding this whole situation slightly difficult.

On that note, it's time for me to head back up north... I'll keep you posted on when I get to return to Germany... And then, get ready for my daily blogs to start back up... yay! :) I'm sure I'll have plenty to blog about!! Have a great Thursday!!

Fastnacht in Überlingen

Okay, I am taking a break from my usual Sunday afternoon task of studying German to give a quick update as to what has been going on.  Obviously, since I am still writing this it means that Kristin is still not here, but the good news is that the longest she will still be gone is less than a month. So that is good news.  I finally got to meet the person in city hall who has been giving us the run around.  He kind of reminded me of a German Tony Soprano but with more grey hair.  We had to give them (again) our original marriage certificate.  One of my colleagues must call tomorrow to see whether or not the certificate needs further legalization.  Of course, it will, and then that will take another week to get done, and then I will resubmit to them and that of course will take another week for them to review, and…you get the point.  By further legalization, I mean more stamps.  I am not 100% certain that the notary stamps from the USA are accepted in Germany so it might need to be stamped by a notary here in Germany.  I have no idea how this is accomplished but I will probably find out tomorrow.  This country’s soil is not comprised of dirt, rock and minerals, but of stamps, certificates, and books with rules that may be vaguely interpreted.

 

Yesterday I decided to go skiing and it was not the best day.  The weather forecast called for partly sunny skies at the mountain, but when I got there it was totally in the clouds and snowing.  This is what I found after a longer than usual drive to the hill caused by snowy roads.  But there was no point in going back home.  The traffic on the way back was still packed with people leaving Austria.  Saturday is the big travel day because when people book ski holiday weeks here they typically run Saturday to Saturday.  So you get an exodus coming into and out of the country and the bottleneck is a tunnel between Austria and Germany called the Phander Tunnel.  They are currently expanding it, but it won’t be ready until 2011.  You can wait hours getting into that thing at peak times with your only other option going through Bregenz Austria.  That is what I took on the way back because it is not so far out of your way going to back to Friedrichshafen, and even though you are going through the city, you are at least making progress and not at a standstill. 

Skiing with clouds is not very fun.  If the clouds are dense, like those I found at the top of the mountain, it can seriously reduce your visibility to perhaps only 20 feet.  The problem is exacerbated by the fact the clouds and the snow are nearly the same color. The lack of contrast gives you no sense of space or speed.  So basically you have to be very careful and keep your eyes on the next trial marker.  Thankfully, I was already familiar with the runs at this mountain so that made it just a little bit safer.  A bit lower on the mountain, the clouds were not as thick and you could see farther, about 100 yards, but still you have a problem with contrast, which makes it very hard to read the terrain so you can get surprised by big bumps or other variability in the snow.  And since this was the only place where people could ski, that is where everyone was skiing which meant the runs got torn up pretty quick. 

So I put up with it for about 2 to 3 hours and then headed back home and went to bed. 

 

When I woke up from my nap, I got onto the second part of the day, which was to go to Fastnacht.  This is celebration we would liken as a cross between Mardi Gras and Halloween and is considered to be the “fifth season” to those who celebrate it.  Our friend Maike invited me to this.  She grew up in the town of Überlingen, which has celebrated this festival since the Middle Ages.  Everyone gets dressed up in costumes and begins the night by watching a very interesting parade that winds through the narrow streets.  The highlights of the parade are the bands from Überlingen and the Hänselejuck.  The bands play the anthem of Überlingen as well as other traditional music that is only played at this time of year. The Hänselejuck (pronounced hans-alla-yuck often just reffered to as hans-alla) are comprised of men from the area.  Traditionally, you had to be born and still live in the area to be a member.  Today, you must meet what I guess you could call a group consensus that you are “from the area” but it is still a strict requirement that you be a man.  They dress head to toe in a very elaborate costume that cost upwards of 1000 Euros.  They are primarily black with the colors of red, green, blue and yellow in horizontal stripes about every foot.  Basically it is a pair of pants and a shirt and the material is layered in little strips like that of some Native American dress.  They wear hoods with very small openings for the eyes and the hoods have a foxtail on the back and a trunk on the front.  At the end of the trunk is a small red feather duster, which is usually covered with perfume.  If you are not completely lost trying to figure out what this must look like, they also carry hemp whips as part of the costume, which they use for remarkable demonstrations throughout the parade.  Basically as they go through the parade route, they run up to women, and tickle their noses with the red feather duster.  They will also take their hats, try to scare them, mess up their hair, pull them into the street for a dance, and grab younger girls (12 years old or so) and run away with them.  You might think that girls would want nothing to do with these guys but it is actually quite the opposite.  Younger girls will put themselves to the front of the crowd in order to hopefully get some attention from the Hänselejuck.  It was described to me that the mystery of who they might be is actually what makes them attractive to the girls.  As for the whips, they will occasionally stop and get into groups of 1, 2 or 3 spaced about 10 feet apart.  They push the crowd back and then with FULL force crack them in the streets.  It is louder than a good size firecracker and when they are swinging near you, you pray they don’t miss.  It is really cool and quite the crowd pleaser. 

 

After the parade, everyone pretty much goes to the various bars and drinks.  You can stay out until 7am if you want.  But I went home at midnight because that is when the last train left.  Kristin will definitely want to see this but maybe it’s better that she waits until next year because then we can make up some good costumes for the occasion.  The festival goes on for almost one week and each day has a main theme.  I think the Saturday during the festival is considered to be the biggest party day.  

 

Here are some links to videos so that you can satisfy your curiosity of what the parade is like and what the Hänselejuck look like.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9pPFBwTRvA&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMNyWH6g1ss&feature=related

The Goings On...

Okay, well I now have a few minutes to actually sit down and type something.  Currently, I am sitting in the airport in Valencia Spain.  Don’t get too excited about hearing stories of Spain unless you want to hear the finer points of tugboat engines and ship firefighting systems.  Because for the time I have been here that is really all I have been doing, morning ‘til night.  We got our work done early though so I am going back to Germany today and when I post this I will be back in Germany.  One thing I will miss from here is the weather.  It is 18 degrees Celsius here, which is about 65 to 70 Fahrenheit.  I would describe this area of Spain to be very much like Arizona.  It is somewhat a desert-style landscape with palm trees and mountains in the area.  The BIG bonus is that they have a very nice body of water nearby, the Mediterranean Sea.  The architecture here is very unique.  I have not been anywhere else that has a similar style.  Some of their more modern buildings are VERY modern and would probably look a bit odd and a little too progressive Euro for most people in the States.  The rest are very boxy, usually earth colors and about 5 to 7 stories tall.  So that is about as detailed a description I can give you unless you want to hear about the boat I was working on.  One final thought however is this…the accent of girls in this country is what I can only describe as…very distracting!  Not to diminish the girls of Germany, but there just is no way to make the German language sound sexy.  It is many things, but one word you will never hear used as an adjective for the German language is sexy.  Speaking of sexy…

 

Update on Kristin

There is still no news with respect to Kristin coming over.  I am pretty sure that we are going to be waiting the full 90 days, which means that she will be coming back on March 17^th.  I have utterly no confidence in anyone to end this sooner.  I made one last email declaration to the company, which was not even responded too.  There is a common saying in business that success has a thousand fathers and failure is an orphan.  This is a big screw up in our company caused by unqualified persons complete lack of planning and understanding of their own city government.  With the aid of hindsight it is very easy to see that this transition only needed planning and someone who knew what was needed.  I was not the first person to come over here and I am astonished that there are no best practices or lessons learned taken from past experiences of others who came before me.  Rest assured, a memo describing my experience (in detail) will be drafted at the end of this assignment.  This will be attached to an officially translated letter to FN city hall. 

So for now, Kristin is spending an extra “summer vacation” in winter at her parent’s house. 

 

Austria-Skiers Paradise

To help fill the weekends, get outside, and burn off some frustration, I have been regularly visiting Austria.  Austria is only about a 30 minute drive from where Kristin and I live here in Germany.  What’s better, it is only an additional 30 minutes from world-class skiing.  Coming from Detroit it is still unimaginable to me that I am in essence driving the distance from Detroit to Flint, but instead of being in Flint, I am in Park City Utah, Whistler Canada, Vail Colorado, etc…  There are literally hundreds of places to ski and all that I have visited are very modern, scenic, and challenging.  In general, they are steeper slopes than what we have in the States.  I would basically rank the European system to be one grade higher than our system in the US.  Basically an easy slope here is a medium in the States, a medium here would be ranked hard there, etc…  It took me a few runs to get a feel for the difference in slope but once I felt comfortable managing it and made some adjustments it was just fine.  It’s more in your head then anything else.  The last two weekends I have gone to a city in Austria called Schruns (pronounced schroons).  The ski area itself is called hochjoch (don’t try). It is a pretty big area with one ski run that takes you 12km (8 miles) from the very top of the mountain at about 7000 feet to the very bottom. The runs are one black to two red (so pretty steep).  Because it is very steep you are really pushing your legs hard to turn at higher speeds and to keep control of your speed.  By the bottom of the hill you are sweating.  I did this run three times in row two weeks ago and even with the 15 to 20 minute ride back to the top; I was shaking at the end of the third run.  It was AWESOME!  Last weekend I went with my friend Dominick, his girlfriend Eva, and Dominick’s other friend Clemons.  Eva started the morning in ski school and came out just fine if perhaps a bit on the cautious side.  I think Kristin and her will make great ski buddies as they both have about the same temperament for skiing.  While Eva was in the class, we three boys took turns wearing a helmet that had a camera connected to it.  Dominick normally uses this for skydiving but adapted it for skiing.  So with this helmet we could each play cinematographer following one another or going ahead and watching the others ski by.  I am going to get a copy of the footage so that I can edit it to music and so on.  This is another great way to kill some time.  It was actually a lot of fun but the problem is that when you start to get really fast and go onto more difficult hills it’s hard to keep watching the person you are filming and not looking where you yourself are going! 

When you are done skiing for the day in Austria most people sit at an outdoor bar and drink various drinks most of which have schnapps as the main ingredient.  They are quite strong but quite good and nice relaxing way to discuss the day, enjoy the view, and soak up what’s left of the sunlight.  I plan to go back again this weekend, and probably every weekend as long as there is snow on the ground.  It certainly beats running on a treadmill at the gym and once I am back home in the States, I know I will miss the skiing a lot! 

Just for the record, there is skiing relatively close by in Germany, Switzerland, and Italy.  Germany is okay but the mountains are not as big.  Italy I have not tried due to the distance (it’s close but not a day drive).  And Switzerland is just too damn expensive.   I am sure I will get over there just to say I did it, but I really can’t justify the cost.  Lunch on an Austrian mountain is about 10euros.   You are paying more than double in Switzerland.

 

A German Displaying Emotion at Work????  What Next?

Yes, that is right!  I witnessed a sight I think is more rare than the passing of Haley’s Comet.  I really hesitate to complain about the way guys in the office act.  They never get high or low, angry or sad, just a very even slightly above average attitude day in and day out.  Even when things are very wrong or they get frustrated, they never really show it.  They just continue on.  What they think in their heads I have no idea, but if they are mad, they have a great poker face.  I wear my emotions right on my sleeve usually so I am definitely a black sheep over here in this regard.  But their consistency in staying middle kind of keeps me a little mellower.  But I have to say that it was nice to see someone get a little pissed off just to show me that some of them have the potential to do it.   This person basically has accumulated over 600 FAKO hours, which are basically overtime that the company pays you by allowing you to take that time off. Any amount of time worked in the day over 7.5 hours goes into this account.  So basically this guy was working his nuts off and I think just got a little hot about it.  All the guys in the group are very young and on average have probably not worked at MTU more than 2 or 3 years.  I personally don’t understand workaholics who work these kinds of hours and it is a bit more rare here in Germany.  I understand the concept of hard work and you should do your job while at work.  But when you run up many hours like that, what are you working for? You might say that you work that hard so that you can get a promotion.  And then what do you get?  You get more work.  And unless they are giving you a 250% raise, you really are not going to get too far from your current lifestyle.  Going from $20K a year to $60K a year will make a HUGE difference.  Going from $60K to $70K will probably be damn close to imperceptible as far as a change in lifestyle.  But I give him credit and wish him luck.  I was just happy for the change of pace where it was someone else who was getting really pissed off at work!