Archives for July 2006

The only way to stay cool these days is to move around as little as possible, have cold drinks and ice-cream and go swimming.
And that’s exactly what I did :)

On Monday I went to the public spa pool with my aunt and my cousin Nicki. She had brought her godchild along. Yasmin is 13 [naturally looks older like most of the teenage kids do nowadays] and she asked my cousin how old I was. My cousin told her the truth, but she wouldn’t believe her and asked me again to confirm what she had just heard. Then she told me that she thought I was not a day older than 24. Ah, you must love that girl :)
I have to say, it was the first time in maybe 8 years that I had been to the public spa pool in my town. A lot has changed [we have two of these fancy water slides now], but then again, so much looked exactly the way it was when I was there the last time. The one thing that left me dumbfounded was the admission fee… 3.60 are wholly freakin’ expensive for a spa public pool.

Yesterday I had two tutoring lessons [which are a pain in the a** on hot days like that] and then Silke picked me up and we went to an ice-cream place in my town [with the best Italian gelato ever, I have to add]. She only lives about 20 minutes from here and it was really nice that we got the chance to meet up and spent the afternoon together.We chatted about this and that and hardly noticed how time flew and the first time we looked at the watch, it was 3 hours later.

Today, I had two tutoring lessons again [yes, I tutor every day right now] and then I went to the spa pool again. It was really the best idea to spend the afternoon there with the occasional leap into the pool. It’s the only way to stand the heat [unless you have a sprinkler in your backyard!].

I am definitely not made for this weather. I am sweating without even moving. Is this supposed to be right? The thing here in Germany is that most houses don’t have air-conditioning. Houses here are just not built that way. We’ve had hot summers before.. YES… but not like this year [or 2003 for that matter]. We do have basements though. This is probably the only place in the house where you can go and don’t sweat.I’ve been pretty used to hot weather, because the Central Valley always gets freakin’ hot in the summer. I used to work with long pants and a sweater, because our office was blasting the AC while it was over a 100 F outside. I agree… you shouldn’t freeze in the office during the summer, but it was a lot more bearable than this right now. The worst thing: hot feet. They drive me crazy. I’ve been doing cold feet baths on a regular basis lately.
Browsing through some other blogs, I’ve noticed that we’re all in the same boat right now. So I won’t complain anymore ;)

I went to my gynecologist on Monday. Yeah, I know you probably aren’t too interested to hear about this, but if you are a woman, you understand what a sensitive matter this is. So I am moving away in a couple of weeks… to a different country. What am I to do? I had my gynecologist since I was a teenager. I don’t feel comfortable to go and see anyone else about my private parts.
But now get this: my gynecologist actually offered me to come and see him for the annual check ups :) Even though I won’t have health insurance in Germany anymore in a couple of months and I most likely only come home once a year [if at all]. Isn’t this awesome? There are nice people out there!

One thing we don’t really have in Germany foodwise is Mexican food. Yes, we do have some Mexican restaurants, but Mexican cooking is still very rare… partly due to the high prices for Mexican-style groceries. So whenever I come home for a visit, my sister asks me to bring tortillas… a lot of them. On Tuesday she invited me and her best friend for dinner and she made fajitas – a meal that Jon and I cook on quite often, because it’s easy, fast and soooo delicious :) We also had Caipirinhas… REAL good ones this time and I had three! Thanks God that I went to my sister’s place by bike.Yesterday my sister and I hung out with an old friend from College. She’s dating a French guy, she temporarily has a French roommate and we talked about the “chuckholes” of communicating in different languages. Ha, that was hilarious. We were sitting on the little patio attached to the back of her city apartment nestled between other apartment buildings and probably the whole neighborhood could hear us laugh!  This morning I met with Jessi in Neuss for some coffee. We met online and she’s married to an American as well. I got to meet her hubby too which was really nice. It’s funny how you meet people online who share the same experiences and  [have] face[d] the same problems. It feels really good though to be able to talk to people who understand. Thanks for the great time:) [I know you read this, Jess!]Now I am waiting for my girl Kim to get here :) She spontaneously decided to get a ride with someone today and stay with me for a night before she heads over to Pia’s wedding this weekend in Düsseldorf.

We went out Friday night – Ira, my sister Nina, Dirk and I. We wanted to have dinner in Düsseldorf and then go to a cocktail bar or something like that. We decided to try out a sushi place…Sushi and Soul. They had this really cool area where you were sitting at these low tables on the floor and where your feet were actually dangling in a whole in the ground below the table :)

It was Nina’s and Dirk’s first time to have sushi. Well, let’s put it like that…. for many people it’s an acquired taste. Just the look of it might be a little disturbing for the Western civilizedmeals of meat and potatoes.

But Nina and Dirk liked it. Dirk liked it so much that he decided to finish the Sushi platter that he and Nina had ordered together and she had to have the second entree of grilled fish.
Afterwards we went to a cocktail bar and Nina, Ira and I ordered Caipirinhas. Dirk was so nice as to be the designated driver and let us girls drink :) Bad idea. The Caipirinhas were terribe… they just tasted like alcohol. But what do you do with a 7.50-cocktail? You drink it. Bah… it was so disgusting and had the effect of a sleeping pill on me. I was about to ask Dirk to carry me back to the car.

I could have fallen asleep in the car if we hadn’t stopped at McDonald’s and Dirk hadn’t done the funniest thing ever. We used the drive-thru and he ordered our late night-ice cream cones in a Saxon dialect. I could have peed in my pants. I am not putting down the Saxons here, but everybody who knows the dialect must admit that it sounds funny. I could hardly keep it together when we drove up to the window to take our order. Dirk usually is a shy guy, but sometimes he outdoes himself :)

The rest of the weekend was pretty relaxed. The high pressure area is still keeping Germany in an oven-climate. I spent most of the days in the backyard with a book. My aunt came over on Saturday afternoon and my Mom made strawberry tartlets. Oh, I love strawberries. And I love iced-coffee. Which reminds me of the Saturday before last when I met with Kim and Ilka for coffee in Düsseldorf and the waitress at the café had a hard time getting my order straight. I ordered an iced café latte… neither did I want an ice [cream] coffee, nor did I want the ice crushed or anything. Just ice cubes in my latte. Is this asking too much? ;)

Well, you would think “Who would come up with THAT?”… well, Kristine did out of a strange mood of being a married woman now and she’s serious about it. This is her only SPF task this week.
So, this might be kind of weird, but I am posting a photo of my feet… luckily, I kind of like my feet, so I don’t care too much.

Now I want to know… DID YOU PLAY?

well, we all know who wriggled their way into the World Cup Finals… so I am not even going to mention Sunday night and the outcome. I just want to quote Franz Beckenbauer asked for his impression of the World Cup, especially the gathering of thousands of people from different countries for the public viewing of the games:

“That’s how God imagines the world.”

Well said. The whole World Cup was just amazing and a matchless event :) The host of the next Soccer World Cup will have a hard time living up to the expectations.

I went to IKEA today with my sister and my Mom. I love IKEA. I could buy the whole store :) Unfortunately I have to contain myself since I can’t take much stuff with me to CA… but it’s really, really hard. I couldn’t help but buy a few tiny little things [and if I hadn’t bought them, my Mom would have done it… *lol*]. I bought some nice place mats and I was going to buy some very nice sheets and pillowcases – they are so much less expensive here than in the US that I decided to buy them here, but Jon has to measure our blanket so that I can buy the right size.

Oh yeah, and I am little bummed today – because Jon went to see Pearl Jam in concert last night. My all-time favorite band. Of course he had bought a ticket for me as well, because we both thought that I would be back in CA for a while already at that time… now he had to try and sell it and it’s just so unfair that I didn’t get to see them :( It has been much too long. I don’t know if it should be kind of comforting that living in LA will actually give me the opportunity to see many bands in concert on a regular basis. I just hope that Pearl Jam will be among them again. They are usually not playing too many gigs anymore.