insensitive

seen in a German supermarket two days ago

translation

I just finished my first freelance translation job :-)) Made me feel like back at uni, with a bunch of pages with almost illegible Chinese characters and a stack of dictionaries (and a couple of great online ressources - how the heck did people do translations BEFORE the internet???), talking to myself, analyzing nested Chinese sentences, drawing characters in the air to count the strokes and getting to the point where I had to look up a character again that I could swear I'd only looked up 5 minutes before.

The topic wasn't that interesting - safety requirements for die casting machines. And it took me AGES. But it was fun to realize that I still do know Chinese, that Simplified is still easier to read after three years in Taiwan and that obviously, I DID learn something at university. And it kept me busy. And it pays well :-)

i want to go home and watch movies :-(

I took H to watch a Korean movie, Bin Jip, at one of our arthouse theaters on Sunday night. The theater is cool, up on a hill, just behind the zoo, with a giant old-style cafe out front and a big theater with seats that even H considered not too uncomfortable. They have an interesting program, similar to SPOT and are pretty cheap. Judging my after-movie daze (quote H: "Huh? Why would you need more time than usual to manage the stairs?"), the movie was terrific, very dream-like, and quite a few cats. (H didn't particularly like it. Mind you, the last movie he watched in a theater and liked was 2001: A space odyssey that he watched in the early 70s).

But - everything there is dubbed :-((( It didn't really ruin the Korean movie because there hardly was any dialogue anyway. But we watched trailers for two movies that I wanted to see when they start in the theaters, Don't come knocking and A Love Song for Bobby Long. And seeing the dubbed trailers made me decide against it :-( It would basically ruin the experience. H got a bit mad at my arrogance to expect theaters here to cater to my exclusive taste by showing sub-titled original versions while the average German gets prickly heat even thinking of reading subtitles. But I love watching movies in theaters. My extensive DVD collection is only a poor alternative to the big screen :-((

hotel iris

After seeing Sarah off on Friday, I got a call from my ex Bernhard. He was in the area on business and asked to come see the house and spend the night. He had met H a couple of times while I was in Asia but had never seen the place. He got the full tour, we had dinner with H at my favorite Czech place, and then Tuesday and I fell asleep on the sofa while the two of them talked. Both having an agriculture background and both having bought an old house and doing most of the renovations themselves, of course they had loads of things to talk about. I watched them from the sofa for a while and for the first time ever realized how similar they actually are. Not the looks, definitely not, but the way they behave, they think and socialize.

Later that night, my brother turned up to spend the weekend because he wanted to go to the Game Convention. He came back early Saturday evening, played around on my laptop, shared dinner and left sunday after noon because he still had to pack for his flight to Beijing on Monday.

Looks like at least some things are similar to Taipei :-)

two sleepyheads ;-)

Sari with her big cast

huh?

I keep making mistakes: not signing papers that I need to sign (so that authorities won't give my name and address to just anyone who asks), answering questions on the phone before realizing that it's just somebody trying to sell something, opening the door for people who want me to sign a subscription, taking the wrong papers to the doctor, not punching my train ticket BEFORE getting on the train, still taking ages to look for the right coins, getting up in the restaurant to pay at the door, stopping at the zebra crossing instead of just going but crossing when I'm supposed to stop, asking stupid questions...

The problem is that since I look and speak perfectly German, people tend to be bewildered if not irritated. And I guess the explanation "Sorry, I've only been in Germany for three weeks, and it's all still very confusing" doesn't really help either.

elbows

Sarah just came back from the doctor. She got here two days ago after a promotion stint on Mallorca where she was paid to sell sweets in the biggest disco place. Didn't really make much money. But she has a niiiiice tan now.

Anyway, she arrived here the day before yesterday with a hurting elbow after falling on it. As she had forgotten her health insurance card (Germany has a similar system to Taiwan, everybody has their health insurance card with all personal info on a chip), we had to get her a paper from her health insurance yesterday morning so that she could go and see a doctor. Managed to do that and then started looking for a doctor whose practice would be open on a Wednesday afternoon :-S Found one, she paid her 10 Euros doctor's fee (a new system to releave the massive debts in the German health system - doesn't seem to work very well and is, as lots of German inventions, so utterly complicated that nobody really gets it), didn't even have to wait too long, and he sent her off for x-rays. We walked to the first place he said would be open on a Wednesday - closed. We walked to the second place, actually right next to our house, and it was PACKED. And it turned out, her doc had forgotten to stamp the referral paper, so they wouldn't even take her name down to see her. We had to walk back to the practise to get the stamp. As the lady in the x-ray place had been sort of unfriendly and it was so packed that she'd probably only have gotten her x-rays late at night, she decided to wait until this morning and go to a different place (and we did some sight seeing instead).

She got up early this morning, got her x-rays fairly quickly, and it turns out - her left head of radius is cracked - the exact same bone that I cracked on 20 November last year when I walked out of a pub at 3 in the morning, with a couple of GTs too many and saving a (girls!) phone number in my cell phone. And not minding where I was going. And suddenly finding myself on the floor, wincing with pain after I had overlooked a couple of ankle-high barriers. (For those who don't know the rest of the story: I went home that night but could hardly sleep due to the pain, had to ask my neighbours to help me out of my sweater and went to a hospital early the next morning. The emergency doctor looked at the x-rays, immediately pulled them down from the light box, raced over to his colleague, and they called a specialist. It turned out the head of radius was cracked in three pieces which had to be taken out immediately as they were causing the pain. I was in surgery the next day, Sunday, at noon, spent one night at the hospital and was back at work on Tuesday. Except for a scar and the fact that it looks a bit crooked, my elbow is fine. And a friend of mine turned my three bone pieces into a cute little mini sculpture. - Btw, the barriers have been replaced with something less dangerous in the meantime)

Luckily for Sarah, it's only a crack, so no surgery, just a big cast. Unfortunately, she's going to Spain for a seaside holiday on Saturday :-( no swimming for her this time.

rocky horror picture show

I made my 22 year-old baby sister watch the Rocky Horror Picture Show tonight (she'd never seen it but having a somewhat older sister and brother, at least she knew the title - I've met kids her age who'd never heard of it before - gasp!).

Her judgement: "It's ok. But I guess to love it, you'd have to watch it a couple of times." 8-S

friends

I finally started emailing all those friends in Germany and around the world that, my bad, due to my busy social life in Taipei got shamelessly neglected in the past two years. Some actually answered immediately, old flat mates, class mates from Chinese class, friends I met in Tianjin and old friends from Taipei who have moved away. Everybody seems to be getting married or having their second child - gasp!

Thanks to all those who responded. I'll try to keep in touch more, promise!

revenge

Michele just took revenge for my breakfast table picture. Aaaaargh, that's not fair :-((((

cold :-(

It's early august, outside temperature is about 20 degrees, and Tuesday and I are freezing cold. I've been coughing and sneezing since we got here, keep wearing my self-knitted woolen socks and the woolen sweater I must have left here a couple of years ago and happened to find again in a corner of H's cupboard (nothing else to wear until my stuff gets here) and am living on cup after cup of hot tea. Tuesday hardly sheds anymore, already has a winter fur and always freezing cold ears, meows me out of bed the moment H closes the door behind him in the mornings, keeps exploring the apartment for the sunniest spots and follows me around so she can jump on my lap the very second I sit down (like right now) - something she only does in winter. H found her cuddled up under my blanket in the bed the other day and got terribly mad because I'm not supposed to let her in the bedroom (I had told her not to get caught but forgot about her when I went out). But - I found the perfect place to hibernate!!!! The water lily house in the Botanical Gardens.

They had a night special tonight because some very rare water lily is flowering, so I walked there (like about half the population of Halle). And entering the water lily house was like coming home to Taipei: warm and humid and comfortable :-)))) I guess I should get a season ticket, ask them if I can bring my cat and figure out if there is wireless access somewhere around.

family weekend

We had H's nephew and niece + boyfriend sleeping over this weekend and basically spent the whole weekend with them and their parents (H's sister and her husband who happens to be H's boss). It's awfully cold already (and I've been sneezing and coughing since I got here - and am waiting for my stuff, so apart from a bunch of summer clothes, I have like 2 pairs of long pants and two sweaters), and it kept raining. But we managed to inspect the pride and joy of H's company, their growing premises where they store and treat different chemicals in a small town nearby and their storage area in Magdeburg with giant tanks set up during WWII (my brother-in-law loves to tell people that they were set up by - gasp - Albert Speer) on Saturday and went home with a detour to the spot where the Mittellandkanal crosses the Elbe.

Sunday (just like Saturday) was started off with a biiiiiig German family breakfast, followed by a boat trip on the Saale (which unfortunately was interrupted by a couple of showers), followed by a couple of coffees and hot chocolates in a street cafe (that provided soft red blankets for those who dared to take a advantage of the scarce rays of sun), followed by a walk to the Halloren- and Salinenmuseum, the museum set up on the spot of one of two former salt springs here, the main source of pride and income in Halle for many centuries (mind you, nowadays, it's H's company that provides them with the brine they use for demonstrations), followed by a walk across the historic city center and a dinner in one of my favorite places here, a Czech restaurant.

sunday breakfast table

my breakfast contribution: my first (red currant) cake in 4 years (and it was gooooood :-) )

showers during the boat trip

the salt museum

the local tv and radio studio on the left-hand side, the newly built Handel Halle with authorised graffities on the right-hand side (Handel was born here, so he's everywhere).

part of the historic city center of Halle

flickr

I'm fiddling around instead of doing something "real" (after I was a good house wife this morning, cleaned the kitchen and did about 5 loads of washing) :-S Anyway, Tuesday is asleep in my lap, and I couldn't get up anyway.

I just reorganized my Flickr page and set up some real albums. Keep watching for changes ;-)

cell phone

Conversation in the cell phone shop:

Iris: "Hi, do you have some time? I need a contract plus a new phone."
Sales guy: "Sure. What kind of contract do you need?"
Iris: "Well, it should be one with cheap text messages because I text-message a lot."
Sales guy: "No problem. We have special SMS packages with cheap text messages."
Iris: "Do these include text messages to Asia?"
Sales guy: "Asia?"
Iris: "Yes, I want to send text messages to Taiwan."
Sales guy: "Oh, so you'll be spending time in Taiwan and want to take your German cell phone?"
Iris: "No, all my friends are there."
Sales guy: "Oh, I see. Your best friend is moving to Taiwan and will take her German phone, and you want to message her?"
Iris: "No, all my friends are there, and they have phones with Taiwanese providers."
Sales guy: "Oh, so your best friend already moved there and has a Taiwanese cell phone?"
Iris: "Sort of :-S Anyway, I want to message Taiwanese cell phones with Taiwanese providers. What's your lowest price for that?"
Sales guy to his colleague: "Huh? Do our SMS packages include that?"
Colleague: "I don't think so."
Sales guy to Iris: "I'm sorry to tell you that the low price of our SMS packages does not include text-messaging Taiwan."
Iris: "So, what does it cost to send a text message to Taiwan?"
Sales guy: "Normal price: 19-20 Cents/message."
Iris: "But my brother used to send me messages, and he swears he only pays 13 Cents."
Sales guy: "Yes, for messages within Germany, it can get as low as that."
Iris: "No, he used to send me messages to Taiwan."
Sales guy: "To your German cell phone?"
:-S