Adios Doucheland, Hello VIENNA!!

Nov 25, 2009
How almost appropriate so close to Thanksgiving Day in America, I can now say "PRAISE THE LORD I'M LEAVING GERMANY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" After much desperation, I finally got a job in Vienna, AUSTRIA NOT GERMANY and will be leaving hopefully in a month!!! We will give our wonderful apartment realtors notice today, hopefully they will not tie us to the 3 mos notice on the contract if we can get someone sooner. Today is a countdown of only 1 more month to listen to the 5 hrs of awful piano playing upstairs. I have the stereo on full blast right now and in commemoration of the event, I have put up the bamboo fence again just to piss off the neighbors! HAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA!!!! We will go to Vienna this week and register for a Visa, and guess what I will get my FREE or near free, much-deserved drivers license in AUSTRIA NOT GERMANY soon after WHOOOOHOOOO after 6 months of that shit! SO it's been about a year we have been in Awful, Germany. I am soooo relieved and this huge burden feels lifted and I am excited to work or do ANYTHING to get the heck OUTTA here! No more Germs, except the few that we like like our friends. Even the few friends here are not so friendly it seems. The indian girl, the japanese guy and the Brussels girl have not wrote back, I wonder if these people are even flakier than the LA ones, haha. Doesn't matter, we never felt like we fit in here and the quality of people in this shithole says a lot. We will have a Thanksgiving Dinner with my husbands work collegues one last time and I am laughing cause it will be a MAJOR PAIN to get the pumpkin pie mix, cranberry sauce and stuffing but just one more time, I think Vienna being a major international city will be better to get stuff and YES they have a BIG Korean Market and I am already best friends with her! LOL
Well Blog, hopefully I will never have to set foot on the soils of Germany again except for driving through or something. Oh and once I get my AUSTRIAN license, I can actually drive in Germany!!!!! Well it's been quite HELL, I mean an adventure and I bid DOUCHELAND a BIGGGGG Adieu to you and you and you!!! Book to come...

Tuesday November 17, 2009
HA! I try and try but there's always something to hate in Germany so quick notes. We had dinner at my husband's boss's place, he lives in the county of Friedberg. Now, THEY have even a crazier recycling program. Paper must be sorted by color, black and white and then yellow recycled paper is not allowed. Dishwashing liquid bottles must have the plastic tops removed and sorted into different bins, and milk containers have special bins, so people I AM NOT KIDDING, drive their trailers filled with trash in different bins and drive their cars with trailers to a recycling post where they get yelled at by German Nazis, I mean trash police and told where things go and into which bin they must be placed in and are yelled at if not done properly. He actually took his GERMAN mother with him one day, since this whole thing is a site to see and she actually said, "they are crazy!" coming from a German woman, I LOVE it, you see I am not the only one who thinks this is the MOST ludicrous waste of time and energy, and causes much more nonsense then they actually THINK of saving the FUCKING PLANET! Do you know, every different bin, I have to use a different plastic bag, I wonder how many plastic bottles it takes and energy to use the 6 bags I have to use, then drive to, then sort etc. you get the idea. FUCKING RETARDS! Oh, pardon my french, but seriously...He said they actually have nothing better to do then use this as a meeting place and shoot the shit, while they separate the shit so I guess they want to continue this nonsense as a way to socialize with each other. Nice. So they took votes and this Archaic process still exists.
Ok, so I can't wait for the day, I can stop dreaming of eating what I want, not keep gaining weight, since the only choices of food are cold, tasteless sandwiches, fried schnitzel, and the health-conscious wurst and bretzel etc at every train station, airport, city we go to. I can't wait for the day, I don't have to destroy my entire closet wardrobe from the amount of sweat, rain and dirt I accumulate in Germany. Every time I step outside I am layered in bundles of clothing, gloves, and umbrella and I sweat from walking, using public transport and carrying around everything! I can't wait for the day, I can drive again and use a car like civilized people and don't have to think about HOW much I can carry home with me, or how heavy that 10 lb bag of potatoes will be for the 5 blocks walking home, since they package EVERYTHING into more plastic bags and don't sell just one freaking potato! I can't wait for not having to use the public transport system, trains, trams, sbahns, ubahns and buses where they collect the derelicts of the world, where you look around and people look so freaking miserable where today I actually smelled poop on the tram, I checked under my shoe thinking maybe I stepped in shit, but no it was probably some poor soul who did not wipe their freaking ASS!! Oh and lets not forget the poor grandma who had a heavy walker and NO ONE I repeat NO ONE AGAIN, helped her so I rushed over to get it off the tram. GERMANY: WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE!?!?! I read about this, the younger generation have absolutely no respect for elders and really it is so obvious. I feel sorry for the old people, I really do, the fact they have to carry 10 lb bags of potatoes, use the bus and have no one help u. This sucks!
So, Frankfurt, 3 words, BIG<> we'll see how it goes, although it is an utter miracle I actually got an interview, considering they expect everyone in Germany and Austria to speak GERMAN! So, we will see but I really think I have tried everything to get out of here. I did have a breakdown last week. Something just triggered it and I started crying at the mall. The fact that EVERY SINGLE THING is SOOOO HARD here and so fucking miserable and that I WAS SO FUCKING MISERABLE here. I WILL NEVER GET USED TO it or the weather, or the lack of sun, or the rudeness, or the food, the lack of any variety, not being able to drive, cancelling the internet on my cel provider again!!! trying to get out of every single 2 year FUCKING CONTRACTS, paying for using the FUCKING restroom even in a restaurant I just paid a meal for, and then having to use ice cold water to wash my hands, no paper towels, asking EVERY SINGLE Person for a napkin, or an ice cube, or a FUCKING PLASTIC BAG without having to PAY FOR IT!>?!?! seriously, it is NOT a planet friendly, recycling conscious country, it is CHEAP, POOR, PAIN IN THE MAJOR ASS country that is POST WAR mentality, a setback in the 40's or 50's, that can't get anything straight, or having to go to ANY COMPANY< GOVT Institution, CUSTOMER SERVICE REP and getting the wrong info on EVERY SINGLE THING! Having to actually GO EVERYWHERE during your lunch break, look and pay for parking, going into Deutsche Bank after 3 more phone calls to them, and then being told you got the wrong info and have to do it again. Or trying to get a credit card, or getting ANY POSSIBLE THING Here is a freaking nightmare that takes months, get wrong info, have to actually DRIVE TO their office and then having to wait again, it really boggles my mind, HOW IN THE WORLD can this be one of the great and powerful nations in the world, when NOTHING gets done right.! REALLY!? They just accept it, sit and bear it and live with it, or even pay $2.50 Euros a minute to call customer service, :) and that is one of the things I can't stand about my Austrian husband, who is the nicest guy in the world, but will eat cold food, accept anything done wrong, drive to the bank for a question and smile like it's not a big deal, because farmers in Austria don't really fucking care. It is sooo amazingly backwards my stomach hurts! from the pain of insolence, ignorance and indigestion! He is great, but really I will never understand it.
Oh and let us not forget the months of bunny drops and constipation, the 2 1/2 months of the worst, cracked lips so red and swollen that I woke up at night and then getting an appt and being diagnosed with severe excema and that every single thing I bought and put on my lip did not heal it, till I was diagnosed and given a prescription for it, or the chapping of the inside of my palms and no amount of lotion would get better. The wonderful physical allergy I have to this place, the amount of weight from eating this truly tasteless, shit at their restaurants. Of still having to pay $4-10 for bottled water cause the cheap bastards won't give you a cup of water to drink. Or having to pay $10-15 DOLLARS for one english magazine or even more for books. That is 12x the price I pay for one magazine in the states, nice.
So, I saw a commercial that was for winning a green card to the US, I kid you not it said, land of the free, follow your dream and "YOU CAN DO IT" I thought it was so funny, and yet so true maybe it is like winning a contest or a lottery to get back there, I'm going to enter the contest tomorrow...

Monday Evening October 26, 2009
hahahhahaha let me continue a few hours later. So my husband comes home and we want to watch something on our Slingcatcher. I am a techie whore, I bought the coolest thing that allows me to watch my tv in America, it is my saving grace. Besides having internet, the tv is my closest friend, keeping me in touch with all things American, including reality tv :) So, I spent another 200 bucks buying this gadget and the 2 slinglinks. Ok so here is the problem, throughout the day the internet seems somewhat normal, AT NIGHT!?!? what happens to our high speed internet from T-mobile that we pay for??, it splits into whoever is using internet so more users, less speed, so our speed goes down to 69kbps instead of 1000 or just keeps freezing. In fact it freeeeezes all the time, my wifi, it freezes. Everything freezes and there is nothing you can do about it. We also wanted to see the only weekly english movie and guess what no one answers the phone there, AGAIN??!! so we decided again to just stay home, poor us. We can laugh or cry, its just how it is here.
What happens when nothing goes right, you have no expectations at all. Just happens and you live with it, begrudgingly but true.

Monday, October 26 2009
I thought I would try AGAIN to hold off on the negative comments and try to restrain myself from posting for awhile. I did have a very nice surprise bday in Austria which made it somewhat better. Well lets keep it brief, today I cleaned 4 filters, yes 44444444444 filters on the still broken washing machine and dryer by Siemens, which is supposed to the best (HA!) brand in Germany. Once again, no comment. In America, my beloved country I have a Maytag, and like the commercial says, I never see my Maytag repairman. There is 1, ONE filter to clean on the dryer and it has worked for over 15 years.PERIOD! Now this piece of crap in my GERMAN apartment, I have called the Siemens company, they came out cleaned a filter or two and then charged 132 Euros=$200USD . 5 months later, I am getting the same buzzing beeper, the one that DROVE ME UP THE FREAKING WALL remember? and an error message. I called Siemens around 4 times now and they insist that I clean the filter first and make sure "there is not a coin in the filter." Now, I don't know how big their coins are but r u kidding me/?!?! why would you make a product that allows a size of a COIN to fall through the filter? So there I was disassembling my floorboard, opening the machine, releasing the pump, unscrew the filter (which flooded the floor) ck for COINS and rinse it out and put it back in. I had to do this TWICE! then doing laundry today, my favorite chore esp with doing double the amount of loads cause the machines are the size of a bucket and they don't wash properly anyways. Another error message on my dryer buzzes, unbelievable, so I clean the air filter, the water filter and the bottom filter underneath my dryer. Now, thank GOD I had ordered the manuals in English months and months before because I have to disassemble all the parts of these high quality, German products. Now, I am much better at this tech stuff, home stuff than most girls, but THIS is still ridiculous. My husband doesn't even know where the filter would be, I will show him tonight. But that's always fun, calling German co's asking if they speak English, getting transferred taken a message or disconnected because the PHONE SYSTEM is like post war Germany and you still can get disconnnected or the other person can't hear you. YES YES YES it's not third world, it's POST WAR Germany like from the 1950's where the phone systems have problems, things are done in such a backwards way here, you can't get any variety, fresh spinach is unheard of and neither is fresh seafood, you have to get everything frozen. It's almost like East Germany, just slightly better. And btw, I met an Eastern German who happened to be my Siemens repair guy ;0 and he said he would much rather live in the old East German way, that there is too much to think about now, HAHHAHHAHAH! Socialism lives! and that it was much easier to have the govt do everything for you, he also said he has to work harder now and it's better the old way. He is very nice btw, but this made it so incredulous and that is the mentality of these people, so of course this backwards country will NEVER be as fine tuned as America. Take your social welfare, social health care and frozen spinach. I would rather have freedom, liberty, capitalism, variety, choice, independence and fresh seafood anyday!! PERIOD!

p.s. so let me just tell you the status of my wonderful cel phone service provider BASE, another fine German company with excellent customer service and great service period. So, I am still locked into an iron-clad 2 year contract, prison, jail, commitment whatever you call it. And after buying the NEWEST BEST MOST EXPENSIVE Blackberry phone from the US. I am stuck with a cel that still barely works. I had downloaded Apps, you know just like the Iphone, which I CANNOT GET because I live here, in freaking here, where an Iphone can cost you the price of a small car, and I can't start a new contract w AT&T cause I live freaking here, anyways.. So I think I had written that I signed up for the internet service w BASE and it never never never works properly, I can't even get Google maps to work on it. I have only been on my email a few times and most of the time I get network unavailable, network server down or some other error message. So, I went to my BASE store in Uggsberg, and he is Russian I think, barely speaks english but enough to understand and you would think this would be easy but it's NOT, NOTHING IS EASY IN GERMANY, NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING! NOTHING WILL WORK PROPERLY< NOTHING WILL BE EASY TO CALL OR COMPLAIN OR TO GET IT FIXED< EVERYTHING WILL BREAK< NOT WORK AND YOU WILL BE STUCK WITH IT OR THE PROBLEM FOR THE ENTIRE TIME YOU LIVE HERE! ok, so we ended up going like 3 times, I mean like taking a freaking tram ride to get there and only to hear no, there is nothing wrong with the service, my colleague is on vacation, etc etc. etc. SO, yesterday I went to the Munich BASE store waited 3o minutes while the 2 guys were helping others, you ALWAYS have to wait for everything here. Then came back later in the day and was told by the salesguy who I love btw, because he is AMERICAN! whoohoo, he had moved here when he was young and absolutely hates it here, we had a lot in common. It was great, so finally after months, months actually years of this Cel contract (prison, jail) that I was finally told what the deal is. I had told him that it is impossible to call BASE at .50 cents EUROS A MINUTE = .75 US cents a minute, wait lemme be clear: .75 US CENTS PER MINUTE< PER MINUTE TO CALL THEM. and he said oh no, others have to pay $2.50 Euros per minute to call customer service, this is the most MOST incredulous thing I had heard of, he agreed. Finally, someone who agrees and I am not the crazy one here. I wonder how much a 5 minute conversation would cost at that price, but wait they put you on hold first so it would cost more..no it's their incredibly EVIL way of not having you call customer service. So, he being cool told me that BASE co. sucks and that he wrote down on a note pad that T-mobile was the way to go. LOL. or cry whichever way you look at it.
SO, I had upgraded to an addtl $10 Euros a month for internet that didn't worked, he signed me up for an additional $8 Euros a month for the Blackberry service, which would allow my phone to sometimes work and then be at the mercy that it probably wouldn't work most of the time, because of their patchy service. I asked him under my breath, "how in the world, do I get out of this contract, prison, jail?" and he said you can't unless you get a rental contract if you moved outside of Germany. So I am racking my brain to figure this one out, am still stuck with paying $18 Euros =$27 more a month for shitty internet service. In addition to my monthly $20-30 Euros cel service. FUN FUN FUN and btw, he swore he would try to get the hell out of there, meaning Germany and move back to the states, poor guy, I completely understood.

Monday, October 12 2009
I thought I would just grin and bear it, maybe it's just me, maybe if I try really hard I could try to get used to it and not complain and not make any posts on this blog for awhile. But alas, there's always a few things that get me going again, that make me chuckle. That makes me say, AHHH GERMANY here we go again. So the winter is fast approaching us and today trekking out to meet my husband for a quick lunch requires many winter dressing again and a runny nose when I return. I went to the neighborhood market to pick up pork belly, one of the most common meats here and ridiculously cheap, due to the high amount of fat. And alas, once again in the land of no variety or convenience, I was told it comes in on Wednesday. Ok, so I trek to the next market Edeka, and the pork belly is already cut up into 1-1.5 inch thickness which is useless to me, considering I was thinking of making spicy korean pork bbq, yes but begrudgingly I had to buy it and figure out how I would try to slice the thickness in half with a dull blade! We are busy planning the wedding in Salzburg, which is the only joy to my life right now. Although many of my friends will not be able to make it due to cost and inconvenience. But it will be fun to have it in a castle and the Salzburg trip was fun, nice people, beautiful places etc. but that's Austria. We had a couple over for dinner the other day, very nice she is German and he is Austrian. When my husband asked them if they didn't like anything they said, " Everything but no insects." I kid you not, I have to just laugh at those comments I hear. Even our wedding coordinator constantly referring to Japanese things even when I told him I'm from Korea. Ah, it's 1pm and I can hear the brats upstairs rushing up to start playing the horrible piano lessons again! Everywhere I go, I constantly get stared at, my husband says that it's because I'm pretty, NOT!! They just don't know what to do when they see an Asian, an immigrant, an alien in a foreign land! And these people are soo third world, sheltered and in their own little bubble, don't they watch TV?!~? hmm it amazes me. I guess it could happen in some dumb f(@* place like Alabama, US too...We will be traveling to many places, Graz, Vienna, Berlin, Frankfurt but I was thinking the only thing not fun about traveling here is the below freezing tempuratures outside! Then you don't even want to go outside, let alone tour around sorry! But layering in bundles of clothing with your earlobes frozen and the biting wind blowing on your face, so your nose is running and carrying an umbrella cause it's always raining is NOT FUN! Also, staying in 4 star hotels are ALWAYS a gamble here, you never know what you'll get. Sometimes it's a 2 star disguising itself, never trust the star rating system in European hotels! Last time our hotel was the size of a dorm room, I kid you not and it was a 4 star!! Sometimes the toilet room is so small you have to sit sideways! and bring your own toiletries to these exquisite 4 star hotels, because the only soap/shampoo/conditioner/body gel will be from a tube stuck on the wall. Like I said NO toiletries provided. I am trying to tune out the plundering of keys on that awful piano upstairs. I have to say these Germs are diligent about their activities! So no help with the cel phone yet, all my blackberry apps, google maps and sometimes even yahoo doesn't work. We will probably be charged now with no return but getting on a tram to the city, paying 5 Euros to get there and then if the guy that helped us before is not there, the other ones won't help us cause my name is not on the account and I told you before it costs .50 cents euros a minute to call them, so ONCE AGAIN, we are stuck with this shitty service! Ahhhh, Germany you always give me something to write home about!!! Oh but don't let me forget just last week, my husband thought for sure they were playing an english movie on a Tuesday for "sneak peek" as they call it, I told him I don't think so but he tried calling 10 times and typical nobody answers the phone anywhere here! So, we got dressed went and was told, no english movie, I asked what's the movie that we're not seeing? They said we can't tell you it's sneak peek, ahhhhh! the land of you will watch the movie we show you!! and it will be a surprise, gosh darn it! So, we drove home, no movie that night. Sad but true, but totally getting used to it! Also, many people for some dumbass reason don't have VM on their cel, makes you say WTF!! Third world!!!! Ahh, and don't forget carrying the myriad of different colored glass containers and bottles dropping them off every week, and the empty plastic bottles to the store, everyday and the amount of plastic and recyclables that seem to accumulate at a very fast rate. We take out the trash like every other day. The other day, I looked for the biggest ass trash can with dividers, couldn't find one, just the same size as ours, meaning all those Germs must be taking out their trash 3-4 times a week, going to the market 5 times a week, returning bottles every week, WHAT A COMPLETE WASTE OF ENERGY, EFFORT AND TIME!!!>!>>!! I walked by a store today and it was fill to the brim of bottles and glasses, imagine all the men hired to lug this shit back and forth and the gas and emissions caused by this, truly it's so genius. We should stick all the liberals in Germany and make it a total socialist country and see how much they like it here! "Recycle and Suffer" should be their motto "but get free health care!"

!

Wednesday, Sept 30 2009
Ahhhh the feeling of not being able to communicate is pure bliss. I was on the phone, hung up one too many times by many companies (because the telephone systems still seems to be from the 1970's! or maybe they just hung up on me) and then to reach someone and painstakingly try to communicate, they all say NEIN they don't speak english! Getting ANYTHING done here is SOOOO DIFFICULT! First, they hang up on you, then they say they'll call you back and don't. Nothing is done correctly, no customer service or very expensive to call customer service. So my cel still doesn't have internet service, Tmobil dsl still has problems and we must live with it. Oh, on a health note, we've discovered that my dry skin, dry lips and constipation is due to the HARD WATER here, the same hard water that leaves the driest, whitest scum mark on everything (coffee makers, cups, etc) so THAT shit is in my stomach and causing me to have these horrid health problems. Nice.
So this place, as ugly a town can be with seriously the ugliest people I have ever seen in one square mile-I have learned that in Germany you must dress up to get any respect around here. If you dress like a bum, they treat you like an immigrant. LOL So, my new thing is to try to dress decent, that is to toss away my go-to Cali flip flops and where closed toe flats, a nice sweater, a good pair of jeans and accessorize, with let's say a 3 carat ring?! In Cali, I only dressed up when I had to or felt the urge to be fashionable, here I must do it to get any help at the deli counter. In case, they turn me away again and I won't get my pork chop. What used to take me 5 minutes to slap something on, has turned into 20 minutes, dressing and undressing. The key is to look nice and yet still be comfortable, because you will be carrying that 5 lb bag of potatoes and the groceries home with you, meaning you will sweat your ass off. Yesterday, I actually saw a guy carrying a 20 lb bag of potatoes, I'm dead serious! The other thing is to remember to wear closed shoes that are super comfortable, I can't tell you how hard it is to walk on cobblestones in heels!!!! How these Germans ok and Europeans do it, is incredible to me. These sluts actually put on 2-3 inch heels, carry heavy bags and walk super fast, no problem! What!??! I don't know maybe I have to train my delicate feet to do this feat. (love the pun!) I am getting better arm muscles, seriously, with carrying all this weight on my arms. Finding the right shopping bag is also a trick. One that can carry a lot but still fit in your bag. One, should never leave without the essentials as stated before, umbrella, notepad, phone, keys, wallet, food, water, tissue, sunglasses, passport, ids, maps, shopping bag, vitamins, lip balm, sunscreen, mirror, bus pass, change, hat, it's like trekking out to the desert. Make sure you don't leave without these items. I've realized I have spent exorbitant amounts of money on buying extra items I cannot find here. Including toiletries, makeup, kitchen supplies, kitchen spices and ingredients, appliances, english books, travel books in english, convertors, transformers, adaptors, sheets, pillows and pillowcases, comforter and inside flat shees (completely unavailable here!), cel phones with adaptors, cameras, electrical appliances (warning: may blow up), suitcases, bags, clothes, food, snacks, anything Asian including myself, I'm even thinking of bringing a mop next time, toothbrushes, hair products, gels, shampoo/cond etc, soaps, lotions, rice cooker, broil pans, cake pans, pie pans, umbrellas, raincoats, coats, coats, coats, woolen socks, woolen underwear, underwear, bras, clothes, gloves, hats, scarves, socks, tights, boots, shoes, tennis shoes, track shoes, workout gear, yoga mat, yoga dvd, dvd player, ipods, shuffles, blankets, cleaning products, lemon juicer, cookbooks...you get the idea, pretty much everything because either they don't have it, it's a piece of shit quality or you will pay 5 times the price here.

Tuesday, September 29 2009
Did you know that a yogurt container has 3 different recycling elements?? It has the paper cardboard container, plastic cup and a foil lid. lollolololol!!! haahhhhha But let's get to the good stuff that is my exciting life in Germany! WHOOHOO! Going to 3 different stores in the neighborhood to look for fresh spinach and never finding any!!! They only have frozen spinach, like frozen fish and frozen vegetables. You are limited to whatever they decide they will carry in the store at that time. Don't even get me started on the pork rib meat I was looking for. As you read before any meat cuts of any kind are impossible to find. NOT like in America, you can't even find beef ribs here. So I'm lugging my bags of grocery home and I see in this classy neighborhood a HUGE dump pile of junk, broken wood furniture, beds and crap. And these immigrants are all loitering around looking through it, staring at it, talking about it, what have you. OK, what a piece of dump area this is! Back to groceries, one store has this, the other doesn't, no wonder they have to put 3 shithole markets in the neighborhood and you still can't find what you need, but you will make 3 stops. And the selection at the grocery market of items to cook with. These people must LIVE on cold cuts and cheese, GROSS! and we're NOT talking delicious, perfectly cured Italian salamis, we are talking cheap, artificial, tasteless, disgusting looking hams and cheeses for these fine tuned tastebuds!! Imagine trying to cook anything here. And I am so craving the Asian food again. I was trying to make Japanese cold ramen noodles with mustard sauce and another Japanese pork ramen. HAHAHAHAHAH! that will take a week to buy ingredients, including several trips to bigger markets (sorry no license to drive yet) and a trip to Munich! HAHAHAH! I think I sound like I'm going crazy and this is not even my first week back. We will have to fly (I mean Drive 4 hours to Frankfurt this month to buy some Korean groceries at a TINY Korean market with limited selection and pay 5 times the price! yay! No, I am not bitter! hahahaha OK here's the deal as we can see I have over 245 items on this darn blog of reasons WHY I HATE IT HERE. So I don't have to explain the bitterness, I got off the plane and all the reasons, feelings and memories just came flooding back. I think I've cried twice already. The night before I left and once here. Don't cry for me Argentina, it's just my fate to be here in this Gosh foresakin place. I just don't know why I'm so lucky here though...
Living in a 3rd world country is tough, every little thing is so hard to do, get done, to buy, to do anything will explain later.

So, decided to change it up a bit and write my fascinating memoirs of my daily life here..here we go...


Saturday, Sept 26 2009
OKTOBERFEST!!! ! WHOOO HOOOO!!! I am so excited to be here in this worldwide known celebration of beer (yum my favorite!), drunks (even better) and Germans who are drunk with beer (that's the ultimate!!!!) Not only was it sooooooooo crowded (hmm 3 million people visiting>?!) we got pushed and shoved everywhere. Imagine Disneyland but absolute chaos, no kids just drunken adults and teenagers, raging out of control, pushing, shoving, puking everywhere, passed out on the floor, everybody smoking, paramedics everywhere, getting plastered, singing obnoxious folk songs and MOST of them wearing the most ridiculous country costumes you have ever seen. Imagine a tent built of wood, filled to the brim of these people, standing on tables holding their beer steins, singing and acting like total drunken fools. Imagine me, the first 5 minutes walking to our table and getting FULL ON PUNCHED in the arm by a "German Drunk" I will call them GRUNKS and yelled "Mai Tai!!!" in the ear. Then all 3 of his friends one after another continuing to yell Mai Tai! Mai Tai! Mai Tai to my face. WOW that was sooooo fun!! Getting racial slurs the second day I'm back! WELCOME BACK TO HELLHOLLE I mean Germany! No, I will not be going to Oktoberfest again, beer, smoke, drunks and racist pigs. No thanks, been there done that!
OMG how can I forget and so I was told by my husband that these wonderful leather lederhosen pants these guys where are NEVER washed and they also like to pee on themselves (I kid you not!) so after a few hours you will start to smell piss and puke everywhere in the tents, a woman passed out on the floor, puke on the floor, and the stench of piss while people grab your face and try to kiss you, or insult you, pushing and shoving. Ok, now I'm done. No, really I'm REALLY DONE here! I'm a Celebrity, get me outta here!!!! oh right, not a celebrity hmm..

245. So I was gone for the 1 month of sun in Armpit Germany. But little did I miss the excrutiating heat and humidity when it actually gets hot here. There are NO air conditioners and NO bug screens, so you are hot, stuffy and get bug bites at night. WHY OH WHY in the 21st century, does it feel like this place is SO primitive?!?! Why can't they make bigger refridgerators or washers, why don't they use dryers, or install garbage disposers? Why not the idea of A/C or bug screens? don't they want to make their lives a little more comfortable!?? It is so backwards here, it's hard to believe they make such nice cars!

244. BOOOOHHOOOOOO!!!
I am back after 3 mos back into this shithole country and city, Augsburg. Already the first night I was welcomed by rain and a German lady pushed me at the market! LET THE GAMES BEGIN!!! She didn't even bother to say sorry to me, or even acknowledge me, incredulous! But expected, just didn't think it would happen so soon. Now, I come back and my cel doesn't work, it costs .49 cents euros=80 cents!! a minute to call them, great! and they don't have ANYONE that speaks English! Even better!! Then I call the bank, and the girl was SOOO unbelievably RUDE to me, it pissed me off so much! It never stops here does it?! Everyone in the WHOLE WORLD feels the same way about these people and no wonder why, they really are that way. Tomorrow is Oktoberfest, in which I really don't even feel like going, what better way to see even more drunken Germans acting obnoxious and wearing silly costumes!! Eat fattening foods and drink something OTHER than beer! Oh and it's raining...aghhhhhh

243. hahahahaha
As I am leaving for LA tomorrow for 3 months WHOOOHOOO!!! the weather here in Armpit is
54 degrees and rain, rain, thunder, thunder, thunder and thunder
hHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHA!!!! weather in LA is
89 degrees!!! I also got an Urgent request for my departure from my German class that I must inform them in writing why I will be leaving. HAHAHHAHA they cannot scare me anymore, I am so relieved to be away from constantly feeling like I am in trouble, these nit picky anal detail, nosy, busy body Germs and their freaking rules!!! We came back from France yesterday and it was a pleasant sunny 69 degrees and as soon as we entered Armpit, cold and rainy!! Even our German friends asked if we were depressed from all that grey, cold and rain, I said YES!!! of course, who wouldn't be??!?! it's fucking depressing and morbid and I am so glad to be leaving this AWFUL country! I wish I never had to come back! I would take my husband and move to Sunny LA and live happily ever after! So, ADIOS DEUTSCHLAND!!!! Adios freaking neighbors!!
make all the noise you want!! Adios, bad weather, cranky people, depressing weather, nothing to do no movies, tv, or good food, ADIOS!!!!!

242. Punctual Germs
at 1 pm, every single day, every single week, 2 bratty Germ kids come over our apartment building to storm up the stairs to our Germ neighbors above us. Who, we can hear everything they do. The kids get right on the piano and clamor away for hours, it's awful and just imagine a kid just learning to play the piano! Then they bang down the stairs and make so much noise, these people cannot keep still. Today, the grandpa (who is the leader of the rental community here, oh great!) was banging some nails in the hallway. Every single night (or I should say morning at 1:30 in the morning) he takes a piss over our head, right above our bed and I can hear him like Austin Powers in the movie. They have their German phone on the loudest possible ringer so I can hear it every time it rings. Every night their TV is on so loud, I can watch the program with them, Germ Grandpa must be hard of hearing and have insomnia!! They turn on their vibrating bed, which makes our bedroom vibrate like an earthquake, and finally goes to sleep around 2 in the morning, EVERY SINGLE MORNING. These are the same people who own an old, (and the ugliest looking dog I have ever seen, black and grey with shaggy hair, and the size of Marmaduke) ugly dog that barks and echos in the entire hall. I guess the walls are thin here, because I can hear the elevator running at 1 in the morning, which must be them as well and who knows WHAT THE HELL they do at this time, but I must give it to them that they are GERMAN PUNCTUAL!!! And that this pattern does NOT change or take a break, it's day in and day out. Exact same times, exact same patterns! So, bad piano playing, kids, barking dogs, and banging on stuff, I love the neighbors above me and you know we can't complain here, you know they can complain about the 30 inch bamboo fence in our balcony, but we have no right to complain. Oh and there's other neighbors who have wood fences on their balcony, and wood posts for their plants attached to the balcony, ugly white netting for the pigeons, ugly steel fencing covering the entire balcony, satellite dishes, clothes racks, and the tackiest outdoor decoration, but our bamboo fence is a distraction..go figure. Ok 4 more days to go...hypocrites!!

241. Another high quality product
So, our cheap ass Germ made bed, made out of fake wood has broken again. This is the second time the wood plank holding it together broke, this time crushing the wood board under it, nice!! It's less than a year old and we bought it along with the cardboard box bed at RUGA in Baden Baden (for over a THOUSAND EUROS!!!) by the Germ named Herr Wolf, remember?!?! It probably has no warranty, we probably can't return it or even complain about it, no we just have to eat it, as my husband says nobody complains or returns in Germany. It is not customary, remember the .50 cents a minute Base cel customer service number/????!?!

240. I HATE GERMANY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Just want to make myself clear, and I HATE AUGSBURG and the people here!! Viva la freedom of speech!! (Although I had to make my blog private, in case I get almost arrested again) but really do you blame me after reading everything that happened in the first year of being here?!?!?! This country and the people are insane! Ok, not everything or everyone, but seriously Augsburg SUCKS and the people are so low class, rude, unfriendly A-holes! We are going to France my last weekend here, thank god I LOVE FRANCE, as soon as I cross the border, I feel free and happy!! Better food, nicer people (they are not all rude, I've quite enjoyed them and they seem much friendlier than the Germs!) and a MUCH better country overall! VIVA LA FRANCE!!!!

239. 3rd to 4th week of June weather
no kidding
rain rain rain rain rain rain rain rain partly cloudy
Oh, Armpit aka Augsburg Germany....you are a hellhole!

238. Trading up
I love going from freezing cold and snow in the winter to mosquito bites and constant, severe allergies in the summer! I am now covered in bug bites, because of the lack of bug screens in any windows and all the other comforts here! Oh and the dry lips are back! I know sounds all miserable but this place IS miserable!!
How wonderful!

237. And you will never look at a piece of trash the same!
EVERY SINGLE PIECE OF TRASH, everything you cook with, eat, every wrapper, box that may be made with plastic and paper, must be distinguished, crushed, seperated, cleaned and put in the right container. TRUST ME, this will drive you nuts, and you will learn to separate while cooking!

236. I love washing the dishes twice!
So, living with a dishwasher, no garbage disposer, washing machine and dryer and refrigerator, ALL is miniature European size!! you have to get yourself used to crushing everything, stuffing everything and the Germs are so smart, they have huge, wasteful packaging for everything, since they don't give away the thin vegetable bags, everything comes in bulky, plastic cartons instead, SO SMART!!!! So, you have stiff, plastic boxes for strawberries, blueberries, tomatoes, zucchini, carrots, pretty much all fruits and vegetables AND they make you buy like a pound of carrots, which you know you have NO room for, but that's how it is. IT SUCKS and I LOVE washing my dishes again and again because it doesn't work properly and I can't complain to my real estate management company. Washing 1/4 of the stuff in the wash and it takes 3 times as long!

235. 5 days and counting
So I had to rip down the bamboo fence which actually made my balcony half-bearable but was a excuse me???!!! a possible "eyesore" to the Germs who dry their clothes on clothes racks and have junk all over their balcony. Tonight, just 5 more days left, I went to Tengelmann the neighborhood market asking for some sliced pork and was denied service. She refused to help me and said that they clean the machines and can't cut anything for me. The store closed at 8pm and it was only 7:15 pm. My german-speaking husband was luckily with me and he asked again and then she did it. Again, these instances make me laugh or seriously cry. I will TRY again not to take this as a racial discrimination thing, he said it's because they're lazy. Ok, they're lazy, they're lazy, it's not me, they're lazy...

234. To recap
Just in case you didn't read the 233 number of reasons I have a right to HATE Germany, I will recap just a few that really reminds me. So let's begin:
-Blatant discrimination I faced at the immigration office and losing 2 Armpit apartments because I was Asian. There's no other way to explain those. I remember the landlord actually telling us that we could not put one hole in the walls and that we had to carry down the hundreds of firewood from our balcony to the cellar, before we were even denied the place! haha so funny

-The screaming crazy lady ringing my bell early in the morning to yell at me for not recycling properly and crushing the boxes, ok after a year I am now learning that EVERY thing, EVERY piece of trash must be identified, labeled, and dealt with in it's own proper manner. Think about every time you throw any piece of trash away, somethings have paper and plastic, some are unidentifiable, they must crushed, cleaned and put in the correct bin, one of 7 bins!! Think about it!

-Taking away my rights to drive and not accepting the Arizona drivers license which I paid $400 to get
-The numerous hand written letters every week from our neigbors and the official letters we get from our housemaster, because we did this and that wrong.
-The neighbors telling us we can't bring our friends to use the pool and asking us if we lived here?
-The German asshole telling me to take off my bathing suit in a 4 star hotel here
-Fighting with our real estate agent over money
-Always, Always feel like we're in trouble or we broke a rule and I am OCD and anal and detailed, so WTF?!?!
-They should come up with a HUGE manuscript of "How to live in Germany" as a foreigner and all the rules you will break and get yelled for, don't you think it's better to do WHAT you're doing wrong first??!!
-Recycling every item of trash, disassembling it, crushing it, cleaning it and placing or driving to 7 different recycling bins (my husband and I drove around and spent the entire afternoon, using gas and emitting the air, to return all the bottles and containers to the right store!) He would rather throw them away but you can't when each one can be .25 cents pfand!!!! Do you THINK I like to return the empty plastic water bottles from my trip to Italy?? R u KiDDDING??G??G
-Almost getting arrested at a store, after spending 200 Euros on items, and I'm still a criminal

233. WTF
This is the "What the F*&#@?" section. It will list things that are so WTF I have to just list them.

-Walking into a public restroom and they charge $1 Euro ($1.40 US) for 15 minutes. I walked right out. I mean come on people .50 cents is ridiculous but a DOLLAR??? I say WTF???

-paying for cel phone service and being unable to even use it in other countries and when you want to call them to complain it costs, here it goes, it's quite unbelievable....
$.50 cents a minute to call them!!! I say WTF?!!!! a minute??????? obviously they are not big on customer service here, in fact it just doesn't exist. My husband said you just have to live w problems or things that don't work properly, cause no one complains (who could afford to??)

-The third week of JUNE, the middle of summer and here is the weather forecast for another freaking week:
rain, sunny, sunny, rain, thunder, rain
Ok 6 mo's in Armpit and STILL rain???!?!?!? and not one solid week that there is not rain or not 3 days in a row of sunshine since I've been here WTF WTF WTF?

-Paying $5 dollars for water at a restaurant, every single meal and THEN paying $.50 cents to use their restroom!!!!!!!!! My butt hurts!

232. I take everything back!
I DO HATE them, they give me every reason to HATE them, and HATE it HERE! HATE is such a strong word, but it definitely is an understatement about the people, the country, the rules, and all the other reasons to HATE it here!!

231. The battle continues
So, we found out today who complained a "few" people from across the courtyard. Which is about hundreds of feet from us (2 building lengths distance!), so they must have binoculaurs to notice our bamboo fence which must be an eyesore to them and also that we are breeding pigeons!!! I am so mad, they must WANT to look into our house when we sit on the toilet, because that's the kind of privacy we have here and THAT is why we put up a fence. Oh, and they were very German precise about it, saying "the fence is 30-40cm above the balcony wall height and that it promotes pigeons to breed there. MOTHER FUCKERS! As I said before, we can just keep to ourselves, be the perfect neighbors, make no noise, squash all the cartons in the trash, recycle properly and we are STILL in trouble here!! Ok, so it may not be our neighbors but boy it must be some debate here since we got a handwritten letter first about it! I am tired, oh so tired of always being on the defensive, I am tired of the fighting and complaining, of ALWAYS being in trouble with the German police (aka neighbors) Big Brother is always watching our every move. Oh, speaking of ridiculous we found out that we can have a bbq but it cannot be used 2 days in a row. HHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHA
Mother Fuckers

230. I'm leaving for 3 months to Sunny LA
it cost 1300 dollars, but it's worth every cent, I will be out of this miserable place for 3 months, this blog will take a break HAHAHAHAHA!!

229. No I am NOT crazy!
This fuckin place is, NOW I AM FURIOUS!!! In the last week we received 2 more letters from the housemaster and a neighbor!! Ok, so the first is, as I described this apartment complex is the pits! All the apartments face a courtyard and I swear we have NO privacy so I have to live in the fucking dark with the blinds half down and the curtains covering every window, then we are surrounded by huge apartment complexes that block out the sun and I am barely able to see the sky! So, few weeks ago we noticed 2 disgusting pigeon eggs in our balcony ledge which houses a few remaining bushes from the prior tenant. I insisted on dumping the eggs but my husband thought that was cruel or illegal and said we should leave them. Pigeons have been enemy #1 to our balcony, coming on our ledge, shitting the shit out of it, cooing at all times in the night-they are annoying, filthy and I am so grossed out by them. So, we left the eggs alone and they became baby pigeons, few weeks later we get ANOTHER neighbor writing us a letter that they noticed we are farming pigeons and that we should dispose of their eggs and if they are grown we should wait till they can fly but they are not happy about them. Well FUCKERS, do you think we WANT pigeons out there, you think we're keeping them as pets?!?!?! Then today we got another letter this time official from our real estate agent who forwarded a letter from our housemaster, in official writing that "we have a bamboo fence that is 30-40cm higher than the ledge of our balcony that causes a distraction and promotes pigeons to lay eggs in our balcony." What mother fuckers!!! Excuse the FUCKING French! So, BIG WURST ASS German Brother is looking into our balcony, and I can only see 2 people who can actually see all the details (30-40 cm!@!!*!*!*) that is our next door neighbor OR THE MOTHER FUCKER ASSHOLE who lives on top. My husband just told me today that HE is in charge of the Renters community in our building so of course HE's the one. The same ASSHOLE that sleeps every night at 2 in the morning, remember? the one who takes a piss over our head at 1 am, has his grandkids run up and down the stairs, come over every single day and play badly on the piano from 2-4 pm, has the biggest sized dog I have ever seen, who barks and echos in the hallway. Yeah THAT neighbor! We had put up a nice bamboo fence to try to get some privacy first (so when you sit on the toilet your neighbors can't stare in and next to prevent the pigeons from crapping on our balcony and try to make this god-awful place look decent. Lemme tell you this is NOT some luxury apartment building oK!??! you should see the view, full of FAT Germans sunbathing or peering out their windows, clothing racks full of clothes everywhere, satellite dishes and ugly ugly 70's paint, rundown buildings, and bad tacky decorating on their balconies. One of our neighbors went so far as install a steel fence to block off their balcony from these thousands of pigeons (who only are around in big, dirty, cities like Armpit!) I've never dealt with them where I used to live in California! WOW, again the hypocricy of it all, how nosy and meddling they are, how absolutely annoying and intrusive they are here, I HATE THE SCHWABISH! who are known to be obstinate pigs! and I can't stand these people or this place!>?!?!?

228. So the reasons grow
I really didn't want to continue complaining and sometimes I feel guilty writing the blog, so I stopped but things continually annoy me and the list keeps growing and it doesn't seem to end. NO it doesn't seem to be getting better, I am just growing to accept it and try to get used to it, the weather, the rudeness, the food shopping nightmares, etc. We are also taking many trips to GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE, every chance we get. I think we've traveled the last few weekends and I am also trying to fly to LA for possibly 3 months (and stay if I could!!!!) but am having trouble changing the flights it's also super expensive for some reason. Flying from US to Europe, everything is on sale 400 dollars! but fllying Europe to LA, 1400 dollars!! WHOOO HOOO! So I am still cking flights!

227. Weather Report
So, it's literally the SECOND week of JUNE, HELLO!??!??!?! SUN are you OUT there!?!?! this is insane!! Here's the weather report for the week
thunder, rain, rain, thunder, thunder, part sun with rain (have you ever seen a sun with rain coming out of it??! that's the pix!!) rain
Well, as you can see the weather STILL has not improved, meaning you can't go out and enjoy summer like the rest of the world, you still can't wear shorts, you still have to carry an umbrella and a coat, and it's still grey and depressing, JOY!!!
So, I started reading the book Twilight, great book, but when she starts describing the weather there, a blanket of clouds of grey everyday, it feels like a cage?? THAT is the weather here, after 6 months straight of being here, I think I have NOT seen 3 straight days of sunshine and there has not been 1 whole week without rain, I SWEAR! and the nice weather seems to continue here...

226. Tonight I almost got in a Fight!
We went to see Terminator tonight and it was the english version and this is hard to do, it's been sooooo long since we've actually been able to go to the movies. Those kinds of things you take for granted in the US. So we're sitting in our seats watching 30 minutes of Germ commercials and previews and the movie was great, halfway through I'm smelling a particular odor and I look to the seat next to me and there are 4 feet laying on the empty seat next to me, couple inches next to my head and one pair is bare ass stinkin feet. I wait and wait thinking that they will probably put their feet down but they don't. Then the guy sitting directly behind me keeps pushing my chair and pulls it back every time he gets up. So really I don't want to sit the next hour with these stinky Germ feet I turn around and tell them to please put their feet down, they do. But 2 seconds later, I see the Germ sitting behind me has positioned his feet to go up at an angle to where theirs was. ASSHOLE GERM! WOW, they have nothing better to do, than to ruin our enjoyment of the movie to make fun and provoke us?? I tell my husband, who really is the most patient guy out there and a peacemaker, but this is too much. He turns around and asks and the GERM has the audacity to yell back at him, "Well did you guys purchase the empty seat next to you?!?!" AGHHH this goes on for minutes in German and I am incredulous at the low class GERMS in Armpit!!! I am shaking at this point ready to bop him one, the movie finallly ends, I turn around give him 2 fingers and call him an asshole, before we leave. He starts laughing and again, I am so in love with this place!! So, my husband tells me that even his German work colleagues don't go out to see movies, because people are so rude in the theaters!!! UNBELIEVABLE, well so it JUST doesn't happen to me, and of course this kind of thing happens in LA but it seems to be a pattern here. Rudeness, coldness, lack of respect etc.
I can't tell you how many crippled, handicapped and elderly people are here and NO ONE helps them, I try to but I can see that NO ONE here has any manners or sympathy! WOW what a freaking Armpit of a place!

225. Today I got chased
by the Tram police who literally chased me from the tram, after I had gotten off to check if I had my tram ticket, it's official: this place IS the pits! Yes a#$hole I paid my monthly 52 Euros or 73 US bucks a month to ride your stinky tram, because you guys took away my license to drive!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

224. Ok it's official
Armpit, Germany has THE worst weather in the world. For instance the weather all week is freakish saying 80 degrees to 40, extreme sunny and rainy. So today it went from blistering hot 84 degrees to a monsoon at 6 pm. It's official, I have NEVER seen anything like this, it is reported to start hailing, the sky is actually light, it's like a freakish winter storm in the tropics, windy, pouring,thunder, lightning, WOW this place is ABSOLUTELY NUTS!!!!!!!

223. Getting Arrested Like Winona Ryder
How could I forget (must've blocked it out) almost getting arrested in Germ? (oh that's the new word for Germany now) When we were in Baden, the first few months and I was trying to buy everything for the apartment (and that was TOUGH lemme tell you, I didn't even know where to look, what to say, to find basic things like toilet paper!) I went to a big store called Real. This place is kinda like a Target but not as good or as cheap (in fact nothing is as cheap as the States). Well I was spending tons of our Euros there, buying everything from groceries to vacuum cleaners. Anyways one of the trips there I was at the cashier spending exorbitant amounts of money and I went through a sensor and the alarm went off. I was nicely excorted into the back room by a Germ security officer into a room filled with other Germs. NICE! being that it was still my first few weeks of being in a new country! They told me to empty out my purse and I happily obliged knowing that I didn't steal anything. So there was all the contents of my heavily stuffed purse on the table, Prada wallet, tampons, keys, umbrella etc...I stuffed everything back and they were discussing things between themselves in German. Then I was escorted by 2 people walked through the entire front of the store while others Germs were gawlking at me to a customer service counter. Then I was told to walk through the sensor, once by myself (no beeping) then with my bag (beeping). So the Germ asked me if I had anything and in my broken German and plenty of english, I said I had nothing in my bag and they could easily check it again. In the meantime, my 200 Euros of groceries were in the cart melting. Finally they figured out (and with me digging through my purse, scrambling to find out WHY I was beeping), that there was a security sensor in my purse from Zara. So after my empty purse kept beeping through the sensor, I put everything back in my purse, the customer service Rep handed me a PEN and said sorry and I was on my way. Humiliated and devastated with melted ice cream, I went home after another Happy Day in GERM!!! Never went back to the store and never will.

222. 2 MORE YEARS and counting...
2 years, 1 month, 28 days, 11 hours, 9 min, and 32 seconds till I can leave Germany...

221. Going on vacation to see the sun
We go on vacations to get some much needed sunshine. I think that's why Germans are outta here as well. It's pretty sad how much money you can spend just to do basic things like enjoy warm weather, sunshine, maybe even lay out, see a beach, swim. You know things you can do in California almost 365 days a year, for the amount of money we spend trying to get some warmth, we should just move back to LA, just a suggestion.

220. Smoking everywhere
You can't get away from it and I'm telling you it used to be a lot worse. At least in Germany they banned smoking from restaurants which is a huge relief but everywhere especially at the bus and tram stops someone will light up next to you so you can inhale their wonderful and fresh second-hand smoke.

219. It's hot and it's cold...
you know the Katy Perry song? Well that's how it is here except most of the time it's cold! The forecast for this week, in the middle of May is:
thunder, thunder, rain, thunder, rain, rain, rain
No I am not kiddin, I am very serious about this weather thing, it's a BIG deal. It affects your mood! So last week when there was an ounce of sunshine it will get super hot in the sun, then you walk in the shade and you're freezing again. It's awful for you and that's why everybody is sick here, like I said I am getting over the worst flu and so is everyone else, especially with this tempermental weather. So you have to wear a ski jacket, thin shirt and shorts. Layers, layers but you will still be sweaty from walking super fast everywhere with bags, running to catch buses and trams etc. Very moody weather, like me now!

218. German class is harder and harder
I can't even tell you how difficult this absolutely IMPOSSIBLE, ILLOGICAL, INCONCEIVABLE language is, even the Germans DO NOT know how to use it properly. There are so many rules, then so many exceptions to the rules and even if you knew all that there's still mystery on how to use it. Every single word has a gender-masculine, feminine, neutral so you have to memorize 2 things instead of just the word, then you have to decide if the sentence is a Nominativ, Akkusativ or Dativ (and sometimes Genitiv) don't ask me THIS is the most confusing of all things to do, even native speakers don't know this SHIT and they expect us to learn it in a few months?? the Nom Akk or Dat changes the structure of the word so you have to change the ending it can be dem or den or ein, eine or einen or even eneinem. You also have to do this for the adjective too but you have to know if it's the or a, if it's masc, fem or nom, if its nom, akk or dat, then you have to know what happens to the verb and where the heck it goes in the sentence. Sometimes you have to add beginnings to verbs or even put the verb at the end of a sentence. There is no logic to any of these things and I assure you, it's impossible for all of us. The teacher told us today you just have to use it thousand times and it will start coming to you but if they can't even use it properly, geesh and there's so much more you have noooooo idea..It's a crazy language, just like the country!! so many rules and illogical nonsense! Oh and they have words like this:
Donaudampfschiffahrtsgesellschaftskapitän

217. Whew!
I just carried home a pound of each: nectarines, lemons, pears. Then some cherries, blueberries, strawberries, lettuce, a huge melon, cucumber, zuchinni, mixed salad. Along with my schoolbag which weighs a ton and a bag of groceries from the Italian deli...I am sweaty and exhausted!!!
Still no car and drivers license!

216. Be Kind to Elders
I can't tell you how many times I watch elderly and handicapped people need assistance and nobody does anything to help them here! Using the public transport system you run into a lot of these people, elderly women trying to get off a tram, a wheelchair mentally handicapped individual stuck on the street, I rush over to help them, how can you not? But I haven't seen one person make any other effort, it's unbelievable. Guess that's what happens in a unsympathetic society that are so aloof and cold, they forgot all their basic manners.

215. miss more
Ahh the things we take for granted when you suddenly don't have them: air conditioners (no need for it at the moment), ice, garbage disposals, movies, chocolate cake, Loehmans, good Asian food, driving a car, my church, sunshine, beaches and sand, moonlight and stars (I'm serious in Armpit, it's always foggy so there are no stars at night!), Hollywood, convertibles, buying an English book to read, going out with friends, dry cleaning, shopping and sales, tv shows, American magazines, wearing shorts and flip flops, cking out new exciting restaurants in LA, friday nights in LA, parties, getting all dressed up for a reason, using the internet in English without it always automatically turning to the German site or trying to figure out doing ANYTHING online without translating!!!!, going to the store for anything and not having to take an hour to translate or figure it out...

214. Cream flavored Ice Cream
it's gross, it's flavorless and totally fattening, in fact there is not one German dessert here that I like not even the apple strudel! Haagen Daz is way better thank god they have it here for $8 a pint and french desserts are way tastier by far!

213. Came to Germany for some R&R

you remember the words Rest and Relaxation?? replace them with:

RULES AND REGULATIONS!!

212. Missin the Movies
Not being able to watch any America movies, or tv shows in English is a bummer, they dub everything into German here. Like I said I have 2 choices, MTV and CNN, quite a range I would say. But unable to understand anything else on TV stinks and there are no English movie theaters here in Armpit, I think they play one surprise movie on Mon nights in English, but we've not been able to make even one. The closest English theater is in Munich, an hour and 90 km each way. Even the video rental store has the worst selection of movies, I think the last one we saw was some no-name movie called Who killed Mandy, it was horrible...You can't imagine how that feels unable to just drive to the local theater and watch the newest movie, it sucks.

211. Attic housing
What is UP with that??!?! seriously, attics are for old furniture storage NOT to live in or vacation in. I can't tell you how many ATTICS we looked at when we looked for apartments, being in Europe, they try to make use out of every bit of space! Think about it, an attic has a triangular tip and you cannot even stand up straight unless you are in the middle! I'm serious, we saw so many of these places, I was in shock and they are not much cheaper either! Some hotels use attics as rooms and that really is annoying, they have no windows except maybe one skylight it's quite a treat. It makes you claustrophobic but I refuse to live in one of these!
Pix: haha don't hit your head when you wake up!! geesh!

210. The German Driving School
The driving test in Germany is one scary thing, not only is the price for getting it scary (anywhere from $2-3000 Euros= $4000 USD) but it includes a theory and driving test which only 60% pass on the first time. You have to study every night for at least a month, sometimes few months and it requires lots of studying, it's a whole big thing here, def not as easy as it is in the states. Sometimes NO kidding, they will require you to know things under the hood, where to put oil, water, brake fluid and if they're real assholes, they make girls change a bloody tire!??! WOW! the questions on the theory test are purposely tricky and no wonder you have to an exhorbitant amount of money from a private driving school to assist you in passing this darn thing..ahh these Germans and their ways! Everything is about studying, difficult and how to make your life harder.

209. Food I Dream About...
Lawrys prime rib with yorkshire pudding and Lawry's salad with french dressing, Roy's chocolate bomb cake, Houston's traditional salad, real Italian pizza made by Italians, REAL fresh sushi made by Japanese, Korean bbq, Spicy homeade kimchee, Japanese miso ramen, Chinese Seafood made by real Chinese, American yellow cake with chocoate frosting, Sprinkles red velvet cupcakes, things from Trader Joe's, Real lemonade w ICE cubes, Korean shaved ice with red bean and condensed milk, boba drinks, Pinkberry yogurt with fruit toppings, Krispy Kreme donuts, In and Out burgers animal-style, Rib eye steak USDA choice, Fogo de Chao brazilian beef, Marukai Japanese market, Japanese shabu shabu, korean soups, PF Changs lettuce cups, Cheesecake Factory white chocolate cheesecake with macadamia nuts, asian tuna poke, Eurasian food anywhere, Father's office burgers with sweet potato fries, Real and spicy Mexican beef tacos made by Mexicans, Thanksgiving dinner with all the sides, pumpkin pie, House of Pies fresh strawberry pie with custard filling and more...

208. I REFUSE to clean the refuse!
I REFUSE REFUSE to clean yogurt bottles and all glass bottles, beer bottles, juice bottles and crush down every single piece of cardboard, what r u supposed to do crush each compartment of a egg container??? Nice way to spend a Saturday afternoon in Germany...

207. Ausfahrt

Definition: to exit
Tip: Imagine the word without the "aus" it'll help you remember what it means

206. Spring is in the air...
in every other part of the world but in Armpit, Germany! It's still freaking freezing at night and the best thing is the Apartment Police have conveniently turned off the heating in our apartments. Remember no. 147??? They control how hot, and when you get heating, to their thick skinned bodies, I guess they think dropping to 25 degrees at night is too warm for them. In the meanwhile, even though I AM PAYING for my heating, I have no control over the heating in my apartment, so now I really am cold in this gosh forsaken place!

205. Germans on vacation

204. Curry Wurst
Just 2 thing on this topic:
disgusting and they have a museum about it...
http://www.currywurstmuseum.de/en/

203. I live in a 3rd World Country
No really, I know it sounds silly, but I really feel I do. This place is so backwards, I've been reading some of my old blogs and it's no wonder why. Draped in traditionalism, history and just plain unwillingness to adapt, this country which may seem modern, is definitely NOT. I don't want to come off ethnocentric, saying America is the LAND OF THE FREE, but heck it sure is!! There are so many luxuries and yes extravagance and maybe waste, but when you are used to that and come here, it's like living in a 3rd World country. I feel like it's living in the 1970's, yes I lived through those years, where modern amenities still did not exist, and you had to do things the old fashioned way ex. before dryers, microwaves, color tvs . I heard that many East Germans are unhappy about the modernizations and choices that they are now offered. Meaning they LIKED having no fresh fruits and vegetables before they were imported from other countries and they will still stick to their curry wursts and beer than try other foods. They said they feel there are too many choices now and that they have to work harder (you know capitalism!) than they ever did. Some of them like to be socialists, having everything done for them and not deal with all the pressures of the modern, capitalistic world. They LIKE to not to have to work hard to improve their situation, dream of anything better, they don't like the views and traditions of America, and they are perfectly content with the way things were. Wow, if this is the mentality of these people, we should build that wall up again and leave them alone.

202. Always on vacation
Germans take the most number of vacations in the world (it's a fact I learned in class) and I KNOW WHY!!!?!?! because they want to get the HELL out of here. You know, like we do, get away from the drab and dreary weather, people and food. But the problem is everywhere we travel to in Europe, you can't get away from them! And they are always at the same restaurant wearing their German sport jackets and sandals and speaking in their annoying language, harping about one thing or another or even complaining about the food. It's no wonder they are so despised by all other cultures. They can be rude, pushy, aggressive (always cutting in line) and honestly they would not fit in anywhere else in the world but Germany. Can you imagine if they had won the war>>!??! The world would be a very different and scary place my friend. I was watching a lot of old movies, Schindlers List, Charlotte Grey etc. that took place during WWII and I have to say they are portrayed in movies as villains, unsympathetic, hard, cold and just plain scary. This is scarier than any horror movie, because this is based on truth and history. I know they were not all involved in the war and many opposed this political view, however as a foreigner I have never felt so detached and out of place and unwelcome as in THIS country. I can only count a few people (on one hand) that were very nice here and overrall the public has been well, just not that friendly. Living in Bavaria, which I heard is a very closed off society (they have excuses for everything) I can see how people can feel that way. My current neighbors have only scolded us or questioned us, in fact the latest was, some neighbor hand wrote a note (and wrote in bold, meaning went over it like 20 times with a pen to make sure it was nice and dark for us to get the point, unbelievable!!) that we should crush our paper cartons down!! I assumed all that pen work meant an exclamation point, well that particular nosy asshole didn't realize we had NO cartons in paper that week and that we HAD been recycling properly but they chose to blame this on us, the new guys, or the one with the foreign wife. FUCKERS!! Sorry had to get that out, I was pretty upset, now we get letters from city depts AND nosy neighbors for not following the rules, everything is forbidden, blah blah blah. (Does Big German Brother really go through my freakin trash!?!?)
It's a wonder why I am so tense and stressed here all the time and trust me it affects me. My doctor said all the dry lips and constipation was from stress and the hard water and getting adjusted, bullshit, it's all because of them, you know THEM! I didn't have this problem at our first place, or it wasn't as bad, since this place was a beautiful part of Germany known for spas it was full of tourists. In Armpit, it's another story!

201. Recap
So let's do a recap, of what's still going on here, the closet still squeaks, my lips are still dry, the dishwasher still does not work properly, we're still fighting with the rental management company (we may have to sue them now, fun!), the bed is still rock hard, I still can't drive anywhere with no drivers license for over a month!! oh and the best thing, it's still pretty much grey, and rainy almost every single day. I check the weather every single day and it's a wonder to watch the weekly forecast, it might say sunny for a few days, but lo and behold as you get closer to the day, the weather ALWAYS ALWAYS turns rainy and cold, it's no wonder I love it here. In the last 4 months, I can honestly say there has not been 1 solid week of sunshine not even 3 days, nope, it's been sunny, then rain, then thunder, then cloudy, then rain, then rain, then rain..you think I'm kidding it's almost the middle of MAY and that is the freakin weather in Armpit, Germany. I think it's actually worse than northern Germany which is known for the cold. And once again to get away from it, we went to Italy last week (which was AMAZING!!!!! the food, the people, the shopping, everything not Germany! except every place we ate at, we were surrounded by German tourists ARHGGGGHH!!) and the weather once again was 30-40 degrees warmer, you remember, drive from Italy 82 degrees to Austria 38 degrees!??!?! We drove from rain back to rain, that was fun! Why did God bless Italy with such good weather and everything else, the food was amazing, sooooo good, I had to bring a ton of stuff back with me, because we are so deprived here of anything good, delicious (meaning with taste!) or Italian, and that was quite a treat.

2oo. The Mattress Story
There once was a girl and she moved to a far away country. When she moved there she went with a fairy prince who told her everything would be allright. Once she got to this country she didn't know anything, not the language or any of the customs or even how to buy furniture. So she and the prince went shopping one day to buy a bed. The big, bad retail store guy named Wolf ( I am NOT KIDDING!! That was his real name!) told them they ONLY had 2 choices, he showed them the first bed, she sat on it and it was waaaaay too soft. (She wouldn't had made such a big deal over this process but she had spent 2 weeks on an Ikea bed in her temporary furnished apartment and woke up with back pains so bad she had to sleep on the couch for a week and had excruciating back pains and swore she would get a good mattress). She told Wolf that it was too soft and had no support so he told showed her another mattress that was stiff as a board. Now, she knew it wouldn't do either and she insisted that Wolf and her prince check the other floor with the other mattresses. She took them upstairs and noticed a brand name bed that she saw in a magazine and it was much more comfortable than the other two. But the prince who hated shopping or shopping around took the evil Wolf's advice and said let's just choose between the two. The girl was very confused, why can't we have other choices and find the perfect matttress, one is too soft and the other is too hard, but for some evil reason the Wolf insisted on these two freaking mattresses and said these other ones (the ones with the good name) were for old people with back problems and convinced my prince to go back downstairs. Now, from what the girl remembered there wasn't much of a price difference either, but I'm sure the ASSSHOLLLEE Wolf would probably only get the fREAKING! commission on the downstairs merchandise and hence MADE us buy the piece of S@#T mattress downstairs. So, unhappily the girl had to choose the way too hard mattress for a lot of coins (around 1000 Euros which is like 1400 USD!!!!!) and it came with not a box spring mattress but a WOOD SLAT as the bottom support. It seemed ok at first but as the months went by, the mattress felt harder and harder and the girl woke up with back pain every night. She had predicted this would happen and unfortunately her prince did NOT listen to her and will now have to pay the price, which is to buy another overpriced mattress in this gosh forsaken country with no warranties or refunds!!! It may have been better if the girl had fat on her back to cushion her against the rock hard mattress, but not being a big-boned, thick skinned German woman! she did not have that protection. So, now we have an unhappily ever after story of the girl who wakes up every morning feeling like she's been beat up around her back and chest and tried everything including putting a feather comforter to ease the pain and it hasn't worked. But who could make this mattress softer, it's so hard you could even bounce a Euro on it, and we're not talking about the sheets!!! So, the girl dreams every night of leaving this awful country and hopefully returning back to her loved homeland...and a comfortable box spring mattress to sleep on.

199. Rear Window
Our apartment is like the movie Rear Window, its on the 5th floor and it faces a courtyard of hundreds of windows all with nosy Germans on their tiny little balconies peering out to look at everything. Except our house has both a rear window and a front window because it faces hundreds of windows in the front and back, that means I have to dress my windows with curtains or leave the blinds half down in the front and back so I don't have to face the very nosy, and bored fat old German guy that always seems to have enough time to stare out his window peering down at girls that walk by or the bored old grandma who sunbathes for hours, I mean hours! (which I don't blame her, since the sunny days are so rare here! but I really don't know want to be looking right at them since they are right on our eye level!). In fact, this was the very reason I did NOT want to get this particular apartment, I had never lived this way with so many neighbors being able to see right through your living room and kitchen! But after all the discrimination of gettting the other apartments we had to take this one, now we're just stuck with the awful rental management co. This also inhibits the limited amount of sunshine that I rarely see in Armpit, Germany anyways. Well it's either dark privacy or sunshine lookiloos...so our place is dark.

198. To be fair...
Although I really can't stand so many things about Germany as you can read, and understandably so, I have to say it would probably be slightly better if we lived in a bigger city. Although Munich is the most expensive places to live and eat here, it does have it's charm and variety of being a bigger city. Vienna would be even better, in fact, anywhere outside of Germany would be better for me.

197. If it's warm elsewhere it will be rainy here
Just checked our weather forecast this week, its spring in the rest of Germany pleasant weather finally!! and Austria was 72 and super sunny, Vienna 82 degrees! Here in the Armpit of Germany, it will be 46 degrees and rainy for 7 days! nice, I so love Spring in Germany don't you?? Also, last week I got the wrong weather report thinking Spring had arrived and I literally froze my ass off, you know thinking I could actually put my gloves, winter coats and umbrella away (BIG mistake!) and it was a nice warm 37 degrees till 2 pm. I had to walk and weather the storm literally in my spring clothes (BIG mistake!) while I could blow steam from my mouth, because it was so freaking like a freezer -ice-Armpit-cold!

196. Love Thy Neighbors
I just want to remind you how happy I am about my upstairs neighbor who has a huge dog, 2 grandkids that come over day for piano practice (they are merely beginning which makes it even more fun to listen to) that lasts exactly from 1 pm the time I come home to 3 pm. Then it's roller hockey in their living room that's super fun! and then they stomp all over the place, which made me discover that sound travels downward. He also has a vibrating bed or something that vibrates very loudly and makes our entire bedroom vibrate at his leisure and I believe he's hard of hearing because I can also hear his TV. He also likes to go to sleep after 12 am which is especially fun for us who get up at 7am every morning. Around 12:30am he likes to drop a load in his toilet and I can hear him pee like Austin Powers and it's quite refreshing to hear that and fall asleep for me. I am just wandering if I can hear that, what in the world can he hear from our apartment, scary! We are just so lucky to have him!

195. Terrified
I realized as we open up our mail everyday, we are literally petrified of legal documents from Immigration, drivers license office, real estate office, trash police, I mean every time we get something "official" we fear that we are in trouble with the Gestapo again and I HATE that, I mean really must we live in constant fear that we are in trouble, or we did something wrong, that what we did is "forbidden" my husband jokingly said I may end up in a German jail with scary big-boned German women and that I would be forced to eat wurst (hot dogs) every day, it was a scary thought.

194. Trash it!
Had a nice conversation about this recycling thing from a Vienesse guy and he said that it was confirmed that this is really not the most efficient way to recycle our trash. In Vienna, they make you throw away plastic in the restmull (other trash) so it can be burned for fuel. Plus mind you, we have 7 different trash trucks to come pick up the different assortment of goodies aka our trash and with all that gas, and emissions, you figure that one out.
Oh and while I was giving him my 2 cents about how these people are using their dishwashers to clean their yogurt bottles and cups, he said oh no! EVERYONE has a dishwasher, how funny. When it comes to things they want to use, it doesn't matter how much energy or electricity is being consumed. They are so funny these people, that's why you gotta love Germany!
oh, this is pix of german trash cans from Life magazine...

193. The Closet Conspiracy
So, my local contractor came to fix our second broken blind and he nicely fixed my squeaking closet. I wouldn't call it a mere squeak though, it was the sound of grey whales in the ocean, a high pitched squealing like in the Star Trek movie, it was soooo loud, every time I opened my closet door it drove me nuts and seriously impaired my hearing. The problem was ever since we moved from the first apartment, the lazy movers didn't properly assemble everything when we moved to our 2nd apartment. I also noticed fallen chips of (fiber wood, aka fake wood) wood on the closet panels and that all the shelves were about to fall down from not being properly assembled. So I paid 2 guys to try to fix that problem (costing more money) but the truth came out. This contractor told me these closets (which are quality produced with mere fiberboard and plastic and that are sold for EXHORBITANT amounts of money) are only good for one time use. YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME! At last, I found out that these Germans are tricking us, by purposely not building closets in homes, then making us purchase these SUPER expensive monstrosities and then God forbid, if you decide to move, you can't even take it with you..WOW, another fun loving thing that really makes me sing for joy. It really is true, lemme refresh you on how much these suckers cost:
Price of closet
600 Euros
Delivery cost
price of assembly 4 hrs labor x 20 Euros=80 Euros
Moving of closet

Price of 2nd Closet
600 Euros
Delivery and assembly
Wait time to receive: 6 weeks

So, to be conservative, about 1300 Euros =$1700 USD
for the price of 2 closets, which lemme tell you, barely fits all our clothes, so we have to use other smaller closets as well and now you can just toss these suckers when you're done, because they will fall apart on the 2nd move.
joy.

192. Eeewww it's starting to smell...
Let's not forget that when you start a compost under your sink, with every bit of bio remains, it will start to stink, in fact it will look and smell like a science experiment and grow certain fungus, mold, fuzz that you've never seen before in your life! Then all the liquid will seep to the bottom of the container, which means you must wash, and bleach out the science experiment remains every few days or your kitchen and house will start smelling like the back of a trash truck. I enjoy this immensely, like I have nothing better to do than this extra timely, and filthy chore...I am seriously starting to think I will defy the Gestapo Trash Police and to return to not recycling anymore, at least for bio.

191. Kitchen is a Demolition Zone
Because there are now 6 containers, my kitchen is full of diff colored trash bins, with trash strewn everywhere and lemme tell you that BIO bag starts stinking and molding up really quick!! I hate it! Really I have glass yogurt bottles, beer bottles, wine bottles, plastic drink bottles, soda bottles, glass juice bottles all lined up and ready to go to about hmmmmm 7 different stores??! Let's see and some don't take the other bottles so you know where this is going, I swear PEOPLE!?!? does it make sense to put plastic yogurt containers and actually USE the dishwasher (for 2 hrs) for this?!?! and then drive to 7 I said 7777777777!! different places when the cost of gas is $8 dollars a gallon to drop it off, am I painting a picture here that THIS is how we are saving the world?! Makes a LOT of sense to me, completely backwards!!

190. No Garbage Disposals
It's a big one and it deserves it's own line. Think about it, if you're a cook. Just imagine not having one. You will touch more slimy, gross, food waste than you ever had in your life, you will have to clean the clogged drain every 5 seconds and everything you cook and clean, you must now clean out of the drain. gross.
That's all.

189. The Land of Shit
Look at every single piece of trash, every single box of cookies, food packaging, milk carton, beef bone, aluminum foil wrapper, and now think of a world, where you must seperate every single fucking piece of item into it's own trash container, can you even imagine this world? It's called trash pickin and this nightmare is Germany!!! Now, I am relegated to itemizing every single, every fucking single piece of material used in every single packaging and putting it into the right bin. Do you know how much time, energy, frustration and nonsense this is? I read that Germany is soo fucking proud to be the world leader in recycling but that 1/2 the trash is in the wrong trash bins anyways. They are thinking of what other civilized countries do (you know modern ones that are not in the 70's fucking mentality! countries that HAVE GARBAGE DISPOSALS?!?!) already which is have machines sort out the trash. But some people would still like to stick to the useless traditional way, I swear they are sooo backwards here, it's unbelievable. For instance, I have to take a piece of chewing gum, put metal in one bag, paper in the paper, then the gum goes into restmuel (other trash). WOW, or remember my in law actually washing the foil lid and the plastic yogurt cup in the dishwasher before recycling>!??! I'm going to eat my pants!!!
PIX: here is a pix of the 3 Additional trash cans for glass, white, green and brown glass that is, you have to drop these suckers off yourself in your own car!

188. Every 10 minutes
Every 10 minutes the internet drops on my computer which I consider my lifeline here. When that sucker is out I am livid because that is my connection to the rest of the world, my entertainment (Slingbox and Tivo are great!) and info to Germany. It goes out consistently and even through our hundreds (no exxageration) of phone calls and Deutsche Telecom actually coming here and STILL not solving the problem I have to live with this nuisance. Which is what I've been learning to just live with all the fucking problems that go wrong here, can't beat them join them, they say!! arhhhgh! Oh, funny thing we signed up for the fastest possible dsl (we're LOCKED into this for 2 years meaning no rights, no choice in the matter to leave) and they said we can only get a certain speed because there's so many people using it here. WOW! unbelievable but typical Germany!! So, lemme get this right, I have to ask where my apartment is located before I even move in, to see if DSL reaches here (some places are remote so less speed) then if I find a highly populated location then I have the possibility that my signal will be split so I'll receive slow speed anyways. Then I am locked into the contract so nothing can be done and I am STUCK with this BS for 2 solid years. SO what is really their problem is actually my problem, nice!!!!!!!!!! I LOVVVVVVVVVVVVVE GERMAN THINKING!!