Romania

I went and visited host brother II in Romania.  He (and lots of other Germans) are in Romania to study medicine.  Germany's system only allows students with near perfect grades to enter medicine; Romania is an EU country which means the license is good for Germany.   Students start off in Romania and transfer back to Germany or decide to go it the whole way (as I understand it).

We arrived late and went to a bar.  It was a pretty cool bar, except that everyone was smoking like chimneys.  It turns out smoking is not banned anywhere in Romania- people liberally exercise their freedom indoors.  We played Kicker (Foosball, which ironically seems to be a derivative of German for actual soccer (Fussball)).

The apartment was a pretty sweet set up and I enjoyed the overall experience of the city.  The city felt very "eastern european" according to the stereotypes I've internalized over the years, which basically means there was lots of cement.

I found this circle staircase somewhat captivating- I can't rightly say why:

The town, Timosoara, is going to be (or may be) the EU city of culture for 20-something-something.  This means she's getting a face lift right now.  Normally, there are a lot of squares full of cafes for coffee and leisure throughout the downtown.  Right now it is pretty torn up, but it is apparent that it would be quite pretty:

A note on the pictures: I broke my phone and the forward facing camera.  That leaves my only option for photos from the rear-facing "selfie" camera- which severely hampered my photojournalism endeavors.  In order to get a picture of something, I had to turn around and put the phone over my head, or turn my wrist funnily and hope for the best.  This procedure left me vulnerable to photo bombs from the bros- who thought my desire to snap photos was quite funny given the camera predicament.

Back to the timeline.

We went to a grocery store for dinner because we had decided to cook almost all of our meals for the weekend instead of eating out.  I noticed and appreciated the bulk frozen food section and the protection for the (apparently) most stolen commodity: expensive cheese.

In my short time in Romania, I really got the sense that the Romanian people know how to enjoy life, relax, and waste away afternoons talking in the sun.  This was wholly supported by the stocking of the grocery store we visited. For example, it sold 2 and 3 liter bottles of beer with sunflower seeds already attached to the bottles! Genius.

On a more serious note, the islamization of Europe is getting out of hand and clearly originating from the eastern front.  Take for instance this conspicuous recruiting center:

Okay, it was a bad joke (it's just an unfortunately named shoe store) but with current events in Germany and abroad, it gave us a laugh to imagine the bad naming luck that the owner has.

More wondering and photo bombing:

weiches Ei

One of the many things I hope to bring back is the German Breakfast.  Bread and Marmelade (and sometimes German cereal) are king 6 days of the week.  On Sundays there is a feast of plenty:

Jams Jams Jams Jams Fleisch Fleisch Käse Käse Käse Fruit Quark Lachs Sausage Jams Butter.

And, the soft-boiled egg (also a nifty insult):

After 7 months of intermittent training I successfully took the top off  of the shell without ripping the egg itself.  Perhaps my proudest moment (before 10 am).

Colleague and Friend

At work I've made friends with one of the young engineers.  He is a very interesting person so I thought I would share.

There is a stereotype that vegetarians and anti-gmo and anti-car and anti-anything people can be a little bit self righteous and half-committed to their philosophies.  Johan is not one of these people.  His philosophy is to have a small footprint on life and to live local.

I had to find this out about him by observation- he never really offered it up to the world.

Evidence 1: he rides his bicycle to and from work everyday 45+ minutes
Evidence 2: he eats this terribly dry looking bread and coats thick layers of exotic looking butter on it
3: He is one of the only Germans I have ever seen with a water bottle.

As I have come to talk with him during our daily Brotchen Pause (morning bread break, a 15 minute break signaled by automatic air horns) he has revealed a profound love for bicycles and being outside riding bikes.  One day when I asked him about the bread he happily told me about this awesome place he gets it.  One day I suggested he switch up his diet- he said he doesn't have money too.  I said, "dude these boiled easter eggs I eat are like 20 cents a pop" and he smiled coyly and said "yes but they do not come from happy chickens."  We both knew which direction this could go down, but I was curious.

I turns out he isn't a vegetarian, but he doesn't like to support conglomerate businesses (unless he has too- and his threshold is much higher than what you'd think) or farming practices that aren't humane.  Because of this, he buys direct from farmers markets, which is expensive.  Rather than change his moral code, he changes his eating habits and has to budget the whole month for a couple "burger and chicken nights".  I have a lot of respect for that.

One day I mumbled aloud "Ugh Thalia this website is terrible" and his ears perked up.  He says, "Are you buying a book from Thalia?" "Yes" "Do you have to buy it from Thalia?" "Yeah they have it pretty cheap and I went there before for English books" ... He slides his chair around the corner...

"Well, the thing with books is they are more or less forced to be the same price no matter where you buy them, and they ship overnight usually- so you could call a local book place and they could have it ready for you tomorrow.  And Thalia is like- ahhhhhh you know? You don't have to, but if you want I could call a place for you"  It was a nice gesture and I actually ended up saving some money by doing it.  It made me think of all of the times I go to big stores out of convenience or marketing or brand loyally- and simultaneously curse the lack of local businesses in downtown Auburn.

I could probably save a few pennies in some places to use them better locally.  This book example was unbelievably simple and made me realize it's sometimes a shame to be as lazy and unaware as I am in my own role in the health of my community.

Point is, I made a cool friend who likes bikes and is nice enough to have made a suggestion like with the book in a non-threatening or embarrassing way. And he has never given me a dirty look for eating sad-chicken eggs.

Work Stories

For work I'm designing a pressure containing vessel that requires reinforcement.  One idea was to bend some sheet metal into bracing that could be welded on. The bending worked, but the specific concept was eventually scrapped.

This one time I put my phone in the washermaschine and now it is broken (1 month).  I will say that not having a good working camera has really limited the productivity from this blogger- sorry!

A German behavior/idea, in my opinion, is to only buy things once.  Germans love when little things are made very well and hate when things break.  If I had a dollar for every German appliance in the home here over 20 years old, I'd have some dollars.  Jochen enjoys pointing out how old his blender and microwave and washer-maschine are, and to contrast this with the number he has had to replace in a few short years in the US.  My boss says: If we think this may be so and break, then we will build it more. It must last forever!

Well, here is a great little example:

 This pencil sharpener has a spring loaded allignment function built in.  You put the pencil in the vice grip, and it grabs and pulls the pencile directly into the middle of the shaver.  You never have to worry about breaking the tip!  It also costs 50 dollars, which is about 45 dollars more than we would be willing to pay in the states. Culture!

There was a partial eclipse of the sun last Friday, and a total eclipse of my heart.  I have never seen an eclipse before and was thankful to be working somewhere with extra welding lenses lying around:

During the peak of the eclipse the lighting was very beautiful.  Everything was illuminated but it was much softer- like dusk without the shadows and yellow light. Or something.

p.s. sorry for the Bonnie Tyler joke.

Weekend Work

In an attempt to fulfill my volunteer hours I committed to helping at the Rowing Club of Saarland (via a colleague at work).  I rode my bike from the dorf to the club in Saarbruecken this Saturday.  I recently bought cool new pedals and a handlebar stem which I was happy to test out.

Unfortunately, it was a little bit cold and windy.  It didn't, however, stop me OR these wild and crazy guys who were riding a beer-keg-bicycle and singing merrily down the path:

The Rowing Club is pretty massive and top-notch- in true German Verein style.  It has over 400 members and is currently being renovated in preparation for part of the German Olympic Rowing Team, which will be based out of Saarbruecken.  I don't know anything about rowing, so it was fun to talk to passionate people and to see how orderly this club was.

Here is an indoor rowing/pool used for training:



Before I got to work sanding and moving heavy boxes, I watched one of the 8-man boats launch:

It is a massive, old and wooden boat

The group had unfortunately miscounted and was a man short right as they were preparing to get underway.  My keen counting skills had made this discovery shortly before, so I was in position doing jumping jacks and subtly flexing my back-muscles from my observation post on the dock. Sadly I wasn't picked.  A group of the older men petitioned for me to join, but a small minority couldn't handle the idea of complete beginner skipping training and going straight to the big leagues. They rowed 1 man short.

I enjoyed doing the manual work, it's been a while since I've done anything mindlessly productive.  The people were also nice, and it seems that if I stick around, they might let me take a lesson or two and train with them once in a boat.  I'm hoping it works out because it looks like a wonderful sport!

Kartbahn

One month some guys from the wind lab invited me to go kart racing with them.  As fun as that sounds it was pretty intimidating to go up against Germans- you know how they are with their cars.

All of the guys showed up with helmets, gloves, burglar masks for warmth; I didn't even "show up"- they whooped me pretty good out there.

Cap'n Ami wasn't last... But very close....

This is a video of the racing track... I think the driver is actually worse than I was (not much). The 40kmph felt very fast on such a small track.

Breaking the Blog Drought

We went one time and ate sushi.  This painting spoke to me:

One of the cats is the devil.  He destroys beautiful moments by gifting dead mice and birds.  But he also makes up for it by being kind of cute: