Category: Life In Germany

It’s A Sunshine Day

On By StevenIn Life In Germany8 Comments

Back in November, the inimitable Rarasaur nominated me for the Sunshine Blogger Award.  I don’t usually do Blog awards, because that’s just not what this blog is about.  However, Rara is one of my very favorite bloggers, so I wanted to pay this forward a little bit.  Better late than never, right?

sunshine-awardHere’s the Sunshine Blogger Award Rules:

  •     Display the award logo on your blog.
  •     Link back to the person who nominated you.
  •     State 5 things about yourself.
  •     Pass the award onto 8 other bloggers and link to one of their specific posts so that they get notified by pingback.

Five Things About Me:

  1. I love old TV shows that almost nobody remembers, like Streethawk, Flying Blind, Lush Life, Automan, and Mr. Merlin.
  2. I do a really good George Takei impression. And a pretty decent Mickey Mouse as well.  And while we’re on the subject of stupid human tricks, I can make the sound of one hand clapping.
  3. I am chorally trained. I sang in high school and for the first three and a half years of college. I sing in the Bass-Baritone range and used to be part of a barbershop quartet. I also have a secret stash of recordings of me doing Karaoke in the early 1990s. Tell no one.
  4. I have some form of headache almost every day.  Some are mild sinus things, and some are walloping migraines.  I’m used to it.
  5. I have seen the Village People perform live in concert on several separate occasions. I would kill to acquire a recording of their live version of Iko-Iko.

For those who I am about to pass the award on to,  please don’t feel obligated to do anything with it.  The award isn’t created by any official group, like a WordPress Advisory Board or anything.  It’s just one set of bloggers showing appreciation for the contributions of other bloggers.

However-  I don’t like chain letters or posts that say “pass this on or else.”   While I am following the rules of the award by listing eight bloggers below, my linking to you here doesn’t mean you’re required to do anything about it.

Moving on, then.

I hereby pass this award onto these 8 bloggers, in no particular order:

  1. Das Regensblog: For seemingly being more amused than I am about living in Regensburg. Plus lots of tasty food posts.

    More anthropomorphic body fluids


  2. Sarah Stäbler: For being an incredibly happy and optimistic person.
    http://sarahstaebler.wordpress.com/2013/01/18/faces-on-cars/
  3. TQE | That Queer Expatriate:  For just having a generally well-rounded, fun to read blog.
    http://www.elmada.com/?p=8922
  4. Ifs, Ands, & Butts: For being well-travelled, informative, and fun.
    http://www.ifsandsandbutts.com/2013/01/wisdom-teeth.html
  5. Pink Parliament: For incredible enthusiasm in the face of a new and different life in an unfamiliar country.
    http://pinkparliament.wordpress.com/2012/12/15/well-i-got-the-iphone-5/
  6. The Impossible Quest: For having impeccable taste in Sci-Fi, tv, movies, and the like.
    http://theimpossiblequest.blogspot.com/2012/11/caprica-too-soon-end-or-isnt-magda.html
  7. Geek Mädel: For being insanely interesting.  And interestingly insane.
    http://geekmadel.com/2012/05/07/why-you-should-live-alone-at-least-once-in-your-life/
  8. Pop Culture Boner: For being consistently hilarious and occasionally thought-provoking while talking about my favorite subject in the world.
    http://popcultureboner.wordpress.com/2012/12/31/the-best-and-worst-of-2012/

Bavaria Filmstadt

On By StevenIn Life In Germany18 Comments

Last weekend, while I was about 85% recovered from the touch of cold-flu-whatever, I had my first guest visit from the US, my friend Lorrie. We’re both fans of movies and television, so we decided to visit Bavaria Filmstadt, a working film and television studio on the outskirts of Munich. I had only just learned of the film studio’s existence, but I’ve seen a lot of their work. I suspect most of you have seen stuff from Bavaria Filmstadt too.

This studio has been active for decades, and many well known titles were filmed here. Here is just a few that filmed here:

To get to the studio from the Hauptbahnhof, we first took a U-Bahn for part of the way, and a Tram for the last part of the trip. The tram deposits you within walking distance (about half a kilometer) from the main gate. The studio is clearly marked. This first sign pointed us in the right direction, and a series of smaller signs told us when we got 400 meters away from the main gate, 300 meters away, and so forth.

studio01

At the main gate, you have to select your experience- there’s a tour, a “4D adventure,” and the Bullyversum. The Bullyversum is a separate section related to the films of Michael “Bully” Herbig, a comedic actor from the region who has become famous for his parody movies. I actually have the sci-fi one, “Traumschiff Surprise: Periode 1” on DVD. Here’s the trailer for that, just to give you a sense of what the movie is like:

We elected to do the tour and the 4d movie, but not Bullyversum, since a) the tour was in German and Lorrie speaks only English, b) she had never seen any Bully movies, and c) neither one of us was particularly interested in that part of the park. As it was, the tour and the 4d movie would take up about two hours of daylight, leaving us with little time to see anything else in Munich.

Once we paid our admission and tour fees, we had a short wait for the tour to begin. This gave us a chance to pop into the studio’s McDonald’s for a quick beverage- tromping around in the snow is thirsty work.

studio02

We also went into the studio’s gift shop, which was McDonald’s adjacent. There were three things I nearly purchased. The first was a plush Falkor from The Neverending Story. He was so soft!

The second thing I nearly purchased was an Auryn, also from The Neverending Story. After all the trouble they went to to find the Auryn in the movie, it turns out there’s an entire box of them for sale in Munich!

giftshop01giftshop02

The third thing I nearly purchased in the gift shop was a uniform shirt from Traumschiff Surprise. They were surprisingly high quality, and there’s something fun about a dayglow color like that.

giftshop03

After a few minutes wandering around the gift shop, the group started to gather for the tour. We moved outside to be with that group, and to look around at some of the scenery in the waiting area. There was a large model of the submarine from Das Boot, as well as a section of the spacecraft from Enemy Mine.

Enemy Mine

Additionally, there were some replicas of things used in The Neverending Story. Seen here are the Rockbiter and the Racing Snail:

story01 story02

Before much longer, it was time for the tour to begin. Parts of the tour went into hangar style buildings, but a great deal of it involved being outside in the snow. In hindsight, this was not an ideal winter activity.

The golden carriage below is from a current theatrical release, Ludwig II, which is about King Ludwig the second of Bavaria, the man responsible for many impressive buildings and monuments all over Germany.

studio04

One part of the tour allowed someone to re-enact a scene from a popular German television show.

Bavaria Filmstadt Tour

One of the big set-pieces of the tour was the Das Boot section. There were numerous models of the submarine in various sizes, including a life-sized tower.

dasboot01 dasboot02

In addition, you can walk through the interior of the sub. This was originally done in three side-by-side sections on a gimbal so that motion could be simulated realistically. It has now been layed out in one single track that you walk through. You can see engineering, sleeping quarters, and the conn with a periscope. This is not for the claustrophobic.

dasboot03

After Das Boot, the tour went outside again to show us the viking ship from the “Vicky The Viking” movie, Wickie und die starken Männer. (Literal translation: Vicky and the Strong Men.)

Wickie's Boat

Vicky The Viking is based on a popular cartoon. Here’s some video to show you the differences:

Finally, we got to the section that I was most interested in- The Neverending Story. They had a lot of behind the scenes imagery, like a shot of the Swamps Of Sadness set and this giant poster photograph showing puppeteers working on the Falkor model with the Rockbiter standing by:

story03

Also present were the original matte painting of the Ivory Tower, and the models used for the Southern Oracle.

story04 story05

My favorite part, naturally, was the giant bluescreen Falkor. Obviously, this was put in place for the children on the tour:

story06

…but really, I’m just a big kid, and I couldn’t resist a shot. Plus, as a bonus, you can see in the monitor behind my hand what it looked like with the bluescreen composite.

story07

The 4d movie, when we got to it after the tour, was a full experience ride with 3D glasses that lasted about five minutes. It was entertaining, but not as cool as the life-sized Falkor model.

Are any of the movies or shows produced at Bavaria Filmstadt in your favorites?

Sick And Tired Of Being Sick And Tired

On By StevenIn Life In Germany18 Comments

In the first week of 2013, I got sick.  It was on Wednesday that I started to feel tired and cold.  When I went home after work, I got into my bed, fully clothed, pulled the blanket up over my head, and slept for a while.  Over the next few days, there was a lot of shivering, a lot of sleeping, and a lot of randomly weird body aches.  I still don’t understand why being sick means you have to feel like someone has been continuously throwing oranges at you.

After my first round of sleeping off the fever, I had to start using pharmaceuticals.  In order to get what you need for a cold in Germany,  you have to go to an Apotheke.  You can’t buy over the counter cold medicine in grocery stores here like you can in the US; you must go to an Apotheke for your medicinal needs.  They all use either a variant of this red ‘A’ logo, as seen on this receipt, or in some cases, an internationally recognized green cross.

apotheke

What I purchased this time around is pictured below, except the Ricola cough drops.  Those are the same here as they are in the US.

Aspirin – This is pretty much the same as it is in the US.  The packaging is different, to meet Germany’s exacting packaging and trash rules, but aspirin is aspirin.  I grew up having Bayer aspirin all my life, and didn’t realize until I got to Germany that Bayer is a German company.  They’re a very big name in medicine here.

Grippostad – This is a multi-symptom cold medicine.  It has components for head and body aches, runny nose, cough, and fever.   It also has a boost of vitamin c, and it’s pretty effective at masking the rest of those symptoms for a little while.

Lemoncin – This is for sore throats.  It’s a lemony losenge.  It tastes pretty good.

pharma

Aside from that, I just fight being sick with lots of water, eating when I need to, and taking lots of rest.

How do you cope when you’re sick?

Maybe Falkor should have been a Luck Pig.

On By StevenIn Life In Germany8 Comments

I was walking past the bakery late last week, and I noticed a tray of little marzipan piggies with signs that said “Viel Glück!” which translates to “Good Luck!”  Sensing the possibility to learn something fascinating  and new, I immediately e-mailed this picture to my German Authority, Jenny, with the following missive:  “Please explain to me the tradition of the good luck pigs?”

luckpiggies

The reason for the little Angry Bird combatant snacks is that Germans regard pigs as lucky.   Around the end of the year, the Glücksschweinchen (lucky piglet) turns up in various snack foods, often with a four leaf clover or a horse shoe, which are also considered to be lucky.  Sometimes a ladybug, also considered good luck, is present as a red foil wrapped chocolatey treat.

Similarly, but not as sugary, chimney sweeps are said to be repositories of good luck, and on New Year’s Day you should do your best to shake hands with your friendly neighborhood sweep.  I wonder if the City worker guys who sweep up trash at the bus stop in the morning would count.

There are a slew of other superstitions and traditions- far, far too many to recount here.  As we go into New Year’s Eve, I’ll leave you with one more German superstition to bear in mind-  Never toast with water.  It’s considered a wish for harm to befall the people you are toasting.    Stick to ringing in the new year with fine Bavarian beer.  It’s just better for all concerned.

Happy new year, everyone!  Alles Gute im Neuen Jahr!

I am only an egg.

On By StevenIn Life At Home, Life In Germany, The U.S.21 Comments

This post is tangentially related to the December 27th WordPress Daily Prompt.

“Your personal sculptor is carving a person, thing or event from the last year of your life. What’s the statue of and what makes it so significant?”

I was already thinking about the words that follow, even before I saw the prompt.  While I didn’t write this post specifically to answer the personal sculptor question, I am going to talk a great deal about something that has shaped my world the most for the past year.

Back in 1993, there was an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation called “Second Chances.”  The basic plot is as follows-  The Enterprise goes to retrieve some scientific data from a planet which has an impenetrable distortion field around it.  Once every eight years, the field is weak enough to beam through it.  Eight years previously, a younger Lieutenant Riker was the last man to beam out when his team was forced to abandon the post.  When the modern-day Enterprise arrives, Commander Riker leads the away team, and meets- himself.

ST-TNG_Second_ChancesAlthough Riker made it up to the Potemkin and continued his career, a transporter phenomenon caused an identical Riker to rematerialize on the planet.  This Riker believed that he’d been left behind, and he spent the next eight years living alone.

The reason I’m talking about Star Trek on a blog about life in Germany is because it’s kind of the same thing.  Obviously I don’t mean that I was duplicated in a transporter accident, but there is some similarity between that ludicrous scenario and how I feel.  What the other Riker went through was, at certain points, textbook culture shock and acculturation.

While I was in the United States a few weeks ago, I was struck by the notion that while I’ve been living my life in Germany, life in the US has been going on without me.  This is the truest and deepest cost of being an expatriate. Friends and family kept going on-  my youngest niece started walking and talking.  Another friend is nearly done with law school.  People have gotten engaged.  Couples have split up.  Some of my friends have had massive shifts in their health, some for the better and some for the worse.  There are new pets, new jobs, and new hardships.  And while I was in Germany and away from all of this, there was a tiny part of me that went on living in the US, along with my friends and family.  There are two Stevens now.  They are entirely alien to each other.

I spent most of my first year in Germany feeling like I was on an extended vacation, but one where I just happened to be going to the office a lot.  It felt like my life in the US had just been paused- waiting for me to return to it.  My apartment has never quite felt like my apartment, and I’ve always been just a little bit of a stranger in a strange land.

It’s been more than a year now, and in the intervening time, I’ve felt less like that US life is mine.  The drift has begun-  I don’t speak to people in the States as much as I did in the first year. There are some people who I once considered my closest friends and confidants who I speak to now only via electronic means, and only regarding superficial topics.  If not for the horrible abomination that is Facebook, I would have lost touch with almost everyone except my closest ring of family members and a few dearly cherished friends.

There is even a physical component to this drift-  while I was in the US, I moved my few belongings to a much smaller storage unit.  In order to do that, I had to let go of a lot of possessions.  Most of my kitchen goods from the US are now gone.  Everything I own in this world is either in a 5×5 storage unit in Florida or a 45 square meter apartment here in Regensburg.  Considering I used to have an entire condominium full of crap, this is kind of a sobering realization.

I don’t feel like this Bavarian life is mine either.  I’ve made friends here, but making friends as an expatriate can be a little tricky-  most of us are transient.  You never know if someone you’ve met will still be there to talk to or hang out with in six months or a year.  I’m even hesitant with the locals, the people who aren’t going anywhere, because I don’t know if I’ll be here in a year or two.  My contract is written through the fall of 2014, but there’s nothing in it which says that Mr. Company can’t recall me to the United States sooner.  (They probably won’t, but it’s something that I think about.) There’s also the chance that they’ll want to renew my presence here at the end of the contract on a yearly basis.  I’m not sure how I feel about that, to be honest.  I get asked a lot if I want to stay here at the end of my contract, and my answer is always a little timid:  “Ask me again in another year and a half.  A lot can happen in a year and a half.”

For night now, I’m stuck in the middle.  Beholden to two countries, but not truly feeling at home in either one.  I am the two identical Rikers, both fighting to claim the right to be the real one.