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Adventures in cross-cultural gynecology

Two short stories for you from my recent trip to the gynecologist in Munich: Story #1: The waiting room was quite full, and the women were getting restless. Glimpsing the crowd, the doctor came out to loosen us up with a joke (here translated by me from the German): “What’s the difference between an Ossi* … Read more

7 tips for finding a job in Europe

[The tips in this post are aimed at Americans wanting to work in Europe, but most of the information is valid for those of other nationalities, as well.] So you want to get a job in Europe, but you have no idea how to go about such a thing? It might be easier than you … Read more

Obamania sweeps through Germany

Germany is all abuzz today as Obama prepares to speak in Berlin. He is on the cover of magazines such as Der Spiegel and Stern. The Sueddeutsche Zeitung is chronicling his every move throughout the day. The televised pre-game show began hours ago.

He will be speaking in front of the Siegessäule, a good 2 km away from the Brandenburger Gate, his first choice of venue. This move was supposedly to appease Merkel, who was not happy with Obama’s first location choice. As much as I love Obama, I too found myself questioning the idea of this speech. Presidential performances in Berlin are the stuff of legends, but Obama isn’t exactly president yet. Why is he trying to trick me into believing he is?

Regardless of my initial skepticism, today I find myself eagerly anticipating this evening’s speech.

Read moreObamania sweeps through Germany

A little German leisure reading

So, in my quest to improve my language skills, I have switched most of my leisure reading over to German. So far I have finished two novels in German, and I’m looking for more. The first novel I read, at the suggestion of Heza and Alex, was Der Vorleser by Bernhard Schlink. It started out … Read more

Travel writers born, not made?

If ever you were in doubt that nepotism is alive and well, you’d need look no further than the travel writing industry to see that it is. Who knew guidebooks were the stuff of travel royalty? Take Arthur Frommer’s daughter, Pauline, for example. She has her own line of guidebooks. Incidentally, I learned about her … Read more

The old city ring party

As part of the summer-long celebration of Munich’s 850th birthday, the middle of the city was taken over this weekend for the Altstadtringfest. Despite the crowds and weather which alternated between oppressively hot and torrential downpour, we had a pretty good time sampling the offerings. And we saw a lot. A robot parade. A glorified … Read more

Munich parties

We were this close to going away for the weekend, but in the end decided to stick around and check out the hundred million things going on in Munich. We just got back from a day at the Tollwood Festival out at the Olympiazentrum. Tollwood had been described to us as kind of a hippie … Read more