German Superstitions

After my last post, I started thinking about all the humorous superstitions that I have come across during my time in Germany. I would like to point out that I am no doctor and don’t actually know if any of these are valid or not. I just think they are funny. Also, I’m not trying to rip on Germans here. As an American, I can think of an equally long list of ridiculous superstitions and behaviors that are stereotypically American. This is meant to be funny.

1) A draft is detrimental to one’s health.

I’m not sure what the reasoning or background to this one is, but I see it all the time. If I am sitting in a train in the summer and the temperature is approaching 100 degrees Fahrenheit (see below for superstition about air conditioning), I might think it is a good idea to open the tiny little window that would allow a tiny bit of airflow into the passenger compartment. Every time I have attempted this or seen it attempted by some other unknowing tourist, the idea has been shot down either by a) an old lady that will give the evil eye, stand up, march over to the window, make a big fuss and slam the window closed as hard as possible and yell “ES ZIEHT!!!” (English: There’s a draft!), march back over to her seat, sit down and glare at the offender for about a half an hour to ensure that it doesn’t happen again. b) The conductor will come by and lock all the windows as soon as the train starts moving to make sure that we don’t ever get into situation a.

2) Stale air.

This one isn’t really so unreasonable, but it is still quite funny to witness. Every German has to open every window in every room of the house for at least 20 minutes per day. It makes sense of course to air out each room. It helps avoid mold problems and such and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a German use an air freshener because of this habit. What is hilarious is when this requirement somehow conflicts with the first superstition about a draft. The problem is that if you open two windows on opposite sides of an apartment, there will be a nice breeze that flows through the apartment. This may never happen. You must first open the windows on one side of the house and after closing them you can open windows on the other side of the house. You could also open them all at once, but you must make sure that every single door is closed to ensure that no air actually moves. If you plan on leaving the room you are in, you should close the window first before opening the door, otherwise you might create a temporary draft and the door will slam behind you. Every person has their own morning ritual about airing out the apartment. It is pretty standard and all windows and balcony doors in Germany have three modes: closed, swinging open and tilting open. The “tilting open” mode is usually the only one used for airing out a room as that minimizes the draft.

3) Air Conditioning is bad for you.

I’m not sure if it is because it is “artificial air”, or because the air is dry, or what the deal is with air conditioning, but Germans are deathly afraid of it. At a minimum it will give you a cold, but it could very easily disrupt your Kreislauf (English: blood circulation). I’ve never seen an apartment or house anywhere in Munich with air conditioning. I’ve seen fewer than 10% of businesses use air conditioning in the summer, and it seems that only in recent years is it becoming standard equipment on cars, although I’m pretty sure this also only applies to imports. In the US you can’t buy a BMW without air conditioning. Here, you have to pay extra for it, since only a fool would use it anyway. The few times I’ve seen air conditioning in use here, the temperature is just 2 or 3 degrees below the outside sweltering heat, so it is pretty much useless anyway. At my office, only the server room is air conditioned. I used to keep it at 16 degrees Celsius, and I enjoyed going in there during the summer. My boss told me it would be fine to raise the temperature up to 20 degrees. Yesterday I was showing the new sysadmin the server room and he was shocked that we are running at 20 degrees instead of 25, which would be plenty cool. I think mostly they are afraid of abrupt changes in temperature.

4) Abrupt changes in temperature.

I had a German ask my advice about traveling through Death Valley once. I told him not to worry too much, since all rental cars these days have air conditioning and Death Valley is pretty cool. You drive around comfortably, stop and get out for a bit while being amazed at how ridiculously hot it is, look around, get back in the car with the A/C on full blast and drive home. He said he was pretty sure that that would severely affect his Kreislauf and was considering skipping the trip altogether.  Recently it has been quite cold here in Munich. Way below freezing a couple of days. I’ve heard complaints that the regional trains use heaters in the passenger compartments, because while it is nice and comfortable during your hour long commute, once you get to your final destination, you are pretty much doomed to instant death as soon as you step off the train into the cold outside.

5) No swimming after eating.

Now, I’ve heard this one in the US as well. I should probably submit it to Mythbusters for a final confirmation, but from what I understand, if you eat a full meal and then immediately go swimming afterward, your body will tend to cramp up, making swimming and breathing difficult and there is a possibility of drowning if you are in a deep area and unsupervised. That sounds perfectly reasonable and whether it is true or not, I can accept that and don’t plan on sneaking off to an abandoned pool right after eating a 7 course meal and jumping straight into a deep end. However the way I’ve seen German interpret this “guideline” about eating and swimming is along the lines of if you ingest anything regardless of how minute, and within precisely 30 minutes happen to submerge any part of your body in water deeper than a small puddle, not only will every muscle in your body cramp up immediately, your Kreislauf will go into shock and you’ll be dead within minutes. True story. I vividly remember when I was a child of about 11 years old, there was an outdoor swimming pool nearby and during summer vacation it was great to get a bunch of friends together and two or three of the moms would come along to supervise and we’d all go to the outdoor pool for an afternoon. The moms would usually just gossip and sunbathe and all of us kids would go swimming. There was a small water slide and a few diving boards. There was a big grassy area to just lounge around and sunbathe and hang out and there was even a small concession stand. Well, after swimming for a bit and just enjoying the afternoon, it was time for a break, so I headed back to where the moms and the towels were. Two of my friends were sitting there, one of them enjoying a popsicle and the other was eating a small basket of fries with ketchup. As is the social norm whenever you see your friend eating fries, I went ahead and reached over and grabbed one and popped it in my mouth. About 5 minutes later I decided that it was boring there and got up to go lounge with my feet in the pool in the shallow area where all the toddlers hung out. Well my foot almost got to the water when I was swept up by my friend’s mom, who was frantically screaming and rushing me back to where everyone else was and was yelling at me along the lines of “I can’t believe how foolish you are! Have your parents taught you nothing?!? You almost died just now!!!!”. Completely confused by this, I asked what miserable fate I had barely escaped thanks to her watchful eye over me. The response was “Don’t you know that you have to wait 30 minutes after eating?!? I saw you eat that french fry and I want you to sit down here for 30 minutes before you even think about going back to the pool!”.

6) Kreislauf

The German language has a neat way of turning concepts into neat little nouns that can be put into the singular very easily. In English it is more difficult to refer to ones blood circulation, because you aren’t talking about the blood itself, but rather the motion of it throughout your body through veins and arteries. Anyway in German this whole concept is known as “Kreislauf” and apparently this is the sole determinant of your current condition and you can feel the most minute changes. Now, I’m no doctor and just because I have never been able to actually *feel* the blood pumping through my body outside of my feeling my pulse, I can’t really say they are wrong about this. I just think it is funny that pretty much every German I’ve met has this at the top of their worry-list and I’ve never even heard of anything close from Americans. When conversing with Germans, it is normal to ask how things are going, how are the kids, how is the Kreislauf, etc. Pretty much everything in life can affect your Kreislauf and it is of utmost importance to not disturb it. For instance the reasoning for not eating a heavy meal in the evening is because it is bad for your Kreislauf. When a German has just returned from a trip abroad and had a long flight, you always have to ask how the flight was and the answer will almost always be “well, it was a good flight, but I can always feel it in my Kreislauf when I fly for so long”. Every aspect of a German’s life is to appease the Kreislauf. The only reason for working out, eating healthy, getting exercise, sleeping the proper amount of time each night and going to bed and getting up at the same time every day is for the Kreislauf. It is also the only reason that Germans have to have 6 weeks of vacation per year, and the only reason to go hiking in the mountains. It is to recover the Kreislauf. By law every German gets at least 4 weeks of vacation per year and most people get 5 or 6, and by law you have to use it all the year you get it, because if you don’t, your Kreislauf suffers from it. The way that Germans know when they’ve had enough to drink is because they can start to feel it in their Kreislauf. As consequence to drinking too much, Americans get hangovers. Germans get hangovers too, but don’t care about them. The real problem is the almost irreparable damage to the Kreislauf. It actually goes so far that you can go to any doctor in Germany and say that your Kreislauf just isn’t feeling like it should and he’ll immediately prescribe you two weeks off from work. You can call your boss any day and just tell him that something isn’t right with your Kreislauf and you will be sympathetically told to stay home with pay and try to relax so that you can recover.

6) Sore throat? Wear a scarf!

The only real reason to wear a scarf in Germany is to help heal a sore throat. I actually don’t see too many men wearing scarves in cold weather when they are healthy, but as soon as you start to get a cold or a sore throat, you put on a scarf and don’t take it off for a couple of weeks. Germans will wear a scarf in bed if they have a sore throat. I’ve confronted Germans about this before, like when walking into a friend’s house in mid-August and it is sweltering heat outside and inside and my friend comes to the door wearing shorts, t-shirt and a scarf. “What’s with the scarf?” – “Oh, I have a sore throat”. Perfectly logical. After asking what the scarf does for the sore throat, I just get a blank stare and something like “everybody knows that when you have a sore throat you have to wear a scarf. It is the only cure!” This is so deep in the culture and it is quite hilarious. It is so standard that all you have to do is start wearing a scarf indoors and the first person you see will offer you some tea and give you a “I hope you get well soon!” without even having to ask if you are sick. It is just a direct correlation. All people that have sore throats always wear scarves and all people wearing scarves indoors must have a sore throat. I’ll point out that there are also some gay and metrosexual men that will wear scarves indoors as a part of their outfit even when they don’t have a sore throat, but you can usually tell by the kind of scarf it is.

7) Others.

There are many other superstitions that come up from time to time, but I’ll stop here for now and I’ll update this post with more as I think of them. There are also some smaller ones, like “women who sit on concrete surfaces will become sterile” and “when riding on the subway, you have to sit facing the direction of travel”, but they aren’t u

Back to the States… Again. Mozilla-style!

As I hinted in my last post, I’ll be moving to California this month. It is almost hilariously ironic that pretty much exactly two years ago I did this exact same move. Back then I moved to the Bay Area, stayed with a friend for a few months while looking for work, only to find a job back in Munich. So now I’ve been in Munich again since mid-2008 with my wife and we’ve decided that although living here is nice, it isn’t really where we want to spend our future. Life as an expatriate can be fun, but it can also be difficult. One can’t really compare the different cultures to each other as there are so many differences, yet so many similarities. It pretty much comes down to how you like your day to day life. Sure it has been great living two blocks away from the Oktoberfest, but that only comes around once a year. Yeah, it is awesome to be able to head on down to the Hofbräuhaus after work and drink with the locals, or get authentic Italian food and great Indian food on pretty much every street corner. These are some of the things that make Munich a great place to live. But it is the day-to-day life of paying too much rent for a small apartment, waiting for the bus that is never on time, getting dirty looks from old ladies on the bus, people shoving you off the subway when you aren’t walking fast enough for them and people never apologizing when they run into you. Getting to work and trying to fit in is always awkward. The strange social norms here are quite comical at first, but after a while you just kind of want to kick the next person you see wearing a scarf indoors “because of a sore throat”. Germans are deathly afraid of abrupt temperature changes, air conditioning, and in some cases heating. I actually heard someone complain recently that the train they took to work had the heater on when it was below freezing outside. It’s great for the hour train ride, but once they get off the train at the destination, the cold air outside will instantly send their body into shock and only if they are extremely lucky will they avoid instant death. I know. It sounds funny at first, but seriously I don’t think I can take it anymore.

Ok, so to shorten this long rant I will get to my point. Late last year my wife and I decided that we would start considering the possibility of moving back to the US. I casually applied for some jobs here and there with no real hopes. Then I found my holy grail. I noticed that Mozilla was looking for a Systems Administrator. This had kind of been my dream job ever since I was in college. Back then, we’ll say 2005 or 2006, I was just starting to get into open source software and linux and servers and really becoming a computer geek. Anyway a good friend of mine got an internship at Mozilla in Mountain View and after he moved there from Oregon, I decided to go visit him. While I was there, Mozilla was hosting an open house of some sort and I got invited to go check out the company behind everyone’s favorite browser. I was truly amazed when I got there. The people were all really friendly, knowledgeable and passionate about open source and making the web a better place. I had no idea that anything like this existed. Everyone I met seemed extremely happy, everyone loved their job. I thought I had a good job at the time, but never had I seen everyone at my place of employment be genuinely happy to be at work every day. I got the feeling that there was no such thing as a disgruntled Mozillian. I was impressed. Unfortunately I didn’t see myself ever getting to work there, because they already had desktop support people, and that was pretty much the extent of my experience at the time. They were still a pretty small company and were mainly focused on hiring developers and such. I wrote it off as a dream that would never come true and always hoped that someday I would find a place to work with such energetic colleagues. Well to date this hadn’t happened. I graduated college, entered the real world, got a job at a small tech firm which seemed like a good place to work, but once I got there I realized that there is no such thing as a “fun” place to work. Yeah, you have good days and bad days and you have fun with what you are working on, but I haven’t encountered anything like what I saw at Mozilla. So once I saw that they were looking for a Sysadmin and the job description pretty much matched my experience exactly, I applied for it. I couldn’t reasonably think that I would be so lucky to get an interview, but I could dream. Things that good just don’t happen to me. Plus it all seemed to perfect to really work out. The timing was right. They were looking for someone, just as I was getting disgruntled with my current job. My wife and I decided we would love to move to Northern California if the opportunity ever presented itself. But again, we didn’t really think I would get this job, it was just simply too good to be true.

Well, after two months of phone interviews, a trip to California and back, pleasant experiences all the way around, I was offered the job and of course I accepted it. It took some negotiating with my old company to let me leave in a reasonable amount of time (normally you have to give 3 months notice to quit a job in Germany), and I have to stick around long enough to train my replacement, but in less than a month I’ll be starting my dream job in the heart of the Silicon Valley. Now the stress of moving is starting to hit me. Gotta pack everything, plan everything, cancel cell phone contracts, utilities, apartment, find a new apartment, figure out how to move cats internationally, figure out how to get my car from Oregon (it has been sitting for two years), etc., etc.

Travel Blog

My good friend Luke P. has started a Travel Blog since his arrival in Munich as a collaborative blog among our group of friends.  I’ve decided to post my travel experiences over there.  You can find it at http://besttravelblogevar.wordpress.com/.

Mead and No Seatbelts Required

I’ve made it to Germany and I finally received my luggage back from the airline after they conveniently managed to lose all of it and spend 4 days finding it and causing significant damage to it. But I’m not bitter. It’s just funny how once they lose your luggage, they pool all their resources together, get on this huge tracking system, find the luggage, get it sent on the next plane directly to the destination, and personally deliver it to your house, no matter how far away you are from the airport by the time they find it. That is excellent service, I must say. A funny thought crossed my mind.. what would happen if they put only half of that energy and those resources into just not losing it in the first place? Oh, they would obsolete their luggage tracking department and put people out of jobs. That makes sense.

Anyways, so I’ve been in Munich for about two weeks, and I decided I should visit my brother in Prague this weekend. This is always a fun experience, because i always experience something new when I go to Prague. I tried mead for the first time. That was great. How can one not appreciate fermented honey! It was a little on the sweet side, but definitely worth trying if you come across it! Secondly, I found out that in Prague, there is no requirement to wear a seatbelt. This is a little unnerving, when I imagine that everyone in the entire city is driving around without a seatbelt on. I took a cab from the train station to my brother’s place and got the strangest look from the cab driver when I put on my seatbelt. All the cars have seatbelts… they just aren’t required. And nobody that I saw was wearing a seatbelt. That is definitely strange. Even the cab drivers, who tend to drive a car for a living, don’t wear them. Another really strange thing I noticed here, was when you buy a bag of potato chips, you get the same brands and other ones than you find in American grocery stores, only the bag is a lot smaller, but you get the same amount of chips. That’s right, they don’t package up 3 gallons of air for every 5 potato chips. What a country!

I’ll head back to Munich tonight so I can get back to work. I have a busy week ahead of me with getting into the German health care system, filling out forms for the Aufenthaltsamt (Immigration Bureau) and hopefully getting into my new apartment.

6122 Days…

That is how many days I have waited, looked forward to, and thought yesterday would never come. I still clearly remember my very first day of school. I entered the 1st grade at Riemerling Grundschule in the outskirts of Munich, Germany on September 11th, 1990 at the ripe young age of 6 years old. Every single day for 6122 days between now and yesterday, I looked forward to that day, in which I could finally say I am done. 6122 days of dreading the grueling torture that is school.

I have struggled through math class, learned to write perfect handwriting with an ink fountain pen, learned, forgot, and re-learned the rules of grammar in English and mastered the German language, as well as gained a solid grasp on the basics and fundamentals of the Russian language, made and lost many good friends, moved many times and attended 8 different schools between 1st and 12th grade, attended college for 6 years, at two separate colleges through 5 different majors, accumulated over 300 college credits and finally, finally walked across the stage yesterday as a diploma was handed to me in front of my father, mother, stepfather, uncle, grandmother, some very close friends, and most importantly, my girlfriend, Karen, who has conquered my heart. Indeed yesterday can count to one of the greatest days of my life. No longer will I be dreading class tomorrow or the essay due next week. I have finally achieved a status in my life that I have been longing for for 6122 days. What comes next?

Tomorrow morning I will leave what has been my home for the past 11 years and embrace what has been my home for many years before that. I will be flying into Munich after a long flight and jump right into work. I am overwhelmed with sadness and joy at the same time. Joy for finally finishing something of significance in my life. Joy for going back to my favorite place on earth, for getting to see my little sister, and my brother and some close friends. Sadness for leaving behind my mom and some other close friends, and most importantly, my girlfriend, with whom I have fallen in love with.

It has definitely been an adventure, and for the first time in 6122 days I feel that I am truly free and the world is just another adventure waiting to be explored. There is nothing holding me back from pursuing my dreams and my future. I have succeeded. I have graduated. I am done. I am now Alumni. However, if the University thinks I am going to join their Alumni Association and give them even more money, they are definitely mistaken. I am already in the possession of the most expensive piece of paper I have ever seen, I don’t need another.

Deutschland, ich komme!

I have made the decision to return to the place of my upbringing after I graduate from Oregon State University.  Approximately one month from now I will be walking at my commencement ceremony and two short days later I will be boarding an airplane to embrace my new home in Munich, Germany.

This is going to be a rather interesting adventure for me.  Although I grew up in the Munich area, I left there when I was only 12 years old and in the past 11 years that I have spent in the US, I have, for all intents and purposes, become very americanized.  I have visited Munich many times since moving to the US, but it has only been as a tourist.  I have spent the last 5 years or so brushing up my German skills and will be receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree in German (language and culture/history/literature) this June.  I won’t be going through the culture shock experienced by most expatriates, however this is indeed going to be a major change in my life.

I have done a lot of soul-searching throughout my time in College.  If nothing else, I have learned a lot about myself.  In studying German, I have learned a great deal about the English language.  In studying German culture I have learned a great deal about the American culture.  It’s funny how that happens.  In drinking American beer, I have learned to really appreciate German beer.

When looking back over the last 6 years since graduating high school, my first thought is that I didn’t really learn anything at University.  It is just a huge bureaucratic mess that tries to shuffle as many students through it as possible so they can take our money.  I definitely didn’t end up where I started out.  I have changed my major more times than some people change their clothes in a week.  I have changed my views on life many times and my interests have changed significantly from when I first started.  So looking back and realizing that I spent an enormous amount of money on a degree that probably won’t relate much to my chosen career path at first is a little disheartening.  But taking a step back from this initial thought, I realize that I wouldn’t go back to change any part of it, given the chance.  I have learned a great deal about Business, Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, and Liberal Arts.  But mainly, I have learned about myself.  I now know what I don’t want to do with my life.  I’m still not sure what I do want to do, but I know where I want to start out.  That is the first big step.  It took me 6 years to figure that out, but along the way I have met some amazing people.  In the last few years I have made friendships that will probably last a lifetime.  I wouldn’t trade that for anything.

So in the last month that I am here, I have really taken some time to think about life in America.  The things I will miss, the things I won’t.  Of course people say the grass is always greener on the other side.  I look forward to moving to Germany and somewhere deep down I think that everything will be perfect and I won’t ever look back.  Well these were my thoughts 11 years ago, when I decided to move to America with my mother in the first place.  At first everything was great and fun.  A new culture to get used to, new people, new school.  But I started missing things about Germany.  Things that were more important than Root Beer or Dr. Pepper (hope I can find that stuff in Germany).  At this point in my life, my friends hear me raving about the great food/beer/cities in Germany, but really that stuff isn’t worth moving to another country for.  And I would hate to try to convince someone that they should move to Germany because they have better beer.  Everyone has to do what is going to make them happy.  As a third-culture kid, I can only say that home is where the heart is.  I find myself disgruntled with American laws and politics frequently (will devote a separate blog post for that), but I think at this point in my life, my main reasons for leaving are family, friends, and career opportunity.  Food, Beer and Fun are a close second.  I think this will be a great opportunity for me to really reconnect with my father, see my brother frequently and hopefully be a part of my little sister’s life.  She is 7 now and I have only spent very little time with her in her short life.  Some of my best friends that I have made in college have somehow found their way over to Europe.  In fact, all my friends are leaving Corvallis this summer, so I won’t be missing anything here (other than my mom, of course).  So I’ll be leaving all that is familiar behind here, but I think my heart is in Munich right now.  I will be closer to some of my family, I will be closer to most of my friends, I will be enjoying a brand new life German-style.  I have re-established contact to some of my friends from grade school in Munich.  It will be interesting to see what these people are like now, if we still have anything in common.  Yes, it will be a great adventure indeed.

So for now I am trying to make the most of my final month in Corvallis.  I will be spending a lot of time with some close friends here, and my mother, and I will be taking a small trip to visit my grandmother before I go.  Aside from that, most of my time will be spent preparing for a move across the ocean.  I can only take the bare minimum with me, so selling stuff and giving stuff away and asking my mom to store some stuff for me has been a little sad.  But I am excited for what might await me in the new city.  I am mostly bummed that my toaster oven won’t be coming along with me.

That is all for now.  Goodbye, Corvallis!  Germany, here I come!

Free Country

While down in Mountain View, CA this last weekend, I couldn’t help but notice the following group of signs:

Let me translate this: “You are not allowed to smoke. You are not allowed to ride your bike. You are not allowed to use your skateboard. And yes, we are indeed watching you right now!”

But that’s okay, because we live in a “Free Country”.

Mozilla

For lunch on Friday, I went down to the Mozilla Foundation.  They were doing a presentation for some Stanford students and had a bunch of pizza.  I got a tour of the office and met some of the people there.  Everyone seemed really friendly and the work environment looks awesome.  If I could program any more than a good old “Hello World”, I would definitely want to work there.  I was so impressed with the company and their mission, that I decided to help out in a small way.  You’ll notice I have a slick looking “Firefox 2″ button over on my sidebar now.  If you’re not using Firefox now, I strongly recommend you give it a try!

Mountain View

Today, I am writing from the beautiful city of Mountain View, California, home of Google and Mozilla.  I drove down last night to visit my very good Foreign American friend, Fred.  It was a long trip, but totally worth it.  Today will be spent catching up on things with Fred, whom I haven’t seen since September.  Tonight will be spent catching up on some liquid bread.  Tomorrow we’ll probably see if we can’t find something to do in San Francisco.  Right now, while Fred is diligently coding away at work, I’m shamelessly raiding his kitchen and watching HBO on digital cable.  It sure is great to get away for a while!

Back in the States

Well, all good things come to an end, I guess.  The last day in Stuttgart didn’t yield much entertainment.  We mostly relaxed and took long naps, since we had to be up at 4 the next morning to catch our respective trains.  The flight home was pretty eventless, save for the annoying immigration, customs, baggage check, and security stuff they make you go through.  But after a total of 14 hours of flying time, I was back in Oregon.  After an additional three hours of traffic filled highways, I ended up at home and ate dinner and relaxed.  Due to jet-lag, I didn’t actually get to sleep until around 6:30 the next morning, but hopefully that will pass in the next few days.

Classes and work start again on Monday, so I have two days to fully relax and get re-Americanized.  I’m currently coping with the absence of Bavarian beer and European food.  Perhaps I’ll make a quick stop down at the grocery store and see if I can’t fry up a Bratwurst or two.  And I believe there is a store in town that sells some Munich beer.  Maybe the good times don’t have to end right away…