Back to normal...

Almost...

I am home (with all my luggage!) and I am trying to return to normal. I will go to work in just a few short minutes...should be an interesting day!

I am working with my photos and will post them here very soon!

Perhaps I will keep blogging beyond this GSE project...what do you think?

I have nothing to wear...

It is a quick flight from Frankfurt to Hamburg (59 minutes to be exact) and Lufthansa managed to lose my luggage between Frankfurt and Hamburg.

I was so impressed with the baggage handling center when we visited and toured the Frankfurt Airport and that impression has disappeared.

Damn...this sucks.

It's a good thing I am in Denmark with good friends who don't care if I wear the same jeans for three days in a row.

Oh...and another thing...I had too much luggage for an internal flight in Germany and they made me pay 50 Euro before I let them take my bag so they could lose it.

Jerks.

The end?

Ok...it is hitting me.

Today was the last program day and I am sad.

I will always treasure this time here learning more about Germany.

The country is beautiful and the people are even more beautiful.

I will miss you Deutschland...

Homeward Bound

Almost done...

Less than week left...

Six days from today, from this very moment, I will be headed back to my beloved SF, the City By The Bay, my beautiful Golden State.

I have loved it here in Germany...very, very much...but I can feel the countdown to return home.

The official program ends on Friday and last night was the last Rotary Club presentation and the last time we wore our uniforms. Sniff, sniff...

If I did not have such a wonderful family, special friends and a beautiful place to call home, I would be sad. But I am excited to see my friends, family and my favorite walking trails.

I am looking forward to seeing the SF skyline from my United Airlines window seat....

I will update again a couple more times, but just wanted you to know I am eager to see you soon!!

Having a heart attack in Germany

Remember the place I told you about called Bad Wildegun? The spa place where we had the district conference???

Well, there is more to that place than I knew when I was there...

Today we visited a cardiac hospital ward. This place was quite interesting, there are big and obvious differences in the hospitals at home and the hospitals in Germany.

First of all and most notable was that the MD's are super, super friendly here. They talk to people in the hallways, a patient stopped one to ask directions and the MD showing us around politely and humoursly answered the patients question and carried on with us.These two MD's were big shots and had every reason to be far too busy and not spend time with us. One is the Dean of the University Professors and another guy was the Chief of Cardiology. They share the nurses station often having breakfast together while discussing cases. The MD's at home are super ego-maniacs and this was quite refreshing to see the MD to Nurse comraderies that are so evident here.

Some other things are quite different, wide open windows in patient rooms, things in the hallways like decorations and odd things that don't need to be there collecting dust/germs and creating hazardous situations in an emergency, we could take photos if we wanted to (confidentiality, what???), the drugs are not locked up, the nurses were wearing Birkenstocks with open toes and socks and closed toe shoes with no socks. Odd....

Ok, back to Bad Wildegun...when you have a heart problem in Germany, you are sent directly to the ICU, then you go to an intermediate care unit, then in the US you would be sent home rather quickly to have your friends and family care for you and hope for no pain or wound infections. Here in Germany, you go to the spa for three weeks.

No shit...the spa for three weeks. Just like the place in Bad Wildegun. When a town's name begins with the word "Bad" which means bath in German it means you are in a healing place designed to improve health. These places like the Sonoma Mission Inn or Calistoga or Napa and are mixed use for healthy people and also for people who just want to relax and feel better. When your doctor sends you here, it is paid for by your insurance.

Let me say that again...IT IS PAID FOR BY YOUR INSURANCE!! Your three week spa visit is paid for by inusrance.

Seriously, a cardiac surgeon does not ever discharge someone to their home. They either go to the spa or possibly if they are not well enough to go to the spa yet, they will go back to a smaller hospital for a couple more days until they are strong enough to endure spa treatments.

I am not sure having a heart attack is worth it, but right about now I would take a three week paid spa visit for almost anything.

Oh well, there is always winning the Lottery...and that will be a lot less painful than having a heart attack.

a day off, the district conference and a pedicure

hi there faithful blog readers!

i have been absent for a few days---i hope you noticed!!

we had a day off in Kronberg--the first day off in three weeks! i got up at 9am and re-organized my luggage, did some laundry, had a late breakfast and went into this little town of Hofheim to buy a Hydrangea for my Kronberg host family. A hydrangea plant just does not seem to be enough thans for these incredible people who takes us in for a week. And these folks not only took one GSE member in, they took two. Paul and I stayed with this family. Not in the same room of course...actually, I had some pretty good digs at this house. It was a basement bedroom and bathroom. And for my Canadian relatives, you know how well you can sleep in a basement. It is hotter than ever here and basements are always cooler and they are quieter and darker!! They actually live in Kriftel just about 10 minutes from Kronberg. The Klugs were (and are!!) really, really special people. Beautiful young couple and their children were lovely, well behaved and very friendly. My host mother, Anja has a younger brother named Dennis who who lives with them and he was so kind and welcoming too. I will not forget this time in Kronberg.

So, yesterday we left the warm homes of the Kronberg Club and went to Bad Wildegun in the northern part of Hessen for the District Conference. This is a spa town...no kidding. Imagine if you built an entire town around the Sonoma Mission Inn and this is what it looked like. And we were staying at the nicest place in town...remember, this is Rotary we are talking about. This was a pretty shi-shi place...

So of course, the first thing I though of was that this place MUST have someone here who can give me a much needed pedicure. And thank God I was right!! I had a pedicure that was so fabulous, I would have gladly paid twice as much for it. I could easily spend an hour typing out the details of this completely joyous occasion, but I will spare you...you can thank me later.

The district conference was not a good experience. And I will not bitch about it here...I guess there has to be something that will stink in a four week program, right? Well, this was it. The district conference was not a good day and I was not a happy camper...details of this will only be documented in my private journal or upon further inquiry if you so desire to know more.

But it was the day after the pedicure that was sent from heaven so that should count for something, right?

Mom, don`t worry, even though I had a bad day, I am ok. As of today there are five full day left and then I will head to Denmark for a much needed vacation!

Yes, I have been gone this long and I need a vacation!

oh yeah...the german sky

i forgot to tell you...

my current host father has a passion for astronomy...and for those of you that are close to me...you already know that i am a bit of a space geek. i would love to see the earth from the moon's point of view. i am just not sure my ear doctor would like the pressure in my ear that would come from traveling there!!

i loved the movie "Space Camp"from when i was a little girl...


so, Andreas is part of a small, private, hobbiest astronomy club here and we went to this little observatory and it was one of the coolest, spaciest things i have ever seen...i saw jupiter and four of its moons...and i saw saturn and her rings...and a really awesome cluster of 500 billion stars or some amazing number like that. it was just as clear as you would see it in a book but i saw it with my own two eyes from right here in a tiny little observatory in Kronberg, Germany.

have i told you enough about how cool this project is???!!!

thank you Andreas!

Giant tubes with wings

Today was all about airplanes...

First of all, I was in bed by 10 pm last night and did not have to be picked up until 10:15am this morning. That was a treat and a half!! I had more than 8 hours of sleep and I had time to do a little bit of yoga this morning...I was a happy, happy girl this morning!!

So, we arrived at the Frankfurt Aiport at 11am for a "behind the scenes" tour of the airport. I won't bore you with the details...but it was so cool to sit on the tarmac and watch these HUGE, HUGE airplanes take off and land right in front of us.

Tony, Joe and Jack---we went into the Baggage Handling Room which looks a lot like something from NASA...you should have seen the cabling racks!! I took a picture of it for you. This room had a HUGE wall in front of them that tracks baggage from the check in desks to the tarmac. Friggin' cool!

We also saw the Airport Fire Brigade (Dad, I got some really cool pics for you too!!!) This airport tour is really one of the highlights of the trip, I think.

Tonight, we will have a family BBQ with one of the other host family's. Should be a nice quiet day.

Tomorrow, we will have our first vocational day of the trip...I am frustrated with this as we are almost three weeks into this and are just getting the first one right now. It would be nice to talk Real Estate for a little while and take a small break from all the old stuff in museums!

I am missing everyone...lots of love to you!
--Christine

Preserving the past and protecting the future...

Ok, instead of telling you day by day and hour by hour what we are up to, I will just summarize the trip by saying that the Germans are very, VERY good at preserving the past and protecting the future.

I say this with all the seriousness that I can....

Yesterday, we went to an open air museum where they have taken old half timbered houses and reconstructed them in the original fashion in a park like setting. Very similar to the way a village would have been set up in the 1600-1800's. Unbelieveable.


We also saw a Roman museum from the Roman empires era...the things that were still intact and recognizeable are really, really amazing. It is hard to describe, but trust me, there is some really old stuff here!!

And the third event for yesterday was an organic farm. This man spoke very little English, but this did not matter at all...he passion crossed all language boundaries. He needs to meet Al Gore.

Germans may smoke in the forest, but we throw things in landfills, tear down buildings without hestiation and we drive wasteful cars, waste water and burn oil like there is no tomorrow...

We have a LOT to learn from these delightful people...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!

I didn't call you yesterday, but I was thinking of you all day!

I hope you are enjoying your own trip to Calgary!

Love to you, dad and the Canadian relatives!

xoxoxoxo
--Christine

catching up

i haven't had too much extra time to post lately, but i do this afternoon so i am taking some notes from my journal over the past few days and posting them all at once. forgive me for bombarding you...i hope you still find my adventures interesting...

Smokey the Bear

ok, i forgot to tell you this one...

we were in a beautiful forest, clean air, green trees and a lovely trail to take a nice long walk.

we were discussing forestry with two men who were very passionate about forest protection and preservation. they spoke strongly about the effects of global warming etc, etc and then,

the forest guy lights up a smoke!!

no kidding!!!

i realize europeans smoke more than americans and they can still smoke in buildings, but in the forest???

well, i guess one thing in their favor is that the summers here are not as dry as ours in California.

more random thoughts and observations coming your way soon!!

Whose house are we in?

yes, this is a real question asked by a real team member.

i am so glad i am not the only one who is tired...

here is the scene...three looooonnnng days in Berlin, a three hour train ride home, a one hour and fifteeen minute car ride into Alsfeld and now we are arrive in front of someone's house to meet our host families to go back home. one of my teammates leans over and whispers to me..."Who's house are we in?"

this prompted some serious giggling...

sometimes it really does happen that we don't know where we are or why we are there.

group travel in a foreign country is funny, isn't it?

Random thoughts...

just wanted you all to know these things...

i laugh every day...my teammates are awesome and we are all doing a great job given this crazy schedule. we are laughing even though sometimes it is not funny how hard it is to keep up with this program. the initial politeness stage is gone, we are not afraid to sleep and drool in front of each other and we support each other when we are too tired to answer questions or even attempt to appear interested.

the other day we were on a private bus tour and i put on my sunglasses to have a 10 minute snooze because i just could not take in one more piece of information. paul was sitting behind me trying to stay awake himself and he knew darn well i was sleeping...bless him for understanding.

tomorrow will be the half way point. sometimes i can not believe two weeks has passed already and in some ways i can't believe there are still two weeks left!!!

sorry about not being able to post photos....but trust me...i have almost 500 so far...some are beautiful, some are interesting, some i have already forgotten what i was trying to capture, some of them are funny but ALL of them are already precious memories. i can't upload them beacuse they are stored on jasmyn's computer. when i can capture them to a CD...i will upload some for you to see.

you would be so proud of me...i do speak a little bit of really, really bad german when it is absolutely required of me. i am picking a lot up when listening to others and when asking quetions...and i have had to use it when we are in a bier garden, restaurant or store. i must sound like a second grader, but i am proud for even trying...

and speaking of restaurants...i had a HUGE error in ordering lunch the other day. every vacation in a foreign country needs a gastronomical error and i had mine!! i ordered a cheese and sausage plate...sounds pretty good, right??? well...you and i are both wrong! it came to the table and it was blood sausage (i have never seen anything so scary looking on a plate!!) and liverwurst sausage and some other bright red dried sausage/beef jerky looking stuff...and the cheese...all of it smelled unrecognizable and one of the cheeses tasted like a barn/stable. it was pretty bad. i drank my beer though...and it was good.

i am leaving Alsfeld in the morning and i have loved it here. my host mother here was really, really a special lady named brigitte. she hosted both jeniece and i and we were treated like the absolute divas that we are!!! thank you brigitte!!! she was the first woman in her rotary club...there are not many woman involved as rotarians and it is high time women like her be included!!

auf wiedersehen Alsfeld and hallo Kronberg/Frankfurt!! i will be there for a week and will touch base as i have the chance.

love to all my beloved blog readers! i miss you all!