just john

I met my second couple from California this week. This time it was a "straight-married" pair from Irvine. He's been here at the hotel for 3 months (yes 3 months!) and the wife joined for the last month. Air Force contractor. We got to speaking across the bar, and since the wife was mostly over her jet-lag, she decided to order a beer "I like beer," she says but it's usually Coors. I bite my tongue on that one and suggest that she try the pilsner then. Most people, the overwhelming majority in fact, just order what's on tap. The beer is in general so good that's there's no need for the brand snobbery we have in America. All that last bit is to myself. The bar tender pulls her a small sample glass to try, which she almost spits back out into the glass. No second attempt with the wheat beer, she just decides to go with wine instead.

As a brief digression here, I've had the opportunity to observe her husband alone over the last several days as he carefully evaluates and selects from the Holiday Inn wine list, makes a great show of inhaling the wine bouquet, swirling and re-snifting, proclaiming it good and then proceeding to finish the entire bottle alone...

Back to the beer sampler, "I really do like beer, but it has to be Coors or Miller," which is in effect claiming "I really do like horse piss, but it must also be from a sway-backed nag." Her husband is kind enough to repeat his wine selection ritual and she settles in to enjoy her glass of German red wine, but not before ordering a glass of ice and plopping a large ice cube into it. "I know I'm weird, but I like my wine chilled" is the proffered explanation. Now we're to the point were she asks my opinion of the local wine.  I tell her that, in spite of my blunted palette, most German red wine is terrible and 2 glasses of some of the worse stuff is all it takes to give you a headache. (Sorry guys, the beer is stellar, the rieslings are pretty good, but you've just no business making red wines, especially with France so close by. Everybody's bad at something.) She likes the local wine (Kool-Aid) and apparently likes it even better with ice. That subject was at that point fairly dead-ended so we were able to get on teh the subject of dogs. She did manage to get all the paperwork done to bring her chihuahua, the main reason she stayed behind the first 3 months, and was disappointed that no one was interested in actually viewing the paperwork. I'd be more worried about the squirrels here eating the little dog. It has already visited the Christmas market with her in his little chihuahua purse and has had the misfortune of eating only dog food the last several days. There were polite bar inquiries as to whether or not a grilled chicken breast could be gotten for the little beast.

I am eagerly awaiting an encounter with California couple number three.

Posted by justjohn at 13:42 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Felt like I had to break these up.

I had the last workout at Jonny M today and turned in my electronic chip. More nostalgia than anything else there and my last chance to look out on Stuttgart from high up during rest pauses. No t-shirt from there, which is a bit of a disappointment but one I can live with. I do have several water bottles and they're the good ones that don't leak.

Staying at the Holiday Inn as I might have mentioned. It's the same hotel I started out with when I got here but the experience is not nearly the same. Most of the staff continues to speak German when I talk to them and there's a bakery across the street where I can get food. When I got here I had days where I was too flustered to even try asking for a simple pre-made sandwich behind glass because I didn't know what it was called and I didn't want to try dealing with a non-English speaker. I now know that "sandwich" is almost as equally effective as "das Brötchen belegt" but I'm comfortable with either. I also got directions the other day from the front desk. Knew what she was asying, but it ultimately wasn't helpful. The store was out of Christmas Kinder Überraschung balls.

Posted by justjohn at 13:38 | Permalink | Comments (0)

So...My air freight is gone, presumably back to the US and will be waiting on me. Would be helpful since there are Christmas presents in it. I've handed over the key to my apartment with not too much trouble. I've de-registered as a resident of Stuttgart and had my mail forwarded. I'm living at the Holiday Inn Weilimdorf and actually using the minibar fridge for coffee creamer and cold cuts. I also brought my own coffee maker. I feel like this is pretty much wrapped up barring me getting arrested by the German police like Bill was (you'll have to ask him). It has snowed for two straight days while my American friends happily report sixty degree days. I thought, with 3 work days left to go and living out of luggage, that I might get some overwhelming sense of relief or maybe closure but so far I've only been whelmed, not overly so. Maybe it's too soon. If I really think on it I can feel some kind of tension lurking right behind my forehead but I can't quite pin down what it's associated with.

Posted by justjohn at 14:03 | Permalink | Comments (2)

I don't even know what to say at this point. My calendar is numbered backwards and two weeks from today will be my last day in the office here. Mostly, everything is packed thanks to Bill's need to always be doing something. I never really get to express how much he does for me but suffice to say it's a lot and on a scale no one else would even begin to attempt. All while holding his own cookies together in France.

I have a last minute rush with my own washing machine and 18 more boxes to check on my 50 shirt laundering card. Two more wine bottles to recycle and a small thrift store's worth of last minute things to be sold this week. Have to pack and weigh all the suitcases with 10 days clothing and souvenirs to make sure I'm within the limit. Of course, Mom has put in a request for last minute chocolate restocking. Her friends become "friends" when they delve too deep into her stash. The air freight company is due at the end of this week to clear out what I'm shipping home.

My mental state is the equivalent of a full California psych ward (not to be critical of CA but they do have a large population base from which to select premier loonies). Much like when I arrived, everything seems to be a giant pain in the ass, the notable exception being I can at least talk my way through to learn why things aren't working as smoothly as I would like. A good day is a good day only until something minor happens to completely ruin it. That means my good days teeter on the edge of an abyss??? Only about 5 tantrums so far, 2-3 of which occurred while driving 8 hours through a snow storm and getting lost. Reading up on the specter of (even worse) symptoms of cultural reintegration. I was hoping for something easy, like maybe a week of sunburn, but you get what you get. Apparently I will be an depressed, arrogant snob who puts on airs and denigrates Americanism. So, nothing really new there.

Tomorrow I turn 39, which I can only view as another small step towards the encroachment of middle age and the crisis I've been planning to have for it. Tight leather pants and a sports car would only be a start.

Posted by justjohn at 10:09 | Permalink | Comments (2)