Atherton Family Notes

We don’t have our DSL line yet, but our ISP has already turned on our access, so we can use dial-up.

If you would like to chat with us, the best time to find us will be between 7-9PM local time, which is 12-2PM CDT.

We did manage to have a voice converstion with Papaw Atherton yesterday after some effort, but I think we have the problem solved.

The good news is that the voice conversation was no worse between Indianapolis and Germany than it was when we were only a block away! Video conferencing will have to wait until the DSL line gets turned on.

UPDATE:  Whoo hoo!  I got home from work today, and our DSL line was turned on.  I’m using it right now.  You can barely tell that I’m 4000+ miles away from most of the sites I use.

Expect to see a lot more of Sandi on this site in the coming days.

Technorati Tags: dsl, expat, germany, indiana, indianapolis, ken, papaw atherton, sandi, video

Local Tags: dsl, expat, germany, indiana, indianapolis, ken, papaw atherton, sandi, video

 Format this post for printing

Sandi says I have to tell you this, but I don’t see why I should embarass myself in public.

I’ve discovered that I have a phobia. I didn’t know this until I got here, because it had never been an issue before. Here it is: I’m afraid of running out of food while the stores are closed.

This is an actual problem here in Germany because stores close sometimes. As far as I can tell, this never happens in the US. You can always find someone who will sell you a meal or some canned goods or even a lawn chair at 3AM.

Since tomorrow is a holiday here, I had an uncontrollable urge to go to the grocery store when I left work this afternoon. This was even after we had gone to the grocery the night before for THE EXACT SAME REASON– we wanted to stock up before the holiday. When I passed by the local Lidl store and saw how packed the parking lot was, I panicked and had to go in.

After I got into the store, I realized there was nothing we really needed. Our freezer was already full (it’s approximately the size of a beer huggie, though, so that’s not hard to do), and we had all of the milk that we could use in 2 days (approximately 2 beer huggies full). So I ended up buying 3 types of bread spread, 2 types of cheese, some bagel chips, 12 rolls, and a 2 liter of Pepsi Light.

And a beer huggie (because we need another frig).

It’s a good thing the stores reopen on Friday. I don’t know how I’d survive.

Technorati Tags: expat, germany, holiday, ken, lidl, park, sandi

Local Tags: expat, germany, holiday, ken, lidl, park, sandi

 Format this post for printing

So here’s what I am enjoying about this assignment so far: All of the new toys I get!

Yesterday was a good day for me:

• I got a new car, a brand new 2002 Opel Astra Caravan. I know, it’s just a station wagon, but it’s got that new car smell, an impossible-to-read German manual, and enough space in the back to pack up for the weekend and tour Europe! Plus, I don’t have to pay for gas!
• I got a new TV. It’s based on Thomson’s current state-of-the-art ICC21 chassis, and it makes a gorgeous picture– even better than the MM101 that Sandi and I have been using in Indy.
• I got a new DVD player. It isn’t particularly special, except for one feature. It is capable of playing DVDs from anywhere in the world. DVDs are assigned region codes based on the markets they are intended for. For example, the US is region 1, Europe is region 2. In principal, a DVD intended for region 1 shouldn’t play on a player sold in region 2. The DVD player we got doesn’t care, and will play discs from all regions. It is theoretically illegal to sell this type of DVD player in the US because it violates copyright law, but in Germany, this is not a problem. This works out great for us, because Carissa is able to watch the DVDs we brought from home, and we will be able to watch German DVDs. This should help us with our language skills, since many discs have both English audio and German audio. Many discs also have subtitle tracks in German and English, so you can listen in German and see the translation in English.
• As I mentioned earlier, our DSL line got turned on yesterday (about a week earlier than scheduled). This was a pleasent surprise, and a big surprise to Sabine, who says that Deutsche Telekom never does anything ahead of schedule. We managed to have a voice chat with Papaw Atherton last night, and it was amazing how much the quality improved from the chat we had while using the dial-up connection. The lag time was nearly gone, so it was like making a telephone call.

Now all I need is a stereo, and this place will feel like home! Sandi has a different story though…

Technorati Tags: carissa, dsl, expat, germany, ken, opal astra, papaw atherton, region-free dvd, sandi, tv set

Local Tags: carissa, dsl, expat, germany, ken, opal astra, papaw atherton, region-free dvd, sandi, tv set

 Format this post for printing

Here’s a suggestion: Never put a free-spirited, procrastinating, pack rat in the same apartment as a goal-oriented, list-making, trash mover. This woman is about to drive me nuts!! She allegedly moved out two days ago but she was here all day and will be back on Monday. I sat and watched helplessly as she cleaned out her junk drawer yesterday. Meanwhile, there were so many piles of paper in the living room that a mouse could not have made it’s way through. Sabina does not believe in killing ANY living creature (not even a bee) so I’m sure she has made a comfortable place for a mouse around here somewhere.

Also, if you stay where she is, she wants to talk to you and not work.

So, in order to keep my sanity I decided to go for a walk to the local bakery. The 6/10 of a mile down a 14% grade was not bad and it took a little less than 15 minutes. The girls picked out their “treat” and I grabbed a slice of chocolate covered lemon bread ( It was very good but I thought I was ordering a sugar cookie) and a large bottle of Coke. We explored the town a little more and found the butcher/cheese shop, 2 small grocery stores, the post office,a drug store, and a little playground. Since we pretty much made it over the entire town I decided to trek back up the hill. Let me tell you…3 minutes into it, I thought I had to be climbing a mountain. I made several stops to rest and pretended to be interested in the landscaping so as not to look like the idiot I was for attempting this. I even entertained the idea of sitting on the curb for the next 2 hours untill Ken made his way home from work and could drive us back up. In the end, I kicked Carissa out of the stroller to walk on her own and forced myself to go on. It only took about 25 minutes to get back up but it felt like the longest time of my life. (although watching Sabine pack up her crap is a close second to that.) I had envisioned my days here as including an almost daily walk to the bakery and butcher through a quaint, cobblestone road for dinner but I am rethinking that idea at this moment.

Germany has not lost it’s charm for me though. I love the old feel of the buildings and the amazing landscapes everywhere you turn. Hill after hill is covered in eveergreen trees with groups of terracotta roofed houses popping out every so often. I can not wait to expore the rest of Europe and to see the differences from home.

Speaking of which, some things are quite different here. The windows have multiple opening functions. They can either swing all the way open from one side or they can slant into the house from the top. They do not have screens but I am told that Germany does not have bug problems. We shall see about that. I guess I will have to live with it since we do not have AC in the apartment. (it usually does not get over 70 degrees).

However, the music is 90% American, which surprised me.

The selection of bread, butter,and cheese that they have here is enough to keep me busy everyday and growing larger by the minute.

Technorati Tags: carissa, celia, expat, germany, house, ken, niedereschach, roof, sandi

Local Tags: carissa, celia, expat, germany, house, ken, niedereschach, roof, sandi

 Format this post for printing

Sandi has been complaining that she’s been in Germany more than a week but hasn’t yet seen a castle. So for yesterday, which was a holiday here in Germany (Ascension Day), she chose a driving tour out of one of our guide books that includes stops at 3 different castles/ruins.

The tour was to an area known as the Bodensee, or Lake Konstanz (depending on whether you talk to the Germans or the Swiss), which is the largest lake in Germany. See is German for lake, and Boden in this case, roughly translates to peaceful. If you look the word up in the dictionary, it literally means bottom, or floor, but someone here told me the connotation in this case means flat. It is a very beautiful area, and there is a lot to do. However, we didn’t see any castles.

Here’s what we did do:

First we stopped on Reichenau island, which is off to the southwest of Konstanz, and is in a separate body of water from the Bodensee called the Zellersee. I don’t think it’s rally an island, because a thin strip of land connects it to the mainland– there’s no bridge. It’s possible that the strip is man-made though. You can see this in the photo below:

Just in case you were wondering, we didn’t take this picture, we swiped it from a tourism website.

We drove around the island a bit (actually a bit more than we intended since the map they gave us wasn’t very accurate), then visited one of the churches on the island. Construction of the church, called the Marienmünster, was started in 888. There were several beautiful examples of medival artwork painted on the walls.

One odd thing happened while we were on the island… When we arrived, school kids have were stopping every car and asking questions about where we were from and why we were visitng the island… Plus at nearly every intersection on the islands, there were kids logging all of the cars that passed by. We have no idea what they were trying to accomplish– it was probably a research project– but it gave me this weird feeling that we were in a police state.

After leaving Reichenau, we stopped in Konstanz briefly to eat lunch. We found the other big fast food restaurant chain in Germany… Burger King! Their most interesting menu item is something called the “American Menu”, which consists of a Whopper, large fries and a Miller Genuine Draft beer.

In the afternoon, we drove to the other side of the lake on a road that offers a nice overlooking view and it was a gorgeous day to be there. The Bodensee area is a major agricultural area for products such as apples and grapes and the drive passes through many orchards and vinyards.

We drove through Meersberg, where one of the castles was supposed to be located, but we couldn’t find any directions– and the guide book we had was no help. It said, “When you are in Meersberg, make sure to see the castle”, but didn’t say where it was. A lot of good that does.

We think the castle was probably in the old city, which was off limits to traffic. We might go back there sometime to try again, though, because you can take a ferry from Meersberg across to Konstanz, which in itself seems interesting.

A view to the Bodensee

Our final stop was in Ravensberg, one of the other alleged castle locations on our tour. Again we encountered the same problem. There is supposed to be a castle, but no clear directions were available. The city also has a viewing tower that looks out over the city and accross to the Alps. We found this, but it didn’t appear to be open for business.

So we ended up walking through the streets of Ravenberg, which has a wonderful feel to it and is somewhat larger than Villingen so there is more to see. Most of the restaurants were open on the holiday, and there were lots of people eating outside at these restaurants under the late afternoon sun.

We stopped at an ice cream store (.50 € per scoop!) and called it a day. All in all, it was a fun trip and a beautiful drive, but overall the Bodensee seems to be a better tourist destination for recreation than sightseeing.

The girls playing in a fountain in Ravensberg

A view of Ravensberg

The Grüen Turm in Ravensberg– this is the closest thing we saw to a castle, and according to the little bit of German I could read off the sign, may have once been part of a castle.

Carissa attempts to call Grandma and/or Nana from Ravensberg.

Technorati Tags: alps, bodensee, burger king, carissa, castle, celia, construction, driving, expat, germany, holiday, ken, konstanz, lake constance, meersberg, ravensberg, reichenau island, sandi, villingen

Local Tags: alps, bodensee, burger king, carissa, castle, celia, construction, driving, expat, germany, holiday, ken, konstanz, lake constance, meersberg, ravensberg, reichenau island, sandi, villingen

 Format this post for printing

Having failed to find a castle on Thursday, we decided to go to a castle we were sure we could find on Friday. So we took the 2 hour trip to Castle Heidelberg, which towers over the city of Heidelberg (and is therefore easy to see). This is one of the more famous castles in Germany, and it was one of the first to garner attention when the Romanticists made the old castles of Europe fashionable again.

Castle Heidelberg is actually a ruins. It was severely damaged during one of the many European sectarian wars when the French Catholics who captured the castle from the German Protestants in 1688 decided to remove its defensive capabilities before they retreated in 1689. Combined with two fires that destroyed the castle interior in the late 1700s, the castle was a mess by the 1800s.

In the early 1900s, some efforts to restore the interiors of the undamaged buildings was undertaken, but the ruined parts of the castle have been left undisturbed except to shore them up from further damage.

View of the castle from the city (photo borrowed from Historic Sights of Germany)

We took the guided tour of the castle, which allows access to the otherwise restricted interiors. The tour was quite interesting, but it was hard to keep two small children occupied for the one hour duration.

View of the rear of the castle.

Inside the castle walls.

Model of the castle as it looked shortly before its destruction in 1689.  Most of what is seen in the foreground is badly damaged or destroyed. The front left tower has split in two and the top sits on the ground infront of the bottom now. You can see this tower in the picture of the girls and me above.

A view of one of the restored ceilings in the Wirtschaftsgebäude (living quarters). This is the the classical style building visible directly ahead in the courtyard photo above.

Carissa and Celia try out the steps on one of the stoves used in the castle for heating. These steps are designed to give children a place to warm up on cold days.

The girls are standing under Elizabeth gate, so named because it was a birthday gift from Frederich V to his wife, Elizabeth. Alledgedly, the gate was assembled in a single night on this site. Yeah, that’s me peeking through the hole.

Another view of the girls on the gate.

Sandi and the girls beside the dry moat, where deer were once kept to insure fresh meat was available for banquets.

A view from the castle to the city.

One more thing:   Ok, this definitely goes in the category of stupid things you can do with a computer.

I bought a mapping program that uses satellite photos of Germany. It has photographs of the entire country at a 3 meter resolution, and for the 176 largest cities in Germany, it also has photos with a 1 meter resolution. Basically, that means any object that is at least 3 feet wide and deep can be seen. Of course, the larger the object is, the more detail can be seen.

The program is delivered on 3 DVDs– the program and data are almost 15 Gigabytes in size.

The picture below is a sample from the disc. It’s a 30 meter view of the castle in Heidelberg.

I’ve annotated the photo to help you get your bearings. The angles shown are the views seen in the pictures in the message we wrote about the castle.

1. This angle is the picture titled “view of the rear of the castle”.
2. This is the view of the picture titled “inside the castle walls”.
3. This is where the Elizabeth gate pictures were taken. The gate itself can’t really be seen because it is hidden under the trees.

Technorati Tags: birthday, carissa, castle, celia, germany, heidelberg, heidelberg castle, ken, sandi

Local Tags: birthday, carissa, castle, celia, germany, heidelberg, heidelberg castle, ken, sandi

 Format this post for printing

Here’s two items we bought in Heidelberg that we thought were pretty neat.

A personalized botle of Riesling. The grapes used in the wine were grown nearby. The area around Heidelberg is a major wine producing region.

A shotglass to add to my collection. This one will be fairly unique, as most of the ones I have already are glass (and in English, and from America, and…)

Technorati Tags: expat, germany, heidelberg, ken, personalized wine label, sandi

Local Tags: expat, germany, heidelberg, ken, personalized wine label, sandi

 Format this post for printing

If you are familiar with reality TV programs, you know that sometimes the producers change the rules in the middle of the game in order to keep the contestants guessing and to keep the audience interested.  Well, we’ve had one of those events.

Much to our complete surprise, we are going to add another contestant to Survivor Germany sometime around January 8th, 2003.

Sandi is pregnant!

We have the positive test to prove it.

This turn of events is going to require some quick thinking and flexibility.  We’ll have a entire element of experience in Germany that we would not have had otherwise.

As they say on TV:  “Stay tuned for the next exciting episode!!!”

Technorati Tags: germany, ken, pregnant, sadie, sandi, survivor germany

Local Tags: germany, ken, pregnant, sadie, sandi, survivor germany

 Format this post for printing

So I’ve been here long enough now that I am starting to notice cultural differences in work conduct. Yesterday was one of my organizations monthly “Steering Commitee” meetings, during which all active projects are reviewed and issues that need to be dealt with by senior managment are raised, decisions are made, and everyone goes away happy…

…In theory.

Reality is somewhat different. One of my German colleagues described it as a very French meeting. Of course, because of the way our organization is set up with only one senior manager in Germany (my manager) and the rest in France, it would almost have to be a “French” meeting.

Here’s what my colleague meant by the term: Much time is spent hammering individual points into the ground, but in the end few actual decisions are made, and the status quo is kept. There is a tendency to allow people to continue speaking well after they have made their point and are really just embarassing themselves.

Here’s a typical conversation with the really boring details (at least to most mortals) removed:

VP: OK, let’s talk about project X.
French manager 1: It is very clear that point 1. Hammer hammer hammer hammer…
German manager 1: I say point 2. Hammer hammer hammer hammer…
French Manager 2: But surely point 3. Hammer hammer hammer hammer…
German manager 2: Point 3 is scheisse. Rather, point 4! Hammer hammer hammer hammer…
Asian Manager: Point 1 is very important, indeed. Hammer hammer hammer hammer…
All (at once): Hammer hammer hammer hammer…
VP: Let me summarize: Point 1, point 2, point 4…
French Manager 2: But I insist point 3. Hammer hammer hammer hammer…
All (at once): Hammer hammer hammer hammer…
VP: OK, so point 1, point 2, maybe point 3, maybe point 4… Clearly we don’t have enough information to make a decision at this time. We will follow the issue and discuss again at the next meeting.

(for greater effect, start at the top of the script again to discuss the next project, continue for 9 hours with only one break, during which smaller groups are formed to hammer each point individually. The meeting ends abruptly when it’s time for the French managers to catch their plane.)

This is not to say that the meeting wasn’t useful– A lot of very valuable information was shared and I am learning a lot about the business. But the 9 hour meeting could have easily been a 4 hour meeting instead!

Technorati Tags: cultural differences, expat, France, germany, ken, meeting, scheiss

Local Tags: cultural differences, expat, France, germany, ken, meeting, scheiss

 Format this post for printing

One of the things that takes a little getting used to in Germany is how comfortable everybody is with the “S-Word”. It’s everywhere. They use it in commercials. It’s printed on billboards. People you don’t even know use it in casual conversation. Germans who speak otherwise formal, poilite English don’t even realize they are using it (in English).

It makes American potty-mouths seem quaint.

Realistically, it appears that scheiß has become merely a synonym for “schlecht” (bad) in informal German. Besides using it it as a noun or an exclamation, they prepend the word to virtually any noun as an adjective.

Here are some common examples:

scheißwetter (bad weather– we heard this a lot the first week we were here)
scheißauto (bad car)
scheißstaat (bad government — literally “state”)

My electronic translation dictionary translates the phrase “to make a complete mess” as “scheiß machen”.

Our landlady actually uses the phrase “shitweather” when speaking in English, as does at least one person I’ve met at work.

By the way, “drauf” means “on it”, in case you were wondering.

It makes my ears burn..

Technorati Tags: cultural differences, germany, ken, scheiss

Local Tags: cultural differences, germany, ken, scheiss

 Format this post for printing