Thursday, October 22, 2009

California Dreaming

As part of Anika's "cultural immersion program ;)" I have been volunteered to speak to her class in English. The first time I did this, searching for something to talk about, I decided to explain Thanksgiving to Anika's fellow students. I explained how Thanksgiving comes from the pilgrams giving thanks to the indians for saving their silly europeans butts. I said that Thanksgiving is now a family holiday where everyone comes together and shares a traditional meal. To quiz the students I asked to whom the pilgrams were giving thanks. One student said: to God. O.k. that's an alright answer but let's be a little more specific, what about those helpful indians eh? After the talk I showed the kids how to make a turkey drawing by tracing the outline of your hand (thumb is the head, other fingers the tail feathers, draw the feet in from the base of the palm). Everyone thought that was way cool.


Two weeks later I did another presentation, this time about waves and surfing. I explained how waves on the beach come from ocean storms thousands of miles away; how waves finally break on the beach because the water becomes increasingly shallow forcing the wave, or rather swell, to grow taller until it topples over, or breaks. I showed them a couple scenes from some surf videos I have. I showed them footage of the big wave spot "Mavericks" close to where we used to live. I showed a picture of Anika on the beach at Mavericks. I briefly explained how you catch a wave; how seals pop their heads out of the water to look at you in the water; how pelicans fly right above the waves; how dolphins surf inside a wave. And of course I showed them the hand sign and explained the expression "Hang Loose," auf Deutsch "Sei Locker."







After organizing and presenting all that info about sunny california, the surf, the sand, I was really salivating for the state. I started to figure, "If we can move all the way over here, would we move right back to the same place in California? Where could we live in California? How about San Diego? It's got sun and surf, a foriegn country right next door and a decent biotech industry. What about that? I even looked up some rentals: 3 bedroom, $2500 per month and about 6 blocks from the beach (ya, the photos below are of that beach, JUST 6 BLOCKS AWAY). Awwh, it's just a projection born out of a cold winter in a big city, it's just California Dreaming.







SWEET! HUH?


Monday, October 19, 2009

First Snow!!



Today (October 15) was the first day of snow in Wien. O.K. it was only a little flurry mixed in with the rain, but it was echtes Schnee! That would have made the day, but as chance would have it, the heating in our apartment also failed. The coldest day since the end of summer (3 degrees Celcius, or about 38 degrees Freakin cold!) and our heating won't work. Great! No, it felt worse than that.... I thought we were in fact cursed by uncaring gods. I couldn't believe it. I imagined a very cold night. I was not pleased. I was pissed. I was at the end of my rope. I was... helpless. I hate that feeling.

By the end of the day someone arrived to fix our heater (turned out to be a routine problem which now I know how to fix myself), and all was well, again. Wheww. I had 3 beers that evening and went early to bed.

Monday, October 5, 2009

Possibilities



Put together Pascal rambling on about "possibilities" and other things, with an old night walk we took in the innen stadt and set it to "Jigsaw" by Radiohead.