October 16, 2011

If you are a non-German living in Germany (or if you are a non-German not in Germany who knows Germans), you will know that the Tschermanns love a good old wives’ tale. In fact, I would venture to guess that 86.3% of what the Krauts seem to believe is “health information” is actually based on crap their mothers told them when they were younger.

You know, misinformation passed down through generations. Lovely.

You’ve heard it all before, I know you have!

“Close the windows! The draught will make you ill!”
“Wear a scarf, even in the summer! You must protect yourself from those pesky draughts!”
“Forget the winter! If you go outside with wet hair, even when the temperature is 20C, you will catch pnemonia and die!”

It goes on.

Most of these old wives’ tales are ridiculous. It gets more ridiculous since I come from a country where you are supposed to tough it out when the weather is nasty. It’s like a contest of proving who can survive in -30C in a t-shirt and runners the longest.

Coming from this sort of background scares Germans. I have already been asked why I am not yet wearing a jacket. (Hello, because it’s still 10 degrees. A sweater is fine.) Don’t get me started on my perpetual lack of socks.

If it were up to the Krauts’ logic (or lack thereof), I’d already have died fifty-seven times over from pnemonia.

These people don’t know what cold is.

Anyhoo, this isn’t supposed to be a rant. Back to the point.

I live in one of those crappy buildings that was thrown up in the 1950s for factory workers and their families. Things like there being virtually no insulation against sound is one thing, and is annoying in its own right. This also means, however, that there isn’t really any heat insulation.

For some reason, this also means water condenses on my windows like crazy. You air, it goes away for a bit, it comes back, you air, ad nauseum.

So, yesterday S. was over and this morning when we got up, I went to air out the place as per usual.
She said to me, “You know, you should really get a dehumidifier. The humidity will make you sick.”
My gut reaction was to brush her off as a crazy German.

“No, seriously,” she continued, “You’ll get a really bad cough.”

Unlike most Germans, she qualified this through experience. This a rare thing, you know, and one of the reasons I like her.

But anyhoo, then I realized that I do have a cough! Oh shit! Since the windows became condense-city!

Can it be? A German old wives’ tale with some merit?

And I thought I’d seen everything!

September 24, 2011

Okay, I’ll admit I know very little about the existing financial crisis in Europe other than the fact we’re basically fucked. I mean… It’s not for lack of trying to learn about the whole thing, but two of my weakest areas of understanding are in post-war economics and international politics. So… yeah. I’ve been trying. But really, I just don’t get it.

That’s okay, though, because Canadian Finance Minister, Flaherty, is here to explain and fix all!!
So anyway, Flaherty seems to be all up in our business! We’re not doing enough! We need MORE money in the reserve fund! The whole world is depending on us! We have to fix this all before life as we know it ends! (We, of course, being primarily Germany and France…)

Flaherty pointed Friday evening to the group’s Thursday communique, which said there is “flexibility” in the European Financial Stability Facility, the fund set aside to inject cash into banks in the region in the event of a financial crisis. The fund has been set aside to inject cash into banks in the region in the event of a financial crisis, and Flaherty said it must be large enough to overwhelm any financial threat to banks.
He said Friday morning that it was insufficient to deal with the size of the financial crisis, which is “very serious” in Europe.

Very serious financial crisis? Thank you, Captain Obvious. Even I figured that one out.

“It is clear that there is a need for further action to restore confidence and stem contagion,” Flaherty said.
“I expect the Europeans to follow through on these commitments. Decisive action is needed and it is important that it be of sufficient scale to return confidence.”
Flaherty and Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney, who was with him at the meeting, said it’s urgent to get ahead of the markets.
“This is a fragile situation in Europe, but it’s fixable,” Carney said.

It’s fixable, eh?? I’m sure it is, Mr. Carney, one way or the other. But since our leaders all have been struggling to rectify the situation for months and months, now, maybe you can step in and give us some more of that expert opinion! We obviously need it!

Carney agreed the problem is manageable if the European countries keep their commitments from Thursday, by making sure financial institutions have enough capital and that the EFSF backstop is big enough.
“It is not a question of ability for the Eurozone. It is a question of political will,” he said.

Right. Because Merkel, Sarkozy, et al. are trying to ruin everything. Either that, or they’d be able to do it if they just wanted it bad enough.

The EFSF can be used to buy bonds held by troubled banks, extend credit to debt-burdened countries if their borrowing costs soar and shore up banks which are short of cash.

Gosh… They haven’t been tossing around that idea!! Good thinking!! What would we do without you?!?!

Flaherty suggested boosting the fund to €1 trillion ($1.4 trillion) from the current €440 billion ($610 billion).
“There’s the question of whether [the emergency fund] is large enough. Our view is it needs to be larger to have the clear capacity to overwhelm the problem,” Flaherty said.

So, ermm… where do you suppose getting that extra €660 billion?? Would you like us “strong” countries to fund even more of the crap that’s going on so we can save the world from its impending doom? I mean… That’s a lot of money. I sure don’t have that much lying around in my piggy bank…
It’s a bit Jack Layton-esque (rest his soul), this idea of coming up with money by the snap of some fingers. I mean, sure, the reason you need all that money and funding is a good one. I’m not going to argue there. But, ermm… Where are you going to get that money, exactly?? It’s not like our tax rate is low over here, you know.

“Certainly in Europe we need an exercise in political will, we need decisiveness, we need clarity.”

Then please, Flaherty, come fix things for us. We had no idea the problem was this bad until you said something.

We’re obviously in need of your help.
(Source: MSN)

September 12, 2011

A lot can change in a year. This past year has been a true testament to that. It’s not like today’s date makes it a sudden realization, either. When I was in Finland, E. and I started planning my next trip for July 2012, and I freaked out a little bit; I was thinking about how much had changed between my second and third Finland trips, and the idea of things changing that much again before I go back, well…

I don’t like change any more than the average person.

I’ve grown to fear it a little bit, in fact.

But today is an important day for me, because it marks the first anniversary of the day my life completely fell apart last year. If you really know me well, you’ll know why it fell apart and how difficult this last year has been for me to get back on my feet.

But, you know, everything can change, and it did. I’d be lying if I said things were as good as they were just over a year ago. But they’re getting better.

Because, vague and trite as it sounds, things do get better eventually. Even if you have to give them a year. :)

September 1, 2011

Surprise, surprise. Ellie is having a hard time discerning what the concept of home is again.Really, it’s been an annoying preoccupation of mine for the last five years now. There was the binary Calgary/Edmonton opposition going on for awhile, and then I royally mixed things up by picking up and heading over to the motherland.

Which was only supposed to be a year. Which happened to stretch out over a number of them.
But, you know, since it was always supposed to be a temporary thing in the first place (which was emphasized by the fact my ex refused to let us buy any furniture “just in case” we picked up and moved somewhere else), I always took the stance that — though I lived in Deutschland and quite liked it there — Canada was my real home. Calgary, in particular, seeing as I adamantly refused to have anything to do with the Greater Edmonton region and preferred to pretend it was just a black hole that didn’t actually exist.

Then I moved back to Calgary and had the “Oh shit, I actually feel more at home in Germany” epiphany.

Na, toll.

So, I spent the greater part of my cool nine months (since two of the eleven were in Germany on, errr, vacation) in Canada planning a trip back over the pond.

But wait, there’s more! It wouldn’t be enough to be happy in Germany, oh no it wouldn’t. You see, because being happy and content and everything-is-hunky-dory-in-Germany would deny the fact that I actually had a life in Canada before moving over the first time, not to mention that huge growing spurt that was the nine-months-in-hell aka second-shot-at-Calgary-related-happiness it was.
So, is Germany completely home? Errr… still no.

Na, toll.

Then there is little Ellie, sad and homesick, not for Canada, but for familiar faces, preferably of people she actually likes to spend time with.

Enter an emergency trip to Finland.

Well fuck me. As if we needed to mix things up a little bit more.

There are a lot of things I like about Finland. One, it’s kind of like Canada. Only in Europe. Europe’s Canada, one could say. Best of both worlds, minus the bakeries that are actually found in “proper” Europe (aka Germany, France, Austria, etc.). Crappy weather, binge drinking, TV evenings and doing a whole heck of a lot of nothing. Which isn’t really vacation, but life as usual. Which is probably the way it’s supposed to be.

Then, there’s E.

I CANNOT believe how nice it’s been to sit with someone and talk openly about EVERYTHING.
It’s been a relaxed, I-don’t-give-a-crap-because-we’re-best-friends-anyway sort of deal, and that’s the way it should be. Spending time with E.’s family as if they were my family? Check. Time with g-parents? Also check. (And hey, they’re a lot more welcoming of me than the actual ones I have that are still alive.) Hanging around on the couch and watching Usain Bolt make an ass of himself/experiencing a growing interest in Newdick from New Zealand, for a variety of reasons which were aptly termed by J. as the “reason girls watch sports”? Also check.

This leads me to a new dilemma.

WHERE THE HELL IS MY HOME?

Because if you magically gave me some actual Finnish skills beyond pointing and saying “maito” or “Hän on tomppeli”, I’d be hard-pressed to not tell you it was Finland. Home is where the heart is, and all that.

I actually have a feeling of ice-cold dread when I think about going back to my regular life. Not because my regular life is crappy (well, aside from my research — which I brought with me to Finland anyway — it is pretty lackluster), but because it’s been such a treat having someone around who loves you for who you are.

I love Germany. It’s madlove. But not with the people. My madlove is with the scenery, the bakeries (as long as I’m not talking to the people behind the counter, mind), spending time with Maxie, my research, and doing my own thing. It’s not with the people who pretend to like me while I pretend to like them, even though we really don’t give two shits about each other.

True, you should always give a place time to let it (and the people) grow on you before throwing up your hands and calling it quitters.

But frankly, I’m still hard-pressed to believe it when my two best friends in the world became my best friends in less than a month. And still are. Chemistry, and all that.

And it’s not in Germany.

Which leads me to the big question…
What the heck am I doing??