Cultural Notes

My friend who is going back to the states after living here for four years was trying to prepare her eight-year-old daughter for the transition. The child has never been to any school but the International School of Duesseldorf. When her mom told her that everyone there would speak English, she said, "Okay mom, I'll help the German kids. I speak pretty good German now." And the mom had to say, "There won't be any German kids. Everyone is American. Everyone speaks English." To which the daughter replied, "Well, what about the foreign kids from all the other countries? Do they speak English, too?" The mom figures this is going to be a process. The suburbs of Detroit Michigan don't have a large ex-pat population.

On another note, I have written often about trying to find certain products here in Germany, but my Jewish friend gets the prize for effort. Passover is coming up, and in order to get what she needed to prepare a proper meal, she and a friend drove two hours to Antwerp, Belgium. I suppose many Jewish people in the more rural areas of the states have to make similar trips at holiday times, but they generally don't have to cross national lines.

Went to a restaurant last night to celebrate a friend's birthday. Ireland is now smoke-free, but Germany is still not completely there. The restaurant was so smoky that when I got home I had to dump all my clothes in the laundry room and take a shower before going to bed. More and more places are going smoke-free and the weather is getting warmer, so you can stick with places where you can sit outside.

Caught a story on CNN about the whole American Idol/Sanjay controversy. Apparently that's big news back home. Sometimes, it's good to be in a foreign country.

We are headed to London for a few days. Skip has work there and Maddie's spring break begins this week. We're going to try to get in to have tea with the Queen. We'll let you know how that works out.