The Lion King

In getting away from posting about things I hate, I"ll write about something I love, The Lion King. Disney first made this movie when I was a child and I was in love. I even had a Lion king birthday cake from BJ's one year, complete with a plastic Simba and Nala. Then, The Lion King opened on Broadway and I was sad to miss out when the drama club saw it as part of the NYC trip I didn't participate in my freshman year (you better believe I went each of the next 3 years). Finally, while studying abroad in London, I saw the Lion King musical - the day before I left. After all those years, it did not disappoint. To top it off, we got amazing orchestra seats at a great price with our student IDs. I left the theater and later the country happy with my Lion King experience.

This summer, for a birthday present, P's parents bought us tickets to see the Lion King in Hamburg. I had recently learned from friends who went that the Hamburg theater is on an island and you need to take a boat to get to it. We went to the show a couple of weeks ago.While, that's not completely geographically correct, the boat part was right. For the first time, I was going to see a musical in German and one I had already seen. I was worried I would not understand and it would disappoint. Once again, the Lion King did not let me down. The boat to the theater, while short, really added to the experience - once you got on there was no going back. The theater itself was nice and our seats were right on the aisle which meant we got a close up view of many of the animals as they entered. As for the German, it was hard to understand, many of the actors were not native speakers and had strong accents which could be attributed to that or to their characters. The songs seemed off with German words but it was still a lot of fun. I could understand a good bit of the show and what I didn't get in language I filled in with my knowledge of the story. It was a really great evening!

Face Piercing

I was sitting on the strasenbahn across from a girl with a labaret (that under lip piercing) and she was playing with it internally. So, picture a round metal ball slowly being sucked into her skin until it almost went through and then popping back out. It gave me the chills.

Last week, I was sitting across from another pierced face on the strassenbahn. This girl was quite pretty but looked like she had something coming out of her nose because she had a black nose ring through the middle of her two nostrils.

I realize I've been writing a lot about what I don't like lately and this is another one of those posts. I just don't understand what makes someone want to pierce their face. Before you tell me I'm just not the piercing type, I should divulge that a former version of myself longed for an eyebrow ring and a nose ring but my uncle forbid me (not that his opinion counted) from piercing anything on my face right about the time I turned 18 and had 8 holes in my ears and one in my navel. I took his advice pretty seriously though because even my teen aged rebellious self knew I didn't want scares on my face and I did want a real job some day. For that matter, I guess I would have lost my part time job at a conservative insurance agency that forbid even earrings on men as part of the dress code.

Now, I think about it every time I see a girl with a pierced face on the strassenbahn, what kind of aspirations can she possibly have? Unless she works as a piercing model or in some related industry (art, music, etc.), it's pretty much career suicide. Also, it often looks bad. Do you want people to think you have something sticking out of your nose? The worst is when face piercings get infected and the jewelry is surrounded by a swollen red circle, so unattractive. In my opinion, there is no real justification for face piercings. To me, it's a screaming sign of someone crying out for attention or trying to fit in, someone with very little foresight. Am I missing something, is there another side to this story? Can someone enlighten me to the benefits of face piercings?

Do they have Thanksgiving in Germany?

Despite the obvious reasons why Thanksgiving is an American holiday, people still ask me if Germans celebrate Thanksgiving. To be honest, it's not such a stupid question since Canada has their own Thanksgiving and it is always asked by intelligent people. This week, I started thinking about the different holidays in Germany and the US. There are some holidays Americans celebrate that would never fly here such as VJ Day but that barely flies in the US any more. however, most of the German public holidays would cause so much controversy in the US. Most German public holidays are somehow based in religion, specifically Christianity. We get days off for All Saints Day (Nov. 1), Good Friday, Easter Monday, Corpus Christi (I always thought this was a city in Texas). We don't have many non-religious holidays besides reunification (Oct. 3) and labor day (May 1) and even this is lost if it falls on a weekend. You can see the whole line-up for 2011 here. Most of these holidays would scream for separation of church and state. However, Thanksgiving is different.

Thanksgiving is really a holiday every country should adopt. Maybe we could have a world Thanksgiving. A day to take time out from your normal life and eat a decadent mid-week dinner with your family and/or close friends. A day to be Thankful for what you have in and the people who you love and love you. A day to share your "harvest" and enjoy the people in your life. I know Germans have resisted other American "holidays" due to their commercial nature (i.e. Halloween or Valentine's Day) but Thanksgiving is not really commercial at all. You don't even need to kill a Turkey, vegetarians like Thanksgiving too.

Oddly enough, this year I won't be having a Thanksgiving. Due to several factors, mostly my work schedule next week, we choose not to prepare a turkey this year. I know it is the right decision but part of me still wishes we could have a bunch of people over to sit around our long table and eat a stuffed bird. There's something special about Thanksgiving that I'll miss this year. I'm hoping I can get through the week and at least have time to bake an apple pie or maybe I can try my new whoopie pie pan out!

Maybe next year, I'll be able to celebrate Thanksgiving in the US with my family. The last Thanksgiving I had with my family was in 2005 when I was still at URI. That seems so long ago and so does college. Would you adopt Thanksgiving in Germany? Do you think other countries would take it on board too?

Putting the Pieces Together

After a wedding, there's still a lot to do to merge two lives. I started playing the name change game the day we returned fro our honeymoon. We had about 8 hours in RI before flying home so I hit up Social Security where a very friendly an changed my name. He asked if I wanted to keep my maiden name as a middle name which was kind of stressful in the moment. Clearly I had already thought this through and made a decision. He had to remind me of the option I turned down and for a milisecond I thought about saying yes. Then I remembered that my maiden name has 10 letters, my first name has 8 and my new last name has 7, add on the 3 in my current middle name and I'd have to fit 28 letters on every form for the rest of my life, no thank you. Considering I live in a country which requires you to use all of your legal names on everything, I can only imagine what my ATM card would look like if I had chosen to keep both names. unfortunately, I could not change my licence due to the antiquated system that only updates every 24 hours but it's not such a big deal as my licence is due to expire in 2011 anyway so I'll have to get it taken care of sooner or later.

Last Friday, I mailed off my passport to begin the name change process on this side of the Atlantic. Until it comes back, I can't get on a plane or legally cross any boarders so I'm eagerly awaiting the arrival of my new identification. I'm not even sure if I have any way to legally prove my permission to stay without it. When I get my new passport the fun really begins. I'll need to renew my permission to stay in my new name, change my buss pass at an office that always has lines, change my address at the post office, change my name with HR and most significantly change my email addresses! My work email will need to be changed but what about my personal email address? How long can I use the two addresses containing my old name? I'd like to keep them but that can be confusing, especially in a couple of years when I start the job search again. Which reminds me, I'll need to change my resume.

Despite all of that work to change my name, I will still be me. Somehow, I feel like I need to alter my image in order to fit my new persona. I was thinking a hair cut and wardrobe injection, two things I could use anyway. Any other idea? Should I change my email addresses or just leave them alone for now?

Leftover Lasagna

Lately, I've been lacking inspiration when it comes to cooking dinner. While Patrick was on a business trip last week I mostly ate bread and cheese which is fine by me but not exactly full of nutrients. I decided I wanted to get back into cooking healthy dinners, the kind that involve veggies and are warm since it's cold outside. However, I was pretty uninspired on my last trip to the grocery store. I bought broccoli, zucchini, chedder cheese wheels (these are a treat and only avaliable for a limited time), tziki, yogurt, ground turkey, a gurken and bread. All had potential but did not combine so well. I had some apples at home which were the product of an unmade apple pie project from the weekend before and some super delicious squash soup that I burned my mouth on and proceeded to ignore until it went bad and I had to throw it out. As you can see I was not doing well with food planning on my own.
On Sunday, I went into the office for a bit. While there, I decided I would make a nice cohesive dinner with a pasta foundation. The problem was nothing in my fridge screamed cohesive. Broccoli and zucchini? eh, tziki and zucchini sound nice but slightly boring without other vegetables and gurken is only good with salad or sandwiches. I also had a red pepper at the end of it's life, some turkey deli meat, 4 slices of salami, half a package of shreaded mozzarella and lots of cream cheese in my fridge. So, I decided to make a lasagna with whatever ingredients I could find. Luckily, I had to travel through the train station as that is the only place open on Sunday and I needed more shereaded cheese.
I should begin by mentioning Patrick is particular about Lasagna and its ingredients. He believes vegetables are not part of lasagna and ground beef is necessary. So, when I excitedly declared I would make lasagna his first comment was, "we don't have any ground beef." I decided we better call this something else, leftover lasagna. Long story short, it got Patrick's approval with a stamp of awesome and he even came back for seconds. So, now that I rambled on about the ingredients of my fridge, here's how I made the lasagna and what I eventually used. Feel free to improvise, anything works as long as you remember a lasagna can never have too much sauce or cheese. Ingredients: Pesto Lasagna noodles Tomato sauce Cream cheese Salami Zucchini (or other vegetables, muxhrooms, eggplant, peppers, etc.) Shreaded cheese (I used gouda and mozarella) Fresh basil leaves Black olives Pre-heat the oven to a temperature you like (I used 180 C). Take out your lasagna pan and pour a think layer of tomato sauce on the bottom. Add some spices if you are using the plain variety then cover with a layer of noodles. Put a layer of vegetables over the noodles, add shreaded cheese and another thin layer of sauce. Layer on another round of noodles and coat them in pesto. Add cream cheese in clumps, fresh basil leaves and salami. Cover with noodles, cover with a generous amount of sauce, layer on vegetables, black olives, and shreaded cheese. Cover with noodles, coat noodles in pesto sauce, add the rest of your vegetables, basil and cream cheese. Add final layer of noodles, rest of the sauce and rest of the cheese. Cover with foil and bake in the over for 45mins. to an hour, removing the foil for the last 15 minutes if you like your cheese to brown off a bit. Eat. That's my first attempt at a recipie, let me know if you try it out! P.S. Something is wrong with the spell check function on Blogger right now, sorry for the errors.

Followed by My Epic FAIL

...at returning to this blog that is. I promise, I really am coming back now that the wedding is over. Maybe I'll bring some photos, maybe I'll find something else to write about but first I need to finish a few PowerPoint slides.

My onion infested husband is taunting me at the moment but I will be back soon for real.

I'm currently trying to think of a new sub-heading as I've just begun year four. Suggestions?

My Big Come Back

Since I am completely bored with wedding blogging as evidenced by my lack of entries and dying to get back to documenting my life as it unfolds I decided to come back to the world of normal blogging. In my head, I have continued to compose blog entries that never made it onto the keyboard. To ease back into this blogging thing I will start off with a rant in the form of a letter to the German Post office. Dear Deutsche Post, I would like to mail my wedding invitations to our German friends and relatives but you are making this so difficult over a measly 0.02cm. I would even say 2mm if that helps to illustrate the ridiculous aspect here. a standard letter can travel anywhere in Germany for 55 cents. I sent off six of my "oversized" invitations with carefully chosen 55 cent stamps and 5 of the 6 never returned. I know for a fact that one arrived at its destination and one came back to me. Today, I went to the post office prepared to buy new stamps for the rest of the invitations at 90 cents each. I can deal with 90 cents, it is still less than 1 EUR. However, when I spoke to one of your mitarbeitern, he informed me that it actually costs 1.45 EUR to mail each one because I want to send over sized (by 2mm) letters! I was shocked and flat out refused to buy the stamps. Do you realize that I could have sent them from the US to Germany for 90 US cents?!? They would have traveled across the Atlantic ocean one by one creating more work for the USPS and I could have saved about 65 EUR cents on each considering the exchange rate! It would have been half the price to mail my invitations easily 10 times the distance. Any intelligent person can see that this makes absolutely no sense. If I had the time and didn't have to use Deutsche Post to ship the envelopes back to my mom, I would completely have her mail them from the US! This is seriously robbery. I think I will try to mail a few more with 55 cent stamps and cross my fingers for nice postal workers who will deliver them despite their 2mm height difference. I now understand why Germany use email to distribute invitations. Sincerely, J.