10/15/98   English German

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San Francisco, 10-15-98
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Hello, loved ones!

Angelika Now that I've crawled out of my darkroom (my photography course is finished), you're finally hearing from me again. As Michael already reported in his last newsletter, the photography course inspired me so much that I spent hours and hours in the darkroom and had no time for anything else. Of course, I immediately registered for a follow-up course. In the coming semester, I will be taking two more courses as part of the certificate program "Children and the Changing Family". These courses are mandatory; if I successfully complete them, I will have a certificate in my pocket. Hurray!!!

Figure [1]: My photography class: Two children from Angelika's group, self-photographed and developed in the darkroom in black and white.

Figure [2]: My photography class: Child in Kindergarten

Social work in the Tenderloin

Many people have recently asked what's going on with my work in the "Tenderloin Childcare Center". I'm still going twice a week, often even three times, when additional help is needed for trips or parties. I have been doing this for exactly one year so far.

The graduation ceremony with diploma award for the children in my group was celebrated in mid-August. "Graduation" because all the children in my group are moving on to kindergarten. Maybe you are wondering now: "Why kindergarten, we thought they were already in kindergarten?" You've got to know that although the German word "Kindergarten" is used in America, something completely different is meant by it. In Germany, we usually refer to the time from three years old to school entry as "Kindergarten time". Most children go to the same facility during this time, their kindergarten. In America, only the last year before school is referred to as "kindergarten".

Most kindergarten classes are already in the building of the elementary school. In America, kids usually enter school at 6 years of age. It is a common practice for kindergarten children to learn letters, numbers, etc. All facilities that the children visit before this American kindergarten time are either referred to as "Preschool" ("Preschool") or generally as "Childcare Center" or "Day Care Center". Confused? Don't worry, it took me quite a while to understand the differences.

Now you may be wondering why there is a graduation ceremony with diploma award for such small children. Are Americans totally crazy? Now to their honor, it should be said that normally such "graduation parties" only take place after successful completion of high school, college or university. These are then the typical parties that are often seen in American television programs. Each graduate has a gown in the colors of the school or university and a doctor's hat in the same color. Speeches are held, parents and other relatives sit with teary eyes in the audience and finally each graduate is called to the stage and his or her diploma is ceremoniously presented.

That's how the party went in the Tenderloin as well. The children had red robes and a red doctor's hat and got a certificate stating that they had successfully completed preschool. The question remains why such a fuss for such small children, couldn't there have been a nice graduation party from which the children themselves might have benefitted more? Many facilities like the "Tenderloin Childcare Center", for which I volunteer, now hold such highly official "graduation parties" because they say that most parents are dropouts and have never experienced their own party. Therefore, they should experience the positive experience of a "graduation" as often as possible through their children. I still have mixed feelings about this thought and can't really decide how I feel about this idea. It was interesting anyway.

Figure [3]: Graduation ceremony at the kindergarten

It was funny that each of us volunteers also received a certificate (although we had no robes). Chris (also a volunteer) and I were named the "volunteers of the year" due to our special commitment and engagement for the institution. We both received a book gift voucher and were particularly highlighted at the celebration, which honestly made me very happy. Maybe there is something to these celebrations after all.

I am still working with the older children (on average 4-5 years old) in the same group room now. I already know most of the children because they simply moved up from the neighboring group. The educator teams have also been newly composed for various reasons. Samantha, with whom I get along particularly well, is fortunately still in the group I come to volunteer in.

Weekend Getaway in Shelter Cove

Figure [4]: The black sand of the "Lost coast"

Angelika Last weekend we had a holiday here, the so-called "Labor Day" ("Day of Work"), on which Michael also had a day off. So we immediately rented a car to take advantage of the extended weekend. We drove to the "Lost Coast". As the name suggests, this is not exactly the coastal section where the crowds gather and that's why we went there. The "Lost Coast" is located in the far north of California. That's where they couldn't build Highway 1 (Coast Dream Road) back then because the terrain was too rugged and the weather conditions too harsh. Fortunately, later, when technically there was nothing in the way of building the road, there were already nature conservationists who knew how to prevent it.

The only larger place on this stretch of coast with the name "Shelter Cove" can only be reached via a 25-mile very winding (it goes over the mountains) road with quite a few potholes, which takes about an hour (turbo drivers and mountain rat Michael of course managed it a bit faster). Arriving in Shelter Cove you feel immediately like in a completely different, very un-American world: No McDonalds, no bank, no gas station, the locals with their sun-tanned skin all look like fishermen and you have the impression that everyone meets in the evening in the only pub of the place, where nobody cares that smoking in pubs has been banned in California since the beginning of the year.

As I said, this place is close to the end of the world, where its own laws apply (Günter, for old smokers like you this would have been paradise). In front of the pub, the fishermen take out the freshly caught fish and above them the seagulls circle and make a deafening noise. All around, the ocean rages as far as the eye can see, there are vast cliffs and a long beach with black sand, which is quite unique for California and has led me to torment myself with the question all weekend why the sand suddenly turns black, one of those questions that can be approached both scientifically and philosophically. Well, I couldn't answer this question satisfactorily, but you can see that the landscape invited to stare at the sea and ponder for hours.

Figure [5]: Our footprints in the black sand

It would have all been wonderful, had the pitfalls of civilization not caught up with us on our arrival day. Our rental car had a flat tire, there was a nail in it, and it was hissing terribly, and in no time the tire was flat. Of course, it's clear that such misfortune only happens when you're at the end of the world without a gas station or auto repair shop, and it's a holy holiday in America, and the car insurance doesn't cover tire damage. Fortunately, Ed's Gas Station (long live the American service economy) had mercy on us. After we put on the spare tire, a spare wheel that was much smaller than the actual tire, and drove the 25 miles over the hill to the nearest town (this time slowly and decently), Ed himself patched the tire. Ed could have also played a gangster in a John Wayne western, the cigarette (remember, we're at a gas station where smoking is strictly forbidden due to the risk of explosion!) casually in the corner of his mouth, he quickly repaired the tire and only charged us 12 dollars (surely in cash) and saved our weekend.

Next weekend we'll be going on another trip. Michael was finally able to take a week off, eating into his 14-day annual vacation grant (you remember, previously he had a vacation stop due to a project) and we'll be heading to Hawaii. This time we are going to the island of "Molokai", which is said to be the least touristy and most original. We will report back in the next newsletter to tell you how it was!

At the Nail Salon

Angelika Incidentally, I recently had the absolute Seinfeld experience (if you don't know what "Seinfeld" is, just look in my last newsletter). To understand the joke, I have to explain a bit more. First of all, you have to know that there are countless so-called nail shops in America, where you can have your hands and feet cared for. Of course, you can also have your fingernails and toenails painted with nail polish. In our neighborhood alone there are four to five of these nail shops. Whenever we pass by, Michael always bursts out laughing because the people who get their nails painted look like they're in a shop window, which means that everyone who passes by can look at the well-formed or less well-formed feet and hands of the customers.

It should also be noted that it is completely okay in America to clean or cut your nails in public. So you often see people in the subway calmly working on their nails. In any case, Michael has been annoying me for months to get my fingernails painted red in such a shop. He would also come by with the camera and take a picture of me in the window. You have to know further that most of these nail shops are run by Asian women. That's exactly what the mentioned Seinfeld episode is about. The Elaine character in the show always goes to get a manicure in a nail shop run by Koreans and has the feeling that they are gossiping about her in Korean, which she of course doesn't understand. To get clarity about this, she takes George's father as a spy to the manicure the next time, because he speaks and understands Korean as an old Korean War veteran. Of course it turns out that they are indeed gossiping about her.

Recently, my friend Sylvia and I were also in such a nail shop and we suddenly had this strange feeling that we were being heavily criticized. The ladies who were working on our feet and hands were throwing comments at each other and rolling their eyes in our direction. Despite this gossip, I finally came home with red-painted fingernails and purple toenails. Michael's horrified face was really worth it. But don't worry, otherwise I'm still the same.

Another earthquake!

Angelika A few weeks ago, we were once again rudely awakened by an earthquake of magnitude 5.4. I'm telling you, it was shaking quite a bit. Fortunately, the epicenter was quite far inland, so there was no damage here in San Francisco. The problem was that Michael's computer-accessible earthquake map didn't show the earthquake, and Michael was now firmly convinced that there had been no earthquake at all. He was not dissuaded from his opinion by the fact that our friend Günter, who was visiting from Switzerland at the time, and I had felt the earthquake quite clearly. Later, to Günter's and my honor, it turned out that the map hadn't shown the earthquake because of the map's limited range. The map only shows the immediate area, and the epicenter was, as I said, much further inland. Günter was of course deeply delighted with such adventures being offered to our guests. It only scared him a little because two days earlier we had been to the museum, where an earthquake exhibition was taking place, in which a new room had been built especially for visitors to stand on a moving plate that simulated the strength of the 1989 earthquake. Günter commented later that he could have saved the museum entrance fee.

Many of you keep asking when we will come to visit Germany again. I have planned a visit for early 1999. Unfortunately, Michael won't be able to accompany me (you know only 14 days of vacation, so he's being stingy). Anyway, now Michael wants to write something too.....

Swabians in San Francisco

Michael Hello there, finally it's my turn with some funny stories! When we recently hailed a taxi in the city late at night to ride home, we got into a conversation with the driver, a "long-haired" individual, who immediately recognized that we were speaking German and then told us that he had been stationed in Germany for a few years with the US Army. Now this is nothing unusual -- you can find a lot of Americans here who have been in the Army at some point, and many of them have been in Germany during their service. There's no mandatory service here like in Germany, so the US Army is made up of professional soldiers, and there is no shortage of recruits. A job in the Army often a lifeline for many unemployed youth -- they'd rather be whipped by the drill sergeant than go begging on the street -- unfortunately, there are no other alternatives due to the lack of a social system.

And it is also socially accepted: I had laughed my head off in the movie theater when Michelle Pfeiffer wrote "I am a US Marine" on the board of an undisciplined class and everyone suddenly became reverently silent. And I can still get a giggle out of "Top Gun", but here people really take this nonsense seriously. Even during the Gulf War, according to reliable sources, every suburban bungalow owner had a US flag in their garden. But I'm digressing! So the taxi driver was telling us his experiences from Germany, yes, he had been stationed in Swabia, in Stuttgart, where the dialect is so terrible, so he had once been at the train station and an announcement was made about a track change: GLAIS OINZ! the train was leaving from GLAIS OINZ!, and he had to ask a conductor -- although he was somewhat proficient in German, but not in the Swabian dialect -- what GLAIS OINZ! meant. The taxi driver kept shouting GLAIS OINZ! and GLAIS OINZ! again and again and we couldn't stop laughing in the back seat. He completely forgot to turn on the meter, only towards the end of the ride did he remember, but instead of the indicated $5.00, I gave him $15.00 out of joy.

By the way, here's a message for you stone age people: I finally did it, I got my own domain on the internet - at http://perlmeister.com there's not only boring computer stuff but also some pages that show where we live, what we do. At the computer supermarket Fry's, I bought a scanner for $59.95, so our photos can get into the computer and onto the page - if you have a computer with an internet connection, just take a look ...

Shark Alert at Stinson Beach

Figure [6]: Warning at Stinson Beach

Michael A few weeks ago, there was great excitement at Stinson Beach, a few kilometers north of San Francisco: at this popular destination, a wave surfer was bitten in the, ahem, posterior by a white shark. The authorities immediately issued a ban on swimming and surfing, which led to sharp protests from the surfers who saw their constitutionally guaranteed right being restricted - but when the shark finally stayed away for weeks, the prohibition sign was removed and now they are surfing again!

The Lewinsky Affair

Michael As you all have surely heard, things are getting tough for President Bill Clinton here in America, who had an affair with an intern in the White House and denied it in a statement before the so-called "Grand Jury" under oath. Now, however, the intern has made a detailed statement and described in minute detail what interesting things happened there. The whole procedure was secret and a certain Ken Starr had the task of writing down the statements and findings in an even more secret report.

Now, Congress, the US lawmaking body with elected officials, has surprisingly decided to make this report available to the public - not in a newspaper, but, because we don't live on the moon: on the Internet! You can imagine that AOL was going crazy. On the day before the planned publication, teams were assembled who, as soon as the report appeared, would type it out, convert it into a suitable format and put it on the AOL internet page. The MyNews software (which your beloved narrator designed and wrote), which displays the news on the AOL page, unfortunately still had (fortunately not in my part) one error, which the guys were hunting down until four in the morning and finally could fix. In the early afternoon, then, events came in like wildfire: The media representatives, including one from AOL, were able to convince the government to release the report in electronic format right away, and we made it appear on the web page within a few minutes. Immediately the onslaught on our servers began, millions reading the report, and could hardly believe it: There it was, describing in detail, how the president and the intern had fun, and prudish Americans almost fell out of their chairs. Immediately an additional web page was set up, which pointed out that the report was not suitable for children and gave advice to parents on how to tell their offspring about the event. Over the weekend I then evaluated the data and counted how many people clicked on which pages - madness!

So, that's enough for today! To finish off, here's a photo of the two of your expats at Angel Island, the island in the San Francisco Bay that we visited on a Sunday by ship. The fog was still over the bay, but the skyscrapers of San Francisco were already visible.

Figure [7]: On Angel Island -- in the background fog and the skyline of San Francisco.

Until next time!

Angelika and Michael

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