Angelika Twenty-four years ago, on October 17th, 1989, to be precise, a 6.9 earthquake rattled San Francisco, and caused severe damage to the Bay Bridge, which connects the cities San Francisco and Oakland. A part of the upper deck slammed down on the lower part, killing one driver while crossing the bridge. Shortly after the quake, it became evident that the bridge wouldn't withstand another blow and would need to be replaced urgently. And this was the beginning of the struggle for the new bridge: Discussed were various building cost and design issues, like should it be a suspension bridge or not, one or two decks again, or with foot and bicycle paths? What made matters worse was that the two cities, San Francisco and Oakland, had to agree on all issues. Both cities were run by big-headed mayors, Willie Brown in San Francisco, and Jerry Brown, now governor of California, then mayor of Oakland. It took forever to build, but finally, after 24 years of construction drama, on September 3rd, 2013, the new bridge was opened to the public.

Angelika We are Greencard holders, not American citizens, and therefore can't vote in the US. But German citizens residing in a foreign country are still eligable to vote in federal elections in Germany via absentee voting. The regulations require having lived at least 3 months in Germany without interruptions after having completed one's 14th birthday, and this can't be more than 25 years ago. Alternatively, a German citizen living abroad can make a case that they still have a pretty good grasp on what's going on in German politics, but the official flyer points out explicitely that it's not sufficient to claim to consume German media outlets abroad.

Michael Until a few years ago, Americans didn't care much about saving the environment or recycling, but nowadays it's extremly hip to be "green". In previous editions of this newsletter, we've explained how to correctly dispose of old TV sets ( Rundbrief 12/2010 ) or to separate garbage into the different bins provided in San Francisco ( Rundbrief 02/2006 ).

Angelika Living in a densely populated metropolitan area often requires a lot of patience to get you through the day. Whenever you have a lot of people in a crowded space, there seem to always be a small number of inconsiderate idiots who think they own the place. Apparently, I'm not the only one thinking this way, as the local Kron 4 station here keeps airing a segment called "People Behaving Badly" during the daily 8 PM newscast.

Michael Residents of San Francisco and the surrounding Bay Area fancy cultivating a long tradition of absolutely hating everything about Los Angeles. Except we don't subscribe to such prejudice and travel down there every once in a while. Also, when Americans say "Los Angeles", they actually don't mean the downtown district, but an eclectic conglomerate of suburbs forming a gigantic metropolitan area home to some 20 million people. Every single one of these neighborhoods is completely different and no person with integrity would lump them all together and rate them as a whole.

Angelika We discovered the Hawaiian dish "Poke" (pronounced "po-kah") on one of our trips to the islands and since we're both really into raw fish and Japanese cuisine, it really hit it off with our taste buds. It's a very traditional and common fish preparation technique on Hawaii, where you can buy it at any supermarket's Poke counter, similar to cheese or meat counters in Germany.

Michael Sitting in the office all day is not healthy. Actively moving around is good for you and helps avoiding putting on those otherwise inevitable pounds around the waistline. But how many steps are you actually walking during the day, is it sufficient by the time you come home or should you run for half an hour on the tread mill or go for a late evening walk around the block on top of that? To find out about that, I've been wearing the bracelet in Figure 1 since beginning of August.