Michael When it comes to traditional German food, we haven't suffered any shortage so far, as there are two German stores just two streets away from our apartment. One of them offers German beer mugs, beauty products (Fa shower gel, unfortunately no Cliff), and during Christmas time, nutcrackers and Santa Clauses. The other store, which is connected to the restaurant "Speckmann's," carries all sorts of German beers, potato salad, frozen pretzels, sauerkraut, white sausages, Händlmaier mustard (by the way, the package says "Händelmaier's," is it the same in Germany, can someone verify that?) and Vienna sausages, which are called "German Franks" there.

Michael In the second week of December, I had the honor of visiting the headquarters of AOL in Dulles, Virginia (very close to the capital of the USA, Washington D.C.) to give a two-day course on a programming language (for the experts among you: Tcl) for the folks there. Since Virginia is on the East Coast and we live on the West Coast of America, I had to set off on a Sunday morning, sit on a plane for five hours, rent a car, and navigate through a maze of highways to find the hotel and AOL. Not so easy, since my chief navigator Angelika wasn't with me. So, I arrived at Washington airport at 9 PM, rented a car, and (who would have thought?) promptly got lost. Anyone familiar with the Washington area knows that one highway leads into another and that once you miss an exit, there's no turning back because you have to go through three interchanges before you can take the next exit and turn around. I managed to pass the same toll booth twice, luckily it only cost 25 cents each time. There were large funnels set up there, into which you could toss the appropriate coin with a big swing and half out of the car window while driving, super cool! Fortunately, I had enough coins with me.

(Michael) The thing with the German accent is something I constantly work on, but there's no end in sight: Someone who has spoken German their whole life probably can never sound 100% like an American or English person. It's like when an American speaks fluent German, but you can still tell from the "r"s and "w"s that the Anglo-American world pronounces letters slightly differently than the German-speaking world. To avoid any misunderstandings: I don't speak like Helmut Kohl or use grammatically incorrect English, and I choose the words to express what I mean according to the local context as much as I can. For example, in America, people often say things you wouldn't learn in any English course in the world, like "I'm gonna do this" for "I'll do that" or in California "What's up, dude?" for "How's it going, buddy?" -- so it's not about the slang, that's easy to copy.

Michael The second half of our annual vacation (1 week) was spent in the deserts down by San Diego. Within California, you can fly around very cheaply, so the flight from San Francisco to San Diego, about 800 kilometers further south, and back costs only about 100 dollars per person. The weather there is a bit warmer; in San Francisco, it tends to rain in the winter, and although the temperature here rarely falls below 45 degrees Fahrenheit, we prefer it to be really sunny. We regularly buy the Süddeutsche Zeitung along with the "Magazin" from our "Pali" (as Angelika always calls the Palestinian newspaper vendor around the corner) every Friday, and Angelika had read there that in a small desert town called "29 Palms," there are not only 29 palm trees but also a nice motel that rents out small cottages with fireplaces and such.

Michael Back in San Francisco, we watched the latest movie: "You've Got Mail," starring Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks. The funny thing about it is that the whole film revolves around how the two meet and like each other on the internet, and since everything is anonymous there, they don't realize that they also know each other in real life--and can't stand each other there. And they use AOL, as you can see repeatedly in the scenes! AOL is, for those of you who are a bit slow, the company I work for, and accordingly, I'm familiar with the "You've got mail!" phrase from daily work, as that's what the computer says when you turn it on and have new emails. Since I receive about 50 emails a day, I hear it quite often. Anyway, the movie is quite funny, and if you're technology-averse yetis who still use pens, typewriters, and other antique devices, you absolutely must watch it to learn how things work nowadays and all that.

Michael And there is also news to report from the production mill of the tireless Michael S.: The reach of German books is inevitably limited to German-speaking countries, and as is well known, I want to bombard the whole world with my products. So it was very convenient for me to hear from the UK branch of publisher Addison-Wesley that they were interested in translating my German book into English and launching it on the world market. No sooner said than done: A translator received the book via email, worked on it for a month, and finally sent back the result. I reviewed it, made corrections here and there, sent it back, and after a few rounds, the final result was ready: It will be in stores at the end of January. I have already received 6 sample copies and have given most of them to my colleagues at AOL. You can also order it from the largest bookstore on the Internet, Amazon: Go to amazon.com and enter "schilli" in the search field -- and you'll be beamed to the right place. It's quite strange to read my text in English -- but hey, if it brings money in... and my declared life goal is, as is well known, for my book to one day be in the bookstore of Stanford University. That could happen soon, then we'll go there with the camera...

Michael This brings something interesting to mind: When you buy something in a store in America, it's well-known that the sales tax is added to the listed price, which is 8.5% in San Francisco. If you buy a chocolate bar for $0.99, you pay $1.08 at the register. This is always confusing for tourists and especially leads to problems when you've painstakingly added up the amounts of all the items in your head before paying, intending to dump the kilo of loose change you've been carrying around for weeks onto the counter--only for the cashier to suddenly ask for a completely different amount! However, you get used to it after a while.

Michael Like typical Germans in exile--giving in to hopeless sentimentality--we naturally couldn't resist buying a Christmas tree this year. We had to shell out 60 dollars, but it was delivered directly to our apartment. That was important because we still don't have a car, and transporting a 6 foot Christmas tree on the streetcar would have been quite conspicuous. Since the houses here are made of wood and real candles on Christmas trees are actually illegal, I kept a filled bucket of water ready just in case... but everything went well.

Michael Angelika is now quite active on the internet as well -- writing emails, browsing the web, and sending me "instant messages" to the office. It's a good thing that our access doesn't cost us anything in terms of phone charges or membership fees, otherwise, we would have ended up in the poorhouse long ago. Here in America, you don't pay a penny for local calls; they are all included in the so-called "flat rate," $15 a month for the second line. It's about time that Telekom in Germany or its competitors adjust their fees!

Angelika So, now it's my turn. Michael keeps writing and writing, I can't get a word in! First of all, I want to inform you that I have actually managed to book a flight to Germany. I will be flying out on January 15th and will stay until February 12th. A four-week visit to Germany sounds incredibly long, but experience shows that four weeks are just flying by. As it stands now, I will be doing a little tour around Germany to see as many of you as possible. Since this is a major organizational effort for me, I would be very grateful if you could help me organize meet-ups. I fear that time will be too short to visit each of you individually. Therefore, it would be great if we could arrange group gatherings, if possible.

Angelika By the way, two astounding events occurred in San Francisco shortly before Christmas. One of them was even reported on German television: There was a power outage in San Francisco for several hours because an employee from the energy supply company, called PG&E, flipped the wrong switch at a power substation near San Francisco. Nothing worked for hours: no computers, no buses or streetcars, as they run on overhead lines, no subway, no traffic lights, no ATMs, etc. However, there was no doomsday atmosphere, as was often claimed on television; people took it rather calmly. It's important to know that in America, power outages for short periods are relatively common, but several hours is extremely unusual even by local standards.

Angelika Michael already mentioned our Christmas decorations. Of course, we also celebrated New Year's Eve in style, as you never know how long we'll be in San Francisco, and we have to celebrate the occasions as they come. Our first New Year's Eve in the city two years ago was spent cruising on the Bay (that's the water around San Francisco) on a ship, and since we enjoyed it so much, we thought we'd do it again this year.

Angelika The end of the year is always a time to take a moment and look back. For me, setting up a new calendar and clearing out the address book has a symbolic character. So, on December 31st, I sat down and transferred birthdays and addresses into the new calendar, not only to create order but also to quietly reflect on the year 1998. In doing so, I thought of all of you who visited us in 1998, or those who tirelessly wrote to us, called us, and maintained contact despite the distance.