Michael During the time "between the years," at the end of December 2021, we drove two hours south to the small town of San Juan Bautista and from there took day trips to Pinnacles National Park, which is an hour away from there.

Angelika The USA, as is well known, does not have a registration law or a document like a EU grade identity card. Nevertheless, one still needs to identify oneself. This is usually done with a driver's license, which is not only needed for driving a car but also to prove that you are indeed who you claim to be. And for those of you who are particularly attentive readers and are now wondering: what do the poor people who never learned to drive, who surprisingly also exist in the USA, do about that? Here is the solution to the puzzle: There is the option to apply for a driver's license that only serves as an ID, but does not grant driving privileges.

Angelika Sometimes I think that the world has gone completely crazy. After we were able to catch our breath a bit regarding COVID-19, the war of aggression in Ukraine is once again plunging the world into fear and terror. There is often the prejudice that Americans are hardly affected by foreign events that are far away, but here too, the war in Ukraine is a constant topic of conversation. Of course, this is also because the USA is directly involved, taking in Ukrainian refugees, albeit in small numbers, and providing money and weapons.

Michael As mentioned in the last Rundbrief 12/2021 , it is now normal here in San Francisco for petty crime to no longer be pursued by the police and the district attorney. Recently, thieves have been crawling under parked cars in broad daylight, using battery-powered saw to tools cut off the catalytic converter, and selling the part along with the precious metals it contains to shady scrap dealers. The photo in illustration 1 was taken by a resident who noticed the activity; however, despite an immediate emergency call, the police only arrived hours later, by which time the thieves were long gone. In such cases, the car owners affected have to pay several thousand dollars for a new catalytic converter, depending on the vehicle type, plus an equal amount to repair the damage caused to the exhaust system by the rough sawing. It costs an additional $400 if the owner hires a workshop to weld a specially designed steel cage around the catalytic converter to prevent another criminal from stealing the replaced converter using the same method a week later.

Angelika This week, our chief expert on infectious diseases, Dr. Anthony Fauci, announced that we in the USA have moved past the acute phase of the pandemic. Let's hope it stays that way. After the holidays in December, the Omicron variant hit us with full force in San Francisco and the surrounding area. At the school, this resulted in a very high rate of employee sick leave in January, and we maintained school operations with extremely limited staff. Although the quarantine period is now only 5 days if you test positive and are vaccinated, we were still at our wits' end.

Michael As you may remember, in the last newsletter I talked about special utensils for making top-quality pizza at home, and I casually mentioned the gas-powered mini oven from Ooni. And just like that, Angelika gave me one of these gadgets for Christmas. It was supposed to be a surprise. However, Angelika didn't consider that the neighbors in our apartment building are now as vigilant as hawks to ensure delivered packages aren't immediately stolen. As soon as the delivery service placed the huge box in the lobby downstairs, it took less than five minutes for our neighbor to send me a text message: "Hey, a pizza oven for Angelika was just delivered downstairs!" I was still happy.

Michael In San Francisco, a well-kept secret is a staircase in the hilly neighborhood of Bernal Heights called the "Esmeralda Stairs," which is surely a hundred meters long and has a slide built between two landings. No kidding, the slide is ten meters long and is constructed so sturdily from steel that, after a thorough inspection, I concluded that it can not only withstand the boisterous children it was built for but also adults of my size. Now, granted, I have never seen anyone older than 10 years sliding there, but that doesn't mean anything.

Michael When it comes to political ideologies, Americans use terms that often mean the exact opposite of what their literal translation into German would imply, and that's why today I'm going to shed some light on this. First, the two-party system: you are either a "Democrat" or a "Republican." There is no "Green," "Liberal," "Leftist," or AfD member; 99% of all ideologies find their home in one of these two groups.