Michael In November '99, I reported once before that a large Ikea was supposed to open in Oakland, right on the opposite side of the San Francisco Bay. As a European, one probably can't imagine what it means to live without Ikea. The nearest store here was 400 miles further south, in Los Angeles! Well, the Oakland store opening finally came true, and it was announced with great fanfare. During the first few days, a raffle was drawn every hour, and whoever was standing in the checkout line won their purchases without having to pay anything. One weekend, we managed to stop by.

Michael As every year, the "Bay to Breakers" city run took place in May, and your esteemed narrator participated, continuing on a developing tradition. This has already been reported in the newsletter, but since one particular newsletter reader, whom I won't name here (Günter Speckhofer, the editor), recently asked again what "Bay to Breakers" actually means, here are the facts once more: It's a fun race from the San Francisco Bay in the east, across the city to the ocean in the west (Breakers are the incoming waves), with 70,000 people participating. Many compete in costumes or in groups, and the streets are closed off.

Michael And here is the segment "Learn to Speak American with the Pros" again! Today, we start with two words used to describe big shots, self-important people, and busybodies: "Bigwig" (literally: "Big Wig") and, as I like to say, "Muckety-Muck" (pronounced: "Mackettimack," with emphasis on the first "a" and the second "a"). "The big muckety-muck decided otherwise again!" -- the boss changed his mind again. By the way, at Netscape, seven people from our group have formed a basketball team that plays in the Netscape internal tournament and is called the "Muckety-Mucks." Which, of course, is meant ironically!

Michael We've been living abroad for almost four years now! Every time visitors from Germany arrive here in San Francisco, we become aware of this fact. I think that about 20 people visited us this summer -- let's see if I can remember them all: (Günter, Thomas & Helmut & Konrad, Matthias, Fritz & Traudl, Ursel & Peter, Heinz & Ursel & Bernd & Julian & Yves-Ole, Susanne, Christian, Markus).

Michael Now to our new section: What Germans always do wrong in America. They sit down in a restaurant, and when the waiter comes and asks what they would like to order, they say, "I take the steak." Aaah! This immediately reveals the person ordering as a German tourist, because Americans say, "I'll have the steak, please." At the latest, this is when the waiter starts whispering with their colleagues and rolling their eyes, because Germans don't have a good reputation in the American dining scene. The reason: In Germany, there's a 5% tip, at most, while in America, the waiter expects at least 15%, and in better restaurants, even 20%.

Michael Angelika discovered during her photography courses that traditional SLR cameras do not deliver the image quality that she envisions, ahem, ahem. In fact, there are so-called medium format cameras, whose negatives are 6 by 6 (or 6 by 7, depending on the model) centimeters in size, which is about four times the area of conventional film. This results in double the resolution are of stunning image quality -- however, the cameras for this are quite bulky and expensive. But in San Francisco, there are camera shops where you can rent such a camera for little money over the weekend, and that's what we did when we recently went down to San Luis Obispo (about halfway between San Francisco and Los Angeles) for a long weekend.

Angelika And I want to report on another groundbreaking event. After almost four years, we bought a dishwasher. Now, you might not find this too exciting, but I tell you, anyone who knows how much Michael and I hate washing dishes, and anyone who has visited us and experienced firsthand how the dishes pile up, and had to join in the dishwashing routine, will not only be happy for us but will thank us on their knees. Hey, stop the eye-rolling and gossiping. Now comes the funny part of the story. In our kitchen, it is impossible to install a dishwasher because the cabinets next to the sink are built in such a way that they can't be moved even a centimeter. This, by the way, seems to be a very common problem in American rental apartments, because there are rolling dishwashers available for purchase.

Angelika Michael went to the trouble of putting together a shopping basket for you. At first, you might have thought that the price of $2000 for a two-bedroom apartment in our neighborhood was a typo. If only it were! Unfortunately, the dizzyingly high rents are a harsh reality in San Francisco.