Angelika Back to my visit to Germany: I really enjoyed the four weeks in Germany and was especially happy that I was able to see and talk to so many of you. Even though my visits to many of you were just brief stopovers and therefore, of course, much too short. Those whom I didn't manage to visit, please be understanding; four weeks is just a limited amount of time.

Angelika I kept hearing during my visit to Germany that soon American conditions would prevail in Germany regarding social security. Friends, I must vehemently disagree on this point, and I sincerely hope that such conditions will never exist in Germany. Take, for example, the troublesome issue of health insurance. Firstly, about 40 million Americans are not insured at all, and since the entire insurance system here is privately run, it happens that, for instance, services for AIDS patients are not covered because their treatment is too costly. Or, when switching insurance providers, which usually happens automatically with a job change, any illness or even pregnancy that existed six months before the change is not covered by the new insurance for up to a year. Chronically ill people are truly lost in such a system.

Angelika To return once more to the topic of complaining, the nagging and pessimism: Americans might be the other extreme, being the eternal, almost unrealistic optimist. They firmly believe that you can achieve anything if you just want it enough. The dream of "dishwasher to millionaire" is still alive here. Even the homeless person on the street or the black person living in the worst part of the city, where gang wars, violence, and drugs are daily occurrance, still adhere to this philosophy. Considering the fact that many black people will never leave the ghetto and don't even have a high school diploma, this is quite a bitter irony. In my opinion, this attitude also leads to the belief that everyone thinks they can make it on their own, and Americans don't like it when certain things are regulated by the government (e.g., introducing mandatory health insurance).

Angelika Yes, yes, and what else has happened with us? First of all, I have been trying to get an internship position, and my first interview is next week. I've applied to a school where children between the ages of 2 and 5 are cared for. Since the institution is located in a very poor neighborhood of San Francisco, many children are affected by severe poverty and even homelessness. Others have experienced drug abuse and violence in their families and, as a result, have emotional problems. Other children at the center come from immigrant families from all over the world who have just arrived in San Francisco and therefore know little or no English. It all sounds very exciting, and I am already quite nervous because it is not easy for me to do an interview in a foreign language. If I am accepted at the center and I like it there, I'll be working there three mornings a week.

Angelika Next weekend we will be celebrating our first wedding anniversary. We have decided to take the date of our church wedding as our official anniversary. This is mainly for the pragmatic reason that this date is engraved in our rings, providing Michael with a good memory aid. Looking back on this year, an incredible amount has happened, and somehow the year has just flown by. Naturally, we want to celebrate our anniversary accordingly. So, we are heading to the coast up north and have booked a romantic hotel with ocean view for two nights. To get up there, we will make our way through the wine region and might even do a wine tasting. A truly Californian weekend! We are definitely looking forward to it.

Angelika Most of you are already up to date on this, but some of you are not, so for the sake of completeness, I'm quickly writing down the story again. In my last newsletter, I described in detail that Michael is now working from home because the Blaxxun office in San Francisco has closed, but the Blaxxun funding is secured until early 1998. After Michael had just finished setting up all the computers in our apartment, and I had gotten used to him turning our apartment into an open-plan office, the next piece of bad news came (just before my departure to Germany), namely that the funding was withdrawn again, and Blaxxun will likely shut down completely by the end of June or July (including the office in Munich).

Angelika So, and now to my new driver's license. After finally passing the test, I patiently waited for the ID card to be sent to me from the California state capital, Sacramento, which can take up to 6 months because, for us foreigners, they also check if we are legally in the country. After almost 7 months, I finally received a notice from Sacramento that they were missing the documents needed for verification! In plain terms, this means that the DMV forgot to copy my passport and visa. So, I had to go back to the DMV in San Francisco with my passport, where they copied it and assured me that the papers were now in order.