Angelika Since it seems that the rainy season has just started in San Francisco (so much for "it never rains here") and we can hardly venture outside, I thought I'd update you all with the latest news from here. So, grab your reading glasses, get cozy in the corner of the sofa, turn off the TV, and enjoy:

First of all, let me tell you about our Christmas celebration. Our Christmas tree was, of course, the most beautiful ever. Buying the tree went off without a hitch. Michael did grimace painfully when he had to shell out $45 for the tree, but he was in a good mood again right away because, for an extra $10, the tree was delivered to our apartment. This meant he didn't have to carry the tree over two hills or, worse, take it on the streetcar, which would surely have been newsworthy here. Once the tree was finally in our apartment, we realized it was quite large for our place, even though we had bought one of the smallest (Americans do love everything a bit oversized). As a result, we first had to rearrange our apartment. I tried not to groan or complain, otherwise, Michael would surely have commented, "You were the one who insisted on having a tree!" Despite these minor difficulties, the tree shone and glowed in American colors on Christmas Eve, and the fire department didn't have to be called, even with the real candles. My overly cautious electrical engineer, who tinkers with high-voltage lines without fear, had placed a bucket of water in our bathroom just in case. Everything went wonderfully. Initially, we were a bit worried that we might feel a bit lonely under our tree, but then we received so much lovely mail, calls, and packages that we didn't feel so far away anymore. To everyone who thought of us and didn't shy away from the horrendous postage and astronomical phone charges, we say a special "Thank you!" We truly appreciate it. On Christmas Eve, we had fondue, as per old tradition, and on Christmas Day, we couldn't resist getting real Nuremberg sausages and sauerkraut from the German store "Speckmanns" around the corner, even though we hardly ever ate them in Munich. But that's how it is when you spend Christmas "abroad" (sniff!). By the way, the store is also very popular with Americans, and the absolute hit is German "Negerküsse" (unfortunately, I don't know the new politically correct term for this treat).

Angelika Due to the bad weather (does El Nino actually exist?), we have had to move our weekend activities indoors to places with a roof over our heads. So, we've been visiting various museums and trying out new restaurants. San Francisco and the entire Bay Area is truly a culinary hotspot, and it's hard to decide where to go because there's so much choice. We thought it would be smart to visit restaurants that we wouldn't easily find in Germany. So, we first tried Ethiopian cuisine, which was good, cheap, and fun. The restaurant is called "Blue Nile" and is an absolute insider tip. You sit in dimly lit cubicles separated by wooden bead curtains and eat with your fingers. You tear off a piece of Ethiopian bread called "Injera" (imagine it like a pancake) and use it to scoop up the vegetables or meat. You drink honey wine with it, which is a real hit. Another culinary highlight: The world's best Dim Sum restaurant on Geary Street. Those of you who have traveled to Asia will know what Dim Sum is. Legend has it (or rather, my restaurant guide claims) that Dim Sum originated because Chinese businessmen loved spending hours in tea houses to conduct their business. Since one tends to get hungry during this, the tea houses began offering small snacks. This is still done today as follows: Waiters push small serving carts through the restaurant, and you simply take what you like, with each cart offering something different. There are clams, crabs, or mushrooms wrapped in noodle dough, called dumplings, spring rolls, mango cream, etc. It's definitely really good! Now that your mouth is probably watering, I'll end my excursion into the land of gourmets. On a side note, it's worth mentioning that Michael has enrolled in a course starting mid-February to learn proper wine tasting. It covers European and Californian wines. Since we have the Napa and Sonoma Valleys (wine regions) right at our doorstep and have already done some wine tastings, Michael has developed the ambition to learn how to distinguish a good wine from a bad one. The era of supermarket wine is definitely over.

Angelika Recently, we had the opportunity once again to admire Götz George, Mario Adorf, Gudrun Landgrebe, and their peers here at one of our movie theaters. It was the German Film Festival, organized annually by the Goethe-Institut in San Francisco. The festival primarily showcases films by young German-speaking filmmakers. However, this year's closing film was by Helmut Dietl, who is, as we know, neither new nor unknown. It was set in an Italian restaurant in Munich, and of course, we couldn't miss it. Although the film didn't exactly blow us away, it was amusing to see a German film (with English subtitles) and the Munich scenery again. We noticed how many naked people were shown (Götz George, of course, had to show off his physique once again to prove how well he's maintained himself). The American woman next to me was quite taken aback (by the amount of nudity, not Götz George's physique). In American movies, such scenes are usually only subtly hinted at. This is where American prudery and strange double standards come into full play. After all, no one seems to mind that Bill Clinton's sex life is being publicly and as sensationally as possible discussed at the moment.

Here, Michael still needs to add something: In the movie theater, there was also a "typically German" attraction (at least that's what the American curators thought) - a fully blown pipe organ. An older gentleman with a helmet haircut played German melodies on it before the movie started. Otherwise, you felt like you were in Germany in that cinema: "People spoke German!" San Francisco is really teeming with this kind of people. And when Michael commented on the gentleman's hairstyle with "Wow, he looks like an old Nazi!", Angelika quickly silenced him.

Angelika Regarding American media, I've wanted to make a few general remarks on this topic for a long time. First of all, the news on television should be mentioned. World news or international news only appears under two conditions: either the USA has to be somehow involved, such as in the collision of the American military plane with the cable car in Italy or the current conflict between Saddam Hussein and Bill Clinton, or an absolutely media-effective catastrophe has occurred, like the earthquake in Italy some time ago. Otherwise, the majority of the news deals with domestic politics or local matters, where one sometimes doubts the editor's judgment regarding the selection of these news stories. Not too long ago, the top news story, which was presented first, was that a pet pig got lost on the Bay Bridge. At first, I thought it was a joke because I couldn't believe that a somewhat serious TV station would dare to sell something like that as the news of the day, but it was indeed true. When you also consider that many Americans use TV news as their sole source of information, it's no wonder they know hardly anything about Europe. Of course, TV news, like other programs, is constantly interrupted by commercial breaks, which is really extremely annoying. You are familiar with this by now through private channels in Germany, and if I remember correctly, there's already a commercial break before the weather report on the Heute news broadcast. You just have to imagine it even more extreme here. Recently, for example, the movie "Dead Poets Society" was on TV. Due to the commercial breaks, the film lasted a full three hours (I would estimate the normal runtime to be about 90 minutes). Michael and I are now so annoyed by the commercial interruptions that we are increasingly renting videos or going to the movie theater, where, funnily enough, there is no advertising at all.

To return once more to the news: On one hand, as mentioned, there is hardly any international news, while on the other hand, other events are followed almost obsessively, such as the aforementioned alleged sex affair of Bill Clinton. The regular TV program is even interrupted for this. Last week, these interruptions made me quite nervous because, alongside the scandal involving Clinton, the likelihood of a military strike against Iraq was increasing. With each interruption, I thought we were on the brink of another Gulf War, but in reality, it was just another political figure being interviewed about whether Clinton had an affair with the intern or not. Some cynics claim that Clinton is only delaying the military strike so that he cannot later be accused of starting a war to distract from the Monica Lewinsky affair.

Ironically, there is currently a movie with Dustin Hoffman on exactly this topic ("Wag the Dog"). In the film, the president starts a war to cover up an affair. The reporting on the execution of Karla Faye Tucker was also particularly tasteless. The wait for the execution became a media spectacle par excellence. One can only be glad that it is not yet allowed to broadcast an execution live. Nevertheless, CNN and NBC tried to extract as much as they could. Reporters camped outside the prison and described in detail how the execution process would proceed if the appeal was denied. The transition to the commercial break was made with the words: "Only 40 minutes until the execution." It sounded like a countdown before a rocket launch, truly grotesque. I don't know to what extent you have followed the background of this media spectacle in Germany. Karla Faye Tucker received media attention mainly because she was to be the first woman executed in Texas. Texas holds the leading position in a very sad statistic: it is the state with the most executions per year in the USA, although until now, no woman was among them. The dispute between supporters and opponents of the death penalty regarding Karla Faye Tucker can be summarized roughly as follows: The conservative supporters suddenly found it morally reprehensible to execute a woman, especially since she had converted in prison from a former drug-addicted prostitute who murdered two people in a drug frenzy to an active Christian, a fact that never played a role for previously executed men. The opponents of the death penalty argued that if one supports the death penalty, there should be no gender differences. It quickly became clear that Karla Tucker only became a media sensation because she was white, female, attractive, and a converted Christian. What I find particularly unfortunate about this story is that the media did not take the opportunity to discuss the death penalty in general and reflect on how a democratic state can even consider the death penalty a legitimate legal means of punishing people.

Even in American daily newspapers, one is not exactly bombarded with news from Europe, but there are definitely more foreign reports than on television. Additionally, there are, of course, newspapers like the New York Times, which report in detail on all kinds of world and foreign events. So, I was quite surprised to find a detailed report in the Chronicle (a daily newspaper from San Francisco) about the Pope's letter to the German Bishops' Conference regarding Catholic pregnancy counseling centers and the issuance of the much-debated counseling certificate. This might also be because there is a strict separation between church and state in the USA, and Americans find a strong entanglement between church and state both dangerous and highly suspicious. Speaking of abortion, around the same time as the "Pope counseling center story" in Germany, the topic of "abortion" was also a hot topic here. This year marks the 25th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision that abortions in the first trimester of pregnancy are legal in the USA. Despite its legality, the topic of "abortion" is also discussed very emotionally here. Additionally, for several years, there have been fanatical anti-abortion activists who carry out bomb attacks on abortion clinics. Just last week, there was another such attack.