Krankenwagen

When it comes to emergencies, Americans take themselves very seriously. I never realized HOW seriously until I called 911 in Germany for the first time.

Two friends and I were out of the house for the night when one of my friends started complaining of back pain. She said she really wasn’t feeling well, and eventually we decided to go home early. About 5 am, I get woken up: “Stephanie, you need to get up now. Emma collapsed on the floor.” Groggily, I start to come to. Then I see her. My friend Emma is on the ground keeled over in pain. “Call the ambulance, call the ambulance,” she’s crying. Tiki looks at me, “Stephanie, call the ambulance. We don’t speak German.” Crap. I think to myself. Now, my Germans pretty okay, but over the phone describing symptoms? I’m nervous. I pick up the phone. “What’s the emergency number?” No one knows. My head goes into panic mode. I take a deep breath in, say a prayer, and proceed. I find the number on a website, call it, and receive a message: “Sorry, we are closed. Please call back during normal business hours”. What the heck? I mean, I am in Germany, the country of closed Sundays, but could it really be possible to only be able to get an ambulance during normal business hours?? I look on the internet again, and try the fire brigade. Ah ha! I get through. I calmly explain to the gentleman that I need an ambulance, and somehow manage to describe her symptoms, what has happened throughout the night, where we are, and what’s going on. Divine intervention I’m sure. He assures us they on their way, and I hang up.

Three minutes later, the bell rings. Someone’s here. Thinking we’re back home, Tiki and I run as fast as we can to the door to prevent them from knocking it down. We look for the keys—can’t figure out how to open the door. Both she and I panic, thinking any minute there will be an axe at the door as they run in trying to save our lives. We finally manage to open the door, and rush to the gate.

“Servus!” (Bavarian equivalent to “Whad up”) shouts not one, not two, but three gorgeous, beautiful young EMT’s. Tiki and I look at each other. She gives me the look of: Really? Is this really happening? Of all the times to send good-looking EMT’s, they had to pick now? “Great,” she says to me. Both of us are in our pajamas, five minutes ago I wasn’t wearing any pants, and it had just rained on us before we went to bed. Needless to say, we were looking pretty gross. They greet us casually, saying the German equivalent to “Sup dudes good morning. How’s it going?” Tiki and I look at each other puzzled. They calmly come into the house, just looking around saying, “So where’s your friend?” We direct them to Emma. She explains that she doesn’t speak German, and one switches to English. He had of the strongest German accent I’ve ever heard. He sounded like Arnold Schwarzenegger. “Doez it hurt hier? Ah okay. Und here? Ah okay. Und hafe you peid? Ja okay. I zink ve need to go to ze hospital!” He sings. Tiki and I can’t look at each other for fear of laughing. They help her up the stairs and into the ambulance. 

Off they go, to the hospital, no siren, no rush, just chillin having a peaceful journey, and I had yet another invaluable cultural experience. There really is no place like Germany. (Except maybe Austria, and parts of Switzerland, but that's another story)

PS.  I’m sure you’re wondering what happened to my friend Emma. Don’t worry, she was fine, just had an easy treatment and was out the next day.

Enjoying Bavarian Holidays: Maria Himmelfahrt

Welcome to another ridiculous Bavarian Holiday! I find it incredibly interesting to have so many religious holidays in a country as secular as Germany. But that's not the point of my post.

Since the airport is open everyday, I don't get the day off. But I just wanted to take a moment to wish you all a Happy Maria Himmelfahrt Day... And for all of you to take a breath, have a rest, and enjoy... because it's pronounced, "Him-mel FART!!" Hahahaha.

Have a great day everyone!

Nanny Problems: A dead Mouse

     It was a lovely summer day and Emily and I were outside playing princess. I wasn't technically working, but Christa was in the shower and Emily wanted to play with me, so of course I went outside with her.

Emi runs in the corner to hide from me when she stops:"Komm mal Steffie, hier, schnell! Crok mal was ich gefunden hab!!" Come Steffie here fast! Look what I found! I come running over. "A dead mouse!" She replies enthusiastically. "No Emi, don't touch, back away from that". I told her. I'm thinking: Ew. Gross. I really hope Christa doesn't ask me to pick this up. Emi is so intrigued. "I don't want to touch it, I just want to look". So she hovers over it. "Poor, poor mouse". She repeats. I'm incredibly grossed out. I don't see why Emi wants to stare at it, but she really seems to like the thing. Next thing I know, she has a flower in her hand. One by one, she starts picking the petals off and throwing them over the mouse. She was so somber about it. It was pretty sweet, I have to say.

When she was done throwing flowers over it, she says to me, "Steffie, go get mommy. She can start the grill up and we can cook it and eat it."

Erhm. Excuse me. "No, Emi, we can't eat the mouse".

"I don't mean now," she said, "I mean later. For dinner". 

I stop. Now, my German's pretty okay, but there's just some concepts and words I have trouble expressing. I start to think and put together the words I do know, and I think it came out something like this: "Emi, your not allowed eat mice. They are dirty and have a lot of bacteria on top of them. If you eat them, you would get sick."

Either I drastically butchered my German, Or she didn't believe me.

"Don't worry," she tells me, "Mommy will make it yummy".

Some might say my patience is running a little dry, but at this moment I admitted defeat. "Let's go get your mommy and show her. I bet she wants to see".

"Yayyyyy!!!!" exclaimed Emi.

So off we went, into the bathroom, to get a very surprised Christa. In her towel and all, she came outside to get rid of our dead little friend, and I was a very happy girl.

P.S. We didn't have mice for dinner.

Nanny Problems: The Laughing Stock of the Zoo

After eight months in Munich, I decided: Germans just don't laugh. We've watched funny movies together, we've heard jokes, we've seen police officers give tickets with their fly down: and nothing. Just me, sitting there, living up to the American Stereotype as the single person loudly cracking their head off. I've learned to adjust. If I find something funny, I usually just quietly giggle to myself. So when I went to the zoo, I wasn't expecting anything different.

I'm an Au Pair. I make less in a month than my boyfriend spends on the average weekend out. It's a little depressing. Luckily, as a native english speaker, there are many opportunities for me to make a little extra cash watching other people's children. One of which, is a nice half German half American family with two young boys.

I get a call early Tuesday morning that both the mother and the father were very sick, and asked if I could take the 2 year old the the zoo for a few hours so they could sleep. Now, I love this family, but the mother is a little bit overprotective to say the least. No judgement, just a statement of fact. When I arrived, she had a bag waiting for me with all the things I needed for the day. As I'm pulling things out, I get to the bottom of the bag, and low and behold-- a leash. Yes my friends, I was going to be one of those parents with their children on a leash. Thankfully, it was a nice one with a little monkey on the back (I'm trying to think positively). Internally, a part of me died a little bit, but I was happy thinking: It's okay. The Germans are very reserved and non nosey people. No one will say anything. I couldn't have been more wrong.

Monkey leash

We start walking around the zoo. We're seeing zebras and giraffes-- the little boy was having a great time. I start to notice people pointing and whispering, but I kind of just figured they were looking at the animals. We enter the monkey exhibit. The boy and I walking around watching the monkeys, and we start to hear, "oh my gosh do you see that kid? what is he a dog?" I roll my eyes. I hear a little giggling--figure its nothing. The kid and I stand still because he sees some monkeys he really likes. We're looking and having a great time. One male monkey starts chasing a female monkey around the cage. A big crowd starts to form. The monkey then mounts the female monkey, and they start having monkey sex!! Everyone is pointing and laughing.. and so are we! I look around, to try to join in the fun, when I realize--no one is pointing at the monkeys.. they are pointing at me!! There we are, in the middle of watching monkey sex, and I am the laughing stock of the zoo. I was humiliated.

We left the exhibit and started walking to see something else. Then I really started to pick up on it. Kids were pointing and laughing--parents alike! Right in the middle of a giraffe pooping--people were laughing at us. It was terrible. I have never been so happy to leave the zoo in my entire life.

Lesson learned. I was wrong. Turns out, Germans do know how to laugh.

Lose Yourself in Venice Part 2

Now, where did I leave off?

We woke up in the morning and I was eager to have a real Italian Cappuccino! Emma and I went to the hotel bar and ordered two cappuccinos, complete with chocolate dust on top. We sat in the courtyard of our hotel and drank. They were delicious!

After this we headed back into town.

Now you're probably thinking.. Okay Stephanie, where's the catch with your title? Well. Here it comes. Lose yourself in Venice. I beg you-try NOT to get lost! The thing with Venice is, it is full of old, skinny, barely fit in there buildings, connected by bridges, walkways, and half of the time they are interrupted by a canal or a dead-end. You can walk for minutes in one direction, only to find yourself stuck yet again in a dodgy corner of the island! The good thing is, it's always a beautiful view. But when it's 85 degrees outside, it can be frustrating.

Erik and I just spent the day re-visiting everything in day light. It mostly looked the same but with more people!

Erik's baked lasagna

Cool little kid chasing the pidgeons that I wouldn't let Erik touch.

In on of the dodgy corners we came across a candy shop where I bought the biggest meriangue I have ever seen!! It was strawberry flavored and SO GOOD!

I was a happy camper! After this we started home again. Luckily the traffic wasn't that bad and the clouds were nice a high, so we got to see a lot of the Alps we missed on the way there. We stopped at the most beautiful Mc Donalds I have ever seen somewhere in Austria. It had full windows over-looking a mountain and a canyon in the Alps. I wish I had my camera!! But I did managed to catch a few good ones of the ride back.

It was a really great trip. I am so happy I got to go to Venice. I feel like the luckiest girl alive. Thanks to Erik for driving.. I'm sure it wasn't the most fun for him to drive with three girls 6 hours both ways.... He is the best!

If you haven't made it to Venice, on your next European adventure it is a must see!! It is so beautiful and romantic. Hope you all enjoyed, and really, go lose yourself in Venice!

Lose Yourself in Venice, Part 1

So I've been hanging out in Munich for a little while. Knowing I'm surrounded in close proximity by 5-6 other countries has been killing me... I need to get out! When I found out Venice was only 5 hours away by car, I was dead-set determined to get the gang together and get on the road. So that's exactly what I did.

We took a drive through the a popular skiing destination for rich people, The South Tirols, which covers Austria and Northern Italy. The drive started out well but we hit a huge cloud bank, and most of the Alps were covered. It was still really nice!

We hit a bit of traffic on the way there, but the drive wasn't really that bad. Since it was on our route, we decided to make a pit stop in Verona, the famous city of Romeo and Juliet, on our way there.

It was over 80 degrees!! Such a change from the freezing German summers!

The arena where Gladiators fought

Streets of Verona

My first Italian Gelato!!!

Erik by the Bubble Gum Alley

Juliet's Balcony

And the courtyard where Romeo stood :)

Verona was really beautiful. It was very Italian in the architecture, with the pale oranges and pinks and the ornate white trim. We didn't stay very long because we were eager to get to Venice. I really didn't want to miss the sunset!!


So we got back in the car and finished our trip. Our hotel ended up being really nice! It wasn't on the island because we had a car, but it was just a short bus ride away. We took the bus onto the island and sat down to have dinner.

Erik's pizza had eggplant, salami, prosciutto, olives, artichokes, bell pepper, mushrooms, and eggplant on it! I was so jealous!

I could see dusk was coming so I hurried Erik up so we could make it to the Grand Canal by sunset.

Venice at dusk is gorgeous. All of the colors of the sky reflect on to the water and it looks like an oil painting. plus, the weather is finally comfortable enough to enjoy everything you see.

Ahh Venice at dusk! There was so much to take in I didn't even know where to look! I just had to stop, take a deep breath, and thank God for putting me here and making such a beautiful scene.

When most of the colors had faded, we decided to get some gelato! When my dad and Chris when to Italy, the thing I remember most about their trip is how much Gelato they ate!! Every since then I had always wanted to have some. Now, we have Gelato in Germany, and I thought it was good.. until I went to Italy!! We found this cute little place right on the ocean and got a couple of scoops. I decided I was going to try a new flavor every time, so I had Melon and Strawberry. Surprisingly, Melon was my favorite! It was delicious! Erik makes fun of me because I say everything is "the best thing ever". He says it's over-used and he can never really tell how good things are, because I love everything. After hearing me declare it, "the best gelato ever", Erik just kind of rolled his eyes and ignored me... but then he took one bite of his ice cream and said, "wow, this really is the best gelato ever!" HAHAHA it was such a momentous occasion for us!

Gelati Nico, a Venetian MUST DO!!

Now that it was pretty dark outside, all the lights of the city were getting turned on. The sky was dark but there were still lots of street lamps and windows lit up everywhere. It was great. We made our way through the alleys and dead-ends (stay tuned for part 2) to Piazza San Marco where the giant Basilica is.

The Basilica

The Plaza

Nook of Venice

Creepy alley

There were people playing music and people sitting on the steps, it was really nice.

After this, we walked to The Rinalti Bridge to see The Grand Canal at night. It was gorgeous! The lights were reflecting on the water and there were boats that went by--it was really nice!

The Bridge

Words/photos can't express how beautiful it was

After this, Erik and I were done. We met up with the girls we drove with, left the island, curled up in our hotel room, and were out cold in a matter of minutes!!

to be continued...