II.bureaucracy, I love you!

Bureaucracy is defined as an excessively complicated administrative procedure or Germany’s number one export to universities in the United States. I think bureaucracy was born in Germany, I am not going off of any empirical data, this is merely a theory created through observance of the way things run in Germany. I could probably write a laundry list of examples, but I will instead skip to an example of German efficiency and get to this in a round about way.

Last year I broke my ankle, I am not going to bore you with the details of basketball gone wrong or walking a few kilometers, actually it was maybe one, but we all like to embellish things, to get a taxi, and I had a pin and a screw placed, that sounds so nice, as opposed to my foot was cut open and I couldn’t walk for a few weeks, in my ankle in Bosnia. ( yes, in Bosnia)

So I needed this removed from my ankle. I was tired of setting off old metal detectors in airports and totting x-rays about to explain why.
I went to my general practitioner(GP) and kindly asked for an Ueberweisung, a note saying I needed the surgery, then I was able to go to the hospital and schedule the surgery; no, this was not the bureaucracy part.

I went in Tuesday morning for my surgery and after changing into a wonderful
sea-foam-green outfit I was hooked up to a bunch of machines while relaxing in bed.
A minute later an alarm on the machine starts going off, one of the machines that is receiving information about me, I think. This can’t be good, I know damn well, from Scrubs, that alarms and patients usually don’t mix.
A nurse and a couple doctors come running over, confirming my suspicion, though honestly I don’t know what I was suspicious of, that something wasn’t right.
Turns out all this exercise I do is bad for the machine. Apparently the machines reading my heart rate are set to trigger an alarm if someone’s heart rate is too high or in my case too low (anything below 50). My resting heart rate was between 41 and 43. The doctor, with a slightly evil glare says, you exercise a lot don’t you!? Guilty.
Every few minutes there after a nurse had to run over and turn this alarm off, after an hour or so it became a bit of a joke.
The anesthesiologist came in to give me my IV and prepare me for surgery. He stabbed my arm with an evil smile and then laughed, I have to be honest though it wasn’t much of a stab I hardly felt it, and I thought: you damn sadist. He said “ I found a way to stop the alarm, when I put the IV in your heart rate raised to 51.” A second later it went below and the monotony of the alarm reared its ugly head.

I was then moved to the operating room. I listened while the doctors chatted. One of the, I assume interns, asked how long the surgery would take. The doctor replied “ 6 minutes.”
6 not 5 not 7, but 6! After the surgery when I woke up I sneaked a look at my chart:
Surgery start: 13:21 Finish: 13:27 German efficiency.

When I was ready to leave another doctor helped me out of bed and asked if I needed a wheel chair.
“No thanks” I said with pride.
“Some crutches?”
“ It’s ok.” Cause I am tough and cool and don’t need that shit!
Actually I was still rather drugged from whatever gas I had inhaled, when I trustingly, and eagerly, breathed deeply when they told me too as they placed a mask on my face, and whatever they injected me with.

This resulted in a few days off of work. All I needed to do, which in my drugged out state I had forgotten, was to get an Arbeitsunfähigkeitsbescheinigung, a doctors note. Simple. (you have to love the alphabetical processions that are German words) Well…
Here, finally, I am getting to the German bureaucracy.
I go to the hospital to get my Arbeitsunfähigkeitsbescheinigung, my new favorite German word. And I am told that I need a doctors note to have the surgery, yes the surgery which I have already had. Not a note from a GP, but from an orthopedic. In order to get a note from the orthopedic I have to get a note from my GP to see an orthopedic. Once I get that note I visit the orthopedic who gives me a note to have a surgery, yes this surgery is 3 days old now.
Confused? Cause I sure was/am. Then, finally, after getting a note to have a surgery I get, and here is my word again, an Arbeitsunfähigkeitsbescheinigung.

I. Weihnachtsmarkt

Weihnachtsmarkt/Christmas market

Being a country of immigrants the US has borrowed/stolen/capitalized upon, call it what you will, many holidays from around the world. How many countries celebrate an independence day other than their own? Granted, the 4th of July is by far the largest, but throughout the US, especially in the south, Cinco de Mayo is a large holiday as well as Bastille day (while much smaller and usually only in Louisiana and parts of the Midwest), even if it is only an excuse to drink, Americans celebrate these holidays with vigor. St. Patrick’s day would be another fine example, we not only enjoy celebrating the patron saint of Ireland, but we go so far as to dye rivers green and hold parades. Though, much to the dismay of many an Irish, St. Patrick’s day was first celebrated in America, but that’s another story.

So, it comes as quite a surprise that the US has not imported the Weihnachtsmarkt (though I am told there is a large one in Chicago, I don’t know much about it). It cannot be said it’s due to the lack of enthusiasm for German holidays, see Oktoberfest celebrations.
So why not the Weihnachtsmarkt?
Most likely many Americans have never had the pleasure of sipping a nice warm glass of Glühwein (hot,sweet red/white wine) beneath portable heaters, under tents, in freezing temperatures whilst surrounded by a bunch of stands selling every sweet, fried treat, fried meat, or mixture of all of the above.
It seems, if merely from an economical or love of an excuse to drink, that it would only be logical to have Christmas markets throughout the US.
For the entire month of December in the city center several stalls/stands are setup. These stands sell all sorts of useless trinkets that your lunatic aunt will try to pass off as something special, to any type of fried treat and meat cooked a dozen different ways to the highlight, for any normal person, of the Glühwein stands.

These wonderful refuges from the cold, and often from nagging relatives that actually want to buy the crap that is for sale, serve up all sorts of hot libations that will warm you up on a chilly day (or at least make shopping with a loved one more bearable).
From noon to approx. 21:00 everyday you will find a mixture of people of all age groups and all walks of life, warming up.
Some of the tasty treats on offer include:
Glühwein
Eierpunch- lighter, not nearly as creamy, version of eggnog
Rum punch
Hot Chocolate with a shot (amaretto, baileys, rum etc…)
Feuerzangenbowle- the long island ice tea of Weihnachtsmarkt drinks, has a story and holiday of it´s own
And many more…

I implore you to take part in this wonderful German tradition and hopefully import it to the US so that on my return, if that ever happens, I will be able to enjoy some Glühwein to escape the monotony of shopping and Holiday music.

So it begins...

My idea for this blog, if, as of yet, I actually have one, is to note down some cultural differences, primarily between the US and Germany, but other countries as well. I can´t promise any steady stream of thoughts, in fact it is very likely I will jump about in time and freely move from culture to literature to music and everywhere in between and beyond.

I can only give you my thoughts and I hope, at the very least, it offers some form of entertainment, or, if I am lucky, an insight into things you are not aware of; perhaps a new perspective even.

soon to follow, my first post.