2013 America visit, part 4

Finally I'm finishing up our America trip. I like going back through my blog over the years and seeing how my impressions change over time. I don't like how sassy I used to be, nor how I would use puns in my blog entry titles, yuk! Anyway, back to October 2013.

Geocaching Seward Park - somehow we always end up here, and somehow we always end up in Rainier Valley, a place I swear we do try to avoid for our own safety.

Sunny and brilliant, so unusual.

Lake Washington Blvd, and you have to hear my man say "boulevard" - Germans don't say it like we do, they see it as a french word.

One of the foods on my list was teriyaki chicken and I'm so glad we didn't miss it. Down on Rainier Avenue, and look, we survived. I was astonished that they give away free soup alongside the free hot tea. I am told this is common as the various teriyaki chicken joints compete against each other. I sure wish that German restaurants would offer free food in order to compete with other German restaurants. In my experience, there is nothing free in Germany.

Why were we crossing the bridge? We cached Mercer Island for the first time! They have a riding club on that island, it's so odd to me. Everywhere we walked on those trails, our feet stepped in hoofprints.

Back to Costco! I was showing a friend these photos and said, "Yes, those hot dogs are huge, and you get unlimited refills on your pop, for only 1.50$ plus tax. OK, the tax thing through us off quite often this trip. It was funny to see how the tax thing threw off my nephew who thought he had enough money for a lego toy, only to be told there is tax on that price, and have his older sister figure out 9%. Don't worry, he got the toy when his mom, my sister, remembered he earned his allowance that week. Man, going shopping with those kids is one of my favorite things to do.




I LOVE polish dogs! I had just visited the dentist the day before, and in the line in this photo is my dentist! My mom was with us, and since she worked for him back in the 80s, we had to say hi to him. It was awkward and funny at the same time.

Another thing happened, but before this photo was taken, in the hot dog line. I say hot dog line cuz that is why most people are there. This young man at the register took my order and lay two polish dogs down on the table for me. Then his colleague, a frazzled older lady, started complaining to him that he'd let 3 lines form instead of the 2. He took her attitude very graciously and reminded her that she'd asked for 3 lines. She changed her mind back and said to the man next to me in line, "What do you want?" and he said, "Two polish dogs" and she promptly saw my 2 polish dogs, scooped them up, and handed them to him. My eyes got big, they were obviously mine and I was in the act of trying to pay for them (trying to figure out what it would cost, with tax). The old man she handed them looked at me, looked at the hot dogs, and said, "She's the appropriator!" and we both burst out laughing. He took the dogs and I waited for another 2. The old man joined in my story when I told my mom and J what happened. It's just so much fun being in line in America, where people are usually good natured and laugh about mistakes.

Back on another ferry - this time we went to Bainbridge Island to visit a friend who recently bought a house out there. What a strange place that island is. It's some sort of hippie island, where most people ride bikes and take ferries to Seattle to work.

Before we went to his house, though, we went to a lovely park for a couple more geocaches.

Salty water.

This is only funny if you're German.

I'm always astounded at what they come up with next on the grocery shelves.

I did a double-take. Oh yes, it's Halloween!! That dude is doing price checks on items with his gun.

Working on Halloween is fun. I asked for this picture. Usually we go through the do-it-yourself checkout.

This is something new to me, that we enjoyed every single day of our trip in our rental car: Sirius Satellite radio. I was stunned - just my favorite 80s music, all the time, no commercials. I sang everytime we got in the car. I only didn't know about 10 songs in 2 weeks of driving. They even played Flesh for Lulu, the first rock band I ever saw in concert. (We found out that satellite radio existed in Germany until the 90s, when I suppose it wasn't financially viable any longer. Poor me!)

My sister was born on Halloween. We had a fun party with Chicago deep dish pizza (not authentic, but such a wonderful experience after European "cracker pizza").

We had a wine taste test and it turns out practically everyone preferred 14Hands wine to my family's standby, Woodbridge. What a surprise!

The cat, Popoki, chose my man's lap over my stepdad's. How odd! Since no children are in this picture, I assume they're back on the Wii with my mom. At this point we are too stuffed to finish our pumpkin pie.

My mom on the floor with the kids. They are so much fun.

Elise made my sister a birthday card full of chores she promises can be reimbursed anytime.

It was my man's very first Halloween! He enjoyed it of course, and we made him open the door to give out full-sized Hershey bars to the kids. He found it similar to St Martin's day, without the singing. (When we returned home we got to open the door and give out candy to the German kids after hearing them sing. No costumes though, just home-made lanterns.) (In the newspaper around this time we learned of a new controversy--that St Martin's day is a religious holiday and offends those Germans who are not Christian, so some people want to start calling it "Lantern day." Oh for pityssake.)

The next day: Buck Brannaman. I learned a lot as a spectator, and enjoyed watching it with my friends who are experienced Buck students and could explain a lot to me (I haven't seen his DVDs).

As you can see the stands were not full. It cost 30$ to observe. This is in sharp contrast to his visit to Germany later that month, with over 2000 observers expected from all over Europe, and the price to observe: 160$. I found that Buck himself is kind of condescending ("Please be the one class in my entire teaching history to get this exercise right!" and "You pig farmers, riding with halters under your bridles!") but he has a lot to teach us. I've been doing his exercises with Mara. I was especially interested in his comments for people with nervous horses. He said when he gets a green, nervous horse, he goes out and rides it 45 miles "while you guys just ride 5", and the horse is so tired it can't be scared anymore. I beg to differ if he's talking about Arabians. They will absolutely hurt themselves before they get too tired to be scared anymore. I'd recently read Karon Chaton's (Xenophon's?) view on this, when she spoke about longevity in endurance horses.

I hate to sound critical of Buck, but I am kind of pissed about the cost to see him in Europe, and with his celebrity status now, he can stand a bit of criticism. If you are curious what he said about what to do with a jigging horse, or what he thinks of people who come to his clinics but don't stay for the entire 3 days, I'll tell in the comments.


Aarene gave me a ride home and it was fun spending time with Jim again. Amazingly, in all Jim's time working as a Santa, he hasn't had to tell anyone, "You'll shoot your eye out." And there was something about how his being a Santa and being a politician are mutually exclusive - Aarene, can you remember? Since my man was out geocaching with a friend, I am very grateful they were able to give me a ride all the way home, a bit of a detour for them. We passed this Gun and Bow shop on the way. You just don't see those in Germany.

When I got home, on my last day in the States, my parents were in the hot tub. I ran so fast to get into my bathing suit to join them! This trip I didn't spend nearly enough evenings in the hot tub with them. Only 3 times, I think. As always, it's really hard to say goodbye. It's impossible to describe the pain in my heart as I leave again.

The trip home to Germany the next day was horrible as usual, 18 hours total, and for some unknown reason my man accepted an invitation from his parents to feed us dinner on arrival. I was the walking dead at that point; I cannot sleep on planes. Again, they were like, "Wow, you don't look so good, are you ill?" "No, I need my bed."

Mara, Bellis, and Mercer were all fat when we arrived home finally. That's better than the opposite, I guess, and we certainly did not lose weight in America (MEXICAN FOOD). The next day at work I lost my job for reasons not perfectly clear to me. So now I have lots of time to spend with my project horse. By the end of this Winter, I hope we start to feel comfortable around each other. I will be blogging about our journey into 2014 : )