the sea of red roofs

medieval city core: where i stay in my mom's apartment during my visit in in my hometown zeitz

a year of u.s. life has sharpened my eye for the german oddities more than i thought: cars seem to be toys rather than real vehicles, prices seem to have sky-rocketed, and the strong sparkle in the bottled water is suprising. in the morning i asked my mom to turn down the heat and she just looked baffled at me. i repeated the question only then realizing that had spoken in english.

ah the colors of painted stone houses with the obligatory red roofs! - zeitz from the 9th floor of the only skyscraper in town (with a total of eleven floors)

the many bakeries pop into sight, the red roofs on freshly painted stone houses, the familiar streets and paths of my high school years. the topics that i overhear walking along our boulevard are unemployment, the ongoing mass strikes of train conductors, metro operators, and airlines employees, the newly elected mayor who is expected to bring no chance to the dire situation in this region where a job means utmost happiness. during my visit in the sauna this afternoon i was greeted as "half-american" and people asked me if the town where i live in america is clean. then my fellow sauna participants went on to complain about the children who don't pick up wrappers when they see them lying in the street.

despite the omnipresent visible differences between u.s. and german cities the thinking and talking of its citizens strikes me more than red roofs, cobble stone, and huddled houses which are only a backdrop for a place called "heimat".

voting in athens 101

an account of a us citizen and his voting experience in the ohio primary on march 4, 2008 in athens as told to the author of this blog:

it's eleven am and the voter steps out of his apartment to attend to his duty as a citizen: vote in the primary. on this special day, the obama campaign didn't miss the chance to remind our voter of his option with a little greeting on the door knob.

despite pouring rain our voter heads to his voting location
which for him is the convocation center on the ohio university campus.

but alas! he has a hard time finding a parking spot:
part of the parking lot is reserved for possessors of a parking pass until 3 pm.

metered parking is taken up by non-possessors who need to access west green. it seems that despite election day no suspension of the regular parking rules have been initiated to facilitate participation in the voting game. however, our voter managed to claim a coveted parking meter spot.

entering the condo his first step is to identify himself in front of the people running this polling location. he is then given the choice to pick a democratic or republican ballot.

he chooses wisely and proceeds to the -- quote -- "rather wobbly" stork-legged voting booths neatly lined up in a neat row.

the booth offers our voter privacy for his decision

and detailed instructions on what to do with his ballot which in a nutshell means filling out really well one of the bubbles on the multiple choice
with a provided pen as shown in the graphic on the sheet.

then our voter has to take his filled out bubble sheet to the voting machine. despite the fact that the ballot explicitly demands "do not detach stub" -- which is a horizontal paper strip at the bottom of the ballot -- he has to tear off same stub to be able to feed the ballot in the voting machine. the little orphaned stub then finds a new home in a cozy pink stub folder attached to the voting machine which itself retains the paper ballot plus an electronic copy. in case our voter would have left all bubbles unmarked the machine would have questioned his decision. but our voter has followed procedure as deemed proper and so the machine rewards him with a number: 39. that's the number of people who have voted at that location as of 11.30 am.

after having fulfilled his duty for this day despite discouraging rain, parking troubles, "wobbly" booths, and confusing directions our voter returns home just to find another, all too familiar sign of the probably most enthusiastic campaign in athens.

"Why didn't Hillary come herself?" -- Bill Clinton's visit in Athens

Former US president Bill Clinton at the Athens Community Center this afternoon.

Waiting in line to see the show tonight...

The line in front of the Athens Community Center is long, going twice around the parking lot. But the individuals in it move forward pretty fast. After about 20 minutes of waiting in the chilly but bearable winter weather we and hundreds of other curious people flow into the gym.

It's lined with the typical dark blue Hillary Posters,

U2 music plays softly,

the media is lined up and ready to go.

More Hillary posters are distributed and become toys for some of the many children in the hall that is only filled to about three fourths of its capacity.

People pass time by two weak rounds of clapping hands, some dance a little.

Around 3.20 pm everyone screams and claps, hands with digital cameras shoot up: he's on stage, former US president Bill Clinton.

He says lines like: "If you vote for Hillary you'll determine the next president for the US" and "I wouldn't have been president if it wouldn't have been for the people in Ohio".

And continues: "America is back."

Bill Clinton: "Hillary will bring almost all of our troops home. She will be a good commander-in-chief and a good diplomat-in-chief." He speaks for about an hour until 4.15 pm but already during his speech people start trickling out of the Community Center.

Outside the building loud speakers were broadcasting Clinton's voice towards the people who had to stay behind the police line. Some were protesters.

Anna Antonetz and Neib Platt

Anna Antonetz and Neib Platt who came out early from Clinton's speech said they're still undecided. Platt came to get a better feel for the issues. "Clinton is pretty cool; that he came to Athens," says Platt. "He's a very good speaker, very intelligent."

Carolyn Richardson

"It's monumental, to have an ex-president in Athens," says Carolyn Richardson. She says what he says makes sense but she's not sure if his picture is not too idealistic: she thinks the government doesn't operate that way. "The Clintons have too much baggage to be effective because of the past. People have seen them so long and don't listen what they're saying only who's saying it."

Laura P. und Amanda Sharrei

Laura P. is still undecided after Clinton's speech for whom to vote. She came to get a variety of input and was impressed by his ability to articulate but it hasn't helped her in he voting decision. Also undecided is Amanda Sharrei. She says she's glad that Ralph Nadar is running as presidential candidate now. The event left her wondering:

"Why didn't Hillary come herself?"

bill clinton in athens

maybe hillary clinton has heard of the one-sided democratic campaign in athens and decided to sent her husband to correct the record.

according to the athens post website bill clinton will speak at the athens community center at 2:45pm.

on the stump - athens' two campaigns

barack obama's campaign headquarters in athens

"i take my marching orders from the constitution" - ron paul's campaign efforts in athens

cruising through athens you could easily think that there are only two presidential candidates: barack obama for the democrats and ron paul for the republicans.

ron paul's athens campaign office on morris avenue

i'll start with ron paul since barack obama is already well covered. some germans might not be familiar with the senator from texas who doesn't get much media attention due to his underdog status. and athens as a college town and thus being a liberal pocket the advocacy of a republican seems to be surprising. but athens is also located in conservative appalachia (that's how locals call the rather poor south east ohio). plus, ron paul is not quite the typical republican. his agenda includes unusual approaches for social issues (leave abortion rights to the states) and radical ideas like abolishing the irs (the us internal revenue service = us tax collection office) and a pretty isolationist stance for foreign policy. here's a summary of his key issues:

paul supporters rally at the athens farmers market on saturdays

just around the corner from my apartment there is an entire road that has turned into ron paul territory: his signs are in almost every front yard. his presence in athens though does not match the national unwelcome of his candidacy. according to cnn.com he has a total of 16 delegates as of today (compared to the other republican candidates john mccain with 918 and mike huckabee with 217 delegates).

according to the local ron paul group's website they also hold events every sunday at athens' most famous and beloved coffee shop, donkey.

barack obama's campaign office on stimson avenue in the fomer new-to-you building

the obama campaign set up office with painted windows in athens about two weeks ago across the farmacy, an alternative hippiesque food market that sure helps to draw attention to obama's local headquarters. i have to admit that my chat with obama's supporters is much fresher in my mind than my encounter with paul's advocates in november and provided some glimpses into the bowls of a campaign.

inside barack obama's campaign headquarters in athens

athens field coordinator for the obama campaign ted york says chairs, tables, and office supplies have been donated by local supporters but a list in the middle of the room indicates that some things are still needed.

york says the campaign is paying for rent, electricity, and hotels for the staffers but usually he tries to stay in a local supporter's house. he says today about 20 volunteers came in for the early shift and the same number is expected for the second shift on this friday. they get predesigned address lists with map for door-to-door campaigning. a couple of the volunteers with obama stickers on their jackets comes through the door and the middle-aged woman reports thats not a lot of people were home but they she had some good conversations. York doesn't know who exaclty compiled the walk lists but says that demography plays a role and that they target obama-supporters as well as people who are likely to vote for him.

ohio university sophomore liz is the head of the local students for obama group and says the biggest problem they face is to convince the students to vote especially if they are 18 or 19 and voting for the first time some don't know how to go about it. she says for a year she has been working for the campaigns with currently 100 volunteers. has she ever met obama? no, not personally, she says, only from a crowd at an event. obama has not visited south east ohio but appeared in the north, cleveland and youngstown. "it's so exciting to be on the campaign", she says. "obviously my mind is set totally on the campaign but i obviously have to go to classes". initially she didn't want to do campaign work but liz believes that obama is the first real candidate who can make a difference.

both campaign workers point out that people can already vote now for the primary. in ohio march 4th is rather an election deadline than the election day. "everyone can go to the board of elections and cast their vote from 8am to 4pm during the week now", york says. at home i go to the official obama page and click on ohio in the list of states and the first thing popping up is a sign "vote for barack today" plus a tool to " find your early voter location". it works for my address and gives me the correct location.

liz says it would help a great deal if the election location would be open until 7pm - when athens' happy hours draws students uptown.

wall hanging inside barack obama's campaign headquarters in athens

knife & fork

recently i caught myself recalling my mom's nagging advice for table manners when i was a kid after observing different local eating habits. the following is not meant as judgement but as a summary of german v. us table manners that have been startling me for a while:

i learnt to eat with knife & fork as soon as i understood that the knife is no toy to put into my mouth. i was told to wait until everyone is seated at the table and says "guten appetit" to each other before touching the food. sometimes my mom would cut my sausage into small pieces ("bueffchen") so that i had an easier way to deal with the newly learnt method of eating. later on i cut only a couple pieces at a time, then pushed it with the blade onto the fork to lift the same to my mouth. both instruments are kept in their respective hand at all times during the meal -- usually the knife in the right hand, the fork in the left hand. when i was done eating i placed fork and knife parallelly on the plate to signal that i'm done. then i had to stay well-behaved seated until everyone else has finished (especially mom & dad). plus: you never ever(!) put your elbows on the table. that's the german side of the story.

the american side goes like this: first come, first serve, i.e. as soon as food touches the plate you can dig in no matter if the chef is still rummaging in the kitchen. if a knife is involved in the eating process it only appears in the beginning to chop everything into pieces hence looking like a german child's plate. after that the knife is put horizontally on the top end of the plate. if no knife is involved it can be observed that americans have developed a great skill in severing meats with the side of their fork, tender chicken and juicy meat balls as well as tougher cuts of meat. the eating can be interrupted by getting up several times to get other (food) items and when finished you can leave the table as you please. where you keep your elbows doesn't seem to be a matter of interest to anyone.

i found a good solution for the knife & fork peculiarities in the indian cuisine: just use your hands. :-)

to aldi

i lately rediscovered the american aldi. but contrary to the german store the us aldi is at the other end of the food chain in supermarket reputation. whenever i enter the aldi it is ghostly empty and i wonder how the store survives on just a few customers in combination with their low prices. there's the old lady slowly working herself through the offers, the occasional crazy guy who stops to tell me about a bad restaurant visit he had recently, and some younger visitors clad in ohio university jackets. so far i've found three reasons for the hesitant us approach to aldi:

1. while it is cool in germany to buy at aldi and even professors proudly present their aldi wine in their aldi bags, i gather that the us aldi is considered somewhat dirty and only a place for low people to shop. normal people go to walmart, if you feel more yuppie-like you go to kroger and shop in the organic section, richer hippies pay a visit to the farmacy and the village bakery or bargain at the farmer's market. exotic cuisine connoisseurs have discovered new market.

2. you have to put a coin in the shopping carts (just like in germany). americans think that's odd because everywhere else you grab the cart that is closest to your car threatening to hit the same since all carts are scattered uncontrolled in the parking lot.

3. you have to pay for the plastic bags at the aldi cash register (just like in germany). but since walmart and kroger can't get rid of their plastic bags fast enough (sometimes they only put 1 item per bag) it strikes the americans as weird to pay for such a give-away.

here are three good reasons to go to aldi:

1. even though walmart claims to have cheap prices ("always"!) and kroger offers deals with the kroger card some veggie and fruit prices at aldi are unmatched. having bought from all three sources i don't find anything inherently wrong with aldi's fresh produce neither in taste nor shelf life for 39 cents per big green cucumber, 99 cents per box of white mushrooms, and 79 cents per bag of onions. other nice items are spinach and romain hearts, tropicana oranges, and my favorites: bell peppers.

2. aldi's handling of plastic bags is only progressive: with the growing movement of banning plastic bags -- as already happened in china and partially in san francisco -- you better get used to alternative ways of transporting your food to the car. i suggest using empty boxes inside the store, self-brought fabric bags or a big collapsible box permanently left in your car trunk.

3. you get the coin back from the cart! (and don't risk getting your car scratched from wild running metal buggies.)

thank you for shopping at aldi!