An American Furry in Germany

At this point I'm pretty sure that I'm not going to get the typical emotional high, then low usually associated with travel. At least not at any extreme level--I think I'm too moderate to let myself be that unbalanced. But I'm tired today, so I'm feeling a little put out by everything being so different. :P Pardon me while I bitch for a bit. I'd keep it to myself, but then I'd never know if some of my complaints might be reasonable.

• First of all, your keyboards. I can understand the need to have the umlauts and ß (I set up my US keyboard to display them on Ctrl+[, ], \, and 8 (for ß)). But that's still no excuse for "Alt gr". Admittedly it's not used much in everyday life, but when you're trying to program, the many important brackets are all assigned to that key--and it's in the most inconvenient place on the whole keyboard. It's under the knuckle of the middle finger on the right hand, where we just have a redundant Alt key, and I always end up hitting the spacebar whenever I go for it. Plus most of its useful features are on the same side of the keyboard, so you have to hit both keys with the right hand. I've tried to change the keyboard layout (it's been years since I actually needed to look at the keys) in the OS, but I was never able to do it--and I'm not sure why, because the operating systems in the computer labs are all in German. Either the English layout isn't installed, I don't have the right permissions, or I was doing something wrong.
• Actually I'm kind of growing fond of the money. All the bills are different sizes, which makes them easier to distinguish, and you can't shuff them all together--which is inconvenient sometimes, but it reminds you that if you have lots of different sizes, you have a lot of money in your hands. In America we just have to go by the numbers and the much less colorful styles. Plus here you can have a handful of change worth 10-20 Euros, if you let it accumulate. It makes the money more fun.
• I don't see why everything has to close on Sundays. It's just inconvenient. I'm actually mostly just surprised by it. Shouldn't capitalism have intervened by now? I'm used to the customer always being right.
• I'm really surprised at the amount of paperwork. It seems antiquated. And when I say "paperwork", I mean the literal paper--everthing is printed. It all goes into the computer eventually, but in the meantime countless resources (both time and trees) are wasted in writing things down, handing them over to be read, photocopied, and typed in, probably only for someone else in Berlin to read it off the screen and fill out some other forms on paper... I get the feeling that the people typing things into computers before granting me a visa would accept anything with a signature on it. (And a signature is just a scrawl of a pen, worn smooth through endless repetition.) I was almost tempted to test my theory, but I'm not stupid. :P Which sometimes leads to me having less fun.
• Jimi Hendrix was not German. Heh, got you there. :P
• O.J. Simpson was also not German... aww.

Okay, I think I'm good for another month. :P

    My brother recently mentioned making potato and leek soup, as an example of a cheap, easy meal. Lots of meals, actually--soup can generally be made in large amounts at one time, and last for long periods of time. Lately I've been trying to economize, so I was trying to think of how I could cook for myself, when I ran across some leeks in the grocery store. So with all the best intentions, I looked up a recipe on the internet, and went shopping very thoroughly. I came back feeling much more prepared, too--I now have salt, pepper, garlic powder, butter, milk, and even chicken bouillon. Oh, and sausage. And bacon. And a king's ransom in instant mashed potatoes.
    In short, I feel well-stocked.
    So today I finally made some potato and leek soup, and it turned out delicious. I had a recipe, but I didn't have any measuring instruments--fortunately, it didn't seem to cause a problem. That's the great thing about soup--you can always just add something, stir, and taste, and add more if necessary. I forgot to put the sausage in like I had planned, but in all other respects the soup was perfect. (Here's the recipe.) I've never had leeks before, and they surprised me--very simple, very mild, and very tasty. Now I feel very proud of myself, and I will definitely be cooking more in the future. I just need to think of something new to cook. I hear it's asparagus time, though, so maybe I can make something with that.