Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down

Wow, I'm finally seeing an end to this stupid health problem. A simple cold morphs into a sinus infection which then morphs into an eye infection. This is something I would rather not repeat.

I've learned some things while being sequestered in the apartment:

• The new neighbors with three kids (about 6-10 years old) have a discipline problem. One of them really enjoys screaming at her parents for about four minutes then running into her room and slamming her door. Lovely. It wouldn't be so bad if she didn't do this about six times a day. Once she even performed her little drama at 3am!
• I have enough DVD movies that if I wanted to stay at home for 4 weeks with a movie running during all waking hours, I wouldn't have to watch any of them twice.
  
• Laptops are lovely, but they suck to edit pictures.
• My cat really enjoys it when I pull out the sofabed and live on it. He then does his best to live on top of me.
• We live quite close to Tempelhof Airport. The final days before it closed there were many OLD planes offering rides. Let's just say that it was pretty noisy. BUT, the silence we hear now is almost bothersome. Really I didn't care either way ... keep it open, or close it... but it still is a shame to see such a part of history just disapear.
  
• My local Kaiser's grocery store was closed for remodeling when I got sick. It SUCKS to have a cold yet need to take a bus to go get "sicky food". So I had to make due with what was already in the cabinets or what I could have delivered... at least until N. could make it to a grocery store for me.
  
• When looking for serious spicy/hot foods (to aid icky nasal stuff movement) in Germany, most people are SOL. I however, found out that the local pizza place delivers hot wings which are actually fairly hot! Yea! They just needed some Tabasco and off we went!
• German doctors are more than happy to keep you away from work if they believe that you need rest and relaxation time.
  
• German friends keep telling me that when I get a little more healthy I must take a three day weekend and go visit a "wellness hotel" for true recuperation.
• Pharmacies in Germany really are a racket. They charge at least twice as much than American pharmacies for prescription only goods, and three to four times as much for simple over the counter items. You'll have trouble finding a bottle of Ibuprofen with more than 100 tablets. IF you do, it will cost four times what it would in the States. Most drugs are actually behind the counter. The customer must describe and discuss their symptoms with the pharmacist. When asking directly for an item, odds are you will be asked for your symptoms anyway.
• Election coverage on CNN International and BBC International gets boring after about 30 minutes. I'm just hoping that the election comes out as predicted.
  

Speaking of the election...
For your viewing pleasure:
SNL with John McCain and Tina Fey as Palin on QVC hawking campaign-related goods while getting their message out.
I particularly like the part where Palin says, "Available now, we got a bunch of these 'Palin in 2012' T-shirts. Just try and wait until after Tuesday to wear 'em, OK? Because I'm not goin' anywhere. And I'm certainly not goin' back to Alaska. If I'm not goin' to the White House, I'm either runnin' in four years or I'm gonna be a white Oprah so, you know, I'm good either way."