Barbecue and Motor Cycles

It must have been a terrible weekend for many Germans. The whole week before, the weather has been perfect, with sunshine, a blue sky, and temperatures approaching the 20C. When I asked my colleagues on Friday, what their plans were for the weekend, most of them answered that it would be the first weekend to turn the barbecue on again, this year. And, with this kind of beautiful weather, it would be an excellent opportunity to take a tour on the motor cycle as well.
Sadly, punctually at the start of the weekend, the sky turned from blue to grey, the temperatures dropped, and the first rain drops fell from the sky!

To understand that for many Germans, this is a nightmare scenario, you must know, that if there are two things that the average German (over 18) likes to spend as much time as possible with during summer, it's barbecue and riding a motor cycle, at best combined.

I have friends and colleagues who, if weather and time allows it, put coal on the barbecue and roast a few sausages every day. "Grillen" is what they call it. For vegetarians, summer is definitely the worst time to get invited for dinner in Germany. Much more than some pieces of baguette and some half burnt vegetable-satays is usually not to be expected (not counting the wide selection of sauces). I can understand that summer can turn even the most persistent vegetarian into a sinner at times, if starvation is to be prevented.

If you are not into "grillen", summer can even turn into a really lonely season if you are also not into riding motor cycles. I was totally amazed to notice, that almost all Germans (over 18) are in the posession of a motor cycle license. In the Netherlands, only a few of my friends and relatives have a license. And it's not only the men, who have a passion for it. Also women can talk passionately about the tour they had just made during the weekend.
Around me, the discussions have already started a few weeks ago, about where to drive to and which motor cycles are to be recommonded. Plans are made for communal touring weekends, between friends, colleagues, and relatives. If you don't want to be left out, now is the time to team up!

.... I'd better make a plan B quickly to get my social agenda at least partly filled for the coming summer season.

Germany Netherlands China

It's always nice to experiment a bit online, especially on a Sunday night. I was wondering what Google would come up with, if I would enter the words "Germany Netherlands China".

The result was a bit surprising: of in total 279.000.000 hits, on first place, a time plan for a journey from Netherfield to Chinaz with the Deutsche Bahn was shown.

This journey would take me 145 hours and 23 minutes, with 7 transits. Good to know ... but I never expected to get info about the UK and Uzbekistan, when asking about Germany, the Netherlands and China.

Couleur Locale - Rembrandt in Höxter

Characteristic for the place you live in, is the news you can find in the local news papers. Also, the effects and consequences of decisions in the big world, are seldom covered by the major news producers. If you want to know more about that, local news is where you should be looking. So, I figured it might be a nice idea to start writing something about the events on local level, something about the region around Warburg we live in. I hope I can create a nice link between the big world and the small world. I will call it "Couleur Locale". I hope you like it.

The first article - Rembrandt in Höxter
This year, it is 400 years ago since the birth of Rembrandt. In the Netherlands, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam is, of course, celebrating this occasion with several exhibitions on the 17th century artist.

Also here, the 400th anniversary of Rembrandt will not pass unnoticed. Between 1. April and 25. June, Schloss Corvey in the city of Höxter, is presenting a collection of 120 etches by Rembrandt. The exhibition shows works of the master that span his enire artistic career. All etches were borrowed from the Kupferstichkabinett in Berlin. An interesting exhibition, I think. Different from te big ones in Amsterdam, of course, but for that, the entrance fee is also considerably lower (€4,50 i.s.o €25,-). Who wants to join me ... perhaps I should make a business out of it, and offer combination-ticket-trips, including visits to Amsterdam and Höxter.

25th Hong Kong Film Awards

If there is one thing we haven't found the time for, since Mylène's birth six months ago, it is going to the cinema. I haven't watched any of the Oscar winners yet, so I probably also won't find the time of going to see one of the winners of the 25th Hong Kong Film Awards in the cinema (if they are screened here at all). China International Radio (CRI) writes

Hong Kong director Jonnie To's crime film "Election" was no doubt the biggest winner, by taking in four heavyweight awards of Best Director, Best Play, Best Actor and Best Film Award.

Hmmm ... "Election" .... never even heard about it. It wouldn't surprise me, though, if we will hear about the big movies, actors and actresses from China in the coming years more and more. Better start renting some DVDs already to get into it a bit more ... it's always cool to be ahead of trends ;-)

News of the week - Floodings of the Elbe

The memories of the big flooding of the river Elbe in 2002 must have come back again very strongly for many Germans in the East and Northeast of the country. Last week, the water in the river reached critical levels again. Many cities and villages were flooded, and many dikes are on the verge of breaking-through. The situation is improving slowly, but the end is not in sight yet, as the water level is decreasing slowly.

The main cause of the high water level, was the melting water from the mountaineous South, where a record amount of snow fell this year.

I am not an expert, but I do wonder how it is possible that four years after the big flooding, in roughly the same area of the country, so many cities and villages were flooded again! There have been many dike-improving-projects, early-warning-systems, water-management-initiatives, and so on, but if I look at the images I see on TV I ask myself if really nothing has been done in those four years. In Germany, it usually takes a lot of time for projects to get realised, I know that. But it does disappoint me a bit, that even in this situation, action has lost the battle against discussion. It was not very difficult to predict that comparable water levels as those in 2002 were quite likely to happen again in the near future. During the past decades, the weather has become more extreme everywhere, and as an effect of global warming, more and more melting water is flowing through the rivers in spring. Yet, nobody really did anything. Plans were made, discussion were held, but realised was very little. Even after the record amounts of snow in Bavaria and Austria, only one or two months ago, there was hardly any public discussion about possible flooding problems as a result of the snow. It puzzled me already, two months ago. And puzzles me even more, right now, watching those, in the mean time familiar, images on TV. Will people ever change?

Radio culture

This weekend, we made a trip to the Netherlands again. As the journey is not too long, between between 3 and 4 hours without traffic jams, we do this quite regularly.
On the way, we usually have the radio on. In Germany, a German channel is serving us with conversation and music. As soon as we cross the border, I switch to a Dutch station. Yesterday, I heard the program ZoëyZo, on the pop-music station BNN, presented by Eddy Zoëy. I liked it, and it struck me, how typically Dutch this radio program was. However, when I asked myself what it was that made this program so typically Dutch in my eyes, and what the differences actually are between German and Dutch radio styles, I didn't really know.

Time to check it out. I will get back on this, later.

News of the week - Schröder wins trial against Westerwelle

Even though this issue was not discussed in the media during the whole past week, I still felt it is worth calling it the news of the week, because the issue might only be the top of the iceberg.

I am refering to the outcome of the trial that previous German chancellor Gerhard Schröder started against the frontman of the liberals, Guido Westerwelle, who accused Schröder of having provided the Russian energy giant Gazprom with a huge credit for a new oil pipeline between Russia and Germany, through the "Ostsee".

I have to go back, one step, though, to make the situation clear. Last year, the German governement (Schröder) and the Russian government (Putin) closed a deal to build an oil pipeline between the two countries. For the realisation of the pipeline, a new consortium was founded, represented from the Russian side by the state owned energy company Gazprom. In December last year, after his resignation as chancellor, Schröder accepted a job as chairman of the controlling board of management of this consortium, representing the interests of Gazprom. This caused a lot of turmoil, especially because of the close friendship between the Russian president and the former German chancellor. Schröder was heavily criticised under the suspicion of having used his relationship with Putin for personal gain.

Eerlier this year, it was revealed that the German government had provided Gazprom with a guarantee for a credit of around 1 billion Euro via the Deutsche Bank and another credit institution, shortly before the resignation of the government. The credit would secure the financing Gazprom needed for the production of the Russian side of the pipeline. Gerhard Schröder claimed to have known nothing about this credit guarantee. Guido Westerwelle, accused Schröder of unfair play, and Schröder started a trial against him.

Last week, a verdict was reached in the advantage of Schröder, saying that Schröder and the German government had done nothing wrong, legally.
A big relief for Schröder, no doubt, but I think we haven't seen the end of this story yet. This might just have been the top of the ice berg.

Kahn

The German goalie Oliver Kahn is very confident that he will be the man in the goal during the world cup. But not everybody is so sure that he is still better than the other option, Jens Lehmann. Especially not after the blooper he made yesterday agains FC Köln. Spiegel has an interview with Kahn.

Nice picture, by the way. I wonder what he yells here:
"Who dares to shoot that ball into MY goal??!!" perhaps?



Update:
The choice has been made: Jens Lehmann is going to defend the German goal, during the world championships. Needless to say that Kahn was very disappointed. Everybody was praising his professional behaviour. Kahn had said that he will think the situation over for a few weeks, and then announce whether he will remain available for the national team, or not anymore.