["Satellite" by Lena, obviously. Alas, it doesn't seem to be available on iTunes in the US as it is here in Germany, but you can see a replay on Eurovision's site]
A year or so ago, I heard through a US podcast (Rachel Maddow Show) about some crazy European singing contest. I had not head about it over here, so I figured it was some one-off thing. Au contraire. The Eurovision Song Contest is a big deal and has been going on for over 50 years! It has featured (spawned?) such acts as ABBA, Celine Dion (one must assume for France?) and Julio Iglesias. And this year I was invited to a viewing party at my neighbor's place last night. Awesome.
This year's contest was held in Oslo. It apparently started with 39 countries, but there were only 25 artists/acts remaining in the finals that were shown last night. One of which was, naturally, Germany. "Our" contestant from Germany is a girl named Lena. She just turned 19 and is in the midst of completing her finals in high school. Apparently she had limited experience with music and no formal vocal lessons, though she had taken dance lessons. And even before the finals, her song was one of the top downloads in Germany. I had heard it several times on the radio, but didn't realize the history behind it all.
The way the show progresses is each of the final acts performs in a pre-determined order and with no commercial breaks. There was slight variation last night because while Spain was performing, a spectator apparently got up on stage during their song, so they got to do a do-over at the end (without the spectator). Anyway, as each act performs, their number is flashed on the screen and viewers can then send text messages to vote for their favorite candidate. At the same time, there are professional judges in each o the 39 participating countries who also vote.
After all acts are done, there is a live report-in from each of the 39 countries in which they give 12, 10 and 8 points for, respectively, their first, second and third place picks. This is apparently a combination of both the popular vote and the votes of the professional judges. The countries cannot, however, give any points to their own country's act, if applicable. It was interesting to see some of te political dimension, though, with neighboring countries tending to vote for each other, the countries from the former Soviet Union tending to stick together, et cetera.
Some of the acts were pretty good, but some were seriously awful. It was fun watching them with a group of about 15 Germans to see how/whether my perceptions aligned with theirs. (For example, we all agreed that the dresses of the act from Iceland were wretched and, in particular, the red hue clashed quite horridly with the hair color of their singer.) As the countries started reporting in, I got this big sense of national pride each time a country assigned points to Germany. And what was particularly charming was someone at the party had brought a kind of grease pencil with the three colors of the German flag combined and she applied the German flag my face just like everyone else. I was honored.
In the end, Germany won!! We had 246 points, followed by Turkey with 170 and Romania with 162. I thought Spain might get higher ratings since they played twice, but they came in 15th with 68 points. See www.eurovision.tv for full results and more coverage. I thought Lena did a really great job of representing Germany and was very humble and normal in her comments both before and after winning. Though I admit I was a bit horrified that she let the German flag touch the ground, but apparently there are different flag-handling rules here than in the U.S.!
Great and fun experience. And a great warm-up to World Cup Soccer!!
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Saturday, May 22, 2010
22 May 2010 - Visiting the Doctor
One of the things that I have successfully avoided in my time here so far was being sick enough to actually have to find a doctor here. As discussed in the posting on the pharmacy, the idea of trying to explain symptoms is not exactly something that is covered in a basic German language course. So I continue to seek online counsel from my doc in the US.
But about six weeks ago, I was feeling really dizzy for a couple of days, one day it was bad enough and getting worse that I left work while it still seemed safe to drive. The next morning was bad, but I figured I must have some kind of inner ear issue and should get in to see a doctor. I recalled that my assistant had found a walk-in clinic for a Polish colleague, so I figured wherever that was must speak English. Alas, she could not recall where she had sent him, but she did note that it was Friday and the doctor came to our office a few hours that day.
Now, if you're like me, you did a double-take at that. A doctor? In OUR offices? Recall that I work for a professional services firm, not someplace with dangerous machinery (though sometimes our paper jam prone copier becomes a danger when I want to kick it), so the idea of a doctor around is, well, odd. But then I realize I am in Germany and somethings things are a bit different here. So she got an appointment and I went down to see him. Nutshell, no inner ear issue, but I had high blood pressure at the time, which was news to me. He asked if I had experienced much stress lately. Ha!! Anyway, he suggested that I go to his regular office the following Monday morning. At that time, they would outfit me with a blood pressure monitor that I would wear for 24 hours, it would record my information and they could then download that at their office and determine if there was a persistent issue or if they had just caught me at a particularly stressful time that Friday. And his office was conveniently located in Sachsenhausen, my neighborhood. Perfect!
So Monday morning came and I set Hudson's GPS to the task of finding the office. As I approached it, I was a bit confused, because it looked like an apartment building. Yep, pretty much. But there was a listing for him and another doctor, so up the stairs I walked, passing apartments listing the family names of the occupants. Not exactly what I am used to.
When I arrived at the right floor, the door to the office was slightly ajar. Okay.... I walked in and found a guy sitting at a desk wearing a sweater, not exactly what I expected of a receptionist or nurse or whatever. But he showed me to the waiting room, which, this being an apartment and all, had a balcony outside of a sliding glass door. I have not encountered that in a doctor's office before. All of the magazines were in neat little matchings covers. Interesting.
The doctor finally came out himself and took me to an office. He was wearing a blood-red cashmere v-neck sweater and some corduroy pants. No lab coat. No stethoscope. No trappings of doctor power. Interesting. He took me to what seemed like a regular office and we sat across the desk from each other and he asked if I was ready for the blood work. Um, blood work? I thought perhaps something had been lost in our conversation the previous Friday and reminded him that I thought I was just there to get the blood pressure monitor. Oh, ja, ja!
So he took me to a different room that also featured a desk and seem more like an exam room, except not really. The other sweater-wearing guy came in and tried to outfit me with the device. Couldn't get it to work. It's like a really ugly black sportswatch and it has to be calibrated twice in order for it to work. For whatever reason, it refused. We tried various combinations and permutations. We tried the other arm. The doctor attempted to assist. 90 minutes later still no deal. I swear, all jokes about accountants and lawyers being heartless aside, I DO have a pulse! But as I was watching all of this and having my wrists yanked this way and that, I continued to examine the examining room. What strikes me the most is that the entire office is carpeted. I don't think I have ever been in a carpeted exam room for, I assume, the obvious risk that some messy things can happen in exam rooms that might be difficult to clean up on carpet.
They never did get the blood pressure monitor to work. I ended up buying an automated blood pressure cuff and took some hourly readings for a few days. Not surprisingly, I experience pre-hypertensive readings primarily when I am in the office, particularly when I am talking about budgeting and capital expenditures. Go figure. I keep the cuff in my office and every once in a while take my blood pressure just to see where I am. I do, of course, track all of this on an Excel spreadsheet and have made some graphs that I find both fascinating and horrifying. But it has become something of a joke, now. When my guys see I am getting worked up about something, they ask if I'd like to take some time out to check my blood pressure. All in good fun, of course. Makes me laugh. Which I suppose probably brings my blood pressure down. Love my peeps!
But about six weeks ago, I was feeling really dizzy for a couple of days, one day it was bad enough and getting worse that I left work while it still seemed safe to drive. The next morning was bad, but I figured I must have some kind of inner ear issue and should get in to see a doctor. I recalled that my assistant had found a walk-in clinic for a Polish colleague, so I figured wherever that was must speak English. Alas, she could not recall where she had sent him, but she did note that it was Friday and the doctor came to our office a few hours that day.
Now, if you're like me, you did a double-take at that. A doctor? In OUR offices? Recall that I work for a professional services firm, not someplace with dangerous machinery (though sometimes our paper jam prone copier becomes a danger when I want to kick it), so the idea of a doctor around is, well, odd. But then I realize I am in Germany and somethings things are a bit different here. So she got an appointment and I went down to see him. Nutshell, no inner ear issue, but I had high blood pressure at the time, which was news to me. He asked if I had experienced much stress lately. Ha!! Anyway, he suggested that I go to his regular office the following Monday morning. At that time, they would outfit me with a blood pressure monitor that I would wear for 24 hours, it would record my information and they could then download that at their office and determine if there was a persistent issue or if they had just caught me at a particularly stressful time that Friday. And his office was conveniently located in Sachsenhausen, my neighborhood. Perfect!
So Monday morning came and I set Hudson's GPS to the task of finding the office. As I approached it, I was a bit confused, because it looked like an apartment building. Yep, pretty much. But there was a listing for him and another doctor, so up the stairs I walked, passing apartments listing the family names of the occupants. Not exactly what I am used to.
When I arrived at the right floor, the door to the office was slightly ajar. Okay.... I walked in and found a guy sitting at a desk wearing a sweater, not exactly what I expected of a receptionist or nurse or whatever. But he showed me to the waiting room, which, this being an apartment and all, had a balcony outside of a sliding glass door. I have not encountered that in a doctor's office before. All of the magazines were in neat little matchings covers. Interesting.
The doctor finally came out himself and took me to an office. He was wearing a blood-red cashmere v-neck sweater and some corduroy pants. No lab coat. No stethoscope. No trappings of doctor power. Interesting. He took me to what seemed like a regular office and we sat across the desk from each other and he asked if I was ready for the blood work. Um, blood work? I thought perhaps something had been lost in our conversation the previous Friday and reminded him that I thought I was just there to get the blood pressure monitor. Oh, ja, ja!
So he took me to a different room that also featured a desk and seem more like an exam room, except not really. The other sweater-wearing guy came in and tried to outfit me with the device. Couldn't get it to work. It's like a really ugly black sportswatch and it has to be calibrated twice in order for it to work. For whatever reason, it refused. We tried various combinations and permutations. We tried the other arm. The doctor attempted to assist. 90 minutes later still no deal. I swear, all jokes about accountants and lawyers being heartless aside, I DO have a pulse! But as I was watching all of this and having my wrists yanked this way and that, I continued to examine the examining room. What strikes me the most is that the entire office is carpeted. I don't think I have ever been in a carpeted exam room for, I assume, the obvious risk that some messy things can happen in exam rooms that might be difficult to clean up on carpet.
They never did get the blood pressure monitor to work. I ended up buying an automated blood pressure cuff and took some hourly readings for a few days. Not surprisingly, I experience pre-hypertensive readings primarily when I am in the office, particularly when I am talking about budgeting and capital expenditures. Go figure. I keep the cuff in my office and every once in a while take my blood pressure just to see where I am. I do, of course, track all of this on an Excel spreadsheet and have made some graphs that I find both fascinating and horrifying. But it has become something of a joke, now. When my guys see I am getting worked up about something, they ask if I'd like to take some time out to check my blood pressure. All in good fun, of course. Makes me laugh. Which I suppose probably brings my blood pressure down. Love my peeps!
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