Global Gateway

I love our condominium! In front of the building we have several BBQ gas grills that can be used on a first come, first serve basis. Do it like the King of Queens…Last week we had some friends come over to our place to hang out. I was assigned to be the grill master. After having dinner I was introduced to marshmellow roasting. Take a marshmellow, basically a gummy something made of eggs and sugar, put in on a stick and hold it over the fire. The marshmellow will get caramelized and sometimes even get burned but I was told that this is the way it should be. Step up to level 2 and make a S’more out of it: put the marshmellow between two pieces of chocolate crackers. You’ll end up with a gluey little chocolate cake. Did I like it? Nope, not at all but at least I tried it out.

You’re like me and hate to go grocery shopping every Saturday just to loose nearly half a day of your free time. This awful feeling didn’t change when I relocated to the US. I like getting things done quickly. It was time to change the strategy. Instead of buying food supplies for one week you simply increase the quantity. Just two minutes afoot away there’s the wholesale shop Costco selling huge portions of goods. Besides food and drinks you can find everyday commodities. You can even find best in German engineering products like the Kärcher cleaning equipment. I can give you two recommendations for shopping at Costco:

1. Never go there when you’re hungry. You’ll find yourself buying more than you actually need. At nearly every corner of one aisle of the warehouse there are tryouts.

2. Only buy huge amounts of food that is conserved in a way. Otherwise you’ll end up throwing things away because you couldn’t eat it before it expires.

Be prepared to easily spend $300. However, now you don’t have to go grocery shopping for the next four weeks and have time for your beloved or hobbies.

We needed to buy a desk this weekend. What else could I do to combine homesickness with an American shopping experience? Go to IKEA. It took us around half an hour to get there by car. We bought the desk we wanted and other crap you don’t actually need but buy when you’re at IKEA. In Germany still not established but reality in the US: the self check-out. What you have to do is to scan the bar code of your items without the assistance of a salesperson. First of all, our shopping cart was overloaded so we lost track of the pieces we already had scanned. For starting the procedure from the beginning you need help from a salesperson. We beckoned a service employee to assist us. She had to cancel the whole transaction by entering a code. This wasn’t allowed for customers. So we started all over again…Second problem was that some of the items couldn’t be recognized by the system. They simply weren’t listed. We had to call the personnel again because the system didn’t let us proceed or cancel. It took us about 15 minutes to get finished with scanning and payment. I guess we would have been faster in the full service lane to be honest. Maybe we just have to increase our learning curve.

The telephone is not my best friend in the US I must say. It can get really nerve-wracking hearing the telephone ring every half an hour. Even in the evenings it won’t stop. Either it is a telemarketer or a staffing company. Have a look at the display and you know, if you should pick up the phone or not. Normally it boils down to two sentences: “Can you please take me from the list?” or “Could you please send me the job description?”. What you can do is calm down and give justice to the telemarketer…select your favorite punishment. Some people just can’t and get crazy. Listen to that lady.