Culture – Page 3 – Sannipanni

Yeehaw…

March 11, 2008 4 Comments

Only in Redneck Nation… unbelievable

“The S.C. Supreme Court on Monday upheld the drunken driving convictions of a father whose three sons died after he gave them alcohol and told his 15-year-old to drive his truck. Michael Batchelor, 40, did not dispute getting drunk with his three sons in July 2002, then driving them to find marijuana. …”

In other news, I finally have some good visa news! Well, it’s more like we’re going from the negative scale to 0, as the lawyer finally finally finally said that we can apply for my H1B workvisa in the American graduate degree (MBA)category. I cannot believe all the bullcrap that led up to this but finally we are at point zero and can move forward. So fingercrossing is still VERY important now obviously and nothing is sure but it’s looking a whole lot better than last week or the week before or the week before or well you get my point. 😉

I also got a great review from my boss last week, aparently he is super happy with my work. He rarely gives me any feedback so I am usually wondering what he thinks about my work so that was reassuring.

My date is doing very well, too. We spent a lovely Sunday together walking around the neighborhood for a few hours and then watching some TV. He is a very smart and sweet and hot guy. Can’t wait to get to know him even more. Right now I still feel like I don’t know him that well even though we’ve been dating for pretty much a month now (wow, where does time go these days?!). But that’s the fun of dating, right?! It’s just all about getting to know people and start digging underneath the surface of all these superficial American boys and find out about their dark sides (just kidding!).

So other then that, I did the usual things like hanging out with friends, working, shopping (Target stockholders are gonna be so rich…), eating well. Had cajun food this Saturday – can’t say that my stomach was too happy.

This week is going to be super busy! Last night I had coffee with Chadi. Tonight Vanessa is having a skin care party (think Tupperware). Tomorrow I’m gonna hang out with David. Thursday I’m having sushi with Markus who studied with me back in the day. Friday – oh a day off! And then Saturday is Markus’s birthday party and Max is in town and Axel’s birthday is on Thursday so I’m sure they’ll have a party, too. Ahhhh!
And then next week, my sister is coming to town. Yay! 9 more days! Can’t wait to show her Charlotte AND Charleston. Two of my favorite cities. 🙂

Culture, Friends, Professional Life, USA, Visitors, Weather

Snow!

January 18, 2008 8 Comments

Yes that’s right, we got some snow this week! It only lasted 15 hours but it was fun while it lasted. I hope that was all of winter for me this year but I think the forecast said snow for tomorrow and temperatures on Sunday from -10 – 2C. Fun – NOT! I can’t quite believe that it’ll be that cold but we’ll see.

So anyway, Rich and I had a great weekend here in the Queen City. After a yummy dinner with Stefan at Fiamma’s (service took forever but the food was good) I picked Rich up at the airport and we spend the night chatting and catching up. Good times! To make his trip worth wile, we did a touristy thing on Saturday and checked out Historic Latta Plantation. It was actually really nice with a civil war winter camp enactment and we enjoyed the sunshine out at their lake (yes it was still nice and warm then). A huge pasta lunch warmed us up at home again and then we relaxed some before it was time to head out again. We took the light rail (so cool) to uptown and watched the Bobcats lose against the Detroit Pistons. The game was well worth the 15$ tickets we got but unfortunately the cats lost in the very last minute. :(. But we had fun and continued to Fuel Pizza for dinner and then met up with Giorgio and some other people at Feast and then went to HOM where we danced the night away. Max was in town and he was super nice and dropped us off at home after closing time.
Sunday we strolled through my neighborhood for a long time with quick stops to grocery shop and grad a coffee. It felt so European to haul around groceries and walk around on side walks. Haha. At home we watched The Man of Aran, which our tour guide on the Aran Islands had talked about in Ireland. Interesting movie… Sushi at Ru Sans was a nice grand finale for a great weekend and it was sad to drop of Richie at the airport on Monday.

This week has been good so far. Cooked and watched National Treasure with Giorgio and then went to P.F. Chang’s with Vanessa and there should be more fun coming my way this weekend.

Work is going well. I love the combination of all that creative marketing stuff with the technical machine stuff and I’m learning so much. And good news, my boss wants me to stick around after my internship (yay)so it’s back to working on visa crap. Yugh! So seeing that I might be here for a few more years (let’s hope) I did some credit history building today and opened a savings account as well as applied for a credit card. Not too sure that they’ll give it to me but the lady insisted that we try that first before getting a secured credit card. OK then. What with my student ID good until March that might actually work. We’ll see.

Culture, shopping, USA

Quality

December 28, 2007 11 Comments

Having lived in the US for a total of more than 2.5 years, most things here don’t seem strange to me anymore and what might be amazing, irritating, or weird to some newcomers has long become normal to me. However, there is one thing that keeps making me say I miss that from Germany! I’m talking about the quality of groceries. You’d think oranges and tangerines were fantastic here but the oranges at the supermarket are all kind of funky looking with white stuff over them and then they’re partly green and hmpf! The tangerines I bough had a ridiculous amount of seeds in them (think 1-3 per SLICE) and the olives in the glass were partly falling apart like a 3rd grade mushroom in Germany. My baby carrots had some weird portions (not too bad but still) and I don’t have to talk about ham and the like or chocolate, do I?
To be fair, there are some groceries here that are fantastic, like shrimps and beef and most fruits and veggies aren’t too bad. In general though I’d say the quality standards of a lot of German super markets and/or manufacturers are higher (prolly consumer driver).
But who cares about groceries when you can eat out or have TV dinner any day of the week, anyway, right?! (yuk) 😀
Now moving on to face care. Ahhhhhh! Nightmare here! Actually, not fair, it’s only really make-up remover clothes that suck. Spending almost 10$ on them compared to 2Euro in Germany you would expect them to work wonders. Uhm yeah no. Not that great. Same goes for cotton swabs. They practically fall apart here and you’ve got this huge fuzzy thing in your hand after cleaning your ears. Not good! The face cleaner I used in Ireland smells super weird here and is not 100% as effective as the one from there. Hmpf!
One thing I did find to have the same great quality as in Germany though is NIVEA Smooth Sensation Body Lotion but you know, that’s German engineering ;-).

(Just to be fair, there are a lot of items here that I find ok or great or feckin’ brilliant like make-up, my macbook, greeting cards, chex mix, scented candles, ice-cream,…)

Culture, Me, Myself & I, USA

Santa Claus is Coming to Town!

December 2, 2007 11 Comments

So I’m officially in a Christmas mood again! Was starting to feel really un-Christmassy here with the nice weather and so much going on. But, last night at the supermarket they had Advent Calendars!!!! Real German ones, too! I was sooooo happy! 😀 Then we watched Elf at Giorgio’s place and that was so Christmassy, too that we tuned into Christmas Carol Radio in the car and so yeah,… bring on Christmas! Will try to buy a little fake tree later today, too. Hehe! Are you in Christmas Spirit yet, too?
XOXO

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