31 July 2012

The German Drama Llama: Health Insurance (continued)


That's right, that is the official German Drama Llama, drawn be the amazing Mike Hind over at http://www.thedevilisland.com/.  On top of drawing fabulous lederhosen-clad llamas, he also plays a mean ukulele.  

My health insurance drama continued yesterday, when Al and I went down to the original health insurance company to see if we could punch them in the kidneys rationally enough that they would not make me back pay four months of fees thanks to their own mistake.  The answer was no.  So we immediately hit up the next (better) place, and got me signed up.  The guy we spoke to was very nice, even though every time I asked a question, he directed the answer at Al.  See?  Maybe foreign does count as severely disabled.  HIRE ME, RESEARCH INSTITUTE.


Now that that hurdle was cleared, I could get down to the business of actually seeing a doctor...which turned out to be its own brand of a great time. I called six-- count 'em    --six different offices, specialists, and hospitals.  Two of them had closed their buildings for the entire month of August.  One told me that there were no doctors present until September, which I understood as an open invitation to come be examined by either a monkey or a potted plant.  One told me I could come in at the end of August, but warned me that the knee doctor only saw knee patients once a week (...).  But my personal favorite was the last office, who told me they couldn't fit me in until the end of October.  To which I politely declined, mostly because I hadn't realized I'd accidentally dialed The People's Hospital of Leningrad circa 1954.  


Once again, my situation proves the fact that I have exceptionally bad timing.  August is officially German Vacation Month, when everyone goes away to wear overcoats on cold Scandinavian beaches and be really excited about it.  However, in my naivete, I didn't realize this included doctors.  In my brain, doctors don't take vacations.  Or if they do, they stagger their overcoated beach experiences throughout the year so that August wouldn't be Potted Plant and Monkey Month. 

I finally did get an appointment, but with a catch--it's for the beginning of next week. The health insurance guy couldn't promise I'd get my card in time, and if I don't, the secretary informed me that would I have to come back in September.  

Will Tina get to a doctor?  Or will she just go to the zoo?  Tune in next week to find out.

Vashe dzorovje!

29 July 2012

A Revised History of the United Kingdom

As a child, I went through a minor Anglophile phase, where I watched A Knight's Tale, memorized the "To be or not to be speech" from Hamlet, and wrote a book report on how much it sucked to be Anne Boleyn.  Thanks to this (albeit short) time in my life, I like to think I have a slightly better understanding of British history than your average American off the street.  But thanks to Danny "DanMan" Boyle and the Olympic opening ceremonies he most brilliantly organized as a tribute to his own movies, I realized just how much I didn't know.  In fact, to my horror, my understanding of England's history was more or less completely off.  

So I want to give major props to DanMan for setting the record straight.  In his honor, I'm going to continue with this record-straightening--first by publishing a revised history of UK to my little-read blog, and then by organizing my CD collection.


Thus I bring you:


A Revised History of the United Kingdom 
according to the London Olympic opening ceremonies
(and my interpretation thereof)
(using lots of pictures I found on the internet which belong to their respective owners)

Part I

I bet most of you think you know where the UK is.  I bet you all think it's an island in the proximity of mainland Europe, and it has historically made up for that proximity with a navy.  I bet you think it includes Northern Ireland.  I bet you think it is located here:


WRONG WRONG WRONG, you are all WRONG.  England can be found here, only a few months trek from Gondor:


You know how I know?


Thanks, DanMan!

Thus does the UK's history begin.  Once upon a time, the UK was founded in the Shire.  It was a happy time, a feudal system gone right, where hobbit ladies in long dresses tossed apples back and forth and tended their sheep while their top-hatted lords alternated between dancing and staring in awe at Kenneth Branagh, who chewed thoughtfully on an unlit cigar and recited passages from his original work, The Tempest.  


Everything was awesome, until one terrible day, the Shire was invaded by a Les Miserables drum corp that had gotten lost during the Rohan leg of their world tour.  


On top of having a terrible sense of direction, the Les Mis drum corp also happened to be evil bastards.  Having spent most of their existence being oppressed by the French, they were thrilled to find themselves in a position to oppress others for a change.  They forced the peasants to destroy the environment and build the city of Zion, so that the future producers of The Matrix Reloaded could save money by shooting on location.


Then came the bad years.  The United Kingdom Zion suffered an infestation of white guys dressed like asians and old guys dressed like soldiers from the American revolutionary war.  All citizens, young and old alike, were forced to spend hours slaving for the Les Mis drum corp, hammering, building, not riding the weird ferris wheel thing. And all the while Kenneth Branagh, who by now the citizens had recognized as being in the league with the drum corp, surveyed the peasants, looked smug, and tried to keep the tip of his expensive imported Cuban cigar (none of that pipeweed shit now that he was playing with the big boys) away from the forge fires, because everyone knows only losers actually smoke their cigars.  All in all, it was a dark time for Zion.  



With the Les Mis whip miserably cracked, the peasants had no respite.  Day in and day out they worked, following the directions of the drum corp in building some monstrosity, the likes of which their serf brains couldn't begin to handle.  Then one day, their work was done--the peasants sat back, and looked upon the poisonous fruits of their forced labor with horror: five giant UFOs, which rose impressively into the skies. 


At which point they exploded, killing everyone, including Kenneth Branagh.  


The drum corp fled into Mirkwood, and Zion burned and smoked for decades, a poisonous, radioactive wasteland.  The surviving hobbits quickly realized Zion would be out for centuries (or at least until the filming of The Matrix Reloaded), and left.  


Part II

We next see the hobbits in the present day, having developed cars and espionage and Daniel Craig to deal in both at the same time.  Daniel Craig, as it turns out, is not only dashing in a suit, he's also the Pied Piper reincarnated, except instead of rats, he gathers corgis and the occasional member of the royal family.  


Then they all get in a helicopter and went for a joyride.  Except for you, corgis.  No helicopters for you.


While Daniel Craig is pulling a Prince William with his handy dandy copter, DanMan clues us in on two important pieces of information.  First, Winston Churchill is alive and posing as one of those street performers who pretends to be a statue.  Second, Daniel Craig is such a hobbit badass, he manages to defy the laws of physics, in that he can jump out a helicopter in the sunshine and hit the air at night.


It is also possible what we have witnessed is the first successful hobbit trip to a different planet. 

Upon landing, the Queen makes a reappearance, but Daniel Craig is gone, and DanMan has no intentions of filling us in on his whereabouts.  Personal theories:
--he turned into a corgi
--he turned into a French revolutionary
--he turned into Kenneth Branagh.


Part III

DanMan has jumped us back in time so we can learn more about what happened to the hobbits fleeing the destruction of Zion at the hands of the Les Mis drum corp's exploding UFOs.  Conditions in the refugee camps lead to an outbreak of typhus, and the hobbits were overcrowded into a makeshift hospital, with not even enough Tylenol PM to ease their broken, typhoid bodies into the afterlife.



With so much typhus, and so little in the way of supplies, the attending hobbits quickly discovered there was little they could do for their patients, except dance.


A brief appearance from J.K. Rowling lifted the morale of those still conscious enough to hear her read from her Harry Potter companion book, Peter Pan.  


But things only got worse for the hobbits.  In what is today still ingrained in their collective memory as "The Black Parade," the hospital was invaded by the Nazeys. An inhuman cross between Sauron's Nazgul and the flying monkeys of Oz, these were the twisted results of Mordor's attempts at genetic purity.  


But this was only the beginning, because commanding this army was the Bonnie and Clyde of Middle Earth.  Of course, I can only be referring to Cruella Deville and Voldemort.



Many of the still-mobile hobbits tried to run, but were killed instantly.  Others were paralyzed in horror, believing themselves to be watching the feverish hallucinations of their typhus-fried brains.  How else could they explain the giant baby lying in the middle of the hospital, surrounded by dancing members of the zombie medical staff?


Luckily, when all hope appeared lost for the beleaguered hobbits, Mary Poppins and her clone army flew in on the trade winds to beat the bad guys to death with their umbrellas.



They were successful, but only because the most powerful dark wizard of all time had an umbrella phobia.  Who knew?  Definitely not Dumbledore, else he could have saved everyone a lot of time and effort.

The surviving hobbits were very grateful to Mary Poppins and her deadly tools, so they stood up on their beds  and began to dance, as hobbits are wont to do when they're suffering from typhus, PTSD, and the wrath of Mordor. 


---------

From there, it's not hard to trace the hobbits' development into the modern age.  They invented cell phones in the fifties, flying houses in the seventies, and accidentally came up with the Power Rangers while trying to build Iron Man.


Al Gore in disguise invented the internet, and a young Albert Einstein taught Mr. Bean to play the piano, although Mr. Bean would clearly prefer to run along romantic beaches at twilight with other men while wearing tighty whities.  The hobbits taught lampshades how to dance.  They invented a strange creature called David Beckham, who demonstrated he could drive a boat almost as well as he could switch soccer teams.  


This resulted in the tragic suicide of the Tower Bridge, a ManU fan who couldn't get over Beckham's betrayal. 



Then the sun rose for the first time since Daniel Craig fucked with it, and the people celebrated by doing a sun dance which eventually turned into an epileptic fit with undertones of child trafficking.



It's safe to say that the UK prospered.  As for Zion, once the radiation levels went down and shooting of the Matrix franchise wrapped, Keanu Reeves moved in permanently.  He's occasionally spotted sitting under the skeletal ruins of the Inn of the Prancing Pony, drinking his morning tea and not making facial expressions.  To the best of our ability to judge these things, he is happy.


And that, my friends, is the true history of the United Kingdom. 



THE END. 

27 July 2012

The German Drama Llama: Health Insurance

German Drama Llama n.  1  Any form of unnecessary, stress-inducing, time-wasting, pig-headed, German bureaucracy;  2  A bitter, angry llama that hates Americans;  3  A new occasional feature of Tina's blog.

Last week, Al pointed out to me that the two of us have spent more time and energy this semester battling bureaucracy than doing school work. I like to blame the bureaucracy I butt heads with on the fact that I'm foreign, but as Al has also noted (being the more rational and better person that he is), he experiences just as much as I do.  It has nothing to do with being foreign, and everything to do with living here.  The fact that I'm EU actually saves me a shit ton of bureaucracy.  But, as we will see, it doesn't save me from...

THE GERMAN DRAMA LLAMA:  HEALTH INSURANCE

This story technically begins last October, in Sweden, where I fucked up my knee. Like, royally.  It was the only sour note of an otherwise brilliant weekend--Marina and I were walking along on our first evening, and all of a sudden KABOOM BITCH, EPIC KNEE PAIN.  I didn't step funny, or twist or slide or fall down--it was almost like my knee was hanging on my a thread and then decided to stab itself in the face.  Swedish paracetamol did nothing for me (not blaming it on the Swedishness, though), and upon returning to Germany, none of the medications in the American pharmacy I'd brought with me helped either.  What was stupid of me what I didn't immediately go to the doctor--but I HATE doctors, and I figured it would heal on its own.  It quickly became apparent to me that I wasn't dealing with your average knee injury, of the pulled-muscle variety--I couldn't bend my knee for three days and had to go up the stairs like an amputee on day one of physical therapy.  But after a week of feeling sorry for myself on the couch, my knee did start to get better.  Sort-of.  Weirdly, riding and biking didn't hurt, so I tried to bike instead of walk whenever possible.

After a few months, I found I was pretty much back to normal, as long as I didn't walk/jog for extended periods of time.  I considered going to a doctor in March when I briefly went back to the US, but decided against it because I didn't want X-Rays and shit taking away from my time with my friends, and who needs X-Rays anyway when your knee is getting better?  And it really did seem to be getting better.  Until we spent eight million hours walking around on our super fun Berlin day, and, although it was super fun, I aggravated whatever part of my knee still hadn't gotten over being aggravated in Stockholm.  My knee started going the wrong way on the healing scale, but since I wasn't working as an au pair, I couldn't lie on the couch and give myself time to (sort-of) recover.

Still, although annoying, it didn't truly become an issue until Claire and I started planning our around-Ireland bike adventure, when it occurred to me that a knee unhealed nine months later probably didn't bode well for such a trip.  I decided to start training to get my knee in shape, going on distance bike rides a few times a week, increasing the distance each time and giving myself a few days in between to rest up. This worked really well until earlier this week, when Al and I had to go on a distance bike ride to find a barn (that story coming shortly).  It was my fault--I had done a distance bike ride the day before, I knew I wasn't in shape to do another one, but I really wanted to find the barn.  So I bit my teeth, told myself to rub dirt in it, and figured I'd be fine.  Bad plan, and I knew it.  Force of will, though it has been known to cure cancer, does FUCK-ALL for knee injuries.

A few days later, I finally admitted to myself what I'd known for months--my knee was a real problem, and I needed to be seen by a doctor, like, yesterday.  Enter Problem Number One: no German health insurance.

But wait a second--don't students have to be insured in Germany?


Yes, well.  Funny story, that is.  Remember way back in March when I was freaking out at the K-2 of bureaucracy I had to scale to get myself matriculated?  I ran into the problem of required insurance then--couldn't afford student health insurance (100 dollars a month), and couldn't get myself freed from the required insurance because the German company wanted American documents exclusively in my name.  So I went to a different insurance company, where a lady there solved my problem in five seconds flat.  As I understood it, I could come back to the insurance company if and when I needed it, slash if I suddenly came into 100 bucks a month I had no better use for than to hand over to the German health system.  Fabulous.


Remembering this, I emailed my mom and was like, "Hello dearest mother whom I love with all my heart, I realize I'm 24 and should no longer be on your dime, but the thing is (remember that I love you), the German government has spent the last four months rejecting me from every aid, funding, and scholarship application I've sent out, I'm as poor as Rick Santorum's moral fiber, and my knee hurts like a bitch.  But through all of this, I have never wavered in my love for you.  Health insurance costs?  You're the only mother I've ever loved."  My mom's email back was something all the lines of, "You're an idiot, go buy health insurance and I'll cover it."  She is my mom, you can't have her.

I have never, never, NEVER in my life been so excited over health insurance.  The idea that soon I would be insured, soon I could go to a doctor and get my knee fixed--despite Al's warnings that Germany is a bitch, I spent most of yesterday doing excited dances and singing health insurance happy songs.  My knee would get fixed!  I could stop worrying about financially burdening my family unnecessarily if I uninsuredly fell into a well, got hit by a moped, or otherwise died!  HOORAY ISN'T IT EXCITING!  I was like a child on Christmas morning, if that child was a freak and wished for a trip to the local hospital.  Freak.


When the insurance place opened, Al I and I bounded in the door like chipmunks. Actually, I bounded liked a chipmunk (bad knee be damned), and he walked.  But I did enough bounding for both of us.

"Hello!" I chirped to the lady at the front desk.  "I would like some health insurance please!  And in case you couldn't tell, I am SO EXCITED ABOUT IT."  The lady was all, "...I would like your name, and then for you to sit down.  Please and thank you." This I did for thirty seconds, until Mr. Health Insurance Guy came to collect us.

Mr. Health Insurance Guy was quickly baffled by my story, and didn't understand how I was able to go through an entire semester without being insured.  Since it was his colleague that gave me the original get-out-of-jail-free document, he went and sat by her desk for a long time, until he realized she wasn't getting off the phone and his customers were about thirty seconds away from opening up his drawers and playing games with what they found inside.  He came back, and laid it for me straight: basically, his colleague had fucked up giving me the paper.  I should never have been allowed to get it.  If I wanted health insurance, being a student, I would have to get on the student policy.  However, you can't jump on the bandwagon when you feel like it--if I wanted a prime seat on this baby, I would have to back pay the four months to the beginning of the semester, to the tune of 400 dollars.  Which I do not have.

German Drama Llama says...


In his defense, Mr. HIG really was a nice guy, and he really did try to help.  The only problem was he didn't.  When we left, Al shook his hand, but I couldn't bring myself to look at him, because I knew if I did, I would to slap him. Or cry.  Possibly both.


I didn't actually start crying until I got back to my bike, and I didn't start throwing things until we walked in the door to my apartment.  At which point I threw a lot of things. And screamed.  Al immediately mobilized his entire family to start calling people and getting this shitstorm de-shitstormed, but I wasn't emotionally there yet.  I still couldn't be trusted to touch anything without slamming it against the wall.  He headed over to the university to talk to the student insurance people there and get a second opinion, leaving me to my throwing.  Eventually, being a Portuguese Godzilla coked out on months of bureaucratic frustration and stress got boring, at which point I contented myself with researching master's programs in the UK to transfer to.  Sorry. Programmes.


Al came back with a couple pieces of information:
1)  The original lady fucked up, not me.  She gave me wrong information and a piece of paper I wasn't allowed to have.
2)  That paper should have been denied to me on basis of having American insurance. Only people with EU insurance can get that paper to begin with.
3)  Let's be honest, as crappy as the American health care system is, it's got nothing on the level of fuckery embodied by its Portuguese counterpart.  So that's out.
And 4) no matter which insurance company I go to, I have to back pay to the last four months.

Shortly thereafter, Al's mom called with the same information.  A few moments later, his dad buzzed in to let us know he's personally calling the insurance company to ream them out.  I'm happy I'm not the insurance company, Al's dad is a pretty important guy, and definitely not one you want to get a phone call from about how you're a tool.

The moral of the story is, Germany and God actively hate me.  Frankly, I'm tired.  I'm tired of constantly going up against the German system and losing.  I'm tired of getting fucked over every which way I turn.  I'm tired of getting every single scholarship, aid, and funding application getting sent back to me with a polite "Go die in a corner" letter. I'm over it.  I'm going back to the States for three weeks over Christmas to visit my family.  If my situation hasn't changed before then, we will have problems.  And when I say "we," I mean my parents, because they might be back to having a daughter in the house.

22 July 2012

Bavaria, Celle, the Library

Hey all!

After getting back from our weekend in Bavaria on Monday, I more or less gave myself the week off and did absolutely nothing.  I even tried to make myself feel guilty about doing absolutely nothing, but then I remembered I'd been working my ass off EVERY SINGLE DAY since the beginning of June, and that more or less killed my guilt dead.

I've got a crapton to update on, starting with last Saturday.  The political function was fun, the food was delicious, and the band covered every horrible song that has ever existed on the radio, which was really entertaining.  I also got to wear my pirate dress, which was stupidly exciting to me.

We wound up taking a taxi early back to the hotel, seeing as the first function-arranged bus didn't leave until 2 AM, and we were tired.

Sunday we woke up, checked out, and immediately headed out for an adventure day of driving through the Alps.  Which are drop-dead gorgeous, and made me remember why I like southern Germany so much better than its flat northern counterpart.



Yeah.  Stunning.  It smelled good.  And I desperately wanted to run around singing the Sound of Music, but it had just rained and I was wearing flip-flops.

We eventually stopped in Prien am Chiemsee to eat lunch and check the place out.  

There was a fun little Sunday market going on, where I found this dragon:

I also decided I wanted cheese for lunch, so I dragged Al to every cheese stand until I finally decided on my favorite.  Unfortunately I refused (out of principle) to pay four euros for cheese, so I had to fight with the Turkish guy selling it because he refused (out of douchbaggery) to sell me a piece of cheese that wasn't as big as my head. Eventually it became apparent that appeasing me would be easier than sticking to his douchbag guns, so I got my 2 euro cheese.  It was even more delicious because it tasted like victory.

Priem am Chiemsee is mostly distinguishable for being on the Chiemsee, a giant lake in the middle of the Alps.  When we were there, the weather was flipping from sunshine to pouring rain every ten minutes.  This bipolar madness eventually culminated in an epic storm that sent us fleeing for our lives into an overpriced cafe, where we drank four euro chocolate.  I congratulated myself for paying half of my drink with money I'd saved on my cheese.



When it appeared to be more or less safe outside, Al and I wandered around a bit on the docks until I had the brilliant idea to rent a paddle-boat.  The original plan was to take a real boat out to the castle in the middle of the lake, but with the rain effectively killing that idea, we decided to paddle-boat to it instead. 

View of the Alps from the water:


And the castle.  Or a piece thereof, seen from a great distance.

Then while I was buying postcards, Al unearthed the coolest hat ever:

Then we headed out, and drove through the mountains some more, making a brief side-trip to Austria.  As you do.

And then we were back in Göttingen on Monday.

As I said, since then I've done nothing except go to my last couple classes.  Al and I took the speaking part of our Swedish final, and, having the feeling we were going to have to go shopping, I decided to shoot for brownie points and bring a shit ton of food with us--thus insuring that the only things we had to talk about were the things we knew the names for.  We wound up having to plan a party instead, but the food still came in handy, and I even gave our teacher some Oreos.  Brownie points.  

Friday was Latvian Friend's last evening in Germany, so I headed back to Celle to celebrate with her.  I was pretty anxious about the trip, mostly because Celle holds very few good memories for me.  I spent Wednesday and Thursday nights have nightmares that I was an au pair again, and I had a panic attack when I got off the train, which is always fun.  And there was the possibility of running into my former host parents to contend with, since I'm 100% positive they'd like nothing more than to roast my kidneys over a spit, eat them with organic butter, and not drink milk while doing it. But I felt much better after meeting up with Latvian Friend--it was really, really nice to see her again.  We walked around, got food, got ice cream, and just talked, caught up, and had fun for a couple hours, just the two of us.  Yay!

I spent a good part of today in the library getting books for my next paper.  Just for the record, I really dislike libraries as a general rule, even more so when it's finals time. The hush feels unnaturally heavy, like someone soaked a blanket and threw it on top of me, and I can't see anything but I can still hear that person breathing.  Plus, all the Germans give me dirty looks because I'm American and wear flip-flops and it's impossible to walk silently in flip-flops.  There's one particular section of the library that's actually terrifying to me, and of course, that's where all my books are.  To get there on the weekend, you have to go up one flight of stairs, cross the entire library, go down a flight of stairs, shove your way through a giant door, go down another flight o stairs, but in this one the lights flicker and it smells like homeless people have peed in it.  Then you have to go through another door, and now you're officially underground. It's dark, there are no windows, and it's a straight up cavern of books.  Row upon row upon row of books, horribly easy to get lost in.  You take one look at the place, and you know there are scary cannibal rapists hiding among the shelves, with nothing to do all day but educate themselves and take generous breaks to rape and eat (not necessarily in that order) the Americans that get lost looking for their books.  Every time I go down there, I'm positive I'll never come out.  And when I finally stagger through the homeless-urine hallway and into the atlas collection of the main library, I want to bury my face in Topographical: Europe, 2011, and never come out.

The End.