We grieve for Steve Lee of Gotthard Gotthard from Switzerland
Dear fans and friends, the sad reality is unbelievable! The Gotthard is dead singer STEVE LEE
in a motorcycle accident in Nevada was the 47-year-old died. The GOTTHARD singer was with some motorcycle enthusiasts friends flown to the U.S. to be there a long cherished dream come true, the result of heavy touring plans for many years was never the time - two weeks it should be implemented in the Harley Davidson the states to go. The group of 22 bikers and biker was traveling at 12 Harley Davidson. They were just put on rain gear. When Lee on the hard shoulder his companions waited for a truck covered five parked bikes, one of them met Steve Lee. The Reanimierungsversuche were broken off after 20 minutes. Against 16:13 clock time noted the rescue services in the death of Steve Lee. Among the passengers were also Lee's girlfriend Brigitte Voss Balzarini and Gotthard bassist Marc Lynn (45), who had two years ago also suffered a serious motorcycle accident. With Steve Lee is not only one of the world's best rock voices of us ...
It will take some time before we all have really understood what happened.
Okay, okay. After some of you have asked, no begged me to blog in English, here's a taste of my life in Fort Smith for everybody to understand (hew, not very clever for a German teacher).
Before I came to the USA, I heard all kinds of stories, anectdotes, and stereotypes about Americans. One of them - undeniably - was that Americans don't care about the rest of the world, they hardly ever leave their country, and hardly recognize Europe as consisting of independent countries. Well, not a big surprise if you consider that the following snippet from the US TV show 'Are you smarter than a 5th grader?' is quite popular among my friends in Germany. This - admittedly - hot young lady (her name is Kellie Pickler, her fame originates from her participation in 'American Idol') gives an interesting answer to the question which European country's capital Budapest is.
Up until today, all of the above stereotypes had proved to be wrong (yes, even after listening to Kellie's 'explanation'). Today, my German class made me think, though. I've always said (and still am of the opinion) that my students are the most awesome students in the world: they are smart and kick ass! However, in today's class they've earned an extra lesson in German politics. I will let the following dialog uncommented.
The situation: Students are all sitting, watching a PowerPoint slide with pictures and personal information of a) Angela Merkel, b) Heidi Klum, and c) Cindy aus Marzahn (a German stand- up comedian).
J [points at the picture of Angela Merkel] : Who is it? Describe this woman.
[Silence. Puzzled faces.]
J [is surprized, thinks students might have not understood the question in German and tries to help with an English translation]: Who is this? Describe her, please.
[Silence. Puzzled faces, again.]
Student A [innocently] : Hey Joannis, who is this? I don't know her.
J [thinking that Student A is just kidding, wondering if it might be possible that students here don't know Germany's chancellor, but then rejecting the idea again, jokingly asks] : Okay, who of you has never seen that woman before? Raise your arms.
[More than a third of the students raise their arms, feeling uncomfortable.]
J [not believing it at all] : Really? Hold on, wait a second. Who of you has never heard of Angela Merkel?
[Same students raise their arms, getting even more uncomfortable.]
J [stunned, completely forgetting he should be speaking German] : Are you making fun of me? Please, tell me you're making fun of me. Ok, everybody now. Who is Angela Merkel?
Student B [happily, calling out] : I know who she is, I know it. She is your person !
J : What do you mean, 'your person '?
Student B : Like Obama is for us. She is your person.
J : Alright. Let's call her 'chancellor'. Angela Merkel is the German chancellor. I don't really like her, but seriously, you should remember her name. [Tries to calm down again. Points at the picture of Heidi Klum.] Wer ist das? Wer ist diese Frau?
[Almost all hands up. Students smile, as if I was underchallenging them on purpose.]
Student C [shouting the answer, not waiting to be called on by me] : That's easy Joannis. Das ist Heidi Klum!
J : Alright. Please, let's recapitulate what's just happened. A serious number of you didn't recognize Angela Merkel, some don't even know her. But almost all of you know Heidi Klum? You should look up Merkel at Wikipedia. Really, she is one of the most famous politicians world-wide. She's been on the cover of Forbes for the last couple of years in a row as the most powerful woman in the world.
Student A [chiming in again] : No way!! She can't have beat Oprah ! Does she even have her own TV show? Oprah and Heidi do ...
J : Noooo! Chancellor, Germany, politics! She doesn't have a TV show.
Student D [intending to mediate] : Oh, I see. Merkel might be the most powerful , but she is not as influential ...
J : Never mind [Pointing at Cindy's picture] Let's go on. Who is it? ...
aufälligste What is the difference between the music scene in casting and Arkansas? While on most alternative Gießen stages of all pop-rock formations listen to metal bands or sometimes to see jazz and electro, and are, the music scene in Arkansas is mainly under the influence of a) country music and b) Hip Hop. The only club in Fort Smith, called 'Electric Cowboy', combines these styles, so go there range from dance to hip-hop beats.
That the music on offer here in the south but it is far richer than the playlists of the Electric Cowboy , I could do yesterday. Lucinda Williams told me earlier not really. The best part of the first ranks of American country music. For over 30 years on stage and, among the population so popular here, more than any other artist. Her father, Miller Williams - literary scholar and poet - has opened the show with one of his texts. He himself was able to his poem "Of History and Hope 'at the second inauguration of Bill Clinton in January 1997 (as explained to me the other concert guests) present.
Of History and Hope
We have memorized America,
how it was born and who we have been and where. In ceremonies and silence
we say the words,
telling the stories, singing the old songs.
We like the places they take us. Mostly we do.
The great and all the anonymous dead are there.
We know the sound of all the sounds we brought.
The rich taste of it is on our tongues.
But where are we going to be, and why, and who?
The disenfranchised dead want to know.
We mean to be the people we meant to be,
to keep on going where we meant to go.
But how do we fashion the future? Who can say how
except in the minds of those who will call it Now?
The children. The children. And how does our garden grow?
With waving hands -- oh, rarely in a row --
and flowering faces. And brambles, that we can no longer allow.
Who were many people coming together
cannot become one people falling apart.
Who dreamed for every child an even chance
cannot let luck alone turn doorknobs or not.
Whose law was never so much of the hand as the head
cannot let chaos make its way to the heart.
Who have seen learning struggle from teacher to child
cannot let ignorance spread itself like rot.
We know what we have done and what we have said,
and how we have grown, degree by slow degree,
believing ourselves toward all we have tried to become --
just and compassionate, equal, able, and free.
All this in the hands of children, eyes already set on a
land we never can visit - it is not there yet - but
looking through their eyes, we can see what our long
gift to them may come to be.
If we can truly remember, they will not forget.
The concert itself was pretty awesome (I want to take this word into German!). A mixture of country and singer songwriter, a woman - a guitar. All it takes. Here is a small, whom I just found on Youtube.
The following article was published this week in the local press me. Actually, very flattering. In the newspaper itself is a series of articles with countless pieces about local crime, rape, theft and murder. Which dispute between me and the PR department of the university and the newspaper reporter preceded both this publication, I will not mention here. Suffice it to reveal: My call for an authorization of the interview was seen as a serious attack on press freedom. "Joannis, we call that 'freedom of press' here in the U.S.." Interesting.
German lessons at the UAFS, appropriately enough, with voice talent Günther Oettinger in the background
Joannis Kaliampos, right, teaches German to students at the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith. Kaliampos is participating in the university's Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant Program and is studying to become a secondary teacher.
words in a dictionary and 1 to 1 translation from language A to language B may perhaps meet the fundamental need to express a thought or an to make apt observation. Fine. My previous experience in the U.S., especially in Arkansas, have made clear to me but once again that a dictionary can probably do little more than get at this initial requirement. Why? Well, I've been here for six weeks and I have therefore extensively with the local customs regarding food, explained. And if I would only draw one lesson we can learn, then it can only be the one that I have been lied to all the dictionaries. 'Eating' is not 'eat' is 'food' and certainly not 'to eat'. The following remarks I will send immediately to Langenscheidt and Longman.
first Bread ≠ bread
bread
bread
whole grains. Crust. Sourdough. Salt. These are my associations with bread. Sure, the Germans are quite proud of their bread and their bread culture. In every German backwater, there are at least a bakery where you can find dozens of different types of bread again. . Typically, a firm consistency and savory taste I have searched in the six weeks after U.S. bakeries - in vain. A business only for baked goods to have is to most Americans, a fairly alien concept. 'bread', as opposed to 'bread' is ambiguous result, based on wheat flour and the addition of sugar and is everywhere in plastic bags available. When I look into the matter Dustin our trainees with the sugar in the bread asked (actually, in each present), he looked at me quizzically and said tersely: To make it sweet, why else? He's right. Well, that fact has recently made me master bakers. No kidding, I baked this bread alone, and it was great! (Thanks to my colleagues for the organic whole grain baking mix!)
second 'Grilling' ≠ 'barbecue'
barbecue grill
why everyone should make a pilgrimage once in his life in the southern states? It's simple: Barbecue is much hotter than a barbecue. Seriously. Anyone who has tasted the great beef burger with barbecue sauce, beans and corn and the whole thing with a warm apple pie (covered, of course) has tried, want to eat anything else. The point goes to the USA!
third 'Cheese' ≠ 'cheese'
Sprühkäse
cheese
cheese
; A great German dinner usually includes a slice brown bread (see above) with cheese: Emmental, Gouda, resins, etc. Americans Cammembert is this diversity of naturally ripened cheese is not necessarily familiar. In most cases they know each other but best with 'cheese'. This in turn means the broad landscape of 'pasteurized' or 'processed cheese' - cheese sandwich. The comfortable Americans must take care not even to unpack the individual slices of cheese - as if it still can pack in a spray can
. 4th 'Candy' ≠ 'candy'
Zingers
To make it short: What to understand German sometimes under sweets - oats coins, marble cake, gummy bears - is nice. But compared to the buy here 'candy', it seems as tasty as eating paper. The United States is undoubtedly the Promised Land of Sweets. Everything is possible and can be zusammemgehalten by icing, is also produced. My latest discovery: Zingers! Unspecified small chocolate cake with light cream and dark icing. On a 10 cubic inch compressed meal. Lovely!
beer
beer
5th "Beer" ≠ 'beer'
things that mean something to you missing a mostly only when they are not greater. German beer I have admittedly been missing before I left. For nearly 500 years of beer in Germany may only hops, malt and water are prepared. And that's a good thing - you know so what you get. The most famous U.S. beers - Budweiser - hardly worthy of the name, however. The taste is reminiscent of flavored water. The Americans also know that, so we can thankfully every now and no matter how small liquor store a wide selection of imported beer. . After all
complain that win against American corporations, and staggering amounts of compensation until we ride's not just since the fall of the widow, known by the tobacco manufacturers Philip Morris a hundreds of millions for the first ride, because she claimed that her husband had not known about the adverse health effects of cigarettes. Well, at least not on cigarette packets explicitly mentioned. Recently been reported here in the local press of a similar case where a mother sued McDonald's because her daughter is in a 'Hot Brownie' burned (the name should actually be warning enough) - and got right
.
"Allergy Warning: Contains Milk. "
Now it seems that the W has ECONOMY learned in the U.S. to work and all eventualities are considered. The following notice has given me this week more than a smile. When a perfectly ordinary milk carton at Wal-Mart bought (by the way the 2L-pack is the smallest - just United States), you can be sure that the health of the client even before sufficient attention was given to order processes, such as the smoker's widow. . will prevent clear therefore that the product contains milk to anyone who takes it anyway to do so exclusively to the risk customers, the so -. knowing that they milk with deadly Cramps respond - still take milk can not hope to take over their survivors, the Wal-Mart empire. Guaranteed by this simple line. Small is beautiful.
visits in the U.S. who can not usually in public toilets to be Germany acquired knowledge of the world left. Although the toilets are not as fucked up as they seem to be found in Japan, but so few details but you should know. First: If the cistern looks in vain. Instead one finds on the left side of the water pipe a beautifully designed stainless steel lever that can trigger the flush pull down or press either (often draw means 'small', appropriately enough, however, press 'great'). The best is then: the huge puddle of water (see video) is then in a phenomenal, counter-clockwise rotating: sucked water rotation and replaced with a brand new pool (note had Bart Simpson right!). Who looks for the first time, will be thrilled.
toilet door in my Hostel in Chicago.
but what one should be aware of is that in such pleasure in the rarest cases will be alone. U.S. toilet cubicles allow further insights. Whether out of fear of prohibited activities or out of consideration before claustrophobic Klogängern, between door and wall remains always open a small gap perspective. Always. These are the partitions in the rarest cases is greater than 1.70 m. Great people can so easily the business or entertain from time to stand up to check the surroundings.
I had heard that Americans do have a soft spot for culinary influences from around the world. And yes, I know that eating here is tantamount to a national popular sport - higher, faster, farther. But above all, a lot of tastes better - especially if you can serve it in liquid cheese. But what made me cut down this week I did so not on the bill. When I was yesterday with my Japanese colleague, Yoko visited the nearest Asialaden, I had to look two times. Between all the bizarre sea were there nonchalantly a dozen frozen giant frogs lined up. ... Frogs! Not that I have here packed with animal welfare madness, but that would get me with so much lemon and salt, not down.
Yoko was disgusted the rest quite a bit (what I this took a little playing around with the frog) and tried to explain that this is not intended eaten in Japan, but is determined to China or Vietnam. She wanted to kiss the little toad in any case.
... or 'What the land of opportunity has to offer yet so!'
Jau! Under this heading I will in the future of the countless curiosities, which I (oh no, is, according to the Fulbright expressly not travel ... I mean: "During my stay, working") here in Fort Smith and elsewhere on my trip meet to report. ;
Since today I can marvel at the general public in Fort Smith on the university website. Unbelievable how fast it goes, here as an international faculty member to get it on the news page. My office neighbor Brock has just been complaining, he's been here for three years, but he has never had that pleasure. Is probably because he is from Arkansas. :)
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