I'm back in Germany for some time to renew my visa: Since my last visa was categorized as J1 and I am applying for the exact same type, I could put my passport and all other documents just into an envelope and sent them off to the US embassy in Frankfurt. Usually, you have to visit the embassy for an interview, but if you re-apply and you're lucky, you don't have to travel there :-) At the same time, this is pretty scary because in case you forget anything, the passport travels back and you have to re-do the entire procedure - but I don't have time for that since my flight back is booked ;-)
Being back in Germany is nice! Suddenly, there are seasons again! The Californian coast is always kind of green-brown-ish. Yet, you notice, how weird the German language and culture is. The spelling of numbers is an example which made my day today: I was supposed to pay an amount of x Euro and 92 cents and I digged out x Euro and 29 cents. We say "two and ninety" in German instead of "ninety-two" and 29 is "nine and twenty" as in English "twenty-nine". As I have started counting in my mind in English recently as well, I guess I processed the 2 from "two and ninety" first and then the 9, making 29 in total. Mh, that might be confusing, but I thought it's kind of interesting that we first name the number of ones then the tens in German (or even more confusing: first hundreds, then ones and then tens!).
