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Directories
Bis ?
We’re heading off to Heidelberg first thing in the morning, so tata for now. We had some bad news in the family, Rainer’s uncle Erwin passed away today, so we will be heading over to Wittlich after Heidelberg. We haven’t heard when the funeral will be yet, so I’m not sure when we’ll be back.
If you need help to pass the time, see if you can think of any more German TV shows for my “if you like…, try…” segment while we’re gone. Thanks.
If you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
Traveling Frau
This Sunday through Tuesday (April 1-3), I will be making my first visit to Heidelberg! Rainer’s in a meeting all day Monday, so let me know if you’re there too and want to meet up (we’re driving there on Sunday and back on Tuesday, so those days are possible too, but the time frame is limited).
We will be in Berlin on April 21-22, I’m not sure if we’ll be driving up on the 20th or 21st, but perhaps a stop for a meal in Leipzig would work out when we pass through there? On the 23rd, we’re having lunch in Dresden with B, on our way to Karlsbad (Karlovy Vary, CZ)! Where we will have a nice 4 day wellness vacation (I decided I was too nervous about flying and this should be really nice too). Let me know if you’re around!
Television in Deutschland
So lately quite a few bloggers have been making helpful posts for the various people that arrive at their respective blogs through searches, and I’ve decided now to do the same. I get a fair number of hits from people looking for either English broadcasts on German television or American shows watched in Germany. So me and my handy TV Spielfilm XXL (one of the many tv guides available here, this one more movie-centric) will help to provide the answers (I hope my readers will lend a hand too, cause I’m sure I’ll miss something!).
As to English language television available here in Germany, it really depends on where you are located and in some places, the pickings are slim. But here’s a list of channels I’ve had in my various abodes:
- CNN International - news, news, Larry King at 11am daily and Daily Show International Edition on weekends. The news mostly comes from their London studio, but sometimes they have The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer or Anderson Cooper 360.
- BBC World - during the week, has news and a few shows like Talking Movies (film reviews) and Click (technology show). The weekend usually has news headlines between documentaries and shows like Brainiac, Real Science, and Top Gear.
- MTV Germany - some of the MTV US and UK shows are shown here undubbed with German subtitles, like Date My Mom, Real World, Pimp My Ride (US, UK, and International editions), Flavor of Love, Rob & Big, Ali G in da USA, Next, Parental Control, Made, Super Sweet Sixteen. I know, you’re saying, “I would never watch that crap,” but believe me, when you get desperate for English you’ll find yourself cheering on the parents on Parental Control. It also airs the following shows dubbed into German: DanceLife, Laguna Beach, Southpark, Family Guy, and American Dad.
- VIVA - The German music channel, it plays basically the same videos as MTV Germany and airs shows like Americas Next Top Model, The Simple Life, Fabulous Life of…, and Girls of the Playboy Mansion. Often the announcer/voiceover is dubbed into German, but when the stars/interviewees/etc. speak, it is just subtitled.
- Eurosport - Offers an English soundtrack in some areas (we only had it in Rostock). You would need a dual-tone (Zweikanalton) tv to be able to switch to the English track.
- Arte - This is mainly a German/French channel, but I have (rarely) found English language movies and documentaries on. The English-language documentaries are unfortunately often skull-crushingly boring (how they managed this with a jazz age documentary I once saw, when I am a jazz fan, I don’t know).
- Al Jazeera English TV - I know what you’re thinking, and I thought it too, but this is just another typical 24 hour news channel. We have it for the first time here in Bavaria.
- Bible TV - I’m not sure if this is a real name, but we have a bunch of English language religious channels down here in Bavaria. I’ve never watched them, so I can’t say anything more on them.
- CNBC Europe - Financial news. It shows The Tonight Show and Late Night with Conan O’Brian in the evenings, and The McLaughlin Group and Meet the Press on Sundays. In many places however, the channel switches to broadcasting GIGA (video game news in German) sometime during the afternoon.
- Then there is Premiere, a pay cable sender that requires a special receiver available at most electronics stores. In the Premiere Film package, you get a bunch of movie channels, (Premiere 1-4 and FilmFest have original soundtracks available for most newer movies), Premiere FilmFest sometimes shows English film documentaries (movie monsters, James Dean, Johnny Depp and Marlon Brando are a few examples), then Premiere Serie has television shows all day long. In primetime, they show newer American shows broadcast in English and German, such as Thief, Medium, Criminal Minds, Over There, Lost, The 4400, Deadwood, Invasion, Nip/Tuck, Brothers and Sisters, and Supernatural. They also previously have shown Desperate Housewives, The Sopranos, Rome and Six Feet Under and miniseries like Masters of Horror, Revelations and Empire Falls. There is also an MGM channel that broadcasts dual-tone classic movies and the Sci-Fi channel has a couple of dual-tone shows (Farscape, LEXX).
I think that’s it (please comment if there are any channels I’ve missed), so on to American shows that are broadcast in Germany. I’m just going to go through a week and list what’s showing, so anything that’s having a scheduling break will get missed.
- RTL: CSI:Miami, Dr. House (House), Monk, Law & Order, CSI
- ProSieben - Charmed reruns, Simpsons, Desperate Housewives, Grey’s Anatomy, Cold Case, Emergency Room (ER), Weeds, Scrubs, Malcolm mittendrin (Malcom in the Middle)
- Kabel Eins - King of Queens, Bill Cosby Show, Roseanne, Eine schrecklich nette Familie (Married…with Children), Ghost Whisperer, Medium, Cold Case, Without a Trace, Star Trek: Das nächste Jahrhundert (ST:TNG), Xena, Relic Hunter, Sliders
- RTL II - Alf, Immer wieder Jim (According to Jim), Hör mal, wer da hämmert (Home Improvement), Andromeda, Stargate, Yes, Dear, Invisible Man, Law & Order: New York (Special Victims Unit), Nash Bridges, Jeff Corwin, X-Factor, Oliver’s Twist (The Naked Chef), A-Team
- VOX - CSI:NY, Criminal Intent (Law & Order: CI), The District, Dr. Quinn - Ärztin aus Leidenschaft (Dr. Quinn - Medicine Woman), Gilmore Girls, The Closer, Boston Legal, Profiler
- Premiere Serie stuff not offered in English (all reruns) - Akte X (X-Files), The Addams Family, Newlyweds, Moesha, Cheers, Cosby Show, Das Imperium - Die Colbys (this is Dallas or Knot’s Landing or something like that, isn’t it?), Baywatch Nights, Matlock, Roswell
- Sci-Fi (pay tv - reruns) - 6 Mio. Dollar Man, Earth 2, Raumschiff Enterprise (Star Trek), PSI Factor, Spider-Man, Fantasy Island, 7 Mio. Dollar Frau (Bionic Woman, right?), Raumschiff Enterprise - Das nächste Jahrhundert (ST:TNG), Battlestar Galactica, Outer Limits, Invisible Man, ST: Deep Space Nine, Sliders
- 13th Street (pay tv - reruns) - CSI:Miami, Quincy, T.J. Hooker, Knight Rider, Criminal Intent (Law & Order: CI), Kojak, Law & Order, Pretender, American Gothic
Whew! This is more work than I thought it would be. Okay, one final segment, if you like… , check out…
- American Idol - Deutschland sucht den Superstar (on RTL)
- Honey, We’re Killing the Kids - Besser Essen, Leben leicht gemacht (on ProSieben), and Liebling, wir bringen die Kinder um (on RTL2) - thanks Jul
- Ugly Betty - Verliebt in Berlin (on Sat1)
- Who Wants to be a Millionaire? - Wer wird Millionär? (on RTL)
- Big Brother - Big Brother (RTL II)
- Wife Swap - Frauentausch (RTL II)
- Today/Good Morning America - Morgenmagazin (Das Erste/ZDF) or Frühstücksfernsehen (SAT 1), there is also Volle Kanne (ZDF), but I don’t like it, I don’t want to watch people eating breakfast while they chat!
- Access Hollywood/Entertainment Tonight - Explosiv-Das Star Magazin (RTL), blitz (SAT1) or taff (Pro 7)… in addition to entertainment news, the German shows have general interest news stories as well, like teen drinking, weight loss, smoking laws, etc.
- America’s Next Top Model - Germany’s Next Top Model (with host Heidi Klum on Pro 7 - thanks Martina!)
- before/after home improvement shows - Wohnen nach Wunsch (Vox) and I thought there was one called Einsatz in Vier Wänden, but I can’t find it in the TV Spielfilm (and thanks again Martina!)
- The Office - try Stromberg (tip from Jul)
What else is there? I’m sure there’s more!
I’ve heard good things about Tatort (a detective show), but have never gotten into it. I’m addicted to Quiz Taxi (there’s an American version, but I hated it, I’ve been in a taxi, like, once in my 27 years living in the US, but in Germany I ride in taxis every once in a while). Any German shows you’d recommend?
And I hope this helps some of you searchers out there!
So worth it…
Fresh out of the oven!
Warm and covered in cream cheese frosting
A cinnamon-y spiral of sugar perfection!I’m still standing… barely!
Sorry I haven’t been posting, but I’ve been completely exhausted for almost a week now. It’s exactly the way I felt in the first trimester and I’ve been spending half the day in bed (and the other half vegged out in front of the TV). I’ve been trying to read Collapse by Jared Diamond, but my concentration is so bad that I’ll probably need to reread it! Not only that, my belly is sore (it’s finally starting to show up), I’ve got killer heartburn, I’m jonesing for cinnamon rolls (my first craving - I’ve got a recipe and the ingredients but not the energy to make them, sadly - they’re seriously complicated!), my back’s been hurting and my sciatica has been acting up (so sitting at the computer is not exactly a pleasant experience). No need to worry though! I’m sure I’ll be back up and around and blogging in no time (and Oliver’s fine too, doing backflips day and night, in fact). So, until that time, I recommend that you check out some of the blogs that I read (see sidebar on right), all are excellent!
For all you Star Trek fans
Wil Wheaton has been outdoing his normal awesome self and written some brilliant and touching posts on life behind the scenes of Star Trek. There’s the story of how he met William Shatner (part 1 and part 2), then a blog post about being a celebrity:
When we were waiting to clear customs, a young girl came up to me and told me how much she loved my work. She asked me if I’d take a picture with her and her drill team, who were there for a competition or something.
I did my best to be patient and kind, but I told her that I was exhausted, and I looked and felt like hell. She was visibly disappointed, but said that she understood and apologized for bothering me.
“You know,” Anne (who had been barfing her brains out the entire flight, and surely felt worse than me) said, “that girl was really excited to meet you, and even though you’re exhausted, it only takes a minute to give her a good memory, or a lousy one.”
My first meme
I’ve been tagged by Blythe over at Blythe Spirit, so here goes:
Name five things you love in your new country:
1. Cheese and bread selection
2. Public transportation - although DC’s Metro is pretty good
3. Chickens in gardens - I love how people keep chickens in their gardens, it’s so cool to walk around the neighborhood and watch the chickens. I want chickens when we get a house!
4. Well-trained dogs - at least half the dogs are off leash and walk loyally and quietly next to their owners, I’m so jealous.
5. Sauerbraten
Name four things that you miss from your native country:
1. Big, fresh salad bars with mescaline salad mix, ripe and tasty tomatoes, garbanzo beans, sprouts, croutons, blue cheese dressing, etc.
2. Ripe tropical fruit
3. Smiling at and friendly small talk with strangers
4. The ease of making acquaintances - I think good friendships take the same amount of time either place, but getting someone to have lunches with or go to the movies with is easier in the States.
Name three things that annoy you a bit (or much) in your new country:
1. Smoking everywhere
2. Dog poop everywhere
3. Lack of blacks and Asians (and the way blacks and Asians are sometimes treated by a few folks here)
Name two things that surprise you (or surprised you in the beginning) in your new country:
1. Unending bureaucracy, whatever happened to German efficiency?
2. Plus-size clothes = granny clothes, no exceptions
Name one thing that you would miss terribly in your new country, if you had to leave it:
1. The lack of competitiveness with neighbors. Germans are (at least compared to Amis) not very materialistic. There’s no real sense of who has the biggest house, car, ring, bank account, etc.
And I tag: J, Haddock, Heather, Claire, and Traveller One.
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This week has been pretty crazy. I met a bunch of folks at the Girlie Weekend, Monday we had training with the dog guy, then Tuesday I had breakfast with a very cool woman in Regensburg that I met through this blog. Today I had lunch with another cool woman and her super cute toddler that I met through the German Way, and now I need to get ready to meet the dog guy. He stopped by this afternoon to ask if we’d like to let the dogs play and I said Rainer was out of town (the other night he talked to Rainer the whole time, so I assumed he mainly wanted to befriend Rainer). But no, he wanted to know if I’d meet him, so I said sure. I am a socializing maniac this week!
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