Eighth week of the year--done.

Exciting title isnt it? Thats the best I could do right before I goto bed. So this week was the exciting foray into german health care. You I have four wisdom teeth that have no purpose whatsoever. They�re free loading teeth, using me four fresh blood and a warm place to stay. Well my body is not a welfare state, so they're getting extracted on March 15th. It costs me 10 dollars in copay, pain for a week, and lots of bloody bandages. The oral surgeon here suggested I have only two done at once, but I elected all four just to get it over with, pain be damned. I'm sure to not like the decision the day after.

The health care over here is a socialist system, where everyone recieves and everyone pays--17% out of your check--and your employer pays another 17%. No physicals and no background checks or previous conditions. Just sign the dotted line and you have insurance. Amazingly, appointments are not the norm--you walk in (early if your smart) and wait to be seen for most doctor and dental visits. One day I waited three hours and then left--my patience wore out and I swore at this ridiculous system. The next day I made sure I was there at opening and was seen within 15 minutes. My pocket english-german dictionary was getting a work out--all the doctors speak fairly good english--but receptionists and nurses is a different story. The german questionaires were god awful. I ended up just marking NO to every question. Translating was too damn difficult as half the words werent in my pocket dictionary. Somehow you can get therapeutic massages (so many per year) also covered by insurance--I have to figure that out soon!

Wednesday I finally move into my new apartment and am excited to do so. It does not have a oven, so I went to german ebay and bought a microwave/grill/hot-fan-air oven. It does it all! If you want--you can program it to do all three. When you have 220V outletts more appliances with more power is possible. The grill is a big ass heating element on top that claims you can cook a steak with. Or weinershnitzel. I love the weinerschnitzel. HOw can you not love batter fried steak? mmmmmm.

So this weekend I had nothing to do--so I decided I needed a hobby--something fun i could do/see everyday. I thought a small garden or a couple of plotted plants would be fun (and easy). But then I thought--those plants are gonna die for sure--I sometimes forget to feed me--how am I gonna remember to feed/water them? Lets face it--they would be compost in a month. So I says to myself,'' Self, how are we going to keep those plants alive?'' A cactus to boring for me--not much ever happens. Then it hits me--get fun and cool colorful plants I NEVER have to water! How is this possible you ask? An Plant aquarium of course!! The plants sit in the water--and therefore never need watering---BRILLIANT I think!

So thats what I did this weekend. I setup up a 16g/60L aquarium with over a dozen little plants. Their my new pets. It even has CO2 injection in the water for faster plant growth. How do I manage this you ask? tanks, regulators, refills all cost alot right? You are right--so I didnt do it that way. I did it dirt-ass-cheap method. Half cup of sugar, teaspoon of yeast in a 2 liter bottle--dissolve in water and you have a generated trickle of CO2 that lasts for 2-3 weeks! After a week, I will drop in a couple of siamese algae eaters--tank gets clean and poop fertilizes the plants. All interesting--but a hell of a lot more work than I thought it was going to be--but it was fun being busy with something else besides journals and research proposals. I will get a picture of my new found hobby up as soon as I can. I had a bit of luck too-the pet store guy helping me was a student botanist and spoke english. He said he'd been to florida once to check out the everglades. He thought the swamps were fascinating.....hmmmmm.