March Link Love

I can’t believe that it’s already March! 2018 is flying by and it’s time for my March Link Love.

Books

I actually did not read much so far. Right now I’m reading Outlander, but I’m not hooked yet. These are some other books on my night table that I’m planning to read soon.

Der Rosie-Effekt/The Rosie Effect by Graeme Simsion

Die Spuren meiner Mutter by Jodi Piccult

The Yes Brain by Dan Siegel

Olympics

We watched a LOT of the Winter Olympics and it was so much fun. There was a slight post-olympic blues at our house, but we managed to get over it. My niece visiting made it easier for all of us.

Norway is dominating the medal count, and it’s time somebody did something about it is a very funny article from Dan Wetzel about Norway dominating the Winter Olympics. He writes: “You can’t turn around here at the Winter Olympics without finding: 1) smiling South Koreans, 2) servings of delicious kimchi and 3) another Norwegian winning a damn medal.” Well, the Germans fought pretty hard to win the medal count, but missed winning the 16th gold medal within in ace playing a spectacular ice hockey final against Russia.

And, have you seen the Germans (well, actually they are from France and the Ukraine) win the Gold medal in figure skating? It was amazing. My whole family squeezed together on the sofa, had all our fingers crossed (alle Daumen gedrückt) and I got goosebumps watching them. It helped. Here you can watch it once more, because it is just beautiful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bNOnXTe4Ok

Parenting teenagers

Do you have teenagers at home? Does it get more difficult to connect to them? Are they uncommunicative? Here are twenty questions you can ask them instead of “How was your day?” I added the English translation here.

20 Fragen an Dein Kind statt “Na, wie war dein Tag?”

Why aren’t we talking about parenting teenagers by Renegade Mothering

The Negative Voices in Your Teenager’s Head

Parkland broke my heart, once more. And it made me furious. I have to worry about my children, about all children really. And I don’t understand the discussion about school safety. I don’t want the school windows to be bulletproof, I demand gun laws that prevent dangerous, mentally ill people from buying automatic rifles, or even better, any weapons at all. This teacher spoke from my heart.

After Parkland: A Letter from a Furious Teacher

Blogs

Some fellow German expat blogger are Rena, Claudia and Nancy.

Rena lives in New York City and shares her stories on Life Science.

Claudia writes about her life in Sweden on Blaugelbgemischtes – My life as a Swede by choice.

Nancy blogs about everyday and bizarre life of a small expat family in Charleston, SC on Fuzzy Facts.

Check them out!

Friendship, finance & Flaschenpost

Anna Goldfarb shares some ideas of How to Maintain Friendships.

If you’re thinking about buying a house, think twice, because the Silicon Valley has become so expensive that it is not just painful, but it makes you cringe.

Silicon Valley is so expensive that even Facebook and Apple employees can’t afford to live near the office.

At the beach of Wedge Island, Australia, a woman found a 132-year old message in a bottle aka “Flaschenpost” from a German sailboat. The goal of the message was to find out more about ocean currents.

Deutsche Flaschenpost nach 132 Jahren entdeckt.

And some more articles to read:

Movies

I watched Willkommen bei den Hartmanns at the Berlin & Beyond Film Festival in San Francisco. This movie manages to tell the story of a refugee in a fun, yet intelligent way and encourages the Germans to stay on the right path of integrating the people who are in need of help.

Congratulations to The Shape of Water for winning the Oscar for best motion picture. Unfortunately, I still haven’t seen it. But I highly recommend Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. I. Love. This. Movie. And there was no way, Frances McDormand could not have won the Oscar for best actress. Her speech was brilliant, too. The movie is rated R for a good reason though.