My Second "I'm Sort of Homesick" Post

Hey folks! It's not so bad, really. Here are the things I miss the most:

1. Family (obviously). This applies both in California and Washington. The Chinese extended family is a really comfortable thing, and stabilizing (even if the family itself isn't the most stable!). Our Sunday night dinners are something that I feel the lack of really strongly, which brings me to something else I miss so so much:

2. King Wah. This is the best Chinese food place in the Bay Area, in my opinion, and for all who are in the neighborhood and don't go there often, please visit King Wah on 9th Street between Webster and Franklin and give them my love. Especially give them my love by eating the chow mein and the won ton soup. In general, I miss Chinese food, Thai food, Mexican food, Indian food, and many other cuisines that are based heavily on vegetables and spice. There is not so much of that here. Salt and pork, anyone?

3. My friends. Oh, how sad to be so far away from my friends. Admittedly, many of them no longer reside in the Bay Area, but somehow being on the same continent, even 3,000 miles away, seems so much closer, doesn't it?

4. Movies and television in English for when I'm feeling brain dead. The only thing I can really relax to here is CNN International and the German show Quiz Taxi, which is sort of like that show Cash Cab they play on I-don't-know-what channel in the States. On a side note to this, I just watched the movie The Pianist for the first time, and I know I'm behind the curve on that one. I don't know if I'm glad I waited until after our trip to Warsaw to watch it or not. On the one hand, it was terribly sad, and maybe it would've cast a dark shadow over our time in Warsaw, but on the other hand...actually, I think the two hands are the same in this scenario. I think the dark shadow would be fitting, no matter how sad.

Those are the main things that are really driving me crazy right now. Of course, there are other, smaller nagging desires, like bookstores stocked with books I can read, the ocean, the ability to get out in the wide empty space between the Bay Area and Sacramento, things priced in US Dollars, etc. Those things are not so hard to deal with, though. There are many things I don't miss though, such as the mud-slinging political commercials that run at all hours in these months of primaries and the hours spent sitting in traffic. I can do without those things quite well, thank you very much.

Berlin is still pleasing, though, despite all the griping. We've been having pretty constant rain and some intense wind that makes me look like a mime when I walk down the street sometimes, and I'm surprised that I actually miss sunshine, but the weather has gotten warmer since the beginning of the month, thankfully. All my various jobs are actually sort of pleasing and interesting, especially when I get to tutor people that were living in East Germany and have all sorts of stories to tell. We've been cooking a lot to stay out of the cold, and my phobia of kitchens has somewhat abated. And, perhaps most importantly, I've been writing a lot. Enough said about that.
I have no pictures to share because we've been boring boring boring homebodies for the last couple of weeks. As soon as I get the gumption to go out wandering again, I'm going to snap some of the street art in this city. There are some amazing pieces spread all over Berlin, and I feel the need to share them with you.
That's all for tonight. I'll probably stay up very very late tomorrow night waiting for the results of the South Carolina primaries, so maybe I'll blog deliriously at 3 in the morning, but I hope not, because the chances that I'll ramble uncontrollably are directly proportionate to how exhausted I am. With that said, I'll be back again soon.