EuroLIfe: Day 121

The Joys of Fish & Chips

I have no idea why it took me so long to come-up with this idea, but tonight Michael and I went to Jena's one and only Irish Pub. I had walked past it a few times, though it's not on our usual daily path, and thought to myself "I should check that out one of these days." Then, about a week and a half ago, I noticed that they have live folk music. I had been half looking for a place to play in Jena, and this seemed my best bet. Plus, I thought, I bet they have fish & chips!

So we headed off this evening with a mixture of excitement and apprehension. I was so excited about the prospects of fish & chips, but I did not want to be burned like I was at the American bar & grill. If the "American" hamburger could taste like that, who knew what to expect of "Irish" fish & chips--if they even offered them.

I am most pleased to report that they had fish & chips, and they were delicious! Michael says they were the best he's ever had, but I am afraid I can't concur with him there. Nothing has topped McDonough's fish & chips in Galway, but I suppose that's a bit much to expect. In any case, we had a great night at what felt very much like a real Irish pub. From the moment we walked in I marveled at how Irish the place felt. It may have been the smell of Guinness on tap, or the dark woody feel of the place, but it felt more like the pubs in Galway than any Irish pub outside of Ireland that I have been to. I never did figure out exactly why the place was so evocative of Ireland, but it is my new favorite place in Jena. I just love it. And, they have alcohol free Becks--which goes quite nicely with fish & chips.

My plan is to try to secure at least one gig there before my belly gets to big to accommodate the guitar while standing :) Whether or not I succeed, it turns out they have a monthly Irish music circle, where people just come with their instruments and play together. I am very excited about this. The Irish pub in South Bend had one, and I always regretting not going. Apparently, they get about a dozen folks here in Fiddler's Green. I can' t wait to check it out!

One more thing of note: The baby, it seems, is a big fan of Irish music. Or at least that's what I'm telling myself. After a week of incredible activity, this little one has been rather quiet for the past two days. (Being something of a worrier, this has not been my favorite situation.) On Saturday, the baby was a kung-fu master in training, kicking with so much force that Michael was able to feel a good, solid kick. That morning, the kicks were so hard that it really startled me a few times while I was working in the library. Well, the kid tuckered himself or herself out, apparently, because there's been very little activity for a few days now. Today and yesterday in particular, I barely felt anything--just the occasional tap. Then we got to Fiddler's Green, with the Irish music playing full blast, and the little one started to kick quite a bit. Nothing crazy like Saturday's antics, but the child for sure perked up. This made me very happy. Not having married an Irishman, I am going to have to learn to deal with the fact that my child is going to be less than 50% Irish. It's good to know that those genes are strong, and that the baby is already developing keen musical taste. As I said, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

EuroLIfe: Day 119

Dominic Hixon--The Real Star of the NY Giants

Yes, that's right; you may not have heard much about old Dominic Hixon, but let me tell you--he is a star of epic proportions. At least, he is here in Germany.

As I said, our Superbowl announcers were German. In addition to explaining a bit of the rules of American football--something your American announcers probably did not do--our announcers filled us in on the joys and great successes of Dominic Hixon--Germany's NFL star. It turns out that Dominic, born in Ohio, has a German mother. Or maybe just a German grandmother, we were not completely clear. In any case, he is Germany's NFL pride and joy. He does not seem to speak much German, but they don't mind. (He did say "Hallo Oma, Ich liebe dich!", but apart from his little shout-out to Grandma, they interviewed him in English.)

We watched Hixon all night long. As far as we can tell, the German network was using Fox's broadcast but had some flexibility as to which camera's feed they showed when. (They did not seem to have control over replays, often finding themselves without much to say about a particular scene being replayed.) We came to this conclusion about a half-hour into the Superbowl after deciding that Fox simply could not be responsible for the fact that Hixon was in EVERY shot of the sidelines. I tell you, if we were not watching the action on the field, we were watching Hixon walk around on the sidelines or enter or leave the field. These shots were accompanied with commentary along the following lines: "And there we see him, Dominic Hixon", "There he is! See, he was on the field for the kickoff!" (Really, that's a real one!) And so on. All night long. It was really very, very amusing.

Here's the very best part: During the extremely exciting last 3 minutes of the game, the announcers said--and I quote (translated, of course): "What will it be? Will it be Tom Brady and the New England Patriots, or Dominic Hixon and the New York Giants???" At that point we all lost it.

One final, funny moment--not related to Hixon. At one point, the announcer said something about a "third down convention" (he used this English phrase) and how common they are. I was confused, thinking perhaps he meant the tradition of getting the fans all riled up to make some noise on the third down. Michael, a bit quicker than me, said "Um, I think he meant third-down conversion." Sure enough, a while later the Patriots scored a third down conversion and the announcer yelled--with great gusto and undo confidence--"Ya! Third Down Convention!"

So that's what it's like to watch the Superbowl in Germany. We watched the whole thing, though it ended sometime past 4am. It was an incredible game, and worth staying up for.

I will say this: I am quite sure that American announcers would look ridiculous trying to follow a Cricket match. In fact, I think we have a bit of a reputation for being very silly (and chatty) announcers when it comes to the World Cup--and that's a game that we play, if only a little. So I mean to pass no judgment on Germany here, only to note that watching the Superbowl in Germany is an experience I will never forget.

Here's hoping Notre Dame can score a few Third Down Conventions next fall.


Oh, for further support of our claims see the following blog--also written by an American who watched the superbowl in Germany. I don't know who this person is, but when I googled Dominic Hixon, it was one of the (few) hits that I got:

http://corner.bigblueinteractive.com/index.php?mode=2&thread=274057

EuroLIfe: Day 117

Jena Half-Time Report

It's 2:08 (AM) and here we are, gathered around our itty bitty television, watching the Superbowl. Presently, we are watching the half-time show. It's funny to note how they've switched to middle aged men ever since the old "wardrobe malfunction."

The game started around 12:15, and our American friends Jeff and Laura came to watch it here. We talked about going to the American Bar and Grill to watch it, or to the other big sports bar downtown, but neither one is staying open for the game. (What kind of American Bar and Grill doesn't stay open for the Superbowl? Between that and the state of their hamburgers, I'm considering a call to a local embassy to discuss the ways we are being represented here in Jena.) Fortunately, the game is being broadcast on a channel that we get with our very basic cable package.

Here's the best part: The commentators are German! It's the Fox broadcast, but there are two German commentators right there in the stadium--one is a former player who won the superbowl in 2000. So, here are some of the fantastic words and expressions that we have heard since the start of the game. I present in increasing order, according to how amusing I found them to be:

• Durch der Mittel! (Through the middle.)
• Gut Arbeit, gute gemacht. (Good work, nicely done)
• Super! (Pronounced Zooper!)
• Gepuntet (say it out loud, you'll know.)

And last, but not least:

• Gesacked!

One nice thing about watching the game here is the total lack of commercials. We haven't seen one yet. Unfortunately, I fear that this might feed the European view that football is a preposterous game that involves a lot of standing around and waiting. Why? Because every time you all take a commercial break, we watch the football players stand around and wait.

I'm not sure I'll make it to the end...it is not 2:20 and my bed is oh so close. We shall see. In the meantime, Go Giants!

EuroLIfe: Day 116

No Pictures, But a Mystery for Our Readers

So I went to get a prescription filled today, and I discovered something curious. The drug has a different name and a different price in Germany, but its the same chemical substance, and its made by the same company. We're talking about a big difference in price. At the current exchange rate, the drug costs $75 a month in Germany, but it costs $180 a month in the US. (I should add that there is now one licensed generic in the US, which goes for $125 a month.) I remember reading something about the price difference a few years ago, but I was surprised to see how dramatic it was.

Here's my educated guess/recollection about the reason for the price difference: Europe has pretty lax laws about property rights when it comes to prescriptions. So in order to avoid losing the market to generics knock-offs, drug companies sell their own products at reduced rates (and at times, under different names).

Now obviously Wyeth -- the drug company who makes my medication -- still makes a profit selling the drug for $75. This means that the production and distribution costs are less than $75, and that the other $105, which I pay in the US, consists in (a) money for research and development and (b) extra profit.

So there are two interpretations of what's going on here. One: The price of prescription drugs in the US subsidizes drug research and development for consumers in Europe. Or, stated differently, US customers pay the price of production plus the prices of research, while the European customer pays the price of production plus perhaps some smaller portion of the research. Two: The Europeans have recognized that drug companies make "excessive" profits, and in order to bring down prices into a "fair" range, they have lax laws about this particular form of intellectual property rights. Presumably, both points have a bit of truth.

This raises three questions that I hope you, our brilliant and informed readers, will try to answer.

1) Is there any non-arbitrary way to determine what counts as a "fair" price for a given medication. It can't be determined by the supply and demand mechanisms of the market. Or at least if it were, it would be impossible for the market to charge an unfair price, since the fairness of the price would simply be defined by what the market charged and what the buyers paid. In determining a minimum fair price for a product, one might begin by thinking about the amount of labor that went into the product and the idea of "living wage" in the country where the product was produced. Of course the notion of a "living wage" is pretty vague, since the workers in sweatshops probably aren't dying and being replaced every nine months. In other words, they are receiving enough to live, though often not enough to live the way we would want other humans to live. But in any case, the notion of a "living wage" only helps to determine a minimum fair price, not a maximum fair price.

Suppose a drug costs ten dollars to make (including research) and suppose it is sold for $110. This certainly seems unfair, but I can't come up with any principle that shows why. (Moreover, does it make a difference what the product is? What about brand name tennis shoes that bring in the same amount of profit? I don't really think that either case is realistic, but they raise the basic issue).

2) How does the price of drugs currently get determined in the US. It isn't determined by supply and demand. For those people (84%) and drugs (surely a high percentage of the drugs taken, if not the drugs that are out there) covered by health insurance, the person receiving the drug probably doesn't know the cost of the drug, much less make a decision on the basis of the cost. (I only know the cost of my medication, which shocked me, because I payed it out of pocket for a few months between insurances). So most people taking drugs don't make their decision based on the cost of the drug. Surely doctors don't write prescriptions on that basis either, unless the patient will be paying for the drug. So who determines what the drugs cost? How do they do it?

3) Finally, a factual question: for any given year, what is the ratio of Wyeth's profit to the amount of money they spend on research and development? Surely that ratio ought to give me some rough estimate of how much of the extra $105 I spend on my medication in the US goes to R&D and how much ends up as profit.

EuroLife: Day 115

This, by way of reminder, is our table. It is our kitchen table, our computer table, and--now--our poker table. It is not the biggest table we've ever had, but it is slowly becoming the best candidate for "all-purpose table" that I know of.

Michael and I had 3 friends over for dinner and poker last night. I made our new favorite soup and Michael made a salad and picked up some wonderful bread from a local Italian bakery. (German bread is nice, but sometimes I need something with a little more olive oil and a little less, well, density.) The soup is a carrot, sweet potato and ginger concoction that comes out of a cookbook that Moira gave me entitled "Eating for Pregnancy." (The recipe actually calls for butternut squash, but it's out of season here and unavailable so I use sweet potatoes.) After dinner, we told our guests--Tim, Timo and Laura--where I got the recipe. Then Michael implied that, having eaten the soup, they could all expect pregnancy to follow. (Timo wanted to know if this particular soup resulted in a boy, or a girl.)

Despite our table limitations, and our lack of poker chips, it was great to be playing again. Four of us played, and Laura watched to learn the game. Tim and Timo brought a variety of beer and actually brought some alcohol-free beer for me which, here in Germany, is really not bad. There was a great deal of discussion as to which beer was the lucky one. For a long time, Timo was convinced that Michael had chosen the lucky beer. Then the first round of beers ran out, and decisions had to be made. Once again, Timo chose an unlucky beer and things went poorly for him. We heard him on this phone with his girlfriend explain in a very matter of fact tone: "No, I'm out...Yeah, I chose the wrong beer." It may have been funnier in German, or in the context of the evening, but while Timo went on chatting the rest of us could not stop laughing for a while.

In the end, it was a great night. We hope it will be the first of many poker nights! And, as it turns out, I had the luckiest beer of all. Whether or not this has anything to do with the fact that my beer was nonalcoholic, I leave it to you to judge.