MoldovAnn

Scott’s at a techie-geek conference (or in his words “big European consumer electronics show”) in Berlin this week, writing articles for the website CrunchGear.com. He stopped first in the Netherlands for a tour of the Phillips Research Labs, which is first articles are about. Very cool!

I attended the “roof festival” for the new center “Our Kids”, which is being built for street children in Kyiv. As the head of the German-Polish-Ukrainian Society, the organization implementing this project, explained, a roof festival is both a German and Polish tradition (and apparently an old Ukrainian tradition, too, that seems to have been lost in modern times) when people get together to celebrate the completion of a roof on a building under construction. We would have liked to have had an Opening Ceremony, but the construction gods weren’t ready to let that happen quite yet.

The workers worked their buns off the last 48 hours before the ceremony. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw how much they had accomplished so quickly – they even managed to get some flowers planted to brighten up the territory. Every other time I’d been at the site, there were 3 or 4 melancholy-looking men and women, usually standing around, smoking cigarettes, not even attempting to look busy. This morning, there was a crew of at least 30, cleaning windows, sweeping off the freshly-placed pavers, and moving the hordes of boards, wires, and other construction materials and trash out of sight. As Igor showed me around the site a few hours before the ceremony, I made a not-so-subtle comment as we passed the head of construction – “Gee, imagine how much would be done by now if they had this many people working here every day!”

The list of bigwigs was impressive, including dignitaries and donors who flew in from Germany and Poland. The ceremony was very nice, and it is a true credit to the Baroness (the head of the G-P-U Society) that the project has gotten this far. It was her vision to create this center, and it has been her blood, sweat, and tears, that have convinced people to contribute their time and resources.

There is still a lot of work to be done before the first building can open this autumn – after which construction will begin on the second and third buildings!

I have a cold. Two completely free days in Bonn – with tons of shops, beautiful parks, interesting museums and galleries, and I barely have the energy to get out of bed. Oh, cruel fate!

I did manage to get across the street yesterday to the natural foods shop. Heavenly! I roamed the aisles for 45 minutes or so, reveling the huge variety of organic foods, all-natural household supplies, and more. Germans seem very keen on “clean and natural.” I’ve seem people of all ages riding bicycles around town, in suits as well as sport clothes. The streets and parks are amazingly clean, and recycling seems fully integrated into the culture. There is rarely just one trash bin, but instead two or three in a row for the different kinds of trash. I haven’t figured all that out yet – who would have thought it would be so complicated to throw away your garbage! I went to the pharmacy to get some relief from my cold, and I couldn’t even get drugs with actual drugs in them. One pharmacist recommended a decongestant “from flowers.” Another gave me an “all-natural” nasal spray. Maybe they are better you in the long run, but geez, give me some Nyquil and good old-fashioned chemicals to make me feel better now!

Germans are also conscientious with natural resources, as well. Escalators that start up when a person approaches, instead of running constantly, using electricity, when no one is riding on them. Hallway lights that turn on as you walk along the corridor, instead of burning constantly when no one is around. There’s a little sign in my hotel bathroom encouraging use of the towels more than one time, so as to conserve on water usage.

So, given all this obsession with clean, conservation, and natural, it is a real surprise to see about 2 out of 3 people, of all ages, smoking up a storm. And they smoke everywhere, inside and outside. A no-smoking section in a restaurant? Hah! Even in Ukraine, I can (usually) get a no-smoking table, even if it is in the corner next to the bathroom. During our coffee breaks during last week’s workshop, all the smokers headed to the break room to light up and have a cup of coffee. I was not alone in being surprised by the smoking inside, and the utter lack of consideration for the non-smokers. Yuck, I hate smoking so much! It’s such a bizarre contradiction to be surrounded by Germans and German residents who seem so committed to a healthy lifestyle (bike riding, organic foods, natural medicines), and then these same people are sucking chemical-laden smoke into their lungs and spewing it back out in the faces of everyone around them.

Well, I’m hoping my non-drug drugs will kick in today and give me some relief so I can get out and enjoy the town. On the other hand, I won’t be missing much today. The country is closed on Sundays, and most shops close at 8 pm on other days of the week. I think I missed my window of shopping opportunity yesterday when I was comatose in my hotel room. I’ll be in training sessions at the UNV headquarters until 6 or 6:30 for the next two days, which won’t leave much time (or energy) for anything else in the evenings. Looks like I’ll be getting most of my presents at Duty Free on Wednesday morning!