• German Language Podcasts | Chris Abraham
• I am connected to the world through Squeezebox Radio — Chris Abraham

• PR Communications: Agency Transparency On Client Social Media Channels

My friend Elisabeth King isn’t the only person in Berlin who heats her flat exclusively with burning coal. A real coal burning stove. A real coal stove!

Here’s the front of the coal-fired stove that Elisabeth uses to heat her Berlin apartment. The vent at the top,

I assume, feeds the flame and the metal boxes below are where one puts the coal. I need to do some more research on this.

While Berliners now commonly use gas and electric heating, quite a few of the flats in the East of Berlin — the former DDR — still thrive like the old days.

Coal is delivered into the basement or schlepped from a vendor and then, every few days, Elisabeth needs to bundle up and head down to the basement where she stacks up as many pressed bricks of coal as she can carry — more if I am helping out.

She then keeps both her living room’s ornate and beautiful heating stove and the cooking stove in her kitchen lit and stoked.

It is really quite amazing, rather charming, and I am told, very annoying when she needs to get up super-early in the AM in order to light her stove so that the apartment will be warm and happy by the time she gets up for the second time.

Here’s a little, adorable, coal-powered, cooking stove. I wonder what the rocks are for? Are they a way of testing the heat of the stove or some way of radiating the heat into the room? If anyone knows, please let me know.

She’s an amazing sport and the apartment is gorgeous and very affordable, so all is well.

And, she does have electrical outlets, so she does have a heating pad in her bed to help with the warmth and an electric kettle in her kitchen to make sure she has ready water for her tea.

These are pressed-coal bricks used to heat apartments and homes in Berlin and in greater germany — many still have wood and coal-fed heaters and ovens and many people prefer it that way.

I think it is very charming and doing it this ways makes one very aware of how much and how many resources we use instead of just running the gas or the electricity.

These days when I am in the DC area I am living in Arlington, Virginia. Photographer Robin Weiner just turned me on to this masterful rap by the comedic rapper GoRemy: Arlington: The Rap

• AnnOhio Says “Get Social”

Thanks so much to Andrew and Effie for hosting a gorgeous and delicious pizza party for our New Years Eve celebration. Here I am doing Pizza Chef with my manly man pizza, which too many people thought would be too manly and meaty but was actually a party favorite (phew). Here’s Effie’s caption to this photo:

My friend Lori Gottlieb has taken a very funny controversial article in the March 2008 issue of the Atlantic and blew it out into an entire book, Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough.  I just pre-ordered it — it should be out just in time for Valentine’s Day, 2/4/2010.  Here’s some info on the book and why I think this book is so cool — what my connection is to it, aside from being friends with Lori.

Lori Gottlieb wrote a very popular and controversial article for the Atlantic Monthly magazine’s March 2008 issue: Marry Him: The case for settling for Mr. Good Enough.  Years before, Lori has interviewed me about my over-dramatic love life and then, after the fact-checker called me and checked up on me (she was more compassionate on the phone than strict — she wished me good luck and told me I was better off) I almost forgot about it.  Well, when it came out, I was indeed quoted in the Atlantic, one of my favorite modern periodicals.

• The German letter sz ß (eszet) paper in PDF from Pocket German

I am here in Berlin.  All of my German friends and most of my Expat friends speak German — except me.  So, I am doubling down by using Rosetta Stone’s TOTALe product to really get me past all of my “language shyness.”

I have been using Rosetta Stone's online version for a couple years.  They don't offer the online version any more but now offer something new online called TOTALE, which offers the same online version of the language software I have used in the past and also offers live-person, native-language speaker coaching as well opportunities to both play games and also interact with other language-learners and speakers to complete the total immersion language-learning experience.

TOTALe™ is a comprehensive online language-learning solution. Speak, read, listen and write with Rosetta Course™, participate in guided sessions with a native-speaking Coach in Rosetta Studio™, and practice your skills in our online community, Rosetta World™.