I'm in Anaheim for OOPSLA 2003. Forgive my pidgin Deutsch, but I've found myself thinking about the lingusitic hybrid that names my destination. It's a peculiar locution. The suffix "-heim" in German mean "home", and is usually, I think, associated with something bigger than a "-dorf" (village, I think), but smaller than a "-stadt". Then again, size is relative, I suppose. The Ana is the same Santa Ana (Saint Anne) that gave the winds that are whipping those incredible brush fires down there their names. The marriage of the German -suffix with the Mex-American saints seems oddly charming. Only in Die Vereinigen Staaten...
Some of the long-in-the-tooth hotels sport what was supposed to pass for a Bavarian theme three or four decades ago. Like the name itself, this motif contrasts a little uncomfortably with the omnipresent palm trees. And like all of the Post War construction in Southern California, much of it hasn't aged all that well...
