More Germany: the Turkish market

A few years ago, I spoke about supermarket shopping in Germany, and mentioned that as a vegetarian, I did a lot of shopping at the two Turkish markets in the tiny town of B. While I was there last week, I took a photo of the only one still existing in B:

Now is such a great time to shop in DE as all the local produce is available, such as tomatoes from DE (rather than Holland!).

Above is the fruit side, and here is the vegetable section:

It was very warm in my corner of Germany last week, it felt more like Spain, so the umbrellas were all up to protect the produce from the sun.

The rules! Snow clearing

I ran into my whistling downstairs neighbor tonight. He reminded me that I promised to stop by to say goodbye tomorrow, and they are looking forward to it. He was outside with a shovel and then proceeded into a diatribe of why.

'You remember Frau Nice Neighbor downstairs, the one who moved out in December? Well she got a call at 3 AM because Herr Replacement Neighbor didn't clear the back steps in a timely manner, and someone didn't have the new tenant's number. Frau Nice Neighbor called Herr Replacement who then called Whistler's Daughter (who is the Hausmeister) as he was out of town....in the 3 AM hour.' So Whister's Daughter needed to do his shovel duty, grumble grumble, grumble.

There is a complix algorithm of outside step cleaning. We pay a little extra for a cleaning service to do the inside steps and hallways (one of the reasons I liked this flat), but the outside clearing is shared among the 3 flats which have grass: Herr Replacement, Whistler's Daughter and the other nice couple. There are 3 flats, but only 2 walkways, so they do some kind of rotation, or two of them often are out together.

'This was after Herr Replacement used the wrong salt on the front steps. The front steps are not poured concrete but a different stone which is not supposed to be salted. Now the steps will need replacing soon, because the salt will eat them away and make them not safe.'

So now, Whistler's Daughter needs to do the back steps again multiple times, because it was snowing again off and on for the past few hours here in the Bergisches Land. 'But, because Herr R didn't do his step clearing in a timely manner, the snow today fell on top and froze over. So now he needs to crack the ice and scrape. it's too slick, like glass.' grumble, grumble, grumble.

To his credit, Whister's Daughter is dutifully out there keeping our steps safe whenever it snows. If it starts snowing in the evening, he'll be out there at 11 PM, and then again, usually at 5 AM he's at it again. When I drove back from Belgium he was out there at 8 PM, clearing the path to the trash bins as it was 3 inches and falling.

To the credit of the Germans, there is a shared responsibility, with rules to back it up, and as long as everyone follows the rules, efficiency reigns. The only reason I'm actually noticing this is because the system is broken. Someone is not following the rules!

Why the postal clerk needed a drink on Tuesday night

The tiny town of B has a small post office counter inside a store, standard protocol in small towns. I know all of the clerks, and they're used to me. They don't get so many foreigners in the post office as most expats working at benevolent company J live elsewhere, so anyone in B is usually married to a German or somehow has a modicum of German. That being said, they deal reasonably well with my random oddball requests in bad German, which always require them to look on their magic price lists because they are not so normal for B (a registered letter to the UK, for example.)

I had stacked up a variety of tasks, and unfortunately, the clerk working on Tuesday night is the least experienced postal clerk who gets flustered by the Germans, let alone the non-correctly speaking foreigners. I had the following tasks:

-drop off a dhl paeckchen, already prepaid online
-5 cards to the US, of varying sizes
-1 postcard to the US
-one letter within Germany
-inquire about mail forwarding

to add to the fun, I had gathered all the random little stamps I had left in various increments, so that I could use them up for this mixture of cards.

I started with the pre-paid package, no problem, although I had to point out where it says 'pre-paid'. "You paid this online?"
The 5 cards she needs to weigh and then look up, as two of them fell into the 2,20 range. Then the postcard needed to be looked up. "I'm not so familiar with postcards to USA as no one is usually sending those from here." Then the adding and subtracting of numbers to apply the existing stamps and 'did you bring this one or is it from me?' in the discombobulated stamp applying.
On the mail forwarding, she had never done it, and by then there were 5 people backed up in the line so I said I'd look into that one online. "Good idea."

I don't think she'll miss me once I leave.

circular

Certain things have been falling into place which continue to point to this move to the UK as the right thing. Last night I ran into my chatty neighbor in the hallway. I was dreading this moment, as I heard from the hallway on Tuesday night, my landlady ran into him. So I knew that he knew that I was leaving, so I knew that would spawn a massive discussion. He's a very nice fellow, but the absolute epitome of the noisy old neighbor down the street, or in my case, down the hall, and it taxes my German to the core.

Of course he was sad to see me go, and did I know that nice neighbor below me was also leaving, as of Dec 31? Most interesting to me is that nice neighbor and I arrived at the same time. When I came to view apartments I had turned down even looking at her flat as it was at ground level. He proceeded to tell me the whole background as to why she was leaving, something about the boyfriend and mother and on and on. It has a nice parallel that we came and now leave at the same time.

Exciting changes in the building. I had to fill him in on the details of my leaving, which I'm sure were promptly dissemenated and then dissected thoroughly starting that evening. Yes, the job...yes, the English language...yes, maybe some German classes would be good...yes, 'the friend'. Finally he makes his verdict, yes, this is a good move and....pause...und vielleicht in Grossbrittanien, baby machen...? (I blushed)

Gotta love that German honesty.

Don't forget to leave your shoes out

St Nick comes Friday night into Saturday.
And if you're in my neighborhood you can pop over and see him in person on Saturday night. ;-)

Dear downstairs neighbor

Please come home! I know things are going well with the boyfriend as it seems you're spending every weekend with him and you only come back on Sundays around 4. And he's pleasant enough, always saying hello when we pass in the building...

But you know this year winter is actually behaving like winter. It snowed overnight here again, just an inch or so. Then it changed to sleet, and the snow where it's piled up isn't really melting. And I decided this year not to turn on the heating...

To explain, last year I didn't turn it on at all. Granted, last year's winter was incredibly mild, and the year before I only turned it on twice. Heat in Germany is very expensive, it seems to me, compared to other places where I've lived. I saw the bills, and could easily pick out the one month where I turend it on twice.

And it's not that I'm so cheap, ahem, frugal. It just doesn't make so much sense to turn it on, because I have an advantage in that I'm in the middle of the apartment building. You're beneath me, the nice couple with the child are above me, and I'm sanwiched on the side by nice Marion, leaving really only one side and a half exposed to the great outdoors. The double-glazed windows let in nothing, so it's really quite cozy 95% of the time, naturally.

Further, it's hot water heat, through the floor. The other reason for not turning it on is that there is no 'little bit' with it. It takes about an hour to get the hot water into the pipes, then it's like the inside of an oven and you could walk about in shorts and a t-shirt, and it stays warm for hours, and quite frankly, too warm for me.

Sure, I have my little tricks to warm it up a tiny bit on days like today. I choose to wash my sheets and towels and to use my dryer (located in the bathroom). Or I make lunch with something involving oven use, today I roasted a butternut squash with garlic. Or in the evening I light a few tea light candles. Or sometimes a wine or a coffee will warm things up. I've already broken out the big guns (my eastern European wool socks), and nothing is working here.

I can feel the chill from the floor, so I know you've been away since Friday. Yeah, ok, maybe this is karmic payback for the cucumber incident, but you really handled that one gracefully, in particular as this is Germany it could have blown up with letters and posters on the door about 'intrusive gardens' but you just laughed it off. But really, couldn't you and the boyfriend stay here occasionally on a weekend?

Regards,
Your upstairs neighbor

My balcony snowman

Interviewer: H, what's this about?
H: It's a snowman.

I: Yes, I know what it is. But how did it get onto your balcony?
H: I created it there. (I'm guessing we had 5 inches of snow.)

I: And why?
H: why not?

I: Let's try another direction...how old are you?
H: Old enough to know how to make a snowman.

I: But I mean, you don't have kids...?
H: No, I'm bucking that expat trend at this time. Although Mazal tov to all concerned.

I: Er, is it normal to build a snowman on one's balcony in Germany?
H: Not that I know of.

I: Will the Germans in your building question this?
H: Nah, they're used to such odd things from 'the American' at this point. Although I'm sure someone will point out that I did it wrong. (I didn't have a carrot for the nose, so I used a pointy seashell instead!)

The view from my window

It started to snow Friday and didn't melt all weekend.
Tonight it started again and it's now a few inches.

Even more graffiti in B

Here in the tiny town of B we have these little locked boxes which dispense plastic bags, for dog owners to use in order to pick up after their dogs. Granted, B has lots of small woodsy pockets where dogs can visit, but for the most part, these boxes remain regularly stocked and appear to be used regularly.

Why the graffiti? No idea. This particular one is on a sidestreet with a kindergarten.

More graffiti near B

One of the great things about the office we moved to a while back, is that we traded life on an Industry Street for more of a residential location which backs up to farms and is criss-crossed by marked walking trails. It makes for a relaxing lunch hour walk on some days.

The interesting this about the below...one has to leave the main street of Podunk and walk 15 minutes past the cow and then corn fields, then the road turns into a farmer's dirt road. Then it turns into a marked walking path, alongside the pasture, before depositing you at the foot of the forest. Then after another 5 minutes of walking through the forest, you happen upon the following:

Non-German speakers, if you know that 'Raus!' = 'get out!' you have the message. Although I suspect they were merely borrowing from the song.

Couldn't really tell what the orange paint message was. It was a bit too weather worn or scrubbed off to be able to read what was left of it under the black paint.

How do you know it was written by a German, beside the obvious fact of it being in German?

-By the excessive use of exclamation points. It's a little difficult to see in the photo, but there are 3 of them there.

Sidenote: I proofread English messages sometimes for my German colleagues. Some messages are written both in German and English at company J. They're always a little concerned when I start removing exclamation points, like I'm somehow diluting their message. Somehow if a message says 'Please turn in the form by Friday!' no one will respond, but if it says 'Please turn in the form by Friday!!!' then compliance is guaranteed. We reached a happy medium that the number of exclamation points does not need to equate between the German and English versions of the same notice. ;-)

On the recent recent 70th anniversary

of Kristallnacht in Germany, Merkel said all of the things one would have expected.

Her speech reminds me...when I lived in Cologne, either the graffiti wasn't there, or I didn't notice it. Here in B, it's plentiful:

This is about a 5 minute walk from my flat. Not that I need to start another photo series (after the widely popular 'pigs on B rubbish bins' postings) but I easily could. I would estimate that the graffiti of this theme is 75% of B's graffiti. And it remains once it gets there, no one 'official' paints over it--although sometimes additional 'artists' will tend to modify it, as you see here with the scratches in the center.

Why I find this so interesting:

• The tiny town of B is located in the state of NRW, in a triangle formed by D'dorf, Cologne, and Leverkusen. We're not exactly in NPD territory.
• Want to study election results? here and here are quite interesting. Overall NPD took just under 1% of the NRW vote in 2005, with B giving 1,2%.
• B has approx 17k residents, including the surrounding ultra tiny neighborhoods and farms. It tends to be seen as a sleepy village where only one bar is open past 10 pm on Saturday nights rather than a center of any type of political strife.

Therefore I remain curious--who has the gumption and incentive to be painting the town? Bored and disgruntled kids...or someone else?

just when i think i've heard everything...

Thursday is English class night. I always spend a few minutes chatting with the student's mother. She only had school English, so she likes to practice it. Although now that she knows I'm taking a test this month she makes an extra effort to speak German to me. Although we've drifted naturally into a happy medium--I speak to her in English and she answers in German.

She was explaining to me about how the daughter had recently bought a pet bird. Each week I've received an update from the daughter about what the bird is doing. Then last week they received a letter--from the 'Animal Amt'. Just when I thought I had heard about all Amts, a new one. (Non-German speakers: in Germany an 'Amt' is a governing body of sorts, and for any official business you can guarantee there is one out there, regulating things and providing order and structure. I.e. you send in your taxes to the Finance Amt.)

She explains--'we did not register the bird with the...'Animal Amt' or 'House pet Amt'...not sure of their exact responsibility area...nor did we know it existed even', but upon buying the bird locally they had given their name and address, and all legally sold birds are sold with a number tag around the ankle, so this data is reported to the Amt.

So the Animal Amt was in contact because there was some kind of bird virus going around local birds, so they were being informed as this virus can also be transferred to humans. So this Amt was recommending that they take the bird to their vetrinarian in order to get a certain test done to be sure that their bird was not carrying this virus.

There truly is an Amt for everything.

Gotta pay your dues...

Background music for perusing the below: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=eUbntU2N7xY

Non-German speakers-->this is the letter from the local town hall, inviting me to pay and then come pick up my passport with my permanent residency sticker in it.

Today's hailstorm in my corner of NRW

here at the beginning and at the 45 second mark, you can see my humble little peppers, the last real non-herb bit of the garden.

More cartoon signs from B - the pig series

In the Tiny town of B, all is in order, always. We have shops in the tiny downtown which are open at appropriate hours, companies like 'big American company J' employ people and sponser events in town, we have buses ferrying people around town and to the nearby train station, and every bus stop is complete with one bench and a trash can which is regularly emptied, on schedule, by whoever is in charge of that in B.

And all over the tiny town of B, every government sponsered trash bin has a pig cartoon:

I'm not sure if it changes the behavior (either positively or negatively) of the average German, putting pig cartoons on trash cans, but it enabled me to learn 'das Ferkel' (piggy, piglet) a whole lot faster than I would have otherwise, as I'll see it on average 3-5 times for every 10 minutes walked through town.

My favorite sign in the tiny town of B

The tiny town of B has a small downtown area, including 2 pocket sized parks. The larger one (the one I refer to as 'ugly as sin' park) has this at the entrance.



As we know, Germany loves cartoon signs to make their points about 'what not to do', but I'm not sure what amuses me most here...is it

1. That the fault is not with the owner to pick up after the dog, but rather that the dog not pull down his pants in the park and do his business there?
2. That Mr. Sunshine is so clearly displeased.
3. That the wagging finger dog has such a scowl to go with the finger wagging.
4. That the wagging finger dog himself has no pants, but does have a bowtie.

I'm feeling a new series coming on here...the cartoon signs of Germany in the tiny town of B. Stay tuned.

Blackberry picking

Here in tiny town of B, there are plenty of blackberry bushes on their final rounds for the season. There are so many of them here, that they rot and fall off the bushes, there's just not enough people picking them. (Keep in mind they're all over the place, free, lining parklands, taking over the abandoned rail line, etc). In the Phillyland area, we had plenty of strawberries, but other berries weren't as common as they are elsewhere in the US, such as the Pacific Northwest, so this is quite interesting and new for me, so I've been picking my little heart out. As well as my fingertips as the damn things are quite prickly.

I spent a few days snacking on them raw in the office, by themselves and mixed with strawberries. I sent them through the magic bullet to puree them into a fruit spread. Then I realized I needed to do something with the remained 1 pint plus, as their shelf life is limited and there are still more to pick. So onto preservation methods and more harvesting. What to do when you have a tiny little German freezer and no possibility of canning this year?

I tried drying them, to make homemade fruit leather. That came out pretty well, I spread the pureed mixture into a pan in the oven, drying it, cutting it into strips which I stored in glass bottles.

Then I tried drying individual berries, so that I could fling a few onto my musli in the winter. That worked pretty well also, so into glass jars went the individual dried berries.

The leaves were dried for tea.

I tried to freeze the pureed version into ice cube trays, which I dumped into a freezer bag once frozen. As I don't have much freezer space so I couldn't go too heavily into this option. However, I plan to use the little concentrated cubes in yogurt on on top of ice cream perhaps.

The very nice retired couple stopped on their way back on Sunday to chat. They brought up the topic, and gut reaction, I was expecting some sort of German negativity, about how one shouldn't pick the wild berries (as I'm sure they spied me coming or going on these adventures, they miss nothing). Although then again, they seem to think I'm a frugal American who is always picking cardboard boxes out of the big paper recycle bin (for ebay packaging), as well as eating off my balcony grown efforts, so foraging for berries probably wouldn't surprise them.

Herr K. leans in to make sure no one else is listening to this conversation...you know, these blackberries...(here we go)...they're ok...but up the street, I go to a secret place, they are bigger...you know what we do with blackberries....(dude, I'm out of ideas, so I'll take any at this point)...we put them in bottles! Homemade Liqueurs. 'Schnapps!' says Frau K. '25% blackberry schnapps'. We've done 13 bottles so far this year. Six months in the cellar, turn them once per month, and we'll be ready to go before summer comes back.

I am such a blackberry amateur, that option never crossed my mind. Hmm...

Luna the cat

This is the view of my diagnonal downstairs neighbor's patio. On the table is the infamous 'balkon jumping' Luna the cat (who forunately hasn't repeated the feat). Luna likes to rule the kingdom down there, when they are not home. Although officially, she belongs to their daughter, my next door neighbor.

When they are home it seems she's stifled by their 'newly retired, puttering around the house' presence so she's out and about in the immediate area. She gives them plenty to do however, which seems to be a welcome interruption, because their other less adventurous cat just sits in the chair and sleeps and rarely ventures too far out of the yard.

I realized while being away that even a cat follows the German structure and order of things. Each night in the hour before the 7 PM church bells, like clockwork, Luna brings home something she's caught. She deposits it on the ground immediately in front on their patio door. She then proceeds to start yowling, to announce that someone should come look.

Normally the Hausfrau comes and aways congratulates her on her find. 'Oh Luna, you have done very well, good, good kitty' and then pets her. HF then summons her husband to come dispose of the dead snake, rodent, or frog. If the catch is still alive, she carries Luna inside and sends her man out to pick up whatever it is and take it to one of the nearby woody areas which surround us.

As you may imagine, the man of the house isn't as impressed with the cat's activities. The other day the activity was repeated, but the HF wasn't home, so it was up to the man to go through the routine solo. He must not have made a sufficient fuss, because the cat started up again, until I hear an exacerbated 'Luna, I already told you I saw it.' I get the feeling he prefers sleeping cat a litte more these days.

How my Saturday was made

This morning, while I was picking tomatoes (will explain that project tomorrow), the postman arrived. Normally I miss seeing him because I'm in the office during the week when he delivers mail, and on Saturdays service is either early in the morning before I wake up, or late in the afternoon when I'm out shopping (thereby avoiding the Sat morning crowds).

Mail in the tiny town of B is mainly delivered by a small fleet of postal workers using these:

(Expect for the Post Frau who has the 1 postal vehicle in the tiny town of B, as she goes to the companies who have big mail deliveries.)

The postman noticed me puttering around and we were chatting about tomatoes. And he mentions 'Always it looks nice up there.' Oh, you flatter me so, and it's not even 10 AM, pre-coffee, my ego is not yet awake. ;-)

In particular, I feel my balcony looks 'functional' and 'utilitarian'; 'like a healthy garden allotment' was the backhanded compliment I once received. The one next to me with it's perfectly placed and tended flowers looks 'nice' in my book, like it could easily grace the cover of Better homes and balconys. So I especially appreciated his comment as it was completely unexpected and most certainly undeserved.

In case you're wondering, here's what it looks like these days from that angle. Be sure to notice the mightly gherkin hanging down over the ledge between the middle two silver posts. ;-)

Sunday happenings in the tiny town of B

Recommended musical selection while reading this to set the mood: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eDkAG3R0h8

Normally Sunday in the tiny town of B is quiet, except for the church bells. However, the past Sunday had big happenings, it was 'Shopping Sunday/Spring Festival/Family Fesival' all in one. Many (but not all) of the stores were open, there was a stage with entertainment, and lots of street stalls selling various wares, some for local charities, others commercial, and plenty of food, beer, etc.

My favorite part of the weekend?
Here are the people waiting at the 'Bahnhof' (train station):



The 'train' has arrived:

OK, ok so it's a tractor on the the front. There's plenty of them around here as we're in farm country. Curiously it wasn't raining, although it was rather chilly.

It goes for a circle around B, and then winds back up through the shopping street. The photos don't really give it justice, but it's actually packed to the gills with adults and children, with flags from around the world adorning each car, including a US one.