This Wednesday at 11.45 AM

Feel free to mentally have a glass of champagne with me and throw some confetti; it will be the ending time of my last German class.

The company has generously paid for quite a few Berlitz hours while I've been here. It's paid off to the effect that I can generally understand what goes on the office, and that is sufficient for what I need at this time. I spend 8+ hours a day/5 days per week there, so that is the bulk of my time in Germany.

Sometimes I marvel at the fact that my vocabulary is so far skewed to office words. I knew the words for 'works council', 'interface', 'department', and 'woman boss' long before I knew basics like 'toothpaste,' 'toilet paper,' and 'Sunday shopping'.

Although I did pick up 'toilet brush' quite early by studying the various 'informational' cartoons in the office ladies' bathroom. Not sure why these 'public service announcements' must always be accompanied by a cartoon in Germany. I've been tempted to sneak into the mens' room to see if they have the same or similar, but never did. ;-)

George drives the bus - a German political view

Over the weekend I went to a work colleague's going away party (she's moving to the UK). It was quite interesting as I was the only foreigner, although I had met many of the friends/family previously, so it was ok.

There was a small child there, perhaps 2 years and some months old. He seemed very excited by being at the restaurant with all of the people and things, and being up past his bedtime. At one point the waiter carried him back to the table as he had taken off on foot to the kitchen.

His grandma decided to try to calm him down a bit and picked up a free Italy travel magazine and put him on her lap to show him the pictures. We all watched expectantly, to see if Grandma could work her magic. She watched to see which pictures caught his eye, and started to tell him about them, by whatever she could make up on the fly.

- You see the little boy on the beach? His name is Pablo and he is also two!
- Here is an old church, isn't it pretty?
- Oh, see the bus! There is the bus driver, George Bush, and the passenger on the bus, Angela Merkel. (ok, so it wasn't actually them) They go together in the bus, where George the bus driver wants to go. But not for long, because it will be someone else's turn to drive the bus very soon.

(I imagine the political commentary would have continued in a less polite way, had I not been there and listening--something to the effect of--and we're all happy that there will be a new bus driver, as we don't like the way that one drives.)

More on 'no love for the Germans' - the Dutch perspective

After yesterday's events, I asked my Dutch work colleague about the topic, knowing that he would give me the straight scoop. He also thought it was some slightly peeved Dutch people, just trying to irritate a German.

He is Dutch guy married to a German and working/living here for many years. However, he goes back over the border quite often with his company J car with its German license plate to work, visit family, and shop. He was telling me of one time, when he was driving this car in Holland.

A Dutch car with some 18 year-olds gave him the popular hand gesture in reference to a leader who was very popular in Germany in the late 1930's-early 1940's (not wanting to drive searchers to that topic here.) They both happened to leave at the same exit, and ended up next to each other at the red light at the bottom of the exit.

He couldn't resist to roll down the window and gesture to them to do the same. He then proceeded to rip them a new one in Dutch, his native language. He said the looks on their faces was absolutely priceless. Here they thought they were sticking it to a German, and instead they chose a fellow national.

He then gave me the tip--I should always keep something representing Holland handy in my car trunk for times when I go over the border, such as something orange to put in the back window, or something for one of the sports teams, or perhaps some Dutch reading material to have lying in the back seat. That will present the image, especially as I don't tend to go too far into Holland, that I could be a Dutch person working just over the border. And it will perhaps lower the possibility of future negative incidents.

'The funky chicken' or 'No love for the Germans'

One of my German work colleagues was recently telling me about his visit to Vegas, and how he went with a few of his 20-something aged German friends, and how the desk person said, "oh no, the Krauts are here" recognizing their Germanness even before they opened their mouths.

I tried to explain to him that it probably wasn't meant as an insult, but rather as American friendliness of making jokes. He said that he knew that, and he likes Americans and their friendly casual humor, and they enjoyed their trip to the US. He then said, "America is not like some other countries that absolutely do not like Germans at all." I wanted to hear more, but didn't want to push a topic that probably wouldn't be so nice for him to discuss, so I didn't. Besides, I've heard quite a bit from my other European colleagues on the topic of 'the Germans' so I already had an idea that they aren't liked a lot in certain countries.

On Sunday, D and I drove to Maastricht for reasons that belong in their own post. I parked in a public parking lot in town, one where you must buy a ticket from the little machine and leave it on your dashboard, but as it was Sunday, a ticket was not needed. We came back eight hours later and I went to the trunk to get out the map.

I noticed that while we were gone, someone had carefully placed a KFC bucket with all of their food trash in it directly behind the back wheel, so logically I would not see it, and then back up over it. In addition, there were chicken bones immediately in front of the same tire, I guess in the event that I happened to pull forward (which would not be necessarily expected, as I would need to go out on an angle that would put me going 'out' a row that was one way in the other direction.) In addition, the remaining chicken bones were scattered under the car, like someone made a serious effort to wing (intended pun) them there. Looking around we noticed no other German cars in the lot, and only one other in town.

My only guess on this one is that they saw the German license plate on the car and decided on a low level prank. Maastricht gets plenty of Germans as it's not so far from the border, and only around one hour, 15 min from Koeln. This situation was ironic on multiple levels to me, namely:

-I never eat at KFC as they don't have so many vegetarian options. I have no veg info in the car so they would not know the car belongs to a vegetarian. The use of chicken bones would be moderately offensive if the person would have known I am a vegetarian.

-While the car is registered and lives in Germany, I am not German. It's actually quite funny, knowing my lack of enthusiasm for Germany life that they wasted their energy trying to send an unfriendly message to a German and instead chose the German car not carrying Germans.

Next up: more details as to why we were there.

The hidden subconscious - more on language acquisition

I am coming to the conclusion that language acquisition is mainly mindset and exposure rather than talent driven. If I was dating a German and imagining a long-term future here, I'd probably actually make an effort. As it is I go to class each week for 1.5 hours because company J. is paying for it, it's private lessons from Berlitz with only me in the class, and it's during work hours. I spend around an hour each week on homework, mainly because I rather like the teacher and would feel bad by attempting nothing.

A few weeks back, I was talking to my Spanish colleague, whom I rarely get to speak to these days. My Spanish is quite comfortable, I have facilitated meetings in Spanish where I am the only non-native speaker, I've done meetings where the other speakers know almost no English, and I am able to read and discuss in Spanish high level topics like religion and philosophy. My exposure to Spanish these days is limited to a handful of work colleagues with whom I interact occasionally and 30 min per week in the car when I catch a Spanish news broadcast on Monday nights after Polish class. When I speak and read it, however, it's pretty well cemented. There is no longer 'lead time' while I get back into the feel of speaking it and I can read a newspaper pre-coffee without thinking.

Imagine my absolute surprise, then, when I am speaking to my Spanish colleague and some German words sneak right into the sentence. It was like they were slipping over the Polish border under the cover of night. The construct of the sentence was Spanish as were the bulk of the words, but 'wie immer' slipped right in, in place of the Spanish equivalent. As it is I don't really like the sounds of German in general and the best you'll get out of me on a good day is that I will listen to your German spiel and then respond in English to you if you are someone in my office. If I'm in tiny town of B I will move around completely in German on Saturdays, although it's often of a Turkish flavor over here.

Then over a weekend I was at a vegetarian restaurant in Koeln and picked up a soya hot chocolate on the way out. I was in line behind some people so it was taking a few minutes. While I was waiting, I could hear the coffeebar woman talking with a customer sitting at the counter and they were talking in Spain Spanish. I started off my order in German as that is what I am used to doing here, but midway it converted to Spanish automatically, I think because I was listening to the ladies.

The woman pauses for half a second, somehow understanding my half-baked sentence and then responds to me in Spanish. I carry on a conversation for some minutes with the customer in Spanish. But again, every once and a while a German word started to creep in, perhaps because I had spent some hours the previous night mainly around German speakers, and also speaking German.

My inability to control such slippages mainly tells me that the influence of living here is quite heavy.

i am back

from iceland. total hours of daylight there--currently around 6 hours per day, (from roughly 10 or so in the morning, until 16ish in the evening.) good thing they make good coffee.

the air and water are so clean, it is remarkably fresh. add in the below zero temps during the past few days, and it's so beyond fresh it's perfect.

Friday night: Kristallnacht remembrance in Germany

On Friday night, Nov 9 (the anniversary of Kristallnacht) we went to an evening program of a local church. Neither of us have any affiliation with this church, nor do we know of anyone who attends this church as it is not near where either of us live, but rather it's near the office. However, it was also noted in the local newspaper in advance, so we went.

The evening started with an overview of the number of children in the Cologne Jewish school before Kristallnacht and then today, and then an introduction of the main speaker whose name is Henry. He started off by telling us that he was born in Cologne and about his early childhood years of playing soccer in the streets of Cologne Ehrenfeld with his friends. However, all of that changed one day when his Catholic friends told him that he could no longer play with them.

On the actual night of Kristallnacht he remembers (the SA or SS, I missed which) came to his house. They threw the family's furniture out the window. He remembers their neighbors just standing there and watching, not saying anything. At this point there was a musical break, and a pianist played something from Bach.

Fortunately, he was sent on a Kindertransport to the UK where he made many friends. At the end of the war, these friends scattered around the globe: to the US, Canada, Israel, etc. His sister was a bit older so she didn't get to go on the transport, and was killed in Auschwitz. Around this part my German started to go downhill, so I missed a bit as to what he did next, beyond stay in the UK. However, he decided to return to Germany 35 years ago, and both D and I missed his reason for coming back then.

Next the Jewish choir from D'dorf sang with piano accompaniment. There were some short readings after that by children in the local school, who went in pairs to read some historical data. Then Henry came back and had a scripted interview with two of the children who asked him such questions as 'do you hate the Germans for what they did?' (the answer was no). Finally, the choir sang again a few songs, but this time in German, with a closing song in in Hebrew or Yiddish, inviting the audience to join in the hand clapping.

The evening closed with the church leader (I think), thanking each group for their contribution to the evening while the audience continued to clap during his two minutes of thank yous. As the crowd filed out, there were two unattended baskets at the exit where people could give money. Having come from the Catholic tradition, there are plenty of baskets for money, but never unattended where I come from. I was further surprised that there were large bills in the unattended baskets, such as 50's. The choir had a bus waiting to ferry them back to D'dorf.

Overall it was an interesting Friday evening. There were perhaps 200 people in the audience, and only 2 people left during the entire evening. We lingered a few additional minutes to read some of the materials they had posted on the walls. They had some local histories of other people who were in this Cologne school and who had also gone on the Kindertransport, and what had happened to them since. Most featured were now living in Israel. They also had some historical info on the school, before/during/after Kristallnacht.

Saturday lunch: Vegetarian Thai green curry

I fell in love with green curry when I first had it at a Thai restaurant in Milwaukee. I ate the same dish multiple times just to cement in my head the full taste so that I could (try to) recreate it later.

Before I became vegetarian I used to always get Pad Thai when as my Thai food of choice, but as it tends to be made with fish sauce, I've since abandoned ship on that one unless I'm at a completely vegetarian restaurant. I've tried making it at home but it never quite has the right flavor.

However, you can easily make a green curry without fish sauce without compromising on the flavor. A lot of recipes for green curry are very complex, but here is a simplified version that I make in 15 minutes.

1. The most difficult part-find vegetarian green curry paste. I buy mine in Holland, this tends to be the main one sold in Asian food shops there. It is an import from Thailand to Holland, and it will set you back a few Euros, but with one this container you can make this meal at least 20 times.

Maybe Christina G knows where to buy it in Germany. I have seen the Thai Kitchen and Blue Dragon brands have it, but it's more of an oily sauce than a dry paste, and both contain fish sauce.

2. Fry tofu squares in oil. Then set the tofu aside.

3. Open a can of coconut milk. Personally I go for the 'light' coconut milk, but regular is also ok. I buy a refrigerated version from an Asian shop in Koeln or from Holland, but you can get the non-refrigerated kind also.

4. Put the coconut milk into a skillet on low heat. Put 1 or 2 tablespoons of the curry paste into the skillet also (depending on how strong of a curry taste you like). Keep stirring constantly. One clove of chopped garlic can also be added now, if you like.

In the meantime put the container of unused curry paste into an airtight container or ziploc baggy and put it into the refrigerator.

5. Throw in a few handfuls of chopped up mangold (chard), including the chopped up stems. Any dark, leafy green thing could also be substituted if you're not in Germany where mangold is currently abundant.

6. I like my dark, leafy greens to be barely cooked, so at this point I throw my tofu back into the skillet, so that it gets coated with the sauce. Stir some more.

7. If you're feeling especially adventurous, throw in a chopped up green Thai chili pepper (optional). Throw in a few basil leaves (optional). Take off heat.

8. Serve over rice or noodles of your choice. Today I was in the mood to have some Japanese noodles.

The final result:

Thoughts on (Swiss) German

I enjoyed my work trip to Basel. I find my work colleagues there to be cordial in personality and gentle on my German. This is my third trip to Basel and my fifth to Switzerland.

All things being held equal, ie:
-if my job wasn't in the Koeln/D'dorf/Leverkusen area
-if i was not spending all time outside of the office exposed to the German from this area
-if from a purely raw number perspective, if the German of Germany wasn't the largest group

I think I would have preferred to have learned something a little closer to one of the Swiss varieties. Specifically, in flipping through the TV at the hotel and landing on some of the Swiss stations interspersed with the Germany ones, as well as in the meetings with the Swiss the next day, I enjoy the soft, musical quality of the Swiss speakers. It seems so differently from what I am used to hearing all day in the office.

travels planned

- Tomorrow afternoon I go down to Basel by train for an all day meeting on Friday. I'll be taking the bus to the Koeln Hbf to avoid the train strike.

- In november I have booked a Thurs-Mon trip to Iceland.

Why iceland in november?
1. flight/accomodation prices fall drastically (compared to high season summer prices)
2. it's easier to find accomodation, and it's not booked months in advance
3. fewer tourists allow more interaction with the locals
4. there is the possiblity to see the northern lights in the winter weather
5. the cold, blustery weather makes for perfect conditions to escape inside for strong iceland coffee or to the hot water outside of the blue lagoon

the angry whopper continues to fascinate me

I've been busy with work and offline, but when I look at the recent stats, 30 some visitors found me recently from this post.

Searchers are typing:
"angry whopper" (80%)
"angry onions" (8%)
"how much does an angry whopper cost" (1%)
"angry-gram burger" (1%)

A good number of them are from google.co.uk and one from google.de (both countries where this whopper is sold), but a number of others are finding me from non-selling countries such as the US, Ireland, the Netherlands, and Belgium.

Check out the cultural/marketing differences in these Angry Whopper commercials, from the UK and from Germany.

oh so happy

I do not need to take Deutsche Bahn tomorrow, with their planned strike. I take a regional train to/from Cologne each Wednesday for class, and all other trips to visit Cologne are usually occasional and optional on the weekends.

Last weekend I had a long distance ICE train trip already booked and paid for, so I needed to take the train or bus to/from Cologne on Friday and Sunday night. Friday was ok and trains were almost empty but Sunday was absolute chaos with trains running 90 min late and the boards not displaying arriving trains. Fortunately I know the bus routes very well around this area and it is possible (although longer) to take the bus completely and to bypass all trains.

What I do not understand here--coming from normally pro-union Philadelphia, where a strike actually means all operations cease and it will go on as long as it has to--how they expect to win this one when 20% of the workers are not striking and will continue operations, (as lackluster as they may be).

As a transit rider, I can certainly recognize how important you are if I cannot get a ride at all, in particular for a longer time period. You suddenly realize and appreciate what you do not have when it is completely gone. This pseudo-strike with its partial schedule only serves to irritate me as I can still get a train but with an unknown schedule, I must look at the website to see if this is one of the scheduled strike days, and it makes service even poorer than normal with sporadic trains and no announcements.

More on the Angry Whopper

I've seen a few comments around the internet about Burger King's latest campaign here in Germany, for the Angry Whopper. The "Angry Whopper" comes with "Angry Onions." But you can also buy Angry Onions separately, if you so choose--as I did today for lunch instead of fries. Unfortunately they do not have an 'Angry Vegetarian burger', only the normal non-angry version. ;-)

-If you're only visiting Germany, you'd probably think--well that's a little goofy, those wacky Germans.

-If you live here as a non-native Germany speaker like me, you probably blinked and automatically went into 'backward translation mode' trying to figure out what word they were working off of to mistakenly come up with 'angry' in English.

If you did as I did, you were automatically assuming that it was a bad English translation, or one of those goofy uses of English in Germany that inundates life here.

And if you did make that assumption, then you would also be wrong. :-) Check out the UK's campaign for the Angry Whopper:
http://www.burgerking.co.uk/
http://www.angry-gram.com/

Although notice that the UK has the additional description of 'hot-headed jalapeños' while in the German version the jalapeños seem to go together with the onions under the shared 'angry' adjective, although not angry in and of themselves.

BTW, my German work colleagues thought this campaign was goofy in German thinking as well. "Angry onions, what is that supposed to mean?"

The Oct 3 holiday in review - Part II

Following on Part I of the story, we walked all the way to the end of the street festival. I was surprised at how crowded it was considering it was still the work day, but we later found out it was the last day of the fair. Along the way we saw lots of rides and games, but nothing really stood out. I would have done the nice ferris wheel, but neither of us had brought a camera to capture the surrounding view.

I pointed out to D the camel racing game. It was a game I played often at the Jersey shore while growing up, but ours were jockeys on horses. It's sort of like skee ball, you have a small ball and must roll it up and aim for one of the 7 holes. The more difficult the hole the higher the points, or if you aim poorly the ball just comes back down the gutter and you get no points. As you get points, your camel/horse moves forward, competing against the other 13 or so players doing the same thing.

D. kindly offered that we should play a round, after I mentioned that I was 'the absolute best' at this game in my younger years. After overcoming the embarrassment that it was mainly children playing, we were signed up for two games each. Of course I won. I'm not sure if D was more embarrassed that I was as good as I said, or that his gf just triumphed over a group of 8 year olds. Then I lost the second game by a hair to the little girl sitting one seat over from me. The winning little girl gave her prize to her little sister who was sitting next to me. So I then gave my prize on the previous game to that little girl.

All gamed out we wondered back through the town for some final shopping. It was also a shopping Sunday that coming Sunday. Back at the car we had planned to have a drive back to Roermond to go to the supermarket. It was just before 17, but fortunately there wasn't much of a commuter backup in Weert. We made a quick stop at the garden center on the way out of town, but they did not have what I was seeking.

Earlier in the afternoon I had spotted a farm selling I was guessing pumpkins and that sort of thing based on a big pumpkin filled cart in the field. They had a Dutch flag out front and a sign saying something in Dutch, but it may as well have said 'Dutch drugs' for all we knew. I spotted it on the way back and we took a chance in pulling into the driveway at exactly 17.00. Once in the driveway you could see what you could not see from the road--the most beautiful display of bright orange pumpkins, along with other assorted gourds and that sort of thing.

It seemed to be a hobby farm as all they had were pumpkins and gourds, and each one had a tiny little handwritten price sticker. The display was laid out tastefully and meticulously in the garage/barn. Each item had been handwashed so everything was without a speck of dirt. The stems were fresh like everything had come from the immediately adjacent field. The best part was that the prices were a lot cheaper than in Germany where pumpkin retails for 1.50 eur/kilo.

D and I ended up with all that we could carry for 14 euros. For that princely sum I bought one perfect Halloween pumpkin, perhaps 5 pounds, a tall dark green gourd maybe 3 pounds, a short, squat and bumpy varigated 2 pound gourd, a small perfect pumpkin perhaps 2 pounds to sit next to my door in the hallway, a one pounder for the office, and two jack be littles at 50 cents each to give away to Germans who are temping for me. Yes, Halloween is my favorite holiday still.

-->If you want to go to this wonderful pumpkin stand, it's easy to find and a short trip if you've already made the trek to Roermond. Go to Roermond to the outlets. If coming from Germany from the east you'll probably come in on the N280, so that the outlet center is on your right and town proper is on your left. Just stay on the same main road and follow the signs toward Weert. The road will narrow down from two lanes in each direction to one, and you'll start to see crop fields.

The farm has a large Dutch flag out front and a sign in Dutch that meant nothing to either D or I understanding German. IF you happen to pass it (and you may as it is only a little driveway between a house and a cornfield), don't fret. You'll know for sure if you've passed it once you see a large horse-drawn cart filled with pumpkins etc. parked in the field next to it, which would be your signal to turn around.

Anyway...with the car filled with pumpkin purchases, we kept heading back in the Roermond direction, and upon reaching the outlet area again at 1720, we found it to be an absolute parking lot. No worries as we had planned to turn off anyway to go to Jumbo in Roermond. I like Jumbo as much as I like Tref in Venlo. Both have nice selections overall and good vegetarian selections. And, some recent good news:

JUMBO IN ROERMOND IS OPEN ON SUNDAYS FROM 12-17 FOR THE REST OF 2007 as some sort of trial phase. Supermarket shopping every Sunday of the year if I would like. Do you live in the Cologne/Dusseldorf area? Send me a note and we can arrange a train station where I can find you and I will drive you over to Roermond to share in my happiness and my desire to shop there on Sundays to show support of such a policy. My Dutch colleague found it amusing that the announcement was in Dutch on a sandwich board in front of the supermarket, but that they also provided a smaller translation in German.

While I shopped, D had 'bottle duty.' I have begun to carry around all extra bottles that need to be recycled outside of Germany. Like it's not enough of a hassle inside of Germany. Since I sometimes have worktrips to Belgium I end up picked up some raspberry beer there, as well as sometimes in Holland. I had around 20 extra bottles that belonged somewhere, but I was not sure where. Interestingly, the exact same cherry beer has two different bottle shapes depending on if it is purchased in Holland or in Belgium, and of course it can only go back from whence it came.

The people in Jumbo Roermond were so helpful trying as D was putting things into their automated machine and making it unhappy. Sometimes when you get a person, they know the bottle dimensions, so they will override the machine and take another bottle if they are selling the same exact thing but of a different variety, so the person recognizes what the machine cannot with its barcode rules. At the end of the day they managed to take everything except one type of Hoegaarden bottle that they explained says on the back that it is not a deposit returning bottle (oops) and a six pack of Budweiser bottles that they sell, but in a different bottle shape, so not returnable there.

We hopped back into the car at 18.00, but traffic was still an absolute parking lot so we decided to stop for dinner rather than risk getting home at 21.00 starving. We parked up and took a walk around already knowing in general Roermond town center. We went to New Delhi Indian restaurant which is located on Neerstraat 32 (very near to the town/mall entrance of Jumbo NOT the parking lot side) and is open Mon-Fri from 18-22.30 and Sat 17-23. It was not 'burn your mouth out' Indian, but a gentler, full of flavor Indian. Everything tasted like it was freshly prepared. The man and his daughter who run the customer side (I think Mom was in the kitchen cooking) were absolutely delightful in personality. Highly recommended and we would go back even if we didn't need to wait out a traffic jam. They do not serve alcohol, and my only regret was that I did not try their alcohol free wine as I saw another table order a second glass.

Finally it was after 20 by the time we were back in the car, and thankfully all the Germans were back over the border so the drive home only took an hour or so. We got pummeled by the fantastic rainstorms upon arriving back in the Cologne area but that was the first rain we saw all day, so ok.

Travel advice-->Basel?

I have an all day work meeting in Basel on Friday Oct 26th. As a result, I can:

1. Stay in Basel until Saturday or Sunday, and take the company-paid train home then. However, I've already spent one weekend in Basel under a similar situation last year and that seemed to be sufficient.

2. Just come home Friday night, arriving around 21 or so in Koeln as the meeting lasts until 17.

3. Use Basel as a launching pad for a cheap flight elsewhere (not company paid). I still have five days of unplanned vacation left so it can be a long weekend, assuming I can find a one-way out (mainly EasyJet from Basel), and a one-way back (mainly using anyone but EastJet to CGN or DUS).

Thoughts?

The Oct 3 holiday in review - Part I

Earlier this week, Wednesday Oct 3, was the German reunification holiday, so a mid-week day off from work. I had not bothered looking for any travel opportunities because the Germans tend to book 51 weeks in advance, so the prices get jacked up.

I'm so far over on the western side of Germany where the only comment upon the day is to grumble about the reunification tax coming out of one's paycheck and how 'we never should have gone back together with them'. In the local paper there was a flea market scheduled, but otherwise, it would have been a day of sitting at home with all of the shops shut. So therefore, you know the drill...

At 10.30 we were off and heading immediately west, destination Roermond. We had planned to wander around the outlets and around town, wrapping it up with some shopping at Jumbo supermarket in Roermond. The expected drive time should have been one hour 20 minutes. However, as expected, the approximately 70 billion other Germans in the Cologne/Duesseldorf/Duisberg region, all also wanted to go over the Dutch border to shop. And they say Germans don't want the stores open any more than they are now. Pffui.

The traffic was obnoxious, so we finally rolled into Roermond at just before 13 and the outlet parking lot was closed which pushed us into the town proper where I already know that parking options are limited. After listening to the German cars beeping each other (which was why I was leaving Germany in the first place, for a break of Germany), I made the executive decision that we were getting back on the road and continuing westward.

D got out the map with the instructions-->find the next big Dutch city from here, which turned out to be Weert, a mere 17 km away. By this time we were rather hungry as it was working toward 14, and just in need of something like a McDonalds. The highway transitioned to a one lane road which then changed to a brick road--in Weert. Lo and behold a McDonalds sign pointing us toward the Centrum. Weert seemed from the road to be laid out in a circle, so we decided just to park and head in on foot.

I chose a parking spot, and as I was parking noticed that someone was watching me from a balkon. I take extreme (although laughable) pride in my parallel parking, and living in Germany has only made it that much better. If you need to get your manual car in or out of a spot uphill in in the sleet with a one inch clearance on either side, give me a call. Add added difficulty on this spot was that it crossed a bicycle lane, and as it was Holland a cycle was passing every 15 seconds, as well as a vintage Mercedes was parked behind me.

As we got out of the car--of course only after I asked D to confirm who the best parker in the Western world is--the older man on the balkon shouts something down to D. As we were coming from Germany, I was expecting him to shout at us to get out of his 'private' spot on the public street, based on the fact that he looked to be of retired age. D tried to figure out what he wanted in German, but wasn't getting it, so scurried off to get the parking slip. As I got out, the man's wife joined the man and he tried again with me.

He was commending me on my superb parking job. THIS is why I go to Holland. It made the almost three hour drive almost worth it, to have someone who appreciates good parking. (And I think it was his vintage Mercedes behind me.) D came back with the slip to put on the dashboard and we stood there a moment trying to figure out the best way to McDonalds. The ever helpful Dutch couple, seeing our confusion, starting to shout and point to direct us which street to take. How did they possibly know we wanted to go to McDonalds?

It became a little more clear once we followed their instructions, there was a huge street fair going on, and that is what they directed us to (conveniently located next to the McDonalds). We were so hungry we just went to the McDonalds anyway. I was a little disappointed, they did not carry the 'Groenburger' or the vegetarian burger that many Holland McDonalds sell. We then took a stroll down the main shopping street, where various things street fair things were set up, like games, food, rides, etc. I ended up finding a plain piece of pizza so all was well. The street fair went on for quite a long while, if you were speed walking from one end to the other, I imagine it would have taken 20 min, but we took our time, stopping to go into the open stores also.
To be continued...

Why no educated rabbits in Germany?

I was doing a little online shopping and was on the Playmobil site. My cousin's son turns three this year and he is the first boy in 20 years, so he's facing a mountain of hand-me-down girl toys. In particular, I clicked the USA link and then the link on the left called 'Products' to be taken to the main products page. Usually I like to bring by holiday gifts that cannot be easily purchased in the US, so I was curious to see what other countries were offering/not offering so I drilled down through a few of the different country sites.

In particular, if you go back to the US products page from above, and then if you scroll all the way to the bottom, you'll see a bunnies link, which then takes you to another page with a few products, among them the bunnies' school.

So riddle me this batman--why isn't the equivalent product on the Germany page? I realize that cultural differences are considered in the decision to sell a product or how to market it and that you won't find wool socks so often in Florida, for example, but generally I find that so many things such as toys are global these days. So much that you see the same packaging here in Europe and in the US, with 14 different languages on it.

Curiously, in addition to the US site, you can also find the bunny school in these countries: Canada, Netherlands, UK, Belgium, Luxembourg, and France. It's missing under the flags of Spain, Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.

Why wouldn't this product be sold in the same place on the website in German speaking countries as the others? I searched but couldn't find it hidden elsewhere either. Although, I must admit, the lack on the Spain site stymies me.
-Would it be because school is serious and not a place for rabbits?
-Is there no love for the rabbit in general in Germany? I searched for rabbits and bunnies on the German site, and there are plenty of them located elsewhere such as in the Noah's ark set or in the magician set.

Accepting any theories on this one.

make your own timeline

Inspired by http://mightygirl.com/2007/09/05/42-make-your-timeline/

Maybe because of the fall weather, I am feeling school-centric...

My first decade:
Age 1: My great-grandmother from Poland passed away. She was the only US relative from the old country who was alive in my lifetime.

Age 2: My mother's father passed away two months after I turned two. I was the only grandchild at the time and predictably doted upon. My mother was always very sad that I could not remember him, and looking at all of the photos of me with him, nothing triggers any memories.

Age 3: I was enrolled in dance lessons, something that continued for 10 years.

Age 4: I had long blond hair and blue/green eyes.

Age 5: I was in pre-school with two good friends, another girl named Heather and a boy named Sean. At Sean's summer birthday party I was the only girl invited. I found out years later that both my mother and Sean's mother were worried that as the only girl it would be awkward for me as the expected activities were things like playing superheroes outside. All went just fine. If anything it should have been a dark cloud of forshadowing of my comfort in a male-centric environment, like IT.

Age 6: I graduated from kindergarten. In my Catholic school there was an award for the boy and girl with the highest grades. Joey Dickmann and I took it that year, and every year after that through 8th grade. He was wicked smart and my academic arch nemesis. We competed on every test, always. We lost touch when we went to different high schools.

Age 7: First grade was the year of Sister Roberta Ann who ordered and ruled our simple world with benevolence.

Age 8: The Eagles had one of their crappiest seasons ever, in my lifetime. We had 'Eagles Day' at school and instead of school uniforms we could wear Eagles sweatshirts and Eagles colors to school. Our school uniforms were Eagles green so this really wasn't such a special thing. As most of us were resigned to our fate of wearing that kelly green color five days a week, 9 months a year for 8 years, while we owned Eagles gear, we sure as hell did not own anything in that color green otherwise. It took me 10 years after that to own anything in that color by choice and even now I buy my Eagles gear in one of the other team colors besides that green.

Age 9: Third grade was the year of 'Pennsylvania focused history' on the curriculum. Pennsylvania history for those of you not in the know consists of highlights such as the 13 colonies, William Penn, the Indians, the Quakers, the Amish, and PA's favorite product: coal. History, with the exception of a few topics/eras, remains a weak area and low interest point for me in general, and it all started here.

Age 10: My friend Heather from pre-school, her mom died of cancer. I had the day off from school to go the funeral and it rained all day. At the end of the year I was questioned by the teacher, as to why I had missed only that one day. I was never a perfect attendance kid; I missed a small handful of days each year. At the awards ceremony at the end of the school year I got perfect attendance for the only time in my academic career. It still feels like I cheated, because I know that I was not there.

Things to do in Vilnius

Only since vailian asked--although the areas outside of Vilnius deserve separate posts in their own right, someday when I have spare time.

So when visiting Vilnius, in addition to picking up a guidebook and seeing the usual sites like Gediminas Tower, St. Anne's Church, and the Jewish Vilnius sites, I would recommend the following:

1. Definitely go to old town and take an afternoon to walk around. It's a little touristed, but interesting to see with its cobbled streets and old churches. It's around a 15 min walk from the central train station.

2. Try the local beer: Svyturys. My particular favorite is the Ekstra unpasteurized. While having a beer, it's good to have a beer snack. I suggest kepta duona which is fried dark bread with garlic. Even better, get it with suris (cheese).

3. Look for a local food place or cafeteria selling cepelinai or zeppelins. It's an starchy oval shaped potato meal filled in the center with either meat or cheese, and with a meat or cheese sauce. Sometimes they are a little difficult to find as they are labor intensive to make. They are heavy, have them for lunch on a day when you went without breakfast, or take only one instead of two. A popular Lithuanian chain where they are always available is Forto Dvaras and their menu is in English.

4. Take a walk through the Užupis district of Vilnius. It is an 'independent district' in Vilnius at the bottom of old town. It was a former artist colony and still interesting to some of the recent creations.

5. If you have time for a day trip from Vilnius, go to Trakai castle.

Lithuanian hospitality - drinks

If I've learned only one thing on my yearly trips back to Lith, it's that Lithuanian family hospitality is unsurpassed. I had to explain to Aunt B. before we went to 'rules' I've figured out so far:

1. Don't turn down an offering of drinks, unless you've already had at least 10 total cups filled. Otherwise it's rude and your hosts are confused that what they are offering is not good enough.
2. Don't finish your drink too quickly, as it will always be re-filled, and depending on the alcohol content, a refill is not always a good thing.
3. At a family dinner, as an average adult, you are expected to partake in at least six different options.

On our arrival night, dinner was at 7 PM and lasted an hour. Then we sat there and picked at the food and drinks for another two hours. Here was what was on or near the table:

a. coke
b. sprite
c. orange fanta
d. fizzy water
e. green tea
f. black tea
g. red (strawberry) tea
h. vodka
i. beer
j. whiskey
k. Irish coffee
l. coffee
m. orange juice (Ukrainian)
n. orange juice (Russian)
o. pineapple juice
p. champagne (that I brought last year from Germany)

So dear readers, here is the challenge if you're still reading. At my most recent trip back, which of the above six options did I take during that first dinner? Your prize for the closest correct guess? A little something from the motherland, mailed to you from Germany.

The rules (we are in Germany, we must have rules!)

1. Only one guess per person, just put the above letters for your drink guesses into the comments, and remember there should be six in total. Whether or not I know you're a reader of my blog, feel free to guess.
2. The winner must be willing to provide a mailing address for the tiny prize. Inside or outside of Germany, it's all the same. It's a lightweight item, so I'll mail to anywhere in the world.

I'll leave this up for a few days, then I'll give you the correct answers and reasons behind them.
I sveikata! (the Lithuanian phrase for 'cheers')

Indian Week at Plus

Of all the cheapo shopping places in Germany, Plus is my least favorite, primarily because 1. they are not on my route home from work like Pennymarkt, Lidl and Aldi Sued are, and 2. I've been there only three times and each time the thing I went for was not there. Although my online shopping with Plus.de went just fine.

However, I will be investigating Indian week at Plus which started yesterday. From the sales paper, it does not look as exciting with as many offerings as Italian or Spanish week at Lidl or American week at Aldi Sued. In particular 'Bombay Billig' tag line doesn't improve them much in my mind. However, I do miss cheap and easily accessible naan bread, and I'm willing to give their spicy vegetarian curry a shot.

back in germany - what's cooking

But not much to say after such a lovely trip to Lithuania and talking about it will just make me sad that I am back in the land of the angry dour cranks. So instead, here is the vegan meal I made Monday for Aunt B, a detox from all of the cheese, vodka, whiskey and general lack of fresh green things of the old country.

Starting at the top left, 11 o'clock is Uncle Ben's boil in a bag Thai rice. Going clockwise, 2 o'clock is Nando's sweet chili sauce with eggplant, tofu, and chickpeas. 4 o'clock is young pan-seared brussel sprouts spritzed with Bragg's Liquid Aminos.

Bottom center at 6 o'clock is two stuffed mushrooms which were gently warmed on the bottom. Their raw stuffing was mushroom stems, spring onion, and two types of fresh basil--green and purple, with a dash of olive oil to hold it all together. Bottom left at 7 o'clock is zucchini with garlic and red onion.

Aunt B is not a vegetarian and in particular she's not a fan of tofu unless it's pretty well hidden in a sauce, but she gave it two thumbs up. Although as the meat-eater in our twosome she had to eat some pretty bad looking things in Lithuania like tongue (of what animal I am not sure), and raw something that she was not sure of, except that it was red/pink and for breakfast. So I imagine known vegetables must seem rather mild in comparison.

From Lithuania 2 - the South

I am again on a sad little slow computer with a Russian keyboard, blogger in Lithuanian, in a sunny hotel lobby. We are in Druskininkai which is a spa/relaxation/rejuvination town way in the South of Lithuania, spitting distance to the Belarus border (which we cannot go into as you need a visa in advance).

I've dropped Aunt B off at the nicest spa in town, she's getting a full two hour treatment for the equivalent of 55 USD. I love Lith prices. Personally I was not in the mood to be wrapped in honey, peeled, irrigated, and whatever else she is doing under foreign hands, so I settled on a 20 minute head and neck massage where I can remain as fully clothed as possible, for which I pop over for at the end of her thingy.

It's not the American nakedness phonia that's the problem but rather that I am not touchy/feely and the more clothed I am the less they will touch. The only massage I ever had made me cringe and I ended up more stressed than when I started. I've never had a manicure or a pedicure, it's just not my thing. I'd much rather sit on the sunny balcony here with a glass of wine or here in front of the slow computer next to a sunny window with their very stong Lith coffee. My female roommates in Atlanta used to go each Sunday an enourmous mall where they went for their beauty and shopping session. I was dropped off on the way to the mall to our male work colleagues for a Sunday session of football, beer and pizza. So be it.

However, Aunt B has been quite a trooper on our trip and she's more into that sort of thing so I hope she has a nice time. I dropped her off at the desk and there is someone who speaks basic English to bring out a robe and start her off. Aunt B is 18 years older than me, but basically up for whatever direction I'm taking her. Interestingly she didn't kill me after the third 3.5 hour cross-country bus ride on a 1960's volvo bus that had seen better days. Or when I made her get up three days in a row before 8 AM because of said buses. Or when she caught my cold/flu that was in full swing when she arrived. Our relatives fixed her right up when they heard her coughing and sniffling. Shot glasses of vodka starting at 10 AM. They tell us it cures all problems.

The relatives in this part whom we visited yesterday and will see tomorrow are very nice. Although the older female ones, perhaps 60+ years old come at you upon arriving and leaving with a full on kiss on the mouth. Good thing the vodka is freely running to lessen this experience. After the 7th kiss and yet another old lady forcibly wiping the lipstick off my face that she just planted there I was beginning to re-think the whole visit.


We arrived yesterday lunch time and we remain until tomorrow afternoon when our relatives pick us up to meet other relatives I have yet to meet (French/Lithuanian/Russian speaking), and then we go to Vilnius in the evening where we remain until we fly out on Sunday morning. And yes, we're on SAS who sorta lost a wheel upon landing in Vilnius the other day, but fortunately we're not on a Dash on either of our routes (Vilnius to Copenhagen and then Copenhagen to DUS), so we should be ok.

******after the massage

I arrive and a 30 something woman in a clinical jacket points me toward a room. She's going on in Lithuanian, but I have very little to go on in that department, except to answer no when she asks in Lithuanian if I speak Lithuaninan. I ask her for English? No. She then asks if I speak Russian. No. I ask if she speaks German? No. She asks if I speak Polish, and my crappy little Polish is about the best we're going to get here.

I am instructed to remove all top part clothing. She starts in on the back. Apparently neck and head massage means a different thing here in Lith. I thought perhaps that I pointed to the next one down which was the back one, but later when I paid, that was actually the neck and head one. She did work her way up to the neck and then head, so maybe there is a whole body connectedness thing. I didn't find it offensive, but I can't say that I really enjoyed it either.

Depending on how Aunt B enjoys her two hours, we'll either stay in town and she'll do something similar again tomorrow while I chill out, or we'll take a local bus to Grutas Park to see Stalin World. Grutas Park is the largest in Lithuania and they have put many of the old Soviet statues from around Lithuania there along with information about life in Lithuania under the Soviet ideology. It is near Druskininkai, about 8 km away, so the closest I'll probably ever be to it.

Our other option as the relatives won't arrive to pick us up until 16 would be to day trip into Poland by going North in Lith to Lazdijai and then West to Poland via the Lazdijai - Ogrodniki border crossing. The only purpose would really be to get Aunt B's passport stamped so that she could say that she's been to Poland. As we have been with bus aross the entire East-West and then North-South of Lithuania, I suspect we'll be able to skip the Poland option in favor of one of the other two.

Greetings from Southern Lithuania.

from Lithuania

I'm on a very old free computer in a tiny hotel lobby, so we'll see if this works...Every time I leave Germany I am reminded of why I can live there, but I won't long term.

On Wednesday when Aunt B arrived, I left her to her own devices for four hours to nap, etc. and then we spent the rest of the afternoon doing errands around the tiny town of B and getting ready for our trip. We went to the Turkish pizza place and split a Turkish pizza for lunch, then we went to the post office, the cash machine, Schlecker, and then the Kaufpark to pick up food provisions to take on the train/boat, and then to the Turkish market for some fresh fruit, and then over to the Apoteke for some Aspirin.

Aunt B is a dog person and she was enamored with the fact that dogs are taken into stores everywhere. Overall, the people in the tiny town of B are an anomoly to me as they are very un-German in their friendliness. We were waiting at the Apoteke, there was an Indian woman (many of the Indian contractors at company J live in town so they can easily get to work) speaking English to the pharmacist. There was a woman there before us, and she had her dog there, but his leash was sitting on the floor, as was he, as the woman was standing directly behind the Indian woman breathing down her neck.

Aunt B smiled at the dog, and he recogized that she is a dog fan. He got up and started to take a step over to her when his owner heard and turned around and sharply told him to sit. Then she glared at Aunt B and me. Then she loudly told him to lay down. Then she glared at me and Aunt B again. Aunt B was rather put off by such behavior, until I explained to her that Germany is the land of the dour faced cranks and this is their normal behavior.

Fast forward, we're on the train to Kiel. It was perhaps 75% full, including a lively group of perhaps 10 young men in their late 20's in matching pink shirts on their way to celebrate something. They were a boisterous group, and fortuantely not in our car, although they passed through periodically on their merry-making, being a little loud for just before noon, but whatever. At one point I was looking at Aunt B's camara with her and I vaguely heard a German 'haaaa-low' but I figured it was one of the pink men. Shortly after someone came up behind me and was then beside me perhaps two inches from my faces and started to shout at me in German, 'thank you for your help, that was very nice, blah, blah'.

I was a tad shocked, Aunt B sitting next to me at the window didn't know what was going on, the older lady across the aisle and at the window seat was just staring, as was the older woman in the seat two seats in front of me who stood up when all this started. Apparently, because I was in the last seat in the car, on the aisle, when he yelled hallo, what that really meant was, 'excuse me woman in the last seat, but I bought two beers and I am now unable to open the door, can you open it for me.' So basically he was yelling at me because I did not know that.

I just looked at him. The two women were looking at him like he was crazy. I had about a half dozen quips in both German and English going through my head, but having enough experience around drunks, I thought better of it and just looked at him and he then wandered away. The women both shrugged their shoulders and frowned like the guy was off his rocker, so whatever. In general, I find this country full of such angry people.

Now fast forward. We managed to get on the boat, enjoy our overnight trip, had some Lithuania beer on board, all is well. The boat was perhaps 85% Lithanian, 14% German, and 1% us. We come out of the boat and can't figure out where the bus is supposed to come, so we just go on foot to passport control. The passport guy takes our passports and says, where do you want to go? Um, to town? Wait here. He grabs a man who has come out of what looks like a tour bus. He talks briefly with him and the man comes over and says in perfect English, you come with us. Um, ok.

He says, we're a full bus, so just set your backpacks down in the aisle and sit on them. Um, this is getting more odd, but OK. He then gets on the microphone and yaps away in Lithuanian, and I caught the word for 'American'. And all the Lithuanians clapped. He then says in English, I welcome you Americans, to our bus. Uuuuuh?

They acutally cleared bags from seats and invited us to sit. It was a political delegation who was returning from Strassbourg via the overnight ferry. The beer was flowing and it was a jovial crowd. When they found out we were coming all the was to Lithuania to visit family, we were truly welcomed in. Aunt B and I were separated to where there were seats, so we were speaking with different people. The guy next to me was giving me a play-by-play of what the different speakers were saying at the front of the bus with the microphone. I'm not sure if he was giving me the truth or not. "That guy, he's saying that he would like a wife, and he is listing what he wants from a wife and what he can offer." "Now this woman, she says that she should be his wife, and she is giving the reasons why."

We were accepted right in, even with the communal wiskey bottle that was winding its way back through the seats. I have no idea how we couldn't find the public bus and how they put us on this one, but they were so helpful. They were asking where we were staying and telling us how to get there. Then, the bus arrived to where it was going and we got a nice set of goodbyes with people individually giving us tips, like to go into the shopping center here to change money, etc.

One day in Lithuania already begins to take away the taste of Germany.

The final countdown - Lithuania

I have an hour of cleaning and packing left and then everything is done. I have a bit of a cold, so I plan to take some American drugs and go to bed early. Aunt B should be leaving the house in a few hours for Newark for the overnight to CGN. I need to pick her up around 0900 tomorrow.

After than I drop her back at my apartment for a short nap and a coffee and I scurry back to work for a half day, to set my out of office to OUT for two weeks.

On Thursday morning the adventure officially begins, we are on a train to Kiel, and then the overnight ferry to Lithuania which arrives Friday in Klaipeda. We have a packed schedule of relatives and things to see, and lots of fun to have.

I will probably be mostly offline until I drop her back at the airport on Sept 18th.

The backup plan for if I ever get bored of D

D and I took care of a lot of things yesterday, little things that needed to get sorted before Aunt B arrives on Wednesday. A sample of the exciting things we did:

-D put together a TV table I bought a few months back in the Netherlands.

-I sent my plastic shower curtain through the washing machine to get it ultra clean. I also did three other loads of laundry.

-We attempted to get the new dishwasher up and running, and it's almost ready to go, once I get a connector thingy from Pratiker

-We went to Pratiker to get some mold cleaner, a light bulb to replace the one for over the oven, and one for the refrigerator.

-A trip to Kaufpark to get a crate of water and return some empties

-I cleaned some of the finished plants off of the balkon

-And we even managed to squeeze in an hour to go see the Duck Regatta, which D attempted to film, so if it comes out ok I'll post a link to it.

That night, pondering the success of so many things completed during the day, we decided to nip out to the only bar open past 10 on a Saturday in the tiny town of B for a glass of wine. It's not our regular bar, but the people there were quite friendly. One older man, perhaps in his 70's, spoke no English but had no problem listening to our crap German, and in fact he was so enamoured with us that he bought us each a drink.

We had thought that he would have been retired, but no, he proudly told us that he has been driving a taxi for 39 years for six days a week, and Saturday is his day off. (Which could explain why he was on his ninth beer when we arrived.) Ladies and gentlemen, it's hard enough to understand some of the local German some days, but add in some slurring and you really need to remain on concentrate mode.

However, he was a pleasant enough fellow who did not bring up the usual Anti-American Bush topic, and I was fully amused when he said to me, 'if you ever want to leave this one (gesturing to D who is standing next to him) for an older man, I'm fully available for you.' And then he cackled at his own statement.

And they say Germans don't have a sense of humor.

not amused

Showers today and light rain scheduled throughout tomorrow.
Things aren't looking very ducky.

don't excite me so

Being from Philly and working in the IT industry, I tend to be a tad more rude, cranky, and abrupt than all females and probably most males that I know. Perhaps it explains how I'm able to tough it over year after year in the land of the shouting, dour cranks without feeling even mildly insulted in daily life here.

In the one tiny, dark corner of my heart that is not wearing black every day however, I have a special love of yellow rubber duckies with their sunshiney personalities. I have wanted for years to have a yellow ducky bathroom but the bathroom fixtures where I've lived so far in my life have always been of a color not conducive to decorations of bright yellow (i.e. mauve). Finally in Germany I have an all-white bathroom, but then I was having difficulty finding the proper ducky shower curtain, so I ended up with a goldfish motif instead for the time being.

Why am I rambling on this point? Because for my entire life I have wanted to go to a 'rubber ducky regatta', or one of those things where a community with a creek will dump a bunch of numbered yellow ducks into the creek, and they will 'race' to the finish line with prizes for the first finishers. Usually you 'buy' a duck for the race and the money goes to a charity. Every single time I always miss the races and see the after photo in the newspaper with hundreds of yellow points in the creek and am slightly saddened at missing it live and in technicolor.

This time, however, this time, I will actually see it live, for the first time ever. The tiny town one town over from B is holding their annual townfest and it includes a ducky regatta with the proceeds going to the local school. I cannot even begin to tell you how excited I am for Saturday morning.

Making hay while the sun is shining

Aunt B arrives in 7 days, and in 8 days we're off to Lithuania for two weeks. In addition, some other planets have aligned all together to light a fire under my ... to get things done. Namely:

- Flight back to philly for the december holiday booked using USAir miles that were reaching their expiration date. They put me on Lufthansa going out and USAir on the return.

- Ordered new contact lenses which I can leave in all the time for up to 30 days. As an added bonus, they were ordered on Friday and arrived by DHL on Monday. If nothing else, I cannot fault the efficient Germany transport network. The very sweet 80 something year old granny in the building signed for and accepted the tiny package as it came during the workday. I live in a strange utopia of an entire apartment building of very nice Germans.

- Ordered a small countertop dishwashing machine from Plus. The chore I most despise in the world is washing dishes, it even ranks lower than toilet cleaning for me. I am finally biting the (cheap) bullet and buying an improvement.

- Cleaned out the car as I need to drive around American work colleagues this week. (OK, excluding the trunk so far.)

- Cancelled my Newsweek and Economist in advance of them rolling over in October.

- Charged up the handheld vacuum in anticipation of the "last weekend before Aunt B comes so I need to do major cleaning" weekend.

- Scheduled D to come over to put together the TV table I picked up a few months ago from Ikea.

- Started to clean-out some of the dead balkon plants.

- Am around 75% done with some logistical work paperwork that must be done every 6 or 12 months in relation to staffing. It's the kind of paperwork that there is no positive for doing it, but there is a negative if it does not get done.

- What's still on the list to do? A heck of a lot more and then some.

More on Passport Control

Since Debbie asked and since my fellow US Americans always ask me similar questions when I am home:

Is that all you do when leaving/entering Germany: show them your residence permit sticker?
Yep, just show them the sticker in Germany and they will not stamp you in or out. One of my US colleagues here wouldn't bother to show the sticker and perhaps one-third of the time they didn't notice it either and would stamp her. To me that wastes valuable passport space, so I'm careful to show the sticker.

What if you're re-entering or leaving the EU/Schengen Zone through another country, like Denmark? Do we just shown THEIR passport control guys the German sticker, too?
Nah, I don't bother, as German sticker or not, you would still get stamped by Denmark in any event. On a related note, on a previous trip through Copenhagen, the female passport officer noticed my stickers and then proceeded to try out her university Germany on me. (Ugh.)

No passport stamping that says you're leaving the EU?
As long as you have the sticker, no stamping, although if you're going to a few EU destinations such as the UK, you'll get an outgoing scan which registers you as outgoing. But I've never had a problem in this respect. I often do three way flights, such as I went Cologne to Stockholm and then took a ferry to Finland and then flew back Helsinki to Duesseldorf. The only time I had some raised eyebrows was when I went to Turkey for a long weekend. I noticed they read the screen more carefully the next few times I flew.

Often if it's a closer EU country such as Brussels or Paris, you will not get passport checked either in/out of Germany .

The closest I normally come to anyone tracking my in and out has been my Eastern Europe trips. On multiple trips now to Vilnius and Warsaw and one-time trips to Riga and Tallinn, every single time they will find a blank area with space next to it and stamp my arrival there. Then when I am outgoing from one of those places, they will stamp it outgoing, immediately next to the incoming one, so they are together. One time I went into Warsaw from Germany and then travelled from Warsaw to Vilnius without getting checked, so that I was then leaving Vilnius to Germany, but without an incoming to Vilnius. The agent asked, but once I explained that bit he was satisfied to stamp next to the Warsaw incoming.

I'm a little nervous about what to do when I fly soon for the first time since moving here.
It's actually easier than if you're flying on an unstickered US passport, in my opinion. For example, in particular, I've always found the UK to be the biggest pain in the ** to Americans with the 20 questions. It was actually worse when I worked there, I began to carry my actual UK work permit paperwork to hasten me through. Since I accumulated this plethora of Germany stickers, I've found them to be less questioning of my American entry for a long weekend. Instead it's 'oh you work in Germany I see, how long do you stay here?' and that is it. Versus the other Americans on either side of me getting the, 'where do you stay, for how long, have you been here before, where were you before here, where do you go after, do you know anyone here, blah blah.'

Last time I was so speedy into the UK from their lack of questions that I was through faster than the Euros in the long EU line. And an American entering the UK faster than a UK citizen, THAT is priceless. :-)

Passport Control

The recent weekend trip from Germany to the UK was the first in in some months for me that required passing through passport control but not involving a US destination.

I have four years worth of work permits in my passport, one from the UK and four from Germany. Normally, when I am coming in or out of Germany I hand the German passport officer my passport open to the two pages with the current Germany sticker. He/she usually holds the page, flips for a second to the front photo page, and then puts the Germany sticker under a special light to be sure it is not a forgery.

Maybe he/she will flip through the other pages looking at the other Germany stickers, then he/she goes back to the front page and scans it into the computer, squints for a second or two while looking at the computer monitor, then closes the passport and slides it face-down through the little window, and maybe says 'have a good evening' or something to that effect.

I will guess that I have gone through this little exercise perhaps 75 times in total into Germany, and almost that many times in all other countries combined, as I recall sometimes wandering into countries and not being checked. I have now come to the conclusion that all passport control experiences can be defined as: indifferent (90%), good (4%), bad (4%), and odd (2%). It's by no means scientific, nor is it specific to Germany, but it is specific to Europe and North America based on my experiences.

1. the Indifferent - they casually glance at the photo page, glance at me, their matching criteria is something like 'female with brown hair, check' and then they barely look at the sticker, except perhaps the expiration date. Americans working in Germany are a dime a dozen, so they give as much attention to the papers and I give to the tube of toothpaste I'm buying. It's labeled as toothpaste, it's in the toothpast section, good enough.

2. the Good - last year I flew into Chicago on my way to the midwest city at company J. where I work. For some reason the US/permanent residence lines were backed up, so a few of us were shuttled to the foreign visitors line. I hand over my passport to the US agent, photo side open, and he starts to flip though it. Something seems to catch his eye and he starts over again, going page by page, which in my expanded passport, is quite a few pages. A few pages past all of the Germany stickers he stops and turns it sideways reading a stamp I'm guessing, but I don't know which one.

Until now he has not said a word. He is still holding the passport open to a certain page I cannot see, but I know it's not the Germany stickers. He says, you work in Germany. Yes. When was the last time you were home? December. And what is your purpose? A week of work at company J. in a large midwest town. He then closes the passport and slides it back across the counter to me and says something that I miss, but I know it's not the usual 'welcome home' that they've started to do regularly.

I know I've missed something because he's waiting for an answer. I ask him to repeat and he says 'ah, I thought you spoke Polish based on where you visited in Poland as it is not a tourist destination, pardon me.' I then had to explain that I'm only still learning Polish, and could he repeat again more slowly? (It was welcome home in Polish, duh.) There was no one in line I would need to wait for my bag anyway, so I stood there chatting with him for 10 minutes in my very basic Polish about why I had visited such a remote destination in Poland and how he liked living in the US.

3. the Bad - It's not a specific German thing, but as I come so often into Germany my sample size is skewed. When I last came into DUS from the UK, they were doing two shared lines, so no distinction between EU and not. D and I were at the back of the line so it took some time. I'm not sure what power trip these people get from being in uniform in a little glass box, but I could see he had one.

He doesn't bother to put the sticker under the special light, because obviously he has laser eyes to spot a fake. He then barks at me in that special way that Germans have 'Do you live in Germany?'

My first thought appeared in a bubble above my head 'Well f-wit, why else would I be entering Germany late on a Sunday night with a valid Germany sticker?' Before uttering that one aloud, I thought again based on my four plus years experience here--what would be the appropriate response to a German so that I can get through here as quickly as possible?

So I shouted back to him in German in a slightly louder but more angry tone 'Yes, I work here in Germany!' like, I'm in a hurry and I'm prepared to argue even louder with you if needed. Of course, having passed that test, he immediately closed the passport and slipped it through the little window to me without a word. D. and I had been watching the other line, the other guard was questioning a UK person who was politely trying to answer in English. That will get you nowhere quickly here, my friend.

4. the Odd - I find some passport control conversations completely out of the blue. In the UK recently the guy makes a comment that whoever put my extra pages into my passport did not do a good job. Yes, that was the US government, and there are some other things they're not doing so well either. And I spilled coffee on one corner of a page. The advice from the same passport guy who saw it, "You're not supposed to feed them, no matter what they say." Uh, ok.

The last time I went to Lithuania, the passport agent asked if I have health insurance. Um, yes. (Heather wondering, since when did Lithuania become a medical tourist destination.) So you will not use the health insurance of Lithuania? Hell no, I'm not sure I would even use it if injured and in need of a doctor; I'd probably hold out for the sanctuary of German soil for medical needs, thank you.
And those are my thoughts on trips through passport control as of summer 2007.

if you're ever in Koeln...

and looking for a bar with no cover that is open until after 5 AM and plays karaoke with songbooks in English, German and Thai, just let me know and i'll hook you up. the karaoke stops at 5 AM, however, and it converts to regular music.

in particular, you may also find there Germans with a sense of humor who recognize that your tough looking, shaved-head, vegan friend has one hell of a voice. they will then invite him to sing with one of them a tune they chose, 'barbie girl', where said friend is told to sing the barbie part.

after you then return the favor and challenge the germans to sing along with something as equally appalling, they will then decide to up the ante and challenge your group to a German speaking song, as they have heard your group speaking English. having at least one person who can reasonably plow through the words even if the tune is not known will win you major points.

even better one of your group will be asked to dance by a serious German, while another can strike up a conversation with the Thai/German married couple who comes there every week while half English/half German conversations generally abound on this side of the room while the other half is half Thai/half German. Then your English group can be stymied by the 12 Thai people who come in at 4 AM to join the 10 already there, and looking around the bar you're thinking you must be looking at the entire Thai population of Koeln.

if you're ever in such a mood, I know just the place.

Saturday vegan cooking

As you know, Saturday is my best cooking day. I buy my "major" food on either Friday or Saturday, so everything I cook on Saturday is extremely fresh. Also I have the most time on Saturday afternoons, and there is always the fallback that the stores are open until the evening in case I'm suddenly missing something, which is not an option on Sundays.

Today's cooking is special because Vegan Pete is in town visiting. So Vegan Pete eats only vegetarian food, minus egg and dairy products. Having been vegan for a few years, often my meals are still vegan, mainly because I'm not talented at egg cooking and dairy makes my tummy hurt. In addition, Vegan Pete is lavish in praise, not only is he verbally pleased about what I make, but he eats a lot of it, so I know he's not just being polite. ;-)

Today's menu is looking like this:
Starters: Buffalo Tempeh Wings - which will be made with my Jim Beam hot wing sauce
Stuffed Zucchini flowers (courtesy of my balkon garden) stuffed with chopped mushrooms and fresh balkon garden herbs
roasted garlic cloves

Mains: Tasty Eggplant Bake - mainly because it uses quinoa which I love for its nutritional value and I do rarely use quinoa in cooking as it's a little too adventurous for most non-vegetarians
Soba noodles with green beans and ginger and garlic (mainly for D because he is an part-time vegetarian, so quinoa does wonders for his digestive system)
Stuffed zucchini, because zucchini looked so good this morning and I liked that the stuffing in this recipe was bean based as a change for the usual breadcrumb based stuffing.

As you can guess from the above, there will be enough food that no one will need dessert, which is part of my master plan. I don't eat so much sweet stuff myself beyond fruit or berries as I don't like the taste, so I when I attempt to create something sweet myself, it is absolutely inedible. I can't figure out how it's supposed to taste in the making or at the end so it always goes terribly, terribly wrong so I've given up on this point. Fortunately so many desserts contain egg or dairy so I'm mainly off the hook on that account.

i am back from the UK

but too tired to write.

when the going gets tough...

the tough take a cheap weekend flight somewhere else.

my friends at lufthansa publish cheap flights from Germany every other Wednesday, which are good for the next two weeks. i dilligently watch for them; there are usually four or five options: one far away (US, Japan, or Middle East), and three or four Europe ones. these flights are usually very good for me, because at least one and often two include the good flight times for us "9 to 5 monday to friday" working folk: out friday night and back sunday evening.

the Europe ones usually level out around 100 eur for the roundtrip, including taxes and all that. sometimes the destinations aren't so sexy (i.e. Lyon, France). Sometimes they are more than interesting: Riga, Prague, Paris, etc.

So far I've take the cheap flights to Goteborg City and Bratislava in this manner.

This weekend's flight, booked on Tuesday of this week-->London. Total cost-->101 eur. I've going from DUS, but it was also available around the same price from CGN.

London calling!

Forced frugality (aka life in Germany)

Growing up in the Phillyland area, I realized later, it was a bit of a lean life. It's a blue collar town with blue collar people, where life can sometimes be hard. However, we never seemed poor, as everyone else lived the same life, basically. I consider it an advantage today.

I keep up with US life mainly through the internet, and recently I stumbled into the Congressional Food Stamp Challenge where members of Congress tried in May/June to live on what the average food stamp person receives (yeah, I'm a little behind on the surfing). This then led to related 'money saving' and 'being frugal' tips. I wasn't surprised to see many of these reflected in how I grew up. What surprised me was how many of them I do in Germany, but not out of conscious choice, but more through living "normal Germany" life here, or living as a US expat here.

Of what such things are you speaking, heather in europe? Glad you asked:

1. Bringing my own re-usable shopping bags to the supermarket. My current trend is to use one from Trader Joe's to see if anyone here will ever recognize it. Four months and counting and no one has.

-The bag reuse is now taking hold in the US: http://www.reusablebags.com/action.php?id=6


2. Yes, the vegetarian thing.

-However, something new I have learned since being here, however. Vegetarianism as a food cost saving methodology: http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/SavingandDebt/SaveMoney/GoVegetarianToSaveMoney.aspx

3. Eat seasonally and locally. This was a large change for me personally, as given the choice I would have broccoli every single week for 52 weeks. Right now is a vegetable explosion in Germany with lovely salads to be made. February forces me to be creative with cabbage, carrots and potatos from the root cellar, along with fabulous soups. I eat seasonally here, as often that is the only option. (you try finding a strawberry in the winter months!)

-Apparently, this seasonal eating is now a 'cost saving' tip in the US:
http://fitfare.net/2007/03/02/10-fairly-easy-ways-to-eat-healthfully-save-money-and-save-the-world/

4. Re-use of ziploc bags - This one relates to being an expat and not having the whole ziploc line here. I use them not only for food storage, but more often for storing other things like toiletries.

I make a bag of 20 last an entire year until I go back to the US by re-using them liberally. Apparently so do some other people, minus the 'going back to the US' part: http://lifehacker.com/xml/comments/278476

5. Taking public transport/walking - public transport options are much better here than in the US, in particular for suburb to suburb/small town trips like I took this weekend. Not only are the options better, more people take it, so it's less of a danger than in the US where the late night buses were not so safe for a single female. Generally I find myself walking more because things are more walkable and less parkable, so often it's easier to walk.

-I thought this was an interesting spin on the topic from the US, in actually measuring your savings:
http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2007/03/28/save-money-with-your-feet/

6. Shop at Aldi - a German once told me that I am very fortunate as I live near the 'Aldi border'. 'My' Aldi Sued is five minutes by car or 20 minutes by foot. There is also an Aldi Nord 15 minutes away by car. Not every German can be so lucky to be able to go to both. Although I never do as I have a plethora of other low cost stores less than 15 minutes away.


In particular I go to Aldi Sued for their Bio Tofu and veg hotdogs and burgers, and because they are on the way home from work. Also, I find at the Pennymarkt more tempting things, so I try not to go so often to the Pennymarkt. (Damn them and their low, low prices. My last Penny purchase was a picnic blanket that has a plastic foil like coating on the back and folds up nicely for 3.99. I didn't go shopping for such a thing, but with the soggy grass here, I've used it twice so far with fantastic results.)
-It seems there are some true Aldi US fans out there, and they've even gone so far as to plan meals and give you a shopping list to help you save money:
http://momadvice.com/food/aldi_meal_plan.aspx

7. Bring your lunch to work - Since moving to the new office where there is no canteen, and not even a vending machine, my eating has improved from having to always bring my own. True, I could wait for the shuttle, take it over to the main building for a total of 15 minutes lost each way, but the deep fried, cheese laden, unhealthy plates weren't worth walking down the stairs when we were there, let alone actually making a special trip for it.

There is an imbiss about a five minute walk away, and the people are very nice, but their food is just so-so. There is, however, an Edeka four km away so I can do my main weekly shopping and pick up some salad things to last me the week in the office with salads, or I bring something from home as we do have a microwave. There's also the advantage that I can do my weekly shop at lunchtime and save myself the Saturday morning chaos trip.

- I don't do such calculations as they do here, but it is interesting the possibilities:
http://www.cleverdude.com/articles/finances/frugal-lunch-by-clever-dudette/

Apparently I'm not being frugal with words, however, based on the length of the above.

The return of Luna the cat

It's been so long since I've seen the giant warming ball of light in the sky, I think my tolerance for warm weather has gone down. This weekend was hot as heck here, and it has been wreacking havoc on my sad little balkon garden plants who are as equally confused by its presence.

I started a few projects in the past few weeks. I have no storage/shelving at all in my bathroom, except for the surface area on top of the dryer, so all medicine cabinet items not in daily use are stored on a shelf in my hallway closet. With Aunt R staying with me before and after our Lithuania trip, now that it's only a month away, I'm trying to tidy up in advance.

So I have all the bathroom items on the living room/kitchen floor where they're getting separated into little piles so that they can go into a ziploc baggy with their related brethren, with expiring stuff going in the bin, checking if there is anything Aunt R should bring from the US, etc.. The apartment was not as messy as when Luna the cat last came for a visit, but it was not as spic and span as when the boss came to visit two months ago and I kept up the twice weekly swiffering for a few weeks.

So Saturday afternoon, I'm enjoying some ice water and who should reappear on the balkon, but Luna the cat. It wouldn't be a problem except that she carries on with incessant meowing demanding to be removed from there, this very instant. The owner's mother went to fetch the owner to come and pick her up. So again I feel bad that this woman needs to come through a messy apartment again to fetch her cat. She must think Americans live like the biggest slobs around. I have no problems with the fact that her cat is on the balkon, although I have no idea what is driving the cat to do so. It's not like my vegtarian cooking wooes cats in from miles around.

My only consolation is that she seemed equally, if not more embarassed than me about the whole situation, that she was again intruding into my apartment. The first time she seemed sorry to inconvenience me (which really wasn't any inconvenience). The second time she seemed genuinely embarassed that her cat could be so stupid now for a second time, or maybe that her mother demanded that she drop everything to go get the cat--so she's walking through my apartment in a bikini. It was rather funny to me actually, as soon as she picked up the cat it stopped meowing. She then asks it as she's walking out, "So you can figure out how to get up here but not back down. Then you really shouldn't come up here now, should you?" Like the cat was going to listen to her line of reasoning going forward.

Shades of blue and gray - the Faroe Islands

I never knew the full range of the world's color palette of blue to gray until I went to the Faroes. Due to the dearth of tourist info, I may put my notes together at some point and put them out there for other travellers to use, but in the meantime, some photos.

Unfortunately, it's often more gray than blue there. None of my photos are touched up, as I have neither the talent nor the interest. While Germany can be gray, this was a truly intense, strong gray.

This one was taken one night at 23.30. The weather was 7 C inside the tent, and I took a quick run to the bathroom and quickly pulled out the camera on my return for such a nice sky. I was surrounded on both sides by Danish tourists who were courteous and quiet.

It's so far to the north that the sun goes down by 23.00 but it doesn't really get dark. Then by 04.00 it's as light as 23.00 again. One night I woke up to vicious winds around 4, and opened the tent to peek out and review both sides to make sure that all stakes were securely held down. Other campers were not so fortunate, so by 07.00 some people had to pack up as the winds were too much.