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.

Buzzing with activity

The boring move minutiae is the only thing on my mind.

To summarize: I arrived in the UK almost six years ago with two suitcases. Yes, two! Then I moved to small-town Germany. Then I moved Cologne, Germany. Then I took a local contract and moved to the tiny town of B, to an apartment which was unfurnished, but with kitchen. Needless to say, I've ended up picking up a few things since arriving.

I probably won't pick up moving expenses from company J as this is a self-requested move. Also, I feel this is a new beginning, I'm not the same person I was when I was packing to come over from the US. In addition, I will be living in already furnished digs. I've set an arbitrary limit, one carload is all that will accompany me on this new adventure, maximum.

To that end, what is making the cut so far?
-a few boxes of books, in particular non-English books which I've picked up in various countries because they are cheaper when bought in-country and would be hard to find again.
-my Christmas market mugs. This is my one souvenir from living in Germany
-my business suits as i'll still need to have an office job :-/
-blue jeans and trainers from the US, because they're so d*mn expensive over here
-personal photos
-the laptop

What's outgoing (so far)?
-the balcony garden, already mentioned. :-(
-the indoor plants. thankfully, my work colleauge is more of a plant person that me, so she took all of them.
-books still on their way out, mainly through bookswapper
-the aldi sewing maching - i figured out this really wasn't a hobby i enjoyed.
-shoes i never wore much for whatever reason - ebay has been my friend on this one, as well as for several other random items.

What lit the fire to get things moving here?
-My calendar which is rapidly filling up with little X's in the boxes. (66 more nights in Germany if you're curious.)
-Upon sending the letter to my landlady, she graciously responded, and asked if I could give her an availability schedule, as she perhaps already has someone lined up to see the place. The sooner I move things out the easier it is to put it into a more presentable fashion. Thankfully, the first two days I listed have already past, so maybe this was only an availability check.
-In addition, I'm doing this solo so spreading it out and doing a few things per day in advance is the only option.

London, by way of half of Germany

I am looking at booking my final trip out of DE (which is now 91 nights away). I am lucky in that I can travel from either Cologne or D'dorf, my only constraint in this instance is that someone is driving past the Cologne airport at 7 AM and would be happy to drop me off, which would be nicer than schlepping myself and my luggage on the bus and then the regional train.

I looked on all of the usual places for early AM flights...AirBerlin only runs from D'dorf to Stansted (my preferred UK destination for this trip), not Cologne to Stansted. Wings does Cologne to Stanstead but nothing in the early AM.

Branching out to Expedia and the similar sites brought some amusing options.
Keep in mind--AirBerlin will allow me to go DUS-STN, at 15 or 18.30, for 64 EUR (approx 81 USD).

Expedia suggested the below:
Sun 15-Feb-09
CGN-MUC 15.30-16.40 272 mi(438 km) Duration: 1hr 10mn, Flight: 6121
MUC-DUS 20.45-22.00 pm 302 mi(486 km) Duration: 1hr 15mn, Flight: 6040
Mon 16-Feb-09
DUS-STN 10.15-10.30 298 mi(480 km)Duration: 1hr 15mn,Flight: 8676
All for a mere 114 USD, which really isn't so bad, when you consider that I'm tripling the distance for a mere 30 USD. ;-)

It gets better...
For an extra 10 USD, instead of travelling through DUS, I can substitute in HAJ (Hannover), arriving into HAJ at 19.55 and departing the next morning at 06.30.
For an extra 20 USD, instead of travelling through DUS, I can substitute in TXL (Berlin), and still make it in on Sunday, or the next early morning.
Another TXL option: Cologne to Berlin, Berlin to D'Dorf, then the next morning's 06.30 DUS to STN.

I am so easily amused.

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?

Sunday lunch - vegetarian Rogan Josh

One of the things I'm really looking forward to about moving to the UK will be the easy access to tasty, spicy Indian food--be it a proper restaurant or around the corner take away.

It's not that Germany doesn't have Indian restaurants, it's just that the German taste tends to avoid spicy, so it always seems that something is missing to me when eating out here. I even quizzed my Indian colleagues who have been here for some years:

'where would you recommend to go for good Indian food?'
'oh Heather--unfortunately no such thing here. Although there is a place in Leverkusen that sells authentic spices from India, I highly recommend it.'

(Having tried every Indian restaurant in Cologne, I sorta already expected such an answer.) It's like the elusive Mexican restaurant in Germany, the holy grail of US expats--just not to be found. Although if you know of one in the Cologne area, by all means prove me wrong. ;-)

One of my colleagues was very passionate about the subject. He had gone to the Indian restaurant near the Main train station in Cologne, and was appalled by the food, in particular because the proprietor was from his region in India. He accused the fellow of giving a bad reputation to their region, by serving such lackluster food. The owner explained--he had to modify the traditional recipes to make it appropriate for a German audience.

So in the meantime, I'll survive the best I can. Rogan Josh is traditionally made with lamb, here is a super recipe with photos. My vegetarian take on it instead includes tofu, broccoli, and lentils:

I'm not so good at making curries from scratch and I don't have the required cooking time during the week, so I rely on a jarred version. Here's a look inside the pantry, for those of you who like such photos. I mainly depend on Sharwoods, which I buy on periodic trips to Belgium and then ration myself until the next trip. The Sharwoods which can be found there is produced for that market--as well as for the Nordics from looking at the label languages, so it's not as expensive as an import from the UK found at the British shop here. I was just in Belgium two weeks ago, so currently well stocked. :-)

Front left is a Patak's, a gift from an expat leaving. Patak's is the only Indian food label I find at the Asian supermarkets here. Front and center is one of the few Hokkaido pumpkins still remaining. ;-)

how does heather celebrate the friday...

which marks 100 nights (of which 78 will be spent in DE) until i'll be in the UK?

-by sucking it up and getting out the german books, as i have only 2 more weekends to study for the upcoming B1 test and there is one particular sub-section of the test i want to go after, in order to nail it.
-I've been spending every other Monday with my Polish teacher (she came to Germany as a child and is therefore a native of both languages), to work on pronunciation, as I feel that is my weak point.
-i feel i have a very good chance to get a high pass, so why not?

in other news i gave away all balcony garden items this week.
i currently have 4 auctions on ebay of other things i'm not using and do not need to bring with me to the UK.
bittersweet.

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.

The final countdown

The date is now set: Feb 15. It's the first day on the working permit (I had requested that day).

I officially resigned my apartment this week for Feb 15. (My apartment contract has a 3 month notice period).

I have a giant calendar at home where I keep organized. I counted down backwards from Feb 15. 106 days until I leave Germany.

I counted down again, taking out the days where I'm not already in Germany, such as holidays in the US, etc., as those are 'non-productive' days in the grand scheme of moving. 84 more nights in Germany.

Holy cr*p, so much to do....
I then counted again to confirm. Then I opened a bottle of nice Spanish white wine upon second confirmation.

What a wonderful opportunity this will be to re-examine everything I own, and to contemplate if I really need it enough to cart it 550 km away. :-)

The answer to where Heather is going...

From the other post's comments:

Kristen and J: already knew.

Jul: thank you.

Moonwaves: I wouldn't have minded Ireland, to be honest.

Jeff: Spain would have been my next step using my Germany residency if this had fallen through.

Some people collect baseball cards or books...

Heather in Europe collects the permission to work in EU nations.
Why?
Why not.
Take heed: you do not find what you do not seek.

Nothing against Germany or the Germans, but after five plus years here, it's time to go somewhere else, to try something new, to learn new things, to be tested in different ways...it was never meant to be forever, else the blog would have been called 'Heather in Germany.' ;-)

I am in discussions with benevolent Company J, they'd like to keep me and perhaps move my job to an office in this new country, as I've definitely made my mental commitment to move there. It would be nice to be able to stay with company J, but location is the driver here, so I'm going with or without a job.

But on to the interesting part, where is Heather going?
Chew on that one for a few days until I pick up my passport with its shiny new sticker which they say is granted and ready to be picked up. Comment away and place your guess.

Any hints H?
Ach! It's somewhere in Europe, not Germany. You've been reading here long enough (painfully boring as I'm sure that's been), it's not a country I've never named here before, just pick one of the 27 EU nations which sounds good.

Is there a prize if I pick the right country H?
Sure, I'm still in 'down-sizing mode', in particular now that a move is involved. How about a free book or two in the mail from my bookshelf here? Or if you live in the US--I'll bring an EU prize home in December and mail it to you from the US (most likely German chocolate if I cannot think of anything better!). Or perhaps you live in the Cologne or D'dorf area and would like a few potted plants? ;-) Or just the satisfaction of being right? :-)

--The answer will be provided during this coming work week once I pick up the pass, I promise.

Sunday lunch: Thai chickpeas and pumpkin soup

Christina G gives a great cooking lesson, and let's face it, I need all the visual help I can get--so I really liked the video! I never met a chickpea dish I didn't like, and this was no exception:


I needed to use another Hokkaido pumpkin, so I went out on a limb and tried another new recipe in the Thai genre. This recipe also turned out well, but I did spice it up a tiny bit more. The Hokkaidos provide the rich flavor such a soup needs, and a lovely balance to the coconut flavor.

Theae square containers are .5 liter, so a perfect size to take to the office as an afternoon snack or a compliment to the above. If lunch plans appear and if it looks like I won't be finishing these by Wed (ok, I ate one tonight already), they are actually freezer containers so they will get popped into the freezer to become an easy meal later.




A busy week is upcoming which I spent all weekend preparing for. More on that topic soon.

Germans and parking spaces

yes I realize this sort of thing happens in the US and other places also...

My work colleague and I meet every other month for a haircut appointment (same salon, different stylists, at the same time). This establishment is located on a relatively busy street in the Leverkusen suburbs, but mainly with cars passing through to other shopping areas. This street itself has only the hair salon, a bakery and a kiosk as commercial establishments, the rest is residential. The main street was parked full, so I had to park on one of the many residential streets. These streets are free for parking, with marked spots. Most of the houses on this street have driveways and garages, so 80% of the street spots were free.

I am parked, and a man walked out from the house (which has a driveway and garage) I parked in front of and knocks on my window. As I'm pressing down the window button, he opens my car door.

"How long are you going to be here?"
-an hour.
"You cannot park here, go park across the street."
-I'm sorry, but my German is not so good. I cannot park here?
"No. You may not park here."
-Where is the sign which states I cannot park here? (looking up and down the empty street where no such sign exists.)
"This is my wife's parking spot. You may not park here. You may park over there."
-This is a free parking street. Your wife may park over there.
"Da ist mir egal." (and he walks away, perhaps realizing that he has no basis for his request.)

Uh-huh. Having made my point, I did park on the other side of the street, because life is too short to get caught up in such foolish little games, and I did not want to be worrying for an hour what he would be doing to my unattended car. Had he come up with some reason like he was going to be trimming the bushes (someone was doing that down the street) or his wife could not walk far or whatever, I would have immediately moved, with pleasure.

Interactions like these tire me. I know it has absolutely nothing to do with me being a foreigner in DE, that this is just how people here are. But it reminds me that I don't really belong there, as I cannot understand these things.

(Although the Philly side of my had a fleeting Philly thought, to return after dark with some rotten eggs to his wife's car, but then I remembered we're not in Philly so a Philly reaction is not called for here.) ;-)

The stress over parking in this country seems silly. My work colleague lives in Duisburg, on a street with an old lady. When I went to visit him, he explained in advance not to park in front of the yellow house two houses down, because if one does, the old lady comes out and starts to shout at you, that you need to move your car, or she will call the police.

-So Colleague J, does she have an elderly partner who needs the spot because he has difficulty walking?
"No H, she has no car."
-??? So why the fuss.
"Because she's retired H, with nothing to do and no people interactions, and she looks out her window all day, and she doesn't like to see a car there."
-But colleague J, it's a public street. Do the police really do anything?
"No, they never come, or she never calls. But the path of least residence is to park elsewhere to avoid the drama."

My other work colleague had a h*ll of a time at her last flat where parking was tight. She parked and her neighbor came out as soon as she parked in front of the neighbor's house. The neighbor told her not to park there, as the neighbor's husband should park there. But it's a public street? Yes, you may park down there, a few doors away, there is always extra space. But your husband could park there? No, this is the spot in front of my house.

On principle then, she remained, and it then got worse. Notes were left on her car each time she parked in front of this particular neighbor's house, threatening to call the police. Then she was mysteriously reported to the TV police, and it was a continual escalation of silly things.

I cannot fathom what life must be like for these people who get so emotional over parking spaces, nor do I really want to know at this time. Thankfully life in the Tiny town of B does not include such shenanigans--or at least not where I live.

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.

Friday lunch - Hokkaido pumpkin stir-fry

As I mentioned, I'm somewhat limited in what I can take to the office. The tiny 'Tea Kitchen' where the microwave is housed is constantly busy with people picking up tea and coffee, and the microwave is an older, smaller machine with limited power. So most of us use it for simple tasks, and as my colleague noted, always defrost in advance, else it takes 15 min!

I like to make multiple meals at a time so here was tonight's dinner, with a second portion for lunch on Friday, and probaly a smaller portion for Saturday's lunch.

I roasted another Hokkaido pumpkin. They're fully in season now, so they're down to 1.99 at my Kaufpark.

While it was in the oven I sliced some garlic and onions and fried them up.
Then I added the in-season brussel sprouts.
I had fried up some tofu, that went in.
I had some leftover fresh zucchini from last night, that went in.
I sliced up the roasted pumpkin and gave that a few minutes.
I put in 2 egg whites, which fried nicely.
I put in some chilli soy sauce and some vegetarian 'oyster' (read mushroom) sauce.
Sauted it up all together and off we go.
I threw in a handful of Thai basil at the end.
I had left some noodles from today's lunch in the fridge in the office so we're set for lunch.

What's for Sunday lunch - Hokkaido pumpkin in Germany

If your corner of Germany is anything like mine in NRW, you're seeing Hokkaido pumpkins, like the one I bought the other day. Pumpkins are like every other seasonal produce one finds in Germany, we'll be awash with them for maybe a month, and then just like that they're gone until next year. So I'm buying them like the dickens, squirreling them away in my cellar storage area (they last up to 3 months when stored in a cool place), and making 4 meals a week with them in the meantime.

I must admit, I was not a pumpkin eater prior to coming to Germany. The only pumpkin I had ever had was the stuff that came out of a can and was made into pie, and we all know my aversion for desserts. The second strike against US pumpkin for me, is that a lot of recipes with it also include cinnamon and/or nutmeg, the only two spices in the entire world I abhor. So back to the Hokkaido.

Step 1: Buy one at your local farmer's market or supermarket. I bought one at Aldi Sued for 1.79, my local Kaufpark/Rewe affiliate and Edeka sells them for 2.75 each. My farmer's market connection is usually around 2 Euros or so. Mainly they seem to be coming from Holland. Go for a Bio one if possible, as one of the best things about the Hokkaido is that the skin is edible, so you save yourself the peel time/effort, as well as raising the fiber content of your recipe.

Step 2: Wash er up. Slice the top off. Scoop out the seeds.



If you're feeling ambitious you can set the seeds aside to wash and roast. Or you can throw them in your garden compost. We have a communal area in the small forest nearby for such biodegradable items which is where mine went. Either a forest creature is going to find a nice treat or next spring the Germans will begin to wonder how pumpkins are growing wild in the forest.

After I remove all the seeds, I use my small knife to give the insides a scrape, to remove all of the stringy bits remaining. Then I wipe the insides out with a paper towel to be sure I got them all.


Step 3: Into the oven. This is a great activity for cold rainy days like today to heat up the flat. I put it into a ceramic pan, then put about 1.5 inches of water inside the pumpkin. Then put the top back on, but slightly at an angle to allow for a little of the steam to escape. Next, give the whole thing a quick rub with olive oil. Finally, put a piece of foil lightly over the pumpkin, to allow the inside to cook without the outside getting overdone.

I try for around 195C, for around 50 min, but it depends on your pumpkin size, oven, etc. You'll know it's done when you poke it with a fork and the skin is easily pierced. If you want, pull the foil off for the last few minutes to allow the skin to brown up a little.


Coming out of the oven, it will look like this:






Step 4: The pumpkin is usually hot as heck, especially as the outside is oiled. So you can let it sit for a few minutes to cool, and then dump out the inside water. Then let it sit for a few more minutes to cool further. Or speed up the whole process and carefully dump the water immediately after taking it out of the oven.

Step 5: Slice and serve. Slice anyway you want. Sometimes I try chunks, today I went with slices.

Today's plate, starting at 12 o'clock is the pumpkin. I had a decent sized one, and here is about half of it. I so enjoy the warm rich taste of the Hokkaido, I purposely left it without any sauce or dressing for a change today. Continuing clockwise, in the 4 o'clock region are some pan-seared brussel sprouts, flavored with Bragg Liquid Aminos, although soy sauce would give you a similar result. 7 o'clock has some leftover beans which were spiced up with chili and onions when cooking them. 11 o'clock has some of those lovely Dutch sausages.


Because I take a lot of convenient 'one plate' meals to the office such as stir frys (due to our lack of on-site meal facilities and a shared microwave), on the weekends I like to prepare 'independent' items which aren't all mixed together in the same sauce.

The above is actually vegan, excluding the sausages which contain egg and milk. That wasn't my intention either way, but moreso to make something a little healthier as I was pretty run-down last week and wasn't eating so good in the days prior. In a time-saving maneuver I created double of the above, so tomorrow's dinner will be the same.

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.

Fall in Germany...

is my favorite time of year. Is starts with these items, but I need to explain more...

My sick day

It rained all day. I slept a lot, because of the DayQuil. I watched birds landing on my balcony, jumping amid the plants. (Which finally puts to rest my outstanding questions of how slugs and worms made it into my tomato plants.) I stopped sniffling after it got dark.
-The end.

This is the first actual 100% full sick day I've taken in 5+ years in EU, and in 10+ years at least. Where I come from, you don't get sick days. It took a few years for the German way of life to wear off on me. ;-)

Apparently I've been stuck at lesson 4, or in a slightly different version here for a long time on this point.

and the next day

yesterday wasn't so hot, i'm fighting the flu, today it seemed worse so i took off at lunchtime. as i'm walking out the door, colleague 1 says to me in german, 'hope you feel better'. colleague 2 repeats the same. i answer in english. we tend to have a mishmash of languages floating around all day, so that wasn't out of the ordinary.

C1: wait, H, how do you say that in English?
H: hope you feel better. or feel better soon, i guess.
C1: H! you guess?!? maybe you need to take an English class, not a German class.
H: (thinking: bless his cotton socks as he tries to rescue yesterday with some humor.)
H: no worries C1--as C2 would fix my English as well!
C2: (speechless and confused by the whole conversation.)

I'm sure Colleague 1 spent some minutes after I left to instruct young Colleague 2 (not so long out of university, never lived anywhere but DE), in some of the finer points of dealing with Americans. As well as to explain the joke of Heather needing an English class. And that my final comment was not literal, but a bit of sarcasm. Thankfully I was on the way home.

the more things change...

the more they stay the same. After all the German learning run around, I finally felt moved by the spirit last week to register for the B1 test in November. Upon reviewing in the VHS course schedule I checked my understanding with my work colleagues:

H: Colleague K, read this--does this say I must call this person in order to register to take this test?
K: Yes, Heather. Hmm. They probably want to speak with you, to make sure that you speak enough German to take the test.

(hmm)

So I call the woman...
H: I'd like to register for this test in November.
VHS Frau Doktor: Yes, you need to come in and take a test.
H: I need to take a test in order to be able to take the test?
VHS FD: Yes. You may come tomorrow between 3 and 4, or Wednesday mornings, from 9-10 are my open door office hours.
H: Okey dokie. (eyes rolling)

So I appear during open office hours. She questions me--is this a requirement of my staying in Germany? (no). Is this a requirement for my residency permit, to show proof of German skills (no). Then why do you want to take this test? So that I can go home to America next year, having passed this test in Germany. (Oh, of course). Not exactly true as I have no plans to return home to America, but I was tired of having this conversation.

VHS FD: OK, so then you only need to take this short written section then, it's the last section of the test. Here's a chair, 30 minutes, go ahead.
H: (freaking A). So I plod along, writing a letter which is a response to a letter, focusing my paragraphs on four key points as required in the instructions.

Upon handing it in:
VHS FD: Yes, you will pass the test with this level of German. If you want to get a high pass though, you need to write at least two more paragraphs. Length is a requirement for a high pass. But, you may keep the entire practice test, and fill out this card, and you're registered.

Upon returning to the office, because I had to miss work hours to go on this adventure:
Colleague 1: So H, are you allowed to take the test?
H: Freaking A. Yes. (grumble, grumble) Things are so difficult in your country. (This is to my German colleague, whom I sit across from and I've known for 5+ years, otherwise I tend to park the outright negativity to the country.)
C1: Why?
H: Because I just had to take part of the test, to register for the test.
C1: (Quizzical look.)
C2: (starts flipping through the practice test, and takes a pen to my writing, to correct it.)
H: That's the purpose of the test, to show that I can pass it. So I shouldn't have to take a pre-test to be allowed to take the test, else what is the purpose here.
C1: They want to help you. They don't want you to fail.
H: But colleague C1, it's my own fault if I fail, then I shouldn't be registering for a test I cannot pass.
C1: H, they want to protect you!
H: (thinking) from myself?
C2: H, your writing is really poor....
C1: How do they do this in the US? Anyone can register for any test?
C2: ...Well, but your speaking is better. No, not really, because really you don't speak enough; your speaking is also poor. But your primary problem there is just not using German enough. You should speak it more.
H to C2: It's B1 level, not fluency or entry to university.
H to C1: Yes, anyone can register for any test. It's your own fault if you are under-prepared.
C2: Really H, your written German is not very good. You should not have used 'haben' here. Well you could, but 'werden' sounds better.
H to C2: It's B1, readjust your grading level.
C2: What's B1?
H to C2: The level of the test and the expected writing level. What two German teachers have now said I have that enough of in order to pass.
C2: But it's wrong!!!

And that really is the crux of the matter, bless his little perfectionist heart, as he does mean well. Some days I do wonder...if I was in a German language environment (say in a different German-speaking country) where the native population didn't feel the need to pick apart every single written or spoken sentence, would I be more interested in acquiring the language? Or, had I had proper training before coming to Germany, so that I had some basis to start with upon arrival, would I be a little less sensitive to the constant correction, as there wouldn't be so much to correct.

Neither here nor there really as I'm not a lifer here. But something to consider, those of you reading me outside of Germany and planning to move here. ;-)

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.

busy - decluttering in Germany

To change your life, change your perspective. To change your perspective, change your environment. I'm bringing my 'garden philosophy' inside and applying it to inside things. (Heather's garden balcony mantra: If you aren't producing anything of value, space is limited, and you are dismissed). Unproductive plants, unproductive books, it's all the same in the end.

Some things I've been up to recently:

1. books - a review of the entire bookshelf. Do I want to read this again? Would I pay 50 cents to ship it elsewhere, plus having to box it up with other and schlep it to the post office? I've received some hand-me-down books from expats leaving Germany as they know I like to read, but some of them are absolutely not in my interest area. I'd been saving them for a rainy, bookless day, but ever since I've discovered bookswapper, I'd had more than enough to read and then some. However, I'm sure someone will enjoy some of them much more than me.

Therefore--gone, ye books which are gathing dust--www.bookswapper.de, and I'm a happier soul that some other English reader in Germany is getting some enjoyment from you.

2. gifts/clothes/things - often I've received something, but it's not in my interests. Or I've brought things from the US years ago, and it's not something I need now. In the US I'd drop it with nearby family (my aunts/cousins wear the same shoe/clothing size), and if no one was interested it would go to goodwill. Here, I've been following a different route:

A. recycle - by giving to work colleagues - some things can be used by my office mates.

B. ebay - I'm working on my German skills by selling things on ebay.de.

For example, I had purchased a pair of Dr Martins shoes from a goodwill back in the US, in the last five minutes before they closed. It was a rush affair, and I never had such a pair of shoes previously, but they were only 1.50 USD and new, and I knew of people here who swore by them. After wearing only a handful of times, I came to the conclusion that I don't like such heavy shoes. Onto ebay they went, and 17.50 euros later, I'm a happier person, as is some Goth gal near Berlin who got a great pair of shoes, practically new.

C. freecycle - just like the US equivalent, freecycle is here also in the major cities like Cologne. As I work pretty close to a Deutsche Bahn station, I just make arrangements to meet the person there after work.

D. Humana - Germany makes it very convenient to donate clothes/shoes, with large drop boxes belonging to various charities/groups in convenient places where you drop bagged items into the box, and a truck comes through periodically to empty the boxes. My closest donation box (seven minutes away on foot) belongs to Humana.

E. big trash pickup day - if all else fails, I can always just put something at the curb the night before big trash pickup day, once I figure out when our next one is scheduled. As we know, everything still in working order will find a new owner easily and quickly here in DE. :-)

This weekend in Cologne

a demonstration.

And no large gathering of people in Germany would be complete without a warning from the US consulate.

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...

More thoughts on learning German

Apparently this has been my theme this week. ;-) A few of you had some interesting comments on this theme. To summarize my general thoughts:

Why now after five years?

In that class the other day, I was reading aloud and the very nice teacher was gauging my spoken skills. 'Halt!' Then she says, 'you said German word, which is ok, that's how they say it in Hamburg, but a better way to say it in our corner of NRW is ...' I love 'teacher speak' and how they don't want to be discouraging.

However, I saw the point, my random pronunciation of that one threw off the overall effect of the entire sentence. I imagine it must be something I picked up from TV. Or that I heard it somewhere else and picked up the softer pronunciation of said word (my favorite and regular Berlitz teacher was from Hamburg), rather than the stronger NRW guttural version. I feel that I have a lot of tiny things of this type, and that a small amount of effort would give good returns. (As opposed to when I first got here and couldn't string together a sentence with any word with appropriate pronunciation, and all effort produced slow results.)

I don't imagine I'll be here another five years to allow for the general passive acquisition that has served me well thus far, so it's move it or lose it time. For some reason, hitting the five year point seems to have been a milestone after the fact. When I speak Spanish, I can go months and pick up immediately where I left off. My German isn't strong enough yet to do that, and if I don't get a stronger foundation in place, if I were to leave Germany tomorrow, I'd lose it completely, in a matter of a few years. I feel that would be an absolute waste of my time/effort here personally that I did already put into learning it, as well as a professional waste, as it is a marketable skill.

Had I known I was going to be here this long, I probably would have sucked it up long ago and got on the bandwagen. This was originally supposed to be a three month stint, then it became just one year, then onto two, and so it goes and here we are on an unlimited German contract. However, not having a German significant other to turn me into a lifer, I do have some sort of shelf life here, or so I suspect. Thus no lofty goals to read Goethe in the original or needing the language to be promoted or anything of that nature. More that from a common sense, practical perspective, the time seems right.

As expected

I received a letter from the tiny town of B's VHS, apologizing that they must cancel the course due to lack of participants. In a slightly interesting twist, they offered that I could register for a B2 conversation course at another VHS in the triumvirate. It was nice of them to offer an alternative, but I'm not really interested as 1) The course is a 15 week one at 1.5 hrs, and I already missed the first 4 classes and 2) It is described as a slow course, no stress type of thing, and anyone who has ever taken a weekly VHS course knows that intrinsically they are the epitome of a non-stressful course to begin with, so I cannot imagine how slow a proclaimed slow course would be.

Your comments over the past few postings on this topic have been interesting. As have been the reactions of my work colleagues, to hear that I was finally sucking it up and taking another course, after my self-imposed German learning break (from Dec 2007-Aug 2008). One dear colleague is ademantly convinced that there is a German speaking man in the picture somewhere, secretly, so thus the German learning Zeitgeist. (Don't worry dear readers, not so.)

Maybe some more thoughts on this over the weekend...

From scrambling to scrambled

So I trotted up the road to German class yesterday, impressed that they haven't cancelled the course, to a lovely littly building which I had never been inside. Not sure what else it holds besides the local VHS, but it has large poster-size prints of the tiny town of B in its heydey (approx 1910?).

A few minutes before 18.30 I wander into the room where there was only a teacher. She says, are you Ms. xxx? um, yes. Oh, good. We can wait a few minutes for the others, so then I don't need to repeat myself. Oki doki.

At 18.31 she says, well, there are supposed to be three students in total, but perhaps we chat for a few minutes since I do not know you yet, so that I hear your German. Okay.

At 18.45 she starts to sweat. Oh dear. Usually if a student does not arrive on time on the first day, then the student will not come. And I'm not sure if they will keep the class then. (insert crinkled brow and hand wringing.)

So we carry on since we're already here. She had brought along five copies of practice tests. Now I started to feel a little bad. She teaches at the VHS for enjoyment and they called her in at the last minute to teach this one, she belongs to another VHS affiliated in the triumvirate with b. Her children are older, she teaches disabled children in the morning. And here she's stuck with only me, and really I was only taking this course for fun, it's not like I must take/pass the test. And here she is all prepared with copies and planned exercises and her cd player for the verbal listening section and hoping for five students.

To her credit she mustered on. I follow along, filling in blanks, matching things, doing true/falses, reading aloud, etc. It was actually a pleasant experience, and she confirmed my suspicion. I could take the test tomorrow and pass it. With the course I'd probably make it a higher pass, or she suggested that I instead aim instead for the B2 test. We ended 20 minutes early, which considering it was basically a two hour private lesson was just fine. Toward the end she brought in bonbons from her car, (she had stopped at Aldi Sued on the way in to pick them up.) She explained that she would speak to the coordinator, that maybe they would call the two missing students, but that the VHS would probably call me to cancel.

So today my phone rings. It's the VHS and they want to cancel. But it wasn't that course, but the Thursday pronunciation one I had signed up for with the other VHS. So assuming this course also cancels, I will be without a German course for the fall. At this point I give up. I don't want to go all the way to K or D'dorf, and only one in between offers only long Oct-Mar courses.

Thus ends the Great German Experiment 2008.

Welcoming fall and my organized cabinet

A little pre-written reading to amuse you while I'm bumbling along in class...

Autumn is my absolute favorite time of year. These past few days have been a flurry of activity, greatly pushed along by the super summer weekend followed by the cold snap which gave the signal to 'get moving.' A few activities:

-I disassembled most of the Balkon garden. It was a very sad and dark day as the small table and chairs went into the basement storage room, and the dead and done plants were placed in the compost area.


-A few brave souls are still outside though, mainly what's left of the spindly tomatoes (including one not so bright one who just spurted some blossoms), the Hungarian and Turkish peppers, and the herbs.


-I cleared out the bean/grain/dried storage area to review what is there and added some new recently dried leaves and chilis. A certain special someone likes to make cracks about 'hunting for nuts and berries'. Here's a peek inside the freshly reviewed and organized 'nut and berry central':




As you can see, I'm a big fan of recycled glass jars. It's a very complex three-tier organization system. ;-) The oldest items go on the bottom (level 1) where they actively need to be used in receipes, and I will seek out recipes to use them. The next two tiers are available for use as needed, and eventually the will be bumped down a level as new things come in. Hidden behind the first row are either duplicates of the front or empty bottles.


So from the left, level 1 has: elephant beans, empty glass jars, quinoa in the baggy, black beans, and red and yellow lentils.


From the left, level 2: soy mince, mung beans, 7 grain mixture which is super with pumpkin, popcorn, cous cous, and dried chillis.


From the left, level 3: chickpeas, some unknown bean from the farmers' market, dried blackberry leaves, red cow peas, and more soya mince.


What's not here? The dried tomatoes and dried berries. They're hanging out downstairs in the cooler basement temps for a few weeks, resting up.

Scrambling

After I finally got off my duff and registered for German, it was a tad disappointing for them to call on Friday, they were cancelling the business class due to lack of registrants. (Sigh)

Back to the drawing board. I was already emotionally committed, and short of time as most VHS courses in this region are starting this week. In addition my Thursday was now blocked with the pronunciation class.

Checking all the local VHS courses, was between a rock and a hard place, as the schedule wasn't fitting (leaving early this year for the US), or the distance, or the days, or the time to go take another placement test, etc.

In the end, I came back full circle and will take the general B1 test prep course being offered by the tiny town of B.

On the negative side:
-It's only the general B1 course, not the business specific one.
-It's 2 hrs, 15 minutes each time. Yes I'm sure there's a break tucked in there, but still.

The positive:
-It's only 8 meetings since each is so long.
-It ends in November, rather than during the December packing rush.
-It's only a 15-20 min walk from my flat to the classroom. :-)

Like a kid in a candy store

Everyone has something, be it shoe shopping, alcohol, cigarettes, cookies, chocolate, Harry Potter books, whatever, that represents the ultimate test of temptation.

My weakness is apparently language classes.

I don't have so much time during the work week and it's a little tough for me to find an interesting VHS (cheap courses subsidized by the government) German class in my immediate area due to demographics. Most of the learning German speakers around here are involved in government-mandated integration courses for new immigrants (highly structured, intensely organized courses to promote integration into German society) or have more daytime available and take 'foreign mother's courses' which occur during childrens' school hours.

Strike 1: As I have only evening hours available, and I don't want to drive more than 15 minutes from home/work for this little adventure. The drive to Polish class is 30 minute each way and I find it too much when the course is only 1.5 hours.
Strike 2: My arrival in Germany pre-dated the government mandated courses, so I'd need to prove a need and find one with free seats. As I won't be a lifer in Germany, I'm not so much their target audience. I can converse easily at the B1 level, which is their targeted end for people in the course, so that's a wash anyway.
Strike 3: I don't really have a need for advanced German, such as having a goal to study at a German university, the purpose of some of the higher courses in the area beyond the tiny town of B.

Since I was on such a roll after my recent German course, as I was glancing through the VHS book for the Tiny town of B, I gave it a second thought when I noticed they are offering a weekly class to prepare for the Goethe Institut's B1 general Zertificat Deutsch exam. (Tiny town of B's highest German course offering!)

Goethe offers this general exam as well as a business centric one, both at the B1 level. I don't really need the Goethe Business B1 certification since I'm already working here, as it's a certification some people get to show they can function at a basic level in an office environment. Also, Goethe has a good number of levels from barely above beginner to basically native, and they're a tad expensive (both in money and time) so I keep holding off until I reach the maximum level which I think I can pass before I leave Germany.

Anyway, I decided to check out the next town over's VHS, the one covering the region where the office sits. (Yes, my work commute is 7 minute and I'm already into another VHS' territory.) This one is a larger region, but still much smaller than neighboring K or D'dorf. I found a very interesting class, Phonetics. So for 45 minutes a week to focus on proper pronunciation and intonation. Since I didn't start learning German until the ancient age of 30, I feel this area could definitely be improved upon.

This VHS requires a German test (short coversation and written fill in the word endings) before registering for anything beyond absolute beginner. So I trundle over to their main office to chat with the 'German for foreigners course gatekeeper' (an easy-going lady, whom I hope learns a LOT of money for the amount of bad German spoken by foreigners, to whom she must listen closely to ensure proper placement). We chat about the Phonetics course (for which you do not actually need to take the test she explains, it's literally pronunciation/accent--even if you do not know the meaning of the words you are speaking, the course focuses on how you read/say things.)

She has a gleam in her eye--perhaps something more? Your pronunciation isn't so bad--it's a good course that you can improve, but with only 45 minutes a week, that's almost a holiday. I have my litany of excuses ready--not enough time to devote to their 'real' courses (twice per week at 3.5 hours a shot or 4x week at 3 hours), I don't think I'd survive that time investment let alone the homework/study time, no availability for anything but evenings, and on and on.

--So what's your end purpose with the German language? (she asks)
My basic purpose is to some day take either the B1 or C1 Goethe Business exam, whichever one matches my German level upon leaving the country someday. Since I 'lose' 40+ hours per week in the office, I'd prefer not to spend my few free hours studying for something that has no long term use for me. As I work in an office environment and have an interest in business reading, it's the logical lazy choice, this area.

--Maybe you could just take part of the test, you could skip the first beginner pages, just start here in the middle where I think you are, then see how far you can do it. Just 20 minutes. Then stop when you don't know the answers, it's ok.
Feeling like I'm making a pact with the devil I take it. I bumble through filling in the blanks, verb endings, adjective endings, conjunctions.

She goes through and marks it. Some days, I'm absolutely amazed at what I have learned here without really trying. Things that get programmed in through hearing them everyday, but not realizing why exactly it is why it is. It's such the opposite of my school-learned Spanish, where it was a logical progression of building the grammar.

--You know, you could take something in the Mittelstufe level.
Well, what do you have at location O? O is their small satellite site, only 7 minutes from my office.
--Hmm. So you have Pronunciation on Tuesdays....here! There is Business German at O. Twelve weeks at 2 hrs/15 minutes, with the end goal that you could take the B1 Business exam, if you so desire.

(Defeated) Sign me up. German twice per week, Pronunciation on one day, Business another day, from next week until the week I leave for the US for the December holidays (mid-December) Like a recovering alcoholic who doesn't go into a bar or take a sip of anything dangerous, I never should have gone into the VHS building or taken the test, as my self-control is non-existant when cheap language courses enter the picture. Thankfully I managed to leave without signing up for anything else. Danish, Japanese, Polish, all of them are severely tempting, perhaps most of all Friday night intense Russian...

From the weekly Muenster farmers' market last week

While I was in Muenster for the last three weeks, I enjoyed going to the Wednesday farmers' market. If you happen to be in the area, either on a Wed or Sat morning, I highly recommend a visit.

I generally don't enjoy shopping, but I do enjoy good food, and in particular being connected to the people who grow it. A balcony garden can only grow so much! ;-)

Some highlights:

1. The eggs in the back are from the egg man.

2. Front, the last of the local fresh peas. I had asked last week if there would again be peas next week, the selling girl shouts across to the older gentleman (the owner?) my question. Direct from the source came the answer, definitely Sat and maybe Wed.

3. Back, is a Thai Basil plant. In my corner of NRW it's easy to find (standard? Italian?) Basil, but Thai Basil in potted plan form is a little more difficult. It started dumping rain as I was buying this and the stand was sheltered from it, so I was chatting to the selling girl, and she asks where I'm from, what I'm doing in Muenster, etc. Turns out she spent a year of high school in Indiana and enjoyed it very much, even though it was more rural than she expected America to be.

4. A plethora of tomatoes. In this part of NRW tomatoes are at their peak right now of taste as well as good pricing, so I bought some extras so I could make some sauce.

5. Potatoes in the plastic bag in the center. I went to a potato stall, with oodles of different varieties of potatos. Which is the best potato to make mashed potatos? Ah, you want this one. A potato expert at the ready, I was very pleased. I suck at trying to buy potatos for mashing, (or rather for D to make mashed for me), so when there is a knowledgable potato seller available, I am very happy to take any and all potato buying recommendations.

6. Fresh corn, center back. Considering the number of corn fields in my immediate area, I'm always surprised that 1. It's not sold fresh in the supermarkets here, but rather stuffed 2 to a little plastic vaccuum sealed in some liquid pack and 2. It's not sold at roadside stands. So fresh corn is a rarity I'm always happy to find here. (It was between 75 cents to 1 EUR per ear, ouch!)

Other items in the photo: raspberries, yellow squash, garlic, little onions, cheddar cheese, giant German beans with a handful of 'bean herbs', and a bus ticket. Not photographed: a to go coffee and small bread.

Perhaps it was the wine...

but it was only a glass...

or that my brain was a bit fried from the German study, after 3 hours in the morning and another 4 in the afternoon, and it was the fourth day straight of that schedule, overall day 14 of such a routine...

or that it was a little dim...or the angle...

or that i had my glasses off as i had been reading, and i don't see so well without them for distance...

whatever it was, it took me a slow-moving moment in the campsite restaurant to realize that the raised arm was actually belonging to a second swimmer sorta behind the red-striped suit wearing, brown mustached, hair parted straight down the center swimmer...

How to make a full English vegetarian breakfast (in Germany)

Pre-requisite task: Find a nice-looking British person to execute all of the below steps for added authenticity. ;-)

1. Pop over to the closest British store to buy UK Heinz baked beans, or remember to pack a few cans in your suitcase the next time you're in the UK. Scoff greatly if someone suggests that you use German baked beans, or the Heinz baked beans sold in the Netherlands. Heat those up in a saucepan for a few minutes.

2. Buy some regular mushrooms, slice into halves, and heat those up in a saucepan with a little olive oil. (Humor the colonial and 'undercook' them, so that she doesn't whine later about them being overcooked.)

3. Fry up an egg. In particular, some free-range eggs from Muensterland will do quite nicely.

4. Top right, someone was feeling artistic with the balcony tomatoes. Normally it would be a larger one or two, sliced in half and fried, but these were raw as they are quite small, and so good anyway in their freshness.

5. Center, the Pièce de résistance, fry up some vegetarian sausages in a little olive oil. This variety comes from the Netherlands, from Goodbite, they are mildly spicy and very juicy for a soy product. Two thumbs up.



Need more info?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full_breakfast

egg man

Last week at the market, I had a short conversation with the egg seller. When I went back the second week, I wasn't sure that he would remember me, as I'm sure he sees hundreds of people each time he's at the market, and I was only one short conversation.

I bought six eggs, and as he hands them to me he asks, 'And, what about this Phelps?' Classy. Not only does he remember me, but he remembers I'm American and makes that jump to an American conversation topic. If I lived in the area (rather than only being a visitor for these three weeks) I would be an egg customer for life after that pleasant chat.

Back with you tomorrow...

Almost ready

It was a pleasant surprise to return on Friday and see the peppers had gone red. I'm giving them another week until I return again on Friday.

Back on the road

To be back at the campsite, ready for German class tomorrow. A few posts will appear later this week.

In the meantime a garden photo, apparently Jul is not the only one growing interesting tomatoes:

globalization - one never knows who is listening

The language school has a 30 min Coffee break stuck in the middle of the morning of classes, and all classes take this pause at the same time. It offers a chance to mingle together with all the students, in particular because it seems they purposely mixed the classes so as to not have overlap of students with the same nationality together, so it's a welcome break to return to the familiar.

Of course it's cacophony in the break area, a huge mix of languages heard because people often resort back to their local tongue after an intense morning, or just that the beginners don't have enough German yet to fully express what they want to say. Further, you'll have someone tap your shoulder on the way out, if they've heard you speak, and turns out they lived/studied/whatever in your region of the world and want to chat for a minute. Or there are big groups of English conversations among English and non-native English speakers, often it's quicker and sometimes the only possibility for arranging social events for later. ;-)

I had gone up to the Danish girl I know there, we often chat during the breaks, she's here for her gap year living in Germany as she has a German boyfriend. Next to her were a few members of her class, they were having a discussion in English about what they wanted to do for lunch. It was two South Americans, a Serbian, and another American. One of the South Americans then switched to Spanish to talk to the other South American across the table. I was chatting with the Dane, she was asking me about the girl across the table, I confirmed she definitely sounded like an American to me (it was the first time I heard her speak), although when I saw her on the first day she struck me as part of the Asian contingent which is here, both in clothing style and actions.

At one point the one of the South Americans turned to me and asked in English, 'so where are you from.' Of course I had to shoot back the answer in Spanish. She instantly froze, I imagine racking her brain to make sure nothing incorrect had been uttered during the previous few minutes. (It hadn't.) The other South American was delighted. She is an absolute beginner in German and her English is poor so she's been having a hard time to have more than the most basic of conversations. She went to the movies (which are dubbed into German in Germany), just to have something stress-free to do, but only understood about five minutes of the show.

The other interesting point--the rest of the table also understood Spanish. The Serbian knew it (I have no idea how), and the Dane had spent a few months work/study in Spain (which is where she met her German boyfriend). And that American sounding girl? She's actually not an American but is a student at an international school in Shanghai, she's very excited to be going to a San Francisco University in the fall. As her English is absolutely fluent she's here taking German as a foreign language. Huh, go figure.

Informal poll: which option and why?

I was a child of the 80's when Choose Your Own Adventure books were all the rage. All things being held equal (meaning there are no constraints of seeking a job, work permit, love life, personal life, etc.), which option should one choose and why?

A) Stay in Germany another x years
B) Try out life in a different Western EU (but primarily non-English speaking) country
C) Try out life in a different Western EU (but primarily English speaking) country
D) Stay in the EU but go east to one of the newer EU nations (on a short-term basis, with your Western EU salary)

I'll leave this one up until I come back on Friday for the weekend, so comment as you'd like...

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.

5 down, 10 to go

Days that is. I'm currently 1/3 of the way through my Intensive German course so thus the posting hiatus. My work colleagues and friends have been asking the same things, so here are the answers in advance. ;-)

How's the campsite?
Absolutely super. These things are often hit or miss, but I've been pleasantly surpised. I'll try to bring along the camera and take some photos of it.

Is there a shower?
Yes. There is a female bathroom/shower area and a separate male one. It's located on the floor below the restaurant. It's heated and immaculately clean at all hours. Showers are .50 cents, for about 3-5 min of hot water. You press a button and the water comes out for about 20-30 seconds, then you can lather up then press the button again, and keep repeating until the water pressure suddenly drops and starts to go cold, signifying about 30 seconds of cold water left.

How's the weather?
It's been chilly, and this area 1hr 20 min from tiny town of B got hit by major storms last week Sunday (my first night there), with many basements in the area flooded. I woke up to a slightly damp tent floor. As the tent has stayed dry through torrential rains in the Faroes and Iceland, to wake up to dampness I thought I was done for if I had 3 weeks of this coming.

How's the course?
For a VHS class, I'm pleasantly surprised. There are 7 people in my class; overall there are 4 different classes of people grouped by ability, which they ascertained on the first day with a written and oral test. The school planned a ton of events into the 3 weeks, including Saturday bus excursions (at no cost) to Cologne and Duisburg (yes Dbunny-really D'burg!), as well as local events during the week such as a local town historical walking tour and visit to a local castle. Since I've been in Germany so long most of the excursions aren't so interesting to me, except for one--meeting the mayor in the town hall, including a tour of the town hall. They needed a headcount the other day, they mayor will be serving drinks and needed to know in advance the number of glasses to have available.
(My work colleague's reaction to the above: hrrmph! my taxes paying for that!)

Who else is taking the course?
There is a wide mixture of students. Overall, I am in the middle of the age range in my class. There are housewives who have just arrived whose husbands have a work assignment here, there are students from Asia and Brazil, there are university students from Eastern Europe, there are people like me who live/work here and want to improve their existing skills, there is an au pair who arrived 2 days before the course started, there is a woman from Uruguay who works in Spain and enjoys studying German on her own and comes each year for this course (she's in her third year of it), and on and on. It's an absolutely delightful mix of people. I think there are overall 3 US folks out of 30 or so people, but the others are in different classes from me so we've only chatted during the breaks.

So what does your day look like there?
Well, I catch the 0755 bus from the campsite which puts me in town at 0821. Then I have enough time to pick up a good to-go coffee and a brotchen (small bread roll) for later in the morning. On Thursday and Friday I brought goat's cheese and raspberries to spread on the bread, superb. Class goes from 0900-10.30, break from 10.30-11.00, and then class from 11.00-12.30.

At 12.30 I may wonder around town a bit or I head back to the campsite area to eat lunch. Then in the afternoon I do the 20 min homework and then spend an hour or two messing around with my personal German grammar book, based on any of the words/constructions I heard in class but did not already know. I find my German is heavily skewed toward the office environment, as that is where I spend 40+ hrs/week or in practical things from the tiny town of B, such as going to the post office. Therefore my vocab and grammar tends to have holes in some of the more practical areas such as going to a hospital or talking about family things, as I have done neither here.

After I bore of that, I wander around in the area surrounding the campsite. It's absolutely tranquil and splendid in its beauty. I've also planned to go to the outdoor pool because it's literally right next door to the campsite, but the weather has been too chilly to warrent a visit yet.

In the evening I have a small early bite to eat and then catch up on reading for pleasure. So far, as it's been chilly, I've spent a lot of time in the tent reading, because it's too cold to just sit outside if you're not moving. I've read Einstein's Dreams, and then The Young Wan by Brendan O'Carroll, in case you're wondering. Thursday I started to read The Life of Pi. All of the above are from www.bookswapper.de, ones that I received over the past few months but hadn't any time to yet read. If the weather this week is like last, I'll need to take up another one to follow The Life of Pi.

As it gets too dark to read (just before 10), I usually go to bed, although I have candles with in case I want to continue reading.

What do you eat there?
That's been one of the best parts. Usually I find that I eat better while camping--probably because it involves more planning in advance. Since the weather (except one day) has been unseasonably cool (think late Sept in Philly--53 F lows), I've brought along more fresh things than I would have been able to otherwise.

I checked the weather predictions in advance and then brought along enough items that I would have some choice as nothing would go bad due to the cooler temps. In addition, I came by car, so that gave me some leeway to bring heavier things than if I was carrying everything and coming by train/bus. So my meals looked something like this during the past week:

Monday
AM - coffee (purchased)
late AM - boiled egg (boiled 3 of them at home and brought along)
lunch - German strawberries, raw califlower, fresh tomatoes from the balconey garden, an orange, a fresh bread roll
PM - fresh peas (the last from the balcony garden) which I shelled and ate raw. I love fresh peas.
dinner - cereal. Alnatura makes a cruncy granola/musli-like cereal, which is perfect if you're doing a lot of walking. I find it at DM-->Hafer Crunchy.

Tues
(like Monday)

Wed-Fri
lots of goodies from the local farmers' market

Highlight of the week?
The local farmers market on Wed mornings. I actualy woke up an hour early so that I could go before class as I heard early morning is the best time to go. (Knowing my opinion of early mornings, you can imagine this must have been something special to merit the early wake-up.) They open at 7 AM, I arrived by 8AM. The selection was enormous, rows and rows of sellers with everything (granted now is the peak harvest time), from the local area.

I bought: raspberries, eggs, corn, round and regular zucchinni, yellow squash, goat's cheese, green and black zebra tomatoes, peas, a coffee, and a pumpkin seed bread roll, all of which made up my meals for the rest of the week. I'm really looking forward to going again this week.

Any interesting differences H? Or is an hour from home really the same?
1. One glaring difference here...people consistently give you your change in your hand. One of the big differences from me when I first moved from the US to the Cologne area is that people consisently smack your change down on the counter or the tray on their little counter. Up here people consistently want to put it into your hand. I'm oddly reversed as it's the 'US way'. ;-)

2. I'm finding people to be downright pleasant in personality even though it's a large city; I'm finding the feeling closer to the tiny town of B rather than Cologne, even though population-wise it's definitely closer to the latter. I'm wondering if that's because their economy is heavily dependent upon outsiders, they are not a self-contained universe like Cologne. For example, the egg seller asked me where I was from, and I explained I'm here in a course blah blah. He thought this was quite good and he thinks the US is ok but it's good to be here also, blah blah. For such a large city I was not expecting such a small-town warmth.

Anything else to say H?
Yeah, I'll put up some advance posts which will appear in my absence for those few who check in regularly to read my drivel as I'm chock full of things to say apparently. ;-)