Dear downstairs neighbor

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Regards,
Your upstairs neighbor

It's all Greek to me

Here's a small scan of part of the letter. (click on photo to see it bigger)



Greek colleague sent a quick 2 sentence update by email:

-"it is old Greek" but he understands it.
(not sure if that would equate in my world to something like 'old German script', or rather that it's a dialet.)

-"it's a very strange letter." -->really curious as to what he means by that!

Hopefully he is able/willing to translate it. Dutch colleague had only asked as a favor that he confirm/deny if it's Greek as a first step. Stay tuned...

The liguistics goose chase - a mystery in progress

One of the nice things about working at big, global company J in Europe is the access to a number of people with foreign language skills, who are usually willing to help with something, inside or outside of work.

I have a letter which I discovered during my genealogy research. It has a story attached that it was sent to my great-grandmother from Europe, and that it has something to do with two of my grandfather's younger brothers. Both were killed during WW2 and are buried in military cemetaries in Italy. My grandmother remembers when the letter arrived, and that her mother-in-law had taken it to the Veterans' affairs office who instructed her to ignore it, that it was a plea from someone in Europe who had somehow found out her name, and would try to ply her for money as Europe as poor after the war. (Her memory of the story, 60 yrs later!)

So I have two pages of a letter in some foreign language that I cannot identify. I've toted the thing around here and there, and based on my own knowledge and that of others, it's none of the following:
-English
-Spanish or any other Romance language. I cannot make out a single word here, not one. Usually from my Spanish I can pick up some similar words from the Latin base.
-German
-Polish
-Lithuanian
-Russian
-Dutch

My Dutch colleague suggested that it has a Slavic base, his feeling was that it went toward Russia and eastward, due to some of the characters seeming to be well outside of a Western Europe character set. I had mentioned that I already passed it via my Lithuan cousin who group up during Soviet times and is fluent in Russian, and that he ruled out Russian, Lithuanian, and an 'old Lithuanian' dialect he knows, as not being able to recognize anything.

However, a Russian works in the next room, so it's always worth a shot. He recognized not a single word. His guess: Greek. That's my guess also as that fits the geography of the story as I know it, it's the right area of the world, and I was guessing on some of the characters looking Greek. However, it's not modern Greek as we know it, I already went down this route, trying to pick out words, such as the date and plug them into online translators.

Next stop, my Dutch colleague works with a Greek colleague elsewhere in company J. The letter has been scanned and is en route via email to see if Greek colleague has any thoughts...

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.