Well, my Spanish is officially crap. Luis called me on Christmas Eve, and it took me so long to form each sentence he kept asking me if I was nervous.
I apologize that I haven't written in so long. Willow and Jan got here last Friday, Anna got in on Saturday and we had an awesome weekend together. Christmas Eve everyone except Jan went to church at the Catholic Cloister in Struth (3 km from Diethardt) and then we came home and had "Mohnnudeln" (band noodles with butter, powdered sugar, and ground poppyseeds. It tasted really quite wonderful, but Willow and I both agreed that even if we had been trying to come up with unusual foods, we never would have thought of Mohnnudeln.
After dinner we went up into the living room and Josef lit the REAL candles on the Christmas tree, and we opened our presents. On the one hand, it was nice not to be awakened at the crack of dawn on Christmas day by the kids wanted to open their presents, but on the other hand, we had to listen to the kids all day Christmas Eve wondering when they would get to open them?
Manuela and Josef gave me a new digital camera, which I've had lots of fun playing with, but Willow has my memory card, so as of yet I have exactly 7 pictures on it which I haven't bothered to upload. Most of our pictures from Christmas are either on my camera phone, Willow's camera, or Manuela's camera, so I haven't around to uploading them yet.
Christmas day (or in Germany, the FIRST Christmas day--there are two) was all about the little kids playing with their new toys, while the big kids and the parents cooked for the big Christmas dinner. For most of the day, I got to be a little kid :D.
Menu from Christmas dinner (copied word for word from the pale blue menu cards placed elegantly around the table:
Getränke
Riesling 2006
Langenberg
1. Gewächs
Martinsthaler Rödchen 2004
Spätburgunder
Barrique
Diethardter Wasser 2007
Edle Obstbrände
Fruchtsaft nach Wunsch
Menü
Apperitive Porto Barros
Feldsalat in Korianderdressing
Suppe Canard au Vin
Jakobsmuscheln an Papaya-Salat-Garnitur
Sektsorbet aus Waldfrüchten
Flugente mit Füllung
Salzkartoffeln
Serviettenknödel
Sahne-Wirsing
Rotkohl
Maronen-Orangen-Sauce
Creme Brulee
I never knew that a fancy multi-course meal should include both fish and meat. I also didn't know the difference between red and white wine glasses. I've never actually watched Creme Brulee being made, and I've never been served so many different alcoholic beverages during the course of one meal.
It was
so
delicious.
Happy Birthday Joe.
December 26th (the SECOND Christmas day--only two, not twelve), Anna went to the train station to pick up her boyfriend, Daniel, and Willow and Simon and I drove to Frankfurt to pick up Kyle. Simon hadn't been planning to come with, but when we woke up that morning there was actual SNOW on the road. So by German standards, we actually did have a white Christmas.
Kyle and Willow only stayed one night, but that was long enough for Joel and Norina to fall head over heels in love with Kyle. We played Trivial Pursuit, and Settlers of Catan (my Christmas gift to the family), and of course Zug um Zug. Chess has been played many a time, as has Monopoly more than once. We watched It's a Wonderful Life (in German of course, "Ist das Leben Nicht Schön?", not to be confused with Life is Beautiful which heißt auf Deutsch "Das Leben ist Schön"). I had ordered the German DVD from Amazon.de (which doesn't charge for shipping, and usually arrives the day after it is ordered, even the week before Christmas). The DVD has the audio tracks in both English and German, but subtitles only in German. The German subtitles follow the English audio tracks pretty closely, but the German audio track has been altered quite a bit in parts where 1940's American humor doesn't translate well, which made it quite amusing to hear and read them simultaneously.
I'm not sure when Jan is planning to leave us, but the rest of us have planned a spontaneous trip to Amsterdam for New Years. Gosh I love being in Europe.
I want you all to notice that someone new commented on my last blog entry. Normally he waits and comments to me in person, but I guess this time he thought his honor was at stake and he had to defend it. Do you suppose that if I start making fun of him on Facebook he'll sign on there every once in a while also?
Today was the deep, penetrating cold. It didn't bite into my skin the way it sometimes does, but somehow it managed to get underneath all the layers I was wearing and still make me shiver.
It's hasn't gotten above freezing all week. We wake up in the morning to find frost on the ground, and although the sun shines the whole day, the frost still doesn't melt, and by next morning the frost is piled twice as high. By yesterday it was almost starting to look like snow on the ground. This morning the road leading up to our house was so slippery I was having a hard time even walking up the hill. As I write this, Kasia is getting ready to board a 20 hour bus ride home to Poland, so for her sake, I've been praying that it doesn't start to snow before she gets there. But I might just get to see a White Christmas after all...
Last night was my last day of Sprachkurs...sniff sniff. As much as I hated driving into Wiesbaden twice a week all semester, I really enjoyed the people in my class. This was our conversation last night:
"We need to all get together sometime after class is over," said someone, and everyone agreed.
I ventured a suggestion, "You know, all of us already have Tuesday and Thursday evenings free. What if we kept on meeting once a week, sort of a conversation group, to keep practicing our German? Some of us are only here for a couple more months." Every said enthusiastically that it was a good idea.
I pressed a little, "So.....what day of the week is good for you?" Someone suggested Friday. I admitted that Friday would be a little difficult for me, but if it worked for everyone else, we could try it. Then someone else suggested a weekend, which would be even harder for me, so I said, "Well, what's wrong with Tuesday or Thursday?" and tiny lightbulbs went on over people's heads. "Oh, yeah, Thursday works great!" I was secretly happy that they had suggested Thursday and not Tuesday, because that means I can start going with Manuela to her Hauskreis. Hopefully that's ok with her :).
"Where should we meet?" I pressed a little bit further, and someone shrugged: "We can figure that out later by phone."
I smiled inside. Great, that means it's not going to happen. "Well, let's at least pick a place to meet for the first Thursday, and after that we can pick someplace else. Can anyone suggest a place? I don't know the city very well at all."
No one volunteered, so finally I suggested the only cafe I knew in Wiesbaden besides Starbucks. Everyone agreed.
I had to laugh inside at how German I must have sounded.
Learned a new word today. I'll give you a hint. It's something that helps the car start, it's about the size of my thumb, and the name literally translated is "spark candle." Yeah. So about half of you are thinking, duh, that was obvious, but the other half didn't figure it out until I said the word spark.
The car didn't start today. Well, it did, but then it died again and wouldn't turn back on. Now, I know absolutely nothing about cars, but the cars I've driven have always been old, so I've gotten to the point where if something operates slightly funny, I don't question why, I just do whatever seems to make the car happy and keep running. In the case of our old Ascona, it usually starts just fine on the first try, but it if dies again before the engine has a chance to warm up, good luck getting it to start again. So once you've started the engine, auf keinen Fall take your foot off the gas until you've driven at least a couple of kilometers. This makes it quite tricky getting down the hill we live on: I've taken to putting the car in neutral and letting it roll, but the hill is very steep and you start to move really quickly, so with my right foot feathering the accelerator to keep the motor from dying, I quickly move my left foot onto the brake to keep from gaining speed too quickly. Today, I was supposed to be driving Manuela to work but the windows were completely frosted over, so she told me to turn on the engine so it could warm up while we scraped the ice. This went completely against the bond of trust that I have built with the car, but it's her car after all, I reasoned she knew it better than I, so I did what she said. Sure enough, ein Par Sekunde später the engine died and refused to start again.
I holte Josef from upstairs for him to take a look, and the first thing he asked was whether it had enough gas. I told him I was pretty sure it did, because I had put 30€ in on Monday, and I didn't think it had been driven very far. Then again, I hadn't been the last one to drive it, so I confessed that I could be mistaken. Manuela had been the last one to drive it, and she concurred that it might be out of Benzin. I was skeptical, but again, it's their car, they must know best, so Josef hopped in the other car to take Manuela to work and pick up a few liters of Benzin.
Uncle Ferdi showed up sometime while they were gone, and I don't think I've ever been so happy to see him. My family back home doesn't have an Uncle Ferdi, but I can think of numerous films with Uncle Ferdi-type characters, and they all make me laugh. Stubborn, thinks he knows it all, in reality he gets on everybody's nerves, but as soon as something goes kaputt around the house and Ferdi's the only one who can fix it, you are forced to admit that ok, maybe he really does know it all.
After changing the spark plugs, I mean Zündkerzen, the Auto sprang just fine an, so Ferdi and I went inside and I made him probably the best semi-dry cappucino of my life, and then to show him how thankful I was, I sat and sipped my cappucino while listening to him for a good half-hour explaining why it's important to know how to do things yourself ("Take Simon for example. He gets married someday, his wife wants to hang a picture frame, you think he's going to know how to put a nail in a wall? I hope she knows how to do it herself, or else they'll have to pay someone to come in and do it for them!"), why Auto repair is no job for a typical woman ("You need strong fingers, and not every woman has them."), what makes spark plugs go bad, where spark plugs came from, why new cars don't need to have the spark plugs replaced as often as old cars, how to keep spark plugs from going bad....I'm pretty sure it's the first time, ever, that I've let Ferdi talk until he actually paused long enough for me to ask a question without having to interrupt.
It's been really cold the last couple of days. Yesterday, although the sun was shining, it never once got warm enough for the frost to melt. Standing at the bus stop at "high" noon, I noticed that my shadow was still a good 10 feet long, and I've come to the realize that, when it comes to physics, temperature is the only way to measure cold, but when it comes to your own body, there are many more intricate levels of cold that don't necessarily have anything to do with the number of degrees on the thermometer.
There's that deep, penetrating, teeth-chattering cold, where you just can't get warm, either because you are not wearing enough clothes, or because you aren't being active enough. That's the kind of cold I used to complain about back in California, because the temperature really doesn't need to be that low for you to experience that. It's the kind of cold you experience when you are wet, or when you are outdoors for extended periods of time, or when the heater is broken.
Then there's a different kind of cold, where you are wearing plenty of layers, and staying quite active, so the cold can't penetrate to your core, but your face, and the tips of your fingers, if you aren't wearing Handschuhe, are literally in pain because the difference is so great between the air temperature and your body temperature. Once you go indoors, the sharp, painful cold turns into almost a burning sensation when exposed to warm air. This happens to me occasionally after walking back from the bus stop. My body is still warm because I got my blood pumping walking up the hill, so as soon as I walk into my warm bedroom, I begin almost instantly to sweat under all my layers, and my face and hands feel momentarily almost feverish.
Those two are my least favorite types of cold, and experiencing them both simultaneously on Saturday in Nürnberg was pretty much unbearable. My face felt the next day as if I had a sunburn just because of having been exposed to sharp, painful cold for so long. I think I can imagine now what the early stages of frostbite feel like. That memory was still too fresh in my mind for me to complain just now while I was watching Ferdi change the spark plugs. Simon was tucking his hands inside his jacket sleeves, and keeping his arms tucked tightly to his sides while bouncing slightly, and I knew he was experiencing the deep, penetrating cold, due to the fact that he was wearing only a thin jacket and sneakers. I, on the other hand, had a turtleneck sweater protecting my neck, a puffy down snow jacket keeping my torso warm, a fleece hat, thick knit gloves, and my new Aldi snowboots. My thighs felt a slight chill through my old jeans, but it wasn't a burning cold even on my face, being the only part of me exposed. As I watched the mist on the freshly scraped windshield refreeze, I was aware that it must in fact be quite cold, but I really didn't realize it until going back inside the house and standing in front of the heater while removing all my extra layers.
I made Jambalaya on Monday. It was extra meaty because I used a whole chicken, plus leftover sausages from Sunday dinner, and we were almost out of rice. It also wasn't very spicy because I wanted the kids to be able to eat it, but of course I loaded my own portion with Tabasco sauce. This is how I cook, for those of you who have been asking. I look around the refrigerator and the cupboards to see what we have that needs to be used up (for example: leftover sausage), then I think about what foods I've eaten involving that ingredient (soup, omelet, fried potato skillet, spaghetti sauce, Jambalaya). If any of those sound particularly good at the moment (Jambalaya), I look on the internet for various Jambalaya recipes to see what kinds of ingredients are usually used and/or can be substituted. If it's shopping day, which it was on Monday, that's no problem, I just buy whatever I ingredients I need, assuming they are carried at Aldi (that's a big assumption, by the way). If it's not a day when I was planning to go shopping, it gets a little more complicated, but usually still doable.
After assembling my ingredients, I sometimes make notes off the recipes, such as what order to add the ingredients, but for the most part my final concoctions are made from my fuzzy memories of the recipes of just read, all jumbled together. I like the food I make, anyway, and Manuela usually seems to approve. That's what being an Au Pair is all about, anyway. The mom gets to have her career, and she gets to come home to a clean, well-stocked house with well-fed children whose homework is done and who are able to participate in Piano, Ballet, etc. I love cooking. But I don't know how I would do it without the internet. Does that sound like the 21st century or what?
Well, it just wouldn't be an authentic weekend trip in Deutschland without some small snafu or another.
I rode with Josef into Wiesbaden and caught a train that got me into Nürnberg early in the afternoon. My plan was to find a hostel and drop my stuff so I could meet Willow, whose train was to get in at 5:35.
I went to Tourist Information and inquired about a Jugendherberge, and the nice lady informed me that there is only one in Nürnberg, but it is most likely full. "But," she told me, "There is a hostel just a few blocks away, you can check and see if they have room. And if not, here's the address of a pension in the Sudstadt."
I had never before heard someone make a distinction between a Jugendherberge and a youth hostel, but I suppose it makes sense. Jugendherberge in Deutschland are often besucht by families and/or teenagers. Quite a different crowd than the backpackers one expects to find in a youth hostel.
I thanked the woman, but now that I actually have a Handy, I decided to give the Jugendherberge a call, just in case the woman had been mistaken. The man who answered the phone, however, literally laughed as I asked if he still had any free beds.
My next stop was the youth hostel, where a girl about my age informed me that she had exactly one bed left.
"Don't suppose you'd let me and my friend sleep together?"
To my surprise, she didn't laugh, but explained very politely that it wouldn't be fair to the other three guests who were paying for a 4-bed room.
With a sigh, I headed to the nearest U-Bahn station so I could check out the Pension down in the Sudstadt.
I walked in the door of what I thought to be the Pension that had been recommended, but when the woman informed me that a single room cost 42€, I looked down at the paper I had been given in tourist information, and realized I was at the wrong address. Thank goodness.
I had to walk several more blocks down a street in which the house numbers did not go in any sort of logical order before I finally found house number 39, which was literally nothing more than a house. There was no sign advertising a pension to give me any sort of indication that I was at the right place, but the name on the mailbox matched what the woman at tourist information had told me, so I nervously rang the bell.
A plump Yugoslavian woman opened the door and said, "Yes?"
Still not sure if I was in the wrong place, I stuttered: "Ah...guten Tag...ich...die Frau.....Tourist Information....haben Sie vielleicht noch ein Zimmer frei?"
"You were sent by tourist information?" she looked critical. "They didn't tell us they were sending anyone this evening. Let me check."
A few minutes later she showed me upstairs to a tiny bedroom under a slanted ceiling, with two twin beds, a TV that wouldn't turn on, an electric heater like the one I have in my bedroom, a dresser, a nightstand with a small lamp, and a waste basket in the corner. There was also a window which didn't open.
In the hallway were doors to two other bedrooms (I still don't know whether they were occupied), a WC, and a shower, plus a small end table with a coffee maker and a couple of clean towels. She told me to help myself if I needed a towel, make sure I turn off the heater before I leave, and she only accepts cash.
The place wasn't anything special, but it felt cozy, and the lady was very friendly. She spoke rapid Franconian German with a noticeable Eastern European accent, and I absolutely didn't want to go anywhere else, so I gave her my last 50€ bill and she gave me my change.
Willow had called me not too long beforehand and told me she was actually going to be on a later train, arriving at 7:35. And that was only the beginning of our train adventures for the weekend.
I walked around the Altstadt for the next two hours while waiting for her to arrive, but I didn't go to the Christkindlesmarkt. After all, the point of this Nürnberg trip was to see the world's most famous Christmas market together. At a booth inside the train station I purchased what looked like a loose ball of cookie dough scraps covered in powdered sugar. It was called, of course, a Schneeball. I looked around a couple of the shops before heading to Willow's platform at 7:30. As the train pulled up, I looked through the windows for Willow's long black winter mantel, but didn't see it. When she got off the train I was surprised to see her wearing a lined windbreaker with a denim jacket underneath. "I saw you from the train!" she said, and I commented that I hadn't seen her cause I had been looking for her black mantel. "Oh, yeah, the zipper's broken," she said. That's ok, I hadn't brought my heavy winter coat for this weekend either. The weather wasn't supposed to dip below freezing, so we both reasoned that we would be ok.
My feet were a little tired from wandering the city all afternoon, so I suggested we go into Starbucks and sample their new Creme Brulee latte while enjoying my Schneeball. Willow did not object.
Starbucks was huge, with plenty of room for Willow and me to sprawl out on two big comfy chairs, and we each removed several layers of clothing. I noticed that under her denim jacket she had a thin hoodie, and asked exactly how many jackets did she have on?? "This is the last one," she told me, "But I've got long sleeves underneath."
It had only been two weeks since we'd seen each other, but even still we spent the whole evening sharing about what had been going on, and before we knew it, it was 10pm and Starbucks was closing. The latte had been delicious, and although theoretically it was still early, I wanted to go back to the hotel and sleep so we would be able to get up early the next morning and visit the Weihnachtsmarkt.
After looking at the map I had acquired in tourist information, we decided that we wouldn't need the whole weekend to see the city, so we decided to take the last train Saturday evening back to Tübingen, and Sunday visit the Weihnachtsmarkt there.
Nürnberg Altstadt ist schön, surrounded on all sides by what looks like it may honestly have been a moat around the city wall. Within the city wall are viele Museums, which we did not visit due to temporal and financial restraints, but there are also all the same modern retail chains that one finds in Frankfurt or Stuttgart. H&M. C&A. K&L. Willow bought herself a new jacket to last her until she can get the zipper repaired on her Mantel.
The Christkindlesmarkt was beautiful, although between the various smaller Weihnachtsmarkts, we had already seen most of the types of items that were for sale. We both, however, bought various packages of Nürnberger Lebkuchen, and shared a mug of Feuerzeugbowle (it didn't taste any different to me than the Glühwein we've been drinking all month).
The temperature may not have been below zero, but it was mighty cold, and Willow and I could only be thankful that it wasn't raining. I was wearing my new Aldi Thermostiefel, but even so my feet were going numb from the cold, and I can't even imagine how Willow survived it with just thin Lederstiefel. As it was getting dark, we finally made our way up to the castle just so we could say we'd done it, but really we were past the point of caring, so on our way back down we stopped and had dinner in a typischer Fränkischer Restaurant. Like cuisine from most other parts of Germany, Fränkisches Essen includes plenty of meat, potatoes, and gravy. Willow and I split a peppersteak mit Kartoffeln and a bowl of Potato Soup, and had coffee and Apple strudel for dessert. We had to sit there long after our meal was over before the waitress came back with our bill, but we definitely didn't mind the chance to sit a little bit longer in the warm restaurant. Finally we made our way back down to the train station where our train was scheduled to leave at 8:25. At 8:20 we were seated on the train comfortably when we both realized at the exact same instant that we had left our luggage in the lockers at the train station!
We ran as quickly as we could and I grabbed my stuff and some of Willows while she attempted to load the rest of it into her backpack, and I ran back to the platform to see if I could stall the train long enough. I held the doors as long as I could while the train official threatened to call the police, but two minutes after the scheduled time of departure, Willow still was not there. It dawned on me that my dear sweet friend probably hadn't paid any attention to what platform the train was on, and most definitely wouldn't look at the departure board to find out. I was so angry at myself for not letting her carry the itinerary, and so I grudgingly let go of the train doors and went back to the lockers to find my friend. She was not there. I began to worry. What if she had run to another part of the platform and gotten on the train without me? I quickly dialed her cell phone. No answer.
"Come on, Willow, pick up the phone!" I mumbled out loud as I dialed the number again.
On my third attempt to dial her cell phone, I realized to my dismay that I was carrying her purse, and the phone was vibrating inside it. The situation seemed to be getting bleaker. I hoped again that she wasn't on the train, because that would mean that, not only did she have no ticket, but she also had no cell phone, no money, and no ID. The only thing I could think to do was to run to the Reisezentrum and have her paged. If she wasn't in the train station, I would have to have them call the train and tell her to get off at the next stop, then I would have to wait for the next train so I could meet her wherever that ended up being.
I can't tell you how glad I was when two minutes later I literally bumped into her while rushing to the Reisezentrum. Normally we would have both been angry at ourselves and each other for missing the train, but at that moment we were both just so glad that the other hadn't boarded the train alone that we couldn't possibly be angry.
Unfortunately, as I said, that had been the last train to Tübingen for the evening. Well, not EXACTLY the last. At 10:30 there was a train leaving for Augsburg, from whence we could take another train to Ulm, from whence we could, after a three hour layover, take yet another train to Plochingen, finally catching one last train which would get us into Tübingen around 6:45am Sunday morning.
Such a schedule would have been lousy enough any time, but the worst of it was that we had gekauft a Schönes Wochenende ticket. The "Happy Weekend" ticket is a wonderful thing about which anyone planning to travel in Germany should know. It costs 35€ and is good for up to 5 people on any trains all day Saturday or all day Sunday. It is almost always cheaper than buying individual tickets, BUT....it expires at 3am. Meaning that Willow and I could get to Ulm alright, but after that we would have to buy ANOTHER ticket for the rest of the journey. I was starting to get really upset, and would have been ready to ride "schwarz" the rest of the way from Ulm to Tübingen, until Willow reminded me that I was going to have to buy another ticket later for my trip home, so we may as well purchase another Schönes Wochenende. Have I mentioned that I love that girl?
After finally arriving in Tübingen, we had to wait almost another hour for the bus back to Willow's apartment because of having misread the bus schedule. Willow reminded me several times that it was only a 20 minute walk back to the apartment, but I was kaputt. I was tired and cold and my feet hurt, there was no way I could walk 20 minutes.
Willow's apartment was nice and warm when we arrived ("Do you have to pay for gas?" I asked her, "Cause if so, you might want to think twice before leaving the heater on all weekend."), and we curled up for a nice couple hour nap, but even then we couldn't sleep long because we wanted to schau the Weihnachtsmarkt an. Nevertheless, a two hour hap in a soft bed after 12 hours in train stations was a welcome change.
The Tübingen Weihnachtsmarkt was natürlich much smaller than the Christkindlesmarkt, but still it was bigger than we had expected, so I didn't even have time to see it all before I had to be back at the train station at 13:37. My train was supposed to arrive into Wiesbaden at 18:08, and Simon had agreed to meet me there, but of course, just to fully round out the weekend, that train was delayed and I ended up getting in a half hour late. I would have felt bad, but Simon wasn't there on time either, so there. That was my weekend. I'm glad I did it. Hope it doesn't happen again.
So, before I forget to mention it, Maddie and Danika missed their flight to come see me. Sound familiar? Hence the title of the post. Theoretically, you can't blame the airline for the fact that people show up late to the airport. But if it weren't for the fact that Ryanair only flies to airports in the middle of nowhere, people wouldn't have such a hard time getting there on time. And they really could be a bit more lenient with the check-in times. EU citizens are allowed to check-in online, which sure would have saved me and Willow a whole lot of heartache and 80€ apiece.
Anyway, Willow and I are taking advantage of the weekend we both have free to visit Nürnberg. I'll be back on Sunday. Oh, and say a prayer for Katherine, the new Aupair-Mädchen aus Kenya. Kasia and I hadn't heard from her since our trip to Heidelberg when she kept saying how unhappy she was with her guest family (the same family Bujin was in, so we know it's not a bad family, it must just not have been a good fit). Anyway, finally on Tuesday Kasia got a visit from Katherine's guest father to let her know that Katherine has been in the hospital for over a week. Kasia and I went to visit her, but we still aren't totally sure what was wrong with her. Piecing together what she told us and what the host father told Kasia, it sounds like it was a Ectopic Pregnancy. Not fun. She gets to go home from the hospital tomorrow, and once she's feeling better she will probably transfer to a new Aupair-Familie. Really, though, she's lucky that this happened to her here and not in Kenya, cause she lost about 4.5 liters of blood, and in an African hospital she probably wouldn't have survived the operation.
So, if you've spent much time learning a foreign language, you may or may not have heard the phrase "false cognate". The classic example that far too many Spanish learners have found out the hard way is "embarazado" (pregnant). Yeah, that leads to some embarrassing mistakes.
In German, such words which appear to have been taken directly from English, but actually have had the meaning changed along the way are dubbed "False Friends". The classic example is the English word "Handy" which is used in German to mean cellphone. The cute thing is, while most Germans know that Handy is a "False Friend", they don't know what the word "Handy" actually means in English. One person I talked to thought it was an abbreviation for "handicapped" and another thought it was short for "handsome". Anyway, as I alluded in my "Random Observations" post, there are quite a few English words that appear similar to their Germanic predecessors, but in fact the meaning has evolved on account of cultural differences. "School", for example, which in English can refer to any educational institution, whereas the word "Schule" auf Deutsch refers specifically to elementary through high school (Hochschule, incidentally, which literally translates to "high school", is the word for colleges, universities, and trade schools).
Another example of a word which has taken on a different meaning in American English than it's Germanic predecessor is "friend".
"The two friends I visited in London are coming to stay with me for a couple of days," is what I said about Madison's and Danika's upcoming trip, when speaking to an American. But when describing the same trip in German, rather than "Freundinnen" I used the word "Bekannte" (acquaintances). Why did I say that? If you know them well enough to go out of your way to see them, obviously they are more than acquaintances. At least in English. In English, the word "friend" is used so lightly that to NOT call someone a friend is almost insulting. You could almost define a friend as anyone you know on a first name basis that you don't dislike. Germans, on the other hand, are much more cautious with the use of the word "Freund", and therefore it would not be the least bit insulting for me to call Madison and Danika "acquaintances". Sure, I've known their families since grade school. And...before my trip to London, the last time I hung out with them was probably in grade school. On the one hand, I think it's really wonderful that Germans place so much value on "Freudnshaft". On the other hand, I really like having so many "friends" that I can just call up randomly and ask to camp on their floor.
After sleeping all day Friday, by Saturday I was feeling much better (Hannes came over Friday night and he and Simon drank beer and we watched "Goodbye Lenin" zusammen. "Goodbye Lenin" was one of about five German movies that Willow and I were able to find at our local Blockbuster when we were trying to improve our comprehension before coming here, and of the five, only "Goodbye Lenin" and "Nowhere in Africa" looked like they weren't going to contain graphic sexuality. Hannes and Simon had never seen it before, and I was surprised to see how many subtleties I had missed the two times that I had watched it with Willow. Most of them I was able to understand now only because my vocabulary is so much better than it was, but even still there were times that Simon would have to pause and explain why he and Hannes were laughing. I swear, anyone who wants to learn German language and culture needs their own private Simon--that was a joke that I cracked last week to Willow, and Simon did not find it the least bit funny)
Private German lessons with Simon continued Saturday night with a trip to Weisel. Weisel is about 12 km from Diethardt--about halfway to the Rhine--and according to Wikipedia has about 1200 residents (that's 4 times the size of Diethardt, mind you). One of the few things I miss about America is the fact that every single Dorf you pass has a sign announcing the population and elevation, allowing for such jokes as "Coloma has more P.O. Boxes than people." (The mailing address when I worked at Rock-n-Water was P.O. Box 233, in a town which has population 217. Go figure.)
Anyway, I still occasionally have a hard time understanding Uncle Ferdi Deutsch, but apparently the Weiseler have a dialect of German all their own. Had I understood more of it, I probably would have found it as entertaining as Simon, but as it was, I was quite sorry to be the designated driver, cause once Simon got wasted, I was left without a translator. More than once someone suggested that they try to speak Hochdeutsch, to which Theo (the father of Simon's friend whom we were visiting) responded the only sentence I actually understood him speak, "We can do anything! except speak Hochdeutsch."
I remember how proud I was when after 8 or so months in México I finally started picking up some regional slang. So far the extent of my learning German Dialekt is to use "sein" with the dative personal pronoun to express ownership. Example: "Das Buch ist mir" (auf Hochdeutsch: "Das Buch ist von mir", oder "Das Buch gehört mir.") I was quite proud to begin using this construction, although if Manuela hadn't corrected me on it, I wouldn't have known it was Dialekt, because apparently, Simon didn't know it was "falsch" either.
Wednesday night after Sprachkurs, Kasia asked me if I was still driving out to Wiesbaden every Thursday, and if so, could she get a ride in with me so she could hang out with Jamie. Regardless of my feelings about Jamie, I was happy for the company, so I quickly said yes.
Germany didn't really get much winter in 2007, and then they had a very early summer, so I've been hoping that we will have an extra special winter since I'm here. I know, this is coming from the girl who at home complains when the temperature drops below 70, but for all I know, this may be the only winter I spend in a cold land, so I want it to be one that I will remember. A couple of weeks ago when we were waking up every morning to Puderzucker, it looked like I might be in luck, but this week has felt like an early spring all over again. Temperatures have been in the 10 degree Celcius range, which really isn't warm at all, but for December in Germany it's quite unusual.
It was raining hard yesterday on the way into Wiesbaden, and I somehow missed the turn that I normally take, but I still managed to find my way, and ended up being only 5 minutes late. Jamie was already there to pick Kasia up and as usual he greeted me with a kiss on the cheek, and this time also with a small gift from "Nikolaus". It turned out to be only a cheap cosmetic set, but still I thought the intention was sweet.
"Santa Claus" is called in Germany "Der Weihnachtsmann" (The Christmas Man), and "St. Nikolaus" has his own separate holiday on December 6th. The kids leave their shoes out on the porch and during the night Nikolaus comes and leaves them gifts. Norina and Joel got toys, but Simon and I got chocolate :D.
After Sprachkurs I met again with Kasia and Jamie and he asked if we would like to get something to eat. I had a little bit of a sore throat and really just wanted to go home, but I was hungry and didn't want to be rude, so I said yes. We ended up at Pizza Hut, which was a strangely welcome experience. The pizza tasted exactly the same as Pizza Hut in the U.S. (much better than Pizza Hut in México), and somehow it just made me feel like home. I was almost done with my third piece before I noticed that both Kasia and Jamie were eating theirs with forks and knives. By that time, it was too late to save face so I continued eating the pizza with my bare hands, but made sure not to lick my greasy fingers afterwards.
I should have seen this coming, but when I woke up this morning my throat was a whole lot worse, and my head and neck were aching. The first thing I did was reach for the under-the-tongue thermometer I had brought with me from the states. I really didn't want to deal with any sort of conversions: all I wanted to know was whether I had a fever or not, which it turns out I didn't. Today being Friday, I let myself sleep in a little bit longer than I usually do, since Manuela is at home, so she can take care of getting the kids ready, and when I finally got out of bed, I was hoping Manuela would ask if I was feeling ok, so that I could tell her no. I don't know whether that's my culture, or just my personality, but I don't like volunteering the information that I'm sick unless asked. She did, however, she's got lots of practice being a mommy.
Even while lying in bed this morning, I had already decided that I needed to go to the doctor. Did I really think I was that sick? No, of course not. But just in case I was, this would be very inconvenient timing, so I wanted to get it dealt with right away. Today was Friday, and normally I would slept through the weekend and then decided on Monday whether I needed to go to the doctor or not. But Maddie and Danika are arriving from London on either Tuesday or Wednesday (they still haven't given me their flight details....), which would mean that in case I needed antibiotics, I would only have one day to take them before the girls arrive, so I decided to get the doctor visit out of the way now. Plus, I had yet to use my German health insurance, and I figured that now while I'm not too sick would be a good time to meet the family doctor and understand a little of how the system worked. I was going to ask Manuela to call the doctor's office for me, but she had already offered before I even had a chance to ask.
The family doctor is in Strüth, the next village over from Diethardt. As far as population, it's not much bigger than Diethardt, but it's got a doctor's office and a pharmacy, and is also home to the Kloster where Rita and her husband live and work. Matter of fact, I had met one of the doctors from the practice at the Familienwochenende that Simon and I had attended to take care of the kids.
The office is in a building that looks like it was built to be a house, and inside the waiting room it smells of incense. Dr. Pelicanos, born in Germany to Greek parents, is very nice, and confirmed my suspicions that I just have a minor cold and it's nothing to worry about, but he prescribed me pills anyway. I filled the prescription just so it didn't seem like going there had been a waste of my time, but I haven't taken any yet. Manuela has some homeopathic drops which seem to be working okay, and other than that I think I just need to rest.
I slept off and on the whole day, and listened to Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone read by Stephen Fry. Rendy sent me the first 6 Harry Potter books on MP3 cause he knows how much I adore audio books read by someone with a British accent, but today was the first time I'd listened to them. It really was the perfect thing for lying sick in bed. I'm sure you all know that feeling, when your mind is awake so you want to do something, but your body is just too tired to move. Usually I resort to TV in that case, but the audio books were even better cause I could close my eyes, and when I fell asleep and woke up two chapters later, it was ok, cause I already know how the story goes.
Tonight Josef's company has a Christmas party, so Manuela is counting on me to babysit. It's kind of a good thing, because if she hadn't told me that two weeks ago, I probably would have had plans to go away this weekend, but as it is, I can make myself stay home and rest it off.
So, for those of you who (like me, before this year) have never experienced a real winter, I thought I would dedicate a blog entry to the effect winter is having on my physiology.
Some people suffer from season allergies; I seem to suffer from seasonal acne. My face is broken out, my summer tan went away even faster than usual, and having my hair dyed darker makes it even more noticeable.
I've gained nearly two kilos in the past month. It could be related to the fact that I celebrated Thanskgiving 4 times, and the fact that I'm a grown-up now so my metabolism is finally slowing down. But I think it's really my body storing up energy for a long winter's nap.
When I first got here, the sun would wake me up at 6am every day, whether I had to get up or not. Today it was still dark at 8 when I took Joel to the bus stop, and when I got back home, all I wanted to do was go back to bed.
When my German class had just started earlier this semester, I was always begging my classmates to go out with me afterwards. Now all of a sudden I'm the first one grabbing my coat, and finding excuses to come home early to my warm bed rather than going out into the cold.
One of the ways Germans show they care is to express concern about your health, and I think I get asked almost every day whether I'm experiencing any signs of winter depression. I know, I know, overeating and listlessness are two of the key symptoms of depression, but thankfully I'm still missing the biggest symptom of all: I'm not depressed :).
Matter of fact, I had a lovely week since the last time I blogged. Tuesday we had a Thanksgiving potluck in my German class (that was the fourth Thanksgiving celebration that I mentioned earlier, in case anyone was keeping track). It was a bit complicated, since we don't have a microwave there in the classroom, so everything had to be either eaten cold or kept warm throughout the first hour and a half during which we still had Unterricht. I used Manuela's Dutch Oven to make up a batch of the same cranberry-apple-walnut stuffing I had made for our family Thanksgiving feast, and I chopped in a couple of Turkey breast filets that I had bought at Aldi. Natalia, the other American in my class, had been with her husband the previous week in the U.S., and she brought me two big bags of Reeses. I was in chocolate-peanut butter heaven.
About a month ago, Willow's very German roommates sat down with her and Kyle (the other American in her suite...yes, that is a strange coincidence) and announced that they would like to have a party on November 30th.
"Is it someone's birthday?" Willow asked.
"Nein," came the very German response. But who was Willow to say no to a party? She called me up and I marked it on my calender. No way was I going to miss the sight of Willow's 30 loud American classmates crashing a very German party! I asked Simon if he wanted to join the spectacle, and of course he said yes.
I'm inspired now. I see how excited Simon gets when I invite him on spontaneous weekend trips to explore new parts of Germany, and I remember seeing the same expression on Luis's face when I would invited him on spontaneous weekend trips to explore new parts of Mexico, and it makes me slightly ashamed that I so rarely take spontaneous weekend trips to explore new parts of the U.S. The problem is that I spend ALL my time in the U.S., and usually saving up money for such things as studying abroad in Mexico or working as an Au Pair in Germany. Well, guess what? If I do end up going overseas with Wycliffe, I'm not going to be spending ALL my time in the U.S. anymore, so I've decided to spend the next year after I go back from Germany doing all the things in the U.S. that I've always wanted to do, but always been to cheap to spring for: starting with New Years Eve in Times Square. Who's with me????
Before leaving the house on Friday, I poured an entire case of Vegetable Oil into Josef's little Blue Peugeot, and then since Simon doesn't like to drive on just Vegetable Oil, I also tanked 15 liters of Diesel. Total cost came to just over 30€ for 30 Liters. Anyone care to do the math and translate that into dollars per gallon? Yeah, that's right. About double what you guys are paying in California. And that's with a DIESEL engine.
I'm quickly becoming disenchanted with driving in Germany. Maybe it's just the fact that we live in the countryside, and that it's winter. Did I mention that last Monday after dropping Willow off in Wiesbaden I actually lost control of the car and drove into the Straßengrabe....AGAIN? Oh, yes. I had driven into the Straßengrabe once before while trying to pull into our own driveway and cutting the corner too close. Uncle Ferdi had to build a contraption out of wood and bricks um mich raus zu heben.
Anyway, Monday it was snowing AGAIN but I had made it almost all the way home before I suddenly felt the car start to swerve of its own accord. Without thinking I slammed on the brakes which of course caused the engine to stall and the steering wheel locked. Normally such things happen to me in slow-motion, but this time I was in the Grabe before I even had a chance to wonder why the engine stalling had caused the steering wheel to lock.
It was rush hour, so of course there were cars coming in both directions who tiptoed carefully around me, but luckily one car in each direction had stopped to see if they could help. I put on my blinkers and searched for a Warn-dreieck while I listened to their suggestions. I found no Warn-dreieck, by the way. It's a red and white triangle-shaped Schild that every German motorist is supposed to have in their Auto in case of emergency, kind of like how American motorists use flares. Luckily, however, it did not take long this time, mein Auto rauszuheben, because one of the woman who had stopped was driving an SUV which pulled me out in no time at all. What are the chances of that? NOBODY in Germany drives SUVs.
Anyway, all these combined incidents are making me more and more nervous about driving in Germany, so Friday on the road to Tübingen, I was more than happy to let Simon take the wheel when it started to get dark.
The party was actually quite entertaining. The Germans had supplied several cases of beer and bottles of cheap wine, and Simon taught us how to mix Caipirinhas. It wasn't nearly as awkward as it could have been; not all of the students from Willow's program showed up, and the ones who did mostly ended up leaving early, so it was mostly the German friends of Willow's roommates, and other international students from Kyle's Erasmus program: ein Irlander, ein Paar Britischer, und zwei Brasilianerinnen who said that the Caipirinhas tasted almost authentic.
Saturday was the ultimate of lazy days. We stayed in bed until well past noon and didn't even feel guilty about it, then in the afternoon we went shopping in Reutlingen, about 15 minutes from Tübingen by train. Willow was searching for boots and Emily for purses, which neither of them found, but I got a pair of jeans, a pair of sweats, a grey turtleneck, and two pairs of gloves for.....drumroll please.....22€. Not too bad, if you ask me.
Originally I had wanted to visit Jan in Freiburg on Sunday, cause it was his birthday, but then Simon ended up having to work, so we had to leave Tübingen rather early. Luckily, Kasia had called me Saturday and told me that she was going to Heidelberg with her host family the next day, so I had Simon drop me off there and I drove home with her host family later that night.
Ok, so I know you've all been anxiously awaiting news from my weekend in Bratislava. Well, so far only Rendy has heard this story (cause he cheated and messaged Jorden), so the rest of you are in for a treat.
Willow's and my Ryanair flight was scheduled for 7:55pm Wednesday evening. That would have gotten us into Bratislava at a leisurely 9:25. There probably would have even been time to watch a movie with the Hills.
Willow had asked me several weeks ago what time she should plan to arrive so we could catch the flight. Ryanair has a strict policy which only allows a 1 hour 20 minute window for check-in, so I figured there was no point getting to the airport early (I had done that in Scotland and been bored out of my mind). I told Willow that if she arrived between 5 and 6 pm, we should have plenty of time, since it's only 80 km from the train station where she would be arriving to the airport, it shouldn't have been more than a leisurely one hour drive. She bought a ticket for a train scheduled to arrive at 5:47.
I arrived in Mainz around 5:30, and just as Manuela had warned me, there was NO parking around the Hauptbahnhof, so I had to park several blocks away, and by the time I got to Willow's platform, I saw what I assumed to be her train pulling up. However, I did not find my friend among the crowd of people getting off the train, and I began to get nervous. I hadn't been able to find my new Handy that morning, so Willow had no way to contact me if she had missed her train. I wandered away from the platform, looking for a board that would tell me whether that was in fact her train that had just pulled in, or perhaps it was a different train, and hers had arrived earlier or on a different platform. I found none. Mainz Hauptbahnhof was quickly losing favor.
It was nearly ten minutes after her scheduled time of arrival that I saw another train pulling up to her platform, and I ran that direction to see if she was on it. She was, and had been completely unaware that her train was late, so I quickly informed her our situation and told her that we should probably run to the car. I offered to carry her backpack cause she's still got an injured foot, and was quickly reminded how out of shape I am.
We finally got back to the car, and discovered that the directions I had copied from Google were very unclear. By the time we finally got on the Autobahn, it was 6:15pm. If I could drive quickly, we could still make our 7:15 check-in. But you'd think I would have learned by now: there is ALWAYS construction on the Autobahn. There was one nearly 4 km stretch that was stop-and-go, and once we got through it, I started flooring the family's old Ascona to make up for it. On one particularly flat stretch I caught myself going 160 (1.6 km = 1 mi....you do the math). I'm actually impressed the car could go that fast. Anyway, despite my best efforts, it was 7:20 when we got to the airport and I dropped Willow off at the terminal and told her to run inside and try to stall the people at the check-in while I went to park the car.
I got back inside the terminal and Willow informed me that she had tried, but had been told she was too late. Even though that had been the response I had expected, I had to try it myself. I let myself get worked up to the point of tears while I begged the woman behind the counter to just give us our stupid boarding passes. She obviously wanted to be rid of us, so she sent us to the ticket sales counter, where we waited behind a guy who was obviously in the same situation as we. I heard her explaining his only option: pay a 75€ fee and exchange the ticket for the next outgoing flight, so when it was my turn I used my already poor German to play the role of the broke foreigner, and pleaded with her through all-too-real tears:
"Please help us. We don't have 75€. We need to get to Bratislava, that's the only way!"
"Why don't you call someone in Bratislava and have them give you a credit card number? The next flight is on Friday."
"They don't have 150€! Besides, what are we supposed to do? Wait here in the airport for two days? Please, the plane hasn't even left yet! Please just let us board!"
Unfortunately, I already knew that I was talking to the wrong person. She was in sales, not check-in, there was no way she could give us a boarding pass. Nevertheless, she seemed slightly more receptive than the lady at check-in, so if there hadn't been a long line behind me, I would have kept trying to get the fee waived, but I didn't want to make the people behind us suffer, just because the airline was exhibiting poor customer service. Instead I decided to keep trying to get someone to let us on the plane quickly before it took off, so I went back to the unfriendly lady at check-in.
"Please," I begged, "We don't have any luggage. Just let us board. We won't make anyone late."
"Lady," is how she probably would have addressed me, if she had been speaking English. "There are hundreds of other people on that plane who are counting on it being on time. We can't make an exception for you two. The doors are shut. There is nothing I can do about it."
"May I speak to your supervisor?" I asked. It didn't really fit with the role I was trying to play, but I would do anything at this point.
From behind a glass door came a woman dressed exactly the same as the one who had been helping us, but with a silver badge that read "SUPERVISOR".
"Well that was a waste," I thought to myself of the tears streaming down my face. Probably the first time in my life I've wished for a man to fill a position of authority instead of a woman. I caught myself thinking that she probably wasn't a real supervisor, but that she just wore the silver badge to deal with difficult customers.
I had given up hope a long time ago, but I couldn't in good conscience stop trying until the plane was off the ground. Unfortunately, that was only a few minutes later, during which time I kept allowing tears to stream down my face, not really saying anything, but just looking at the woman with the most pathetic expression I could muster, trying to make her uncomfortable enough that she would either call a REAL supervisor or give in and let us board the stupid plane.
As soon as I glanced up at the board and saw that the plane had indeed departed, I turned and walked away sadly, still thinking that if the "supervisor" had been a man, he would have done something to make our situation a little bit easier. Even handing me a kleenex would have cheered me up a little. But I know that had I been in her shoes, I wouldn't have been very thoughtful either. Maybe that's a lesson for me when I go back to working in Customer Service.
Anyway, Willow and I were faced with a "quadrilemma" (or would be a tetra-lemma?. As far as I could see, these were our options:
-Hang out at my place for two days, then give in and spend the 75€ for the flight on Friday.
-Give up and go home.
-Give up, and spend the weeekend elsewhere
-Check and see how much it would cost and how long it would take to travel by train.
Options one and two were obviously quite expensive, and I didn't want to speak for Willow, since she's the one living on borrowed money. However, she wasn't ready to give up, and neither of us were ready to give Ryanair more of our money, so option four it was.
There are no trains leaving from the Hahn airport, so unfortunately that meant we had to drive another hour back to Mainz Hauptbahnhof, and park our car in a freaking expensive garage. But for only 13€ more than it would have cost to fly on Friday, we were able to be there Thursday morning in time to help finish making Thanksgiving dinner.
Thanksgiving dinner was absolutely amazing. Roberta had apparently the same problem cooking the turkey as we did, but still it tasted incredible. She was self-conscious about the gravy since some of the turkey drippings had burned inside the pan, but I thought it was probably one of the best gravies I'd ever had. The mashed potatoes were also amazing, utilizing not one or two, but four of my favorite Slovak dairy products: maslo, mlieko, syr, and smotana. Look them up :) But the best thing of all was a sweet orange-colored casserole which I was surprised to find out contained neither yams nor pumpkin, but some other kind of orange squash. Remind me to bug Roberta for the recipe!
There were 13 of us for Thanskgiving dinner: four Hills, two Van Dams, four Christies (the family who moved into the Hill's old apartment downstairs), two Bruners (dad was in the States), Willow, me, and Martin, who lives in the apartment across from where we stayed this summer.
I have to say that of all the holidays to celebrate after having traveled for 17 hours, Thanksgiving's actually not that bad, because after the meal when Willow and I were ready to crash, everyone else was loaded up on Tryptophan and didn't notice anyway. I think some or all of us watched a movie that night, but to be honest, I really don't remember.
Friday was the Hill's day to put up Christmas decorations. We helped assemble the artificial tree and hang garlands around the house, but I'm afraid other than that we weren't much help. It was just so nice to enjoy a day with people we love and absolutely nothing to do. We went to the mall that evening and played life-size chess (Jorden beat Willow, and then Elodie would have beat me except that towards the end Jorden stopped helping her). In the evening we introduced Jorden and Elodie to "It's a Wonderful Life." Perfect completion to an all-American Thanksgiving, don't you think?
Saturday morning Willow and I made Kartoffelpuffer for the family. Jim had been curious if we had learned how to make any traditional German foods, and that's the only one I like well enough to pass on ;)
Afterwards we went back to the mall and ice-skated. I haven't done that in so many years!!! My ankles were killing me by the end, but I did not even once fall. Amy Hill said that if we come back in the winter, she'll take us skating on the lake. All we gotta do is find skates...
Around dinnertime we moseyed downtown to the Bratislava Weihnachtsmarkt and ate Gypsy sandwiches, and that evening back at the house, Willow and Jorden and I FINALLY got to watch the new episodes of Heroes. Wonderful boy that he is, Rendy has sent me the first seven episodes of the new season, but I'd been forcing myself to wait so I could watch them together with Willow and Jorden. To be honest, I think Willow and I were just a bit overwhelming for Jorden. When he watched season one with us this summer, it wasn't our first time seeing it, so our reactions weren't nearly as intense. Willow and I have actually gotten into some pretty heated discussions predicting what's going to happen in this season. I actually have a new theory that I can't wait to bounce off of her this weekend.
Sunday we went to church with the Hills and had yet another delicious Thanksgiving dinner, and in the afternoon we watched "White Christmas". Such a wonderful way to end a Thanksgiving weekend. Willow and I were so sad that we had to leave, and were half serious when we said, "Forget Germany. Let's just stay here."
Elodie's response: "Everyone always says that, but nobody ever does."
Roberta's comeback: "Yeah, but can you imagine if they all did? Where would we put them all?"
Nevertheless, I already miss my Bratislava family!!! I can't wait to go back and see them again!!!
You know that glazed look everyone gets after stuffing themselves on Thanksgiving? Well since I never cooked the whole Thanksgiving dinner before, I never realized how gratifying that look is for the Chef. Incidentally, celebrating Thanksgiving on a Sunday is not nearly as fun as it is practical.
Months ago I mentioned to my host family that I would like to cook a Thanksgiving dinner for them, but I hadn't really expected them to get SO excited about it. When I did the same thing for Gaby when I was in Mexico, she appreciated it, but Manuela and Josef went all out.
Anna and her boyfriend Daniel RSVP'd months ago, and of course I knew Uncle Ferdi would be there, but that's not many more than the number of people I normally cook for. Then Manuela asked if it would be ok to invite Josef's brother Hans. Well, it is Thanksgiving, so of course I told her the more the merrier! Meanwhile, I tried not to get nervous. Hans RSVP'd with wife and daughter, I invited Kasia, and at the last minute Jan said he could make it too, bringing our headcount up to 14. Still not un-doable, and of course I love having Jan and Anna here! You know, I never got to see what life was like around here when both of them were still in school (poor Aupair-Mädchen!), but somehow when they are home from university, the family just feels more complete.
The biggest challenge with cooking Thanksgiving for 14 people was, of course, the turkey. First of all, Germans don't really eat turkey very much. You can find sliced turkey in the refrigerator section of the grocery store, but the only whole birds you find are chickens, geese around the holidays, and occasionally ducks. Everybody that I talked to had a different idea about where one might possibly find a whole turkey. At Rewe in Wiesbaden I found tiny frozen baby turkeys and I figured if worst came to worst I could always buy two of those. But then there came the question of how to cook two turkeys in a tiny German oven. We would have had to cook on the day before and reheat it the day of, and that would have been no fun. Also, Manuela boycotts supermarket poultry because of the way the birds are treated, so in the end Josef ended up special-ordering the turkey from a farm, and we got to pick it up fresh the day before. It was nice knowing that the turkey would be fresh (I've only ever had frozen turkeys), but up until the very day we picked it up, we still couldn't be certain that it would fit in our oven. Josef had to tie up the legs and wings in a funny way, but eventually we made it work.
Then there was the question of how to bake everything else, since the turkey took up the whole oven. The pies could be done the day before, and the green bean casserole could go in at the last minute while the turkey was cooking. But for the first time in my life I realized I would have to actually cook the stuffing inside the bird. My mom and grandma always prepared the stuffing in a casserole dish and put it in the oven with the turkey within the last hour of cooking, and I always assumed this was either because they liked it to get crusty on top, or to prevent salmonella, but in any event, I decided I was going to have to live without the crusty top of the stuffing, and pray that since the bird was fresh from the farm, it wouldn't have salmonella.
My mom and brothers don't like pumpkin pie, so we've always had pecan pie alongside. It's not my favorite pie, but now it reminds me of my grandma, so I find myself craving it this time of year. There used to be a package of pecans in our pantry, but they got attacked by moths, and unfortunately that's not something that Aldi carries on an everyday basis. I caught myself wondering what pecan pie would taste like with walnuts instead, but then I decided our second pie would have to be apple when by coincidence I happened to find Granny Smiths at the supermarket.
Uncle Ferdi holds himself to be the expert when it comes to Apfelkuchen (and his Apfelkuchen is pretty darn good), and he was a bit more than skeptical when he saw that I was planning to use Granny Smiths.
"Es wird bestimmt nicht smecken," he said with a bluntness that a couple of months ago probably would have hurt my feelings. It's a good thing I've grown to like him, but even still I responded a little more sharply than I normally would.
"Doch, es schmeckt," I said, and reminded him that American apple pie is not the same as German Apfelkuchen.
"So kompliziert," said Daniel as Anna tried to explain the difference between pie and cake. I don't see how that's any different than trying to explain the distinction between "Kuchen" and "Torte" auf Deutsch. Sure, we have the same distinction: coffeecake, as opposed to just "cake", but if you weren't sure, you could say "cake" and you wouldn't be wrong.
I made two different pumpkin pies: one following the Libby's recipe, and one was following a suggestion from a vegan website to substitute tofu for the eggs and evaporated milk.
Even after blending the tofu for several minutes, I couldn't hide the difference in consistency. I could only assume that it would still taste good because I knew the tofu wouldn't add any flavor of its own.
The Libby's pie, on the other hand, almost turned out to be a disaster. We had boiled the pumpkin rather than baking or steaming it, and the result was a liquidy mess that had to cook almost two hours before it eventually solidified into what vaguely resembled pumpkin pie. Lucky for me, no one sitting around our table on Sunday (except for Anna) had ever eaten Pumpkin Pie before, so they wouldn't know the difference.
After the incident with the pies, Norina and the rest of the family dragged me to the movies. The picture was called "Die Drei ???", and it's an adaptation from an American children's book called The Three Investigators which is apparently a cult classic in Germany, but I'd never heard of it.
Sunday I got up at 8 and started making the stuffing. I found a simple recipe online that included all of my favorite things: apples, dried cranberries, onions, celery, sage, and of course it tasted so much better with German bread! I couldn't stop eating it raw.
I was surprised at how little stuffing fit inside our 9.5 kilo turkey, so I ended up still having to put the rest in a small casserole, but I figured that could cook along with the green beans. Mom had sent me a package with cream of mushroom soup and French's onions, and of course cranberry sauce, so really the only thing that was missing was the cranberry salad (no fresh cranberries in Germany, at least not this time of year).
I had planned my timetable ahead of time so I wasn't ever trying to do too many things at once, but as a result, I was in the kitchen literally from about 8 am until 2 pm when we finally sat down to eat. Luckily, there were always plenty of hands around to help out when I needed a break. I love this family.
If I had cooked any less of anything, there wouldn't have been enough to go around, but as it was, the proportions seemed just right. The green beans were completely gone, and the mashed potatoes were almost there. There was a small slice of jellied cranberry sauce, a few spoonfuls of stuffing-casserole, a small bowl of gravy, and just enough meat for about one day of turkey sandwiches. The apple pie and the Libby's pie were gone completely, and even the tofu pie got half eaten, and in the end one could hear 12 people emitting the familiar sighs of having eaten too much on Thanksgiving, and two small children begging to be allowed to watch television.
We played Zug um Zug that night, after Hans & family, Kasia, and Ferdi went home and the children were in bed. Unfortunatley there weren't enough leftovers to snack on, so we ended up cleaning off a bag of chips, a package of peanuts, a box of American Honey Mustard Pretzels (courtesy of Aldi), a box of crackers, and at least one bottle of red wine. Jan had the longest Strecke, as usual, but Simon wasn't too far behind and when he laid out his Mission cards he pulled ahead of Jan in a very unexpected way. I'm not sure how much longer the big kids stayed up, but I made myself go to bed when the parents did, right after the game. It was much more convenient having Thanskgiving on a Sunday, since it meant everyone could be there, but having to work the next morning was no fun at all.
