The Mountain Show

In America, there's the house show. You know, that show on sundays that just shows houses for sale: no video, just pictures of the houses and the asking price. Watching the show is soothing, it requires no brain power, it's so elementally boring that it's like automatic meditation: you aren't thinking anything.

In Germany, there's the mountain show. Intended to provide skiiers with a view of the current weather conditions in each ski area, this program flips from one mountaintop to another, broadcasting images recorded by some tiny camera mounted, in most cases it appears, high up in some snow covered tree. This show is even better than the house show, not only because the images sometimes rotate to show the full panorama and because the video is live, but also because more than often all there is to see is white because, well--it's snowing. Sometimes there are droplets on the camera, sometimes the blustering snow lets up for long enough to identify the tree a few meters away from the camera--the only way to identify these places is by the logo in the lower righthand corner.

As if this wasn't already enough to beat the house show, the whole thing is accompanied by a background of traditional bavarian and austrian "Blasmusik" Fantastic. Of course, on a beautiful day the mountaintops look gleaming white and I cuddle up under my blanket on the couch and think to myself "this is so much better than real estate."

auf der Autobahn...

Germans love their autobahn. They like to drive fast, and the rules of the road are followed so strictly that drivers don't expect the unexpected. The roads are cleaned, the signs are repaired, all the lines are visible, and potholes are nonexistant-- hitting one at 220km/h would be a pretty big jolt.

Of course, even Germans know that not everything runs perfectly all the time. That's why the radio stations and their traffic programs are so crucial. Concerned drivers are provided with locations of the biggest traffic jams, construction sites and even speed traps. But my favorite section of all in German radio traffic programming is what I call "What's lying on the road."

Usually, the items are run of the mill things like tree branches, tires, hubcaps--there are also the occasional reports of people walking on the highway, accidents and construction vehicles. But often there are a few more exotic objects in the mix: rubber mattresses, couches, a family of geese walking along the side. These earn a prime spot each half hour in the traffic report--their exact location is relayed to the entire state of Bavaria.

This always made me laugh. The Germans say to me "but it would be very dangerous to drive if you didn't know that these things were on the road!" I usually chuckle and say "if they tried to report irregularities on america's highways the traffic reports would take hours"

So each evening while making dinner I flip on the radio, anxious to hear what's lying out there today.. I picture these objects, these people, those duck families, perched on the edge of the road while traffic whizzes by. Maybe there are even a few sightseers who hear the reports and take an extra trip to check out that abandoned pole lamp. Maybe these object sightseers cause their own traffic jams!

Today I listened to the radio report as always while filling out my christmas cards. The reporter whizzed through the traffic facts, the list of speed traps, the various construction detours, and finally arrived at the juiciest fact: lying on highway A6 near exit 4, albiet a bit early in the season--is a christmas tree.

Truthahn Tag

Truthahn is the word for turkey in Germany, and yesterday that word was on my mind. Of all the holidays, I feel most homesick on thanksgiving. It's not because it's necessarily my favorite holiday, but it's the only holiday that goes unnoticible in Germany. Halloween is celebrated (if rather lamely), St Patrick's day even has its own parade! But on Thanksgiving I have to go to work and eat healthily while the rest of my family is on its way to Cleveland to meet up with the relatives, eat and drink themselves merry on turkey, stuffing and pumpkin pie, only to plop on the sofa and watch football in a Tryptophan-induced coma for the entire day-off friday. It's not fair!

To alleviate some of the homesickness pangs, I conjured up a cozy "thanksgiving for two" meal with Artur... turkey cutlets rolled and stuffed with stuffing, creamy mashed potatoes, Preiselbeeren (the german equivalent of cranberry sauce) and apple crisp for dessert. I also gave myself and Artur license to indulge, and kicked off the meal with homemade whiskey sours fresh from our new, "one armed bandit" as Artur calls it (juice press). Here's the recipe for fresh whiskey sours, from the cooking genius Barefoot Contessa:

Fresh Whisky Sours

3/4 cup whiskey (recommended: Jack Daniel's Tennessee Whiskey)
1/2 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice (4 lemons)
1/2 cup freshly squeezed lime juice (4 limes)
2/3 cup sugar syrup (cook 1:1 water-sugar mixture until dissolved, cool)
Ice cubes
Maraschino cherries

mix all ingredients, fill a cocktail shaker halfway with ice and 3/4 full with cocktail mix, and shake for 30 seconds. Serve in highball glasses

mmm mmm sour

It's Beginning to look a lot like Christmas

I started out the day by singing christmas tunes loudly in the shower: Silver Bells, It's Beginning to Look alot like Christmas, White Christmas, Chestnuts Roasting... the classics. Artur and I watched "Jack Frost--der Coolste Dad der Welt" yesterday, and it put me in happy christmas spirit. So today I was more than happy to see the dark wooden stands of the Marienplatz Christmas Market already set up and ready to roll.

The giant tree was already standing in front of the Rathaus and the Maroni--roasted chestnut--stands were already crackling away. The wooden stands built up like a labyrinth across the usually wide open cobblestoned plaza set me dreaming about Glühwein, Bratwürstl and Lebkuchen.

The Christkindlmarkt on Marienplatz in Munich has a long history itself. Founded in 1642, it holds the title of the oldest and biggest market in the city, and has been selling the gingerbread-like Lebkuchen and Oberammergauer wood cutouts since at least 1805. With over 3 million visitors a year, it may seem like a tourist trap, but every Münchner loves to stop by Marienplatz on the way home from work to stroll through the christmas-scented bustling stands, or to meet friends over a glass of Glühwein or a steaming Feuerzangenbowle-- literally "Fire Pliers Punch", prepared by heating a giant bowl filled with mulled wine, suspending a Feuerzange, a metal holder for the Zuckerhut (sugar hat), a large conical mass of sugar , which is placed above the bowl. The sugar is soaked in rum and burns a caramalizes with delight into the wine, resulting in a more dramatic and more alcoholic version of Glühwein.

The markets don't open until December 1st, but until then I'm going to sing myself into Christmas oblivion. In Germany, my fairytale christmas comes alive...

drilling in the afternoon

My artistic inspiration has been somewhat dulled lately by my lack of sleep and the onslaught of children's cold and flu germs. So today after work I turned out all the lights and law down in bed for a midday nap. Not five minutes after I started to drift off, I was ripped out of sleep by the vibrations of someone drilling in my building. If you live in an apartment building you know what I mean-- when anyone drills into any wall connected with your wall, youre whole apartment shakes and it is just as loud as if someone were drilling next to your bed--if not louder.

The worst part about it all was not the drilling itself but its intermittent nature-- it would go on for two, three minutes, and then stop for just long enough to let me drift back off to sleep--only to start up again, punctuated at some points by some lighter hammering and sanding. Not helping the situation was the biting cold draft that was blowing through our leaky windows causing me to roll up into a tiny ball of warmth under the blankets. And then I realized what all the drilling was-- they are changing the windows in the building--but they won't get to ours till next spring.

I gave up the napping after a while and started to work on the 50 example test questions given to us by my "Globalisierung: Wirtschaft und Politik" professor for our test in two weeks and eventually decided to slip on my winter boots over my sweatpants, grab several cloth bags, and go grocery shopping. Oh, and I forgot to mention: my Handy (cellphone) died on me today, so it's time to use my Christmas bonus to buy a new one. The highlight of the evening was Artur finding a stone in his rice. A stone! Somehow, it just wasn't one of those days...

Ocean of Noise

Last Sunday was spent riding the train back from the Alps, changing into more comfortable clothes, and heading off the the Kultfabrik Gelände for the Arcade Fire concert! Artur came along, and it was pretty exciting to see all the fans streaming from the S-Bahn station despite the pouring rains (what came down in the Alps as snow was streaming down in Munich as rain, filling the street with giant lake puddles.)

We picked up our "guest" stickers at the entrance windows and secretly smirked at the jealous stares coming from our fellow concert goers-- I had emailed a friend from college in the band to let him know i'd be coming, so we would get to go backstage afterwards to say hi! We stuffed our jackets into the stage scaffoling work lining the sides of the concert hall and took central standing room places in the front third of the room. The crowd kept getting bigger and we had to revert to some physical elbow jabbing to keep from getting jostled from our places, but we managed to hold our ground and had a great view of the action once the band came on stage.

It's funny, seeing an old college acquaintance and a band I once saw with 40 other students in Champagne-Urbana Illinois playing in my new hometown Munich-Germany to a crazy sold out audience of over 3,000 fans. I just have to say, I was proud. We jumped and screamed and sang and sweated our way through the new songs from the Neon Bible and the old classics from Funeral until the air in the room was literally unbreathable. The best part was before the encore, when the audience stared humming Wake Up and didn't even stop when the band came back on stage. I think the masses had just discovered their own talent!

After the show we stood by the freshly opened doors and breathed in huge mouthfuls of fresh air while we waited for clearance to go backstage and say hi. Finally allowed inside, we got to say hi and hear great stories of life on the road and watch the band members navigate past at least five buckets collecting dripping water from the leaking roof. Well, fame isn't quite so glamorous as we all think, but it sure is exciting.

My hero for the evening, however, was Artur, who, on the walk back to the train after the show, pulled me to the side just before a car drove through a puddle and soaked me-- it just soaked the girl walking in front of me. My Hero.

let it snow

I spent the weekend in the Allgäu region of the Alps, in the tiny town of Buchenberg, my boyfriend's home since he moved to Germany from Poland over 20 years ago. Picturesque, tiny, and this weekend--full of snow! One of the best parts of the trip is taking the cozy ALEX train from Munich, especially when we snag seats in "ALEXTreff" with the comfy Edelweiß-decorated seats and can sit with warm paper cups of coffee and watch the buildings of Munich dwindle, the cow population increase, the Alps come into view, and that slightly unpleasant but also nostalgic smell of cow manure creeps into the train car. Ah, a weekend full of relaxation is ahead of us.

The best part of spending the weekend with my boyfriend's parents is the food: delicious mom home-cooking. But this time newer things awaited us other than wining and dining: a cat! His mother has been famous among the cat population of Buchenberg for years for having an open door policy: whenever I'm there, various neighborhood cats drop by for warm milk, noodles with chicken, steamed dumplings (really, she's a regular gourmet!)... but this time, the cat had come to stay! Suri is her name, and she appeared on the doorstep screaming with hunger and was immediately adopted and cooked and cleaned into supreme health. Now she spends her days dozing on top of the heater with her head resting on a rose potpourri pillow--really!

The cat must have been relieved, because coinciding with our arrival came the first big snow of the year--two feet in 24 hours, blanketing the postcard perfect town and zapping me into premature christmas spirit. Suri ventured out once into the snow--and we laughed the whole time watching her take dainty steps only to fall through the crust of snow and disappear into its depths. Needless to say, she came back inside after just minutes. We acted much in the same way, venturing outside only on saturday to spend the afternoon with hordes of Allgäu teenagers in the Kempten mall, managing to survive the slippery downhill drive from Buchenberg. The rest of the time we sat and wined and dined with the spoiled little kitty...

defrosting the refridgerator

yup, really. Our freezer and fridge are covered in a thick layer of white snow. I kept imagining hoards of frozen eskimo fruit flies in tiny fur lined parkas building mini igloos and worshipping our funsize bottle of jägermeister. But if it kept growing at the rate it was going, I wouldn't have fit our bottle of Grasovka Vodka back in their by tomorrow. So Operation Defrost took effect. I emptied the fridge and put everything in one of those handy german collapsable baskets on the balcony (see photo), opened all the fridge and freezer doors, unplugged the thing, and away we go! My boyfriend built a contraption to funnel the water out using 1) a pot 2) a shoe horn 3) duct tape. Oh those brilliant polish germans.

To celebrate, I made defrost-stirfry. I threw it all in-- frozen spinach, cauliflower, broccoli, carrots... mmm mmm good. I had to part with my icecream, though...

why does it always rain on me

...and on my chocolate croissant? i bought a delicious one at Olympiazentrum this morning on my way to work. It was meant to rip me out of my sleepy cold morning grumpiness. It was certainly mouthwatering... with real chocolate in the middle, not that imitation nutella stuff. But then it started downpouring, and my the time i reached the covered island in the middle for bus 173, my pastry and my pants were soggy.

I ate it anyways. I would need energy for the kids today.

The kids were pretty good, though, and with an exception of the usual sand throwing, nit picking fights and water spillage, everything went as planned. I ironed fall leaves that the kids arranged between sheets of waxed paper and pasted on the windows. It made this grey day look a little cheerier.

Next invention: tiny umbrella for tiny breakfast pastries. or maybe i should have just remembered my own...

current music: why does it always rain on me, travis

Milk, Zippers, and other English things...

I work in an English-German kindergarten. I do everything a normal German kindergarten teacher would do: help cut up Würstchen, make sure the room has frische Luft, build Sankt Martin lanterns... and of course, zip up jackets...except I do it all in English. A couple of the kids are English native speakers, a couple of them are language wizzes...but most of the time they just tilt their head and try to interpret the one, two words they do understand.

Ok, that would be underestimating them. They know a lot of sentences. "I'm finished!" "clean up" "please" "thank you" and "sorry"... and I require them to learn the somewhat more difficult construction "could you please zip my jacket?" Of course, these sentences appear in many versions, like "dank you" and "ich bin finished", and "could you please zip my jacket" often comes out as "could you please my y-ack-uh zip?" But they're learning and they're charming.

One of my favorite moments was with a girl in my group last year. We have müsli day and if they would like milk added to their bown of oats and dried fruit, they have to ask, and I like them to ask in English. I accept many forms, I basically expect at least the words "milk" and "please" to appear. On one particular day a girl from my group was standing in front of me holding her bowl out. "What would you like?" I asked. "Milk" she whispered quietly. "What milk?" I replied. Where? Milk here? Milk for me? (getting 4 year old to talk in full sentences can be a tedious process) She shifted her weight back and forth, scrunched her brow in concentration, trying to recall the right sentence from somewhere back in her brain. Suddenly, her eyes lit up. She smiled, looked me in the eyes, held out her bowl and asked proudly and loudly

"Can you please zip my milk?"

Jack Johnson and Lemon Drops

The day was actually packed quite full:

Artur went to the hairdresser and got his shoulder length hair cut off--he looks like a better version of Hugh Grant, now; then we took our recently extended U3 subway line to Olympia Einkaufszentrum to go wander around the mall and check out dishwashers; ate mall chinese and later drank an iced coffee; exchanged his pijamias for a bigger size, rode back and I blanched the veggies I bought at the farmers market, heated up the pizza leftover from visiting Sigrid, my "ex-host-mother" for him and i read the end of my book, "Drachenläufer" (The Kite Runner, in German) in sniffling tears next to him on the couch while he rubbed his chin over programming problems in his new facebook chess application.

We both drank italian red wine and were completely absorbed in our own tasks... I was in charge of the cds...travis, eros ramazzotti, bob marley, red hot chili peppers, REM, and then.. I made a batch of lemon drop martinis with the last of the lemons and the remains of the vodka from the freezer... and now we're off to bed with jack johnson strumming away in the background... good night...

Hunting and Gathering

The perfect fall day, and I have the day off from work! What better conditions to get out of the house. I clicked through the muenchen.de website until I found the link to the "Munich weekly market calendar" I picked out two market's I'd never been to, and set off, taking the subway to Marienplatz and then switching lines to the Sbahn westwards.

When I reached Laim I had to trek through an ugly train track underpass and walk about ten minutes along a heavily trafficked street: the market was tucked cozily in a corner behind some shops slightly off the main road. It was pretty small but I browsed the wares happily, weighing new potatoes in my hand, staring at giant heads of cabbage and huge "muscat" pumpkins and trying to decode names of at least 5 different kinds of turnips.

The cheese stand was fragrant and the pumpkin seed goat cheese beckoned, but I decided to leave the cheese buying to my boyfriend, a true feinschmecker. I tasted at least 5 kinds of apples fresh from Lake Constance and bought three kinds, mixed together in a clear plastic bag. Into my orange backpack came tiny heads of cauliflower and broccoli, and five small ruby red onions.

I set off for Laimer Platz, the subways station, stopping on the way at a bakery for a fresh "Leberkässemmel", a Munich specialty. I munched a cold apple while waiting for the subway. Next stop: Neuperlach, for what I hoped would be an even bigger market.

When I arrived I still had 45 minutes to wait until the market opened, so I wandered towards the shopping center on the other side of the road, and into a starbucks there. I'm always amazed when I walk into american franchises in europe... it may sound sad, but it feels like home. Jazz musik was playing in the background and I could have been on the Waterfront in Pittsburgh reading the postgazette. A nice feeling, actually, as I took my latte sat down on a comfy overstuffed chair to read my book.

This market had even more to offer. I bought a nice chunk of ryebread with oats, a jar of local honey, and a few handfuls of brussell sprouts. At the next stand I chose 4 gleaming mandarines and a bunch of fresh carrots. My last purchase was two sturdy sweet potatoes, and I was on my way back home, with quite a heavy backpack.

Define: Wolpertinger

According to Wikipedia, a Wolpertinger is an "(A)nimal supposedly living in the alpine forests of Bavaria in Germany. It has body parts of various animals — generally wings, antlers and fangs, all attached to the body of a small mammal."

So what does that make me? An American girl with a minor in Italian language, Irish, German and Welsh ancestors living with a Polish boyfriend in the "most Northern city in Italy," or "the world-city with a heart"--Munich, Germany. Sounds pretty Wolpertingery to me.

And that's what it's all about, living abroad. Giving up pieces of myself, switching them for others, so I sort of fit in everywhere and then again nowhere. A freak of nature, the stuff of fantasy. Ok, it sounds a bit self important. But then again, blogs aren't there for self importance, than what is?

To follow are the tales of my adventures as a culturally-mish-mashed expat. Enjoy!