The Indians win! and travelling to Egypt

Last night Brian and I went to our third Hannover Indians hockey game. I know I've written about it before, but this time they actually won and so I thought I'd tell you more. We went to the game with Kent Todd, also known as Kent Todd Ice Hockey God. He's a Canadian from Alberta who used to play for the Indians and then coached them for a few years. Now he works at the International School but is Mr. Popularity at the games. I guess we were his entourage.

The stadium is all standing room and open on two sides with a big U-shaped roof over the rest. Last night it was packed - the Indians were playing the Bremerhaven Penguins who are apparently very good. The tickets and the signs and everything said Fischtown Penguins, which confused me because I didn't think the Germans would actually name a city Fischtown. They are not that corny. My lovely husband then told me that it's a nickname for Bremerhaven, which is on the sea. I guess that makes sense. The Indians have not been very good at all this season. I don't claim to know much about hockey but I'm learning a little and I really like going to the games. It's loud and crowded, you get to stand close to the action, and there's a smell of sausages in the air. The die-hard fans sing songs and beat drums and everyone high-fives when the Indians score a goal. They came from behind last night to win 5-4 in overtime. You can look at their website if you are interested: http://www.hannover-indians.de/
And for you Minnesotans out there, they did play the Gear Daddies zamboni song before the game started. We were proud.

Today is Christmas Eve and it's raining. That makes it sound kind of depressing, but we are not depressed. We are going to Egypt in two days. What says Christmas time more than camels and pyramids? I guess the 3 wise men rode camels, so maybe it is a good place to go this time of year. Packing for Egypt will take some thought - because it's a conservative Muslim country, modesty is important. Men can wear pretty much what they want, though shorts are not common, but women need to at least cover knees and shoulders in public. We will be in Cairo for 3 days, then we fly to Aswan, spend a night there, and get on a Nile cruise the next day. The cruise will take us to a lot of sights along the Nile and we will have plenty of guided tours of really old stuff. We will spend New Year's Eve on the cruise (there is sure to be a party in the 'on-board discotec') and end in Luxor, where  we spend another day and then return to Cairo and home.

Why Egypt? We are going with our good friends Tom (Dizzy) and Sonja. They had planned to go last year but never did. Then they invited us to go with them before we even moved to Germany. So now we are making it a foursome. It seems like a place that one should go at some point in life. The pyramids at Giza are the only remaining wonder of the ancient world. I think you should get a special stamp in your passport for that.

Yes, there have been protests and some violence in Cairo. From what we have heard, it's contained in the Tahrir square area of the city. We do not plan to head down there in shorts and tank tops, holding picket signs and waving flags. We do plan to stick to the other areas of Cairo that are safer and I am sure will be exciting enough for us without demonstrations.

So I will dig out some long skirts and get the camera charged up this Christmas. We will also continue our Christmas movie marathon, thanks to a Swiss website that is probably illegal but has all kinds of TV and movies in English. You won't hear from me again for a while - we are back Jan 4th. I plan to write the old fashioned way, in a journal, while we are there, so I can report the details to you later.

Frohe Weinachten to you all, have a very merry Christmas! Thanks for making this blog a fun project this year. There will be more to come in 2012.

New look

I changed the color scheme of the blog to mix things up a little.

Frohe Weinachten

It is the eve of Christmas Eve, and so I figured I would write about Christmas.
You should also know that right now one of our neighbors is playing Feliz Navidad really loud and we can hear it through the floor. That's the Christmas spirit!

Several people have asked how the Germans celebrate, so I will tell you what I know.  The word for Christmas is Weinacht, and the big day is Dec. 24th. German schools have about 2 weeks off and most businesses are closed the 24th and 25th, though the bakeries and grocery stores are open in the morning on the 24th. From what I understand, Germans spend the 24th with immediate family, go to church if they do that sort of thing, open gifts, and have a family dinner. On the 25th they celebrate more with extended family, and on the 26th spend more time with friends, neighbors etc. Christmas as Americans know it was largely invented by people in Germany and northern Europe, so they have a lot of the same traditions we do. No, there are no huge light-up plastic Santas, and no robotic reindeer on the front lawn. There are, however, lots of Christmas trees, Advent wreaths, stockings, candles in windows, and even mistletoe.

The Germans sometimes use real candles on their wreaths and Christmas trees. This sounds like a fire trap to me, but makes more sense if I try to think like a German. You see, they believe a lot in rules here and people follow the rules almost all of the time. Consequently, things work pretty well. So the logical rule about trees is, if you light real candles on your tree you need to be in the room and watching so that you'd know if the tree starts to burn. If you decide to leave and your house burns down, well that's your own fault. We've noticed this about other parts of life in Germany too. Like at the hockey game they don't stop selling beer after the 2nd period. In fact they sell it well after the game has ended. You are a grown up and should know when to stop drinking, and if you don't and you make a fool of yourself or fall down, that's your own fault. When I go to the pool, there are no life guards. I guess they figure that if you are going to swim laps, you already know how to swim and shouldn't need someone to watch you. If you need to walk across the train tracks, there's no gate to keep you from doing so. You should, however, look both ways so you don't get hit by a train.


So back to Christmas, Germans traditionally eat goose for Christmas dinner. I thought it would be fun to try cooking one, or part of one, since Brian and I are here for Christmas. At the grocery store yesterday I saw a whole fresh goose, which was about 10 or 12 pounds. It cost 42 euros!! That's like $58. Just to buy the breast or the leg was expensive, even the frozen ones. So I bought a beef roast instead. I will experiment with goose another time. The other foods they have a lot around Christmas time, aside from chocolate (which there is a lot, and it's delicious) of are:

Marzipan - It comes in all shapes and sizes, it's creamy and sort of nutty and people seem to either love it or hate it.
Stollen - which is sort of a dense pound cake with raisins in it and powdered sugar on top.
Lebkuchen - similar to gingerbread but more cake-like and with stronger spices (cardamom maybe?) and is often sold covered in little hearts or cakes covered with chocolate.

There is a shortage of Christmas cookies, which I have personally tried to eliminate. I made about 5 batches that went to a couple of friends and school staff who have been nice to us and the rest went to Brian's eighth graders. I just made another batch yesterday so we'd have more for ourselves. There are also not a lot of candy canes. There's nothing I can do about that.

Of course the Weinachtsmarkt is the big outdoor market that goes through all of Advent. I wrote about that a couple of weeks ago so look back if you missed it. Sadly, the market ended yesterday.

I apologize to any real Germans if I have misrepresented you holiday celebrations. Feel free to correct me. This is just what I have figured out by talking to people and looking around.

What are we doing for Christmas? Well, we leave for our 10 day Egypt trip on Monday the 26th, so that's the big excitement. We have a tree, but with electric lights. I guess we don't trust ourselves with the candles... For Christmas Eve we don't have much planned, other than watching some Christmas movies and eating our roast beef dinner. On Christmas day we will go to church, eat some brunch, pack, and probably watch more Christmas movies. There are some packages that arrived in the mail and allegedly a few more coming in January, so we have a couple of gifts to open too. And we will play Christmas music. Apparently Germans like Feliz Navidad so we will make sure to put that one on the playlist.

Score a point or two for me.

Score a couple of points for me making my way in German society this week. I am not sure if I'm winning  yet, but I got a couple of things done.

I made the bike trip to Ikea yesterday. If I had tried something like that back in the Twin Cities, I would have had to dodge the interstate and Mall of America shoppers. Thinking about it that way made me realize this was not such a big deal. I had bike lanes and sidewalks almost all the way - why wouldn't I go?
I made it in and out in 30 minutes and got enough shower curtain liners to last a year. I also managed to fit a floor lamp in the saddle bag, and did not get sleeted on. It was a successful journey.

Today I went to get a library card. I actually went last week, but learned that I needed not only my passport but also a copy of our apartment lease in order to get a card. So I got the passport and lease together and went in. I found the info desk and told the librarian I'd like to register. I knew this was the word for it (rather than 'to get a card') because there was an exercise in my German textbook where a girl goes to the library to register her sister.

That was about where I stopped understanding the language around getting a library card. The librarian gave me a copy of the rules and talked a lot about them and I nodded a lot. She looked at my lease and my passport with the residency permit page in it. Then she asked (at least two times until I understood) if I had received a document in the mail from the foreigner's office that also had my address on it. I guess the lease with my name on it and the passport with my name and the residency permit issued in Hannover weren't quite official enough. She asked a colleague, who then went and asked someone else, and they decided that they'd accept what I had brought, since they were dated recently or something like that.

They did, however, accept my Metro State student ID card. I brought it just in case, because there is a 20 euro annual fee for a library card, but it's only 10 euros for students. The librarian was a little concerned that there was no expiration date on the ID. I told her that I would be a student for at least two more years and that seemed good enough for her. In Germany people are students for what seems like a decade on average, so it was a safe bet that my ID from 2010 was valid.

Other than making all the librarians in my family proud of me, the point of me joining the library is to get books in English and Spanish, which they have, and then to check out kids' books in German to help me learn. They also have a lot of books for learning German, my favorite being Deutsch for Dummies. I didn't check anything out today though. I'd had enough of the library for one morning, and I had to bike home in the sleet.

Bike cargo

Usually I really like not having a car, though it does make carrying things around town more of a challenge. Brian went to a bachelor party on Saturday for one of his fellow teachers. They started with a soccer game at school and Brian had offered to bring a case of beer for the guys to drink after the game.
In our former lives, Brian would drive there and make a quick stop at the liquor store to buy some beer on the way. In our lives in Hannover, it's another story. I have two bikes. My older bike is the one I take around town to do errands and such and it has two saddle bags on the back. While Brian started walking, I rode to the Getrankmarkt, which is the store where you buy beer and and any other sort of beverages. I then bought a case of beer, which is 20 beers. (Why do Americans like to have things in dozens? Eggs come in boxes of 10 here too). I had to unpack them and load them into the saddle bags, putting towels in between so they didn't clank too much as I rode down the street. I met Brian at school and we wheeled the bike in to unload, making sure the kids playing basketball in the gym didn't see us.

I am thinking about riding my bike to Ikea. I have to go there to buy shower curtain liners, which Ikea must have a monopoly on, because I can't find them anywhere else. The other times I've gone there I take a tram and then have to walk about 15 minutes to the store, so riding my bike seemed easier. Plus I could get my exercise in and save 4 euros by not having to buy a ticket. Now I am debating about just how much stuff I can fit in the saddle bags (you can't go there and only buy shower curtain liners), and wehther it's a good idea to wear a backpack too. I won't be buying any furniture, but I wonder if I could manage to bring home a floor lamp somehow...

Of course, it could be raining and sleeting when I decide to go, since that's happening about every day now. Then I might chicken out, or I might still go and be totally miserable doing it. If only they sold shower curtain liners somewhere else... There are times I really miss Target.

So far the saddlebags have worked well for carrying boxes to the post office and for carrying bottles of soda and wine. I even carried a bike pump in the saddlebag last week, though half of it was sticking out of the top and I thought it might fly out if I made a sudden stop.

Even though carting things around this way seems odd to me, it's pretty normal for Hannover. A few days ago, I saw a couple carrying a Christmas tree by balancing it on a bike and walking the bike home. I've also seen someone walking a bike home from the flea market with some furniture loaded on it. I guess cars aren't the only things with wheels that you can use to cart your stuff around. They just move faster and don't clank as much when you go over a bump.

What things cost

Ex-pats in Germany like to talk about what's cheaper here and what's more expensive. Why do we do this? I am not sure. It's not like we can beat the system somehow and import what we want. And comparing costs doesn't mean we can change them... but in case you too are interested, here is my short list:

What is cheaper in Germany than in the U.S.
Foodwise - basically anything that is good for you is cheaper here
milk, cheese, sour cream, butter
bread
fruits and vegetables
muesli (but not other cereals)
juice
beer, wine (yes they are good for you)
candles
getting places on planes and trains
rent (although it depends on what kind of deal you get)

What is more expensive in Germany than in the U.S.
soda
canned soup
chips
beef
electricity and natural gas
gas
electronics
fabric for sewing
bike tubes
running shoes
small appliances or anything electric
(It is possible that I have not yet found the best places to buy things for cheaper...)

Our expenses are really different here. At least until this blog starts bringing in big money, we are living off of one income plus the bit that I earn cover teaching. We don't have a car, car insurance, gas costs, car maintenance costs etc. We don't have a TV or a cable bill, but we do have a projector that hooks up to the laptop. Our rent is less than our mortgage was. We just have pre-pay cell phones because, as we realized when we got here, how many people are really going to call us anyway? We are still working off the first 30 euro credit we got with each phone. We have no microwave (mostly because I don't want to give up counter space) and no dryer for our clothes (no one here has one, that's something I do miss).

Our energy and water bill is funny - we pay a prorated amount every month and then at the end of the year they tally up what you actually used and either send you a refund or bill you for the difference. We take that as a challenge and throw on another sweater.

We can no longer steal wireless internet from the neighbors like we did in St Paul and had to buy our own.But our major new expense is all of the lavish travelling we plan to do. Brian has two weeks off at Christmas, a week in February, two weeks in April, and six weeks in the summer... You can go a lot of places in that amount of time!

The other difference is the way you pay for things here. People use cash a lot or bank cards, but credit cards are not accepted in many stores. Christmas shopping without a credit card is very different experience! There are also no checks. People just do bank transfers. Our rent, energy, and internet bills are debited from our account every month. If you need to pay a bill, you go online and type in the bank code and account number and do a transfer that way. It seemed odd at first to give our account number out but that's what people do here. Some companies even put it on their letterhead.

And look at me, comparing costs again. I guess it's interesting for a little while, even if it doesn't accomplish much.

Zuckerrubensirop

These are Lebkuchen hearts

This yet another posting about groceries. If you are not interested, just skip it. My feelings won't be hurt.

Yesterday I was on a quest to find molasses. Somehow I had decided that it would not be Christmas unless I made gingerbread cookies, and I could not make gingerbread cookies without molasses. I suspected they sell it here since Lebkuchen is pretty common, and it looks a lot like gingerbread. They sell it in big heart shapes at the Christmas Market, with sappy phrases written on the Lebkuchen in frosting (like Americans might do for Valentine's Day). Anyway, I did not know the word for molasses, and the dictionary did not help me. I looked at a big grocery store, and found nothing. I looked at a gourmet grocery store. I even asked there, but because I didn't know the word for what I was looking for I had to try describing it. I asked the lady who worked there about finding a syrup, for baking, that is a brown color. That was the best I could do. She took me to the section with food coloring and said that she was sorry, they didn't carry brown, but I could try mixing a few other colors to make brown. I gave up on that store.

I met up with my friends Renee and Kaska for lunch, two members of our hausfrauen club. Kaska is Polish but has lived in Germany for a long time and had a German friend from out of town with her. I described what I wanted to Kaska, who didn't know the word but asked her German friend and they talked about it for a while in German until he finally came up with the word: Zuckerrubensirop.  So I went to yet another store, this time the one where I usually shop, and looked over and over again at the shelves in the baking section - no luck. I decided to ask the guy who was stocking and said "Do you have..." and showed him the paper. I wasn't sure I could pronounce that word so that he would understand. Luckily he did not laugh at me. He took me to the section where they sell jellies and honey and pulled out a paper carton of Zuckerrubensirop. I had been looking for a clear glass bottle in the baking section, preferably with a picture of a grandma or a bunny or something familiar like that. Instead, this is what it looks like:

So now I can make gingerbread, which means Christmas can happen here in Hannover. But if I decide I need brown food coloring, I'm out of luck.

Our neighborhood restaurants

We have a local favorite restaurant. It is the Indian place directly across the street. It's so close that I think I could throw some Naan like a frisbee from our living room and it might stick to the restaurant window. The first time we tried it the food was good but not great, but we figured out that the owner speaks English. The next time we decided to ask him to make the food spicy - then it was delicious. He works there every day, and knows us by now. He knows that Brian's food is mitte scharf (medium spicy) plus 1, and mine is mitte scharf. Once I asked for the wrong level of spice and he corrected me. Not scharf is how the Germans would eat it, and then there is authentically Indian spicy. We are somewhere in between. I see the owner every once in a while going to the grocery store on the corner to pick up milk and vegetables. One of the first times we ate there it started raining while we were in the restaurant, and he offered to loan us an umbrella. "You'll bring it back," he said.

There is also a little Asian restaurant a few blocks away. Unlike the Indian place it is really cheap. Just like the Indian place, it's delicious. It's almost as good as the Cleveland Wok in St Paul. They do not, however, have friendly English speaking table service, nor have they offered any umbrellas. It's called "Good Friendz", yes, with a Z. Of course it would be good with a spelling like that.

The other place we go to eat sometimes is Ido Kebap Salon. I am sure I have written about Doner in the past, but in case you didn't read that one, Doner is the general word for Turkish-mediterranean food, and it's delicious. Often, Doner restaurants are more like fast food, but this Doner place is a little bit classy. You can eat in with table service and they make the bread in a wood fire oven. You can still get a Doner tasche, which is kind of like a gyro, for 3 euros. It's like German fast food but not even greasy. You can get fries if you want them but you can also get fresh veggies and feta cheese and falafels.

I know what you are saying, "What's with all these ethnic restaurants? Where is the wurst and sauerkraut?" They have those things too, but we haven't found a restaurant that's nearby that we really like. The traditional, meat and potatoes kind of food is more typical of Bavaria in the south. 

We will keep looking, but right now I would rather eat naan and curry than schnitzel and wurst.  

Planning a comeback

Germany has been winning lately. I have been playing hard, but those burly German opponents seem to be gaining on me and making me feel a little grumpy. Maybe it's because Christmas is almost here, or because the things that were keeping me busy and focused (working at the school, my Master's class, my Spanish group, German class) are all wrapping up for the holidays. Or maybe it's the 16 hours of darkness. For whatever reason I am caught in what I have diagnosed as one of those dips in the squiggly graph about culture shock.

It's actually a well-documented phenomenon. I found this on the internet so it must be true. Take a look:

This is not normal for me. I am usually an unreasonably positive person. So if I am feeling like I'm not sure what my role is here or that I miss helping people or that I should have a full-time job (I know, that's crazy),  it must be culture shock.

One helpful thing to think about is how far we have come in the last four months. Literally of course, we have come really far, and survived. I was flipping through my notebook at German class last night and saw the page where I wrote "hello, my name is" and conjugated all the forms of "to be". Now I can form actual (simple) sentences and even know a little of the past tense.

Just four months ago, Brian and I were lying on the aerobed with piles of our clothes in little piles on the floor, watching some historical DVD that he had grabbed from school. We didn't have furniture, or a phone, or internet, or anywhere to sit in our apartment. We were fighting with the moving company. We got lost a lot walking around town.

Now I work a little, I have a few friends, we have furniture, we have discovered more types of sausages than I ever thought existed, and best of all we are, and will be, travelling a lot. I even know how to pronounce vowels with the two little dots over them.

And I started this blog, which has motivated me to keep writing because I have a following of about 70 of my closest friends and relatives. I can see how many of you read each day too, so I am keeping tabs on you. If it were just a journal for my own purposes I probably would have given up by now.

I don't know what will happen in the next four months. I know we will do some travelling. I know that we will have a winter that's not painfully cold. Hopefully my German will keep improving.
Maybe I will find another niche or side job, or I will just do a better job of settling into the ones I have already. Maybe I will get better at enjoying setting my own schedule and having chunks of time to myself, without worrying about being productive. I am reminding myself that things are pretty good here and I need to be patient.
So I will keep on going knowing that the squiggly line will point upwards pretty soon. I am still in the game and planning a comeback.

Why I am not joining the tri club.

You may have read my post from a couple of weeks ago about the swim training that I went to when I was trying to decide whether or not to join the Hannover 96 triathlon club. You may not have read it either. Regardless, I decided not to join. This is not because of the voting results. Thanks to the few of you who voted, but I am going to ignore your opinions and not join the club. I realize I could become a better swimmer and I could maybe practice my German, but the overwhelming reason is because I just don't want to.

Here's a little more info - I don't want to go to swim at 9pm on Tuesdays and Fridays, or not be able to take a bike ride with Brian on a Sunday morning because I have to ride with the team on Sunday afternoon, or feel like I have to go to a specific workout on a specific day and time.

I started doing triathlons because I enjoy it. Now that I am not working full-time, I enjoy doing my workouts during the day, taking my time with them, and being home when Brian is home (unless I have German class of course). In the spring I will be able to do longer workouts on weekdays and more fun things on the weekends. Why would I pass that opportunity up and pay money to do it? Yes, I realize that I will be giving up the chance to be coached through the team. So maybe I won't be quite as fast training on my own. But I might be happier doing it.

Die Post

Most mornings around 8:45 someone rings our buzzer. At first this scared me, partly because I was surprised to hear the buzzer and partly because I didn't know who could be ringing it or what they would say when I picked up the phone. But every time I pick it up and say "hallo", a voice at the other end says, "danke, die Post." It's the mailman. In American apartment buildings, the mailboxes are usually in an entryway before you get to a locked door, but here the outside door is locked and someone has to buzz in the mailman. I think he has figured out that I am here most mornings and rings my bell first, and if I don't answer he just rings all the others until someone buzzes him in.

Deutsche Post is the same company as DHL. The mail carriers wear yellow and black and ride around on yellow bikes with big saddle bags to hold all the mail. The people who bring the packages are separate and drive a truck. When they ring they say "hallo, paket post". If you're not home they usually leave your package with a neighbor. This was actually a good way to meet some of the neighbors, especially the first couple of months we were here when I ordered a lot of stuff from Amazon. And it was a good way to measure my progress in speaking German. When I got the little ticket that said who had signed for the package, at first I would ring the neighbor's doorbell and stand there smiling, holding out the ticket and hoping they'd figure out what I needed. Now I stand there smiling, holding out the ticket, and I say "Hallo, haben sie meinen paket, bitte?"
It's all about baby steps.

The last few times we've gotten a delivery I missed it and had to go to the post office. The post office is also a bank, which I find fascinating. I like how they combine your waiting-in-line-for-someone-at-the-counter experiences into one place. in order to pick up the package. In order to pick up the package you have to show the ticket and your passport. I tried using a drivers license once and the postal employee lady was not happy with me. She gave me the box anyway, though. Yesterday I mailed off a box to the US for the first time. I knew I'd have to fill out a customs form, and that I'd have to know how to write down the contents of the box in German, but I  was not prepared for the question about would I rather send it by economy mail or air mail and what the prices were for each and how long they would take to arrive. That was a little too advanced for me. Luckily this postal employee guy was much more patient than the woman who didn't like my drivers license. He repeated the question for me, slowly, and I went with air mail.

Every time I go there I remember the post office on Arlington Ave in St Paul where we had to go back home. There were always a lot of immigrants in line - Hmong, African, and Latino. When these customers had trouble communicating, the postal employees there liked to use the same words over and over again (even though the customer didn't understand those words the first time) and speak louder and more impatiently with each repetition. I am glad they don't work at the Hannover post office, because I am one of those immigrants now.

Rainy winter? A note on weather.

It's raining. It's been raining since about Friday. And it's windy. And not so cold. This is very confusing to my hard-wired sense of what season it is. The weather feels like mid-March and there are Christmas trees everywhere. Sometimes I almost miss the snow, especially because now I wouldn't have to drive in it!

One of the many things that I decided to bring and now wonder why are my cross-country skis. When it does snow, what will I do, take a bus out somewhere to ski? That would be interesting. Of course, if it just keeps raining that won't be an issue.

We don't have snow, but what we do have is dark. Daylight is from about 7:30 or 8 until 4:30. When do the days start to get longer? The 21st I think. But sunny evenings in June might make it all worthwhile.

2nd Advent weekend

We got in the Christmas spirit this weekend.. Or more appropriate for Germany, we got in the Advent spirit.
On Friday night we went to the Hannover Christmas market. Most towns in Germany have one. Hannover's is in the old part of the city, and it spreads out through different streets from the old Market square down to the river. There are hundreds of wooden stalls selling sausages and candied almonds and crafts and gluhwein. Gluhwein is a hot red spiced wine that comes in a mug. For an extra 50 cents you can buy it with a shot... of what I am not sure, maybe vodka. There are Christmas lights everywhere and live music and carousels for the kids.  There is a medieval section where they sell mead and swords and Renaissance style dresses.

It was really crowded at the market on Friday night, but we met with with Andy, Anne and Noah, and took Noah to the puppet show and the carousel. Then some other teacher friends showed up and we hung out in the Finnish section. Brian had a reindeer sandwich, which is sliced thin on a bun with cranberry sauce. It freaked me out a little that he was eating one of Santa's crew, but I decided that the meat came from   Comet or one of the lesser known of Santa's reindeer. Rudolph is too famous to eat. We also ate little fish, whole, deep fried. They are so crispy you don't really notice that the head is on them, but I still only ate two. I had flashbacks to a bad experience with herring last summer in Hamburg. Also in the Finnish section, they smoke salmon nailed to wooden boards next to an open fire, and you can sit under a huge teepee-like thing with picnic tables covered in pelts from reindeer or some sort of furry animal. They serve Glugi there, which is like Gluhwein but it tastes better. We had several of those and ended up at a kitschy Australian restaurant later on, because we were with real Australians who wanted to check it out. Sort of like us going to the kitschy American burger place...

On Friday I bought a wreath at the flower store on our street. It was like 75% off because Advent had already started a week ago, and who would want to buy a wreath now? This American would, especially for 75% off. The flower shop owner, who may be the cheeriest person in Germany after winning a close competition with my German teacher, wished me a happy 2nd Advent Sunday. On Saturday we bought a Christmas tree, at the grocery store, of course. It is a little apartment sized tree. Since I'd never bought a tree at the grocery store, I went to the checkout counter and successfully said, "I would like a Christmas tree." The cashier had to call someone to meet us out on the sidewalk (where the trees were piled up) and help. He said something that we think meant they have a machine that cuts off the bottom of the trunk, but it wasn't working or wasn't available for some reason that day. So Brian carried the tree down the street, and I carried the tree stand, which we had bought at the drug store (where else?). We don't have a saw or anything to cut the trunk with ourselves, so Brian sort of chipped at it with a screwdriver that he pounded in with a hammer to take chunks out of the wood. So far it seems to be drinking in a little water and hopefully won't die soon. Some people buy artificial trees, but not us.

Brian eating a big pickle at the market

This is where they smoke the salmon

Sunday it was back to the Christmas market, in the afternoon this time, without Glugi, in order to do some shopping.  It's not finished yet. I need to keep looking for non-breakable things that are small enough to ship. Apparently Hannover's market is not the best, or the most authentic, or something. For that we are supposed to go to Nurenburg or some smaller towns in the south. Brian and I have never been to one before, so we really don't know any better. As Brian said the other day, "it's way cooler than the mall."

Good things

Here's a quick list of some good things that happened this week:

Brian figured out how to watch Dexter on some pirated Swiss TV website. We have 2 season to catch up on!

I made my first batch of cookies in Germany. There are no chocolate chips, so I made them with M&Ms. They turned out well even though I have only one cookie sheet that is small enough to fit in the oven. They are good - I'm eating one now.

I started and finished my last paper for my online HR class. It was about work-life balance. It seemed appropriate, because both Brian and I are a little more balanced here. Maybe I am tipping a little toward the life side.

I got another little job reviewing a website translation for my friend Karissa's organization by Monday.

I successfully ordered a block of parmesan cheese at the deli counter.

We are planning to cap off the week with a visit to the Hannover Christmas market, and try some gluhwein. Though if it is raining tonight, we might stay home for a Dexter marathon instead.

I entered the family Amaryllis race with a head start, by buying this guy at the grocery store:

So even though I thought today about our creaky floors and our backyard and the fun people we know in St Paul, things are pretty good here too.

Advent

Christmas is coming in Germany. It must be coming in other places too. Christmas in German is called Weihnachten, and to get ready, the Germans celebrate Advent - the four Sundays leading up to Christmas. Advent is called Advent.

This seemed funny to Brian and me. In the U.S.  no one really celebrates Advent outside of church. Sure, you see the occasional Advent calendar but that is all. Here, people celebrate Advent, even though most of them aren't religious in the going to church on Sundays sort of way. We first figured this out when stores rolled out Advent wreaths and Advent candle holders in early November. The calendars came out too. Then we learned that the Christmas markets (Weihnachtsmarkts) open the first Sunday of Advent. Anne and Andy invited us to an Advent Sunday party at their house. Apparently Advent is a big deal.

Compared to the US, Germans are more culturally Christian but less Christian in a religious way. It's ok to talk about Christmas break and Easter break rather than winter break and spring break. I am pretty sure that people will say "Merry Christmas" instead of "Happy Holidays". You can find an Advent wreath anywhere but a nativity set is harder to come by. And they set up a Christmas tree at Brian's school. That seems really weird to us.

There are non-Christian people in Germany. There are a lot of Muslim people, actually, at least in certain city neighborhoods. And then there is the whole history of the German Jews. And there seem to be many people who don't identify with a religion at all. But no one seems concerned about offending these people or making them uncomfortable with Christmas traditions. Is it because the holiday traditions have separated from their religious significance? Is it because the Germans know that the majority is Christian and they don't care what the minority thinks? Or maybe Americans are just extra concerned with being inclusive and politically correct?

I am not sure what the answer is. I am sure that I will be going to Christmas markets though. I will write all about that when I do!

p.s. I'm still taking votes on the tri club question - cast yours today!!

Swim training

Most of you know that I have been competing in triathlons in the summers for the past several years. There is actually a Hannover triathlon the first weekend in September. And there is a Hannover triathlon club.

Amateur sports here happen on a club level. Other than at the International School, there are no school sports. Kids, adults, anyone who wants to compete in something joins a club team. So when I learned about the Hannover 96 Triathlon Club, I looked into it and sent them an email. It's important to know before you read on that I never joined any sort of tri club back home. Partly because it's expensive and partly because I don't really like triathlon people. Actually the women are usually ok, but the guys are a little socially awkward, really into their gadgets and heart monitors and GPS watches, and say things like "I run 9 miles on my treadmill every night after my kids go to bed while I watch documentaries about bike engineering. Then I spend two hours on Play Station before bed." These are the kinds of guys I attracted in high school and college too. Thank goodness Brian came along.

Even though I knew the same kinds of people might be in the Hannover tri club, I thought it would be a good way to learn some new bike routes and get coaching on my swim technique, as well as a chance to practice speaking German. So I emailed them, in English and German (thanks, Google Translate). It turns out the price was not too high and they invited me to come to a swimming session to try it out. The weird thing is that they swim from 9-10pm on Tuesdays and Fridays. So after German class ended a couple of Tuesdays ago, I went off the the pool. I was nervous. I was nervous because I didn't know if any of them would speak English and I didn't want to have no idea what was happening in German. I was nervous because I don't think I have ever been swimming continuously for an hour. I was nervous because I am usually getting ready for bed at that time of night, not working out. I was nervous about biking home in the cold and dark. There were many excuses available but I decided to go anyway.

I headed to the pool after German class. I waited and waited and the team never came. I was at the wrong pool. In the complex where the Hannover 96 soccer team practices, there are actually two pools and I had gone to the wrong one. So last night I tried again. I was still nervous but not as much as before. When I got there and I was the only woman waiting and the coach talked to me entirely in German and I caught about 30% of what he said. Then I was scared. But I was in too deep (sorry, bad pun) to turn back so I put my suit on and headed out to the pool. It got better. The coach sat down with me and told me, in English, what lane I should be in and what the workout would be. A few other women showed up. And I was able to do the workout - mostly. I am not good at backstroke so that was a bit of a disaster, but otherwise it went ok. The coach talked in German the rest of the time but they were short phrases with some hand motions to go with them so I was ok. The other people there didn't really talk to me. I don't know if it's because they are German and therefore not outgoing, or because they could tell I didn't speak much German or what. But I was able to keep up and got home safely around 10:30.

I didn't talk to the guys much but I did spot one heart monitor and a few fancy waterproof watches. There may have been some conversations about Play Station, but I couldn't understand them.

I am getting better at doing things that make me scared and uncomfortable. There are a lot of opportunities for that since we moved here. (Yesterday I successfully bought parmesan cheese from the deli counter at the grocery store. I even knew about how many grams to ask for! There's no shredded parmesan here, you just do it yourself. Sorry for the tangent).

I hoped after last night it would be clear to me whether I should join the tri club or not, but it isn't. The pros of joining are that I could practice speaking German a little, my swimming would improve, and I might learn new bike routes. There is an outside chance that I would meet people I like. The cons are that the schedule is weird and I like to work out in the middle of the day now that I am not working full-time. The other cons are that I can see myself not really want to go to training, but feeling like I should go because I've paid for it and it's good for me. I might also feel awkward while I'm there.

So I will open it up for your votes and comments. Comment on the blog if you like ( I think you log in with your gmail address or create a google login) or send me an email with your thoughts.

Our Thanksgiving party

Epic is the word that we chose to describe the Thanksgiving dinner and housewarming party.

Vladimir the turkey filled the entire oven but baked up nicely, and I had a lot of help from Tom and Sonja with peeling and chopping.With the smell of the turkey and the mess of butter and potato peels on the counter, it felt like Thanksgiving. Anne, Andy, and Noah came to join us and we managed to fit around the table and used our  windowsills to hold the extra food.

The meal turned out well, but mostly I was happy to have people over. Brian and I realized that in St Paul, we used to have people at our house all the time. Sometimes they dropped by unannounced, sometimes we made a fire out on the patio or had people stay for dinner but there were usually people coming by. That hadn't happened in Germany yet, and somehow that's what was missing to make it feel more like home.

We had just finished stuffing ourselves and washing dishes when it was time to set out another round of food for the party. The first people that came were Klaus and Katrin from downstairs. You might remember that they are the ones who told the landlord that we were too noisy when we did laundry on the weekends. They apparently felt bad about that and were trying to make up for it, so they came to our party. Klaus speaks some English so we got to rehash the whole issue again. We had just started on an awkward conversation about how the apartments were laid out and why our kitchen is above their bathroom when the doorbell rang again. Within 20 minutes there were about 25 more people at our house. It was the most punctual group of party-goers ever. It was mostly people from the international school and their significant others. Just in that group are Australians, English, Scottish, Canadians, Americans, and their mostly German wives/girlfriends. At one point we made a toast and said cheers in three languages. Another set of neighbors came up and brought us bread and salt, which is apparently a German housewarming tradition. Two of my classmates from my German course showed up too and we all practiced speaking German with the neighbors. Noah was a champ and the life of the party until way past his bed time. The leftover turkey and potatoes came out when I got all excited about feeding our guests. Someone put ketchup on the turkey. The sweet potatoes and pumpkin pie were an exotic treat. All the food was devoured and some drinks were spilled. It was a great time.

Yesterday we were left with a mess and some sticky floors and great stories to rehash with Tom and Sonja.  There is enough wine left over to do it again, and thankfully some beer too. Carrying cases of beer up the stairs to our apartment requires two people, strong legs, and a backpack, so it's good that other people brought us more. We don't need to do that again for a while. There is no turkey left, but that's ok. Since you can find 4 pound turkeys here, I could just make one again for the two of us.

Now I understand the idea of housewarming. It's not that people bring you dish towels or bread and salt, it's just the fact that they come over that makes it feel like home.

Thanksgiving preparations

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving day, but not in Germany. Even though we know that it's an American holiday (the Canadians have it in October) it's weird to be in a place where Fall just flows right into the Christmas season with no holidays in between. So since we enjoy Thanksgiving and it makes us a little homesick to be away, we decided to have a turkey dinner on Saturday. And since our shipment only arrived a month ago and our apartment looks almost totally put together, we decided to make it a housewarming party too. So our friends Andy, Anne, their son Noah are coming and Tom (Dizzy) and Sonja are coming from Hamburg for the weekend. We'll have dinner with them and we have invited everyone else we know to come in the evening for drinks, dessert, and screening of football and Charlie Brown's Thanksgiving special. Everyone else we know didn't seem like too many, but now we are up to around 25 people coming in the evening.

It's taken a while to plan this meal since I wasn't sure what ingredients I could get here, or what they were called even if I could. You can find fresh geese everywhere, and pieces of fresh turkey, but no whole fresh turkeys. We bought the biggest frozen turkey I could find, which is 5.8kg (about 13 lbs). It's small by American  standards but I am confident that it was once able to walk on its own. The word for turkey in German is Pute. So Brian decided to name our turkey Vladimir, after Vladimir Putin. Vladimir came out of our freezer today so that he could occupy one-third of the fridge while he defrosts. He doesn't have a little pop-up timer so I will have to get a meat thermometer. Here is is previous home:

Things like mashed potatoes and apple pie and even sweet potatoes are not hard to do here. I even found fresh cranberries at the grocery store.The trick for baking is that you can't find brown sugar like we are used to at the store. They sell a coarse brown cane sugar that tastes, well, coarse. Then an American woman at the soccer tournament concession stand told me that you can find brown sugar at the Asian grocery store. I had just found an Asian grocery store, so I went and got some yesterday.

 For stuffing, they don't sell the nicely cut cubes of bread with the seasoning already in them. So I found a recipe and am now letting a loaf of bread go stale on the countertop in the kitchen. 

Gravy is the one thing I am not interested in making from scratch. At the gourmet grocery store I found some kind of a mix for poultry sauce. It tastes pretty much like gravy, so that will work. The remaining challenge was pumpkin pie. There is no canned pumpkin here, but I have steamed my own pumpkins before and that didn't phase me much. I just had to find pumpkins. The word for anything squash or pumpkin-like is Kurbis. Gourds are called Kurbis too. So I searched for Kurbis that looked like a baking pumpkin and couldn't find one . Then I read on a Hannover English speakers Facebook page (of all places) that you can cook the Hoikkado squash and it tastes a lot like pumpkin. So I got a few and tried it. They are small, round, and reddish-orange on the outside. Here is what they look like:

Then I had to look up the word for nutmeg, and get some sort of half and half or cream or evaporated milk to mix in with pumpkin. I found all of these different creams in the dairy section, all in little yogurt sized cups. I eliminated the one I knew was sour cream and took a chance on the one that had a strawberry with cream on the package. It turned out to be whipping cream of some kind, so I was ok. I did a practice pie on Sunday and it got good reviews!

This party also requires multiple trips to the grocery store, and the liquor store. We can only buy as much as we can carry! Yesterday I rode home on my bike with four bottles of wine in my backpack and four bottles of soda and juice in my saddlebags. It's a good thing no one tried to push me over because I would not have been able to stay upright! Then I got to carry them up five flights of stairs to our apartment.

So it won't be quite the same as at home but at least we have a celebration to look forward to, and pots and pans to cook with. You probably won't hear from me until after the party, because I am getting things ready today and working on Thursday and Friday. It will be my first time subbing in the primary school, with a 4th grade class. I will let you know how everything turns out, and how Vladimir tastes.

Girls' soccer tournament

I spent the past few days at the girls' under 14 GISST (German International School Sports Tournament) soccer tournament. I don't coach soccer. In fact, I know very little about soccer. But the teacher that I coached cross country with does soccer also and asked if I'd come along as a chaperone. So on Thursday afternoon we took 12 girls in grades 5-8 on a train toward Berlin. I say toward it because we didn't really get to Berlin. We went to Berlin-Brandenburg International School, which is somewhere near Potsdam.

Since the tournament was over 2 days, the girls stay with families from the host schools. Usually they are families with kids who play on the home teams. Planning one of these tournaments is a huge coordinated effort - each team comes in separately and needs transportation to the school, the athletic director needs to recruit families for housing, then they need to match up kids with host families and get their dietary and emergency information out, the coaches need hotel reservations, and then of course there are games to organize, score, referee, etc. Luckily for me, I just had to show up and supervise.

I stood on the sidelines during the five games that our team played and yelled non-descript things like "way to go" and "hustle" and "get that ball."  I kept Jessica, the coach, company and made sure the kids had their stuff and got to where they needed to go and that no one abducted them at the train station. The ISHR Mustangs did, well, pretty badly. We got 7th place out of 8 teams. Our final game, the one that determined 7th and 8th place, was a score of 0-0 and went into a shoot out, which we won. It was not a feat of athletic prowess. But, no one had a bad host family, there was only one episode of crying, and we had no injuries other than some sore toes.

On our way back to Hannover, the train filled up with rowdy fans coming from the Hannover 96 soccer game (They are a professional team, not an under 14 girls team). There were also police in riot gear to keep them in line. Nothing really happened, except that the soccer fans wanted to talk to the kids. This made us a little nervous since most of the fans were drunk and the girls like attention and are too old to not talk to strangers. They decided to tell all their new friends that we scored 16 goals each game and won the whole tournament. Thankfully we got them all off the train and back to their parents without losing them in the crowd.
I can't say I learned a lot about soccer over the weekend, but at least I now know 12 more kids in the school that I can call by name when I cover teach. I can also call out things like "be aggressive out there" and sound convincing.

Fashion

There are a few rules for German fashion, at least from what I have noticed.

Rule #1 - Wear a scarf.
It doesn't matter - men, women, children, dogs, everyone wears scarves in all weather. There is some German mother somewhere telling everyone they will get a cold if they go out without one, even in the summer. When we arrived in August we saw a lot of girls wearing tank tops and scarves. Women often wear darker clothes with a brightly colored scarf. Men wear a lot of plaid and solid color scarves. And yes, I have seen a few dogs walking around the lake in scarves too.

Rule #2 - Don't look like a slob.
People here look generally put-together. Even though Germany is probably not the most fashionable country in Europe, it is way more fashionable than the U.S. If there is another place where it is acceptable to wear sweat suits in public, I have not visited there yet. Here you only see people wearing work out clothes if they are actually working out. I think part of it has to do with transportation. That sounds a little odd, but if you are only jumping in the car in your garage and driving where you need to go, then why look presentable? If you are out walking the streets or riding the train, then other people are more likely to see you and you should not look like a slob.

Rule #3- Wear jeans.
There are a lot of jeans worn here. Skinny jeans are very popular with women and yes, with men too. Teenage guys wear saggy skinny jeans, which look like they would be difficult to walk in. And sometimes those jeans are not denim colored but green or red or bright blue.

Rule #4 - Wear skirts.
This applies (thankfully) to women only. I am a big fan of skirts myself so I like this rule. And don't be afraid to ride your bike in a skirt, just don't rip it as you get on the bike. Now I understand why ladies' bikes have that lower bar in the middle...

Rule #5 - Wear boots.
Women wear boots here all the time. They go well with both skirts and skinny jeans. I drool a little as I pass all the stores that sell boots. The boys at Brian's school often wear yellowy leather work boots that remind me of something you'd wear with a flannel shirt to complete your early 90s grunge look.

Rule #6 - All suits are black or gray.
Men's formal wear is pretty boring here. Almost all suits are plain black with thin ties that come in solid colors or very subtle prints. The suits are only more exciting if a man is wearing one while riding his bicycle.

I have yet to see anyone wearing lederhosen, though I did see them in a store once around Oktoberfest time. Maybe they are more common in the south of Germany. The north is more about black skinny jeans and scarves.

Church in Germany

Brian and I have been going to Mass in German. A good thing about being Catholic, we figured, is that Mass is pretty much the same wherever you go, even if you can't understand what they are saying. And after a lot of internet research, we gave up on any hopes for an English-speaking church. If we were Lutherans, we'd probably find one since there are a lot more Lutherans than Catholics here. It seems a lot easier to learn German than to convert.

St Hinrich's is down the street from us, about a 10 minute walk, and it looks sort of like a medieval fortress on the outside. There is a tall square steeple and the exterior is all dark stone and heavy doors. The inside is sort of bright and plain and generic, which makes me think that maybe the church was damaged in the war and redone.  When we first went there, we sat in the back and tried to pay attention to how things worked. Keeping a low profile was key, so we weren't too obviously foreign. Everything seemed pretty normal until communion. Rather than a single file line where everyone walked up to the priest, everyone filed up and  stood around the altar in a big square. Then the priest went around the square to each person, while everyone that didn't fit in the square stood and waited in the aisle. Then the first group left and the next group did the same thing. We were just on the edge of the first square, so Brian shoved me to the side so that he could fit in and wouldn't have to start the square for group two.

Then we found St. Elisabeth's. That church is definitely old. It's a little smaller and less imposing looking from the outside. Inside, every surface of the walls is painted or decorated with some sort of art. It has a lot of small stained glass windows, murals of the life of St Elizabeth, the ceiling is covered in paintings - it's beautiful. It's safe to guess that the church has been around, undamaged, for a long time. Maybe more than 100 years. Communion happens in a standard single file line. The kneelers are just wooden boards, no padding, so you know it's not for the casual Mass-goer.

Since both churches are in the same parish, they share a cheery Asian priest. He speaks very clearly and slowly in German, which means I catch about 15% of what he says. He likes to do songs with clapping and hand motions. Sometimes he calls all the kids to the front and passes the microphone around to them so that they can participate. On Sunday, he skipped the first two readings so that there would be time to act out the gospel, with props and everything. Maybe next time he will pull out a guitar. After Mass at St Elisabeth's, he jumps on his bike and heads down to St. Hinrich's. He's a busy guy.

I get a song book every time we go. I feel like following along by reading the words as I hear the song will help me learn better. I am not sure if it works.

Mass in German makes us feel like we are still somewhat practicing Catholics. We don't go as often as we did back home, though. We've even considered going to the Spanish Mass instead, though we'd have to ride a train to get there. For the time being, though, I will keep studying German and we do not plan to become Lutherans.

First week of cover teaching

Now that I have my work permit, I was able to start cover (substitute) teaching at the international school this week. I think that cover is a much better word than substitute - it makes me sound more important anyway.

I worked at least part of the day every day this week. It was weird - I had to do my chores around the house in the evening, or didn't do them at all, and I couldn't go grocery shopping in middle of the day or take 2 hour bike rides. It's funny how quickly I got used to setting my own schedule.

A lot of things about cover teaching this week reminded me of what it's like to have a new job. I didn't know where all the bathrooms are. I didn't know that I was supposed to have a key to unlock the rooms until Tuesday morning when I found that my room was locked. I wasn't sure who I should bother talking to in the staff lounge, or if it was worth hanging out there at all.

I observed a few classes but basically jumped right in to covering classes for teachers who were sick or away for some reason. I had English and ESL and math, history, chemistry (!), Spanish and even German. I did ok - no one made me cry or injured any other students. The only property damage that was done was by me accidentally writing on a dry erase board with a permanent marker. (The 7th graders were eager to show me that you can fix that by writing over it with a dry erase marker and then erasing it all. I got them to do that for me). I need to learn their names and work on being, as Brian says, "in command." I need to have authority but not be too mean or distant. I want them to like me but not so much that they won't listen when I tell them what to do. Luckily these kids are really good and respectful for the most part. I just need to give myself some time to get better.

It's a good thing that our clothes finally arrived because I have all these work outfits to wear to school now. I did learn, however, the limits of biking to school in a skirt. It's common here to see people riding bikes to work in heels and suits and all manner of formal clothes, so I figured I could do it too. I learned that the wider, more twirly skirts are ok, as are sweater dresses, but I don't recommend riding in a straight skirt even if it has a slit at the back. I tried that on Wednesday - it made a loud ripping noise as I got on the bike.

So the first week is out of the way, and I at least know a few names, where the bathrooms are, and where to get a key. I kind of enjoy talking to 12 year olds too, unless I am trying to explain math problems to them.

Pfand - tastic

Sorry for the cheesy title. I am again trying to make everyday things sounds interesting.

Germans are into deposits, which are called Pfands. The first time we encountered a Pfand was when we arrived at the Hannover airport on August 10th.  We had checked 4 bags, all of which were over the weight limit, one of which contained the aerobed we would be sleeping on for while. They have these handy little carts that you can use for luggage and they are free, except for the 1 euro pfand you have to pay in order to unlock them. We actually had some euros, but only big bills we got from the currency exchange. And the change machine was broken, and I had no idea how to ask someone to borrow a 1 euro coin. So we somehow wrestled them out of the baggage claim area. If you ever come to visit, remind me to mail you a 1 euro coin so that this doesn't happen to you.

There are Pfands for all variety of cans and bottles. When you buy a can of Pepsi, for instance, (yes, you can buy them individually at the store) it costs 39 cents including a 25 cent Pfand. So it's actually 14 cents as long as you return the can and get your deposit back. A bottle of water or soda or whatever works the same way. At the grocery store there is a big machine that you put the bottles in. It spins them around in circles and scans them, then the amount of the Pfand pops up on the screen. You keep feeding in your bottles and cans, and push a button when you are finished. The machine prints out a receipt that you take to the cash register when you buy groceries and you get credit for the deposit amount. You can also put a whole case of beer bottles in through a little door in the bottom and it scans them all at once.

It works at festivals and things too. If you buy a beer at an outdoor event it usually comes in a glass, a real glass with a handle and everything. You have to pay a 1 euro Pfand for it and you get that back when you return the glass. When we went to the Hannover Oktoberfest (again, think county fair more than a real Munich-style Oktoberfest) the big steins had a 10 euro Pfand. Brian went off to buy beers and then came back to ask me for more cash because they cost 34 euros. 34 euros? for 2 beers? that's like 45 dollars! Each beer was 7 euros plus a 10 euro Pfand for the stein. I like that it's not a plastic cup, but it's not ok if you don't have that much extra money on hand.

Some people have figured out how to make money out of this system. You'll see guys in the train station looking around for plastic bottles that people have left or have put in the trash can. It's sort of polite to leave your plastic bottles beside the trash or recycling cans if you don't plan to cash in on the Pfand, so that these guys can grab them.

In general I think the Pfand system is supposed to keep down waste and encourage recycling. Or it's just another way to confuse foreigners and people who drink beer out of big glasses. Sometimes they are the same people.

Feeling like an idiot, part 2

A while back I had a post entitled "Sometimes being a foreigner means feeling like an idiot". Consider this the second installment.

We had wrapped up a good weekend in Berlin and headed to the train station to catch our train back to Hannover. We went up to the platform and sat on a bench to read and wait. At about the right time for our train to arrive, both Brian and I heard an announcement for the train toward Hannover Hauptbanhof (main station), our destination. He grabbed our suitcase and headed toward the train, and I followed. We had assigned seats but didn't see the number of the train car we were supposed to be on. That's when I looked at the video screen by the door and realized that the train was headed to Frankfurt! "We are on the wrong train," I said in a voice that I thought sounded calm but I am sure has some undertones of panic.
The doors had just closed and I kept repeatedly pushing the button that I hoped would open them. The problem was that this was an express train and we had no idea when those doors would open again.
Brian led the charge to the other end of the car to try and find a conductor who could open them for us, and then the train started to move.
We did find a conductor - a woman with multiple piercings and a bright yellow streak in her hair that said apologetically (in English) that we couldn't get off until the train reached Braunschweig. I had never even heard of Braunschweig. We found a map as we stood there - me sort of stunned and Brian muttering swear words under his breath - and saw that luckily Braunschweig was just southeast of Hannover. When we had calmed down a little I asked the conductor again what we needed to do and learned that we could catch a local train from Braunschweig to Hannover. So in the end we got to Hannover just 30 minutes later than we would have, feeling like idiots but safely back home.

Berlin

To all my readers - I promise I am not neglecting you or getting lazy about writing. It's just that we were in Berlin from Thurs- Sun and I had no internet access. I felt a little deprived, but I am back with plenty to write about.

Berlin is a great city, and not like any other place I have been. It's a big capital city with no clear center or downtown, and almost every street has historic and ornate buildings next to angular and glassy 1960s architecture. There is construction everywhere, as old buildings are restored and new ones are built. People in Berlin seem to be going somewhere all the time, on foot and by bike and bus and train, but they are not in a rush. There is graffitti all over the city, but that doesn't mean that the neighborhood is dirty or run down, it's just... decorated. It feels kind of mismatched, but like it's supposed to be that way.  Berlin felt to me like it's continually being reinvented.

Brian was in a conference during the day time, so I played tourist. On Friday I took a walking tour that covered a lot of the sights and a lot of the history of Berlin. We saw everything from the original cathedral - there has been a church on that site since the 1200s - to the site of the Nazi book burnings and the Berlin Wall memorial. About 90% of the city was destroyed in World War 2, so a lot of buildings were either rebuilt and restored, or were replaced by something more modern looking. Former East Berlin has most of the interesting tourist sites - the museums and churches and monuments. It also has the cooler, edgy sort of neighborhoods with lots of shops and restaurants. Our hotel was in former West Berlin, which was better rebuilt after the war but is also a little more plain and predictable.

On Saturday I rented a bike and did my own little tour around the city. I was impressed by how many languages I heard people speaking as they walked down the street - English, Spanish, Russian, Japanese, Italian, French and others I didn't recognize. I decided that you would need a week to see most of Berlin. Aside from the historic places, there are also a lot of spots for nightlife and live music and art. Even with a whole week you couldn't see all of the museums there. So I kept a map in my pocket and pedaled around town to see what I could.

Sunday was museum day. I went to the Berlin Wall memorial and a museum located on the site of the former Gestapo headquarters. After Brian's conference ended, we went to the House on Checkpoint Charlie, which is a museum about the checkpoint and the Wall in general. It was in a couple of houses that journalists used to use to observe the checkpoint, which was one of seven places where people could cross (or try to) between East and West Berlin.

Red Rathaus and TV tower

Berliner Dom cathedral

Brandenburg Gate

Holocaust memorial

It was a great weekend - I have a feeling that we will be back to Berlin another time.

Ich bin ein Auslander

Yesterday I had an appointment at the Auslanders (Foreigners) office in Hannover. It was regarding my work permit, which will allow me to substitute teach at the international school. If you are a citizen of an EU country, you can work anywhere here. If you come from any other country, you need to first have a job offer and then apply for a permit.

In my work over the the past several years, I spent a lot of time dealing with government agencies and helping immigrants get through them. So I took a nerdy sort of interest in the whole process. The school sent in my application when I signed the contract for cover teaching (that's what they call it here - sounds way better than subbing) around September 1st. So it took about two months  to process the permit and cost 40 euros, which the school paid. Our lovely school secretary, Philippa, handled the details and kept apologizing for the hassle and the length of time I had to wait. She didn't realize the patience I have for such things. I don't know how long a work permit takes in the US, but it certainly costs more, and you can't even get an application for health care benefits approved in St Paul in less than three months.

The Auslander's office sent me a list of documents to bring to my appointment - Brian's check stubs from the past 3 months, a current bank statement, the lease for our apartment, a passport photo, my passport, my work contract, and Brian's work contract. This was oddly familiar. I felt like one of my clients, especially as I tried to explain to Philippa what the letter said without really being able to read it.

The Auslander's building feels more like a big post office than anything. It's not even as imposing as the county offices that I am used to and a lot smaller than a US immigration office. I can't tell you exactly where the other people waiting in the lobby came from, but from my experience with the my classmates in German class, I would guess they came from Turkey, Lebanon, and eastern Europe. Philippa came with me and we met with a relatively cheerful bureaucrat who put a big sticker in my passport. It took about 15 minutes.

As for all of the documentation I had gathered, I didn't need any of it. All she looked at was my passport. She did say that when it's time to renew my work permit in June, I will need to show them that I can speak some German and that I am integrating. I caught about 20% of that as she said it and Philippa explained it to me later. It seems fair that they ask that, though I think I am nervous about that interview already!

So now I am legal to work at the school whenever teachers are sick, which apparently happens a lot here. Once I start, I am sure there will be lots of blog material to write about! And in some way, having that work permit makes living in Germany feel a little more permanent...

We finally have our stuff

I really hope that this is the conclusion to the story of our shipment...

If you recall, we left  for Ireland in a hurry after the movers from the UK left our boxes at Brian's school. They couldn't bring them to our apartment because the people who were supposed to handle the parking permit never showed up and the truck was big enough to carry our whole house.

We got back to Germany Thursday evening and stayed in Hamburg with our friends Tom (Dizzy) and Sonja. Tom had already agreed to come back to Hannover to help us move the boxes, and we were planning to borrow the school's van to get them to our place.

On Friday morning we called Philippa, our lovely school secretary. She's the one who had arranged for the parking permit and had confirmed and double checked that it was all set. Apparently she was not so lovely with the company that was supposed to set up the permit. She made them admit that they messed up (she used a stronger word) and made them agree to move all of our belongings from the school up to our apartment for free. Tom decided to come along anyway, in case the movers needed supervision.

So on  Saturday morning we watched game 7 of the world series and waited for the movers, who were late, of course. When they did arrive, ironically they didn't have permit and double parked right in front of our building. The first guy walked upstairs carrying a globe and was already out of breath by the time he reached our door.  I am sure that the guys who had to move our stuff are really hating whoever dropped the ball on our parking permit. They did manage, with some sweat and heavy breathing, to get everything upstairs while we happily unpacked. Our stuff was all there, and undamaged aside from a few minor chips and cracks.

We spent the rest of Saturday and most of Sunday basically moving into our apartment again.It sounds silly, but pulling out my pie pans and jackets and shoes made me feel like this place is more like home. It was better than Christmas really, because we didn't get anything new - we got back the things we'd been missing. Our apartment is big enough for everything, but there are no closets in Germany so we need to find somewhere to put it all. Maybe we can figure out how to do that without going to Ikea...

So now, after I do some mopping and hang pictures, I need to call the shipping company in the UK and try to get a refund of the extra money that we paid them to bring the stuff up to the fourth floor. And then we get to write a nasty letter to Beltmann Relocation telling them what a disaster the whole experience has been. And then I can sit on our nice leather chair and enjoy my bowls and scarves and blankets.

Some photos from Ireland

Here are the highlights. As usual, all the photos are on my Facebook page. Enjoy!