Luebeck

Please forgive me my holiday slacking off on the blog. Here's a post about what I did before Christmas:

I went to Luebeck with my friend Kaska for the weekend. There was no real reason for the trip, other than that we wanted to go away for a couple of days and see somewhere else in the world. There was also the fact that Kaska is having a baby in May and after that it won’t be so easy to pick up and go anymore.

Luebeck is a small city that used to be a big city. From the 11th to 17th centuries,  Luebeck was really rich and important. It was the capital of the Hanseatic League and the main port out to the Baltic Sea. The Hanseatic League was an trade alliance of cities in northern Europe - sort of like the EU but richer and with fewer members.

Luebeck is cool because its entire city center is historic. Many German cities, Hannover included, have a distinct historic district that is reconstructed and deliberately quaint. Much of Luebeck’s downtown, however, looks just like it did in the 17^th century. It's quaint-ness is more sincere. Allied bombs in WWII were considerate enough to explode outside the city center, hitting places of more strategic importance than the city’s seven gothic churches.

Our trip had two goals – Christmas markets and a swimming pool. Luebeck has several different Christmas markets that ooze down the streets and around the churches and melt together in a sticky, smoky, cinnamon-scented mess of Christmas cheer. At the center of it all is St. Mary’s Church and the devil. No, it’s not Krampus. It goes like this:

As the people of Lübeck were building St. Mary's, along came the devil and asked what they were building. "A large tavern", they lied so as not to anger him. A tavern? A place of vice and drunkenness?" This pleased the devil and he gave a hand so that the building quickly grew.

Only when the church was nearly finished did the devil see that the people of Lübeck had tricked him. Furious, he picked up a huge boulder so as to destroy the building. The people pleaded with him and promised to build a large tavern right next door, the Ratskeller. The devil dropped the boulder so that it fell close to the church and it stands there today.

Kaska, the devil, and me

Luebeck is also home to Germany’s famous marzipan. I have a confession to make – I think marzipan is gross. This is why, no matter how well I learn to speak German or how many scarves I buy, I will always be a foreigner. Germans love the stuff. Marzipan is around all year, but takes center stage at Christmas, when it lures you with pretty shapes and chocolate coverings until you are convinced that there must be something delicious inside, then dashes your hopes with its pasty, grainy guts.  

In Luebeck we met up with friends of Kaska's, drank Gluhwein (warm, spiced wine) in the Fishermen's church, had a conversation in four languages with a Polish jewelry maker with dreadlocks from Tenerife, and spent a morning in the swimming pool and the sauna. We also visited a museum exhibit on Nativity scenes from around the world. It was a festive, fun and Christmasy weekend. Even better, I was not tricked into eating any marzipan.

Holiday time in Hannover

It doesn't feel much like Christmas around Hannover. It's a damp 43 degrees without even a plastic reindeer or nativity scene in sight. There are a couple of places, however, where holiday spirit has taken hold. Here are a few photos:

Hannover Christmas Market.
Market stands along remnants of the old city wall

This snowman on stilts was a little sassy.
I wonder if anyone tried to trip him.

Kaska with kielbasa

                                                 

Holiday baking with exactly 16 inches of counter space. I am not a tidy cook.

Yes, those cookies are lying on top of my washing machine

Krampus, the bad Santa

Meet Krampus, the Christmas devil.
Beyond the sugarplums and snowflakes, Krampus lurks in the shadows behind your Christmas tree.



This guy makes the Grinch seem jolly. In Alpine folklore, Krampus is a demonic figure with goat horns and hooves, a lot of hair and a long pointy tongue. He carries chains and sack on his back. He is St. Nicholas's bad boy companion. While Nicholas rewards good children with gifts on December 6th, Krampus kidnaps the bad ones. He puts them in his sack and carries them away to his fiery lair.

Krampus comes from pre-Christian traditions and may have later developed into the Christian image of the devil. In Germany, Austria, Hungary, Slovenia and Croatia, Krampus is part of Christmas folklore.

In many cities of the region, December 5th is the night of the Krampuslauf - a parade of the greusome anti-Santas. Check out this video clip of the Krampuslauf in Graz, Austria.

Forget good will toward men. These guys are mean.


After decades of being ignored in favor rosy-cheeked Santa Claus, Krampus is having a pop culture rennaisance. He was recently featured in American Dad, and the series Grimm. Grimm is a favorite in our household - it's about how most of the criminals in Portland are actually supernatural creatures with German fairy tale roots, and the detective/avenger of evil who can see them in thier true forms has to figure out how to beat them at their own game. Its actually not as weird as it sounds. There are also German phrases in it from time to time that I can now understand.

Every good story needs a villain, even the Christmas story. And Krampus is a perfect fit (King Herod doesn't have much of a stage presence). He would certainly keep me from dreaming of sugar plum fairies. I'd rather just take the lump of coal.

Things Americans do backwards

Why has world domination eluded the United States?
We are masters of pop culture, technology, Olympic sports and the Snickers bar. We have a lot of people, a lot of money, a lot of weapons and a lot of high-fructose corn syrup. We haven't been bothered with dictators ever or civil war for a couple of centuries.
Yet we have not yet taken over the planet.

Why? I'll tell you why - yards, degrees Farenheit, quarts and how we write our dates.

Today a 10 year old German boy named Nikolaus asked me what yards are for, and how much is a yard in meters. As a substitute teacher I should know this.
"Well," I said, "a yard is almost the same length as a meter. People use yards in the U.S. and sometimes in England."
"If it's almost the same, why don't you just use meters then?" he asked.
"That's a good question. I don't know."
"I know - because you use yards in golf."
"That's true," I said. End of discussion.
This same child answered the question 'what does Christmas mean to you?' by saying, "it means golfing on Mallorca."

Measuring things like fabric and football fields in yards is one of our major handicaps. So is writing down what day it is. Even though people around the world agree that 9/11 was a terrible day, most of them probably think it happened in November. Europeans, like everyone else in the world, write their dates with the day, then the month, then the year. This is inherently logical. You start small and work your way up.

Why do Americans go with the month first? My in-depth google search brought me no answers other than that Americans are backwards. And if the internet doesn't know it, then there must not be an answer.
I have no idea what sort of global summits, academic symposiums an multinational corporate meetings Americans have missed. I can imagine what may have happened, though:
"Hello, I'm here to sign the international accord on nuclear energy. Where do I check in?"
"Um, I am sorry sir, that happened in March."

Time/date challenges on a lesser scale face expats like myself. Luckily I have not messed up any of my official documents. I'm lucky, because my birth date is 4-4. It's idiot-proof.

I blame it all on the English. They got us going with feet and pounds and - my personal favorite - stones. There's a scale in the teachers' bathroom at school that is set to tell your weight in stones. One stone is worth 14 pounds, so this scale is great for your self-image. The British have mostly moved on to the metric system and put their dates before their months. But we have one advantage - they still drive on the left.

So when little Nikolaus is out his designer golf shirt and plaid pants on a course in Mallorca on 25-12-13, maybe he will think about how Americans do things a little bit backwards. Maybe he will be eating a Snickers bar too.

Adventzeit

It's Advent time in Hannover. In case you don't hang on my every word (I hope you don't), I'll remind you that Advent is a thing in Germany. As in, you buy something at the bakery and the cashier wishes you a happy 2nd Advent Sunday. There are Advent calendars and Advent wreaths everywhere. As a Catholic and an American, Advent to me means solemn songs and purple candles before the crazy happy relief of Christmas. And it's something you don't discuss outside of church.

When I covered a 3rd grade class last week, part of my job was to open another day in the Advent calendar with the kids every morning. All sorts of alarm bells were going off in my secular, politically-correct mindset. But little Abtin from Iran went ahead and opened the next day of the calendar for me, and no one seemed to mind.

So while my compatriots are putting up giant light-up inflatable reindeer and Happy Holidays signs in their American yards, Hannoverians have a tasteful set of four candles in the window and Advent wreaths full of chocolate. The German Christmas tree (Weihnachtsbaum) comes later. So much later, in fact, that it's weird to put one up more than a week or two before Christmas. It's also common in Germany to use real candles to light up your tree. Hopefully you don't light it up so much that it burns down your house. To Americans, using real candles on a Christmas tree seems crazy and dangerous. Of course, we can have handguns in the house and that doesn't seem weird.

So if you live on the fourth floor with no elevator, and you don't own a car, how do you get a tree?
It's almost like the Griswold family tromping through the snow and finding a giant tree to embody the spirit of Christmas ("Dad, did you bring a saw?"). But really it's more like riding your bikes down to the lake, picking out a little tree from the lot, loading it on your bike and then walking it home. I did wear my Santa hat, though.

Brian is less excited about this photo opportunity than I am.

The tree is up, and looking lovely, in our living room. It has only electric lights. We've got stockings hanging from the window handles and lights on the hallway ceiling. Maybe we should also put some inflatable reindeer out on the balcony...

Storm of the Century

In the land of punctuality, great health care, public safety, good roads, great transit and robust social programs, there are a very few things that make me feel superior as an American. But when northern Germany started to shut down yesterday as it prepared for the Storm of the Century, I rolled my eyes. When it comes to dealing with winter weather, the Germans are wimps.

The cause of the storm was Hurricane Xaver, which is a legitimate hurricane that developed over the North and Baltic Seas and caused some real damage in coastal areas. Yesterday in Hannover, we started to prepare for what was predicted to be the worst storm since 1962. There were predictions of gale-force winds, heavy snow and rain. After school activities were cancelled, travelers were advised to stay put, and weather warnings went out all over the media. In order to show you what I mean, and to make it sound funnier, I put this one into Google Translate:

Note to potential risks: There are widespread among other severe damage to buildings possible. Trees can be uprooted and fall down as tiles, branches or objects. Close all windows and doors! Secure outdoor objects! In particular, keep away from buildings, trees, scaffolding and high voltage lines. If possible, avoid outdoor living!

So then I started to think that maybe this was a big deal. As a Midwesterner, I am used to weather systems that involve arctic air hitting the gulf stream... this hurricane-related stuff is all new. Plus if there was rain that turned into freezing rain into ice, it could get dangerous out there. Some schools were already canceling Friday classes, which meant it must be serious.

And this morning, as I woke up to nothing but dry roads and a healthy breeze, I kicked myself (figuratively, that is). I had fallen for their scare tactics and their extreme caution. I was like the German who had to stay home from work because I'd sneezed twice in the same hour.  This is not a real winter storm, one where you can't open your door because of snow, when cars are stranded in the streets, when it's so cold your eyelids freeze together. The north Germans, who hardly even have thunderstorms, much less hurricanes and blizzards, had tricked me. They are an inherently careful and risk-averse people, even when it comes to the weather forecast.

Yes, the wind is blowing hard. I think the pigeons are staying in. And there's some drizzly rain and snow flurries too. Currently, 37 snow flakes have stuck to the ground in Hannover, based on my observations. Some sticks even blew off the trees by the swimming pool (which was delightfully un-crowded as I swam this morning, since so many people were staying home to be safe). In Hamburg, the fish market flooded. They even did the unthinkable there - they closed the Hamburg Christmas markets.

There's little that I can be really snobby about in a place where they do everything so well. For points of national/cultural pride I am basically left with a) toughing it out and going to work when you are a little sick, and b) dealing with severe weather. I guess I could also add c) striking up conversations with complete strangers and d) McDonald's, Hollywood, and Coca-Cola.

Rather than reflect on how pathetic that may be, let's be proud. And let's make fun of these people who don't know what a real storm is like. I just hope to get a tail wind as I bike home from school today.

Thanksgiving part 3

This is the last post about Thanksgiving, I promise, at least until next year. But it was a three day celebration, and deserves one more post.

Saturday was day of Puten Bowl 2, also known as the Turkey Bowl. Even though people who knew how to play American football were in the minority, it was a hit. Everyone filled their typical roles: Brian was the coach, Andrew showed up late, Patrick took his pants off in public, and Kent called in sick. Everyone had a good time aside from being annoyed by a couple of Germans who took the game too seriously and argued about the rules (typical). Here are a few photos of the epic battle between pilgrims and indians:

Back row: Patrick, Sankey, Stephan the show-off, Sallee, Mac, Jake, Macoustra (hidden, aka the other Mac), T-Bird the Danish-Indian wonder
Middle row: Ed the opera singer, Jamie, Smilin' John Licandro, Hendo, Artur (Lithuanian), T-Dog Merkle (in scarf)
Front row: Evan and Marius (the other Lithuanian in crazy pants)

The party Saturday night was a hit. I can't say for sure how many people were here, since they came and went throughout the evening. To my surprise, we had 7 neighbors show up. Apparently they want to be our friends. Brian and I are not sure what to make of this, and whether we should suspect some ulterior motive. It was good the neighbors came pretty early, because my German language skills deteriorated as the night went on. All of our usual good-time friends were there, plus the Lithuanian folk dancers and a musician from Krakow. With no permanent damage to our house and no food or wine left over, I'd call it a success.

Giganturkey

In my last post, I mentioned ordering a turkey for our Thanksgiving dinner. I went on and on about how it needed to be a small turkey so that it would fit in our euro-sized oven. I spoke too soon.

On Thursday I rode my bike to the farmers' market to pick up the turkey. I had my empty backpack and was ready to bring home a bird. I'd had paincky thoughts that maybe they'd forgotten, that there would be no turkey and we'd have to eat sausages for Thanksgiving.

When I told the lady at the poultry stand that I'd come for the whole turkey, she said "I have it, (whew) but there's a problem." If she had it, what could the problem be? Was it a mutant turkey? Did it get run over by a tractor? Had her dog taken a bite out of it? Did it have three legs? no wings? was it still covered in feathers?  How does a three-legged turkey walk around, anyway/

"You ordered a 5 kilo turkey, but it's actually 10 kilos. We will only charge you the 5 kilo price." 10 kilos is 22 lbs. That's enough turkey for a horde of starving pilgirms. It was enough for 1 kilo of turkey for each of our dinner guests. While a huge half price turkey is a great thing, this was sort of a problem. "But I don't think it will fit in my oven," I said, then realized I was complaining about a massive half-priced turkey and decided to keep my mouth shut. I didn't know what had happened - were all their turkeys that huge? Was it an unexpected growth spurt? Did the little turkeys get used for cold cuts? She didn't explain.

When I took out the backpack, ready to transport the bird in style, the turkey lady said, "but I don't think it will fit in there." Thankfully it did. I held the backpack open while she pushed the bird inside it.  I zipped up the bag, loaded the Giganturkey on my back and got on the bike. It may sound ridiculous to carry a massive turkey in a backpack while riding a bicycle through the city, but that's what I did. Keeping my balance as I rode had to be the strangest abdominal workout I've ever done.

I didn't want to cut the legs or the wings off, and thought I'd have a chance of fitting the turkey in if it was tied up tight. Happy turkeys from the market don't come with a little wire thing to hold the legs down or a pop-up timer. They let it all hang out. And of course, we didn't have any string. Luckily, Brian had an old pair of sweat pants with a broken drawstring. So I cut it out of the pants and used it to tie the wings and legs tightly against the body, put the rack on the floor of the oven, and loaded the bird in diagonally. Miraculously, the Giganturkey fit. It's a good thing it wasn't a three-legged turkey. I don't think the drawstring could have stretched around all those drumsticks.

Five hours later, the Giganturkey was ready. It was fantastically juicy and delicious. And after eating a lot, giving some away, and freezing some more, it still is.

Our Thanksgiving dinner crowd

Sankey, Brian with turkey leg, Jake

Andrew and baby Juno, 3 months

Viola and Ulla

How to celebrate Thanksgiving in Hannover

Thinking of Hannover as your Thanksgiving destination?

Ok, you weren't. But just in case, here is what you would need to celebrate Turkey Day in a place where no one cares about the Squanto or pumpkin pie.
Is your family overseas? Don't worry, you can make your own holiday with these ingredients.

A day off - Friday, that is. Brian and I will both be at home on Friday, getting ready for our weekend extravaganza. It includes: a small Thanksgiving dinner for 9 Friday night (we had 18 last year), football game Saturday and a party Saturday night. Plus, it doesn't feel like a holiday if you have to spend it with a class full of 4th graders.

Hokkaido squash - There's no Libby's in a can and no pie pumpkins here, but the Hokkaido is a worthy substitute. In English you call it Red Kuri squash, but I had never heard of that either.
Here they are cooking in my oven, after which I will scoop them out and end up with orange smears of Hokkaido on my clothes and somehow on the wall. It's worth it - pumpkin pie is an exotic treat here.

Real cranberries - Those also don't come in a can and pop out as a perfect ridged cylinder. But they do show up in the grocery store for a month or two each year, imported from the U.S.

Will power and disdain - to protect yourself from the lure of chocolate Santas and Christmas decorations that have been taunting you at the grocery store since early October. You need to tell your American self that it's not time for that yet. There is no progression of Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas here. We just slide right from September into Santa Claus.

Gravy mix - I do most everything from scratch for Thanksgiving, but gravy is where I draw the line. It's the last thing I want to do when the turkey is out and the potatoes need mashing. You also cannot buy gravy mix in Germany, but I thought ahead and bought some while we were in Ireland.

A strong back - to carry the food, beer,  etc. up all the flights of stairs to our apartment. In preparation for our party, Brian and I have been going to the liquor store once a week and coming home with a case of beer each time. He holds one handle and I hold the other. Halfway home we set the case down and switch sides, then he carries it upstairs on his own. We make a good team.

Vegeta - Or to put it better, when don't you need Vegeta? It's an Eastern European blend of spices, vegetables and salt that is sort of like a bullion. You can put it in anything - rice, potatoes, meat, soup, casseroles - it will probably go in the stuffing this year. Maybe I should try making gravy with it.
 

A red or black shirt - If you want to play in Puten Bowl Zwei (Turkey bowl two).  It's an American flag football game played the day after Thanksgiving (or Thanksgiving observed). The original turkey bowl happened in Leawood, Kansas when Brian was in middle school, and it continued on and off for over a decade. The turkey bowl is always Pilgrims in black vs. Indians in red. When played in Germany, the North Americans get split up since they know how to play, and the Europeans and Australians are spread between the two teams. The game will likely attract the attention of locals walking by with their dogs, who, in their German way, will slow down and look but not stop to watch or ask what's going on.
Here are last year's players, post-game:

A (small) happy turkey - You can buy frozen turkeys here. They are stuck in the far back corner of the freezer section. But, in keeping with our sustainable meat policy, last year I bought a farm-fresh, local, organically fed turkey that once walked and was capable of reproduction. It was delicious. I ordered one again this year (by myself, in German, thank you) and I pick it up at the farmers' market today. I hope they remembered. If it's too big, it won't fit in the oven (look back at that pumpkin photo for an idea). But turkeys don't really come small. The smallest I could request was the runt at 5 kg (11lbs) but I have a feeling it might end up more like 6 or 7. We may have to chop off a leg or two to get it in the oven.

Turkey baster - Imported from the U.S. last year. Thanks, Mom!

An eclectic group of international friends - When your family is not around, it's a good alternative to spend Thanksgiving with friends. It also makes us Americans the ambassadors of Thanksgiving - no one compares my stuffing to their grandmother's, and no one judges me for making gravy from an envelope. Everyone is amazed by the sweet potatoes and pumpkin pie.

Four Lithuanian folk dancers - For Saturday night's party, we have invited about everyone we know. We even invited the neighbors again this year. My Polish friends Kaska and Charlotta are in a folk dancing group, and they have a big performance Saturday afternoon. When there is a big show to do and they don't have enough men (which is almost always), they call in the ringers from Lithuania. So we told the Polish girls to bring them to the party. These are four guys of Polish heritage who Charlotta met at a folk dancing camp years ago. I think they are going to play in the Puten Bowl also. Maybe later on in the party, we'll clear out the furniture and get them dancing.

Add a lot of gratitude and you have a real Thanksgiving - Hannover style. The Germans don't know what they are missing.

One more expat thing...

This is a good essay about living in another country:

http://thoughtcatalog.com/chelsea-fagan/2012/05/what-happens-when-you-live-abroad/

Wednesday night fever

Saturday night fever in Hannover has less to do with bell bottoms and disco and more to do with running a temperature and lying on the couch. This week, I learned that on a Wednesday night, the symptoms are even worse.

My Colombian friend Olga got the idea to go to Club Havana, a Latin-themed bar and dance club in Hannover's Steintor district. If there is a sketchy part of Hannover, Steintor is it. There are some strip clubs and lots of bars, a few questionable hotels and several late-night Turkish restaurants. In any other country, this would be a rough neighborhood, one you'd avoid at night unless you were in a big group of people. But Hannover is incredibly safe, and so is Steintor.  

Olga wanted to go out on a Wednesday mostly because her husband is working in another town and only home on the weekends. If we went out on a Friday or Saturday, she'd miss out on time with him and he would call her. A lot. Once when she was out without her husband, he called her 25 times, concerned for her well-being.

The whole idea of going out to a disco is strange to me. It's not something we ever did in the U.S. First of all, the word 'disco' meant Bee Gees and platform shoes. In German, Spanish, and probably a lot of other languages, it means dance club. In the U.S., we went to bars that had live bands or DJs, and sometimes people started to dance there. Clubs were for the very young or the very sleazy. They were good for bachelorette parties or special occasions. But there aren't very many bars here, and not a lot of live music, and sometimes in the bars that do exist, they don't play music at all. That's why you have to go to the disco.

What Brian and I do for fun has changed in the last few years. We don't go to the movies (they're in German) and don't hang out on our patio. We do go to biergartens and sometimes a minor league hockey game. We rollerblade. We also spend plenty of time in the living room. Going out dancing is only the latest addition to the list of how I spend my social time differently in Germany.

And Wednesday night at Club Havana? Salsa music playing, half the bar closed off, and three people sitting on barstools. That was it. There was no dancing. We left and ended up at another place with worse music and about 20 more people.

What we have learned from this experience is that, no matter how hard Olga tries, Hannover will never be a Madrid, a Berlin, or a Medellin. It will never be happening on a Wednesday night. It is the city that always sleeps.

If we want to go dancing we have to do it on a Friday or Saturday like everyone else, when the neon lights are flashing and Steintor is full of people. On Wednesdays they are home nursing German-style colds and ironing their bell bottoms.

Ten words or less

Living in Minnesota made me a public radio fan, and I recently discovered NPR's Project Xpat blog.  Project Xpat is doing a story about what it means to live as an American expatriate. They are asking readers to sum up their experience in ten words or less.

I decided to do something slightly out of character and submit something. This blog is the most public sort of writing I have done ever, and I haven't entered a writing competition or anything like that since high school. That's the beauty of the internet, I guess. If you want to be a writer, go for it.

So, especially since the most American of holidays is coming up this week, I thought I'd all share my thoughts with you on what it means to be an expatriate, in ten words or less. Here are some that didn't make the cut:

No Chipotle or Target in sight; where am I?

Showing the world, we don't all wear sweats in public

Expat = Learning to be confident while feeling like an idiot

Yes, the United States is just like on TV

I'm sorry to make you speak English around me

Just nod and smile

Moving away makes it easier to see where you were

Beer is cheaper than water, everything is closed on Sunday

I live in the place where fairy tales come from

The metric system really is better 

My state is bigger than your country

You think winter here is cold?

I now realize that American multiculturalism is a real thing

Real friends are close no matter where you live

I can't explain why Americans don't all have health insurance

If you ask 'how's Germany?' I'll smack you

People in other places don't always understand why we left

Yes, I really live here now

It's like the Omaha of Germany

How do you know when you're at home, anyway?

Is this a parallel universe?

I sometimes really miss it, sometimes never want to return


And finally, the one I actually submitted. To me, being an expat means:
Feeling at home while being out of place

This is not a food blog...

but, I like cooking and I like food and I think a lot about them both, more than I used to before moving here. Is this because I am not as busy as I once was and have more time to try out recipes? Is it because some of the foods I am used to don't exist in Germany and I have to make them from scratch or find a subsititute? Is it because Brian and I have gone semi-vegetarian and I have to do my homework to buy local food and meat that's sustainably raised? Is it because I have an inner fat girl that loves to eat and is constantly frustrated by my exercise routine?
The answer to all of these questions is yes.

Eating has entered the world of German politics as well. Over the summer, the Green party proposed that for one day every week, workplace cafeterias across the country serve only vegetarian dishes. They would have also added a PR campaign encouraging Germans go meat-free once a week at home too. If you are interested, read this article from The Guardian entitled Wurst policy ever? . Sausage jokes are just too easy sometimes.

Forget the euro crisis, the minimum wage, and immigration. German politicians and their constituents got all fired up about meat. Sure, eating less meat is good for your health and really helps the environment, but should the government really get between a German and his wurst? Socialism can only go so far. Sure, protect children from parents who give them funny names. Slap a fine on anyone who crosses the street on a red light. Make it illegal to wash your own car on your driveway. But don't tell us what we have to eat for lunch.

Germans eat a lot of meat, more than many other Europeans. But who eats the most meat of anyone in the world? The Americans, of course. We do everything big - even ourselves. There's no way an American political party would get away with imposing vegetarianism on anyone. They can't even pass new gun control laws. Imagine if the feds took away the Big Mac every Tuesday? They might as well take away freedom.

The Greens did pretty poorly in the election this Fall. Was it because they spoke out against eating meat? Was that the issue they wanted to fight for? It's hard for me to speculate right now... the inner fat girl is getting hungry. I'm off to cook dinner.

Hannover vs. Braunschweig = pig on the loose

There were a lot of two kinds of people in town yesterday:
1. Groups of men, young and old, in black jackets and blue pants, drinking beer.
2. Police. Lots of them. Police on horses, police in vans, police on foot, police in cars.

The reason? The Hannover 96 vs. Eintracht Braunschweig soccer game. Hannover and Braunschweig (the English call it Brunswick) have a rivalry that goes back to the middle ages. It's a long time to hold a grudge. Several hundred years ago, Braunschweig was a prosperous city, a member of the Hanseatic League, and a center for culture and commerce. And then came Hannover. Braunschweig's importance went downhill and Hannover took over as the region's capital. I am a little fuzzy on the details, but somewhere in there, Germans started playing soccer and took out their medieval frustrations on each other.

Fast forward to 2013, when Hannover and Braunschweig play against each other for the first time since 1975. In the U.S., you hear about crazy soccer fans in Europe and Latin America and wonder just how much harm could some fanatics in scarves really do. Apparently they could do a lot. Some friends of ours were in a bar near the stadium a while back when Braunschweig fans came in and started throwing the tables. And Braunschweig wasn't even playing. So the police were ready yesterday. They had even divided the central city into two fan zones. Trains from Braunschweig bypassed the main station and stopped instead at a smaller terminal near the stadium. The idea was to keep the fans segregated so there would be less chance of them starting fights.

Here's a map of the city divided by fan zones

The fan zones did not, however, protect the Hannover 96 pig. Apparently she is a big 96 fan that was captured and tatooed by the Braunschweig fans, then set loose to run around the city. She definitely ventured outside the appropriate fan zone, got really scared, and almost got hit by a car. She's now recovering in a shelter for fanatic farm animals.

And with all this uproar, all the riot gear, all the singing scarf-wearing hordes... the game ended in a tie of 0-0. The pig was disappointed.

The linguistic elevator ride

I called to order pizza last Friday night. That doesn't sound remarkable, except that year ago I probably would not have done it. For a long time our only delivered pizza came via online ordering systems, where I could take my time and plug the names of mysterious toppings into Google translate ("yes, they really mean you can order one with both corn and tuna").

A year ago I could have ordered the pizza. I knew all the words in German and would have understood all the questions, at least after asking the pizza man to repeat himself a few times. But I would not have called; I was scared.

It's humbling to go from a fully functioning adult who called government agencies and banks and - heaven forbid - Comcast all the time to being afraid to ask for a large cheese and mushroom. But now that I have progressed to a roughly 2nd or 3rd grade German vocabulary, I can do it.

When I got off the phone with the pizza place last week, Brian said, "you sound different when you speak German."
"How do I sound?" I asked.
"German."

While a real German would certainly disagree, it is true that different languages make you feel... different. This new article from the Economist is about whether our personalities and behaviors change depending on the languages we speak. The argument is that a language is more than vocabulary and grammar; it's a worldview.

I love speaking Spanish. I've always liked the way it gave me access to a culture that I wasn't born into. I have this special pass to know people and music and books that were never meant for a Midwestern white girl. Speaking German here is different - instead of being in my own culture and confidently stepping into another, I am just trying to figure out the one around me. Even a few months ago, I mistakenly ordered the wrong appetizer at our wonderful Turkish doner restaurant. I asked for the right item, but didn't speak loudly enough and the waiter misheard. It's not logical - the doner guys know us and shake our hands and bring us free desserts when we eat there. It would have been the best place ever to make a nice loud mistake. But since I know I sound funny, my voice gets unintentionally quieter.

When we were in Ireland, several people asked whether I spoke German fluently. The answer is: not yet. But how do you know when you get there? It's not like an elevator that goes up and up and suddenly a bell rings and a door opens, and you've arrived at the level of fluency. Thinking and dreaming in a foreign language are the closest thing to knowing that the language has sunk into your brain and started to live there. I slept really poorly a few nights ago and had one of those half-asleep dreams and in it, a couple of people (including me) were speaking German. That doesn't mean that I am fluent, because I don't think that I understood what I was saying in my own dream. But it's a start.

Learning German in Germany as an adult is not like riding the vertical elevator of languages to reach a higher level. It's a more lateral kind of education. Yesterday I learned all the words for parts of a tree: trunk, branches, twigs. I also learned how to say either-or and neither-nor. I don't really care about writing formal documents or reading 19th century novels, but I would really love to chit-chat with the florist on the corner, or explain to my neighbors that it's not ok to park the bike with the baby seat in Brian's spot.  Forget Goethe, this is the kind of stuff we are dealing with.

I wish there was a set of flash cards for building confidence. Maybe tomorrow I will learn the how to say "hold the pickles and hot dogs on my pizza". But not the arugula - I kind of like it.

Adventures and the new normal

I got an email the other day from a friend in Minneapolis that I hadn't heard from in a long time. It started with the "how's Germany?" (the question that you know I love to answer), and went on to say "I hope you are having lots of adventures." Nobody ever said that to me before I moved to Germany.

So I asked Brian, "do we have adventures?", though I guess I can answer that question myself. We do have adventures, particularly when traveling. If I knew exactly what would happen every day, I wouldn't enjoy travel nearly as much. Daily life here can be an adventure too, and that's been the main theme of this blog so far. But in year three of life in Hannover, things like going to the post office and buying dairy products get less and less exciting. Life seems pretty normal and the days are fairly routine. Maybe that's why it's been getting harder for me to think of interesting things to post about. Don't worry, you have stuck with me so far and I am not giving up. I just have to think harder about how absurd those 'normal' situations really are.

For instance, yesterday I was in a grocery store which happened to be selling pumpkins, like the real Halloween carving kind of pumpkins, for just 99 cents. So I started to look through the bin and pick one out (I have plans to carve a couple for our Thanksgiving party, because otherwise no one would see them but me and Brian. That's one of the downsides of living on the top floor of an apartment building - no one to walk by and peek in your windows). And a man from somewhere in Africa, who was also pumpkin shopping, said to me in German, "hey that's a good price isn't it?" I agreed, then he asked me why I had put one pumpkin down and decided to take another. I explained that the one I had at home was round, so I wanted a long one. Then we talked about whether they were getting soft or would last a while longer. This situation and the whole conversation are completely absurd. Here I was, talking to a man from, let's say, Nigeria, about the size, shape and price of Halloween pumpkins, in a store in a country where they don't even celebrate Halloween. This is what's normal now.

I had a doctor's appointment earlier this week. I'll spare you the details, but I learned a new German phrase. The nurse told me "Sie konnen sich frei machen," meaning 'you can make yourself free.' I had no idea what that was about - I felt pretty free already. I came of my own will, I live in a highly developed Western society where women have a lot of rights, I can say and do and believe what I please... What she really meant was 'take your clothes off'. After she said it the third time I finally figured it out.

Living here isn't a vacation. It's not exile, it's not a sabbatical... I don't really know what to call it, except it's just life. And it's funny what you can get used to.

I might respond to that email this weekend. Maybe it's been so long since we talked that my friend doesn't know what else to ask. Maybe she can't imagine that daily life in Hannover has more to do with laundry and class and washing dishes than with amazing capers in lederhosen. It's a longer answer than she's expecting, but I guess that's how Germany is.

West Cork

In Ireland they use the work 'walk' for what a good sedentary-living American would call a hike. So for few days in the far southwest corner of Ireland, we did a lot of walking up hillsides, through sheep pastures, along the coast and through the mud.

To balance out all the Clonakilty fun, we stayed in a quiet self-catering cottage and went to bed early. Our plan was to check out the scenery and get plenty of fresh air.  I had even contacted the local bike shop about renting bikes. But with steady showers, tall hedges, and the best views being from in between grazing cows in a field, it seemed like walking was a better plan.

Brian drove our trusty Micra out to the Beara peninsula, where we found some Bronze Age wedge tombs and stone circles, a manor house that had been burned down during the revolution in 1921, and Ireland's only cable car out to Dorsey Island.

On our second day out in West Cork, our eighth wedding anniversary, we took a ferry from the town of Baltimore out to Cape Clear island. We hiked around for most the day, checked out the coastal views and the O'Driscoll castle, and saw a seal in the harbor on our way back. That night we tried to go to the pub in the nearest village for dinner. It was closed. We tried the next village - everything was closed there too. Finally, we made it the town of Skibbereen which had both a pub and a Chinese take-out place open. We were in luck. Last year on our wedding anniversary we flew to Istanbul and ate falafels on the sidewalk. I consider myself very lucky. Some people just go to the Macaroni Grill.

The sun came out on our third day in the country and we went to lighthouse at Mizen Head, at the tip of the Mizen Peninsula. The cliffs are spectacular, and they have also caused a lot of shipwrecks over the centuries. And we saw more wedge tombs.

Finally we hiked near Lough Hyne, a marine nature preserve. It's a salt water lake that fills up during high tide but is landlocked at low tide. We climbed up to see the best views.

We were certainly off the tourist track on this trip. We were away from the major attractions and it's the off-season, so a lot of hotels and restaurants were closed. There was not a sweater shop or a leprechaun hat in sight. On the drive back to Dublin we stopped for lunch in Kinsale, and were reminded of what we were missing. Kinsale is a tourist town and has been for a few hundred years. It has a beautiful harbor and lots of cafes and souvenir shops. Brian and I guessed that besides us, there was a bus full of American tourists and a bus full of British tourists, and maybe some Germans thrown in the mix. I usually defend fellow Americans, especially those who travel, but they can also be really embarassing. Here's the conversation we witnessed at lunch:
Older American man in shorts tries to order Jameson from the waitress. It's 11:45am. Then he turns to the people at the next table and says, "HOW'S THE FISH AND CHIPS?" They speak quietly so he thinks they must be Irish. "IS IT THE BEST IN TOWN?" (he is, of course, really loud). They say oh yes, it's good, or something like that. He detects a non-American accent. "ARE YOU LOCAL?" No, they are from South Wales. "WE'RE FROM NEW JERSEY, UNITED STATES." They probably know that New Jersey is in the United States, even if he doesn't know where Wales is.

Suddenly I was extra happy that we had spent our trip among some actual locals, or at least away from most tourists. I was happy to give up the sweater shops and instead watch soccer on TV while eating at the only pub open Skibbereen. As for our friend from New Jersey, he might have been happier at the Macaroni Grill.

Weekend in Clonakilty

On day two we headed to Clonakilty.
Back in 1999, when Brian spent a semester abroad in Cork, he worked at a bar with Jason Collins. They lost track of each other but just this year, through the miracle of Facebook, got back in touch. I make fun of Facebook sometimes, and get annoyed at people who post about eating oatmeal for breakfast or jogging .78 miles yesterday, but it can be a great way to connect with people you haven't seen in a while. That's how we ended up with Jason, singing karaoke in an Irish cop's basement at 3am.

Clonakilty is a small coastal town, famous for being Michael Collins' home and a summertime resort destination. Jason considers himself lucky to be a policeman there. He's not the kind of cop that wants to see a lot of action in a high-crime area. Clonakilty's cases are minor thefts and traffic accidents, and Jason knows everybody in town.
On Friday we checked out a few of the sights around town
Incheydoney Beach:

Birthplace and childhood home of Michael Collins:

Galley Head lighthouse:

The lighthouse was closed for the off-season, but Jason wasn't worried. He decided we would just jump the fence. There was a van far off heading down the road between cow pastures, but were pretty sure it wasn't coming all the way to the lighthouse. We also came up with the plan that if anyone asked what we were doing there, Brian would play the loud American tourist and say something like, "HI THERE, I'M AN AMERICAN, HERE TO FIND MY ROOTS. THIS IS A GREAT LIGHTHOUSE YA GOT HERE, BUT IT WOULD BE EASIER IF YOU UNLOCKED THE GATES." Our plan was fool-proof. And wouldn't you know it, as we started walking back toward the road, we saw a white-haired lighthouse keeper getting out of the same van. Brian started to stride up with a little cowboy swagger, ready to recite his lines, but Jason choked and went with honesty instead.

He told the lighthouse man that he's a policeman (Garda) in town and we were visiting and wanted to see the lighthouse, sorry for the trouble. The lighthouse man went on to explain that it's so lovely out here and he wishes it could be open year-round but the trouble is that someone came out here to walk a dog once when there was construction work going on, and the health and safety board got worried about people falling off the wall and such, and if that happened then he would have to take the blame for it and be in a tough situation. But it really is a shame and he's glad we enjoyed the view and Jason can come back anytime he likes, just give the lighthouse guy a call and he'll come and open it up.
 (If something like this had happened in Germany, we would have just gotten yelled at).
We saw the lighthouse keeper in town the next day, walking down the street with his wife. It's good to be nice to people in a small town since you will certainly run into them again...

We happened to be visiting during the retirement and 50th birthday celebration (that's right, retiring at 50) of Tim, Clonakilty's most popular police officer.  Tim looks about 38, goes tanning regularly, spends most nights at the bar and most mornings at the gym. He eats fish and drinks seaweed smoothies. He has traveled the globe. He may have been the inspiration for the TV ads about the most interesting man in world. We got to be part of the weekend-long event in Tim's honor. Friday night we took over a pub in town and had a lock-in, which means that instead of closing at 12:30 like the pub is supposed to, they lock the doors and everyone stays until they have long forgotten what time it is. Technically this is illegal, but since most of the law enforcement in Clonakilty and neighboring towns was there with us, I felt pretty safe.

On Saturday I got to see my first hurling match. Jason is on the Clonakilty team through the GAA (Gaelic Athletic Association) and it was one of their last games of the season. In hurling you hit the ball with your hurley stick to a teammate. You can catch the ball with your hand, usually aided by the hurley, and you can run with it for a little while if you balance it on the hurley. If the ball goes through the posts (field-goal style) then it's worth 1 point, but a ball in the net scores 3. That's about as much as I learned about hurling anyway. And then it poured rain and I ran for the car. The game was a tie at the end; they have to play a rematch.

Saturday day/night was a party at Tim's house, part 2 of the birthday and retirement extravaganza. It involved a lot of karaoke in the basement. Brian stole the show.
I had a great time Friday night, but struggled a little on Saturday between 12 and 3am . Eventually I found a second (or fourth) wind somehow.

It was a great weekend, and I felt more like visiting I was an old friend than being a tourist in a foreign country. So the next time I go on Facebook and get annoyed at a picture or someone's dog trying on a new leash, I will remember that it can be useful too. Without Facebook and Jason, we would have never me the most interesting man in Ireland.

Glendalough and St Kevin's cave

As we flew into Dublin it was hard not to recall our last trip there, two years ago. It was the day that our shipment of stuff finally showed up after we waited three months, made few dozen phone calls, and sent several mean emails that got us nowhere. Since July it had probably been stuck on a container ship or forgotten at the back of a deserted warehouse in some English port. Two hours before we had to leave for the airport the movers came and told us they couldn't unload because the people we'd hired to block off the street had never showed up. We got them to leave our boxes at school (unloading a lot of them ourselves) and took off for the flight, realizing when we got to Dublin that Brian had left his wallet and drivers license at home and I don't know how to drive stick. Then we got lost in the dark leaving the airport, on the left side of the road.

This trip was smoother than that.
We started at Glendalough (pronounced Glendalochkgkch or something like that), in Wicklow Mountains National Park. Our most stressful moment was trying to find the hiking trail without get hit by a car. St. Kevin found it relaxing there too. In the 5th century he walked to Glendalough, found a cozy cave in the beautiful valley, and lived as a hermit for seven years. We arrived in a Nissan Micra and stayed at a B&B for one night, but we thought the valley was beautiful too. A monastery was built on the site in St. Kevin's honor, with most of the buildings dating from the 12th century. The cemetery is still in use.

On our hike up the hills we saw some lanky soldiers-in-training with their combat boots, pretend rifles made of wood and heavy packs topped with flourescent caps. The first few soldiers moved at a steady pace, even talked to each other and said hello to us. The last few let their wooden rifles hang, heads bobbing with every step, and barely grunted as we passed. The Wicklow Mountains were the heart of the 1798 Irish rebellion, where defeated rebels hid out in the hills for years. St. Kevin probably climbed all the hills barefoot and foraged some berries along the way. I don't think these last few troops would have been able to keep up. 
We just hiked a while and then jumped back into the Micra on our way to Clonakilty.