Boßeln 2013

Pop quiz
Brian McCarthy, featured in photo above, is dressed as:
a) A superhero who recently failed his audition to become the next Captain America
b) The spokesman for an ad campaign encouraging American men to smoke cigars
c) A man ready to participate in a traditional German game played in winter
d) A parody of the stereotypes that Germans have of Americans
e) Himself

The correct answers are c, d and e.  If you answered a or b, you should get at least half a point because those might seem more likely. This photo was taken before we started the 2013 game of Boßeln (I love that I now know how to make the ß character, it's otherwise written as ss, but what fun is that?). Every year, our friends Kaska and Thorsten host a game of Boßeln.

Boßeln, also known as Klootschießen (a much funnier name, also with a ß), is a game played in certain parts of northern Germany and the Netherlands... generally in places where it gets cold in the winter and there is nothing better to do.  Kaska and Thorsten started hosting the Boßeln game when they lived in Kiel, and have since moved it to Hannover. They bring in friends from all over - this year it was Cologne and Kiel and Hamburg, and even Polish friends from France.

I can't tell you that I understand all the rules of Boßeln as Thorsten is explaining them in the photo you see here, but that's not important. The basic idea is that there are two teams who compete to see who can roll the ball farther and get to the end of the path first. If you roll the ball far, that's a good thing. If your team can't pass the other teams ball in two throws, you all have to take a shot of Schnapps (which is a nice word for some pungent grain alcohol...). If your ball gets passed, you take a shot. Then sometimes there are made-up rules, like if a jogger goes by or you get to an intersection, you take a shot. The team that reaches the end of the path first wins.

This year it wasn't terribly cold but it was really muddy. This caused some problems for the wheels of strollers and the Bollerwagen, which is the wagon used to haul beer, schnapps, water, snacks, and sometimes babies (seen below).

After the game ended we went to the Schweinehaus. At the Schweinehaus, we ate:

a) salad
b) pork
c) kale
d) pizza

That was meant to be an easy one for those of you who didn't do so well on the first question.
The correct answers are b and c. Schweine is pig and they made a lot of it. We had sausage and Kasseler, which is a smoked ham, and two kinds of potatoes and Grunkohl. Grunkohl is kale, which is cooked in pork fat until it's soft. It's not for everyone but it is exactly for a winter day that involves being cold and drinking beer.

After the meal we headed back to the community center where we'd started the game, and had a dance party. Why not? Brian had changed out of his outfit by this time, but was already being called "Captain America" by anyone who could not remember his name. I couldn't look at that mustache without laughing. Luckily it was gone the next day. Unlike the Hitler-staches below, his was authentic, which made it funnier.

What is the American equivalent of Boßeln? I guess it would be horseshoes or bocce ball or curling. Or maybe there isn't one. 

Giro de Girona

Some couples go out for romantic dinners by candlelight on Valentine's Day. We usually do nothing. But this year on Valentine's Day, Brian and I rode bicycles over a mountain, to the Mediterranean coast, and back over the mountain to Girona. It was really beautiful and really really hard. Part of this "coastal route" (sounds deceptively smooth and serene) was a stage in the 2009 Tour de France (no we did not ride to France). So in honor of that I've named it our Giro de Girona.

Village of Llagostera

Km 1-25: The most stressful part of our ride was getting out of Girona. When the guy in the shop explained and gave us our little book of directions, it all seemed so easy. Brian was navigating and my job was to keep resetting the odometer on the bike computer at each turning point so that we knew when the next turn would be. I couldn't figure out the bike computer. It had only one button but I could not figure out how to make it work. This was a stressful moment.

We actually ran into the bike mechanic from the shop who was out taking some younger, skinnier, sleeker looking riders than us on the same route. There was no way we (me) could keep up with them long enough to know where to go. After some wrong turns, me being that foreign girl in spandex asking directions at a cafe, a little bike stalking and some language not appropriate for all audiences, we got back on track. And the scenery got pretty. We saw vineyards and farms and little towns with old churches. The sun was shining, and there was no turning back.

Km 26-41: We started to go up, and up and up. It wasn't a big mountain, and the road didn't have any seriously steep climbs. But we come from a flat place and currently live in an even flatter place. Even in our best bike shape ever we wouldn't have been very good at this. A few groups of cyclists passed us on the road, relaxed and chatting as they pedaled on up the hill. We tried to be stopped at those moments, breathing normally, taking pictures and looking relaxed. And cyclists were the only vehicles we saw; there were hardly any cars on the mountain road. It wasn't super fast or pretty, but we made it up. And at the top we were rewarded with fantastic views - cliffs dropping down to the sea with little sun-bleached towns along the coast.

Km 42 - 53: Heading down and then along the coast was fun and winding and deceptive, because sometimes we had to go up again and my legs were about ten times heavier than at the beginning of the ride. This is also when I was getting really hungry and my head hurt and I started to get cranky. Poor timing, I guess, with all the fantastic scenery to look at. We stopped for lunch once we reached Sant Feliu de Guixols everything felt better.

Km 53 - 70ish (remember the bike computer was never reset, so I just tried to keep subtracting and estimating, plus we got lost early on so these kilometers are more symbolic than anything...) Fed and ready to go, we left the town and started back over the mountain for the second half of our loop. I had a small but welcome second wind as we started climbing again, and Brian was muscling through it. We rode through more and more picturesque little towns and wooded hillsides.

Km 70ish - the end: This was starting to look familiar. We met up back with the road we'd ridden before heading up to the mountain, several hours and several thousand (I hope) calories burned later. And it was mostly flat, getting cloudy and still so pretty... but we made very few stops to take photos at this point. We rolled into rush-hour Girona sore and chafed and feeling victorious.

Maybe it wasn't the most romantic way to celebrate Valentine's Day, but then, maybe it was. I can't think of anyone else I'd want to be with when biking all day through Catalonia over a mountain to the coast and back.

Girona

Since we had a week to travel, we left Barcelona and headed for two days to Girona. Girona is still in Catalonia, a little northwest of Barcelona and not too far from the Pyrenees mountains. There wasn't anyone to visit in Girona or any great sight we needed to see, but I'd read that the town is pretty and is a sort of paradise for cyclists. At least one professional cycling team has a training facility there, and several professional riders live and train there too. We are not professional or anything close to it, but we do like biking so it seemed like as good a destination as any.

                                 

We had a great, sun-drenched afternoon in Girona. We walked along the old city walls, which were to protect the city in the 1300s (I don't think it always worked) and are now turned into a public walkway/tourist attraction. Except much of the time we were the only people walking on them. I suppose a lot of Europeans aren't as interested as we are in that kind of old stuff, but when you are from a new-ish country and living in a country where most of the medieval structures were bombed away in WWII, it's pretty cool. Then we wandered the narrow city streets and I did some heavy window shopping. There must be some rich people in this town. There were all kinds of great stores and enough restaurants to keep us eating for months.

We saw a lot of Catalan flags in Girona. There is a movement in Catalonia to secede from Spain and become an independent country within the European Union. Catalonia is the most prosperous region of Spain, so some of its residents are tired of subsidizing the rest of the country, I guess. That and they have a separate language and cultural identity. Will they get anywhere with it? Who knows. Brian pointed out that rich, well-fed people rarely start revolutions.

 

I had researched where we could get bikes to ride in this bicycle colony, and contacted a store who could rent us some good road bikes for our second day in town. We walked over to find the shop, which was on one of the twisty, narrow pedestrian streets in the old part of the city. The idea for us was to find it, figure out what we needed to bring along for the next day, and mostly decide whether we needed to walk over there all spandexed up in our bike shorts or if there was another option. The bike shop is run by a couple: an English guy who is a former pro mountain bike racer who then had an office job, which he later quit to start the shop and build and sell bikes, and his Dutch wife who is also a cycling buff and speaks 7 languages. As we were learning that it's possible to walk to the shop looking normal and change into bike gear there, they were apparently sizing us up to decide which route to recommend. Read on to the next post to see what they decided.

We finished off the evening with a dinner at a place like we'd hoped Shoko would be - bistro-like restaurant with dim lighting and jazz music and probably a good wine list (if I could tell the difference). Brian ordered a whole plate of fancy shaved ham (who needs side dishes?) that he claims is the best pork product ever aside from J.D. Hoyt's pork chops in Minneapolis. Well-fed and happy, we weren't ready to start any revolutions either.

View from Girona city walls

Barcelona - day 3 - Gaudi and gaudy

On day 3 we were moving a little slower. We started off at Sagrada Familia Cathedral, the famous unfinished masterpiece of Gaudi, the famous quirky architect of Barcelona. I had wanted to see the inside, but there was a line around the block and the sun was shining brightly outside. So instead of standing in line and paying for tickets, we sat at an outdoor cafe in the park across the street and looked at the cathedral from there. I had a hot chocolate, which in Catalan is spelled with an X, and is more like hot pudding than anything. It's really thick and tasty, but I ate the whole thing with a spoon. Anyway, we walked all around the cathedral, the spires topped with fruit, the scary Roman soldiers looking like they come from Star Wars, the green Tree of Life covered in white doves, and the plain concrete front of the church, still under construction.

If you'd like to see all the photos of Barcelona, check out my album on Facebook.

Then we headed to see the Hospital de Sant Pau, another Modernist building that's not as weird but still pretty interesting, and got on the metro headed for Parc Guell. At this point we stopped at the diner you see below for lunch. This was a time it was really good to speak Spanish.

Barcelona is the capital of the province of Catalonia, where the main language is Catalan. On and off throughout history, Catalonia has been independent of the rest of Spain and has a distinct identity. Under Franco's rule, it was illegal to use the Catalan language in public. Now Catalan is widely spoken but so is Spanish. Most of the people I spoke to were happy to chat in Spanish, I was happy for the practice, and we were both happy they didn't have to try speaking English.
Anyway, it was good to speak Spanish here because Brian ended up ordering a bull's tail for lunch and knew what he was getting into when he did it. I was fully aware I'd be getting a fried egg on top of my french fries.

Parque Guell is full of Gaudi creations like this lizard statue and little fairy-tale houses with twisty spires. It does have a great view of the city and we took the opportunity to sit in the sun some more.

On the way back to the hotel, Brian and I made the decision to not wander aimlessly searching for dinner (that no one eats until 9pm), but rather to ask for a recommendation at the hotel. It seemed like a better idea than finding a tourist trap restaurant out of a guidebook. The woman I talked to at the front desk, who seemed about our age or a few years younger, told me that she didn't know much about nearby restaurants but could recommend a great place near the beach called Shoko. I should have known at this point to stop her right there, but I kept on listening. The place, she explained, was really nice and not too expensive and there are always people there on weeknights and they play lounge music. I imagined some sort of artfully lit bistro and got directions.

After heading that way at an appropriate late hour and getting hopelessly lost on the way, we arrived at Shoko. Though no one was waiting on a Tuesday, there was a little roped-off area where you could line up outside to get in. Someone with a headset greeted us at the door and radioed downstairs that two people were coming for dinner. When we went downstairs, we were led past an empty black and red bar to a black and red dining room where we ordered over-priced drinks and sat a 'distressed' wood table. There was lounge music playing, except in the bar area there was thumping techno that we could hear also. Were people dancing to it? No. There were like four men in there watching soccer on TV. The food was actually, fortunately, pretty good. After dinner a woman came by our table and asked whether we'd like to have neck and shoulder massages for ten minutes - at the table! Don't worry, she said, it's over your clothes. I can just imagine someone getting a massage at the table next to mine, groaning while I am trying to eat. We skipped the massage and skipped out of that place as soon as we could. Gaudy? yes. Ridiculous? definitely. Maybe we should have gone back to the sidewalk diner near the park for some bull's tail instead.

Barcelona - day 2 - old town

On our second day in Barcelona we did some serious sightseeing. We walked and walked around the old town, the port, the central boulevard of Las Ramblas... none of which were too crowded but I could imagine a sticky summer day spent bumping against tourist bodies. It's a city worth seeing.
Here are some highlights:

La Boqueria is a covered market that's been operating for hundreds of years. Markets are another thing that I love to visit and Brian doesn't care so much about. This one was pretty cool, though. You can by fancy Spanish hams and fresh juices and empanadas and tripe (nicer word for guts) and lambs with no skin but eyeballs intact.

La Seu Cathedral is a huge gothic church in the historic area of Barcelona. While Santa Maria del Mar was beautiful, La Seu was impressive, imposing even. The arched ceilings were so high and the side altars so ornate that I remembered how cathedrals are (or were) more about showing off than about faith. Right under the altar is the tomb of St. Eulalia, Barcelona's patron saint.

Near the port we tried to go to the Maritime Museum, which is housed in the shipyards where the Armada was built during the Middle Ages. Unfortunately, it was closed for rennovation. So instead we looked at the memorial commemorating Columbus and his conquests, pondering whether anyone in Barcelona wonders whether Columbus deserves a memorial. The statue of the Spanish priest showing a humble naked savage the way was particularly interesting. Then we sat by the water watching boats come in and soaking up the sunshine.

We walked to the point of exhaustion, hunger, and related crankiness (me, not Brian), then stopped for eats and drinks and collapsed back at the hotel.

Barcelona - day 1 - flying oranges

Our first stop in Barcelona was the Carnaval parade. Brian is not a parade guy, or a state fair guy, or a street festival guy, but I love all of those things and he loves me. So to the parade we went. We found the main stage near the old town in Barcelona, surrounded by kids and adults in costume where a band was playing and also announcing what was going to happen. I have no idea what they said because it was in Catalan (which is not really like Spanish at all) but what I gathered was that there would be a parade of all the Carnaval princes and princesses, followed by the arrival of the king. The royalty started to roll in, riding on horse drawn carriages and a decked out in a signature color of the rainbow. They had personalities too. Some were serene and sweet, some were dancing and celebrating, others were nasty and making scary faces. The king himself looked more leering and creepy than regal, and arrived just as it was getting dark. Once his carriage was in, huge orange balloons and confetti fell over the crowd. This part is called (in Spanish) La Naranjada, in honor of the medieval tradition of throwing oranges at people during on the Sunday of Carnaval. I guess balloons don't hurt as much. This all leads up to Ash Wednesday, when, of course, they bury the sardine.

After the parade we wandered around the historic Born neighborhood, stopped at Santa Maria del Mar basilica, and wrapped up the evening with some tapas. We did not order any sardines.

Santa Maria del Mar

I'm back!

In case you haven't given up on me in the last two weeks, I am back with plenty to write about the Carnaval parade and a ridiculous night club in Girona, biking over a mountain (and back) in Girona, and rolling balls through the mud in Hannover. Stay tuned - there are plenty of posts to come.

Off to Barcelona

Brian and I are heading off to Barcelona today, and off the grid for a little while. Even though I'll be internet free, I will make sure to take a few notes and a lot of photos so I can tell you all about it when I get back next weekend.

Cookie monster update

The cookie has been returned.

On Monday, another note appeared at the newspaper offices. Like the first, it was written in letters cut out from magazines. It said that the cookie monster (I refuse to capitalize his name - he's a skinny impostor) planned to return the golden cookie. His reasoning is as follows:

“Because Werni, like me, so loves the cookie, and is now always crying and misses the cookie so much, I'm giving it back.”
Werni is Werner Bahlsen, the CEO of the company and board chair of the International School, who is probably not used to being called Werni in the news media.

The cookie showed up the next morning, lying on a statue of a horse outside of Leibniz University in Hannover, wrapped in a red ribbon.

So now Bahlsen will donate thousands of boxes of cookies to local organizations, and the cookie monster will be a fugitive from the law. The people of Hannover are probably a little disappointed that the drama is over, or at least we think so. I hear the Count might be up to no good in Hamburg.

Wind socks, tetris, and antlers

Put on your pith helmets, the photo safari continues.

At Aegidientorplatz, one of the busiest intersections in town and one that's hard to avoid when heading into town from our place, you'll see this work of art in the median:

It's a series of spotted poles topped with stiff sort of wind socks that rotate in the breeze. I would assume the wind socks were white at one time but now they are a dingy grayish brown, probably because of the auto exhaust. The poles look like their white paint has been strategically chipped off in places, reminding me of a dairy cow's spots. I like there's not just concrete in the middle of the road, and that it's a work of art that moves, but it just doesn't move me.

Neither does this one, also at Aegidientorplatz, near the tram station:

Maybe it's supposed to be a gateway or an entrance. After all, the ancient city wall was near this spot.
To me it looks ike someone was playing a giant game of Tetris and lost a couple of pieces along the way. But this one I do really like:

Man with Deer by Stephan Balkenhol

 

 

 

On the pedestrian shopping street, right by the department stores and the kebab shops, stands a buck with a man sitting on his antlers. I like how fragile he seems, cradled in this huge animal's headgear. I like the urban-ness of his business attire against the wild-ness of the bucks's fur. I also wonder how it would feel to take a ride around Hannover like that.

Plus, when you are on a safari, it's good to see the wildlife.

C is for Cookie

A crime was committed in Hannover recently. I promise we'll get back to the photo safari soon, but I could not pass this one up.
Somebody stole the golden cookie.

The golden cookie was part of the facade at the headquarters of the Bahlsen cookie company.
Bahlsen has been making cookies since 1889. They even kept making cookies, along with emergency rations, during World War II. Now Bahlsen is an international company, still based in Hannover. It's CEO, Warner Bahlsen, is also the chairman of the board of the International School.

The Bahlsen offices*

On the facade of the Bahlsen building in Hannover is a sculpture of two men carrying a big pretzel with a Leibniz cake hanging inside it. The sculpture is over 100 years old and hangs high above the street.

*I stole the photo on the left from my friend Kaska's blog. She also wrote about this story but tells it in photos.


I should take a moment to tell you that German cookies (keks) are, well, not like American ones. The most famous ones, Leibniz cakes, are like butter cookies or shortbread. Most of their cookies are sort-of Leibniz Keks-based, but in different shapes and with different flavors. They are not bad, but they are no chocolate chip, macadamia, oatmeal-raisin, butterscotch or thin-mint. Most of the cookies we eat come from my oven. German desserts are generally good, but the cakes are drier than what I'm used to and everything is a little less gooey. They compensate, however, in chocolates and gummi candies of all kinds.

Before and after

Anyway, here is how the great cookie caper is unfolding:
About a week ago, the golden cookie, weighing 20 kilos, went missing. Bahlsen offered 1,000 euros as a reward for whoever could find and return it. On Tuesday, the Hannover Allgemeine Zeitung, the main newspaper in town, received a ransom note. The note demanded that if Bahlsen ever wanted its cookie back, it would have to donate the 1,000 euros to Hannover's animal shelter and cookies to all the patients at the local children's hospital. And not just the Leibniz cakes. The cookie-napper asked specifically for ones with milk chocolate on the back side.

And the culprit? Cookie Monster himself, or more likely his impostor (he's called the Krumel Monster in German). His photo with the golden cookie appeared on the ransom note, though he's looking a little thin and not furry enough to be the real thing... In the letter, the thief threatens to throw the golden cookie in the trash with Oscar the Grouch if his demands are not met.

Photo of the ransom note

Rough translation of the note (no, I didn't translate it myself):
To the cookie-less:
I have the cookie! You want to have it, and therefore on a day in February you will want to give all the children in the Bult Hospital cookies (as a gift). But they have to be those with milk chocolate in them, not those with dark chocolate, and not the ones without chocolate. And a golden cookie for the children in the cancer ward. Otherwise this won’t happen. Furthermore, you will want to give the 1,000 Euro reward to the animal shelter in Langenhagen. Then hopefully you’ll have the cookie. This is dear to me and therefore you will want to be really generous. Truly this is serious! Otherwise: the cookie will come to Oscar (the Grouch) in the garbage can. Really!!! When you’ve done all of this, I will write another letter that tells you where the biscuit is.
Cookie Monster

Bahlsen has agreed to the cookie monster's demands, and has topped them. The company has agreed to also donate 52,000 boxes of cookies to 52 local charities if and when the golden cookie is returned.

The real cookie monster has since replied on Sesame Street's twitter account. He tweeted (of course he tweets, why wouldn't he? Though it must be tough to type with those 4 furry blue fingers):
“Me no steal the golden cookie, but me willing to help find real cookie thief!”

The incident has made international news and is a great, accidental, marketing opportunity for Bahlsen. However, what will the 52 local organizations do with 1,000 boxes of cookies each? That's a lot of snacks for the break room. How about Bahlsen donates money to them instead??

Is this a crime? yes. Extortion? I guess so. It's pretty funny though. Could an international school student be involved? Possible but not likely.
If this is the biggest crime to make the news in Hannover, I guess we are doing ok. A scarier prospect is the possibility that my stash of chocolate chips will run out before I get back to the U.S. to buy more.