Schlüssel fuss

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Stella has been requiring the service of people besides David and I to keep her company during the day. While we have two people lined up who walk or just hang out with our overly smart, bored and anxious dog, we've had some trouble getting each of them a key to get in our apartment since we have three keys total. It turns out that you can't just head down to the nearest Ace Hardware and have them grind a key in 5 minutes for 2 bucks. Oh no. That would be entirely un-Germanlike.

I've tried to copy our schlüssel (key) at 5 different schlüssel dienst (locksmiths) in our neighborhood with the exact same results. Each one looks at the key, turns it over in their hands, shakes their head and mutters something about security. Given my pathetic German skills, I quietly take back the offending key and leave the shop. At the third shop, it finally dawned on me that this was no ordinary key. The locksmith spoke very slowly in German and I understood about half (very exciting). The gist was that the key is a security key and is controlled by *one* locksmith in Hamburg. The next day I spoke with our secretary, Bianca, who confirmed that this was the case. She also indicatd that we would have to receive permission from the building manager and possibly the other tenants to make a copy of this blasted key.

The other two (of five) locksmiths we visited were just to be on the safe side and to see if there were any unscrupulous locksmiths who might make an illegal copy. No go. So! I had my secretary call the *one* locksmith in Hamburg (a city of 3 million) authorized to copy our key to arrange to copy my key. The locksmith referred us to the building manager who sent a fax to the *one* locksmith in Hamburg authorized to copy our key. We didn't have to get permission from the other tenants (whew!). However, I was then informed that the cost of this little transaction was to the tune of 26 euro. With the current exchange rate that's right about $38. For a key. Just one key to our apartment. It's not special. It doesn't have a tracking device on it or even a beer opener on the end. What a racket.

To make matters just slightly more nerve racking, if any of these four tightly controlled keys goes missing, we are responsible to replace the locks on the entire building since our key allows access to the stairwell and garage. If any of these four keys does go missing, I am totally telling the building manager that it was lost in a fiery car crash or it is at the bottom of the Elbe or I left it in the U.S. when I was home on vacation and my mother threw it into the garbage incinerator. The silliest part is that there is no address on the key other than the locksmith's. So, I am not exactly sure what someone who happened to find a missing housekey in Hamburg might do with it. Go door to door? Good luck with that.

To my and David's chagrine, today I turned 26 euro into a non-descript key, which I promptly gave to Laurel the dog walker. For the love of a dog.

Other tidbits - today is Halloween. The Germans are celebrating this holiday in increasing numbers each year. According to my colleagues, Halloween was essentially unknown in Germany until about 5 years ago. And tonight I saw flocks of little witches, ghosts and what-have-you working the blocks for candy. I can't believe it took German kids this long to implement a day of free candy. Silly children.

To celebrate the holiday, David took a bunch of candy to work today. He thought reverse trick-or-treating would be fun - going office to office offering a bowl of candy around. Everybody thought it was his birthday and he got lots of strange looks. Yet they took the candy. Silly people.

Finally, today I read an article that Wal-mart is kicking off the holiday season on Friday with doorbusters typically reserved for black Friday. Creepy. I've noticed the beginnings of the holiday frenzy here, too. Decorations are showing up in stores, the candy and other holiday treats are appearing on grocery store shelves. I kind of understand - Halloween is a faker holiday in Germany and there's no Thanksgiving. That basically leaves an entirely holiday-less autumn. No fun. So let's eat rum balls in October!

Happy Halloween, everybody!

Of course, I still love Hamburg.

Hurray for Inge!

Last week Thursday I came home from work to find that Stella had attempted to eat her way out of the front door. For no good reason. At least not that I was able to discern. She knew she totally blew it, too. I no more than walked in the door and saw wood chips on the floor than she lost control and peed on the floor. This was so out of character for Stella – the peeing and the destructive behavior. She has always been slightly neurotic but it had been almost entirely confined to crowded places like the farmer’s market and in situations where people she doesn’t know try to touch her. But for some reason, her inner crazy bubbled over and she decided that she wanted to let it out (of the apartment, by the looks of it).

I have a hypothesis about her behavior. I think it is a cumulative effect from a number of factors. First of all, we left her twice on long weekends to stay in the apartment while Laurel (our dogsitter) let her out several times a day. I think she is worried that us leaving means us not returning for days while she is largely cooped up in the apartment. Secondly, Stella learned how to open the front door if we don’t slide the deadbolt. We found a note on our door a few weeks ago – ‘Do you miss your dog?’ Our neighbor, Inge, had rescued Stella from the stairwell (to where she had escaped once she busted out) and hustled her into Inge’s apartment one floor above ours, where she spent the afternoon relaxing. I thanked Inge profusely, recovered Stella, and apologized in a similar fashion. This was the first time I met Inge.

Stella managed her Houdini routine one more time and we found her in the stairwell. She was very excited to see us. Go figure. Apparently, two times was enough to hardwire Stella’s new found skill into her doggy brain. I think she must have been giving it half-hearted attempts ever since but we’d been diligent about locking the door. Last Thursday she must have gotten down to business scratching at the door and, I assume, chewing the edge once she realized that the handle wasn’t budging.

That night after I had picked up all the little door chips in hopes of gluing them back in place, David taped two large cardboard pieces around the side and bottom of the door and hung a pillow case over the handle area to minimize the scratch damage. Friday after work I came home to total cardboard annihilation. Both rectangles of cardboard were ripped off the door and shredded. For good measure, Stella tore the pillowcase off the door and chewed a perfect circle in it. There were also more scratches and the door’s volume was slightly diminished. I wasn’t sure what to do other than clean up and let her chase the tennis ball for half an hour.

David and I had a long heart to heart about a plan to deal with Stella’s craziness and we concluded that intensive training supplemented with Laurel coming around a couple of times a week to break the monotony would hopefully do the trick. So, Friday Stella started doggy boot camp: lot’s of training, no following us around the house, absolutely no barking. The usual regimen for a troubled dog. As usual, Stella enjoys training, but I still worried that she would get us evicted.

This leads me to the cupcakes. I bought a vegan cupcake cookbook before we left the U.S. (see earlier post) and I’ve committed to making a batch of cupcakes once per month. This is a compromise. I think if I were left to my own devices, I’d probably make them weekly (or more). In any event, Sunday was cupcake day and I decided on the apple cider cupcakes (the quintessential Autumn cupcake according to the recipe). The recipe supposedly yielded 12 cupcakes but by the time I slid the second 6-pan in the oven, there was still a pool of batter and I figured that 15 or more cupcakes was just asking for trouble.

So, I wrapped one up and headed upstairs to give it to Inge. She answered and asked me to come in. I refused tea and handed her the cupcake. She offered tea again, I refused and then I noticed her very cool, very eclectic apartment. Inge is a painter and her colorful artwork was all over the walls. I asked her a few questions about painting and she finally foisted tea on me. We chatted for a few minutes and the conversation turned to Stella. Inge asked how she was doing and I explained her crazy behavior. Her response wasn’t quite what I had imagined. Instead of the pat response I was expecting – ‘oh, that’s too bad. Good luck with that’ – Inge instead volunteered to walk Stella and spend afternoons with her when she was free from her busy pensioner (Inge’s adjective, not mine) lifestyle. I gladly accepted and Inge was quick to remind me that she was often busy and could only do it a few days a week. I didn’t care; anything would be bound to help.

So, Inge and Stella had their debut walk-date on Monday and apparently it went swimmingly. Stella loves Inge and vice-versa. They go for 2-hour walks to who-knows-where in the afternoons and Stella is mellow and satisfied when I get home. I don’t know how long this might go on. I am hoping to prolong the magic by plying Inge with dinners and more cupcakes. It is getting colder and darker by the day. I am optimistic that Inge is a foul-weather friend but if not, this will hopefully get Stella over the hump while she is getting trained. In any event, I am extremely grateful for Inge and her kindness. So is Stella. And David.

I still love Hamburg. Now I love Inge, too!

Laufen, saufen & tortillas! - Hamburg style

David and I have really been jonesing for some Mexican food and Hamburg is short on Mexican ingredients, namely tortillas. I would also add red chile to that list, but our good friend Jeff took care of that on his last visit (shout out to Jeff). Refried beans are also atrociously expensive (try $6 a can) and dried pintos are a rarity. But we perservered and tracked down dried beans and cheddar cheese to make huevos rancheros. Eggs are a none issue here, as you might expect. Easy to come by and many are organic. Our only option for tortillas were these plastic looking things next to the $6 beans and as I picked up the sad bag, David said he would make tortillas. From scratch. With flour. So I laughed and David looked indignant and we put the crappy looking tortillas back on the shelf. Then Sunday came and we both felt pretty serious about the tortilla issue. David did some research on the web & scoured the Joy of Cooking for tips. We settled on a recipe and away we went.

As it turns out, the only challenging and time consuming part is rolling the damn things out. The dough is a cinch and and to cook them, it takes about 45 seconds a side in a dry skillet. Piece of cake. However, I gave up on achieving roundness after the first try. Instead I settled for 'round-like' or 'resembling a shape that has curves'. Here is a snapshot of one of the worst of the lot:

Once I got the thickness down and quit worrying about the shape, things went relatively smoothly and we managed somewhere around 15 really delicious tortillas (about half of which are waiting patiently in the freezer for the next round of huevos rancheros). David manned the skillet while I rolled - we made quite the tortilla factory here in Deutschland.

Here is a stack of way-better-than-the-crap-they-tried-to-sell-us-at-the-store tortillas:


Note the brown toasted marks that give our tortillas some serious authenticity.

And the finished product (so delicious):


Now that we have allayed our fears that we'll never have decent Mexican food so long as we live in Germany, I am ready to conquer corn tortillas. Any recommendations for a decent tortilla press?

What else? I started running with a club on Tuesdays - about 9 kilometers. It's a beautiful run through the Stadtpark and the people that run are really friendly and encouraging. Today, however, I was pretty sure I would die. It was so hard and I don't know why. Last week it was as hard as you would expect 9km to be but today was warm by Hamburg standards and I think I wore too much clothing. I really like the after-run time - I feel hungry like I actually should be hungry, not just because it's 7. And I am just bone tired. Kind of weird feelings to like, but hey, I don't criticize your idiosyncrasies. The group ends each run (laufen) with a little glass of champagne (saufen). Last week I participated in the laufen & saufen. This week, though, no saufen - the bubbles make my stomach feel awful after a run.

David started rock climbing at a gym close to our house. The husband of the lady who watches Stella is an avid climber and I think David has just been waiting to meet someone to belay him. We both feel kind of guilty because Matt (the climber) and Laurel (the dog watcher) are American. We sort of agreed that we would try to stick with German friends while we were here, but they are just so nice and our German friends are busy a lot. Or they don't feel like speaking English all the time while we speak no German. Or maybe we just smell. In any event, they are nice people and I imagine the guilt (and my last urges to learn German) will pass.

One last note. Even though most of my loyal readership are Rutkowskis or live with a Rutkowski, I want to let everyone know we are doing a Brady Christmas - all the Rutkowskis plus Carmen Borsa will be here on the 23rd. We are really looking forward to it and it should be lots of fun - Hamburg style. Although, I am committed to no all-nighters. J-Amy and the Fischmarkt at 5am nearly killed me.

Of course, I still love Hamburg.

Gerburtstag etiquette, steaming poop and Thai boxing

So David's birthday was a couple of weeks ago now and Germans have some work related traditions that involve your Geburtstag (birthday). First of all, as the birthday boy, David was responsible for bringing cake to share with everyone - the occassion of which is announced via email at the beginning of the day. I love getting those emails because they mean afternoon cake.

This cake business essentially means that I am responsible for bringing cake to share with everyone. Not that David doesn't know his way around the kitchen. He does. From the sink to the saute pan, David can navigate dinner (and breakfast and lunch). He doesn't bake, though. But! I do, coincidentally. And before I left the good ol' US of A, I picked up a copy of 'Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World.' You can imagine where this is going right?

As it turns out, carrot cupcakes with 'cream cheese' frosting were a raging, if totally puzzling, hit. First of all, no one knew what a cupcake was and there were many inquiries to that effect. Some wondered how a cupcake was different than a muffin (silly people). Many wanted to know how I got the little cakes into those fluted papers. I felt like we were introducing our colleagues to some exotic and rare dish (think poisonous blowfish, here), instead of harmless, delectable little cupcakes. Everyone managed to get over their initial shock to consume the entire double batch. I don't know about the world, but these cupcakes certainly took over Germany. I think we could go into business. I understand cupcake bakeries are all the rage in the U.S. lately.

The other funny, interesting and kind of cool thing about birthdays in Germany is that everyone who knows it's your birthday greets you with a boisterous "Congratulations!" and a handshake. This is unusual on a number of levels - Germans are pretty cool cucumbers. Not much smiling or other superficial niceties that we are used to. David and I also thought it was funny that people congratulated him on completing another year. It was like we had a baby or something. People we barely know came into the office and shook DAvid's hand and clapped him on the back. Weird but nice. We both concluded that the little cake party and all the congratulating that went on really did make his birthday kind of special, even for a work day.

Now for a completely different topic. Germany is pretty hyper-orderly. No trash on the streets or subways. Most people keep their little gardens or yards as neat as a pin. And weirdo lurkers like David and I who look in other people's windows at night will notice that houses are impecably tidy. This leaves no worldly explanation for the steaming piles of poop that dot the sidewalks and parks. It's just dog poop, but still. Yuck. If I didn't closely watch where I walk, I would have pooh-shoe all the time. In any case, I have it a lot. I'm glad that there is a spigot by the door to our building. I just can't figure out why people don't pick up after their beasts. There is actually a campaign in Hamburg. You can get free poop bags at the drugstores and other places and they have installed these nice red receptacles all over town. Still there is a lot of poop. I can't imagine what it was like before the big campaign.

I started Thai Boxing a couple of weeks ago. It is a combination fighting style that involves kicking, punching and grappling. You'll see it now and again on Ultimate Fighting. So once a week I go to this authentically ratty boxing gym, complete with loaner gloves that smell like feet. The coach looks pretty plain and innocuous until he gets into this crouching, boxer position. And then you realize that he could take the Bear's defensive line on one foot. Tom, the coach, has been Thai boxing for 15 years and his English isn't so good. Neither is my German. But he is patient and helpful and I imagine I'll be kicking ass in no time. I am also picking up a little more German. Especially words that deal with boxing-relevant anatomy: elbow, fist, knee, etc.

Ok, last bit. I have a Picass web album of our trip to Florence. Sorry, I am too lazy to lable all of the pictures, but you'll get the idea. http://picasaweb.google.com/leslie.rutkowski/FlorenceOct07

That's about it. Of course, I still love Hamburg!

Admiring David and other masterpieces

Huh? I know, the title may be a bit misleading (although David has got it going on). But! The David I speak of isn't my David but THE David sculpted by Michelangelo like 500 years ago out of some discarded crappy piece of marble (or so the story goes).

We spent the last 4 days in Florence, Italy admiring art, art, and more art(hence the late weekly post). I'm not even a big art fan, but Florence is really amazing and we managed to pack a record number of activities into a short period of time. This including hikes in the Tuscan hillsides, visits to the major galleries, cathedrals and other spots of interest and undertaking a major eating tour of Tuscan food. I managed to have gelato 5 times, tiramisu twice and I lost count of how many pizzas and plates of pasta. Oh, and Japanese ramen (of course).

We took off Saturday afternoon from Luebeck leaving Stella in the capable hands of a wonderful American girl who Stella digs. Because flights on Ryanair are so dirt cheap, we bussed an hour to the airport and an hour from Pisa to Florence. One pleasant consequence of this roundabout traveling was seeing the leaning tower from the air - it really leans a lot.

Arriving in Florence we found our very plain, completely adequate hostel and went to dinner followed by a walk about town (and gelato). I know this sounds cliche (in fact saying it sounds cliche sounds cliche), BUT Florence is overflowing with amazing Renaissance art around every corner. It's also overflowing with something else, but I'll get to that in a moment. Just glance up (or down or sideways) and friezes of the Virgin Mary, sculptures of Zeus, and jaw-dropping architechture overwhelm. You would need a month (and a whole lot more patience than I could ever manage to summon) to take it all in.

Just a couple of highlights to avoid boring my faithful readership. The Academy of Art houses David and, again at the risk of sounding sappy and cliche, I really don't think I've ever felt anything about a work of art other than a vague sense of 'wow, that's pretty' or 'jeez, I could never in a million years muster that kind of talent'; however, David was an experience I just won't even bother trying to give words to. It would cheapen it. Just go (but not a day before your 60th birthday).

We also lost our minds for the countryside. I bet you've NEVER heard that about Tuscany - the quality of the light, the beauty of the hills, the cyprus, the climate, blah blah blah. Really, though - a showstopper to be sure. Cool, too, was climbing to the top of the main cathederal, commonly called the Duomo. 463 steps (no lifts - the signs warned over and over) to a great view of the city and the surrounding hills. Besides the great food, I also really enjoyed the Uffizi Gallery with 'many important works' by Botticelli, Da Vinci - the usual suspects.

This just sounds like an exercise in snobbery of the worst kind. So I'll leave what I liked at that. And stress to everyone that if you don't take a trip to Florence, you may die slightly less cultured (and likely thinner).

A few funny bits. The city is completely overrun (in no uncertain terms) with Americans in particular and tourists in general. I had heard that Florence is a vacation spot for many, many Americans but just as it is not possible to give David sufficient words, it is also a lost cause to describe the American situation. I can't imagine what high season must be like. There were also heaps of Asian tourists and a smattering of fellow Europeans. On the aggregate, it was just ridiculous. The absurdly narrow sidewalks were mostly impassable and the line to get into the big spots was hours long without reservations (lucky us - we had the inside tip about reservations). I felt embarrassed, too. Throngs of obnoxious, rich, badly dressed Americans mucking up and down the streets yammering loudly about nothing in particular with their money belts outside their clothes. It's enough to make you want to be French.

Did I mention the gelato? I just have to say a few words about it: creamy, light, excellent. I've never had any to compare. Now, I still love Hamburg. But, Florence (minus the hoards of tourists) has a little piece of my heart.