So, on Tuesday - our weeknight off from language class - we decided it would be nice to go to the park and have a little picnic. The stars were really aligned since the weather was nice AND we had a little free time. David had an appointment for a haarschnitt (hair cut), so I left him at the friseur while I walked down to the grocery store to grab some treats for our outing. I had Stella in tow, who always gets nervous when we take her to the shopping street by our house. In fact, a couple of weeks ago she chewed her leash in half and ran all the way home (through city traffic), stopping to take a giant dump in the middle of the street, the sight of which actually clued me in that she was headed home.
I figured that I had her little chewing problem under control when David and I made a leash from a length of chain and typical leash hardware - a handle, a clip for her collar, you know. I even knitted the handle so I wouldn't have to hold onto a piece of chain. It was great. Or so I thought. When we got to the store, I chained her to a sturdy pole and walked into the store relatively satisfied that there wasn't much she could get into.
As I was just ticking off the last item on the list, I noticed a woman frantically walking around the store and asking people a question and pointing outside. I thought I heard her say "hund" and she confirmed it when she asked me the same question - "blah, blah, hund, blah blah?" I sort of shook my head to indicate I wasn't sure what she wanted and mumbled in my best German that I didn't speak the language. She looked at me with some annoyance and moved on. Unfortunately our German lessons are limited to plain and slow speakers who often repeat themselves. I certainly wasn't advanced enough to listen to frantic German. I figured I better finish my business and get outside in case Stella completely lost her mind and bit a passer-by or who knows what.
By the time I hustled outside, a crowd of eight or ten onlookers had gathered around Stella. Most people were standing around looking concerned with furled brows and much lip biting. One guy was putting down a bowl of water while a woman was unfastening Stella's leash from the pole. Stella looked utterly terrified. In my very most panicked German I said, "Excuse me, that dog is mine," as I relieved the woman of Stella's leash. The crowd took on a definitively mob-like tone, with the water bowl guy and the unleasher dressing me down for my apparent indiscretions and extreme neglect. I quickly turned around to leave and the woman who was questioning everyone in the store yelled at me for good measure. I told her again that I didn't speak German. She didn't care. Dear god, I thought, a small natural or man-made disaster would sure be handy right now.
To make matters worse, David and I agreed to meet in front of the grocery store after his haircut. I didn't dare stay there with all of the angry dog people, so I headed down the block hoping to bump into him. As I hustled away, I noticed that Stella had eaten the knitted handle. I wasn't sure if this was the cause of or a reaction to the crowd that gathered. In either event she was outside a total of ten minutes. Ten. I've seen people go in to do their weekly shopping and leave their dog outside the store for 30 minutes or more. I've also seen guys belly up to the bar with their faithful pooches longingly staring in the pub door. I'm not really sure what gives. Maybe it's that shelter dog look Stella has about her - sort of thin, scared and nearly feral. She always manages to look freshly abandoned. Whatever it was, I am very hesitant to show my face there, after that ruckus. It could have only been worse if the police had come. Jeez.
Otherwise, our little picnic in the park was nice. The park was really pretty - lot's of weeping willows and a big pond in the middle. There were also quite a few mosquitoes, but I don't think I'm allergic to German mosquitoes. Again, I don't know what gives. I do know that those little bastards can keep you up all night, though. This I discovered last night, when our friend Florian, on his way back to the U.S., stayed over for a visit. We went out after dinner for a beer at the little pub-in-the-park by our house and since it was so nice out, we decided to leave the big French doors at the front of our apartment open. When we returned about an hour later, I noticed a couple of mosquitoes in the bathroom, where I promptly smashed them. After cleaning up the smeary bug guts, I got ready for bed and went to lay down. About 20 minutes later I heard this high pitched buzz. I knew right away what it was. I figured the pesky little blood sucker would have a bite and then take a rest. Either he was exceedingly hungry or there were a whole flock of them. The buzzing went on all night. Finally around 3 a.m., I wizened up and stuffed my ears with toilet paper. This helped some, enough to sleep, but I could still hear that whining buzz from time to time. Ugh.
Even after mortifying embarrassment, I still love Hamburg. We are planning a day trip to Lubeck this weekend. I'll keep you posted.
Monday, August 13, 2007
Sunday, August 5, 2007
Day Trippin'
I feel like in the last couple of weeks the only thing I have to comment on is the weekend. I blame it mostly on the German class. David actually dropped out of the class and then on Monday, he showed up just in time for class. I laughed because I almost didn't go. It would have been ironic if the guy who had complained most bitterly (but felt guilty) wound up sitting in class by himself. I would have been at home wondering what in the heck happened to David. After this drama, we decided to preserve our sanity and our clear conscience and just leave class at break. The class runs for 1.5 hours and then we have a 15 min break and return for the last 45 minutes, which is largely review and no one is really paying any attention anyway. Maybe this last bit is to allay my guilt, but whatever. We are still learning German and doing our best to stay sane.
So, as I was saying, not much exciting happens during the week. BUT! The weekends are always fun. Friday night we ate at an excellent Afghani restaurant near Hamburg University. The food was tasty and the owners/waiters were so nice. Stella was invited, too, which is very cool. The waiter said she is ALWAYS welcome. One (other) nice thing about Hamburg is that waiters and waitresses always offer to bring water for your dog.
The next day, we went to the market where I get to practice my paltry German. "Ich moechte zwei tomaten, bitte." Maybe this German class isn't all bad - I can carry on baby conversations. For instance, last weekend, two little boys threw the ball for Stella and we were able to converse - "how are you? where are you from? what's your name?" That's really as far as it goes with kids, but it helps to practice. When it was time to go, I said "I have to go home." They both mimicked me "I have to go home?" Funny.
After the market we headed downtown to pick up train tickets for a day trip we wanted to take on Sunday. As it happened, we stumbled on a gay pride parade. So fun! We were surrounded by elaborate floats bursting with techno and baby-smooth men gyrating and throwing condoms at the onlookers. Guys wasted on X were lolling over the side of the floats trying to touch and be touched. The best was the float with the older gay guys. The music was still bumping, but they weren't doing too much - just sort of sedately smoking cigarettes and sipping cocktails.
The rest of the day we spent just poking around town eating French fries and riding the ferry up and down the Elbe river. I can really get used to this weekend thing. Good riddance grad school.
7 foot drag queen (Not at the gay pride fest):
This morning we got up and took the train to an old town about 70 miles from here (Celle). There was a schloss (castle) a really old, formerly Catholic, now Lutheran church (what church around here isn't), and A MEXICAN RESTAURANT. We had to try it. With exceedingly low expectations we both ordered enchilada style vegetarian burritos. The weird thing was, they were actually pretty good. Not great. Certainly not great Mexican food. But pretty good. The veggies were fresh, the enchilada sauce was tangy and the tortillas were soft. I really couldn't complain.
Here are a couple of photos from the town:
We relaxed on the train ride home with a couple of beers from the station kiosk and watched a couple sitting across from us make out. I mean right across from us. The seats are set up so that two pairs of seats face one another and there really isn't anywhere else to look. It was weird. David took a nap. In fact, David is taking a nap now.
Another week, another euro.
I still love Hamburg!
As an aside: I'd like to recommend an excellent book about the allied bombings in Hamburg: The End by Hans Erich Nossack. It's just 63 pages long and it is artistic, horrifying and excellent. It's written from the perspective of a Hamburgian who watched the bombing and subsequent firestorm from across the river. Really, pick it up if you can.
So, as I was saying, not much exciting happens during the week. BUT! The weekends are always fun. Friday night we ate at an excellent Afghani restaurant near Hamburg University. The food was tasty and the owners/waiters were so nice. Stella was invited, too, which is very cool. The waiter said she is ALWAYS welcome. One (other) nice thing about Hamburg is that waiters and waitresses always offer to bring water for your dog.
The next day, we went to the market where I get to practice my paltry German. "Ich moechte zwei tomaten, bitte." Maybe this German class isn't all bad - I can carry on baby conversations. For instance, last weekend, two little boys threw the ball for Stella and we were able to converse - "how are you? where are you from? what's your name?" That's really as far as it goes with kids, but it helps to practice. When it was time to go, I said "I have to go home." They both mimicked me "I have to go home?" Funny.
After the market we headed downtown to pick up train tickets for a day trip we wanted to take on Sunday. As it happened, we stumbled on a gay pride parade. So fun! We were surrounded by elaborate floats bursting with techno and baby-smooth men gyrating and throwing condoms at the onlookers. Guys wasted on X were lolling over the side of the floats trying to touch and be touched. The best was the float with the older gay guys. The music was still bumping, but they weren't doing too much - just sort of sedately smoking cigarettes and sipping cocktails.
The rest of the day we spent just poking around town eating French fries and riding the ferry up and down the Elbe river. I can really get used to this weekend thing. Good riddance grad school.
7 foot drag queen (Not at the gay pride fest):
This morning we got up and took the train to an old town about 70 miles from here (Celle). There was a schloss (castle) a really old, formerly Catholic, now Lutheran church (what church around here isn't), and A MEXICAN RESTAURANT. We had to try it. With exceedingly low expectations we both ordered enchilada style vegetarian burritos. The weird thing was, they were actually pretty good. Not great. Certainly not great Mexican food. But pretty good. The veggies were fresh, the enchilada sauce was tangy and the tortillas were soft. I really couldn't complain.
Here are a couple of photos from the town:
We relaxed on the train ride home with a couple of beers from the station kiosk and watched a couple sitting across from us make out. I mean right across from us. The seats are set up so that two pairs of seats face one another and there really isn't anywhere else to look. It was weird. David took a nap. In fact, David is taking a nap now.
Another week, another euro.
I still love Hamburg!
As an aside: I'd like to recommend an excellent book about the allied bombings in Hamburg: The End by Hans Erich Nossack. It's just 63 pages long and it is artistic, horrifying and excellent. It's written from the perspective of a Hamburgian who watched the bombing and subsequent firestorm from across the river. Really, pick it up if you can.
Monday, July 30, 2007
Boozin' with the post-modernists
Ok. I know, I'm late. You probably sat down Sunday morning/afternoon with a cuppa joe to see what those wacky expats were up to. And nothing. Not a word.
Sorry.
But, here's the scoop, quickly because David is waiting to use the phone, which doubles as the internet - like back in the day. Only now it's the internet that doubles as a phone. Semantics aside, we met our friends (Melonie, Jens and Michael - see earlier post) for a few beers on Friday. We met at 9pm and when we finally stumbled home it was half past 4 and the sun was coming up. Good lord. It was Misawa-style. Although, this little fest was capped at a Turkish "pida" place where a husband and wife were freshly rolling out these phat little oblong pizzas that were loaded with spinach, feta and an egg and then baked in an oven. I'm telling you, that was the best meal I've had in Germany. And the food is generally darned good here - so that says a lot.
Saturday we didn't get up to much in the day. But in the evening we took a stroll through something called the "Dom" (pronounced Dome). It's like a carnival on steroids. This thing spanned acres and acres - there must have been a hundred different wurst vendors. We enjoyed a hearty dose of pommes frites. Although, I have to tell you, Germans have a nasty habit of serving this weird ketchup. It's like some kind of liquidy goo that vaguely resembles ketchup thinned with water and then re-thickened with corn starch. So it is sort of red and translucent. The really ick thing is that it just tastes like curry. I've got a pretty tolerant palette, but this viscous ketchup-wannabe isn't doing it.
I also had a "waffeln" covered with whipped cream (no sugar) and cherries. Now, that, my friends, was devine! Anyway, the Dom had so many rides and full sized roller coasters, it put Knoebels to shame. I kid you not - and the whole thing is open for just a couple of weeks. It was really remarkable.
We ended the weekend with Sunday dinner. Melonie, Jens, Michael and his girlfriend, Sabine (Suh-bean-uh) came over and we had a huge pot of tomato soup and bread and chocolate cake and fruit with yoghurt. Whoa, momma. It rained all day but the hot soup was just the trick. And it's nice to make friends - really cool friends. It took us nearly two years to meet people in Illinois. (I know, did we stink, or something?) So, this is record friend-making. And it's nice.
Language class is dragging us both into an abyss from which I'm not sure we'll ever recover. I was thinking today, we just defended our dissertations two months ago (in record time, mind you), moved to a new country, started a new job. And now we both sit in a class for 8 hours a week. I'm just not fit to sit in a class anymore. I can't. But, we have 4.5 weeks left. So, I go. David keeps threatening to drop the class. I hope not - then it would suck more.
I still love Hamburg, but I don't like German.
Sorry.
But, here's the scoop, quickly because David is waiting to use the phone, which doubles as the internet - like back in the day. Only now it's the internet that doubles as a phone. Semantics aside, we met our friends (Melonie, Jens and Michael - see earlier post) for a few beers on Friday. We met at 9pm and when we finally stumbled home it was half past 4 and the sun was coming up. Good lord. It was Misawa-style. Although, this little fest was capped at a Turkish "pida" place where a husband and wife were freshly rolling out these phat little oblong pizzas that were loaded with spinach, feta and an egg and then baked in an oven. I'm telling you, that was the best meal I've had in Germany. And the food is generally darned good here - so that says a lot.
Saturday we didn't get up to much in the day. But in the evening we took a stroll through something called the "Dom" (pronounced Dome). It's like a carnival on steroids. This thing spanned acres and acres - there must have been a hundred different wurst vendors. We enjoyed a hearty dose of pommes frites. Although, I have to tell you, Germans have a nasty habit of serving this weird ketchup. It's like some kind of liquidy goo that vaguely resembles ketchup thinned with water and then re-thickened with corn starch. So it is sort of red and translucent. The really ick thing is that it just tastes like curry. I've got a pretty tolerant palette, but this viscous ketchup-wannabe isn't doing it.
I also had a "waffeln" covered with whipped cream (no sugar) and cherries. Now, that, my friends, was devine! Anyway, the Dom had so many rides and full sized roller coasters, it put Knoebels to shame. I kid you not - and the whole thing is open for just a couple of weeks. It was really remarkable.
We ended the weekend with Sunday dinner. Melonie, Jens, Michael and his girlfriend, Sabine (Suh-bean-uh) came over and we had a huge pot of tomato soup and bread and chocolate cake and fruit with yoghurt. Whoa, momma. It rained all day but the hot soup was just the trick. And it's nice to make friends - really cool friends. It took us nearly two years to meet people in Illinois. (I know, did we stink, or something?) So, this is record friend-making. And it's nice.
Language class is dragging us both into an abyss from which I'm not sure we'll ever recover. I was thinking today, we just defended our dissertations two months ago (in record time, mind you), moved to a new country, started a new job. And now we both sit in a class for 8 hours a week. I'm just not fit to sit in a class anymore. I can't. But, we have 4.5 weeks left. So, I go. David keeps threatening to drop the class. I hope not - then it would suck more.
I still love Hamburg, but I don't like German.
Sunday, July 22, 2007
Special Foto Issue
So! I have been getting (increasingly urgent) demands for pictures of our life here so far. To appease my modest readership, I am doing a special photo edition of "Germany or Bust." I hope you enjoy!
These are a few photos of our crazy Ikea bed.
And some of downtown Hamburg:
The train station -
The Rathaus (city hall) -
Look closely for the guy in a thong (and I don't mean flip-flops) -
A couple of photos from the Alster Lake in the city center -
Ok, this one deserves a little story. So, the red light district in Hamburg, known as the Reeperbahn, has a street that is forbidden to women. Guess what it's called? David Strasse. This street is supposedly where the kinkiest of activities go on and where hookers are to be acquired. Ironic? I don't know.
Another downtown shot -
And the Fischmarkt (Fish Market):
The nut that throws bananas -
And the nuts that throw plants. Check out the mustache on the little guy!
I got a sweet ficus from those kooks. Although, I need a rake to clean up after it, so I'm not sure who made out.
The apartment building across from ours -
The harbor -
David on the train (on the way to Harley Days). That ain't Pepsi, baby.
Harley Days!
Sausage, anyone?
Ah, yes. And tonight we have a lovely bubbly to pair with your sausage -
And this little number is composed of spare bike parts. Pretty impressive, I'd say. Bordering on tacky, but still kind of cool.
10 year anniversary weekend -
Wismar (beautiful old town on the Baltic Sea)
A church from 1200-ish
Grass roofed house on the beach -
Our happy little beach dinner -
A 25 euro bottle of wine -
More beachy stuff -
Can you see Stella?
Ratzeburg - a really beautiful old town 1 hour east of HH. This is right on the border of the former GDR. There were watch towers on the hill (I assume to shoot defectors).
A stone lion in the cemetary -
A church from 1100 -
And, this weekend we spent an evening on the Elbe Beach in Hamburg. The big river that runs to the North Sea is the Elbe. It has a huge harbor (nearly entirely destroyed during the war). And there are some fun beaches. One of which we inhabited on Saturday night. It is so cool to watch all of the big ships come in and out. The channel is so narrow that tug boats have to guide these ships in and out of the port. We saw ships from China, Panama, Argentina and Japan. How's that for globalization? Interesting, too, is that the ship crews speak English with the port authority.
David with some folks that we met on Saturday. Michael (not pictured here), a friend from work, was the organizing force behind this little grill party.
Big ships -
Sunset and an industrial, but still beautiful, port view:
There you have it. Just a little slice of life in Hamburg. I'll keep posting photos regularly. If the apartment wasn't such a wreck right now, I'd show you a couple of those photos, too. Be that as it may, I don't want to embarrass myself.
As an aside, David received his copy of Harry Potter yesterday. So, you can imagine what he is doing now. Wow, life after grad school is so nice.
Ah, one last thing. We had pancake breakfast today!!! I finally figured out in what sort of packaging baking powder comes and I got the right flour. Flour is a tricky business in Germany. There are finer and coarser flours, depending on your needs and they are listed by number - Weizenmehl 550, for example. I tried "Instant Mehl 400" a couple of weeks ago. Blech! It was like concrete. But today, my friends, we had a full on American breakfast with maple syrup and everything. Check this business out:
These are a few photos of our crazy Ikea bed.
And some of downtown Hamburg:
The train station -
The Rathaus (city hall) -
Look closely for the guy in a thong (and I don't mean flip-flops) -
A couple of photos from the Alster Lake in the city center -
Ok, this one deserves a little story. So, the red light district in Hamburg, known as the Reeperbahn, has a street that is forbidden to women. Guess what it's called? David Strasse. This street is supposedly where the kinkiest of activities go on and where hookers are to be acquired. Ironic? I don't know.
Another downtown shot -
And the Fischmarkt (Fish Market):
The nut that throws bananas -
And the nuts that throw plants. Check out the mustache on the little guy!
I got a sweet ficus from those kooks. Although, I need a rake to clean up after it, so I'm not sure who made out.
The apartment building across from ours -
The harbor -
David on the train (on the way to Harley Days). That ain't Pepsi, baby.
Harley Days!
Sausage, anyone?
Ah, yes. And tonight we have a lovely bubbly to pair with your sausage -
And this little number is composed of spare bike parts. Pretty impressive, I'd say. Bordering on tacky, but still kind of cool.
10 year anniversary weekend -
Wismar (beautiful old town on the Baltic Sea)
A church from 1200-ish
Grass roofed house on the beach -
Our happy little beach dinner -
A 25 euro bottle of wine -
More beachy stuff -
Can you see Stella?
Ratzeburg - a really beautiful old town 1 hour east of HH. This is right on the border of the former GDR. There were watch towers on the hill (I assume to shoot defectors).
A stone lion in the cemetary -
A church from 1100 -
And, this weekend we spent an evening on the Elbe Beach in Hamburg. The big river that runs to the North Sea is the Elbe. It has a huge harbor (nearly entirely destroyed during the war). And there are some fun beaches. One of which we inhabited on Saturday night. It is so cool to watch all of the big ships come in and out. The channel is so narrow that tug boats have to guide these ships in and out of the port. We saw ships from China, Panama, Argentina and Japan. How's that for globalization? Interesting, too, is that the ship crews speak English with the port authority.
David with some folks that we met on Saturday. Michael (not pictured here), a friend from work, was the organizing force behind this little grill party.
Big ships -
Sunset and an industrial, but still beautiful, port view:
There you have it. Just a little slice of life in Hamburg. I'll keep posting photos regularly. If the apartment wasn't such a wreck right now, I'd show you a couple of those photos, too. Be that as it may, I don't want to embarrass myself.
As an aside, David received his copy of Harry Potter yesterday. So, you can imagine what he is doing now. Wow, life after grad school is so nice.
Ah, one last thing. We had pancake breakfast today!!! I finally figured out in what sort of packaging baking powder comes and I got the right flour. Flour is a tricky business in Germany. There are finer and coarser flours, depending on your needs and they are listed by number - Weizenmehl 550, for example. I tried "Instant Mehl 400" a couple of weeks ago. Blech! It was like concrete. But today, my friends, we had a full on American breakfast with maple syrup and everything. Check this business out:
Monday, July 16, 2007
Sprachen Deutsche, the BIG Ten-Oh, Harley Days and the Beach
So, jeez, where shall I begin? Quite a week we've had, I should say. We started German lessons: (question) Wie geht es Ihnen? (response) Gut, danke. Unt Ihnen? See? It's going well. David hates it and our teacher is like an enthusiastic kindergarten teacher. Did you know, kindergarten is a German word? Nice, huh? I have learned two very important phrases this week. 1) Entschuldigen (excuse me) 2) Sie haben? (do you have?). They are infinitely handy and have gotten me out of considerable jams, so far. I have also found that since we are white, we can spit out a phrase our two and people just sort of assume we are either German or at least European - at least they don't immediately identify us as dirty Americans. Anyway, the class is a real time-sink (3 x week for 2.5 hrs a class). It's kind of screwing up our social mo-jo, but it's never going to get more convenient than now. And the organization is paying. So! We go.
What else? David and I celebrated our ten year anniversary. Huh, you say? 10 years? Is that possible? Yes, apparently so. We have been happily hitched a decade and now find ourselves on a third continent. To celebrate, we had a nice dinner at an Ethiopian restaurant, which, subsequently, we discovered in this cool area full of ethnic veggie places. We then bought a crazy expensive bottle of wine (at least for us - $30) and had a beer in the biergarten in the park. It was really great. Have I mentioned that I love Hamburg? The wine, we saved for the weekend. This nearly leads me to my next point. But first we should talk about Harley Days.
There is an annual Harley Davidson festival in Hamburg, where thousands of German Harley riders, aficionados, poseurs and folks in general come out and admire a fleet of bikes, not all (but nearly all) Harley Davidson. It's funny, for such an American event, there is always the German flair - beer everywhere and sausage galore. We listened to live music, drank beer and watched a German rock-a-billy band speak in German and sing in perfect English. Very weird and kind of cool.
For our anniversary and just to get out, we rented a car and took a drive to the coast and other towns. It was really great. We set out Saturday morning and took a drive to this old-ass town - Wismar. See, the thing about Hamburg is that it was 50% leveled during the war (80% destroyed on the port), so the historical part of Hamburg is not so impressive. But, Wismar is doubly cool. It has really old shit - I'm talking 800 years old, all over the place. And it is in the area that was formerly communist East Germany, or as the locals call it, GDR (maybe, German Democratic Republic?). Anyway, the town was stunning, really. And we camped out on the beach nearby. It was really great. The water was cold but it was beautiful. We soaked up the sun, drank our pricey wine with bread, olive and cheese (I know, how pathetically European is that?) and enjoyed the outdoors. It's been raining pretty much non-stop since we got here and the weather granted us a short break this weekend, which we thoroughly enjoyed.
Today we headed back to HH (that's local for Hamburg - it's a city and a state, hence the doppel H). We rented our car from this discount place that requires you to clean the car and it was due back between 6 and 7. We left our apartment around 5:30 to vacuum and remove all the Stella-hair, but we caught a snag. Again, funny German-ness. Vacuums at the gas station are often closed on Sunday. The automatic ones. The ones that don't require any type of supervision - you just put in a coin and whoosh. Those very vacuums may (seemingly at random) not operate on Sunday, for reasons unbeknownst to me. The girl in the gas station by our apartment was very puzzled by our inquiry for change so that we could use the vacuum. She said, "oh, no. The vacuum is closed." Whatever. So, we drove all over (not a small feat in the city with not a single pair of parallel or perpendicular roads to be had) to find an open gas station. We pulled in to a promising station, got change and were vacuuming for about 5 minutes, when the employee asked us to leave since they were closing. At 6pm. Ugh. I could go for a nice dose of capitalism once in a while. Oh, well. The trade off is that I and everyone else who lives in Germany (except the gas station attendants until 6pm) are forced to take Sunday off and enjoy life in the park or something. Weird concept, huh?
On a tangentially related note. David has noted a number of times that he is impressed by the quality of both the food and the women in Germany. I understand (sort of) both of these observations. You can get a 1 euro frozen pizza at Aldi that will just about knock your socks off. And bread everywhere, including the grocery store, is excellent. The women, too, are impressive. Particularly the older ladies. They all look like aerobics instructors. I don't know if its the bike riding or the high quality food, but these women have got it going on.
What else? David and I celebrated our ten year anniversary. Huh, you say? 10 years? Is that possible? Yes, apparently so. We have been happily hitched a decade and now find ourselves on a third continent. To celebrate, we had a nice dinner at an Ethiopian restaurant, which, subsequently, we discovered in this cool area full of ethnic veggie places. We then bought a crazy expensive bottle of wine (at least for us - $30) and had a beer in the biergarten in the park. It was really great. Have I mentioned that I love Hamburg? The wine, we saved for the weekend. This nearly leads me to my next point. But first we should talk about Harley Days.
There is an annual Harley Davidson festival in Hamburg, where thousands of German Harley riders, aficionados, poseurs and folks in general come out and admire a fleet of bikes, not all (but nearly all) Harley Davidson. It's funny, for such an American event, there is always the German flair - beer everywhere and sausage galore. We listened to live music, drank beer and watched a German rock-a-billy band speak in German and sing in perfect English. Very weird and kind of cool.
For our anniversary and just to get out, we rented a car and took a drive to the coast and other towns. It was really great. We set out Saturday morning and took a drive to this old-ass town - Wismar. See, the thing about Hamburg is that it was 50% leveled during the war (80% destroyed on the port), so the historical part of Hamburg is not so impressive. But, Wismar is doubly cool. It has really old shit - I'm talking 800 years old, all over the place. And it is in the area that was formerly communist East Germany, or as the locals call it, GDR (maybe, German Democratic Republic?). Anyway, the town was stunning, really. And we camped out on the beach nearby. It was really great. The water was cold but it was beautiful. We soaked up the sun, drank our pricey wine with bread, olive and cheese (I know, how pathetically European is that?) and enjoyed the outdoors. It's been raining pretty much non-stop since we got here and the weather granted us a short break this weekend, which we thoroughly enjoyed.
Today we headed back to HH (that's local for Hamburg - it's a city and a state, hence the doppel H). We rented our car from this discount place that requires you to clean the car and it was due back between 6 and 7. We left our apartment around 5:30 to vacuum and remove all the Stella-hair, but we caught a snag. Again, funny German-ness. Vacuums at the gas station are often closed on Sunday. The automatic ones. The ones that don't require any type of supervision - you just put in a coin and whoosh. Those very vacuums may (seemingly at random) not operate on Sunday, for reasons unbeknownst to me. The girl in the gas station by our apartment was very puzzled by our inquiry for change so that we could use the vacuum. She said, "oh, no. The vacuum is closed." Whatever. So, we drove all over (not a small feat in the city with not a single pair of parallel or perpendicular roads to be had) to find an open gas station. We pulled in to a promising station, got change and were vacuuming for about 5 minutes, when the employee asked us to leave since they were closing. At 6pm. Ugh. I could go for a nice dose of capitalism once in a while. Oh, well. The trade off is that I and everyone else who lives in Germany (except the gas station attendants until 6pm) are forced to take Sunday off and enjoy life in the park or something. Weird concept, huh?
On a tangentially related note. David has noted a number of times that he is impressed by the quality of both the food and the women in Germany. I understand (sort of) both of these observations. You can get a 1 euro frozen pizza at Aldi that will just about knock your socks off. And bread everywhere, including the grocery store, is excellent. The women, too, are impressive. Particularly the older ladies. They all look like aerobics instructors. I don't know if its the bike riding or the high quality food, but these women have got it going on.
Sunday, July 8, 2007
Work party and other stuff
So, we’ve successfully managed our first month in Germany. Albeit with no internet (blah!). This is largely due to our complete and total lack of German language skills. Apparently, a letter arrived some days before the 25th (the original day we were supposed to get DSL) that indicated we should be home so that Deutsche Telekom could do some magic that would allow the internet to flow. You know where this is going right? We came home to a nasty-gram from said Deutsche Telekom indicating that we missed our scheduled appointment. I am slightly dubious and here’s why. While I cannot at all read German (other than a few very select words not likely to be found in a notice from the communication company), I am completely proficient at reading dates and times. Further, I looked through all the letters that our internet provider sent and not a one even listed a date or a time. I feel that I’ve built a compelling case; however, it doesn’t change the fact that we’ll be 5 weeks in Germany with no decent connection to the U.S. So, we are rescheduled for the 11th at an undetermined time.
Other exciting events – as I mentioned we got our bikes and during breaks in the rain we’ve managed to ride them to work a few times. Collectively, David and I have only gotten lost 2 times. Not bad, huh? It takes 30 minutes by train or 30 minutes by bike to get to work. It’s nice to have options.
We had our semi-annual company celebration on Thursday. The event began with a guided tour of the zoo. Yes, that’s right. The zoo. Eighty of us, or so, took the U-Bahn across town to the Hagenbeck’s Tierpark where we learned about this character (Hagenback) that basically ransacked countries for their animals and cultural artifacts, which he subsequently installed in his zoo. It was a nice fieldtrip. I liked the elephants and I think David really dug the orangutans. This leads to a funny little anecdote. We are discovering in the course of our time here that a foreigner must endeavor to pronounce German words painstakingly. Otherwise, the German people will have no clue (none whatsoever) what you are saying. Case in point – orangutan. They pronounce it o-rang-u-tan (accent on the letters in bold). We (Americans) say it o-rang-u-tang. Our colleagues were at a loss regarding what exotic creature we could possibly be referring to. After much pantomime and describing these orange monkeys did we get our point across. A friend thinks it’s because not many people besides Germans actually speak the language and therefore, Germans aren’t really used to hearing these words with any kind of an accent. I don’t know, but it’s vital that I practice going “hhhhcccchhhh” in the back of my throat, as it appears to be in nearly every German word.
Our celebration ended with dinner at an American restaurant, which David thought was hilarious. We were pretty impressed, though. It was at pretty good attempt at southern cuisine with a German twist – this means lot’s of sausage, even veggie sausage. AND!!! There was an open bar. Have you ever heard of such a thing? Wine and beer were covered for about three hours. I don’t think much got done on Friday. But it was fun.
So, we start German lessons tomorrow. Three days a week for 2.5 hours at a whack. I feel like I am going back to school. David isn’t at all excited. There isn’t an enormous motivation when nearly everyone speaks really good English. It’s funny, when you ask someone if they speak German, they invariably reply “A little.” You can safely interpret that as they are completely fluent and are qualified to read philosophy in English.
On a totally different subject, we have a German friend who is a professor at Bielefeld University. We know him because he was a visiting scholar this spring at Illinois. His name is Fabian and he is a really super guy. Anyway, he came up this weekend on partly business and partly to hang out. It was a lot of fun and he introduced us to a very cool couple, who are politically active in the community and just really genuine people. Melonie is just finishing her Ph.D. in feminine studies and Jentz.is involved in film and he boxes in his spare time. I think I’m going to try boxing. David is worried that I’m going to lose brain cells or have brain damaged. I don’t know, but I think it would be fun for a bit. We’ll see how it goes.
Other exciting events – as I mentioned we got our bikes and during breaks in the rain we’ve managed to ride them to work a few times. Collectively, David and I have only gotten lost 2 times. Not bad, huh? It takes 30 minutes by train or 30 minutes by bike to get to work. It’s nice to have options.
We had our semi-annual company celebration on Thursday. The event began with a guided tour of the zoo. Yes, that’s right. The zoo. Eighty of us, or so, took the U-Bahn across town to the Hagenbeck’s Tierpark where we learned about this character (Hagenback) that basically ransacked countries for their animals and cultural artifacts, which he subsequently installed in his zoo. It was a nice fieldtrip. I liked the elephants and I think David really dug the orangutans. This leads to a funny little anecdote. We are discovering in the course of our time here that a foreigner must endeavor to pronounce German words painstakingly. Otherwise, the German people will have no clue (none whatsoever) what you are saying. Case in point – orangutan. They pronounce it o-rang-u-tan (accent on the letters in bold). We (Americans) say it o-rang-u-tang. Our colleagues were at a loss regarding what exotic creature we could possibly be referring to. After much pantomime and describing these orange monkeys did we get our point across. A friend thinks it’s because not many people besides Germans actually speak the language and therefore, Germans aren’t really used to hearing these words with any kind of an accent. I don’t know, but it’s vital that I practice going “hhhhcccchhhh” in the back of my throat, as it appears to be in nearly every German word.
Our celebration ended with dinner at an American restaurant, which David thought was hilarious. We were pretty impressed, though. It was at pretty good attempt at southern cuisine with a German twist – this means lot’s of sausage, even veggie sausage. AND!!! There was an open bar. Have you ever heard of such a thing? Wine and beer were covered for about three hours. I don’t think much got done on Friday. But it was fun.
So, we start German lessons tomorrow. Three days a week for 2.5 hours at a whack. I feel like I am going back to school. David isn’t at all excited. There isn’t an enormous motivation when nearly everyone speaks really good English. It’s funny, when you ask someone if they speak German, they invariably reply “A little.” You can safely interpret that as they are completely fluent and are qualified to read philosophy in English.
On a totally different subject, we have a German friend who is a professor at Bielefeld University. We know him because he was a visiting scholar this spring at Illinois. His name is Fabian and he is a really super guy. Anyway, he came up this weekend on partly business and partly to hang out. It was a lot of fun and he introduced us to a very cool couple, who are politically active in the community and just really genuine people. Melonie is just finishing her Ph.D. in feminine studies and Jentz.is involved in film and he boxes in his spare time. I think I’m going to try boxing. David is worried that I’m going to lose brain cells or have brain damaged. I don’t know, but I think it would be fun for a bit. We’ll see how it goes.
Tuesday, July 3, 2007
Our stuff and the American club
Our stuff came from the U.S. on Thursday. All of it. Intact. Weird, huh? Only 5 weeks from Champaign, to Chicago, to New York, across the ocean to Bremen, Germany to our apartment. Seriously. After all the crazy stories and not so much as a plate was broken. And all of our commemorative bathtub coffee cups arrived unscathed. Plus we have our bikes. I feel like a proper German buzzing around town in heels on a bike - it's great. No one wears helmets, though. I gotta tell you, that's just nuts. Even with bike paths, pedestrians could seriously cause damage to you and your property if they don't get out of the way. And neither of us has a bell yet. So I just go "brrrring-brrring." People look at me like I'm nuts, but they get the point.
I've also noticed a curious phenomenon in this country. If you obey the rules (mostly traffic rules - at least so far), people are very resepectful. Pedestrians largely get out of the way, cars give you enough space, and people actually look before they pull out into the intersection. Again, weird. BUT! If you try and cross the street while the sign-hand is red or if you stop your bike at the light and your tires are not within the confines of the clearly marked bike path, look out. All bets are off and it is open season on you and your apparent stupidity. Fair enough, I guess. As long as we understand the rules.
We went to a pre- 4th of July picnic this weekend hosted by the Hamburg American club. Funny thing about the Hamburg American club. It's members are majority German. I'm not really sure why. One of the board members of the club (a rare American) said they are trying to recruit more Americans, preferably younger. Whatever. All I know is that these cats are hoity business types who must know what to do with expat money: how to keep it from the peering eyes of the IRS and how to take advantage of a weak dollar. David is committed to occassionally fraternizing with these people. They had Michael Chertoff at a recent event. Given this, I'm not really sure how long David will want to suffer their company.
Quickly back to the picnic - there was no beer. Huh? Hotdogs, check. Cans of Jack and Coke, check. Mounds and mounds of potato salad, check. Wine, che...See these are the little differences you notice in Germany. No beer, but they had wine. Decent wine. And the kids and the dogs were well behaved. I guess I can get used to this.
Finally, we went to see the U of Hamburg symphony on Sunday. It was great. The building was old and beautiful and we knew one of the violinists. I'm no fan of symphony, but really. How can you beat the symphony in a grand old hall in Hamburg?
Furniture update: we've added houseplants. Lots of houseplants. We went to the fish market and bought a box of plants from the crazy Hollander and his friend with the big moustache (see earlier post). It was a riot - David and I hauling home a 4 foot ficus and 6 other big plants in a cardboard box on the train. We made it and the whole deal only cost 30 euro. For a ficus! Woohoo. We are planning to decorate the ficus for Christmas. I just hope Stella doesn't pee on it. She is a liberated woman lately who has taken to lifting her leg to pee on anything and everything out of doors, for now. I blame Louie.
I've also noticed a curious phenomenon in this country. If you obey the rules (mostly traffic rules - at least so far), people are very resepectful. Pedestrians largely get out of the way, cars give you enough space, and people actually look before they pull out into the intersection. Again, weird. BUT! If you try and cross the street while the sign-hand is red or if you stop your bike at the light and your tires are not within the confines of the clearly marked bike path, look out. All bets are off and it is open season on you and your apparent stupidity. Fair enough, I guess. As long as we understand the rules.
We went to a pre- 4th of July picnic this weekend hosted by the Hamburg American club. Funny thing about the Hamburg American club. It's members are majority German. I'm not really sure why. One of the board members of the club (a rare American) said they are trying to recruit more Americans, preferably younger. Whatever. All I know is that these cats are hoity business types who must know what to do with expat money: how to keep it from the peering eyes of the IRS and how to take advantage of a weak dollar. David is committed to occassionally fraternizing with these people. They had Michael Chertoff at a recent event. Given this, I'm not really sure how long David will want to suffer their company.
Quickly back to the picnic - there was no beer. Huh? Hotdogs, check. Cans of Jack and Coke, check. Mounds and mounds of potato salad, check. Wine, che...See these are the little differences you notice in Germany. No beer, but they had wine. Decent wine. And the kids and the dogs were well behaved. I guess I can get used to this.
Finally, we went to see the U of Hamburg symphony on Sunday. It was great. The building was old and beautiful and we knew one of the violinists. I'm no fan of symphony, but really. How can you beat the symphony in a grand old hall in Hamburg?
Furniture update: we've added houseplants. Lots of houseplants. We went to the fish market and bought a box of plants from the crazy Hollander and his friend with the big moustache (see earlier post). It was a riot - David and I hauling home a 4 foot ficus and 6 other big plants in a cardboard box on the train. We made it and the whole deal only cost 30 euro. For a ficus! Woohoo. We are planning to decorate the ficus for Christmas. I just hope Stella doesn't pee on it. She is a liberated woman lately who has taken to lifting her leg to pee on anything and everything out of doors, for now. I blame Louie.
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