Scale Invariant

Some More Fort Worth

2011-12-27T06:48:00.001-05:00

Everyday at 11:30 a.m. and 4 p.m., about 15 longhorn cows are paraded down Exchange Avenue in the Stockyards section of Forth Worth. The Stockyards section was home to large, working stockyards. Cattle were brought in and out of the area before being shipped across the country in the late 1800s. Later, they were brought to the stockyards to Armour and Swift meat processing plants.

Today's parade is a tribute to that past. Tourists line both sides of the street to watch. I really enjoyed my day in the Stockyards. You can feel the history of Cowtown. I learned that Fort Worth is more than highways and shopping centers.

Here is a view of the pens that used to hold cattle.

Mission Creek flows underneath and behind all the activity in the Stockyards.

On Exchange Street, stands a statue of legendary bulldogger Bill Pickett.

This African-American cowboy invented the bulldogging technique. His method required biting steer on the lips to get them to submit. He learned that from the dogs that helped him in his work.

The remains of the stockyards.

Fort Worth or Bust!

2011-12-27T06:19:00.000-05:00

Downtown Fort Worth. Note the tan building on the right and the brick building on the left.

Those are two very popular building materials in those parts.

I had a horrible flight. After flying international, American domestic flights are real letdowns. There is no legroom. No legroom. Right before the woman in front of me went to sleep, she put her chair back as far as it could. That meant that her chair was about eight inches from my faces. When I checked in, I was offered the opportunity to buy an first class for $135. I thought about it but skipped it. I would have paid five times that amount in order to move. There was also no food, no movies, no television shows, no nothing. The four-hour flight from Newark to Dallas-Fort Worth was about three hours shorter than my flight from Germany and I got all of those things.

Texas is blessed to have Dell company call it home. There were computers with free Internet access sprinkled throughout DFW. I sent Kara an email that I was early and my cellphone was not working. I went outside and waited.

After living in brusque northern Germany, it was nice to be inundated with "Please," "Thank you so much," "Have a good day," "Yes, Ma'am," and "Oh, I'm so sorry."

I was met with a world of tan. The outside of the airport was tan. The parking garage was tan. The nearby hotel was tan. I waited and was excited. It observed all the cars. There were a lot of white cars. In northern Germany, there are a lot of black and gray cars. Go Figure.

Kara pulled up in a white car with her young daughter in the backseat. I feel old. I used to hate it when my parents friends used to note how big I had gotten. It was obvious to me that I had not gotten any bigger. I was the same size as always. I was tempted to say this but I kept the words in. It was so relaxed and cool.

I had some goals for my time in Texas and fulfilled all of them.

Eat egg foo young. [This faux Chinese food makes me very, very happy. This delicacy has not made it to these shores.]

Eat big pieces of meat, especially with bones/

Eat good Tex-Mex.

[Michelin recently started awarding Germany a lot of stars. However, these accolades are mostly for gourmet restaurants that serve great French fare. Germany is not an ethnically-diverse nation, so the food reflects it. The most popular cuts of steaks have no bones and no fat. Mexican food has no kick but does have cream in odd places. Chinese food is as bad as it is anywhere but there is no egg foo young. Germany has many "Asian restaurants," serve food allegedly from China, Japan and Thai under one roof. Therefore, there is a variety of bad food to be had in one place.]

Visit one of the amazing art museums in Fort Worth.

See the place where JFK was shot.

Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check.

It was cool to hang with Kara and her parents. Parents make me nervous. I am constantly making sure that my elbows are not on the table. However, Kara's parents are welcoming and interesting. Her mother, Kathy, was sincerely interested in my life in Germany. I felt honored to go to a blues club with her father, Robert. It was like hanging out with Frank Sinatra in 1965.

Kara had so much going on. Graphic design class and coordinating Angel's various lessons was a sight to behold. Plus, she and her husband, Josh, are renovating some cool houses in Fort Worth. Despite all this activity, we talked, ate, shopped. I love gift shops. I was happy that Kara and Angel moved as slowly through the superb Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth as I did.

As polite and delicious as Texas is, I didn't fall in love with Fort Worth or Dallas. From my short, three-day visit, it seems that the area is beige buildings and shopping centers connected by highways.

A view of downtown Fort Worth on the way from DFW airport.

I needed to go to the store for some juice. To get to the Albert's supermarket from my hotel, I had to cross over a wide highway without a fence. It was the most stressful that I have done in a long time. I had to do this twice. Residential and commercial areas do not mix.

If you need bread, you need to hop in your car to drive along I-30 to get to a store. Also, museums are segregated. The Amon Carter Museum, the Kimbell Art Museum, the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History, the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame, and the Modern sit away from the houses and stores in city's Cultural District.

While one shopping center looked like the other, houses were not carbon copies of one another. Plus, there were no rowhouses or massive housing projects.

I enjoyed my time in the company of Kara and her family. I cannot wait to see them again. It will happen before 2016.

Back in the USA

2011-12-27T03:56:00.000-05:00

A brick from the stockyards in Fort Worth, Texas from the Thurber brick plant.

Christmas just passed but I must mention Thanksgiving because I spent it in the country of its origin. Yes, I went home! Twice in one year. I wanted to take a trip somewhere but not spend much money, so I headed to the United States of America.

I left the hustle and bustle of Germany and landed in JFK a week before the big day. I got the inquisitive immigration officer. But I didn't flinch:

Holding my American passport in my hand, she asked:

Sooo, what brings you here?
Umm, the chance to argue with my family after a big meal and feel awkward in front of an old friend. [Note Bene: Her quotes are real. Mine are not.]

You reside in Germany, right?
Yup.

Do you work there?
I'm a freelance writer and I teach English. The English language.

Soooo, you moved to Germany to teach English?
Exactly, I got tired of using my degree in journalism, so I decided to move to a nation where I am .0000000001% of the population. I don't get enough weird stares here in New York.

OK, have a good trip.

That hurdle was over. Now all I had to do was get my luggage. Yes, my luggage. My dear husband, Asmus, decided not to come with me because he wanted to use his remaining vacation days in 2011 to program in his underwear. [Note Bene: This is not an exaggeration.]

Well, of course, my luggage was in Heathrow, while I was in JFK. That was annoying but fortunate. I planned to pick up my luggage and taking it to a FedEx office near Penn Station after catching a monorail and the Long Island Railroad. Now British Airways was going to send it to my friend Marie in Pennsylvania for me. I just had to stand around for about an hour to discover the loss [Fortunately, I stood at the baggage carousel next to an airline employee. While we chatted about nothing and she pulled suitcases off the machine, she told me that my bag was not coming. I learned that baggage handlers put a little plastic basket on the conveyor after the last bag. The little basket arrived and my little black suitcase had not.

I was late to meet my friend Jennifer for dinner. That didn't matter much because my cellphone didn't work in the United States. I sat in the Starbucks at Penn Station and sent an email apologizing to her and then went to Newark.

I was flying to Fort Worth, Texas, the next morning at 10:15, so I booked a room at Comfort Suites not far from Newark Liberty Airport. Cory Booker is a great man but Newark at night is still a spooky site. It reminds me of Midtown Manhattan in 1989. I hopped in the dirtiest taxi I have ever sat in. I was a shade too tired to argue with the shady cabdriver. A shade. I asked him if he knew where the hotel was and he told me to get in. I asked him if he knew where the hotel was and he told me to get in. I asked him how much it cost to get there. He said ten dollars; I sighed and got in. Five minutes later, we pulled up to the hotel.

The room was huge, takeout food came directly to my room, there were lots of newspapers in the lobby, and a nice woman helped me make my Belgian waffle [a little too much help. The maneuver was quite similar to the contraption we used at college. Every college probably had Sunday Belgian waffles. It is nice but not very complicated to eat on the Lord's day. I took her instructions with a smile]. The heat in my room didn't work but when I asked for help, someone came quickly. When the Wi-Fi went out, someone quickly fixed it. That's all I want for $70 a night.

Then it was off to Texas.

I had never been to the Lone Star State, but I had a good feeling about it. I like places where people are super proud. I had a roommate who went to college in Texas from Pennsylvania and she was always flashing Hook 'Em horns and talking about how Badass Texas is. When people in Germany learn that I moved here from New York, they ALWAYS respond, "Why?"

I was really excited to see my friend Kara. Kara and I fall in and out of each other's orbit. However, when our worlds meet, it was always amazing. I have Spock-like tendencies and experience most human interaction with confusion. People do things and say things that may or may not be true or correct. It takes me a few seconds to understand to separate fiction from non-fiction. I never have to worry about that with Kara. She is real, so I am just relaxed when I am with her. I was going to see her after an absence of about five years. I was 90% certain it would be great

I was 110% correct.

We shall not be moved

2011-11-16T09:57:00.001-05:00

Occupy Wall Street protesters were evicted early Tuesday by Mayor Michael Bloomberg. While Zuccotti Park is being "cleaned," American demonstrators can join their German bretheren at Occupy Kiel. Yes, there are people protesting in the capital of the German state of Schleswig-Holstein [Population: 238,000].

There are about 15 tents and, I guess in a nod to the movement's American roots, a teepee set up on the law outside Förde Sparkasse, a bank only located in SH. They are not camped out in front of a national bank because this bank has a space.

About a month ago, there was a lively protest on a shopping avenue. A nice woman offered Asmus and me a flyer against a different bank. As bank's being the source of our income, we kindly declined the offer. Since then, the protest is mostly silent. There was a demonstration last Saturday. Mostly, the protest consists of people sleeping on the grass and slogans spray-painted on the ground throughout central Kiel and signs glued on posts throughout the entire city.

Part of me is proud to see people protesting things in Germany. This nation is a great welfare state. People live, not survive as they do in the United States, for years on government money. Unemployed people have dogs because they get money to feed the dog.

Part of me thinks the protests are funny because there is no 99% versus 1% here. Banks got a lot of money from the government. However, the opera and the ballet gets millions every year. No one seems to mind that. I admire that government wants to preserve the high arts. However, I am not sure if the millions should go to art forms that relatively few people enjoy.

I am not sure about the impact Occupy Kiel is having here, but it is cute, isn't it?

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

2011-11-14T08:02:00.006-05:00

It's one of my favorite time of the year. It seems like it comes earlier and earlier each year. Yes, it is already Grünkohl Saison. Northern German supermarkets and restaurants are full of collard greens and kale.

I think it is crazy that a vegetable that is very popular in the South is also popular in northern Germany. Two different types of people all in love with the same delicious food that is cooked very similarly. The vegetable is cooked almost to disintegration with hunks of pork on two continents. I had a heaping bowl of greens with a hunk of pork as the lunch special at local restaurant in the middle of Kiel. I ate it and several other people wearing suits had some.

I remember about ten years ago, my friend Isabel mentioned her mother cooked a meal similar to our Thanksgiving sides. I was blown away that greens were not the secret food of Black people.

Germans are health-conscious people but they do like to put sugar in odd places. I love mayonnaise. Love it. My nephew brought me an economy size jug of Hellman's in August and I was happy. He was mule because mayonnaise brands here have a sweetness. I stopped ordering garlic dip with my sandwiches from my neighborhood pizza delivery service because there seems like way more sugar in there than garlic. I tasted a hint of sugar underneath the delicious pork goodness. I added some vinegar to make up for that. I must be the only one who has ever made that request because I confused two servers with my request for a bowl and vinegar. I had a big plate with greens, a hunk of ham and small potatoes. To save the meat and the potatoes, I got vinegar and the bowl and everything was all right.

At home, I cook them so they still had some body. I found a dreamy meat that was smoked and fatty. I sprinkle the dish with with hot sauce and I'm happy.

I can cook it often because German supermarkets sell 1-kilogram bags of greens that have the stems cut off, and the leaves are chopped and washed. Asmus is adverse to non-meat foods, so it's just me and a big pot of greens for three or four days. Hungry at 11? Greens? Hungry at nine at night? Greens.

The Beginning of the End???

2011-10-24T10:25:00.004-04:00

I never thought this would happen to me but people like me never think that something like this will happen to them. But it has to happen to someone, so why not me?

Today I discovered that I have so many accessories that I need organizers. I have jewelry box that is almost full. How did that happen?!

Well, I have officially moved into the temporary apartment that I have lived in for two years. Asmus and I have been slowly moving our earthly possessions into one place at one time. The official movers come next weekend, so I brought my favorites last Sunday. My favorites includes shoes, jewelry and makeup. To my surprise, the person who lives in sweatpants and a pair of loafers has a collection of jewelry. I also needed an organizer for my makeup.

Also, I have enough shoes to fill two racks.

That is a photo of most of the shoes. There are more under my bed. That is their home until I decide where to install the rack. As a woman with wide size 11 feet, I do not have much luck finding cool loafers but it is easy and fun to find fierce sandals. So summer comes around I add a pair to my collection. I look up and one day I require "dozens" to describe the number of shoes I own.

I am completely shocked by all this.

The jewelry thing [By "jewelry," I mean cheap hoops from souvenir shops, stud from Claire's and heirlooms from my mother-in-law] blows my mind. This means that I have no excuse for more shopping. It also means that I need new ideas for presents.

I guess this is what happens when you get older.

Ugh.

Hello from West Oak Lane

2011-09-06T06:37:00.004-04:00

I was blessed with a visit from my sister's son, Christian.

Christian is 12 11/12 years old. Just about a teenager.

He was an interesting mix of mumbling, excitement over Lady Gaga, sullking over everything else, fear of everything, and over-whelming confidence with anything computer related.

I love my German husband but it was nice to talk about minutiae related to Philadelphia, American television, assorted family members, and pop music.

Since he was about six, Christian has been a great travel companion. We hung out in New York and did Disney World. Over three weeks, we hit Kiel, Hamburg, Frankfurt, Berlin and Copenhagen. We rode long-distance trains, commuter trains, buses and subways in each city. It was easy and enlightening.

Christian's reflection in a photo from Brasilia at the Kiel Art Museum.

Jan, the elder son of Asmus' brother, and Christian climb Roman ruins in central Frankfurt.

Of course, the American had an affinity for castles. He took a ridiculous amount of pictures of royal chambers in Denmark. We took a train to the tip of the Scandinavian nation to see the model for Hamlet's home. It was my second tour of Kronborg but I still enjoyed the trip. I think I could live in Copenhagen. The people are friendly, lots of American television, great shopping, and cool water views.

I hope his eyes were opened to how the world is a bigger place than in some respects and a smaller place in others.

Ham & Cheese, Please

2011-08-09T14:45:00.006-04:00

Those spots on the floor are the result of fat dripping from the hunks of pork.

The tour was all in German but I caught a lot. We sampled ham at a farm that has been smoking ham since the 1600s. I am not sure of the of the mechanics but it is a cold smoke. They roast pork, lamb and, sometimes, Canadian bear.

Our host held up a a hunk of pig while he talked that was a bit spooky. While he spoke, he got to taste the smoked meat. It was smoky and good but not as pungent as I like, so I didn't buy any.

At the cheesemaker, we got a movie about the history of the company and the cheese maker. During specific points, the speaker handed out samples of cheese. Our group had about 8 chunks of cheese. We started with a very creamy and mild cheese and ended with an overpowering piece. We got to see the cheese maturing room and hear more about the process. At the end, I bought two huge pieces of cheese.

That was the best part of the day.

I hopped un-air-conditioned train with no windows you could open. I crappy ending to a great visit.

I surprised Asmus with an apricot-mustard from a cool housewares store, stinky cheese and bread.

Summer in the City

2011-08-09T14:16:00.007-04:00

Two great tastes that taste great together???

Work has slowed down this summer, so I have focused on the writing and organizing my life. Last week, I got bored of my life and hit the rails. I took off for the good life in Eckernförder.

Never heard of Eckernförde. Of course not. It is a tiny fishing village that morphed into a major tourist city. The big lure is the beach.

Notice that there is almost no one in the water. While the East Coast of the U.S. is baking, Germany is freezing. It was about 70 degrees when I was in Eckernförder, so the water was too cold for swimming.

A cool statue at the water's edge

The 700-year-old city maintains the narrow streets, low buildings and layout. Only 23,000 people call the city home.

I hopped a regional train at 11:45 am and in 35 minutes I was in the heart of the Eckernförde. It was a pretty spontaneous decision, so I didn't know much about the town. After getting off the train, I headed straight to the tourism office. I read a little about a Käse und Schinken Tour [Cheese and Ham Tour] online and that seemed the most interesting thing happening that day. I was worried that I would be the youngest person on the tour, so I didn't want to commit to the excursion unless I knew there was nothing better to do. The tour didn't kick off until 2, so I hit the streets.

In 90 minutes, I saw all that was to see of the tour, except the squirrel sanctuary. Yes, there is a sanctuary for squirrels. With nothing better to do, I bought a ticket for the tour of farms, country homes and cheesemakers sprinkled throughout the Danish Country [ Dänischer Wohld ].

Profiling Amongst Neighbors

2011-07-28T08:36:00.005-04:00

Tuesday afternoon, I had one of those crazy encounters I often have in Germany. I am an unwanted celebrity. Everywhere I go, everyone remembers me. I am the Black Angelina Jolie of Northern Germany.

I was on my way home from buying a sandwich in the shopping area a street away from my apartment. I was rounding the corner at this store, no kidding, called Assmann [It sells health aids.]. These two friendly-looking ladies stopped me. I am not used to older women who don't look like they hate me, so I decided to be polite and stopped. They were both smiling. Now I know why. They were Jehovah's Witnesses, not intrinsically nice people.

Only one was talking. She chose her gambit poorly. She started by saying that she had noticed that I speak English and waved her hand around the Alter Markt. So, she is watching me as I walk to and from my home. I automatically hate her but I decided to be polite, so I am sticking with that.

She continued on her broken path. She said she and her partner were sent out to talk to English speakers like me.

Ooooooookaaaaaay.

I stayed nice. It takes a lot of courage to talk to strangers and there is no need to be rude. Despite my hating these women, I maintained my polite facade.

She asked me would I like to attend an introductory meeting in English.

I politely said no. I assumed that would be the end of it but nope.

She then politely asked me what religion I was.

I tried to quickly scan by brain to create something that would end the conversation quickly. I came up with nothing, so simply said, Right now, nothing because it was a short answer that would hopefully end our conversation on a positive note.

Wrong.

Smiley looked surprised and explained, Oh, I'm surprised. Most people from Africa are usually something.

I am sure that I had a bit of an edge when I said, I am not from Africa.

Of course, she asked me where I was from. She seemed a bit taken aback I reported that I am from the United States of America.

Then she asked me if I was living in Germany or visiting. I sighed and said, I live here.

I am not sure what all this information had to do with my learning about her religion and the fact that she just seemed to be surprised by everything I said was just pissing me off.

If we were on a first date, we would not go on a second date.

Norway is for Lovers

2011-07-28T05:26:00.004-04:00

Norway and the rest of Northern Europe were shocked by the insane violence that one man committed in Norway. Not shocked like rich people who are shocked when bad things happen in their neighborhoods but horribly shocked by someone who can do such evil. The concept of senseless violence is foreign there.

The only positive that can come from the dozens of deaths is that Europeans will squash the anti-Islamic and anti-immigrant ideas. Recently German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Germany's attempt at immigration failed. This year British Prime Minister David Cameron and French president Nicholas Sarkozy have been giving speeches that attack immigrants who have not assimilated appropriately. I hail from Philadelphia, where the owner of a famous cheesesteak place won some fans when he tried to only serve people who ordered in English, so I am familiar with anti-immigrant sentiment's growing acceptance. This European intolerance is so Borg-like. Now, it is also scary.

I am a university-educated, legal immigrant from the United States who is struggling to learn the native language and not Islamic or Middle Eastern, so I am good immigrant. However, not everyone can fit into this category.

There are people who moved to Germany and live in German neighborhoods with other immigrants from their home countries. They dressed differently, worshiped differently, did different things in their free time than natives. To that I say, So what!

It is my hope that deep feelings of loss that spread across Europe and the world after the bombing and shootings in Norway will keep others from following the suspect's example and open some minds to the danger of intolerance.

Aww. That's the end.

2011-07-19T10:05:00.000-04:00

Japan beat the American women with penalty kicks.

Damn.

One More Win

2011-07-13T15:51:00.002-04:00

Au Revoir, France!

Lauren Cheney carries Alex Morgen after Morgen scores the winning goal. (AP)

American Girls

2011-07-13T12:11:00.002-04:00

Midfielder Carli Lloyd steamrolls Brazil's Formiga Sunday's tense win. (AP photo)

I was an island of cheer in an ocean of gloom this weekend.

German women were knocked out of the World Cup and, thereby, the 2012 Olympics.

But the American team beat Brazil. The team started the final as a favorite to win but along the way they became underdogs in the media. Well, Goliath beat David Sunday night.

I just checked the score. America is kicking Gallic booty now. They are up 1-0 over the favored French team. I am so happy. Who doesn't want to see France lose?

Fourth of July, Kiel Style

2011-07-13T11:36:00.006-04:00

Moving to a foreign country in your 30s puts you in a weird place psychologically. You are really not a native, so native culture is often lost on you. Yet, you really cannot celebrate your own culture as naturally as you would at home.

Germans just celebrated a slew of holidays. All of them religious in nature but few people here attend any religious service or activity. I don't get that but I took time off from work anyway. Ascension is always on a Thursday, so most people take off the following Friday. The day of ascension or Himmelfahrt is celebrated with a rush of people going out of town. The day is also the nation's unofficial Father's Day. Yes, Germany has a Mother's Day but not Father's Day. To honor the role of fathers, many men gather together and get drunk while strolling around town.

Pentecost or Pfingsten, the day that Apostles were instructed to preach the gospel to the world is celebrated with a day off from work.

In cities with large American ex-patriate populations, there are picnics and fireworks on July 4. I am guessing that there are about 200 Americans in Kiel, a city of 250,000. Although we are few, we are not united. Asmus and I got together and celebrated with cookout food cooked in our kitchen.

I made two kinds of potato salad. I made the traditional mayonnaise-mustard-relish-onion-green-pepper-boiled-egg version that I grew up loving. I also mixed up a batch of fancy tater salad that I fell in love with last Christmas at Asmus' mother's dinner on one of the Christmas days [There are two here]. There is dill and apples. I couldn't choose which salad was the best, so I had both.

Traditional potato salad on the left. Dill & Apple potato salad on the right. I made a more of the traditional one because I love customs.

Plus, corn on the cob, spare ribs and hot dogs. I had to search for spare ribs the way that we eat them in America, full of fat, but I got them and they were good.

Our Fourth of July spread. Notice the yellow and green cob holders. I hunted for those and paid the equivalent of $12 for four pairs. Money well spent.

It was quiet and a little chilly but it was my celebration.

Around the World in 80 Beers

2011-07-13T01:35:00.013-04:00

The results of a night of beer drinking at the International Market at Kiel Week.

It was not quite 80 beers. It was never going to be 80 beers because there are only about 35 countries at the International Market. Plus, I am not an alcoholic. The night started off with Asmus and me. Near the end of our first stop, Mario, one of Asmus' co-worker joined the tour.

Mario kept our tally one country lower than it should have been. The woman pouring Carlsberg was cute and he tried to secure her digits. I can't hate a man for trying. Plus, Carlsberg is pretty good beer.

The scary long lines for the bathroom -- even the men had to wait 10 minutes [I know because I hopped in their line because the womens line was toooooooo long] -- made us cap the evening at 10:30. Because we started around 6, we got in some. [FYI-In the summertime, it doesn't get dark until about 11:15 in northern Germany.]

Spain

Tuborg from Denmark.
Denmark had an unfair advantage -- Carlsberg.
Carlsberg sits in Copenhagen but it is a beer emporium that owns
brands from around the world, such as . . .

The eponymous Carlsberg brand.
Next to the glass sits the former home of a sweet licquer (I think) shot in which a piece of fig sat. Delicious! Like Mom used to make.

Ringe from Norway.

See the little green glint at the bottom of the cup. That's a light that glows when you pick up the glass. It's pretty distracting to see red, green and yellow lights twinkling at you when you drink.

Yes, we paid 5 euros to take these cups home. No, we don't have them anymore. For some reason, my husband, who studied physics in college, decided to clean them in the dishwasher. The battery-operated mugs with a bad seal between the cup part and the electronics part didn't survive.

Budweiser from the Czech Republic.
Not the crap that your cheap friends bring to a barbecue but the well-crafted brew from the former Czechoslovakia. It is actually pronounced Bood-vys-air.

Carlsberg.

Another round of Carlsberg from the cutie but no phone number.

Kronenbourg from France.

Spain does many things well -- soccer, flamenco, ham, architecture -- making good beer does not seem to be one of them. Estrella was bitter and boring. Tuborg was flat. Perhaps we got a bad batch. The rest of the contenders were great but my favorite was Carlsberg.

Peace in the Time of Beer

2011-06-23T03:30:00.003-04:00

I feel refreshed. Yes, refreshed.

I never feel refreshed in the morning. It is more a feeling of being tired.

My body wakes up after about five hours of sleep and it does not return to slumber. This week, Kiel Week, I am sleeping about 7 1/2 hours a night and I feel good. Usually, I wake up to use the bathroom about 5:12 and that's it for me. This week, I wake up at 4:57 for my nightly emptying and then fall back to sleep. Amazing.

I can only blame it on walk around and around and around in search of fun at Kiel Week.

Yesterday, I circumnavigated the the Kiel Ford. In the process, I watched a northern German version of cheerleaders. It was odd. As a native of the northeastern part of America, I do not have an affinity of extra-perky girls being thrown around. It was nice that that tradition had not found a spot in Germany. Until now. Fortunately, they were not good, so they may die away soon. You could totally see them count with their bobbing heads and mouths as they danced and moved into formation. It was robotic thrills. I got so nervous that they were going to drop one of the girls at the top of the pyramids that I left early.

Then I returned to wandering. Along the way, I had some chorizo. I was offered lime for the sausages. I chickened out but I think I may have to try that soon. I also ate some food from Ghana. Some groovy dish with spinach and yucca sat next to a mix of cabbage, peas and a strong tomato base.

Friday night, Asmus and I plan to Tour the World in Beer. I should sleep forever Friday night!

The Heart of the Golden City

2011-06-15T07:06:00.004-04:00

Prague's Old Town Square

For a nation where few people go to church or identify himself as religious, Germany has a ridiculous amount of religious holidays. Despite my understanding of these holidays, I take advantage of them.

Germans don't work the Friday before and the Monday after Easter. About 40 days later, there is the Day of Ascension or Himmelfahrt. That is on a Thursday and most people take off the following Friday. A week or so later, there's the day Jesus met the Apostles and tells them to preach the Gospel, Pentecost or Pfinsten.

In honor of Jesus going to heaven, Asmus and I headed to Prague.

View of Prague from the Prague Castle

Soon after we started dating, Asmus pushed the idea of us going to Prague. The beauty of the Golden City so beguiled him that he went there alone just to wallow in it. We hopped a tiny airplane with propellers and landed in a beautiful, baroque city.

Frank Gehry's Dancing Building

I'm more of a fan of activity, more than sights, so I enjoyed the shopping (on Sunday!) and the Museum of Communism. It was like the twin to the Museum of Propaganda in St. Petersburg. The Czech museum used real objects and information to portray life during the Soviet occupation of the Czech Republic. It was a bit weird that the museum about Communism sits off the main shopping street and shares the building with a casino.

To the left, Museum of Communism. To the right, casino.

It was cool keeping Asmus happy in his favorite city.

The streets of Old Town in Prague

Hellooooooooo, Frankfurt!

2011-05-23T23:54:00.005-04:00

The latest Frankfurt Starbucks mug features Justitia
and Gerechtigkeitbrunnen (Fountain of Justice).

Just got back from Frankfurt and boy are my arms tired!

Did the annual visit to Asmus' brother and this year's visit was much better than the 2010 flavor. Last year, I was so nervous that I don't think I exhaled until halfway through the visit. There were children, a foreign language and no escape. By children, I mean non-family children. We were invited to attend a community barbecue. Except for my sister's son, with whom I usually speak to as if he is an adult. Always have. It started off as funny but now it's our style. Now I am not quite sure what to say to other children, so I say nothing.

This time, there was just the one set of children -- my German nephews -- and the foreign language is not so foreign.

I have this habit of finding someone's wacky spot and picking at it and picking at it. For Asmus' oldest brother, that is asking to visit him. He doesn't want to hang around me (That's OK. No one has to like me. I don't how they can't but it's OK.), so I continually ask him if he is free for coffee. He never says no, just looks uncomfortable and walks away. The Frankfurt brother seems to have the same gene that I have. The fun started when we arrived after a seven-hour train ride that ended at midnight and he called me a heathen. At first, I was so tired and dazed that I wasn't sure if he really thought I was damned to hell or he was being funny. Then he hit me in the head with a pillow and then I knew that he was being nice. His wife is so energetic and so welcoming. After three hours walking in the hot, mountainous zoo and chasing after two young boys, she started cooking as soon as she got home. Immediately after I get home, I head to the couch and watch an episode of Will & Grace. Then I drink wine as I cook or eat or work.

I played with my two nephews. I haven't played in the streets in decades. They were patient and I appreciate it.

We went to the world's most exhausting zoo. The Opel Zoo is in the exurbs of Germany's fourth-largest city. The architects seemed to be afraid to conquer nature. Something that we Americans don't mind so much. The zoo was built on a series of 75-degree mountains. Up and down, up and down. It was a circuit, so there was no way to avoid the hills. The steepest was the first/last mountain. I honestly have a fear of goats. There eyes give me the willies. I remember a few years ago, Tracy Morgan's character, Brian Fellows, said that he hated goats because they had devil eyes and it made me feel not so alone in the world. Opel Zoo was full of goats. They are at the entrance/exit. We spent about 15 minutes feeding these horrible creatures. I worked very hard at occupying myself but I did catch some glimpses of the goats. The highlight was the hippopotamus.

I know animals have tiny brains but this one seemed to know he was on stage and worked it. He moved through a small pond for a few minutes, then he brought his entire body out of the water. He was massive. Then he climbed up against the wall of his enclosure, hung there for about 20 seconds. What was going on? Was he OK? He was fine. He dropped himself into the water and doused everyone standing at the short gate at his pond. Then he let out a frightening growl. Nature rules! People flocked to the hippopotamus cage right after the growl and belly flop.

Then we went home and ate a ridiculous amount of food cooked on a barbecue.

It was a great weekend.

Back to Life, Back to Reality

2011-05-10T05:41:00.004-04:00

After three weeks away, I was ready to continue to stay away. But my stuff is here, so I returned to Germany and Kiel.

I was walking along the shopping street near my apartment and reality smacked me in the face.

As I turned the corner, a pocket-sized old lady was walking toward me. She saw my face and screwed her face like she just caught a whiff of dog poop and started muttering something. She continued walking and soon the talking stopped. When she passed me, she looked back with that horrible puss on her face and started cursing me again.

Ahhh, home.

Also, I noticed the demolition of the Karstadt, which is a German department store. A Teutonic version of Macy's. When I moved to Kiel, the city had two Karstadts within a half mile. I always wondered how this city could sustain it. It turns out, not that long. The older one was killed.

Older Kielers remember getting dressed up to shop for sundries at the store. Now people sit outside the wreckage and watch the store get pulverized.

The newer Karstadt is attached to a mall and sits across the street from the train station. The odds were in its favor.

I used eat lunch at the now-dead Karstadt. Me and lots of old people. The restaurant served meals -- meat, side and vegetables, no dollar menus. You could sit and relax.

When I was not hungry, I would run to Karstadt for pens, paper, sheets and glasses.

Now its gone. In its place, a mall with a huge electronics store, a supermarket and sports clothing will rise. It will be cool to have a Rewe supermarket in the neighborhood by the fourth quarter of 2012 but I worry that the Top Market convenience will die for the second time. Progress, I guess.

Krka National Park: Life

2011-05-10T04:53:00.002-04:00

At the end of the walk through Krka National Park, there are re-creations of life of people in the 19th-century. A Italian-woman-who-had-recently-moved-from-Germany-with-her-Croatian-husband-who-had-lived-in-Germany-for-25-years-for-work demonstrated how to weave with a loom.

There was also a blacksmith station but there was a fake blacksmith whose skill would amaze us.

Best of all, there was a gift shop with some locally-inspired wares -- herbs, cherry brandy, bath salts made from lavender, handmade handbags, etc. God, I love gift shops!

We had a tour guide who was pretty cool and interesting. He took us to a damn good Croatian restaurant in the town of Skradin, which is not far from the park. He probably brings lots of his clients here. The owners gave us a tote bag full of DVDs and books about the history and culture of Croatia.

It was my favorite day in the Mediterranean country.

A window at the Skradin restaurant. I am a now a major fan of Croatian white wine.

Krka National Park: Water

2011-05-10T04:13:00.006-04:00

Krka River flows through a tight corner of Croatia. A few decades ago, there was a working mill here. Donkeys brought the wheat down the mountain (There is ALWAYS a mountain in Croatia to overcome.) and after the local workers turned it into flour, the donkeys brought it back up.

The park has a 1 1/2-mile hike around waterfalls. It was beautiful. I love feeling the power of waterfalls. Most people ride on the Maid of the Mist. I skipped that and experienced the Cave of the Winds. Idiots wear a "souvenir" sandals and rain poncho so they stand 20 feet from Bridal Veils Falls and get the breath pounded out of their bodies by the force of the falling water. Krka River is nowhere as painful or but it is serene and beautiful.

Views of the largest
waterfall in the park

A pool in which water flows in and out

Dioceltian Palace: Underground

2011-05-10T03:49:00.005-04:00

The palace was this huge area along the Adriatic Sea in the middle of the sea. It sat empty but hundreds of years ago people into the palace. Before civic pride was created, they shoved their trash into the basement and left the area alone.

A shot of the ceiling, through which Croatians threw down their garbage into the lower level of a historic treasure.

This laziness was a boon. It preserved the basement's structure and integrity. Eventually, people moved out but in the 1970s, the drug dealers moved in. The palace is a maze of narrow streets and courtyards. The perfect place for clandestine sales. The basement's collection of trash kept the sordid life away.

An ancient olive press

The first room you enter after the lobby.
The white square with the red circle is a video image
about local people helping the people affected by the tsunami in Japan.

An apartment.

Diocletian Palace Landmarks

2011-04-12T18:09:00.005-04:00

The ancient Romans brought their love of the Egyptian sphinx to Split.

A sphinx guards Jupiter's Temple

An old clock tower in the Diocletian Palace

Diocletian Palace

2011-04-12T17:37:00.004-04:00

The Roman emperor Diocletius built this palace in 305 A.D. He hoped it would be the palace that he would call home in his retirement.

The Diocletian Palace

The old and the new come together in this courtyard that shows occupied
apartments and grafitti and visible parts of the lower level of the palace.

The Vestibule

Split

2011-04-12T17:18:00.004-04:00

Dubrovnik is the famous cousin but Split is its richer and cooler relation. Unique boutiques and designer stores fight each other for attention. In the middle of the madness, there is an ancient Roman ruin. Our hotel was two miles away from the center of town. With the space, you can see the mix of Adriatic Sea and spiky mountains beyond.

This former history major loved the atmosphere of Dubrovnik but the vacationer in me prefers the flash of Split.

This area reminds me a bit of Lincoln Road in Miami Beach.
This is outdoor seating for restaurants that sit next to the clear blue Adriatic Sea.

These little buttons separate parking spaces from the sidewalk
and add a little color to the street.

Here is the up-close view of one of the parking humps. They are swimming for life.

Old Town: The Shops

2011-04-12T16:31:00.004-04:00

Altitudes dip and rise quickly in Croatia. Here is a street scene in Old Town. The center of Old Town includes souvenir shops, crappy restaurants, foodie paradises, bars, cool boutiques, and art and history museums.

The tiny streets from Middle Ages remain.

Dubrovnik

2011-04-12T16:15:00.002-04:00

View of Old Town section of Dubrovnik from the wall around the area. The Adriatic Sea flows right outside the wall.

The wall has traveled about two miles around the
Old Town section of Dubrovnik since the 1400s.

A fortress next to the Old Town walls.

Within the walls, sat churches, monasteries, stores and homes.
Today, museums sit where they once lay and people live in the ancient homes.

Palm, orange and lemon trees grow throughout the small Old Town.

World Tour - Croatia

2011-04-12T15:53:00.004-04:00

I left Philadelphia International Airport on March 16 at 11:30 at night, stopped off in London for four hours and touched down in Hamburg at 5 the next evening.

I came home to the apartment and met Susie from high school. Susie had not been in the same room since graduation from high school. But we got in touch about two years ago and have been email besties since then. She mailed me several pounds of pecans that I used to make several pies. Yes!

Like always, I was nervous. I am always nervous. Would things be as cool in real life as they were in virtual life? At first blush, things were great. As things moved along, we were not a perfect match but we were two mature adults and we were great company for each other in Dubrovnik and then in Split, the second-largest city in Croatia.

Croatia rocks! Everyone needs to go there. The people are friendly, the red wine is great, the shopping is magical, and the landscapes are unbelievable.

I am so glad that I had such an adventurous traveler with me. We have different approaches to life but no one threw up their hands. I discovered that I snore terribly. Susie was amazing and patient. I moved my bed and we got separate hotel rooms after sharing a suite. She is much more of a morning person and a chatterer than I am and she didn't hate.

Croatia focuses on the late spring and the summer. So many activities were not possible but it was great to see the Old Town section of Dubrovnik. We walked along the walls. Susie was patient with my fear of heights. We were like 100 feet above the Adriatic Sea and I was terrified. At one point, I crawled down steps on my butt because vertigo would not let me attack the area on my feet.

The retirement home of a ancient Roman emperor, Diocletius, is located in the middle of Split. It was amazing.

Croatia uses history, instead of putting yellow tape around it. At one point, people moved into the upper levels of the Diocletian Palace. In the 1970s and '80s, drug dealers called the warren of streets home. After the "Recent War," the label that everyone that all the native Croatians gave the 1990s domestic war in Yugoslavia, the government decided to treasure the ruin. Instead of kicking everyone out, people and businesses still call the area home.

Croatia reminded me of Italy. There was lots of pastas, wine, olives, relaxed atmosphere,flash, and shopping.

Plus, it is cheap.

I miss Croatia.

World Tour - Germany

2011-03-30T06:43:00.003-04:00

On the third day of visiting in New York, I returned to Philadelphia. The city of my birth and the city where I have spent most of my life.

With Philadelphia, either you get it or you don't. I get it.

After living in spotless Germany, I can see the dirt. I never really thought the city was as dirty as natives who call it Filthadelphia. Now I do. But I love the dirt. I love the sunflower seeds that people spit all over the subway floor. I love the crumbling houses in my old neighborhood. I love the smelly elevators in train stations. I love it all.

In addition to scrapple, I wolfed down all the food and drinks unique to Philadelphia. I had Tahitian Treat soda. This soda is allegedly available in America and Canada but I have only seen it in Philadelphia. I had a cheesesteak from Pagano's and a soft pretzel with mustard.

My mom made this visit special. She hung out with us, instead of retreating to her room; made breakfast almost every day; and played games at Dave & Buster's. My birthday celebration started a day early on Sunday, March 13. My mom made a big dinner.

My older sister, Lorie, came up from Maryland. We spent two days watching television and a few hours arguing. But the argument is normal. My younger sister came over for the Sunday dinner. We have a strained relationship but this visit was quite pleasant.

My nephew, Christian, stayed at my mother's house the entire time. It is always a pleasure hanging out with him. He made me a cool video documenting my visit. It was a little long and included not one but two sessions of him dancing alone. It is video gold.

Parting was such sweet sorrow.

Giraffe statutes at a cafe at Heathrow's Terminal 5,
where we stopped while we waited to go from Heathrow to Hamburg.

When we got to Hamburg, Shurea was waiting at our apartment. Shurea and I were friends in high school. We struck up a Internet friendship about a year ago. She put me on her agenda during her European vacation. Two days after I touched down in Hamburg, we left for Croatia.

World Tour - New York

2011-03-30T02:49:00.004-04:00

I had not been to New York, since I left September 10, 2008. I hated it when I lived there but I HAD to renew my drivers license. If I did not do it now, I would have to retake the written and road test. It took me too long to pass those the first time, so I was not going to repeat that.

Asmus decided we should stay overnight, so we wouldn't have to rush. All our trips to Meridien hotels resulted in a nice chunk of frequent visitor points. Because Asmus loves a swimming pool, I had two options for hotels and we settled for the Parker Meridien. Uptown, not uptight for $90. Our room was a great and the pool was crazy. When you come out of the pool, some poor college student awaited you with a towel. The only annoying thing about the hotel. It took more than an our to get a price list for the minibar. Asmus could not wait, so we ended up paying $39 for a 8-ounce bottle of Grey Goose.

As we walked from the subway to the hotel, I started to feel the familiarity and I fell in love. Ugh! Asmus noticed me relax and put up the idea of staying an extra night. I said, Yes, please. There we were!

Of course, we had massages.

One of my two favorite restaurants in New York is Cafe Boulud. I decided to take a chance with Daniel Boulud's newest outpost, Bar Boulud. After a day of email tag, I wrangled Tom into dinner at 7:45.

Of course, it was fabulous to see Tom. We just jump into this rhythm. At times, I worry whether Asmus and Tim, Tom's husband, feel left out, so I started directing topics at people. Not very elegant but it is the thought that counts.

Our patient server let us sit there until 11:45. The classic French food and French wine was divine. I like the fact that you get the price of specials in the little specials spiel. I was on such a high after that evening.

That kept me going when I showed up 20 minutes before the Department of Motor Vehicles opened and I discovered I was about the 60th person in line. We waited on the street until the office opened. When the office opened, the crowd was divided and the visit went quickly. I am now legal to drive. Look out world.

During our three days in New York, Asmus and I saw the movies, Adjustment Bureau and HappyThankYouMorePlease. I had movie theater hot dogs, movie theater popcorn with fake butter and two good movies. Life was good.

Of course, there was shopping and television. I almost tore my hair out trying to get two rings I bought for Christmas enlarged. After almost an hour with a saleswoman, I was told I could do it, then I couldn't for both but I could for one, and then finally, I could not do it for either ring. I seethed about that until I met up with my friend Jennifer.

Jennifer had just lost her job. That was much more important than my ring heartache. Her resolve and energy were amazing. We ate and drank and drank and drank.

Good times.

World Tour - Pennsylvania

2011-03-30T01:54:00.010-04:00

I finally got home this month.

I have not been in the U.S. of A. since 2009.

In June 2009, I had a little party with friends from various parts and times of my life -- Ginger and Elisa from high school; Jennifer from undergrad study abroad in London and her then-boyfriend; Marie from graduate school; and Tom from Hearst and his husband, Tim. It was a joyous time.

For Christmas 2009, Asmus and I got money to go to Russia. It was burning a hole in our pockets so we used it as soon as possible. We would spend our spring vacation in St. Petersburg and the autumn vacation in America. Unfortunately, my father-in-law got sick, so we stayed in Hamburg when we had planned to be sitting in front of the television watching Judge Mathis.

I got my chance to lap up lots of Judge Mathis, yards of Bob Evans breakfast sausage with sage, pounds of scrapple [For the uninitiated, scrapple is a southeastern Pennsylvania delicacy -- a gray loaf of various meats, spices and grains that is eaten for breakast.], miles of Italian sausage and lots of American television on a television and not on a computer monitor. It was a dream come true.

Plus, there was shopping. Lots of shopping. My fashion tastes are much different than what is sold in Germany. I love color. I like black pants with a cool top. In the summer, I like color everywhere. Here, the range of colors go from black to gray to navy blue. In addition, all my appendages are too big. I got some shoes.

I also hit the supermarket. I returned to Germany with cake mixes and the appropriate icing, grits, vanilla extract [It took me weeks to find vanilla extract in Germany. What I found was expensive. A small bottle costs 10 euros.], and salad dressing. The food purchases required the purchase of a suitcase and paying a extra bag fee. It was worth every penny.

I got to visit Marie and her family in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Along the way to visit Yuengling brewery, we ate at Boston Market. I haven't eaten at this fast food establishment since the 20th century. I don't know if they are all like this but this Boston Market near Dorney Park was marvelous. We ate off real plates and used real flatware. When we done with our roasted chicken, someone from the restaurant cleared the table.

Yuengling, America's oldest brewery, was not as streamlined as most of the breweries Asmus and I had visited in Europe. But, like Holsten, which was the least sophisticated tours of the European breweries, we got see the beer put in bottles. Bottling is the action-packed part of beer making. Even better, at Yuengling we got to walk through the work area during bottling. I could put my hand out and like Shirley Feeney, take a bottle off the line and take a sip. That was the cool part. Despite the constant giggling from our pubescent tour guide, Yuengling was pretty cool. The tour was free, you get two free samples of beer, and you visit the cave where they used to store the beer -- the same thing that was done at the Paulaner brewery in Munich.

It was cool to visit Marie, her husband and children. I hear Evan and Olivia in the background during telephone calls. It was nice to experience the entire package. Olivia was sitting on the floor and then she would get up to get one potato chip, sit down, eat the chip, and then repeat the process until the bowl was empty.

We went from Allentown to New York.

Happy Birthday to Me!

2011-03-30T01:30:00.003-04:00

I just got back from a short world tour. Along the way I celebrated my birthday. My first birthday in the U.S. of A. in three years.

There was Food, Folks and Fun!
Mom made a big Sunday dinner the day before my birthday. Both sisters came. Beloved nephew was there. Favorite cousin Louise showed. Louise was a groovy surprise. She called to say that she was in too much pain to come. An hour after we started eating stuffed pork chops, the doorbell rang. Surprise, it was Louise!

After the great food, there was a marathon Taboo session. My German husband and I almost beat a bunch of native Americans.

On my actual birthday, Asmus and I hit a day spa in the Chestnut Hills section of Philadelphia. I had a facial and the best massage that I have ever had. Then Mom picked us up and we headed to Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania for the second-happiest place on Earth -- Dave & Buster's. There was ridiculous amounts of food, video shooting games, and, best of all, air hockey.

A good time was had by all.

I was a bit worried about Asmus. My birthday is the same day as my father-in-law. It was the first birthday since Friedrich's death. Asmus said he was fine. It did feel a bit weird having the spotlight to myself but I did enjoy being with my family and friends in my hometown on my birthday.

Oddly enough, I got congratulations from people in Germany. I am not sure why. For the two birthdays I celebrated here, no one said, Happy Birthday, to me. Apparently, absence makes the heart grow fonder. Coincidentally, I got tired of wrangling friends to celebrate for my birthday when I was living in New York and I started taking vacations. Life is a circle. It was nice that people in Germany thought well of me.

The Help

2011-02-21T02:05:00.008-05:00

I am not sure how this happened but I became an employer.

My beloved grandmother cleaned hotel rooms at an Atlantic City casino for a bit and my groovy grandfather picked up garbage for a little while. In some perverted form of evolution, I just hired a housekeeper.

I fought it so hard. For most of my time in Germany I worked, but much fewer hours a week than Asmus, so unofficially I became The Cleaner. I did this despite Asmus' repeated requests to hire a housekeeper. I maintained that I am an adult and adults take care of themselves. By last fall, my work schedule had grown from 15 hours a week to 30, including work I did at home. Couple that with weekly trips to Hamburg from Kiel to visit Asmus' ailing father, I became crazy busy and the apartment became a wreck. Then Christmas came and things slowed things down and Asmus and I got things under control. January 3 came around and the chaos returned and was worse than before.

I surrendered. Two weeks ago, we started a search for a housekeeper online. I was quickly depressed.

I was hoping for a nice thick-armed, 45-year-old person. Someone who knows HOW TO CLEAN and shows up. We got four replies. Three of them were in their 20s. One person had a very professional reply. The others were like Queen for a Day applicants. "I'm 29 years old (German companies routinely ask for age, not me. I just hoped to surmise that they had decades of experience, not ask their birth dates.) and just had a baby. I am looking for a job where I can bring my baby to work with me." "I'm a 48-year-old woman who has experience taking care of my big family."

I was tempted to hire everyone, so these families could eat. Instead, we went with the 23-year-old who had experience and offered references and did not mention any babies that she wanted to care for while scrubbing my toilet or a brood of children that she needed to feed. We made an appointment to meet at a cafe across from the apartment. Asmus and I obsessed about what to ask her and whether we should have a test run. Unfortunately, our apartment was so dirty that we had to clean it before our scheduled interview, so there was no chance for a test clean. We had a plan of attack and showed up at the cafe and waited and waited and waited. She never showed.

We contacted the 48-year-old who quickly replied that she had another position.

Then we contacted a 21-year-old woman. Her young age kept her from the top of our list of interviewees. We arranged to meet at cafe Saturday at 12:30. She asked what we looked like, Asmus told her to look for a white man and a Black woman sitting on the first level of the two-level restaurant. When we walked in, I saw a young woman sitting alone and wondered if that was our interviewee. We were supposed to talk at 12:30. 12:30 came and left and I wondered if she was not coming and if the young woman in the corner was our 21-year-old. When 12:34 came, I politely accosted the single lady and my suspicion was proven correct. Of course, I think, "Why am I searching for her? Why isn't she searching for us?" (I am part of the only inter-racial couple in Kiel. That is the reason for my description of Asmus and me.)

We asked one or two questions about her experience that were weakly met. She said she graduated with an abitur, a special type of high school degree that is required to attend college. However, she was working part-time and cleaning the homes of strangers. She said after high school, she had had cancer. Gulp. When we asked when she could start, she said she could try it later in the week because she would be having an operation on Monday. Gulp, gulp.

She cleaned our apartment last Sunday, while we were in Hamburg. I was so eager to see our sparkling, clean apartment. We left for Hamburg with a relatively-clean apartment waiting for Elena. Like most women on Earth, I cleaned a little before the housekeeper came. But not that much.

Upon entering our apartment, the apartment seemed nice but at second glance, it was not. Like Mr. Hyde, I felt my father taken over me. In our two-bedroom apartment, we asked her to clean the bathroom; sweep and mop the floors; vacuum the 6 x 10 rug in the living room; wipe the stove and cabinets; wash two pots; wipe the light switches and the door knobs; and dust the television, my computer and my treadmill. She had two and half hours for that. I gave her two hours and Asmus added the half.

After she cleaned, the living room floor was dirty in spots, the tub and sink were not SCRUBBED, the top of the television was dusty, and my computer and the rug were untouched.

The tub was the thing I noticed. I saw the dirt and felt the scum. Asmus saw nothing until I pointed it out. Then I wasn't sure if I was being insane or correct.

Then Asmus found an email that said she was sorry about the sorry state of the stove. She ran out of time and left. Then I was sure that I was correct -- she sucked and I must say something. She knew that she did not do something right and left it. I would have not mentioned it or I would have stayed 5 minutes and finished the job. People were offering to clean for 8 euros an hour. After we hired Elena, a 16-year-old offered to work for us for four euros an hour. We paid 12 euros an hour. When you pay 50% more than the going rate, you expect a job done correctly.

Asmus scrubbed the tub and sink clean in five minutes while we talked, so he saw that she should not need more time. I won him to my side.

Once I realized that I am perfectly right, then I had to decide how loud I should yell.

It was such an uncomfortable place to be. Do we give a long list of things that she did not do correctly or give her more time to clean? In my opinion, we gave her more than enough time to do the floors, the bathroom and the kitchen but I want to be fair. By "my opinion," I mean the opinion that was screwed into me by my father. I remember cleaning the bathroom and having him run his fingers over the sink and screwing his face up when he felt cleanser residue. I remember my stomach sink and fear rush into it when that happened. He had already asked me if the sink was clean three or four times before, If I go up there and find the sink is dirty, can I beat you? I gave a weak yes (what else can you say to that question?). Fortunately, residue is not dirty but it was not correct. No beating but I had to get back to scrubbing.

While I had the same type of harsh opinion as my father, I did not have the same approach to correction. There was no yelling. Asmus and I lowered the frequency of her visits and raised the time allotment. We also asked her to scrub harder. So Elena will be back in two weeks and have three hours to work, instead of two hours once a week. I will also tell her specifically what I think should be done [Please dust the front, sides and top of the television.] I think this is ridiculous but I am prepared for good things.

Back to Amsterdam

2011-01-05T18:25:00.004-05:00

The lights decorating trees reflect off the water in an Amsterdam canal.

Asmus and I continued our streak of entering the new year in foreign country. We rang in 2009 in London (Thanks for the memories Pembury Tavern ).

Last year, we felt 2010 burst onto the scene in Amsterdam's Leidesplein and Heinecken Hoek bar with friends Tanja and Tobi. Last year was great, so this year should be even better, so we went back again. That is not really true. We planned to head back to the Pembury but someone (Please read: my husband) took too long to make plans, so there was not one decent hotel or bed & breakfast with a vacancy. Therefore, we were forced to hang out in Amsterdam.

Good choice.

For some reason, we got a room upgrade last year. We got a huge executive room with a whirlpool with a television aimed at it a few feet away from it. This year we had to stay in a junior suite. We suffered through a massive room with a free minibar that was replenished every day. The first night, two adults plowed through the Champagne, red wine, white wine, beer, vodka and gin. It was New Year's Eve!

We also had a whirlpool. But the best amenity were lots of channels in English. I have been staying at a lot of hotels lately. For some reason, hotels boast that they have channels in various languages, including English. Ninety-eight percent of the time this means CNN and/or BBC World News. How refreshing after a long day of sightseeing! Like the Hamburg Park-Hyatt, the Grand Amrath, Amsterdam, had BBC1 and BBC2. Plus, there was the British version of the Travel Channel. There was no Anthony Bourdain or Samantha Brown but it was interesting for a few minutes at a clip.

Besides all the amenities, the hotel was cool by design. It did not have the Rem Koolhaas touch. The hotel is located in the former home of several prominent shipping companies. The hotel had all the modern touches but maintained the Art Deco elements, like stained glass, and several hallmarks of the home of economic powerhouses, like a grand marble staircase.

Of course, I was still walking in fear on December 31. I think everyone with two hands gets fireworks for Christmas in Europe. I never knew when there would be a small explosion. Loud noises shake me up. Random loud noises break me down. Once inside a noisy club everything was good. Heineken Hoek is not some hipster lounge or some cool pub. It is a bar with loud music that can be good at times that sits on the Leidesplein. I can watch the fireworks and the festivities without being scared by them. Lame, yes. But it works.

Amsterdam was all that it should be. We had food from Morocco and Indonesia. We walked through the canals. We had massages. And we rang in 2011 in Leidesplein and at Heineken Hoek.

I think I smell tradition.

The Ghost of Christmas Just Past

2010-12-29T23:17:00.005-05:00

The family Christmas tree

Christmas has come and gone. I do not have children but I seem to be getting ready for the occasion for weeks. I cannot exactly pinpoint what all the mental preparations are about but there are many and varied.

This Christmas had the potential for problems.

I am a major fan of Thanksgiving and Christmas. The biggest family arguments have happened on both occasions but I still look forward to my family Christmases. The spending time with people who have known you the longest, the beautiful tree, the board games, the movies, the food, and, best of all, the gift exchange. I love giving gifts. I love giving the perfect gift and seeing the reaction. And I love getting free things. I like getting things that cost me no money and no energy. Asmus' family is much less boisterous. Since moving to Germany, I learned that I like chaos. Silence, cleanliness and lateness are in my blood. I miss my family traditions.

Also, this would be the first Christmas without Asmus' father. I was not sure how that would play out, so I was anxious.

Add to all that, Asmus' and my promise to cook for Christmas. His mother's sister spends about three weeks with her sister. Unfortunately, she has been battling a form of cancer that will be an intermittent part of her life forever. Thanks to the medicines that have been keeping her alive, she cannot digest meat, fatty fish or complex carbs, like pasta, well. Plus, she was always lactose intolerant. Margot does not like beef. With all these dietary guidelines in mind, Asmus and I had to create a delicious meal. We settled on taco or baba ganoush. Neither Renate nor Margot had ever heard of either. After we found them images online, they chose baba ganoush.

Baba ganoush is a puree of eggplant, a sesame paste, cilantro, lemon and cumin. It is a staple of the Arab world. I serve it with falafel, pita, lettuce, tomato, onion and hot sauce. Not exactly the traditional Christmas dish but it was a hit! Whew!

After dinner, we exchanged gifts. Asmus claims to be a terrible gift giver but I have always found him competent. This Christmas I began to suspect that he was correct. He bought this wooden face that is used to hold eyeglasses for his older brother. Thankfully, Jakob thought it was cute. I think it is a bit creepy but cute. Like a wooden E.T.

In Germany, Weihnachten lasts for a few days. The festivities begin the evening of December 24. Families exchange gifts and go to church. On the 25th, they visit their extended family. The next day, they visit friends.

On Christmas Eve I coaxed everyone into playing Uno. I am a veteran and I lost to novices. Over and over again. Margot would put out a Wild card and choose a color that she did not have. But Skips and Reverses kept me out of the action. After a few demoralizing hands of Uno, we moved onto the film part of the evening. Harold & Maude was going to be the perfect end. Except it wasn't. The image just kept jumping. To save space, I put to movies in one case. Instead of calling it a night, I put in Shrek Forever After. I am not sure if the septuagenarians grasped the comic genius because they discussed the possible time period and whether it was too violent.

It was a silent night but a fun night. Because Asmus' father was not very vocal in the presence of his gregarious sister-in-law, Christmas was not as difficult as I feared.

Asmus and I maintained the American tradition of exchanging gifts on the 25th. I was so really sad when he excited plugged in his massage cushion and nothing happened. I bought a new one today and has been using it as much as the directions allow. Home run!

Winter Ire

2010-12-29T22:51:00.003-05:00

I have many, many personality deficits. One of my relatively few pluses is an acceptance of the uncontrollable. This includes the weather.

Winter is cold. I got that. I don't complain about the cold; I gird myself against it. I spent a lot of money on the kind of long underwear that people wear when climbing mountains. I wear earmuffs . . . a lot. My ears are always cold. Problems start in November and I boldly withstand the questions and the complaints about the early use of the apparatus. When it gets really cold, I wear ski gloves. I am prepared for the cold.

When it snows, I stay in for the first day. After that I wear boots and move slow. I am prepared for the snow.

I am not prepared for the darkness of northern German winters. Come to think of it, I am not prepared for the northern German summers either. Because of its high latitude, it is dark much of the day in the winter and light much of the day in the summer. Now, I leave the house in the darkness and reach for an afternoon tea with the moon as my guide.

Ugh.

The view out of my bedroom window on December 22, 2010 at 7:02 a.m.

Hot off the Presses!

2010-12-07T04:39:00.003-05:00

I updated and wrote new information for the chapter on Hamburg for Fodor's Germany 2011 guide. It is on bookshelves now.

This book is for:

People who want to support me

People who are going to visit Germany soon

People who love good writing. Writing reminiscent of a mature Toni Morrison.

The Real Thanksgiving

2010-12-07T03:52:00.016-05:00

I was working like Harriet Tubman and almost missed Thanksgiving. My German husband picked up with the slack.

During my first year in Germany, we were living most of the time in Hamburg. The big city has lots of foreigners, so there were several dining options to choose from. We selected the delicious yet economical Thanksgiving buffet at the Marriott hotel. The next year, we were in Kiel most of the time. The northern German city does not have many immigrants, so we could not find a turkey meal anywhere. We settled on exquisite Italian at the restaurant down the street from our apartment, Der Bauch von Kiel.

This year I worked until 9 at night and I had no desire to withstand a restaurant visit. I assumed that I would come home to spaghetti dinner. I was pleasantly surprise to experience my favorite meal: fried chicken, macaroni & cheese, and greens.

Yeah, yeah, yeah I missed being with my mother, sisters, nephew, uncle and friends but I had my favorite meal prepared by hand by my favorite person. Everything was delicious! As my people say, Asmus put his foot in it.

I am a fan of the "essence" of food. I make my greens with the undertone of pork. Asmus found his own recipe and created greens with 50% taste of greens and 50% taste of meat. He told me that he cooked the vegetable with smoked pork and chicken stock. With the strong, smoky meat tastes, the greens won over the meat lover and me.

Fun fact: collard greens are as popular in northern Germany as they are in the southern United States. We are nearing the end of Grünkohlsaison (literally green cabbage season, but actually collard greens season) here.

I am very grateful for a man who cooks so hard that he literally collapsed on the sofa.

Yes, those are two types of hot sauce on the table. Proof that you, indeed, cannot take the ghetto out of the girl, despite having taken the girl out of the ghetto. I am starting to have some impact on the German. Asmus did not use the spicy sauce on the greens but he did use it in the sauce that he marinated the wings in.

Farewell

2010-12-07T03:07:00.004-05:00

Well, Friedrich's funeral was a few weeks ago.

It was an odd experience. The funeral was two weeks after his death. It was such a crushing blow to walk into the hospital on November 5 to find out that Friedrich had died 15 minutes before we got there. He had always said he felt bad. In September he looked very bad and we canceled vacation and then he didn't look so terrible. Unfortunately, he started to look bad again. I assumed this was another hill that needed to be ridden up and down. Unfortunately, we did not see the other side of the mountain. While nursing that blow, we had to prepare for the funeral. The death hung in the air in Asmus' mother's apartment while we worked to let people know about the death and the funeral. With each breath each day, death was slowly exhausted out of the air. A week later, the death was brought back to my mind and heart's surface because the funeral was approaching.

The chapel at Bergstedt cemetery where Friedrich's funeral was held.

As a member of the bereaved family, I had to shake hands and nod my head to condolences I did not really understand in German. I just wanted to support Asmus. The service was mostly in a dialect of German that Friedrich worked hard to support its continued existence, called platt deutsch, and featured lots of music. The music was majestic but upbeat. The minister even played guitar for one tune.

The plain pine coffin looked so small. It was covered in a bounty of flowers in bold autumn colors. It cut like a knife when men in medieval costumes removed the box that held Friedrich's body.

Life slowly returns to a semblance of its original shape. It is still a bit jarring to eat at Margot's house. Since Friedrich went into the hospital, we have been eating cake, instead of dinner, at Asmus' mother's house on the weekends. Without all the bowls and pans required to hold a meal, there was no need for the long table. The weekend after the funeral, Margot had removed the leaf that made four people comfortable at dinner time. Now the coffee, cake, tea and all their accessories sit in the place where Friedrich's plate once laid.

Thanksgiving-Part III

2010-11-11T23:45:00.005-05:00

I am thankful for having known my husband's father, Friedrich.

I am a ball of contradictions when it comes to family. I come from a huge family. Because of prodigious grandparents, I probably have about 35 cousins. Out of all the hundreds of cousins [My parents were the next-to-youngest in their families, so I have cousins with grandchildren!], grandparents, aunts and uncles that I have, I probably regularly saw 20 of them. However, of those 20, probably 10 were constantly there. I remember the joy of monthly visits to my mother's mother in southern New Jersey. She had MTV! Philadelphia did not allow cable television until 1989, so in addition to the normal grandmotherly greatness, my grandma had the awesomeness of Remote Control. I spent more time visiting the housing projects and my grandfather and aunt than any middle-class girl had. When I got older and my scope grew, I will happy to accept more. I learned that I had a cousin Kiki living in New York and I will so excited. Kiki and I did not meet until I was 34 or 35 but she did my hair once a month in the Boogie Down Bronx and after that we would sit on her bed and watch bad television.

A window in the chapel where the funeral will be held.

Moving to Germany meant that all of the people with whom I shared DNA were far away. My husband's family were all that I had and they fit. Like my biological family, they were not perfect but they were interesting. Friedrich and Margot are from a different generation and culture than my parents. For me, different is always preceded by fear.

I think it is difficult to find a Black woman in America who would picture their in-laws as people 45 years older and from small-town Germany. Because of the times and the draft, Friedrich was a soldier fighting against the Allied Forces in World War II. After recuperating, the small-town boy joined Service Civil International to help repair Europe.

Before we met, Asmus spent Saturday nights eating dinner with his parents. When I moved to Germany, I became part of this tradition. Over dinners, fear eventually gave way to respect, which gave way to love. They discussed politics, history, art, and their personal history. Because Friedrich was fluent in English, explained many of these topics to me.

Despite our good relationship, Friedrich was still a man born in the 1920s. We never hugged or said, I love you. A few times he praised the refinement of the British soldiers who only stole small quantities of wine from his family's wine business and often railed against the noisy American soldiers. Americans were too loud and made bad music. Sinatra-Yuck! Elvis-Ugh! Jazz-That was complicated and welcome. In addition to a respect for jazz, Friedrich and I shared a love of making fun of Asmus (Friedrich was not blessed with Margot's belief that her sons were perfect. Friedrich and I often laughed at Asmus' love of debate (for no reason!) and laziness.). We waved good-bye after Saturday dinners. At some point during the four months, he was in various hospitals, we left each other with a strong hand embrace. It was not a handshake but a long, hand-holding. He put his hand out and I took it.

In October I canceled my first trip to America in 16 months because Friedrich was not looking very good. Asmus and I went back and forth trying to decide whether to stay or go. We gave ourselves a deadline to make a decision to help but I was still not sure. I miss the United States of America and everything in its borders but I would hate for something to happen to Asmus' father while I was watching the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills (My visits home are little more than television watching and eating. In 2010, the world is small but you still can't get get macaroni and cheese in Germany (There is not elbow macaroni. I am traditionalist. There will only be elbows in my macaroni and cheese!).) I asked Friedrich during a visit to him in the rehabilitation hospital. Should we go to America or stay here?

He clearly said, Bleib in der Nähe. Stay close.

He died the same day that Asmus and I were supposed to depart the United States. I am so glad that we canceled the trip. Asmus saw his father four times in the period of time that we would have been on vacation. Unfortunately, he did not make it to his side until 15 minutes after he died. Fortunately, Margot was there. Friedrich did not seem to be aware but Margot spoke to him and held his hand.

A view of the cemetery where Friedrich's body will be placed.

I have celebrated two birthdays in Germany. All of them have been with Friedrich. We were both born on March 14. Earlier this year, I was looking forward to having the spotlight on me next year because the anniversary of my birth will not be on a weekend, so we would not be together. Now I think it will feel like something is missing.

Shock and Awe

2010-11-08T05:27:00.003-05:00

Unfortunately, Asmus' father has gone.

Thanksgiving- Part II

2010-11-02T10:58:00.007-04:00

Ever since I left college I have belonged to a gym. I go. I am the only one who actually goes. I sit at a desk all day and so I like moving around. Plus, I have a major ankle deficiency, so I cannot take a quick jog in the park. So, I pay money to walk indoors.

Well, my gym days are over. I would like to thank the uptight staff at the Kiel branch of Meridian Spa. I have been a member of this place since March 2009. New management came last April and things have not been the same since.

Germans live in fear of germs. I don't like germs much but I like to live my life. I remember that I took a tour of the Meridian Spa near the apartment in Hamburg and I was immediately turned off when I was told that I cannot wear a swimsuit in the hot tub. The reason: Hygiene. I asked a few more questions after that response and I got no closer to logic. The representative very politely said that swimsuits have bacteria on them that will contaminate the water, so no swimsuit. I don't know much but that don't make any sense. I think Hygiene is the word people here use when they don't have a real reason. Members are also not allowed to wear the same shoes in the gym as they do on the street. The reason: Hygiene. The germs from your shoes will contaminate the place where people sweat. Makes sense to me.

Before April 2010, the staff at Meridian Spa in Kiel and I had a friendly relationships. We laughed and waved hello and good-bye. I wore my all-purpose sneakers and my swimsuit and I nor any member had dropped dead from bubonic plague. In April the staff disappeared one by one and so did the waves and the laughs. OK, no one has to be nice to me but the gym became a place of exercise, not enjoyment. I am not a rebel without a cause. If a rule is annoying, I follow. If a rule is impeding my normal life, I fight against it.

I got really busy, so I didn't have much time to sit in the hot tub. I refuse to sit in a hot tub with strange men and be naked. That is not comfortable. Asmus has confirmed that German men are just as perverted as American men. Not all of them would be focusing on the body as a form of nature. I did go in the hot tub in my bathing suit once on a Sunday and nothing happened. But never had another chance to try this again.

I did change my sneakers because it felt the thing to do. The gym has a lobby area with couches and a television and tables. The day when the old regime was all gone, in September, a manager came over to me as I was putting on my right shoe in the empty lobby. She asked me to put my shoes on in the changing room. At that moment, I didn't have on any shoes, so I asked her if I can put on my shoes in the sit-up area ten feet away from me. Shockingly, she said no. The changing room was about 200 feet away. I refused to put my "street shoes" back on and then walk to the changing room to put on my sneakers. I told her that I would put on my shoes here this time and the next time I would put them on in the changing room. That was on a Friday.

On Monday, I changed in the changing room and ran to Dance class. Dance started in August. It runs from 6 p.m. until 7 p.m. I teach Mondays at 7:20. I dance (badly) for as long as I can before I am in danger of being late, usually that means I rush out at 7:45. I run to the bathroom near the gym entrance and change my clothes. I was almost done when the same manager came in. She followed me and lectured me about not using the changing room. I was near the sink and then moved into a stall, while she remained in the bathroom and lectured me. I came out and there were four women there lecturing me. I quit the gym. The next day, the real manager said they prefer that I use the changing room but if I am late, there is no problem if I use the bathroom once in a while. Two weeks later, I returned. I ran into the stall to change. The same woman came in and left. When I left the bathroom, she was standing there. She said that was my last chance and the manager had warned me about changing in the bathroom. I asked to talk to that manager. I got some understudy and he told me that I was lying. He had spoke to the manager and he did not say that. I asked if we can call the manager who had called me and shockingly (Why was I still shocked by things?) he said no. We went back and forth. He didn't understand why I refused to use the changing room. I use the changing room all the time, just not Monday after Dance class. I quit. I quit officially. There was nothing that could then be said to soothe me.

I asked various Germans of various ages about this treatment. No one understands the insistence on using the changing room (all fear street germs in gyms). Two weeks after I officially quit the gym, someone from corporate asked what happened. I told her about the Changing Room rules and she was shocked (It is not just me.). She asked someone if that is a rule. After a few minutes, she came back to the phone dumbfounded. The Changing Rule is a rule but it is a rule that no one enforces. Except at the Kiel outpost. She said if the managers want to enforce the rule, then they can. She apologized several times and invited me to return when I feel comfortable.

Ain't gonna happen.

Never.

'Cause now I have my own gym. In my house.

(Good things are never happening at a neat desk.)

Notice what the machines face. I ride my bike for 25 minutes at a time while I watch television shows on my computer. This morning, I sweated while I watched the first episode of 30 Rock this season. My ride lasts about as long as a sitcom. That is God's work, not a coincidence!

I have not used the treadmill because I sprained my ankle about a week before it arrived. Asmus has walked through an evening of the second season of Dr. Who.

I am very grateful for giving the finger to Meridian Spa. If they give me trouble in a recession, I must hurt their bottom line. For that I give thanks!

Thanksgiving-Part I

2010-11-02T10:54:00.004-04:00

When you look at your life, you can easily find some things that suck.

It is my mission to note things that rock!

Here are a few things that I am grateful for:

Yup! I love Hawaiian Punch. I am not ashamed to say it. Maybe I should be but I ain't.

On a recent trip to Film Peter, my local video store (Yes, I still visit a video store. I like looking at the boxes and the instant gratification that you can get from mail-order DVD rentals.) I climbed the front steps and standing in front of me was some weird little American kiosk. There were six shelves decked out in red, white and blue of American obesity in can- and bar-form. There were variety of Hershey products and cans of soda and stuff. I was giddy was excitement. Asmus and I had canceled our visit to America and we on our way to the Park Hyatt in Hamburg for four days, so I could not load down the car with sugary goodness. I had to choose. What to do? What to do? I settled on three cans of Hawaiian Punch and one can of Welch's grape soda. I know. I know. How can grape soda not have taken over the world? I don't know. Oddly enough, Fanta is popular here, so there is bad orange soda but no form of grape soda.

I hand to introduce Asmus to these treasures. After the first slurp, it was clear that he was a fan of Hawaiian Punch. One more for Our Side.

He took a big gulp and said that it IS pretty sweet. I don't think that I will have to fight him for grape soda.

I assumed this that I why I bought three cans of the red miracle and one of the purple.

For some reason, drinks in Germany are expensive. A small cup of coffee is 1.90 and 12-oz. bottle of apple juice is 1.75. The Hawaiian Punch and Welch's were 1.84, so they are luxuries that I can afford. Yes!

Of course, I have only found them in one place in all of Germany but I am grateful for that one place.

Hope for Tomorrow

2010-10-11T11:07:00.005-04:00

When people find out that I moved from America to Germany, they incredulously ask, "Why?"
Of course, it makes me like I am a fool. But there are reasons. One of those reasons is in the hospital now. Probably two of the reasons are at the hospital right now.

Asmus's father, Friedrich, has been struggling against a variety of ailments for about three months in a variety of institutions and his wife, Margot, is at his bedside hoping he will eat some of her energizing vegetable soup and get better.

I have had few long-term relationships, so I have little experience supporting people who do not share my DNA. Add to that, dealing with a foreign health care system and I am lost.

Hospitals, like everything in Germany, are much quieter than their American cousins. Also, there is much less privacy. As ridiculous as curtains are, they do supply patients with a semblance of alone time. Friedrich's rooms have not been equipped with this faux wall. He does not have the best hearing, so I try to talk loudly but not too loud. I want to say something interesting but not too personal.

The worse thing is that you can never find a doctor. But Asmus's family is much more patient than me and is in control, so I do nothing. I guess that's good because my poor German would immediately turn into aggressive and mean English.

Things are pretty stressful. Good news comes and bad news immediately takes its place. I am more comfortable with constants. This roller coaster ride of sickness is especially draining. However, out of all this pain the brothers are talking to each other more and old friends have strengthened bonds.

I just show up with bananas and try to be perky.

Semper Vigilans

2010-10-04T01:02:00.007-04:00

Yesterday afternoon, there was a terror alert for Americans in Europe. The more my life changes, the more it stays the same. I remember New York after the 2001 attacks and weeks terror alerts that morphed into a malaise. This time I have skipped the four stages and went straight to acceptance. Actually, I think I live at acceptance.

There is a level of trust in Germany that I have not had since I moved to New York. In New York, I was constantly on the lookout for robbery, murder and rape.

Never let anyone walk behind me at night.

No direct eye contact on the subway.

Never carry more money than necessary.

Always walk where there are groups of people.

Never leave any thing alone in public places.

Notice everyone around you; try to remember some detail.

In a bar, take your drink with you to the bathroom.

After September 11, I added Be wary of unattended backpacks to the list.

Even though, Germany has much less crime than New York, I have been living my life here on Orange Level Alertness. For example, I have not known the pleasure of taking of a steeply-discounted train trip from Kiel to Hamburg with strangers.

In Germany, Deutsche Bahn, the national rail system, sells a land ticket. This pass allows travel unlimited travel for one day throughout a state, or land. The land ticket is good for five people. A while back, someone clever and cheap discovered that they can get a really cheap ride if they asked strangers to chip in for the ticket. Now it is commonplace for strangers to accost you when you are buying a train ticket.

People who met around a ticket machine are suddenly travel partners. While these new partners only have to sit in the same car, that is too close for me. I am not giving money to people I don't know, I am not talking to people I don't know and I am certainly not sitting near people I don't know. I always wonder whether I should assume a backpack at McDonald's is a threat or the property of someone who forgot napkins.

For those who worry about my safety, know that I have been obsessively worried about my safety since April 2000 without breaks.

Happy Anniversary to Me!

2010-09-12T03:08:00.008-04:00

I had been saying that I have been living in Germany for 18 months for so long that I almost did not realized that 6 months had passed since I had started saying that. I got on a plane at Newark Liberty International Airport around 4:45 p.m. on September 10, 2008

and landed around 7:30 a.m. on September 11, 2008 at Hamburg Airport.

There was so much craziness before I left that it was a relief to get a break from my life. I arrived sick. I was really sick. I wondered if my illness was a some kind of sign that I should not leave but then I remembered that I don't believe in signs and returned to being excited about being with new husband.

I had a crazy roommate who, in the summer of 2008, said she earned a spot in a directing program in Los Angeles but the subletter she found got calls from her letting her know that she would be stopping by the apartment to pick up something once every three weeks or so. While we were away, an eviction notice showed up in our mailbox. I went to the courthouse certain that this was a mistake and annoyed that I had to wake up early to hit the bowels of Hoursing Court in Brooklyn to fix this before work. I felt like someone had hit me over the head with a shovel when the clerk brought over a stack of documents about 6 inches thick that was "our" file. We were, in fact, getting evicted. When I sent her email about the eviction notice, she denied any knowledge of a problem.

From: info@tanisha
To: Monica
Sent: Thursday, August 14, 2008 3:24:28 AM
Subject: RETURNING TO NY!!!!!!!
16

I am not aware of any hearing!!!!!!!!!MY STOMACH IS IN KNOTS I will be in NY By this afternoon.

Tanisha

That is odd because the last document was a payment plan that she agreed to comply with or be evicted. Despite taking $900 from the subletter for each month of the three months that she planned to stay in Tanisha's bedroom, Tanisha had not given any money to the landlord since May. After a warning letter in the spring, I pleaded with Tanisha to let me know if there were any problems with her rent payments. She promised to do that. When she left for the "airport" (As you see, she is coming from Los Angeles to New York in an afternoon. Perhaps she was dating a pilot?) in June, I asked if the rent was all paid up and she assured me that it was. She was aware of all the lack of payments, so her stomach should have been fine.

In the process of leaving, my desktop computer,an unopened set of pots,and a Japanese teapot (my first gift from Asmus)were stolen from our locked apartment. In Tanisha's crazy head, it was my fault we were evicted because upon learning of the eviction I made a promise to pay more than $1,000 to catch us up but then when the panic wore off, I decided that I should not pay for her mistake and rescinded my offer. Tanisha packed her things while cursing my name, the subletter told me. Some time after that, my things disappeared. These things had very little "street value." Everything was taken just to be mean. It worked. After I good cry, I packed the rest of my belongings and moved onto my friend Jennifer's couch for two weeks. That woman saved my life. It was nice to live with a friend and not a lunatic. Plus, when people at work heard of all the shenanigans, I got nothing but support from the editor in chief down.

Since I moved onto German shores, I have had a life of adventure. Adventure can be good and it can be bad. I do not feel very German. In fact, I feel extra American. People here do not treat me like a fellow countrymen and that has worked, I do not feel like I am at home. Despite that, I wonder if I could smoothly move back into life on the East Coast. Hamburg and Kiel are so clean. Can I accept the Philadelphia subway's preponderance of spat-out sunflower seeds smushed into the corners or the gross streets of New York? Germany has many many rules for everything in life. Amazingly, people overwhelmingly follow these rules, so there is very little crime here. I walk around in darkness alone and I feel no fear. That has not happened to me in the United States since I was old enough to understand the news on television.

Necessity is the mother of invention. Life in America is convenient, so I have never needed to be creative. Since moving to Germany, I have learned how to make baba ganoush in a blender and to whip up a pie crust. I working on becoming fluent in a second language. I pay attention to all types of signs because I cannot count on my understanding of words. Plus, I have such a deeper understanding of immigrants. I had difficulty adjusting and I am a college-educated, savvy person who visited Germany many times before moving here. I do not know how an Italian immigrant made it in lower Manhattan in1902 or a Chinese immigrants makes it in the same place in 2010.

A lot can happen in two years.

Dinner and Jesus

2010-09-04T03:18:00.005-04:00

Hamburg is the second-largest city in Germany. Despite its size, it does not have a large culinary reach. As a former New Yorker, I miss the diverse restaurant choices. When we go to another new town, non-German- and Italian foods were the top of my list.

I had some great Indonesian food in Amsterdam.

In St. Petersburg we had delicious Korean food.

I wanted to have some really good Thai, Ethiopian or Korean food in Berlin.

I could not get a recommendation for a good Thai or Ethiopian, so they were off the list. Beate, the sister of my Hamburg friend, Anne, is my hero. She pointed me to Ixthys.

A Korean restaurant with a Greek name?!?

Ixthys is the Greek word for fish. I learned during my tour of the Catacombs in Rome that the fish and the vertical use of the word Ixthys came to symbolize Christ. This small Korean restaurant in Nollendorfplatz is run by two evangelical Christian women who create amazing Korean food.

The menu covers about eight pages and about three of them have food information on them. The rest are covered in information about Christianity and Bible verses. The restaurant has almost three entire walls covered in pieces of paper that are about six feet long and covered in Bible verses that will lead diners to Christ. I don't mind silent attempts at conversion.

The menu was notable because there are so few options on it. There was some noodle dishes and, of course, bibimbap and kimchi. A skinny menu is always a good sign that the food is going to be great. The chefs are going to give you their best food, not everything that they know how to make.

Another sign of the coming greatness was the dining room. It was similar to my mother's basement. There was two high tables, a picnic table and one traditional table for four. The rest of the room is taken up with a refrigerator for drinks and the empty bottles. That's it. The restaurant has one wall that is taken over with a window and the entrance, two white walls covered entirely in Bible verses, and a wall that has a few Bible verses and opens to the kitchen area where you walk to and give your orders directly to the chefs. The decor is an afterthought; the food is the focus.

Like I usually do at Korean restaurants, I ordered a serving of kimchi and bibimbap. The cabbage was spicy but the heat did not overpower flavor. The bibimbap was bursting with a variety of tastes. My adventurous German had a noodle soup with chicken. He deemed it excellent and better than the food in St. Petersburg -- the first time he had Korean food. Altogether, the two entrees, kimchi, and two sodas cost 17 euros.

It was a great find (sorry no website).

The Bears

2010-09-04T01:48:00.007-04:00

I have no idea why but the bear is the symbol for Berlin. One popular theory is that it was put on the city-state's (Like Hamburg and Bremen, Berlin is both a city and a state.) coat of arms because in the German pronunciation, the first syllable sounds like the German word for bear. "Berlin" in Germany sounds like Bair-leen. The German word for bear is "Bär" and sounds like Bair.

The bear is on everything. The popular beer made in Berlin and logos for the city's film festival. Like many cities around the world, Berlin had a variety of animal statues on parade throughout the city. Of course, it was the Bear. Here a few examples.

This is the bear in the American embassy's glass-encased entrance on Behrenstrasse. Yes, that's a Sol LeWitt star painting behind it.

Most Bears in Berlins are outside. Like all American embassies and consulates around the world, security is a tight in Berlin embassy, so this lady liberty Bear is indoors.

Here's a Bear used as advertising. A red Bear welcomes guests from around the world.

In a gay section of Berlitz called Nollendorf Platz, sits a rainbow-covered Bear. I am not sure what happens in Bruno's but all the windows are covered, so I am sure there is only wholesome fun to be had there. Despite a fear of what is happening in Bruno's, we had some great meals in this section of town.

Brandenburg Gate

2010-09-02T01:18:00.010-04:00

Brandenburg Gate (Brandenburg Tor) is a piece of a city gate that was completed in 1791. When many people think of the wall coming down, they see this structure. On one side of the gate sat East Berlin and the other was West Berlin. When the Berlin Wall, Berlin Mauer, was put up, East Berlin got the gate.

Already things different. When I came there was construction on Unter den Linden, a street that runs into the gate. Also, cars and trucks rumbled up and down the street. Now the street is only open to pedestrian traffic. The area is much more serene. Because World War II ravaged the city, everything is new and interesting. While there are no trees on much of the streets, there are a few large parks in central Berlin.

A museum, a glorious grand dame hotel, government offices and small restaurants line the treeless street. I was happy to see a Dunkin' Donuts and a Starbucks. I have seen Dunkin' Donuts in Cologne and now Berlin. It gives me hope that a few will soon make their ways to Hamburg or Kiel.

Here is an up-close look at the statue of victory being pulled by a chariot. She faces the east.

Here is the back view of the statue. This is what you see when you cross the gate.

In 2008, the American embassy caused a stir when it opened its doors flush against Brandenburg Gate. As you see the building has the charm of a prison. Plus, security measures mean that people can't get close to it, so part of the Pariser Platz, an area that sits right in front of the gate, is off limits to people strolling around the historical area.

Summer Lust

2010-09-01T23:57:00.006-04:00

I never travel in the summertime. Prices are too high and the crowds are too big. Until I moved to Germany, I had not seen the nation in the spring or the summer. Plus, if you live in a city, it is great to be in the summer. All the weaker citizens have decamped for less busy climates or somewhere "fun," like the Grand Canyon. The summer in Hamburg was fabulous. There was no one on the bus, so finally the bus arrivals resembled the bus schedule. Plus, it seemed that all the teenagers had all been shipped off. The gaggles of adolescents that crowd corners and subway stations with their crates of beer and bottles of cheap sparkling wine were gone. I want to experience my home in all its empty splendor.

But, Asmus and I have been immobile since the return from Russia. We spent a glorious weekend with his brother's family outside Frankfurt in June but there were no exotic restaurants or bus tours. God, I love a double-decker bus tour. I love looking down on tourist attractions.

Wanderlust took a hold of us in August. We wanted an overnight stay in a close but interesting city. We rejected Amsterdam, Copenhagen and Cologne because of distance concerns. Asmus knocked down Dresden because he has a prejudice against cities in east Germany. Shocking for such a liberal guy. We thought about the island paradise of Sylt. But we are not beach people, so struggled to think of what to do for fun, so we scrapped the North Sea treasure.

The winner . . .

Berlin!

I visited there in 2000 and was not impressed. The city was dirty and old. Whatever wasn't rickety and out of date was under construction. The capital was in the process of moving from Bonn to Berlin, so two cities [East Berlin and West Berlin] were being turned into one [Berlin] and old government buildings were being renovated and new ones were being built. The city was one big construction site. But I have not seen it in 10 years, maybe it has changed. Asmus, the German, has not been to the capital since it became the capital. He thinks he was last there in 1989.

We made the right decision. Berlin was diverse, full of history, and pulsing. Going to the movies is not a major leisure activity here. Hamburg is the second-largest city in Germany, almost 2 million people. The city has about 8 or 9 movie theaters. Two show films in English. Berlin has more movie options and these options sometimes unspool a month before and a month longer than they do in Hamburg. So our To Do list was full of movies.

Our home away from home, CineStar Berlin - Original im Sony Center. It is a theater in this weird indoor/outdoor space called
Sony Center in Potsdamer Platz.

Popcorn is a very American treat. I am not a big fan of movie theater food (I usually cannot afford it) but every once in a while I want some buttery goodnews. This Berlin house is the only moviehouse that I visited that had buttery popcorn. It wasn't wet and gross with oil that is cleverly disguised as butter. It had a butter flavor that slid down your throat. Other theaters have popcorn that is either sweet like Cracker Jacks or merely salty. The familiar taste supported the movie enjoyment of Grown Ups. I needed a little bit of help. The seats are tighter than airline seats.

We got off the train at 1:45 p.m. and went straight to Potsdamer Platz and the movie theater. When we came back to the theater to see the haunting Moon at 10:30 p.m., we got tickets for two different bench seats.

Another view of the Sony Center. This is a combination of offices and shopping and entertainment center. There is a partial roof over the "outdoor" part and lights of different colors shine throughout the area.

A view of the roof over the "outdoor" area of the Sony Center. It changes from blue to lilac to white and the walking area gets a cool glow.

A new addition to the family

2010-08-26T02:36:00.003-04:00

Asmus and I have expanded our family. Simone officially joined us at 12:20 p.m. on Saturday, August 21, 2010.

Simone is not a newborn. She was born in 1998 and is a wine-colored Mercedes-Benz E-Class. We have never owned anything more expensive than a computer. It is a big responsibility but we think we are ready.

It is pretty exciting. Although I am not driving it, I am excited. I teach English Tuesday nights and the bus schedule is not in my favor. The lesson is over at 9 p.m. but I don't get home until 10 p.m. It takes a half hour for the bus to come and then it takes a scheduled break at the train station for 7 minutes. Now I don't care about no schedules.

I am not driving it because my license expired March 2009, the day of my wedding in Hamburg. I am a passenger and it is killing me.

Of course, I have complaints. I have two big complaints and both are about size.

I have always complained about signage in Germany. I never know where i am in this country. There are limited signs and when there are signs, there is not enough information on them. The street signs are microscopic. I estimate that they are about four inches tall. When you are zooming by at 25 miles an hour, that is about the size of an amoeba. Also, there is only one sign at each intersection. Driving in an unfamiliar area is very stressful.

I thought it was odd that so many Germans have navigation systems in their cars. EVERYONE here has one. Now that I have worked as a map reader here, I understand this need for digital help. Fortunately, Simone was born with a Navi, as the locals say. We just haven't figured it out yet.

Also, parking spaces here are two narrow. I am pretty bad at parking between lines. I always park far from a mall, where there were fewer cars. With that space, I can drive over three rows until I get the car straight. Tuesday afternoon I was radiating sympathy like I was the sun when Asmus parked Simone in the lot near our apartment. He got her in but it would be impossible for anything bigger than a SmartCar in the spot next to Simone.

We did not have the luxury of space on my return from teaching Tuesday night. Residents in downtown Kiel get four spaces that they can use in a parking lot across the street from our apartment. There was one spot between two cars. There was a lot of back and forth and back and forth before Asmus got her in. Then we had to struggle to get out of the car. There was not enough room to open the doors wide. I am going to need a valet parking to suddenly appear here when I start driving in Germany in November.

Despite all the size problems, it is so nice to have an efficient means of transportation. Earlier this year, we moved from one apartment to another in two cab rides. If there are sick parents to move from home to doctors offices, there is a backseat for them and a trunk for a walker or wheelchair. The backseat and trunk were requirements for any addition to our family.

I am excited about all the possibilities. We wanted to do paintball and go carts. Both places were about 90 minutes away from our apartment by public transportation. With Simone, we are even closer to the fun. I love closer.

Time flies when you're having fun

2010-08-26T01:50:00.004-04:00

The view from the anniversary celebration spot.

On July 25, Asmus and I celebrated two years of wedded bliss. Time flies when you're having fun.

Of course, there were massages and a great dinner. We had an OK time at our favorite hotel in Hamburg. I sent note listing my complaints -- liquidy scrambled eggs that were not hot; half-filled minibar (the items in it are free, so it must be full!); and other small things. In reply, we were invited to stay in the duplex suite that overlook the Alster lakes at the price of a regular room. That was a great gift!

We had a great dinner at Cox restaurant. The food was fabulous and the service was warm. Germans prefer quality food over quality service. It was nice to get both. I got tap water with no complaints. (At a charming restaurant near Frankfurt, a server told me that it is illegal to give out tap water. If she gave me water, she would be fired. All of it lies. Somewhere along the way, Germans joined the Church of Bottled Water. While the United States is slowing waking up to the environmental impact of collecting, packaging and transporting water, always-eco-friendly Germany pushes bottled water on everyone. Requests of tap water are often met with sighs, complaints or refusals.) The server took our photograph happily and congratulated us. The food came fast and she kept checking on us. Cox was last on the list and now it is on the top of my favorite places to eat.

Then we hit Cafe Gnosa for dessert. German dessert are not the same as American desserts. Kuchen is a collection of thin layers of cakes and thick layers of cream. Cafe Gnosa comes very close to getting it right. There are tables outside, a cafeteria in the front of the restaurant, and, in the back, a Mod dining room where cutting-edge visual art hangs on the walls, shag carpets lies on the floor, and cool lamps hang over table. I dragged Asmus through the cafeteria straight to the groovy dining room, which was empty. While we debated the niceness of sitting in an empty room and having the server only wait on us, our server, Robert, arrived. He heard the debate and told us that we must sit back here and he would see that we were happy [There was no mention of the anniversary.]. Robert fulfilled his promise. Plus, we discovered the gloriousness that is coffee with banana liqueur.

It was almost as good as the perfumed lotion that Asmus got me. First, I have a ridiculous love of lotion. I love it. I love smooth skin. When I was in Chicago earning an over-priced masters degree, I bought Princesse Marina de Bourbon perfume. It was this sweet berry sensation. When I moved back East, I could not find it anywhere. I eventually gave up the dream of smelling like jam. The dream was realized a few Sundays ago, when Asmus gave me Thierry Mugler's Angel perfumed lotion. It smells exactly like Princesse Marina de Bourbon. He had no idea about my perfume heart ache.

I got him a blender. He is a fan of appliances with motors.

I recommend marriage. If for nothing else besides the gifts.

More Purging

2010-08-25T11:09:00.008-04:00

Kiel Week- The Activities!

There were concerts. Kiel has new acts like Cassandra Steen. It also has oldies but goodies. This year, Nena performed (Here in Deutschland, she had more hits than 99 Luft Balloons. She had a well-received record last year. If you can find Wir sind Wahr (We are True), your life will be better than it was before.). Level 42 was also on stage. I missed all of them. There is a lot of standing at concerts in Europe. I am not one for standing. I did a lot of eating, drinking and shopping. I bought a cool ring from Mexico. I had a massage. I bought a vase.

This is where I fell in love with Thai Massage. I went twice.

At this "Netherlands" pavilion, this patient man made glass vases, objets d'art and candelabras while you watched.
I bought a delicate yet intricate vase from him for 15 euros.

Here are two views of the beloved ring that I bought at the Mexican jewelry pavilion.

Purge

2010-08-25T09:53:00.009-04:00

I have been working like Harriet Tubman (without the good feeling that comes from leading hundreds of people out of slavery) and unfortunately I have been neglecting communication to the world.

Here are a bunch of photos of my summer.

Kiel Week- The Food!

Nepalese cuisine. Delicious. For the uninitiated, it is similar to Indian.

Excellent chimichurri and wine!

The Taste of Peru is much like the taste of Mexico.
The moles were a bit different.

The crowd at the International Food Market.

Interestingly, Rwandan food has yucca, like Caribbean food.
It has some kick. This stand offered dishes with
alligator and springbok but I stuck to beef.

Super American

2010-06-28T08:10:00.007-04:00

USA goalkeeper Tim Howard reaches for a goal against England in the
first full day of the World Cup on June 12. We tied! No one scored.

The longer that I am away from America, the more "American" I have become. I don't moan when someone offers me mayonnaise for my French fries, instead of ketchup. I don't groan when someone mispronounces my name.

I hate it when people think I am from Africa. Two weeks ago, I was having a cocktail at Mango's, a restaurant in which I have had plenty of cocktails. The television was broadcasting the highlights of the day's World Cup match. In German, my server congratulated me on the playing of the "Elfbeinküste" team. I was so proud that I had been able to do basic greetings and order in German but sadly I was stumped by the team name. I tore up my brain to find the word. I recently heard it. It was familiar. Thirty seconds later, I got it. Elfbeinküste was the Ivory Coast. The African nation had played Portugal earlier in the day. The small country shocked the world when it tied the European powerhouse. The German server thought I was from the Ivory Coast. I politely corrected him. I could have said nothing but I am AMERICAN dammit!

Quite often Germans think I am from Africa. For a while, people would ask me if I was from Uganda. Then it was Ghana. I still get Ghana a lot. Sometimes people just ask me where in Africa I come from. Germany does not have a long history of immigration, so many here think Black people only come from the African continent.

So I am living in Europe, so adjust a bit. I live with a German man, so I watch World Cup soccer. I even call it football. I watch Germany play but my heart beats red, white and blue, so I only really care when America plays. And then I watch under duress. I like to win so much that it is too stressful to watch. I did not watch the last match in the early rounds, when America had to win or go home. I was ecstatic when someone told me about Donovan Landon's less-than-a-minute-to-go goal.

I loved that people were scared of the U.S. in soccer. I was thrilled that the USA fielded such a ethnically-diverse team. Plus, our team was coached by an American, not some coach who bowed to the highest bidder.

Donovan Landon after scoring the winning goal
against Algeria June 23. That was the shocking
win that got the US in to the Round of 16.

I was still so proud of the team when it lost to Ghana. It took a long time to get to that deciding goal.

Now I will have to support Deutschlands Mannschaft [Germany's Team] 100%.

Ain't That a Kick in the Head

2010-06-14T09:29:00.004-04:00

Tor! That's German for Goal!

Life is different here. Of course, it is but now more than usual. That's because it's time for the World Cup!

Because I had European friends, I knew it was a big deal but it is different to be in the middle of World Cup insanity.

Germans are so calm and reserved but not when there is a black-and-white ball rolling around. They get a lively. I like the World Cup effect here.

Asmus made me watch England take on the United States Friday night. I was happy to skip over the event because everyone, Everyone, including the U.S. team, predicted American defeat at the hands of its former oppressor (Yes, taxation without representation, indeed.) I was happy to witness a tie! Yahoo! Even Steven. Take that England!

I was ready for fun Sunday night. That was Germany's first game. They took on Australia. A new sports bar opened up around the corner from us, so made a date to be there at 7:30. an hour before the match started. We got there around 7:45 and there were no seats.

There were tables outside but I am not one for the out of doors, so we went to a restaurant that is officially called Alex and I refer to as the worst service in the world. The tables directly in front of the projector screen were filled but there were plenty of options a step away.

The Crowd watching Australia lose to Germany their first match at the World Cup.

After the little kids walk the players out, the German national anthem played. No one in Alex stood up or put their hands over their hearts. That is a relief. I am not sure of foreigner etiquette. I do not know the words to the German national anthem and it would be dishonest to symbolically place my hand over my heart. I ain't that crazy about the country. Then the Australian anthem played. The players put their hands over their hearts and sang. It seems this hand-over-the-heart thing may be a vestige of our British past. Damn Oppressors!

The game started and it was quiet. Quiet except the so-annoying-that-I-want-to-kill-myself horns, the vuvuzela. The crowd rises to a roar as the ball gets close to the Australia's goal and it exploded when it went in four times.

Cacau just scored a goal and the crowd goes mildly excited.

It was nice relaxing game. Australia was supposed to lose and they really lived out that prediction. At the end, there was light applause and then restaurant cleared out.

But from our apartment, we heard fireworks and cars honking and cheering.

I cannot wait until the opening matches are over. I want to be in a swirl of cheering.

No Use Crying Over Spilled Blood

2010-06-08T04:03:00.007-04:00

On our first full day, Asmus and I did the tour bus thing. It was one of the hop-on hop-off. Our goal was the Church of the Saviour on the Spilled Blood. That was my choice. Czar Nicholas II was fatally attacked on the spot where the church now stands January 1881. The ground was broken October 1883. It officially opened August 1907. It is built in a Russian style popular in the early 1800s. I love it. It is too much. Too much decoration. Too much gold. To much color. I love too much. It has those onion domes and mosaic on the outside.

The inside is entirely decorated in mosaics, which depict stories from the Bible.

View of the Ceiling

Iconstasis. Christian churches in Eastern Europes have a wall of icons and
religious paintings that separate the nave from the sanctuary.

There is a black pagoda-like structure on the exact location where the king was shot.

There's also an ATM in the church. I love a church with an ATM. Many churches in Hamburg sell wine. Churches in Europe are fun.

This magnificent building stopped being an active church in 1930 by Communists, who were not fans of religion. It was a warehouse for decades. In 1970 the government allowed it to be returned to its former glory. After 27 years, it was done.

On the Ground in St. Petersburg

2010-05-11T04:12:00.010-04:00

St. Petersburg.

Oh, St. Petersburg.

I had built this city up in mind. I did not want it to suck.

I am so happy to report that it didn't suck.

Pulkovo Airport is a pretty dreary airport. It was nice to be in the same line as Asmus. When we traveled to Rome and returned from European destinations, he goes into the European Union citizens line and I head to the "All Passports" line. It is a bit lonely.

I am a bit ahead of myself. I am an immigrant. For all the conservatives out there, I want you to know that I am a legal immigrant. About two months ago, I noticed that my visa was going to expire in the middle of April. We live mostly in Kiel, so it is difficult to get to the foreigners office in Hamburg.

We don't know much about rules for foreigners but just to be on the safe side, we decided to update the visa.

I am a bit ahead of myself.

We were in Kiel on Friday, April 9. Saturday, April 10, we flew to Munich to visit his aunt Renate. We stayed at our favorite hotel chain the Meridien; Le Méridien München is not as great as its Hamburg cousin. We toured the Paulaner brewery (So far, we have visited Guinness, Carlsberg, Becks, Heinecken (I just visited Holsten last Friday without my beloved.).) We took a bus tour of the city.

We returned to Hamburg on Monday night, April 12. Then we packed and shopped Tuesday and Wednesday. Plus, I worked on my Fodor's chapter about Hamburg. So, we had to fix this visa thing the morning of our flight on Thursday, April 15.

The flight was at 11; the foreigners office opens at 8. It sucked. We got up at the crack of dawn and brought the largest suitcase that Samsonite makes to the foreigners office, because we were going the airport right after the office. Sadly, I had to take a photo. No one should be forced to take a picture at 8 in the morning. I did and I will never forgive the Bundesamtes für Migration und Flüchtlinge (Germany's ofice for Migration and Refugees). We were in and out in 15 minutes. Now I am set for a visa until October 14, 2010. The adventure continues.

So we get to the Hamburg airport and we notice that a flight to Norway was canceled. We wondered why but quickly moved on.

We ate the worst meal in the Goethe cafe in the Frankfurt airport. Skip it if you can. There was some liquid crawling across the floor but no one working there said anything to us when we sat down. We were drinking coffee when we noticed people kneeling around us with towels. They were trying to sneakily mop up the floor. Plus, the snacks were pretty crappy.

We got out of the cafe and into the sky. Easy flight. Even thought it was only a few years old, the St. Petersburg airport was gray and dimly-lit and quiet. It looked like some government office. Not a cool office, like the IRS but the one you go to get a permit to build a high fence.

Asmus and I had a free transfer to the hotel and little instructions on how to get it, despite my questions. We got outside arrivals and searched and searched. I was afraid this was going to happen. Before we left, I asked the hotel lady what is the procedure for transfers. What do we do? Where do we go? She said don't worry and not much else. Just arrive and the driver will be there and she hoped we have a fun vacation. Just as I worried, I had no idea who the driver was and when he is supposed to arrive. We don't speak Russian so we can't walk up to random people ask for help. There was a guy with a 8 x 11 pink piece of paper. I think I saw a bunch of Ms, so I thought he may be the guy. Who has more Ms in their names besides Asmus and me? I pointed and yelled my name a few times and confirmed my suspicions. And we were on our way.

There was a bit of highway out of the airport. I saw this huge Kentucky Fried Chicken nearby and I knew everything was going to be OK. The road up to the airport is littered with car dealerships.

When we got to the city, we took one long, broad road (We later learned that it was Moscow Avenue). Like East Berlin, which was designed by Communism, the city seemed to be all massive buildings that covered one or two blocks. They all had the same look. Tall, wide and beige-ish gray. It was a bit intimidating. You are so small, next to these striking buildings.

We did not notice a street sign but were able to recognize a STOP sign and St. Petersburg in cyrillic. There was a department store and a huge Park Inn hotel near the beginning of the street.

Along the way, our driver, who spoke little English, served as a ghetto tour guide. Right before we reached some landmark, he would point and give the name. We saw a statue of Lenin, a university, and a library. It was a bit ridiculous but so damn exciting.

St. Petersburg or Bust

2010-05-06T11:30:00.004-04:00

Date Night movie poster

As a child of the 80s, I just did something I never thought I would do -- I visited the former USSR.

I was brought up on Red Dawn, Yakov Smirnoff, and Rocky IV. Since then, I've been to the Berlin Wall. Life is crazy.

Asmus and I were supposed to visit St. Petersburg October 2009. We waited and waited to make arrangements and the price shot up. Instead we went to Copenhagen, which rocks.

For Christmas, Asmus' mother gave us an envelope of money to pay for the trip. Those euros paid for the flight for both of us and the hotel room.

If you read the previous post, you know that I have been busy. I was determined to learn some Tourist Russian. Asmus said he was going to but I knew he wouldn't. I got too busy and didn't either. I learned some of the Cyrillic alphabet.

The Cyrillic alphabet is interesting. Some Arabic letters look like Cyrillic characters and sound like them but then some Arabic letters look like Cyrillic characters and sound different.

a=a
k=k
m=m
o=o
t=t
e=e

b=v
p=r
c=s
h=n
y=u

But then there are all these other characters that look sorta like some things from Hebrew and others that look like things from Greek.You can probably translate the restaurant names below.

The Cold War is over but there seem to be some lingering malice from Russia toward Americans. Russia requires visas for all foreign visitors. Instead of getting a visa for a certain length of time, like 30 days, you get a visa for one specific date to another. I was in charge of visa applications for me and the German. His application was one page. The Russian Federation wanted to know his name, address and favorite color. My application was two pages long. They wanted to know my mother's maiden name, the city where my parents were born, my job, how I am paying for the trip, and the name of my husband. Asmus's application cost 35 euros. Mine cost 100. I didn't let their evilness keep me away.

The oddest thing -- I felt so welcome in St. Petersburg. Unlike in Germany, no one stared at me. In Hamburg and Kiel, people, mostly children, stare at me. There are people of various hues walking the street but I am exotic. About two months ago, I was looking through my pocket for the key to the apartment in Hamburg. An old lady (It is always an old lady here.) asked me if I lived in my apartment. She then asked my name and when I moved to the apartment. I answered her question and then asked her name. Then she walked away. No welcome. No "nice to meet you". There are few Black people in St. Petersburg, so I was ready to be an oddity. Fortunately, Russians are too concerned with their own lives that they do not care about anyone else. That is fine with me.

The other weird thing is that there were foods and restaurants in Russia that are not found in Germany. You may have noticed the Sbarro sign in the image above. I am not a fan of the pathetic attempt at pizza but it is nice to see something familiar. I had pecan pie. Pecan pie!!! A friend, Shurea, mailed me pecans from California, so that I can make a pie (Which I did. Delicious!), because pecanuss is rare in Germany. Plus, pie is not common in Germany. So I was amazed to have pecan pie in the former home of communism. When departing, we passed a T.G.I Friday's. Don't got that in Germany. I love TGIF's Cobb Salad. I had just eaten, so I passed up the chance to have that delicacy until I return to the United States in October. The best part is when I introduced myself people repeated my name the same way that I said it. I tell a German my name and they never come close to saying it the same way. It is the little things that make life worth living.

More about St. Petersburg to come.

What"s Happening

2010-05-06T10:19:00.006-04:00

So much has happened since Christmas and Cinco de Mayo.

I finally passed the Integration test in January. Without passing, my visa was in danger, so I had to pass. My options were few. I could take the last three months of the class again. I am done with classrooms, so I decided to take the test again.

I went through two rude government officials and discovered that I could simply take the test again. Then I searched for a place to take the test again and soon.

I got my failure result in early November. This community college would allow me to take the test in early December. I worked on my own with books and CDs for a month. I had the world's worse speaking partner but I did not let that stop me. I had a crappy speaking partner for my first test. She would not shut up. So I said little and made mistakes. I decided that I would keep talking. Bring down my mistake to production ratio. So this guy would say nothing or sentences that made no sense and I kept talking.

My strategy worked. I passed.

I got B1 on all three parts. It would be embarrassing to fail for a second time. Also, to fail after told government workers that I did not need to take three months of classes again. I got my test results early January and then decided to go to school again. Ugh.

I wanted to teach English. In the poor economy, I thought having a certificate would make things a little better. That was one hard month. I was living in Hamburg and Asmus was living in Kiel. Again, I was stuck in a room for hours and hours a day. The day started at 10 and ended at 7.
I was fine but somewhere in the middle I was the worst teacher ever. I even got an official notice that I may not pass.

Plus, we also had the record winter here, meaning there was some piles. Hamburg is not used to the snow. No one shoveled or de-iced shit. I had to stutter-step over ice for three blocks to get to school.

Fortunately, I passed. I am officially certified to teach English.

Then the Job Search began.

I hate the Job Search. Being constantly judged and deemed unworthy really knocks me out. For some reason, I got interviews with some people who said they liked my resume but wished I had more experience. Of course, I was pissed. Getting dressed up, researching companies, and talking to managers for no reason whatsoever sucks. They knew what experience I had before they invited me to talk.

I had a mini breakdown. It is difficult from being a professional living the good life in New York to begging someone to hire you.

Eventually, I got a freelance position at a school two blocks from my apartment in Kiel. In fact, the same school at which I took the Integration Course.

Hallelujah! I was so relieved. I was not useless.

That feeling did not last long. I got "training." At first, I was alone with a poorly-organized teacher. We met five days a week. After the second week, I got a partner. It was better because the teacher could spread the crazy around. Then that partner disappeared. Then I got two more women with me. We met three times a week for two weeks. It was great because I didn't have to talk for half the sessions. However, it sucked because I was never given an end date for these sessions.

In the midst of these sessions, I got the fabulous assignment to write a chapter for Fodor's guidebook about Hamburg. It rocked. I loved it. I learned so much about hotel rooms here in Hamburg.

Everything was great until it came to inputting my changes. I made a fatal planning mistake. I spent a day for me to copy and paste the file. I cannot wait to until the book comes out next year. The current version is nowhere as fun as my take on Hamburg.

Yeah, I said it, Merry Christmas!

2009-12-24T17:56:00.004-05:00

I have many complaints about Germany . . . but that is a subject of other posts. I have one thing that I love about Deutschland -- Christmas!!!

Wednesday night at the main Christmas market in Kiel.

When I grew up, my neighbors and my family friends all celebrated Christmas. I went to Christian school for years and was an every-Sunday-sing-in-the choir churchgoer. So some time around the middle of December, as a child, my farewell became, Have a Merry Christmas!. In return, I got, "You, too."

In high school my world got bigger. I was never sure who celebrated Christmas, Hanukkah, Ramadan or nothing. So I started saying Merry Christmas only to the people I knew for sure celebrated that holiday. When I moved to New York, I adopted, "Happy Holidays" and sent it out to everyone. It was just easier. Oh, it was the ugly stepsister to "Merry Christmas" but it had to be used, instead. I even sent out Happy Holidays or Season's Greetings cards. Oh, they were elegant, with a sophisticated snowflake design or winter landscape. But they were not beautiful or heartwarming. No family gathered around a tree. No tree. No baby Jesus. No manager. No star. No chubby-faced toddlers running down stairs to see what Santa Claus brought them. No Santa Claus. No reindeer. No nothing.

Germany has all the Christmas accessories and it is the only holiday that people care about.

Very unfortunately, activities during the 1940s got rid of most of its Jewish population. There is little talk of Hanukkah. Plus, Hanukkah's prominence on the American calendar is a relative recent event and the result of its chronological closeness to the present-heavy Christmas holiday.

Also, unfortunately, the Islamic community here is not as vocal as it is in the U.S. The Turkish population has not melded in to mainstream society, so there is almost two communities here. I have not gained entrance to that sphere, so I am not sure what happens during December. I have not heard anyone mention Ramadan here nor have I seen mention of it in print.

So, all I can do is wish everyone, Frohe Weihnachten. Merry Christmas.

Actually, it is Merry Christmases. Christmas celebration starts Christmas Eve and continues covers the evening of December 26.

Of course, this is all very closed-minded of me. I make no excuses. I love Christmas. I am lazy. I like discussing Christmas and all its trappings. I love the music. I love the sentiment. I love the good times that sprout from the holiday. I love it all. I think if I were not raised Baptist, I would still love Christmas. It is just so happy and fun.

For a few weeks a year, that is Germany -- happy and fun. There are Christmas trees, Weihnachtmann (a German variant on Santa Claus), lights and Christmas markets everywhere.

Every German city has several Christmas markets. They are all a little different but share a few common traits -- spiced wine called glühwein, no chairs, würstchen (sausages), kartoffel puffer (kind of like potato fritter), sauteed mushrooms, and people in good spirits. I have been to Christmas markets in Cologne, Frankfurt, Hamburg and Kiel. Each city offered a complex of tents selling candles, scarves, sweaters, Christmas decorations, gloves, candy, puppets and jewelry, but there is some variety. I had some awesome tapas a few weeks ago at Cologne's Christmarket near the Dom. Some markets are better than others. I preferred the market at the Alster Lake to the bigger one at the Hamburg Rathaus (City Hall) and the market at Neumarkt to the one at Cologne's glorious church.

Didgeridoo players at a tent selling food at the main Christmas market in Kiel.

Asmus and I exchanged presents today. The Germans prefer to give gifts on Heiligabend (the Holy Evening, Christmas Eve). Asmus handed me a certificate that said I had received a subscription to America's version of Vanity Fair magazine. I already gave Asmus his gift of an ice cream maker a week ago. We had company and I thought we would make them some homemade ice cream. I got him a secondary gift, so that he would hav something to open on Christmas. Well, I have lost my husband to Civilization IV video game. He has said about three sentences to me since he tore the paper off the box two hours ago. I am proud and a little sad at the same time.

Season's Greetings!

Happy Anniversary!

2009-12-16T04:34:00.000-05:00

Up-close view of my anniversary flowers

Yesterday, I marked the day my life changed.

You can bisect your life on a variety of landmarks.

My life changed December 15, 2007. That was the night that I met Asmus.

We do not celebrate Valentine's Day or other artificial but we did mark this occasion.

When I saw that "we" marked occasion, I mean that Asmus marked it. I am pretty sick and I did nothing but come close to tears when he presented me with flowers when he got home from work.

Sometimes I get weary when I think of how close we got close to not meeting and how many times that we could have met. Asmus and I met at the wedding of Isabel and Matthias. I have known them for 11 years but I never heard of Asmus until 2007. I did not plan to go to their wedding. About two weeks before the ceremony, I changed my mind and booked a ticket.

It makes you wonder how many other opportunities you have missed on your life or how close you came to not getting something positive.

The last two years have been an adventure. I love adventure.

France is supposed to be the home of romance. However, my German boy is always surprising me. He got me this beautiful coffee table book on Germany when I finished Integrations Course and the bouquet came yesterday for the two-year anniversary of our meeting as a couple. He thought he had done red roses too often. He thought the orange roses looked too ugly. The purple daisies beat out white roses, which Asmus thought were too boring.

Pie Sucess!

2009-12-16T04:00:00.000-05:00

Necessity really is the mother of invention.

Germany does not have a pie culture. There is no pie pan, no recipes for crust and no pie filling in a can. So I had to make my own pie from SCRATCH. I have made pies but I did not create the entire thing with my two hands. I did two weeks ago.

I got a copy of Patti Labelle's sweet potato pie recipe and matched it with the Food Network's recipe for a sweet crust.

The pie got a little roughed up because Asmus wrestled it out of the pie plate.

He didn't know it is supposed to sit in the vessel.

It was a bit ugly but the pie tasted delicious. I introduced Asmus to the pie on Thanksgiving. You cannot have Thanksgiving without sweet potato pie.

The only thing I change is its firmness. I only had medium eggs and the recipe called for large eggs. Perhaps that correction will make things better.

Despite that, I am damn proud.

I told the in-laws about the pie and they said they were interested. I have a sweet potato pie recipe from the North Carolina Sweet Potato Pie Commission that uses fructose instead of table sugar.

In my search for recipes, I learned that North Carolina produces the majority of sweet potatoes eaten in the United States. Louisiana also grows a large percentage. Louisiana is crazy proud of their spud.

I am attempting another pie Friday. I have two German friends coming to visit. I am going to blow their minds!

I found pecans the other day. Do not under-estimate the work that went into that search. I looked in stores in Hamburg and Kiel. I found them in one store. I feel a pecan pie coming on.

My First Crust

2009-11-24T11:29:00.002-05:00

Isn't it beautiful?

The beauty does not lie in its exterior but in the optimism, pride, energy and research that went into it. Plus, it tastes good and has a moist and delicate texture. From the missing corner, you can see that I tasted it. I am telling the truth.

I began my journey into baking with a drive for pecan pie. Those damn things only show up in the fall. I need them year round. I hit Food Network's website and found a suitable recipe. I do not come from a baking from scratch background, so I automatically went for the frozen pie crust. They come in an aluminum pan that you throw away when the sad time comes, when there is no pie. What could be better? Nothing.

I have lived with McDonad's pies for too long. (They are still fried in Germany. That is the one food that tastes better here than in the U.S.) Germany does not have a tradition of American-style baking. Cakes are thin layers of cake with an inch of light cream between the layers. There is no pie. That meant: there is no frozen pie crusts.

I was scared but I knew I could handle it.

I hit up my old friend, FoodNetwork.com and looked for a suitable crust. I chose the sweet pie crust (If you are going to go, go hard.). Then the research started.

What is the correct flour?

What is the German word for vegetable shortening?

A long time ago, Asmus said everything is complicated in Germany. I have learned that he is correct. There is no all-purposed flour or pastry flour. Flour have no words. It has numbers. Did I need a 405, a 550 or 1050? I hit up my favorite German-English-speakers website and searched the forum. Either I needed a 405 or a 550. I widened my search and settled on a 550.

I begged Asmus to ask his mother what the German word for that is (There is no big old tub of Crisco here.). He hates asking anyone questions but he also hates my nagging, so I nagged hard. Margot kept recommending butter. So I hit the market in the hope that all would become clear. It didn't. Plus, I forgot whether I needed lard or vegetable fat. So Asmus translated some tub of fat in the refrigerator aisle and I both fat from plants and fat from pigs.

I smuggled one American measuring cup to Germany. I needed it to measure the fat and the flour and the water. I decided to measure out 16 tablespoons for the shortening to save the cup for the water. That was a mistake. I forgot twice how to many spoonfuls were in the mix. Before I added the water, the mixture was supposed to look like coarse crumbs. I had a sticky mess. It looked wrong but I continued. I never made a crust, maybe it is supposed be disgusting before it all comes together.

I was right -- I made it wrong.

I measured out the shortening and set aside in another dish and started all over again after a beer.

Success!

Tomorrow, I going to make my first ALL homemade sweet potato pie.

Wish me luck.

Not so fast

2009-11-05T02:25:00.003-05:00

That is me cowering before a representative of

Germany's Federal Bureau for Migrants and Refugees

It seems that I was to hasty and announcing myself done with the Integration Course. I made that announcement after completing my last class and last test.
I got my results two days ago.
Gulp.
I must achieve a B1 level on the test in order to have successfully completed it (Tip: the lower the number and lower the letter, the worse you did. C2 is the highest and A1 is the lowest.). I earned an A2 on speaking; B1 on the hearing and reading section; B1 on the writing section; and 20 out of 25 correct on the cultural portion (I needed to get 13 correct to pass.). With those results, I thought I passed. Nope, I earned A2 on the entire test. The government is kind enough to give you your specific results on the test. I got 68 points on the speaking; 75 is needed to get B1.
One can get A2 in either listening/reading or writing and B1 in the other sections and earn B1 for the entire test. If you get A2 in speaking, you do not pass, regardless of the grades in other sections.
I have not complained about much with this damn course. However, this is ridiculous. They should give the speaking portion and its results before give the rest of the test. This way, one does not waste your time and energy studying for a test that you have already failed.
I spent a day dealing with rude government officials. I understand bogged-down workers but these people were mean and deflating. I was speaking in English because it is efficient and I was chastised. I wanted to simply take the examination and skip the option of taking the last 300 hours of the course again (That is three months of sitting through the same material that I just sat through! For seven points!) and then take the test. I was pointedly told this was a dumb idea because I "obviously" needed help.

I am done listening to them. I have been practicing speaking since I got the results of my test. I will pass this damn test.

Fertig!

2009-10-22T12:02:00.006-04:00

My weapons for the last year. I forgot to include my Life Saver -- my Oxford English-German Dictionary.

Done!

Today, everything has changed.

I am done.

I am done with Germany's Integration Course.

This six-month course has taken over a year of my life.

I started at the beginning of October 2008 and finished today.

At the end of December 2008, my first language school took a holiday break and I went to London for a bit. I returned to Hamburg in February. I tried to get in to a class at the same class and that was not possible until March 2. The Friday night before Asmus got a contract to work at a bank in Kiel, Germany. I nagged about 10 language schools in Kiel in search for a place in the three module of the course. There was just about no room at the inn. InLingua had a spot in its third module that began in mid-June 2009.

It was tough going for a long time. I bought a Berlitz book to help me with my German while I was living in London. I didn't use it much but then it saved my life this summer. My school in Hamburg, Colon, was full of new immigrants. We all suffered through German pronunciation and grammar together. We complained and whined as one. And when we were done, we had a beer. I complained about them but I missed them this summer.

My class in Kiel was full of German residents. They spoke the language at the speed of sound. In response, the teachers did the same. I came home angry and frustrated. I sat there from 8 am until 12:15 and had no idea what was going on. A few times that I tried to speak, a few people in class laughed at me. The teacher said nothing. Once I was too excited construct a true sentence in German and simply said, "Kein respekt! Kein respekt!" There was silence for a few seconds but no apology. After that, the laughter stopped.

I hoped my learning experience would look like this. It didn't.

Soon, I took a peek at my Berlitz book to see if it could help me. I was happy to notice that it was the same as the book we were using. The big difference was that the directions and instructions were in English. I started to work before hand. I gathered a vocabulary list and created flash cards. My German got much better. By August, I had the respect of the class. Some turned to me when they were not certain about something. Olga, the silent Russian emigrant who sat next to me, would simply copy my work. For a while, I was forced to sit across the room from her and she would come over to steal answers from me. I had several philosophical discussions about this with Asmus. I think Olga should learn on her own and I did not want to contribute to her cheating herself. Asmus didn't think there was no harm to me, so I didn't need to care. I was too cowardly to shoo her away.

I did become racist. I now hate Turkish people. (OK, not really.) About half of the class hailed from Turkey. They were the ones laughing at me. I was impressed by their unity and disgusted by it, too. They would only talk to each other. If the teacher would ask a Turkish classmate a question and he did not know the question, a few of his countrymen would give him the answer in Turkish. There was this crazy clique. And they were annoying. When we got our practice tests back, they asked everyone in the classroom their scores. Didn't tell theirs but asked for others. I almost peed on myself when Selma told the teacher that she got an answer wrong that Ebru got correct. The result: Ebru lost a point.

Now, I have nothing to complain about; no chapters to read; no place to go at the crack of dawn. (Because of Hamburg' s latitude, the sun rises about 7:15 now.)

I wanted to feel sad about the end of my time in class. I feel nothing. I will miss Thomas, the one teacher who slowed his speech down and explained things when I was obviously confused. I will miss the interesting and capable office manager Anja. Because of the nature of our relationships, Anja and I and Thomas and I could not have been friends. I hoped to gather some friends in the integration course. But now I just have happiness that the course is over.

Here is a view of a room at the school, where I learned about German language and culture.

On the Road

2009-10-21T11:05:00.006-04:00

Behind the tree, sits the Kalk Mountain.

Another nice thing Germany does for its people -- cheap travel.

German rail offers lots of cheap ticket options. There is a ticket option that allows unlimited travel in one of Germany's 16 states for a group of 5 people for about 30 euros. It is a surreal experience buying a train ticket. It is like a trip to New York in the early '90s. I remember that I used to visit my friend Kara who was living in the West Village. I was walking down the street and some guy started walking to close to me. He was not going to bump into me but glide by. As he did this, I heard a faint voice murmur, "Smoker. Smoker. Smoker" He was letting me know that he would sell me some pot. When you walk up to a kiosk in Kiel, some 20-something inches up to you and asks if you are going to Hamburg. They want to split the cost of the ticket with you. You don't even have to sit with them; just be in the same car. But, I don't like getting hooked up with strangers, so I used to say, "I'm sorry but I only speak English." That never worked. People taking the train from Kiel to Hamburg seem to all speak German and English. I was forced to reject them.

Asmus and I used the Schleswig-Holstein ticket to go from Kiel and Hamburg and vice versa. A few months ago, we decided to use the ticket for one-day getaways.

First stop, Bad Segeberg.

Segeberg required a run from a late train to Luebeck but we made it. The town sits on a see but it is home to a mountain, Kalk Mountain. (Kalk means Chalk but the mountain actually contains gypsum. Wacky Germans!) We came for the cave on a Sunday. We took an almost horizontal trek from the train station to the mountain. We got there just in time for a tour. I love a tour!

We walked down some steps and into a refrigerator. The cave was cold and dark. Unfortunately, the cold was the most interesting thing about it. There were no stalagtictes, no stalagmites, no ancient artifacts, no bats. The tour guide pointed out a few rock formations that look like characters from Snow White and other gruesome German fairy tales.

It was a bit scary. Right next to the cave, there is a amphitheater, which has been doing old-fashioned cowboy and Indian shows. As we are walking down the steps to the cave, the ground shook from the cap guns. Plus, once the door to the cave shut, it was a frightening.

The cool part of the visit was a snack stop after the cave. We got ice cream at a restaurant outside the theater. We ate sundaes as rain poured onto awnings that shielded us. It was a good day.

I Heart Deutschland

2009-10-21T10:37:00.005-04:00

What a time it has been!

Germany is really good to its people. Last week, I started the orientation course, which is a two-week section of the Integration Course for German visa holders. I have learned lots about the new nation [For the uninitiated, there was an area in central Europe that was occupied by a variety of dukedoms and many spoke the same Teutonic language. The area officially became a nation in 1871. That fell apart a few times. A democratic nation was formed May 1949; West and East Germany came together as one nation in 1990.].

In exchange for high taxes:

Families with children get money until the child turn 18, if they start work after high school, or 25, if they go to college

Parents of newborns get money from the government for two years

Money to help pay for child care

Money for unemployed people

Money for older people

I am starting to wonder about the wisdom of the American way of life. I would like to have money from the government for being married or having children.

Plus, I was shocked to learn that for most nonviolent offenses, the punishment is monetary, not jail. And you pay. None of these repeated calls from collectors. People (accompanied by police, if necessary) come to your house and take things that equate the cost of the debt. I like that more than the chaos of the criminal justice system in the United States. If American jails and prisons rehabilitated people, I would support them. At least in the German way, criminals aren't simply stored together.

Plus, pregnant women are forced from work six weeks before their due date. They get to sit home and get paid. Then they can stay home for a year and get paid. When they return to work, they can NOT get fired for two years.

I would like some stuff from the government. As a working adult, the only thing I have ever gotten from the government was a student loan forbearance.

I learned a lot in the course but it is mess. We are not assigned homework. We go over the information in class and learn as we read along. I am having trouble translating the words, so I cannot really learn. So then I started reading texts the night before. We have the orientation course test tomorrow. But wait. Get this. We have the test at 11 am, right after we have three hours of lesson. So there is some teaching and there is a test. That is why I read the night before. We did a practice test today and about one eighth of the information in the book was on the test. Oh well, in 24 hours, it will all be over.

Then what do I do?

Happy Anniversary to Me!

2009-09-10T09:46:00.005-04:00

Today is my anniversary.

One year ago today, I got on a plane and I left my life.

I met a boy. I met a wonderful boy. In his own words, “an exotic Teutonic boy toy.”

As an American, all expectations are that he would come to me. Who doesn’t want to come to America? People fight sharks; pay thousands of dollars that they don’t have to shady figures and work for years to pay the debt; or stowaway in the well of airplane tires to get here.

Asmus helped run a company and looks in his parents. I was a happy employee of a major publishing house. His folks are about 20 years older than mine. Mine go to work every day and his haven’t worked since the ‘80s. So I decided to make the move.

It was easy but not. I am a logical being. It made sense for me to go. However, I wondered if I was acting like one of those women who sacrifice everything for their husbands and then 10 years later, they hate themselves. I told Asmus this and he thought the same thing. He pushed moving to the U.S. I was the one who pushed for me to immigrate. I had quiet moments and thought about it and thought about it. It just made sense to me and I felt good with the decisions. I asked my best friends and they said it made sense, too. So there.

The point was driven home a week or two after this decision. I was evicted from my apartment. My degenerate roommate allegedly was in California [her subletter and I wonder if she was really in California because she visit New York several times] and left without paying back rent and upcoming rent. She made payment plans with the city of New York that she didn’t tell me about and then renegged on it. So, we were evicted.

I got the notice early August.

I planned to come to Germany in October. Here I am two months before that -- homeless.

The first thing I did after I found out that I was officially homeless was call Asmus. The first thing he said was, “Come to me.”

Problem solved.

All my belongings sitting in Asmus' living room

I skipped trying to find a place to live for two months and asked a friend Jennie if I could crash at her place for two weeks. She said yes and I started giving my belongings.

My year in Germany has been an adventure. I have experienced life as an immigrant. It sucks. I got to live my best friend. It is wonderful. I discovered who my Americans real friends are. Thank you Mori, Marie, Jennie, Thomas, Tim, Ginger. They are the ones who send me news-filled emails and overcome several time zones to call me with chit chat. I made new friends. Thank you Anne, Konrad, Lunghei, Tanje, Toby. At 37, it is just about impossible to find people who will spend time with you. These people [except for South African Lunghei] hang out with me in a foreign language.

More importantly, across the distance I have become closer to my family. My older sister, Lorie, and I are on polar opposite side of the political spectrum [I am on the correct side. (Hah! Just joking, Lorie.)]. But we speak constantly. I “talk” to her more now than I ever did when we were 200 miles apart. Throughout the day, emails bounce between Kiel and Baltimore. She is preparing for her airplane flight to visit me. My mother and I joke via email. That is pretty impossible in person for us. Don’t know why. Plus, in print, she is a bit mushy. She misses me. I know this because she writes this to me. She also thinks I drink too much alcohol. I know this because she writes this to me.

Plus, I have doubled my family. I love Asmus’ family. His mother is so sweet. You feel better when you are in her presence. His father is an interesting person. Asmus’ older brother, Christian, officiated at our wedding. Asmus and I helped his wife and two sons cheer him on when he ran a marathon in Mainz.

Life is intense in Germany but it is always interesting. My new life is different than the one I left behind in New York and that is fine with me.

Home sweet home.

Viva Kiel Week!

2009-09-06T09:37:00.006-04:00

Because of its seaside location, Kiel is a popular tourist spot.

Tourists flood this town every summer.

I know why.

Of course, there are the beaches [I guess that is why. I have never been to them. I cannot find the fun in sitting in dirt for hours at a time.] but the city programs events all the time.

There were outdoor concerts every weekend.

A few hours ago, I grabbed lunch at a flea market that had taken over all of downtown. I am not one for picking over other people's garbage but I have a weakness for cool drinking glasses, interesting dishes and fun purses. I looked around and saw all these things that I wanted and decided that I had to leave.

A family of jugglers came to town.

"The Little Prince" was staged.

Yesterday was the open house for the Kiel Opera. There were performances inside and outside the opera house.

The biggest event of them all is Kieler Woche ["Kiel Week"']. For seven days at the end of August, there were major and minor musical acts on stages scattered throughout the city. Some are on their way up. Stefanie Heinzmann won one of Germany's televised talent contests and played. Madcon, a Swedish hiphop group that made a hit with Frankie Valli's "Beggin'", played the night after Stefanie. There are some acts on their way down. Paul Carrack was playing one night as I walked alone. The voice was familiar but the name was not. He had some moderate success alone in the 80s and he was one of the lead singers of Mike + the Mechanics and Squeeze.

There was also a lot of stuff with boats. I saw none of it. Because of its location on the water, regattas are a big deal. We had four friends come visit from Hamburg. They were going to sail on the ship of the father of one of our guests. I get incredibly seasick, so I dropped out at the last second.

The best part for me was the International Food Show. A block away from our house was food from around the world. Germans are not the most adventurous people but for some reason, they open their culinary minds up for one week and taste everything. I had food from Czech Republic, Rwanda, Argentina, Nepal, Poland and India. I never had Rwandan food but it had similar ingredients to cuisines found in the Caribbean. Like, I definitely tasted yucca and I know there were plaintains.

A meal from "Nepal"

I even had some Norwegian wine. I am sorry to say that sucked. But the Guinness at the Irish tent was as good as it was in Dublin. The Malbec from the Argentinean kiosk was wondrous.

The crowd outside the ersatz Ireland. Throughout the day, musicians played, like the tent was a pub along the Liffy and not thrust against a German opera house.

According to Kiel tourism officials, more than 3 million people came for Kiel Week. Perhaps they are counting some of us a few times. I was "there" every day a few times a day. But I ain't hating on them.

Downtown Girl

2009-09-06T08:54:00.006-04:00

I have finally become a Downtown Girl. I live in the midst of all that is happening . . . in Kiel, Germany.

Asmus got some IT work for a bank in the town of Kiel, so we moved last March. Sorta. We still have the Hamburg apartment but we also rent an apartment in Kiel.

Before I arrived, I was a bit frightened. Everyone. By "everyone," I mean every person to whom I said the word "Kiel." Everyone said Kiel was ugly and boring. Asmus lived here for months before and he said it was boring and ugly.

I wasn't sure if something was wrong with me but when I came to scope out an apartment in March, I found Kiel to be your average-looking town. It was not Paris but it was not Gary, Indiana. I suspect people are remembering an old incarnation of the town or repeating what their parents' said.

I scooped up an apartment in the heart of Kiel. We walk everywhere. To restaurants, to the sea, to the train station, to the gym, to the grocery store, to bars. I love living in the middle of everything. I grew up on the edge of Philadelphia. My first apartment was in Northern Liberties. That rocked. I was next to the fun but in the middle of the noise. But Germany is not as fun or as loud as Philadelphia, so it is great to be in the middle of everything.

I am a block away from two ponds -- the Kleiner Kiel and the Grosser Kiel. The Kleiner [smaller] is closest to me. In the middle of the summer, landscapers mowed the lawn and let the clippings flow into the water. The two Kiels have not looked good since then.

Since May, a fountain spray water from the Kleiner Kiel back into the Kleiner Kiel. The clumps of algae or whatever float on top. The spire of the old Rathaus [German for "City Hall" pokes up behind the Kiel Opernhaus [Opera house].

That is the ugliest thing about this city of 280,000 that sits on the Baltic Sea [that's the East Sea to Germans].

A lazy summer day in the park next to the Kleiner Kiel

Honeymoon Part VI - Villa Borghese & the Departure

2009-09-06T07:34:00.005-04:00

Fortunately, we had a late return flight to Germany. That meant that we had a day to kill.

Of course, there was the breakfast buffet to conquer but then what.

After racking our brain for something interesting but not too strenuous, we decided to see Villa Borghese. Don"t let the name fool you. It is not a building. Villa Borghese is a large area that includes museums, several gardens, a few ponds and some other attractions.

A manicured garden at Villa Borghese

We would see what we could see and then come back to the hotel and sit in the spa one last time.

Because we made the decision to come to Rome at the last moment, we didn't have many requirements for the hotel. One that immediately came to mind and stayed at the top of our list was a spa. I introduced Asmus to massage last November and he has not been the same since. The man loves his rubdowns. Plus, he is great at giving them. After days walking through tombs, sculpture halls and shopping malls, collectively we have had full-body massage, food massage and head massage. Either before or after, we have been in water. I spent too much time in a hot tub, which actually wasn't all that hot, and Asmus swam many, many laps in the pool.

Neither Asmus nor I can start the day early. There is no get a jump on the day for us. The day will be there for a long time, why kill yourself to reach it. We reached the top of the steps at the Spagna stop on the Metro at lunch time. We bumped into a trattoria and stayed.

I am the queen of planning. This trip to Rome was such a departure for me. But without much time, I had to be spontaneous. Because Rome is so rich with treasures, everything worked out. We only had one bad meal. That restaurant was right across from the Pantheon; food near tourist traps are rarely good.

We didn't get to the restaurant at lunch. We got there at the tail end of lunch. Our choices were limited but they were all good. Ready for action. We turned the corner and was greeted by a crowd of people milling outside a great stone arch. We were not the only ones with this idea.

A view of the arch from inside Villa Borghese

Because the grounds were so large, we did not feel crowded. We just walked around and watched people and the surroundings. You could rent a "pedalo," a pedal-powered carriage but we just ambled about for a few hours.

Our time in the park was a bit sad for me. The honeymoon was almost over. The trip to paradise was about to end. In a few hours, we would be living our normal lives, not eating, drinking and being care free.

Rome was special for some pretty selfish reasons, too. It was so cool hearing English (Because Rome is such a tourist city, English is spoken everywhere.) I was also going to miss the Fox Italy channel. I watched American reruns in English in the afternoon. In addition to missing communication, I will miss the beauty and the history of Rome. Italians have passion. Things are fast and loud. Germany does not have that.

I miss Rome.

My and Asmus' shadows on a pond at Villa Borghese. That is me on the left.

Honeymoon Part V - The Vatican!

2009-08-14T03:28:00.014-04:00

My life has gotten away from me. But I got out my big lasso and I got it back under control. So on with the show.

The Saturday during our honeymoon week was a busy one. We woke up ridiculously early. If you knew Asmus, you would really appreciate the gravity of the situation. He sleeps in half-day increments. So our 9 o'clock appointment at the Vatican Museums was difficult. Luckily our hotel was relatively close to the Vatican. Because of the early hour, we opted for the 5-minute cab ride, instead of the bus.

As you probably have forgotten, we decided to go to Rome about two weeks before the trip and while we were planning the wedding, so there was not much time for research. We were in a rush to get things going, so we did not ask many questions at the airport tourism office. In the craze of planning the trip, I decided to visit the Vatican. I am not Catholic or a fan of old churches but I love history. The Vatican is chock full of it.

I want to the Vatican’s website and signed us up for an English-language tour. Asmus and I talked about good dates and times. During our conversations, our preferences were eaten up. We were happy to get a tour Saturday morning at 9 a.m. Going to the Vatican to look is free but a tour is 13 euros. I loves me some tours, so I paid. That’s all I know. There were no explanations for how long the tour was, what you look at, where to meet the tour guide. It was a mystery. But I assumed that the Roman Catholic Church would not lead us astray.

OK, I was a bit wrong. The church is not that organized. The cab pulls up to the Vatican Museums at 8:40 a.m. and it looks like there is a protest going on. There was no protest, just a lot of people trying to get in. After standing for about 90 seconds trying to figure things out, I found a guy in a uniform. I asked him where to go and he pointed to a line. It was a long line but it was shorter than the line for people without reservations. As we inched ahead, I struck up a conversation with the people in front of us. They were Americans! Since moving to Germany, I am become this bloodhound in search of Americans. Mom, Dad and college-age daughter hailed from northern New Jersey. I moved from Brooklyn, so we were like neighbors. The daughter was studying abroad in Florence and her parents were visiting her. We talked about Italy and I explained what I was doing in Germany. Asmus was mostly silent. That is normal.

Time is ticking away. It is stressful but the line is moving steadily. We get past security and then we don’t know what to do. We lost the Jersey family. We stand around and I peek a sign that says, “Tick”. I assume that it says “Tickets” and rush toward it. Soon Asmus follows. I was right. We had an online reservations but needed to get tickets. The man rushes and we join the tour 40 seconds before it is set to move.

The Vatican is pretty hip. In addition to the website, the Vatican has the latest in tour technology. We got the kind of earphones that television anchors use. The tour guide had a microphone clipped to her jacket and we could hear what she said. It was kind of cool. It was like a ghost was whispering in my ears. We take off. Yes! We go up a flight of stairs and then sit in a hallway. We are waiting for some more English-speakers to get to the tour. I don’t mind because I just finished wading through the same confusion.

We go up an escalator and through a few hallways and then we go outside. We stand in a courtyard that is surrounded by large sculptures. There is even a cool globe sculpture by Arnaldo Pomodoro in the center of the Cortile del Belvedere, or Courtyard of Belvedere. The area is punctuated with these small billboards representing the Sistine Chapel. There are several boards because a few tour groups use them at the same time.

Because the Sistine Chapel is so popular and small, we get a 15-minute lesson about the art in the chapel and information about the history of the chapel outside. There are about 25 people in our group, so I cannot see the board. I am so clever that I move to an identical poster a few feet away and listen to the explanation from there.

Here is a view of the Belvedere Courtyard. The set of three small billboards depict the art in the Sistine Chapel. The trio is repeated throughout the courtyard. A different tour group stands in front of the scenes.

There is so much art everywhere. There are two or three very long hallways that contain tapestries detailing historic events, the map of the known world and every day life. There are rooms for large sculptures, some of which have complex mosaic tiles on the floor.

Even the ceilings are decorated and gilt.

Where there are no sculptures, there are paintings. Near the end of our tour, we passed through rooms devoted to modern and contemporary art. Most of the works have some kind of religious connotation, but not all of them. I noticed a familiar style in a piece across a room. I sped over to the work and I was rewarded. The Vatican Museums includes work by Jacob Lawrence. Now I am impressed.

Touring the Vatican City was amazing but very stressful. There were thousands of people moving through the halls at the same time. I was pushed and had people jump in front of me. A person in a wheelchair struggled to get out of the door. People on vacation are dangerous.

But the history and the art made up for the hassle. The Sistine Chapel is the most popular room but I preferred the work in the Raphael Rooms. Of course, much of the areas are covered in religious images but in the Room of the Segnatura, walls are devoted to a theme of life’s great truths. My favorite fresco feature the great thinkers of the first millennium and great medieval artists. The tour guide pointed out that in School of Athens, Raphael used the faces of some of his friends to represent some of the great thinkers. Art scholars have no agreed on what all the images, symbolism and actions mean in the paintings but the guide explained the less controversial aspects. The light was not good for me to photograph well.

However, I did get a few nice photographs of the paintings dedicated to Constantine. Constantine's conversion to Christianity made it possible for the religion to flourish. Before he converted, Christianity was an underground religion. Christians were killed for their faith. According to one theory, Emperor Constantine saw a cross in the sky while battling in a civil war with Maxentius and took it as a sign of God. The emperor put his troops in the form of the cross and beat the opposing army, which was twice as big as his. Those pieces were pulsating.

Here is a part of a fresco depicting Constantine's
victory, in which God spoke to him.

The Raphael Rooms are dark and quiet. There are several benches that you can sit on and think about what you see. It was an awe-inspiring room.

The tour ended with the modern art galleries. Suddenly we were on our own. After a visit to the bathroom, we entered this huge room with high ceilings and a crush of people. It was the Sistine Chapel. Like every other time in my life when I am excited about something, the actual event is not as good as the hope. The paintings are beautiful. Unfortunately, they are on high ceilings, so you are pretty far away from them. You are surrounded the buzzing of hundreds of people. It seemed like every 30 seconds a guard was Shhhhing people or telling them not to take any pictures. It was a mildly chaotic scene that I was happy to leave after a few minutes.

But wait there is more -- the Vatican City Gift Shop! I love gift shops. I love perusing shelves of crap to find the highlights and the lowlights. I was still on the hunt for a statue of the Pope (a German man who was once known as Joseph Ratzinger; when he was declared the new pope Germans ran around saying, "Wir sind Papst." We are the Pope. Mr. Michelsen is more of a man of letters, than a man of God. The statue was a joke.) for Asmus’ father. I asked a nun who worked as a cashier there and she disappeared up some steps with Asmus. All the cashiers in the gift shop were wearing habits. I think this is the place where the best nuns in the world come to end their service. All these old nuns selling postcards. It was odd.

I got an 8-inch statute of “Pope Benedetto XVI” [the pope’s official name is Italian. To us, he is Pope Benedict to the church, he is Papa Benedetto”. John Paul II was actually Papa Giovanni Paolo. I don’t want to sound crude but that is a sexy name. “Giovanni Paolo” belongs to a hot guy.] and some postcards of the Sistine Chapel, because you cannot take a photograph of the chapel. The best -- we sent some postcards from the souvenir shop to family. Because the Vatican City is its own country, it has its own postal system, so it has its own stamp. [Vatican City also has its own police force.]. [It seems the Italian tendency to be a bit disorganized extended to entering the Vatican Museum and the postal system. It took two weeks for the postcard to reach Asmus’ family in Germany. I was a bit nervous but my faith that the Roman Catholic Church would honor its duty was rewarded.]

After the gift shop, you must exit via St. Peter’s Square. That is the familiar circle with the column in the middle. For the more adventurous, you can tour St. Peter’s Basilica. It was about noon. Add my fatigue and hunger and my chronic boredom of old church’s, we left.

The trip to Rome helped my openness to spontaneity. We wandered around of food. There was this hole in the wall restaurant on a small street near the square. We stopped in and had delicious lunch and tasty wine.

Mainz: The Marathon

2009-05-14T08:12:00.005-04:00

Last weekend, I went to my first marathon. It was a combination family visit-marathon weekend. It was a success on both fronts.

Asmus' older brother, Christian, decided to use his obsession into running to cover 26.2 miles in Mainz. As a teen, I sang in many choral groups and never had anyone from my family turn out. Now I am all about supporting friends and family. I had to witness my brother-in-law triumph over physical and mental exhaustion. So Asmus had to go, too. Actually, he is a big fan of Christian, so he was excited to go.

We lucked into first class train tickets from Hamburg to Frankfurt, which is close to Christian's home. The lucky part was that the tickets cost less than second-class tickets. I don't why. Perhaps the Good Lord really does work in mysterious ways. I am a fan of luxury; Asmus doesn't mind a bit of suffering. I am working on him. I dragged him the first-class lounge in Hamburg [after my McDonald's breakfast. I am not a big fan of fast food but I do love Sausage Egg McMuffin, which is called a Egg McMuffin and Sausage in Germany.]. He had some coffee and I went to the bathroom and then we left. We had about seven minutes of luxury. I take it anyway that I can.

At Christian's house, we met Andrea, the Wife; sons, Tim and Jan. I feel so bad. I am this woman staying at their house for the weekend and I barely spoke to the boys. They know that I speak English, so they didn't seem to mind the silence. I hope to be able to be speak to them at Christmas. I said some things but I did not close to having anything close to a conversation.

They are very energetic. I like that. There was a lot of running and hitting and jumping and screaming. Germany is so quiet. I welcomed the noise and activity. At the marathon, I grabbed these plastic-covered signs for the boys. They are folded like a fan and used as noisemakers. When the runners come around, you hit them on your leg or a tree and they make this loud booming sound. Tim and Jan didn't need runners. With the fans, they hit themselves on the head, slammed the grass, bopped a tree, banged their legs. At one point, they were next to each other going nuts with the fans.

Jan whacking a pole with the fan. Three balloons are tied into his belt loops in the back. Andrea awaits Christian's passage. Tim had just taken a break from beatng a tree.

Andrea and Tim had strategized. I adore plans. I was so impressed by the maps and schedules. They knew where to park the car. They had pinpointed where and at around what time they would meet to cheer on Tim and had a location for rendesvous when the race was over.

Andrea running with Christian for a bit at Kilometer 28 (There are about 42 kilometers in a marathon.). That's your noble host pointing.

We spent the day moving through Mainz sitting, talking, playing ball, hitting things with fans and at the appointed time we cheered and took pictures. We spent a while near the 38th kilometer mark. Tim and Asmus played soccer with a tennis ball. I was amazed by Asmus' skill. I have never seen him WATCH soccer but here he was playing soccer for about 30 minutes. When I questioned the source of his skills, he simply said, "It's in the genes. I am German." Hmm. What happened to my lazy husband who thought national identity was stupid? Despite the shock at my husband's sudden patriotism, I had a great day.

Christian finished with a time of 4 hours and 39 seconds. He then walked Jan to get his chance to race in a faux Olympic race.

Andrea and Jan in their fake Olympic dash. Christian is taking a photo of the race from a perch on the right.

After that, he walked about 2 miles to the car. I don't know how he did it. I was about to die and I hadn't run anywhere.

I think he is still a bit crazy from the race because he just signed up to run another marathon in the fall.

The entire family [plus an anymous marathoner] run for a bit near kilometer 38.

Honeymoon IV - Appian Way

2009-05-05T06:50:00.006-04:00

The next day we hit the Appian Way.

It took forever to figure out the best way to get there from the hotel.

There were a sign or two underground. Above ground, nothing.

We were supposed to catch a bus next to a church. We are walking and walking. Asmus prefers to just go. I want to check everything first. Getting to new places is always an argument waiting to happen with us.

"Let's go this way."

"Why?"

"Why not?"

"I don't think that's a good reason."

We have had that conversation several times.

We set off for the Appian Way near the end of the day, because the one thing we do agree with is that there is no need to kill yourself to get anywhere in the morning. We walked around and around and around. It was getting late and I was worried that we would miss the sights. Finally I said we should look for a bus stop near this massive church a block or two in front of us. Near the church, we see the bus but we are not sure where the stop is. We ask a police officer and finally find the stop. And we were on our way to the Catacombs of Calixtus.

The catacombs closed at 5 and we got off the bus at 3:30. Our system was to eat a huge breakfast and grab something on the go for lunch. We are running late but starving. Thankfully, there was a big lunch truck on the side of the road. I was also grateful that there was no seating there. I like to walk and eat; Asmus likes to take his time to eat. That is another argument we often have. But there was no seats, so there was no debate on this day. I had the best soppressetta sandwich.

We slowly make our way to the catacombs while we chomp. Fields and trees for acres. We buy tickets to see the catacombs and discover that we must be a part of a tour. The next tour is not until 4; this is also the last tour of the day. We have 20 minutes, so we kill time at the gift shop.

I learned that the Catholic Church owns the approximately 60 catacombs along the Appian Way. The gift shop sells all these religious items. Asmus' father, Friedrich, asked for a statue of the Pope as a joke gift. I went on the prowl. There was no statue but there were several photographs of the Pope. I settled on a 1" x 1" color photograph in a gold colored "frame". I don't think the frame is a separate piece. We also got a calendar with photographs of Roman sites. I was excited to start filling it up with events. But I was struck to find out that it was from 2010. Doh!

So we amble to the opening of the catacomb at 4 unsure of what happens next. They start calling for people to go on a tour in different languages. Apparently guests get tours in various languages. So we wait and wait and wait. The French group come running out of the gift shop and I hate them. The Spanish group excitedly starts. Then the German group is called. Asmus and I -- the English-speaking group -- are the last called. Plus, we are not allowed underground. I was little upset. I wanted to get to the graves!

I was soon happy about the delay. Our tour guide, a nice lady that I will call Lola (I don't believe that was her name but that is what I am going to call her.) directed us to this grassy area with some photographs on it. She explained the history and the functions of the catacombs. The Catacombs of San Calixtus was the largest of all the catacombs that are under the Appian Way. It covered 20 kilometers (or a million miles. I still am not good translating metric stuff. Although if I have 2 minutes, I can figure out length. I cannot fathom temperature or weight. Is a kilogram heavier or lighter than a pound? Is 30 degrees C cold or hot?).

The catacombs were the church and graveyard for early Christians. Oddly enough, Rome is the home of the catholic church now. Back in the first century AD, Christianity was outlawed in the empire, so Christians worshipped secretly. One of the main sites for worship were the catacombs. The catacombs were rooms dug out by Christians. Burial was against the law in Rome. Eventually, the catacombs became graveyards. Interesting note: in its early days Jews were also buried in the catacomb. When Rome made Christianity legal, the catacombs were no longer used to bury the dead. However, pilgrims would come visit the dead. Eventually, the sites were abandonded. The catacombs were re-discovered in the 1500s.

The early Popes were buried in the four-level San Calixtus catacombs. The catacombs were active until about the fourth century. The remains of the Popes are now in Vatican City.

A view of the Popes' burial area

After our 10-minute lesson, we got to descend into the catacombs, which are 20 meters deep. It was wet and cold. The rows were lined with this holes that were about 18 inches high and 5 feet long. These were graves. People were shoved in these holes and covered with stone. There symbols of fish and an amalgamation of Greek letters near most of the graves. It was a bit creepy but exciting. People were willing to risk their lives to worship. They scurried below ground in order to worship. When family members died, they would work their ways through the dark tunnels to bury them and visit the graves. Now there are fluroescent lights in the tunnels but then there were small torches.

During the tour, Lola pointed out the symbols she described during our lesson. There was extended talks at the original graves of the Popes and the grave of St. Cecilia. Her remains were removed a millenium or so ago. There is a statue there now. She has a line across her neck, to signify the place where the sword cut off her head (the traditional way to kill Christians) and three open fingers on her right hand and one on her left. The right hand symbolized her faith in the Trinity and the left showed her faith in one powerful God.

The former grave of St. Cecilia. A statue sits here because her remains were removed.

Of course, there was a difference between the rich and the poor. The graves of the poor lined the tunnels; wealtheir families were buried in their own little rooms. These rooms were decorated with murals depicting scenes from the Bible. For reasons that I do not know, Jonah was important to early Christians. The rooms we saw were decorated with paintings with the unfortunate fisherman. But poor and slaves did get to be buried.

A family room

I don't know how but Lola casually walked through two levels of the catacombs. I was amazed because every tunnel looked exactly the same to me. I totally understand why one must have a tour guide to explore the catacombs.

In addition to the graves and murals, there was some statutues and frescoes. The area around the Pope burial was turned into a decorative area with columns. The catacombs also has a few artifacts, like oil lamps and cups.

At the end of the tour, Lola gave us a calendar card.

Both Asmus and I find the catacombs are the best part of the trip. When we arrived in Rome, we stopped at the tourism office in the airport to get some information about the area. I asked about the catacombs and the representative said the catacombs were interesting but not the most interesting thing to do. She said you should go but put it it last on your list. I think the catacombs should be the first thing on the list. Skip the Spanish Steps and, even, the Trevi Steps, and run to these graves.

The Honeymoon III - Steps, Purses and Fountains

2009-04-08T01:29:00.013-04:00

We spent Thursday relaxing. The hotel had this beautiful American breakfast buffet with Italian touches [several sweet cakes; muesli; roasted tomatoes, etc.]. Asmus and I gorged and then went back to room to let the food move down and plan the day.

I got Asmus hooked on massages, so we made sure we chose a hotel with a spa. On our second day in Italy, we were going to take advantage of that. After perusing the spa menu over and over again while keeping in mind our 7 pm dinner reservation, Asmus had a reservation at 12:30 for a full body massage and I had a 25-minute face massage at the same time. We met up in the hot tub that was actually warm.

The hotel had a "system". There was a hot tub, a steam room, a sauna, a cold area, a heated pool and a relaxing outside area. Combined this is known as a Roman bath. People were always moving about the spa. I did a few minutes in the steam room and a long time in the hot tub. The hot tub was rarely hot, so I usually stopped in the heated pool, which was hot.

At the end of my face massage, my technician said she could get me the foot massage that I wanted. There was some confusion that morning making appointments. I blame pathetic staff, not language issues. The woman on the phone told me I could not get a foot massage until 3:30. That was too late, so I got the face massage. The woman who performed my face massage said a few words in Italian and suddenly I had a foot massage in 20 minutes.

Oh My God! That was heavenly.

Back at the room, Asmus and I compared notes. I enjoyed my face massage and loved my foot massage. Asmus loved his full-body massage. We got ourselves together. It was not that easy. Italy has two channels that broadcast shows in English. I had not had so much fun since London. I watched Will & Grace, Hope & Faith, and other luscious recently-canceled American sitcoms. It was difficult for me to leave the room [and to leave Italy].

We hit the streets with the Spanish Steps and Trevi Fountain in our sites.

OK, I don't want to sound too angry but the Spanish Steps ain't shit. They are a bunch of steps. They lead to a nice old church but they are just steps with lots of people sitting on them. On our way to the steps, we bumped into this family from the hotel. They had just come from the Trevi Fountain. They loved it, so we were hopeful. We warned them that the steps were pretty underwhelming. I had to stop this circle of hopefulness surrounding those damn steps.

On the way to the fountain, we passed a store with some cool purses in the window. It is Rome. When you see leather, you are supposed to buy them. I like handbags with distinctive shapes. The one that I fell in love with a black bag with a hard shell and a Grace Kelly flair. It was a little small. I asked the saleswoman if she had a similar bag. I think she was desperate for a sale. She kept showing me black bags in various shapes. I picked out a square, medium-sized purse. She showed me a huge hobo bag and a large square bag and small bag my grandmother would use. I decided to go with my original choice but then I worried about buying a bag at the first store I stopped at. I made the mistake of asking Asmus for advice. Within the same monologue, he recommended buying the bag that I liked and then he promoted going to a few more stores first. I just bought the bag. We stopped a few stores on the way to the fountain. No store had a bag that I preferred to mine!

That fountain is awesome. It is awesome in the strict dictionary sense. It is inspires awe.

The Trevi Fountain is about as tall as a three-story house. The dramatic scenes are wonderful. The statute Arch of Triumph, depicts the palace of Neptune, dominates the scene above the water. Abundance stands on the left of the fountain and displays Agrippa approving the plans for the Aqueduct. The figure, Salubrity, stands on the right. A relief above that shows the Virgin hsowing soldiers the Way. In the middle of the entire scene is the figure of Nepute firlmly guiding a chariot drawn by seahorses. The scene progresses and horses are guided in their course by tritons. Water trickles from this powerful scene.

Crowds surround the fountain. Some taking pictures. Some kissing. Kids playing in the water. People throwing coins over their shoulder. The only problem were these very aggressive men who wanted you to pay for photographs at the fountain. Oddly, mainly of the vendors at the historical site are Indian. I wonder about the moves that brought Indians into these positions outside the Colosseum, at fountains, and along the Appian Way. Regardless, the fountain rocked.

Here I am throwing money over my shoulder into the fountain, as the legend prescribes. See the purple bag. That holds The Purse. The blue plastic shopping bag held the two umbrellas that we had just bought. The sky threatened rain but did not deliver.

I did light research before we left Germany. Many guides and newpapers recommended Casa Bleve. Now I love it, too. Asmus discovered an affinity for white wine there. I learned that not all balsamic vinegars are the same. Asmus and I both had our first taste of raw meat. We tasted the damn good beef carpacio that the enoteca [a wine shop that also has a small restaurant attached that sells pastas, antipasta and salads] is famous for. Its raw beef was delcious but it is raw meat. I could not get that thought of my head. I walked out of there with a bottle of balsamic vinegar and olive oil. I wanted the white wine we had with dinner. Asmus didn't want it. I didn't understand why. This morning I discovered why: he doesn't want to carry the bottle. He doesn't like carrying liquids because they are heavy. The vinegar and oil can only be found in Italy, so he supported that purchase.

It was a great day.

Honeymoon II - The Forum!

2009-04-01T11:31:00.011-04:00

The Arch of Titus at the Forum. It was built to honor emperor Titus.

After eating Italian-style hot dogs [grilled hot dogs, split down the middle and stuffed into flatbread], we came to the Forum.

We didn't do much research for this vacation. The first thought was a trip to Greece. Land at Athens and then visit an island or two. That idea died when I learned that most of Greece is closed until late April. Then we settled on Istanbul. We hit the mall for some light shopping and then decided to go to the travel agent. On our way down the escalator, Asmus said he was nervous about me going to Turkey. As an American, he thought there could be a target on me. I thought that was unnecessary but if we would have a care-free honeymoon, then we should pick a place that we would both feel safe. So by the time we reached the bottom, we decided to go to Florence. Five minutes later, the agent said there was more to do in Rome. So, we left the office with hotel reservations to Rome.

It is early March and we confirming and making plans for the wedding and out-of-town guests, so vacation research falls to the bottom.

If I had, I would have skipped the Roman Forum. It is acre and acre of ruins. It once a great public area with temples, public squares, shops and streets. Now it is a complex of rocks and half walls.

We walked through aimlessly for about 20 minutes. Then Asmus and I left and got a drink at an outdoor bar across the street from the Forum. The good German had a beer and I had a refreshing glass of Frascati.

The Honeymoon!

2009-03-26T07:31:00.010-04:00

The plane touched down at the crappiest airport that I have ever been in -- Rome Leonardo da Vinci Fiumicino -- at 10:30. Everyone on my flight stood at the indicated baggage claim carousel for about 20 minutes. There was a mystery. The same luggage went around and around and around but no one was taking any bags off. The police and the drug-sniffing dog were the only people who were not just off a plane. Asmus took a look at other carousels and came off empty handed. With no one to ask for help, we all stood there. After then more minutes, a big group of people just jogged away. I am in no need of a run co-ordinator, so I followed them. Three carousels away, our baggage was circling. I was braced for some Italian inefficiency but I didn't think it would come so soon. From my years of dealing with Italian businesses at Town & Country, I knew the Italian idea of quick is different than the American idea of quick.

It was about 11:30. We had our bags. I was starving. I am in Rome, so I grabbed chicken nuggets at an airport restaurant. Satisfied. We got some museum information and a tourist card from Rome tourism. Then we waded through men pushing shuttles to Rome to Taxis. Thirty minutes later, we were in out gorgeous home away from home, the Crowne Plaze Rome-St. Peter's.

Our room overlooking the empty outdoor pool was ready. We dropped our bags and headed out the door. We caught the bus right outside the hotel. I am the big solo traveler, so I was able to make it to the Colosseum. Asmus wasn't sure of the vague instructions, so he thought I found our way by luck. A calm discussion followed. I made it clear that luck didn't get me to the correct bus connection for the Colosseum, but paying attention to the instructions and the signs. I demand credit where credit is due.

I studied Latin in the fifth, sixth, ninth, tenth, eleventh and twelfth grades. After reading about the history of ancient Rome and Roman mythology, it was so exciting to be standing in front of it. The bus ride was exciting. The bus drive travels past ruins, statutes and monuments. All dot the landscape. They are not relegated to some special area. One block holds ruins, statutues, convenience stores and restaurants.

A panoramic view of the Colosseum with an overhead
view of the subterranean level, which was uncovered over time.
Directly in the foreground [the tan area in the bottom
of the photograph] is the space where the action took place.

The Colosseum is massive. It is daunting. My mind cannot understand how people could create such a structure without mechanized cranes, forklifts, elevators and electric tools in 80 A.D. The Colosseum could hold 50,000 people. Asmus and I did the audio tour. It was a pretty mysterious, too. You were supposed to start at certain points in the Colosseum. There was a basic map in the brochure but no signs on the Colosseum. At a few stops, we were not at the correct location but we just kept moving until the view matched the words.

Interesting trivia: There is no evidence that there were any fights with lions in the Colosseum.

The subterranean level of the Colosseum where slaves,
gladiators and animals were held and prayed.

In the Colosseum, like today's stadium, the wealthier citizens sat closer to the action; the Senators sat right next to the action. Like boxes at opera houses, the best seats had some disadvantages. Boxes have poor sightlines to the stage. The seat close to the action in the Colosseum were open to the sun; the seats in higher levels were protected by an awning.

The seats where Senators sat, which directly overlook the
platform where the games and fighting took place.

Being in the Colosseum in the awesome in the truest sense of the word. It inspired awe. I could feel the energies of the millions of people who visited the Colosseum for entertainment or enrichment. The Colosseum rocks.

The Wedding!

2009-03-25T12:20:00.012-04:00

Well, the big day came and went.

I am married.

I would recommend getting married in Germany to every American. There are no small details here. We rented a room at the Ahrensburg Castle. It is decorated nicely and the price of the room rental covers everything. There was no chair setup fee or anything annoying. I had no concerns about the venue.

Tio Pepe was already decorated nicely. They asked us how we wanted the tables to look for the reception. When we arrived, the tables looked like our vision.

Germans do not have party favors at weddings and I did not want to choose party favors, so there were no party favors.

The wedding day was pretty much stress-free. Asmus, who is always looking for the gray cloud behind the silver lining, predicted stress and found it. He was nervous about saying vows that he had written. While I was getting dressed, he sat on the couch and chugged cava. I got a little anxious when the cab came to take us the castle while I was writing my vows on notecards and putting on stockings. But that was the beginning and the end of the stress for me.

I met Asmus December 14, 2007 at the wedding of my friend Isabel in Cologne, Germany. She was marrying Asmus's oldest friend, Matthias. Asmus and I barely spoke that day. During the evening of the 15th, we were left alone because Matthias started talking some people who were sharing a table with us at a brewhouse [Curiosity about the American inspired many questions directed to him about me.]. Asmus and I talked about the difference between American potato salad and German potato salad [None. They are the same thing.] and discussed the look of American currency. That led to my obsession with 30 Rock. Somehow that led to a kiss. That kiss led me to believe that Asmus was going to be in my life for a while. I knew. Despite his living in Germany and my living in New York. I knew. So getting married was no stress at all.

The stress came five days before the wedding. My older sister Lorie's passport had not arrived. I believe the government is always going to fail you. So I knew that she was not going to make it. Lorie and I have had decades of trouble but lately we have been getting along pretty well. I was pretty bummed that she was not going to be here. She waited and then she acted. She drove from northern Delaware to Washington D.C. to see about getting it. No luck. No sister at the wedding.

Fortunately, I did have my mother there. I haven't seen here since September. Unfortunately she was sick. She had never been to Europe before, so I was nervous that she would hate it. She said her time was OK but you never know. She brought me a suitcase full of American treats that I requested -- several boxes of cake mixes, tubs of frosting, salad dressing, grits and Lawry's seasoned salt.

My mother and Asmus's family met officially at Asmus's parents house the day before the occasion. There was lively discussions and everyone ate all the fatty food that Asmus and I cooked. It was a success. Asmus's family eat pretty healthy. Very little salt and fat but lots of organic food from local farmers. We served packaged pasta covered in a packaged spinach-and-gorgonzola sauce to which we added bacon. Oh yeah, there was a salad for the first course. The pasta was so bad for you but it tasted so good. Asmus older brother, Jakob; his mother and his father ate it and said it was delicious and did not mention the sheer danger of the meal. Mom liked it, too.

The wedding was at 5. Almost all of the guests were supposed to take a tour of the castle at 4:15. Asmus wanted to make things were setup correctly, so we got there at 4. We were the last people to arrive. Everyone was standing outside the castle when we pulled up. They were congratulating us and taking pictures. It was a bit overwhelming. At the risk of sounding ungrateful, I will admit that I planned to run the curling iron through my hair and freshen my makeup. That did not happen. I was getting hugged and helloed and then we had to take pictures. I am pretty anxious about what I look like in the photos. Pretty damn anxious.

Because my friends either didn't have the money or could not fly with young children, the only American in attendance was my mother. The Germans had never experienced someone saying their own vows. Asmus was worried about how his friends and family would react. I vowed to let him sleep late on the weekends and he vowed not to interrupt me when I talked. Asmus's older brother Christian served as officiant. During the service, he spoke of all the hurdles we had to overcome in order to be together. Christian was nervous speaking in public but he soldiered through it all and was amazing. After the ceremony, three or four people said they cried, so my "strange" plans were not too outlandish.

At the end of the day, Asmus said, "I am so happy."

It was a good day. I am not a fan of ceremonies. However, I felt pure joy in publicly declaring my love and respect for Asmus in front of friends and family.

Isabel served as photographer. Asmus and I must sift through the 300 or so images she created for us. When we do that, the blog will have photographs from the wedding.

Here is the plate immediately after Asmus and I ate the last of
our wedding cake the day after the ceremony.

London, part 3 - The City

2009-03-07T04:43:00.005-05:00

London is more than a dirty city of concrete and brick. Here are few views of the city.

Here is a section of London called Hampstead. It is in north London and famous
for an expanse of open land called Hampstead Heath.

Here is the exterior of our apartment in the Dalston section of town.
Here is the view of central London from Hampstead Heath.

Here is another shot of central London from the Royal Observatory.

Here is the Tower Bridge at Dusk. Some mistakenly call this London Bridge. London Bridge is much uglier.