Christmas Homecoming

Well, tomorrow morning I am off to Colorado. I won't be able to post any blogs while I'm there, but I'll make sure to start up again when I return on Jan. 10th.

Have a very Merry Christmas!

A Canadian Moose Singing Spanish Christmas Songs in German?

Now that I have been to about 4 different Christmas Markets - Koln, Bonn, Siegburg and Bad Honnef, I feel that they are all pretty similar with regard to what they offer. Typically one can find Christmas ornaments, carved wooden handicrafts, felt hats and bags, pottery and blown glass, your typical craft fair items with a little Christmas flair. All of the markets also have dozens of stands which sell gingerbread cookies with messages written on them. I’ve seen people wearing these big cookies around their necks. I’m not sure why they wear them. Maybe they are trying to make sure everyone knows that there is someone who loves them enough to buy them a stale cookie for 5 Euro.

I think the Christmas market is mostly about the food and the drinking though, much like your typical State Fair which has rides for the kids and beer and lots of fried food for the adults. At the Christmas Market, the food generally includes your brotwurst of course but also reibekucken (fried potato pancakes), flammkuchen (flatbread pizza with ham and onions), waffles, and some strange sweet dumpling with hot berries which I haven’t been brave enough to try yet. I have tried to like the Gluhwein, but I haven’t yet warmed up to the idea of steaming hot slightly sweet red wine.

My favorite part of the Bonn Christmas Market is a big fake moose on one of the Gluhwein stands. He talks and sings Christmas songs. I love how he tells you he’s from Canada and then proceeds to sing Feliz Navidad in Deutsch.

The thing about old houses is . . .

They are old! So like our aging bodies lots of things start going wrong after about 30 - 40 years. I am starting to think our 110 year old building in Bonn might need a little more work other than its recent plastic surgery.

Last week I looked up from the dining room table and noticed a large water stain on the ceiling. There must be a leak in the roof which is causing the water damage. That same day I was searching for some misplaced contacts and discovered mold growing all over a wall in our sun room (or winter garden as they call it in Germany because there is no sun here).
To top it all off, this morning we awoke to freezing cold radiators. So we had to have breakfast in hats, scarves, gloves and winter coats. I felt a little like I was camping but without the warm campfire.

Thankfully our landlord is very responsive so he had someone here to survey the damage today. I almost feel sorry for him. I think he is regretting his foray into the real estate market. He must feel a bit like Tom Hanks in The Money Pit.

Sundays in Germany

In Germany Sunday is by law a day of rest. No retail or grocery stores are open on Sunday which obviously make Saturday shopping a nightmare. There are even rules about what you can even do in your own home on Sunday.

The quiet time law covers Monday through Saturday at 1:00pm to 3:00pm and then again between 10:00pm to 7:00am and all day Sunday. So during these times you are prohibited from doing things like playing loud music or tv, vacuuming or mowing your lawn. It has taken some time to get used to having essentially a free pass on errands and housework, but I've started to embrace lazy Sundays.

So far, we haven't needed to be too careful about our Sunday activities because we have no one else living in our building. However, next month our new downstairs neighbor will be moving in. Hopefully, he will be an early riser as I hate to give up my French aerobics show at 6:30 am.

Baby Pute

I decided to make a proper Thanksgiving meal for just Jim and me. Although my friend Erin sent me home with plenty of leftovers to satisfy his Thanksgiving cravings, I thought I should do a Thanksgiving trial run as I will most likely be hosting Thanksgiving next year. Considering that I had never made a turkey, gravy or stuffing, I thought that this might be an opportune time to try my hand at a traditional Thanksgiving meal.

Since it was just the two of us, I tried to find just a turkey breast. After visiting about 4 different grocery stores and not finding a turkey breast, I broke down and bought a whole turkey. I figured that I could eat turkey sandwiches for a week if we had a lot left over. I was able to find a small turkey which was only about 5 1/2 pounds. It was labeled as a "Baby Pute". I'm not sure if they were using the word baby as a diminutive and it was just a small turkey or it was actually a baby turkey.

After searching on the Internet about how to properly thaw and cook a turkey, I realized that we weren't having our little friend for dinner on Sunday as I had planned because the turkey wouldn't be thawed in time. I didn't realize that you have to thaw the turkey in the fridge. Since I don't cook meat very often, I was a little bit freaked out about the potential for bacteria.

I calculated that I would need a little over 2 hours to cook the turkey. I didn't have a roasting pan so simply put the turkey along with some veggies into a Pyrex pan. I hate dried out turkey so I put tin foil over the breast to prevent it from drying out. Unfortunately the tin foil doesn't really matter when you cook the crap out of the turkey.

My plan was to remove the tin foil after an hour and a half to let the skin get crispy. However, when I checked the temperature at an hour and a half, I realized the turkey was already done. My turkey looked awfully unappetizing with its pasty white and raw looking skin so I figured I'd take off the foil and cook it for a little longer to crisp up the skin. That didn't seem to work so I put the broiler on for a little bit. Finally I resigned myself to taking the turkey out and getting rid of the unappealing skin.

Now on to the gravy. I tried to boil up the giblets and make a nice turkey broth, but after an hour of boiling with some veggies and herbs it still had a funky smell to it. So I dumped that and used a gravy package. That didn't taste all that great so I added some red wine to it and herbs along with the turkey drippings. After adding a roux, it wasn't half bad but didn't particularly taste like turkey gravy.

I figured I had enough to worry about with the turkey and gravy so I kept the rest of the meal pretty simple - dressing and roasted root vegetables. The dressing was actually the star of the show. It turned out incredibly well. Jim said it was the best stuffing he's ever eaten. Although compared to the dry, chewy turkey, anything would probably taste good.

I didn't even attempt to make any sort of a pie or dessert. Since I'm not really a baker, that poses another challenge for the perfect Thanksgiving meal.

I am starting to think that the answer to Thanksgiving might be to start a new tradition - going out to eat. I think I'd be ok with a nice rack of lamb at a good French restaurant. Who needs turkey on Thanksgiving? The Pilgrims probably didn't even eat turkey.

Winter Wonderland

On Sunday, Jim and I went to Hohe Acht, the highest mountain in the Eifel National Park, for a hike. Jim recently biked through the area and thought it would be a great place for a hike.

In Bonn, the weather wasn’t particularly good, overcast and wet so I wasn’t too excited about hiking through the mud. However, as we drove into the Eifel, the rain turned to sleet and then finally snow. By the time we arrived at Hohe Acht the ground was covered in snow.

When we first arrived in Germany, my Nordic skiing obsessed husband asked everyone he knew about the winter and whether or not there was snow. The answer was always the same – it rains most of the winter and snows a few times but doesn’t collect on the ground.

So far our experience has been quite different. I’ve seen it snow in Bonn three times already and last Sunday, while it rained in Bonn, we enjoyed a winter wonderland only an hour away.

Medieval Christmas Market in Siegburg

On Saturday night Jim and I went to Siegburg to check out their Christmas market. We had been told that it was a Medieval Christmas Market so figured it would be something a little different than the markets we have already seen.

Siegburg is located between Cologne and Bonn about 15k away. We decided to take the train there as Jim hadn't yet experienced the public transportation system here in Bonn, and of course we both wanted to drink some gluhwein.

The market was torch-lit and had an authenticly medieval glow to it. I was glad that we went at night because I'm not sure it would have had the same feel during the day. The market was littered with small bonfires lined with people warming their outsides while drinking gluhwein to warm their insides.

When we arrived there were a group of entertainers in medieval garb with hand held torches singing a song. What they were singing about I had no clue, but it was entertaining nonetheless.

The food, drink and vendor stalls were all made to look like they were of rudimentary construction and the vendors were all dressed in period clothing. The items for sale were things you might have seen in a typical market in medieval times - baskets, spices, clothing, wooden toys and simple leather soleless shoes.

The food offered was slightly different than the typical fare of bratwurst, waffeln, and potato pancakes that you see at a lot of the other markets. We decided on what we thought would be an authentic snack - some seasoned grilled meat on a skewer. I have no idea what kind of meat it was, but the Germans love pork so that would be my first guess. We also decided to get some roasted chesnuts since neither Jim nor I have ever had chesnuts. After popping a whole chesnut in his mouth, Jim learned that you have to unshell the chesnut first.

Unfortunately the market started closing up pretty soon after we arrived so our visit was cut premeturely short.

Deutschland Doctor Visit

Last week I went to the doctor for the first time. The doctor was recommended by two of my friends. She's Canadian but has been here in Germany for about 15 years so she has a mixed practice of English and German speaking clients.

Waiting to see the doctor was an interesting experience. It was like musical waiting rooms. I first waited in the hallway for about 15 minutes. Then I was told to go into the Wartenzimmer (waiting room). I'm not sure why I didn't go straight to the waiting room but there must be some sort of system that just wasn't apparent to me. After about 20 minutes in the Wartenzimmer sitting in extremely uncomfortable chairs, I was told to wait in the hallway again. Then the doctor invited me into the Sprechenzimmer (speaking room) where I had a conversation with the doctor about my visit. Next it was downstairs to pee in a dixie cup and back into the hallway to wait again.

The only reason for the musical rooms that I can fathom is that if you are waiting for over an hour to see the doctor, maybe it won't feel as long if you are constantly moving from room to room.

After finally getting into the examination room, the doctor had me strip down. There are no gowns and the doctor doesn't leave the room while you strip which is definitely a departure from the American doctor visit experience. Since her office is in an old 3 story flat like mine with high ceilings, it was mighty chilly in the room. Thankfully, she let me put my coat on to keep my upper half warm while she tended to the lower half.