Duesseldorf

Monday, June 9th

Amsterdam and Delft

Friday June 6th-Saturday June 7th


Amsterdam


Delft

Watching MTV...

It seems like it's been 20 years since I've bothered to watch MTV. I have no patience for reality shows or other crap of that kind. But the German came to grab me and we are watching Metallica live at Rock am Ring. I saw them in New York about 15 years ago, taking my best girl friend, and she was so mad at me! She spent the evening shoving napkins into her ears while I was getting neck lash from thrashing my head back and forth. The German is moaning that we didn't meet for another few years so that we could have gone together. I just showed him this post over at Sweet Juniper and it cracks me up t realize that he has been singing along with this song, one of his favorites, for years and only after reading this "children's book" has he acyually understood all the words! He wants me to print it out and put it up in either the children's room, or, more likely, ours.

A rough start to the trip.

Thursday, June 5th:
I mentioned that we had a delay in starting our trip. That would be because the German managed to get stuck in our elevator.

(this is not our elevator. It is a representation of one;))

He was carrying the car seats down to the rental when he let a strap get caught in the doors. Luckily he had his handy with him and called me or I might have fallen asleep on the couch with the girls and left him there all night.

I tried vainly to get the strap through the doors and went back to get a knife to try to cut it, but the strap was too taut and the end was too thick. The German kept pressing the emergency button, but it only produced a shrill audible alarm: it wasn't hooked up to any service notification. Luckily, a woman who works in a business one floor down from the elevator heard the alarms and came up to investigate. She very kindly talked to the German while I went for a knife and tried to persuade the girls to stay and watch a movie rather than stand on the stairs in their nightclothes watching me saw at a strap....

When my knife failed and I went to look for something else, she found a compatriot who had a smaller knife and was able to saw/push the end of the strap through the doors (after 5 minutes). And when that didn't work, she knew where to find the hausverwalterung and sherousted him out and made him come and deal with the fact that the elevator was still stuck between floors (turned out pushing at the doors rythmically made it drop down to the next floor).

After the German explained to the house manager that he didn't get stuck on purpose, we then had to carry all our stuff down 6 flights of stairs in multiple trips. That's a box of food (not to be left to rot, we brought it and ate it at the in-laws), a bag of our clothes, a box of clothes for the girls, bike helmets, cat, two children, 2 car seats,backpack, two cameras,sippy cups, bottles, milk in cooler bag... argh.

We got to the Sauerlands and to bed at 02:30. Tomorrow Amsterdam.

Cabbage Roll Casserole, Chicken and Banana Raspberry Bread

This is the same James Beard recipe with variations that I have used before. This time I had three bananas waiting in the freezer and I wound up with a bit of extra batter, so I made muffins as well as a loaf. S, who was a surprise play date this afternoon, ate two.






This Cabbage Roll Casserole is great. Tastes quite a bit like one of my favorites, stuffed cabbage, but takes no effort to make. The German had picked up bak choy instead of cabbage by accident, so I used that. No sauerkraut, more onions and garlic, I used tomato juice instead of water and tomato paste and at the half hour mark I topped up the pan with a box of Italian pureed tomatoes. It tasted great.
Ingredients
1 kg rind hackfleish
3 diced onions
6 cloves garlic, minced
2 t salt
1 t pepper
1 bottle tomato juice
1 cup uncooked rice
6+cups cabbage (1 head diced)

Brown beef separately, then add to onions, garlic, salt, pepper, tomato juice
Bring to a boil and stir in rice.
Cover and simmer for 20 minutes.
Place 1/2 of the cabbage in a greased baking dish; cover with 1/2 the rice mixture.
Repeat layers.
cover and bake in 350 oven for one l hour.
If desired you can put sauerkraut on top of the layers.
Top with pureed tomatoes as well as adding diced fresh as desired, to keep moist.

Miscellaneous Musings and trivia

We are leaving tonight for NRW, there to leave the kids with F and G and take a day in Amsterdam with a stop over in Delft. Before that I wanted/needed to clean out the fridge so that food wouldn't spoil. I skipped Deutsche kurs today (I had planned on going, but a call about the lease delayed me and I said, "What the hey") and, just now, as it would be ending, I have:

• discussed lease terms with the German for half an hour
• washed three loads of clothes
• dried, folded, and put away two loads of clothes
• made a raspberry banana bread loaf and muffins
• made a cucumber onion salad
• unloaded the dishwasher, washed another sink of dishes, cleaned kitchen
• watched US election coverage
• still watching the season ender of "Men in Trees"- that's just such a charming show.
• prepared a (tiny) chicken to roast(it was thawed and won't last until we are back on Tuesday- I will roast it and then bring the meat with us)
• packed a few boxes for moving
• started to pack bags for the weekend for myself and the girls
• Had a cup of coffee (mmm) and now I am going to stop and have another with a muffin.

It's an hour later and I

• have discussed a lease addenda with the German, he appended it and mailed the lease out
• put a cabbage beef casserole in the oven (I know! but the meat was in the fridge and that and the cabbage/bok choy would go bad by Tuesday).

And in a whole other post for when I get back I'll tell you why leaving for our trip was delayed...

Finally it's over. On to the real election.

Obama 2154

Clinton1919

Visiting the Doctor

Today I took Thing2 in for her 2 year visit. One of the wonderful differences between visiting the German and the American pediatrician (although I adore our American ped- he was there at Thing2's 1st hospital check) is how unrushed I am here at a visit. Even with my poor grasp of German and the Dr's better grasp of English, there is never any feeling of hurry. I think our entire visit was over an hour long, with 40+ being just with the Dr.We discussed general developmental issues as well as physical health issues.

The remaining time was getting immunizations and I really appreciated that as well as Thing2 getting her shots (which we discussed after looking at her medical records), I was able to get two immunizations as well! As the Dr. said, it is also his duty to ensure that the parents are healthy as parents so frequently do not visit the Dr. themselves. Since I had asked whether the meningococcus vaccine was also recommended for adults, and since my HepA needed a booster, they pulled those shots out for me. So first Thing2 had her two shots (with 6 vaccines total) in her adorable little thighs (and no, she did not enjoy them) and then I had one in each arm and she was fascinated to watch that!

We will go back next month to have an additional meningococcal booster with strains more found in the Americas and then in July Thing1 will have her 5 year visit when she will also get that shot (not given in the States) as well as her last DtP booster. Then a year off until her pre-school visit.

Deutsche Leistungsfaehigkeit (Efficiency) and Apartment hunting in Berlin

One of the leitmotivs in my ex-patriate life here in Germany is my ongoing disbelief at what utter Quatsch my original belief that Germans are efficient was. They are certainly methodical and rule following, but they are as far from efficient as a people can be.

In fact, it often seems that they will create a procedure that has one running in circles just for the sheer joy of telling one that since a rule has not been followed throughout its winding and twisting turns, one must either start over or just give up.

(Sometimes I still hyper-ventilate when I think about American Express and how completely incompetent their operations in this country are. And one day I will write that post, but at the moment it annoys me too much.)

So let us proceed instead to apartment hunting. The German real estate market here is relatively opaque and monopolistic. Since the renter (as well as the purchaser) pays the commission there is no incentive to negotiate commissions and they are therefore high (as are most professional compensations in Germany).

We are currently apartment hunting because (yeah!) the German's firm has told us that he may station himself permanently here in Berlin if we so desire, rather than moving to Duesseldorf and we gave that a great big "Yeah!". We did a lot of research on immobilien socout, which is a great resource, and then we started to call brokers and make appointments. And this is where German efficiency comes into conflict with my American version of efficiency: in many cases, apartments were not available to view for several weeks, even though listed, because the currents tenants did not want to allow viewings. In most cases, the photos posted were horrible and in many others no photos were available and even floor plans were not available. In several cases, when the German called to make appointments he was told that the broker had enough possibilities and would contact him if those fell through. In one case (that particularly rankles), the broker did not return calls, did not have an answering machine, and when he responded to an e-mail inquiry sent information on a completely different apartment in a different area! This while the apartment has been listed for 4+ weeks!

Many, many annoyances later, a particular apartment that we had called on three weeks ago was still posted, so the German called the broker again. Although we had previously left our information in case the "open contract" fell through, the broker had not done so. But this time we were able to make an appointment to view (the just renovated) apartment. The German looked at two apartments in the same day, both of which looked great on paper, and came back enthused about the re-opened one. I looked at both of them the following day the one I had thought I would like was far worse than in photo while the "re-opened one" was far better in person: I handed the broker the completed paperwork after a 5 minute walk through.

Then the real work started. The broker told us he would call us that evening: we called him. Then he said that he would call the next day when he heard back from the owner (a bank). We called him. He said he would call us the next day (Friday). While biking around the lake, we stopped and called him and he said he hadn't yet heard but we should perhaps send in additional documentation (from the firm) stating that the German would be stationed in Berlin, rather than elsewhere in addition to the employment contract which we had already submitted. So the German called his chef out of a meeting to get him to send a letter to the broker. That afternoon, the German called back to see what was up and the broker mentioned that it was a good thing that he had followed up, because the woman at the bank had misread his employment contract and thought that we would be returning to the US in August, and wondered why we would bother to apartment hunt for three months! Note that she did not call the broker to query him. And note that the broker only called to ask status or if there was other documentation that would help our case after the German had spoken to him four times, each time initiating the call.

Dear Reader, we got the apartment. But only because of our tenacity and follow through. We are pretty excited and you'll be hearing more about it as the next few weeks progress. There is an einbaukuche (built in kitchen) but, as is typical in Germany, all light fixtures are empty and we will need to purchase and install 8 light fixtures in the next 21 days, as well as get a washing machine and my heart's desire: a chest freezer. Luckily, we brought along a dryer (strange thing, someone had brought one to the US, found it was too much trouble/impossible to retrofit, and gave it to us to bring over) so that's one less purchase. We'll be visiting Ikea a bit because there are no built in closets, so we will need shelving and wardrobes.

But! It's a great apartment! A small balcony off the kitchen area and a huge rooftop terrasse. It's bi-level and we will need to thinl about how to best safely utilize the space, but more later!

Wilde Pferde

It was a rainy Fridaynight and a wet Saturday as we gathered ourselves up to go see the wild horse round up in Duehlman. It was soggy and gray but we got
there about 9 am and walked around looking at the horses that had already been coralled prior to what would be a cutting out of the first year stallions for sale.


The girls had a lot of fun walking and looking and petting the many already tamed horses that were waiting to compete in the "rodeo" that would take place after the cutting. There
were many Wildepfereden there in individual rope enclosures with signs showing when they had been purchased at prior sales and who the owners were: an awful lot of horse crazy girls and horse clubs. In addition we watched the Frieians being unloaded (there would also be a Friesian show). Then we wandered the area, picked up some pikante strudeln (there's not an awful lot of non-schweine food here in Deutscheland) and sat on the bank of the stream for a bit (we had brought a blanket and some drinks).
Here you see a horse-drawn bus bringing people in from the far parking lots.
Around 12:30, or about 30 minutes before the gates would open and an hour before the actual show would start, the kids just became too tired, so we bundled them up, the younger on the German's shoulder and Thing1 in the stroller and took them back to the car. We were able to sell our tickets at the gate for the price that we had paid;-), so we got to walk around for free rather than pay the (lower) price for grounds tickets, so we were pretty happy. I bought a DVD of the round up and next year we will buy sitzplatz and get there at 12:30 which should leave us fresh for the show!

Afterwards, since both girls fell asleep in the car, we drove the half hour to Muenster and took a quick drive through, as I'd never been there. Both the German's parents had gone to University there (it was where they met) and his sister had done her University work there as well and liked it. It was a cute (and very small) town and I could see why it has the title of Bicycle Capital of Germany--- I have never seen so many bicycles in my life. There were huge herds of them, like passenger pigeons, resting everywhere.