Geburtstag

This is the gloaming at the lake where my sister-in-law's Boat Club is and where she was having her birthday party. Her boyfriend, brother-in-law and uncle all have sailboats here. We got back from the Keukenhof lateish, met C, our former au pair and friend who very kindly agreed to babysit for us, and walked down to the lake.

It was a very nice party, the German was inveigled into playing his trumpet (I think only the second time I have ever seen him play) and it was fun to see him, his sister, and C (G's boyfriend) all playing together (with the rest of G's group).

Like Cinderella we had to run home at midnight to relieve C, but my in-laws didn't get home until after 0500: it amazes me the endurance German's have for parties!

Visiting the Keukenhof

So, we wound up going to the Keukenhof on Saturday (just too exhausted on Friday after arriving in the Sauerlands at 0200). We had stayed up chatting and drinking with F and G (my in-laws) past midnight on Friday and we wound up sleeping through our alarm at 0500 and not waking until 0700, so we didn't get out of the house until 0730. The trip should take a little over three hours, but this morning it wound up taking 5.5. The last two hours were in a stau (traffic jam) for the last two kilometers. We hadn't realized last week that this weekend, and in particular this Saturday, was the absolute height of the tourist season. Saturday was the Bloemencorso Bollenstreek, a flower parade that apparently attracts 100s of thousands of spectators.

Once we got in, the bulbs were absolutely magnificent. I'm including a few photos here but I hope to find a good slide show to embed so that I can put in more of the (many) photos I took. It was clear that this was a (fantastic) showcase for bulb sale promotion and I made certain that several of my photos contained the name tags for the bulbs so that when I am back in my yard in New York I will know what varieties to order: they are so magnificent in person that I never want to order by catalog photo again.

There was also a lilac (Syringa) exhibition as well. I'm a huge lilac lover and I was enthralled by the exhibit.

It was difficult being "out" in Germany and Holland during Passover: of course, most fast foods here are in some type of bread product. The waffles smelled so good! Luckily they were also selling beautiful strawberries in cups (with fresh whipped cream) and we each had a cup. Then we used those cups to get the home-made vanilla ice cream being sold by the wind-mill, which, with the bananas and apples we had packed, held us over through our visit.

The children spent the usual time at the playground (and I am so grateful that tourist parks here in Europe all seem to have them) and then as we continued walking through the gorgeous and brilliant beds we happened upon a path of rocks through the lake and Thing1 was excited to leap along it. I was grateful that she did not take a dunking because she wouldn't let me hold her hand.

We needed to leave by 1600 in an effort to get back for G's geburtstag party, the primary reason that we were here this weekend. Unfortunately, due to the afore mentioned Corso, the A4 was shut down. Luckily, when we stopped to buy some cut tulips, the women selling them were able to tell us that and which way we needed to go (which was through Den Haag) to get back to Germany. (And wow, were those cheap: 50 tight yellow buds for 5 Euros. G tells me that they are still looking beautiful three days later.)

We only got lost once and the return trip took us 3.5 hours, even with the roundabout of being redirected from the highway. We went by brilliant and beautiful fields of tulips all through the region.

The Keukenhof 2008

Family fun...

The German's sister has a spare bike that she is giving to us to bring back to Berlin because we are afraid that the bikes we brought from the States are too nice to leave about and will get stolen. F (his dad) has an old bike for him, so we should be all set. We got to visit the 'family' storage unit, in a gorgeous old stone barn, where everyone keeps their boats, trailers, tractors and miscellania. The Things got a real kick out of sitting on Uncle H's tractor.

Then F drove us about for a bit. We had hoped to stop and see Uncle H's lambies, but they were away in another uncle's fields (acting as portable lawn mowers) so we only got to see a few older sheep.

We visited a Bismarckturm (I can't find a good explanation- these are towers built for the 100th anniversary of Bismarck's birth?-there are many around Germany) and climbed the tower and looked out at the countryside. Here's a photo with an explanation: double click on it to expand it and read more closely if interested.

What I haven't Blogged about...

It's been a busy few days.

Saturday was the first night of Passover and things were a bit chaotic: my landlord had said that he would be going by Ikea and could pick us up another bookcase and a few things that we needed and then he wound up not doing so. I'd been relying on getting that bookcase and doors put together so that I could get my surfaces cleaned up and do a final chometz clean-up and flat tidy before getting the seder meal together.

I was not mentally prepared to have piles of books floating about on surfaces. I still had three boxes of unpacked books (that I had shipped over from the States), another box that I had "inherited" from some ex-pats in Alt-Tegal (who are planning on moving back to CA in the fall and are deaccessioning books) and the car seats and suitcases that we had needed to unload from our limited storage area (which has our sold and sealed chometz boxes packed away in it). I don't do well with clutter at the best of times: due to my reading addiction I always have trouble dealing with my accumulation of reading material. Leaving aside the books, we read a number of periodicals every week: The Economist, Newsweek, Businessweek, US News & Worldreport, Money, Cooks Illustrated, Forbes, Fortune, Publisher's Weekly, some Treasury/ Accounting/ Controls trade magazines, and Analog. Thank heavens for recycling, although I wish I knew folks here in Berlin that would enjoy reading them: it feels so wasteful to just recycle them after 1 use.

So the German took a run to the closest Ikea and came back with everything (including a corkboard, some extra place settings, the Billy and its doors, and a Malm chest. We put them together (and he says that the doors are unbelievably difficult), I loaded them up (and now I feel extremely tidy and under control) and then he took the Things out to the zoo and I started to scramble to get things together.

First off was the Pesach plate. We cleverly hadn't brought one with us, so I drew one on paper, put it in plastic and put that on a tray. The German had brought me whole walnuts by accident, so the next thing was to put the eggs on to boil, the chicken to roast, the potatoes to boil and then to start cracking walnuts (and picking nut meat- a phrase I have never gotten to use before) for the charoseth.

I got that together (and I quite liked it) then I printed out the haggadot that I had downloaded and formatted the prior evening.

I put together the Seder plate and tidied up and had a glass of wine (that must be why the charoseth recipe calls for a dry red) and had a good half hour sit down before the family came back from theplayground and it all went well. Thing1 did a great job of doing the 4 Questions, we used her Pesach book as well as the haggadah, and the cat did not get to jump on the table and eat the poultry ( a family joke. I did cut up quite a bit and put it on his plate). We didn't have room for the chicken soup and I expect that we will be eating that for the next few days: I'll need to be making matzoh balls next week. We had the seder comfortably early and the kids were in bed by 9 and then we cleaned up, kicked back, and watched last weeks Oprah's the Big Give.

On Sunday it didn't rain. First day in 50 days (since I started counting on an arbitrary date). We had some family time and then a babysitter, so the German and I could have a grown up Seder. It was at a large hotel here in Berlin and, according to the Rabbi, it was the largest seder in Germany. Very nice. Amusingly enough, someone from my german course was seated next to us and the other Parent representative from Thing1's class was at the next table. We had to run like Cinderella at 11 to get back by our 11:30 curfew (the babysitter is a kindergarten teacher and we felt badly enough keeping her up so late before a school day). It was a nice evening, I'll try to add photos later.

Monday we spent having family time. None of the local services had babysitting and our girls are just not able to take 4-6 hours of services without going insane. So we read the Passover story, had some matzoh brei for breakfast, then went to Kreuzberg to check out the Market Halle. It was nice, much better produce and meat than I have around me, but how is it possible that hot pepper here in Germmany can actually be bland? I bought olives in red pepper flakes and they are completely tasteless (except for the olive part).

We had lunch at our favorite Mt. Everest, but I wasn't able to have Momo balls (dumplings not allowable during Pesach). Then we spent an hour at the playground behind the hall. There's what appears to be a new book store there, Other Worlds. It seems to be so new that I can't find any on-line references. I checked it out: it's a SF and F store with a great selection, both in German and in English. But I just can't make myself pay an even exchange between dollars and Euros. That is, pay Euro 12.99 (+tax!) for a book priced at $12.99. That's an 80% mark up and far cheaper for me to have the books shipped over. They have used as well, so next time we are there I may stop in to see how they pay for used: it might be worth getting store credit. I ran in for a few minutes while the family was eating gelato, then the sky clouded over and we hopped the U-bahn back home.

A nice weekend.

Burning the chometz...

Of course I can't do that, as I have no place to actually burn it. But yesterday I packed most of the chometz in the flat up into boxes, finishing up this morning. I sealed the boxes and sold it (on-line. I love the Internet) and tomorrow morning I send the girls out with the German while I do the final thorough clean through and wipe down. I need to remember to save somepieces of bread so that Thing 1 can find them in a ritual search before lunch;-)

I ran out this morning to the Kosher deli and picked up (at price gougingly high cost) kosher-for-Passover wine, matzoh, gefilte fish (yeah- it was labelled Hungarian style so let's see if I actually like it), matzoh meal, cookies and a chicken. I already had the eggs, potatoes and bitter herbs, so now I only need the walnuts for the charoseth and some time and I should be ready to start the preparations by mid-morning. This will be our first solitary Pesach, so luckily the girls are really too young to understand if I do a poor job of it and I am sure that I will get better at it every year.

I also met up for a quick lunch with Snooker : she was going to share a local sushi place with me, but due to my time constraints (darn kids) we wound up having to meet too early and instead did a very nice little Chinese place. My chicken with green curry was nicely spiced and tasty and we enjoyed (at least I did) a pleasant chat and get to know each other session. I'd try for sushi again next week but since it's school break my next week is a yawning span of amuse the children time: perhaps we can do it next month.

It was fun to check out another area of Berlin: I'm starting to feel that I am actually seeing some of it and I'm just enjoying walking around and looking at stores. Amusingly, a store that I had attempted to find last week (and walked in the rain 40 minutes to discover had moved) was a few doors down from where we had lunch. Serendipity. I will be there again next week.

Quick- Calling all parents with children in German Schools-

What do you give the teachers for holidays in pre-school or regular school? I just got an e-mail from the parent representative from Thing 2's class saying that she got presents for those teachers. You know, annoying kitschy stuff liike serving plates. Now, the German was last week made the second parent rep for Thing 1's class, and the other one does nothing. So we knew not that we should do this. I can run out tonight, I guess, and get some cheap kitsch, but can't I just give a nice card with money (?how much) and let them choose what they like?

In a country where the wedding invitations say, give us money because we are already stocked, where I receive a death announcement and am expected to send geld, how can I have to give these poor teachers junk rather than allow them to use money for what they would like?

Also, we just started having soda/drinks delivered: do you tip? If so, how much?

Thanks!

“How I Proposed to My Wife: An Alien Sex Story”

John Scalzi has posted a shareware short story on his blog, Whatever.

It's “How I Proposed to My Wife: An Alien Sex Story” and it's quite funny. Shareware means that one can pay whatever (that word again;-)) one feels it's worth and Scalzi has given Paypal and Amazon links. He's donating half (aftter the cost or funds transfer) to the Lupus Foundation of America, so I felt comfortable overpaying a bit for a short. I thought it was quite amusing and pulpishly charming. Check it out.

It's raining again...

But of course, that's no different from any other day here in Berlin.

Yesterday had masses of dry time between the rain, so I ran over to pick up my tickets for second seder (held at a large hotel near here). I need haggadot (the 'lesson plan' for the Pesach meal) as well because I left mine at the in-laws and some shmera matza, so I'll be running back on Friday morning to pick them up. We had reserved the tickets earlier and I wonder if the reason we needed to pick them up in person was to ensure that we were not psychotics? I always wonder, here in this country where all Jewish organizations and facilities require a permanent police presence.

I am not looking forward to trying to gather all the ingredients that I need to make a seder with my little trolley this evening. particularly because I need to go to first causes, that is, to make the charoseth and horseradish and all the other underpinnings required. I even need to pick up a seder plate and the local Judaica store is wildly overpriced: I may wind updrawing one with crayon and putting it under plastic!

We would have done both seders out, but first night the community seder starts after 21:00 and considering that the children are in bed by 19:30-20:00, that would make it difficult to share it with them! Second night we have a babysitter.

I am, however, looking forward to hearing Thing1 singing the 4 Questions: I already hear her practising and I can't wait.

Today I finally have the introduction session for my gym. I am writing this here so that I will be too embarrassed to blow it off and sit here drinking coffee instead (I assure you I would prefer that). I need to get going: I am more unhealthy than I have been in years and more physically inactive than I have been in decades. Add that to the inability to get fat reduced dairy here and the (forgotten but high) cholesterol levels I had before I left the States means I had best get going on exercise.

(My goodness, I love wikipedia! How did I live without it?)

Upcoming trips...

1. The Keukenhof on the weekend of April 26th. Please let there be a single day without rain!
2. We want to go to Venice mid-May. Diane persuaded me that there are decent air rates out there and she's right. But to get them we will be flying out of Duesseldorf, which is a bit of a pain. I've never been to Venice - anyone have any hotel/hostel/B&B recommendations?
3. Denver in mid-August (without kids, yeah!). I'm going to the World SF convention. I had thought that I would be going alone but the German has decided that for various reasons he would prefer to come along, so this should basically be the honeymoon we didn't have;-).
4. Upstate NY in early October. My niece is Bat Mitzvah and we want to be there.

I need to get a little more European vacationing going here, but it's a start!