EuroLife: Day 69

We have our first visitors!!! Karen and Phil came to see us, some friends from Notre Dame, and we've had a blast. Here are some photos from today:

Breakfast at Einsteins! The best croissants I've ever had; the slowest service I've ever experienced.
Walking near the Napoleonstein in light snow.

Sheep, also walking near Napoleonstein in light snow.


Thuringian "XXL" brats from Grill Teufel. The bread's about 4 inches long, the brat's about 15 inches long, and it's delicious. Michael and Phil had two a piece, and later had smaller brats at another stand...and then went back to Grill Teufel, disappointed with the mediocre generic brats, and found that they had closed. Hard to tell if this is a good thing or a bad thing.

All in all a wonderful day!

Now, I'm sad to say, Eurolife 2.o is going on hiatus. We will return early by mid January, once I'm back in Jena.

Merry Christmas!

EuroLife: Day 71

Today I'm going to cheat a bit. Michael's been working so hard on finishing up his dissertation, he doesn't have much "writing energy" left for a blog at the end of the day. I am spending my days reading philosophy, though not nearly as much as I should be reading, and thinking about the next couple of days. Tomorrow I have another appointment, so we should get to see the baby again. I'm very excited about that. Tomorrow evening two of our good friends will be coming for a quick visit, and I'm also very excited about that! When they leave, we leave, and get to go back to the States for a while. That I am really, really, very excited about.

So I don't really have much to share today. However, I have long been meaning to include a link to my friend's blog, so that's what today's post will be. Rather than writing something interesting, I will direct you to something interesting! If you scroll down a bit, there's a great post about German greetings--and Jeff and Deanna's as-German-as-American 7 year old son. I highly recommend it :)

http://jndministry.blogspot.com/

Enjoy! I promise to start doing interesting things again once we get back in January; then I'll be able to share fun stories and photos again. For now, my head is already back in the States!

EuroLife: Day 70

Coming soon to the American Market!

A little tiny car. A "smart" car. A German car, as it turns out. I had heard a little about these "smart cars" before coming over here, but I did not know that they were German. Not only are they German, they're fairly popular; we see them pretty often. They will be available for sale in the US in early 2008, though there are some in the States right now. Apparently you can import them through a dealer, provided they are modified to meet US safety and emission standards.

So here's a little bit of information about the tiny car that's coming to America:

• It really is tiny. It's as long as a parking-space is wide. (More specifically, it's 8.8 feet long, 5.1 feet tall and 5.1 feet wide.) The website claims that it is "small on the outside and big on the inside." If so, that's some impressive, Harry-Potter style technology.
  
• According to Wikipedia, the original plan was to make a car that was easy to park. Where most cars have to parallel park, the smartcar can park facing the curb. I've seen this done; it looks weird, but it fits.
  
• Also according to Wikipedia, the purpose of the car was "to transport two people and a case of beer." (Whether the creator was more inspired by the parking possibilities or the passenger & beer transportation Wikipedia does not tell us.)
• "Smart" is an acronym for "Swatch Mercedes ART".
• Yes, Swatch! The creator of the most excellent Swatch Watches of the 1980's is also the creator of the smartcar! Mercedes chipped in a bit in the end, I'm sure, but this car is Swatch through and through.
• It can be yours for a reservation fee of $99 plus the price--anywhere from $11, 590 to $16,590. (Remember, it's big on the inside.)
  

EuroLife: Day 69

We have often written about the German "coffee and cake" tradition, always with praise and admiration. This afternoon our church hosted an "Advents Feier"(an Advent Celebration.) At 3:30, the hour for coffee and cake, we all returned to the sanctuary to find a beautiful arrangement of tables filled with various cookies and cakes. The photo doesn't quite capture the feel of the sanctuary...picture about 2 dozen tables, each laid with nice china and platters full of cookies. It was really very nice.

Michael and I sat with a few of our friends, and there was one seat still available when we had all sat down. To our happy surprise, Reinhart (who I fear I previously called Reinhold) came and joined us! He and his wife Ulricha (I really must learn to spell their names correctly) were the ones who treated Michael and I to an outstanding lunch last Sunday. They had been sitting together at a nearby table, but each gave his (and her) seat up for some people who wanted to sit together. Once again, we all had a great time. The food was delicious--I particularly liked the pound cake with cherries in the cake and chocolate chips on top--and the conversation was great. I just love our church; it has made such a difference in our lives here in Jena.

There was only one slight downside to the service this evening: something that, I suspect, would never have worked in the States. After we all sat down to our cake-filled tables, we were told that there would be a number of musical pieces and readings before we were to begin eating. The music was really very good--there is a classical guitar player in our church who can't be older than 14 or so and who is exceptionally talented. The difficulty, of course, was that there were platters full of cake sitting tantalizingly near. We all braved the trial, and eventually were rewarded for our patience. The rest of the service was also very nice, with more music, some singing, and a few seasonal readings.

In the second photo above, left to right, you see: Kirstin (from England), Ulricha, Reinhart, Michael, me, and Rose (from Kenya). We asked if we could take a picture for the blog and all gladly obliged :)

EuroLife: Day 68

The Nicer Side of the Weihnachtsmarkt

I did a bit of Christmas shopping with my friend Laura in the Weihnachtsmarkt this evening, and it was lovely. (The center of the market is set apart from the area with the abominable beast of steel, so all was well.) There was live music throughout our time there--sometimes a choir, sometimes an instrumental group--and stands selling all sorts of crafts and Christmas decorations.

Gluhwein is perhaps the biggest attraction at the Weihnachtsmarkt. It's a kind of mulled wine, and people wander around drinking it out of glass or ceramic mugs. It's not uncommon here for an outdoor stand to sell beverages in nice glasses with a deposit, rather than paper or plastic cups. I cannot attest to the gluhwein, but I did have some delicious roasted almonds with a sugary coating. Laura got a Jena specialty (though I can't remember the name right now), and that was also quite good. They start with something that looks like pizza dough and tastes quite garlicy, fry it, and top it with salt and whatever else you want on it. (Laura had one with cheese.) In the end they look like oblong mini pizzas without the sauce. Chocolate covered fruit is big as well--apples, bananas, skewers of strawberries, all dipped in nice German chocolate. Michael brought me a chocolate covered apple while I was in the Frauenklinic; it was a lifesaver.

Just before we headed home, I caught this picture on the left. If you look closely, or click on the photo to zoom, you should be able to see various horn players leaning out of the windows. They were playing through the windows out over the square; it was great. Earlier there was a quartet playing from a rooftop terrace.

I'm not sure I've really succeeded in capturing the markets, but there you have it! On an unrelated note, Michael and I went out for pizza tonight--our first attempt at getting pizza in Jena. We found a restaurant run by a family from Venice. The restaurant itself was very nice, and the pizza was pretty good. It wasn't great, but there are plenty of pizza places to try yet. There is a very large Italian population in Jena, so surely we will find the perfect pizza at some point in the next three years. Fortunately, the restaurant tonight had Italian ice cream, and that was delicious.

EuroLife: Day69

Lobeda Ost

I've heard that around a third of the population of Jena lives in one of the southern suburbs, a place called Lobeda Ost. Most of the students, apparently, live here as well. Pictures don't really do justice to the tedium and anonymity of the place. Imagine thirty more buildings like the one pictured here. Imagine them scattered around in rows and at strange right angles. Then you have a sense of the place. Its vintage communist era.

Of course it still looks beautiful compared to parts of Chicago's South Side. Or compared to some parts of South Bend, for that matter. A friend of ours just pointed out an ad on Craig's list. Apparently someone is trying to sell one of the uglier bars in town. I looked at the picture and thought -- did I really live in that town for six years. Just for the sake of comparison, here's the photo:





Really, I should include the ad, too, because its pretty humorous.

"Fantastic location near Notre Dame! Unlike anything that you've seen! Full bar (w/ liquor license) and kitchen includes: bar, all equipment, pool table, tables and chairs, stools and much more...Call for list! Studio apartment above bar for extra income. Also separate parking lot (57 parking places). Busy Notre Dame clientele for new owners!!! A must see!"

And how much do they want for this gem? $695,000!

EuroLife: Day 68

What you see here is the bane of my existence. Just to be sure that I was using the expression correctly, I looked up "bane". Dictionary.com defines it as follows: "a person or thing that ruins or spoils." So, I can now confirm, this is the bane of my existence.

December is the season of Weihnachtsmarkts, or Chrismas markets, here in Germany. Nuremberg is supposed to have the best one, but we have our own here in Jena as well. There is an abundance of new little outdoor shops and stands selling delicious food, mulled wine, and all manner of Christmas decorations. One of these days, when the sun is shining, I will go and take some nice pictures to try to give you a sense of the finer aspects of the Christmas markets...but the darker side has to be noted as well.

A giant carnival has descended upon the center of the city. By "giant" I do not mean to imply that there are very many rides--there seem to be only about a half a dozen--but rather that it is a very tall, loud, and worst of all perpetually spinning eyesore. (Though the bumper cars look kind of fun, and I'm intrigued by the "Geisterhaus".)

I should confess at this point that "morning" sickness seems to have finally taken hold. For a while there I really believed I'd be one of the lucky few that escaped it, but alas it was not to be. It's not terrible, just a nagging nausea that comes and goes throughout the day. (There is nothing "morning" about it.) As I said, I think I have it pretty good in this department because it really isn't that bad at all--until I have to walk past this abomination.


I like this picture a lot, because it captures the contrast between the beautiful church and the spinning, flashing, hurling hunk of steel that has recently moved in. So, here's how it works: There's one giant arm with six little offshoots, as you can see. Four people get strapped into each offshoot, and up they go. The thing swoops up and down like one of those Pirate Ship rides while spinning. And flashing bright lights.

It's nearly impossible to get anywhere in town without passing this ride, which means I see it a few times a day. There I am, minding my own business and trying not to be sick when I am assaulted by something that could only have been put there in ORDER to make a person sick. I have to stare straight ahead, resist the urge to look when I hear screaming, and pretend not to have any peripheral vision. It is not an ideal situation.

So there you have it: the bane of my existence. I am very happy to be pregnant, and very happy that things are progressing well--even if it means nausea. Still, it seems a bit much to expect a person to deal with this contraption while fighting nausea. Don't you think?

EuroLife: Day 67

People often ask me what its like to live in a Hinterhaus. I tell them its not really like anything else. You just have to try it. For those of you who may never get to live in one, I thought I'd included a picture. This is a picture of our apartment. It's in the middle of a block, surrounded by buildings. To get to the street we have to pass through one of these buildings.

As you can see, the architectural style might euphemistically be called minimalist. The first window looks into our bathroom. Thats why the blinds are always down. The second window is for our bedroom, and the last two windows look in to our living room/dinning room/kitchen. Oh, we're on the bottom floor.

And what do we see when we step out of our door in the morning? Well, right now we see some barren trees, a clothes line, lots of windows, and a few balconies. It has a certain charm. There is some talk of cutting down the trees so the Hinterhaus gets more light. When the leaves are on the trees, they do block some of the light. Of course the buildings help with that as well. One virtue of the arrangement, though, is that all our windows face south. Anyway, Dolores is steadfastly against the killing of the trees. Where would her birds eat, if we couldn't put the feeder in the trees?

EuroLife: Day 66

Big blog news today: we reached over 1000 hits! That's pretty cool. I'm sure we'll be picked-up any day now by some corporate sponsor--most likely the New York Times Travel section--and paid vast quantities of cash for our musings. We'll just have to be sure we ask for our paycheck in Euros.

Today I thought I would show you all my Mutterpass. Yes, here in Germany, pregnant women are given a special "mother pass!"
Now, when I first heard that I was going to be given a Mutterpass, I got pretty excited. I thought that maybe it would get me all manner of discounts and special treatment--cheap fares on the strassenbahn, for example, or discounted soft drinks .(After all, I can't drink the cheap beer!)

Alas, it was not to be. It turns out my Mutterpass is a little booklet in which they record everything relevant to my pregnancy. When I told my doctor (during our first visit) that we would be heading to the US for Christmas, she said something to the effect of "Well, you're not going anywhere until you have your Mutterpass!" She made an appointment for the following week for me to come and pick it up. Unfortunately, I had to go to the Frauenklinik before I had received it. That led to some confusion, and many disconcerted faces, at the clinic. "Boy", I thought, "Only 8 weeks pregnant and already I feel like a bad mother. What kind of a mother goes around without a Mutterpass?"

Despite my jokes, I think it's a great idea. It has my blood type, family history, the results of the blood tests that they have done, a record of the medication that I'm on, my due date, the details of each ultrasound result...in short, every piece of information that might be medically relevant to the pregnancy. I suppose the idea is that, if anything should happen, I should always have that information on hand. As I said, this makes sense to me. Of course, in the States, it may not be of much use;it is, after all, written in German. Still, I like the idea.

EuroLife: Day 67

A Little Perspective

3 December 2007

City.................. Sunset................. Hours of Daylight
Atlanta .......... 5:29...................... 10:02
New York.........4:28.......................9:26
Jena...............4:13.......................8:13
Moscow...........4:01.......................7:23
Stockholm.......2:54......................6:32
Fairbanks........2:56......................4:31

Murmansk.....DOWN ALL DAY.......

It's always good to have a little perspective. So from now on when I think about winter daylight, I'm going to think about Murmansk. The people of Murmansk last saw the sun on the first of December, when it crested the horizon from 12:15 until 12:57. They will see it again on January ll, when it makes an appearance at 12:49. Despite the darkness, a lot of people live there. At 325,000 people, its the largest city above the arctic circle. By way of comparison, there are only 82,000 people in Fairbanks. Murmansk even boasts a university with 4,458 students. I hear they may be looking for a philosophy professor soon.

Other interesting facts about Marmansk:
1) Because of the Gulf Stream, the port remains free of ice all year.
2) In WWI the US, the British, and the White Russians controlled it.
3) In WWII the US and the British supplied Russia through this port.
4) The city has the only fleet of nuclear powered ice breakers in the world.

EuroLife: Day 66

This is becoming something of a theme. Sunday rolls around and it's Michael's turn to write the blog, but I have such a lovely Sunday that I convince him to let me write it! So here we are again. The picture above was taken a few evenings ago in the center of the city. December is the time of Christmas Markets here in Germany, and Jena is no exception. The whole city has been extravagantly decorated, and there are dozens of new shops, stands, and cafes set up throughout the city center. Soon we will take pictures in daylight and write a post on our Christmas Market, but not today.

I am continually impressed by the people we meet in our church. This morning we slept-in a bit and went to the second service. As soon as the service ended, the man in front of us turned around and introduced himself. He, Reinhold, is a recently retired business-management professor, and was familiar with the project on which Michael is working. Within minutes he had invited us to lunch. He and his wife Ulricha drove us to their beautiful home up in a part of town that had somehow not yet seen. Reinhold, Michael and I sat in the sitting room while Ulricha went to prepare a lunch. In what seemed to be an impossibly short time, she returned to seat us in the dining room. There we all sat and had Roast Beef (fresh out of the oven) with a mustard cream sauce and a horseradish dressing, in addition to rice and salad. It was absolutely delicious. I tell you, ever since complaining about the food, I have been inundated with treat after treat. After lunch, we all had vanilla ice cream served with chocolate shavings and homemade cherry jam. (I'm pretty sure the meal in its entirety must at least come close to my mother's ideal meal; I thought of her with each course!) Then they practically forced us to have seconds. (By which I mean, they offered us seconds.)

Enough about the food. These were some of the nicest people I have ever met. The conversation was constant and incredibly interesting, and I felt so at home with them. The first half of the afternoon we spoke German, which I was able to understand almost completely but in which, of course, I cannot say very much. We switched to English during the meal, occasionally reverting for a few phrases but mostly remaining in English. It's difficult to capture exactly why the afternoon was so wonderful, but I believe that if you met these people you would want to spend the day with them. The only reason we eventually left was because we were due at Jeff and Deanna's house for coffee and cake! (It's a difficult life I lead here in Germany.)

So off we went to Jeff and Deanna's. Their youngest daughter was dedicated in the first service this morning, and they had a gathering in celebration. There, too, we had a wonderful time. (I had a little too much sugar, or perhaps a lot too much sugar, and I'm paying for it now. It's very hard to turn down homemade treats!) There were quite a few students at Jeff and Deanna's, most of whom we know, and all of whom speak English. It was just a great way to spend the afternoon. Jeff and Deanna have a blog as well, I meant to include the link yesterday but forgot. You can see them, and many of the students, at: http://jndministry.blogspot.com

And now we are spent. I've been laying low since being "released", so this was quite a lot of activity for me! Our plan for this evening is to watch "So I Married an Axe Murderer", a (very likely dated) American comedy that was included in the stack of DVD's I got from Jeff and Deanna. We have to return those one of these days, and neither of us have seen this movie. Here's hoping it's funny!

EuroLife: Day 65

Blessings Beyond Measure!

Some of you may remember my grumblings about comfort food from a few days ago. Well, this morning we received a phone call from Deanna, a friend from church. She was calling to see how I was doing, having been away last week while I was in the Fraunklinic. "Also," she added, "I'm making some homemade chicken strips. Would it be ok if I brought some over?"

By way of back-story, Deanna and her husband Jeff have been in Jena for 2 or 3 years now working in campus ministry. We met them at church, where we were very surprised to learn that their hometown in the States is about 10 minutes away from Michael's hometown! They have been wonderful about welcoming us to Jena. In fact, Jeff drove us to the Emergency Room last Saturday. We don't have a car, and they have repeatedly offered to help us if ever we need it, so they were the ones we called.

So, Deanna saw my post about comfort food--having also been disappointed by Cheers, it turns out--and boy did she fix that problem! She and her daughter Georgia came by with a bag full of goodies. In addition to the homemade fried chicken and collard greens, there was jasmine rice, black eyed peas, ranch dressing, tortilla chips, salsa, taco seasoning (from the US!), instant peach tea, and even Skittles! Not one of those items, except perhaps for the rice, have I had since arriving in Germany. We had the chicken, rice, beans and greens for dinner and it was absolutely delicious; it totally hit the spot. (I know my New York readers might be surprised by the collard greens, and maybe even by the black-eyed peas, but Michael won me over to both ages ago and we used to make them all the time! You just have to trust me; they're delicious.)

It was such a wonderful way to start the day. In addition to the incredible food, it was just very nice to feel so cared for. Actually, Jeff and Deanna are also the friends who loaned us the stack of American DVDs. They have really been a blessing to us!

Since we're on the topic of blessings, I thought I'd include the most recent ultrasound picture too. The ultrasound itself looked incredible, but the printed picture looked a little less clear. (When the baby was moving around, it was super easy to see what everything was.) A photograph of the picture only makes things worse, but at least it's something, so here it is:
The head is on the right, and you can see (or at least I can see :) an arm and the legs sort of tucket up. (The baby is facing towards the bottom of the picture.)

All that to say, Michael and I are feeling incredibly blessed. I'm getting pretty nauseous, I'm exhausted, and I have the sense of smell of a superhero (not a very useful superpower), but I couldn't be happier!

EuroLife: Day 64

Ain't No Sunshine When She's Gone

Actually, the sun shone for three days in a row when Dolores was in the hospital. Unfortunately, I was fighting a cold so I slept in most mornings and missed half the daylight. I visited Dolores twice a day, most days, and I worked away feverishly on my dissertation, which must be handed in on January 15th.

Today I thought I would talk about all of the little mistakes that foreigners (like myself) make. We'll that's too broad of a topic, so I'll limit myself to linguistic mistakes. You've already heard about Dolores' house battle. Unfortunately, I don't have anything quite so funny to report. But anyway, here they are.

1) On our first day in town, I went up to a rather attractive young waitress arranging tables at a sidewalk cafe, and I asked, "Are you open?" She said -- thankfully with a smile -- "No, I am not open. But the restaurant...something...something...blah,blah...opened." I wasn't sure what my mistake was. At first, I thought my mistake stemmed from using the word "you" to refer to the restaurant. Of course, we do this in English, but the Germans are often more literal or exact than we are. It turns out, however, that this was not my mistake. My mistake was using the verb "to be" instead of the the verb "to have," and using the word "open" instead of "opened." I should have said: "Have you opened?" Unlike in English, however, this question asks about a current state, not about a past event. So one can also ask: "When have you opened?" to find out what the general hours are. So what had I actually asked the waitress? I asked if she was frank or direct. Apparently she is not. Strange that in all my years of German class and my time in Munich, I never learned how to ask if a restaurant is open.

2) I just realized the other day that for the first two months I've been pronouncing the word "euro" as "your-o" rather than "oy-row." (I just mentioned this difference to Dolores, because I was only 90% sure that "oy-row" is actually correct. After some reflection, we both think it is. Still, how many times have we heard this word? And we still kept saying "your-o."

We'll there are plenty more mistakes, but I'll save some for later.