Eeeuuuww!

I interrupt my castle travelogue to report that I just discovered a dead mouse in my kitchen. A Dead Mouse.

I was mopping the kitchen floor, and the mop hit the baseboard at the sink and the baseboard fell off. I bent over to pick up the baseboard and put it back and froze as I spotted a mousetrap...with a mouse trapped in it.

It was clearly dead, in fact downright dried up and mummified. Who knows how long it had been there? It had to have been there before we moved in. No doubt the Bad Last Tenants found signs of mice, set up the mousetrap and didn't bother to get rid of it before they left.

I suppose I should be grateful it wasn't alive and wriggling its little life out in the trap, but there I was, bent over and staring at the desiccated thing, feeling the gorge rise up in my throat.

I stood up so that the gorge would not rise any further. After a few deep breaths (luckily I had been mopping so the air was quite fresh-smelling) while deciding how to dispose of the thing, I took a pair of grilling tongs and gingerly picked up the mouse and mousetrap with it and took it out to the garage to the waste bins...only to be confronted with a quandary: in what bin would the recycling-conscious Germans put a dead mouse and mousetrap?

So there I was, dead mouse and mousetrap at the end of the grilling tongs staring at the multiple choice question of recycle bins before me. Obviously the "gelber sack" was out of the question, because though the rule of thumb is that if you can't write on it with a ball point pen and it isn't glass it goes into the gelber sack, the answer is yes and no regarding the mouse and mousetrap. It was a wooden mousetrap, and it was totally possible to write on it with a ball point pen, but of course you can't write on a dead mouse with a ball point pen, and I was not about to separate the two, even though I'm sure Germans would be conscientious enough to do so, in the way one separates the metal lids from glass jars before recycling (the metal lids go in the gelber sack).

The other obvious choices would be either the "hausmull" (general house trash) or "bio waste." I decided on "bio waste" as that sounded hazardous and nasty enough for something like this. So I tossed it in there, and hoped I made the right decision, because there is no way I am going to dig that thing out and put it in another bin. Yuck!

Castle Hoensbroek - medieval portion

It's been a few weeks since we've gone to it (April 17th, to be exact), but I have to mention Castle Hoensbroek, in the Netherlands. John and I decided to take a break from getting our house in order--getting furniture, putting our bed and dining table and chairs together, etc., and do some actual touristy stuff.

John, bless his heart, didn't tell me that we were going to a castle. A real castle! I was so freakin' excited. The day was beautiful, and it actually decided to warm up a bit after the bitter cold of March and early April; the roundabouts along the highway showed bright yellow daffodils and red tulips. Hoensbroek is not that far from the little town of Susterseel, Germany, where we live to the Netherlands--it would take me less than a fifteen minute walk to cross the border. The castle, however, is a bit farther out:


View Larger Map


A 20-minute drive, max, about the time it'd take to drive from home to Tacoma.

That just blows my mind. Just a short drive to get to some real, amazing history, I mean a castle for God's sake!!! This is not Disney, people! It's medieval! With a moat! With water in it!

Words simply do not come close to describing how thrilled I was, and so I won't even bother, because, damn! A castle! Now I'm in Europe for sure, I thought.

There is no way one could pass the castle on the street and not see it. It's easy to see the spires from a mile or so away. So we came up to it, and parked in the parking lot, and I had to get a good shot of the whole thing before I ever went in it.



Oh, it doesn't look that large from this side...but there's another whole big piece of it on the other side. There are two sections; this side, which is the oldest section, completely surrounded by the moat, and before you can enter it, you have to cross two drawbridges, first through the newer part (picture on the right).

And then through the older part:

Just to get a better idea of the orientation, below is a picture of John standing at the entrance of the first drawbridge. You can see the second drawbridge through the arch behind him.

Upon going across the first drawbridge and through the first arch, I felt so overwhelmed, I almost wept. Yes, yes, that sounds silly, but I really did. I was there, experiencing a very, very old piece of history. It had been a dream of mine ever since I was a child to visit Europe and see real castles. It didn't hit me until then that here I was, doing it at last. Weird, huh? I'd stayed in Geilenkirchen for more than a month, and that's an old city itself. I could see how old the buildings were there.

I suppose it's because Germany and the Netherlands is also modern, with pretty much every modern convenience. They even have Safeway-like grocery stores, and dollar stores (I guess I should say, Euro stores), cell phones (they call them "handies" here), computers, the Internet--all of it. I caught traces of medieval architecture here and there as we traveled around the countryside looking for a house to rent--there is even a castle tower in the town of Gangelt that is privately owned and in which a family still lives. You can see parts of the castle wall that is now part of someone's garden wall.

But it just didn't hit me until I saw this castle.

The first archway opened up into a huge courtyard. A flash of horses and grooms holding their bridles came to me, taking the horses into the far building (opposite the oldest part of the castle). I could imagine it, how the lord of the castle might dismount and hand the reins to the groom or stable boy who'd run up as soon as he'd enter.

Whether that happened in that particular spot, I don't know; there's no information on it that I can find. But that's okay--I'll just let my imagination fill it all in. ;-)

I understood from the pamphlet that there were more than a few parts to this castle--the dates of construction went from the 13th century to the 18th. We went through a small portion of the later part, but John hurried me through these to the medieval portion, and I didn't demur, as I thought I'd like to see that first.

But...I don't know what it was, but as soon as I stepped into the tower, I began to feel sick to my stomach. Now, I'm not claustrophobic, and in fact I rather like cosy closed-in places. Plus, the first room was not at all small, or at least, no smaller than the bathroom in our house. Well, I'm a writer, and I write historicals, and nothing was going to keep me from exploring this tower, because this was research, damn it! So I gritted my teeth and took out my camera, determined to take as many pictures as possible.

Of course, I had to take a picture of armor.

You'll see the armor as soon as you enter the medieval portion of the castle.

Then there are the other levels...but before you go to them, you need to go up these extremely narrow stairs. Now, I'm not a tall person, 5' 3" max. But there was no way I could go up these stairs without occasionally having to duck my head and pull in my elbows.

This tower was used as defense against enemies. Now, that armor above is no taller than I. If I went up those stairs without armor, having to bend my head down and banging my elbows against the stairwell wall, I do not see how someone with armor could have done it in any speedy manner, if at all. At most, I would suppose that if a knight had to go up these stairs, he would have to go up them with chain maille at most, and no helmet.

So if you ever write of a knight going up in a tower, do not have him run up in armor. No way, no how. He could go up in a quick pace--not running--with the minimum of body protection.

However, the narrowness of the stairs does point to strategic defense. Let's say you pack away a lot of provisions in that tower (that is possible, as there are fireplaces) and the enemy entered the castle. Reinforcements were coming. But then the enemy has entered the tower...

Trust me when I say that there is no way more than one person can go up those stairs. It would be so very easy to grab a spear and skewer a non-armored soldier, and kick him down the stairs, and if there was anyone behind him, they'd all go tumbling down or at best be stuck. If there were more than a few armed defenders in that tower, they could take turns skewering all night until the reinforcements came.

To the right is an interesting hole in the castle wall:

I was told that this is where archers would shoot their arrows, but I have to say I'm not sure how an archer (whether longbow or crossbow) would be able to aim well through this, or how he would be able to position himself so that an arrow could be shot through it. My conclusion is that not a lot of aiming was involved, and that archers generally poked that arrow through the hole and shot, hoping it would hit someone.

Now a rifle or a musket--well, I can see aiming one of those through that hole, and I expect that might well have happened during the 1600s on up.


Below is a fireplace (you could cook food in there if necessary).

To the left, a toilet:













And below is the tower rooftop:

Now this is where you could probably do the most damage: if a lit arrow managed to lodge itself into the roof and caught the timbers on fire, it would most definitely fall and cause a lot of damage, especially on the wooden floor below. However, the exterior roof looks to be slate or other form of rock, so the chances of getting a flaming arrow through that was probably slim. It might be possible for a cannon (in the 1400's) to blast away at the roof and thereby bring down the timbers, but if you note the earlier pictures, you'll see that the tower is round (cylindrical), as is the roof. This does not make for a good target, as the tendency would be for the cannonball to roll or deflect off the relatively small surface area.

Oh, and here I am, climbing up to the very top of the castle tower. I'm smiling, but there are gritted teeth beneath that smile, as I am feeling nauseated.

And then we went back down, this time to the dungeon:

Here is the dungeon itself:

After looking at this dungeon, I would think it'd be unnecessary for anyone to be tortured to extract information (unless it was needed quickly). There is no sconce in which a torch or candle may be set; the window is a tiny thing that may let in some light, but barely, and certainly there is no way anyone could see anything through it, let alone make a jailbreak. Though the room has the size and height comparable to a modern bedroom, enough for a large, modern-day man to stretch out when laying down, it's clearly cold and damp. It's silent--there is no noise that penetrates from the outside, none that I could hear, anyway. The thick-timbered door might let in a loud sound, but it'd be muffled at best.

It's essentially the medieval form of sensory deprivation.

It's possible to turn the lights out in this room (there's electricity to it), and when we did, even though it was a bright sunny day outside, only a vague gray illuminated the interior. I doubt any prisoner would know whether it was full daylight or a cloudy day, but I would venture to say it'd be doubtful whether you could tell much difference between night and day. You couldn't tell what the seasons were--perhaps it might be colder during the winter. Stay in this place for a couple of weeks, maybe months...well, it'd be a strong-minded person who didn't go just a little crazy.

It was with considerable relief that I left the dungeon and the medieval portion...and oddly, as soon as I stepped into the door into 17th century area, my nausea disappeared. Curious, I stepped back into the tower--nausea again. I stepped out--none.

Hmm.

More adventure in German cooking - steak in yellow goo

So I went to the Edeka yesterday, which is a grocery store in Süsterseel.  I will most definitely go there again, as I had been going to the Rewe in Gangelt, which is farther away.  I have to say the Edeka is more to my taste, as their wine section is organized by country and type of wine.  In addition, I nearly wept with joy when I saw they stocked sesame seed oil, yakisoba noodles, dried shiitake mushrooms, and large bags of Japanese crackers.

They also have an enormous butcher shop section (not to mention dairy section, but it seems all German grocery stores have enormous dairy sections).  I wanted to get something nice for dinner, and spotted  some Rindfleisch (beef) that looked like lean steak, marinated in some kind of yellowish goo with green flecks.  I figured if it had green vegetable-looking flecks, it was probably some kind of herb.   I also went to the wine section and picked up more wine, about four bottles, and no we are not drinking all of them at once!  That would be a travesty, and not properly appreciating the wine.  Among them was a bottle of 2005 French Cabernet Sauvignon, at an amazingly good price.

They also had wines imported from overseas--South Africa, Australia, and the United States.  However, I have to say I was rather disappointed to see only one kind from the U.S.:  Gallo.  I kid you not.  Gallo.  Perhaps there are better than simple low-cost table wines that Gallo usually offers, but I have not seen them in WA.  There are other great California wines, not to mention great Washington and Oregon wines, but I did not see them.  At. All.  I've not seen them in any German grocery stores.  I think the closest I can go to find any is in Bonn.

This isn't to say that I am looking to stock American wines, unless I give in to massive homesickness, in which case I'll assuage it with Heinz ketchup on French fries, and I have to say German pomme frites are top notch, fried to a even crispness, never over-salted, and never limp.  Why they call them pomme frites (French) instead of gebraten Kartoffeln, I don't know.

There are plenty of good wines be had here, in massive quantities and at a low price, and we are keeping notes on each, so that we can revisit the brands and kinds in the future.  We have no idea what is considered a good brand here in Germany (or in France or Spain, for that matter), so we are going purely on taste.  There are even kinds we haven't heard of, so that's an adventure, too.

Anyway, I am glad that I got the beefsteaks soaked in green-flecked yellow goo, because it turned out to be a lovely garlic and butter marinade with parsley flakes.  The meat was lean, but nevertheless very tender.  I'm afraid I had to fry it, as we don't yet have oven racks yet--the bad prior tenants absconded with them, why I do not know, and our landlord has them on order.

I fried them straight on, and when I flipped them, put crumbled gorgonzola cheese on top.  I also decided to saute some brown mushrooms (I suspect they're Crimini, but that's not the name on the package--it just says "brun champignons") with garlic in the steak leavings and added sour cream, and then put this topping on the steaks.  Made a tossed salad, and then sliced some white crusty bread (bought at the local bakery, which is within walking distance) and put  sundried tomato bruschetta spread, a sliver of parmesan cheese, and an arugula (called rucola here) leaf on each.  The wine that John brought up from the basement was a South African Nederburg 2007 Shiraz.

I have to say I paid no attention to the Shiraz after biting  into a piece of the steak.  Dear heaven.  That was one of the most tender cuts of meat I've ever had the privilege of eating.  John's only complaint was that the steak I had cooked was too small.  So much for appreciating wine.  The steak was foremost in our gustatory-flooded minds.

The lesson in all this?  Do not be afraid of meat marinated in green-flecked yellow goo in a German grocery store.  It is a Good Thing.

Adventures in German cooking

So John came home and brought some Karttofel nudeln (I hope I'm spelling this right--it translates as "potato noodles")--I don't know why, but I suppose he decided to do some adventurous shopping while at the local grocery store.

Karttofel nudeln is not that different from gnocchi, which are small potato dumplings--same size, same taste. It may even be the same thing, except the German version is a bit longer.

Of course, I had no idea of how to cook it in a real German way. I could have cooked it like I would have served gnocchi, but that didn't seem right, because, after all, it was Karttoffel nudeln, not gnocchi, and I really have not yet really tried cooking something really German yet.

Not that I did that today, really. So far, all the recipes I've searched for online regarding the Karttofel nudeln have been about how to make the dumplings, not how to prepare them with other food. I will need to make a further search, but there was not much time for me to do that today, so I decided to do a bit of decipherin'.

I don't know much German, but it's enough alike to English that I can make out a few words and it looked like you could fix them any which way--boiled, fried, whatever--mostly fried, it looked like, because that was what was on the package's picture. I decided fried was the more German way, because I have found that they seem to be very fond of fried potatoes.

In fact, when John and I were eating out while we were at the City Hotel in Geilenkirchen, we found that a huge number of menu items featured French fries. Maybe even a majority. I'm not talking about in a fast-food restaurant, I mean in very nice restaurants. Chateaubriand...with French fries. A lovely marinated and broiled halibut with a light dill cream sauce, presented just so on the plate...and French fries. In addition, deep fryers seem to be a very popular item in the appliance stores, and the pictures on those deep fryer boxes show French fries.

So, fried. But not deep fried, because I am not really into deep fried stuff. Since the picture showed the nudeln browning in a frying pan, I thought, hey, how about sauteed? If bulk quantities at grocery stores indicates staples, I'd think onions would be one of them. I have not yet seen onions sold in single quantities--they come in packages of at least three or four. Therefore, there must be onions along with them.

What else? Wurst--sausages. I happened to have a package of sausages. So, that goes into the pan. Probably don't need any salt--the sausages probably had plenty. Butter probably would be appropriate, but I thought I'd go leaner and use olive oil. Like I said, not totally German.

So, I sauteed some onion in olive oil until transparent, tossed in the nudeln, and fried them enough so that they had a somewhat crisp surface. Tossed in the sliced sausages, cooked them lightly brown on the edges, turned off the heat, and dusted some ground black pepper over it all.

Then I looked at the result in the pan and realized...this is breakfast, not dinner. What I had there was--fried potatoes, after all--would taste like hash browns with sausage and onions.

Hmm. Well, I'm okay with serving breakfast at dinner, so what the heck, I'll go all the way. Instead of a salad, as I'd usually prepare for dinner, I thought I'd go the breakfast way, and prepare fruit instead. The nudeln package mentioned applesauce...well, I didn't have any, although I had fresh apples. So, I'd cook those, too.

Unfortunately, I can't use the oven (the former tenants seemed to have made off with the oven racks, so they are on order) to broil apple slices as I'd prefer, so I made use of the microwave. Cored and sliced three Pink Lady apples (they have a marvelous variety of apples here in Germany), laid them out in a small casserole dish, sprinkled cinnamon and raw sugar on them, and microwaved them for a good 5 minutes, mixed them up a bit, then microwaved for another 3 minutes.

John took a taste and agreed, yes, this was breakfast at dinner, and all it needed was a fried egg over-easy. Done!

So what I figure I ended up with was...well, breakfast with German Karttofel nudlen, American style.

Next time, I'll really find a German recipe to try. :-D

Coop de Kitchen - a blog about food and cooking

My brother Dave and his wife Margaret have started a foodie blog called Coop de Kitchen--about time, I say! Dave and Margaret are big-time foodies, and their meals are to die for. John and I never refuse an invitation to dinner or lunch, as the food is always fresh, always well-prepared, and always delicious. Dave has already posted one of his delicious recipes, “Daizu no Nimoni and Kamameshi (simmered soybeans with chicken and Japanese rice pilaf). My mouth is watering just thinking about how this tastes. The blog address is here:

http://coopdekitchen.wordpress.com/

If I can find the ingredients here in Germany, I’d make it in a nanosecond. But dang, where am I going to get maitake and bunashimeji mushrooms?

Anyway, take a gander at Dave and Margaret's blog, and try out a recipe.  I guarantee you will not regret it.

Out of order

It’s been about a month since I’ve posted; we’ve run around like crazy people getting a bed and a dining table and chairs so that we can sleep and eat at the house in Süsterseel. We now have a couch and a chair, too, as well as a stereo for music. No TV. We’ll get that later.

I’ve decided to post out of order. A lot has happened in a month--and I can’t remember exactly what event has happened on what date. So I’ll post my observations of life here in Germany, and it may or may not be in order, but I’ll pull in a date if I remember. If I have pictures, I’ll definitely have dates.

Right now, I’ve got a sinus headache and earache, so I’m going to get more sleep and take it easy today. Hopefully, I’ll get over it quickly, especially since there is a ladies’ dinner I want to go to this evening. Wish me luck!

International Women's Night

Last night I was invited to go to the International Women’s Night on one of the NATO bases by Anna and Tanna (another expat lady, whose home town is in the Puget Sound area of Washington State). The club is attended by women from all the NATO nations and who are stationed in the area. As a result, there are French, German, British, Canadian, Turkish, Italian, Norwegian, US...well, there are more nations than I will name here.

The women meet once a month, and each night is hosted by one of the nations. Door prizes are offered, representative food is served, a brief speech on the history and culture of each country is given, and a game is played. Last night was Norwegian night. We were informed that in times past, not only did Viking men fight for the woman they wanted, but so did the women. As a result, an arm wrestling contest was started and--yay!--the U.S. representative (Anna of Kalitsu’s Considerations) was the warrior woman who won the contest.

The door prizes were marvelous...I have to especially show this lovely pair of hand-knitted Norwegian mittens, knitted by one of the Norwegian ladies:

Lovely, yes? I wanted to win these, but did not, alas. But at least I have the picture, and hopefully can make a pair in that pattern myself some day (yeah, I wish!).

The House in Susterseel - and a Secret Garden

Ugh. It’s been a while since I’ve posted here. It’s been a whirlwind of activity...mostly! I’ve had to do the taxes, which is more complicated than usual this time, as we have to account for John’s work in Germany last year, and have to interact with some tax specialists who are expert at foreign work situations. But, I expect to get that done this week.

Last time I mentioned that AnnaMK and Toni had a house for us to see--it turned out that we had two. One was nice with an amazing park-like back yard, and a large side garden that could accommodate vegetables. The front yard clearly had roses, which I love. However, it was quite a ways away from John’s workplace, and while it had web access, there was only one bathroom, and that had only a shower, no bathtub. The kitchen was was also miniscule. And yet, there was that gorgeous back yard, and a lovely traditional German fireplace. The current renters were there while we looked over the house, as well as the wife’s mother, who looked somewhat like an elderly and wary Bette Davis, leisurely smoking a cigarette as she watched us tour the house.

The owner’s brother helped show us around, and he was very gracious in that he invited us to have some coffee. In addition, he drove us back to Susterseel, where we had parked our rental car.

Then we saw the other house; this one is in Susterseel, the same town in which Anna H. of Kalitsu’s Compendium blog lives.

Well.

It’s large, and let’s just say it has character. We learned from Toni that it used to be an old farmhouse. As Toni opened the old-fashioned decorated gates, we entered the large courtyard--yes, it has a courtyard, as you can see by the pictures, it seemed grandly old-fashioned to me, and I could almost imagine turn-of-the-century folks bringing in their horses under the lean-to shelter that may have held a trough of hay. When we went through the uncharacteristically large garage doors we could see the hayloft was still there. The vast majority of German houses only have a one-car garage, and you’d be hard put to squeeze in something like a Toyota Corolla through one of them without fear of denting the side-view mirrors; I’d only feel safe parking a Mini Cooper in one of them. However, the owner had renovated the interior of the house, and put in automatic garage door openers, but the doors were large enough to let in a couple of monster trucks and store them, too.

As we opened the French doors to the entryway, the marble staircase that curved upstairs, framed by the dark green Art Deco-style rails, caught my eye, and the room seemed very full of light. I liked the airy look of that staircase, unlike the ones I’d seen in other houses. The living room was painted white, of course, and a pastel yellow glaze had been textured over it. Even though I’m not really a fan of yellow, I rather liked the look of it; it had a cheerful feel about it; indeed, the sun decided to come out as we entered, and the entryway and the whole of the ground floor lit up with lovely natural light. The stairs as well were bright, and the warm wood of the upstairs floors seemed to glow when we opened the shades to let in the sun.

As we went through the house, Toni told us of the history, as he usually does. The owner--a master builder/mason--had lived in it himself with his family. He had renovated it, as I had mentioned, from an old farmhouse, and had renovated it with the era in mind, which looked to me to be somewhere between Art Nouveau and Art Deco. After a while, he built another house into which his growing family had moved, and then rented out this house.

To, unfortunately and unbeknownst to him, Dutch drug dealers, who were eventually evicted by the police.

Toni seemed rather apologetic as he showed us parts of it; the basement had some water damage along the walls; this was where the drug dealers had grown their crops and had liberally sprayed the floors with water; this would be fixed, he said, and the owner would ensure that there would be no mold growth here. Some holes had been drilled through the walls, damaging one of the lighting fixtures. The walls had been only somewhat decoratively painted; upstairs, it seemed that someone had haphazardly decorated one room with children’s wallpaper; children had lived here, along with the drug dealers. Though the kitchen was lovely, the refrigerator was a wreck; that would replaced, we were assured. I could see some childish crayon scrawls on one of the walls. The very small postage-stamp-sized yard was neglected, and trash had been thrown there. Toni said that he didn’t know whether much could be grown in it, as it gets very warm during the summer.

It made me sad to see it, and hear of its history. Such care had been given to the renovation, and to keep with the character of the Art Deco era; I could see this in the lighting fixtures and the stair railing, as well as in the tile design in the very large and lovely bathroom on the 2nd floor. The drug dealers had apparently taken out the fireplace and covered the hole with a picture of Audrey Hepburn. While I love Audrey Hepburn, I cringed thinking of how the renovation had been ruined that way as well.

All of a sudden I felt like I wanted to take care of this house, and help it be the way it was supposed to be, the way I felt it wanted to be. I smiled as Toni had told me that the tiny walled garden was possibly too warm to grow much. I’m from the Pacific Northwest, USA. We know gardens, that’s for sure, large or small. I knew what I could grow there. Roses love warmth, and so do lilies--well most plants do. I could do a lot with that garden, I was sure. Suddenly, I saw in my mind’s eye an espaliered rose bush grown along one of the brick walls, and I almost laughed at myself. It was the picture from Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden, one of my favorite childhood books--still is a favorite, for that matter.

You can’t see or get to this small plot from the outside--it’s all walled up. You’d have to go into a neighbor’s yard, climb up their wall, and look over, the same way Old Ben used to climb up his ladder and get over to tend the garden before Mary found the key to the Secret Garden. The only way in is through this badly-treated but determinedly cheerful house.

I could do this, I thought. A garden that small--absolutely. I’d always wanted to try growing an espaliered rose bush, and certainly there’s enough info on the internet that I could use. Perhaps I could put in a tiny fountain as well. If there aren’t electrical outlets there, then I could find a battery-operated one. Granted, Mary’s garden didn’t have a fountain, but this would be my garden, and I think a fountain would be nice.

(Side note: I just now Wiki’d the book for a link to the picture I was thinking about, and instead of the illustration I was used to--a later edition’s illustration--the original 1911 book cover came up...which is Art Nouveau in design, and which is about hold old this house is. Coincidence...? Hmm....)

So, of course we decided on this house. There’s not much else out there, as not that many people here in Germany own their own houses, plus we live in a region where the population is rather transient (three NATO bases in close proximity, with attendant military and civilian families). We are at the limit of our 45 days in a hotel that John’s company allows, so we have to decide soon.

We’ll be moving in in a few weeks. :-)

Another house and eine kleine fisch

AnnaMK called this afternoon and said Toni has found another house, and we can see it on Saturday afternoon. We were going to look at Ikea furniture with Laurie B (one of John’s coworkers), and since that’s in the morning, we can do both. We were going to buy furniture for the wood house in Schondorf, but since that fell through, we are only going to get things like towels of a neutral color that will go with whatever house we end up renting. Also, we’re going to get another set of the same Ikea flatware we have at home in Auburn, which we will bring back when we leave here in a few days. That way, we’ll have a good amount of flatware for get-togethers.

I am increasing my knowledge of the German language, although it’s mostly nouns and verbs and very little grammar. I expect I’ll take some German lessons, as I don’t really feel right just fumbling around for my whole time here. At the very least I should learn some simple sentences and be able to converse at a basic level with people here.

i thought I’d be very inhibited about trying to converse with people, very inhibited about using what German I’ve picked up, because I’m normally a shy person. So I am surprised that I have absolutely no fear about going into a store and figuring out what certain items are, or trying to get help and using my few words of German and many gestures. The German people I have blurt out words to and gestured to so far have been pretty tolerant of my attempts, and if they aren’t, I am blessedly oblivious of it.

It’s clear that I’m obviously mispronouncing some words, and get some words completely wrong. (I am also sure I am misspelling German as well as any other non-English words in this blog, but hey, everyone who learns a language gets it wrong at first.) For instance I had a hankering after anchovy pizza the other day, and we went to Leonardo’s here in Geilenkirchen for some Italian food. Leonardo is from Napoli, and has been in Germany for decades and decades, so of course speaks German fluently, as well as his native Italian. The first time John and I were there (last week), we managed to converse with a mix of broken English (from Mr. Leonardo) and broken German and Italian (John and me), and I managed to get across that in the U.S. we don’t have tuna fish (thunfische) on our pizzas, we have anchovies, and also quatro formagio pizzas. Mr. Leonardo’s face lit up--“ah, ah yes, achovi, quattro formaggio! Can make for you, next time, ja?”

So of course the next time we came to eat there, I asked the waiter to put anchovies on my pizza. I said it the American way: “anchovies.” I think in Italian (I don’t have internet connected at the moment, so I’m not going to look it up right now--it costs by the hour here at the hotel) it’s pronounced “achovy.” The waiter--not Mr. Leonardo--looked puzzled. I tried to explain in what little German I could muster: “eine kleine fisch.” (I remembered eine kleine means “a little” because I remembered Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachmusik means “a little night music.”)

He asked me, “sardine?”

“Nein, nein,” I said. “Anchovies.”

He still looked puzzled, then left. I shrugged. Oh, well, if he just brought me a cheese pizza with fresh basil leaves that was fine--I wasn’t going to be picky. However, in just a few minutes, he brought a small dish of anchovies! “Ja, ja, pizza mit anchovies,” I said.

He grinned. “Ein Deutsch, sardine. Ein Italienische, achovi.”

So now I know Germans call anchovies “sardine” and Italians call them “achovi.” Fun!

The next time I go to the grocery store and want to get a bottle of anchovies, I’ll make sure to look for “sardines” instead of anchovies.

Verklempt--not!

Well, we are not getting the wood house in Schondorf. And oddly, for all my moaning and groaning and wanting it when I first saw it, I’m not very disappointed.

Why? Aside from the fact that I am no doubt fickle and that the Schondorf house called to my deep sense of homesickness, there is no broadband internet access there. There is perhaps dial-up, but dial-up will not do. As soon as I heard that there was no broadband, the house lost all luster for me. I don’t care how lovely a house is, if there is little or no internet access, it’s not for me. In addition, John needs it for his job, as he has to check in from time to time at the Boeing Seattle office.

So, that is that. Toni will have to find us another house; I’m a little worried about that, as houses for rent are thin on the ground right now, and there is a limited amount of time in which a foreign national must register with a town if he or she is working in Germany. I really don’t want to live in that white house that is a duplex, as it had a dead feeling to me.

Well, we will have to see how it all turns out. I have faith that it will.