What the Hay?

I'm so lucky to get to see the agricultural and the business perspectives here in this beautiful country! This evening, I helped Angela & Wolfgang bale their dry grass and stack it in their parents' barn. I even drove the tractor as Wolfgang put the bales in the trailer. I was only going about 2 mph, but then he let me hit the gas, and I got up to about 4 mph!

Angela and I rode on the hay stacks in the trailer on the way back. It was unbelievable! We had the best view in town looking over all the fields and neighbor villages.  Too cool!

We had to stop once to let a herd of sheep pass by.  There was a guy with a big stick at the front of the herd and an actual German Shepherd dog at the back of the pack, doing his job of keeping them in line!  I don't know that I've ever seen a real working dog in the States.

To unload the hay back home, Wolfgang handed me the bales on the second floor, from down below, then I lifted them up a few more feet to Angela on the next level so we could store them in the loft. Whew! I'm sure my back will hurt tomorrow, but it was worth it!

Call Me Betty Crocker!

Check out these photos of my most recent cooking adventure preparing a great meal for Alfons on our anniversary...all by myself!  (Click any photo to enlarge it.)

To see how close we are to the grocery store, look for the solar panel roof in the middle of the picture. I'm lucky to be able to walk there!

So the cake came in a box. That still didn't help me.

The directions are all in German. It took me an hour to translate them and I still didn't understand what to do. That's when I improvised!

In the oven it goes...rise, baby rise!

Time to make the dough for my Schwabian (southwest Germany) noodles, also called Spaetzle. Flour, eggs and a little salt, then work those arm muscles!

Here's the process: Put the dough in the masher, squeeze the dough strings into the boiling water, let cook, then SHOCK the spaeztle in cold water so they are not mushy.

Cake is almost done. Multitasking is tough in the kitchen when everything starts dinging at you!

Once the spaetzle is done, you put it back in a skillet and poor cheese on it to make kaesespaetzle, which is my favorite kind! Here's the finished product.

A little powdered sugar to cover the spot where I split the cake open when I unlatched the springform pan. Think he'll notice?

Dinner is served, right on time! I also made the salad and cooked the meat, but didn't take pictures of those.

Alfons was a few minutes late because he stopped to pick up these beautiful flowers for me!!!  :-)  I didn't mind.

What's the Opposite of a Green Thumb?

Today was my first day working outside in Angela and Wolfgang's (A&W) vegetable garden.  It's a pretty big field and Alfons' parents and I worked for two straight hours pulling weeds from around the potato plants.  This picture is a couple weeks old, but we worked on the five rows on the right and the plants are much bigger now!

I'm a city girl and have never had a garden or anything of the sort.  In fact, we didn't even have houseplants growing up because my dad and I were allergic to most things.  And I swear I have whatever the opposite of a "green thumb" is because nearly any plant I touch dies soon after it's in my care.  Now I am learning the rules of the gardening game and I may be decent at it with some training.  Alfons' mom gave me a small tomato plant a few weeks ago to put on our terrace and (thanks to Alfons' guidance) it's still alive and getting bigger.  I don't like tomatoes, but it will be pretty cool if we get a few Alfons can eat.

Speaking of eating...after we worked in the field, his mom and I stopped at a strawberry field and picked our own fresh strawberries.  UNBELIEVABLE!!!  I don't think I've ever tasted a strawberry that fresh and without a bunch of chemicals on it.  His mom taught me how to sneak a free bite every few minutes while the attendants weren't looking.  Hehehe.  Once we got home, I couldn't keep my hands out of the bowl of strawberries, so they didn't have as many to take home with them as they planned.  Sorry.

All day, Alfons' mom talked to me in German and we're getting better at communicating with every visit.  She told me that she and Alfons' dad have never been on an airplane, and I told her my mom is coming to visit in July.  I asked if she will cook a traditional Schwabian meal for my mom when she's here and she agree.  I can't wait for my family to see the life I'm living here and learn about this wonderful country!

Parking Woes

I have grown confident in my driving abilities now that I know the German signs on the roadside and the unwritten speed limit rules.  However, I am still totally lost when I have to park.

Parking garages are around, but once I'm in them, I have no idea what the signs on the walls say.  It this space reserved?  Are the numbers at each space for a reason or can I park anywhere I want?  And where's the exit to get to the street level once I found a spot?

The other day after an interview, I pulled my car out of my garage parking space and headed to the exit.  I realized just before it was too late, that I was supposed to pay BEFORE I got in my car and there's no attendant.  The only pay machine I could see was by a handicap parking space, so to avoid that, I traveled all around the three floors of the garage looking for another machine where I could pay.  After 10 minutes of no luck finding a second machine, I decided to pull into the handicap spot with my flashers, jump out to pay, then jump back in my car as quickly as possible.  (Don't worry.  There was a second handicap spot one space to the right if anyone needed it.)  Anyway, that seemed to work, but boy was it stressful and embarrassing.

Parking on the street is another story.  There aren't parking meters, but you still have to pay at most places, so again, you have to watch for the signs.  At some places, you have to pre-pay down a block or so, and then put the little printed ticket in your windshield.  At other places that are two-hour-only zones, you have to put this special devise in your windshield (see photo).  Every car has to have one in it and when you park in these zones, you take out your little blue plastic clock thingy and set the time to when you arrived (but you can go to the next full half hour if it's 10 or 20 past).  Then you put that in your windshield so if the parking police stop by, they know when you arrived and whether you've been there for more than the two-hour limit.  It's genius, but hard to remember.

So while I'm okay driving around by myself now, my blood pressure still takes a beating when I have to stop driving and find a parking place...ugh!

Father's Day Card

Father's Day in Germany comes right after Mother's Day in May, so it was an adventure trying to find my dad an appropriate card.  Since my German is less than elementary, I had to decipher the message on each card based on the pictures and the few words I could translate.

I found one card with a little bear on the front and a bigger "papa bear" on the inside who was relaxing in a recliner with a remote control and some popcorn.  I figured out that the front said something about "getting past the stress and when the work is done..." and then when I opened the card and could see "papa bear," it said "Geniesse deine Ruhestand."  Knowing a few words on the front and seeing the picture on the inside, I assumed the phrase said "Geniuses deserve rest."  I thought that would be a great message for my dad!

When I got home and translated the text online, I discovered the inside said "Enjoy your retirement!"  Ha!  I sent the card anyway and figured dad would get a kick out of it.  Happy Father's Day!

Not a Drive-Thru

One thing you might notice when visiting Germany is that there are very few (if any) drive-thru options.  You might find one at McDonald's (or as Alfons calls it, The American Embassy), but other restaurants don't have them, banks don't have them, drugstores don't have them and liquor stores certainly don't have them.

In fact, the entire idea of a drive-thru seems pretty strange to many Germans.  Why would you waste gas and pollute the air just so you don't have to get out of your car?  Are you lazy?  I say to the Germans, "try running errands all day with kids in car seats and then tell those mom's they are lazy for not wanting to go into the bank to deposit a check!"  Now if you don't have kids in the back (or another legitimate reason), I do think you should go inside, but that's just me!

On another note, I've been wanting to visit the Swiss Alps, but Alfons says I need to work up my walking muscles before we do that.  I said, "We don't have to hike it.  I just want to see it."  He said the Alps are not a drive-thru adventure and that we should experience them from within.  It's interesting how many Germans embrace nature to this extent and want to be a part of it, while Americans often think if they have seen it, that's good enough.

There are many things I love about this German adventure, like when I learn about the cultural differences, I get to decide on which side of the fence I sit.  While I understand the desire to see beautiful things, I'm quickly going to the German side on this one.  I agree that it's a whole different experience to be a part of nature rather than to only take a snapshot.  Although there's a time and place for both options for sure.

Visiting the Parents

The brick oven Alfons built so his mom could bake bread.

The homemade rhubarb cake his mom and I made together...mmmmmm!

Meet Hasso!

This is Alfons' dad making dinner on the grill for us.

Part of his mom's garden. (click to enlarge)

Watch out for the chickens!

Take time to smell the flowers!

On the way home, I figured out where Rottweilers come from...

World Cup

Since most of my friends are not soccer enthusiasts, I thought I should take a moment to discuss the HUGE event nearly one billion people around the world are focused on right now...the FIFA World Cup.

For an entire month from June 11 to July 11, 32 nations will square off to determine the best soccer team in the world, and this only happens every four years.  It's like March Madness on steroids.  While I don't know who this year's favorites are, the past winners are Brazil (5), Italy (4), Germany (3), Uruguay (2), Argentina (2), France (1) and England (1).

So if you notice World Cup references on Facebook or see USA flags hanging out car windows, there's a good chance those people are soccer fans and aren't getting much work done this month...Ha!  And while I'd like to tell you that the USA team has a decent chance of winning, we haven't been in the top four since the first World Cup in 1930 and even then we only finished third.  Sorry.  Wait - I have an idea!  Why not root for your buddies in Germany?  They play today...check your local listings!

Things I Miss

Friends and family are a "gimme," so we're going with THINGS only. And I'm sure there are some things on this list that are in Germany, but I haven't found them yet!

Honey Nut Cheerios
Cold milk from a plastic jug, not a box
Ranch dressing
My shower radio
The egg poacher on the side of Mom's toaster
Qdoba's chicken nachos
Fabreeze spray
My roller blades
Wrinkle Release spray
Lawry's Seasoning Salt
Crushed ice
Truly automatic transmissions
Clocks that can't say 0:05 or 17:35
Cheddar Cheese
Puffs Plus
My filing cabinet
Johnson's Baby Lotion
Tampax Pearl
English TV that's not news
Mark's Feed Store's buttermilk pie
My hairdresser (okay, I know that's a person, but I haven't found one here yet)
Mary Kay's eye make-up remover
Dairy Queen Blizzards

My First Teaching Lesson

I've never been an official "trainer" before, but at most of my previous jobs I have trained new employees and I've done a ton of presenting during my undergrad Speech Team days and on the Entrepreneurship MBA business plan competition circuit.  I also used to run an education department where I hired expert trainers all year long and watched many of the best in the business.  While I knew I had a lot to learn about language training when I got here, I now have even more respect for this group of professionals, as I am discovering it is far more difficult than anticipated.

I attended a seminar today for future language teachers and to show us the true basics of starting to learn a new language, the instructor taught us how to say, "Hello.  My name is ____.  It is nice to meet you." in Bulgarian.  This experience was eye-opening, because it put us in the place of our future students who may not know a single word of the English language before they find themselves in our classrooms.  There were only three of us in the seminar, but it took more than 15 minutes to teach us just that short Bulgarian phrase.  The instructor only spoke in Bulgarian, so we had to figure out what he was saying by his gestures and tone, and he said he actually moved much more quickly with us than he would in a real class.  Whoa!

If an instructor only speaks in the language he/she is teaching, this training style is called monolingual.  That means you can't say, "Tschuss in German means bye in English."  You have to wave, walk away and say, "bye," so the students understand the meaning without hearing the word in their own language.  It takes a long time to teach the basics monolingually and there's a lot of repetition and practice for the participants.

At the seminar, I had to present a demo lesson where I taught the participants about the different bills and coins of US currency.  I showed large pictures of the coins and gave each student one of each to examine.  I told them the value for each coin and asked the students to tell me which coins would make up a certain amount, such as 48 cents.  That checked their knowledge of the values and pronunciation of each coin's name.  Then I told them some additional words we use in America when talking about money, like buck, grand and change.  There was no direct feedback at the time, but I think the demo went very well and they had lots of comments and discussions about the currency after the session, so that made me feel good.

America's Next Big Thing!

Warning: Avid beer drinkers should not read this posting!  You will be offended and I want no hate mail.

Before studying in Germany last summer, several friends said I HAD to drink the great beer here.  So, much to my dismay, I started drinking "beginner" beers before my trip to Leipzig last July.  I found I could tolerate Blue Moon, Amber Bock and a few others.

Once I got to Germany and then visited Prague, I fell in love with the dark Kozel beer made in the Czech Republic.  That encouraged me to venture out and find more good beers!  Since living here, I've tried several and most are just fine, but then, Alfons' brother-in-law Wolfgang asked if I wanted a Colaweizen one day.  Yes, you guessed it!  It's half cola and half Hefeweizen, a popular light beer.  At first I thought he was crazy, but then he said lots of people in Germany drink it and sometimes they call it "diesel" because it's a funky color.  So finally I tried it, and now it's my beverage of choice.

When you're in Germany, expect to pay 3-4 euros for a drink, no matter what you order.  They don't typically serve free tap water, so you either pay for a fancy bottled water, small cola with no refills, beer or wine.  I typically choose a Colaweizen now or a nice glass of Riesling.  (I just can't bring myself to pay that much for water when I don't really like it anyway.)

So I've decided that one of the breweries in America should start marketing Colaweizen as the next big thing! They could get more girls to like beer and make it what all the cool kids are drinkin' in the States...maybe!

Noticeable Improvement

Today, Alfons and I traveled again to Irndorf to see his parents.  We helped with their enormous yard work and I learned to use a pitchfork to pick up grass.  Why we didn't have one of those when I was a kid I'll never know!  When I was young, we had to pick up the grass with our hands, which I couldn't do because I would immediately start sneezing.  (Don't worry, Dad.  Even if you had given me a pitchfork, I would have come up with another excuse to get out of the yard work!)

That reminds me, (knock on wood) that I don't have allergies here...at least not yet!  That is amazing because my allergies are crazy in Louisville, because it's in the Ohio Valley.  I had no allergy problems in Indy for 10 years, but I thought it would be a problem here because Alfons said a lot of people have allergies and it's a valley.  I'm just going to enjoy my breathable days as long as I have them.

Now back to my real story...while at his parents' house, I spent quite a bit of time learning from his mom.  She'd show me what to do in the field and I'd follow her lead.  She'd point to trees and plants telling me what fruit grows on each and I remembered many of them from my last trip and our discussions in the garden.  Plus, my Rosetta Stone and iPad language learning apps have really helped too!  It's rare now that I have to say "I don't understand" to his mom, because my basic German is getting better and her elementary ways of explaining things to me is improving too.  It took us some time (and strategic charades), but eventually I figured out that she was trying to tell me her four chickens were girl chickens and that's where she gets eggs!

There's still a long way to go before I can have a decent conversation with them, but I'm discovering noticeable improvement on each trip.

Random Note to Self:  Never again use the American phrase "I am pooped!"

Won't You Be My Neighbor

I've only met a few, but I like the neighbors so far!

While I was trimming the bushes out back today, a little neighbor kid kept saying "Hallo" and waiving.  I would respond "Hallo" and waive back over and over until he got tired of saying it.  After the landscaping work was done, I decided to play with him in the neighborhood sandbox.  I soon learned from his mom that his name is Aaron and he's the same age as my niece Paige.  I explained to his mom that I know about as much German as her two-year-old, so he and I should be able to communicate a little.  Luckily, she's pretty good at conversational English, so we talked for more than an hour in the beautiful sunshine.  She only works one weekend per month as a nurse, so she said I can hang out with her, Aaron, and their other son Ben (who was at Kindergarten) anytime I was bored at home in the future.

People told me that it will be hard to get folks to talk with me in German here because everyone wants to practice their English skills and, sure enough, as soon as her husband got home from running errands, he was excited to talk with me in English as soon as he learned I was from the States.  He said he uses English often at work, but doesn't feel like his sentences are always right.  He said "please correct me if my grammaticals are wrong, because I want to get it right."  I didn't have the heart to correct that one, but agreed that I would correct him in the future.

We all had a great morning together playing with Aaron and dodging his squirt-gun full of water!  :-)

One of These Things is Not Like the Other

I've discovered some important differences you must understand when going from the US to Germany:

1) When driving in a neighborhood, the person coming from the right has the right-of-way since there are no stop signs.  Just assume you NEVER have the right-of-way and you'll be fine!

2) Individual toilet paper sheets are a different size.  This may not seem like a big deal, but you would be surprised how you tend to use the same amount each time and here, the roll doesn't have a breaking point right where I want it, so I have to decide if I should take more or less every time.

3) Energy is expensive in Germany, so you must put major electronics on power strips to easily turn them off when not in use to avoid paying for "phantom power."

4) German dryers have a bucket where they store the water they get out of the clothes.  Be sure to empty this after every load or your dryer will turn off on its own and you'll be stuck with wet clothes.

5) Finally, all measurements here are different.  Temperature, distance, time, etc.  And while I would like to think Americans do most things the best way, I'm not convinced that making kids learn there are 12 inches in a foot, three feet in a yard and 5,200-ish feet in a mile was the smart thing to do when we could have implemented the simple base-10 metric system!  Here, there are 100 centimeters in a meter and 1000 meters in a kilometer.  That test would have been so much easier in third grade!