Life: Idiotropic

I didn't think I missed my country - much. I didn't think I needed this trip more than the time with family that it would provide. I needed to the see family. That was the purpose. But oh - how good it feels to be here. Part of it is the sun that warms us now when the blizzards gust over my German home. But, this is home. And I'm falling in love with this place all over again.

As soon as I'm back in Germany, I'll be able to properly blog this trip and post photos of the beauty I've seen here. Let me tell you that San Francisco definitely adds some perspective. I'd been so caught up in the beauty of Europe, I'd quite forgotten what I've taken for granted here in my own country. San Francisco can rival most of Europe's cities. It may not be old in the grand scheme of things, but it offers so much more in beauty, arts, culture... the list goes on.

I did just post a recipe from just a couple weeks before I left... scroll down just below "spring" and you should find it.

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Today Kirk and I celebrated our 10 year anniversary! Yay us! And the weather here started what would be a week of absolutely nonsensicalness that peaked curiosity and drove the kids crazy. Storms of rain shifting from side to side, snow flakes the size of duck feathers coming down like the world's largest pillow fight had begun, hail, sleet, rain, sun, beginning, ending, melting, changing... I had one night of pillow fight snow in Brussels before my flight on Saturday and that was enough. But even as I went to sleep with the world outside coated in white, by morning a couple hours later, it was just cold, dark, wetness.

1500 in Germany (0700PST) on Friday, we left for Brussels. 1.5 hours later we were at the tiny hotel by the airport that offered a complimentary breakfast at 0600 and free shuttle service at 0700. We were in the lobby by 0500 with the taxi waiting after watching the Good Friday service at the Vatican with candlelight, black crosses, mournful Italian, and tears... falling asleep around midnight (1600 Fri PST). Up at 0400 (2000 PST Fri). Painful.

FYI - The Brussels airport can be horrifically busy on early Saturday mornings. So two hours isn't necessarily enough time. We arrived to discover lines wandering down the hallways so far that they weren't recognizable as lines and finding the end of them gave me twinges of panic. I think we stood there an hour in a mass of luggage and people - some who were calm, some who weren't, and some who cut into line right where the ropes began as if by royal right. Airports do bring out the ugliness of people, but it was humorous to observe the glances of eyes and the silent camaraderie as people packed closer together to block out those would-be line cutters.

Security wasn't horrible, thankfully. We could keep our shoes on and while they did recheck and dismantle both of my carry-ons, it went quickly, so we made our 0650 (2250 PST Fri) flight to Frankfurt that lasted only an hour.

Then it got really painful. Frankfurt is an ok airport, but it's no San Francisco. No beautiful shopping, no fancy restaurants. Tired from our early morning, Tiara and I stumbled into the first cafe we saw and ordered sandwiches. Could have ordered spaghetti bolognese or curry chicken, but somehow those didn't quite seem appetizing at 0800 in the morning (Midnight PST Sat morning). A women sat at a table near us typing madly on her laptop with one shoeless foot resting on the chair near her. She kept wiggling her toes. It was distracting. A large group of men sat in the corner talking loudly in a NY Bronx accent. They certainly stood out there. Two Americans sat near us. One from Portland and one from Seattle.

We killed an hour. And then what? We had 5 left.

So, FYI - 6 hours is too long for a layover unless you have no carry-ons and there is a spa in your terminal of the airport, which, if any of you are wealthy enough to invest in such things, could be a fantastic idea! Forget shoe shines! I want a massage and pedicure! (along with my high end coffee and posh book store)

We wandered, read the departure boards that only showed flights and gates 2 hours out... it would be while to wait. Wandered some more. Saw a flight to SF departing at 0915. It was 0900. We started to run... and followed the signs... still running... then gave up realizing that the terminal was forever away and we wouldn't make it. Sat and people watched. Then brilliance. I asked an airport employee if there was a Starbucks in the airport. "But their coffee is always cold..." And then the answer I needed. YES. It was directly below where we stood (I was secretly wishing I had laser beam vision and could cut a hold in the floor right then and there to fall through landing in a comfy sofa with a freshly brewed latte) IF I was allowed to leave the area and IF I had time. I told her I had 5 hours. OH... yeah. You have time.

Quickly out through the passport control. Down the stairs and to the right to a beautiful little 24-hour Starbucks stand that sold at least 15 German City mugs. Tiara and I both ordered fancy Venti beverages - a good $16 in coffee. And it was TOTALLY worth it! Best money I could have spent those 6 hours. Sat contentedly for over an hour in a row of chairs against a wall where the flow of people was constant and people watched picking out the Americans in their college sweatshirts and white sneakers and the American military with the trademark haircut and defined gait.

We'd finally killed enough time to be at that 2 hour window when we could find our terminal (not our gate). This was the first time ever Tiara and I were excited and thankful (probably delirious too) that we had the opportunity to go through security again. How fun! We were only disappointed that it only took 5 minutes. At our terminal, we had to wait longer... sitting in a long narrow hallway/room with stark white walls and round ship style windows looking out to the planes. It was the waiting area. Our gate wasn't announced until within 30 minutes of our departure time. Why is it that in the US, I can find my terminal AND exact departure gate 24 hours before the flight and now in Heathrow and Frankfurt, I have to wait until just minutes before take-off? That's aggravating.

Then the 11.5 hour flight began. FYI: This is painful. Really painful. And ever so much worth than two flights equaling the same time. Not recommended in conjunction with a 6 hour layover unless you are traveling with a lot of heavy medication and a personal masseuse.

Couldn't sleep. Couldn't relax. Couldn't get comfortable. And United served one too-small-to-really-be-considered-a-meal meal just one hour after take-off and then a bite-sized bagel sandwich just one hour before landing. Translation: 9 hours between food and a lot of tired, hungry, tummy rumblers pacing up and down the airplane aisles. Also translated into one fairly drunk lady that I'd met in the waiting area who drank bloody Marys to overcome her fear to fly. She ended up sitting on the lap of the poor young man who sat next to me for over an hour of the flight repeating herself and breathing veggie breath into all three offended noses in our aisle. The upside... a lot of laughter and enough conversation to make the time go fairly fast.

Landed at 1730 local PST time. Arrived home around 1900. 37 hours of travel from my house to my dad's.

It's officially spring here. The daffodils are blooming around roadside crosses, medians, and roundabouts. The fields are freshly tilled. Marbled colored eggs are for sale in every local store. And, the weather can't make up it's mind. It literally changes hourly if not quicker. Sun, then hail, then wind, then rain, then sun, and so on making any plans absolutely impossible to make and umbrellas a necessary commodity although it's so windy, mine could easily turn itself inside out.

Today was boring. Chores, errands, grocery shopping. Am getting ready for a trip back home and have to have this yearbook 100% done before I go which would be stressful enough if the program hadn't just decided that it didn't like photos anymore. Last year my computer died. This year the program is seriously tempting me to chuck it out my office window tied to a heavy brick.

It will resolve itself, I'm sure. But for now... I'm as close to a raving lunatic as I think I've been in a while.

Turkish night is always popular, may be because Turkey is the most unique of the IWC countries, but also because they always have something very special planned.

This year they were supposed to have whirling dervishes which many looked forward to, but for some reason they didn't show. Still, they made up for that with art and belly dancing.

Strong cheese, sesame covered biscuits, and little sweet bits of candied fruit sat on our table for us to snack on while we watched an artist create beautiful marbled papers right in front of us. He worked quickly, yet precisely making his work look easy. A Turkish man from Roermond, NL sat for almost an hour churning out one beautiful marbled paper after another. Applying color to the opaque water surface, moving it around, adding more, then laying the paper on top and pulling it up for us to see. The backgrounds didn't have the traditional marble look like I would have expected - these definitely weren't the Italian designs I'm more familiar with. But he did lovely, simple florals on various colored backgrounds.

I am getting better now after a couple years to remember to snack a little before these events. You never know how much and when you'll be fed. Tonight we ate very well, but only after the long paper marbling demonstration. After that we had absolutely delicious doerners (Turkish gyros) and a anise flavored liqueur mixed with rosewater from the earthy smelling Terra cotta pitchers sitting on our table. It smelled delicious, but even with the rose water, no one at our table could finish it. It was much to strong.

Food was followed by belly dancing both by a Turkish woman and then by some unsuspecting ladies who were brought up for lessons. Then dessert -- a crunchy donut shaped dessert and a mild lemon cookie with coffee.

The door prizes were very nice with a lot of winners of traditional foods. Everyone left with a little gift as well - a small figure of a whirling dervish. I didn't win with my tickets, yet I went home with two prizes due to the generosity of my Turkish friends - one gave me the pistachios that she'd won and another let me take home one of the earthy Terra cotta pitchers that they used to decorate and serve that night.

This place has changed me - and for the better. When I got here I was terrified to dance. It wasn't comfortable and I was horribly self conscious. I won't lie and say that I feel completely at ease, but thankfully, from the beginning of my time here, I've pushed myself out of my comfort zone realizing that one of the best places to meet and connect with these ladies regardless of any language barriers is on the dance floor. I still feel strange and a bit aware of how awkward I must be, but these ladies can teach a lot in their confidence and the way they embrace their femininity. All sizes and shapes come together to dance in all different ways. They laugh, they act silly, they act sexy, and they have fun. Tonight Dilek and Hale pulled me to the center of the circle to dance and I did and it felt great. Until 11 we sung and danced to Turkish rock and roll - myself, a couple Italians, and a couple French Canadians the only ones left in the group of Turkish at the end of the night. It felt like we were lucky participants in a private party. I'll miss this most of all when I go.

One of my greatest joys in living here is the opportunity that I have to share with friends, the cultures, and, of course, the food. We have a treasure here now, a beautiful friend of mine who is from Hungary and loves to cook. On this day a couple friends and I had the privilege of spending the day in her kitchen. We brought breakfast food (she particularly loves eggy breakfast casseroles - something that she didn't grow up with) and she provided the lunch. Below are the recipes for our lunch. I have cooked this since, but didn't have the paprika paste and oh, that does make a difference. Still good without it, but the paste would be well worth the effort to find. (More photos following the recipes)

Rita's Hungarian Beef Stew with Dumplings

Ingredients:
4-5 pounds chuck roast trimmed and cut into bite sized pieces
2 onions coarsely chopped
1 red bell pepper coarsely chopped
2 tomatoes quartered
1/3 bottle of Merlot
1 cup beef broth
1/3+ cup Hungarian paprika
1 whole dried Hungarian paprika
2 T. Hungarian paprika paste
vegetable oil
salt and pepper to taste

Directions:
In a hot dutch oven or heavy cast iron pot put in a little oil, then add onions and cook until they are wilted. Add 4T (or more, to taste) ground Hungarian paprika and keep stirring to prevent the paprika from burning. Cook for 3-4 more minutes. Add the beef back to the pot with some more paprika and stir. Add 1/2t. of black pepper. Cook for 5 minutes over medium heat until the beef is slightly browned on all sides. Add the chopped red bell peppers and beef broth. The mixture should not be too soupy. Add the Merlot - more or less to taste. Cook very slowly over low heat - 60-90 minutes until the beef is tender. Add 2-3T. paprika paste and the seeds from one dried Hungarian paprika. Stir and let rest, then serve with spatzle or dumplings. This dish is particularly good with a vinegar salad of some sort or pickled vegetables.


Rita's Hungarian Dumplings
Mix 2-3 cups all-purpose flour with 2 eggs, salt, and 2T vegetable oil. Add water slowly (around 2 cups) until the mixture is softer than pizza dough and though stretchy, will fall off of the spoon when scooped up.

Now you need a special tool from Hungary although a cheese grater (big holes) worked ok. Put a spoonful of dough on top of the horizontally held cheese grater or tool and while holding this over a pot of salted boiling water, used a spoon to push the dough back and forth across the holes so that bits of it fall into the water and cook. Continue until all the dough is used. Cook for 5-10 minutes. Drain and rinse well. Add a little olive oil and toss. Serve with Rita's Hungarian Beef Stew.

Finish the meal with a couple ounces of slowly sipped (or quickly shot if your palate dictates) herb liquor like the one pictured below, a Jagermeister, or krauterliquor.


Rita brought out this Unicum bottle chilled and beautiful after our meal. She poured us all a little glass of it. It smelled like a powerful cough drop. Herby and potent. Holly asked if this was to be sipped or shot. Rita, who is quite accustomed to this drink, suggested that we sip it. She sat sipped. The rest of us each took a sip and looked at each other while our eyes went buggy and we all politely choked on the intensity of it. Whoa - a lot stronger than I'd expected. I pondered it for a moment or two, then threw it back in one gulp - so much better. And, quite good when taken in quickly.

The dessert that Rita brought out is something that I can't quite describe. Cold, and moist. Layers of shredded pastry, small curd cottage cheese, and cocoa powder. The consistency of a firm tiramisu with a flavor I can't pinpoint. All I can tell you is that it was delicious.

Four of us sitting around the table in a small neighborhood of Geilenkirchen. Nothing could be more luxurious a feeling. Amazingly rich food with complex flavors that were elegant and earthy, warm filling comfort food yet exoticly Old world all at the same time. The food, the wine, the friends. Rita herself is a gem. Her voice at the table soft - not cutting into the air, but flowing with it. The lilt of her English is enchanting and poetic. I could listen to her for hours. She told us about working for a Jewish couple when she lived in London keeping a Kosher kitchen and of living in Hungary at a time with communism ruled and the image of the worker with a hammer were unavoidable in print and portrayed in large statues in the cities. And now it's gone - without a trace. We saw pictures of the lake near her home and the chapel where she was married - the lake a popular vacation destination for Germans after the war where family members from the East and the West could meet together in one place.

As busy as my days are in Germany... I think I'm learning to relax a little and treasure these special times with friends. Sharing is a beautiful thing.

Today's quote from Elise said as she was coming out of her bedroom this morning after getting dressed into clothes that fit her just perfectly:






Yearbook crunch time... these posts of my girls is about all my wee little brain is capable of at this point, but there is an end in sight!

The photo is from Tiara's camera. She has her MySpace page now, so she and her friends think it's the greatest thing to take a zillion pictures of themselves being goofy and posting them online. I think it's really healthy. At that age, I would have never ever sent out a picture that wasn't complimentary. These girls make silly faces and look downright strange in half their photos and they still post them for all their friends to see. They allow themselves a more carefree attitude and sense of humor than I ever had. Here are a couple - my girl on a bale of hay in the fields behind our house looking cute and then a silly face photo from the same area at the base of a windmill.

Here's to keeping a vivid imagination well into the twilight years and holding onto just a bit of that youthful innocence.

Yesterday Arianna lost her tooth, washed it, put it in a baggie, then got out a pen and a paper and asked me to write a letter to the tooth fairy. Here it is:


Elise - while sitting on a step stool in the office upstairs, gazing out the window into the starry evening sky -

Springter - meaning, spring and winter, or, this strange time of year when we are walking with one foot in each.

All the daffodil bulbs in the medians and roundabouts in the area are blooming. And, we've actually had sun. But even with the sun shining and the flowers blooming in the trees and traffic circles, it's cold. Painfully cold - so much so that yesterday it snowed 20 whole flakes while I was walking through the Geilenkirchen centrum.

It felt like someone was playing a trick on us. Macaira asked - what was that? I didn't know what she was talking about, but then I felt it too. Huh? What was that? Couldn't be snow. But it was. And then I started mentally counting them. One, two, three.... 20 flakes in about 10 minutes of walking.

South of us near Spangdahlem the snow came down much heavier. They actually had real snow. Still, we can claim a small bit here and it compliments the daffodils quite nicely.

So, springter in and of itself is strange which seems to fit here where nothing is normal - at least by my ever dwindling definition of the word.

Today I was leaving my Spanish morning where my friends were all talking in warp speed making comprehension more of a task and the ability to jump into the conversation near impossible. Kind of like taking a walk in a tornado. Interjected comments into rapid conversations are gone before even getting out there.

Anyway... I turned the corner out of my friends' street to see a woman in her late 70's standing on the sidewalk facing her fence. She was wearing black wellie boots, a knee length blue skirt, a jacket, and a little knit cap. In her hand was a flimsy looking electric saw on a long extension stick "thingie" (we had a conversation about this at Spanish morning - they don't have words like "whatchamacolit" and thingie - instead they point and say this, that, or there). This little gray haired German lady was reaching as high as she could with her long saw, leaning into the fence, and pruning the upper branches of the tree in her yard. Amazing what meticulous workers the old generation here is. The younger generation is not the same. The do not work as hard. The ethic is not the same. They want to relax and drink the beer or eat the cake. But Tante Tinny works first. She spent three hours on Tuesday making the yard "shoene sauber." Beautifully clean.

The radio: This afternoon on the way to Schinnen I was flipping through my radio stations. The first was in Dutch. The second, a Belgian station in French. The third was a German station playing a classic American 50's tune (the title eludes me), traslated horribly into German and sung by a less than stellar singer. It was a bit odd. Kind of like The Lion Sleeps Tonight that I heard once in French, but at least that one sounded pretty good. It's hard to find consistent good music here. The stations play too much variety. More American music than local and the local German is, well, exactly what you'd expect at a tacky Octoberfest celebration with the old folksie OomPaPa music. I did hear a modern German tune recently, but it was a ballad to cake as far as I could tell. The entire song described different German desserts in detail. That's strange. One fun thing that has happened in this tri-border, multi-tongued world I live in, is that I can hear the differences between languages that I could never hear before and even in French - a language that is still really foreign to me, I can now hear where one word stops and the next one begins. It's fun.

The oddest thing: Today, post Schinnen, I stepped outside my front door onto the busy main street in my tiny little village to see not one, but two gaggles of German conscripts in full uniform with the German flag patch on their shoulders, their drab green packs full on their backs, and their big scary weapons swinging in one arm. I see them walking with their packs quite often here, but this was the first time I've seen a big group. When the second group got closer I could see feet. Each group carried a man laying in a sling - may be the squad leader? Who knows. In any country, seeing uniformed soldiers with weapons strikes me. Here, they just struck me as being very young. Their cheeks were all ruddy and full. Service in the Bundeswehr is obligatory for young men of age here. I've even seen an occasional female marching with them, but not today. They looked different than what I would expect though. Germany still holds onto a fleeting reputation. A hold over from wounds not yet healed. And with some Germans - the older generation and the police here, there is still that respectful fear. With these boys, there was none of that. They were children in green. Youth without even a glint of that which makes makes most of Europe still hold onto a general distrust of Germans and their Vaterland.

Some weeks, I blog ferociously in a futile effort to catch up...

Some weeks, I barely see the internet.

Now, if you'd like, instead of checking every now and then to see if I finally posted something new... you can subscribe and my new posts will magically appear in your inbox for your deleting pleasure. Unsubscribing if I get too annoying should not be hard. This is all new for me.

Anyway... there it is. Look to the left of this page for a link where all you have to do is enter your email address and voila! It's done.