Tuesday, December 25, 2012

New Christmas traditions

Last year Joe and I spent Christmas and Paris. I don't think that is a Christmas tradition we will be able to maintain through our lives. This year we're staying a bit more local. Yesterday on Christmas eve we had a picnic lunch in the botanic garden in Tübingen, which was wonderful in nearly 70F weather and clear blue skies. I'm not sure we'll be able to keep this tradition up either.

We had swiss raclette for dinner last night - melted cheese over potatoes, traditionally by a fire or in this case a table top grill. This is a possibility for something we could build into a tradition. We talked with Mike & Kathy about each of our family's traditions for presents, right before we greedily tore into them all. We couldn't wait until Christmas morning. I could see this as a recurring event.

The carnage after presents were opened.
Today we had Dresdener stollen for breakfast. It's a sort of dense fruitcake that cost 12 euro/kilo. This was good, but it may be hard to find once we are back stateside. We then went for a long walk up to our local quarry and back through a neighboring town. We heard bells tolling from a nearby town for part of our walk. This would also be a good tradition. Today Joe and I went to work baking pies, pumpkin and apple, which are just about to come out of the oven. We could do this every year. We'll also take a portrait with Mike and Kathy, something Joe's family has done every Christmas. We will surely keep this up. You can see our portrait from last year in Paris.

We're about to put a turkey in the oven, a first for Joe and I (after last Thanksgiving's duck mix-up), but we have Kathy's expertise to keep us on track. We could also do this every year. But reflecting back on our two Chrismases as a married couple, and the thirty others I've experienced, I have to say I would take family over Paris any time, hands down. So I think that will be the most important tradition we embrace.

Merry Christmas!

Sunday, December 23, 2012

Frohe Weihnachten von Familie Smith

Merry Christmas from the Smiths! We'd like to share our Christmas card with you.

We're currently enjoying a visit from parents Smith. We've been exploring our region and will celebrate Christmas at home before heading out for about 1 week of traveling in eastern Germany and Prague for New Year. If you don't hear from us before the New Year, then we wish you a "Guten Rutsch!"

Saturday, December 15, 2012

Getting into the holiday spirit

I've had the Christmas carols going for awhile, but now with little over a week to go it is starting to feel like Christmas. For my birthday Joe bought us a Christmas tree. We decided to go with a potted one that can hopefully be our Christmas tree again next year.

It's not much to look at, but we went to the Christmas market in Tübingen today and got a few ornaments, and I wrapped the presents. We bought a tiny pinecone ornament (hardly visible) from the glass blower at the University; his wife makes them. I've gotten to know him this fall as he has made a few custom pieces for my lab work. Maybe the best part of this tree is the angel Joe made out of the foil wrapping of my favorite German beer, Tannen Zäpfle ("pine cone" in dialect). We had to practice with a few bottles, but it was fun to get rid of the beer!

We had a Christmas party with my lab group last night at the boss' house. A good time was had by all, lubricated by our favorite drinks like "Feuerzangenbowle" (rum-soaked cones of sugar lit on fire that drip carmelized yummy stuff into hot wine). We also had an adventurous train ride back home. I realized we have been in Germany too long, because I start to say things like "He is so late again" when referring to the train. The train is gendered male in German, by the way.

One more week of work/school and we're off to eastern Germany and Czech Republic. Parents Smith arrive on Tuesday from Alaska, and we are looking forward to some family time, exploring new areas and a break from our routines.


Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Earliest sunset! ...and other astronomical events

OK!  Today was the earliest sunset of the year, for our latitude.  So now we can start gaining light in the evening.

This is not to be confused with the winter solstice (21Dec12), which has the shortest total daylight of the year, and just happens to coincide with The End Of The World! a.k.a. the new year of the Mayan calendar.  Coincidence?  Not really, as the Mayan calendar is astronomically based, and the winter solstice marks the beginning of their calendar year, and this year the date rolls from 12.19.19.17.19 to 13.0.0.0.0  Despite using a base 20 number system, at least the new year's day on the Mayan calendar makes more sense than the cobbled together European based calendars (Julian & Gregorian).

Oh, and for our latitude, we have to wait until our new year's day to get past the latest sunrise.

Alright, it has been snowing here.  Apparently only once about every decade is there a white Christmas in this part of Germany.  If the current trend holds, this will be that year.  And to tie this back to astronomical events:  The sun is at such a low angle (currently <18.5 degrees above horizon at solar noon) and above the horizon for such a short time (currently 8hrs:22min), it doesn't seem like it will melt too soon.  ...and since I spend a few days this past summer making the calculations, I can tell you that the current daily clear sky solar energy delivered to a 1sq.meter horizontal surface is 1.4kWh (...or about the same heat energy released as one hour of  the big burner on the stove top set to medium-high, ...but distributed over 10sq.ft), and this energy is only 1/6 of the summer solstice amount. However it is cloudy every day, and the snow reflects most of that energy, we aren't even getting much solar heating to melt our snow.

OK.  In a practical terms this means, the snow and ice are piling up but not melting, and this makes for a difficult commute by bike.  Consequently I am using the train much more frequently than normally.  And so is Betsy; she bought a month pass.  Thank goodness for the trains when the weather is not fit for biking --and that is saying something, when it comes from me.

Thursday, December 6, 2012

Thanksgiving, Birthdays, and Winter

...well it has been a month since the last update.
First I must say that it get harder each time I become a student again.  I would have thought that after already earning a master's degree and taking classes at University of Alaska and Colorado for fun, I should have this student gig down.
But I do have one thing down --procrastination!  I have a homework assignment due tomorrow.  I am halfway done, but wanted to do something else for a little while, like write this blog.
...so Betsy had two Thanksgivings this year.  The real one with the Swanners in Minnesota (while on a business trip to America), and then the Ex-pats Thanksgiving in Tübingen.  I only had one, but it was great to have pumpkin pie and turkey.

Hot on the heals of Thanksgiving were our birthdays.  Betsy got me a great present --rain gear!  ...she actually gave it to me a little early, because it rained an inch per day for the 3 days prior to my actual birthday.  And on the 1st of December we went to Esslingen for the Medieval Christmas Market.  All the fun of a typical Christmas market, but with Renaissance-fair costumes.
Betsy drinking Glühwein with Merle & Nina at the Esslinger Mittelaltermarkt & Weihnachtsmarkt
On Betsy's birthday she was skiing in the Alps with her lab group.
This week we got a 3' tall Christmas tree.  And now we are on the look-out for decorations.  We didn't find any at the Tübingen Chocolate market last night, but we did buy some expensive chocolates.
Tübingen ChocolART festival
And what I really wanted to tell people about is that we are now signed up for bi-weekly beer delivery.  I think this is the type of service that only exists in Germany.  We can place our order by phone or internet, and on our appointed day the delivery man drops off our requests of Bbeer and other drinks (mineral waters or fruit-juices), even if we are not home!  Can you imagine how American teenagers would react to such an opportunity?

Sunday, November 11, 2012

Veteren's Day

I wanted to get this blog out to all those that celebrate Veteran's Day / Armistice Day / Remembrance Day in the US and Europe.  In Germany it called "Volkstrauertag" which is "people's mourning day", but it isn't celebrated, and usually it does not occur on 11 November.
In the Great War, Germany suffered over 7 million military casualties.  And 11 November 1918 is when Germany surrendered.  Nearly all, if not all, villages have memorials for the war dead from the Great War and World War II.  In our village the memorial is at the catholic cemetery, and on Friday some people were cleaning it up.

Sunday, October 28, 2012

Ersten Schneefall

This morning's view
If you haven't guessed by looking at the pictures, we just had our seasons first snowfall ("ersten Schneefall").  The storm lasted all Saturday, and brought about an inch of rain.  However by Sunday morning there was about 4 inches of snow on our deck, with which I made a snow man.
 This might be more snow than we got all of last year.

And early this morning we switched to Standard time, so we had an extra hour to get used to the transition to winter.  And to that end, Betsy put on some Christmas music.

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Long Bike Rides


Because I am now busy with classes, I don't think I will be making any long bike rides soon.  So this is a quick and (very quantitative) review of my late summer bike rides.
I wrote about riding up the Neckar River (Yellow path on map) on 2nd of September; it was 210km (130miles) and took 9.5hrs to get there and back.
Map of long bike rides, this map shows the entire width of the state of Baden-Württemberg
I also rode to Strasbourg, France and back.  This is the pink path.  That was a very grueling ride and took all day (12hrs) and was 220km (140miles) long.
Strasbourg
I attempted to get to Ulm, but didn’t make it.  This is the light blue path.  I got caught in one of the largest storms of the summer, and took a train back to Tübingen.  I was out for most of the day and went around 140km (90miles).

Danube River
Schloss Sigmaringen
My longest ride of the fall was a loop through Sigmaringen and Rottweil.  This is the orange path.  It was 240km (150miles) and took 13hrs.  There was frost when I started.  By mid-day I was on the Danube River bike path, and it is beautiful, and I stopped about every 2km to take pictures.

Recently I have ridden to Stuttgart and back.  This is the dark blue path.  While not as long, at only 125km (78miles), I have been able to ride it in about 5hrs.  Which I think is fairly good for self-supported trail/path riding.

I think the longs bike rides are finished this year.  Next spring Betsy & I are looking forward to biking through Holland to see the tulips.

Sunday, October 21, 2012

Perfect day of Sunday hiking

Today Betsy & I plus Rachel, Barbara, and Adam (other Americans in Tübingen) went for a 6hr long hike (13km) at Bad Urach, which is an easy train ride from Tübingen.  The hike was fantastic, because the weather was perfect and the fall colors are at their height, and I think the pictures tell that story better than words.







Saturday, October 20, 2012

Mosterei

Mühle Laden left; Mosterei behind Joe.
I (Betsy) enjoy Saturdays because I get to go shopping at the only store in our town: the Mühle Laden ("Mill Store"). It has limited hours during the week and I'm always at work. It's a small shop that sells regional produce and other products and organic stuff as well, and it's housed in the old mill next to our house (hence the name). Today I noticed trailers full of apples just behind the store. When I asked the staff inside I got the answer I was looking for: the mill is processing local apples into cider, and we could bring our empty bottles and fill them up.

"Most" apples being processed.


"Most" is the juice that comes from a special kind of apple that grows in this region; one I'm told that is not good for eating but makes great juice. Two liters of freshly pressed juice cost us 2.7 euros and will last about 2-3 days in the refrigerator before it starts to really ferment. We have to keep the lids on a bit loose to let out the gas. To my understanding, this is also the initial product that goes into making apple wine (also called "Most").


We went several times this summer to a special place called a "Besen." It literally means broom, and a Besen is usually marked by a traditional broom over the sign. A Besen is a small restaurant open only seasonally that serves locally produced wine. Our local summer Besen is in Schloss Roseck, one of our nearby castles, perched on a hill. We had great views of our valley ("Ammertal"), while enjoying Most wine this summer. Starting this October, the "Altstadt Besen" (Besen in the "old town") opens in Tübingen (see blog post from last March describing an earlier visit). We will go again with my work colleagues next week. The Altstadt Besen serves young wine from grapes that grown in the Ammertal, the valley where we live. All the red wines have funny names related to communism, and it's rumored the folks that operate the Besen are communists. Well, we will at least take part in the communal drinking!

Friday, October 19, 2012

Funny things at the Stuttgart Volksfest

The weather here is spectacular, the leaves are at the height of  fall colors, ...and I have hundreds of pages of engineering texts to read.  But before getting to homework, I wanted to post about two pictures that Betsy & I found funny at the Stuttgart Volksfest.

There were several stand at the Volksfest, many selling lederhosen and dinderls.  But we also saw that one stand promoting the Bible was next to another promoting condoms.  Dispite a nominally large Catholic population in Germany, many don't practice and therefore don't have any issues with the Catholic stance against condom use.  we also noticed the Condom stand was much busier than the Bible stand.
Bible stand next to the Condom stand
In German "Lose" means ticket, chance, or prize.  But when you think about it in  English, buying 4 "lose"s for 1 Euro, this carnival game has remarkable truth in advertising.
"4 Lose" for 1 Euro at a carny game
In addition to enjoying the festival, I found a stand that sold leather goods --and a lot of traditional Lederhosen ("leather pants").  I managed to get my belt repaired, which was the real prize of the day.


Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Bureaucracy of University

It seems that my classmates have not suffered as much as me when dealing with the registration process, which is somewhat surprising, since I have been in Germany for one full year, and they have been her for less than a month, with many not speaking any German.
Stamped = official; permission to attend university
 So my latest saga involving the international student administration staff started 3 weeks ago today.  After a full day of delivering, procuring more, correcting, and finally delivering  again my paperwork, I was told that my student ID would arrive the the next week.  It turned out not to be.  Because I am here on a spouse visa and not a student visa, the University of Stuttgart couldn't process my registration.  Nor could they answer a phone call or email.  After a visit to their office that lasted ~5min including the "wait" in line, I was told what the problem was and sort of told how to fix it.  The solution:  convince the Tübingen county foreigners department to write a note saying that there wasn't any issue with me taking classes; see picture.
 I suppose my cultural lessons are several:
1) don't be too judgmental; it is a different culture,
2) stamps are official and they seem to solve lots of bureaucratic blocks,
3) everybody is dismissive of the administration staff --professors think they are dumb, the rest think they have a job-for-life and have lost the motivation to work, let alone do a good job.
As for me, I think the incompetence of the administration staff exposes myth of "German efficiency," and reminds me how good some American secretaries can be.
 At present the issues seem to be solved, AGAIN.   And regardless I can attend class.


Monday, October 15, 2012

First Day of School


Today was my first day at the University of Stuttgart.  The classes seem like they will be very good; I am really looking forward to the rest of the semester.  There are about 40 students in my group, and we will take 6 core courses together this winter semester (mid-October to mid-February).  Most of my fellow students came straight from undergraduate degrees, but about a half dozen have 1 or 2 years of work experience.  This means that I am about a decade older than everyone.

On the first day of school, it is customary for the new student to get a "Schultüte" or "Zuckertüte", as seen in this picture.  The translation is school cone or sugar sack.  I think they are usually filled with candy, toys, pencils, etc.  Furthermore I think this is only for kindergartners, which is too bad for me.

Sunday, October 14, 2012

Spouses in Germany



Last month I said that I would write about what spouses do while in Germany.  And finally I am getting to that.  Some spouses of other post-doctoral researchers leave Germany early, others find part time jobs.  For me I was trying to work remotely for NREL, however that didn’t go too well –a large part of the problem is “out of site, out of mind” and I have been out of site for a year; plus I have been traded to my 3 manager in less than a year, so not much work was coming my way.  Therefore I am going back to school.  Tomorrow I will start classes at the University of Stuttgart, in an all English Masters degree program in the field of Computational Mechanical Engineering.  This will give me something to engage in while in Germany.  …and the surely the subject of future blog posts.

But there have been some other things that have occupied my time in the last few months.
Apartment renovations:  Calking bathtub, painting window frames, install better lighting.  Left picture is what one window frame looked like before repairing and painting.
I have a modest weather station, and I have been writing programs and building some instruments for it.  Right picture is me investigating the circuit of a humidity sensor.

I have also taken several long bike rides. And those are worthy of their own blog post…

Saturday, October 13, 2012

Schloss Lichtenstein



Today Betsy & I went to another romantic castle –Schloss (“Castle”) Lichtenstein, which is only 30km from Tübingen.  It was a great half-day trip.  It has been rainy and cloudy for the last week, but today the clouds cleared and we had spectacular views of the fall colors.  The guided tour was very friendly.  And surprisingly it was in English, because everyone in our small group spoke English.

After the castle, we visited a nearby cave.  The Swäbish Alb, is a limestone plateau and the foothills of the Alps.  This limestone makes for dramatic white cliffs above the valleys and allows for some caves.  The cave we went into was large –about 300m in length and having 5 large rooms.  For a few years one of the royals, for which Castle Lichtenstein was built, lived in the cave.  The caves inspired the book Lichtenstein, which in turn inspired the local Duke to build the castle in the romantic style during the 1840s.  This is about the same time as Berg Hohenzollern and Neuschwanstein, and many other fairy-tale castles in Germany.

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Erntezeit!



It's harvest time in Germany. These are three of the four self-serve pumpkin (Kürbis) stands I pass on my bike ride home from work. In two weeks we'll have a harvest celebration in our town (read: beer garden).

We're just back from a long weekend in Barcelona. Joe will post pictures and text soon. 

Sunday, September 9, 2012

Differences between Germany & America



I have been struggling what to say about differences between Germany and the USA, which I said I would write about.  There are so many, and many are obvious --And when compared with the diversity inside the US, many observations about Germany seem insignificant.

During our visit to America in Jun & July, I was reminded that the USA is a big place.  Everything is scaled up; the cars are bigger, and houses are bigger  --refrigerators, shopping carts, isles in the grocery store, grocery stores themselves, farms, etc. are all bigger.  And yes, on average the people are bigger.

As Betsy & I traveled around North America, it made clear that the US is not a train country (except for freight trains).  The train and public transport system in Germany is great; we use them frequently for local and long-distance travel.  For example, by train it takes 5.5hrs from Stuttgart to Hamburg (southwest to northwest), which is a little faster than driving.  For comparison the drive from Denver to Chicago will take about 16hr (Amtrak will take over 18hrs, and is only once per day), but it is only 4hrs for a flight (including security & waiting) and there are dozens per day.

Another difference that became clear when traveling around the US (especially Iowa) is that in Germany everyone lives in a city or village.  Even farmers live in town, and they travel to their farms, instead of living on the farm and being surrounded by their acreage.  Therefore it is not uncommon to smell livestock in villages, like ours.  In our immediate area, the distance between villages is never more than 5km (3miles).  There are lots of consequences that come from this living arrangement --the public transportation works better, people walk more between places, and you can always tell the time from the tolling of the local church bells.  When we first moved to Germany the bells would keep us awake at night, but now it just part of the sound of life in Germany.

US check-out lines
As mentioned the refrigerators are small, at around 4cu.ft., they are dorm-like.  This contributes to my frequent grocery store visits.  Going to the store is usually an adventure, and not just for trying to read the food package labels; the part that I dread is the check-out.  Check-out lines are combat shopping.  If you are not a friend, then you are at best a nuisance.  Nothing makes this clearer than when a new check-out line opens in the store (usually there are a total of 2 or 3 check-out lines, and only 1 or 2 being used).  When a new clerk arrives to open a second line, there is a rush to be first, and there is no courtesy to those who have been waiting longer.  In this case there are two differences between the US and Germany: 1) Americans check-outs are numerous and efficient (the bagger who packs up everything helps, and so does the counter space after the scanner), and 2) In the US this type of cutting in line is strongly frowned upon, and can earn the cheater a scolding.

Monday, September 3, 2012

Food in Germany, and Beer


Backyard cookout
The last two entries were about by our adventures on the Neckar River and biking, and this is all about food.  As I am our household’s chef, this is a daily topic for me.  Two weekends ago we had a cookout in our back yard.  We bought a 8- grill (~$10).

After the meal we made s’mores --yes, marshmallows are available here.  However most food that claims to be American are generally bad.  For example "MCENNEDY American Way" marshmallows, "Barney’s Best" peanut butter with their kitschy statue of liberty and stars & stripes inspired packaging, are worse than their worst quality counterparts in the US.  …although the caramel popcorn is good; it is a much lighter caramel coating, than the US version.


Party at our apartment; pulled pork was the menu
A month ago we made 3kg of pulled pork, from the spices Gabe sent us.  One of the highlights was to go to a butcher and order the specific cut.  We cooked it all night, and served it to a few friends.  For all the pork in this country, it is surprising that pulled pork is not more common.
The grocery stores have a strong bias toward local and seasonal fruits.  It has been fun to eat our way through the summer.  Last week I made a wild plumb reduction to serve with pork chops.  Then this week, we had left over sauce with roasted pumpkin.  We bought the pumpkin at an honor-system roadside stand –put money in the box, take the produce home.

Nearly all Americans believe that Germany has the best beer in the world.  This is not true.  The “best beer in the world” is very subjective.  Germany’s beer is for the most part still governed by the “Reinheitsgebot” i.e. Bavarian/German Beer Purity Law, which is from around 1500AD.  This makes German beer very consistent, as they are only allowed to use water, barley, and hops (original law was 300 years before Pasteur, so yeast was added to the law later).  Even the wheat beer, which is not governed by Reinheitsgebot's ingredients list is very consistent.  It is very hard to find diversity in German beer.  While Belgium, England-Scotland-Ireland, and the US (the thousands of microbrewers, not the few mega brewers) have a wide variety which can better satisfy most tastes.  We really miss IPAs and porters.

Besides beer there are lots of schnapps and Most (apple wine, often served at seasonally opened restaurants), but these are not much better than garage experiments in brewing.  But it must say that when someone gets tired of all the alcohol, it seems that every brewery also has an alcohol-free beer.