Langlauf im Schwarzwald

First trip to Schwarzwald!

Winter has come to Germany, but it only stayed for two days. We had two days of cold this week, but before enough moisture built up for snow, it got warm again and now it just keeps raining. That's ok, because now we have rainboots! Nevertheless, we managed to go skiing for the first time today. My colleague Aude rented a car for the weekend, and we went with her to "Langlauf" (cross-country ski) in the Schwarzwald (Black Forest). It took a little over an hour to get to the ski area, and on the way Aude graciously explained what all the traffic signs mean. She is French, but has been living in Germany for 3 years, so pretty much knows everything in comparison to us neophytes. This exercise in road signs was very helpful and timely, as we'll apply for our German driver's licenses this week, and maybe borrow a car share car for the first time next weekend.

Joe guesses the tree's age

The Schwarzwald, even though it is higher than our river valley home, is also suffering from a lack of winter. It was above freezing when we arrived and it had rained the day before. Nevertheless, Germans were out in droves to enjoy their favorite winter sport. The trail conditions were suboptimal, but not enough to stop us from having a great time. We're contemplating a Schwarzwald ski weekend in February, and maybe even doing the 100 km ski trail that runs from North to South along the Schwarzwald next winter (don't worry - towns in between to eat and sleep). It's nice to know that even though our nearest trails don't have snow, these are quite close, and there are many more areas to explore. Plus, it only cost 1.50 euro for a trail pass! That's almost an order of magnitude less expensive than for a comparable area in the US.

In making Germany our home we've had to adapt ourselves to the local cuisine. After a few months, we now have a repertoire of home-cooked meals that have a Schwäbisch flair. So much so that I've even typed up a list of ingredients for all our successful meals and stuck it on the refrigerator so we can easily buy what we need for each meal. One of my favorite modifications of a Schwäbisch classic is spicy Kässpaetzle, where I make cheesy noodles and add Siracha. We're not gourmands here, ok, but a little spicy now and then goes a long way in this country. I like this with schnitzel, which I have made, but this picture is of a prepared cutlet (mine looked almost as good). This is made with chicken, but the majority of the meat here is actually pork ("Schwein"). Joe and I aren't so fond of pork, so we usually go for chicken.

Although Germany has wonderful bakeries and amazing sweets, one thing they don't have is pie. Our friends Chris and Rachel have long lamented this, because Chris really likes to bake and loves pie. Well, their sadness about the lack of pie or pie sympatico here must have rubbed off on Joe, because one day this week he decided to make an apple pie. I thought it was quite good, although we still haven't purchased a dish that will properly cook a pie or quiche. He's turning into the perfect Hausherr and my evil plan is working... I mean, until next time, "Auf Wiedersehen" from Germany.

Schönes Wochenende

Winter has finally come back to Tübingen in the form of cool weather, but it's brought with it blue skies, which has ended the rainy streak we'd had (it rained every day of the year until... January 15). Joe and I took advantage of the bluebird day to head to Bebenhausen on Sunday, a town in the Schonbuch forest, just north of us by about 3 km. We finally visited the cloister there which was founded in the 12th century, which we'd spotted on a previous bike ride. At some point it was converted into a royal hunting lodge, and it is very scenic because the town is very small and nestled in a little valley. After walking around for awhile my toes about froze off so we headed back to our apartment.

We started off the weekend by drinking beer with about a dozen of my colleagues in our all-to-small kitchenette at work (we do this regularly). Then Joe and I went off to "Spielabend" to play games with Geology undergrads, who would be our unsuspecting German conversants. We ended up playing a very complicated version of Settlers of Cattan (my new favorite game!) and Risk, but we did it all in German! On Saturday I ventured to our local outlet mall to take advantage or end-of-year sales. If you've ever been a grad student then you know what graduate school can do to your wardrobe. It was just time to take action. The holes on my shirts are starting to grow their own holes, if that is even possible. We ended Saturday with burritos and margaritas at our local Mexican place (or probably the only Mexican place in 50 km) with other American post-docs and spouses. Not a terribly exciting weekend, but that in itself is somehow exciting.

Christmas, Part II

An update from Joe (with minor edits and interjections from Betsy): 

We celebrated our second Christmas on Saturday.  We received a package from Gabe (Joe’s brother) of popcorn and special spices to make a pork rub. We will have no problem finding pork in Germany to try this out. Plus, we received several things we ordered from Amazon.de (our first time using the German Amazon).  Amazingly, we only placed our order on Wednesday and nearly all of it arrived on Saturday –and Friday was a Federal Holiday!  Mail travels faster in Germany, probably because Germany is smaller than Minnesota and Iowa combined.

Our Amazon haul includes a new Smartphone for Betsy (this means that Joe gets the cell phone we bought new when we arrived, and doesn't need to rely on the hand-me-down phone from a friend whose battery only lasts about 1 hour). Joe's home office is now nearly complete with a wireless network that includes a printer we found on sale this week, and the phone now linked in too.  Cellphones are new to Joe, and Smartphones are a new step for Betsy, but we already have apps for the German train schedule, Googlemaps +street view, Skype, a German-English dictionary, and a kitchen timer. Next up: teaching Joe to send text messages.  So far the most useful app has been the kitchen timer, since we were using it to simultaneously time both a pressure cooker for beans and corn bread in the oven for dinner last night.  But the other applications should prove their worth when we do some more traveling.

This weekend has been rather rainy, so we have been inside a bit more than normal, and Betsy has had time to catch up on all the sleep she missed last year.  And we each got one other goody yesterday – rain boots!  We got them at our local hardware/lumberyard store, on the suggestion of Betsy's friend Merle (after complaining about how "fashion" rainboots cost over 30 euro, and don't appear to be too functional).  This has been something that we have been sorely lacking this winter - it rains a lot and we bike a lot!.  This afternoon we will go for a walk like most Germans seem to do on Sundays.  Since the rain continues, we may take a stroll in our new rain boots.

We also feel that we are past the survival phase of our first few months. Obviously, we are now on to the "making our lives more comfortable" stage.  Although we have been having fun in Germany all along, we are now starting to make it our home.

Guten Rutsch!

The past week has been a bit of a second honeymoon for us. First, Paris for Christmas, but it was quite quiet in Tübingen the week between Christmas and New Year's and so we slept in, read a lot of books, and taken a break from our intense German courses. Some of the books we're reading are on German history, which is quite a heterogeneous macabre. I've discovered too that I have quite the horrified fascination with the Middle Ages. What an awful time to be alive! Joe has always loved Greek and Roman history, so he's happy that I have a budding interest in that as well, especially since remnants of Roman settlements can be found along the Neckar River just a few kilometers from our house. Here's a picture of me coming to terms with this history.

We've also had quite a nice New Year's, or Sylvester as it is called here. A refreshing change from the over-hyped parties one feels they need to attend in the US. Joe will take over telling you about it:

Blast upper center; landlord in smoke.

"New Years was a blast, too --literally.  There were lots, dare I say tons, of fireworks at the New Year.  It was amazing; I don’t know if there is a single word to describe it, so here is a paragraph:
There was a build up all day.  After night fall, it increased to a few loud booms every 10minutes or so.  Around 10pm some people started with the expensive rockets and mortars, which made quite a display of light.  From 11:50 until about 12:30 there was a continuous light and sound show.  There was a gunpowder haze wafting through the streets.  We had our 7€ worth of bottle rockets and fountains to add to the neighborhood show.  Our landlord is 70 or 80 years old, and he was very cavalier lighting off rockets and firecrackers which would be illegal in the US.  Even with all that exploded paper refuse, our street were clean before noon on New Year’s Day; however there are still some rocket remnants on roofs.  But public spaces are still filthy with spent ordinance casings.

But as fun as fireworks are, they were only just an intermission to our Settlers of Catan game.  Another American couple (Chris & Rachel) came to our place for raclette, i.e. grilled veggies covered by different types of grill-melted cheese.  And they have the Ritter Sport expansion pack for Settlers of Catan.  Ritter Sport is a huge chocolate manufacturer based just 20km from us, so their expansion pack allows for cocoa production.  Game points can be earned for manufacturing different Ritter Sport chocolate bars.  ...so  it made the board bigger and game play more interesting.  We played until 2am, fueled in part by actual Ritter Sport chocolate bars.

In our cheese & chocolate hangover, all of us (us + Chris&Rachel) took the train to Ulm.  Which is ~60km West of Tubingen.  It has the tallest church in the world at 161m (a little over half of the Eiffel tower).  There are 768 steps to the top, and we climbed them and were rewarded with a great view."

Betsy notes: It was once again reinforced that no holiday goes without its own baked good. We picked up this "Neujahrbretzel" at the bakery and had it for breakfast on New Year's morning. That is sugar, not salt.

Until our next adventure we wish all of you a "Guten Rutsch" (good slide) into the New Year.