Sunday, November 25, 2012

The Perks of Living in Germany - Co-authored by Sarah

After coming home from a long day at school, D told me she had a surprise. She handed me an advent calendar. Now this was not any normal advent calendar, this was a KINDER EGG advent calendar. Not only do you get a piece of chocolate for every day of December, but you also get a little toy. I was beyond excited, as I truly appreciate the little knick - knacks of life. However the excitement did not end there. We soon found out that advent calendars here are a big deal.  When C, D, and I went to Real there were aisles of advent calendars: kinder egg, lindt chocolate, play mobile advent calendars, lego starwars advent calendars. You name it and they have it. Being as exicted as we were we decided we needed to send some back home, to our family and friends. However we were quickly disappointed because kinder eggs are illegal in the U.S: lindt choclate and lego calendars would have to do. Throughout the weeks we have managed to gather quite the collection, as we let our excitement get the best of us. D and I were at the grocery store and saw a marzipan calendar: which of course we had to buy for C. Then D and C were at the pet store and yes you guessed, they found dog treat advent calendars, one for each dog. The last advent calendar, D found. As she was looking around Edeka, our labbones, she found a sexy advent calendar. D thought it was the most ridiculous thing, so what did she do - she bought one. The next thing I know, an advent calendar with 3 shirtless men on the front is sitting in the pile.


Kinder egg calendar

yes, we went a little overboard. 


Kinder Egg Calendar


The perspective toys in the kinder eggs

Playmobile calendar
Playmobile calendar


Marzipan calendar for C

Dog Calendar

The treat selection



enough said. 

Now advent calendars were not our only excitement. As it is now Christmas season, the stores are filled with little treats. Being the 5 year old that I am, D saw a Kinder-Egg Maxi at the store and brought back a few for K and I. We have been keeping a collection of the toys, yes our excitement again got the best of us. 

  


A puzzle

A game

penguin

rodent on a wheel

rodent on a bike

Seal, shuffle boarder

The collection.


Here are some other little knick- knacks that we have found. 

This spins, when the candles are lit. Traditional German item. 

The best candy in the world. 















A German Thanksgiving --As per request my co-author Sarah is back!

On a typical Thanksgiving morning, I would wake up to the smell of a fresh pumpkin pie in the oven and the sounds of the Macy's Day parade in the background. However, as noted by the blog title, we are not in Woodbury anymore!

 With my dad in Vienna, we moved Thanksgiving to Saturday instead of Thursday. So this past Thursday, the real Thanksgiving, was a typical Thursday for us.  D, K and I did school work and had lamp chops for dinner. We did skype into the appetizers at my aunt's house and my grandparents' house, but that was the extent of our celebration. So on Saturday morning we were all very exicted for our first Thanksigivng in Germany. The green beans were plucked, cranberry sauce made, and a pumpkin pie was in the works. We did have some trouble with the kitchen being smaller than we are used to but we managed. Following in my grandmothers footsteps I prepared her famous yams, and D made the best part of the meal, the stuffing. Which even Macintosh approved of, as we turned our backs and there she was standing at the table eating out of the side of the bowl, a little indentation was left from where she started.

As Thanksgiving is not celebrated here in Germany, Christmas is the next holiday - our Thanksgiving table was therefore Christmasfied. D was very excited, the table was the most decorated its been.
Seeing as Thanksgiving is not celebrated here, Christmas napkins had to do!
Our little Thanksgiving table 
The turkey

yams and stuffing


C's famous pumpkin pie 














K actually lost the wishbone this year. 

































Wednesday, November 21, 2012

November 20, 2012-- Mac Goes to Daycare

November 20, 2012 -- Mac Goes to Daycare!

I decided to listen to Frank's suggestion and take Mac to daycare.  Tuesday seemed to be the best day because the cleaning person comes on that day and Mac scares the daylights out of her.  I dropped her off at 10 a.m.  She was a little nervous (I can tell because she drools incessantly when she is nervous). I returned to pick her up at 5 p.m.  She was very happy to see me and ran to the car.  Within minutes, she was asleep (so quiet I thought she was dead).  I got home 30 minutes later.  She was so tired she fell asleep on the floor (too tired to get on her couch or eat her dinner).   Just like a child who goes to camp, comes home and is so exhausted he/she goes right to bed.   She stirred at 10 pm had a few bites of food and then slept the rest of the night.  Too bad daycare is 30 minutes away or Mac might be going more often.

November 17, 2012 -- Another Adventure in Frankfurt

November 17, 2012 -- Another Adventure in Frankfurt


So with the girls having too much schoolwork to leave the house, C and I decided to take another trip to Frankfurt.  My neighbor had told me about a gourmet food market in Frankfurt called Kleinmarkthalle.  We decided that we should go check it out.  We decided to take the car and take our chances with parking.  We got lucky and got a space a block away from the market.  The market is quite a find.  There are multiple meat stands that sell goose, duck, chicken, pork, veal, rabbit, wild boar, tripe, pig feet, etc. -- you name it and they sell it.  There are also a number of Italian places that sell fresh pasta; Turkish stands that sell nuts, baklava, dates and other treats; Mexican stands that sell Goya products; and multiple fruit and vegetable stands.  There are even several fish stands that I believe my grandfather would have given his seal of approval.  (For those of you who did not know him, my grandfather owned fish stores in Brooklyn and the Bronx.  After he retired he loved to go to grocery stores to check out the fish counters; on more than one occasion he told the people behind the counter that they should be arrested for the fish they were selling).  We had a great time at the market.  We even found fresh cranberries and shelled pecans -- neither of which are easy to find in Germany.  We did buy canolis at the market as well.  Grandpa would not have approved of those.  They were not very good.

We went to lunch at a fish place down the street and made one of those ordering errors.  We thought that we were ordering a bowl of mussels to share.  We somehow ended up with mussels in broth and potato dumplings.  Oh well, we shared it anyway.  All and all, we had a fun day at the market.  You know how we love food so you can be sure that we will return.  









Note the blonde woman, she yelled at me for taking pictures.





November 13, 2012 -- The German Dog Whisperer

November 13, 2012 -- The German Dog Whisperer

With my neighbor's help, I finally got a dog trainer.  The dog trainer's name is Frank.  He owns the kennel that Mac and Ana go to when we are away.  Because Frank does not speak a lot of English, a woman came with him to be his interpreter.  They arrived at 4 pm.  I, of course, did not have to prompt Mac to show them her poor behavior.  Within seconds, Mac was jumping up on Frank, pawing him and mouthing him.  Frank explained that Mac is like a 2 year old looking for attention.  The more attention we give her when she acts out, be it positive or negative, the worse her behavior will be.  His advice was to ignore her -- tough to do when your dog standing on two legs is over 6 feet and weighs about 100 pounds.  He explained that we should never back away from her and that we should correct her like another dog would.  No not biting her, but rather surprising her by poking her with three fingers in the chest, legs etc.  Needless to say, he had her under control in five minutes. I did not recognize her -- you know this patient calm submissive puppy.  When he was there it worked for me as well.  He also suggested that when I was at the end of my rope, I should give her a puppy timeout -- i.e., hook her to the railing outside and leave her for five minutes.  His last suggestion was to get a spray bottle with water and spray her when she jumps up or mouths us.  I explained that we had tried that when she was a puppy and she simply opened her mouth and drank the spray.  He laughed out loud.  He loved Mac and got a big kick out of her.  He said to give her time and that she would calm down in a year.  He also suggested that we could bring her to puppy daycare once a week so that she would be able to learn from the other dogs how she should behave.

So how many of you picked up the operative phrase "It worked for me too WHEN HE WAS THERE."  Within a short period of time, the dog correction technique was no longer effective.  Yes, you guessed it, Mac thinks it is a game.  Thankfully, the puppy time out seems to work when all else fails.  We tell her she is in time out, hook her with the leash to the front railing and close the door.  The funny thing is that my dog who can shred a leash in five minutes doesn't even try.  She stands where I put her and stares at the door until I return.  I guess she realizes that she is being punished.

Well, Mac is 15 months old.  If Frank is right, we only have to survive 9 more months of adolescence.


November 12, 2012 -- St. Martin's Day Continued

November 12, 2012 -- St. Martin's Day continued


On Monday evening my neighbor's children celebrated St. Martin's Day. In their school, the children created lanterns, put on a play about St. Martin and then marched to the castle in Kronberg.  Here are a few pictures from their celebration.









One last thing about St. Martin's Day.  In Germany and I believe Austria, they make a special bread that looks like a man.  Just as St. Martin shared his cloak with a beggar during a snow storm, you are supposed to share the bread with someone.  Here is a picture of the bread.

Mac and Ana shared this man




Tuesday, November 13, 2012

November 13, 2012 -- In Honor of My "Niece"

November 13,  2012

This entry is in honor of my "niece." "A" became my niece officially after spending the week with us during the power outage in Woodbury last October (2011).  Actually, you could say we adopted the whole family -- showers and dinner for 12 every night.

I guess it is only fitting that when I returned from Germany to attend Karissa's wedding Connecticut and New York had just survived another hurricane, and of course A's family had been without power all week.  To complicate life, the game for the league championship was scheduled for the afternoon of the rehearsal dinner.   A,  of course, was the Maid of Honor.  So, what do you do -- field hockey or your sister's rehearsal.  Well, if you are A, you do both.  It is hard to believe that this tough, but incredibly sweet, all-star athlete (in my book All-American) who played in a game for the league championship from 3:15 to 5:15 in Litchfield the afternoon of the rehearsal/rehearsal dinner could so quickly be transformed into such a beautiful young lady just hours later.  We posed for a picture together at the Rehearsal Dinner and while I always try to keep out of pictures and rarely put pictures of me on the blog -- A made me promise to do so.  Since she kept her promise and scored a goal for me in the first round of the states, I must keep my promise to her.  So here it is A.  By the way, congratulations on an amazing high school career.  I look forward to following your field hockey career in college!

Monday, November 12, 2012

November 11, 2012-- St. Martin's Day

November 11, 2012 -- St. Martin's Day

Apparently, November 11, 2012 is St. Martin's Day in Germany.  St. Martin got his sainthood from the Catholic Church for being a kind man who cut his cloak in half and gave a piece of the cloak to a beggar during a snowstorm.  Every year, children in Germany celebrate this holiday by making paper lanterns, and then at night they gather together, walk in a procession with their lanterns, and sing songs about St. Martin.  

Oberursel celebrated St. Martin's Day with the Martin Markt, essentially a medieval market.  Many people dress up in medieval outfits, all of the stores are open and there are tables and trucks set up where people sell their goods (food, swords, beads, mushrooms etc.).  In addition to the goods, there are a few games of chance, pony rides and a bow and arrow shooting gallery (you shoot at one of the people in the paper castle).  C, S and I went downtown to check it out.  As we walked down one of the paths, we discovered mouse roulette.  We laughed for minutes after witnessing it.  This is how it works.  You place your bet on a particular room in the outer part of the circle.  When everyone is done placing their bets, the man in charge takes out a mouse.  He asks the first person who placed a bet, where he/she wants the mouse to start in the inner part of the circle.  He places a hat on the mouse and puts the mouse on a spot in the inner circle.  He lets the mouse go.   The mouse jumps down and runs to a room.  If the mouse runs to the room you picked, you win.  After seeing this, S and I went home, got the camera and came back.  Really, you could not make this stuff up!




The wheel and the man -- note the outer and inner parts


The hat -- in this case the crown


































Here are some other pictures from the market.  It was a blast!  S and I loved it.  So different from the U.S.





Pony Rides

Bow and arrow shooting gallery

Mushroom Stand -- Choose your mushrooms and they will sauté them for you!

Baked Goods

A game of skill -- knock down the cans!  Just like Six Flags!  





Spätzle




Wool stand -- this one is for you Keelin!



Rides!

Anyone need a sword?



How about a crêpe?

Do you need a medieval outfit?

Ladies?



It doesn't get better than potato pancakes with applesauce -- Kartoffelpuffer mit Apfelmus