Thanksgiving and beyond

I hope you all had wonderful Thanksgivings. Ours was great and was filled with food, family, and Felicity. We did lots of cooking and eating over the holiday weekend. I'm worried the effects of our indulgence are soon going to show in our waistlines. In fact, last night Justin tried to convince me that he would be more attractive if he carried an extra five pounds of body fat. I think he was just trying to justify the two cups of whipped cream he ate with his apple pie last night.

For Thanksgiving we had cooked for twenty and had nine people for dinner. That's not to say that more than half of our guests didn't show, but that we cooked way more than we needed. The menu consisted of: two turkeys, gravy, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, stuffing, wild rice, corn casserole, brussel sprouts, spinach timble, salad, carrots, bread, and four different desserts. Needless to say, there were lots of leftovers.

After this ridiculous feasting and all of the other eating that took place over the weekend, Justin and I felt the need to burn some extra calories. On Saturday, we went for a hike in the Rhine valley. The weather was beautiful and so were the views. Before we went, we tried to convince Pecos that it would be fun to go in the backpack. He did not think that this was such a cool idea.

On Sunday in our continued quest to not-feel-quite-so-guilty, Justin and I went for a run on the Rhine. Due to the unseasonably warm weather (and the extra fat he accumulated in his pectoral region) Justin thought this was appropriate running atire. Fortunately, I managed to convice him to put on a shirt before we hit the trail.

And just for fun, here's Pecos looking cute.

Watcha Lookin' at, Granny?

Here's a little cultural insight to the Germans. It's actually an article I found in the German magazine Spiegel, written by Kimberly Bradley, located here: http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,418068,00.html

Germans have a staring problem. Either the grandma on the first floor is watching your every move or the guy across from you in the subway can't turn away. You'll have to learn to live with it.

(This picture is of Stefanie Bühler's sculpture of a staring granny called "Die Nachbarin" -- The Neighbor.)

Scenario one: It's a normal day in Deutschland and you're out running errands -- taking out the garbage, parking your car, grabbing a couple of rolls at the bakery across the street, or whatever. Bottom line -- you're minding your own business. Suddenly, though, you get a strange feeling -- an acute sense of being watched. You look around and there they are: a pair of eyes peering from a slightly parted, white lace curtain in the window of the first floor apartment in your building. One of your German neighbors is expressionlessly watching your every move.
Scenario two: You jump into the subway on your way to work in the morning and plop down in the nearest seat. Glancing up from the morning paper, you can't help but notice that the person across from you is staring at you for all he's worth. You break the gaze, but each time you look back, he's still staring. Is it a challenge? A come-on? Do you have food on your face? You look away, but can't help squirming.

Welcome to Germany, the land where a bit of intense eye contact is a daily occurrence -- so much so that many expats and visitors have dubbed it the "Germanic Stare Down." But it's actually two things: the first, a rather creepy kind of Big Brother-esque surveillance; the second, a glaring gaze that feels like an ocular challenge but is pretty harmless.

The first situation may hearken back to a strong sense of civic duty felt by German natives -- and is especially prevalent among the gray-haired citizens of Deutschland. (Younger people tend not to be so addicted to window scrutiny.) While most people from English-speaking countries tend to uphold only a personalized sense of said duty, many Germans will make sure that not only their own, but everyone else's space, is in perfect Ordnung. Walk against the red light in Munich, and prepare to be asked if you're color blind. It's also not unusual to hear of someone who's gotten an expensive parking ticket in the mail because an aged window-peeping German watched them pull into an illegal space, wrote down the license-plate number and called the police -- without, of course, ever having spoken to the perpetrator.

All this gawking does have a historical basis. A less-than-peaceful 20th century made Germans especially keen to know all they could about potentially dangerous -- or endangered -- neighbors. And under communism in East Germany, millions were reporting to the Staatssicherheit -- or Stasi -- on their neighbors' comings and goings.

These days, the totalitarian tinge has faded, but the gaze -- even in its "quick peek" variation -- is still a drag. Stumbling home drunk late at night, after all, should be a profoundly personal experience. Instead, you're likely to meet your neighbor in the stairwell the next day only to be greeted with: "Late night last night, eh? You got home at 3:08 a.m." You smile through your painful hangover with your few functioning brain cells thinking: "Get a life!" But there's really not much you can do about it. It's a phenomenon that even Dresden-based sculptor Stefanie Bühler of Berlin's hot DISKUS gallery has picked up on with her striking sculpture Die Nachbarin (The Neighbor), which depicts an older woman staring from a lace-curtained window with huge, unmoving eyes. Eerie.

And the subway scenario? It's really pretty innocuous albeit annoying. Perhaps German mothers don't do the "It's not polite to stare" routine with their kids. Or maybe the perpetrators have just never lived in New York, where prolonged eye contact can result in a messy homicide. But as boggling as the ogling can be, what can you do? The stare down tactic often works -- once you've made up your mind, you're bound to be able to make most Germans blink. Smiling and winking, on the other hand, might get you a date. Or, as a British friend once did, you can paste a huge smile on your face and ask, "Would you like to take a photograph?" Then it will be the German's turn to squirm.

Jacuzzi from hell

It’s the end of the world as we know it here in Kaiser-Friedrich-Ring zwölf. After finishing season one of this show called Felicity – which, by the way, I’m not ashamed to admit I actually kind of like…which I guess makes me more effeminate than Javier when he shed a tear over not being able to decide whether to try out for Man of La Mancha or not.

Anyway, I was actually going somewhere with this. (Damn Felicity, always crowding my brain with your endearing and captivating moral issues!) After looking up at the heavens after the season one finale, I noticed a large stain had appeared on the ceiling above the office where, only days earlier, Kate had asked, “Was that small stain always there?”

I had said yes, pretending to have been observant. No, however, Kate knew that I was very wrong.

There’s also another stain on the other side of the wall, so there’s no doubt the leak is pretty significant.

The stains are no doubt caused by water leakage – this water no doubt comes from our upstairs neighbors’ heating system which no doubt has burst because the pipes are 120 years old. This leaves us with no doubt that we’ll die in an inundating torrent of previously superheated water, which would actually quite pleasant if it weren’t cascading down our walls.
But, fear not. The deluge has not yet occurred. And we’ve contacted our Hausmeister. At this point, we’re just waiting…..

…for the Jacuzzi from hell!

Here's a cute pic of Pecos, btw...taken this morning by Kate. (He, too, is fearing the imminent deluge).

Everything you never wondered about

Happy almost Thanksgiving to all! I wanted to take this lapse in traveling to fill you in on various exciting events in our lives.

Last week Liz and her sister Ellen came to visit. It was wonderful to have Liz and Ellen here. We spent most of our time talking and eating cookies. Liz will be guest blogging about her visit, but it might a bit before her post is ready. Liz thinks buying a house and adopting a dog are more important than writing a blog entry. I don't know if I agree with her priorities. I have thrown in a picture of Liz, Ellen, and I on the wrong side of the tracks. Make sure to check back for Liz's post and her awesome pictures.



In exciting dog news, my parents adopted a new dog last weekend. They adopted a six-month-old black lab named Jackson. He is joining their sixish-year-old yellow lab named Rudy. Jackson sounds like a real sweetie and is super cute. In this picture, Rudy is showing Jackson the appropriate way to beg for food. I can't wait to meet Jackson, and I get to meet him soon!

I am going to be in the states from December 7-January 7. I am very excited to spend some time with family and friends and to be home for the holidays and my brother's birthday. I will be spending most of my time in Maryland, but I will be in Chicago from December 29-January 2. I am not so excited to leave Justin and Pecos behind. Justin elected to spend Christmas in Istanbul, and Pecos decided that he wants to spend Christmas at the dog kennel.

Fortunately, our little family of three will be spending Thanksgiving together. We were supposed to fly to Marrakesh, Morroco for Thanksgiving, but our flight was cancelled. Instead we'll be hosting a big Thanksgiving here for eight (plus us) of our nearest and dearest. We'll let you know how it goes and if my detailed menu-planning and burner-placement-map work out.

Pecos wanted me to include that he and I set a new record today during his romp in a field. We set the record for most-sticks-lost-in-the-shortest-period-of-time. After collecting four sticks for fetching purposes, Pecos and I lost three of them in under thirty seconds. He blamed my poor throwing skills. I blamed his crappy sniffing skills. We both blamed poor stick quality as weeks of rain have left the sticks a bit sodden. Hopefully, we'll do better next time.

One last bit of exciting news. Last night, we were settling into bed when we heard something fall in the guest bedroom. I told Justin it was the man's job to go check on things-that-go-bump-in-the-night. Being a manly-man (or maybe just nice) Justin went to check out the guest bedroom. There he found that a chunk of the ceiling had fallen. It seems the radiator in the apartment above us had been leaking. Bedtime was delayed as we told our matainence man who then contacted some other guy, who came and looked at the hole in our celing. After some aw-shucksing they left with a promise to return today. The painters just stopped by looked at the hole and promised to return next week when the area has dried out a bit. Things like this, make me happy we're still renting.

I wish you all a happy and safe Thanksgiving.

Pecos and the egg

We just received our results back from the Consumer Reports survey and are proud to say that these pictures tested very highly in our key demographics (parents, other family members, online marketers).













As some of you already know, our dog loves eggs. We think he places them somewhere between sleeping and breathing on his list of "most important things in my life," which he illegibly scrawled out several months ago when we thought he was battling a severe case of depression (it turned out to be jet lag).



Yes, eggs are like celebrities to Pecos. Actually, I'll put it this way: if Pecos were a Trekkie, having an egg would be like meeting William Shatner. Pecos's eyes get huge. A lump forms in his throat. Uncontrollable surges of adrenaline pump into his little puppy brain, making him both jittery and drooly. His paw turns over, revealing the characteristic Vulcan "V" for veterinarian, which is exactly what he thinks he'll need if he doesn't get a taste of that precious "other white meat" immediately. (OK, so the analogy's a little weak there - unless we're talking about a cannibal Trekkie, which I'm sure exist).





Anyway, without further ado.... here are more pics of Pecos eating an egg. We gave it to him as a treat for being cute. This was a first. And we gave it to him whole, which was also a first.

Guest blog: Wiesbaden, Limburg, and Rüdesheim

When Justin and Kate offered to let me (Barbara - Justin’s mom) be a guest blogger, I immediately gained a much greater appreciation of the thought, care, and humor that they put into their selection of pictures and editorials they write.

Let me start by saying that both of them have been wonderful to travel with and even better as hosts within their home. We have had no shortage of sights, food, or fun!

My only complaint is that they deploy some kind of weird telepathic technique to win Pictionary games. Future visitors, I would STRONGLY suggest some game other than Pictionary ... possibly a game they’ve never played before!

Wiesbaden is a great town. The parks, farmers’ market, restaurants, cafés, and downtown walking area make it fun, and the number of English-speaking residents and the amenities offered by the base make it very livable for Americans.

As you can see by the pictures, we enjoyed walks and chess games in the park as well as eating brats in the market, schlagsahne (whipped cream) items in the café and eating everything else that wasn’t nailed down.

We enjoyed a scenic and enjoyable evening walk overlooking the vineyards and scenic town of Weisbaden. All was going wonderfully until the sun went down and the fallen autumn leaves became possessed by an aggressive whirlwind. Fortunately, we were protected by an aggressive “Autumn leaf defense” dog!

In addition to our day trips to Strasbourg and Colmar in France, our day trips to Limburg and Rüdesheim in Germany convinced me I need to seek a grant to determine once and for all which is the cutest, most adorable yet liveable town in Europe. Limburg was adorable; we were there for market day and were challenged with deciding just which one of the gingerbread cookies was the cutest and which stained glass window was the most intricate and ornate.

Rüdesheim on the other hand had it all for Bill: a visit to the Asbach Uralt (brandy) factory with samples, cafés with Rüdesheimer kaffe (coffee, brandy, and schlagsahne), trains, planes, and a romantic boat ride up the Rhein. What a wonderful day!

Gerty (Justin’s Oma) joined us on a couple outings in and around Wiesbaden; she was a trooper for the most part and was able to tackle the three flights of stairs leading to Justin and Kate’s apartment. We tried to accommodate her every gastronomical desire, including pflaumküchen, mohnküchen, Berliners, schweinebraten, sauerkraut, fleischsalat, herring, schinken, eel, savoy cabbage, jägerwurst, mini-Dickmann’s, liquor-filled chocolates, etc. What an appetite!

And for all you readers out there planning on coming to Wiesbaden don’t forget your walking shoes.

Fancy France

After a lovely weekend in Paris, the McCracken and Ward clans headed east towards Germany. On our way, we spent two days and a night exploring the beautiful Alsace region of France. Alsace (along with Lorraine) is unique to France because of its strong German influence. The Alsace region has been handed back and forth between France and Germany a few times and has a culture representative of both (read: wine AND beer). It is home to many wonderful things, such as sauerkraut, German Shepherds (also known as Alsatians), and the picturesque towns of Colmar and Strasbourg.

After driving through the French countryside and winding through forests on hilly roads, we came upon the town of Colmar. Colmar is home to Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, more commonly known as that French guy who sculpted the Statue of Liberty. Colmar also has an area know as Le Petit Venice, which is about as big as a minute. The canal just barely meets the requirements of water deep enough to drown in (30 mm), but we still saw one little “gondola” go by (maybe the water was a bit deeper where we saw the gondola). Besides a few waterways, Colmar also had lots of cute half-timbered buildings and inviting shops. We were even lured into a macaroon shop with free samples. We got hooked and walked away with a bag of very tasty and very pricey macaroons.

Though Colmar looked like Germany, we were definitely in France. This was reaffirmed when Barbara used her high school French to order and managed to delight our waitress by saying “Je suis chocolat chaud” (I am hot chocolate, for you non French speakers like moi). Fortunately, we managed to correctly order this tasty blueberry tart which is a specialty of the region.

Justin and I decided to end the visit to Colmar on a high note by taking a picture of his underarm on his mom’s camera and not telling her. This provided Justin and I with about half-an-hour of belly laughs and hours of stifled giggles. Upon discovering the picture yesterday, Barbara was not so impressed with our comic genius. Maybe we’re not grownups after all.

After leaving sleepy Colmar, we drove 45 minutes north to Strasbourg. Justin and I visited Strasbourg five years ago and had a wonderful time in this romantic little city. Strasbourg lies on the Rhine (the same river we live near) and has a wonderful walking district. The walking district is an island that is jam packed with leaning half-timbered houses, inviting eating establishments, and tempting shops. It is also home to a massive cathedral that houses an astronomical clock.

While in Strasbourg, we stayed in the same hotel Justin and I stayed in five years ago, spent way too much time in an accessories shop (Barbara and I were trying to support the local economy), ate sauerkraut, ate croissants, looked at churches, bought cookies, ate said cookies, searched for elusive (and locked) public toilets, spent too much time in home accessories shops (Barbara and I were serious about supporting the local economy), ate flam kuchen (German pizza), ate crepes, and commented on the perfection of nearly every road we turned down. It was a nice (though filling) day.




That afternoon we bid au revoir to France and came back to Wiesbaden. Our wonderful time in France will not be forgotten, at least not as long as our car reeks of the stinky Brie cheese we picked up in Paris.

Paris with the fam

Barbara and Bill joined us for a magical weekend in the biggest French theme park (known as Paris) last week, and we had a really good, busy, and fun time!

I’ll start with the hotel, which had a smell oddly similar to what I would imagine the inside of George Burns’s mouth smelled like – old, smoky, dry, 1957, bourbon. In general, it was good. It put us in a lively, young, and very livable neighborhood in the northwest corner of Paris’s 11th Arrondissement where we could walk to all the major sites. And it even had hot water. No complaints.

After checking in, we headed out for our first sojourn into the "the City of Lights" (dubbed so because the city was an early adopter of street-lighting), walking to the Place de la Bastille, at which some substantially consequential historic event occurred a long time ago. After staring pensively at the monolith for a while and pretending to wax historical about the place (citing the words “Bastille Day” and “French Revolution”), we deducted that it looked a lot like a loaf of French bread and went on our way, satisfied with our conclusion.

Afterward, we walked to the impressive and gothic Notre Dame Cathedral, made famous by the popular and schmaltzy Walt Disney version of Victor Hugo's novel “The Hunchback of Notre Dame.”

It was huge, and ornate, and full of people doing religious stuff. So, after whispers and pictures, we walked to a nearby cutesy theme-park-like area and had an emblematic Parisian dinner of gyros and orangina. Viva le France!

After the satisfying meal, we taxied to the Eiffel Tower, gawked like everyone else, and took many vertical shots of the structure while waiting in line to ride to the top. Eventually, we got to the top and all agreed that la Ville Lumière was certainly full of lumière. It offered some pretty spectacular night-time views and was certainly a highlight of the tour.

BUT – and this is a big but – it was a bit nerve-racking. I had done some reading about the city before we went (as was made obvious by the intelligent comments about the Bastille) and found out that the Tour Eiffel was built as a TEMPORARY display of architectural engineering prowess to commemorate the 100-year anniversary of the French Revolution. Yes, temporary.

This got me thinking, you know how big buildings are said to sway back and forth in the wind by a couple feet in each direction because this supposedly helps keep the building stable? Well, the Eiffel Tower wasn’t built to do that. In fact, it has never swayed more than an inch in any direction, despite the fact that it’s huge and was the tallest building in the world until 1930.

So, as you can tell in this picture, it was a bit windy at the top of the Eiffel Tower that night, and, if there would have been any creaking to accompany the wind, my pants would have ended up moister than the coffee we had the next morning.

In addition to the coffee that next morning, we each had a croissant, a baguette and jelly. Pretty simple – and filling enough to kickstart our jaunt to the first stop: Montmartre – the area of Paris made famous by the movie “Amelie” – where we saw the Basilica of the Sacré Coeur and the miserable failure of Kate to get us into the secret underground passage that only graduates of the school of the Sacred Heart (of which Kate is one) can access.

After that disappointment, we all had to pee and so we found a bathroom located in a charming coffee house in the area, settled in, and ordered some Parisian coffee. The coffees, which turned out to be espressos, were decent and offered a pleasurable boost to our morning. Something that also added a pleasurable boost was a seemingly innocent magazine call Psychologie that was sitting on a nearby magazine rack. While leafing through, I found several luscious pairs of what I’ll call “Grand Tetons.” Page after page, these tetons just kept coming. I took it as a sign of great empathy on the editors of the magazine, who know the only people who would read Psychologie are patients in waiting rooms and French coffee bars. And I’ll tell you, it certainly made Bill and I smile. Thank you, editors!

After the espressos, we walked around the historic area – called the Butte – which is known for its vastly prominent influence on culture, art, fashion, food, and design, and made our way to the pinnacle of this cultural development: the Moulin Rouge.

It was still early morning at this point – even earlier than we thought because we’d all forgotten it was Daylight Savings day – so the sultry cabaret didn’t really have as much tempting allure as we’d hoped. Especially after Psychologie’s boobies.

So we moved on, and saw a scary metro stop, shown here. It was creepy in a Tim Burton “Nightmare before Christmas” kind of way and made us think – what were those Frogs thinking when they were designing this? “Let’s shoot for a Beetlejuice motif…”? But, that thought passed when we realized we had more sites to see.

So we entered the metro and got off at the Champs-Élysées, a seventeenth century garden-promenade turned avenue terminating in the Arc de Triomphe. (I have a funny but not-so-funny anecdote about this…ask me sometime).

After strolling, we got hungry and stopped at this place that served a great lunch, consisting of a sandwich and two desserts, and headed for our next stop: the Louvre. However, we were sidetracked by the siren’s call of the Musée D’Orsay, a museum much smaller and easier to conquer than the Louvre that consisted of French art. Yes, snuff films. [Editor’s note: It’s actually Impressionism. The espresso must have rotted Justin’s brain temporarily. Sorry for the inconvenience].

After going through the museum, I realized that there actually weren’t any snuff films to be found [Editor’s note: See?], but I did see a lot of Impressionism and Post-Impressionism. At first, I thought it looked great. But upon closer inspection, it turned out that a lot of the art work was blurry. Maybe the great impressionists (Monet, Renoir, Gauguin, Cézanne, Van Gogh) all had cataracts. Or maybe just poor vision and an absinthe hangover? Hmmm….

Actually, I have to say I really enjoyed the art. Much more than I thought I would. And, after having gone to the Louvre once before and seeing some of the bigger sites, I’m glad we decided to do this diversion. It added another, uniquely French, aspect to the trip.

A lot of people think of Paris as a romantic city. Granted, those people probably omit from their thoughts the ubiquitous mimes and body odor. But I’d say they’re pretty spot on. Paris is pretty darn romantic - even when you’re with your mom. Just nice sites, decent weather, and grand tetons.

Under One Roof

Since we’ve been here, Kate and I have been meaning to make the two-and-a-half hour drive up to Düsseldorf to see my family. It’s not a particularly long drive. And it’s actually very pretty, especially in spring, when the rapeseed buds on the rolling fields light up the various shades of surrounding pastels with their bright and happy blooms – yellow, like the color of cheap mustard. And the ornate church of Limburg – which can be seen from a nearby autobahn bridge – jutting out precariously above a deep ravine. Or the beautiful Siebengebirge (Seven Hills) region. I should know…I mean, it’s not like we haven’t already driven by the place three times already (twice to go to Holland and once to go to Köln). But, for whatever reason, we just hadn’t committed to seeing family.

Well, now we did. As you can see in the photos, we met the German relatives for a dinner last Friday night to a Balkan restaurant called Pfefferkönig located right down the street from my uncle Uwe’s house in Oberhausen. Present at the dinner were my mom, Bill, and Oma – of course – who are visiting for two weeks. But on the local side, there was my uncle (really second cousin) Uwe (pronounced OOH-vah) and his wife (Petra) and kids (Stefanie and Dustin), my great aunts (Anneliese, Gisele, and Angelika), and my other second cousin (Heide) with her husband (Frank).

The dinner was good – I’d actually been to the restaurant once before, when I was visiting Uwe – and ate the “half-cow with onions,” I believe. And seeing the family was actually pretty fun. Granted the majority of the conversation was in German, so Bill and Kate formed a quick bond….but it was good.

My mom and Bill are driving up there again tomorrow to pick up my Oma, whose been busy driving other people crazy for a change. Then, when she comes here, we’ll have to figure out a way to carry her up two flights of stairs. Does anyone remember how a pulley works?