Gilber-müllers in Bremen

Peter and his wife Karola and baby Sam came to Bremen for a short but totally wonderful visit this past weekend! Luckily the weather cooperated for us enough to take a walking tour of town and have lunch on the beach-y bank of the Weser.

 

Peter and Sam at brunch time…

 

 

These blue eyes gunna break some hearts… 

 

Well, maybe once he learns how to wipe his mouth   

 

A “Rundfahrt” or “tour” around Bremen…  

 

Some awesome Sam-appropriate graffiti on a building in Viertel (artists quarter) 

 

 

Doesn’t Seth wear this baby well? 

 

 

 

Guess he doesn’t look bad here either… 

 

 

It was an amazing weekend. Peter and Karola are such super-amazing parents. It was so wonderful to have them stay with us in our little place. Sam is totally beautiful and will be a genious!!

Oh, and last week I finished my first sweater. Very simple and for a munchkin (another friend with a new baby), but looking pretty good! 

 

 

Not bad, huh? I guess I can start taking orders.

 

Hope everyone has a nice week and safe travels! oxoxox

Entschuldigung Sie, bitte. Hier ist mein Schließfach.

 

 

So. Gym locker rooms are different here than in the U.S.  Although I haven’t been a full member at a gym or spent a lot of time in locker rooms outside of school, perhaps my previous experience puts me at a loss. Here’s what we are dealing with here:

 

When Seth and I signed up to work-out at Eisenhower gym here in Bremen, we had no idea the great service, excellent results and friendly staff that we were going to experience. We really enjoy going there 3 or more times a week. We know all the employees, and work out with many of the same people, who are always very kind.

 

 But how kind should a person be when they are completely naked, their towel around their head putting on lotion with one leg up on the bench of the locker next to yours “Uh, hallo, hier is mein Schließfach…” “Excuse me, but this is my locker.” Can you please scoot your naked butt a little further down and maybe turn the other direction with your leg up like that while you are coating yourself with lotion so I can just throw my coat in here and RUN AWAY….

 

Even speaking in the direction of such a naked stranger seems inappropriate to me, let alone looking in their direction or holding a whole conversation with them. It is quite fascinating to hear the naked ladies just carrying on conversations with each other in their birthday suits like it isn’t a big deal.  

 

My eyes have been burned a few times when, upon first entering the locker room, there stands right across from the entrance, a half naked woman, towel around waist, boobs swinging freely, drying her hair in front of the “wall ‘o mirrors”. 

 

Where in our social development as Americans did we lose this sense of comfort with nudity? Seth thinks it was those Puritans really messed us up. Although shocking to me when I encounter it without preparing myself, I find it really wonderful that they can still feel secure and comfortable enough with their gym colleagues (who may also be work, or school colleagues too–eek) to bare it all. Sport, and wellness are strong in tradition here. Wellness including things like spa, sauna, massage, all those sense-based and homeopathic types of remedies. Also tanning is really popular here, especially among retiree-types, which is also different from the U.S. Our gym probably has an average age of 55-60 and there are 6 very serious tanning beds in the locker room. We also have what I think is a co-ed sauna, though I can’t say exactly since we haven’t really experienced it first hand yet.

 

I just remember in High School, and Junior High, no one ever set foot in the showers. I am so sorry for our poor teachers who had to endure the stink after gym. There were a majority of us who opted to take gym as a summer school class, just to avoid this problem ourselves. Considering how much time it would take me to get showered and ready in the morning, there was no way you could replicate that in the 10 minutes you are given to change during the class period within the regular school day.

 

 > Also, who wants to even think about those big banks of shower heads poking out of the cold, tiled wall in the huge open room which looks less inviting than an examination room in a morgue. At least in college they had finally accommodated the majority of us prude, shy, self-conscious students with individual stalls where you could shower in relative privacy.

 

Why are children programmed to laugh at nude art? Why do some adults squirm or giggle in the same way when they, too, observe even the most famous of nude sculptures like David?I guess until I can think more about the root of this idea, I will be keeping my eyes lowered, stare at my shoes, and continue to cower facing my locker, fully clothed, while the others fully enjoy their whole wellness and training experience. 

Alles in Ordnung?

Hi everyone,Yesterday and today I had really tough but enlightening experiences at the Ausländerbehörde. This is the office where people from other countries go to get their work and residence visas. Because I had been hired by Berlitz language school to teach, I needed to get my Visa changed so that I was able to legally work.

 

Yesterday I went in, and the secretary looked at my passport and visa, I told her my story, she went to talk to a colleague, came back and she said, “no, actually the type of visa you have says that you can’t work until it runs out and you renew it.” I was so frustrated. How could the answer be just, no. I called my friend Mariam and she was free so she met me and we went back to the office. But, of course, it was already noon, so it was closed. We cornered one of the security people that was working there earlier in the day when I came alone. Mariam asked her a bunch of questions, tole her our story and the lady said I could try to come today at 6:30am and get on the waitlist to hopefully be seen by someone who could better explain or help me.

 

So, Seth and I got up this morning and took the bus to the other side of town, got on the waitlist as #1 for the day, went to the correct office, waited. Then at 7:30 they started sending us down to the correct office to meet with someone face to face. We lucked out with a very nice young lady as our helper, and in the end, she said Berlitz had to do some paperwork, and it had to be sent around to a couple of offices, so if everything were in order, my work status would get approved, but not in time to work at came Friday or the next week, either. Although I was bummed, I felt better. I felt like someone actually took the time to investigate my situation and got a real answer, even if it wasn’t the best one…I guess it wasn’t the worst one, either.

 

So, until it gets worked out, I’ll resort to other methods of earning a few bucks. I’ve been experimenting with my photos, and posting them on a website called Zazzle. Feel free to browse the store below!

 http://www.zazzle.com/beautifulidealism

 

Other than that, I’ll just be preparing for a little jazz show I’m singing for a evangelical rock-n-roll style church fundraiser…. Yeah, yeah, I know. But it pays money, and it will be a fun, laid back chance to sing with a friend of mine from German class playing keyboard (and accordion, too ).

 

That’s all for today, folks! 

Angie’s Venetian Cicchetti Party

Seth got together a SUPER b-day fest for me yesterday. Three pairs of our best buddies here in Bremen came over for what was to be an attempt at re-creating our eating experience in Venice in January. Here are some pics of the delicious results. 

 

Seth picked out a good grappa from Vom Fass, a chain store in Germany that sells licqour out of barrels or giant glass beakers. They always let you taste, so the job of picking one out proved to be very fun for Seth.  

 

 Here are our finished Tramezzini. They are just simple little sandwiches with no crusts and cut into triangles. Ours were filled with home-roasted eggplant, Red/Green/Yellow peppers, and a cream spread you can buy here that is sort half-way between Miracle Whip and Philadelphia Cream Cheese. YUM. We need to roast eggplant more often.

 

The most fun of our day was making the “assembly line” where we would put together our little bites of goodness. Seth particularly appreciated the planning of this. My usual style of cooking is just a little of this and a little of that, but yesterday I could give more specific instructions. He was a wonderful sous-chef.

 

These are our finished Fig-Parmigiano-Orange Marmelade Cicchetti. Like little leaning towers. The marmelade was a little sour, the parmigian was a little salty, and the figs were sweet and chewy. They were my personal favorite. 

 

I got a good close-up of one other bite, this one was a Pesto-Ricotta spread with Lingonberries. This was really easy to make because we just blended about 1/4 cup good fresh pesto with two small tubs of ricotta cheese. The lingonberries are sometimes available fresh here, but for some reason, I couldn’t find any this week, so I used some out of the jar. That little burst of sweetness is really nice and unexpected. 

 

Our third cicchetti recipe we tried to re-create was for Artichoke Tapenade-Brie. The tapenade was just two cans of artichokes, drained, and blended a food processor with two cloves of garlic and 2 tablespoons olive oil and the juice of 1/2 a lemon. This we piled atop a slice of brie, and sprinkled just a dash of pepper on top. We also had some fried olives, fried sage leaves, almond-stuffed olives, and sweet and sour shallots. Grappa, gelato, coffee and amarettini for dessert.

 

  Here was our final set-up of the buffet table. With 8 people in the house, we had to borrow some plates and the lovely Carolina saved the day with her delivery of glasses and plates. 

 

 

It was so very nice to be able to spend a lazy Sunday evening with friends. We thrive so much on these friendships. Being so far from home, from what we know, it is so helpful to have these really genuine pals who are ready to help and give advice at every tricky corner. The work we do, and our nomadic lifestyle have made it hard for us to cultivate these types of friendships in the way we really would like to. Hopefully in the next few years we can get to a place where we can have more opportunity to do this.

 

Have a great week everyone! And thanks to all of you for your birthday wishes!

After Italy…

Happy Saturday All,After a six week hiatus from the blog, I figured it was time to make use of this lazy Saturday to check in. I promise that I will someday lay out the entirety of my journal from Italy. But right now it just seems too daunting.At the end of  January we had Bremer Karneval. Not exactly like Rio, but it was a fun two days of percussion and parades. Our friend, Tania, was a member of one samba band that was quite excellent. Here are some pics taken by others (as usual, my camera battery hadn’t been charged):

 

  

 

I finally finished my gigantic scarf project, and with the extra yarn whipped up my first pair of gloves.   But we also had a great surprise at the Asian Supermarket yesterday, white gold!:  

 

 

Note the Chinese writing on the front. Nice. Now we don’t have to buy dozens of small packets of Natron from the Drug Store just to bake cookies anymore God bless the Asian Market!

 

We did get to take a little pause this week to celebrate Valentine’s Day. During Seth’s afternoon break we went to a restaurant called Ambiente, which runs off of solar power. It is right on the river and is a lovely spot to get some food or just have a drink in the beer garden when the weather is good. We were inside yesterday but we answered our bellies’ calls for PIZZA and BEER. I know, very exotic, but man was it good. Then we finished it off with some Kaffee and Kuchen. 

 

 

As many of you know already. Seth and I are planning on coming home at the end of the Summer. While we have made wonderful friends, and seen wonderful things here, it hasn’t been working out for Seth at work. We decided the best thing would be to come home rather than put him though another year at the theater here. Plus, it has been challenging for me to get energized about finding work. The few leads I had didn’t really work out, so I’ve been a little creatively stagnate for the past few months, and I am ready to get back to work. So, we’re going to make the most of the next 7 months. We’re definitely looking forward to all the family visits coming up in the Spring and Summer. 

 

Thanks for everyone being so supportive of us these days. They haven’t been easy. Especially for Seth. He comes home with new or bigger bruises every day from work. The show he is in right now is exceptionally active (the total polar opposite of  ”park and bark” style of opera) . And the whole cast is tired and fed up. Here’s one of Seth’s most impressive tatoos (Today it has turned black. It is about 10 inches long across his lower back):

 

 

 

Who ever said opera was for wimps?But, amazingly, after a week of colleagues calling in sick to protest, screaming at the director and conductor and storming off the stage, crying, and the like, the cast got the entire day today off. TWO DAYS OFF WORK! It is amazing. Last night we started watching the 5 th season of 24 which I rented from the library. We may watch the next 6 disks worth over the weekend. It will be a 24 marathon in the Keeton household!

 

I will leave you with pics of some narcissus plants that our pal, Tania, gave to us this week. The bright sun was actually out and shining right into the kitchen this morning. Glorious. Have a great weekend everyone!

 

  

“Tannenbaum, o Tannenbaum wie treu sind deine Blätte!”

Oh Tannenbaum, how faithful are your leaves.We got our very own Tannenbaum this week. Angie carried it back from a home and garden superstore, and then on a bus, and then on a train, through the rain and wind. Although it is a small tree, only about 4 feet tall, it is still alive in a pot. Did you know that a pot of dirt is really heavy. Maybe we should have thought that one out better. But, through the sweat and tears and needle pokes, we have our live tree tucked into a nook of our living room. The plan is to plant it in the garden after the holidays are over. We also tried to be just as Eco-friendly with our decorations. We made origami paper ornaments, and star-topper, and also a popcorn garland. Since we’re trying to avoid collecting too much stuff, this will work out great. The popcorn will go out to the birds and the paper will get recycled.Here’s our finished product:  

 

      

 

We also had a quick trip to Hamburg Tuesday for Seth to have and audition with the public artists agency there. We were met by the daughter of our neighbor (the psychologist who’s office is in the apartment next to ours), who we met at her mom’s birthday. She is living there while she is studying at the university. She was wonderful and showed us a lot of the non-touristy sights in the city. The most fun was riding the trains with Seth. Other than getting bum info from the Deutschebahn Infocenter guy (and having to pay a $10 upgrade on our ride home) it was a nice day out of Bremen. 

 

  

 

No big plans for the weekend except to meet up with pals, and watch the Werder Bremen soccer game Saturday. It’s the last game in the German League until February!! What will we do on our Saturday afternoons now?  

 

Have a great weekend everyone!! 

Just when you start to think: “Man, when are we gunna have another festival?”…

…another one comes. Yes, I know it is hard to come to grips with it, but we are already in the midst of another festival. This one lasts from November 29th just up until Christmas. All downtown is lined with Christmas trees, lights and once again, the huts and log-cabin-esque booths have been re-erected, now sporting winter themed decorations. Lots of portable pubs where you can sample some of the best variations of hot alcoholic beverages around.One portion of the Weinachtsmarkt is along a road that runs along the Weser river called the “Schlachte”. This is where boats docked and they would be unloaded into the warehouses at the top of the river bank. Now these warehouses have been renovated and turned into bars and restaurants and expensive condos, and is usually a nice place to come and have a beer and watch the ships pass on the river. But during the Weinachtsmarkt, it is transformed (especially in the nighttime) into what is called the “Schlachte Zauber” or Schlachte Magic. All the stands here are medieval in appearance and the shop-keepers dress in renaissance-fair types of costumes and even speak an old German dialect to their modern customers. All the trees are up-lit with beautiful blue nights, and the street is just PACKED with people.  
 We visited on Saturday after watching the Werder soccer match in a nearby bar (Werder won and it put them, temporarily, in first place in the German league). We wandered into the crowd and our friend, Tania, took us to a place that sold “Flammkuchen”. It is essentially a German form of a pizza. They take a really flat dough, roll it into an oval, then top it with cream, cheese and onions and toss it for a minute into a wood-burning oven. It was delicious and the perfect treat after drinking a liter of beer at the pub. The next holiday treat we had to try was “Eierpunsch” which is similar to our Eggnog. “Eierpunsch” or Egg Punch is some sort of crazy concoction of eggs, cream, rum sugar and God knows what else, served warm in a clay mug. The warmth provided by it’s actual temperature and it’s liquor was enough to encourage us to keep meandering, even as the temperature began to dip down near freezing.We plan to visit MANY more times! Anything to break the grip of S.A.D. we are experiencing from the sun setting around 4pm every day this month.  Seth has some auditions coming up for German agents. Today he flew to Munich and next week we head up to Hamburg – TOGETHER. It will be a fun little trip on the train, and a welcomed change of scenery.

No Turkey, but Just as Thankful

Our Thursday was filled with lots of phone calls to check in with the family, watching webcams of the Macy’s parade, and shopping in the farmers market to try to find all the goods we needed for putting together a respectable Thanksgiving in Germany. We did pretty good with two of our favorite things, sweet potatoes and cranberries. Though, at a party this week a German lady told me that cranberries have only been found here in the last 3 years or so, so we were lucky.  It might sound terrible to some, but on Saturday I took a little time to remind myself why I’m not eating meat by watching a video from PETA about Turkey farming. That was all it took for me to not take a second glance at the 18 lb bird Trish cooked up for our belated Thanksgiving feast on Sunday. (We now call their house the Center for American Culture)There were 3 vegetarians (the other was Márton a Hungarian/German who is a genious with music and languages who actually practices something he calls Fruititarianism, seriously strict but following with Buddhist of Jainist teachings on consumption of food) and 4 carnivores. There were a couple of unintentional misplaced comments by some of the Turkey eaters that kind of made us feel awkward, but for the most part we had a really great time. There was homemade apple and pumpkin pie, our homemade cranberry sauce, Mom’s recipe for “Green Rice” which everyone loved, faux meatballs from the Fruitatarian, AND the big success was Seth’s Gluhwein (mulled wine) that got full approval from the native German in attendance! The evening ended with a walk home in the first snow of the season.  Hope everyone had a super weekend. What a shame for the Parkway Central Colts in the State Football Championships, they got quite a spanking. I guess it didn’t hurt as much to read the article than to see it live. But congrats to the Mizzou Tigers who I think are now at the top of the college league and have a great shot at a bowl game!Miss you all. 

Road Trip

Last week, John Federovitch graced us with his presence here in Bremen. He also acted as currier of many wonderful goods from home. It was so much fun showing him around town, watching a Werder soccer match, eating regional delicacies at the Ratskeller (serving since 1405 !!!), and despite rain when he was trying to get to and from the airport, the weather generally behaved for us over the weekend. We are really grateful for his visit, as we know it was hard to spend extra days away from Katherine and Emily!Today, we got to drive really fast on the Autobahn. Although Tania’s little Toyota Corolla can’t keep up with the big BMW’s, we were still averaging 120-130 KPM which is 75 MPH through a city. Even some mini-vans were blowing by us. But it was all for a little afternoon trip to a town called Fischerhude, just 15 minutes north of Bremen. We had been excited to get out of the house for the afternoon, and had planned to only take a little walk around the little island in the middle of the Weser, with all the gardens. But Tanya called and said she needed to get out of town, so we excitedly volunteered to accompany her on her adventure. It is surrounded by beautiful and very flat farmland, mostly with cows, deer, and grass. It stays really wet so I don’t know what else they might be able to farm in this area. The town was really cute. Lots of thatched roofs and inscriptions over doors. On our walk through the fields and along the little brook, we saw a lot of flora and fauna. Here are some pictures.But the most amazing sighting was of this strange type of wood duck. I have never seen anything quite like it. Some Germans were feeding the ducks from a bridge and this pair of beautiful birds was among the mallards. I made a little video. Sorry we don’t really say anything brilliant, but you hear me and our friend Tanya. I wish our German was as good as her English. Click here for the video. Seth was sure happy to get out of Bremen, even if it was only for a few hours.Be on the lookout for a Thanksgiving Day Special Blogpost! 

Playing Catch-up: Settle in for a good Sunday read.

Hello dear hearts!
There are many photos BEGGING to be uploaded onto the blog. And finally, I have an hour to type and drag and drop and have Regina Spektor as the soundtrack to it all.

Today is the last day of 2 weeks of nightlights, stores staying open later than usual, lots of sweet smells from the market square, and full trains of happy, drunken Germans going back home after a day of revelry at Freimarkt. We checked the main location out last Sunday and have strolled through the section in the city center a number of times in the past 2 weeks. Basically it is like the Minnesota State Fair, without the animals. But, all German style. For the 2 weeks they set up Six Flags sized portable rollercoasters, log flumes, carousels, and the like…

…as well as trailer after trailer of games, prizes, food, beer, and GLÜWEIN (the German version of mulled wine). Even a couple of trailers that transformed into Bierhalls or pubs.

There were even specific dishes that resembled Minnesota. Instead of fried cheese curds there was the fried wheel of camembert.

Instead of fried snickers on a stick, snickers in a crepe.

Instead of drunk Minnesotans with cool glasses, drunk Germans with cool glasses.

Back on the market square away from the major gathering was a very respectible grouping of “historical” stands. Here the sales men and women all dressed in period clothing and sold lots of handmade items or wines or herbs, and of course lots of traditional German food. There was also a small ferris wheel and antique carousel in this location too. It made for some great photographs with the Rathalle and the Dom in the background…

And at the end of the day, you just say goodbye to Roland, the city’s soldier statue that represents commerce (which I think is about 400 or 500 years old)…

…or, maybe he takes the train home with you?

And, of course today, November 4th, is the day that my very special husband was born. A whole 32 years old today. As he likes to say, “One year closer to being old enough to sing Wagner.” We started the day nice and quiet with presents, and muslix with apples picked right off of our tree. I baked a cake to share later with a small group of pals. Then we headed up to Bürgerpark for a quick tour since Seth hadn’t seen it yet. The train stop is right at the corner where our friends Andrea and Matthias live. When we made it to the corner we saw Matthias on their balcony hanging Christmas lights, so we went to say hi, and subsequently were invited in to join them while they ate a quick lunch before they had to run off to another event (they are quite a pair of social butterflies). When we finally made it to the park after our short detour, we were in for a treat. I didn’t have the camera, so you’ll all just have to come here to see it. It looked something like this:

It is about the same size as Central Park in New York City, but there are so many more trees and artful landscaping and rivers, streams and gardens that you really can just get lost in this magical environment. The canopy of multicolored leaves was really spectacular. Many of the trees are real humongous. The park was planned back in the 1860s and has been expanded over the years and is really a gem! All who visit will get the tour!

We made it home just in time to greet our guests, Carolina (assistant director), Kelly (guest Soprano from NYC) and Marton (coach), and serve up some birthday wishes and chocolatey-sprinkle-y marble cake, and all the espresso we could brew (one serving at a time )

And then the theater called, and said that Kurt Riedel had thrown out his back and they needed Seth to sing the evening performance of Nabucco. Which he kindly said yes to. Technically they have to give you about 3 hours notice if you are going to fill in. But Seth sang anyway, and it was his best Nabucco yet! Here’s a pic of him in the sheep costume, without the big sheep head mask…

Next week brings a visit from John Fed! We are very excited, and are so grateful that he is spending a weekend with us. Considering the recent addition to the Federovitch clan, it really is an honor that he is taking an extra 3 days away from his two princesses! We are hopeful that sometime Katherine and baby Emily can come visit too.

And I close with another encounter with small cars. I smell 2 for 1 deals in NYC parking lots…