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!!

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

Hope everyone has a nice week and safe travels! oxoxox

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. 

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!

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! 

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!

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!

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!! 

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…