Birthday Food

The red cake is raspberry and absolute delicious, the others are different breads with fruits.

These are the Turkish pizza breads with cheese and vegetables. There was so much food. see below for details...

Birthday Party

Today was the birthday party. Markus is 28 (again).
We spent the morning relaxing at the Activarium (see below) and then went home for the party.
About 20 of Markus' family came,

The party started with cake. Lots of cake. Raspberry gelatin cake, apricot cream cake, fruit bread cake. The raspberry cake was amazing. I had two pieces.

An hour later, we ate dinner. It was weird. Why the cake first? Different traditions...We ordered food from a Turkish cafe nearby. Many pizza pastry type things, with cheese or vegetables. They were beautiful and tasty, although I'm not a bread lover like some people are.

I made lentil soup, at Markus' request. I had to leave out the Chipotle peppers I usually use because I know the German taste. So, I supplemented with lots of garlic. Everyone remarked that the soup had no potatoes (must be an "American recipe"), but that it was delicious. The Germans and their beloved potatoes (smiling and shaking my head). Markus doesn't like potatoes in the soup, and I don't think they belong with lentils at all. At one point Mattias, Markus' cousin asked me to identify each vegetable in the soup, pointing to each with his spoon. I think to myself, it may be my recipe, but they are all German vegetables--I didn't travel with them. "Carrot, garlic, onion," I list all in German. He points to the white one. I almost laugh. It's celery root (I think!?). Marianne gave it to me when I asked for celery. It's an ugly, ugly vegetable. Not celery. Oh well.

I wish you all a Happy New Year. Guten Rutsch. It means "a good slide into the new year." Kick it off the right way.

Activarium

imagine the activarium (link)
my favorite german place

warm salty pool, outside
everyone lounging, barely swimming
mostly floating
kids playing, wearing water wings
visiting in many languages
steam swirling and rolling into the gray sky
the German winter is always gray and wet

inside the locker room, everyone all together
bare butts of all kinds
some saggy, too tan, little boy bottoms, perfect, shaved, tatooed
all busy
saunas, foot baths, showers, swim suits on and off

walk outside,
under a cozy robe
log cabin sauna
20 people sitting on towels, all nude
"guten tag," another couple enters the hot room
"guten tag" everyone together
then quiet
dark with light from under the bench
a fire stoked in the fireplace
10 minutes is enough
it's hot

stepping out of the sauna
steaming bodies, appears to be on fire
sweat disappears off skin
cool off with fake snow or a dip in the cold tub

men strut by, towels swung over their shoulder
letting it all hang (if you know what I mean)
what are they talking about?
I'm happy to not know, that way I make it up

lounge some more
recover from the sauna
nude knitting (not kidding!) and napping,
robes of every color, some with hoods and matching socks.
lounging with the salt lamps, orange tinted light
always in the quiet
so civil
so relaxed

or at least I am. I wish to take the activarium home with me.

Shopping

Today we took the train to Essen to go shopping. Well, I shopped and Markus mostly stood around and watched.

The outside of this store is actually all plants, hard to see in the picture, but it's flowers and greens...

These slippers are felt and wool and totally adorable. Who wouldn't be happy to wear these around the house?

After a glass of Gluhwein, we took a ride on a giant ferris wheel set up in the center of the city. This is the local synagogue as seen from above. The ferris wheel was fast, and nearly missed a building and the trees. Markus said he was afraid, but I don't believe him.

Fahrrad Shop

We visited one of our favorite shops in the area...the bike store. So many bike lights, seats, gloves, shoes, bags....anything you could imagine for a bike. Plus, you can try out out the bike in the shop. Most bikes are pimped out with generator lights, bell, rack, basket, fenders...even the kids bikes are ready to ride in any condition.

This is a classic Dutch style bike, very strange to steer. Notice the straight handle bar that almost hits my knee when I try to turn. I didn't crash into anything, got lucky once or twice.

This is a travel bike, not quite pocket size, but small enough for a big suitcase.

Here is Markus contemplating if he should attempt the unicycle. He decided he should not ride it. I wanted to buy one for his Birthday...

Phantasialand

Today we spent the day at an amusement park near Cologne. I had a lot of fun there. The sign above made me laugh, with it's bad english translations and all the red circles. So german. Not suitable for back or neck boneillness, or heart complaint. Also, you must be over 1.3 meters and under 2 meters tall. It was a sort of rollercoaster.

This double decker carrousel was decked out for the holiday.

The best part about this amusement park is, most of the rides are invisible from the outside, so you never actually know what you're getting into. You walk in, down stairs, up stairs, down a hallway, more stairs, down another hallway, and then you find out what you're in for. Everyone walked in and looked up, then walked out the exit. I talked Susanna into riding this with me, then after some convincing Markus did later. This tower (turm) is 200 feet tall, and it's actually a high tech ride inside. This was my favorite, I did it twice. It was like a falling dream come true. Just up, then down--fast. The feeling was fantastic.

An outdoor amusement park would not be possible in the Wisconsin winter, it was tolerable here. Also, luckily I had my long underwear on and some of the rides were indoors. Another interesting ride was in Chinatown. It was like "It's a small world" in Disneyland, but with a very dark twist. Seated in a half shell, you ride through the dark as the giant scenes pass by....Dragons and skeletons sailing ships in real water, giants tied up with little people climbing them, chinese ghost men with talking heads, bones hanging from the ceiling, graves with only hands reaching out, chinese royalty with 3 left hands, chinese women having tea...and everything in a repetitive robotic motion, giving it half life. I'm exhausted now, we spent 8 hours there.

Christmas Market

Classic German stuff.

Gluhwein for all, to help stay warm.
I didn't actually see anyone wearing Liederhosen... the ornaments were the best I could do.

Weihnachsmarkt

Chocolate covered apples, bratwurst, cotton candy, and a giant Christmas pyamid with candles.

Wind Farm

This is a wind farm off the coast of Holland that Markus spotted from the plane. The wing of the plane is shown in the picture also. In the distance, there were a hundred or more turbines, newly constructed. Very cool stuff.

German Christmas

We arrived yesterday with no problems. The flight was very civilized, as Markus put it. We had an extra seat the whole way, and went through customs in Iceland. We got a sneak peak at the airport. I saw Greenland on the flight over, floating icebergs...the air was so clear. I also saw a lighthouse off the coast of Greenland. Markus spotted a wind farm off the coast of Holland. We got some pictures from the plane. There was about a hundred wind turbines in the water, some not completed yet.

We went to the Christmas market last night. I had a bratwurst and my fill of Gluhwein. It was perfect. Micheal and Barbara went out with us, and we were all jolly and happy. We watched some punkish bagpipe players in the Renaissance part of the market.

Now, I am about to start the marathon of family and eating that is called Christmas here. We will start with church today and singing.

First though, we must go shopping. Markus wants to check out the final shopping hours before the stores close for the next 3 days. They are only open until noon today.

Merry Christmas everyone. Wish I could be in two places at once, with both my families.

School Dreams

A funny story happened in school yesterday. I arrived at my normal time, walked into the classroom, started talking to the two women who were there before me. We study a little for our test, and as the time goes on and no one else shows up for class we start to wonder. Then we talk about dreams we've had throughout the years. Occasionally I have a dream...I'm in high school, there's a blizzard, I can't get to school. I get there, realize I have a test in a class I've never been to, don't know my locker combination or the way to the classroom. It's just one thing after the next. So we all share dreams like that, and finally at 9:10, with still no one else in the classroom, I realize we are all sitting in the wrong room. We have two classrooms, one for Monday, one for Friday and they look just the same. Sure enough, the class was busy taking the test in the next room over. We walked in laughing about it. We had sat there for 20 minutes without questioning our own error. We thought maybe the snow was keeping everyone away, or class was canceled and we didn't get the phone call. Our teacher just laughed at us.

As the holidays come, the tendency is to hurry up and get things done. I would like to take a moment and reflect upon that.

(moment)

Think like a turtle.

Slow it down a bit.

Sit, think, put your head in your shell.