28 November: Moving Survey & Dinner For Stefanie

I spent this morning cleaning house and then made one of my favorite desserts, Chocolate Brownie Puddle, in preparation for having Stefanie over for dinner this evening. Unfortunately the chocolate ganache didn’t turn out quite right this time – I think some of the water from the double boiler may have gotten into the chocolate – so it turned out rather dull and pasty instead of smooth and shiny, but it tasted just as good. I’ve been wracking my brain for weeks trying to decide what to make for Stefanie. I know she only eats chicken and fish, so I decided chicken would be the safest choice, but then I couldn’t settle on a simple, fool-proof recipe. Much as I enjoy cooking, I rarely cook for other people, so I am a bit rattled whenever I have guests over. I also don’t like to be cooking everything at the last minute, but I’m not great at planning out what should happen when. My mom came to the rescue with a very simple recipe for chicken breasts sautéed in a white wine sauce, which will be accompanied by roasted potatoes and a green salad. For an appetizer, we found a recipe for pear and blue cheese crostinis that I can prepare in advance and just pop in the oven when Stefanie arrives.

This afternoon I had to take a break from my meal preparations to await the arrival of a representative from Hartmann, the German moving company, who would be completing a survey of our belongings that we wanted shipped back to the States. I had prepared a list just like last time, identifying the items room by room. A young woman from Hartmann rang promptly at 2:00 and I took her through the house, pointing out everything, and gave her my list. Hopefully we won’t have a repeat of our traumatic moving day in Michigan, when the movers insisted that they weren’t allowed to ship bikes or skis!

John got home early as instructed and Stefanie arrived precisely at 6:00. Fortunately I had dinner mostly under control by that point, but I knew she wouldn’t mind watching some of the last-minute preparations since she has always expressed a keen interest in my cooking. The crostinis were a big hit (you chop and sauté the pears, place a spoonful on each baguette slice, top with crumbled blue cheese, and toast in the oven for a few minutes until the cheese melts) and dinner went off without a hitch. We had a wonderful time chatting with Stefanie, of course, but I was saddened that this would most likely be the last time I see her. After dessert, I brought out Stefanie’s goodbye gift, the pink-and-gray ribbed scarf that I have been working on for nearly a year. I just managed to finish it last night and barely had enough yarn to make it long enough. I’m pretty sure she would have liked just about anything I knitted for her, but hopefully she will enjoy wearing this scarf and remembering all of the good times we shared over mugs of tea and my travel photos. We had a little photo shoot with Cody and then bid our farewells. I will never forget Stefanie – from the first day she walked into our classroom in Esslingen, blue eyes twinkling behind her round glasses, I knew she was going to be fun. I could not have asked for a better teacher to guide me through the ins and outs of “that awful German language.”

4 September: My Final Deutschkurs

It is hard to believe that after a year and a half of weekly tea parties with Stefanie, my valiant efforts to broaden my grasp of the German language are finally coming to an end. I baked chocolate chip cookies as a special treat, but Stefanie will have to wait a bit longer for her farewell surprise: a pink-and-gray ribbed scarf that I have been knitting for the past six months. Unfortunately I am only about half-way done with it, so I’d better pick up the pace. I don’t think I will ever make a very good knitter because I’m just too darn slow. Knitting is pretty boring, so I like to watch TV while I’m working. Unfortunately that doesn’t work here because I can’t listen to German TV and knit at the same time. Watching TV requires my complete concentration, so that I can try to decipher what is being said from visual cues. The same thing goes for ironing – if I tried to watch TV and iron at the same time, I’d probably end up with a lot of burnt fingers. Unfortunately this means I haven’t been watching as much German TV as I should. Instead, I usually watch a movie on our laptop while I iron, then afterwards I knit my way through the end of the movie. That means I only get in about an hour or so of knitting every week, which doesn’t get you very far when you’re making a scarf on #7 needles.

Stefanie brought treats for Scotty, a doggie chocolate bar for Cody, and a 2008 German cooking calendar for me. I had never gotten around to showing her my photos from our final day in Africa, so I did that, since she was interested in hearing about our visit to the slum. Then we talked a bit about the future and what I might do when we move back to Michigan. Before she left I took some pictures of her and Cody. It was a tearful parting – I felt like I was saying goodbye to a friend, therapist and mom all rolled into one. Of course it wasn’t really goodbye, because we’ve agreed to go to the Mercedes museum sometime and I told Stefanie that we wanted to invite her over for dinner before we leave. Still, it was very strange to think that my remaining weeks in Germany will be devoid of my usual two-hour dose of German conversation. On the bright side, it means I don’t have to clean up the house every Tuesday morning and I’ll have that much more time to write!

7 May

Eiko was back from his hunting trip today. Gerd just got his one buck but his friends didn't get any deer, so they were all frustrated. Gerd had actually seen several more deer but he chose not to shoot them because he didn't want his friends to be jealous. Now isn't that honorable? It was cloudy today but we’ve had only the briefest sprinkle. What we really need is a good solid downpour.

Evelyne told me a rather creepy story (after we ran into a guy walking alone in the woods who acted a bit odd) about how she and her girlfriend were walking one morning a few years ago and they saw what looked to be a man’s legs sticking out from behind a tree a short distance from the trail. They thought it was a little strange but didn’t investigate further. It turns out that the man had committed suicide, probably earlier that morning, but he wasn’t discovered until a dog sniffed him out that evening. Evelyne had to talk to the police and explain what she had seen. She said she felt very strange passing that spot for a long time afterwards.

I haven’t said much about my German lessons with Stefanie in quite a long time, but they are going swimmingly – we never run out of things to talk about, and I always have more pictures to show her. (We still haven’t gotten through all of Africa yet.) Today we discussed my visit to the Wilhelma and she asked me how I felt about zoos. I told her it was very difficult to see all the African animals cooped up in pens and cages after seeing them in the wild.

Next week is going to be pretty busy as we’ll be getting ready for our trip to Michigan, so we decided to take a two-week pause. I’m sad to say that I only have nine classes left with Stefanie. I'm going to try to stretch them out until August.