5 December: IWC Brunch & My Last Jazz Class

I had missed the IWC’s annual international holiday brunch last December, when I had to go home to Michigan to close up our house, so I was really looking forward to attending this year’s event. Originally I was planning to make my grandmother’s fresh apple cake, but I ran out of time and ended up bringing leftover chocolate chip cookies instead. I didn’t have to worry: this was an opportunity for the culinary expertise of the IWC membership to really shine, and we had the most incredible spread of international delights laid out in our usual meeting place at Café Merlin in Stuttgart-West.

Anne M. was greeting guests when I arrived. She took one look at me and said, “Oh, I may have thrown out your nametag already.” Leave it to sometimes-caustic Anne to make me feel like I had already been erased from the register! Inside, Anne W. and the other members of the IWC committee were still busy setting up the tables and passing out pieces of postcards depicting Stuttgart monuments; each guest was supposed to find the matching half of their postcard from those scattered amongst the tables to determine where they should sit. I found my place at a table of four, along with Carmel and Anne M., but my partner’s seat was vacant. Meanwhile more and more women were arriving, and I kept busy rounding up the participants from Beth’s party so they could sign her memory book before she arrived. I kept looking back at my table, but no one had claimed the seat across from me. Finally Beth came strolling in – just after I had stashed her book out of sight – and was given one of the last remaining postcards. Was it mere coincidence or odd fate that her card matched the one on the table across from me? We giggled about it like schoolgirls.

The IWC committee had put together a quiz about important women in history and we all spent a few minutes filling these out in our teams of four. Beth and Carmel did an astonishing job of coming up with answers to the questions, which included such items as, “How many women have been awarded the Nobel Prize?” Our table ended up with the most correct answers, for which accomplishment we were awarded the price of going through the buffet line first. (Good thing, too – you don’t want to keep a couple of pregnant women away from their food.) The feast was simply splendid – pastas and dips, salads and skewers, cookies and cakes of every imaginable variety, representing cuisines from around the globe. We ate and ate, and ate some more. Anne gave a short speech, raffle prizes were drawn, and donations were made to our charity, a women’s shelter in Stuttgart.

Beth had to rush off to a doctor’s appointment afterwards, but I didn’t want to leave. Finally, as the crowd was thinning out, I said my goodbyes to those members that I wasn’t likely to see again and then returned to the sign-in table, where I solemnly removed my IWC nametag for the last time. Anne M. told me to keep it.

This evening I attended my final jazz class. (I figured it would be pretty tough to get all the way out to Feuerbach next week with only one car between me and John, and we would have plenty of other things on our plate to worry about.) It was the Wednesday class, which was my least favorite of the two, but I had a good time and even mastered most of the combination. Marilena gave me a big hug at the end and wished me well. I can’t emphasize enough what a wonderful experience this has been and how happy I am that I worked up the nerve to take dance classes here. I only wish I had done it sooner. I have vowed to keep some element of dance in my life from now on.

On my way out, I stopped at the front desk to let them know that I was moving back to the U.S. and needed to cancel the automatic monthly withdrawal from my bank account. I ended up talking to the same bleached-blonde girl that I had spoken to on the first day that I walked through the doors of the New York City Dance School. I thought I explained my situation to her well enough, but she rattled off some long explanation about going to city hall and getting an official letter. Most of it was lost on me, so I sheepishly asked her to explain it again in English. She said that I had to get a letter from my city hall stating that I was leaving the country in order for them to cancel the bank order. She acted like I should know all about such a letter. I was dumbfounded, but figured that I could talk to the relocation people at Daimler and they would surely know what to do. (Apparently this is standard procedure when cancelling this type of membership in Germany. I honestly wonder what one does if one is simply unhappy with the service? What if I just wanted to stop taking classes, or switch to another school? Obviously the idiosyncracies of the German bureaucracy are still mostly a mystery to me. I can only be thankful that I have had the luxury of shouldering the relocation people at Daimler with most of the burdensome dirty work!)

3 December: Beth's Special Day

For the past several weeks, Shannon, Jane and I have been planning a special party in honor of Beth’s impending motherhood. Beth has been quite superstitious about her pregnancy and didn’t want a baby shower, so we decided to hold a “celebration of women, friendship and motherhood” instead with a group of close friends from the IWC. I volunteered to host the party, as it would be my last opportunity to entertain before our belongings are strewn to the four winds.

The festivities began at 10:00 this morning. Guests included Shannon, Brenda, Katrina, Thuy, Jane, and Tine (Jane and Tine brought their baby daughters along; Jane’s daughter Vera got along quite well with Cody, who was happy to give her big kisses). Everyone brought a dish to share; we ended up with egg salad sandwiches, pasta, fruit salad, cake, and chocolate chip cookies (the last made by me especially for Beth). I made party favors in the form of tiny glass canisters filled with loose tea, a spicy holiday blend provided by Jane.

With Jane and Shannon’s inspiration, we had several fun activities planned. First, everyone had been instructed to bring a bead to make into a bracelet for Beth. We went around the room and each person explained what the bead symbolized and why we thought Beth would make a wonderful mother. A few people hadn’t been able to find beads so I let them delve into my stash of jewelry-making supplies. At the last minute I chose a large ceramic bead in a pleasing shade of iridescent peach from my collection. I have had this bead since I was 12 or 13 years old; I bought it at the bead shop in Palo Alto while on a jewelry-making outing with my best friend, and made it into a necklace strung on a silk cord. I wore the necklace for a few years and eventually took it apart; the round peach bead has been sitting in my stash ever since. As I started explaining the bead’s history, I looked up and saw that Beth was beginning to get teary-eyed, which of course made me become quite emotional as well, so we both ended up having a good cry (blame it on the rampant hormones of pregnancy).

Our other piece of show-and-tell was to read aloud a favorite quote or story about motherhood or friendship. Some people quoted literature (Shannon brought excerpts from Alice in Wonderland) and others simply wrote straight from the heart. I had selected a quote about motherhood that I printed out and surrounded with pictures of all of the mothers in my life, and told Beth that I hoped that the collective wisdom of mothers everywhere would guide her on this new and exciting journey. It would be my job to collect all of the readings after the party and assemble them into a memory book for Beth, along with photos from today’s festivities.

Finally, we all brought Beth gifts designed to help her through the last months of her pregnancy. I knew a long time ago exactly what I wanted to give her: the original paperback versions of The Blue Sword and The Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley. These were my two favorite fantasty novels from my high school days and have provided some of the inspiration for my novel. When I gave them to her, I pulled out my own ragged-edged, faded copies to show her as well. Beth also received lots of luxurious bath products and just a few baby toys to put her well on the path towards motherhood. All in all, it was a lovely, emotional gathering and one that I am sure Beth, and all of us, will always remember fondly!

2 December: The Great Giveaway Begins

It is difficult to believe that one week from today, our apartment will be virtually empty, and two weeks from today, we will be flying home to Michigan. I have moved several times in my life, but those transitions have typically involved packing up all of my worldly possessions and taking them along with me to a new and unfamiliar place. This time around is a strange reversal on the theme: we are giving up all of the belongings that have populated our home for more than two years, but are returning to our own home and well-known surroundings. I will be very sad to say goodbye to our bright, airy apartment in our quaint green house on Brucknerstraße. We might not have picked out the furniture ourselves, but the pieces have become part of the fabric of our lives, just as the whole house has become our home away from home. It is somewhat disconcerting to think that soon all of our possessions will be scattered across Stuttgart and beyond, in the homes of friends and strangers. I take some comfort in knowing that Beth will have our dining room set, Debbie will have our desk, Jane will have our plates, Jürgen will have my photographs of the Southwest, and all of our other things will be put to good use by people who want and need them. But that doesn’t make up for the strange sense of emptiness that I feel when I imagine saying goodbye to all of this and returning home to the mundane life of Michigan.

I’ve done everything in my power over the past couple of weeks to sell our remaining furniture. I created a website, gave a flyer to Shannon to post on base, put an announcement on the Stuttgart Newcomers e-mail list, and have been talking up our stuff with all of my friends. I’ve also been trying to sell some of the bigger items on German eBay, including the black leather chair and ottoman and two side tables in the living room, the bookcase in the office, our bed, wardrobe, and two dressers in the bedroom, the coat rack in the foyer, and the dining room rug. We are also trying to sell our voltage converter, which weighs half a ton. It cost around $250 but we have no interest (or need) in taking it back to the U.S. The only thing we used it for was to power our computer speakers, which weren’t dual-voltage, so we probably didn’t really need it in the first place. Beth helped me out with my first eBay listing, which was the black chair and ottoman, and we finally figured out how to specify “pick-up only.” I started the bidding on the chair at 200 Euro because we really wanted to get some money for it, but Beth encouraged me to start the other auctions at 1 Euro; otherwise she warned that my listings wouldn’t get any interest at all. I don’t know if this is the case on American eBay, but the German site is flooded with commercial outfits, so private sellers really get short shrift.

As of today, the auction results are pretty depressing. I sold the black chair and ottoman for my minimum bid of 200 Euro. They were purchased by an American woman whose husband works for Mercedes and has been taking German lessons from Stefanie. She came by a week or so ago to check out our things and expressed an interest in the chair, but only offered me 150 Euro for it. I told her I would put it on eBay and she was kind enough to bid on it. I’ve also sold the bookcase for 21 Euro, the dining room rug for 6 Euro (it originally cost 350 Euro), the upright dresser for 41 Euro, and the voltage converter for a whopping 4 Euro. There’s been no takers on the wardrobe or bed, which are the biggest items we need to get rid of! I know Shannon will buy the wardrobe for 65 Euro if no one bids on it, but her husband is going to be out of town so she would need a lot of help to get it dismantled and moved to her house.

Now I have to start scheduling pick-up times with everyone, which is proving to be a bit complicated. Some people just don’t seem to understand the concept of a set pick-up date – I indicated in each eBay listing that they could pick the items up between the 8^th and 10^th of December, but people have contacted me trying to pick things up earlier or later. Let’s just say I’m getting a lot of pratice writing e-mails in German!

Most of the people who bought items at our November sale will be coming next weekend, but Axelle, the French woman from the IWC who snatched up a lot of our freebie items, wanted to come today to take a few things because she has houseguests coming next weekend and she knew she wouldn’t be able to take everything in one trip. Her husband, a shy, balding Frenchman with a very small Citröen hatchback, showed up around 11 am and managed to load up his car with one of the dressers, two sets of bedding, the raclette machine, the bookcase from the living room, the storage unit from the foyer, a bread box, and the barbeque. Now our house is starting to look a little funny, with stacks of books and clothes lying around. The movers are coming on Friday, the 7^th, to pack up everything that will be shipped back to the States, and then we will empty out the rest of the house next weekend.

1 December: A Successful Trip to Strasbourg

Back in October 2005, one month into our stay in Germany, we drove over the French border to visit Strasbourg, only to find the city overrun with Germans on their day off. We scoured the streets for a parking space, only to depart in frustration without even stepping foot in the city. Today, with only a few short weeks left in Germany, we decided to try once again to visit the fabled city, home of the European Parliament and unofficial capital of Europe. Having secured Frau Dörr’s enthusiastic agreement to walk Cody one last time, we headed westward into the gloom of a drizzly December morning.

With our faithful navi Susie and some rather vague directions from our Fodor’s guidebook, we managed to steer ourselves towards the heart of Old Strasbourg, situated on an island in the middle of the River Ill, and found a parking structure with space available near the Pont St. Nicolas. Using the enormous bulk of the Faculté de Medicine and Hôpital Civil as our landmarks, we bundled up against the chill and armed ourselves with umbrellas, then set off in the direction of the single red sandstone spire of the Cathédrale Notre-Dame, which marks the city center (photo, right). We crossed the river and set off down rue Leclerc towards the cathedral. The square in front of the cathedral was just as I remembered it from my last trip to Strasbourg at Christmastime, some thirteen years ago at the end of my semester in Montpellier: crowded with festive market stalls selling a vast array of holiday decorations, tourist kitsch, and freshly-baked holiday treats. What I love about Strasbourg is the collision of French and German culture – at any one food stall you could find steaming salted bretzels (pretzels), sugar-covered beignets (donuts), jam-filled crêpes, and gaufres (waffles) topped with whipped cream. The quintessential hot spiced wine is billed as both vin chaud and glühwein. After strolling around the market for a bit and taking a pit stop at a public restroom, we headed into the cathedral.

Begun in 1176, the ridiculously ornate façade of the Cathédrale Notre-Dame gives way to a stark Gothic interior, complete with original stained-glass and stunning rose window. The cathedral was swarming with people and we soon found out why: just before noon, a voice echoed through the interior informing anyone who did not have a ticket to view the daily chiming of the 16^th-century Horloge Astronomique (astronomical clock) to leave the premises immediately. A bit dismayed by our curtailed visit, we filed out with the rest of the ticketless and decided to head up instead – 330 feet up, to be exact, to the viewing platform at the base of the spire. After paying a few Euro for the privilege of making the ascent, we headed up a series of narrow spiral staircases to the windswept platform. Some people don’t like the hike due to the open grillwork of the stairs, but I can assure you that climbing the spire at Ulm was much worse! (Of course, the Ulm spire was built in the 19^th century while this one dates to the 15^th, so you have to put your faith in those medieval engineers.) We were a bit disappointed that we couldn’t climb further up the spire, but we still got some nice views over the rooftops of Strasbourg (photo, right). It was windy and spitting rain, so we didn’t linger long.

Back on solid ground, we continued our stroll through the market stalls and peeked into a couple of shops. I bought a small wrought-iron kitchen towel rack at one store, my requisite cheesy Strasbourg magnet at another, and then we spied a couple of very cute hats in the window of La Chapellerie, a tiny magasin du chapeaux (hat shop) near the cathedral. I indicated to the young woman who waited on me which ones I would like to try on, butchering the French language in the process (although I did manage to spit out dans la fenêtre for “in the window”), and successfully completed my purchase of a darling brown suede chapeau.

We were starting to get hungry as the afternoon was wearing on, so we purused our Fodor’s guide and decided to take a stab at squeezing into Maison Kammerzell, the most prominent restaurant on Place de la Cathédrale. Unfortunately they were fully booked, so we had to satisfy ourselves by admiring the richly-carved 16^th-century exterior. Throwing caution to the wind, we started walking away from the cathedral towards the neighborhood of La Petite France and found a small restaurant on a quiet backstreet that looked promising. By promising, I mean that the place specialized in Alsatian cheese and potato dishes. Since the combination of cheese and potatoes is one of my personal obsessions, I knew we would find something here to hit the spot on this cold, damp day.

Unfortunately they didn’t have any tables available on the main floor, which was a very atmospheric space of ancient stone walls and arches, but were shown downstairs into the rather plain basement dining room instead. Regardless, it was warm, crowded, and we were starving! We both ordered sampler platters featuring various combinations of potatoes and sausages smothered with several different varieties of cheese, accompanied by a nice side salad and a thick slice of baguette slathered with goat cheese. Let’s just say I was in cheese heaven! We decided to skip dessert, although the options looked enticing, and headed back outside to take advantage of the last hour or two of daylight.

We walked along the river’s edge (photo, above), admiring the beautiful pastel-hued half-timbered houses, and watched a tour boat pass through a lock. The streets of La Petite France, lined with leaning houses featuring bold black-and-white half-timbering, were crammed with tourists, so we pushed our way through and eventually found ourselves near the monumental stone towers marking the Ponts Couverts (Covered Bridges, although they have lost their wooden shelters; photo, right). From here we could see across the water to the Barrage Vauban, an immense brick dam dating to 1682. We climbed to the grass-topped roof of the dam for a dramatic panorama of the Ponts Couverts and, beyond, the towers and rooftops of Old Strasbourg (photo, below).

We walked through the interior of the dam to get to the other side of the river and found ourselves in a long, arched hall lined with fenced-off chambers crammed full of jagged chunks of stone, gargoyles, and broken sculptures. It was unclear where they all came from, but my guess is that they were bits and pieces of the city’s buildings and churches that had been damaged over the years, or perhaps were part of the destruction from the war.

We made our way slowly back to the center of the city, passing by the École Nationale d’Administration, Strasbourg’s famed school of political studies. By now, dusk was falling and the Christmas lights had been turned on, transforming the winding streets into a fairytale world of twinkling stars and angels. On our way back to the river, we stopped at a street vendor for a couple of sugared pretzels (think French beignet meets German bretzel) and cups of hot chocolate. Thus satiated, we headed back to the car for the two-hour drive home to Stuttgart. The weather hadn’t exactly cooperated, but we enjoyed our little weekend jaunt to Strasbourg and I was glad to finally check it off my travel list!

More pictures of Strasbourg:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hausfrau/sets/72157604354421244/

30 November: SLK, We Hardly Knew Ye

The dreaded day has come at last. Not wanting to duplicate last year’s frantic journey to the smart Kundencenter – which, as you may recall, involved misplacing my car’s paperwork, getting stuck in a traffic jam, taking the wrong exit off the Autobahn, failing repeatedly to reach John, and arriving nearly half an hour late for my appointment – this time I made sure that I had all of the SLK’s paperwork in order well in advance and left myself plenty of time to get to the Mercedes Fahrzeugrückgabe (car return). Before leaving I took a few final pictures of the SLK in our driveway and then hopped in the car for my last ride. I can’t say that I will have a legitimate reason to own a convertible two-seater sportscar for a very long time, if ever, so I feel incredibly lucky to have experienced this sleek and stylish (albeit woefully underpowered) example of German automotive engineering over the past twelve months. I just couldn’t believe the time had flown by so fast.

I arrived at the car return (photo, right, with the SLK visible just to the right of the sign) about ten minutes early and waited for John to show up in the E-Class. We went inside and waited in line for about ten minutes. I let John handle the talking – he is so much better than me in these situations! We handed over our keys and paperwork and then we had to wait another fifteen or twenty minutes while they went to check out the car. (During this time you are welcome to hang out in snazzy black-and-chrome lounge chairs and get yourself a cappuccino or a bottled water while reading the days’ newspapers or watching TV.) Finally they called our name and proceeded to run through a litany of numbers that we could barely understand; it was totally déjà vu from last year. What I got out of the whole thing was that there was something wrong with the paint. (The car did have an unidentifiable substance, presumably some sort of toxic tree sap, sprayed all over it some months ago that I had never been able to remove. It turns out that the Mercedes people couldn’t remove it either and were going to have to repaint the car! Fortunately this was not our problem; it would be covered by the company’s insurance.) The bottom line was that we had not exceeded our mileage limit so we would receive some money back, just like last time. John signed the paperwork and we were done, and the SLK was gone, just like that.

I drove John back to work but just before dropping him off, I quickly snapped a picture of his building (photo, above; the funny arched thing going off to the left is a pedestrian bridge), to his great chagrin. It’s the closest I’ll ever get to going inside. John never wants me to get my camera out in the vicinity of his building for fear that armed Mercedes guards will hunt me down and confiscate my camera. I know they tend to be sensitive about such things, but surely they would permit me a souvenir picture of the building!

I drove back to Sindelfingen to pick up John this evening and then we went downtown to visit the Weihnachtsmarkt. I had been invited by my friend Judy to attend her choir’s Christmas concert in the courtyard of the Altes Schloss, which was to begin at 6:00 pm. We got there a bit late and they were already well into their set of songs, but we got to hear the second half. The choir was joined by a brass ensemble and the two groups performed several pieces together. It was simply a magical experience to listen to the traditional carols (with a few modern pieces thrown in) against the backdrop of the 600-year-old palace, its arched arcades glowing golden in the crisp evening air.

After the concert we hooked up with Judy, her husband, and a few of their friends for a round of Glühwein. (Well, actually I had Kinderpunch, a hot spiced fruit punch that was actually pretty tasty.) Judy surprised me with a very special farewell gift – she is a painter on the side and made me a darling oil painting of a traditional German pretzel! I was so touched by this very thoughtful and unique gift. After a bit of socializing, we said our farewells and then John and I wandered around the market for a bit. John got his favorite crêpe – slathered generously with Nutella, of course – from the same stand and the very same woman who served us last year, while I succumbed to temptation and ate an entire Germknödel – my favorite yeast dumpling filled with plum jam and smothered in poppyseed butter and powdered sugar – all by myself. Before heading home, we strolled out to the SchlossplatzKönigstraße lit up by a million white lights. and soaked up the dazzling sight of the From this vantage point we could see the two palaces, the Stiftskirche, the modern art gallery (a.k.a. “the Cube”), the Königsbau, and, of course, the Fernsehturm twinkling on its hill above the city. More pictures from tonight are on Flickr in the link I provided yesterday.

29 November: Downtown Stuttgart & Weihnachtsmarkt

This afternoon I drove downtown for the last time in the SLK, because I will be turning it in tomorrow and then will be ohne Auto (unless I drive John to work) for the duration of our time in Germany. I parked in a structure next to one of the big department stores and strolled up the Königstraße to check out the festivities at the Weihnachtsmarkt. I took a few pictures of some Stuttgart landmarks along the way; you can see them here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/hausfrau/sets/72157604346572805/

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.”