Tuesday Adventure

So yesterday I went in to Erlangen to exchange something that we bought on Saturday. I wanted to go to the pool, but the sky was threatening rain. So, I drove in, just using my memory from Saturday combined with street signs and found it quite easy. It's about the equivalent of going to Easton (for those who knows what that is) from our old house - except you don't take the freeway.

Anyway, I did some shopping (forgot to look for a cupcake pan for Luna's birthday, so I will need to go back today,) and had a nice time, and it was great for Luna to get out. I decided to head back around 3 o'clock or so. By the time I got on the road it was clearly going to storm, and the rain hit just as I was heading into Herzo. By the time I was driving through Falkendorf on the way back to Munchaurach, which is where our apartment is, it was hailing, with sheets of rain. Any car going by threw 6 feet of water up onto the windshield, and our little car was throwing 3 feet at least on either side.

Well, the windshield wipers on the Nissan Micra must be the original ones. The rubber strip was hanging off - I'm still not sure whether it was easier to see with or without them going. I could barely see the road, and was praying the whole time. With such little provincial roads, I wasn't sure how I could pull over, and figured I was almost home anyway.

Well, in between our house and the bakery there ia a little valley, with our house and the bakery situated on separate hills. There is a little bridge down at the bottom that goes over what I would characterize as a stream or creek. I stopped short in the car when I saw that the bridge was inaccesible due to at least 2 1/2 feet of water blocking the approach! I watched a couple cars go through, and slide around and knew that I wasn't going to risk it in that car and with Luna in the back. I didn't think I would get swept away or anything - but getting stuck was a real possibility!!

So with little idea of the local roads, I turned around and stopped in at the local bank, thinking that the girls that work in there probably speak a bit of English. Once I explained the situation and that I needed an alternate route to the other side of teh bridge they asked their bank manager, and we figured it out in broken English and German. So I headed back to Falkendorf, made a right up into the country, and took a tiny little one lane road back over to Munchaurach.

Frau Maria was outside when I arrived home, and said that they had never seen it rain here like that. They were mopping out the inch or so of water in the main entrance area!! So that was my Tuesday adventure in Munchaurach!

Summer...

well, if i was worried about it being cold in Germany in the summer last week - wearing jeans and sweaters - now I can worry about what it will be like without air conditioning! It's pushing 90 this week, and houses just don't come with AC!
:) Fortunately the windows open nicely, and create a nice breeze!

Pictures from Erlangen and Herzo

Pictures from Friday afternoon in Herzogenaurach. I spent the afternoon wandering around before I met Bas after work to go to the Adidas outlet. We got a bunch of stuff including a new winter jacket for me, and 2 new pairs of shoes for Bas. We get 30% the regular discounted outlet price, and 45% off the fully priced current season.



And here are some pictures from our afternoon in Erlangen on Saturday.

We are going to look at this house tonight...

It is only 950 euros a month, so we would be able to save some money if we rented it, which is what we want if we are not buying. They have already had 4 other people apply for it, but the agent told the landlady that another couple was interested in it, so she will wait to make her decision until after we have seen it. It is available October 1st, which is perfect for us - as our temp housing is good till then. It is the size we are looking for and has a basement. We've seen others online which have a few more features that I like (extra bathroom, space in teh living area for a dining room, etc.) but since they seem to go very quickly this may be the one! It is in a little town called Grossenseebach, which is close to Herzogenaurach. We drove through the town last weekend, and I liked it - so stay tuned!

http://www.immobilienscout24.de/46751127;jsessionid=3E389833C613FE986FA9A05EBCAFEBCA.worker2?objectTabListControl=tab.expose&donotLog=t&style=is24&is24EC=IS24&navigationbarurl=

click on the link "Alle 13 Bilder ansehen" under the picture to see the other pictures.

Nuremberg!!

Well, we had a great day yesterday in Erlangen. We spent the whole time checking out all the shopping, just so we know what we can and can't get. Believe it or not, we are having the hardest time finding hangers for Luna's closet! We found wooden ones at a chldren's store, but they were like 3 euro's a piece! So we tried high and low to find "kinder kleide-bugeln" (or something like that!)but to no avail!

so anyway, it was a great day, and since Erlangen is literally about 15 minutes away, it was great to know what we have available to us there!

Today, we went to Nuremberg. And boy do we feel blessed with this whole situation now!!! If Herzogenaurach seeme a little overwhelmingly provincial at fist, Nuremberg seemed like the big-city busting down the rural door!! It is so close, and has every kind of shopping we could ever need. And, even more importantly it is so culturally abundant. In the altstadt, there is a fountain, statue, cathedral, tower or something almost everywhere you turn. I can't wait to do a tour of the old city, and to go to the Christmas market!! The altstadtfest if 9/18-27, so we will be doing that one weekend, and the Munich Oktoberfest the next! What fun!

Here are today's pics - stay tuned for cute ones of Luna at the end! It was hot!

Tiki Tiki Tembo...

Tikki Tikki Tembo
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Tikki Tikki Tembo is a story set in ancient China that provided the basis for a 1968 book by Arlene Mosel, illustrated by Blair Lent, aimed at children from Kindergarten to Grade 2. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this retelling is severely incorrect about some aspects of Chinese culture, so questions have arisen as to the story's origins and validity.

The story is about a family with two sons, in which the first-born and honoured son gets a long name and the other son gets a short name (by tradition, according to the story). The first born son's full name is Tikki Tikki Tembo No Sa Rembo Chari Bari Ruchi Pip Peri Pembo, which, according to the story, means "the most wonderful thing in the whole wide world." The second son's name is Chang, which means "little or nothing" in the story.

Other versions of the name are: Rikki Tikki instead of Tikki Tikki (not to be confused with Rikki-Tikki-Tavi) and Nikki Nikki Tembo No So Rembo Oo Ma Moochi Gamma Gamma Goochi.

In reality, all of Tikki Tikki Tembo's names are gibberish, not actual Chinese, and there is no Chinese dialect in which "Chang" means "little or nothing". Likewise, the idea that first-born sons used to get long names and other children hardly any is not an accurate portrayal of the culture. Some suggest it is actually a take-off on a Japanese story - the presence of several R's and absence of L's, and the occurrence of syllables ending in 'o' and the combination 'uchi', in Tikki Tikki Tembo's full name suggests a Japanese rather than Chinese influence - but it does not accurately reflect Japanese culture, either.

Luna's First Steps!!

We're so proud of her!



and here's another of her dancing to some Bavarian music!

Luna's split lip...

Just as I was finishing up the post from yesterday, and about 2 minutes before Bas walked through the door after work, Luna was pushing a mesh, metal trash can around, it slipped, and she fell and bit her lower lip. It looked like a pretty good cut from the outside, so I looked from the inside, and could see blood on the inside as well. So Bas and I stood around and tried to decide whether we should drive to Erlangen, to go to the closest hospital. We both kind of figured that it probably didn't even warrant stitches, and I know the skin on the face and inside the mouth heals very quickly, but we were worried about infection, etc. So Bas went down to our landlady, Frau Maria, to see if she had any antiseptic. She said there was a doctor here in our little village, and called him quickly, and managed to catch him before he left the office. So she drove us down there, and the Dr. took one look and said - no big deal, she'll be fine! He said she hadn't actually bitten through, that there were just some broken blood vessels inside. Fortunately we received our health insurance cards in the mail yesterday!! So I will go down there this morning so that the girls in his office can do the paperwork. I guess we can chalk that up as our first experience with German healthcare!!

Some pictures.. finally!

The view out our living room window...


Our temporary house - our apartment is on the top floor.



The Nissan Micra...



A view of the sporty, "no-nonsense" interior...



Our street...



Here are some pics of the interior of the apartment... it has 3 bedrooms and a "winterraum" (aka a solarium.)



And some of Luna... ofcourse :).

Pay attention to this chicken recipe!!

So, I've seen a couple recipes lately with chicken and buttermilk. On a couple of shows they specifically talked about how lean the buttermilk was, and how good it was at tenderizing and moisturizing chicken.

But most of the recipes were for fried chicken. So when I was in the store today, and saw some buttermilk, I decided to go for it anyway, even though I knew we ouldn't be frying it!

So I got home and put the chicken in a pan with some buttermilk, and then i added some seasoning salt that Bas bought, certainly not any fancy herbs or anything! I think it was salt, paprika and pepper based - just some barbecue seasoning. And then I let it sit for a couple hours - turning it once, and then I threw it on our electric, counter-top "grill." 5 minutes each side, and it was GREAT. I could totally tell the effect the buttermilk had on it!

Perhaps this is a trick you already knew? Not me!! If not you,too - ENJOY!!

Make Sure to Check Our New Widget!

We added a widget at the bottom of the page which will chronicle our travels in Germany. We plan on adding another one which will keep track of greater European travels as well. If you click on the red "pins" they show you the note we included about the place.

Video of Luna with Walking Toy

Latest pictures (from before we left.)

Link to Pics on Flickr

We're here!

Well, we arrived yesterday in the afernoon. We had a great trip. After a hiccup with a Delta employee at the check-in counter, who told us that I would need a round-trip ticket to enter into Germany and almost didn't let me get on the plane - we made it on smoothly in Columbus.

Turned out that Luna had her own seat the whole way, including the business class seat from Cincinatti to Paris!! We thought that was pretty cool!. All the flights were easy, and Luna was great. Although, CDG airport in Paris was terrible. Avoid it like the plague if you can!! We had 4 hours there, and if they had given us any less time we would have risked not making the flight jut b/c the airport is so disorganized, inefficient, poorly marked and crowded. Some might appreciate it for purely architechtural reasons, but the style just re-inforced my impression that the airport would fit better in a 3rd world country.

Anyway. Enough about that! We arrived here in time to do a quick tour around town, stop at the bank and then for groceries. We went to two and have decided that the second one will do well for almost everything we will need. Very different than at home, but more than enough for what we need! Baby food we will be using is Nestle - there were about 5 different brands. SInce we recognized Nestle we tried that first. Their #4 is very similar to the Graduates stuff by Gerber.

We bought diapers at the first store we tried, and didn't recognized the available brand "Midi." But bought them anyway. Second store had exactly the same pampers we are used to. At least we know they're here for next time!

The temp apartment we are in is great, will suit us fine for 3 months. Will be happy when we get Luna's toys in the air shipment though!! Met the landlady today and she seemed very nice and speaks English well. She will come over tomorrow to show me how the washing machine works - should be interesting - especially since Bas just told me it might take 3 hours to do!

So yesterday evening we went to a Bier Garten for dinner. It was great I had schnitzel, sauerkraut, and spatzle. Better than I've had at any restaurant in 20 years! With great beer ofcourse, and for so cheap!!

Then Luna was up all night last night - since her body clock said that it was daytime. So we slept in this morning. But once we got up, we had breakfast and then headed off in the car to do some exploring. Most of the towns are like villages or hamlets and connected by little 2 lane country roads. I drove so that I could get use to the European signs and lights, etc, since I will have the car while Bas is at work. It was fun, even in the little 1992 Nissan Micra!! So we found a couple towns, Wiesendorf and Hessbach, which semed like they would be nice to live in. They were small and quant, had new houses as well as old, and had at least one bakery, butcher, and candlestick maker (just kidding) - at least one butcher, baker, market, guesthouse (for an easy dinner out) and a place to get an eis would be nice, too! Both of the towns I mentioned qualified, and I'm sure there are plenty more. It's definitely not difficult to drive to a different town for groceries, or clothing or whatever, but it would be nice to be able to get the necessities for eating without having to get into a car and drive anywhere. We'll see. I expect to meet with the relocation agent on Wednesday, so then we can get started on finding a place to live!

For lunch we ended up in a small city called Neustadt an der Aisch. Closer to the size of Nuremberg. We parked and went into the town square or "Innenstadt" and found several cafe's. Turns out that the city had just had a special performance of several local bands who were in traditional bavarian dress, including Lederhosen. We didn't get to se the performance, but all the bands were still hanging out drinking beers, so it was a fun thing to see on our first day!!

Came back and made dinner for the fist time in our apt. Went well. The stove in kitchen doesn't work, so we bought a counter-top electrical grilling unit. And the original range doesn't work either so they have two induction "burners." The induction unit was interesting, since I've never cooked with one, but I think if I could get used to one, I would really like it. It's really fast!! And the grilling unit isn't the same as our real grill, but it will work well for cooking meat. We used it for chicken tonight, which is more difficult than beef our fish, so I feel pretty good about it! Stll have to figure out where to get some decent beef, hopefully we find some!

Well, I think Luna is finally getting tired, and Bas has to be at work early tomorrow, so will sign off for now. Forgot to bring the camera today, but will post some pics soon!

On our way to the airport...

So, we have packed our stuff an sent the movers on their way, cleaned the house, packed up our suitcases and were making one final stop at Best Buy to pick up something for Bas's niece before we left the country (and the US prices on electronics) and Bas casually asked if I wanted to get a new laptop. Ten minutes, and a "few" hundred dollars later, we were the proud new owners of a Sony Vaio! Our old home laptop was geting so slow, and with the way I multi-task on a PC, it was driving me up the wall!! So we're really excited about our new machine, and decided to get it set up while were having lunch at Panera - and decided to make our last post to the blog from the US on our new computer!!

Herzogenaurach here we come!!

Our Yellowstone Trip

We had a fabulous 3 days in Yellowstone. I will post the pictures from the baptism and time with family later - we had so many pictures from that, I need some more time to organize!

But here are the pictures from Yellowstone. It was amazing. I will always remember this trip. Luna got a little stir crazy in the car seat all the time, but we are definitely looking forward to going back and camping when she's a little older! I had a guide book - "Scenic Driving - Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks" which were tremendous in helping us figure out our routes and itinerary, and Bas loved having me read it as we passed or stopped at each attraction. It was also full of great little tidbits of info and history to fill the time in the car. We drove in over the Cooke City highway from Billings, which was AMAZING. It's one of the least used entrances to the park, but by far the most spectacular. We stayed at West Yellowstone, which was fun, and had good food, and made the perfect launching point for the rest of our day trips. If you havent been you have to go!!

LINK TO PICS

Luna and Jake