I was planning on adding some share icons for Facebook and Google+ (and so on). I experimented with some plugins today, but all of them were ugly or worked poorly.
I’m not sure how important it is. You guys are all smart enough to copy the link and paste it into your Social Media Platform of choice, right? Do that instead.
We were invited to a birthday party on Saturday.
This was a problem.
Actually, several problems. I’ll list them here.
I only have two pairs of shoes with me; rough-looking gray Converse, and a pair of expensive dress shoes for interviews. That means I either have to dress down, or dress up. Can I wear old jeans with nice black shoes and a t-shirt? Nobody knows. I finally settled on my dress shoes, a casual button-down, jeans, and a brown sport jacket. As usual, I tucked in my shirt. I’m trying to ride the line between dress-up and dress-down. It’s a hard line to walk, particularly when we’re living out of suitcases.
On our way, we picked up a 6-pack of Rothaus; if it ended up being weird, we could at least justify our behavior as foreigners that didn’t know better. We put it in a bag because old habits die hard, and we’re not entirely sure what the rules are about carrying beer in public, despite being told repeatedly that drinking on the street is okay. At the next stop, two people boarded the train with 6-packs in their hand. No bag.
Damnit.
We took the bag off discretely. Not so fast as to make it clear that we wanted to be like everyone else; just slow enough to say “Hey, I had a bunch of other stuff in this bag earlier, but now we’ve finished all our errands and can just carry the rest of this stuff. Oh, is this beer the only thing in here now? Okay, let’s just carry it. I’ll put the bag away. Thanks dear.”
The host greeted us at the door in sandals (with socks), jeans, and a t-shirt. The guests were wearing either t-shirts or button-downs, and nobody had their shirt tucked in. The jacket was overkill.
Fuck.
Think quick! As soon as I was handed a beer, I took off my coat as I walked to the coat stand. That sent the message “it’s too hot in here for a jacket, ha ha!”. Then I noticed that nobody was wearing shoes. We causally took off our shoes, as we talked about how great it was to move to Stuttgart, but that New York was really great too and so we’ve been walking around and it’s a really great city and wow, it’s just so great to start a new job YES! Scary to start a new job too! Okay, our shoes are off and my jacket is on the coat rack.
Now it’s time to get this shirt untucked.
Maybe I’ll distract everyone by dropping bruschetta olive toppings all over the floor.
I’m some kind of social butterfly.
This Sunday, we took a walk with a good friend from grad school. As soon as he arrived, he stored his things in a locker and we went out in search of adventures. The city was built with a large park snaking its way into the center, so we started near the train station, and wandered through the park for several miles. It was big.
The parks around here are generally awesome. I believe you know about the rope swings. They’re awesome. And the jungle gyms, while typically too small for us to play on, would have been fantastic as kids. But the rest of the park is distinctly different than those in the US. Let’s play a game. What do you see in the photo below?
Hornet Sidewalk Nightmare. Or maybe a playground.
Wrong! (Okay mom, you got it right. But that’s just indicative of how I was raised. Ha ha ha!).
Stone Hills
I’m not kidding about the hornets. Zoom in on that sidewalk photo above. There’s a hornet crawling into a hole. I was tempted to poke at it, but I can run faster than the hornet, and there were a lot of kids around. So someone was going to die.
This next photo was taken a foot from the path.
Wild Park Streams
This was a pretty great feature of the park. Fish and rocks and probably some cute little mice and snakes, all in one place! I do not know why the kids weren’t out here trying to damn up the creek. Because if I was 10 years old again (or if Alissa wouldn’t have been around), I would have totally tried to dam up the creek. Causing mass flooding. People would have had to crawl on top of the hornet-nest-rock-hills to survive.
Park Duck-bird Creatures
The birds were suspicious of every move I made. I didn’t want to eat them, I just wanted to pet one of the baby duck-bird creatures! They didn’t speak English, and I couldn’t speak enough German to convince them I had good intentions.
We walked until we found a food stand overlooking the Neckar river, which winds around Stuttgart and up through a bunch of towns further north. I didn’t take any pictures because I was too busy drinking Beck’s beer in the warm sand. They had a small “beach” area set up, complete with reclining cloth chairs and little wooden tables to hold your beer. Pretty great. I got a tan. Alissa called it a “sunburn”, but I’m pretty sure it’s a tan.
So to review, German parks are made up of the following:
It doesn’t get a whole lot better than that.
Once upon a time, the hills of Stuttgart were populated by farms and farmfolk. Since they had no electricity (and thus no U-bahn), they were forced to carve steps into the side of the hills to get around. So all around the bowl that makes up Suttgart, there are small steps that wander up through the hills, known as Stäffele. A friend told us that little old ladies walk up and down what can sometimes be tiny, seemingly unsafe stäffele. In the winter. Covered in snow and ice.
Back a few weeks ago, we were in a town a the base of a sprawling grape orchard. At least, I’m assuming it was a grape orchard. It could have been cocaine. But whatever it was, the land was tiered off, and several columns of steps snaked between the tiers. It was gorgeous. We didn’t take photos, because it was rainy and we were in a car. But we remembered, and went out a few days ago, to find some stairs.
We finally found some called Haigststaffel, that begin in Degerloch.
Overlooking Stuttgart near top of Haigststaffel
Here we are at the top.
We actually wandered around for a bit, because we missed the entrance to the stairs. The photo above is before we realized that we were not in the right place. Ahh, the ignorance of youth. We’re older and wiser now.
Descending Haigststaffel
These stairs look much wider and safer than some of the ones we saw earlier, so I’m not entirely sure if one can use the cute “le” ending to describe these. There was no danger at all.
One of the coolest things about this area of the city is the absolute abundance of plant life. Some of these houses have forests and jungles in their back yards. I tried taking photos, but they don’t do it justice. And it doesn’t appear that Germans are big fans of well-mowed lawns. It’s rather nice, because it allows the wildflowers to bloom. I remember picking the dandelions out of my grandparents’ yard when I was a kid, whereas here, they’d have just let them grow.
Bottom of Haigststaffel (as with all photos on this blog, click to enlarge)
As it turned out, the Haigststaffel didn’t reach the bottom of the mountain. Luckily, we spotted another set of stairs nearby.
Fritz-Münch Staffel
We walked down the stairs until we hit Marienplatz, a medium-sized square where kids ride bikes and the parents sit at the cafe and drink beer and eat ice cream. It’s also the final destination of the Zacke, which I posted about earlier. Since the train winds up the mountain, there are some areas where it looks like a roller coaster. I’d post a photo, but all my attempts came out looking stupid.
The walk down was great, but we took the train back.
There’s a delicious Swabian food called Maultaschen, which is essencially a dumpling stuffed with minced meat and spices. Tonight, I made it for my Frau. Here’s a blurry picture:
Maultaschen Dinner with Onions and Tomatoes That I Remembered To Salt
It seems to be served in one of two ways; either as pictured above, pan fried with carmalized onions, or boiled in a chicken stock, and served as a soup. I wasn’t initially a fan of the somewhat strong liver-like meat, but this was really good. It’s growing on me.
Here’s an excerpt from Wikipedia:
On Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, Maultaschen are a traditional dish in Swabia, because the meat is concealed under the pasta dough and cannot be seen by God. Therefore they have earned the nickname “Little Cheaters on God” (Swabian “Herrgottsbescheißerle”).
Fantastic.
I bet you were probably wondering “Huh. Why haven’t they posted about the Stuttgart Olympics? I heard it was all the rage in Germany.” or “Didn’t the Stuttgart Olympics begin a few days ago?” Well, you’re right. The thing is, we haven’t had much time to post because we’ve been training.
That’s right. We’re in the Stuttgart Olympics this year! We both qualified (we’re in the top 1 percent, so that wasn’t a surprise), and we’ve started a rigorous training schedule. It’s not easy. But then, if it were easy, everyone would be in the Olympics.
Our sport is The Swing In The Woods Back There. A sport accepted into the Olympics back in May. You get points for every event you complete. For those of you that aren’t familiar, a description of the events follows.
The Swing In The Woods Back There (source: The Official Website Of The Swing In The Woods Back There)
Alissa. Notice the excellent form.
Informally known as the “jump-on” event, this event requires the athlete to leap onto the disk swing from one of the platforms mounted in the mountain. The mountain can be anywhere from several centimeters (high school level) to several decimeters (professional level).
Since the swing doesn’t quite reach the platforms, the challenge is to leap off the platform, free-fall through the air, and land on the swing platform as it’s swinging. It takes most contestants a few tries before they work up the courage to move up to a higher platform. It’s not uncommon to see professional athletes pee themselves.
Informally known as “awkward flailing”, this one is one of the most challanging, since it combines the jump-on event with an additional requirement. When the swinger returns “on the backswing”, they and their partner must make contact with their lips. Nothing else may touch.
This event is typically rated much like diving or gymnastics. Points are taken off for “smearing”, which is where you get slobber all over your partners cheek. “Bashing” is when you accidentally hit them too hard, causing them to stumble on the mountain (which is considered dangerous and not romantic at all). Accuracy counts as well; too much cheek and not enough lip, is considered a “half” or a “fourth”.
This event is often rated in multiples; if the swinger can successfully kiss twice after a single jump, extra points are awarded.
Alissa, adding flair to a jump-on
It's difficult for cameras to take photos of the event, as the athletes typically move too fast.
Fallen out of favor in the past few years, this event requires that one person swing, while the other gives them a push. This is not as easy as it sounds, since the swinger tends to move faster than an average person can sprint down the mountain. It typically results in the runner face down in the sand.
Naturally, the sport has evolved in some circles. The jump-on event is often garnished with trick moves, where the athlete holds onto the swing with only one leg, or swings off-center, intentionally causing dangerous rotation. This area of the sport is evolving.
The dismount is strictly judged. After every event, cleanly leaping off the swing is highly valued. Stumbling down the mountain is considered poor form.
The most typical injury comes from repeatedly bashing the seat into your crotch.
New members of the sport most often complain of “getting sand all over the living room, and how did I get sand in the bed”.
I’m sore. But that’s to be expected. You don’t compete at this level without some aches and pains. Maybe some of you can watch the event on TV and cheer us on! It’s always nice to know your loved ones are behind you. In the end, it makes all the training worthwhile.
I’ve been trying all the instant soups. Alissa doesn’t get to try any, because she’s at work and has to eat real adult lunches. I realize eating instant foods is a horrible thing to admit, but it’s easy and delicious. Plus, isn’t this a good indication of the kind of soups Germans like to eat?
Precise Drink Marking
The best soup so far has been the Frühlingssuppe, an herb and noodle chicken soup. Which unfortunately has peas and carrots in it. Why do Germans like peas and carrots so much?
Our apartment doesn’t have any sort of official measuring cups or graduated containers. Luckily, there’s a law that requires all vessels in which you serve liquids (beer, wine, water, juice… there are a lot of liquids), to have a volume marking. This way, you can ensure the establishment doesn’t cheat you of a few milliliters of delicious liquids. It makes for a perfect measuring device for soup, since they’re all in units of a quarter liter. This probably also means that German bachelors can minimize the amount of dishes they own.
There’s a fairly gigantic plot of land behind our apartment, about 5 minutes walking distance. If this park were in Richmond, all the branches would be trimmed off the trees below neck height, to reduce the number of rapes. Here, it feels like I’m walking into a jungle. With nicely cared-for paths and playgrounds.
The swing was just awesome. We must have played on it for a good 30 minutes, until we were too worn out to keep going. You could jump off a pile of sand onto the swing. So much fun. And it should be noted that Alissa jumped from the highest point on the pile, and successfully swung down. Not many girls can do that.
Little Steam House Road (that is cute and adorable)
Here’s a sign from the woods. I only include it because it has the south German diminutive “le” at the end. For those of you that hate grammar, it makes the whole word “cute, little, small, itty-bitty”. So if you want to call your sweetheart something cute and adorable, you could say “rabbitle”, or “dandelionle”. She’d like that.
Carrots and Peas in the same jar
We’re going to have it for dinner tonight. It’s going to be awful.
Confirmed. Some memoriable quotes from Alissa are as follows.
Who would buy this?
Maybe it’s for old people or babies?
I’m not going to eat mine. Can I not eat mine?
Permission granted.
I’m not sure how many people keep up with this blog. There seem to be about 30 people or so, but our mom’s may just be refreshing the page 15 times a day.
Anyway, this is harder work than I expected. We do way more stuff than I thought we did; we’ve got to slow down at some point, right? I’m already a few events behind. I haven’t even posted all the meats we’ve tried, because it takes too long to photograph, upload, post, etc. It’s hard enough posting the beer, but I know it’ll be worth it in the end. Having a huge gallery of every beer I’ve had, will be pretty darn neat.
Okay. Enough idle talk. Everybody get back to work.