Back from Vienna! It is as lovely as I remembered from 1988 (yes, 15 years ago) and we had fun exploring museums and coffeeshops for a few days. We even slipped into the Stehplätze (standing room spots) at the opera for the first act of La Boheme. It was great!

I'll post some pictures from our trip if any of them turned out well. In the meantime, one more pewter ornament from our tree. This one shows a Glühwein stand at the Christmas market. Glühwein is something like mulled wine--boozy and sugary-spicy and served piping hot. As you can see from the ornament, the stand is something of a social center at the market, as well. And don't worry, the child pulling the sled will surely be drinking Kinderpunsch, the non-alcoholic version.

Now that the markets are closed, I will miss all the great food you could get at the stands. Walking down to the U-Bahn station it was so easy to stop in and get a toasted baguette with Schafskäse und Tomaten for lunch, or pick up a warm coconut macaroon (huge!) from the Stollen stand. Not to mention the fresh fruit kebabs dipped in chocolate. I guess we settle in now for a long winter's nap, or at least bundle up for the roughest part of the winter.

We had a good trip, but it's nice to be home. Hope everyone is having a safe and happy last day of 2003.

Just wanted to stop in and say hi as we will be leaving tomorrow morning for a few days in Vienna.

We've had a nice relaxing day today -- everything was closed already for Christmas, since Germans celebrate tonight with gifts and special meals. Marty and I are waiting to open our presents tomorrow morning before we go to the Hauptbahnhof.

Back shortly! Happy holidays!

One of the things I love best about Munich is the high quality of the street musicians. Tonight on our way downtown for dinner, we ran across this string trio playing Vivaldi in an enclosed shopping area near Odeonsplatz. Frequently I hear professional-quality chamber music right on the sidewalk.

We went to dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe. We don't go there very often -- only when we're in the mood for a real hamburger, or nachos, or a margarita or something that's hard to come by in most German restaurants. Tonight we were seated in the Fleetwood Mac/Peter Frampton section, with a lovely view of Tom Petty's uglyshirt. And oh! They played that Fatboy Slim video where Christopher Walken dances! Weapon of Choice, I mean. Oh my goodness, I love that video. Also, KC and the Sunshine Band, "Shake Your Booty." Heh.

My one disappointment was that they didn't play "Do They Know It's Christmas?" Because I hear there's no snow in Africa this year, either.

[This post is from last Saturday... I'm not sure why Blogger refused to post it until today. Hm.]


Click for larger images.

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's WAFFLE IRON!

Tonight we went out to the Christmas market and walked around munching on goodies from the food stands. One of the best things we tried was a waffle with cream and kirsch liqueur.

But the best part was the waffle iron. The two pictures above show how big it was -- it was a round platform with about fifteen waffle irons on it, spinning slowly. You can see the worker pouring the batter out of a big bucket. Wow! That's a serious waffle iron!

The waffles came out light and crisp, and they were covered in powdered sugar and then served up with whatever toppings you liked. Chocolate, cherries, bananas, egg liqueur, cream... you name it.

Yum!

Little wooden mushroom, painted red and white. Glass garlic bulb. These decorations are making me hungry!

It got dark so early today. I went out around 5 and it was really already dark. I guess tomorrow is the shortest day of the year, right? Or Sunday? Coming up, anyway.

I am still pretty stuffy from my cold but it's getting better. I hope it'll be gone (gone!) by the time we leave for Vienna next week.

On the agenda this weekend: pack up a few more small packages (yes, they'll be late), go out to Wal-Mart and pick up tins (must do that first thing tomorrow, or else late tomorrow evening), bake cookies. And other things, none of which are coming to mind at the moment.

The picture in my advent calendar today was a sausage in a roll, with mustard on it. Yum.

Click to enlarge photos.

I know I have a bad cold when I'm singing along to "Ring of Fire" and I'm not even straining to hit the lowest notes. I do sing bass in my chorus but because it's a women's chorus that really only translates to a low alto. My voice is so low today.

The topic for today is advent calendars. Advent is a very big deal here, and even adults like to have advent calendars. Often with a piece of chocolate behind every door! My calendar is pictured above, on the left. It shows Munich's Marienplatz during the Christmas market. Every day I open up another window to reveal whatever is behind it -- usually a picture of something winter- or Christmas-related, often something very German. Sometimes I'm not even sure what the items are! But yesterday it was an owl.

On the right is a larger advent calendar -- this one is in a business near Odeonsplatz in Munich. Their 24 upstairs windows are numbered for advent and each day they uncover one more so that you can see the amazing constume behind the shade. I love walking by in the evening and looking at all the fancy historic costumes they have in the windows.

(Obviously, these pictures were taken a week or so ago, before so many of the windows were open.)

Click to enlarge.

Above is a picture from my chorus' performance yesterday at one of the malls in Munich. Marty took it from the second level. I'm in the back row, the third person from the left. You can probably only see my hat.

Unlike when we sang at the Christmas market, we had a sound system in the mall, but the noise from the shoppers still made us hard to hear, I think. Still, we drew a pretty good crowd. We always do when we wear our dresses. It's impossible to ignore that many women in low-cut, sparkly evening dresses.

I spent today making cookies for Marty to take to work and for us to give our friends. I decided to make chocolate chip cookies (with real Nestle chips I brought from home last month), butterballs (probably my favorite Christmas cookie), and a new ginger cookie recipe I found that uses honey instead of molasses. I haven't seen molasses for sale at all here, and honestly I used it so infrequently at home that it doesn't seem worth the bother of tracking it down. No Savage cookies for us this year! Anyway the new ginger cookies turned out okay, but they tasted a little too much like honey for me.

Of course when I told Marty about not finding any molasses, he asked me how I could have MOlasses when I ain't had NOlasses. I can't say I was surprised!

One more post for today...

Here's another of the little pewter ornaments we have on our tree this year. I bought most of these at last year's Christkindlmarkt so I'm glad I am finally getting to use them. (We went home last Christmas, so we didn't have a tree.)

This ornament, as you can see, is the Weihnachtsmann, or Christmas Man, the German equivalent of Santa Claus. He is bringing the Christmas tree on Christmas Eve, I think, which is when the German children open their presents. Not on Christmas morning!

On Christmas morning we will wake up in Munich and open our presents (American style), but then we'll get on a train and go to Vienna for a short visit. We are both looking forward to going back there -- we visited there separately in the summer of 1988 when we were traveling in Europe. We always said we'd like to go back there together someday, and now's our chance. I bought our train tickets on Wednesday.

Interesting Reading

Last month the Dayton Daily News published Casualties of Peace, a seven-part series on the Peace Corps. I read most of the articles today (linked from my friend Rebekah's page) and found them fascinating and disturbing. I know many people have very rewarding and fulfilling experiences in the Peace Corps, but unfortunately my only two close friends who went into PC could vouch for the organizational and security problems that these articles illustrate.

By request, I'm going to post some pictures of my German ornaments. The first one shows Hansel and Gretel outside the witch's gingerbread house. Notice the witch's cat on the roof! He looks familiar!

This type of German ornament is known as "Zinnfiguren" or tin figures. In English this is usually translated as pewter ornaments. Most are hand-painted, and they're not made only for Christmas -- you can get them in motifs for almost every season and occasion. The one in the picture is about 2.5 inches tall, but they also make much larger ones that are intended to hang in windows or on walls.

I'll post some more pictures of my ornaments in the next few days.

There are sirens in the street tonight. The police dashing off to tend to rush hour fender-benders, most likely.

It was a gorgeous day in Munich today -- sunny and cold. I was out this morning but spent the afternoon putting up our Christmas tree. This is the first artificial tree I've ever had. It is very tiny (120 cm) but it's about the right size for our little apartment. It's in the corner of the dining room, since the living room is already pretty full.

I got some small handblown glass balls at Ludwig Beck on Friday, in shades of purple and pink, and they are on the tree along with my two sparkly birds and the ornaments I bought in Rothenburg earlier this year. My favorites are three little red and white painted wooden mushrooms. There are also a few of the Bavarian hand-painted pewter ornaments. And some Lindt chocolate Santas. I think that's about it, but it's nicely covered and very festive. Also, I used colored lights for the first time in years and years. I think they look pretty.

Last year we went home for Christmas, so we didn't put up a tree. We'll be traveling at the end of this month, so I didn't want to worry about keeping a natural tree watered while we're away.

Now if I can just convince Ziggy that he's really not interested in that tree...

German Movie

Well, I know you were all expecting this picture a long time ago. Marienplatz with the Christmas market, taken this afternoon on a beautiful sunny day.

Tonight we went to a German movie, Herr Lehmann. I'd never really gone to a German movie without subtitles before (we did see the German version of The Lion King last year, but we'd seen it before in English, so that doesn't really count). I wasn't sure I'd be able to understand it very well. But it was good! I didn't understand it all, but I think I got the gist, and a lot of the jokes. It was a funny movie.

One of the funniest things, though, was the preview for this movie. It's called Die Geschichte von weinenden Kamel (the story of the crying camel). And man, this camel was about the cutest thing I ever saw! Aww! So cute! And when he was crying! It was so sad!

Also, there was a kid in the movie preview named "Dude." Which led to the obligatory "Dude, where's my camel?" joke. Heh. We make ourselves laugh.

Continental Breakfast

Or, why y'all should all come visit us in Germany.

Yummy breakfast food -- many types of bread, meat, cheese, and spreads. Not to mention yogurt, müsli, and assorted other good-to-eat things. The picture above is a little incomplete, as Marty was out getting the Semmel (also known as Brötchen in other parts of Germany, or rolls). Note the empty, lined basket in the foreground, awaiting his return from the bakery.

Anyway, we had a nice breakfast, and soon we're headed out into the rain for some more sightseeing and shopping. Happy weekend!

Holiday Fun!

We have friends visiting from the States this weekend! Our friends Till and Linette are here until Monday, so today we got out and hit the Marienplatz market and Ludwig Beck (an awesome department store downtown). We had cake and coffee at Rischart and walked through Dallmayr, admiring the coffees and chocolates. Yum.

Tonight we'll have dinner at the Spaten Haus, always a favorite.

There are lots of tourists in Munich at Christmas time, and everyone is out shopping, so the U-Bahn is packed. Today we actually had to wait for the next train to come before we could get on!

The picture today is our buffet in the dining room, all decorated for Christmas. I got the little wooden tree in Rothenburg last month, and the ceramic houses are also from Rothenburg.

Föhn

Ah, another foggy day in Munich. Sunday was so clear and pretty, but today we've got that fog hanging in the air that is so characteristic of southern Germany. There's something called the Föhn (pronunciation guide below) that makes for very bizarre weather. I found this definition of it online: a warm, dry wind blowing down the side of a mountain, especially in the Alps. It creates a humid atmosphere, which results in a lot of hazy fog in the air. That doesn't exactly capture all it is, though -- people attribute headaches and crankiness to the warm winds of the Föhn, and I myself am convinced that it's continuing my cough (all that water in the air, you know).

For Americans to pronounce Föhn correctly, say it like "fern" but without so much r. Actually, it's probably pretty close to how English folks pronounce "fern." It also helps if you purse your lips a little on the e.

Anyway, here's a picture from last night's performance in Rotkreuzplatz, a somewhat abstract shot from the end of "Rock Around the Clock." You can pretend you're seeing the Föhn, although I'm sure that's probably cigarette smoke, from the person Marty was standing next to:

Rotkreuzplatz Christmas Market

Tonight my chorus performed for an hour at the Chrismtas market in Rotkreuzplatz. As there was no stage, we simply stood on the pavement in front of the Maibaum (the maypole, which you can see painted Bavarian blue and white behind us in the picture above). We had a good time and the small crowd that gathered seemed entertained. Marty arrived about halfway through the performance and managed to take a couple of pictures. We'll be there next Wednesday, too, if anyone wants to come and see us!

There are markets all over town right now, and it's fun to go from one to the other and see the different things they have to sell. Down at Marienplatz (where most of my pictures from last year were taken) it's mostly traditional tree ornaments and nativity figures. At the one near our apartment, there's a lot of expensive, artsy stuff. Out at Tollwood it's more of a world market, with things from all over. But I think, from just the short glimpse of it I had tonight, the one in Rotkreuzplatz has more stuff I liked that any of the others I've seen. Artistic, but not too artsy. I'll have to go back during the day sometime when it's not so busy, and I'm not singing.

My chorus is singing the following songs this Christmas: Hark the Herald Angels Sing, Let It Snow, White Christmas, The Secret of Christmas, Christmas Chopsticks (a version of "'Twas the Night Before Christmas"), Jingle Bells (a really nice arrangement), Carol of the Bells, and We Wish You a Merry Christmas. Tonight we also did a non-Christmas set that included San Francisco Bay Blues, Carolina in the Morning, Hello Mary Lou, I Don't Know Why, and Darkness on the Delta.

We have three more performances scheduled before Christmas, and I'm looking forward to them. Here's one more picture from tonight, after we finished singing. Me (on the left) with my friend Sonja (who I'm sure will be horrified that I posted this; sorry, Sonja). Note our matching lipstick -- the official lipstick color of our chorus!

A cool and refreshing drink.

Here's a recommendation from Ziggy. When the window gets condensation on the inside because it's so cold outside, there's nothing more refreshing than a drink of water right off the pane. I took the picture above at 8:00 this morning during my breakfast. He's such a strange little fellow.

This afternoon he's sleeping in his Great Value box right here beside my desk. Well, he was sleeping until I got up to take a few pictures. Despite the box being about two sizes too small, it's his favorite place to curl up. It must be very cozy. Suffice it to say we keep a few of these boxes on hand. (It's a box that holds 8 cartons of apple juice, from Wal-Mart.)



I have a pot roast in the oven. Katynka-style, mostly, although I cut the meat up into smaller pieces this time because sometimes the beef is very tough here. I am cooking it very, very slowly. It smells divine.

Sunday on the Fraueninsel

Yesterday we drove to the Chiemsee (a lake near Munich) and took a ferry to the Fraueninsel (ladies' island), where they have a Christmas market every year. The island is very small -- it would probably only take about thirty minutes or less to walk the entire circumference -- but a lot of people live there. There are no cars on the island, so the "roads" are really more like wide paths.

We had a nice lunch in one of the restaurants there (apparently they have enough tourists that several restaurants can stay in business) and walked around for awhile, looking at the stalls and listening to the music that was being played everywhere. It was a popular destination -- there were hundreds of other people with the same idea, and so it was pretty crowded on the island.

It was one of those clear wintry days that we get sometimes, with blue skies and no rain. Here are a few pictures I took. Click on the images to see the larger ones.



The first two were taken from the ferry dock. In the first picture you can see the island across the water (the dark part in the middle). The mountains are on the other side of the lake. The pictures of Marty and me were taken during the crossing. It only took about ten or fifteen minutes to get to the island. The last picture was taken around 4pm, getting close to sunset, when we were leaving the island.

In other news, this year I am participating in Holidailies, which means I'll be trying to update Raspberry World every day in December. We'll see how well that works out. It may not be possible while I'm visiting Vienna at the end of the month, but while I'm here, I'm going to try to keep up.