back at the beach (briefly)

I was home for Christmas and am back in Deutschland already. That felt like entirely too short a trip. Still, got in most of the important things: a walk to the beach; a bike-ride on the boardwalk to visit King Neptune and pick up sandwiches from Taste; a solid amount of Christmas shopping (oh, U.S. dollar, how I love you); the inaugural trip to Virginia Beach's shiny new Trader Joe's; plenty of cooking and eating and of course, lots of time with the family, Sunny included. Had to miss out on my grandmother's 85th birthday dinner at one of the taverns in Colonial Williamsburg, which was a bummer -- damned snow. Still, good trip overall, and it was so good to be home.

make no plans

After having done something every single night for a bunch of nights in a row, I wrote this in my planner for today:



I really intended to stick to that, too. And then my friend Tarina, who is a flight attendant, unexpectedly ended up laying over here rather than elsewhere in Germany, and said, "What are you doing tonight? PLEASE SAY YOU WILL HANG OUT WITH US."

Turns out I completely suck at not making plans! But hey, it'll be fun.

One of my favorite near-work places to go during lunch (when I am not running around buying Christmas presents, that is) is World Coffee, over on Kaiserstraße. The other day I ordered a chocolate Wocochino, which turned out to be hot chocolate with chocolate whipped cream and chocolate sauce. For some reason I was thinking there might be some coffee in there, but no. Coffee did not have any role to play here.



Delicious, though.

salzburg

I'd long been planning on visiting my friend Suz in Salzburg over this past weekend, but sickness (on Suz's part) and work (on mine) made it look like a no-go until six o'clock rolled around on Friday and I realized . . . no one was asking me to stay in town.

I messaged Suz. "Hey Suz," I said. "How are you feeling?"

"Much better!" she said.

"Glad to hear it!" I replied, then very subtly said, "Sooo, if I were, hypothetically, to get on a train tonight and show up in your town tomorrow morning, what would you do?"

"Hypothetically," Suz said, "I would pick you up from the train station. Does this mean you're coming??"










I'm a little tired for it, but oh, it was worth it. There was Christmas cookie baking. There was latke making (may I briefly point out that I am obsessed with that blog, oh my lord). There was Glühwein drinking. There was eating (so much eating). The highlight of the eating, other than our homemade latkes with apple sauce and creme fraiche, may well have been yesterday, when we discovered the joys of Kaspreßknödel -- fried cheese and potato and bread dumplings, which were served with either soup or sauerkraut. We went for the sauerkraut, and were in no way disappointed. I eyed my portion up warily, thinking it looked huge; clearly I underestimated the degree to which I am currently a German/Austrian food-snarfing beast. That meal did not stand a chance of existing long enough to get cold. And oh, was it cold in Salzburg. But there was snow! It's hard to think of anything that will get you more in the Christmas spirit than drinking Glühwein and eating a pile of hearty Austrian food at multiple different Christmas markets while the world around you is crisp and white.

mainz

Went to the Weihnachtsmarkt in Mainz with my friend Anne on Sunday.







I had never seen a Weihnachtspyramide before. I wish I'd gotten a better picture of it. But basically it's a rotating tower (usually table-decoration size; this one is about twenty feet tall) that has Christian and traditional figures on it, along with candles.

Speaking of candles, I had not realized that anyone still put candles on Christmas trees, but Anne tells me they do. I'm sure it must be beautiful . . . just keep that bucket of water close at hand.

return to fantasyland

I went back to Freiburg last weekend for Thanksgiving, which Katherine summed up pretty awesomely (trust me when I say that you really want to click that link). Freiburg is really magical in wintertime, all lit up, in a way that Frankfurt doesn't quite manage -- I think it's something to do with Freiburg's tiny winding streets, the narrowness of the Dreisam path, and of course the Bächle.




I love going on trips that start with a train ride. Frankfurt's central train station used to be all that I knew of the city -- I still think it's gorgeous.




I love and miss Freiburg's Münsterplatz market.

happy thanksgiving eve!

The Weihnachtsmarkt is officially open for business. I think I know where my dinner is coming from . . .

christmas market season approaches

The Christmas market doesn't officially open until Wednesday, but the Römer area is completely packed with people setting up stalls and people watching them set up stalls. (This made it difficult to take a picture of any of the stalls; all of my pictures ended up with randoms wandering into the frame.) The Weihnachtsbaum is looking more and more decorated -- not sure if it is going to get more decorated than it currently is. I'll just have to keep wandering by to check.

Meanwhile, the path along the banks of the Main continues to be one of my very favorite things about Frankfurt. I'm taking advantage of the weather being pleasant(ish) enough to ride my bike to work. I mark the distance to work by bridges: my street becomes a bridge right at the point where I get on the river path, then I pass two more before I approach Untermainbrücke, the bridge that turns into the street my office building is on. Until a couple of days ago, I hadn't really thought about how good it was to be in another place with a river; but there's something really beautiful and awesome about bridges, in New York in particular, being able to count the bridges from downtown going up (Brooklyn, Manhattan, Williamsburg) . . . and though the names of the bridges here don't come naturally to me yet it's comforting that they're here, in some gut-level way.

weekend

I am so happy to have a bike again. Frankfurt has really excellent public transportation, but it's a little like NYC in that everything goes through the city center, so a lot of the time it's easier to get from point a to point b with a bike.

I have also acquired: a bank card, an iPhone, and an apartment as of December 1. I am doing pretty darned okay.

wir feiern die ganze Nacht

I don't know quite what it is about living in Europe that makes my life turn epically more bizarre than it ever seems to be in the US, but since Wednesday I've been dancing twice, been reintroduced to cheap Riesling, watched two guys in a club who were dressed as policemen (in suspenders and tight turtlenecks) whip the butt of their buddy (who was dressed as a cowboy), spent two days with my friend Katherine (who I had not seen in nearly two years, but it didn't feel that way at all), done some neighborhood research for my future apartment search, and fulfilled a years-old dream through buying a milk frother and a Bialetti.



My mom had no idea what a milk frother was! One of my roommates in Freiburg, a massive and hairy German/Iraqi guy who liked to walk around in tiny black boxer-briefs, owned a milk frother and would frequently offer the rest of us lattes, which made up for a whole lot in terms of mental scarring. I have wanted a milk frother for my own ever since.

For the next few weeks I'm living in a sort of long-term hotel which some of my coworkers who've stayed here called a dump. It is admittedly very . . . primary colored, as you can tell from the fact that my new red frying pan matches the kitchen wall. It has a minimally stocked kitchenette which necessitated me buying myself a frying pan. I am, however, not paying a thing for rent for the month of November, so the place would have to be pretty darned atrocious for me not to be pleased with the arrangement.

I have also, since I arrived, managed to work two full days. As has been said to me, I don't waste any time! I'm sharing an office, which new and different but I think will work out fine. And the view from my office window is pretty all right.



Also the fact that I have a window is excellent. I was advertised to the entire Frankfurt office as being here for two years, which was something of a shock since that wasn't exactly what I agreed to (I agreed to a year with the possibility of extending to two) but after the initial moment of "um what?" I've started to warm to the idea. We shall see!

I'm not entirely sure how I feel about Frankfurt itself yet -- the part of town I'm staying in right now is not exactly the cutest -- but I did a little bit of neighborhood shopping this afternoon and was deeply relieved to find that my area is sub-par. Other places are better!

The sun has been out for about ten minutes total since I've been here, but it's also been very reassuring to see that Frankfurt in general is better looking in sunlight.



As far as the local specialties go, I'm a huge fan of Frankfurter grüne Soße (the green sauce pictured below):



It might help that it's made with approximately a liter of sour cream. Do not care. It's delicious. And it's got lots of herbs in it! That's healthy, right? I thought so.

Work again in the morning! A couple of my coworkers accosted me on Friday evening and invited me along for something or other after work tomorrow night. It will either be this meet-up run by a French woman that basically sounds like speed dating for friendship, or something called ABBA EXPLOSION that is part of Swedish Week. I saw the beginning of Swedish Week (sponsored, of course, by IKEA) the other day in the center of town:



Because you totally cannot have any kind of Swedish Week without a) a pirate ship and b) IKEA's involvement.

Oh, Germany. It's good to be back.

willkommen in mainhattan

Yesterday I got on a plane, and today I officially moved to Frankfurt. I'm glad there are a whole lot of awesome things Frankfurt has going for it (Christmas markets; easy access to the entirety of Europe and beyond; hanging out with Katherine this weekend). Otherwise leaving New York would be pretty much awful.





I still don't like leaving New York a whole lot, but I've got hopes for Frankfurt. First day of work tomorrow -- wish me luck!

the shoulder season

I spent last weekend in Stone Harbor with my whole family. Both my brothers were on fall break, and I took my last two vacation days before I head to Germany on November 3rd (three weeks from today -- wild). Stone Harbor helpfully provided us all with pretty fantastic weather, so warm on Sunday that Dad and I went swimming without need of wetsuits. "Hypothermia sure feels nice," we joked.

The town is dressed up for fall, with corn husks on the lampposts that shed dried kernels all over the streets. It's meant to be monarch butterfly migrating season but we only saw a few here and there; we're thinking maybe next weekend will be actual migrating time.

It's always time for horseshoes, though. Thanksgiving? Christmas? You bet.

We didn't quite make it to any of the local festivals over Columbus Day weekend: Avalon Seafood Festival (I remember bagpipes and chowder as a child, and I still own a carved cedar chest Gran gave me for Christmas that she bought there); Columbus Day/Italian festival in Sea Isle; and, my favorite, the Lima Bean Festival in West Cape May. I'm beyond sad to have missed the crowning of the Lima Bean King and Queen. Maybe next year.