Sweet peas

One of the great things about living in a pokey little city of about 200 thousand people is that everything is next door to everything else. Right around the corner from my flat is a square, which still has quite a few elegant apartment bocks surrounding it and was obviously a bit of a civic centre in centuries past. These days it houses a car park and a playground, as well as being flanked by the usual collection of German shops; a chemist, a doctor’s surgery, two bakeries, a bookstore, a luxury tea shop, an ice creamery, a newsagent and a supermarket. On Sunday the bakeries are only open until midday and the queues stretch out the door. I imagine the entire neighborhood sitting down to fresh bread rolls and pastries for a Sunday brunch, chuckling about scoring the last poppy seed roll.
The nicest thing about my square, however, is that twice a week there’s a grower’s market there. Literally fifty metres from my house I can buy fresh produce, cheeses, olives, flowers and bread, as well as the occasional handicrafts. It doesn’t matter how much money I take to the market, I inevitable spend it all.
Yesterday was typical, I intended to buy myself some flowers and maybe some stone fruit. Unfortunately, the moment I wandered in I was caught by the idea of buying some Gouda for Simon, since it’s usually him who buys the cheese. A the cheese stand I tasted some family cheese and two kinds of Gouda, one of which was described as caramel/walnut and which was exactly that, an odd combination of cheese and caramel tastes. Then I was entranced by the cream cheeses on offer, some with tomatoes and herbs, others with chives. I got about eight euros worth of 12 month old Gouda and a container of cream cheese with bear leek, a kind of garlicky chive which I love.
With my wallet feeling a little empty I went back to the flower stand I had spotted on my way in, where I thought I had seen something interesting. I was right, sweet peas and plenty of them, in all sorts of incredible colours. I had never seen sweet peas at the market before, and since they’re one of my favourite flowers I had to get them, hang the expense. At first the lady didn’t want to bargain with me, but after I hung around pathetically for a few minutes she gave me a euro off and I got three beautiful colours for a measly five euros. Then I asked her what they were called: Wicken. A rather harsh name for such a pretty flower. I told her in English they were called sweet peas and she couldn’t quite believe it, telling the boss: hey boss, these are called sweet peas in English! What! He grunted, Sweet peas! What do you know! He told me that these particular colours only grow in the “four lands”, that is the area just south of Hamburg. The reason I’d never seen them before is that there’s only one grower, who has four greenhouses just filled with sweet peas.
After that it was two pineapples from Ecuador and I had no money left, a full basket and the knowledge I had bought nothing very useful but had enjoyed it thoroughly anyway. Can’t wait for next week.

Deer and scuba diving

Last weekend was another a normal weekend in Kiel. I checked out some deer and wild pigs that live in a park up the road and went for my first open water dive. Just the usual.








The place where we went diving.

Stormy weather

The view from my window. Note the lack of blue sky. In fact, it's pissing down but, as I have just discovered, the rain doesn't photograph so well.

So much for four seasons, this year I think I've only had two so far: drizzly winter and slightly warmer autumn. This is now the fourth consecutive week where it has rained at least four times in one day almost every single day. I now have full sympathy for the insane drop-everything-and-have-a-barbeque behaviour of people in the north when the sun comes out - I didn't think it was possible to have an entire summer with no sun. It turns out it is.

Luckily I have a ready collection of melancholy music, most of my music being already quite melencholy. At the moment I'm listening to the dulcit tones of Holly Throsby, earlier I had some Staring Girl, a band from Kiel that my flatmate put me onto, and next shall be the Howling Bells and some Jolie Holland. If I'm still here and don't have to go to work Kasey Chambers'll be next. With a cup of tea in my hand I could be back in Sydney at the this time of year.

Hanging with the Czech ladies

Last week I had the glorious pleasure of accompanying my two cousins to their grandmother's holiday house near the German border, in the Czech Republic. We drove for seven hours across Germany with a four month-old baby in the back seat, his devoted mother breastfeeding him every two hours or so, and the three of us (or rather four) singing maniacally to a CD of English children's songs I brought back from London. If I ever have to hear "If you're happy and you know it" again my head is going to start spinning. We arrived at a little wooden hut facing a lake, surrounded by other wooden huts, to an enthusiastic welcome from the Czech-only speaking auntie, twelve year old baby crazy cousin and grandmother, as well as their mum who had arrived a week previously. And fruit-filled dumplings, hot, with powdered sugar. And a hammock, which became my second home for the week while the four adults (I don't count myself) discussed their lives in Czech, only to occasionally ask me a question through my cousins, about my plans, my family, my eating habits, my ankle.
Actually not speaking Czech was a really strange experience - having to nod and smile with half the inhabitants of a very small house was a little stressful at first. But by the last day Eva was talking at me in Czech in the kitchen and I was happily not comprehending anything she had to say. At first it was weird though, especially when the grandma asked me within the first five minutes why I wasn't married and why I was a vegetarian. But obviously there were also benefits - she couldn't ask me directly for example.
It was so lovely to spend time with all these energetic and positive women, as well as a cute baby. I came back to Kiel with so much good energy - it's lovely.




The spa town near to the hut we stayed in, Fransensbad in German. Gorgeous yellow and white buildings, in the style of the Austro-Hugarian empire, surrounded by parks, fountains and the springs themselves.


One of the springs, I'm not actually filling up the bottle because my cousin said she'd throw up if she had to smell it. It did smell a bit like a year eight science room.


My aunt goaded all young women of childbearing age without children into touching this statue, which is supposed to increase your fertility.


The view from the hut.

Susie and Junus looking lovely.


Little Junus looks like his granddad.

Adult content

I've been an ESL teacher for a few years now and I've heard some pretty funny things. One of my favorites is the German tendency to confuse wife with woman so you end up with sentences like: me and my woman went to the football (mind you I still confuse the words humid and gay in German to everyone's amusement, so I'm not one to talk). Japanese and Korean students had many other errors which were odd, or interesting, or bizarrely sexual. However, the best mistake I've heard yet was made by my 18 year old elementray student today.

The background is this: we were doing an activity where we had to guess what each other does at particular times of the day. As in: at two o'clock you work, at ten o'clock you sleep etc. In German the words for eat and food are the same, so you say I cook eat. The word for cook is kochen, pronounced with a soft ch in the back of the throat. So the activity is going very well and we're almost finished when my student has to guess what I do at seven in the evening.

My student: you eat c*ck at seven.
Me: (best poker face you ever saw) Nooooo... I think you mean cook?
Him: Yes, c*ck.
Me: COOK. C-OO-K. I cook my food for dinner.
Him: You c*ck your dinner.

And so it went on. I'm looking forward to the other teacher tomorrow being asked about her nighttime activites. If his English wasn't so bad I'd almost suspect him of knowing what he was saying.

Wrong, wrong, wrong

For avid readers: I asked some students about the whole du/Sie thing (see blog entry from last week) and surprise, surprise, I got it completely wrong. Apparently the random stranger was doing me a favour by calling me du, and inclduing me in her special club. Silly me. What ?!

Gerstralia

Last week I posted off an application to renew my driver's license, which as a lucky citizen of NSW, is possible as long as you're not away for longer than five years and your license hasn't been expired for too long. Yesterday I got an email saying that, unfortunately, they couldn't renew my license because I had an outstanding fine which had gone to the state debt recovery service (didn't know we had one) and my license was suspended until I paid it. This was all very confusing given that a) I've been out of the country for two years and b) I don't own a car.
Anyway I sent off an email to the nice folks at the SDRS and they got back to me pronto telling me I had a fine because I... wait for it... didn't vote in the 2005 State by-election for Marrickville. So, to summarise, I can't get my license renewed because I didn't vote in a by-election. I'm torn between being really impressed with the speed with which I got this information, as well as the depth of state control in NSW and really, really frightened that Australia has TURNED INTO GERMANY.

Anyway the next step in this whole ridiculous process was to email the NSW Electoral Service telling them I was out of the country, which I just did. Stay tuned...

High tea

Currently in my, for want of a better word, larder I have the following teas: rosegarden (containing whole rose buds), ginger chai, Lübeck marzipan, Niederegger Marzipan tea (black), digestion tea, black current leaf tea and a clove and cinammon tea I picked up at the chemist.

Overall a rather girly collection. Perhaps I need to get more of the sort of tea which puts hair on your chest. Sailors' tea? Tea for men who drink too much?

Recent Kiel pics

The curse of missing words

My friend Judith when I was complaining about not having the word I needed in a shop:
"Because you have a good accent you don't sound foreign, you just sound stupid."

You and you

I've made quite good progress in German since the days I was too scared to open my mouth in conversation class at university. These days I'm more likely to talk too much, or too familiarly so that the other person thinks I'm either rude or ignorant. My accent is not strong and if I'm really lucky and the person I'm speaking to is a little absent-minded or busy they might even think I'm a native German speaker. But I always give myself away when it comes to saying you.
German isn't as complicated as some language when it comes to the polite forms. On paper it's simple: with strangers, superiors, university professors or anyone else you want to show respect to use Sie. With friends, close colleagues, children or people you meet at parties and other cool and relaxed places use du. If only it were that simple.
To give you a good idea of the complexity of the Sie/du divide here is a recent scenario. At the bank where I work a department has a new board member. He insists on the du form for everyone, regardless if secretary or manager. All of my students mention this fact when I asked them about him. Their opinions, however, on the relative merit of this radical move were vastly different.
Some felt it was a great break with the past of the bank and the rigid hierarchy which led to some colleagues being dutzt and some Sietzt. They thought it showed an appreciation of all members in the department, regardless of how closely they worked with the boss. Sounds good to me.
But wait. Others felt very differently. This shows disrespect for the traditions of the bank, they said. It's an unrealistic and insincere intimacy. And above all, it's an emotionally charged act, to require everyone to use the more familiar term. For those who aren't used to it, it makes them very uncomfortable. Is this a good first move?
I was left fairly baffled by the whole thing. I could appreciate the logic of both arguments but thought it was placing a lot of emotional value on to one little word. Surely, I thought, they can realise that objectively it's not that important? That it means the same thing in the end, if you say Would you be so kind (Sie)or Do it (du)?

And then, this morning someone called for my boss while the secretary was out so I answered the call. It was all going well when out of the blue this complete stranger calls me du. She must have thought I was a lowly secretary or just very young, because I obviously didn't know the rules of phone etiquette (but why? I'll never know) and so wasn't worthy of the respectful term. I was outraged. It seems I have picked it up after all. Now if I could only remember to use the appropriate verb form which follows...

Go Bonnie go!

It's Kiel Week. This, in case you don't already know, is the biggest sailing festival in Northern Europe. This small, provincal town fills up with drunken Poms, Scandinavians looking for cheap alcholol, sailors in ridiculous costumes from the other side of the Baltic, Isreali jewellers, English fudge purveyors, the Dutch, the French, even the Aussies have a stand at the international food market, decked with Fosters umbrellas and selling prawns on a stick. On every street corner there's a stage, a bunch of badly dressed over-fifties and a man selling sausages and beer. Oh and then there's the huge techno parties and cocktail stands selling caiprinhas for five Euros a pop.

So last night was the official opening of this great event and I celebrated it by going to see the highlight on the main stage near the town hall... Bonnie Tyler. Man did she rock. Not only did she look about thirty (but was that a wig? We'll never know) she bagged Axel Rose, name-dropped like it was going out of style and croaked her way through all her friends's hits as well as her own. I have to admit though, when Total eclipse of the heart came on I loved every minute of it. It made me feel like I was eight years old all over again.

Injuries talk

I torn my damn tendon again, this time by playing frisbee in the park after doing aerobics. Thanks to the wonder that is the German health system I didn't have to pay a dime for the x-ray and the specialist, but I did spend two hours of my life in an emergency waitng room watching daytime television. So, the upshot of it all is that while the sun shines and Kielers bake themslves doing all manner of boistrous outdoor activites I'll be limping around, pasty and plump, reading my way through my friend's libraries and watching many TV series'. Actually now that I put it in writing it doesn't sound that bad.

But the real unforseen bonus is that I have discovered the secret of making small talk up here - limp! People who have never bothered to talk to me before, the post office man, the security guard, the baker, are suddenly friendly, sympthetic and personable. I feel like an explorer who, after almost two years of fruitlessly searching for the lost gold of the tribe of something or other, and who had begun to doubt it's very existence, waking up one morning to be told by a friendly native in perfect English that, actually, the gold is over there and they were wondering when he was going to ask.

When I mention my find to Germans they say, "Oh yes, we love to talk about illness, especially the old people." I think I should put this in a guide book as to how to put people at ease:
Some people find the German manner a little stiff and formal but a sniffle, cough, some bruising or a limp will soon reduce them to the amiable, intelligent and interested people they are.

I ?!%$ London

Tube of vomit

I always thought I was a big city kind of person. I love the energy of cities, the different faces, the anonymity, the strange and wonderful corners, the history, the scars. I felt at home in big cities, slipping easily between the crowds, finding my niche of where to shop, eat, drink, learn and marvel. Something has changed.

London was completely overwhelming, noisy, vast, ugly, beautiful and above all, filled to the brim with stuff. I felt suddenly like someone had squeezed my surroundings into a tiny little box and then piled up thousands of other boxes until there was no empty space left in my entire visual universe. Mental either, for that matter. I hated the tube, it made me want to vomit, walking around was a matter of head down, elbows out and somehow even the vast array of food left me cold. What the hell has happened to me?

Which is not to say I didn't enjoy parts of it, like hanging out with a couple of cool ladies, or visiting the (extremely overcrowded)Tate modern filled with amazingly engaged kids and their parents, and some quite cool art. I just didn't love it the way I loved visiting Budapest last year, or going to Hamburg. Either London isn't for me, or I've become a small towner. Help me.

And of course it rained.

Show off

Today I had the great pleasure of acting like a world-travelling, freewheeling, free-spirited and adventurous soul, rather than the stay-at-home in jamys type I really am most of the time. It was lovely, and went something like this:

Friend: Oh, hey we're having a party tomorrow night, it's going to be a surprise party. Want to drop by?
Me (sucking air through teeth): Awww Id love to but I can't...I'm going to London.
Friend (obviously a little taken aback given my usual lethargy): Oh right, great, what are you doing there?
Me: Oh, you know... visiting friends (inaudible whoop of glee).
Friend (backing away from obviously body-snatched Hanna): Well... have a great time.

Yay!Yay! It's true I'm going from a city no-one has ever heard of to one many have, and that makes me cool. For once, I'm actually living like I'm living in Europe. Of course, I will come back from this weekend of debauchery with a big debt to the nice people at the Commerzbank, but hey. That's how we live here. In Europe.

Ps the above picture was taken by a lovely student of mine when he visited London recently. For my trip, add rain.

Trash talk

On Saturday I had the dubious pleasure of hosting a Eurovision event - three screens, one of which was a projection onto the wall, showing the night of all nights, the Grand Prix of Entertainment, the Eurovision Song Contest. A few weeks ago I was in raptures at the idea of seeing the thing live, in Europe, with the possibility of voting (even if I knew I wasn't going to) for every country except the one I was in. Which, given that Germany usually sucks, wasn't too much of a problem. On the day, however, I lost all of my enthusiaism and couldn't remember why I'd wanted to watch the damn thing in the first place, as we shopped for booze, food and rearranged our entire room in its name.

In the end I quite enjoyed it, even after a whole day of trying to get the digital projector to work and failing (my techhead surfie flatmate wandered in about three minutes before showtime and fixed it, using a handfull of cables I don't know what to do with and would certainly never own. Then he proceeded back to his room to boycott the "Shit festival"). It's just so glorious in its mix of deadly serious chicks in sparkly dresses, camp dance routines and rich countries like France and Sweden seemingly taking the piss while Turkey belly-dances pop-stlye and the Ukraine takes the piss out of the Germans.

Actually that was the favorite of the night at our place, because it combind sparkle, satire, men in tight shorts and a man dressed as a woman while pretending to be some kind of disco nazi - his song went "Eins, zwei, sieben - TANZEN!" while boys in silver sparkly bike shorts did some kind of pogo dance.

Another favorite moment of mine was the oh-so-crap British pop band Minogue-esque song, which looked and sounded like a Virgin commercial (although I appreciated the camp "Would you like something to suck on during the flight?" they threw in).

It was, however, kind of tragic how no-one likes the Germans. During the voting when the Danish presenter said gushingly "And X points for our neighbour Sweden!" one of Simon's friend's said "But we're your neighbours!" in an agonized tone. And when another country deigned to give Germany five or so points the German commentator said on behalf of his country he was "surprised and delighted". Pathetic.

Square eyes

In case it's not hugely obvious, I'm home sick with a cold and a swollen foot today (from tripping over while wandering around in a daze with a head cold) so I've revamped my blog, added some new bits and pieces and even read some German newspaper which I usually avoid because it's too depressing realizing how many words I don't know.

I've recently been watching the following excellent American shows: Scrubs, Veronica Mars and Heroes. Highly recommended. I was so upset when I got to the last Scrubs available - it's completely addictive. And John Dorian reminds me of my brother. Ms Mars, on the other hand, reminds me of who I'd like to be, although a little less underweight. And perhaps not in California.

Spring

When I think of spring, I think of birthdays (mine and those of friends), of the September holidays, of a slow, delicious warming up until the long, lazy days of a hot summer. When I was a child spring meant endings of things, the school year, wearing stuffy woolen jumpers, huddling around the gas heater. The older me was relieved at the end of studying with a hot water bottle on my lap, or paying exorbitant heating bills. Spring means the days get longer, no longer dark at six o'clock, the scarves are packed away and the city comes alive with festivals, celebrations (Jewish New Year), chairs in the sun, picnics in the park.
A spring in May seems right on paper - hence the Maypole dance I did in September when I was ten - but it feels wrong, wrong, wrong. The flowers come out, they are suddenly everywhere in all colours. There are hyacinths, tulips, magnolias, bluebells, daisies and everywhere there are daffodils. In German they are called Easter bells, because they bloom over Easter. There are tulips growing in gardens and on nature strips which I would pay good money for back home; they're lush pink, lipstick red, violent purple, vivid orange or canary yellow and perfectly formed. The trees blossom, and then, too quickly, start to grow back their leaves, the daffodils die, suddenly the air smells sweet and mild and the sky is full of jet streams. It's a brief, beautiful European spring and it feels a little like walking into a film of how spring is supposed to be.






Here, when the sun comes out and it's twenty degrees there's no waiting for next weekend. It's time to head to the park, with your portable barbecue, your array of outdoor games, a case of beer, your bikini and eight to twenty of your closest friends. If you're a homeowner with a garden it's time to lacquer your garden furniture, repaint the garage, remove your winter tyres and crack out the barbecue in the backyard. Time to go on cycling trips, to play tennis, soccer, to take the kids to the sandpit. In our case it's time to play Frisbee without getting wet feet, although trying to find a patch of grass to play it on is difficult. We can play until almost ten o'clock, because it's still light, and still find time for an ice cream on the way home. The best flavours here are of course the ones made with the rich, creamy milk they drink, hazelnut, chocolate, caramel, vanilla. For risk takers there's nutella, plum, egg liquor and miracle flavour (tastes like lollies).




As far as food goes, that's also seasonal. It's asparagus season, not the green but the white variation, the one that needs to be peeled before consumption. Last year my cousin was lovely enough to cook it for us, with butter and salt and ham for the meat-eaters. It's also strawberry season, which means a kilo of strawberries for an eighth of their winter price, sweet and fresh and delicious. Manuela maintains that these are the only two foodstuffs that still have a season here, but I think otherwise. To me, child of a Großstadt (big city), everything seems so seasonal here, and not just personal seasons but communal. People seem to know when it's time to eat beet, or which kind of potato is the best this year, when the canola fields are in bloom or when to buy tulips. There's flea markets every other weekend to get rid of the products of spring cleaning or acquire new objects to sell next year.





For me it's a new kind of spring. It doesn't have that sense of things ending, rather of something new and different, strangely out of whack with my inner seasons but nonetheless familiar. There are no insects on the grass when we picnic, no hole in the ozone layer to worry about, no sharks or dangerous jellyfish when we go to the beach. It's a bit like stepping into one of those European fairy tales I read as a child, or a book by Enid Blyton, or Anne of Green Gables. Nature with it's claws removed. I'm not sure if I should, but so far, I'm enjoying the fantasy.

Recent history

Today a student asked me what `recent` meant and I had a moment of blank native speaker idiocy - what the hell does it mean? I gave up and gave them the German. What a cop out. At least after sixty seconds of pressing my fingers to my forehead I remembered the word `sustainable`. Why can't we just say afterholdable like they do here?

Now that I'm home and have access to dictionaries I know that it means `a time close to now in the past`. In that vein I thought I'd put up some pictures from times close to now in the past.





The recent addition to my extended family with his dad - poor Yunis is a little upset that this isn't his best angle.




The other slightly less-recent addition, in fact Yunis's cousin, the gorgeous Milan who is the happiest baby in the world. Even with me.




Random Kiel festival I stumbled across recently, convinced people I was American and that they should let me photograph them.




Since the World Cup it's okay to have German flags hanging from your window. Apparently.




At Manuela's birthday Simon is suitably adorned.



Chilling out in Bremen for a weekend - very happy that it's sunny.



A windmill in Bremen - the question is why? What is being milled? I never found out.