it's beginning

...to look a lot like christmas, though much more unusual.

today it snowed. the tiniest, slowest snowflakes i have ever seen. but when i saw them from my window i squealed and did an awkward happysnowdance. my own little ceremony.

we took a long time walking home from the school today, catching snowflakes on our sleeves and inspecting every one. and after lunch we decorated the christmas tree.

but isn't that supposed to be a family project? my christmas tree memories are warmfuzzy family scenes, tramping around tree farms and digging through boxes of old ornaments together and listening to the vince guaraldi trio and the nylons. in general, i think the family i work for is wonderful and loving and functional, but today i felt a little sad. after the kids left for school, mom and dad dragged a little tree into the room and left me with a box of ornaments and a string of lights. it took the kids just a few minutes after school to bury our charlie brown tree in origami stars.

i'm missing y'all today, and i hope your trees are beautiful.

green

from the Belchen, once upon a time.

this one's from the vault because i'm sick in bed, looking at old pictures instead of taking new ones.

faux

unseasonably

warm.

i've resigned myself to the freakish december weather and made my own paper blizzard. the kids made snowflakes for the downstairs windows, and i taught them the (apparently american) joys of the construction paper chain.

the halls, they are decked.

and freiburg is decked out too. those big red star lights are my favorite. come on amerika, ditch the plastic santas already.

i wish it would snow.

hello december

i live in christmasland.

christmas has never been my favorite, but germany somehow turns me into a christmas fiend. there's a christmas market in freiburg, and it's magical. something about the mulled wine and the lights and all that pine, it melts my heart.

one day into december, and i've already drunk plenty of glühwein.
a sufjan christmas is on repeat on my itunes.
i spend a lot of time at the window waiting for the rain to turn to snow.
wish y'all were here.

on occasion

usually it's screaming and wrestling and spitting and shredding and flailing and chasing and breaking and crying and destroying...

but sometimes it's bliss.

some kind of thanksgiving

on saturday kelly and i cooked a wildly successful thanksgiving dinner for my aupair family. curried sweet potatoes, stuffing, corn with mint, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce and raspberry pie. the kids helped with the pie (i've got them kind of obsessed, and it's sweet). then they went downstairs and dressed up like indians, completely unprompted, and somehow got kelly into a pumpkin costume. it's possible kelly will never visit freiburg again.

Seepark

there's a lake by my house.
it's surrounded by sports fields and apartment complexes and a boat house and a public swimming pool, just like every other "natural" space in germany (god i miss the rockies). but there are trees and turtles. and this little bit of nature is keeping me sane.

i am thankful for some things

of course there's no thanksgiving in germany. so today, while my family eats pie in minneapolis, i am having pickeld red cabbage for lunch and then heading to the immigration office to get my visa sorted out. i'm feeling sort of anti-thanksgiving, and that is unacceptable because i've often called it my favorite holiday. so i decided i better make a list:

i am thankful for
the market in freiburg
mail from far-away friends
peter fox
delicious coffee
my bikeable city
the running path around seepark
getting to travel
my attic room
the current streaming
kid art
rhubarb yogurt
my camera
a sweet summer job waiting in the US
mi familia


and on saturday, kelly is coming from frankfurt and we're cooking. i am scouring freiburg for some sweet potatoes and cranberries. thanksgiving will be redeemed!

number 11

finished number eleven off the list.
there is no word for pie in german, so we're calling it a cake.
or sometimes "das Pie," but that's a little awkward.

The Great Rang Teng Teng

drank some beers with emma at The Great Rang Teng Teng last week - my new favorite haunt in freiburg. it's grungy and dark like my favorite places in minneapolis. it's western-themed like my favorite places in montana. and the beers are large and delicious like my favorite places in germany. the best of all my worlds.

p.s. thanks cheryl, i owe you some great recommendation some day.

grownup food

i cook a lot of kidfood these days, so i took advantage of emma's visit, and we cooked and ate some delicious things. homemade flammkuchen, steffi's coffee cake and mohnschnecke nudeln, a four hour german brunch with lox and café au lait, pumpkin soup, elaborate pizzas for the kids, and a mock thanksgiving for our german friends' benefit.

a whole wonderful week without noodles or fried eggs.

far from the madding crowd

my friend emma came to visit last week, and we spent time with our mutual german friends (whom we met in ireland in college...life is strange). freiburg shuts down on sundays, and the freiburgers take to the forest, or to the hills, or drive to the mountains somewhere. last weekend the weather was not great for a hike in the black forest, as we had planned, so we drove to a valley town and walked up in the hills surrounding it, among the cows. how very pastoral.

zlatý klinec

'twas hard to go back to work after my wonderful vacation. austria/slovakia was the "zlatý klinec" of my autumn (my new favorite slovak phrase: the "golden nail," the special little something extra).

freiburg was soggy when i got back, so i spent a week in hibernation.
then my emma came from wisconsin and rescued me, just in time.



btw, i got my trip photos up on flickr this week.

a note on green sauce

i'm not usually that excited about german food. i don't like meat, and the germans love it. i think vegetables are better before you pickle them. i think wurstsalat is totally bizarre. and leberkäse too. so i had every intention of eating turkish food and sushi in frankfurt. i'm down with that, i'm used to it, and i love turkish food. and then i saw the Ebbelwei Expreß roll through town:



i didn't want to ride the "Apple Wine Express," but i did want to try some of this Ebbelwei stuff that seems so important to the frankfurt tourist experience. the internet told me to try Ebbelwei with the famous Frankfurter Grüne Söße, green sauce made with boiled eggs and vinegar and lots of herbs. so kelly and i headed to the Sachsenhausen neighborhood in search of "typisch frankfurt" and ended up in a lovely little restaurant with this delicious meal:

i'm not a convert to german cuisine, but that sauce was delicious.
and the leftovers were great at 4am when we finally stopped dancing.