Greetings Earthlings from chilly Germany! First up, a lesson in that native tongue of mine. This may be slightly different lesson than you may be used to. This one may apply mostly to the Loesch household, and may not be used in Germany in public.
Satan (pronounce "suddun") has nothing to do with the dude with the horns and the red cape, but in my brother's house is a intentional mispronounciation of "Southern" as in "Southern Comfort", known as SoCo in my circle of friends. After my brother and his entourage discovered a somewhat abandoned bottle of the tasty stuff in my place in October, this has become one of their favorite libations to sample.
Seckel, again an intentional mispronounciation, this time deriving from "Sekt" or "Prosecco", the bubbly stuff consumed in liberal quantities around the holidays. Seckel (also Seggel) in that undecipherable Southern German dialect of mine means Idiot or bonehead and is only used to insult males. (No need to worry, we do have words for the other gender as well, no shortage here).
This could go on quite a bit - to call the Southern German dialect colorful would be an understatement, and some of the phrases even my 72-year old aunt spits out over lunch are definitely not fit to be printed. Of course, every time that very social family of mine gets together, we create our own language (no matter if there is alcohol involved or not, and new words and phrases in the Loesch Dictionary now include "pasan" (parmesan cheese), the "five-course course", "tastewise it is tasty" and my favorite "I paid for it, I'll eat it." One phrase you might find useful, in particular if you do plan to drive on our suicidal roadway known as the Autobahn, is "Gib Gas!", which is the equivalent for "Step on It!" The Autobahn, contrary to everyone's notion, does have speed limits in quite a few areas, but where there is not, things get quite scary. There are only two options- in the right lane with all the other slowpokes and the trucks (they have a speed limit wherever they go) or in the left lane with the UFOs. I try to avoid driving on the Autobahn if possible, no need to get an ulcer now.
A couple of very positive developments here in good old Germany - first, in my home state of Baden Württemberg and a few other states, smoking has been outlawed in restaurants. How great is that! Eating out has become quite a different experience and I for one am quite happy about it. Secondly more and more stores here take credit cards (they used to take only EU credit cards for a while) - again very positive.
So, let's see. I left you last week Thursday and since then vacationing and visiting friends and family was the main agenda item for my visit. I did have a chance to see an aunt of mine, who has been ill for a while, and we did spent quite a nice afternoon. In the evening, Andrea, Marion and I headed into town for a nice meal at the Restaurant Salmen, a charming place owned by a friend of ours (this used to be a dark and dingy dive and hats off to Volker for restoring it to be a nice and decent place to have a meal and a good time).
Then this past Friday, as promised, it was time to head up into the Blackforest (http://images.google.de/images?hl=de&q=Schwarzwald&gbv=2) for some of the white stuff. "Dashing through the snow with a surgical boot on my foot, o'er the hills we go, Petra's heel still kaputt....". Accompanied by my friends Gitta, her husband Joachim and daughter Lucia, as well as my friends Gisela and Fritz, we headed up to the Wiedener Eck to see some nice snow(http://images.google.de/images?gbv=2&svnum=10&hl=de&q=Wiedener+Eck). While Joachim, Lucia and Fritz hoofed it along the cross-country trails (known as Loipen), the girls trudged alongside the trails, watched the skiers and knuckle draggers (snowboarders) and let the sun shine in our faces. A stylish plastic bag gave the surgical boot and my toes some protection from the snow, and all was well. A brief stop at the Wiedener Eck Restaurant for a "snack" turned into a full-fledged meal which included some decadent apple fritters with vanilla ice cream and everyone was ready for a digestive nap once we got home. (http:/)/www.wiedener-eck.de/
Saturday we stayed close to home, walked around the neighborhood a bit, and then decided to head over to Basel, Switzerland (http://images.google.de/images?gbv=2&svnum=10&hl=de&q=Basel), a mere 15-minute drive from home, to check out the Grand Casino (http://www.grandcasinobasel.com/). Pretty snazzy looking from the outside, very colorful, the inside is smoky, and quite a bit more drab than I had expected. Aside from a few others that just like our little posse wanted to just test the waters, this seemed to be the playground for the serious addiction gambler, and more than once we got elbowed away from the tables. While my brother tested his luck near the Roulette tables, Andrea, Marion and I headed for the slot machines, which proved to be quite the challenge. The language on the screens for the one-armed bandits were in both German and English, but did not really explain anything, and the language on the buttons to be pushed were in French. After a more than frustrating experience hopping from machine to machine, and not really accomplishing anything I turned in my jetons and headed to the bar for some wine. Overall one of those "been there, done it" kind of experiences.
Sunday again turned out quite quiet, with a nice walk and an afternoon visit to our friends Ralf and Margit, who live just across the creek, and whose sons Joshua and David provided the entertainment alongside a lovely Kaffeeklatsch. It was my first time meeting young David, who was born in early 2007 and who is quite a little flirt. Following the coffee and Applestrudel affair I got seriously beaten by Joshua in a game of "Apple Tree" - each player had a certain supply of apples, and had to get ten in a basket, however somehow all the other players ended up emptying my basket, and Joshua for one showed no mercy, not even a hint.
The evening was spent in Auggen, a community about 7 minutes south-east of Neuenburg with a visit to my friends Fritz and Gisela. Fritz, if you must know is the Mayor of Auggen - http://www.auggen.de/ .Aside from that, he is also a trained chef and for many years ran a winery, so dinners at the Deutschmanns are always a treat (and of course, Gisela is no distant second when it comes to cooking, I have no idea how she does it all - we even had homemade Bailey's Irish Cream!). We did have Raclette that night (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raclette), a traditional Swiss dish, where cheese is melted and browned in small little pans, and one adds all kinds of goodies such as ham, mushrooms, onions, veggies and of course, pickles. Yummm!!!!!
I thought Boston runners were tough,but the Southern German contingent are no wussies either. Monday, after shopping and first preparations for New Year's Eve (known as Silvester in these parts), Martin, Marion, Andrea and I headed to the tradi tional "Silvesterlauf" in Britzingen. This 10 K roadrace is held evey year; about 400 runners make their way through the foothills of the Blackforest, past vineyard after vineyard, and are welcomed by a very enthusiastic crowd. What I did find interesting was that not only the spectators, but also the runners stood in line to warm up with a glas of two of traditional Gluehwein (mulled wine= http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gluehwein). Red wine is the last thing I would drink right before a 10 K, but then again, pre-race warm up is different for everyone, eh?
New Year's Eve at my family's home is celebrated with a surprise dinner. Names are pulled out of a hat, three days prior, and each person is assigned either an appetizer, first course, main course or desert. You are not allowed to disclose which meal you are cooking and what you will prepare. This will ensure a pretty interesting combination of dishes, but you know what? We did pretty good. Aside from a snafu in the preparation of the desert (which included a couple of emergency trips to the store, involvement of a desert consultant, several exploding balloons, my brother screaming expletives and maybe a paint job in the kitchen) everything went smoothly. The menu included sesame chicken strip with a green pepper cocktail sauce (Petra), fresh pea soup (Marion), Coq au Vin (Andrea) and a Vanillamousse with Mango Purree in choclate bowls (Martin). There was lots of wine, champagne, a visit to the neighbors around 12:30 AM to ring in the New Year, card games until about 3 AM and other such things. Fireworks at midnight here are always a bit crazy, our street looked like a war zone, and it was a big surprise that the neighbor's mini van did stay intact and did not blow up.
Tuesday, the first day of the year, did start a little slow; all of use experienced some slight malaise on account of the fact that we did go to bed at 4 AM and maybe had just a wee bit too much to drink (and I have not touched anything since - time to take a break). A little fresh air and a nice stroll through the city of Muellheim and a visit to Erika (Marion and Andrea's mom) rounded out the day (http://www.muellheim.de/).
Yesterday we went to Freiburg, my old college town (http://images.google.de/images?gbv=2&svnum=10&um=1&hl=de&q=Freiburg), mainly for the purpose of retail therapy, we shopped til we dropped at a nice Italian restaurant, which did come highly recommended. While the food was definitely more than tasty, the wait staff of one was a wee bit overwhelmed, ran through the place like a tractor huffing and puffing, and I believe was pretty much ready to cry at a moment's notice.
My friends, time to go now, hope you rang in the New Year quite nicely! I will head back to Boston this Sunday, and hope to see many of you soon.
pet:)
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