27-05-2016 Food and nick nack edition

1) Schnick schnack means: frills, nicknack, tchotchke

2) There are SO many kinds of pasta sauce. In the states, besides some specialized ones, it's Ragu or Prego, mostly red sauces with various meats. We must be closer to Italy.


3) Holey moley there's some good cheese here.


4) Kartoffel Taschen are these stuffed hash browns. (filled potato pockets).

They remind us of Pizza-Tato-Skins from Round table pizza (from many years ago)













5) The hash browns we buy are triangular and thick, kinda like the wedges at Arbys.

6) Grafs are the "counts" of German nobility. I think they're the lowest rung. They still have big schlosses (castles/mansions/houses). And their wives have their own cute slightly smaller schlosses:





7) For some reason, I have the hardest time saying erdbeere (strawberry). It always comes out like Erd Ber Ma Gerd



8) You can get SO many varieties of Haribo snacks here:













Colorful Vampire






Sweet Mice














Sour legos?










Sour French Fries










Smurfs










Bear Pair (or Bear Partners)


















Forest Ghost







And these weird Chicago Bulls things.

20 May 2016 - Chinese takeout edition

These are from my experience ordering chinese/thai food here.

1. Chinese food is very savory here. That is, it's not sweet. Except for sweet and sour, and even that is probably half as sweet as I'm used to.

2. Szechuan style food (Art?) is most decidedly NOT spicy. I've ordered szechuan food in the US that I couldn't eat it was so hot.

3. The food is excellent here. But I do miss the super overly sweet US versions like General Tso, Orange chicken, etc.

4. No fortune cookies here (I believe they actually originated in 'Merica)

5. I had a spring roll that was the size of a small sandwich, rectangular, flat and deep fried. It was AMAZING.

6. Kung Pao (or Gong Bao) here is also not spicy like in the US. It's also not covered in peanuts.

7. The peanut sauce here is much more peanutty (and thick) than I'm used to.

And a bonus (added by Beth), German Chocolate cake is actually not from Germany, and is named after Samuel German from 'Merica.

14.05.2016

1) So far, bathrooms don't have exhaust fans.  Which means that a bathroom is sometimes "off limits" for a long while.

2) We got cable here.  I'm finding it useful to listen to German on TV when learning the language. Plus there are a ton of US language programs.  But they don't always have the same names: like "Navy CIS" instead of NCIS.

One cool thing is that our Horizon box (the special cable box) can be set to prefer an audio language, so when it's available, we can listen to shows in English.

One un-cool thing is the Youth Protection Act, which has caused the cable provider to disable the ability to turn OFF the parental controls.  Which means that whenever I want to watch Navy CIS, I have to enter a PIN number. Because it's rated 16+.  NCIS is rated as adults only.  NCIS.

3) I was invited to a BBQ at a Schrebergärten! It's an allotment garden that's intended to provide city dwellers the ability to own a little open space and grow their own food.  In fact, in some gardens (all?) you must devote 1/3 of the space to food growing, 1/3 to grass and 1/3 to "recreation".

They seem to be guided by associations much like HOAs in the US, that decide what you can and can't grow, ensure that your grass and garden is well tended, etc.  In the garden I visited, it all seemed very strict. You can't stay in it overnight, even to camp.

4) Insurance here seems to be more about liability (covering other's goods) than covering your own goods. And there are so many kinds. So many.

5) I mentioned before that our household goods insurance require us to have external house doors that
lock automatically. In our temp flat, and here at the new house, the locks don't have a way to set the deadbolt without a key for the inside as well. Which means we have to keep a key near the front door to lock it at night.

And for some reason you have to turn the key two full revolutions to set the deadbolt rather than one.

6) Really Budweiser?  America?

7) I tried a cider 'sampler' pack the other day.  Cider here is "hard" cider in the states, often (always?) made from fruit (apples, berries, etc.)   Of the sampler, there was one that I knew I'd like because it tastes very much like apple/berry juice and I'd had it before. (Bulmers berries and lime)

The problems is that every one of the other 5 tasted just like beer, and I dislike the taste of beer. (Don't tell the government, I'd like to stay in Germany. )

8) I'm arachnaphobic. I am afraid of spiders.  I've seen two here so far, and they are terrifying. Mostly because they look a little different (very thin legs, very fat bodies.).

09.05.2016

Auto edition

1) So, I want to go and buy a car. In the US, I'd go to a dealer, pick my car, sign paperwork, and drive it home. My current insurance would automatically cover me for 3 days until I could call them and get it officially covered.

I'm finding out that it's a bit different here.

I'm told that I go to a dealer, Pick the car then wait one or two days for the paperwork to be done, during which time, I give information about the car to an insurance company. When I have a special number, I go and pick up the car (and sign other paperwork.) Ideally, they also register it with the authorities.

German folks, did I get that right? I'm still a little confused.

2) I haven't seen a single pickup truck here.

3) To get a German driver's license, I need to have a fully translated american license, including the class of the license (presumably it translates to a German license class.)

If I'm lucky (and I am), I live in a state that has a reciprocal agreement with Germany. Washington state does so.

If your state doesn't have an agreement, you have to either:

1. Take the behind the wheel driving test 
2. Take the written test
3. Do both, after paying 1-2k for driving lessons.

In two weeks or so, I get a German license. Not sure if I need to give up my US license yet. We'll see.

4) I have 6 months from my date of entry into Germany to drive on my US license.

...

profit.

07.05.2016

1) I bought Pillsbury cinnamon rolls (German kind).  They were not only far less sweet, they didn't come with those cool frosting cups.

So Beth made her own cream cheese frosting!   Note that they didn't come pre-cut, or with those weird cinnamon stepping stones like on US rolls.

2) I tried to get my first haircut in Germany.  I'm oddly very worried about it. Evidently. there is no walk-in service, and the two in Hagsfeld close at noon and 1. 

I miss supercuts. 

3) One thing we really miss is Jimmy Dean hot sausage.  We used it in so many things: Meatloaf, breakfast sausage, and most importantly: gravy for biscuits and gravy.  The nearest thing we can find to "american" breakfast sausage is Nuremburg sausage, but I think it only _almost_ tastes american because it has some sage in it.  Then I found THIS recipe. 

4) I looked up butchers in Hagsfeld, and ran across one called Butcher R. Vogt.  At first, I thought that maybe his first name was butcher, but many professional storefronts/people seem to have their title in their names (a little differently than I'd expect.)   Dr. med Aschoff for doctors. Butcher Vogt for a butcher.

Beth and I went and got a kilo of ground pork. (or 2ish pounds.) It went reasonably well. It took a bit to realize we needed to ask for swine hackfleisch.  But we succeeded!

5) The downside of food delivery is relying on it.  Don't get me wrong, today was the first day we had a problem.  Evidently, the driver of the truck wrecked it (he's OK.) and we had to re-order.

05.05.2016

1. May in the state of Baden-Wurtenburg has three holidays in it, two are thursdays, which make natural 4 day weekend candidates.

2. I went to the doctor last week.  I managed to check in using German (with a very nice lady who spoke great English when I ran out of German words) After an hour of waiting, I went to the front desk to ask how much longer it wound be, and the formerly very nice lady got very angry and said quite a lot of things that I didn't understand.  So I waited some more.

3. There are so many kinds of milk!

Landmilch (country milk) - Minimum 3.8% fat

Vollmilch (whole milk) - Min 3.5% fat

Fettarme (low fat milk) - 1.5-1.8% fat

Magermilch (skimmed milk) - max 0.3% fat.

Then there are the different kinds of sterlization.

Rohmilch (raw milk) no heat treating. haven't seen this in stores.

Vorzugmilch (filtered raw milk). Lasts no more than 96 hours from bottling in fridge.

Frish Milch (pasturized). Lasts a maximum of 10 days in fridge

Laenger-Frish Milk (or ESL milk). Lasts up to 20 days in fridge

UHT-Milch. Lasts at room temp from 3-6 months

Sterimilch (sterilized milk).  Lasts at room temp for at least 6 months.

We buy Frish milch (actually we buy Alpenmilch, no idea what the difference is. From the Alps? Aplen kuhe?)

And don't get me started on the kinds of butter and how rare salted butter is!  We can't only find Irish Butter that's salted (so far.)

4) Pork Neck Steaks.  This is a thing here.  I don't mind it, but it has so much gristle (sometimes) and weird bits that Robin won't touch it.  I have not yet tried pork knuckle.