26 June 2016

1) It's been super hot. Granted, it hasn't been Las Vegas hot (115F, 46C), or even LA hot (105F, 40C) but with the humidity, it's been pretty miserable.  However, we've found that when it gets hot, we just move down into the cellar (which is mostly underground, like a US daylight basement.) It's at least 10C cooler down there.

Plus we did a very american thing and I bought two rolling air conditioners. They get here Monday. I'm told that De'Longhi is the Whirlpool of Europe. Maybe since they're Italian they'll come in red.

2) One of the cool things about southern Germany (or at least Karlsruhe) is the absolutely stunning thunder and lightning storms. The other night, it woke us up at around 2:am. There was lightning every 2-3 seconds, and the thunder "rumble" never stopped. It just went on and on for 10 minutes. I sat in front of the back door and watched it.  Amazing.

The downside, of course, is the flash flooding.  I hear the Alb river down in Ettlingen flooded that night, washed out the tram station and flooded part of the city and a bunch of businesses.

If you ever get a chance to come to this part of Germany, Ettlingen is amazing. We lived there for 3 months in a temporary flat. We still go to the Saturday market in the city center when we can.  There's a soup vendor there that makes amazing gulaschsuppe.

3) Germany treats drivers like adults.  Many of the rules/laws/etc. assume that people are rational and can figure out how to do things like enter an intersection with no signage without crashing. In the states, it all seems to be stop signs.  Here, it's all yields.  Then again, where there are stoplights, there are usually also signs, for use when the stoplights are out, and in many places,the stoplights are turned off at a certain hour.

4) I've mentioned the playgrounds here.  They're wonderful.  They remind me of the playgrounds in the US when I was a kid. There, you could CLIMB.  And fall and  break your arm, but you'd be more careful next time.  Now, the playgrounds in the US (at least in my experience) are safe and CRAZY BORING.

5) Lipton onion soup mix is like powdered gold. We're about to run out and we're not sure how we'll survive.

We use it for meatloaf and dips.

6) I've started making my own sausage.  I don't grind it, but it's easy here to get ground pork/beef and then I can season it and make american style sausage for breakfast (and for biscuits and gravy.)

Trying to get my sausage to taste close to this.

7) There are SO MANY eis places here (ice cream.)  Obviously, the lines in the summer are a bit long, but totally worth it.

8) Our company (www.gameforge.com) had our summer party at a lake in Weingarten on Friday.  Being pretty far from the ocean, I gather that the best way to beat the heat here is to go to the lake.

Granted, it didn't look as spectacular as this.

9) I had Käsewurst (cheese sausage) at the party.  It tasted just like Polska Kielbasa (literally "polish sausage") that we could get in the US. Now, I'm desperate to find the German name of the stuff so I can buy it (and it's non-cheese version.)  It might be called Käsekrainer...  If any german/american friends can help me figure out what to buy, I'd appreciate it.