Odd and ends

So many things still to write about--dinner with Stefan's brother's family yesterday in Odelzhausen and our conversation about whether Jewish soldiers would have been included on WWI memorials with crosses (yes, if the crosses were "iron crosses," but probably not if the crosses were church-affiliated, and so much more to say about different kinds of anti-Semitism and how it played out regionally in the part of the world now known as Germany); how to recognize small Bavarian churches from afar (see photos below--there are basically two predominant types of Baroque towers, the onion dome and the simple triangle); lunch with Inge (Helen's best friend for the past 70 years); the annual dueling Haensel und Gretels in Muenchen (today we reconfirmed that the Gaertnerplatz performance is not the one to attend if you want to be able to hear the singers over an adequate pit orchestra, but we aren't sure we can handle going to the Staatsoper performance next year to confirm that it's the one to see); and how sad it is that the performance of "Aloha He, Stern der Suedsee" by Die Flippers has been removed from youtube.com because of copyright restrictions.

But (to paraphrase Chaucer) instead of writing about all those things, we're feverishly packing and repacking, already pining for Germany before we get on a plane tomorrow to head back to the U.S. We thought we had all our suitcase and carry-on space cleverly mapped out, and then a Nigerian guy tried to blow up an airplane in Detroit the other day and our airline changed its baggage rules. Oh well. Back to work.

There are, of course, lots of things to look forward to back home: our friends, our cats, our house, our neighborhood; organs to play, pots to wheel-throw, a choir to conduct, writing workshops to give; a gas oven and stove top, American baking powder, and local streets that are wide enough for two cars to drive on in opposite directions at the same time. We're dusting of our "might coulds" and "oughta shoulds" and girding ourselves for culture shock.

I don't know that I'm ready to give up my Wadlstrumpf home quite yet, but our final week of Vodafone service expires at ~22:30 tonight, and that deadline seems an appropriate way to mark the end of a lovely six months of talking to myself and to you dozen or so loyal readers out there in ether-space.

But saying farewell to Wadlstrumpf doesn't mean I'll be giving up my new blogging habit. Tune in Tuesday at mightoughtashould.blogspot.com for the next exciting installment.

Also, pfirdi, pfirdi, also, also, servus, pfirdi!

Frieding

As tends to be the case when we're visiting Helen, the plan for recovering from a big event like Christmas Eve is to go out the next day to eat more food. We had a reservation for 11:30 this morning at the Wirtshaus "Zum Queri" in Frieding, in theory about 5 miles away from Steinebach. So after I got up, I put on my hiking boots, grabbed a Semmel (crusty roll), and set off for a pleasant walk, with the intent of meeting Stefan, Helen, Elias, and Familie F. for lunch.

My route took me first through Auing and across the highway to Seefeld. Schloss Seefeld, which in its current iteration dates mainly to the 18th century, is still inhabited by the local nobility, the Graf zu Toerring, who counts the Woerthsee among his many holdings.

From Seefeld, I tromped south to Widdersberg, where I found a teeny tiny sign pointing to "Frieding-Andechs" and listing a few addresses on "Friedingerstrasse." That's when I made my fatal error: assuming that the sign meant the street was named Friedingerstrasse and that it would lead to Frieding.

I should have learned my lesson this summer, when I tried to get back to Steinebach from nearby Hechendorf am Pilsensee by following a sign labeled Auingerweg. I assumed the gravel road would lead to Auing, but instead it dead-ended at two barking miniature schnauzers in the middle of a cornfield.

The gravel road I followed today headed south, passing by a pretty village off in the distance. Eventually it descended down a hill and into some woods. A nordic walking sign pointed in the general direction of the main road, so I took a right onto the trail. It eventually dead-ended at a deer feeding trough in the woods, at which point I remembered the lesson of Auingerweg. Simultaneously cursing and snickering, I pushed my way through some scrub and emerged in a recently plowed field that I cut across to a road. I hailed down a passing bicyclist who kindly redirected me to Frieding--the pretty village I had been admiring from afar for the past two kilometers.

How to tell you're in Bavaria

Imagine you are abducted by aliens from outer space. They bring you aboard their ship, decide you aren't a particularly interesting specimen, and throw you back onto the planet they fished you off of. But they don't pay a whole lot of attention to where they toss you, because all of the planet looks pretty much the same to them. What top three key pieces of evidence convince you that you've landed in Bavaria?

1. Biergarten signs. Every village you wander through in your dazed state has a Biergarten, and as you approach, you see signs advertising it. The signs include sky-blue and white--diamonds perhaps, or stripes. In the text, you notice the diminutive suffix -rl and consequent umlaut: you are approaching a Bräustüberl (Bairisch), not a Bräustube (Hochdeutsch). You know you are not in Baden-Wuerttemberg, because the signs there would be for Straussenwirtschaften, where people would drink wine.

2. Maibäume. 30-40 meter high blue-and-white maypoles reach up to the sky, decorated with symbols representing village life and vocations. If the aliens abduct you shortly before the first of May, you might also observe thieves trying to steal maypoles from neighboring towns.

3. Kasspatzen mit gerösteten Zwiebeln und Blattsalat. As a vegetarian, you notice a bizarre and startling constancy between menus across the state. Pretty much every Bavarian restaurant with a "warm kitchen" is guaranteed to offer these pervasive small boiled dumplings, sauteed with cheese and served with fried onions and a side salad.

P.S. Loferl

I forgot to mention yesterday that my swanky new authentic Bavarian Chiemgauer Loferl were made in Austria (just like the Ur-Rezept for Linzer Torte!).

The jewel in the crown

The obligatory Christmas preparatory frenzy came to an end late this afternoon, when activity all over Germany came grinding to a halt and almost everyone sat down for coffee and Gemütlichkeit (coziness). At Helen's in Steinebach, gemütlich it was, with peppermint tea and hot coffee, clementines and apples and pommegranate seeds, and Plätzchen, Plätzchen, and more Plätzchen (Christmas cookies).

There is no shortage of Plätzchen in this part of the world, because German industriousness kicks into a wild bacchanal in the kitchen during Advent. In mid-December, while I was busy scouring the internet for a brownie recipe that would actually work with German ingredients in an electric oven with a broken temperature gauge*, every other woman in Germany was busy creating magic with nuts, egg whites, butter, sugar, and chocolate or an occasional form of fruit (candied orange peel, lemon juice, raspberry jam). In Freiburg, where Plätzchen are called Brötle, Paul's mom gave Elias a tin of homemade cookies, and then the ravioli guy gave us a bag of cookies, and then we had dinner with Familie M. and there were more homemade cookies, and then Familie R. gave us a veritable sack of homemade cookies for the road (Christina's Zimtsterne topped with meringue Baiser were pretty much the best Brötle I've ever tasted). Despite being nearly blind, Helen herself must have made at least 250 cookies in five different varieties, and she has received cookies from so many different friends that it's no longer possible to keep track of who made what. Fortunately, keeping track is not really an issue anymore, as we ate most of the remaining cookies this evening.

Then it was time to open presents. Ever romantics, we gave Helen a clothes dryer, because even if you're a pro-environment, industrious, robust German willing to schlepp your wet clothes from the basement of the little Häuschen next door all the way up to the attic of the main Häuschen (the only place at Helen's where clothes can dry quickly in the winter), you deserve a break when you're almost 87.

As we don't usually celebrate Christmas at home, Elias was thrilled to hand out and open packages beneath the Christmas tree. (The dryer, of course, was not under the tree, but rather in the basement of the Nebenhaus.) And while we had intended to do only low-key gift-giving, since suitcase space is at a premium right now, there were some special surprises. It is difficult for me to express in words my gratitude to my mother-in-law for the present she gave me--something so simple, yet so profound in the intimate bond it expressed. I don't think anyone has ever given me a more perfect Weihnachts gift: my very own Wadlstrümpfe (Loferl + sockies).

*I found one! For best results, use a small pan or triple the recipe, and err on the side of undercooked. If you use coarse salt, all the salt will sink to the bottom. If you're lucky, like me, the novelty of salty-bottom brownies will impress the starving graduate students in the lab where your husband has been a guest professor, because the students are happier to think you're a creative cook than an error-prone one.

Woerthsee walk

Today I stole two and a half hours from the obligatory a-major-holiday-is-coming-up-and-we're-going-to-prepare-properly-so-we-can-all-have-a-nice-time-together-dammit frenzy and went for a walk around the Woerthsee.

The Woerthsee is the third largest of five lakes in the Huosigau area southwest of Munich; the other lakes, from largest to smallest, are the Starnbergersee, Ammersee, Pilsensee, and Wesslingersee.

Steinebach, where Stefan's mom lives, is on the northeast end of the Woerthsee. The first known settlers were Celts, some 2300 years ago; the first known written reference to Steinebach (as Steniginpah) dates from 920 A.D.

A hundred and ten years ago, Steinebach was still primarily a farming village. With the advent of the Pasing-Herrsching railway in 1903, Steinebach became a summer recreation destination and, eventually, a sleeper community for people working in Munich. The walk from Steinebach around the Woerthsee thus affords some lovely views of the lake, but (as is probably the case with most bucolic little lakes near large prosperous cities) the route requires quite a few detours around private summer cottages, marinas, and gated mansions.

"How we Bavarians really are"

The front page headline of this morning's Abendzeitung ("Evening News"--I don't yet understand why the "Evening News" arrives in the morning) read "So sind wir Bayern wirklich" ("How we Bavarians really are"). The accompanying photo shows a man with a curly moustache; he is wearing short Lederhosen, a hat, Loferl, and boots. The outfit screams "Bavarian," and look how happy and exaggeratedly dynamic the man is. Most Bavarians I've met masquerade as people who wear mundane street clothes or, occasionally, Tracht of the non-costume-like variety, but such people apprently aren't the real deal.

I hereby apologize to the editors of the Baden-Wuerttemberg Edeka Sunday supplement for previously criticizing their stereotypes of Bavarians, as Bavarians clearly revel in stereotyping themselves. "We're kind of like Texans in that regard," Stefan explains.