weekend

We had a pretty good weekend. Saturday we were out early and went to a nearby bakery, Backerei Bosch. I have written before about how in Germany, you can't throw a pretzel without hitting a bakery, so you can imagine our surprise when this one has a standing line out the door and around the corner. All the time.

Numerous awards in the window testified that this was the best bakery in Germany, and served the best pretzels. The line moved quickly, and the staff inside the small counter service store were surprisingly cheerful. It was a category killing pretzel. I didn't even get it with butter, just fresh and hot. Like eating a really good croissant in Paris kind of good.

We went to the Flohmarkt (flea market) next, where we rummaged through the square filled with tables and wares. Big old carpets, 60s furniture, CDs, records, rusty metal tools, teapots, beer steins, bags. Saori picked up a bright orange and blue leather satchel, and I negotiated for a pair of binoculars.

On the way there, we saw the first people going to Was'n. Also known as Volksfest, or the second largest Oktoberfest in Germany. Tons of people of all ages, although mostly in their 20s, dressed in the Tracht of Lederhosen und Drindl Many were already too drunk to even get on the train. It is an understandable pre-gaming strategy considering the cost of a Masse (liter mug) at the fair is now up to nearly $12 USD.

I was here for Fruhlingsfest, the German celebrating of the halfway mark to Oktoberfest, but already I am seeing many more people dressed up for the event. This is going be huge. From the roof our apartment, we can see the lights of the amusement park rides in the distance.

Also saturday, I went to the discount store and bought a volksfest shirt, no lederhosen though. Then I hit the Markthalle for some charcoal.

That night, Saori invited over her coworker and her coworker's boyfriend, a charming Italian couple, and we all sat on the roof, drank a beer, and munched on caprece salad while we chatted and watched the sun go down on the city. Saori grilled chicken and bratwurst, and we were stuffed at the end.

Today, we didn't get out at all, just cleaned, read, did laundry, organized spices and the tea shelf. Nobody told me that I when I would turn 30, I would do these things more or less spontaneously and even more bizarrely, actually desire to do them.

We did get some time to sunbathe and read up on the roof to enjoy the sunshine and heat on this very warm day.

I am hoping for an Indian summer, but the tree tops are already beginning to hint at the approach of fall.

German Telekoms and other Kafkaesque Damned Vermin

Internet set up was a headache and confusion from the onset. The previous tenant, Philip, told us we could not get cable internet, but we had to get everything through the telekom jacks. There is no cable outlets in this apartment, which looks like it was a later addition in the 1970s.

But then Philip was hardly a reliable source for us, especially when his downstairs neighbor reported that she could have cable. So for me, it was a question of do we pay to install a cable box and run cable up here? Do we try satelite uplink internet? Do we stick with the telekom system? Just what the hell are these holes in the wall anyway?

In the end, after two weeks without internet at home, I signed up for the fastest speed we could get in the apartment through the telekon, which was advertised at the painfully slow speed of 50.000 kbps. Kilobits, not Megabits. As we happily discovered later, the comma and period occationaly switch in Europe, and so in fact, we had a download speed of 50 Mbps, which is considered very fast for this city.

German advertising is mystifying. Telekoms advertising their speeds in Kpbs is kind of like listing prices in tenths of a penny.

Anyway, the German telekoms it turns out, are about as eye-gougingly awful as the ones everywhere else. We got a really good rate for our internet for the first 24 months- it turns out I signed up for a 24 month contract. Contracts here have special terms and conditions. One of those terms is that contracts automatically renew. So I fail, before the end of two years, to end my contract in writing I will be automatically signed up for another two years with a 50% rate increase.

Another fun thing: it takes the company two weeks to turn on the internet after you sign up. Not coincidentally, this is the exact amount of time they are required by law to allow you to cancel your contract. Even if the apartment is already wired, even if the last tenant had the same company, it still takes them two weeks.

The only reason I have internet now is because I requested a fast start package, which consisted of the modem/router, cables, and a USB cell phone stick and a SIM card. So right now, my tablet connects to the router, which is connected to the USB stick calling the internet through the cell networks. It was part of the monthly costs, so it didn't cost me anything but a few euros for shipping.

Getting the damned thing set up felt like a major victory since everything is only in German.

food, glorious food. and beer.

Last night we invited some friends over for Indian food. I was testing out two new recipes, a red dhal and aloo gobi, so right after work I headed over to the Indian market close to Saori's office. Their vegitables were not impressive but they had a ton of spices and, I might add, key limes, which are used in all types of Mexican cooking and I was tempted to grab a bag just for making margaritas.

Anyway, the two dishes took a long time to prepare- I started cooking around 7:15 and didn't serve the food until 9. Of course, the first half our was just me soaking the lentils. Overall, it wasn't too hard to do. The dishes came out really well, our guests cleaned out both pots. I think the aloo gobi is my new favorite dish to make. Really easy.

It turns out both recipes I used came from one Food Network host's show. Here is a link to the recipes.

While I'm on the topic of food, I might as well include a guide to

Where to buy non-German beer in Stuttgart
Asahi  Japanese Asiatisch Lebensmittel
Boddington's Pub Ale British Piccadilly English Shop
Budweiser Czech most large grocery stores
Chang  Thai  Asiatisch Lebensmittel, Occasionally Lidl
Chimay  Belgian  Manufaktum
Corona  Mexican  Most large grocery stores
Fuller's London Pride  British  Piccadilly English Shop
Guinness   Irish  Piccadilly English Shop
Kirin Ichiban  Japanese  Asiatisch Lebensmittel
Orval  Belgian  Manufaktum
Tadcasters IPA  British  Piccadilly English Shop
Tsingtao  Chinese  Occasionally Lidl

Autumnal Equinox

Tuesday was the Autumnal Equinox, a state holiday here because of the date's significance to the pre-Christian Germans. Saori and I got up early and sat on the roof to watch the lighting of the fires. Just before sunrise, bonfires were lit in the hills ringing Stuttgart, and the smoke caught the first rays of light.

With the rising of the sun, everyone came into the streets wearing white, and we joined the crowds of people to form a parade back to the old city, where the stilt walkers were already throwing quarkballchen, local donut balls. This years festival Lords were seated on life sized wooden horses mounted on platforms, and these were passed through the crowds on our shoulders. It was actually not too heavy, since there were so many people helping and it was only one guy, dressed in his costume of moss and oak bark with the amazing antler hat. I want that hat.

There was some shouting and the crowd parted, and I watched someone in an elaborate wolf costume running down the street with a lit torch. Saori told me that the torches were taken from the hill top bonfires, and they were going to light the roasting fires in the city center.

When the seven lords reached the markt platz, the horse/litter things were set down and the lords had a contest in a circle made by a group of men holding up a heavily weighted rope. Each lord was armed with a long (padded) stick and each attempted to beat the other lords to the edge of the circle. If they touched rope, they had to leave and the men holding the ropes were shouting and encouraging and jeering and acting as the line refs. For every lord that was kicked out, he had to give his antler hat to the guy nearest holding up the rope and I guess they get to be lords next year.

As soon as there was a winner, they dumped a barrel of red wine over him.

As soon as the contest was over, we followed the crowds to the hog roasts which had been set up across the old city and in the parks. The schloss garden where we were was filled with maybe twenty big hogs on spits, slowly being turned by guys in blue clothes, while kids in black ran around carrying charcoal to the fire pits. It was a long, long line to get some meat, but it was so worth it. The pork was covered with a kind of simple berry sauce.

And wine. Lots of wine.

At noon, they blew the big horns from the hills and the bells in the church towers rang incessantly, while they blocked off Konigstrasse and raced horses along its length.

There was a quiet time after all the wine as people were mostly sleepy or drunk after the wine and food. At sunset, we went back to our apartment and threw shredded yellow paper. All over the city, people were throwing yellow confetti from open windows and rooftops, while in the street women in big white and gold dresses chased the wolf runners back to the hills.

Actually, none of that really happened. The only exciting thing that happened Tuesday was I used the electric oven for the first time in our new apartment to bake a frozen pizza since Saori was working late.

IKEA

It's been one week since we moved in and things are coming together much better. The kitchen counters are 34" high, just a little shorter than the standard, but there is a window which tilts open over the sink which makes it all a little more claustrophobic.

We have been up on the roof a few times now, just to relax and watch the clouds. Bonus features for an apartment: roof access. The other bonus feature (besides our big terrace) is a long low closet tucked away behind the bathroom wall and between the pitched roof. Its carpeted and there's a light and a switch. It's basically a large storage space and the previous tenant stored his luggage and snowboard there. We were joking that it could be our panic room.

So what do you do when you move into a new place?
You go to IKEA!

Friday night Rafa gamely agreed to take us to IKEA for their late hours- he's been kind of bored and lonely with Paola gone to the US. There are actually two IKEAs near Stuttgart, which gives you an appreciation for the size of the regional population. It would have taken us about an hour to get there by public transit, but less than 30 minutes by car. We both enjoyed the drive out: I hadn't been out on a freeway drive through suburbia in about six months, or seen this spread of the city, and Saori fell asleep in the warm and cozy comfort of the back seat.

IKEA was mercifully uncrowded, best time to visit is a Friday night. Actually I was reading somewhere that Germans are somewhat hostile to IKEA: actually there was a terrorist who tried to bomb this one. Something about the invasion of cheap, substandard quality, foreign.

We ended up running out the clock at IKEA, with a mad dash to the registers at the end like a US game show, throwing in dishtowels, wooden spoons, and cheap dishware with wild abandon.

And two IKEA beers just for kicks: a dark and a light lager

Moving: Saturday Sunday

Saturday morning we got up early and continued packing. I met the old tenant at the new apartment and he showed me around, gave me the keys, showed where the circuit breakers were, how to bleed the radiators, etc.

After he left, Rafa and Tolli showed up at the van and we drove it over to the apartment and started bringing stuff up. We are on the 6th floor. This is a bit misleading since to an American, we are actually on the 7th floor, and the ground floor is actually half a floor up too so in the end we are climbing seven and a half levels.

It's a long way to carry furniture, especially since it feels like you are there, and then you realize there is one smaller, more narrow stair you still have to climb.

Anyway, the three of us unloaded the car in about twenty minutes. I am incredibly indebted to Tolli for driving and for Rafa for also driving and both of them for tirelessly hauling our crap up 7.5 floors.

After unloading, we all drove back to Saori's apartment where we met up with a few of her coworkers who gamely agreed to help us move. Tolli was sweating as he manuevered the van into the small parking area behind the apartment building. Saori had a lot of stuff. We split into teams to work- there was a group carrying stuff down to the van, a group loading the van, and then after we headed out to the new place, a group was left there to bring stuff up to the apartment after the first group headed back to Saori's for the second load. It was my apartment so I never stopped moving or taking a break as I shuttled crap up and down the stairs. Tolli actually carried the entire mattress on his back, which could not have been good for his knees.

Finally, finally, the last load was carried up and we popped open some beers to pass around to our crew and we toasted each other and the new apartment.

We were done!

Well, almost.

Once again, we were starting from scratch at a new apartment. We did it once in St. Louis, one in Boston, and now again in Stuttgart. A new house needs a thousand tiny new things. Salt and pepper. Toilet paper. Internet. We had no pots and only one fry pan I found in the basement of the old apartment. We boiled water in mugs in the microwave.

After everyone left, we went to the local grocery store, a Lidl, which is a pretty crappy grocery store. It's basically like an Aldi. We both missed the grocery stores we used to frequent. At least it was close by.

That night, we worked on putting stuff away, re-assembling the bed, unpacking, running laundry, washing dishes.

Sunday morning, I woke up in our new home for the first time. For the first time in a while, I could wander out in my underwear to the kitchen and start some coffee going. We made a Lumen sandwich with bread toasted on the grill outside, topped with butter, parma ham and bergkaeze cheese.

Saori left our St. Louis apartment back in February of 2013. We had not shared a home in a year and a half.

After breakfast, we did a bit more cleaning and I reluctantly headed back up the hill to camp Fox to get the rest of my belongings. I say 'reluctantly' because I had no idea how the other tenants were going to react to my brazen removal of a hall cabinet.

It turns out they had assumed that since I had my former landlady's permission to take what I needed, I was going to ransack the building like a horde of vikings. Chandra cornered me in the kitchen. He had been sought out by the Germans upstairs who had been in closer contact with the lawyer controlling the property. It turns out that the house was not going to be destroyed, and was instead going to be sold. The listing price is 400-500 thousand euros, and everyone involved thinks that it could be sitting on the market for years at that price. So the rooms will be re-rented. Chandra is going to take over my old room.

"Take anything you want," he implored me, "I do not need the cabinets, the desk, or the table, but please, please, just leave me the bed."

I assured him I had no designs on any other furniture in the house which made him very happy.

I ended up carrying back a full duffel bag and a full IKEA bag. Old glass jars, clothing, and a few odds and ends. I still need to clean out the room properly.

Back at the new apartment, Saori took off for work and I worked more on putting things away. When she got back, I made home made Kaezespaetzel. Lacking measuring cups, I had to estimate a lot of stuff, and it ends up I put too much milk in the pasta batter so my spaetzel ended up goopy. Oh well. With enough cheese, salt, and fried onions it ended up quite good.

Moving: Thursday Friday

The tenant of the apartment we are moving into asked us if we wanted to move in early. He was already out of the apartment, early in the month and was interested in recouping some of the rent. We took it because we were dying to get in the apartment and we had plans for early October anyway. So we arranged to move in last weekend.

A bit of backstory first. I live in a large house along with four other people. The house was owned by a man named Klaus, who was apparently involved in politics, evangelism, textiles, and possibly legal affairs. He died a few weeks before I arrived in Germany. Apparently he left everything to the church, leaving his widow, Chista, in a bit of a tight spot financially. The house and everything in it, wound up in the hands of a lawyer representing a bank. From about a month ago, Christa couldn't even come to the house anymore. Apparently, the house had long been used as a storage and boarding house, and also as Klaus' office, and Christa had a home elsewhere.

My greek coworker Tolli called up Christa thursday at my behest, since I was interested in taking some of the furnature with me. She ended up telling him basically her life story over the phone and ending with basically, take whatever you need.

I invited Tolli over after work to do some digging. There was attic we were both interested in seeing. Armed with flashlights we dove in like treasure seekers on a reality TV show. The house is filled with stuff top to bottom, although it turned out to be mostly filled with old books on evangelical Christianity. And I do mean filled. Probably 1000 volumes through the entire house. Some1950s and 1960s furniture. And an old BMW in the garage, still with sunglasses on the dash and two bibles visible inside. Coats and stuff from over sixty years of accumulation. Apparently Klaus was a member of a Reader's Digest book of the month club, so Tolli took home a two still-unwrapped volumes on gardening and herbs in cooking.

Anyway, after Tolli left, I packed my room which took me until about midnight.

Friday morning, I woke up before 6 am to make it to the office by 7am, two hours before work normally starts. I had to make some progress on some renderings that needed finishing. The renders came out well.

Friday, right after work, Rafa met us outside the office and Tolli and Lukas drove with me back to my apartment and together we loaded up my belongings. We were considering taking the bed, but it was too big and too disgusting with all the springs covered in years of dust and grease. It was a bit of an awkward moment when I was carrying out the hallway hutch, but the record player inside was broken, I'd specifically notified the other residents I was taking it, and had the explicit permission from Christa. Along with a chair, my stuff filled the van we had borrorwed from the office. I couldn't believe it. I had arrived with two suitcases and a duffel bag, and less than six months later, I had filled a 'space runner' van.

We dropped the van near the new apartment building and then I headed up to Saori's place around 8.

Saori was still working on a big presentation for a very big and demanding client so she didn't get back until close to 11 at night. In the meanwhile, I tackled dismantling the Ikea bed. The bed, which we didn't realize until that night, was actually an adjustable bed, meaning you could raise the foot and head like a hospital bed. It was an extra layer of complexity, so I had to take many notes and drawings to make sure I was going to re-assemble it correctly.

We made some more progress packing Saori's room and then called it a night around 1 am, both of us exhausted.

headache

I had a headache at the office a few days ago, so I went out to buy some Aspirin. Aspirin not aspirin, because unlike the US, the name is still trademarked here. I skipped the supermarket, because I knew supermarkets don't carry medication. I went instead to DM, a CVS type drugstore, whose initials actually stand for Drogerei markt, lit. drug seller market. After spending some fruitless ten minutes combing the store, looking through vitamins, health and beauty crap, toothpaste, deodorants, I realized that in this drugstore there was not so much a single gram of actual drugs. I walked across the street to the Apothek (pharmacy) and had to request aspirin from the man behind the counter.

Normally it's not so simple. Usually when you go in this is what happens.

You: I want to buy some aspirin
Clerk: What is bothering you?
You: I have a headache.
Clerk: What kind of a headache? Where does it hurt?
You: It's a normal headache, it hurts in my head. Can I have some Aspirin please?
Clerk: We have many different types of pain killers. Let me show them all to you and describe them in detail what is different about each one.
You: No thanks, I just want a box of Aspirin.
Clerk: what kind of Aspirin?
You: The regular kind. There! That box behind you that says 'Asprin'! Give me that one!

And so on. It's a big contrast to the US, where you can buy aspirin at any gas station, or Mexico, where you can buy it from a street vendor. I'm of two minds. On the one hand, it's personally inconvenient and irritating that I can't get it from a supermarket if I'm already shopping there.

On the other hand, the push for convenience and jamming everything together into the strip malls, Wal-Marts, Targets, shopping malls, drug/junk stores which makes many American cities such dreary experiences. What still exists in Germany is smaller specialty stores woven into the fabric of the city. I can walk to a green grocer, a bakery, a flower shop, a pharmacy, instead of driving through endless suburbia to endless parking lots and big box stores. I definitely pay more in price (consolidation and franchises decreases costs) but it's a trade-off on the experience of the city.

War of the Worlds

It's really of no shock to any constant reader that I am a fan of science fiction. So while browsing through a "Top Whatever List of Free Kindle Titles" I saw HG Wells The War of the Worlds, and I realized, laying there in bed, that despite seeing both Hollywood adaptations, I'd never actually read the book. So I downloaded it. Wells published the book over a century ago- it's public domain.

The book was written before 1900, in a time before the world wars, but anticipating its awful use of chemical warfare, when electricity was still an industrial and scientific plaything.

I was actually not prepared for the level of gore, terror, and psychological horror the book contained. And a surprisingly epic scope. It's one thing to write "After the aliens arrived, they attacked London, and the city was abandoned," and another to describe in detail the rapid breakdown all the facets of society, and civilization generally crashing to a bloody halt amid blind terror and utter chaos.

In the end, the story is really compelling because it is driven on the one hand the mystery, godlike power, and utter alien-ness of the invaders, and on the other, the very human workings of the individual mind and the public mind. It's a novel about what happens to society in the face of catastrophes. It has the appeal of what draws people to postapocalyptic TV shows and novels. What happens to societies when they are put under stress? Especially titanic, seemingly unstoppable stresses?

And really, from the perspective of the people on the ground, how different is an alien invasion than say, a massive ebola outbreak, or the invasion of bloodthirsty militant jihadists, or an unprecedented and massive drought?

It makes me wonder, in all cases, if as in the novel, the peasants argued with the evacuation enforcement soldiers about the value of their orchid plants while the martians drew ever closer.

Birthday, parts I and II

So a few days ago, I crossed the line into my 30s.

As far as age goes, at any rate. I was actually in my early 30s when I was in my early 20s, and then early 20s in my late 20s, and since I've been in Germany, I've been bouncing between 35 and 25.

My office threw me a party.
Actually, they threw me a meeting where I brought in some pleasant foodstuffs. It was combined with Christof's (one of the interns) leaving party, so we were both celebrants. It was a quiet affair- the boss and Thomas were gone, and so were most of the interns. The office got me a stainless steel spaetzle maker as a present, which is nice, even if it was obligatory. Spaetzle is a very local Schwabian dish, a kind of eggy noodle. The maker looks like a cheese grater except without the cutting lips. Instead, there is a plastic spatula which you use to push the noodle dough through the holes into the water. I am actually quite excited to try it- I've actually already bought the ingrediants.

I'm getting ahead of myself. The night before my birthday, Saori took me out to dinner. We met up at a local square and she led me to a surprise restaurant. Kicho is by wide recommendation the best Japanese restaurant in town. A very nice place and very traditional. Saori asked me if I wanted to sit in the tatami room, and I said, on my birthday, of course we need the tatami room. It was an elevated tatami floor, so we left our shoes at the sliding door and took a seat at one of the low tables. With two Japanese sararimen talking loudly outside, and with our kimono wearing hostess, it felt like Japan. We got asahi beers and some delicious sake based soup to start before going on to order a massive sushi and sashimi boat. It was so, so good. I'd missed having unagi so we also ordered a few pieces of eel and saori got some of her favorite, uni sea urchin. They didn't have any cakes, but the kitchen staff make us a beautiful dessert plate with fresh fruits, mochi ice cream, and green tea ice cream, as well as a little happy birthday note in Japanese and German.

After dinner, we walked through the town and passed by the weindorf wine festival, so we stopped for a glass of local white wine and enjoyed the scene. The wine festival took over the central alleys and square around the city hall, filling it with stands and small tents filled with picnic tables and diners feasting on traditional favorites. It was quite lovely and lively.

The day of my birthday, I tried to buy a cake on my way, but the store was closed so I showed up to work late and without a cake. I ended up heading down to the bakery on Ostendplatz for a sandich and some cakes to drag back to the office during my lunch hour.

After work, I went to have a beer with Tolli in a nearby beergarden while we waited for Gio to finish swimming. I ended up running to catch Soari at the weindorf after she got off work unexpectedly early for working late. She was lightheaded so I bought us some roasted ox sandwiches with a liberal covering of spicy sweet mustard. Lina met us there, and then the Greeks, and then Saori's coworker and her boyfriend also came, and so did Christof and we dived into the crowd to find us some wine.

The place was absolutely packed. People were surprisingly rude and aggressive (for Germans), actually worse than Oktoberfest, but we finally found a more quiet area to drink wine. We quaffed a quarter liter of white good stuff and then we were all sleepy and drunk, so we disbanded and headed home. You know you're 30 when your birthday drinking consists of a beer and a glass of wine.

Munich Midsummer

There were some great things about the four days we spent in Munich, and some not-so-great things.

Not-So-Great

• We rented an AirBnB apartment which was advertized as 'entire apartment' and classified in that category. When we arrived, a friend of the host showed us around: here is a bedroom, here is another bedroom, here is the kitchen and bathroom, and here is the room where Jose, an Argentine tenant, is currently staying. Apparently, the host thought that just because we had one less measly occupied room that it still counted as an 'entire' apartment. What is the problem with random stranger living in the apartment without locking bedroom doors anyway? Everything was booked, otherwise we would have gotten a hotel.
• The weather was terrible. Every day, in our end of August trip, we bundled up with hats, coats, scarves. It was colder than winter in Phoenix. And it rained every day except the first, when it only sprinkled a bit, and the second, when it poured like the environment decided to relocate the Baltic by way of Bavaria.
• Munich was packed. Everywhere we went almost was packed. All the time. I thought that things would calm down on the weekdays but it was just as packed as the weekends.

Great

• Every morning we started our day having breakfast at the living room table together and planned out our day. Saori and I would make egg toast or slice fruit, and mom and Larry would head out to forage for local bakeries.
• The local bakeries had this big thick croissant with a light pretzel coating outside and covered with sesame seeds. It was like a cross between a pretzel and a croissant with the best parts of both.
• Butterbretzels! Every meal.
• We took a walking tour of the old city with a strange group. The guide was an economic writer, and the only other people on the tour were an American military couple based in northern Italy. The wife was a teacher on the base, apparently, and the husband described himself as a "jazz composer bum" and he looked it. It was a strange group, but the tour was small enough that we were able to walk around inside Hofbrau Haus.
• We saw a nice variety of museums- first the medieval and folklore collection at the Bavarian National Museum, where we also stopped for coffee and cake and watched it pour rain outside, and then we went directly to the Pinakotek der Moderne, a modern art museum with very distinctive modern architecture and a fantastic collection of contemporary and early modern words. Saori was completely in love with the rooms with Max Ernst.
• The shopping was great. It is a stark reminder of what a village Stuttgart is when we go to really nice shopping districts and are able to shop at nice boutiques and magazine shops. We hit Muji of course, and wandered through Manufaktum, which is a store specializing in everything high quality, and of older design/German modern industrial design. It was like walking through a curated vintage Sears catalog, with everything from fresh baked bread, bicycles, gardening supplies, stationary and pens, clothing, etc. etc. It was the kind of place where they sold a model of bicycle from the 1940s, with a leather saddle, and matching leather saddlebags separate. Everything was leather, glass, brass, stainless steel, iron, wool, linen, and bakelite.
• From the more handcrafted side, Saori bought a beautiful carved wooden spoon, and mom bought some christmas ornaments from the Viktualien market, the big market square near the downtown. They had fresh fruit, meats, bakeries, and knickknacks.
• On the train ride over, I was browsing the Lonely Planet guide and said out loud, "You know, they have a Lederhosen emporium here..." and everyone about fell out of their seats laughing. We did end up going there, although I didn't try any on. It's still too early to buy Lederhosen, and its so expensive. Maybe for next year's Wassen (Oktoberfest).
• We had some great dinners out at brewhouses in town. Some of them were more touristy than others, but the food and beer were consistantly good. The second place we went was right below the apartment and ended up being a top pick in the guidebook- Frauenhof was small, with creaky wooden floors, stuffed boars on the wall, and delicious. The food was really good and the waitress added up our bill on a paper pad at the table (cash only). The last place we went on Tuesday before we left came with a parade of sausages (Great) and a snarky/smarmy waiter for the Americans (not so great).
• We played game night every night, munching on leftover pastries from the morning, and drinking tea until we all got tired.
• The apartment, notwithstanding the extra roommate, was great overall. Spacious, comfortable, we could cook there, and located only about fifteen minutes walk from the central market. It was a taste of living like a Municher.
• We spent one cool (but not raining!) morning at the Englischer Garten for birdwatching. Mom and Larry got a few "life-listers" and we wandered around with hot mugs of coffee to warm us up. We saw hissing geese, and while eating our sandwiches on a park bench, mom was startled by an aggressive squirrel panhandling.
• We went to the Olympic park where I finally got to the see the great Frei Otto and Gunter Behnisch designed giant glass and steel tensile canopies over the site. A really amazing place and probably a nicest stadium I've ever seen. Saori and I paid the 3 euro entry fee and walked through the stadium itself, with a long and looping walk around the perimeter which soars up and back down again.
• Lastly, we had a coffee and cake at a "funky" cafe which featured a big sewing store and used furniture for sale. The cake which I originally took for chocolate, was actually a red wine cake which tasted like gingerbread and was a pleasant surprise.


At the end, we had to go back to work, so we said our sad goodbyes in the apartment and took the metro to the train station to catch our ICE for the two hours back to Stuttgart.

Showing mom and Larry around Stuttgart

I am writing from my office during lunch hour, so this is a really quick recap of the past week.

After landing in Amsterdam, Mom and Larry jumped on a riverboat to sail up the Rhine, just like Apocalyspe Now, except for the heart of darkness replaced by the heart of cuteness. The pretzels! mom whispered into the darkness as the encroaching vineyards crept closer, The pretzels!

They took a train from Basel to Stuttgart and Saori and I met them on the station platform. (Actually, I had just barely finished up a meeting with my boss and the chef, and as soon as the chef was gone, I tossed my notebook on the desk and took off, walking at high speed to the train platform via a series of shortcuts, beer garden cuts, and temporary bridges). The sunny warm weather that day was the best they had had the entire trip. We exchanged happy greetings.

After dropping their luggage at the hotel we came back to the city and walked along Konigstrasse to Zum Pauliner for lunch in the leafy square in front. Stuttgart obligingly provided a local wine and food festival to walk through on our way there to demonstrate one of the charms of the city- festivals untainted by wide tourist draw.

Lunch was great, we got all the Schwabian hits: potato noodle dumplings, pretzel dumplings, pork, pork, spaetzl, maultauschen, and more pork. Mom and I split a crispy pig knuckle, and we all washed everything down with beer.

After lunch we walked to the neighborhood where Saori and I will be living, and then took a train back to do some shopping in town. For my birthday, mom bought me a big ceramic knife. Ever since I used one belonging to Saori's roommate, I thought, I need this knife. They are expensive and brittle. They are all made in Japan and razor sharp. Saori called it my 'Whale-killing knife'.

I guess its a good sign I'm entering my thirties when the top of my wish list consists of cooking items.

Anyway, after shopping, we took them to have coffee at Cafe Planie, one of my favorite cafes in town, and then over to Old Bridge Gelato afterwards. When mom is on vacation, gelato is fair game. After gelato, they decided to call it a night and headed back to the hotel.

I headed back to my apartment to pick up my travel bag and headed back to Saori's for the night, so we could take off to Munich in the morning.

Business idea for Stuttgart

There are not so many Indian restaurants in Stuttgart, and all of them tend to be more formal, linen tablecloth affairs, even the ones which have a 7 euro workday lunch buffet.

Invited to join Shiva and Chandra for dhal for dinner, I thought, you know, there are some indian dishes that are really quite simple and fast to make, and require really cheap and common ingredients. There are many cheap dining options in Stuttgart, however they tend to be limited to either Doner Kebab/Pizza, fast food from the main train station, and stuff from the bakery like buttered pretzels or fleishkase.

None of these options are particularly fresh or healthy. While doner kebabs are good, I have heard people complain about how hard they are on the digestive system.

What I propose is a shop which sells indian curries and dhals wrapped in chipatis (Indian wheat meal flat breads) burrito style, to be taken to go or eaten there. There would be two basic curries, one spicy, one mild, and one dhal, to which customers would request to be added cauliflower, chickpeas/garbanzo beans, green peas, and potatoes, and they would be rolled into daily made chipatis to make small burritos. Making a batch of curry to feed 100 people would require a few dollars of spices and cooking oil, 50 onions and 50 tomatoes, probably less actually, depending on the size of the burrito.

Immigrants would like the spicy taste notably lacking in European food, Germans would go for the "exotic" cuisine, foodies would appreciate the authentic flavors of India, Schwabians would appreciate the thrift, and the whole thing would be naturally bio, organic, and vegetarian.

What would be really cool is if we could partner with a local bottle maker to have them produce glass containers. So someone comes in orders two burritos, and then they are put into some kind of glass tube, which would be returnable. Or maybe some kind of flexible silicone disk which could wrap around each burrito like a burrito wrap.

Anyway, Indian food dreams.

This and that

I've been working the past few weeks on a project for a major German shoe and clothing designer, a relatively small office building. We are coming up on a deadline this friday, so every day, I have found myself working past 7pm. I also had to come in Sunday and work, which really sucked since the weather finally gave us a break and gave us some good summertime for a change.

The weather in Stuttgart has been really apathetic this year. Last year, apparently there was a very cold and snowy winter followed by a blazing hot summer. I arrived at the end of a very mild winter (it snowed only once), and now we are in the middle of a very mild summer. The last few days, the highs have not even reached the 20s. Today, I saw people in scarves and jackets. I wish I'd taken mine to work, actually. This is like a winter in Phoenix.

I can't remember if I wrote about it, but several weekends ago, we signed the contract for an apartment. It was a pretty major achievement. No brokerage fee, which is a savings of about $1,500-$2000, and surprisingly, no deposit either. Great location, rooftop attic apartment, and a landlord who owns several buildings and Saori's coworker reports no problems since she's been living there.

It did take 30 apartment visits and four months to make it happen, however.

Monday after work, I met Saori there and we talked to the current tenant about his furniture he's leaving behind. He's moving in with his girlfriend, and the apartment is 7 flights of stairs up, so he's motivated to leave stuff behind. We walked through and offred to buy or simply inherant a lot of different things, including a grill, a bathroom cabinet, a vacuum cleaner, etc. The big ticket items for sale were a washing machine (150 euro), an ikea table and chairs (200 euro) and a big white leather sofa (500 euro). He originally bought it for 1000 euros, and its really still pretty new and relatively lightly used- I can understand him wanting to get half of that back. We took the washer and the dining set- the couch we told him was out of our price range, although frankly we have other plans for the living room area. We won't even have a TV, so we really only needed a couch for guests or something to sit on to read.

I finally signed up for language classes with the school I was interested in. I just need to make the deposit for the fees and then I'll be officially enrolled. The language barrier makes me squirm so much. I don't know if its easier or harder to learn German because of its similarities to English.

Been reading the news about Ferguson, Missouri, one of the suburbs of St. Louis. It's really sad stuff, but its strange that looking at the photos of one of the poor scrawny municipalties of St. Louis County makes me actually miss St. Louis a bit. It hits uncomfortably close to home when I realized that most of Saori's and my personal belongings are in a storage unit about a mile from where the protests are happening.

There was an Ebola scare in Berlin today. Tests are still ongoing on why a feverish woman passed out in a hospital waiting room. I'm worried about Ebola- not that it will get into Europe or the US- it seems actually inevitable at this point, but for the thousands more who will die from a basic lack of education and sanitation. I'm not worried about an outbreak in the US or EU because people here don't believe that Ebola is a government conspiracy, because we have closed sewer systems and accessible soap and water, and because our burial rituals do not involve close physical contact with the departed. I am washing my hands more frequently though.

Been really really tired lately. Feel like I'm running around all the time, and you may have noticed I haven't been blogging much either. Actually, its already past midnight here, but I really wanted to just some things down what I've been up to before I go to bed.

a slightly less frenetic weekend

It's been a few days of running around.

Friday night, I met Saori at a electronic music festival held outside near the HBF, close to the new developments around the mall and new library. It was a huge hipster scene which was kind of fun to watch since I havn't really gotten a feel for what that even means in Germany.
Apparently, pretty close to the American variety, but a little more "green". From the "Bio" food truck, I ordered organic french fries with non-GMO, organic ketchup. Actually pretty good. We met Saori's punk friend from the office there and hung out on the steps drinking overpriced Wulle beer while waiting for the main sets of the night.

Actually, after the first set, a kind of Shoegaze electropop, a manager in a white tee an a mustache came out and announced the rest of the night was cancelled. The event originally got approval to play until midnight. It makes sense, the area is new, and looks like 80% offices and retail. However, a recently passed law restricts concerts to 10pm, so they had to call off the rest of the show. I don't really know why they didn't just cancel the first two hours of banal tiny acts where they didn't even turn up the volume. Anyway, rules are rules in Germany.

Also, fun fact, in the country which is nearly synonymous with beer, it is illegal to sell the stuff outside of a bar or restaurant after the late late hour of (wait for it) 10pm, on any day of the week. I'm not sure if this rule is restricted to conservative southland or if it's more nationally applied, but that's a blue law state worse than Arizona.

Anyway, after the show, we walked Nadine, the punk girl, back to her apartment building, where she was locked out of the main building entrance. The lock was jammed or something, and despite the landlords claims that there would always be a night guard in the neighboring building, Nadine had to shell out the pricely sum of close to $300 for locksmiths to come let her in.

I am sure her landlord will be receiving the bill. It was really late at that point, and despite Saori's flatmates's wishes to see less of me, I crashed at her place for the night.

Saturday, Saori turned 31. I headed out early to Breuninger's, the German Macy's equivilant, to pick up a cake for her party before dropping it off at my office for the refrigerators there.

Crossing back through town, I met Saori and we headed over to a really nice brunch at Cafe Scholz in Killesburg. Scrambled eggs, smoked salmon, toast, and a bowl of milchkaffee (latte). Really, really good. Walked around the park a bit before heading into town and wandering around inside the big electronics store. We haven't't done that in years, and it was fun to look at tablets, gadgets, critique laptops, try out headphones, take stupid photos etc.

Stuttgart being Stuttgart, we ran into one of Saori's coworkers there. Seriously, Stuttgart is worse than Ponca City in terms of constantly running into people you know. I actually saw one of my coworkers earlier in the day, out grocery shopping with his son.

After the electronics mall we swung by the office and picked up the cake and headed down to the hill to Mezcal^2 (Mezcal Hoch Zwei for the Deutschsprechen) for Saori's party.

I'd planned out a party for her at the best Mexican restaurant in town (which is qualified by the fact that they can distinguish between ketchup and salsa). Actually, this place is pretty great. I went in two weeks ago to talk them about planning the party, and what kind of options I had. In the turquoise blue interior around an old wood table, they bought me a corona I talked with the owner in Spanish about their offerings.

There are many interesting things about this place- for one, all the employees, who are all Mexicans, hold main jobs elsewhere. Two of them, including one of the owners, holds a regular job for a major car part manufacturer in town. Actually, I would even go so far to venture that given the strictly regulated working conditions in Germany, the side benefit is you have the time you need to run and manage a restaurant, even with a full time job. Of course, the restaurant only holds limited hours and days.

They have a surprising quantity and variety of Mezcal and what makes the food especially good is that they import most of their ingredients from Mexico.

Anyway, based on hints that I'd dropped throughout the day, Saori had figured out where we were going so she was happy but not super surprised when we walked through the door.

One of the owners was there, someone I'd met passingly on the train who knew Alfredo, and he didn't make the connection that I was the guy who had been sending the emails about the party. He explained he was a little tense about the upcoming night since there were going to be two simultaneous parties going on. I replied that I was one of them, and so everything became clear.

We were the first to arrive, so we had some coronas and chatted and Saori wandered around taking photos of the decor until some more friends showed up. One the pleasures of being an expat is being able to introduce people to new experiences. Our first guest was a young German woman who had never had a margarita before.

It is worth pointing out that at the Mezcalaria, they sell margaritas with Mezcal, and it was pretty amazing.

Anyway, more and more people showed up, ordered drinks, and we had a really good time. I'd invited close to 20 people but only 8 showed up, including Saori and I. It's a really bad time of the year- lots of birthdays, and this is the first big vacation week for many Germans. It was still fun, an intimate gathering, but I wish I'd ordered less food. first they brought out a kilo of quesadillas. Made with tortillas de maize. It's kind of staggering to see fifty-odd quesadillas but moreso when made with an ingredient which is virtually nonexistant in Germany, fresh corn tortillas. As garnish, bowls of salsa, sour cream, cheese, and pico de gallo were set out. It was so delicious.

And then they brought out the mole de pollo and frijoles de olla. Really, amazing food. The mole de pollo was accompanied by blue corn tortillas. Where the hell they found blue corn tortillas or blue corn masa was beyond me. The frijoles were good (but better today, when Saori and my flatmates devoured the considerable remainder).

Everyone pitched in, but I still ended up taking home a kilogram of mole de pollo, the main dish of the night. We are not complaining. That is some really fantastic stuff.

All in all it was a great party, and Saori was really really happy.

Today, we slept in and just took it easy all day, reading, eating leftovers, and taking short walks. All in all, a good quiet ending to a frenetic weekend.

But nothing like Taylor's last few days. In the space of a few days he took the state Bar exam and then packed his apartment and moved to a new city. Now that is a frenetic weekend.

The Layabout

Saori told me that yesterday the apartment owner told her that Fathi, their Turkish flatmate, told her that he thought I was coming over to Saori's house too often. Was it actually Fathi or was it the apartment owner who would like to see less of me? Fathi likes to complain about the noise and as strict Muslim, he doesn't really approve of the boyfriend sleepover anyway. Actually could have been either.

I usually spend Friday and Saturday nights over at Saori's place- last weekend was an exception since I stayed Sunday, and I have a sneaking suspicion that the fourth person in the apartment in the morning getting ready for work was the breaking straw.

So no more weekday visits, and I may just stay away this weekend as well. There's really nothing like hearing that the flatmates think you're visiting too often to make you feel like a drug addict Hell's Angel boyfriend from last month's bar visit.

Anyway. Made pasta for Chandra and Shiva tonight. Fried up some garlic and onion, threw in some chopped tomatoes with basil, some spoonfuls of tomato pesto paste, and topped it all with some arugula. Good stuff. Shiva was still out at a party but I saved him some and when he came back he gratefully dove in. It feels nice to repay them for the many times I've come back from the office late and they've got some curry on the stove or in the fridge.

Today, I left my room open since representatives of the lawyer who now controls this house came to visit and appriase the building. I've heard various things from Shiva: the owner had to sell it to the bank to pay off loans, the house is going to be destroyed, etc. etc. The latest however is that the apartment is going to stay as it is until January, which gives me a bit more flexibility in finding an apartment with Saori.
But damn, I am so ready to be done apartment hunting. The tenant should get in contact with the landlord tomorrow, enshallah, and hopefully I'll have some good news in a week or so.

Also on my mind is my brother Taylor- if I am vain enough to compare myself to Sherlock Holmes, Tay is surely Mycroft. My brother is in the midst of taking the Indiana State Bar. I cannot communicate my pride in him- he has dedicated so many years of study, discipline, and exertion in his career, and this is one of the major waypoints along his path. It feels unreal to be so far apart from him for these big moments. I can't wait to see him again, and I really do not wish for it to be in a year's time.

Frankenstein

One of the most challenging things about Stuttgart is getting excited about it.

I like living in cities where people get excited about the place they are living. People in Phoenix argue back and forth about how much they hate the sprawl vs the urban renaissance the city is undergoing, all true Parisians turn their noses up at the Ile de France (so trite, so overrun), Portenos take to the streets to protest the conditions of city life, Berliners complain about the lack of jobs while the city is apparently an endless party, even Municher's grouse about Munich not being all that great.

People in Stuttgart shrug and and amiably admit that maybe there's a few too many Turks begging and there needs to be more housing in Stuttgart West, but everyone agrees that Stuttgart is a nice place to live. You can say it's got a bit of charm, that it has a bit of a village feel to it.

Probably one of the more interesting things about it is that there are so many people living in the Stuttgart area and there is so much money and industrial power concentrated here, and all of it is focused into an area at the center only a few square miles in size- but for all of it, phenomenally banal! The streets fill with people, the lifeblood of cities, undertaking their lives, going to meet lovers, pick up children, find objects of their desire, spy on governments, hussle, and pick up an armfull of pretzls for breakfast. Cities are made of relationships between people, and there is so much going on here. Sundays in the middle of the city stagger me- it's largely a shopping and office district, and everything save a few small cafes and bars are closed. But the streets are full of people. They come to Stadtmitte because the life of the city is concentrated there, in the other people.

Stuttgart is a corpse with strongly beating heart.

The ideal city is different to everyone. For Swabians, I think of the SNL sketch "Cooking with the Anal-Retentive Chef". The Schwabian ideal is to work really hard for your entire life and to buy a house and keep it clean and organized. Germans in general don't really like to cook and it shows in the cuisine and daily life. They enjoy a coffee and cake, and their bakers are damned fine, but excitement and fun must be kept within strict hours. The morning after they won the world cup might have been any other morning. The city is German by consensus: neat, orderly, and pretty.

Note to self: write something later, not here, about the relationship betwen crisis and city.

Apartment hunting

We may have found an apartment.

Saori has a coworker, Natasha, whose former landlord called to offer Natasha a dachgeschoss (rooftop apartment). Natasha said no thanks, but passed along the info to Saori, and together we got in contact with the current tenant, who agreed to show us the place.

The apartment is located in a great location, a few minutes from where I can pick up a bus directly to my office, close to the center of Stuttgart West.

It's a lot of stairs. The apartment is on the top level of at least a six or seven story old building. This height, combined with the slight incline of the street, gives the apartment amazing views all around and across Stuttgart. It's well within our price range, no booking fees, comes with a kitchen, and its got a big terrace and a ladder for secretly climbing on the roof (probably not actually allowed). It's not so big, but the flow is great and it has tons of built in storage, a rarity in Stuttgart.

Saori and I are both over the moon about this place, but we have to wait and see what the landlord says. The tenant is nice, and we connected well- he's moving in with his girlfriend so he wanted to have the flexibility of a month or two to move, which works fine for us.

It's not a done deal until we have the contract- but its really exciting we are both "pressing our thumbs" as the Germans say. Actually the Japanese also do the same action for good luck, opposed to the American finger-crossing.

Behnisch's Brobdingnabian Boozy Birthday Bonanza

Saori's office, Behnisch, turned 25 years old this year, and to celebrate, they brought all three of their offices, amounting to over 200 people, here to Stuttgart to celebrate. The folks from the Munich office didn't have much of a trek- they hopped on a train and were here in two hours. Behnisch also took the trouble to fly over the entire Boston office for the weekend as well, and to put them up in hotels here in town.

For the party, they appropriated the wide alley in front of their office with a custom plywood steps as benches and tables. They created three shallow kiosks, really just plywood facades to serve as a stand, which were themed to the three cities- Boston, Stuttgart, and Munich. The Boston stand, which was painted with city landmarks, the stars and stripes, made me oddly nostalgic for that city. I think it was also in part to the big blue Red Sox baseball cap decal, which was identical to the one I wore three years ago in my internship in that city. The stand served mini-burgers and Sam Adams Boston Lager (where the hell did they did up several cases of that???). The german cities served up the local brews and local foods- Stuttgart with its Maultaschen (thick, baked and sliced raviolis) and Fleishsalat (think potato salad, but with chopped ham and baloney standing in for potatoes).

They strung lines up and covered the lines with plastic to keep Stuttgarts notorious weather at bay and filled the canopy with white paper lanterns. The big conference room on the ground floor was converted into a bar and dance floor with a stage, silver foil streamers covering the walls, and mood lighting. They also hired two bands, both of which had members who worked at Behnisch.

There was beer by the keg and case, crates of wine, platters of meat and sausage, and to top it all off, a giant cake in the form of the latest big Behnisch project.

My office had a dinner, painfully coincidentally on the same night. However, it was just a "lets get to know each other better and socialize a bit" kind of thing basically organized by the two lead architects. The principal wasn't there- as an old friend and coworker of Mr. Behnisch, he went to the big Behnisch blowout.

Our office dinner was at "Lucky Hans" upscale burgers. I got a pretty decent chicken burger actually, since their beef burgers are not all that great. It was fun though, even though we had to cover the meal ourselves, and afterwards, I quickly excused myself to go join the big party.

The party was in full swing when I arrived a little after nine, and I ended up staying until around 2 o clock in the morning before heading back home. After a few people comment that you look like you're falling asleep, it's probably time to take the hint.

Magnum, the ice cream manufacturers, also rolled up a full deli case full of ice cream bars and cups- across the world, if you notice, they are also celebrating 25 years this year with special champagne flavored treats.

It was a rough morning, but I whipped up some fried eggs and bacon on top of german toast and with some strong coffee and copious quantities of water, I was able to cut through the worst of the gastro-cerebellar discomfort.

books and language

I just finished reading 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea for probably the third or fourth time, not including the many times I read the children's illustrated version. It's still surprising to me how easily and quickly it transports me to a world of submarine adventures. I wonder though how Capt. Nemo is read in school these days, if its a read at all. Although he is an extremist anarchist, a thief, and very likely a major funder of conflict, I do not think you can correctly label him as a terrorist. There are no demands, no publicly stated positions, no brand or identity. Even to the closest passenger aboard the Nautalis, Nemo's agenda and motivations remain unclear. Is Captain Nemo a terrorist? 1000 words for next friday's class. Scifi Lit 101.

Actually I've been on a bit of a fiction bender lately, probably to escape the stresses of apartment hunting and the acclimatization to Stuttgart. I re-read Dan Simmon's Hyperion, but in a strange way: Simmon's tends to get too carried away in the genre characterizations, and I feel like I've read the book too many times, so I skipped all the individual stories and just read the frame text. I finished the book in about a day in this way. And then I found myself going back and re-reading all the individual stories anyway.

Saori bought us a softcover copy of Pamuk's My Name is Red which won a nobel prize for literature. It's an intriguing book so far, about religious art, the conflict between east and west, the nature of duty. It's probably the only murder mystery where you find out who committed the murder in the first twenty pages and then the rest (so far) seems to be about the why.

One of the principal difficulties of Stuttgart is the language barrier. Everything that needs to get done for living requires this difficult enterprise of understanding and being understood. Yes, many Germans speak English, but it gets really wearing when every time you get past the first sentence, you have to trot out "sprechen sie Englisch?" I should not compare Mexico with Germany, but in Mexico, if you are a spanish-speaking gringo, you are kind of a rock star. If you look anglo-europeanish in Germany and you can stammer out a few German phrases, you are kind of an idiot.

So learn the language. I know. We are trying.

Saori and I went to IFA, the "best" langauge school. But classes don't start until october and it's over 200 euro a month. I'd be willing to pay, but I just want to get started sooner.

So we went to the cut rate school, Hanke-Schulungen, and they have classes which start at the beginning of september I am thinking of joining. One hot weekday afternoon, Saori and I sacraficed our lunch hour to sit in a stuffy hot room and take a German grammar test for placement purposes. After the class in Ahwatukee, the months of study on my own, four months of living in Germany, they advised me to start at the very beginning of their beginner course. It wasn't discouraging in the least.