Darmstadt

Road trip! The original plan was for our friends with a car to drive us to the French border for sightseeing. But with three moderately sick kids and the cold weather, we stayed in Germany and checked out their hometown, Darmstadt. The day started with a hot lunch of German lasagna, followed by a car/foot tour of the city. Darmstadt was heavily damaged in WWII but there is still a large schloss (castle) in the center of town and the beautifully restored Rosenhöhe Park. Rosenhöhe contains several specimens of Sequoiadendron giganteum, giant sequoias. They were dwarfs compared to the trees in California, but still reminded us of home. After the park, we returned to our friend's house for the German weekend tradition of 4pm Kaffee und Kuchen. In fact, we were invited to another 4pm Kaffee und Kuchen on Saturday, but had to cancel due to Gianna's illness. An invitation to Kaffee und Kuchen means they will cram you full of fancy cakes from the local bakery and gourmet coffee to the point you will not be hungry for dinner. It also means you are their friends, something Germans take very seriously. The night ended with Wii Fit competitions where we were creamed by an 8 year old and then a fast car ride home up the autobahn.

Frau Milk Chocolate Schmidt

These are my German protégés, lets call them Sophie and Jörg (just because one of them has to have umlauts). I am their English speaking nanny, Frau Barbara. After a recent discussion with my cousin about German race relations, I was reminded of a session many months ago, Jörg was staring up at me with those big blue eyes, listening to me speak this foreign language. His mom said with all sincerity, "he's never seen a brown person close up before". I laughed out loud. Was she serious or telling some kind of German joke? She clarified, "I mean anyone that has brown hair, brown eyes, and [browner than ghostly white] complexion". OK, she was serious. I have been laughing about this one for months. If I am brown, what do they think of Gianna? In addition, for several weeks she thought SpongeBob was made of cheese, which also had me in stitches, "that Cheeese Man that Gianna likes" is what she called him. I take it back, maybe Germans do have a sense of humor!!

Haiti Orphans

I was going to post that today is our 1 year anniversary of moving to Germany. But that is more of a Facebook status update than a blog post. The orphan situation in Haiti was bad before the earthquake (approx 300,000 orphans in a country of 9 million), and now has at least doubled, maybe even tripled or quadrupled. Coincidentally, someone contacted me the day before the earthquake about adoptions from Haiti. I went to the website and said "I'll consider it". But now adoption groups are flooded with well meaning citizens asking how they can get their hands on one of those Haitian orphans.

Catholic relief workers from orphanages that were badly damaged or destroyed are working to have orphans that were already matched with families before the quake airlifted to the States. Pennsylvania's governor Ed Rendell even flew to Haiti with his wife to assist in the evacuation of some 50 orphans that had been matched with PA families. In order to meet the immediate needs of the scores of new orphans, some aid groups have suggested a large scale airlift a la Operations Babylift or Pedro Pan may be the best option. The children would then be placed in group homes around Florida or foster care. For now, the US is only giving humanitarian visas to children that were already matched with families before the quake. Why? Because the "new" orphans may have family members that are searching for them. Airlifting them to the States may meet their immediate needs, but makes reunification with their birth families much more difficult and adds the additional trauma of being removed from the place they call home. Since the chance of these kids being reunited with family that can afford to take care of them is quite slim compared to the risks of remaining in a country where resources have become even more scarce, it seems that temporary relocation may be the only option for some orphanages, especially where their facilities have been badly damaged. I pray that all these little children will have their needs provided and one day find themselves in a loving home either in Haiti or abroad.

Photo courtesy of Gloria Kreps/UPMC: Jamie McMutrie with one of the orphans and Gov. Ed Rendell.

German newsletter

Deutsche Börse's company newsletter recently did an article on the visiting American workers. They were asked a few questions about Germany and were supposed to submit a "leisure" photo of themselves. Here are the questions with my answers. Dan gave some "American polite" answers, but I said he should be honest and blunt, just like the Germans are with us.

Which associations have you had with Germany before you arrived at Frankfurt? And how did reality match with them?

I traveled to see the Rhine River Valley on a Sunday when everything was closed. Other than that, I thought Germans were hard working with no sense of humor. Reality matched, except they aren't as hard working as I imagined.

What are the most frequently asked questions from Germans when you say that you are American?

1. Are you learning German yet?
2. Why are you living in Germany?
3. When are you moving back to America?

Which are the situations that tempt you to say "typically German"?

1. When my daughter holds the door for someone and they don't say "Danke" or even smile.
2. When someone scowls at me or other foreigners in disgust for talking on the train.
3. When I see someone haggling with a shopkeeper over €0.10.
4. When the lady at the cake cafe gives me a slice of Johannisbeere instead of chocolate because my pronunciation of "Schokolade" was imperfect.
5. When I see kids riding small wooden bikes with no pedals.
6. When I see families out on their "Sunday Strut" getting their €500 shoes muddy from walking on the dirt paths in the park.

Which are the three tourist attractions in Germany where you would go with people visiting you from your home country?

Oktoberfest
Rhine River
Christmas Markets


And here are the leisure photos I found for Dan to submit. Which one do you think he chose? It was harder than I thought to find a photo of only Dan (no Gianna) where he is fully clothed and not drinking beer.

Rosinen Schnecken

My German boss gave me Dr. Oetker: German Baking Today for Christmas. It has been very enlightening. The cookbook puts German names to the faces of pastries and cakes on display at the corner bakeries. And it unlocks the secret of how to make them yourself! The book should be instead titled, Dr Oetker: say hello to elastic waist pants. Since we will not be living in Germany forever, I figured I'd better start practicing these recipes while all the ingredients are at my disposal. The rosinen schnecken (literally raisin snails) pictured are actually a hybrid of my mom's cinnamon bun recipe and a Dr. Oetker schnecken recipe. The filling is quark, marzipan, almonds, ground almonds, raisins, brown sugar, and cinnamon. I had extra filling leftover, so I piled it on top as a strudel. In a past attempt at making the original Oetker recipe for rosinen schnecken, I put too much pudding as the filling and it leaked out. This time, I used quark, but put it on too light so it is barely noticeable. And the secret for making them a glossy golden color is to apply a hot mango-apricot jam glaze right after they come out of the oven. This also helps to make them nice and sticky.

Áo Dài photo shoot

Gianna and I decided to model our new traditional Vietnamese áo dài dresses before our vacation tans completely fade away. We bought them in Saigon at the Bến Thành market. The áo dài is traditionally worn for celebrating Tết and other formal occasions, but I'm thinking they will be a little too drafty for Tết (Feb 14, 2010) in Frankfurt.























Gianna wanted a shot with the dog; he put a hole in her pants with his claw >:-(

Frosty der Schneemann

...and more schnee

Schnee!

A rare Frankfurt snowstorm hit last weekend covering the interstadt with a few centimeters of snow. We threw snowballs at each other, and at a few passers by, and at someone's dog. Germans are not fans of spontaneous fun, so you generally won't see them out frolicking in the snow like the crazy Americans. They have mini and maxi sized snowplows (mini is pictured). The maxi size are still smaller than most small US plows, probably to get down all the narrow streets, however they do have some jumbo plows for the highways. I like it that the plows say "SCHMIDT" on them. We are supposed to get more snow this weekend, although weather reporting here is notoriously poor, so perhaps we will have full sun and balmy spring weather!

Nha Trang

Nha Trang is located on the coast of South Central Vietnam facing the South China Sea. In contrast to sleepy Phu Quoc, there was a big hotel strip and the beach had giant waves. Gianna commented, "the water is too loud", but she still enjoyed making sand castles away from the water.

On Christmas Eve, we got dressed up for the hotel's Christmas gala. The whole strip was alive with Santas on motorbikes and little kids all dressed up to get their pictures taken. Santa was at the hotel handing out presents to the kids and two guys with a violin and guitar were playing Christmas carols with Frank Sinatra's "I did it my way" thrown in for good measure. The buffet was excellent with fresh seafood grilled to order and a large dessert table featuring a Bûche de Noël. The best part, we got to meet other adoptive families on vacation just like us.

We wanted Christmas Day to be special, so we booked a trip to Monkey Island. After all, what says Christmas more than a monkey circus and hand feeding a bunch of wild monkeys? We had a personal tour guide and driver for the whole day. First stop was Monkey Island, where Gianna commented "Monkeys do not ride bikes". We didn't feed any of the wild monkeys, especially since we had a small child with us. The monkeys came very close and were quite interested in my camera. It was all a little unnerving since we were highly outnumbered. We spent a little time at the Monkey Island beach with the monkeys watching us from lounge chairs. Then we went back to the mainland for lunch at a Vietnamese family restaurant, which Dan described as, "the best meal I've ever had". After lunch we hiked up a mountain to a waterfall. The spring-fed creek was much warmer than any I've ever swam in, still quite refreshing in the tropical heat. On the way back to the hotel, a huge funeral procession passed our car. At the center, there was a temple on wheels with women riding on the back throwing out paper money. Our guide explained all the intricacies of Vietnamese death and funeral customs.

The rest of our time in Nha Trang was spent on the beach and sampling local cuisine; then we headed back to Saigon. Before hopping on the flight home, we picked up a few áo dài, saw a lion/dragon dance, did a little sightseeing, and took advantage of the New World Hotel Saigon pool. It was a wonderful trip, probably the best vacation we've ever taken, especially since it was with our beautiful daughter Gianna.

Phu Quoc

When I was looking for a warm beach to spend Christmas holiday, I came across a travel site reviewing beaches in SE Asia. According to Travelfish, Phu Quoc "gets almost none of the press of those islands over in Thailand -- and yet with its rugged jungle, squeaking white sands and sparkling cobalt waters, it can more than match them." The resorts were dirt cheap but highly acclaimed, so I decided to find out for myself.

Our hosts at Mango Bay met us at the airport with a four wheel drive vehicle. The ride to the resort took us though winding dirt roads, reminiscent of my parent's cabin in North Central PA. Mango Bay is a working mango plantation, as the name implies, with rustic bungalows along the beach and cows and chickens roaming the premises. Our bungalow had a king bed with mosquito netting (no AC, just fans!), a beach facing porch, and an attached outdoor bathroom that became a house of horrors at night. The food at Mango Bay was second to none, most everything they served was grown right at the plantation or caught off shore. They made the best Bánh xèo I've ever tasted and I could not get enough papaya smoothies.

After we checked in, I ran out to the ocean to get a glimpse of this paradise that I had read about on the internet. At first, I was a bit disappointed. Where were all the coconut palms and white sand beach? There were more pines than palms and the sand was more brown than white. But once Gianna woke up from her nap and saw the ocean, the look on her face made me realize this was the perfect place. The waters were clear and calm, so she could sit in the surf without us worrying about her getting washed out to sea. The rocks off shore offered tropical fish and crab sightings, and there were plenty of seashells for collecting.

The only down side was the wildlife that came alive at night. There were 35cm long Tokay geckos everywhere. Once Gianna and I encountered one on the wall of a cramped bathroom stall and Dan got a good picture of one hanging on the wall over our bed. These guys have a vicious bite, which I only found out after we got home. There were also tropical spiders the size of my palm, and lots of mosquitoes. Even with our DEET and permethrin, we still got quite a few bites. Thankfully so far, nobody got sick :-) During the day we battled black flies, especially during meal time. The only place the flies wouldn't go was out over the ocean, so we spent a lot of time in the water.

Despite the creepy crawlies, our time on Phu Quoc was tranquil and relaxing, a real paradise. But for Christmas Day, we wanted something a little more glitzy and festive, so we headed for the beach town of Nha Trang.

Saigon and the Mekong

After deciding that it was too expensive to spend 2 weeks in the US over Christmas, and too cold to spend it in Europe, I found some cheap flights to Bangkok with a connection to Saigon. The flight to Bangkok is only 1 hr longer than NYC, then it was another hour to Saigon. We got to the hotel right around dinner time. The hotel pool was warm and stayed open late. So we ate some noodles and took a dip, along with about a dozen bats! They were swooping down into the pool to take a drink, so cool.

The next day a van picked us up at the hotel and drove us to the Mekong river for a day long boat trip. We hopped on a Sampan that took us past the Cai Be floating market to a rice paper/candy making "factory". The factory was just a large hut with some locals hard at work. We sampled a variety of Vietnamese candies and snake wine. Next stop was a brick making operation, which I found less interesting since there were no treats to sample. We visited a French Colonial Home (potty break!) and then headed out to a point in the Mekong where it was several km wide. That was scary being on such a small boat. We ate lunch at a beautiful French Colonial establishment overlooking a plantation. The lunch must have been 6 courses, one being a set of large elephant ear fish artfully displayed.

We headed back to Saigon, had some phở at Phở 24, hit the pool for some more swimming with the bats, then called it a night. The next morning, we hopped in a taxi to the airport for our short flight to Phu Quoc.