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