madly, deeply in love

i have fallen madly and deeply in love with my new nest. you might think that this is an impossibility (to be so in love with an inanimate object), but you would be wrong and here are the reasons why:

• i have a dishwasher! this probably does not come as a surprise to anyone in north america, but in any of the places i have ever lived on my own i have never had a dishwasher. and that is a lot of dishes to do by hand. here, i get excited when i have used up enough dishes to necessitate a wash (and it doesn't happen with only little ol me here)
• living by myself is amazing and i had forgotten how wonderful it really is. i can sleep with my door wide open, wander around in the nude looking for my dental floss, listen to music or talk on the phone as loudly as i like, and when i want it, the silence is just grand.
• i can see a grocery store, a liquor store, and 2 starbucks from my front door. really.
• although incredibly expensive, buying furniture for my nest is fun.
• having people over for meals is one of my favourite things. especially when they cook everything, bring it all over, defrost crave cupcakes for the occassion, drag along picnic blankets to sit on, and give me housewarming gifts that have my name written all over them. my friends are great.
• my fam helped me move my stuff in, wash all my new dishes, and christen my home by cheers-ing with ice-cold beer. my family is awesome.
• my to do list has grow exponentially. i love lists. and i love checking things off to do lists.
• baths on sunday mornings because you don't have a shower curtain yet are fine, just fine.
• i now live 5km away from my office. and my own home office is pretty swell too.
• spending a whack load of money on fine, german flatware is sort of like a big 'eat this!' to the universe. i love a substantial spoon. and i love that i can afford to buy own.

omnivore's 100

i stole this from k this late sunday evening when i am not in the mood for bed, or for writing much else (as witnessed by my inability to post for the past few weeks). it is the omnivore's 100 and was fun to do. i copied it from her and deleted all the hyperlinks, but check her blog out if you want to know what half this stuff is (i had to look up a bunch).

1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating. (except here they are red because i cannot figure out how to strike anything through)
4) Optional extra: Post a comment here at http://www.verygoodtaste.co.uk/ linking to your results

The VGT Omnivore’s Hundred:
1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos Rancheros
4. Steak tartare (just the other day and i loved it)
5. Crocodile (it tastes like salty chicken and is gross)
6. Black pudding (surprising considering my proximity at times to the places that eat this 'delicacy.' but no, i wouldn't try it.)
7. Cheese fondue (but i don't know what the big deal with the fondue is)
8. Carp
9. Borscht (i don't think i've ever had beet soup, but i surely would try it)
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich (raspberry j is best)
14. Aloo gobi (i am not sure i have had exactly this, but things very similar to it)
15. Hot dog from a street cart (my most recent one was a sausage in a bun in prague and it came with a pickle!)
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes (i think so, but cannot remember an instance and i'm sure i would not like it)
19. Steamed pork buns (nothing about pork excites me and if i were to eat it, it would have to be some sort of pork roast)
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes (a life without tomatoes would not be worth living)
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras (i don't know a whole lot about foie gras, but have heard of some unethical farming practices to get those livers to grow so much. and liver, ew)
24. Rice and beans (it is a staple is so many countries i have been in and has its own name in cuba, but i cannot recall it at the moment)
25. Brawn or head cheese (had i wanted to try it, germany would have been the best place, it is everywhere)
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche (one of my favs in mexico)
28. Oysters (raw or smoked, delicious)
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda (but yum!)
31. Wasabi peas (i once ate a few bowls of these in the coolest restaurant in hamburg, germany - then proceeded to steal a beer glass)
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl (i have this issue with soggy bread)
33. Salted lassi (i have never liked the idea of the lassi and have yet to try one)
34. Sauerkraut (again, the germans)
35. Root beer float (the best kind of float!)
36. Cognac with a fat cigar (but not together, so i don't think that counts)
37. Clotted cream tea (in the lake district in england... so rich and so good)
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail (twice in the last year - south africa and paris and i enjoyed it much more than i thought i would)
41. Curried goat (i have eaten goat in many forms - thank you africa - but never curried)
42. Whole insects (chapulines in oaxaca, mexico. blech, but i did it)
43. Phaal (maybe i would try a bite)
44. Goat’s milk (not just plain milk, but cheese made with it)
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more (i had a scottish flatmate, he introduced me to nice scotch and hot toddies)
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala (just not with the chicken)
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut (heavenly, and i don't typically like doughnuts)
50. Sea urchin (no, but i did have one stuck in my foot for weeks)
51. Prickly pear (mexican street food includes cactus)
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone (there is some nasty poaching going on with this stuff in south africa, and i am pretty sure my former next-door neighbour was in on it when i lived there and when he pulled hods of it out of his freezer, i politely declined)
54. Paneer (my favourite is the paneer tikka from hashmi in nairobi - if you go there, order it!)
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle (something i should have tried while i was in deutschland, apparently)
57. Dirty gin martini (i had my first last year and it is surprisingly delicious and dangerous...)
58. Beer above 8% ABV (i think)
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores (back in the brownie camp days)
62. Sweetbreads (like maybe if i was on amazing race and this was the only thing keeping me from being a millionaire, then maybe)
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst (funny, i read a lot about this this past summer and there is even a museum devoted to the stuff in berlin, but it did not appeal to me so alas, i have not eaten it)
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake (mmmmm..... churros)
68. Haggis (in Edinburgh and it was pretty tasty)
69. Fried plantain (hello africa, and not too bad, but i am off bananas because of the many and varied uses of all things banana-like in east africa)
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette (no, no way)
71. Gazpacho (i made it once and described it as tasting like blended salad, but it was good blended salad)
72. Caviar and blini (wait, not together, but this one confuses me)
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu (and mostly because i am afraid of exported food products from china at the moment)
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail (and one time in paris, which was so parisian and delicious)
79. Lapsang souchong (sure, i like tea, just doubt that i would like a smoky tea)
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum (sounds nice)
82. Eggs Benedict (hollandaise is not my favourite, but the avenue diner in calgary does a fantastic version of these eggs)
83. Pocky (no, but i have had a very similar italian treat)
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant (oh, yes please!)
85. Kobe beef (what do you think the chances of the kobe beef fast food at u of c is actually kobe beef?)
86. Hare
87. Goulash (my mom made this a lot when i was growing up and i never cared for it, but had it again in hungary this summer, not bad, not bad)
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam (unless i ate it when i was little, i don't think i have ever eaten spam)
92. Soft shell crab (never the soft shell variety)
93. Rose harissa (not yet, but i will)
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano (i did not like this one bit and have no idea how the mexicans go so crazy for this national dish)
96. Bagel and lox (i think i have lived off of this for days on end at times)
97. Lobster Thermidor (never the thermidor variety)
98. Polenta (the first time at an italian dinner party and i only give it a medium)
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee (is that like code word for marijuana?)
100. Snake

a good time to be going home

(september 15, 2008)

sitting at the hannover airport, sipping a warm cappuccino, wrapped in a handwoven scarf from kenya, i am ready for this. ready for the shock of cold weather during a canadian winter and ready for rebuilding and rediscovering. as the day that I Move Home approached, i have been thinking, ‘am i ready for this?’ and really, is there ever an answer to that question? are you ever ready for anything? what the hell does being ready even look like?

all you can ever do is prepare as best you can and gather your hopes together in case you are in need of defence then go for it. readiness is not something that can be measured, collected, and packaged for each event or activity. it is fleeting and misleading and, at its worst, overrated.

i have done what i can, but i realise that most of what will need to be done cannot be done yet. and i will have to be patient with myself and the universe. because sometimes when you give something to the universe, it can’t respond right away. i guess you must just trust that it will.

am i ready to stop being the person who lives in africa, who is a regular at heathrow, who works in development and parties like a rockstar? not entirely. but i am ready to expand who i am to include something more. and maybe that is as ready as i can ever can be.

the fun bits

entertaining visitors, watching army parades, shoe shopping, and helicopter rides keep a girl busy. so while i am enjoying my last weeks in germany, i leave you with some photos of what fun it is if your boyfriend is a soldier.

highlights of the eastern european adventure (part i)

i am back at my nest and wow, was that a jam-packed, intense, fantastic, amazing, and exhausting trip! i seem to forget that i have trouble sitting still when in new places and even when we decided to have 'quiet' days, it was nearly impossible for us to just sit back, relax, and watch the world go by. no, there was too much to see, too much to do, and in some cases, too much to eat and drink. my legs are exhausted, my calves are more toned than ever, my lower back aches from the many mattresses, my cholesterol levels are probably skyrocketing, and my liver probably needs its own vacation, but man alive, was that all worth it.

highlights include (and i hope to be able to collate these into some not-so-steady streams of consciousness in the near future, but i seem to suck at writing about things in the past):

berlin
- the marathon walking tour with terry brewer that ended 12 hours after it started when we bid adieu to our favourite tour guide at an east berlin pub where the beer doesn't get any cheaper, the decor hasn't changed since communism was all the rage, and the sausages are served with toasted white bread and pickles
- the german history museum. i now understand a hell of a lot more about the reformation and how that carved out our modern world. seeing the documents that led to the greatest chasm in the christian religion was pretty damn cool.
- a new pair of birkenstocks
- the best chocolate shop with the cutest little chocolate hearts, thank you soldier
- seeing history that i actually lived through (even if i was 7)
- staying at a hotel with the best buffet breakfast ever (caprese salad at 8am is always welcome)
- walking, a lot of walking. like more than a lot.
- more pretzels. pretzels are great.

czech republic
- tourists, lots of tourists. mostly those who just stepped off their ryanair flight from northern england and sport their bikini tops in the centre of prague...
- the views of the castle (which were probably better than the actual castle, including the entry fee)
- the fancy blue outfits at the changing of the guard at the prague castle (even if the soldier was totally unimpressed with the wrinkled uniforms, the lack of unison, and the non chalant attitude of some of the czech soldiers - geez, critical)
- ice cream for dinner
- beer, delicious, delicious beer
- garlic soup that makes you breath garlic fire for 12 hours afterwards. delicious!
- reminding the soldier that there is no 'oslovakia' on the end of czech anymore
- pilgrimages to plzen and ceske budejovice to visit the homes of pilsen and budvar (pilsen being the home of pilsener beer and budvar being the original budweiser that can no longer call itself budweiser thanks to american anhauser busch...)
- you heard it here first, budvar is the best beer in the world. hands down.
- watching the opening ceremonies and turning to the soldier and saying, 'holy shiza'
- meeting the ever-friendly canadians decked out in roots gear at an irish pub to collectively cheer for the canadian, kenyan, british, and south african olympic teams coming into the olympic stadium
- street meat
- a little underground pub devoted to the rolling stones and too much beer (which led to nasty hangovers and day-long train journeys whilst hung over, blech)
- the museum of communism and its groovy t shirts. they really have a fantastic graphic designer who has done their posters and paraphernelia. which is the epitome of irony, really. clever and ironic.
- experiencing post-soviet influenced communist rule for the fist time. fascinating. absolutely fascinating. i must learn more about what it was like.
- a language where every language seems to end in -ska or -ky
- another country that loves hockey as much as canada. eh!?

ok that is all i can muster in one post, stay tuned for more highlights.

snippity snip

my hair is short! like tickle my neck, too short to put up in a pony tail (and apparently the word for bangs translates to 'pony' in english which caused great confusion during the hair cut). hold on, i have a photo.

the stylist was very sweet and tried her very best to speak english, which i really appreciated. the hair washing (which left a little to be desired and is on my favourite part of the hair cut) happened in the basement of this very old building with vaulted brick ceilings and that made me feel all european.

the rest of my day yesterday was spent sorting the last bits of the great eastern european (+ paris) adventure and i will be flying on an airline called wizzair. which sort of makes me giggle everytime i hear it.

travel planning is hard, also harder than i expected. but the sin is getting easier, so that is a plus.

the itinerary is the following - train to berlin, spend 3 days in berlin, train to prague, spend 3 days in prague, train to ceske budejovice (which i had to get the friendly czech rail guy to pronounce for me and i still don't know how to say it), spend 2 days in ceske, train to budapest, spend 3 days in budapest, fly to paris, spend 5 days in paris, fly to hannover, train home. or something like that. but that is a lot of trains, planes, and hotels to coordinate!

but also a lot to get excited for and we leave on saturday!

today:

- it was 38 degrees when i woke up and cooled down to 36 by noon

- i handwashed a lot of clothes and realised i get a little obsessed with clothes drying when they are on the line (or in my sunroom and throughout my kitchen when there is no line) and check them regularly to see if they are dry yet. that's what you call a touch of the ocd.

- i used the automatic stamp producing machine to post some things today. i have never seen this system before but it is brilliant. trust the germans to come up with such efficiency. the true test was if i used it probably and that mail arrives at its intended destination...

- i made a hair appointment for tomorrow with the stylist who speaks the best english in the shop. wish me luck!

- i bought a hat (not necessarily in anticipation of the hair cut, but it doesn't hurt) and a blue handbag, which i needed just slightly more than a hole in the head. but i figure that if the soldier always asks me to carry his wallet around, i should have a tool that is fit for the job.

- while caught in an afternoon shower as i walked home, i pondered how i have a teensy fear of umbrellas. and not in the way that i think they will attack me when i am sleeping but in that i fear a finger getting caught when you take it down. i realise this is totally irrational and i am blaming some adult in my childhood who probably warned me against getting my finger stuck and i have it ingrained in my head that you should be careful around umbrellas. the same way i also feel you should take care around escalators. i don't think the kids in this town get that lesson as they regularly play on the escalators and cause me great grief as they ride them up and down and up and down in BAREFEET. that is like asking to loose a toe.

- the friendly postie delivered my first piece of mail addressed to me as frau. (it was our train tickets to prague for next week, yippee!)

living in sin

is tough, tougher than i thought.

i don't tend to do things half-way and this was no different. i gave up my job, gave up my lovely little nest in nairobi, and moved to a country i had never been, where i did not speak the language, to be with someone i had not lived in the same country with since november 2007.

sounds a bit romatic when i say it like that.

the whole cross continental move was made tougher by the fact that when arrived our flat was not ready (or the outgoing tenant's new flat was not ready so somehow that meant we had to stay at a hotel and wait an extra 5 days and pay for a hotel in EUROPE for 5 nights, grrr....) and then once we moved into our new (love) nest, the soldier left for 11 days to play bang, bang, you're dead somewhere in a field in germany. to practice for a war that he will not fight in because he has already given the queen the finger-under-chin-flick and left the army (and for which i am eternally grateful).

so i wandered around the streets, price compared, purchased the necessities for a 3 month stint, read a lot of books, listened to a lot of music, saved birds, and wondered if this was perhaps the worst decision i had ever made.

then he got home, was filthy, showered, and the fighting, arguing, and bickering began. it sucked. who cooks (me), who cleans (me), who makes coffee better (me), who makes the bed (neither of us), who picks up their clothes (pfft, where would they go, back in the suitcases/boxes?), and who works (him) and is generally exhausted monday - friday (him).

but i think the worst of the adjustment is over. it ended when we decided to sit outside in the 36 degree heat on saturday afternoon and have a beer and a bite to eat. those beers are just so delicious on such a hot day that we had 3. did i also mention they are big?

the shops here close on sundays and as i had neglected my housegirlfriend tasks late last week, we were thin on the ground in the food department - we had to go for a shop.

and there is nothing like healing a relationship like going grocery shopping together. drunk. if we were not living in germany, i would have been mortified by my breath reeking of beer instead of just mildly uncomfortable as it were.

now i feel things are on the mend. due, in large part, to having the www at home (also my job and more tear enducing as the rest once german call centres were factored in). and this monday morning i was up at 6:30am seeing the soldier off to work (paintballing is considered work, thank you british tax payers) and feel pretty good about the future.

i am melting again and feel that perhaps a very large, very cold german beer is in order. it's sort of become a hobby.

isolation, no more!

i just want to say to the internet, i am back and that i am SO happy that i am no longer feeling isolated from the world without internet at home.

i am not sure if that is a sad example of our inability to be 'alone in the world' or a demonstration of the connective powers of the www, but i am back and couldn't be happier to have lucille up and running on the internet (and for free for the time being courtesy of a little deutsche telekom mix up).

podcasts, email, job applications, travel planning, blogs, amazon, facebook - here i come.

reading machine

(july 18, 2008)

with extra time on my hands, i have been doing a lot of reading and am happy to report i have two big thumbs-up recommendations.

the first is a book that i had heard a lot about, but was always turned off because of its title, is Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond. it is a book that answers a lot of questions i have always had about why countries like canada were colonised but countries in europe were the colonisers and why certain technological advancements have never taken hold in sub-saharan africa. it is a non-academic academic book that tells the scientific story of how guns, germs, and steel (and other fascinating things like plant and animal domestication)dictated who colonised who and explains the current power distribution in the world.

if i had a critique, it would be that the book is too much about papau new guinea and the author’s own experiences and that it drags in places, especially where he goes over concepts he has already covered. but his day job is a uni professor, so i guess that is to be expected. i loved the first half of the book about plant and animal domestication (and now i know why no one bothered to domesticate zebras, which are EVERYWHERE in africa doing little else than eating and herding together) and how our fruit and vegetables became edible. a good read.

the second book on recommendation, although a quarter of the size of the first, is as difficult to read due to the setting and topic of the book. i had had this book on my To Read list for ages and finally found it on amazon.ca (thanks to my ma!) and brought it with me to germany. titled A Sunday at the Pool in Kigali and written by canadian author Gil Courtemarche and translated into english from its original french, it is a fictional account based on a journalist’s experience of the situation at the famed Hotel Milles Collines (Hotel Rwanda) during the genocide in 1994.

if i had to find a word to describe the feel of the writing it would be raw. but i think that it is warranted and as hard as parts are to read and as the author says in the preamble, the story is not wholly fabricated.

interestingly, the book also chronicles canadian involvement in rwanda before and during the genocide, Romeo Dallaire’s role in the conflict, and the lifestyle of the humanitarian aid workers in kigali. i always enjoy these accounts as they are close to home for me and my recent experience. this book deserves to be read.

my book pile is running low and soon i will have to dig into the soldier’s conspiracy theory books (...), does anyone have any reading recommendations? not having english book stores to peruse makes it tough to remember books i wanted to read to look up on amazon.

riparian entertainments

(july 14, 2008)

i had made a plan to go for a riverside picnic for our first proper german sunday together, had bought a picnic basket, and prepared the menu. but when we woke up on sunday morning from a night of drinking german beer in all of the soldier’s old haunts (and our new neighbourhood pub), we had to postpone the picnicking until we both went back to bed to rid ourselves of our 12% hangovers.

we did manage to make the picnic a reality even though i had to sneak by our new neighbourhood pub wrenched with guilt from having stolen fruit from their bartop fruit bowl 12 hours prior (maybe it was there for their customer’s enjoyment??) and it was my idea to stop to get a coke from the shop nearby. and the last time that i remember voluntarily choosing to drink coke was over a year ago when i was hot as balls at the egyptian pyramids. i really don’t like coke, but at times it is a healer.

our picnic got underway, my soldier graciously carried the picnic basket although i don’t think he realised it was about a 3km walk, and we arrived to find our picnic table free and got more than a few ‘bon appetites’ from passing germans (who knew that phrase was so universal?) as we laid out our spread. bakery bread, brie and tilster, raspberry salad, fresh tomato and basil, french wine (bought at the grocery store for a few euro – love that!), and milka chocolate.

a wander back to our flat and en evening spent watching the second pirates of the Caribbean while drinking tea (me) and milk with canadian imported oreos (him) rounded out a day that hadn’t started out exactly as planned, but turned out perfectly in the end.

and thankfully there was no bird involved in this german sunday.

courtesy call

(july 9, 2008)

when i don’t need to wake to an alarm and roll out of bed to throw on the least wrinkly clothes to get to work on time (as much as i love mornings, i am beginning to think that i am not a morning person), i like to leisurely take my time after i wake up, have a cup of tea, listen to a cbc podcast, read my book, do the previous night’s dishes, and stay in my pyjamas until i am good and ready to get moving on the nesting that has to be done.

last week, on a few mornings between 9 and 10 my doorbell would ring and i wasn’t sure if it was the downstairs bell ringing or the one immediately outside my door. as my front door has foggy glass so you cannot see through it but can see movements, i would have a minor panic attack and would try not to move so as not to make The Squeakiest Floor Ever squeak and to draw attention to the fact that i was inside my flat but just not answering the door.

as my german is at best abysmal and i did not want to meet my neighbours with bed head, a cup of tea, and my striped pyjamas, i would sit still and patiently wait for enough to time to pass to assume that if anyone was outside of my door they would figure i was not in. sort of like how they count to 5 on LOST.

late last week i poked my head out of my giant front window and saw the mailman riding his bike away shortly after the bell rang. what a nice courtesy to ring my bell when i have mail! no more need for me to creep quietly around in the mornings to conceal the fact that i am taking my lady of leisuredom seriously.

and how about that mailman on a bike?!

a friday night in a german town

happy birthday america! at least i think that today is your birthday, independence = birthday, right?

i just had a greek salad for dinner thanks to an afternoon of grocery shopping and am sitting on my nest’s floor due to lack of furniture (we have a couch but i am sick of the couch) and a sore back, listening to the british forces radio station that i just discovered, and eating ritter sport.

my german friend told me that ritter means knight. sadly, this german friend is in kenya at the moment and can’t help me with other translations. like the damn atm! i finally gave up with the german bank card and used the british bank card, so the machine would speak english to me.

not knowing the language of the local population is a rather humbling experience, to say the least.

nesting is a lot of work and i usually look at the time around 5pm and wonder what happened to the day. i think it is all the thinking that is needed when you are in a new place, it makes time move faster. the nest is getting nestier, but i have suffered a setback when the suction cup holder for the bathroom will not suction. perhaps the wall needs a good scrub before it will stick.

i anticipate a lot of washing and cleaning in my future. i have kaiboshed the idea to buy a washing machine because it just seems like a lot of hassle and lot of money when uniforms can be washed at the army and i can handwash the rest of it. besides, there is a drycleaner around the corner and they can do sheets and towels, right?!

we will see what comes of this set-up, but i did spend yesterday morning washing things in my tub and it reminded me of my sunday morning ritual of washing my ‘little things’ when i lived in south africa a few years ago. sundays in the town of bredasdorp, rsa are a lot like sundays in the town of hameln, germany – not much is open and people are having picnics, walking in the parks, or otherwise entertaining themselves without buying stuff. we have decided to institute ‘german sundays’ when we eventually get back to canada.

the music choice of the british forces radio is a bit too young-lads-heading-out-on-the-piss for my tastes, but i am holding out for the news. it will be interesting to hear what they focus on when the audience is the armed forces.

and that is my friday night. less than a week of this darn army exercise and then i can ditch the radio for real conversation.

the importance of goals

it is the early hours of the morning (well, for me at 9:00am – who needs to adjust to jetlag?) and i was just woken up by a car accident outside my flat. it is not a very busy road, but from my calculations, the black car clipped the yellow car as they were headed in the same direction. and that is just too much excitement for me not to get up and charge up the old ipod so i can go for my first run in the new town.

along with going for a run, my goals today are to fill my fridge with groceries (or as much as i can carry with 2 trips to the supermarket), watch a few more episodes of lost (which is sort of like a glorified survivor episode, but my options are limited so i will take it), and sort out our coffee maker so i can get back on the caffeine train.

and that, ladies and gentlemen, is what my life consists of these days. it would involve a lot more trip planning and communicating if i had the old www in flat. or could find out whose wireless network is called fritz! and see if they would be so kind as to give me their password...

my warmest regards

(july 1, 2008)

happy birthday canada! you don’t look a day over 125.

yes, i am still alive and haven’t been eaten by the germans.

it has been a whirlwind week where we unexpectedly had to stay in a hotel, got into our flat late, and punched each other in the wiener about a hundred times. that is why i affectionately refer to the Love Nest as the Wiener Punching Nest, but i am sure that will change soon. or whenever we get the internet working in our flat, whichever happens last.

here are my first observations of the little german town that i now call home:

the buildings are very pretty and very old. and are just like a fairy tale. according to my reading on the subject, this makes perfect sense as the brothers grimm were german and gathered up all the folk stories and combined them into what we now know as fairy tales. hameln, is the home of the pied piper, the creepy story of the man who drove all the rats out of the town then used his little creepy pipe to entice the children to chase him out of the town as well. pervert.

i love my new nest. love it. want to import the whole of it to canada in september (which is where i intend to live at the end of this little european adventure, if i have not mentioned it before). our third floor flat has got to have the squeakiest floor i have ever laid foot on and a little breakfast nook that i like to call Heaven (ok, no i don’t because that would be as creepy as the piper himself) – it is where i intend on eating lots of healthy breakfasts (once we find a table and chairs) of produce bought from the bitsy streetside markets. our bathroom is adorable (apart from the gross german style toilet) and i love the windows in european houses. who needs a screen?! just open the whole thing up and let the fresh air in.

there are some rather dark complexioned germans. i suppose that anyone who had been here would know that, but i was surprised. i still wished i looked less european in this setting, however, because then i could be forgiven for NOT HAVING A CLUE what anyone ever says to me. apart from giving directions to the german man in overalls (it begs to be mentioned) to the potato house restaurant when he asked me on the street.

boyfriends in camouflage uniforms are delightful, even if they live in gross and stinky army blocks with other gross and stinky soldiers. but that should all change once he is delicately plucked from the grips of that damned army. just need to get over this dumb army exercise that he is on for the next 9 days, playing soldiers.

beer is sort of like a food group of its own and it is also what i live to call Heaven. it is so delicious and all the kinds are so equally delicious that you just order a beer and it is always delicious. please remember the poor (german? greek?) server who spilled an entire delicious beer all over me in your prayers. the poor dear felt so bad, he brought us shots of ouzo then more beer and didn’t charge us for any of it. little did he know that i was just so happy to live in my new nest that day, you could have spilled the entire bottle of ouzo on me and i wouldn’t have minded.

although our little town is little, i love that there is a bakery around the corner, two pubs within spitting distance, and you can walk to get groceries (walking back is the tricky part, so i do things in shifts – i got nothing but time). i am not so in love with the church choir that is singing on a tuesday evening, but i am drowning them out with my new itunes playlist summering in europe tunes. rumour has it that there is an ikea down the road that has my name written all over (rumour about my name, not the existence of the ikea), so that should make my afternoons of housegirlfriend-dom a titch more exciting.

there are about a million and two other things that i could report, but i will leave you here and get back to entertaining myself sans soldier in these most delicious late sun evenings of summer that i have been missing in my former equatorial home.

update, schmupdate

i have been home nearly 2 weeks and have been relaxing and dealing with allergies. i haven't felt compelled to update so i will give you a recap that will probably not be very exciting to read, but will make me feel less guilty when i check my blogomatic and bore myself with my own lack of news.

i am sad that the hockey night in canada theme song is going to go to tsn/ctv now. it goes hand-in-hand with the cbc and cherry's antics for me. but what was cbc thinking? i am pretty sure they can afford the $500 per play.

that wasn't much of an update. i will try again.

the soldier and i have a flat to move into in germany, which is rather exciting and makes things feel more 'real' even though i keep getting ahead of myself by thinking about the autumn and future jobs, houses, and life back in calgary.

but yay for a new nest! i wonder how you say 'nest' in german?

back to those allergies - they are kicking me in the ass. i am not sure if it is allergies or a cold, but i am sleeping way too much, i wake up with headaches, and my eyes are itchy far too often. blech.

i have eaten more red meat in the past few days than in the past 6 months, but i have come to expect (and anticipate) that. i loves me some alberta beef. i also love red wine and my mom's red wine dispenser (otherwise known as a box of wine conveniently placed so you simply place your glass under the spout and voila!).

it seems when you leave your job, people seem to think you are rather valuable, but i guess that happens anywhere in any field. or so i am told. but no bother, i like the compliments and the requests for my cv.

speaking of my cv, i met with a recruiter and i am feeling positive (for once!) about my career. nothing concrete, just a good meeting full of good ideas.

ordering at starbucks is STRESSFUL. here is what i want - a latte, the medium size, with skim milk, and maybe, just maybe, a fancy flavour shot or a fancy drink like a caramel macchiato (but not very sweet and none of the no-sugar syrup). but you need to be able to say that in the fancy coffee shop lingo in a matter of seconds. who can do that?! well, probably you. but i am used to putting in my order at nairobi java house and just crossing my fingers that they get it right and enjoying whatever shows up on the counter. often, to get the drink how you want it, it takes a short diatribe and a few baseball hand signals, but i am little out of the loop.

the mass consumption and marketing in this place is also stressful. not to mention the serious leaps in technology that make me feel like an 80 year old (maybe even 90 year old) who has lived in a home for entire technology revolution. in saskatchewan (ok, maybe a stereotype, but i would imagine that if you lived in a home in saskatchewan, it might be even less technologically current).

i am learning a lot about wedding dresses and weddings. i am glad i get to be a spectator at this one (well, an active chief bridesmaid spectator) so i can learn the ropes.

other than that, adjusting is and will be tough, i miss parts of life in africa, but i am excited for a lot of upcoming things and nothing beats that.

i am ready for this

(may 4, 2008)

wow, that was perhaps one of the best holidays i have ever had. it was as much about being in south africa as being with a certain someone who managed to organise the best trip that included just enough road tripping, sightseeing, relaxing, eating, and visiting. amazingly, we never felt too tired (except for those times that we had had a few too many glasses of south african wine or namibian beer and had to eat steak or éclairs in the morning to remedy the problem) and paced all of our mini adventures so we kept busy and time managed to slow... right... down, which pleased us just fine.

i got back in the early hours this morning and found my kitchen infested with bugs, including ants making a new hill in my sugar bowl (you give your housekeeper a week off in the rainy season and the bugs just take over) and you know what? i don’t really care.

i don’t care because i have approximately 4 weeks left in kenya and am ecstatic not about my departure (although a change is definitely in order) but about my arrival. if my plan stands, i will be making a brief stop in the hometown for wedding dress shopping (not mine, before you get your panties in a knot), hanging out with the fam, and general june enjoyment then heading to europe where i will be summering in germany.

i intend on finding some new hobbies, reading a lot of books, and getting used to living with a soldier who has to wear the scary uniform to work every day. somehow, i think it will be doable.

in need of centering

i feel as though i need to take a deep breath and a few steps back to refocus and prioritise for the busy weeks i will have ahead of me. somehow i managed to fall behind and now i need to redistribute my energies so that none of my courses are neglected. tough stuff when one of them is incredibly fascinating and the two others are not as inspiring.

unfortunately, this means that i need to cancel my work out non-date and better manage my time. no reading my book (which i am almost done), no knitting mittens, no more baking cookies...

have you seen the movie Downfall? well, you should. you know a good movie when you can sit through two and a half hours and not feel as though you are counting down the minutes until it is over. makes war look real while at the same time emphasising the surreality of it all. i am unquestionably no nazi sympathiser, but i do think that it is easy to condemn the people on the fringes in hindsight. makes me wonder if those of my generation can even conceive what is seemingly inconceivable. watch it, then let's talk about the amazing actor that played hitler.