My grandmother, the psychic

Grandma, on her 90th birthday in 2010.

Grandma is psychic.  I was going to say a prophet, then I realized that may have religious overtones that just do not apply to this situation.

Back in 2003, when I was in the throes of chiropractic school, and loooong before I met John, my grandmother purchased a book for me as a Christmas present.  It was a cookbook put together as a fundraiser to the troops.

It was called "Deployment Days Cookbook.  Operation Enduring Freedom 2003"  It is a collection of favorite recipes from soldiers and their families.

I was flipping through it the other day, searching for a basic gravy recipe when I found a recipe card with a note from my Grandma.  (actually, it looks like a recipe card, but is really just a 3"x5" card with a picture of a cuckoo clock and the text "Time for a note!")

It reads:
"Dear Jen,
I know you don't have a lot of time for cooking, but some day you will.  I found a lot of old favorites, like Tater Tot casserole, and some new, interesting ones.  Love, Grandma."

"I know you don't have a lot of time for cooking, but some day you will."

Boy, do I ever.

I also found a recipe for "An Army Wife"

1 1/2 C patience
1 lb. courage
1 dash of adventure
2 Tbsp. elbow grease
1 3/4 C Tolerance

Marinate frequently with salty tears.  Pour off excess fat.  Sprinkle ever so lightly with money.  Knead dough until payday.  Season with international spices.  Bake 20 years or until done.  Serve with pride.
To preserve the quality of this recipe, you must add contentment, a little rest, and togetherness.  Put it on the back burner and baste it with a lot of good memories and a life of love.

Awes.

I had packed this book away when I moved from Minnesota to Colorado.  I found it again during John's deployment to Iraq in 2008.  I had NO idea how true everything turned out to be.

Like I said, the lady is a psychic.

did I ever tell you about the fish?

The day we got our HHG, we were in the madness of checking off delivered goods as well as directing the movers to the various rooms where certain boxes were to be unpacked.

In the middle of the madness, our landlord, a very sweet man, presented John with a fish.

"For you."  he said.

Apparently he has a fish farm.  He goes there and fishes it, cleans his prizes, then, vacuum seals them.  By the smell of this one, it was smoked.

However, John is a not a fish person.  I'm definitely not a fish person if it still has a head.  Otis was very interested in it.  Unfortunately, it went to the trash.  Sorry Alois.

Later the next week, he asked about the fish.  We lied.  We said it was tasty.  He said he has LOTS of fish.  Big fish!  Small fish!  Any time we want fish....let him know.

Greaaaaat.

Rothenberg ob der Tauber

Horses!

Walking the ramparts!

an opening from which to shoot arrows from the ramparts.  these walls are preserved, but originally from the 13th century.

view from the ramparts

walking the ramparts.  you can walk around the entire border of the old town, but we only did  about 1/4 of it.

more views :)

tower at the entrance

front entrance

John.  waiting for lunch.  looking kinda pissy.  he was hungry.

St. Jacob's Cathedral

candles at the cathedral.  (prayers?  I'm not very religious.  I think if I were, this whole area of Bavaria would be vastly meaningful to me.  It has centuries of religious history, not to mention art.)

religious or not, this is still gorgeous.

tale has it that in this alter is a stone with 3 drops of Christ's blood.  we didn't pay the 2 euro to go in any further, so these are hyper zoomed shots.  yay for digital zoom!

Rathaus

more rathaus

walking a very busy street to the criminal museum

looking downhill

shame masks.  the one on the left was worn by oversexed men.  the one on the far right was worn by gossipy women.  the one in the middle was worn for acting like a pig

chastity belts.  Ick.  the one on the right looks grody.  These were used if a man didn't trust his wife, or if he was going away for a period of time, or if it was known that a woman was to travel through an area where rapes were known to happen.  I'm happy I live in modern times.

a shame flute!  this had to be worn in the town center for playing music badly!

bridal wear.  the one on the right was worn by proper, well behaved women.  the one on the left..the straw headress....notsomuch.  

a witch catcher!  ouch!

Iron Maiden.  Again.  ouch.

a chest to lock your riches away.  quite complicated.

a dunker as punishment for bakers who baked bread too light or too heavy.

We also did see examples of the rack, thumb screws, leg screws, neck violins (usually reserved for quarrelsome women), drunk tanks, and a mechanism with which you were hung by your arms which were tied behind your back, and stones attached to your legs.  Not a pleasant punishment...and was usually a slow way to die.
Ah, it's all fun and games in Rothenberg!  No, really, next time, I'm shopping.

Here is also a google image I found of schneeballen.  They are huge.  Share one!

Internet

We will have “permanent” internet installed on Monday.  It will have speeds that top out at 384 kb/s.  Now now, don’t go getting all jealous on me.  You, too, can have painfully slow internet.

Actually, no. 

You can’t.  

Because this is ludicrous.  And if you are reading this, you probably have speeds faster than dial up or even 384 kb/s DSL.  I know this because when you have slow internet, you don’t seem to “browse” the internet as you do when it’s super fast and readily available.  You get in, get out, and get the things you need done.

The sad truth is, I’m getting used to it.  Slow internet has made me more efficient.  It streamlines what I want to do and I get it done with minimal distractions.  (Distractions can be expensive when you pay-as-you-go.)

I almost appreciate the slowness.  It has freed up a lot of my time!  I’m wondering how well the DSL line to be hooked up will work, and if it will once again affect my internet usage.

The biggest downside, aside from not being able to IM with my friends, is research.  It’s the ultimate browsing activity!  And when we booked vacations and trips, 99-100% of this research was done online!  Here we are in Europe, filled with places I’ve wanted to visit, and limited access to research how to get places and what to do once we are there.  But at least it forces me to be organized with what I want to look up, and then to keep that information some other offline, but easy to access place.  Bookmarks do not work as well when internet access is limited.

So, I guess I should just stop whining and adapt.  It’s harder, and inconvenient, but possible.  And, with our new DSL package, comes a home phone line.  

With FREE calls to the US!  That should pay for itself with the international calling card minutes I’ve been using!

Dad

My dad works for a company called DB Schenker.  It’s a transportation company.  The DB stands for Deutsche Bahn.  Its headquarters are in Essen, Germany.  So, when he first got this job earlier this year, I asked him if he thought he might ever do any business travel to Germany, which would be quite convenient since, hey, we were going to be living there. 

He said he didn’t think so.  It wasn’t going to be that kind of job.  Lo and behold, 2 months after we move here, I am meeting him at the Nurnberg Bahnhof.  He was coming to visit us after a 2 day business meeting in Essen!  We’re not sure if it will happen again (international business meeting), but I thought it was pretty cool that my dad could come see me, if only for a few days.

And herein lies the second issue.  He was only scheduled to be in our area for 3 days: Thursday, Friday and Saturday.  We woke up quite early on Sunday to drive him to the Munich airport so he could fly home.  That’s not a huge deal, but we live out in the middle of nowhere!  Sure, there are towns and villages aplenty, but where are the sites and places people fly from other places to see??  Well, they are all about 3 hours away.

Mark this as a warning to all those who plan on visiting us.  You probably won’t stay in our house for more than half of the time.  Sure, we could do a lot of long ass day trips, but the good stuff will most likely require a hotel stay or two in addition to our place.  This isn’t exactly the “travel hub” I had planned on becoming, but this isn’t a bad thing either.

It’s just inconvenient when trying to figure out what to do with your father for 3 days.  Especially when he forgets to give you his passport information beforehand and therefore cannot get on post very easily.

We discussed Munich for Oktoberfest, which started 17 September.  We discussed the Eagle’s Nest and Salzburg, Austria for tours of WWII relics as well as the Sound of Music tour.  We discussed a Wurstfest (yes, a literal sausage fest), that was also one of the biggest wine fests in the country.  Everything was 2-3 hours away.

What we decided on was eating out at a really good local German place – Zur Post on Thursday night, visiting some local villages on Friday, and driving to Rothenberg ob der Tauber (or Rothenberg odT) on Saturday.  Rothenberg happens to be one of the most heavily touristed cities in Germany and is only 45 minutes away!

They have a very well preserved medieval city, complete with wall and ramparts that you can walk on the tops of, as well as interesting museums, a lovely Rathaus, and a Kathe Wohlfahrt shop so large, one could spend half a day in there, easily.  It houses a huge Christmas Village, which according to the pamphlet, is world famous.  We have a very small shop like it in the PX at Graf.  It’s about the size of one of the many rooms in this shop at Rothenberg.  

Another interesting tidbit is many of the signs (say, in museums) are not only in German, but also in English…and Japanese.  This is how heavily the area is touristed.  In the Kathe Wohlfahrt store, there was an obviously Asian woman dressed in a dirndl (those dresses you see German women wearing at fests), and all I could think was “well she’s obviously not German.”  She was hired to answer questions from the Japanese tourists. Locals have bumper stickers on their car that say, in German, “I’m not a tourist, I actually live here.”

I can’t wait to go back, as we didn’t do and see everything I wanted to do and see.  We did see the Criminal Museum, full of medieval rules and punishments.  Very interesting.  We didn’t pay to go fully inside St. Jacob’s Cathedral.  I did get some pics, but wanted some more that were not super zoomed.  We didn’t go to the top of the Rathaus.  We did get Schneeballen though.  They are large, sugary, dense pastries that seemed to coat my entire digestive track.  I recommend sharing if you get one.  I didn’t feel right the rest of the day.  And I love sugary pastries!

And, I would like to go back with someone who has patience for shopping.  I want to spend a LOT more time in the Kathe Wohlfahrt store.  Seeing as I was with the hubs and Dad – two men who have very little patience for standing around and looking at trinkets, this was not the ideal time to fiddle around there.  Plus, we had to see the museum before our parking time was up.

Pics to follow.

Doctor, heal thyself.

Have you ever dreamed that your body was advising you on the nutrients you need?  Last week I dreamed that my body was telling me (in my head, as I was looking down on a handful of vitamins) that the Vitamin D I was taking was really useful and that I should continue taking it, and maybe even take more.

This week I got a mild cold after all the hubbub of last week.

A sign?

Feeling better today.  I never upped my Vit D dose, but I did make sure I was taking plenty!

Munich!

I have found a city I really really like here in Germany.

What am I talking about?  I have liked all the cities here in Germany...except most of them have just been "towns" or "villages".  Aside from Frankfurt, which I got a fleeting glimpse of via bus when we first got here, I haven't been to a big city here.

Until now.

Enter Munich.

We drove to Nurnberg (which is also a lovely city...and we only saw the train station), and then took the train to Munich for a nice day trip.  We kind of flew by the seat of our pants in planning what we wanted to do.  Really, we decided to head to Munich because Jeff and Erica are on their honeymoon tour of Europe and happened to be in Munich that day!  It was very cool.  Erica wanted to tour Dachau.  John and I didn't feel like seeing the concentration camp, although it's very important to see.  It was just too nice of a day.

So we decided to see other city sights.  Unfortunately, the Residenz closed early that particular day.  So we hoofed it to the Bavarian National Museum and killed some time there before meeting up with Jeff and Erica at the Hofbrauhaus for dinner and beer!

I tell you, it was amazing what seeing friendly faces, laughing, joking and eating a good meal with great beer can do for a person.  (FYI, they have beverages where they combine beer with lemonade.  I had the weiss beer with lemonade and it was fantastic.  It's billed as "the thirst quencher" and as it was a hot day, it tasted freakin fantastic!)  We had such a good time with Erica and Jeff and I felt so physically tired at the end of the day, but so emotionally restored inside.  It was just a good idea.

unfortunately, I have no pictures of Erica and Jeff.  I was taking pictures all day, and my camera died.  Erica has pictures, and she said she would email them when they got home.

Here are the pictures I did get.  there are a lot of pictures.  Sorry about that.

 The Vegas cowboy!  In Munich!  (and much smaller here).  He was standing outside of a casino.  I smell copyright infringement.

 I think this is the outside of the train station.  John read it's the largest train station (bahnhof) in Europe.  It's really really big.  It has a hotel too.

 More train station I believe

 Entrance to the pedestrian only center, on the way to the Marienplatz

 The new town hall

 Apparently these little figurines on the new town hall move like a cuckoo clock dance at 11 am and 5 pm every day.  We were there around 3 and missed it.  Erica said it wasn't worth the trouble, but still cool that they move.

 More town hall.  (to the right of the main spire)

 Looking right of the New Town Hall on the Marienplatz.

 Rat Skeller!  A restaurant in the cellar of the town hall.  Many towns have rat skellers; the town halls are also called Rathauses.  (yes, pronounced like Rat House.  Charming, no?)

 A view of the Our Lady cathedral, which we did not visit.

 A lady playing on the sidewalk...it was quite nice.  She was singing too.

 I completely forget what this is.  bad tourist.  It's next to the Residenz.

 John next to a lion.  Lions are big in Bavaria.

 I really should look up the names of these places.  this is a nice church.  there was a big fest going on in front of it, so I don't have the full entry way shot as it was blocked by vans and people out front drinking.  Ah, Germany.

 This is the other side of the Residenz....a main entry.  very pretty.

 The front of the Residenz.  Maybe next time we will get to go in!

 a gazebo in the hofgartens.

 Hofgartens.

 Inside the gazebo.  There were 6 of these, I think.

 A view of aforementioned church through the gazebo.

This is the Bavarian Prime Minister's office.  nice, eh?

 While walking to the Bavarian National Museum, we found that Munich has a surf park.  You can find people on bikes and scooters holding surf boards going to this park.  hilarious!

 This is a park downstream from the surf park.  The water is still moving pretty fast.  People would jump in and just get whisked away!  I have no idea where they got out because we didn't walk further down the river.

 Bavarian National Museum

 I saw so much religious art, much from the 1300-1500s, it was amazing.  I've never seen so many large wooden Jesus's on the crucifixes in my life.

 I'm sad that this pic came out blurry.  I didn't notice on my viewing screen at the time.  I was quickly taking pictures as I knew my camera was dying.

 very pretty sword.

 All of the plaques, etc, were in German.  unfortunately, I never found out who this was.

 The Hofbrauhaus!  A very famous beer hall.  One of the first, I believe.  And also, in 1920, the site of the first Nazi meeting.

 But they had the yummy weiss beer with lemonade combo.  It was refreshing.

 The New Town hall at dusk.  At this point, I'm surprised I'm still getting pictures as my battery is so low, the screen won't display pictures taken any longer...

A full moon over the pedestrian walk.  At this point, Erica and Jeff are walking us back to the bahnhof so we can catch our train.  Not that you would know it as I didn't get any pics!  I need work in this department.  :)

All for now!