Things to love about Germany

Sometimes my husband says he thinks I don't like Germany or Germans.  Say what?  Ok maybe I complain a lot bit but that doesn't mean anything.  I married a German, remember?  My child is German!  Well anyway, I thought I'd dedicate some writing to the many, many great things about Germany and Germans. 

1. Castles, palaces, fortresses and other historical buildings.   When most people think of German castles they think of Neuschwanstein.  Neuschwanstein is amazing and it was built by a crazy person!  Fabulous, right?  But there are gads of other things worth checking out.  I admit I am pretty nonplussed by the smaller castles around here but that doesn't mean they aren't wonderful.  It just means that after six years I'm getting used to seeing them.  Before Hamburg we used to live in Saxony so the first castles I saw were all breathtakingly memorable. 

Tiny little castle where my husband's friend got married.  Good memories :)

2. Art- art is everywhere.  The other day I was admiring some interesting original art in my dentist's office.  Way, way better than those motivational posters that Americans tend to hang up in schools and offices.

3. Our health care is awesome.

4. Everything is orderly.  Well most of the time.  The trains run on schedule, the trash is picked up and recycled, all the children go to school and get their check ups.  Cars and trucks are kept serviced and everyone pays their taxes and takes care of their registered pets.  The streets are clean and every yard has a gnome.

5. Germany takes care of it's own.  No German has to be homeless or without their basic necessities.  That's pretty great.

6. Less crime, fewer guns, and generally safer overall.

7.  Groceries are better.  We can get cheap locally grown organic produce whenever we want it.  We can go pick our own if we have time.  Even processed foods here have less chemicals and hormones.

8. Most people speak a second language sometimes a third and fourth.

9. A lot of Germans like to travel.  Traveling generally makes people a bit more open minded and aware of the world around them.

10. People are on time.

11. Good wine is inexpensive.  I feel like wine sort of deserves it's own post.  I knew nothing about it before I moved here.  Now I know quite a bit.  The last few years H and I buy a lot of our wine directly from a German vineyard.  I pick up various bottles of sect and rosé usually for less than €5.  Champagne is more but still cheaper than in the US.  I love a glass of wine at the end of the day.  It's just so lovely.

12. The clubs don't close until it gets light outside.  I don't do any clubbing anymore because I'm too old but back in the day it was fun, fun, fun.

13. There are no open container laws in Germany so you can enjoy your wine or beer wherever you want.  They passed some laws about drinking on public transportation since I've been here but it's nice to take a bottle of wine along with your picnic to the beach or the park.

14. Germans are helpful.

15. Children are accepted in public places.

16. Most working people get at least a month of paid vacation plus lots of paid public holidays.  Add this to a little bit of overtime and most Germans only work about 10 months out of the year.

17. Disability and sick leave are much, much better than in the US.

18. The nature is natural.  There is little urban sprawl, lots of forests and fields and beautiful unfarmed and undeveloped land.  Germany is a very beautiful country.

19. Expat friends are more diverse than friends a person makes in their own country.  I've met so many interesting and amazing people.  I never stop being thankful for the wonderful people I've gotten to know! (No shade on my Chicago people, they are extra awesome for staying friends with me all this long time I've lived in Europe.)

I'm sure there is more but my toddler has fallen asleep.  Instead of trying to think of what I missed I'm going to go enjoy some delicious wine and hang out with my German husband. ;)  What do you love about your country?

How to make Chewy Chocolate Chip cookies in Germany

It's not my habit to blog about anything useful.  But today the weather sucks and my mind will not stop or shut up with the depressing self critical thoughts.  The best way not to fall into a black hole is to do something useful.  I'm going to make some cookies.  Cookies that can not be bought in the store in Germany.  Yes, you can buy chocolate chip cookies here but they will always be hard as rocks.  I probably blogged about cookies a few years ago but whatever.

You will need something from America: alcohol based pure vanilla extract.  I have not been able to find it in any German stores.  If you don't have it you can make some.   Also American measuring spoons and cups or a good head for conversions.

You will also need some special things from stores in Germany.  Real chewy chocolate chip cookies have to be made with brown sugar.  You can only buy raw sugar in Germany.  It's called 'brown sugar' which is confusing but it's not the same thing.  Since you can't buy brown sugar it has to be made.  This is easy, brown sugar is just white sugar mixed with molasses.  I found mine at a health food store in Eutin.

'Melasse' in German

I add about one table spoon of molasses for each cup of sugar.  Voilà, brown sugar.

I used this recipe from allrecipes.com.  It calls for baking soda.  Baking soda is sold at drug stores in Germany and looks like this.

And of course, chocolate chips.  I got mine from Sky for €.99 per bag.  This recipe calls for two cups of chocolate chips.  That equals about three bags.

Ok, so that covers all the ingredients!  Time to make cookies.  First I gave my little helper a spoon to play with.

 Follow recipe exactly.

 Blah blah blah...

Check on baby.

 Blah, blah, blah.

And now possibly the most important step.  DO NOT BAKE!  The cookie dough has to be refrigerated for several hours or the cookies will be flat and not very chewy. 

 

Into the fridge it goes for several hours.

 to be continued....

Country living vs. city living

Today I when I woke up I knew I had to get out of here.  I love Malente, I really do.  It's beautiful in the Summer but it's so small.  Only a little bigger than a village.  Sophie gets bored too.  Bored babies are cranky little bundles of trouble.  Before 10:00 a.m. she'd already gotten bored of the living room and moved to pulling books off the shelves and note cards off the desk in the extra room.  When that got boring she moved to the kitchen and started playing with the washing machine and taking all the pots out of the cupboard.  I'm not one to sit around while my apartment is destroyed and I lose my mind, not when there are friends to meet and Starbucks to drink.

We packed up the car and headed off to Hamburg.  Lovely beautiful blue sky Hamburg.  It was a great day.   We parked under the library and then headed downtown, stopping by Karstadt to get concealer and a pair of cheap sunglasses.  Then off to the Pflanzen und Blomen park to meet up with some friends, picking up a yummy frappuccino and blueberry muffin along the way.  Pflanzen und Blomen is my favorite park in Hamburg because they have the best flowers and an intricate fountains.  There is a little play ground especially for babies with baby sized slides and gyms.

After all our fun was over and I was walking back to our car I felt wonderful.  It was good to be in the city surrounded by people.  Seeing what people were wearing and doing and buying and eating.  I had an epiphany that I might not be the kind of person who really loves country living.  Not when there are great zoos and parks and bits of green all around like in Hamburg.  Sure the fresh air is nice and we have lakes and the beach.  I fully intend on making the most of everything this Summer.  But if someone told me I could move to the city?  I wouldn't think twice.  I need something more than a tiny village can give me.  And don't get me started on how much easier it is to make friends in the city.  After Malente no more rural areas for this woman.  I'm definitely an urban person. 

German words that will confuse you

Once when my mom was visiting way back when I was pregnant I wasn't feeling well.  Since she is a sweet caring mom she went to the restaurant next door and got me a salad.  Now my mom doesn't know any German so I told her to get a kleine Salat or small salad.  She must have forgotten and asked them for a garden salad instead.  Her reasoning being everyone in the world knows what a garden salad is.  Everyone except for people who don't speak English and live outside the US.  What she came home with was a Gurken Salat or cucumber salad, nothing like a garden salad.  The restaurant people were really nice and gave her a little garden salad when she took it back.  As English speakers it can be easy to be tricked by lots of German words that sound like English but have completely different meanings.  A lot of these words are false cognates, or False Friends as language teachers call them.  They seem friendly and familiar but really they are not.

So here we go, my favorite False Friends, German words that will confuse you. (With pictures!)  Credit- all images are borrowed from Google images.

Thunfisch Salat- sounds like tuna salad, right?  I saw this on the menu the first time I visited my now husband in Germany.  This is what the waiter actually brought me-

literally a salad with canned tuna on top

You can also get canned tuna pizza if that's your thing. 

Pepperoni- sounds like the greasy cured sausage from Italy but is really a spicy little florescent green pepper.  German translation- Salami.

It's good to know which one of these you want on your pizza.

Rezept- kind of sounds like receipt or recipe but is actually the German word for a prescription AND the word for recipe.  I guess that makes it a cognate and a false cognate.  In the North Germans say Kassenbon for receipt.

Credit- in German this means a loan, like you get from the bank.  This use to confuse my German students so much.

Chef- sounds like the guy who cooks your food but is actually the boss.  Also gets confused a lot with the English word chief.

That's a police chief, because using one of the other chiefs kind of felt like it might be a little bit racist.  When I'm unsure I err on the side of caution.

Bekommen- sounds like become but really mean 'to receive'.  'Ich bekomme eine Kaffee.' doesn't mean you turned into a cup of coffee but it will always sound funny to me.

 

Fabrik- sounds like fabric but really means factory.  The other stuff is called Stoff.

 Gift- means poison.  In German it's Geschenk but oh it's interesting when you mix them up.

  
Handy- is the English appropriated German word for mobile phone.  A lot of Germans really think English speakers call their mobiles handys.  To them it makes perfect sense because a mobile is handy!   But we would never do that because it sounds stupid.  

Hamburger- People who live in Hamburg and also hamburgers.

Pension- this is a small hotel or guest house.  We have them all over Malente.  The word for retirement in German is Rente which sounds like rent but the German word for that is Miete.

Rat- this means advice but little furry animal is a Ratte which sounds almost the same.  How many lawyer jokes can you get out of that?

just so you know I don't have a problem with rats or lawyers

Roman- the word for novel in German also used to mean the fiction section in a book store.

Bücher- this actually isn't a false cognate but I thought it meant butcher the first time I came to Germany.

See- der See means lake and die See means ocean or sea.  I think.  Or is it the other way around? 

Of course there are a whole bunch more but those are my personal favorites.  Did I miss any good ones?  Let me know.  No one spell checked my German so forgive me if I made any errors.  What can I say?  It was quite late in the day when I was inspired to write this.

Tschüss! (pronounced kind of like cheers with a 't' and means goodbye :)