Katie and Morgan in Germany

Sunday:

–  Fischmarkt – We started off the day bright and early at the Fischmarkt, which is only open from 7 to 9:30 in the winter. Despite its name, you can buy just about anything here – fresh fruit and vegetables, pasta and pasta sauce, flowers, fresh fish, crepes (with candy bars in the middle), Hamburg souvenirs (purchased a magnet to add to our collection), coffee, etc. At the far end of the market is the Auktionshalle (auction hall) where there was a live band playing rock’n roll music. Yep at 8 in the morning there is a rock band and people are drinking gluvine (wine mulled with spices and served warm).  We really wanted to get one of the “Hamburg” baskets with fruit in it, but since we weren’t going to be going home until Wednesday, we were afraid everything would go bad before we had a chance to eat it all. Next time!

– Ahrensburg Schloss- We drove to Ahrensburg to visit an estate there built around 1600.  It had some pretty cool details, I especially loved the floor mosaic in the ball room.. Morgan snuck and took a picture for me!

– Stade- We had a great time walking around town; it still has lots of the old half-timbered buildings. The area around the Alter Hafen (old port) was especially nice, that is where the Bügermeister-Hintze-Haus (aka the mayors home) is. While in town we ate dinner at a little restaurant called Messerchmiede and it was delicious!

At the beginning of March Morgan and I took a trip to Hamburg (including day trips to Lübeck and Stade).  On Friday (the 1^st) there was a going away party for one of Morgan’s colleagues and on the following Tuesday (the 5^th) night was the Avett Brothers concert that Morgan had given me tickets to for Christmas.. so we made it into an extra-long weekend trip! We didn’t know much about Hamburg before going, I would have thought of Berlin and München has the biggest cities in Germany, but Hamburg is actually the second largest behind Berlin, is the second largest port in Europe (behind Rotterdam), and  has more bridges than Amsterdam, Venice and London combined. Who knew?  When we first booked our hotel stay I wasn’t sure if we’d be able to keep busy for 4 days, but that turned out to be barely enough time! We hit most of the historical sights/churches/most popular attractions, but there were several other museums we’d like to visit (the Chocolate Mesuem, the Kunsthalle, and the International Maritime Museum) and when the weather is nicer we’d like to do a harbor tour. Hamburg is also known for having lots of plays and musicals, so we’ll just have to go back there at some point in the future!

Since we drove up there, we had the flexibility of being able to drive to a few other towns nearby. One day we drove to Ahrensburg to visit the estate there and then went on the Stade- which had some of the most charming little streets (with lots of great windows & doors for me to take pictures of) and a picturesque old town center with old half-timbered houses along the canal in the middle (which was my cover picture on Facebook for a while).  Another day we drove up to Lübeck where we were able to see the Holsten Gate as well as many beautiful churches  and buildings with Gothic brick architecture which it has become known for (in addition to its Marzipan- though neither Morgan or I are fans so we didn’t buy any). On the way back from Lübeck we stopped by Travemünde which is a borough of Lübeck that sits on the Baltic Sea. We walked along the water and had coffee and dessert in a restaurant overlooking the water. All in all it was a great trip!

Below I’ll list the major places we visited with a little info about them so you know what you are looking at in the pictures!

Friday:

–   Dinner at Herzblut – Restaurant where the going away party was. The district it is in (St. Pauli) is known for its bars, clubs, strip clubs and the red-light district (not exactly my first pick for an area to hang out); but it was where about 30 of Morgan’s work buddies were. Later in the night the restaurant turned into a club and there was a DJ and everyone was dancing, which was fun.  Also, I learned that in the winter the prostitutes in Hamburg all wear moonboots so you can pick them out (since it is too cold to be barely dressed outside). Friends – don’t wear your brightly colored moonboots out on the town in Hamburg… people will think you are a lady of the night!

Saturday:

–   Michaeliskirche- A Lutheran church that has become the landmark for the city. The inside is beautiful and you can walk up a TON of stairs to an observation platform in the tower that provides a great view of the city and the harbor (as long as it isn’t really cloudy/foggy like it was when we were there). It was sooo cold up there – there were ice crystals forming on everything!

–  St. Nikolai- Now it is just a monument/museum, but originally it was a church that had the highest steeple in the world (when it was built). Unfortunately during WWII its steeple was used as a point of orientation for bomber pilots and the church was mostly destroyed. We took the elevator up to the viewing platform, where we were able to get a much better view of the city since the clouds and fog had cleared up a bit!

– Rathaus- Enormous and beautiful town hall. The front doors and main hallway were very ornate… I loved all the arches inside!  We were peeking out the windows into the courtyard and there was a newly married couple having their pictures taken. I would have died being in a strapless dress, outside, in Hamburg at the beginning of March (it was oh, I don’t know, about 3°C or 40°F)! Brrr!

– Shopping district – Hamburg had so many nice stores! My store of choice was a chocolate shop and Morgan bought a pair of Puma’s.

– Binnenalster – We walked around the smaller of the two lakes in Hamburg and warmed up at a café on the water.

– Katharinenkirche – This church was very simple compared to St. Michael’s. It was pretty much all white inside other than a huge stain glass window behind the alter.

– Deichstrasse – One of the few surviving streets in old town, with the original facades visible from the road and the canal.

Over the past two weeks we’ve been working on getting our new apartment set up. Our container was delivered on the 15th, so we’ve been unpacking, organizing, cleaning, and building furniture ever since. – I think we are keeping Ikea and Hornbach (like Home Depot) in business! There was no storage space in the bathroom and a limited about in the kitchen, so we’ve bought shelves and drawers for the bathroom and a large shelving unit for the kitchen. This week we also bought a bed frame for the guest bedroom… now we just need to buy the slats (the beds here don’t use box springs) and mattress. Other big news (because I’m a dork) is we bought a washer and dryer. Thankfully they both fit in our apartment (washer in the bathroom and the dryer in the pantry) so we don’t have to walk down three flights of stairs to the basement to do laundry. We didn’t have much damage to our furniture on the container. One wood shoe holder snapped in half, but other than that it is just scratches to finishes and a few chipped edges. Morgan sent in pictures for our claim to his company (since the moving company said they wouldn’t pay us anything), so we’ll see what they say.

We’re getting used to the quirks of our new apartment – our dinner plates don’t fit in the dishwasher and the toilet is designed kind of weird – but over all we are really happy in our new place. We have painted the entryway/hallway and are planning on painting the living room, probably when we get back from the US in April. I was pleasantly surprised that the paint here doesn’t smell at all BUT it can be pretty expensive. Originally I had picked out a color that is mixed by the paint department at the store, but we found out that 1 LITER is €38… sehr teuer! (aka very expensive!). For the small entryway we needed 2.5 liters, for the living room we’ll need more like 6 or 7. Thankfully they had premixed paint that comes in about 30 different colors so for the entryway we just picked the premixed color that was closest to the color I had originally picked. This way we got 2.5 liters for €35 rather than 1 liter for that price.

Speaking of Ikea, I’m guessing you’ve all heard about the Pferdefleisch (horse meat) they’ve been finding in ground beef around Europe recently? I think I ate some!  If you click on this link it takes you to an article about horsemeat being found in meatballs in one of the meals at Ikea… I ate this exact meatball and mashed potato meal two weeks ago at Ikea! Yuck! We’ve talked to our German tutor about the whole horse meat situation, and she said that horse meat is actually pretty popular in Germany (and most of Europe). What people here are upset about is that the meat was claimed to be all beef and that it is horse meat from eastern European countries where the raising of the horses wouldn’t have been regulated as far as antibiotics and other medicines that they would have been given. She said the butchers at the famers market at the Dom on Saturday mornings would have good quality horse meat if we want to try it, but I don’t think I could do that. Horses are too much of a pet for me to (knowingly) eat one!

Tomorrow we head to Hamburg for a few days. Tomorrow night is a retirement party for one of Morgan’s colleges, so about 35 of Morgan’s colleges will be there with us. We’ll stay on in Hamburg through Wednesday morning since we are going to the Avett Brothers concert Tuesday night. We are both pretty excited to go on our first vacation over here! We’ll spend three of the days sightseeing in Hamburg and one day we’ll drive up to Lübeck on the coast.

Below are some pictures from the past couple of weeks! A few side notes to go with the pictures:

1. “Imbiss” picture – Germans love to eat while they shop! Pretty much all the big stores have a food stand in their parking lot, and a lot also have a restaurant inside. This one is in front of Hornbach.

2. Eggs aren’t refrigerated here! Kinda weird, huh?

3. Morgan is a speed demon – Yep, that is what a German speeding ticket looks like. Morgan had hoped the picture wouldn’t be clear so he could say it was me, but alas it is a crystal clear picture of my hubby.  Thankfully he was only going 11km over, so the ticket is €25. If you get caught going 20 over or run a red light, you lose your driver’s license for a month! I think they are more strict on speeding around town (most of Osnabruck is a 50 zone, but residential areas are 30) than they are on the Autobahn.

We took a break from unpacking/getting set up to participate in a Kohlgang that Morgan’s colleagues put together. The best way I can describe it is a 4 hour long walk down country roads playing a drinking game and you end the day with a pre-ordered family style meal made up of a few types of bratwurst, potatoes, and grünkohl (green cabbage). We took the train to Lemförde (the small town where Morgan’s office is) and met up with 15 of his work buddies. They already had the wagon full of two cases of beer and about 7 bottles of liquor. Everyone was given a shot glass (on a string around your neck) to keep your hands free for the game. We were divided into two teams and numbered 1 through 8. Taking turns, the ones went first (followed by twos, threes, etc), rolling the hockey puck looking piece of plastic (the center is metal) down the road. Then the whole group walks down the road until ou get to the point where the shortest roll went. If you accidentally walk past where the shortest roll went you have to take a shot (which was easy to do b/c it is white and there was still some snow/ice off the sides of the road). Also, any time you come to a cross street you have to take a shot and in between all the shots you drink beer. – I guess German’s haven’t heard of beer than liquor, never sicker!  It was such a cold day (-2 celcius) and snowing for the second half of the 4 hour walk. My feet were frozen!  I was so happy to make it to the restaurant. The dinner was delicious and was a great end to the day. 

This past Saturday was the karneval celebration in Osnabrück. Karneval is a period of pre-lent festivities that is pretty common in most of Europe and South America (traditionally held in areas where there are larger Catholic populations… because we like to have fun!)…. also similar to Mardi Gras in New Orleans. The main event here is the parade that was held Saturday afternoon. Everyone wears costumes and sings along to “Schlager” music. As the floats go by they throw out bags of popcorn (Morgan was pretty sad he missed out on this), candy, and other trinkets like jewelry. When the parade is over everyone goes to city center where there was a DJ playing music as well as lots of stands set up by local vendors selling drinks and snacks. It snowed most of the day which was pretty, but also meant it was chilly!

Over all it kind of felt like Clemson on a game day (plus Halloween costumes).. people start drinking pretty early in the day, there are port-a-potties set up every where, the bars and restaurants are packed, and everyone is in a good mood!

Port Elizabeth, SA was really nice. It is a town on the southern  coast in a large bay with nice beaches and beautiful views. We arrived Thursday morning after a short flight from Joburg. The place we stayed at is actually a b&b with a great pool and breakfast cooked to order. After checking in we headed to Jendamark, our machine supplier for my project, which is located in the industrial district of PE. After finishing up our project review meetings, we headed back to the b&b and then Ryan from Jendamark picked us up to grab dinner. We went to a great steak restaurant with a perfect view of the beach and ocean. The steak was amazing and very cheap compared to the states. After dinner we went back to the hotel and took a dip in the cold pool.

The next day we returned to Jendamark for more meetings and a site tour. Jendamark also builds catalytic converter machines which were very impressive. Since we finished a little early returned to the b&b and got changed for the beach. After a walk over to a small market we hopped in the Indian Ocean for a swim and some attempts at body surfing. Once again the water was quite cold but it was refreshing with the sun out. He water is cooler since much of it is coming from the Atlantic as well as being quite far south. After a shower, we went out to Cuban restaurant/bar on the beachfront. Once again I got a steak since the prices are so great. It was also a place that you could order a hooka (not sure on spelling) which came with a round of weak fruity shots. After dinner we went back for some much needed rest for our early flight today.

Monday morning Katie and I registered our new address and new car at the city building. After we grabbed a great breakfast at the Remarque hotel. Katie dropped me off at the main train station where I took the train to Dusseldorf airport. The train ride was nice and was pretty quick with only one transfer in Duisburg. I arrived at the airport and after a quick check-in I went to the Emirates lounge for some snacks and free internet. Afterwards, I headed down to the gate where I found the flight was going to be delayed about 20 minutes due to a security sweep that had to be redone on the plane we were to board. The flight to Dubai was relatively fast with good food and super comfortable seats (ones that lay completely flat with a huge TV screen). Landing in Dubai at night was really cool but the takeoff was even better since the pilot flew us around the Burj Khalifa (worlds tallest building I believe that was in the latest Mission Impossible movie). Dubai airport was really nice with a lot of high dollar shopping areas. Grabbed a shower, food and some beers in the lounge and worked a little while waiting for my next flight (4.5 hours later). I even got to talk to Katie via Skype which made it a lot better. On the way to the gate I stopped by the Starbucks to see if they had any gift cards that I could get for Marcel, my brother-in-law, since he collects them. Unfortunately they did not have any.

The flight to Johannesburg was also rather quick since I was able to sleep most of the time. Upon landing I cleared customs quickly (had to stand in front of a thermal scanner to ensure I did not have yellow fever). My boss’s flight landed about 10 minutes after mine (even though he left Germany about 5 hours later but booked earlier so he got a better flight via Air France). We picked up the rental car and headed on our way to the Green Haven Guest House in North Pretoria. The weather is great down here and it feels like a land based St. Thomas (similar foliage, weather/humidity, driving on the left side of the road, etc.)

The Green Haven Guest House is a great place to stay with awesome staff that really make you feel at home. Four huge German Shephards guard the house all day long but are super friendly when approached slowly (I was told that running around the hotel would probably not be the best idea). An armed guard out front also helped to feel very safe (even though at no point have we felt unsafe).

After a quick shower and getting our things together, Henning and I headed to the ZF Rosslyn plant. We worked there for the rest of the day on project topics and then headed back to the hotel. We dropped off our things and headed back to Pretoria where we drove around a bit (Henning was a great tour guide since he has been here a couple times) and visited the Union Buildings which have a great view of the city. Afterwards we headed to downtown Pretoria and grabbed some food.

Wednesday was filled with more project work at the ZF plant and afterwards we headed to the Voortrekker monument (http://www.voortrekkermon.org.za/). Unfortunately it was closed but we got to see it from the gate. A great monument to the Voortrekker (Dutch) colonists.

Today we got up early and flew down to Port Elizabeth.

Here is our new apartment! 

This past Saturday we drove to Wolfsburg (a little over two hours away) to look at a couple of potential cars. After looking at two disappointing cars (one had an oil leak problem and the other had a transmission problem), we found a great 2009 VW Golf that was under budget!  The color wouldn’t have been our first pick, but it had everything we wanted (automatic, heated seats, parking distance control) plus some extras (sunroof and steering wheel controls). Now we just need to add on a roof rack for Morgan and we’ll be good to go.

Driving back home we stopped in Hannover for a late lunch and walked around for just a few minutes. We would have loved to see more of the town but it was extreemly cold and very windy. We’ll get back there before too long though!

Over the past week we got about 6 inches of snow, the schools in town were even closed on Monday (pretty unheard of around here)! Now we are left with brownish grey sludge/snow on most of the sidewalks and parking is pretty tricky because there are huge piles of icy snow on the side of the roads. Last weekend we bought a Siemens fridge off of Ebay, thankfully we still have the huge Skoda rental car that it fit in the back of. We started our German lessons this week, our teacher Antje is really nice and patient. She is an art and architectural history professor at the University of Osnabruck, so I’m hoping when we are farther into our lessons she can recommend some churches/buildings we should check out while we are here. Yesterday we met with an insurance broker to start the process of getting car insurance set up since we are going to look at a couple of cars this weekend. Both are VW’s, so at least we’ll look German when we are driving around. They are both in a town on the other side of Hannover, so I’m hoping we’ll be able to look around Hannover a little on the way back.

This week we also worked on our application for International House Hunters. Morgan has been emailing back and forth with a guy from the show since we came over for our visit in September and last week he sent on over the application and told us to fill it out. I’ve got the first draft done, so now Morgan just needs to look through and see if there is anything I’ve forgotten. Tons of people fill out applications, so we’ll see what happens! I’ve been a little torn about it, I’m afraid we’ll look like dorks on TV, but I figure if we do get picked I just need to go with it… definitely a once in a life time chance!

One thing that I love about Germany is that people are always offering you tee und kaffee.. waiting at your gate at the airport in Frankfurt? – free coffee/tee/cappuccino machine to use; meeting with your account manager at the bank, taking a German lesson, meeting with an insurance broker – every time you are offered a hot drink. I think we’re going to get spoiled!

Below are a few pictures from the past few days.

 

Hello everyone! Sorry for the delay in getting the blog updated, with some initial trouble with our internet network and focusing on getting settled in, I’m just now getting around to writing my first post. At this point we’ve been here two weeks and we’ve been having pretty good luck so far… I was pretty positive our luggage wasn’t going to arrive with us on the trip over (we had two layovers and the turnaround at Dulles was pretty quick). Somehow all of our bags made it safely and after the airport police in Frankfurt examined Morgan’s server hard drives (which he hand carried on the plane) to make sure they weren’t a bomb or stolen, we were free to head to our gate. We were able to move into our temporary apartment the day we arrived, it is a nice, compact (50 square meters), furnished apartment. We have about a 20 minute walk to city center from here, which really hasn’t been too bad and makes parking much easier.
Last week we were able to get registered with the government, so now Morgan has his visa (he got his right away since he is considered an EU citizen due to his Dutch passport) and I have applied for mine. Since we are married, I automatically get one as well which is HUGE because I’ve heard it is pretty close to impossible for most American wives to get a visa to allow them to work here if their husband is also an American here on a contract. Now I just have to learn German….

Last week we were also able to spend the day with our relocation agent (hired by ZF to help us get settled in) she showed us 4 apartments and helped us set up a bank account at Deutsche Bank. The last apartment we looked at we LOVED, but we were a little dismayed to hear there were several people who had already applied for the apartment before us and there were more people scheduled to come look at it after us. We filled out an application (they wanted to know things like nationality, marital status, age, if you play a musical instrument, etc – a bunch of things you can’t ask about in the US) after talking with the current tenants and they said they would talk with the landlords in a few days and they would let us know if we go the apartment. Monday we were so happy to hear that they had picked us (more of our good luck!). Since there was a couple still living in the apartment, I didn’t take pictures inside when we visited, but we’ll put some up once we get the keys – the first weekend of February. It is on the third floor of a house (most houses in the city are set up with an apartment on each floor, you have to go out towards the suburbs to get single family homes) that was built around 1930. There is a nice size kitchen that was just redone 6 months ago (it has a gas stovetop- Morgan is so excited!) and is big enough to have our dining table in it. Off the kitchen is a small pantry type room that has a door to our balcony (we really, really wanted some outdoor space). Other than the kitchen and one bathroom there are 4 rooms, one we’ll set up as a den, one will be our bedroom that has a pretty big room off of it that the current renters have set up as a HUGE walk in closet so we’ll keep it set up that way (especially b/c our California king bed will take up most of the bedroom, I think one of our dressers will end up in the closet), and the last room will be the guest bedroom/office. We also get to have a closet in the stairwell and a room in the basement for storage (which will get Morgan’s mountain bike out of the apartment – yay! 🙂 ). The backyard of the house is also a shared space, which is nice because with a lot of the houses the person on the first floor gets it exclusively – aka they don’t have to let you use it. Yesterday our landlords (two sisters inherited the house from their parents) and our relocation agent came to our current apartment so we could look over the lease and get their banking information to set up our deposit account. Once the lawyer at the relocation company gives the lease the ok, we’ll sign it and set up the deposit account, then the apartment will officially be ours! I can’t wait to get moved in and get the apartment set up.

One other piece of good luck – all 7 boxes that were airfreighted arrived and in one piece. I was a little worried we’d never see them again since the boxes were MIA for about a week. Now we just need to have the container delivered and keep our fingers crossed our furniture isn’t damaged!
Next up we’ll be looking for a car. The company only covers a rental car for 6 weeks, so by early February we need to know what car we are getting. Since I can’t drive a manual, our options are a little limited over here so we’re on the hunt. Our rental car is a Skoda Superb(veryyyy long station wagon), we’ll be looking for something a little shorter considering how often you have to parallel park here.
In addition to taking care of these housekeeping type things, we’ve been going out to eat and out for drinks with some of Morgan’s colleagues from work, including Philip who we’ve known for a few years since he did an internship in the US (and who came back to the state just for our wedding!). Some of my favorite places for a drink so far have been Bottled (was cozy and had a good atmosphere) and Grüner Jäger (Green Hunter) – here it is popular to order a special that translated is “a threesome” – you get a shot, a beer, and a beef steak and grilled pepper sandwich for like 7€.. a really good deal! Last night we went to Bad Essen (about 30 minutes away) to eat dinner with one of Morgan’s colleagues (who is an America) and his fiancée (who is German). We headed to Bad Essen a little early to walk around while it was still daylight (it gets dark around 17:00 here (yeah, welcome to my life. Darn that military time! ) It is a cute little town and we got to walk around the farmers market while it snowed. Overall yesterday was a really nice day.
Sorry for the long post, just wanted to catch everyone up on the past couple of weeks. From now on I’ll do my best to post more regularly!
I’m going to add some pictures from out time here so far, but back date them to the date they occurred so it doesn’t get too confusing.

Tschüs!

A few pictures from our trip to Bad Essen to have dinner with Derek and Mari. Bad Essen is a nice little village about 30 minutes from Osnabrück. Looking forward to going back when we have a little more time to look around!

We walked to city center (about a 20/25 minute walk) and spent the afternoon looking around the shops. On the way we stoped in a cheese shop to pick up something for the Raclette dinner at Philips . Below are some pictures of our walk around town and what our dinner looked like!  

The Raclette dinner was a lot of fun. Philip has a raclette machine (a grill type thing). The top is a grill/stone that you can cook meat on. Underneath this there is another layer where you can place your little pan and the heating element above it cooks it as well. You line your individual pan with slices of potato and then pile on as many topings as you want, then you put a slice of cheese on top and wait for it to be cooked/melty and delicious. Thanks to Philip and Imka for putting it together!

Morgan took his birthday off so we could go apartment hunting, set up an account at Deutsche Bank, etc. Here are a few pictures from two of the apartments we looked at (I wasn’t able to take pictures of the apartment we ended up getting, the previous renters were still living there) – both of these had great locations in City Center, but were waayyyy over our budget (around €900 per month, we were looking for more like €650).  After house hunting, we went out for a drink to celebrate Morgan’s birthday 🙂

** If you hold your mouse over the picture, it says the title. The captions (if any) show up underneath the picture.

As promised, here are some pictures of our temporary apartment! It is rather small (50 sqr meters) with one bath room, one bedroom, a kitchen, and a living room/dining room. It came furnished (including linens, silverware, plates, etc), which made it really easy for us.

 

 

Today I had a good breakfast and then attended mass at the main Catholic Cathedral St. Petrus in Osnabrück. It is a magnificent church. I got some odd looks since I went in my sport coat and not in a heavy winter coat. I will make sure not to make that mistake again since thinking back on it I probably looked like I was going to church dressed like it was early summer.

This morning only after a few hours of sleep I met up with Derick, his girlfriend and another friend from the Netherlands. We drove over to Bad Iburg to meet with some other co-workers at a really cool restaurant called the Waldwirtschaft-Malepartus out in the woods with an amazing view of the countryside. After a nice lunch we went back into town and toured the castle. The castle was incredible and had multiple churches since it was the seat of the Bishop for a long time. I am looking forward to learning German so that Katie and I can go again (this time knowing German so that I know what the tour guide is saying). Luckily I had a coworker help translate.