My cat

Our cat loves being brushed so much that she would prefer to do it herself.

Merry Christmas from Schaffhausen

This time: Bad chest cold

Saturday night, while driving back from Rothenburg, my throat got all scratchy and I felt achy all over. I thought this was from running the dry heat in the car for 7 hours, and from hunching over the steering wheel in the stressful act of painfully creeping along the highway during a snowstorm in the dark for 4 hours.

Sunday morning, the truth became known. Both A. and I have bad chest colds. We're hacking those deep, irresistible coughs. Mine make me feel like the top of my head is going to fly off and that I'm going to break a rib. It's a productive cough, too, which usually triggers my gag reflex, so I've already thrown up once.

A.'s seems to be limited to a horrible cough. For me, I have a 101 fever and a dull headache I can't get rid of, too.

The comforting thing this time, if that can be said, is that EVERYONE else has this, too, or had it recently. In our building alone there are five people with this chest cough. Also, the thing with a chest cold is that you know it will run its course and eventually go away, even if it takes 2-3 weeks (as is the case with bronchitis, which I may or may not have). I feel some comfort with this illness -- as opposed to my other recent health problems -- in knowing what it is and that it will eventually go away.

I seriously am so tired of being sick, sacked out on the couch with no strength, unable to get comfortable in any position. It feels hard to fight it this time, because I'm so worn out from everything else I've been sick with. I've just totally and immediately succumbed to this.

Oh, and taking vitamin C before this happened and then taking Zicam and Emergen C at the first sign of symptoms did NOT help. I always wondered if all that stuff about packing vitamins to prevent or shorten colds was just a myth. I'm leaning that way right now.

We're also out of Kleenex.

The Christmas Market

We finally got to see a Christmas market. We went to the one in Rothenburg ob der Tauber, Germany. It was like walking into the pages of "A Christmas Carol" ... except in Germany.

Christmas markets, candledipping and other stuff

This coming week begins the month-long European tradition of the Christmas market. I've been waiting a year for this. I've never been in Europe during the Christmas season.

Unlike the States, they didn't start putting out Christmas stuff in the stores until All Saints Day, Nov. 1. But it wasn't until about a week ago that we began to see Christmas decorations going up in the nearby towns.

The week of America's Thanksgiving is when the Christmas markets (Christkindlmarkt) begin to open up. I think Thursday is the official day, but some open Tuesday or Wednesday. The larger cities will have a main square set up with vendor stalls featuring hand-made crafts from that region, and special foods and sweets characteristic of the region and season. The markets are usually in a Medieval part of the town. Christmas decorations, especially lights, decorate the area and musicians play while people shop. They're open for about one month, usually until either Christmas Eve or Christmas Day.

Since we are leaving Europe early in December to go home for Christmas, and the weekend before that A. is tied up with the school's series of Christmas concerts in the area, that leaves this coming week and weekend as our only opportunity to experience this.

Since I might not get another chance, I was hoping to hit about three of them next week. Getting sick put this in serious jeopardy, but since I've had three good days in a row, I'm starting to think I might be able to manage seeing at least two.

There is one in Basel, which is a cheap, 90-minute train ride away. We could manage to see it by taking off work a few hours early in the afternoon and be back by about 10 p.m. There is another one in Germany's Black Forest, in the city of Freiburg, which I think would be cool because they would have a lot of Black Forest wood carvings among the shopping options.

A. and I have never been to Munich. We are interested in going there on Saturday, as it's about 3 hours' drive away. It would have a huge Christmas market, and there would be a few other city historical attractions we could take in, as well. I'd like to absorb the atmosphere of these famous holiday markets, try some of the regional holiday foods and do a lot of photography.

Europeans don't celebrate Thanksgiving, of course. Eight years ago, when I was here for 6 months, I learned that the office didn't break for Thanksgiving, either. Most of the missionaries just gathered in the evening after work for dinner. Nowadays, the office is closed on Thursday and everyone meets up in the huge conference room at about 5 p.m. for a potluck Thanksgiving dinner. I'm glad I won't have to work that day.

This past week, there was another holidayish activity hosted by our church. They rented out space in the larger village free church for a candle-dipping fundraiser to raise money for the child development center in Bangladesh that the church sponsors. It's also a way for the church to remind people in the area that we're here and for church members to mingle with families from the community. They advertised the candle-dipping at an international school in Schaffhausen, so it attracted a lot of British people who are working there. (Schaffhausen has very attractive corporate tax rates, so as a result, there are quite a few very large international companies who have or are in the process of relocating to the canton -- state -- and bringing their English speaking workers with them.)

I stopped by the candle-dipping to make a few candles, as well as get some photojournalistic practice so I don't get rusty. My coworker decided to do an article about the fundraiser so my photos will actually get used after all. The candle-dipping was really fun. I've made candles before, but not this way. They turn out really nice. There were sheets of honey-combed beeswax that could be cut out with little cookie cutters and stuck to the outside of the taper. You would then dip it one more time to seal the decorations onto the tapers.

Apparently it takes a year for the candles to harden enough that they don't collapse into a gooey mess when you burn them. I was told you could speed it up by sticking them in the freezer, although I don't know how long to do that. I kept the loops on the wicks so they could be hung, as well as stuck in a candle-holder. While dipping I had the chance to meet a couple people from the community. One of them was a DEAD-RINGER for Julianne Moore. If not for her strong British accent, I would have asked her for an autograph.

Last night, a German girl who attended seminary with A. and worked with him in the library there, drove down to have dinner with us. She only recently returned to her home town, about 2 hours away by car. When A. found out she was back in the area, he invited her to come see us. She's also friends with our neighbor (turns out EVERYONE is friends with her. I can't believe we never met her before now, since she knows everyone we know).
 
 We went to our favorite restaurant, an Italian place with very cheap prices and amazing food. It was great to catch up with her. Our neighbor friend was a missionary kid who grew up in Hong Kong. Our German friend lived for 7 years in France before living in Kansas City for 5 years. Both of them talked about how difficult it can be to live in different countries, because after a while you don't feel at home anywhere. A. and I haven't been overseas for a long time, but for some reason after I left Missouri, and all the moving around I did afterward, I've had the same feeling about not knowing where home is. It was nice for all of us to be with people who could identify with us.

That's our November so far.

The Mother Lode

I hit the mother lode at the grocery store.

I was in their very large dairy section -- it actually takes up both sides of THREE refrigerated aisles. I was squinting at all the packages slowly and only saw one cheese labeled lactose-frei. Finally I saw a worker stocking one the shelves, so I asked if they had lactose-frei cheese. She pointed me over two aisles.

When I saw the yogurt, milk, cheese, sour cream, cream cheese, and so on, my jaw hit the floor. Then I bought one or two of everything. I wanted to hug the employee. She couldn't have known how excited I would be to have my dairy products back.

Besides the above, I brought home butter, sliced gouda and camembert. The only thing I couldn't find was ice cream. I'm hoping if I can get lactose free in everything else, I might be able to stomach a bit of ice cream every now and then.

In addition, I found Crisco, which I've never seen here before. Now I can make pie crusts. And that fruit is a persimmon. I haven't noticed those in the States, but we saw some on trees in Bellinzona. They've started appearing in the markets. I bought one to see what it would taste like.

Pumpkin Pyramid

Thanks to each of the folks who brought a few contributions to my canned pumpkin hoard. Let the baking begin!

Always autumn and never Halloween

Fall, my favorite season, has been weird for me this year.

First off, the summer temperatures in this area hung around the low 60s almost the whole summer, minus some spikes or sudden drops here or there (I actually wore my coat to work one day in August). So, when September came and the leaves started changing, I couldn't grasp that the season really was changing. It made me realize that perhaps one thing that has always caused me to look forward to autumn every year is the obvious change in temperatures to cooler and brisker.

I do NOT like being hot, and while I learned to enjoy summer once I moved to the drier and cooler climates of the Western states, I anxiously awaited the shot of pure energy and enjoyment that comes with the transition in temperatures and the knowledge that all my favorite things are on the horizon:

• Indian corn, pumpkins and gourds decorating businesses and homes
• Cornfield mazes after dark
• Bonfires, hot chocolate and s'mores
• Halloween decorations
• Suspense movies
• Baking things with pumpkin flavors
• Pumpkin spice coffee

With all these things missing, I have to remind myself that it's fall here in Germany/Switzerland. The leaves are indeed changing and the weather is brisker; we've had our first frost, and lots of drizzly and foggy days. But, while the cues are familiar for fall, we didn't experience the drastic change from 90 degrees and humidity to 50s and below-freezing mornings. It doesn't "feel" different.

Then there's the absence of Halloween decorations. Europeans know what Halloween is because of the flood of American TV shows and movies into the European market. In recent years you can even find a few Halloween decorations here or there at the stores. I saw some a week ago at two different grocery stores, but it comprised only one shelf and was extremely limited. I certainly haven't seen the styrofoam tombstones, fake cobwebs, bedsheet ghosts, inflatable pumpkins and witches, or the orange and purple lights in windows anywhere.

There aren't shelves loaded with Halloween candy, or plastic costumes on sale at the stores. There's no office party where you can come to work in a themed outfit, or cupcakes topped with candy corn. No Halloween night costume get together at a friend's house.

It's just weird.

I tried to make one of our typical Halloween snacks the other night -- caramel apples. But so far, I haven't found bags of caramel squares at any stores, and definitely none of those Concord flat caramel wrappers that you fold over an apple, stab with a wooden stick and pop in the oven until it gets warm and soft.

A friend gave me a Concord caramel apple mix in a box. You pour the powder into simmering milk on the stove, add sugar and then heat until it gets to 242 degrees fahrenheit. I borrowed a candy thermometer but couldn't get the mix past 200. When I turned the heat all the way, the needle crept up to about 235 and then the mixture burned. Following the directions, I let the mixture cool for 10 minutes. When the 10 minutes were up, it had hardened into solid rock in the pan. It took me days to get it all out.

I only have 3 cans of pumpkin puree, so I haven't made anything with that yet, although I expect to soon. And, since Europeans are universally horrified if we ever mention that at home we would often drink pumpkin spice lattes at the coffee shop, we don't expect to be finding any of those around here in the near future.

It's beautiful here and we're loving the season. But, it has lost that ability to give me a shot of adrenaline every morning when I open my eyes and look forward to another day of my favorite season. I have to keep reminding myself that it's here. It feels like just another day in Europe. (Again, not that I'm complaining.)

Fires and film stars

Here's the latest update on the arson situation, which had gotten rather quiet for a while: There was a major fire on a farm at noon today. The barn burned completely to the ground and the house was badly damaged. The farmhouse was 400 years old and had only recently been completely restored. The family who lived there was home at the time and were unable to contain it, but were not hurt. The fire department worked on it all afternoon. They're not ruling out arson and the police are investigating. If it is ruled arson, it would be the first one to occur during daylight hours.


I saw this fire today as I was driving back from the doctor, but honestly I thought it was a farmer burning leaves or a cut up dead tree or something. I won't be convinced this one was arson until they can prove it or the police rule it that way. However, I have noticed as I read the articles about each fire that in many cases the buildings or boats that are being burned have recently been renovated, or the owners have spent lots and lots of money to update them and had only just finished. That's always sad to hear.

In other exciting news Gerard Depardieu was due to come to our tiny village to film scenes for a French movie. He was supposed to be here this week, however we saw news articles online indicating that his filming scenes would be moved to January due to a broken leg. We're not sure about this, though. It could be a fake story to prevent people from mobbing the village and interrupting the shoot. Who knows.

First Frost by the Rhine

Teaching English

Last week was my first attempt at teaching English as a second language. With the regular teacher away on a teaching trip, I agreed to be the substitute. I brought over a white board from my office and the leader's guide book I'd been given. The regulars showed up about 7:30 and we settled around a table in the back corner of the dining room.

There were seven of them, which is a few more than I was told to expect. I mentioned to them that I was worried there'd be as many as last week, when almost all the teachers were gone and the three different classes were combined with about 15 people. I said that made me nervous to have so many. They laughed and said they were nervous to work with a new instructor, so we all agreed not to be nervous.

The group is made up of mostly middle aged or older people, from late 50s to 70s. The culture in Europe is such that people want to be exact and precise in their use of a second language, and so they can often be a little hesitant to speak it unless they feel they can be perfect. This means that the attendees really want to be told when they need to work on a pronunciation, or what the past form of a verb is rather than the present form.

As an instructor, I had to remember to speak very slowly, and to repeat myself often. I also had to ask them often if they understood the meaning of what I was saying. Sometimes they would initially nod but look blankly at the white board. I would have to remind them to tell me if my explanation didn't make sense; then someone would admit they didn't understand, and I would try to explain the principle or rule a different way.

In the Deutsch language there is no sound like our "W". In their language, they write "W" to indicate the "V" sound. So, in our discussion exercise in which each person told a story about a vacation in which something went wrong, there was a lot of "Ve Vere going zere and it vas running late and ..."

Oh yeah, they don't have a "th" sound either. They really struggle to say "the" and "than" and "then" and so on. Often they will substitute a "z" sound. I know I struggle with certain sounds in Deutsch that we don't have in English, too, such as the ü sound. I

I had a lot of fun with the group. I hope I was encouraging enough and made them feel they were doing a good job, while at the same time helping them remember how to pronounce things and when to use the past version of a verb.

One challenge for me in doing this is that for about seven years now, I've spent time on a regular basis with people for whom English is a second language. That means that I have gotten used to hearing certain "mistakes" in the way my friends speak English (it doesn't really matter if you're Chinese, Korean, German, Dutch or whatever, people tend to make the same mistakes). After a while, I don't notice anymore. Last night I had to focus and concentrate extra hard to hear those mistakes so I could help them speak the way we would as native English speakers.

After the meeting, everyone from the three different level classes gathers in the dining hall for cookies, pastries or cake. The class members take turns bringing the snacks. It's another great opportunity for them to practice their English in an informal social setting. I sat next to two older ladies, both of whom have family connections in Canada and who had traveled there this year. So we talked a lot about the places they went, what they liked about it, the animals they saw. They were so sweet and so into the conversation. This is also a great opportunity for me to get to know residents here, because in this setting you can have these conversations and build on them over the weeks.

I will be subbing for two more weeks on Thursday nights. Then the regular teacher will return and take over. I'm still thinking about whether I'd like to continue attending as an observer or assistant so I can keep getting to know people around here.

Me and my computer

I admit, in recent years I am on my computer a lot. When you shoot a lot of digital photos and need to process them before you can print them, that can take a lot of screen time. Then there's the ever-widening circle of long distance friends you keep up with over e-mail, IM and Facebook. And, well, I like to blog. And I like to read blogs. Then there's the vast amounts of free online newspapers and magazines when I want to find out about current events. And I don't know how you could operate a budget and keep it updated without some kind of software program.

Now that I'm living in Europe, I feel like my computer is actually growing out of my hand. Previously, I used my computer for a lot of things. These days I pretty much need it for everything.

I didn't think much about it until a friend came to visit and, after we'd return from several days of traveling, she'd see me jump on my computer at night. She said: "I've noticed that you are on your computer a LOT."

For someone who has not lived outside the U.S., an explanation was in order.

1. When you leave all your cookbooks in a box in someone's basement, your computer becomes your cookbook. Even if you're cooking convenience foods where you just take it out of the freezer and pop it in the oven or dump it in boiling water, you need Google Translate in order to read the German cooking instructions.

2. When you don't have English-language TV options, you have to watch all your shows and news on your computer.

3. When you don't have an international phone calling plan, you call your friends and family on your computer, or email them when you want to talk.

4. When you take pictures of your travels and want to share them, you have to process them on your computer, back them up on CD and post them to a website so your family can see them. No more whipping out a scrapbook.

5. When you want to pay your American bills, you have to go to the bank Web site and send electronic checks to pay your bills, rather than writing out paper checks, stuffing them in an envelope and popping them in your mailbox.

6. If you want to read an English book, you have to download it from an e-book store and read it on your computer.

7. When you ordinarily would run to Borders to spend a few hours reading manga, now you have to read free scanlations on manga websites.

8. Having left all your CDs back home, and when you don't have a stereo in your borrowed apartment, you listen to music on iTunes or download songs to your computer to put on your iPod.

9. When you have a remote job that involves operating a Web site 7 hours ahead of most of your coworkers, you frequently check your email and make additions to the site in the evening before going to bed, not mention doing it all day at work.

10. When you don't have local TV stations and you want to know what the weather is going to be that day, you have to jump online first thing in the morning so you'll know what to wear.

11. When you're living in an unfamiliar place and want to go somewhere new, you have to go online to map out a driving route or look up train schedules.


So, dear friends, that's why it might seem like I have a computer growing out of my hand. Anything I would have done in the States in other ways, I have to do it here on a computer.

Fall photos

I have new photos of the area during autumn.

Yay for German ingenuity

Since we've been here, A. and I have been getting prescription refills on our medicines, and been pleasantly surprised to find out that they are hundreds of dollars cheaper in Germany than back home. Our insurance here doesn't cover pre-existing conditions, so our prescriptions have to come out of our own pockets. When you're volunteers, the cost of medicines can be really stressful, and having the cost come WAY down has removed a large pressure from our financial bottom line.

Yesterday, I went in to the doctor for the first time to get a new prescription for my migraine medicine. I'd brought about 9 months' supply with me from the States and only recently began getting low, so I hadn't needed to buy any in Germany yet.

The doctor said, "Do you want 9 or 12 pills?" My old insurance only allowed me to get 9 pills every 30 days, so without hesitation I said "Twelve." He told me that the prescription would be 41 euros. I tried not to let my mouth hang open. That is only $56. Previously -- without insurance -- the generic version of my medicine would have cost $180 for 9 pills.

I asked the doctor why all our medicines cost about 30% of what they did in the States.

"Oh, because we make them here."

I'd learned recently through a friend who works in the U.S. medical industry that many medical instruments used in the U.S. are invented and/or manufactured in Germany. I wasn't aware that pharmaceuticals were widely made here, too. I guess if you can buy it in the country where it's made, you can really cut down on the extra costs of shipping, duties and customs, middle men, etc.

Yay for German ingenuity!

Crooksling and Stepaside

I'm trying to make a map of the Republic of Ireland coastline for our newsletter. It reinforced in my mind that someday I very much want to live in a country which names its towns things like:

• Crooksling
• Stepaside
• Manor Kilbride
• The Scalp
• Ballinascorney
• Oldboleys
• Ballygannon
• Three Castles
• The Rundle
• Woodenbridge
• Quitchery Great

Cultural farts

A missionary who spoke at our church in Kansas City just before we left talked about having "cultural farts."

"A cultural fart is awkward and uncomfortable, but shortly it will pass," she said, explaining that reminding oneself of this funny phrase is a way to cope with annoying, abrasive or awkward situations that inevitably occur when you're integrating into a brand new culture.

I had a cultural fart today.

While interviewing a ministry leader in the Republic of Ireland, I was momentarily confused when the man said that the new young people working for the district were getting involved in three "tines."

In the U.S., sometimes we talk about how a project is two-pronged or three-pronged, meaning it has two or three or more connected but distinct emphases, objectives or whatever. I thought maybe he was using instead the word "tines" such as the tines of a fork, instead of prongs. I asked him, "What are these tines?"

"Bray, Gorey and Roundwood," he said.

Further confused, because Roundwood kind of sounds like Torchwood, which is an anti-alien program, and the other two words were meaningless for me, I persisted, "What does Bray, Gorey and Roundwood mean?"

"They're tines," he repeated.

"What?" I asked again.

"Tines, tines," he said. "I'm sorry, I have a headcold, so I know it's hard to understand. They're tines. T-O-W-N-S."

If we'd been face-to-face instead of on the phone, I'd have wanted to crawl under my chair. It was so embarrassing.

It's somehow more excusable or expected that an American will have difficulty understanding people in another culture when English isn't their first language, or when you're learning their language. It's a lot harder to justify when you don't understand another native English speaker.

Some drama

An air raid siren in the middle of the night in Germany is not the kind of sound you want to wake up to.

Last night, A. and I were startled awake by the wailing that we would normally associate with a blitzkrieg or a tornado. Aside from the fact that I did see and photograph a funnel cloud over Busingen two weeks ago (see right), we know that tornadoes are extremely uncommon in Europe, and a blitzkrieg is only likely if a squadron of Nazi or Allied planes suddenly exited a wormhole from 1944 over the Rhine.

In this region, air raid sirens are now used to call the fire brigade out of their beds to the scene of a fire.

It was 2:30 a.m. last night when the sirens went off and we bolted out of bed and opened our blinds. About half the town's fire brigade is made up of members of our offices. Between the buildings and trees we saw headlights and movement, and we knew our colleagues were scrambling to the fire station. About 30 minutes later, the campus manager flipped on the campus lights and went to all the doors to ensure they were locked.

We tried to go back to sleep, but couldn't. I was finally starting to drift off when the sirens went off again at 4:30 a.m. Shortly after we saw more cars and then heard police sirens shrieking up and down the streets. That indicated fire No. 2.

I put in my earplugs and A. went out to the couch to read. I drifted off about 5 and he fell asleep about 6. I had nightmares for the next few hours. It was basically a sleepless night.

Today we learned that at 2:30, arsonists set a trailer ablaze in our village. After that, they burned four or five cars in the next town over and also set an apartment building basement on fire. Twelve people were sent to the hospital with smoke poisoning and more people are unable to return to their apartments. They came back to our village around 4:30 and ignited a garage (attached to a home) and destroyed the BMW inside.

Just two weeks ago, while I was in Ohio, at 2:30 a.m. (the same time as last night) arsonists destroyed a brand new public school gymnasium a few streets away. It sustained half a million euros in damage. This is the gym where our students played soccer on Friday afternoons.

That same night, several hours earlier, some teenagers were ringing our apartment buzzers and then running away. A. waited for them in the dark foyer entry area and when they came back, he burst out of the doorway and scared them. They ran off.

That week someone burned up three boats on the river and more cars in one town over.

According to a local news Web site, people are frightened and the police are baffled, unable to get any evidence or name any suspects. There have been rewards posted.

I felt more safe when I thought that the arsonists were just targeting empty buildings. Even then, I was worried about our office buildings, especially mine, which is just made of wood and drywall and where the server is located that has backed up all our files and information for the work we do on the region and on my magazine.

Last night's attacks on inhabited buildings and homes definitely raises this to a whole new level. When this all started a few months after we got here, I personally felt that people weren't taking all the vandalism, theft and harassment seriously enough. I think they finally began taking it seriously when the public school gym burned down.

Here's a news clip about the gymnasium that was destroyed. It's in German but you can see the damage. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpnNEdNreKI

We have a lot of visitors on campus, and frequently they'll comment to us that we're living in "paradise."

Not so much.

Two new things

This Saturday, I'll be on a live Skype chat with children on the Missouri District, talking about being a missionary. The children will get to ask me questions about what it's like where I live and what I do. I've been warned that they may mostly ask me about the animals where I live. :-)

Later in October, I've agreed to substitute teach an English class that the church offers free to people in the community, and a small group of women attend regularly to improve their English. I'm told that a number of the women are people I run into around our village regularly, such as the woman who runs the post office, one who owns a small grocery store, and a couple other ladies who live near my office and whom I greet on the sidewalk.

I'm excited to talk to them at greater length in this setting, since passing on the street or meeting in a busy store aren't always conducive to getting to know each other. I'm thinking about continuing in the class as an assistant after October is over and the regular ESL teacher returns. But we'll see how it goes after next month.

A rainy day

Saturday was a cold, windy, rainy day in Busingen. I rather liked it. I had nowhere to be (except a quick run to the grocery) and nothing I had to do (except a ton of work, but I am trying to limit doing work to actual work days and work hours for a while). So after sleeping in and eating a late breakfast, getting the groceries for the next few days, I settled on the couch with a cup of hot chocolate and some online manga reading. It was nice to hear the rain outside alternate between sprinkling and pounding while our cozy apartment was illuminated with warmly glowing tea lights and a newly acquired pumpkin spice candle from the United States.

Dad

My dad is on his sabbatical, which he'd already planned before we knew we were moving to Switzerland. He spent a few weeks touring sites relevant to the life of John Wesley in England, then to the Martin Luther trail in Germany, passing through our village last weekend on his way down through Switzerland to see the Alps and other Reformation and Zwingli sites.

Last weekend A. and I joined him to see Zurich. It's only 45 minutes away by car or train, but we rarely go because it's expensive to get there and expensive to do anything there ($20 for a movie ticket, $25 for a single plate of food). We just strolled around photographing things, toured the Grosse Munster church, had lunch at McDonald's and then took a short train ride up a nearby hillside to look down over the city and Lake Zurich at sunset. Standing on that hill, it was an amazing experience to hear the entire city begin to reverberate with what sounded like hundreds of church bells at 7 p.m.

Sunday, we took a quick afternoon drive to Appenzell, the traditional heart of Switzerland, and strolled around the village snapping photos of the painted window shutter and building designs unique to that area, trying a locally made pastry (Biber) with coffee and trying not to gag at the strong smell of pungent cheese wafting out the doors of several cheese shops.

Tomorrow night we take the train to join Dad in Geneva to see more Reformation sites associated with John Calvin, then on to see Chateau de Chillon on the tip of Lake Geneva. From there we'll drive over to the Matterhorn for a couple of days and then back home. At that point I'll meet up with a friend who's coming over for a week and the two of us will make our way through the heart of Switzerland again.

It's going to be a great weekend and week!

Imagine a 25% sales tax

Living in Europe has exposed me more to European economics and politics. One thing that continuously comes up in the news and magazines I'm watching and reading is the financial crisis in Europe, which seems to dwarf America's. 

Greece is bankrupt, and the other European Union countries are desperately trying to bail out their member country so it doesn't drag the rest of the countries down with it. It's a real danger, when the countries have irrevocably tied their economies together and most of them are teetering on a financial precipice anyway.

Sales taxes are already quite high in most countries here. In Germany, it's 19 percent, unless you're buying food (and "food" doesn't include soda, or other "luxury foods"); then it's 7 percent. I grew up with a 5- to 7-percent sales tax, so it's hard to fathom 19 percent. Fortunately for me, I live in Switzerland and am legally able to recoup my Germany sales taxes if I do the proper paperwork after shopping.

A friend who lives in Romania blogged this week about how Romania is raising its sales tax to 24% to help offset general financial woes. It was that, or cut retirees pensions by 15%. And judging by any accounts I've read about the life of a retired person in parts of Eastern Europe, they're already barely scraping by. So the government opted for the increased sales tax, sharing the hardship equally with everyone on something that is, to some degree, voluntary. I mean, some things you HAVE to have, and you'll eat the 24%. But other things, like a new TV or extra extension cords, you might be able to do without.

That, however, serves to illustrate the point that economies are organic like the environment; for every economic action taken by a government, there is an equal and opposite reaction. As people try to avoid this higher retail tax, they will buy less. The law of unintended consequences says that sales of goods will decline; this will hurt manufacturers and importers; that will result in companies either jacking up their prices to make up the difference, shipping jobs to a country with cheaper labor, or laying off employees. Such actions will further exacerbate any kind of national malaise.

I'm not saying I think the Romanian government had another choice, and considering the alternative of harming the retired, it may have been all they can do. However, I don't think some politicians -- most of whom have not worked extensively in business -- really understand that introducing a man-made interference into an organic environment, like an economy (even a more controlled economy), unleashes new forces. It's similar to introducing a foreign species into an ecosystem, expecting it to control another out-of-control species, but then the foreign species begins to breed out of control, harming the balanced ecosystem further.

Read more about Romania's new sales tax.

Jodeling Festival parade

This past June there was an annual yodeling festival in Schaffhausen, Switzerland, just down the road from us. Here are some video highlights.

Opera video

Here's video from the amazing opera we attended at the Bregenz music festival this week.

American week

They had "American week" at the grocery store again.

At our grocery store here in Germany they rotate a line of products representing a different country every week. Two weeks ago it was "Greek week" and the week before it was "British week".

Besides the eagerness with which I grab for comfort foods from home, American week is always fun because it's interesting to see how people outside America perceive our popular foods and eating habits.

The line of products are all red, white and blue, with stars and stripes and a Statue of Liberty in the corner. The product line is called Mcennedy and says "American Way" under it.

Yet, often the things they sell with this label are things I have never seen in America. It's always just a little ... off. For instance, today they had square cartons of blueberry juice. Despite our vast array of crazy juices in the States, I have to admit that's one I've never seen back there. There were also jars of blueberry jelly. I guess that's kind of like grape jelly.

Then there was the caramel popcorn-flavored yogurt and the chocolate cranberry-flavored yogurt. I just had to try those. I admit they sounded good, but I've never seen that kind of yogurt back home. I  finished the chocolate cranberry one moments ago and I might just have to write Dannon a letter recommending it.

They sell hot dogs ... in a glass jar. In liquid. I suppose our plastic-wrapped packages of 10 hot dogs back home could look weird if you've never seen them that way. But that's how I felt about the hot dogs in a jar.

Among some more common American foods like brownies, peanut butter, blueberry muffin or pancake mix and microwave popcorn were a few oddities. Take the bottles of "Hamburger sauce." What exactly is hamburger sauce? In the States we call that ketchup. Or the tubes that squirt out stripes of blended ketchup and mayonnaise or mustard and ketchup a la Aquafresh toothpaste? That's a new one.

I'm just not sure about eating a hamburger on a bun with all the fixin's from a freezer bag. Oh, and I wasn't aware that Americans were known for eating fried butterfly shrimp with curry sauce. And the cocktail sauce they sell here? It's Thousand Island dressing, as far as I can tell. And the Thousand Island dressing is labeled... wait for it ... "American Dressing."

Ah yes, American Week is always an adventure. I can't wait for Mexican week next. Garlic and onion tortillas, here we come!

A killer opera

I never thought I'd be worried about getting killed at the opera.

Monday some faculty invited A. and I to go with them to an opera on Tuesday. Another couple going with them had had a family situation and was unable to use their tickets. We agreed to go, thinking it would be interesting to see an opera in Europe.

It was VERY interesting. First of all, we learned on the way to the opera that it was going to be in Bregenz, Austria (which is only 90 minutes drive away, ha ha)! Bregenz is on the tip of Lake Constance on the far east side where just a tiny little tip of Austria touches it. The lake shares borders with Switzerland, Germany and Austria. There was an annual opera festival going on in Bregenz.

The second thing we found out when we got there was that the audience seating AND the opera stage were actually ON the lake. In fact, the actresses and actors splashed around in the water, swam in the lake, and rowed boats around as part of the action. It was amazing to see how they incorporated the lake into the opera.

A third interesting thing was the set itself. It was completely anachronistic. It was designed to look similar to the part of Planet of the Apes where the Statue of Liberty is in ruins on the beach. They had Statue of Liberty ruins, lifesize, all around the stage. And part of the set was two GIGANTIC cranes which were constantly lifting and carrying enormous objects across the set throughout the performance. For instance, during one big musical piece both cranes carried the two metal parts of the face of the Statue of Liberty through the air to hang suspended over the set and fit together like two humongous puzzle pieces. In another scene, a crane lifted a lifesize boat out of the water and carried it and its occupants through the air and away as if they were sailing to heaven. Also, sometimes the "slave people," who were constantly doing little things in the background of the action, were actually cleaning the cranes. So they really made the set part of the set, if you know what I mean.

Our seats were in the very front -- in Europe, the cheapest seats are often the closest ones for some reason -- and so the cranes were swinging massive welded metal objects right over us throughout the opera. The recent spate of crane accidents in the States was forefront in my mind as I warily eyed all the multi-ton objects swung over my head. Later spouts of fire went up out of the water right near us. I was faintly hoping for no accidents this night.

All in all it was an amazing experience, a killer opera.

Finds of the day

• Canned black beans
• Enchilada sauce
• Barbecue sauce
• Caesar salad dressing
• Salad croutons
• Guacamole
• Honey dijon salad dressing
• Cookies and cream ice cream
• Cream of broccoli soup
• Cream of mushroom soup

Still looking for:

• Cheddar cheese
• Maple syrup
• Root beer
• Cream of chicken soup
• Marshmallow creme
• Cooking spray
• Reese's Pieces
• Cinnamon baking chips
• Graham cracker baking crumbs
• Caramel squares for baking

The Pumpkin Quest

Americans in general, and me in particular, like pumpkin-flavored things, especially in recent years. Pretty much any season, but particularly in the fall, when I get in a baking mood, it somehow involves canned pumpkin.

Pumpkin scones? Check. Pumpkin fudge? Check. Pumpkin cheesecake with gingersnap crust? Check. Pumpkin bread? Oh yeah, all the time.

Outside of my baking, I am also a big fan of pumpkin spice lattes at Starbucks, pumpkin-scented Yankee Candles, and pumpkin pie Blizzards at Dairy Queen.

Europeans do not share our American obsession with pumpkin. In fact, the German language does not even have a word specifically for the orange gourd we know as the pumpkin. They just call it a gourd. They also do not sell canned pumpkin, nor use it much for baking, milkshakes, ice cream flavors or anything else.

When searching the Web to find out if I can obtain canned pumpkin somewhere in our region, I ran across numerous Europeans mocking Americans for our insistence on getting out of a can something we could bake and puree ourselves.

I ask you, which would you rather do? Hunt down the right orange gourd, wrestle a blunt knife into the thick skin with all your strength to somehow tear it into large pieces, scoop out the slimy innards and pitch them in the compost, then bake the pieces until they get soft, putting the pulp into your blender and having to squeegee it all back out into your recipe, finally washing the sink full of now dirty dishes ... OR pop open a can, scrape the contents into your mixing bowl and throw away the tin?

Seems obvious to me.

Fall is approaching and I'm experiencing the first twinges of panic. How am I going to get my pumpkin fix?

Fortunately, a number of people are on their way here from the States. I'm recruiting them as my personal shipping service for cans of pumpkin, since I know that's a pretty heavy thing to be shipping internationally.

I think Dad squeezed a can or two in his suitcase for me; at least, I asked him to and I know he put it on a list. A good friend is arriving for her vacation early next month and she said she'd see what she could do. Another friend is looking at tickets to visit a mutual friend here in October and I'm going to see if I can twist her arm long distance to chuck a few cans in her suitcase. And when I mentioned the possibility of contributing pumpkin fudge to an office open house in December, our office manager immediately volunteered to bring back a few cans when she returns from home assignment in November.

So, if each person brought me two cans, I'd be set. For a while at least. Now all I need is marshmallow creme...

Little things that made me happy this week

1. Several kitty rubs
2. Good coffee
3. Getting up early to work out
4. Getting to work an hour earlier than usual
5. Bike rides at dusk through pear and apple orchards
6. Countryside sunsets
7. Meeting new people in the village
8. A jar of local honey and a loaf of locally-baked bread
9. Streaming TV from home
10. First-ever Skype chat with my cousin and her son
11. Skyping with my dad while he tours England
12. Looking at my Italy photos
13. Flirting with my husband
14. Learning how to make green curry
15. Being on track with calorie and carb cutting, and exercising
16. Learning a few new German words
17. Having the baking itch
18. Daydreaming of Yankee Candles
19. Listening to the Bible on my iPod
20. Brand, shiny new copies of my favorite magazines, waiting to be read

Saturday hike

If the weather holds and nothing else happens, A and I are planning our first hike in the Alps on Saturday. I found one called the Four Lakes Hike about 2 hours drive from here. No further -- less actually -- than what I used to drive to hit a good day-hike west of Boulder. You take a cable car to the beginning of the hike, which is somewhat of a climb through a pass, and then mostly level as you pass three more lakes during about four hours of walking. Then you take a cable car down to a village where you catch a bus to a train station. Then you ride trains back to the place where you started to get your car and go home.

I hope the weather holds. I can't believe we haven't gone hiking yet. But I have three-four more hikes planned with a friend who's coming for a week in early September, which I hear from locals is actually the best weather month for hiking here. 

Alpine highs

Culture shock seems to be a series of ups and downs. Or maybe the ups and downs correspond to how much sunshine we're getting. I'm not sure. But I'm definitely on a high right now.

There are days where you rush to and from work, guzzle coffee to stay awake, work late on projects, try to cram in dinner, slave 30 minutes over handwashing the pile of dishes, try to squeeze in a workout on the elliptical machine, and crash into bed, stressed out as you try to stop thinking about all you have to do tomorrow so you can finally fall asleep. Just like back home.

Then there are days when you notice the sunshine as you walk to work, remember to look at the half-timbered old buildings on either side of the street, and manage to get up early enough to buy a freshly baked loaf of bread from the bakery across the street, and you say to yourself, "I can't believe I live here."

Last night, A and I took a walk around sunset through the fields surrounding the village. For someone who grew up in the American suburbs, this is still a novelty. The crops are full, high and thick now. There are fields and fields of this kind of tuber that I don't yet recognize, but judging from the heads peering up from the soil, it's quite large. I think it's sort of like a turnip. There are also sections of corn that have now grown higher than a tall man, and the tassels on the ears are already spilling out of the leaves. Some kind of oat or grain has gone past golden to plain old brown and the tractors last night were using their headlights to cut it evenly into rows, ready to be bound into bales.

In fact, we dodged a number of tractors as we briskly traversed the paved or gravel tractor trails between the sweet-smelling fields. In the distance we could hear cowbells from a little family (about six) of cows on a small dairy by the road. The streaks of cloud on the horizon caught fire after the sun dropped below the horizon of rolling fields and trees, and a hot air balloon drifted overhead before it began to lower toward the valley on the other side of the Rhein. We could hear the roar of the fire as it pumped hot air into the balloon, safely slowing its descent.

It was almost dark as we returned home, passing a pick-up truck parked by a small area that was thick with clover. An old man in dirty, work-worn jeans, a faded flannel shirt and baseball cap was scooping some just-cut clover into crates and loading them into his truck. He greeted us with "Gruetzi" and we greeted him as well. I noticed him watching us, and I thought he might be amenable to a chat if we stopped, so I turned back to watch him at work.

An old-fashioned scythe lay in the cut clover, and I pointed it out to A. The man came right over and began talking to us in German. We acknowledged that we didn't speak German, but that didn't deter him. He said a few sentences, and then said, "Bibel Schule," asking us if we were from the school. We nodded, saying, "Ja, ja." People usually assume if you can't speak German that you're from the school, but they don't mind, as it has a very good reputation in the community.

He said he was cutting the clover for his horses - he explained this by miming a person riding a horse and holding reins. He tried to tell us where his horses were, and we got the part at least about the kindergarten, which is actually right behind our apartment. He told us some other things, but we didn't really understand. We didn't mind, though. It's always a good feeling when someone from the village actually wants to talk to you, and isn't put off by the language barrier.

After a few minutes, he indicated that we should wait right there. We agreed, and he hurried to his truck, rummaged around in the cab and came back with a jar. He pointed to the symbol of a honeybee on the lid, and pointed in a certain direction, talking, we think, about where the honey comes from. Either he makes the honey, or he got it from someone local who has a honey farm. Afterward, he gave us the jar. Surprised, we profusely thanked him with the one word we do know: Danke!

We introduced ourselves and got his name. We really hope that we can see him again.

It's moments like these, and walks like that, which give a city girl like me a couple days of an Alpine high. Walking to work this morning in the cool sunshine with a freshly baked loaf of bread from the bakery tucked under my arm, I thought to myself, "I can't believe I live here."

A wedding parade

Honking horns interrupted my work day, so I leaned out the office window to see this.

Ill-fated church barbecue

I think the Weather didn't get the memo about our church barbecue today.

Lunch time math

Nutritional labels are different in Europe than ours in the States. Unlike ours, which break down the calories per tablespoon, ounce or serving of something (although I often take umbrage with what is considered a serving), the labels in Europe tell you how many calories you would eat if you ate 100 grams of something.

Well, nobody eats 100 grams of butter or 100 grams of salad dressing (i.e. a package of butter might only be 200 grams). So I've had to learn to do things differently.

Here's a typical lunchtime attempt at calorie counting.

Visiting a grocery store this week, I found a rare bottle of Dijon dressing, one of my favorites. So I bought it and decided to enjoy a nice big salad. The bottle contains 250 milliliters of dressing, but the label says that there are 302 calories in 100 grams of dressing.

How many milliliters are in a gram?

I learned through a Google search they are the same. So I multiplied 302 by 2.5, to come up with 755 = the bottle contains 755 calories total. Now, I usually measure out dressing on my salad in tablespoons, so I needed to figure out how many calories are in one tablespoon.

The tricky thing is that a tablespoon measures volume whereas grams measure weight. A tablespoon of something thick and heavy will be more grams than a tablespoon of something light, like feathers or powdered sugar.

Therefore I searched how much a tablespoon of salad dressing would weigh. I couldn't find it, but found the weight of a tablespoon of oil -- 13.65 grams.

Next, I divided 755 by 13.65 = 55. This means that each tablespoon of salad dressing contains roughly 55 calories.

I wonder how many calories I burned just trying to figure that out.

Heaven will be 75 degrees

Our area of Switzerland is struggling this summer to get out of the low 70s. I am OK with this. Really OK. I HATE being hot. To me, 75 is the temperature of absolute bliss. (It is also the right temperature for wearing pants after you've badly botched an application of self-tanning spray.)

Eight years ago when I lived here, for two of the six months it was in the 90s without a break. I had a second floor apartment without air conditioning; I also worked on the top floor of an old building without air conditioning. I coped by taking three icy showers a day (I normally HATE cold showers) and immersing myself in the snow-melt water of the Rhine a couple times a week. It was miserable.

It's amazing to spend a summer without air conditioning and yet to hardly be turning on a fan in our flat. We just don't need it. In fact, this week I wore a long-sleeved shirt to work, and the other day I wore a fleece to the grocery store. Our church also just about froze at our Summer Barbecue (keeping in mind it is August).

As I'm hearing reports of the horrible heat in the U.S. Midwest, I am inwardly crying out thanks to God for this cool summer here.