Aussies out on the town!

Last night we had dinner with two fellow Aussies from my German school- Daniel and Angelo- and their lovely German respective other halves- Susan and Anja.

We decided to meet up at the Australian Restaurant in downtown Stuttgart, called "Sydney's" (where else!!) and got a kick out of the "Australian" items on the menu. I had the Kangaroo Stir Fry (which was really tender and delicious!) and Zev had to have a glass of VB in honor of the occasion.

Ironically, at the train station on our way to downtown, we ran into yet ANOTHER Australian living in our very town! I didn't catch the guy's name, but as we were boarding our train, he turned to me on the platform and asked "Excuse me, but are you Australian?"!!! He said he was from Hobart and was working in Germany. How random!

I must say that living in Germany has made me appreciate even more the value of community and other cultures. I feel fortunate to have experienced the South American culture and language (and food and dancing!) whilst growing up in Australia. I am an Australian with an adopted American nationality topped off with an overlay of the South American culture. As a foreigner in Germany, I have a new found appreciation for the struggles and frustrations encountered when one is trying to learn the local language and trying to understand the nuances and traditions of another culture. I can appreciate what it is like to feel like the minority and to feel embarassed sometimes when ordering bread at the bakery in front of a bunch of people for example and knowing that you have a funny accent.  I understand how comforting it feels to catch up with people from your homeland and to relate anecdotes and experiences that we could all relate to. Just speaking "Australian" again was so much fun. I am grateful for these experiences and for the fact that in addition to learning a new language, living in Europe has been a perspective-broadening, enriching experience. Hope you have a great week. Fiona ;-))

Part of the family

Our dear friend, Cisco, visited us this weekend from his current home in Abu Dhabi. Cisco and Fi have known each other since they were Air Force cadets at the Academy, and Cisco and Zev met shortly after Fi and Zev started dating. According to Cisco, Fi "gushed" about Zev from Day 1.

Fi: "There he is, Cisco, THAT'S ZEV!! What do you think of him!?"

Cisco: "He looks nice Fi, but I probably need to talk with him first to see what he is like as a person."

Luckily for Fi, Zev and Cisco get along very well and we always love it when Cisco pops over to visit us on one of his many exciting overseas destinations.

 And although we are sure he already knows this, we've got to say it again:

Cisco, you are part of the family!

Hope all our family and friends across the world are doing SPLENDIDLY! This is going to be a great week, I just know it!

Beautiful Bavaria

We went skiing in the Bavarian Alps this past weekend. The ski area (Haupsberg) is in the beautiful little Bavarian town of Garmisch, which is located in a valley of the Wetterstein Massif at the foot of Germany's highest peak, the Zugspitze (9,371 feet). The Zugspitze sits on the border between Germany and Austria, and in fact on our drive home, we had to go through Austria in order to get back home to Germany!

Garmisch and it's twin town, Partnerkirchen, gained international attention when they hosted the 1936 Winter Olympics.

We actually got to ski down one of the ski runs (No. 4) and it was a long downhill run, which Fiona found challenging and Zev found easy, but we both found enjoyable!

We actually visited the site of the olympic ski jump and just stared in awe as we imagined the skiiers coming down that enormous jump at a great rate of knots. I don't know how they do it.

We had a wonderful time skiing and enjoyed the great ski conditions (it pretty much snowed lightly the entire day).

The day after we skiied, we explored the local "Partnachklamm" or Partnach Gorge.

What an amazing work of nature that is. So serene and majestic.

After we explored the Gorge, we stopped for Kaffee und Kuchen (we feel SO GERMAN now!! Ha!) in a quaint little Gasthaus.

The Kuchen or cake part was this creation aptly named "The Puff."

It was probably not the wisest thing to eat before our drive home!

 We really love Germany and are so grateful for the experiences we are having.

Hope you are all safe, happy and healthy!

Love and hugs, Zev and Fifi xoxoxo

Ringing in the New Year - what a blast!

So it turns out that fireworks are legally sold here in Germany between Christmas Day and New Years Eve. Actually, they go on sale on December 27th. Zev COULD NOT wait to go down to the store when he got home from work on the 27th, to go and buy fireworks. Look at his sweet face. He can't decide which firework is his favorite.

We invited some friends over for a NYE party at our house. As you all know, I married a secret gourmet chef who moonlights as an Air Force Officer. Zev cooked up an amazing array of appetizers, including blue and goats cheese wrapped in puff pastry; endives with caviar or shitake mushrooms and a special mustard sauce; twice baked potatoes with a delicious filling; dates wrapped in bacon; spinach pinwheels and this delicious crepe dessert with Grand Marnier sauce filling. Here Zev has graciously provided a cooking demonstration on how to construct his crepe cake. It's as easy as 1,2,3,4....

We put to use the cheese markers that Lauren and Deven and family bought us for Christmas.

The crepe concoction with orange shavings on top.

Adele and Romain brought along their delicious homemade foie gras with gelee. What a treat!

Outside, Zev had set up a "launching station" to launch the rockets from our balcony. We got approval from Heinz and Magda beforehand to set off fireworks from our balcony and they were fine with it. We even saw them watching the "show" at midnight!!

Let the show begin!!!

Zev made sure that us girls had some sparklers to wave around in celebration.

And then he got down to business and lit off the "big boy" fireworks, along with Daniel, Romain and Ryan.

Ryan made sure that he had good safety procedures in place. He kept suggesting that Zev wear his safety googles too but Zev was too excited with all the fireworks going on to go and get his safety goggles.

The picture of a very happy man.

It was a wonderful start to the new year.

 

People in the street were letting off fireworks- we saw fireworks going off for at least 40 minutes straight. Hence the thick fog at around 1240am...Yes, those are car tailights that you can see. We couldn't believe that cars were driving through this fog!

The day after. The debris didn't take too long to pick up though.

Here's to a lovely 2010!

Love and hugs,

Zev and Fi xoxo

There's a LOT of snow out there - well compared to what I've seen before!

The ground outside is covered with a thick blanket of snow. It looks like a lot of snow to me (anything that come up to your ankles when you walk is a lot of snow to this girl from Down Under!). Zev has of course seen snow that comes up to his waist. I'm glad the snow doesn't come up to my waist. It began to snow a lot on Thursday, and by Friday we had a decent covering, so Zev sent me an email from work asking me to go out and buy two sleds from the local hardware store. I just HAD to buy the pink one, and picked up the other available color- yellow, for Zev.I honestly didn't realize that our sleds/coasters would match our ski jackets (but I like that they do! Ha!)

We walked up through the woods behind our house and sledded under the moonlight. Lots of fun!

Yesterday we went skiing at a little mountain not far from our house, in the Schwaebisch Alb.

You will see from my previous post, how excited I was for Zev to come home from work to see the nice work I had done with shoveling the driveway. Rookie mistake. When you live in a snowy climate, the snow can come and undo all your good work- we spent about 20 minutes before heading out skiing, in taking the snow off our cars and de-icing the windows and shoveling the driveway yet again. Maybe someone could invent a leaf-blower equivalent for snowy driveways!

Little PT Cruiser, where are you?

Hope everyone stays warm and dry (or in Australia- cool and dry!)

The orderly disposal of Christmas Trees

I thought you would be interested to know how Christmas Trees are "put to rest"/ disposed of here in Germany. Real Christmas Trees of course. Unlike our sweet, pre-packaged, pre-lit, PX special right here:

Here in Germany, each neighborhood has a designated Christmas Tree Disposal-Pick-Up-Point. Ours happens to be right across the street from our house. I have a good view of it from my office window.

In good, orderly German fashion, the locals have been depositing their Christmas Trees at the designated disposal spot. I have been working at home this week on my business, and so I have watched the process unfold during this week. It is especially cute to see dads come along with their small kids to drop off the trees, and to see the kids try to help dad pull the tree from their car and onto the pile. All stacked very neatly, of course ;-)

You can barely see the temporary sign indicating the disposal area, above. You can also see our house over the tops of the Christmas Trees. I love the smell of a real Christmas Tree fir, however you've got to admit, that the convenience and easy-clean-up-ability of the (ok I'll say- faux) American Christmas Tree has its place. I'm sure one day again in the future we will get a "real" Christmas Tree again, maybe when we have kids, but for now our little special works just fine. Our friend Romain (Adele's husband) just kept staring at our tree when they came over for New Year's Eve. After about an hour he said:

" I would like to buy your tree."

"Oh Romain, thank you for complimenting my tree, but you can easily get a Christmas Tree here."

"No really, I would like to buy your tree when you go back to the United States."

"But this tree is special to us."

"You can keep the decorations then."

I think he likes the way it packs up neatly in a box. Just so:

On another note, I "surprised" Zev by shoveling the driveway AND salting it this morning. It is snowing buckets (I'm not sure if you can say "it's snowing cats and dogs") but it is snowing constantly right now. Well, I think this is a lot of snow. As Zev says whenever I make a comment like this "oh this is nothin'. You should see the snow in upstate New York". Anyway, Zev usually does the shoveling and salting/ de-icing of the driveway. I have offered to do it numerous times, but he likes to do it. So this morning, I went out with my snow shovel and salt bucket and went to work.

Gotta begin by shoveling out your walking areas....

Heinz from next door even came out for a chat. I like chatting with Heinz because he is not afraid to correct my German. Which is a good way to learn German.

Hope you are all having a good start to 2010! This is going to be a good year. I just feel it in my bones.

Love and hugs, Fi