EuroYankee

Our first American visitors arrive next week. Saturday we’re going to Amsterdam to meet up with Lisa and Gideon, two members of the Spokane Crew. They rented us a cabin on the water which sounds sweet. We’ll stay 5 days, then return around Thanksgiving. Since I’m not up on how to mblog, the next week will be short on news.

Around this time of the year people eat Weckmanns. These little bread men always come with inedible pipes. Not being able to eat the pipe was kind of a letdown. Our Weckmann was three-eyed. We ate him “with pleasure” (as the Germans would say) for breakfast recently.

Just to impress all of you, my in-house cooking consultant and I successfully made a pesto-ricotta souffle the other day. It was delicious and we felt like Super Chefs. Next time, we’ll put in two more eggs and pouff it to the top of the dish.

R’s parents recently gave me a treasure chest full of German-language Asterix comics. Sweet.  

Friday evening I got my first taste of Cologne’s Karneval antics.Stepped off the tr ain and into a crowd of drunken revelers. Karneval (Mardi Gras) season officially started Friday (11/11) at 11:11 a.m. Most of the partiers had been drinking since morning . There was  a brass band playing on the tracks. Everyone was in crazy costumes. The real partying take place in November, but this was a good warm-up.

I had Valencia flashbacks last night when a parade went by my apartment. In Valencia, I was awoken by drums and flutes each Sunday morning for several months. The Germans are loud paraders, but at least start at the reasonable hour of 6 p.m. Friday is St. Martin’s Day. Martin supposedly helped a cold begger by cutting his cloak in half. That’s pretty much all the average German kid knows about St. Martin. Which must make it seem pretty easy to become a saint. The little kids of the neighborhood make lanterns and parade around with them, singing songs. They can also ring your doorbell to sing songs and then you have to give them candy. If you want to hear some bad parade music, click here for an mp3. 

 Got busted taking photos of our neighborhood undertaker today. A woman came out and demanded to know what I was doing. Fortunately, my comical German accent and observation that “German shop windows are much more artistic than those in America” won her over. “It’s no problem,” she told me. “Take as many pictures as you want.”

I’m thinking those stuffed animals on top of the coffin are hedgehogs not groundhogs, since this is Europe. Apparently hedgehogs are lactose intollerant. Surprising they continue to thrive in the Land of Cream.

For a picture from this summer, when Aunt Sally christened it the Underwater Undertaker, click here.

Went to see the new Wallace & Gromit movie yesterday. Liked it. Going to the movies in Germany remains a strange experience for me. First, assigned seats only. Second, everybody reserves tickets early, discuraging spur-of-the-moment movie going. Third, sweet popcorn is the norm. Fourth, commercials and previews delay the start of the movies by 30-40 minutes. Fifth, the paper towels in the bathrooms have local advertisements printed on them.

We (barely) survived Museum’s Night in Cologne on Saturday. All the museums open from 7 p.m. until 3 a.m. and a shuttle takes folks from one museum to the next. It was the museum version of a punk concert. Lots of jostling for position in crowded galleries. We saw a little of everything. Video installations, Old World masterpieces, monochrome canvasses which make one think, “Hey. Wait a second. I could do that.”

Only five million minutes left to go…