Frohe Weihnachten!

Thanks to the wonderful German holidays and vacation time, Noah and I have been off since December 20^th for Christmas.  But while we live in Germany, we still use the weekend after Thanksgiving as our green light to begin decorating the house (and perhaps a dog too).  This means we are rather rebellious as it is tradition in Germany to wait until Christmas Eve to decorate the tree.  Good thing we aren’t German! 

Of course we managed to visit a few Christmas markets in the last few weeks and drink our fill of Glühwein.  My personal favorite is the Apfel Zimt (apple cinnamon) white Glühwein that you can find in the Residence Christkindlmarkt.  This year, it got even more expensive for us to visit the Residence Christkindlmarkt due to the fact that on Saturday when we went (for the second time), there were search and rescue dogs hanging out in Odeonsplatz to raise awareness/money for their cause.  And as I had to pass the dogs twice, and I wanted to pet more than just one, I ended up donating 10 EUR (basically all of the change Noah and I had). 

We made it out to Tollwood on Monday – though this year we were sure to check the opening hours.  Last year, we accidently went 2 hours before it opened, and we had the entire family in tow.  Oops!  We enjoyed some international cuisine in the food tent and found a few new ornaments to add to our collection.  And what would a trip to Tollwood be without buying some sort of winter accessory (this time a new pair of gloves for Noah)? 

Inside the food tent

For Christmas Eve, Noah made delicious green chili enchiladas with homemade white corn tortillas (and I usually do not like corn tortillas).  Sadly they went into my belly too quickly for me to take a photo of them for the blog. 

On Christmas, we started the day off the traditional Steffens way by making my Danish great-great-grandma’s ebelskiver recipe. 

I then forced the family to do a massive holiday photo shoot by the tree, and by the end of it Rita wouldn’t come near me, Sadie was demanding treats, and Noah disappeared into the kitchen. 

I started off with 'couples' photos.  Rita flung that hat across the room soon after the photo was taken.

I switched it up and gave Rita reindeer antlers instead. 

She quickly ran away and refused to come back.

At this point all I had left was Sadie, because she will do anything for treats.

For dinner we invited Aunt Ellen, Uncle Rüdiger, and our Russian friend Max (since Christmas in Russia is in January, so he didn’t go home for December 25^th).  We served up a bunch of traditional American dishes, including a delicious dry brine turkey (seriously – two years in a row it has been AMAZING, here is alink to the recipe), homemade yeast rolls, and an apple pie (my Christmas present from Noah).  There were other dishes, but I listed the most important ones.  We were also given an Ikea star of Bethlehem (or at least it seemed that big) as Ellen and Rüdiger’s neighbor decided she didn’t want it after she got it home.  See below. 

As you can imagine, Rita wasn't going to have any part of this.

After Ellen and Rüdiger left for the night, Max stayed so we could watch Rocky IV.  Because what else do you watch on Christmas night when there are Americans and Russians together?  Spoiler alert – America/Rocky beats Russia/Ivan (it is an American movie after all).  What I found interesting was that the scenes of the cold Russian winter where Rocky trains were actually filmed in the Grand Teton National Park, where my brother lives.  So basically I have a Russian brother.

The day after Christmas, which is also a holiday too), we awoke to snow!  While not technically a white Christmas, it was only a few hours too late to qualify. 

I was too lazy to get out of bed to take a photo.

For dinner Noah and I went over to Ellen and Rüdiger’s for fondue and cake.  I also spent 15 minutes in Rüdiger’s massage chair, and have decided I want one.  Since I don’t have a photo of me in the chair, I’ll put a photo of it snowing from Friday night. 

Now our lives consist of eating leftovers, doing puzzles, and taking the dogs out so they can make yellow snow, and I am more than fine with that.  Though I wouldn’t mind if there was a way to have pretty white snow AND 70 degree weather… but you can’t have it all. 

I miss the winters in Arizona.

Merry Christmas Y’all!

A Weiss/Steffens Family Christmas!

This year Noah and I hosted our first family holiday event in Germany (we used to host Thanksgiving in Phoenix, but the last one was over 2 years ago).  We figured there is no point starting small – we invited our family from both sides!  My parents and Noah’s brother/sister-in-law all flew in from Texas, and Noah’s mother flew in from San Francisco.  We had a fun-filled 2 weeks planned for them.  And since we saw so much and did so much, Noah and I decided that the visit deserves 3 individual blogs.  I was tasked with writing the first blog which takes us up to Christmas Day. 

My artsy photograph of our Christmas tree using the bokeh technique

The first to arrive were my folks – landing Thursday the 19^th.  Since they always suffer badly from jet lag, they were off for their naps right after I ate lunch (they were full from their ‘cheese and snot sandwiches’ on the plane – straight quote from Gary).  While they were sleeping, I prepared the Steffens’ family traditional Christmas cookie dough.  Once they returned fresh faced (but still jet lagged), I enlisted their help to roll and cut and decorate the cookies.  This is the first time Gary has had a hand in helping, and his Christmas pick-axe was just lovely.  Too bad he ate it before we had a chance for a photo.  Unfortunately they would have to wait until the next day to see Noah, as he was off at his work’s Christmas party and didn’t come home until after 11pm.  Way too late for 2 oldies who are still on Texas time.

Noah left early the next morning to meet his mother at the airport.  An hour or so after her plane landed, I received a frantic call from Noah saying he must have lost his mother (before the trip even started!) – everyone else from her plane already made their way out of security and he had seen no sign of Margie!  I reminded him that I had the same freak-out a few weeks ago with our last visitors, and it turned out they were delayed from lost luggage.  30 minutes later Noah updated me that it wasn’t lost luggage – just damaged luggage – and his mom was finally out of security.  One new suitcase and a few hours later they were finally on their way to the apartment. 

Since our last two guests (Seth and Marty) were set to arrive later that evening, we took the opportunity to do some grocery shopping.  After determining that the cost of a turkey at Galeria Kaufhof was just ridiculous (~10 EUR per pound!), we all piled into our new Honda Jazz to search for a turkey at the Pasing Arcaden (mall).  This isn’t as crazy as it sounds – there are actually 2 grocery stores attached to the shopping mall.  And of course we managed to park in the underground lot on the complete opposite side of where the Hit grocery store is located.  That’s ok – it provided some good exercise for those world travelers.  After locating a much more reasonably priced frozen turkey and some other essentials, we begin the trek back through the entire mall to the car.  Only Sandy wanted to get some photos of the lovely Christmas décor in the mall.  As I waited behind with her so she could snap a few photos, I see a woman and her dog walk by.  The dog proceeds to take a giant, runny dump just 2 feet from us.  And the poor woman had nothing to clean it up with!  I felt so bad for her – luckily I haven’t had that happen in public with our dogs, but Rita did once barf in a restaurant.  I handed her some red poop bags and a package of tissues, and wished her luck.  Sandy and I ran to catch up with the others (and leave the nasty smell behind).  Side note: I have successfully talked about dog poop in 2 consecutive blogs.  Winning! 

The photo taken right before the dog poo incident

A few hours later Aunt Ellen and Uncle Rüdiger arrived at the apartment with Seth and Marty in tow – but with 1 bag less than they started out with.  One of their bags was left in Austin!  I am not sure why the majority of our visitors in December have all had bag problems (3 issues with 3 different airlines) – must be something to do with the holidays.  Anyways, we kept the evening low key and called it an early night to let everyone get their sleep. 

Saturday morning we were ready to finally venture into the city and check out these Christmas markets Noah and I had been talking about.  We piled into the public transportation and started the downtown market tour with the main attraction– the Christkindlmarkt at Marienplatz. 

Next stop on the market tour – the Weihnachtsmarkt in der Residenz.  This one is one of our favorites – it is naturally smaller as it has to fit within one of the courtyards of the Residence, and they have the much coveted Baumstriezel!  It is a Hungarian pastry (they call it Kürtőskalács – though in English we can just say Chimney Cake) that is essentially a sweet bread dough that is wrapped around a metal cylinder and baked as you watch.  You then can choose a topping that they will roll the hot pastry in – my recommendation is the cinnamon and sugar (Zimt Zucker).  I might have made a mistake in introducing my mother to this as she spent the rest of the time in Munich looking for more of them (she successfully found many in Budapest – I think her tally was 3… one for each night we were there). 

After a lunch of sausages and Baumstriezel, we made our way to the Middle Age Christmas market (Der Mittelaltermarkt auf dem Wittelsbacherplatz) – a first for Noah and I.  As there are so many Christmas markets in town (even one at the airport), we prefer to not see every single one each year.  It can become rather tedious and monotonous if you see too many at once, as they all pretty much have similar things.  The Middle Age market one reminded me of a tiny Renaissance Festival, but with a Christmas flare.  Lots of handmade goods out of leather, bark, glass, etc.  I found some nice glass snowflake ornaments myself. 

After everyone had their fill of shopping for the day (or at least Noah, myself, and the parents did – Seth and Marty would stay on to replenish some items missing in her lost luggage), the group headed up to the top of the Neues Rathaus at Marienplatz (via elevator, thank you very much).  We were treated to a lovely 360 view of the city, and in the distance we could even make out the outline of the Alps. 

Sunday morning was an early one for Seth and Noah – they were gone by 7am to take the first train of the day to hit the slopes in Garmisch.  The rest of us slept for a few hours longer and reached Garmisch Classic (and the brothers) for lunch.  The two snowboarders met us at the bottom of the lifts and we all took the gondola up the mountain (Margie’s first time riding a Gondola in her life!) to eat at the Garmischer-Haus restaurant. 

After taking in the food and the views, we left the boys to finish their runs.  We checked out the town and (of course) their Christmas market. 

We all met up again to take the train back to town for a nice dinner of stew and birthday cake.  Technically, my mother’s birthday was the next day, but I had made a giant 4-tiered monstrosity that would never come close to being finished unless we started it ASAP.  We went ahead and pretended anyways and sang Happy Birthday a day early.  Though don’t tell the German’s!  They find it to be horrible luck if you tell someone happy birthday early… but no one can tell me what exactly happens! 

 

The story behind HORST – Noah and I were looking for cake toppers and found name candles.  Of course they don’t have Sandy, or any name with a Y.  Noah’s idea was to by ‘Astrid’ and ‘Andreas’ to have the letters for Sandra.  Mine was to just buy ‘Horst’ and convince her that was German for Sandy.  After a quick email to my brother for a tie-breaking vote, Horst it was!  And she did believe that Horst meant Sandy… until I started laughing and told her it is just a random man’s name.

Monday brought my mom’s real 60^th birthday.  We celebrated by hitting up Tollwood – yet another Christmas market, but this one is more on the hippy/earthy side.  Plus lots of drinking options beyond regular old Glühwein.  Mom and I found a winter hat and scarf, and Seth and Noah bought coordinating ‘bff brother’ belts, or something like that. 

For dinner we celebrated at our favorite Greek restaurant Poseidon, where we had way too much food and were given a free bottle of Greek wine per couple.  Needless to say we now have 4 bottles of wine at our apartment.  We celebrated again with a small candle in the shape of a birthday cake, and headed home to eat the real stuff. 

By Christmas Eve we were ready to have an easy day.  Since the weather was nice, we took the S-bahn down to Lake Starnberg with the dogs.  We had a nice walk around part of the lake, and Marty was able to find her a nice rock to take back to her dad (it’s their thing apparently). 

Christmas morning started with Noah (I joined a bit later) in the kitchen making our traditional Steffens’ Danish Ebelskivers.  Slowly the others woke up, and we all feasted on the thousands (or at least it felt that way) of little balls of dough dipped in granulated sugar. 

There was no time for Noah and I to sit as we were coordinating the Christmas dinner of Turkey, homemade yeast rolls (that wanted to take over the kitchen, they rose so much), homemade ginger cranberry sauce (that was actually leftover from Thanksgiving….), au gratin potatoes, and green beans.  Thank goodness we had access to our upstairs neighbors’ oven – but even then it was hard to have everything ready at the same time. 

We were able to take one mid-day break to open presents.  I think my favorites were the antlers for the dogs (thanks Ellen and Rüdiger) – they reminded us of the dog from the Grinch.  Sadie just glared at me when I made her wear them, and Rita actually froze.  She lost the ability to move with those on her head!  My precious babies. 

After presents, we all squeezed into our little kitchen for our Christmas feast.  My dad found an amazing dry brine recipe that I would 100% recommend.  It was honestly the best turkey I ever had – even the white meat was super moist and delicious!  So of course, Gary took all the credit for how the bird came out. 

Dessert came in the form of an apple pie we baked the day before (thankfully, as I have no idea how we would have found time on Christmas day).  It was off to bed early for us all though, as we had to get up the next day for our next segment/blog: Budapest!

Adjusted to Munich time just as we leave...

Just as we are starting to feel at home here in Munich our temporary journey is coming to an end.  We head back to The States tomorrow after a very, very busy week here.   We’ve found a mix of new and used furniture to be delivered while we are away including: a bed, sofa (that folds into bed), coffee table, dresser, and most importantly a set of wardrobe closet storage (no more living out of suitcases!). Thankfully Aunt Ellen is here to rescue us again and safely receive our deliveries.  She has really helped make this trip a wonderful success.

Most of the week was rather mundane, Julie at work while I shopped for essentials.  I looked all over town to save 50 cents on shampoo…I am a sucker for a good deal!  I did find some nostalgic American items like microwave popcorn (although pretty bad tasting), hot chocolate, and stocked up on some cases of Dr. Pepper for Jules.  Really exciting stuff, huh?!?!  The evenings were a lot of fun as we went out to the different Christmas markets in town.  I think we made it to 4 of the 16 (or more?) different ones here in Munich and each time ate a days worth of calories very tasty, never seen before treats.   It really is a fun time of year here right now, such a social lively atmosphere everywhere.

Here is a collage of a few of our Christmas market photos:

And here is Julie enjoying one of our many treats we found (a waffle with marshmallow covered in chocolate), followed by our favorite sweet we have come across – the apple-filled star pastry.  We only wish this was to scale.  Sadly it is not the size of Julie’s face.

Today was an exciting day because we are now a part of the iPhone community!  We activated our new German phones, which means finally we can start checking emails, making local calls, and locating areas of interest from the palm of our hands again.  Once we get this FaceTime and Skype thing figure out we should be able to connect for free with all of you back home.  It still seems too good to be true, but we purchased phone plans with unlimited data for 49 EUR per month each.

We will definitely be looking forward to our one-way move next month.  See you next year München!

And Our Journey Begins :)

My turn to update the blog! And you might want to settle in (or just scan it for pictures) as this will be a long post covering our first few days in Munich. Also, I am writing this entry Sunday night (4.12) without knowing when exactly I will post this. I can’t believe that with all 16 wi-fi networks our computer can pick up around our apartment, every single one has a password! The nerve of the Germans! Anyways…

We flew out Thursday morning at 8am Arizona time and landed at 7am (an entire hour early) in Munich the following day. The flights went well - though Noah and I have never seen this before on a plane. Yes, this guy is sitting in his seat with his feet straight up, no shoes on. It lasted long enough to make it super creepy. I should be glad he didn’t sit behind me.

We met Noah’s aunt Ellen and made our way to our new apartment carrying our 4 checked bags and 4 carry on bags, for a total of 957 pounds of luggage (or at least it felt like that). I think Noah was ready to curse me for bringing so much, even if he refuses to admit it.

After a direct train ride to our train stop, Laim, and a 10 minute walk that felt like 45 minutes with all our bags, we finally arrived to our new apartment! We live above a dentist, and the entire 2^nd floor is our apartment. There are two apartments above us – so three all together. I feel bad for those folks, as there is no elevator. Here is a photo of me pointing to our living room window.

Thanks to Ellen, we arrived to an apartment that was livable. We knew people took the kitchen with them in Germany, but didn’t realize they took every light fixture as well. Thanks to the multitude of lamps Ellen left, we weren’t in the dark at night. We also had a bed to sleep in, plates and silverware and a small kitchen table, her patio furniture in the living room, and a place to hang our clothes. We don’t know how we would have done it without all of her help.

After a quick trip to the teeny tiny grocery store where we grabbed a few things so we wouldn’t starve, Noah whipped up our first dinner – Spaetzle, salad, and… wait for it… DR. PEPPER! It’s not easy to find, but I found it. I made Noah stop eating so we could capture this epic moment in our lives – the moment where we are both completely jet lagged, exhausted, looking like crap, and eating our first dinner in our first apartment in Munich! You’re welcome Noah.

After going to bed at 7pm, we woke up bright and early 6am Saturday. Noah’s friend from high school (he was a foreign exchange student), Jörn, came down from Schwabisch Hall to visit us. Little did he know he was in for a day of shopping and working in our apartment. He has one luxury we don’t – a car! We went to a giant store – Vmarkt – about the size of a Wal-mart. I had no idea there were stores that big here. We stocked up on ceiling lights, trash cans, a mirror, a microwave, and some dog bones. The dog bones were the most important; I need Sadie and Rita to know I was thinking about them. ;)

After a lunch break, we got back to the apartment and Jörn and Noah got to work hanging lights. As I write this, we have light in the living room, kitchen, bedroom, and bathroom. We still have the hallway, the toilet, guest room, and storage room to go. And by ‘we’, I mean Noah. Here is one before/after picture.

After a fancy dinner of PBJ’s, we fell asleep Saturday night dinner at 8pm. We are party animals.

Today we met up with Ellen and went to one of the numerous Christmas Markets in town. This one is called Tollwood – it is all eco-friendly items and food. It had food and booths from all over the world. We had Polish food for lunch, German Glühwein to drink, and a crepe to top it all off.

I even made a saguaro sighting!

Here is Noah and Ellen standing in front of a recycled flower statue with solar panels.

After Ellen dropped us back off at home and we took a break to rest our feet, we decided to explore the area around our apartment. We walked over to the train tracks, found a McDonalds for those days we want to feel like fatty Americans, and found a few places to walk the dogs.

As we made our way back home, we stumbled upon this little ole thing (Schloss Nymphenburg) just a few blocks away.

After feeling in awe of our new lives, we headed home. We passed by a pizza place, and decided to use our wonderful German skills to order dinner. As we sat to wait for our pizza, Noah says he thinks we just ordered two, not one. It turns out they have a special Sundays - buy one get one free. We think Noah’s wonderful German made them believe we knew what we were doing, so they didn’t try to get out of giving us the free pizza. At least that is what we are telling ourselves.

After the past three days, this place is beginning to feel like home. And pretty soon it will be – exactly 1 month from today we leave Houston with a one-way ticket. We definitely realize how lucky we are, even with Noah not realizing to look when someone is taking his picture. :)