Our 3rd Germanniversary

Today marks our 3^rd Germanniversary!  This means we are continuing our annual tradition of looking back and reflecting on the top and bottom moments of our 3^rd year in Germany.

Here are the top moments of our 3^rd year in no particular order:

• Noah finally checking off ‘Go to the World Cup’ from his bucket list 
• Celebrating 10 years together (our first date was back in Austin, TX in September 2003)
• Making our 2nd trip back to the US in February, this time to see Julie’s brother get married
• All of our European travels, with our trip to Norway topping the list
• Noah perfecting his flour tortilla recipe so we have fresh flour tortillas regardless if anyone has visited from Texas recently
• All of the guests we hosted / family and friends we met in Europe this year (as we reached our 3^rd year, the amount of visitors decreased as most people came the first 2 years – so those who came, we really appreciated it!!!
• Discovering the photo app Foap, and selling over 80 photos for $5 each between both of us – one photo (pictured) even won a mission/$150!! 
• Finally spotting the bird (an owl) that we always knew was in Nymphenburg Park. For 3 years we always saw people looking at this one tree in the park/pointing binoculars or telephoto lenses at the tree.  We would always stop and look up too, but we never saw what they were looking at.  And we never cared enough to ask someone.  On January 1^st Julie finally spotted an owl – that was it!!!
• Julie discovering the American Burger Bar that is close to her work – a food truck selling cheap burgers ran by a guy from Philly 
  

And now the low moments (also in no particular order):

• Noah coming home from the World Cup with Traveler’s Tummy - it took him over a month to be back to 100%, but he doesn’t regret a single meal.
• Julie being sick over Thanksgiving, meaning she couldn’t eat any of the pies made to take to work
• Shortly after this, Rita got sick – meaning 4 days in a row we came home to diarrhea all over the rug (I had photos of the poo, but Noah said I should keep it classy)
• To continue the poo theme – there was a 2 week span where we stepped in dog poo 3 times (once Noah, once with shoes for Julie, once BAREFOOT on the beach for Julie)
• Having a few uptight folks around the neighborhood be jerks about the dogs.  As we HATE stepping in poo, we pick every last one up from our dogs.  But this doesn’t stop a few grumps from yelling at us to ‘pick it up’ – when they are peeing!  I just ask if they have a cup and walk away.
• The time Julie screwed up two different neighbors’ dogs…  Julie was walking Sadie and Rita before work and saw a little white dog wandering around the street and no one around.  She thought she recognized the dog from a certain house and picked it up and put it in their front yard.  A few houses down she noticed a front gate wide open, but just went home to leave for work.  The next day she realized that the 2^nd house had the same white dog in the front yard…. It was just the same breed as the neighbor down the street.  So instead of helping out, she 1) freaked a neighbor out when they opened their door to find their dog’s doppelganger out front and 2) freaked a neighbor out when they couldn’t find their dog in the front yard.  At least they sorted it out.
• Noah couldn’t repeat his Roche Tennis Tournament victory from 2013 – he dropped from 2^nd place to 20^th (out of 25).  To be fair to Noah – his prior year’s success made them seed him in the top tier (where last year he was in the middle tier).  This meant that he was the worst of the best, but that the middle and bottom tier players had more wins in their sections, leading them to be ranked higher than Noah.  Or so he says…. 
• Julie had a guy at Oktoberfest try to flick up her skirt to see up it when she stood on a table to dance (we were at Oktoberfest with Intel).  Julie immediately spun around to the jerk, and tore him a new asshole by demanding an apology, lecturing him on women’s rights, and kicking him out of the table behind her.  The rest of the night he came over 5 additional times to apologize again, and Julie’s coworkers were now a bit scared of her.  Noah thinks he peed himself a little.  And the joke’s on him: Julie always has shorts on under her dress, so he didn’t even get a peep.
• Julie discovering the American Burger Bar – a YEAR after it opened!  So many missed burger opportunities. 

Here’s to less shit and more good times for our 4^th year in Germany!

Another Munich New Year

We have enjoyed a wonderful two-week break from work with no responsibilities but the dogs.  Almost every day we have slept in and then decided how lazy we want the day to be.  Mostly we have been watching movies, doing lots of jigsaw puzzles, and eating good food.  I’m sure there were a few days we would not have made it outside if it were not for the dogs (thanks girls!).  Just when our laziness streak was beginning to violate social acceptableness, we had visitors come and pull us up off of our butts for Silvester/New Year’s Eve. 

As a side note, this year marks the 3^rd Christmas in Munich without snow.  However, as mentioned before, the day after Christmas it started snowing and didn’t stop for the rest of the year.  This was probably the most snow we have experienced since moving to Munich.  Therefore, this is the first time we’ve captured Munich so detailed in the snow, aka there are plenty of snowy pictures coming up! 

Our new friend Jason, who is a Houston-native now living in Mannheim, came into town with two of his friends, Jorge and Carolina.  We met up first on New Year’s Eve, and I joined our guests on a free, guided walking tour through downtown. 

Odeonsplatz in the snow

I learned a lot of incredible new stories about Munich, although it was no real surprise that most of them involve beer in one way or another.  For instance, many years ago the opera house had once caught on fire and the relatively modern gravity fed sprinkler system was put to the test.  Unfortunately, it was winter and the water for the sprinklers was all frozen which called for a plan B.  Because of the proximity to the Hofbräuhaus the officials called on the locals to form an assembly line and pass mugs of beer down to the Opera house to put out the fire.  Well unfortunately, most of the locals started drinking the beer as it came down the line, which meant not enough beer made it in time to save the Opera house.  I don’t know if it is true and I don’t really care, this story is just too funny.

After the tour, we warmed up at our apartment before going out for a lovely Indian dinner.  Our upstairs Colombian neighbors joined us as well, who shortly after New Year’s moved back to Colombia.  This meant Julie and I were the only pathetic ones who could not speak Spanish (seeing as Jorge is Cuban, Carolina is in fact Colombian herself, and Jason just happens to speak Spanish too).  It made for a lively mixed language conversation with hints of German, Spanish, and English mixed in.  As usual, the food at Taj Mahal was incredible.

We continued on our tradition of doing the German custom of “Bleigießen” fortune telling, where we melt lead trinkets and recast them into randomly formed shapes via cool water.  The new shape reveals what is in store for the following year.  Just like previous years there was plenty of arguing about the interpretation of the shape.  Where I was certain my new shape was a golf club, other people were dead set that it was a sperm.  Since neither option was on the list of interpretations, the group settled on a frog (tadpole), so my fortune for 2015 is that I will win a lot of money in the lottery.  Julie’s snake meant she is due for some haters this year (“people are envious of your success”). 

Before and After shots of Julie's Bleigiessen

We finally made it to Hirschgarten about 11:30 with our fireworks and alcohol in tow.  Thanks to the snow, we were able to pull our cargo down to the park via a sled, although we were missing the rope to properly secure things to keep them from falling off every 20 feet.  Soon the cargo was carried by hand, and replaced by Julie looking for a free ride. 

Due to the foot+ of snow on the ground, we couldn’t post up in the field.  Instead we had to keep to the groomed walking paths to start our fireworks show.  We rang in the New Year with prosecco, homemade cupcakes, and 12 grapes each to go along with the war zone of fireworks surrounding us.  

Between the two group shots, both of us are captured

By 1am we ran out of drinks and fireworks, so it was time to return to the apartment.  Our party had only just gotten started because we all stayed up and celebrated until 3:30am, when Julie was the first to throw in the towel.  Go us!  Lucky for us, we had rested up plenty the prior weeks and were actually able to properly party. 

All in all it was a really great way to start off the new year – surrounded by friends (new and old), fireworks, and family (Julie and the pups).  Here’s to 2015 and everything it will bring! 

PS - Here are a few more snowy Munich photos just because. 

Snowing in Nymphenburg park

Across from our apartment

Hirschgarten aglow from smoke and fireworks

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!

Pangea Party III

We recently hosted our 3^rd annual international potluck party, aka our Pangea Party, where we gathered up our eclectic international friends and made them make food/drinks for us.  As it took me 2 weeks to get to writing this, Julie is back-dating this entry so our blog stays in chronological order.

To represent America this year, we made chili, chips and guacamole, chocolate chip cookies, and chocolate cupcakes.  They were all huge hits as every last crumb was eaten up by the end of the night. 

Making the chili

It was a bit surprising to realize that very few of our friends from our first two years in Munich are still here as we finish up our 3^rd year.  Many of our other international friends have moved back home while we are still hanging around – it seems like most people we know stay only a year or two on average.  It makes us realize just how long we have been living in Munich and how it is difficult to sustain long-term friends here.

Anyways, for those who are still here and made it to the party, thanks for bringing us some good food and drinks!  Our guests from Spain brought homemade sangria, empanadas, deviled eggs (huevos rellenos) and a Spanish potato-tortilla dish.  There was cheese from Switzerland, Caesar salad from Canada, panettone and aperol spritz from Italy, pierogies from Poland, and lots of good wine and cider to wash it all down (France/Sardinia).  It was also Eirini’s birthday, and she brought a huge German Torte (cake) to share. 

Yes, Julie hung up my American flag from the World Cup… normally we are not that patriotic

The evening was very pleasant and much more chill (less alcohol consumption – too many designated drivers) than the last few years.  The wildest moment of the night goes to Sadie (our dog) who at one point stole a cookie out of the hands of 2-year-old Leo.  Sadie knows better than to steal food from people, but it is hard to fault her when his small little hands rest at the exact height of her mouth.  Typically in her dog life, when someone puts food near her mouth, it is a treat for her.  To her credit, she did not bite his hand, but it did not matter to Leo.  The poor guy was gutted from losing his irreplaceable cookie (the other cookies offered to him were not his).  Sadie had to sit in time-out for 30 minutes for being a naughty girl.  I guess this is a preview of life with dogs and kids (and no, Julie is not pregnant).

After the really nice evening ended, we packed up the few leftovers that remained, including a carton of orange juice that we stored in our fridge.  We had a big surprise some days later when we offered our guest Max orange juice with breakfast.  As he poured himself a glass, it came out a deep purple!  He was thinking perhaps it was blood orange juice when suddenly it hit Julie that this was actually left over sangria transported in an orange juice carton.  Oops!