Diese Woche in Kürze / Week in a Nutshell

31. August, 2014

This week I...

• ...wrote letters to my children, who are now both in college. The hand-written kind of letters, sent via snail mail, that take 5-7 days to arrive.


• ...startled my husband, who was watching TV in the living room, with a shocked gasp when I discovered a typo in a blog post I had just published. I apparently used my "OMG, SPIDER!" noise, because he leapt out of his massage chair to rescue me.


• ...spent a day in Stuttgart (walking through the Rosensteingarten, a huge park) and Herrenberg (wandering the Altstadt). Forgot to turn off my GPS tracker when I got on the train - AGAIN! - so the data is screwed up and I don't know how to fix it.


• ...wrote the following memo: "Seriously, Fruit Flies, STOP drowning yourselves in my wine! I'm sick of it! And what is that noxious odor of nastiness you emit when you expire? Knock. It. OFF!" They didn't get the memo.


• ...linked two of my day trip blog posts in a blog hop on Young Germany. Wondered whether I should be participating; I'd hardly call myself young!


• ...wished from afar that I could have helped my son move into his college dorm on Thursday. Unlike a lot of parents who lose their minds a little when a kid (especially the youngest) goes off to college, I am nothing but totally excited for him and can't wait to hear about his experiences - the ones he's willing to tell me about.


• ...learned that a 9-year-old accidentally shot and killed her weapons instructor with the Uzi (a semi-automatic machine gun?) he was teaching her to fire at the Bullets and Burgers gun range in Arizona, USA during a family vacation. Just when I thought I'd heard the most ridiculous of U.S. gun "regulations," I find out that children as of age 8 are allowed to fire semi-automatic weapons in Arizona. Boy, was I cheated out of a childhood. My parents didn't even let me play with matches at that age. All I had were dolls, model horses, and stuffed animals.


• ...rode the Stuttgart U-Bahn for the first time.


• ...attempted, with M's help, to bake my first Zwetschgendatschi (Bavarian plum cake) with Zwetschgen the neighbor shared with us from his plum tree. It wasn't bad!

• ...successfully created and inserted a table on a page of my blog, so now I have a list of German words I commonly use here along with the English translations.

• ...for the fifth time this summer, did not go to the historical city tour of Horb as I had planned. The first time I got the meeting point wrong. Twice, including today, it was chucking down with rain. Once there was a town festival going on and I couldn't find a place to park. Another time we'd had a big lunch at our favorite restaurant and I crashed on the sofa instead. I've got two more chances in September.





...passed on another opportunity to drive on the Autobahn to Esslingen.

Diese Woche in Kürze / This Week in a Nutshell

24. August, 2014

This week I...

• ...finished (assisting with) the translation of texts for a German city's website.


• ...pondered whether this weekly update is narcissistic and whether anybody really cares what I am up to, settled on yes and no respectively but decided to carry on when one of my favorite readers told me she liked last week's update (in part because it was shorter than my usual posts).


• ...finished one of the five books I was reading last week. Now I'm still reading four, three of which I'm enjoying. Too stubborn to quit the one I don't like.


• ...wrapped a baby gift in a "green" way - you've heard of this, right? You box up the gift and wrap the box using a receiving blanket or one of those little hooded baby bath towels for the "wrapping paper." Secure the blanket with ribbon instead of tape (because you would use the ribbon anyway).

• ...bumped into some fellow Americans in a pick-and-pay flower patch and initiated a conversation with them. This is my first face-to-face contact with Landsleute in the area since moving here in 2012.


• ...spent a day exploring Nagold, a lovely town not far from here with lots to see including castle ruins on a hill above town. I took 176 pictures! They have little - if any - information about their town in English. Considering contacting them about translating their website and/or city tour brochure.


• ...shivered. Often. Too often for August.*


• ...started another novel called Borgia Bride. I'm back to reading five books at once, six if you count the tour guide book about Nagold that I browse through and read bits of every now and then.


• ...wrote part of this list while my husband mowed the lawn with his new lawn mower.


• ...gave a spider two days to decide to relocate, then asked my husband to "deal" with her.


• ...read lots of blog posts by other expat travel bloggers and enjoyed pretty much all of them! I love reading about others' experiences, even though it is showing me that my topics aren't really all that "new and different"!


• ...wrote to the editor of the local newspaper to tell him I am really enjoying the "Photo Puzzle" they've been doing. Every two days they print a photo of part of a building in Horb with a description of its historical significance, and readers are invited to call in with their guess as to the name of the building. I've known them  all so far! Got a response from the editor, in part asking me what lured me to Horb.


• ...ordered this as a Vorspeise (appetizer) at our favorite restaurant and made food noises because it was so unbelievably delicious. Gefüllte Mozzarella auf Tomaten mit Rucola: Filled Mozzarella on Tomatoes with Arugula. Filled with what? Heavenly deliciousness. I would not have believed it were possible to make this salad more savory than it already is, but he did it. This man - the chef and owner - is a magician.

• ...spent Saturday evening asleep on the sofa for nearly three hours after the above dinner.


• ...took pictures of my husband making Rouladen for a future blog post.

*Update: M just built me a fire in our Kachelofen.

Diese Woche in Kürze / This Week in a Nutshell

17. August, 2014

This week I...

• snagged the idea from another expat blogger to start a weekly update. I'm not sure if I'll do this regularly, but I enjoyed reading her lists!


• tried a new recipe for Apricot Chicken, which turned out to be terrible! I didn't expect my husband would like it (because it had chicken and apricots in it instead of steak), but even I thought it was disgusting. Blech!


• started on a translation of a city's website, beginning with a detailed description of what is offered at the city's Christmas Market. Started looking forward to Christmas.


• emailed my bestie (best friend) back in Wisconsin.


• had way too much free time. (I'm in week 3 of the 6-week summer holidays in Baden-Württemberg.)


• realized I'm reading five books at once right now (a novel, two travel guide books, and two nonfiction books about ancient Rome and Vienna in 1888), four of which I'm enjoying.


• continued my reading, research, and note-taking to prepare for upcoming trips to Vienna and Rome.


• went for a leisurely 3.5 km hike around Horb.


• contemplated quitting Facebook again. I don't like Facebook at all, but I would miss seeing what some of my friends and acquaintances are up to!


• expanded my expat & travel blog reading list from two to about ten, then sat around impatiently waiting for everyone to publish more posts!


• put off yard work.


• learned a new word - pablum! I had never heard this word before, so I typed it into my online German-English dictionary, and the German word (Blödsinn) made the meaning clear to me. Love it when that happens.


• ordered "Bäckchen vom Jungschwein" (cheeks of a young pig) at our favorite restaurant. SO delicious! That totally made up for the nasty apricot chicken business.

Yes, those are the facial cheeks. The meat is wonderfully tender because
the cheeks are muscles the pigs use a lot when they're young.

• wrote this list while my husband cooked goulash for tomorrow (we've been told that should always be cooked the day before you plan to eat it)


• then helped him prepare tonight's meal, Ostpreußische Schusterpastete (one of our favorites).