The cat's big adventure

Friday afternoon there was a party at the Beutenberg campus, where my institute is located. I only got the email about it a few hours before, but Jeremi had to come in to sign a couple of forms so they could be faxed off anyhow, so I suggested that he come and have some beer and bratwurst (which is what's found at each and every party around these parts). I wasn't sure if I was going to go, as I had a lot of work I wanted to do, and I had a German class from 2:30-3:30, ad the party started at 2:00. And so I sent Jeremi off to the party with Calin and Susanne and I headed off to class.

After the class I stopped by the party for a quick beer, and then another, and to enjoy the Blues-Brothers-esque band (called the Gangsters of Paradise) until the rain started, and then I concluded that I wasn't working any more that night. Calin and Susanne were thinking that only two beers was no place to end the evening, so we decided that they should come to our place for supper and a few more drinks.

We made some korean food for them for supper, including an incredibly expensive jar of kimchee that we were able to find here, which really didn't taste right at all, as it was pasteurized. Still, we managed to make half-decent kimbop and mung bean pancakes (don't remember the name).

And then we started playing cards, which then evolved into drinking games. Around 2:30 or so Calin decided to call it a night, but Susanne and Jeremi and I were still going strong. Around 3:00 we realized that we hadn't seen the cat for a while, and then we started looking for her, but she wasn't coming when we called and we weren't able to find her anywhere. While I was checking the balcony for the second or third time I looked down to the street below, just on a whim, and saw the cat pacing back and forth in front of the building.

We're still not sure whether she fell or she jumped, but somehow the cat ended up something like 5 m lower from where she started, and none too pleased. Of course she wasn't hurt, but she was a bit stressed. And so a drunken Jeremi and Susanne and Julia ran down the stairs to get her. She came right inside, and I wanted to carry her back up, but Jeremi thought that she should walk so she knew where she lived. And so of course she ran into the cellar and into one of the storage spaces. Eventually we caught her, and I carried her upstairs.

She was fine after all this, pacing around a bit, but seemingly not too concerned, and she (so far) hasn't decided to make a habit of this. I'm just glad that she had the sense to stay close to the building, and that she didn't decide to tour the neighbourhood. Ah, the cat.

And since we don't actually have any pictures of this incident, I'll throw in a random picture from sometime last week. You can never have too many pictures of the cat, right?

The Longest Day

Last Thursday was the longest day ever for Jeremi and me. Mostly because it was the longest day of the year, and we're living further north than we ever have before, but also because it got off to a bit of a rocky start.

Jeremi got his visa before coming to Germany, and it's good for a year, so I'd assumed that he didn't have to register at the Ausländerbehörde (the foreigner's office) the way that I had to. But then about two weeks ago we received a letter telling him to report there by June 22nd, and to bring with him all of his documents, including a few that he didn't have (like a work contract or university registration). We were pretty sure that his visa was okay, but it was still as a little worrying.

Not that I'm fluent or anything, but I speak more German than Jeremi does right now, so I said that I'd come with him. I also brought along my work contract and our lease (which is in my name) and a pay stub from work, to show that we make enough money. I also didn't want to wait until the last possible day in case they asked us to bring in something else, so we decided to go first thing Thursday morning, the start of the longest day.

The office opens at 8:30, so we left home around 8:00. (It actually takes a bit more than half an hour to ride there, but I was still impressed with how early we set off.) It was pretty overcast that morning, and as we were riding away I mentioned that it looked a bit like rain. We hadn't gone more than a kilometer or so before the rain started, and within 10 minutes it was pouring, complete with thunder and lightening, and we were soaked to the skin. Really, really soaked. Luckily all the documents were in my backpack, which has a clever built-in rain cover, but we were completely wet.

When we got to the office and went inside I realized how really wet we were. We were leaving puddles everywhere we walked, and Jeremi had stepped in some silty mud, so his puddles were brown. When the correct room was free (corresponding to the first letter of his last name), we went in, and sat on the padded chairs, soaking them through completely. The woman was quite nice though, and insisted that we sit down nonetheless.

What was a bit creepy is that when we walked into the office, not having checked in anywhere, she already had Jeremi's file pulled up on her computer, complete with photo. I'm sure she just reviews the people who have been sent summons, but it was still a little big brother-ish. Then she looked at his passport, and asked him (through me) several questions about exactly what he was doing here. Was he working? Was he enrolled at the university? Was he searching for a job? (He's not officially job searching yet, as he'd have to register at another office to do that.)

After trying my best to explain that he was going to eventually look for a job, he was here with a visa that would let him just travel, or work, or study, or do nothing at all. She gave us some forms to fill out in the hallway, and went to speak with her supervisor.

The forms took us a while, as some of the technical bureaucratic language can be a bit obscure, and she gave us the version of the forms that are written in German, Serbian, Turkish, and Greek. (I'm almost certain that there's a version with French and English and Italian on it, but I didn't want to piss her off after soaking her office furniture to the point that they had to change them before the next woman in line could go in. They sent someone to mop after we walked through the hallway too. We were that wet.)

Once we'd done our best with the forms and she'd come back from discussing with her supervisor, everything was cleared up. It turns out that Jer really is allowed just to hang out with his visa - it's only that they'd never seen this type of visa at this office before. It's a pretty new program that he'd applied under, and it seems that he's the first person under this program to end up in Jena. (Not surprising, as we've yet to meet another Canadian here, since Corinne left in March.)

And so we could head back home, back into the pounding rain (which was still going, contrary to what I learned about the duration of thunderstorms). Going back out was much worse after sort of warming up in the office, and the whole ride back to work for me was with chattering teeth and aching cold fingers. Jeremi went home of course, and had a nice warm shower and put on some dry clothes. I went to work, and borrowed a T-shirt and a sweater from some colleagues. I was frozen all day, despite the many pots of tea I drank to try to warm up.

I also worked a bit late, as things were going pretty well, and I came home to yet another delicious Jeremi-made wonder, this time some dal and rice, with the most delicious pakoras ever. Here's a picture of me (in the borrowed yellow T-shirt) enjoying the feast, and below is a close-up of the feast.


And after a late supper I ended up working some more from home, until a bit after midnight, while Jeremi slept on the couch and the cat groomed him, thus ending the longest day ever. (Sorry for so few pictures, but we luckily didn't have our camera with us out in the rain.)

A sleepover in Cospeda

This weekend we sort of went away for the weekend, but only to Calin and Susanne's place in Cospeda, which is just up the hill from Jena.

But we didn't actually head there until Saturday afternoon, so Friday night we were home for a delicious supper of deboned and stuffed chicken, roasted potatoes and carrots, and a green salad. I worked really late on Friday, and was it ever nice to come home to such a nice Jeremi-prepared feast.

Then on Saturday Calin and Susanne drove into town to pick out some movies and to drive us up the hill. It's really not so far away, and not so bad for walking up, but on a bike it's murder. It's better just to get off the bike at the bottom of the really steep part and walk up, but I insist on riding until I'm almost dead, and then walking for a while, and repeating the process. This time I was also intent on riding up the hill nonetheless, convinced that if I keep at it I'll be able to ride all the way up by the end of the summer, until some incredibly strong thunderstorms started rolling through just before we were leaving, complete with hail. This changed my mind, and I accepted the offer of the ride after all.

Last time we were up there for grilling Jeremi ate a truly prodigious quantity of meat, which he heartily enjoyed, but Calin and Susanne were intrigued by our stories of BBQed vegetables and bread as well, so they asked us to prepare some veg to bring along. And they supplied us with some nice trout, shown here with Jeremi,

and we brought a variety of marinated vegetables as well as some bread dough.

All in all, the food was marvellous, as was the company, as were the several beer and five bottles of wine, which consisted of two rose, one sparkling rose (Rotkäppchen, which translates to little red riding hood, from a winery near here), and two red. And so Calin slept through most of both movies, Jeremi slept through half of one, and we were all a bit slow-moving this morning. Still, we had a nice leisurely day of watching movies and trying to do crosswords in German.

Finally, a little before 6:00, Jeremi and I headed out for the walk home, which was a very pleasant one across the big nature preserve behind their building, by the monument to the 1806 battle against Napoleon's troops there, and through the woods, where we had fun playing on the circuit training course set up there (one of a few in town, I'll have to get pictures of us doing them one time), and on a giant teeter-totter. And then back through town, where we stopped to check out the graveyard surrounding an old church. The graveyard has been around since at least 1307, but the church wasn't built for another three hundred years or so, which I thought was funny.

And then while heading home I realized that we were walking on Straße des 17. Juni, or June the 17th St. Seeing as today was actually June the 17th, we thought it worthwhile to take a picture.

Upon getting home we asked Wikipedia what that was all about, and it seems that in 1953 there were big protest against the labour (and other) policies of the soviets in East Berlin and across East Germany. Many people were killed during these protests and afterwards, with estimates ranging from 55 to over 250. Before reunification, June 17th was a holiday in West Germany to commemorate this fact, but this holiday has since been moved to October 3rd, the date of reunification. You can read more about it here.

Oh, and Happy Father's Day!!!

For the admirers

Get better Marie!

camouflage

Here are just a couple photos from around the apartment that are only interesting because of how well the object blends in with the surroundings. Firstly, here's a moth that was hanging out in our bathroom. It was there for a couple of days, and then I found it dead in the bathtub. Okay, so not a nice end to the story, but it was a really lovely turquoise moth, and it really did match the tiles in the bathroom well.

And here's the intrepid Aeris, camouflaging herself expertly on the most recent used couch in our apartment. We got this beauty and the matching chair for only 29 €, and it goes so well with the cat!

last super active Sunday

Last Saturday we went for a little bike ride from Jena to Camburg via a nice trail that goes along the Saale river. I was a nice sunny day and really good for biking since it was the only way to get a breeze in the heat. Our first stop, if only for the photo op., was in Dorndorf where we saw a Maibaum (Mai=May and baum=tree, so May tree). This has something to do with some old spring time pagan ritual. They're decorated with tinsel and put up on May 1st which is like labour day in Canada.

This one also has a bunch of rubber duckies tied to it. Another pagan ritual? Who knows?Just across the river from there and up a cliff was Dornburg and the Dornburg Schlösser, which means palaces. Three in fact: one renaissance, one rococo and the last old, whatever that means. Here's a nice view of Dorndorf from the Rococo Schloß.The palaces are built right on the edge of the cliff and there's grape vines growing on terraces on the side of the rockface. And interesting plants like this giant-leafed tree that almost ate Julia.
There were also many pretty gardens.




Then we went to Camburg and on our way there saw the biggest pool ever.You may be able to see it better if you click on the picture but this pool took up like an acre of space. It also had a floating trampoline. I know, pretty cool.

The little town of Camburg


was photographed from this tower which was part of an old castle. This is the first time Julia encountered a strong Thüringer accent (I don't have enough of an idea what's going on yet to experience accents yet) and a German that spoke louder to be understood.

It has about 180 stairs and...
these funny looking statues that represent the founders of the town or something.

There were also very short little videos about the town and legends surrounding the castle. They were a little weird and designed for tourists because they had very little dialog. In one of them, a Bratwurst vendor gives a sausage to the ghost of the town's patron saint.

Thüringer flag on the tower. Thüringen is the Bundesland (or state) in which we live.

On our way back we stopped at a lake for a swim. This was a man-made lake created by flooding a field, so maybe more like a big pond. But it was nice to go for a swim.

last drunken Saturday

Last Saturday Jeremi and I had two invitations for afternoon activities - Raul from my German class invited us to the park by the river for some grilling (a very German thing to do on the weekend), and Calin and Susanne invited us for drinks and then supper at the brew pub just west of town, on the way to Cospeda, where they live. (Cospeda is really part of Jena officially, but it's up on the plateau above town, and feels more like a smaller town.)

So firstly we stopped by the Paradies Park, by the river, to meet up with the grill party, most of whom were either Spanish or related to someone from Spain. Oh yeah, and us. On the way to the park we stopped at the market downtown to pick up some cherries and tomatoes as snacks, and we came across a group of Portugese drummers. There's a sort of Portugese festival going on in Jena right now, with a bunch of musical performances by artists from Portugal, Brazil, and Mozambique (and possibly elsewhere). There's also lots of capoeira, and other vaguely Portugese-related things. For such a small town, Jena really does seem to always have some sort of festival or something going on. Anyhow here's a picture of the drummers. They sounded more interesting than they looked, of course.
And here's a picture that Jeremi took of me and some of the others hanging out at Paradies Park. You can't really tell here, but it was wicked hot, at least 30 degrees, and sunny. Interestingly, neither Jeremi nor I has gotten the least bit sunburnt here, despite the fact that we don't have any sunblock yet, and I blame the dirty European air. We were outside all day last Saturday and Sunday, with blazing sun, and we're only slightly tanned now. In Canada we'd be lobsters after doing that in mid-June.
As we had to go meet Calin and Susanne, we had to leave after the first food was just coming off the grill, and we rode our bikes out to the Papier Muele (paper mill), to meet up with them and their friend Franz, an Austrian guy who's considering moving to Vancouver for grad school. We gave him our mixed impression of life on the West coast, but he still seemed to think it was a good idea. Here's Franz having a beer.
And here's a picture of Jeremi and I having one of many beers that day. We had already had a couple at the park with the grilling (three for Jer and two for me), and then we had several more over the course of the afternoon/early evening at this bar (seven more for Jer and six more for me). You must remember of course that these are half litres as well, and though the average bottled beer is not as strong as that in Canada, the Papier Muele makes their own, and some varieties are a bit stronger. In any case, 4-5 litres of any beer is enough to get most people drunk on a hot summer day.
After supper, Calin and Susanne and Jeremi and I headed downtown to go for ice cream (in the case of Calin and Susanne) or a small second supper (in the case of Jeremi and I). And after this we decided to head to the Mexican restaurant for the end of "happy hour", which runs from 9:00-midnight every night, and involves half-priced (€1,90) margaritas. After a few of those (alas, no pictures), we decided to call it a night.

And so we headed home, rather drunk, to prepare for our epic bike ride the next day. But you'll have to read about that in the next post...