39 weeks pregnant

The last of my pregnancy photos, here I am at 39 weeks. I was still pregnant for another two weeks, but don't think I was growing anymore at that point. The shirt is different from the one I was wearing at the beginning, which still fit, but this shirt was new (a nursing tank top from H&M), and I was wearing it already.

Jeremi and the noodle factory

Back in July, my company had it's 5 year anniversary. They official date was actually in april or june at which point we (the employees) got the bosses/founders a golden horseshoe for good luck in the future. We were told about a month earlier to keep this day free and that we might not be getting back until midnight. They kept the plans of the day a surprise until the end.

We left the office at 9 and went to the Steinberg hotel, a very nice hotel in downtown Jena. They had booked a conference room there and we went through a couple of presentations about how the company come to be, what was going on and what was going to happen next. Breakfast was also served there.

Then we got onto a bus and went to Riesa. We still didn't know where we were going at this point. Riesa is about 2 hours east of Jena, a is the site of a Noddle Factory!! The surprise was a day at the famous Riesa noodle factory. You may never have heard it but it was quite well known in the GDR (Eastern Germany) since well... they were the only noodle producer around. But now they export all over the place including Canada. There export name is Il Mondo or something Italian sounding.

We had some noodly lunch at there restaurant while waiting for the tour to begin. A food service intern gave us a presentation on the process and the company and play a video. Then we go to go around the factory and see all the pasta making machines in action. I think big industrial manufacturing processes are pretty cool so it was fun and interesting. It was also hot! The rooms are kept at around 40°C or so for drying the pasta.

We couldn't take any pictures of the actual process but here we are after the tour.

We all had to were hair nets and sanitary gowns. Here's Jörg with his still on.
Then we made our own supper at there cooking studio. The two ladies on the right were there to help us out and guide us in the right cooking direction.
Aprons were supplied but we had brought our own (another surprise), and they said "Cooking quality together" (I work for a software quality assurance company called Xceptance for those who didn't know).
Micha and Heike hard at work.
Everybody else hard at work. The kitchen was nice and huge as you can see.
I didn't get pictures of all the dishes, it was a 5 course meal. 6 with the pre-appetizers that were made for us before we got there. There were giant shell noodles filled with either chicken salad or something mexicany (or asian, maybe) that I can't remember.

The first course for which I have no picture was a spaghetti rösti. A rösti is usually a potato pancake and possibly swiss. This one was made out of panfried spaghetti instead.

Next we had a linguine timbalo see below and expertly presented.
Fish on a bed of orzo pasta and a nutty sauce.
This was my groups creation, chicken breast and vegetables en papillote with sundried tomato pasta on the side.
I'm also missing a picture of the desert, caramelized pears with sauce anglaise on thin pasta dumplings.

Everything was delicious and everyone was overly full. Fun was had by all.

Thüringen Schäfertag, and 37 weeks pregnant

My last day of work was July 31st. This isn't because I took maternity leave early, but rather because I took my Mutterschutz (mother protection) time late. Women in Germany are allowed to take 6 weeks off before their due date with full pay, and 8 weeks afterward. (Parental leave, at 67% of after-tax salary starts after that.) I only took three weeks off, because I thought 6 was too much, and everyone thought I was crazy. In reality, I probably should have worked longer, as once I was off I went a little nutty, and by the last week I barely wanted to leave the house. I think this was my version of nesting (which involved no manic cleaning, unfortunately).

But before I became a hermit, I was still interested in getting out and doing things. On August 1st, Jeremi and I planned a trip to the Thueringen Schaefertag, a festival of all things sheep. We'd heard about it from someone Jeremi knows from rugby, who's a veterinarian, and knows all the sheep farmers in the region as a result. This is their annual festival, with a sheep herding contest for our state, master spinners, wool products, sheep milk products, lamb (to eat), and various other attractions.

I was mostly interested in the wool of course, and the spinners, but figured it would be a fun day regardless. It was looking like the weather would be good, and I thought it would be fun to ride our bikes there. Jeremi thought it was crazy to plan a 50 km bike ride in my 38th week of pregnancy, so we took the train to Mellingen and only rode 30 km.

While passing through a village on the way, Tiefengruben, we noticed some people hanging up quilts at the entrance to a courtyard, and stopped to see what they were doing. They were holding an impromptu (and free) quilt exhibition they said, and invited us in to look around. It turns out that this was a group of women from around Thueringen who meet monthly during the winter to quilt, and talk about quilting. Once a year, in the summer, they meet to air out their quilts, which gives them a chance to socialize and show off their handiwork. When I told them about the quilt that Jeremi made, and that he'd made it as a wedding gift in place of a ring, he was a celebrity. He was brought around to meet all the women, and they even took pictures with him. They just couldn't believe that a man had made a quilt, let alone a giant one with over a thousand pieces.

Here are a bunch of the quilts. Some were really awesome, and there was quite a variety. Some (like the large one in the middle here) were made with hand-dyed fabric, there were some machine-pieced and some hand-sewn, some made from old material while most were made from purpose-bought new fabric. What was interesting to us, was that many of them had no batting, but were just a pieced front and a solid back, sewn together. In these cases, it seemed to be more about the piecing than the quilting. There were also some that were plain fabric, with really elaborate quilting. All in all, a really fun, random thing to stumble upon. The setting was quite lovely as well.







We made it to the actual festival after noon, which meant that we'd missed most of the shepherding and spinning, but we did get a chance to pick up some cheese and lamb sausage, have a look at some wool, and eat some lovely roasted lamb. The event was also held at something like a pioneer village, except that the centuries-old farms and houses didn't belong to pioneers of course, this being Europe. Instead it was called an open air museum, with buildings that had been transported there from around the region.
Here are the shepherds who were competing that day, with the winner holding the trophy. They all had elaborately carved staffs, with small metal shovel blades at the end, and wore woolen vests with multiple rows of small white buttons. Every older trade in Germany has a sort of set uniform, such as the vests and corduroy pants with the double-buttoned flap worn by carpenters, and what you see below seems to be the traditional garb for shepherds.
The day was hot, and the festival ended around 4:00, so we decided to stop at a nearby man-made lake on our way to the train home, and go for a swim. And so you get to see me at 37 weeks of pregnancy plus one day, in a bikini, no less!
Also, we included a picture of one of the wicker structures that line the beaches along the North Sea, and also at this lake. Because it's not actually all that warm, and rather windy, it's nice to have some shelter when sitting at the beach, so people rent these little huts you can sit in and sunbathe. When they're not in use, they're locked up with a wooden grate, as seen below. Jeremi thought this was the funniest thing he'd ever seen.
And here we are, just before we got back on our bikes to ride to nearby Kranichfeld to catch the train home.

36 weeks pregnant

The title is self-explanatory, I think. Here I am at 36 weeks of pregnancy, getting bigger all the time.

Beach Rugby in Bad Köstritz

In July, some of the rugby boys got together for the Beach Rugby tournament in Bad Köstritz, a small town close to Jena also home to the Bad Köstritzer brewery (sponsors of the tournament). Beach rugby is played on two adjoining beach volley ball courts and pits 5 players against 5 (of a team of 8 max) for two 5 minute halves. It's not an overly serious tournament as you will see from the pictures. Many of the teams had some kind of themed costumes or at least a routine at the end the game. There was a sailor team, a team with womens underwhere, a team with funny hats (those were all men's teams), a Rugby Barbie team, a team dressed like men but then had a little stripping routine (women's teams) and there was us.

We were Care Bears! We had fushia/pinkish wife beaters with each are own care bear symbol on it. Here is Good luck bear (Brent) and Sunshine bear (Andreas). The Erfurt team apparently has a tradition of out-gaying us which they were easily able to do this year buy dressing up as various gay stereotypes: Village People, long mustaches, very shorts cut-off jeans, etc.

There's me in the middle trying to clean out some much better players.

Rene might have sand in his eyes.

Two man ruck.
Smile Sunshine Bear.
"Running"(ambling) on sand is tiring. I was Cheer Bear.

Nice tackle.
Getting ready for our Care Bear Stare (TM). 4, 3, 2, 1...

This is also a pretty international tourney. There were teams from France, England, Czech Republic, the Netherland, and possible russia (they seem to have a funny routine at the end of every game that nobady got). And they all got to see Paul (who is on my Rugby team but wasn't playing that day) run a lap around the court in his sexy new bikini.


It actually belonged to a girl from our girl's rugby team who was a spectator that day. Amazingly enough it still fit her afterward.
The park where we played also had a pool with a slide which was great for getting the sand off after we were done playing. Much fun was had.
I had to go before the big party that night (there was also a party the night before) but later on Brent gave me the "prize" we won at the tounament (we didn't actually win any games). It's a little sandal
With a USB drive inside.
And it says "Beach Rugby Bad Köstritz".
Super cute.

Grit's move

We used to take part in a German Stammtisch, which was a weekly meeting of people who wanted to speak German together, mostly foreigners who wanted to improve their language skills. It was organized by our friend Grit, who is from Jena, and who was doing her Master's at the time in German as a second language. She's now teaching at Cornell, but was back for a while to visit this summer. During this time, she moved all her stuff from her old apartment in Weimar to storage at her parents place, and wanted some help with some of the bigger stuff. As such, Jeremi and some others were called upon to carry some things, while I, being pregnant, and our friend from France, Marie, who had twins in March, were invited to start the garden party early at her parents' house. Here we all are after the moving was done, enjoying a nice afternoon and some food in her parents' garden.
The garden was lovely, with koi swimming in the pond...
...and the family's parrot listening carefully in the background, so he could collect new sounds. (He's quite talkative, and can imitate all sorts of things.)
Here I was checking out Marie's twins, Antonin and Marjane, to have some idea what we'll be in for...

Estec Meeting

Over the past two years or so I've been involved in a feasibility study funded by ESA, the European Space Agency. I was part of a team looking at the utility of a potential new satellite to measure carbon dioxide, using a new technology. It was one of six earth science-related satellites competing for a launch around 2015. After a competition in Lisbon this January, the CO2 mission didn't make it through until the next level, but we still had to finish up the report and present it to ESA. And so I found myself, 8 months pregnant, on a 9 hour train trip to ESTEC, the ESA centre in the Netherlands, on the North Sea.

The train ride was terrible, the meeting was okay, but the view from my hotel room was wonderful. At least there are some perks!


What was less wonderful was my trip back the morning after the meeting, when I had to wait in driving rain for the bus to the train station, and got soaked to the skin. I really wasn't prepared for the weather, and hadn't brought an umbrella. Luckily, I was wearing mostly linen (it was really warm when I left Jena), so at least it dried quickly... And back to the view, so I end on a happier note.

Jeremi's staples

Yup, those are staples in my head.

It was just an ordinary rugby training night when I collided head first into another teammate's head. He was ok (eventually) but I had a small cut right where my hair line starts above my forehead. It was bleeding a lot so a couple other teammates brought me to the emergency room. It was pretty slow on that Tuesday night and they saw me right away. They gave me two choices, stiches or staples. Since staples are faster and don't require anesthetic I went for them. Unfortunately they had to shave a small area around the wound. Now I have a tuft of hair right at the front that's trying to turn into bangs. It's not overly noticeable yet because it melds into my hair line but it will be soon enough.

Our haul from IKEA, 31 weeks pregnant, and a Mediterranean feast

As part of our getting-ready-for-the-baby preparations, we decided that we needed to get some stuff for the house. Some of it was directly baby-related, while some of it was just to make life more comfortable. (For instance, curtains in our bedroom seemed like a good idea, after more than two years without. If we're really supposed to be able to nap during the day, it seemed like it might help.) And so we decided to head to Ikea, where we knew we'd be able to get a lot of these things for pretty cheap.

Of course, the nearest Ikea is in Erfurt, about 50 km away, and we don't have a car. We didn't let that stop us though - we decided to take the train there, and then the tram, and then the bus. (Ikea isn't located downtown next to the train station, of course.) And we brought two big backpacks so we could bring our haul home.

While this pile might not look huge, believe me, it was a lot to carry! Especially when one of us was 31 weeks pregnant...
Speaking of which, here's the photo of me at 31 weeks:
Luckily we had some good food already prepared, including homemade hummous, baba ganoush, dolmades, a salad, and stuffed eggplants, so after our long day of hard shopping and schlepping, we were able to enjoy a veritable Mediterranean feast that night. It looks pretty good, doesn't it?

Grilling in Paradise

While I know it's something that we've mentioned in passing on the blog before, going to the park to have a BBQ is sort of a cult-like activity here. One park in particular, which is called Paradies (thus the title of the post), fills up pretty well anytime the weather is remotely nice. It's mostly groups of students and young people, but there are some families to be found as well. You'll find people in other parks around the city, but not usually in the same concentration. To give you some idea of what the crowds look like:
And do you see the clouds of smoke rising above the whole field? Sometimes, when the air is very still, it gets to be almost like a fog. Here's a picture from later the same night, which shows the smoke even better. (In the foreground are members of the Spanish Stammtisch, who had organized this particular grilling party. Neither of us speaks Spanish really, but they let us hang out with them sometimes all the same.)