back in Germany

Hello everyone! After a very busy few weeks, including our wedding and a whirlwind tour through half of Canada, we're back in Germany. I promise that we'll blog about it soon, but it'll have to come in installments. We're having trouble with our internet connection at home as well, which isn't helping things much, and we're only in town until Friday afternoon (about 48 hours from now) when we've got to catch a train to Berlin for our flight to Cairo. So no promises about blog progress for now, but do keep checking. We'll do what we can. And yes, the cat is fine. Better than fine, actually. Somehow her fur got significantly softer while we were away. I'm not sure if it's just the summer, or if our apartment-sitters brushed her more, or if they snuck a little olive oil into her diet (they're Italian), but she looks and feels wonderful. We'll get some pictures up soon, don't worry. And now back to chipping away at the mountain of emails in my inbox...

the cutest pillow ever?

Although there's only one in the pictures, there are two sweet little dresses like this one sported by the pillow.



And the back, complete with bow.



I'm counting down the hours now - in 27.5 I'll be on a train to Frankfurt, and in 49.5 I'll be on a plane to Toronto. (I'm not counting it in days and nights, as sleeping isn't really something that I'm doing much of lately.)

an ignorant foreigner in the kitchen

The day after the crazy Swedish party my German teacher (from the courses at the institute) and his wife (who is also a German teacher) had their students over for a party. They live a bit west of town, right across from a nice brew pub (the Papiermuehle, for those who know it), and their backyard backs onto the Leutra, a small tributary of the Saale river. It's a really beautiful spot, and they have a nice little bridge built across the water as well.

Pretty well all the guests were foreigners, and we were asked to bring a dish from our countries. Always a tricky one, coming from Canada, but I opted for Aunt Gail's tourtière recipe, which everyone loves. I figured it would go over well with Germans too, as it's pretty well just pork, potatoes, and a crust, with some inoffensive seasoning. That is, unless you're a stupid foreigner and buy "Mett" instead of ground pork. "Mett" looks just like ground pork, is sold next to ground pork, and pretty well is ground pork, with one important difference - it's salted. And you wouldn't know this if you didn't taste it before cooking it, which of course I don't usually do with raw ground pork. As such, the tourtière was almost inedibly salty, which was really a shame, as it's usually so good.

I looked up Mett on Wikipedia, and found that not only is it common in Germany, but it's eaten raw. I know this isn't any more dangerous than eating raw ground beef, but I grew up always believing that you have to cook pork all the way through (which isn't true as long as whatever is fed to the pigs is free of parasites or cooked first), so the idea is still a bit hard to take.

What's even better though, is that a party dish popular in the 1970s is the "Mettigel" (literally, the seasoned meat hedgehog), wherein you shape the Mett like a hedgehog and make spikes out of raw onions or pretzel sticks. The pictures are too good not to share.

This one even has a raw egg yolk for a hat!

This one uses the aforementioned pretzel sticks, but I don't think they really gave it much effort with regard to shaping or decorating...
And how do you eat it? Spread on bread of course. While I'm sure it's good (in fact, I think we may have eaten it once at a restaurant or festival), I don't think it's going to catch on as standard potluck fare in Canada anytime soon.

Rest assured, I shouldn't be making too many more ignorant-foreigner mistakes in the future, as at the party my classmates and I were presented with our results from the German language test we took back in April. We all passed! But really, we more than passed. I got 99.5%, Fabio got 100%, and Valentina had 96%. I think the lowest mark in our whole course was still in the upper 80s. So now, I officially speak German. Jeremi took the same exam back in February and also did well - my German course was much less intensive, and we really only did the exam for kicks. Still, it's nice to have some official recognition that I sort of speak German...

some more dresses...

So I've been a bit bad about the sewing posts. To be honest, I've been a bit bad about the sewing too. But I did finish the bridesmaids' dresses a couple days ago, at least as finished as they're going to be before I can try them on the actual bridesmaids. (That means that they're not hemmed, one end of the straps is still not secured, and the lining, while attached to the outer dress at the top, has not been fully hand-sewn in place.)

I tried to take a picture of me wearing Marie's dress to give an idea of how they looked, but the pictures didn't come out so well. Either I used a mirror and I got only flash, or a slightly out of focus picture of part of me, like this...


...or I tried to pretend that I had long enough arms to take a pictures of all of me, and it ended up more like this. At least it gives some idea of what the beading looks like.


I have much more understanding now of why so many self-portraits people post on the internet look so crappy. Luckily help came this evening in the form of Calin and Susanne. In addition to helping me tidy my apartment, Susanne also acted as Marlene's body double, and Calin was our photographer. Hopefully these pictures give you some idea of how the dresses look...



Unfortunately, none of us fits into the flower girl dresses, and this was as close as Aeris would come to trying one on.



And yes, I know that I'm pathetic for needing my friends to help me tidy my apartment. This has never been a strength of mine, and I've been really busy of late with sewing and work. And of course Jeremi's not around to help. As Marie explained, "tidying is the first thing to go". I can't express in words how true this is for me. Now I just hope that Marie's dress fits better than the cod costume did.

Binding

This is the binding of the quilt on the clothes line.

It’s long. At least I think so. But it is about 3 feet (1m) too long. The binding is the part that goes aroung the perimeter of the quilt joining the top and the backing. It’s also the last step and it’s about 85% sewn on already.

Gardening update

When I got back from Pomquete there was a poppy out.

Unfortunately, it was one of the seedling that was already on the verge of blooming when I bought it and not one of the seeds that was planted or any of the other seedlings that might be the right colour (red). This one also didn’t have a picture of the flower with it when I bought it and when I asked someone what it was to make sure it was a poppy the endless fountain of knowledge that was serving me answered “They’re perennials!”, which was what was written on the label in the biggest lettering. The other ones don’t seem to be flowering unfortunately L.

Here’s the garden with lots of basil and other herbs as well as tomatoes, peas, onions, cucumbers, beans and spinach.

A bed of poppies that doesn’t look hopeful.

Herbs, herbs and herbs

Pomquet Fun

Two weekends ago, Marie, Ian, Jennifer and I went to Pomquet. Pomquet is where Marie grew up so her lovely parents, Michael and Lorraine, were forced to put up with our wacky antics. Jennifer is from Antigonish and spent the weekend with her family.

The first night we had a few drinks and played some Trivial Pursuit. It was an edition from the 70s (early?), so we were absolutely awesome at it (sarcastic tone). Eventually I passed out and the others went to bed.

On Saturday we went to the beach. Unfortunately it was quite windy and Maricicle (Marie + icicle), Marie’s frozen persona, came out. So we retreated to the boardwalk that's a little more inland and tried to hangover-read the interpretive signs.

Later we went to see Marie’s grandmother at her Rockathon, a social event to raise money for the community. There were finger sandwiches and several squares, cakes and other assorted desserts. We also got to hear Marie’s aunt Joanne sing beautifully. Her and her accompanists were kind enough to supply background music, as she called it, for the event.

We went to the local Sobey’s to stock up on supplies for the night and, in full Neo-Scotian form, there were highland dancers there dancing to raise money for something.

And yes Julia, I did give them some money for taking this picture.

That night we had a big spaghetti supper with everyone mentioned so far plus Veronica and Paul. Delicious.

Then it was off to Marie’s grandmother’s house for a night of song and hanging out. Sylvain, Marie’s uncle, has an extensive record collection and rather eclectic taste, so there was something for everyone, or almost. We also had Paul, Veronica and Marie who played guitar and sang awesomely. And drunker on me and Ian dragged everyone through all of American Pie while trying to remember the lyrics. Scenes from the night.

After the night was over (3:30ish) we went back to Marie’s parents place which was across the street. Marie jokingly remarked of a car that was turning onto the road from a neighbouring driveway that the driver was probably drunk and we would have to jump in the rather deep and wet, and thus muddy, ditch. Ian unfortunately didn’t detect the lack of seriousness in Marie’s voice and promptly threw himself in. This did not help his already sore back. I went in shortly after to help him get up. He didn’t need my help but I did get to experience the incredible muddiness of the ditch.

Sunday was father's day and we had a steak fest at Marie’s grandmothers house.

The steak was prepared by Sylvain and was well-seasoned, beautifully charred on the outside and perfectly raw on the inside. They were also huge.

We had a lovely late lunch with all the fixings and hung out on the back porch and enjoyed the view.

Before leaving we went on a short hike to Brown’s beach.

Fun weekend.

A crazy amazing Swedish midsummer's party

Last Friday I was invited, along with some other German Stammtisch-related people, to attend a Swedish midsummer's party in Hütten, which is really as close to the middle of nowhere as I think you can get in Germany. Amanda, who is Swedish, and who I met at the Stammtisch in Jena, has been spending the last while doing volunteer service at a youth hostel-education centre where they run workshops for school groups and interested people on environmental topics. (At least that's what I understand of it, I may not have all the details right.)

In any case, it's a lovely place for a party, as it has a nice courtyard, an industrial-sized kitchen, and plenty of beds for everyone to sleep over. Her parents were visiting from Sweden, and they helped prepare the party as well, even bringing special decorations.

The central decoration was this:
I'm not sure what it's called, but it's not a Christian cross with a couple of wreaths on it as I'd originally thought - rather a giant phallic symbol with wreaths for testicles. They built it themselves, and it was decorated with leaves and flowers that are in season. (The pink ones are digitalis.)

Here in the foreground you can see a little model of what it traditionally looks like - I'd say they got it pretty well perfect!
And the whole decorated table... (Yes, that's my knitting on the left.)
And of course we had lots of traditional Swedish food as well, such as a gratin with potatoes, anchovies, and cream (called frestelse in Swedish), and this most beautiful smorgastarta (savory sandwich torte), which contained layers of bread and creamy fillings like egg salad, smoked salmon and creme fraiche, shrimp, capers, etc.
Not to mention the incredible decorations on the outside...
As the night grew darker we started learning a Swedish drinking song, which Amanda had written out for all of us on sheets. I can still remember the tune, but not the words so well. I think it's called "Halun gor" (with a little circle on top of the "o"), but I might be wrong. What I do remember for sure is that everytime you finish it you have to drain your shot glass of vodka. We sang it several times.
Valentina is seen at the left, committing the song to memory...
They also had these nice burning logs which I've seen a few times now in Germany. They cut the logs down crosswise, deeply in 2 perpendicular lines, and then not so deeply in two other directions. Then they get the fire started with some paper or lighter fluid inside, and it makes a nice lantern. Apparently they're called Swedish something-or-other in German, but the Swedes there had only ever seen them in Germany.
And again without the flash - much blurrier, but it gives a better idea of what they really look like.
And then we began to dance around the phallic symbol, singing a song in Swedish about having no ears and no tail, with actions to match.
Pagan much?
There were a couple other circular dances...
...and then we all went back to drinking and learning German songs. (While there were a number of foreigners there, German was still the language of the evening.) We sang a few rounds, including a quadrilingual version of Frère Jacques, and passed around the flower crown. I think that Valentina definitely deserved to be crowned the Midsommerkönigen of Hütten, however.
Although there were competing bids from me,
Chiara,
Jörg and Grit,
and the lovely Marie.
And here's a rather off-centre self-portrait of Frank (the teacher of the German songs) and Valentina, quite late in the evening at this point.
In all, it was a wonderful party, and a great way to spend the shortest night of the year, even if Saturday was a complete write-off. But more on Saturday and my disastrous cooking in the next post.