Happy New Year's Eve!

I have returned safely to Deutschland. I heard many comments about my blog during my trip....I'm too wordy, but I'm a good writer.....I write too much about my cats, but I'm a good writer....I write about the mundane and don't share the really interesting, but I'm a good writer....while I'll try to take this all to heart, don't expect too many changes.....

Departing Detroit on my birthday turned out to be a really good idea. My large suitcase was very heavy. I was very up front and told the lady at the check-in that I thought I was over the limit on it. Later, I pointed out to her that it was my birthday. So when my suitcase was almost 10 pounds over, she said, "Happy Birthday, you're all set!!!" That was a nice birthday gift!

I think I had the oddest seatmate I've ever had on any flight. The chicken dish had some gravy on it and she used her finger when she was done eating to get all of the gravy out of the dish. And then she licked all of her fingers and didn't wipe them off.....then she even licked the plastic covering that you peel back off of the food. It was gross!

No problems at all at customs in Amsterdam. It's so much easier to get into the EU than into the US. And I guess that work permit stamped into my passport helps too. But I HATE having a layover. It's just wasted time. I haven't had one in a while, but this reminded me how much I hate it.

I splurged and took a taxi home from the Stuttgart airport, instead of taking a train to Feuerbach and then a taxi the short distance. I figured that I didn't want to have to lug my 30 and 60 pound suitcases onto the train, so I just paid for it.

There was no way the sixty pound suitcase was making it upstairs. So I backed the car out of the garage and unloaded a bunch of stuff into the car that I have to deliver to various people right there on the sidewalk. Hope none of the neighbors were looking!

I picked up the cats....they seemed happy to see me. There were 20 cats boarding there! So the lady seemed okay with giving back my three. They seem a little weirded out....there's more meowing than normal and Cheese is currently sleeping under the covers (yes, I'm in bed at 1 p.m.), but other than that, I think they're just fine.

After four trips up the stairs (or what my Mom has taken to calling my personal gym), I have a few hours to lay around (not unpack) and try to sleep before heading to the New Year's shindig.

More to follow.......

Merry Christmas!

Procrastinator is in fact my middle name.

You Are Rudolph

Sweet and shy, you tend to be happiest when you're making someone else happy. Why You're Naughty: You sometimes stick that nose where it doesn't belong Why You're Nice: Christmas would be a sad affair without you!

Which of Santa's Reindeer Are You?

Auf Wiedersehen, Deutschland!

Or see you again, Germany!

The car is parked in the (hated) garage.
The cats are at the cat pension.
The out-of-office notice is on at work.
The neighbors have the contact info in the US.
The neighbors will take over my Kehrwoche if it snows.
The alarm clock is set for 4:30 a.m.
The taxi is ordered for 5:20 a.m.
The seat on the train from Stuttgart to Frankfurt is reserved for 5:51 a.m.
The arrival in Frankfurt is shortly after 7 a.m.
The flight departs at 10 something a.m.

The suitcase is not packed, but will be.
The heat will be turned down.
The dishwasher will be run.
The garbage will be taken out.

Better get going........

Catching up.....

This week flew by. Tuesday and Wednesday were both busy days at work.

Wednesday was St. Nikolaus Day here in Germany. On this day, the children are all supposed to put their shoe in front of their door and St. Nikolaus (Santa Claus) comes and fills their shoe with goodies, usually chocolates and perhaps a small gift. Well, I didn't get a shoe full on Wednesday, but I did get a stocking full on Tuesday night. My friend made me this stocking and filled it with chocolates and a tiny little book. I love traditions and holidays, but I wasn't expecting to participate in this one, so this was definitely a fun surprise!


Wednesday, we left for a business trip. But, because of the meetings I had, I couldn't leave until 4:30 p.m. And because we were driving, the trip took 8 hours. So we arrived around midnight. Then we couldn't find our hotel. And it took forever to find someone who could speak either German or English. So we checked into the hotel really late and went straight to bed. The next day was filled with meetings. Then in the evening, we went into the city, which was very pretty. And my colleague, using my camera, took a bunch of pictures. Here's one:
But what is it? Well, I asked the same question, because they almost all turned out like this. I had my camera set on night scene, which means that you have to hold it still longer, because the shutter is open longer. Apparently, he didn't. And apparently, he also didn't check to see if the picture had turned out after taking it. And then my battery went dead during dinner. So I don't really have any good pictures. Which I'm very sad about. But we did get a picture of how my soup was served at dinner...
It's a little blurry, but you can probably tell that that it is a small pot hanging on a stand over a tealight. It was a delicious goulash soup.

We drove back on Friday. I think that I drove for six of the eight hours. Somehow, though, when you can go 110-120 mph, it just isn't so bad to drive for that long. (Wherever did I get this need for speed???)

Yesterday, we went to the Christmas Market in Ludwigsburg. It's a Baroque-style market and was very pretty. But the camera drama continued. I had switched my batteries, but apparently, the batteries I put in weren't new. So after two pictures, they died. Here are the two pictures.

The Christmas pyramid is very popular in Germany. It's a pyramid of figures with candles and at the top there's a "fan," which is rotated by the heat rising from the candles. This one was oversized (about as tall as an adult man) and was lit with electric candles.
















This one's a little dark, I realize, but it's an angel. The body is sculpted out of metal and the wings and the circle are made out of christmas lights. These were standing high in the air, above the market stalls and were absolutely gorgeous.


At the Christmas market, I was reminded of how small Germany is, when I ran into some people from work. My friends were very surprised when someone loudly called my name and then I was hugging a bunch of people that they had never seen before....there were three of them and two of their spouses. I had seen the one guy at the Volksfest this summer, but the other two I haven't seen since I left Michigan. That was a really nice coincidental meeting!

Then it started to rain, unfortunately, so we left the market. Snow would have been nice, but rain so wasn't.

Today after church, I went back to the Stuttgart Christmas market by myself. I saw lots, bought a few things and ate some Bratwurst. Sorry, no pictures, because nothing's open on Sunday, so I didn't buy batteries. Well, I probably could have found them somewhere in the train station, but they would have cost a small fortune. Another funny coincidence today - the chairman of my company was signing oranges at a charitable booth at the Christmas market (don't ask me why oranges....). They were selling for 1 Euro and the money was of course completely for charity. I thought that was pretty neat.

Tomorrow and Tuesday should also fly by, as the days at work are packed with meetings. Tomorrow night, I will have dinner with my friends from Michigan who are also here on assignment. And then on Tuesday, I have to take the cats to the cat house by 6:30 at the latest, so I can't even work late. Especially because I will have to make three complete trips up and down the stairs to get each of them to the car. I am sure the lady will take good care of them, but at the same time, I hate having to give them to a stranger for 2.5 weeks.....Speaking of my cats, Miss Jemma was watching TV a couple of weeks ago....
If you look closely, you'll see that there's a cat on the TV - I guess she was trying to make friends......

Tuesday night, I think we're going to try to fit in one more Christmas market (they're fun and addictive!) and then it will be Wednesday and I'll be getting up way too early to get to the train station at an unlovely hour to be at the airport in Frankfurt at a reasonable time.

I'm sure I'll have no trouble getting out of Germany and hopefully they'll let me back into the States (I always seem to have the pleasure of having my luggage searched....). And then we'll head to Red Robin for some Diet Coke, a Turkey burger and endless fries..........

Happy Advent!

Do you have your Advent's calendar? I have mine....they're seriously so popular here. On December 1st, several people (without their own children) said that they had opened the first door on their calendar before coming into work. These people take their advent calendars seriously! My neighbors were nice enough to give me the gift of an Advent calendar, so I have been enjoying this tradition as well. (Mine even plays music!)

As my sister-in-law pointed out, it's been a while since I blogged (thanks for the reminder!!:). I guess I have been busy.....but what have I been doing? Well, after celebrating Thanksgiving twice, I started last week off by going to an Integration Seminar (you know, because I'm so poorly integrated here ;). It's required for all employees from other countries who are assigned here. It was interesting, but I didn't really learn a whole lot of new information. After two days there, last Tuesday night, I had dinner with my friend T. in the city. I decided that rather than pay the parking fees in the city, I would take the S-Bahn (street train). Plus, they're doing a campaign here right now about how we should all reduce our driving to protect the environment, so I've been feeling guilty about how little I use public transportation. (I mean, really, when it's still 50 degrees at the beginning of December, you have to think that something might really be wrong with our eco-system, right?) The problem was only that the stop which I took (Stadtmitte) has about 50 million exits (from the underground stop). T. said he'd wait at the top of the stairs, but when I got to the top, he wasn't there. So I called him and sure enough, I had taken the wrong exit. So I went back down underground and came up another exit.....wrong again. But this time, I walked above ground, past Starbucks and eventually found him. 50 million might be an exaggeration, but there really are at least 4 or 5 exits from the one stop - and they're not close to one another. Anyways, we drank some Gluhwein, which really doesn't fit to our overly warm weather, but was tasty nonetheless and then headed to a Thai restaurant for dinner, which was delicious!
Wednesday night the ladies from my church had a cookie exchange. But after "cooking" for Thanksgiving and being at the seminar for two days (including Monday night for dinner), I didn't have time to make any cookies, so I just said I couldn't make it. Stephanie came to my rescue, though, and baked cookies for both herself and for me. So I did go and it was a lot of fun...we decorated St. Nicholas canisters to hold our cookies and ate too many in the process.
Thursday night I had a dinner for work. The restaurant reminded me of Lazy Lizard, which was sort of unusual for Germany. It's a very popular Mexican restaurant in the city. The food was just ok, but I met a lot of new people and so that was really fun.
Friday and Saturday were not interesting - worked late on Friday and just generally recuperated from the high-speed pace of the past couple of weeks on Saturday.
At church on Sunday, we had a really beautiful Advent wreath. It's probably the nicest I've ever seen. We sang really low-key Advent (but not really Christmas) songs. Sunday evening, we visited a few Christmas Markets, but they weren't really as good as last year, so that was kind of disappointing. But the company was good!
And then, suddenly, it was Monday again!
Today after work, we went to the Stuttgart Christmas Market, which was lovely, just like last year. And although it's still 50 degrees or so, we drank a Gluhwein anyways (sort of obligatory at the Christmas Market...). I saw a lot of stuff and didn't buy anything - I need to go back on the weekend. (I'll try to get some pictures then.)
On Wednesday, I have to go on a business trip for work. It's a blitz trip: leave Wednesday at 4, drive for 8 hours. Meetings on Thursday. Meetings on Friday morning. Leave Friday at 11, drive back for 8 hours......
Then it's the weekend again and Christmas shopping and church......and then Monday and Tuesday are packed with meetings at work, Tuesday night I take the cats to the Cat House (really, it's called that in German) and Wednesday morning I have to catch the train at 5:30 a.m. to be at the airport in Frankfurt for my flight to Michigan!
I'm tired just thinking about it, so I'd better go to bed. I'll try to blog between now and the 13th, but if I don't: See you all soon!