das Wetter
I find it strangely coincidental that the German word for weather is “Wetter,” because truly, it could not get any wetter than Cologne (at least since we’ve been here).
Now, I’ve always loved the rain — slightly less now that I have two dogs.
This is what it looks like getting lost in the rain while walking a dog in Cologne. (This was taken in March).
But the rain makes it easier to focus on work, gives you an excuse to snuggle up and read a book, makes it acceptable NOT to go for a jog, but I’m over it. For so many reasons. One being that I get around by foot or bike.
For my fellow expats, it appears we have more to look forward to in Koeln. I pulled these stats off the World Weather and Climate Information page… apparently JULY is the wettest month of the year. Really? Really?
The facts:
- The months June, July and August have a nice average temperature.
- On average, the warmest month is August.
- On average, the coolest month is January.
- July is the wettest month.
- April is the driest month.
(Source: http://www.weather-and-climate.com/average-monthly-Rainfall-Temperature-Sunshine,koln,Germany.)
The last two bullets are absolutely shocking. Don’t put away those rain boots yet!
On the bright side, I may be more motivated to stay inside and study German.
Ha.
Mind your own business
Let me back up.
Starting about the week after we arrived in Cologne, Germans began commenting on how we walk Kaya. Now, Kaya is a tough dog. She pulls like a freaking reindeer, and we’ve been doing everything we know how to do in order to maintain control without actually hurting her (no pinch collars, no electric shock devices, no barbed harnesses … despite how tempting). One method we use is “the Caesar hold,” keeping the collar high up on her neck — per the recommendation of both the Dog Whisperer AND our German dog trainer — so she keeps her head up and can’t pull as hard. Now, she still pulls, which sometimes leads to her front legs lifting off the ground, and the occasional hacking noise escaping from her throat. While this may not look pleasant, it’s pretty damn obvious to me that the dog is doing this to HERSELF.
Well, not according to some.
The first two women who stopped us were fairly pleasant. The third, a woman in her 80s (we guess) with a walker AND A CANE, was not so nice. She took to screaming and pointing at us from across the street, while waving her walking stick and pantomiming our torture techniques — a theatrical performance for all 500 people waiting to cross the busy street! Rudolfplatz, for those of you who know where that is.
The dogs in Rudolfplatz. They look like tortured souls don’t they?
Fortunately, we found an apartment with a yard where we can run the dogs — helping exercise the devil out of Kaya before working on actual training techniques. So we thought. Turns out, yards here are just to look at, not to use, but our landlord made an exception for us — well, unless anyone else in the building complained. Tuesday of last week, someone finally complained, after first insulting us by asking for the SECOND time if we even live in the building (Yes, we still live in the building.) We’d more or less given up on the back yard anyway because there were too many “tasty treats” in the bushes, but it was the principle of it that really pissed me off.
Luckily for us, we discovered a new way to exhaust Kaya. We started training the dogs last week to run next to us on the bikes. A perfect solution! A way for Kaya to run without running away. This is something people do all the time in Cologne.
BUT (of course, there’s a “but”), yesterday someone disapproved. Another elderly woman approached Jeff in the park and asked Kaya’s age. He told her 18 months. Old lady says, in German, “Oh, that’s too young. You need to walk her next to the bike.” Jeff explains that we’ve been working with her, that this is how we exercise her so we can then train her, etc., etc. (probably in broken Deutsch, but I didn’t actually hear it). This isn’t good enough. So she threatens to take a picture with her cell phone and send it to the “Polizei.”
The Polizei!??!? Now this is just getting ridiculous.
Jeff promptly pedaled away, lady still sputtering about God knows what.
I’d like to point one thing out — this is a country where people put their human children on bikes before they can even WALK.
Anyway, enough with my rant. I have more important things to do … like take down wanted posters featuring my husband’s stunned face.
Cheers!
*An editorial note — for all the people who bitch at us, there are probably 200,000 who don’t. And there are many Germans here we absolutely adore. But, this was something I had to share.
Very weekendy weekends
Travel is nice, but so is staying in Cologne and just doing ‘normal’ stuff.
By normal, I mean, happy hours, friends over for dinner, cooking lots of yummy food, long and lazy breakfasts (notice the food theme?), walks with the dogs, bike rides. Enjoying LIFE at a slightly less frenetic pace. Of course, it’s still slightly more interesting when you can’t read road signs, still don’t have the Fahrenheit-to-Celsius conversion nailed down, and nothing’s open past 2 p.m. on Saturday to solve your flat-bike-tire issues.
Regardless, these past two weekends have been quite nice.
Germans and Lasagna: Last weekend we did not much. Had our authentic German couple friends (well, half German) over for dinner on Friday. We cooked lasagna and sat on our floor eating around the coffee table because we still don’t have a dinner table and chairs (table this week; chairs in JUNE!). We’ve heard getting settled can take about 6 months. I believe it, especially for those of us without cars.
Inspired by my recent Italian adventure, I have to say the Gshwankelkamp lasagna was pretty good. I couldn’t seem to get the sauce right and then realized it was because the wine I added was slightly nasty when sober. The evening before — when it was bottle number 2 — it tasted fine, so I kept carelessly adding it to the sauce. BAD idea. Anyway, the recipe I made was a derivative of this, if you feel like experiencing it personally. But, I never really follow anything to the T. World’s “best” lasagna, according to AllRecipes.com: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/worlds-best-lasagna/. I would disagree, but here are my slight modifications that make it better:
- On the sauce, well, there’s no sweet Italian sausage that I can find in Germany (and when I asked the butcher, he thought I was asking if he speaks Italian, so who knows), but since Germans like their pig, I just added ground pork, and to make it “sweet,” I added some extra fennel, paprika, salt, pepper, a little honey (sugar will do) and some red pepper flakes (I prefer spicy sausage to sweet anyway). I probably doubled the onion, garlic and spices in the sauce, as well, and I also added a fair amount of red wine and some balsamic vinegar, which I think makes everything taste better.
- On the ricotta filling, I added some minced garlic, probably 3/4-1 cup of Parmesan cheese (because you can never have enough cheese), two eggs and a couple tablespoons of basil. This recipe calls for straight ricotta, and you probably don’t have to add anything to it (especially the ricotta here, which is more like butter than cheese), but my mom is Italian, and she always adds parm, herbs, and at least an egg to her filling.
So, essentially, I didn’t use the recipe for much except cooking time and how to assemble the layers. Whatever.
Feeling French on Saturday: On Saturday, I was feeling French (not really) so made crepes out of the Joy of Cooking cookbook, which is the only one of about 100 cookbooks I brought with me. I figured it had most of the basics. And thank goodness for FoodNetwork.com. My main inspiration for Saturday’s breakfast: I really wanted to use the leftover ricotta as filling (with berries). So, we did kind of a crepe sampler — one with just butter, cinnamon and sugar, one with ricotta and berries, one with brie and honey, and one with just some weird cheese I was trying to get rid of. The winner: brie and honey. Here’s a pic of the crepe. Patience is the key ingredient on these bad boys. This is not a 30-min breakfast.
Crepe making. A lesson in patience.
Flat Tire and a Bad Day for Bikes: Later in the day, Jeff and I biked to meet a friend for lunch (more Italian) and then stopped to get some fenders and additional bike accessories. On the way home, I thought it would be fun to see how fast I was peddling by attempting to set off the radar on our street. About three standing and aggressive leg “strokes” (?) in, my pedal came off, and I had a near-death “stumble” (exaggerating a little bit since I didn’t really even fall to the ground). I still have a huge purple/yellow bruise and welt on my calf, and for a while, it appeared that I actually had two calf muscles. Braving the bike again, we took another ride around our hood later in the day, found the soccer stadium, and then about 10 minutes from home, I got a flat tire. Nothing’s open on Saturday after 2, so no more biking for me that weekend. Probably a good thing.
Biergarten Sunday: Sunday we took the dogs for a walk, strolling to a nearby biergarten (well, probably 2 km each way). Kaya pulled the entire way, and patient Jeff pretended to have a good time.
Here’s Beeze at the biergarten.
This past weekend was also loads of fun and included “Derby de Mayo” and our first German concert, but more on that later. This post is already way over the readable limit!
Ciao!
Your message is as clear as … poo
Jeff and I took the pooches for a long walk to the biergarten yesterday. On our way home, we found numerous messages along one particular stretch in a nice neighborhood and on a well-groomed, tree-lined walkway. These signs were held down by … doggy bags:
Your message is as clear as ... poo?
We took a picture so we could Google-translate it later. Literal translation:
“And who is its processing to that shit now my clear away?
-I do not care?
Then allowed to grow very quickly throughout the problem-a huge. not for them. only for those of us who live here.
-The city?
They call it there please and let you know that they have disposed of that shit here.
Or perhaps they?”
I find the output of Google translate to read a lot like old English, bringing me to flashbacks of literature classes when I struggled to uncover meaning in a language I was/am fluent in.
Regardless, my takeaway was that these residents are not pleased with the dog shit in their ‘hood.
Later in the evening, Jeff and I witnessed a local get out of their car, dispose of their garbage in a bush along the park, and then proceed to go enjoy the gorgeous garden they’d just soiled. We had a front-row seat to this brazen act.
Perhaps subconsciously taking a clue from the silent poo protests we’d witnessed earlier, we Google-translated this message and placed it under their wiper blade:
“Bitte legen Sie Ihren Müll, wo es hingehört. Danke.”
Translation: “Please put your garbage where it belongs. Thank you.”
Dogs on a German Farm
I am in Florence with my dear friend Lindsay, staying in an amazing (free) guest house and thinking about the journey to get here (more on Firenze later).
First and foremost, I do not have the luxury of a stress-free girls’ weekend when Jeff is also flying. Must find home for the hundes. Thanks to Deb M, who is constantly saving the day, we found a great boarding facility on a farm in the sticks for 29 euro a day (cheap). The owner is a vet, and the place is great! Big dog rooms with heated floors and a doggie door to a fenced in outdoor “garden kennel.”
The catch — it is 22 km from where we live and about 20 euros, two hours, and a huge pain in the ass away by train. Thanks to a friendly post on the “friends and family” Facebook page, Zuhkra and Ilenia saved the day. Car ride to the farm!
Lindsay had the pleasure of joining us. All good, minus the rush hour traffic. This particular place only allows drop offs between 8 and 9 hours or 18 and 19 hours (6-7 pm). Standstill on the autobahn. Not something they advertise.
Lindsay joined us for this particular ride, with Kaya on her lap and Breezy panting by her side. We got somewhat lost in the process, only to discover some roadside goats that prompted Kaya to growl, scratch at the car door, and let out some stinky excited farts. Meanwhile, I am struggling getting clear English directions (why would I speak German in Deutschland?).
We finally arrive. Place was perfect and as described above. I made everyone aware that Kaya can squeeze through tight fence posts and that Breezy is required to eat out of her special bowl to prevent choking. I got a pretty standard response on the fence thing — “in 12 years, no dog has ever escaped.” famous last words, but so far no phone calls.
The remaining journey was pretty simple. I’ve never gone from my house to the Koln/Bonn airport on my own. Aside from my EC card having “insufficient funds” (thanks, sugar daddy), and an illegal ride on the 1 train, things were smooth. Fortunately we got tickets for the S Bahn because we were checked, and I don’t wanna get locked up.
Then to German Wings, where the flight attendants (at least in the ads) still look like Charlie’s Angels. I’ve heard from everyone that this particular airline is all about “nickel and diming.” I was pleased. It may have been our fare, but for 66 euros, I got to Pisa with one free checked bag and an actual sandwich and coffee on the plane.
One more short train ride to Florence, and we arrived in one of the tastiest, most artistic, exceptionally fun-loving, and incredibly chaotic cities anywhere. I love it!
More to come (and please forgive grammar and spelling errors. I’m typing this on an ipadlet).
Dogs and monuments
Today, we took the dogs for a long walk to explore Cologne. Here are their first tourist stops.
The famous cathedral, called the Dome.
A solo Breezer shot from another cathedral location.
Kaya looking out over the Rhein … and construction.
A European Adventure 