Robin turns 33!

We celebrated Robin’s 33rd birthday last week.  He decided he wanted a Fanta Cake (which I had never heard of before, but I found a recipe and it turned out pretty well). We also went on a walk in the fields near our house and enjoyed a nice evening at home.

I made an invitation for him (yes, I made an invitation for just him to his own birthday party. What fun is a party if you don’t get an invitation?)

His cake

A tree we saw on our walk.  I can see this tree from other places and I find it fascinating that this lone tree is just standing out in the middle of the fields… it is all alone and has to face the wind, rain, snow, and whatever else comes it’s way year after year.  It must be a strong tree.

This was another tree we saw on our walk, it had such beautiful flowers that I just had to take a picture.

Some BUNNY is watching me

This army of chocolate bunnies has been occupying my house for about two weeks. At 9 inches tall and with 200 grams of chocolate each, they make quite the impression. Very intimidating. They seem to pop up when least expected. They never do anything, they don’t say a word… they just sit there. Staring. We will be evicting them this weekend. They are Easter gifts for our neighbors.
So long bunnies! See you again next year!

The big 3-0

Yes, I (Erin) turned 30. It seems strange to me because in my mind, I am still 21. We had a nice little celebration at home the evening before. Typically in Germany, you absolutely do not celebrate a birthday or wish someone a happy birthday until the day of their birthday. You can also celebrate or wish someone a happy birthday after their birthday, but not before. I’m used to being more flexible than that. Besides, my birth certificate is wrong and says I was born March 2nd, when my mom insists I was born March 3rd… so, I get two birthdays :)

My cake this year was something special. Really special. I have been wanting to try out using fondant. I made the fondant myself using marshmallow fluff. I made two layers of a pound cake I enjoy. I saw somewhere that chocolate chip cookie dough could be used as a filling between cake layers, so I tried it out. I think the cake tasted good, but one slice (per day) was enough (maybe a little more than enough).

This is us singing Happy Birthday to me (yes, I sing along on my birthday, I can’t help it).

The next day we went to Hessen Park. “Delve into a fascinating world of more than 400 years of rural life in Hessen. This includes originally furnished houses, permanent exhibitions – e.g. about tower clocks, a historical post office and glass smelting – as well as historical craft and farming technique presentations and a great variety of events. On nearly 150 acres and in over 100 historical buildings the Hessenpark Open-Air Museum offers you a unique opportunity to experience at close quarters how people lived and worked in days gone by. “

I quite enjoyed it. The buildings were lovely.  There is a market place that is open to the public (it includes shopping and restaurants/cafes). We spent so much time in the market area that we didn’t actually make it in the museum.  Fine for me – we saved the entrance fee and it gives us a reason to go back.

Entrance

An example of the buildings. They were really pretty and many of the doors were amazing too. One thing I didn’t get a picture of was writing that some people put on the house. They would write who built it and when. For example, one house said it was build by Johann and his wife (I forget her name) and even though the house is theirs, it isn’t theirs because it will go to those who come after them.

This is the market place. The weather was cold and misty (I can see it in the picture).

They had a whole house filled with printing things. There was a man there had planned to make a career working on printing presses (like they used to do) but as time went on and new technology was introduced, he had to change and learn the new ways. He loves printing presses and explained it to us. I forgot to take pictures until the end, but the room was closed, so this is what I got from the door.

Proof that we were there.

This picture and the next one were things that struck me as funny. Can you imagine someone putting this sign on their desk?!?

This is a mini-sized abacus. They showed all kinds of calculators older and newer and this little abacus was just sitting there in the middle.

We had a wonderful day!

Spring is… Springing

Spring hasn’t sprung yet, so it is springing. Like last year, we plan to grow plants on our balcony. I have been planning and diagraming it out this year. We will grow morning glories, peas, tomatoes, strawberries, raspberries, and a few other things. The seeds are starting to sprout and the plants from last year (strawberries and raspberries) are starting to show signs of life (and the whole time I was worried that we had been keeping dead sticks on our balcony in hopes that they would grow).

(yeah, the forget-me-not’s…. I bought them)

Fasching = Carnival

Robin and I went to a Fasching Parade today in Dieburg. Fasching is the German Carnival. Robin went to this parade when he was a child and thought I might find it interesting. I certainly did! Almost everyone was dressed in a costume. Not just an ‘I went to my closet this morning to see if I could find something weird to throw on and call a costume’ kind of costume. The costumes were well planned and many seemed to plan the costume together with a group of friends. We saw groups of frog princesses, cow boys, teddy bears, hippies, and almost anything else you can imagine. It wasn’t just young people participating either. EVERYONE participated (70+ year olds walking around in blue wigs…!). Robin and I did not dress up :)

I took two films and a few pictures of it to give you a taste of what it was like.

See the cowboy in the picture? He was handing out cups of beer from the back of his float. Lots of groups threw candy out for the kids and a few groups passed out small bottles of alcoholic beverages to adults (drinks with approximately 30% alcohol content Robin told me). That is one of the strangest things I have ever seen! I was shocked. Robin said that is how it is here. I’m glad no one tried to give us a drink.  Many people marching in the parade were enjoying drinks of their own too.

The parade had 111 groups participating in it.  We only stayed until group 33. By then I was cold and ready to go. All in all, we had a nice time. Will we go back next year? Umm, we will see.

Everyday Life - Part 6

DEEP FREEZE

It has been very, very cold here the past 2 weeks or so. The temperatures haven’t risen above freezing. Several countries have had lots of snow, airports have been closed, small towns have been cut-off from the outside, and for some, traffic has been a nightmare.  I read a news article saying that the penguins in the zoo in Landau in Rhineland-Palatinate haven’t been swimming in their pool and won’t come out of their heated cave. Now, when the penguins won’t come out, you know it is cold.  There have even been pictures like this one from the Associated Press in Switzerland:

Comparatively, where we live, it has been that bad. Yes, it has been cold, cold, cold, but we have hardly had any snow at all an our temperatures never got below –20 C (-4 F). This is the thermometer on our balcony – the left side is the temperature in Celsius, on the right it is in Fahrenheit.

This is the grand total of snow we got – maybe a centimeter. Maybe.

If every winter were like this, I think we would give serious consideration to a warmer climate. I know I certainly have no problem with 75-80 F everyday year round…. I am looking forward to the temperatures getting to freezing again… and above.

Everyday Life - Part 5

Very old things are a part of everyday life here in German. Very, very old.  Last weekend we visited the ruins of a Roman Villa.  The ruins are as old as 130 AD (they think). That is old, old, old.

This is a scale model of how they believed the ruins looked.  I tried to label everything.

My favorite part was the bath area (probably because that is where you could see the most).  There was a changing area and three bathing rooms each with a different temperature – a warm bath (#3 below), a lukewarm bath (#2), and a cold bath (not shown).  They had a water heating system that allowed the water to flow from one bath to the next (from the warm bath to the cold one). The water then flowed to the toilet (#8).  The white stuff you see dusting some the the stone in the picture is snow. Yup, there was a little bit of snow there… it was cold.  It is hard to see from the picture, but #9 is where the water flowed out of the bath area – out and away to some location unknown to me.

This is a picture of us.  We are standing in front of the toilet because my camera battery was about to run out and I didn’t have time for us to move somewhere else.

Robin is taking a look over the ruins.

This pillar had religious significance in this villa.  It was a Jupiter Pillar and stood about 10 meters tall (about 30 feet). From what I read, this pillar was a mixture of Roman-Celtic worship that was often practiced in the the Northwest Roman provinces.

Here is what is left of the main building.  The walls are about 2 feet high.  They seem to have had a heating system in this building as well.  The water was heating in a small “room” just outside the building.  A slave or other servant kept a fire going there when the head was needed (a really good picture of this can be found on the website here - http://www.haselburg.de/rundgang.html#haupt). The heat went under the floor and also through the bricks in the wall creating what was probably a pleasant temperature.

This site is about 14 km (about 9 miles) from where we live therefore, it belongs to the category of every day life.