Possibly Apocryphal Story About Helmut Kohl

A couple we met while apartment-hunting told us that Helmut Kohl, former German chancellor, has the water you see pictured at left bottled and shipped to his home in Bavaria, 350 miles away. Apparently he so loved the tap water when serving office in Bonn that he couldn't do without it once he left, and it's still all he drinks. The water here is indeed quite good, but of course everyone buys bottled water anyway, alas.

p.s. On an unrelated note, Kohl means cabbage, remember?

Thoughts on Hitty Cats

In one of the apartments we checked out yesterday, there was a long-legged, lithe, all-black kitten, really similar to Sandya's cat Jake (or Bobo, as his friends call him, pictured here) as a youth. Same body type, same sort of short, shiny coat, same amber eyes... and the same temperament. I let the kitty sniff my hands and it got all archy-backed and coy and I started the petting. Then came purry and lovey for about three seconds, but before I knew what happened, it smacked me with both front feet! So offensive! Freaking venus fly trap.

Which ties in nicely to an idea I've been formulating, that cat qualities come in clusters. For example, there seem to be three kinds of black-and-whites. Oscar's kind of black-and-white has a super-soft coat, has short legs, and tends to be small and round like a sausage (or should I say wurst, given the Germany-related nature of this blog); accompanying personality features include general ferocity and a propensity to bite and to fetch. Another kind of black-and-white has more white and tends to have a bigger build. The third kind is almost all black with small patches of white on the chest, face, and feet, and these kitties tend to have slightly longer hair. As for the all-black* cats, Jake is clearly a different kind from X, who had a more bear-like build, longer, less-fluffy hair, and a more stoic temperament; I've met other cats that are X's kind. This new encounter suggests that there might just be a Jake kind, complete with a tendency to lure and hit. Keep your distance from cats that look like this one unless you want to get slapped.

*Jake maintains his youthful, all-black appearance with a little help from a pair of tweezers. I wish I were joking.

That's a 1-kg Loaf

Dense, chewy, whole-grain Schwarzbrot from the Oekomarkt.

HUGE NEWS!!!!

We found an apartment!!!!!! Woo hooo!!!! Before the accusations of excessive exclamation points roll in, I want to say a bit (that I've been meaning to write for a few days, but have been too freaking tired at the end of the day) about the hellish experience that is apartment-hunting in Germany.

First weird thing: apartments here typically come with nothing in them but the floors. No light fixtures, no medicine cabinet above the bathroom sink (though there do typically seem to be bathroom sinks, tubs, and toilets), and, worst of all, nothing in the kitchen, no stove or oven, no refrigerator, not even a sink or a counter, just input and output plumbing holes. It's super-depressing walking into such a bare apartment and imagining the money and the energy (a rare commodity for me, remember) that would be required to make such a place habitable. All that money for just one year... but hey, if that's how it works here.... And the one year part is a problem, too. Rentals here are longer term. We found out that the landlord for our top choice wouldn't even consider us, because he only wanted people who would commit to three years. Three years! Who on earth knows that they'll even be in the same job for three years?!

Another German delight is that it takes a lot longer to know whether an apartment is yours. So far as I'm aware, in the US, if you're the first person to officially say you want an available apartment, you get it (as long as your credit is good, etc.). Here, you answer an ad, have the current tenant show you the place, and decide you want it. Then you find that there are three people who came before you who want the place and there are seven appointments to show the apartment after you leave, but if you've decided you want it, you can fill out a form just like those who came before you. The resident then picks their top few choices to show the landlord, and the landlord then picks the lucky winner. This process takes time. We saw a lovely place on Saturday night and were told that we wouldn't know until Thursday or Friday whether it would be ours. To complicate matters, Germans take their word very seriously, so it's not cool to enter the process to get one place and simultaneously seek another; it would be very uncool to be offered a place and then say no. We, of course, broke this rule and sought places simultaneously, since we couldn't afford to wait for days in hopes that we'd beat the odds and get the apartment.

Apartment-hunting here is so competitive! You walk around and see an incredible number of beautiful old buildings with marvelous balconies overlooking cobblestoned streets with chattering Germans drinking beer and eating mustard and other such idylls - and none of it is available, and even if it is, what are the odds you'd get it? Most of what is available is crap, and even that gets snapped up in a few days.

And on top of it all are my own health complications: all the walking involved in visiting places has made a couple of days this week totally hellish and painful. The walking itself is tolerable - it's the payback, the muscle pain, the cognitive blunting, the exhaustion that follows hours and days after, that is so terrible.

Blucky. In a failed attempt at brevity, I'm sure I'm omitting key features of the sucky apartment hunt, but it's probably for the best, especially now that it's over!

Wonder of wonders, somehow a landlord decided that even though we're "only" going to be here for eleven more months, we're the ones! The place we got is incredibly phat (or should I say, KILLA) - it's the penthouse of a five-floor building pretty close to the Rhine. It's got two balconies that run the length of the apartment, one on the front face of the building and one on the back, so the apartment is sandwiched between them. It has an awesome, very stylish little kitchen with a fridge, a freezer(!), a stove and an oven(!), and even a dishwasher! (What Brian, the designated dishwasher, is going to do with himself, we don't yet know.) The tiles in the bathroom are all marble - a little too bachelor pad, but we can handle it. The apartment is gorgeous, and we're totally delighted with it. The location, a ten-minute walk from the Altstadt, may be a problem for me - we'll have to see. We have been celebrating heartily here with a bottle of wine! What a load off!

Last-Minute Friday Catblogging

It's 11:45 pm here now, and I'm just about ready for bed after a very long day of fruitless apartment-hunting - but I had to take part in the blogosphere tradition of Friday catblogging, since that is, after all, about half my reason for blogging in the first place. Here's Oscar being a much less compliant setpiece than the cabbage next to him, which is a Spitzkohl. I'd never seen Spitzkohl before (which surprises me, given the staggering variety of stuff our friends Beth and Brent alone grow and bring to the Green City Market!), but by looks it's a conehead version of a standard green head cabbage - who knew such a thing exists? I'm betting it tastes no different from regular green cabbage, but I'll report back if I'm wrong. By the way, Kohl=cabbage, and spitz=pointy; this pleases me!

There's a weird sort of inversion here from what I think must be the usual apartment-hunting situation: it seems easier to rent as a student, harder to rent as a couple! One landlord I spoke to said his ideal situation would be to rent to two female students who leave Bonn at different times, so that the one who stays behind can find another female student as a roommate, and then she can repeat the process, so that the landlord would get to wait years before renewing the lease and renovating the apartment. He's been holding one of his apartments unoccupied for six weeks as he waits for the perfect renters, rather than let a couple like us rent the place! Sucks! Anyway, we're going to try really really hard again tomorrow to find a place - hopefully luck goes with us.

Apartment-Hunting Sucks!

I have been in the thick of apartment-hunting today and yesterday. It seems that the handful of promising leads we've gathered over the past week or so has gone poof! The pickings appear to be slim, and we've only got two weeks until we need to move. B keeps saying, "All it takes is one..." - cold comfort after all these stressy phone calls where I cough out some German before asking to speak English, only to find that the flat has already been taken. Tomorrow we're going to head to the University of Bonn's cafeteria which, we're told, has a bulletin board with all sorts of listings. And we're going to grab a paper and do some more phoning around. Wish us luck!

Some News

Some good news - we're on the verge of buying health insurance. Turns out that even though B and I aren't married, I can get insurance through B's employer, Max Planck Institut für Mathematik. The plan we're getting seems to be a great deal by German standards - it would be an absolute steal by US standards - and it pays for alternative medicine! Yes! That's one hurdle (almost) down.

Some more good news: I've been concerned that I might be unable to get a residence permit to stay the year, given that B and I aren't married and B's the one with the job here. (An ordinary tourist visa for an American citizen allows a three month stay out of any six months.) Today B asked MPI if we should expect trouble at the alien office, and the very competent administrator who is arranging our health insurance was almost brusque in saying that we'd have no trouble at all and that our situation is routine. Hoo! Nothing like having the paper in hand, of course, but major reassurance in the meanwhile.

Here's something kinda neat: last week we went to a city office to register our new address. As new residents of Bonn, we received two fat booklets filled with free tickets to all of Bonn's many museums, Beethoven concerts, ferry rides up the Rhein, walking and bike tours of the city.... So nice! Must have missed getting my free booklet when I moved to Chicago in 2001.

Pfifferlinge

Chanterelles, called Pfifferlinge in German are gorgeous, glowing orange, apricot-scented mushrooms, that are well-loved and in season here. They're always picked in the wild, because, like many mushrooms, chanterelles have a symbiotic relationship with the roots of woodland plants - sometimes, such fungi live for decades before fruiting! - so they're a real challenge to cultivate.

Chanterelles do grow in US forests, but they must be much more rare than here - I've seen them in gourmet stores a few times, but they're always incredibly expensive, so I've never bought them. Imagine my delight when I saw them here at Basic (our organic food shop) a couple days after we arrived, for around 1€/100g, so about $6.25/lb! (A pound, by the way, is way more mushrooms than you want.) I just about peed myself when I figured out what I was looking at. Since then, I've seen them in abundance at the market. People here seem to take them for granted.

B and I have been enjoying our chanterelles sauteed with a shallot, with some cut-up soft-boiled eggs thrown in at the end. (Never done this with boiled eggs before - just occurred to me - but it's great! It really showcases the chanterelles, and I'm sure it would be nice with a special vegetable in lieu of the mushrooms.) With wine, salad greens, bread and cheese, it's dinner. Is the simple sort of meal I can make in this microscopic kitchen, but damn is it good!! Chanterelles are so delicious - woodsy and apricot-scented, with the perfect tender but toothsome texture. It's little luxuries like this that I love about being here.

Stymied by the Microwave

Instead of an oven, we've got this microwave that, we are told, has toaster oven features. The cryptic dial in the center with six inscrutable symbols totally got the best of me. Click on the photo to enlarge it - the rightmost three settings are especially baffling!

Self-Portrait in Kitchen

I crammed myself into the kitchen to take a self portrait including its main features: two electric burners, the fridge (door open with a lidded pot inside, under the counter, smaller than my dorm fridge), and the counter space (under the dish drying rack, that is). The tiny sink is just out of the frame, to the right. No oven!

For our next apartment, I'm looking for a bit, er, more, but ovens and especially bigger fridges are, apparently, nonstandard.

First Visit to the Rhine

It's a fifteen minute walk from our place to the Rhine, which is (we think) wider then the Delaware and flows crazy, crazy fast! Water froths around the buoys and detritus rushes past, like in flood water. Gulls sit on the water and spin in the eddies. It's pretty nuts. P is tired and hurty from all the walking today! Might need a foot rub....

Germans Know Their Berries

We were skeptical of the giant blackberries we got from the organic market, but they're the best I've ever had. Here are some goodies from the Oekomarkt. The sweet pretzel is from the bakery we're in love with, Lubig. What an afternoon (ok, more like 5:30 pm) snack!

Head

This head is one of two at the base of the Muenster Basilica (the big cathedral in Bonn), right by the Oekomarkt. I think these heads are based on those belonging to two martyred Roman soldiers or something. Whatever, I'm American - like I know anything about these things.

Market Day

After six years in spread-out Chicago, what a treat it is to see throngs of people going about their Saturday business on foot, strolling in the Altstadt, eating ice cream, lounging on stone steps, buying vegetables, window shopping, and just generally getting on with their day. Crowds gathered around accordion-players laying into Beethoven - Beethoven was born in Bonn - and I was struck by how good it sounded, how venerable! Really wonderful and energizing to be around so many people.

We checked out the market in front of the old Rathaus (the old town hall, a pink confection of a building, in the photo). Not a farmers' market - the vendors seemed to be grocers, not farmers, selling produce from far and wide - but fun to check out, and bustling. Not exactly sure what the point is of this kind of market - how is the stuff on offer different from what's at a supermarket? We passed up mounds of red currants (which tempted me) and headed on and stumbled upon a tiny version of the main market: the Oekomarkt (Eco-Market), where everything is organic! The vendors here seemed to be farmers, but most of the stuff they carried is from off the farm. I miss the Green City Market! Best thing about Chicago.

Friday Cat-Blogging

Oscar - not tame on the ladder up to the loft.

Getting Here

After a long and at times nightmare-worthy journey, B and I arrived in Bonn last Thursday, August 2 to find a cozy and bustling small city brimming with charm. We are doing fine. Oscar is doing especially well, owing to the fact that his responsibilities involve sleeping, figuring out how to climb the ladder to the loft to snuggle with us at night, and evacuating his bladder in the correct locale (all fortunately going quite well). Brian and I, on the other hand, are saddled with taking care of the nonsense that comes with moving to Germany - registering our address, getting a bank account and health insurance, finding a flat, and (fingers crossed on this one) getting a residence permit - but more on that later.

A few days into being here, I started to feel guilty about not updating my loved ones on the news of our departure and our first, packed days here - I haven't even talked to Sandya and Sudi. I kept thinking of Melissa and her mass emails, but I've never been able to bring myself to write one. It's too important to me that I not fall out of touch with loved ones and people in general while I'm here - an easy thing to do being partly housebound, jobless due to illness, and not speaking the language - hence this blog, at least!

So, about that journey: we left Chicago two weeks and two days ago. It wasn't a tearful goodbye - we blasted "End Moraine" by Sparta, about wanting glaciers to ravage a place, in our moving truck as we drove south on Stony Island to the Skyway for the very last time. Chicago managed to keep us more than a day longer than expected - stupid delays involving our vet forgetting to sign a form, medication troubles, but, most of all, my health not being good enough to handle the nonstop packing required to get out on time. So we hit the road at 12:50 am and hit a downpour and a great wave of exhaustion about an hour later and, after much searching, found the only available room in that quarter of Indiana, snuck Oscar in, and bedded down past 3 am, with me at least trying to get it through my head that we're done, really done, with that horrible city that took so much from both of us.

The next week or so passed in a blur of exhaustion and (for me) sickness and pain mixed with seeing loved ones, of B and many helpful hands unloading the truck into Brian's parents' basement, of lying in the grass under blue sky streaked with wisps of fragrant woodsmoke and thinking this is just as much our home as anywhere else, of meaning to repack our stuff and figure out what goes to Germany and what goes to Flemington but being unable to yet again due to sickness and short time - then heading to Flemington as our last stop before Germany, where being ill meant not being able to handle all the myriad tasks required before our departure, where unpacking boxes and packing suitcases waited, literally, until the last second....

Here's the part I still can't believe. The plan was to leave for Newark at 8:30 pm to get to Newark in time for our 11:50 pm flight. Yeah, I know they recommend getting to the airport three hours in advance for international flights, but wasted time in the airport meant extra time in the carrier for Oscar, so we opted to have a bit less time at the airport. I confirmed the flight at least three times in the previous three weeks, mostly to check that Lufthansa still had us down for an in-cabin pet reservation (so young Oscar could spend the flight in his carrier on our laps or at our feet rather than in a cargo hold). The morning and afternoon of August 1st passed in a painful and determined flurry of activity to get everything packed, to check and double check that we have what we need, our papers, our documents, one last slog before we're off.... At 7:50 pm, about to consider a pause to scarf down some food that Mom prepared hours before, and I get this tingle that I might have been taking our 11:50 pm departure time for granted - is that really the exact time? So I grab the palm pilot and bring up our itinerary: depart Newark 9:50 pm. Two hours from now.

Reeling, head spinning, I tell B we've got a problem and show him the palm. Shock, and I start to whimper and cry for a second, then we pull ourselves together - this is a living nightmare. Haven't we all had this nightmare? My mom says she has the one where she's moving and has to leave NOW and isn't packed. For a few years now I've had the nightmare that the international trip I've been planning has sneaked up on me and I realize that I need to be at the airport NOW and I'm not even ready. (Which makes me wonder: when are all my other nightmares going to come true? I'm past due for my teeth to fall out and for a Godzilla-Oscar to be sharpening claws on the Fearings' roof!)

It's 7:50, and the flight leaves at 9:50 - we should be at the airport already, should be in the check-in line. One of our six giant suitcases is still not packed. Thank god at least we've already fed Oscar and he's already peed. 45 minutes to get to the airport best case, and we have to be checked in one hour before departure to get on the flight. And if we miss the flight - no Oscar reservation, and what about our booking from Frankfurt to Bonn? Race around the house to grab the toiletries, shoes, a few books, Oscar supplies to chuck into the suitcase. B tells Mom the news - panic spreads across her face and body. She tells Dad that there's a change of plans and we need to go right away, don't even worry about wearing shoes. For the moment, Dad doesn't ask why and calmly seems to think that we've decided to leave earlier, as he'd originally recommended. What he must think of the madness around him as we tear around the house to pull our stuff together. We leave the house ten minutes later, Dad driving the pickup truck he rented to haul us and our baggage. Mom drops the news on him halfway to I-78, and he starts to panic, sheer terror - this is the sort of out-of-control situation I think Dad fears most of all, and the poor man has to drive fast and safe to Newark under these conditions. B and I hold hands in the back seat, and somehow I'm serene, suspended in this most stressful situation. Maybe it's all those nightmares I've had in the past - this, maybe because it's real, is easier, because, unlike in a dream, I know there's almost nothing we can do about it now.

I'm not even beating myself up over getting the time wrong - this is not an error, this is a total malfunction on my part. All of this, all the planning and work and stress and details to tend to, have clearly been far more than my compromised hypothyroid brain can handle. I've been suffering under the weight of all this work for weeks and weeks, and I've noticed memory lapses and other cognitive blips - and finally I buckled. How many times did I confirm the flight time? Why did I think 11:50 pm? I can only imagine that I took it from the departure time of the previous flight I flew, Bangkok to Tokyo two weeks before. God damn the short term memory problems that come with a thyroid problem! What an insane error to make.

Somehow, Mom and Dad keep it together at the helm, devise a plan to meet up while Dad parks the truck (in the rush to leave the house, no one brought a cell phone), and we make it to Newark in great time, but still we arrive with less than one hour before the flight. While everyone else unloads the pickup truck, I run to the Lufthansa counter - no line! Is there any way we can make this flight?, I ask. A sharp Irish woman looks back at me across the counter and asks for my passport, asks where Brian and Oscar and our luggage are, and I, incredulous, feel a manic smile spread across my face. Long story short - we made it! Enough adrenaline for the year, thank you.

The rest of the journey was fine. Incredibly disheveled, we passed through security with junk falling out of our bags and Oscar wheeling all four clawed legs for freedom as we pulled him out of his carrier so it could be x-rayed. Security claimed a paring knife (oops!) but let me keep Oscar's liquid meds and meat, and we made our way on. Oscar did really well on the flight, considering that he was not sedated (though we did give him a little valerian to help him sleep). About an hour before we landed, he became all meows and scratching, miserable. When we landed in Frankfurt, we snagged one of those private baby-changing rooms and let him out - this was a brilliant idea! Should be part of the standard bag of tricks for people transporting pets. The train ride from Frankfurt to Bonn was completely beautiful and surreal, snaking along the Rhine with its steep hillsides stitched with grapevines, its crumbling castles, and its dense villages of colorful houses tucked here and there. Brian read us Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows as we traveled, so the fantasy world of J.K. Rowling with its tasks and trials mingled with our own. We arrived in Bonn on schedule, met the person who gave us the keys to our flat, and breathed a sigh of relief that we've finally arrived.

(Subsequent posts will be shorter!)