In which thanks is given despite unforseen holiday squashers.

I am grateful for all the people in my life.
I am grateful for the internet for having shown me the Macy's Day Parade for the first time ever.
I am grateful for Arlo Guthrie for having written a ridiculous 20-minute song that I get to listen to every Thanksgiving.
I am grateful for having had a wonderful weekend in Poland, proof below and more to follow... sometime.

I am grateful for the thought that someday, somewhere in the future, I will again eat pie.
I am grateful for the teamwork of individuals that freed me from the cold basement hallway where I unexpectedly spent my evening instead of singing Verdi's Requiem with the university choir and orchestra.
I am not particularly grateful for the individual who thought they were being helpful when they double-locked the basement door, but whatever.
I am grateful for all the research I accomplished while chillin' on the basement floor.
I am grateful for being able to laugh at myself, and for being able to live in a wonderful place with a big stipend.
I am grateful for (hopefully) being able to fly to Switzerland tomorrow, and for the extraordinary people I will visit there.
I am grateful for all of this, for all that was, and for all that will be.
Thanks for that.

In which November checks in.

A couple weekends ago found me a-venturing north to the forgotten city of Kiel to visit a couple friends from my not-so-forgotten German past. The train strolled out of central station just in time to catch the best streaks of golden afternoon streaming through the plastic-coated windows and construction scaffolding, and over the bustling platforms, painting shadowy vignettes of passengers on the cold, shoe-laden cement. My eyes were unaccustomed to the scenes of Schleswig-Holstein, with its gently growing hills and almost-frosted fields that had just been put to bed, dark with deer looking for leftovers in the hardening earth. Zooming through tiny towns gave me glimpses of children playing outside as the misty, damp evening chill engulfed the empty street behind them. One of my favorite views was passing through a place of flat greenness spotted with towering turbines and what appeared to be perfect fluffs of sheep. My internal dialog went something like this:
This would be such an adorable scene if those hay bales were sheep.
I think those hay bales are sheep.
It would be too perfect if those hay bales were sheep.
Those hay bales are sheep!
I don't know why the combination of wind turbines and fleecy sheepies pleased me so much, but it did. This photo does it no justice.

My body was just getting to its favorite point in the hypnotic lull and sway of speeding bullet travel when the lullabying and swaying turned into stopping at our final destination. It was then that the world started lurching and vrooming to the rhythm of a city bus at rush hour. The sun had peaced by that point, but night was delayed somewhere in Eastern Europe and left the city waiting in different shades of anticipatory grays until it arrived. Maybe it was something about being by the Baltic Sea that gave the air a kind of silvery luster, like the last remnants of daylight reflecting in the fog. It reminded me of trudging stiffly through the sand squish on a beach in Maine one evening last December-- same ocean air breezing through my bundling, same feeling of grayscale landscape. Very different situation.

All imagery aside, I really enjoyed my time there. Highlights included somewhat sporadic wandering to the water's edge, home-cooked love in my stomach, and matching French breakfast with an old friend. I was also reminded about how much cheaper everything is when you don't live in a big city, which was a temporary happiness.

Back in Hamburg, November happened. Gray, gray, creeping cold, gray pre-winter winter. The sky looks perfectly clear in its grayness, so much so that I've started to forget it could be any other color. The sun can easily be observed by the naked eye as a blurry, white circle making its way from east to west with the same rapid step I use to get from the S-Bahn to my apartment in the cold. As much as I am not partial to the color scheme or present climate, I really love November.

About a week ago, I was summoned to the Speicherstadt  (warehouse district by the harbor --> possibly Europe's largest and most expensive construction/gentrification project) for a delightfully wine and cheesy cross cultural event, and was thrilled to find a nightmareish photographer's dream enveloping the old bricks and glass walls. The Speicherstadt has unearthly qualities at all times day, but to see it moodily-lit and fog-filled made it spectacularly spooktastic. I felt like I was going to be murdered around each corner, but I wasn't. ...At least I don't think I was.

 

 

 On another note, I think I'll go to Poland tomorrow.

Bake Date: Apple Spice Yum Loaf

This recipe fell into my clutches one afternoon a few weeks ago when a lovely person came to co-conjure up an apple pie in my co-zy kitchen and brought with her far too many of the most gigantic apples I had ever encountered. (Seriously, Mr. Newton would have been a goner if one of those babies had plopped his noggin.) Needless to say, the family's Swedish apple pie recipe was resurrected with many a sinful fruit to spare, so we continued to perfume the kitchen with praline apple bread and this apple spice cake, which we then contributed to a spontaneous post-Mountain Day Smithie indulgeganza. I know apple season has pretty much met its end (especially in New England with all that untimely white stuff), but in case you've still got a few plump morsels hoping for a useful future, here's a way to save the day.

What you need:

• 2 cups flour 
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp nutmeg
• heaping 1/4 tsp ground cloves (Original recipe calls for 1 tsp allspice. I ain't got none.)
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 cup softened butter substitute
• 3/4 cup brown sugar (not packed)
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 4 eggs
• 1 tsp pure vanilla extract (none of that imitation nonsense)
• about 2 cups apples (3ish), peeled & chopped into wee (but not too wee!) bits
• 1/2 cup raisins (for those who admire that wrinkliest of fruits)
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts (ifin' yer lookin' fer uh liddul krunch)

Oventemp: 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) ((450 degrees K)) 
Makes: 2 loaves, or one big bundt (teehee), or whatevah! 
Musik: Something seasonally warm for the cold. Apartmentmate said that this baked good "smelled like Christmas" (or rather, "smelled after Christmas" if you're niggling for a literal translation), so maybe go in that direction. If you dare.

Butter your pan(s) of choice. I always find this chore annoying in the same way that brushing my teeth is annoying-- there are so many other ways I could be using those few minutes than standing there greasing a pan/brushing my teeth! Buuut then it's necessary and one always has to do it. Just get it out of the way now.

Soak the raisins (if you're not one of those raisin haters) in warm water for about ten minutes, then drain. Why, you ask? I ask: Do you want your Apple Spice Yum Loaf to be scrumptiously moist and mouth-thrilling?

Whisk together the flour, spices, and baking soda in an appropriately sized vessel, being careful not to fling powder all over the room and making sure to incorporate all the spices. If your whisking leaves dark, spicy swirls hidden in the carbohydrate dust, whisk more effectively! You don't want the baking soda to miss out on half the batter.

Mush the butter substitute and sugar into a fully functional horror flick Blob for your arteries. I suppose you could simplify things with an electric mixer... but there's just something so classy about a wooden spoon. Next slop it up with the eggs and vanilla, thicken carefully with the dry mixture, and fold in wee apple bits and raisins and/or nut chunks.

Immediately deposit in the painstakingly greased pan(s) and bake in the lower half of your preheated oven for approximately one hour, or until a sharp object inserted carefully into the abdomen proves that the guts goo no more. (I really was going to try to be less visceral with this recipe... oops.) Cool. Devour. Cool? Cool.

In which we peer into the ahead.

Things I wish German-speakers would not say to me after several minutes of smooth introductory conversation:

"Sooo, where you from?"
"The United States."
1. "Oh yeah, I hear that now."
2. "Ahhh, I thought as much."
3. "Various renditions of 1 & 2."

What does that mean? I know it's not meant to insult my language capabilities in any way, but still.
That being said, salsa dancing is such fun!

Other recent discoveries:
a.) My favorite cafe has what might just be the best homemade hot chocolate in the city -- a beautifully dangerous concoction.
b.) Germany does have an autumnal-looking season! I didn't remember being too impressed last time around, but there was one afternoon at the Uni last week when I was walking through a row of flaming yellow trees with the leaves blustering brightly against the dark, damp bark, and I felt the essence of fall in my bones and filled my lungs with the scent of promised freshness and the melancholy absence of woodsmoke, and was content. Those leaves are almost all down now-- just in time for the skeletal frames of Christmas markets to go up. It's dark dark dark by 5pm. Good things are ahead.

Theater things are putting on a great show. Class is fun and continually over-filled with fun, theater-loving students-- in fact, there are so many students that our bodies spill onto the windowsills and floor of the decently-sized classroom. My research currently has me in the depths of Hamburg's political history in 1945-46. It's dark dark dark in there. And fascinating. To go even farther back and forward in time, I'll once again be thespianing with the University Players, this time rocking the comic relief as Hamlet's Rosencrantz turned modern-ish female. My Guildenstern is a wonderful, vertically-challenged English woman. We set each other off far too easily, which basically means that rehearsal consists of us trying to remember to breathe through recurring oxygen-sucking bouts of hilarity. Good times are ahead.

The translation job starts on Monday. I've been living in fear for the last week that I'll forget to go. That won't happen, at least not now that I've written it here. ...Right? This is roundabout where my job takes place:

The photography class I was signed up to take ended up being cancelled, which is somewhat of a disappointment, but more of a relief with all the ways I've started stretching myself recently. I was hoping to make some friends in that group, but luckily I've been making other friends elsewhere in the meantime, German and otherwise. I was fortunate enough to share the experience of the Bach Mass in b minor in one of Hamburg's grandest churches with one of them last weekend. Hopefully good friendships are ahead. Hope hope hope.

I start paying back my college loans on Monday. OH, BOY! Now I need to start thinking about my future after next summer. Every time I take my brain there, it gets distracted. Aeeeiijhjghjhk.

Distraction! A Saturday in the Schanze:

 

 This one made me LOL. Fo' realz:

Distraction! Other photos:

 

Aaand lastly, I was hit with an unexpected bout of homesickness a couple days ago. My usual remedy for this is peppermint tea and the purchase and consumption of exotic fruits. This time I sat down with peppermint tea and did some semi-spontaneous cheap ticket purchasing to exotic places. Switzerland, Denmark, Estonia. All ahead.

In which people are just dyin' to get in.

Every now and then there comes a point at which this body goes "Ahhrhgf!" and "Raus!" and "Green!" and "Alalalalalaeeeeeeie!" all at the same time. That's my cue to drop whatever I'm doing, kick on the ol' shoes, and exit the building with a woosh and a jangling of keys to echo up the stairwell left behind. I've tried walking off these cranial sound effects in several places, one of which has recently dominated the realm of destination. The Stadtpark is lovely and ideal for canine and small child viewing, but there's not a single centimeter of silence in the whole place. Planten un Blomen is grand, but very much in the shadow of the Radisson Blue. The botanical gardens and Jenischpark have special places in my heart, but are a little inconveniently located. Cue the Friedhof Ohlsdorf. It has the distinction of having its own bus lines, which is convenient as it is the second-largest cemetery in the world. It also has the distinction of being my favorite late afternoon getaway.

Aided by the sustenance provided by the lonely pretzel-seller on the S-Bahn platform, my feet easily find their way through the conveniently located main entrance to the cemetery. There I can find the nature that speaks to my nature-loving Mainer heart, as well as the silence that silences to my silence-loving Quaker tendencies. Pretzel in hand and no destination in mind, I wander from one tiny, overgrown path to another, accompanied only by the slapping of my feet on the ground and the mischievous cackling of squirrels as they hurl hazelnuts from above. (Jerks.)

I often find myself making up stories behind the names on the gravestones, some plots long-abandoned and devoured by creeping rhododendron armies; some well-tended family plots with names and dates spanning several generations; some graves fresh and still stoneless, marked by piles of wilting flowers and ribbons inscribed with sappy "always in my heart" kinds of messages that seem a little too artificial in the freshly salted earth.

There are many water basins to be found throughout the grounds for easy watering purposes. I was intrigued by a dribble-plopping faucet. Several ensconced minutes passed before I noticed the Old Man With The Grizzled Beard & Bicycle behind me. When I turned, he greeted me with an out-of-place "Grüß Gott!", which I returned in a most confused fashion as he peddled away. 

 

The stories became a little more real when I got to the graves of German soldiers from WWI.

They became more real still when I reached the graves of German soldiers from WWII. They were all very simple, just a checkered pattern of flat stones in the grass. Reading the birth and death dates was heartbreaking. At only 23 I was already older than many of these boys.

The similarly marked graves of the victims of the bombings in Hamburg were similarly powerful. After seeing photographs and actual video footage taken during and after Operation Gomorrah, their deaths felt very vivid to me.

Once upon a time, I found a pink tree. That was exciting.

Perhaps my favorite area so far has been the tree cemetery. People can chose to have a tree rather than a headstone. Their names are then listen on plaques at one end of the tree field. It was touching to see names of couples that had purchased themselves a plot together before they died. In some of these cases, only one of the names had a death date. I can't imagine what it must feel like to be able to visit your grave and see your name on the stone. 

One part of the cemetery is home to the graves of hundreds of British soldiers. Their grounds were particularly lovely with clean, white stones, end-of-season roses, and late afternoon lighting effects. It's not their home, but it's not bad. Many families were able to add epitaphs to the stones, though I wonder how many of them have been able to visit these graves themselves in the last decades.

All of this wandering amongst gravestones naturally gets me thinking about my own mortality. For the record, I want to be cremated and have my ashes divvied up amongst anyone that wants a piece, which they can then scatter wherever they feel is best. (Now that my final wish has been submitted to the internet, I can rest assured that it will exist for the reading... eternally.) Not that I have any intention in kicking it anytime soon. No, thanks.

In which the facts come out to play.

As one may have gleamed from a recent slowage in posts, some things have been happening to involve my life in other ways than say, writing about my life. For one thing, I've fully delved into the research component of this year-- you know, the reason I'm here in the first place. That's been a gratifying kick to the brain, so to speak. After a very helpful meeting with my adviser, I've started reading history books on the last few centuries of Hamburg's cultural life and taking notes on the notable bits. It was a surprisingly slow beginning-- though my conversational German has gotten its groove back, scholarly German is another thing. It's taken a good week or so to be able wrap my mind around the written text in such a way as to process the information into long-term storage areas. However! I've been feeling much more confident in the past few days as the pages have started turning themselves more quickly. Something else I realized while getting started is that it's going to take a mountain of motivation to keep this project going-- and go it will! I'm figuring out the best places and times to work. So far my kitchen in the morning is the best way to go when I'm home, and alternatively I've found a great-vibed cafe with Wifi near the Uni for days when I have other engagements in the area.

It will also help when my university class starts (FINALLY) on Thursday. It's an active seminar all about theater and its cultural implications in Hamburg... Cha-CHING.

In other news, I figured that one good way to counterbalance hours spent sitting and reading about art/devastation would be to take SALSA LESSONS, and I don't mean the kind you'd find in a recipe post. Two weeks down and I'm already sure that salsa dancing could cure pretty much any ailment, except maybe tendonitis. (Still workin' on that.) Someday, I hope to be this good. (You really can find everything on Youtube!) I'll also be taking a photography course focusing on different creative techniques. Choir started tonight and shall continue to fill my Tuesday evenings with Verdi's Requiem. The English-speaking theater group at the University will get going with Hamlet at the end of the month. I'm planning on signing up for a French-speaking tandem partner to keep my français from feeling too neglected. And. I suddenly have a job.

Or rather, a "Minijob." I happened to come across a page with local job listings on the Uni website, one of which was for a swanky travel company looking for a native English-speaker to translate their website and other materials from German into Englisch. I sent them an email and Germanified resume, scored a job interview in their swanky office in the most swankified part of the city, aaand found out yesterday that I was hired. It felt totally outlandish to be conducting my first legitimate job interview in German, buuut everything worked out. It'll only be a few hours a week because of my F-bright and residence permit restrictions, and that is so fine with me. I'm excited to have this opportunity to gain some experience in the translation world before I decide on whether or not I want to spend lots of moolah to go into it professionally, though mostly I am feeling overwhelmed by the impact of all of this good luck.

Now for something a little more photogenic, here are some scenes from a stroll I took around the Alster on a beautiful day in the not-so-distant past:

...Speaking of photogenic, have you been introduced to the shiny, new www.margaretmetzler.com?

And finally, a recent observation: Perhaps the truest sign of adulthood is when you start buying toilet paper for yourself.

That is all.