Donnerstag, 13. September 2007

Lately in Germany . . .


Not much has happened since my last post. Tim has been in Beijing, China since Sunday, so Jenny and I have been living by ourselves in the house, which is a little weird. At least Tim left us with the car this time so we have a little more freedom and it is easier to go to the grocery store (especially when it is raining). Right now, Tim is probably in the Forbidden City, about to go see the Great Wall, and eating dumplings. I'm jealous.

Let's see . . . Jenny has a soccer game tonight and an 8th grade sleepover in the gym on Friday night. She's been trying to teach me some of her Irish dancing steps, but it is a lost cause. Not because she is a bad teacher, but because I am a bad student, or not coordinated, or both. Earlier this week I went to a German language class in Japantown in downtown Düsseldorf. It was nice to hear German being spoken because I'm not getting any practice by living in a house with Americans who know very little German. Hopefully I can keep going to the classes!

Last Saturday was a marathon of grocery stores and soccer. In the morning we went to Real (kind of like a Wal-Mart). Jenny was extremely excited when we ran across the "American" section. It's nice every once in a while to have a few reminders of home. They had ketchup, mustard, BBQ sauce, and marshmallow fluff, along with other stuff. All very healthy. But what Jenny was most excited about was the Duncan Hines Devil's Food cake mix. The only problem was that they didn't have any frosting. Luckily I got a chocolate frosting recipe (thanks Kat!!) and we now have chocolate cake in the house.

In the afternoon Jenny had a soccer game against Hamburg. ISD won 7-0 and Jenny made one of the goals!! Their team is pretty good and hasn't allowed a single goal yet this season, but apparently playing the UK teams is going to be a real challenge. After the game we went to Edeka - the really nice, American-style grocery store in Duisburg (2 towns north of us). Lucky for us, Edeka was having some sort of "Italian Celebration Day," meaning they had tons of free food to try - bruschetta, fresh tomatoes and mozzarellla, prosciutto, and waffles with powdered sugar (didn't see how that fit into the Italian theme, but they were good anyways). It was my first trip to Duisburg. The only thing I knew about the town beforehand was what Jenny told me . . . "Don't go there. You will be killed." Just before I got to Germany there was an Italian mob hit in Duisburg. Six men were killed after 70 shots were fired outside a restaurant following one of the victim's birthday celebrations. Apparently this was a response that escalated after someone threw food at someone else's wife. What a well-thought-out, rational response. In the future, I will refrain from throwing food in Duisburg.

"A mafia family feud spills over"

BBC News website

The killing of six Italians in the German city of Duisburg has thrust into the spotlight the shadowy world of the 'Ndrangheta, whose tentacles have spread far beyond their rural origins in Calabria, in southern Italy.

Aside from the mob presence and Edeka, Duisburg also has a fancy recreation center with a bowling alley, gym, tennis courts (clay, of course), mini-golf, and a bar. I'm not sure there is anywhere you could go in Germany without being able to get beer. It would be a good place to watch a football game - there are big screen TVs everywhere.

Last weekend, we also took a drive to Zons - an old, walled city on the Rhein. It's amazing how many houses can actually fit in this tiny town. Cars can barely fit through the streets, which are kept amazingly clean. It is especially nice to walk through Zons at night when all of the lanterns are lit. Aside from houses, the town has multiple churches, guard towers, a windmill, bakeries, and more restaurants than you would guess. We went to a restaurant that Tim had been to before for business. It was an old house that had been turned into a very cozy restaurant and hotel. I was happy because they had Indian food. The fact that multiple weddings were being held in Zons the night we were there tells you that it's pretty nice.

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