Thanksgiving #2

Saturday we took the train to Kassel, a city about 2 hours from here to visit the Maier-Torrico family - Uli, Dara, Laura, and Eva; we were invited for another Thanksgiving celebration.   Uli was an exchange student at Juniata College and Gary's college roommate and Dara is also a Juniata alumna.  They live in Fuldabrück, a small village outside of Kassel with their daughters Laura (19) and Eva (almost 16).  Here we had an amazing meal cooked by Dara - a turkey (imported from France) and the works, down to pumpkin pie (which Dara cooked from pumpkin, in Pilgrim style).  Our contribution was peeling potatoes, a skill we have down to an art from the many Baker New Year's Day dinners where we peel 20-25 pounds of potatoes to serve to Kay's extended family.  We had a great day with the Maier-Torrico family and other friends, took a Thanksgiving stroll down to the Fulda River, and ended the day with a trip to the Kassel Christmas Market before hopping on the train to come back to Frankfurt. 

Thanksgiving #1

We invited our Frankfurt friends, Petra and Jeremy, over for a Thanksgiving dinner.  This had to happen Friday night, because of course everyone is in school and work on Thursday because they do not celebrate Thanksgiving.  We roasted a chicken (they have turkeys here - but we wanted something smaller), made mashed potatoes with leeks, orange sweet potatoes, salad, and found "preiselbeeren" which are like cranberries but smaller.  (Think lingonberries at IKEA - that's what they are).  I even made a kind-of pumpkin pie with canned pumpkin Sarah smuggled in for me.  You can find pumpkins here, but not canned pumpkin.  So if you want to make a pie, you have to do it the way the Pilgrims did it, and boil it, mash it, etc. (see the entry "Thanksgiving #2 - that is what Dara did to make her pie). So - we had a lovely evening with good food and good friends.  Emma was also there, Petra and Jeremy's pug.

Exploring with Sarah - Höchst

Gary took a day off from his work in the archive and went exploring with Sarah and me.  We have these awesome transportation tickets - we can go to so many places within Frankfurt and the surrounding area.  We decided to go to the end of the line on the Strassenbahn #11.  Wanling, Gary and I had ridden it quite far a few weeks previously and had the inkling that something amazing lay a few stops beyond where we had stopped.  We were right.  We ended up in a little town called Höchst.  It is amazing when we get a bit away from the center of town; many times the architecture has been very well-preserved.  So you see us walking around the town - with our jaws dropping from the beauty.  The town has a lot of Fachwerk (Tudor style architecture - I guess we call it half-timbered).  Höchst is known for its porcelain, we learned.  We also saw a big piece of the city wall, and watch tower well-preserved.  You can see that this little town lies on the Main River, and if we hadn't had to zip back into town to pick up Wanling, we could have walked a long way along the river path - maybe all the way back into Frankfurt (the Germans have walking paths everywhere - even in the woods, or in the fields).  I also included a sculpture entitled "Krieg" (War) that was placed at the base of the city wall.  The last picture is Höchst from a distance at dusk.

Frankfurter Weihnachtsmarkt

When we were making our plans to live in Frankfurt for three months, we were so excited to know we would be here during Advent time and Christmas.  One of the many special things about being here at this time (....Gary and I have not been here for Christmas since 1986, when we lived in East Berlin/Marburg for the year) is the Christmas Market.  Many, many towns set up a Christmas Market in the town center.  These markets start the week before the first Sunday of Advent, and last almost until Christmas.  We went to the opening day of the Frankfurt Weihnachtsmarkt - with thousands of other people (despite the rain).  The mayor spoke, there was a singer (don't know her name), a brass choir playing carols from the top of the Nicolaikirche (Nicholas Church), and many people strolling around, eating tasty treats (note the HUGE pile of french fries in the first photo), chatting with friends, riding the double-decker carousel (you can see Sarah, with a camera in front of her face, and me in the sleigh with Wanling on the stallion in front of us).  Sarah and I are toasting all of you with a hot cup of Glühwein (mulled wine) while Wanling chomps on a crepe stuffed with Nutella (chocolate hazelnut spread).

Apple Wine!!!

Our friend Sarah is visiting from Washington D.C.  So, as part of her tour around town we went over to Sachsenhausen, a beautiful old section of Frankfurt, across the river from the downtown skyscrapers and banks.  This area is also know for its Apfelwein, the Frankfurter drink.  Sarah and I stopped for lunch (and an obligatory Apfelwein) at Zum Gemalten Haus, a very old apple wine pub; the decor was antler-influenced, the waiter was delightful, and the spinatcremesuppe (spinach cream soup) was to die for.  The pitchers you see are Bembel - the crockery that apple wine is served in.  Prost!!

More markets......

Wow - these markets are in every corner of the city.  (And we are coming upon the season of Weihnachtsmärkte - the Christmas markets that take place in almost every town.  These are held outside in the main square of the town and there is food, music, beer and hot mulled wine, and handicrafts.....more on this later.  They start this week, the week before the first Sunday of Advent).  So you see some beautiful pictures from the weekly markets - of flowers and produce; a big bowl of Erbsensuppe (pea soup) that Gary and I were eating - note the two heavy metal spoons that are standing straight up in the soup; some ladies and their buns, I mean Brötchen (they were getting ready to sell a whole bunch of sausages); a piece of Bienestich (Bee Sting Cake) and me stuffing my mouth with that; and a stand selling the herbs for that famous Frankfurter Grüne Sosse.  We are not going hungry here.....

Judengasse Museum

The other day, as I was taking one of my walks around the city, I stumbled upon  the Museum Judengasse (Jews' Alley), one of two Jewish museums in Frankfurt.  This one is quite small and was built around the remains  of a mikveh (ritual bath) found when this area was being renovated after the destruction of World War II.  This area was where the Jewish Ghetto was since the 1500's.  There is a Jewish cemetery adjacent to this site.  There was a lot of strife trying to decide what to do with this area, once these foundations were unearthed.  So the pictures show the museum (with business offices above the museum - a compromise as to what to do with this site) - the curves of the building simulate the waves of the Main River, which is very near by; a view of the cemetery from 1272; a placard commemorating the cemetery and its history (and a picture of our friend Jeremy who has a translation business here in Frankfurt who did the English translation for this sign). There are then three pictures  of the wall surrounding the cemetery.  This wall is lined with row upon row of names of Jews who were interned and died.  The last picture is of the street signs indicating the various names for this site over the centuries.

Ausflug nach Köln (Cologne)

On Saturday (13 Nov.) we took a day trip to Cologne, which is on the Rhine River and is about 2 hours away.  We hopped on the train (literally - we got to the train station with 5 minutes to spare.  We didn't realize our street car ran on a different schedule before 8:00 a.m. on Sat.), ate our picnic breakfast and looked at the scenery.  We were hoping that the weather report of rain for the day was wrong, but NOT!  It rained the whole day.  What we did notice is that weather doesn't stop anyone.  The Germans were out, the tourists were out.  People were a little soggy, but they didn't let the weather stop them. 

When one arrives in Köln, upon stepping out of the train station one sees this amazing, overwhelmingly huge  cathedral, right next door.  It is a very famous landmark; the construction began in 1248 and it was not finished until 1848.  We toured the church and took in the dampness, the beauty, the history, the awe.  It is very interesting because it took so long to build, there are windows and architectures of many different eras (go ahead and Google it).  Wanling took a picture of our favorite window, a contemporary one by German artist Gerhard Richter.  After the Dom (Cathedral), we rode a "Bimmel Bahn" (see the little green train in the pictures) to get a tour of Cologne.  It dropped us at the Lindt Chocolate Factory - this is relatively new, and was a wonderful presentation - from the history of eating chocolate to fair trade to processing to pop culture.  They also have a mini-factory set up, where one can see all the steps of production all the way to eating it. This museum is built jutting out onto the Rhine, and you can see the worker handing out samples, with the golden chocolate fountain in back of her and the Rhine in back of that. Wanling is standing next to a gigantic Kinderüberaschung (Child's Surprise) which is her favorite kind of candy - a chocolate egg with a toy inside.  You can also see Gary (and a bishop) gazing out onto the Rhine, wishing the rain would stop.  At the end of the day we hopped a  train which followed the Rhine, and as dusk was setting in we searched for the many castles that dot the landscape as one travels this stretch of the river.  It was too dark and bumpy so no photos.