A Family Outing

On one of the blogs I have recently begun to follow, the author shows pictures of his family which, even without the accompanying quotes and comments, reveal his love for them. Now, I'd love to show you a picture I took of my parents and my sister on Sunday, but they won't have it - I am strictly forbidden to post pictures of people other than myself, and of course I respect their decision in spite of not fully understanding it.

Still, I can tell you about what we did on Sunday, and show pictures of the event without letting you see my Mystery Family :-)

My home town Ludwigsburg is famous for its castle; I've posted pictures of it several times before, for instance here and here.

It is said to be Germany's biggest Baroque castle still standing, and visitors can go for a guided tour in the state rooms, something I have done so many times (and will keep doing) that I could be a tour guide myself.

Last Sunday, though, a small trade fair was held in and around the castle: several companies of Ludwigsburg and the surrounding area presented themselves and their products. There were stalls where you could buy food, such as the delicious Flammkuchen being baked on site in a big wood oven, jewellery, toys, clothes, Christmas and other ornaments, wine, cosmetics, lingerie and more; there was also a stall of one of several dance schools, advertising for new participants in their courses, a choir, a band and an exhibition about the challenges encountered and the methods used in restoring to their former glory the wall paintings, wooden doors and printed wallpaper serveral centuries old that adorn the castle.

Most interesting for me were not the people or the companies and their products, but the rooms we got to see - these are rooms not normally part of the tour, and I was able to see corners and stair cases and small rooms in the castle where I have never set foot before.

It was lovely to spend this sunny but cold November afternoon with my family, just the four of us, and I hope to convey some of it with these pictures - without acutally showing the most important people attending :-)

View from the South terrace/balcony towards the "tiny hunting lodge" that was built there in order for the Duke of Württemberg to have parties and dinners with his hunting friends and other guests. 
It was still overcast when we arrived at around noon. The dinosaurs to the left are the remnants of the pumpkin exhibition and will not stay there.

 The same view, zoomed in.

 Flammkuchen, straight from the oven! There is mulled wine in the glass behind it.

A little later, the sun came out, and it turned out be yet another glorious SUNday. Cars are not permitted into the inner courtyard of the castle; the one you can see to the left is part of a car dealer's exhibition that was allowed for the day.

 Ever wanted a red Porsche? Well, you probably didn't have this one in mind :-)

There will be a seperate post about some of the odd or beautiful detail I photographed, as well as the ceiling and wall paintings.

Read in 2011 - 25: Der Verräter von Westminster

After "The Audacity of Hope" was such a remarkable, interesting and at the same time pleasant read, my next book was somehow doomed to be a bit disappointing - and sadly, "Der Verräter von Westminster" by Anne Perry was just that.

Having read several parts of Anne Perry's series starring Thomas Pitt and his clever, unconventional wife Charlotte before - and enjoyed them -, I now wonder whether I simply never noticed the shortcomings in the actual writing, or my personal standards of what makes a good book have risen lately, or this one is just not quite as good as the others.

The series featuring Thomas and Charlotte Pitt, plus a cast of recurring characters such as the street-wise, clever and pragmatic house maid Gracie; Charlotte's majestic, beautiful and extremely well-connected octogenarian Great-Aunt Vespasia and Thomas' boss, the lonely Victor Narraway who is secretly in love with Charlotte, is mainly set in Victorian London, with the exception of trips abroad or to places outside London on their various quests. Thomas starts out as a policeman, and later on in the series he is asked to join Her Majesty's secret service. Charlotte married him out of love, below her rank, but because she still has all those contacts in London's High Society, she is often able to help her husband with his inquiries by informally getting information from people who would never speak to him confidentially and in places where he would never be allowed in as a guest, only as a policeman.

You can read more about the series and the author on her website.

Sounds quite good, doesn't it? Well, until recently, I thought it was; I liked the thorough but unpretentious way Victorian life in various households of different class was portrayed, against the backdrop of political, social and economical realities of the time, something that is only possible with a lot of research.

But in this book of the series, by the original title "Betrayal at Lisson Grove" (why on earth did the German publishers think it fit to change this into "Der Verräter von Westminster", which literally means "The Traitor from Westminster"?), for the first time I noticed something odd about Anne Perry's style, and I'm afraid it is not the translator's fault; I guess I would have felt the same had I read the book in English:

The characters seem to have a rather strange way of dealing with their feelings and emotions. No, I do not mean the restrictions Victorian society placed upon men and women alike, only allowing what was deemed "proper conduct" between people who met at parties, at the theatre, on the street or at work. That would have fitted the story well and would have been perfectly explainable.

But every five pages or so (I did not actually count), any one of the characters "shudders" or "shivers" or "quivers" or "twitches" - no matter whether what has been said or thought justifies such a shock. Thomas and Charlotte, Victor Narraway and many others shudder and shiver their way through the elaborate story of a plot directed against Her Majesty and, ultimately, the whole order of the Great British Empire.

At first, I merely felt mildly irritated by all the quivering and trembling, but after a while, I'm afraid I have to say it started to become a bit ridiculous. I even began to wait for the next shudder running down someone's spine, and I was never disappointed. Only towards the end, when the story picks up speed and the plot is uncovered and now must be stopped before anything too dramatic happens, the shivering stops - maybe there wasn't enough time, or maybe the author forgot about it.

I guess I'll read one more book from the series, in order to find out whether that is her "mark" and I just never noticed it or this book was an exception and she tried something new.

Anyway, if you like more or less cosy Victorian mysteries, you will like this book - hopefully, you are less picky than I am :-)

Salzburg Sunrise

Today, I want to show you the view I had from my hotel room in Salzburg, Austria, on Wednesday morning. Don't ask me the name of the mountain - Salzburg is surrounded by similarly dramatic and beautiful formations on all sides, but I am not very good at the geography of the place, I'm afraid.

Salzburg was a business trip; the biggest fair for the gastronomical and hotel industry was held there, and since I provide the point of sale hardware everyone who runs a hotel or restaurant, pub, coffee bar, night club etc. needs, and several of my customers were exhibiting at the fair, I took the train to Austria on Tuesday afternoon and spent Wednesday at the fair.

My hotel room was nice, surprisingly spacious, very clean and I liked the striped curtains (while I do not have any curtains anywhere in my home, I do like them in other people's places).

Something about the rug in my room struck me as odd, and then I realized what it was: among the usual camels, hyenas, llamas and other desert motifs, there was what can only represent a Rubik's cube - see for yourself! Do you remember them from the 1980s?

A cross on the wall is something you'll only find in Bavarian or Austrian hotel rooms (Italy and Spain, too, I guess); I don't think I have seen one anywhere else, and I have seen my fair share of hotel rooms in various parts of Germany.

As mentioned, the fair is all about what people in a restaurant or hotel could ever possibly need, from hair dryers to table cloths to huge industrial dishwashers to scents for the air condition to special pillows for people with back problems to the aprons waiters wear to china and cutlery to hotel room keys and security systems to napkins to lighting to steam cookers to furniture to cakes and meats and pasta and sauces and and and... the list is long, the halls were large and brimming with people and booths, and I had a good time. Anytime I felt a bit hungry, I simply went to one of the stalls where some cooking show or other was going on, patiently listened and watched through the presentation and then had a sample of what they had just made, from burgers to ice cream, it was all there. And of course there were the manufacturers of coffee machines and the companies who roast and sell coffee beans and other coffee products - so, no shortage of that all day, either!

This huge stag (about twice as tall as I) was quite an eyecatcher in one of the halls. I think it is very kitschy - but so kitschy it is cool! I asked the lady at the booth whether it was OK if I took a picture, and she had nothing against it. There; some Christmassy glamour, posted less than two weeks before the Christmas market in my home town begins!

Read in 2011 - 24: The Audacity of Hope

For a long time, I have meant to read Michelle Obama's biography, but you know what it's like with books on your "To Be Read" list (either physically on a piece of paper or mentally, like mine); sometimes you simply do not happen to come across it at your local library, and you do not feel like buying yet another book that will leave you with even less of the precious space on your shelf.
Therefore, I was pleased to take Barack Obama's "The Audacity of Hope" home from the library some weeks ago, and it was a good choice, a very good choice actually.

Barack Obama wrote this in 2006, when he was the junior U.S. senator from Illinois and lived in Chicago. It wasn't his first book; he had previously published "Dreams from My Father" (which I have not read), a book that made it to the New York Times beststeller list.

The book is divided into nine chapters with headlines such as "Values", "Faith", "Race", "The World Beyond Our Borders" and "Family". The writing is personal and fluent; you can tell the words come from one person and not from a team of ghostwriters.  It is a pleasure to read, and (for me) a rather instructive pleasure at that.
Of course I did learn something about the political system in the U.S. back at school, but there, more emphasis was placed on learning about our own country, and I must admit I can not remember in detail the lessons about political systems in other countries.
So this book gave me an insight not only into the structure of politics in the U.S. but also into the way an American perceives his own country, and the place of that country in relation to the rest of the world.

Some passages I found so remarkable for one reason or other that I want to share them here.
Let me begin at the beginning. When I started reading this, I showed the book to RJ and he asked what it was about. This bit from the prologue is what I read to him:

That's the topic of this book: how we might begin the process of changing our politics and our civic life. This isn't to say that I know exactly how to do it. I don't. Although I discuss in each chapter a number of our most pressing policy challenges, and suggest in broad strokes the path I believe we should follow, my treatment of the issues is often partial and incomplete. I offer no unifying theory of American government, nor do these pages provide a manifesto for action, complete with charts and graphs, timetables and ten-point-plans.

Instead what I offer is something more modest: personal reflections on those values and ideals that have led me to public life, some thoughts on the ways that our current political discourse unnecessarily divides us, and my own best assessment - based on my experience as a senator and lawyer, husband and father, Christian and skeptic - of the ways we can ground our politics in the notion of a common good.

Quite a bit further into the book, under the chapter named "Opportunity", I found this interesting bit about oil:

The United States has 3 percent of the world's oil reserves. We use 25 percent of the world's oil. We can't drill our way out of the problem.

What we can do is create renewable, cleaner energy sources for the twenty-first century.

Obama says about his mother:

...she possessed an abiding sense of wonder, a reverence for life and its precious, tranistory nature that could properly be described as devotional. During the course of the day, she might come across a painting, read a line of poetry, or hear a piece of music, and I would see tears well up in her eyes. Sometimes, as I was growing up, she would wake me up in the middle of the night to have me gaze at a particularly spectacular moon, or she would have me close my eyes as we walked together at twilight to the rustle of leaves.

Throughout the book, we catch glimpses of home life at the Obama's (while the most personal chapter is the last one, titled "Family"), such as this one:

Later that night, back home in Chicago, I sat at the dinner table, watching Malia and Sasha as they laughed and bickered and resisted their string beans before their mother chased them up the stairs and to their baths. Alone in the kitchen washing the dishes, I imagined my two girls growing up, and I felt the ache that every parent must feel at one time or another, that desire to snatch up each moment of your child's presence, and never let go...

The home life bits are never there simply to show us "this is what we live like, we are just an ordinary family"; instead, they are used to introduce or conclude a specific thought or idea, and are always imbedded in the context of the whole chapter.

Some very honest and clear words about U.S. foreign policy can be found in the chapter "The World Beyond Our Borders", for instance:

Indonesia also provides a handy record of U.S. foreign policy over the past fifty years. In broad outline at least, it's all there: our role in liberating former colonies and creating international institutions to help manage the post-World War II order; our tendency to view nations and conflicts through the prism of the Cold War; our tireless promotion of American-style capitalism and multinational corporations; the tolerance and occasional encouragement of tyranny, corruption, and environmental degradation when it served our interest; our optimism once the Cold War ended that Big Macs and the Internet would lead to the end of historical conflicts; [...] the realization that the wonders of globalization might also facilitate economic volatility, the spread of pandemics, and terrorism.

I recommend this book to anyone, regardless of their political orientation or the country they live in. There is, I believe, something in it for all of us.
(And I still want to read Michelle Obama's biography)

Lunch at my Mum's

Less than a month ago, I posted about having lunch at my mum's already; you can find the Sauerkraut recipe and pictures here.

Today, as every week (mostly on Mondays or Tuesdays), I found myself walking over to my parents' place at a quarter to one, once again looking forward to what would no doubt be yet another lovely lunch hour, spent eating the most delicious home-made food while chatting to my mum.

She made waffles today, but not like the very lovely-looking ones Nan made Sunday night and showed us on her blog; instead, my mum's waffles were salty ones, meant as my main course and served with a salad consisting of lettuce and radishes that was lip-lickingly well made with croutons and a mustard-spiced dressing.

For starters, we had Hugo - THE cocktail of Summer 2011 in our area, having replaced the formerly most popular Aperol Spritz, which in turn had replaced Caipirinha (you'll still find those two served at any imaginable occasion, but Hugo is certainly No. 1 of the current drinks chart here). Hugo is made of prosecco, elderflower syrup, garnished with slices of lime and leaves of peppermint and sometimes made a little less sweet and strong by adding some sparkling mineral water. It is very refreshing, and we quite like it.

Dessert was a piece of Linzer Torte, a rather rich cake my mum made on the weekend.

Now for the waffles - here is my mum's recipe:

You need

125 g flour

1/2 tea spoon salt

1 table spoon mixed herbs

50 g soft lard

75 g sour cream

4 table spoons grated cheese

2 eggs

some sparkling mineral water

50 g ham or bacon, chopped up

Mix well in a blender or using a mixer. Add the ham or bacon at the very end. The dough should be "viscous", neither too thick nor too thin, sort of half-liquid. To make it right and add that extra bit of "fluff", add a bit of sparkling water (maybe 4 or 5 table spoons).

Of course you can make it without the ham / bacon, if you prefer your food to be vegetarian or if you don't have any at hand.

Put some lard on the waffle iron and, when it is hot, spread about 3 table spoons of dough onto the iron, then close the iron and bake until golden-brown (with crispy edges, yummmmm!!!).

The amount described here is enough for about 6 to 7 waffles, depending on their size. I am not ashamed to tell you that I ate 5 of those lovelies today for lunch!

Thank you, mum, for another delightful meal with you!

By the way, ever since we started this in May of this year, I have not had the same dish twice yet. Don't you wish you had my mum living close to your place? :-)

Since everyone seems to be showing their colours...

...let me show you mine, too:

This is what the weather has been like for the past few weeks here, and not much change is forecast for the coming week. It has been unusually sunny and mild for November which is typically a cold, dark and wet month here in Germany.

The view from my kitchen window (facing East) shows all sorts of colours and still a surprising amount of green.

The cherry tree in front of the North-facing window has turned a yellow so bright it lights up the whole kitchen - almost like the foamy cloud of white blossoms it boasts for about two weeks in the spring.

And I liked this beautiful sunrise so much I simply had to try and capture it on camera:

By the Sound of the Bell

Since my childhood, I've always loved the sound of church bells, and in spite of me not being a religious person anymore, I still like it, and maybe writing this down helps me to understand better why that is so.
My home town has somewhere around 89.000 inhabitants, and in the small area that I consider my neighbourhood, there are two churches close enough for me to hear their bells. There are three more in town centre, a bit further away from my house, but still within hearing distance when the wind is right. And while you'll hardly ever see me inside any of those buildings, I like the fact that they are there and add to the orderly structure of my everyday life which is so important to me. I need the tidy, stable outer frame to keep the rather chaotic, whirling and colourful wilderness of my mind within acceptable borders, I guess, and the bells contribute to that.

This has been so particularly since I have started working from home earlier this year, as explained in this post (and mentioned in some others; if you want to know more, simply put "working from home" in the search bar on my blog).

With the exception of the days when I have to get up really early to catch a train or plane, I do not set my alarm clock anymore; instead, I let the church bells wake me.
This is, I think, common in most towns nowadays, at least in Germany: The bells chime only from 6.00 or 7.00 in the morning until 11.00 pm or midnight, but not during the night. In my town, they start at 7.00 - just right for me to get up and begin the working day with enough time to have a mug of coffee, read the blogs I am following, sort through the first batch of emails for the day, have a shower, get dressed and eat my muesli.

The bells announce every quarter of the hour with one, two, three and four chimes. After the fourth chime, the full hour is struck. And after the seven, noon and six p.m. chimes, there is a pause of maybe half a minute or less, and then a long, resounding chime announces that it is now time to begin the working day, or have your lunch break, or end the working day. It is those long chimes I particularly like; I don't know how better to describe them than as a soft, dark red velvety carpet of sound covering, at least for a little while, the neighbourhood, muffling all the noise our busy daily lives create.

Much to my dismay, at the end of summer I suddenly noticed the long morning chime was gone. The noon one is still "on", and I am ashamed to say that I am not sure about the 6.00 pm one, but the morning one is definitely gone. Now I am wondering whether that is a seasonal thing, and hope it will be back in the spring. Maybe the authorities regulating (like ALL things in Germany are regulated, one way or other!) church bells have determined that in this town, people should not be "disturbed" by the long morning chime during the winter, when it is bad enough having to get up while it is still dark outside? I really don't know, and wonder who I could ask to find out.

Anyway, the bells at 7.00 in the morning start me off a lot less apruptly than any alarm clock could do, in a gentle manner as if saying "Look, the day is starting, how about you?". Then, while I am at work, during the afternoon I usually allow myself a little coffee break. When the weather is fine, I will sit on my window sill (there are several pictures of that on my blog) and enjoy a few sunrays. This coffee break is always measured by the quarter hour bells of the church closest to my home, not by some boss telling me to get back to work now.
And in the evening, sometimes at 5.00, more often at 6.00, along with the bell I greet the beginning of leisure time, often leaving the house going to the gym or (only in summer) for a run to the sound of the bell.
When on weekends I occasionally lay down for a little nap, these naps are also measured by the sound of the bell.

I like it that way, and hopefully, will be able to enjoy this peaceful pacemaker of my days and nights for many years to come.