Thanksgiving is just another day in Germany

This is my first time not being home for Thanksgiving, or being somewhere where NOBODY celebrates it either. I found this holiday to be quite difficult to not be home watching football, eating Mom’s turkey, yummy sides and purple stuff. I decided that the least I could do was make us a traditional dinner and we could watch football. The only problem is that since Thanksgiving Thursday was not a holiday here, we just ordered pizza and watched the games. However, I did decide to cook a full dinner for that weekend.

I have to preface this with the fact that I have never cooked a turkey before, but I was not afraid of the challenge. Fortunately, I had my InStyle and Real Simple magazines that my mom sent over in a care package. They had some great recipes for doing a proper dinner. So here is the menu I came up with:

Turkey with honey/fig glaze
Cranberry orange dressing
Mashed potatoes with caramelized shallots with white wine gravy
Taditional bread stuffing
Green bean casserole

I made my list of things I needed at the store, translated them to German, and went off to the markets. One of the things I love most here are the Farmers markets on Saturday mornings. You get really good organic produce and have a great selection. I was able to get everything I needed except for the meat and chicken stock. Not a problem though because Alex took me to a grocery store for that. I also had to use a converter to figure out oven settings and measurements since the recipes were for the US and everything we have in the kitchen is German.

As I was cooking our friend Sebastian called and I told Alex to invite him over to join us. I figured the more around the table the better! (Except we have a very small table!) Here are some pictures of how it came out. I have to say, it was all very delicious and I impressed myself with my ability to put it together.

Where does one find JCrew in Germany?

Ok, so I have figured out that Germany is where fashion comes to die! I am sorry, but seriously, one cannot be expected to be fashionable in this town given the selection of stores available. It looks like a polyester bomb went off and landed on the racks of every clothing store here. Not to mention, all the suits and “professional” clothes remind of things I see in bad 80’s videos. I won’t even start on the shoes, except to say that there was a Nine West here at one point and it did not last long. I imagine it’s because the shoes were scared and walked out of Germany and went to Paris.

Given this fashion quandary, I have resorted to ordering online with JCrew and the Gap. I found a company that has a mailbox system where they give me a U.S. address and I can order things in the states to have them sent there. Then they send me my things to Germany. It’s a bit more expensive, but given that the Euro is stronger than the dollar (like a 45% off sale) I think overall I spend the same amount as I would if I were able to find decent clothes here.

The other thing I miss from my girlie schedule are my magazines - The Bible (a.k.a. InStyle), Real Simple, Glamour and People. Seriously these should be here too!

Please, if someone can, send a JCrew, Gap, Ann Taylor Loft, Nine West, DSW, and Pottery Barn asap!

No speak German – kind of a problem

Ok, this is where I was not too happy… I accepted my offer with New Firm in June and started November 1. One would think that since they knew I spoke only a little German, that they would have had been more organized for my first day. When I showed up at my new office, they were about to put me in a large room for orientation. The problem – the orientation was all in German. So they sent me upstairs to my department to start. Well, my department wasn’t ready for me because they thought I would be sitting through the orientation. Not too much of a welcome feeling. So, I got a much abbreviated version of everything (sort of) and was sent to 2 weeks of German classes. The classes were good, but it was about a week of review and then a week of learning new things. It only advanced me to more conversation and food/survival things (which are important) however, not really that helpful in doing a job in German. I am learning and so far it hasn’t been a major issue with my job, it’s just more annoying than anything.

The other times I run into trouble is on the trains I take to and from work. Sometimes they have announcements of delays or mechanical trouble and I don’t know what they are saying. One night I was going home (of course when Alex was out of town) when an announcement came on (in German) stating there had been an electrical outage in a large part of the city. I was fortunately sitting next to a nice girl who told me what they had said. The plan was that the train was going to stop at a station and then bus us back to my home town of Lüneburg. If you can imagine how many people there are in a rush hour train all trying to get out and on a bus, it was really manic. However, the nice girl sitting with me had called her mother to arrange for her to pick her up at the station, rather than taking the bus. She offered me a ride. I was very thankful for that because the mayhem caused by the buses was a bit crazy. They also had used all the buses in Lüneburg to go to the train station, so even if I had taken the bus back to the station, I would not have had a bus to take me on to my house. So this was a time that I was thankful that I did not know German!

The Great Transition

The first couple of weeks were filled with bureaucracy in making my life in Germany legal. I am quite grateful that Alex was with me through all of this, because not everyone I encountered knew English. Now I would think that people who work in foreign affairs offices and help people from other countries with their permits and visas might know more than only the German language. Apparently, this was not the case here.

It was nice having a couple of weeks to adjust to actually living here (which is quite different than just vacationing here). We got together with Christoph, Patrizia and Alessandro for lunch one day and enjoyed seeing other friends and just enjoying our time together.

Not to mention the lovely task of unpacking and figuring out how to get all of my clothes into our closets!

Alex did all the homework necessary to figure out how to get to work from our apartment. I love the public transportation system here because you really do not need a car that often. We did a test run the week before my starting date so we could get a feel for which train time was best and so on.

When it came to my first day at work, Alex could not have been sweeter. He made me a “Back to School/Work” supply bag. He got me cute pencils and snacks and papers and hand ream for my desk. It was just the cutest thing ever! He also rode the train and subway with me to work on my first day and then met me at my office at the end of the day to ride home with me. (What a gentleman!!) We live about 45 minutes driving time away from my office and Alex works in the town we live, so he went back and forth that day just for me!