Birmingham, Wales, and When Travel Doesn’t Go as Planned

Our first trip this year was a weekend in the UK. We’ve gone to London several times already and love it because everything seems so familiar. It’s relaxing to be able to speak English everywhere and for some reason, the food tastes so much more “like home” to us. We decided to switch things up a bit and travel to Birmingham instead. While we were there, we were also able to meet up with some of Will’s distant relatives too.

While we were there, we visited Cadbury World and also took a drive across the border into Wales to see the ruins of Tintern Abbey. It was decommissioned in the 1500s and has remained largely undisturbed.

Although it was mostly a good trip, we did have one hiccup on the last night/day that reminds us that you must always be flexible while traveling. On our last night, I woke up sick around 3am with a mild case of food poisoning. Although I was worried that I wouldn't be able to survive the 2 hour drive to the airport, we ended up going to a local clinic (free of charge!) and getting some medicine so that I could make it. Never a dull moment!

Hello 2016!

Wow! I know I’ve said it before, but the time has really gotten away from me again. We have been so busy in 2016 that I haven’t had much time to write or go through my photos. I promise I haven't meant to neglect the blog!

As soon as we got back from our Christmas in Pittsburgh, I began a new job in a different department. My old job was through an external contractor and was only temporary, so I started looking for other positions within the company. I was so excited when I was offered a “real” position with “the company.” My new job is in the HR department and it’s in a big international team. My colleagues are from all over Europe, Asia, and Latin America. I’ve also been assigned some global projects, so I’ve been meeting and working with people all over the world. It’s definitely been very interesting and I like it so far. I’ve been so busy though, learning the ropes and keeping up with the occasional long hours, that by the time I get home and have dinner—it’s just about time to go to bed--no time for blogging. 

I have a lot to catch up on, including some really fun trips that we’ve already taken (including Prague and Morocco) and preparation for our big road trip this summer! In the meantime, here’s some recent photos:

Second annual Christmas haul

Same old Sophie

Trying to get into the Carnival spirit

Krista's Favorite Things

As you’re getting into Christmas shopping season, I thought I’d take some inspiration from Oprah and share some of my “Favorite Things” that I’ve found in Germany so far. Happy shopping!

1. Bioderma Sensibio H20 Micellar Solution

Technically, this is French, but this product earned the number one spot because it has helped me so much. When we first arrived in Germany, my skin had such a terrible reaction to the hard water, broke out, and took almost a year to get under control. Although I had stockpiled and brought all of my favorite US cosmetic products with me, the dermatologist here said that I needed to switch to German/European products that are formulated to work better with the water.  She recommended a Bioderma moisturizer and when I was buying it, the pharmacist also recommended the H20 micellar solution, which is a make-up remover and cleanser. I have tried and love several other Bioderma products, as well as other French skincare brands like La Roche-Posay and Avène.

Bioderma H20 Micellar Solution

Some of my other favorite skincare products

2. Ritter Sport Chocolate

Chocolate, of course, comes in at a close second. When thinking about German chocolate, most of the attention goes to some the big brands like Lindt (which is Swiss, anyway). However, there are other great chocolates readily available in the grocery store that are just as good and cheaper. Ritter Sport makes bars that are about 3 inches wide and come in a ton of different flavors, including strawberry yogurt,  rum-soaked raisin, and vanilla chai latte. My favorite is the nougat.

3. Reusable Bags

Compared to the US, German society is much more environmentally conscious and fairly eco-friendly. Trash is divided between recyclables, biodegradable, and waste. Soft drinks are primarily served in glass bottles. When you go shopping, plastic bags are either not provided or cost between 10-50 cents per bag. Reusable bags are must more common and of better quality than those in the US. For grocery shopping, we have our own foldable grocery basket that is insulated to keep things warm or cold. Additionally, almost every woman carries a foldable reusable plastic bag in her purse, in case of an unexpected shopping trip. These bags are made of plastic material that is much more durable than the cloth/felt-ish bags that I’ve seen in the US.

4. Fritz Kola

I would not say that Fritz Kola is the best drink I’ve ever had in my life, but they earn a spot on my list because I think it’s really cool that a small company had the courage to go up against the Coke/Pepsi giants and be successful. Fritz Kola was founded by two friends in Hamburg in 2002 and can now be found all across Germany. The drinks are mostly sold wholesale to restaurants, but we have found one drink market where we can buy some for ourselves. In addition to the standard cola and diet cola, they also make lemonades, fruit drinks, and sparkling apple juices to the German palette.

Fritz Kola at Chipotle in Frankfurt

5. Mayersche Bookstore

While Amazon has led to many of the big book stores in the US closing, there is a German law that prevents Amazon from selling books cheaper than book stores. This means the book store business is still booming in Germany. The largest Mayersche shop in Cologne is in the Neumarkt shopping district and is three stories. In addition to books, they also sell greeting cards, toys, and great Cologne souvenirs. With their loyalty card, I can also get discounts on English books one day per month.

6. Früh Kölsch

You can’t talk about German products without mentioning beer, of course! Beer is such a huge part of German culture, with each region and often individual city proudly brewing their own variety. Kölsch is the special type of beer from Cologne and is usually served in tiny 0.2 liter glasses. According to Wikipedia, there are 13 official brands of Kölsch from various breweries around town. My favorite is from the Früh.

7. Kahla Five Senses Coffee Mugs

There are several brands of German porcelain which are popular,  including Villeroy & Boch and Kahla Thurigen. Kahla has a lot of pieces which are very modern and minimalist.  One of my favorites are these coffee mugs which have a strip of velvet attached to protect your hand from the heat. We have both the coffee and tea versions, which features a small slit to keep your tea bag in place.

8. 4711 Echt Kölnisch Wasser

I suppose that you can’t have a Cologne Christmas list without…COLOGNE. The very first eau de cologne was created in the 1700s in Cologne. The original scent has now been renamed 4711 after the address of the original headquarters in the French-mandated city planning system. The name was eventually changed to Echt  Kölnisch Wasser or “True Cologne Water.” You can still visit the original headquarters, which is now a museum and gift shop.

Happy Thanksgiving!

This year, some friends of ours from the US were visiting over Thanksgiving, so we decided to have a combined Thanksgiving dinner/Will’s birthday party together at our apartment. As we have learned, the traditional Thanksgiving turkeys in the US are male, while female turkeys are more commonly eaten here in Germany. Luckily, one of our German friends knows of a good butcher who has been able to provide us with a Tom Turkey two years in a row. In addition to turkey, we had mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole, cornbread stuffing (amazing), green beans, carrots, salad, and rolls. Quite a feast!

Also while our friends were in town, we finally made it ice skating in the Heumarkt Christmas market. That had been on my to-do list since last year, but we never made it. The rink was surprisingly not very full for a Friday night and we had a lot of fun.

Our social calendar has really been packed recently. In addition to our own Thanksgiving dinner, we were also invited to dinner at the home of another American colleague of Will’s. They have 4 children and invited all of their German friends that they have made during their six years in Germany. I think the final headcount was 26 people. The food, of course, was great. Next weekend we have our third and final Thanksgiving dinner at another American friend’s home. I think this means we have a lot to be thankful for!

Weekend in Milan

A few weeks ago, another search on google.com/flights turned up some great deals and we were able to score €50 roundtrip flights to Milan. We didn’t want to use any vacation days from work, so we flew out on Friday night and returned home on Sunday. What’s more European than popping over to Italy for Friday happy hour? Since we were flying on a low-cost carrier, we flew into Bergamo airport (not Milan’s main airport), which is about an hour away from the city. After an easy bus ride, we arrived at our Airbnb apartment and went out for pizza.

This looked more like Pizza Hut than other pizza I'd had in Italy, but was still delicious!

On Saturday, we hit all the touristy stops in Milan, the main one being the ENORMOUS Duomo cathedral. Our entry ticket also included access to the roof of the church. We had to climb a million stairs, but the view was worth it. Right next to the cathedral is the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II shopping mall, which is one of the oldest “malls” in the world. It’s filled with stores from all of the haute couture designers, including the flagship Prada store. It was fun to window shop, but we didn’t buy anything! 

Milan Cathedral

View from the top

Interior

View from the front door

Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II

Interior of the Galleria

Lunch!

Dessert!

After window shopping until we dropped, we partook in another famous Milanese tradition: the aperitivo. The aperitivo is sort of like a happy hour, squeezed in before the late Italian dinnertime.  Most bars and restaurants offer the aperitivo from around 6pm-9pm; with the purchase of a drink, patrons can also snack from a free buffet. We followed the Chow Gypsy blog’s recommendations and tried a few different places in the Navigli canal district. The only downside to our aperitivo crawl was that we were too full for dinner after stuffing ourselves with breads, meats, and cheeses.

We decided to spend our last day visiting Bergamo since that was where the airport was located. Bergamo is split into two parts, the lower city and the upper city. The upper city sits on the mountainside in the foothills of the Alps and overlooks the surrounding countryside. There’s a funicular connecting the two areas as well as regular busses. We spent our entire time wandering through the winding, steep streets in the upper city. Sunday afternoon seemed like a busy time and we were turned away from several full restaurants before finding something for lunch.

Bergamo Cathedral

Goat Cheese and Pepper Ravioli

After sight-seeing, we took the bus back to the airport for our 6pm flight. Unfortunately, our flight was delayed seven hours and we didn’t land back in Cologne until 3am Monday!

Museumsnacht Köln

And now back to less serious topics…

Last year, we happened to stumble upon Museumsnacht Köln while we were at the Deutz fall carnival. We agreed that it was definitely something we should do the next time around and we did! On Museum Night, all of the city’s museums are open until 3am and participants only need to buy one pass to be able to visit them all. Some museums also have special exhibits, live music, and food for guests. Although we definitely didn’t stay out until 3am, we did visit 5 (or 6*) museums.  I had only been to one of the museums before and was really excited about seeing all the news ones.

1. NS-Dokumentationszentrum EL-DE Haus

This museum is located in the former headquarters of the Gestapo, the Nazi secret police, in Cologne. The upper floors were used as offices and there was a prison in the basement. As you walk through the office rooms, you learn about the progression of the Nazi movement and deportations in Cologne. According to the museum's website, it's one of the largest memorials to the victims of Nazism in Germany. The tour was really fascinating, but most of the artifacts (newspapers, books, letters) were in German, so we weren’t able to read everything.

2. Kölnisches Stadtmuseum

The Stadtmuseum is located across the street from the EL-DE Haus and about two streets away from the Dom. This museum features the entire history of the city of Cologne—from ancient Roman times, through the Middle Ages, to the present day. We got to see some artifacts from the Napoleon era when Cologne was under French rules as well as a display of all of the brands of Kölsch beer glasses. It was a little bit crowded, so we didn’t stay long and hope to go back another time.

3. Domgrabung Köln

As we were on our way from the Stadtmuseum to the next destination, we walked past the Dom and noticed a lot of people going down a set a stairs that I had thought only led to a public bathroom. Upon further investigation, we found out that it was also an entrance to an excavation site under the Dom. Once you go in, you are funneled through winding corridors of old rock walls and really deep pits. There was no information available that night and I can’t seem to find much online either about what exactly we were looking at. From what we can gather, the site where the current Dom sights was also an important area during Roman rule and was the site of another ancient church later on. I think the caves were possibly ruins of both of those. I need to do more investigation though!

4. Römanisch-Germanisch Museum

Next we finally visited the Roman German Museum, which has been on my to-do list for 1.5 years. This is the central location for all of the ancient Roman artifacts locally excavated and the history of Roman rule in Cologne. The museum is huge and I think we say most of it even though we were starting to get tired by this point. Very interesting!

5. Schokolade Museum

The Schokolade Museum was the one museum we accidentally visited last year on Museum Night. As I’ve mentioned before, the actual exhibits are more appropriate for kids, but the café is not to be missed! Unfortunately, the were sold out of chocolate cake by the time we got there and I had to settle for cheesecake.

6.* CityLeaks Parcours

After our dessert, we were exhausted and decided to head home. When we got off the bus at the stop by our apartment, we saw that there was a group of Museum Night volunteers outside of one of the nearby apartment buildings. A few weeks ago, I had noticed that, seemingly overnight, a huge mural had been painted on the side of the apartment building. Apparently, this was part of a program that every two years chooses an apartment building to paint. Very cool!

Unfortunately, I didn't take any photos during the night. I noticed that no one else was taking pictures, so I wondered if this was part of German museum etiquette. I hope to get back to each of the museums later and look at all of the exhibits more in-depth, but Museum Night was a great first taste!

Zu Viele Ausländer?

So far, I’ve kept things pretty light-hearted with my posts and for the most part, our time in Europe has been pretty light-hearted. However, I think it’s important now to address one of the current hot-button issues that Germany is facing and the discussions that are happening here.

As you may already know, in the last several months, Europe has been receiving a huge influx of incoming refugees-- many of them escaping the horrendous situation in Syria. Germany has been at the forefront of this crisis, since many refugees hope to settle here because of the strong economy and high quality of life. While several other European countries have been resistant to receiving the refugees, Germany  “opened” its borders and announced they would welcome anyone and everyone, which is estimated to be up to 800,000 asylum-seekers and immigrants this year. 60 Minutes did a really informative piece on this a few weeks ago, which you can watch here(beginning around the 2:20 mark).

Of course, such a political situation will elicit many charged responses, and that has certainly been the case. I would say that the majority of German people are supportive of this initiative and are welcoming the refugees with open arms. They see it as the obvious course of action during a humanitarian crisis and say it would be inhumane to turn their backs on these people in need. It is also a way to bolster the dwindling population and create a new generation of workers to support the economy. The German language course that I took was sponsored by the government and several of my classmates were refugees from Syria, Afghanistan, and Iran. They echoed similar sentiments as those in the 60 minutes video: they love their home country, but could no longer stay due to the danger and want to settle into a normal, working life as soon as possible.

However, there is also a small, but loud opposition to the open immigration policies. These people believe that the generous social welfare system cannot support so many newcomers and worry about the sustainability/ authenticity of the German culture. Unfortunately, there are some groups who have spun these concerns into rather racist and xenophobic rhetoric. Probably the most well-known of these groups, is PEGIDA (“Patriotic Europeans against the Islamization of the West”), which was formed last year in Dresden.  PEGIDA has been making the rounds around the country holding demonstrations and trying to gain more representation in the government. Earlier in 2015, they had planned to have a rally in Cologne, directly in front of the Dom. In a poignant response, the cathedral provost had all of the Dom lights turned off, literally and figuratively saying that the church would not stand for, nor shed light on PEGIDA’s stances. The rally ended up being cancelled, in part due to the lack of lighting and because a much larger counter-protest (people protesting PEGIDA) was planned. More information here. 

More recently, Cologne made international news again when the leading candidate for mayor (whose current job involves resettling refugees) was stabbed at a campaign rally by a man opposed to immigration. Luckily, she is expected to make a full recovery and won the election while hospitalized.  Violence like this is really, really atypical for Germany, so it’s concerning to see someone go to such lengths just to try to prove a point. More information here. 

The refugee crisis is a very difficult situation and I think it's hard to come up with a solution that will work for all parties involved. There have been calls for other European countries, the US, and Canada to accept more refugees, to ease some of the burden on Germany. Bill Peduto, the mayor of Pittsburgh, along with mayors of other US cities have publicly pledged to welcome Syrian refugees in their cities. 

Will and I have the unique perspective of observing all of this play out as foreigners/immigrants/”Ausländer” ourselves. As a disclaimer, I have to say that we have been treated EXTREMELY well, heartily welcomed, and have not been the victims of any kind of discrimination in Germany. We also live in a neighborhood that is predominately Turkish and has an undeniable international flair. But, it is still a bit uncomfortable for us to read and hear about all of the problems and negative opinions that people have with immigrants arriving. Several times we’ve had to remind friends and colleagues that we also are not German during discussions and debates. Their response is usually that we’re “not the same [as the other immigrants],” presumably due to being of Caucasian and Judeo-Christian descent. 

When we moved to Germany, we knew that living in a different culture would give us new perspectives on things, but this was not a way that we had anticipated.  I think that it’s good for us, to see things in a new way, and to walk, albeit a stroll and not a  marathon, in someone else’s shoes.

Grafitti that reads "Too many foreigners?" in the
subway station in our neighborhood
Photo credit: Ankita