Christmas Market Tour

The Christmas markets are a very important part of the Christmas season in Germany. Christmas market - that means toys, bratwurst, candied almonds and hot spiced wine (Glühwein) - at least for me. some of the Christmas markets in Germany are famous tourist attractions. Here are some impressions from our visits to some Christmas markets in our area. 



The Christmas market in Stuttgart

The Christmas market in Stuttgartt has about 280 stalls and about 4 million visitors

The Christmas market in Waiblingen

- much smaller of course, but also much cozier.

Probably the most famous one in our region - the Christmas market in Esslingen. One section has a medieval flair, and it is probably very cool - if you go on a weekday. We went there on a Sunday afternoon, and we had hardly room to move. So we just passed through, got some almonds, took some photos and left.

Getting Equipped for Cycling in the Snow

The temperatures are going down (already below 0 C/below 32 F) and the weather forecast says snow pretty soon. So I got myself a couple of things to make myself ready for cycling in the snow/on frozen roads and in low temperatures.

All I can say is KACHING.

Winter tires = tires with 265 metal Spikes

Gloves:

Shoe covers (for pulling over the shoes to keep the feet warm):

Here a couple of impressions from my current route (so far only a little bit of snow/ice):

 Early morning

Late afternoon

The hardest part so far ...

 ... has been to have less time for our son. This has of course nothing to do with living in Germany, but with having a new, regular (8-5 Job). In Taipei I was working for Radio Taiwan International  was born and had a much more flexible working schedule. So for the first one and a half years after our son was born I was able to be at home a lot during the day. So he was used to see me in the mornings, and especially when he was able to get out of his bed himself he would run to my study and look for me. We also were able to go out together quite often. Be it only downstairs, walk around the lake nearby, get food, or even "explore" the city.
Now, most of the time, I am already gone when he wakes up, and I come home only around 6 PM. So there is not much time I can spend with him. So sometimes he tells me: "Papa, don't go to work".

I dearly miss the times when I was able to spend more time with him. It is not very likely that this kind of job will come around again, so I am very grateful that I had the opportunity to work for the radio back in Taipei.

First Snow - First Crash

We had the first snow yesterday (not in all of Germany). It made my son really excited and parts of the road really slippery this morning. And that made cycling to work somewhat tricky. I had just left our building and i was passing a couple of neighbours. Just when I happily had said "good morning" I noticed the icy underground, but it was too late. I crashed right in front of the neighbours. Fortunately apart from my pride I was unhurt

Fall

Fall is in full swing. That means low temperatures, a lot of rain, but also the chance for some colorful pictures. This one is taken through the window of our bedroom.

And these were taken during my commute to work.

No Place in the Kindergarten

When I found our apartment in Waiblingen I happily noticed the kindergarten on the first floor (Erdgeschoss in Germany) of the building. "Very convenient," I thought. I had heard that there is usually a waiting period, but I thought "how bad can it get?" After all the German government had passed a bill that starting from August 1, 2013 each child 2 years and older is entitled to a spot in a kindergarten. You can even sue the government if you don't get a spot.
So  I applied for a kindergarten spot right after we had moved in in May, and the head of the kindergarten told me that the application has to go through the city government and most likely her kindergarten might have a spot earliest in September, but more likely in spring of 2014. So I added a couple more kindergartens to the application, in the belief that would help.
Some time later the city government informed us that there MIGHT be a spot in a kindergarten near our house in the spring of 2014 if we could agree to sending our son to the kindergarten for only half a day. I thought that waiting period were ridiculous, but i agreed to the half day. But then a couple weeks later they told us: "sorry nothing until SEPTEMBER 2014 - PERHAPS" The only other option they gave us was checking with a couple of private kindergartens which are about three times as expensive as the public ones - and far away.
Since I am not familiar with all the details about my rights concerning the kindergarten spot, I thought, I get more information first and then try again - harder. In the meantime i wanted to take advantage of another new regulation of our amazing government - starting from August 1, 2013 if a family takes care of their child(ren) 2 years and older they will get a monthly subsidy of 100 Euro per child. But then I found out that only children born AFTER August 1, 2012 (YES 2012) get this money. The funny thing is - recently the government (or the responsible ministry) stated that the number of applications for this subsidy has been limited.
My math might be a little bit rusty, but how many children born after August 1, 2012 are there who are 2 years and older?

Cooking and Baking

Eating out is quite expensive in Germany, or Europe, or if you come from Taiwan basically everywhere. For a family of three you have to pay at least 15 Euro, and that is if you go to a very simple Italian restaurant or a small Greek/Turkish diner.  The only cheaper options are the sausage stalls or fast food chains (if you can take advantage of some special offers, otherwise a menu also costs around 5 or 6 Euros).  So unless you have a really high paying job you have to cook and bake yourself quite often. Which sometimes can be very time consuming if you are used to the Taiwanese style of eating - as opposed to the German style. While Taiwanese traditionally enjoy warm meals for lunch and dinner (and often even for breakfast), the German diet consists of a lot of bread. Even for dinner traditional German families have bread with some cheese, cold cuts, perhaps some cold veggies (tomatoes, gherkins). Though I grew up in Germany I only got really aware of this curiosity when I was roughly a teenager. Because with my father being Taiwanese and (fortunately) not willing to have bread for dinner, I (as well as my siblings) grew up with warm meals for lunch and dinner. So i took that as normal, and only later as a teenager when I visited friends and also had dinner with them I found out that they had bread for dinner.
But coming back to the present - since it is financially not feasible to have dinner in a restaurant every day, and we also don't want to eat bread all the time we have been trying out a lot of different dishes - cooking and baking. My latest achievement  - burritos which were not too bad, but the rushed picture I took before we ate them, didn't turn out that nice. So no pictures from my burritos (which included self made tortillas). But here are some other examples.

蛋餅 - with self made skin

 

 "Pizza Bread" based on my sister's secret receipe

Fruit cake

 

Cheese cake

Black Forest Cake 黑森林蛋糕

The REAL black forest cakes comes really with a lot of cherries

And here some examples of my wife's creations

At the end a couple anecdotes of Taiwanese encountering German eating habits.
My father had just arrived in Germany as a student, when his class was invited for dinner by their professor. When my father saw all the different kinds of bread, sausages, cheese etc. saw, he thought: "nice appetizer, but I better don't eat too much, otherwise I won't be able to enjoy the real food." After a while the "appetizers" were removed, but - the "real" food wouldn't come. At that point it began to dawn on my father that he had just missed his dinner.
The other anecdote is a quote of one of my father's Taiwanese friends and classmates in Germany. Uncle Luo (羅伯伯) as I call him told me later that he thought upon his arrival in Germany: "How can I survive here - the weather is cold, and the food is cold as well."

Finally We Have a Shower Cabin

I wrote about our shower without a shower cabin some time ago.  And finally we installed a shower cabin - ourselves. Because when I asked in a store how much it would cost if they would install the shower cabin for us, the shocking reply was: "180 Euro".

So after our son had analyzed the needed material

 and had checked out the different shower cabins

we decided to order a shower cabin online and install it ourselves. It took us only about an hour and we didn't even break anything. And this is the result:

It doesn't look too bad and it even works.

Merry Christmas

I saw  the first messengers of X-mas in some supermarkets