The Week of Jan. 20th

Sunday Pam and I had a very nice day. We met Pam’s Friend/Coworker Christine and her Significant Other, Peter, for a walk and coffee. This is a very traditional German thing to do on a Sunday. Christine and Peter live just up the road in Dossenheim. A look at a map will show you that the edge of the mountains runs roughly north-south and that the Neckar River comes from the east and flows west. Dossenheim is to the north along the side of the mountains. The walk took us back into the mountains and north to the next town Schriesheim. A quick phonetic aside, ‘E’ before ‘I’ in a word gives a long ‘I’ as in Eye, ‘I’ before ‘E’ gives a long ‘E’ as in Seen. So Schriesheim is pronounced like, SHREES – HIME.
Along the way we passed two castles. The first has been in decay for a while and was even further destroyed during the 1920’s when the side of the mountain was quarried for stone. The second castle sits just above Schiesheim and is in much better condition. It was quite the nice walk and the view into the Rhein valley was spectacular. We walked back down to the valley and had coffee in Schriesheim at a place called, Caffee Haus (or something similar). It was a very nice way to spend the afternoon. On Sundays most stores are closed. The only businesses open usually are restaurants. There is no grocery shopping, no malls, nothing. It is supposed to be a family day.
Sunday evening Pam and I met Kathrin Roche and her S/O Tim. Kathrin had been one of Pam’s student workers in the past and is now a fulltime SAP’r and Tim works for Accenture and is from the UK and works on projects with SAP. Both are very bright and funny people and just a pleasure to be with. Tim desperately wanted German food. Pam and I walked from home to the Hauptstrasse (Main Street) where we met them at the Bismark Platz. We walked from the Bismark Platz to just off of the Universitat Platz and went to a restaurant call Schnookel (or something like that). The place was empty on a Sunday night. Pam, Tim and I got English menus and were looking through it. The last entry was the house specialty and included just about every type of meat the place serves and is for two people. I looked at Tim and said, “This is what I am looking at.” Tim replied, “Yes, I was looking at that also.” The women got salads.
What arrived was a stainless steel tray (it was engraved with designs, not completely barbaric) with three kinds of sausages, a pile of sliced ham and fried potatoes and sauerkraut and a large bowl of mustard. To complete the picture, we each had a beer. Tim and I proceeded to devour the tray of food, leaving hardly a scrap (yummy) and the women ate their salads. We then all walked back up the Hauptstrasse and across the bridge. Tim and Kathrin turned off to go home and Pam and I continued farther up the road to our apartment. After a meal like that, a nice walk was very appreciated.
On Monday I had a meeting with Alison Beniston. I was referred to Alison from Katharina who works at the FH-Heidelberg Univ. Alison owns an instructional language business. She started teaching English to Germans and German to English speakers, but now does several other languages also. I walked in expecting to speak with her about just teaching Business English to German speakers. As it turns out, she desperately needs help with that, but she also has people asking for American sales training and she also needs someone to prospect into local English speaking companies for people who need German instruction. Whereas the FH-Heidelberg would be limited to 10 hours a week, working with Alison would offer more hours and it would still allow flexibility for Pam and me to travel.
On Wednesday our stuff was delivered. There were three guys who actually did the unloading and unpacking, they arrived in a van and another guy arrive driving the rig. Two of the guys were from Poland. I was listening to them speaking and could understand nothing there were saying and it had a very different sound than German, so I asked. They work for a couple weeks in Germany and then head home for a week and then back again. They each have families back home, but the money is so much better in Germany that it is more than worth the time away to work in this manner. The two of them seemed to be friends or Cousins or even brothers, while the third guy was definitely assigned to them for this job.
The team lead, spoke pretty good English. When he did not have the correct words, we could work through the to the meaning . He was a nice guy with a good sense of humor. It is always nice when people can work really hard and laugh at the same time and they worked really hard. They also assembled our Ikea things, including a piece for the bathroom that we purchased here in Germany and did not ship from the US. Of course when they left, the work for Pam and I had just begun. The rest of the week included unpacking and putting things away, cleaning things up and then unpacking more stuff and cleaning up again.
Friday I went for a bike ride through the hills, tracing my running route. It was a pretty cool that day and as I reached the trail that parallels the Neckar River, there was a heavy fog covering the river valley and as I headed farther into the valley the fog came further up the mountain, until I was riding through a fairly thick fog. It was pretty nice actually. It had also rained the night before and I got pretty muddy as a consequence. I rode a circuit, up into the hills and then on the streets to come back home and as I was riding back people kept staring at me. I was covered in dirt!
Saturday of course was for shopping. In the morning we went to the Saturday Market which in Handshusheim is in front of the Tiefberg. http://www.tiefburg.de/tiefburg.htm The Tiefburg is literally around the corner from our house. We also went to the Bauhaus to get some things. The Bauhaus is a little like a Home Depot/Lowes/General Store. It is a pretty big store with hardware, lamps, plumbing supplies, shelving, wood and Bicycle stuff.
We ended the week in pretty good shape…..next week will also be busy, finishing the unpacking and starting to nail down details for our health insurance, my eligibility to work and my German Citizenship application.