Cloudy with a chance of pie

Sorry for the lack of posts this past week, surprisingly I've been a bit busy! I also have not done much exploring, the weather has been terrible. I should be used to this after seven years of practice in Seattle, but somehow the rain and the grey and wind are all getting to me. (I should also have good rain shoes, and yet...) I'm not sure if I'm bothered more because I know Zoli is someplace warm and sunny - I'll know the answer if my weather dissatisfaction magically disappears in a week.

Saturday I was invited to go on an excursion down the Elbe - we took two ferries to get to Teufelsbrück and then walked back on a path along the Elbe. Unfortunately I only took one photo the entire trip, on the first ferry before we went inside to avoid getting soaked.


The tide was high while we were walking, there were huge container ships on the river and it was obvious that it would be a lovely walk if the weather cooperated. Regardless, it was a lot of fun and much of the conversation was in German (very, very good for my listening comprehension, though I didn't say much). We didn't walk quite all the way back because of the rain, but the trip ended with us making waffles (topped with sour cherries and whipped cream), which apparently is a fairly common thing to do as an afternoon snack with friends. Given that I am an unrepentant waffle-lover, I was very pleased. Also pleasing: I was able to follow most of the German waffle-eating conversation and got some recommendations for nice cafés close to my apartment.


Other than working on my fellowship application I have been preparing a bit for Thanksgiving. I will have awesome (!!!) visitors and we're taking the train down to Strasbourg to celebrate with friends there. I am bringing pies and there's no canned pumpkin to be found here, so I roasted some using these instructions and half of a 2 kg pumpkin. (I'm going to use a different pie recipe however, I will let you know how it goes once it's made.)


I also bought myself someone to talk to while Zoli is gone.

So far the conversations have been rather one-sided but I have high hopes.

Election day jitters

Since we arrived here over a month ago I have been surprised at how much press the US election gets here. Every day the German newspapers I looked at had something about it, often on the front page, and the radio news reports would often have a short blurb with the latest updates. Today, the first thing mentioned on the radio news breaks has been the US election. Right now on many of the German TV stations they're reporting the election. They even have reporters in the US to cover it! I think it's really telling how the fixation on this decision extends as far as it does outside the US.

I had an interesting conversation with some colleagues about the election, and they were primarily mystified that people in the US don't seem to care what the rest of the world thinks of them. That, and they were amazed by the length of the campaign. A Brit in my lab pointed out that on the BBC news homepage there's a corner devoted to the US election above the other UK and world news.

I'm also anxious to see the results of the election in Washington state. The governor's race there is extremely important and there are several propositions that are significant as well. (Speaking of Washington, the New York Times had an article about the two neighborhoods where I lived in Seattle, in case you're curious. It made me homesick.)

I'm not sure how late I'll be able to stay up watching CNN - the first east coast polls don't close until 1am here. But I have a beer, some brownies, popcorn and a cabbage pie, so hopefully they will see me through a few of the poll closures.


Does anyone remember those Pizza Hut personal pan pizzas and how they were a reward for Book-It in elementary school? (They apparently still are.) I loved those things even though (as my mother pointed out) they were not at all cost-effective. While I was making the pie (I guess it's really a galette) it reminded me of those pizzas. There's something about having a miniature version of a food that you don't have to share with anyone else.


I have to say that now I'd take a personal cabbage pie over one of those pizzas, but that probably wasn't true when I was eight. Happy election day everyone. May you have your own personal cabbage pie (or pan pizza) to see you through the evening!