A Bad Idea for a Fusion Restaurant

If the road to hell is paved with good intentions, perhaps the road to an upset stomach is paved with good ingredients?

And so I bring you International Essen (food) Fest.  This idea, as mentioned last week, was hatched by one of the Americans, who wanted to share her love of burritos with everyone.  And so we gathered yesterday evening in the park behind out hotel for an international picnic.

Team USA: In defense of the Americans, we had already presented a `typical´American food experience at the fourth of July BBQ, so we free-styled a bit, so to speak, this time around.  We contributed Burritos and fixings, which we interpreted as American, firstly as an example of Tex Mex cuisine and secondly, because the Burrito industry is perhaps the newest incarnation of the American fast food industry.  As such it is our duty as Americans to familiarize our international friends with the American version of the burrito, which they can expect to welcome to their own cities any day now, thanks to the inevitability of the Chipotle brand international expansion/invasion, a la McD´s, Starbucks, Pizza Hut, etc.  (FYI as of May 10th, 2010, Chipotle has opened a restaurant (word used loosely) in London, and is planning on expanding to other European locations). 

We also contributed "berliners" aka doughnuts, some wine, and I made Charoset, a part of the Jewish Passover meal, made of apples, walnuts, cinnamon, wine and honey.

Team China: The Chinese Bukas, as it turns out, are really great cooks.  They made a meat and pepper stir fry, an egg and tomato dish that I definitely want to try to replicate, a very spicy cauliflower soup, and a peppery marinated fish.


Team Russia:  We were basically presented with a small Russian grocery store.  There were salty cucumbers (pickles), black bread, kasha (buckwheat), herring, Akroshka (previously mentioned interesting but very unusual tasting cold Russian summer soup combining vegetables, meat, root beer and sour cream), vodka, and last but certainly not least, birch tree juice.

Birch tree juice actually deserves its own blog post and maybe its own blog.  It is a clear liquid that looks just like water, and it is harvested from Birch trees in Russia and neighboring countries (ours was from Belarus) in the spring.  It is slightly sweet and tangy, and maybe the most refreshing thing I have ever tasted.

Because everything, even Birch tree juice, has its opposite, I should take this moment to mention that Malzbier, specifically Vita Malz, was also part of this smorgasbord.  Malzbier is a non alcoholic beer that is a very popular beverage in Germany.  Malzbiers do not qualify as beers according to German standards, and must therefore be advertised as Malz drinks.  This permits Vita Malz to advertise their drink as an appropriate, recommended beverage for children and pregnant women... It is marketed as an energy drink for brain, nerves and muscles.  I do not recommend drinking Vita Malz before attempting to do anything mental or physical.  It is essentially like drinking a liquidated loaf of black bread.  After drinking two good schlucks (swigs) I was unsure if I would ever be able to move again.

So, that was the menu.

 We ate, drank and celebrated until it thundered and poured.  Among other things, I learned the proper way to take a shot of vodka: take a deep breath, exhale, poor the vodka past your tongue, and then immediately bite into a pickle.  Many people who did not previously know how to fold a burrito have now been educated.  And, for perhaps the first time in history, charoset, the passover dish meant to symbolize the bricks and mortar used by the ancient Israelites during their slavery in Egypt, was eaten with chopsticks.  Success.

The only down side to our international feast was that none of these foods were ever meant to go together.  I am normally a big fan of ethnic food, fusion of various cuisines, and potlucks.  But I assure you that when someone suggests opening a restaurant that mixes stir fry with sour cream, or tops herring with taco seasoning, and then washes it all down with a Vita Malz, that restaurant will NOT last.  I know, because I have been there, and I have tasted it.

The Naming Game

This

is part of my family.








This is what they looked like 100 years ago.

This is what they look like from outer 

space

AND

                          

This is what they look like when they all try to skype me at once.

So why, you may ask, am I the participant in a massive family skyping experience?  Well, today was my cousin´s baby naming, a Jewish ceremony to welcome a baby girl into the community and officially give her a Jewish name, done in a manner far less gruesome than the equivalent ceremony for Jewish baby boys.  I would tell you more about the ceremony, but unfortunately my skype connection died about five seconds after this photo was taken, so this is pretty much all I´ve got.

But, I thought I would talk to you a bit more today on the topic of naming.  So in my last blog, a few hours ago, I talked to you a bit about the Eltz family and how they have inhabited the same castle for 33 generations.  I was fascinated by this concept.  This one family has occupied the same parcel of land for literally centuries.  They know exactly what their ancestors were up to at every moment in history.  They even still maintain one third of this gigantic castle for personal family use.  In one room on the tour there were portraits of Eltzes going back to the 17th century, and next to them there was a photo of the Eltz family today.  Crazy.

It is basically impossible, practically causes brain trauma, for me to try to envision my family 33 generations ago.  See, once you go back a bit past the people pictured above, and a handful of others who are apparently camera shy, I just don´t know too much.  I couldn´t tell you where they lived, or what their jobs were, if they had enough food, what they did for fun, or even what their names were.  For better or worse, I suppose it is safe to say, we moved around a lot, or as my grandma once told me when I was a little kid, ´Our ancestors took a tour of Europe´.

Before the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th centuries, Eastern and Central European Jews didn´t really have last names the way we think of them today.  They had names like the one that my baby cousin received today, composed of a religious name and a name that identifies a person patronymically.  Hence I am Rachel, daughter of Kirk, or something like that.  Then Napoleon, and the Czars of Russia, the Prussians and the Habsburgs decided that it would be much easier to keep tabs on their Jewish subjects if they handed out surnames.  So they did.

Families like mine who immigrated to the US in the late 19th and early 20th centuries often changed names again, usually by choice or by immigration confusion.  Then some families, like mine, did some creative naming of their own in the mid 20th century (we are fun like that).  Today people have all sorts of new takes on names - hyphenated names, blended names, women who keep their maiden names, people who decide they don´t want names and take symbols instead of names and then change their symbols back into names (ie the artist formerly known as Prince and now once again known as Prince).

Some of us have clearly changed out names, countries, ways of life umpteen times in the 800 or so years that the Eltz family has remained the Eltz family living in the same house, smoking a 300 year old pipe, sitting under the same picture of great great great Uncle Ludwig from 1654.

But then again the Eltz family is clearly unusual.  Even their castle is unusual.  It is one of the few castles in Germany that has never been destroyed or required major reconstruction despite standing through two world wars, numerous revolutions, sieges and a crusade or two.  It is pretty impressive.

Most of the world just can´t seem to help but change.

On Thursday the BUKAs went on a field trip to the Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung, the State Center for Political Education, basically a state subsidized book store.  Among the many offerings were quite a lot of maps of Germany, one of which caused a bit of a ruckus.

This particular map included some neighboring countries of Germany, specifically a small chunk of beach front Baltic property which was listed in big letters as Königsberg, and in small letters in parentheses as Kalingrad.  It was noted on the map that this piece of land belongs to Russia.

The Russians were pretty agitated.  Kalingrad, FYI, officially became Kalingrad in 1946 after having been Königsberg since 1255.  So, I didn´t really follow their anger at first.
They explained: It´s basically like if some country that used to occupy part of your country made a map and listed a state with their version of the state´s name, and then made it sound like it was a territory instead of a rightful state.

Which country?  I asked.

It doesn´t matter.  They replied.

Well pretty much all of our states used to belong to other people.  We have some British land, some French land, some Spanish land, some Mexican land, some Dutch land, it´s all Native American land, and we even have some Russian land.

I was just giving them a hard time.  I understand what they are saying.  I am not that slow.  But we could spend the rest of our lives discussing what used to be called one thing but isn´t anymore and by the time we finished discussing everything would have changed names again.

Apparently there are even groups in Russia, and I presume other places, that dedicate themselves to taking back the names that their cities, streets, squares used to have, but don´t anymore.  They are pretty politically loaded questions to ask: When is a name no longer appropriate for a place?  Can a place have only one rightful name?

Names, I suppose, are just a much more emotional and tangible piece of our lives than they might seem.  In the names of our cities, streets, and of course, ourselves, information about us is encoded- where we come from, our culture, religion, politics, lifestyles.  And places, like people, who are constantly in a state of identity change, just might suffer some sort of identity crisis.    

Playtime in BUKAgarten

Ten Americans, Ten Chinese, Ten Russians, together, for one summer in Germany. We are the BUKAs. BUKA is the name for a recipient of a Bundeskanzler Stipendiat/in, aka a German Chancellor Fellow.

Ok, it sounds like a poorly envisioned reality TV show, but oddly enough it is my reality. Although our German language skills are at different levels, it is fair to say that none of us are fluent. This means that to communicate across cultural divides, we BUKAs have to sometimes be creative. We have to use a lot of hand gestures, and sometimes we have to simplify our word choice. Sometimes it takes a little German, a little Russian, and a little English to get the point across (and sometimes we still miss the point). A lot of times we end up sounding sort of like kindergartners. And so according to one of our German teachers, a collection of BUKAs together is a BUKAgarten.

Some highlights from this week´s BUKAgarten.

One of the American BUKAs requested that we host an international food fest. Chinese food from the Chinese BUKAs, Russian food from the Russian BUKAs, and... burritos from the Americans? In truth, this particular American BUKA really just wanted to make Burritos, and who is to say what is or isn´t American cuisine. Burritos are North American and arguably Tex-Mex I suppose. In the end the Russians and Chinese requested a bit more time to prepare their authentic national dishes, so international food fest was rescheduled. We Americans still had our burrito fest. One of the Chinese BUKAs came to join us, and offered that she had a game to play. It had been a gift from a friend in China that she had been assured westerners really like to play. But, though her English is fantastic, she hadn´t been able to understand the point of the game or the rules or the strategy.

UNO.

True. There is no point, very little strategy, and the rules of UNO are so simple one might honestly think he/she had misunderstood. We explained to her, yeah, you really just match colors and numbers. Hence, BUKAgarten. I later had a similar experience when the Russians attempted to teach me to play a board game. I couldn´t for the life of me figure out how to keep score. Nevertheless, I apparently came in second place!

Birthday cakes. We celebrated an American BUKAs birthday on Friday with a surprise breakfast Birthday cake. According to Wikipedia, the tradition of adding candles to a birthday cake originated in 18th century Germany. Unfortunately after that point, it seems that American and German birthday cakes went in different directions. So, one of the BUKAs put together her own version of the birthday cake, made of iced wafers and German style icing, which is very sweet and so drippy that the writing, which orginally said Happy Birthday Em, migrated to various other parts of the cake. Still a delicious way to start a Friday.

Schimpfwörter: Literally, dishonorous words, idiomatically, curse words. Yes, we actually had a full class, several hours, devoted to learning this important element of Umgangsprach, slang. I won´t share any here, but I will tell you how to say `ready set go`.

Auf die Plätze.
Fertig.
LOS!

And we´re off to another adventure in Germany. This time, four Russians, a Frenchman (husband of one of the Russians) and I headed off to the Mosel Valley. We took a train to Koblenz, where the Rhine and the Mosel Rivers meet, and then another train to Moselkern. For the first time since coming to Germany and befriending my Russians, I found myself in the midst of a Soviet Sing-a-long. Fortunately, having received a proper and dynamic Yiddish education, I at least know some of the words (the yiddish ones at least) and the tune to The International, socialist world anthem and anthem of the Soviet Union until 1944.

Here is a brief video as the train rides along the Mosel river and I am serenaded by my former Soviet Young Pioneers, aka Russian Communist Boy and Girlscouts. Note all of the RVs along the river. We have seen RVs camped all along the Mosel and the Rhine everywhere we go. Also note the hand motioning of one Russian suggesting that they wear their pioneer neck kerchiefs (red of course) on our next excursion.



We then hiked to Burg Eltz, a castle up in the woods surrounded on three sides by the Eltzbach, a small tributary of the Mosel. The Eltz castle is one of the only castles in Germany that is still owned by a branch of the original family that built and owned it around 850 years ago, 33 generations back. The type of castle is known as a Ganerbenburg, which basically means that it was divided between three branches of the same family who all shared it and had joint residences within the same huge building. Now THAT is a close family.

After our day of hiking we headed back to Koblenz to visit the spot where the Mosel meets the Rhine.

As playtime continued, I discovered a wonderful thing about hanging out with people whose first language is not English. They actually appreciate, better yet, enjoy, corny jokes and plays on words in English. And so I shared one of my favorite bad jokes which I will share with you now: A guy walks into a restaurant and says to the maître d’, ´how do you prepare the chicken?´The maître d’ says ´ I just tell them, you´re all gonna die!!´ Yup, in BUKAgarten, this got laughs.

Middle Europe, Middle Ages, Middle of Nowhere

The Middle. It´s the middle of the summer and the middle of my first month here in Germany. I have realized several impressive milestones. I have a bank account. I have a student ID. I have a subway pass. I have a collection of professional wallet-sized biometric photos in which I look very angry at the world (such stern-looking photos are required in Germany to get basically any ID card, pass, etc).

I have also clearly purchased and installed internet (honestly a noteworthy achievement for me in any language), changed my computer keyboard to German, and have almost effectively re-learned how to type. It took me longer than I would like to admit to locate the question mark key and the apostrophe and to stop switching the letters y and z. But, anyway, that puts me at about the middle of my getting oriented to Germany list.

Here in Germany, Middle (Mitte) seems to be a key idea. I live in Tannenbusch Mitte. Germany is in Middle Europe. Lunch is Mittagsessen (literally middle day food), and Wednesday is Mittwoch (literally Midweek). In this part of Germany, known as the Middle Rhine River Valley, it can sometimes feel like you are about to get dropped in the middle of the Middle Ages.

Ok, fine. That is a total exaggeration shamelessly employed to give this post some semblance of a theme. But in all fairness, it does feel like medieval nostalgia plays a pretty big role in how the Rhine River Valley in and around Bonn presents itself, particularly for tourists. And, as my project has a lot to do with presentation of local culture and history for tourists, I figured, this was fair game.

This past weekend involved quite a lot of interaction with Germany´s medieval world. It started with a Thursday evening concert entitled In the Middle of the Middle Ages. The concert, which I attended with my Russians (natürlich), was held in the courtyard of the Bonner Münster, one of the oldest basilicas in Germany. The present day building, which was built between the 11th and 13th centuries, sits on the site of a shrine built in the fourth century as a memorial to two Roman Christian Martyrs, Cassius and Florentius.


The performance, which involved a lot of interpretive dancing by men in tights pretending to be on pilgrimage during the crusades, was just about as good as it sounds, which is to say, not so awesome. But, the free wine and pretzel rolls more than made up for it. Many new Russian vocabulary words were acquired.


On Sunday we went on our own pilgrimage to visit the Lorelei, a looming mountainous rock that overlooks the narrowest point of the Rhine River. The trip to Lorelei began at 6:50 in the morning to catch a train to the city of Koblenz. In Koblenz we boarded a boat and cruised for three hours down the Rhine (meanwhile we did a lot of homework, which for me included reading about Ghenghis Kahn in German - a different type of Medieval history). The region we passed through was beautiful. The river is flanked by castles, towers, picturesque villages and sweeping landscapes. We disembarked at St. Goarshausen, explored the town below and then hiked up Lorelei!

By the Middle Ages, the location of Lorelei was well-known as a site of many shipwrecks. It was said that sounds and whispers were heard at the site of the rock. In the 19th century the myth was created of a maiden or mermaid who sang so beautifully that she distracted sailors, leading to their doom. In the 19th century many peoms about Lorelei were written. The most famous was by Heinrich Heine:

I know not if there is a reason
Why I am so sad at heart.
A legend of bygone ages
Haunts me and will not depart.

The air is cool under nightfall.
The calm Rhine courses its way.
The peak of the mountain is sparkling
With evening's final ray.

The fairest of maidens is sitting
Unwittingly wondrous up there,
Her golden jewels are shining,
She's combing her golden hair.

The comb she holds is golden,
She sings a song as well
Whose melody binds an enthralling
And overpowering spell.

In his little boat, the boatman
Is seized with a savage woe,
He'd rather look up at the mountain
Than down at the rocks below.

I know the waves will devour
The boatman and boat as one;
And this by her song's sheer power
Fair Lorelei has done.

The Original:

Ich weiß nicht, was soll es bedeuten,
Daß ich so traurig bin;
Ein Märchen aus alten Zeiten,
Das kommt mir nicht aus dem Sinn.

Die Luft ist kühl, und es dunkelt,
Und ruhig fließt der Rhein;
Der Gipfel des Berges funkelt
In Abendsonnenschein.

Die schönste Jungfrau sitzet
Dort oben wunderbar,
Ihr goldenes Geschmeide blitzet,
Sie kämmt ihr goldenes Haar.

Sie kämmt es mit goldenem Kamme
Und singt ein Lied dabei;
Das hat eine wundersame,
Gewaltige Melodei.

Den Schiffer im kleinen Schiffe
Ergreift es mit wildem Weh;
Er schaut nicht die Felsenriffe,
Er schaut nur hinauf in die Höh'.

Ich glaube, die Wellen verschlingen
Am Ende Schiffer und Kahn;
Und das hat mit ihrem Singen
Die Lorelei getan.


So now it`s back to Bonn, and back to school. Back to modern Germany.

And then I moved to Russia?

After a week in Germany, I can comfortably say that my Russian language skills are a lot better than they were when I arrived. Maybe not good enough to order in a restaurant, talk to the people in the bank or find out which train to take, but that is probably because the people in all of those very important locations here don't speak Russian, this being Germany and all.

On day one of class I tested in between two language levels, and opted for the higher one in order to have a challenge. This class consists of me, the teacher, and five of my colleagues from Russia. The class, which goes from 9:30 in the morning until 3 in the afternoon (with a little Pause at 11 and a 45 minute lunch break at 12:45) is hard. Very hard. Probably about 2 levels too hard for me. It made me want to cry on the first two days. Now it only makes me weepy. I think that shows improvement, so I am going to stick it out!

But, I really do like being in class with the Russians. We will be friends. They were very excited to have an American in the class to break up the monotony a little bit. As seems to be a pattern with Europeans, the teacher and other students wanted to know the origin of my family. When I told them that my ancestors came from Belarus and Latvia, they exclaimed, "Another Russian!!" Sweet! I am in the club, sort of.

We have had many good times together, me and my Russian colleagues.

We watched three soccer/football games together. They remarked three times that American football is more confusing. I remarked three times that it is not more confusing. They asked three times if I understood soccer well. I responded three times that I understood when someone makes a goal, and that is well enough for me.

We went to Cologne/Koln and climbed the Cathedral tower.

We went to see a Tschaikowsky concert at the Beethoven Halle.

We walked throughout Bonn.

We compared which countries we could visit without Visas. I can go to Amsterdam. They can go to Cuba.

We ate homemade Akroshka soup. Explanation: Akroshka is a cold summer soup that my Russians enjoy, and apparently miss, now that they are away from home. I jokingly referred to it as Acora-shka (since we live at the Acora hotel) and no one was amused... Akroshka soup is boiled potato, ham, cucumber, egg and spring onion. Then it is mixed with Kvas, which is basically non-alcoholic beer, and sour cream, and sprinkled with salt and pepper. I have yet to acquire a taste for it.

We relaxed in beer gardens. Someone asked where we were from, and my Russians said, "we are from Russia. Except her, she is an American." The person in the beer garden found that hysterical. Americans and Russians, friends at last.

In class I am sometimes called Die Ausnahme (the exception). For every five Russian opinions, there is one American opinion.

In class we have discussed such topics as:

1)How comfortable and enjoyable communism was.

2)Whether reading The Three Musketeers, as all good Russian children must, results in more polite society.

3) Which is better, the Rhine River or the Volga River.

4) Which city in Russia is the most culturally exquisite.


Generally I look forward to more adventures with my Russians in Germany. I enjoy when they babble away in their language as I stare off into space. And I appreciate when they toss in the few Russian words I do know so I feel included - there are after all, only so many ways to work the words duck and pillow into everyday conversation.

How I got to TaBoo

First, I took Amtrak from Baltimore to New York with 1 year's worth of belongings, weighing in at a mere 70 pounds, I am proud to say. With a little help from a friend I took the Subway to Astoria, Queens, to drop off my load, and then returned to the Subway, walked through Manhattan

So long America, see you in 2011.

went to a reggae Concert in Brooklyn and a speakeasy in the Village (how American to hide the drinking establishments). Then I boarded a plane to Iceland, where the sun never sets, and then on to Dusseldorf. Then I took the Deutsche Bahn to Bonn, former capital of West Germany, and the U-Bahn (subway, metro, T, as you will) to Tannenbusch Mitte station, a short walk from my new home, the Acora hotel.

Tannenbusch. What can I say about Tannenbusch? On my first walk, map in hand, I observed a pleasant, working class suburb, a microcosm of the diversity of today's Germany, where Turkish, Russian, Arabic, Hindi, and a whole host of other languages are equally as likely to be heard as German. Freshly painted homes with well-kept gardens sit one after another. Children and adults alike pedal to and fro, baskets heavy with fresh bread and fruit, a bell rings, a bus passes, a neighbor waves hello.

That evening I attended the fourth of July BBQ hosted by the American fellows for our German teachers, and Chinese and Russian colleagues. I consumed, to my regret, my first Wurst (why anyone thinks its ok to eat meat that has been stuffed back in its own intestines is beyond me), met the other fellows, and was of coursed asked about my travels and thoughts so far.

This is when I learned that I had moved to TaBoo. Tannenbusch. Jaws dropped as I described my post-jetlag excursion. I was warned not to go out alone at night and not to linger near the U-Bahn station. Part of me is reminded of a trip to Spain a few years back in which a dear friend chose not to inform me that our hostel was in the red light district. I proceeded not to notice, and just to assume that Madrid fashion was sort of slutty.

I'm not ready to give up on the version of Tannenbusch that I see before my eyes, yet, at least. I am not prepared to equate diversity, immigrants and the working class with danger. So far Tannenbusch looks to me like a refreshing take on Germany. I will let Taboo make it's own impression on me.

View from my patio. Tannenbusch, Germany.

A brief review of 2010 so far. In pictures.

January 15th, 2010 - Chitre, Panama, capital city of the Azuero Peninsula. Not quite Germany, you may be thinking. After days spent isolated in the rain forests of Panama, I return to civilization to learn that I am a finalist for the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation's German Chancellor Fellowship for Prospective Leaders. No one in Panama seems to know or care that I have just received very exciting news.

Life continues as usual.



February 6, 2010 - Washington D.C. The Snowmageddon. The view from my hotel window in Dupont Circle as I prepare for the daunting walk through 20 inches (that's 50.8 cm!) of snow... in a business suit... to be interviewed for my fellowship.
The U.S. government shuts down.
The airports shut down.
The post office shuts down.
The German Chancellor Fellowship for Prospective Leaders interviews... continue without a hitch. Sometimes it's tough to be a prospective leader.


February 10th, 2010 - Boston, Massachusetts. That's me. In the red shirt with my back to you (sorry, mom). That's right. The one under 60. As you can see, I'm at work in Boston's last immigrant era synagogue, the Vilna Shul, doing what I do best, telling people about historic synagogues.

Are you enthralled? If so, then this is the blog for you. Why, you ask? Well, I just found out that I am moving to Germany in July to work at and research historic synagogues throughout Germany as a German Chancellor Fellow (betcha didn't see that coming)!!!

It's been an interesting two years as the program coordinator at the Vilna Shul on Boston's Beacon Hill. I've learned so much about American and Jewish history, met fascinating people from all over the world (and throughout Greater Boston), and gained great experience working in and helping to manage a small historic site and museum.

One of my favorite parts of my job was spending time with tourists from other parts of the world, many of whom had never before set foot in a synagogue but were eager to learn about Jewish history, immigration, and traditions. Understandably but regrettably, in many parts of the world Jewish religious spaces are closed to the public. While the buildings can be more easily protected in this way, it is often more difficult for people to learn about and interact with Jewish history and culture. This got me thinking about the role of museums and historic sites as public spaces, places where people of all different ages, backgrounds and walks of life can come and learn about a specific topic at their own pace and level.

So, I sent in a proposal to the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, and I called my project "Open Doors - The role of historic synagogue museums in creating approachable spaces for people of diverse backgrounds, religions and countries of origin to access Jewish history, culture and religion."

My project will be to spend a year working and researching at the Stiftung Neue Synagoge - Centrum Judaicum in Berlin, and to visit Jewish historic sites around Germany to draw parallels and strengthen relationships between German and American synagogue museums, improve my own understanding of the field of museum studies, and better understand the interests and needs of diverse visitors to Jewish historic sites with the goal of making Jewish historic sites in Germany and America more approachable and accessible to all.

I hope you will check in with me from time to time to find out about my work and life experiences in Germany (the best and the wurst!)



Wait, what are two of my best friends Liz and Hil, and what appears to be a wallaby, doing in what is definitely not an historic synagogue in Germany?!?!

You certainly are as astute a reader as I had hoped.

Why, this isn't Germany at all!!

May 23 - June 8, 2010 - Various locations, Australia. Just for fun, a little jaunt down unda with the buddies before heading home to Baltimore, and then I'm off to Germany!