Wo ist der Frühling? Ich bin krank von Schnee.

The weekend is coming to a close and we are both excited for two upcoming four day weeks since Good Friday and Easter Monday are public holidays here in Deutschland. We will be headed to Berlin on Friday and I will have some awesome posts and pictures next week. For now, life has been pretty simple.

I have yet again done some great cooking and we have had the following German dinners:

• Meatballs with Braised Cucumbers in a Butter and Dill Sauce 
• Oven Roasted Chicken Legs with "Wet" Potato Salad (served warm or room temperature)
• Homemade Bread Dumplings with Pork Chops and Broccoli
• Cheese and Leek Soup with Lettuce Salad (pictured to the right)

*With the lettuce salads I have picked up the German style by adding corn kernels and using a yogurt dill dressing.

On Tuesday, Ryan and I went to a Bosch German Culture Orientation. The program lasted from 8:30 am until 5:00 pm in a hotel conference room downtown Stuttgart. We were served a buffet lunch, morning snack, and afternoon snack. I was not sure what to expect but I hoped I would learn some "do's and don'ts" in everyday life here in Germany. My overall goal being NOT to piss off as many Germans as possible here. We were the only Americans in a room full of Indians (from India) with one young man from Korea and a young lady from China. There were actually three other spouses so that made conversation easy and I did not feel excluded from discussions being a non-Bosch employee. The seminar included numerous open discussion and group activities and I will say that I learned some valuable information.

Fun German Fact of the Day: In Germany you do not wish people a happy birthday before their actual birthday. It is absolutely taboo to say "Have a great birthday!" in advance. There is a strong superstitious belief that the person then might die before they are able to celebrate being one year older.

This Saturday evening was a blast! I ended up hosting dinner for 16 people total. I had planned for 12 so the group was larger than I thought. Our dinner included baked French Fries (because Ryan really wanted them), as customary here, served with ketchup and mayo; weiners and weisswurst served with mustard; and a large salad. Oh yeah and two cases of beer! Many people also brought snack food, dessert, and wine. Overall it was a great success. Since everyone is in the program here, we are all very flexible and understanding with each others living situations. Some people sat at our table for 5, some sat on couches and the floor, and others ate standing. We had to eat in shifts since we only had enough forks for 10 and some people ended up using very small plates.

Well I need to cut this post short since I am about to head out for a Ladies Night of baking, movies, dinner, and nails with the other wives here. I will finish sharing the details of our evening at Polar Nacht later.