Still Unpacking . . . -Woche 7

Schonbrunn Palace

Austria, particularly Vienna, is known for its special seasonal markets.  They are especially famous for their Christmas markets.  We learned that in addition to Christmas markets, they have Easter markets as well.  So, we bundled up the kids and headed for the "most romantic and well known Easter market in Vienna."  The Schonbrunn Palace is home to one of the many Easter markets.  This palace is probably the most well know palace in Austria.  It houses several things, among them being:  the oldest Baroque zoo in the world, beautiful gardens, a marionette theatre, art workshops, a labyrinth, several museums, as well as the tour of the palace itself.  The markets are similar to other open markets.  There are booths set up on the grounds with people selling their wares.  The Easter markets have Easter eggs, made of several different things.  There are eggs from all over Europe.  They have Russian hand painted eggs, Polish glass eggs, Austrian ceramic eggs, and Romanian beaded eggs, etc.  They sell cuisine from all different parts of Austria.  They have booths of wooden and tin toys.  The kids had a great time spending some money they got from Grandma Baker for Valentine's Day.  They each picked out a toy.  I picked out some ceramic eggs, and some glass Christmas decorations.  The morning was very cold and windy and we were all frozen by the time we went around the booths twice, to make sure we didn't miss anything and to make sure we found the best prices on what we picked out.  We were glad to get back to the car to warm up.  This will be a great place for an extended visit in a few weeks once things warm up.

 

We decided to go to the Brunnemarkt again, to get some good bread from our favorite Backerei.  We also bought several groceries (produce and cheese) as we walked down the street.  When we arrived at the Backerei we looked everything over and started picking out some new items we hadn't tried before.  We had done well that day, communicating in German, and getting everything we asked for.  Dane and Dyllan were talking and pointing to different items that they wanted.  Dane got a little too close to some doughnut type things and Dyllan said to him, "Rookee proach"--which means, "Hands off"--in Russian.  Dan, trying to control the children, at the same time as ordering his bread, got a little flustered and asked for "shest" (six, in Russian) doughnut things.  The owner of the shop then started speaking Russian to Dan.  Dan, feeling much more confident in this language, chatted with the owner.  He asked Dan why he spoke Russian, and why the kids did.  Dan corrected him and said that the kids only spoke a couple of words.  But, the man (originally from the Ukraine) already felt a connection and exchanged one loaf of bread in our bag for a better, fresher loaf.  We thought it very exciting that, at least Dan can communicate in our favorite bakery.  We're headed back on Saturday.  Dyllan is already becoming a bread snob.  She doesn't like regular (sandwich bread) anymore.  She likes the fresh buns made in the bakeries to eat her lunch sandwiches on.  "Couldn't we get a whole loaf of buns, instead?", she asked.  I will have to get a second job when we come back to North America to support our high-end specialty bread needs.

We are still in the middle of the unpacking.  We have worked everyday to try to get things settled.  We have boxes and paper everywhere.  I'm still trying to find places to put everything.  We've gotten most of the boxes unpacked now--it's just finding and creating new places to put it.  We have only unpacked a couple of boxes that are of no use to us--and only one box of trash (so far). 

I was invited over to Natalie's house to celebrate a birthday (she is in our ward).  It was good to get out and visit with other women.  They were all English speakers, so I didn't practice my German.  But, it's a start to making new friends here.  I even met a new sister in our ward who is half Somoan so we had a good visit as she got to know Danyon and little better.  Her kids go to the same school as ours and she lives close to us so we'll have to connect with them in the coming weeks.

When Dan came back from a trip in January he brought home some chocolate from the United Arab Emirates.  It took us a while to find it among all our stuff here.  But we found it and decided to give it a try.  It was our first experience with anything made from camel's milk.  I have to admit, I like it better than things made with goat's milk.  It is not as strong--at least in chocolate.  The kids didn't seem to notice a difference so maybe a trip to Dubai of Abu Daubi is in our future.  Just not between June and August (115+ degrees on most days).  You can get arrested for public displays of affection there too so no hand holding while in country.  We'll just have to act like an old couple that doesn't like each other much.

Area around Bolu, Turkey

Dan spent most of his work week in Turkey this week.  He flew into the capital of Turkey--Ankara and then drove to see customers.  He got to see a lot of the countryside then flew out of Istanbul on Thursday evening.  He enjoyed the Turkish people, though he couldn't even begin to speak the language.  He really liked the area around Bolu as it reminded him a lot of the foothills in Southern Alberta where he grew up.  Biggest difference was a mosque on every corner instead of a church.  He experienced several of the local dishes including raw lamb, mutton, some Turkish Delight, and other fine desserts.  He brought home some chocolate from a famous chocolate factory in Turkey.  It is chocolate-covered peanut brittle type squares only made with pistachios instead of peanuts, and thicker than brittle and with less of the candy, more of the nuts.  He also brought a marmalade home called gum marmalade.  It is made from the sap of pine trees.  It tastes very woody.  When we were kids, people gave us quizzical looks when we went around Yosemite smelling all the pine trees for the vanilla scent.  Well, now I'm eating the trees.  It seems to be an acquired taste, but it isn't bad.  I haven't tried it on bread, yet, so I don't know if I've given it a fair trial.  I will certainly be eating it on snob bread to improve the experience.  Of course, the chocolate needs no explanation.  It's always good.

Dan never felt unsafe while he was in Turkey, but it was an interesting week there.  One of the main terrorist groups is in the middle of negotiations on a peace fire with the Turkish government and some of their fringe members were trying to cause the talks to break down.  While he was in Ankara there was a fight that broke out at one of the trade union buildings (Dan could see the building from his hotel) that ended in automatic weapon fire and several injured.  Then about 2 hours after Dan checked out of his hotel, there was a bombing at one of the government buildings that was just a couple minutes walk from where he was staying.  If that wasn't enough, on his drive to Istanbul there was an earthquake in the Black Sea that gave a good shake to Istanbul followed by two more bombings, one, successful at a government building and the other was defused before it went off.  At least he was kind enough to call me on all occasions and let me know that he was alright.  Not that I would have known about them as the German language news and I don't connect very often.

Not to worry, we are pretty sure that things will have settled down by the time that we head to Antalya, Turkey with the kids for spring break next Friday.  It is a long way from Ankara and Istanbul and we are looking forward to a great time.