In The Groove

Before recounting our two (yes, two) recent Oktoberfest experiences, I'll interject with a present-day update; it often helps me grease the sometimes-rusty blog machine. This prior week of October 19 depicted our (albeit primarily my) current daily lifestyle fairly well after nearly now a year in Switzerland. Stephanie had unfortunately departed for a week-long work trip to Istanbul that Saturday and left Hobbes and me to a week of bachelorhood. Now how should the boys fill that time..?

Our Chicago-Hyatt friend Dave returned Sunday from their first U.S. return trip in over a year. With him fighting jet lag and me a hangover from Zürich's Saturday mini-Oktoberfest, we convened for dinner at the Zeughauskeller, a staple German-style beer hall serving classic Swiss-food in Zürich's historic former armory; the food is hit-or-miss but my Wienerschnitzel and fries hit the mark perfectly. He also came bearing critical requested supplies from the U.S.: extra DayQuil and two jars of Frontera salsa. We discussed perceptions from his trip to Chicago, the financial crisis, election politics and life in Zürich for over three hours.

Tuesday was Steph's birthday (Happy Birthday!) and she couldn't have imagined a better celebration than working twelve hours on a photo shoot in Istanbul (ha!). Her co-workers did throw an impromptu surprise cake party, and her overall Istanbul experience was much improved over her initial trip back in March. I had been invited to an evening fondue boat cruise on Lake Zurich that evening with a dozen ex-pats, some well-known friends and other unknowns; I sat with three strangers (from Raleigh-Durham, Bavaria and Slovakia) and we had a marvelous time meeting each other and eating melted stinky cheese on bread cubes. The views of the lake's slowly passing village-lit hillsides were quite pleasant.

I scheduled two hour-long German tutoring sessions for the week; extended studying usually keeps me out of trouble. German is slow to adopt compared to, say, Spanish or French, but after eight months of lessons I may be finally turning the corner (and with an additional year I might actually become functional). Steph and I use a Skype-enabled tutoring service (me for German, Steph for French) and my instructor is a lingustics major originally from Russia and living now in Raleigh, fluent in six languages including German. Unbelievably, she used to host a Russian TV-cooking show called Die Geheimnisse der deutschen Küche, or 'The Secrets of German Cuisine'. Since I also love to cook, we exchanged recipes: I traded her the classic Zürich dish Kalbsgeschnetzeltes (sliced veal in a mushroom cream sauce) for a classic southern German dish called Maultaschen, meat- and spinach-filled dumplings like German ravioli.

So on Thursday I invited our friend from Heidelberg, Germany to my homemade Maultaschen dinner; his girlfriend from Manhattan also joined us after returning late that evening from a business trip to Berlin. The recipe turned out rather well (homemade pasta always impresses, pictured above) and he in particular was quite complimentary, claiming my creation the best Maultaschen he's eaten (and although it sounds novel to us, he's eaten a lot of Maultaschen in his life, much of it fairly marginal quality).

Hobbes also enjoyed an exciting week, visiting his groomer at the crazily-named Hundesalon Dolly, with whom he has become fast friends. They warmed to each other gradually after the first several visits, when she struggled a bit with his significant girth and hairiness. They don't make many dogs like him in Switzerland, but he's not so hard to get to know. We visited the neighborhood vet the following day as Hobbes hss been fighting a slight doggie cold and cough; he quickly learned the Swiss-German word for cookie (Guetzli) after eating as many as the vet staff would provide. He's more than happy to be poked, prodded, pricked, flipped upside down, you name it--as long as there's Guetzli at the end.

I met Steph at the airport for her long-awaited return home Friday evening (complete with souvenir pistachios and Turkish Delight), the remainder of which we laid low in anticipation of the Basel Half Marathon the following morning. I think I'll save that for an additional entry, however. Keeps me motivated to continue writing ;-).