When In Doubt, Order Schnitzel

After traveling around Europe a bit this summer, I brought some random observations home in my luggage…mostly because I couldn’t afford anything else.

There are some things the Europeans definitely do better than Americans.  There are also ways in which they are seriously lacking.  Allow me to illustrate:

Dear Lufthansa, when you offer an overnight flight on which parents are hoping their kids will sleep, please don’t provide a free showing of the tween movie “Prom!”  As much as my daughter insists she can sleep with one eye open, we all know she can’t.  You only master that trick once you’ve become a mother.

In Germany, no one got the memo that the mullet is OVER. The only thing we found more amusing than a unisex mullet was the fact that the word for “Exit” in German is Ausfahrt.   More mature people may not find this humorous, but we got hours of entertainment shouting “Ausfahrt” every time we passed an exit sign.  And it wasn’t always the nine year old who started it.

The German language is something else that intrigues me.  No matter what someone says to me in German, I feel like I’m getting yelled at.  And to add insult to injury, a nice German woman at the Farmer’s Market in Heppenheim described the language of American tourists as “chewing gum English”.  She must be referring to all the New Yorkers and Southerners she’s encountered because I’m sure she couldn’t be describing the melodic sounds of a good, strong Boston accent. Which I do not have. Ask anyone.

On the more positive side, there was also a lot to love about Germany. You can buy fresh Haribo Gummy Bears everywhere!  And if you’re a Type A person who is incapable of being late for an appointment even if you tried, well then Germany is the place for you.  Everything runs on schedule and everyone seems to pride himself on being neat and orderly.  I could practically cry it made me so happy.

If you want to hear about my husband’s favorite thing about Germany, start a conversation about driving.  German cars are exceptionally well made and it seems like every person in the country actually knows how to drive properly.  Trucks are restricted from driving in the left lane and guess what?  They follow the rules and stay in the right lane!  After years of getting boxed out by 18 wheelers careening by me in Boston, I felt completely at ease flying down the Autobahn at 110 mph knowing that I wasn’t going to get cut off.

The surface of the Autobahn is an amazingly smooth ride too. I ran into an expat American living in Germany and he described it perfectly.  He said, “On the Autobahn, I could drive my junky, old Honda Odyssey over a dime at 90 mph and tell you if it was heads or tails.”  I’m almost inclined to believe him.

One final thing about driving in Germany that we loved was the stoplights (or lack thereof).  You almost never have to come to a complete stop because the smart urban planners put roundabouts (we call ‘em rotaries over here, same thing) everywhere you’d expect a stoplight.  It’s a beautiful thing.  On the rare occasion when you do come to a stoplight, we discovered yet another great feature.  Before the light changes from red back to green, it gives you a yellow warning light which lets you put your car into gear and get ready to haul ass from a dead stop.  In Boston, I have a bad habit of yelling at the car in front of me, “It doesn’t get any GREENER THAN THAT, FOLKS!!”  No need for that nonsense over there.  By the time the light turns green, even the putt-putt little Opels and Smart Cars take off like a shot.  And that’s all I have to say about that.

As we leave Germany and pass through Switzerland, I can recap our culinary options in one simple statement.  When in doubt, order the schnitzel. Virtually any other menu item is a complete crapshoot and could involve sausages of an unknown origin.

And then we arrive in Italy….(sigh)… where the t.v. news broadcasters look like they came straight out of a Tom Ford casting call.  And in Florence, it was nearly 95 scorching degrees, but businessmen strolled down the street wearing perfectly cut skinny suits and ties without breaking a sweat.  I don’t know how they do it, but I think must be genetics. The same genetics that allow them to eat pasta every day and not have to wear sweat pants to work, perhaps.  Even the police academy cadets looked stunning in their purple, navy and white ensembles all wrinkle and sweat free as they marched across the piazza with matching black attaché cases in hand.  Maybe that’s where they keep their guns, in beautiful leather 

man-purses. Okay, maybe not. 

I’m still not really sure what everyone does for a living outside the big cities in Italy, but they’re pretty darn chill about it, whatever it is.  Everything essentially shuts down from 1pm-6pm for a nice 2-hour lunch followed by a long nap. When you’re a tourist trying to shop at 4pm, it can be frustrating.  But don’t we all wish we could do the same.

As for the food, I could write sonnets and odes to the magic known as Italian cuisine, but I won’t.  I’ll only say this:

Fresh figs with prosciutto

A glass of Campari & Prosecco with a slice of fresh orange

Bruscetta with fresh tomatoes

Bistecca alla Fiorentina

Fresh pasta, fresh pasta, fresh pasta.

Local wine by the pitcher or carafe. No sulfites, no hangover.

Tuna, olive oil, capers, anchovies. Repeat.

My only food disappointment in Tuscany was the bread. Tuscans don’t bake with salt in their bread and this made it surprisingly easy for me to say “no thank you”. Otherwise, I mostly just said, “Yes, please. More please”.  And this is why I travel with an elastic waistband wardrobe.

I realize it’s unlikely that I’ll ever look as effortlessly glamorous as the locals in Florence and that’s okay.  I was quite content to simply drink wine, eat food and in the spirit of our surroundings…take a nice long nap.

Black Holes

Shopping lists are a great thing.  Write down what you need. Buy it. Leave. If only it were that easy.

I remember going into CVS frequently back in high school to buy a bottle of shampoo or something (remember Body on Tap shampoo that was made with beer? Or that brand called Gee Your Hair Smells Terrific which really did make your hair smell terrific?  I wish that stuff was still around.) 

Anyway, I’d go in for the shampoo and somehow I’d walk out after having spent $20 of my hard earned money on random things I thought I needed but probably didn’t.  It became a running joke with my friends. Set one foot into CVS and you can kiss your $20 bill goodbye.

Many years later, Costco took the lead as my shopping black hole.  Bulk paper products are pretty much all I need at Costco.  Well, that and the five-pound tub of guacamole, thank you very much.  Yet somehow, I’d walk out of Costco $250 poorer and the proud new owner of a giant container of snick-snacky delicious granola that I’m convinced is laced with Ecstasy.

I would also try to steer myself away from the Costco candy aisle but when someone is selling a big, red bucket of individually wrapped Twizzlers, I’m buying.  The whole premise of this product packaging is lost on me anyway.  I'm still going to eat an entire fistful of Twizzlers, it's just going to take me longer to individually unwrap each one as I inhale it.

Today, it dawned on me that my newest black hole is Whole Foods.  Perhaps I am naive (even at this advanced age) to think I can walk in there with my organized, little shopping list. The fruit is so pretty. The butcher department is full of hormone-free, grass-fed, pre-marinated meats that I can just throw on the grill.  They have mini-speakers in the meat case serenading the steaks with classical music so the meat doesn’t get stressed out.  Well, not really.  But the cheese department is to die for and just one pass through the aromatherapy aisle and I’m so Zen’d out that I don’t even realize that I’m putting a six-pack of apricot nectar and imported Adriatic fig spread in my cart.

I think I need professional help.

The Patron Saint of Parking Spaces

Legend has it that my Grandpa Jack scored a really good parking space at the 1964 New York World's Fair.  To put this in perspective, the New York World's Fair occupied nearly a square mile and welcomed about 51 million visitors.  So getting a good parking space was quite a feat.  However that day,  Jack had a feeling he could find an even better spot, a a bold thought that was bordering on lunacy.  But he found one.  And when I heard that story years ago, I dubbed my Grandpa Jack the Patron Saint of Parking Spaces.

Many decades later, long after my Grandpa had passed away, I took a trip to Disney World with my husband and some friends.  As we pulled into the massively crowded parking lot at Downtown Disney, I said "C'mon Grandpa Jack, help us out" and lo and behold, a car pulled out in the front row.  We could not have gotten any closer to the entrance if we tried.  The couple who was with us has since adopted Grandpa Jack and has been politely asking him for parking spaces in the greater NY area ever since.

Jack's own daughter, (my wonderful and wise Aunt) finally decided to give it a try a few years ago. The Tall Ships were due to sail down the Hudson River and everyone in NY was trying to park close enough to walk over to the Henry Hudson Parkway for a glimpse.   So my Aunt said aloud, "Ok Dad, I need a parking space" and just then, a car toots its horn at her.  She sticks her head out the window and the guy in the car said "Do you need a space?  I'm pulling out in a minute.  Go around the block and I'll wait for you.". So she did.  And she got the perfect parking spot thanks to her Dad, Grandpa Jack, Patron Saint of Parking Spaces.

Just last week, I went out for some drinks with the girls.  We went to a place on the water where there are very few parking spaces.  My friends said we'd never get a space.  I told them to just wait a second, as I pulled the car over in the packed lot.  Not 5 seconds later, two ladies hopped in their VW Beetle right in front of me and pulled away.  Later that evening, we decided to head over to one last spot for a little nightcap.  This place is in a historic downtown area with tiny one-way streets and virtually no on-street parking except for a few meters.  There waiting for me right in front of the restaurant door, was a nice, empty parking space, big enough for me to glide my truck right into.  Coincidence? Um, no.  Grandpa Jack just being one step ahead of me.

  I don't know what folks do up in heaven, but there's a good chance that my  Grandpa Jack is getting annoyed that so many people are now disturbing his regular poker game with God or whatever he's doing.  Maybe I shouldn't even be writing about this.  I like to think that I'm a generous person and willing to share whatever I have. Except when it comes to parking spaces.

Formula One

Fernando Alonso. Felipe Massa. Kimi Raikkonen.  These men are taking my husband hostage this weekend. 

On Friday, the 2010 Formula One season will commence with the Bahrain Grand Prix and my husband may actually cry tears of joy.  He will also be crying real tears of pain and suffering if he wakes me up as he scrambles to the television for the 6:00 a.m. start of the Qualifying round to determine which driver will be on pole. Not that kind of pole.  It means who’ll be in the #1 position for the start of the race.  Formula One has sucked me in, but only a little.

Only true diehards wake up at o’dark thirty to watch petite men with big paychecks race around a twisty track in a far off land.  In some sense, I do understand the appeal now that I recognize how hard it is to steer an ultralight beast with a tiny steering wheel full of gizmo and wangdoodle buttons.  The amount of G-force these guys encounter is enough to scramble their brains.  And I guess that’s why they get the big bucks and the superstar status.

But here’s a question that’s been nagging me – since Formula One exists, why does anyone watch NASCAR? Side by side, I just don’t see the appeal of watching Jimmy, Jeff and Kyle drive in a circle at Talladega in their Cheerios & Betty Crocker cars when you could watch Fernando and Felipe go 200 miles an hour through the streets of Monaco or around the course in Monza, Italy.  I’m just saying. I don’t get it.

And why am I even writing about this?   It may be a case of “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em”.  For the next several months, the sounds of every Grand Prix race will be booming from my husband’s office/man cave.  Packages from mysterious overseas vendors will continue to arrive on my doorstep containing weird looking parts from old F1 cars.  Apparently, they’re quite collectible.  But I will tell you this – if I walk into my husband’s cave one day and find a fully built Formula One car, I’m going to be pissed.

Gratitude

I’m one of those people who stops what I’m doing at least once a day with an overwhelming feeling of gratitude for one thing or another.  Sometimes I recognize it silently in my head, other times I actually say “Thank You” out loud to no one in particular.  Yes, I am that lady in the passing car that looks like she’s talking to herself.

Last weekend, I had a bit of luck at the casino, so I thanked my friendly slot machine and walked away knowing that lightening probably wouldn’t strike twice.  I was grateful for my little windfall.

Most days as I drive around this beautiful little town that I live in, I say thank you out loud because I still can’t believe that I ended up here.  This is a house that’s been in my family for about 50 years.  I’d fantasized as a kid about living here some day, but never actually thought I’d be able to. Even though virtually every inch of this house was renovated and feels brand new, it’ll always be my grandmother’s house to me.  The view from the kitchen sink window is the same one I’ve looked at since I was a kid washing dishes after a holiday meal.  As I sit here at my desk, I’m sitting in my grandmother’s former bedroom. And there isn’t a morning that I don’t wake up and say “Thank You” before my feet ever hit the floor.  Over the years, gratitude has become a daily thing for me.

The other night, my parents were in a taxicab in San Francisco on their way to a fabulous restaurant when some chick in a huge SUV ran a stop sign and broadsided them.  My parents are OK, but they were REALLY lucky and I am incredibly grateful.  The EMTs hustled them off in an ambulance to San Francisco County Hospital. They were processed through the trauma center with the local gun shot victims and I’m pretty sure that my mother was the only one in there wearing a St. John knit suit.  Knowing her, she probably tried to borrow someone’s cell phone as they wheeled her in so she could call the restaurant to cancel their reservation.   My Dad has bumps and bruises and luckily, that’s all.  My Mom had 2 vertebrae that got thrown out of joint. The amazing doctors were able to work a little magic using about 12 millimeters of titanium and somehow she’s going to walk away with zero neurological damage. From what they tell us, this is very rare.  Turns out that my mother has an exceptionally impressive spinal canal and for that I am very, very grateful.   Some people are born with superhuman mathematical abilities. My mother was born with tremendous knitting skills and apparently a world-class spine.  She just never knew it until now.  

If you added up my daily gratitude, multiply it by a million and then add Infinity,  that’s how grateful I feel this week. 

Fashion Statement

Fashion Statement

In a world with no hoodies

In a world with no clogs

In a world with no Levis

I’d have no reason to blog

About my love for these articles

Of clothing so dear

I’d be naked without them

And let’s make one thing clear

I know I’m not stylish

And I’m unwilling to wear

3- inch heels to the playground

Or pay $300 a pair

For blue jeans designed for

Some hipless toothpicks

Who don’t seem to mind

The pain fashion inflicts

I like to be comfy

In my jeans and my clogs

And my boots and my gym clothes

So I dedicate this blog

To Levi’s and Dansko

And Nike and Uggs

I’d like to visit your factories

And give you all hugs.

True Romance

Nothing has inspired me to blog in recent weeks, so I thought I’d share this sweet tale of  true love. It’s a true story of what happened to a friend of mine a few days ago.  Although she gave me permission to share it, I’m going to use fictional names.  Not that you’d know these people…  So here it is:

For the first 7 years of her life, Gianna grew up in Italy, in a small village.  For as long as she could remember, a boy named Dante was her closest friend. They did everything together.  At age 7, she moved to the United States with her family, but Gianna and Dante stayed in touch through letters.  For 3 months every summer, she went back to Italy and they were inseparable.   At age 11, Gianna and her family moved back to Italy and to the hometown she shared with Dante.  From ages 11 to 17, Gianna and Dante were a couple, totally in love, best friends.  At age 17, she had to move back to the U.S. with her family again and settled in the Boston area. 

She’s 27 now and for the past 10 years, she has returned to Italy and every summer and reconnected with Dante, but it was no longer possible to maintain such a long distance relationship as adults.  Their love never wavered, but they knew that they wanted the other to be happy in life and that might mean a spouse in the country where each lived.  Dante always said he wanted to come to America for Gianna, but he could never make it happen due to family and work obligations in Italy. 

A few years ago, Gianna got serious with a boyfriend here in the U.S. She accepted his marriage proposal.  But in the middle of the engagement, she broke it off because she knew she didn’t love him the way she loved Dante, even though she and Dante couldn’t be together.  They were supposed to be married this past October.  Since then, Gianna has been pretty down in the dumps.  She knew she made the right decision not to get married.  But throughout her relationship and engagement to the ex-fiance, she hadn’t returned to Italy at all.  Now it’s been 2 years since she’s been back there and hasn’t seen Dante in all that time.  She’s single now, and trying to make a nice life for herself here.  She moved out of a place that she shared with a crummy roommate.  She got a promotion at work.  She’s getting her brand new apartment ready to move into this weekend, a fresh start.

Gianna has a set of godparents that have known her all her life.  They emigrated with Gianna’s parents from Italy to the Boston area 10 years ago.  They live in the same town as her parents do and Gianna sees them almost every weekend.  Every year at Christmas, her godfather surprises her with some kind of fabulous gift.  The other night, her godparents showed up at her job.  Her godfather gave her a huge hug as usual, but he put her in such a headlock that she couldn’t see anything.  

He said, “You know how I always give you a great gift for Christmas? Well, I don’t know how I’m going to top this gift next time…”  

He covered her eyes tightly and Gianna got all excited, saying “it’s a 52” HD TV right?! It’s the t.v., right?!!!”.

Then he switches hands but keeps her eyes tightly covered.  Except the 2^nd hand that now covers her eyes isn’t his and Gianna realizes it immediately.  She knows this hand, she can smell the skin of this hand .  It’s Dante’s hand.  Dante flew to the U.S. for the first time that day from Italy and Gianna’s godparents brought him to her.  They haven’t seen each other for 2 years.  Once Gianna realizes it, she literally drops to the floor and Dante tries to hold her up.  And her godparents got it all on film.

Dante has a 1 month visa that can keep him here through January, but he can extend it to 3 months I think.  They want to finally be together forever and he has left everything in Italy to be with her. Dante speaks no English (Gianna is bilingual of course).  I have never seen a girl so happy in her life.  Is that not a great story, or what?!