by Christina Geyer on February 1, 2010
After a long, arduous odyssey, Oliver and I have made it back to Germany. Our flight boarding was delayed in Washington an hour, then we sat on the tarmac for 2 hours waiting to get deiced because of the snowstorm. We missed our connection in Amsterdam and had to wait 6 hours for the next flight. However, unlike Iberia, KLM took very good care of us, giving food certificates, phone cards, and money off our next booking through KLM and it’s partners. Plus, they drove Oliver and I everywhere we needed on one of those little carts you see tooling around the airport. Oliver thought this was awesome.
Today, I feel bad. I feel really bad. Everything hurts. My back, legs, arms, wrists, neck, everything. And I was already feeling homesick driving back from the airport. I’m going to miss having my family around to help out. That’s probably the worst part of being an expat. When you really need your family, they are far, far away.
In my absence from the blogging world, someone has nominated me for the Lexiophiles IX10 Top 100 International Exchange and Experience Blogs. Thank you whoever did that! The voting runs from February 1 through 14, so go vote for me! (I think I’m around number 12 or 13 on the list).
I managed to take a few photos during my trip with my awesome new camera (thanks family!!!). I’ll post the best as soon as I manage to get them off the camera and uploaded. But that’s not going to be right now because I’m going back to bed. Later folks!
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by Christina Geyer on January 10, 2010
It’s a new year, and so far I haven’t thrown up! I’m still weak and suffering from nausea, but I’m keeping food down and gaining weight. I spent a couple hours at the mall on Wednesday, thoroughly enjoying a Ben & Jerry’s milkshake while Oliver played on the indoor playground and went on the carousel in the food court. I’m still recovering from that outing, but I’m pretty sure I’ll be up to going out again tomorrow. Better news: I’ve been feeling the baby move since January 1, and that very much helps to lift my spirits.
Now on to the review. Here’s what happened on the blog in 2009:
- I continued my mostly weekly posting (except for recently due to illness and lack of camera) of my favorite photos of the week, Weekly Winners.
- I made my two favorite recipes so far in the Real German Cuisine Challenge, Kalbshaxn (Veal knuckle) and Harzer Lamb in Buttermilk. They’re both semi-expensive cuts of meat, but so worth it. I had wanted to make one of these two for my family for Christmas dinner (I’d just see which cut of meat was easier to obtain), but unfortunately didn’t have the energy for this.
- For my 7th anniversary of living in Germany, I wrote about how my expat journey began, discussing how tough it was for me to adjust to life here.
Here’s hoping 2010 is as eventful!
by Christina Geyer on December 31, 2009
Returning to the US has been a little different this time around. Because of my illness (hyperemesis gravidarum), I was incredibly homesick, something I haven’t been since moving to the Regensburg area three years ago. Despite the doctors in the hospital thinking I should stay longer, I needed to come home (my ob/gyn agreed to the trip, and so did the doctors in the hospital after I told them my feelings on it). If you want to read more about my experience with excessive nausea in pregnancy, you can read about it in my latest post on Mamas Worldwide.
The first thing I noticed upon emerging into the open air at Washington Dulles, was the large number of humongous SUVs filling the parking lot (an SUV is what Germans refer to as Jeeps). I guess I’d thought things would be different now that SUVs were “out” and being green was “in”, but they were everywhere and they were even bigger than I remembered. But in the half month since I got here, well, in the two times I’ve managed to leave the house since arriving, I didn’t have the same feeling. The roads are full of mid-size cars. Thinking about it, it makes sense. My family has 6 sedans and 1 SUV for transporting food and equipment for my mom’s restaurant. What did they pick us up from the airport with? The SUV, so they could fit all our luggage in.
It’s also incredible the amount of prescription drug commercials TV viewers here are subjected to in a day. As someone who worked in the pharmaceutical industry, you might think I’d be happy about drug companies trying to increase their profits, but it’s the opposite. These commercials promote unnecessary drug use and hypochondria in my opinion, and I completely disagree with letting drug companies advertise. I always had problems with the marketing departments of pharmaceutical companies. I see that research and development is expensive (that’s the area I worked in), but I feel that drugs should not be marketed so aggressively. For me, there is a point where morality outweighs profits.
I’m not feeling much better, although I’m keeping more food down and have managed to gain back 8 of the 20 pounds I lost in the first trimester. I haven’t been out much, just visiting the supermarket on Christmas Eve and Target yesterday. I’ve canceled my New Years trip to New York, which I was really looking forward to. I was hoping to feel better already, but I guess posting will still be rare in the next few weeks.
Good news, I got a Nikon D5000 for Christmas and hope to be back to posting Weekly Winners as soon as I can. Unfortunately, HG makes working on the computer difficult. It’s hard to look at a computer screen for too long, I get nauseous.
Happy New Year! Hopefully 2010 will be a good year all around.
Ollie in my first photo with my new camera
by Christina Geyer on December 15, 2009
Just a small announcement…
Yep, that’s right, I’m 14 weeks pregnant. This is the little troublemaker that has been keeping me from blogging as of late.
I wanted to make it through the first trimester before saying anything. The illness I’ve been suffering from is hyperemesis gravidarum, a.k.a. excessive nausea and vomiting in pregnancy. The baby is perfectly fine and healthy, but I’m very weak and about 20 pounds under where I should be at this point.
I’ve been in the hospital since Friday. I just got discharged this morning so that I can fly home to see my family for Christmas […] Continue Reading…
by Christina Geyer on November 24, 2009
I wasn’t able to complete this week’s Real German Cuisine Challenge, Mussel Salad, so I owe you guys that post sometime in the future. Unfortunately, it probably won’t be in the near future. I have to cancel the Challenge for the rest of this year at least, so also no Stollen making, but the recipe is up if you want to make it (I’ll link to your post if you write it up).
I haven’t been doing too well recently, in fact, basically the only reason I’ve left the house in the last month has been to visit a doctor. […] Continue Reading…
by Christina Geyer on November 16, 2009
This week’s recipe Zwiebelmarktkuchen (Onion Festival Cake) is a specialty from Weimar in the German state of Thüringen. The Weimar Onion Festival, or Zweibelmarkt, takes place in October and has been going on for 365 years. This dish is a specialty of the festival.
The dish reminded me somewhat of Flammkuchen, except with more onions and a less rich sauce. Rainer tells me that onion cake that he’s familiar with is smaller and thicker.
It ends up I was not quite fully recovered enough to make this recipe. After sticking it in the oven, I promptly laid down and took a two hour […] Continue Reading…
by Christina Geyer on November 6, 2009
That’s what I’ve been for the past week. The worst cold ever became bronchitis, and now that I’m on antibiotics, I think there was just a touch of sinus infection in there too. I finish antibiotics tomorrow evening and will hopefully make a speedy full recovery back to health, because this is now three weeks of feeling pretty rotten and let me tell you, it sucks. So, I have not, nor will I any time this weekend, be up to baking Zweibelkuchen (onion cake). I’m going to have to push the Real German Cuisine Challenge […] Continue Reading…
