She was delivered at the end of August in a Munich clinic on the edge of the English Garden. Everyone says it (and they’re all right): nothing prepares you for the moment you actually have a tiny human placed in your arms. She’s been turning our world upside down and we’re still settling into life as parents. I should be back up here soon.

In the meantime, it suffices to say: We’re healthy, happy and thrilled to be three.

Right? Right.

Oliver and I met in the Fall and that led pretty quickly to talk about the winter holidays and Christmas traditions. With him being German, I wasn’t expecting anything too shocking or different to pop up: some real candles on the Christmas tree maybe (yes), celebrating the evening before rather than the morning of (yes), and not following the cult of the Coca-cola Santa (yep, non-Coke Weihnachtsmann).

Everything was pretty much as expected until he floored me with the following: For Christmas dinner, he said, his family ate roasted porcupine.

“Porcupine? Really??,” I asked (did I hear that right?).

“Yes, of course,” he said confidently, “It’s a delicacy over here and quite popular.” In fact, the majority of the families he knows eat porcupine. Haven’t I ever had some? He sounded incredulous.

“Um, no,” I said, “I don’t think anyone’s done that since we were pioneers crossing the prairie. I didn’t even know you had porcupine over there. Are you sure we’re talking about the same thing? Porcupine? Prickly spines?”

“Yes,” he said, starting to sound a little irritated, “that’s exactly what I mean. The best are the ones that are shot in the wild. It’s delicious and even better the next day as a cold cut on bread.”

He was so adamant that I didn’t question him about it anymore. I’d learned something new. Germans ate porcupine for Christmas dinner. This factoid quickly made the rounds with my friends and family.

“Did you know? They eat por-cupine of all things. How odd is that?”

“Really? I never knew. My grandmother was German but she never said anything about that. How interesting…”

The word spread far and wide. Then in early February of the following year, I came over for my first visit to Munich. On top of both of us being poor students, I was fish-eating-otherwise-vegetarian at the time, so he took me to a restaurant frequented by students that suited our budget and dietary restrictions but also had some Bavarian charm: Wirtshaus Fraunhofer

Although the outside now is rather plain (all the great exterior deco was knocked off during the bombing in WWII), the inside is gorgeous, almost overwhelming for a first-time-in-Europe American.

Actually, this was in 2000 before the smoking laws were passed so it looked more like this:

We found a table and he painstakingly translated the menu for me (it’s a long one and it was too early in our relationship for him to give up and let me fend for myself). Then as we were waiting for our order he said, “There! That’s a porcupine!” and pointed to something behind my head.

I turned around and, between some pictures and a stag’s head, saw the porcupine. The porcupine I had been surprised to learn lived in Europe and that he was shocked I’d never tasted. The same porcupine that now all of Northern California and beyond was certain that Germans ate for Christmas dinner.

Oliver’s English was damn good even then, but in this case I suspected that he meant to say “pork”. And to be fair I have to admit that they are pretty damn prickly on the outside, albeit not so much as the North American porcupine.

I had had months to spread this misinformation and, although I did update the immediate family, I am sure that there are plenty of folks out there still who are under the impression that Germans eat porcupine. (They probably also think that Germans hang pickles in their Christmas trees.)

This has been a joke with us ever since, and is why I have this very strong urge to hang this in our baby’s room:

(The photographer is Sharon Montrose, her Animal Print Shop is here.)

Very cute, but I doubt she’s very tasty on bread, and that’s ok. She’ll have nothing to worry about when Christmas comes around.

(By the way, a nice little history of the Fraunhofer restaurant is here, in German. I recommend it to anyone travelling through Munich. The address is here.)

This will be great for answering the inevitable question we’ll be getting a lot of this month.

Check out: HaveYouHadThatBabyYet?

Pretty much sums it up, don’t you think?

I got news for the elephant dudes: according to my stats, you are soo not alone out there!

√ Done!

Both of these are long checked off but had never been accounted for. Being 7 1/2 months pregnant, it’s fun to revisit less sober times. I am soo looking forward to my first cocktail and a whole bottle of wine just for me. Until then, memory lane must suffice.

Bourbon and Branch

I love bars with style like Bourbon and Branch that focus on well-made drinks in a great environment. I try to stop by now every time when I’m in town. Oliver manages to go several times a year thanks to his business travel. That irks a little sometimes.

House rules – no mobile phones, no name dropping and “don’t even think of asking for a Cosmo”.  I followed all three, so no pictures. Don’t expect them to rush your order, each drink is mixed with loving care.

The Tonga Room

Will it be torn down or won’t it? No one knows for sure. The Tonga Room sits in an area of the Fairmont Hotel that has been proposed for a new high rise luxury residential building. Its fate seems to be still undecided. I never actually managed to visit when I lived in the city but had a hilarious time when I finally did. Long live the Tonga Room (hopefully).

The Tonga Room in its heyday

Recipe for a great time at the Tonga Room:

Step one: Order the Mai Tai for two.

Drink it.

One bowl will allow you to admire and play with the garnish.

Step 2: Order a Scorpion for two. Drink.

Step 3: Realize you can order all drinks in bowls for two!

Get Excited!

Enjoy working your way through the menu.

Consume your libations with dignity and grace.

Jest quietly with your partner.

Listen when told to shush. Keep ordering more drinks in bowls.

Keep playing with the long straws because they're hilarious.

Let everything get all warm and fuzzy.

Stick an umbrella in your hair and have no memory of the rest of the night after getting in the cab. Wake up happily hungover in your hotel.

When I got pregnant, I started keeping track of the weeks by reading Alphamom’s Zero to Forty calendar – which are the funny, down-to-earth observations made by Amy Storch through her first two pregnancies.  The first time I’d barely gotten started before it became clear things weren’t going anywhere good. So I stopped reading, promising myself I’d be back soon.

Although I didn’t get a calculated due date until my first doctor appointment in early January after we returned from vacation, thanks to the oh-so-romantic fact that we’d been working with a fertility specialist who of course had us on a schedule, I knew exactly how pregnant I was and picked up with the calendar again right away.

This time, with the help of more competent doctors, tests and proper medication *knock on wood*, everything so far has gone as it should.

On Saturday, I got to open this week in the calendar. At this point, I have to admit that I think the walrus analogy is rather spot-on. But, having made it to 32 weeks, I’m not complaining.

√ Check.

This was one heck of a learning experience. It was fun, often stressful and frankly was enough to give me pause when considering whether we ever want to build a house. I’m not sure I want to care that much about drawer pulls again…at least for a good long while. Now it’s done and we can enjoy it.

There we are!

It's more put together than any apartment we've lived in. I'm not sure if that makes me proud or embarrassed.

Here’re all the related posts:

* A recap of what led up to this (link)

* Before, during and after pictures (link)

* How we dealt with reluctant workers (link)

* The Kitchen (link)

* The Entryway and Bath (link)

* The Bedroom (link)

* The Living Room (link)

* From Dining Nook to Cocktail Corner (here)

And we're done here for now. On to the next one!

Cozier, but now seats more.

The dining nook became the cocktail corner, sort of by accident. We replaced the original faux farmhouse table with a much smaller table we got from the proprietors of the oldest Hütte on the mountain. It’s a super cool old little table, but it certainly makes things cozier. But for cocktails, I reasoned, this is more than fine.

We’d been looking a long time for a table and had gotten nowhere until we asked someone on the mountain to help us find something with “Hüttenerfahrung” or a bit of mountain experience. They did one step above that. When we went to  thank them, the wife smiled and said with a wink that the table had tons of experience – including plenty of good times for them in their kitchen. What that really means, was purposely left open to interpretation.

At first I wasn’t sure if the table’s size was going to be a problem or not. But then I realized that we don’t normally have more than two people over for breakfast at a time, and dinner almost always takes place somewhere else on the mountain (or if we’re honest: on the couch in front of the TV). The new adjoining green leather benches makes it easy to have up to eight people for cocktails, so prosit!

The beer made it manly enough for my father-in-law.

The two farm chairs were eBay finds. Both are 90+ years old but surprisingly cheap at about 20 Euros a piece.  With a little TLC from our carpenter they’re steady and good as new.

So far the best thing I've gotten out of Nürnberg

I’ve been wanting a crystal chandelier forever. But we never had an old apartment with high ceilings. When we bought this place I told Oliver, damn the low ceilings I’m still getting one. After losing countless eBay auctions trying to score a cheap lamp from a store in Berlin, I happened to find one in the antique store down the street around the corner from us in Nürnberg. We still need to lengthen the chain a little, but I love it.

Ok. The wall. It’s pink.

I think the shade is called Rock Candy...or Princess Bubblegum. Whatever.

The painter was flabbergasted. The carpenter was horrified. The electrician figured this was a lame girly notion of mine. It’s a small mountain, so pretty much everyone has seen or heard about this wall. It’s a love or hate thing.

I love it, but I have to admit that this was my husband’s idea. The original inspiration came from a fabulously funky spa hotel in Bad Gastein, that some very dear friends  of ours have made their home away from home. We’ve joined them there a few times and took more than a few good ideas back with us, including this wall.

The horns were rescued from the estate of a hunter up north near Bremen. My mother-in-law snatched us a basketful of little ones too that are still looking for a spot.

…and here’s another ancient doily and the deer motif.

And there we have it. Renovation – done. Decoration – still a work in progress, but far enough along that I’m checking it off anyway.

Fin (for now)!