SIT REP

It's been about 2 weeks or so since the wife and kid left so I thought I'd give an update on how I've been spending my latest parole. Unfortunately I don't really have much to report. Things sure have changed since the last time they went to visit her family in the Philippines. Last time I spent my weekends in places like Rome, Geneva, Amsterdam and Venice. This time I've spent every weekend right here in Heidelberg. Mostly it's because I really want to get back in shape a bit which means mountain climbing. So a typical weekend is; wake up Saturday, hike up the mountain, come home, take a shower, then go out and walk around town. Sometimes I'll pop into the pub to watch a match if there's a good one on. I usually grab a Gazetto dello Sport which is the Italian sports paper I used to read religiously in Italy, and relax in one of my preferred restaurants, cafes or pubs. A couple weeks ago I discovered a pool hall in the Altstadt so sometimes I go shoot some stick. I try to do a hike on Sunday as well if I'm not too sore (or hungover!). I squeeze my errands into the weekends wherever I can find the time as well.

So as you can see, my parole has been very dull and anti-climactic thus far. I'm sorry to disappoint those of you who were looking forward to tales of voyages to far away and exotic places but this is my life now. But don't feel sorry for me, I've actually been enjoying the opportunity to spend some time alone doing nothing but relaxing and enjoying the peace and quiet. And for those of you who have never been here, Heidelberg is one of the most popular tourist destinations in Europe so there's plenty to do here and always something to keep me occupied. I've got a couple more weeks here then I jump on a plane for the conference in St. Louis that my coworker screwed me into having to go to.

The way I look at it, my last parole was a chance to go crazy, galavant around Europe and get fat and out of shape. My current parole is a chance to undo some of that, lose some weight and get back in shape. So far so good...

Say it ain't so Tom!

http://thetrack.bostonherald.com/moreTrack/view.bg?articleid=198248

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm losing weight.

For those who care, as of this morning I am officially down 20 pounds since last summer. I've still got about 15-20 more to go but I am kicking ass. I feel great and am starting to look a bit like my old self again. When the wife gets home in June she ain't gonna be able to keep her hands off me...

Virginia and the X Man are in the PI

Got a call last night from the wife, her and the kid have arrived safely in the Philippines after a 14 hour flight. Fortunately the flight had a layover in Dubai right around halfway so it was broken up into a 6 and 8 hour journey instead of 14 hours straight. They flew on Emirates Airline which she said she was impressed by.

Anyway, they'll be gone until early June so I have a lot of time to bond with...myself. I don't have any concrete plans as far as traveling and whatnot but if anything comes up rest assured there will be blog updates.

Discovering Heidelberg

I've had plenty of time to explore a bit of Heidelberg during the past year that we've been here and it seems like there's always something new to discover. We're very fortunate to live in the Altstadt (Old Town) which is the historic district featuring the medieval houses and shops and is overlooked by a huge castle. There's a lot more to appreciate about the historic district though. For one thing, the scenic Neckar River flows right through the valley and although the south side gets all the notoriety because of the Altstadt, I've come to love the north side just as much, if not more. On the north side, across the river from the Altstadt, is a medium sized mountain that offers spectacular views of the river, the Altstadt and the castle. A little ways up the mountain is a little pedestrian road called the Philosophenweg, or "Philosopher's Way". It is so named because the view from up there provided inspiration to many famous philosophers and writers over the years. Since our first excursion up there we've fallen in love with the Philosophenweg and take strolls up there often. Everyone who visits Heidelberg should take in the view from up there. Here's the view (click to enlarge):

And as much as I love the Philosophenweg, I recently discovered something even better - a couple months ago, a coworker and I made the hike to the top of the mountain which is just as fantastic. I've since developed a tradition of hiking to the top every weekend, both for the view and the exercise benefits. It's not that high (I think it's roughly 1600 feet or so) but it's all uphill with no level sections and gives me a good 30-45 minutes of strenuous exercise that I wouldn't normally get. On top of the mountain are a couple of cool points of interest. One of them is the "Thingstatte", which is a huge Roman Amphitheater built and used by the Nazis for their summer solstice celebrations:

There are also the ruins of two monasteries dating back to around the year 1000 AD. One of them features a watch tower that offers a direct view looking down at the castle and the famous old bridge. I've taken a few pics from up there and will post them as soon as I get them downloaded.

If anyone has Google Earth, you can see a good image of the Altstadt, the river, the mountain and the castle. Just search for Heidelberg, zoom in on the Altstadt and go from there. People have posted a ton of photos from everything I've described in this post as well as a bunch more. Feel free to email me or leave a comment if you need help finding it. Trust me, it's well worth it!

I'm going to St Louie...

Looiks like I'm headed to St Louis next month for a couple weeks for work, albeit not by choice. One of my coworkers was told that he was going to a conference next month and he didn't want to go so he asked if I would go in his place. I told him no, I did not want to go either, sorry. So what does he do? He bitches and moans and complains that he doesn't want to go until they change their minds and decide to send me instead.

I'm more than a bit upset about this because he was chosen to go and was told he was going so he had no right to 1) try and get out of it and 2) get it thrown on ME. Although I very easily could, I'm not going to whine about it like he did, I just let my supervisor know that I thought it was a pretty shitty deal that the other guy did that and I'm getting screwed now but oh well, I'll take one for the team.

I was really looking forward to using the time while the wife and kid are away to relax, recharge, do a bit of traveling and writing, and basically just enjoy the tranquility. But now I have to spend a couple of those weeks in the US working all because someone else doesn't want to do their job.

Maybe I can get tickets to a Cardinals game...

St. Patrick's Day 2007

OK, it wasn't quite as fun as St. Patrick's Day 2006 in Venice but we still had a great time last weekend at The Dubliner here in Heidelberg. Here are a few pics...

Top 10 Foods my Wife Makes

She's unbelievable in the kitchen. She can make just about anything but here are my 10 favorite dishes that she makes, in no particular order:

1. Sweet potato chicken curry. I'm a curry fanatic so anything with curry I will love. This dish has sweet potatoes, chicken, carrots, green peppers and sometimes some other vegetables, all in a yellow curry sauce. She serves it over basmati rice.

2. Mahi Mahi. She pan fries it and uses some kind of balsamic vinegar marinade with black pepper and garlic.

3. Mediterranean Chicken. One of her signature dishes. She uses a whole chicken and serves it on couscous mixed with chick peas, lima beans, green and black olives, and some kind of light tangy sauce.

4. Teriyaki chicken thighs. Nothing special but unbelievably tasty. She marinates the chicken thighs in some kind of teriyaki sauce.

5. Seafood pasta. She doesn't make this much anymore because it's nearly impossible to get good seafood here but when we were in Italy she made it often. She used an Italian tomato and olive based sauce and put in some extra green and black olives.

6. Flank Steak. She prepares it a few different ways but I think my favorite is when she cuts it in strips and marinates it in balsamic vinegar. Always tender and juicy and delicious.

7. Chinese. Not surprising since she spent all of her adult life in Hong Kong and one of her main jobs was cooking. She makes a variety of noodle and rice dishes with vegetables, chicken, beef, pork and shrimp that are as good as any Chinese restaurant I've ever eaten at.

8. Salmon steak. She marinates it with some kind of mustard, garlic, lemon sauce then pan fries it.

9. Thai soup. She's really good at making pretty much any kind of Asian food. She makes a really good Thai soup with tom yum paste, mushroom, green pepper, shrimp (or chicken) and cabbage and she makes it really spicy.

10. Adobo - ribs or chicken. Adobo is the main dish from the Philippines and is delicious. Her ribs are so tender that the meat just slides right off the bone. Her chicken adobo is one of the few dishes that the X Man asks for by name. For the adobo she uses soy sauce, black pepper, garlic, shallots, basil, vinegar and a little bit of sugar.

Virginia and the X Man are going to the Philippines

We've decided to send Virginia and the X Man back home to visit her family. It will be great for her to be able to spend some time with them and for her family to be able to spend time with the X Man who they miss so much. While we absolutely love living in Europe, it does suck that our parents are not able to see the X Man as much as they'd like to so any opportunity to get together with them is great.

Anyway, they will be leaving April 24th and returning June 11 so they'll have a good month and a half to get reacquainted with Lola and Lolo. As for me, I have to work so I'll remain here, living on sandwiches and watching a lot of porn. Ha ha, just kidding...I'll be eating more than sandwiches.

Pictures of the Wife

My lovely wife Virginia...

The X Man says the Darndest Things.

I can't even count the number of times the X Man has said something that just makes me laugh out loud. This kid has a penchant for saying the funniest things that leave you wondering "where the heck did he learn that?!". Well, yesterday was one of those times. For those of you who aren't familiar with the way television works overseas, AFN - Armed Forces Network - are not allowed to show commercials overseas. In lieu of this we receive all kinds of public service announcements and cheesy home made commercials telling us not to smoke, not to gamble, stuff like that. One of the cheesiest ones is about suicide prevention. It features a bunch of soldiers talking about looking for signs that your buddy might be suicidal and the worst (and funniest) moment is during the "dramatization" of what you're supposed to do; one dude walks over to his buddy who is sitting down with his head in his hands and asks him, in a very monotone, robot-like voice "Are you thinking about suicide?"

So yesterday we're getting ready to go out for a walk, I'm sitting on the bench putting my shoes on and the X Man walks up to me with his juice in his hands and out of the blue says "Are you thinking about suicide?".

Man, I gotta start marketing this kid...

The X Man Will Play Pro Soccer.

The boy was born to play calcio.

Wine Snob, Part III

Will Nason was a retired soldier who worked in my building as a government civilian. He'd been in Italy for many years, was married to an Italian woman, and lived near Verona in one of the most famous wine regions of Italy. One day someone mentioned to me that Will often bought wine for him from a winerie near his house and that it was inexpensive and excellent. So I asked Will if he could hook me up as well and he said sure. The wines that he brought were from the Valpolicella region. They included Valpolicella, Ripasso and Amarone. I had recently discovered Valpolicella thanks to Ernest Hemingway. I had read his wonderful book "Across the River and into the Trees", which takes place in Venice and the main character drinks it throughout the book. I'd never heard of Amarone but I got a quick lesson. Amarone is a very strong, full bodied wine that is not for the average wine drinker. Will brought me a bottle to try and gave me the background behind how the wine is made, how it should be served and what to eat it with. I didn't realize it at the time but my wine tastes were evolving into more serious wines and I was leaving stuff like Marzemino and Moscato behind. When I got home and asked Giampietro about Amarone he quickly agreed that yes, Amarone is a very good wine but must be drunk with care, always with red meat. I opened the Amarone that night, let it breathe for quite some time and upon the first sip I was hooked. After that I had a tremendous desire to learn more about red wine and find out what was good and what wasn't. If I liked Amarone that much, what else would I like? I had once asked Giampietro what he thought was the best wine in the world and he replied that, although it depends on your tastes, for him it was Brunello di Montalcino from the Tuscany region of Italy. It would be a while before I would finally taste my first Brunello but once I did I understood why many consider it the best red wine in the world.
I soon became a wine sponge, eager to engage people like Will and Giampietro in conversations about wine, and soaking up every little nugget that I could from them. Had I lived anywhere else the love and interest in wine probably never would have taken root but living in Italy, surrounded by some of the best wines in the world, I quickly developed a passion.

So am I a wine snob? I guess I am to some people. I don't consider myself a snob because I'm far from an expert. I just happen to have tastes in wine that are much more evolved than the average person. I sampled enough wines to know what's good and what isn't. Being in Germany has made things worse because although German wines are fine, they are nowhere the quality of the wine in countries like Italy, France, Spain, or even Australia. I get drawn into arguments with people here all the time because they have usually only ever drunk German wines so they have no idea that better wine even exists. When I try to tell them that, the wine snob label gets thrown at me. At times I wear it as a badge of honor but most of the time it gets annoying because it comes from someone who has no interest in wine.

I guess it all comes down to what an Italian friend of mine once told me:

"If the wine feels good in your mouth...this is a good wine."

In Vino Veritas.

Farewell DJ.

Being a boy and a sports fan growing up near Boston in the 80's meant a fe things; you cried in 1986 when the ball went through Buckner's legs, you proudly wore your "Squish the Fish" and "Bury the Bears" t-shirts in 1985, you spent winters playing pickup hockey on the local pond pretending to be Ray Bourque, and maybe more than anything, you tuned in night after night during basketball season to watch the Boston Celtics. The Celtics in the 80's had no shortage of stars and featured the greatest front court in the history of the NBA - Larry Bird, Kevin McHale and Robert Parish. But those of us who watched them knew that the man that made the team go was Dennis "DJ" Johnson. On a team of superstars DJ was content to let others take the glory while he did all the little things. He was the consumate point guard and a joy to watch.

Dennis Johnson died at the young age of 52 last week of a heart attack. Thanks for the great memories you provided for me and so many other young boys who grew up idolizing those great Celtic teams of the 80's. Farewell and Godspeed DJ.

Wine Snob, part II

That trip to Germany was eye opening for me because for the first time I realized that maybe Giampietro was right, maybe the quality of wine in Italy was better than that in Germany altogether. When I was living in Germany the first time we had a guy in my unit who was from Hungary. He used to drive home most weekend to visit his family and would occasionally bring back some red wine that his grandfather had made. He had once explained to me that certain countries in Europe produce good red wine and some don't and that Germany doesn't produce good red wine because the soil and climate are just not the right type. So I had never thought of Germany as a red wine country anyway. But I did think of it as a white wine country, at least until I lived in Italy for a while and started drinking the white wine there.

My introduction to Italian wine started mostly with sweet whites and reds. I believe Moscato was the first Italian wine I tried. Moscato is a sweet, bubbly white wine that goes well with sweets so it's easy to drink. One day my friend John Pitt decided to take me to a big winery called Villa Sceriman. It's in a little town called Vo Vecchio (Vo, for short) in the Colli Euganei (Euganei hills) just outside Padova. Vo is very popular with Americans who are stationed in Vicenza and I would speculate that many of them who become wine drinkers got their start in Vo. I first became addicted to a wine called Marzemino. Marzemino is a sweet, frizzante (fizzy) red wine and the one produced by Villa Sceriman is so fruity and tasty that it goes down almost too easily, like juice. Usually I would buy a few bottles of Moscato and a few of Marzemino and that was that. As I started getting engrossed more and more in the Italian culture I realized how big a part of it wine was. When Giampietro and Agnese would invite me over for dinner they always served either Cabernet or, Giampi's personal favorite, Tocai rosso. Eventually, when we would go to Vo, I started asking to try the drier wines such as their Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot. I liked the Cabernet right away, not so much the Merlot. For a long time I would drink a lot of Cabernet's and not much else.

Enter Will Nason.

(stay tuned for part III)

Apparently I'm a wine snob

What can I say. I honestly have never claimed to be an expert on wine. When I got to Italy in 2000 I knew next to nothing about wine. I had come from Kitzingen, Germany, which is famous for its Franken Wines, some of the best in Germany. I had never drank wine before I got to Germany and so I immediately decided to try to local wines. I did so and I liked them. But, I was naive. I knew absolutely nothing about wine. When I got to Italy I was still a beer man. I had an extensive knowledge of hops but knew nothing of the grape. Within a month of moving into my apartment my upstairs neighbor, Giampietro, came down with two bottles of vino, one red, one white. He proceeded to explain what, specifically, I was supposed to eat with each bottle. That's where it all started. I remember a conversation I had with Giampietro early on when I told him that, while Germany didn't have any good red wine, they did have some very good white wine. Giampietro scoffed at this and said something to the effect of Italian white wine being much better quality then Germany. I just kind of chuckled to myself at this and thought "That's just him being biased towards his own country". After all, I had taken a tour of the Rhine valley and sampled some of the best wines that Germany had to offer. A few months later I went back to Germany for a week for a class on the government's nickel and I was dying to try some German wine, if only to prove Giamietro wrong. Well, I drank some of the best wines that Germany had to offer and wouldn't you know it, Giampietro was right. I remember the first sip, thinking that, wow, this just tastes like a different wine than what I remember. And by "different", I meant "not as good".


Tune in tomorrow...or, whenever I get around to it....for the next part of why I am apparently a wine snob....

An excerpt from my book...

It was still early in the afternoon and I had no idea what I was going to do for the rest of the day since I didn’t know anybody so on my way back to the barracks I stopped at the library to get some books. Due to all the time I’d spent in Barnes and Noble before joining the army, reading all sorts of books had developed into my preferred manner of killing time. But, in reality, I wasn’t much of a reader. As I looked around and tried to figure out what kind of books might keep me busy, an interesting thought occurred to me. I’d been there about a week and based on my experiences thus far, I was worried that I was living in a culture vacuum. All the guys in my section, my roommate, and pretty much everyone else I’d met seemed to only care about getting drunk, getting into fights, discussing various parts of the female anatomy, showing off how tough they were, and generally all manner of caveman type activities. Now I was all for drinking and female companionship but where I was from we never sat around and talked about it constantly. So I was kind of worried about how I would get along with the guys in the barracks. I wanted to fit in but I didn’t want to become just like them. With that in mind I decided to borrow some books that not only interested me but that would challenge my mind a bit. This, I thought, would keep me from becoming a caveman myself.

I got my books and headed back to the barracks where a bunch of the guys were hanging around outside. In front of our barracks was a little barbecue area with a big stone grill. On the weekends a lot of the guys would get a bunch of beer and meat and continue the age old American tradition of grilling and getting drunk on watery beer. I hadn’t really talked to any of them since I was still in Head Start and none of them were particularly welcoming so I just walked into the barracks without even looking at them, although a big part of me really wanted to join them. As I was walking in SGT Hanover yelled over to me and told me to hang on. He walked over, beer in hand, and asked what I was up to and I said “nothing much, spent the morning walking around downtown and now I got some books so I figured I just go up to the room and do some reading.” Hanover looked down at the stack of books I was holding and asked to see what I was reading. He looked at the book on top – a collection of poems by Robert Frost – and got a confused look on his face, then a half-smile. “Goddamn Thibodeau, what are you, some kind of scholar?” I laughed and made a joke about wanting to keep my mind sharp and then his face took on its familiar solemn look and he kind of looked a bit uncomfortable in this semi-social situation. “Well, we’re just drinking some beers and cooking some food….you can join us if you want…” I said thanks and that I’d come down after putting my stuff away.

Well, this was it, I was finally about to hang out with the guys. I was actually pretty nervous, like I was the new kid at school who was being invited to a party for the first time where you didn’t really know anybody. I had never been a very outgoing person and didn’t make friends very easily so I was probably more uncomfortable than anything. These were people that I had no experience hanging out with. Even in the reserves most of the people I knew were college students or people with families. I didn’t have much “caveman” in me so I wasn’t sure I’d fit in very well because I had no intention of changing my personality just to be one of the guys. As it turned out, most of them were pretty cool. Of course it helped that they had been drinking for a while and were a bit friendlier than they might have been otherwise. What I didn’t realize at the time was that in the military, people are constantly coming and going. People leave, new people arrive. So being the new guy wasn’t really any big deal. To them, everything was the same except that there was a new person around. To me, I was the same but the entire world around me was new.

The X Man loves his Uncle Eric

The wife and I have a running joke about our new place here in Heidelberg that goes something like this; we've only been here less than a year but we've already had at least twice as many people come stay with us than I (we) had in 6 years in Italy. There's something about our place here that is very welcoming and people sometimes end up staying longer than they anticipated.

A perfect example is my brother Eric. For those of you who don't know him, Eric lives and works in Africa as a volunteer for the Mercy Ships. Last fall he had planned a trip home to the US for a couple months and he decided to swing by Heidelberg on his way back to spend a few days visiting us. It's not that often that we get to see Eric and we always enjoy his visits so we were looking forward to seeing him. Well, nobody enjoyed his visit more than the X Man. Uncle Eric played cars with him, took him to the playground, generally did all the things that the X Man loves doing. Uncle Eric is probably the only person in our family who is more traveled than I am - and that's saying a lot - and yet despite being all around the world, he was pretty impressed by Heidelberg. In fact, he mentioned that he might even cut his time in the US short just so that he could spend more time here on his way back to Africa. And sure enough, he was back here a couple weeks ago on his way back to Africa. And of course, nobody was happier about that then the X Man. We started giving him a hint about a week before Uncle Eric arrived by occasionally dropping the "Uncle Eric will be here next week..." bomb, to which he always got excited. In fact, one night about 2 days before Eric arrived, he asked when Uncle Eric would be there and when we told him it would be a couple more days he actually started crying! "I want Uncle Eric!", he whined. It was very sweet.

Anyway, Uncle Eric's visit was, once again, enjoyable and the X Man really misses him. Here's a few pictures of Uncle Eric's two visits...




If you'd like to read more about Uncle Eric, check out
his website

Heidelberg Pictures

Just thought I'd post some pictures of the area that we live in. This is the Heidelberg "Altstadt", which is German for "Old Town". The Castle is in ruins now, destroyed for good by Napolean Bonaparte but even the ruins are quite a sight to see. Much of the interior is still intact as well.

If you click to enlarge the last pic and find the white circle, that's our house...

Anytime you want to come visit, just give us a yell...

I'm Back, Baby!

I've decided to come off sabbatical and start updating the blog again. With a couple of caveats - I'll update it when I feel like it and will write about whatever I feel like writing about. If you don't like it, tough. I don't know how often I'll update it but if it gets to be too much of a chore like it was before than maybe I'll just shut it down altogether.

So what have I been up to during my self-imposed exile from the blogosphere? Well, for one thing I've started writing a book, which is something I've always wanted to do. It's nothing special and I'm not planning on a second career as a writer or anything. Writing is just something I've always enjoyed and after getting a few comments from people that they enjoy my writing style I started thinking that maybe it's something I would enjoy doing as well as giving me a hobby during the winter. However I had no idea what the hell I could possibly write a book about since I'm not enough of an expert on anything to actually write an entire book about it. Then, a couple months ago, I happened to be watching the movie "Under the Tuscan Sun" for the umpteenth time and it dawned on me that my story is more interesting than hers. So I figured I'd write about the past ten years of my life, about how I went from a nowhere office job to living in Europe and traveling around the world. So far I've finished the first four chapters and the fifth is coming along nicely. If I'm feeling froggy, I may even post snippets here on the blog to give you an idea of what I'm writing.

Other than the book, we've been exploring all that Heidelberg has to offer. It really is a great city and place to live. I still miss Italy incredibly but I'm enjoying Heidelberg so much that sometimes I forget how much I miss Italy. We went back down to visit Giampi and Agnese for New Years and had a great visit. We've also been lucky enough to have my brother Eric visit a couple times in the last few months. Hopefully I'll be able to post pictures from these and other adventures in the near future.

Anyway, it's good to be back and I hope everyone who used to check in is doing well.

Ciao!

Rik