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Perhaps my Daughter is Right

Posted on December 18th, 2009 by Retired-Ed in Why do they...?

UPDATE: 19 DEC 09  A front-page article in today’s Stars and Stripes indicates that Wal-Mart has reversed its policy of charging more for APO mailings. It states that they will now charge the same for APO as they do for domestic mailing. Finally, they get it. It’s a good PR thing to support your troops overseas.

I’d like to think that it was my blog post that tipped the scales, but I know better. Chalk this one up to the power of the press.

My kids are pretty smart; they have my genes of course. Well, half of them are their mother’s genes, and she’s really smart too. Anyway, my younger daughter, Allison, refuses to shop at Wal-Mart. She’s a bit of a political animal, and her refusal to shop there is on political or moral grounds. Since we frequently disagree politically, we haven’t fully discussed her reasons to boycott the place, but I assume that they center on their hiring policies and treatment of employees.

I may be joining her in her boycott, but for a practical reason that is dear to me. You see, there was an article in our “local” newspaper yesterday. The Stars and Stripes printed this article about how some retailers jack up the shipment price when sending items to an APO address. For the uninitiated, the APO address stands for Army Post Office (or Air Force Post Office) and gives us government  employees and military members an opportunity to mail and receive goods without paying customs duty and to mail at US domestic rates. For those of us in Europe, a package mailed from the USA will have postage paid to New York, and the Department of Defense picks up the tab from New York to our local mailroom. In the Pacific, the cost is to San Francisco or Seattle and the government likewise picks up the tab for the remainder of the cost.

In theory then, a retailer should charge no more for a package going to an APO address then would be charged for the same package going to New York (or the West Coast). An enterprising reporter compared the cost of items being sent to a single address in Atlanta, GA, and the same item going to an APO address. Now there may be some room for error here because the cost to Atlanta might be different than the cost to NY or SF. But there shouldn’t be huge differences. The article compares four retailers: Amazon.com, Target, Wal-Mart, and JC Penney. Guess which one hoses us the most? Wal-Mart. Amazon had exactly the same cost to an APO address as it did to Atlanta. JC Penney was slightly higher. Target (praise them!) had lower rates to the APO address. Wal-Mart, however,charged almost five times as much to ship the same item to the APO address as it did to Atlanta. Boo! Hiss!

I’m willing to keep an open mind about this, provided that Wal-Mart provides an explanation. When the Stars and Stripes tried to interview them, they declined. So, in this case, it’s “guilty until proven innocent”. I certainly won’t be shopping there. I doubt if they will miss my business, but it’s the principle. The Queen shops a lot at JC Penney online, but she almost always qualifies for free shipping (as much as she shops there, I’m surprised that they don’t send it in a limousine, but I digress). So we’ll give JC Penney a pass and they can keep our business. We also shop a lot with Amazon.com, and they are fair with their shipping costs, so they will keep our business. (Disclaimer: we own some stock in the Amazon.com company).

Because not everything that a person would want is available in the PX or on the German economy, we do a considerable amount of shopping online, and I wish that the retailers would be consistently fair. The best that we can do is to shop with the retailers that show that they want our business.

By the way, our daughters (and son-in-law) will be arriving in the next few days to celebrate the holidays. Some of their presents under the tree will have come from these fair-minded retailers. There won’t be any from Wal-Mart.

Retired-Ed

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Will the Rain Ever Let Me Visit Another Christmas Market?

Posted on December 10th, 2009 by Retired-Ed in Daily Life

It really is a dreary time of year, just as I mentioned before. Today, as I closed the garage door after the Queen left for work, I noticed just how dark it was outside. I went out to buy a newspaper and some coffee, and it was still dark. In fact, it didn’t start to get light until around 8:30 AM. And, of course, it was raining cats and dogs. I think that yesterday was the only day out of the past two weeks that it didn’t rain, and I was stuck inside doing laundry and cooking, just like an old Hausfrau. (The meal was excellent, by the way.) The rain has kept me from my plan to visit as many Christmas markets as I can this season. So far, my count is at …..well, just one. I’ve been sharing some pictures from the Schweinfurt market with you, and here is the final installment.

Want some spices? You can buy them at the Christmas Market of course.

And candles of all varieties, shapes, and colors. Here are a few.

Aroma therapy anyone? Better than scratch ‘n’ sniff any day.

Bratwursts on the left; pretzels on the right: two German staples

(And you thought that bratwursts originated in Sheboygan)

The stage where musical groups perform several times daily

Woodworking craft items from England

The artisan at work

Christmas kitsch (is that a German word?)

Woven Wicker Ware (the original www)

Many Germans like to shop for food daily. They’ll carry their purchases home in baskets like these.

Gift pack in store window. Among the goodies: wine, gingerbread, liverwurst (three of the five essential food groups here…well, maybe)

A nearby bakery window. A diabetic’s nightmare!

And finally, the biggest lie of all: “No alcohol served to youngsters under 18 years of age” (or is it 16?)

Whew! That completes the trilogy featuring the Schweinfurt Christmas Market. I do hope to visit a few others, but I will not inundate you with repeated photos. I just hope that the weather will let me get out and check things out. And as I finish this post, it’s almost 4:00 PM, and it’s already starting to get dark. At least the temperature is warm enough that all of this precipitation is liquid and not snow.  That will come soon enough.

Retired-Ed

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Schweinfurt Christmas Market, Part 2

Posted on December 6th, 2009 by Retired-Ed in Daily Life

In my last post, I began to tell the story and show pictures from my visit to the Schweinfurt Christmas Market.  I also told of some European Christmas traditions. One thing that I didn’t tell you is that in many European countries, including Germany, Christmas is a two-day holiday. In England, the second day is called “Boxing Day”, but here in Germany, as far as I can tell, it is just called something akin to “the second Christmas day”. It is a holiday for everyone. Thankfully, the restaurants are open, and we will visit one of our favorites on both the first and second Christmas days.

But enough about personal plans, the rest of the Schweinfurt Christmas Market awaits. This post will focus on food and a few other stalls. Schweinfurt is what I would term as a small city. Not a village, but certainly not in the same class as Nuernberg, Munich, or Berlin, for example. The Christmas market also is smaller than many of the larger cities. The largest one is probably in Nuernberg, where it is called the  Christkindlmarkt, or “Christ child market”. I probably will not attend that particular market this year. I have been in the past, and there are simply waaay to many people for my taste. And speaking of taste (notice the suave segue) there are some food items that you’ll find at almost any Christmas market. Others are more regional.

For example,  you’ll find crepes at many markets

(Once again, click on any image to enlarge it)

Here one patient customer watches her crepe being flipped

And Mickey D’s gets into the spirit

(The pig is from a contest among businesses a few years ago)

Fried fish (Seelachsfilet) Can you feel your arteries clogging up already? I can

A Matjesfilet (raw herring with onions) is very popular in North Germany, but we have it too

Purses and leather goods are almost always available

And so are figurines and other decorative items

Guess what the German word is for “Popcorn”

And a manger scene with real goats

This seems to be enough images for anyone to have to load. The visit to the market will be completed in the next post. Enjoy.

Retired-Ed

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The “Drearies”

Posted on December 4th, 2009 by Retired-Ed in Daily Life

Well, it’s time once again. We have entered the time of year that I call “the drearies”. The three weeks on either side of the winter solstice can be a bit dreary here in the northern latitudes. My town sits just slightly above 50° North Latitude. That is further north than any point in the “lower 48″ of the United States. I’m not certain where reader Sue lives in Ontario, but I’ll bet that we are even farther north than her location. Why is latitude so important? Well, at this time of year, it gets dark rather early and stays dark for quite a while. As I write this, it will start to get dark around 4:15 and will stay dark until after 7:30 AM. However, as we near the solstice, it will start go get dark before 4:00 PM and will stay dark until after 8:00 AM. For people who have to go to work on a regular schedule, it means that you go to work in the dark and come home in the dark. It can get depressing. Of course, the tradeoff comes in six months. In the three weeks or so on either side of the summer solstice, it stays light until after 10:30 at night. I have even tested this by trying to read a newspaper outdoors at 10:30. It can be done. It will get light around 4:15 AM. So the good comes with the bad. And winter isn’t all that bad.

For example, this weekend (December 6th, to be exact) is Sankt Nikolaustag or “St. Nicholas’ Day”. This is a big day for kids in Germany and some of the other European countries such as Austria and the Netherlands (although the name may be different, such as Sinter Klaas in the Netherlands). You can read all about it at the link provided. On the night before the big day, many German boys and girls will put their shoes out by the door or window and Sankt Nikolaus will fill them with presents during the night. It is a lot like the American tradition of Santa Claus on Christmas eve. Somehow, I think that the Santa Claus tradition has become universal, so I bet that German kids clean up twice, once on St. Nicholas Day and once on Christmas Day. They probably have a better union!

This is the Advent season in the Christian calendar, and that means that Christmas Markets abound throughout Germany and most of the rest of Europe. They are always a lot of fun, and there is lots of gemütlichkeit (I would translate that as “congeniality” or simply “good times”) to go around. You’ll always find plenty of wurst (sausages, especially bratwurst), pretzels, and warm mulled wine called “Glühwein”. In addition, there are many vendors occupying stalls who will be selling food, drink, and many types of consumer goods, such as sweaters, purses, belts, Christmas ornaments, wood carvings, kitchen gadgets, you name it.

Yesterday I went to our nearby city of Schweinfurt for their Schweinfurter Weihnachtsmarkt, which, as you have probably guessed, is the Schweinfurt Christmas Market. I hope to visit several other Christmas markets during the season and report on them here on the blog. I took quite a few pictures, and it has been a struggle to decide which ones to show you here. I hope I chose wisely. You can click on any image to enlarge it.

This guy is found all over the Marktplatz (marketplace) and announces the day’s schedule. You can also see some of the stalls.

This is a booth selling all kinds of baskets. The Rathaus (City Hall) is in the background.

And there is always something for the kiddies.

More stalls and a good view of the Rathaus

Glühwein, Cotton candy, popcorn, glazed nuts, chocolate covered fruit, and much more can be found in this stall

Bread from a wood-fired oven

This stall sells “Smoking Men” and “Nutcrackers”. Both are Christmas items. A “smoking man” is NOT a reference to the American TV show “Mad Men”.

My favorite: the guy selling roasted chestnuts

A diabetic’s nightmare: chocolate and caramel coated fruit. I did NOT partake

Stay tuned for more on the Schweinfurt Christmas Market in my next post.

If you are really bored, you can see all of the pictures here.

Retired-Ed

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