It all started with a hobby that needed to be shared. Today it’s a business in Lakewood that is brimming with fine materials, infinite ideas, and the happy magic that made everything fall in place. The Sock Peddlers have opened their colorful store in the Colonial Center at Motor Avenue only a couple of months […]
Home from Home: October 31
Next week Wednesday is a red calendar day for so many American children. They have probably been figuring for weeks already what costumes to wear. Some will go to parties. Some will walk from door to door the old-fashioned way. Some will go trunk-or-treating in the safe surroundings of a local church. The rest of […]
Home from Home: First Snow
As long as I can remember, winter and snow have almost been synonymous for me. I grew up in Southern Germany, and we always experienced the white load sooner or later. We built snowmen and igloos, went tobogganing down any slope we could find, had snowball fights, ate icicles, and simply enjoyed the sight of […]
Home from Home: Old World Chimes
The other day, my husband and I happened across a Russian food and crafts bazaar in an orthodox Cathedral in Seattle. Over a bowl of delicious borshch and a steaming pirogue filled with spicy beef I suddenly choked. There was distinct chiming overhead, not of one, no, of various church bells. To a European like […]
Home from Home: German October Fests
October and Fest make for a pretty cool union in everybody’s mind, don’t they? They go with German beer, bratwurst, pretzels, Dirndl, Lederhosen, and oom-pah music. You might think of the Munich Octoberfest. Import it to the Pacific Northwest, and you have it authentically right here. Only … you wish, but you don’t.
A Paradise for Apple Lovers
Washington State is known for its abundance of delicious apple varieties. To its first incorporated city, Steilacoom, apples mean even more. After all, it was pioneer Nathaniel Orr who brought along the knowledge about orchards and the idea of commercializing them. The Steilacoom Apple Squeeze has been celebrating these facts – and, above all, apples […]
Home from Home: Mission Irma
My husband and I had planned to fly out to Florida to help set up hurricane protection for a family member of ours in September. We didn’t make it in time. Hurricane Irma beat us by half a week. It didn’t change our will to go. It made us even more adamant about our mission.
Home from Home: Homesickness
“Aren’t you homesick? What about Germany do you miss most?” These are probably the questions I’ve been asked most often after coming over here. And I almost feel like a traitor when I reply “No” and “Nothing”. In the age of lightfast communication and worldwide import/exports, with a bit of imagination and improvisation, you can […]
Home from Home: Traveling
“I would love to travel there!” How often do I hear this after I have just let somebody know that I am from Germany?! Believe me: almost weekly and mostly from people of working age. I never ask why they don’t simply do it. I have long realized that there is quite a difference in […]