Santa's New Ride

Everything feels like Christmas here in Germany, even taking the train. I wish I would have been at the Frankfurt main train station yesterday morning to see this:

Deutsche Bahn says, "Reindeer were yesterday"...Santa's taking the ICE train now.

Schneeflöckchen, Weissröckchen

Coming from an area that sees an inch of snow a decade, I wanted so badly to have snow during my first winter in Germany.  Of course, I barely saw any.  This December, though, my wish came true just in time for my Texan visitors. What better place to have snow than in picturesque Rothenburg ob der Tauber?

Mom and me in Rothenburg

  

We saw some big flakes at the Christmas market there, but by the time we got to Bamberg the following day, it had almost all melted.



Bamberg Altstadt

  
It didn't matter, though, because just a few short days later we have lots of snow right here outside of my window!

view from my window at 4:30 pm--it's still snowing!

German Town

Quick! What country do you think this town is in?

It looks German, doesn't it?  Take a closer look:

The town is Colmar.  It is in the Alsace--a region which used to be part of Germany, but is now (once again) in France.





Oldenburg

School started last month, and back to school means a lot of talking about your summer vacation!  When I told one of my German colleagues about my summer, including my trip to Craponne, France and then to Oldenburg, Germany, she offered to give me a list of "hick towns" that were closer to Frankfurt so that I wouldn't have to travel so far. 

I wouldn't call Oldenburg a tourist destination,  but I definitely thought it was beautiful. 



Maybe I do have a soft spot for "hick" towns, but I wasn't going to Oldenburg to be a tourist anyway--I was going as a descendant. My great-great-grandmother, Elise Mehrens, was from a nearby small town, Rastede (pronounced RAS-tay-duh by the locals). Elise's ancestors had lived in the Rastede area since at least the late 1500's.  I can imagine that back in Elise's day, Rastede was a little isolated.  On the way out there, I passed:

a tree farm, 

the occasional truck or tractor, some traditional homes,

 

and a few other things that reminded me of home.

I am not usually one to spend time in museums, but if I go back to Rastede, I'd like to visit the Bauernmuseum that I passed by once on some road, never to find again.  I may even be related to the people who run it. Seriously.  I did some family research in Oldenburg, and one of my family names is the same as the owners of the Bauernmuseum, and if there is one thing I know from growing up in a small town, nearly everyone is related one way or another.   

    

     Generations of my ancestors attended this church before Elise, her parents, and siblings left Rastede for Texas in 1846. 

        

A Year Later

On August 11, 2011, I posted some things I had learned thus far in my 10-day-old German experience. Now that a year has passed, what observations can I add?



1.   Here you pay waitstaff differently.  For example: at the end of your meal, the waiter brings you the check, and it is 18 Euros; you want to give him two Euros for a tip (because tips are smaller here--waitstaff get an actual wage), which brings what you owe to 20 Euros.  So, you hand him a 50 Euro bill and ask for 30 Euros, right? WRONG.  You tell the waiter how much you want to pay him for the bill plus tip (20 Euros), NOT how much change you want.  If you are in an area that is accustomed to having Americans, it may not be a problem...or you may just end up with an extremely happy, overtipped waiter. Of course, you may be able to avoid the problem altogether if you pay with a credit card, but really it is better if you...

2. Carry cash. Yes, you can pay with a card in a lot of places, but there are still plenty of places where you can't. 


3. Keep an umbrella handy.  There is a saying in Texas, "If you don't like the weather, just wait a minute--it'll change." That saying really shouldn't be about Texas--weather doesn't really change, unless you count from "hot" to "really hot" as a change--but it fits Germany.  When I had visitors in May, they went on the Rhine River tour...in one afternoon, they were at different times hot, cold, wet, or wind-blown; for a short while they even endured hail.  Rain, though, is the most likely scenario. Hang on to the umbrella.

4.  Recycling looks complicated, but it is doable.  I recently read Steven Glassman's explanation of it, and it's very similar to what we do in the Frankfurt area. The thing that surprised me the most when the recycling system was explained to me is that it is actually VOLUNTARY, yet everyone seems to do it. 


5.  I eat like a German.  So does that mean I eat of "German food"?

I do eat my share of Schnitzel and Bratkartoffeln, but I eat a lot more of what the Germans around here seem to eat a lot of: Italian food...pizza, all kinds of pasta, and even some salads. :)  Of the three restaurants that were near my old apartment, two of them were Italian; now I have one right outside my building's front door...and that's fine with me!

Country...French Style

I have never been interested in going to France. Though I have only a few days in Paris in high school to base an opinion on, when I think of France, the first word that comes to mind is snooty...I imagine a guy who pays way too much attention to his appearance looking down at me with his nose in the air, telling me how little we Americans know about culture. Maybe that's because I come from freedom-fries-loving Texas where (during the invasion of Iraq, at least) there were bumper stickers that read TEXAS: It's bigger than France.   By the way, the French have their ideas of what Texans are like, too. So, I was curious when I heard that there is an annual country music festival in France, and that it features some artists from Tennessee and Texas.

The festival is held in the south (of course!) of France in a small town called Craponne...which is actually not pronounced very differently from the way you may be thinking...when the French say it, it sounds something like KRHAP-un. It's up in the mountains and far from everything, so you have to have a car.  Two friends of mine (representing Kansas and Kentucky) and I rented a car and made the trek to the festival.  Though we only attended one day, the festival is actually a three-day event.  Walking up to the festival grounds, we passed many tents and RVs, several of which were adorned with Texas and U.S. flags.

 I don't know how many people were actually there that day, but i would guess at several thousand.  After seeing all of the flags, I imagined that there would be lots of ex-pats at the event, but nooo.  We met two Americans. We spotted a few more...Americans are usually easy to pick out of a crowd, and the fact that many of the French were wearing "western" wear made it even easier.  Yes, the land that invented haute couture also has people who wear cheap 10 Euro "cowboy" hats, American flag scarves, large silver-looking belt buckles, jackets with fringe...basically stuff that I have never seen anyone wear in Texas. 

The first band we saw was Modern Earl, and they were, well, you can see for yourself...this sounds pretty typical of their performance:

They were awful --and the French audience ate it up! I have to give the lead singer some credit, though. He must have practiced some lines in French before the festival, and whatever it was he said in French, the crowd found it pretty amusing.

Modern Earl on stage in Craponne

crowd at the festival; notice the LINE DANCING in the upper left corner, and NO, I didn't participate in that--I am from Texas. ;)

After that awful band, the rest of the night belonged to Texas artists, or at least in the case of Amber Digby, artists that call Texas home. Next, my favorite couple, Bruce Robison and Kelly Willis, performed. Bruce sang some of his songs that have been recorded by artists like Tim McGraw, the Dixie Chicks, and George Strait...I figured if I saw anyone singing in the audience, that person was likely an American; I saw one. Oh,well. The French seemed to enjoy Bruce and Kelly, too, even if they didn't know the words.  

Maybe next year I'll wear a Shiner shirt like Bruce.

The headlining act that night was Whiskey Myers.  Have you heard of them? Whiskey Myers is one of the best bands in Texas (at least, that's what the emcee of the festival said)!

Whiskey Myers lead singer, Cody Cannon

Of course, it was a road trip, so we also spent some time in nearby Lyon, and in the wine country near Anse.  Everywhere we went, people were so nice, and--considering that among the three of us we knew about four phrases in French--most people tried to speak English with us.  Somewhere I've heard the saying, "People travel abroad to have their prejudices confirmed." Nothing could be further from the truth in this case.  I went to France expecting not to like it very much, and found that France, and the French, were pretty cool.  I saw a whole different side of France, and I liked it!

Countryside near Anse, France

I am back!

I have been a very bad blogger.

It's probably more accurate to say I have been a lazy blogger.  It's not that I don't have any material; on the contrary, I have been very busy the past few months ...so busy, in fact, that when I have some down time I end up watching Netflix instead of writing blog posts.  I felt I had to write something today, though, because I first arrived in Germany exactly one year ago, and today is also my first day in my new apartment.  I still have two weeks before school starts, so I am planning to do a little catching up on the blog!

My new view--you have to walk up to the fourth floor for it. :)

Field Trip, European Style (Or What I Learned With My Students)

I have been on a lot of field trips in Texas. They usually involve going to a museum or the zoo, then having a sack lunch and time to play in the park.  Not here. When your fifth-grade class is studying the Middle Ages, what could be better than to go to Rothenburg ob der Tauber and Nuremberg? 

the walled city of Rothenburg ob der Tauber

view of Nuremberg from the castle

I like history, but I have never been that interested in the Middle Ages.  It's probably because back home it just seemed so foreign to me--it was a long time ago in a faraway land; I had no connection to it. Here, though, you are surrounded by it.  I knew I was in for some good lessons on this trip when, the week before we went, my students were explaining to me where to find the nave and the transepts in the cathedral.

So, what did I learn on the three-day trip (yes, three days and two nights!) with fifth graders?

1.  The difference between Romanesque and Gothic architecture. Direct quote from one of my students: "If it is circular, then it is Romanesque, and if it has the pointy thingy it is Gothic."

Chapel inside the Nuremberg castle







St. Lorenzkirche in Nuremberg

2. Crime and punishment were up close and personal.

My students took this picture of me in front of the Criminal Museum in Rothenburg...the stocks were better than some of the other medieval instruments of torture we saw inside (and, thankfully, no one threw anything at me like they would have in medieval times), but now I think I would have preferred the Shame Mask.

I had heard of swords, shields, and even lances, but now that I have been to the Criminal Museum, I can add maces, flails, halberds, pollaxes and spikes to the list. Yikes!  There was even a small exhibit of a classroom in the (late) Middle Ages, complete with a wooden donkey for misbehaving students to sit on.  A couple of students thought that was very funny, and asked if we could get one.

You see the mask above the entry?  In medieval times the people of the town would stop attackers by pouring hot tar on them through the mouth of the mask. 

3.  The skies were golden in the Middle Ages. Artists had to paint the skies gold as a symbol of God's kingdom. If you see a painting with a blue sky, chances are it is not from the Middle Ages.



the altar at St. Wolfgang's Church in Rothenburg ob der Tauber

4.  In the Middle Ages, walls were built around the city for protection, but now they are good for walking, and even for having picnics.



Playtime along the wall in Rothenburg ob der Tauber

Quedlinburg

My friend Sarah (also an expat teacher from  the U.S.) told me once that when her friends back home saw her pictures of Germany, they told her they kept looking for the gingerbread man...I was reminded of that when I was in Quedlinburg, a small town that escaped bombing in World War II. It seemed like something from a fairy tale, or at least a step back in time. 

Many of the cities' buildings date back as far as the 1400s (our hotel was relatively new, having been built in the 1650's).  Most of the time I felt like we should all be riding horses on those cobblestone streets, and that might have been easier than driving--the town is a maze of Einbahnstrassen.

view of the St. Nikolaikirche

view of the castle and St. Servatius church from the downtown area

It seems to me that some places in the former East Germany have a marketing problem.  This place is amazing, but it could use some good signs...at first I felt like the typical American tourist who couldn't figure out where she was going, but then I saw that the German tourists were just as lost!  We took a trolley tour of the town (though it wasn't anywhere close to the scheduled time); the tour was all in German, but that didn't stop us from understanding when the tour guide used the words "Amerikaner" and "Texas", and the collective gasp from the Germans when the sum of 6 million Deutsch Marks was mentioned was enough to make me sink a little lower in my seat. You see, the town's oldest church, St. Servatius, has an infamous Texas connection. 

St. Servatius Church, built in 1075

In 1945, Army officer and Texas native Joe T. Meador stole priceless artifacts from the church, and kept them in a safe deposit box in his hometown of Whitewright, Texas. After Joe's death, his siblings managed to sell some of the pieces, even after they had been warned that it was illegal to deal in stolen goods. The church recovered most of the pieces, but it had to pay over $3 million for them. I had never heard of this story, but it eventually became a book...I would read it if the story didn't make me so disgusted and embarassed.  Fortunately, most of the pieces were recovered and are now on display in a safe place in the church.

This Samuhel Gospel from the 13th century was stolen by Meador; it is now on display (minus a few precious stones) at St. Servatius (the picture is from a brochure--you cannot take photos!)

walkway to St. Servatius

a look at the rooftops from the "Burgberg"

Ahhh...a weekend in Holland

Texas is a big state, and I am from the middle of it. That means I can drive four hours in any direction and I will still be in Texas. Here, after four hours of driving, I can be in Holland! 

Recently I went to the Keukenhof Gardens near Lisse in the Netherlands.  The Gardens are only open for about two months, and it's almost the end of the season. You wouldn't know it by looking at the flowers, though:

I was in Amsterdam, too, but not for nearly enough time. I want to go back! 

I love the canals!

Next time I will go to the Anne Frank house...this is the church whose bells Anne could hear from her hiding place.

double-decker parking lot for bicycles

More canals, more bicycles