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

Cheap Gas

I've been hearing a lot in the American news lately about the surge in gas prices. The prices have gone up in Germany, too:

Before you think that is cheap, those prices are per liter, not per gallon. What this means in "American" is this:

One liter is close to a quart, and there are four quarts in a gallon:  1.69 x 4 = 6.76 Euros a gallon
= 8.84 dollars a gallon...and that's the cheap gas.

It was the same in Turkey:

There, your regular gas is 3.85 Turkish Lira a liter, which is about $2.15, times that by 4, and a gallon of gas is about $8.60. I know it's different in the U.S., because in most places you really need a car to get around, but it makes $4 a gallon seem not nearly as bad.

Happy Birthday to Me!

Last Saturday the bells of all the churches in downtown Frankfurt were ringing, and it was my birthday. Coincidence?

Well, yes. The "Pealing of the Bells" takes place only a few times a year, right before a religious celebration. In this case, it was the day before Easter.  Frankfurt Walking Tours described the 50 bells as ringing "in harmony"...I don't know if I would say it was particularly harmonious, but being downtown for it was an event.

The bells were louder in the Roemerplatz, but I liked the view better from the Eisener Steg.

ISTANBUL

During ski week I went to Istanbul! The flight is only about three hours, and I took full advantage of the fact that I have cousins living there.  Not only did I stay with them, but they gave me the grand tour.  I loved it! My pictures can't begin to do this place justice, but I'll show you anyway.

My favorite: the Haghia Sophia; originally a church, then a mosque, now a museum

inside the Haghia Sophia

Field trip to the Haghia Sophia: one teacher (not shown), a couple of moms, and at least forty students...We ran into them again at the cistern. I wished so badly that I spoke Turkish; I wanted to tell the teacher how impressed I was with how well her students behaved.

It doesn't look anything like any cistern I'd ever seen!  Thanks to my cousin Lee, I saw it again that night in the James Bond movie From Russia, With Love.

Sultanahmet Mosque ("The Blue Mosque") 

inside the Blue Mosque

Turkey has so much history, it doesn't know what to do with all of it! These pieces were in an alley behind the Archaeological Museum and the Topkapi Palace with a sign that said "Please don't touch the artifacts!"

Inside the Chora Church; it was built in the 11th century and decorated in the 14th

How's this for a family tree?  24 of Jesus' ancestors are depicted in this mosaic "The Genealogy of Christ" (Chora Church)

I forgot to mention the fabulous food!

Spice Bazaar

a look inside the thick walls of Constantinople

 

Rumeli Fortress, built on the Bosphorus in 1452

There weren't any handrails in the 15th century!

Schönes Wochenende

Last week we were off for "ski week".  I don't ski, but I did travel to a fabulous location where there was some snow (more on that later!).  I didn't leave right away, though.  The Saturday before I left, I decided to get on a train and just ride. The Germans have just the thing for that; it's called the "Schönes Wochenende Ticket": on Saturday or Sunday up to five people can ride anywhere on the regional trains for just 40 Euro.  The regional trains are slower than the ICE trains, so it's perfect for just sitting and staring out the window...which is what I did on the way to Koblenz.

The train took about two hours to get there from Frankfurt, and the train followed the Rhein...I was able to see many of the castles I saw on the Rhein River cruise.  Once I arrived, I made my way to the Deutsches Eck, where the Rhein and Mosul rivers meet.  There Kaiser Wilhelm II had a massive monument made to honor his namesake, Kaiser Wilhelm I.   

 

The Kaiser was knocked off his pedestal during WWII. When he was returned to the top of the monument in 1993, a memorial was erected behind him:

The memorial is dedicated to those who suffered from the partition of the country; June 17, 1953 was the date of uprisings in East Germany, and November 9, 1989 was the day the Wall came down. It seemed to me to be an odd place for that memorial, but then I thought better of it...Germans have a thoughtful sense of history--perhaps they feel they have to counterbalance this massive memorial's show of might with some mitgefühl, or maybe it serves as a warning of what that might could lead to when left unchecked.

Coventry

This past weekend I was sent to Coventry for a conference.  My American friends who are reading this are no doubt thinking, "Jan is so lucky! She gets to do all of the cool stuff!"...while those of you from the UK are chuckling to yourself and wondering what I did to deserve it. You see, in the UK if you say someone is being "sent to Coventry", it means he is being punished or ostracized.

Whatever may be said about Coventry, the people were the friendliest.  It seems to me that Coventry got a bum rap, but what do I know? I only spent a few hours outside of Warwick University, where the conference was held.  That conference was work; when we finished each day I just wanted to sleep, and I stayed in a dorm room that made the Jester dorms at UT look large and even slightly luxurious. (Maybe I was sent to Coventry?!) 

Valentinstag

It's refreshing to be in a country where Valentine's Day isn't such a big deal. I think the only commercial I've seen about the holiday was an advertisement for the movie Valentine's Day, which will be showing on German TV on Sunday.  Most of my fifth grade students seemed blissfully oblivious. When a student's mom (who is a fabulous baker, and, by the way, is also from Texas) brought in delicious pink cupcakes with red sprinkles this morning, some of my students asked, "Whose birthday is it?"

A few of my students knew, of course, and I did get some Valentine's Day cards. They were the best kind, too: the homemade kind. :)

some of my Valentine's Day treats...and snow, too!