Its funny how you can have something as universal as laundry be such a different experience from one country, or continent, to the next. You would think that clothes washing machines, like cars, would be basically the same. They are not.
I began my laundry experience in Germany cautiously. Twelve years ago, when visiting Norway, I had done a load of laundry at our friend's house and remember being appalled when my daughter's security blanket came out permanently warped. So, when I was ready to do our first load in Germany, I chose clothing I knew to be sturdy and easily replaced, if needed.
In our first rental home, the washing machine was located in the bathroom. I know that in some places it is located in the kitchen. The machine itself reminded me of my bread machine at home: a compact "box" about a quarter of the size of my American machine, with control panel on the side and a top that popped open with the push of a button. Looking down from the top, the drum opened from the rounded side, rather than from the flat, circular side. I had to push down on two spring-loaded doors, which released the latch and then opened outward.
I could only fit about 1/4 of what I would normally put in a load of laundry. For a family of 5, that's a lot of loads! The detergent is, fortunately, the same, although I later found that I couldn't find any bleach products and it was difficult to find anything unscented. The next conundrum was the operation of the machine. All the labels, of course, were in German and I had to decide the exact temperature of the water. In all the loads of laundry I have done in my life, I have never had to think of the water temperature in terms of degrees. Cold, warm, or hot: those are the choices. In fact, I really have little idea of what temperature would define "warm". Now I had to decide, in Celsius. Thankfully, various temperature levels were labeled with types of clothing/fabrics, so a little time with the dictionary helped me determine a safe range for most of my laundry.
When I finally pushed the start button, the digital read-out said 110. 110 what? Minutes! Yes, nearly two hours to do a single, one-quarter-of-what-I-normally-do-at-a-time load of laundry. This would be a laundry week, rather than a laundry day. I have no idea what, exactly was going on during those 110 long minutes, nor how that could be considered "energy efficient" to be running for that long, but the machine went through a series of noises from "chug-pause-chug-pause" to something like a jet plane taking off down the run-way, making me surprised that I didn't come to the bathroom to find the washing machine had made its way down the hall. Interestingly, in a conversation with a friend of ours living in France about the difference in washing machines (they have the same types as Germany in France) and washing times, she claimed, when she first came to live in America, that she had a hard time believing that American machines could really do a good job cleaning clothes in such a short time. She was never really convinced that they were truly clean.
The clothes appeared to be clean and, thankfully, nothing warped or damaged. Now for the next long step in the laundry: air-drying! We had a fold-out rack which held all of the load, plus a small rack built into the wall in the "Florida room" for things that needed more clearance from the floor. Since it was late winter during the time we lived in the first house, we hung everything in the Florida room. We soon learned, however, that, no matter the weather (as long as it was placed under an overhang) everything dries much more quickly outside. We had a couple of loads hung indoors that dried so slowly, they began to smell musty.
Perhaps having such a long process of cleaning clothes does, in fact, work out to be more energy efficient. After all, if you are faced with at least one day to complete a single "small" load of laundry from hamper to folded in the drawer, you are going to be more thoughtful about what you consider "dirty". I know of plenty of Americans, with the luxury of a two hour turn-around for a load of laundry, who throw in their jeans after one day of wear. They may not look or smell dirty, but have simply been worn.
When we moved to our second rental in early April, we bought a used washing machine. Our landlord was very helpful and went through the manual with me, translating. This machine was actually a combination washer and dryer. However, by now I was very used to hanging things to dry, we had two drying racks, and, if I used the drying feature, that meant the machine was not available for washing. I ended up using the dryer only a couple times when I needed a quick turn-around on a piece of clothing, but even then, it only got things "mostly dry".
Another feature of this machine was that it had a one-track mind. Once you started on a cycle, there was no going back. It was also very sensitive to the amount of clothes you could wash. Several times I would come down to the basement where it was set up to find that it had stopped during the wash cycle. I would have to take out a piece of clothing or two and then turn it back on (it had a door locking mechanism where you had to wait exactly 2 minutes after you pushed the pause button before the door would open). Since I wasn't sure if it had stopped before or after the wash cycle, I could never be sure if it had finished washing and it wouldn't let me restart until the whole cycle had ended. Ironically, this machine ended up dying, stuck on a never-ending rinse cycle on our very final load of laundry before we left - a bedsheet which we had to ring by hand before hanging to dry.
After returning to the US, and back to my jumbo pair of washer and dryer (oh, those t-shirts had never felt so soft!), I am finding it hard to readjust to such a large capacity machine. Numerous times I have taken down a basketful of laundry, only to find I had only a half-load. I would like to be able to hang laundry again, but, unfortunately, our backyard is dominated by a messy walnut tree and I am sure there are city ordinances against hanging your unsightly laundry in the view of neighbors. I was telling a friend about our German laundry adventures and enjoying her sympathetic responses to how long it took to wash a load of laundry and then hang it dry. But I responded that I had gotten quite used to it and that it wasn't such a big deal. When you think about it, even though a wash cycle here might take only about 30 minutes, how long is it before you finally get down to switch it over to the dryer? Two hours wouldn't be unusual if I get involved in a project or run an errand or two. And then there have been plenty of times when I have left things in the dryer overnight before I got around to unloading and folding! The only time I had really wished for the shorter wash cycle and high-heat dryer is doing bedsheets. One of my kids has dust-mite allergy and we have to wash the sheets and all bed coverings every week. With the German machine, I could only wash one sheet and pillow case in a load and worried if the day would be warm/dry enough for them to dry by bedtime. Fresh air and sunshine are good for dust-mite control, but a cloudy day was not so effective. Needless to say, we were not so diligent about washing all of the bedding on a weekly basis. If we had been there longer, I would have invested in an entire second set of bedding.
Side note: most of Europe does not use the two bedsheet system we have in the US. There is a fitted sheet for the matress and then a comforter with a duvet cover that is changed/washed regularly. German pillows are also different - about the width of American pillow, but squared!
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Friday, August 5, 2011
Time Warp
Those who read my last blog entry may have noticed that I am writing of events that happened over a month ago. We are now, indeed, back home in Ohio and I am taking advantage of my body still being on Germany time, which means I am waking very early in the morning and have a few hours to catch up on my blog before the demands of unpacking, settling in, and children begin. The rest of the family has settled back into their sleep schedules nicely, but I am going to bed and waking up earlier. I am getting enough sleep, so I don't mind the wee hours of the morning all to myself.
We arrived in Columbus about 2:30 am on Tuesday, 2 August after a long day of travel and near-misses on two of our three flights. Our first flight was from Hamburg to London, Heathrow. The airport taxi we ordered to pick us up in Luneburg arrived 45 minutes late (with no apologies or explanations) and we managed to run to our departing gate with just 5 minutes before boarding. We flew from London to New York JFK with no problems. In New York, however, thunderstorms created many delays and cancellations. We spent 4 hours in JFK unsure of whether or not our flight would be cancelled and wondering if we would have to spend the night in the airport (the airline reps, of course, were overburdened with rebooking flights and noone would tell us anything of what was going on). It turned out that the plane was delayed in Chicago, due to storms, but did manage to arrive in NY and continue on with us to Columbus. We were greeted in Columbus by our dear friend Rick and our very own van to escort us home. We were finally all in our own beds by 4:30am!
Three days later, the 20 pieces of luggage (including carry-ons) are unpacked, though the contents are still awaiting redistribution and assimilation. The lawn has been mowed and a branch of the walnut tree hanging over the power lines trimmed (and another significant branch fell, on its own, just minutes afterward), the play structured washed down, and the season of walnut pick-up begun. Friends have been called and playdates scheduled. Every single one of O's toys has been rediscovered and strew upon the floor. Groceries are beginning to fill the cabinets and refrigerator - and ice, glorious ice, is once again automatically filling the freezer and my glasses. O and R visited the library and returned with a pile of new books. A mountain of laundry is slowly making its way through the "system". And, last night, I gloried in a margarita, chips, salsa and guacamole before our yummy dinner of fish tacos!
Tonight, its delivery pizza, sodas, and Netflix!! Back to Friday pizza-movie night at the Koontz's!
We arrived in Columbus about 2:30 am on Tuesday, 2 August after a long day of travel and near-misses on two of our three flights. Our first flight was from Hamburg to London, Heathrow. The airport taxi we ordered to pick us up in Luneburg arrived 45 minutes late (with no apologies or explanations) and we managed to run to our departing gate with just 5 minutes before boarding. We flew from London to New York JFK with no problems. In New York, however, thunderstorms created many delays and cancellations. We spent 4 hours in JFK unsure of whether or not our flight would be cancelled and wondering if we would have to spend the night in the airport (the airline reps, of course, were overburdened with rebooking flights and noone would tell us anything of what was going on). It turned out that the plane was delayed in Chicago, due to storms, but did manage to arrive in NY and continue on with us to Columbus. We were greeted in Columbus by our dear friend Rick and our very own van to escort us home. We were finally all in our own beds by 4:30am!
Three days later, the 20 pieces of luggage (including carry-ons) are unpacked, though the contents are still awaiting redistribution and assimilation. The lawn has been mowed and a branch of the walnut tree hanging over the power lines trimmed (and another significant branch fell, on its own, just minutes afterward), the play structured washed down, and the season of walnut pick-up begun. Friends have been called and playdates scheduled. Every single one of O's toys has been rediscovered and strew upon the floor. Groceries are beginning to fill the cabinets and refrigerator - and ice, glorious ice, is once again automatically filling the freezer and my glasses. O and R visited the library and returned with a pile of new books. A mountain of laundry is slowly making its way through the "system". And, last night, I gloried in a margarita, chips, salsa and guacamole before our yummy dinner of fish tacos!
Tonight, its delivery pizza, sodas, and Netflix!! Back to Friday pizza-movie night at the Koontz's!
Thursday, August 4, 2011
Norway Comes to Us
June 27-29
The second set of visitors to our home in Luneburg arrived on the same day that the Bennett Family left to continue their family trip in Wales. Fortunately, we had the entire day to attempt a quick turn-around of our guest sheets (laundry takes 2 hours just to wash) and the day was fine for quickly drying the sheets in the sun.
Jan Oge and Randi are Norwegian friends we met in Bloomington, Indiana when Tom was a graduate student in 1996. Back then, we were still "newly weds" without children and they had arrived with their three children for a semester at Indiana University where Jan was a visiting scholar in the same department with Tom (sound familiar?). There have been many times these past months when I have reflected on their family's experiences in Indiana and have a new sense of what they went through! We stayed in touch over the years as their children grew up and our own family grew into five. When A was just 14 months old, we visited them in Narvik, just North of the Arctic circle.
Jan and Randi were only able to stay two nights, squeezed in-between our other sets of visitors. This was their first visit to Luneburg, but certainly not their first European vacation, so we didn't feel the need to help them see everything. It was enough to take a walk up the hill, Kalkburg, overlooking Luneburg and the surrounding area and then stroll through town where we met the girls arriving from school on the bus and enjoyed a treat at the "Eis Cafe".
Perhaps I already described this, but the Eis (German for icecream) Cafe is a unique German experience. I had been told by my German language instructor in Ohio that we would have to try one while we were in Germany. As she descibed it, it sounded much like an icecream parlor, which have largely faded from the American scene, but seemed not such big deal. However, they are a big deal in Germany and we have yet to find anything like them in any of our travels to other countries. I can think of three large cafes and two smaller cafes just here in town. Two of them are located across the street from each other on the main thoroughfare of the town center and are always busy. They always have tables set up outside with large umbrellas - at least a dozen at the larger ones- but you can also sit inside.
It was a month into our visit, for A's birthday in March, before we ventured into the Eise Cafe. It was too cold for us to think about eating icecream. Not so for the Germans. Many a chilly March aftrenoon I would see people sitting OUTSIDE at the tables, wrapped in the blankets provided, delighting in tall and colorful icecream concoctions!
The menus at the Eise Cafe are extensive. At one cafe, their are 3 menus - one "regular", one seasonal, and one featuring frozen yogurt. They have a variety of what, in America, we would call sundaes. The "sundaes" are adorned with a variety of syrups, liquors, fresh fruit, wafer cookies, and whipped cream. They come in fancy glass bowls or tall glasses. One of R's favorites is the "spagetti eis", made of icecream which has been squeezed through something like a ricer, to make it look like spagetti and topped with strawberry (or other flavored) syrup, sprinkles, and whipped cream. Some of the fruit-topped creations look like bouquets.
The icecream is Italian Eis, which is not like the gelato I think of as Italian Ice, but more like a premium soft-serve or custard-refreshing and satisfying, but not overly rich and sweet. Most of the sundaes are made with chocolate or vailla icecream, but the cafes have a case where you can choose from several flavors such as hazelnut, amaretto, Waldmeister, melon, banana, and berry flavors, eaten from a "waffle" (cone) or cup, either eat-in or take-out. One generous scoop in a waffle can cost only 60-80 cents - a deal hard to pass up when strolling through town! The other thing to note is that the whipped cream is unsweetened.
Besides the fact that the Germans are willing to sit outside in all weather and eat icecream, what strikes me as interesting is that here are grown people, sitting with a generous and fanciful tower of icecream, sometimes even before noon, with no shame in what we Americans would see as an indulgence. In the US, icecream sundaes are seen as a special, just-this-once, kind of treat, usually reserved for children's parties or special occasions, and certainly not something to eat sitting out where people are walking by, witness to your extravegance. Our health-consciousness society views icecream as something to be eaten sparingly, just a scoop or two please. Ironically, however, we have a craving for either super-rich premium icecream filled with nuts,chunks, and ripples of goo or fluffy towers of frozen dairy product dipped in chocolate flavored wax or swimming in caramel/fudge flavored syrup. Which is a healthier attitude towards food? Something to think about, certainly.
So, the Eis Cafe is something that we have agreed is a must-do experience for all our German visitors. We ate our fanciful icecream in good company on a sunny afternoon, watching the busy coming and going of Luneburg citizens.
The weather continued to be fine the rest of the day and the next. Our Norwegian friends, who were on a true vacation from an intense last few months of work and graduate studies - Randi had just finished her final doctoral dissertation defense- took advantage of the opportunity to soak up the sun in the garden and we enjoyed catching up on family news and remembering the days together in Bloomington.
The second set of visitors to our home in Luneburg arrived on the same day that the Bennett Family left to continue their family trip in Wales. Fortunately, we had the entire day to attempt a quick turn-around of our guest sheets (laundry takes 2 hours just to wash) and the day was fine for quickly drying the sheets in the sun.
Jan Oge and Randi are Norwegian friends we met in Bloomington, Indiana when Tom was a graduate student in 1996. Back then, we were still "newly weds" without children and they had arrived with their three children for a semester at Indiana University where Jan was a visiting scholar in the same department with Tom (sound familiar?). There have been many times these past months when I have reflected on their family's experiences in Indiana and have a new sense of what they went through! We stayed in touch over the years as their children grew up and our own family grew into five. When A was just 14 months old, we visited them in Narvik, just North of the Arctic circle.
Jan and Randi were only able to stay two nights, squeezed in-between our other sets of visitors. This was their first visit to Luneburg, but certainly not their first European vacation, so we didn't feel the need to help them see everything. It was enough to take a walk up the hill, Kalkburg, overlooking Luneburg and the surrounding area and then stroll through town where we met the girls arriving from school on the bus and enjoyed a treat at the "Eis Cafe".
Perhaps I already described this, but the Eis (German for icecream) Cafe is a unique German experience. I had been told by my German language instructor in Ohio that we would have to try one while we were in Germany. As she descibed it, it sounded much like an icecream parlor, which have largely faded from the American scene, but seemed not such big deal. However, they are a big deal in Germany and we have yet to find anything like them in any of our travels to other countries. I can think of three large cafes and two smaller cafes just here in town. Two of them are located across the street from each other on the main thoroughfare of the town center and are always busy. They always have tables set up outside with large umbrellas - at least a dozen at the larger ones- but you can also sit inside.
It was a month into our visit, for A's birthday in March, before we ventured into the Eise Cafe. It was too cold for us to think about eating icecream. Not so for the Germans. Many a chilly March aftrenoon I would see people sitting OUTSIDE at the tables, wrapped in the blankets provided, delighting in tall and colorful icecream concoctions!
The menus at the Eise Cafe are extensive. At one cafe, their are 3 menus - one "regular", one seasonal, and one featuring frozen yogurt. They have a variety of what, in America, we would call sundaes. The "sundaes" are adorned with a variety of syrups, liquors, fresh fruit, wafer cookies, and whipped cream. They come in fancy glass bowls or tall glasses. One of R's favorites is the "spagetti eis", made of icecream which has been squeezed through something like a ricer, to make it look like spagetti and topped with strawberry (or other flavored) syrup, sprinkles, and whipped cream. Some of the fruit-topped creations look like bouquets.
The icecream is Italian Eis, which is not like the gelato I think of as Italian Ice, but more like a premium soft-serve or custard-refreshing and satisfying, but not overly rich and sweet. Most of the sundaes are made with chocolate or vailla icecream, but the cafes have a case where you can choose from several flavors such as hazelnut, amaretto, Waldmeister, melon, banana, and berry flavors, eaten from a "waffle" (cone) or cup, either eat-in or take-out. One generous scoop in a waffle can cost only 60-80 cents - a deal hard to pass up when strolling through town! The other thing to note is that the whipped cream is unsweetened.
Besides the fact that the Germans are willing to sit outside in all weather and eat icecream, what strikes me as interesting is that here are grown people, sitting with a generous and fanciful tower of icecream, sometimes even before noon, with no shame in what we Americans would see as an indulgence. In the US, icecream sundaes are seen as a special, just-this-once, kind of treat, usually reserved for children's parties or special occasions, and certainly not something to eat sitting out where people are walking by, witness to your extravegance. Our health-consciousness society views icecream as something to be eaten sparingly, just a scoop or two please. Ironically, however, we have a craving for either super-rich premium icecream filled with nuts,chunks, and ripples of goo or fluffy towers of frozen dairy product dipped in chocolate flavored wax or swimming in caramel/fudge flavored syrup. Which is a healthier attitude towards food? Something to think about, certainly.
So, the Eis Cafe is something that we have agreed is a must-do experience for all our German visitors. We ate our fanciful icecream in good company on a sunny afternoon, watching the busy coming and going of Luneburg citizens.
The weather continued to be fine the rest of the day and the next. Our Norwegian friends, who were on a true vacation from an intense last few months of work and graduate studies - Randi had just finished her final doctoral dissertation defense- took advantage of the opportunity to soak up the sun in the garden and we enjoyed catching up on family news and remembering the days together in Bloomington.
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
O's Bucket List
Some of the things that O has been able to check off his bucket list in the past four months:
ride a plane
ride a train
ride a bus
ride a ferry
ride a subway
ride a taxi
(also sleep on the previously mentioned vehicles)
climb around and spend the night in a castle
take the elevator up and down the Eiffel Tower
Eat, sleep, and play in Germany
Eat crepes in France
Throw rocks in a canal in Amsterdam
Eat lefse in Norway
Climb a real windmill
Wade in the Baltic Sea
Put soap in and run dishwasher
withdraw money from a bank machine
make a call on a cell phone without assistance
push the red button in an elevator
feed a goat
pet a chick
watch building construction from bare ground to block walls
ride a plane
ride a train
ride a bus
ride a ferry
ride a subway
ride a taxi
(also sleep on the previously mentioned vehicles)
climb around and spend the night in a castle
take the elevator up and down the Eiffel Tower
Eat, sleep, and play in Germany
Eat crepes in France
Throw rocks in a canal in Amsterdam
Eat lefse in Norway
Climb a real windmill
Wade in the Baltic Sea
Put soap in and run dishwasher
withdraw money from a bank machine
make a call on a cell phone without assistance
push the red button in an elevator
feed a goat
pet a chick
watch building construction from bare ground to block walls
Monday, July 4, 2011
Random notes
I bought a small notebook soon after moving to Germany which I keep in my purse for making observations (as well as lists and German words I need to translate). I had hoped to use these in my blogs, but as time is running out and they are rather random, I thought I would share some of them here:
*Germans tend not to greet or acknowledge strangers in the streets or on public transport. I am rather an introvert, but even so, in the US, if I were approaching someone walking towards me on the sidewalk, or sitting across from them on the bus, I would likely give a nod or smile in greeting. In Germany, most strangers look straight past you. Elderly ladies seem to be the exception.
*It is not uncommon to never have a train attendant check your ticket. Germans expect honesty.
*Children seem to be "over dressed" by American standards. On warm days when I have dressed O without a jacket, I have seen children bundled in layers and a hat. I have seen many adults also wearing scarves and jackets on warm days.
*German stores are closed on Sunday. No groceries or other shopping. Imagine that!
*I have seen owners bring their leashed dogs in stores, on buses and trains, and even restaurant.
*I've never seen anyone take a doggie bag from a restaurant.
*Most people board the bus as single passengers. Imagine how many cars are kept off the road!
*Most transactions are made with cash or debit cards. Wonder why the German economy is doing so well?
*Refrigerators are half as big as a small US model. Washing machines take twice as long to do a load.
*There are no such thing as baggers at the grocery store. You are on your own and sometimes there is little more than 12 inches between the scanner and the edge of the check-out. Forget about organizing your groceries! Toss them back in the cart and then move aside for the next customer. There are often counters to the side for you to reorganize your purchases.
*Germans almost exclusively use glass-top stoves.
*Most windows lack screens to keep the bugs out. Windows also swing in from the side and/or tilt in at the top rather than sliding.
*Butter comes in squares rather than rectangular blocks and never have measurement markings.
*Nutritional labels always include fat/carbs/fiber per 100 grams, in addition to per portion.
*Germans tend not to greet or acknowledge strangers in the streets or on public transport. I am rather an introvert, but even so, in the US, if I were approaching someone walking towards me on the sidewalk, or sitting across from them on the bus, I would likely give a nod or smile in greeting. In Germany, most strangers look straight past you. Elderly ladies seem to be the exception.
*It is not uncommon to never have a train attendant check your ticket. Germans expect honesty.
*Children seem to be "over dressed" by American standards. On warm days when I have dressed O without a jacket, I have seen children bundled in layers and a hat. I have seen many adults also wearing scarves and jackets on warm days.
*German stores are closed on Sunday. No groceries or other shopping. Imagine that!
*I have seen owners bring their leashed dogs in stores, on buses and trains, and even restaurant.
*I've never seen anyone take a doggie bag from a restaurant.
*Most people board the bus as single passengers. Imagine how many cars are kept off the road!
*Most transactions are made with cash or debit cards. Wonder why the German economy is doing so well?
*Refrigerators are half as big as a small US model. Washing machines take twice as long to do a load.
*There are no such thing as baggers at the grocery store. You are on your own and sometimes there is little more than 12 inches between the scanner and the edge of the check-out. Forget about organizing your groceries! Toss them back in the cart and then move aside for the next customer. There are often counters to the side for you to reorganize your purchases.
*Germans almost exclusively use glass-top stoves.
*Most windows lack screens to keep the bugs out. Windows also swing in from the side and/or tilt in at the top rather than sliding.
*Butter comes in squares rather than rectangular blocks and never have measurement markings.
*Nutritional labels always include fat/carbs/fiber per 100 grams, in addition to per portion.
Returning
Last Saturday morning I was making a shopping list for the farmers market and planning meals for the following few days. With all of our guests lately, we are going through food even more quickly! I was thinking about which items from the grocery store I might be able to "stock up" on, when my calculations revealed that we will be here in our house for only a total of two more weeks. Oh my! It suddenly makes everything seem so final.
It is strange, thinking about this "other life" we have been leading here and the new normal we have established. We have our routines and ways of doing things that we don't give much thought to anymore. Having visitors has reminded us of things that we have taken for granted. I wonder which things we will notice when we return to the US that we had "forgotten" about or on which we will have new perspectives. For example, when A and I returned to the US on Memorial Day weekend for the last week of school and activities celebrating her graduation from Middle School, I was struck by how wide the roads were, especially when coupled with the wide front yards and parking lots on either side. And, how empty the sidewalks of pedestrians and bicyclists!
I have mixed feelings about our return to the US. I am definitely looking forward to being back with friends and neighbors, having much easier communications, and just being surrounded with the comfortable and familiar aspects of home. On the other hand, it also means a step back into the reality of my life, which is busy, busy, busy. We have commitments, activities, and a social life which we have completely dropped from our daily schedule here. All of these fill up our calendar and sometimes require intricate coordination of everyone's plans. While A and I were in Columbus, I was immediately plunged into this busy-ness as I drove to and from school, activities, and visits with friends. It was a fun and special time, but I drove more in that five days than I had been driven (I haven't been behind the wheel a single time) in the past five months here in Germany.
The mom-as-taxi-driver is one part of my life that I do not miss at all! When we return and settle back into our every-day lives I hope to make some changes: using the public transport, bad as it is, a little more often, investing in bikes for the whole family, and making more choices to walk rather than drive. Maybe we can also make some choices about how we spend our time, now that we have the perspective of having more free time and having lived without such a full schedule.
It is strange, thinking about this "other life" we have been leading here and the new normal we have established. We have our routines and ways of doing things that we don't give much thought to anymore. Having visitors has reminded us of things that we have taken for granted. I wonder which things we will notice when we return to the US that we had "forgotten" about or on which we will have new perspectives. For example, when A and I returned to the US on Memorial Day weekend for the last week of school and activities celebrating her graduation from Middle School, I was struck by how wide the roads were, especially when coupled with the wide front yards and parking lots on either side. And, how empty the sidewalks of pedestrians and bicyclists!
I have mixed feelings about our return to the US. I am definitely looking forward to being back with friends and neighbors, having much easier communications, and just being surrounded with the comfortable and familiar aspects of home. On the other hand, it also means a step back into the reality of my life, which is busy, busy, busy. We have commitments, activities, and a social life which we have completely dropped from our daily schedule here. All of these fill up our calendar and sometimes require intricate coordination of everyone's plans. While A and I were in Columbus, I was immediately plunged into this busy-ness as I drove to and from school, activities, and visits with friends. It was a fun and special time, but I drove more in that five days than I had been driven (I haven't been behind the wheel a single time) in the past five months here in Germany.
The mom-as-taxi-driver is one part of my life that I do not miss at all! When we return and settle back into our every-day lives I hope to make some changes: using the public transport, bad as it is, a little more often, investing in bikes for the whole family, and making more choices to walk rather than drive. Maybe we can also make some choices about how we spend our time, now that we have the perspective of having more free time and having lived without such a full schedule.
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
A loong day and a short trip
Our friends the Bennetts arrived at our house (AKA the "pond house" as named by O) on Wednesday evening. They had been on tour in Scotland and London for the previous week and planned this 5 day stop-over before they returned to the UK to travel in Wales. We are all, especially A and R, glad to see our good friends and have a chance for lengthy conversations in our native tongue and to show them a part of our life here.
The big question, whenever you have visitors, where ever you are, is where to take them. There are things you take for granted or are unsure if visitors new to the area would like to see. Do they just want to relax or should you make the most of every moment since they have come this far. Luneburg is a very nice town and has several historic sights that survived the WWII bombings. The town feels very German and makes a nice walking tour. That covers about a day. Hamburg covers another day (which is where they are today) but is rather limited in things to do with kids in tow. We also want to see something new to us - or worth seeing a second time.
We decided to take them to a small town, Celle, where we had been before but had missed the Folk Museum and all the shops had been closed on Sunday on that first trip. It seemed a good place to take kids and was a short enough train ride (30+ minutes) to make a quick day trip. We even allowed the girls to skip school to spend time with their friends!
Since it was a short trip, we decided we had enough time to finish up some laundry at the laundromat in the morning. I had also had O scheduled for childcare in the morning and wanted to keep that routine. So, it was after 12:00 when we were finally ready to head out the door. Soon, what started out to be an easy day and simple trip to Celle became much, much more complicated.
First, I realized too late that the Bennetts had purchased the wrong tickets. Without getting too complicated (although it is) they had purchased tickets which allowed them unlimited travel within the "Greater Hamburg Area" of which Luneburg is a part, but Celle is not. In finding this out at the train station after much frantic button-pushing at the self-serve kiosk and a wait at the Travel Center, we missed the train we had intended to take. We had to wait another hour and purchase new tickets for the Bennetts. The train we missed was a direct 33 minutes to Celle, the next train would take over an hour plus a transfer!
The other complication (that we had to deal with in their coming from the airport last Wednesday) was that the regional train company, Metronom, has been on strike this week. This has happened a few times since we have lived here and only once had it caused any problems. It is a rather odd form of "strike" because SOME of the trains are running, and some are not. And it seems that you cannot know until that very day (or even hour) which ones are running and which ones are not. AND you have to be in the trainstation where that particular train is departing to know if it is cancelled. So, even though we had acquired the round trip tickets to Celle, we had to wait until we arrived in Celle to know which train to take back.
I felt extremely bad that I had not A.) planned the day a little better so we would have known about the train schedule before we showed up at the station and B.) had a better understanding of the train system so that the Bennetts wouldn't have wasted money on a ticket they couldn't use (other than in Luneburg). Up until today, all of our family travel planning had been delegated such that Tom made the transportation arrangements and scoped out the destination, while I took care of the packing and provisions. The day turned out to be full of learning "opportunities" and brought me up to speed (almost) with what Tom had been learning over the last few months.
Still, we felt the day was not lost and had hopes that the rest would go smoothly. As soon as we arrived in Celle, we headed to the Travel Center to find out which train we needed to take for our return trip. It turned out we had two choices, neither of which the agent at the Luneburg station offered - those were both cancelled. The first option was to turn around and take the train that left in the next 17 minutes and the second was to take the one that left at 9:06pm - a one hour train with transfer. Did I mention we had all the kids with us and that the last bus leaving the Luneburg station for our house was at 8:37?
Well, we had come that far and were determined to press on. So, we headed into the fickle weather and the town of Celle. We arrived at the Folk Museum first, even though we had only 45 minutes left by this time before closing, and were delighted to find that our luck had changed since the museum was offering free admission that day. Lucky also because it was somewhat a disappointment. The description of the museum had said that docents in period costume would be there to demonstrate, but there were none that we could see and absolutely none of the displays or guides were in English. There were some interesting interiors of historic households and barns, but we had to make our own interpretations. Interestingly, on our family's previous visit to Celle, we found the same to be true for the Castle across the road. Did they not think that people outside Germany might like to learn something of their history (there was not French, Spanish, or Italian either).
It was fun to see the town lively this time around, however. The shops were still open for another hour, the pedestrian market area was busy, we saw/heard the town carrillon, and the kids delighted in water fountains at nearly every block. We had a quick but hearty dinner of fish and chips and a fun conversation with one of the servers there. We strolled to a French Park with lovely allees and a fun playground for the kids to be themselves before we headed back to the train station. The rain even managed to hold off until the end, and even then was very light
The first train was on time for the 30 minute ride to the transfer point, Ueltzen. In the town of Ueltzen, the train platforms were mostly empty and the station (and the rest of the town) closed for the night. This was the turn-around point for the train we were taking so, the train that was arriving 10 minutes before our departure would reverse directions back towards Hamburg (and Luneburg). The time for the train's arrival passed with no train and then the marquee posted the time for our train's departure. Then we noticed that the marquee also had a flashing message. Between Anne and R, we determined it either said the train was leaving from this point or had "fallen out". Seeking out one of the few people standing around, it was confirmed that the train was cancelled, due to the strike. He assured us, however, that the next train, an Intercity (not on strike) rather than regional, was coming at 11:20pm! He also said that they were honoring the tickets for the regional trains. At least we weren't stranded for the night, but there we were, outside the train station on a cold and rainy night with five children well beyond their bedtimes.
The kids (and adults) behaved remarkably well considering the late hour after a long and trying day. We hung out under the train station in the tunnel leading to the various platforms where it was a bit warmer out of the elements. We were not the only ones waiting, but seemed to have the only children. A very kind man, concerned that we were having to spend the night with the children under the station, offered us water and food. In the end, the train was on time, took only 30 minutes to arrive in Luneburg, and we easily hired two taxi's to drive us all home about 12 hours after we started our "short trip".
I hope all goes much better with the members of our crew who headed to Hamburg today. Last report is that all went smoothly with the morning plans!
The big question, whenever you have visitors, where ever you are, is where to take them. There are things you take for granted or are unsure if visitors new to the area would like to see. Do they just want to relax or should you make the most of every moment since they have come this far. Luneburg is a very nice town and has several historic sights that survived the WWII bombings. The town feels very German and makes a nice walking tour. That covers about a day. Hamburg covers another day (which is where they are today) but is rather limited in things to do with kids in tow. We also want to see something new to us - or worth seeing a second time.
We decided to take them to a small town, Celle, where we had been before but had missed the Folk Museum and all the shops had been closed on Sunday on that first trip. It seemed a good place to take kids and was a short enough train ride (30+ minutes) to make a quick day trip. We even allowed the girls to skip school to spend time with their friends!
Since it was a short trip, we decided we had enough time to finish up some laundry at the laundromat in the morning. I had also had O scheduled for childcare in the morning and wanted to keep that routine. So, it was after 12:00 when we were finally ready to head out the door. Soon, what started out to be an easy day and simple trip to Celle became much, much more complicated.
First, I realized too late that the Bennetts had purchased the wrong tickets. Without getting too complicated (although it is) they had purchased tickets which allowed them unlimited travel within the "Greater Hamburg Area" of which Luneburg is a part, but Celle is not. In finding this out at the train station after much frantic button-pushing at the self-serve kiosk and a wait at the Travel Center, we missed the train we had intended to take. We had to wait another hour and purchase new tickets for the Bennetts. The train we missed was a direct 33 minutes to Celle, the next train would take over an hour plus a transfer!
The other complication (that we had to deal with in their coming from the airport last Wednesday) was that the regional train company, Metronom, has been on strike this week. This has happened a few times since we have lived here and only once had it caused any problems. It is a rather odd form of "strike" because SOME of the trains are running, and some are not. And it seems that you cannot know until that very day (or even hour) which ones are running and which ones are not. AND you have to be in the trainstation where that particular train is departing to know if it is cancelled. So, even though we had acquired the round trip tickets to Celle, we had to wait until we arrived in Celle to know which train to take back.
I felt extremely bad that I had not A.) planned the day a little better so we would have known about the train schedule before we showed up at the station and B.) had a better understanding of the train system so that the Bennetts wouldn't have wasted money on a ticket they couldn't use (other than in Luneburg). Up until today, all of our family travel planning had been delegated such that Tom made the transportation arrangements and scoped out the destination, while I took care of the packing and provisions. The day turned out to be full of learning "opportunities" and brought me up to speed (almost) with what Tom had been learning over the last few months.
Still, we felt the day was not lost and had hopes that the rest would go smoothly. As soon as we arrived in Celle, we headed to the Travel Center to find out which train we needed to take for our return trip. It turned out we had two choices, neither of which the agent at the Luneburg station offered - those were both cancelled. The first option was to turn around and take the train that left in the next 17 minutes and the second was to take the one that left at 9:06pm - a one hour train with transfer. Did I mention we had all the kids with us and that the last bus leaving the Luneburg station for our house was at 8:37?
Well, we had come that far and were determined to press on. So, we headed into the fickle weather and the town of Celle. We arrived at the Folk Museum first, even though we had only 45 minutes left by this time before closing, and were delighted to find that our luck had changed since the museum was offering free admission that day. Lucky also because it was somewhat a disappointment. The description of the museum had said that docents in period costume would be there to demonstrate, but there were none that we could see and absolutely none of the displays or guides were in English. There were some interesting interiors of historic households and barns, but we had to make our own interpretations. Interestingly, on our family's previous visit to Celle, we found the same to be true for the Castle across the road. Did they not think that people outside Germany might like to learn something of their history (there was not French, Spanish, or Italian either).
It was fun to see the town lively this time around, however. The shops were still open for another hour, the pedestrian market area was busy, we saw/heard the town carrillon, and the kids delighted in water fountains at nearly every block. We had a quick but hearty dinner of fish and chips and a fun conversation with one of the servers there. We strolled to a French Park with lovely allees and a fun playground for the kids to be themselves before we headed back to the train station. The rain even managed to hold off until the end, and even then was very light
The first train was on time for the 30 minute ride to the transfer point, Ueltzen. In the town of Ueltzen, the train platforms were mostly empty and the station (and the rest of the town) closed for the night. This was the turn-around point for the train we were taking so, the train that was arriving 10 minutes before our departure would reverse directions back towards Hamburg (and Luneburg). The time for the train's arrival passed with no train and then the marquee posted the time for our train's departure. Then we noticed that the marquee also had a flashing message. Between Anne and R, we determined it either said the train was leaving from this point or had "fallen out". Seeking out one of the few people standing around, it was confirmed that the train was cancelled, due to the strike. He assured us, however, that the next train, an Intercity (not on strike) rather than regional, was coming at 11:20pm! He also said that they were honoring the tickets for the regional trains. At least we weren't stranded for the night, but there we were, outside the train station on a cold and rainy night with five children well beyond their bedtimes.
The kids (and adults) behaved remarkably well considering the late hour after a long and trying day. We hung out under the train station in the tunnel leading to the various platforms where it was a bit warmer out of the elements. We were not the only ones waiting, but seemed to have the only children. A very kind man, concerned that we were having to spend the night with the children under the station, offered us water and food. In the end, the train was on time, took only 30 minutes to arrive in Luneburg, and we easily hired two taxi's to drive us all home about 12 hours after we started our "short trip".
I hope all goes much better with the members of our crew who headed to Hamburg today. Last report is that all went smoothly with the morning plans!
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Great Intentions and Expectations
Its 4:30 in the morning, the day after solstice. The sun is up and the birds have been singing for over an hour. I know about when they started singing because I woke up then, checked the clock, and then stuck in my trusty earplugs. I woke after only another hour because I was having fitful dreams about arranging to meet friends at the train station. I decided that this was as good a time as any to get up and update my much-neglected blog, as well as have what could be the last quiet reflective time I will get for the next several weeks.
Today marks the beginning of the end, so to speak. Not in a negative sense, but in that we have reached a summit of our adventure and from this point it is going to be a fast, fun ride back to the Ohio Valley. We have less than 6 weeks left, which I notice is about where I left off in my blog - about six weeks after we arrived in Luneburg. In these six weeks we are having three sets of visitors, back-to-back: our friends, the Bennetts (a family of four whose two kids are the same age and good friends of A&R) for five days, a couple from Narvik, Norway (good friends we met back in our pre-children days in Indiana) for two nights, and my mother and "baby" brother for two weeks. Then, the same day the last guests depart, we depart for two weeks of travel in the UK. We return to Luneburg with just four days of scurried packing before we head back home.
So, as I sit here, poised on summit I have been reflecting on what we/I have done, didn't do, and still hope or plan to do during our time here.
I had imagined, as I frantically packed during the weeks leading up to our departure for Germany, that once I had shed myself of the obligations of my life in the US, when we were down to bare minimum possessions and basic needs, that I would have the space and time for simple persuits, all those things that, in my eveyday life I yearned to have the time to do. I brought along my baking books and various craft kits and unfinshed projects. I imagined blissful days with O making playdough and sugar cookies, exploratory walks through German neighborhoods, and interacting with local kids and moms at the playground. O would develop a German vocabulary, while I would improve mine. During naps I would persue my own interests, including writing captivating blogs for the folks back home. This was going to be different from the sabbatical in Washington state in which I languished, bored and lonely most of the time, unsure what to do with myself during the hours when both Tom and the girls had structured, purposeful activities and work and school.
However, once the initial rush and excitement of the settling-in period was over, I found myself feeling isolated and often depressed during the long days on my own with a toddler and neither time to myself nor time to talk uninterrupted with a fellow adult. Playgrounds have been empty of children during the daytime or the language barrier has been prohibitive of making new friends and I have not found many accessible mother/child play programs. There was no naptime to myself, as the girls were usually home before O went down and I was "on" right up until the last one went to bed at 10pm, after which I collapsed into bed myself. On the last several weekends, we have done a lot of touring and traveling, which means we are all together, all the time, sometimes in intense situations.
It reinforced what I have gradually grown to learn about myself. I NEED time to myself as much a I need good food: to recharge my batteries and regain perspective. This is the definition of an introvert! However, having a history of mild depression, I also need to not have so much time to myself that I begin to ruminate on negative feelings until they become over-exaggerated in my mind. Ironically, my hours with a toddler offered both constant companionship (no time to myself) and isolation (plenty of time to ruminate). I have a hard time asking for what I need, so it was a long while before I finally made some changes to restore the balance.
Fortunately, over the last few weeks, I have finally found some balance. We found a childcare center on campus where I have taken O a couple of times a week for a few hours. How I wish we has discovered this from the beginning. Even just those few hours allow me adult time and needed perspective. Tom also took the kids on his own for most of the afternoon on a Saturday and we finally went on an actual date!
I am feeling more myself, now. There are still a lot of things that I had hoped to accomplish while I was here, but if I don't, I know that we did do a lot of traveling and all of us learned more about ourselves and coped with the challenge of living in a strange land among strangers. I have hopes that I can fill in the blanks on my blog where I left readers hanging, especially before I leave Germany and the impressions and perspective fade into memory. Perhaps I need to wake up more with the birds...now and then.
Today marks the beginning of the end, so to speak. Not in a negative sense, but in that we have reached a summit of our adventure and from this point it is going to be a fast, fun ride back to the Ohio Valley. We have less than 6 weeks left, which I notice is about where I left off in my blog - about six weeks after we arrived in Luneburg. In these six weeks we are having three sets of visitors, back-to-back: our friends, the Bennetts (a family of four whose two kids are the same age and good friends of A&R) for five days, a couple from Narvik, Norway (good friends we met back in our pre-children days in Indiana) for two nights, and my mother and "baby" brother for two weeks. Then, the same day the last guests depart, we depart for two weeks of travel in the UK. We return to Luneburg with just four days of scurried packing before we head back home.
So, as I sit here, poised on summit I have been reflecting on what we/I have done, didn't do, and still hope or plan to do during our time here.
I had imagined, as I frantically packed during the weeks leading up to our departure for Germany, that once I had shed myself of the obligations of my life in the US, when we were down to bare minimum possessions and basic needs, that I would have the space and time for simple persuits, all those things that, in my eveyday life I yearned to have the time to do. I brought along my baking books and various craft kits and unfinshed projects. I imagined blissful days with O making playdough and sugar cookies, exploratory walks through German neighborhoods, and interacting with local kids and moms at the playground. O would develop a German vocabulary, while I would improve mine. During naps I would persue my own interests, including writing captivating blogs for the folks back home. This was going to be different from the sabbatical in Washington state in which I languished, bored and lonely most of the time, unsure what to do with myself during the hours when both Tom and the girls had structured, purposeful activities and work and school.
However, once the initial rush and excitement of the settling-in period was over, I found myself feeling isolated and often depressed during the long days on my own with a toddler and neither time to myself nor time to talk uninterrupted with a fellow adult. Playgrounds have been empty of children during the daytime or the language barrier has been prohibitive of making new friends and I have not found many accessible mother/child play programs. There was no naptime to myself, as the girls were usually home before O went down and I was "on" right up until the last one went to bed at 10pm, after which I collapsed into bed myself. On the last several weekends, we have done a lot of touring and traveling, which means we are all together, all the time, sometimes in intense situations.
It reinforced what I have gradually grown to learn about myself. I NEED time to myself as much a I need good food: to recharge my batteries and regain perspective. This is the definition of an introvert! However, having a history of mild depression, I also need to not have so much time to myself that I begin to ruminate on negative feelings until they become over-exaggerated in my mind. Ironically, my hours with a toddler offered both constant companionship (no time to myself) and isolation (plenty of time to ruminate). I have a hard time asking for what I need, so it was a long while before I finally made some changes to restore the balance.
Fortunately, over the last few weeks, I have finally found some balance. We found a childcare center on campus where I have taken O a couple of times a week for a few hours. How I wish we has discovered this from the beginning. Even just those few hours allow me adult time and needed perspective. Tom also took the kids on his own for most of the afternoon on a Saturday and we finally went on an actual date!
I am feeling more myself, now. There are still a lot of things that I had hoped to accomplish while I was here, but if I don't, I know that we did do a lot of traveling and all of us learned more about ourselves and coped with the challenge of living in a strange land among strangers. I have hopes that I can fill in the blanks on my blog where I left readers hanging, especially before I leave Germany and the impressions and perspective fade into memory. Perhaps I need to wake up more with the birds...now and then.
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Getting Around in Luneburg
We came to Germany with no intention of having a car and, so far, we have gotten along just fine without one. Since we left Columbus, we have ridden on planes, buses, trains, and even two ferry rides, but I have been in a car only eight times in the past six weeks, including the airport taxi upon our arrival. The kids have been in cars fewer times and Tom several more.
I have already blogged about some of our experiences with the public buses regarding the girls' transportation back and forth to school. As of about two weeks ago, they have been riding without incident without my needing to accompany them at all. They ride together to school, including a transfer at the train station, with A getting off two stops before R. In the afternoon, they usually come home at different times, riding solo all the way. On Friday afternoon, following our move to a new house, they each rode home on a new bus route alone. I met them at the bus stop, to make sure they got off at the right stop - R and I had a trial run the day before, but it was the first time for A. I am so proud of both of them!
As for me, I have renewed my monthly pass and take the bus several times a week to run errands. I have ridden the bus more times in the past six weeks than I have ridden in the past six years - perhaps even the last 16 years! Most of the bus routes I use have buses that come by every 20 minutes most of the day, 30 minutes on Saturdays, and less frequently on Sunday. Within the city limits, you really aren't far from a bus line. People of all kinds ride the bus: children on their way to school, parents running errands with their small children, elderly, commuters, people with disabilities, and teens. I have seen people bring their dogs on the bus; not just little toy dogs smuggled on in handbags, but REAL dogs on leashes sitting at their owner's feet. People bring on their strollers, walkers, shopping baskets, and, if the driver gives the Okay, bikes.
The buses are usually on time. In the time I have been here, I have only had one bus not show up and one that was more than five minutes late. I had one bus pass me by because I had been daydreaming and failed to look up in time to make eye contact with the driver and step forward as it approached. I learned my lesson!
In addition to riding the bus, I have been walking A LOT! Usually I am pushing a loaded stroller or carrying something. I walk to the bus stop. I walk to the grocery store. I walk around the market square and downtown. Sometimes I unintentionally take long walks looking for my destination. If waiting for the bus would take about as much time as walking to my destination, I often choose to walk.
This is a big change for me and one that I came to Germany hoping to make a new habit. I do not walk much at home in the US. Although I claim walking to be my exercise of choice, I admittedly don't make much, if any, time for it. I am always in so much of a hurry back home and my schedule is so full, that I use that as an excuse to hop in the car for a trip to the neighborhood recreation center or even the grocery store two blocks away. It is amazing to me now, when I consider waiting 20 minutes for the bus or walking 20 minutes, that I suddenly have plenty of time to take that walk for a distance that back home I would consider too far!
We have all been walking more and have changed our ideas of how far is too far to walk. This was really evident on a Sunday morning a few weeks ago when we were on our way to catch a train. In our planning, we failed to realize that the bus in our neighborhood didn't start running until almost noon on Sundays, so we needed to walk to a further bus stop-about 15 minutes. Our pace and timing was such that we arrived at the bus stop more than 10 minutes before the bus was due. At that point, the girls urged enthusiastically that we should just walk the rest of the way to the train station, another 15-20 minutes. We really enjoyed the walk through the quiet streets, usually bustling with traffic, and actually getting to see the interesting architecture of buildings we had only briefly noticed through the window of a bus.
And now, as of Friday, I have a third means of transport, a bike! A friend of a friend offered me a bike when we visited them last weekend. I am finding that people seem to have plenty of spare bikes. Not that they aren't riding a bike themselves; this is an extra bike, in addition to the bikes that each member of the family uses regularly. Of the four bikes we own at home, only one gets used almost daily (by Tom) and the rest sit idle for months, if not years.
Here, bikes are a way of life. A traditional gift for a 2 year old is a walking bike: a small bike without wheels which teaches the child to balance and steer first, before they move up to a traditional bike. I have seen toddlers all over the place with these bikes! ( I am very tempted to buy one for O) All major roads have either a designated bike lane or the sidewalk with a separate bike lane. Bikes are required to have a bell - to signal to pedestrians to get out of the way! - and working front and rear lights. At intersections without a traffic light, bikes often only slow down and it is the cars that stop to make way! I have seen all kinds of people riding bikes: kids on their way to school, commuters, moms with kids and full baskets, mail carriers, courriers, and the elderly. I have read that it is a saying in Germany that "There is no bad weather for riding a bike, only bad clothing".
Contrast this with my neighborhood at home, which actually has a high number of bikers because it has a major (the only) bike route running along the river. Tom rides his bike to work daily except December through February when the bike path is covered in snow and/or ice. The path doesn't get plowed and he feels the street is not a safe alternative for bikers. In one particular section of the route, two blocks from our home, bikers must leave the path and drive on about a 1/4 mile stretch of neighborhood streets, including a busy intersection. Last summer, the city attempted to make the intersection safer for bikers by adding a bike lane approaching the intersection, forbidding a right turn on red, and added a "bike zone" where bikers could wait safely for the light to change and be seen by drivers rather than risking waiting in a blind spot. Boy did that stir up complaints from our non-biking neighbors!
One of the things I pondered in my early weeks of commuting by bus and foot, was how all the bikes, pedestrians, and autos seem to weave around each other so effortlessly and fearlessly. Buses and cars seem to wait patiently for, and be courteous of, pedestrians and bikes, yet they also keep a much shorter distance than I would see in the US. No sooner has a bike gotten out of the way (yet still on the road), than the bus is turning into the lane. Early on, I observed that you cannot be timid when approaching an intersection on foot. If there is not a light at the crossing, you proceed, with a degree of caution, but with a degree of assertiveness as well. What I came to realize is that here drivers are so accustomed to having all of this pedestrian and bicycle traffic, that they are alert and aware and all concerned have learned to move amongst each other in such a way that it is all very smooth and safe.
Back to "my" bike. It is a sturdy, heavy, city bike-built to withstand the cobblestone streets. I brought the bike "home" to our first rental, first on the train and then on the bus (I had R with me, so I couldn't ride it). I retrieved it from our rental on Saturday and rode it for the first time into town to the market. Now, it has been at least since last summer that I last rode a bike and I was feeling a little intimidated by the whole biking environment. But, at tricky intersections (like the round-about!), I watched how others navigated their way through and then put on my best game face and went for it. It was pretty exciting to be zooming along routes I had been walking for the past six weeks! Very quickly I was in the city center and looking for a parking spot among the dozens of bikes along each block leading to the pedestrian-only center.
My first stop was the bike shop where I purchased a basket to put on the rear rack. It is one that clips on easily and has a handle so it can be used as a market basket. After the morning shopping, I rode 2.7 miles to our new place - with a full shopping bag in the basket and a backpack with 2 kilos of potatoes, 2 kilos of apples, and 10 oranges! Ta dah!
I have already blogged about some of our experiences with the public buses regarding the girls' transportation back and forth to school. As of about two weeks ago, they have been riding without incident without my needing to accompany them at all. They ride together to school, including a transfer at the train station, with A getting off two stops before R. In the afternoon, they usually come home at different times, riding solo all the way. On Friday afternoon, following our move to a new house, they each rode home on a new bus route alone. I met them at the bus stop, to make sure they got off at the right stop - R and I had a trial run the day before, but it was the first time for A. I am so proud of both of them!
As for me, I have renewed my monthly pass and take the bus several times a week to run errands. I have ridden the bus more times in the past six weeks than I have ridden in the past six years - perhaps even the last 16 years! Most of the bus routes I use have buses that come by every 20 minutes most of the day, 30 minutes on Saturdays, and less frequently on Sunday. Within the city limits, you really aren't far from a bus line. People of all kinds ride the bus: children on their way to school, parents running errands with their small children, elderly, commuters, people with disabilities, and teens. I have seen people bring their dogs on the bus; not just little toy dogs smuggled on in handbags, but REAL dogs on leashes sitting at their owner's feet. People bring on their strollers, walkers, shopping baskets, and, if the driver gives the Okay, bikes.
The buses are usually on time. In the time I have been here, I have only had one bus not show up and one that was more than five minutes late. I had one bus pass me by because I had been daydreaming and failed to look up in time to make eye contact with the driver and step forward as it approached. I learned my lesson!
In addition to riding the bus, I have been walking A LOT! Usually I am pushing a loaded stroller or carrying something. I walk to the bus stop. I walk to the grocery store. I walk around the market square and downtown. Sometimes I unintentionally take long walks looking for my destination. If waiting for the bus would take about as much time as walking to my destination, I often choose to walk.
This is a big change for me and one that I came to Germany hoping to make a new habit. I do not walk much at home in the US. Although I claim walking to be my exercise of choice, I admittedly don't make much, if any, time for it. I am always in so much of a hurry back home and my schedule is so full, that I use that as an excuse to hop in the car for a trip to the neighborhood recreation center or even the grocery store two blocks away. It is amazing to me now, when I consider waiting 20 minutes for the bus or walking 20 minutes, that I suddenly have plenty of time to take that walk for a distance that back home I would consider too far!
We have all been walking more and have changed our ideas of how far is too far to walk. This was really evident on a Sunday morning a few weeks ago when we were on our way to catch a train. In our planning, we failed to realize that the bus in our neighborhood didn't start running until almost noon on Sundays, so we needed to walk to a further bus stop-about 15 minutes. Our pace and timing was such that we arrived at the bus stop more than 10 minutes before the bus was due. At that point, the girls urged enthusiastically that we should just walk the rest of the way to the train station, another 15-20 minutes. We really enjoyed the walk through the quiet streets, usually bustling with traffic, and actually getting to see the interesting architecture of buildings we had only briefly noticed through the window of a bus.
And now, as of Friday, I have a third means of transport, a bike! A friend of a friend offered me a bike when we visited them last weekend. I am finding that people seem to have plenty of spare bikes. Not that they aren't riding a bike themselves; this is an extra bike, in addition to the bikes that each member of the family uses regularly. Of the four bikes we own at home, only one gets used almost daily (by Tom) and the rest sit idle for months, if not years.
Here, bikes are a way of life. A traditional gift for a 2 year old is a walking bike: a small bike without wheels which teaches the child to balance and steer first, before they move up to a traditional bike. I have seen toddlers all over the place with these bikes! ( I am very tempted to buy one for O) All major roads have either a designated bike lane or the sidewalk with a separate bike lane. Bikes are required to have a bell - to signal to pedestrians to get out of the way! - and working front and rear lights. At intersections without a traffic light, bikes often only slow down and it is the cars that stop to make way! I have seen all kinds of people riding bikes: kids on their way to school, commuters, moms with kids and full baskets, mail carriers, courriers, and the elderly. I have read that it is a saying in Germany that "There is no bad weather for riding a bike, only bad clothing".
Contrast this with my neighborhood at home, which actually has a high number of bikers because it has a major (the only) bike route running along the river. Tom rides his bike to work daily except December through February when the bike path is covered in snow and/or ice. The path doesn't get plowed and he feels the street is not a safe alternative for bikers. In one particular section of the route, two blocks from our home, bikers must leave the path and drive on about a 1/4 mile stretch of neighborhood streets, including a busy intersection. Last summer, the city attempted to make the intersection safer for bikers by adding a bike lane approaching the intersection, forbidding a right turn on red, and added a "bike zone" where bikers could wait safely for the light to change and be seen by drivers rather than risking waiting in a blind spot. Boy did that stir up complaints from our non-biking neighbors!
One of the things I pondered in my early weeks of commuting by bus and foot, was how all the bikes, pedestrians, and autos seem to weave around each other so effortlessly and fearlessly. Buses and cars seem to wait patiently for, and be courteous of, pedestrians and bikes, yet they also keep a much shorter distance than I would see in the US. No sooner has a bike gotten out of the way (yet still on the road), than the bus is turning into the lane. Early on, I observed that you cannot be timid when approaching an intersection on foot. If there is not a light at the crossing, you proceed, with a degree of caution, but with a degree of assertiveness as well. What I came to realize is that here drivers are so accustomed to having all of this pedestrian and bicycle traffic, that they are alert and aware and all concerned have learned to move amongst each other in such a way that it is all very smooth and safe.
Back to "my" bike. It is a sturdy, heavy, city bike-built to withstand the cobblestone streets. I brought the bike "home" to our first rental, first on the train and then on the bus (I had R with me, so I couldn't ride it). I retrieved it from our rental on Saturday and rode it for the first time into town to the market. Now, it has been at least since last summer that I last rode a bike and I was feeling a little intimidated by the whole biking environment. But, at tricky intersections (like the round-about!), I watched how others navigated their way through and then put on my best game face and went for it. It was pretty exciting to be zooming along routes I had been walking for the past six weeks! Very quickly I was in the city center and looking for a parking spot among the dozens of bikes along each block leading to the pedestrian-only center.
My first stop was the bike shop where I purchased a basket to put on the rear rack. It is one that clips on easily and has a handle so it can be used as a market basket. After the morning shopping, I rode 2.7 miles to our new place - with a full shopping bag in the basket and a backpack with 2 kilos of potatoes, 2 kilos of apples, and 10 oranges! Ta dah!
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Language Immersion for Tom
The other day I had the chance for a full immersion language experience. The research group to which I am attached had its bi-weekly meeting. My colleague fortunately pointed out that this would be my opportunity to provide the “Einstand” in the form of a cake or something similar. Einstand literally means “start of a new job,” and it refers to the tradition (expectation) of the new guy providing treats for all of his new colleagues. When I told Jens that in the USA it was basically the reverse – the colleagues would provide food to welcome the new guy – he said that in the end it all works out, because after you are the new guy once, you will enjoy other Einstands from other new people later. This plays an important social function, he said, in ensuring that the community gets to have plenty of occasions to eat cake.
So I stopped by the backerei to purchase some Streuselkuchen and Zuckerkuchen before the meeting. I had asked how many people would be at the meeting, and Jens said about 15, but since there was another new team member, she would bring some cake too, so I need not feed all 15. Well apparently the other new colleague bakes, so she brought in some homemade lemon cake and cheese cake. We had to wait until the end of the business meeting before Jens announced that thanks to the new team members we could proceed to enjoy the cake, to which all assembled responded by rapping their knuckles on the table (I suppose that is like giving us applause).
The meeting itself was conducted entirely in German. Unfortunately for me, they did not speak about their names, where they lived, what they were studying in school, or their hobbies – all topics for which my brief stint as a German 101 student last fall had prepared me well. Instead they were discussing some matters related to research or curriculum or something. I did catch a few English phrases, including a workshop somebody had been to for “Presenting in English” and also an effort related to “interdisciplinary sustainability”. But beyond that, I could not fathom the gist of the conversation. So I just sat there and listened, assuming people thought I understood more than I did. (I suppose what gave me away was when somebody said a remark that elicited laughter but I didn’t laugh.) It is a bit surreal to be sitting around a circle and everyone but you is following the conversation. It’s easy to think perhaps they are talking about you, but I think I would have recognized a reference to “der Amerikaner.”
Friday, March 25, 2011
Ich Bin Bake!
I am baking! One of my favorite hobbies and one which I can semi-prepared to do while here. When selecting what to bring from my kitchen at home, my mind immediately went to my must-have baking tools such as silicone scrapers, measuring cups and spoons, muffin tins, a small rolling pin, and silicone rolling mat. I brought three baking books: my hefty King Arthur Bakers Companion (only1 of 3), Scandinavian Baking Book, and an old Danish cookbook. I brought the two Scandinavian books with the reasoning that some of the recipes and ingrediets would be similar to what I could find here in Northern Germany. I made sure that one of my measuring cups had an ample marking of metric measurements. These are my basic of basic tools, many others didn't make the cut (like my Kitchen Aide mixer)
Additionally, after reading some blogs by Americans living in Germany, and other references, to see what people miss or made sure to bring with/have sent to them in Germany, I brought a few baking ingredients: baking powder and soda, brown sugar, and chocolate chips (mostly for the kids). I had learned that the leavening ingredients here were a little different formulations and that the product labeled here as "braun sugar" was more like what we call turbinado or unrefined sugar and drier than the US version. I had been told that the wheat flour here is also different, but I couldn't justify bringing 10 pounds of flour!
It has taken me a while to have time or energy to bake since we got here. With all the walking and our kitchen's ceramic tile floor, standing for any length in the kitchen has not been appealing. Also, O requires a lot of my FOCUSED attention these days ("mommy do this" "mommy watch me") and after attempting Halloween sugar cookies last fall, I have decided to wait until he is three before cooking anything with more than 3 ingredients with his "help". Also, my usual naptime respite from kid duties has been cut short or nonexistent since arriving here since the girls can begin arriving home from school as early as 12:15!
I decided to start my baking with something very familar, simple, and comforting to my kids: chocolate chip cookies! Cookies are not easy to come by here - most of the store-bought cookies are variations of the English vanilla biscuit/tea time cookies with chocolate or fruit fillings/coating and the bakeries only have the bland spritz type cookies (blech). So, we were craving some American-style cookies.
I was actually all set to bake two days ago, but, after opening the cookbook, realized I had overlooked several ingredients I am simply used to always having "on hand". Just run to the store you say? Not so fast...another German adventure is in store (ha!)!
I tried out a different store yesterday one we happened upon during some local exploring, which turned out to be the largest one I have found with a nice selection. I could write a whole blog on grocery shopping here, so I will save that for another day and just describe some of the ingredients pertaining to baking today. First, the flour: nearly everything comes in smaller packaging and flour is no exception. The largest package I could find is 1000 g (or 1 kg) about 1/2 the size (mass) of the smallest package I buy at home. This will do for now and is easier to carry home, but wouldn't normally last long in our house. Then, reading the label beyond just "wheat flour"; I am a pretty avid baker, so I know several types and uses for flour, but I was not prepared for them to be labeled with type numbers. I had no idea of the difference, but some showed pictures of breads and some showed pictures of pastries, so I took a chance on type 405.
Next, vanilla extract. The baking aisle is pretty extensive with all kinds of decorating (fun!) ingredients like marzipan shapes and chocolate sprinkles, fruit and custard fillings, more marzipan, oodles of baking mixe,s and several "essences" of enticing flavors I must take home with me, but the only vanilla I found was bean, sugar, and a very expensive small bottle of essence. After much debate, I went with the vanilla sugar since it was cheap and I was curious.
Now, shortening. Not in the baking aisle. Not in the section with the oils - which took a long time to locate, right next to the ketchup. Not with the lard in the "cultured milk" and soft cheeses section of the dairy case. Ah, finally, in the vast selection of margarine and "butter-like" spreads! I think. There were two choices: one seemed like it came in sticks, similar to American butter, but smaller and quite hard (even more than would be expected in the refrigerated case) and another in a small tub container like the margarine (which are more rectangular than round here). My limited language skills were telling me I was as close as I was likely to get and I couldn't bring myself to open the lid in the store. The only thing I was concerned about was what kind of "pflanzfett", or plant fat, I would be getting. The name brand was "Palmin" and I was really hoping it wasn't palm oil.
The only ingredient I couldn't find was corn syrup (an optional ingredient anyway). Germans don't seem to have any kind of syrup, but I was hoping maybe Golden Syrup from the UK would make an appearance. Nope - I'll have to keep my eyes open for that one elsewhere.
So, today I sat down to do a little research before I started. I found that Vanilla sugar contains real vanilla and can be used as a substitute for extract, 1 tsp sugar for each 1/4 tsp, but the information was varied as to whether one should also decrease the sugar.
I also found a great source giving the equivalents of German four grading and American flour categories: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flour. Turns out I bought the equivalent of American "pastry" flour rather than "all-purpose". This makes sense that it would be prevelant here (I can usually only find limited selection of pastry flour in the US) since German baking involves more pastries rather than cookies or quick breads. I'd have to see what it would do for cookies.
I had to pull out my big German-English dictionary to read the "shortening" label. Fortunately, it was a fairly limited lable and ingredients. Pure plant oil it said, but I am not exactly sure what kind. It will have to do.
A note about the oven: It uses Celsius, of course, which is easy to convert (with charts), but the baking dial has several symbols which I have yet to know if I understand. It seems to show that I can choose between top heat, bottom heat, or both-we have used the "both" symbol with success so far in other cooking. I believe there is also a broil feature, but one I'm very unsure about it the fan symbol. It could be convection, but it seems that the fan is always on! One of my favorite features of the oven is that, rather than having racks to adjust, the pans themselves fit into rails on the inside of the oven! It comes with two baking sheets, a broiling pan, and a conventional rack.
I am a pretty good baker, but it has more to do with experience and careful following of technique, rather than a good working knowledge of the specifics of how certain ingredients work. Additionally, I follow directions really well, but don't venture too far beyond the written recipe. This could be the time to learn more about the ingredients and experiment to see what works best. I am sure my family won't complain!
The cookies turned out to be pretty good. They were flatter than I like, which can indicate an overly warm batter or too hot oven, but it could be the leavening and flour interactions. However, A was ecstatic when she came home from school and said they were just the way she likes!
Additionally, after reading some blogs by Americans living in Germany, and other references, to see what people miss or made sure to bring with/have sent to them in Germany, I brought a few baking ingredients: baking powder and soda, brown sugar, and chocolate chips (mostly for the kids). I had learned that the leavening ingredients here were a little different formulations and that the product labeled here as "braun sugar" was more like what we call turbinado or unrefined sugar and drier than the US version. I had been told that the wheat flour here is also different, but I couldn't justify bringing 10 pounds of flour!
It has taken me a while to have time or energy to bake since we got here. With all the walking and our kitchen's ceramic tile floor, standing for any length in the kitchen has not been appealing. Also, O requires a lot of my FOCUSED attention these days ("mommy do this" "mommy watch me") and after attempting Halloween sugar cookies last fall, I have decided to wait until he is three before cooking anything with more than 3 ingredients with his "help". Also, my usual naptime respite from kid duties has been cut short or nonexistent since arriving here since the girls can begin arriving home from school as early as 12:15!
I decided to start my baking with something very familar, simple, and comforting to my kids: chocolate chip cookies! Cookies are not easy to come by here - most of the store-bought cookies are variations of the English vanilla biscuit/tea time cookies with chocolate or fruit fillings/coating and the bakeries only have the bland spritz type cookies (blech). So, we were craving some American-style cookies.
I was actually all set to bake two days ago, but, after opening the cookbook, realized I had overlooked several ingredients I am simply used to always having "on hand". Just run to the store you say? Not so fast...another German adventure is in store (ha!)!
I tried out a different store yesterday one we happened upon during some local exploring, which turned out to be the largest one I have found with a nice selection. I could write a whole blog on grocery shopping here, so I will save that for another day and just describe some of the ingredients pertaining to baking today. First, the flour: nearly everything comes in smaller packaging and flour is no exception. The largest package I could find is 1000 g (or 1 kg) about 1/2 the size (mass) of the smallest package I buy at home. This will do for now and is easier to carry home, but wouldn't normally last long in our house. Then, reading the label beyond just "wheat flour"; I am a pretty avid baker, so I know several types and uses for flour, but I was not prepared for them to be labeled with type numbers. I had no idea of the difference, but some showed pictures of breads and some showed pictures of pastries, so I took a chance on type 405.
Next, vanilla extract. The baking aisle is pretty extensive with all kinds of decorating (fun!) ingredients like marzipan shapes and chocolate sprinkles, fruit and custard fillings, more marzipan, oodles of baking mixe,s and several "essences" of enticing flavors I must take home with me, but the only vanilla I found was bean, sugar, and a very expensive small bottle of essence. After much debate, I went with the vanilla sugar since it was cheap and I was curious.
Now, shortening. Not in the baking aisle. Not in the section with the oils - which took a long time to locate, right next to the ketchup. Not with the lard in the "cultured milk" and soft cheeses section of the dairy case. Ah, finally, in the vast selection of margarine and "butter-like" spreads! I think. There were two choices: one seemed like it came in sticks, similar to American butter, but smaller and quite hard (even more than would be expected in the refrigerated case) and another in a small tub container like the margarine (which are more rectangular than round here). My limited language skills were telling me I was as close as I was likely to get and I couldn't bring myself to open the lid in the store. The only thing I was concerned about was what kind of "pflanzfett", or plant fat, I would be getting. The name brand was "Palmin" and I was really hoping it wasn't palm oil.
The only ingredient I couldn't find was corn syrup (an optional ingredient anyway). Germans don't seem to have any kind of syrup, but I was hoping maybe Golden Syrup from the UK would make an appearance. Nope - I'll have to keep my eyes open for that one elsewhere.
So, today I sat down to do a little research before I started. I found that Vanilla sugar contains real vanilla and can be used as a substitute for extract, 1 tsp sugar for each 1/4 tsp, but the information was varied as to whether one should also decrease the sugar.
I also found a great source giving the equivalents of German four grading and American flour categories: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flour. Turns out I bought the equivalent of American "pastry" flour rather than "all-purpose". This makes sense that it would be prevelant here (I can usually only find limited selection of pastry flour in the US) since German baking involves more pastries rather than cookies or quick breads. I'd have to see what it would do for cookies.
I had to pull out my big German-English dictionary to read the "shortening" label. Fortunately, it was a fairly limited lable and ingredients. Pure plant oil it said, but I am not exactly sure what kind. It will have to do.
A note about the oven: It uses Celsius, of course, which is easy to convert (with charts), but the baking dial has several symbols which I have yet to know if I understand. It seems to show that I can choose between top heat, bottom heat, or both-we have used the "both" symbol with success so far in other cooking. I believe there is also a broil feature, but one I'm very unsure about it the fan symbol. It could be convection, but it seems that the fan is always on! One of my favorite features of the oven is that, rather than having racks to adjust, the pans themselves fit into rails on the inside of the oven! It comes with two baking sheets, a broiling pan, and a conventional rack.
I am a pretty good baker, but it has more to do with experience and careful following of technique, rather than a good working knowledge of the specifics of how certain ingredients work. Additionally, I follow directions really well, but don't venture too far beyond the written recipe. This could be the time to learn more about the ingredients and experiment to see what works best. I am sure my family won't complain!
The cookies turned out to be pretty good. They were flatter than I like, which can indicate an overly warm batter or too hot oven, but it could be the leavening and flour interactions. However, A was ecstatic when she came home from school and said they were just the way she likes!
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Being "On"
Being a newcomer to a foreign country and learning to adapt and live in that country, especially with the language barrier, is, quite frankly, quite exhausting. I feel like most of the day I am on high-alert trying to understand what is being said, by people, advertisements, signs, and food packaging, formulate the right phrases to get me what I need, and paying attention to all the social and cultural cues. Our whole family is being challenged to rethink how we do things and devising new routines and habits. It is exciting and fun, much of the time, but it can leave us drained by the end of the day.
For example: Luneburg has a fabulous farmers market on Saturday and Wednesday mornings. Our local friend described it to us as a "small" market. For us, it turned out to be HUGE. Back in Ohio we have a Farmers market which has only been established the last five years or so. We feel lucky that it is located right at the end of our street, is open generally May (plants and a few veggies) through October, and extends more than a full block along one side of the street.
The Luneburg market, however is located in the central cobblestone square and takes up an entire square block and has a year-round offering of fruits, veggies, cheeses, meat and seafood, breads and baked goods, flowers, and dry good such as beans and seasonings. We could almost do our entire grocery shopping here.
For the inexperienced and non-native speaker, it can also be intimidating. Of course, you have to TALK to the shop keepers; easy enough if what you want is right in front of you and you simply point and hold up your fingers to show what you want (be sure to use your thumb to indicate one, adding fingers from there) or you can use a limited vocabulary of numbers and read the food name from the sign. If you do not have a good knowledge or pronunciation of the food vocabulary, you can do as I do, move from stall to stall until you find a couple of items you need within close pointing range - these stalls are pretty big, by the way- and then move on to the next stall.
Germans don't have a good habit of queuing up, so you need to be somewhat assertive about your turn, but I have found most stall workers to be very friendly and helpful. The produce is usually sold by the kilo, so you need to have a good idea of just how much you want. Except mushrooms. These are sold by 100 grams! Additionally, there is the "funny-money" Euros to sort out - coins come in 2 and 1 Euro (two colored) and then 50, 20, 10, 2, and 1 cent pieces. We have ended up with a lot of coin cash because we don't want to hold people up as we sort through them.
So, produce is not so bad and the bakery is about the same, but I haven't gotten up the courage to try purchasing fish or meat. It all looks good and fresh, but 1.) I'm not used to buying directly from the butcher/fishmonger, even at home, 2.) I am not sure about the German words for varieties, cuts, and preparations, and 3.) those pesky kilos! I need to find an English speaking friend to coach me through this. Tom has managed to buy cheese from the cheese monger, which has similar challenges.
By the time we finish with the market, we are all tired and drained from the metric converting (or guessing), mental translating, the crowds, and generally being alert to the people, culture, and architecture surrounding us. We have heavy bags of produce and baked goods to carry home (walking!). However, there is still time, and just a few Euros left to treat ourselves to something yummy from the bakery or Italian icecram cones! What an experience!
For example: Luneburg has a fabulous farmers market on Saturday and Wednesday mornings. Our local friend described it to us as a "small" market. For us, it turned out to be HUGE. Back in Ohio we have a Farmers market which has only been established the last five years or so. We feel lucky that it is located right at the end of our street, is open generally May (plants and a few veggies) through October, and extends more than a full block along one side of the street.
The Luneburg market, however is located in the central cobblestone square and takes up an entire square block and has a year-round offering of fruits, veggies, cheeses, meat and seafood, breads and baked goods, flowers, and dry good such as beans and seasonings. We could almost do our entire grocery shopping here.
For the inexperienced and non-native speaker, it can also be intimidating. Of course, you have to TALK to the shop keepers; easy enough if what you want is right in front of you and you simply point and hold up your fingers to show what you want (be sure to use your thumb to indicate one, adding fingers from there) or you can use a limited vocabulary of numbers and read the food name from the sign. If you do not have a good knowledge or pronunciation of the food vocabulary, you can do as I do, move from stall to stall until you find a couple of items you need within close pointing range - these stalls are pretty big, by the way- and then move on to the next stall.
Germans don't have a good habit of queuing up, so you need to be somewhat assertive about your turn, but I have found most stall workers to be very friendly and helpful. The produce is usually sold by the kilo, so you need to have a good idea of just how much you want. Except mushrooms. These are sold by 100 grams! Additionally, there is the "funny-money" Euros to sort out - coins come in 2 and 1 Euro (two colored) and then 50, 20, 10, 2, and 1 cent pieces. We have ended up with a lot of coin cash because we don't want to hold people up as we sort through them.
So, produce is not so bad and the bakery is about the same, but I haven't gotten up the courage to try purchasing fish or meat. It all looks good and fresh, but 1.) I'm not used to buying directly from the butcher/fishmonger, even at home, 2.) I am not sure about the German words for varieties, cuts, and preparations, and 3.) those pesky kilos! I need to find an English speaking friend to coach me through this. Tom has managed to buy cheese from the cheese monger, which has similar challenges.
By the time we finish with the market, we are all tired and drained from the metric converting (or guessing), mental translating, the crowds, and generally being alert to the people, culture, and architecture surrounding us. We have heavy bags of produce and baked goods to carry home (walking!). However, there is still time, and just a few Euros left to treat ourselves to something yummy from the bakery or Italian icecram cones! What an experience!
Monday, March 21, 2011
I Can Speak to Preschoolers - Sort Of
A friend here in Luneburg directed me to a reading hour for preschoolers she had read about in the local paper. My friend, Antje (Aunt-Yah), lives in Luneburg with her husband, Jens (Yens), the university professor who invited Tom here, and their three year old daugter. She works part time in Hamburg, a 40 minute train ride each way, with Thursdays off. She has been helping me to find ways for O and I to occupy ourselves, especially in the morning.
So, it turns out that this reading hour is offered for free through a social work program at a facility just 10 minute walk from where we live. On the morning I was to go, just me and O, I started to lose courage about managing alone and started making excuses, but Tom pretty much pushed us out the door and on our way.
The foyer had a sign on the wall which I determined said to park strollers there but I wasn't sure about the one on the inside door. It was locked, with no "buzzer", but I could see the moms and kids milling about just inside. Some looked in my direction, but made no move to let me in. I tried to act casual, like I knew what I was doing, when another mom appeared. She didn't make an attempt to talk to me, but did gesture to me to open the door and I found that this time it was unlocked. Hmmm....
I was pretty sure this was the right time and place: moms and kids about Oskar's age, little cushions arranged in a circle around a mat, but still noone made a move to greet me and I couldn't tell which one of the adults was in charge. Again, I just pretended I knew what I was doing: took off our coats, hats and shoes (always take off your shoes indoors - Germans have a thing about this) and looked to see what the other moms and kids were doing. Finally someone approached me and asked something in German. I replied that I only knew a little bit of German and did they speak English. "Nein", but the two women replied in a friendly and welcoming way, so we made ourselves comfortable.
There were no toys around, but there were a few shelves of books. Most turned out to be parenting books, but there was one book that caught our attention: "My First Book of... city/transportation/something of that nature". Just as we started to open the book, a boy about three years old sidled up beside us and asked, "Wie heist er?" OO-OOO! I know that one: What is his name? So I introduced him to Oskar and was able to ask his name, too. Then we began reading the book. I wasn't about to start laboring through the text and risk losing my audience, so I simply started asking, "Was ist das?" and pointing to the pictures in the book so the boy could tell us the name of the objects in German and I could repeat them to O. Cool!
When we finally got started with the program, we all sat around the play mat on the little cushions. Now, fortunately I have lots of experience with these types of programs, so when the songs began, I was able to get the gist of their meaning fairly quickly - not to mention my extensive backgound in preschool level German vocabulary! The first one was, of course, a "hello" song and included greeting each child by name. They paused when they came to us (obviously the other kids had been here plenty of times before) and I told them O's name. I had to repeat myself a few times, and they struggled with it, them moved on. This was the first time anyone had a hard time with his name - and then I realized that I had pronounced it with "American" vowels rather than "German" vowels AND that I was obviously dealing with women who had no training in English. I don't expect that all Germans should speak some English, but I have found it to be the case that most Germans do.
As expected, the songs (and there were several) involved the usual preschool topics - animals, trains, body parts, and general silliness - and ample hand and body motions to copy. One I recognized and actually knew the "words" to - with some variation, "Ram Sam Sam"! Another involved walking around the circle- like a train, I deciphered- and each time we stopped, a child was asked to name an animal, some words were sung and the animal sound made (animals speak in different languages, too) and then they made a gesture which I could not quite determine if it was pushing the animal onto the full train or shooing him off the train. When it came to O, he chose a rabbit, an animal which, of course, I do not know the name, nor does it make a sound. So, I swallowed my discomfort, stuck two fingers up on my head for ears, and hopped. They were pleased with this and continued with the song, hopping like rabbits.
During the train song, as we were going round the circle, O very much wanted to jump and walk on the floor cushions. This seemed like a normal desire of a two year old who looks at every obstacle as a possible jumping point, but none of the other kids were thus tempted. Was it against the rules here or was it part of the "don't put your feet on the furniture" culture? No one said anything, but it was all I could do to keep him off the cushions and avoid a possible social faux pas.
At some unseen signal from the leaders, a couple kids ran over to a blanket covering something and revealed a wooden treasure chest containing, at last, books! The chest was brought over to the center of the circle and the kids helped themselves and the moms all started reading to their kids. To our delight, there were several books which were German versions of books we own or have read before.
We were allowed to read freely for about 15 minutes and then the books were collected and the program ended. Whew! We did it. We managed a social activity with not a whit of English and are looking forward to returning next week. I just need to brush up on my German animals.....
So, it turns out that this reading hour is offered for free through a social work program at a facility just 10 minute walk from where we live. On the morning I was to go, just me and O, I started to lose courage about managing alone and started making excuses, but Tom pretty much pushed us out the door and on our way.
The foyer had a sign on the wall which I determined said to park strollers there but I wasn't sure about the one on the inside door. It was locked, with no "buzzer", but I could see the moms and kids milling about just inside. Some looked in my direction, but made no move to let me in. I tried to act casual, like I knew what I was doing, when another mom appeared. She didn't make an attempt to talk to me, but did gesture to me to open the door and I found that this time it was unlocked. Hmmm....
I was pretty sure this was the right time and place: moms and kids about Oskar's age, little cushions arranged in a circle around a mat, but still noone made a move to greet me and I couldn't tell which one of the adults was in charge. Again, I just pretended I knew what I was doing: took off our coats, hats and shoes (always take off your shoes indoors - Germans have a thing about this) and looked to see what the other moms and kids were doing. Finally someone approached me and asked something in German. I replied that I only knew a little bit of German and did they speak English. "Nein", but the two women replied in a friendly and welcoming way, so we made ourselves comfortable.
There were no toys around, but there were a few shelves of books. Most turned out to be parenting books, but there was one book that caught our attention: "My First Book of... city/transportation/something of that nature". Just as we started to open the book, a boy about three years old sidled up beside us and asked, "Wie heist er?" OO-OOO! I know that one: What is his name? So I introduced him to Oskar and was able to ask his name, too. Then we began reading the book. I wasn't about to start laboring through the text and risk losing my audience, so I simply started asking, "Was ist das?" and pointing to the pictures in the book so the boy could tell us the name of the objects in German and I could repeat them to O. Cool!
When we finally got started with the program, we all sat around the play mat on the little cushions. Now, fortunately I have lots of experience with these types of programs, so when the songs began, I was able to get the gist of their meaning fairly quickly - not to mention my extensive backgound in preschool level German vocabulary! The first one was, of course, a "hello" song and included greeting each child by name. They paused when they came to us (obviously the other kids had been here plenty of times before) and I told them O's name. I had to repeat myself a few times, and they struggled with it, them moved on. This was the first time anyone had a hard time with his name - and then I realized that I had pronounced it with "American" vowels rather than "German" vowels AND that I was obviously dealing with women who had no training in English. I don't expect that all Germans should speak some English, but I have found it to be the case that most Germans do.
As expected, the songs (and there were several) involved the usual preschool topics - animals, trains, body parts, and general silliness - and ample hand and body motions to copy. One I recognized and actually knew the "words" to - with some variation, "Ram Sam Sam"! Another involved walking around the circle- like a train, I deciphered- and each time we stopped, a child was asked to name an animal, some words were sung and the animal sound made (animals speak in different languages, too) and then they made a gesture which I could not quite determine if it was pushing the animal onto the full train or shooing him off the train. When it came to O, he chose a rabbit, an animal which, of course, I do not know the name, nor does it make a sound. So, I swallowed my discomfort, stuck two fingers up on my head for ears, and hopped. They were pleased with this and continued with the song, hopping like rabbits.
During the train song, as we were going round the circle, O very much wanted to jump and walk on the floor cushions. This seemed like a normal desire of a two year old who looks at every obstacle as a possible jumping point, but none of the other kids were thus tempted. Was it against the rules here or was it part of the "don't put your feet on the furniture" culture? No one said anything, but it was all I could do to keep him off the cushions and avoid a possible social faux pas.
At some unseen signal from the leaders, a couple kids ran over to a blanket covering something and revealed a wooden treasure chest containing, at last, books! The chest was brought over to the center of the circle and the kids helped themselves and the moms all started reading to their kids. To our delight, there were several books which were German versions of books we own or have read before.
We were allowed to read freely for about 15 minutes and then the books were collected and the program ended. Whew! We did it. We managed a social activity with not a whit of English and are looking forward to returning next week. I just need to brush up on my German animals.....
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
The Musik Mafia
(from Tom)
In my Ohio State German class I learned the term for listening to music as a hobby, “Musik hören,” and our vacation house has a nice stereo system ("Stereoanlage”) with FM radio. I have found a couple of radio stations that play rock and pop music, so I like to have these on in the morning while O. and I get breakfast (Kristin is out bussing the girls to school). The morning radio listening is a habit I acquired back home, as I could listen to NPR and get my news and weather before heading to work. But I think listening to German language on the radio is the most difficult setting, since there are no visual cues to help you with the context. I know that “Wetter” is “weather”, but I have not been able to catch this amid the dialogue. So mostly I listen to the radio for the music. The two stations at the right end of the dial are similar in style of music played, which is an eclectic mix of U.S., British, and German rock and pop music. Yesterday I heard a song by the Scorpions (a Hannover band) followed by “We Are the World” followed by Katy Perry. I also recall hearing two particular songs more than once within the first few days: a song by Mike + The Mechanics – “Silent Running” (“Can you hear me running, can you hear me calling you?”) and the theme song from Dirty Dancing – “Time of my life”. Not sure what this says about German sensibilities.
Regarding radios and televisions, Germany has an unusual system of supporting them. A quarterly tax of 50 Euros is levied by the government to all tv owners, and radio owners have to pay an additional smaller amount. The funds go to the public broadcasting corporation. The benefit to the listener is that after 8:00 pm there are no commercials on the radio, and cultural programming is supported. In other words, this is the NPR model without the pledge drives – instead of asking for your voluntary donations, the State comes knocking on your door to force you to pay. Literally. My colleague told me of a time when he had moved into a new apartment and the next day the tax collector knocked on his door to demand payment for the tv and radio tax. At the time my colleague had no tv. The dialogue went something like this:
“Good afternoon sir, I am here to collect the tv tax. I assume you have a tv?”
“Actually, I don’t have a tv.”
“Right then, I will put you down for just one tv. That will be 50 Euros.”
“No, I do not have any television.”
“Well surely you must have a television. Everybody has a television these days. And I’m sure you were just about to make the payment, so you can do so right now.”
“But I haven’t got a television”
“I see, okay then, I have filled out your bill. It says one television. Please sign and make the payment now.”
My colleague eventually turned him away. He said the collectors get commission for each tax collected, so they sound a bit like NPR meets the Mafia.
Saturday, March 12, 2011
My Geburtstag in Germany
(from R.)
First of all, I have to tell you that in Germany it is bad luck to celebrate your birthday before the actual day. Oops - I had an early birthday party in Columbus before we left! I have had no bad luck except when my e-reader had a run-in with my sister's foot.
Today when I woke up I remembered it was my birthday and lay in bed thinking about what I would get. When I walked into the kitchen, Mommy and Daddy were there and sang Happy Birthday to me (in English), but my brother and sister were still asleep. So we had to wait until they woke up before digging into the delicious pastries that were set out on the table. I also had some fresh squeezed orange juice that looked like a raw egg in a glass, but it was good.
After breakfast we were heading out the door when the doorbell rang. Who could it be? It was my friends Anabell and Maike, and Anabell had baked me a cake! With 11 candles on top! And it was still warm! Maike brought me a box decorated with a chocolate rabbit and inside the box was lip gloss, eye cream, and a ceramic angel. Anabell's mother had driven them to my house because she knew where I lived because on Thursday I took a wrong bus and ended up going to Anabell's house and her mother drove me home with the help of a GPS.
Next we walked to Am Sande (downtown) and visited the farmer's market. I bought a glass of more freshly squeezed orange juice (squeezed by a fancy machine) for 1.40 Euros, and I got a mini carrot given to me for free by a vendor. Then we wandered around for a LONG time (about an hour) looking for a Creperie, because I specifically wanted to have crepes for lunch and I had seen one on our first full day in Germany, but we didn't remember where it was. So eventually we found a different restaurant, and it actually had crepes! They call them Pflannenkuchen. Mine came with syrup. Yum:) My brother had crepes with applesauce; he was supposed to dip the crepes in the applesauce but instead he ate all the applesauce first. So he was willing to share some of his naked crepes with me.
After lunch we visited the toy shop because I was eager to check if my favorite dragon was still there. It was, and I had enough birthday money to buy it along with a surprise Littlest Pet Shop animal. (My pet dragon Lupin is sitting here helping me write this blog.) I felt conspicuous lugging around a dragon in a large box, walking all the way home. I made it with the help of some french fries, which they call "pommes frites". You can get garlic sauce or tomato sauce if you want, but instead they just squirted a bunch of ketchup on the top of them for us.
Back home Mommy got out some funny shaped balloons to blow up. One of them promptly popped while she was blowing it up. One was shaped like a banana - it popped when it brushed the brick wall. When our friends Jens, Antje, and Ada came over, my brother was excited because he had been waiting and waiting and waiting to eat the cakes. One was the cake from Anabell, the other was from a baeckerei -- it was cherry cake with streusel topping. Yum :)
The birthday was fun, and I enjoyed having it on the weekend so I didn't have to rush off to school. I also liked it when my siser sent me on a treasure hunt with clues around the house. The reward was some delicious duck marshmallows. Quack :) Then I sent her on a treasure hunt for a clay duck.
I felt very special when I received a letter in the mail and about 15 email greetings. So I think it is good to have a birthday in Germany once in a while. I recommend it for those who have birthdays on the weekend.
First of all, I have to tell you that in Germany it is bad luck to celebrate your birthday before the actual day. Oops - I had an early birthday party in Columbus before we left! I have had no bad luck except when my e-reader had a run-in with my sister's foot.
Today when I woke up I remembered it was my birthday and lay in bed thinking about what I would get. When I walked into the kitchen, Mommy and Daddy were there and sang Happy Birthday to me (in English), but my brother and sister were still asleep. So we had to wait until they woke up before digging into the delicious pastries that were set out on the table. I also had some fresh squeezed orange juice that looked like a raw egg in a glass, but it was good.
After breakfast we were heading out the door when the doorbell rang. Who could it be? It was my friends Anabell and Maike, and Anabell had baked me a cake! With 11 candles on top! And it was still warm! Maike brought me a box decorated with a chocolate rabbit and inside the box was lip gloss, eye cream, and a ceramic angel. Anabell's mother had driven them to my house because she knew where I lived because on Thursday I took a wrong bus and ended up going to Anabell's house and her mother drove me home with the help of a GPS.
Next we walked to Am Sande (downtown) and visited the farmer's market. I bought a glass of more freshly squeezed orange juice (squeezed by a fancy machine) for 1.40 Euros, and I got a mini carrot given to me for free by a vendor. Then we wandered around for a LONG time (about an hour) looking for a Creperie, because I specifically wanted to have crepes for lunch and I had seen one on our first full day in Germany, but we didn't remember where it was. So eventually we found a different restaurant, and it actually had crepes! They call them Pflannenkuchen. Mine came with syrup. Yum:) My brother had crepes with applesauce; he was supposed to dip the crepes in the applesauce but instead he ate all the applesauce first. So he was willing to share some of his naked crepes with me.
After lunch we visited the toy shop because I was eager to check if my favorite dragon was still there. It was, and I had enough birthday money to buy it along with a surprise Littlest Pet Shop animal. (My pet dragon Lupin is sitting here helping me write this blog.) I felt conspicuous lugging around a dragon in a large box, walking all the way home. I made it with the help of some french fries, which they call "pommes frites". You can get garlic sauce or tomato sauce if you want, but instead they just squirted a bunch of ketchup on the top of them for us.
Back home Mommy got out some funny shaped balloons to blow up. One of them promptly popped while she was blowing it up. One was shaped like a banana - it popped when it brushed the brick wall. When our friends Jens, Antje, and Ada came over, my brother was excited because he had been waiting and waiting and waiting to eat the cakes. One was the cake from Anabell, the other was from a baeckerei -- it was cherry cake with streusel topping. Yum :)
The birthday was fun, and I enjoyed having it on the weekend so I didn't have to rush off to school. I also liked it when my siser sent me on a treasure hunt with clues around the house. The reward was some delicious duck marshmallows. Quack :) Then I sent her on a treasure hunt for a clay duck.
I felt very special when I received a letter in the mail and about 15 email greetings. So I think it is good to have a birthday in Germany once in a while. I recommend it for those who have birthdays on the weekend.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
The Hamburg Huskies - Football?
-Tom's Turn
On the plane trip, following a short leg to Chicago we went on the long leg to London. I sat next to a German fellow who, it turns out, was from Hamburg. Or rather he had recently moved to Hamburg from Kiel, as he had switched jobs. He was the manager and marketing director of the American Football league team Hamburg Huskies. The team is manned with German players who work during the day and then play American football as a hobby. The Hamburg Huskies drew 500-600 paying fans each game last season, and this fellow was brought in based on his success at getting over 2,000 fans to the Kiel Blue Devils games last year. So when you are in Germany and hear somebody mention football, don’t always assume they are talking about soccer. Okay, you can go ahead and assume 99.9 % of the time, given the ratio of European soccer to American football fans here. You can check out the Huskies' website a www.goeagles.de/ (they may be getting their mascots a bit mixed up!)
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
German Fashion
One of the first places I made note of the current fashion here was not in the market place or on the billboards - I always take those as being "idealistic" but not necessarily representative of what most people actually wear- but when I walked into the high school. Black, everywhere! It was the first thing I noticed when I stepped into the common area where most of the kids were taking their break - a sea of dark colors. It wasn't the dark fashions usually associated with more "Goth" clothing in the US, but fashionable and well-kept.
As I began my daily back and forth on the bus and people watching from the bus window, I saw that this fashion trend extended to young and old outside the school. With the exception of very young children, I would guess that 85% of people are wearing black or gray pants, coats, and/or shoes, 15% wear other dark or drab shades of navy blue, brown, and khaki, and the remaining 5% wear other colors. The same is true for kids' backpacks, except for the early elementary age. The four older members of our family wear coats of red, tan, and royal blue and A's backpack is a bright blue and green plaid. So, I would say that we stick out around here!
I have noticed that shoes for all ages are also primarily dark colors and, as I knew before coming, very rarely do Germans walk about in athletic shoes. I have seen a number of girls at A's school wearing colorful converse - and a surprising number in high heels! I have seen, perhaps, one or two boys- at the bus transit center, not the school-wearing overly large athletic shoes with the laces purposely untied.
Most of the color comes from scarves-lots of them-, hats, and other accessories. I am curious to see if the color will come out more in spring, along with the flowers!
I have only seen about two boys with the crotch of their pants hanging to their knees - again, at the transit center, not the school. I haven't seen any kids with holes in their knees (glad I weeded out my girls hole-y pants before we left) or otherwise sloppy dress.
One more semi-fashionable note: all of the tykes in strollers are bundled to the teeth. I feel like a negligent mother as I see these little ones, obviously layered, wearing full snow suits or "foos-saks", foot sacks, which are basically sleeping bags from toe to arm pits, scarves, and hats. The infants can't even be seen in their buggies under 8 inches of blankets and a zipped or snapped up quilted cradle! I finally bought a cheap blanket to bundle O in, out of guilt, but most of the time he refuses to be bundled. I have yet to see a German toddler fussing "I want out!".
A has also made note of the dark fashion, but, fortunately, does not seem concerned with conforming to it my requesting a new wardrobe!
As I began my daily back and forth on the bus and people watching from the bus window, I saw that this fashion trend extended to young and old outside the school. With the exception of very young children, I would guess that 85% of people are wearing black or gray pants, coats, and/or shoes, 15% wear other dark or drab shades of navy blue, brown, and khaki, and the remaining 5% wear other colors. The same is true for kids' backpacks, except for the early elementary age. The four older members of our family wear coats of red, tan, and royal blue and A's backpack is a bright blue and green plaid. So, I would say that we stick out around here!
I have noticed that shoes for all ages are also primarily dark colors and, as I knew before coming, very rarely do Germans walk about in athletic shoes. I have seen a number of girls at A's school wearing colorful converse - and a surprising number in high heels! I have seen, perhaps, one or two boys- at the bus transit center, not the school-wearing overly large athletic shoes with the laces purposely untied.
Most of the color comes from scarves-lots of them-, hats, and other accessories. I am curious to see if the color will come out more in spring, along with the flowers!
I have only seen about two boys with the crotch of their pants hanging to their knees - again, at the transit center, not the school. I haven't seen any kids with holes in their knees (glad I weeded out my girls hole-y pants before we left) or otherwise sloppy dress.
One more semi-fashionable note: all of the tykes in strollers are bundled to the teeth. I feel like a negligent mother as I see these little ones, obviously layered, wearing full snow suits or "foos-saks", foot sacks, which are basically sleeping bags from toe to arm pits, scarves, and hats. The infants can't even be seen in their buggies under 8 inches of blankets and a zipped or snapped up quilted cradle! I finally bought a cheap blanket to bundle O in, out of guilt, but most of the time he refuses to be bundled. I have yet to see a German toddler fussing "I want out!".
A has also made note of the dark fashion, but, fortunately, does not seem concerned with conforming to it my requesting a new wardrobe!
More Bus Tales - March 4
Soon I (we) will get to describing other details of the past week, but since bus adventures are taking up a great deal of time these days, here is the final word on that for the week and leading us into a relatively bus free weekend.
Yesterday (Thursday) was the first of A's long days at school, from 8 to 3:50. She has this schedule 2 days each week. Ironically it was R's only short day, 8 to 12:30. So, since we have not yet achieved independent riding confidence, the trip home from school involves two round trips for the parents. Fortunately, Tom is still on a very flexible schedule and could make the late ride to get A, saving me the third round trip of the day and allowing O to take a full nap, finally.
I picked R up as planned from her school - we are meeting just inside the main entrance now, not the classroom door- and headed to the bus stop on the other side of the small shopping center standing between the school and the main street. As we were waiting, two of her friends emerged from the shopping center with bakery goodies (there is a bakery on every corner!) and they happily joined us for the ride to the ZOB (Transit center and Train station). This was the first time R had been able to ride with friends!
As we were waiting, I was showing the map I had been carrying around and showed them where we lived and then asked where they live. For kids who are pretty transit-savy, I was surprised that they couldn't find it on the map. Then they asked, in their broken English, if they could come over. Today? I asked. Yes, they wanted to come today. It was pretty forward, I thought, but I had been warned by my German instructor in the US to be prepared for people to just drop in for a visit. I asked if they should call their mother, and they smiled and said yes, but didn't make a move to do so. The bus came and the three girls sat happily together to the ZOB.
At the ZOB, one of the girls asked which was our neighborhood stop and when they should come over. I was confused now, thinking they had intended to come directly with us. Did they mean how long could they stay? No, what time should they come. Oh. Well, 2:00. Then they scurried off to catch their other bus.
I had no idea what to expect after that. Would they call? They had our mobile number but we didn't have theirs. What time would they come? Would I be getting a call from their parents?
Around 2:00 I sent Rosemary down to the bus stop (about 2 blocks away) to see if they were arriving. 5 minutes later she showed up with out them. A few minutes later the door bell rang and there they were! Knowing only our street name and the nearest bus stop, two girls R's age managed to find us on their own! Talk about independence!
So, the girls spent about 1 and a half hours locked up in R's room, lots of giggling coming from behind the door. So happy for Rosemary! Just as abruptly as they came, without any prompting from me, they knew exactly when they needed to be on their way to the bus. As they were pulling on boots and coats, I asked if they would be able to ride with R as far as the ZOB on Friday. One of the girls said that she could. Yay! One less bus ride for me and a bit closer to the goal of independence for the girls.
The next day.....
Schedules were reversed for the girls Friday, with A coming home early enough that I could leave her with O napping and make a "quick" trip to the ZOB and back. I arrived at my first bus stop in plenty of time. So much so that I was caught daydreaming and startled to look up and see the bus approaching, I looked down at my purse to take out my pass, but when I looked up again, the bus spend past! I suddenly learned a lesson n bus stop procedure. Never look down or away as the bus is approaching, otherwise the bus driver takes it as a signal you are not waiting for that particular bus!
The next bus was coming in 20 minutes, cutting awfully close to R's arrival at the ZOB and I was worried she would panic if she didn't see me when she arrived. I decided to hustle to the next nearest bus stop, on a main street where several buses stop on their way to the ZOB, including mine. Surely I could catch another. Ten minutes later, I reached the stop, only to find the other buses either didn't arrive any earlier or not at all that time of day. Well, I would just have to be late and hope R didn't panic.
All the way I sent telepathic messages for R to "stay put". I was not so much worried about her safety and felt she had enough practice with the bus route to know which bus to take and where to get off, but I was concerned about how to find her if she wasn't at the ZOB - would she be still at the school, headed home on her own, or perhaps gone home with her friend who thought that was what I had been asking. Unfortunately, we still have only one mobile phone and I had left it at the house with A to be able to call Tom. I was wishing I had sent a message to school to make sure the English teacher could reinforce the plan: bring her to the ZOB and wait.
When I got to the ZOB, she wasn't there. Managing to keep calm, I checked the bakery while I waited for the next bus to arrive. When she wasn't on the next bus, I decided to head to the school. No one was at the school except the custodian. I managed to communicate that I was looking for the school office and she said everyone was gone. I asked a passing teacher, who claimed not to speak English but sounded like she knew more than she let on. She and the custodian had quiet a discussion, then she wished me luck as the custodian wisked me around the school looking for someone to speak English. As we found no one, I tried to tell her what I needed was someone with a phone, so I could call home to see if she was there (I left our only cell phone at home with Amelia and Oskar). She seemed to understand, continued to search the building, and then, after I mentioned the need of a phone again, she reluctantly pulled one out of her pocket! I handed her the number, written on a paper, to let her dial the ten digits herself.
A answered with a tone that I knew meant she knew why I was calling. Yes, R had come home on her own, in tears. Whew! I told the custodian this - in pantomime- to the custodian and rushed off to take the two buses home again.
I expected R to still be upset when I got home, but she seemed quite happy, even pleased with herself. When I asked her side of the story, she said that she had arrived at the ZOB, hadn't seen me and panicked, taking the first bus for our route. She said on the way home she began to imagine that I had actually been testing her to see what she would do - I'd never do that, I assured her! The tears came after she got to our door and began ringing the bell repeatedly. A, thinking R was goofing around (and with me), ignored the bell. R tried the gate to the back door, found it locked, and tried the door bell again. A finally answered, ready to tell her off.
After going over the new "rules" for what to do in similar and other bus-related situations (first choice, stay put, second choice, go home or somewhere you know is safe and someone would think to look for you), I asked if she would like to continue to come home on her own, and she agreed that she was ready! My brave girl!
Yesterday (Thursday) was the first of A's long days at school, from 8 to 3:50. She has this schedule 2 days each week. Ironically it was R's only short day, 8 to 12:30. So, since we have not yet achieved independent riding confidence, the trip home from school involves two round trips for the parents. Fortunately, Tom is still on a very flexible schedule and could make the late ride to get A, saving me the third round trip of the day and allowing O to take a full nap, finally.
I picked R up as planned from her school - we are meeting just inside the main entrance now, not the classroom door- and headed to the bus stop on the other side of the small shopping center standing between the school and the main street. As we were waiting, two of her friends emerged from the shopping center with bakery goodies (there is a bakery on every corner!) and they happily joined us for the ride to the ZOB (Transit center and Train station). This was the first time R had been able to ride with friends!
As we were waiting, I was showing the map I had been carrying around and showed them where we lived and then asked where they live. For kids who are pretty transit-savy, I was surprised that they couldn't find it on the map. Then they asked, in their broken English, if they could come over. Today? I asked. Yes, they wanted to come today. It was pretty forward, I thought, but I had been warned by my German instructor in the US to be prepared for people to just drop in for a visit. I asked if they should call their mother, and they smiled and said yes, but didn't make a move to do so. The bus came and the three girls sat happily together to the ZOB.
At the ZOB, one of the girls asked which was our neighborhood stop and when they should come over. I was confused now, thinking they had intended to come directly with us. Did they mean how long could they stay? No, what time should they come. Oh. Well, 2:00. Then they scurried off to catch their other bus.
I had no idea what to expect after that. Would they call? They had our mobile number but we didn't have theirs. What time would they come? Would I be getting a call from their parents?
Around 2:00 I sent Rosemary down to the bus stop (about 2 blocks away) to see if they were arriving. 5 minutes later she showed up with out them. A few minutes later the door bell rang and there they were! Knowing only our street name and the nearest bus stop, two girls R's age managed to find us on their own! Talk about independence!
So, the girls spent about 1 and a half hours locked up in R's room, lots of giggling coming from behind the door. So happy for Rosemary! Just as abruptly as they came, without any prompting from me, they knew exactly when they needed to be on their way to the bus. As they were pulling on boots and coats, I asked if they would be able to ride with R as far as the ZOB on Friday. One of the girls said that she could. Yay! One less bus ride for me and a bit closer to the goal of independence for the girls.
The next day.....
Schedules were reversed for the girls Friday, with A coming home early enough that I could leave her with O napping and make a "quick" trip to the ZOB and back. I arrived at my first bus stop in plenty of time. So much so that I was caught daydreaming and startled to look up and see the bus approaching, I looked down at my purse to take out my pass, but when I looked up again, the bus spend past! I suddenly learned a lesson n bus stop procedure. Never look down or away as the bus is approaching, otherwise the bus driver takes it as a signal you are not waiting for that particular bus!
The next bus was coming in 20 minutes, cutting awfully close to R's arrival at the ZOB and I was worried she would panic if she didn't see me when she arrived. I decided to hustle to the next nearest bus stop, on a main street where several buses stop on their way to the ZOB, including mine. Surely I could catch another. Ten minutes later, I reached the stop, only to find the other buses either didn't arrive any earlier or not at all that time of day. Well, I would just have to be late and hope R didn't panic.
All the way I sent telepathic messages for R to "stay put". I was not so much worried about her safety and felt she had enough practice with the bus route to know which bus to take and where to get off, but I was concerned about how to find her if she wasn't at the ZOB - would she be still at the school, headed home on her own, or perhaps gone home with her friend who thought that was what I had been asking. Unfortunately, we still have only one mobile phone and I had left it at the house with A to be able to call Tom. I was wishing I had sent a message to school to make sure the English teacher could reinforce the plan: bring her to the ZOB and wait.
When I got to the ZOB, she wasn't there. Managing to keep calm, I checked the bakery while I waited for the next bus to arrive. When she wasn't on the next bus, I decided to head to the school. No one was at the school except the custodian. I managed to communicate that I was looking for the school office and she said everyone was gone. I asked a passing teacher, who claimed not to speak English but sounded like she knew more than she let on. She and the custodian had quiet a discussion, then she wished me luck as the custodian wisked me around the school looking for someone to speak English. As we found no one, I tried to tell her what I needed was someone with a phone, so I could call home to see if she was there (I left our only cell phone at home with Amelia and Oskar). She seemed to understand, continued to search the building, and then, after I mentioned the need of a phone again, she reluctantly pulled one out of her pocket! I handed her the number, written on a paper, to let her dial the ten digits herself.
A answered with a tone that I knew meant she knew why I was calling. Yes, R had come home on her own, in tears. Whew! I told the custodian this - in pantomime- to the custodian and rushed off to take the two buses home again.
I expected R to still be upset when I got home, but she seemed quite happy, even pleased with herself. When I asked her side of the story, she said that she had arrived at the ZOB, hadn't seen me and panicked, taking the first bus for our route. She said on the way home she began to imagine that I had actually been testing her to see what she would do - I'd never do that, I assured her! The tears came after she got to our door and began ringing the bell repeatedly. A, thinking R was goofing around (and with me), ignored the bell. R tried the gate to the back door, found it locked, and tried the door bell again. A finally answered, ready to tell her off.
After going over the new "rules" for what to do in similar and other bus-related situations (first choice, stay put, second choice, go home or somewhere you know is safe and someone would think to look for you), I asked if she would like to continue to come home on her own, and she agreed that she was ready! My brave girl!
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Bus Success!
This morning was the trial run. We were ALL up earlier than we are accustomed to normally. Well, I am usually up this early, but not used to having to be "on" until I have had an hour or so to drink my coffee and scope out the game plan for the day.
We had to be leaving the house by 7:15. All of us! Tom had his first appearance at the University scheduled for 8:30, so was only walking us to the bus stop and taking the picture. I was feeling a little anxious about how I was going to manage to not only escort A and R onto the bus, but ask the driver for an all-day ticket for me (at the front of the bus) and get O with the stroller onto the back door of the bus. We ended up having A flash her student pass to the driver then run to the back to take the stroller from Tom while I decided to just take a single fare. I was supposed to place the money on the top plate of the money box (I assume so the driver could see the money), but in my nervousness, I dropped it into the first slot I saw. With a grumble, he had to open the box and retrieve the money and then give me the change. Ooops!
Fortunately, the rest of the ride to the train station/ bus transfer center and then the second bus went much smoother! We delivered A to the school office of her campus, where she was met by one of the teachers and escorted to her first class. A hasty good-bye and then the sub-headmaster, Herr Surr, escorted us by foot to R's campus and classroom. We met Herr Surr yesterday with R. He speaks English fairly well - much better than my German-but apologizes for it. Once we had delivered R to her classroom, Herr Surr was kind enough to wait for the bus with us and ask for the all-day pass.
At 9:00 am I was once again standing back in the kitchen of our house, breathing a sigh of relief and feeling as if I had finished a Survivor: Germany challenge! Whew! Now for the return trip: I need to be leaving the house once again at 11:55 to retrieve A at 12:30 and then R at 1:30. Somehow I need to fit in lunch and a nap for O!
We had to be leaving the house by 7:15. All of us! Tom had his first appearance at the University scheduled for 8:30, so was only walking us to the bus stop and taking the picture. I was feeling a little anxious about how I was going to manage to not only escort A and R onto the bus, but ask the driver for an all-day ticket for me (at the front of the bus) and get O with the stroller onto the back door of the bus. We ended up having A flash her student pass to the driver then run to the back to take the stroller from Tom while I decided to just take a single fare. I was supposed to place the money on the top plate of the money box (I assume so the driver could see the money), but in my nervousness, I dropped it into the first slot I saw. With a grumble, he had to open the box and retrieve the money and then give me the change. Ooops!
Fortunately, the rest of the ride to the train station/ bus transfer center and then the second bus went much smoother! We delivered A to the school office of her campus, where she was met by one of the teachers and escorted to her first class. A hasty good-bye and then the sub-headmaster, Herr Surr, escorted us by foot to R's campus and classroom. We met Herr Surr yesterday with R. He speaks English fairly well - much better than my German-but apologizes for it. Once we had delivered R to her classroom, Herr Surr was kind enough to wait for the bus with us and ask for the all-day pass.
At 9:00 am I was once again standing back in the kitchen of our house, breathing a sigh of relief and feeling as if I had finished a Survivor: Germany challenge! Whew! Now for the return trip: I need to be leaving the house once again at 11:55 to retrieve A at 12:30 and then R at 1:30. Somehow I need to fit in lunch and a nap for O!
Monday, February 28, 2011
Our First German Family Meeting
Back home, our family holds a family meeting every Sunday evening after dinner to go over the schedule for the week, look at plans, and have important discussions. Dessert is always featured those nights. Today we had our first in Germany, a day later than usual, and featuring German chocolate sampling.
The main topic: public bus scheduling for the girls to get to and from school. German children do not ride designated school buses, but rather the public buses. Although we did not witness it today, since we were scheduled to arrive for orientation later in the morning and were offered a ride home by our landlord and lady, even the youngest of children confidently rides and transfers throughout the city. I am sure that there are older children to help the younger, but even so, for an Americans who hesitate to let their children walk down the neighborhood street alone, this almost unbelievable. And yet, both Tom and I, and the girls, are looking forward to developing this independence.
Now, it would be simple if the girls were coming and going on the bus together, at the same time and the same stops. However, it is much more complicated! First, the girls are at two different "campuses", so they take the same bus but have different stops. Second, they have different schedules so that there are only two days they return home at the same time (if neither one misses the first bus home!). The third complication, or rather inconvenience, is that O will have to come along for the ride, both ways, at least until the girls feel ready to try it on their own. Yes, the price of independence is that I will have to make four rides(including 1 transfer)each day, schlepping toddler and stroller until we all feel confident for the girls to go it alone.
Imagine my delight when R announced the first day after school that she thought she could manage by herself on the second day! Of course, Mom and Dad are not yet ready for such independence, but I am looking forward to he day when I can wave from the front door in my PJs and go back inside to finish my coffee!
The main topic: public bus scheduling for the girls to get to and from school. German children do not ride designated school buses, but rather the public buses. Although we did not witness it today, since we were scheduled to arrive for orientation later in the morning and were offered a ride home by our landlord and lady, even the youngest of children confidently rides and transfers throughout the city. I am sure that there are older children to help the younger, but even so, for an Americans who hesitate to let their children walk down the neighborhood street alone, this almost unbelievable. And yet, both Tom and I, and the girls, are looking forward to developing this independence.
Now, it would be simple if the girls were coming and going on the bus together, at the same time and the same stops. However, it is much more complicated! First, the girls are at two different "campuses", so they take the same bus but have different stops. Second, they have different schedules so that there are only two days they return home at the same time (if neither one misses the first bus home!). The third complication, or rather inconvenience, is that O will have to come along for the ride, both ways, at least until the girls feel ready to try it on their own. Yes, the price of independence is that I will have to make four rides(including 1 transfer)each day, schlepping toddler and stroller until we all feel confident for the girls to go it alone.
Imagine my delight when R announced the first day after school that she thought she could manage by herself on the second day! Of course, Mom and Dad are not yet ready for such independence, but I am looking forward to he day when I can wave from the front door in my PJs and go back inside to finish my coffee!
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Housing
The end result of our search for housing before arrival in Luneburg is that we are going to be staying in a vacation home for a month and, during that month, looking for housing in person. It was too difficult for us to conduct business over the internet, especially with the 6 hour time difference. There was also the difficulty of landlords who may have been reluctant to rent, or negotiate rent, to people they couldn't meet in person.
On the positive side, we will have someplace to settle in immediately upon arrival. We won't have to worry about finding any kind of furnishing or household goods or setting up the utilities. We'll get a feel for the neighborhoods and public transportation as well; the school and the University are some distance apart, meaning either the girls or Tom will have a commute by public bus: there are no school buses. Oh, and they will wash our linens each week!
On the other side is the fact that we can only partly settle and will have another repacking. I am going to have to rethink some of my packing strategy here at home so that we can access what we will likely need in that first month and leave the rest in our luggage. I may be able to pack a few of the duffels for immediate unpacking and keep the others untouched.
Our arrival plans at this point: Landing in Hamburg late morning Saturday. We will be met by a shuttle (I hope it is big enough!) to drive us directly to our vacation house in Luneburg, less than an hour from Hamburg. We will make a point to get outdoors and do plenty of walking to help our bodies adjust to to the time zone.
Our first mission will be food: stores in Germany are not open on Sunday, so we will need to buy food for the first couple days. Fortunately, we have already been invited to our "host" professor's home for breakfast Sunday and restaurants are open for lunch and dinner Sunday, so we will mostly need to shop for breakfast and snacks. I find food shopping in foreign countries to be a fun adventure: comparing differences in packaging and flavors of familiar foods and using our budding German to read the labels. Grocery store shopping (as opposed to farmers market shopping or ordering in a restaurant) doesn't require a great deal of communication with people who may not speak English, so the language barrier won't be too overwhelming. Since food is often the quickest way to win over my kids, especially the older two, this will be a fun introduction to Germany. A little chocolate can go a long way!
On the positive side, we will have someplace to settle in immediately upon arrival. We won't have to worry about finding any kind of furnishing or household goods or setting up the utilities. We'll get a feel for the neighborhoods and public transportation as well; the school and the University are some distance apart, meaning either the girls or Tom will have a commute by public bus: there are no school buses. Oh, and they will wash our linens each week!
On the other side is the fact that we can only partly settle and will have another repacking. I am going to have to rethink some of my packing strategy here at home so that we can access what we will likely need in that first month and leave the rest in our luggage. I may be able to pack a few of the duffels for immediate unpacking and keep the others untouched.
Our arrival plans at this point: Landing in Hamburg late morning Saturday. We will be met by a shuttle (I hope it is big enough!) to drive us directly to our vacation house in Luneburg, less than an hour from Hamburg. We will make a point to get outdoors and do plenty of walking to help our bodies adjust to to the time zone.
Our first mission will be food: stores in Germany are not open on Sunday, so we will need to buy food for the first couple days. Fortunately, we have already been invited to our "host" professor's home for breakfast Sunday and restaurants are open for lunch and dinner Sunday, so we will mostly need to shop for breakfast and snacks. I find food shopping in foreign countries to be a fun adventure: comparing differences in packaging and flavors of familiar foods and using our budding German to read the labels. Grocery store shopping (as opposed to farmers market shopping or ordering in a restaurant) doesn't require a great deal of communication with people who may not speak English, so the language barrier won't be too overwhelming. Since food is often the quickest way to win over my kids, especially the older two, this will be a fun introduction to Germany. A little chocolate can go a long way!
Monday, February 21, 2011
Voices
Sunday was very busy with activities that did not involve much packing or preparation for Germany. One of those activities included attending church. Since this was our last opportunity to attend church before we leave, I really wanted to make it to the service. Sometimes one or all of us will skip church when things get especially hectic and a couple hours at home (quiet, alone) seems like a good idea or use of time. I knew there was a possibility that this would be the case this week, but I also knew that it would be the only chance I would have for a while to find respite and reflection.
I was very close to not going. I had hopes of getting some things done in the morning before the 11:00 service, but, as it turned out, timing did not go as planned (surprise, surprise?!) and I felt frustrated knowing that the rest of the day would be filled with back-to-back activity until possibly after dinner. An hour or two to myself at home, to get things done, sounded like a good way to ease the stress. However, sitting among other adults in the Worship Center, allowing (or forcing) myself to focus on something else was something I knew I also needed. So, I went.
I am glad I went, because the Service topic was something I needed to hear. Isn't it funny how it turns out that way? Our Rev. Mark Bellitini spoke about listening to the "Inner Voice", that voice that tells you the Truth about what you need to be happy and fulfilled, as well as telling you that something isn't right for you or that changes are necessary. This is a voice that only you can hear and interpret. Some would call that voice God, but that is not part of my Truth. I am not explaining it as eloquently as Mark, but it was something that I needed to hear and reflect on, especially now.
I am running around these days with this voice in my heart, saying, "I don't like this way of being in the world and with those people I love". I reply back that this is only temporary, that when we take off for Germany and leave the clutter of our lives behind, things will calm down and we can focus on what is important. I will have time to really play games with O, read with R, and really talk with A. And Tom and I can spend time together, not just playing tag-team parenting.
However, I know that I have heard this voice quite frequently, even when not preparing for Germany. My life is so full, its like I have eaten from an all-you-can-eat buffet and at the end of the meal, rather than feeling satisfied, I feel discomfort and regret.
I am looking forward to this opportunity to take a five month step back from my everyday life. I want to look at it from a new perspective, both from a distance and through the view of a different culture. I want to have the quiet to listen to that inner voice and to have a starting point to make positive changes in my life.
I was very close to not going. I had hopes of getting some things done in the morning before the 11:00 service, but, as it turned out, timing did not go as planned (surprise, surprise?!) and I felt frustrated knowing that the rest of the day would be filled with back-to-back activity until possibly after dinner. An hour or two to myself at home, to get things done, sounded like a good way to ease the stress. However, sitting among other adults in the Worship Center, allowing (or forcing) myself to focus on something else was something I knew I also needed. So, I went.
I am glad I went, because the Service topic was something I needed to hear. Isn't it funny how it turns out that way? Our Rev. Mark Bellitini spoke about listening to the "Inner Voice", that voice that tells you the Truth about what you need to be happy and fulfilled, as well as telling you that something isn't right for you or that changes are necessary. This is a voice that only you can hear and interpret. Some would call that voice God, but that is not part of my Truth. I am not explaining it as eloquently as Mark, but it was something that I needed to hear and reflect on, especially now.
I am running around these days with this voice in my heart, saying, "I don't like this way of being in the world and with those people I love". I reply back that this is only temporary, that when we take off for Germany and leave the clutter of our lives behind, things will calm down and we can focus on what is important. I will have time to really play games with O, read with R, and really talk with A. And Tom and I can spend time together, not just playing tag-team parenting.
However, I know that I have heard this voice quite frequently, even when not preparing for Germany. My life is so full, its like I have eaten from an all-you-can-eat buffet and at the end of the meal, rather than feeling satisfied, I feel discomfort and regret.
I am looking forward to this opportunity to take a five month step back from my everyday life. I want to look at it from a new perspective, both from a distance and through the view of a different culture. I want to have the quiet to listen to that inner voice and to have a starting point to make positive changes in my life.
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