Posted in German Diary, Summer 2005
Last summer 2005 I had the opportunity of a lifetime. My sister, who has lived in Germany for over twenty years, invited me to come spend some time with her and her family in Stuttgart and provided the means for me to get there. I jumped at the chance! My sister is a singer, trained in opera but at that time was plying her trade with a successful vocal ensemble that performs contemporary music. Her work involved and she had two performances, one in Berlin and one in Cologne, scheduled while I was there and I was privileged to travel with her. She is happily married to a German and they have a delightful son, now seven, who was just finishing up kindergarten when I was there and perparing to start first grade in the fall.
In order to share some of my experience, I have edited the journal entries I wrote while in Germany and also the e-mails that I sent home to my family, sort of "smooshed" them together and posted/will be posting them here. When I learn how to post photographs I hope to add a few of those!
Saturday, July 9, 2005
The countdown has started to when I get to go home. I miss my family. I miss my things and I miss my routines. But I am just now getting to the point where I don't feel quite so bewildered here, at least not all the time. I can see how it would be possible to just step out and make your way around a foreign country. I think maybe My husband has the right of it--you need to stay for awhile. But you need to bring your honey with you!!! :)
Sunday, July 10, 2005
Ludwigsberg yesterday. Esslinger today. I think I am "sight-seed" out!!
Monday, July 11, 2005
A funny thing: in a German village, Esslinger, in a medieval tower, in an Ilatalian eiscafe, listening to Jethro Tull. That is Germany.
Posted in German Diary, Summer 2005
Last summer 2005 I had the opportunity of a lifetime. My sister, who has lived in Germany for over twenty years, invited me to come spend some time with her and her family in Stuttgart and provided the means for me to get there. I jumped at the chance! My sister is a singer, trained in opera but at that time was plying her trade with a successful vocal ensemble that performs contemporary music. Her work involved and she had two performances, one in Berlin and one in Cologne, scheduled while I was there and I was privileged to travel with her. She is happily married to a German and they have a delightful son, now seven, who was just finishing up kindergarten when I was there and perparing to start first grade in the fall.
In order to share some of my experience, I have edited the journal entries I wrote while in Germany and also the e-mails that I sent home to my family, sort of "smooshed" them together and posted/will be posting them here. When I learn how to post photographs I hope to add a few of those!
Tuesday, July 5, 2005
Now we are in Koln [Cologne]. I am sitting in the room of a rather quaint hotel--dark wood, marble floors--the Hotel Windsor. My sister is at a rehearsal for her concert. She should be back soon. After we got here, we walked back to the Romisch Germanisch [sp?] Museum, where my sister left me to do that tourist thing while she went on to her rehearsal. That was after a yummy Chinese (!!) meal in a nearby Chinese restaurant ("Big China"--funny name!).
After wandering through Koelnish Rome for a couple of hours or so, I had tired feet and my fill of Roman artifacts. (Though I did find it very interesting! Made me want to read some Lindsey Davis!) So... as we had arranged, I made my way back to the train station which is next to the Dom (the Cathedral--now that is an impressive structure!) which is next to the Roman museum, where I caught a taxi back to the hotel.
It is quite exciting and fun to be here, to see this incredible stuff! to be here... and yet I can't seem to help myself now from thinking "one week from now I will be going home". I think it's because I'm a visitor. I'm not here with my family, trying to set up a home, to set up routines. Because that is what I miss--my family, my routines. And ice! :)
Wednesday, July 6, 2005
It's raining this morning in Cologne. We can hear pigeons cooing. They live in this little courtyard behind the buildings. I see a row of little spikes along the windowsill. It must be to keep the pigeons off!
Posted in German Diary, Summer 2005
Last summer I had the opportunity of a lifetime. My sister, who has lived in Germany for over twenty years, invited me to come spend some time with her and her family in Stuttgart and provided the means for me to get there. I jumped at the chance! My sister is a singer, trained in opera but currently plying her trade with a successful vocal ensemble that performs contemporary music. She does quite a bit of traveling as a result and had two performances, one in Berlin and one in Cologne, scheduled while I was there and I was privileged to travel with her. She is happily married to a German and they have a delightful six-year-old son, who was just finishing up kindergarten when I was there and perparing to start first grade in the fall.
In order to share some of my experience, I have edited the journal entries I wrote while in Germany and also the e-mails that I sent home to my family, sort of "smooshed" them together and posted/will be posting them here. When I learn how to post photographs I hope to add a few of those!
Friday, July 1, 2005
We arrived yesterday. It was just a short plane hop from Stuttgart (an hour and a half?). We stowed our luggage in a train station locker and set off to find the beginning of our walking tour, sort of an overview of the history of Berlin. It was a sunny day (the last we were to see for awhile!) but cool and the tour was four hours long. It was extremely captivating and, though my endurance was tested as well as my ability to understand the British dialect of our tour guide (frustrating! he was speaking English and I had a hard time understanding him!), I was fascinated the entire time.
Afterwards we recovered our luggage and took the S Bahn out to the suburbs of Berlin where we spent the night with my brother-in-law's aunt and uncle. It was a delightful evening--marvelous food and interesting conversation--memories of Berlin--during the war, when the wall went up (1961), when the wall came down (1989), and visiting East Berlin during the cold war. (My sister has her own memories of that.) The aunt had been a flight attendent and knew English, but when she got caught up in what she had to say she would lapse into German. The uncle spoke some English, but he wasn't comfortable in it and mostly spoke German. They expected my sister to translate, but she complained they didn't give her time! I followed a lot of it, but I imagine I missed a lot, too.
After riding the S Bahn back into the city and checking into the hotel today, my sister and I did a little more sightseeing. We visited the Jewish Cultural Center in the "New" Synogogue. This building was mostly destroyed, burnt out during the pogroms of World War II and has been/is being restored and rebuilt (though not the entire building) in the original vein, leaving the modern evident, letting it be obvious how much was destroyed. We visited medieval buildings, too. The antiquity of what I saw amazes me. We had a relaxed lunch at the Rocco (an excellent--large!--chicken burger with salad and fries) under the S Bahn. It runs on a historical brick trestle with many shops and restaruants built under it.
Now I'm settled into my hotel room. Just blanked out for at least an hour watching CNN (and listening to English!). I needed that. I'm not used to my sister's pace of life--nor her PACE either! I'm going to have muscled legs after this weekend! And I just need to retreat a bit. I never would have thought being surrounded by German would be stressful. Or maybe it's just being surrounded by the unfamiliar.
Sunday, July 3, 2005
Yesterday we went to two museums--The Story of Berlin, which included a still-ready nuclear fallout shelter, and the Jewish museum. We also saw the Dom (where I bought postcards), a Lutheran cathedral from the 1800s, and the restored bit of another cathedral--it had suffered war damage. It is left as is, broken, as a reminder of that time!
About eight, we ate dinner at a little restaurant called Honigmond, which is "Honeymoon" in English. I had pasta with cheese sauce and mushrooms and dried tomatoes--excellent. And we had champagne and wine. We talked and talked and it started to get dark. About ten we walked back to the hotel as the night life of Berlin was beginning. That was a very peaceful walk, just sort of watching this part of Germany without trying to "focus", listen to a lecture, or study a museum exhibit.
Monday, July 4, 2005
Independence Day in the United States, but just another work day in Germany. In fact, the construction workers are arriving and the machinery is starting up now outside my hotel window here in Berlin--at 7 a.m.! Today we go home to Stuttgart.
Yesterday we went to a museum [the Ephraim Museum?] on childhood in Berlin from 1945 to the present. It was interesting comparing east and west as well as old and new. Of course, it was all in German, so I imagine I missed much of it. It was housed in another wonderful old building--had been a merchant's house.
We walked around that incredibly old medieval square again and went into the oldest church in Berlin, Nikolai Church (if I remember correctly--1230). Had lunch at a nearby cafe--yummy potato pancakes. (It was a potato restaurant!) Wish I could bring home the menu. Some of the things on it were so funny--to us.
After lunch we went to the modern section of Berlin--Potsdamer Platz--shiny metal and glass. We took a very fast elevator up 24 floors to see a panoramic view of the city!
In the evening I met my brother-in-law's aunt and uncle for Chief Joseph, my sister's opera (very contemporary--weird--but very interesting, and mostly in English!), and then afterwards we all went out for a bite to eat and drink, sitting out at the sidewalk table, sipping beer on a summer evening in Berlin.
Posted in German Diary, Summer 2005
Last summer I had the opportunity of a lifetime. My sister, who has lived in Germany for over twenty years, invited me to come spend some time with her and her family in Stuttgart and provided the means for me to get there. I jumped at the chance! My sister is a singer, trained in opera but currently plying her trade with a successful vocal ensemble that performs contemporary music. She does quite a bit of traveling as a result and had two performances, one in Berlin and one in Cologne, scheduled while I was there and I was privileged to travel with her. She is happily married to a German and they have a delightful six-year-old son, who was just finishing up kindergarten when I was there and perparing to start first grade in the fall.
In order to share some of my experience, I have edited the journal entries I wrote while in Germany and also the e-mails that I sent home to my family, sort of "smooshed" them together and posted/will be posting them here. When I learn how to post photographs I hope to add a few of those! We begin with my arrival in Stuttgart. :D
Saturday, June 25, 2005
I am in Stuttgart! The flights all went like clockwork, which was a real blessing. It is a very lo-o-o-ong flight from Atlanta to Stuttgart, a long time to sit still in one little seat. The flight attendents keep you well-fed and there is music to listen to or a movie to watch. But knowing it would be morning in Germany when I landed, I was determined to sleep. But I couldn't very well, though I did doze off and on. Over the ocean, we flew by a thunderstorm, miles high stacks of clouds lit up from the inside by lightning! Quite a show! And the moon shone bright and clear. The night was only about three hours long. I arrived 9:00 a.m. German time, midnight my time!
My sister and her husband have a beautiful apartment--light and airy with wood floors and lots of old-fashioned touches. And the yard! --a little piece of the country--a bit of garden, a bit of orchard, a yard, a rabbit run, laundry lines--right here in the city. She says she never wants to move again.
I managed a nap this afternoon for about forty minutes. Listened to birds singing and the neighbor "gardener" whistling as he puttered around his plants on the porch right outside my bedroom door.
Now it is 8.45 p.m. We are about to have a light dinner and then I am off to bed. I can hardly hold my eyes open! It's only 11.45 a.m. where you are......
June 26, 2005
A little more about my sister's house. I get to sleep in a lovely "garden room". It's the room in the basement that opens onto their backyard through beautiful glass doors with lacey curtains. The yard/garden is lovely--lush and green, a little piece of the country here in the city. There are fruit trees and a little garden and grass and a rabbit run (though I haven't seen any rabbits yet). It's a community yard, shared by everyone who lives in this building. The building is a lovely old house that's been divided into apartments. My sister and her husband have half of the first floor and the basement (they call it the cellar). High celings, wood floors, very light and airy, long tall windows--which are open now because of the warm (and somewhat muggy) weather and I can hear birds just singing away. My sister has just left to catch the S Bahn to the airport; she is off to Berlin for her concert and will be back tomorrow. We are planning on going to a park this afternoon where there is a small railroad. My nephew, who is six, is just crazy about all things mechanical and transportational, but most especially trains.
Well, the flights here went fine. From Seattle to Atlanta was just a little over four hours and the flight to Stuttgart was just under nine--so THIRTEEN hours all together. I watched the Cascades, eastern Washington, and (I think) the Rockies go by under me. And then lots of midwestern farmlands through patchy clouds. After awhile there seemed to be lots of waterways down below, so I thought we must be getting down south and soon we were in Atlanta.
In the airport, I started to hike from one end of the concourse to the other, but about 2/3 of the way there I changed my mind and rode the sideways train the rest of the way. They have lots of moving sidewalks there; those were fun. I knew I had reached the right gate because I started hearing German!--passengers going home.
In Stuttgart, I breezed through customs--just walked through the gate that said "nothing to declare" and there was the familiar and welcome face of my sister! And her six-year-old son, too. We rode the S Bahn--the subway--from the airport to Bad Cannstatt which is the part of town where they live, then changed to the street car--the U Bahn--to their neighborhood, toting luggage all the way. So glad for those wheels on the dufflebag!!
Dad would like it here: lots of bread--many different kinds, cheeses, too, and, of course, beer!
This German keyboard is interesting--the Y and the Z are interchanged and a lot of the punctuation marks are in different places. Plus some ones we don't even have!
Monday, June 27, 2005
We are having sun here again today--I think today may be hotter than yesterday--no clouds in the sky. It was quite warm walking home wondering where I was! Yahoo says it's 88 right now.
This morning when I woke up I was the only adult home. My brother-in-law had gone to work and my sister was still in Berlin. So guess who was responsible for getting my nephew dressed and walking him to Kindergarten? (This was planned the night before, it wasn't a surprise. LOL) We did fine. He rode his bike and waited at each and every corner for me to catch up. He was showing me the way there. When we arrived the teacher said good morning (in German, of course) and the first words out of my nephew's mouth (also in German) were, "She doesn't speak German." :)
Then I had to find my way back home all by myself. Which I did, though I didn't go the same way my nephew had brought me. I missed a turn somewhere but I came to a street name I recognized (I had made careful note of the street names!) and turned, then came to another I recognized, and then there I was on my sister's street! Whew! It was hot and I was glad to get back and hop into the shower. :)
Now my sister is back from Berlin. She has just left on her bicycle to go get her son from Kindergarten.
June 28, 2005
Well, now my nephew and I have read through all three of the My Father's Dragon books by Ruth Stiles Gannett. I remember reading those with my 15yo daughter when she was 9 or 10. Fond memories.
Last night for dinner we had...... white asparagus! (Just before I left for Germany we had heard a piece on the radio about the German fad of eating white asparagus.) And I now know the "proper" way to eat it: with two kinds of ham--one is baked, the other is smoked "raw", with potatoes and hollandaise sauce and white wine. Very yummy! The basic German diet seems to me to be: meat, potatoes, bread, cheese. Though I saw plenty of fruits and vegetables in the market. My sister tells me the health conscious are adding fruit and veggies to their diets these days.
Today, after we took my nephew to Kindergarten, my sister and I walked around the Connstatt Market. I took some pictures of the interesting old buildings from the Middle Ages, the 1600s. We went to a cheese stall with ALL kinds of cheeses where she let us taste the different kinds to pick out the ones we wanted to buy. And we went to a Greek foods stall to buy some olives and other spreads. Again, he kept giving us tastes of things. I felt like I could just stand there and eat lunch!
My sister and her family have no car. And living in the city as they do with the excellent public transportation system, it's not that great of a hardship. So whenever we go anywhere--if it's too far to walk--we take the U Bahn. Sometimes we have to change streetcars. We hop off one, cross the street to another stop, and wait a few minutes for the next streetcar to come by. They run very often, every few minutes or so. So I am hoping that although I am eating lots of bread and cheese and potatoes, I am getting plenty of exercise and walking it off!!
It is very warm again today--88 degrees again. Good clothes drying weather. There is no dryer here, so I helped my sister out hanging up clothes to dry. They have a small laundry rack set up inside the house. Very handy! We are planning a big salad for dinner--too hot to cook!
June 29, 2005
In answer to a question from one of my daughters: No, the teacher at the kindergarten did NOT speak English! She said my nephew's name and something about his mama's sister (the words sound a lot alike in German and English), so I figured she was talking about me and smiled and nodded and stuck out my hand and said my name and she said her name. I said "bye bye" to my nephew (who was zooming on out to the play yard by then) and then I said bye bye to her and she said bye bye to me. A very short conversation!
While I can't say I'm exactly homesick yet, it does seem awfully strange not to have my family with me! Not to be able to point out things to them, to comment on things...... I still have my watch on "home time". It's easier for me to add nine hours to figure out what time it is here (when I need to--there're clocks here, of course) than to subtract nine hours to figure out the time back home. It still surprises me when I get to this late afternoon time to realize, they're just starting their day.
Today my sister took me into the city center of Stuttgart. Not only did we see old old buildings, castles and churches, she showed me around some of the places where she sang when she was going to school here, including the opera house. We saw buildings from the middle ages (1400s), from the 1700s, and brand new. It was very interesting to see them all side by side.
We do a lot of hopping on and off and changing of trains or streetcars-- the U Bahn and the S Bahn. I'm still mostly confused, though I'm starting to recognize names of stops like Bad Connstatt and Frederich-List-Heim which is where we get off for my sister's house.
This afternoon we set up a "slip & slide" in the backyard. It took two German moms and two American moms and a young German boy to figure out how to get a proper hose connection, but when it was finally going it was a hit with all the kinder!
Thursday, June 30, 2005
We had a thunderstorm last night! My sister was at a parents meeting for the kindergarten and I was working on the computer--helping with a translation she was working on (not translating, just rearranging the English into more familiar order!). My brother-in-law had turned out the lights. He was watching soccer on TV (the World Cup?) When the wind blew up and the thunder started rolling and the lightning started flashing, it was all very dramatic!
Today we leave for Berlin!
