Is it still snowing???

One thing has remained constant since we arrived in Goettingen: stuff keeps falling from the sky. As the temperatures have dropped, the stuff has turned from rain to snow. Now snow is a lot more fun than rain, and we have even discovered new uses. We built an igloo with our Finnish neighbor, for instance, which provided daytime enjoyment. Then we added a snow bar and a snow table, where we met for Glühwein (hot mulled wine) in the evening while the kids sled down the unplowed street. (Riding our bikes to the University has turned into an extreme sport.)

Socializing in the winter here normally involves standing around in the cold drinking alcohol, and so we have acquired some long underwear to partake in the festivities. One highlight is the Weinachtsmarkt (Christmas market), a large outdoor market with many food stands and a few stands selling ornaments, hats, scarves, etc. There is even a small ferris wheel for those who really want to freeze their buts off. We stayed on the ground and consumed our fair share of sausages and chocolate-
filled crepes.

In addition to end-of-the-year tests, the kids in school prepared a Christmas presentation. Nora's class recited a poem-- different groups memorized different verses, and the whole thing came off quite well. Nora was quite tickled to have recited two verses of "Das Renntier" ("The Reindeer") in her now very good German. Oliver's class read a Christmas story and some children played musical instruments. Oliver read his part with great dramatic expression.



We are staying put for Christmas, and will travel to Paris on Dec. 26th. The "Weinachtsman" (Santa Claus") arrives on Christmas-Eve here, and we were lucky enough to catch a glimpse of him emerging throught the forest, though sadly after the kids had gone to bed.

We wish you all a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Halloween or Martin Luther??

Since Advent starts tomorrow, we thought it would be a good thing to write about what we did for Halloween. That way you can expect to hear about Christmas sometime around Valentine's Day! Since Halloween is not widely celebrated in Germany, and is even frowned upon in some quarters, we figured that we had better host a Halloween party so that Oliver and Nora could mark the holiday. It also provided an opportunity to invite the kids' new friends to our home. Our apartment is rather small, and we ended up having eleven kids in all. Oliver thought that we should turn the whole evening into a disco party, but we figured that our neighbors downstairs might not like this idea.  

To make a long story short, we survived a 3 1/2 hour party with 9 German kids plus Oliver and Nora! Ages ranged from 6 to 10.  We have learned that to do a home party, one needs to structure activities in order to avoid the event declining into body slamming and yelling, which seems to be the natural state of circa 9 year old boys. Highpoints included a scavenger hunt with two teams that followed visual clues to a treasure box; a "monster lab" in the basement (hat tip to Molly Pasco-Pranger), where Mike took kids in groups of three, blindfolded, and invited them to see a monster that he had taken apart. It was very important that they not look at the monster, he told them, or it would come alive again. He had them touch the monster's finger bones (celery), finger nails (corn flakes), tongue (dog treat), teeth (wet pumpkin seeds), eye balls (peeled grapes), snot (corn starch and water), and brain (cooked spaghetti with olive oil). It was quite something! Lastly, I invented a game of pin-the-tail-on-the-devil.  Of course the boys immediately saw that the tail could double as  devil's penis (The German word for tail, "Schwanz," has two meanings...). Oh well. We all had fun. 

The kids did go trick-or-treating the day after the party with some neighbor kids, and were rather shocked when some people turned off their lights or closed the door in their face. 

The booty was rather meager, although it did include "Martin Luther bonbons," which a man had procured from his church especially for the occasion, since Oct. 31st is also Reformation Day.


Oliver and Nora had more success on St. Martin's Day (Nov. 11th), which children celebrate in Germany by processing with beautiful hand-made lanterns through the neighborhood and singing songs about St. Martin. They received a much more positive reception from neighbors, who filled their sacks with candy and even sang along.

Switzerland!

We've just returned from a great week in Switzerland. The kids had a two-week fall break. Remember that they started school on August 4th, so they were very ready for some time off. They spent the first week at a soccer day-camp. Oliver loved it, and Nora held her own, even though she was the only girl in her group. Soccer here seems to be more  of a boy-thing. For the second week we headed south to the land of milk chocolate and stinky cheese, despite dire weather predictions. We were eager to see family, so off we went. We stayed a few nights in Wil to visit with Katherine's grandma and great aunt and uncle, and also made a trip to Zurich to visit Katherine's aunt Moni. Then we headed up to the Toggenburg with Uncle Sepp and Aunt Margrit to the family cabin with an amazing view of the Churfirsten (seven mountains all in a row).

The first day we didn't see much except for cow pies because the whole valley was covered in thick fog.

However, the next day brought beautiful sunshine, and so we took a walk with Aunt Margrit and Uncle Sepp along our side of the hill, meeting with farm dogs and cats along the way.

Churfirsten

Schafberg, 2239 meters

We spent the next two days in the hut alone, built fires, hiked, read, played games, and listened to Swiss radio. There is no television or telephone in the hut, and only one room is heated, and so one ends up spending a lot of time together.

Scarred by previous unsuccessful fire-building attempts, we put too much wood in the oven on the first morning. The result was that the living room/dining room/family room felt like a sauna and we had to hang out in our underwear (sorry, no photo). After procuring some serious winter boots, we embarked on a terrific, long hike up a snowy mountainside to the Selamatt. The snow was knee-deep at the top, and we kind of lost the path. However, we were richly rewarded at the top with a steaming plate of french fries. No matter how high you go in Switzerland, there is always a nice restaurant at the top.

Säntis (2,502 m)

From the Selamatt we walked to a cable car station, and took a ride to the top of the Chaeserrug (2400 meters). The view was simply incredible, even in the chilly -7 celsius temperatures.

View from the Chäserugg into the Alps, 2262 m

The rest of the week we spent with family in Wil, and traveled to an impressive monastic library in St. Gallen. All in all, it was a much needed break, and we returned to Goettingen refreshed. The kids' German improved dramatically over the course of the week, and they were very happy to find their friends back home.

Tae-Kwon-Do, sort of

It has been a while since we last posted. Mostly we have been busy grinding through Oliver's homework with him.

I (Katherine) have definitely realized my limits a math tutor. Thankfully Mike is now doing more of the tutoring. We have also been trying to  figure out a work schedule for both of us that that accommodates the kids (who are done with school at the ungodly hour of 1pm) as well as all of the strange library hours on campus. The Forschungsbibliothek, which is Mike's main interest, is only open between 11am and 5pm, which is rather limiting, especially since he tends to have more patience with homework. They have reduced hours to undertake a massive inventory. Earlier this year some rare books went missing--turned out the director had tried to sell some of the collection for personal gain.

At any rate, something funny happened today, which I am delighted to report.

Oliver has been doing soccer, which is great, but Nora really needs an activity, plus the kids need to do something when it is pouring buckets of rain outside. Both Oliver and Nora have really enjoyed Kung Fu in Middletown, so we set out to find the closest possible martial art in Göttingen. Mike has taken them to Tae Kwon Do the last two Tuesday afternoons, and today (Friday) was my turn. As it turns out Friday is not devoted to Tae Kwon Do techniques whatsoever. Instead they set up an incredibly elaborate and slightly militaristic obstacle course in gymnasium. There were vaults, ropes, climbing structures, rings, inclined planes, trampolines, balance beams, you name it. Oliver, as usual, jumped right in, even though he didn't quite understand what was going on. Typically, Nora studied the situation for a few minutes and then asked, "what order are we supposed to do things in?" I feared that she would be overwhelmed by the equipment, not to mention the teenage boys who were jumping off trampolines and doing forward flips onto mats. There was a set of parallel bars that were six feet off the ground. How is she going to get on those, I asked? Well, she did it. She attacked each object as if her life depended on it. Six foot parallel bars? It is a good thing that she is flexible. She hooked one foot  over and pulled herself up, then the other. She then walked across them. Scaling a wooden crate that is six feet tall? Not a problem either. When it came to the rings, she had a problem, as the box that she had climbed up to reach them wasn't tall enough (all the other kids are older and taller). I watched to see what she would do. Well, she took a leap of faith toward the rings, missed, and fell onto the mat. Not flustered, she continued onto the trampoline. The next time, other students helped her reach the rings, and away she went. The kids raced around the obstacle course for a solid hour, as I looked on, alternately laughing, and reading a book on a Belgian Symbolist poet who wrote about ennui. One line from the book says it all: "The Flambeaux noirs is the confession of one who has surrendered to a state of hopeless acquiescence in a cruel and inexorable fate, and is rapidly drifting towards the annihilation of his consciousness in insanity." The book provided a rather strange accompaniment to the obstacle course, to say the least.

After the gymnastics exercises, we headed onto the movies to see a wonderful film, "Le Petit Nicolas," based on some of my favorite French books. The film didn't loose much being dubbed into German. It was a full afternoon, and I think that the kids will sleep late tomorrow morning. Oliver has a soccer game. So far his team has lost every game this season, and tomorrow they have to play the best team in the league. I will be happy if he comes home with two shoes on.

Huge Quads and Suburban Bliss

We live on a not negligible hill. So the view is pretty good, but the bike ride home can get pretty tough. I'm expecting that by the end of the year we'll all have huge quads.

Behind the house is a path into the forest. Don't be fooled by the sun-dappled leaves; they're usually rain-dappled. To deal with the hill and the rain, and to get the kids to activities, we bought this lovely 1993 Ford Escort.

Oliver is delighted to live in a modern housing development with nature nearby and friends next door. He and his friend, Felix, play soccer in the cul-de-sac (rain or shine) and the kids can all walk down these foot-paths to school. Nora walks with two girls who live across the street. Katherine's father found a wild apple tree on the side of the road, and we now have about 5 pounds of apple sauce. We need to eat it pretty quickly since it is using up one of our good bowls and about a quarter of the small fridge.

It has been officially declared that this was the rainiest August in Germany since 1881. We are so happy to have been here for such an historic occasion.

The Eiffel Tower of Lower Saxony

From our posts thus far, you might think that Lower Saxony contains only rain clouds and steep hills. However, it also has major architectural monuments, including the Faguswerk, a shoe factory designed by Walter Gropius beginning in 1911 that served as the model for the Dessau Bauhaus school. A shoe factory, you might ask? Why yes! The French might build iron monuments to nothing, but the ever-so-practical Germans need to know that their monuments to modernity make dollars and cents (or Reichsmarke, or the case may be). The key features of the factory include large spans of glass windows, a few glass corners that seem to float in the air, and a total interior design down to bathroom fixtures.

We visited the factory last Sunday (in the rain), and were quite amazed by the design. It still functions as a factory, but there are good exhibits devoted to its history and importance for twentieth century architecture. It is on the list of monuments currently being considered for Unesco World Heritage Status! And all this in homey Lower Saxony. We hope that this will warm the kids up for a visit to Dessau later this year.

Whew! We made it through the first month

As tomorrow marks a month since our departure, we thought it would be good to start writing things down before we forget everything! It has been an eventful month. We arrived one week before the kids started school, and spent the first week getting over jet lag and purchasing a seemingly endless list of school supplies. Nora entered first grade, which is the first year of formal schooling in Germany. They celebrate it big time, with a church service (even though it is a public school), an all-school assembly, a procession of the first graders out of the auditorium into their classes, and a reception complete with "Zuckertuete," cone-shaped containers full of sweets and school stuff. Of course all this happened before we had a car, so I ended up lugging our Zuckertuette home on my bicycle uphill, with the plastic bag full of its contents swinging in the breeze. Everything seemed to be working until my chain fell off... At any rate, the Zuckertuette survived the trip, albeit with a few bruises, and the kids were delighted (we also got one for Oliver, so he wouldn't miss out on the fun.

Both Oliver and Nora are having good school experiences, and go to school happily, even though we are not quite sure exactly how much they are understanding.

We are living in the top storey of a house located on a hill at the city's edge with the forest directly behind us. We have a great view from our balcony down into the city (10 minutes by bike downhill, 20 minutes riding home uphill-- unless your bike chain falls off). Our landlords are quite lovely, and there are a lot of young families nearby. Oliver and Nora walk to school down a tree-lined path with classmates, and very much enjoy this independence. Oliver is managing quite a lot of homework, with various levels of protest. He seems to like the German, but balks at some of the math problems (the notation here is different). He is in the fourth grade, which is an important schooling year here, as it decides whether one will be tracked to the Gymnasium (college-prep) or a trade school. A lot is expected of them. Nora will have an easier year, since she already learned how to write and some reading in kindergarten. Basically this year she is doing the same thing, but auf Deutsch. To compensate for Oliver's many hours of homework, he has joined a terrific soccer team with some of his friends from the neighborhood. The coach is from Afghanistan, and the players are nice, good, and supportive. Soccer has been a great point of connection for him, since he only has to learn a few key terms. He also went on a four day class field trip to the Reiterhof Hirschberg, where played soccer (in the rain), rode horses, and didn't change his pants. We've signed up Nora for violin lessons through the school.

Mike has done yeoman's work registering our existence with all sorts of bureaucracies. He has collected file upon file, and diligently figured out the somewhat abstruse German bureaucratise. Perhaps his greatest coup so far, however, has been the purchasing of a bargain, quirky 1993 Ford Escort (600 Euros, 100,000 km). It is a zippy red color, and looks good from the side where you don't see the rust. We had hoped to survive the year on public transporation, but the soccer fields are located outside of town off of our bus line, and we figured that the bike ride would be a little cold in February. Plus we need to give our kids four power bars and a pep talk before asking them to bike up our rather significant hill. We had a bumpy first week with the car, as it failed to start most of the time. However it started just enough to give us hope, only to be disappointed the next time. We did manage to take a nice excursion to celebrate my birthday in a nearby forest (it rained) with a pleasant Gaststätte.

 

However, after one too many panic attacks, we took the car into the garage, where we learned that its rather baroque wiring had been sapping all the juice out of the battery. Germans normally drive new, powerful cars, and the mechanic seemed slightly bemused at our find. He gave Mike some tips, such as don't park the car on a hill, as the parking break is a little loose. This is of course a little problematic since we live on a hill, but we have found some level ground about a block away from our home. We thought that we could do no worse than our 1990 Mazda at home, but we seem to have outdone ourselves. The good thing is that the car managed to survive the rigorous TUEV-- the biannual exam required of all cars in Germany, so we will not get pulled over. Now if our car stalls on the side of the road, that is a different matter...

My (Katherine's) parents came to visit in August, and that gave us a chance for the two of us to go to Berlin for one night (two days). We spent all of our time in art museums that the kids would not want to see, and had a terrific time.

Woods behind our house with mom and dad

In case you are wondering about the blog's title, just check the weather. It has rained pretty much every day since we have been here, except for about three days. Most days it rains three different times in three different ways. We are considering getting rubber pants.