New Year's in Paris

We realize that it has been a very long time since our last post. Part of this is due to a busy winter, where Katherine traveled for six weeks for research in Brussels and Weimar and her parents visited for a month to help out, which was much appreciated. Now life has returned to "normal," and so we can finally share our wonderful New Year's visit to Paris.

Looking at these pictures makes us happy, and they pretty much say it all, but we'll try to fill in some of the details. We had the wonderful offer to stay in an apartment owned by parents of a friend, which meant that we had a real home away from home and could take advantage of all the great food shopping in the neighborhood. Although Mike and I know the city quite well, we wanted to introduce it to Oliver and Nora and show them the greatest hits. As we came up out of the metro at the stop "Pont Neuf" and looked out over the Seine to the Ile de la Cité, Oliver's first word was "wow." I hoped that he would be impressed by the city, and indeed he was. He was up for anything during the trip, and even asked to be taken to more art museums (which warmed the cockles of his mother's heart). Nora was a real trooper, but perhaps a little less ready to absorb all the history. After three days of serious sight-seeing, she declared that today would be a day with "no museums and no towers." This is hard to avoid in Paris.


We started our exploration of the city at Notre Dame.

From there we went to the Pompidou. Although the square in front has become rather subdued, the building never ceases to delight, and Oliver and Nora loved running up and down the escalators. We later returned for a look in the permanent collection-- Nora spent quite a while in front of three paintings by Matisse of windows painted in various levels of abstraction. Oliver enjoyed a show of Mondrian and De Stijl and the works of Kandinsky. It was enormously fun to see them engaging with the works.

Although Christmas-New Year's is a busy tourist season in Paris with long lines at the major attractions, we could not avoid the Eiffel Tower, which Oliver desperately wanted to ascend. En route there we visited the Arc de Triumphe.

From there we headed to the Eiffel Tower. Don't get me wrong-- the Eiffel Tower is a fine monuemnt, but in my view it is better viewed from a distance. The line to go up is interminable. We happened to pick a rainy, foggy day, and the views from the top were not very auspicious, but up we went anyway. We spent a total of about three hours in line, half of that to go up, the other half to get down. We had a good ten minutes at the top before the rain got to be too much, and we decided that we didn't want to wait in yet another line to use the bathroom. It was an exercise in endurance, but we very much enjoyed the view later that evening of the Tower from the new footbridge built across the Seine. We recovered from our tower experience by going to the Musée du Quai Branly, the new museum for African and Oceanic Art located nearby-- it is an innovative building with  displays of objects that foreground aesthetics rather than historical information.

Day 3 consisted of a trip to the Louvre, which involved a line about a quarter of a mile long to get in.

In the "good old days" Mike and I used to be able to enter via side entrance for free by showing a letter that we were full-time researchers. However times have changed, and we now have to wait in the regular line along with the rest of the world. This being said, the Louvre courtyard offers certain pleasures while you wait-- it isn't the worst place to stand around for an hour, and we actually enjoyed the experience. Inside we saw some of the highlights-- Greek and Roman statues, Michelangelo's slaves, and of course the gallery of nineteenth-century French painting, where I am afraid that I talked Oliver and Nora's ears off. Oliver insisted on getting a look at the Mona Lisa, which basically consisted of us cramming into a crowded room and lifting him up above our shoulders so that he could see a small painting encased in bullet-proof casing-- he was content with this, although I doubt that he managed to see much.

From there we crossed the Seine to have lunch in the area around St. Germain des Près. The kids were tired, but managed to revive a bit after some steak-frites.
By now you might understand why after three days Nora proclaimed that she would visit no towers or museums. This was ok, and we took the opportunity to visit friends in the city. We ended up seeing a lot of friends, in fact. Our clock kept getting pushed back, and we returned home late (around 11pm) most nights, except for New Year's when we left the party "early" at 3am.

After rallying for the incredibly nice and fun New Year's celebration, Nora was pretty much out of commission, so Mike and Oliver embarked on their own tour of military Paris, which took them to the Invalides and Bastille.

They both truly enjoyed this, and Mike fed Oliver's enthusiasm for the history of the Revolution and World War I.

Mike also got in touch with his masculinity at the École Militaire.



Nora and I met the boys at the end of the day at Sacré Coeur before meeting a friend for dinner.





By this point our trip was almost over, and we cheated by celebrating epiphany a few days early so as to sample a "galette du roi," a nice flaky pastry with a little plastic king hidden in it-- whoever finds it gets to be king/queen for the day.

We were quite sad to leave, but some of Katherine's nostalgia wore off when she experienced a nightmare scenario trying to change their reservation on the TGV. Weather had been an issue all along, and we wanted to leave on an earlier train so as to make our connection in Mannheim. The problem was that we had made our reservations in Germany, and the French attendants couldn't read our tickets, let alone figure out how to locate our reservation within their system (so much for Franco-German partnership). After traveling to three train stations, speaking to five attendants as well as three policemen who forcefully evacuated the ticketing area due to a "suspect package," she managed to find someone who knew what he was doing, who changed the reservation in about 2 minutes. From there she raced across the city to meet Mike and the kids at the train with not a minute to spare!

It was nice to get back to Göttingen, and fortunately, our friend Sylvie had prepared us by playing us a recording of the song, "Göttingen" (1968) by the Parisian chanteuse Barbara--it is worth looking up if you don't already know it.

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.