Grüße aus...

Auf Wiedersehen!

2008-04-09T08:35:00.000-07:00

I started this blog shortly after Karl and I moved to Germany to start a 2 year adventure. I wanted it to be a way for our families to keep in touch with us across such a great distance and a way for me to share with you the wonders of Europe. And I think it served those purposes. And thank you all for reading it!

But I think it's time to retire this dear little blog of mine. As many of you know, we have recently made the decision to make our move to Germany permanent so this adventure is going to continue until...who knows when? And, as many of you also know, a few months ago I started up a new blog intended to record more aspects of my life including the goings on of my Etsy shop as well as my European life. So I've decided to devote myself entirely to my Baby Anne Quilts blog and say goodbye to this one.

Thank you for reading. Thank you for your interest in our lives. I loved sharing our adventures with you. But remember, I'm really not going anywhere!! Please add my Baby Anne Quilts blog to your bookmarks to keep up with our going-ons...I'd love to see you there!

Grüße aus...Versaille

2007-12-17T10:37:00.000-08:00

Our second day in Paris, Susan and Andrew climbed up to the top of Notre Dame, while I took a train to the Paris suburb of Versaille to visit the 17th century estate of Versaille!

I didn't know much about Versaille before going there other than it was big and beautiful and the home of French royalty. I learned that it was very big, VERY beautiful, and the home of French royalty, aristocracy and anyone that had influence with the king.

The palace of Versaille was originally built as a hunting lodge for King Louis XIII with the Louvre in the heart of Paris as his primary residence. Then Louis XIV decided to make the "lodge" his primary residence to get away from Paris then enlarged the palace, inviting all French aristocracy to reside there as well. It was his way of keeping an eye on his court!

But there were other parts of the estate beside the palace. It seems that the king needed yet another "get-away" cottage from his "get-away" lodge and so Louis XIV built the Grand Trianon.

But Louis XV felt like he needed yet another retreat from his retreat so he built the Petit Trianon. This was eventually given to Marie-Antoinette as her personal residence. She created a beautiful English garden (it's natural beauty is very different from the pristine organization of the other French gardens in the estate) and also a rustic hamlet which is absolutely charming!

I loved everything about Versaille...every room was stunning, the Hall of Mirrors was as impressive as it was designed to be, the gardens were inspiring, and Marie Antoinette's estate (the Petit Trianon and the hamlet) were completely charming. But I could certainly see why the French Revolution occurred! Versialle was like this other-worldly pocket of wealth and beauty and charm. Those living at Versaille didn't leave it much. Which meant it must have been a kind of gilded prison for them, too. Which might have been the reason for building one retreat after another, each one smaller and relatively simpler than the last, culminating in Marie-Antoinette's country hamlet. The hamlet is very romantic view of the simple life showing that they must have had a very warped view of the realities of the common Frenchman.

But I wonder what they would think if they knew that today, us commoners can get a glimpse into their gilded lives and wander through their gardens and bedrooms for the mere price of a modest admission fee!

You'll want to see all my beautiful photos of Versailles found here.

Parisian Museums

2007-12-12T16:38:00.000-08:00

When my sister and her husband were here to visit, we spent a couple of days in Paris. The really nice thing about going to Paris with Susan is that she speaks French very well. This meant that I could leave her and Andrew to wander Paris on their own and I could get a few more of the Must-See items checked off my Paris list!

So, while Susan and Andrew went off to eat lots of French food and fall in love with the Eiffel Tower, I visited a couple of amazing museums and a gorgeous chapel!

Cluny

The ancient Romans had three large bath houses in what is now Paris...the only one that has survived lies mostly ruined on the grounds of the Cluny. The Cluny was built at the end of the Middle Ages as a little castle in what was then the outskirts of Paris. It was eventually turned into a hotel and then a museum dedicated to medieval art and to show off the ancient Roman baths.

I loved all the wonderful tapestries (especially the absolutely stunning Unicorn series representing the five sense) and medieval stonework and the tiny vaulted chapel.

Sainte-Chapelle

Sainte-Chapelle is a chapel, a very large chapel, built by King Saint-Louis IX between 1242-1248 to house a piece of the crown of thorns he purchased while on a crusade in Jerusalem. The chapel is known as having some of the most magnificent stained-glass windows in the world. And they lived up to their reputation! Absolutely magnificent!!

L'Orangerie

L'Orangerie is a museum dedicated to early modern art. It isn't very big but it's collection of Picassos and Cezannes and other wonderful artists was choice! It's highlight is Monet's last masterwork: two galleries with panoramic Impressionistic waterlily paintings. The galleries create a wonderful sensation of stepping into the painting itself.

See a lot more photos of these Paris treasures here!

A Day at the Races

2007-11-06T01:40:00.000-08:00

A couple of weeks ago, Karl and I spent a day at the races!

He got some tickets from a guy at work and so, on 20 October, we went to the town of Iffezheim near Baden-Baden to the horse race track. It was so much fun!!!

There were races all day...one about every 40 minutes. We figured out pretty fast how it all worked. After a race, the winners were walked through the crowd to the winners circle where they were cooled down and photos were taken and jockeys were interviewed. Then the crowd migrated to the lead ring (at least that's what it translates to from German) where the horses for the next race were walked so everyone could pick their favorites for the next race. Ten minutes before the race a bell rang and we all migrated back to the track.

We never made any bets, but we would pick our favorite for the race by picking our favorite horse name! Some of our favorites were Poseidon Adventure, Art Attack, Stay Another Day, Forces Sweetheart, World's Mission, Zinderella, and Action Impact.

Karl and I never figured out where our seats were. Mostly because we loved standing right on the track rail! Most of the races started on the other end of the track...but when the horses came speeding past us towards the finish line...what a rush!!

These horses were so powerful! They were so sleek and athletic looking and so excited to race! Before the race, when the jockeys rode them out onto the track toward the starting gates, you could see in their steps how excited they were to start the race. Sometimes one would start a mad dash to the starting gate and all the other horses got excited and started chasing after him. (It reminded Karl of a big excited dog!)

I've always had a thing for horses. I'm still smitten!

See all of our photos here!

Introducing...

2007-11-04T13:05:00.000-08:00

So...earlier this year I discovered a neat online marketplace called Etsy. What's so fascinating about Etsy is that only handmade items are allowed to be sold there. And there are some amazing shops on Etsy!

So...I had an idea. And after many emails, a phone interview, some paperwork, and some fees, I got a new visa in my passport allowing me to open a little online business.

So...for the past month or two I've been working hard on getting my shop set up with some beautiful items (which is the big reason I've been missing in action from this blog!).

And now...I'm pleased to introduce...

baby anne quilts!

I'm having a little Grand Opening event in my shop on Thursday, November 8th: a virtual Open House! Come visit my shop anytime that day and check it out! Just click here! And send your friends to babyannequilts.etsy.com!

The Harwood Inn and Touring Company

2007-11-03T07:51:00.000-07:00

We have had a very busy month. And that's the only excuse I can give you for not writing for so long. It has just been busy around here. I'll let you know part of the reason we were so busy in this post, but my next post in the next few days will let you know the other exciting reason I've been so busy.

We had a lot of visitors here!

At the end of September, between Setember 22-29, some friends of ours came to visit. Karl got his graphic design degree with Nate. They got back in touch with each other recently, and he and his wife, Janell, came out from St. George, Utah to visit us! We had a lot of fun with them and did so much, including spending two days in Paris! Here are a few of the highlights:

A night at the Paris Opera House! We attended a performance of "Wuthering Heights" by the Paris Opera Ballet. And sat in the most uncomfortable chairs imaginable! The back of the chair only hit the small of my back. My toes couldn't touch the floor. My knees jabbed the lady in front of me, my back was being jabbed by the person behind me, and I was rubbing shoulders with Nate and Karl. Tip: When attending a performance at the Paris Opera, don't sit in the cheap seats! But the performance was gorgeous and amazing!!

Hanging out at the top of Notre Dame! We actually got stuck up there for quite a while. Because the staircase going up the tower is so narrow, it's only one way: either people are being let up or down. They let some people up the top for a while, and then they let people down. We were up there for a quite a while as more and more people kept coming up until we ran out of room! We kept getting scrunched up tighter, while the French employee kept yelling "Andvance!! Andvance!!" Eventually we got let back down!

Karl took Nate and Janell to Burg Eltz one rainy day. They loved the castle. They hated all the rain.

We wandered the cute little German town of Gengenbach.

And we did so much more! All of our photos (click here) show a lot more of our adventures!

Just a week after Nate and Janell left us, my sister, Susan, and her husband, Andrew, came to visit. They were here October 5-13 and we had a ton of fun with them, too, including spending another two days in Paris! Here are the highlights:

We explored the Heidelberg castle.

Susan and Andrew and I had lunch in the Luxembourg Gardens of Paris while gazing on the top of the Eiffel Tower.

We explored the beautiful town of Speyer.

We visited Burg Eltz and then explored Burg Thurant.

We hung out in Baden-Baden.

I've got lots more photos of our fun times (click here).

It was so much fun, as always, to show off our amazing home to friends and family. Remember, we are always open for visitors!

Zwetschgenfest! (And other fun things!)

2007-09-29T11:21:00.000-07:00

Our town became blue this month!

Bühl has a huge festival every September called the Zwetschgenfest or Zwetschgen Festival. What's a Zwetschgen? It's a plum. Or rather a type of plum. (Bühlers don't like you calling their Zwetschgen plums.) These plums...I mean Zwetschgen...were a major industry for Bühl for centuries.

We visited the festival on September 7th where there were tons of carnival rides, food tents, the 2007 Zwetschgen Queen, and, of course, a lot of Zwetschgen.

The following week we were invited to pick Zwetschgen with some friends. We plucked ripe plums then make a tart with them. We were a fun group of Americans, Germans, Czechs, and Norwegians. It was a lot of fun!

Our neighbors also showed us where there were some Zwetschgen in our little village that we could pick. I don't think I've hardly eaten two plums in my entire life, but this past month has been filled with them!

Karl's company had another Stammtisch for their foreign employees on September 20th. We visited a local farm where, among other things, they harvested Zwetschgen! We also saw them make huge vats of sauerkraut, visited their pigs and cattle, and walked through their beautiful fields of corn, beehives, and fruit trees. We ended the walk in their little store where we ate a yummy dinner of cheeses and cold meats.

Nearby Baden-Baden had their own festival, too. On September 8th we visited their Medieval Festival. It had nothing to do with plums or Zwetschgen, but it was still fun.

All of our photos can be seen here.

Finally...a room with a view!

2007-08-26T23:44:00.000-07:00

When Karl and I lived in Salt Lake, the view out our bedroom window was a brick wall. No really, there was a brick wall not two feet outside our window. (We nicknamed our bedroom "the cave" because we never got any natural light in there.)

When we lived in Michigan, the view out our bedroom window was a courtyard in our apartment complex. But our window was at ground level and anyone in the courtyard, or looking out a window across the courtyard, could see right in. So our blinds were closed a lot. Plus, our neighbors liked to hold their arguments out there (instead of in the privacy of their own apartment) so there was sometimes a lot of yelling and cursing outside our window.

But now...finally...

Just one reason why we love living in the Black Forest...

2007-08-23T04:24:00.001-07:00

A couple of weekends ago (August 10-12) we had some friends from the Berlin area come visit us. Karl knew Andreas when he was a missionary in Berlin and he and his wonderful wife, Jeanine, came to visit us for the weekend. It's nice to have some friends who were once so far away, suddenly so much closer!

We had a wonderful time hanging out with them all weekend, but our favorite was taking them to one our new favorite things to do around here.

Some American friends of ours told us about this wonderful restaurant in the Black Forest. We drive through the forest a bit and then park at a certain place. Then we walk on a forest path alongside a forest stream surrounded by rounded, moss-covered rocks and tall green trees.

Eventully, we pass by a waterfull and then, a short time later, a biergarten comes into view. You can either keep going down the path, or stop and have some yummy German food (which is what we always do)!

As we eat we enjoy the view of the trees and the field of cows that opens up in front of the biergarten.

After eating, we head back down the beautiful path.

Grüße aus...London!

2007-08-01T22:57:00.000-07:00

Karl and I spent a weekend (Friday July 20 - Monday July 23) in London! It was one of the cities we wanted to be sure and visit while we were here and when it was announced several months ago that the last Harry Potter book would be released July 21st, we thought that would be a good weekend to see London!

While we were there we experienced all the things that make London...well, London: the art, the tea houses, the Beatles, Shakespeare...

So, here's our very English weekend in London!!

London is...Art

Of course we visited several art museums...I mean I planned this trip after all. I had seen a lot of London 5 years ago when I spent three weeks at an Art History Summer School program at the University of Cambridge, so there were actually only a few of the big museums I hadn't had a chance yet to visit.

On our first day in London, I took Karl through a quick tour of the National Gallery in it's last hour and a half before closing. This is an amazing collection of the best of the best and I loved seeing it again. After closing we walked around the corner to the National Portrait Gallery which I had never visited before. We had a couple of hours to explore this wonderful museum of British portraits. We saw everyone from King Henry VIII and his wives to the Brontë sisters to Princess Diana to Ricky Gervais.

On our last day in London we visited the great British Museum. I most wanted to see the Elgin Marbles...these are the statuary and friezes from the Parthenon in Athens, taken by the British Lord Elgin 200 years ago. They were stunning! And the rest of the museum was pretty amazing, too.

London is...Cambridge

My study abroad at the University of Cambridge just outside of London was one of my best months ever. I completely fell in love with the little college town of Cambridge and its nearly ancient university! I've been dying to take Karl there ever since. So on Saturday Karl and I took a train up to Cambridge.

We walked around the old city center and explored a few of the beautiful colleges and then I took Karl to one of my favorite places in the world: the Orchard. We walked along a 2 mile path known as the Grantchester Grind to the little village of Grantchester where we wandered between some trees into the most wonderful tea house. The Orchard is just that, an orchard, where, in 1897, some Cambridge students asked to be served some tea. The little tea house is still a sprawling yard of fruit trees and lawn chairs.

This little, simple tea house has had an interesting history and has served some of the university's best known students. It even housed the great British poet Rupert Brooke who would punt (boat) up and down the Cam river between Grantchester and the university and drink tea in the orchard with his friends including Virginia Woolf, E.M. Forster and other greats.

Karl and I ordered scones, lemonade and a light lunch and sat in the most comfortable green lawn chairs under a tree for a couple of hours, reading and dozing. Time stops and worries leave you and you feel you have entered into a place that defines what it is to be English in all it's wildness and civility!

London is...Harry Potter

On Friday night we went to Piccadilly to the largest bookstore in Europe to attend the Largest Potter Party in London! We adore the Harry Potter books, but we had never attended a midnight book release party. We decided this would be our last chance so we might as well do it right...or at least memorably. We arrived at the bookstore a little after 9 pm to find a line of Potter fans wrapping around the bookstore...we followed the line, enjoying the different costumes and having fun...and three blocks later, finally found the end of the line. After a bit of debate, we decided to get in it. As the hours ticked by we watched the line get longer and longer behind us, chatted with a girl back-packing Europe from Washington state beside us, got to know a Swedish father and son also in line with us, and were entertained by musicians and fellow party-goers. It was actually fun sitting on the sidewalk in the chilly night surrounded by kids, teenagers and nerds in wizards hats...no really, we had fun!

Finally at midnight, the line eventually started to creep forward. And creep. And creep. And at 2:30 am...we finally walked into the bookstore and got our books! And yes...it was worth it!

It was interesting to see reports of the party later...apparently there were about 2,000 people in attendance, and I guess those in the front part of the line had a lot more going on than those of us in the later 2/3 of the line. But that's ok...the people at the very front of the line had been there since Wednesday so they deserved a little extra something. But we still got a glimpse of a lot of creativity and fun as we wandered down the line! Here's a report of the party and another one.

Oh yes...and we visited Platform 9 3/4 at Kings Cross station!

(By the way...the book was WONDERFUL!!)

London is...Shakespeare

On Sunday afternoon, we attended a play at the Shakespeare's Globe Theatre. This theatre is a reconstruction of the original Elizabethan playhouse that Shakespeare wrote and performed for standing very near where the original burned down. And the whole experience of attending a play here is also very much like it might have been 400 years ago! Karl and I bought the cheapest tickets...which I think are the best seats! If you can call them seats. Because the cheap seats have no seats...we stood on the ground in the courtyard in front of the stage where the poorest of theater goers would have stood in the 1600s, gaining the nick-name Groundlings. So Karl and I were Groundlings for a fun performance of Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost. We stood right next to the stage, leaning our arms on it. One of the fun parts of a performance at the Globe is that the actors include the audience a lot...especially the Groundlings since we are right there at thier feet (in fact, Karl and I got fed cheese from one of the actresses). The play was tons of fun!

London is...Beatles

(Album cover image from wikipedia.org.)

Of course, I had to make a Beatles pilgrimage in London! On Sunday morning, Karl and I took the tube to a very nice quiet neighborhood where a trickle of tourists can be seen aggravating motorists as they repeatedly walk across a crosswalk...yes, my friends, we saw Abbey Road Studios!

We read a lot of the Beatles graffiti on the wall in front of the studios and took turns walking across the famous crosswalk that John, Paul, George, and Ringo walked across almost 40 years ago. How cool is that!

London is...Texas??

Yes, apparently, Texas has its own little history in London. Just down the street from the National Gallery, Karl and I found a restaurant called the Texas Embassy. Since we rarely have the opportunity to eat Tex-Mex, we had to go. So, on Sunday evening we had a Texas dinner! It actually wasn't that good...but it was the best Tex-Mex we've have in Europe! While we were there, we learned that when Texas was a Republic, they actually did have an embassy in London! And it had been located just a few blocks away. So, after dinner, we walked up the street and found the original location of the Texas Embassy! Cool!

Our trip to London was a lot of fun! London had so much more to offer that we just couldn't get to in a weekend...maybe next time!

See all of our photos here!

Independence Days

2007-07-19T16:34:00.000-07:00

On Saturday, July 7th, we gathered with some friends to celebrate Independence Day! Since we couldn't really celebrate the day of American Independence on the 4th, our American friends and a few other non-American friends who have lived in America gathered on a hill overlooking the town of Kappelrodek (about 20 minutes south of us) to do a good ol' American barbeque!

Here's our view of Kappelrodek from our grill site:

A chapel dedicated to men from the area who died in the World Wars, just up from our grill site:

Karl was our Grillmeister:

The following Saturday, July 14th, was an important holiday next door in France. Karl and I decided to spend part of our day in Strasbourg, France, to help celebrate Bastille Day. The storming of the Bastille prison in Paris on July 14, 1789, is considered the beginning of the French Revolution as the people fought to create a democracy and the date now commemorates the beginning of modern France.

The Strasbourg Cathedral:

We also wandered through an old and quaint neighborhood of Strasbourg known as "Petite France":

It was fun to celebrate the struggle for democracy for two countries this month!

Grüße aus...Ireland! Part III: The Blasket Islands

2007-07-05T15:43:00.000-07:00

About half-way through my day bicycling through Dingle I got off the bike and took a ferry off the Irish mainland to the Great Blasket Island.

I didn't know much about this island before visiting it. After exploring it I took the ferry back to the mainland where I visited the Great Blasket Centre, a heritage center all about life on these islands. I left knowing so much more and with a huge appreciation and respect for the people who use to live on these islands.

The Blasket Islands are a small group of six islands just off the Dingle Peninsula. The Great Blasket Island is the largest and is surrounded by the small islands of Tuaisceart, Tearacht, Inis na Bro, Inishvickillaune, and Beiginis. A village was established on one end of the Great Blasket, and a few people lived on the smaller islands on and off over the years.

No one is sure how long ago the first settlers came to the island. There may have been Celtic and early Christian inhabitors. The first mention of a settlement there in recorded history is in 1736, though legend says there was a castle there in the middle ages.

During the Great Potato Famine in the 1840s and 1850s, the people of the Great Blasket survived relatively well. They actually had other resources to fall back on after the failure of the potato crops and the luck of a few different shipwrecks not far from the island provided them with more food and supplies.

Life on the Great Blasket was not easy. At its height, the island only had a population of 176. They had no church, no graveyard, and no doctor, so each Sunday they would row to the mainland to go to church services and would need to row to the mainland to fetch a doctor or bury their dead. That is...if there was good weather. Bad weather could keep them bound to their island for days or even weeks at a time.

After World War I (when its population reached its height), the population began to dwindle until only 23 people were left on the island by the beginning of the 1950s. At one point in this time a young man lay dying for days on the island and bad weather prevented the villigers from going to the mainland for a doctor. When the man died, weather again prevented them from being able to take the body to the mainland to be buried. This difficult experience combined with their dwindling population, finally led them to the decision to leave the island. In 1953 the island was evacuated and the government helped in rehousing them on the mainland. So now the homes they left behind are in ruins.

Ireland is working on making the island into a National Park or a World Heritage Site or at least setting up some conservation and minimun development guidelines...but apparently there are a lot of legalities to work out before that can happen. But the island is open for visitors like me to explore amongst the sheep, rabbits and other animals left grazing the island (their owners live on the mainland) and the only other overnight guests are a few campers.

The Great Blasket Island was incredible. I only spent about an hour walking around the ruins of the village, but I wished I had had all day to explore it.

"On a green grassy bank I rested
There a panorama for the eyes
I sat by beauty's spells invested
Spells of birdsong and sea-washed isles."
-Micheal O'Guiheen, A beautiful morning

During my visit in Dublin, I learned that in the 19th century, the Irish began to see the western regions of their island as the "real" Ireland. The Wild Irish West was romanticized. But while the landscape was incredibly beautiful, and while life here must have been simple it certainly would not have been easy. The homes on the Great Blasket are all clustered relatively close together on the eastern end of the island where there is the most protection from ocean winds and where the view of the mainland would have been at least a psychological comfort. There is really no level ground, the island is a large hump rising out of the ocean and you're constantly walking on a slope. And I realized shortly after my arrival that the constant roaring of the ocean waves would have been just that...constant. It's hard to imagine what life on this island really must have been like...how difficult it must have been.

Although a lot of past outsiders have characterized the islanders as "squatters whoe exceeded all others in poverty, misery and lawlessness" (T.F. O'Sullivan, Romantic Hidden Kerry, 1931), those who knew the islanders more intimately saw past their roughness and described them as some of the best Ireland had to offer: "Quiet, honest, warm-hearted, hospitable folk they are, and the stranger will find friendship and kindliness - if not, when the fault's in himself" (Pieg Sayers, An Old Woman's Reflections, 1962 ).

"I shall have eternal life
Though a white shroud my body cages
Only my corpse lies in the grave
But my voice shall flower throughout the ages."
-Micheal O'Guiheen, My spirit in a book shall live

Their life wasn't pure survival. I learned that some of Ireland's great literature has come from the Great Blasket. When scholars of Irish culture and language came to Dingle in the 1920s and 1930s, they discovered a rich oral history in the village on the Great Blasket. Between the years of 1929 to 1935 the three best known Blasket writers published their best known books: The Islandman by Tomas O Criomhthain, Peig by Peig Sayers and Twenty Years A-Growing by Maurice O'Sullivan. All three books tell about the personal life of the author and stories of what life on the island was like. Several other books and poems by other islanders followed...all in the Irish language. It's one of the remarkable aspects of the Blasket Islands that such an Irish literary treasure has come from this tiny island. (All the poem quotations that I've been using in this post and my last Dingle post came from the book I bought in Dingle: Poets and Poetry of the Great Blasket.)

I spent my final day in Dingle quiet and restful from the marathon of the day before. I slept in, returned my rented bike, read more James Joyce, wandered around Dingle shopping at the tourist shops and ate gourmet ice cream at Murphey's Ice Cream shop (this was a yummy flavor: Strawberry with Sage!). The next morning I took the bus back to Tralee and the train back to Dublin to catch my flight home that evening.

I loved my time in Ireland. I found Ireland to be like comfort food: nothing flashy...only the cozy comfort of wool, pubs, books, good music and green hills. As the plane landed, I was surprised to find that the Black Forest outside my window just wasn't quite as beautiful as it looked before I went to Ireland. I think the beauty of Dingle and Blasket has spoiled me for life.

Look at all my Blasket photos here.

Grüße aus...Ireland! Part II: Dingle

2007-07-04T13:18:00.000-07:00

On June 22nd I made my way from Dublin to Dingle! The train ride through the Irish country side was lovely: lots of cows, lots of sheep and lots of green.

Dingle is a peninsula on the southern west coast of the island. It is located in one of Ireland's Gaeltacht regions. These are regions where the Irish language and culture are protected by the government. For many people in these regions Irish is their first language and most signage is only in Irish. There are about 10,000 people on the peninsula and about 500,000 sheep. And very few trees. Everything is very green but grows very low to the ground. And there are a lot of rocks. Its amazing to think about how anyone could have got anything to grow in the land much less cleared enough rock away to plant anything.

When my train reached the town of Tralee, just before entering the peninsula, I had to change to a bus to travel to Dingle Town on the peninsula's far coast. Once the bus left Tralee and began winding its way through the peninsula, I swear, I entered a fairy land! If this beautiful landscape was any indication of what was to come (which I learned it was) then I knew I was in for a lovely weekend (which I did have)!

I arrived late in the afternoon, found my hostel and got my dinner at a grocery store which I ate sitting on the harbour. Dingle is a very small harbor town. Very small. I think in the three days I was there I must have walked every street in the town at least half-a-dozen times or more. The town is now mostly made up of tourists and tourist shops and restaurants. But it was charming, nonetheless.

That evening I went to an concert of traditional Irish music in an old church. Apparently, the church sponsors Irish music concerts throughout the summer for the tourists three times a week. The concert was wonderful! There were two women who were from the Blasket Islands and whose parents were among those who were evacuated from the islands in 1953 (more on the Blasket Islands and why the people were evacuated in my next post!) and they sang beautiful Irish language songs and played the accordion and the Irish drum. Two men also performed playing the guitar and very complicated Irish bagpipes. I got more of my fill of Irish music!

I tried to get to bed fairly early that night because I knew I needed my rest for the next day, my birthday. I had planned a 47 kilometer (about 30 miles) bike ride around the peninsula! I rented a bike first thing in the morning and was riding out of Dingle just after 9:00 am. The ride took all day but it wasn't very difficult. I met other tourists along the route, most of them in cars. I'm so glad I did it by bike, though. It was wonderful to be out in the air (thankfully, the only sunny day I had in Ireland) and be surrounded by this incredible landscape. It also made it easy to stop and take photos and try to take it all in. I followed my Rick Steves guide book that laid out both my riding directions and the sights I would see along the way.

Ireland has a long and interesting history. The Celtics settled the island by 700 BC. Ireland is one of the only places in Europe that was not conquered by the Roman Empire. The Romans came, hated the cold and rainy weather, named the island Hibernia (which means "land of winter") and left. This is why the Celtic, or Gaelic, culture was able to thrive. The Christians came by 500 AD and gradually Christianized the island. In fact, Ireland was a favorite place for hermit monks to go to create isolated monasteries. Their writings helped to keep knowledge alive during the middle ages. Then, by 800 AD, the invasions started. First the Vikings, then the Normans and Ireland came eventually under control of England which only ended (expect in Northern Ireland) in 1949 with the creation of the Republic of Ireland.

So, I tell you all this so you will get a sense of how amazing the Dingle Peninsula is. Ireland's long history can be found, piece by piece, on this peninsula in the form of ruined forts, homes, churches and stone markers...and I saw many of them on my 47 kilometer bike ride! (My photos have more sights and information than I will write here, so take a look!) So...here are the sights I saw and the landscape I fell in love with...

"On my travels I do not imagine
Any splendour I saw in my time
But this jewel that was crafted of fashions
This double-width quilt of the isle."
-Sean Dunleavy, The crafted quilt of the isle

One of my first stops was at a "Fairy Fort". One of the reasons that there are still so many prehistoric and medieval sites still to be found at Dingle is that the locals were superstitious about them. Because they didn't always know what these old stone shelters and walls were, they thought they were built by fairies. And there were all kinds of bad-luck stories about the people who disturbed these fairy forts. In the nineteenth century, scholars began to excavate these forts and learn more about them. This fort, however, has yet to be excavated but is believed to have been a Celtic chieftain's home. For now, it is a grass and shrub covered mound of rocks that the sheep graze over.

My next stop was at Dunbeg Fort: a fort of ditches and rock walls that date from around 580 BC and was also used in the 8th-11th centuries AD.

Next, I saw more ancient forts called Beehive Huts. Named for their beehive shapes, these huts were used from prehistoric times to 12oo AD. Because there are no trees and a lot of rocks, homes from ancient times to the present day were built out of rocks and no mortar was used in building these ancient shelters. They are amazing structures.

To give you an idea of how beautiful Dingle was, go out and rent a couple of movies that were filmed here: Ryan's Daughter and Far and Away. In fact, this field was used in the filming of Far and Away:

As I rode, the ocean came gradually into view and the land got more and more interesting. The rolling land would suddenly break off into great cliffs falling into the ocean. Soon, small islands a few miles out to sea came into view. I stopped for my picnic lunch of berries and a salami sandwich on the slope of Dunmore Head, a piece of rounded land jutting out from the peninsula.

After my lunch and rest I continued to the Dunquin Pier where I took the ferry boat to the Great Blasket Island, three miles out from the mainland. My Blasket experience was unexpectedly fascinating and took up much of my afternoon, so I've decided to save relating that for another day....so....back to the mainland! (Watch for my next post to read about the Blasket Islands!)

After learning about the Blasket Islands, I continued around the west edge of the peninsula, where I saw these fields going up the mountainside:

See the plow lines? These fields have not been planted since the Great Potato Famine and those plow lines are from the last planting when the potatoes rotted in the ground. Ireland was not the only place where the famine affected potato crops, but western Ireland was so hard hit because it was the only crop growing here. The rocky ground didn't allow much to flourish here but the potato. So when the crops failed, the people here had nothing else to survive on. Nearly a million people died and another million left for America, Canada and Australia. Ireland is only now recovering from this population depletion.

My next stop was another one of those old "fairy forts". This one was hidden in a small residential neighborhood: a mideval monastary called the Reasc Monastery. It dates back to the 6th-12th centuries. The roofs are long gone but the ring of foundation and low walls are still there and continue to be excavated and restored. The site has a large stone with ancient Celtic markings. The monks added their own Christian cross to the stone which they did with many Celtic sites...they simply adapted the Celtic culture and remains to their own needs.

My next stop was another early Christian site: the Gallarus Oratory. This structure was built as a church. Remember, there was no lumber for building so the monks followed the local practice of building with stones without mortar...and it is still waterproof! This little church was built 1,300 years ago and is still in almost perfect condition.

Not too far away was another early Christian church: the church of Kilmalkedar. This one dates from the 12th centuary and is not in such good condition. It's located in a graveyard, still being used by the locals. But there were other, older structures in this graveyard: a Celtic sundial and a 1,700 year old ogham stone. An ogham stone was a Celtic made stone with and ancient form of writing on it. This one was marking a grave.

My last stop was the last of the "fairy forts" I saw that day: the Chancellor's House. This was the excavated ruins of what was beleived to be the home of a 14th century chancellor.

As I returned to my bike after exploring the Chancellor's House, it started to rain. It was just a drizzle but thankfully I had no more stops to make, just a long 4 mile bike ride home. I walked up a long hill for about a mile and then coasted downhill to Dingle for the final 3 miles and rode back into Dingle just before 9 pm, soaking wet. But oh! so happy after one of the most amazing 12 hours I've ever had the pleasure of living!

Please take a look at all of my Dingle photos...I'm amazed when I look at them that there are actually such places in the world and that I was actually there!

"No wonder men of action fought
For this green land, now in its prime
For I see by this glorious splendour
That our fair maiden wins the prize.

Lord strengthen those of the liberation
Who smashed her shackles and made her free
Lord she is all of your creation
Down to its very smallest tree."
-Micheal O'Guiheen, A beautiful morning

Grüße aus...Ireland! Part I: Dublin

2007-07-03T10:32:00.000-07:00

I had a wonderful Birthday!! Thanks to all of you who gave cards or phone calls or other well-wishes!

Several months ago, I informed Karl that I wanted to go to Ireland for my birthday. He was fully supportive. So on June 19th, I got on a plane to Dublin and I spent three days there and then traveled to the Dingle Peninsula for another three days. It was an absolutely marvelous journey!

Dublin was fun! It is a very urban city and I learned a lot about it's history, as well as the history of Ireland, while I was there. Ireland has a complex and oppressive history. Its economy has been spiraling downward since the Great Potato Famine of the 1840s...until suddenly in the 1990s when it has since become the "Celtic Tiger": one of the strongest economies in Europe.

I learned that Ireland was a bi-lingual country. I knew that the native tongue of Ireland was Irish (or Gaelic) but I didn't realize how prominent the language was. Everything was written in both Irish and English. I heard some Irish spoken and sung during my time there and It sounds nothing like English, nor anything else I've ever heard but I found it quite beautiful.

I also realized throughout my travels how many great writers and poets came from Ireland: James Joyce, W.B. Yeats, Oscar Wilde, Jonathan Swift... In fact, the Irish are known for their writers and their gift of gab. So, during my trip I decided I would immerse myself in Irish writers and I began reading James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man as the plane took off!

"The grey block of Trinity on his left, set heavily in the city's ignorance like a great dull stone set in a cumbrous ring..." -James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

On my first morning, I took a tour of Trinity College, the most prestigious university in Ireland. The college site was originally a monastery. It was closed by Henry VIII when he formed the Church of England and in 1592, his daughter, Queen Elizabeth I, created a university on the site. The original monastery buildings are long gone (the only thing remaining is the bell in the the central bell tower in the main square) and the oldest buildings at the college now were built during the mid-1700s. (In fact, I noticed that most of the great buildings throughout Dublin were built in the the 1700s...the hey-day of Dublin, apparently.) There is a chapel and an examination hall directly across a square from each other and identical to each other. (We were told by the Trinity College graduate guide that on examination days you literally see students making paths back and forth between the chapel and their exams!) The Chapel is unique in that is was the first church in Ireland that was consecrated for the services of all the 4 religions of Ireland at the time: the Catholic church and the three Protestant churches. We also stood underneath a very large Oregon Maple Tree...the largest Oregon Maple in Europe. Two of these large trees were planted in what was the monastery graveyard (which is probably why they grew so large!) in 1820.

Our tour ended at the Old Library where I entered to see the Book of Kells! This is an illuminated manuscript of the four Gospels, beautifully decorated! It is more than 1,000 years old! After viewing the book I was able to walk through the Old Library's Long Room. This is the main chamber of the library, built in 1712, is 65 meters long, and holds 200,000 of the library's oldest books and it was truly stunning! Unfortunately, photography was not allowed, but believe me, it was beautiful (here's a shot of the brochure from the library)!

Two stories of old leather-bound books, underneath a wooden vaulted ceiling! All the books were organized by size: the large books on the bottom shelves and the smaller books on the top shelves. I didn't want to leave. But leave I did eventually because I had to find some lunch. On my way back through the campus I noticed that the old 18th century Dining Hall next to the Chapel was open for visitors. So I had my lunch sitting in the old Dining Hall of Trinity College surrounded by wood paneling and large portraits of past chancellors.

After my historical-feeling lunch, I made my way down historical Nassau street to the National Gallery of Ireland. I had wanted to visit this museum to see this particular artwork but I was delighted to find that there were so many more treasures there! I spent my afternoon wandering around its beautiful galleries seeing French Impressionists, Italian masters, incredible Dutch masters, and discovering some wonderful Irish artists.

Later that day I saw the exteriors of St. Patrick's Cathedral and Christ's Church Cathedral (both were closed to visitors at the time, one because they were getting prepared for a performance, the other because a TV show was filming there). But that evening I did something that really made me feel like I had arrived in Ireland: I hit the pubs!

"A good puzzle would be to cross Ireland without passing a pub." -James Joyce, Ulysses

Yes, even I, a non-drinker, couldn't pass through Ireland without hitting the pubs! But instead of going for the Guinness, I went for the music! I participated in a Traditional Irish Musical Pub Crawl. This tour became at this slightly touristy but historical Gogarty's Pub on Temple Bar...

...and continued to two other pubs in the area over the course of 2 1/2 hours. Our guides were two traditional Irish musicians who played both old and new Irish music as everyone sipped their beers. I had a wonderful evening! I've always like traditional Irish music, but it sounds about 10 times better in a comfortable Irish pub. At the last pub, the musicians gave us what they called the Noble Call: they explained that normally at a session (that's what it's called when the Irish gather around, normally at a pub or a home, and talk and make music) everyone is expected to contribute and so they asked us tourists to share some song or something. A woman from Ohio sang an old Shaker song. An English woman sang a little song she sings for her two-year-old. And then, since no one else was volunteering, I raised my hand, stood up, and sang Johnny Cash's song Delia's Gone! Yep! I sang in an Irish pub!

I enjoyed the pubs and the music so much that when the crawl ended I wandered back to Gogarty's Pub to enjoy more traditional music until past midnight. They had a young group playing traditional Irish instruments who mixed traditional tunes with more modern covers: you haven't heard Metallica until you've heard it sung to an acoustic guitar, a flute, a fiddle, and an Irish drum!

All changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.
-W.B. Yeats, Easter 1916

The next morning I took a walking tour of Dublin. This was an excellent tour of the city by a history graduate who enlightened me on both the interesting history of Dublin and the fascinating history of Ireland. Their history is full of invasions and resistance which finally resulted in an independent Republic of Ireland...unfortunately the country is still not united. The Irish still work for the day when Northern Ireland, still under British control, becomes united with the Republic. This guard box at Dublin Castle use to be red with a gold crown for the British royalty and housed guards during the time when Ireland was controlled by Britain. Now the boxes are empty, black, and carry the Irish harp as a symbol of the independence of present-day Republic of Ireland. (Take a look at my photos of the trip for some more details from the tour!)

After a lunch of traditional fish and chips (they were even wrapped up in news print) sitting in the park behind St. Patrick's Cathedral, I went to the Chester Beatty Library behind Dublin Castle. This is one of the world's greatest collection of books and manuscripts, some of them more than a millennium old! I learned from our tour guide that morning that the Library was having an exhibition on Leonardo da Vinci's Leicester Codex! This is a collection of his scientific writings on his theories on the motion of water. It was fairly recently purchased by Bill Gates and was now on display in Dublin! So I wandered through a darkened gallery looking at Leonardo's sketches of water and backwards handwriting for an hour or two. They also had on display several books from the Library's collection, old scientific books that would have been available to Leonardo in the fifteenth century.

"But the tree's in Stephen's Green were fragrant of rain and the rainsodden earth gave forth its mortal odour..." -James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

After the exhibition I walked through the drizzling rain down historic Grafton Street and through part of the large city park of St. Stephen's Green to another museum: Number Twenty-Nine. This is a restored Georgian (Neoclassical) townhouse at number 29 Lower Fitzwilliam Street in Dublin. The home was built in 1790 in a then-new neighborhood, now famously lined with many-colored Georgian doorways. The home was restored to its original condition and I was able to tour through its elegant and beautifully simple rooms. I loved this tour! Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to take photos, but here is a link to the museum's website where you can take a virtual tour (I especially loved the stenciling on the wooden floorboards of the governess's room).

That night I attended a performance at the Gate Theater: Sweeny Todd: the Demon Barber of Fleet Street. This was a Steven Sondheim musical that my sister (the musical queen) recommended. The story was from an actual London legend of a barber who killed his costumers that were then cooked into meat pies by his neighbor. The musical form of the legend was just as creepy and very good!

The next morning I woke early to take a bus, then a train, then another train, then another bus to the Dingle Peninsula! But more on that adventure later...

Dublin was a lot of fun and I began to fall in love with Ireland there. It was fun to be reading James Joyce, whose books take place in Dublin, while I was exploring the city. I noticed many landmarks marking places that appear in his books. In fact, I learned that I just missed one of the biggest holidays in Dublin: Bloomsday on June 16th. Joyce's masterwork, Uylsses, takes place on one day in Dublin, June 16, 1904. So Dublin celebrates Joyce and his book and their city every June 16th! Hmmm....maybe I'll be spending another birthday in Ireland next year! See my Dublin photos here!

Grüße aus...Alsace!

2007-06-19T11:32:00.000-07:00

Karl had the day off on Thursday, June 7th (it was Fronleichnam holiday) so we crossed the border to France and explored a couple of Alsace Region cities: Eguisheim and Colmar.

Eguisheim is a small town, largely preserved in all its original middle-aged glory charm. It's best known for being the birthplace of Pope Leo IX (born in 1002 and died in 1054). We took a peek inside the little St. Leo Chapel that holds his relics adjoining the castle he was born in. It was an adorable town.

Just north of little Eguisheim is the city of Colmar, also well-preserved. I've been wanting to visit Colmar since we moved here, mostly to see the Unterlinden Museum. This museum was once a 13th century convent and now holds medieval through modern art and Alsace treasures. My favorite, and the reason I wanted to visit the museum in the first place, was this amazing altarpiece. The museum was absolutely charming with its beautiful courtyard and wonderful art and history.

See more photos of our lovely day in Alsace here.

Eating Like an American

2007-06-13T10:06:00.000-07:00

Recently, a local grocery store had a Great America Week during which they sold American foods!

We searched the ad for anything we missed from home. And we were surprised to find very little we even recognized. But it was fun to see how Germans think we eat. And, although some of these things were completely foreign to us, I also think these products say a lot about how Americans eat.

This is the banner heading for the ad. Here's how it describes American delacacies:

"That's delicious! That is American food -- spicy, harty or sugar-sweet! With McEnnedy you'll find main dishes, side dishes, and desserts in the good old American tradition. America, the land of a thousand sauces, burgers and sweets, now nearby in your Lidl store!"

And that is really how Germans seem to view American food...very flavorful, harty and very very sweet. And always casual....burgers, hot dogs, potato chips, and popcorn. Are they correct?

So let's take a look at the more familiar items...which, although familiar, tend to have an odd, extra American-y twist to them:

Maple syrup: this is difficult to find in Germany. They aren't the pancake eaters that we are, not to mention it's a little too sweet for them. But I like how the pancakes in the photo really look like thin French crepes.

And crepe mix...I mean, pancake mix to go with the syrup.

Still need more sweet syrup with your breakfast? Try these cornflakes with 20% maple syrup!

Muffin mixes: also a rarity here. So much a rarity that note that the mixes come complete with those little paper muffin cups. Available flavors: blueberry, chocolate and...classic. Classic? Yes, classic (whatever that is)...with chocolate pieces. Because you've got to have something sweet in there.

Peanut butter: not so much a rarity. You can find peanut butter here without too much of a problem, it's just good peanut butter that isn't always easy to find. German peanut butter tends to be very oily. And Germans don't understand why Americans like peanut butter so much...but then, I don't like their oily peanut butter either. I've found that the peanut butter brands that claim to be "American" are the better ones. But the stuff in this ad? I don't know...that pale color just doesn't look right.

Marshmallows are near impossible to find. And when you do find them, they tend to be very rubbery. And, again, Germans tend to find them way too sweet. And note that the only thing a German can imagine doing with a marshmallow is roasting it. When we were visiting the States, Karl and I mailed ourselves some packages of marshmallows and graham crackers (which don't exist over here) so we can show some German friends of ours how to make Smores...although I expect they'll find them too sweet.

Finally, something really familiar! Pringles potato chips! Available in Smokey Bacon, Chessy Cheese, or Texas BBQ Sauce. Except I've only really liked the plain ones. But I really don't think I've ever seen plain potato chips here. For example...

...Barbeque potato chips...

...and potato chips in Texan Chili and Beef Chili flavors. Germans are amazed at how Americans have to have everything with so much flavoring added to it. Expect that when it comes to potato chips, they are the flavor kings.

And now a view of some items I really am not familiar with...I mean, I really don't know where these things came from but I don't think it was from America.

Remember how America is the land of a thousand sauces? Let's take a look at some of our famous sauces:

American sauces: Ketchup Barbeque, Ketchup Hot Dog or Sandwich Sauce. Ketchup Barbeque...ok, I can see that. Ketchup Hot Dog? Do I need a special ketchup just for my hot dog? Sandwich sauce....um...what? But what kind of sauce is that??

Ok, so, if I need a specific ketchup for my hot dog, what do I put on my hamburger?

But, of course! Hamburger Sauce!

Hamburger Sauce not look appealing? Then try Hamburger Relish. And yet...I really don't ever recall putting anything resembling these sauces on anything I've ever eaten in America much less on a hamburger.

And finally, the most American snack food of all...

...Potato Snack! "The delicious nibble-fun with mildly seasoned Ketchup flavor." Um...wait a minute...has there been some recent Ketchup-flavored Potato Snack craze in America? 'Cause I really don't know what these are. And I don't think I want to.

So here you have it. The food Americans are known for. I find it very interesting how culture can certainly get lost in translation. But Americans have done the same with other culture's foods, of course. For example, an old college professor of mine once went looking for real French salad dressing when he was in France...and ended up finding it under the label American dressing. And despite what the name may have you believe, German chocolate cake is not German. They have no such thing here. I guess one thing I've learned by living here is that you can't judge a culture by another culture's stereotypes. I know there are some lovely things to eat in America. It's just sometimes hard to convince some of my German friends that it's not all spicy and sweet and ketchup-flavored. A lot of it...but not all of it.

Stuttgart Ballett

2007-06-11T04:33:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago, Karl surprised me with tickets to the Stuttgart Ballet to see the classic La Sylphide on Sunday afternoon, June 10th! I love the ballet and it was such a treat!

The theater was beautiful!

During intermission, two of the performers signed autographs in the lobby.

The performance was absolutely lovely!

What we did in May...

2007-06-05T16:59:00.000-07:00

We had a lot going on in May...

On 18 May, Karl and I celebrated our 8th Anniversary! Wow! 8 Years!

We celebrated by spending the weekend (18-19 May) at Titisee...a very pretty lake in the Black Forest. We ate our dinner in the hotel restaurant. We are in one of the yummiest seasons in Germany: Erdbeern and Spargel! Strawberries and Asparagus! Fresh strawberries and large white asparagus are everywhere. So we ordered the restaurant's asparagus dinner and strawberry dessert...it was very yummy. The next day we walked around the lake and took a hike through the forest. It was all so beautiful!

On 20 May, Karl turned 33! We went to dinner with our American friends to a Biergarten, sitting outside in the warm evening, chatting with friends and eating good food. The perfect German evening!

On 23 May, I had to say goodbye to Uta, my German Instructor.

I have certainly not surpassed my instructor...she simply found another, more stable job and won't be able to teach German anymore. I'm very happy for her...she's seems to have found a good opportunity for herself...but I'm very sad for me. She was a wonderful instructor! I had German lessons with her twice a week. She was very good at what she did and I will miss her! I will have to visit her husband's Greek restaurant often to see her! I will be continuing my German lessons, but I don't know yet with whom.

On 28 May, Karl and took a hike in the Black Forest. It was a gray and drizzly day but it was a holiday (Pentecost) and we felt anxious to get out and move, so we hiked through the Black Forest behind Burg Windeck over looking Buehl. It was a beautiful hike! We were once again reminded that we live in a wonderful part of the world!

See more photos of our month here.

I hope your May was as nice! We're looking forward to a good June, too...we plan on visiting some new French towns and I'll be celebrating my birthday in Ireland. See you there!

Grüße aus...America!

2007-05-23T11:43:00.000-07:00

Karl and I recently returned from spending three weeks on the other side of the Atlantic! We visited my famly in Houston and then his family in Salt Lake City and ate a lot of milkshakes, barbeque and Mexican food!

I arrived in Texas on April 18, spending a week with my family before Karl arrived on April 24. While there I got to know the two new members of my family my nephew, Max, and my sister's fiance, Andrew.

Meet Max!

Here he is trying out the Sock Monkey quilt I made for him:

On April 28th my sister, Susan, married Andrew!

I was a beautiful wedding and everything went wonderfully. We got to see a lot of my cousins and aunts and uncles who came to Houston for the occasion.

On May 1st, Karl and I flew out to Salt Lake City. We got to meet our newest neice, Claire, the daughter of Karl's brother, Elliot, and his wife, Sarah Beth.

And, of course, we spent a lot of time hanging out with Karl's large family. I flew back home to Germany on May 7th, but Karl stayed for another week when all of his out-of-town siblings came to visit.

Here is Karl with his brothers and sisters:

He had a lot of fun with his siblings. One day he played with his sister's PhotoBooth program on her iMac with his brother Michael and his neice Allie:

It was fun to be back in the States and see our family. It was also a little strange to see America after being in Germany for 7 months (man, Americans sure drive really big cars!). But we were both very happy to get back to Germany. Our trip reminded us how much we love it here. On my first day back, I looked out our window and saw this beautiful view of the Black Forest, and I felt like the luckiest girl alive!

See even more photos of our trip here.

The Continuing Adventures of Heather and Sarah...in Paris!

2007-05-17T14:07:00.000-07:00

Between April 7th and 14th, Sarah and I were in Paris, France! This was, of course, Sarah's first trip there. I had spent a quick three days in Paris back in 2002 after I finished my study abroad in Cambridge, England. At that time I had actually only been interested in going to Paris to make my pilgrimage to see the Louvre. I really wasn't interested in the Eiffel tower, or all the romantic sights of the city. I was surprised to find that I quickly fell for Paris. It was a surprising beautiful city that you can only really take in if you have at least 5 months. So I was thrilled to go back again!

The most surprising thing that I learned about Paris on my first short trip was that it was exactly as romantic and beautiful as you always imagined it might be even though you suspect it really wouldn't be so romantic and beautiful. On this second, longer visit, I still found that to be true. So here are my impressions on the romantic and beautiful Paris!

Museums

Paris has some of the most amazing art museums in the world. And as an art historian, this was one of my favorite parts of visiting Paris! I think the French revere their artists in a way that no other country really does. When my sister came back from France where she served as a missionary for our church, she brought back some French francs for me: on one was printed the image of my favorite music composer, Claude Debussy, and on the other the author of one of my favorite books, Antonie St. Exupery, author of The Little Prince. They put their artists on their money (that is, before the switch to Euros)! Americans tend to revere our political foundations as our models for being a good American. The French revere their artists! I think that says a lot about how the French view their lives.

Of course we visited the Louvre. This is the largest art collection I've ever seen. It's one of the largest art museums in the world. It is housed in a former palace in the center of Paris. And they literally have the Best of Everything! Walking through the Louvre is like getting to step into the most selective and comprehensive art history book. Just one work of art from any random gallery would become the focal point of any envious art collection in the world. Just one gallery could be a world-class art collection in itself. And this palace has gallery upon gallery upon gallery of masterpieces! We spend two whole mornings at the Louvre and barely scratched the surface looking at Egyptian art, Greek and Roman sculptures (including the Venus di Milo), Italian Renaissance masters (including, of course, the Mona Lisa), large-scale 18th century French paintings, the former palace apartments of Napoleon Bonaparte III, and so much more! It was just as stunning and overwhelming the second time as it was the first.

Paris' second most popular art museum is the Musee d'Orsay. This museum has a collection of French art from the mid-19th century to the first few decades of the 20th century. Its popularity comes largely from its Impressionist galleries on the upper levels. But Sarah and I concentrated on its other galleries that were both more interesting to us and less crowded. We saw some of the great Realist works of Courbet, the fascinating and ground-breaking paintings of Manet who paved the way for the Impressionists, and some incredible sculptures and Art Neauvou rooms and furniture. The building itself was just as wonderful to look at. The museum is located in an old 19th century train station. You still get the sense from the great hall of the station including a huge clock and an opulent restaurant of the traveling elite of Paris.

We also visited the Rodin Museum. Towards the end of his life, Auguste Rodin, the great 19th century sculptor and the most inventive sculptor since Michelangelo, purchased an old mansion in the center of Paris to live out the end of his days, intending for the home and gardens to become a museum of his art after his death. Which is exactly what happened. We spend some time strolling through the gardens and the galleries of the old house. The museum houses only the works of Rodin and some works from his personal art collection (a few 19th century masters and ancient Greek sculptures). The only other artist he allowed to be represented in this museum is the work of Camille Claudel. She had been his pupil, then his model, then his assistant, then his mistress, then his jilted and bitter lover. She spent the end of her life angry and suspicious of him in an insane asylum. But she had created wonderful sculptures! In fact, some of her art can be easily interpreted as representing their troubled relationship. Rodin seemed to always have some strong guilt over how he treated he as well as respect for her work. So, in order to help her career and her legacy, he insisted that her work be shown in his museum.

After our visit to the Rodin museum, Sarah was exhausted, so she went back to our hotel while I went up to an exhibition of photographs of Atget on the other side of the Seine.

Look at some photos of these museums here.

Cafes

I never stopped to eat in a Parisian cafe on my first trip to Paris, so eating almost daily at a cafe was a delight! And a must! It was the loveliest thing to sit outside at a little table, watching Paris stroll by, and eating simple but such delicious food. All of life seemed to slow down and the simple act of eating became one of the delights of the day. I began to realize that one of the things that make Paris such a beautiful city is that they see the simplest and most mundane parts of life as not only something worthwhile, but something of beauty. All the details of Paris were beautiful: from the door on a house, to a display of macaroons in a shop window, to a salad at a cafe.

See photos of cafes and cafe food here.

Shopping

Paris must be a wonderful place to shop, because it was a wonderful place to window shop! Unfortunately our week's budget didn't allow us to indulge in some Parisian houtre couture, but it was plenty satisfying to walk by the many boutiques of Paris! Everyday we would walk from our hotel straight up the Rue Bonaparte to the Seine and we passed wonderful fashion boutiques, chocolate shops, art galleries, and print shops along the way. A few times during the week we wandered down side streets just to gaze through the windows. The fashions and antiques were beautiful enough, but the window displays themselves got plenty of gasps from us. We kept trying to define what it was about the Parisian clothing that made them so beautiful and desirable. We finally decided that it was their simplicity. Once again, Parisians displayed their talent for making the simple, Beautiful!

See some of these Paris shops here.

Churches

Paris has many beautiful and famous churches to visit. Unfortunately, we couldn't see them all, but we saw some incredible ones. Of course, we visited Notre Dame which was stunning! We stood in line outside the cathedral for nearly an hour and were finally let in to walk up the narrow step through one of the bell towers to see Paris from a gargoyle's point of view. We stood high above Paris between Notre Dame's two bell towers and it's gargoyles for a while before being let up to see the great bell of Notre Dame itself and then up to the roof of the bell tower. The interior of the church was no less stunning with amazing stained glass window and chapel niches with altarpieces from various centuries.

We also visited the St. Sulpice church. (This is apparently sometimes called the Da Vinci Church because part of “The Da Vinci Code” takes place in this church.) It's a beautiful, Neo-classical church. We enjoyed the stroll through the church, looking at the different chapel niches and the beautiful main altar.

One afternoon we climbed the hill of Montmarte to see Sacre Coure (church of the Sacred Heart). It was a holiday for the French and the crowds were as suffocating as the heavy air of the church. We walked, or rather were pushed along with the crowd, through the church which we both found more beautiful on the outside than the inside. The air was heavy with incense and the drones of organ music. We were glad to make it back outside to at least enjoy the panoramic view of Paris.

See photos of these churches here.

Paris Opera House

This was an unexpected treat. During my first trip to Paris, my hotel was within walking distance to the Paris Opera House so I had seen the beautiful exterior of the building, but I had never entered. This trip, I insisted that Sarah and I see the inside, because I had heard it was beautiful. As it turned out, beautiful was an understatement: it was Stunning! Gorgeous! Breathtaking!

The original Paris Opera House (where Degas painted many of his ballerinas) burned down in the mid-19th century. This one was finished in 1875. The public is allowed to explore the foyer and the library and catch a peak into the theater itself with its ceiling mural decorated by Marc Chagall during the daytime. Walking around this building, dripping with gold and more details than the human eye could possibly take in at once, you definitely get the sense that attendance to the Opera or Ballet in this building was an elite, social event. This was not necessarily a place to view a performance, but rather a place where the society in attendance, viewed each other: a place to be seen. It also becomes clear why the city decided to build a second Opera House in the 1980s for the people, with less of an elitist feel to its design. The Opera House we visited, known as the Opera Garnier, is now only home to the Ballet.

Try to get a sense of its beauty here.

Luxembourg Garden

The front door to our hotel was directly across the street from the entrance to this beautiful park, the Jardin du Luxembourg (Luxembourg Garden). The garden and the palace within it were originally built in the 17th century for Marie de Medici. Now the palace houses the French senate and the gardens are for the public. The park is huge and I spent our first full day in Paris wandering through its beauty. I was amazed at how much there was going on: there was a playground for children, a puppet theater, pony rides for children, tricycle races for children, an enclosed toddler play area, several Tai Chi and other martial arts classes, bocce ball, chess, toy sail boat rental near the pond, a cafe, beehives, designated areas for jogging and dog walking and only two strips of grass to sit on (otherwise, no walking on the grass!). Steel lawn chairs were everywhere and people could pull up a chair in the shade or in the sun and near the pond and read, talk, people watch, or doze. Statues were everywhere of animals, famous Frenchmen, Greek gods, and around the central pond area one statue after another of past French queens, and beautiful flowers everywhere! We spent a lot of time there. Every day we'd either take a stroll to unwind, or cut through the garden on our way to the center of Paris. I could have spent my entire week inside the walls of this garden and went home a happy woman.

See this beautiful garden here.

Eiffel Tower and Arch de Triomphe

Of course, a trip to Paris would be incomplete without visiting these two icons of Paris: the Eiffel Tower and the Arch de Triomphe.

The Eiffel Tower was lovely! Sarah and I decided that this tower is well deserving of being a symbol for Paris itself: it is pure beautiful with no real useful purpose whatsoever. Paris, I think, is about enjoying life in all its simplicity and beauty. Everything we had been doing in Paris had to do with food, art, religion, nature...these are things that don't put food on the table or money in your pocket; they don't serve a purpose other than to feel your soul. And Paris is a place that feeds the soul! The Eiffel Tower was engineered to impress, not to perform a task. It rises so gracefully up out of the Paris landscape that you want to rise with it! So we did! We walked up the first to levels of the tower (at 200 and 400 feet) then took the elevator up the very top (900 feet). The view from every point was beautiful!

You can also climb to the top of the Arch de Triomphe but we opted not to...we had already seen Paris from so many high vantage points...plus, we long line wasn't appealing. But we did get up close and walked around the surprisingly huge arc--the largest triumphal arc in the world, in fact--built by Napoleon.

Look at my photos here.

Americans in Paris

After living in Germany for the past six months, the thing about Paris that struck me immediately was the number of Americans in Paris! I think I heard more American English spoken in my first 24 hours in Paris than in all the previous six months in Germany. Why are there so many Americans in Paris? It certainly seems to be one of those European destinations that you just don't feel like you've experience Europe without. The French, especially the Parisians, have a way of enjoying the simple things in life that Americans seem to rush through. For me, Paris reminds you that the details of living are worthwhile. And I think, Europe as a whole, at least the parts of Europe I've experienced, can teach that to us Americans.

See a few more photos here.

Please take a look at Sarah's own blog entries on her point of view of Paris and Germany...her blog is here, click on Archive at the left, than start reading at March 30th. (Her May 15th entry also has a little film she made about our Paris trip.) I think its well-worth reading about her first impressions of Europe!

The Adventures of Heather and Sarah in Germany

2007-04-16T16:15:00.000-07:00

This is Heather.

She has a good friend named Sarah. This is Sarah.

Sarah and Heather have known each other a long time. They use to live a few blocks from each other, but now Sarah lives in Utah and Heather lives in Germany. But on April 2nd, Sarah came to visit Heather! It was Sarah's first time to come to Germany. In fact, it was Sarah's first time to leave the US!

Sarah was suppose to arrive on April 1st, but she got bumped from her plane and couldn't arrive until the next day. So they wasted no time seeing Germany!

On the way home from the airport they stopped at the city of Speyer to see a thousand year old Romanesque cathedral and quaint streets. And Sarah ate her first dönner! "I can't believe I'm in Germany!" said Sarah.

Then they stopped in the city of Karlsruhe and walked around the gardens of the palace. "Wow!" said Sarah, "This is just somethin'!"

Heather and Sarah finished the day by walking around Bühl and then going home for a dinner of Abendbrot. But Sarah was very tired and went to bed early to get rested for the next day of adventure!

On the next day of adventure, Sarah and Heather got in the car and drove 2 1/2 hours through the beautiful Rhine landscape to the Mosel River to see Burg Eltz. Sarah was impressed: "This is just somethin'!"

Then they saw Burg Thurant. Sarah and Heather enjoyed wandering through the castle on their own and imaginine what it may be like to be thrown down in the dungeon and left for dead.

They were hungry and tired when they got home so they walked down the street with Heather's husband, Karl, to the Biergarten in their little village of Oberweier for Schnitzel. Sarah liked the hearty German meal and the cozy German Biergarten!

But jet lag and having her three children so far away were a little overwhelming for Sarah. So the next day Heather and Sarah stayed at home resting, watching movies and listening to the chickens outside the balcony.

The following day they were ready for more adventures! So they explored the nearby resort city of Baden-Baden. It was a beautiful city but didn't quite fit Sarah. So, that evening, Heather took Sarah to the Black Forest.

They explored the ruined castle of Windeck so that Sarah could see up close what she had been admiring from her bedroom window all week. Then they drove through the forest itself, admiring the beautiful views. The Forest fit Sarah much better...she felt quite at home!

Before Sarah came to Europe, she found out that a lot of her anscestors came from Germany! They moved from beautiful, forested, hilly parts of the Black Forest, the Neckar region, Alsace, and Basel to beautiful, forested, hilly parts of Pennsylvania, Prince Edward Island, and Indiana. Sarah was anxious to see where her family had begun. So Heather and Sarah drove up to the Neckar river to visit some of the towns her family originated from.

They explored the small but quaint towns of Neckargemund, Bummeltal and Wiesenbach and then the large, beautiful city of Heidelberg.

Heidelberg was covered with tourists, but Heather and Sarah was able to see past all the souviner booths to the beautiful, ancient city underneath. Sarah was so proud that her family came from such a beautiful place, "This is just somethin'!"

When the souviner booths got too distracting, they hid out in a beautiful museum about that region of Germany. There were wonderful works of art, Roman ruins and mideval skeletons. The museum was so lovely, they wished they could have stayed all day. But Heather and Sarah needed to get home and pack...beacause they were headed for Paris, France the very next day!

(See all their photos from Germany here.)

Fasching!

2007-03-30T16:03:00.000-07:00

Karl and I have recently finished experiencing Fasching...or Fasnacht as it's also called in Germany...or Carnival as it's called in some countries...or Mardi Gras as it's called in New Orleans. You can click here to read all about the holiday and how it's celebrated in many different countries...but basically, it's a Catholic holiday. It begins here in Germany on November 11th at 11:11 am and lasts until Ash Wednesday. Most of the festivities, however, happen in the month before Ash Wednesday. It's a way for people to let loose, ignore the rules, become a fool, and criticize bureaucracy in a fun and harmless way.

Karl and I had heard about Fasching when we were in Berlin but didn't see any evidence of it. Now that we're in the Black Forest of Germany we've learned that the season is only heavily celebrated in far western Germany in the Rhine river and Black Forest regions.

One Saturday, January 20th, Karl and I went to visit Esslingen, the city where he spent his study abroad in 2005. Just a few days before, my German instructor had talked to me about how Fasching was traditionally celebrated in Germany. So as we were sitting in a little pub eating lunch and some men entered to have some drinks at the bar, I immediately recognized their strange costumes as Fasching costumes. There are German Fasching societies or clubs that work throughout the year on making expensive costumes and very expensive hand-carved wooden masks just for this time of year. During Fasching they participate in a lot of parades and celebrations and drink a lot. After lunch, we quickly found the large central square where a Fasching celebration was getting ready to begin.

The celebration was for the traditional (and symbolic) kicking out the mayor and letting the fools take over the city. There was a band and several Fasching groups, each with their own unique costumes, and the king and queen of the fools arrived. The mayor made a comic appearance dressed up as a female nurse to "save" another man dressed as an old woman and after their comical play, the king and queen of the fools arrived on the balcony of city hall and announced their new "laws." All of this contains a lot of inside jokes based on political and other events from the past year. And throughout, every time one of the "fools" -- or "narr" as they are called in German -- yells the word "Narri!" (pronounced nah-ree) the crowd yells back "Narro!" (pronouned nah-roo). It was all very fun!

Take a look at the Esslingen photos here.

On Monday, February 19th, I was invited to attend the Bühlertal Fastnacht parade by some friends of ours. It's apparently a well-known parade and very traditional. And it was very fun! Besides all the cries of "Narri!" and "Narro!", their were bands, and Fasching societies with all kinds of costumes. I loved seeing the variety of costumes. And most of the crowd was costumed in some way (I was even convinced to wear fuzzy pink antennas by my friends), especially the children. When Fasching, or Fastnacht, was explained to me in Berlin by fellow Americans, I was told it was like the German version of Halloween. Actually, it's not a very good comparison at all...but at this parade, I saw why it might be explained that way. All the costumed children also bring empty bags with them. And throughout the parade, all the costumed fools give candy to the kids. And these kids made out pretty well!

Besides giving candy to the kids, some groups were giving "candy" to the adults, too...little cups of wine (we do live in wine-country, remember). And when they weren't giving out wine and candy they were playing tricks on the crowd...stealing hats, stuffing confetti down people's shirts, and kidnapping young pretty girls and tying their legs together or dragging them along in a wagon or stealing their shoelaces. And there was a lot...A LOT... of confetti! I am still, a month later, finding it places. (As you look at my photos from the parade, you'll notice the ground becoming whiter and whiter...that's the confetti!). I personally got confetti stuffed down the back of my shirt and one of my friends got his hat stolen three times, having to chase after the fool who took it each time. It really was fun!

See all my Bühlertal photos here.

But the neatest event I attend was actually in Switzerland. My German instructor had told me that there was a famous parade called the Morgestraich in Basel, Switzerland, which is just over the German border, about an hour and 20 minutes away from our home. The parade took place on Monday, February 26th, and I decided to go. But it wasn't an easy decision...'cause here's the thing: the parade starts at 4:00 am. Yes, A.M! Why 4 am? Because the Basel Fasnacht celebration begins at 4 am Monday morning and ends at 4 am Thursday morning and because darkness is an important part of this parade. I had learned that it was a parade of handmade lanterns and pipe music. So on Sunday afternoon I went to bed at 5 pm and woke up at 11 pm. I showered, had breakfast, and left home at 1 am. I crossed the Swiss border a little after 2 am. I found a parking spot, took a tram to the city center and found a place in the market square to stand and wait for the parade by 3 am. And by 3 am there was already a large crowd. The street lights were on, there was a drizzle of rain, which thankfully stopped a little while before the parade started, and we all stood around in the early morning wet cold and I wondered why I had decided to do this. And then the parade started...and I was sooo glad I decided to do this!

At 4 am the town hall clock in the square where I was struck 4 am. And at exactly the ring of the 4th bell, all the city lights went out! And then, a moment later, the pipe and drum music started up! It was a stunning beginning to the most unique parade I had ever seen! To get a sense of what this all sounded like, click here, then click on "Calendar" on the menu at the left, and as the site takes you to that page, you'll hear the town hall bells strike 4, the lights going out (all the oohhhs and aahhhs from the crowd) and then the pipe and drums starting up!

The parade was made up of different Fastnacht groups, or cliques as the Swiss call them, marching down the streets with their lanterns, drums and pipes. The lanterns were huge and pulled on carts by two to four people. These large lanterns were hand painted with different satirical messages, mostly based on different local political and other events. They were amazing! Following the large lanterns are costumed people along with a group of costumed piccolo players (a small, high-pitched flute) and they are followed by a group of costumed drum players. They are all wearing small lanterns on the tops of their heads. And some are even carrying lanterns on the ends of tall sticks. And that's it. No bands, no candy, no confetti, no waving or any kind of interaction with the crowd. Just pipes, drums and lanterns and all in the dark. Not only are all the street lights out, but all the homes and business in the area are asked to turn out their lights, too, so that the only light is coming from the colorful lanterns. So as these cliques slowly march past, you can just see their strange masks coming out of the darkness and all you can hear is the pipe and drum music which sounds almost creepy in the darkness.

After about 45 minutes, the parade seemed to be ending. Suddenly, there were no more cliques marching by. But soon, I realized, that the parade wasn't ending, it was changing. The parade was breaking up: all the cliques were separating from the main street and were turning off onto different side streets. There seemed to be no more parade route...it was a free for all! And the crowd started breaking up, too. All the people started rushing off onto different streets to watch the cliques, moving from street to street, and even falling in behind the cliques themselves, becoming part of the parade. So I got in on all the fun! Dashing around the streets, watching the different lanterns go by or following cliques for a while than following another, some moving down crowded streets, others turning off into narrow alleys with hardly any people. I've never seen a parade like it! Every once in a while a clique would stop to take a break and pull their large lantern over to the side of the streets, take off thier masks, and warm up with some coffee or small amounts of liquor. Then the crowds could get a closer look at the amazing lanterns. As I mentioned, they were all satirical and most had some writing on them, but they were all written in the local Basel dialect, so I couldn't always understand what they said, but often the pictures said enough! I was amazed how smoothly this seemingly chaotic parade went. Often cliques would cross each other's paths and every time, one clique would patiently wait until it was their turn to go, as if there were invisable traffic lights. Or people would repeatedly and respectively get out of the way of oncoming cliques. Everyone was very respectful of this parade and it's chaotic nature!

It went on like this until sunrise. As it became lighter, a lot of the magic of the parade disappeared. The darkness was definitely important. More and more of the cliques stopped for good and more and more of the crowds dispersed into the cafes and shops starting to open. I took a few more photos so that all of you could get a better sense of what the costumes looked like, but soon I felt the need to go, too. At about 7:45 am I made my way back to the car. Very tired, but very exhilarated. I contemplated how amazing it was that this society had created a way that, for hundreds of years, they had been able to harmlessly shrug off the burden of rules and criticize what they felt was wrong in their society without repercussions, before going back to daily life, feeling better after having a little fun and getting some things off their collective chest. I can't wait for next year!

Please take a look at the Basel photos here.

And I took some short (very short) videos with my digital camera that you can view here, here and here.

Grüße aus...München! (Part II)

2007-03-12T16:31:00.000-07:00

On our second full day in Munich, Tuesday, February 13, Karl and I decided to visit Bavaria Films! This was a film studio located just outside the city. It is actually not only the largest film studios in Germany but the largest film studio in Europe and is the location for the filming of such films as "Carabet", "Das Boot", "Enemy Mine", "The Never Ending Story", and the recent "Perfume: The Story of a Murderer". It is also the location of the production of several German television shows...including my secret embarassing indulgence, the soap opera "Sturm der Liebe" ("Storm of Love"). (And yes, I did keep my eye out for any of my favorite "Sturm der Liebe" stars and no, I didn't see any.)

We took a tour through the studio that included all kinds of fun and games...

A photo op:

A stop on the streets of Berlin...or rather a set that was originally built for a film about Berlin in the 1930s:

And we got to make a little movie! Three tourists were chosen as actors and our tour guide filmed different scenes based on this recent German film (it looks totally stupid and I do not recommend it):

We walked through part of an old set from "Enemy Mine" (the set was used for a shot of a space station):

My personal favoarite was visiting the set of one of my favorite German movies, "Das Boot":

But I think Karl most like riding the dragon/dog from "Neverending Story":

We had a lot of fun! But no time to go into more detail about the tour..."Sturm der Liebe" is about to start...

(Look at all of our pictures from our couple of days in Munich here including photos of some beautiful churches.)

Grüße aus...München! (Part I)

2007-02-28T15:52:00.000-08:00

Karl needed to go to Munich on Monday, February 11th, for work so I decided to go with him since I have never seen Munich. He decided to take Tuesday off work so that we could spend an extra day in Munich together.

We took the train in on Sunday afternoon and Karl showed me around the city center. He had taken a couple of trips to Munich while he was on his study abroad in Esslingen. We went into a few beautiful churches and had a late lunch at a very Bavarian and (a little touristy) restaurant in the city center. The city center was very beautiful...if very restored. Unfortunately a huge part of Munich was destroyed (like many German cities) in World War II. And many buildings were, thankfully, if obviously, restored.

The next day, Monday, as Karl was busy with his work thing, I went into the city center and took a Munich City Walk tour. The tour I chose was their Third Reich tour. For 2 1/2 hours we were shown Munich through Hitler's eyes...it was fascinating!

Adolf Hitler was first introduced to the German Worker's Party as a spy. He attended a meeting of this minor political party when he assigned to investigate it as a police spy. The meeting took place in this building (which is now a bed store):

Hitler was personally impressed with the party's ideas. Before long was was not only a party member but became head of their propaganda. And before much longer, Hitler changed the title of the part to the National Socialist German Worker's Party in 1921 and announced the formation of this new party as its leader in this room:

This is the upper hall of Munich's most famous beer hall: the Hofbräuhaus. In this room, standing, not on the stage or at a podium, but on the floor in the center of the room, he announced this new party and its goals and ideals. (Unfortunately, we were not allowed to enter the room, so the only photo I was able to take was through its glass doors with its strange reflections.)

As we continued our walk through Munich, we passed its beautiful opera house:

Hitler loved the opera. Particularly the operas of Wagner, whose operas were about the great German legends. Our tour guide told us an interesting anecdote illustrating both his love for opera and his lack of friendship skills. One long night during a Wagner opera, some party friends of Hitler fell asleep during the performance. He was so offended by this that he had these men attend the opera again the next night and made them stand up during the entire 4 hour performance. No wonder Hitler's favorite architect would say "If Hitler had a friend, I was the closest thing to it."

We passed by the Feldherrnhalle...

...and stopped on the left side of it which had once been a Nazi cult sight. In 1923 Hitler decided it was time to overthrow the Bavarian government preparatory for his overthrow of Germany's capital, Berlin. However, this Beer Hall Putsch didn't go very smoothly. As the party marched from the beer hall to the Bavarian War Ministry, the police barricaded the street next to the Feldherrnhalle at exactly this point...

...and several party members were killed. After Hitler's rise to power this point, where men had given their lives for the party, became a memorial. And everyone who walked past it had to salute the memorial. Those people who preferred to practice a passive-aggressive protest, walked instead through an alley behind the Feldherrnhalle to avoid having to make the salute. This alley...

...thus became nicknamed Dodger's Alley and is today marked with gold-colored stones.

Next we walked to the Bavarian government building--also heavily destroyed, hence the newer glass additions. (The front facade, however, is still original, including the scars of WWII ammunition in the columns.) The rectangular stone form standing directly in front of the building is a memorial to fallen Bavarian soldiers in both the World Wars.

Also in front of the building is this simple memorial to German Dissenters. Quotes from dissenters are etched in the granite. At this point our tour guide, Sebastian, talked about the Germans who resisted the Nazi party. This granite memorial had a quote from the White Rose group who wrote leaflets calling for active opposition to the party. But Sebastian went into detail on one of his personal heroes, Georg Elser.

Just behind and around the corner from the Bavarian government building was an illustration of Nazi architecture: the Haus der Kunst.

This Nazi-built art museum housed a great exhibition of Nazi art in 1937, called the Great German Art Exhibition, during which, behind us in a nearby building, the exhibition of Degenerate Art took place. This was an exhibition of modern, German Expressionist art that was banned by the Nazi Regime. Their intention for this exhibition was to ridicule the art...however the Degenerate Art exhibition had three and a half times more visitors than the Great German Art Exhibition. Because the art was slated to be burned after the exhibition, people came because they knew it would be their last chance to see this great and important art being made in Germany. The artists included in the exhibition were declared enemies of the state. Luckily, most of the art was sold to museums in other nations when the Nazis realized how much money they could get for it.

Our final stop was at the center of the Nazi Party administration which is off of Königsplatz, the location of Hitler's great book burning in 1933.

This group of over 50 buildings once covered this area of Munich. Many of the buildings were destroyed after the war, including the building known as the Brown House in which Hitler's deputy and staff worked:

The foundations of the building have been uncovered, and a new information center on the Nazi Regime is currently being built on the location.

Two Temples of Honor were also destroyed, with only their bases remaining:

Remember the party members that died near the Fernherrnhalle during the Beer hall Putsch? Eventually, Hitler had their bodies entombed in these temples that were kept under guard and became Nazi cult sites.

But not all the party buildings were destroyed. Just beyond the base of the Temple of Honor above, you can see the former Nazi Party Administration building. After the war, this building housed the committee recovering Nazi looted art. It now holds an art history and graphic institute.

Note all the damage on the building from the war.

The building above is now a music school but was once the Führer building. And this is where we ended our tour: on the steps looking over at the room that was once Hitler's Munich office, where musicians were now holding a rehearsal.

I found this tour very fascinating. One of the most interesting aspects of it is that our young tour guide, Sebastian, was himself a German. He even mentioned that his grandfather had been in Hitler's bunker at the end of the war and even saw Hitler's body after he had committed suicide. I have rarely heard this dark period in Germany's history spoken about by Germans. And usually the stories I have heard about the war from Germans were about some of the horrible things they had to go through immediately after the end of the war. But I can't believe it is a period of history that Germans don't at least think about. It seems that the the anti-Nazi propaganda the Allies began immediately after the war is still in place: Holocaust memorials can be frequently found and World War II documentaries are almost constantly on TV here. But I think it is slowly becoming a subject that the upcoming generations are more willing to discuss...for instance, more and more German-made holocaust films are being made. One of which inspired me to seek out a certain location in Munich after my tour...

The White Rose was an organization of five students and a professor at the University of Munich. They secretly published and distributed leaflets calling for active opposition to the Nazi regime. On February 18, 1943, the students brought a briefcase of leaflets to the university. Hans and Sophie Scholl (they were brother and sister) left stacks of leaflets in the empty hallways for students to find when classes let out. On a whim, Sophie took one last stack and flung it into the air over the atrium. A custodian witnessed this last act and notified the police. The siblings were arrested along with fellow member, Gustaph Propst, and were quickly tried and executed. The other members of the White Rose were also eventually executed. A wonderful film called Sophie Scholl: The Final Days depicts this event.

So off I went to the university building where the Sophie Scholl had thrown her leaflets:

Just off of the atrium is a little museum about the White Rose. On the wall of the atrium is a memorial to the White Rose. And in front of the building, on the ground, and made to appear as leaflets, is a monument to the White Rose.

I really had a fascinating day exploring Munich's darker side. But the next day, Karl and I discovered a completely different side of Munich! But I'll get to that a little later....

Augustus Gloop and Gengenbach

2007-02-17T22:31:00.000-08:00

Today we visited the town that Augustus Gloop comes from!

Well...not really. But we did visit the town of Gengenbach, Germany which Tim Burton used as Düsseldorf, Germany in the movie Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Düsseldorf or Gengenbach? (Still from Charlie above, our view of Gengenbach below.)

Gengenbach is only about 30 minutes south of us in the Black Forest. It is Beautiful! We spent our afternoon wandering the streets of the city center. We had lunch in the base of the tower you see in the photo...the tower is a gate of the old city wall and it now holds a cafe.

On our way home we stopped at a huge castle we spotted from the road. The castle of Ortenberg has been turned into a youth hostel (a cheap and romantic place to stay--with a view of the Black Forest and France--if any of you plan on backpacking the Black Forest sometime). The hostel was actually closed for the weekend so we couldn't get inside but we walked along the hills around it and enjoyed the view.

See lots more photos of Gengenbach and Ortenberg here.

What I do all day....

2007-02-15T02:42:00.000-08:00

One of the questions I get asked a lot these days is, "So, what do you do, Heather?" People I just meet ask me this, wondering if I also work. My family who know I'm not working ask me this, wondering what I do with my time. Other American wives I meet here who are also not working ask me this since, unlike most of them, I have no children to care for. Sometimes I find myself asking myself this, as well.

So...what do I do?

Well, one thing I'm NOT doing is working. I don't have permission from the German government to work. And honestly, I have not looked into the possibility of getting permission to work. Nor do I really want to right now. I felt so overwhelmingly busy at times in Flint that I love this time to do what I really want to do so I've been digging up projects I've postponed for years and finding new ones to work on. Here are some of them:

I'm quilting. As many of you know, I asked Karl for a sewing machine for Christmas two years ago, with the idea in mind that I wanted to learn how to quilt. Which I did! And I really enjoy it. So now I have more time to quilt. Here is a quilt I started in Wooster and finished the weekend Karl was forgetting everything in Switzerland (front and back views):

I'm blogging. I've really enjoyed writing this blog and I'm glad you are all still reading it! I keep a running list of things to blog about and I hope I'm not boring you all yet, because I have a lot of ideas!! And if any of you have ideas of what you'd like to hear about, please let me know! Since I've started my own blog I've also been discovering other blogs. I have several I like to read almost daily and others I like to keep tabs on. Some I find simply interesting or fun to read, others give me good ideas for projects and quilts and others are just beautiful.

I'm researching my family history. I've been wanting to help my dad research his German family line for years and now that I'm in Germany and have the time, I'm doing it! He was able to find information on his family line up until the point when the family came over to America but he could not find information on them IN Germany. I was able to locate our family in a town in Germany a couple of hours north of here and I've found other records on the family in an archive in Speyer. It's been fun and I have lots more to do! I'm looking forward to taking a trip up to the towns my family came from.

I've been learning German. LuK has provided me with a German instructor and she comes twice a week to help me with my German. We speak in German, I write in German, she teaches me grammar and cultural tips and gives me homework. I'm learning that the German I thought was so good at the end of my mission in Berlin really wasn't that good at all!

I'm planning trips. Living in Germany for two years, it would be a sin not to take advantage of travelling around Europe now that I don't have to pay for the most expensive part of the trip...the plane ticket over the Atlantic. Karl and I, as you know, have been exploring the region of Germany we live in, but we're planning some bigger trips as well. My good friend is visiting in April and we'll be spending a week in Paris together. I'm hoping to spend my birthday in June biking around the Dingle peninsula in Ireland. And Karl and I want to pick up our new Harry Potter books at a London bookstore on the day it's released in July.

I'm been doing laundry. And dishes. And vacuuming. And grocery shopping. And paying bills. And...well, you get the idea.

And sometimes I'm bored. About once a week or so I have a day where I am just plain bored. Those are the days I often start thinking of new projects and things to do...like maybe I could buy a drum set....?

My family is trying to steal Karl's thunder...again.

2007-02-01T18:11:00.000-08:00

Thanks to all our our friends and family who have taken the time (and cost) to call and email Karl this week. We're grateful for all your thoughts, prayers, and well-wishes. He has certainly appreciated your concern. He's doing fine...his back and head are still achy, but he's been getting a lot of rest and hasn't had anymore bouts of amnesia.

Here are some ways he has been filling his TV-less, Xbox-less, book-less, computer-less time:

putting together a paper castle model,

Legos,

and grilling steaks in his pajamas (Karl thanks you for the idea, Erik).

We're especially thankful for the concern from my own family, because they have all had much better things to think about this week.

On Monday, January 29th my mother finally became a Grandmother!! Congratulations, Mom!

We got a call from my parents letting us know that my brother's 7-months pregnant wife was just admitted to the hospital. She was diagnosed with preeclampsia (high blood pressure) and mother and baby weren't doing so well. So, at 4:13 pm (Utah time) she gave birth by C-section to little 3 lb 3 oz, 16.5 inches long Max Striegel Keller! He's little but strong. The doctors are all very happy with how well he's doing. His mom is doing fine, too. Congratulations Erik and Monica! We can't wait to meet you, Max!

Here are more photos of Max and his mommy and daddy (thanks to Kaila for taking some of these photos!).

Also, on Monday, January 29th, my sister, Susan, got engaged! His name is Andrew and by all accounts, Susan finally found a man who treats her right! The wedding is set for April 28th. Congratulations Susan and Andrew! We can't wait to meet you, too, Andrew!

Here are some photos of the happy couple in New Orleans.

Skiing in Switzerland...or at least what I can remember

2007-01-29T03:20:00.000-08:00

Since I went away to Switzerland this weekend without Heather, she is letting me be her guest blogger and tell you all about it myself.

I'm Karl.

I had the opportunity to ski in the Swiss Alps this weekend with my American co-worker, Greg Weber (as in Weber Grills). We drove down Saturday morning, January 27th. It's about a three hour drive to Grindelwald, Switzerland in the Alps. He rented skis and I rented a snowboard. From there we took a steep train up to the slops.

The view was fantastic! For the view alone the price was worth it. It was breathtaking! Unfortunately, I didn't take my camera up to the slops for fear of damaging it, so I have no pictures to prove it.

Greg and I were looking for simple hills because it has been about 10 years since the last time I laid foot on a ski slop. As best as I can recall, we did a couple of short runs, then, after gaining our confidence, decided to tackle something a little more adventurous. I vaguely remember selecting a slop and snowboarding down parts of it. But the rest of our day...I've had to depend on Greg for what exactly happened.

We decided to go through a more wooded part of the hill and, as we were trying to slow down, some ice caught the edge of my board and I fell backwards onto my lower back and the back of my head. Apparently, I hit my head VERY hard. Hard enough to cause a concussion and slight memory loss. Greg says that as we walked the rest of the way down the hill, he quizzed me on different things to help jog my memory and keep me talking.

"What country are we in?" "Germany."
"What's your birthday?" "May 20th."
"How old are you?" "I'm not sure."
"Are you married?" "Yes."
"Who's your wife?" "Heather. What happened? Did I hit my head?"
"Yeah, you hit your head. What's 4 + 6?" "10."
"What's my name?" "Greg Weber. As in Weber Grills."
"What year is it?" "2006."
"What day is it?" "I don't know. My head really hurts...did I hit it?"
"Yeah, you hit your head. Do you remember going out to dinner last night?" "We went to dinner last night?"

Basically, I had no short term memory. Greg returned our ski equipment and he decided he better drive me back home. First he called Heather.....

Let me jump in here for a moment, and tell you my end of what happened, since Karl really has no recollection of this part of his weekend. I, Heather, got a call from Karl at about 6pm on Saturday. The first thing he said was, "I have amnesia." "You do, huh?" (I'm thinking this is some joke.) "Yeah, I hit my head and I have amnesia." (Now I'm getting alarmed.) "What happened?" "Um...I'm not sure...you better talk to Greg." So Greg told me what happened and that he was planning to take Karl back home right away. I asked to talk to Karl again, but that didn't go very well. "What's the last thing you remember?" "Um...I'll have to think about that." He did not sound like Karl...he sounded very confused. I told them that they should probably go to a doctor right away.

A while later Karl called back..."Hi, it's Karl....Um...I don't remember why I called you." So I asked to talk to Greg. He had some questions about our medical insurance and then they went off to the hospital. Later that night Greg called back with the news that the hospital took some X-rays (which looked OK), put him in intensive care, and wanted to watch him for 24 hours. The doctor would look at him in the morning and decide if he could go home. So I had a stressful night.

It's Karl again....my memory gradually started to come back that night. The nurses woke me up once an hour to shine a light in my eyes and ask me questions like, "Do you know where you are?" and "When's your birthday?" I felt like I was in a police interrogation...but with nice police. The only thing I don't remember now is from about 15 minutes before the accident to about when we called Heather...though I don't remember anything I said to her. I met with the doctor at about 10:00 am and he told me I would be alright and I could leave at 4:00 that afternoon. Which we did.

Before driving home we went out to a lake west of Interlaken where Greg had eaten lunch earlier that day. We sat on the shore and enjoyed the amazing view. Eventually we got back in the car and headed north up to Germany, listening to Weird Al Yankovic on Greg's iPod.

The doctor instructed me not to go to work for a week, and when I was home, not to work on a computer (so I'm dictating this to Heather), to watch as little television as possible, and not read anything too intently. Basically, to let my brain rest. So this is a good week to give us a call (from January 29th to February 5th)!

And I've decided to swear off skiing and snowboarding forever. I don't need it.

View more beautiful Swiss photos here.

Bratwurst 101

2007-01-20T22:54:00.000-08:00

This is a Bratwurst.

It is THE fast food of Germany. You can find Bratwurt grills anywhere you can find people. They are especially found in pedestrian zones, Christmas markets, and farmer markets (where I am about to eat mine above at the Freiburg Farmer's Market). They are usually sold at little mobile stands and are eaten on the go or while standing (note my fellow Bratwurst eaters standing behind me).

And please note: a Bratwurst is NOT a Hot Dog!

The name Bratwurst comes from the old German name Brätwurst..."brät" meant finely chopped meat and "wurst" meaning sausage.

You almost always are served a brötchen (a hard roll) with the wurst and not much else should accompany delicacy...you are often given the option of grilled onions and traditionally you should only put spicy mustard on your wurst, although ketchup is offered as well. (Note the spicy mustard on mine and somewhere in the bread are some grilled onions).

The wurst is often placed inside the roll but I have also seen the bread placed on the side. And the wurst is ALWAYS longer than the bread...and no, as you can see above, you do NOT cut the wurst to fit the bread. The only exception I have seen to this is when you order a Langewurst (long-wurst) which are quite long. Then usually, just before serving, the wurst is cut in half and both pieces are placed in the roll...and the ends still extend beyond the bread.

A variation is Curry-wurst...the wurst is cut into bite-sized pieces and covered in a spicy curry ketchup.

There are red wursts and white wursts (I think I like the white ones better...they have more spices added to them).

They are cooked on a grill or in a pan and eaten immediately when they are hot, toasty, and sooo good!

For our family and friends in Ohio, please visit the annual Bratwurst Festival in Bucyrus, Ohio, August 16-18, 2007!

For our friends here in Germany, please consider visiting the Bratwurst Museum in Thüringer, where the first Bratwurst was made!

Guten Appetit!

Grüße aus...Freiburg!

2007-01-19T09:35:00.000-08:00

Karl and I ended 2006 by spending the day in Freiburg. I had already taken a couple of trips to see Freiburg, which is an hour south of us, but Karl had never been. So I took him so he'd stop his whining.

Freiburg is home to a large university (founded in 1457), whose students are apparently very into organic foods (or so says my German instructor who graduated from there). It's a beautiful, old city on the edge of the Black Forest.

We first visited their huge, well-known Farmer's Market surrounding the cathedral. Such amazing-looking food and bread and flowers and handmade pasta and olives and bratwurst....We bought a quarter of a HUGE loaf of rustic bread (and even then it went bad before we could finish it) and had a yummy and very German lunch of bratwurst and then went inside their famous cathedral.

The church was beautiful! It was begun to be built about 1200 and finished in 1513 (after changing the architectural plans to a more "modern" Gothic and financial delays).

For the rest of the afternoon, we walked around the old part of Freiburg, through it's quaint streets and shops. It's a beautiful city!

Heilige Drei Könige

2007-01-12T15:51:00.000-08:00

Last Friday, January 5th, I was surprised to wake up and find out it was a holiday...actually, Saturday, January 6th was the holiday, but everyone seemed to be celebrating it a day early....here's what happened...

Karl went off to work as usual around 8 am...I watched a little Knight Rider on TV then got into the shower around 9 am. Shortly after emerging wet from the shower, I thought I heard someone outside our door. Since I was in no way decent to take a peek and since I didn't hear a knock or a ring, I ignored it. Not long after, as I was finishing up my daily primping, I heard some people talking in our building's stairwell. I took a peek out the door and heard our landlord talking to someone...and then the someone started to quote a Bible scripture...and I imagined that it must be Jehovah Witnesses and I was very glad I had been conviently in the shower when they stopped at my door. As I walked back into my apartment I noticed some strange writing in white chalk at the top of my door...what the freak?

As I heard them leave, I took a peek off of our balcony to confirm my suspicions and was very surprised to see instead a group of kids dressed up like kings! What the freak?!

And then I remembered Karl mentioning to me once that there was some German holiday coming up but that since the holiday fell on a Saturday, he sadly would not be gettting any days off of work. Could this have anything to do with a holiday? So I took a gander through the internet, putting all the clues together, until I discovered Drei Heilige Könige Tag = Three Holy Kings Day!

This holiday may be better known in the English-speaking world as Epiphany. It's a Catholic holiday celebrating the day the kings visited the Christ child, bearing their gifts. It has an interesting history which you can read about in this Wikipedia link. Here in Germany, apparently, children dress up as the Magi and then go from door to door to ask for money to donate to needy children. They carry with them chalk that was blessed by a priest. Over the doors of the homes they visit they write 20 + C + B + M + 07. I'm not sure what the 20 means and I'm pretty sure the 07 is the year, but I do know that the letters stand both for the traditional names of the kings (Caspar, Balthasar and Melchoir) and for the latin phrase "Christus mansionem benedicat" which means "may Christ bless this house".

Now you may be thinking...come on, Heather, you lived in German for a year and a half already, didn't you already experience this holiday? Well, please remember that I lived in EAST Germany...as in former Communist country...as in religion and the celebrating of religious holidays was frowned upon (although they managed to still keep Christmas absolutely lovely!). Right now Karl and I are living in a heavily Catholic area where these Cathlolic holidays are widely celebrated. And when I was in eastern Germany 10 years ago holidays like this still really weren't being celebrated. And besides...the east Germans certainly have a few holidays of their own that the rest of Germany wouldn't consider putting on their calendars (just ask me about Herrn Tag...man, was that a horrid day!).

Stammtisch in Oberkirch

2007-01-09T19:13:00.000-08:00

Every quarter LuK organizes an activity for the families of their employees who are from other countries and working here temporaraly...like us. I think of these activities as LuK's way of saying, "See! You LIKE living in another culture and learning another languague and being far away from your family!" These activities are called a Stammtisch and Karl and I had our first Stammtisch last month on December 1st.

LuK took us all in a bus down to Oberkirch and up to the Schauenburg ruins. A tour guid met us dressed in medieval costume and took us into the ruins to tell us all about the history of the castle. It was all in German and we understood only half of it...but it was interesting. There had been four families living in Schauenburg, each lived in one of its four towers. The castle was never destoryed from without by an attack. It was destroyed from within, by family bickering. Eventually the four families all left Schauenburg for different areas in Europe. One family stayed in Oberkirch and built a palace in the town.

After our history lesson, everyone got a torch...and I don't mean the British word for a flashlight, I mean a fire-burning torch! It was cool! We walked down the hillside through a vineyard by torchlight until we got back down to Oberkirch and stopped at the palace grounds for warm drinks. We were then led across the street into the restaruant called the Silberner Stern (the Silver Star...click on Silberner Stern at the bottom of this link to see images of the resaurant). It was in this restaurant that the great 17th century German poet, Johann Jacob von Grimmelshausen, would write. The restaurant still had a 17th century feel to it...it was beautiful and the dinner they served was wonderful!

The whole evening was so lovely that we most definitaly could agree that we love living in another culture and learning another languague...just not being so far away from our family! We wish you could have all been there!

Silvester!

2007-01-02T08:56:00.000-08:00

Germans call the New Year holiday Silvester. It is so named after Pope Silvester I who died on December 31, 335. Germans celebrate the New Year very loudly...don't we all? As missionaries in Berlin, Karl and I had to go home before dark and go to bed at the usual time and stay off the streets. Of course, it was hard to sleep because all I and my mission companion could hear were very loud fireworks. They never used the colorful kind of fireworks that we could have watched from our windows, just the very loud kind that prevented us from sleeping. And the next morning the streets were dead to the world and it was impossible not to avoid stepping on any kind of fireworks remains.

This Silvester, Karl and I had a quiet evening at home grilling pizzas on the balcony, watching movies, and playing games until just before midnight when we watched the countdown from Berlin on TV. And then the fireworks began...it was both beautiful and terrifying! They were all very loud and very colorful and very close! We watched at first from our third-floor balcony that over looked the street below and farm fields beyond. Someone was setting off fireworks in the street just below us and the fireworks would scream up into the air and explode just about at the level of our balcony! I kept expecting one to blow our faces off! So we went to the window at the other end of the apartment that looked out over the city of Bühl and the Black Forest mountains...the sight was breathtaking! Colored lights were exploding everywhere!! The entire valley and city of Bühl was covered with a blanket of exploding colored lights...near, far, and everyone in between! More fireworks were exploding higher up in the mountains. Karl took the photos below, but really they don't do the spectacle justice!

To us, it actually looked more like this (a photo of some Silvester fireworks in the German city of Zwickau).

Our landlords gave us this large bread loaf in the shape of a pretzel...apparently they are for good luck in the New Year!

We feel hardley deserving of yet more good luck...we've had so much of it this past year! We are amazed at how much we have been blessed. It has been a year of transitions...the past 6 months since Karl's graduation has been especially hectic, we've hardly had a chance to take it all in. We've moved not once, but twice, have said goodbye to dear friends in Michigan and have found new ones in our new home. A year ago we were looking forward to Karl's graduation and wondering where we would be celebrating the New Year in another year...we are still surprised to wake up most days to find that our dream of living in Germany again has come true! We hope 2007 will bring all of you great joy and that you are looking forward to the new year as much as we are!

Christmas in Germany: Part 2

2007-01-01T06:08:00.000-08:00

Karl and I had a wonderful Christmas! Our Christmas season began with the celebration of the first Advent Sunday with our German friends, the Küchler family. They showed off their beautiful Christmas decorations...some of which were family heirlooms and very old...and we ate cake, drank a delicious winter fruit tea, and had root beer floats...yes, root bear floats! This family loves all things American, and they are one of the only Europeans I've ever met who actually like root beer. Root beer simply doesn't exist here, but they showed me how they make theirs homemade.

We also celebrated St. Nikolaus Tag on December 6th. We have actually been celebrating this German holiday ever since we were married...every year we put our shoes out in the hallway and the next morning we fill them full of treats for each other. Here is a photo of my shoes filled with candy, hot chocolate mix and a new bell for my bike.

On the 16th I took Karl to the little French medieval village of Riquewihr that I took his parents to when they were here for Thanksgiving. The village happened to to be having a Christmas market that day so we wandered through the very crowded streets eating yummy French food and enjoying the medieval and Christmas-y atmosphere.

On December 21st my parents and my sister, Susan, arrived from Texas to spend the holiday with us. The next day we went into France and visited Riquewihr and then Strasbourg. The Strasbourg cathedral had their beautiful set of tapestries hanging depicting the story of Mary and Jesus...apparently the cathedral only displays these precious tapestries only at Christmas time. We also explored the Christmas market in the square around the cathedral. It was also fun to watch Susan finally enjoy some of her favorite French foods again (she served a mission for our church in France) and to have her there to translate for us. For once, Karl and I didn't feel like complete morons while visiting France!

The next day we visited Baden-Baden, shopped at the Christmas market and the city's shopping district in Lichentaler Allee and looked for last-minute Christmas gifts.

On Sunday, we celebrated Heilige Abend by going to church and then made a stop in a little town near Bühl called Schwarzach to see their beautiful Romanesque church. For dinner we used our new Raclette set. Raclette cooking originally comes from Switzerland and is basically like a cheese fondue. The more modern sets you can find in Europe have a cooking surface that sits on the table with little trays that can be placed under the cooking surface and everyone cooks meats, vegetables on the table, melting the cheese in the little trays. A fun and tasty way to eat!

Christmas morning, after opening all our presents, we made crepes for breakfast on our new crepe maker. A Keller family tradition has always been to go and see a movie in the theater on Christmas Day. Karl and my favorite movie theater is in Strasbourg, France, mostly because the theater usually shows films in their original language with French subtitles...so we can watch American movies without worrying about understanding all the plot points in the German dubbed movies. (Germans really like to dub over foreign languages.) The only thing we don't like about the Strasbourg theater is that we don't speak a lick of French, so it can sometimes be an adventure buying the tickets for the right movie. So we were excited and relieved to have French-speaking Susan with us this time...buying tickets would be a breeze! Or so we thought... At home we looked up the movie times on the Internet. We decided we wanted to see The Nativity Story. Often the French and German (and other languages as well) will translate the titles of movies much differently from the original title (for example, Monty Python and the Holy Grail has been translated into German as Ritter der Kokosnuss = Knight of the Coconut). So Susan found the movie with the French title meaning A Woman Above All Others. She assumed the French were being typical French and focusing the title of the Nativity Story on the Virgin Mary. So off we all went to the movie theater. And Susan flawlessly bought us tickets for A Woman Above All Others, making sure with the ticket lady that the movie would definitely be in the original language, and we all sat down to enjoy our Christmas movie praising Susan's French talents. So imagine our surprise with A Woman Above All Others began and all the characters were modern-day army women speaking Hebrew! And imagine Susan's embarrassment to realize that she had wrongly interpreted the title to be for the Nativity Story! We ended up heading home and watching a DVD instead. So much for going to the movies with someone who can speak French. (We love you, Susan!)

On December 26th we had yet another day of Christmas (remember, Germany celebrates the 25th and 26th as Christmas). We got out of the house and took a drive through the Black Forest...it was beautiful! We made a few stops to enjoy the view and ended up driving to a city called Freudenstadt, which is known for having the largest marketplace in Germany. We walked through the market place (unfortunately, being a holiday, there wasn't much of a shopping opportunity) and visited the city's large Protestant Stadtkirche...a church built in the early 17th century in a unique L-shape, so that men and women would be separated during services. As we continued our drive through the Black Forest, we happened to drive through a little town where the well-known German mineral water Schwarzwald Sprudel is bottled. So we stopped so that Karl, a bigger mineral water fan than I am, could fill up an empty water bottle we happened to have with us. We ended our trip through the forest with a visit to Schauenburg, the ruined castle in Oberkirch.

Unfortunately, all the fun had to end when my parents left for home the next day. We hope you had at least half a nice of a Christmas as we did!

Please enjoy lots of photos from our Christmas adventures here!

Christmas in Germany: Part 1

2006-12-23T09:40:00.000-08:00

We LOVE Christmas time in Germany! It is our FAVORITE place to be at Christmas! We let our families know before moving here that they were not to expect us home for the holidays...we were not going to pass up this opportunity to spend Christmas in Germany!

By mid- to late-November Germans start preparing for Christmas. The first real sign that the holiday is finally upon us is the opening of the Weihnactsmarkt...the Christmas Market.

Every German city and town has a Christmas Market. Somewhere in the center of town, often around an old church, little wooden booths are set up and vendors sell all kinds of good things: Christmas decorations, candles, and handmade crafts. You'll also find yummy food...like chocolate or wurst with bread or warm drinks like Glühwein (a warm red wine with spices, or the non-alcoholic version for children of warm red grape juice punch with spices). Often, markets also have music performers or merry-go-rounds for kids. The market is typically open daily through December and it is especially lovely in the evenings, with Christmas lights all around the market.

My other favorite thing about Christmas here, are the traditional decorations:

Räuchermännchen ...the name means "little smoking men" and they are little men made from wood. You place a little cone-shaped peice of incense to burn inside him, and curls of smoke drift out of his mouth. Charming! Click here for an example.

Schwibbogen...these are decorative wooden arches that hold candles. They are usually placed on window sills. Click here for an example.

Nussknacker...or Nutcrackers, are of course well-known to you all. But click here if you need an example.

Pyramiden...these are my favorite! Named for their pyramid-like shape, these wooden decorative carousels hold candles at their base. The heat from the candles turn the propellers at the top, which turn the decorative figures on the pyramid. It's just not Christmas without a pyramid! Here's an example.

Although these decorations are well-established German traditions...you will find them in EVERY German home...they all originate from one small, specific region of Germany: the Erzgebirge (or Ore Mountains) found on the Czech border.

And then there's my other favorite thing about Christmas in Germany...St. Nikolaus Tag (St. Nicholas Day)! This is like a little pre-Christmas Christmas. On the evening of December 5th, all the children shine their shoes then leave them outside their bedroom doors. During the night, St. Nikolaus comes and gives candy and nuts and little toys to all the good boys and girls enjoyed by them the next morning, December 6th, St. Nicholas Day! This is what he looks like.

Some other important days before Christmas in German are the Advents...each of the four Sundays before Christmas are the advents. Each advent a candle is lit in anticipation of the coming of the Christ child: on the first advent, one candle is lit, on the second two candles are lit, the the third...you get the idea. Often Germans will celebrate each advent by eating Lebkuchen and drinking tea or coffee. You can read more about this tradition here.

But one of my favorite things about Christmas in Germany is that it lasts for THREE DAYS! The most important day of Christmas for the Germans is Christmas Eve (December 24th) or Heilige Abend (Holy Evening). On this evening, the family gathers for a simple humble meal (often sausages and potato salad) which symbolizes the humility of Christ's birth. Then the gifts are opened. Santa Claus...or the Weihnachtsmann (Christmas Man) isn't usually as generous as he tends to be in the US. Gifts are meaningful but not necessarily plentiful. I've also learned that in this region of Germany, which is strongly Catholic, many Germans receive their gifts from the Christkind...or Christ Child. The Weihnactsmann tradition really comes from the United States image of Santa Claus. But the Christkind represents Christ as a child. The Christ child is represented by a young woman with golden curls and an angelic robe. Here's an example. After Heilige Abend, Christmas continues on the first day of Christmas (December 25th) and the second day of Christmas (December 26th) with lots of big meals and family gatherings.

Karl and I hope all of you have a wonderful Christmas! We miss all of our friends and family at this special time of year, and we wish we could be with all of you...but rest assured we are loving our traditional German Christmas!

(By the way...if you have any questions about these or other German Christmas traditions, or if you have any Christmas traditions you'd like to share...please feel free to leave a comment!)

(And if you're interested in adding some wonderful wooden German Christmas ornaments to your holiday, here's a good place to start. Or for more information on German Christmas traditions and ornaments click here.)

A Return to the Vaterland

2006-12-08T12:37:00.000-08:00

Karl's parents, Ann and Joe, came to visit for the Thanksgiving holiday! This was a return to Germany for Joe who had both served a church mission in Munich and also served in the military in German. However, this was Ann's first ever visit to Germany. Her father and her mother's mother were both born here so it was a special trip for her. We had a lovely time with them!

France

They arrived on Sunday, November 19th, and on Monday, while Karl was at work, I took them to France. We visited the beautiful city of Strasbourg, France. The city is located in the Alsace region of France. This region was once German, then it became French, then German again, then French...you get the idea. Although it is now solidly part of France, there are many German-named towns, German architecture and they speak a dilect that sounds like a cross between French and German.

Besides being the seat of the European Parliment, Strasbourg also has an absolutely huge and beautifully stunning gothic cathedral. The cathedral was built mostly in the 1200s and is espcially known for its astronomical clock. The first clock in the cathedral was installed in the 13oos, replaced in 1574 and in about 1840 that clock was expanded to the clock that stands now. At 12:30 pm daily the clock strikes. After looking through the rest of the cathedral, we attending the fascinating ringing of the clock: a child turns an hourglass, apostles file past a figure of Christ, and a cock crows three times.

After eating lunch in Strasbourg we drove about 40 minutes south to the tiny village of Riquewihr. This little town was founded in the 6th century...and it hasn't changed much since! We could have thrown up from all the quaintness if it weren't just too beautiful!! Not only did we fall in love with the narrow streets, the colored timberhouses, and the cobblestones but they had just decorated the town for Christmas...it was all a fairy tale come to life!

Frankfurt, Wasserkuppe, and Bad Kissingen

The next couple of days we took a trip into Joe's past. On Tuesday we all drove up to Frankfurt am Main at the church's temple where Joe met an old friend of his from when he was a young missionary, Erna. She was a darling woman! We spent the evening with her then spent the night in a small pension. On Wednesday we drove up to Wasserkuppe where Joe had served in the military. The old base was at the peak of a hill, but unfortunately it was a very foggy day and there was no view...although the drive up and down was gorgeous. We drove on to Bad Kissingen where Joe spent much of his mission. We arrived after nightfall but it was still a very charming town. As its name suggests (Bad = Bath) it is a spa town. We walked around the park near the spa and around the beautify, charming city center before heading back to Buehl.

Burgs and a Biergarten

We had a German-style Thanksgiving starting with visiting a couple of ruined castles along the edge of the Black Forest. We spotted one off of the autobahn at the top of a hill in the middle of a grape wineyard. Then we visited Oberkirch and Schauenburg. We decided to eat our Thanksgiving dinner at our neighborhood biergarten (biergarten = beer garden, an open air drinking house with a yummy menu) up the street from us in Oberweier. It was a very traditional German meal in a traditional German atmosphere...all very un-American!

Baden-Baden

On Friday, we visited Baden-Baden. It was the first day of the city's Christmas Market, so we spend some time enjoying the market with yummy food, crafts, candles, and Christmas decorations. We walked through the old Trinkhalle (Drinking Hall) where people can enjoy the natural spring water, and through a beautiful city park then finally walked through the shopping area as night fell.

Windeck and Karlsruhe

On Friday we made a morning visit to Burg Windeck. Ann and Joe had a view of the burg out their bedroom window all week, so we finally visited it. But not before playing on the playground next to the ruin! We then drove up to Karlsruhe and walked around the Botanical gardens next to the palace. We walked around the palace and the city center, then ate dinner back at the resturant looking over the Botanical gardens. It was beautiful!

On Sunday, we thought we were saying goodbye to them, but Sunday afternoon, Ann and Joe were back again after a mix-up with their stand-by airline tickets when they found out they wouldn't be able to leave until Tuesday. One Monday we all ended our week as it began by visiting Strasbourg and their newly opened Christmas market. It was beautiful! There were gorgeous lights everywhere and booths all around the cathedral and Ann and I ice skated!

Click here for many more photos!

We have Stuff!!

2006-11-29T01:25:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, Tuesday, November 28th, we got STUFF!!

We have been waiting for 8 weeks for our stuff from America to arrive...it all came by ship...which was suppose to arrive 2 weeks ago...and yesterday it all finally came!

We were very happy...until we started to unpack everything...and suddenly our apartment started to feel smaller and smaller...and all our storage space shrunk...and we began to wonder why we needed all this stuff...until we decided to watch a movie and we had 100 to choose from instead of like 2...and then I opened up my closet this morning to find I actually had a million choices of what to wear today instead of the same like 3 outfits! Yay for stuff!

Berlin is still Berlin!

2006-11-16T06:46:00.000-08:00

A couple of Tuesdays ago (November 7th) Karl called me from work to tell me that he had found a VERY cheap train ticket to Berlin and that I should go...so on Thursday (November 9th) I hopped on a train and I spent my weekend in Berlin! I had not been able to return to that fair city of my mission since my mission, 9 1/2 years ago, so it was a very exciting trip for me! I stayed with a friend of ours, Michaela Müller, whom Karl knew from his misison in Berlin.

Berlin is an amazing and unique city. It is constantly evolving...it is very much a microcasm of Germany itself...German history is reflected in its captial. You can experience the old Hohenzollern palaces at Unter den Linden, the modern 21st century at Potsdammer Platz, the communist remains of the Wall and even Nazi shadows here and there. The city is at once ugly and beautiful, old and modern, united, yet still divided.

As we walked the streets and saw the sights of Berlin I had two reacurring thoughts: "Of course I'm in Berlin! Did I ever leave?" and "Where the heck am I?! This is NOT Berlin!"

Brandenburger Tor (Brandenburg Gate)

In 1788-1791, Carl Langhans built 14 gates around Berlin for King Frederick Wilhelm II. This is the only surviving gate, which has Victory riding her chariot toward the city. The Berlin Wall ran just on the other side of the gate from where you see Michaela and I standing. The gate now separates the streets Unter den Linden and Strasse des 17. Juni going into Tiergarten (a large park...think New York's Central Park) behind us. During my mission, the #100 Bus drove back and forth under the gate and a black market was located just off to the right in this photo where you could buy Nazi, Soviet, and East German memorabila. Now the buses drive around the block and the black market has moved down Unter den Linden near the Dom. But still beautiful!

Potsdamer Platz

During my mission, Potsdamer Platz was simply known has Europe's largets construction site. It was nothing but a famous pile of dirt and a collection of cranes (the cranes had become so permanent feeling that an artist had created an installation of neon lights for them). Today, Potsdamer Platz is all shiny and new! The plaza had once been Berlin's busiest city centers, but WWII left it desolate and the Berlin Wall was built right through the plaza. After reunification, construction began and today it is a collection of hotels, theaters, and shopping centers, the best known of which is the Sony center shown above. But it was all foreign to me.

The Holocaust Memorial

Between Brandenburger Tor and Potsdamer Platz is the new Holocaust Memorial, or Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. Karl and Michaela happened to be able to visit the memorial the week it first open last May 2005. I loved this memorial...it was amazing. It is a large square with stone blocks of various sizes. They begin quite short...even flush with the ground...and grow taller and taller as you walk through them. We are free to explore the grid between all the blocks and the only rule is that you do not sit or climb on top of the blocks. As you get deeper into the blocks they become higher and higher so cannot see over them and you become in danger of walking right into someone walking down a perpindicular path. You could almost become lost in them...it begins to feel almost like a labirynth. I got the feeling that is presented a simple, logical grid that became more confusing and disorienting as you explored it as link to the twisted logic of the Final Solution.

Gedächtniskirche and Ku'damm

As my train rolled into Berlin Thursday night, I looked out the window into the darkness and city lights for anything recognizable...and suddenly, for a brief moment between buildings, I saw the Gedächtniskirche! The Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church (as its known in English) was built in the 1890s as a memorial to Kaiser Wilhelm I from his grandson Kaiser Wilhelm II. During World War II it suffered heavy damage, nearly completely destroyed. Instead of tearing down what little remained, the church remained as it was as a memorial to the horrors of war. Two modern structures were added flanking it in the 1950s, a tall bell tower and a circular chapel (knicknamed by Berliners as the lipstick and powderbox...or the the disco church by us missionaries 10 years ago). Along one side of the church runs a long street with a long name: Kurfürstendamm...but no one calls it that. Whether from affection or ease, the street is simple known as Ku'damm. This street was obviously located in the capitalistic West Berlin because it is a shopper's heaven: you'll find everything from H&M to Laura Ashley, from Pizza Hut to Hard Rock Cafe. My favoriate is Kaufhause des Westens (Shopping House of the West)...but again, noone actually calls it that. Its known simply as KaDeWe (say "Kah-Day-Vay") and its huge and expensive and sells American food and expensive pens and fashionable clothes and pretty buttons!

Unter den Linden and Palast der Republik

Perhaps the heart of Berlin...or at least one of them...is the street Unter den Linden. The name means "under the lindens" after the linden trees that have always lined the street (except for during the Third Reich when Hitler knocked them down to make the street more parade-friendly). It was created during the 1600s for the palaces of the Prussian royalty. The royalty wanted a grand boulevard to ride down to Tiergarten...the large park in the center of Berlin that use to be a royal hunting ground. Now the palaces have became museums and opera houses...and former communist parliment buildings. This street lay in former East Berlin and the communists torn down the 15th century Hohenzollern palace for ideological reasons, bulding their parliment building on top of the foundation in 1976 calling it Palast der Republik (Palace of the Republic). After reunification in 1990, the debate began over what to do with the building...the biggest problem being that it was full of asbestos. So it has been closed up and gated off, sitting in limbo for the past 16 years...until now when the building is finally begin gradually and carefully (because of the asbestos) demolished. It was strange to see this familiar building being finally stripped.

Pergamon Museum

Along Unter den Linden is one of my personal favorite spots in Berlin...Museuminsel=Museum Island! A little island of one world-class museum after another! Michaela and I visited the Pergamon Museum. A giant ancient Greek temple built around 180 BC known as the Pergamon Altar was relocated to this museum in Berlin...and it is stunning! I love the dramatic Hellenistic relief sculptures surrounding the temple depicting the Greek gods in battle against the Giants (with legs of snakes!). There is also a wonderful collection of Greek art through the centuries as well as an ancient Babylonian gate. It was all as wonderful as I remembered it...happiness!

Reichstag

The Reichstag building was built in 1894 to house Germany's imperial parliament. Although it had been damaged by fire a few times (the last being in 1933 giving Hitler an opportunity to rise in power) and was damaged in WWII, the building still stands. During my mission it was also a construction site, I saw it only from afar. Now it boasts a new glass dome and again houses Germany democratic parliament. Michaela and I stood in a line for an hour for the opporunity to go up into the glass dome. The dome looks down over the parliment at work and has a winding walk way that looks out over all of Berlin in a gorgeous panoramic view. It was strange to finally get a close-up view of this historic, important building!

Although so much was still my Berlin, the city had changed tremendously in less than a decade. But that's Berlin...a city that is constantly changing. Marlene Dietrich said it best when she sang:

"As long as the old linden trees stil bloom, Berlin is still Berlin!"

Listen to Marlene sing a few lines from this song here: scroll down the song list to Disc 2, song #25, click on "Solang noch Unter'n Linden (Berlin Bleibt Doch Berlin)".

Click here for lots more photos of my weekend in Berlin!

And click here for a good 1999 newpaper article written as the German parliment was about to move from Bonn back to Berlin. It gives a good point of view on the unique characteristics of Berlin and a little of its unique history and may help give you a sense of why this city holds me spellbound!

Grüße aus...Rastatt & Speyer!

2006-11-08T07:24:00.000-08:00

Two weekends ago, on Oct 28 & 29, Karl and I visited a palace and some churches.

On Saturday, Oct 28, we visited the nearby town of Rastatt. We explored the city center and the grounds of the impressive Rastatt palace. Although we didn't tour through the impressive apartments of the palace that was once home to the margraves of Baden, we did visit the interesting museum in one corner of the palace about various freedom movements over the course of German history. Click here for more photos.

On Sunday, Oct 29, we journyed to the ancient city of Speyer. The city was founded by the Celts in about 500 BC and in 10 BC the Romans took over. Christianity was firmly established in the region by 350 AD and both the Catholic and Protestant churches have a rich history in Speyer.

After visiting the town's gorgeous Catholic cathedral (built 1680-1762) and Protestant cathedral(built 1883-1904), we went through the old city gate and walked through the pedestrian-only streets lined with shops that were suprisingly open! Germany has laws on when stores are allowed to be opened, and apparently, in Speyer, the shops are opened on an occasional Sunday! The streets were flooded with people and street entertainers. We made our way down to the building we had come to see...

In 1030 AD the construction of the Speyer Imperial Cathdral was begun. It was this church that drew us to Speyer...and it was amazing! The building is in a simple Romanesque syle...in fact it is probably the best example of Romanesque architecture in existance. Emperors and Empresses that contributed to the building of the church are buried in its crypt. It is a very simple, but very grand and beautiful church...even after a thousand years! Click here for more photos.

As we walked slowly back over the cobblestones along the pedestrian street, we ate one of our favorite German foods--the Turkish Doenner Kebab--with the streets still full of people enjoying an extra day of shopping. We stopped to watch a one-man-band street musician sing a folk song (joined by an old Frau taking over his song) with little children prancing around him like horses. We were surrounded by this festive atmosphere, having just filled our eyes with ancient and spectacular beauty, filling our tummies with our favorite local food...life just doesn't get better!

Happy Halloween and All Saints Day!

2006-11-01T06:23:00.000-08:00

The holiday Halloween is also known as All Hallow's Eve, which is the day before the holiday All Hallow's Day, also known as All Saints Day. The holiday we now celebrate as Halloween originated as a pagan festival when spirits contact the living and magic is especially potent. All Saints Day celebrates the dead as well, but insteads honors the Virgin Mary and Christian martyrs.

In the US Halloween is, of course, a widely-celebrated holiday. Germany has gradually felt the influence of the US and Great Britain celebrations of Halloween so that it is now a tentatively celebrated day...not an official holiday but you'll see people throwing Halloween parties and a handful of carved pumpkins here and there.

Karl and I have never really done much to celebrate Halloween. Usually we'd stay at home with a movie and a bowl full of candy. And since we never got any trick-or-treaters in the apartment buildings we lived in, we'd eat all the candy ourselves. This year for Halloween we are in a country that really doesn't do much for the holiday so we had a yummy dinner at our local Biergarten, learned how to play our new board game, Carcassonne, and watched episodes of Lost we had downloaded off of the internet. And then imagine our surprise when we got trick-or-treaters at the door! Actually, they were just the kids who live downstairs who had been having a little Halloween party with some friends. They were dressed in warm clothing, scarves, and some homemade, non-descript masks...and we didn't have any candy! (We ended up giving them some oranges!)

But, although, Halloween is not an official German holiday, November 1st, All Saints Day, is a holiday! So today, Karl had the day off! We decided to do a little more exploring in the Black Forest.

We first visited a ruined castle I discovered last week overlooking a town about 20 minutes south of us: Schauenburg. This ancient fortress was founded in the 11th century and overlooks the German town of Oberkirch. The lord of the fortress oversaw trade passing from Strasbourg (now in France) into the Black Forest. We could just see the tall church spire of the huge Strasbourg cathedral in the distance. But as we explored the grounds surrounding the old castle, we discovered a plaque at the foot of a path with a very Halloween appropriate legend about the castle and the White Lady of Schauenburg...

There was once a Knight of Schauenburg who wanted a son for his heir. His wife, however, bore him a daughter. He was very upset, and soon after his wife died of neglect. He gave the infant daughter to a maidservant and left. The knight returned 20 years later and invited his daughter to return with him to Schauenburg where she would be married to a wealthy cousin. The daughter, who had no idea of her true identity, accepted her father's offer, and left her husband, a poor miller. After a few years, she saw her first husband, whom she had treated so badly, at a festival and she instantly feel down dead.

Since then, she appears every 50 years as a women all in white in an effort to redeem herself. Those who see her must do whatever she asks of them, or else they will die after three days! Once she appeared to a young herdsman and asked him to fetch her some water with her shoe...he ran in fright and died three days later. Another time she appeared to a man, asking him to show her the way to Schauenburg. He obeyed and she rewarded him with an old coin that later disappeared from his pocket.

The Schauenburg was very neat! Click here to see more of the ruins.

After leaving Schauenburg (seeing no sign of the White Lady!) we drove deep into the Black Forest (a beautiful drive!) until we came to the ruins of a monastery called Allerheiligen...the word means All Saints, so it was the perfect way to celebrate All Saints Day!

The monastery was founded in about 1200 when hermit monks were looking for a place to open their remote monastery and a donkey found a water source and tossed a bag of money off his back. This was the place! The monks thrived deep in the forest until the monastery was secularized in 1803. The monks were forced to leave and plans were made to turn the monastery into a prison, but before the prison could be created, lightening struck, and a fire burned it to the ground leaving only ruins of the cathedral. (Locals claimed it was divine intervention!) Now the ruins, set in a forest valley with a pretty stream and waterfalls, enjoy the visits of tourists like us! The weather was cold and we had to hang out in the little museum about the monastery to avoid a short hail storm, but it was beautiful! It was easy to see why, for hundreds of years, the hermit monks felt closer to God here. We will definitely return in warmer weather to explore the many paths and eat in the Biergarten next door to the ruins. Click here for more photos.

Happy Halloween and All Saints Day!

Call me Hena.

2006-10-28T01:58:00.000-07:00

I have a very common, unextraordinary name.

The name Heather is so basic, so average, so normal...so blah, in fact, that the name has absolutely no real meaning. I envy my friends and loved ones with names that have fascinating (and often amazingly appropriate) meanings: Karl = manly and strong; Sarah = princess; Susan = lily; Joseph = God will increase; Erik = honorable ruler; Ava = like a bird; Diana = divine;...and Heather = a flowering plant. Just a plain ol' plant.

I have never found a pop song with the name Heather in it, there are no great literary characters with the name Heather (although I was always delighted to occasionally read about characters walking through the heather on the moor, or lying down in the soft heather), and, of course, the only movie I know with the name Heather prominently featured is the 1989 cult classic Heathers, a "delightfully dark and deranged take on adolescent angst and isolation." Throughout high school and college my name was constantly being associated with a film about murder and teen suicide...("Hi! I'm so-and-so." - "Hello, I'm Heather." - "Heather? Hey! Have you seen that movie Heathers?! It was so cool when that one Heather drank the cleaning fluid and died!")...oh, yay.

However, I now find myself here in Germany with the most exotic-sounding name imaginable...Heather! Noone seems to have ever heard it before! It is so uncommon, I am often asked to repeat it once or twice! And now I am faced with a new problem...noone can pronounce it!! "Hallo! Ich heisse Heather." - (a confused look) - "Hea-ther." - "Heva?" - "Hea-THer" - "Hena?" - "Hea-THHHer" - "Heta?" - "um.....ok."

It's that nasty TH sound that gets them. Very few languages have that sound, and German is certainly not one of them. Earlier this week I got a ride to a church function from a German family that live near us. On the way home from Karlsruhe, I tried to teach the three children how to say my name. I had them put their tongue between their teeth and blow...after we spit all over each other, they repeated my name over and over again..."Heva, Hetah, Heterr, Henar"...and asked me over and over again if they were saying it right. I introduced myself to one of the older women who was riding with us, telling her (in German), "My name is Heather. It's kind of difficult to say." - "Oh, no! Hena...that's an easy name to say! Hena."

And don't get me started on how people pronounce my last name! ("Hairvoot?")

Ah, well...I still can't pronounce the name of my own town right. "Ich wohne in Bühl." - "Bohl?" - "Bühl." - "Bohl?" - "Büühl" - "Ach so! Bühl!" Those two little dots are hard to pronounce!

(My apologies to my wonderful parents, Don = world leader, and Kathleen = pure, who lovingly gave me my beautiful name. Of course, they were expecting me to be a boy and had planned to name me David = beloved, but upon receiving a daughter instead, took the suggestion of my aunt DeeDee [Dorothy] = gift of God, and named me Heather. Honestly, thank you for my beautiful [if meaningless] name!)

Grüße aus...beautiful Baden-Baden!

2006-10-24T02:23:00.000-07:00

Our hometown of Bühl lies just a 10 minute drive from the beautiful city of Baden-Baden. Its name means "bathe-bathe" and that's exactly what people have been doing in Baden-Baden for two thousand years!

Underground hot springs were discoverd by the Romans under the rule of Emperor Caracalla (186-217 AD) and they named the area Aquae (water). The Germans of the Middle Ages renamed the city simply Baden and it received its repeated name of Baden-Baden (as in the city of Baden in the state of Baden) in 1931. The springs were rediscovered in the 19th century by the upper-class and the city became the unofficial summer residence for European royalty. The city thankfully managed to escape destruction in the World Wars. Baden-Baden is nestled in the Black Forest foothills so there is a lot of walking up and down hills through the city.

The city today is still best known for the life of lesiure it offers. There is a famous casino (Germany's oldest) that opened in 1855, decorated by the Parisians (beautiful!); the 19th century Theater modeled after the Paris Opera offering ballet, opera and dramatic performances and the Festspielhaus, a theater offering ballet, opera and music (a beautiful building that was once the central train station); a fantasitc pedestrian area with shopping galore; and, of course, there are the spas! People still come to Baden-Baden to bathe! The two spas in the city are Friedrichsbad and Caracalla. Friedrichsbad was built on top of the original Roman bath ruins (which have been excavated and can still be viewed today in the spa's basement) and opened its doors in 1877.

Mark Twain visited the spa during his journey through Germany and famously said of it: "Here at the Friedrichsbad you lose track of time within 10 minutes and track of the world within 20." Most Americans, however, don't feel very comfortable visiting Friedrichsbad because everyone is required to bathe naked (most days men and women bathe together but twice a week the sexes are separated for most of the bathing stages). At the nearby Caracalla spa, however, bathers wear a bathing suit. As you can see, people really just come to Baden-Baden to relax (the city is home to a lot of retirees).

There are, of course, castles and churchs to see as well. The Altes Schloss ("Old Castle") was built in 1102 and sits high in the hills overlooking the city--we haven't gotten to visit yet--and the Neues Schloss ("New Castle") sits on a hill within the city--but noone is able to visit it.

The Neues Scholss is privately owned and currently under renovation. But there are lovely pathways up and down the hill it sits on and it offers a lovely view of Baden-Baden as well as a nice place to eat your lunch (which I did last week).

Grüße aus...Karlsruhe!

2006-10-23T08:07:00.000-07:00

Each Sunday we drive about 30 minutes north on the Autobahn to Karlsruhe for church. This past Sunday we packed a lunch with us and after church we did a little exploring of Karl's namesake.

Karlsruhe is a young city (young, at least, for Europe) being founded in 1715 by Margrave Karl Wilhelm. The name Karlsruhe means "Karl's Rest". Today the city makes its mark on Germany's map as the seat of the German Supreme Court. The ciy grew around the palace in the center of the city. Thirty-two avenues fan out from the palace (hence Karlruhe's nickname as the Fächerstadt or "fan city")--23 of the avenues extend into the palace gardens while the others form the grid of the oldest part of the city.

Karl and I ate our lunch in the beautiful palace gardens. It was a gorgeous day (unlike the typical fog and rain that we've been getting) and the gardens were crowded. A fun steam-engine train makes its way through the gardens for passengers. Visitors are also welcome inside the palace as well as in the botanical gardens on the grounds, but we saved those treasures for another day!

Another Burg and the Black Forest

2006-10-18T04:06:00.000-07:00

Bühl is located very conveniently off of the A5 - the freeway that will take us straight up to Northern Germany, or south to Switzerland. We are just east of the Rhine river, thus just minutes away from all lovely things French, and just west of the gorgeous hills of the Black Forest. We are quite centrally located in the middle of all of Europe! But this past Sunday Karl and I explored the Europe a little closer to home.

The ruins of what was once Burg Windeck stands in the Black Forest looking down onto Bühl. It is not nearly as impressive as the castles we saw up in the Rhineland, but it was far closer to home. The burg is really nothing but a few ruined walls and a couple of tall towers that were originally built around 1200, but there is a hotel and restaurant, a playground for children, and a few paths winding through the forest nearby...so Windeck becomes a busy place on a Sunday afternoon.

We explored the burg including it's two remaining towers. One tower is completely empty and you can look up and out into the sky. The other has stairs to climb up to the top and from there you can look out over Bühl and over to France...unfortunately it was a foggy day and France was just a haze.

After our visit to Windeck, we drove up farther into the Black Forest. The Black Forest begins north of us at about the city of Pforzheim (between the larger cities of Karlsruhe and Stuttgart) and spreads south all the way to the Swiss border. It's a beautiful forest that seems to have a lot to offer. There are, of course, a lot of hiking trails and biking trails, and there are also ski slopes, hotels (big and small), horseback riding, hang gliding, fishing, castles, wineries, lakes, saunas, Black Forest cake (chocolate, cherries, whipped cream...and schnapps!...but here's a schnapps-free version of the recipe), and of course the city Rottweil...the hometown of the Rottweiler dog (oh, yeah...and I guess they've got some pretty annoying cuckoo clocks) . Karl and I found the Schwarzwaldhochstrasse (Black Forest High street) which winds through the forest and made a short walk down one of the footpaths near a motorcycle hang-out before driving back home.

We're excited to live so close to such a beautiful part of the world and look forward to exploring the forest much more!

Grüße aus...Burg Eltz & Burg Thurant!

2006-10-15T10:43:00.001-07:00

On Saturday, October 14th, Karl and I drove north to the Rhineland...a beautiful stretch of the Rhine and Mosel rivers surrounded by hills, vineyards and castles! I especially wanted to see Burg Eltz (burg=fortress). It's a rare castle because, not only has it never been destroyed, it has also remained in the Eltz family since it was founded 850 years ago! By 1472 it looked like it does today. To reach the castle we drove down the Mosel river (which branches off of the Rhine and eventually makes its way to Luxembourg), then away from the river through a few little dorfs (villages) until, suddenly we came to a parking lot in the middle of the forest. We walked through the forest until we suddenly came around a corner and saw this:

The castle is stunning! The path winds down the hillside into this beautiful valley with nothing but trees and tourists in sight. Down the path we walked alongside a family with four children with toy swords and bows, pretending to storm the castle! Actually the castle had only one serious attack in the 1300s when Baldwin of Luxembourg built a smaller fortress at the top of the hill (there are only ruins today) and laid siege to Burg Eltz...after five years he gave up. We took a tour through the interoir of the castle, but unfortunately we were not allowed to take any photos. But click here to see more of the exterior of the castle.

After visiting the Eltz, we drove back to the Mosel river and stopped at another burg we had noticed on the way in:

Burg Thurant was built around 1200 overlooking the Mosel River, became a ruin in the 19th century, then was rebuilt in the 20th century. Although this castle had been ruined, there were still some wonderful original details such as the Roseneck (Rose Corner) in the courtyard where roses had been growing since the middle ages as well as a human skeleton in the dungeon that also dates from the middle ages! Click here for more photos.

We had a beautiful day!

Grüße aus...Deutschland!

2006-10-12T00:08:00.000-07:00

As Karl has mentioned to most of you, I had been hoping to develop a website while we lived our 2 years here in Germany. After much research, I have decided that a blog would be a more speedy and cost-efficient beginning to what may eventually become a website (we'll see how much interest I can keep in the project and how much interest I can keep you, our readers, in the project!).

This blog is still under development and I'm still learning how to use it, but I plan to add updates at least weekly (if not more often) including photos and descriptions of our everyday lives and our travels around Germany and Europe! Thus, I hope to help keep our long-long distance phone bills down, and help all of you feel that, although Karl and I are on the other side of the globe, we are really not that far away!