More from France

We started yesterday morning in Cluny. We had arrived there after the Verdon Gorge and we walked around in the evening. We had dinner at a little tiny bistro/bar there and the locals found us fascinating since Cluny is now a small small town. One man was talking to Tabea and thought it was interesting that she was from Germany until I came back and he found out I was from the States. "But that's so far away" he said shocked. To Cluny it must be terribly far away. Also the owners had their dog, Chablis, in the restaurant, not an uncommon thing in Europe, and she kept coming over and leaning against Tabea, a big white Golden Retreiver, probably mixed with something. It was a nice dog. We saw it again the next day as we walked through the city. We went to the ruins of the Abbey, once the largest church in Chrisendom, prior to St. Peter's being built in Rome, for hundreds of years one of the most important places of Christian scholarship and monastic life. It was dismantled and the stones were sold for other buildings in the 1790s because, basically, the French Revolution had made such things not particularly acceptable. So it was in that place for about 1000 years and then just dismantled.

The next morning we went over to the museum of the abbey and there they had an amazing display of old books, which I was amazed by, the Chapter Annals from the 15th century, some illustrated copy of Eusebius, the argument, which happened in Cluny, of whether Mary was, in fact, a virgin. There was a death record book "of the saints" listing the death date of all the people in the monastery and associated abbeys and monasteries. Tabea really really liked the stones displayed on the first floor of the museum, and they were interesting, but for me the books were the best.

After that we went 12 KM north to Cormartin (or something like that) to the Chateau there. It was amazing because it had been restored very nicely. The gardens were especially nice with a great hedgemaze with a tower in the center. I found the middle, Tabea didn't. Of course it was totally luck. It was a boxwood hedgemaze that was grown just above my eye level, so you could really get a sense of being a little lost and trying to find your way.

After that we went stopped at a vinyard and bought some wine to bring back to Germany and then went to Metz. The Cathedral there is amazing actually. I wasn't expecting it to be so grand. But the outside was a little too elaborate for me with all sorts of flying buttresses and statues of saints and pictures of Jesus separating those on his left to be eaten by a monster and those on his right to go into the gates of heaven. A bit much for my taste. But it was a neat city, very baroque in many places. And it was the most modern of the cities we'd seen. Tabea said you could really tell that people there worked.

Then we went home all the rest of the way "shot the moon" as it were because we were only 5 hours away. We saw a nice sunset on some fields in France and thought it was interesting that immediately after going over some little hills you entered Germany and forests. There weren't really any forests in France-- except a little in the mountains. But Germany is all forest. We got home at 2 and then I slept in late this morning, went shopping in Regensburg while Tabea did her laundry at a laundromat and stopped by the office. Now I am packed and ready because now we will go to Munich for a birthday party for our friend Clemens and then for Katarina (the one whose wedding I went to earlier) is having a picnic by the river the next day. And then I leave. So the journey is almost over. And I am ready to come home to test if I am actually able to speak to people in English anymore and if I am able to drive a car and use a cellphone. It's been a long journey here. And a good one. An interruption of my life as it is and was. I've learned a lot.

I had no idea that southern France was so sort of poor and rural. We never went over to the Cote d'Azur region because we just decided we were already doing enough and we didn't need to drive that much more in the mountains and there were so many crowds everywhere it wasn't worth it. It was enough for me in France. The people I talked to were wonderful. One little girl who was with her mother at their fruit stand on the Valensole Plateau (famous for lavendar) in the Provence was reading the Twilight series of books. It was funny because when she heard I was American she showed me her book because she was so excited to meet me. Of course most of you know that I have a personal hatred of those books because I think they do a grave disservice with their underlying messages. So it was funny. I told her I hated them. Her mother laughed. We had a great conversation, mostly in French, but a little in English. The mother told me she had been a very very good student of English when she was in school but that it had been a long time ago. Tabea was shocked at how big the tomatoes were that she had for sale and she explained that her husband planted them inside in March and then outside when the weather permitted and that he loved them and cared for them like children. It was funny. We told her to thank him for being so loving to them so that they were so nice. We bought some and ate them and tehy were good. We stood and talked to her for a half hour or 45 minutes. This is the sort of thing that Tabea and I really enjoy doing. And there was a great gal at a boulangerie (deli basically) in a little village 100 KM north of Aix en Provence. That woman helped me when I was trying to ask the other gal which of the awesome looking tarts was her favorite. But I clearly don't know how to ask that question because I tried asking several people that several different ways in French and they always look very confused. But if they know English, then I can always ask them and they understand. So there is somehting I am doing wrong in the French there. But that gal was very nice and she talked to me for a while, in English and asked how we came to be in the village and etc. And then there was the man who owned the internet cafe in Riez. He was super super nice to us. He could speak English and was one of those people that you wonder how he is in the small town he is in. He is married and the family owns this business, so it makes sense, but he clearly has a sense of the larger world. He's been to the states and Canada and Mexico-- a 6 month trip. And he knew computers so well and helped us. Tabea finally was able to charge her phone with him and he let us sit there with it. He kept coming over and talking to us. Probably there are some tourists in his cafe from time to time because Riez is one of the Provencal towns that is famous for lavendar, on the Valensole Plateau, or near it, but I think he really had fun talking to us.

The dogs and people of France are indeed warm and amazing. The landscape is so incredibly varied, the architechture so consistent.

I really loved France.

Something lighter

The food in France is great. It really is. The bread is bread, true, but it is good. But what is crazy is that you can eat some seemingly innocuous side dish and suddenly wonder why you have never eaten such a thing before.

I had a spinach-egg slice thing that was on the side of my dish. I tried it. It was like eating cake and vegetables and eggs all at once, but in a good way. I couldn't place what they'd done to the eggs. Cream, yes of course, but what else? It was light and fluffy but made me think of home and Grandma and laughing with Jenny Penny. Tabea later told me that she had heard that French cooks often use nutmeg in their eggs. That was the secret ingredient I am sure, but I am also sure that if I add nutmeg to my eggs in Syracuse, choirs of gastrological angels will not be singing. It was amazing.

Today I had duck a l'orange. Yes, duck is greasy, but it was soooooo good. It was the plate du jour and we were late for lunch (everything in all but the very biggest cities closes for the afternoon. If you dont' eat by 1 or 1:30, just forget it. Food is not something to be taken for sustenance or on your way somewhere. You don't just stop in a restaurant in France it seems, you somehow plan it. But the people in the diner today had pity on us and fed us. We could only choose the plat du jour. I said we'd have two. And we had duck a l'orange for 10 euros each. Imagine! So it was pretty amazing.

We are seriously contemplating going to McDonalds just to see if the mere presence of France can make such a thing better. It's possible. Everything seems to taste better here. We buy fresh produce from the farmers on the side of the street or in the unused space in the roundabout. We buy bread every day. And we had poire au chocolat tarte one day. Pretty nice.

Food is just better here.

Mory

This is not necessarily a happy story. Don't read it Mom unless you want to cry.

One day Tabea and I were driving on a road back to our campground in Maussanne. We'd been on the road before. It is a highway, which means you go pretty fast between the requisite every-kilometer roundabout. And suddenly we both saw something in the road. Tabea slammed on the breaks; we stopped well in front of a young terrier. A few other cars stopped, we pulled to the side. We got out. The pup was friendly, it was seemingly in good health, not scared, but not aggressive. It seemed to be about 3 months old, maybe a bit more, but not fully grown. After I was sure it wasn't going to bite me or freak out, I picked it up. It's poor heart was racing. I held it and Tabea got water for it-- it was hot. We gave her (we now knew) water. She drank happily for a minute. Then she went back into the street. Cars avoided her. Tabea grabbed her back. We were both contemplating. What should we do? Tabea said that in Germany the police would care for such a dog. But, we had no way of finding the police. I wanted to take the dog in the car with us, but then what if she had owners? We hemmed and hawed. The dog went back into the street seemingly unaware of any danger. But she had so many cockleburs in her fir I knew she'd been out for a while-- how could she not appreciate the danger?

Eventually Tabea and I left. We didn't know what to do. We went to the next town 1.7 km away. There we found the only thing open on a Sunday-- the gas station. I went inside and asked the woman if she spoke any English. None. So I would have to do this the hard way.

"Une Chienne est dans le rue."

The woman looked confused.

"Une Chienne est dans le grand rue."

She wasn't getting any less confused.

"Qui aidez la chien?"

Which almost means something like "who can help the dog?"

Finally the woman understood I was talking about a dog and a road. She kept asking if it was dead.

"Non, pas de mort" I said. I think that's something close to "no, not dead".

After a while she came to understand that it was a tiny dog--I was almost crying.

"Une petite chienne" I pleaded.

She told me I could call the firemen and told me the number. Since it was sunday, everything, even the police, were closed. But Tabea's phone was uncharged.

Finally she said she would take the dog for the night and then take it to the police the next day. So we went back for la petite chienne.

And we never found her. She hadn't been hit. That we knew. We looked for a half hour.

Since she'd been on the street the whole time before and since so many other cars had stopped while we were with her, we figure some lucky french family has adopted Mory, named after the town we found her near.

I think about her standing there helpless in the street wondering why I put her down and went away. I will probably always cry for Mory. Tabea later said that she was, at first, scared of the dog because she didn't know what it might do, but that she had seen it was pretty tame and thought she should rescue it and smuggle it into Germany and adopt it. I didn't know that. She didn't know that I was thinking there must be a way to somehow make sure it was adopted. We weren't able in that moment to figure out the right thing to do. We weren't able to make that decision spontaneously in this vast unknown of France that we are in. Possibly at home we'd have done something different. I ultimately made the decision, not Tabea, and said we should go.

And so we drove away with Mory in our rearview mirror staring at us as we left.

Bonne Chance ma beau chienne!

The Flavors of Provence

We've left the Provence. Tonight we are staying in a hotel in Cluny because it is rainy and we found one for not much more than the tent. Last night we were in the mountains of the Verdon River Gorge. Amazing scenery. Puts Colorado and even the Tetons to the test. We were camped along the river and it was very very cold last night. So we decided to do a little splurge on a hotel tonight so we didn't freeze two nights in a row.

Provence is almost more than I can tell. We did the normal stuff-- found a field of blooming, uncut lavendar despite all the locals' protests that it was all cut by mid-August. Most was cut, but we found our field. We saw the Mediteranean sea, though I didn't go in because we saw it from the tops of cliffs. We went next to it once but it was terribly crowded. So I have been next to, but not in, the Med. Sea. We saw olive trees, and the sun-blanched grasses. There were beautiful cyprus trees and large trees planted eons ago lining the roads. We saw the most complete Roman Arena, an Aqueduct that looks like it was built 20 years ago, but is really dating in the thousands. There were ninety-nine million roundabouts. We always meant to count them, but got tired after an hour when we were about at 20. All that driving around roundabouts was excellent practice, however, for Tabea for driving on the Verdon River Gorge highways. First, to say it is a highway comes with the caveat that sometimes there will be a stop light and you will sit and wait for oncoming traffic to come through so you can go through a space not bigger across than a king sized bed. And that's through the cities and villages of local cream-colored stone. The actual driving in the canyon was much worse. In some places, the rocks are cut away just enough so a car can pass under, on one side, and the other is unfenced with no shoulder to a monstrous drop. Then there are French drivers. . . needless to say, I could have done without my fear of heights those days we did that drive. It's also interesting to note that there really isn't enough room for two cars to go side by side in some places and there is no visibility. Many of the French would just honk as they went around each curve, and that meant something like the tempo of the 1812 Overture because there were blind curves every 50 feet. But apparently we are just amatuers at this sort of mountain living because there was a bus we met around a curve once. Behind him and ahead of us were motorhomes. It was a hairpin turn. The Motorhome was just able to squeak by in front of us and Tabea had to actually go backwards to let the bus through. The bus was on the cliff side and I will never forget that as all of this is happening and Tabea and I and probably the other drivers are freaking out, the bus driver, full commercial touring bus, yawned. HE YAWNED!

Provence is a swirl of colors for me. The purple of lavendar which you can sometimes smell on the wind just as you drive by, maybe it is because they are cutting it then, maybe that's just how it is. The pale tired blue of the sky. The deep blue of the Mediteranean sea. The gold of dead grass. But not the brown dead of winter, a sort of too-hot-to-move bleached tired color-- lazy grass is what it looks like. And the silver of olive tree leaves. And the dark green of the cypruses. The turquoise water of the Verdon River-- the only other place with water like that is Banff-- some sort of chalk or lime in the water I guess. The local stone. Everywhere old houses and villages sitting on the sides of cliffs, citadels and church spires all from the local stone. Those are my memories of Provence.

Switzerland and France

Today we drove from Tobias, Tabea's oldest brother's, house in Konstanz to Provence. We are in a hotel tonight because we arrived later than the campground was open due to some road construction and having a little trouble finding the right gas station and getting a late start from Tobias' house. But now we've done all the driving and everything else will be day trips.

Switzerland was surprising to me. I thought it would look like Rocky Mountain National Park, but it just didn't. You don't really drive in mountains in Europe ever, it appears. There are always huge valleys and they dig giant tunnels through the mountains longer than the Eisenhower or just as long anyway. So it basically looked like Germany. But then we got to France. We arrived in France just west of Geneva. It was beautiful from the start. We went through some pretty big mountains and tons of tunnels and then headed over towards Lyon and south to Avignon where we are tonight. The valley that went south from Lyon was amazing. The west side was tons of treed mountains, in the distance. The valley floor was cultivated with corn and other crops, often vinyards-- the corn surprised me. On the East side, however, were mountains like I've never seen. There is something haunting about this particular range of mountains. They have large patches of white rock that almost looks like snow, but isn't. Otherwise they are treed-- coniferous forests mostly I think. But then there was one grouping of granite-like mountains rising up behind the others in gray, a stark contrast to the dark green and white of the closer mountains. There isn't really a way to describe it and we were trying to get south quickly so we didn't stop. But it was amazing.

Tonight we are in Provence and it is very clear. We were driving in as dusk and the sunset behind the Western mountains was very nice. Everywhere there are fields growing something, most often sunflowers, and there are always cyprus and bushes between the fields. It is not so much a patchwork as an embroidered landscape with the cyprus and light green coniferous lowgrowing bushes interlacing with the golden grasses. Everything had a beautiful filtered light as we drove through because of the sunset. There were several old, old villages perched along the tops of the mountains. And once there was a 10th century castle. It had obviously been somewhat (at least) restored, but it was really cool perched on top of one of the white stone and dark forest mountains.

Tomorrow we are going to investigate Avignon in the morning. For a period, the Popes had their residence in Avignon. They called it the Avignon Papacy and it had to do with some unrest in Rome and a dispute with the Holy Roman Emperor because the popes wanted too much political power. So the papacy was moved to France, the popes during this time were French. (By the way this was the majority of the 14th century.)

After that we'll go to the campground and then set up and then to the sea (we are staying very near the sea already.)

I don't know for sure if the campground will have internet or not; it depends on whether we are able to get into the campground we originally booked for despite having missed the first day of our reservation. Even if it does have internet, I didn't bring my car charger converter for my computer so I won't be able to use my computer unless they have a lounge or something in the office area of the campground.

Anyway, hope all are well. Things here are great.

I have a dissertation subject. It is amazing how travelling and talking with other people really helps my thinking, but now I have completely figured out what I want to write about and how to go about it. This is a major breakthrough as before I only had a general idea. I haven't finished my papers, but actually this is an even more important accomplishment. I am excited to begin work on this once I get back to Syracuse. In the meantime, I am going to continue to soak up as much as possible and work on language as much as possible. My German got pretty good indeed by the end, considering the time I had here, and my French seems to be getting us by for now.

Actually it is sort of funny. I keep throwing German words into my French and then the French speaker to whom I am talking keeps switching to English. It is quite obvious to them that I am American, apparently, and so they go to English instead of German even though the reason they know my French is not great is because I throw in German words. Pretty funny.

Goodnight all,
w

A few pictures from the Baaders'

Pictures, from top to bottom:

1. Me in the upstairs attic "window" of the Baader's 18th century home.

2. Johannes and I in Nico's kayak.

3. The Baader's cool front door that looked like it belonged on a castle. The only change was to make a new lock so that the key wasn't the size of a shoebox.

4. The family in front of the house, Tobias is missing of course.

5. Nico in his natural habitat, fixing some part of a car with grease everywhere. He let me help. Then he explained to me exactly how a clutch transmission works. Pretty cool to know. And you really learn it when you have to fight for communication.

After Last Year . . .

when Tabea helped me move all of my not inconsiderable belongings across the country, I thought I would never be able to repay her. Then she asked me to help chaperone her Church's youth group trip to the Czech republic. I told her she could keep the change.

Tabea and I took (along with one German man in charge of Youth from their congregation) 13 teenage German girls to the middle of the Czech Republic. There we stayed in the church of another Czech congregation. Actually there was much more house than church there.

The giggling which we endured in those 5 days is beyond what I can describe, of course, but also interesting was the fact that the girls were non-stop playing music, of course in English, on their cellphones. So we also had badly projected teeny-bopper music for 5 days.

On the first two days we had to work for the Czech congregation in order to pay them back for letting us stay. We divided into two groups, and I went with the man (Martin) and 7 girls into the forest to "make firewood" as I was told.

--- since the girls all spoke SOME English from school, I could communicate with them. Also my German improved dramatically over the five days. But all the announcements Tabea made and much of the rest of the time was in GErman and too fast for me to really understand, so often I was in the dark on things and just followed blindly. Sometimes I asked a girl to translate for me and I would get the gist of things, but sometimes I just had to hope I was doing the right thing.

So I proceeded to head out with Martin and the girls that morning to the forest. After walking uphill into the forest of a small mountain for 45 minutes we arrived. I was pretty panicked as we went because I couldn't imagine the 7 girls who were walking with us yeilding hand axes and chopping down trees, but that seemed from the descriptions I was getting, to be what would happen. When we arrived in the forest, exhausted, however, it turned out that the trees were already felled but were in their respective places on the hillside amongst the still-growing trees. We had to "shlepp" (the correct German verb in this case) the trees down to a central collecting place that ostensibly a truck could come and pick them up. The trees were often only 8 inches in diameter as they are a kind of pine tree that grows thickly, much like lodgepoles, but they were often 15-20 or even more feet long. We had ropes that we could put on the trees and then pull them down and actually a single girl, despite being technically smaller and weighing less, could actually pull one down the mountain because the incline was so steep. Getting back up the mountain each time was not particularly easy of course because you were tired after pulling them down and then you had to turn around and climb back up. The girls began to complain after about a half hour and we were supposed to do it for 4 hours or more. Martin was doing nothing to supervise or jolly up the girls, just pulling down the trees. So I made up a game wherein the girls came to a central location higher up that Martin and I pulled the trees to and then two girls came at a time to get them and bring us their ropes. The girls who brought each tree down could then call out the next girl who had to go to the higher receiving point. This actually worked well for a while and helped the girls to rest a bit between trips up and down. After an hour and a half, and two hours or more earlier than we were supposed to, we left and came back to the house (after walking again 45 minutes). It was exhausting, hot, buggy work. And when we got back, I slept for an hour or more.

Then in the afternoons we had lunch at 2. The food was only marginal without a lot. But we managed somehow. In the evening, I taught the girls the cup game from camp. That was fun. Also I had brought the stuff for friendship bracelets. We gave the girls the opportunity to make them and they had no interest. So then Tabea and I were sitting on our bed in the big room where we all slept and I was showing her how to make the finger weave variety and soon a few little curious eyes were popping up. By the train ride back to Germany on Sunday, everyone had at least two on their arms and they were begging for more embroidery floss to make more.

You see, being American, I was quite the novelty for the girls. So I had a certain cache with them that could make them help a bit more or make them cheer up a bit more or whatever. Also my camp counseling experience gave me a serious leg up on the other adults because they hadn't had any training. There were two girls who were also something like adults, 18 year olds who were supposed to be helping. They were, to some extent, and had planned some games for the first night, but they were not particularly older than the rest of the girls (who were 13 and 14) so they weren't terribly helpful all the time. One afternoon two of my favorite girls, Kathi and Anna, spent an hour or two teaching me German grammar. It was fun for them and helpful for me and they (of course accidentally) learned more English by having to explain things to me. It was cool and I called them both "Professor" for the rest of the trip. I think they liked that. Both of those girls seemed like minature versions of Tabea and I and so we loved them. They were more serious, didn't play music from their cellphones, helped with the work, didn't complain, etc.

There was another girl who bears mentioning here-- Helena. She was the tallest and blondest and loudest of the girls. And when we first were going to CR, I was worried because she seemed like she might really be trouble. And yes, she could complain like nobody's business. But she also worked the hardest of the girls. And she would help if you asked. And she would do what you said. Tabea said in German she was actually pretty mean to one of the other girls, an outcast, but I couldn't understand that part. And she really was good otherwise. And apparently when Tabea told her to cut out making fun of the other girl she did and didn't start again. It was just funny to be around her because she was quite a force of nature. And she cussed in English like a drunken sailor recently out on parole who had stubbed his toe. So I actually told her when she was saying "fuck" that this isn't really a very acceptable thing to say in English-- they don't really know that because they only hear the music, etc. and don't have the cultural understanding as young teenagers of another culture. So I taught her to say "crap" instead and it stuck. So all the girls were saying "oh crap" instead of cussing and, although crap isn't necessarily the nicest thing in the world, it is much nicer to hear 13 and 14 year olds saying that all the time than the other things they were saying which were rather jarring when that was really all you could pick out of a conversation.

Anyway, the second day of work, apparently, would have been boring if we were just dragging tired, giggling young teenage girls 45 minutes up a mountain to drag logs bigger than them down with ropes. So it was pouring rain. Therefore, the forest floor was slippery in the spots we had worn paths in from dragging logs down the day before. So now there were tiny girls slipping down the slopes of this forested mountain with logs bigger than them. Good thing we weren't boring. Actually early on that day I was bringing a pointed log down and it slid into the back of my leg (when I stopped, it didn't) and I have a giant bruise and I said "oh Crap!" So I was rather irritated because I was wet and there were no less than 10 flies landed on my face at any given time with more buzzing around my ears. So I didn't have the capacity to jolly up the girls and I just ordered them to bring 3 more each and then 2 more each, etc. Then Martin and I pulled the rest down ourselves. Probably I should have worked harder to make the girls help, but with the weather conditions and my mood, it was just better to do it ourselves. I was absolutely more exhausted than I have been in a long time when we finished.

We went back early again that day, but there was literally nothing more I could have done and our (albeit cursory) survey of the mountain showed we had gotten most or maybe even all the felled trees anyway. That was definitely an adventure. And I don't think in a million years you could have done that in the US, the liability possibilities were astounding me as I was doing it. I was, of course, always trying to be conscious of safety and ways to make the process better, but it was still dangerous I knew. Nevertheless, I think we minimized the danger as much as possible and the only one who was hurt at all was me and that was just because I was taking something too heavy by myself to try to be an example for the girls. It was stupid and it was only painful, not worse. And now I have a nice purple decoration on the back of my leg.

The picture on the top of this page is of the pile of logs we had accummulated at the end of the second day.

Anyway, the rest of the trip was fine insofar as the girls did mainly what they wanted and didn't give us much trouble. At night twice it became clear that they were getting dressed up at bedtime and wanted to sneak out, but that was easily avoided. There was a carnival in the little village where we were and they were all terribly boy-crazy and wanted to go out there. Tabea said they could go out between 8 and 10 at night if they had an adult with them. They wanted me to go with them, probably because they could plan sedition openly in front of me in quickly-spoken German and I would have no idea. So I took them the first night to the town square and stood around, in the misty rain, but then when they spoke German and English to a few Czech older teenage boys who were drinking and the boys were obviously really annoyed by them, I gathered them up and took them home even though they really didn't want to go. It was good because I heard the boys curse them out a bit when the girls didn't hear. Tabea says the Czechs get really annoyed when Germans come to their country (which is much much poorer than Germany but shares a long border) and speak German to them and expect them to understand. So I gathered the girls and took them home and we proceeded to keep them busy until 10 every night thereafter so they wouldn't ask to go into town.

I learned a lot about friendship on this trip. It didn't occur to me to be upset about going or be mad at Tabea for the work I had to do. Of course you do that. As she helped me shlepp boxes out of my house for hours and hours and hours last year, so I shlepped trees. And it was interesting to see the girls interract. Certainly different from American girls. They walked always hand in hand through the villages and cities we were in. They sat on each other's laps and were very demonstrative. It was interesting.

But most of all, I learned about friendship because Tabea was in charge of this whole event, being the Pastor. Because I didn't speak the language they were speaking, I had to just trust her and blindly follow. This isn't particularly easy. But she looked out for me and always tried to make sure I was okay and that I was understanding what was going on. On the other hand, the other "adults" Martin and Anka, one of the 18 year olds, were not really helpful and undermined Tabea's authority with the other girls. They wanted to, for example, order pizza the last night when we had lots of leftovers and groceries to clean up. Tabea thought it was a bad example to waste all that food and really was disrespectful in front of the Czech pastor, Hynok, who may have had to struggle a little for food from time to time. So I helped Tabea make dinner and convinced her that we needed to offer the girls more than noodles with Ketchup and butter sauce (which is a particular favorite of teenagers) and we together made a pretty darn good dinner for the girls in a very short time. She listened to me and I only questioned her in private. We bore the grumblings together and defended each other. It was a bit like a marraige and we were the parents and even the "adults" were our kids.

On the last night, Martin and Anka led open sedition against Tabea's rules. She wanted the girls to get some sleep, but they thought the girls should be able to stay up as late as they wanted. It was a trying night for Tabea but eventually we got some sleep.

The next day we took 13 tired teenagers and one annoying and not particularly favored German man back to Regensburg on 4 trains, narrowly catching connections and getting delayed over and over again. But we delivered everyone safely home. It was a success. The girls I think learned something, certainly improved their English, had a great time.

And I learned a lot too. And I do really care about all those girls and hope they will succeed in life. It was hard to see that some of them may be pointed in the direction of a difficult path-- wearing skimpy clothes and being overly boy-crazy and dependent on male attention, for example, and not very confident. I hope they all find their way.

It was overall a great experience and one I don't think many people get, to see into the lives of kids of another culture when they are pushed into different directions and when they are somewhere else apart from their parents, etc. And it was a beautiful place. The landscape there is really nice. And it was fun a lot of the time.

The Weekend in Regensberg

This weekend we went to Tabea's town, Regensberg. We are in Nurnberg with her parents because she has a sort of continuing education (she calls it Seminary) these two weeks. But we had to go to Regensberg for the weekend.

She has an amazing apartment. The view out the windows in her living room/dining room is great, verdant mountains with a few rocks and some little red-roofed houses. The apartment is very clean (that's a German thing I've come to realize) and has a bedroom on the main floor and a kitchen -- pretty small, but I've seen worse-- and a bath and the living room/dining room. Up a spiral staircase is the second bedroom. It's in a little village. On Friday night when we arrived, we went across the street to the biergarten to have a beer or some food or whatever we could find. There, luckily, we found a really great cover band playing the funniest American music mix you can imagine. It was great to hear a bit of old (and new) American music live and to just sit there and watch people.

On Friday, I had helped Tabea to make a real American cheesecake. I had forced her to go back to the store and get cream cheese that was different than what she had originally purchased, but it worked and we made a really great cheesecake. Well, it had one crack in the middle, which Tabea says Betty Crocker says means the cheesecake was too dry. Oh well. Then we made a raspberry sauce. She had a friend coming through on Saturday, so we shared our cheesecake with him.

After he left, we went into the city center of Regensberg. There we happened upon a concert in the park with lots of people milling around and eating and drinking at picnic tables. Very German. And we had a coke (which I ordered in German) and then decided to walk past the Dom, (cathedral) and see some of the other things. We eventually went into an Irish pub, which was great fun because inside we found a ton of Germans and another American cover band. And all the Germans were singing the English songs with various states of accents. Truth be told, on some songs, I actually figured out some ofthe words I'd never known before because the guy singing was annunciating so well. And it was the strangest mix, from Johnny Cash to Don Maclean to Green Day to John Denver. And a lot more modern bands that I can't remember at the moment. The good things is that it was just all such mainstream popular American music that I knew all the words. And no one here was going to judge me for knowing all the words to such a strange variety of music. So that was nice. We sang along with the crowd.

Afterwards we came home and slept, rather unsuccessfully. There is a Catholic church next to Tabea's apartment and they were having some sort of anniversary festival ---she said it wasn't the 1000 year festival because they are older than that. She didn't really know what year it was. And anyway, they were celebrating quite thoroughly. There were some men still singing and making noise until 3 or later. And additionally, the stupid church bell rings right into that room every quarter hour, and then on the hour more, and then at 6am, noon and 6PM and then some other random, inexplicable times, it rings for half an hour. It isn't particularly surprising, then, that I had terrible nightmares that night because my brain was trying to process the German shouting under my window and the church bells, etc. Tabea also didn't sleep well, so we took naps on Sunday.

We went back then to Beringersdorf where Tabea's family is. Nico and Johannes had gone to the lake we'd been to earlier in the week with the kayak and fishing equipment -- in Germany you have to take courses and pass a huge exam to get a fishing license-- Johannes did it a couple of years ago. When we got back, Johann called and asked if we'd bring sandwiches. So we did and sat with them. They were not successful in their fishing endeavor, but we had fun on the kayak too so it wasn't a waste. And it was a nice evening, a little cold for Tabea, but I didn't think it was so bad.

And now it is Monday. I am going to do homework and I think Tabea has planned all the evenings this week. She's also starting to plan the France part. I won't (probably) be able to blog much in France because we are camping and won't have internet access. We are going to go down from Konstanz, where her other brother lives, through Switzerland, and to Cluny to see the cathedral there. And then down to the sea and through Provence where the lavendar should be blooming. From there we'll go along the sea, stop for a moment in St. Tropez because I said I would like to see it, and then go over into San Remo Italy for a few minutes just so I've been to Italy. It should be a beautiful trip. Tabea is very excited about it and keeps looking at maps of France. I guess she hasn't been in years to France. (She keeps using her vacations to come to the US).

That's all the news for now. My German gets steadily better. We had lunch yesterday with the Catholics at their big celebration (you can buy food like bratwurst and chicken on spits and pork chops etc,) and she wanted chicken and I wanted bratwurst, so we had to go in separate lines. I was able to order what I wanted without mustard pretty well and have a light but polite conversation. Some of it was a little in English, but they don't really know English in the villages, so it was mostly German.

Now I am back to working on my papers. Uggh.
Wendy

Catch up, part 2

Well, somehow what I was writing didn't seem to be saved. So I will try quickly to recap.

Barbara is doing well. She teaches every day until noon, comes home and cooks because Nico and Johannes and Tabea and Friedrich all take the biggest meal of the day in the middle of the day. But I've been trying to do some of the cooking to help out. Yesterday I made a giant batch of the DeBoer chicken salad and they loved it. We have stuff to eat for days now of course.

I think we will see Tobias this weekend briefly when he heads up to Kritzeberg (the farmhouse the family owns in the Bavarian forest that I went to the last time I was here). He is still living in Constanz and we will visit him later in our time here on our way to France.

Tabea is overworked I think. She has "seminary" two weeks every few months here in Nurnberg, that's what she is doing now and why we are here. She has a car now, which is good, because she is traveling back and forth quite a distance. She comes home at lunch often to eat with me. This weekend we will go to REgensburg because she must take care of her congregation. I think she is wearing herself out because she is always willing to help and she takes on too much. I think she will learn to moderate with time. I hope.

Tabea and Barbara and I went to the forest yesterday and picked wild raspberries and blueberries. It was nice. Not yet enough for a pie, but close. It was hot outside for them-- 80s-- and so we didn't stay too long.

Although I am learning German, it just doesn't feel like work because it belongs to communication. So I am content here. It is nice to relax after the whirlwind trip through England. I am quite enjoying the slower pace here. We eat outside every meal, except breakfast, and the sun pretty much shines all the time. There is very little humidity and very little wind. So the garden is as much a part of the house as the rest. Barbara has an ongoing feud with the flies but they don't have screens on the windows-- houses built in the 18th century didn't of course--and they leave all the doors open. Barbara has pinned netting onto some of the windows so that the bugs are kept to a minimum, but it is still just much more open. And the very thick stone walls keep the house remarkably cool even in the middle of the day.

That is mostly what is going on here. I will try to catch up on Bath and London and Canterbury and Dover later.
w

Catch Up

Well, I cannot possible tell everything which has happened since last I blogged. I didn't have internet in London and then I have been resting and I didn't have internet in Germany really until yesterday-- my own fault, Johannes or Nico would have been happy to help me, I just didn't get it done.



I am in Germany at the Baaders' house now. It is an early 18th Century house. I will try to put up pictures later today because it is so amazing. The front door looks like a castle door with metal plates across wooden planks. This is the parsonage to go with the Baroque church across the street where Friedrich (Tabea's dad) is the pastor. The church is also very nice but a bit overly ornate for my taste, but that is the Baroque period.



Since I have been in Germany, I have been practicing my German and doing pretty well. Some words now just enter my head in German and not English. On the other hand, my grammar is going slowly. But for 3 days, it is okay. Everyone is very helpful. Tabea's mom helps me a lot. Her brothers also help.



Johannes is doing his year of volunteering, helping at the hospital and he has grown A LOT. Not only is he taller, but he is just not the little village boy I knew last time. He is a young man now, starting to think about his future. Luckily he has not quite entered the age where he is too cool for Tabea and I. The first day I was here he spent most of the afternoon talking to me about cameras. Friedrich had gotten a new one for his birthday from Barbara (Tabea's mom) and Johannes was excited to show me what it could do. It is a very nice camera. After it was dark we went out on a little walk and he showed me how to take pictures at night-- he took some of the stars, etc. It was cool. I knew intellectually that such things were possible, but I had never really tried to do it. Johannes must understand everything, like Matt. If he understands it, there is no reason for him to study it or practice it. If he does not understand it, he will put forth herculean efforts to understand it. And if someone does something illogical to him, he believes he must have seen something or perceived the event incorrectly because it is far more possible in his mind that his eyes played tricks on him then that people would behave illogically.



Nico is doing HVAC training as nearly as I can tell and he is excelling at it. But then again, I remember from last time that if you put something mechanical in front of Nico he will take it apart and rebuild it better than it had been before. Nico also just bought a 2 person kayak. The other night he and I took it out on a nearby lake while Tabea and Johannes swam. It was a bit cold for swimming for me and I would have only been a drag on Tabea and Johannes because I am not German and therefore not part fish. So we were on the boat which was fine with me. We also discovered that we are quite fast at paddling because Tabea and Johannes were thinking of tipping us over.

I had written a lot more but somehow it got deleted. I will try to find it and add it later.
w

Other Bath Pix

A particularly old church I came across as I was strolling along back to Bath. And the lane I strolled down. Note the old wall. It was cool.

Also, a sneak peak at the Roman Baths from the lobby of the Pump Room. And by the way, English steak is comparable to Nebraska beef. All those cows making pastoral landscapes must pay off.

Prior Park

To the left is the house at Prior Park. There are actually two other sections you just can't see in this picture, which are attached via breezeways. The house is now a Catholic School.

Below is the view from the house with the cows and the bridge and Bath in the background. Nice isn't it?

It isn't easy to take a picture of yourself, a bridge and a distant house. I am so cool. And I am wearing clothes. My dress is just a strapless smocked/halter dress.

The paladian bridge with the house in the far background.

Bath Assembly Room pix

the blue is the ballroom, the yellowish is the tea room.

It was hard to capture the scale of these rooms, but they were indeed grand. Here the Bath elite would mix for the season. Here daughters would be brokered and connections made and broken.

Bath Pix Begin, In Random Order

The famous Royal Crescent from the lawn. The lawn was landscaped so that it was like bringing your country mansion to the city. You rented one of the 30 units in the Royal Crescent for the season and you could look out and see cows grazing the lawn and go out onto the lawn.

The medieval city walls at bath, a fragment that remains is now about walking level.

The "Parade Grounds" at Bath.

Beau Nash was charged ( I can't remember by whom) with developing manners and etiquette for the city of Bath because it was here that all sorts of Middle and Upper class people intermixed and had to because of the Baths.

Nash developed what we think of today as English manners. When to address someone, how to address them properly, how long and on what subjects to talk to people, etc. etc. This code which he developed was in place from about 1700 on. One of the things he did was find ways for the sexes to mix more. This Parade Grounds and Garden is a perfect example. The women and men would walk the park and could stop and talk to one another without violating rules of decorum.

Salisbury Cathedral Pix 2

they built with very interesting stone in Salibury. In some places outside of Salisbury, when I was on the bus, I saw the famed checkerboard buildings. All around the area, they built in patterns with stripes of this type of building material and stripes of Bath Limestone so it looked like the buildings were striped, or checkerboarded, etc.



I may have already included this picture, but isn't it nice?

The inside of Salisbury Cathedral

Salisbury

Salisbury Cathedral, up close

Swans on the River Avon

Sheep in Front of the Canterbury Spire

Sheep in front of the River Avon

and the river by itself

Royal Pavilion Brighton Pix

evil creatures

unusual flowers

the Royal Pavilion

gardens at the Pavilion

more pix from brighton

above is the path home along the upper cliff path

on the side is the path. there were usually more people, mostly on bikes so I snapped this one quickly

below is the view of the sea from my window

pix from Brighton

Well Tabea missed her train in London cause she got lost, so she'll take a much later train and then a cab from the station, but I have to let her into the rooming house, so I have some time to upload photos.

Me on the Brighton Pier. At the very end of the land on the horizon is the first white cliff I walked to.

below is the zoom lens on the first of the cliffs I walked by the next day

the black butterflies at the Royal Pavilion

A very different sort of beach from Eluethera








Beach and pier at Brighton

Bed, Bath and Beyond

I finally got some sleep last night. Thanks to the decreased population density of seagulls here. By the way, I learned yesterday that seagulls (yes SEAGULLS) are a protected species in England. Uggh.

After sleeping, I had a lovely breakfast with the other residents of this rooming house, a German couple and an Italian woman here on business. It was quite cold and gloomy when I left the boarding house about quarter to 10. I thought it might be a miserable time, but I went out anyway. First I went to the visitor's center to make reservations for Stonehenge tomorrow and to get a ticket on the bus around town today. My feet being somewhat tired still, I thought it might be nice especially since there is a stop right by my rooming house. So I went on the tour to almost the end, stopped at the number 1 Royal Crescent, one of the most famous architectural features of Bath. It is a crescent-shaped Palladian style series of row houses that were the "season" (winter ball season) residences of the rich and aristocratic in Bath during the 18th century. This particular one has been restored to the period. It was fascinating. I learned such tidbits as: the reason dishes often have a silver (or gold) line around the edge is because it was a useful ornamentation when candles were very expensive and light was very limited. The silver reflected the candlelight and you could see your plate or teacup! Also there were many mirrors used in decoration for similar reasons. I aslo learned that Bath was the premier gambling location of the Georgian era. People would gamble after dinner in the drawing rooms or studies, etc. Women even gambled quite frequently. The docent said that it out-vegased vegas in its day. When Victoria came to the throne, however, it was all stopped. She said that the Victorians were actually much worse than the Georgians, they were just better at hiding it! In the basement of the house was the kitchen. In the kitchen was a fireplace and turning spits in front of it. But how were the spits turned? There was a contraption almost identical to a hampster wheel suspended from the ceiling and very high. Dogs, yes DOGS, were put there and made to run to keep the spit going. It was apparently almost universally done in Bath homes. Imagine Erasmus in one of those things (since it was made for dogs of his size). The information there said that if the dog wouldn't run, to train them, they put a hot coal on the wheel so the dog had to run to keep away from it. Not sure exactly how that worked, but I was feeling sorry for Rassie just thinking about it. The docent there said that this was a step up because it was children they used before dogs. Also there were similar contraptions throughout England for dogs to cause a wheel to spin to churn butter, etc.

While I was in number 1 Royal Crescent, it rained profusely, but when I got out it was much nicer. I hopped back on the bus, listened to the rest of the information, hopped onto the accompanying tour (part of the price) a little further afield into the countryside and went to Prior Park Gardens. That was an absolutely magnificent experience. I felt a bit like a Regency English lady since I was wearing a long dress-- okay of t-shirt material and smocked at the top, but still-- because that is actually one of the warmer outfits I have. As I got off the bus, the skies cleared and it was rather warm. The park workers were falling over themselves to help me since there weren't any other customers since it had been raining most of the day. I walked through the wooded forest areas of the park and often couldn't see any sign that I wasn't back 200 years. The garden is done in the natural style (which is entirely calculated and not at all natural) so that there is a great view down to a manufactured lake from the house. The house itself is now a school, but the lawn down to the lake still has grazing cattle. Over the lake itself is a Palladian bridge, one of 4 in the world. It was rather beautiful. On the lake, again, many swans and signets were chasing the ducks. Beyond you could see a panorama of Bath from certain angles, others had weeping willows and other beautiful trees. It was idyllic. I thought that if Dad had been born a man of leisure in England during the time period, he might have created exactly such a garden. There were, after all, hydrangeas blooming!

I decided to walk back down the mountain to Bath instead of taking the bus. It was an excellent choice. The sun was still shining through the clouds and the exit from the gardens took you through a little village and along a walled street past a 16th century church. It was amazing and I am not sure I took enough pictures even though I took tons. It was incredibly romantic to walk along this walled path with nothing but cottages that were 2o0 or more years old. I saw two cars and a motorcycle the whole time, and they were parked. Otherwise I passed two men walking together and later a woman with a baby in a stroller, but, other than that, had the place to myself. So cool. I took a stroll today through the English countryside.

Back in Bath, now 2:30, absolutely famished, I went to the Regency Tea Rooms at the Jane Austen museum. There I had the "Tea with Darcy" which consisted of cucumber and cheese sandwiches, a scone with clotted cream and jam like nothing I'd ever eaten before and lemon drizzle cake. An excellent lunch substitute. And the tea I had was so amazingly excellent, a blend of chinese teas that was popular in Austen's time. If I could get that tea I would never drink anything else. It was really smooth.

Then I decided, having already done the part of the day Dad would have liked best and Mom would have enjoyed (the gardens), to do the part Mom would like best and Dad would enjoy. I went to the Fashion Museum. The museum is located in the Assembly Rooms, the rooms where all the balls were held in Regency Bath and where there was a Tea Room, described in Austen's Northanger Abbey, and where the people would gather other than at the Pump Room (which Tabea and I are going to tomorrow). The Assembly rooms were being decorated for an event this evening in Christmas decorations, apparently to somehow gather support for some sort of Christmas events. I think some quite notable people were supposed to be coming. At any rate, they let me peak into the rooms and I have never seen grander rooms ever. It's what I wanted the ballroom at the White House to look like. First, the Ballroom is HUGE, second, there are gorgeous chandeliers and a beautiful carved white stucco ceiling. Otherwise the ornamentation was plain but for some big fireplaces-- several on both sides of the room and on either end. The tour bus information said that the balls began at 7 with the minuet wherein only one couple at a time danced. That lasted for 2 hours. Then there was other dancing from 9-11:30 when everyone would go to bed, only to get up at 6 am to "take the waters" (i.e. bathe in the natural spring waters).

Back to the fashion museum in the basement of the Assembly Rooms. The museum is actually a bit lacking in display, only a few things from each era, but some really interesting things nonetheless. The best display was of some 30 sets of gloves from 400-200 years old. The gloves were unbelievably embroidered and there is no way to tell men's gloves from women's except for their size. Quite interesting. Other than that, they had an American (yes!?!) woman's wedding dress from 1900 and many of the things she had in the wedding, including all the bills. It must have been quite a nice affair because it was $425 for the 100 guest dinner and $30 for the flowers. Would that weddings cost that now! But of course it does show how the elaborate weddings of this era are not unique. The receipts indicated that elaborate weddings were happening at least in 1900. The other piece of interest I wanted to include from the Fashion Museum was regarding a handbag they had from the 1800s. It was embroidered with beetle wings from India. Apparently it was quite fashionable to embroider with beetle wings! They were beautiful. . . Ah fashion.

After that I came home, exhausted and am writing you. Tabea comes in about 5 hours and I want to shower and rest a bit before I walk to the train to meet her. Also I think I might go get a steak at the Pump Room because they have a ribeye for 15 pounds and I am starving and haven't had red meat in a while. I think I need to do it for scientific purposes as well in order to compare it with Nebraska beef, New York beef and French beef to put it on that scale. I hope it comes rather towards the Nebraska side and not the French side, but for scientific purposes, I will have to eat it either way!

The skies are clearing again, which is good. Tomorrow it is supposed to rain all day, of course, it was supposed to rain all day today too and there were some nice spells. We'll see. Hopefully it isn't too miserable at Stonehenge tomorrow.

I might have more to report this evening, but this is it for now.

Wendy