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
Monday, July 26, 2010
Thursday, July 22, 2010
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
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
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
Thursday, July 15, 2010
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.
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