Powers Lake highlights

It’s been a while since my last posting.  I can’t say I’ve been busy, exactly, but there have been a lot of people coming and going from Powers Lake. First, my parents, brother, sister, and their families came for the weekend of the 14^th , and everyone from my Mom’s side of the family came for the annual family picnic. Then Brian’s parents visited for four days, followed by a full house of friends from Kansas City, Maryland, and Mississippi.

I’ll just give you a few highlights:

My cousin’s daughter Lauren, who is four, got smacked in the head with a baseball bat during the family picnic. This is not a highlight in itself. It was actually a little traumatic for everyone. But she rebounded like a champ, a champ with a big purple lump on her forehead. It made me wonder what sort of sporting equipment German kids get whacked with – soccer balls? Handballs? Sausages?  We took over the public beach that afternoon and got a lot of mileage out of some squirt guns and plastic fishing nets.

My nephews are now one whole year bigger than when I last saw them. I wonder what they think of Brian and me in their little boy heads. They’ve never seen us very often but hear about us sometimes and know we somehow fit in to the family… and then they go blast each other with squirt guns and don’t think about it any more. I also got to meet my new baby niece Phoebe, who is all cheeks and chins and sugar and spice.

Some of Brian’s best and oldest friends came up for a long weekend with their families and we rented a pontoon boat for the day. Powers Lake is not huge, and it’s pretty shallow, but it was a great day to be out on the rock bar. The rock bar is a shoal in the middle of the lake which is about shin deep. Pretending to be real boat people, we dropped anchor, got out our coozys and our flotation devices, and hung around the rock bar in the sun most of the afternoon.

There is a little bar near the house called the Annex. You may remember it from my post about eating fried food for lunch during our first week at the lake. Every year the Annex hosts a pig roast. I’d never been in town for the pig roast before, but it fulfilled all of my dreams of Americana: meat, cowboy hats, Miller beer, macaroni salad, live music, and cheese curds.

Now we are on the way to Minneapolis. Since we are car-less while in the US, we are riding the Megabus. Megabus is nothing like German transportation. It rolled in to the Milwaukee stop an hour late, there were no soft pretzels to buy in the station, and I am now overhearing all sorts of passengers having all sorts of conversations and getting to know each other. I have yet to witness a lot of Germans chatting with strangers on the bus or the train, or anywhere really. But Americans like to talk to most everyone. Megabus does is not the classiest way to travel, but it is the cheapest.  The passengers are not as cultured and articulate as you might expect. Brian and I are the only ones reading books on the bus. But just as we watch overweight poor people eat Taco Bell, we must remember that we are here because a rental car was too expensive, and that we are currently snacking on pizza flavored Combos. So maybe we should slurp our fountain drinks, strike up a conversation with someone across the aisle, and quit complaining.

Germany's doing fine

If you've read the last few entries, please don't read into them too much and please know that I am not anti-Germany. Our life there is good and even when I am occasionally frustrated I don't regret our decision to move. I'm just excited to be back after almost a year and happy to see people here.

During the next few weeks we will get the question "How is Germany?" from all sorts of people. In fact, we have already gotten it now and then during phone calls and emails with people back home. Before you ask it, think about how that sounds and what is it that you really want to know. I could get snarky and tell you that I haven't checked in with Angela Merkel lately, or that unemployment in Germany is around 5%, or that the Germans were sad they didn't make it to the finals of the European soccer championships. If I understood the Eurozone crisis better I could tell you about that.

I could be sassy and ask you how "How is the United States?". But I am neither snarky or sassy (usually, except for sometimes when I am hungry and/or tired. Brian can attest to that.) so I will refrain from saying any of those things. I will probably smile and say something like "Oh, it's good, we are adjusting and we've made some good friends and my German is coming along slowly."

But before you ask at all, think about what you really want to know. I think what you want to ask is, "How are you doing in Germany?" or "Do you like living in Germany?" or "What's different about living in Germany?" Those are questions I can answer, if you'd like. If you aren't really interested in finding out, that is ok too. I don't need to be some sort of novelty or C-list celebrity just because I am back for a visit. You can just say "how are you?" and I can answer you and we can move on.

There's one thing that we noticed while at the bar eating fried food yesterday. The bar is hosting a benefit this weekend to raise money for a woman who has breast cancer and can't pay all her medical expenses. That doesn't happen in Germany. Without getting on my health care soapbox I will just say that in that respect Germany is doing well. No one needs to have a raffle or a benefit concert because they get sick.

After five weeks here I will probably be sad to leave but happy to get back to 'normal' life in Hannover, to bike around town, to buy small quantities of groceries, to see our assortment of international friends there, to  and maybe even to get out of the heat (possible, but hard to imagine it now). Until then I will enjoy being in the U.S., whether we are visiting or vacationing or some of each. And I will refrain from snarky comments. You can go ahead and ask me anything you like.

Lakeside

I fell asleep on the couch during the All-Star game last night, around the 2nd inning, but tonight I hope to make it until at least 10 and get myself all adjusted. I am no longer sleep deprived. I am not deprived of anything right now, really, except possibly practicing my German. I have a feeling that's going to be at the bottom of my list as long as there are more fun things going on.

Brian and I are hanging out at the Powers Lake house, doing very little. We are without a car now, which is really not a problem, because even if we had one I don't think we'd go anywhere. Today we took the canoe out, sat in the sun, filled up the baby pool, went to the beach. The most stressful thing I did was make a pasta salad.

There's a little bar down the road, and we walked over there for lunch. It wasn't lunch so much as a meal of fried appetizers. We had onion rings and cheese curds, and we would have ordered jalapeno poppers too except they were all out. Healthy? no, certainly not. We didn't care. When in Wisconsin (or Minnesota) one must eat cheese curds(The same could be said for bratwurst but I am definitely not eating any sort of sausage link while in the U.S. That's one thing the Germans do better). We may gain some weight on this trip. It won't just be from eating deep fried treats, but because we are no longer walking or biking everywhere we want to go. Right now we aren't going anywhere but when we do decide go out into the world we will hop in a car like everyone else. The five flights of stairs leading to our apartment will probably be a challenge again when we get back in August.

When will the novelty of friendly strangers wear off? Today we chatted with the bartender, I talked for a few minutes with a family who stopped to ask me directions, and people driving in their cars make eye contact and wave as they pass. In Germany I am excited if I even get eye contact from somebody.

That's all the news from here - it's warm, the sun is shining, the swimming is good, and the pasta salad is for dinner.

20 some hours and counting

That's how long we've been awake... but the mind is more powerful than the body, or at least my mind is telling me so, and I am still up. If I sound a little crazy in this post, just blame it on jet lag. I should be able to use that excuse for at least a week.

Today we started in Germany, touched down in Denmark, touched down again in Sweden, and landed in the US. It's 87 degrees (farenheit, of course), the sun is shining, and people are speaking English. Immediately after getting off of the plane we saw not only White people, but Black people, Hispanic people, and Indian people... it was so cool. My dad picked us up and whisked us off to my parents' Powers Lake, WI house. We had to stop at the 7 Eleven so that Brian could purchase the largest fountain drink of Mountain Dew ever created. I think it was 64 ounces, maybe 72, I don't know (I was never good at ounces to begin with, and now that I'm thinking in liters it's even harder)... it was a small bucket and he was a happy guy.

We have escaped the perpetual mid-May weather of Hannover for true hot and dry summer. The grass is brown here, which looks really strange to us. The corn is struggling, its leaves spiky from the dryness like some scrubby desert plant.  Today while sitting on the deck we saw three deer run across the field behind the house.

Brian and I are still excited from our recent trip to the grocery store. Here are the things that were cool - an entire aisle dedicated to just chips. Potato chips, baked potato chips, barbecue potato chips, tortilla chips, round tortilla chips, pretzel rods, pretzel twists, pretzel rings... you get the idea. This volume and variety of snack food is unheard of in Germany. The produce section alone was bigger than the grocery store I shop at most often in Hannover. Brian reports that he smiled and said hello to at least three strangers, who smiled and said hello back to him, in English. There were teenagers working at the cash register, while standing. In Germany it's usually a full-grown lady seated in a chair with a nametag. I was asked whether I wanted paper or plastic, and someone bagged the groceries for me. There was no mad rush to shove my things in a fabric bag before the next customer checked out.  We also purchased a tri-state array of beers: Goose Island 312 from Chicago, New Glarus from Wisconsin, and Grain Belt Nordeast from Minnesota. I am hoping that drinking a couple of them will keep me awake a few more hours.

Powers Lake is the best possible place I know to spend a summer day. It smells good here, like warmth and sunshine and grass that's too dry. You can hear a faint buzz of boats on the lake. The agenda for this week involves sunbathing, swimming, sitting on the deck, and working on a tan while reading magazines in English. Right now Brian is watching ESPN and we are planning to eat some corn-fed beef for dinner. It's going to be a good trip, if I can just stay up for a few more hours.

Going Stateside

Tomorrow at the crack of dawn we get on a plane back to the US... sort of. First we fly to Copenhagen, and have an hour layover. Then we fly to Stockholm and have an hour layover. Then we fly to Chicago. Airplane routes don't always make sense to me but airfare prices do, and it was the best possible option. We will spend the first two weeks at my parents' place in Powers Lake Wisconsin, various friends and relatives coming to see us. Next is a week in the Twin Cities, a week on the west coast for our friend Kate's Oregon wedding, and the last 5 or 6 days back in Powers Lake.

There are, of course, so many people we are excited to see that I won't even name them. You know who you are.

I have been daydreaming about hot weather, sunbathing on the deck, floating in the water, going to the movie theater, putting my wet clothes in a dryer, reading the newspaper (on paper), having conversations with strangers, drinking free ice water at restaurants, and grocery shopping on Sundays. 

Will we miss anything from Germany? Probably, but I don't know what yet. After five weeks I might crave Doner kebabs or bakery bread or at least my bike. I'm sure we will be happy to see our Hannover friends again.

It's exciting to think that, unlike the last time we came from the US, when we get back to our apartment all of our things will be here.

So this is my last post from Hannover for a while. I will probably check in Stateside but if you don't hear from me too much, just know that I'm probably in the hammock.

My ring, and summer camp

I haven't been posting much this week, because I've been.... working. Strange I know. I worked a week-long summer camp at the international school, complete with an overnight on Thursday when I got to sleep on a gym mat with the kindergartners.

On Monday, the first day of camp, something happened. We were tie- dying T shirts, as you do at summer camp. I was about to dunk a dozen T shirts in a bucket of blue dye, and before I stuck my hands in there, I took off my wedding rings and stuck them in my pocket. I thought I'd save them from turning blue too. About an hour later I had scrubbed my hands as best I could (they still looked a little corpse-like), and reached in my pocket to get the rings. My wedding band was there, but the engagement ring was not. I tried to avoid panicking too much and soon we had a search party of kids and staff all looking for the ring. We searched for about an hour when I finally gave up and went home. I can't remember another time I felt so upset, full of regret, angry at myself, generally awful, and unable to make it better. If there was some free lifetime pass to use and start your day over, I would have cashed mine in right then. Brian and I went back and looked again that evening - still no luck. It wasn't just that the ring is valuable (yes, it is insured) but it's the fact that Brian picked it out for me almost nine years ago and it could never really be replaced. I don't have to go into why it has sentimental value, but it has a lot. And through all of the changes we've been through in those nine years, I've had that ring with me always.

I barely slept that night and tried to talk myself into accepting the loss of the ring and moving on. Even though there was a slight chance it would turn up, I could imagine in falling down a drain or getting kicked someplace that it would never be found. I went to camp Tuesday morning, and as I was setting my bag down in the staff room, one of the teachers walked in with a little boy named Oskar. "Oskar has something for you," she said. His little fingers were holding up my ring! I grabbed it and grabbed Oskar and gave him a hug that probably scared the crap out of him. I bounced around the rest of the day, feeling like my lifetime do-over had come through after all. I almost couldn't believe it - I felt so very blessed.

The rest of the camp week went great. It had to after that day. I got a little gift bag together for Oskar with a squirt gun and some balls and candy. He was a little shy about taking it but I saw him  soaking all his unarmed friends on the playground a few minutes later. I got pretty tired by Thursday afternoon, but the kids were good and generally nice to each other, the weather was mostly dry, and the kindergartners slept all the way until 7:30 on Friday morning.

Luneburg

On Saturday we went to Luneburg, which is a small city between Hannover and Hamburg. The occasion was the Hansetage festival, where our friend Kaska's Polish folk dance group was performing. Kaska's husband Thorsten drove us - me, Brian, and our friends Ed and Serena - to Luneburg for the day. On the way there, Serena and Ed (who are also Americans) used the opportunity to ask Thorsten (who is German) every burning question they had about Germany. We talked about German politics, American politics, immigration, dubbed movies, health care, unemployment benefits, and hookers. That's right, hookers. We saw several 1980s era campers on the side of the road with a red heart and the words "sexy girls" painted on the door. Thorsten explained that in the campers prostitutes were hanging out and waiting for business. This prompted more discussion on the legality of prostitution in Germany and other countries. We encouraged Serena to hop out and ask the girls directly, but she wouldn't do it.

Hansetage is a festival celebrating Luneburg's years in the medieval Hanseatic trading league. There were all kinds of people wandering around in tights and other historical costumes, and we got to see the middle ages-era crane lift some barrels up from the river onto the shore. The crane works when a man walks inside a big wheel, which pulls a chain, which moves the pulley. It's sort of like a human hamster wheel. Luneburg has a lot of pretty historic buildings and tall churches, which shows you that cities in the Hanseatic league were wealthy enough to build up fancy cities and preserve them over the years. It also shows you that those buildings were not blown up in World War 2.

The Polish dancers stole the show. They were smiling and spinning and singing and pretending to blow a huge wooden horn.  They definitely looked better and had more fun than the frumpy, old, unattractive German folk dancers. I am not sure what that means about the merits of Polish culture versus German culture... but I will let you ponder it.

On the way home, we discussed colonialism, racism, and hookers yet again. It was a good day.

Here are some photos:

Polonia E.V. folkloric dance group

Helenka and her future dance partner

Kaska talking with one of the other folk dancers

Thorsten and me in front of the crane, at the Luneburg harbor

Charlotte, Kaska, and me