in the USA...

Hi from Saint Paul! I am in the USA for 3 weeks on the great Midwestern tour. I will tell you all about it soon. Stay tuned.

Linden

In my intro to the hop on hop off blog tour of Hannover, I summarized Linden as hipsters and bums. It deserves a little more explanation than that.

Way back in the 1600s, Hannover's royal family had their vegetable gardens in Linden. Later on it became a suburb for Hannover's wealthy citizens. After the Industrial Revolution, Linden became the blue collar suburb of Hannover. Workers from the nearby factories lived here in tenement housing - crowded apartments in buildings with an air shaft in the middle. Without any plumbing, they used common bath houses in town. I learned a little about this, and blogged about it too, on a walking field trip with 8th graders from the international school, over 2 years ago. Those kids are now in 11th grade and I somehow have not aged a day. But I know a little more than I used to about Linden.

Lindeners made bed springs, rubber, corsets, beer, fabric and tractors. The Hanomag factory was one of the most important places in Linden, making first trains, then cars, tractors and vehicles for the war effort.

Hanomag factory

I've posted about Hanomag already too. I have not, however told you yet about the three brothers or the Ihme Zentrum. Or about hipsters.

Meet the three warm brothers, die Drei Warme Brüdern. They are triplet smoke stacks from the power plant along the Ihme river in Linden. You can see them from a lot of places in the city, including from our balcony. Linden has embraced them as its trademark. What does it mean to personify these towers of steam as if they were cute trouble-making tots? Maybe it's an effort to make the industrial become familiar, as long as you have to live with it anyway. You get to know these brothers like you might wave hello to the construction crane or get cozy with a factory.

Just on the other side of the bridge, the brothers look down upon a spectacle. It's the Ihme Zentrum. The Ihme Zentrum was an inspiration in urban planning that fell apart. Built in 1975, it was a city within a city. The complex had apartments for 2800 people, an integrated shopping center, office space and parking for 2000 cars. It was designed in the architectural style of Brutalism. Massive, institutional buildings with exposed concrete are Brutalism's hallmarks. The Zentrum story is, well, brutal. After 15 years of being a self-contained city, the concept started to fail. Retailers pulled out, followed by residents, and in the last few years the Ihme Zentrum has teetered on the edge of foreclosure. It's now being auctioned off for 50 million euros.

Ihme Zentrum

Ihme Zentrum

So who lives in Linden? Yes, people still do live in parts of the Ihme Zentrum. But Linden is also home to students from Hannover's university, a healthy dose of immigrants and several handfuls of hipsters. Linden is the place to live if you are cool. The fact that I don't live there should tell you something about me, I guess. There are plenty of dark bars, stores selling expensive locally-made clothes, and people with dreadlocks and chunky black framed glasses. And if you are looking for good live music anywhere in Hannover, your chances are best in Linden. Bums? Well, there are a few of those too. Linden has plenty of bridges to live under.

Limmerstrasse

Biergarten Gretchen

I think Linden is the most interesting neighborhood in Hannover. Where else could you find failed urban planning, people proud of their smoke stacks, good tapas bars and 28 year old college students in second-hand T-shirts? Certainly not in Südstadt. Brian and I thought for a few minutes about moving to Linden. Then we realized we'd have to carry all our stuff down 5 flights of stairs and it didn't seem like such a good idea. Besides, we are probably not even cool enough for Linden. I have a long way to go before my hair is long enough for dreadlocks.

Südstadt

Südstadt means 'south city' and it's where we live. This area of the city is known for its elderly population and quiet, family-friendly neighborhoods. We are neither old nor do we have kids, but Brian and I manage to live on the lower-rent edge of Südstadt anyway.

pronunciation tip: the little dots over the u make süd rhyme with rude, dude, or food.

There's not a lot of nightlife in Südstadt. There are some playgrounds, a big farmers' market on Fridays, and a few bars and restaurants. It's not unusual to dodge massive 4 wheel drive strollers or old ladies on slow bicycles as you walk down the street. Südstadt is the part of Hannover with the fewest foreigners, so we really don't belong. That must be why we ended up on the lower-rent end of the neighborhood.

Babies and old people, all in one group!

The weekly market

Südstadt was built around 1900 and, like much of the city,  was heavily damaged during WWII. Two very important buildings still stand. The first is the city library:

The next is the Gluckauf high rise. Gluckauf means something like 'good luck'. It was built in 1930, during the housing shortage between the wars, Was it good luck? I guess it's still standing, so that means something.

You might notice the shirtless man on the grass. He's playing badminton with his girlfriend. Germans like badminton, but do not seem to care for frisbee, which is what I would play. It was not quite warm enough for him to be shirtless.  I didn't mind.

Both the high rise and the library were built in the style of brick expressionism. I know very little about architecture, but I can look things up. So what I've learned is that brick expressionism was developed in Germany and focused on buildings made entirely of brick, with brick ornamentation in the form of patterns, angles, etc. It was popular in the 1920s and early 30s and the Nazis loved it. Architect Karl Elkart designed the library, and he did the Gluckauf building together with another brick expressionist, Fritz Hoeger. They were members of the Nazi party and Elkart was also in the SS. He was in charge of planning the 'Jewish houses', where Jews were forced to live as their homes were confiscated. The Nazi party headquarters were also located in this our part of town, but I think the building is long gone.

Aside from brick expressionism, there are some regular houses still standing too, tall, brightly painted ones that predate the brick buildings:

There's a hair salon in the bottom floor of the yellow buliding. I got my hair cut there mostly because I like the building. I liked the haircut less.

Aside from architecture and markets, what else happens in Südstadt? There's a good Turkish kebab shop and a friendly Indian restaurant. The neighborhood backs up to the city forest and lies alongside the Maschsee lake. It's peaceful and you never have to walk more than 3 blocks to find a bakery. No wonder the old people like it.

Hop on hop off Hannover

In the next few posts, I am going to give you a little tour around Hannover. Here's a little preview of your hop on hop off trip with me:

Südstadt - families and old people
Linden - hipsters and bums
Nordstadt - immigrants
Calenberger Neustadt - Catholics and Jews
List - yuppies
I might add in a few other places here are there.

I also find it entertaining that the word for district or neighborhood in German is Bezirk.
I hope the following posts don't drive you Bezirk - ha! That's a terrible bilingual pun. I apologize.

Who needs this bus anyway?

What Germans and iguanas have in common

Last week we had a few warm days here in Germany. You could call it Indian Summer even, except there were never any Native Americans here, and the Hannover Indians hockey team doesn't count. With the sun shining and soft summery breezes blowing, you'd think that everyone would pull out their flip flops to enjoy those last, precious, warm days. Not the Germans. They leave the house in scarves and jackets, with a sweater or two underneath. If it gets really toasty, a German might remove one scarf.

German people seem to have a lower inner temperature than the rest of us, like reptiles. An iguana solves this issue by basking in the sun on a rock. A German handles it by wearing a lot of clothes.

I am not the only one who noticed. My Polish friend Kaska, after living in Germany for 17 years, still thinks it's weird. So we decided to take some photos of these crazy Germans, in an anthropological sort of way. Keep in mind it was about 74 degrees Farenheit and we were in summer dresses.

Black leather jackets for Indian Summer

She has daringly removed one layer

The man in khaki

Wouldn't want to take off that suit coat

You'd think that teenage guys would be the first to wear shorts...

Does over-dressing have something to do with the psychology of German culture? Brian has a very strong theory - the Germans remember how their army invaded Russia in 1941 for what was supposed to be a short-term siege. They wore summer uniforms. And look how that turned out. You can't blame Germans for wanting to avoid freezing to death in the future, even on a summery day in Hannover.

Or maybe they really are part iguana.

I'm a fan

Living on another continent means that there are events that I miss back home. The tradeoff for these past few years of great travels and exploring another culture is that I can't always be with the people I love when something big happens. Today is one of those days. My grandma turned 90 last week and today is her birthday party. Family will be flying in from other states, braving tolls and city traffic, trying to keep their kids' clothes clean long enough to make it to the big event.

I wish I could be there too. But because I can't, and because Gram is one of my greatest and most beloved fans, this post is for her.

My Aunt Linda has asked many people to write up their thoughts about Grandma. They will be read out loud at the party and compiled in a book as well. Here is what I wrote:

Some of the best times I’ve spent with Gram were during the summers. There were a few years when I'd stay with her and Grandpa, just me, for 3 or 4 days. These visits were full of familiar things - spicy gum drops in a bowl, exploring the basement fruit cellar, looking through old photo albums - but also full of things I'd never done before. Once she put my hair in curlers and had me sleep on them. During that warm night in the attic I must have woken up every hour, but for the next two days I had, as Gram put it "a perfect page boy". Then she had to explain to me what a page boy was. We rode bikes to the shopping mall, took the El downtown, and rode the city bus back. As a suburban kid, I found this glamorous and exciting. We went to the apartment building of one of her friends and swam in a pool on the roof. I had been to maybe one or two apartments in my life and in none of them could you swim on top of the building.

While I stayed with Gram, she sang with the radio while washing dishes. She scooped ice cream for me at every opportunity. She told me stories about my mom and my aunts, who despite being grandmothers themselves now, are still called "the girls". She took me to the Elmwood Family Restaurant (the Family) where we drank from red plastic glasses and ordered sandwiches too big to finish.

Those stays were special because I had her all to myself. Shortly after that, I became a busy teenager and Grandpa needed her at home more, so the summer visits ended. But she has made me feel just that special on so many occasions. I know I am not the only one. With all of the people in her life - so many friends, grandkids, nieces and nephews, and others who we are related in ways I can never recall - she has a way to remember just what they've been doing, to give them her full attention, to show how much she cares.

I am sure there could be enough people at this party to fill 3 or 4 restaurants. Gram, you have a huge fan club. I wish I could be there to celebrate with you too, but know that I will always be one of your biggest fans. 

The bobble head question

It's easy to get excited when there's an envelope from DHL in the mailbox. It means I have a package on the way. But when I open it and see a neon green slip of paper inside, I make a noise that's somewhere between a whine and a groan. This is a sound that is reserved for the notice that says I need to pick up my package at the Zollamt, the customs office. If you have been reading this blog long enough, you may remember that I wrote about the Zollamt before. That's when I had to go for the first time and didn't know what to expect. This was my 4th or 5th trip out there, and I still didn't know what to expect.

Why does a package go to the customs office? If it comes directly from a company outside of the EU, it will go there. And you will probably have to pay 19% VAT tax on it. I don't claim to really understand VAT (value added tax). What I know is that it taxes the increase in price added at each stage of the transaction: sale, resale, etc., whereas a sales tax is just paid by the end user.  I am taking an economics class online now and am really glad we are not studying VAT (yet).

Aside from merchandise that you've ordered through an online shopping habit (I'm in recovery),  there are a lot of other things that may end up at the Zollamt. Anything with suspicious content could go there - alcohol, perfume, chemicals, bombs, that sort of thing. And bobble heads, apparently.

To get to the Zollamt I have to ride my bike almost all the way to the airport. I would like to someday ride right up to the terminal, lock up against a pole, and jump on a plane. Maybe there's even a long term bike parking lot there. My only problem would be the luggage; Id have to travel light.

The Zollamt is an ugly building in an industrial park, with bad lighting and linoleum floors. It's home to a closet full of treasures - care packages, exciting imported purchases, birthday gifts, explosive chemicals, that sort of thing. My neon green slip of paper got me a brown cardboard box. The staff at the Zollamt, who look like they want to be anywhere else, make you open the box in front of them. This is so you can't hide your contraband I guess, or so if it explodes you are the only one injured. This is what I found inside.

Thank you, Kay!

The man behind the counter asked me about the thing in the little box. I wanted to explain to him that it's a James Shields bobble head and that the Royals have a real shot at the playoffs for the first time since my husband has been a devoted fan. However, I did not know the word for 'bobble head' in German, if one even exists. So I told him it was a toy. He didn't seem to believe that answer and asked me to unpack the item. The wobbling over sized head of Big Game James almost made him crack a smile. Almost. I was free to go - no VAT required.

My friend Kaska, upon hearing this story, decided that the closest term to bobble head in German is Wackel Dackel. This is a little dachshund statue that you put in the back of your car and it wobbles its head as you drive. Which raises another question - in English we call them Dachshunds, thinking we are saying something in German. But the name in German is Dackel. Dach means roof, so does dachshund mean roof dog? Languages are confusing.

 

It seems like the more I understand about Germany, the more questions I have. Should someone start importing bobble heads to Germany? Can you leave your bike at the airport? Should I bother trying to understand VAT? What is a dachshund anyway?

The big question, though, is whether the Royals can battle it out to make the playoffs and keep winning to make my husband a very happy fan. Maybe the guy at the Zollamt would even cheer for them too, in a grumpy sort of way.