My passport, gravity, and the people downstairs

Back in the fall when we first got our grill, Brian was moving it on the balcony and knocked some of the ashes down onto the balcony of the couple who live below us. They were, of course, sitting out there at the time. The lady let out a yelp and Brian muttered an apology and we were rather embarrassed.

Then they decided to tell the landlady that we were too loud in the morning, and since our kitchen is over their bedroom they can hear me putting dishes away or something. The landlady called the school secretary, who called us, and then talked to the people downstairs, and it became a big deal. They could have just come up and knocked on our door. I have one entire post about that incident, so if you are really interested (or just really bored) go back and check it out.

We invited them, and all the other neighbors, to our Thanksgiving/housewarming party. They came - actually I think they were the first to arrive.. We learned that her name is Katrin and his I can't remember anymore but knew it for a little while. His English is pretty good and he decided to bring up the issue of the noise making in the morning in the midst of our small talk at the party. It was awkward.

Then just two weeks ago, I had to pick up a package at the post office. When I went to the counter with my little pick up slip, the post office man asked to see my passport. I tried to talk him into accepting my drivers license, my bank card, my credit card, or any other form of ID but he would not have it. The risk of having the bike tubes I'd ordered fall into the wrong hands was just too great. So, grumpy and irritated, I called Brian and told him about the situation. We agreed that he would throw my passport out the window. This is not as crazy as it sounds... ok maybe it is. But because we live on the 4th floor and there's no elevator, sometimes it's easier to just toss things out the window than to hike all the way upstairs. Brian got the passport, put it in a little bag, put a pen in the bag to weigh it down, waved to me standing on the sidewalk, and dropped it... right on the windowsill of the neighbors below us. My thoughts at the time? 'Ohhh crap. what do we do now? Can we throw something else down to knock it off the windowsill? Are we going to have to knock on the door and ask for it? How do I explain in German what a dumb thing we just did?' So even more grumpy and more frustrated, I started to hike up to our apartment. And on the way, Katrin and whats-his-name open their door and hand the passport back to me.

Then about 5 days later I tried to install an ashtray that looks like a bird on the balcony railing. I know, that sounds awesome, doesn't it? It actually is. Now instead of leaving his cigar ashes in the grill or in a flower pot, Brian can use this:

In my excitement about the ashtray, I started to use the little allen wrench from the box to attach it to the railing. As I leaned over to screw it on I - believe or not - dropped the allen wrench. It fell into the little garden behind our building, and guess who saw? The neighbors below us, who were sitting out on their balcony. So I went down and managed to fish the allen wrench out of the groundcover. I was too embarrassed to try again right away but a couple of days later, when I knew the neighbors were not home, I tried again. This time I got the ashtray screwed almost completely on, and as I was tightening it, I dropped the wrench again. This time it landed on their balcony. When I came home later that evening it was lying on the mat in front of our apartment door. I can just hear Katrin and whats-his-name talking about us - "Dumb Americans upstairs. Don't they know about gravity? Why do they keep dropping things on us?"

Brian and I decided that we needed to do something for them to acknowledge our stupidity, or at least our clumsiness. 'Should I make cookies? Most people like them, but they are an American thing and not a German thing, maybe it would remind them that we are foreigners. But maybe that's a good thing because they'll cut us more slack. Maybe wine is better, but what kind do they like? A cake would be good but then I'd need the pan back and I'd have to go back down there and that would be awkward...' Let's just say I was over-thinking it. And in the end I made cookies and left them outside their door with a note that said something like "Sorry for things falling on you. We hope you like the cookies."

We actually ran into Katrin in the stairwell a few days ago. She thanked us for the cookies and waited patiently as I tried to explain in German why my passport fell out of our window and landed outside hers.  Hopefully a steady supply of baked goods will prevent them from calling the landlady on us to complain about ashes, passports, and small tools falling on them from our apartment.

Swedish wedding

We went to Sweden over the weekend for my cousin Oliver's wedding (I still get a kick out of saying I went to another country for the weekend). Here's the background info on how that happened, for those of you who are not related to me: long ago my uncle Lew married an English girl named Valerie and moved to England. They had 2 kids, Oliver and Lucy. Olly met a Swedish girl in London several years ago named Maria, and last Saturday they were married in her home town of Vadstena, Sweden. Val sadly passed away a few years ago and we all missed her at the event.

The wedding was cool for a few reasons.
I got to hang around with family members from the Gray side, many of whom I hadn't seen since my own wedding almost 7 years ago. Most of my cousins made it, some with spouses, and all of my dad's siblings were there, most with spouses, plus of course my parents. The Gray brothers like to throw around obscure trivia, bad puns, and play conversational tug-of-war, while mixing in a trademark chuckle that words can't accurately describe. The Gray sister can hold her own in the tug-of-war, but avoids adding in the puns. Mix in the bride and groom, some cousins and cousin spouses and a couple of very patient aunts and you have a good family weekend.

It was my first trip to Sweden. Even though I try to avoid comparing new places to old places I've been, I can see why the Swedes feel at home in Minnesota. In and around Vadstena, there are tons of lakes, mostly flat green farmland, birch trees and evergreens, and the faint smell of manure. The houses are almost all painted brick red with white trim around the windows, and the whole place is really pretty. Vadstena is a small picturesque town on a huge lake. Much of the town center is taken over by the hotel where we stayed. It's a series of different buildings. The main campus was an old monastery where nuns and monks lived separately and only spoke to each other at certain times through a slot in the wall (or something like that ). The other side of the hotel was a 10 minute walk across town and was in the buildings of the former mental hospital. So you can either stay in the convent or the psych ward. What a vacation! It was actually a really nice place, and the mental hospital room where we stayed was definitely better than the convent rooms I saw.

There was a Swedish wedding. Apparently they are famous for being long and involving a lot of speeches. Our German friend Sonja told me that when she was little she used to play Swedish wedding with her friends, so I was very curious to see how it would all go. The ceremony was what we were used to, except it was half in Swedish, and it was in a church from the 14th century. They did play "Here Comes the Bride" and blow bubbles though. The reception was in an old brewery out in  a field somewhere. Two toastmasters were hosting the event. What it meant was that they chose the order for all the speeches, introduced the speakers, told everyone when to sit down, when they could take breaks, and where the bathrooms were located. I guess the idea is that the happy couple wouldn't have to worry about any of it. Plus with something like 22 speeches, someone needs to keep things rolling. There is a Swedish custom that when the groom leaves the room, all the men go up to kiss the bride. The same thing happens to the groom when the bride leaves. The experienced wedding guests rush to the front of the line so they can plant their smooches first. The ones at the back of the line have to kiss wet cheeks. Once the dancing started it was a great wedding dance party, which went through the two hours or so when the sun was down and ended after the sun had risen again at about 3am.

We were pretty tired when we got home Sunday night, and glad that the sun here doesn't come up until at least 5am. Here are some photos of the event:

From left: Tom, Priscilla, Ed, Don, Lew

Vadstena

Olly and Maria

Mom and Dad at the reception

Sunrise in Vadstena as we got back to our hotel Saturday night

Top experiences

These aren't moments, they are not trips, they are more... lessons? That sounds cheezy. Adjustments? true, but that sounds like something you get at the chiropractor. We'll go with experiences.

1. No car. I really don't miss it. I love getting around by foot, and bike, and bus, and tram, and train. I love that a lot of other people here do the same thing. Once in a while it's inconvenient -  I have to grocery shop more often and in smaller quantities, because I know that whatever I buy has to be hauled home and then up four flights.  I haven't signed up for as many triathlons as I might have, because I can't figure out the logistics of getting out to the course all of my gear. But I don't miss traffic, finding a place to park, gas prices, oil changes, or insurance bills. I am never the designated driver.

2.Good friends, new friends. We've met some fantastic people here, and more quickly than I'd expected. They are from the US, the UK, Poland, Australia, Germany, and probably a few places I forgot. From my desperate housewives lunches to Brian's solving the world's problems at the biergarten, we've had some great times.

3. Starting over. We had it figured out in St Paul - jobs, house, cars, etc. And we came here to start from scratch. Much of what I write about in the blog concerns how we are adjusting and the funny things that happen as I figure it all out. Little things like haircuts and dry cleaners become much bigger challenges in a new place. I feel like learning my way around and learning another language has opened up some new brain pathways. I am not sure its made me smarter but it may have cleared out a few cobwebs and delayed my becoming senile by a couple of years. I have become much more comfortable with being uncomfortable. Today I tried to explain to a repair man in toddler-level German how our water heater sometimes cuts out mid-shower. I've gone through my first dentist and doctor appointments in a foreign country and lived to tell about it. Sometimes I give up and ask "Do you speak English? I'm a dumb foreigner" or something to that effect. It's humbling, but I'm ok with that now. I've learned that smiling and hand gestures are key, though blank stares also get your point across..

4. Travel. I don't know if the amazement will ever wear off, but I love the fact that we can hop on train start a vacation, or go to another country for the weekend.  Moving here has given us the chance not just to experience Hannover but to see all of Germany and so many other places. So far we've gone to Ireland, Egypt, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Slovakia, as well as a few spots around Germany.  The list of places to see keeps getting longer. Travel is habit-forming.

Those are the top experiences so far... or whatever you want to call them. 

Top photos

April - On the balcony at a jazz club in Prague, which was in the cellar of a 14th century building

October - Ireland, Rock of Dunamase, ruins of an ancient castle

October - Brian in Dingle, County Kerry, Ireland

March - Mom and Dad at the Maschsee in Hannover

December - At a temple in Egypt, a guide waits for a tourist to show around

December - Felucca boats on the Nile, Egypt

Top moments

These are some of the top moments in time over the past year... moments that would not have happened unless we moved here. They are not trips or months or days, just a couple of minutes or a couple of hours that were really unique.
These are in chronological order, because it was too hard to try and rank them:

• The day our stuff arrived. We packed in July. By late October we could no longer handle living with one pot, one pan, minimal furniture, no blankets, and way too many summer clothes. I tested the limits of what could be baked on foil in the oven, and we wore our clothes so many times they started to fall apart. After many angry thoughts, phone calls, and emails directed at the moving company, we finally got our stuff. It was better than Christmas, because it was everything that was already ours and had come back to us. We had dishes and pictures for the walls and jackets. It was finally time for our apartment to feel like home. 
• Ireland - Dick Mack's. It was a dreary rainy Sunday in Dingle, County Kerry.  Brian and I had seen a storefront that looked like part shoe store, part second hand shop, part your grandfather's attic, and we decided to stop by. Turns out it was actually a bar. We sat down to have a pint. Several hours later we had celebrated the rugby world cup with some Kiwis, talked to a German and Bolivian couple, laughed with a few locals, and sung along with the band. 
• Berlin - QBA Cuban restaurant. In Berlin in February, we found this little island of tropical happiness. I started speaking Spanish to the wait staff, we figured out how Brian could buy a freshly smuggled in Cuban cigar to smoke in the basement. I talked about life with an old guitar player in the band, Brian befriended a Guatemalan man named Negro, we danced a little and laughed a little too.
• Egypt - taxi to the hotel. We were prepared to drive a hard bargain and avoid taxi swindlers at the Cairo airport. We might have gotten mildly swindled but the ride to the hotel was worth it. It was dark out, there were no lanes, just masses of cars swerving and weaving and flashing their lights in an elaborate communication system that made the roads sort of orderly in a chaotic kind of way.  It wasn't scary, just fascinating. Fancy cars, beat up cars, a few donkey carts and self-confident pedestrians... Coming from the land where everyone patiently waits for the "walk" signal, we knew we were in a very foreign country.
• Egypt - Nile gazing. We spent four days and three nights on a boat heading down the Nile. Even though we saw some amazing temples and tombs from ancient Egypt along the way, one of the best parts was sitting on the top deck of the boat and looking at the river bank. We'd pass villages spiked with minarets along the way and hear the Muezzin's call to prayer. Every now and then we'd see a camel munching on the grass. Also on the top deck, we got our guide to tell us what he really thought about politics, living as a Coptic Christian in a Muslim country, and working in the tourism business.On the last night our boat got stuck in the mud, we spend a lot of time watching the other boats pass us by, and eventually a little motorboat took us to shore.
• Budapest - ruin bars. We found two ruin bars in Budapest. The first was in a former factory and you had to pass through a bike shop and a pizza place on your way in. The bar itself was in a courtyard with a bike dangling from the ceiling and a DJ who mixed 40s swing music with Rage Against the Machine. The next night we found our way to a place built into an old  warehouse. It was too cool to have a sign or a menu. The food list was written on a chalkboard in Magyar. We tried our first palinka and Hungarian wine.
• Biking through the sugar beets. This isn't one moment exactly, but more like a recurring moment. After getting lost and frustrated several times, we have found a couple of pretty good bike routes around Hannover. They take us through the fields of sugar beets, barley, corn, and rye. We pass huge modern wind turbines and small old windmills. We go through suburbs that are actually pretty little villages that have been around for a few hundred years. 

Those are the moments so far. I am sure there will be more to come.

The tops... introduction

We are wrapping up our first year as expatriates in Hannover. It's making both Brian and I a little reflective, looking back on everything that has happened since we got on the plane August 9th.
It's sort of like our own little New Year.

As you know from the blog, there have been a lot of highs and lows this year, and when I feel baffled, embarrassed, frustrated, or confused. It's easy to blame it all on Germany. Maybe Germany is out to get me sometimes, but when we had bad days back home we never blalmed it on the United States, or the Midwest, or the Twin Cities. It was just life.

As much as we are excited to go home for the summer to be among familiar people and familiar things, it's time to reflect on some of the great experiences we've had over the past year. I can't take credit for this idea, this burst of optimism is entirely Brian's. He's the ideas guy; I just make it happen.

So I am going to write a few posts about what I consider the top things from the past year. "Things" is deliberately vague because I have not completely decided what my themes will be. I'm looking forward to figuring that out with all of you. 

Football (soccer) championships

The European soccer championships are going on all this month, at different stadiums around Poland and the Ukraine. Every day there are two games going on TV and everyone is watching. I know very little about soccer, and even I have watched games at the biergarten, at the kleingarten, and outside the ice cream stand. Every bar has them playing on the TV, and on Wednesday I even saw a bunch of guys with folding chairs on the sidewalk, watching on a little TV at the newsstand kiosk .

There is really no American equivalent. March Madness might be the closest, or the World Series, but not really. The Olympics have some similarities but there are so many different sports that the excitement is a little diluted.

The European championships happen only every four years (in between World Cup years), and include a heavy dose of nationalism to make things interesting. These countries have been at war with each other for centuries. There is a lot of baggage there. Now (thankfully) they just face each other on the soccer field and rub the other players' faces in the dirt.

Here in Hannover there are (obviously) mostly Germany fans, but there are also England fans, Spain fans, Ukranian and Polish and Italian and Dutch fans. Most people who know a little about the game have filled out a bracket with their friends or coworkers and put 10 or 20 euros in the pot to see if they can pick a winner. Brian did his bracket with the help of some high school students. I don't know enough to do a bracket. I'm more interested in the fanfare, the face paint, the players taking off their jerseys at the end of the game... you know, that kind of thing. I also like to cheer for the underdog countries. You know, the ones that are less successful, less developed, receiving Eurozone bailouts, etc.
 
On Monday night we watched Ukraine vs. Sweden at the biergarten, which was confusing because both countries are blue and yellow. I figured out that the crowd was heavily in favor of Ukraine when they started to shout "U-kra-in-a" over and over. They were having so much fun that I even started to cheer along. Besides, the Ukraine is definitely an underdog in that matchup.

Here are some photos:

This is the Waterloo Biergarten

Sweden fans on the left, Ukraine fans on the right

John, Andrew, and Katya as it started to rain. Great summer weather we are having here in Hannover...

The Dutch are already out of the tournament. England plays tonight, so does the Ukraine. I can't keep track of which team is playing against which, but I know if I want to I can watch the game at the biergarten or outside the ice cream stand, where the real fans are.

Some photos from the neighborhood

These are some of my favorite buildings in the neighborhood

During the European soccer championship, there are flags everywhere

Bikes in the afternoon sun

Supporting Hannover 96 soccer, on a stoplight

How long are you staying here?

This is a question we get a lot. What's our plan? How long are we staying? Where do we go next? (or, sometimes from Stateside, when are you coming home?)

The answer: We Don't Know Yet.

Brian has a 2 year contract, so we are staying at least until next summer. After that, if the school likes him, they would offer him an unlimited contract. We are pretty sure the school likes him, though the other staff are not sure what to do with his loud teacher voice. Having an unlimited contract means that unless he is a serial killer or a child abuser or a thief, he has a job for as long as he wants it.

I can't speak for Brian but I know I go through huge mood swings when I think about living in Hannover. Like last week, I was entirely fed up with the fact that my washing machine leaks water and I can't call the people who sold it to me (out of the back of a truck, I guess I should have known) to make them come and fix it. I might be able to put the words together but wouldn't understand the response, and would sound like a 3 year old saying it. So for the moment we have a pan under the machine and I need to get someone else to help me call.

Then I went to Subway yesterday and remembered how it used to be a completely intimidating experience - so many questions, and so much Denglish (Deustch + English), like they ask if I want my sandwich getoasted. That's like making toast into a German verb and then putting it in the passive tense. Totally confusing. And they have no mustard there. Mayo only. The first time I went to a Subway, the cash register was broken and it was crowded and I was nervous, and realized after I walked out the door that I had paid double for the sandwich. But I didn't know how to go and ask for my money back so I just didn't. A few weeks ago the cashier at Subway gave me the wrong change, so I told him to fix it. Not bad.

There are times I wish I knew where to buy a fan or ice cube trays (Germans are not big on ice, so ice cube trays are hard to find). There are times that I go to a restaurant and  all I want is a big glass of free ice water. There are times that I nod and say yes and I am not sure what I'm agreeing to, but I'd rather take my chances than feel dumb.

And then the accordion man starts to play outside the grocery store on the corner. And I realize that we have a grocery store on the corner and almost everywhere I need to go can be reached by foot or by bike. And I realize we've made some good friends here too and those aren't so easy to find.

 It will be funny to visit home this summer - we will have to remember how to drive and how much to tip servers at restaurants. I will probably talk incessantly to strangers just because I can.

So after next summer? Maybe we stay longer, maybe we move home, maybe we move someplace else. We don't know yet. That's the answer and we're sticking to it.

Track, soccer, and KGB

Yesterday was secondary school sports day at the international school.You may have read about the Primolympics for the little ones. Sports day is an intramural track meet for the bigger ones. When the call for workers went out a couple of months ago, I offered to help and ended up planning much of it. Funny how that happens. I can skip the continent and still have to put kids in lanes for the 200.

The day went pretty well.
Here are the plusses:
The weather was great, better than it had been for the last couple of weeks.
Things went fairly smoothly and all the kids had fun.

The minuses:
The whole event was coordinated by the very nice but less-than-organized Canadian head of PE which made the whole even less-than-organized too. We had scratch outs and add ins and we were short on stop watches and had a little of what I truly dread at track meets - dead time with nothing going on.

It was the only meet I've been to where the concession stand sold french fries and bratwurst. That didn't stop some of the 9th graders from getting a pizza delivered too.

As a reward for our hard work, some of the staff headed to the biergarten after the meet.Yesterday was the opening day of the European soccer championships, Greece vs. Poland, which is the country hosting the tournament. Our friend Tom came down from Hamburg to hang out and the rain held off. As the start of the game approached (what's the right word? kickoff? I am clueless about soccer), hordes of Polska fans poured into the biergarten dressed in red and white. There are a lot of Polish people in the Hannover area, and not a lot of Greeks. There were maybe four Greece fans timidly waving their blue and white flags. And the game ended in... a tie. How anti-climactic. So the Greek fans can go home with their pride intact and the Poland fans won't start any riots. And everyone is sort of somewhat satisfied.

The evening ended at an odd Russian place called KGB with awful service and delicious pelmeni. It was a lot better than french fries and bratwurst.

Coins

I've been dealing with a lot of coins lately. Let me explain.

Brian's 8th grade homeroom organized the Primolympics day as a class project. The primary school olympics involves tug -o-war, sand castle building, and various other challenges for the elementary  kids at the international school. Each of them had to pay 3 euros to participate. The money raised was to be donated to Nothing But Nets, a UN charity that provides mosquito nets treated with insecticide to people in sub-Saharan African countries. Because the mosquitoes that spread malaria only come out at night, the nets are very effective at saving lives. I think we learned about it from my cousin Karen via a Christmas gift. If you want to read more about it, check out the website .
The kids raised 540 euros from the Primolympics, which is enough for about 70 nets that cover up to 4 people each. Play tug-o-war and prevent malaria...pretty great, right?

The payment came, of course, in coins. I like that coins here are worth something. In the U.S., coins are sort of an afterthought. You stick them in your pocket or throw them in a coin cup to save for the occasional drive down the Illinois Tollway (ok maybe other people don't do that, but Brian and I do, or did). In the euro zone, coins are worth a lot. I have paid in coins for meals, for bakery items, for minor grocery store trips, and for beers. The one and two euro coins are big and heavy and have busted the coin pouch part of my wallet. It is currently covered in packing tape at the bottom.

Brian and I made the Nothing But Nets donation online with our credit card, with the intention to deposit the cash raised in our bank account. So one day I lugged this huge bag of coins to the bank and said in my little-kid level German, "I want to deposit these." I figured they'd have a big machine that would count it all up and I'd be done. The teller proceeded to tell me that it didn't work that way, I needed to put them in rolls first. Then she said something about another bank that would do that for me, or would cash it out for me... I wasn't sure. She sort of pointed toward this mythical coin-counting bank, but I was not able to find it. So I hauled my bag of coins back home and contemplated how many trips to the grocery store I could make with 540 euros in change and how mad the people in line behind me would get as I counted out each coin at the register.

As I do sometimes when I am perplexed by Germany, I emailed Phillippa, the lovely school secretary who knows everything. She called the bank to verify that I did need to roll the coins myself but found out that I could get the papers for coin-rolling there. When I headed to the bank the second time, I broke down and just talked to them in English, but I got my coin papers.

I am good at many things. Coin-rolling is not one of them. After I spilled the coins about twelve times, Brian made me watch a You Tube video of  6 year old boy tossing pennies into rolls any saying, "I don't know why people think rolling coins is so hard." Jerk.
My rolls were not as tight or as pretty as his, but I did manage to follow the little guy's instructions. Yesterday I deposited 340 in one and two euro coins. I have some more rolling to do. Maybe instead I will just take the rest of the change to the supermarket and see how patient the other customers really are. Maybe next year I should pull one of the first graders away from his sand castle and get him to roll some coins for me.

Track and field in Bavaria

This spring I have been coaching the track team at the international school.

When I say team, I need to add an explanation, or a disclaimer. What we have are a group of kids who come (usually) twice a week for one hour after school to practice. They range in ages from 5th to 10th grade and we spend the whole season gearing up for the one and only meet. This is pretty normal for the school - most other teams only get one practice a week. There's only so much you can squeeze into a one hour practice, especially with kids who have never raced before and will only get to do so once this year. I say things like "ok kids, today we learn how to use starting blocks." So it ends up being more like an after school track club than a team, or at least that's the way I need to think about it to avoid comparing it to a US track program and getting frustrated (I might be a little competitive).

This weekend was the German international schools track and field championship meet. The International School of Bavaria hosted, which meant that we left Hannover at 7am Friday on the train to Munich, then caught a local train heading north of the city, then a bus picked us up at the station to bring us out to the school and start the meet. So I can't say that I really visited Munich, or Bavaria even, but I did spend many hours at the track. The meet was all afternoon Friday, and most of the day Saturday.

Our kids did not do very well at all. They came in dead last a few times and ended up 6th of the 7 teams that competed. Some were too small, too scared, too out of shape, or just not interested in competing. And losing did not seem to bother them at all. They still cheered for each other and smiled and played games on the train home. I'm not sure whether that was a good or a bad thing. I wouldn't want to deal with crabby sullen pre-teens all the way back to Hannover, but I wanted them to be upset, at least for a little while, that they didn't do better.

It did feel good to be at a track meet again. I've spend many hours of my life sitting around at meets, either as an athlete or as a coach, and there's something very familiar about it. The start and finish lines never move, the starting gun still makes me jump, and it's always fun to watch a runner come from behind to win... even though that runner was not on the Hannover team.