Yesterday the world was supposed to end. Or at least the Mayans thought so. And the Hannover Indians decided to run with that theme for last night's game against the Ice Pirates (Eispiraten) of Crimmitschau. (I have never heard of Crimmitschau, and I'm told there's not much to do there except be an Ice Pirate fan.) They had new jerseys for the occasion. On the back was a picture of the Hannover Rathaus with fireballs descending on it from the sky. The zamboni had "the end of the world" written on it in tape, and little kids dressed in plastic haz-mat suits were skating around to pick up the pucks. Even with the time zone difference (I figured that noon Mayan time would be about 7pm here), by the start of the hockey game we all still existed, which was reason enough to try and win a hockey game. They did, by the way. After a slow start, the Indians won 4 to 3.
The most exciting play of the game, though, was performed by me. That's right - me. The second period had just ended and our friend Kent and I (Kent is a Canadian, PE teacher, and former Indians player who was formerly known as Kent Todd, Ice Hockey God) went to get beers. I walked back to the stands, a cup in each hand. Heading for the bleachers, right along the edge of the rink, I stepped around a man who was standing in front of the stairs. I had, however, stepped on to the place where the zamboni rolls out and drags some ice onto the floor. My left foot slipped. I wobbled, then recovered, then the right foot slipped. I felt myself going down, slowly, and lifted both hands over my head, hoping to save the beers, if not my dignity. They sloshed forward, then backward, and as my butt hit the floor they each let out a small frothy splash (landing on my hat and my sleeve), and stayed largely intact.
Kent grabbed me under the armpits and helped me up after safely setting his beers aside, and the first aid guys ran over to ask if I was ok. I was absolutely ok, and told Brian confidently that yes, I had fallen on my backside like a klutz, but I hardly spilled any beer. He beamed with pride. I think we even high fived. I wonder if anyone got it on camera - we could have had an instant replay, except the Indians don't have a sophisticated enough scoreboard for that.
The world did not end last night. I did not spill the beer. And if Armageddon ever comes during a second-league hockey game in Germany, I want to be riding in the zamboni.
Saturday, December 22, 2012
Monday, December 17, 2012
Wishing for peace
Most of the time my posts are light, happy reading, with a little reflection mixed in. At least that's how I intend them to be. But sometimes we have to get a little more serious and after Friday's school shooting in Connecticut, now is the right time for that.
Living outside of the U.S. makes me wonder more why these things happen in our country. There are plenty of unstable, even violent people in the rest of the world, but they don't become mass murderers. What is it about our culture that makes these things happen?
It's awful that people died needlessly on Friday. But civilians also die needlessly in countries that are at war, and kids die in homocides in American cities all the time. Why is there no public outcry for them? Maybe it's because places we believed to be the most peaceful are shattered by violence.
In a time of year when we sing about peace on earth, peace was shattered at Sandy Hook school, as it has been in places with equally idyllic names like Columbine, Aurora, and Red Lake.
So today I am featuring an essay by my much respected and even more adored guest blogger Brian McCarthy. He says it all better than I can.
_______________________________________________________________________________
The tragedy in Connecticut has America reeling. It has me reeling. The question is, for how long? After all of the commentators, politicians, and Facebookers are done sending out their hugs, thoughts, and prayers, what will happen? My guess is that things, as they do in our fast-paced, digitized world,
will go back to a normalcy of sorts. Perhaps more tragic than this one event is that events like this have become normal to occur ever few years in the United States, for ours is a culture that glorifies violence, war, and guns.
I don’t know who will ever read this, but I know for some casting an aspersion like that about America might make some recoil in patriotic disbelief. Having spent an increasing amount of time living, and working among non-Americans over the last few years, what I have just said will come as no surprise to them. The only thing they seem to be unable to comprehend is why so many of my
countrymen can’t comprehend that this endemic violence in America is a problem and that it would be in our best interest to change.
Of course America is also a land of blame. Oh sure, we bask in the mythology of the concept of growing up in a country that celebrates individuality and pulling oneself up by one’s bootstraps, but a deeper reflection on that narrative will prove that to be somewhat inaccurate for most of the 310-plus million American citizens. So, who to blame over this violent culture of ours?
Certainly our politicians can take a part of it, and blaming them does make us feel good. The narrative about gridlock in Washington, and politicians being out of touch is also one that fills our 24-hour, bite-sized, dumbed down news cycle, and it is perpetuated by politicians on both sides of the aisle to our disdain, or ourdelight (depending upon who is in front of the camera, and what channel they are on). If we narrow down the discussion simply to our obsession with guns (never mind the desire to expand the American Empire by military means under the guise of spreading freedom and democracy), then there is enough blame for all of them to share. Some of our elected officials take the stance of publicly supporting our violent culture, by standing by gun lobby groups, and espousing
the greatness of the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution (never mind that the rationale for the 2nd Amendment and what gun lovers currently use the 2nd Amendment for are fairly well removed from one another). The other group of politicians, choose to say nothing about guns, fearful that taking a stand against guns would be seen as unpatriotic, or make them look less courageous then their gun-defending counterparts, ultimately losing their places in power.
What about the rest of us, though? Our love of violence is celebrated in so many parts of our American society. The National Football League, our favorite weekend diversion during the fall and winter, begins many of its telecasts with triumphalist music that evokes feelings of an army marching off to war. Militarized robots posture during commercial breaks while the music plays, never mind the connotation that the game itself has (see George Carlin’s baseball vs. football comedy sketch). The NFL starts its season each year with warplanes flying over individual stadiums, to continue our obsessive militarism. I cannot understand how it could be just innocent fun, linking these destructive machines that are designed to kill to what used to be just a game. Yet like the Romans of old, the mob loves a violent spectacle to forget about their own reality, and they get it each Sunday.
What of our love of violence in some of our other favorite distractions? Film, television, video games, and music all have strong, popular elements that allow us to gawk and revel in the demise and death of people on a regular basis. Americans generally have a love of the free market—after all we love freedom—and yet parents want to blame the media and society for these products. Yet if
demand were removed for these products, then supply would wither.
Perhaps it also comes from a crisis of masculinity. Americans associate with what it takes to be a man as being strong. And for us, strength that we most value is of a physical nature. We see our heroes as strong men, who often are holding guns. Indeed some of the people commenting on the Connecticut tragedy have lamented the fact that there wasn’t one strong “good Samaritan with a gun” to march in to that school like Gary Cooper, or John Wayne and solve the problem that community was powerless to stop.
What we as Americans don’t see as strength are the virtues of strong men like Gandhi, or Martin Luther King, or Jesus Christ. Certainly we all agree that they did good things during their time on Earth, and those lessons are good to teach in elementary school. Yet when faced with a true personal crisis, do Americans teach their children to face it as they would have?
I don’t have any answers. Just questions, really. Those that know me have seen my passion when coaching the violent game of football, and know my love of a film that centers on an outlaw hero that comes to rescue the town. I grew up in a culture where I learned to be an individual, to be powerful, to avoid appearing weak, and thus to always be “strong.” I have been homophobic, and racist at
times in my life to avoid appearing weak in front of others. When I was young, I wanted to join the military and I have also wanted to work as a policeman, before finding my calling as a teacher. In recent years I have also strongly considered purchasing a gun.
For those that know me well, however, and those people are few and far between, these thoughts probably won’t come as a surprise. I am trying to find my way as an American in a much larger world. What I am learning is that business as usual for America, a land that I do confess to loving, cannot be an option. We need people of all walks of life in our country to find a true strength, and a true courage that cannot be replicated by holding a firearm or imposing one’s physical will on another. The children and teachers that died in this tragedy need to be memorialized not by speeches, but by action. My thoughts and prayers are not with them, primarily, but with us. I pray that we,
as Americans, have the courage to speak up and out against this violence, and all of the violence that is so pervasive in our culture, and work toward building a culture and a society that allows us to love and care for one another, above all other things.
Living outside of the U.S. makes me wonder more why these things happen in our country. There are plenty of unstable, even violent people in the rest of the world, but they don't become mass murderers. What is it about our culture that makes these things happen?
It's awful that people died needlessly on Friday. But civilians also die needlessly in countries that are at war, and kids die in homocides in American cities all the time. Why is there no public outcry for them? Maybe it's because places we believed to be the most peaceful are shattered by violence.
In a time of year when we sing about peace on earth, peace was shattered at Sandy Hook school, as it has been in places with equally idyllic names like Columbine, Aurora, and Red Lake.
So today I am featuring an essay by my much respected and even more adored guest blogger Brian McCarthy. He says it all better than I can.
_______________________________________________________________________________
The tragedy in Connecticut has America reeling. It has me reeling. The question is, for how long? After all of the commentators, politicians, and Facebookers are done sending out their hugs, thoughts, and prayers, what will happen? My guess is that things, as they do in our fast-paced, digitized world,
will go back to a normalcy of sorts. Perhaps more tragic than this one event is that events like this have become normal to occur ever few years in the United States, for ours is a culture that glorifies violence, war, and guns.
I don’t know who will ever read this, but I know for some casting an aspersion like that about America might make some recoil in patriotic disbelief. Having spent an increasing amount of time living, and working among non-Americans over the last few years, what I have just said will come as no surprise to them. The only thing they seem to be unable to comprehend is why so many of my
countrymen can’t comprehend that this endemic violence in America is a problem and that it would be in our best interest to change.
Of course America is also a land of blame. Oh sure, we bask in the mythology of the concept of growing up in a country that celebrates individuality and pulling oneself up by one’s bootstraps, but a deeper reflection on that narrative will prove that to be somewhat inaccurate for most of the 310-plus million American citizens. So, who to blame over this violent culture of ours?
Certainly our politicians can take a part of it, and blaming them does make us feel good. The narrative about gridlock in Washington, and politicians being out of touch is also one that fills our 24-hour, bite-sized, dumbed down news cycle, and it is perpetuated by politicians on both sides of the aisle to our disdain, or ourdelight (depending upon who is in front of the camera, and what channel they are on). If we narrow down the discussion simply to our obsession with guns (never mind the desire to expand the American Empire by military means under the guise of spreading freedom and democracy), then there is enough blame for all of them to share. Some of our elected officials take the stance of publicly supporting our violent culture, by standing by gun lobby groups, and espousing
the greatness of the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution (never mind that the rationale for the 2nd Amendment and what gun lovers currently use the 2nd Amendment for are fairly well removed from one another). The other group of politicians, choose to say nothing about guns, fearful that taking a stand against guns would be seen as unpatriotic, or make them look less courageous then their gun-defending counterparts, ultimately losing their places in power.
What about the rest of us, though? Our love of violence is celebrated in so many parts of our American society. The National Football League, our favorite weekend diversion during the fall and winter, begins many of its telecasts with triumphalist music that evokes feelings of an army marching off to war. Militarized robots posture during commercial breaks while the music plays, never mind the connotation that the game itself has (see George Carlin’s baseball vs. football comedy sketch). The NFL starts its season each year with warplanes flying over individual stadiums, to continue our obsessive militarism. I cannot understand how it could be just innocent fun, linking these destructive machines that are designed to kill to what used to be just a game. Yet like the Romans of old, the mob loves a violent spectacle to forget about their own reality, and they get it each Sunday.
What of our love of violence in some of our other favorite distractions? Film, television, video games, and music all have strong, popular elements that allow us to gawk and revel in the demise and death of people on a regular basis. Americans generally have a love of the free market—after all we love freedom—and yet parents want to blame the media and society for these products. Yet if
demand were removed for these products, then supply would wither.
Perhaps it also comes from a crisis of masculinity. Americans associate with what it takes to be a man as being strong. And for us, strength that we most value is of a physical nature. We see our heroes as strong men, who often are holding guns. Indeed some of the people commenting on the Connecticut tragedy have lamented the fact that there wasn’t one strong “good Samaritan with a gun” to march in to that school like Gary Cooper, or John Wayne and solve the problem that community was powerless to stop.
What we as Americans don’t see as strength are the virtues of strong men like Gandhi, or Martin Luther King, or Jesus Christ. Certainly we all agree that they did good things during their time on Earth, and those lessons are good to teach in elementary school. Yet when faced with a true personal crisis, do Americans teach their children to face it as they would have?
I don’t have any answers. Just questions, really. Those that know me have seen my passion when coaching the violent game of football, and know my love of a film that centers on an outlaw hero that comes to rescue the town. I grew up in a culture where I learned to be an individual, to be powerful, to avoid appearing weak, and thus to always be “strong.” I have been homophobic, and racist at
times in my life to avoid appearing weak in front of others. When I was young, I wanted to join the military and I have also wanted to work as a policeman, before finding my calling as a teacher. In recent years I have also strongly considered purchasing a gun.
For those that know me well, however, and those people are few and far between, these thoughts probably won’t come as a surprise. I am trying to find my way as an American in a much larger world. What I am learning is that business as usual for America, a land that I do confess to loving, cannot be an option. We need people of all walks of life in our country to find a true strength, and a true courage that cannot be replicated by holding a firearm or imposing one’s physical will on another. The children and teachers that died in this tragedy need to be memorialized not by speeches, but by action. My thoughts and prayers are not with them, primarily, but with us. I pray that we,
as Americans, have the courage to speak up and out against this violence, and all of the violence that is so pervasive in our culture, and work toward building a culture and a society that allows us to love and care for one another, above all other things.
Weihnachtsmarkt in Braunschweig - that's a mouthful
I am a big nerd for the Christmas market. I like the lights, the smells, the festive atmosphere... And since most cities in Germany have them, it seemed important to visit a market outside of Hannover too. Some people are bigger Christmas market nerds than I am. Tourists come to Germany this time of year to do a tour of markets in several cities. You can pick them out because they are wearing antler headbands or speaking loudly in English.
On Thursday, Kaska, Serena, and I went to the Christmas market in Braunschweig. Try to say Braunschweig Weihnachtsmarkt three times fast, you'll either
sound really silly or or someone will say "gesundheit" because they
think you just sneezed.
We picked that city because it's not far away and we'd heard that the market there is a nice one. What we discovered is that most of Braunschweig looks like this:
We got off the train and wondered what huge mistake we had made coming to this place. It was like where bad 1960s architecture goes to die. Here's my favorite one - a Deutsche Bank ad saying "save with us" that looks like it should be a cheap Florida motel:
But then, the skies opened up and the Christmas angels started to sing. We entered the Altstadt.
It was like a little island of beauty, Christmas cheer, and sausages in the middle of a mid-century wasteland.
Braunschweig is known as the lion city, because it was the medieval capital of Saxony, which was ruled by Henry the Lion. Back then it was known as a big and important. Now it's known as ugly. It's also known as the city in Germany with the greatest number of Polish people. Kaska felt right at home.
The old city was mostly destroyed during World War 2, so a lot of the buildings you see in the photos below are reconstructions.
That was my outlet last week for my Christmas market nerdiness.
On Thursday, Kaska, Serena, and I went to the Christmas market in Braunschweig. Try to say Braunschweig Weihnachtsmarkt three times fast, you'll either
sound really silly or or someone will say "gesundheit" because they
think you just sneezed.We picked that city because it's not far away and we'd heard that the market there is a nice one. What we discovered is that most of Braunschweig looks like this:
We got off the train and wondered what huge mistake we had made coming to this place. It was like where bad 1960s architecture goes to die. Here's my favorite one - a Deutsche Bank ad saying "save with us" that looks like it should be a cheap Florida motel:
But then, the skies opened up and the Christmas angels started to sing. We entered the Altstadt.
It was like a little island of beauty, Christmas cheer, and sausages in the middle of a mid-century wasteland.
The old city was mostly destroyed during World War 2, so a lot of the buildings you see in the photos below are reconstructions.
 |
| Fair food, German style |
 |
| At the Braunschweig Weihnachtsmarkt they have apple Gluhwein, served with a cinnamon stick. Serena looks a little less happy than Kaska and I because she can't drink any - she's got a baby on the way. |
 |
| The sausage man, hard at work. Note the massive bottles of mayo, ketchup, and mustard hanging from the ceiling. |
That was my outlet last week for my Christmas market nerdiness.
Saturday, December 15, 2012
Tea medicine
In German class on Tuesday, our teacher sent us all home early. He was sick with a cold, maybe a fever too. We told him we hoped he felt better soon, then one of my classmates asked if he'd been drinking fennel tea.
I like tea. The nice thing about being a tea drinker in Germany is that it's one thing I do that doesn't seem weird to Germans. Things that puzzle them are my poor command of the language, crossing the street on red lights, wearing sweatpants occasionally to the grocery store, spitting sometimes while I run, wearing bright colors, sometimes leaving home without a scarf, and buying a Christmas tree three weeks before Christmas. Americans mostly just find it strange that I don't drink coffee, and dig out an old bag of Lipton from the bottom of a drawer if I ask. At least in Germany no one bats an eye when you order tea.
Germans have a huge variety of teas. They also seem to have a lot of faith in the medicinal properties of teas. Here are some examples:
Nettle tea is a pain reliever, diuretic, and helps clear mucus from the lungs (that's where that spitting part comes in).
Fennel tea is used for colds and digestive problems.
Rose hip tea is good for the immune system and the urinary tract.
Drink chamomile for insomnia and linden tea for stress relief.
Lemon balm tea (Melissa in German) is good for cold sores.
Peppermint tea helps digestion and toothaches.
You can't buy aspirin or cold medicine in Germany without going to the pharmacy, but you can buy all the tea you want at the drugstore. In case you don't believe me, I even took a picture to show you how many kinds there are. Keep in mind that this is a place where you can only buy one brand of peanut butter:
You'd think with all of these teas, Germans would have powerful immune systems, fueled by a steady stream of anti-oxidants. That's not the case. I am not sure whether Germans get sick more or less than Americans, but they take it more seriously when they do. This is good for me, since my meager income is determined by which teachers have called in sick, whether they are German or not. I do have a theory that because Americans eat more artificial crap as children, their immune systems are a little tougher. While the German kids had yogurt and muesli, the Americans had Cheetos and Cap'n Crunch.
Of course, Americans will come to work with a fever in order to save their days off. They feel miserable, spreading their germs around, and people think it's noble. Germans think it's crazy. They also have universal health care and jobs that don't limit sick time. In most jobs if you are gone for three days, you need a doctor's note in order to stay home any longer. If you are sick often, the employer can require the doctor's note on the second day. But there's no set number of days you can miss and you get paid for staying home.
Back to the teas, I've tried a lot of them. But really I enjoy a strong black tea best of all. So no nettles or fennel tea needed here. I have eaten my share of artificial colors and flavors and I'm feeling fine.
I like tea. The nice thing about being a tea drinker in Germany is that it's one thing I do that doesn't seem weird to Germans. Things that puzzle them are my poor command of the language, crossing the street on red lights, wearing sweatpants occasionally to the grocery store, spitting sometimes while I run, wearing bright colors, sometimes leaving home without a scarf, and buying a Christmas tree three weeks before Christmas. Americans mostly just find it strange that I don't drink coffee, and dig out an old bag of Lipton from the bottom of a drawer if I ask. At least in Germany no one bats an eye when you order tea.
Germans have a huge variety of teas. They also seem to have a lot of faith in the medicinal properties of teas. Here are some examples:
Nettle tea is a pain reliever, diuretic, and helps clear mucus from the lungs (that's where that spitting part comes in).
Fennel tea is used for colds and digestive problems.
Rose hip tea is good for the immune system and the urinary tract.
Drink chamomile for insomnia and linden tea for stress relief.
Lemon balm tea (Melissa in German) is good for cold sores.
Peppermint tea helps digestion and toothaches.
You can't buy aspirin or cold medicine in Germany without going to the pharmacy, but you can buy all the tea you want at the drugstore. In case you don't believe me, I even took a picture to show you how many kinds there are. Keep in mind that this is a place where you can only buy one brand of peanut butter:
You'd think with all of these teas, Germans would have powerful immune systems, fueled by a steady stream of anti-oxidants. That's not the case. I am not sure whether Germans get sick more or less than Americans, but they take it more seriously when they do. This is good for me, since my meager income is determined by which teachers have called in sick, whether they are German or not. I do have a theory that because Americans eat more artificial crap as children, their immune systems are a little tougher. While the German kids had yogurt and muesli, the Americans had Cheetos and Cap'n Crunch.
Of course, Americans will come to work with a fever in order to save their days off. They feel miserable, spreading their germs around, and people think it's noble. Germans think it's crazy. They also have universal health care and jobs that don't limit sick time. In most jobs if you are gone for three days, you need a doctor's note in order to stay home any longer. If you are sick often, the employer can require the doctor's note on the second day. But there's no set number of days you can miss and you get paid for staying home.
Back to the teas, I've tried a lot of them. But really I enjoy a strong black tea best of all. So no nettles or fennel tea needed here. I have eaten my share of artificial colors and flavors and I'm feeling fine.
Friday, December 14, 2012
Snow in Hannover
It has been snowing here off and on all week. In the tradition of non-extreme German weather, it snows lightly for a few hours, then stops, then starts again. It's pretty.
Since we never got more than a dusting last year, this snow in Hannover is a new experience for me. Here are some observations:
People on the street sometimes use their umbrellas when it is snowing. This seems silly to me. I guess it's not so different than using an umbrella in the rain, except that it takes something like 10 snowflakes to equal the moisture in one raindrop. How wet are you really going to get?
Riding a bike in the snow is tricky. My bike has skinny tires and went pretty fast when it was newer and cleaner. Now I use it to get around town. Riding that bike in the snow is like winter driving in a rear wheel drive compact car. It slips and slides more than I'd like, but when I get a called in to cover teach at 7:30 in the morning, I don't have time to walk. I'm getting to be a better snow bike rider, and it's still more fun than snow driving, even in a front wheel drive car.
Germans may not get the amount of snow that we are used to in the Midwest, but they have all the gear. The kids at school wear their full-body puffy snowsuits and everyone seems to have some serious boots on... They might be a little too serious for 3 inches of fluff. It is fun to be around kids when the snow starts to fall. I gave the 5th graders a 2 minute looking-out-the-window break on Wednesday just to watch it. Sadly, snowball throwing for grades 6 and up was forbidden today over the loudspeaker.
The poor children of Hannover have no hills to sled down. It is just too flat here. Instead, they pull each other, or their parents pull them, down the street or along the lake on their wooden sleds. Maybe they don't know what they are missing.
I took a few snowy pictures for you on my walk to school this morning:
Soon, the weather will warm up and it will all turn to slush. That is part of what makes snow in Hannover special; you have to enjoy it because it won't be on the ground until March. The thaw will make riding my bike will get a lot easier. If I was really talented, I could do it while holding an umbrella.
Since we never got more than a dusting last year, this snow in Hannover is a new experience for me. Here are some observations:
People on the street sometimes use their umbrellas when it is snowing. This seems silly to me. I guess it's not so different than using an umbrella in the rain, except that it takes something like 10 snowflakes to equal the moisture in one raindrop. How wet are you really going to get?
Riding a bike in the snow is tricky. My bike has skinny tires and went pretty fast when it was newer and cleaner. Now I use it to get around town. Riding that bike in the snow is like winter driving in a rear wheel drive compact car. It slips and slides more than I'd like, but when I get a called in to cover teach at 7:30 in the morning, I don't have time to walk. I'm getting to be a better snow bike rider, and it's still more fun than snow driving, even in a front wheel drive car.
Germans may not get the amount of snow that we are used to in the Midwest, but they have all the gear. The kids at school wear their full-body puffy snowsuits and everyone seems to have some serious boots on... They might be a little too serious for 3 inches of fluff. It is fun to be around kids when the snow starts to fall. I gave the 5th graders a 2 minute looking-out-the-window break on Wednesday just to watch it. Sadly, snowball throwing for grades 6 and up was forbidden today over the loudspeaker.
The poor children of Hannover have no hills to sled down. It is just too flat here. Instead, they pull each other, or their parents pull them, down the street or along the lake on their wooden sleds. Maybe they don't know what they are missing.
I took a few snowy pictures for you on my walk to school this morning:
Soon, the weather will warm up and it will all turn to slush. That is part of what makes snow in Hannover special; you have to enjoy it because it won't be on the ground until March. The thaw will make riding my bike will get a lot easier. If I was really talented, I could do it while holding an umbrella.
Sunday, December 9, 2012
Dear Christmas Man...
It's snowing in Hannover. There are fluffy white flakes falling with their extra layer of quiet. I don't know if we'll have a white Christmas or not, but we are having a white Advent. Germany loves Advent. The clerks in stores and bakeries wish you a happy second Advent weekend and Advent wreaths are marked down to half-off at the flower shop on our street. Everyone has bought theirs already.
For Catholics, Advent is not a happy, sparkly, fun time. It's when you wear dark purple and sing dreary songs about waiting solemnly for Jesus. Germany's secular version of Advent, though, is about the Christmas market, or Weihnachtsmarkt. Each town in Germany has its own - clusters of wooden stalls selling crafts and gifts and candied almonds and sausages. It is the only German festival I can think of that has no role for beer. The main star of the market is Gluhwein - a hot, sweet, spiced red wine that you can buy with or without an additional shot of booze. There's also hot chocolate and apple cider, ditto on the extra shot.
We went to the market in Hannover with our crew of teacher friends on Friday night. Here are some photos:
The Christmas market is a good place to buy gifts to send back home, things they wouldn't know to ask for. I usually don't ask for anything for Christmas, because that would make it way too easy for the gift buyer. I need to challenge their creativity, and I don't need more stuff. Any stuff I acquire will one day need to be packed up and moved somewhere else. But, when pressed, I did produce a list for my siblings of things I cannot buy for myself. It goes something like this:
An expat Christmas list
Dear Santa (Lieber Weihnachtsmann),
I have been very good this year. Please bring me vanilla extract, ranch dressing packets, hot sauce, chocolate chips, and snack size Ziploc bags. I hope that you can make it up all the stairs to our apartment, since we don't have a chimney. Maybe you could just park your sleigh on the balcony instead.
Love, Julia
St Nikolaus was already here. He came on Thursday to put chocolate in all the kids' shoes. In Germany, Santa Claus is the Weihnachtsmann, which means Christmas Man in German. I imagine him as sort of a Nordic superhero, flying by with a furry cape and a big W on his chest. He'd be the German version of this guy on the right, which means he'd have the W and wear a long scarf around his neck that would flap in the breeze.
Brian and I are excited about the snow. It beats all the rain we had this time last year that made me feel like wearing dark purple and being gloomy. Plus, we have Minnesota-worthy snow gear to wear. We even bought a Christmas tree yesterday and wheeled it home on a bike.
So have a Gluhwein and let it snow, Hannover. Happy second Advent Sunday.
For Catholics, Advent is not a happy, sparkly, fun time. It's when you wear dark purple and sing dreary songs about waiting solemnly for Jesus. Germany's secular version of Advent, though, is about the Christmas market, or Weihnachtsmarkt. Each town in Germany has its own - clusters of wooden stalls selling crafts and gifts and candied almonds and sausages. It is the only German festival I can think of that has no role for beer. The main star of the market is Gluhwein - a hot, sweet, spiced red wine that you can buy with or without an additional shot of booze. There's also hot chocolate and apple cider, ditto on the extra shot.
We went to the market in Hannover with our crew of teacher friends on Friday night. Here are some photos:
 |
| Andrew and Katja |
 |
 |
| In the Finnish village part of the Hannover market, you can eat these little fried fish, head and tails included. There are also reindeer sandwiches and salmon smoking on wooden planks beside a big fire. |
The Christmas market is a good place to buy gifts to send back home, things they wouldn't know to ask for. I usually don't ask for anything for Christmas, because that would make it way too easy for the gift buyer. I need to challenge their creativity, and I don't need more stuff. Any stuff I acquire will one day need to be packed up and moved somewhere else. But, when pressed, I did produce a list for my siblings of things I cannot buy for myself. It goes something like this:
An expat Christmas list
Dear Santa (Lieber Weihnachtsmann),
I have been very good this year. Please bring me vanilla extract, ranch dressing packets, hot sauce, chocolate chips, and snack size Ziploc bags. I hope that you can make it up all the stairs to our apartment, since we don't have a chimney. Maybe you could just park your sleigh on the balcony instead.
Love, Julia
St Nikolaus was already here. He came on Thursday to put chocolate in all the kids' shoes. In Germany, Santa Claus is the Weihnachtsmann, which means Christmas Man in German. I imagine him as sort of a Nordic superhero, flying by with a furry cape and a big W on his chest. He'd be the German version of this guy on the right, which means he'd have the W and wear a long scarf around his neck that would flap in the breeze. Brian and I are excited about the snow. It beats all the rain we had this time last year that made me feel like wearing dark purple and being gloomy. Plus, we have Minnesota-worthy snow gear to wear. We even bought a Christmas tree yesterday and wheeled it home on a bike.
So have a Gluhwein and let it snow, Hannover. Happy second Advent Sunday.
Tuesday, December 4, 2012
The Fighting Unicorns
Most of my posts are about me. But not this one. Today I am writing about the Fighting Unicorns of the International School Hannover Region. They are not jousting or fencing team. They do not play dungeons and dragons together while wearing Medieval era costumes.
(brief tangent: when we lived in St Paul there was a group of people that would do that every Saturday morning in Como Park. There's a name for it: Live Action Role Play or LARP. It's a whole subculture. They dressed in their Rennaisance festival outfits and had swords and shields and such. Brian and I often saw them while we sped by on our bikes, dressed in spandex. Who do you think looked funnier?)
The Unicorns are a group of teachers from the school, plus a couple of their friends, who play football (translation: soccer) in the gym on Monday afternoons. The name sounds like it was chosen for a bunch of six year old girls, which they are not, so you should know the story behind it. The reason they chose the name is that the ISHR mascot is the Mustang. On the wall of the school gym is a big painting of a white mustang that looks like it was made by one of the kids. It looks sort of like a unicorn. So the name is a jab at the school and at how its school sports teams generally lack any sort of ferocity.
The players have varying levels of fitness and flexibility, ranging in age from 26 to 36. Brian was at first not interested in joining them. He started out thinking that soccer was an ok game in which he had no interest. Then a few years ago, he decided it was kind of fun to watch on TV. Once we moved here he took a little more interest in watching it but had no desire to play. Peer pressure is a funny thing though, and with that plus no other outlet for organized sports, he started to join the group and play on Mondays. It wasn't pretty at first (so I'm told) but he picked up the game pretty fast and now is a solid member of the Unicorn defense.
On Saturday, the lads (that's a football term) played outside teams for the first time. They were in a football tournament with various club teams from around Hannover, all of which had more players, uniforms and coaches, were about 25 years old and had done this sort of thing before. The Unicorns were scrappy, however, and meaner than the other guys. I was not there, but Brian tells me that there was trash talking in English and the mild-mannered math teacher knocked over a guy twice his size. They were the underdogs. They ended up finishing 4th out of 8 teams.
Here are the Fighting Unicorns:
The defensive squad sported handlebar mustaches to intimidate the
competition and also to look like convicts from the late 1970s.
Their legs might still be aching, but their pride is intact.
(brief tangent: when we lived in St Paul there was a group of people that would do that every Saturday morning in Como Park. There's a name for it: Live Action Role Play or LARP. It's a whole subculture. They dressed in their Rennaisance festival outfits and had swords and shields and such. Brian and I often saw them while we sped by on our bikes, dressed in spandex. Who do you think looked funnier?)
The Unicorns are a group of teachers from the school, plus a couple of their friends, who play football (translation: soccer) in the gym on Monday afternoons. The name sounds like it was chosen for a bunch of six year old girls, which they are not, so you should know the story behind it. The reason they chose the name is that the ISHR mascot is the Mustang. On the wall of the school gym is a big painting of a white mustang that looks like it was made by one of the kids. It looks sort of like a unicorn. So the name is a jab at the school and at how its school sports teams generally lack any sort of ferocity.
The players have varying levels of fitness and flexibility, ranging in age from 26 to 36. Brian was at first not interested in joining them. He started out thinking that soccer was an ok game in which he had no interest. Then a few years ago, he decided it was kind of fun to watch on TV. Once we moved here he took a little more interest in watching it but had no desire to play. Peer pressure is a funny thing though, and with that plus no other outlet for organized sports, he started to join the group and play on Mondays. It wasn't pretty at first (so I'm told) but he picked up the game pretty fast and now is a solid member of the Unicorn defense.
On Saturday, the lads (that's a football term) played outside teams for the first time. They were in a football tournament with various club teams from around Hannover, all of which had more players, uniforms and coaches, were about 25 years old and had done this sort of thing before. The Unicorns were scrappy, however, and meaner than the other guys. I was not there, but Brian tells me that there was trash talking in English and the mild-mannered math teacher knocked over a guy twice his size. They were the underdogs. They ended up finishing 4th out of 8 teams.
Here are the Fighting Unicorns:
Their legs might still be aching, but their pride is intact.
Sunday, December 2, 2012
German schools
I made a reference the other day to students working on their university degrees until middle age. That was not entirely untrue. I felt like I'd maybe posted something about the school system before, so I started flipping through my old posts. Remember when I wrote about the old people in the swimming pool and my first Hannover Indians hockey game? Oh the memories. Anyway, I don't think I wrote about education before and if I can't remember then you can't either. Here we go.
The school system here is tough for foreigners to understand. It starts with Kindergarten, then Grundschule, which is elementary school. All the kids go to Grundschule until 4th grade. At that point the class splits up.
Kids who have the potential to go to university go on to Gymnasium. Unfortunately for them, it is not an all day PE class. It's more of a classic academic, college-prep experience. After 12th grade (used to be 13th), they take a big final exam and can go to university from there.
Then there's a group of 4th graders that goes to Hauptschule. Hauptschule is kind of like technical school. The students study there until 10th grade and then move on to more specific training in something like sales, secretarial skills, nursing, etc. That takes about 2 more years.
The last group of 4th graders goes to Realschule... as in real life school. They stay there until 10th grade and learn a trade, then do an apprenticeship or go to vocational school or just start working.
There's also a Gesamtschule, which combines all three. This sounds more like an American-style high school, where some classes have everyone together and some are advanced, regular, remedial, etc.
For your enlightenment, I have included a diagram:
Got it? I hope so, because I am still a little confused.
I have mixed feelings about this system. How are you supposed to know when a kid is 10 years old whether he/she will be college material? What about the late bloomers? The kids with rough childhoods? The ones who eventually figure it out? In some states in Germany the parents make that decision. In others, the teachers decide. Then if the parents don't like the teacher's decision, they can try to get it changed but it takes a lot of work. Or they can send their kids to private school, if they have the money, that is.
This system serves the German economy very well. There are people trained for all sorts of jobs that need to be done. Students finish school with a marketable skill that they can use to get a job. That doesn't always happen for us liberal arts grads. And if you are smart and motivated, you can get a university education for free, or almost free. No student is prevented from going to college because they can't afford it, and they aren't burdened with tons of debt after graduation.
One thing this system does is maintains a social structure that makes me a little uncomfortable. You can pretty much tell by the time a kid is 12 years old what sort of socio-economic future he or she will have. They are even split up neatly into three categories. What about being an entrepreneur and pulling yourself up by those boot straps?... but wait, that's the American dream, not the German one. This is not a culture that praises a lot of risk-taking. There's a lot of stability in the way things work here, and I think the Germans like it that way.
The German school system is in the process of changing, or at least that's what I've heard. I am not sure what those changes will mean. If there is a school with all day PE class, though, I think a lot of kids will sign up for that.
The school system here is tough for foreigners to understand. It starts with Kindergarten, then Grundschule, which is elementary school. All the kids go to Grundschule until 4th grade. At that point the class splits up.
Kids who have the potential to go to university go on to Gymnasium. Unfortunately for them, it is not an all day PE class. It's more of a classic academic, college-prep experience. After 12th grade (used to be 13th), they take a big final exam and can go to university from there.
Then there's a group of 4th graders that goes to Hauptschule. Hauptschule is kind of like technical school. The students study there until 10th grade and then move on to more specific training in something like sales, secretarial skills, nursing, etc. That takes about 2 more years.
The last group of 4th graders goes to Realschule... as in real life school. They stay there until 10th grade and learn a trade, then do an apprenticeship or go to vocational school or just start working.
There's also a Gesamtschule, which combines all three. This sounds more like an American-style high school, where some classes have everyone together and some are advanced, regular, remedial, etc.
For your enlightenment, I have included a diagram:
I have mixed feelings about this system. How are you supposed to know when a kid is 10 years old whether he/she will be college material? What about the late bloomers? The kids with rough childhoods? The ones who eventually figure it out? In some states in Germany the parents make that decision. In others, the teachers decide. Then if the parents don't like the teacher's decision, they can try to get it changed but it takes a lot of work. Or they can send their kids to private school, if they have the money, that is.
This system serves the German economy very well. There are people trained for all sorts of jobs that need to be done. Students finish school with a marketable skill that they can use to get a job. That doesn't always happen for us liberal arts grads. And if you are smart and motivated, you can get a university education for free, or almost free. No student is prevented from going to college because they can't afford it, and they aren't burdened with tons of debt after graduation.
One thing this system does is maintains a social structure that makes me a little uncomfortable. You can pretty much tell by the time a kid is 12 years old what sort of socio-economic future he or she will have. They are even split up neatly into three categories. What about being an entrepreneur and pulling yourself up by those boot straps?... but wait, that's the American dream, not the German one. This is not a culture that praises a lot of risk-taking. There's a lot of stability in the way things work here, and I think the Germans like it that way.
The German school system is in the process of changing, or at least that's what I've heard. I am not sure what those changes will mean. If there is a school with all day PE class, though, I think a lot of kids will sign up for that.
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About Me
- Julia
- Thanks for coming to my blog. It started as a way to keep in touch with family and friends, and now has become an ongoing project. I'm an American living in Germany and trying to travel whenever I can. I write about my experiences as an expatriate (the interesting ones and the embarrassing ones), and about my travels. There are some recurring characters in this blog, particularly my husband Brian and several of our friends. The title comes from the idea that living in a foreign country means making a lot of mistakes. So the things you used to do easily you now have to try over and over again. Hopefully, like me, you can laugh at how idiotic it feels. If you have happened upon my blog, then welcome. Knowing that people are reading what I write makes me keep going. Feel free to write comments or suggestions for future posts.