Desperate Housewives of Hannover, season 2

We are going to take a break from the Hannover Photo Safari for today. I know you are disappointed. But I realized that it's been a long time since I wrote about the Desperate Housewives of Hannover. A quick review: the  Hausfrauen are the group of friends that I was lucky to meet shortly after moving here. What we have in common are husbands that found jobs in Hannover, causing us to quit ours and move here too. The name is a little facetious, but the truth is we have a lot more free time than we used to and there's often some kind of drama cooking. My LA friend Giulia has even talked about writing a script out of it, but I don't know if the average viewer would get into the expat lifestyle in the un-glamorous setting of Hannover. Or maybe that's our angle...

Here's what has been happening in season two:

There's a new character this season, Olga Elena. She's Serena's Colombian friend from German class who is here because she married a Serbian-German husband that she met in Spain. After 2 years of intensive German, Olga is trying to get a job in finance. Since most companies require that candidates speak three languages, she is working on her English with me and Serena. And I am loving a chance to speak Spanish with her. Olga recently got her German drivers' license, which requires taking classes, exams, a behind-the-wheel test and paying about 2,000 euros.

Serena is pregnant, with the baby girl due in May, and moving to a new apartment this weekend. Her opera singer husband Ed has been traveling France auditioning for future shows and she's given up German class in order to focus on the baby.

Kaska is working on getting a new job or another job in addition to working part-time for the city of Hannover. She's all about ice skating this winter and just bought her own tiny pair of used skates. She and German husband Thorsten are planning the epic Bosseln ball-throwing game in February, and Brian and I just booked a trip to Krakow with them for May.

Renee has had a rough year of ups and downs when she got married, lost her father, then went home for Christmas and her brother-in-law died. Her small dog always seems to eat life-threatening amounts of people food, and now she's looking for work. She's decided that the best way to learn more German is by finding a job, which is not easy when she would need some kind of contract before getting a work permit.

Charlotta, the polish bombshell-super mom is a recurring character. So is Susi, the only true German in our show and Serena's pregnancy/medical-care-in-Germany resource. 

As for me, I am working in a very low-responsibility role subbing at the international school, while building myself a very high-responsibility one as I co-found a nonprofit organization. More on that in the coming episodes. My husband Brian has recently been told that the school wants to offer him a contract when the 2 year stint is up this summer, so it looks like we'll be staying here a while longer. Nothing has been signed yet, however, and more drama can always unfold in the meantime.

There are not as many four hour lunches now as in season one, but we still find time to get together to discuss which of us has the craziest mother-in-law and why Germans need to put winter tires on their cars while Minnesotans do not.

Stayed tuned to see what your favorite characters are up to in the next episode.

Beer drinking statues, heads on the street

Hannover Photo Safari, continued:
On the street leading up to the opera house in Hannover are three statues. After a year and a half of walking past them, it's time to figure out who they are supposed to be.

You'll notice that they seem to be drinking bottles of beer. I am going to assume that this was someone's hilarious late night idea, after he/she (come on, you know it was a he) had had a few himself. But the funny thing is that no one has removed the bottles from their hands for months. It is legal to drink on the street here, after all. Why can't a statue pretend to do it too? (click on the photo if you would like to see it bigger).

Note/Disclaimer: I thank Wikipedia and various internet sources for the following info. I am not citing it in APA or any other format, probably to the dismay of my grad school professors and the numerous librarians in my family. They would be dismayed that I used Wikipedia at all.

Marschner

Our first subject is Heinrich Marschner. He was a composer who wrote 23 operas and is regarded as a big deal in German opera.
He came from Zittau, Germany, which is in the east, near what's now the border with the Czech Republic. He studied operas, started writing them, and moved to Dresden. Starting in 1831 he moved to Hannover and stayed here, working as the conductor for the Hannover city theater, for the rest of his life.

Karmarsch

Karl Karmarsch, the second beer drinker in line, was an educator who founded the Higher Technical School of Hannover in the 1830s, which later became the Leibniz University of Hannover. He was a mechanical engineering professor, and led the university for over 40 years. He was also the main person to introduce the metric system to Germany and Austria in 1872.

Stromeyer

Louis Stromeyer's statue is the most attractive of the three. Probably that's because he is not tarnished and moldy, like maybe he has recently showered. It's fitting because Stromeyer was a surgeon, and probably knew that it's good to wash your hands a lot. He is considered a pioneer in orthopedic surgery and founded an orthopedic institute in Hannover. For 16 years, Stromeyer served as a military surgeon. He developed the procedure to correct club foot and first performed it in 1831.

And just down the street are these sculptures:

 Interpret on your own. This is what I have grown to like about Hannover: a little bit classic, cultured, traditional, but with a good (or bad) dose of the modern. It's not always guidebook-worthy but it's got personality. You can see the remains of a 14th century church right next to a 1960s-era office building. Most of Hannover was destroyed by bombing during WWII, and it has an old/new identity as a result. You'll see more of that contrast coming soon. Until then, crack a German beer and say "prost" to Karmarsch and the metric system.

The horse's tail and the headless monster

The most common place to meet up with anyone in Hannover is at the Hauptbanhof (main train station), "unterm Schwanz," meaning under the horse's tail. The horse in question part of a huge statue in front of the station. Nostrils flaring, mane blowing, its rider is King Ernst August,

Ernest Augustus, fifth son of King George III of England, was part of the royal House of Hanover. He was born in England but spent his university days in Gottingen, Germany. He had a career in the military and in politics, moving back and forth between Germany and England, married his cousin, may have had a child with his sister, and may have killed his valet. In 1837 his niece Victoria became queen. Since succession in the House of Hanover went only through males, this meany that Ernst was crowned King of Hanover a few days later, and Hannover was ruled by its own royalty.

The coolest part of these pictures, other than Ernst August's awesome hat, is that the backdrop is a facade of the Hauptbanhof that is designed to look like the Hauptbanhof. There is scaffolding and construction going on underneath, but this big tarp looks just like the building should.

Inside the Hauptbanhof is another item of interest on our photo safari. It is a... well, you tell me:

Maybe a headless sea monster. Maybe an eel of some kind. I tried looking up info on the internet, but "headless eel sculpture hannover" didn't bring up any results in Google. So let your imagination fun on this one. Isn't that what art is about anyway?

Hannover photo safari, introduction

I am hereby beginning a series of posts called Hannover Photo Safari (HPS).

Why did I choose this name? It sounds better than "a lot of pictures of statues and art work around town". But that's basically what it is. I went around Hannover on a cold day hunting for statues and public art works to photograph, with the goal of knowing what they are all about.

I also wanted to call it a safari so that it sounds more exotic, and tropical. It was a cold and snowy day when I went out there. I think my pinky froze to the camera. However, it was -5 Farenheit in St Paul earlier this week, so I am certainly not complaining. -5 Celsius is a lot better.

Brian reminded me as I debated whether I should go out walking around town on that chilly day, "you used to be a Minnesotan." 

Election day

Sunday was election day in the state of Niedersachsen, which gave me a reason to try and understand more about German politics.

Elections happen every four years, with the state elections in January, and the federal ones in September. Germany is a parlimentary democracy, which means that you vote for a party, not a person. The party then chooses its leader and that's who becomes governor, chancellor, etc. However, in the federal elections each voter also gets a second vote for representative, which they can use to vote directly for an individual candidate.

This system results in a lot of coalitions between two or more parties. This is confusing to me as an American... it seems like the German system has a bunch of parties, 5 or 6 at least, but when they start teaming up it's more like a 2 party system.

The CDU teams up with the FDP, and the SPD teams up with the Green party. There is also the Left party, the National Socialist party (That's right, the Nazis. They still exist, but get very few votes), and the Pirate party.

If I were a German citizen I would want to support the Pirate party just because they have the coolest name. Plus you could dress up with an eye patch and a parrot, and say "shiver me timbers," or however that translates into German. They actually have nothing to do with that kind of piracy. Their agenda mostly deals with the digital age, freedom of information, and e-governance. It would be cooler if they were building pirate ships.

So what about Niedersachsen? As far as I understand it, Niedersachsen is like the Ohio of Germany. Other than being kind of big, having a lot of farmland, and Hannover maybe being similar to Cleveland (we even have a team called the Indians), Niedersachsen's election this year is supposed to be a barometer for how things will go in the national elections. The moderately conservative CDU lost its majority to the moderately liberal SPD. It was a tight race and a big upset for the conservatives. If you want to read more, here's a short and pretty clear article about the election.

What does this all mean? It means the pendulum is swinging gently toward the left, and the CDU, Angela Merkel's party, might be in trouble come September.

If you read about David McAllister in my last post, you might be interested to know that he's not out escorting princesses tonight. He's probably moping around feeling like a loser. Of course he didn't lose, his party did. The new governor of Niedersachsen will be Stephan Weil, whose name lends itself to political advertisements because 'weil' means 'because' in German. Think of all the possible slogans he could have.

However, if he could appear on a poster with a peg leg, a big gold earring, and a bottle of rum I'd be more excited to vote for him. Maybe that's why Germany doesn't allow expats like me to be citizens.

Princesses, expos, and inflatable beds

Stephan Weil, mayor of Hannover, David McAllister,

 

and the princesses of York

 A few days ago, two British princesses visited Hannover. Eugenie and Beatrice made the trip in honor of the re-opening of the Herrenhausen castle. Yes, we have a local castle. It was built around 1820 when Hannover used to be a kingdom. It belonged to Welfen family, known in English as the Guelphs (because that is obviously easier to spell).

The castle had been closed for 70 years, since it was damaged in World War II, and is now open again with modern renovations for use as a conference center. I guess we needed more of those. Hannover is big on expos, and fairs, and conventions. Every month or so there is some big event at the convention center that brings in people from all over Germany and sometimes all over the world. To Hannover? That's right.  In addition to the normal industry and corporate conventions, Hannover hosts a baby expo, the German poultry show, and a trade fair for Middle Eastern carpet businesses.
CeBIT, the largest IT conference in the world, is held here in March.

I've been told that we could rent out our apartment, or even just our guest room, and make a pile of money during CeBIT. Would it be worth what I make in a month of substitute teaching to have a strange German computer guy hanging out in my apartment for a few days? Before I make that decision I would have to check whether an inflatable guest bed qualifies as acceptable conference accommodation.

Back to the Brits... why would the princesses make a trip here? Hannover is heavily linked to England. My basic understanding is that the Guelphs, who became known as the House of Hanover, were like the royalty's farm team for couple of centuries. Whenever some noble person needed to find a husband or wife, they came here, and eventually Hannover was linked to England through these families (somewhere in this process, the English decided to spell Hanover with one 'n' just to be different). Their descendents eventually came in line for the throne. The House of Hanover ruled Britain starting with George I around 1715 until Queen Victoria died in 1901.

I don't really care about British royalty. I am not British, nor do I plan to be. However, it's hard to ignore all of the influence the English have had on Hannover's history, and hard to miss the news about a royal visit. The princesses were hosted by the governor of Niedersachsen, David McAllister. McAllister himself is half Scottish, so they probably had tea and scones together, then talked about football scores.

I'll write more about the House of Hanover soon, as I attempt to find out who all the statues around town are supposed to be and try to decipher other, weirder, works of public art. Until then, I will watch for groups of corporate convention-goers walking around town in packs, and try to spot those who are headed to the poultry show.

Tourism, traveling, and busses

I write often on this blog about my travels. I write even more often about feeling out of place and learning about a new(ish) place. 
This time I am writing about the idea, and the act, of travel in general. It's at once an escape, a hobby, and an education... depending on what you are looking for.

While sitting on the trademark pink couch in the staff room at school the other day, I read this quote that our friend and English teacher Andrew had just passed out to his class:



"Whether you travel or whether you tour is, I suspect, all a matter of your attitude to time. That's why, from my point of view, it's the young and the old, rather than those in the prime of their lives who make the best travelers. Everything depends on your answer to this question: What does it mean not to waste time?. And in my experience it's when you're young and think you've got oodles of time, and when you're old and regard it more judiciously, that you're likely to come up with the best answers.
You come up with the worst answers, I suspect, at the age of thirty-six when you still believe you're actually 'going somewhere' (like a bus) and still think your life will eventually 'add up to something' (as if anyone were counting). Beliefs such as these encourage tourism rather than travel."
- Robert Dessaix

I like this quote because it gets me thinking about ideas that seem relevant in my life right now...
There are a lot of odd and funny travel situations that have happened to me since we've moved, like when a boy hit me on the butt with an Easter stick in Prague, or when we danced in a conga line with Romanians on a Nile Cruise ship, or when we took a ferry to Asia to drink beer. There are also the frustrating experiences of getting lost, of boarding the wrong train, of knowing that you got the "dumb foreigner" price in a taxi or a cafe and being unable to do anything but pay it.
Were these experiences a good use of time? I'd like to say yes but am not sure I could give you a reason why. They are certainly not things that would have happened if I'd stayed where I belong or where I at least know how to find a train station and can pour my own bowl of cereal in the morning.

I am not yet thirty-six but I am not far away. Is my life going somewhere, like a bus? Like a German bus that runs incredibly, reliably on time? The thing about busses is that they only follow the same routes every day. I'd like to think that at least mine could take a left turn now and then. Maybe it could be more like a non-official minibus blasting music and full of old ladies holding chickens...

I like tourism too. As a good traveler maybe I am not supposed to. But I like warm weather escapism and swim-up resort bars, and walking around with a map and not being embarrassed about stopping on the sidewalk to take a picture in the middle of a foreign city. I like watching how people in different places behave when lining up at a store or a train station - do they push ahead? crowd around? stand in single file? And is watching all of this a waste of time? Maybe noticing those things is traveling too.

A lot of conversations happen on the pink couch. I can't say we found any answers to the issue of tourism and wasting time. I can say that I think traveling, like so many other things, is a skill you have to practice. To do it well and really appreciate new places, I will have to keep trying.

Slava

On most weeknights, Brian and I eat dinner, find a few TV shows to watch on the internet, read books and go to bed. But this Wednesday, I went to my Colombian friend's house to have a Latin-Serbian meal in honor of the feast day of her husband's family's patron saint, Stephen. In attendance were two other Americans, a Pole, a French woman, a Chinese woman, the Serbian mother of the host, his Serbo-German friend and a German brother-in-law. I don't know whether fried plantians have been combined with stuffed cabbage rolls (Sarma) before, but we tried it and it was delicious.

In a curious mix of English, German, and Spanish, I learned that Slava is each family's special holiday, inherited from father to son. In the Orthodox calendar, St. Stephen's Day is on January 9th. It was like Serbian Thanksgiving, which made me think that having international friends is a great thing. The more countries are represented, the more parties to have and the more international foods to enjoy.

For our next international feast, we are invited to a Scottish science teacher's house to celebrate Robert Burns day. Will there be salsa and sangria? Probably not, but haggis might be on the menu.

Dinner for One

While I was hearing bagpipes and eating stovies in Scotland for Hogmanay, people in Germany were celebrating celebrating Silvester.

Sylvester the cat:
 not responsible for the new year

When I think about the name of the holiday, I immediately picture this guy:
Apparently he has nothing to do with it. New Year's Eve is called Silvester in Germany in honor of the feast day of 4th century pope St Silvester, which is on Dec. 31st. I doubt that most Germans know this, and I just learned by looking it up on the internet (so it must be true).

I have yet to be in Germany for Silvester, but I know a little about how it's celebrated. There are two main components: fireworks and Dinner for One. In a country that has no Fourth of July and where the temperatures aren't painfully cold in December, Silvester is the big day for do-it-yourself fireworks. You can only buy them in stores during the week between Christmas and New Year's. So all year, Germans are relatively calm and safe, until the one night that they can blow things up... I've heard it's a good show.

The real New Year's show, however, is on TV and it's called Dinner for One. The dialogue is in English, tand Germans find it incredibly funny for no reason that is discernible to foreigners. I've seen it three times now, and keep waiting for the hilarity to set in. It's a black-and-white show that's about 10 minutes long and has been running on German TV every New Year since the late 1960s. It holds the record for being the most repeated TV program ever. 2013 will be its 50th year of broadcasting.

The story line is pretty simple. It's rich Miss Sophie's 90th birthday and she's throwing a dinner party with the help of her butler, James. But all of the dinner guest are imaginary. They have names and empty places at the table, and James serves them each course with its accompanying alcoholic beverage. Since they aren't actually there, James has to impersonate and drink for each of them as they toast with Miss Sophie. James gets more and more drunk and the cycle continues. He also trips on the tiger skin rug about 8 times. I challenge you to click on the link above, watch the show (it's 10 minutes long) and get more than a mild chuckle out of it.

I first saw Dinner for One at our house in St Paul when Dizzy and Sonja were in town for the holidays. Sonja told us how it's a German tradition and is so funny... Brian and I were geared up for a good laugh. We ended up staring at each other, wondering if we'd missed the point. If the show were in German that would have been likely, but because it's in English we didn't have much of an explanation. Since moving here, I've discovered we are not alone. Many expats in Germany are confused about why Dinner for One is such a hit, and what sort of inside joke they are not getting. A few of the German kids in Brian's homeroom begged to watch it the day before Christmas break. They cracked up laughing while the international kids just sat there, confused about where the punchline had gone.

I don't know where I will be on December 31st, 2013. Maybe I'll learn about another New Year's tradition somewhere else. And if I'm watching anything on TV, it's more likely to be Sylvester the Cat than Dinner for One.

Edinburgh, Aberdeen, and home

Edinburgh (Eh-din-bu-roh) is a cool town. It's surrounded by hills, the most famous of which is called Arthur's Seat. You can climb up it, which we did, and get a view of the city and the Firth of Forth. Say that three times fast (I am not sure of the technical term, but I think that a firth is the same as a bay).

The castle from the back side

Walking down the Royal Mile

Walking up to Arthur's Seat

In Edinburgh we wandered. We walked up and down the streets lined with stone buildings. Edinburgh is a great city to look at. The buildings are not tall or dramatic individually, but they have a way of fitting together that gives the place a lot of character. Of course the castle is the one really remarkable sight. It's up on a hilltop, almost growing out of the rocks, and you can see it from just about anywhere. Edinburgh has the same number of residents as Hannover, but it's just a lot cooler of a town. We are not the only ones to think so - lots of other tourists were roaming the streets - but it all fit in somehow to a sort of bustling but unhurried and friendly vibe that makes me really like the place.

Leaving Edinburgh was the when our trip started to slide downhill. We tried driving the scenic route to Aberdeen, but compared to what we'd seen earlier in the week, we were unimpressed. We did see what might be the "real" Scotland for most people - dreary, industrial towns with winding streets that seemed to trap us in, cookie-cutter suburban houses and flat green farmlands. We spent one night in the nicest hotel we'd booked during the trip, and Brian and I realized how tired we were of being on the move. We capped it off in the morning by getting completely lost on the way to the airport, abut still made our flight back to Germany to start life in the new year.

En route to Edinburgh

Leaving Skye on New Years Day was a little sad but a fantastic drive. I should say fantastic with the qualifier that this trip brought on the first bout of car sickness I've had in a while. It was never bad enough to disturb anyone else in the car, if you know what I mean, but the mountain roads brought on some general queasiness. I am also handicapped by not knowing how to drive stick, and I'm smaller than the two American-sized guys in the group, so that put me in the back seat. I think I am just allergic to driving on the left. I even passed up an opportunity to go to the Loch Ness Monster museum, something I woudn't have missed in good health.

Anyway, after seeing snow topped mountains and rainbows and fabulous scenes, we stopped at the only place we'd seen open for lunch, which happened to be a fine-dining experience and rivaled the seafood place in Portree for the best meal we'd had all week. The manager there told us to take the route through Glencoe, which is where we'll stay if we ever go to Scotland again. The road winds through a mountain valley complete with mists and waterfalls and rushing streams. The best part about our gourmet lunch was that it settled my belly enough that I could enjoy it.

Here's another sight we saw along the way: hairy cows. Sure, there were lots of sheep too, but these cows were pretty awesome. I did not get up close and personal enough to get a good shot (though Tom jumped out of the car and in to a pasture once to get a photo of the furry guys), but here is how they look:

We ate some too. Brian and I fell a little bit off the wagon of eating less meat/only meat we knew was sustainably farmed. We kind of tried, but steak and ale pie is yummy.

It was a little sad to say goodbye to the sights on Skye, and to the cows too.Driving into Edinburgh and back into a populated area meant taking off the rain pants and only wearing my dressing rubber boots around town. I had to remember which way to look when crossing the street.

Hogmanay / Skye, part 2

When we were planning the trip to Scotland, the original plan was to spend New Year's Eve in Edinburgh. There are parades and parties and some huge street festival with live bands. Then we looked at the hotel prices and decided to spend New Years on Skye instead. New Year in Scotland is called Hogmanay. I am not sure why, but it's a fun word to say. We went into Portree, the town closest to our cottage, which is also the biggest one on the island.

There were several bars with signs about finger food buffets and DJs and tickets to buy in advance, but we picked the one with free entry and a cover band. Apparently so did most of the locals. It was a big night in a small town, so everyone had dressed in their finest. There were 3 guys in kilts, a couple of women in Goth-style corset tops, and 50-something ladies in seriously high heels ready to hit the dance floor. As the place filled up and the band cranked out late 1990s hits, a woman about our age who had identified us as tourists (stood out too much - should have worn my corset) told us there were much better parties at other bars. She said we should go someplace down the street with traditional music, a ball drop, and a DJ after midnight. She didn't understand what we were after. Watching the people at this place and standing on the sticky carpet was way better than any swanky

party.

As midnight approached, people starting leaving the bar and heading outside. This was the part of the evening I had been looking forward to - the pipe and drum parade. I like any sort of outdoor festival/parade/concert and the idea of ringing in a new year to the tune of bagpipes in the land where they belong... I couldn't wait. You should know that during my college days at Macalester, Highland Days was held on our campus. What this meant is that one Saturday in May at about 7am, all the students would be shaken from their slumber by the sound of loud, insistent, cutting, did I say loud? sound of bagpipe teams warming up for their competitions. So here we were in Portree a decade later, wide awake and standing outside in the dark, bringing in 2013 to that music. It was just as loud as I remembered, but a lot more welcome and fun. As the seconds ticked away, strangers in various levels of sobriety hugged and kissed on the street. It was a happy new year.

High Street, Portree

Isle of Skye, part 1

It's such a beautiful name for a place... and it's a beautiful place too. I read somewhere that Skye comes from the combination of the Norse word for cloud and the Gaelic word for Island. That's a good name, but does not do justice to the weather. If there was a word that meant "cloud-wind-rain-sun-repeat," that would be most accurate, but probably not as poetic.

We arrived Friday in Aberdeen, met up with Tom and Sonja, then took our rental car across Scotland, over the Highlands, past Loch Ness, and over the bridge to Skye. In rain that seemed to shoot horizontally (fall is not really the right word), we got to the cottage where we'd spend the next four days. It seemed like a grandma had just walked out the door and left the place to us. The cottage had pink wallpaper, purple curtains, doilies and decorative plates on the walls, and that flowery air-freshener scent that belongs to grandmas exclusively. Brian and I slept on a too-small and too-firm bed in the attic room where it was really easy to whack your head on the ceiling if you weren't careful. It had two cushy couches and a living room fireplace where you could sit and hear the rain pound the house. It was just right.

Our routine on Skye went something like this: make breakfast and sit around drinking tea and deciding where to go that day. Then we suit up in rain jackets and rubber boots and head out in the car. We'd stop at some beautiful, rugged, location and hike out, and up, and down again. Sometimes the wind almost blew us over. Sometimes the sun came out. We went on beaches and through forests and up the side of a mountain. Then we'd have to stop at a pub for lunch before we did it all again in the afternoon. We were greatly aided by the recommendations of our friend Alec, a science teacher at the international school who used to own a boat repair shop on Skye and wrote up his own little travel guide for us.

I think the photos can show you the sights much better than I can write about them, so here they are:

At Neist point

Near Coral Beach

Coral Beach

Hiking up to the Old Man of Storr

This is our cottage

Gale force winds

Storr

Near Portree Harbor

Kilt Rock

Back on the grid

Happy new year to you, loyal readers. I am just back today from a week in Scotland with NO INTERNET. Feel free to gasp now.

It was a great trip.  And though I missed you a little, I filled in the gaps with mud, gale-force wind, midnight bagpipes, furry cows, jagged cliffs, a grandma cottage, motion sickness, and rubber boots used as they were intended.

I'll write more and start posting photos over the weekend, some come back and visit soon.