Feliz Navidad

Dear readers,

I am traveling for a little while and will be away from the internet.
I hope you enjoy a joyful, peaceful Christmas and a happy new year. I'll be back in January.

Back on the bus, to the List

It's been a long time since I drove the hop on hop off bus around Hannover. But we are hopping back on it again, this time to the List. The List is a neighborhood where you need to live if you are a yuppie in Hannover. I know that term is a little outdated, but if you are between 25 and 50, shop at the organic grocery store, wear expensive shoes, drink cappuccino, have small children who also drink cappuccino, and don't want to move to the suburbs, the List is the place for you.

At the heart of the neighborhood is the Lister Meile. Meile is a Germanicized way to say mile. I still think this is a weird name, since as far as I know, Germany uses the metric system. Maybe "Lister Kilometer and a half" just didn't have the same ring to it. It's a pedestrian street lined with shops and cafes.

Lister Meile and Lister Platz

 

When you stroll down the Lister Meile, it's key to put your child in a 4 wheel drive stroller. The word stroller doesn't really do it justice. In German, it's a Kinderwagen. And calling it a wagon is a better fit. These things have tires that can handle off-road baby mountaineering. They laugh at cobblestones. They have shock absorbers, and probably exhaust pipes too. German families don't have to save up money for a college education, so they invest it all in the Kinderwagen.




The List is probably the prettiest section of Hannover. It has more historic buildings than any other area of the city I've seen, and much less 1960s-era architecture. These houses seem to have escaped the worst of the World War II bombings.

A few notable sights in the List are the Lister Turm,

The Bahlsen cookie headquarters, with this golden cookie sign that the famous cookie monster thief stole two years ago,

and the police stables at Welfenplatz.

If you want to go to an expensive boutique, or sit at a cafe, or buy your kid a cappuccino by the playground, the List is the place to be.   

Knecht Ruprecht

Last year, I told you all about Krampus, the German-speaking world's Bad Santa.
There's another Christmas-time character you should know about: Knecht Ruprecht. While Krampus is a Bavarian figure, Knecht Ruprecht is at home here in northern Germany.

He travels along with Santa, the Weihnachtsmann, and wears tattered brown robes. He's sort of wild woodsman, someone you wouldn't want to run into in a dark chimney. He carries bags full of ashes and coal for the naughty kids, and a stick to beat them with. If you are on the naughty list this year, watch out.

It sounds to me like his legend has been softened over the years. He also carries a bag of candies and nuts for the good kids ("Walnuts? again? but I really wanted an iphone this year!"). His job is to drive the sleigh, help Santa, feed the reindeer etc.

Knecht Ruprecht is the subject of a famous poem by Theodor Strom. I wish my German was good enough to translate it myself, but it's not. So here is a version I found on the internet:

Von drauß' vom Wald komm ich her;	From out the forest I now appear,
ich muss euch sagen, es weihnachtet sehr!	To proclaim that Christmastide is here!
Allüberall auf den Tannenspitzen	For at the top of every tree
sah ich goldene Lichtlein sitzen;	are golden lights for all to see;
und droben aus dem Himmelstor	and there from Heaven’s gate on high
sah mit großen Augen das Christkind hervor.	I saw our Christ-child in the sky.
Und wie ich so strolcht' durch den finstern Tann,	And in among the darkened trees,
da rief's mich mit heller Stimme an:	a loud voice it was that called to me:
"Knecht Ruprecht", rief es, "alter Gesell,	‘Knecht Ruprecht, old fellow,’ it cried,
hebe die Beine und spute dich schnell!	‘hurry now, make haste, don’t hide!
Die Kerzen fangen zu brennen an,	All the candles have now been lit --
das Himmelstor ist aufgetan.	Heaven’s gate has opened wide!
Alt' und Junge sollen nun	Both young and old should now have rest
von der Jagd des Lebens einmal ruhn;	away from cares and daily stress;
und morgen flieg ich hinab zur Erden;	and when tomorrow to earth I fly
denn es soll wieder Weihnachten werden!"	“it’s Christmas again!” will be the cry.’
Ich sprach: "O lieber Herre Christ,	And then I said: ‘O Lord so dear.
meine Reise fast zu Ende ist;	My journey’s end is now quite near;
ich soll nur noch in diese Stadt,	but to this town* I’ve still to go,
wo's eitel gute Kinder hat."	Where the children are good, I know.’
“Hast denn das Säcklein auch bei dir?"	‘But have you then that great sack?’
Ich sprach: "Das Säcklein, das ist hier:	‘I have,’ I said, ‘it’s on my back.
Denn Äpfel, Nuss und Mandelkern	For apples, almonds, fruit and nuts
essen fromme Kinder gern."	For God-fearing children are a must.’
"Hast denn die Rute auch bei dir?"	‘And is that cane there by your side?’
Ich sprach: "Die Rute, die ist hier;	‘The cane’s there too,’ I did reply;
doch für die Kinder nur, die schlechten,	but only for those, those naughty ones,
die trifft sie auf den Teil, den rechten.’	who have it applied to their backsides.’
Christkindlein sprach: "So ist es recht!	The Christ-child spoke: ‘Then that’s all right!
So geh mit Gott, mein treuer Knecht!"	My loyal servant, go with God this night!’
Von drauß' vom Walde komm ich her;	From out the forest I now appear;
ich muss euch sagen, es weihnachtet sehr!	To proclaim that Christmastide is here!
Nun sprecht, wie ich's hier drinnen find!	Now speak, what is there here to be had?
Sind's gute Kind sind's böse Kind?	Are there good children, are there bad?

I hope you have been good this year. If so, you can look forward to a lot of walnuts, and not getting beaten with a stick.

Islamophobia in Germany

There was a big demonstration on Monday in Dresden.

What do people have to protest about in Germany? Unemployment is relatively low, standards of living are high, working conditions are great, there's no gun violence and not much crime, the government is not corrupt; things are good here. Which is precisely why certain groups are protesting. They like the way things are and don't want "those people" to come and change them.

"Those people" are Muslim immigrants, and certain groups don't want them coming to take jobs, receive government benefits, and turn Germany into an Islamic state . The 15,000 Dresden marchers were led by a group called Pegida, translated as: Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West. They want Germany to allow fewer immigrants and asylees. If those immigrants are coming from Greece or Spain, it's ok. But if they come from Iran or Turkey or Syria, that's another story.

The scary thing about Pegida is that they are not skinheads, or Hell's Angels, or part of any heavily tattooed subculture. They are ostensibly normal people. Politician Thomas Oppermann called the group "Nazis in pinstripes." And the whole movement was organized on Facebook.
Germany's history with intolerance, racism and the far right makes it all the more scary.

Pegida in Dresden

There was a similar march in Hannover in November. It was a demonstration against Salafism, which is a sect within Islam. In a twist of sports turned politics, the group leading the march emerged from rival clubs of hooligans, which are soccer super-fans. These people not only love their soccer teams, but they hate a lot of people who are different than them. Among the hooligans are right-wing extremists and neo-Nazis.  The same group had protested in Cologne the week before, and that event turned violent. So Hannover was on guard. About 3000 protesters showed up, as did 6000 counter-protesters. There were 6600 police officers present, some in riot gear and some on horses.

Lots of police turned out for the Hannover demonstration

This is Islamophobia, and I think it's ridiculous.
Germans, even the most bigoted ones, have nothing to worry about. At this time of year, cashiers wish customers a happy Advent Sunday, Christmas trees and lights and candies are everywhere, and politically correct phrases like "season's greetings" barely exist. Germany is not at risk of being Islamicized at all.

I would guess that the Pegida demonstrators, in pinstripes or not, mostly have jobs, and all have a place to live and basic rights and enough food to eat. They may have gotten hungry on the way back from that march in Dresden. I wouldn't be surprised if some Pegida demonstrators stopped at the kebab shop for a Doner sandwich, that staple of Turkish-German fast food, on their way home.

I am back in blog action, after a week or two off. And I am planning a holiday-esque binge of writing over the next few days. So expect a steady stream of posts along with your egg nog and cookies. I'll even space them out so you can keep reading while I am on vacation and offline.

Losing veins, keeping kidneys

This week I've been dealing with veins. Sorry, this is a little gross. I am not old (by most people's standards) nor am I obese (that's pretty much for sure) and I don't smoke. But somehow the veins in my legs were big and blue and angry. They needed to come out.

So that brought me into a new experience with the German health care system (don't worry, there will be no photos in this post).

When I first went to the doctor, it was clear that he wasn't too confident in his English. He did seem very confident in my German, however, so we rolled with it and I did the whole thing in German. I must have communicated well enough, because as far as I know I still have both kidneys. I was hoping there wouldn't be any surgery. I was envisioning some kind of laser, or maybe a saline solution. The doctor was envisioning knives. And he won. So I went under the knife Monday for what's considered a very minor surgery.

After it was all over, I woke up in a recovery room with my legs all bandaged up, my plastic booties back on and a blanket over me.  It seemed as if all my internal organs were in place. In case I had forgotten in my drugged up state that I was living in Germany, I remembered pretty fast. When I was thirsty, the medical assistant poured me warm fizzy water from a glass bottle. She told me I had to stay for 2 hours and would not be realeased until I ate at least one half of a bread roll (brötchen) and drank some tea. I could choose from a roll with cheese and Wurst or just cheese. I asked for one plain, and was told it was not possible. There are a lot of kinds of Wurst. Some are sliced like salami, some are in links, some are in coils, and others are suspended in gelatin like a jell-o mix gone wrong. There was no way to know what kind would come out on my brötchen. I went with cheese.


Since then, I am in no pain but I am not very good at being sick. I am annoyed by sitting still and I really want to go for a run. In short, this whole thing makes me cranky. Imagine what would happen if I had a real medical problem, or if I'd misunderstood and the doctor took out a kidney instead.

The leftovers

It was a good Thanksgiving weekend. Here are a few bits and pieces for you:

The dinner was delicious, everyone was happy to be there, the apartment looked as good as it ever has, and the only one who broke something was me. I whacked the stem off a wine glass in my left hand with a can of whip cream while vigorously shaking with in my right hand. The whip cream was meant for the pumpkin pie that everyone was too full to eat.

From left: the bird, baby Ivo, Thorsten and me with potatoes

The Pilgrims won the Puten Bowl yet again.

Pilgrims planning their offense

Pilgrims and Indians make peace and get ready to party together

Little Juno is already an American football fan

And then there was a party. A really good party. And lots of turkey sandwiches.
Even with all the cleaning up, I was very thankful.

Were there leftovers at the first Thanksgiving? There was not a 22 pound Butterball or cranberry sauce from a can, but maybe they had a few bits of venison and some squash to spare. Venison pot pie is probably delicious.

I don't get political too often on this blog, but I can't pass up this one:

And that's a wrap of Thanksgiving. Advent has begun and the Christmas markets are open. Time to ditch the pumpkins, unpack the stockings, and eat the last few slices of pumpkin pie. I promise to be careful with the can of whip cream.

It's turkey time

Thanksgiving is here again.
Need a refresher on how to celebrate a classic American holiday in the heart of northern Germany? Check out this post from last year: How to celebrate Thanksgiving in Hannover.

There a few changes from last year. Brian can't take a personal day, since he already took a personal week when went to the U.S. in October. And the four Lithuanian folk dancers will not be in town to play in the football game, also known as Puten Bowl III. There is a big addition, though: NFL football. Brian has signed us up for a free trial on nfl.com so that we can stream the Bears vs. Lions game on Thanksgiving day (night for us). It'll be perfect. Like men all over America, Brian, Dizzy, baby Ivo and Sankey the Englishman can sit on our sofa and watch football while the women do... everything else. 

It's our fourth Hannover Thanksgiving, and I feel like a pro. I know where to buy cranberries and cornmeal, and what's a good price on sweet potatoes. I know how to roast my own pumpkins. And I know where to get the turkey. It comes from this happy lady at Hedda's Bauernladen.

Photo credit goes to Kaska

I am not sure if this is Hedda or not, but she was pretty excited about selling me this turkey. She asked me in two different languages if I would like to have the heart, liver and guts. Maybe she didn't believe me when I told her "nein", so she asked again in English to be sure. I was wary of getting a Giganturkey like I had last year, but this one is just big. I was able to carry it home in my backpack without any back injuries.

After dinner for eleven on Thursday, Brian will host the Puten Bowl flag football on Saturday (Pute is turkey in German) and we have a party Saturday night for just about everyone we know.

Thanksgiving is a harvest celebration. This year in Hannover, Brian and I celebrate the beer harvest. Sure, we have pumpkins and corn and all that. But carrying five cases of beer up the five flights to our apartment has really been hard work. This weekend we enjoy the fruits of our labors. But then we will do what the pilgrims never had to - carry all the empties back to the store and collect our deposits.

It's the night before Thanksgiving. All over the U.S., people are traveling. It's the biggest travel day of the year and, like I did for many years, Americans are trekking hundreds of miles to be with their families. I can't get to mine this year, but Brian and I have made this our special, weekend-long holiday in Hannover.  We live far from home and so do most of our expat friends, so Thanksgiving makes us like one big family. Just like at a real family party, there are those people you really enjoy seeing and look forward to talking to. There are those people who are always mildly offensive, and yet you are stuck with them. There are men on the couch and ladies in the kitchen and a few little kids running around. Something gets spilled, maybe a glass is broken, everyone eats too much and this year there will be football playing in the living room. It sounds like a perfect turkey day to me. For that, I am thankful.

Books

This post is not about our U.S. trip, but I started writing it after visiting the Midway Book Store. I never went there when we lived in Saint Paul. I have no idea why. I guess for the same reason I never went to the Korean barbecue restaurant or the Mill City Museum. I just didn't. And it's a shame, because Midway is a paradise of used, well-loved books. As I stood there, holding one book in each hand and trying to feel which was lighter (I was only allowing myself to get only one),  I started thinking about my history with books.

It used to be simple - pick one that looks interesting and take it home. In our house we had several shelves of books, which all had to be sold when we moved to Germany. It seemed cruel to leave them like that, but there was only so much room on the container ship. We gave a few away and put the rest out at our moving sale. At least I got to meet the people who would take them home. What was left ended up on the counter at a used book store. The pile of them - textbooks, novels, non-fiction - sold for next to nothing.  I felt like I'd thrown them out in the gutter.

Now, buying books is a complex emotional experience. It's not just deciding if I can take the weight and shape of one in my suitcase, it's the knowing that I will have to part with it someday.

 I love libraries and the pleasure of checking out more books than I'll have time to read. At some set date they are due back and our relationship has a natural end point. There is no long-term commitment there, no expectation of underlining or shelf space or messages inside the front cover. 

In Hannover, I can get some books in English at the public library, and Spanish books too. By now. I think I have read most of the titles on the Spanish shelf. Books here are passed around between our expat friends. Most often we get them from those who have been here long enough to build a shelf of books they bought abroad, or ordered online, or borrowed from someone and never returned.

Now I have this e-reader thing. It was a re-gift from my dad who had one already. When I was a kid, I'd come along on a Saturday when he would buy a stack of spy novels and westerns from the used paperback shop. Then he'd sell them all back a few weeks later. Now he can do the same thing electronically.

The e-reader is incredibly practical and it feels like cheating. I don't see the cover staring at me from the night stand when I wake up. There is no smell of old pages, no bookmark that someone forgot to take out, no need to write your name on it. In school, I always chose the inside cover or the title page top right. Brian wrote MCCARTHY in big black Sharpie letters along the edge of all the pages, so that the letters split open as he read. No new owner could ever deny who'd had that book first.


Used books and library books have a mysterious past. Someone took them on vacation. Someone stayed up late to finish reading them. Someone smeared chocolate on page 32. I wonder what shelves my books are sitting on these days, and who their readers are.

I ended up buying two books at Midway that day. I know, I know, I broke my own rule. But the second one was really light.

The tour ends

That's all I am going to write about our U.S. trip. There are many people we enjoyed seeing along the way. There are many people who fed us, housed us, made time for us, and made us feel loved. You know who you are and I can't name all of you or my readers would get bored. Thank you.

Blue October

My posts about our trip would not be complete without mentioning the Royals.

A lot of things have happened since I was in kindergarten. The Berlin Wall came down, the internet was invented, the Twin Towers were attacked... But since I was in kindergarten, the Kansas City Royals baseball team has not made it to the post-season. At all.

I know this so well because my husband is very faithful - to me and to the Royals. In fact, he has been in love with the Royals longer than he's been in love with me, and almost every year they break his heart. At one point I tried convincing him to cheer for another team that would make him happy, at least some of the time.

This year, the Royals got all the way to the World Series and made Brian very, very happy. They made all of Kansas City happy, and all of the Midwest even. Everybody likes an underdog. In KC, it seemed like everyone wore Royals shirts and waved Royals flags from their doorways or their cars. The water in the public fountains was dyed bright blue and the skyscrapers lit up a big blue KC through their windows at night. It was Blue October. I like that name because it sounds poetic. There's also a band called Blue October, but I'm sure they have fewer fans than the Royals do.

And no, they didn't win the World Series. But for the first time in 29 years, everyone who cares at all about baseball was impressed by the Royals. And those who have loved the Royals faithfully for so long finally got the season they deserved.

McCarthy Midwest Tours, to Kansas

Then our tour traveled south, to Kansas City. It's amazing to think about how far you can go in the U.S. without turning. There is one highway, I-35, that goes from Duluth, Minnesota to Laredo, Texas. So you can drive from almost-Canada to the Mexico border on the same road. Brian and I have done the Saint Paul to Kansas City stretch over and over. But the familiar stretches of I-35 led us to an unfamiliar place this time. As part of our Midwest tour, we visited the site where the plane carrying Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and the Big Bopper crashed in 1959. It's near Clear Lake, Iowa. But really it's in somebody's corn field.

The glasses are the only thing that marks the way to the crash site

This is when I make a side comment about traveling without a smart phone, GPS, or even a map. My husband wrote down very good directions. There are some moments, though, when having one of these devices (the kind that beeps, or the kind that folds) would have helped.

We got a little lost on the gravel roads and made a nervous Sankey, our foreign celebrity, get out and ask a real Iowa farmer for directions. We were headed to the only place that an out-of-towner would try to find on the outskirts of Clear Lake. That farmer already knew the question before he heard that English accent.

In Kansas City we moved fast. We juggled visits with Brian's mom, dad, stepmom and with barbecue-eating and sightseeing. Friends made a huge effort to see us (or to see Brian, really). Joe flew his whole family in from Baltimore, while Nick somehow managed a long weekend trip from Orlando, and then there were all the people nearby to see... the hardest part was not having quite enough time.

This was the suburban part of the Midwestern tour. The Kansas City area never ceases to confuse me with its tangle of highways, streets that are numbered to the triple digits, and the uneasy sense of never quite knowing which state I am in.

Beyond the reach of the strip malls, my father-in-law took us to breakfast at Wanda's, the quintessential small town greasy spoon. Wanda herself was in the kitchen, dishing up portions that I can only describe as American-sized.

This is not Wanda's but an equally cool small-town bar

We also had a great night out in the city, starting with the World War I museum, then to a bar with live jazz, then to a steakhouse (which had been a speakeasy in the 30s) with live jazz.  The Kansas City leg of the trip was challenging for John, a vegetarian who dabbles in veganism. He ate a lot of french fries.

Downtown Kansas City

Me out with the fellas

To top it all off, we went to the Kansas State football game in Manhattan, Kansas. I never claimed to be a football fan, but this was my first big college game and it was a blast. We got in courtesy of chef Mike, a high school friend of Brian's who is now the head chef for K State athletics. We followed the game up by tail-gaiting in a parking lot that backed up to a farm with some goats. It was enough to make me proud to wear purple.

At Bill Snyder stadium

Sankey looks very American, with football, Budweiser, grill and pickup truck

John never eats meat, but now that he's seen this 'eat beef' license plate, he's thinking about it

Buddies of all sizes: Pete, Joe, Brian and chef Mike

While in Manhattan, we slept at a Motel 6. Then we ate breakfast at Denny's. And while we lamented the lack of small-town diners like Wanda's and the fact that Denny was not actually back in the kitchen, we really enjoyed the food. Sankey ordered 'moons over my hammy,' just because he got a kick out of saying it. And as we were packing up to leave the Motel 6, I noticed him talking with a man in a pickup truck. He had struck up a conversation and made a new American friend. After just a week in the U.S., Sankey had come a long way.

MSP part 2

I know I sounded very affectionate about the Twin Cities in my last post. I would like you to know that it's currently snowing there in early November.
The would have been much less affection if I had not gotten out just in time!

Back to the McCarthy Midwest Tour:
 Throughout the vacation, we got to see and do more than we would on a usual visit. The excuse was these two guys:

Sankey (without hair) and John (with lots of hair) at Como Lake, Saint Paul.

John and (Matt) Sankey came from Hannover to join in for two weeks of our travels. The whole idea started when we went with a group of friends to see the movie 'Nebraska' last winter. It involves a lot of stark but beautiful landscapes, Main Street scenes, and tight-lipped Midwesterners. The film got the guys talking about how it would be cool to see "the real America", as in not Miami or New York or San Francisco. Brian and I happen to be pretty real ourselves, and invited them along on our trip. Of the group, only these two guys came along. And John is from Illinois so he almost doesn't count. But we set out for the 'real America' anyway - the rural, urban, and suburban parts - and Brian and I got to see it too.

While in the Twin Cities, 'real' sightseeing included both downtowns, sports bars, trivia bars, two museums, second hand stores, record shops, Mexican restaurants and the mall (Not THE mall as in the Mall Of America. That's where I draw the line on true Americanness).

Brian and John at the Stone Arch Bridge, Minneapolis

Our old and new worlds collided a little as we showed John and Sankey around, but it felt just fine. Even the ugly highways, the public housing, the flabby arms and big box stores seemed to fit into comfortable corners of my brain. It hasn't been that long, after all. I remembered which buses run down which streets, how to get from East 7th to Payne and how you can see the sun set over the Minneapolis skyline while driving down East Hennepin.

Sankey, who is English, was a little shocked at the aggressive friendliness of the Minnesotans. Minnesota nice is not just a catch phrase. And he wondered at the lack of corner stores. The Cities, while very liveable and bike-friendly by American standards, draw a clear line between where you go to live and where you go to work, shop and eat.  Most people travel from one area to the other by car.

Having him along also confirmed my impression that Americans are wowed by English accents.
Sankey is from Birmingham. His accent is as rough and redneck as they come in England. Yet he could recite instructions for how to operate your blender and, to most Americans, he'd sound cultured and refined. Sankey was our own celebrity, and the excuse for all of us to go to interesting places.

McCarthy Midwest tours - MSP part 1

We just spent three weeks in the U.S. My trips back home are harder to write about than trips to  somewhere completely new. Maybe it's too emotional. You guys aren't reading my diary, after all. Or maybe it seems to normal to be blog-worthy (ha, like that has stopped me before). Or maybe I am just too distracted by Target and massive soft drinks to write.

This trip had it all. We were guests and hosts and tourists and homecomers. It was busy and exciting and a lot of fun. The whole reason we came to town was for Luke and Jackie's wedding. They met around a fire on the patio at our house. Now they were getting married in Saint Paul in October. 

The happy couple

Slightly jet lagged but also happy

Minnesota in October is a smell. It's a way that you breathe in the red leaves and the branches that start green and grow to gold and crimson as they reach out. It's dry, crisp sunshine and cool frosty nights. Minnesota in October is how we got married. It's when Brian decided it was time to start raking the lawn and I reasoned that the leaves would only keep coming down so we might as well wait. October was fires on the patio and Halloween parties.

We have fall in Germany too, but it's not quite the same. And there was one year I didn't have any fall. I was 20 and living a semester Chile, it was a year with two springs. Brian picked colorful leaves for me that October, laminated them while student teaching and sent them in the mail. I taped the laminated leaves to my bedroom wall.

Being back in the Twin Cities in the fall felt good. It had been a while and there is a new way to get around town. The Green Line train cruises its long slow trail through both cities, from sedate downtown Saint Paul, past University Avenue's Vietnamese restaurants, Hmong mechanics, Somali groceries and warehouse condos to the U of M's white columns and fresh faces, into downtown Minneapolis past its stadium construction and bar district.

Of course you could travel this route before, in the city bus or your own car. But maybe I am excited for the light rail because it's more... European. There's a funny switch. I spend enough time in Hannover wishing for friendlier strangers and better restaurants. Now I go back to Minnesota longing for faster trains, more bike lanes and fresher bread.

a tangent along those lines:

Whenever we try to check in for flights from the U.S. to Europe, the airport kiosks tell us no. They send us to wait in line at the check-in counter, because it doesn't compute that we are returning to Europe. Our tickets have no return date. We are Americans without tickets back to America and that makes us suspicious.
It also makes our trips to the U.S. not so normal... and worth writing about.

Bremen, or eating goat in the dark

I'm hopping off the tour bus for a bit to tell you about Bremen. October 3rd is the Tag der Deutschen Einheit, the celebration of East and West Germany getting back together in 1990. There's only one official German celebration, and it was in Hannover this year. With streets blocked and tourists flooding in, we went to Bremen for the weekend instead.

Bremen was the first German city I had ever heard of, before I knew what Germany was. You might remember the Bremen Town Musicians, a crew of misfit animals who leave life on the farm to seek their fortunes as musicians in Bremen. Only they never get there. The animals catch some robbers in their hideout, scare them away and live in the house happily ever after. So Bremen is famous for these animals who never arrived.

When you ask someone in Hannover about Bremen, they sort of shrug and say, "it's close by". I think there's a bit of an inferiority complex going on. It would be logical if Bremen were part of Niedersachsen, the same state that Hannover is the capital of. But Bremen, Luebeck and Hamburg are city-states. Bremen is, therefore, the tiniest state in Germany. It was one of those Hanseatic Cities for a few hundred years, and powerful enough that it didn't need to be part of the Kingdom of Hannover, or any other kingdom, thank you very much. This city, which is about the same size as Hannover, has a few things to be proud of (besides the animal musicians). It is Germany's second largest port and, despite heavy bombings in World War II, its old city is largely intact, and beautiful.

Bremen Rathaus

This is a giant statue of Roland, Charlemagne's nephew and legendary warrior

I was on a quest to find this statue of the Bremen Town Musicians

The word for pug in German is Mops. Even though this one is a statue, I decided to pet him.

In the winding alleys of the Schnoor quarter

Our favorite part of Bremen, however, had nothing to do with churches or ports or singing animals. After wandering past larger and fancier spots along the river front, we ended up at Christy's West African Restaurant for dinner. We had never been to a West African restaurant, or to West Africa at all, but immediately felt at home. As soon as we arrived, the hostess said, "sit anywhere you like," in English. There was no attempt at German, because she didn't speak it. Three guys sitting by the bar were laughing. A TV was on and music was playing, at least for a while. Soon after we ordered, the power went out. So we drank Nigerian beers in the dark while the hostess fussed with lighting candles. The lights went back on, then off again. I ordered jollof rice with fish and plantains, Brian ordered goat with yams. The lights went on, but only in the front of the building. The three guys at the bar got up and started debating, as men in any culture would, which fuses must have blown, how to fix them and how to plug in the TV so that it might work. They didn't know what they were doing. Then we heard Christy up in the kitchen calling the landlord and yelling at him in loud but broken German. I am pretty sure no one has ever yelled at him like that before. As our food arrived, we realized this was the most fun we'd had at a restaurant in months.

In Germany, everything works almost perfectly, all of the time. The trains run on time, the streets are clean, pedestrians wait for green lights, no one yells. It was comforting to be in a place where things were a little unpredictable and a little bit broken. It was fun to chat with the hostess and not think through how to say the right thing in German. And the food was delicious.

Bremen can be proud of being a port city, or an independent state, or home of the singing cat and donkey. Its old town is pretty special too. But the best part of our visit there was eating at Christy's, where somehow eating goat in the dark made us feel right at home.

I'm back

I'm back - and in an attempt to not let you miss a single thrilling moment I am going to post chronologically-ish about what happened in the past month or so. Current thrills include me sitting in my Hannover living room in sweatpants and wondering if the rain will stop, so it's best if we go back in time a little bit.

in the USA...

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

Linden

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

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

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

Hanomag factory

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

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

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

Ihme Zentrum

Ihme Zentrum

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

Limmerstrasse

Biergarten Gretchen

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