Fire Alarm Friendship

I went to the Scottish country dance group again last night and it was fun and friendly. Last week it felt awkward and only one person really talked to me, so I was ambivalent about going back. But this week there were some other dancers there who were very friendly and friendlier still when they saw I knew the figures. Today I'm going to try an "open singing circle" at the "state church's women's league." I don't really know what it is, but the music calendar says it's for all who have fun singing.

There was a fire alarm in our building, incredibly loud, and when I went outside, I finally met a neighbor, who lives just 2 doors along the same hall. He and his wife are Australian; he was a park ranger in New Zealand and they're here because his wife is doing a biology postdoc on aphids on cabbages. He was out bird watching Sun. in the snowstorm in an area adjacent to where we were. So I invited them over for dinner Fri. I'm also thinking of organizing a game night to bring some of our fellow Leibnizhaus residents out of the woodwork. I'm going to see if I can borrow a game or two from Benno's family.

I walked down and found the nearest swimming pool yesterday. It's a 50 meter pool and looks nice. Complicated opening hours, just like everything in Germany. Why something can't just be open 9-5 MF or 10-8 MF is a mystery to me! Each shop, bank, government office, library, etc. has different opening hours every day, e.g. Mo. 3-8, Tues. 9-11:30, 3-6, Wed. closed, Thurs. 10-12, 1-4, Fri. 9-3, + some crazy days which are not holidays that they just happen to be closed. Some banks are open and yet the tellers aren't open at certain times! One of the frustrating, nonsensical culture riddles.  It is way better than it was the first time we lived here. I remember a week-long search to find the university American Lit library in Marburg, hidden in an alley behind the train station far from the English lit library, only to find it closed for 2 weeks and then only open Wed. nights and Fri. mornings or something. Maddening. The Anglistik & Linguistic Library here is open lots and packed with students, hardly an empty seat. It's also open stack, which is rare in Germany. I like to browse. Usually here (in the main uni library, for example) the stacks are closed and you fill out a slip with your book request and it comes on a book elevator from the vault 1-2 hours after you request it. I read a Barbara Pym novel yesterday--witty and it makes me so glad that women's liberation freed our generation to do more than make tea and help men with their projects.

1st Weekend in Hannover: Sunday: Church, Grasdorf, Bach's St. John's Passion

Sun. as we got off the streetcar for church it started to snow again. So beautiful. The church has a picture window on one side and it was a pleasure to look out at the whirling snow. We had bought a day pass on the streetcar line in order to go out and visit a nature center, but during lunch it was snowing so hard we wondered whether to go. In the end, we didn't want to waste the ticket, so we went. We got off the sbahn at a small village (Grasdorf=grass village) on the edge of town with the snow coming down fast. Beautiful old houses and a church. We walked through deserted streets, on a path beside a church to the nature center. Rich had called ahead to make sure it was open, and the man greeted us and was eager to tell us about the pair of storks that just started nesting and then were caught by the return of winter. We walked along a river and saw the stork nest, but I think the storks decided to fly south again. They can fly 800 km a day, so why wouldn't they opt for Spain or Africa over this snow? They have radio trackers on three pairs and he said the laziest one wintered in Spain and one (a female) wintered in South Africa. We saw beaver houses, lapwings, wagtails, and a hawk. The snow stopped for our walk, but pretty cold.

Grasdorf Church

Bauernhof (Farm courtyard), Grasdorf 

Fence & Brickwork, Grasdorf

Beaver Houses, walk in the Laatzen nature center near Grasdorf

Stork statue, Nature Center

We took the streetcar back into town and walked over to another church for another concert: Bach's St. John's Passion with an orchestra playing historical wooden instruments. Lovely. I was frozen by the end and glad to come home to our nice, warm apt. We have a calendar for concerts in the churches and there are concerts every day, a lot over Easter.

The L'Abri branch for Germany happens to be in Hannover, so I sent an email and we got invited after Easter to meet the people who run it. I'm going to try  an Offener Singkreis (open singing group) at the Lutheran women's organization on Wed. and sent an email off to someone who runs an English-speaking Bible study at an international church. I also sent an email out to a book group. We'll see. I'd appreciate your prayers as I think about what to do with myself. I did enjoy a lazy day just reading Thurs., but I want to do more than that.

1st Weekend in Hannover: Saturday: Architectural Details, Maschsee Walk

One of the joys of walking around Hannover is all the architectural details: the iron work and stone carving and sayings carved or painted on the half-timbering. For example, the Ballhoff is a square a block away with a youth theater. On the Fachwerk (half-timbering) above the door it says (translated): "We youth have the task of looking for new ways and paths and having the courage to follow them." Below are pictures of a stone carving on our building and iron  work on the fountain we can see from our window in the square just below, as well as an iron dragon on the side entrance to the chemistry building. Right behind our building is a river with walk- and bikeways along it that lead toward the university. There is a "New Tower" right behind us (1787) and an old tower further down. There is a victory tower from the Napoleonic war a block away.   

Knight carving, Leibnizhaus facade

Stone Dog, Leibnizhaus facade

Close-up Ironwork on Fountain steps, Leibnizhaus

Iron dragon on the chemistry building handrail

Icicles on the weir bridge over the Leine River behind our apartment building

We had a good weekend. Sat. we bought a SIM card for a mobile phone and did other shopping, but it's more fun than in the US--all on foot in the pedestrian zone. The thing I really like here is that the German shops decorate their shop windows artistically. Right now they are all decorated for Easter in bright colors with birds and eggs, v. cheerful in contrast to the cold and grey outside. That sounds tacky, but somehow they do it tastefully and with a bit of whimsy. Even ordinary signs like McDonald's have a cultural twist, e.g. currywurst.

Easter egg wreath in front of a flower shop

Easter flower basket

Easter window, department store

Currywurst at McDonald's

Then we went for an afternoon walk along the river. The Maschsee (big artificial lake just south of the city center) is frozen and it was fun to watch a mallard duck slipping and sliding as he walked.

Frozen Maschsee  with the old city hall behind

Mallards on ice

Crocuses & snowdrops, Maschsee walk

In the evening we went to an a capella concert--gorgeous music from 1500 to the present. Cold in the church though. One lady on our row brought a blanket. These old churches would be too expensive to really heat. People took off their hats and gloves, but kept their coats on, which was a clue.

1st Week in Hannover

Here are some pictures I thought you would like. The first is of an outdoor cafe table covered in snow with a window box in the background and the 2nd is a close-up of the window box with the start of spring bulbs. The restaurant is in a square just a block away called Ballhof, because it has a fountain with a ball in it.

Snow on outside tables, Ballhof

Windowbox

Ballhof with Marktkirche (Market church) in the background

Rich brought home some red and yellow tulips yesterday that have opened today, but it's pretty wintry outside right now. The low was ~19 and the high was ~23 F yesterday.

I've had an interesting week, exploring a bit and trying things out, trying to figure out how I want to spend my time. Mon. night Jens had us over for pizza. Tues. I tried a Frauenkreis (women's circle) from the church and a Scottish Country Dance group. The first was friendly, but they spent 20 min. discussing how to wash windows! The latter was v. disorganized, but I do like to dance, so I'll probably go back. Wed. I ate at the cafeteria with Rich and Jens and tried a recorder orchestra in the evening. Friendly, but lots of new music and the director writes the alto score in the wrong octave because she thinks it's easier for the kids to learn; consequently, I couldn't sightread it, which was frustrating. Anyway, I'm still trying to figure out how to spend my time. I did find a treasure of English books today in the English & Linguistics library at the university. I've been trying to use my tablet, but the selection of ebooks in our library runs more to romance and second-rate mysteries than anything I'd really like to read. I'm also exploring options for taking language courses. When the weather warms up a bit, I'm hoping to explore the city by bicycle. At the SCD group someone told me about an Indian shop that sells PG Tips tea, and I found it yesterday.

There are lots of concerts.  I bought tickets to a choral group for tomorrow night and we'll go to some Easter concerts. I'm thinking about how to join a choir. Rich's church doesn't have one at the moment. Rich has been fortunate in that there is a prof who is gone to N. America who is letting Rich use his v. nice, spacious office.

Chemistry Building, Leibniz University

Bangkok to Germany

Our flight over the snow-covered mountains of Afghanistan was stunning. We arrived in Hannover just before midnight Sat. after being awake more than 24 hours, since we got up at 5:00 a.m. to be at the Bangkok airport and there is a 6 hour time difference between Germany and Thailand. As Mark Twain says (Following the Equator),the hours are stale from disuse, but we gained some more of the time we left behind at the international date line in Jan. When we changed trains in Fulda, it was not so cold and my fleecy and socks and scarf were adequate, but it was much more wintry here, just above freezing and raining, and people were wearing winter coats, gloves, and hats.  It was nice to see Jens’s smiling face and have his help with the luggage. Jens picked up our keys for us, drove us over to the Leibnizhaus, and helped get our stuff up the elevator and into our apartment. It turns out to be the same apartment Ross and I stayed in when we visited Rich at Easter break from Edinburgh 6 years ago. It’s got a window seat in the bedroom and the living room looks out on a square with a pretty well (see picture below). It's in the pedestrian zone in the city center. It was lightly snowing Sun. morning and starting to stick. Very quiet except for the sound of church bells, a sound I love.

Leibnizhaus (we lived in the modern part on the left on the third floor)

View out our living room window on Easter Sunday: Holzmarktbrunnen = Wood market well

View out our window of the Holzmarkt square, Historical museum, and half-timbered houses

View out our living room window of the parking lot and Leineschloss-Niedersächsischer Landtag (former palace & parliament for this province)

Sat. when we got here, we were so tired we were about to fall asleep on our feet, but first needed to wrestle with fetterbetts to get them into the duvet covers, a task I dreaded the first time I lived in Germany. Fetterbetts are basically puffy and shapeless, and  you have to tame them  into submission to fit them into square covers. The trick that every German housewife has mastered is to grab a corner of the fetterbett and hold it tight so it can’t get away, and then almost turn the cover inside out as you establish it firmly in the inside corner of the cover. Next you grab it with your other hand from the outside so it can’t escape. Then you try to do the same with the other corner with only 1 free hand. If you let go of the first corner, you’re sunk and will end up with a shapeless lump. When you have both corners trapped from the outside, you give the whole thing a very firm shake and let it know who’s boss and it will suddenly give up  and turn into a nice square cover.  The ones here are quilted artificial filling instead of real goose down, so they were easier to tame, and luckily both Rich and I are old hands at this and our skill came back to us.

We took the light rail out to church, enjoying the beauty of the falling snow, such a contrast to Bangkok. We were finally glad to dig out our winter clothes after schlepping them ¾ of the way around the world. It was ~27 F (-4 degrees C). Last week we were in a Lao church and this week sang in German. A nice intro with a kid playing a beautiful alto recorder solo. Everyone is v. friendly and glad to meet Rich’s frau. After church we were invited to Benno’s family for lunch. (Benno was our German exchange with us who lived with us 2 years ago.) It was his father Helmut’s birthday Fri., so they had planned a surprise bbq with neighbors and guests, but had to have it inside. 3 kinds of cake.  A very nice beginning to our stay here.

Helmut's Birthday Cake

Today we unpacked and got set up with the Leibnizhaus and the bank and bought some groceries. Rich walked to work and I'm going to find out about concerts, soccer, etc. Nice to unpack and have a real kitchen.

Bangkok

We're in Bangkok till Sat. when we fly to Germany.

On our last day in Phonsavan we toured a silk farm run by a women's cooperative, seeing everything from the bushes to the final woven scarves and cloth. The women who runs it wants Peter, our host, to help start another such demonstration farm in another area. We stopped to walk around that property on our way north. This Laos-Bangkok portion of our trip is more about seeing development work that our friends are involved in than sightseeing, so we've seen several corn storage sites and yesterday we saw a sewing business for Issan women and a school.

Making silk thread

Annato seeds for dye

Silk after spinning and dyeing

Sat. we drove from Phonsavan to Vientiane on a v. windy road through karst mountains and many Hmong and Khmu villages. Just as we drove out of town, we saw this band of boys running with sticks and nooses, holding lizards. We saw many small garden plots 4-8 feet off the ground and fenced with bamboo to keep the chickens out. We went through one village and I yelled to Peter to stop, because I had to take a picture of a bocce ball game.

Boys hunting lizards, Phonsavan

Village along the road

Raised Garden Beds

 Playing bocce ball

Eating waiwai with Ruth and Peter Dutton on the road back to Vientiane

Small village along the road with karst topography

I could send lots of pictures of water buffalos on the road, families and goods on motor scooters and bicyles, and street vendors, all of which I find endlessly fascinating.

Carrying broomgrass on a scooter

Sat. we jump into the tail end of winter in Germany. I was thinking last Sun., as we were worshipping in a Lao church that next Sun., we'll be attending a German church in Hannover. Benno's family (our German exchange student) invited us to lunch afterwards.