Basel

Wednesday all my activities piled up to make for a busy day. Because the Hannover school holiday begins this week, last week was the last practice for recorder orchestra and the last meetings for the art discussion and literature discussion groups. The reading group also happened to fall on Wednesday, so I had meetings at 10:00, 3:00, 5:45, and 7:00, all in different parts of town, about 8-9 km. apart. I originally decided to just get a day pass for the underground, but the problem is that the lines go to the middle of town and not across the perimeter and I didn't really have time to go back into town and switch lines. So I ended up bicycling 42 km. on the hottest day of the year. It was about 93 or 95 and very humid. Fortunately, several of my trips took me through the urban forest on shady bike paths. At my 3:00 group reading through the play of "West Side Story," my Peruvian hostess served iced tea and I savored my first ice cube since leaving the U.S.

The "Let's Talk About Art" discussion was interesting. An art history major from Poland and an art education major from Hong Kong led a discussion of 20th century art based on tales from Ovid's Metamorphoses. They had discussed Metamorphoses in classical art the month before.

Thursday morning we enjoyed being lazy sitting on the train to Basel. When we arrived in Basel, we had 2 hours to kill before Christoph and Astrid got home from work, so we walked down to the Tinguely Museum, right above the Rhine. Tinguely built kinetic sculptures out of junk. Here's a video of the fountain outside the museum:

Tinguely Fountain

Lots of fun. There was a special exhibit by another artist, Zilvinas Kempinas, featuring kinetic sculptures out of magnetic tape and fans: a circle of tape magically floating in chaotic patterns powered by a fan mounted on the ceiling and an endlessly erupting volcano of tape rippling on the floor.

Kempinas Volcano

We took the streetcar to the Ruckstuhl's. Christoph took us by bicycle to the local swimming pool for a quick dip. It felt good to cycle and swim after sitting in the train all day. When I was kicking off from the wall about halfway through laps, Christoph told me that we should leave immediately. I can't see much without my contacts in, but the sky was dark and the wind was blowing. We got soaked cycling home; with raindrops in our eyes we could hardly see to cycle and blindly followed Christoph. Only water, slightly colder than the pool. A nice evening catching up with them.

Thursday morning we took the train to Zurich and had a hasty walk along the river before catching the train to the airport to meet David Rankin coming from Edinburgh. He is an alpine flower specialist and had chosen Gschnitz, Austria, as a place to look for alpine flowers. Stepping out of the train station in Zurich, I was thrilled to find a drinking fountain. I always miss them when I'm in Germany, where all the fountains say "Kein Trinkwasser" (no drinking water). The Swiss offer potable water freely.

Swiss Drinking Fountain, Zurich

Bikes & Boats

I just finished a fun book: In the City of Bikes. Pete Jordan, an urban planning student, moves to Amsterdam to study how to make American cities more bike friendly and instead falls in love with Amsterdam's bike culture. He enthuses about biking in the city and surveys the city's bicycling history. His first chapter expressing his astonishment at the number and variety of cyclists matches my own experience in Groningen.

One surprise: the Dutch had two bicycling army regiments before WWII.
"Like other army regiments, the Cyclists Regiment had its own military band, though with a twist: its musicians performed while riding. The horn and reed players rode with special handlebar extensions that allowed them to steer their bikes with their elbows." with a quote from an observer at the time: "The surprising spectacle of the Cyclists Regiment's music corps--an almost acrobatic display---" "Bike riding and music playing appear to go well together...a sweet pleasure to see and hear! At no time did the drummers lose the dauntless tempo." (Chapter 9, pages 4-5)

Last Wednesday Rich met me after recorder rehearsal and we rode along the canal to the same restaurant on a barge where we'd eaten Easter lunch while the snow was falling. This time we ate dinner sitting on top watching the barges glide by. Very pleasant summer evening.

Barge Restaurant

Bow Wave of Barge 

We both love to cycle along the canal. We ran across some kayakers playing kayak water polo, which seemed to be a cross between soccer and keep-away.

Kayak Water Polo

 



In contrast to the wild west of Amsterdam cycling, Hannover cyclists are staid and law-abiding, patiently waiting for the very long red lights. I am still astounded and grateful as taxis wait for me to cross instead of turning right across my path. However, I came to grief on the way home from dinner on the barge. I was cycling on a bike path along the main road when a car approached to turn right. She slowed down and then didn't see me, so she put her foot on the gas. I went flying. Luckily, no broken bones, no trip to the hospital, no major damage to my bike. Just minor bruises and scrapes. Rich was right behind me and saw me go flying and heard the crack, so he was quite upset, but I didn't have time to think. Ironic that my first collision with a car would be in Hannover where drivers give cyclists the right-of-way 99% of the time. It's just that 1%. Glad I was wearing my helmet.

Here's a picture of some of what I'm reading. I just finished reading Great Gatsby again for the 3rd time. I wanted to read it again before seeing the movie, but, after reading the book, I watched a trailer for the movie and it didn't seem to fit with my images from the book. The movie seems to focus on the glitz of the 20s parties instead of the loneliness of Gatsby staring at the green light at the end of Daisy's pier. Maybe I'll skip the movie.

My eBookshelf

I'm on the waiting list for Kate Atkinson's Life After Life, and mistakenly checked out another book with the same title. Haven't started it yet. Returned Benediction by Kent Haruf and Flora by Gail Godwin. I liked Kent Haruf's other books, set in small towns on the plains east of Denver, and this one is good too. Slow, meditative, chewing over a life's mistakes while dying. Flora has the same claustrophobic imminent-doom mood of Turn of the Screw. Not fun, but well-written.

 

Book suggestions are always welcome!

 



Harz Mountains: Quedlinburg, Bodetal, Wernigerode

Saturday Bernd and Renate, friends from church, took us to see a World Heritage town on the edge of the Harz Mountains in the former East German side. Although living in flat Hannover is great for bicycling, it was nice for me to see some hills. We wandered through the quiet pedestrian-zone streets of the old town, enjoying the beautiful half-timbered buildings , slate and tile roofs, and flowers in  the window boxes.

Quedlinburg Rathaus (City Hall)

Slate Tile Patterns

and wound our way up to the hill with the castle and 10th century Romanesque church. Some wandering stone carvers from Lombardy (Italy) did the stone carving with fanciful animals which reminded me of the illustrations in the Book of Kells.

Book of Kells-style Stone Carvings in St. Servatius Church

Carved Stone Column with Stained Glass Windows, St. Servatius

There was a creepy exhibit about how this church was taken over by the Nazis to promote their Germanic heritage worship.



Afterwards, we toured the castle with a costumed guide and walked out to the castle gardens for wonderful views of the city. Everything is green and lush from the recent heavy rainfall.

View from Castle Hill Garden

Quedlinburg Rooftops

While wandering around the town, I saw this placard for advice on mushrooms:

Ad for Mushroom Advice



We then drove over to Thale to see the Grand Canyon of Germany, the Bodetal. We took a ski lift to the top of one of the hills, hiked along to an overlook, had a picnic supper, and then walked back down to our car. On the way, we saw this wonderful kletterpark (climbing playground), which I thought our kids would love. As soon as I saw it, I thought about how we could build such a park in our backyard. No problems with liability insurance here.

Waldkletterpark (Forest Climbing Park)





 Waldkletterpark 

When we got back in the car, Renate and I were astonished that the men had decided to still visit Wernigerode, another small town "on our way home" with half-timbered houses and a castle on a hill. It turned out that one of the reasons that the other two towns had felt like ghost towns was that everyone from miles around was at the Rathaus Fest in Wernigerode, celebrating 50 years of the town hall with multiple bands, food and craft stalls, and a medieval market. So crowded that it was hard to wedge ourselves through to see the band.

Axe Throwing: Could you even do this in the U.S.? Let kids throw axes without signing a disclaimer?

Medieval Market Musicians

Anyway, another full weekend, with a dinner party Friday night, a potluck at church and a long bike ride home along the canal on Sunday, and Sunday afternoon tea with neighbors here. Too tired to go to any free concerts on Sunday. Must be getting old.

 

 

 



Out & About

Perhaps because of needing to walk Iona, Rich and I often take an after-dinner stroll. Tuesday we walked along the river toward the Maschsee, but got distracted by some green light discs floating on the water on the Maschteich (pond) behind the Neues Rathaus, so we made a detour to go see them. I had read about this art installation that is supposed to start on Saturday night, which was introduced in the tourist brochure with a quote from Picasso: "Kunst wäscht den Staub des Alltags von der Seele" (translated: Art washes the dust of the everyday from the soul.) It shows a picture of floating wands, orbs, and green discs on a pond. Anyway, we walked over and saw these glowing, green circles and a man in a rowboat putting more out. Yesterday I went by again, and he was still installing them, and the music was playing. It's supposed to start Saturday night at dusk, but I'm not sure I'll be able to stay up that late.

Green Discs Floating on Maschteich behind the New Townhall

Setting up light installation: Seele Waschen = Soul Washing

The Germans have a custom of lovers writing their names on locks and locking them to bridges and fountains. They are all along the railings by the Maschsee and Maschteich.

Lover's Locks



Walking along the Machsee, we saw these giant 2 1/2-foot long carp swimming close to the surface. It was a lovely evening, and people were sitting on the wall eating ice cream and chatting, enjoying the long summer evening.

Huge Carp

I think I already said that at the moment it's hard to sing or talk while bike riding without swallowing gnats or fluff drifting through the air from the poplars. Here's a picture of the summer snow, cotton from the cottonwood trees, piled up along the edge of the bike path.

Summer Snow (Poplar Cotton Seeds)

 



Museum Treasures

Friday is the free day for the local museums. The only one I hadn't been to was the August Kestner Museum right beside the new townhall. It has been advertising a special exhibit on food design, which didn't sound too interesting, but there was also a special exhibit on antiquities from Cypress, so I decided to go check it out. Perhaps my favorite was this glass vase, part of a 20th century design collection.

Airy Vase

I must confess I get tired of madonnas and religious art, but I never get tired of depictions of animals. Here are a few I liked. This dog statue with ears cocked. Sigh. I miss Iona.



Egyptian Dog Statue

My aunt Mary collected owls, so I always think of her when I see paintings or statues of owls. (Likewise, my mother used to collect chickens and my mother-in-law, ducks. My cousin Read collected pigs. It's not so nice to say that whenever I see a pig, I think of you. I've never started such a collection, for fear it would soon get out-of-hand.)

Owl Mug

Egyptian Blue Frog

Cabinet Drawer with Inlaid Ivory Pelicans

The food design exhibit was moderately interesting. Do you know who invented milk powder or meat extract or frankfurters? Did you know that people like the red gummy bears best, so they put more in each package?

Food Colors

Changing the subject, Rich and I have trouble remembering whether to use der, die, or das, the German words for the to match the gender of the noun, depending on whether it's masculine, feminine, or neuter. I think my instinct is right about 30% of the time, but I may be kidding myself. When we lived in Marburg, we got them right most of the time, but our German has rusted with age. The sign on the window of this bicycle shop makes it clear.

Das, Die, Der

My daughter saw the new movie "Hannah Arendt" the other day. I walk along Hannah-Arendt-Way every other day, since it's the path that runs along the river to the Maschsee, the man-made rectangular lake. I love that the Germans name streets after scientists and people  who lived here and that the signs explain who they are. Sunday we rode along Bunsen Street, named after Robert Bunsen, a German chemist who invented the Bunsen burner, and crossed Röntgenstraße. Tuesday I rode along Nibelungenweg, which intersected Brunhildenweg. Shades of Wagner.

Hannah-Arendt-Way

 Isn't Politologin a great word?



Hannover Weekend

This weekend we stayed home, but did a lot. Friday night we were invited to join some International Women's Association members for Scottish country dance. They rent a small gym and do mostly ceilidh dances, such as "Strip the Willow" and "Gay Gordons," the easier dances that are common at any Scottish dance. A little chaotic, but fun. Afterwards, we ate tapas and talked outside at a sidewalk café, enjoying the long evening and lovely weather. Yes, it's finally summer here.

Saturday our friend Norbert from Bielefeld met our train with his canoe on top of his car for a spur-of-the-moment, there's-actually-not-a-cloud-in-the-sky outing on the Steinhuder Meer, a large, shallow lake to the west. We paddled out around a small artificial island. It looked like a perfect grassy picnic spot, but we didn't want to pay the landing fee, so we ate our picnic in our canoe in the shade on the backside of the island before being shooed away by the guard. The weather forecast predicted a windy day, not ideal for canoeing, but there was almost no wind. Still life with motionless sailboats. I had put in my swimsuit, then taken it out again, thinking that the chance of it being warm enough to swim was almost nil, and then put it back in again at the last minute on my grandmother's principle that no Siwash should ever go anywhere without a swimsuit. So Rich and Norbert dropped me off for a swim while they paddled around the badeinsel (swimming island) before we put the canoe back on the car. Norbert dropped us at the train and we changed into clean clothes in the toilet in the train to go straight to a Chinese-German Dragonboat festival at our church.

Jie invited us because we speak English, and she said that some of the Chinese spoke English better than German. Since we now have a Chinese daughter-in-law, we are eager to learn as much as we can about China. There are lots of Chinese married to Germans in the Hannover area, and they get together 3 times a year to celebrate Chinese festivals. Our church was hosting this time. We gathered at 4:00 for coffee and cake, there was a brief gugin (Chinese zither) performance, a few songs in Chinese, a short Andacht (devotion, in German translated into Chinese), and a potluck with a curious mix of Chinese and German food. A German cheese plate next to a plate of zongzi, sticky rice wrapped in lotus leaves. Someone's daughter wore a dirndl. The point of the get-together was mostly to speak Chinese with friends, but I spoke English with someone who runs a Chinese language school here. She immigrated to New Zealand, where she got a degree in teaching English as a second language, got married in New York to a German, and now lives here. Globalization means more inter-cultural marriages and more bilingual and trilingual children. Her son George speaks German, Chinese, and English.

Sundays now we are almost always biking to church. Such a pleasure to bike through the forest and along the canal. In Hannover, there's almost always something happening. On the way home, we walked our bikes through a festival along the Lister Meile, a hipster part of town equivalent to Silver Lake in L.A., although much denser. We stopped briefly to hear he bands at two of the three stages: a German band playing country western music and a choir dressed in sailor's costumes singing Sloop John B in German (!).

Country Western Band, Lister Meile-Fest

Shanty Choir Singing Sloop John B in German with Accordion

 

After a hasty lunch, we met Peter, Regina, and their daughter to walk over to an open house to see the new turbine at Enercity. Peter is a water engineer for this local energy company and thought if we went, he could convince his wife and daughter that it actually would be interesting. There was a long line, about a 45-minute wait. I'm not sure that that many Americans would stand in such a long line to see a turbine, but Germans like technology. While Peter and Rich waited in line, I got to try a communal bike and a Segway obstacle course, while Peter's daughter got her face painted and tried bungee jumping.

Bicycle Parking Jam outside of Enercity Open House

Segway Obstacle Course

Old Turbine

 

Rich looking at cables

Enercity Towers

One thing that was just plain silly. Enercity needed to build a new boiler, but, because these towers are protected under historic preservation laws, they needed to fit it into one of the existing 1961 towers. 

While we were standing in line, Peter told us a good joke. There is a lot of fluff from the cotton trees floating in the air + small gnats. If I sing while I ride, they fly into my mouth. Anyway, how do you tell a friendly bike rider? By the gnats in his teeth.

Peter, Regina, and their daughter came for tea and then we rushed off to a choir/recorder concert Sunday night.

 

Raggio di Sol Renaissance and Early Baroque Choir with Recorders

 

 

Einigkeit Recht Freiheit

I pass these words written on the outside of the Niedersächsischer Landtag (Lower Saxony State Parliament) every other day, since the building is next door.

Einigkeit Recht Freiheit

Niedersächsischer Landtag

I keep thinking about what they say about national character and how they compare with the French liberté, égalité, fraternité. I think about the order, whether unity should come before rights and freedom, and I ponder what the equivalent in America should be and what influence it might have if we read these words every day instead of ads on billboards. 

The words come from a poem written in 1841 by Hoffman from Fallersleben, which he set to a Haydn tune. From Wikipedia: "In the third stanza, with a call for 'Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit' (unity and justice and freedom), Hoffmann expressed his desire for a united and free Germany where the rule of law, not monarchical arbitrariness, would prevail."

E6 Weekend: Along the Elbe River from Bleckede to Nieperfitz

Fri. morning we took the train to a little town where some German friends from grad school days met us and then we walked with them for 2 days along the E6, one of the long distance walking trails in Europe. This one goes from Finland to Greece, and Freimut & Christina have decided to walk little bits of it each year in 4-5 day weekends starting at the Danish border to the south of Germany. Where we met them is an out-of-the-way area southeast of Hamburg on the Elbe River. Because the Elbe used to be the border to the DDR (East Germany), it's very quiet and rural, mostly farms growing potatoes, rye, and asparagus and an extensive forest. Friday after getting settled in our pension, we took a ferry across the Elbe and back.  There is still an old East German watchtower.

Watchtower & Stork, Flooded Elbe

When Freimut was a visiting scholar at UT, Austin, we took his German class. in preparation for our year in Marburg. His son Adrian did an exchange with Peter in high school. Freimut and Christina are both Medieval German scholars. He's dean at Augsberg now, and she just retired from working on a lexicon of Medieval German literature. If you type their names (Christine Stöllinger-Löser & Freimut Löser) into Amazon, you'll see an impressive list of books. She's still working a bit, but enjoying not having scheduled days. Very nice to have time with them. They know just about everything about German history, language, and literature. My only regret is that we were busy talking and accidentally walked past some standing stones that we meant to see. By the time we figured out we'd passed them, it would have been 1 km. back to go see them. Oh, well.

Barnyard with Storks Nesting 

We passed so many brick houses with pretty doors.

Brick House

 



Breakfast at our B & B in Neu Darchau

Bakery Van outside our B & B

 

Friday we saw several parties of cyclists, since the path goes right beside the Elbe River, but Saturday our path us through the forest and we only saw 1 person, a mother pushing a baby in a pram, except for some people in a tiny village. It was so quiet. In Nieperfitz walking around on Sat. afternoon, we saw these pigs, sort of a pig version of Scottish hairy coos. There is a movement here to preserve traditional domesticated livestock that have been replaced by more modern versions.

Hairy Pig

We met a kid who was feeding them, passed 1 cyclist, cows, sheep, goats, horses, 2 cars, and a couple walking with a stroller, but other than that, nothing. No shops. A bus stop with no buses except the school bus. We sat beside a pond for an hour and talked. So peaceful. The birch trees and yellow iris were perfectly reflected in the water and only 1 car went by the whole time.

Pond in Neiperfitz

We were very fortunate with the weather. It only started to rain after our picnic dinner (no restaurants open) on Fri. about 8:30 and then Sat. it started to rain when we were only 1 km. away from our pension.

Walking into Neiperfitz in the Rain

We holed up and read while it rained and then had some good weather to explore the village before dinner. No restaurants, but Christina had arranged for dinner at our B & B.  Rich was happy, because he saw lots of birds (eagles, hawks, storks, a yellowhammer) and his heel spur didn't hurt too much.

Sun. we said good-bye. They had one more day of walking. We walked to the next village to meet a little local train. In Lüneburg, instead of taking the first train, we walked around the old town for an hour and a half, peeking in the churches (late Gothic brick and leaning because of the salt underneath) and taking pictures of the old buildings, mills, and boats on the river.

Luneburg

Pretty Door, Luneburg

I could fill a whole photo album with pictures of pretty doors. I love the variety. We finally painted our front door at home blue, but Rich jokes that now we have to decorate it even more.

Yet Another Pretty Door

We changed trains in Ueltzen and got to see the train station in daylight. It was built by the Austrian architect Hundertwasser, who also built an apartment house we saw in Bad Soden. All curves and fanciful colors.

Hundertwasser Train Station, Ueltzen

We got home at 3:00, shopped quickly, and then I made dinner while Rich went to meet Zach's train. On the way to the train station, Rich met a visiting postdoc from Australia from the lab and he came to dinner too. Zach is the Pomona student who is here for a month for summer research.