Medieval Festivities

On Sunday, Ben and I decided to visit Bitche, France (yes, it's funny). The town was holding its annual medieval festival and who doesn't love a medieval festival. Especially in a part of the world where it isn't necessary to build a fake castle. And so we went to France. I believe Ben actually said, "So we'll feed Mac after church and then drive to France." Add that to the things-I-never-thought-I'd-hear category. It was about an hour away and a lovely way to spend an afternoon. Enjoy the pictures!

Observations

Happy weekend! After another week of sheer insanity, I slept in and am having a (now cold) cup of coffee while watching Friends. Oh...and Ben is making his super yummy guacamole. Feeling closer to home already.

We've been in Germany for two weeks now and I've noticed some pretty interesting things about Germany:

• Germans are much more comfortable with their bodies and much less concerned with modesty. There are both good and bad aspects to this. Perhaps if Americans stopped hyper-sexualizing the human body we could step away from pursuing the "perfect body" and just be comfortable with how we look. If showing skin is culturally asexual and the norm, is it then also immodest? Perhaps there is an argument that modesty is very closely related to cultural norms. I think that is for another post though!
• Everyone drives a VW, Audi, or BMW. I'm not kidding. In other news, Ben is on cloud nine because he bought a (very used) Audi TT.
• German swimming pools don't have lifeguards. Because it is the parents' responsibility to watch their kids. Huh.
• On that note, there are a lot of really nice swimming pools around. Like this one. Mac and I met some new friends at the Rodenbach swimming pool (the one in the link) on Thursday. It was Mac's first time in a pool and, like a good mother, I did not take any pictures. He loved it though! The swimming pools here usually sport a large grassy park area surrounding the water, several different pools with different depths, a splash park/wading pool area for littles, and awesome slides and diving boards of different heights. It is so cool! 
• German people stare. They just do. It unsettles me and makes me want to disappear. Granted, maybe I'm doing something that is stare-worthy and just don't know it.
• Food at restaurants seems to always be fresh and prepared from scratch, often by the owner of the restaurant.
• I'm not sure why, but Mac attracts much more attention here than in the States, especially from older Germans.
• German toys are super cool. Check out this and this.
• Recycling is a BIG deal. I'm talking four different trashcans, three of which involve recycling of some sort. The trash guys won't pick up your trash if it's overflowing or if you've sorted stuff into the wrong bin. If you buy bottled drinks, you keep the bottles and then deposit them in machines that give you money back. Cool, right?

I'm sure we'll notice more interesting cultural variations. I'll keep you posted! To end the post, I'd like to share the highlight of our week here. We discovered the coolest restaurant around:

Please note the "bam" with an umlaut. 

And the cocktail lounge furniture meets surf scenes meets longhorn skull. Awesome yet confusing. The food was actually really great and we've tucked it away as a new favorite. 

So where did the name of the restaurant come from? Billy the Kid perhaps?! I now have the urge to listen to the Aaron Copland ballet of the same name (one of my all-time favorites, complete with a gunfight-via-percussion). On that note, enjoy the music and have a restful Saturday.

Everyday Amazement

It's quiet in our little hotel apartment. Mac is sleeping. And by sleeping I mean wailing as he fights the inevitable. Laundry, dishes done, cup of blissfully horrible coffee in hand. I woke up this morning and decided that today was a day to sit. No decisions, no rushing, no exploring, no Exciting European Day. Just coffee, Quiet, a good book, and some reflection. And later, the Bachelorette (I'm ashamedly unashamed). 

Yesterday was a thought-provoking day. We decided to take a day trip to Trier, the "Rome of the North." I visited Trier two years ago and it is one of my favorite cities in Germany. I walked the streets listening to lectures on early medieval Europe and immersed myself in Trier's architectural marvels. It was my long walk in the country. This time around, I had company.

Approaching the town square

*sigh*

Mac loved Trier so much he decided to eat his sunglasses, nap, and wear historical garb.

So sophisticated

Super tough Viking

Sir Toodles

Mac tests the laws of elasticity

Trier boasts several incredibly well-preserved Roman structures that are within a moderately easy walk of each other. We only made it to two of the structures this time, but they are perhaps the most striking.

The Porta Nigra

The Porta Nigra, or Black Gate, is a 2nd century Roman gate that contains the remnants of an 11th century church within. I love standing in front, imagining all the people over all the centuries who stood where I am standing and lived life in a way so different from mine.

The Trierer Dom

The High Cathedral of St. Peter is the oldest church in Germany and one of the oldest in the western world. Built by Constantine in the 4th century, the cathedral bears physical witness to centuries of architectural development. 

A Gothic arch replaces a Roman arch (you can see the remains of the Roman on the right and left of the picture).

The original classical architecture can still be seen even though Romanesque, Gothic, and baroque elements were added over time. 

The varied interior of the cathedral

The baroque western apse

The Church of Our Lady, which connects to the cathedral, was built in the 13th century and provides one of the earliest examples of the French High Gothic style. 

Ben takes in the Liebfrauenkirche.

The quiet beauty and reverence within the cloister is deeply moving. 

The arcade surrounding the cloister

I'm still trying to wrap my mind around the fact that stuff like this is an hour away from where I live. And that is why yesterday was so thought-provoking. When I visited Trier two years ago, it was a day of wonderful solitude, relaxation, and intellectual stimulation. Because I was on vacation. Now, I live amidst such sights. I am not on a break from my normal life. My normal life, with its struggles, messes, and frustrations, has tagged along. Perhaps even more confusing is that the mundanity of life has tagged along. I still have to feed my son, get along with my husband, and go grocery shopping. This experience is not a perpetual high, although there are flashes of joy. Part of this transition is learning how to adjust my expectations of myself and of my whereabouts. To realize that it's ok to not always be enthralled by my surroundings. To understand that this doesn't mean I don't love medieval history the way I used to. And to accept that a day of Quiet and coffee is sometimes just the ticket.

The Other Side

  
Whew. What a week. Apologies for the complete lack of communication. We've been in Germany for a week now and I'm just catching my breath. And sleeping through the night. Highlights of the past seven days have included:

- Making friends. Mac met two new friends straight off the plane. And as luck would have it, we have spent the week in-processing with their parents!

Note the multiple hands as Mac's new friends (both little girls) "tuck" Mac in.  Also note his nonplussed expression.

 - Jet lag. Or is this a lowlight. Mac did great, Ben and I not so much. We're good now but man oh man.

The faces of jet lag.

- Getting sick. All three of us. Another gift from 33,000 Feet. 

- In-Processing. Imagine you are going to the DMV. Everyone's favorite. And then imagine that you go to the DMV over and over again all day long every day for five days trying to get a form checked off so that Someone sees that your form is checked off and tells you that you are now Fully Prepared for Life in Germany. The most frustrating part of this process is that you are not allowed to do Important Life Things (pick up your car, rent a house, etc.) until you go to a certain class or get a certain form checked off. Which inevitably involves a great deal of waiting room time. 

- Fantastic food and beer. Bratwurst, weissbier, flammkuchen (I haven't forgotten to write about this!), nutella, apple strudel, sauerkraut.

Fun at the faux biergarten on base. We were car-less. Don't judge.

- Selling our house. Contract pending and fingers crossed. 

- Realizing that the military contractor that ships cars *misplaced* ours. They assure us it's not lost. They just have to find the container it is in. Uh huh.

- Finding a home. In a tiny village with rolling hills, a bakery, a butcher, a kindergarten, a flower shop, and a view from our balcony of the town cathedral presiding over the rooftops. More pictures to come. 

On a quest to find the village bakery.

- Mac's first meal. Squash is even less appealing than normal when found encrusted in neck folds. But he loved it! 

- Learning to live on base. We're in temporary housing until our furniture is delivered to our new home. Until then, we're on Ramstein Air Base. (Fun fact: there is no satellite data available for GPS. The location of everything on base has been kept off-grid. Great for the military, hard on a someone who has no idea where they are on a huge base). For non-military folks, there is a commissary (grocery store), a PX (the exchange...the military Walmart, if you will), the Mall (complete with food court, a movie theater, and a Macaroni Grill), a car dealership, and much more. It's Little America.

The town of Landstuhl is to the left (where the US hospital is located). Ramstein Air Base is just above the tree line, center right, below the hills. You can see the clearing for the landing strips and the huge mall in the middle.

Beef jerky with your wine? No?! A Slim Jim then.

 

Our building. We're across the street from NATO headquarters.

- I passed my driver's license exam. Whoopee!!! I'm back on the roads and loving it.

- Surviving 90 degree heat without air conditioning. 

This is what dining al fresco really looks like. He has a diaper on, in case you were worried.

 It's been a roller coaster of a week with several great moments. Finding a house that feels like a home was an answer to prayer. There have been some really funny moments. Like when I was waiting with twenty others to take my driver's exam at 6:45 in the morning after three hours of sleep, saw a lump in my pants leg around the ankle, and pulled out a pair of lady delicates that had decided to stow away. In front of an acquaintance who is now a bosom buddy. Because how can she not be after that. There have been some really bad moments. Tears, anger, frustration. But He is faithful and merciful and for that I am thankful. To be frank, this whole process is really hard. I feel alone, disoriented, aimless, afraid, and just plain exhausted and overwhelmed. This too shall pass. I know. And until it passes, or at least subsides momentarily, I'll hang on tight, take a deep breath, and sip my beer.

PS - Just to prove to Germany that America does not care about soccer, all television on base went out five minutes before the World Cup game started last Sunday. 

So Long, Farewell

Ramstein it is.

It's dark outside, about 10 PM. The terminal sounds like a tired murmur. Everyone here is Waiting. Men in uniform, families PCSing, people going home after holiday. So here we are.

Air Mobility Command. Basically the military terminal.

This week has been a flurry of goodbyes, hair-pulling frustration, countless anxieties, sleepless nights (hence the lack of posts). I'd rather not repeat this week. As soon as we boarded our shuttle, a weight left my shoulders. It's time to get on with things. Go on to the next thing. Go on an Adventure.

And we were under the weight limit.

The funny thing is, five years ago, DC was our Adventure. I remember loading up our cars and driving across the country, one mile marker at a time. To be honest, I hated DC for a long time. I hated the distance from my family, my friends. The aching loneliness and the feeling of being out of control as change happened all around me. But now. Now DC is Home. So much has happened here. Ben and I were two years married when we moved here. Now we're seven. We grew up here, fought here, learned how to love each other here. Ben went through residency, became an attending. I went to grad school, transitioned to a different career, followed a dream. We made friends. The best of friends. We found a church to worship in, one that taught us to cling to the Rock of Ages. We found places, haunts, we loved...a coffee shop, a favorite town, a yearly beach destination. We bought a house. We brought our son home. And now, we say goodbye. It aches. Thankfully, I'm so tired the ache isn't bad right now. That, and trying to get your six-month-old to sleep in an airport requires a great deal of mental and emotional energy.

Do you see the tiny, dark shape by the left stroller wheel? That's Mac - not sleeping.

Our flight leaves in an hour. We'll land around 1 PM local time at Ramstein Air Base, where we'll stay for a month in a base hotel while we look for a rental home. First up, pass the German driver's license exam. Imagine...no sleep, jet lagged, and 168 German road signs to identify. *Facepalm*

To everyone who made DC home...thank you. We'll be back.

See you on the other side.

Ready for an Adventure.

Happy Annapolis Day

This Fourth was a particularly bittersweet one. We drove to Annapolis, a favorite day trip of ours. We strolled cobblestones, ate shrimp, sipped the new Flying Dog brew, cheered for Germany and Colombia, window shopped, and watched the Independence Day parade. It was lovely. 

See you in a few, America.

PS - Stay tuned for my next German favorite!

On Driving

I love to drive. Well, not in DC. Driving in DC makes me an angry, aggressive Crazy Lady. But growing up in Oklahoma, there was nothing like hitting the road, windows down, country music blaring, no traffic, and wide open plains all 'round. I love the combination of perceived freedom, speed, and being (sort of) outside. (Interested in the history of driving for pleasure? Read this fascinating article).

Germany is a driver's dream. We debated whether or not to use trains or rent a car while in Germany in 2012. I'm so glad we chose the car. We were able to go to so many out of the way places at our own pace. One of my favorite things to do was just explore...no destination, no idea where I was really going, no sense of direction. I'd get in the car and start driving. The area where we were staying (and where we'll live) is in the district of Kaiserslautern in the Rhineland-Palatinate, one of sixteen German states. It is a countryside of rolling hills, villages dating back to who-knows-when, and fields of rapeseed. 

I had no idea what rapeseed was until two years ago. Rapeseed is a source of vegetable oil and when it blossoms, it produces a bright, yellow flower. In the spring, rapeseed fields are everywhere in Germany, creating a brilliant patchwork quilt of color. 

The best thing about driving in the German countryside is the size of the roads. They. Are. Tiny. I mean, barely large enough for one car to drive on, much less two. Add to that the incredibly winding nature of the roads, the over-hill-and-dale undulation, and the sporadic nature of the villages (which sit right on the road), and you've got yourself an exhilarating ride. Mine was often the only car on the road, and as I would top a hill, I would see miles of deserted, narrow roads ahead of me. Ahhh. I would feel such a sense of Discovery as I rounded a corner and found myself in a small village containing a few farmhouses, perhaps a cobbled street, maybe a church. How long had it been there? What was it like to live there a thousand years ago? Had Charlemagne ever walked there? (Be forewarned: I like Charlemagne. He will be mentioned again on this blog).

Contrast Idyllic Meandering with the Autobahn. People don't so much meander as they Barrel Down. Imagine a jet-lagged couple fresh off their flight into Frankfurt. They pick up their Ford Focus (as they are clearly living The Big Life) from the rental agency and load their luggage. Destination programmed into their GPS, they pull out of the airport onto the autobahn and naively assume that they have time to accelerate from 30 mph to 60 mph. Then imagine irritated Germans glaring and swerving past, a backseat driver (who shall remain anonymous) loudly telling her husband to speed up (it's called yelling), said harried husband asking where he should go as the GPS malfunctions, and, eventually, the abrupt swerve into a non-parking spot in an unknown neighborhood as they attempt to Figure It Out. 

Or, picture me driving something like this down the A6. We disparagingly referred to it as "The Twig." Because we envisioned it snapping in half quite easily. I mean, it was such a sturdy thing that when you wanted to close the car door, you had to walk the door to the frame and push it shut. It was un-slammable. That happens when the door weighs as much as a piece of cardboard. I remember trying to pass on the autobahn in The Twig. I accelerated, moved to the passing lane, and waited for the car to...well...accelerate. I pushed on the pedal harder and realized that it was, indeed, already completely floored. The Twig was just chugging along at a death-inviting speed as the Audi's, BMW's, and Mercedes' (which were the ONLY other cars on the highway) rapidly approached in my rearview mirror. I quickly learned that The Twig and I should stay out of the left lane. 

I look forward to the time when I pick up friends and family in Frankfurt and, with ease and finesse, drive them to our humble abode. Until that time, have fun imagining me doing the opposite.