Blackjack and the Goat Lady

I have made reference to the Goat Lady, or Ziegefrau as we call her at home, before and I thought it was high time to explain this a bit further.  Pablo was not a huge fan of bringing Blackjack to Germany, maintaining that it made absolutely no sense to cart a dog overseas in the belly of an airplane.  I agreed that it made no sense, but maintained that was no reason for us not to do it.  In a triumph of love over logic, Pablo finally agreed to bring Blackjack with us on the condition that we not let Blackjack's presence deter us from jaunting about Europe.  So when we arrived, one of my first priorities was finding a kennel for Blackjack.  Since we don't have a car over here, it also had to be one that we could access via public transportation. 

Having learned the proper word for kennel in German, Tierpension, I set about finding information on the Internet.  There was very little.  There were some great places that I couldn't reach and some other places within the city that only take small dogs.  Finally I found a reference to a Billy's Tierpension that was run by someone that also raises Boxers.  It turns out that the owner, a woman not named Billy, runs a dog kennel, raises Boxers and also raises goats. She has an internet site for her goats, but nothing on the kennel. Really, after finding that out, Ziegefrau seemed to be a far better name than Billy's Tierpension.  The Ziegefrau is not only great with dogs, but also one of the most cheerful and kindest people I have met anywhere.  And people warned me that East Germans were typically closed and not immediately friendly!

She has a house and a barn not too far from the Elbe river on the outskirts of Dresden.  Taking first a tram, then a bus, and finally walking through a barley field it only takes us an hour to get there!  To call this place a kennel is somewhat misleading - there are no boxed in enclosures in sight other than the chicken coops, although she must surely have some means of separating dogs that don't get along with each other.  In any case, Blackjack sleeps either in the house or in the barn.  Periodically all the dogs get taken out to run  (freely, I might add, although she made sure to ask if that was alright) along the Elbe.  Occasionally Blackjack apparently goes swimming in the river too.  Whenever we pick him up, he smells distinctly of goat, so he must spend some amount of time in the barn.  When we picked him up from the last trip, it had been raining all week and she warned me that Blackjack had taken every opportunity he had to play with a Labrador Retriever in large muddy puddles.  So he smelled of goat and stale pond water.  Mmmmmm!  But he's always excited to go there, so it's worth the trip and the bath when he comes back.

Goats and barn

Barley field

The Elbe river flooded the house, barn and even the entire barley field unfortunately, although the damage was not quite as extensive as the major 2002 flood.  That time the river filled the house almost all the way to the ceiling of the first floor, and this time it came only 2/3 of the way up to the ceiling.  It's been a little over a week since they could navigate back to their home, and things are getting back in place.  Apparently the goats won't come back for a few months until the nearby grazing area has regrown fresh, healthy grass instead of silt-coated grass.  Hopefully dogs will be able to go back by the time the kids are out of school on July 12 as we want to go on one more trip before we return to the States!

Hochwasser!!

When we arrived in Dresden in August, there were advertisements all over for a 10 yr anniversary exhibition about the 2002 flood.  I hadn't really known about a Dresden specific flood before - Dresden wasn't particularly on my radar screen and any flood information I may have heard merged into a "European flood" vague memory.  Pablo, of course, was not only aware of the flooding at the time, but also managed to remember it as a distinct event.  In any case, it was supposed to be the flood of the century, and there are high water marks from that flood all over the place:  the model train store on the way to where the kids help at Cub Scouts; a house on the way to where Blackjack stays with the goat lady when we travel; the bridges across the Elbe river; the restaurant where the International Ladies Group eats lunch every month; and many other places.  We have seen these marks and marvelled, knowing that the water must have reached that far and that high, but not really able to imagine it.

Well, we are now getting too much of an illustration.  It's been raining for weeks, with an occasional sunny day thrown in, and apparently all the reservoirs are full.  By this past Saturday the river had risen up as high as we'd ever seen it, but was still easily contained with the wide flood plains that run through the city.  Since then the Elbe has been rising about 3' every day for the last five days.  Hopefully the high water mark has been reached now and then there will just be the mess left afterwards.  At least this time around there are a lot more flood defenses in place than in 2002.  The city center has survived without much of a problem and the small tributary that is nearest us has stayed within its new higher walls.  In 2002 that tributary flooded the school Vicente & Miguel attend and also completely flooded the main train station.  So at least the train station is okay, school wasn't cancelled and we haven't lost power, water, or anything like that.  The area where the goat lady lives and the church where the kids go for Cub Scouts haven't been so lucky.  They've been completely inundated.  

Almost there to the high water mark from 2002

 

 

 

 

 

This says "Die Elbe erleben" which means, "Experience the Elbe"

Monday, June 4

Wed, June 6

Tuesday, June 5

Sometime in May

The famous "Blue Wonder" bridge in May

And now on Monday, June 4

The tributary that's closest to us; normally a small amount of water goes through the center arch and that's it.

Merry Easter

Normally one thinks of Easter as the time when we are embracing warmer weather and spring flowers.  But here in Dresden it was still winter and COLD.  It snowed 4" on Good Friday and there were further snow flurries all weekend long.  It was continuously cold from December to Arpil with the exception of our week in Munich, the warmest Christmas on record in Germany.  So we had no white Christmas, but instead we experienced a White Easter...thus the "Merry" Easter title.  Finally, two weeks into April spring arrived and we all thawed out.  Right now it's beautiful - most everything is still blooming and it's warm. 

However, back to our Easter celebrations.  Unfortunately we were all sick with bad colds, but that didn't stop us from carrying out our grand plan to see the Osterreitern (Easter Riders) in the neighbouring town of Bautzen.  This town is actually Sorbian, a Slavic group with its own language and customs, although everyone speaks German as well, presumably.  They have a lot of traditions surrounding Easter, such as amazingly decorated Easter eggs, and a procession of riders that ride from one town to the next proclaiming the Easter good news of Jesus' resurrection through Sorbian songs.  We couldn't understand the singing, but it sure was beautiful. 

The riders were all dressed in their best, of course.

But it's the horses that have the most sorts of special decorations for the day.

It couldn't have been easy to read the song off the paper, keep the horse under control, and manage to keep on course.

We waited over an hour in the cold, biting wind in order to see the procession of horses.  The things my family does for me!!! After it was over, we opted to skip watching the Easter egg shove as it was just too cold and no one felt good.  Had we watched it, we could have told everyone what it is, but now we'll probably never know precisely what an Easter egg shove is.  Oh well.  At this point, any sensible family would have just gone home, warmed up, rested, and drunk lots of hot tea.  But no, we were only 45 minutes away from Poland....who could resist?  Unfortunately we misread the timetable and spent another cold hour and a bit in the unheated train station waiting.

Proof that we  made it!!!!!!

We walked from the train station on the German side to the river that's the border.  We crossed over the pictured bridge, walked along the river for 1/2 an hour and then decided to call it a day.  Unfortunately more waiting was in store as we missed a train by 7 minutes and the next one wasn't for another hour.  At least this train station wasn't quite as cold as the other one.  As it was, we spent most of Easter Sunday either on a train or in a train station.  By the time we got home, all of our colds were worse and we felt approximately like death warmed over.  But the Osterreitern were worth it and I have to admit, it is pretty cool to be able to walk across the border into Poland.  Now we'll always be able to say, "Remember that time when we were all sick and felt miserable and we spent all day in train stations so that we could see horses and go to Poland?"  Family memories, that's what we're creating!

Aside from Easter Sunday itself, Pablo & I went to an Easter Saturday vesper service with the Dresden Kreuzkirche Boys' Choir performing.  It was absolutely beautiful, but we let our boys stay home, assuming that they wouldn't appreciate it quite as much.  We all did go to a German church on Easter Monday (there were church services around the clock all weekend long it seemed!) since we hadn't done so on Sunday itself.  There was special trumpet and organ music, and although none of it was familiar, it was lovely.

Faschingsfest

I just realized that I never posted this....oops!

We were able to experience Carnival/Mardi Gras in the German style - Fastnacht or Faschingsfest.  Another of my old friends from student days lives in Rottenburg am Neckar, a Catholic town in the middle of a Protestant area.  Tubingen, the next town over, is historically Protestant and therefore there are absolutely, positively no carnivals in celebration of the last day before Lent.  My history lesson for the weekend was to realize that the Reformation and the battles surrounding it ended up with not just people being Catholic or Protestant, but individual towns and even entire states were qualified that way, maybe even more so than the people themselves.  Anyway, we fortuitously timed our visit when there was a "small" parade for Fastnacht.  Three hours worth of a small parade!!!!  

No skimpy outfits here...somehow the snow on the ground makes for a different style of celebration than New Orleans, although I'm sure that's not the only reason.

These are some of the "Narrs" - jesters or fools.  They occasionally stopped in the parade to cart off some hapless onlooker for a few hundred yards, taking away shoelaces or throwing someone into a revolving straw cart.

There were also lots of witches - we were right next to the Black Forest and this seems appropriately like something out of Grimm's Fairy Tales.  The masks are carved out of wood and some of them are quite old. 

And what would a parade be without bands?  I think this marching band uniform tops the list of odd or embarrassing band outfits.

Paris in February

I can believe that Paris is not at its best in February, but it is still amazing and it has the great advantage of being cheaper, less crowded, and the kids had another 2 week vacation then.  Pablo couldn't take a full 2 weeks off, but he did manage one week, most of which we spent in Paris.

The train ride from Dresden to Paris is 8 1/2 hours, and about half of the trip is on one of the high speed trains.  Both of my old friends here in Germany just shake their heads as we've told them where we've gone and for how long on trains - they think it's very American to travel 8 1/2 hours each way for a 5 day trip, but hey, you get to see the countryside fly by, you can't get lost, and for the most part the kids travel free.  What's not to like?  Well, on the high speed train once it gets going around 200 mph, it sways back and forth which made me unable to read without feeling a bit sick, but everyone else liked it.  :-)

309 kilometers/hour on the ICE (German high speed)

Miguel & the TGV (French high speed train)

Paris is an amazing city, full of all sorts of beautiful buildings and churches.  Our feet were aching by the time we left after all the walking we did.  We saw a castle, Versailles, the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, Notre Dame, the military  museum, the Sacre Coeur Basilica and all sorts of other things.  I think Vicente's favorite was the Eiffel Tower - not just a monumental triumph of engineering, but iconically world-famous as well.  Miguel was most excited by the military museum and the Louvre.  I never thought that I'd hear him say that an art museum was the highlight of the trip, but I must admit, as museums go, it's a worthy choice.  Besides, there was so much to see that I didn't even attempt to see everything, so we ended up going very quickly.  It was all a bit of a blur, but a beautiful blur.

Other cool things in Paris - the food displays!!  Not only is the food delicious, it's presented exquisitely.  We all enjoyed croissants and pain au chocolat every morning.  I like "our" bakery across the street here in Dresden, but French pastries are in a different class altogether.

Another favorite - amazing ball handling & gymnastic skills on display outside of the Sacre Coeur Basilica.

Castles, Museums, & other cool German architecture like Fachwerk

The trip to NeuSchwanstein Castle was well worth the view, even if as I was told, "That's not a real castle -- it's only decorative."

Our trip to Munich and the Odenwald area over Christmas was really great.  It was a bit odd spending Christmas in a hotel, but hey, it was better than a stable!  Our tradition is to go to church and have a special meal on Christmas Eve and we were able to that in Munich.  We went to a Krippenspiel (Nativity Play) in a downtown church which was mainly for quite young children.  It suited our level of German perfectly!  I particularly liked the real sheepskin costume for the kids acting the sheep and the fact that the shepherds and Joseph wear broad brimmed round hats instead of dish towels or armrest covers as my sister Dorothy reminded me that we had used.  Afterwards we planned to find a nice restaurant for the evening meal.  Apparently the nice Christmas Eve dinner is eaten at midday not evening, and most of what was open were Döner stands (similar to Gyros).  Pablo insisted that we were going to sit down to eat, even if it was only McDonald's.  Vicente & Miguel were quite happy about going to McDonald's, but even that was closed!  Fortunately we finally found a restaurant that was open and had a fine German meal for Christmas Eve.

Christmas Day in Munich was the warmest on record in all of Germany - around 68 and beautiful!

We went to some museums as well.

Pharmacy museum with floating crocodile

Robotic library microfiche retriever

Outside a toy museum

 
After Christmas we descended for a few days upon an old friend of mine who lives close to Mannheim in what I believe is the Odenwald area.  In any case it is a rural, hilly area with castles everywhere you look.  Having grown up fascinated with all things to do with knights, castles, King Arthur, etc. I thoroughly enjoyed it.  Seeing Vicente & Miguel chattering away in German with my friend's daughter was also quite fun.  I might still have the edge on them when it comes to vocabulary, but there's no doubt that they can interact in regular daily conversation more comfortably than I can at this point.  More than anything though, it was really good to reconnect with an old friend and meet each other's families. They drove us all over, fed us good German food and Miguel's new favorite:  raclette, took us to church and in general showed us an aspect of Germany that we would never have been able to experience otherwise.

Giant (55,000 gallon) wine barrel in Heidelberg Castle.  If the castle was under siege, at least the inhabitantsy would be able to drown their sorrows.

This style of wood & plaster is known as Fachwerk.

Philosophical ramblings on Christmas peace in the face of Newton Connecticut and Dachau

Please be warned, what follows are merely philosophical ramblings likely to bore most, so feel free to disregard them utterly.  Also, there's no doubt it's all going to end up getting pretty religious....

We also visited the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial the day after Christmas.  Coming on the heels of what happened in Connecticut, it's hardly conducive to the Christmas spirit.  It begs the questions - how on earth are we supposed to have peace and joy at Christmas or any other time of year while all this is also happening? What is the point of Jesus' birth when nothing has changed and mankind, myself included, is still capable of such horrible acts?

The human race is pretty messed up; I don't think we need to look very far for evidence of that.  The worst part of going to Dachau is thinking that so many normal people participated in the atrocity of the Holocaust by just ignoring what others were doing.  It must have been easy to look the other way in some senses, since the alternative for all those who protested was that they themselves were imprisoned in Dachau.  Then there were the people that actually worked at Dachau - the guards, the soldiers, etc. - it would be more comfortable if I could think that they all must have been psychotic or something, yet there were SO many who were involved, I don't think it likely that in the beginning they were any more psychotic than I am.  Now that is a sobering and unpleasant thought.  I'm left thinking that given the right circumstances, there is no reason to believe that I would not have done the same exact thing.  There, but for the grace of God, go I.

And that's just it: but for the grace of God.  So why didn't he extend some grace to Hitler and prevent him from going there?  Why not some grace for the Lanza family to have something intervene to help Adam before he went off the deep end?  I am not the first to conclude that God allows evil to occur because we have free will, but I occasionally must object that us having free will is perhaps not worth all the misery that we cause.  I guess that's where faith comes in; even if I don't understand, I can choose to believe that God knows what he's doing and is not only capable of redeeming evil into good but is actively doing so.  That's when I come back to Christmas.  Any God crazy enough to choose to limit himself as one of his created beings and let them subsequently put him to death is a God that I will clearly never fully understand.  I would have started over again long ago and wiped out the pesky problem of free will.  Yet consistently expressed throughout the history of the Bible, is God's love and patience as we humans screw up, again & again & again.  He is constantly there to pick up the pieces, point us in the right direction again, and redemption is always offered for whenever we're willing to take it.  If it were only in the histories of the Bible, then perhaps I could ignore it, but I've seen the same thing in my life too.  (Yes, maybe I'm imagining it all and indulging in the opiate of the masses, but then again, maybe I'm imagining all of my life and we're really in the "Matrix".  You just can't know for sure!) Anyway, this love & patience are enough to bring me peace & joy, even in the face of visiting Dachau.  Sometimes it takes me a little while to remember that, when I am so clearly confronted with evil, but that's the whole reason we have Christmas in the first place - he wouldn't have come if we didn't need him. 

Advent in Dresden

My favorite part of the parade

The Giant Christstollen!!!! 

We thoroughly enjoyed our Advent season here in Germany - somehow the fact that the Christmas decorations are different makes them seem more festive, I think.  Halfway through November Adventskalendars made their appearances in stores everywhere. With the reasoning that chocolate improves concentration, we bought one with various chocolate confections and read our Advent verses each night while sampling the chocolate.  Dividing one chocolate among 4 people just adds to the Christmas spirit of sharing...or so I maintained to the kids.  Vicente objected slightly to the fact that the Adventskalendar goes from Dec 1 to Dec 24 and this year Advent technically began on Dec 2, but you can't have everything and it's not as if he wanted to give up his taste of chocolate on Dec 1.

Right before Advent, Dresden center fills up with the Weihnachtsmarkt. It was really quite something to see:  any available open space it seemed, was full of small huts vending Christmas wares such as Gluhwein or Gluhbier, gingerbread, sausages (okay that's year round, not just for Christmas!), Nutcrackers, large stars that remind me of porcupines (Herrnhuter Sterne), Christmas tree ornaments, handcarved Nativity sets, etc.  We tried going in the first weekend it opened, but turned back after venturing past 3 huts.  When it is so crowded that even I feel claustrophobic, you know it must be packed!  Pablo & I did go in again one weekend morning while Vicente & Miguel were making Christmas cookies at Pfadfinders (German Co-ed scouts, although there seems to be only 1 girl that ever comes).  However, we were able to see the Giant Stollen Fest Parade which was a lot of fun.  We did not actually participate in eating any of the special Christstollen - it's extraordinarily heavy white bread chock full of alcohol soaked dried fruits.  It's baked in a form that's supposedly reminiscent of the swaddled Christchild, which didn't make it anymore appealing in my eyes.

A not-so-crowded morning!!

Porcupine stars in the mall

These aren't just any old fair booths, but substantial huts topped with decorations that are tourist worthy even without the contents...

....though the contents of the booths weren't bad. Gluhwein is hot, spiced wine and is great on a cold night.  We weren't adventurous enough to try Gluhbier though.

These apparently double as Christmas tree ornaments AND doughnuts.  I don't think they'd last very long on our tree.