German Holiday in Germany

St. Martin's Day was Sunday, November 11th.
"What is St. Martin's Day?" you may ask. As of two weeks ago, we can tell you!

BRIEF HISTORY: Martin was a Roman soldier from the 300's and one cold night he noticed a very poor man begging who was starving to death. Martin had no food or money to give him but decided to use his sword to cut his own military cloak in half and put the other half over the beggar. He later became a Christian and in 370ish, Bishop of Tours, France, but it's Germany that still embraces his feast day. Martin Luther was born November 10th but named on the 11th after St. Martin. Because of the connection between the two Martins, both Catholic Christians and Protestant Christians in Germany celebrate the day.

HOW THE HOLIDAY IS CELEBRATED: It's really celebrated by families with younger children (to about 4th or 5th grade). The Kindergartens here teach the kids the songs and story for a few weeks prior to the holiday and help them make St. Martin's lanterns (Laterne) and got them ready for the Martinsumzug (St. Martin's Day Parade). Ian didn't want to make a lantern, but the Monday before the holiday his sweet teacher Miriam "gentled" him into making one by getting him to tell her his "Lieblingstier" (favorite animal). And the cutest Elephant Laterne I've ever seen came to life. He's very proud of it! Ian's Kindergarten had their own Martinsumzug on Wednesday Nov 7th. We met at his school yard, Laterne in hand, with all the other kids and they sang for the families. Then the kids Ian's age (going to 1st grade next year) re-enacted the story for everyone. After that, the school's director (Schulleiterin) led the whole Kindergarten, families and all, through some of Altstadt on the Umzug (parade). The parade doesn't start until it's dark. That's not so bad considering it gets dark around 5:15 p.m. right now! Most of the kids have electric candles in their lanterns so they glow. I say most, because some have real candles. Scary to think of 2 to 10 year olds running around with lit candles inside laterns made out of tissue paper. And yet, it works. Until just a few years ago all lanterns were with candles and friends of ours have told us how only a couple would catch on fire every year and parents were good at stomping on the laterns to put out the fire while the poor kid would sob because their beautiful lantern was burned and flattened. Ah, memories...At the end of Ian's parade, all the children were given a St. Martin's Menschen, which is a man made out of yeasty bread with raisins for eyes and buttons. Dominic's not a fan of the bread, so Ian got two until he decided he was full. Then Steve and I got to share it and thought it was yummy.

The City of Heidelberg had their Martinsumzug on the 11th. That's a good thing, because after walking in Ian's parade Dominic really wanted to participate, too. The next day he designed and made his own lantern with a kit and was all ready for Sunday. He and Ian are both into Webkinz [thanks to The Brewsters, Cupps, and Jordans!:)] so he took pictures of his panda, Ian's elephant, and two others that we have here that we're giving to cousins for Christmas, printed them out and glued one picture on each of the four sides. The City's parade had a woman on a horse acting out St. Martin, and a patrol behind her carrying a huge Laterne on posts followed by parade people. At the end of the parade, they acted out the story, too, then the kids got more St. Martin's Menschen. A neat thing about this holiday is that it's so familiar and loved by people here. Parents who have raised their kids still know all the songs and talk about how they miss not doing it anymore. Grown-ups who haven't been since they were kids still will warmly tell you about it and even sing some lines from the songs. And the German homes we have visited still have a least a few Laterne on display somewhere in their home. It's fun to be a part of something so intregral and well known in their culture that I have never been a part of before. It's really special.

Ian loved it so much (Child that refused to make a lantern til the last minute!!) that he wants his 6th birthday to be at dinner and wants his American friends to make laterns then have a parade. It's kind of a bummer that his birthday's in July when it stays light for so long, but we've bought Laterne kits and the plastic Laterne sticks (they look like short fishing poles to me) with bright lights on the end. We figure if nothing else we can put the kids in the garage and turn out all the lights for a mini Martinsumzug. And if Ian changes his mind, one of the activities will still be lantern making!! When I bought the supplies the woman asked if it was for a Kindergarten and I told her about Ian's idea and she thought it was really neat (she said "Toll!" which is kind of the German "cool!") that we would take Laterne to America. She probably also thought we were crazy, but she's probably right!

American Holiday in Germany

Hope you all had a fun and happy Halloween! Halloween has come to Germany, but is still a new concept. Almost everything associated with it is the creepy part of Halloween and non gruesome costumes are hard to find. People dress up but only at night, and it's mostly children not older kids or grown ups. Both children and adults who do celebrate mostly have parties, not house to house trick or treating. Mary Drehsel said this year for the first time she heard the phrase "Susses oder saeurs" which literally means "sweets or sours" but sauers doesn't just mean sour taste, but also something mean, so it's the German equivalent of "trick or treat".

Here we are in all our Halloween Glory...I'm Pippi Langstrumpf (Pippi Longstocking), Steve is Parpignol, Ian is ein Pirat (peer-aht), and Dominic is a Rebel Snow Trooper on the ice planet Hoth from The Empire Strikes Back. Story behind Steve's costume: our student and teacher group went to an Opera two weeks ago, La Boheme. The tenor was excellent. The direction, however, was weird. There's a scene on Christmas Eve where a minor character, Parpignol, distributes toys to kids. In this version, Parpignol was bald with a huge nose and walked hunched over carrying a gym bag full of automatic weapons which he gave to all the kids. Then the parents turned into Zombies and began attacking the main characters. So when Steve found a big plastic nose he went for it, but couldn't find a bald mask and didn't want to shave his head. :)

There was some Trick or Treating in the Moore Haus then we had a group dinner followed by a dance party. Ulla and Daniel turned our weekly Special Dinner into the kickoff of our Halloween Party evening. It's impressive to see what costumes people come up with on limited resources!

Push those tables back and time to dance! Laura pops up!

Cam and Emily groovin' to the music

Adams busts a cool move

Jared getting animatedWhat's Halloween without a little "Thriller"?
Dominic and Ian differed on their opinions of dancing. Ian said "I was bored," and when Dom said he wanted a dance party for his birthday, Ian said, "Then I'll just be bored again." Dom wrote in his journal the next day about the dances he did the night before like the Robot, the Sprinkler, the Shopping Cart, and the Shower. But we don't think he dropped it like it was hot.

Yes, we have left Heidelberg a few times

We recently realized that if you read our blog you might get the feeling that we've never really left Heidelberg, so I decided to catch up on all of the trips we've taken. Initially, we thought that we'd be doing a lot of traveling to other countries, but this Germany is so beautiful that we've really focused our time on nearby towns and cities.

LINDAU

Our first overnight trip was to Lindau, a place that just might have become my favorite place on Earth. It's a little island town on the Bodensee (Lake Constance), which is at the border of Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. Looking out across the harbor, past the New Lighthouse (which was built in the 1850s, in contrast the the yellow-topped Old Lighthouse built in the 1400s), you can see the alps on the far side of the lake. One day we rented bicyles and had what we all decided was a perfect day-- riding around town, riding over the causeway to the mainland, riding along the coast of the lake, and then finishing the day with a vigorous game of minigolf.

STRASBOURG, FRANCE

Our first trip out of the country was to Strasbourg, in the Alsace region of France. The entire old part of the town is surrounded by a series of rviers and canals, so we took a boat tour around the town before touring it on foot. The cathedral there is breathtaking, and we climbed to the spire for a priceless view of the city.

TRIER

We went with the students on a day-long field trip to Trier. The boys loved playing in the ruins of the Roman amphitheater, and it was amazing to see how well-preserved the Roman gates, the Porta Negra were.

DAY-TRIPS TO NEARBY TOWNS WITH MY PARENTS

My parents were able to come visit for over a week, and we had a great time showing them around. Although we had hoped to go on a weekend-long trip, that weekend there was a train strike, so we ended up deciding just to visit several of the small towns that we could get to on local trains. First, we went to Ladenburg, a town with some Roman-era ruins.

In Ladenburg, we had a very unique dinner-- a restaurant there specializes in a really unique cooking style. They bring out a slab of marble that has been heated at 1400 degrees, and then you cook your steak directly on this searingly hot stone. Can you imagine an American restaurant with a children's menu that includes placing a 1400 degree stone in front of a kid? Dom felt like such a big kid, cooking his own steak (Notice Stacy deftly stopping Ian's hand as he's reaching for the stone!)

We also took them to back to Speyer, as well as Schwetzingen, where the castle gardens are beyond belief.

ROTHENBURG OB DER TAUBER

While my parents were here, we also went with Karl Drehsel to an incredibly picturesque medieval town, Rothenburg. The town still is surrounded by its medieval wall, which you can still walk around. Karl also took us by a local glass factory, where Ian decided that his new career goal is to be a glass maker. We enjoyed the scenery, the wall, and Stacy found Kurbiscremesuppe (Pumpkin Cream Soup).

WIEN, OESTERREICH (Vienna, Austria)

The educational field trip this semester was a five day trip to Wien. I was completely caught off-guard. I expected a quaint little city, but I had no idea what grandeur we would see there. Most of the buildings were just too large and too impressive to capturn in pictures. But what an incredible week! We went to the Schoenbrunn Palace, and had fun with a group of our students running around in a giant hedge maze in the palace gardens. Stacy and Dominic went with one group of students to a museum that houses the works of a modern artist named Hundertwasser, a man who believed that straight lines were immoral since you don't find straight lines in nature, so all of his works were based on naturalistic curves, while Ian and I went to a military history museum, where we saw the car that the Archduke Ferdinand was riding in when he was assassinated-- along with his 90-year old blood-stained clothers! Stacy and I got to hear a concert that featured Strauss and Mozart music, and all of us saw the Royal Treasury.

We even had a chance to go see the house of Sigmund Freud. It was interesting to see the place where one person, single-handedly, came up with ideas that set the field of psychology backwards for about 40 years. Even more fun, however, was getting to eat cake at Freud's favorite cafe, Cafe Landtmann.

One of the boys' favorite places was the art museum. This wasn't because of the great Egyptian, Roman and Greek exhibits. It was because they learned that several of the hallways were used as sets for the Naboo Palace scenes in Star Wars Episode I (The Phantom Menace)-- if we imagined digitizing out a few sculptures and digitizing in a few battle droids, we felt like we were there.

TRIBERG

Last of all, yesterday, we went for a day trip to Triberg, which is in the Schwartzwald (Black Forest). The town is beautiful. It's known for two main things: Cuckoo clocks and having the tallest waterfall in Germany. The wasserfall is actually made up of about 6 or 7 smaller falls, all linked together. We didn't get a cuckoo clock, but we had a great time walking around this beautiful little forest town-- especailly since tourist season has officially ended!

Thanks for reading up on our journeys!
Steve