A weekend of many small adventures

Hi friends!

We have had a great weekend, and so I'm not going to wait, but will tell you all about it before it's even over.  We never left the Marburg area, so our weekend's adventures were the small kind. Perhaps you think that I overuse the word adventure, but the way I see it, life is just a series of adventures big and small, and even some of the small ones are worth savoring and noticing, so here you go. Savor away.

First, after about 2 weeks of nice warm temperatures, we had rain on Friday and Saturday.  I'm still sick of rain after the winter, but what it meant here is that all of the sudden spring exploded.  Before the rain, a few of the trees had started leafing or budding out as had some of the earliest flowers, but a little rain and poof, the woods are now a gorgeous shade of spring green and the city is full of flowers; magnolia, forsythia, and all sorts of things I don't know the names of (but can appreciate nonetheless).

Something about the newness of spring in the oldness of Marburg makes it more exciting somehow

After months of brown sleeping woods, this color is so lovely!

I don't know what these are, but they're nice.

I decided it was so nice while doing my weekly Saturday marketing that I made Sasha go back down the hill with me in the afternoon to go enjoy a slice of cake at our favorite cafe and to buy supplies for adventure number 3...

Sunday, after church, since it wasn't raining or freezing, we decided to go for a bicycle adventure and played another round of "find the castle".  We picked Mellnau as our destination of choice, and it was a good one.  The castle ruin had a Tower and we love Towers.  And, it had a paved road all the way to the walls, so no wading through muck to find a partial stone foundation this week (not that I mind those rounds of the game, mind you). The fortress was built in the mid 1200s and, to be honest, we had a strict timeline and the paint was pealing off the information sign, so I can't tell you all the details.  Although it seems to have been founded by Archbishop Siegfried from Mainz, and not by a Ludwig or a Friedrich or a Wilhelm (or a Friedrich Wilhelm) for a change. 

Riding up (and up and up) to the ruin.  The views are great, but man do the castle visits work the legs.

If you want more details, here's the sign.

 On the way out, we went through the town of Wetter, and saw a bonus tower, although we didn't stop to explore, so I can't tell you much about it. I think this is a stop on the "Fairy Tale Road" if you're following the brother's Grimm, but I'm not sure. It's a pretty safe guess, though, given how many "Grimm towns" there are around here.

Sasha photographing the unexpected tower...some things about Germany are just great.

We didn't have much time, so we didn't stop anywhere for cake, etc. but I did see a whole field of lambs and sheep on the way home, which made me almost inarticulately excited for several km.  Sasha, if one follows me home, can I keep it?

Wouldn't a lamb like this make you almost inarticulately excited, too?

The reason why we were hurrying back is that we invited a friend from church over to partake in adventure number 3: grilling!!  Although I feel like we mostly see open hibachi-like open grills here in Germany, we managed to find one like a good old Weber (if a mini one to fit our mini space) and charcoal and a few packages of marinated pork steaks (we picked a few somewhat randomly, but they were surprisingly good), vegetables, etc. 

Notice our fully recyclable grill table...after we're done reusing.

I am glad I'm not a German pig, but they are quite tasty.

Sasha manned the fire, I sliced the eggplants and prepared foil packets of zucchini, onions, etc., and it was SO satisfyingly delicious both to eat food fresh off the grill and to be sitting outside into the evening.  OK, so it was a bit chilly, but the birds were tweeting, the grass was green, and life was good.  Life is so good.

more lacrosse games

Hi friends and family,

I've been told I'm overdue for a blog post, and the reality is, we've been quite busy and I've been bad about taking photographs, etc. lately.  Also, Sasha's been doing a lot of work on the weekends, so we haven't been going on as many adventures together, and it's a bit less fun to blog about stuff I did without him.  BUT I have been traveling a bit for lacrosse with the Marburg Saints, so I'll tell you a bit about the last two trips.

The first was 3 weekends ago.  We went to Munster to play the team from Munster (big surprise, right). OK, so Munster normally has umlauts over the "u" but I'm feeling too lazy to figure out how to type umlauts into blogger, so just pretend I'm using them.
But back to the game/trip. Most of the experienced players on our team were on vacation because the semester schedules here are kind of funny and they have about a month break between the winter (October-February) and summer (April -July) semesters.  Science-y people seem to spend the breaks doing "practical" coursework (aka labs), research internships, etc. but many people also go on vacation or go hang out with their families.  SO, that left me, a few folks who were back from vacation already, and a few people who didn't leave for whatever reason.  Add to that the fact that we hadn't had practice in a few weeks, and we were NOT playing well.  Like I think we had a half-dozen successful passes all game.  For an hour of very fast-moving sport, that's abysmal, really. I had a ton of fun anyway, though, because we had no extra players, which meant that I got to play the whole game and I got to play the field positions where I basically got to run really fast all the time.  Which is what I'm relatively good at.  I know, I know, maybe I should just do running races instead, but until I find people to run with, lacrosse is far more social and thus more fun.  But also, the weather was gorgeous and sunny and we all played with short sleeves or shorts (well, lacrosse skirt/shorts) or both. Warmth and sun was really appreciated after the cold, rainy, dark winter. I went for a cool-down jog along the river, and I swear half of Munster must have been taking advantage of the warm sun and there were hundreds of people out for walks along the river.

The other awesome part of the Munster lacrosse weekend was that because we had room in our vehicle, we picked up "mitfahrer" (basically, instead of hitchhiking, you can look on a website and find people going where you want to go and you can pay them a bit of money to take you with them...the "blind dating" of German transportation, but faster than the train and greener than everyone driving alone) and thus we had about an hour to wander around the old part of Munstern before our pre-scheduled meeting time.  Munster in German means a monastary, and indeed there are some gorgeous old churches and we had time to stick our noses into 2 of them AND to get big, yummy ice creams. 

The munster for which the town got its name.

I didn't have my Germany guide, so I didn't know much about the churches that we were looking at, but really that whole part of town is pretty.  Which is amazing, really, since it had been pretty well flattened during WWII and rebuilt subsequently. Effectively all German cities over a certain size were bombed heavily during the war and thus many of their downtowns are ugly, because they were rebuilt to be "modern" during the 1950s.

A nice part of the old downtown; pretty buildings (with the Marburg Saints in the foreground!

However, as our lonely planet points out, the Munster residents were quite smart to ditch the typical 1950s architecture and instead to largely restore stuff to how it was; it's much cuter than many of the other similar-sized towns.  It also looks affluent and nice; lots of nice stores and added bits of art, etc. so even though there are plenty of old touches, the town looks liveable, and not like a decaying time capsule.  All told, the trip included a bit of running (aka lacrosse playing), a bit of touristing, and was generally a nice day-trip.

Modern art (I think) in the older part of town...for you MN folks, "cherry and spoon bridge" is cooler.

This past weekend we went to Dusseldorf (also has an umlaut over the "u").  Dusseldorf is ostensibly an industrial town; not cute like Munster.  I say ostensibly, however, because we did what a skier friend called a "one day surgical strike" for the game, and saw nothing of Dusseldorf outside the sports fields.  The way the game days work is the home team usually plays two games back to back and the visitors take turns playing and reffing/working the bench.  Luckily, I don't know enough to ref and they didn't need me to do any of the scoring things, so I just got to watch the game before us, which is fun, since it was two relatively good teams.  The previous weekend I went into Frankfurt (and biked home...which really deserves a post in itself, but since I don't have any pictures, I'll spare you the details) to watch the German national team play Austria.  It's fun to watch teams that are better than us play because it helps me see what I am striving for while playing.  If you can catch and throw balls reliably, then you are able to do more teamwork and more clever strategies than "get the ball, run to the goal, and shoot" which is what we largely resort to (when we manage to get the ball).  Anyway, it was a close game, and left me excited going into our game. 

Pre-game stick check to make sure our sticks are legal, we have mouthguards, our shoes won't tear up the field, etc.

Now, we knew going into our game that we were outmatched, and sure enough, we lost.  Still, for the first 20-30 minutes, we were actually holding our own pretty well.  Then, our less-fit team started getting tired and Dusseldorf started racking up the points. Oh well.  Personally, I can tell that I'm doing much better than that first game I wrote about in Mainz, and I am doing a bit better about actually doing smart things with the ball (when I get it, which is rare...if you aren't renowned for your catching ability, your teammates seem to not pass you the ball that often, strangely enough).

Us in action; I'm in the red socks.

 Even though we played better this game, I spent the second half of the game largely relegated to the offensive side, which doesn't see much action if the other team is stronger.  SO, I didn't get to run as much and that wasn't quite as fun.  But still, we were outside and the sun was shining, and every game I play I get a little better.  As my cycling coach often pointed out, I approach sports very analytically, which is great for helping me set incremental goals and to stay motivated even when I'm on the steep part of the learning curve.  OK, I know that there were interesting aspects of the games that didn't involve me, but I don't want to blog about my teammates without asking them first, so I'm sorry if I come across as too egocentric here.

Anyway, both of those trips ended up being a lot of driving per hour playing, and while they were fun, I'm glad I'm going to take the next weekend off from lacrosse and hopefully will get to go on a small adventure with my husband...and then the weekend after that, we're going to a tournament in Dresden (the lacrosse team, not my husband) and after that, Sasha and I are taking a vacation to Spain to fulfill our marriage contract-dictated Spain birding trip (although I have finagled some time for cultural experiences and eating into the itinerary).  So stay tuned for all of that!   

And, it's spring here in Germany.  The trees are budding, the flowers are blooming, and the frogs eggs are turning into tadpoles.  For those of you Minnesotans stuck in endless winter this year, you're welcome to come visit!

Lots of frog eggs in a puddle in the woods I walk through most days to get to work. Happy spring!

Mainz and lacrosse

Hello friends!

This past Sunday, I went to Mainz, but instead of visiting the Gutenburg museum or any of the other cool sights of Mainz (well, accept for a few that we accidentally drove by on the way home...stupid GPS...), I spent the afternoon in the rain on a sports field on the outskirts of town.  Lacrosse game!  After the semester ended, I started training with the local lacrosse club, the Marburg Saints: http://www.marburg-saints.com/

This post is going to be less a blow-by-blow of the game (we lost by a fair amount, but we scored some points and made some good plays)  or anything about our opponents (Mainz is one of the stronger teams in our region, and their coach is an American, who was super nice and even gave our team some pointers during half-time) and more of a pondering on sport and expertness and what makes lacrosse different from all my previous sports.  And fair warning, I forgot my camera, and it was cold and rainly, so there are no pictures.

So, last year when I was teaching at Colgate, I sat through a lecture by Kathy Takayama, a biologist turned education researcher at the Center for Teaching and Learning at Brown University.  It was a thought-provoking talk and she was cool, but the thing she said that really stuck with me was describing the difference between "novice" and "expert" audiences.  She used a chess example; the novice chess player looks at a board and sees an array of black and white squares and a ton of pieces of different shapes and, while a novice knows the rules and objectives, has to look at and consider all the pieces.  On the other hand, a chess expert looks at the same board and sees the general pattern and then automatically hones in on the critical pieces in that set-up.  The novice doesn't know enough to tune out the unimportant things.  Now, for teaching, her message was clear; you need to teach in a way that you aren't overloading the novice, making sure that your information is clear and isn't buried in details that you (as an expert in the field) just automatically tuned out.

Now, I haven't been a novice in many things for years and years, but by taking on Lacrosse, I find myself back in novice shoes (and literally, since I'm still playing in running shoes; cleats are expensive and I haven't justified the expense yet).  For those of you who aren't familiar with Lacrosse other than my post back in November, it's both a simple game and quite complicated.  The goal is to use sticks with baskets on the end (your crosses, I think, if you use the US term, or Schläger, in German) to throw a hard rubber ball into a goal as many times as possible, which sounds simple when I put it that way.  BUT handling the ball and stick take a fair bit of skill and  there are all sorts of rules about what you are and aren't allowed to do and there are different positions for players with different rules in effect.  We had 11 field players and a goalie, and 3 are defense, 3 offense, and 5 midfield. There are these lines on the field called restraining lines, and you must always have at least 4 players behind the appropriate restraining line or your team is "off-sides". You may notice, if you do the math, that means that one midfield player has to stay back at any time.  

SO, you can see how many things there are to think about if you're a novice player and have to think about everything: Where is the ball? It's small, and moves fast and you almost have to see it by the body language of the person possessing it instead of actually seeing the ball.  Where do I need to stand to increase my team's ability to maintain control of the ball, or to gain control of the ball from the other team?  If we're defending, where is "my player" and how can I keep them from getting the ball? Are the other team's star players covered right now, or do their defenders need backup? If we're attacking, how can I get clear of "my player" on the other team so that I could catch the ball?  If I do get the ball, who is open for me to throw to?
If the ball is moving across the field, do I need to run really fast to the other end, or do I need to stay on this side of the restraining line?  Is it my turn to rotate out, or can I keep playing?  And on top of that, add in the actual "holding your stick and catching and throwing the ball if it comes to you" which are still not trivial tasks to me.

So I constantly found myself in the novice's dilemma: do I keep the picture of the whole game in my head, and risk losing track of my specific task, or do I just focus on staying with "my player" and then perhaps leave a gap somewhere else on the field that I should have filled?   

Oh yeah, and everything is being discussed and explained in German, adding another level of challenge. It was only a week or so ago that I realized that these cool moves we'd been practicing to get around other players was not some intriguing thing called a "Dutsch" or "Dötsch" but is actually the English word "dodge".  It seems obvious in retrospect.

Remember, I'm used to being an "expert" in bike racing.  I may not have always made the right calls, but I could simultaneously pedal my bike, anticipate cross-winds/hills/course changes, keep track of my teammates and any women on opposing teams that needed careful watching, evaluate any attacks/counterattacks to see if we needed to worry about them and if my team was represented, etc. That's a lot of things, so it's not that different from Lacrosse, the difference is that I was good enough at pedaling my bike that I could keep all those things in my brain at once most of the time, and I'm clearly not there yet for lacrosse after one field game.

I don't want this to come off as whiny.  It's really fun learning something new, and in the midst of feeling generally confused, I totally made a few good moves on Sunday; I made a few good passes and there were moments when I was guarding someone who could have made a great shot otherwise.  And, the other folks on the club are very understanding that I'm a novice, and give helpful advice instead of being mean when I make mistakes.  It's more that I'm thinking like a scientist, and am trying to pinpoint what I need to do to improve. 

Clearly, I need to practice catching and throwing and being more comfortable moving the ball around, but also, I need to play more games so I can start to see the bigger picture and keep that in balance with making sure my piece in the puzzle is locked in.  Sounds like a fun challenge!

AND, my new safety goggles came (http://www.captain-lax.com/Lacrosse-Protection-Eyewear-/Gloves/STX-4Sight-Lacrosse-Goggle-Adult--3520.html, I had them delivered to work, since our mail there is more reliable), so to get in the Lacrosse spirit I think I'll wear them all day...my labmates already thing I'm crazy, so what's to lose?  or...maybe not....

Austria or bust

Hi friends!

Sasha and I are back from our adventure in the Austrian Alps, and it was fabulous.  We went to Ramsau am Dachstein, a town that I'd been to one autumn back when I was racing and training seriously for skiing, and it was such an awesome trip, I vowed to try to come back some winter. Well, something like 7 years later, I made good on that wish, without the pressure of any training goals.  Instead, our goal was simply to have a great vacation; a much simpler goal and one that would be very hard -not- to reach in Austria.

So, as far as I can gather, the creative forces in the universe that led to the creation of Austria must have thought something like "let's make a country that is really nice." The place is full of gorgeous mountains and cozy valleys, and in the winter, it seems to turn itself into one big ski resort. (OK, so a Brit we met on a mountain top said, you think that here, go to Switzerland, Switzerland really is one big ski resort.  He may be right, but that doesn't stop Austria from being pretty darn awesome).  And, it's civilized. Everytime you start to get thirsty or hungry, there's some hut or restaurant, etc. just waiting to feed you.

We left mid-day last Friday, and drove through snowstorm and nonstop heavy traffic (Sasha drove, I still can't drive a manual) and despite some brief worries due to inabilities to get through by telephone to our pension, made it safely down and checked in (Pension G'senger; good price and great location and ski/wax room in the basement with an ex pro-nordic skier as one of the owners, actually) and went to bed.  A word for anyone planning on driving to Austria from Germany, you need a special toll sticker to drive on their Autobahns.  Luckily, I learned this from a hiking trip this past August, because otherwise, we would have had no clue.  While there aren't frequent checks, so we could have gotten by without one, if you do get caught, I think the fine is quite stiff.  But, we got our sticker and got a spare reflective vest, too, since they also are required (if your car breaks down on any highway, only people wearing reflective vests are allowed to get out of the vehicle. A sensible rule, actually).

Since we reached the mountains at night while it was snowing, Sasha had no idea what awaited him the next morning, so he spent most of our first ski going "wow, this is so awesome". 

Snow! Mountains! Skiing! What else do you need for awesomeness?

Because, well, it was awesome. The mountains are gorgeous, and there are a hundred + km of trails and the grooming is outstanding.
 And he also spent much of our first ski falling. 

He asked if he got bonus points since the waterbottle made that many skips. I think, yes.

He got better over the course of our trip. Well, somewhat better.

Day 3...look at that distance!

I could paste in dozens of pictures of beautiful mountains and impeccably groomed tracks, but, well, I don't want to make you all hate me.  Instead, I'm aiming for showing you just enough to make you want to come out and visit!

Well, when we started to get a bit hungry, we took a break for some strudel (Sasha eating apfelstrudel on the left, a plate of topfenstrudel on the right) or soup or some such warm and satisfying snack, and when the sun went down, we went to a restaurant recommended by the innkeepers for dinner. No bad meal in the bunch.


The best day of the trip was probably day 3.  Days 1 and 2 were snowy, and while we had views of the mountains on and off, there were plenty of moments when we could have been in Northern Wisconsin (albeit one where everyone you pass is speaking some European language, and there are opportunities for goat petting or schnaps drinking along the trail).

Goats!! They're almost as good as sheep!

The sign says "self service"

Day 3, however, was sunny as can be, and so we took the gondola up from the neighboring town Filzmoos, and skied on a beautiful trail on top of a mountain. 

Forget about Eden, this seems like paradise to me. That's Sasha in the mid-ground, proving that he did spend most of the trip upright.

 

 

Many a summit in Austria has a cross on it.

The text says, "Lord God, our homeland is pretty" 

 

 
From the high point on the trail, we had a 360 degree view of the mountains, and even way up there, there was an "Alm" hut, at which we could stop for hot cocoa and cake. Although fewer food choices than in the valley.  Not surprising, given what it took to get the food and drink up there in the first place. 

In case you think it was all sunshine and skiing, there was one worrisome moment (evening of day 2) when we were worried that dinner might need to be Wasa bread and gouda since it seemed like we might not be able to get the car up the snowy side-road that our pension was on, but with some careful driving by Sasha and some serious pushing by me, we were able to get out and buy some yummy pasta dinners, afterall.  Which, really, is not a bad "worst part" as trips go. 

Well, I'll probably post again later with pictures from our birding stop on the way home, etc. but for now, I'll leave you with a final thought.  If the buddhists/hindus have it right, and instead of one life we keep getting reincarnated, I hope this: if I was a little good, I'd like to come back as an Austrian.  Such a nice country.  If I was naughty, perhaps I could come back as an Austrian pig; I've never heard of free-range pigs, but they do taste pretty delicious.  And if I'm really, really good, then I hope I get to be an Austrian sheep or goat.  You get to be adorable and fuzzy and you spend the winter snugly nestled in gorgeous valleys and all summer frolicking in the mountains.  Lovely, lovely mountains.

three weekends in february

Hi folks!

I know, I've been slacking on the whole blogging thing recently because, well, life is busy.  And since life has been busy, there's nothing super thrilling to report on, no trips to far off and exotic places, etc.  Nonetheless, I'll give you a brief update in the form of accounts of three brief activities on each of the past three weekends (this one included).

Act 1: Ground Hog's Day
Ground Hog's day is perhaps not one of the most devotedly celebrated holidays in the US, but I decided to celebrate it in Germany.  Translation: some of my labmates and I decided we desperately wanted to eat pancakes.  So I declared Friday, Feb. 1 (as the closest work day to ground hog's day) as the day for celebrating this holiday by partaking in the very American tradition of a Pancake Breakfast.  (If anyone asks you if this is a traditional celebration for the shadow-observing of the famed rodent, please do not deny it).

I made two kinds of pancakes: standard and gingerbread (from the 200th Anniversary King Arthur Flour cookbook) and into a subset of each mixed blueberries or sliced bananas.  Now, there are somewhere between 12 and 20 people who frequent our lab and its kitchen when you include the technicians and the assorted staff people on the floor, so that is a lot of pancakes. 

Good thing we have a big table.

Where did I cook them, you might wonder? Well, our kitchen has two tolerable electric burners, and a labmate brought in a nice skillet for me to use, I brought in my massive pan (often used for simmering entire cut up chickens with large amounts of rice, etc.) and induction burner, and from another of my labmates (from the US, thus someone who understands pancake cooking), an electric skillet. 

I was flipping the pancakes out as fast as I could, and I think that everyone had 2-3 (possibly 4) and was duly satisfied for a mid-morning snack and brief pause in the work day.  While I didn't really get a chance to sit down with everyone (I didn't want to serve pre-cooked, soggy pancakes) I was quite pleased that others did the dishes for me.

Act 2: Mathematics in Giessen
The following Saturday, my German class went on a field trip to a museum in Giessen called the Mathematicum.  Now, my German class (taken through the language center at the University, in an evening course scheduled for grad students and post-docs) is pretty small; there were only 5 of us who showed up anything approaching regularly and our instructor, but that was cool, because we are all mostly competent at communicating our needs in German, and just wanted an opportunity to increase our vocabulary and comfort, and mostly to just have forced practice time (given that I'm living in Germany, it is pretty impressive how little German I speak during the average week).  Thus, classes were nice and mostly low-key (quite an achievement in a country that loves rules and structure) and was peppered with useful context-based practice opportunities such as: cookie baking at my apartment and a trip to a museum in Giessen.
So, Sasha and I met the others when the train stopped at the south train station (easier to get to from our apartment) and we took the 20ish minute train ride into Giessen, got off at the Hbf (hauptbahnhof = main train station, but since the signs all say Hbf, Sasha and I have started calling them that, although I guess hupf really means to hop, in German...) and walked over the the museum, which was a lot like the Science museums that I've been to in the states (lots of interactive exhibits and displays) except they were all about math.  Some were a bit forced (half a dozen stations trying to visually demonstrate the Pythagorean theorum) but lots of the exhibits were quite fun: a camera connected to a computer in which you walked towards and away from the camera (your position plotted on the y axis) as the spot representing you moved steadily along the x-axis (representing time- you were "acting out a function").

I think this was Sasha's favorite: giant soap bubbles demonstrating that bubbles take on as surface-area minimizing a shape as possible. I'm not sure we really absorbed the scientific lesson, but standing in a soap bubble is cool.

And this was mine:  it's a machine with only one function: you turn it on by flipping a switch, and a little while later a hand pops out of a slot and turns itself off....I laughed every time for about a dozen times, at which point Sasha cut me off because he worried that I was scaring the locals.

I totally want one.  After, what, 100 or so times, I expect I'd be able to get some work done again. Maybe.

There were tons of other fun things, but I'll leave you to go explore them.  Let me hint by saying, if anyone wants to send me a box of tongue depressors, I totally want to build my own "Leonardo Bridge"...since our attempt at that station was disrupted by hovering, impatient Germans.

After the museum, we wandered around town window shopping, before taking the train back to Marburg. Awesome.

Act 3: Amöneburg, or "Find a castle" again

The SUN came out for a bit this morning, so Sasha and I decided to go for a bike ride, and thus went to a castle ruin that has been towering above us for months.  Fairly literally, since it's built on the top of a cone of an extinct volcano.  The bike ride up is a good schlep on a bike, and in my current out-of-shape state, took a lot of hard work even in my easiest gear on my compact-crank bearing cross bike... Full disclosure: I visited it a month or so ago on my own, and that's when I took the pictures, but it was worth it going up with my husband.  The ruins are cute and fairly extensive as these things go (at least for the ones that don't charge admission).  Unfortunately, the door leading up the tower was locked, so no climbing the tower this week. 

The best part of the trip, though, was that in the Marktplatz, on the way back down, there was what looked like an open bakery on a Sunday...which turned out to be a cafe with all sorts of cakes and pastries and ice cream.  Naturally, we stopped.  One cream puff and 2 hot chocolates later, and we were back on our bikes, happily heading down the rest of the hill.  We debated whether semi-regularly occurring trips up Amöneburg would be a net-gain or loss in calories for the day; if the big slices of cake would outweigh the steep bike ride or not (although, really, we might stop for cake elsewhere, anyway, but without the biking, so perhaps that makes it a loss)...


We then split up; I went to check out the castle in Schweinsburg, which is quite awesome, but also totally privately owned, so you can only peer enviously in through the very closed gates) and Sasha went home to get some more work done.  I did stop by lab on the way back, so I did some work too, mostly in pre-departure guilt for our trip to the Alps next weekend.

And there, I guess I ruined a report of three very minor adventures by hinting at the big one to follow next weekend as Sasha and I head to Ramsau to SKI!!! Stay tuned for more details once we get safely home.

travelling around

Hi friends!

For any of you keeping track, I promised that I'd write about our travels between Christmas and New Years, so here is the final post from our holidays (the second, chronologically).  We went to a lot of places and I don't want to write a book about it all, so I will try to limit myself to a few pictures and thoughts or anecdotes about each major stop.

When Sasha and I realized that our families were all coming for the holidays, we poured over maps to decide what to do outside of Marburg.  Our major criteria were these: 1. no more than a few hours of driving per day.  We wanted time to see the sights, poke our heads in churches, sample tasty treats, etc. 2. we weren't interested in hitting any of the major cities (they're expensive and we had some non-city people in the group) and 3. we wanted at least some cool castles/cathedrals/historic stuff to admire. So, we eventually settled on this somewhat unconventional itinerary, hitting a number of towns I hadn't heard of before beginning to plan the trip.

Eisenach: This city is famous for a few things, especially having once housed Bach and Martin Luther.  We didn't go to the Bach house, although it is supposed to be quite nice.  Instead, we spent most of our time in Eisenach exploring the Wartburg:

the Wartburg

The Wartburg is a giant fortress on a giant hill outside of town.  I liked that it looked like about half a dozen castles built in half a dozen styles (out of half a dozen building materials) that were all smooshed together.  Which, I suppose, is a fairly accurate assessment.  It was founded in the 1000s by Ludwig der Springer (gotta love the nicknames of some of the old dead German dudes, still, when they're all named Ludwig or Wilhelm, I suppose you need some way to keep them all straight). The most famous residents were St. Elisabeth, after she moved from Hungary, before her husband died and she moved to Marburg...yes, that Elisabeth, and Martin Luther, who will be a recurring theme of this trip.  The castle had somewhat fallen into disrepair between the time of Elisabeth and Martin Luther, but luckily in the 1800s a rich guy decided it was awesome and had it thoroughly renovated, although renovations are ongoing...I think castles take a fair bit of upkeep.  But, despite the age of some of the masonry, etc. there were also rooms with a much more modern feel, including this one with a mosaic from the 1920s, detailing Elisabeth's life.

It was a lovely room

Luther stayed at the Wartburg while he was hiding from the Catholic church, and he translated the new testament while here.  We looked into the "Luther room" but as a pilgrimage site, it was sadly underwhelming.  One disadvantage of protestantism, I suppose.  Still, they had a nice collection of paintings showing various parts of his life in a collection in the museum part of the castle, and Sasha and his brothers and I enjoyed climbing the tower. 

The "Luther Stube"- like I said, kinda underwhelming.  At least the whale vertebrae (!?!?) is from Luther's time.

We didn't spend much time in the town of Eisenach, and the evening was cold and rainy, making it less story-worthy. We stayed a bit outside of town in the "Schlosshotel am Hainich" that was quite nice, if less castle-like than the name suggested.

Mariendom on the left, Severikirche on the right

Erfurt: This city was pretty cool, and there were plenty of tourists around to show that other people know it, but it is on the list of "cities I had never heard of before planning this trip".  Erfurt is effectively centered around two giant, gorgeous church/cathedrals up on a hill: the Mariendom and the Severikirche (and no, Harry Potter fans, there was nothing Snape-like about it, it's honoring St.Severus, although I admit I'm still a bit unclear about what he did).

Zorro was here...in the floor of one of those churches, I forget which...

There was a citadel on the hill, but mostly we spent the afternoon wandering about the town and sticking our heads into beautiful churches, including the one in the monastery where Luther was a monk (before he broke from the Catholic church and got married).   Unfortunately, we couldn't tour the monastery, although they do give tours if you either ask them in advance or go during the summer. 

There is also this awesome bridge that you can't even tell is a bridge while you're on it, because it's a bridge masquerading as a narrow street lined with shops.  Very cute shops, I might add.  There's a tower at the end of the bridge, and we climbed it and had a great view of the bridge and some of the town.  You'd never know the town had been bombed, it was so lovingly rebuilt...doubly impressive since it was in the East!

Erfurt, from above, with the Kraemerbruecke in the foreground

Again, we spent the night a bit outside of town, and in the morning headed on to...

Rothenburg ob der Tauber: This is one of the most heavily visited cities in Germany, and for a reason.  It still is completely walled, and is quite cute, although it did seem somewhat more like a tourist attraction than a town at times.  Still, since we don't know when our families will make it back to Germany, it seemed worth hitting this city that seems to make all the "must see" lists.  It's pretty rare for a city to have been preserved so well, and while it is probably a sign that the city wasn't very prosperous between the time the walls were built and now, it does make for good touristing.

As seen from the tower on the Rathaus...not a climb for the acrophobic, just to warn you...

The legend goes that the city was going to be razed since it was on the losing side of the 30 year's war, but the ransacker made a bet that the mayor couldn't drink a giant vessel of wine, and if he could, the city would be spared...he drank it all, and so the city survived.  While the guidebooks, wikipedia, etc. will tell you facts that might be a bit different, there's still a nifty clock that acts out the story.

Ransacker on the left, drinking mayor on the right.

We poked into some cute churches, ate a (vastly overrated) locally famous baked good called a "Scheeball", and enjoyed rambling along the city walls, but only spent the afternoon in Rothenburg, since we wanted to stay close to the Frankfurt airport that evening, to allow Sasha's family to fy home more easily.

Sasha climbing up to the walls...normally he takes the pictures, but I grabbed the camera for this one!

Worms: After Sasha's mom and brothers left, my parents and Sasha and I headed to Worms.  I have to admit, my favorite part of Worms was this awesome Turkish bakery near our hotel.  They had all sorts of pastries and filled breads that I'd never heard of, and an interestingly flavored tea, etc.  Plus, it was a nice change from meal after meal of German food...don't get me wrong, I am plenty satisfied with German food, but too many meals of dumplings and duck or pig and red cabbage start to get a bit tiresome. Sadly, Sasha didn't find it nearly so impressive of a bakery or was too busy eating to photograph our tasty treats.  Not that I blame him, the baklava was certainly tasty.

BUT, onto the sites of interest.  Worms has a large cathedral, quite lovely, although you are probably getting a bit churched out, so I'll spare you from many of the details.

To mix it up, here's an inside picture.  Not protestant, in case you couldn't tell from all the gilding.

 Worms also added to our tour of Luther sites, since this is the Worms of the famed "Diet of Worms" (and fear not, despite having talked about it for weeks, Sasha failed to eat gummy worms in Worms, thus failing to act out a truly embarrassing pun).  Still, there was a nice monument commemorating Luther and the rise of Protestantism, generally. SO, in the Cambridge Commons (the Massachusetts one), there's a tree that's renowned because George Washington slept under it (so the story goes).  I swear, every town in Germany seems to boast about having shared a bit of Luther's time; churches that boast that Martin Luther preached there, etc. There's even a painting in the Marburg castle detailing his visit to our fair city.  But, that said, Worms was a fairly important place in the story of the reformation, so perhaps it is worth this (for protestants) quite fancy sculpture.

Many of the important figures of the reformation, with my mother.

 And, inexplicably, a whole series of small dragons...

Asking directions from one of the many local dragons...

Speyer: This is the awesome town we almost didn't go to.  It wasn't on our original itinerary, but when the museum that we wanted to visit in Worms was closed, we decided to drive down the road a bit to Speyer, another town I had never heard of before this trip.  It has a beautiful Romanesque cathedral, as lovely in its simplicity as gothic cathedrals are in all their grandeur.  It was a HUGE church and had one of the largest crypts in Germany, although it was rather lacking in sarcophagi, the arches and quiet of the crypt were still cool.   There were some awesome looking museums that we didn't have time for (including one with whole airplanes to climb around in) and more churches and there was still a small Christmas Market, even though we were there only days before New Year's, with nice looking gifts and foods.  Alas, Sasha's camera must have run out of batteries, so you'll just have to take my word for it that Speyer was cool and will be worth another visit, if we go through our "must see" list fast enough for repeat visits.

All in all, we had fun traveling, but while it was sad to separate from our families, it was nice to get home and relax.  

"Here I stand. I can do nothing else. God help me. Amen." Luther

Skiing!!

OK, so I promised Dad I'd post again, but this will be short because it's late (because for once I did finish my German homework for tomorrow without needing to do any of it during incubations in lab tomorrow...well, except I need to erase 2 mistakes since I can't find an eraser anywhere in our apartment).

But we have a good reason for having had little time to blog.  In addition to the usual craziness of our somewhat over-committed evenings (I couldn't decide between German, a dance class with Sasha, and a Lacrosse class so I'm taking all 3), it SNOWED this week, so naturally we needed to go skiing.  Normally, it sounds like Marburg gets a handful of dustings of snow, but a skiable amount only falls every few years.  Last weekend, we had a dusting of snow on Saturday, and then a bit more on Sunday, but sadly, it didn't look skiable without what skiers call rock skis (interpretation: skis that you can ski over rocks with and not cry when the bases get scraped up), but then Sunday night, we must have gotten another 5 or 6 inches of snow.  I love snow!

So, after our respective German classes let out on Monday, we raced home, wolfed down a small dinner, and grabbed our skis.  I considered getting out my snow thermometer to see which kick wax to use, then thought, why bother, I'm just going to go with extra blue, anyway.  And I did, so we were out the door in record time, and onto the logging roads near our house, skiing by headlamp.  The benefit of not skiing very often is that I've become a lot less snooty about ski conditions.  There was no grooming and the track that Sasha had skied in earlier in the day had been thoroughly trampled (note to non-skiers out there, those two hip-width parallel smooshed areas in the snow are meant for skiers, if you walk in them, then skiers hit all of your footprints and cannot glide and are very sad).  While back when I was training seriously for skiing those things would have virtually ruined the ski for me, instead all I could think was "I love skiing!!" and "wow, it's white and my skis are gliding, this is amazing!"

See, my skis were gliding! Amazing!

You can see how many footprints there were, even after only one day...strangely enough, we didn't see anyone between 8:30 and 11pm, though.

Anyway, Sasha and I skied for maybe 2 hours on Monday night, and then about the same amount of time on Tuesday.  While there were a few nasty stretches that had been chewed up by logging vehicles, generally, it was so great to be out there skiing.  It's funny how long muscle memory lasts. Even after all those skier muscles that really aren't used on the bicycle atrophied, I can still step into a pair of skis and it feels so natural. Plus, there's something magical about being surrounded by snow covered trees, even more so when they are illuminated by headlamp and you're skiing with your husband. 

Being able to ski to class had been a secret goal of mine all through college (which I managed once, despite the incredible speed at which Harvard Yard Ops clears all the sidewalks and walkways), and I topped that and was able to ski to work twice this week.  Sadly, by Thursday, the snow was just too chewed up by loggers and hikers, and I only have one race pair of classic and one race pair of skate skis here, so didn't want to ruin either pair.  Still, since such snows are fairly rare here, I'll count even 2 days of local skiing as a big blessing.  But I still can't wait until we head to the Alps in late February.

Long-exposure photo of me coming down a hill.  Sasha had some explanation about why you can see my headlight but not the rest of me, but you'll have to ask him.