Welcome to Waldorf: Stuttgart Edition

Not two weeks later we began our next trip much like how we ended the first:  running.

But, I should back up.

Friday, January 29th was the first day of a short, two-day seminar for Waldorf school language teachers in Stuttgart, a city about six hours south of Wolfsburg by train.  It is also where the first Waldorf school was located.  Our department head, Annelie, made all of the arrangements for the teachers that were signed up to go: us three English teachers and one of the new French teachers, Celine.  With the trains there and back booked and hotel rooms reserved, our only job was to get to the bus stop on time after we taught the morning's first two classes.  The rest would be covered by subs or canceled.  Easy enough, right? 

Since we live so close to school, we decided not to bring our luggage to school.  Our instructions were to meet at the the front door of the school around 11 to head to the bus stop together.  Running slightly behind, we were just about to leave the apartment when we received a call from Annelie.  "Can you make it to the bus stop in ten minutes?  I just looked at the schedule and that's when its coming."

To date, we still have not timed how long it takes to go from our apartment to the bus stop beyond the school, but ten minutes is cutting it extremely close. 

Off we ran.

...at least we did the best we could.  We had two bags each to lug over a very rugged terrain of ice and snow.  It had snowed and sleeted all the night before, making for a slightly treacherous trek.  I'm sure we looked even more ridiculous that morning than we had the night we caught the bus coming back from Berlin.

To get to the bus stop, we had to run by the school.  It would have been more than slightly embarrassing had a student seen the two of us in a galloping frenzy to catch the bus.  As we passed the northern entrance, our other French colleague Gui was just getting into a taxi.  The thought crossed my mind for a moment to give up sprinting with our bags and see if his taxi would mind making a detour to the train station.  Instead, we huffed out good wishes to wherever he was headed and continued on our hurried way.

As we rounded the last corner that would reveal the bus stop, I started to relax.  Having glanced down at my watch, it seemed we had made it in time.  Then we saw that the stop was completely empty.  It was 11:02.

In disbelief, we looked at the time table.  The next bus would come at 11:17.  It is more or less a 15 minute bus ride to the main bus station from school.   And then we would still have to scurry to the train station.  Upon talking to Annelie, we also found out that our platform at the station was one of the furthest ones from the entrance.  Our train was to leave at 11:40. 

We didn't know what to do.  Run back to school to call a cab?  Wait for the bus and hope for the best?  We tried hailing the few cabs that drove past, but to no avail.  Mike even threw out the thumb to try to catch one of the passing motorists.  We were becoming desperate.

11:16 -- at this point we were just going to have to hop on the bus and pray for the best.

11:17 -- where is the bus??!

11:18 -- of all days to be late...

11:19 -- this is not one bit amusing.

11:20 -- there!  I see it!  Why can't it drive any faster??

Just as the bus was finally pulling up to the stop, Mike spotted another taxi.  He successfully flagged it down and we scrambled in.  Around the bus we went and directly towards the train station we drove.

As we drove into the city center I called Annelie to let her know we caught a cab and were on our way.

"Vicki," she said.  "You don't have to worry!  All the trains are delayed from yesterday's weather.  The train won't arrive for another 40 minutes."

Oh.

At least we were able to stop stressing.  We arrived at the station and met up with Celine and Annelie.  Having extra time on our hands, all of us picked up some magazines -- Time and Newsweek for us Americans -- and had some coffee.  About five minutes before the train was due, we headed out to the platforms.  As we stood waiting, I noticed a familiar looking man standing just a few feet away.

Gui!

Originally from France, Gui often heads there on the weekends to be with his wife and his parents.  It didn't matter at that point, but I did mentally kick myself for not realizing he was probably headed to the train station when we saw him at school.  Anyway, it turned out that the train Gui was supposed to take was canceled due to frozen rail lines and was reassigned to our now late train for a very detoured route to France.

What a strange group we were -- a mixed up babble of French, German, and English all at once.  Our tri-lingual chattering was loud and excited, which definitely turned a few heads.  The mix of languages is pretty normal when we are with our language colleagues -- depending on who is around, sometimes Spanish and Japanese are part of the babble.

Annelie had reserved seats for the four of us going to the language seminar, but since not all seats are reserved, Gui boarded with us and found a seat nearby.  We had a nice place where two pairs of seats faced one another with a table in between.

Here are our colleagues, happy to be on the warm train.

 

Once the train took off, Gui squeezed in with Annelie and Celine.

At some point during the ride Celine asked us exactly where in the United States Mike and I are from.  We gave her our usual verbal response:  in the middle of the country and in the north; not too far west of Chicago.  Then Mike was struck by a sudden urge to be very Waldorf.  He grabbed his pen and pad of paper and began drawing a map.

The depiction of the Midwest grew to include all of "Mr. MIMAL"... and then all of a sudden it became a challenge to remember exactly where all of the states are located and positioned in the country.  For a while, we did quite well.  Then things got a little messy in the southwest.  And on the southeastern coast.  Don't even ask about the New England area.  Apparently there was some sort of cataclysmic event that caused the northeast to break off and form an island since the last time I looked at a map of the continental US... but I think we still did a pretty good job.  

Then it was the French people's turn.  And, by their turn, I mean that Gui drew the outline of the country and then let Celine try to remember where the twenty-two bureaucratic states of France are and what they're called.  In France the lay people don't really pay much heed to the "states".  The state divisions are only used for governmental and bureaucratic organization, so it was quite a challenge for them to place all of the states.  So, while we had a newly found island in the US, the France created on the train that day had a few big holes -- which probably lead to the other side of the world -- in the country.

  

Of course, once France was finished by our two French natives, Annelie had to represent Germany.

Our cartography took us all the way to Göttingen, about an hour and a half away from Wolfsburg, where the four of us on our way to Stuttgart left Gui to catch our connecting train that would head further southward.  That train was also running late, so we had another 40 minutes to stretch and get something to eat and drink.  Hungry, a bit weary, and wanting something satisfying Mike and I had our first American chain restaurant meal in Germany since arriving in October:  Burger King.  It was perfect.

It was another four hours or so on the next train before we reached Stuttgart.  We were to be at the school for the conference by 7:30, which gave us about an hour to check in at the hotel and drop off our things.  Annelie did a great job of finding us a place -- it was a hostel that was also used for overflow student housing from the university in the city.  The place was very nice.  I loved what they left on the pillows for their guests.

It wasn't until we took a taxi to the school that I realized what the landscape of the city is:  a very deep valley.  Our hotel was very close to the bottom of the valley -- the school was at the top.  Winding our way up was confusing (though it didn't help that our driver got lost) and all of the hills along the way made me feel like I was in San Francisco.  

The topic of this seminar for the English portion was teaching language with text.  It was lead by Erhardt Dahl, who is a well known, published Waldorf teacher.  The participants were from all over Germany and even one from Austria.  The first session of the seminar only lasted about an hour and a half or so, but it was an interesting introduction for Mike and me about this pedagogy and philosophy we know so little about.  

Since we still hadn't eaten by this point, we decided to head towards the city center to find dinner.  We found a giant staircase that led down the steep side of the valley and found our way down to the bottom of the valley.  Here in the city center you can access the trains and the subway, find all the important government buildings, and also visit the headquarters of  Daimler Mercedes-Benz.  We walked by various museums, beautiful churches, and castles, but sadly, we didn't have the time to visit or see anything.

Here is the New Castle in Stuttgart, which we passed while looking for food.

Also found in the city center is a giant shopping district.  There are blocks upon blocks upon blocks of stores -- a little bit like the Mall of America laid outdoors.  One section of the district was dedicated to extremely expensive shops.  I took these pictures in honor of Kim.

Eventually we decided to eat at Maredo's, a chain of "Mexcian" sit-down restaurants you can find throughout Germany.  This was the first place we were able to order a normal tasting steak.  We also found margaritas there.

We returned to our hotels and got a decent night's rest.  Surprisingly, our hotel had a rather lovely breakfast.  It consisted of more than the usual cheese slices, rolls, and cold cuts you find at German hostels and hotels.  

Here is the view from our hotel window.

We took another taxi up to the school for the remainder of the seminar.  The morning and afternoon was broken up into four ninety minute sessions with coffee breaks between each.  During the first break, Mike and I went out and took some pictures of the view from where the school stands on the valley.

  

The school itself is also quite beautiful.  In accordance with Waldorf philosophy, the buildings are irregularly shaped and have lots of windows.  The interiors of the buildings are colorful and the entire school grounds is covered with student work.  

This building is where we spent most of our time in Stuttgart.

  

More of the school grounds.

  

I believe this is where the middle school classes are held.

  

 

The French word for these roof-top windows literally translate into "the what is that?"

  

Playground equipment.

  

These reliefs were made by students of the school and put up on the side of one of the school buildings.

The first Waldorf school was founded in Stuttgart in 1919, though this particular one is not the founding school.  There are at least five schools in the area, not including the Waldorf kindergartens. 

During our lunch break Annelie took us to a Waldorf bookstore, a treasure trove of all things Waldorf.  Here we found a wonderful traditional German song book filled with beautiful colorful illustrations.  No more cultural ignorance about German folk songs for us.  It was also here that I fell in love -- with a doll.  I could go into a long diatribe about Anthroposophy and anthroposophical artwork, but I'll just give you this link about Waldorf dolls.  Here is another image, though these don't compare to the one I saw at the store.  (P.S. Mike, have you bought me one yet?)

On our way back, we passed by a few street cars, which are rather common around parts of Germany.

We also passed by two giant slides that looked really cool, until you realize that they lead right down the hill and into the street...

When the conference came to a close in the evening, we all headed back to the train station.  Since our school had a long weekend in recognition of the end of the semester, we were each headed in different directions.  All of us started on the same train, but while Celine had a direct route back to Wolfsburg, Annelie just barely made her connecting train to visit her sister elsewhere in the country and Mike and I caught a connecting train to Cologne where we would spend the remaining three days of our weekend as tourists.  

We were very excited to explore more of Germany.  It was just a short hour and a half train ride from Mannheim (where we caught our connection) to our destination.  

On our way to Köln!