Mike's first hair cut

Just like long films get intermissions in Germany (we were really confused when the lights came up halfway through Avatar on our first movie excursion in Germany), this long post about our trip to Cologne is getting an intermission, too!  An insane week has ended and we are finally on our two-and-a-half week long Easter break.  So, no new posts till we get back. 

We made some preparations for our trip after school today, including an overdue hair cut for Mike.  Even Guy mentioned Mike's long boyish locks at our teachers meeting the other day.  Not sure exactly how to articulate the way he wanted his hair cut, the guy gave him two choices:  short or middle short.  We were both curious as to how it would turn out since neither of us have had our hair cut in Germany before.  Let's just say it was not exactly what we're used to -- but it's definitely shorter, which was the goal. 

So here's Mike's new and hip German hair-do.  Some of our students have the same hair cut.  

Experiencing Köln

Aside from the drunk football (soccer) fans roaming up and down the train, our voyage to Köln (Cologne) was restful.  It was so restful that we lost track of which stations we were approaching.  I just happened to look out the window and catch a glorious view of a giant cathedral against the darkening sky.

We had reached Köln!

I wish we had been able to capture the amazing sight the city offers when you step out of the main train station.  Instead, I offer you this night view of the Kölner Dom that I found on the internet which is more or less what I saw as our train approached the station.

Immediately upon leaving the station, your entire field of vision is filled with this imposing, grandiose cathedral.  With dusk falling and just enough lighting to highlight the majesty of the place, I cannot begin to describe how awesome it was.  Someone once described it to me as a real-world model of Maleficent's creepy castle, but I personally think that this cathedral is more beautiful and awe-inspiring than Notre Dame de Paris. 

From there we took a very short walk to our hostel, which was only two or three blocks from the station and the cathedral.  The location was probably the best part about the hostel.  Other than being reasonably priced, the place had few redeeming qualities - nothing felt clean and everything smelled terrible.  Unfortunately, it seems that all of Köln's hostels are not so great, so if we go again, it's either going to be the same kind of cheap hostel or paying a lot more for a nice hotel.

No matter where we stay, however, from now on we will always book a room of our own.  It's a bit awkward sharing a place with three random guy strangers, as we had to the first night we were there.  Since we didn't have a place to relax on our own, we headed back out into the city as soon as our things were locked away.

By then it was rather late, but exploring the area was fun and rather enjoyable in the falling snow.  We walked by the giant cathedral again and then wound our way through the shopping district looking for a place to sit down and grab a drink and bite to eat.  It took us quite a while to find anything that was suitable because we kept walking down random streets without open shops or restaurants, and by the time we stopped we had no idea where in the city we had wound up.  Nevertheless, we were in high spirits and were curious about this tapas bar we found next to a curiously named restaurant...

 
We went in hoping for sangria, but since they were without, we settled for a decent red wine instead(it was a granache) .  The host, being a more recent immigrant, spoke in broken German.  As a result, he and I ended up communicating through a very strange garble of German-English-Spanish, primarily Spanish-German (Spengman? Sperman?).  It was strange, frustrating, and hilarious all at the same time because anytime I tried to reach for a Spanish word in my brain, German words floating around would get in the way.

Due to his friendliness, however, we decided to stay longer and asked him to recommend a dish.  His menu favorite, though not a German favorite, was Orejas de la Plancha.  Mike was feeling adventurous, so we decided to go for it.  Bring on the pig's ear!  Really, I was proud of how much of the offal Mike ate.  I've had pig's ear dishes a few times since my family has prepared it on occasion, so I know that the texture is quite unique.  We made a dent in the rather large serving, but the sauce was a bit salty and overbearing so there was still a bit left when we had reached our fill.  I think that the host was a bit sad that we didn't like it more, but he was still very nice and gave us directions back to the cathedral (a few blocks straight down the street) so that we could find our way back to the hostel.  It was a fabulous start to our weekend -- the first time we'd been out late on a Saturday night since moving to Germany!

Since all museums are closed on Mondays in the entire country, the following day was designated museum day.  We got up much earlier than we needed to since museums don't open until 9 or 10 AM, so we went to mass at the cathedral before having breakfast.  Although that particular service was not held in the main chapel, it was still an interesting experience.  Most notably, it was freezing.  We didn't even stay for the entire service and we were chilled to the bone.  It was hard to imagine how difficult it must have been to sit in those uncomfortable benches in the midst of winter hundreds of years ago.

For breakfast, we had another fast food first by going to McDonald's.  Sadly, no hash browns came with the Egg McMuffin breakfast meal, but it was still warm and familiar tasting.  (I know Kurt's proud of us.)

The museum that was open the earliest happened to be Museum Ludwig, Köln's 20th century art museum.  At the time, their featured exhibit was one by an Austrian artist named Franz West.  'Out there' is an understatement.  A large portion of the exhibit was made up of what he calls "Adaptives", which includes funny mirrors that contort images, small mazes to walk through, and objects you pick up.  One display that left an impression on us was made of a kind of grate or metal screen with small diamond-shaped perforations.  This screen, covered in a sort of sprayed on papier-mâché, was set up in a corner so that it made a small private space.  Next to it was a chair.  The explanation plaque's instructions were for a viewer (or user/participant as West would probably prefer) to forewarn a security guard that he/she would be using the exhibit so that security could ensure he/she would be undisturbed.  Then, go behind the screen, remove his/her clothing, put the clothing on the chair, and stay behind the screen for five minutes observing, thinking, experiencing.  Mike decided to try it out for a minute or so.  He only removed his sweater, so no guards had to be notified, but it was an odd experience nevertheless. 

There was plenty of other weird artwork in the museum, and of course there was not enough time to see it all.  Modern art is pretty exhausting.  For us, the main attraction was their rather extensive collection of Picasso pieces.  It was very cool seeing his artwork in person, as odd as it is.  Probably the strangest piece in the collection (at least amidst everything else there) was a portrait of a man that was absolutely and completely normal. 

Our next museum of the day was the gestapo prison museum.  Finding the entrance was extremely difficult, but well worth the hunt.  The museum, housed in the building of a former documentation site and prison, is split into two parts.  We began by taking the audio guide tour of the upper floors, which held room after room of displays leading through a the history of the Nazi rise to power in Cologne and of the events and atrocities that occurred in the city through the war.  The information was fascinating and incredible.  It was eerie realizing that all of the awful events the guide described happened in the very town we were visiting, or the hospital next door, or even the building in which we were then standing.

The second part of the exhibit was walking through the preserved gestapo prison in the the building's basement.  It was gloomy, chilly, and oppressive.  Scratchings made by those held there -- tally marks counting the passing days, calendars, names and dates, messages and pleas for help -- are still legible on the walls.  The cells are tiny and claustrophobic.  How they stuffed so many people into the cramped spaces, I can't even begin to imagine, nevertheless imagine being in there.  Some cells had tiny barred windows at the top.  Horrible still was how people passing in the street could ignore the sounds coming from within the building.

We listened, learned, and looked for hours.  It was far past lunch time by the time we left.  After grabbing some lunch at an Italian restaurant, we walked to the third museum for the day:  the Wallraf-Richartz Museum.

We liked the outside of the building, which announced the artists whose paintings were within.

This museum was more realistic to tackle within an hour and a half or so.  I appreciated the conciseness of the museum's layout.  Here they had two featured exhibits.  The first was centered around Napoleon's campaign to Egypt.  They had the drawings and sketches made by Napoleon's team of scientists and researchers as well as some of the artifacts that were found on their excursions.  The second special exhibit was one based around Van Gogh's painting Shoes. 

After the Wallraf-Richartz Museum we were museum-ed out.  It was starting to get rather late into the day.  Being troopers however, we didn't stop there.  Last on our list was the much praised Chocolate Museum at the city's chocolate factory.  It was a short walk there and also the first time we got to walk down by the Rhine River.  

I am not sure why this is the only picture we got of the river itself.  Below is the museum/factory which I think looks like a castle.  A castle with a mini tropical rain forest in the middle.

The entrance looks much more museum/factory-like.

And here's a tired girl who was very excited about chocolate.

At this point we were so worn out that we just casually perused our way through the displays.  We only had a little more than an hour before the place closed anyway, and of course we wanted to be sure that we had enough time to sit down in their café!

This didn't prevent us from taking pictures, however.  It was the first time our cameras came out in full-force on the trip.

They had a globe that showed where chocolate plants can be found on the earth.  Mike is pointing out where we happened to be on earth.

And where we came from!

In the tropical rain forest, I posed next to one of the most wonderful plants on the planet:  the coffee plant.

Here's a close up of the sign.

 Mike's enjoying the unexpected humidity.

Focusing back on chocolate, they had dried out cocoa bean fruit pod husks.  I was surprised by how big they were.

One of the highlights of the exhibit was their chocolate fountain.  It's not really that exciting, especially in comparison to Willy Wonka's chocolate factory with his chocolate river and waterfall, but they did dip wafers into the fountain and give out samples!

They also showed how the little mini chocolate bars given to us at the entrance to the museum are made and packaged.  

The next floor demonstrated, among other things, how they make hollow chocolate bunnies and anything else you can imagine... three-feet high chocolate camel statues, for example!

The rest of the museum showed the history of the chocolate commodity as well as how the US and European brands have grown over the years.  Once we made it through that, we headed straight for the café which couldn't have been in a more perfect spot.  An entire wall of the café was made of windows looking out onto the Rhine River.  It was absolutely gorgeous and a perfect pairing with our chocolate treats.  

I had an absolutely delicious chocolate cake.

Mike ordered a trio of different chocolate ice creams -- some of the best chocolate ice cream we've ever had.

The museum also had free internet access, which is amazing for Germany (hence the iPod in the picture). 

Once the museum closed, we slowly meandered our way back to our hostel.  Fortunately we were able to exchange rooms for the remainder of our stay (two more nights).  Instead of a large room shared with three strangers, we got a smaller room for two.  We moved all of our things and took short showers.  

Not ready to turn in for the night just yet, we headed back towards the Rhine.  On our way back to the hostel earlier we had walked by part of the Altstadt or the Old City along the river and noticed a bunch of restaurants and bars there.  We figured it'd be a good place to get some dinner and Kölsch, the special kind of beer brewed only in Köln.  Someone once told us that it only counts as Kölsch you can see the Kölner Dom from the brewery.

After successfully enjoying our first Kölsch in a very German restaurant/bar and being a bit disappointed in their cheese plate, we turned in for the night to rest up for the next full day in Köln.

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!

 

An Addendum

As a short addendum to my previous post about the Christmas market in the Autostadt, I was incorrect in stating that English was used (in this case) for its 'hip' factor.  As Vicki and I recently learned (at a lunch of traditional Russian fare with a colleague from the Ukraine and his family), the Autostadt has a different theme every year for their Weihnachtmarkt.  This year's was Britannia, and thus the English signs.  Last year's was the United States and the year before that was Russia.  However, it is not uncommon to hear English words inserted in everyday language (as well as large swaths of Internet jargon pronounced German-ly) for the aforementioned 'hip' factor.  As news publications often write following corrections, I apologize for the error.