Rhyme Time

We have built up a fair collection of books by the dynamite duo Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler. Our first few were purchased in Scarborough, England. Even if you didn't know that they were British, you would soon find out if you just flipped through a book or two: Monkey is looking for his Mum, George looks very smart in his new trousers, and scarf is supposed to rhyme with laugh. Unfortunately, Daisy lets us read that line only by pronouncing it as larf.

Perhaps Daisy's favorite activity is reciting her books, which are all memorized to various degrees. It did not take long for the catchy Donaldson rhymes to lodge in her brain, and hence our days are paralleled by a constant stream of storytelling. Besides finding Daisy's voice as sweet as Nutella and the rhythm of spoken words as relaxing as Gregorian Chant, I educationally endorse these books because rhyming is a crucial building block of reading and spelling. With these books, the "Willaby Wallaby Waisy, an elephant sat on Daisy" song, and her Rhymes puzzle, I have a tidy literacy unit that comes in handy on rainy days. Have I mentioned that we have our fair share of those?

I caught one of Daisy's recitations on tape a month ago while she was sitting on her potty after a bath. Oh, is she good at stalling before bedtime! If you can look past my clunky editing, along with the shameful dark circles under her eyes and her lack of clothing, I believe that you'll enjoy her artful performance. It's a story about a respectable dad who happens to be a stick, but out in the big wide world, other people and animals find him expendable.

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Encyclopedia of German Culture

We've found it: a rigorous study of life in Germany, an insightful collection of customs, traditions, and social mores. Install it in German classes, gift it to new German residents - this trustworthy encyclopedia of German culture is straight from the horse's mouth.

I present to you The Conni Books: 99 cents, pocket-sized paperbacks, each sold separately.
Oh, yes, it's written for children. But don't adults return to a form of childhood when they begin a new life as a foreigner? (I have a bit to say on that subject, but it can wait for a later post.) Chris and I like learning new vocab words, Daisy likes to - need I say it? - memorize and recite the text, and we all enjoy the mini snapshots they provide of German life.

One of the first things that Conni cleared up for us was the purpose of the Schultüte (school package). Kids here go to Kindergarten from age 3-6, and then head to their "first day of school" at age 6, like the American first grade. This is considered a big milestone; grandparents even come over for breakfast that day to send them off. Shops also exhibit a colorful variety of large cardboard or plastic cones. Chris and I knew that they were for candy or toys., but questions remained unsolved....were they presents for the teacher? Surprises for the kids? Do the kids exchange candy on the first day like Valentines in US elementary schools?

Would you have guessed that the kids get the exciting package that morning, carry it to school and place it beside their desks...still unopened...and schlepp it home again at the end of the day to finally see what's inside?
Well, that's the tradition. Thank you, Conni. The text here kind of translates as "Once she's home, Conni's finally allowed to unpack her cone. So much is inside! Too bad you only get a Schultüte on the first day of school."

Here's Conni at a trip to the sea - yes, topless. It's all part of that European comfort with nudity. You should see the page where they're waiting in line for the showers in the dressing room!

Here's the St. Nicolas tradition of cleaning your boots on the night of December 5 and finding them filled with treats the next morning:

Later in that book, there's this cozy portrayal of a Christmas market. Everything's here: the Lebkuchen (gingerbread), Heisse Maroni (roasted chestnuts), the organ guy...this will bring back such good memories someday.

Apparently, I've been wasting my energy as I try to come up with my own descriptions of life in Germany - it's all published! It's a little deflating when I realize that I'm hardly a Lewis or a Clark as I explore this new country. I guess the good part is that now I don't have to photograph other people's kids at the beach or creepily stalk children on their first day of school to add pictures to my blog posts. The Conni Books will surely stay on our bookshelves for years to come, a wonderful "encyclopedia" for teaching Daisy and reliving our experiences here.

Fairy Tales and Palaces

Chris and I have been reading a new Oxford translation of eighty-two of Grimms' Tales. These old folktales predate the professor brothers, not to mention Walt Disney. In them, beautiful poor girls are rescued by kind kings and wickedness is always punished. Although it seems that Disney just recirculated these stories with happy endings, I've noticed some differences. There are the trivial storyline discrepancies; in the Grimm version, the seven dwarfs maintain a spotless home before Snow White's arrival! Broader historical norms stand out as well. There is nothing about finding true love in the German tales. Instead, I would describe the heroine's climactic marriage as a means of fleeing an evil stepmother's tyranny or curse and starting a comfortable, reasonable life, away from all that magic.

After living in Europe, another thing now becomes clear: royal residences once dotted this landscape like water towers in the Midwest. In America, imagining the prince riding by on his horse or the palace glimmering on a hilltop seems overly romantic and far-fetched. Here, practically every village had its prominent, horse-riding, sparkling royalty nearby, and it was quite reasonable to imagine catching the young prince's eye. Or, at least, the imagining could be forgiven.

One palace surviving near us is the pink Schloss Benrath. This was our local adventure last weekend.

This was a summer palace, set in the wilderness in order to hunt. Hippie themes like the four seasons and the four elements dominate the motifs.

It's not that especially significant of a palace: a scene is set here in one of Thomas Mann's works; Gorbachev and Queen Elizabeth II have been guests here; Napoleon stayed here during his conquest of this area; it was built by a famous Bavarian duke in the Wittelsbach line, who also established the Englischer Garten in Munich. The palace now houses three museums, each with a separate admission ticket. Shameless. We're saving those for a rainy day; the gardens were free and the sun was shining.


The gardens stretched out behind the palace. After rambling through a wilderness formerly providing a habitat to game, we strolled through a lovely double ring of perfectly arranged trees. How peaceful to stay awhile in architecturally transformed Nature!

We were enchanted by cozy planted beds with flowers, herbs, and organic vegetables for purchase.



Although we've visited a handful palaces, this was the first time that we've had the leisure to pack a picnic. Here's Daisy on maybe her 7th apricot. That girl and her summer fruit...
Nothing says "summer in Germany" like having a picnic at a palace.

Well, now I'm off to start Hansel and Gretel - perhaps my next post will be about candy. Or sweet children. Or both.

My friend, Anne

Wednesday, February 23, 1944

"The weather's been wonderful since yesterday, and I've perked up quite a bit. My writing, the best thing I have, is coming along well. I go to the attic almost every morning to get the stale air out of my lungs...But [this morning] I also looked out of the open window, letting my eyes roam over a large part of Amsterdam, over the rooftops and on to the horizon, a strip of blue so pale it was almost invisible.

'As long as this exists,' I thought, 'this sunshine and this cloudless sky, and as long as I can enjoy it, how can I be sad?'

The best remedy for those who are frightened, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere they can be alone, alone with the sky, nature and God. For then and only then can you feel that everything is as it should be and that God wants people to be happy amid nature's beauty and simplicity.

As long as this exists, and that should be for ever, I know that there will be solace for every sorrow, whatever the circumstances. I firmly believe that nature can bring comfort to all who suffer."

-Anne Frank

This was written after a year and a half in hiding when Anne was 14 years old. On August 4, 1944, Anne and her family were arrested, and Anne died in Bergen-Belsen that winter.

I became so completely enamored with young Anne that she seems like a friend months after I finished her diary. It is filled with such poignant reflections about life and family, but also small details about the war from her perspective. For instance, she describes "packing" for hiding:

"The four of us were wrapped in so many layers of clothes it looked as if we were going off to spend the night in a refrigerator, and all that just so we could take more clothes with us. No Jew in our situation would dare leave the house with a suitcase full of clothes. I was wearing two vests, three pairs of pants, a dress, and over that a skirt, a jacket, a raincoat, two pairs of stockings, heavy shoes, a cap, a scarf and lots more. I was suffocating even before we left the house, but no one bothered to ask me how I felt."

This classic 13-year-old intense self awareness, wonderfully written and sealed with an indignant jab, makes Anne Frank's diary not just educational but alive. She had dreams of becoming a writer when she was older; she would have been marvelous. I am so thankful that her diary was preserved so that I could meet her. She is an inspiration to me.

Copenhagen

At last, the final chapter of our Scandinavia trip in June, following Helsinki, Tallinn, and Stockholm...

We arrived in Copenhagen tired from the six hour train ride, hot in the muggy weather, and confused about why we even left Sweden. Since this was the 6th day of a hectic pace, we decided to skip the museums and just absorb the city. If we go back, we still have a lot to see.

Our hotel was bare-bones but wonderfully located, right on the colorful Nyhavn (New Harbor), a sailors' quarter dating from the 1670's.
Surprisingly, sitting sounded good (probably the heat), so we took a one-hour canal and harbor cruise departing from Nyhavn. Easy peasy.

Our serene tour guide gave every spiel in Danish, English, and German. She told us that we should have come the next day when she was doing kids' cruises while dressed as a pirate, and apparently speaking Pirate as her 4th language? Or, maybe her Danish, English, and German all carry pirate inflections? We'll never know. From the boat, we saw:

The 2005 opera house, much of which is built under water. I blame the angle on a wave.

Amalienborg Palace, home to Queen Margrethe II and her husband.

...and no Little Mermaid statue. She is at the Beijing Expo. Wah.

After, we wandered through the university district- 30,000 students, free tuition - and feasted on Riz-Raz's vegetarian buffet. We also found the bust of Niels Bohr, who won the 1922 Nobel Prize for theoretical physics as professor here in Copenhagen before moving to the US in 1943, where he helped develop the atomic bomb.

After dinner, I managed to talk Chris into visiting Christiania, the alternative squatters' colony. I was too embarrassed to take out my guide book (not like I fit in anyway!), so we learned the details back at our hotel. There are huge, graffiti "no photography" murals, so this is the only one we have, taken at the entrance. On the flip side of this sign, it reads, "You are now entering the EU."
Just a few of the fascinating things I learned about Christiania: It was established in 1971 with 700 squatters, of which 180 remain (of the present total of 600 adults and 200 kids). It's built on a former military base still owned by the ministry of defense. There's no buying or selling of property - when someone moves, the residents decide who will be invited in. Rick Steves reports that a third of the residents work outside the community, a third work inside, and a third don't work much at all. The community pays $1 million per year to the city for utilities and another $1 million to run its local affairs. Apparently, they don't use the standard police force much and settle things internally. That was one thing that made me not want to stay long. Or take pictures. Sadly, the soil is poisoned from its military days so nothing is grown here. Maybe they should move.

It's nice to room in a central location - we returned to our little Nyhavn for the last of the evening's glow, with a Carlsberg, of course. Our hotel is the brick building on the far left, and the red building two houses over is where Hans Christian Anderson lived and wrote his first stories.

The next day was rainy the whole day long. We stepped into the city hall, which was modeled on Siena's in Italy.

I posed with H.C.'s statue outside the city hall. Then, we ran to a bookstore to find a collection of his stories. Along with that, we bought "The Wonderful Adventures of Nils," by Selma Lagerlöf. She was the first woman to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature, and we were excited to read her masterful weaving of Swedish folklore and nature. We both devoured the book and are poised to buy "The Further Adventures of Nils" online. Anyway, sorry, this post is about Denmark.

More rain: We decided to brave Tivoli Gardens, the 2nd oldest amusement park in the world (the oldest is also in Denmark). Walt Disney came here and was obviously inspired. Daisy fell asleep in the buggy once inside the park, so we were able to have some tea and crack open our new books.

The park is very pretty and filled with rides and outdoor performance venues. I read that there is ice skating and a Christmas market here in the winter. Because it was a Monday, a quiet day in the city, there were no pantomimes or concerts for us, which was fine. It was fun to teach Daisy what a ride was. The first one involved sitting in a flying treasure chest and soaring through scenes from Anderson fairy tales. The next one was a carousel.

The third and final ride was an airplane. She eventually got the hang of it! I love how her hood makes her look like a serious pilot.

And that was it! Soaking wet and facing our flight home that night, we decided on a coffee and "danish" finale. It's typical that "danishes" are actually called "Vienna bread" here. They were delicious, yum!

Great Britain: Scarborough

We had talked - joked - about coming to Scarborough for a long time. We are so happy to have seen it. It's a great little city with a historic castle, a lighthouse, and 2 beautiful bays - the carnival-like South Bay and the less built-up North Bay. Here is one of our first views of the castle wall on top of the hill, as we were walking into town from the train station.
We really liked our bed and breakfast on top of the cliff, steps from the castle and with a view over the North Sea. The owners were super, bringing Daisy special kid dishes and serving us a private afternoon tea in the parlour. We all enjoyed our furnishings - I began to think that Daisy might be ready for The Lion, the Witch, & the Wardrobe.

After our breakfast (with a cute "7 Dwarfs" toast rack for Daisy...she concluded that Snow White must be around somewhere, too, and from then on called the vaguely similar woman decorating the hearth "Snow White"), we made our pilgrimage to the castle.
It felt very huge and ancient. We learned a lot about the history of the castle, which I can try to condense here, especially for those of you with Scarborough blood! Experts have dated pottery found on the cliff to 2000 BC, and they display other artifacts that suggest two distinct periods of habitation, 800 BC and 500 BC. There are remains of a Roman signal station (380 AD), where they lit those fires that could communicate disaster up and down the coast. Vikings were here and Scarborough ("Skardi") is mentioned in several Icelandic sagas.

The castle has ties to royalty! In 1154, King Henry II decreed that all royal castles become his, and he invested huge sums to build up Scarborough's tower, the keep. In the early 1200's, King John spent more on building projects in Scarborough's castle than on any other castle in the kingdom. In that time, kings were mobile and would move their entire possessions around their lands to different cities and homes. John, Henry III, and Edward I used Scarborough Castle as royal lodgings several times. The last king to stay here was Richard III in 1484 while he was busy assembling a fleet to resist the invasion of Henry Tudor, later Henry VII.

In the Civil War (1640's), Scarborough became a Royalist stronghold against the Parliamentarians and there were terrible battles here.

Later, the castle was used as a prison, and a notable prisoner was George Fox, founder of the Quakers.

After this, Scarborough became known as a fashionable spa town and resort, and sea bathing was the new "in" thing.

Early in the First World War, Scarborough's town and castle were fired upon by German warships arriving through the thick morning fog. 17 civilians were killed. "Remember Scarborough!" became a rallying cry across the nation.



Unexpectedly, we were able to tag along with part of a Good Friday procession through the castle grounds. Our voices chimed in with the other lusty ones in an unfamiliar hymn. A good memory.


Anne Bronte is buried at a cliff-side church's cemetery near the castle. I read Agnes Grey in preparation for our trip. I really liked it, especially since I knew her sister's Jane Eyre so well, and could compare the stories of the young governesses.


The Beaches:
Here's a picture of us walking on the North Bay. All this sand was covered with water in the morning, and it would quickly go out during the day. Though we are no strangers to beaches, the army of seagulls, diving and screeching, had us in giggles the whole weekend. We saw families playing cricket, lots of dogs, and bundled up kids.

Beach-side Huts:
A landmark of the beaches were these adorable rainbow huts you can see behind us. People apparently rent these and can store stuff like grills, chairs, bikes, whatever.


And I forgot to mention: fish and chips! We had quite a lot of that, too, sometimes even with tea.

Great Britain: Castle Howard

Oh yes...the unexpected, long train ride...
Castle Howard - another misleading use of the word "castle." It is a huge estate, a noble family's home since the 1700's, and the Howard family still lives there (get this: the kids' names are Merlin and Octavia!). They have some great art, porcelain, and library collections displayed, but the main draw is just the amazing harmony of the beautiful architecture and the vast, serene landscaping. Not to mention the peacocks. They also do a lot of farming and gardening on the property. I read that it's over 1,000 acres.

Brideshead Revisted, a book turned movie about a wealthy family who lives in a large home called Brideshead, was filmed here. We made sure to watch it before we visited. So it was almost like REvisiting.



In every room, friendly guides told us about what room we were in and what was special in it. It seemed really personal.


We saw at least 5 peacocks roaming the grounds - and we heard even more squawking to each other over the fields. I got so excited and took about 100 pictures of one who gradually shook open his feathers and spun in a circle for us!