Munich Again and Rothenburg ob der Tauber

Our second round with Munich was longer, the Christmas Market was gone, we stayed further out of the city, and I was sick for the duration of the visit. My fever and uncooperative stomach made things harder to appreciate, but didn’t keep me bedridden. The first day we visited the Allianz Arena, home to the greatest team to play the beautiful game. I am not a religious man but the feelings I got as I approached the site were as close as a secular man can get to religious fervour, or maybe it was fever.

The highlight of the arena was the F.C. Bayern museum, which chronicled the past of the club and included some especially interesting bits about wartime Bayern Munchen; stories of a Jewish trainer, buried trophies, and farmers supplying the travelling team with extra food when provisions were scarce.

The next day we visited the Deutches Museum, which was overwhelmingly large, you could take a week and still have much to see. Luckily the writing was mostly in German so that sped things along and we had to accept that we could not digest such a massive amount of science and tech history in one afternoon.

Our last day in Munich we visited the hunting and fishing museum which had a great collection of old hunting implements including a flask made from a large lobster claw. The fishing section included some west coast hooks that reminded us of Haida Gwaii (though these were from Bella Coola, they were similar). The museum also had a temporary collection of masks representing the Krampus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krampus), the demonic character who deals with the bad children around Christmas time. The masks are carved from wood and in addition to being cool because they look like something a member of GWAR might wear it is nice to see the darker side of traditions, in North America even the Grinch ends up with a big heart.

Rothenburg ob der Tauber

For New Years and Leanne’s birthday we decided to get out of the city and went to a small medieval walled village northwest of Munich. Rothenburg ob der Tauber was quite possibly one of my favourite places I have visited, though the signs were clear enough that I would not want to visit in the high tourist season.

Inside the walls all the streets were narrow, winding, and cobbled. Many buildings were timber-framed and despite knowing that much of what we were seeing was re-built there was enough of the original that it all felt authentic. We spent our days walking the streets, the walls, and the paths into the valleys surrounding town. Jesse and Gus took advantage of the frequent holes in the wall to volley arrows at the ever-approaching Orcs.

We also took in the Christmas museum, the Criminal museum, and enjoyed hitting all the tourist shops that gave evidence of a far busier tourist season with the shop signs clearly printed in Japanese, and Bundesliga jerseys of Japanese players displayed prominently.

The Criminal museum like the fishing museum reminded me of Haida Gwaii, they had a fair number of shame masks on display and I remembered ‘the helmet of shame’ that sits in my classroom back in Masset. My helmet of shame was a student project that has been turned into a popular joke, but now I’ll have something to go with it and masks of shame will proliferate at GMD next year.

Christmas in Bavaria

Our guests left for Canada on the 23^rd and later that day we left for Germany where we spent the night of the 23^rd in Munich before taking the train to Bad Endorf on the 24^th where we stayed with Leanne’s friend and her family for 3 nights and experienced a Bavarian Christmas.

Munich is where my Dad’s family comes from (or there abouts) and I grew up hearing about Munich, cheering for F.C. Bayern Munich, eating weisswurst, and yes, wearing lederhosen. Our first night in Munich (we will return for 4 more) we stayed at a hostel close to the train station and to the Marienplatz where they have a famous Christmas market. We ate and drank our way through the streets and found our way to our first F.C. Bayern Fan-Shop. Here the warm wine is called Gluhwein (dots over the ‘u’) and we added cups to our collection. I should point out to any (are there any?) younger readers that the drinking is done for enjoyment of the beverage, we aren’t getting drunk, and what seems a bit surprising is that despite the fact that all around us people were drinking I don’t think we saw many who were drunk. To accompany the Gluhwein we ate sausages and sauerkraut, fried potato patties with apple sauce, something we called german pizza (a flat bread with sour cream, bacon, and green onions), and roasted chestnuts (maroni). It was the best possible way to start a Christmas vacation.

The next day (after a quick return to the market because we had to see it again) we were on the train to Bad Endorf, a one-hour train ride east out of Munich. Here we spent three nights with a family who treated us as though Leanne was their daughter and our children their grandchildren, we weren’t allowed to do anything to help because we were ‘on vacation’, which apparently means they pay for everything too. Their house was built 30 years ago in the traditional Bavarian style and Gus proclaimed it to be the most beautiful house he has ever been in. The view from the windows is spectacular, a picturesque town with a lake in the background all framed by mountains. Our Christmas was a traditional one and we were impressed by how calm Christmas is when the traditions are tied to religion rather that consumerism. The air was cleansed by the burning of frankincense, and we ate a simple and delicious dinner, the Chriskindl (Christ child) came while we were on a walk before dinner (he usually comes while the children are in church but Jesse expressed his opinion that church is boring…oops), and when a bell rang after dinner it was time to go into the tree room where we sang Silent Night (I felt like I was in the old Saturday Night Live Skit where Tonto, Frankenstein, and Tarzan sing. I know my kids don’t know the words and I wasn’t too sure myself), and then opened presents. I’m not sure it is an appropriate way to describe it but it was all very chill and I liked it a lot. We gave very few presents to the boys (a pair of socks was the big ticket) and they seemed to be okay with it. Santa Claus was nowhere to be found.

Christmas day we learned more about the town name. ‘Bad’ is the German word for ‘bath’ and on Christmas day we spent a couple of hour floating on our backs looking up at the stars from hot spring fed pools. On Boxing Day we went to two islands on a nearby lake, the women’s island and the men’s island. The women’s island is so called because of the cloister on the island and we visited the church and had lunch before moving onto the men’s island where there was once a monastery before it became known for the castle built there by King Ludwig II of Bavaria, our guides enjoyed calling him the crazy king and delighted in telling us stories of his eccentricities.

Not a Boxing Day sale in sight.

Almost Christmas

The lead up to the break was really busy, Leanne’s sister was here with her daughter for a week, and I started teaching another class. I didn’t write anything for a while; I couldn’t seem to find the time and so I think it makes some sense to write about the things that have kept me from writing.

The visit was a treat for all of us, nice to have a little family time near the holidays. It was especially nice to watch Jesse and Gus enjoy time with their cousin, and having someone with whom to share some of what they have experienced I think helps them to see that they have experienced/are experiencing a great deal. It felt neat to go from tourist to guide, not exactly expert guides but it was nice to realize that we now know some stuff about Denmark.

We knew we had to take them to Tivoli, the amusement park and gardens where the boys went on their first rides. Gus and Maria went on everything they were tall enough to ride, including one that would need a near 4-figure amount for me to even consider it.

The park is not open all winter but they open it around Christmas time and it was nice to walk around and see the Christmas displays, the lights, and to have a drink of warm mulled wine known as Glogg (again my North American keyboard fails me, the ‘o’ should have a diagonal line through it). After Tivoli we walked to Nyhavn and enjoyed the lights and Christmas displays in Copenhagen’s shopping district. So nice to walk the busy shopping streets but not feel the pressing need to shop. Our Christmas presents this year are the places we will see and the things we will do and this feels so much better than focusing on buying stuff. I take great pleasure in knowing that everything we buy has to come home on the airplane, it limits the purchasing.

Another highlight during our visit was our traditional Danish Julefrokost lunch. Most Danish breweries have a special Christmas brew and a glass of Carlsberg’s Jule brew complemented the meal nicely. We started with pickled herring on Danish rye bread, followed by smoked salmon, a baked whitefish, some pork served cold in an aspic like jelly, some duck served with prunes and red cabbage, and finally the traditional Danish Christmas dessert Ris a l’ amande (yes the name is French) which is rice pudding with whipped cream topped with warm cherry sauce. Not too surprisingly dinner was light later that evening.

The other time consumer before the holiday was the additional class that I have taken over for a colleague on a medical leave. While it will place more demands on my time I think I am accustomed enough to the school and system to handle it. It was strange to feel the first day of school jitters in the second week of December but also quite fun to start again with a new class who haven’t had the chance to grow tired of me. It is also a great opportunity for me to have a look at what I have been doing with my classes this year and apply what I have learned from my other Danish English classes to a new one. I know that I haven’t done a bad job with any of my classes but the first time teaching anything is never the best and I’m getting a chance to do for the second time what I thought I would only get to do once.

I don’t know how long I will be teaching this class, it could be the rest of the year, it could be much shorter, but the bonus that may come from this additional class is a trip to Ireland in March. Each second year class goes on a study trip and this particular class is bound for Dublin, a field trip for which I would be sure to get my permission slip signed.

Hunting in Denmark

I didn’t grow up hunting, but I did go rabbit hunting with my Uncle once, and I carried the rabbit back proudly. Since moving to Haida Gwaii hunting has become something I do, I enjoy the time outdoor and appreciate the clean, local meat. I find myself missing it and so when I was invited to go hunting in Denmark I was excited and could hardly wait. I looked forward to spending time on hunting grounds and seeing how it was done here.

At home I hunt deer with a rifle and that’s about it. Here we used shotguns and were hunting for anything we saw; hare, ducks, pheasants, deer, you name it (though I didn’t shoot the little song birds that Jesse pointed out all day, ‘Shoot that one Dad’). Going hunting once with one group of hunters hardly makes me an expert on hunting in Denmark (just as hunting deer on Haida Gwaii doesn’t make me an expert on hunting in Canada) but the two experiences were quite different. The hunting party met at a farmhouse on the island of Funen (Fyn) about 1.5 hours drive from where we live. On the drive we were told about the ‘fines’ that result from failing to follow certain procedures; we shook hands with everyone and removed our hats when we were supposed to. Nice to know there are rules and rituals to the hunt, Jesse especially liked the one about kissing the ass of the first duck you shoot and was disappointed that I didn’t get a duck. 

New for me was hunting with dogs, I tried to imagine Ruby as a hunting dog but the only image I could conjure was the sight of Ruby fading into the distance as she chased our prey into the forest. There were 8 of us with guns and we were positioned around an area when the dogs were sent to do their work. I got one shot at a bird but missed it (so did another guy so it’s okay), the one duck we got would never have been seen if not for the dogs work, and though I volunteered Jesse to swim out and get any ducks that landed in the water the dogs did that too.

What will stay with me from the day was eating lunch in the barn, an old brick barn. We sat around a table with the elder seated in the middle; you could sense the deference he had earned with age. This man has been hunting on this farm for 50 years, he is 80, and he was the only one to shoot anything all day. Lunch was one of my focuses when I shared about our day when I got home, Jesse wondered what was so great about sitting in an old barn and why I made special mention of the 80 year old man, but when he remembers this day I think he will remember what it felt like around the table, just as I remember sitting around tables in my youth and knowing who the most important people were, the ones without whom we could not be there.

Oh Canada

Last week a student revealed to me that he thought Canada was a part of the United States. I felt in turns shocked, confused, hurt, indignant; this is precisely the kind of thing that is supposed to make us Canadians angry. I explained all this to the student but then found myself unable to think of all the good reasons why being from Canada is preferential to being from the States. My minds eye was clouded by oil and I could not see.

Living away from Canada has made me think about our fair country from a different perspective. I am no longer a Canadian amongst Canadians; I am now a Canadian abroad. I can take jokes about moose, maple syrup, and hockey, but I am finding it increasingly difficult to praise Canada when every time I look for Canadian news I am confronted by the realities of Canadian resource extraction and it's related environmental record (that and Rob Ford). People think of Canada as being one of the last great nature preserves and yet the truth of how we treat what we are so fortunate to have leaves me lost for words in conversation with a teenaged Dane.

Language Again

I think it must be time to write another reflection on Danish language acquisition; it is a frequent topic around here. Understanding what is being said is getting better, context provides most of the information, but still it is so satisfying to understand. Last week I had another conversation with students about my (lack of) learning the Danish language. Present was the Brazilian exchange student with whom I have been able to sympathize. He takes classes so he is further along than I am but he too feels like he is not progressing as much as he would like. He tells about exchange students in Brazil and how they are functional in Portuguese within four months of having lived there. He and I both feel like the high level of English has a lot to do with our lack of progress, if we try to speak Danish to anybody, or struggle to understand, people just switch to English.

This led me to share about a soccer parent from England who has been in Denmark for many years (12?). A few weeks ago I heard a conversation he was having with Gus’s coach, the parent spoke in English and the coach in Danish, and they understood each other without any problems. I thought that this must be a unique situation but as I shared this story a student who has a Danish father and a mother from the Philippines told us that her mother speaks to her in English and she replies in Danish. We also know a family with a Canadian mother who has learned Danish, so it is possible, though she tells us that co-workers still ask her to say certain things because they like to listen to how she says them.

One way we might learn more is by watching more Danish television, but when English is an option and it’s the end of the day, well it is hard to force yourself to choose otherwise. Recently an old favourite, the British comedy show “Absolutely Fabulous” is back on the air with new episodes, who could choose anything else? We know that Danish television has produced some shows that are very popular (The Killing) and so too do the people at “AbFab”; I’m not sure that the clip provided by the link could possibly be as funny to anyone else as it has been for us, but you should watch it anyways, I can’t tell you how many times I have.  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4sPy-02NjI

3 in 1

This week I wrote a few entries and then wondered why I would share them, followed by another ‘why share anything’ phase where I wasn’t sure that people spending their time reading my blog was my fault or theirs, and then conversations on the week-end helped me to realize how much writing the blog is helping me make sense of everything, and that my purpose is a higher one, that my true purpose is not to share the everyday minutiae of my year in Denmark but to be an ambassador for writing as a means to make sense of it all.

Mall Jammin’

Sundays start with indoor training for Jesse and Gus, it starts at 8:00 in the morning and we are there for two hours, not the best time slot but it extends the soccer/ religion relationship in my mind (soccer was Dad’s religion, Mom took me to church). As I did when I was a child I go reluctantly and amuse myself by looking around at people, at one point I get up for communion with the parents and players (parents vs. kids), and by the end of it I am anxious to leave and get on with my day. 

After lunch we went for a walk and as we often do on Sundays without plans we found ourselves at the Outlet Mall (the only one of its kind in Denmark). The draw of malls and downtown shopping areas is undeniable; consumerism is a true force to be reckoned with. I don’t like shopping, I like the mall less than downtown areas, but we haven’t done this in a long time and I’m okay with it, there is no beach within walking or biking distance, and it is good to get out amongst the people. I don’t often buy anything, when you pack for a year there are inevitable packing errors so I make the occasional purchase, but mostly it is just strolling and observing, noticing how shopping culture is insidious; ‘hey that’s a nice sweater, I could use a nice sweater’, ‘I like those shoes and they are such a good price’, etc. The downsides of consumer cultural are numerous and have been written about extensively elsewhere and by better writers, but the one I find myself thinking about is the throw away nature of much of what is offered, clothes that will last a season or two, few items that will become generational hand-me-downs like that sweater of my Dad’s I used to wear in high school, or the coat that was my grandfather’s.

My favourite stores are still the second hand ones and the latest addition to my wardrobe is from one of these, a cardigan that’s pretty thin, I probably won’t be handing it down to my kids (Gus said it was a girls sweater so he won’t mind), but at least it is getting a second chance with me.

The Times They Have Changed

When I was in high school (already it sounds like an Ole’ Man Seifert column) we played football with quarters when we should have been working, the literary types might read, some might look at magazine pictures, or just harass their fellow students. When I enter classrooms today most students are fixed to a screen playing games, facebooking, or watching youtube. I’m not going to complain about it in the classic teacher, ‘they aren’t using their time well’ way, but rather I will simply state that it isn’t fair.

When I was in school and bored out of my mind I did not have the option of playing a game, or sending messages on my laptop, pretending I was taking notes. Yes I could doodle on my paper, or write notes and risk discovery, but killing zombies was never an option. So what did I do? When I think back through the years and recall the ways that I amused myself I find two memories stand out: a game played with a friend involving the floor and our mouths, and imagining escape on the roof outside the windows.

In grade 6 the girl across the aisle from me was as bored as I was and we quickly devised ways to amuse ourselves, the most memorable for me was the ‘smile and you have to kiss the floor’ game. If my memories of grade 6 are accurate I spent half my time trying not to smile and the other half pretending to pick something up off the floor in an attempt to get close enough to kiss it. In high school the game involved less action and more imagination. Outside the window was a lower section of the school building and through the window we could see the roof. Escape plans became a part of class, and the one that stands the test of time is the helicopter plan, simple yet dramatic, bound to make us legends: ‘They climbed out the window, into the helicopter, and then they were gone.’  

Musical

We recently attended the school musical, “Hotel Hallelujah” and I am still marveling at the time and commitment students put into the production to make it what it is. I guess I had certain preconceived notions about what a production at this level would be like, and I was off the mark. I had expected to be sitting on a chair on the gym floor, but they had transformed the gym into a theater, it was no longer a gym. The stage set was professional (the sagging cardboard props of my imagination absent), the sound involved sophisticated equipment, and the lights were first class. What seems to be sticking as most impressive is the number and variety of performers; there were musicians, dancers, actors, singing actors, and if you add that to the workers who set up the stage, the lights, the sound, you are looking at a big group of dedicated students. I went away from the show wondering how any of the students involved had managed to do any schoolwork over the past month. The rehearsal time to get to where they were… and none of this is for credit?

It all made me think of something Gus commented on recently, Gus has noticed that people are really into stuff here.