School Field Trips

Wednesday Rick and Sandy returned home and we spent the rest of the week and following weekend taking it easy around Graf.  School was already starting to wind down (a little early to our liking) and the kids had a couple field trips that next week. 

Elise's class went to the local recycling plant to see what happens to the contents of of the Gelbesacke (Yellow bags) that are used for recycling.  When we moved in to our house the garbage can provided was probably half the size or less of our garbage can at home and they collect garbage once every two weeks.  I was a little concerned that we would have bags or garbage piled up because they wouldn't fit in the small can.  Germans, however, are very good about recycling anything that isn't food waste or extremely soiled.  Each neighborhood has it's own recycling area for glass and metal, and then anything that's plastic, styrofoam, or tin foil goes in the gelbesacken.  These are picked up about once every 6 weeks and do tend to pile up in the garage, but since you wash off everything they don't smell.  What we ended up finding is that we rarely came close to filling the small garbage can in two weeks.

At any rate, Germans are pretty serious and proud of their recycling and everyone does it. I was able to go on the field trip and it was a pretty cool learning experience. The kids got a lot out of it and had a good time.

Elise and her friends

Sorted Metal

Loading the Plastic Shredder

Sorting garbage (AKA one of the world's worst jobs)

Shredded plastic - They sell this to cement factories to fuel their fires

Class picture in the front end loader bucket

Lydia's class went to the Nurnburg Zoo and I got to go along on that trip too.  It's a great zoo with all the standard animals, lions, tigers, monkeys, etc.  We went to the dolphin show, which was all in German of course, but the kids got to ask some questions afterward and all the trainers were bilingual which was great.

That week was also the end of soccer 4 nights a week which Carissa and I welcomed.  Tball started up for Haaken, but that's the only activity so it feels like a break.  Unfortunately we have to start getting ready to leave, which will probably fill in the newly acquired free time

Haaken and his friend Evan

The Power Rangers!

Dresden, Germany

Monday we continued our attempt to fully exhaust Carissa's parents by getting up early and driving 3 hours to Dresden.  Since it's now May we are realizing our time here is short and there is so much left to see.  For the most part we lucked out with the weather and the morning was clear. 

We parked near the train station per Rick Steve's advice and then took the tram into the center of town.  Dresden has a long history as the captial of Saxony and in the 1700s it became known as a leading European city for art and technology.  In the late 1800s a large military facility was built there and thus in WWII it became an important target.  On Feb 13, 1945 it was completely flattened.  In reading about it apparently Kurt Vonnegut witnessed the bombing as a POW and his book Slaughterhouse Five is based on that experience.  It was a highly controvesial bombing because many civilians (mostly women and children) died.

In the city center, most of the historical buildings have been rebuilt, but there are also buildings built in the 'socialist modern' style mixed in as a result of Dresden being located in East Germany after the war.  We exited the tram at the Theaterplatz.  We admired the Opera house, snapped some pictures and then walked over to the Zwinger Palace, Dresden's most famous landmark.  It was built by Augustus the Strong and back in the day was used as a royal residence and for entertaining their guests in the large courtyard.  Today it houses a couple museums. 

Opera House

Zwinger Palace Grounds

After walking around the courtyard we left the palace grounds and went across the street to the Residenzschloss.  This building was the seat of the Saxon government and now also houses museums.  We went to see if there were any tickets available to enter the treasure room there but there weren't any available until later in the afternoon so we moved on with our tour.

We decided to head over to the nearby Altmarkt to browse the outdoor market and find something to eat.  On the way we passed the Palace of Culture, a concert hall built during the communist rule.  The exterior has a really cool mural depicting communist themes - workers, strong women, students and teachers and the red star and seal of East Germany.  As we walked through the market the weather turned and started to get cold, but we managed to get some food and coffee before it started to rain.

Palace of Culture Commie Mural

Altmarkt

Afterward we went back to the Residenzschloss for our chance to tour the Green Vault and the largest collection of treasures in Europe. The Green Vault is a series of 9 rooms, each with it's own theme, containing the personal collection of August the Strong who was the King of Poland back in the 1700s. Designed in order to show off his power and wealth, it contains over 4000 pieces including jewelry, objects made from amber and ivory, bronze statues, and gemstone vessels. We'd seen the Crown Jewels in England, and this collection was far more impressive and interesting.

After the vault we walked over to the Hofkirche, which is the catholic cathedral in Dresden. This building was also commissioned by August the Strong and like everything else was badly damaged in WWII. What I find interesting is that the communist government (who I thought was anti-religion) paid to have it restored.

Hofkirche

Once we finished with the Hofkirche our walk took us past another cool mural, the Fuerstenzurg (Parade of Princes). It's made out of 25,000 porcelain tiles and depicts the timeline of Saxon Princes from the 1100s to 1904. Surprisingly it wasn't damaged during the bombing.

Fuerstenzurg

Augustus the Strong

Around the corner from the Fuerstenzurg is the Neumarkt and the Frauenkirche. The Frauenkirche is a Lutheran church and there is a large bronze statue of Luther himself in the middle of the square. The church didn't survive the bombing and wasn't rebuilt until recently (2005). We toured the interior and then climbed to the top of the dome for a great view of the city.

Frauenkirche and statue of Luther

Old City Center and the Elbe River

The blackened wall is from the original Frauenkirche

From the Frauenkirche we headed toward the river Elbe, where we strolled along a boardwalk. Since lunch it had been raining on and off, so after taking in the river view for a little bit we decided we'd had enough and headed home.

Bayreuth / Waldsassen

Saturday morning we all got up and got ready for another weekend of sightseeing.  We took Rick and Sandy to Bayreuth to walk the town and visit the Bayreuth Hermitage - a large garden/park that was built back in the 1700s as a getaway spot for the royals.  The flowers both in town and at the Hermitage were incredible.

Outside the Wagner Museum

Bayreuth Palace flowers

Hermitage Labyrinth

Bayreuth New Palace

In Graf that evening the town celebrated the coming of spring by raising the town Maibaum (Maypole).  The raising of the Maibaum has been a tradition since the 16th century in Germany.  The symbolism of it us up for debate, but typically the Maibaum at least in Bavaria is a freshly cut tree trunk stripped and painted in Bavarian colors (blue and white).  It's topped with a wreath of pine branches and decorated with emblems that depict local crafts and industry.  Rumor has it that Grafenwoehr is one of the only towns left in Bavaria that still raises their Maibaum by hand (as opposed to using a truck with a winch).  It was quite the ceremony.  First the Maibaum was paraded through town escorted by a marching band.  Once it reached the park everyone gathered around to watch (after a visit to the beer tent).  It was pretty interesting to watch, although it took probably 45 minutes to raise.  Afterwards we went out for mexican.

Marching Band leading the procession

Maibaum

Getting it positioned

Lifting by hand

Sunday we travelled to Waldsassen to show the Knights the Basilica and also to visit the Abbey library.  The library was built in the 1700s and contains extensive woodcarvings throughout.  They have tours of it every hour or so and won't allow you to take pictures which is too bad but you can take my word for it that it was pretty incredible.

Entrance to Library

Science Fair / Flossenburg / Reinheim / Regensburg

The week following our Italy/Croatia trip was pretty busy.  The kids went back to school and Monday, Carissa to work and Rick, Sandy and I went to the laundromat.  The kids had a science fair coming up so Monday and Tuesday night were spent getting ready.  Elise's project was trying to determine which juice contained the most vitamin C between lemon, orange, cranberry, apple and Hi-C.  Lydia's was to figure out which M&M color melted the fastest.  They did a great job and both ended up winning first place for their grade.

Conducting Experiments

1st Place!

On Tuesday I took Rick and Sandy to the Flossenburg concentration camp.  It's a "small" camp about 20 minutes from our house with a very nice museum.  You can also walk the grounds.  What struck me about this camp was it was literally surrounded by the town of Flossenburg.  It was primarily a labor camp (as opposed to an extermination camp), and intially the prisoners were used to quarry granite for Hitler's many constuction projects and later in armaments production.  The camp housed mainly political prisoners, itellectuals, criminals and social deviants as well as Jews.  Basically anyone who questioned the Nazi's or weren't in the plans for their master race.  Among the 30,000 that died there - mainly from exhaustion, as the Nazi's literally worked the prisoners to death, the most famous was probably Dietrich Bonhoeffer.  Toward the end of the war, 22,000 Flossenburg prisoners were led on a "death march" in an attempt to move them to Dachau, and 7000 had either been shot for not keeping up or died from exhaustion by the end of the march  When the Allies liberated the camp, 1600 prisoners were found who were left behind because they were too sick to walk.  This was my first trip to a concentration camp and it was very disturbing obviously.  I felt weird about taking pictures, but if you want to see what the camp looked like this link has some good pictures - http://thirdreichruins.com/flossenburg.htm

The following day Rick and Sandy took a day trip to Reinheim, Germany where Sandy's father had served in the Army at the end of the war.  He was a part of a cleanup effort and stayed in the Baron's mansion in the center of town.  Sandy had brought along a postcard of the mansion that her dad had saved from the war and was planning on trying to find it.  When they got to town they were dissapointed to find that the Tourist Information office was closed.  Outside the building Sandy approached a German man and showed him the postcard and asked if the man knew where the building was.  He took a long look at the postcard, thought for a minute and then started walking away.  Rick and Sandy followed him around the corner of the TI building and then he stopped and pointed at what turned out to be the Baron's mansion.  From the looks of it the mansion has been converted into apartments

Baron's Mansion

Thursday I took Rick, Sandy and Haaken down to Regensburg. It was a perfect day and I basically took them to all our favorite spots. Rick really liked the sausages and sauerkraut.

Hungry Men

Happy German