Not a typical Saturday

Today has been one long day of visual stimulation: Die kleine Hexe, buskers, an anti-Nazi demonstration, and the 54th World Roller Figure Skating Championships (Junior division).

Elias's class is going on a field trip in February to see a stage production of Die kleine Hexe. The play is based on the classic 1957 German children's novel by Otfried Preußler. We'll be back in the states in February, so Elias told his teacher, Frau F., that he regretfully couldn't see the show with the class.

At about 9:45 this morning, Frau F.'s husband rang the doorbell to deliver a note from her: would Elias like to be her guest at the private showing for educators today at 10:30? The answer, of course, was a resounding YES.

While Elias was at the play, I strolled several times through the Saturday farmers' market, admiring the assortment of stalls and carefully mulling all the broccoli, lettuce, and egg vendors before finally making my purchases. And then, suddenly, ringing out from afar: the best busking my ears have ever heard. The Kiew-Brass-Quintett was performing just off the Muenster plaza, drawing an enthusiastic audience and raking in donations for needy children in Kiev. They were goosebumpingly good.

Elias and I returned to the Altstadt later this afternoon on our way to the skating championships across town. As we approached the Schwabentor, we encountered a gathering crowd of several hundred people, along with at least 100 police officers looking mighty intimidating with their big black batons and white helmets. The demonstrators, members and supporters of an anti-fascism group (Antifa), were protesting increased Neonazi activities by the Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands (NPD), including recent bomb making in Lörrach, a city south of Freiburg. The large police presence was in part because the protest was organized without city permits; but two different people on two different ends of the street also told us that "the police and the Left have a tradition of not getting along in Freiburg." Elias and I left before things got ugly.

By the time the clashes started, we were safely away in the Schauenberghalle watching the last day of the junior division roller figure skating world championships. The hall was small enough that athletes and trainers sat mixed with the general public. When we arrived, members of the Japanese team were sitting in front of us, and the Brazilian team behind us. By the end of the evening, we were surrounded by members of the U.S. team.

It was a thorough pleasure watching all those young, athletic, coordinated, bespangled bodies accomplishing impressive jumps and turns. It was interesting to see the difference between the lyrical skaters, the aggressively athletic skaters, and the skaters who could successfully combine artistry with technical prowess. There was no comparison between those who were good and those who were great. Italy's skaters stole the show, from the women's and the men's long programs to the couples free dance; they were followed close behind by skaters from Brazil and France.

The take-away lesson of the evening: if the world championships of anything ever come to your home town, go.