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.

The prophesy fulfilled

Years ago, when the speed limit on Illinois freeways was still 55 mph, I used to accompany my dad on assorted trips and say things like, "Dad, you're speeding: the speed limit is 55 and you're going 62." He would say, "I'm going 7 mph faster than the posted limit. It's OK. Stop giving me a hard time." I would say, "no, it's not OK. You're breaking The Law. The Law says 55, and you're going 62." I would pester him until he got so pissed off that it was clear he wasn't in a good frame of mind to appreciate my constructive admonishments, even though they were for his own good.

Now I am all grown up, and I'm in the driver's seat. My safety record is superb. I am alert and defensive on the road, and I have been receiving "accident-free" discounts from my auto insurance company for well over a dozen years. And I have an eight year old who sits in the back seat and says, "you should have turned left there. You're in the wrong lane. You're not signaling. Why didn't you take that parking spot? What, you think this car is so huge it won't fit? Can't you drive this thing? You're going too fast."

Someday, when Elias has a child of his own, he will tell me his version of this narrative, and I will gloat.

Archeological Museum

The sun emerged this afternoon, reminding me that weather forecasts have been remarkably unreliable from Bayern to Baden-Wuerttemberg all summer and fall. By early evening, there was hardly a cloud to be seen.

After lunch, Elias and I walked through the sunny Altstadt to the Colombischloessle, which houses Freiburg's small but delectable Archeological Museum. The central attraction for us was the new exhibit on Technik, Militaer, Alltag: Roemisches Leben am Suedlichen Oberrhein ("Technology, Military, Daily Living: Roman life in the southern Upper Rhine region"). Elias has taken a keen interest in Roman civilization of late, and it felt good to supplement his copious knowledge with authentic objects and written explanations that were more carefully researched than the assorted Asterix and Obelix comics that have been his primary textbooks to date.

In addition to more formal displays, the exhibit included some kid-friendly hands-on pieces--a large iron "tumbler" lock and key, a wooden shield and brass helmet, a game of Terni Lapilli (Roman tic-tac-toe) played with glass pebbles on a wooden board--as well as ancient items displayed next to their modern equivalents (present-day plumbing next to impressively similar Roman pipes, a digital scale next to a replica metal balance, a porcelain sink next to fragments of a stone basin).

The museum also had several rooms on Stone Age, Bronze Age, and Iron Age (Celtic) history in southern Baden that left us duly awed. Down in the basement was a collection of Alemannic "Schaetze" (treasures) that included intricately filigreed jewelry and ornate belt buckles that would still be stylish today.

Die Rechnung, bitte

One of the differences between dining out in Germany and dining out in the U.S. is that in Germany, no one brings you your bill until you specifically ask for it. Unless you ask for the bill while your table is being cleared, you must hail the waiter across the room. Once you have accomplished eye contact, you raise your eyebrows a little and nod your head up and down while miming the act of holding a pen in your hand and writing out a bill. If the waiter is within hearing distance, you also say "die Rechnung, bitte" ("the bill, please").

Once you put this sequence into action, you must be prepared to pay as soon as the bill arrives. The waiter shows you the total, then stands next to you with his or her money pouch at the ready while you quickly calculate how much to add in for Trinkgeld. Trinkgeld means "drink money"--a little extra so the waiter can go out for ā Maß Biā (a portion of beer) or something after work. Waiters in Germany earn a decent wage, and service is already included in the bill, so the 15-20% we pay in the U.S. isn't necessary here. Still, you want to add in the right amount: too little, and you're cheap; too much, and you're an overpaying tourist. Trinkgeld is usually on the order of 5-10% of the total bill.

The waiter is standing there while you figure out the total and also while you pull out some bills and check the coins in your pocket. You need cash, because credit cards are rarely accepted in any but the most touristy of restaurants. If you're lucky, your pocket it full of nice big one- and two-Euro coins, or at least coins with monetary values ending in zeros (50 cents, 20 cents, 10 cents); but more likely, you have an excess of those annoying 1, 2, and 5 cent coins, and not in any combination that's useful for paying die Rechnung. Having wasted time hoping to unload your excess change, you revert to the paper bills and tell the waiter how much change you'd like back.

All of this makes me a little nervous. I'm not an assertive hailer, to begin with; and as a relative newbie in Germany, calculating appropriate Trinkgeld is still not obvious or intuitive to me yet. Then there's the added pressure of having the waiter stand there all the while, waiting to get on with his or her work while I'm wasting time pulling out my pocketful of useless pennies, so I forget to use coins altogether, add 10%, round up to the nearest Euro, and generally end up tipping too much.

When Elias and I were having lunch in Baden-Baden last weekend, my Rechnungsangst caused me to jump the gun a little. The waiter arrived to remove the dishes, and I knew she was going to ask if we wanted anything else, so when she did speak, I said, "no; the bill please." She became brusquely businesslike. It immediately occurred to me that she had probably said, "was everything to your liking?"--in response to which, "no; the bill please," takes on a somewhat different meaning.

Freiburg: sunniest city in Germany

If Freiburg is really the sunniest city in Germany, then I pity the rest of the country. It has been overcast or raining for most of the past month, and the 10-day forecast is for more of the same.

The sympathetic ravioli guy at the farmers' market on the corner assured me the sun does sometimes shine in November. "Really?" I asked, "when?" His answer: "on the nice days, of course."

One more anniversary

Speaking of anniversaries, I forgot to mention that Stefan and I have been an official item for 20 years as of November 6. First kiss on November 8, 1989, and the Berlin Wall came down the next day. That was some kiss!

Stefan was my roommate's boyfriend's roommate. H-W and MB had asked him to move in even before he arrived as an exchange student in Tucson. Back then he was studying Holzwirtschaft--wood science and technology--and the cultural exchange program sent him to the middle of the dessert.

I was 22 and had never had a significant other. Stefan was a marked man before he even got off the airplane. I figured we four roommates would hang out a lot together, he and I would get to know each other, I could learn how to flirt, and if I did anything mortifyingly embarrassing it would be OK because he'd fly back to Germany after nine months and no one else would ever have to know.

Anniversaries

I searched assorted calendars for events being held today in Freiburg recognizing the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, but was only able to find a listing for a lecture on how the fall has impacted women's lives. Freiburg is about as far from the former Deutsche Demokratische Republik as you can get in Germany. The radio stations here have been talking about the anniversary all day, but of course the big events are happening closer to Berlin.

Freiburg did recognize a bleaker chapter in its history this evening: the destruction of the city's old synagogue during the massive, coordinated nationwide pogroms carried out 71 years ago. Between November 9-10, 1938, mobs supported by members of the Gestapo, SS, SA, and Hitler Youth desecrated and destroyed thousands of synagogues and pillaged thousands of Jewish-owned homes and businesses; tens of thousands of Jews were rounded up and deported to concentration camps.

This evening, there were several commemorative events, including a service organized by the city and the Gesellschaft fuer christlich-juedische Zusammenarbeit at the site of the old synagogue; a lecture on Calvin and Jewry hosted by the Petrus-Paulus-Gemeinde; and a piano concert at the new synagogue. Elias and I listened to the first two speakers at the first event and then headed home through the cold rain.