Category Archives: Umzu

Happy Easter!

I know, I’m a bit late, but at least here in Germany it’s still Easter. After having visitors for a couple of days before Easter, we spent yesterday and today quite unspectacularly. We went for long walks on both days, in spite of the almost constant snow showers we’ve had for days. I don’t have anything against snow per se, but would much prefer it during the winter, not a couple of days after the official beginning of spring and with temperatures above freezing so it melts almost as soon as it falls.

This is what the landscape looked like yesterday morning as we set out for our little hike:

Ostern 2008 im Hunsrueck

Snow!

When we moved to the Hunsrück a year and a half ago I expected a lot of snow in winter. It rarely snows in Northern Germany (where I grew up) or in Bonn (where I lived while attending university), so I was looking forward to white winters. Alas, we had snow on exactly three days during the two winters we’ve lived here. Two of them were last year, and the third one was today.

Of course, today was also the day of the oral examinations for the Abitur at my school. When we got up at six, it was snowing heavily, and 5cm (2 inches) of snow were already on the ground.

I left for school an hour later but had to wait for a colleague with whom I carpool. She lives half an hour from us, but it didn’t snow there when she left, so she was quite surprised to find a winter wonderland on the Autobahn. Together we set out for school at a quarter to eight after phoning the school to let them know that we were on our way and trying our best to be there as soon as possible. However, the answering machine came one, which I thought odd on an exam day. It turned out later that nobody had made it to school at that point.

The Autobahn had not yet been ploughed, so the 40 km (25 miles) from our meeting point to school were a fun ride. It took us almost 90 minutes instead of the usual 30 to get to school, and other colleagues called us while on the road, reporting where they were and where traffic was moving. It turned out that a lot of people were stuck a few hundred metres (yards) from our exit for almost an hour for no apparent reason, but at least a few people had arrived at school in the meantime, so the phone was manned and word spread that all exams were delayed by at least one hour.

When we finally arrived around 9:30, we were greeted with the good news that three of my students were already there, so I could proceed with the first set of exams. Instead of following the carefully worked-out plan exams were scheduled for 30 minutes later whenever the required students and teachers arrived, and the whole atmosphere was very unlike previous examination days. Teachers and students alike were greeted with applause when they arrived and compared how long it had taken them to get to school and how many stranded cars and trucks they had seen on the way. The first person to arrive at school actually was a student who hiked to school through the snow for 6 km (4 miles) while it was still snowing heavily because she didn’t want to be late for her exam. Now that I call determination!

Everyone seemed strangely exhilarated because the students’ worries about the exams were – at least for a few hours – replaced by worries about getting there themselves, about their teacher getting there, about friends getting there and so on. Most of my exams went quite well, and the day ended on a happy note for most of the students and teachers.

The way home took a good half hour with no snow on the Autobahn, but great views across the snowy landscape in the sunshine. When I arrived home, I felt slightly light-headed until it occured to me that all I had eaten that day was a banana. (I feel much better now that I’ve had dinner, thankyouverymuch.)

This certainly was an examination day that I will remember, and I’m sure the students won’t forget it either.

Green Woodpecker

Last Sunday, André and I observed an interesting visitor in our garden: a green woodpecker (Grünspecht). Unlike “normal” woodpeckers, they mostly search for food on the ground, where they forage for ants, earthworms etc.. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to get really close with my camera, so the quality of the images is not the best, but this is what we saw through the living-room window. (As usual, click for a bigger version.)

I think they look even more vibrant than the more common great spotted woodpeckers (Buntspechte) we have here, but I just found out that there are a lot of different kinds of woodpeckers, some of which have even more colourful plumage.

A day in Trier

On October 6th I went to Trier for the day with a friend. I had never been there before, but she grew up near Trier and has been there very often, but never as a “tourist”.

We took the train from Koblenz, which goes along the Moselle most of the time. This makes for a picturesque journey, especially in the early morning when there’s some fog above the water.

We arrived in Trier, which was founded as Augusta Treverorum (“City of Augustus in the land of the Treveri”) in or before 16 BC, at 10 o’clock and started our sightseeing at the Porta Nigra, which is Latin for black gate. I think the gate originally had a different name, but has been renamed centuries ago because the stones have become black by pollution over time. (As usual, click on any photo for a bigger version.)

We then strolled through the city centre, much of which is a pedestrian area nowadays. Here’s the beautiful market place with the St. Gangolf church in the morning.

And the view to the right.

We went on to see the cathedral Dom St. Peter. Here’s the front side; note the different towers. Building of the cathedral beganin 326 AD, so it is considered the oldest church in Germany. Of course, it has been renovated, changed and in parts rebuilt since then. Note that at some point it was decided to add another floor to the right tower, but not the left. The Liebfrauenkirche is adjacent to the right of the cathedral.

Next, we spent a few hours visiting one of the exhibitions about Constantine the Great.

Afterwards we went to see the Konstantinbasilika (Constantine Basilica), a really beautiful building inside and out that was built in 310 AD. It is the largest surviving single-room structure from Roman times.

The inside used to be heavily decorated with marble plates, but is very plain now.

Nowadays the basilica sits right next to a rococo palace, the Kurfürstliches Palais. Incidentally, the palace now houses part of the Rhineland-Palatinate administration, namely the public authority that is responsible for schools (Aufsichts- und Dienstleistungsdirektion, ADD). Wouldn’t you like to have your office in this building?

There are some other Roman artifacts in Trier, namely the Roman Baths and the Amphitheatre, which we just saw from the outside. Here’s a photo of the latter.

By this time it was somewhat late in the afternoon, and we decided that we had done enough sightseeing for the day. We went back to the pedestrian area to go shopping and have dinner, then took the train back to Koblenz.

Bike tour along Moselle and Rhine

Hm, no posts for almost a month… Looks like I’ve been too busy during the autumn holidays and since. Let’s play catch up with a few photos here…

On September 23rd, Andre and I decided that we simply had to make the most of the beautiful weather and went on a bike tour of almost exactly 80 km (50 miles). We went downhill to the Moselle from our home, then rode along the river up to Koblenz, where the Moselle flows into the Rhine at the Deutsches Eck. We continued along the Rhine to Boppard, from where we took a train back up the hill to Emmelshausen, the nearest train station from home.

Click on the photos for a bigger version.

View into the Moselle valley. The town on the river is Brodenbach.

The Marksburg above Braubach, seen from the opposite bank. It is one of the few castles in the Upper Middle Rhine Valley that has never been destroyed. The chimneys to the right belong to an old mine, by the way.

Coming soon: photos from my excursion to Trier and André’s and my almost-but-not-quite 100 km (62 miles) hike on the Rheinsteig along the Rhine.