The visa quest: part 1

Ugh.  This morning was my first run-in with German bureaucracy.  I need a residency visa to stay here for the year, and although we tried to get one at the German consulate in Boston before we left, they insisted that it was impossible for them state-side.  I was to arrive as a tourist (Thomas and the kids are German citizens) and then make sure I visited the Kreisverwaltungsreferat ("countyadministrativeoffice") of Munich within three months.

Thankfully, the secretary where Thomas works had prepared most of the paperwork for us, but couldn't make an appointment, so told us to show up as early as possible for the walk-in appointments.  We arrived at 7:45 am this morning to a very Kafka-esque building with the longest, plainest, hallways I have ever seen. 

After a brief checking of relevant paperwork by the Clerk #1, were were given a number and told to wait in Wartezone (waitingzone) number 4, where an electronic board displays the room number you go to when your number flashes.  At 8:30, Thomas risked leaving to find some coffee.  No problem, the four waiting numbers on the board didn't budge.  (Soon after he returned, however, a girl came wheeling a cart with coffee -- they do realize what a business opportunity the Wartezones present after all -- and what turned out to be the worst chocolate croissants on the continent.)

After an hour and a half, we are finally called into an office with two clerks sitting behind the desk.  "Frau Clerk #2" is relatively friendly on German scales (although at home she would be considered detached to the point of rudeness) and obviously new to clerkdom since she kept asking questions of "Herr Clerk #3" (who hardly looked at us).  We have what should be a very straight-forward case of me being married to a German citizen -- but this turned out to be close to an hour of Thomas and I sitting while the two of them studied our passports, marriage certificate, and registration documents (and asking at least three times for my date of entry into the country... oh yes, Aug 13, just like it's stamped in my passport which you're looking at).  Copies were made, and scanned, then much discussion between #2 and #3 of where the scans are to be stored on the computer and heaven-knows-what else, all the while ignoring us.  Weirdly, in a very plain building and hallway, this office was decorated with several large (and some obnoxious) concert posters of The Clash and other punk bands.  Oh well - gave me something to look at.

The only "problem" that we encountered was that apparently they wanted some certification of my education level, like a copy of my university degrees.  (By the way, they also had wanted the names, birth dates and birth places of my parents... Am I an adult here or what?)   Of course we didn't have them, and I don't think I've every been asked for my actual degrees, even by employers!  So I may have to do something about that; but when we asked why, they effectively said it was to make sure I was "smart enough" to learn German!  (Never mind that I was actually answering some of their question in German...)  If I don't prove that I've had a university education, then I'm required to take a German language course.  But, well, I'm already registered for an intensive 4-week course at the Göthe Institute starting next month.  So, more discussion (amongst #2 and #3) about whether this would be adequate, etc etc.  Finally they decide that a report at the end of my German course will suffice, and get to the (apparently) lengthy task of setting up a appointment for my actual visa.  All this was for my temporary visa.  Arg.  But we're not quite done.

We leave clerk #2 and 3 now for the cashier's office.  After a short wait in line, clerk #4 accepts our 20 Euro fee and takes my passport and paperwork and gives us another waiting number.  Luckily this wait isn't too long, and within 10 minutes the display board tells to to check in at a certain window where clerk #5 hands me my temporary visa.  

So now I'm, temporary, official.

The Oktoberfest Trachten Parade

Trachten (pl. noun):  traditional German, especially Bavarian, clothing. 

 For women a (cleavage-enhancing) dress called a Dirndl, usually worn with a white blouse underneath and a colored silk apron.  (Tying the apron bow in front of one hip or the other indicates whether or not you are married.)

For men Lederhosen (leather pants, either knee length or shorts), usually worn with wool socks, white shirt, vest or janker (wool jacket), and felt hat.

Oktoberfest is here!  Funny enough, the 16-day festival-of-beer is mostly in September; apparently the rule is that it encompass two Sundays in September and one in October.  It started last Saturday with the first parade which is essentially called "Arrival of the beer-tent patrons" since this is when the many different breweries decorate their traditional horse-drawn keg-laden beer wagons and parade them through downtown on their way to the "Wiesn" (the field where Oktoberfest occurs).  We did not go to that first parade, mostly since it was raining, but also since the second parade on Sunday is supposed to be the most spectacular.

  And indeed it was.  Sunday's weather was perfect for a parade -- bright, clear and mild.  We got there a little before it started, around 10:45 and already the streets were lined with several rows of viewers (themselves often in trachten).   We ended up on a wide street, which turned out to be a little "detour" part of the parade route, which was good in that it meant we saw each group coming toward us on the far side of the street and then again closer to us after they had turned around.  (There was one 10-horse carriage -- must have been interesting for them to turn around.)

The parade was  remarkably colorful with all the costumes from the various regions of Bavaria.  Each region has its own typical style and color of clothing (similar to Scottish clans I guess) and most every region had a brass marching band .

Even though it was crowded, we were able to get a few good pictures (since Thomas is tall), and luckily Benjamin squeezed through a forest of legs and sat  cross-legged in front with a bunch of other kids.  There are stands set up in places along the route, but you need to pay 35 Euro ($45ish) to sit there, so we stood for a couple hours!

Of course the breweries can't resist the chance to parade their beer wagons again:  there are hundreds of breweries in Munich alone, but the "Big Six" each have several wagons in the parade.  (If you're interested, see here for info about the Munich big six breweries.)  Here are a few of the the beer wagons, decorated with fresh flowers and pulled by at least four (also decorated) horses.

But wait, if you are thirsty while you watch, obviously you should be able to buy a beer (at ever corner along the parade route... at 10 am.)

As well as beer wagons and marching bands, we saw Alp horns, beautiful horse-drawn carriages, costumes of every color, farmers marching with traditional tools, and bands of "hunting clubs" (complete with dead boar...)

I think the bands were my favorite (and Julia now says she wants to play her trombone in one!)

Check out the men's hats below:  those are "Gamsbart" decorations, made of mountain goat beard (yes, hairs from a mountain goat's neck).  They traditionally signified the "manliness" and hunting ability of the wearer, but are also a sign of wealth.  Fine specimens like these are apparently worth a couple thousand Euros each...

The parade had 60 groups in it, but after 30-some (and two hours) we decided to head to the Augustiner (brewery) restaurant nearby before it got too crowded for lunch.

(Julia wore her Dirndl for the day...)

Of course we had a to have the traditional Bavarian "breakfast" of Munich Weißwurst (yum!) with sweet mustard and soft pretzels.  It's also essentially required that you drink a Weißbier with these sausages.

 I don't usually drink before, what, 5 p.m., but hey, this was the start of Oktoberfest!

The Munich Bach Choir accepts me!

I can scarcely believe I'm in...

Photo from http://www.muenchener-bachchor.de/english/c_fotos.htm  (I'm obviously not in here yet!)

 In the last couple weeks I've attended (and sung in) four rehearsals of the Münchner Bach-Chor, and last night after rehearsal I auditioned for Herr Direktor Albrecht and the assistant conductor, who accompanied the audition pieces.  It's been a long time since I've felt "performance" nerves like this.  Unfortunately for the exhaustion factor, we were being auditioned after the regular rehearsal, starting at 9:40 p.m.(!) and our little group of four wanna-be's waited out in the hall as we were called into the rehearsal room one by one.  I was third, so started singing around 10:15 pm...  I had chosen the aria "Et Exultavit" from the Bach Magnificat which may not have been the best choice as it sits in a relatively high tessitura, but it went OK.  Then a little sight reading, ear testing, and asking if I recognized the key of a piece (which took me longer than it should have, I'm usually instantaneous... I guess I was tired and nervous).  This is all in German, of course, although he did say it was fine to identify keys and notes in English when asked.  There were a couple times when I'm not sure I understood him, but luckily the language of singing (and gesturing!) is more or less universal.
   Then, as for the previous two singers, they asked me to leave the room while they decided.  I had already gathered that the two previous singers, both women, had gotten in, so I figured this reduced my chances.... So a few minutes later he asked me back in and said I needed to "help them" -- they said I had a good "big" voice, more suited to Romantic period singing, and they tested me briefly again to see if I could sing a straighter, purer, Baroque sound.  I guess I need to concentrate more on that when singing Bach, but it seems like I passed muster.  He'll "discuss" with me again in three months to see if I feel like my voice is right for the choir :-)

In the mean time though, this is very exciting!!  I've always wondered whether I'd be "good enough" to sing in a big city world-class choir, and this was my chance.  It's intense though:  2 rehearsals a week (Monday and Wednesday evenings) from 7 to 9:30 each.  We move through material very fast - partly because most of the members already have sung much of this, but also the choir is full of good readers. We'll be doing three major concerts all before Christmas.  Exciting but also a little intimidating...  The choir members seems quite nice in general, but the language barrier (although I'm not bad at this point) prevents me from easily chatting and getting to know people as of yet.

 Munich Bach-Choir website 
Our first concert is the Bach B-minor Mass, which is a huge work, already in less than four weeks(!).  The Munich Bach Orchestra will perform with us and seems to be associated with the choir.   This, and most concerts will take place in a beautiful 1122-seat auditorium, the Prinzregententheater (the "Regent Prince Theater"):   a little info on the Prinzregententheater

When I saw the postcards for the B-minor Mass concert publicity I nearly fell over:  I have certainly never sung in a group that can ask (and fill seats) for this kind of real money:  starting at 39 Euro ($50-ish) the prices go up to 69 Euro (about $90)!   Yikes.  I guess I'd better get practicing.

School report: Week 1

I am so proud of our kids!  This first full week of German school has been long and sometimes tough but they are doing great.  In fact most every day after school this week, the report has been "good" according to each of them:  both seem to be understanding and speaking more, and have made a few friends.

On Monday each kid came home with a heavy backpack full of text books!  

Julia has 9 subjects, each with at least one book.  (The "Berliner Platz 1" book in the back is the one we bought for German as a foreign language.  There is no way Julia or Benjamin can make sense of the "Deutsch" classes, at least at this point...  Imagine throwing a non-English speaker into 8th grade English.) 

Benjamin has 7 subjects, including Latin!   

Both kids have "Ethics", where they learn about questions of morality and choice, and (I think) the basic elements of major world religions.  This is the only place where the kids' classes are split up -- normally the kids stay with their own class all day, but have different teachers for different subjects.  This is the one case where the 3 or 4 classes of each grade, however, are split into different sections: German schools teach religion, and you need to register as either Catholic, Protestant, or non-religious; so depending on your choice, you then attend Catholic or "Evangelical" (i.e. Protestant) class or, for the officially "non-religious" (as we registered) you get Ethics.  So far so good for each kid, I think, although it's not clear how much the kids are understanding as of yet.  

Languages are required here, but which ones, and in which order of introduction depends on which Gymnasium you attend.  Julia's school requires English and French:  of course she's delighted with her 3 class periods of English each week, and the girls in her class have all studied it for three years already so the class operates only in English.  I think she's actually learning some grammar, and has come across interesting exercises where of course she relies on her instinct but can't tell her friends why they should use, for example, "has been" instead of "were"...   For French, she's a little behind, since her classmates have also studied French since they were 10, and she's only had a year and a half at the junior high at home, but I think she's managing.  (More words in French are similar to English words than to German words, so I think she has a bit of an advantage with vocabulary, if not in grammar.)

Here is Julia attacking her homework in her Dirndl (the traditional Bavarian women's dress) since Oktoberfest started today...  more on that later!

Luckily, math seems to be at about the right level for each of them too, once we work through the meaning of the word problems.   (I have some sympathy now for people who claim they don't understand word problems, but it's not the math...)

Benjamin was doing a great job with his math homework this morning, and just needed me or Papi for a few keywords.  He even seems to be enjoying his Latin, which everyone in his class is just starting this year.  (His first Latin homework was to bring in something with Latin on it, and luckily I thought of an American penny...  "E pluribus unum".  I think his teacher was impressed!)  So his school starts with Latin as the first required language, and then in a year or two they start English.  Benjamin doesn't get the "break" Julia does by having English class every second day or so, and I was worried about that and the fact that his schools is an all-day school -- but luckily they break up the 8 1/4 hour school day with a 45-minute hot lunch (required... we'll see how our picky eater does!) and then a full hour break in the afternoon before their last hour and a half class.  On the first full day the boys played soccer in that hour, which was super for Benjamin, thankfully.  He even came home saying he was "as good as or even better" than the other 5th and 6th grade boys, and he got some much needed exercise.

Our days do start early now!  Both kids need to take the subway, Julia for at least half an hour, Benjamin for 15 minutes and be at school by 8 a.m.   So we're all up a little after 6 and out the door by 7:15 every day.  The subways are busy at that hour, and so far Thomas and I go with them, although from the 2nd day, Julia had an offer of going on the subway with some new friends, and since then she's come home on her own.  I still go downtown to get Benjamin at the end of the day, which is fun in some ways... he's right downtown and in the nice weather I walk, about 45 minutes (although it's hard to tell, since it's mostly jostling around people on the busy sidewalks as I get into downtown...  kinda different for a small town girl.)

I'll try to update school reports every few weeks or so, but the big event now (no escaping it) is Oktoberfest.  It started today (yes I know, it's not October) and goes for three weeks.  Already when Julia and I were downtown this afternoon it was far more crowded than usual with tourists and lots and lots of people in "Trachten" (traditional Bavarian clothing: Lederhosen, Dirndl, hats...)   But that's another post.

The first day of school

School started for both kids on Thursday, Sept 13th:  Julia at 8 a.m., Benjamin at 9 a.m. for this first day only.
Both were very nervous, but at 7 a.m. still able to put on a forced smile (or not).

Starting at 7:10 we all took the subway together to Julia's school, Sophie Scholl Gymnasium, which is

an all-girls academic high school.  She is starting in the 8th grade with a class of girls who have been together, more or less, since 5th grade, and I think she was mostly nervous about the social situation, and whether she would "end up sitting alone at lunch".  All four of us arrived there together by 7:45, but there was no way she wanted us taking pictures of her as we got near the school (so look a bit further down to see a picture or two we snuck in at the end of the day).  Julia wanted me, not Papi, to walk into class with her that morning -- probably to make it clear that she/I are not fluently German-speaking!  Her homeroom teacher seemed nice enough but somewhat surprised that Julia was from the USA.  (We bumped into the vice-principal shortly after and found out that she was planning to talk to the teacher about that after this first day... )  But as I walked away from Julia's classroom, I did see another girl come up and introduce herself to Julia.  Whew.

Benjamin's school, the Luisengymnasium, is a beautiful, old-city high school, built in 1901, right in the heart of downtown Munich.

Even though he would be in 6th grade at home, since kids start Gymnasium (high school) in the 5th grade here, we all decided it would be better for him to start with a group of kids (one year younger) who would all be new to the school and not necessarily know each other.  

They have a small ceremony on the first day at 9 a.m. (after the older kids are in class already) for the incoming children, to welcome them and their parents to school.  Here we are waiting for it to start, in the indoor courtyard which seems to serve as their auditorium, stage, gathering area. 

(Here are a couple pictures of the courtyard, taken after school, so you can see how impressive this inner-city building is!)

After the principal's welcoming remarks, the three 5th grade teachers each read out the names of the children in their homeroom class.  As each child was called, he or she went up on stage so that the official photographer (and all the parents) could take pictures of the class.  We were pleased to hear that Benjamin's teacher called his name first with the German pronunciation, then again said "Benjamin" the english way... so at least he had been informed he had a "foreigner" in his class! 

 (Principal on the left, teacher on the right.  Over 30 kids in this, the smallest, of the 5th grade classes.) 

It's hard to see the expression on Benjamin's face, but it seems like it was somewhere around then that it finally hit him that this was really happening.

I think it's quite smart of the school system here to start school on a Thursday, and then have the first two days be short, in order to ease the kids from summer to school mode.  So both kids got out early that first day (B first at 12:30), and Thomas and I spent a couple hours walking around downtown, which I would have enjoyed much more if my own stomach wasn't hurting somewhat in empathy with my kids...

Pick up time:

Yes, the first day did indeed turn out to be quite traumatic.  When we picked up Benjamin he was barely holding back the tears, and let them go once we were out of the school.  It is hard to be in a new place, with new people, but especially when you don't understand much of anything!  His German is not nearly as good as Julia's or mine at this point, and he had a real headache from trying to follow what was going on.  Poor kid, he was really pretty miserable.

Even though Julia had complained of a bad worry-stomach-ache that morning, luckily she ended up being more mature about letting things roll off her back if she didn't understand, and she seemed in relatively good shape when we picked her up after the first day (although she also claimed she had to fight back some tears a few times during the morning).  She said she understood about 10% of what was going on, but made an effort to speak some of her halting German to her teachers and classmates.  She was also still pretty skeptical about this whole public-German-school thing, however.  

Here is the entrance to Julia's school -- not quite the same architectural style as Benjamin's!

So we spent that first afternoon as a family comforting kiddos and then enduring the crowds at the school-supply section of our local department store, as we figured out what notebooks (with specific colored covers for each subject), writing utensils, geometry sets, calculators etc. their teachers had requested.  By evening I think the kids were more-or-less recovered, but still worried about the next day.

The second day of school:

Again, some worry-stomach-aches in the morning (including Mom)... but luckily when I picked them up at the end of their half-days both seemed happy!  Julia even said she'd had "fun" and had started hanging out with a couple of girls who seemed friendly.  When we found Benjamin outside his school, he was smiling and waving good-bye to one boy, and said that another in his class had come up to him and said "Us be friends?"  Yahoo, good news for everybody!  This may be manageable after all...  Stay tuned to see how the first full-week goes.

Alps by day-trip - Rotwand and Spitzingsee

The kids are starting school today (and are nervous!) so life here will change somewhat now, I'm sure.  But before that, I wanted to share one last series of pictures from our summer adventures.

The Alps are so close to Munich that it's remarkably easy to do a hiking day-trip.  The weather last Sunday was marvelous again, so we decided to climb a smaller "foothill" mountain called Rotwand and invited along the oldest 3 (of 5!) kids of Jan and Nina von Delft.  (We had known Jan at Cornell, and had met the family the previous weekend, but he was now in California for two weeks and I think Nina was happy to have us bring along Leah, 13, Maya, 11, and Max, 9.)

By the way, half the population of Munich also thought that it would be a lovely day for a day hike to the Alps and the train was crowded.  We were lucky to get seats, but many people were standing (squashed) in the aisles for the hour plus.  This worried us a little, but we did get on the bus connection that takes you over a saddle to the Spitzingsee and the start of the trail.

The beginning of the hike was a relatively easy, mostly on wide and smooth trails, although quite steep in parts.  There were the Alps-ubiquitous dairy cows along parts of the trail, much to Benjamin's delight.

On the way up we saw a few farmers' huts (used in summer while looking after the cows!)

some with rocks on the roof to keep it from blowing off...

Getting near the "Hütte" for lunch... hooray!

Lunch in the mountains, ahhh.  This place was crowded, but still it was wonderful to have an Apfelschorle (apple juice and bubbly water) and some hot food.

 About 20 minutes after lunch, we can still see the Hütte below

 and for some of the kids it was a pretty tiring climb to the peak

 but well worth the view!

In the first half of the day, we had gained 800 m.  After the peak, we then set off across a meandering and relatively easy path along the side of some "hills" for an hour or so of perfect hiking.  It really felt like wandering in(to) a post-card!

Because we had some tired (but happy) kids our our hands, we took the cable-down the steepest part of the descent (for a cheap, family rate - they thought all five kids were ours I guess).  Then, near the bottom of the trail, we had half an hour before the bus arrived to jump into the (chilly, alpine!) Spitzingsee.

A very nice way to spend a sunny Sunday!

Hiking in Garmisch Patenkirchen

Our first hiking trip to the Alps!  A couple weeks ago we took the train  to Garmisch-Patenkirchen in the heart of the German Alps to vacation for three days (Aug 27-29) with our friends the Salditts.

 (Tim Salditt is Thomas' best friend from childhood, and their oldest daughter Annalena --far left-- is our godchild.)
 Nicole Salditt has a friend who owns a cute little "family hotel" at the foot of the mountains in Garmisch, literally a few minutes walk to some of the cable-cars which you can take part way up the mountains.

Here are the kids and I in front of the hotel with the Zugspitze peak (Germany's highest mountain) in the background.  

Let's start at the beginning.  Monday morning we took a regional train, normally 1.5 hours from downtown Munich (although we had to take a bus for part due to track construction, so total of 2 hours) and met the Salditts at the Garmisch train station, quickly checked in, walked to the cable car station and were all hiking by 11 am.  The weather couldn't have been better and the setting was idyllic!  The cable car took us part way up, we hiked for a couple hours, then had lunch at an adorable "Hütte" (little restaurant) near the top of the mountain.  I love how you can have a hot meal and a drink while hiking in the Alps, at least in most places -- very civilized!  Here are some pictures of the way up, and the meadows near the top.

For the way down, we went through a very deep and narrow gorge called the Partnach Klamm.  It's beautiful, if kind of scary in places -- you end up walking through tunnels in the pitch dark!

All in all, about 5 hours of hiking that first day.  It couldn't have been better!

The second day:  Alpspitze (2628 m)

  On Monday evening we had decided to try to summit the Alpspitze, one of the highest mountains in the region, and Tim thought is should be easily doable in a day.  He knows the area pretty well, and didn't seem concerned about us having only about one liter of water per person.  Without getting into too many of the details, it was definitely not easy, and I now truly understand the importance of bringing enough water on hikes :-)  

We left fairly early that morning, half of us taking the bus and the rest in the Salditt's van to the base of the mountain.  We took a (this time large and crowded) cable car part way up, to get to the "good part" faster,  The cable car ended at about 2000 m, already higher than anything in the US northeast!

Here is the sign post right near the cable station, and a view of the Alpspitze peak.

After an hour or so of hiking a relatively gentle rise along the face, it started to get pretty steep. 

There were some iron cables to hold onto in places, and a steep iron ladder (my first real butterflies of this day... not to be my last!) as we made our way up to the "shoulder" of the mountain.  Already we had spectacular views, and had conquered quite a bit of treacherous terrain, so Julia and Thomas decided they had already had quite enough adrenalin for one day, and decided to stay on the shoulder while the rest of us ventured on to the peak.  We misjudged the time to the top so unfortunately, instead of doing a little hike on their own, J and T ended up waiting for us for the 2.5 hours it took the Salditts and B and me to reach the top and come back.  Thomas took lots of great pictures though.

Speaking of pictures, Thomas had the camera, and I didn't, so there are no pictures of B and me farther up.  Which maybe was good, since I needed both of my hands for a lot of it!!  From this point of view it doesn't look bad at all (I can see why Tim thought it would be just half an hour up) but it's truly hard to judge from here.  Much of this was remarkably difficult:  steep and narrow!  Just to give some idea of scale, there are hundreds of people on this peak and on the way up, but you can't see them in this picture.

 If I had known how hard it would be, I don't think Benjamin and I would have gone.  There were places where I was seriously scared.  Parts of the steep areas have secured iron pins and cables, and about half the people doing this part had on climbing harnesses which they attached to the cables.  (We of course had no such thing!)  There are a couple thin "knife edge" parts up there, which don't show at all here -- they looked worse than, though not at long as, the Knife Edge on Katahdin.  And there were several parts where we were "hugging" the mountain, and needed both hands on a cable or rock holds.  I do wish I had taken a camera, to give some idea...
 In hindsight I'm glad I did it.  Benjamin was great -- like a little mountain goat for most of it, but he had some worried moments too.  The view from the top, as you may expect, was spectacular!

Poor Thomas and Julia.  They waited for us for two and a half hours!  (Not knowing where we were exactly, or how long we would be, they didn't venture very far on their own.)  The way back down was beautiful, but this was when we started running out of water!  I was truly thirsty for most of the way down, as were we all.  (In fact at one point Benjamin started to get a little dizzy.)  Luckily, thank goodness, in a valley near the bottom, around 3 or 4 pm, we found cows, but more importantly, a tap with clean water used to fill their water trough.  I have never been so glad to drink water!

 After hiking down most of the afternoon, we had to climb back up a few hundred meters (although not very technical, still hard at this point of the day!) to reach the next (different) cable car station.  We thought about hiking all the way down, but were mostly pretty exhausted by that point.  We'd been out on the mountain for over eight hours.

The third day:  Eibsee
For the last half-day, we just took it easy!  Rode a cogwheel train to the Eibsee, a beautiful lake in the mountains, and went swimming!