November 2015
25 November 2015
Laternelaufen
Laternelaufen is a lantern festival and parade to pay tribute to Saint Martin. Saint Martin was a French soldier in medieval times who was known for his kindness, especially towards the poor. Although he was born in modern day Hungary and lived in Italy and France most of Europe celebrate a day dedicated to his good deeds. He later%20became a Bishop and is known as the patron saint of the poor and children. His most well-known tale, which is reenacted during these festivals, is when St. Martin came across a poor%20beggar who was freezing in the cold. St. Martin took his sword and split his cape in two and gave the man half to keep him warm. He was also known for handing out food to children.
We participated in two lantern parades here in Kiel. Although many celebrate on November 11th, which is traditionally St. Martin’s day, many celebrate all throughout the month of November. Since this is the time of year where it starts to get dark very early, the parades can start at five pm and be dark enough for the lanterns.
The first lantern festival we participated in was hosted by the local fire department. Families gathered with their home-made and store-bought lanterns and torches at the fire department, where a brass band played songs about the festival.
Most lanterns were lit with candles although many store-bought ones use flashlights now. After we all gathered the band led us on a parade throughout town. The fire engines and aid cars blocked streets as we paraded through the neighborhoods. People sang songs and the line of lanterns glittered. We all met back at the fire department where there was a bon fire, hot punch and hot dogs. Kids got candy from the firemen and got to climb in the fire trucks. It was a lot of fun!
The second lantern festival was hosted by my son’s kindergarten and was more traditional. We met at his classroom where the kids gathered their lanterns and sang songs they had been practicing. The students helped make their lanterns and they were all lit by candles and attached to long sticks to carry. We paraded to a field where a local man acted as Saint Martin and rode in on a horse dressed in armor and a long red cape. The children made a circle around him with their lanterns as the man acted out meeting a beggar and splitting his cape in two. We then paraded through the neighborhood to a trail around a little lake. This walk was very beautiful as the lanterns provided the only light. We then met some other neighbors who had baked bread to hand out to the kids. We then paraded back to the kindergarten.
Laternelaufen is a beautiful event that celebrates kindness to others. We really enjoyed being a part of it.
19 November 2015
Poole, England
For our last weekend in England we took the train from London to Poole, a small town on the southern coast. The train ride was beautiful through the New Forest National Park. While we were in Poole we got to walk along the beach and visit some cute little towns in the area. My favorite part of our trip was our hike along the Jurassic Coast.
To get there we took a chain ferry (a ferry pulled by a chain across a small inlet) from Poole to Studland Nature Reserve.
The Jurassic Coast is known for its high white cliffs. Many fossils have been found in the cliffs as they erode away, however we hiked along the top to Old Harry Rocks. It was a pretty walk along green rolling hills used as pasture land out to the white rocks that jut into the sea.
We walked along the cliffs into the small village of Swanage where we stopped for fish and chips! Fish and chips are well known English food and Ethan’s favorite! From there we took an open top double decker bus back across the ferry to Poole. Double decker%20buses are fun, but having an open top makes riding up top even more exciting!
On our way back to London we stayed the night at a bed and breakfast in the New Forest. This forest is well known for its beauty as well as its population of wild ponies and donkeys! The ponies and donkeys like to wander into town and create traffic jams. There is even a donkey who is known to stalk the local ATM outside of the bank waiting to beg for food while you try to get money. It was easy to find them if you brought along some carrots to feed them. Imagine if you could use the excuse “sorry I’m late for school, there was a donkey in the road!”
This was such a fun trip and a perfect way to get out of London to see more of England. It really is a beautiful country and I would love to come back some day to explore more. But Germany was calling and we had to return. Coming off the plane in Hamburg we realized how lazy our%20brains had become being in an English speaking country again. It took us awhile to remember the little bit of German we had learned! Now that we are back in Germany it is the season for winter festivals, specifically the Christmas markets and lantern parades. I will tell you all about it soon.
I hope you are all well and safe and getting ready for Thanksgiving. We will be hosting an American Thanksgiving for our Germany family. They are all excited to taste pumpkin pie for the first time!
11 November 2015
London (Part 2: So Many Museums!)
While we were in London we took advantage of the many museums that the city has to offer. From the kid-friendly Natural History Museum to the British Museum that was featured in the latest "Night at the Museum" movie. We learned a lot about London and many cultures around the world. The British Empire was quite large and therefore brought many artifacts from around the world home to England during the time of imperial power and colonization. I will tell you about the three top museums that we visited.
The London Museum
As the name suggests this museum tells the history of London. This museum follows the history of London from its beginnings as a Bronze Age village that used the River Thames for trading. Many of the artifacts from this era were discovered when doing new construction, with important finds found under parking lots or garbage dumps! The original village took up the area where the Tower of London and London Bridge are now located.
To think that this has always been the center of the city! The Romans gained and lost control of the city many times, each time bringing new residents and modern inventions from their large empire. London has been through many hard times. The plague came multiple times, each time wiping out half of the population! Then a large fire in the 1800s started at a bakery and burned 80% of the buildings in the city center.
But from each of these terrible events London learned important lessons and created inventions to make living in the city healthier for its citizens such as plumbing to keep drinking water clean and building materials and kitchen designs to make buildings more resistant to fire. World War II brought heavy bombing to the city and created a community out of the people left in the city. Groups huddled together in subway stations to keep safe, and women found important work keeping the city running and caring for the injured people and buildings. These new roles forever changed the culture of the city. In fact the subway station that we used the most has pictures of the day it was bombed and a bus driving at the time fell into the crater the bomb left behind.
It is hard to imagine living in this large city during mandatory blackouts and finding places to hide during the bombings. There was a place in the museum where you could sit in the dark and watch video footage of the city during the bombings. It was scary and sad and I left impressed by the generation who picked up and moved on from these horrific times to build the multicultural modern city we know today.
However my favorite part of the museum was a recreated street from the 1800s where you could wander among shops such as dressmakers, butchers, and sweet shops. The museum went through the Beatles craze all the way up to London today. It was a great way to get to know the city.
The Natural History Museum
This is a science museum full of fun exhibits! The most popular of which is the dinosaur exhibit. They had full skeletons of many dinosaurs and animatronic models of others.
The highlight was a large T-Rex that moved and roared! Ethan was thrilled! They also had exhibits on rocks and minerals including a vault with some of the world’s largest and most valuable gems such as emeralds, rubies, and diamonds!
They also had rocks from the moon and meteors! They had a large mammal room with models and taxidermy animals from all over the world including hippos, whales, kangaroos and many many more.
There was also an escalator ride to the center of the earth where you learned about volcanoes, plate tectonics and earth quakes. There was a room that shook like the Kobe Earthquake in Japan! I was also impressed at the building itself. It was built to house this museum in 1881 and everywhere you look are beautiful archways with delicately carved animals looking down at you. You can see why some call it the cathedral of nature.
The British Museum
To me, the British Museum was the most impressive. It had artifacts from cultures all over the world and many famous ancient artifacts that I had only read about. They were doing a special exhibit on the festival of Day of the Dead and had a skeleton three stories tall inside the main hall!
They also had an ancient Celtic exhibit with art projects for kids. Ethan liked the art projects more than the exhibits.
I was most eager to see the Egypt exhibit to see the mummies! They had multiple real mummies and the sarcophagi in which they were found. It was amazing to see them in person and the hieroglyphs carved into the tombs.
The highlight for Alejandro was the Rosetta Stone. They had the real thing on display! This stone is how scientists were able to decipher the hieroglyphs and learn what we know about ancient Egyptian culture!
There were so many more exhibits that we didn’t end up seeing only because the museum is so large and there was only so much Ethan would put up with. Looking at old things is not fun for a toddler. If I could go back on my own I think I could easily spend a week at this museum alone!
Those were the three top museums we saw. We avoided the large tourist-swarmed places such as the Tower of London and the London Dungeon exhibits just because they are not toddler friendly. However because of the history that the Tower of London represents I had to see it.
I am glad we live in the modern world! From what I have learned we live in a much cleaner and nicer time. It is fun to learn about the past, but I am happy to live in the present where I can travel and learn about other cultures from the safety of a museum.
Next post I will tell you about our trip to the south coast of England.
7 November 2015
London (Part 1)
Here are some adjectives for London: Big, Busy, Old, Crowded, Beautiful. We flew into London to visit a close family friend who lives and goes to art school there. It was fun to be showed around by someone who lives there and knows the city. We spent a week in the city traveling to tourist spots and local neighborhoods. There is so much history everywhere you turn. And just like Berlin it is easy to get everywhere. The underground or tube is their subway system which makes it very easy to get wherever you want to go. There are also big red double-decker buses that travel all over the city. This was Ethan’s favorite mode of transportation. He loved to sit up top right in the front. This is a great way to see the city. These buses go on the smallest streets and make the tightest turns that it can be a thrilling experience!
We haven’t gone through all of our pictures yet so I am just going to tell you about our first couple days in this post and will update again soon. Thank you Evan for reminding me that people are waiting for me to update!
Our first whole day in the city we made our way to Trafalgar Square. The square was taken over%20by a fan zone for the Rugby World Cup, which was being played around London. The square was built in the 1800’s as a place for public gatherings and celebrations. It is still being used for this purpose today! From here we walked to the entrance of St. James's Park, which leads to Buckingham Palace.
We were lucky enough to see the changing of the horse guard. Men are dressed in full uniform atop horses who guard the historic location of the British Army. Today it still holds the offices of the General Officer commanding London District. When the horses change guard two lines of seven horses face each other and guard the horses that are leaving.
They then all parade through the park to the palace where another changing of the guard takes place. This guard is made of soldiers. These are the ones with the big tall black fuzzy hats that you might have heard of. We were lucky to see as the guard paraded out of the palace grounds playing music like a marching band.
From here we walked to the famous Westminster Abbey. This is a large and beautiful old church that has been used by the royal family for coronations since the 1300s! (A coronation is when they crown the next king or queen). Next to the Abbey are the Houses of Parliament (British Government) and Big Ben (the big famous clock).
These buildings all reside along the Thames River which runs through London. One day we took a ferry up the river. This was a wonderful way to see many of the major sites of London. The river has been important to London since the beginning as it was used as a way to transport goods. This is why most important buildings in London were built along its shores.
Another great way to see London is from the Sky Garden. This is a four story inside garden at the top of a skyscraper. We took an elevator to the 35th floor where we could climb up the four floors of the garden and look out over the city. We were lucky to have a sunny day so we could see all of London. Really it is just city as far as you can see in all directions. That is how big the city is!
Next time I will tell you about the Natural History Museum, the food, and the London History Museum!
I hope you all had a great Halloween!