Atherton Family Notes

As I mentioned before, we only have half-board at the hotel, so we have to go out for lunch. We hope to find a grocery store at some point and buy some simple lunch foods to keep in the room, but today is Sunday, and this being Europe, there is nothing of that sort open. So, around noon today, we got in the car, picked a direction, and started driving. Our drive led us, somewhat accidentally to one of the major archaeological sites in this area, known as the Paestum Archaeological Zone.

(Zoom in for a closer look at the site)

We ate at a pretty, little, outdoor restaurant with a pizzeria and then proceeded to the archeological area. We visited the various souvenir shops and then paid the Italian government a princely sum to visit the ruins (€ 12 each)

The ruins are of a city named Poseidonia established in the 6th century BCE by Greeks that were expanding their realm into southern Italy at that time. The city may have had as many as 10,000 residents at various times in its history before falling into disuse in the 4th or5th century CE.  The ruins are home to some of the best preserved examples of Greek architecture anywhere, including Greece. There are several interesting structures to be seen in the archaeological zone: A basilica, a Neptunian temple (for whom the town is named), an amphitheater, and an Athenian temple. There is also a forum, dating from the 1st century BCE when the Roman occupation of the city began and it was renamed “PAESTVM”.

The Neptunian temple is the most fascinating site, built from huge limestone pillars to a formidable size. Built during the 5th century BCE, it easily qualifies as the oldest structure we have seen in Europe, and will likely remain so (actually, the basilica next to the temple may be slightly older, but not by much). There is a considerable amount of restorative work going on at the site, as evidenced by the generous amounts of scaffolding, but it isn’t clear tome what is actually being done.

I was somewhat taken aback to read that the zone represents only a third of the city, although when we followed the still-extant city wall, it was easy to see that much land enclosed by the wall was not part of what we had seen. It turns out that much of the land is privately owned, and this area is virtually unexplored and uncatalogued. It seems odd that the Italian government hasn’t forced the sale of the land, but perhaps there is no “eminent domain” in Italian law.
To make matters worse, some very questionable choices have been made with regard to access to the site. One of the gates through the city walls was destroyed to make room for the road that runs through the center of the ruins, and down the east side of the archaeological zone. In addition, the archaeological museum sits on top of part of the city. No one is certain about what might be buried underneath.

Regardless, the work in the zone continues to make new discoveries. In recent years, relics from even earlier occupations of the land have been discovered, and evidence of humans dating back to the Stone Age has been uncovered. There is still much to be learned at this site. Surprisingly, this turned out to be a good family vacation spot. Carissa and Celia had a great time climbing the rocks and exploring nooks. Carissa was very interested in the idea of an amphitheatre where people would gather to hear and see stories. Sandi and I enjoyed the spectacular view of the ruins, even if it was hot out in the afternoon Italian sun.

We even met a few Americans at the site. A pair of teachers from the Armed Forces School Service was escorting four new student teachers (1 from Detroit, 1 from St. Louis, and 2 from Philadelphia) on atour of the area. Student-teaching in Europe seems like agreat way to start your experience as a teacher.

The Neptunian Temple. Despite the name, no one really knows which god was worshipped in this temple.  Hera and Zeus seem tobe the most likely candidates, but it almost certainly wasn’t Neptune. The temple has been given this name because of the city’s name. Note the scaffolding being used for the restoration effort.

Carissa enjoying her visit by sitting and playing on the stones.   The Neptunian Temple is visible in the background.

The Basilica.

The Athenian Temple.

Cece, also enjoying her day at the ruins.

Technorati Tags: carissa, celia, driving, germany, greek archaeology, italy, ken, paestum, sandi, vacation

Local Tags: carissa, celia, driving, germany, greek archaeology, italy, ken, paestum, sandi, vacation

 Format this post for printing

Since we arrived in Germany, we have bought several CDs of Kinderlieder (children’s songs) for Carissa and CeCe to listen to. Over time, of course, there are a few songs that have become their favorites.

The one they both like the most is “Die Vogel Hochziet” (on the linked page, click on the melodie link to hear the song). It’s a simple little song called “The Bird Wedding” that has many verses, each about a different flying creature’s contribution to the wedding followed by a chorus that is easy to sing no matter what language you speak– “Fi di ra la la, fi di ra la la, fi di ra la la la la.”

The girls also like songs such as “Summ, Summ, Summ” (pronounced Zoom, Zoom, Zoom, but meaning “Hum, Hum, Hum”) about flying bees, “Hopp, Hopp, Hopp”, about galloping horses, and ”Die Blumelien, Sie Schlaffen” about baby flowers going to sleep at night.

Another favorite is “Es Tanzt Ein Butzemann” which is actually used in a game similar to other circle games like “Duck, Duck, Goose”, where a “boogeyman” in the center wiggles around while the song is sung then throws a small sack over his shoulder at the end. Whomever is hit by the sack becomes the new boogeyman.

We don’t understand the lyrics of the songs at first, but after hearing the song for a while, I usually look up the lyrics and translate them. Last night I did this with one of the girl’s new favorites (and one which I admit is very catchy also) called “Zehn Kleine Negerlein.” It is obviously acounting song, as the chorus counts the ten little Negerlein, and in each of the verses, something happens to one and then there is one less Negerlein to count.

At first I thought the kids on the CD were singing “Egelein”. The suffix “-lein” means “little” in German, so I looked up “Egel” in the dictionary. “Egel” means “leech”, and I had a feeling we were not singing about “ten little leeches”. So I retrieved the CD cover, and saw that the word was actually “Negerlein”.

I was absolutely flabbergasted when I looked up this word: “Negerlein” means “little negro”. It gets worse, too. Here is verse six, as an example:

Here’s a translation:

Clearly, the world of German children’s songs has some unresolved issues. American children’s songs often have pollitically incorrect subjects, too: “Ten Little Indians” comes immediately to mind. I think “Zehn Kleine Negerlein” crosses the line, though.

We won’t be singing this song much anymore. We haven’t broken the bad news to Carissa and CeCe yet and I’m tempted to use our computer to create edited versions of the CDs. Believe me, I will be paying more attention to the songs we sing in the future!

Hopefully, Carissa hasn’t asked to sing this song in Kindergarten yet!

UPDATE:

After I wrote the original message, someone mentioned to me the old story that “Ring Around The Rosie” was about the plague. In fact, I was going to include it in my list of disturbing English children’s songs. When I was researching the other songs in the article, I found a pretty convincing case that “Ring Around The Rosie” is not about the plague, and that it’s current most famous words are only coincidentally associated with the plague.

“Rock-a-bye-baby”, though, is a pretty good example of a nursery rhyme that is used to soothe young children, although it words are anything but soothing.

Still, though, I haven’t thought of any nursery rhymes that have the connotations of the “Zehn Kleine Negerlein”, although I have found references that indicatethis rhyme does exist in an English version. Agatha Cristie’s novel “…And Then There Were None” was apparently originallly titled with the English name of this rhyme (which I won’t repeat here, but you can probably guess), but later reprintings were altered due to complaints.

Even if the rhyme does exist in English, I don’t know it, my kids don’t know it, and I don’t think that you can go to Target or Wal-Mart and buy a kid’s album containing the song. That’s why the existence of the song on two different CDs we have bought here seems even more baffling.

You would think that Germany of all places would have developed a little sensitivity to this issue.

Technorati Tags: baby, carissa, celia, children's songs, germany, ken, kindergarten, kinderlieder, unfortunate lyrics, wal-mart, wedding, zoo

Local Tags: baby, carissa, celia, children's songs, germany, ken, kindergarten, kinderlieder, unfortunate lyrics, wal-mart, wedding, zoo

 Format this post for printing

I have to say that life here in Germany is harder than I had imagined it would be. Finding the basic necessities in the store is a headache I face every Monday, good-old girlfriend conversations are becoming a distant memory, and dinners at home have regressed to newlywed status. Just when I think I am going to go nuts, something happens and it reminds me why I did this.

Last Friday, Celia and I had to pick Carissa up from school. We set off walking down the hill, along the brick sidewalks on a beautiful sunny day and took our time getting there. Celia stopped every few minutes to grab a rock, pet a cat, and pick flowers (OK. they were really weeds but I was not going to tell her differently). It was about half way there that I had to stop and pinch myself. Everything seemed so surreal.

This evening it happened again. We went for a walk in downtown Villingen and bought a couple of cups of hot chocolate. There we were, sitting on benches on the cobblestone streets lined with old fashioned street lights, just enjoying the evening. We then headed home and as I watched the girls running along playing “catch” with Daddy, I had to stop, look around, and catch my breath.

I will gladly take the headaches and hard times if it means more moments like these that take my breath away and I have to say……” Oh my gosh, this is my life!”

Technorati Tags: carissa, celia, germany, sandi, villingen

Local Tags: carissa, celia, germany, sandi, villingen

 Format this post for printing

The Hotel Le Palme has some strange policies, or at least, they seem strange to us. Perhaps these policies are common in Italy, we don’t know-yet. For one thing, they are very strict about electricity. One of the reasons we were interested in staying here was that the rooms are air-conditioned. They are, sort of. The room has one of those little wall units that are common in hotel rooms, and it brings down the temperature of the room slightly. However, the hotel turns off the power to the unit at precisely 11:00PM. The first night, we thought there was something wrong with the unit, and we called the reception . The manager came to our room and explained to us this particular policy in broken English. He told us that the hotel information booklet explains this, but we have been unable to locate that section, at least, not in a language we can read. The good news is that it cools down enough atnight that we can sleep-although we wake up pretty sweaty in the morning.

The other odd policy is that bathing caps are required at the swimming pool. This particular policy is written on one of those signs at the entrance to the pool area that no one ever reads, including us. One of the hotel employees was kind enough to point this out to us, and we have been wearing the stupid little caps since then. One of the shops in town has a box of caps available right next to the cash register. Go figure.

Technorati Tags: germany, hotel le palme, hotel oddities, italy, ken, paestum, vacation

Local Tags: germany, hotel le palme, hotel oddities, italy, ken, paestum, vacation

 Format this post for printing

When I was in first grade, I went through a phase where I liked to read from the encyclopedia (my mother likes to tell this story). My grandmother gave me a set of old World Books, and so I read them. If you are 6 years old, and you are interested to understand how things got to be the way they are, an encyclopedia is a wonderful resource. I would pick a volume at random and then begin reading articles, also somewhat randomly. Actually, I would usually pick the articles based on any interesting accompanying pictures.

In any case, there are two specific topics I remember from volume ‘P”: One is Pompeii, which is an important archeological site; the other is Pisa, which is home to the famous leaning tower. We have made plans to visit both cities during our Italian vacation.

I’m sure I chose to read the article on Pompeii because of the picture in the World Book. It showed plaster casts of people who died trying to escape the disaster that befell Pompeii one night in 79CE.  The disaster, of course, was an eruption of the nearby volcano Mt. Vesuvius. In my young mind, I had this terrifying vision of people running madly away from lava flows that ran as fast as water before being overtaken and burned to a crisp while they struggled to get away. The lava then encased the entire town, creating a time capsule for future scientists.

That isn’t what happened, but I didn’t know that until a long time later. I don’t know anymore if I misread the article or if the article itself was misleading. The idea of a buried city made a strong impression on me anyway, and when we decided to come to Italy, it was the first place that I wanted to make sure was on the itinerary.

Here’s what modern science really thinks happened at Pompeii:

Sometime during that fateful year, a series of small earthquakes hit the area around Vesuvius. No one in Pompeii really thought much about it because it was a fairly regular occurrence at that time.  On the night of August 24th , 79 CE, Mt. Vesuvius began erupting, spitting fire and smoke into the air. Something very different happened during this eruption, though, that cost the lives of nearly 10,000 people living in Pompeii. The volcano began spewing pumice rocks into the air that were carried by the weather pattern towards Pompeii. Pumice is a very light material, since it is mostly air, but enough of it was falling to cause the collapse of many buildings. It also forced the people of Pompeii to stay inside for fear of being pummeled to death by the stones, and that was the final straw. The air filling the pumice was actually a mixture of toxic gases from the volcano, and most townspeople asphyxiated inside their homes.

Over the next days, wave after wave of ash and pumice pelted the city, eventually burying it under 4 meters of volcanic material.

At the same time, the heat of the volcano met the local water table and caused the sudden formation of a lot of mud on the hills above Herculanium, a nearby city favored by the wealthy as a resort. The resulting mudslide became a tomb that encased that city.

That version of the story is still pretty dramatic, isn’t it?

The Roman Empire took note of the disaster, but eventually decided not to rebuild the town. Near the end of the 17th century, people building a canal in the area noted the presence of buried buildings in the path of their work, but it wasn’t until the end of the 18th century that real work to uncover the city began. For that matter, it was well into the 18th century before the archeologists knew what city they were uncovering. In the course of the following several hundred years, many fascinating discoveries have been made, including the technique that I referred to earlier that allowed researchers to create plaster casts from the remains of the people buried in the city.

Then, on an August day more than 1900 years after the burial of the city, the Atherton family took a trip to visit the ruins of Pompeii.

This was a trip that we made for me, so you can imagine how well the girls liked it: It was hot, and most of what is in Pompeii now looks like piles of rocks near other piles of rocks that may or may not have been put there deliberately. To make matters worse, most of the really interesting relics have been relocated to the National Archeological Museum in Napoli. Oh, and it was hot. Did I say that already? Well, it was. Very.

On the other hand, I found the city fascinating. It’s huge, there are many sites to see, and it is hard to get them all when you are dragging along three hot, reluctant companions.

Finally, I ditched ‘em. I took them to a shady spot in the Great Theater and took off on a whirlwind tour of the city.

Ok, Sandi would like to point out that it was her idea to find the shady spot, because she and the kids were tired of me and my “Let’s-go-look-at-this-pile-of-rubble-over-here” attitude.  Since I’m telling the story, though, I will point out some of the things I was that I thought were fascinating.

First of all, although very few buildings are completely intact, a lot of the artwork and wall paintings have survived. It is absolutely incredible to see homes decorated as they were 2000 years ago.

The same is true for many of the town’s businesses-in many cases, the purpose of the buildings can still be seen. There are bakeries, merchants, cloth makers, taverns, and even bordellos (you should see the paintings on the walls in these places-they are essentially “menus” of services offered!) Many of the larger public spaces are also fairly well preserved. Some of the temples are still beautiful, as are several public gardens.

The Italian preservation efforts are strange and haphazard, though. As I mentioned before, most of the interesting artifacts have been moved to the museum in Napoli, and in some cases, replicas have been put in place. This is completely understandable, considering the number of visitors to Pompeii-the artifacts need to be protected. In other places, access to the painted walls has been closed off, and rooms with floors that are decorated with mosaics are inaccessible. But this protective effort is far from complete: at some locations in the city, visitors are allowed direct access to both of these kinds of treasures.

We only spent about three hours inside the city, and so, I only saw a fraction of the sites. I think I made it to most of the major areas of interest, but it’s clear that a serious explorer could spend more than a day seeing everything the city has to offer.

Oh, and about those plaster casts… we saw only two and only from a distance. Most of them are in areas that are now off-limits to visitors, mainly in storage areas that surround the town. The two we did see were in a storage area used for recent finds at the site. I found a site has some pictures of the plaster casts. I was going to put some of the pictures into this message, but I still found them a little disturbing. Especially the ones of children. If you are so inclined, the pictures are here.

Carissa tries desperately to understand why Daddy cares about these rocks. This picture was taken at the forum.

A statue at the House of the Faun. He’s trying to shield himself from the sweltering heat of the sun, apparently.

Detail of a wall painting in a nobleman’s house.

As you can see, Pompeii is very large. Most of the area we went to is bounded by a triangle at the points I’ve noted here. It would be easy to spend two full days exploring the area.  This picture was captured and editied from the official Pompeii site, run by the archeological organization responsible for it.

Carissa on one of the major town streets.

Technorati Tags: carissa, celia, dsl, earthquake, first grade, germany, house, italy, itinerary, ken, pisa, pompeii, roman archaeology, sandi, vacation

Local Tags: carissa, celia, dsl, earthquake, first grade, germany, house, italy, itinerary, ken, pisa, pompeii, roman archaeology, sandi, vacation

 Format this post for printing

After my trip to Seattle fell through earlier, I was wondering if I would ever get to meet the good folk at Microsoft I’ve been working with for the last few months. After the first cancellation, the Microsoft team wanted to reschedule the meeting so that it would happen here in Villingen, then they cancelled that and rescheduled, then again, and again, and well, you get the picture.

Over the last week, however, the meeting has taken on renewed urgency. So much so, that today I was told to be on a plane to Seattle this Wednesday morning. Earlier today, I was told to be on the plane, but flights were impossible to get on such short notice.

It’s kind of thrown a wrench into our plans for this week. I was planning to take the driving test on Thursday… My driving instructor (with a little luck) has rescheduled it for tomorrow morning–at 7:30AM. Nothing like a driving test to wake you up in the morning and set the tone for your whole day! He says not to worry– I should pass easily. He’s got a lot more confidence in my parking skills than I do. Plus, he doesn’t have to remember all of the picky little rules under pressure either.

We were also planning to buy a car this week so that we’d have one by the time my parents arrive next week. That’s probably out of the question now, though.

Sandi starts her German class this week and now she has had to find a babysitter. Fortunately, that didn’t prove too difficult.

Even worse, the timing of the trip make it impossible for me to schedule a side trip through Indianapolis, except at great expense.

Oh well, Sandi is still putting together a list of things she wants if I get time to go shopping in Seattle. My plan is to find someplace like a Wal-Mart that is open all night and go there at midnight– just because I can!!!

Technorati Tags: baby, business travel, driving, germany, indiana, indianapolis, ken, meeting, park, sandi, villingen, wal-mart

Local Tags: baby, business travel, driving, germany, indiana, indianapolis, ken, meeting, park, sandi, villingen, wal-mart

 Format this post for printing

I’ve had to check the calendar several times today to make sure I knew what day it was, because it has been very, very cold here today. It never got above 40 degrees today.

Tonight, I took Sandi to her German class then the kids and I went to the grocery store. When we came out of the store, the cold drizzling rain we’ve had all day had turned into real, honest-to-goodness snow.

Yeah, that’s right. September 24th is the first snowfall of umm, autumn, which just started 2 days ago– we just missed a summer snow! The leaves on the trees haven’t turned yet.

Fortunately, the ground is still far too warm for the snow to stick, although there will be some accumulation in the nearby mountains.

Technorati Tags: fall snow, germany, ken, sandi, snow, summer

Local Tags: fall snow, germany, ken, sandi, snow, summer

 Format this post for printing

Today I took the driving exam, the last step necessary before I get my German driver’s license.

Originally, I was going to take the test on Thursday, but because of my sudden trip to Seattle, my instructor traded my time slot for one this morning. At 7:30… AM.

We are now late enough in the year that it’s still pretty dark outside here at 7:00. As an added bonus, it was overcast and rainy this morning just to add the right touch to the festivities.

So here’s a piece of advice for anyone who needs to take a driver’s exam: It’s not a good idea to park the wrong way on a one way street at the place where you are supposed to meet the person conducting the driving test.

As you might be able to guess, I did that this morning. In my defense, it was dark, I was the first person there (and no other cars were parked on the street), plus the “do not enter” sign was covered by tree branches.

Fortunately, since the test hadn’t started yet, the tester couldn’t mark points off. It was alo fortunate that since he didn’t speak any English, he didn’t say anything to me about it. My driving instructor told me after the test. If I had known about my mistake before taking the test, I probably would have driven worse than I did.

When it’s dark, this sign is hard to see, especially when you aren’t approaching it straight on.

When you take a driving test in Germany, your driving instructor goes with you and you use his car. This is actually very nice, because you have some familiarity with the car and the instructor acts as your sponsor. He’s not allowed to tell you how to handle situations during the test, but he is useful for other things… My instructor kept the tester occupied with small talk for most of the test!

The start was pretty rough. I must have been more nervous than I thought, because I almost killed the engine pulling out of the parking lot. The tester didn’t seem too concerned. He said, “this is a BMW, not an Opel [like the car I normally drive],” but I could see in the rear view mirror that he was smiling.
The first part of the test wasn’t very hard. I drove on a federal highway (not an autobahn), overtook a few trucks, slowed down at a few interchanges, etc. Nothing too demanding. Part of this route did include the spot where I got cuaght for speeding, though, so I was very careful here… Getting a speeding ticket during your driving exam is probably grounds for failure.

When we returned to town, we drove through an area of mixed city and neighborhood streets. The tester had me back into a parking space between two cars, which I had practiced enough to do perfectly. I have to admit that the German method of teaching students how to park is very effective. I am much better at parking in different situations than I was before I started this.

That’s not to say I am perfect. A few blocks later, I had to parallel park the car. My execution wasn’t quite as good, so my rear right tire hit the curb.

The rules for the parking portion of the test are pretty forgiving, though. You are required to successfully park, but you get a lot of chances. You can make three total attempts starting from the very beginning. During each attempt, you are allowed to make up to three correction manuvers. So you really get nine chances to to it right.

I couldn’t correct my first attempt, but my second one worked without any corrections.

I almost made one fatal error on the test though. One of the cardinal rules in German driving is “right before left”. On many German city streets, and on almost all streets in residential areas, the instersections have no signs indicating who has the right-of-way. In these cases, you are required to yield to traffic approaching from your right. Always. And you must look for that traffic.

The problem is that many of these neighborhoods have small narrow streets and lots of parked cars obscuring your vision. Many times, you can’t see that there is a road on your right until you are crossing it.

The proper behavior for these sorts of areas is to drive slowly and look to the right on a regular basis. When you come to a road on your right hand side, you aren’t required to stop, but you must slow down long enough to look for on-coming traffic.

This method of driving is difficult for an American driver, as we are all used to having every intersection marked. I have had to work very hard at identifying these places and doing the right thing.

During the exam, I almost blew by one of these intersections. If I hadn’t seen my driving instructor tense up, I probably would have. Fortunately, I slowed down in time and looked down the road just before crossing. It is a good thing there wasn’t a car approaching, though–especially one with a driver that was expecting me to follow the rules correctly!

After it was all said and done, though, the driver signed and stamped the paper that said I passed the test. So late this morning, I drove to the Landratsamt and collected my brand new Führerschein.

I feel like I’ve really accomplished something. While it has been a lot of trouble to get the license, in some ways the experience has been worth it. The license means more to me because I had to work for it and I didn’t just trade in my US license.

It’s like being a teenager all over again. I should be hauling a car load of my friends tonight.

You can’t see this in the picture, but the holograms on the license are pretty cool. For example, the little boxes just above the “A” in “Atherton” actually form a little animated car that “drives” across the license as you turn it back and forth.

Technorati Tags: autobahn, driving, german driver's license, german driver's test, germany, ken, landratsamt, park

Local Tags: autobahn, driving, german driver's license, german driver's test, germany, ken, landratsamt, park

 Format this post for printing

This was the view that we woke up to this morning! I have to wonder what the heck we are going to do when winter actually rolls around. Carissa however is very excited by this. She says that it is Christmas time and time to get the Christmas music out! Ken even asked me a couple of days ago if it was to early for Christmas music. At first I have to say that I was a bit disappointed that it skipped over fall, but after getting out and taking Rissa to school this morning…..let Christmas begin!! This may be the longest Christmas season we have ever had.

Technorati Tags: carissa, Christmas, fall snow, germany, ken, sandi, snow, winter

Local Tags: carissa, Christmas, fall snow, germany, ken, sandi, snow, winter

 Format this post for printing

So once again, I am not in Seattle. In the universe’s continuing effort to insure that I never make it to Microsoft, some tanker truck spilled thousands of gallons of oil on the Autobahn which provides the main access to the Stuttgart airport, and is also the main link between Stuttgart and Munich. Traffic was backed up 16 kilometers from this road, but we didn’t have any information about the real situation, so we slowly worked our way toward the airport. When we reached the connecting road, we discovered the Autobahn was closed entirely.

Of course, the alternate routes to the airport were also backed up because they weren’t intended to handle so much traffic–that’s what the Autobahn is for!

Our taxi ride, which should have taken about 40 minutes, actually took about 3 hours. We arrived at the airport shortly after our plane took off and there were no other flights to Seattle today.

After explaining the situation to Microsoft, we have rescheduled the trip for tomorrow. Hopefully, the universe doesn’t have any additional tricks up its sleeve.

We’ll see. I recommended to my colleague who is also making the trip that he should consider driving separately or flying on a different airline if he really wants to go to Seattle.

Technorati Tags: autobahn, driving, germany, ken, munich, stuttgart

Local Tags: autobahn, driving, germany, ken, munich, stuttgart

 Format this post for printing