Rosenmontag

Today is Rosenmontag, and there is a big Karneval parade in Koeln (Cologne in English). But it seems to me that the festivities leading up to Ash Wednesday have been going on since the Epiphany, January 6. They have been broadcasting the Karneval Balls from Cologne on TV, and the peak of all this partying was reached this past weekend, the last weekend of Lent, which started on Thursday, Weiberfastnacht, and ends tomorrow on Faschingsdienstag, also known as Mardi Gras.

In Bavaria, they don't call it Karneval, but Fasching, and although everyone celebrates it and the kids have a week off from school, it is not as important of a holiday as in Cologne, where it is a public holiday. The parades are also bigger and wilder. We celebrated Karneval in Dormagen and Hackenbroich, which lie just north of Cologne. Bob's cousin lives in Hackenbroich, so when we lived in Deutschland before, we would visit during Karneval. Every little town and village in the area has its own Karneval Umzug (parade), and just like in New Orleans, different clubs sponsor floats and throw things at the spectators. In New Orleans they throw beads. Here they throw candy, popcorn, toys, condoms, and sometimes little bottles of liquor.

This year we hit the parade in Dormagen on Saturday and the one in Hackenbroich on Sunday. During Halloween, I told the boys that they would be collecting candy in February instead of October, and they did! They each collected two full shopping bags of candy, chips and popcorn. During Halloween in Chicago, they collected only half a bag each. Next year, I think we'll stay in Erlangen, where the parade is smaller, and therefore, less candy to rot their teeth.

Paranoid American

Last night, as I was walking Oscar, I walked past an open first floor window of an apartment down the street from ours. There were four Arabic-looking men having dinner, and instead of thinking, Four friends enjoying dinner and conversation, I thought, This has to be a terrorist cell planning to blow something up in the US or UK.

Caca's Article

My friend's current post on her blog (click on the title and look for Green, Orange, Whatever, posted on 2-2-2007) is a must read, even if you are already a convert. She's attached an article she wrote about what you can do to keep the planet clean.

Even though I believe Global Warming is a natural phenomenon that is part of our geological timeline, which, by the way, human evolution represents only 20 seconds on this timeline (I read this somewhere. I also read that the planet may have been going through a global warming period 3.5 million years ago, when we first began walking upright.), I still think there is no reason for us to contribute to global warming or pollution or overconsumption.

Unfortunately, American culture makes it difficult for us to be green. In Europe, most people recycle. The waste disposal system is set up so that paper goes into the blue dumpster, plastics into the yellow, biodegradables into green, and all other garbage into the black dumpsters. Even if you don't consider yourself green, there is no reason not to recycle. It's so easy. Every home, apartment building, office building, etc., has four color-coded dumpsters. And multi-bin home garbage cans are sold everywhere, so sorting at home is a no-brainer.

You also have to pay a deposit on most glass (beer) and plastic bottles, so you're motivated to return them. For wine bottles, clear glass and metal cans, there are large bins set up through the cities, and at rest stops along the autobahns. It is truly amazing how much of our garbage is recyclable, but you don't realize it until you start sorting. For example, I was amazed at how much of our garbage is foodstuff, which goes in the green, biodegradable dumpsters (once every two weeks, these are taken to a large compost pile somewhere outside of town). I don't make the kids clean their plates, so back in Chicago I was sending leftovers to the landfill. Even after the kids grow old and pass away, their half eaten sandwiches will be alive and well in a landfill on the outskirts of the city.

Communities in Europe are also designed to make it easier for people to go shopping or to work without having to drive. There are bakeries, butcher shops, grocery stores, hair salons, etc., located within walking or biking distance from residential areas. There are sidewalks and bike lanes leading to these shops. In many of the suburbs surrounding Chicago, shopping areas, i.e., stripmalls, are located a mile or more from housing developments, and even if they are closer, often there are no sidewalks between the two. If you decide to ride your bike, you end up sharing space on roads where the cars are averaging 60 mph. In Europe, people also live closer to their places of employment. They walk or ride their bikes, and save their cars for weekend excursions. They laugh when Bob tells them that he had an hour commute, one-way, and by Chicago standards that's not a long commute.

We complain about soaring gas prices in the US, but is that a bad thing? Benzin here costs about 1 Euro and 20 cents a liter. There are about 4 liters to a gallon, so 4 Euros and 80 cents per gallon. With the exchange rate, it equals about $6.25 per gallon of gas. No wonder Europeans would rather ride their bikes to work. Not only are they NOT adding more hydrocarbons to the atmosphere, they're staying fit.

Unfortunately, this time around we've noticed more SUVs on the road. We've been told that European SUVs have smaller engines than those sold in the US, but I'm sure they consume more energy than the Ford Fiesta or Cooper Mini, which are still more popular. They definitely consume more energy than the Smart car.

Thankfully, most Germans are not building mini-Mansions (also called McMansions) the way they are in the US. A lot more Germans are owning than renting these days, but they seem content with modest houses and small yards. This is a good thing, because more families can live in a smaller space. I can just see some of my friends cringing. Isn't the American dream to own a big house with a big yard and a high privacy fence so that you don't have to know your neighbors? But those big houses and big yards mean more natural spaces have to be destroyed, thus reducing genetic diversity. Regardless of whether or not I believe that we mortals can affect climate change, we mortals do have the power to accelerate or slow down extinction. Remember the Dodo bird?

Batteries, like gasoline, are expensive. This discourages people from buying things, such as toys, that require batteries. In fact, the toy stores here have lots of Legos, Mega Bloks, puzzles, board and card games, etc. They carry very few toys that run on batteries.

Speaking of shopping, there is no shopping on Sunday and Holidays, not yet anyway. When we lived here before, shops were open only until 6 PM on weekdays and 4 PM on Saturdays. Now, they are open until 8 PM, Monday through Saturday, and bakeries are open from 8 AM to 5 PM on Sundays, as well. There is talk about changing the laws so that shop owners, if they desire, can do business on Sundays. I think it will be a sad day, because it is nice to have one day a week for family excursions. Restaurants, museums and zoos remain open, and there's always the long walk with the dog and kids. I do not miss the extra day of spending money on stuff I don't really need but it's on sale.

Which brings me back to garbage. It is not so easy to get rid of stuff you no longer want here. There are drop-off boxes for clothes all over town, so that's easy. I know a place that buys old CDs for 1 Euro each, but I have yet to figure out how to get rid of my old books, other than throwing them into paper recycling, and the kids' old toys. Large items, like furniture, have to be picked up by the city. This requires an appointment, not like in Chicago, where you just put it out on the curb and someone with a pick-up truck will come along and take it. Not only do I have to ask myself, Do I need this?, but I also have to ask, How do I get rid of it later?, whenever I buy something. For example, we were going to buy a new breadbox, but since we don't have a lot of storage space, what do we do with the old one? We decided that the old one was still doing a good job, so it need not be retired.

A German friend of mine, who lived in Houston for five years and whose children were born there, decided to return to Germany to raise her children, because she wanted them to grow up respecting their surroundings. She doesn't blame Americans for their wastefulness, because we live in a country with seemingly limitless space and resources. In a country of 80 million people living in an area the size of Wisconsin, limits are more apparent.

Die Deutsche Schule

There's a scene in an episode of Sex and the City, in which Mikhail Baryshnikov's character corrects Carrie on the pronunciation of his name, and she gives him a quizzical look. I often get that look on my face when people correct me on my German pronunciations. I feel like saying, Isn's that what I said?

Philip has also been giving me that look whenever I say, You should know how to do this. You did this in Mrs. Burks's class last year.

Philip started in third grade this school year, but after one week, he was sent back into second. I was expecting this, because I didn't think his German was good enough for the third grade. But it wasn't his Deutsch, it was his math. He did really well in math last year in Chicago, so I assumed he would have no problems keeping up. Here in Deutschland, or maybe just Bavaria, they are so much further ahead of us in the US when it comes to math. By the beginning of third, the students need to be able to add and subtract two-digit numbers quickly in their heads and have all of the multiplication tables memorized.

To Sauganash School's credit, they did teach him how to add and subtract two-digit numbers, but the presentation was different. In the US, we set up the problems vertically:

53
-28

It's easier to then make the 3 a 13 by superscripting a 1 to the left of the 3, and to change the 5 to a 4 by simply crossing out the 5. And we're allowed to do this on paper.

Here, the problems are presented horizontally: 53-28, and the students have to be able to do the conversions in their heads, not on paper. And absolutely no counting on your fingers (I still use my fingers sometimes).

Philip also started to learn multiplication from Mrs. Burks, but only 0 through 5 and 10. I don't think he had these memorized. Here, he will have to know 0 through 10 by heart before the end of the school year, July 27.

They are also big on cursive writing. By third grade, they need to read and write everything in cursive, using a fountain pen, no less. Philip has the advantage of having learned cursive in second, whereas most US schools don't begin until third. Still, it seems archaic in an era that expects everything written on a computer.

They don't teach spelling the same way either. They have Diktats, or dictations, in which the teacher recites a story using the spelling words they were supposed to have learned. So, not only do they have to remember how to spell their assigned Lernwoerter, but also the other words in the story and to capitalize and punctuate.

On the one hand, I feel guilty putting my son in this strict school system, but, on the other hand, I feel like he's getting a better education. And Philip is the type of kid that needs an extra push to learn something new. As Marge Simpson said of Bart, He needs structure.