Oscar's 4th Birthday

In honor of Oscar's birthday, the boys decided to make him a doggy pizza. I made the dough from a dog biscuit recipe, and the boys added Oscar's favorite toppings--peanut butter instead of pizza sauce, crumbled dog biscuits instead of cheese, and carrots instead of pepperoni.

Garmisch-Partenkirchen

Like I said in my last post, May Day fell on a Friday, which meant a three day weekend for us. So, we drove down to Garmisch-Partenkirchen, at the foot of the German Alps. It was the home of the 1936 Winter Olympics, and is a good base for visiting the Zugspitze, Germany's highest peak. And that was the plan--to ride either the cog-wheeled train or cable car to the top. But the weather did not cooperate. Even when it wasn't raining, the peaks were still in the clouds.




Therefore, we walked through Partnachklamm, a gorge just below our hotel. We followed a narrow path through the gorge, and since one end of the gorge was closed, we had to turn around and return the same way on this narrow path not meant for two-way traffic. Because of the rain and melting snow, so much water was flowing into the gorge that it felt as if we were walking behind a waterfall the entire distance.


Our hotel was also a treat, because to reach it we had to ride a Seilbahn (cable car). The hotel, Forsthaus Graseck, is perched along the top of the gorge, and although there is a narrow road leading up to the hotel, there is no parking. The best way to get there is by the cable car. When we walked out of the cable car and into the Biergarten and playground, Alex said, "This is paradise!" Oscar, on the other hand, was nervous riding the Seilbahn, and whined all the way.



In addition to our walk through the gorge, we visited Schloss Linderhof, one of King Ludwig II's three fairy tale castles. This palace was the only one ever completed and the only one he actually lived in. Since I consider myself a minimalist, I found it way over the top with all the gold leaf and intricate porcelain chandeliers. He also had an artificial grotto built so that he could view Richard Wagner's operas from a shell boat. Why is it that all kings have extravagant tastes? Someday, I hope to visit a palace decorated with white walls and simple hardwood furnishings.

Since Oscar always (almost always) travels with us, his blog has also been updated.

May Day

May 1, International Worker's Day, fell on a Friday this year, so we spent the long weekend in Garmisch-Partenkirchen (more on this in a future post). The night before, in my German Conversation class, we discussed how May 1 is celebrated in different countries--we're a very international group. As the only American, I had to say that we don't celebrate on May 1, instead we have Labor Day in September. Then, a man from Vietnam said, auf Deutsch of course, "But Worker's Day started in the USA." Our teacher said that this was what she had also been told. So, when I got home, I went straight to Wikipedia, and I learned that not only does May 1 commemorate a worker's strike and riot in the US, but in Chicago!

May 1 marks the anniversary of the Haymarket Riots. It is embarrassing for me that I didn't know this, because back in the Reagan-Bush years, I became very interested in anarchy, and for reasons that are not clear to me, labor unions and strikes seem to be always organized by so-called anarchists. Well, I did a lot of reading about the Haymarket Strikes and Riots back then. I made a special trip to the Near West Side to see what was left of the monument marking the spot of the riots. And I knew that five of the eight men tried for starting the riots are buried in Forest Home Cemetery in Forest Park. But I never knew that the riots resulted in an international holiday (a guy from Spain thanked me for this holiday, even though I was totally ignorant about it). I always thought of the Haymarket as a slice of Chicago history, not even American history.

I had to move to Germany to learn about its impact on the rest of the world.