It’s like the Germans are all on some schedule here that we’re not getting. In February, everyone was pruning on the same day, stacking limbs in neat piles to dry and burn. Last week Dawn went to a bonfire where… Read More ›
German culture
Americans just think they can go anywhere (2)
We met Eberhard and drove to the Landratsamt to get our new/used German car registered, by the police station and other government offices where he worked as a cop for 40 years. We took a number and sat, and the… Read More ›
De do do do, Die, Das, Der, Dem
Six years ago we were leaving Germany about this time following a three month sabbatical, and I was returning to work. It may have been auspicious, I had a blowout on the highway and had to call roadside assistance my first… Read More ›
Uncommon denominators
Today we put down a deposit on a used car in a town we couldn’t pronounce that sounded like a slur or spit coming up — Eberhard got right on the used car search with his handy at the Bahnhof… Read More ›
Who needs Munich when you’ve got the Wasen?
For reasons perhaps too private to get into it’s hard peeing in lederhosen, hard undoing the suspenders through the clasps when you’ve been drinking, hard clearing the edge of the leather because they don’t come with flies or barn doors,… Read More ›
Meet me at the cemetry gates
We dropped the kids off for their first day of German school, their first class French — French taught in German — and I walked to the cemetery by the Realschule, where we’ve started our third week of German classes,… Read More ›
Leaves clawing the cobblestones
When the French arrive, it’s with armsful of things from France: breads wrapped in brown paper bags, coolers full of cheese, boxes of wine, even duvets for their beds. It feels like a hotel and we lose track of how… Read More ›
Hit by a Cadillac
The fourth night with the Boogie Woogie band at the wine festival here in Germany and it doesn’t sound as loud as it did the first three nights, our ears have gotten used to it. And as we resurface now… Read More ›
I love my liver when I eat my lover
Drinking beer in the morning in the kitchen cooking with a wife-beater and Tom Waits, finally found something the cat will eat that’s not decapitated, some calf’s liver in a yogurt sauce from a plastic packet mom adds olive oil… Read More ›
The Highly Capable Program Nomination Ends Tomorrow
When I was in school, they called it Gifted. After Gifted came Honours, and after that, was everyone else. Heike’s son Sascha speaks perfect English, with a delicate English accent (he’s 11) and explains how it works here in Germany:… Read More ›
Bill Pearse 