Meanwhile in Germany...

  Grüß Gott aus Bayern!  On this cloudy, gray day, after three days of below freezing, but sunny days, our German class went on a field trip to the local Bavarian History Museum.  Germany has 16 states, one of which is Bavaria, where Regensburg is. Bavaria is the Germany most Americans are familiar with, with lederhosen and dirndls, beer festivals, and oom-pah bands. This go around, I'm not getting to go to other parts of Germany, so Bavaria is the one I'm most familiar with. Each of these states has at least one dialect of German which the population speaks. Bayrisch is what they speak here, and is pretty much not understandable to me and other non-Germans--but even to Germans from other states. I've heard people here say so-and-so is from Saxony, or Dusseldorf, etc., and that they can't understand a word they say. This is a crazy notion for us in the US, where we can understand people everywhere from Alaska to Maine to Florida to California. They have a 'standard...

  Guten Abend! It was a record-breaking 54 degrees Fahrenheit today. It rained, and between bouts of rain, the clouds cleared and the sun came out. It was also breezy. They think it was windy, but not by Palmer standards! That little green building is the Historical Sausage Kitchen of Regensburg. This odd-shaped building has been there since 1135 and was at first used as an office for the construction of the Old Stone Bridge.  The bridge was finished in 1146, and then the building became a kitchen to feed dockworkers and those working on the construction of St. Peter's Cathedral (Dom), the big church I've shown photos of in the past. In 1806 a family took over that specialized in charcoal-grilled sausages, and they are still at it today. In summer, when the area is swarming with tourists, most meals are eaten on picnic tables outdoors, next to the Danube.  When I stopped in for lunch a few days ago and enjoyed a plate of grilled sausages on sauerkraut, I was served inside...

  Gruß Gott! Today is a crisp, cold day in Bavaria. It's been below freezing all week--well almost. It graciously got above freezing long enough to melt the ice from the sidewalks, for which I'm grateful. The student in our German class from Finland and I were well equipped with ice cleats for just this sort of thing.  I'm including a link here for a short video on Regensburg. I've visited all of these spots except Valhalla.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-S8OUN8QJss I took this photo just around the corner from the language school. I've gotten in the habit of walking across the Altstadt and meeting my bus on the western side of the city, taking a little different route each time. I'm thinking tomorrow I'll take a long cut and walk across the Stone Bridge again.  I'm really going to miss the walkability of this place. I'm also going to miss hearing birdsong even in winter, and all during the day. I will have to make an effort to keep up the pace of...

  Schönen Tag! They even get freezing rain in southern Germany. But this girl from Alaska is prepared! In an inside zipper pocket of my winter coat I had stashed away a pair of ice cleats. I was beginning to think I wouldn't need them here, but today they proved to be a life saver. While I was in class this morning, the sidewalks and everything else got glazed in ice. I don't know how I would have gotten back to the bus and home again without them.  I made a one-woman field trip to the Historisches Museum Regensburg after class yesterday. It cost all of 2,50 Euros to get in, and I spent nearly an hour and a half there. The building itself was once a Franciscan monastery, founded in 1221. The displays cover area history from the stone age to the present day.  Pictured: part of an inscription that used to be over the fort gate. The first floor is dedicated to the Roman history of Regensburg, Castra Regina . What is now the city center began as a legionary fort on the north...

  Guten Abend aus Regensburg! After three cloudy sub-freezing days the sun is out. It's still below freezing, but with the sun shining into our apartment, we actually have to turn off the heat and open a window. It's typical of January here to be below freezing all the time.  Last week I adjusted my schedule to go to the German language course every morning. Sorta like going to work, but coming home for lunch and having the rest of the afternoon to do whatever. One of the whatevers I'm going to do is go the Regensburg Historical Museum on Tuesday after class. I will take photos and report on that adventure in a future post. I'm so excited to be living for the time being among venerable buildings that go back over a thousand years. I've made it a habit to walk across the Altstadt after class and catch the bus on the western side of the city, about an 18 minute walk. I plan to take more photos of the colorful and ornate buildings, but I haven't wanted to take my g...

  Guten Abend! The weather was cold and sunny today. Even Germany has those days when the sky is cloudless and blue, and the temps are south of freezing. Their negative-something is still our twenty-something. But I must be acclimating to milder Germany, because I was genuinely cold today. I included a photo of our apartment living room, partly because I don't have any other pictures to accompany this post. On that big TV screen I've watched, all in German, "Death in Paradise", plus the movies "Gone With the Wind", "Harry Potter", "Titanic", and many more, plus countless documentaries. They have dubbed multitudes of American and British shows, which is good practice for us language learners. Some of the docus are German-made, and I've 'fallen in love' with astronaut and scientist Ulrich Walter, who has an excellent show, and who speaks very clear standard German.  So, I have started my language course of which I have no idea w...

  Grüß Gott aus Bayern! It's been rainy and relatively warm lately, with temps close to 50 degrees Fahrenheit. I've not needed to wear my warmest coat in weeks. The weather continues to be quite variable, with the sun coming out between rainy spells.  Most of the time, the sights to see are the ones you look up at, but there is something of interest wherever you look, and that includes the ground. The photo I've included here is what the typical pavement looks like in the Altstadt . There's no concrete on the ground anywhere, and the only macadam is at the bus plaza (Arnulfsplatz) where we catch one of the bus lines we usually take.  The pattern in the second is less used, and mostly found on the eastern side of the Altstadt of Regensburg .  I also saw the same kinds of paving stones used in the Altstadt of Nürnberg, and in photos of other parts of Germany. Germany is much older than the US, and has some tragic history, but the physical remnants of the past are ofte...

  Einen guten Rutsch! Happy New Year It's 2024, and has been for over 12 hours as the last of the globe finishes passing through midnight.  Ok...what can I say? This was another cultural experience, as Germans celebrate "Silvester", New Year's Eve. Even the buses stop running early on the Eve. Mostly everything is closed today, and the buses are on a holiday schedule.  I took the photo from the Internet, but that's what it looked like last night. Everyone had their own fabulous and extremely noisy show. I could swear some people were setting off serious fire crackers. The volume of the noise was tremendous, and lasted several hours. We were warned there would be no sleeping until after one in the morning, and they were right. No way could anyone sleep through that! I might compare it to a war zone, and it's what I imagine a war zone would sound like.  Since we couldn't sleep, we turned on the TV for awhile, and watched Sylvester and Tweetybird in German. ...