Sommer
Hallo noch einmal!
Hello again! It's hard to believe that we're already half way through Summer (Sommer). It's been challenging for us here in northern Europe where most homes and many businesses don't have air conditioning. I see a lot of Americans questioning why we don't have AC here. The reasons vary, but it's mostly due to the fact that historically it just never got that hot for a long enough time each year to justify the expense. There's also a lot of pushback against AC for environmental reasons as well. One of the other reasons is that many of the buildings in Europe are older than America, so retrofitting them to use AC would be extremely cost prohibitive. So for the few days that it gets up into the 30s or higher (90+ in Fahrenheit), Clarke and I try to cool down our apartment by opening the windows at night, and then closing them in the morning before it gets too warm, and closing the blinds to keep the sun from heating up the rooms. A couple of well-placed table fans also help. 😊
My last post left off with our visit to the historical St. Michael's church. I'd like to continue sharing our adventures from that day, as we spent a lot of time walking around the harbor area of Hamburg. One of the cool things we encountered as we left the church was a bronze model of the church and the surrounding area.
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| The church is the tall spired building in the center. |
Our next stop was the Krameramtswohnungen (Merchant's Guild Apartments). These were built in 1676 to house widows of the Kramer merchant guild (dealers of supplies and equipment for ships and boats). If a merchant died, his widow would be moved into one of these apartments. Here is a photo of the very narrow street that goes between the two rows of apartments. Only one remains intact, which is a museum. The others have been turned into shops and restaurants.
Here's a plaque describing the history of the apartments.
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| Translation below |
An interesting architectural feature that amused me were these twisted chimneys that looked like they were designed by Dr Seuss. I'm not sure what the purpose was for this design, but it's fun to look at!
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| One of the many rows of warehouses we walked past. This one has been converted to an entertainment venue. |
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| Here you can see the wooden pylons that some of these buildings were built upon. This allowed them to be on the waterways where boats could pull up and offload their wares. You can see how high the water can get just below the first row of windows. |
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| An example of the beautiful architecture. The shipping merchants were some of the wealthiest people in Hamburg for centuries, which shows in some of their buildings. |
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| Most of the warehouses had this little bell-shaped housing jutting out just below the roofline. Inside is a pulley that was used to hoist up wares to one of the floors where they would be pulled in for storage. |
Later that week I celebrated my 64th birthday with our German family, who showered me with some very lovely gifts.
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| A fun tea towel with various dogs and their respective "anatomies", liqueur-filled chocolates, a German storybook for children (suitable for my level), chai teas, and alcohol infused sugar cubes (who knew?). |
One of the things I finally got around to doing was getting my first haircut in Germany. I last had it cut in July of last year when I was still in Baltimore. As you can see from the above photo, it was quite long. My main reason for putting off getting a haircut was that I didn't know how to ask in German for what I wanted. Clarke convinced me to get a photo of the style I wanted and just show it to the barber. He knew exactly what to do and did a great job. Here are before and after photos. I have to admit, having short hair is so much easier to deal with.
I finished my last German language course on my birthday (yay!) and now I'm just doing self-study. I'm at the point where I can generally engage with store employees, waitstaff, and others when needed, and I can read product labels and recipes with some level of confidence. I have a long way to go, but I'm happy with the progress I've made in the 10 months I've been here. We have encountered a number of people who have lived here for years and still don't know how to speak much, if any, German. I don't understand that mentality.
Riga and Kodz were two of the many death camps run by the Nazis.
It was quite warm when we stopped for ice cream so the presentation was already starting to melt. But these were absolutely amazing!
On my last day of class, I took a photo of something called Stolpersteine (literally "stumbling blocks") in the pavement outside my school building. These are all over Hamburg, marking where Jews had lived or worked prior to the Nazi regime which "Aryanized" their homes and businesses: a stark reminder of the atrocities committed during that time.
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| Translation from left to right: Here lived Harry Rosenberg, born 1875, deported 1941, murdered in Riga Here lived Bettina Rosenberg (nee Westheimer), born 1877, deported 1941, murdered in Riga Here lived Lieselotte Falck (nee Rosenberg), born 1911, deported 1941, murdered in Kodz |
Riga and Kodz were two of the many death camps run by the Nazis.
On a happier note, we have finally finished furnishing our apartment and now have places for our guests to sit besides at the dinner table.
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The addition of a sleeper sofa allowed us to entertain our first houseguests from the US last weekend. Our dear friend Lee was the interim pastor at the Houston Mennonite church who also drove our moving truck from Texas to Maryland. He and his lovely partner Dawn spent a couple of days visiting us before heading to southern Germany to visit friends of hers, and then on to Greece for 10 days. They managed to miss the brutal heatwave the week prior to their arrival, but it did the usual Hamburg thing and rained on their first and last day here. However, the weather on their second day behaved and we went for a long walk in the Stadtpark (City Park) down the street from our apartment. As expected, they thoroughly enjoyed this treasure in our back yard.
It feels like we ate a lot when Lee and Dawn were visiting us, and maybe we did. I wanted to introduce them to some typical German culture and cuisine in the short time that they were here. One of the fun things we ate was spaghetti ice cream (it's not what you think). It's ice cream run through a pasta machine that resembles spaghetti. This sits on top of a foundation of whipped cream. Traditionally, a strawberry topping is added to resemble pasta sauce, and shaved white chocolate is added to that for the "parmesan cheese". It's decadent and definitely something you need to try when you're in Germany.
I think that brings us up to date on what's going on here. Now that we tested out our overnight hosting abilities, we're open for more visitors!
Enjoy the rest of your summer and stay safe.
Bis zum nächsten Mal.
Until next time.
David
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