Mom comes to visit!

I've spent the last week and a half in the company of my wonderful mother, who flew all the way to cold and snowy Germany to visit me. It seemed we'd been planning it for ages, then suddenly it was time to leave to go meet her. Now, just as suddenly, she's back on the other side of the world.

Saying hi to the nice Bienenkunde guys.

Two Thursdays ago, I caught an ICE from Jena to meet Mom in Berlin. We'd planned to meet on the train after Leipzig, where she would switch to my train, so I sat tight until the train started moving again in order to avoid the umsteigening chaos. It was then that I learned that the train I was on had merely attached to the train she was on, and there was no communication between the two; I'd have to wait until we were on the outskirts of Berlin to get to her compartment. I settled back to wait, but got a call on my cell from, to my surprise, my mother, who'd borrowed her neighbor's cell to call me. At the next stop, I dashed onto the platform and then back onto the train and we were finally reunited.

At the platform in Berlin, we were met by Ben, the son of one of my mom's good friends. He and his wife Jessye are missionaries to athletes in Berlin, and they'd offered to let us stay with them for the weekend. We trooped back to their flat, dragging the heavy suitcase filling with gifts that Mom had brought along. Jessye welcomed us enthusiastically and fed us delicious food before we went to bed.

The next day, Jessye volunteered to show us around the city, so we hit all the major sights: the Brandenburger Tor, the Reichstag, the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, the site of Hitler's suicide (fun stuff, eh), and Checkpoint Charlie. Unfortunately, our access to the first two was blocked by a lot of stern-looking police with machine guns because the Russian president was coming to call that day. We finished off our day by walking down the East End Gallery, a long stretch of the Wall that has been painted by artists invited from around the world. That evening, I got a text from my mentor teacher saying she would be sick until the following Thursday, which meant that all the days I thought I would be teaching through to the afternoon were now totally free for sightseeing.

Our second day, Mom and I set out by ourselves. Beginning in the Hauptbahnhof, we were walking toward the Reichstag when we were distracted by a crowd watching something. Peering through, we were suddenly assaulted by the thunderous screeching of an F1 car, which shrieked into view, roared around in some donuts, and then took off back in the direction of the Brandenburger Tor. From another spectator, we learned that this display was to celebrate Sebastian Vettel's recent World Championship victory...although the German spectators were, well, less than enthusiastic. They watched keenly, but didn't clap or cheer. Maybe it was just too cold. We walked along the cordoned-off track toward the gate, where I saw something much more interesting than some German kid and his Red Bull car: a blood-red Audi R8, crowned by police lights, that was being touted as the "security car." Hello, precious!

We walked through the Tor (now open) and down Unter den Linden, popping into the Christmas markets, memorials, and various buildings along the way, including the lovely cathedral, and by dark had made it to the huge Alexanderplatz market. We got some dinner, did some Christmas shopping, and took the train back to Potsdamer Platz for a little more Christmas market goodness before heading back to Ben and Jessye's flat.

We packed up the next morning, said farewell to our generous hosts, and eventually departed on Sunday morning. Instead of heading straight back to Stadtroda, we headed to Potsdam for the lovely buildings, another Christmas market, and the palaces and pleasure grounds that we got to stroll through for a while. When we finally got back to Stadtroda, we headed straight to the Wohnheim and I installed Mom in her cold but quite nice accomodations on the top floor.

We had a slow morning on Monday, reluctant to leave the dorm because of the thick blanket of snow that had fallen during the night and continued to fall the whole day. Finally, we got bundled up and I took Mom on a tour of Stadtroda--which was, as may be imagined, quite short--and took her into the Fachschule to check train schedules. We dropped by the bee house to say hello to the Bienenmeister and the other Imkern, then we trotted and slid down to the train station to check out Jena. I showed Mom where I have classes and where we had visited before, and we wandered around the market in the main square before returning home to hang out with Bethany for a while.

Tuesday was traveling day. We took the train to Weimar for the market there, which was, although altogether not bad, not too impressive either; to my amusement, it was considerably smaller than the Zwiebelmarkt (onion market) that I had visited in October. We finished in Weimar early and, not ready to go home yet, continued on to Erfurt. I have really liked Erfurt every time I've been there, and this time it was even more beautiful blanketed in snow. The best bit was the medieval market, that had the best food and most interesting merchandise I've seen yet. We finally headed back from Erfurt and trudged back through the snow to the dorm.

Wednesday was supposed to be freaking cold, and was, so we stayed home. We cleaned my room (at Mom's insistance!) and made delicious stew to stay cozy in the cold. We also planned our trip to Nuremburg for the following day...

My mentor teacher texted me the next morning to let me know that classes were canceled for that day too due to an administrative snafu. Mom was disappointed, having wanted to see me teach, and I wanted her to meet Katrin, so we headed off to school to say hi. Turned out that they rescheduled a bit and I did get to teach one class, which placated both of us, after which we packed up and headed to Jena to catch the ICE.

Or so we thought: due to bad weather and trees on the line, all the ICEs heading that way were canceled. Since there was no place for Mom to stay in Stadtroda, we stayed in Jena for the night and wandered around the city some more. In the morning, we returned to the train station to find out that the problem still hadn't been fixed, and although the trains were running, they were being detoured around Jena. We took a train to Weimar to try to catch our detoured train, but although it started at being only 10 minutes delayed, it ended up being over an hour late. Frustrated, we decided to change our ticket altogether and go to Leipzig instead, which had the advantages of being closer and accessible. I was very disappointed that we wouldn't be able to go to to Nuremburg, which has the biggest and most famous market in Germany, but Leipzig wasn't bad either.

We found a reasonable hotel in the city center and set about exploring. In the main square, we found a hut housing a very friendly and enthusiastic young man selling cookies. The longer we stood there, laughing and talking with him, the more cookies he fed us, until we barely needed to eat dinner at all. That evening, battling the cold, we went to a concert/evening service at the Thomaskirche (where Bach was Kantor for a long time) before turning in for the night.

I have to stop here for a moment to comment (stop groaning and rollling your eyes--it's my blog!) about Germany's somewhat fanatical obsession with its national heroes. It seems that there is something--a street, a shopping center, a building, whatever--in every German town named after either Goethe or Schiller or both. For heaven's sake, there's a Goetheweg in Stadtroda. Sure, these guys were brilliant and stuff, but this is a little extreme. There aren't Shakespeare Streets all over England (I don't think?) or Mark Twain Drives slathered over America. (Although, granted, we have an inordinate number of things named after Washington.) Is this because Goethe and Schiller are the only German writers that people really know? Does anyone really like their works? (See this parody of "Thriller" about how terrifyingly difficult Schiller is to understand.) It seems to me that they're a lot like German Shakespeares: brilliant but outdated, difficult to understand, and dense. Yet the Germans name everything after them; every house in which they (or Martin Luther, or Bach) ever set foot has a huge plaque proclaiming the fact. I'm rambling on about this because the Thomaskirche in Leipzig is where Bach served as cantor for many years. Therefore there's a huge statue of him outside, a museum to him nearby, and a plaque on the wall of the church; his grave lies just below the high altar, in the choir. Even the church's symbol is his name with the A as the steeple of the church with a cross on top. It's a similar story in Eisenach, where he was born. Good lord, this is literally hero worship.

Anyway. The next day we took a bilingual bus tour around Leipzig, which was interesting but a bit headache-inducing, trying to listen and remember in German and then supplement the English translation with extra information for my mother. After that, we walked around the city some more, visiting the markets that we hadn't seen yet, and visited the Cookie Man again for more samples and to buy a couple more bags of cookies. We found a nice restaurant to have our last dinner together, and I discovered that it is possible to make Brussels sprouts taste good (shock!!). We tromped around in the snow a bit more before heading back.

Last day together. We walked around the city a bit more, looked inside the Nikolaikirche that we hadn't been able to see yet, and bought a few last gifts. We also took lunch to the Cookie Man and said goodbye for the last time. In the afternoon, we headed to the train station to shop a bit, and we had coffee together at a cafe. I finally put Mom on the train to Frankfurt (thankfully on time) and then took the RE home myself.

I'm so glad my mother got to come and visit. Germany at Christmas is the best, even with the snow and cold. It just seemed to go so fast--and now she's already back on the other side of the world. It impressed on me how far I am away from...well, the people I love. I was going to say "home", but...