That Göttingen Winter

Ok, I am on a roll here, getting the rest of the winter photos out into the world!

The official pics of the White Second Week of February are here.

Here's the view out back.

 And this is our giant house.  We live in the top two floors and our awesome friend Katharina lives downstairs.

I also think we have the best street in the city - normally we huff and puff our way uphill from the bus stop (though you should see Katharina on her bike!), but when it snows it's totally worth it because it's one of the few unplowed streets around.  So, we had our own sledding hill right out the door.

I think the moon and the street lamp were talking to each other.

 Another benefit of our hill, besides letting us live in a "mountain retreat" is that we have a view!  I've conveniently cropped the photo so you don't know that it's really further away than it looks, and there are some buildings you have to look between, but hey, we get what we can, right?  That's downtown Göttingen, with three churches visible.  The one in the foreground is close to Dan's office, the other two are right in the old part of town.

Speaking of Dan, here's the guy you don't see too often because he usually behind a camera or sometimes traipsing about the world doing his scholarly thing.

He's been playing with his panoramic camera lately.

Oh, you know how we say, "it's snowing" or "it's raining?"  Well, I found out this winter that you can also say "it's sparkling," in the same way (I give everyone permission).  On clear, cold days with a high enough ambient humidity, the water in the air simply freezes, without a cloud in the sky, and the air is filled with sparkles.  Totally magical.

Unless I come across anything I've forgotten, I think this marks the official end of the winter posts.  This is a good thing because now Göttingen is starting to be pretty again and I want to take spring pictures.

Oh, one last random thing, just for cuteness.  Our neighbor cat caught a mouse and was tossing it through the air so Merlin and I distracted him with praise and swiped up the little mousie.  We took her home, ostensibly to let her die in peace.  But, in spite of puncture wounds on either side, she actually recovered (and quickly) and exhibited her species' characteristic enjoyment of peanut butter.  She spent the night in the box and was released the next day.

:-)

downhill and very fast

Remember the grey trip we took to Sank Andreasberg?  Well we later made it there on two separate, gloriously sunny weekends and had tons of fun sledding and snow tubing.  Snow tubing was such a blast that we went back the next weekend, with Dan and several of his colleagues in tow.

Here's some of the gang.

Snow tubing goes like this:

1. You have to have a great hill

 

2. Then you get in a tube.

3. Wait for the lever to be released and then hit the track!

4. Hurtle downhill and go bumping, spinning and laughing like crazy.

5. Hook your tube to the cable, get towed uphill (yes, we're cheaters) and repeat as necessary.

Alternatively, there's also great sledding - free and so incredibly frightening what with random people scattered on the hillside, kids cutting in front of you and crashing into fences (Devin, was that you?), super bumps that cause the daring, two-per-sled, to have said vehicle go splintering out from under them.  Apparently it IS possible to steer a sled, I just don't think any of us figured out how.

At the starting line

I don't have any pictures taken from the bottom, looking at everyone zooming toward me because, frankly, that was too scary!

Everyone had a good time!

I think we had a time warp

I don't know what happened.  One moment it was winter (and still February) and the next it wasn't.  And I've still got winter pictures to show you!  I feel really ridiculously slow and out of it and because it happens with some regularity, I'm beginning to think it's a major character flaw.

I hope you won't judge me too badly because of it and will instead just encourage me periodically - I do respond well to friendly pressure!

Because the pictures tell pretty much the whole story (with the exception of some factual details), I'll make this easier on everyone by making these "fluff" posts with lots of pictures.

That's ok, right?  :)
 ***

This year turned out to be unusual in its lack of snow.  Göttingen only had snow on the ground for about a week, maybe 10 days and it was never more than 2 or 3 inches deep.  It didn't really fulfill the Californians' hopes that if we were going to sit through an entire German winter, it should be real one.  Instead of white Christmas, we had a white 2nd week of February.  Meanwhile, in January and into February we took matters into our own hands and went back to the Harz (see the previous post for the map).

On the last weekend of January, Devin, Merlin and I went with our neighbors up to the Brocken*, north Germany's highest mountain (1142 m).  It really resembles a hill, being very rounded, but that's a result of having survived the ice age, so we forgive it.  We parked about 10 kilometers from the mountain and hiked in, stayed one night at a hotel at the top and hiked back out.

fox prints

The Brocken has more than 300 foggy days a year. We lucked out!

 It wasn't a difficult walk - just a lot of uphill, but because we followed a road we didn't have to clear our way through the snow which was about 4 feet deep.  There were also a lot of cross country skiers and the kids put a sled to good use on the downhill sections.  It was clear and cold but walking made it very comfortable.

There's a narrow gauge railway (dating back to 1899) up to the top.

 The top was very blustery with the windchill taking it down to -20 C (-4 F).  We ran around a bit, gasping for breath and watching the snow drift in the setting sunlight.

Don't we make good polar explorers?

Up at the top there's a train station, a weather station, a botanical garden (under the snow at this time of year), a hotel with a great observation deck, and an old soviet surveillance post which houses a museum.

View from the observation deck.  Primary forest can still be found here.

Post marker for the border between Soviet controlled land and West Germany.

And now for your viewing pleasure, two slightly odd videos of snow drifting.  Sorry about the major bumpiness of the first.






Notes:
* I recommend checking out the Wikipedia article since the Brocken has interesting geological, meteriological and biological features.  And there's more on the history of the mountain, too.

We saw Benno Schmidt at the cafe - he holds the world record for number ascents of the Brocken, coming on foot to the summit nearly every day (more than 6,000 times so far).

As a side note, I found I had a major disconnect between my feet and my brain, constantly feeling like I was walking in white sand (you know, beach style).  I had to stop and touch the snow a lot to actually remind myself what it was. I also admit to having a strong urge to eat it.  Also, I like the sound snow makes when you step on it.  Kind of squidgy/squeaky.  In Göttingen I walked on the last bits of snow whenever I could.  I'm kind of strange I think.

Also, if anyone is up for a visit in June, there's a 2 day walk from Göttingen to the Brocken (87 kilometers).   Our neighbors who periodically run marathons said that by the end of the walk they were reduced to an odd shuffle and could hardly get up the step into the hotel! How's that for encouraging?