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.

:-)

Old Year, New Year

Dear everyone, we hope you have a great 2012, that it brings contentment, joy, depth and beauty!

Devin, Merlin and I stayed up on the 31st (Dan's in China continuing research, writing, and helping his parents who have both been ill).  It was a beautiful surprise to have the weather clear enough to experience a firework-filled celebration.  From our house, which I sometimes call our Mountain Retreat (I try to remember that when I feel like complaining about the uphill walk), we can see above rooftops to the city center below.  Folks here really get into the fireworks displays and from just before midnight until after 1:00 am, it seemed the valley was just filled with showers and sparks and bright flowering bursts.  I'm sorry, I didn't take any pictures (and they'd be a paltry representation, anyway, without a zoom lens), but after all my years in towns where personal fireworks are mostly off limits, I have to say that this was a treat worth seeing.  Both girls enthusiastically endorsed being here for it again next year.

Up until the 29th of December, downtown Göttingen hosted a Christmas Market with booths filled with crafts and ornaments, winter specialties and eye candy (and real candy).  It was a relatively small market, just filling two small plazas, but we found ourselves continually entertained by just walking through the jostle and seeing what there was to see.

 

We didn't have a white Christmas (just rain and more rain), but it did snow once, sometime in December, and then promptly melted and we're still wondering if we're going to get to use our sled.  We did go ice skating, at the downtown indoor rink - it was pretty crowded and with the dim lighting, hard to take photos, but here are a few I got.  We look faster than we really are, but for a bunch of Californians, we weren't really too bad at it.  I think we can thank Sacramento's December rink for that.

Yes, that's Merlin in the maroon sweater.

And Devin, zipping by.

At least it snowed on our gingerbread houses...

and bonus points to anyone who can identify these (super extra bonus points if you know the Danish name, just because that's how I happen to call them):

Snow(ish)

I am, in case you hadn't noticed, amused by weather.  It's not just a conversation filler, it's interesting! So many variations, options, effects...

Anyway, here I go again.  It's been getting steadily colder and then suddenly we had frost and our little pond froze over.

This morning, the girls set off for the bus stop and within a minute or two the phone rang - I panicked, realizing Merlin had forgotten her clarinet, said to Devin who was on the other end saying, "It's snowing!" that I was bringing it; grabbed it, dashed out the door (at least I put on shoes, didn't deal with a coat over my sweatshirt) and then realized... it was snowing.  Well, snow enough for us, I guess, more like spitting little ice pieces.

It did this to everything outside:

 I didn't realize that spiderwebs could get iced up:

And then if they get jiggled the ice breaks apart:

It's really pretty and really cold and Merlin's quite entranced by the ice on the pond.  She keeps getting me outside to look at it and watch her poke it to break up the ice.  Some folks are easily pleased. :)

On the bus, later, a lady told me it wasn't actually snow, but something I've now forgotten, maybe Schnee regen (snow rain: sleet).  I find the German word for snow hilarious.  Say it several times and see if you don't laugh. Schnee Schnee Schnee.

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Here, a snippet of today's poem on The Writer's Almanac, by Kenneth Rexroth.

...November has come to the forest,
To the meadows where we picked the cyclamen.
The year fades with the white frost
On the brown sedge in the hazy meadows,
Where the deer tracks were black in the morning.
Ice forms in the shadows;
Disheveled maples hang over the water;
Deep gold sunlight glistens on the shrunken stream...

I'm a wimp

or, gee, it feels like winter already.

We had two or three weeks of fabulous weather, up until a few days into October.  It was sunny and warm and then gradually it began to feel like typical California winter weather - it rained and was colder.  This morning the temperature had dipped down to around 32-34 F.

I find I'm reluctant to go out and take pictures right now, though I'm optimistic I'll get used to it. 

The last few weeks have involved a lot of trips back and forth from the main part of town to the house. We're up a hill, which I can only get part of the way up by bike. 

Luckily we're very near a bus line and I've made a brilliant investment in a monthly bus pas so I can come and go with backpack loads of groceries and household goods.  Devin and Merlin also have bus passes - granted because we live outside of a certain distance from school, so every morning we trek down the hill and stand in the dark to await our bus.  I've been going just because Merlin and I like to have the conversation time while Devin pretends to be unrelated.

In the first week at the house our wait at the bus stop took place just as the sun was rising and the sky was light.  Now it's quite dark and there's only the faintest pale patch of sky to the east.  It's amazing how quickly the days are getting shorter. 

According to the Sunrise Sunset Calendar, we're already experiencing days 45 minutes shorter than you folks in Davis and our sunrise is about 30 minutes later than yours.  One of those fact I neglected to research when we were in California is that Göttingen is actually as far north as Calgary, Canada! 

I have to say, philosophically, now that we're brushing up against the halfway point between the north pole and the equator, that I'm slightly biased in favor of warm weather.  I think I'll make good friends with the radiators this winter.

I just wonder what the good of a sundial is when there's not enough sun to be found!

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The photo is of a sundial on Marienkirche (St. Mary's Church), right near the edge of old Göttingen.  We've had breakfast at a bakery right across the street a number of times, sitting at the counter at the window.  Now, it's almost too dark to see the church and this morning we found our images reflected back by the bakery window.  And don't be fooled by the date on the sundial, the church was actually built sometime around 1318.

small details

If you've known me for any length of time, you've probably noticed I'm extremely detail oriented.  This can be a good thing - as in the case of my finding sometime employment as a copy editor.  It can also can be somewhat maddening, as in the case of the recent move when I kept track of everything down to the stray screws at the bottom of the junk drawer

It still bugs me that I found, then lost again, the last screw to the closet door mechanism in Merlin's bedroom.

Sometimes, being focused on details, the bigger picture eludes me; but usually I have the benefit of being made happy by very small things*.  I couldn't ask for a greater gift than to be able to notice really interesting details, to find small sensory treasures all over the place.

This town, having been in existence in some form since at least 1150, is full of rich detail.  Over the centuries things have disappeared, been covered over, replaced, restored, created anew.  I'm finding and appreciating something whenever I can.  Lucky you, you get to notice them too, sometimes with description, sometimes just in photographs.

Enjoy!

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*  Ooo, I think I like this phrase in its Winnie-the-Pooh-esqueness:  "Made Happy by Very Small Things," kind of like a "Bear of Very Little Brain."