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):

modes of transportation

We noticed the differences in cars right away.  In the US we see a lot of sedans and of course everyone knows Americans generally prefer SUVs more than most.  I think in Davis we were used to seeing a lot more Priuses.  They're here too, but not in as great a quantity.  Instead we see makes and models we don't find in the US, like Skoda, Dacia, and Citroen.

One of the first responses we all had was that there were a lot of "bean cars," (as in bean shaped - rounded and aerodynamic) and we were surprised at how common wagon models are. 

Anyway, rather than just talk about this, I figure it's good to show pictures.

the classic "bean"

 the classic classic

 Fiat's take on the classic

 a sporty Smart Car

How come they don't sell the Ford Streetka in the US?

 Or the Toyota Picnic?

There are bikes galore here.  Sometime I'll take a pic of the parking pile at the train station.

 

And Göttingen has one up on Davis - even the mail is delivered by bike.

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So we're contemplating getting a car - it'd save so much time for me to be able to do multiple errands in just one trip and to be able to carry oddly sized  or heavy things.  We don't have a particular model in mind at this point.  The first step is going to be getting a German drivers' license before my CA license loses its 6 month grace period.  Annoyingly enough, California is not one of the states to have an agreement with Germany that would allow me to just trade my CA license for a German one.  Instead, I have to prove my CA license is not my first (if I can't, I have to go to driving school) and then I have to  take a class in the theoretical aspects in order to take the written exam.  Blah.

I wonder, though, if I could avoid all that by flying...