Germany

I spent two weeks in southwest Germany with Mareike and her family in Febuary. It was such an amazing experience that I'll cherish for a lifetime. I love experiencing a country by staying with a family because you really get a peek into another culture. Her family didn't speak English so Mareike was the trusty translator for two weeks. Not easy for her I'm sure! There were many questions about the U.S. Her grandmother, who lived upstairs, seemed thrilled to have me there, and she used a pen to put a mark on Cincinnati, OH on her globe so she could always remember where I'm from. They were pretty excited to ask me questions about everything from sports, Obama, health care (very interesting to them), restaurants, what my parents do, and one memorable question from her grandfather was if I heard the story of Little Red Riding Hood. He thought it was outlawed in the U.S. ever since the prohabition because she had wine in her basket. My response was "she had wine in her basket??" and they all laughed and decided they deleted that detail for the American Brothers Grimm's books (am I wrong about this? Was anyone else aware she did? It seemed all the Germans knew that little detail.)


It was Carnival in Germany for about 5 of our days there. Everyone gets dressed up in costumes and celebrates all day long, there's parades, and there's a king and queen in each town who make laws for the holiday. We got dressed up and went to a big tent where thousands of people do the same and dance and eat and drink. It was pretty entertaining. One of my favorite stories about Carnival though came from Mareike's grandparents. I asked if they celebrated it in their youth and they said they did, everyone would wear a mask and go to a masquerade. At midnight everyone would take off their masks and discover who's who. But they laughed about the story, because her grandfather always would always know her grandmother by looking at her shoes- she only had one pair. They were so sweet!




One more story from Germany for now, here's a picture of a particular type of farmhouse that is only found in the Lorraine (this area in Germany was once French.) I thought it was such a pretty farmhouse, right across the street from Mareike's boyfriend. He described the layout of these farmhouses for me; the family lives on the left, and when you go in the front door you can go right and there's a door that leads directly to the barn.