Laura Beth in Germany

The time between Christmas and New Year's has been relaxing. Fabian has been off work & we got to watch lots of Doctor Who and cook a few meals together, and spend time with his family too. Armed with our new Christmas presents from Sullivan, Fabi, his brother and I headed out to the local soccer field to practice batting and catching last week! Clemens plays tennis, and I think that gave him an edge. It was a lot of fun & we successfully broke in our new equipment (see before-and-after balls below). A few people stopped to watch us, since baseball isn't a common sport to come across in Germany. Eventually a man and his dog came out to the field and were playing catch as well. We headed home because it was getting dark, and we didn't want to take the risk of confusing the dog and get our new baseballs stolen. But yay for sibling bonding time! Yesterday we went with Katja and the other Fabian (Joos) to Stuttgart for some post-Christmas sale shopping and to eat &quo

  Got a new 'do today! Shortest I've ever had it. Lisa should be proud ;)

Wishing everyone a wonderful "Heilig Abend" (Christmas Eve). We've got our fish in the oven and we just finished cookies and coffee. Now we have a small moment of silence before the family arrives for dinner. Then we'll attend midnight mass - also at 10 p.m., just like in Missouri ;) and open presents after the "Christ child" brings them (not Santa). Love & warm greetings to all of you! Laura Beth

Happy announcement: two packages have arrived from the U.S. this week! We had to pick them up at the Zollamt (the customs office) in Ludwigsburg, because the officals tax you on anything sent into the country that's over a certain weight and value - 45 Euros, or about $60 bucks. There have been continued problems with the postman. Aside from putting my letters in our neighbor's newspaper box, he keeps complaining that my letters are incorrectly addressed! So I've made a little chart which explains how Germans write/read the numbers 1 and 7. Please refer to this when addressing post to me! Thanks to everyone who has sent me Christmas cards as well. Shout out to Uncle Don, Candice, Paige, Grandma, and the Webster U. Student Ambassadors - you are all displayed on the nook in my dining room!

Being my first real Christmas away from home, I was not able to snatch extra decorations from my parents. So being craftiness & quirkiness have been lifesavers. I thought perhaps some people might get a kick out of my decorations, so I've documented. No Christmas tree this year - but there is a pointsetta, next to which I've placed a chocolate Sankt Nikolaus. To the left we have a red cemetery candle in a candy dish, surrounded by miniature baubles. To the right we have a Jägermeister shot glass as a candle dish, tied up with a Christmas ribbon. The next few ornaments were actually small gifts in the Advent Calendar I recieved from Margit - small wooden stars made of genuine tree bark. We hung them on the door handles of the monstrosity.    Next, we have a succulent that went crazy on me, an apple from a local farmer that we picked in October, three more hand-me-down baubles tied with Christmas ribbon, and the lovely prayer card that my Grandma Eschbac

Last night was the Messiah Singers' Advent Concert! See if you can spot me among the Altos. Photo credit goes to our audio guy, Andy Kausig. We sang in the town of Murr - for those of you who've been to Gross/Kleinbottwar, it's one of the bus stops on the way to Marbach. It's a historical church in the middle of town, but quite small. All the seats were full by the time the concert started, and I think they took chairs from the community center to seat people in the back as well. We sang a variety of German and English songs - some with the band, some a capella. My favorite, hands down, was "We Pray" (probably also the most traditional American gospel  song we sang, too. Go figure). Here's a sample of the song on YouTube. You'll have to just imagine us clapping, stomping and dancing. Also, the girl behind me  rocked an improv solo during the chorus. Fabi, Hansi, and Margit came to see us sing, and of course the Brosi family was scattered amo

It's snowing! It's snowing! I'm quite enthusiastic about this winter wonderland. I haven't seen the likes of this in St. Louis for years! But the temperatures haven't been steady enough to keep it on the ground. We get snow or sleet in the morning, then the sun comes out and melts everything by afternoon. All the necessary preparations for the season are complete - filled up our antifreeze, salted the stairs to our door, put winter tires on the car, and decorated the apartment for Christmas. I'm having a hard time keeping the poinsetta alive, so I put decorations around my succulent instead. Work is going smoothly. I still don't have too many hours, but the 2 students I have are wonderful. Their names are Gretel and Brigitta (can you get more German-sounding?) and they are such sweet ladies! Today Brigitta gave me a hug at the end of class and said "English lessons, MANY fun!" Don't worry, we'll work on that grammar. I'm getting more

Christmas is everywhere here! Last week due to Berlitz training, I missed out on gathering fresh greenery in the forest with Margit and her friends. But luckily, I caught up with her on Friday and was able to get a crash course on homemade wreath-making. Margit came home with about 5 different types of evergreen branches. Beginning with a straw wreath base (found at any local craft store), we cut small, 3-5 inch long pieces of greenery and wrapped them thickly & tighly along the base, securing them with thin metal wire. The next step was to decorate! Margit and I sat at her kitchen table, Christmas ornaments and decorations sprawled around us, and chose things to adorn our masterpieces. Mine is only one foot in diameter, so I chose small items - miniature cinnamon sticks, pine cones, golden stars, small baubles. Margit had about 3x more "wreathspace" to worth with, so she used ribbon, orange slices, red crab apples, and the fruit of local spruce trees. Last

The past two weeks of training were tough, and there was a LOT of new information and techniques to learn, but as of November 29th, I am officially certified as a Berlitz English teacher! Training in Stuttgart was for all the new teachers in Southwestern Germany, so the trainees lived everywhere from Saarbrücken to Heidelberg. Everyone was so interesting! Our trainer was a Scottish gal in her late 20's. Since my 12 new coworkers are all native speakers of either English or German (a requirement to teaching for Berlitz), we had people from Singapore, Texas, Cornwall, Liverpool, Arkansas, Atlanta, Detroit, and even Greece.  I was the 2nd or 3rd-youngest of the group, but everyone bonded like there was no age difference at all. The Berlitz ideology is very effective - teach grammar only in the context of how your students will use it; never teach grammar rules in table form. Though teaching method sounds basic, it's not easy. Another important facet of the method is to make e

Training for my new job starts on Tuesday. I've bought my "4er Tickets" for the bus/train to and from Stuttgart during the eight days of training. I signed myself up for the yearly public transit plan - I pay for 10 months and get to ride unlimited, day or night, for 12 months. It's a pretty good deal compared to the price of single tickets. Still - and I almost hate admitting this - I am going to be spending  €144 per month (the equivalent of $183) on these suckers. Talk about an arm and a leg! To all you students out there - ENJOY YOUR DISCOUNTS while they last! In preparation for training, I received a short booklet with materials about grammar, teaching styles, and the history of the company. In one section, I was asked to explain the minute differences in meaning between sentences like "Have you seen him?" and "Did you see him?". Digging back into my brain archives, I discovered that Mrs. Marquart's voice and image are still there in my

If there's one message that Webster drilled into my brain for eternity, it's "Be involved!" And since I had some extra time while Fabian was gone, I began attending Messiah-Singers practice again. For those of you who don't know, it's a gospel choir organized by the Großbottwar Evangelical church. We sing German and English songs/hymns/spirituals either as a capella harmonies or accompanied by our rock band. Rejoining the choir was a wonderful excuse to spend time with Marlene, Uli and Philina, and I figured I would meet new people. Turns out the choir has grown! Where we used to just have 1 bass and 1 tenor, we now have 8 men with wonderful voices. There were a few familiar faces, but only 1 or 2 people were left from the time I took part in the choir six years ago. So as far as meeting new people goes, mission accomplished! We had our first performance of the fall yesterday during Schiller Sonntag - the one Sunday of the year where all the shops in Marb

October in the States definitely has a Halloweeny vibe. But in Germany, Halloween didn't gain popularity until about the last decade. In 2006 when I was here for Halloween, only the other American in my class had a costume, and we only spotted about five families with kids under the age of 5 who even went door to door Trick-or-Treating. In fact, some of the Evangelical kids of the neigbhorhood will all go to church on All Hallow's Eve, to pray and have godly fun as an alternative to Halloween, which they describe as a "pagan festival that celebrates only evil and death."   Regardless, Halloween is gaining momentum as a secular festival in Germany. Now in 2012, you can find many of the same types of decor that you see in the stores at home - giant coffins, plastic jack-o-lanterns, trick-or-treat bags, etc. However, not many people have mastered the art of pumpkin carving! Margit used to carve them when Fabi and Clemens were little, but never liked the mess invo

It's harvest time in the Bottwartal! Today we had an usually warm day in this "Golden October" - one of the best months to be in Germany. I took the opportunity for a walk around the vineyards on the other side of town. It took me about 10 minutes to walk to the other edge of town, and then I mosied upwards for another 45, snagging the extra grapes that were left behind by the harvesters this week - not good enough for wine, but still tasty!     Above is a photo of the vines before harvesting - a process that usually involves large buckets, tractors, a portable picnic table, and comeraderie with the 10 or so friends and relatives who volunteer to help out that year. Last week you could find little groups set up at tables scattered all throughout the hills, laughing and eating buttered pretzels with their coffee (they bring along their ceramic mugs, glass plates and silverware from home). Then they got back to work, dumping buckets of "ready" grapes

Today I became the proud keeper of a 1970's sewing box from Fabian's late grandmother. Margit and I were chatting at lunch about my mother's job as a seamstress, and how I have an un-used sewing machine at home that was too heavy for me to bring on the plane when I moved. I told her about repairing my friends' clothes at Webster, and that I would love to continue my crafty hobbies here. She told me to wait a moment, went to the laundry room, and came back with this awesome box! We drank our coffee together and then I carried the box back to my apartment - to find that it matches every single pillow, tapestry & couch in the living room and brings all my mis-matched decor together nicely.  I spent the next two hours cleaning out cobwebs, dusting the thread, and sorting between useful things and items I had to throw away. The end result is an upper level that looks like this...  ... and a lower level underneath the tray that contains yarn, scissors, safet

The last four days of my trip were spent with my friend Paige, who is currently an au pair in the outskirts of Paris. They live in a 3-story (plus tower) house about 30 minutes from the city center by Metro, in a lovely and quiet neighborhood. The family graciously let me stay with Paige up in her tower, and I helped play with the kids here and there in between exploring the city. I was able to see all the major attractions because we were always on the go! In four days, we managed to see: Versailles palace & gardens Arc de Triomphe The Louvre - grandest museum I've ever seen     kudos to Lisa for the suggestion! Eiffel Tower Champs-Élysées - high dollar shopping street The Grand Palace The Petite Palace Moulin Rouge Montmartre - artsy district, filming location of the movie Amelie Sacré-Cœur cathedral Notre Dame - I sang Disney songs the entire time We attempted the Catacombs and the Opera House too, but had bad luck with the tour times. To offically confirm t

As stated in the previous post, I met Katja on Friday and we carpooled down to Karlsruhe to stay with Annika for the weekend. In Germany they have a carpooling website where you can search for or offer carpooling opportunities to most major and medium-sized cities, for a fraction of the cost of a train ticket. Our passage to Karlsruhe was only 10 Euro per person. Annika welcomed us with dinner at the Thai restaurant and then we went back to her dorm to drink new wine and talk about life. We sat on the outdoor patio at the very top of the building, watched the stars, and laughed about German grammar and funny translation mistakes. The entire next day (after brunch on the town) was spent on a bike! We rode about 7km outside the city and then rode a cog lift up the side of the only hill in Karlsruhe. On top there was a lookout tower - the ruins of a castle built in the 1100s. It was very windy, but beautiful. We could see the first changing leaves of fall in the forest behind us, and

I left the house on a Tuesday for my big 10-day adventure, armed with a tiny suitcase and the cheapest train tickets I could find. The trip would be all about my girlfriends - the first four days visiting Michalina, my Polish friend from the IFC who now lives in Frankfurt, then a weekend with Annika and Katja in Karlsruhe, and ending with four days to explore Paris with Paige Wendle. The first leg of my journey took me from Kleinbottwar to Stuttgart, where I found out my train had been cancelled due to an derailing on one of the high-traffic tracks. So I was upgraded to an ICE (high-speed intercity train) for free and arrived in Frankfurt 2 hours later than planned. Michalina and her German boyfriend Dennis picked me up from the train station and took me back to their little town on the outskirts of the city, Oberursel. We walked the streets and ate dinner at a delicious Spanish restaurant - lots of garlic and tapas! Then I settled into my guest room there and we watched movies and

   It's Octoberfest season! What better way to celebrate than to buy myself the traditional garb: a bonafide dirndl. After making a trip to the local NKD department store and bartering with the cashier about a small, fixable mistake with the charm chain on the bodess, I bought this thing for just 30 Euro and rode home proudly with it in my little bike basket. And of course, I needed a better backdrop for you all than my living room, so I had a little fun with Photoshop. Happy Octoberfest! 

Drumroll please... here are the long-awaited photos of Marlene's daughter Philina. Today I drove up to Karlsruhe with Marlene to pick up Annika for her fall break, and we made a little pit stop in the castle park there to eat ice cream and stretch our legs. These are a few photos from our walk.         Philina is a very happy kid. She's rarely fussy, and even though she has a slight cold right now, she didn't cry once in the car. She likes to say "doot doot doot doot" and dance to her own music. She also loves animals, and runs toward any pigeon or squirrel she sees. We had a lovely afternoon, followed by a huge delicious dinner back in Großbottwar with the Brosis. 

The city of Ludwigsburg is really fascinating - so much culture and history are available if you know where to look. It's an army town, founded by a fat, 6-foot-tall duke who demanded that a town be built up around his summer castle. During World War II, only Ludwigsburg and Heidelberg were spared bombings because both cities contained barracks in which the Allied forces could house their own soldiers. There are numerous homes where famous German figures (Schiller, Goethe) have lived or spent the night. Aside from all that, they throw really GREAT festivals...   Here are a few photos from the Venecian Festival we attended last weekend in Ludwigsburg. It was a little expensive ( €10 entrance fee), but it was well worth it to see all the incredible costumes! There was also live entertainment all night, on different stages set up around the market square. We met these two ladies (?) at the entrance. After entering, Fabian took the opportunity to try on an antique pirate hat