Onions and Turkeys

I thought that I would take a bit of time to tell everyone about two important holidays for the Amero-Swiss community: the Bern Onion Market (Zibele-Märit) and of course, Thanksgiving (now a while back).

First to the Onion Market.

The fouth Monday of November sees Bern transformed into a cacophony of noise, smells, and confetti.

The exact origin of the festival is debatable, but it seems to date back at least a couple hundred years (possibly even the 1500`s). In any case, it was a day for the local farmers to show there stuff (read onions). The party starts ridiculously early, with onion pies and champagne before dawn (we started around 10 am).

In addition to the real onions, there are strings of candy onions in a variety of colors and flavors.

The real onions are even more impressive. No bags full of random root bulbs, the Bernese farmers plait their onions into lovely strings. I imagine earnest Swiss farmers sorting through tones of fresh onions (eyes watering with the effort) till they find the perfect size and shape to fit the string.

 

Some of these braided onion strands are really quite impressive.

However, not all that is Swiss is orderly and comprehend-able. Here you can see onions in drag...why?...who knows! (but they are cute)

It is hard not to get caught up in the thrill of it all. Here is jen and me wearing onions and holding onions after having just eaten onions.

  

So, along with the whole onion motif, there is serious chaos afoot in the streets. Kids and adults run around with large plastic hammers (that make a loud noise when you smack them on something) beating oneanother mercilessly and joyfully. Also obligatory is covering every square inch of street and human with confetti.

 

It is a great party, and a fun tradition. Who knows, perhaps next year we will start a few hours earlier!

Then we needed a holiday that made sense, so we had Thanksgiving. Our friends Bruno and Sabine came over for a traditional American Thanksgiving dinner. We had pretty much everything (we even found Canadian (close enough) cranberries in the store). Although, I can not recommend doing Thanksgiving in Switzerland for a large group. Even our tiny bird (Sabine for scale) cost 50 CHF. We saw a couple in the store for over 100 franks. On the bright side, neither Bruno nor Sabine had ever seen a cooked turkey (other than in the more common breast form), so we were able to wow them with a 6 lb. bird.

Advent

Advent is a time for waiting, which i guess must be obvious from the it's very name which is derived from the Latin word for "coming". It's already the third week of advent, and to me this period of waiting is going by very fast. To count down the days here we are using two devices, firstly an advent calendar. The origins of the advent calendar come from the German Lutherans, and the first known advent calendar was handmade in 1851 in Germany. In the Germanic parts of Europe advent is really made into a game, and although this has been introduced and unculturated in America, it is far more prevalent here. Co-workers, friends, couples and parents often buy or make advent calendars for each other. Here is an example of one my friend Wiebka made for me last year.

Each little wrapped parcel has a bit of yummy chocolate in it, one of which i got to open each day during the advent season. I liked this so much that I made ones like this for all my nephews this year. As you walk by apartments at night, along with the christmas decorations and lights, you will often see advent calendars similar to this one, though sometimes on a much more elaborate scale, in peoples windows.

You can also buy a whole range of printed or packaged ones at the store, which are also available in America. But what I think is less common at home, for an adult adventer, as the trivia advent calendar. Many of my friends make these for their partners or friends. This calender has fewer chocolate rewards, but instead has daily quizzes that if answered correctly add up to a larger gift at the very end. Here is an example of one i made for kevin this year, where he is trying to guess the Swiss canton as given by clues tucked away in these pockets (you can also see here tiny colored stickers where kevin has guessed the right canton and put the canton emblem in the right place). Also in the first photo here is an example of one i got from the grocery store that gives me advent savings!

 

 The second way we are ticking off the weeks rather than the days is with an advent wreath. These can be bought at really any store during this time of year in a variety of colors, sizes and overall panache. Many people make their own, or make them for friends and family, but i am too lazy for that. We are sporting a pretty simple one this year, but it is still lovely to have this during this time.

Daylight view from week one.

The idea here is, of course, to light a new candle on each sunday during advent. Each night you may light that week's candle plus all the weeks that have already gone by. It is a slower countdown and one which i find comforting and always delightful. 

Nothing quite like a candle burning on a cold winter's night.

These little activities really make the days fly by in such a fun, easy and cozy way that one may wish that christmas never came. or. maybe not....

Auf Wiedersehen Berlin and Potsdam (Part 2)

We still had a couple of days before the next surgery so we tried to make the most of it by taking in a few more cultural points of interest. Kevin's back was still kaputt, so i wheeled him around....

a concentration camp, Sachsenhausen to be precise.

This concentration camp was set up by the Nazis as a model camp for others to be built to resemble, and is also where the infamous 'Z Station' was.

A change of pace obviously, from the zoo and gardens, but we thought this was an important thing to see.

Kevin had visited here years ago when he was a student in Germany, and he prepared me for piles of clothing and teeth in dark, forbidding rooms. So, mentally prepared, we then choose a sunny day to lessen the uncomfortableness and set off. Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how one thinks these sites should show their impact, there were no piles anymore, just very through information boards and a number of buildings and artifacts. It was strange and still, both comforting and extremely disturbing.

 

More than 100,000 people died here between 1933 and 1945.

This camp is now a memorial, though the city of Berlin has many memorials for the holocaust. My favorite is the Denkmal fur die Ermordeten Juden Europas in the center of the city.  

This memorial covers 5 acres of the city and is composed of dark gray slabs of varying heights, lined up in rows only one person can walk through at a time. It is one of the most beautiful and unsettling places i have ever been. Another thing you will see in many German cities are these:

Stumbling stones.

An artist from Cologne came up with this idea and design as a memorial for all those lost in the holocaust. A bronze 'stone' gives the name and important dates for an individual and is placed into the pavement in front of the house or where their former home was when they were taken by the Nazis. The name says it all i think.

But to return to our cultural tour, after Sachenhausen Kevin had acupuncture on his aching back and then we decided to get in line for the Reichstag, the parliament building  for the German government.

This building really represents Berlin and all it has been through in modern times. The Reichstag is a bit of a architectural hybrid because it was built in 1895 but then the Nazis thought it would be helpful to burn it 1933, and also it was further ruined by allied bombs during the war. In 1999 the old girl got a facelift and the glass top was put up to welcome the German government back to Berlin after having been in Bonn for many years.

View from below with the Siegelsaule.

Amazing view from the top with her again.

 

The Glass dome at the top of the Reichstag and the path you can walk up to the very top.

Inside looking down, and way down below you can see the seats of parliament.

A stunning sunset from the top.

 Now the second set of teeth needed to come out, but it was going to get a lot more exciting than just routine tooth extraction; on the day of the oral surgery i awoke to a loud thump. The thump of Kevin falling onto the floor because he could not stand. His back could no longer support him and we had to call a taxi to get the other teeth out. The next day he went to his acupuncturist and found that his legs didn't bounce at all when he did the hammer test to the knees- yikes! So off Kevin went to a specialist who gave him a shot of cortisone and told him he would perform surgery in a week if necessary. Poor Kevin was looking a little worse for the wear in the face and neck department too.

Colorful!

We took a few days off and waited for the medication to kick in. Kevin's foot never came back, so we decided on more wheelchairs rides and off we went to another museum. The Pergamon:

 

Behold: the Pergamon Altar!

The Pergamon is the only real world-class museum in Berlin and you can totally see why when you are there. Here you can walk up the steps of the altar or...

 

Stand in front of the Roman Market Gate of Miletus or...

 

Freak yourself out looking at the Ishtar Gate or...

Completely overwhelm yourself in the continuation of the gate with the Babylonian Processional Way, as modeled by Kevin here.

This museum completely did me in; room after room of complete (often still with graffiti on) buildings taken from cultures from all times and places. I was amazed and appalled, how did Germany come to 'own' these treasures? Well, no matter how they got there, it was breathtaking.

Last stop: Potsdam!

Since we lived in Potsdam we had more opportunities to see it's beauties and splendors on a more daily basis. We went out to a few of our favorite haunts to say fair-thee-well since now it was really time to go.

Potsdam is in the former east, signs of which you can see easily.

 

Lenin in a park, just hanging out. i tried rubbing the goatee for luck, not sure if it worked.

 

Part of the Russian colony of Alexandrowka, a small enclave of Russian architecture with an Orthodox chapel which was built in 1825 for a group of Russian immigrants, now it is a UNESCO site. 

 

The Glienicker Bridge was the bridge that spies were exchanged across during the cold war. The wall ran up to here, and a large portion on the wall still exists in Potsdam. Here we are in the former east, looking to the former west.

Another site in Potsdam that was a combination of the earlier Prussian Empire and World War II is Castle Cecilienhof where in 1945 Truman, Stalin, and Churchill carved up Germany in the Potsdam Treaty of 1945.

The castle is very lovely and the grounds are so romantic with lakes all around.

 

But what Potsdam is best known for is Park Sanssouci, which is called the 'Prussian Versailles' of Fredrich the Great. This area of 600 acres is to the west of downtown, and it was just a few minutes walk or bike ride from where we lived. Often we had to commute through the park just to get things done in our daily lives; and i found it odd to look at these architectural wonders with such a familiar eye.

The New Palace

 

 The Chinese House, which was one of my favorites.

The Orangery up on the hill, Kevin and i liked riding up there, but who wouldn't?

 

The whimsical grounds in the park went on and on. We said good-bye to as many as we could.

See you later Branderburg Gate! 

Schloss Sanssouci,

See Ya!

The day after this was taken we hit the road, on our way to a new life in a new country. Kevin's back was still all messed up, but his teeth were out and his face was healed. It was hard to leave this all behind, I know that Paul Theroux said of Berlin in his 'Riding the Iron Rooster', that the city was a monstrosity and it was hard for him to "think of anyone living here for any length of time and remaining sane." And the same goes for Germany, many of us can only associate it with the most horrible parts of it's past, which seems doubly unfair to me now that this has place has hosted me so graciously for so many years. We will miss Germany, but we are sure that Switzerland will also have it's fair share of pleasure and beauty too.

Tschus Potsdam and Berlin! (Part 1)

Before Kevin started his new position in at the university in Switzerland we wanted to say goodbye to all that was special to us in Potsdam and Berlin as well as finally push ourselves into a few places we kept putting off for some reason or another. Both cities have a lot to offer and since this was to be our final days in our adoptive country for the last few years, a proper farewell was in order.

Noodle will miss his snuggly spot.

Kevin had personal days from his job in Potsdam left over at the end of his contract, so two whole weeks were open for both of us to see it all and finish the packing and other tedious things that go along with moving.

A last visit to the dentist for both of us shortly before the intended holiday slightly altered our plans however.

I needed surgery, but we were too late to do it before we left. Kevin, it was determined, also needed surgery- namely his wisdom teeth needed to come out, and we had just enough time left before the intended move to have them yanked. 

So, on Kevin's first day of holiday the first two were removed. Here is the result:

In Germany it is normal to have your wisdom teeth removed two at a time, a week apart.

Normally you are also awake for the surgery and you have only 600mg of advil to kill the pain afterward.

To make matters even worse, Kevin's back, which was already in bad shape, was really killing him after hanging out on the couch for two days. Our plans for touring and general adieu saying were re-tooled and off we went to sample the highlights before Kevin had the second set of teeth pulled.

First stop: Berlin's Botanical Gardens

We were there for the re-opening of the main glass house, which was impressive.

The grounds are really lovely too, all 126 acres of them, making this the second largest botanical in the world.

 

I had been here once in the winter by myself but it was pleasant to see it together and on such a gorgeous day!

Next stop: Berlin's Natural History Museum

Where one can see dinos, skulls and a whole wall full of stuffed creatures.

This museum had one of the most impressive fossil collections i had ever seen and by far the most through gem and mineral collection i have ever witnessed. It is also home to the famously rare fossil of archeopteryx- feathers and all!  (quick note to those who care about these things: there are only a hand full of these that have ever been found. Most natural history museums have one, but they are plaster copies of the original, i.e. this one!)

 

Poor Kevin was wheelchair bound for the day, but he did get to ride the wheelchair lift up the stairs- wheee!

Item Number 3: The Berlin Zoo

This is Germany's oldest zoo, built in 1844. It is known for it's lovely walking paths, unusual architecture for the animals (as seen here) and for the wide variety of animals housed there.

And now, gratuitous photos of cute animals!

Sand bath

 

This Panda came right up to Kevin and looked him in the eye. Kevin was too surprised to have captured that moment on film. (some things are better experienced)

 

This little guy was amazingly sweet.

 

This little guy was too.

 

Media darling Knut (the polar bear that was abandoned by his birth mother and raised by humans) going through the awkward teenage years.

 

 The end of part one.