Carter Family 2010

We moved to Germany in November 2009 with Eric's work for Microsoft and we've been having an adventure!  Sometimes it's a fun, traveling around Europe kind of adventure and sometimes it's an aggravating, cultural differences and language barrier kind of adventure.  (One time we got pulled over by the police and almost got a ticket because we hadn't brushed all the snow off our car.  If I'd had my camera I could have gotten a picture of Jason balancing on the back bumper (so he could brush the snow off the top of the van) with a police office holding him in place with one hand while holding a machine gun in the other hand.)   We're doing our best to see and learn everything and maybe next year we'll send a picture of Family Von Carter in lederhosen and dirndl.

Jason, 17, will be leaving us for college next year, but we don't know which college yet.  --Late Breaking News:  He's going to BYU-Provo!-- He plays the piano for church whenever Eric is out of town.  Left picture is in Rome, right picture at the Louvre in Paris.

Hayley, 15, won't get to drive until we move back to the states (have to be 18 in Germany).  She is finally living her dream of taking voice lessons.  Left picture is at St. Peters in Rome and right picture is at Versailles in Paris.

Camilla, 13, wishes she was 16.  That's all I'm going to say about that!  She is in swimming at school and a play at school (with Hayley).  All the kids go to the same school, K-12.  Left picture is in Pompeii and right picture is at Rodin museum in Paris.

Rand, 11, is working on his Arrow of Light in Cub Scouts with his mom as his leader.  He played Achilles in "Troy Story" at school, which was so cool because he got to act out battles and have his own dying scene.  Left picture is in Florence and right picture is in Venice.

Lizzie, 6, is in Grade 1 at school and really starting to read well.  She likes to shovel the snow in winter and makes me promise to not finish it until she gets home.  Left picture is at her cousins house in Stuttgart and right picture is in our front yard in Munich.

Miles, 4, just missed the cut-off date for "Pre-Reception" at our international school.  That would be like Pre-K.  (Reception is what they all Kindergarten in England.  Kindergarten is what they call Pre-school in Germany.)  So he helps mom with the house all day and goes with her on errands.

Vienna

There are no garbage cans in London!

Hayley and Camilla trying to "think".

Lizzie and Miles get to spend a lot of time in Stuttgart with their cousins while we travel.

Trip to Italy Part 4b: Rome, Sistine Chapel and St. Peters

After winding through the whole of the Vatican Museums you can finally enter the Sistine Chapel.  It is supposed to be quiet in there with no picture taking, but nobody pays attention to that, at least not on the day we were there.  (It was the day before Easter and it was wall-to-wall people.) There are Vatican employees standing around inside the chapel and every few minutes they shush everybody and remind everybody not to take pictures.  It's quiet for a minute and then it starts up again.  I don't think I took any pictures (self-righteous pat on the back) but someone in our party did because I ended up with some pictures.  Taking your own pictures just doesn't do it justice though.  I bought a book with full color pictures and some fold-out pages showing all of the paintings on the walls and ceilings.  I can see all the details that way and have explanations about what they all are. 

Famous "Creation of Adam" picture

The ceiling is the most famous, but the walls are also painted.  The mural on the end wall, above, is called "The Last Judgment"

This is called the Delphi Sybil (I have no idea what that means).  I only know what she's called because I did an Art Docent lesson using this picture to a class of 4th graders.  They had to tape a paper to the bottom of their desk and lie on the floor and try to draw a picture.  (It wasn't my idea, I just followed the syllabus.)  There was so much involved in painting people on the ceiling who are going to be viewed from the floor.  It's completely different than painting on a wall.  Beyond the techniques of painting I can imagine how sore Michelangelo's arm must have gotten!

After the Sistine Chapel we went into St. Peter's Basilica.  This cannot be called a cathedral since it is not the seat of a Bishop.  There is another church in Rome that is the official cathedral.  But St. Peter's Basilica is built over where Peter is supposed to be buried and many popes are buried in the crypt.  We saw the plain tomb of Pope John Paul II with people praying in front of it.  I don't think this was it but it looked a lot like this.

St. Peter's is by far the most ornate and large of all the cathedrals we've seen.  Wikipedia says it can hold 60,000 people.  It's breathtakingly grand and beautiful.  I was speechless for awhile.  You could almost get lost in there. 

This is looking down the center towards the main altar.

This is the pavilion over the main altar.  It is 7 stories tall!

This is the chapel that contains Michelangelo's Pieta.  Look at all the marble for just this one "little" chapel.

The Pieta is behind glass now since someone attacked it with a hammer.

There were so many marble sculpture masterpieces.

This is Peter.  Those people are rubbing his toe as they walk by.

Have you ever seen such grandness?

This is from halfway up looking down.

Those letters written in the gold band around the tops of the walls are all the words that Jesus spoke to Peter in the New Testament.  The letters themselves are 6.6 feet tall. 

Even structural elements on the roof have the names of Popes on them.

On the way down from the top of the dome you can stop on the roof and they have a bathroom and gift shop.  Right there on the roof of St. Peters.

The Swiss guard.

Next up, the Coliseum and Roman Forum.

Doctors, Fridges, Water Heaters and New Year's Eve

DOCTORS
I started typing a long, detailed explanation of my medical care troubles just now but decided that it was too boring.  What I really want to say is that German medical red tape is even worse than US medical red tape.  I've been trying to get referrals and prescriptions and running afoul of all kinds of missed deadlines, improper forms, doctors being on vacation and then sick so I can't get the proper forms and renewed prescriptions.  It's almost enough to make me create a stereotype and then vent my frustration on it.  But that wouldn't be fair to all the really nice, helpful doctors and pharmacists I dealt with.  And none of this can be done by phone or email.  It always take a good part of the day to drive around and run into walls and in the end accomplish absolutely nothing.

On a lighter note they have some interesting waiting room systems that at first put me off but now I don't mind it.  In many bigger places, like a hospital, you go to the waiting room and take a number.  Then you sit in a big room and watch the LED sign for your number to come up.  When your number comes up it will have a room number next to it where you're supposed to report.  (During my recent medical care troubles I went to report to my assigned room and I couldn't get the door open!  I tried pushing and pulling and knocking and I wasn't getting in.  Finally a lady came out of another door and showed me that I just had to slide the door to the left.  Egg on my face!  Again!) 

Another system by my regular doctor uses is that we all sit in the waiting room with the door closed.  Then she calls someone over a PA system in the waiting room and the called person obediently gets up, says "Wiedersehen" to everyone else and goes to her office.

FRIDGES

I think I can just post these pictures and you will feel my pain.  A normal gallon of milk wouldn't even fit in here.  And how about that freezer!!

WATER HEATERS

Our hot water has been gradually fading since this summer but I haven't known who to call or what to do.  There is what looks like a water heater in the utility room but no dial on it to turn up the heat.  And the utility room is so complicated that you don't even know what is what.  There are pipes going everywhere.  The owner has solar panels on the roof that heat some water in the summer and a huge water tank under the driveway that collects rainwater and is used for non-drinking water.  The fireplace heats some water but mostly for the under floor heating system I think. 

Anyway, it finally went completely and I wasn't even getting a lukewarm shower at 5:45 in the morning.  So I tried to call our landlord but coudn't reach him so I had to walk over to his mother's house, which is down the street, and she called him and he called a repair person.  (I tried to figure out who to call in the yellow pages but there wasn't anything under hot water, warm water, water heater or anything else I could think of.) 

The repair person came and we tried really hard but I just couldn't understand him.  My next door neighbor who speaks English wasn't home so I went across the street to try and get a lady who has been nice and has a little English.  I didn't know her last name and three people live at that house so I pushed all three buzzers.  Someone came out that I have never met and I was trying to explain that I needed the lady who owned the house because she spoke English.  He said he spoke English too and said he would come over to help me understand the repairman.  Then the lady I know also came out and so she came over too.  Between the four of us we figured it out.  My neighbor guy said the repairman spoke Bayerisch, which is a dialect (Bayerisch = Bavarian), so it was no wonder I couldn't understand him. 

I was so grateful for kind and helpful neighbors!  And we finally had hot water again.  Rand was refusing to shower and the general odor in the house was deteriorating.

NEW YEAR'S EVE

Ryan and Tracie and their kids came over for New Year's Eve and we did some minor fire crackers for the kids before they went to bed.  I couldn't stay up 'til Midnight but apparently everyone else did and Jason found my camera and took some movies.  At midnight everyone did their fireworks and it goes on and on and on!  Don't watch this whole clip because it's too long, but watch the first bit and you'll see how every single person in Munich must have been lighting fireworks.

Oh well, the video clip wouldn't load.  I think it's way too big but I don't know how to edit videos yet.  But Jason just walked down the street and everybody was out lighting major fireworks.  There were people every 10 feet on our street and on every street he walked down.  No matter where he pointed the camera there were fireworks going off every few seconds.  It was absolutely amazing!  It's like everybody's chance to walk on the wild side!

The Rain in Spain ...

We wanted to go somewhere warm for Christmas.  We're from Seattle so we're not used to below freezing weather and snow and it's been both for so long already here in Munich.  Look at this pile of snow.  I have shoveled it all there.  Me!  Myself!  I have to keep up with 80 yr-old Frau Kniesovich next door and she has her shoveling done by 7 am every morning.  This is what I make it every morning and ...

this is what I wake up to the next morning!

So, like I said, we decided to go somewhere warm for Christmas.  We chose the southern coast of Spain because it is the southernest part of Europe.  We picked a place with a heated pool and average weather in December in the 60's and 70's.  And it was warm, just not sunny.  The first two days we were there it rained hard non-stop.  The second night it was thundering all night long.  But then it dried up for awhile and we even had 2 sunny days, the only 2 sunny days.  The rest of the time it was cloudy and it rained the last two days we were there too.  But I'm not complaining.  It was warm and there was no snow.  We swam every day except Sunday, even in the rain (but not when there was thunder or lightning).  Forgetting to pack everyone's swim suit was no bar to our swimming.

Eric and I went grocery shopping on the 2nd day and picked up a few Christmas presents for the kids. Our cart was full and we still needed a few things so we checked out and put the stuff in the car and went back in.  When we came back out 4 of the first 5 bags were missing.  Someone had jimmied the lock on the rental car and stolen most of our groceries and presents!  That was my first experience with a theft and I didn't like it at all!  We took turns going back into the store to rebuy what we needed, but some of the jewelry items I had gotten for the girls had been the last ones of that kind.  It was really only a minor inconvenience but I kept thinking we had something only to remember it had been stolen.

So I had asked everyone ahead of time who would want to go tour the Alhambra, a moorish palace in Granada, and 5 people said they would want to, so I bought 5 tickets.  When it came time to go, however, only Hayley went with me.  (The tickets weren't expensive.)  So she and I drove the 2 hours to Granada and spent the day at the Alhambra.  The Moors (Muslims from Africa) invaded Spain in like 700 AD and stayed in power for 700 years.  The Christian Spaniards slowly drove them southward back to Africa and Granada was the Moors last stronghold.  Rick Steves says that while the rest of Europe was in the Dark Ages the Moors had a very enlightened and advanced culture.  The Alhambra is a a big, walled complex but the most famous part is the palace, and it is not very big.  It was very impressive!  They decorated with beautiful geometric tiles and intricately carved stucco-like material.

 The Muslim Moors didn't decorate public spaces with any images of people or animals because that would be graven images.  So they carved the words of the Quran onto the walls as decoration.  One phrase that was placed on the walls over and over again is shown below.  It means "Only Allah is victorious".  The symbol for Allah is the "w" shape on the left.

This courtyard is called the Courtyard of the Lions for the big fountain resting on the backs of 12 Lions in the center.  Unfortunately the lions are in the middle of a 4 year long restoration process.  The lions were part of an intricate water system.  A different lion would spout water out its mouth at each hour.  When the Christians took over they took the fountain apart to find out how it worked.  It never worked again.  Below is what it looks like when it's not undergoing restoration.

This is an inner courtyard.  The entrance to the palace used to be on the other side of this facade but Emporer Charles V plopped his palace right there, cutting off the entrance.  You can see his palace rising up behind.

I did two other sightseeing trips in Spain and Eric went with me on one of them and nobody went with me on the last one.  They would rather stay at the villa and read or watch movies or play games or swim.  I got tired of relaxing after awhile.  Eric and I went to Gibralter, as in rock of Gibralter.  I didn't know this before but the town of Gibralter belongs to England.  So we had to show our passports and pass through from Spain to English territory.  We could see Africa from up on the rock of Gibralter.

 There's Africa behind that ship.

Here's the regulated entrance to Gibralter and the rock itself rising up.  It was huge.

On my own I went to a small town named Ronda to see a bullring, but no bullfights.  In this town they only do them one weekend in September.  After that I went to Cordoba to see La Mezquita, a mosque turned cathedral.  When the Christians pushed the Moors out of Cordoba they built their cathedral inside the mosque.  They didn't tear down the mosque because they were on friendly terms with the Muslims. 

The Muslims would come in here 5 times a day and kneel on the floor to pray.  This was like a forest of columns.

This was the place the Muslim leader would stand to lead the prayers.  It would be like the altar of a cathedral.

The Christians made chapels all around the outer edges of the mosque, like in a cathedral.  In one of the more important ones they closed off a section and just repainted the arches that were already there with Christian art. 

In the very center of the mosque they partially enclosed a typical cathedral.  You can see the moorish red and white arches through the arched openings of the cathedral.  So interesting to see them both next to each other.

Since we were in Spain over a Sunday we went to an international branch about 45 minutes away.  Our international ward in Munich is pretty small, but this branch was only half the size of our ward.  Our family increased their numbers by 1/4.  There was no Primary or YMYW program.  Partway during Sunday School a nice lady took Lizzie and Miles and the one other Primary aged child out into the hall to play with them and let them color.  Eric played the piano in Sacrament Meeting (because their regular pianist was in Germany for Christmas) and our family sang "Angels We Have Heard on High" as part of their Christmas program.  The lady in charge of the program had written a nice program with spoken parts and musical numbers not knowing who would be there to make the musical numbers happen.  Some were sung by the congregation, she sang a solo and then she called "the Carter family" up to help her sing some of the others.  It was very interesting and unexpected.  I was glad we could help.  The native English speakers in that branch were from England and then there were people there from other countries who, for whatever reason, chose to come to an English speaking branch.

Finally, no trip is complete without someone throwing up.  This time it was Rand and I happened to have a large Ziploc bag handy.  So he threw up into it, felt better and I just threw the bag away.  This picture is him showing Miles how it's done using the airplane's barf bag that we kept with us after that in case it happened again.