New Baby

We have another new member of the Schutz family this week.  Elanor Wren was born to our friends Mark Joshua and Jill on Tuesday, March 9th.  She is super cute and has a full head of dark black hair.  Seth and I had the great privilege of visiting her the day they got home from the hospital and witnessing her first bath.

On a personal note, I found it extremely interesting that they named her Elanor, an old fashioned name coming back into style.  Especially being born this week when I've been thinking about my grandma Eleanor so much.

WASP Congressional Gold Medal

Thanks to so many peoples' hard work and efforts, my parents did get to go to Washington D.C. to accept the Congressional Gold Medal for my grandmother Eleanor Patterson Brady, who was a WASP during WWII.

They were personally escorted to and from the event by Senator McCaskill's staff, using all the cool secret underground tunnels beneath the White House.  They got to personally meet Senator McCaskill and Congressman Moore.

And of course, what's a trip to D.C. with my Dad without a trip to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum.  They also were able to meet up with and have dinner with my Aunt Mary and Dad's cousin Carol and Ferrell.

Once again, a HUGE thanks to everyone that took a little time out of their busy lives to write a letter.  Our entire family really appreciates it and were so honored for the chance to go and represent my grandmother.

Congressman Moore

Thank You

I wanted to say a special thank you to everyone that took the time to write to our nations politian’s on our behave to let them know our story and asked for assistance.  We also appreciate all of you that send us an e-mail or left comments on our blog letting us know your support.  It was wonderful to have so much support and to hear that so many people felt strongly about the issue.  We loved hearing so many people tell loving stories and memories about my grandmother.

It has been an emotional week for my family with lots of highs and lows, but I’m happy to report that the story has a happy ending.  We were shocked to have such quick and personal responses from Senator McCaskill, Congressman Moore's, Congressman Brownback, Senator Reid, and the Women in Military Memorial Foundation.  My parents will be leaving tomorrow for Washington DC to attend the Congressional Gold Medal ceremony.  They will be personally escorted to and from the ceremony by Senator McCaskill’s office and have personal meeting with Senator McCaskill herself afterwards.

This effort has restored my faith in our nation’s leaders. It's good to know that the American system that our founding fathers dreamed up so many years ago still works today; that one little voice can be spoken freely and be heard!

Hutchinson News

The following article is in today's Hutchinson's Newspaper written by Clara Kilbourn.

Congressional medal honors servicewomen




Among those who will attend an awards ceremony with the presentation of the Congressional Gold Medal that honors 1,074 World War II Women's Air Service pilots will be Jim Brady and his wife, Sheila. Jim Brady is the son of the late Eleanor J. Patterson Brady, formerly of the Penalosa and Lerado communities in rural Reno and Kingman counties.



Approximately 278 of the original 1,074 Women's Air Service Pilots are still living. Eleanor J. Patterson Brady served as the pilot of a B-26 plane and was stationed at several air bases across the country, including the Hays Army Air Corps base. She and her husband, the late Edwin Brady, also a pilot, met while they were in the military. Edwin Brady died in 1958 in a B-52 crash at Altus, Okla. Eleanor Brady died in 1964, leaving their four young children to be raised by family members.



Brothers John and Jim Brady were raised by their aunt and uncle, Joan and Bob Stillwell, of rural Penalosa. Sisters Ruth and Jean Brady (now Tharp, of Pratt) were raised by their aunt and uncle Vivian and Harold DeWeese, of rural Cunningham. The children's parents are buried in the Lerado Cemetery.



Among other relatives are cousins who reside in the Hutchinson, Pratt, Arlington, Cunningham and Kingman areas.



A potential snafu in the guest list for the ceremony occurred when it was forwarded to the credentials committee and eliminated many family members of the WASP force. Among those left off the list were Jim and Sheila Brady. A last-minute effort on Friday by Sen. Sam Browback, R-Kan., Congressman Dennis Moore, D-Lenexa, and Congresswoman Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., reconfirmed the Bradys' invitation.



The minimum age to be a WASP was 21; Eleanor J. Patterson was only 17 years old when she was admitted to the group because of her excellent piloting skills, said her son, Jim Brady.



"It was our mother's love of flying that allowed her to be a part of the war effort at such a young age," Jim Brady said.



That same fascination with air flight led him to become an aeronautical engineer and a pilot. He served as a flight test engineer at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio. He holds degrees from Wichita State, the University of Kansas and Ohio State, and pursued a career in aerospace.
 

WASP

You have all heard the question, “If you could have dinner with any person from history, who would it be?”  Most people reply; George Washington, Gandhi, Jesus Christ or Einstein, but my answer has always been Eleanor J. Patterson (Brady), my grandmother.

Pat, as she was known to all, was a WASP, Women Airforce Service Pilots during World War II.  These were the first women in history to fly American military aircraft.

 In 1941 Jacqueline Cochran, America's leading woman pilot of the time, convinced General Hap Arnold, Chief of the Army Air Forces, that women, if given the same training as men, would be equally capable of flying military aircraft and could then take over some military flying jobs, thereby releasing hundreds of male pilots for combat duty.  More than 25,000 American women applied for training, but only 1,830 were accepted and went through the same military flight training as the male Army Air Force.  Only 1,074 of these women completed the training.  However, unlike their male counterparts, they had to pay their way to the training bases in Texas as well as pay for their training.  If one of their sisters died in service, they would all pitch in enough money to send her body home.  Since they were not recognized as military service, their families were not allowed a funeral with an American flag or to put a gold star in their window.  During their service from 1942 to 1944, 38 brave women died for their country.  When the WASP were disbanded at the end of 1944 these women had to pay their own way home.  Also, unlike the male air force pilots, these women faced much discrimination and bias and were never recognized for serving in their country’s military.

These courageous young women flew every type of military aircraft in every type of mission except combat.  Their assignments included test and instructor pilots, ferrying, transporting personnel and cargo, flying targets for air-to-air and ground-to-air target practices, smoke laying, night tracking, and flying drones.  They flew over 6 million miles for their country.

In December of 1944 the WASP’s were disbanded with no honors, no benefits, and very few thank-yous.  The military service records were immediately sealed shut and marked as classified and secret, leading to the unfortunate case of many historians forgetting this important chapter in our U.S. history books.  Not only did the WASP service help win the war and keep our country free and safe, but their military service is the sole reason that women have been able to excel in the military ranks.  Today not only are women allowed in the military, but they can fly in combat missions and have even flown space shuttles. 

On December 7, 1944, in a speech to the last graduating class of WASP, General Arnold said: “You and more than 900 of your sisters have shown you can fly wingtip to wingtip with your brothers. I salute you ..... We of the Army Air Force are proud of you. We will never forget our debt to you.”  General Arnold might have meant what he said, but unfortunately the U.S. Government has forgotten about these influential women in their country’s history.  Not until thirty-three years after their service did Congress vote to give them the veteran status that they deserved.  No one was invited to the signing ceremony and their veteran medals were unceremoniously delivered in a plain brown envelope in the mail.

Now, sixty-six years after their service, thanks to the constant work of organizations like Wings Across America who strive to educate the nation about the service these women provided, Congress has finally consented to giving the WASP the same recognition as the Tuskegee Airmen and the Navajo Code Talkers by awarding the WASP the Congressional Gold medal. 

I never had the pleasure of meeting my grandmother; she and my grandfather died several years after their military service during WWII, my grandfather dying while on active duty.  Their deaths left my father and his three siblings orphaned.   Her dutiful service in the WASP is of great pride to our family.  I personally live everyday striving to be as courageous and adventurous as my personal hero whom I’ve never met.

My family followed closely when we learned that a bill to recognize these women with the Congressional Gold Medal was put forth before Congress, hoping that one day Eleanor J. Patterson Brady would finally get the honor she earned.  When the bill was quickly pushed through congress, anxious and excited conversations flourished between my aunts, uncle and cousins as to who would go represent their mother at the ceremony on March 10^th, 2010.  With my father being delegated, airline tickets bought, hotel paid for, RSVP sent in, the entire family was anxiously awaiting his upcoming departure to Washington D.C. only to find out yesterday, just days before the ceremony, that we are no longer welcome to come.   As always, no clear explanation was given by our national politicians only an impersonal e-mail was sent; something about “due to the overwhelming response” was given and “for your own protection” the attendance now needs to be limited and the reception canceled.  So now the ceremony is restricted to only a handful of the surviving 278 WASP (most of which, now in their late 80’s, are too elderly or ill to travel) as well as those lucky enough to receive their invitations and sepond before the unannounced deadline. Some children of late WASP members will not get to receive their mothers’ medals.  These medals will probably be unceremoniously mailed in a plain brown paper envelope.

I’m no politician, but what seems logical in my mind, is that if I was planning an event that got “too great of a response,” then I would conclude that this cause is obviously very important to many people and had been ignored for far too many years.  I would spend the remaining days finding a larger venue and tripling my efforts of event planning, which was obviously quite inadequate to begin with, rather than turning deserving families away.  For some reason, this seems to have surprised congress that so many sons and daughters of the WASP wanted to honor their mothers’ courage.  When conversing with my father about the e-mail he received and the line about “for your safety and security” he said, “I find it strange that as a nation we are now too scared to honor the women that were courageous enough to keep us free.”

Unfortunately, as with most issues with our government, we are left with little recourse except to let our politicians know our displeasure by writing Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison and Senator Barbara Mikulski, the two women responsible for sponsoring this bill in the congress, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi who was responsible for the award ceremony.   I hope that my family and friends will also think this issue great enough to take some time out of their daily lives to write to these women and voice your opinion about how it is unfair to refuse my family the honor of accepting my grandmothers’ medal in her name after denying her for sixty-six years the recognition of her military service

Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison- Texas State Senator -Original Sponsor of the Bill

 http://www.hutchison.senate.gov/contact.cfm

Senator Barbara Mikulski- Maryland State Senator- Bill Co-Sponsor

http://mikulski.senate.gov/Contact/contact.cfm

Nancy Pelosi- Speaker of the House- Host for Award Ceremony

http://www.speaker.gov/contact/

 

My Tour of Cairo Hospitals aka Middle School Sports Festiva

It was a beautiful Wednesday afternoon around 2:00; I was alone in my office enjoying reading God Dies by the Nile during our school wide sustain silent reading time.  The students and coaches leaving for the ISAC Middle School Sports Festival had loaded up on the bus and headed on their way to Cairo thirty minutes previous, or so I thought, until our Athletic Director knocked on my door.  A expression of horror and shock flashed across my face, my eyes grew wide and I made the sign to ward off the devil as I backed away from our AD screaming, “No, No, No No!”.   And then he said the words I had been dreading, “Lianne has a temperature, she can’t go, how fast you can pack.”

We had just had another confirmed case of H1N1 that morning, closing down the 8^th grade class.  (For those of you who are counting, yes that is the fourth time the 8^th grade class has been shut down.  We’ve decided that we are going to give them a personal hygiene for health lecture when they return.)  It was touch and go all day long of whether the 8^th grade athletes going on the trip would be allowed to return to school to travel, if not we would have to withdraw from the tournament.  (In hindsight, this would have been the better option.)  So when Lianne, who hadn’t been feeling well all week, was running a high fever, there was no way the school was going to let her go.  Luckily, Lianne is a close friend and the kind that doesn’t mind throwing your underwear in a suit case while trying to help you pack in 15 minutes.  So within 15 minutes of the AD showing up at my office door, I was packed and on a bus with 18 5^th-8^th  We were an hour late getting started by that time so we said no stops on the way down.  Little did we know that we would hit the worst traffic ever in Cairo and a usually three hour drive lasted eight!!!  At one point we moved less than 100 meters in over an hour.  This was after the first couple hours of the trip where the kids did nothing but drink soda and each junk food, so their little bladders were pretty full by this time and I sure got an ear full hearing about it.  Despite the fact that they also all have their own iPod, cell phone, lap top, Blackberry, and Nintendo games with them, I heard them whine, “I’m so board” about every five minutes.  We arrived at our hosts well after ten, exhausted and hungry only to realize the first item I had forgotten to bring in my whirl wind packing experience.  

Things did not get better from here; I can’t even say we kicked off the tournament to a good start.  During the first minute of our first soccer came, one of my girls got hit in the arm with a soccer ball and fractured her arm.  The tournament was so tightly run on a time schedule, that I couldn’t even take extra time-outs for an injury.  So I had the school nurse talking in one ear, the girl’s parents on the phone on the other and still managed to coach the girls on the field!  Thank goodness I’m a multi-tasking woman!  

That same night, while I was chaperoning the Festival Dance (Ah the joys of watching a Middle School dance) a frantic mom called and insisted that we take her son, who had fallen during basketball earlier that day, to the hospital.  We had already determined that it was only a slight sprained wrist, but when you have a frantic mom calling, you do what you gotta do.   So a nice lovely visit to Cairo hospital number two was arranged.  

The next day wasn’t that much better.  After a full day of basketball outside in the hot Cairo sun, I was trying to enjoy a relaxing coaches dinner with the coaches from the other countries.  But I kept on receiving phone calls from two of my girls.  They were being hosted together and were on their way home for curfew with their host sister, the maid and the driver when the car can out of gas in the middle of a Cairo highway.  The girl that called, while no great athlete could win the Olympic speed talking championship; she also has the highest pitched voice I’ve ever heard on a pre-pubescent girl.  Now just try to imagine a blur of words in a high pitch squeal when this girls calls all panicked, and then the more panicked she gets the more Arabic words she through in until I can’t understand a thing she’s saying.  What started with frantic phone calls that the car had broken down, then turned into Farida doesn’t feel well, to Farida can’t breathe, to Frarida had passed out and is shaking, to we are going to the hospital with a lady we don’t know driving and we don’t know which hospital we are going to or what area of Cairo we are at.  Just try to imagine my sheer panic right now as the adult responsible for these girls!  (Damn you Lianne and your temperature)   About half and hour later I had managed to arrive at the right hospital and was already fielding crazed phone calls from parents, our Principal, and Athletic Director to the best of my ability in my cool calm professional manor. I’ll spare you all the medical mumbo jumbo but after several IV’s and medication the girl was released a few hours later.  It was well into the wee early morning hours when I returned to my host house to only discover that I was locked out because she was still out drinking with friends.

By the third day of the tournament I was down so many injured players that I barely had enough girls to play volleyball.  The other coaches took a vote to allow me to bend the ISAC rules when it came to substitution so that I could give my remaining girls a little bit of a break.   Needless to say, we did not win the tournament but thought we had at least made it through the final day without any more injuries.  Except for during the middle of the awards ceremony my fellow team coach jumped up and yelled at me to run over as he scooped up one of our boys that had fainted and had blood just pouring from his nose.  How embarrassing, our team can’t even sit in an auditorium without requiring medical supervision. The other coaches did vote for me and my team to win the Sportsmanship Award.  They were impressed by how many rotten things could keep happening to my team and we just kept on playing and trying our best with a smile our on face.

By the time we had returned back to our school the following afternoon, our Principal came out to meet our bus and I declared, “They are all alive, that’s the best that I could do.”, while he humbly and remorsefully apologized for sending me at the last minute on such a horrible trip.

Thank goodness it’s a short week.  I only have to make it through two days and then we have a four day weekend and we are going to the Siwa oasis.

Happy Valentine's Day

 

We just wanted to wish a special Happy Valentine's Day to all our loved ones.

We love and miss you all so much. 

Newly christened

After a few weeks hiatus around Christmas break, we are back to Hashing.  Our Hares this week lead us to a new area outside of Alexandria, past the agricultural area and to the marsh lands where they have constructed what looks like fish hatcheries, but we believe to be just waste water?  Basically, they have built up muddy banks into very narrow foot paths to create rectangular ponds similar to crop fields.  It was on these very muddy very narrow paths that we ran on.  Without any vegetation around, it was interesting because we could often see our fellow runners or walkers but finding the right path to get to them was a challenge.  The bigger challenges were the acrobatic acts to get across some of the narrow water cannels, running in mud that sunk up to your ankles, and meeting a donkey, cow or buffalo on these very narrow paths and convincing them that you wanted to simply pass by and not to be kicked into the murky water.

 

But this 6 kilometer run was one of our best Hashes yet.  (Seth and I being the only Americans, we can’t seem to convince our fellow Canadian, British, Scottish, Finish, or Kiwi Hashers to use miles)

During The Circle, Seth and I finally got christened with our Hash Names.  We were brought into the middle of The Circle while our fellow Hashers recalled anecdotal stories, personal characteristics and just plain humorous lies about us to create the fable of the ancestry of our new names.  We then knelt down and were anointed with the cherished water from the hallowed Nile River, arose and drank the sacrificial fluids from the sacred Delta Hash chalice.

 

  

 

In other words, they made up ridiculous stories about us, poured mud on our heads and made us chug a beer.  If you’re wanting to know what our Hash Names are…well, you just have to be a Hasher to be privy to that information (or ask us in person because we're NOT posting that information here). 

African Cup of Nations

Some of you may have heard about the African Cup of Nations in the news over the past month.  Unfortunately, it was probably due to the violence against the Togo national team on their way to the host country and subsequent pulling out of the tournament.  This has resulted in their being banned from the next two ACN tournaments because the Togo government supposedly influence the decision which in turn has spurred more protests.  But I digress, as that is a story for another time and not the true purpose of this post.

Our beloved Egypt is the two-time defending champions for the tournament.  In fact, it has been brought up how we can dominate this tournament which occurs every two years, but get so unlucky in the World Cup qualifiers.  Well, we advanced out of pool play and into the tournament bracket.  Our semi-final match was against rival Algeria, whom you may recall beat us in November in the World Cup playoff match (see blog from November).  This was the 5th match between the two teams going back to the World Cup qualifier.  Seth went out with Bob & Ana (fellow residents) and Abeer, Maie, & Nawal (fellow local staff/teacher) to The Jungle restaurant to watch the game on the big screen.  The atmosphere was relatively calm.  People were excited and nervous about the match, but did not display a lot of animosity towards the Algerian team.  Of course, beating the living snot out of them 4-0 probably didn't hurt either!  In fact, the Algerian team got 3 red cards and finished the match 3 down vs. the Egyptians!!  Things like that just don't happen - it was a complete meltdown.

SO, that meant we were in the finals against the team from Ghana.  The finals were held Sunday, January 31.  Our friend Nawal invited us over to her house along with Bob, Ana, and Maie (Abeer had to stay home with her kids unfortunately).  That game wasn't quite as exciting as the two teams were evenly matched.  Both had several scoring opportunities, but could not convert.  That is, until the 87th minute when Egypt had a sweet give-and-go on just outside of the box and struck the ball into the far side of the net.  It was beautiful and we went crazy!  Surviving the 3 minutes of extra time seemed like forever, but we did and Egypt WON ITS 3RD CONSECUTIVE AFRICAN CUP OF NATIONS CHAMPIONSHIP!!  That's pretty awesome in today's age of sports competition.

On the way home, we saw all sorts of people outside, honking horns, waving flags, and being generally rowdy/excited.  Kids were sitting on car windows driving down the road with flags waving, people on the sidewalks had flags around their necks like capes - it was pretty cool to see.  Seth & Bob were confronted by Egyptian soccer hooligans shouting out "Egyptian!" and holding up the (correct) finger to indicate they were number one.  Of course, they joined in and high-fived the whole group along the way home. 

Unfortunately, Algeria still gets to go to the World Cup in South Africa this summer, but Egypt reminded them who was the better team with a dominating win and 3-peat championship.  Mabruk Egypt!!

Oh, Deer!

I just had to share this picture with you.  My mom took this from her kitchen window of their backyard in Lees Summit, Missouri.  Amazing, huh?

Our Christmas Vacation in Germany - Part Two

Note:  If you haven't read Part One yet, scroll down and read that section first.  This is still written from Sheila's perspective.

Thursday Dec 31, 2009

We have seen several Bavarian Maypoles (Maibaum) as we travel through Bavaria.  The blue and white striped poles are decorated with the symbol of every trade and guild represented in the town, and is designed to help visitors determine what services are available there.  The effort and skill required to build one is a source of community pride.  The tradition dates back to the 16th century, and is governed by a strict set of rules.  Great care is taken in selecting and cutting the tree, which must be at least 98 feet long.  Once completed, it cannot be erected before May 1.  In the meantime, tradition and honor dictate that men from surrounding towns attempt to steal the pole and ransom it for beer and food, so it must be guarded 24 hours a day.  Once the pole goes up, with quite a bit of leveraging and manual labor, it cannot be stolen and may only stand for three years. 

Today we shopped in Oberammergau, which is best known for it's woodcarvings, a craft which has flourished here since the early 12th century in this Alpine valley. We purchased some wood carvings of Ompa dancers and a band.  Seth and Kristal bought Windradchen (pyramid candle carousel) and a couple of Rauchermen (German smokers). 

Since it was New Year's Eve the shops were closing early.  We had dinner at the hotel as a reservation only party which included an accordion player, who also apparently told very funny jokes in German.  The singer we heard 2 nights prior joined in as did the hotel manager.  I just absolutely loved the accordion music and wished my father was with us to listen.  He had loved the Lawrence Welk  Show and had gotten accordion lessons for me as a child, so I really appreciated the music.  The meal took 3 hours, typical of a German meal.  Children are expected to sit quietly during those 3 hour meals.  Dogs are also expected to sit quietly.  We have seen several dogs in restaurants, all of which have been very well behaved.  They are even allowed up on the benches.  We have seen many dogs on walks and in the stores.  There have been several dogs in the hotels we have been in.  Hence, one of the many reasons Kristal would love to live here.

 

January 1, 2010

Today we drove to Garmisch-Partenkirchen .  Once two separate communities, Garmisch and Partenkirchen fused in 1936 to accommodate the Winter Olympics.  There are more than 62 miles of downhill ski runs, 40 ski lifts, 40 cable cars and 112 miles of Loipen (cross-country ski trails).  The number one attraction is the Zugspitze, Germany's highest mountain (9,731 feet).  First we took the train,  then a cog railroad and then a cable car to the very top.  It was a 75 minutes trip, including an amazing 20 minutes on the cog railroad through a mountain tunnel.  The train was full of skiers and their skies.   A chilly -10 C greeted us on the top of the mountain.  

The area had sledding and skiing.  Four countries (Germany, Austria, Italy and Switzerland) are visible from the 360 degree viewing deck.    

Another snow ball fight, looks like Kristal is doing a little better in this one.

We walked over to the igloo hotel which is an actual hotel.  That was the first time I'd been in an igloo.  The roof had an eerie blue glow, reminding you that you were incased in ice.  The hotel had a bar and the beds were covered in animal skins but the toilet just begs the question "People pay good money for this?"

After taking the train down, we walked around Garmish with its high end shopping.   We went to McDonald's so Seth could order a beer with his Happy Meal, one of Kristal’s favorite memories of her previous travels in Germany.

January 2, 2010

We awoke to new snow cover and enjoyed the beauty of the view of Neuschwanstein castle and Bavaria as we ate our breakfast.  It was a real pretty snow, the kind that stays on the branches but not the kind that was very fun to drive through with limited visibility.  We had to stop a couple of times to break the ice off the windshield wipers.  This drive on the autobahn in a snow storm would be Jim's least favorite part of our vacation. 

 

 

Slowly and surely we made our way to Baden-Wurttemberg (the state in the south-west portion of Germany).  It cleared after awhile and there was blue sky by the time we got to Friedrichshafen to the Zeppelin museum. 

Named for its founder King Friedrich I, surrounded by resort towns and agriculture; Friedrichshafen played a central role in Germany's aeronautics tradition, which saw the development of the zeppelin airship before World War I and the Dornier seaplanes in the 1920's and 1930's.  The World War II raids on its factories virtually wiped the city off the map.  The buildings are all new and lack the character and style that we'd been seeing. 

The Zeppelin museum highlights the history and manufacturing of the airships.  There is a reconstruction of a 108 foot long section of the legendary Hindenburg that exploded in New Jersey on May 6, 1937.  It authentically recreates furnished passenger rooms, the original lounges and the dining room. 

Vineyards extend as far as the eye can see as we drive on to our hotel in Meersburg.  We arrive just at sunset and Kristal and I dash to the shore of Lake Constance to take some gorgeous pictures while Jim and Seth check into the bed and breakfast.  The wind coming off the lake was very cold and I was actually colder than the time that we had spent on the mountain.  The lake has only frozen over once in the last two centuries.  

 

Lake Constance, at 40 miles long and 9 miles wide, is the largest lake in Germany.  Actually, it's not a lake but a wide swelling of the Rhine, gouged out by a massive glacier in the Ice Age and flooded by the river as the ice receded.  The area is a favorite summer vacation spot for Germans.  Across the lake are the snow-capped mountains of Switzerland.

The owner directed us to his favorite restaurant just across the street.  It was a small place with only 6 tables and a very talkative owner who sat down at our table to help translate the menu.  His wife was the cook.  It was the best food we'd had so far.  We had the "salmon" fresh from the lake.  There were only 3 other people there while we were there and they were enlisted to help translate the menu.  They had trouble with poppy seed until opium was given as a clue.  The owner was very proud of his restaurant and shared with us explanations of pictures of Meersburg that hung on the walls and even gave us a copy of one of the pictures.  He had grown up in East Berlin and said that he didn't know that Neuschwanstein castle was in Germany until after the wall came down. 

 

Sunday January 3, 2010

This morning we walked around Meersburg taking pictures of the old castle, vineyard and lake before driving to Stuttgart.  Meersburg is steeply terraced with narrow streets from which cars are banned.  At the top of the hill, majestically guarding the town is Altes Schloss (Old Castle) or the original Sea Castle.  It's Germany's oldest inhabited castle, founded in 628 by Dagobert, King of the Franks.   The bishops of Konstaz used it as a summer residence until 1526, at which point they moved in permanently.  They remained until the mid-18th century, when they built themselves what they felt to be a more suitable residence-the baroque Neues Scholss.  Plans to tear down the Altes Schloss in the early 19th century were shelved when it was taken over by Baron Joseph von Lassberg, a man much intrigued by the castle's medieval romance.  He turned it into a home for like-minded poets and artists, among them the Grimm brothers and his sister-in-law, Annette von Droste-Hulshoff (1797-1848), one of Germany's most famous poets. 

 

That afternoon we drove to Stuttgart.  We had a lovely dinner with Tom and Heather Morrow at their apartment in Stuttgart.  Heather took Seth under her wing when Seth was a new math teacher.  She now works as a math teacher for the Department of Defense. 

 

Monday January 4, 2010

Today we got a personal tour of Stuttgart by Sandra.  She is the daughter of Seth's Oma's brother. (got that?) She showed us all around old Stuttgart.  Her father, Juergen, and step-mother, Angelika, joined us for lunch.  Seth had met Juergen once before but it was his first time to meet Sandra and Angelika.  It was so nice to meet these distant relatives and we really enjoyed our visit with them.  Sandra took us to the Nast bakery, one of the oldest bakeries in town and owned by the Nast family - Heidi, Seth's step-grandmother "Oma" is from the Nast family. 

Stuttgart is a place of fairly extreme contradictions.  It has been called, "Germany's biggest small town" and "the city where work is pleasure".  For centuries Stuttgart, whose name derives from Stutengarten or "stud farm," remained a pastoral backwater along the Neckar River.  Then the Industrial Revolution propelled the city into the machine age.  Leveled in World War II, Stuttgart has regained its position as one of Germany's top industrial centers.

This is Germany's can-do city, whose natives have turned out Mercedes-Benz and Porsche cars, Bosch electrical equipment, and a host of other products exported worldwide.  Yet Stuttgart is also a city of culture and arts.  Forests, vineyards, meadows, and orchards compose more than half of the city, which is enclosed on three sides by woods. 

We visited a church which had been destroyed during World War II.  The exterior had been restored to its original but the interior had been modernized.      

Tuesday Jan 5, 2010

We start our day by driving to Worms and seeing their cathedral.  They had perhaps the nicest Nativity Scene I had ever seen at the back of the sanctuary.  I was glad we had come during Christmas season to see it.  It was complete with a running water feature.  We have noticed several times that elephants were used instead of camels.   

Dom St. Peter (Cathedral of St. Peter) is the finest example of High Romanesque architecture in Germany and has dominated the skyline of Worms for nearly 1,000 years.  Building began in 1125 and was completed at the end of the 12th century.  Around 1300 it was re-carved with Gothic style features.  The cathedral was completely gutted by fire in 1689 in the War of the Palatinate Succession.  Following the fire, many of the furnishings were baroque including the high altar from 1742.   The crypt contains the Salian royal family of the 11th century.   

We head back to Heidelberg to visit the castle.   The oldest parts of the Schloss (castle) were built in the baroque style of the 16th and 17th century, when the castle was the seat of the Palatinate electors.  It was partially destroyed by lighting in1537 and then completely destroyed during the Thirty Years War.  It was destroyed again by the French army during the Palatine Succession in the late 17th century at the same time the town was burnt to the ground.  In 1697 the town was rebuilt as was parts of the castle only to be destroyed again in a thunderstorm in 1764.  Over the centuries of destruction its stones have been taken for other construction projects.  Parts of the red sandstone castle have been restored and parts have not.  The numerous times that it has been built and destroyed have left it with a variety of architectural styles.  It has a spectacular view of the old bridge and the river.

 

 

 

 

The Alte Brucke (old bridge) was part of medieval Heidelberg's fortifications.  The bridge itself is one of many to be built on this spot: ice flows and floods destroyed its predecessors.  The elector Carl Theodor, who built it in 1786-1788, must have been confident that this one would last: he had a statue of himself erected on it.

The Great Cask (Grosses Fass) is an enormous wine barrel in the cellar, made from 130 oak trees and capable of holding 58,500 gallons.  It was used to hold wines paid as taxes by wine growers in the Palatinate.

Jan 6, 2010

   Unfortunately, all great trips have to come to an end.  We drove back to Frankfurt early this morning and had to say good-bye to each other.  It was so hard to say good-bye.  But we know we would see Seth and Kristal again in just six short months, and that Seth's parents, aunt, & uncle would visit them in Egypt in only three.