Monthly Archives: November 2011
11-11-11 (at 11:11 o’clock)
St. Martin’s Day (Martintag), November 11, kicks off the beginning of German carnival season, called Fasching, Fastnacht, Fastelabend, or Karneval, depending on where you live. But as soon as it’s begun, Fasching vanishes, only to reappear after Christmas. Why the …
The other night, I was asking Heidi about the Kaiserslautern Zoo. “It’s nice,” she said. “Of course, it’s not a big zoo. But they have two lions, and lots of smaller animals. They have a petting zoo with goats and …
Lighting Up the Night
Having mourned the death of the day, Germans now start having fun with the night. They traditionally celebrate November 11th, St. Martin’s Day, with a nighttime children’s parade (Martinsumzug). Rodenbach has a population of only three thousand. Nevertheless, hundreds showed …
That’s Typical
When we hear of a food typically associated with a country, we often ask ourselves, “Yes, but do the locals eat that? Or do they just sell it to us?” Haggis and lutefisk come to mind immediately, but I remember …
This morning, as I was drinking my coffee and reading the paper, I came across an ad for Katzenstreu. That got me thinking about Streu, which relates to an old word in English: to strew. Die Streu is anything we …
The Month of the Dead
In Germany, November is the month of the dead, a special time to remember lost loved ones. German Catholics set aside the first two days for this purpose: Allerheiligen, the Feast of All Saints, and Allerseelen, the Feast of All …
Being sick gives a person little motivation to change the channel, so the other day, Joe and I watched an entire television program about toast. The highlight of the show was the making of what was then the world’s largest …
The Big Sleep
When we place a city on the imaginary globe in our minds, we tend to think first in terms of weather. Kaiserslautern, Germany, has a wonderfully mild climate: the average daytime temperature in winter here hovers several degrees above freezing. …