Things get a little surreal on a trans-Atlantic flight and sometimes your mind wanders. I mean if you really thought about the fact that you are sitting in a aluminum can that is 7 miles above the ground and traveling nearly 600 miles per hour, it could drive you a little crazy. So there I was traveling "home" to Germany, where Magda (and Frannie) where. But just a few weeks earlier, I was in a similar plane going the other direction, traveling 'home" to the USA.
That started me thinking where I consider to be "home". Yes, I know, "Home is where the heart is". But just what puts your heart in one place or another.
I'm willing to accept that "home" is a relative term. When I'm in Hilton Head, I might say "I'm ready to go home" after an evening out, meaning I'm ready to go back to our condo. But I don't consider a trip to Hilton Head to be a trip "home".
There needs to be some strong connection to a place that makes you call it “home”. I still have a strong connection to Columbus, but maybe a bit weaker than it was 6 months ago. With my house, the financial connections are still there. More importantly, there are friends and family there that I enjoy seeing and talking to. Finally there is a comfort level associated with a place that I lived for 49 of my 57 years. But work is no longer a part of this connection. Plus Magda and Frannie are now in Germany, forming the primary connection that I have to Koblenz.
Time will tell if the connections to one place supersedes the connections to the other. For the time being, I guess I have two homes.
Magda, Frannie, and I took a quick trip to Mettlach this week. Mettlach is the home of Villeroy & Boch, the porcelain manufacturer. In addition to a museum dedicated to Villeroy & Boch, the town has several factory outlet stores. Lands End and Birkenstock have outlets there. And of course, there are 3 stores devoted to Villeroy & Boch.
We went there thinking it was time for new china. Magda's set is several years old and was no longer in production. Since several pieces had been broken over the years, It was getting more difficult to have china for a party of 10. We didn't have a pattern in mind, but felt that we should be able to find something in Mettlach. We were looking for something that could be used everyday as well as in a formal or casual dinner party. Also something in current production that would give us time to collect what we want.
The problem is that going to a Villeroy & Boch store without knowing what you want feels a bit like being a donkey placed between about 20 bails of hay. Which one do you choose.
We settled on New Wave. It is a bit modern, even though it has been around for a few years now and has become one of Villeroy & Bosh's best selling patterns. I guess you could call it a modern classic. They will be making it for a few more years, that will give us time to collect what we want and handle those future dinner parties. Looks good in the lunch for the two of us. We think it will do the trick at our next dinner party
There are a couple of days every year were Germans go a little crazy. New Years Eve (Silvester) is one of those days. It's not that every Silvester custom is crazy or that everyone participates in the craziness, but enough do that it is noteworthy.
Silvester is not a holiday. Stores and offices are open until about 2pm. At 5pm, the Berliner Philharmonic plays on national television. The Prime Minister give a speech broadly outlining accomplishments and goal of the government. The Minister President of Rhineland-Pfalz gives a similar speech on regional television. All of this fits within the definition of normal.
The craziness begins a little later, around 8 or 9pm, small groups begin to test out the fire crackers and rockets that they had purchased earlier in the week. The stores began selling fireworks on Tuesday this year. People streamed to the stores to fill their shopping carts from the several tables of fireworks offered. The sound from the fireworks did slowed down from 9 to 11:55. Then just before midnight, a larger portion of the community heads out to the street and the fireworks really begin. This year the crescendo was continuous until 12:40, then it dwindled down to sporadic explosions or rocket blasts for another 20 or 30 minutes. Frannie found a spot between Magda and I and managed to make it through the noise, but she was not trilled with this unexpected change.
The next day, the streets were littered with the paper/plastic from the fireworks and their packaging.
