Walking Frannie - Breakthroughs

Frannie has been with us for almost 2 years. It is sometimes hard to remember the shy dog that we first met back then, tail between legs, feeding only at night after we were in bed, crawling more than walking on her lead. Especially after the events of the last week.

First, Frannie has discovered other dogs. She has been marking during walks for about a Month now, but when she would actually meet a dog, she wanted nothing to do with them. That was until a week ago when she met a black and white dog about her size. As Magda was talking to the owner, Frannie decided, for the first time, to invite the other dog to play. And he accepted. Then a few days later, Frannie made a similar invitation to a Lab. The Lab wasn't interested. But for Frannie this these were major breakthroughs.

Another sign of her progress was on a trip to a nursing home where the mother of one of Magda's friends is now living (she's the lady that made Dipperküchen for us back in November, click here for that story). Frannie goes with Magda on her trips there and has become a fixture there. She seems fearless in approaching people at the home. Today, as she was walking through the home with Magda, Frannie noticed folks in the dining room and decided to take head into the room. Magda followed as Frannie entered the room and went up to one gentleman with memory problems, allowing him to pet her. Frannie then walked up to a lady she had met on previous visits who was quite happy to the recognized. Is she aware how she is helping these people?

But for me, the biggest breakthrough was Friday after my German class. I was to meet Magda and Frannie at the car. Magda had taken Frannie on a short walk by the Rhine when I arrived at the car. I saw the two of them turn the corner and head towards the car. So I headed to the sidewalk were I could be seen. Frannie has always preferred being around Magda. It's not that she disliked walks with me, she just preferred walks with Magda. So I was amazed to see Frannie, who was following behind Magda at the time, recognize me in the distance,  run past Magda and with her wide dogie smile come running to me. Not only that, but when she arrives, she stood up on her hind legs, placed her front legs on my arm and her head against my body. At that moment, these last two years made complete sense.

Word list for Schritte 3 Lektion 5

Here's the vocabulary for the last the last chapter. Use the widget or click here to go to the byki site for a better version

Arm Chair Hiking

Been hoping  for a break in the weather, but it doesn't look like it will come soon. In the meantime, started to think about some hiking trials that I heard about and, in the process, discovered how easy it is to be an arm chair hiker around in Germany.

For example, I've heard some nice comments about two long trails, Reinsteig and Eifelsteig. So I thought I could check them out by picking up a couple of guidebooks about these trails. The bookstores here are filled with such guides for trails all over Germany. And they are nice books designed to fit in your rucksack and filled with color graphics, all the important logistical information (directions to the trail, location of parking, where to get a beer after the hike, or along the way), and readable descriptions of the trail. One great feature is the graph showing that elevation changes on the trail (see picture). Some guides also include GPS-coordinates for the important landmarks on the trail.

A second avenue to satisfy the winter hiking-lust has been TV. The other day, Magda and I watched a 4 hour program produced for German TV about through-hiking the Appalachian Trail. They focused on this one's couple's attempt to through hike. But in doing so you met a lot of other folks attempting the same thing. As someone that had had this desire since boy scouts (and haven't yet let go of it), it really made me want to get out there and go.

Another avenue for arm chair hiking has been the internet. There has been a couple of parties where folks have expressed their pleasure hiking one of the Traumpfade (Dream Trails). Traumpfade are a set of 19 trails that were opened last year (7 more are opening in June). Each trail meets a set of criteria that includes the following:

• The hike is a day hike, meaning that the average hiker should be able to complete the trail in 3-5.5 hours. That makes each trail 10-18 km in length
• The hike is a circuit hike, so a hiker can park their car, walk the trail and be back at their car
• this is a parking area at the start of the hike
• The hike is in the Rhine, Moselle, Eifel area (i.e. within 45 minute drive of Coblenz)
• The hike has interesting landmarks and viewing points. Also is mostly off of paved roads.

So I checked the Traumpfade website (www.traumppfade.info) and discovered the ideal feature for arm chair hiking. For each trail, the site offers a 3D animation of the hike. You can try it yourself. Click here to go to hike 3. Then click on the "3D Flug" button followed by "abspielen". After you tried one, the "Übersicht" button at the top right can give you access to the other 18 trails. Someone had fun with this site.

Bridge at Remagen

As I was walking Frannie along (and in) the Rhine earlier this week on one of the days when the river was out of its banks. I started to think about the importance of the Rhine as a last line of defense for the Germans in WWII. That sparked a memory that the crossing of the Rhine happened about this time of the year. Sure enough, it occurred on March 7, 1945, 65 years ago today.

I suppose that this is an event that had more importance to Americans that lived during WWII or in its shadow. The Rhine seemed at the time a major obstacle to the advance on Berlin. The Germans had blown up all other bridges across the Rhine and had indicated that they would defend the Rhine with all that they had. So it was quite a surprise when elements of the 1st Army under Omar Bradley discovered the bridge intact. As the US forces approached, the Germans attempted to destroy the bridge, but the charges that had been set were not enough. The US forces captured the bridge and a way over the Rhine.

The bridge only stood for an additional 10 days. The attempt to destroy the bridge had damaged it, and it fell into the river on March 17th. By that time, 1st Army had moved significant men and materials to the other side of the Rhine and had managed to build a pontoon bridge for continued movement of troops and supplies.

A few days later on March 22/23, Montgomery's British forces to the north and Patton's 3rd Army to the south also managed to cross the Rhine in boats and began to build pontoon bridges to support their advances. Since the 1st Army slowed it's advance until Montgomery's and Patton's forces were able to cross, most historians today downplay the capture of the bridge. But the story I heard as a kid was quite different. Eisenhower said the bridge was "worth its weight in Gold". Plus it made a great movie.

By the way, I have visited to Remagen. It is about 40 miles north of Coblenz. It is a suburb of Bonn that has been hit very hard by the movement of the German capital from Bonn to Berlin. The bridge towers still stand on each side of the river, as well as the approach. The bridge was never rebuilt. The is a small museum in the tower on the west side of the Rhine. And plaques describing the capture and use of the bridge.

Textbook for German Integration

We started working with a new textbook in our German integration class a couple of weeks ago. The publisher Hueber developed the Schritte series for use in the German Integration classes. The premise of the series is to present typical situations that an immigrant to German might experience and use the situations to teach German vocabulary and grammar.

There are 6 books in the series, each 2 books covers the information for one language level. Schritte 1 and 2 cover the A1 language level. Schritte3 and 4 cover A2. Schritte 5 and 6 cover B1.

Each pair of books presents a group of people that includes someone learning German. Each chapter (Lektion) begins with a story about the people that introduces the topic for the chapter.

So it was in the first chapter of Schritte 3 we met the group that we would follow though the next 10 weeks. Getting into a car to go to the airport was a man, his teenage son from a previous marriage, a woman and her her teenage daughter from a previous mariage. They were going to the airport to meet their new au-pair from South American. It seems that the man and woman are not married but are living together and are about to have a baby. The kids were trying to figure out what their relationship to each other was. And neither wanted to be bothered with a trip to the airport to meet this au-pair. The textbook used the word "family" to describe the couple and their kids.

But it started be thinking about a couple of things. First, here was a textbook for a government supported program that was presenting an unmarried couple living together and having a baby as a typical German family. Maybe, I'm jaded by a article that I recent read about  the Texas school board and the kind of pressure that they place on publishers to print the board's version of history. But I find it hard to image something like this in a US government supported program. Fox "News" would go crazy.

But, of course, if you step back a bit you can see what they are doing. I mean you have immigrants coming to Germany from all sorts of countries. Some of the countries having very narrow ideas about the relationship between men and women. In Germany, they are likely to be exposed to new things, and this course is an opportunity to begin that sort of exposure.

I also asked myself, "would I initially use the term 'family' to describe the couple and their children." This is not a question about judging their relationship, I'm just wondering if "family" is the term that I would use. Our teacher was quite convinced that the typical German would call this a family. Certainly, if they were people that I knew and they called themselves "family", I think I would used the term as well. But without such familiarity, I think I would more likely use a description like "living together like a family" or "a couple living together with their kids from previous relationships/marriages".

Quick check of Webster's on the web turned up this definition:

a group of individuals living under one roof and usually under one head

I think that applies to this situation. So calling this a "family" is certainly not wrong. I'm just not sure it is the terminology that I would initially use.

Walking Frannie - Snow Storm

As expected, Mother Nature gave us another snow storm on Saturday. Temperatures fell into the mid-20's and we had about 4 inches of snow. It did feel colder than the 25, I think because we had started to get use to upper 40s and 50s.

Frannie, however, likes the snow. You can easily distinguish Frannie's tracks in the snow when she walks off leash. She plows a trough in the snow with her nose. So her tracks consist of this trough with her paw prints on either side.

Of course this snow-ploughing also means that she wears a white nose while she is out in the snow. Which we find humorous.

Today, we are back to blue skies and temperatures expected back to 50s tomorrow. So Frannie can enjoy the snow today. I'm sure that she is the only one in this house hoping that Mother Nature throws another storm our way.

Word list for Schritte 3 Lektion 4

I uploaded vocabulary for the current chapter of Schritte 3. This vocabulary has to do with the workplace and taxes.

The byki site at www.byki.com/lists/German/Schritte3-lektion-4 provides better viewer for these vocabulary cards.

Walking Frannie - Signs of Spring

Mother Nature is trying hard to draw me in and get me to start thinking about spring. We've had a few nice sunny days in a row now. And we haven't seen snow for a couple of weeks. On top of that, the snow drops and crocus are blooming. And we are hearing more and more birds singing.

But the big tip off for Frannie is that our walk along the Rhine became a walk in the Rhine. Snow melts at the higher elevations had caused the Rhine to rise out of it's banks in Wallersheim, covering some of the trail. At points, the water made the trail impassable. At other point, it was less than an inch deep. This gave us the appearance of "walking on water" during our morning walk. It also surprised a few ducks that though they were safely surrounded by water and away from the riverbank before we walked up to them.

It is fun to watch the barges when the water level on the Rhine rises and the the current becomes stronger. The boats heading upstream (south) have to work so hard, yet are barely able to travel faster than our walking pace. Meanwhile the boats heading downstream are just flying by.

Going downstream like that might be fun here at Koblenz. but getting around the Loreley a bit south of here might be a different story. The Loreley is rock formation on the eastern bank of the Rhine that causes a sharp bend in the river. According to mythology, many captains have wrecked their boat after being detracted by the song of a young maiden there.

As nice as the weather has been the last couple of weeks, I'm not buying this spring thing quite yet. There is still plenty of time for Mother Nature to pull another trick or two. Maybe this time next month, I'll start to believe, but not just yet.

Word list for Schritte 3 Lektion 3

Here is the list for our current chapter.

BTW, I'm guessing Facebook won't pick this widget up. You'll have to visit that actual blog page to see it. Or you can go to the byki page (www.byki.com/lists/German/Schritte-3-lektion-3) to see a larger version.

Word list for Schritte 3 Lektion 2

I have started to create word lists for each of the chapters that we are working on in my German Integration class. What is neat is that I can upload these list and embed a widget in blog entries. In this way I can share with the class, and anyone else that is interested.

So here is the list from our last chapter. The book is "Schritte 3" published by Heuber. You can use the widget here, or visit the byki page (www.byki.com/lists/German/Schritte-3-lektion-2) for a larger version or to download the list for your own copy of byki (byki is free).