Laurel Elisabeth Stevens

To walk in warm rain and get wetter and wetter October 2012 Last week we had a good rainy afternoon.  Earlier in the day I had taken the kids to the YMCA for their P.E. class.  I had asked my friend Wendy if she would walk with me while our kids were at P.E., but then it started raining.  To my delight and hers, we found that we are truly compatible as we could both enjoy a walk in the rain together . . .with umbrellas.  But the conversation flowed just as well as it does on a sunny day, if not better. After P.E. I drove the kids home and they asked eagerly, “Can we take a walk in the rain?  We can wear our boots and jump in puddles.” I chuckled to myself, because over the past 2 years boots were crucial to survival in Hannover, and never did the kids want to go for a walk in the rain.  9 times out of 10 if it was raining it was a cold rain, and we had just been walking in it out of necessity, and we were happy to get inside and dry off and ge...

 Kölner Dom I couldn’t help thinking of this little pun while we were exploring Bonn on Saturday, but it was already one day late.  Actually, I think Germans don’t pronounce Bonn to rhyme exactly with “gone”--the short o vowel is shorter in duration somehow.  These days if I’m not sure how to pronounce something, I ask Henry.  He seems to be a pretty good gauge. Elisabeth didn’t have school on Friday, so we took a 2 1/2 hour train ride to Cologne (Köln in German) and spent the day there.  In truth, we spent most of the day in and around the cathedral. It was everything I wanted it to be, and more.  I had heard from John and several others who had been there that it is great to go to Cologne by train because when you get off the train you are right there at the cathedral.  What they didn’t tell me is that the church dwarfs the train station.  The windows of the station are huge, and allow only a portion of the cathedral to be se...

On our first morning in S ü d Tirol, the kids woke us up at 7 AM.  It was very dark in our apartment, since we had closed the exterior shutters, and there were no night lights, so we were all sort of stumbling around.  The bathroom is one step up from the rest of the apartment, and there are thresholds to step over from one room to the next.  Any bruises we have may be a result of that.  The next nights we didn’t bother to close the shutters.  Those of us living on the plains need reminders of what a mountain morning in October is like.  There’s no bright sun streaming into your room at 7 AM. Once we were up I suddenly had a brilliant idea that we should go outside to see the sunrise.  I quickly made coffee, got dressed and everyone bundled up so we wouldn’t miss it.  Our hostess, Maria, saw us leaving and commented on our early rising.  When John told her that we were going to see the sunrise, I wonder if she laughed a little. There we were...

Sunset: 9:45 PM Sunrise: 4:58 PM John and I took this picture at about 10 PM Sunday night.  We wanted to show all our Texas friends how light it is at these northern latitudes this time of year.  We are at 52 degrees north.  Houston is 29 degrees north. My bare feet were getting cold on the grass, he he he.

Monday was the day after Pentecost and in Germany it is a holiday.  Some people get together with family, some go out of town for a long weekend or take the whole week off (if they don’t have kids in school) and some just hang around the house like we did.   After a late breakfast we got out for some exercise.  John and Elisabeth headed out first, John running and Elisabeth on her bike.  They wended their way through the neighborhood and then onto some trails to eventually end up at a playground at the edge of the woods.  Henry and I took the direct route to the playground, he on his bike and me on my speedy feet (walking).  As we went by the Lutheran church where Henry attends Kindergarten we saw a large group of people who seemed to be leaving the church.  I assumed there was a Pentecost Monday service.  We took a different route so we wouldn’t have to ride right through them, but encountered them again a few minutes further into the woods....

Time for Sun Hats! Last night we changed the clocks and sprung forward.  Tonight I am realizing that we truly are in the northern latitudes and we will have a lot of light nights!  It is 7:55 and the sky is blue, though slowly darkening.  The sun set just 10 minutes ago.   It doesn’t seem like very long ago that I was writing about the darkness that fell so rapidly, so that Elisabeth was home from school for less than an hour and it would be getting dark.  In January we walked together to her piano lessons at at 5:20 it was already dark.  Now here we are 2 1/2 months later and I am thinking perhaps I should’ve gotten the special darkening shades for the kids’ rooms, and perhaps even for my room.  Because after all, it is only March, and we’ve got til June before the days start getting shorter.  While I may sound a bit anxious about the sleeping part (oh, there goes Henry again, coming out of his room) I am overjoyed by the sunshine and look ...

Sunday, November 28th, 2010 Please don’t think that my first impressions of Germany or my experiences here are indicative of life in Germany in general. I have found more surprise than I expected from locals who are amazed that I travel so much on public transportation, and I have met many women who drive as often as or more often than they go by other mode of transportation (bike or public). Just today I spoke with a woman whose daughter is in Henry’s kindergarten and she said she has taken the tram only once. But she also offered to drive me to Real sometime (pronounced Reh All) to do some grocery shopping. Things I describe may seem strange to you as well as to those I’m living around! But then again, I never felt quite like I belonged in The Woodlands either. We just returned from the Familiegottesdienst --Family worship--at the Lutheran church. This is a day in which the kindergarten takes a big role in the worship service. A little background which may be repetition:...