Back again after a long break Restarting my blog in 2026

 

• • I haven’t written here since 2020. A lot has changed. I’m restarting this space to write about music, language learning, and everyday life in Germany.”

May 23 2020

Working on language retention with using some pictographs and sound alike words in English or German etc. to fix a word in memory. We are having a couple of rainy days here for a change which for the farmers and forests are well needed. Insect counts are low and certain animals are in the danger zone.  We have had two students in local schools testing positive for the Corona virus. At this writing schools are slowly opening with classes meeting at intervals during the week. There will be an opening of an outdoor drive-in theater on the parking lot of the town‘s local festival hall.  The local paper had an article about using wild plants as thistles and pigweed to add to the table. Wash well! Two students in the Hofer schools have come down with Covid 19 and one of the schools will remain closed until the 2 week in June. Father’s Day comes on Ascension Day in Germany and many men go out with little carts filled with bottled beer in groups but this year was very orderly with only one police citation for not keeping social distancing.  Perhaps many men stayed home with their families for a change. 

 Today is Monday the 6th of June and like many days in Germany it is a holiday. I am enjoying two weeks of vacation from teaching as the students are off till the 17th of June for what is called „Pfingstferien“ Pfingsten being the German word for Pentecost or Whitsunday. It is one of the holidays in Germany which has two days like Easter and Christmas. So today it was up at 7:30 to take the dog out and jog. Meggy the dog had a stroke last August and is per Vet‘s advice not to go with me on my morning run. Recently she has decided to wake me up starting as early as 5:30 AM by barking and howling a phenomenon that is new for her. When she was younger (now 14) I never heard her bark and luckily she is a dog that stays at home when no one is there without making a fuss. I was getting up with her at first thinking she had to go out but reading a bit online and observing her actions, I realized she wanted me to simply get up. The advice is to let her carry on and not give in. I hope the neighbors will be ok as her barking is quite loud. The little dog in the one of the upstairs apartment barks ( not powerfully) the whole day long till her mistress comes back from work. I end this report with a picture of my „Pfingstrose“ from my garden a type of peony which blooms at this time around Pentecost giving its name. 

Blog May 17, 2020

The weather has been unusually cold for this time of the year and it would have been nice if the landlord had not turned the furnace off.  The advantage will be the fuel costs at the end of the year. Most of the stores are open including the larger ones and everyone is entering wearing masks. The supermarkets are mostly requiring that customers also use the shopping carts which facilitates keeping distances between the shoppers while pushing the carts. There has been demonstrations in the larger cities in Germany against the lockdowns and sheltering at home but since one can go out for a walk, increasingly go to restaurants sitting outside, small groups meeting, shopping, visiting a friends home, etc. my feeling is not one of isolation. I have started teaching at the music schools where I have students as well as continuing lessons online of those that want to stay at home. The music schools have „Spukwände“ ( spit shields) for singers and instrumentalists, plastic sheets mounted on wooden stands and plenty of hand sanitizers in teaching rooms.  Luckily in one school,  I have two pianos so that I can demonstrate without getting near the student at the piano. What I have missed this year since I only started back to teaching last week is driving in the countryside looking at the light pastels of emerging leaves on the side of the road and hills as they are turning to full greens. I was at my garden yesterday and picked a good handful of sorrel to add to a salad along with parsley which comes up every year (sorrel too) in my greenhouse.  We usually make sorrel soup here in Germany but I googled some recipes for salads and will give it a try.  

Blog May 10

From what I have been reading about the arctic weather hitting the northeast, a look at the weather prognosis for northern Bavaria, Franconia is cold nights for the next 4 days of freezing temperatures. Sometimes there is a mirror weather effect here paralleling the northeast of the States. Today at the bakery for fresh buns and croissants, I had to wait in line with distancing in order to enter the bakery. The only problem with paying for something using the smart phone is my facial recognition IPhone doesn’t work with a mask on and so I have to tip the password in sometimes not getting it right with people as well as sales person waiting for me to get it right. I sometimes wear rubber gloves which makes it even more difficult but hey, that is so unimportant these days, why bother complaining. They are starting to relax some of the controls here and this week I will start to teach at the music schools in the two cities where I have students. I have sent all the parents and students the rules for lessons and several have asked to continue online lessons for the time being.  This month I will miss my intensive Czech lessons in Prague for the first time in many years. Every quarter we meet with our teacher in Prague at  a language school near the Prague Castle trying to get back our foggy memories of the language having been busy with many other things during the off months. One of our fellow students works near the Czech border in Linz, Austria and actually has to use the language in business. She can converse much better than I.  I do practice daily and slowly attempt to gain a foothold in Russian as my garden partner comes from Moscow. 

May 4 2020 making semolina breakfasts

Since I have been here in Germany there is a type of wheat flour named Grieß and from this flour one makes Grießbrei or as I recently discovered in English semolina porridge. Many things and words are not translated everyday and one accepts the word without bothering to translate in my case into English. Since my Wednesday routine is Grießbrei for breakfast after many years I wondered if we had this type of flour in English and lo and behold there it was. I have never used semolina flour in the U,S. although being acquainted with the word. Semolina is used to make pasta and desserts. The closest I came to it is wheat being used as a breakfast cereal is in Wheatena but that is not the same thing. Semolina is thicker than normal flour and has more taste.  This brings me to Stellcut  oats. I have often bought steel-cut  oats in the PX where I shop at the military base at. Grafenwoehr and it is not cheap but makes a great breakfast. I don’t go often to the base as it is an hour or so drive and most of what I need can be bought on the economy here where I live. I discovered about a a year or so ago that steel-cut oats (with steel blades) are hulled oats (outer inedible shell) cut into tiny pieces. Hulled oats are also known as groats and the taste is like steel cut oats only more chewy. They should be soaked a long time and then cooked but like with steel cut oats can be made the night before. I put a cup of groats into a sauce pan and 3 cups of water and a bit of salt. I turn the stove burner on to about medium and set my time for 45 minutes. I then cover the pan and leave it over night. I start the my breakfast with doling out two portions which leaves 2 portions in the pan. I add milk, fruit, homemade jelly and into the microwave for 2 minutes and voila breakfast is ready.  Groat porridge is chewy, tasty with a consistency not unlike tapioca. The advantage is with the leftover porridge is to put it in the refrigerator to use a few days later.  The leftover porridge as is good as it was several days ago and doesn’t become mushy like oatmeal.  The cost of a package of 1000 grams is less than 3 euros while steel-cut oats can cost upwards to 8 or 9 dollars. 

May 2, 3 2020

A sort of rainy clear sometimes day here in Germany. Went to the bakery with my mask on and got 2 loaves of „Bauern Brot“ or „Farmers bread“ in German. This particular bakery is one of the few businesses that only accepts „Bar Geld“ or cash.  Many stores not only accept bank cards and or credit cards, the readers also have blue tooth receivers so I can use my smart phone to pay. The Scandinavian countries almost exclusively use card payments and cash very seldom used to pay for something. I am still developing my internet teaching skills with music instruction. It is difficult to correct a piano students mistake without showing the keyboard and simultaneously playing. Luckily most students have a bit of musical talent and are able to grasp what should and should not be played. The news is full of reports on how people are coping at home and work. The 12th graders are carefully going back to classes in smaller groups to prepare for final exams similar to American Highschools senior exams, They get a passing grade for an Abitur which is like a diploma.
    Sunday May 3. Walk to bakery for Brötchen (rolls) and croissants. Everyone going into bakery puts on their masks. I paid using my IPhone Apple wallet. The only problem is the phone doesn’t recognize my face and I have to use digital access. Today if the weather holds (windy and cold) I will go to my garden to make some repairs on greenhouse and gate.  Yesterday I made a quiche with vegetables ( using a frozen bag of mixed vegetables). I finally have to succumbed to buying frozen food from a distributor who comes once a month. The main advantage is I get the frozen vegetables that I want especially frozen corn which is difficult to come by here in Germany. We can buy canned corn now which wasn’t a possibility in the past as many other American type foods were not when I first arrived in 1991.  This has all changed for the better as chicken in all ways is now available. At the time the only use for chicken was soup chicken and rotisserie chicken. Gradually chicken breast chicken thighs, and whole chickens became available.  This observation is only where I was shopping as I am sure that in Berlin and in big cities there may have been more selection. I mentioned my garden which is about a quarter of an acre sporting a small garden house and two greenhouses. The metal greenhouse I bought and put together and the other is self made with wood and plastics sheets.

 Germans love their gardens and one can rent a plot and then add structures.  The yearly rent is quite cheap and one can rent the garden for as long as one wants. 

29 April 2020

29 April 2020

It has been a long time since I have used my blog to publish anything but since I do a daily personal blog for my self, I think it would be useful to get back to my letter from Germany. We are like everybody else in lockdown with Germany doing a good job keeping safe distances and lower death tolls than many other countries.  I have been teaching music on line with my keyboard and singing students and although not perfect it is working. The parents are happy that the children have something other than schoolwork to do. I am cooking more than.ever learning new ways and techniques finally ordering frozen food from a distributor something I never thought I would do. The frozen vegetables are excellent and because I do a lot of baking vegetables in the oven rather than steaming or boiling them makes them taste better. We’ve started putting on masks for entering stores, offices etc. and everyone seems to be complying. We are having a problem especially here in Bavaria with the of the driest Aprils in record which causes problems for farmers and our forests. It was warm and wet during the winter but snow is a cover and supplier of water for the subsequent seasons. I am trying to read more although being more at home doesn’t mean I have had less to do and I still am wasting too much time reading reports and news from the States. I read our local paper here daily and catch the evening news at 8:00 PM as well as reading several books in English and German. Getting older means that retaining things such as words and names is a part of life. Memorizing has never been a forte for me but I have always been able to research quickly to bring back things and the internet has supplied so much information that was not available in the past. I have a good library of reference works especially for language and music.  

October in Germany

October  13 blog 2013

Fall came rather early here in this part of Germany with a cold, rainy September which on the end drifted into "Indian Summer" better known here as "Alt Weiber Sommer" among other names.   Because it comes at during September is the reason that "Oktoberfest' in Munich takes place in September to take advantage of the warm sunny weather. The last week or so has been around 40 to 50 degrees during the day going down to the 30's at night. I have been in each of the 2 gardens that I have here picking a bumper crop of plums, tomatoes, peaches, grapes and that most interesting berry actually a nut called Sea Buckthorn. The yellow orange berries are packed into clusters on the thorny branches making picking them arduous and sometimes painful, the long thin thorns being hard to see pricking the unwary gardner's fingers.  The yield is made into many different things from jelly to health products, Schnapps, and so on.  I make jelly, the sour juice making a tangy jell with vitamin benefits. The last of the grape juice is in the fridge waiting to be converted into a ruby red jelly which interestingly has a Fox Grape taste.  Yes I checked the label still clinging to the vine planted over 4 years ago and aside from the German wording states that the grapes have a "Fox" taste.  I remember picking wild fox grapes with my father some 20 years ago in Roseland, NJ before the developers bulldozed what was left of what used to be forest to build "McMansions. " On Friday I attended a meeting of the Niederländters, a society that mostly active in Bavaria and is a men only club that gathers once a month to recite poetry, essays, sing, drink, eat, and mostly have fun with words as only the Germans can with this very rich language.  This website is in German but can be quickly translated with such browsers as Google Translate. http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geschichte_der_Geheimbünde

There is even several groups in the USA.  

My contribution to the group is to accompany the singing on the piano which makes up for my language abilities as the wordplay can be quite linguistically advanced for this person. 

Today the sun is shining for a change and I will harvest the last of the tomatoes ending the afternoon with good long run accompanied by my pooch.  

29 December 2012

Today the weather was clear and about 40 degrees. While in the City to do some shopping,  I noticed many other people shopping for sales like me. A neighbor said the local supermarket parking was full and difficult to park. This is Germany the weekend before New Years Eve which is a holiday and the stores close early during day on the 24th.  Christmas lasted 2 days which meant Sunday the 23 all stores were closed and most businesses closed at Noon on the 24th what with Tuesday and Wednesday, the 25th and 26th being holidays it was essential to get all shopping done by the 22nd.  What is great here is the peaceful two days of Christmas without stores being open and most people staying at home in contrast to the States where everyday is go to the Mall!  I got some long walks in with the dog both of us enjoying the exercise and Thursday evening the 27th was a visit to the new Freiheitshalle an all purpose exhibition hall to see the Glinka Ballet company from Russia.   

Today being the 3 of December, I am sitting at my desk planning the day with one of the main tasks being what to eat for dinner.  I decided pea soup with "Bauchspeck" ( pork belly used in chunks not like American bacon.  The word bacon comes from old German "Bacho" meaning buttocks) to accompany this windy cool and overcast day. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacon 

I am currently working in Berlin, a city I am quite familiar with in a production of the NOVOFLOT OPER to premier on the 24th of September. We are still in this gloomy sort of weather pattern that has persisted since the beginning of August. It has been cold enough to freeze some of the tomatoes in my greenhouse which is saying something. At any rate some thoughts about working and traveling on the subway here. One sees many people riding bikes and it is prudent to know where the bike lanes on the sidewalks are as could be quite dangerous. I have barely missed being hit by a rider because I am not used to being in this city. The view is quite nice at times as many of the riders are slim young ladies determinedly riding to work. One view that is not so nice is the subway entrances often peopled with drunks, panhandlers, or groups of people of indeterminate origins congregating and blocking at times access causing some detouring to get down below to a waiting train. There is one gentleman at the station on Alexanderplatz lolling around with a beer bottle in hand the whole day and into the night acting as a kind of official greeter. I have yet to figure out his function but he seems to know quite a few of the other beery individuals and then there is the smokers getting their last kick in before descending into the denizens of the Ubahn deep leaving a blue wreath of fog to get through before finally reaching relative air security.

The weather in August has been rainy and quite cool unlike Russia and Pakistan. It is Sunday the 29th of August and the daytime temperature is currently at 54 degrees. I am wearing fall jackets and sweaters. The prognosis for Monday is a high to 50 degrees and I am looking at the temperatures in the 90's in New Jersey. This is not unusual in Germany particularly in the region of Northeastern Bavaria where I live and my first year in Hof was similar with cold rainy weather up until October. This has been a good year for certain fruits such as apples and plums. They have a small plum here known as Mirabellan which is primarily used in jams and jellies and is mostly yellow in color. I had my first taste of these preserves when I was working in Austria. The lady who rented rooms for singers at the time made jam from these from the orchard from her backyard. The house stands on a former farm in Gars am Kamp in the Kamp Valley of which its river of the same name (again Kamp) flows westward to the Danube River. I still have a few of her preserve jars in my cellar. I have 2 gardens with plum trees and have had good success with the fruit making jellies, a type of canned plums in syrup and even dried prunes made in the oven. The first year I made plum jelly, I had to give away jars as it was enough for at least three years supply.

I have a large field near one of my gardens where I take my dog for a walk. The farmer usually cuts a grass strip alongside the crops which is perfect for all sorts of dogs with a brook running in the middle into which my labrador loves to plunge. Afterwards back at home I have to hose her off which doesn't phase her in the least.

Over the fields with Meggy

Today was unusually mild for November and I went for a bout of training in Nentschau, Germany near where I live with my Labrador Retriever named Meggy. The name is probably originally Maggy but the German pronunciation of the english "AAH" is "EH" as they don´t hear the difference. I arrived at my trainer´s and as I forgot to set a date for training she gave me the leash and I went out for a walk with Meggy by myself. The dog is being trained professionally and I see Meggy on weekends when she can overnight. It is quite expensive but the results are a well behaved dog that can respond to commands and even quietly lay at my side during church services (Bless the Beasts and the Children comes to mind). Normally when I have a training session during the week, the trainer goes with me and we work various commands and activities with the dog. Today was different, as I said, and I took off with Meggy by my side over land trails along fields reaching the former border of West and East Germany. There is a sort of road which is grassy with cement blocks where the East German border guards patrolled with vehicles to keep the inhabitants from crossing over to the other side and in their minds keeping the West out. We then turned and headed West making a circle coming back to our starting point at the trainer´s home. I had to watch out that Meggy did not try to sample the sheep droppings left when a herd was visiting a week or so ago. Labradors eat everything and Meggy is no exception. She was more interested in the apples that had dropped off the trees, chewing them and ultimately swallowing them. I have the feeling that when I am working with her and that is what one does for the rest of a dog´s life as put to me by my trainer, that the time goes swiftly by with no feeling of exertion. It is better than jogging while there is a purpose with the intent to communicate with the dog and vice versa.
Größere Kartenansicht

Sept 28 2008

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorbus_aucuparia 

Today out my kitchen window the fog bed lifted by 8:30 and I could see the Vogelbeere Trees  (European Rowan or Mountain Ash) leaves which have turned a brilliant red. These trees literally named in German, "Bird Berry" because the small red berries,  are an important food and vitamin source for the birds before the onset of winter.  They are bitter but can be used in Jelly or marmalade. The fall trees in Germany are not as colorful as the northeast of the States but this year I must say that the foliage display is quite beautiful.  The maples are red and gold and I must get out with the camera to capture this year´s magic. G is feeding the cat Mohrle ( as in the English word Moor) pats of butter which are placed on the newspaper on the bench of the breakfast nook.  Not a good way to train an animal, but, if simply given the butter she drops it on the floor. This is somehow more hygenic. I walked to the bakery this morning to pick up fresh baked rolls which being Sunday the bakery is open from 8 to 11, a recent phenomena in Germany.  Up until recently, all shops were closed on Sunday.  They are slowly moving in the direction of other countries but things move here very slowly at times into the future which is not always bad.  When I came here 17 years ago, all stores and shops closed on Saturday at noon and you had to wait till Monday to do any shopping. Needless to say, Saturday morning was a mad rush to pick up any necessities.  During the week, all stores and shops closed at 6 PM and many were closed during the noon hour so the  employees could go home for at least an hour or so. I was working daily in the theater and when I got my mid-day break nothing was open!  Now the major stores are open till 8 on most days of the week as well as Saturday.  Sunday is still a quiet day for most people to stay home and be with their families. Trucks are not allowed on the highways from Saturday evening till midnight on Sunday making travel more pleasant. 

Later after church,  we drive to a small restaurant in a nearby village where we can sample the local Frankish food. The day is sunny and warm for a change as it has been an unseasonably cold September with frost in my garden killing the tomatoes. This sudden warmth is called "Alt Weiber Sommer" or old wife summer akin to our Indian summer.  Federweisser, the  new wine of the season,  is the drink of choice at this time of the year.  Its name is  comprised of Feder-Feather and Weisser-white from the yeast color suspended in the wine.  The yellow jackets circle the plates and glasses as we sit outside on the heavy wooden benches and tables outside of the Gaststätte. 

The rehearsal

I went to my first "Probe" at the theater in Rudolstadt in middle of December 1991, realizing that I had lost my chance to go back to the States with my plane ticket on the 15th of that month. I was on my own in Europe after a whirlwind audition tour that took me to agents and opera houses in Germany, Austria and Switzerland in around 6 weeks. I had a credit card and my daughter stationed at that time in the Army in Germany had staked me to some money to help tide me over during the audition time.

The morning was gray and overcast and I had stayed that night with a family in a temporary lodging as I was to get a more permanent rehearsal apartment this day after the rehearsal. The smell of brown coal hung over the city as I was driven in a mad fashion by the conductor, Herr Bach doing a Monte Carlo race in a Trabi. (Trabante, a DDR car that was driven by something like a lawnmower motor and exhuming plumes of smoke out the tailpipe). I began to notice that mornings after one awoke, the need to blow my nose and the black colored mucus on my handkerchief a result of the coal and probably exhaust fumes from Trabis. I was to find out that Rudolstadt is in a valley that contains smoke something like a bowl and there was serious lung problems in this area particularly with children who suffered various lung ailments causing them to be sent to clinics or a relative who lived in a healthier area.

Standing high over the city was Heidecksburg Castle, the former home of the German Prince Friedrich Anton von Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt, who ruled the place in former times. This lovely castle is pictured in many ways throughout Thuringia including on milk cartons from the company of the same name.

I went through the artists entrance at the side of the theater which was a communist inspired, ugly functional architecture, that replaced the lovely former baroque theater that Richard Wagner for one had conducted performances which was torn down probably because it reflected the bourgeoisie . It complimented the then gray unpainted buildings and houses of the town and the then depressing non-colors of the DDR State.

I walked into the rehearsal room to greet for the first time Herr M. and my new colleague Beth J. who was luckily an American and my translator. Herr M. immediately fired stage instructions and ideas at me so that within a half and hour my head began to ache. Herr Bach was on the piano and correcting my German pronunciation as I spoke or sang with repeated interruptions making me exasperated. Beth translated as much as possible and after 4 hours or so I was let go to now schlep my suitcase to my new quarters about a mile or so from the theater.

This is a picture of the Theater in Rudolstadt. My first job!


I arrived in Rudolstadt, Thuringia in early December 1991 for an audition. I stayed at a hotel the night before that had floors of thick gray linoleum and the smell of brown coal smoke left a lasting impression on me to this day.

The theater was tiny and I sang several arias from the stage. The conductor and stage director talked to me after the audition and asked me if I would like to sing a role in their new production scheduled to premier at the end of January 1992.

I went up to the Theater Director's office and he talked in English to me explaining about the performances and the fee which was 5000 DM for around 10 performances. I had never reckoned in Deutschmarks before and it sounded pretty good. The problem was there was no provision for rehearsals and being a beginner in this system, I never even thought about it. That was to come back and haunt me till the summer of 1991. The theater also did not register me right away when the rehearsals began which was illegal but also left no record of work for December and I lost compensation for work later.

I had been offered a contract in Hof at the end of November which I decided to take and the season would begin in summer of 1992. This was one of the last auditions before I was to fly back to the States on the 15th of December. Here was a chance to stay in Germany without having to go back and find some temp work to keep me financially alive till the summer when I would have a full time two year contract with a German theater. I said yes immediately and did a coaching of the opera the next day and then left to complete the rest of my scheduled auditions. I returned shortly before Christmas and plunged into the new opera which was in German and had not only singing but dialogue as well.

Where I am..

I have lived in the town of Hof since the Spring of 1992. I came to this small town in upper Franken to work at the local theater and stayed ever since. I have had this blog for several years now and will try to keep things updated on a regular basis. The weather here (and weather is always an interesting subject) is surprisingly similar to the East Coast where I am from or say from New York west through Ohio into Indiana.. I keep a Yahoo weather update on my home website page to see what is happening from New Jersey, on to Ohio, to Iowa and Minnesota.

When I arrived at the Hof theater for the first time, I had been working at a small theater in East Germany, in the city of Rudolstadt. They had another dialect relating to Thuringia or in German Thüringer and I never even got close to that one as I started to work in German in December of 1991 with only my high school German to get me through rehearsals. http://www.rudolstadt.de/cms/website.php I was lucky to have two colleagues, Beth J. and Ken Phelps who were Americans and they were able to translate for me when the going got tough.

I was gradually starting to understand more of the language as the rehearsals in Hof began for the "Lorelei" by Catalani but I was amazed at the other Americans working at the theater who were so much more advanced than I.

When I arrived at the Hof theater for the first time, I had been working at a small theater in East Germany, in the city of Rudolstadt. They had another dialect relating to Thuringia or in German Thüringer and I never even got close to that one as I started to work in German in December of 1991 with only my high school German to get me through rehearsals. http://www.rudolstadt.de/cms/website.php I was lucky to have two colleagues, Beth J. and Ken Phelps who were Americans and they were able to translate for me when the going got tough.

I was gradually starting to understand more of the language as the rehearsals in Hof began for the "Lorelei" by Catalani but I was amazed at the other Americans working at the theater who were so much more advanced than I.

The Language is German and the local dialect is Frankish which takes a while to get used to. The local paper has a column called the "Hofer Spaziergaenger" (The Hofer Stroller) written in dialect and everyday there is at least one column written in dialect commenting on political or other topical events. I can read it and basically understand what is written but to hear it spoken is sometimes almost impossible to understand. An acquaintance of mine who is at the artist´s entrance to the theater greets me with smiles and talking a mile a minute. I cannot for the life of me understand 70 percent of what he is saying. I nod my head and smile as if I am taking it all in and by straining my ears and trying to catch a word or two I can about make out what he means.

The Theater Canteen at the old theater in Hof (the new one was being built to open in 1995) had a small room with tables and dispensers for coffee and beverages. We would congregate there during the rehearsal breaks to socialize and have a cup of java. In a German theater if you are with a group of people seated together at a table, everybody speaks German (I do not see this in the Czech theaters as later when I worked in the Czech Republic but that is another story) even if 6 out of 7 people in the group are Americans or from other English speaking countries. It is of course out of politeness and the Germans are very polite. They shake hands at every rehearsal and even if you are late to one you interrupt the proceedings to shake hands with the stage director or conductor. Embarrassing to say the least and a good reason to come on time.

Next blog: What it is like as an American to work in a German theater.

Bridge over the Elbe

This was an article in the Herald Trib. that caught my attention. The Elbe or Labe in Czech is the principal river running through Dresden. I have worked in Dresden and over on the other side in the Czech Republic and the river runs through the Saxon "Grand Canyon" reminiscent of the USA Grand Canyon..

Proposed bridge in Dresden fuels protests over modernization

By Nicholas Kulish

Friday, January 4, 2008

DRESDEN: The battle to stop a proposed bridge here has embroiled everything from a tiny endangered bat to the country's reigning literary lion, Günter Grass. Now activists with climbing gear and wooden planks have occupied a centuries-old beech tree to keep it from being felled as part of the construction of the controversial Waldschlösschen Bridge.

The tarps over the makeshift encampments in the beech tree's limbs whipped and banged so fast in a harsh, gusting January wind it sounded like a drum roll. Below, wrapped around the trunk, was a giant white sign decorated with a yellow sun and colorful flowers both absent on a recent winter afternoon, which declared in German, "I want to live."

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, better known by its acronym Unesco, agrees. The body has warned city and state officials that Dresden could become only the second site ever to lose its place on the World Heritage list if it builds the bridge, regularly described by opponents and even at times by supporters with the word "monstrous."

Unlike, for example, the historic center of Prague, it is the Dresden Elbe Valley, with its meadows and trees combined with its architecture that earned it a coveted spot on the list of 851 sites worldwide.

But backhoes and trucks are already at work, clearing ground from the meadows on both banks of the Elbe River and chainsawing down oak trees for construction of the access roads. While large construction projects are often the subject of legal battles and protests, the matter is particularly sensitive in Dresden.

Prior to World War II, Dresden was known as the "Florence on the Elbe," for its exceptional baroque and rococo architecture. The city was devastated in a series of Allied bombing raids in 1945. That began a long struggle to rebuild. Its status as a World Heritage Site is a point of pride for citizens of Dresden.

Leading a protest against the bridge here last month, Grass, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for works including "The Tin Drum," said that the history of the city's destruction meant "one must be particularly angry and alert that this form of destruction is never repeated."

Opponents have tried everything to stop the bridge from going up. For months construction was stalled after an administrative court ruled in August that steps needed to be taken to ensure that the endangered lesser horseshoe bat was protected. Experts estimate that only around 650 remain in Germany, some in the vicinity of the proposed bridge. But the courts ultimately ruled in November that work could proceed.

Protestors held a sit-in around several old oak trees which had survived the infamous fire bombing during World War II to prevent workers from chopping them down. Their action failed, leading a few days later to the predawn seizure of the beech tree.

Environmentalists from a nonprofit called Robin Wood approached at 5:30 a.m. on Dec. 12 and set up camp in and around the beech tree, where they have remained.

It is not an easy time of year to sit in a tree in the bitterly cold state of Saxony. "Sure is a lot of wind, loud rustling, but otherwise I slept well," said Alexander Gerschner, 42, who on Thursday morning had just come down from a six-hour shift in the tree.

The occupiers said they were being fed with donations by local supporters, receiving gifts of everything from Dresdner Stollen, the famous local Christmas fruitcake, to sushi.

Supporters of the bridge project say it will ease traffic congestion and better link the two sides of the city.

While the population of the state of Saxony, of which Dresden is the capital, has declined from 4.9 million at the time of German reunification to about 4.2 million currently, the rate of car ownership has risen more quickly than the population has fallen, from 423 per 1,000 residents in 1994 to 546 per 1,000 people last year.

Local officials sound exasperated when discussing the battle to build the bridge, which they say was first proposed for that very location back in 1896. Bridge proponents claim clear legitimacy, pointing out that the project won a citywide referendum three years ago with a convincing majority of 67 percent of voters.

"I'm for it," said Doreen Kaufhold, 20, a bookkeeper, waiting for a streetcar in central Dresden. "It would be a relief for traffic." She said she did not believe the bridge would ultimately cost the city its status as a World Heritage site.

"The bridge was disclosed in the application," said Gerhard Glaser, now retired but president of the monuments preservation office of Saxony from 1982 until 2002.

Planners are hoping to sway Unesco with modifications that would make the bridge less obtrusive, allowing them to have their crossing and their heritage status, too.

"We hope that with these changes we can reach a point where Unesco finds it acceptable and we can maintain the World Heritage status," said Michael Sagurna, a senior official in the Saxony state government. "Then we're fairly sure that with these changes the dispute won't be quite so heated as before."

Victor Homola contributed reporting from Berlin.

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