Jamison White

Stephanie, Max, and I have dedicated ourselves to hitting the ten most famous breweries in Bamberg. We picked up a local guide and are crossing them off our list.

Lesson learned: With Max we really have to pace ourselves. Yesterday we hit three brauereis for lunch. Max now has a hat shaped like a chicken, and we attended a political rally for the state of Bavaria (Bayern) to cede from Germany. Oops!
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I am well into week two of my classes. Every night I dream in German. This week the sentences in my dreams are finally starting to make sense. Stephanie says that this is a good sign that I am learning.

I have two test coming up. The first is at school. On Friday I will take a test to see if I move on the next level. I feel confident about grammar, but I need to work on vocabulary. The second is the family reunion!

We are going to stay with Stephanie’s Great-Aunt Marlort Friday and Saturday nights. Then Sunday morning, we will go to the big family reunion. The Kress family is very concentrated in central Hessen. Check out this graph. I am nervous and excited about the trip. Thoughts of Chevy Chase’s European Vacation keep floating through my head.

Stephanie and Max are doing great. Most mornings they go shopping and to a park if the weather is nice. In the afternoons, we will visit one of Bamberg’s historical sites (after two weeks there is still more to see) and follow up by going to the park. We have gotten to know a few families in the area, so we often go to the park with one of them.

Well time to study, I hope everything is going well at home!

Classes began on Monday. I was too nervous to post on Sunday night and too busy to post the last few nights. My work book and lessons are all in German. Also all of the out of class activities are in German, although the professor asked me in English to promise not to sue when I borrowed her bicycle.

Classes are given in two week periods. September is normally their slow period, but this period is the slowest ever. There are only five students in the school! Last week there were fifty and the next period will be thirty-ish.

This has been very good for me. Instead of three hours of group lessons, I am receiving an ninety minutes of private lessons followed by ninety minutes of self study with access to the professors. Also, Stephanie and Max have been welcomed at the luncheons since the crowd is so small. The lessons are very demanding, but I am keeping up with Stephanie’s help.

During the out of class activities, I blunder through conversations using lots of hand gestures. I am definitely the least knowledgeable, but Stephanie has reassured me that most of the other students have heavy accents. The class consists of two Spaniards, an Italian, a Japanese, and a Thai. Miguel knows a good bit of English so I have talked with him the most.

I also practice every chance I get on store clerks and the neighbors. They are VERY understanding.

Winfried and Evelyn Strauch, from whom we are renting an apartment, have been wonderfully accommodating. The apartment is clean and orderly, all very German according to Stephanie. The only weirdness is that the bathroom is not exactly in the apartment, but rather in a hallway that connects the courtyard/parking area to the rest of the house. The door to the hallway is locked while we are here, but still it is a little strange.
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Jet lag is wearing off, so I am not as loopy as yesterday. Or drunk, hmmm, I’ll be right back….

So anyway, after three days we finally have all of our luggage. Thanks to Stephanie’s planning this was not as big a problem as you would expect. She made sure that our carry-on had a change of clothing for everyone. We had to buy Max a new shirt, but other than that we were set.

Today Stephanie, Max, and myself explored more of Bamberg, Germany. This truly is a beautiful city. We walked through the city center and down to the Regnitz river. We followed a set of nature trails along the Regnitz until we found a nice park for Max to play. After that we had wurst and sauerkraut and bier right on the Regnitz. On the way home we shopped at the vegetable market and grocery store for dinner supplies.

Pictured is the Bamberg’s Alte Rathaus. It is the old city hall. The Rathaus was built on the river because the main cathedral (auf Deutsch der Dome) was on the north side while the main population and industry was on the south side. So being built in between these two areas was a symbolic gesture that the government is responsible to both.

Right now it’s almost 10:00 pm and I can hear German drinking songs coming from the brewery across the street. Mission for tomorrow: Find a babysitter!