For the past few weeks, I kept seeing Segways whizzing by here and there in the old town. It is kind of a funny site to see in a medieval city. I always wanted to try to ride one, so I figured I would use my parent’s visit as an excuse to do one of the tours a company offers in Regensburg.
In the end, only Matthias and I ended up doing the tour. Dad wimped out because of some shoulder problems he was worried about irritating, and mom was happy to play with Clair while we were buzzing around.
We decided to do the ‘fun tour’ package because it was the cheapest, and it was only an hour long ride. The other option was the ‘city tour’, which was a 2 hour tour of the old city. We basically just wanted to ride around on Segways and couldn’t be bothered to stand around staring at old building when we really wanted to just goof around.
It ended up being a good choice. The fun tour goes from the shop on Gutenbergplatz up to the University Kilnik. The whole point of the the ‘tour’ was just to try riding the thing on different types of terrain and in different situations. It was a blast!
There is an introductory bit where you have to watch a video, and then the guys shows you how to get on and off of it (that last part is a little tricky). Then, filled with anticipation, you get to go out and try it out. They boarded us one at a time, and if you have a husband like mine, you may find yourself volunteered to go first. It was actually really easy to get on and control. I’m still not sure how the former US president managed to get himself thrown from a Segway. It was very intuitive to drive, but I found that I needed to remind myself to stay relaxed. If I got tense, it didn’t feel as comfortable.
Once all of us had a chance to practice in the platz, they took us through a few alleys in ‘turtle’ mood. Once we seemed capable of not killing ourselves, the guide showed us how to put it into the normal mood and we headed up to the University area of town to tool around. The Segways are some kind of registered vehicle here because they have license plates, and the rules of the road we followed were the same as rules for a bike. The hill up to the University was a heck of a lot easier to do on a Segway than on a bike!
I totally recommend checking it out if you are in Regensburg (or have guests). It was a fun way to spend a bit of time. I think doing the city tour could be fun too now that I had fun just goofing off with the Segway. They do private tours, and our guide said that they can ‘in theory’ do tours in English too. If some of the locals end up doing it, let me know. I want to come and watch you get on it for the first time. It’s funny to see people’s reactions.
Our trusty tour operator telling me how to get started.
As you can see from Matthias’ face, it kind of feels like you are going to fall off when you first get on.
We both figured it out soon though, and waited around to start the tour. As you can hear from this video, Clair was watching.
I am a little late on this, but on Thursday, Sandra and Julian had their baby boy Maxim! He is super cute, and we can’t wait to meet him in person. Clair finally has a cousin!
The above photo has nothing to do with this post, but I thought it was a hilarious Jesus (that is Jesus, right?). I have a bunch of posts that I keep wanting to write, but somehow they aren’t writing themselves.
We did some fun stuff with mom and dad on their last few days, but I am tired, so I keep procrastinating on my posts. Here are a few pointers to photos of some nice stuff that I will hopefully getting around to explaining.
If you’d like to see some nice photos of St. Ulrich church in Regensburg, look here. This is the church that holds the antiquities of the cathedral, but I though the building itself was gorgeous. It has been under construction for a while, and this was the first time I was back to it when it was finally finished. I think this photo is my favorite. It is kind of a menagerie of crosses all centered on The Cross. The large metal bars crossed in front of Jesus with five bars coming up at angles is from a large chandelier. A big hat tip to Sarah for recommending this church. It was a nice surprise to see what they have done with the place.
If you’d like to see some photos from the zoo in a nearby town, look here. This little place is the perfect size for small children. It’s not too big, and it’s not expensive so it makes for a simple and easy Sunday activity. It was small enough that Clair could toddle around and look at leaves on the ground, which she seemed to find more interesting than the animals for the most part. She did shout at the ducks, but I think she was trying to imitate them quacking. That was cool. I don’t think she has tried to imitate an animal before.
And, if you’d like to see Clair helping my dad assemble her last couple of birthday gifts from Ikea, look here. I thought she’d love her ‘rocking Elk’ the best, but she seems to be a very big fan of her new Ikea lounge chair. She even slouches down in it and stares at the TV (or at least, she did until today when she didn’t want to sit in it at all). Her chair matches two that we have, so maybe she learned that slouching from us.
I’ll leave you with a video the last fun thing we did with them here, and hopefully, I will get around to posting about that too! It was totally fun.
Today was not such a cheery day. It wasn’t that anything bad happened today, but some very bad things happened not far from here about 65 years ago. Mom, dad, and I went to the Dachau concentration camp. It is about an hour drive from here, and that camp is the one where the Jews from Regensburg were sent.
I have never been to any kind of Holocaust memorial in Germany, though I have been to the museum in DC, and a Jewish museum in Frankfurt. I have never visited one of the camps before, but it seemed like Dachau should be the first to visit because of it’s ties to my new home town. There were a lot of emotions that came up being in the space and being educated about the history of it and the horrors so many suffered there. I asked dad to refrain from bringing up US politics there just so we could focus on being in that space and thinking about that time. It was too easy to let my mind try to return to other topics because it didn’t want to think too deeply about what I was seeing. It is the kind of place where one feels like they could just sit on the ground and cry over and over again with each new piece of information offered about what happened.
Kyler, as I went into one of the churches that now stand on the site, I lit a candle for you because I was thinking of you a lot when I walked into that church. Maybe we will go there together some day.
Mom took more photos, some of which are uploaded here, but I only took two photos.
The two visuals that kind of hit me in a strange way were two views of the crematorium. The area was a little garden with a small building that could be found on any German farm. Off the Crematorium garden was a path through the woods where people were executed and ashes were buried. The juxtaposition of the familiar beauty of nature and reality of that particular spot was an unexpected experience. According to accounts by American soldiers who were part of the liberation, the manicured gardens were part of the original camp, and the horrors that they found in this beautiful garden haunted them. I have a feeling those images could show up in one of my nightmares too.
We are back in Regensburg now, and this week, we had a second birthday party for Clair with some of her boyfriends here in Regensburg! Oliver, Nathan, Luca, Christina, Penny and Sarah all came over for a couple of hours on Wednesday (We missed Janda and Delene, but they have some other important things going on at the moment like making a baby brother!). My mom made a beautiful cake. I think this was the first time that Clair really interacted a lot with the other kids (and pretty much ignored me). As always, there are more photos uploaded on Flickr.
We picked up a couple of party hats for the kids. Clair’s is a little birthday cake that she flat out refused to wear. The boys, however, were better sports and looked Fabulous! Observe:
Luca showing off his airplane wings
Nathan, the little jester!
Oliver, the mighty viking
I think fun was had by all. It was only a couple of hours actually with the kids all together, but I was wiped out afterward! I had fun too. I loved watching Clair consume a bunch of cake and then appear spaced out on a sugar high. The screeching chaos of little kids having fun was nice too, but probably because there was only four of them, and Oliver and Luca are pretty quiet.
I’d say that Clair has had a good celebration of her first year, first with the grandparents and then with her little buddies. Now, mommy needs a celebration of her first year of motherhood - preferably involving either spa treatments or drinks with the ladies!
Here is a video of Clair checking out the cake with the super sweet icing. She is also working hard at putting said icing in Oliver’s little Viking horn (which I will clean before getting it back to him!) The audio is a little unrelated as it is mostly Nathan and me discussing cake and which part would be the best piece for him to have. He is quite clear on the point that white icing is bad.
I am a bit behind on posting about mom and dad’s visit. They arrived last Wednesday, and then we drove up to Beckum on Friday to spend a weekend with the in-laws to celebrate Clair’s birthday!!
The Dult is a local festival they have at the beginning and end of summer. It is one of the many occasions to wear traditional Bavarian garb. I love this photo because I am standing next to a perfect stranger and a man I met once at a party. Plus, I am holding a cute little baby who is not mine. But when the man I met at a party stopped to say hi as I was carrying Luca around looking for his mommy, my mommy snapped a photo before the opportunity passed (good job mom).
Clair toddles down the main street in downtown Beckum. She toddles everywhere at the moment. Usually she is also jabbering as she walks. I don’t know who replaced my baby with a toddler, but it was a dramatic transition!
Finally, Clair turned one yesterday! Her and I celebrated quietly early in the morning since we were both up. Then we had some cake with the grandparents after lunch. Plus, she got a few nice presents, which she is trying hard to destroy but seems to enjoy none the less.
A real policy Wonk in and elected office. Al Franken is one of the few (most of the others get very little press because no one likes to listen to them drone on and on about policy). One of his Wonky talents, apparently, is to be able to draw a very good likeness of the US from memory. I’m sure I can dig up the original with audio, but for the time being, here is a nice party trick.
Clair went back to daycare yesterday after a month long break (yay!). Since Matthias is on vacation at the moment, we had an AWESOME day alone!
After dropping of Clair (who was not so sure if she was happy to be there), we both did long Yoga practices at the same time sharing our space together in the living room. After a nice breakfast, we headed to the gym and did a couple of long round of sauna, with a big helping of ‘Ruhe’ (resting) in the resting room in between. By the time we got home, Matthias headed out to pick up Clair while I had a quick stop by the doctor. After that, we all three headed to the Dult (the beer festival!!) and had dinner, which included some smoked fish and beer (for Matthias). We came home and Matthias quickly sent out an inappropriate email to a friend, which he asked me to double check only AFTER he had sent it - note to self: don’t let Matthias on the computer while drunk.
Clair was back at daycare today, and this time, Matthias got to sleep in while I took her in. Once he got up, we headed in to town for a nice long breakfast followed by sitting around in a coffee shop with out laptops (I finished a project I have been working on for a while!!). We picked up a few groceries before collecting Clair, who was much happier at daycare today.
Then, because I am a lucky woman, my husband spent the rest of the afternoon in the kitchen preparing Tapas with some great fresh ingredients. He made marinated peppers, pickled mushrooms, fried oyster mushrooms and bacon, and attempted some carpaccio but it ended up just being sauteed beef. I passed on the beef, but everything else was awesome!
Definitely a lucky woman! Doh!! I think I jinxed it. I hear Clair crying! Off I go……………….
because of some shoulder problems he was worried about irritating, and mom was happy to play with Clair while we were buzzing around.
