Category Archives: Seasons
Beating the Heat in Germany
It’s sunny and 85 degrees outside (30 degrees C), and even the ducks are listless and miserable. My Texan friends might laugh, but stop to think about this first: Germany has almost no air conditioning! Everywhere you go right now, …
Almond Blossoms
This is why we came to Edenkoben, Germany: to see the almond trees in blossom. A herald of spring, the almond trees bloom while many other trees are bare, sometimes as early as February. Like Easter, they promise rebirth. But, …
Migration
To our great delight and lasting enrichment, Joe and I are once again in Germany. We moved back to Rodenbach in July, but I had no time for the blog because I was working on two manuscripts at once. I’m …
Consuming Christmas
Maybe because it comes along during the longest nights of the year, or maybe just because Germans seem to love a good celebration, Christmas is a very big deal in Germany. From what I’ve gathered in my time here, this …
Winter Begins
In one of my happiest childhood memories, it is nighttime in north Texas, and I am standing with my brother Anthony in the middle of the street in the thickest snowfall I have ever seen. Enormous, fluffy flakes, pink in …
The Big Sleep
When we place a city on the imaginary globe in our minds, we tend to think first in terms of weather. Kaiserslautern, Germany, has a wonderfully mild climate: the average daytime temperature in winter here hovers several degrees above freezing. …
Yet Know I How the Heather Looks
Where I live in Texas, we have only two seasons: blazing hot and “I wonder if I should take a sweater.” The chance to watch four seasons unfold is a precious gift to me. A month ago, I wrote a …
The Witching Hour
Art from life
I took this photo from my hotel balcony last weekend on the evening of our arrival in Garmisch-Partenkirchen. We stayed at Hotel Schatten on the Partenkirchen side, and I heartily recommend it. The church you see is Pfarrkirche Maria Himmelfahrt, …