Hamburg or Hamburger?

Today was Hamburg day!

We all piled in the car between 8 -9 am and promptly fell asleep. Hamburg is only a short ways when you sleep for most of the trip :)

We arrived and began to look for our first stop Miniature Wonderland. Mike Muchmore from District 7250 back home had recommended it highly as a great tourist attraction. As we pulled up there were so many kids on school trips that I thought this can’t be right, but it turned out that they were all going to the Hamburg Dungeon, a nearby attraction. Although there were children at the Wonderland, there were many more adults than I thought there would be. The attraction displayed America, Austria, Scandinavia and many German cities. As you can see from the pictures everything was in miniature, but with so much detail you couldn’t help but be fascinated. Each time you looked closely somewhere else another thing caught your eye. They even had an outdoor rock concert of DJ Bobo (very popular here in Germany) with porta-potties and everything. I enjoyed it, thank you Mike for the recommendation!

We ended up having lunch on the water at Ponton. The restaurant was neat because you must walk down the side of the canal like Venice to get to it and all the building just came up from the water with no sidewalk or anything. Very neat and the weather held together nicely as well. After our luncheon there was time for shopping, which I must say we all appreciated :). Then back to Bremen for dinner at the Rotary Club President’s house in Bremen Nord.

Herr Pieffer’s house was something out of a fairy tale, with marble floors and a giant bubble light fixture for a ceiling. The garden was something I had only seen in pictures. The house was built atop a hill overlooking a river and there was a small path that wound its way down the hill with archways filled with roses, red, white and pink...so beautiful. Gisela and Richard von Busse arrived from Oldenburg and I was so glad to see their smiling faces. It felt like we were finishing the trip well, beginning and ending with them. Thank you so much for making the trip down to see us, Richard and Gisela. And thank you Bremen for a wonderful tour of Hamburg.

Today was vocational day in Bremen. The Bremen Theater every summer has one opera on a floating stage in an unused harbor of Bremen and I was given the opportunity to view the last rehearsal before dress rehearsal. This year the opera was AIDA (woohoo)!!

Some of the problems with outdoor theater are microphones, weather, moving stage, seating and perhaps motion sickness. I was curious to see how a theater in Germany might handle this. I realize what some of the solutions might be, but I was still curious.

As you can see from the pictures, the stage, on the bottom was a sort of ship that had several anchors to some pilings in the ocean floor. There was some rocking, but it seemed controlled for the most part. The body mikes worked very well even for the always difficult to capture high floaty and high loud sections with the soprano. Unfortunately the tenor was marking so there wasn’t a very good gauge.

The stage “set” was made up of about 20 blocks that were painted a neutral cream color. The soldiers/extras on stage moved the boxes appropriately to fit the scene. So at the end (SPOILER ALERT!) when Aida and Radames are entombed to die they were surrounded by these blocks on three sides and then the guards stepped in front to simulate an enclosed area. It was perfect! The singing was gorgeous and I loved the whole idea of persons enjoying a night at the opera on the water. I am going to see the Bregenz Festival AIDA as well and can’t wait to see the differences :)

I also got a chance to visit the Waterfront, which is a failed space center in Bremen turned shopping mall. While a very nice mall, I though the idea of a space center was even cooler. From the air that is what the shopping center looks like with rocket boosters and everything. Very cool!!

Bremen and all its technology!

Today we toured the Marum Institute during the morning, which is a part of the Bremen University.

MARUM is the Center for Marine Environmental Sciences of the University of Bremen, and is one of the leading oceanography and marine science research centers in the world. They do research on the ocean floor up to 4,000 meters. They have 2 ROV (remote operated vehicles (red) and 1 AOV (autonomous operated vehicle (yellow). The red ROV dives down to 4,000 meters or the ocean floor and is able to pick up things with the two arms, take core samples from the ocean floor, and take high powered very intimate pictures of the flora, fauna and lifeforms living there. We were shown a video of the shots that the camera can take and the pictures were beautiful. So close to very, very tiny things. It was lovely. The ROV runs with two pilots and two scientists constantly monitoring it. The team consists of 8 pilots and 8 scientists so that they can work in shifts as of course the dive is very expensive so you must make the most of it. I can’t imagine being stuck inside this container with four other people for hours on end operating mechanical arms with my partner pilot manipulating the cameras so i can see what I am doing. Whew!! We also got a tour of the ocean core storeroom. It is a room that is 4 degrees celcius where all the samples of the earth’s core are archived and used for experiments. There are only three storerooms in the world, and they are College Station, TX, Bremen, Germany and Kochi, Japan. In this picture you can see that time is kept for all three places as each store is on the same computer system.

After our tour of Marum, we attended lunch at Campus restaurant with Michael Gobel and Hans Jurgen and his wife (he is the coordinator for all the GSE teams in Germany). It was a lovely lunch with many interesting facts revealed about the GSE selection process in Germany and Rotary in general.

We sat directly across from our next stop, the Universum Museum. It felt like the Aquarium, everything was a hands on experiment. THe first picture is the actual museum, which looks like a football. The others are just me and Lisa having a laugh. It seemed mostly for kids, but once we were there for a little bit, Lisa and I definitely got into it.

We exited the museum and drove to Bremen Center (old Bremen) and Schnoor Strasse, which means “string Street” ‘cause the houses are so close together. We had dinner at the Katzen Kafe with our Bremen Rotary GSE team, Michael, Herr Jugen and President Pfieffer (who by the way is a riot). All those things we Americans heard about the German sense of humor being hard to understand....NOT TRUE!

What a wonderful way to end the day!

Bremen, our last stop

We said goodbye to Cloppenburg early in the morning today. I struggled with fitting all my belongings back in my bag only to realize I was missing some laundry. Most of the morning was spent rearranging my luggage in a space that gets smaller and smaller every time I move. (sigh)
Anyway we made our goodbyes outside and found a Mercedes 5-person van waiting for our trip to Bremen. It was gorgeous. Michael Gobel and the Bremen Rotary made this possible and for this we thank them heartily. There was a tense moment when we thought all our luggage may not fit, but it was fine! Soon we were winging our way to Bremen.

We drove directly to the Rotary meeting and as it was the last presentation we wanted to add photos of our trip so far. So Lisa and I spent the whole trip rearranging and copying/pasting from Barbara’s camera to my laptop. Ahh technology!!!!
We arrived in Bremen and luckily had a half an hour to double check the presentation. The meeting was held at the Bremen Hilton. The luncheon was lovely, our presentation went off without a hitch and we all met our host families.

I am staying with the Andres Family, Mark (father), Antonia (eldest) and Violetta (youngest). We unloaded the car and split up for the day. I went with Mark Andres who remarked on the heaviness of my luggage. Once more I must say to myself, is it too heavy... YES! I must mail some things home :) I arrived at Mark’s home where he introduced to me to his two lovely daughters, Antonia and Violetta (both opera heroines I must say) I think I will like it here for sure. The girls have labeled all the doors with English words, like “bath” and “welcome to Bremen.” It is really sweet.
I am on the third floor in a beautiful room. I have unpacked my bags and am now relaxing.
Let’s hope Bremen has a lot to show us in our last days in Germany!

Farewell Cloppenburg

Slightly easier day was had by all. Slept in until 10 (which most of you know is still early for me, but hey, what can you do :)) We had a little breakfast with butterbrot (yummy butter bread) and off for the day’s work by 130pm. We arrived at EWE only knowing it was an energy house. What that meant....who knows? As we drove up we saw a type of small carnival, with four small trampolines with attached bungee cords, a small tent and huge blowup castle with several children jumping. It looked so much fun and I couldn’t wait to see if adults were allowed. Even Bernt one of our host dads was ready to get in on the fun, but as we soon found out only 50 kilos were allowed so alas, only Lisa (our teeny-tiny) team member could go on it, but doesn’t it look like a blast?!!

Okay the ECO house is a smart house...just think of all those AI movies that we have seen, I, Robot, Alien...that type of thing. For instance, when you enter the house there is no key, just a snap of your fingers and boom the door opens with a greeting...”Hello Noelle. Welcome home. Did you have a nice day?” The house can tell you whether any windows or doors are open, it can tell you the food in the fridge as well as when the food will expire. It will wake you up and put you to sleep. A very smart house indeed!

After our tour we had a kaffe und kuchen at Gabrielle and Heinrick’s house, with yummy homemade strawberry cake! This is Gabrielle greeting us with her I LOVE NY tee :)



Then we had time off for about two hours. I must confess I went home, slept and packed. Our farewell dinner was at Bernt’s and Birgit’s. There was a conga line and must I say anymore...? I will post later, but for now, enjoy living vicariously through Lisa's trampolining!

Tsar's Bride (1st opera)

Today was my vocational day!!!! WE WENT TO THE OPERA!!

Monica drove us to Quackenbruck this morning where we met with the 2^nd Mayor of Quackebruck. We presented him with several gifts and took numerous pictures. A short visit and then we were off to see the town. We toured the oldest part of town stretching back to 1700s.

We then piled in two cars and set off for Osnabruck. We must first stop at Herr Keck’s airport of course! It is a small airport that supports the locals as well as some international flights. He took us up in groups of three and we surveyed the entire surrounding countryside. It was remarkably beautiful with so much agriculture. Just lovely...we had a little upset stomach, but other than that, superb. A little lunch at the airport restaurant – mmm leche.... and away we go again to the theatre at Osnabruck.

We got dropped off in town right in front of the theatre and meet Herr Poppee, a Rotarian from Quackenbruck who organized the theatre tour. Miracle of miracles it is a gorgeous day and we arrived on the towns’ Summer in the City Extravaganza. A day of music out in the open air! PERFECT. As much as we wanted to stay and listen to the band that was playing or perhaps the guitarist and folk singer, we had an appointment with the Dramaturgie at the Theatre. We arrive at the theatre and are introduced to a English speaking guide who show us around. She was excellent! Gave us all an overview of the opera and I asked her to explain her job a little more fully because in the US the title Dramaturg is only the translator of the opera, although in some houses they do run the surtitles during the show. In Germany a Dramatugie definitely is more than translation, although that is part of it. They do an overall history of the opera to give to the cast, where the story takes place in history and such. Some Dramaturgies sit in on auditions of singers and give their opinion. It is really interesting the differences in the system. For instance the German state theaters are all on a rolling repertoire season, which means they produce a different show every night. After every performance the tech guys come in and break down what they can and the next morning they set up for a different show, whether it be a dance show or a theater piece or different opera from the night before. We spent about an hour with the guide touring and asking questions. We viewed the wig and makeup room, the costume shop and their backstage and wing area. I loved it and I think my team mates got a better understanding of the opera world :)

After our tour we left the theatre and made a short walk around Osnabruck. As I mentioned earlier we came on Summer in the City and there was so much to look at and listen too. After a while we had dinner in a small cafe and then left to spruce up for the opera.

At 7:30 the opera began. We saw The Tsars Bride, a Nikolaj Rimskij-Korsakow opera that is not done all that often. Synopsis is (short and sweet) The tsar is looking for a new bride from all of Russias women. He chooses Marfa who is already in love. Her boyfriend is killed and she ends up crazy. Ultimately for my teammates this was their first opera and it was quite an induction. Within the first 5 minutes there was total nudity, within 10 a biker gang of soldiers accosted a female character and within 40 minutes a house caught on fire and steadily burned for at least 20 minutes. Amazing!! I should have warned them about the German take on opera, but it was so fun :) I was beside myself and was ever so grateful to the Cloppenburg club for arranging it. THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!!

I will post some pictures soon, I must get them from the others as today of all days I forgot my camera. (sigh)