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This week I’ve been teaching in Kaiserslautern but staying in a small town nearby (Hütschenhausen) at a Temporary Housing Facility (Extented Stay). It was recommended by a co-worker who was here earlier this year. It felt so good to have a full size apartment. I had two bedrooms (one with two twins, the other with a queen), a living room nearly as large as my own, small kitchen (complete with stove, microwave, freezer & refrigerator), and a small room with a shower & sink and another with a toilet & sink. It was larger than my vacation home in Big Bear. Five people could have stayed here in comfort. Between the two buildings, there are five apartments plus the living quarters for the owners/manager, Janet, a British expat married to a German.
The structures were originally built in 1805, but the barn burned down and had to be reconstructed in 1856...my apartment was through the door on the right.
When they converted the barn into apartments, they move the many ancient troughs into the yard to serve as planters:
Scenes from around town:
The sidewalk:
Janet and I, are close to each other in age and she loves visiting cemeteries. In fact she took me to the Hauptfriedhof Kaiserslautern and made a great photographers assistant…pointing out interesting items, carrying an umbrella to shade my lens from rain or sun, taking to the gardeners to learn which sections had been recycled. We had some interesting conversations and I got answers to many of my questions...such as, how come there are so few dead animals on the roads? She told me the posts along the roads are sprayed with an animal repellent.
When I was in Heidelberg, many posters with faces appeared overnight. Comparing notes with a co-worker, we figured they were political campaigns…Janet told me I was right.
Of course if it was California, after 10 minutes, the posters would look like this:
One night Janet took me out to dinner to a local Kegelbahn (bowling alley). It had two lanes and pins that reset by string. (Nine-pin Bowling) The food was excellent and it gave me exposure to a very German place I would not have tried on my own. Janet also works with the Fisher House Foundation (FisherHouse.org), donating her time and apartments to the families of wounded warriors, when they come to the area to visit their loved ones who are recovering from injuries. By the time I left, I felt like I was leaving an old friend behind.
Found this interesting sign in the bathroom:
Tinky Winky now wants to ride every bull he finds: 
Drove over to the Installation to find my classroom and found this around the corner:
The next day I went out looking for a cemetery, but the two GPS locations I had just dumped me in town. I spotted a large high wall and was sure there was a cemetery behind it...but this is what I finally found after trying three times to get around the wall: 
Decided to walk over to have a closer look: 
It was a Natural History Museum. Around the corner I found this: 
It must be gorgeous when everything is in bloom.
The two spots on her right thigh are finger tips...so her hand must have been on her thigh.
And there's a copy of Venus de Milo: 
Out front was a (non-working) fountain with this 'girlfriends' statuary...which was lovely from any angle:
I gave up on the cemeteries and decided to check out the Sunday Brunch at the hotel...when leaving the park, I found this Adler sign: 
Went up to the Executive Lounge to print out a file and re-discovered the joys of trying to use a German keyboard: 
It took me forever to find the @ which is under the Q and requires using the alt key. I now understood why my German students have trouble finding the * which is not above the 8 on this keyboard. Notice the Z & Y are reversed.
Above: Tinky Winky finds some like-minded friends at the German Cantina.
I checked out the large mall around the corner from the hotel...looked like a US mall except all the brands and store names were different. Above is the children's section of a hair salon. Below is a toy store that had small rubber Tinky Winkys.
The week is almost over, I'm heading home...TW and I wave good-bye to Germany.
