Zoo Quarter

We are moving to a new apartment, what will hopefully be our home for the next two years. It is close to Fernando’s work, the city center, the subway, and a big forest with bike trails and playgrounds. In all respects, a huge improvement from our temporary living situation in a townhouse north of the city. For those Atlantans reading: before, you would have had to dial 770 to reach us because we were in the Hannoverian equivalent of Norcross. But now in this new place, we are, as many a Georgia bumper sticker reads, “blessed in the 404”—that is, really centrally located.

We will be in a neighborhood called Zoo Quarter (Zoo Viertel). But it might as well be called Ooh, Zoo Quarter because that is invariably how people respond when they learn that this is where we are moving to. The preliminary “Oooh!!” is then followed up with a comment like, “That is one of the best neighborhoods in all of Hannover!” or “Ah! One of the city’s best addresses!” Then, without fail, comes the question: “Do you know who one of your most illustrious neighbors will be?” or “Can you guess which famous person lives in the Zoo Quarter?” Unfortunately for whoever asks this, they cannot have the thrill of being the first to tell us about former chancellor Gerhard Schroeder’s Zoo residence. When the owner of the building showed us the balcony of our soon-to-be apartment last month, he mentioned casually that the green patio umbrella we could see just a stone’s throw away was in Schroeder’s backyard.

Fernando and I have been a bit perplexed by these comments. We are paying almost exactly the same as what we paid in Decatur, which was quite reasonable. Yet, from what everyone says, we are moving to a pretty exclusive part of town, and I have kind of mixed feelings about it. Sure, it beats broken glass, urine-scented alleyways and thugs, but we certainly did not seek out a living situation among the “haves” of Hannover.

So, I have spent the past several days doing some sleuthing, trying to determine whether or not Fernando and I do, in fact, live in a rich neighborhood. Following is some of the evidence I have gathered, first that which would lead one to believe that yes, people have money here.

Upmarket mini-grocery store
The little store around the corner sells lots of imported jams and caviars and an unusually large selection of fine liqueurs. There is also an entire aisle of cleaning agents, presumably for the maid to run out and pick up when faced with an empty bottle of Ajax. Ok. Rich.

High density of flower shops
Let’s face it, the only time anyone “needs” cut flowers is when someone dies, and there are no nearby funeral homes. I smell rich people.

Sports clothes boutique—for babies and kids
Ok, definitely only for rich people.

Expansive playground
What a joyous discovery to find that there is a playground at the forest’s edge only five minutes away by foot! The equipment is new, the sand is glass-free, and the kids are all dressed well. Going to a “spielplatz” is a very social thing here in Germany, and some of the good ones have little adjoining cafes and picnic tables and chairs. I thought I actually spotted Posh Spice the other day sipping a cappuccino with her little five year old daughter, who was wearing designer cowboy boots and pushing a play buggy much nicer than Leo’s. Much to my dismay, Posh’s husband, in a silk scarf and herringbone sport coat, was no David Beckham. I am surrounded by rich people!

But, there are all sorts of people around, too. Here is some pretty solid evidence for the hypothesis that Zoo Quarter is not only for rich people.

Cars parked on Tiedgestrasse (our street)
Sure, there are a few Mercedes and BMWs, but this IS Germany. There are also plenty of Renaults and Ford Fiestas. In our building, in fact, the humble bicycle seems to be the preferred mode of transportation, as there are several of them parked on a rack outside the front door.

Ugly, cardboard box shaped apartment complexes
I have seen a few of these, and I’m pretty sure rich people do not live in them.

Discount supermarket
It’s really weird—here in Germany there are two classes of supermarkets. One is expensive and one is dirt cheap and they sell completely different brands. There’s a “Penny Market” only 10 minutes away. Why would a rich person want to go to a place like that?

Our neighbors
There are 4 units in this building and as noted above, most of the occupants seem to have bikes rather than cars. They also all seem to be single Moms, each with one adolescent child. Generally speaking, single mothers are not rich (unless, say, Posh and Beckham were to get a divorce).

Us!
We live here and, um, we’re definitely not rich.

All of this evidence weighing aside, you might be wondering why any of this even concerns me. I think it has to do with the huge importance placed on first impressions when one is new to a place. When I introduce myself to someone I meet, I don’t want there to be any extra barrier between me and that person, since there are already so many (cultural, language, etc.). Nor do I want to raise anyone’s expectations of us and our lifestyle just to have them crushed later. What if a new friend comes over and expects a palace, and instead just gets a first hand viewing of an apartment filled with three-dollar Ikea lampshades? I think it would be the same if Fernando and I were moving to the Mensa Quarter or Athletically Gifted Quarter. I would feel similarly uneasy about the expectations people might have about us.

But for those of you who already know us, the apartment is great. Although the kitchen would be more to scale if servicing a 19-foot boat, the bathroom is indeed a bit bigger than an airplane’s, and we have a guest bedroom (hint, hint). And well, we admit, the ceilings are pretty high.

der Musikgarten

For the past few weeks Leo and I have been going to a Mutter und Kinder (Mother and Child) music class in a small yoga studio in a close-by neighborhood. The first Wednesday, we arrived 37 minutes into the 40 minute class, since the directions Claudia Kuhn gave me, in English, were not all that good. Well, actually, they were terrible, but today, before Leo’s 3rd class, I found out why. Claudia, the teacher, is from the GDR (former East Germany), and English just was not a priority during her school days. She assured me that her Russian was better. In truth, her English isn’t that bad—she was able to tell me this story in the past tense and I understood it fine.

My German, on the other hand, is still horrible. I am learning a lot of it in these classes, however. There are lots of songs and games that use basic vocabulary (body parts, actions, sounds, etc.), designed for little language learners… That these songs also help me has been an unexpected benefit. Today, though, I had a moment of embarrassment during a song about parts of the face that involved the touching and naming of the nose, eyes, etc. I was dutifully following along, touching my own face parts, when I looked around to see that all the other mothers were actually touching their babies’ faces. But never mind the face, a lot of those words are really similar to English, anyway. Here are some helpful words I have picked up in these music classes.

Stompen
Stompen means to “stomp”, like stomp your feet on the floor. The teacher starts each class with a welcome song that also functions to teach us all the babies’ names. The basic idea is “We’re [bodily action] for [baby’s name]”. So, while we’re patting for Dominic, rubbing for Enja, hugging for Emma and nodding for Simon, for some reason, we’re stomping for Leo. It is not a surprise, since so far he has been the highest energy kid in the group, racing around from corner to corner and squealing with enthusiasm at the mere presence of the other ones. So, let’s stomp for him I guess.

Schlag
This words means heavy. It was Leo’s turn to… how to describe it… gong the um… big metal thing that you see in a drum set? A cymbal? So he grabbed the stick (mallet) and began to gong away, amazed at how he could make that studio fill up with sound. As a few of us winced involuntarily, Claudia looked at me and said kindly, “Schlag!” It was then that I also realized just why my morning coffee had been tasting so good—I had been using heavy cream (schlagsahne) in it.

Kopf
This word means head, and I heard it in the context of “Nicht in der kopf”, “Not on the head”, which is what I heard another mother saying in response to Leo’s love pats to another, somewhat younger boy. It is new for me and for Leo to have him be the big kid in a group, since at daycare in Atlanta he was the youngest. He clearly knows that he is the oldest and biggest, which is why he gets so physical. I tried to control this behavior by using Fernando’s trick of reminding Leo to touch softly. It worked pretty well, but I stood close by in case there was more heavy head patting.

Kurz
Means short. This word I heard several times as a few mothers searched around to find a smaller drumstick for Leo to play with. The teacher had surprised me when she handed Leo one of the biggest drumsticks in her basket, and sure enough, Leo waved it up and down frantically in close range to other heads. He used the stick mostly to tap it on the floor, as was the designated way to handle it for this activity, but occasionally would move it from side to side, which is when it was confiscated and exchanged for a less dangerous, shorter stick.

Er ist in sein element
Well, in context, this can only mean one thing. Claudia looked at me and said “He is in his element”. And he definitely was… he was sitting with his drumsticks, surrounded by about four other kids, all of them stomping there sticks on the floor to the music. He really was having fun, and hadn’t actually hurt anyone for the entire class.

After the class, I went up to Claudia to ask for information about other classes, either at her place or elsewhere. It was then that she suggested Leo would also enjoy a class for slightly older kids. This other class meets on Thursdays, at 11:00. We will try to make it, and it might be back to the old days, with Leo as the little one again. We’ll see how it goes.

das Krankenhaus

By all objective standards, my experience at Krankenhaus Nosdstadt was good and exceeded my expectations (see previous post by Julia). The place was scrupulously clean, the food was better than decent, and the level of care that I received was outstanding. The nurses were all very nice, helpful and competent. The doctors spent as much time with me as I wanted. In general, I felt that I was being cared for. First things first, though: having surgery sucks and I will do anything in my power to prevent being operated on again. But, really, if one is willing to make lemonade out of lemons, a hospital stay in a new country may just be an alright way to learn lots about another culture, and about oneself.

Surrender
The operation itself was not a concern. After all, this was a standard hernia operation to be performed in Germany, a developed country. My concerns, or crankiness as Julia puts it, were about all the peripheral things that were sure to be unpleasant. Things like a chatty roommate with horribly stinky feet, or not getting enough food. Even though Thursday was a beautiful morning, and the sun made it all nice and toasty inside the tram, I was one cranky patient on my way to the Krankenhaus. Maybe Julia was right, if I just went with the flow...things might be more bearable. It worked! Once I got to the hospital, I tried this new attitude. It was just fine to wait an hour in a hallway before being acknowledged; it was alright to wait another three hours for an entirely pointless conversation with the anesthetics expert, who was supposed to inform me of my “options” but instead just pointed to the X where I should sign. It turned out I signed up for a “tubular anesthesia” according to a translation I saw afterwards. And it was hunky dory to spend the rest of the day at the hospital and one extra night sleeping on a cot for no other reason than Germanic über-kaution. I waved the white flag, I gave in, I surrendered. Life was much easier after this decision.

Cut others some slack
My roommate, Werner, stroke me as odd the minute I saw him. He reminded me of Rod Stewart. Maybe it was his white, long and flowing hair, but I could easily imagine him in purple tights singing “Forever Young”. We introduced ourselves and quickly ran out of things to say. His English was just as bad as my German. But this didn’t prevent him from talking to me, or talking to himself, pretty much all the time. Sometimes he would point to my food tray, point to his own, and utter something like “bah”. Then he would open his newspaper and talk to himself. The nurses (or “sisters”, as they’re called here) didn’t quite get him either. Every time a nurse came to see him he would say something that would clearly put her off. Maybe a crass joke, or some quirky remark, but the communication that I witnessed wasn’t very fluent. By a combination of signs, grunts, and present-tense-only half-sentences, he understood that I was there for a hernia. I think the sign for hernia is universal: you make a small cup with your hand, bring it to the affected area, and make a “what a bummer” gesture and everyone will get it. And I understood that he was there for observation, after taking a nasty fall and landing on his head. He had, as he attempted to explain to me, “peanuts” in the brain, referring to the size of the blood clots that showed up on his ct scans. Werner’s girlfriend, Gina, came to visit every afternoon, for six hours at a time. Though they were pushing fifty, they were like teenagers and this was, for some reason, quite endearing to me. She would sit on his lap, then laugh and kiss him repeatedly. He would tease her about something and she would play being offended, walk away and come back after a while (later I figured out that she went out to smoke). Sometimes they would get all sad and hug forever, while whispering stuff in each other’s ears. The TV was on, thank God, and I pretended to be busy reading, to give them whatever amount of privacy I could in my condition. As odd as Werner seemed, he was a nice guy. When I came to after surgery, he asked me how I was doing, then pointed to my side table. There was a compact, beautiful flower arrangement from him and Gina. When dinner arrived that night, he offered me half of his. I gladly accepted, as I had not eaten all day. Werner was considerate, too. He didn’t stay up too late, checked with me whenever he changed TV channels, and would always turn down the volume if I talked on the phone. He would cheer every time I got up to the bathroom and made it safely to my cot on my own. I wish he had been my roommate in college.
Our last lunch together was memorable. The rooms have access to a wide wrap­-around porch with tables and chairs. Luck had it that our room was in the south end, which meant that we were the only ones that got sun. We brought the food trays outside (I even brought the flowers) and had something close to a conversation about family, work, travel, football, Formula 1 Racing, and the weather. The food was great and the sun warm. It was almost like a vacation. When I said good-bye to Werner, I gave him my email address, and asked him “haben Sie email?” His answer was complicated, something to do with Gina. Oh well, I thought, we will always have Krankenhaus Nordstadt.

Ibuprofen rocks
The doctor that officially told me I had a hernia back in Atlanta (Ben had quickly diagnosed it over the phone the day before) told me that the operation was not that big of a deal. He told me very confidently that guys recover pretty fast, usually in one week. In fact, he added, the procedure is out-patient. The surgery described by the doctors in Germany was the same. One incision under the belly button for a camera tube thing, a second little incision two inches below for a balloon, and a third one closer to the hernia to pull the piece of gut in place and insert a mesh to close the hole. The difference in Germany was the hospital stay: five friggin’ days. Naturally, I thought the Germans were playing it way too safe. Well, let me tell you, I don’t know what that Atlanta doctor was smoking. My belly was very sore and incredibly bloated; I was dizzy and nauseous, and in general felt like crap. Not to mention I had a drainage bag attached to my belly. All of the sudden, five days at the hospital seemed alright. But they sent me home Sunday, the fourth day, with some very mild pain killers. I made an appointment with a doctor the next day, to get a formal “justification” for being absent from work and also to ask for something to knock me down so I could sleep at night. German doctors might be cautious, and this includes a fear of effective painkillers. This last one gave me a prescription for paracetamol, a drug that (for me, anyway) does absolutely nothing. I needed something stronger, so I went to the good old stand by: ibuprofen. Half a dose of a horse pill in the morning, the other half a few hours later and I was a new man.

First Hospital stay

Fernando had his hernia operation last Friday, making for a real German experience—the hospital stay! The good news is that the operation went well and Fernando is at "home" again. All of the doctors and nurses who have spoken with him and looked at his incisions (two plus a …gulp… little hole, above his stomach, where the camera tube went) say his recovery is marching along as well as expected. Unfortunately, it is slow and Fernando is still not the most mobile he has ever been, and prefers to be prone whenever possible. He is hoping to get back to work either late this week or next week. Although you will be filled in on his foreign-country-surgery-experience when he’s feeling a bit better, in the meantime, I can tell you what it all seemed like as a visitor.

But any heavy talk about hospitals and incisions needs some levity to balance it out. Well, let’s start with the German word for hospital… It’s one of those words you learn early on because many of the tram stops are named for the big neighborhood hospital. Krankenhaus! Literally, a house for the sick, but what’s so funny is how kranken resembles our word "cranky". There are connections, sure. Leo, for one, is always at his crankiest the night before waking up sick as a dog. So, Fernando spent 4 days in the cranky house. Indeed, he was cranky about the surgery before going in… annoyed at being hospitalized so soon after starting his job, irritated that he was expected to stay for as long as five days, nervous that some renegade surgeon would do a hack job on his internal organs, and dubious that he would understand anything or be understood. Thankfully, all this crankiness prevented any of the above from occurring.

Because Germans leave nothing to chance, Fernando was told to arrive at the hospital by 10 am on Thursday for his Friday operation. This way, the doctors and nurses had 24 hours to evaluate his general health before picking up the scalpel. What really happened on Thursday was that Fernando checked in and spent the day sitting around reading, watching TV, eating, receiving calls asking about how the operation went, and receiving a visit from his wife and child. Over the phone that first day, Fernando sounded relaxed and almost amused, and described the place feeling like a prep school. As Fernando grew up in Chile and was not educated at one of these institutions, I was curious to see what "prep school" looked like to him. Well, it really did look like one! The whole compound was walled-in and gated. Rather than one big high-rise, the hospital was organized in about 10 or 15 three or four story red brick buildings connected by walking paths. Instead of a mammoth parking lot, there were smallish quads of green lawn and bushy trees, with leaves starting to change color. The only difference, from the outside, was that instead of pairs of people tossing around a lacrosse ball, there were orderlies wheeling patients on cots or wheelchairs from building to building. It was very homey and accessible- so much so that Leo and I waltzed right into Fernando’s room without even checking in or asking permission. Really, so much about that pre-surgery day was like the first day of prep school. We got to meet Fernando’s nice roommate, Werner, who was under observation after a bad fall, and check out all of his things- the closet, the bathroom, the bed, etc.

It was good to see Fernando less nervous. Seeing the doctor on call and the nurses interact with him in such a friendly manner was also a relief. They were attentive and did their best to be understood in their not fluent English. One of them, after dropping off Fernando’s dinner tray, called our attention to a pile of cloth she had put on a shelf-- Fernando’s operation outfit. The best part for sure was the white mesh underwear. I couldn’t help but comment, "Sexy!", and she laughed, which put me at ease. Then Leo and I left, and the next day was the surgery, which, come to think of it, nobody but the medical staff can really talk about, since Fernando was out cold for three hours…

First excursions

Today we got back from our first excursions, a day trip to the town of Celle and a couple of days in the city of Bremen. Since October 2 is a national holiday (commemorating the unification of West and East Germany in 1990), Fernando decided to take off Monday and make a really long weekend. After deciding to take this little mini-vacation, we froze with the possibilities. Where to go? Prague? Paris? Bruges? Hamburg? We opted to start a bit more modestly, and get to know some of the Hannover region. Overall, our trips were a big success. We saw some beautiful medieval buildings, city squares, farmers’ markets and churches, and learned a thing or two about Germany’s complicated history. But we probably will profit more, in the long run, from what we learned about traveling in this country, and how to “sightsee” with a 15 ½ month old.

Trains can be fun!
For all of the time Fernando and I spend complaining about air travel with babies and toddlers, we really should give credit where it is due. Train travel with young ones is really not all that bad. Granted, our excursions weren’t too far away—Celle about 30 minutes and Bremen about 1 ¼ hours—but train travel with Leo bordered on fun. The train to Celle was packed since we were traveling on a Saturday. So we got stuck in the bicycle section and had to stand. But Leo had shiny bikes to look at, and a Spanish woman who had heard us talking started telling us all about her experience living in Germany, so the time flew by. The train both to and from Bremen, however, was pretty great. We had no trouble getting seats. The trains go fast and smoothly, so Leo could walk around a little bit between our seats facing each other. It is immaculately clean, so we let him entertain himself by putting Legos into the metal waste bin beneath the little drink tray, but he also had fun sitting in his own seat (and crawling on and crawling off every minute or so) like a big boy and looking outside at the scenery.

No castles for this crowd.
It turns out that there are tons of castles in Germany, so I was dead set on seeing one as soon as possible. So, we made sure to get to Celle on a day in which its castle was running tours. We arrived on time for the first tour, paid for our tickets, and parked our stroller near the gift shop. We weren’t feeling too thrilled about going on a tour conducted in German, but it was one of those deals where if you don’t do the tour, you only get access to about ¼ of the rooms. So we tried our best to blend in with the crowd of mostly older Germans all enjoying their long weekend, up the stairs to the first talking spot. The tour guide pointed to some unfinished sculptures, gestured several times towards different corners of the building, and every once in awhile caused everyone (including Leo) to laugh at her jokes. We had stuck a pacifier in Leo’s mouth to keep his own running commentary—in the form of giggles and shrieks--to a minimum, but to no avail. Yes, the only way to see it is that we were a nuisance to this group. We decided to throw in the towel when, trailing behind the crowd as it made its way to the next stop on the tour, we saw that everyone was bending over and putting on these enormous grey wool slippers over their shoes, in preparation for the viewing of something important. Needless to say, there were no toddler-size slippers. In fact, there were none remaining at all, which we took as the sign to banish ourselves once and for all. The good news is they gave us our money back. We felt a bit disheartened, thinking that castles and museums and other indoor, quiet, and serious points of interest just cannot really be experienced with kids Leo’s age. But then we went back to the town center, where there was a beautiful flower market and tons of people watching to do. Walking around is our favorite pace to see a new place, anyway, and for now, this is fine with Leo.

Compromise.
Bremen was a great first city to visit with Leo. Most of its appeal is the city itself—there are no world famous museums or castles to tempt us. The city center is very, very, very old, and around the same plaza there’s a church from 1050, a cathedral from the 1300’s, and a Rathaus, which is a town hall, that’s also O-L-D. Charlemagne stopped here for awhile. The city was a founding member of the Hanseatic league, which was like a medieval version of the EU. Its fame today is based mostly on being mentioned in a fable as the destination of a bunch of animals who want to become musicians in Bremen, though they never actually get to Bremen. It is also the home of Beck’s Beer. Wow, Fernando should really be telling this history part. Anyway, it is a port city on a river, and really quite beautiful. Also, it is a bit more edgy and artistic than Hannover. At least that’s the impression we got from the stores and the restaurants and people. We did not partake in much art or edginess. But even though walking around to these different spots is the best way to see Bremen, Leo could only handle being in the stroller for so long. To extend his periods of cooperating with us, at regular intervals we would let him loose to burn up some of his energy. We went to the playground a few times, walked along the pier that runs along the river, and played inside the Rathaus, which had been converted into a children’s science museum. But where he had the most fun was on the city square, where he would just streak along the cobblestones at full speed, or push the stroller in circles without much regard for anyone else wandering around.

So we learned that German trains are fast and reliable and not so horrible when traveling with kids. We also realized that as long as we are with Leo when visiting a new place, we will learn more about its playgrounds that its art collections, but that he’ll probably keep surprising us.