Gwen Wren Goes To Venice

A note for our regular viewers: We apologize for the long break between posts. As you will see, we went out of town for New Years, and since then we have been quite busy. Rachel has been running experiments, and I have been dealing with many mundane aspects of life in our new apartment, such as figuring out how to wire overhead lights and hook up (and subsequently re-hook-up, then balance, then re-balance, then give up on) an old washing machine. I have backdated this post, and the next few as well, to the approximate time the events took place.

After our quiet Christmas at home, we wanted to do something a little more adventurous for New Years. Our original holiday plan, to drive over the Alps into northern Italy, still seemed a bit intimidating; we had heard that crossing the Alps in winter could be treacherous driving. So, we decided to go by train. Although it was more expensive, we took a day train instead of the overnight so we could see the Alpine scenery on the way.

Gwendolyn was very well-behaved on the train ride, cycling through calm playing, eating, sleeping, playing again, etc. (Though I must say, if you are ever planning to take a baby over a high altitude pass, bring extra diapers and a change of clothes. Most of you parents out there will know what I'm talking about.)

I followed our route on a map of the Alps. Gwen Wren helped out with some map-crumpling and -chewing.

On arriving in Venice, we took a vaporetto (water bus) down the Grand Canal to our hotel, the Pensione Guerrato.

When we first found our hotel, tucked away on this dark and empty Venetian street, we were a little skeptical.

Once inside, we were met by the two brothers who own the hotel, Roberto and Piero. They were so warm and welcoming, and they loved Gwendolyn!

Gwen Wren found our room to be a bit more ornate than her normal digs...

...but she quickly made herself at home.

The Babbling Wren

Gwendolyn has been making many variants of shrieks, creaks, and grunts for the past months, but nothing that really seemed like proper babbling (if there is such a thing). No longer. She is talking a blue streak, as they say, and we are loving it. Take a listen.

Gwen Wren's First Weihnachten (Christmas)

Gwendolyn's first Christmas was a cozy, quiet affair. We had planned to go on a trip to the Austrian alps and/or northern Italy, and the exotic location would serve as our Christmas gift to ourselves, our Christmas decoration, and our holiday entertainment--all in one. But Rachel had to be around to finish up some experimental work with the bats, and we were still getting settled in to our new apartment, so our plans kept getting pushed back. When Christmas Day rolled around, we didn't have a tree, or decorations of any kind, or any real plans. We decided to just have a nice day, open our few presents, go on a walk. Not so very different from other days. But there were a few unexpected delights.

Pulling on ribbon was one.

Chewing on ribbon was another.

Dissolving wrapping paper in the mouth was a third. (We had to put down the camera at this point to intervene.)

In early afternoon (already dark in Germany), we drove to the nearby monastery at Andechs. I must admit, we were looking for a meal--we hadn't managed to restock our fridge before all the stores closed for the holidays, and the monastery has a great biergarten which we thought, just maybe, would be open. The biergarten turned out to be closed, but we found sustenance nonetheless. As we approached the monestary there were carolers holding fire-lit torches. We noticed families walking together up the hill toward the church. We followed the people around the church and into a side door.

Here is a picture of the church that we took on a previous visit. We walked through the church nave, which looked much the same as in this picture except lit with candles. But this was not where people were headed. Across the church, in a small side room, was a humble nativity scene, pungent with hay, where people of all creeds and ages came to pay homage to the Christ child. We had inadvertently found the heart of Christmas in Bavaria! Suddenly, the fact that we had no Christmas tree or roasted ham or eggnog didn't matter so much.

Frohe Weihnachten und ein glückliches neues Jahr, everybody!

David & Rachel

Christmas Party

On Friday, we took Gwen Wren to the Institute's Christmas party.

Gwendolyn had a great time meeting the other Institute children. But we realized she has actually had very little interaction with other kids so far.

In her excitement at seeing others roughly her own age, Gwendolyn took one of Paloma's pigtails and steadily pulled. Paloma was stoically unfazed. Luckily, she is used to her little brother Niels.

Bavarian Christmas Breakfast

On the final week before Christmas, Gwendolyn was treated to a special glimpse into traditional Bavarian culture.

Stefan organized a traditional Bavarian breakfast...

...complete with Weisswurst (white sausage), Weissbier (white beer), sweet mustard and huge baskets of Brezeln (large Bavarian pretzels).

That's right - beer for breakfast! Historically, these sausages were made only early in the morning, with herbs but no preservatives. Because they could quickly go bad, the rule was you had to eat them by noon. And of course in Bavaria, you can't eat sausage without drinking beer. Hence the beer-and-sausage breakfast.

All of Haus 11 was invited to the feast.

After the gluttonous meal (we seem to have a lot of those!), the party moved outside, where Stefan taught John the art of whip-snapping, apparently a traditional Bavarian pastime.

We were then encouraged to try out a snuff-injecting machine, handmade by Stefan's father. The peer-pressure was too great for David to resist. Oh, and as if the snuff-machine doesn't make you look silly enough, you also had to wear the pointy hat while using it.

Gwen Wren was a little skeptical of the authenticity of this Bavarian custom. Luckily, Stefan assured her she was exempt from the "traditional" snuff-machine practice.

Moving

Last Monday, Gwen Wren moved to her 4th residence in her 5 1/2 short months of age. The first two months of her life (July and August), she lived in Austin. She spent the month of September in Chocorua, NH. From October to mid-December she lived in the farmhouse flat in Ashering, Germany. And now she has moved to the town of Starnberg, Germany.

After a lengthy and complicated application process, we were selected (thank you to The Committee) to rent an apartment in the "Max Planck ghetto"--heavily subsidized apartment buildings rented mainly by Institute graduate students and postdocs.

As you can see, it's not really very ghetto-like. The apartment is actually quite nice. It is a "3 room" flat (= 2 bedrooms and a living room; it also has a kitchen and bathroom). Two of the rooms have big glass doors that let in lots of light, and open onto the "garden" (= back yard).

The new abode is much more affordable than the Ashering flat, but the Wren was sad to leave the farmhouse. The owner, Frau Schmaus, was sad to see her go, too. Gwendolyn will miss being called the "kleine Maus" by Frau Schmaus.

We had stored a bunch of free furniture, salvaged from one of the Max Planck Institute's soon-to-be renovated buildings, in my office basement. My labmates, Klemen and Stefan, were kind enough to help us move it to the new flat.

In a smaller act of kindness, they stooped down for this photo--David commented how he must look short next to the two of them (they are both well over 6 ft tall). Gwen Wren, however, still looks pretty short!

We've spent the week settling in. Two trips to Ikea covered most of the basics, but we're discovering that the Germans have a much more hands-on approach to apartment setup than we're used to. We're still learning which hoses to buy for the washing machine, and how wire our overhead lights.

Gwendolyn is really happy with her new surroundings. But in truth, her new surroundings look quite a bit like her old surroundings...

Snow!

We have had some gorgeous winter days this December.

The Alps in the distance are now completely covered in snow.

Gwen Wren admires the snow-covered landscape.

And marvels at her father's car scraping ability.

Christmas markets

Gwendolyn has been hearing about the famous German Christmas markets for weeks now. But she had no idea they would be this good.

The combination of people caroling, mugs of steaming hot Glühwein (mulled wine), and booth after booth of Christmas wares is enchanting...

In the end Gwendolyn found it a little overwhelming.

Stockholm Sightseeing

The day after our gluttonous Thanksgiving meal, we tried to work off some of the calories with a long walk around Stockholm. We didn’t get out until after 2 PM though—and the sun set at 2:53! But there was still plenty of light for a few hours of sightseeing. Light is weird in the North.

Jacq and Dado live across the street from a big yellow church.

The church’s graveyard is lit by candlelight (note that this picture was taken just after 3 PM).

Stockholm is made up of several islands with waterways in between.

There were many attractive apartment buildings.

This one was on a hill, and had a bridge going to a second entrance on the third floor.

This photo of a typical doorknob also caught a bit of Gwen Wren’s reflection in the glass. (I included this one for you, Blake.)

I liked how some of the streets had been carved out of the bedrock, leaving old houses elevated on exposed rock.

There was a lot of art to be seen around town. This sculpture was just hanging out by a park bench in a tucked away corner of greenspace. (What do you think, Rob: another celloman?)

We saw several nude statues, every one of which made me feel glad to be wearing lots of warm clothes—it was cold outside!

Even the shop windows had some eye-catching art objets.

I took note of this pedestrian sign, which clearly shows a father walking his daughter—quite progressive, as pedestrian signs go.

I was surprised to see this Texas-themed bar, complete with Lone Star beer. Very strange.

We couldn’t resist putting this Viking helmet on Gwen Wren. Fortunately we didn’t wake her from her nap.

We stopped by a produce market. They had huge piles of chanterelle mushrooms which as far as we could tell were 19.90 Swedish kroner per kg—that’s less than 50 cents a pound! (We thought of you, Toby.)

The produce market was right outside the concert hall, where the Nobel prizes are awarded each year. The building was an interesting blue color, with green lighting.

Our ultimate destination was not the concert hall however, but the city hall, where the Nobel banquet is held. We got there just in time for the guided tour.

Gwendolyn was good until near the end, when we were in a large hall lined with golden mosaics. Then she started to get fussy.

We noticed this breastfeeding woman in one high corner of the room.

Rachel took note of the signs, and decided to leave the tour for a breastfeeding break. What a nice spot for it! Note that they are sitting underneath a representation of the Statue of Liberty.

Afterward, we had a nice view of the city across the water outside City Hall. A lovely end to a lovely day of sightseeing in the great dark North.