Sue, Elisabeth and I attended Johanna’s gymnastics club practice, or workout, or rehearsal or whatever you call a gymnastics session. That’s J about to do a flip of some sort into the, get ready for it, Schnitzelgrube. Schnitzelgrube is the pit (Grube) filled with foam strips (Schnitzel) used for practice landings. We were asked what we call this thing in English. Anyone? Anyone got an answer? I wasn’t even sure I’d ever seen one before much less had a name for it at the ready.
I can’t remember ever having witnessed live gymnastics before . . . I think my sisters were in a gymnastics club when we were young but I don’t really remember any of it. The club has people of all ages, or rather, people who are limber enough and strong enough to throw their bodies into the Schnitzelgrube. This German word is among our favorites including Stinktier (skunk) and Tschechische Republik (Czech Republic).
Here we are in Basel admiring the city map.
We took a drive through part of the Black Forest, or Schwarzwald. Johanna and her family used to downhill ski here less than an hour from their house.
While staying in Neuenburg we participated in some of the daily living like driving Christoph to his football practice. Remember American readers, football in Germany and everywhere else aside from the US mean soccer. Why do we call it soccer? No one knows.
Here’s the neighbor’s yard.
And then there was my haircut experience. Christoph recommended his barber to me so I jumped at the chance to get my hair cut in Germany. Why? Why not? The very little German that I speak does not include any specialized hair jargon. The woman cutting my hair spoke not a single word of English. I smiled a lot and used hand gestures. She cut my hair faster than anyone has ever cut it and was probably glad to shoo me out the door.
Not a bad haircut. While I was in the chair, another customer walked in from the Netherlands. This place was truly international.
Basel Cathedral
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