Christmas Letter 1990

It would almost be time to write this Christmas letter in English, but German gives us many more options for expression. Since we were unable to talk about our experiences here at family celebrations, among colleagues or over wine with friends, this year we are writing a detailed letter to all relatives, friends and colleagues.

Christmas time in Milwaukee is very different than in Hamburg. The houses, gardens and streets have been decorated with electric lights and Christmas wreaths since the day after Thanksgiving, the last Friday in November. The Christmas trees are already in the houses. Nevertheless, there is no Christmas spirit. Today, for example, we were with friends in bright sunshine, snow and temperatures around 5°C. Cut our Christmas tree on a Christmas tree farm. In the afternoon the weather was so bright that we didn't even light Advent candles and didn't feel like baking apples and cocoa, but rather like we were on a March ski vacation with a thirst for beer and wine. The bad weather in Hamburg is missing!

Incidentally, Christmas is not such an important festival here, but rather one religious festival among many. The Jewish Hanukkah began on December 11th, which lasts eight days and attracts great attention. So it's not just Merry Christmas but often simply Happy Holiday! The lack of New Year's Eve traditions with fireworks and dancing in the morning hurts us more than a shortened Christmas. There are dinner parties here that end at 12:15 a.m. - just terrible.

The New Year 1990 began with bright weather, extreme cold and snow. A winter that you could only wish for. The pond behind our house was frozen over, a New Year's fire burned on the island in the lake and mulled wine was drunk with the neighbors. An ice rink was swept into the snow around the island and the sports enthusiasts enjoyed the day on ice skates.

Mark had wanted a flight to Hamburg for Christmas and spent the New Year with his German friends.

. In January, Dietmar and I flew to Naples on Florida's Gulf Coast for a surgical conference, from where we took a very interesting trip to the western Everglades. We were able to observe cormorants, dolphins and sea eagles from the boat, and later we drove through a jungle area by car. as we marveled at the wildlife in and above the swamp. Suddenly we even ran into a panther. Many of the panthers still alive died in the big fire this summer.

At the end of January, Heidi flew into Hamburg because she always has a return ticket in her pocket and was also longing for the vibrant city of Hamburg. She enjoyed meeting friends there from morning to evening, going to the theater three times in two weeks... that was really nice, dear Blankenese people. She enjoyed the evening with her colleagues at Hannelore's and spent many an hour on the phone. On the return flight the suitcase was full of unauthorized goods. In the meantime we have found a good toothpaste, but no hair wash, but underwear, but no soft men's socks, there is brown bread, sugar beet cabbage, apple cabbage and quark, but no cat ham and white asparagus and there were no newspapers with the exact election results from December 3rd , we really miss this information!!

Back from Hamburg, where the crocuses were already blooming, we dreamed of spring. It was a long dream because the ground was frozen until the end of March and everything really started to bloom all at once in May. The long winter was lightened up a little by the first visitors: In March, Dietmar's brother Volker came with Jutta and her son Nils, who wanted to see if they could stay with us for longer than 5 days. In May, Dietmar's mother and Reinhard, her partner, arrived. We drove with them to Minneapolis/St. for a surgeon's conference. Paul, called Twin City for short and crossing the Mississippi for the first time - a great experience.

In mid-March, when the lake had already thawed in some places, our geese came back, the parents with Heinrich and a fourth goose, which we didn't see again after a few days. We watched the goose parents building a nest on the island outside our window. Beginning

At the beginning of April the nest was ready and within a few days the goose laid her eggs in it. On April 8th the goose was breeding, so only the gander was swimming around on the lake, because we had been missing Heinrich for several days. From Konrad Lorenz's books we know that the geese breed for 28 days, that they lose their flight feathers about 4 weeks after the young hatch and that they can fly again together with their brood another 4 weeks later. So we looked forward to May 5th/6th with excitement. At the beginning of May, a snow goose suddenly appeared on the lake and very aggressively tried to drive our gander away from his goose and even to chase the goose from the nest. There were fierce fights in the water and biting on land between the two ganders. This lasted until May 4th.

This morning a goose with 6 little ones swam across the lake to our terrace and then struts through all the gardens with their children, who are barely a few hours old. But she came without a father and when she took a break to feed in our garden and was not at all afraid of Heidi, we discovered that the mother was our Heinrich, who had only learned to fly in December. We renamed him/her Henriette . Now the snow gander saw his chance and asked the fatherless family to protect him, but at the same time Henriette's father also developed enormous grandfather feelings and once again took on the snow gander. But on May 7th, the young of Henriette's mother, who came just as proudly through our garden with her 5 children, also hatched. On the first night a young one was lost, so from then on we looked after 14 geese in our garden, and the snow goose lovingly looked after her foster children. They spent the summer on the lake until all family members could fly again. They only came over sporadically in the fall and since the first frost we have seen two couples on the ice a few times. We are definitely expecting the geese back in March.

June and July were filled with garden design and finally, in the 2nd week of July, the beds were planted, the spice garden was being planned, the trees and bushes were in the ground and the driveway was asphalted. Now summer and the visitors could come. Everything was fixed.

Immediately after the World Cup, which we unfortunately couldn't follow here because we didn't have the right cable connection at the time, Gabi and Helge Wienert from Hamburg arrived here to celebrate the summer, in whatever form to spend us. They were allowed to get used to us for a few days and settle in, then we packed our mini-van and drove west for the second time this year, but this time not just across the Mississippi, but into the vastness of the country.

We experienced American history, were in the Black Hills, at the Custer Battle Field and in the gold rush towns. We drove via Billings in Montana, through Yellowstone Park to Utah. On the way to Denver we took an evening break in Vail with Bavarian folk music and a Tyrolean menu. We took a detour to Arche National Park, drove back through the Colorado Valley, via Dodge City to Memphis for a blues evening. Then to Nashville for two nights of country music. Last night our car was broken into and the cameras were stolen. In addition to the material damage, the loss of the films from Memphis and Nashville was much worse, so that we have no memories of the famous Sun Studio, where Elvis made his first recordings, nor of our champagne breakfast in the park (no alcoholics) on Gabi's birthday can. The next evening we were back in Milwaukee - 2 weeks and 5200 miles: a happy, exciting and relaxing trip.

Einige Tage nach unserer Rückkehr kam Brigitte Corleis. sie sich vorgenommen hatte, in Amerika einmal old fashioned anzukommen -also per Schiff von Bremerhaven nach Savannah. Von dort kam sie nach Milwaukee geflogen und verbrachte die restlichen Ferientage mit uns. So wurde das Haus langsam voll, denn auch Annemarei kam aus Europa zurück, Mark hatte seine Sommerschool beendet und aß und schlief nun auch zu Hause.

Der Sommer war kaum zu ende, da rüsteten schon wieder die Eltern zu einer Reise: Am 6.0ktober starteten wir gemeinsam mit unseren Freunden Pat und Charly Aprahamian zu einer 6-wöchigen Reise, auf der die beiden Männer Vorträge und Vorlesungen zu halten und wir beide mitreisende, fremde Länder genießende Ehefrauen waren. Die Reise begann in San Francisco, das Pat und ich uns mal wieder zu Fuß und per Cable-Car eroberten. Da wir meistens sehr früh unterwegs waren, sahen wir all die vielen Obdachlosen in den Hauseingängen, wurden von jungen Frauen und Männern angebettelt und waren wieder einmal entsetzt, daß diese Stadt ihre Probleme auch nicht in den Griff bekommt.

Von S.F. flogen wir nach Seoul, eine Stadt, die sicherlich von den Olympischen Spielen pro­fitiert hat, denn es war grün, sauber, es herrschte eine hektische Betriebsamkeit. Natürlich haben wir Paläste und Museen besucht, aber beeindruckt waren wir von der Freundlich der Menschen.

From Seoul we flew to Taipei, where we had just enough time to visit a large temple and the National Museum, which houses all of China's art treasures transported from the mainland. There are so many that each item is only exhibited for three months every 6 years. Life in Taiwan is much more western, but the Chinese cuisine is not Chinese for our taste, rather very unusual. Almost the same Chinese dishes were recommended to us as a special feature in Bangkok, but we couldn't enjoy the tasteless food there either. We liked the Thai cuisine much better, it was more similar to Indian food. We visited Bangkok and then even had a three-day beach holiday in Pattaya - which for us involved heat, boredom and sunburn, so we were happy to finally be able to fly to Delhi. Several cities were planned in India: Delhi, Jaipur, Bombay, Trivandrum, Madras, Hyderabad and Delhi again. At the time of our trip, there was considerable unrest in India, so that there were shop closures and curfews in many cities. The cause of these uprisings was a law that had already been passed 5 years ago and was intended to give the lower, poorer sections of the population (the caste system has officially been abolished) access to training opportunities through a quota system. The government remembered this law and wanted to enforce it in order to win votes. The rich Indians saw their freedom and existing rights restricted. So they needed a reason to riot and that was the Hindi demand on the Muslims to demolish a mosque because they were running out of space had belonged to it for a long time and they now wanted to build a Hindu temple on it. The government could not interfere here because church and state are separated.

So we flew to Delhi and from there drove to Agra for a day to visit the Taj Mahal - twice 4 hours. car ride. After a very short stay in Bombay - a lecture and a night in the hotel - we flew to the south-west coast, 50 km from the southern tip of India, to Trivandrum, a small town in the state of Kerala.

spent three days in a holiday resort on the beach with clam divers and fishermen and experienced a completely different India. The streets were clean, we didn't see any beggars, everyone was working, the children didn't lounge on the streets but went to school. The state of Kerala has the highest literacy rate in India at 76%, while the rest of the country is below 45%. The reason for this different structure was explained to us as follows: Kerala is an early Christian country (Jesus' disciple Saint Thomas of Syria), many missionaries followed, hence the cleanliness and the school system. For about 20 years, Kerala has had a freely elected communist government that has implemented all job creation proposals suggested by the central government. At the end of January, Heidi flew into Hamburg because she always has a return ticket in her pocket and was also longing for the vibrant city of Hamburg. She enjoyed meeting friends there from morning to evening, going to the theater three times in two weeks... that was really nice, dear Blankenese people. She enjoyed the evening with her colleagues at Hannelore's and spent many an hour on the phone. On the return flight the suitcase was full of unauthorized goods. In the meantime we have found a good toothpaste, but no hair wash, but underwear, but no soft men's socks, there is brown bread, sugar beet cabbage, apple cabbage and quark, but no cat ham and white asparagus and there were no newspapers with the exact election results from December 3rd , we really miss this information!!and ensures social balance. The system therefore works satisfactorily.

From Trivandrum we flew to Madras, the silk city of India, a run-down English colonial city - dirty and poor. During our three days stay we had monsoon rains that will make 150,000 people homeless, but on the other hand will bring rich harvests to the landowners. Poverty in India was even greater than we expected. When asked about a solution, Indian friends answered: We have made great progress, no one in India has to die of hunger anymore:

Now we flew back to the temperate climate of Delhi, where a world congress for abdominal surgery took place at the end and Charly and Dietmar had to give lectures. We did a little shopping and then flew on to Paris. Our friends Pat and Charly were not only in Asia for the first time, but also in Europe and we wanted to show them Paris, Berlin and Hamburg. But obviously Pat and I didn't get the change in the weather, so after a day in Paris we came down with a feverish flu. Pat and Charly flew back from Paris to Milwaukee.

But we especially didn't want to miss out on Berlin, because since November 9th. Neither of us had been there in '89. Despite the flu and the cold, we drove and walked through Berlin - throughout Berlin. We then drove by car from Berlin through the villages to Schwerin, drank a coffee, were amazed at the many western cars and the full shopping bags at the Saturday weekly market. We then took the motorway - what a gentle drive - to Hamburg-Blankenese. Once again we were welcomed hospitably by friends, once again a visit to the theater was prepared and we also met up with the family. Since Dietmar wanted to leave early, Heidi had planned to visit a few more times, but the illness took a toll on her. So her parents were happy about an extended visit and many hours of talking and exchanging ideas about the political changes.

Hamburg was a nice end to our la900-x-mas/1990/Baum-1998.jpgngen trip. And now we were looking forward to Milwaukee again? Because the big family celebration of Thanksgiving was just around the corner, Mark was coming home and, above all, we were seeing Anna for the first time since August 21st? Since then she has been studying at a college in Maryland. The fact that Anna wanted to move away at the age of 17 was a drastic event in our lives.

Now many will ask, why to Maryland? When it became apparent to Annemarei in November 1989 that she would be graduating in May of that year, she had to think about which college she wanted to study at. After two years of college, she has a qualification equivalent to the Abitur, subject to certain subject requirements, so that she can study in Germany, for example. In order to attend college, American students must take college entrance tests that are evaluated centrally; foreign students must take a language test (TOEFL).

So what criteria should we use to choose a college? Anna first drove to Madison, the capital and university town of Wisconsin, a 70-minute drive from us. Your comment: too many students (45,000). She already had two criteria to choose from: she wanted to go to the east or west coast and to a smaller school. The following aspects also play a role in the selection: