Schule!

I love autumn in Germany. The apples are ripe. The farmers are selling cider and the bakers are making strudel. The leaves are brilliant in their yellows, reds, oranges, greens and purples. It looks like someone spilled a bag of Skittles over the hills. Neighbors are flying kites every afternoon. We start pulling our sweaters out of storage. And, of course, school begins.

On the first day of the school year in Colorado, my friend Sara and her husband danced around the house singing “It’s the most wonderful time of the year.” I know how they feel. Kids are back in classes and out from underfoot. No more staying up too late at night, eating too many popsicles, loud yelling, constant bickering, high-pitched whining, or eye rolling. And the kids are acting nicer too.

But I love more than just changing our routine after a willy-nilly lazy summer. I love buying new school supplies, getting new school books, and filling in a new school calendar with classes, meetings, events and vacations. Although I always mourn the end of summer just a bit (I am solar powered after all) I love the colorful leaves, the autumn holidays, and the possibilities that a new school year brings.

This year Claire started second grade at a German elementary school. She loves it. But getting ready for the school year was more complicated this time. For one thing, I have to translate every letter the school sends home before I read it, which takes time. And the supplies she needs are really different. She has to use a fountain pen and colored pencils instead of a regular pencil and crayons as she would in an American school. She had to get new folders and paper because the European dimensions are different and they use two-hole binders instead of 3-hole ones.

She also had to get a schulranzen, which is a hard-shelled German school backpack on steroids. Kids wearing them look like little turtles. Claire didn’t want a girly one, so she got a red and orange one with African lions on it. It has adjustable padded straps and back supports, ergonomic fitting, and reflective strips to help keep kids safe from cars when they are walking to school. The inside has a matching mappchen, which is a pencil case with slots for every pen, pencil, eraser and fountain pen refill. It has a matching snack case, water bottle, change purse and sports bag. This thing is nicer than my luggage, and pricier too. German engineering. It’s a beautiful thing.

On Claire’s first day of school, Steffi came over with a schultuete for her. This is a German tradition for children starting the first day of first grade. Since Claire was not here last year, Stef said, she thought she should have one now. It’s a long cone (kind of like an upside down dunce cap) filled with candies and small toys, and secured with fabric and ribbon at the top. Claire’s was red with ladybug chocolates crawling up the side. She loved it.

And I loved mine too. My neighbor Astrid made me one when I started intensive German language classes at the Volkshochschule, which is like community education back home. Mine was decorated with sea shells and raffia and was filled with energy gum, rum-filled candies, powdered soda mix, coffee-filled chocolates, and little books. It was a great joke and a sweet gift. I loved it!

So what am I doing in school other than not finding time to blog? Well, I spend twenty hours a week in class (that’s four hours a day, five days a week) trying to learn how to string together all of the pearls of vocabulary I have learned. My instructors both said I was ready to skip a level and start at the second class, but I didn’t want to. I think I had them fooled because I know so many words and I understand nearly everything I hear. But I still can’t make more than a handful of intelligible sentences. Once I get the grammar down, I expect to move quickly. I’d better. Astrid and Steffi said I have until Christmas and then they will only speak German to me. I had better learn the language or find a good hiding place.