Spinning class

Well, it's been a quiet post-Christmas month here in Burghausen. We have settled into our winter routine, which feels kind of mundane, but I think it's just part of winter hibernation.

We have joined the local sports club, SV Wacker Sportsverein, so that James and Ronan can play soccer and I can take spinning classes. They offer all kinds of sports, including fencing, handball (very popular here), sailing, bowling, gymnastics, and lots more that I can't remember.

I'm trying to get in the routine of doing a spinning class twice a week. The instructor for the Wednesday night class is really good, he plays a good variety of music, pushes us all hard and speaks in a heavy Bavarian dialect, which I'm still trying to get a handle on. Last week he made us climb for 25 minutes, so I just closed my eyes and did the last part of the Mt. Baker Hill Climb. Good times! By the way, I thought my Mt. Baker Bike Club buddies would appreciate the attached photo. Since German shops are closed on Sundays, our local bike shop has an automatic dispenser for bike inner tubes in case you get a flat on a Sunday and the shop is closed. Gotta love it!

So, as far as I can make out, Burghausen doesn't have a road bike group, Mt. biking seems to be more the thing here, we are near the Alps, after all. The spinning group meets for Mt. bike rides once the weather changes, so it looks like I'll be using James' Mt. bike in the spring. The spinning instructor also mentioned that if I want to find folks to road ride with, it would be fairly easy to start a road biking group in the spring, so that will be my plan. Anyway, missing all of my biking buddies. Our door is open if anyone is in the neighborhood!

New Year's Eve or Silvester

I've been trying to finish off my description of the holiday festivities for a while, but have been distracted by the kick-off of tax season. Sigh! That will have to be another posting. Anyway, we spent a lovely few days between Christmas and New Year with our friends Ed and Elizabeth in Munich but returned to Burghausen for the New Year's Eve celebrations. We weren't really sure what to expect and really had no plans in mind for the evening. It's a bit hard to get out for the night with a 7-year old. As it was, the weather was wet and rainy and we saw no signs for fireworks or any major community events. Being so close to Salzburg and in close vicinity to Munich, perhaps Burghausen opts out of major Silvester or New Year's Eve's events, so we spent the evening Skyping with James' family and enjoying time at home.

Though the city of Burghausen had no festivities planned, its citizens had other ideas. Shortly before Midnight, people all over the city began setting off their own fireworks, but the show to top it all was put on by the Chinese restaurant across the street. It set up its own firework canons on the sidewalk and put on an elaborate 20-minute firework show, all of which we could see from our living room window. It sounded like a battlefield out there, but there was a great atmosphere, lot's of folks out and about and other fireworks going off everywhere, and us with a view of it all from our 4th floor window. James got most of the show on video, which you can see on my Facebook page. Unfortunately, it's too long to download here.

The fireworks certainly brought back memories of many a New Year spent on the Steinerne Bruecke (stone bridge) in Regensburg, where the entire town would gather, everyone with a bottle of Champagne in hand, to ring in the New Year and watch the fireworks. Always a crazy night that ended up with us staggering home and sleeping off a hangover the next day. Well no hangovers this year, we rang in 2012 with clear heads.

Christmas and New Year - Part II

So, onto Christmas Eve...

Since it was a Saturday, most of the shops began closing around 1pm in the afternoon. So we did a few last minute things in the morning and then headed back home for the afternoon. But around 2ish, we started to get ancy and decided to go for a walk. As we got near the Burg (or castle), we heard what sounded like a small parade, there were drums and flags in the distance. So we followed the rest of the crowd and headed into the castle. When we arrived at the main part of the castle,, the parade had stopped. There were a few canons set up in the courtyard and a small tent selling?? Yup, Gluhwein and warm mead. My kind of outing. Apparently, it's a Burghausen tradition to fire off the medieval canons on Christmas Eve. So we all stood around drinking Gluhwein as the medieval folks proceeded to toss flags (James thinks this is the origin of the cheerleader) and set off guns and canons. Ronan quite enjoyed it and everyone there was in a wonderful festive mood. Nothing like firing off a canon fire and drinking hot Gluhwein to get in the Christmas spirit!

Christmas and New Year - Part 1

Well, now that the dust has settled from Christmas and New Year, I can finally get around to writing about it. Many of you have asked how we celebrated the holidays in Burghausen. So here's what I can tell you. We opted not to travel anywhere over Christmas and to enjoy a quiet Christmas, just the three of us, in Burghausen.

Festivities began on Dec. 23, the last day of school, with a short Christmas pageant performed by Ronan's class for the parents. Ronan had been humming several of the songs (in German) at home for the last few weeks. He especially liked one song about the lighting of the Adventkranz, which is the German tradition of lighting candles on a small Advent wreath, each candle representing the four advent weeks running up to Christmas. For more info on the advent wreath, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advent_wreath. We had a small Adventkranz at home and each weekend that we lit the candle, Ronan would bring out the lyrics to the song and sing it while we lit the wreath. It really seemed to resonate with him and encouraged him to sing in German. I really like this tradition, so I think we will be bringing it back with us.

One interesting thing to mention, which I will write on in future postings, is that we live in a heavily Catholic region here in Bavaria, in fact, the Pope hails not far from here. Schools offer separate religion classes for Catholics and Protestants and ethics class for non-denominational children. Ronan goes to Ethics class. And unlike in the States, the major Christian holidays are recognized in the school and celebrated. As far as Christmas goes, I kind of like it, though can't say how I'd feel if I were in the minority.

For more on our Christmas adventures, please see part II