Knights' Tournament

Each morning I am awakened by the sound of the 6:00am news report on our local Armed Forces Network radio station The Eagle--"Serving America's Best." It's nice to lay back and here the latest news and weather forecast in English. I just haven't gotten a good handle on the metric system when it pertains to temperatures. The disk jockeys play music from the 80s, 90s and 00s without any annoying commercials. The do have advertisements for clubs and activities for troops and their families living in the Wiesbaden area, such as church groups, exercise programs, mental and physical health checkups, activities for kids, etc. Every so often I'll hear a public service announcement reminding people not to discuss military concerns in public as "You never know who is listening to you and you could be putting yourself and others in danger" -- basically a reminder that "Loose lips sink ships." There is also a reminder I hear sometimes telling people not to be discussing that they may have heard when a certain group of soldiers might be coming back from combat, as this is confidential and can end up hurting moral if people get details wrong.

In addition, the disk jockeys make recommendations of things to do in the area and a few days ago, a Knights' Tournament/Medieval Fair-type of festival at a nearby castle town was mentioned. David and I had been years and years ago to an excellent Renaissance Fair in Lancaster, PA and an OK one south of Atlanta. They are always a nice way to spend an afternoon.

We had thought about going to this one last year, but it didn't happen. I was determined to make it happen this year when I heard about the Ritterspiele (Knights Games) the other morning. How fantastic to visit such a fair in a country where they originally took place hundreds of years ago.

Katzenelnbogen means "cat's elbow."

The village of Katzenelnbogen was about an hour's drive away. The kids were not so impressed by its castle built around 1095. They said it was more of a house.

It became immediately apparent as we walked first around the Market Square that this was not your typical Renaissance Fair.  For one thing, our brochure told us we were now in the year 1312, earlier than the Renaissance.  Also, there were no official costumed performers walking around entertaining us, but you saw plenty of people dressed in serious medieval garb. Most of the booths were selling items geared to these people, such as these authentic bows and arrows. At least they looked authentic to my untrained eye. 

Little tender fingers touching big sharp axes.

A knights' emporium

I do not suppose you happen to have a sword for a six-fingered man?

Emilie brought her own sword and I bought Becca this headdress.

The most impressive guy I saw all day. I asked him first if I could take his picture, as I was afraid he might do me bodily harm if I didn't.  It was hot today -- probably in the mid-80s and bright sun.  These people must have been dying.

And from the back

Pedaling a snack

Starting them young. In fact, this place had the feeling of a Medieval Convention, like what you hear about Star Trek conventions.

This fellow was transporting an actual live head in his box.

Emilie trying her hand at the crossbow

Making music with...

....a key fiddle.  At lest that's what I think she said.

Watching the first round of knights' games

Racing to capture a ring first.  There were several female participants.

Where the knights, squires and others spend their nights.

Emilie and Cora

James and Donni -- a hawk

The Highland Games portion of the afternoon.  Tossing a heavy ball and chain.

Emilie practicing

A bagpipe band turned up to inspire the Highlanders

Bex lending a hand

Kilts abounded.  Look carefully and you can see the heavy stone they were tossing up and over the rope.

The Big Man. He was tossing a larger stone than anyone else. Here he's wiping his hands on his buddy's kilt rather than his own. Auf die Plätze.....

...fertig....

....los!

Falconry demonstration

One bird was very naughty and refused to land where he was supposed to.  Here he is on a flag instead of on the glove of the boy in blue.  At the end of the show, he flew to a very distant tree and would not come back.  The man giving the demonstration just left the field assuring us that his bird would come back eventually.  Yikes.

It was time for the main event -- the Knights' Tournament. Check out the drummer's shoes.

Marching in the Knights' flags

Rebecca said, "Hey! I like that girl. She could be my friend!"

Parade of local and foreign dignitaries

Why not a camel, too?

The hostess and a participant in the tournament, Susannah of Katzenelnbogen.

The challengers

Saluting the crowd.  Oh, no!  It turned out one of the challengers was Adelhaid, Susannah's estranged sister.  They were battling for control of Katzenelnbogen!

This knight caught my eye right away with his intensity.  He ended up playing the role of the bully -- snarling at the crowd and intimidating the other knights.

Using a sword to knock down targets.  Only Susannah was successful in spearing an orange at the end of the run.

Trying to calm the tension between the two teams

Meow! or rather Miau!

I wanted to yell "Hübschling!" at my intense champion, as random people yell at the newly handsome Squidward in the German "Two Faces of Squidward" episode (rough translation is hottie). But my children would have never have forgiven me.

Trying to capture as many rings as possible.

It's hard to see in the photos, but these horses were running at a near-full gallop.

Aiming for a squire-held shield

My Hübschling needs to settle down a bit.

Racing to be the first to set a target on fire

Practicing for the joust

Saluting opponents

Go, Hübschling!

Hooray!

At this point, Becca became frightened and began to cry, asking to go home.  The thumping music, intense fighting and scary-looking horses all served to terrify her.  We moved back from the field and I wasn't able to take pictures of the next event -- everyone had a bag of sand (really just bags of hay, but we pretended not to notice when one bag split open) and tried to knock other knights and the ladies off their horses.  The sisters even engaged in some hair pulling.  Miau!

In the end, the Susannah and Adelhaid reconciled and Katzenelnbogen was at peace once more.

All Knights and Ladies galloped through fire to end tournament.

A friendly little dragon

Young squire

Checking outhe the 15th century version of Nike clothing

Sir Emilie and her squire -- a still shaken up Becca.

The fellow on the left sang like a Buddist monk. James thought that was very cool.

And right as we left, it began to rain. Perfect timing, perfect day.

Moving Home: Putting the cat back in the bag

During these past three years living abroad, we have indulged our children and ourselves with things, in particular technology, that we would probably not have if we had remained in the U.S.

For example, Micaela, James and Emilie all have their own e-mail accounts and Micaela and James are on Facebook, all as a way to help them stay connected to their friends back home. David and I are also on Facebook. Would we be if we hadn't moved away?

And cell phones. Micaela and James both have them and they have been a godsend. Pre-cell phones, I would spend an hour every afternoon trying to located my kids at their school. They could be anywhere and were never together. Once I located one, I would misplace another. I was often in tears those first few months as I made round after round of the school, with a heavy toddler on my hip, searching the playgrounds, gymnasiums, restrooms, music rooms, cafeteria, locker rooms, etc. for my children. Now, I put the responsibility on Micaela and James. When I'm stopped at the railroad crossing down the street from the school, I call one of them and say, "I'm at the railroad crossing. Find your siblings and make your way out to the parking lot." Works like a charm. I don't even have to wake a sleeping Rebecca up and can just wait for them in the car.

And to think that we had balked at first when Micaela requested a cell phone. But we began to see a pattern. James' soccer practice would be canceled and Micaela would not have the 1 Euro to pay the receptionist to make a phone call and would end up borrowing one of her friends' cell phones to call me to come pick them up early. It wasn't fair to the other parents to have our kids always using their kids' cell phones.

We also let the kids chat over the internet with their friends back home and with their friends here, too. There would be no need for this if we hadn't moved. They would have been living in the same neighborhood as their friends and could have spoken to them in person.

As for David and me, we each have a Kindle e-reader. I doubt we would have them if we hadn't moved, as I frequented the library and David didn't have time to read books much. But I was spending too much money on English-language paperbacks at the mall and was often frustrated when I couldn't find what I was looking for. The Kindle was the best birthday present I have ever received.

And DVDs. I buy a lot of kids' DVDs here, more than I ever would have bought in the U.S., so that we can watch the movies in German once we're home. It would be one way to keep up their German. But given a choice between the English and German track when watching an American-made movie, will they really choose the German one?

Then there is traveling. We've been to some amazing places: Paris, Venice, skiing in the Alps, touring Harry Potter locations in London, Rome, Berlin. Will it be a big let down to spend vacation at home once we're back in the U.S.?

If we had remained in the U.S., I may have discovered podcasts, but I would not be blogging.

And even our navi, our dear navi. Before we moved here, navigation systems seemed to be such a luxury -- not necessary, but nice. Here, our navi has been an absolute necessity. Our first two weeks in Germany I got lost every single time I left the house. It took me driving the kids to school at least 7 times before I made it there without taking a wrong turn somewhere. I panicked and was in tears constantly while on the road -- unable to exit an autobahn without being put on another highway, turning down one-way streets, not understanding priority, ending up yet in again in the middle of Frankfurt when I was just trying to get to our local mall. You just don't understand how confusing driving can be here unless you've tried it. I don't think I would have made it here without our navi.

So, can we backtrack at all? Is there a point? My friend Sue told me that I have little to no chance of taking the cell phones away from the kids. "Every kid over 10 has them now," she told me. Micaela could be tooling around the city in a golf cart with friends and it would be nice to be able to tell her to pick up a gallon of milk on the way home.

And what would be the point of not using our Kindles? I guess at the least, I won't feel the need to buy DVDs, except for the good Pixar, Disney and Dreamworks movies, which are almost all the movies I buy anyway.

Of course we'll let the kids continue on Facebook and chatting on the computer because they have made such great friends here. As for traveling, it'll be back to camping in our pop-up. The kids said, "That's OK, Mom. We actually like camping!" Was all that traveling to amazing places totally lost on them?

Blogging? Not sure yet. I'll cover our repatriation which we have been warned can be more difficult that adjusting to a new home abroad, but beyond that....is there a point? We'll just be living a normal life again. And we will definitely be using our navi back in the U.S. After all, I won't know where anything is in our new town and it will just make things less stressful.

I guess we can't put the cat back in the bag. Or else there's just no reason to even try.