While I don’t consider myself an opera fan, the generous invitation of a friend to accompany her to the 150th anniversary of the legendary Wagner Festival in Bayreuth was an offer I couldn’t (or at least didn’t) refuse…
Category: Germany
Knut & Ute
Knut and Ute are farmers living in Germany’s Zittau Mountains, a gentle, Catskill-like range that stretches across the ‘Three Corner’ region…
Americans Abroad
Most Americans are descendants of individuals who left their homelands due to discrimination, famine, greed, poverty, war, or (in the case of many with Irish and African roots) colonial dispossession or enslavement. Perhaps the restless longing for a homeland and community—a reassuring sense of rootedness—is what shapes the American character?
Wish Fulfillment
Have you ever wished for something for as long as you can remember? Not with an intense, burning desire, but more with a relaxed, unconscious, and unexpectant vigilance…
Stolpersteine
I thought everyone knew about them but apparently not! Stolpersteine (literally ‘stumbling blocks’, singular Stolperstein) commemorate individuals (mostly, but not exclusively, Jews) who perished in the Holocaust…
German Expats
German Expats, particularly those hailing from Dresden, played decisive and undervalued roles in the development of Neoclassicism in the eighteenth century…
Gardening
I am happily surprised by the joy I derive from gardening. My father would have observed dryly, ‘I told you so’…