Schloss Moritzburg

The next day after yet another early start by our vacation standards we went to visit the Moritzburg palace outside of Dresden. There is a smaller palace called the Fasanerie which was built as a bit of a toy for the royalty. We weren't allowed to take pictures in either place but as you can see I may have bent the rules a little at Moritzburg.
When John was purchasing tickets for the Fasanerie they asked if we needed a child ticket for me! The cut of age was 18, apparently the eye cream is working.

Festung Königstein

After visiting Pfaffenstein, we went to visit a fortress up on a plateau. We took a trolley up the mountain side and then wandered around. It was a beautiful day and quite nice to wander around and learn about the history of it, most of which I have forgotten. :) Anyway, here are pictures.

Comprehension

While in Cottbus, we stayed with John's host family. When I had met them a few years ago, neither of the parents spoke any English. Now they speak a little bit of English. For the first couple days, they tried to speak in English to me but we had quite a few miscommunications. Then they just spoke German and John translated every now and then.

During the visit, I tended to "tune out" when John was talking to the family. I watched their facial expressions, gestures, and other non-verbal signs to try to get the general meaning of the conversations. Sometimes I did, sometimes I didn't. When I couldn't get the general meaning or people seemed in deep conversation, I just tuned out, thought my own thoughts, or watched them talk. I was frequently reminded of a study that I frequently quote when giving presentations on the importance of visual information for people with communication difficulties. The study, done in 1998, found that only 7% of meaning is in the actual words said. That means that 93% of meaning is derived from visuals and other factors such as they way things are said (voice volume, tone of voice, prosody, etc).

By the end of the visit, people commented that I seemed to understand their conversations quite well. However, I don't think I did. I just tuned into the 93% of the meaning, laughed when others laughed, and mirrored their facial expressions. That made them think that I understood the actual language said.

This experience made me wonder if this is a part of what my clients/students experience. At first, I felt frustrated and utterly confused at not being able to understand the language. Then I just tuned out. Then I watched for other cues. If we had stayed longer, I probably would have understood more (but I kept thinking in Spanish). But then, I probably would have gotten more frustrated at times as well. And at least I had a translator to explain things to me. It is no wonder that some of my clients display challenging behaviour.

What I found most interesting was that my communication partners highly overestimated my comprehension of German. I also find that happens in disability. People associate overall language comprehension with social skills. If a person is social and able to negotiate a social situation/have a conversation, then they think they understand other things/everything. However, this is not always the case.

Pfaffenstein, part 2

Here are more pictures from the hike.

Pfaffenstein

On our second day in Germany, we were taken to Pfaffenstein to got hiking. It is a rock formation, possibly a low mountain range. We started our hike by going up a trail. We then climbed steps. And more steps. And more steps up the rock. Some places got quite narrow but it was absolutely beautiful. The trees actually reminded me of when we used to go hiking up in Northern Wisconsin on summer vacations.

Once we basically reached the top, the host father asked if we wanted a radler. I thought he meant once we reached the bottom of the hill. Nope, he meant at the top. There was a pub on the top of the mountain/hill!! So, we stopped to enjoy a radler in the nice sunny weather. We then explored the top of the rocks and headed over to a well known rock, Bararine. We weren't able to hike out to it but were able to get a bit of a view. We then hiked down the back side of the rocks and had a much easier climb down. After we finished, we stopped at the pub at the bottom of the formation for lunch.

Cottbus, day 1

We arrived into Berlin pretty early on a Saturday morning since we had one of those nasty 6:30 AM flights. John's cousin had stayed with use the night before and her flight from Spain was late so we ended up only getting about 1 1/2 hours of sleep! Needless to say, we were quite wrecked.

Anyway, we got up god awful early and took a taxi to the airport. While at the airport, we saw a child being carried by a man. The child was making strange noises and pale. I thought he might have been seizing but I'm not sure. The man set the child on the floor and when I looked back again, he was doing rescue breathing. Ambulances arrived a couple minutes later. I really hope that the child was OK and able to be revived.

So, back to the story. We arrived in Berlin, got our rental car and headed out to Cottbus to stay with a family that John had lived with for a year when he was a teenager. We arrived and they had this large dinner of pork roast, sauerkraut with pineapple (really tasty), and potato dumplings. After dinner, the "guest dad" suggested we take a long bicycle ride. I suggested we take a nap, especially after such a large meal. We opted for the nap but went for a bicycle ride after the nap. We then sat outside (it wasn't raining!) and had a barbecue. It was a wonderful evening.

The pictures are from a park near/in Cottbus. It was a wonderful bike ride through the park. Note, both John and I took pictures on this trip and I am not going to try to differentiate who took which pictures. They are all "our" pictures (John is getting quite good at photography).

Potential

Throughout my life, I have been able to see potential in things. I see a situation or object as it is currently, but I also see "what could be." As a child, this meant taking a scrap piece of fabric and draping it on my dolls to create different clothes. I could make a dress, a skirt, a shirt, etc from a piece of fabric without sewing it. In school, my thinking/seeing in terms of "what could be" made me a better student. I am curious and enjoy learning. I was an avid reader and read the novels assigned to my sister (she was 6 grades ahead of me) when I was in middle school.

In my personal life today, I sometimes see in photographs. Light catches my eye and I find myself framing the image, whether I have a camera or not. Sometimes I will pause to look at how things appear from different angles. It also affects my knitting but not quite as much yet. I see yarn that I like and I think, "What could I make with that? What other yarns could go with that?"

In my professional life, this ability to see "what could be" is a double edged sword. It helps me to be able to see potential in the people that I work with. It also helps that I can see that small changes can have a large impact on people. It aids me to be driven in my work because I see myself as a work in progress, always striving to improve and be better at what I do. The challenge is that I frequently see the potential in a situation and can get down when reality is a long way from the potential. I get quite frustrated in these situations, especially when I don't know how to help the potential to become the reality, or at least a bit closer it. However, the most frustrating is when others appear to not want see the potential or strive towards it.

The poncho

Before posting more on Berlin, I am going to post pictures of the finished poncho. I am really impressed with how it drapes and it is fun to play with. Lisa took pictures of me modeling it and playing with the bottom of the poncho and I really hope that K likes it. It got mailed some time last week so hopefully she got it before going to camp this week. If not, she'll get it when she gets back from her week at summer camp.

I am also really proud of this project because it is my biggest and first "real" garment. OK, I made the hat but that is an accessory. :) This project, I modified from the beginning and had to rip a few times and then modified again. Finally, I got a finished project...

Back in Lodi again

Today we got back from a bit over a week in Berlin/Cottbus Germany. For those of you have been reading a while, you know that means LOADS of pictures! I tried really hard to fill my 2 gig memory card and may have if I hadn't run out of battery power instead! I had three camera batteries at one time but seem to have lost one and I guess I need the third if I am ever going to fill the 2 gig card (which is a personal mission). Still, we managed to take over 1,000 pictures on my camera. Yep, that's over 1,000 pictures to sort through, rotate, and decide which ones make the cut for posting. Guess what I'll be doing for a long time (after my battery recharges enough to transfer the pictures)

So, we had an early morning flight today (but not as early a the one going to Berlin), got back early afternoon, got a bit of lunch and then promptly spent an hour reading all the email from the last week! The kitties also demanded a bit of attention once they got done being mad at us for leaving in the first place. Now, we just need to motivate to start laundry, charge camera batteries, buy food, sort through the massive amount of yarn I acquired in Berlin...

Gee, a nap sounds pretty good.

Happy Friday

Today is a Friday before a bank holiday weekend. That is the August Bank holiday and the vast majority of people in Ireland have Monday off. Hurray! Today was a good day indeed. I had an OK day at work. The sun is shining right now and it feels warm. After work, I went down to This is Knit to get a bit of advice on how to fix some mistakes (that I don't know how I made) on K's poncho and got some knitting needles. But the wonderful thing is that the poncho is finished! I actually took it off the needles last Friday and then blocked it earlier this week. I still need to fix the mistakes but essentially, it is done! I will post pictures of it another day. I also did a bit of shopping for my step-niece's birthday present. I found something at Boots when I went in to get pain medicine. I also found Diet Cherry Coke in the boots near my apartment. Now, I love Diet Cherry Coke and I had never seen it before in Ireland. It tastes a bit different than it does at home but it is still yummy. And now I have to clean the apartment...

Bridge collapse

Last night, a bridge collapsed in Minneapolis MN. I heard about it today. My immediate thoughts were of my sister and wanting to know that she was OK. The bridge is was on Interstate 35W going over the Mississippi River. I lived in and went to college in that area for four years. For two years, I drove on the street under that river many many days in college. It was quite eery to read about it, knowing exactly where that road goes. Tonight when I got home, I had an email to let me know that she was OK. She then also called me later and told me that she had been on that bridge earlier in the day!

Tonight, I looked online a bit more and found some pictures on the BBC website. The pictures tell more than the stories probably could. It is just amazing that a relatively small number of people were hurt and killed considering it was rush hour and the bridge was probably packed. I hope that the recovery efforts go as well as they can.

Shopping

In September, we are going to a wedding at home. I recently found out that the attire is "cocktail." I didn't really know what that means and still don't really even after a Google search. My friend Ci is going to a wedding the same weekend and also needed a dress to wear to the wedding.

Last night, we went to a "color me beautiful" party at S's house and learned what colors are supposed to look good on us, what style of clothes to wear, and what our body shapes are. Armed with this information, Ci and I went shopping today after work. We headed out to one of the bigger shopping centres and shopped. And shopped. And shopped. Ci found a dress at Monsoon that looks absolutely fabulous on her. I found an outfit with potential at Coast but didn't buy it. We then had dinner and shopped a bit more. At 8:45 PM, we went back to Coast and I bought this top and this top to go with the skirt and have 28 days to return it if I find something better. I do like the outfit, though.