Mike's Ramblings

Throughout the day, I was very impressed with the routine that Erika and my Mom had worked out. Since Mom is disabled to the point where she can do very little on her own, her sister does a lot for her. As part of the treatment for the kidney failure, she has to drink a great deal of fluids to help the kidneys clean out the blood and form urine. Every hour, she has to drink a glass of water and a glass of tea, and then go to the bathroom. Erika makes the tea, then fills the water and tea glasses, and comes at the top of every hour to help my Mom to the bathroom. In between, Erika fixes the breakfast, lunch, and dinners (and snacks in between), tends the garden, cleans the house, does the shopping, does bible readings for fellow Jehovah's Witnesses, and does whatever else needs to be done. She is an amazing woman, always on the go and very well organized, and always very friendly to me. We both got along very well, and even had very similar views about most things, though her views were very much filtered by Jehova's Witness literature; she did not receive any newspapers or magazines (outside of the JW magazines) and did not watch any news on TV. My Mom did watch an hour of a news show on TV, but rarely more than that.

Today, a couple of items of interest were in the news. First, they reported about a motorcycling religious service held in Hamburg (about 100 miles south of Flensburg) every year (see German web site www.mogo.de). There were approximately 30,000 motorcycles attending, with a total of about 45,000 riders. The ride starts with the religious service in Hamburg's St. Michaelis church, then there is a ride to Kaltenkirchen, about 24 miles away, for a celebration. They had to completely close a portion of the Autobahn to other traffic to handle the motorbikes; even so, the first 'bikes were already arriving at the Kaltenkirchen destination before the last 'bikes had left the church in Hamburg!

The other item was about the Kieler Sailing Week (some info (this time in English!): www.kielerwoche.de/eng/englishdefault.htm), hosted in Kiel about 60 miles south of Flensburg, where one of the largest sailing events worldwide was being held. This event started yesterday and is going to run through to the 25th of June. Along with the races, they have a bunch of tall sailing ships on display. I love the look of these old-style sailing ships.

There are several things I find I like in Germany. For instance, I like the way the meals are done here; typically lunch is a larger hot meal while dinner is typically fairly light, such as some dark bread with cheese and sausage. That way the large meal has time to digest long before bed time. Unfortunately, it's not always possible to eat this way, since work tends to get in the way of a long lunch. I also like the sound of the church bells in the small towns. The sound often travels very far, across the valleys, and can often be heard from far away; the sound is very pleasant and soothing.