The attack of the Hochwasser

Living along the Rhine has its literal ups and downs. This week specifically saw a pretty dramatic up, as in, the water levels.

Due to heavy downpour in the entirety of central Europe last weekend, every river was running high and pouring all the extra water into the large rivers, like the Donau and the Rhine. I got back from a visit to England on Monday, having not really checked the news for several days, to find that a bunch of ship traffic was waiting on one side of the bridge because the water levels were too high for the huge cargo vessels to fit underneath. This happens with some frequency, since ships are built larger and larger and bridges are not similarly supersized. I figured there had been some rain and the river had gone up a few feet.

Ha. Hahahahaha.

See the bush? That's where the path normally is.

The ducks are having a grand ol' time.

Construction bits moved to the top of the wall

Dirt and gravel dumped in the gap in the wall.

The river is trying to sneak around the gravel!

This entire area is usually construction headquarters.

High-walk.

The fire department helpfully installed this high walk, just in case the river actually made it past the wall that was purposefully built to keep it from getting this far. You know, the construction that woke me up for a month straight when I first moved to my apartment? The huge machines I still dodge nearly every morning on my way to the bus? The wall that has cost the city a great deal of time and money, and means that my lovely view of the Rhine is obstructed by backhoes and mobile offices?

Apparently no one trusts it.

So if the water were to come up as far as the houses, the fire department would bring in steps or ladders and we could all walk high above the river, safe and dry. Then presumably I could enter through my neighbor's window, swim downstairs to my apartment, and...cook? This seems rather unhelpful for those of us blessed/cursed with a first-floor dwelling. This is presumably why my landlady lives on the second floor of her house next door and rents out the first floor.

You will be happy to know that these pictures represent the highest that the water ever came. My apartment is safe, my feet are dry, and the river is slowly returning to its usual place. It's not quite there yet - the path is still underwater, with ducks and swans merrily paddling about - but I'm hopeful that by early next week I can go for my walks along the no-longer-flooding Rhine.

(Hochwasser, literally "high water", is the German word for flooding. Where English-speakers would say that the river is flooding, Germans say that the "high water comes!")

Attack of the clowns

As you may remember from this post, Karneval (I misspelled it before, oops) is coming up in Germany and clowns are the major decoration. This is true in more than one establishment window.

Behold:

In the window of a hairdresser

And then:

A perfectly normal shop window

This one is for an interior design company. But what is that lurking on the left side?

They're everywhere.

Clearly German's haven't gotten the message. Clowns aren't funny or cute, they're terrifying. The internet confirms it.

Mr. Chuckles, please stay out of my pre-Lenten non-revelry. My dreams would appreciate it.

I'm Late! I'm Late! For a Very Important Date!

Gather 'round everyone, while I tell you the (picture-less) tale of Jessica and the Horrible Not-Workday.

It all started when she was a bit ill - nothing too serious, but maybe should stay home from school instead of going her first day back after break. This does sound rather suspicious. It is the truth. So she made the mistake of emailing her contact teacher and telling her of the situation, adding that she wasn't certain she was still contagious and could still come into school if needed.

The teacher suggested that she go the doctor to determine if she was okay. Only problem: she doesn't have a German doctor and the internet did not point her to any walk-in clinics. Happily her family is made up of medical professionals and so she asked them. They told her that with regular hand-washing and good hygiene, it shouldn't be a problem. So she tried to go to school.

The first problem came with the trains - she usually takes the :08 train into school, because they run every hour. That day (yesterday), however, she thought she'd get to school a little early and attempted to take the quarter-hour train, unsure if it was actually right but almost late for it anyways, so she couldn't stop to ask anyone. She listened carefully to the incomprehensible overhead announcement and didn't hear the name of her stop, so panicked, decided it was going the wrong way, and got off as soon as possible. It turned out that she got off at the littlest-used stop in the city, from which there were two trains: one train went back the way she'd come, and the other went the she wanted to go, but wasn't coming for another hour. Her class started in forty-five minutes. The train ride to school is only twelve minutes or so, meaning that as long as she could catch the right train it was no problem to get there on time.

So she took the train back the way she'd come and hoped she was in time to catch her trusty :08. No such luck, that train had already left the station. Frantically reading the train schedule, she ran for the next train and got on it, breathing hard, only to find she hadn't needed to run because she had a few minutes before it started off. She calculated times during her short ride and concluded that she couldn't get to the school in time if she walked. Thankfully there was a taxi stand just outside the train station, so she could take a taxi to school. Far too many euros and minutes later, she arrived at the school three minutes after classes had begun.

Normally this particular teacher was a little late, but today it seemed she'd gotten in on time. Jessica hurried upstairs and into the classroom, where she apologized and took up a place in the back. The teacher then told her that the students had a test and she wasn't needed in the class that day.

Emotions somewhere between frustration and hilarity, Jessica spent her next free hour productively and then headed down for her last class of the day. When she arrived the wrong teacher was there and the students informed her that their grade now had a different schedule to follow: that particular hour was French. Thoroughly deflated, Jessica went to go find the teacher of that class only to discover she had left a bit earlier. So, Jessica went to the store and took the train back home. This morning she learned that she did indeed need a certificate to come to school, now that she'd informed someone at the school that she was ill, and so she is writing this post and procrastinating the terrifying phone call to a doctor's office in German to ask if she can be a patient there.

Terror. Terror. Terror.