Yick. Life in the City.

As the snow is melting, and debris comes to light, this is what I saw when parking in the center of
Otto-Sur-Allee, when about to run into the Rathaus to take my language course. Not the most appetizing sight to see, while juggling my coffee,roll, and books! At least it wasn't my tire that had squashed it flat! Looks like Rattus Norwegicus to me, although strangely small compared to the ones I am used to in New York City. Perhaps a baby?

Sweetheart

Holiday camp included a day at the Planetarium and another day at the movies, but this day's activity was baking. It was a type of Lebkuchen, so it was inedible, but T1 enjoyed making, cutting out, and decorating them.

(Unfortunately, even though Lebkuchen sound great on paper, we have never had one that tasted any good. I know they must be out there, somewhere. And no recipes that I have seen actually include either ginger or molasses, so I don't know how they can be called "gingerbread".)

The Pergamon Museum and the 'Tell Halaf Adventure'

Pergamonmuseum (Eingang), Museumsinsel Berlin-Mitte

© Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. Foto: Maximilian Meisse

The Pergamon Museum is another of the Berlin State Museums. This collection of museums is just inspiring. Continuing on my quest to explore more of Berlin, we chose to visit the Pergamon

Museum (this Wikipedia link is out dated,it looks to be from 2006— sorry).

I took the quick tour with the audio guide (a bit over 30 minutes), which hit most of the major highlights: the Pergamon Altar, the Miletus Market Gate, and the Ishtar Gate and Processional Way (entering Babylon). The photos you see here are my own if not otherwise credited but they aren't as good as the ones you can see at some of these links. The huge architectural elements were overwhelmingly impressive. In particular, as I walked the processional way, which was actually only a fraction of the size that the real entryway to Babylon was (the real layout would not have fit within the Museum). As I waked along the Processional way, realizing that the larger second gate was still in storage and that the majority of the artifacts were actually either in storage or dispersed in other museums, I was still in absolute awe. No wonder that Psalm 137:1 "By the waters of Babylon, there we sat down and wept, when we remembered Zion." Being brought, enslaved , into Babylon must have been the beginning of the process of mental destruction as agrarian herders were enslaved and
brought into what was an immeasurably more advanced (Bible Map) civilization.

After spending time wandering in awe through these monuments, and hearing (through my audio guide) about the damage inflicted due to structural damage to the museum in the war- (particularly to the Market Gate, whose glass roof was destroyed, leaving the gate, which had been hollowed out for display, open to the elements), we were ready to proceed to the main exhibit: the Tell Halaf Adventure.

Tell Halaf was "discovered" by Baron Max von Oppenheim, the scion of a banking family who had no desire to enter the family business. Instead, he entered the German Foreign Service and was enamored of all things Middle Eastern. In 1899, he discovered Tell Half, adrift in the sands, and reserved a digging permit with the authorities. Interesingly, the exhibit makes it clear that he eventually reached an end point in his career because of his Jewish background and turned instead to his true love: a search for knowledge and understanding.
The on-line link says instead:

Ten years after the discovery of the tell the Ottoman authorities urged von Oppenheim to start exploring the site as French and British parties were now signaling their interest as well. Consequently in November of 1910 Max von Oppenheim handed in his letter of resignation to the Foreign Office in order to prepare the task that was ahead of him.

Not quite the same connotation.

In any case, the project is wonderfully detailed in German, English and French here
and well worth reading about. Baron von Oppenheim could have been Indiana Jones, except that he was an ethical and extremely methodical archeologist, not a hit and run exploiter looking for a profit. In fact, his doting parents and the Oppenheim bank funded his work, while he painstakingly recorded the flora and fauna and native songs of the area, as well as worked with professionals at the highest level of science at that time.
Oppenheim worked with the government and his share of the excavations were brought back to Berlin, where he exhibited them at an iron foundry. There are wonderful photos and video of the actual exhibits. However, in 1943, the foundry was bombed. The combination of extremely high temperatures and the water from the fire trucks made the basalt statues explode into thousands of pieces and the pieces were tossed in the basement of the Pergamon and other storage areas until after the fall of the Wall, when they were once again accessible and thought was turned to the possibility of reconstruction.
It's just sad how things that remained unbroken for 4500 years were destroyed and amazing how they have been reconstructed (where possible). It's not just the exhibited statues that are so interesting, but also the story, as we know it, that is so fascinating. Do check the project itself out.

(In a fascinating side note, the goddess statue that you see above is on loan, for the first time, from Syria. Because as they were assembling the fragments in Berlin, 60 years after the destruction, they discovered that some of the fragments which had originally been brought to Germany by van Oppenheim in the original separation of the findings, as per agreement,were part of statues that were partially assembled in Syria! After being re-shipped to Syria, this statue was able to be completely reassembled for the first time.)

Where should unwanted books go?

16 by 13.5 by 14 (inches, because I can't find my metric tape measure), holding 54 books.

I've been trying to figure out what to do with the books that I don't want to keep for ages. I have an innate inability to discard books that I think are worth reading (and perhaps even some with not so much intrinsic value). I also have a lot of books. At home, I would donate them to libraries, give them away, take them to my local hospital (my favorite), trade them at used book stores, offer them to friends.
Here, where I am generally wandering about on foot, I tried calling a few charitable stores such as Oxfam and Humana to see if they wanted my books. I was told to "bring them in and we will look at them".

Well, books are heavy— I don't want to have them rejected and then have to carry them home. I asked a used book store that specializes in English books as well and they told me the same thing. But really— I don't need to trade them in for store credit. At the moment I have too many dead tree books floating around: my shelves are overflowing. I listed them on Amazon and sold about a book a week for the last two months: it's been driving us crazy having this box full and overflowing for months.

So today, while the German was here to provide the muscle, I called a library, made an appointment, and ran them over. The woman we had spoken to said that they would need to examine them first to decide whether they would want them, but she took all 54 and seemed very happy to have them: the German says that he thinks that she was very surprised at the condition they were in (near perfect) and that he thinks people attempt to donate books in terrible condition.

And Monday I dropped two bags of clothes off at Oxfam, so at least some things are leaving the house and I hope to good homes!

Holocaust Remembrance Day

Every day as we enter and leave our apartment building, we step over what is called a "stumbling stone". This is a continuing and growing work of art by Gunter Demnig, a Berlin artist living in Cologne. This reminder of those taken and murdered by the Nazis began in 1990 with the trail of 100 Sinti and Roma taken and now is in multiple countries and continues to grow: So that none may be forgotten. Although I know her name, and repeat it, I have blurred it out here as it would identify our doorstep. But every day I see her name and know that she was taken from her apartment in my building to be murdered.

On the 27th of January, International Holocaust Remembrance Day, I returned from running the children to school and saw these flowers upon the step, with a tea light that had probably been lit the evening before. The sheet of paper that you see is the story of this woman, of how she was taken, of how those friends who had moved in with her after their own apartments had been bombed were then dispersed when this building was damaged in a bombing and how they then, each in turn, were taken and murdered in separate death camps by the NSDP.

Every day I live here, every day I live in Germany, this is something I know and that I remember.

(I asked someone else in the building who had left the memorial and they did not know. I can't imagine living here for years and not knowing. I'll ask at the Rathaus after school vacation. It mkes me feel better knowing that there are people who care to remember.)

Life in the City: Karl Friedrich Strasse

The parking meter outside the VHS where I take my German lessons. I guess that someone really needed some change.
February 2nd.

Raising "multi-cultural" children

Over at American Expat in Deutschland, Christina raised some thought provoking questions about what it means to raise one's children as an expat, or in a multi-cultural environment:

If you were raised in a multicultural environment:

1. Describe, briefly, your upbringing.-- When I grew up, there was no such thing as a "multi-cultural environment". What there was, was life. My dad was a Shoah survivor, my mom was the child of refugees from the Russian empire and its pogroms. I was raised as an American, but always knowing that America was a melting pot.
   
2. What do you think your parents did well?--- They created a life out of nothing, they showed me how it is possible to be rootless and to succeed, they gave me a solid foundation of love to use as a ground. The ensured that my siblings and I knew, to our very deepest souls, that we were American and that we were Jewish and that there were no contradictions at all between those two. My father, especially, coming from a world where there was no equity or justice, raised us to believe in a morality and equity that he was not raised with.
   
3. What do you think your parents could have done better?--- I regret every day that I grew up with parents who spoke, between them, 9 languages, yet I only learned English. I think they should have made more of an effort to ensure that I spoke at least yiddish, if not Hebrew or Russian or Czech, or any of the languages that would have allowed me to feel more deeply rooted in a past that had already been destroyed by external forces, and to connect to the still remaining far flung pieces of my family. But they lived in a time when this was not considered appropriate for Americans, especially when Eastern European languages were considered to be "lower class", and they did what they thought was best for their children.
4. What would you do differently given the same situation?--- How can I say what I would have done? Living at that time and from their backgrounds, I hope that I would have attempted to build a stronger social network, to root myself in neighborhood more. But here I am, in a foreign country where I am not a native speaker, and my roots are only in the topsoil. I am ensuring that my children are fluent in the language of both their parents, we have moved to ensure that they form a strong bond with a large part of their family, and they are solidly implanted in a school that will nurture their identity and allow them to feel more strongly their heritage.
   

If you are raising your children in a multicultural environment:

1. What parts of your culture do you most want passed on to your children, or are you happy raising them only in the dominant culture?---I think that I am not necessarily the average expat parent at whom these questions are aimed, because as a Jewish American I am an alien in every culture, including my home culture. Although we made a point of putting the children in a German school, they are in a German Jewish school, so they will never sing along with the "Drei Königen" songs, and probably not have any memories of St. Martin's Day Lanterns, Öster Häse, St. Nikolaus, or other German traditions that are Christian-based. The decision we made to not put them in the German-American school but rather in the German-Jewish was a difficult one and we will need to ensure that the kids have more exposure to America and the American way of thought as they grow older because we made that decision. We would not have raised them in "the dominant culture" in the US either, although as the American culture is not religiously based, they would have absorbed it in every interaction and experience.
   
2. What are you doing differently than parents in the dominant culture?--- I don't live within the dominant culture, so I'm not certain what those parents do. I see so many different ways to "handle" children, just by those Germans that I know. I'm comfortable saying that I seem to listen to my children more, allow them to make decisions on what I consider minor issues but which they consider important more, and am less didactic. But that could simply be a function of who my kids are and who I am. I do know that my children appear to be more open and friendly than German children in the "dominant culture", but that is also probably a function of our frequent moves and modeling: I'm pretty free and easy at chatting with strangers, compared to the general German.
   

It was interesting to think about these questions and it will be interesting to see if my thinking changes in the future. Thanks, Christina.

The permanence of print and the requirement of thought

Matched by Ally Condie (11/10 DTArc):
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (written 1950, enlarged and published as a novel in 1953, my version 2003 with multiple afterwords by the author):

I reread Fahrenheit 451 for a new book club. It must be almost 30 years since I last reread it, with the other classic dystopian novels such as 1984, Clockwork Orange, Animal Farm, Brave New World, Anthem and, of course, 2112. I am amazed at how topical it manages to be, as the latest controversy surrounding the expurgation of Huck Finn sweeps the internets. In exactly this context, Bradbury discusses in an afterword how vehemently opposed he was to allowing one of his characters to be portrayed as a woman rather than a man, that bending to the sensitivities of multiple minorities will allow the destruction, basically, of independent thought (in the novel, this is one of the original groundswells that allowed the beginning of the destruction of literature as a form of coherent and critical thought).
Yet, when I read him saying that, all I could think was that although I had enjoyed reading the novel, although so many of the thoughts and even technological visions are blindingly accurate and still both timely and prophetic, that Bradbury is indeed a child of his time and that he is not able to step beyond that time.
In a specific example, one which struck me as a blow, there is one point when Guy Montag has fled the city and encounters five older men sitting around a fire. (SPOILER)
These men are former professors and thinkers and are now part of a movement where they are the actual embodiments of books: rather than attempting to save the physical structures of information, they have read the books and recite them to retain the knowledge for future generations after the anticipated implosion/conflagration of current society.
The question is: why must these be five men? Would the story be altered in any way if one or even more of these "wise white men" were women or recognizably belonging to other groups? In no way. What would change is the immediate blow that I felt when reading this, as I recognized the subsuming of women into the male as a generality and the erasure of women as a respected part of reality (rather than the women seen in the novel who act as 'types'—as a catalyst or an exemplar of passivity and hopelessness, rather than thinking and reasoning individuals).
In very much the same way, as I read individuals fighting against, saying how horrendous the concept is of, changing the 'N-word' in Huck Finn to slave (and, I believe the derogatory epithet of 'Injun' to another word), I wonder if they belong to that group. I'm one of the minority that sees no problem in having different versions of works: certainly I read enough Little Golden books in my time. Just last week on the BBC I heard that the Malaysian government, after requiring a certain book be taught in school, needed to expurgate a passage because it was inciting racial disharmony.

Well, I have no desire to have my children in grade school, middle school, or perhaps even ordinary level high school "English" class being required to read and to have their classmates read, books that contain vile words that are meant only to hurt them. Below University level, I don't trust the teachers, the system, or the students to adequately deal with that nor do I want my children exposed to the blow after blow of being forced to read or hear read aloud, a word that is like a rock against the body. In the case of Huck Finn, more than 210 times. I can't understand why this is so difficult to understand? The book can still be taught at University level and can be freely purchased (and downloaded— it's in the public domain, after all) where one desires. I think that it would be a good idea to have a foreword or afterword discussing the change that has been made, and why.
I can't even understand this controversy: I have bowdlerized and expurgated versions of both Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn sitting on the bookshelf in my childrens' room and that version has been available for 50 years without a ruckus being raised. And my children will read the real versions when they are old enough and mature enough, with guidance and help from me to understand how to deal with the epithets and concepts therein. In the same way that they will slowly grow to understand what the society we live in did and allowed to be done to our people only 60-70 years ago. And I won't be requiring them to read The Merchant of Venice or The Protocols of Zion in grade school, either. I would also very much prefer it that their classmates were not exposed in a casual manner to the beliefs underlying those books, for example, either.

Moving on to look at Fahrenheit 451, there had been discussions in the last decade as to refilming it. One of the issues discussed (and this has been going on for more than 10 years), was

there was difficulty in finding a script that would be appropriate for the film, and that with the advent of computers, the concept of book-burning in a futuristic period may no longer work.

I think that is simplistic and ridiculous, because a book is a permanent understanding, not a physical object that is needed to stand for the idea. Even within this novel, one sees the books— objects that are of themselves illegal— replaced by the mind which holds them. The objects which are currently replacing books, such as e-books and Wikipedia (which you see me citing constantly in my posts) are far more amenable to suppression of thought and dissent than any book might be: they are easily changed and there are no records of the changes. This is seen even now, when I read a lie on Wikipedia and wonder:"How many people believe this to be true? How many people use this as basic research or for basic understanding of a subject and will always believe this falsehood? And what happens if it changes next week— "truth" as understood by many, has become a movable goal. How many lies have I believed?"

Something I find very interesting is that Ray Bradbury has had over 60 years to think about and discuss and change his understanding of what he meant in this novel, but

The novel is frequently interpreted as being critical of state-sponsored censorship, but Bradbury has disputed this interpretation. He said in a 2007 interview that the book explored the effects of television and mass media on the reading of literature:

Bradbury still has a lot to say, especially about how people do not understand his most famous literary work, Fahrenheit 451, published in 1953... Bradbury, a man living in the creative and industrial center of reality TV and one-hour dramas, says it is, in fact, a story about how television destroys interest in reading literature...

Interestingly, before I had seen that I would be reading Bradbury's book, I had grabbed Ally Condie's Matched from my shelf of unread ARCs. This is a YA, aimed at 12+/7th grade and up. The plot is that in an unknown future (SPOILER), individuals are "matched" by Officials in the Society. They are matched with their mates, with their work, and with their place in society. The book is a fascinating mixture of 1984, Fahrenheit 451, A Brave New World and other classics with a similar theme but written for a modern (and younger audience). In particular, there is a scene when the protagonist, Cassia, is being taught to write by a friend who is an Aberration (and thus unmatchable- if he were an Anomaly, he would be destroyed/exiled). She can, of course, read. In fact, she is a talented Sorter and will probably become an Official herself, as he parents and Grandparents were. Her father's work is burning undesirable Artifacts, such as books, poems, and artwork: the Society chose a model 100 of each form and Simplified the remainder away. Writing is never learned because every individual has a reader that travels with them at all times, art is done only in school and is erased after creation while the brushes are chained to the terminals. Print outs of instructions and orders degrade within a week and the only item close enough to be used as "paper" is napkins, which are issued with the centrally generated meals: there are, of course, no pens or other writing materials.

And so on. As I watch the rebellion in Egypt, where the government has "turned off" the majority of the Internet (retaining that which it considers necessary for itself), it makes it clear that one way to control rebellion is to control the ability to disseminate it and that it's difficult to create a rebellion where there is no history or thought to use as a model.

I very much enjoyed this book and I'm going to send a copy to my niece, because I think that she will enjoy it as well.

But of the two, of course Bradbury's is the more thought provoking and interesting, although perhaps dated in language and the baggage of sexist underlying thought. When Clarisse mentions that there are no more porches,because then men might sit and think and speak to each other, when we look at the Walls that send noise and plot-less video with false interactions at the watchers, we see our own society and the result of the fast, relentless and unmoderated by thought, current life we lead and— it makes one think. I hope.

What I am reading: January 2011

1. Right from the Gecko (2007)
2. Who's Kitten Who (2007) by Cynthia Baxter: Fluffy and vaguely unsatisfying, which is amazing since the protagonist, Amanda Popper, is a DVM and I would usually find that fascinating. However, she is a real ditz and her relationship with her boyfriend (in law school) is tremendously unsatisfying— there's a backflash to her first proposal refusal, after which they move in together (??). Then, after they get engaged, he breaks the engagement because he's annoyed by her involvement in investigating a murder... bah.(DTM)
   
3. Dealing in Murder by Elaine Flinn(2003): I enjoyed this book about an antiques dealer who flees Manhattan for Carmel after her ex involves their business in a scam, tremendously. So much that I immediately went online to see what other books were available and to order them. When I saw that there were only three other books after this, Ms Flinn's first (she had been an antiques dealer for many years, according to the jacket copy), I started looking to see why. I was very sad to discover that cancer had taken her. The internet lets us found out many things so quickly: before I might have ordered her books and wondered at the delay in a new novel and then only after many years discovered the reason. I felt as sad as I did after reading my first novel by Laurie Colwin, to discover that there would only be a few more to enjoy.(DTM)
   
4. Still as Death by Sarah Stewart Taylor (2006): I found this such a topical read for me, as one of the themes is the difference in how the "revolution" of the 60's and 70's actually resulted in the treatment of women, particularly in academia. I've been reading about that a lot in the past year, particularly in the wake of the Polanski rape and the Assange accusations: in both cases, women I would have considered feminist( that is—believing that women should have the same rights as all other humans) (as well as the usual men who said that they were) came out swinging against the women involved, even though in the case of Polanski, he had been previously convicted (and had confessed). I have just read this interview with Steinem and Hammad which references this discussion of societal change in the late 60's through early 80's and this mystery, which had the continuing thread of what happened to a female undergrad who committed suicide in 1979, really made me think back to my own college days, not so long after this and then to graduate school, where women in my field were considered outre. I felt the writing was a bit awkward and I was unhappy with some of the character development (I hadn't read the previous three in this series), but I was interested enough to check to see if there was a sequel (and to discover that after an auctorial break, there will likely be one next year).(I was also a bit frightened, after reading of Ms. Flinn's sudden death, to become interested in a new author and discover that the characters were left hanging and the action unfinished.)(DTM)
5. Death with an Ocean View by Nora Charles(2004):This is copyrighted by Noreen Wald, so I would guess the name on the cover is a homage to Nick and Nora Charles. Kate Kennedy retired to a condo in a small town by Boca with her husband, only to lose him to a heart attack at the closing. When real estate skullduggery impacts her community, her one time sister-in-law and she are dragged into the mystery of who killed the activist in their association and Kate is dragged back into participating in life. A little rough, but not bad for what seems to be her first novel.(DTM)
6. The Ghost and the Dead Man's Library by Alice Kimberly (2006): This is a pseudonym for Cleo Coyle (which is the wife-husband writing team of Alice Alfonsi and Marc Cerasini) some of whose books I vaguely remember enjoying. This is the third book in the series and I know that I read the first some years ago. Pen McClure takes her young son and returns to her aunt and her hometown after the suicide of her husband where she discovers the wisecracking ghost of a noirish PI who was murdered in the 40's in her Aunt's bookshop. (I have a strange longing to reread The Ghost and Mrs Muir.) This story deals with the death of an elderly man who has just consigned a complete and rare set of Poe to her shop for sale when he dies in a suspicious manner. The interest in the set is intense and leads to the discovery of a belief in a treasure which can only be found through solving clues within a complete set. I can see that my apple did not fall far from the tree as I see where my mom has corrected the many grammatical errors in the editing: really, if books from Penguin can't be trusted to know the difference between the nominative and the accusative, no wonder so many Anglophones are losing the distinction. I enjoyed the book, I think it could have used some editing for plot and more for actual grammar and I found that distracting.(DTM)
7. If Books Could Kill by Kate Carlisle (2010): Copyright by Kathleen Beaver, so I'll guess that's her real name. Surprisingly interesting book restoration protagonist Brooklyn Wainwright. Wacky parents who raised her on a commune, strangely high number of colonic comments, interesting setting at a book fair in Edinburgh. I should have read the first one, though, because I feel as if I have come into the middle of the story, albeit an interesting one.(DTM)
8. A Dose of Murder by Lori Avocato (2004): A first novel by a former nurse, the protagonist is herself a burned out nurse who finds a job, through her roommate, as a medical insurance fraud investigator. Very well written first novel, interesting characters introduced and well written. I see she currently has 6 books about Pauline Sokol out and I will be interested in reading the others.--- I went out to see why she had no Sokol book since 2007 and I see she published one on-line and I recommend checking out her website here.(DTM)
9. oogy by Larry Levin(exp Nov 2010): This is the first of many ARCs I'm going to be reading, although they should all be past their publication dates by now. I need to start clearing out some of the piles of physical books I have hanging around as I continue to attempt to declutter. This is the story of how a man and his family adopt a terribly abused puppy who has been used as bait in a dog ring. Heart-warming as one might expect, touches on the family and how the couple's children, also adopted, feel about the adoption of the pet. Not terribly deep, but I'm a sucker for pet stories so I enjoyed it. (DTArc)
10. Ah-Choo: The Uncommon Life of Your Common Cold by Jennifer Ackerman (exp Sept 2010): I love stories about disease and illness. (Go read The Coming Plague by Laurie Garrett– it will blow your socks off). Even though the cold isn't quite in the category of AIDS, Hanta virus or Ebola, it was a fun read and nicely researched. (DTArc)
11. Jane: A modern retelling of Jane Eyre by April Lindner (exp Oct 2010): It's been ages and ages since I've read Jane Eyre and although I recognized the story that I remember in this "reboot", it is a much lighter and fluffier and modern re-telling. I don't know if this story can ever really have the baggage and connotations, as told in modern Western society, of what it really would have meant to be Jane, with no real recourse in her life, in patriarchal and stratified Victorian society. This re-telling didn't even attempt to deal with the real issues of class, gender, and morality that the original told so grippingly that I can still remember it after more than 30 years. Still, it was nice and light and YA (with only a tiny bit of non-graphic sex, so YA not children's). I enjoyed it, but it wasn't Brontë. (DTArc)
12. Beware False Profits by Emilie Richards(2007): The fourth in a series by (I would guess from the copyright) Emily McGee, I just didn't enjoy it. The protagonist is a minister's wife and in this case she is looking for a parishioner who has "disappeared". Lots of plot twists later, including cross-dressing, stripping, a murder and embezzlement, and there's an answer. I just couldn't work up any interest in the characters, so I won't be looking for other books in this series. (DTM)
13. Matched by Ally Condie (11/10 DTArc):
    
14. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (written 1950, enlarged and published as a novel in 1953, my version 2003 with multiple afterwords by the author): These two books got their own post.
    

The (M) stands for Mobipocket (the generic form of the file that Kindle Reads) as well as AZW and PRC, the other forms readable by Kindle. Let's leave DT as Dead Tree books. (And perhaps I should add M for books borrowed from my mother:).)I think it's clear what percentage of my reading is becoming e-format. The vast majority are also free, either as public domain or as promotional offers through Amazon and the other online sources I frequent. B stands for Baen, the best of the on-line stores by so many orders of magnitude there is no comparison.

Grüne Woche

Grüne Woche here in Berlin is one of the largest agricultural conventions and exhibitions in the world. According to its literature,

"It's the world's biggest fair for food, agriculture and horticulture."

I can certainly believe that. because after three years of visiting the expo, we have never seen more than the tiniest portion of it.
We hang out in the section with the big tractors and the forestry exhibits and then we spend a good long time looking at all the different animals and watching the horse shows. We visited the cats and watched a dog obedience show as well.

We brought along T1's friend L, and I hope that she had a good time as well.

I thought that this year I might go back alone and visit the more adult sections (where all my friends go to drink alcohol and buy fancy cheese, apparently) but the week got away from me, with class starting, museum visiting a bit of illness and a birthday party getting away. Next year!