When I last left you, the rivers were rising. Freising had just a few roads flooded, and Zolling was more or less okay. We were hoping for a flood day at school, but no such luck. Meanwhile, though, things got really rough in nearby cities such as Deggendorf and Passau. Prague and parts of Austria were hard hit. Then the floods moved north through Sachsen-Anhalt and places like Dresden, Magdeburg, etc. and finally up to northern Germany (though not bad there). I felt particularly badly for the people in Magdeburg and beyond. They knew the floods were coming in a day or two and could do little but wait for it. Ugh.
To give you an idea, the river through Haimhausen (where the school is) and through Zolling is the Amper. Pictures of the flooded Amper in Zolling below.
This is normally a drainage ditch. The overflow from the Amper flowed through here. It then busted its banks, flooded the fields on the left, flowed with considerable force and volume over this small road, and into the next field. Below is the same field over a month later (today). The road is still covered in gravel and muck.
This is supposed to be a field, not a lake. This is from the overflowing drainage ditch.
The banks of the Amper. Well, the former banks. The river was at least 4 feet higher and 30 feet wider than normal. That's a conservative estimate.
This warehouse got hit. That's a parking lot
Again, these are fields.
And this is the Amper again. Well, it's not supposed to be, but it is.
This river flows into the Isar, which is the one through München and Freising. It has wide banks and is designed to absorb a fair amount of flooding, but it was pretty rough. See pictures below.
These first two give you an idea of the speed and force of the water.
Normally this is about 6 feel lower and would have people sunning themselves along wide stretches of gravel banks.
No gravel banks. No banks at all. Just lots of rushing water.
You can see the sign marking the walking trails. Under normal circumstances this is 30 feet from the bank or so. The photo below shows the wooded area and behind it, the actual river--remember, normally the wide area behind includes not just the river, but also the wide banks full of sunbathers.
The Isar is one of many that flows into the Donau (Danube), which then flows on through to to the Black Sea. This is the one that busted its banks hardcore and flooded the city of Passau and later, due to a broken dike, Deggendorf. Shipping on the Danube was halted in many areas, places like Bratislava and Budapest experienced very high waters. Other rivers affected included the Saale, Vltava, and Elbe (thus the floods moving north).
Anyway, while we were in the worst-hit areas as far as rain, we got off lucky. A number of farmers lost their crops, we saw folks filling sandbags on the way to school, and a number of basements were flooded. We were personally not at all hit. We can count our blessings. One month later, the Isar is still a bit high through Freising (today was the best it's looked in awhile, and I figure it should be back to normal in the next day or two), and the one road is covered in mud and rocks. Otherwise things are normal here.
In the meantime, life went on here. We wrote our reports (lots of work), then I wrote an end of year professional development report (even more work!), wrapped up the year with our kiddos, packed up our classrooms, and said lots of goodbyes. This went something like this:
Wednesday, 27th--goodbye party for staff. This means awards and goodbye speeches from our colleagues. I was gifted with a report in the style of a student report from my team in which my role in the fire alarm a few weeks ago was made public. Oops. I was also given a Bavarian flag signed by the staff and an apron with Lederhosen for Gus. I also got a bottle of good Port wine (my colleague is from near Porto) and, from the school, a beer mug. Gus only got the mug, but he got a lovely speech from his colleague Carney. Gus was last on the list, so by that time many teachers had visited the open bar (extensively).
Then we all had more food and drink, looked at the yearbook (came out the next day), and danced. The cafeteria was a rockin' place! Aletta, the cafeteria lady, had us all in stitches. I was the lucky driver who took home colleagues Matt and Eddie (who apparently continued the party) and Gus. They all had a rough day the next day, and Henny didn't even come in! Anyway, good times.
Thursday we received our goodbye gifts from staff and students. Included were a bottle of Sekt and Hugo (from third graders), wine, Prosecco, and even vodka (from a sixth grader) as well lots of chocolate and other things. Imagine doing that at a public school in the US! Below are photos of some of our haul (some of it didn't last the day or was regifted before we got home). We signed lots of yearbooks. Gus even had a first grader ask him to sign. When Gus asked who he was, he proudly stated "I'm Abdul!" Gus couldn't get out of signing that one. Cute.
Friday involved going in and turning in the last of our paperwork and our laptops and said more goodbyes. Then we headed out to the Augustiner Biergarten in München, where we sat with friends saying goodbyes and enjoying each other one last time--for seven hours.
Saturday morning Bill arrived. That night I went out with our friends Suzanne and Joel and their kids and some others to watch the German women play Japan (reigning world champs--Germany won the two before that) in a friendly match. This was the lead up game to the women's European Championships next week. It was my first time in the Allianz Arena, and I had an absolute BLAST! Nice folks, good company, and a highly entertaining game made for a great evening. Gus meanwhile went out with Bill to the Weihenstephan in Freising and met up with some work folks.
Sunday we headed out to Dachau in the morning, then met up with work folks at the Weiehnstephan again. More on Dachau later, but it was another round of goodbyes.
We aren't done yet, but these have been highly emotional days. My next post will be about travels with Bill, my birthday, and more, but for now suffice it to say that we are drained, both physically and emotionally. We have met so many wonderful people and become good friends with them in such a short time, and it's hard to say goodbye. Even if we were not leaving, we would be sad--many of our friends are also moving on. That is the nature of international teaching, we've discovered. It's wonderful and terrible and we wouldn't have it any other way.
And just to give you an idea of the international school experience (more a student perspective, but I am pretty sure some of the family can relate to many of these, and many certainly apply to teachers, too):
http://www.buzzfeed.com/regajha/31-signs-youre-a-third-culture-kid
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