Floods and Goodbyes

So I have to catch you up quite a bit!

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 students, 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.  I was also given a Bavarian flag signed by the staff and an apron with Lederhosen on it.  We had a staff party in the cafeteria and a preview of the yearbook.  Fun times.

Thursday was the last day of school.  I spent the day signing yearbooks and receiving thank-you chocolates and such from students.  Then it was more goodbyes as our students headed out for summer break.

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 in München, where we sat with friends saying goodbyes and enjoying each other one last time--for seven hours.

Saturday morning a good friend arrived from Eugene.  That night I went out with some friends 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 and a good break from all the goodbyes.

Sunday we headed out to Dachau concentration camp in the morning, then met up with work folks in Freising in the afternoon.  More on Dachau later, but it was another shared meal and another round of goodbyes.

For a bit about the experience of our students, look up the experience of Third Culture Kids (TCKs).