A Tale of Oma's Determination and Haferflockenkuchen

Today is my Oma's birthday, she is 92 years young! So to honor her, today's post is another story from my fabled trip acompanying Oma across the land of her youth. It is actually the story of my 22nd birthday and how Oma yet again, inspired and influenced the direction of my life.

 So far, we had celebrated Easter with the Pope at the Vatican and spent a week in Oma's birth city, Meran, Südtirol. There, we stayed in a 300 year old house as guests of Father Eugen, the man who replaced Oma's brother, Father Stefan, who had been the presiding priest there for 60 years.

Oma was giving me a short tour of the cavernous 300 year old house where her brother lived for 60 years with his fellow priests. I then went around and tried to pry my way into every room, sure I was going to find and entrance to Narnia!

On a freezing morning of April the 18th, in the tiny Alpine village of Teisten, Südtirol where my Oma grew up, Oma and I set off on a walk to the tiny city of Welsberg, just down the mountain from Teisten. From there, we walked back up a rather steep hill to reach the 17th century castle and 11th century castle ruins on the opposite hill behind Oma's childhood home. I was deeply concerned for Oma as even though she was bundled up in a heavy coat and wrapped in a scarf, her whole face was blue! I chidded myself for bringing and old woman yet again beyond her limits. However, stubborn and determined not to let the hills of her childhood defeat her, she trudged along and climbed that hill up to the castles! In the month that Oma and I spent in Tiesten, we walked everywhere and even spotted an 97 year old, former class mate of Oma's riding her bike up a hill that I had trouble walking! I'm not lying! The fountain of youth must trickle down from the tippy tops of the Alps.

This Oma and said school friend looking at an old class photo circa 1925. I swear on my life, she was riding her bike around town!

When we reached the 17th century castle, still occupied by the relatives of the Duke that employed my great grand father to rebuild the outer castle walls and gave him the opposite hill as payment, we were saddened to find that the draw bridge to the entrance had collapsed that winter from the wieght of the snow, so the castle was not open for visitors. However, Oma was able to share her own stories from the outside of the castle, carrying stones to the building site and picking mushrooms in the woods to feed the family.

It is difficult to see, but that is not a complete bridge.

The easiest part of the wall to see that my great grandfather rebuilt.

From there, there was a trail leading up to the 11th century castle ruins. Oma was a little tired and I encouraged her to sit on a wooden thrown just off the trail. I promised to run up to the ruins, take a few pictures and return shortly, which I did. Oma however, even at the age of 90 was never one to sit around. When I returned to the wooden thrown, I found it empty! Panicked, I called out for her and she responded by yodeling half way up the hill to the ruins, which I had just run down! So I started running back up the hill, which quickly became a walk and found her much farther than I ever thought she could have climbed. She angrily accosted me for leaving her to rot on that chair! A lesson, I quickly learned was that my Oma would rather die in action before she sat idly by, letitng me have an adventure.

The 11th century castle ruins directly opposite Oma's childhood house.



The 17th century castle from the 11th century castle ruins. 

 We returned to our rooms to rest and warm up before my birthday lunch with Oma's only two remaining spinster sisters: Pia and Miranda. Their friends and care takers Frau Anna and Frau Rose were also joining us for dinner. We had a simple platter of Speck, the specialty cured meat from Südtirol garnished with quail's egg and cherry tomato "toadstools." My great aunt Miranda insisted on baking my birthday cake rather than letting Oma buy one at the bakery, she made a Haferflockenkuchen, which means "oatmeal cake." It is a dense butter cake with oats and topped with powdered sugar and more rolled oats. Oma, who usually makes her very special multi layered Rum cake for our birthdays, brought 22 candles because she was not sure that the Europeans would have them. They did, but Oma was prepared anyway. So, Oma and Miranda set my Haferflockenkuchen, ablaze with 22 lit candles in front of me to blow out. I drew a great big breath to blow out all of the candles, which I did, successfully; however, I also blew all of the powdered sugar and rolled oats off the top of the cake all over the table! Frau Anna laughed hysterically. Somehow, someone should have seen that coming....

Haferflockenkuchen

Frau Anna, Oma, and Frau Rose crossing the street.

Oma's last surviving siblings, Miranda, Oma, and Pia.

So my 22nd birthday was low key. I spent it with Oma, roaming the hills of her youth and eating at the table where she ate many meals growing up. Oma proved that day and all throughout the trip that age is just a number. May we all be so blessed as to be capable of half of Oma's accomplishments at half her age! As for inspiring the direction of my life, my birthday just happened to occur during that trip, however, every year since then, I have been blessed with the opportunity to travel abroad during my birthday. I hope to continue that trend for as long as is reasonably possible.

My Easter Story: Oma and the Pope

Happy Easter!
I spent all week in Acapulco celebrating my  birthday and spring break with Jonathan's family.  We returned to Puebla in the early morning. So my Easter was pretty low key, Jonathan and I went out for sushi.
I thought I would share a more exciting Easter story: my Easter in Rome with my Oma.
Like I have said before, in the spring of 2009 I spent almost 2 months traveling through Italy and Germany with my 90 year old grandma, whom I call Oma. We landed in Rome at 6:50am on Easter morning with no plans or reservations. It had been a long overnight flight in which Oma picked a fight with every cryying baby, their mothers and the head flight attendant; but that is a separate story.

After we collected our luggage, we were standing in the middle of the terminal, free to explore Italy. Dumbly, I flipped through my copy "Traveling through Italy for Dummies" as if some new tip appeared since I had put it away for landing. My hands began shaking as the realization that I had just traveled across the Atlantic with a mostly deaf, 90 year old woman with no itinerary. In a daze, I put the book away and found a hotel service with Oma and our bags in tow.

 "Do you speak English?" I asked the attractive young woman behind the counter.
"ah, no" she replied. Oma started telling the woman her life story and the reason for our trip, as she was apt to do. In English.
 "Speak Italian," I told Oma and in a blink of an eye, a torrent of Italian was unleashed. After several minutes, the young Italian woman turned to me and said "she reminds me of my nonna. Now, this is the only room I have for you and your nonna. It is very nice, in the center of the city. It is only 190 Euro." (which is double what we were expecting, but when you show up in Rome on Easter, beggers can't be choosers.)
So Oma paid a deposit on the room and our shuttle directly to the hotel.
We had a pleasant drive into the city with a very chatty driver. I discovered that I understood Italian very well without any formal Italian lessons at the time. The driver dropped us off at the hotel door and wished us a happy Easter.
"Buon Giorno e Buona Pasqua," the man behind the desk greeted us. Oma responded by asking when the Pope was giving Easter mass. [That was her only desire all along. Even though she lived in Rome for 13 years prior and during  the war and had a brother studying at the vatican to become a priest, so has already seen more private inner workings of the vatican than most people, she had never been to an Easter mass with the pope.]
The man behind the desk told us that mass would begin in under an hour and we should leave right away. He would take care of our luggage and we could finish checking in when we returned. Personaly, I wanted to at least change out of the jeans and sweater I had been wearing for 24 hours, but Oma had already run out of the hotel onto the street like she knew where she was going. Tha man behind the counter quickly circled the location of the hotel on a tourist map and showed me where the train and bus station was three blocks away. He meantioned something about a bus number as I ran out the door to chase down Oma. I didn't hear it.

I caught up to Oma running up the street and she asked me which way to go...  After a few twists and turns we found the buses and were confronted with the ticket system. Fortunatly, there was a british couple at the ticket machine in front of us. Unfortunaly, they were not eager to help me. The wife dryly told me to put money in and push a button as she walked away. I rolled my eyes and fiddled for a minute and finally figured out how to get two tickets. I also happened to see a sign that read "vaticano." We stood in line for a bus. When it arrived, everyone pushed, shoved and packed into it. I made it to third base with half the people on that bus.

Finally it stopped on an empty street and everyone poured out. "This must be it" I thought to myself. I grabbed Oma's arm and we got off the bus. Half the crowd went left and the half went right. I followed the right half around a corner and we walked right into a line leading directly into St. Peter's square.

Oma impatiently ducked, weaved, and cut her way through line leaving me scrambling after her. Through the metal detectors I found my self standing at the very front left corner of St. Peter's square.

Oma and I made our way to the front of the crowd, as close as the general public could get, and I could see the Pope with my own eyes.

The millions of people behind us.

At one point a crowd of Sudtirolers surrounded us and Oma's day was made!

At anotherpoint, I don't know how many hours into the mass it was, an Italian woman grabbed Oma's arms and supported her.( It was my first day on the job, I still didn't know how to take care of a 90 year old woman.) The woman turned out to be a tour guide who brought her group to the mass. She talked with Oma and held her arm the whole time. At one point Oma joined the Pope in singing the mass and the woman looked at me agast and asked "Your grandmother speaks Latin?!" "yeah, she studied it in university" I replied.
People came and went, but Oma and I stood through the entire mass and blessings afterward. St. Peter's square emptied in a second when it was all over.

After mass the Pope went out on his balcony and blessed the crowd.

Oma and I followed the crowd walking along the Tiber River until we found a little cafe that
 did not look packed. We each had a simple panini and a bottle of water. Then we walked back to St. Peter's to go inside the cathedral. The square had again filled with a rediculous line coiled around the square. I scanned the scene thinking that there was no way Oma could wait in this line, and just as I turned to ask her what she thought we should do, she collapsed face down.

I immeadiatly picked her up but she doubled over again grabbing her left leg. A vatican guard came running over to check on us. I tried to convince Oma that we should just go to the hotel, but she refused to leave. She massaged her cramped leg until she could stand on it again and the guard walked us to the front of the line. (Sometimes traveling with a 90 year old woman pays off.) We walked around and Oma told me stories of her brother and some history of the Catholic church.

Walking up to St. Peter's

Standing directly under neath the Pope's balcony.

Oma inside St. Peter's.

When we left St. Peter's I was more than ready to go back to the hotel but Oma insisted on walking to the Piazza del Poppolo like she used to with her brother. I was getting worn out and confused. My brian stopped functioning and I just hopped on the first bus, luckily, it was going to the station. However, my luck ended there. When we got to the station I realized that we ran out of the hotel so fast I didn't even catch the name. All I had was a circle on a map which I couldn't make heads or tails of. We stumbled around in circles knowing that we were close the the hotel but I couldn't for the life of me remember the name. Finally I started walking in hotels asking for help to figure out which hotel was mine. After a few indignant desk clerks, we figured out in which hotel we were staying.
I asked for a cab, cause I knew I would screw it up. Oma and I took a cab one block around the corner to our hotel: Hotel Virgili.

There was a different man at the desk, but he knew who we were. We needed to pay for the other half of our hotel room, which I knew, but Oma thought she paid for in full at the airport. I tried to convince her, but she refused to believe me. In my tiredness, I could not find the reciept, which only comfirmed to Oma that she paid in full. I was too tired to fight so I threw my ccredit card down to cover the rest of the room.

Oma started screaming bloody murder in the lobby. "You can't trust Italians! You don't know them! They lie! They cheat! They steal! They'll rob you blind! Italians are the dirtiest, cheatiest people in Europe!" Her tirade continued as I marched up the stairs. By the time we reached our room on the fifth floor she had worn out, but as soon as I opened the door, she got a second wind.

Our room was a very handsome room with green and gold wallpaper, tall ceilings, a double bed, a desk,chair and our own comfortable bathroom. Unfortunatly it was all squeezed into a tiny room so that you actually could not walk in the room. You had to crawl over the desk in the narrow hallway to get to the bed which had part of our luggage sitting on it because there was not enough floor space. Oma complained and lamented how I let us get cheated and taken advantage of, but I didn't care. I laid down on the bed in my clothes and passed out as soon as my head hit the pillow. The last thing I saw was the tiny mint on my pillow.

I awoke in the middle of the night overwhelmed by the obnoxious scent of mint and all I could think was "Oma do you have to eat that now?!"  I rolled over to see Oma applying mint Bengay to her legs. I became very familiar with that smell over a month and a half.

Achtung! Giant Mountain Eagles Have Been Spotted in the Area

In the spring of 2009, my Oma(grandma) and I went on her farewell tour of her homeland, the Alto Adige region of Italy or Südtirol as it is known to the people who live there. During and after the turmoil of war, Südtirol was claimed by many countries. In 1990, it was finally, once and for all declared a semi autonomus region of Italy. However, the people follow their Austrain heritage and speak German.

At the age of 89, Oma was probably healthier than me, but it was deffinately her last trip to Europe. Though, last year she went to Peru and climbed up Machu Picchu, crediting her Alpine mountain heritage.
Oma and I had many adventures and misadventures that trip, which amuse my friends for days when I share the stories. There are quite a few after traveling for almost two months through Italy and Germany with an 89 year old, nearly deaf, stubborn Oma without an itinerary.

After spending a week in Oma's birthplace: Meran, Italy, Oma and I travelled to the tiny Alpine village of Teisten, where her family moved when she was very young. I was excited to see the house her father had built and the castle on the next hill which I had heard so much about from Oma. I stepped out of the taxi in the driveway of Oma's house where her only two remaining spinster sisters live. Pia, now 80 and Miranda, now 79 have lived in that house their entire lives. They have never left Südtirol and only Pia has ever had a job, she is the bread winner. Miranda does the cooking,cleaning, gardening and wood chopping.

When I stepped out I was greeted heartily by both of Oma's sisters and a wall of chatter I could not understand. This was the first time I had expirienced this. In Meran I understood everything, my four years of high school German sprang back to life in an instant. This, whatever, they were speaking puzzeled me. I asked the cab driver if they were speaking German and he erupted with laughter. He explained that they were speaking in dialect. We stayed in Teisten for almost a month so I became very acustomed to their dialect but in that first hour I didn't understand a word.

Oma stood and chatted with her sisters while I looked around not able to understand what was being said. Eager to see the castle behind the house, I started marching to the back. Pia quickly came running after me and stopped me. She spoke very dramitcaly about a giant mountain Eagle, spreading her arms wide. Oma had told me at least a dozen times at that point about how giant, black mountain eales used to eat their chickens. Pia didn't want me to go back there because the eagle had already eaten several village children and she was afraid it might take me too. Immeadiately, I thought of an old Popeye cartoon I watched as a kid: "Popeye meets Sinbad the Sailor." Sinbad(Bluto) had a giant bird that he used to do his ill biding.

I stood there in disbelief with an eyebrow cocked trying to formulate the words in German for "I'm not scared of a giant eagle. I can fight it off." Luckily, before I opened my mouth and made a fool out of myself, Oma was at my side listening to Pia. I looked down at Oma as if to say "is she for real?!" and Oma said to me "isn't that great! they have a....a..... (she stumbled for the english word) peacock.
A PEACOCK?! I thought to myself... how the hell do two old ladies who hardly leave their tiny village have a pet peacock?!

Seeing that I didn't understand, Oma translated the story: they claim that it just showed up in the woods on the backside of their house as a young pult. They named it Hansi and hand raised it, but it is very shy because they think several village kids had tortured it. They didn't want me to go to the back of the house because I might scare it away and it might never come back. BOY, was I wrong!

I did go all around the house and climbed all over those hills and I never did get a good look at Hansi. Just a quick snap shot of him running away when he saw me. But the day that Oma and I hiked up the hills surronding Teisten, we heard his screach like caw ringing through the valley.