My Day as a Hostage…

Being a military family that’s constantly on the move provides ample opportunities for interesting stories and adventures… But this is bound to be, by far, the strangest Bird Experience of them all. My Dad, being responsible for yet another “mock security scenario”, thought it would be fun to include the entire family in the Garrison’s “mock security scenario!” So Drayton, Carolyn, Mom, and I got the, hopefully once-in-a-lifetime, experience of being hostages in an armed shooter scenario on Panzer Kaserne.

We weren’t quite sure what we were in for at first… To be honest, I was a little apprehensive about the whole thing. Almost as if it might be tempting fate to even pretend to be in a situation like that… And while we knew that we would be contributing to ensuring that such an atrocity never actually does happen on the base, I just didn’t know how I’d handle being held at gun point, even if everyone was just firing blanks. But we are nothing but enthusiastic and supportive of Stuttgart Army Garrison, and they were desperate for civilian volunteers, so onward we went (at the crack of dawn) to spend a day as a hostage!

They only asked two questions when we got there: Are you afraid of smoke and explosions? Are you afraid of heights? And that’s when I knew we were in for a little more than we’d bargained for. :) Carolyn and I opted for the “no heights” option, not necessarily because either of us is afraid of heights, but because at 7am the prospect of climbing out of a third story window during a fire-truck rescue just seemed like it was asking a little much of our coordination. :) But Mom and Drayton were up for the challenge! And were immediately bloodied up (ie. painted) with all sorts of gruesome injuries… Carolyn and I were perfectly happy to accept roles as “unharmed" hostages”… :) 

Carolyn and I were sent to the psychiatric clinic where the scenario would begin, while Mom and Drayton headed to the elementary school (oddly enough, the same elementary school Mom attended as        a little kid when Ko was stationed at Stuttgart almost 40 years ago!)… Carolyn and I were relieved to find that our very cute, ex-military, mock-shooter was incredibly sweet in real life… Carolyn and I found the whole process of being hostages actually rather hilarious… Before the swat team entered to “save” us, he was staging the scene, shifting us here and there at the back corner of the building where he had barricaded us in… At one point he ever, very sweetly requested, “Do one of you mind coming over by me and sitting in this chair? I want to hold a gun to someone’s head, if that’s alright?” Carolyn nearly died of laughing. ;) Our only instructions were to scream as much as possible, and do anything that could possibly challenge or confuse the swat team and police forces, when they were trying to recue us… After all, the purpose was to test their abilities to perform in difficult situations…

The actual rescue was slightly anti-climactic. We hit the ground. Screamed. And waited. Then after the shooter had been “taken down,” Carolyn and I decided to shake things up a little and make a run for it… So that’s what we did! We ran out the door. But had somehow not anticipated that there would be more armed police awaiting us… We were greeted on exit by a crowd of very loud police men with guns, screaming to hit the ground… And boy, you should have seen Carolyn drop. So enthusiastic was she in her role, that she actually scraped up her knee… Haha :) The next 2-3 hours were incredibly mundane… Lying on the floor with hands over heads, waiting for medical assistance for the very loud fellow hostage next to us who was fake-dying from a fake-bullet wound, getting our statements taken, being corralled in one spot and then another, and Carolyn even had to identify the “body” of the shooter… :)

We were finally on our way back to the assembly point for the scenario, when we realized that Mom and Drayton’s rescue was only just beginning… And sure enough, out they come from the third story window… Once on the ground, the German’s took the whole thing very seriously; Mom was even strapped to the stretcher and hauled off for “mock medical treatment!” :)

   

All in all, it was quit the experience… Fingers crossed it will be the first and last time I am ever a hostage.

We celebrated later by making a trip to the Hamburger Fish Festival in downtown Stuttgart. It was the first festival we ever went to in Germany… And it was just as delicious this year as last! :) It’s hard to believe that that means we’ve now been living in Europe for a year… Time flies when you’re having fun!!!

With Love from Germany… <3 Mary Elizabeth

Bringing on the Red, White, n’ Blue in Germany!

The Fourth of July in the Bird household is a much anticipated day of festivities… This year, it included a huge gathering of Germans and Americans from the Stuttgart area. So my mom put on her ever-favorite, “hostess-hat”, and proceeded to work magic… Turning our home into a gorgeous testament to everything wonderful about American culture… Sunflowers, old-timey Americana, her famous ribs (with secret sauce, of course!), my homemade macaroni and cheese, and her blue-ribbon “Very Cherry Berry” Pie! :) The Germans were in for a treat!

And then in the midst of our preparations, just as the house was transformed and we were preparing to answer the door, I met with an adversary of unimaginable proportions: The beer cooler. It was a short-lived battle that occurred in the garage… And afterwards, all I had to show for my failure to conquer, was a very purple, swollen, and broken toe. But the show must go on!… :) Because nothing halts the Fourth of July in this All-American house!

Once the party was rolling and everyone had been stuffed with delicious food, the Bird kids assumed their usual party etiquette, honed during years of practice entertaining military functions in our home…  And it looks something like a bee-line directly for the front door. So whilst the grown-ups chatted and drank the evening away, we headed out to the Stuttgart Fourth of July Festivities just down the street! :)

 We love the Max Fracas Band! :)

Doing something he’s probably not supposed to be doing…

I hope no one tells the Garrison Commander on him… Haha :)

 

Waiting for the fire-work show!

Mom and Robert’s idea of clean-up… Eat the left-overs away! :)

With Love from Germany… Mary Elizabeth <3

Falling in Love with London <3

I’ve now spent several days in London, rushing around the touristy sites with family and friends… Trying desperately to take it all in before my one year programme at Oxford ended… But it took a peaceful day of casually wandering aimlessly with Anna, before I actually fell in love with this amazing city… Ironically enough, one of my most precious days in this lovely country of England, was also to be my last for the year… <3

After a week of frantic packing, stressing over unknown exam scores, saying goodbye to friends, Anna and I headed to London to spend our last two days in the country savoring the city! We left the hostel bright an early (after a rather late night spent trying to just locate the darn thing! I mean literally, we got to the address and it was nothing but a run-down, empty building… Needless to say, we figured it out eventually thanks to a very helpful bar-tender in a local pub!) and meandered in the direction of Tower Bridge.

Okay. So Tower Bridge is without a doubt my favorite London site. To which Anna can clearly attest. I don’t know what it is about it… But I just found it fascinating and mystifying and completely    beautiful… Maybe it was just the gorgeous day. Or maybe it was the fact that there were almost NO crowds of tourists as we lazily meandered towards it on the River Walk. Or maybe it was that I randomly discovered a piano overlooking the River and Bridge (where I commenced to play “London Bridge is Falling Down!”). Or maybe it’s simply that it’s an iconic symbol of London and an amazing Engineering feat. Whatever it is. I love it. A little too much apparently. I just kept taking pictures. And eventually Anna had to drag me away. Haha :)

But not before we found the Tower of London on our way towards Tower Bridge! A completely accidental discovery… We simply followed the hoards of tourists, and found ourselves standing on the famous location of Anne Boelyn and Sir Thomas More (and countless famous others’) captivation and execution… So as I told Anna whilst nerdily taking photos, “Smile! Dead people died here!”

And this was her reaction when I said that… :D

 Tower of London

TOWER BRIDGE!!! :) Haha

 

And some other crazy hilarity along the way…

From Tower Bridge and the Tower of London, we embarked on the nerdiest (and thus, most amazing) wild goose chase of my life. It was the Quest to discover John Snow’s famous water pump! Now, I say “famous” with some caution, because it is completely likely that the only other people in the world, nerdy enough to enjoy such a     quest with delight are either Public Health specialists, Epidemiologists, and the occasional rouge Medical Anthropologist who paid attention in “Anthropology of Disease” last term. Haha :) Long story short, (because this should be documented for posterity sake) John Snow is considered one of the Fathers of Modern Epidemiology… A title earned when he discovered that the source of the 1854 Cholera outbreak in London was a pump in Soho. He promptly shut-down the pump (which Anna and I theorized probably caused much anguish at the time!) and saved the day! And Anna and I took on the challenge to discover said pump… Unfortunately now all that exists of this (in my opinion) historic site is a pub in his honor, and I red tile on the sidewalk… But we were quite pleased with our adventure all the same!

I found the site of the John Snow Pump!!! :)

Luckily for us and our stomachs, this expedition put us in the neighborhood of Chinatown! So we made a visit and ate some of the most amazing Chinese food ever (or perhaps we were just ravenous) … :) We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around London’s shopping districts, before heading back to the other side of the River to begin Anna’s “Nerdy Quest of the Day!”

And what exactly, did Anna (my literature turned religious studies turned Muslim studies and all things crazy ancient languages genius) wish to track down… Shakespeare’s ‘Globe Theatre!’ And it turned out to only be a short walk down the Thames River from our youth hostel! :) We showed up at the Globe expecting no more than to look around, but promptly discovered there was a show performing that very night… And we two lucky girls snagged the last two “standing room only” tickets for a whopping 5GBP! Best surprise ever! So we headed off to enjoy a dinner at a river-side pub, and     returned later that evening, tickets in hand, ready to enjoy the delights of Shakespeare in THE (replica) Globe!

She was so adorable and excited… Haha :)

Now I am ashamed to admit that I somehow made it all the way through high school, college, and an almost Masters without ever reading or seeing a single Shakespeare play… The best I can own to is that I was somewhat in love with a few of his Sonnets in high school (thanks to my favorite A&E movies and Lizzi!)… So I had no idea what to expect, or if I would like his work at all… The performance that night, of ‘Much Ado About Nothing’, however, absolutely left me near speechless it was so wonderful. I mean it was absolutely AMAZING. For one, it was just being in the Globe, and the ambiance, and standing to watch it (which, while my feet were killing me by the end, it was totally worth it for the experience!) as peasants once did… For two, it was the amazing all-star cast they had! The line-up included everyone from the butler off of Fresh Prince of Bel Air, to actors from Titantic and other Blockbusters… For three, it was the interactions with the audience… The actors would play off of the audience, use them as props, pause at awkward moments or when there was a mistake made, and literally laugh with AND at the audience… It was as if you were a prop in the comedy of it all… Seeing Shakespeare performed, on stage, with such perfect talent and wit, made it literally come alive in a new way than anything I’ve ever seen on stage. It was a wonderful end to our perfect day in London. Both Anna and I walked away in awe of London as a city…

Early the next morning… Alright, strike that… Later in the middle of the night (because my 7am flight required I be up at 3am to take a taxi and then train and then plane and then drive an hour to get back home to Stuttgart), I waved goodbye to England and Anna (ie. the reason I survived graduate school!)

This past year has been a dream-come-true… More than I ever could have wished for… I’m truly going to miss the ancient traditions, little British quirks, beautiful sites and countryside, and amazing friends I’m leaving behind in England … So I’m already counting the days til I’ll be returning to visit friends and/or graduate next April!!! :)

With Love from Germany… <3 Mary Elizabeth

Saying Goodbye to Oxford

I was in Oxford just long enough after Trinity Term to witness my first, and only, Encaenia… Encaenia (yet another Latin term!) is an annual academic ceremony where distinguished persons and alumni of the University are presented with honorary degrees.. Perhaps the more notable feature for most Oxford tourists is watching the procession of fellows across the University, and through the Bodleian Library to the Sheldonian, where the ceremonies are held… Anna and I made it into the city centre and through the tourist crowds (and around the animal rights activists who were, rather obnoxiously, picketing) just in time to catch part of the procession!…

2011 Encaenia at Oxford…

After Encaenia, Anna and I decided to make a day of lounging about Oxford enjoying the city and running little pre-departure errands… We spend the afternoon shopping, getting Anna’s ear pierced, meeting Josh for lunch, and getting fishy pedicures! Haha :) It was the strangest experience, having free time… After weeks and weeks of exam revision, just walking around the store, casually- without a care in the world felt like some kind of deviant behavior… As if we were teenagers that had snuck out after curfew. :) We were in hysterics laughing at the mere image of the two awkward nerds trying to fit in, outside our comfort-zone of the library… We were quite proud of ourselves by the end. One would hardly know that (between the two of us) we had a total of 5 academic degrees, spoke a total of 7 languages and enjoyed solving 2nd order differential equations for fun. :) And yet for two such nerdy women, the highlight of our day came from the simple pleasures of dunking our feet in a vat of tiny little fish!

We’d seen the fishy feet stand in the shopping centre before, and always passed it with curiosity… So on our last afternoon in Oxford we decided to try it once and for all! And the experience was even more strange and hilarious than all the time we’d spend attempting to “blend” in the stores… We giggled, and giggled, and giggled some more… And when the fishies were done, our feet actually were more smooth! :)

 

IT TICKLED! Haha

Later that afternoon, we headed over to the Examination Schools for our last “trashing”… And then spent a wonderful last evening celebrating everyone’s departure from Oxford (to different corners of the globe) with drinks and then a wonderful dinner of Chinese and Mongolian barbeque… It was great to have the whole gang together for one last night of laughs, ridiculous cat-lady impressions (by Benedict), and stories from the past year… :)

Heading to the Examination Schools… They almost look as if they’re walking out of the mist to save the day… Haha

 The last “trashing” of the year!

 Jackie and I on my last night in Oxford! :)

 My two favorite ladies… :) In other words, the reason I survived graduate school… Haha

 The whole gang together, to celebrate a wonderful year at Oxford!

Jackie and Josh spar it out on our way home from dinner… Who knows why or for what reason… I only recall being taken hostage for ransom at one point… Haha :)

With Love from Oxford… One last time! <3 Mary Elizabeth