COWBOY CONOR RIDES THE WILD WEST OF KASSEL, GERMANY
Today is our first day in Kassel, Germany with Conor. It’s also his first day ever going to a neighborhood park. The slides, swings and bouncy animals are all different than in America. The slides are metal pipe slides and the swings were in a sort of pit and you would climb to the top of the artificial hill and swing into the bottom of the valley or pit and then swing up and out again. It was really fun. Later, we went to a baptism where Valerie was the godmother of her good friend, Britt’s son, Nikolaus. But for Conor, riding the German horse with his cowboy hat was much more exciting.
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VISITING THE HOME OF GRIMMS FAIRY TALES
This is Kassel, Germany. It’s not close to Berlin, Hamburg or Munchen. It’s actually in the middle of Germany, about an hour north of Frankfurt. This is the home of the Grimms Brothers. This is where they wrote and collected most of their stories. The first edition was 86 stories that were published in 1812. By the seventh edition, there’were a total of 211 stories. All editions were extensively illustrated. First by Philipp Grot Johann and after his death, the work continued by Robert Leinweber. Snow White and Hansel and Gretel were among the very first stories to make the first edition. And there was plenty of criticism on its suitability for children. After all, in Rapunzel, she asks why her dress is getting so tight around her belly after visits from the prince. Oops, that had to be re-edited on subsequent publishings. I offered to take Conor into the forest for a hike but he refused. He saw smoke in the woods and didn’t want anything to do with the cannibalistic witch.