Claire graduates! ... a second time!!!

Lynda and I traveled to Hanau, Germany this week for Claire's graduation from the Staatliche Zeichenakademie, where she studied goldsmithing. It was an outstanding graduation week and the Zeichenakadmie teachers and administration deserve a lot of credit. The Burgermeister of Hanau spoke as well as a number of other people... but I am getting ahead of myself. We arrived on Mittwoch (Wednesday for your foreigners or those who can't find altavista babelfish on the internet) and the students (graduates) (absolventen) were recovering form their oral exams on Dienstag. So of course there was a HUGE party Wednesday night. I will post some movies later including Sophie's 15 minutes (or seconds) of fame. Mom and I stayed up until 2 a.m. Yes, you read that correctly! We also didn't get up until 2 p.m. the next day. More on the party later, but it was truly awesome. Made us want to be young again.

After a little walk Thursday afternoon we went to the Goldener Bock for a great classic Hessen German dinner. And then we retired a little earlier.

Am Freitag morgen we got up, drank some Kaffee, and headed to look at the final projects at 9 a.m. They were ALL unbelievably good. And then the graduation. A lot of people, and I mean a lot of people, showed up - including the Baumgarts and Hutts!!!!! The speakers were good, especially Herr Koch who was hysterically funny. He reminded me of Uncle Henry. He changed outifits at least three times during his talk to effect a different personality. Someplace in there he started going on and on about Claire, and as near as I could tell with my Deutsche comprehension, it was all great. It ended with a statement, "We are Claire". (I think maybe Obama had sent Claire over to Germany to help the USA image, but I'm not sure).

Then all got their diplomas and then, to our surprise, came honors and ... Claire was up there again! Endlich (finally) Claire and her friend Anna sang a Ben Folds song to a rousing ovation (There was earlier a remarkable flute player and violing player from the school!) (Oh, also Dad accompanied them on piano).

So, I don't have access to a lot of still pictures right now as they are mostly on iphones, but here is one from the honors presentation.

I will post a movie clip or two later. Now we are in Oberstdorf getting ready to ski tomorrow morning! We had a wonderful evening with the Baumgarts, Hutts, and Faulhabers last night and saw BENEDICT!!!! today. We are so blessed.