Week 33: The Mosel Runnith Over

Last weekend we made another trip out to some Weinachtsmaerkte. This time we first went to Bernkastel-Kues, which we had visited just before Thanksgiving as they were setting up for their Weinachtsmarkt. Since that time, we have had a lot of rain in our area. After returning in December, we were getting rain almost every day. Since we don't regularly pass by a body of water as part of our daily driving, we hadn't realized just how much water had fallen from the sky until we arrived at the Mosel, just outside of Bernkastel. We noticed that where we had ridden our bikes along the river earlier this summer was completely under water. And once we arrived in Bernkastel, we found the below sign at the entrance to the lot where we normally park: Hochwasser (high water). 

High water on the Mosel

We, of course, wanted to see the destruction a bit closer, so we walked through the parking lot at the water's edge, passing by the cruise ship docks that had both ends now underwater. Additionally, as you can see in the video below, the river is moving quite swiftly. And, man, does it look cold. We were very glad to be standing on the bank.

The main point of the trip to Bernkastel was to find Jason's X-mas gift, which I had seen at other Weinachtsmaekte, but was not to be found in Bernkastel, so we took a ride down to to Trier, where I found just what I was looking for: a Fruestueckbrett (breakfast board). It is essentially a small cutting board that Germans often eat breakfast from. Breakfast usually consists of bread, cold cuts, honey and fruit, so you don't have runny eggs or lots of bacon grease to contend with. Jason had been using our cutting board as a make-shift Fruestueckbrett. This way the cutting board can go back to its normal and intended usage.

The view from our bedroom after snow

On Sunday we awoke to a dusting of snow outside our window. As you can see above, it gives a nice look to our neighborhood. Since I had yet another work trip that needed to begin on Sunday night, we took a drive up to Frankfurt on the slick roads (we passed one car that had ended up in the ditch), but with Jason's New England driving skills, we made it without a hitch. In Frankfurt, we spent some time at the Modern Art Museum, where there were a number of very cool exhibits, including a collection of shadow boxes that displayed what appeared to be the contents of the artist's desk. 

Following our intake of culture, we walked through yet another Christmas Market in Frankfurt, before Jason dropped me at the airport for my plane to Hamburg. The Christmas Market was set up along one of the main shopping streets that winds through the city (the Zeil). Jason had been there last spring prior to meeting up with me when I first arrived, but this was my first visit. Since it was Sunday, all the shops were closed, but the Christmas Market provided more than enough distraction as we walked around. It was a pleasant way to end a weekend before another long week of work. 

Week 32: Weihnachtsmaerkte

It seems like two weeks behind is about how it working. So, a few weekends ago we visited our first Weinachtsmarkt (Christmas Market) in Trier. We met up with a Meet Up group of ex-pats from Luxembourg City and spent the afternoon drinking Gluewein (mulled wine), eating an assortment of German fair-style food and checking out the stalls of crafts people. As you can see in the picture below, the market is very popular, with people coming in from the surrounding area to enjoy the festivities. 

Crowds at the Trier Weinachtsmarkt

One of the problems with having a wine that is heated, is that sometimes you have to wait for it to heat up. Gluewine is not a particularly "good" wine--one of my German colleagues calls it "horrible", but he also hates the very idea of Christmas markets, so take from that what you will. It really requires being heated to taste at all appetizing. The stall that we found selling the wine for cheaper than anywhere else (it was for a good cause! building schools in Africa, or some such thing) had a problem keeping up with the demand for heated wine and we had to wait on more than one occasion for the big warming pots to do their thing. Nothing like standing out in the cold in a big crowd waiting for cheap wine that brings you closer to your fellow man. Kumba-f'ing-ya.

Present at every Christmas market (at least any that I have seen so far) is a large Christmas pyramid. While I've had the below picture for about two weeks, I had no idea, until just searching on Google two minutes ago, what it was called. Yet again, the Internet saves the day. Anyway, they can be very intricate sculptures, with many various scenes and quite a bit going on. The one below, again from Trier, is a bit simpler than some of the others we have seen.

Weinachtspyramide in Trier

Following our visit to Trier on Saturday, I was off on a work trip that Sunday afternoon to Nuernburg, which is located about a 6 hour train-ride west of us in Bayern (Baveria). Nuernburg is famous for a number of things, including its particular type of sausage (which are spiced similar--at least in my mind--to an American breakfast sausage), Lebkuchen (a type of cookie that tastes similar to gingerbread), Nazi rallies during WWII, WWII related trials and, of course, the Christmas market.

I was told by multiple people, and the Internet, that the Nuernburg Christmas market was not-to-be-missed, so I took a slightly earlier train that I otherwise would have to spend some time walking through the market. It is is a very large market, with many different crafts people and a wide selection of food. Since I was there on a Sunday evening, the crowds were light and I had a nice time wandering through the market. Unfortunately, since it was so dark out, I was unable to get any good pictures of it with my phone, but when I ran across the children's area, I saw the carousel in the below video--it has two floors! Luckily, the video is a bit more forgiving that the still camera when it comes to light, so you get to enjoy it as well. 

Another Catch Up Post

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving and didn't end up trampled under crowds on Black Friday. Jason and I were back in the States for the week of Thanksgiving. We had a great time visiting friends and family and especially enjoyed climbing at Rock Spot with Jason's siblings. One of the big events for this trip back was Jason's 15th high school reunion. The best part of that evening was the bar we went to after the reunion, where a friend's sandwich was taken by a drunk girl when he left it for a moment to go to the rest room. Her response, with a mouth full of sandwich, was: Yeah? So what? 

Jason headed back to Germany on Sunday evening, and I headed out to Concord, Mass to spend the week in the office and in the wonderful Best Western (Plus!) at Historic Concord. One of my colleagues says it smells like dirty socks. I think the smell has improved slightly with the addition of the "Plus" to the name over the last year. (One thing to note: if you are booked in a Best Western in Europe, do not despair! They are really classy joints here--the largest and nicest hotel room I have stayed in outside of Las Vegas was a Best Western in the Netherlands.)

My company has been growing recently, so there were a number of new faces in the office, including a new boss for me, who started that Monday. If nothing, I have good timing. There was also a cube realignment, which, for a space management system that is supposed to be flexible and easy to change, took a surprisingly long time to complete. I, luckily, was able to find my favorite chair and a desk to sit at, so I was content for the week.

The base from the bike trail

I returned to Germany that Friday, ready to face a busy week and jet-lag. Jason was kind enough to help keep me awake the Saturday I returned, mostly by watching TV shows with me. He was off, though, for the week Sunday, on a cultural education trip to Hamburg. I, in an effort to get my clock back to normally, went out for a  mountain bike ride in the cold and wet woods. I miraculously avoided the rain drops, and had a really nice view of the base under the cloudy sky, but was *covered* in mud on returning to the apartment, as the pictures below can testify.

Covered in mud

There is a pair of shoes under there...somewhere

While Jason was up in Hamburg, learning the details of the current German and European cultural landscape, I had a work trip that involved three cars, two trains and two planes. I supposed it really involved four planes, but 2 of them, headed to Hannover, were cancelled due to snow in Munich, and the fourth was found mostly by accident when asking in jest how to get to my next destination by the next morning. It turned out that the place I was headed, this small city two hours outside of Hannover, has an airport and the plane was leaving that evening, though delayed. Proof that it is always worth asking and that every cloud has a silver, though often slightly tarnished, lining.

Week 28: Jason Interacts with More Farm Animals

Last weekend we took a walk around the city of Bernkastel-Kues, which is really two cities on either side of the Mosel River and, like many cities in this region of Germany, has its own ruined castle looking down on the city below. We've been through here before on our bikes, when we rode between the towns (and Weinfests) of Zeltingen-Rachtig and Brauneburg. On that trip we just passed on through, so we took an afternoon to see the area at a slower speed.

Bernkastel is the less modern of the two and they were just starting to set up for their Weinachtsmarkt (Christmas Market), which started a week after we were there. (We're very excited to visit a few of the Christmas Markets once we get back from our Thanksgiving trip to the States. We've already had the Gluewein, a heated mulled wine at home.) During our wandering we came across a very narrow house from the 15th century, known as the Spitzhaeuschen. 

Spitzhaeuschen

We also took a walk across the bridge to Kues, which, being the more modern portion of the city was a little less charming, but made for a nice walk. It also gives a good view back to Bernkastel. In the back of the picture below, you can see one of the cruise ships. There are a number of dinner and tourist cruises that take passengers up and down the Mosel on trips lasting from a few hours to many days.

Me with Bernkastel in the Background

On Sunday, we went off to an open-air museum about an hour or so from our place. Essentially, this museum has houses and buildings collected from one region of Germany on display for visitors to walk through. For those of you from New England, it is on the lines of Strawberry Bank or Plimoth Plantation.

Jason and I had been to a fantastic museum like this just outside of Copenhagen when visiting Denmark a few years ago and had really enjoyed ourselves. The museum here in Germany, while much smaller than the Denmark version, was still quite nice. There were many examples of Fachwerk buildings throughout the museum. They even had a nice exhibit (though, all in German) showing how the buildings are constructed. The basic idea is that you frame out the house with timbers, then fill in the spaces between the timbers with things to keep out the cold--mostly sticks covered with straw, mud and plaster.

Open-Air Museum

As many of the buildings were taken from farming communities, the museum included quite a selection of animals, including cows, chickens, sheep and goats. We took some time to visit with a number of them. They animals were once again fascinated by Jason.

Pig and Jason

Jason and Sheep

We are on our way back to the States for a bit for Thanksgiving. While it will be great to see friends and family, I am looking forward to getting back and having some more Gluewein!

Week 27: Short Days

As winter is creeping up on us, our days are growing remarkably shorter, with the sun rising around eight in the morning and setting around 4:30 in the afternoon. We've also been having quite a bit of fog, which tends to last until around noon-time then comes back again after the sun sets. This gives us all the more reason to get outside while the sun is up. 

As I mentioned in an earlier post, many of the towns in our area have hiking/walking trials that take you through the countryside around the town. In our area, there are a series of nordic walking trails (yes, you use poles--it is crazy...just look at the link). Our town, like many of the other sites, has three: a 3.6 km, a 8 km and a 15.9 km. We decided to do the longest, which passes near our apartment, works its way down a significant hill, then follows along the Kyll River before coming back through the village of Preist and through fields back into our town.

One road proceeds through a yellow wood...

The weather was perfect for being out hiking: nice, crisp fall weather, with no clouds and bright sun. As the afternoon wore on, we noticed the moon in the sky...

...which stayed put as the sun set.

The last part of the hike was through the woods. With the sun setting, it was getting dark very quickly. Luckily, I had asked Jason to throw his headlamp in the bag we were carrying. He was very excited to use it, and tried many of the settings as we were walking along. For your own reference, a blinking-white headlamp does not give the best view of the upcoming trail.

This portion of the trail was well known to me, as it is where I go mountain biking during the week. Right near the main path into the woods, there is a shrine, as you often seen throughout the countryside here in Europe. This one looks like a tiny church and is very well maintained. It includes a small pew and some kneelers, along with some long burning candles and a number of plaques thanking for the help of Mary and Jesus. I have passed by it many times, but had never stopped for a close look. It was a nice place to rest for a few moments with the quiet autumn darkness closing in around us.

Our total hiking time was about 4.5 hours. We started at about 2pm with the mid-afternoon sun, and by the time we were back home, it was completely dark out.

On Sunday, we went to Vianden Castle in Vianden Luxembourg. You may recall that about a month ago, we were in Vianden for a hike. This time, I was flying out for a work trip for Luxembourg in the evening, so we decided to stop by and visit the castle itself. The castle was completely rebuilt in the 1970s and 80s from a complete ruin. Now it is quite nice, with a number of spaces that look like they are used for events and possibly even royal occasions.

Vianden Castle

In the castle, there was an exhibit about Charlotte, the Grand Duchess of Luxembourg. Unfortunately, we could only understand snatches of it, as most of it was in Luxembourgish, with a smattering of French and German. Anyway, Charlotte was the leader of Luxembourg during WWII and, from what we could gather, she lived in exile during much of that time in England. From looking at the history, that makes sense, as the Germans invaded Luxembourg on their way to France. She later abdicated in favor of her son. The current ruler of Luxembourg is Henri, her grandson. The castle was a good visit and had some great views of the surrounding area.

Week 26th: Bonn

For those of you who are about my age or older, you may remember Bonn as being a rather important city: it was the capital of West Germany. In doing some reading before and after our trip we found some rather choice quotes regarding the city, mostly how it was an unassuming capital, and more of a sleepy one-horse-town rather than a bustling international city. This podcast has a good profile of the city, including the impression (or lack-thereof) it made on visiting diplomats.

From our perspective of living out in the boonies, it is certainly a city. We had our lunch, then walked through the downtown area, where we came across the Altes Rathaus (old town hall). As you can see in the picture, it is quite pretty, with the ornate stairways and gold trim.

Jason and the Altes Rathaus

From the downtown, we walked to the Museumsmeile (museum mile) and went to the Haus der Geschichte (literally: House of History). This museum covered the modern history of Germany, starting just after WWII, going through the rebuilding of the country, the separation into East and West and reunification. One interesting thing we learned was regarding the various zones Germany was split into after the war. As you may remember from high school history, Germany was split into four separate administrative zones, one for each of the allies (UK, France, US and USSR). 


We all know what happened with the USSR's section, but what I didn't know is that the Western allies were not equal in administration. For example, France refused to let there be any industrial base in its region. It removed all the factories and wanted to turn Germany into an agrarian country--one that could never attack it again. While this happened to some degree in the US and UK zones, there was a recognition, first in the US sector, then later in the UK, that to have a successful, modern economy and to reduce unemployment, you need industrial jobs, so the destruction of the factories stopped. Where we live is smack in the middle of the French zone, and there is still an amazing lack of industrial base.

The museum set up two parallel tracks for the two halves of Germany. It was very interesting to see what was happening in the West and compare it to what was happening in the East during the same time period. After we left the museum--unfortunately we only made it to about the mid-1950s as we arrived only 90 minutes before the museum's closing time--we reflected on the fact that in the US we learned very little about the history of East Germany. For example, we had no idea that there was a popular uprising in 1953 that necessitated the institution of martial law throughout the country. Of course, the West couldn't really do anything to help, as it would risk war with the USSR, but it would seem like such an occurrence would be good reinforcement that the commies are no-good-bastards and, therefore, a good thing to include in our high school history narrative with the clear anti-communist thread that, at least, my history teachers took.

So, it is a really good museum. We need to go back and see the rest, maybe some other rainy or cold day this winter. And, to anyone who visits, we'd be happy to bring you there. Plus, admission is free!

Bonn is looking back

Week 24 & 25: More Hiking in Luxembourg

The fall has been really nice here, with the trees slowly changing color--I think we are close to peak now--and some very warm days mixed in with some much cooler ones. As a result, we've been doing our best to spend a lot of time outside. This has resulted in me doing some mountain biking during the week as an option for my daily workout and us taking regular hikes in the area.

Two weeks ago, the intent was to go out on a hike for a couple hours in the afternoon, so we choose this one, which starts in Germany, crosses a river and heads into Luxembourg then loops back across the river into Germany. It was a beautiful fall day, with just a bit of crsipness in the air--just the type of weather I like for hiking. The valley we were hiking around was very pretty. There were a couple of small villages and a castle. Throughout our hike, we came across a few nice vistas, such as the one below.

Germany on the river's right, Luxembourg on its left

Now, one thing about the hikes from the site I linked to above, is that they (1) don't always follow well marked trails and (2) don't always include good trail descriptions. This particular hike had both of these problems. We found, though, what we thought to be the right trail marker to follow and did our best.

We generally thought we were on track. We found the bridge to cross back over the river. Seemed to be able to find the behavior of the trail we were on on the map and when we couldn't, we just figured the map wasn't very good, as we had run into that with other hikes. Then our 3.5 hour hike was becoming 4 hours...no need to panic, we lost some time on a false trail a bit earlier on...and then we passed another bridge. And about 10 minutes later it dawned on us. That second bridge, that is the one on the map. That was where we were suppose to cross. We had been lost and never realized it. And we agreed that often we'd rather be lucky than good.

 So, our 3.5 hour hike turned into about 5 hours. We breathed a sigh of relief once we saw the car. I was very glad I packed the extra water and food. Despite that, our feet were sore and our stomachs quite empty.  After a quick stop home, we cleaned up and headed out to a local Oktoberfest where we filled up our stomachs with meat and numbed our feet by drinking beer. It was great. I can't imagine what the scene looks like in Muenchen.

Based on our close call on the hike I described above, the next weekend, when we went out for a hike, we decided to follow one of the clearly marked hiking paths. In many towns in our part of Germany and in Luxembourg, there are well marked trails that start in the center of town and lead you out into the countryside before bringing you back into town. Generally each town has at least three: a short 2-3 km route, a medium 5-8 km route and a long 12-17 km route. We decided on the town of Lieler, Luxembourg, which is very close to the triple-point of Luxembourg, Germany and Belgium (more on that later).

The hike was very nice. We chose the medium distance. It took us along the edge of pastures and through the woods. Through our many encounters with cows, we found that Jason may have become an unlikely cow messiah: every time we came to the edge of a field and stopped to talk to the cows, then all gathered around him. Hopefully he will use his new-found power responsibly...

Jason tending to his flock

His notoriety has quickly spread to another field

On our drive back home, we came across the aforementioned triple point. There is a small brook that serves as the boarder between Luxembourg and Belgium and a small river that serves as the boarder between each of those and Germany. We found the marker and snapped a few shots.

Three countries at once!

Hopefully this good weather will hold out a bit longer and we can get out in the woods some more.

Week 23: Rainy Columbus Day Weekend

(I am about a week behind on posting. I will, hopefully, fully catch up later this week, as for the first time in a while, I'll have a full week with no travel.)

Our long weekend was a bit wet, so we did some more inside based activities, including our first trip to a climbing gym here in Germany (they have *no* pads on the floors in the top rope area--just industrial tile on concrete; despite the fact that I knew Jason wouldn't drop me, it took a while to get mentally over that), followed by a stop by IKEA.

The stop by IKEA was primarily to finish up the living room--or get it *closer* to finished than it was before. As you may remember from an earlier post, since our walls are really bumpy and not really white, I built a screen for the projector. I finished that maybe six weeks ago, finally finding some appropriate material for the screen, and getting a can of white paint. The result isn't too bad, as can be seen below. The picture is a little uneven in places--I think I'll need to do a second coat of paint at some point.

The screen in place

The big gain, though, from the trip to IKEA was to finally get the projector high enough above our heads that we didn't have to squinch down on the couch while watching TV. We ended up deciding on one of IKEA's modular units, which is just about the right height for the projector, when placed upside-down on the top most shelf. I like this position much better as it is going to be great for Wii playing during these long winter nights--something I should have done long ago when we had this setup in RI. I do want to paint the unit. Any ideas for anything interesting? I was thinking a 'film' pattern on the legs...

The projector: Standing Tall

We did get out late on Sunday and went by a local Weinfest in Piesport. We had some sausage, wine and then...Waffeln am Steil! And I thought Americans had cornered the market when it came to putting things on sticks. The stand where we bought them had this great little waffle iron that could make up to four of these babies at once. It was a delicious find, with a little powdered sugar.

Jason and the Waffeln

Piesport is a big wine area (as can be guessed by it having a wine fest in the first place). After indulging in the festival food, we took a walk out next to the Mosel, by some vineyards. In the picture below, the hill behind me is covered in vineyards. There were more vineyards behind Jason. Those have already been picked clean. We still don't know just how they do it. We assume by hand, but it is a huge project, so I was expecting to see a roving band of migrant laborers completing the task, but haven't yet seen proof of that guess. Until that point, I will assume it is gnomes. They are in everyone's gardens.

Mosel valley

Week 22: A Weekend in Paris

I have been traveling quite a bit for work lately, and headed back to Beauvais, France this past week. Jason and I decided to take advantage of my work trip and spend the weekend in Paris. I took Friday afternoon off and visited the Musee d'Orsay before Jason was able to arrive early on Saturday morning. The museum itself is quite a site. It is an old train station and has a fantastic interior. A great place to sit and people watch.

I was especially excited to see their Van Gogh collection, as earlier this year there was an episode of Doctor Who which revolved around Van Gogh. There were at least two paintings featured in the episode that I saw: The Church at Auvers (I was unable to find the demon in the window, but I think that happened in an alternate timeline) and Bedroom in Arles (the third version--oddly enough, this painting also appears in my German textbook, in the section where you learn the vocabulary for furniture). I was thinking that Starry Night was there as well, but it turns out it is in MoMA.

Resting my feet next to the Seine

I met a friend of mine for dinner that evening. We were both on time (or close to), but managed not to find each other at Place Saint-Michel for about half an hour. Luckily we didn't give up. We had an excellent Tapas dinner, then walked around a bit to find some ice cream.

Jason arrived on Saturday morning and we planned out our day, wanting to hit a few things few things we didn't see on our last trip to Paris two years ago. Our first stop was the Catacombs. Under Paris were a number of limestone mines, which resulted in a vast series of tunnels. As the city was expanding during different points in its history, a forgotten graveyard or mass grave would be found. Instead of halting construction, the bones would be moved to the catacombs. Here you can see *piles* of bones from different points in Paris's history. There are plague bones and revolution bones and...and...and...lots of bones.

Jason and some bones

We walked around a bit and our next stop was the Pantheon. It is a very cool building and we arrived just in time to take a tour to the top of the building where you can look out, see all of Paris...and eat it.

The best part about Europe: The opportunity for forced perspective shots

Our final stop before resting up for the evening was the Pere LaChaise Cemetery. No, baby-boomers, we did not see Jim Morrison's grave. We actually wanted to, so we could compare the level of vandalism there to that on Oscar Wilde's (see below), but the cemetery was closing, so we couldn't make it. We'll look for it on our next trip. Oh, and we ran into Chopin's grave quite by accident. It was a quite lovely place.

So much lipstick...

 Saturday turned out to be "Blanche Nuit" (White Night; a slang term for an all-nighter), where Paris had many of its museums open late into the night and had a variety of public art exhibits set up across the city. Everyone was out and the weather was beautiful. We saw a couple video installations in churches, but otherwise just walked around and enjoyed the crowds. It was a great time.

We wrapped up the weekend by again meeting with the same friend I had met for dinner earlier that weekend. We all saw an exhibit on Giacometti and how he was influenced by Etruscan art (the Etruscans were in Italy before the Romans--the Romans thought they were weird, and they had a different language, customs and technologies from the Romans, plus no one knew where they came from; we decided they were either aliens or time travelers; add your vote in the comments). I only knew of Giacometti's work by sight and had very little knowledge of the Etruscans, so it was a beneficial exhibit to see on two fronts.

We had a great weekend and were back home in about 3 hours (2 hours by TGV and 1 by car). We'll have to make some time to do it again in the future!

Week 21: Hiking and Biking

The weather in our corner of Germany has been pretty spectacular for the last few weeks: sunny, but cool (I'd say in the 70s). The trees are starting to change, there is a bit of a nip in the air in the morning in evening and it is getting darker much earlier.

In celebration of the weather, we spent this weekend (Sept. 24th & 25th) mostly outside, first with a great hike in Luxembourg, followed by a bike ride on closed section of roadway. The hike was in the city of Vianden. We started at the Chateau and worked our way up the hill behind it. This page shows the profile of the hike (in German).

Vianden Castle

You'll note around kilometer 4 the very sharp drop. At this point, we were descending along the ridge line. The path had been well used in the past, but definitely was not used quite as regularly recently: there were a number of instances were I looked on either side of the ridge--quite steeply down to both my left and right--more than once each before I found the trail again. The picture below gives you a sense of this downward climb. Yes, we are both on the trail.

Hiking the Ridge

The trail looped back around to the castle, passing through an adventure park. (Kristin, there are at least 3 of these within 90 minutes of our place--they are really big over here!) For those of you unfamiliar with an adventure park, it is also known as a high ropes course. You are strapped into a harness and then work your way around different elements at different heights in the trees. They are tons of fun if heights aren't a problem for you. Jason and I have gone with friends to one in the US, but have not done one here in the EU...yet.

On Sunday, we went out for a bike ride from Dreis to Kluesserath. The area was having a biking festival, with a total of five towns participating. There were lots of people out on the bike paths and the section of the road between Rivenich and Kluesserath was closed to traffic, so you could really get pumping going down the hills into the river valley. This section of the ride was edged by vineyards. The grapes are about ready to be picked, I would hazard to guess, but we haven't seen anyone out among the vines yet.

The ride was mostly flat, except for the trip down into the river valley. The hill was deceptive, though, as on the way down it seemed very steep and I was dreading the mere idea of riding back up. But, either it was a bit of an illusion, or I am stronger than I think, as it turned out to be quite a manageable incline. The ride was a total of 36ish kilometers round trip--about 20 miles. I found that my tailbone was still not completely healed from my fall in the bell-tower, but I made it and the weather made it a perfect day to be out.


View Larger Map

Shortly after the end of the ride, I was off to the train station for work, headed to Afschaffensburg, just outside of Frankfurt. Such a shame to have to leave a day like that as early as I did, but the need to demo called, so off I went.

The Catch Up Post

It has been a number of weeks since I last posted. These has been because (1) Jason and I took a vacation for the first part of September and (2) I have been travelling a ton for work lately. So, this post will serve to catch up on some highlights of the last few weeks.

The last weekend of August included two rather nice trips for us, both involving nearby villages and castles. There are two particularly awesome things about this weekend that I want to share. The first is this slide:

Unfortunately, since it was so wet out that day (I had, only 20 minutes before this video was taken, fallen firmly on my ass while we were climbing down from a bell tower on its slippery wooden stairs. Ow. My tail bone is still recovering.) that I couldn't get much speed up while I was on the slide, but man, I can't wait to go back and try it out when I don't have wet pants slowing me down.

The second fantastic thing was a trip to the town of Manderscheid, which was having a medieval festival at one of the town's *two* castles. Evidently, the castles were owned by competing families, who spent their time eyeing each other across the small river. The lower castle was quite a complex and we spent some time walking through it with hoards of other visitors who were there for the festival.

Me in front of Niederburg

After that weekend I headed out to the Netherlands, the met up with Jason in Boston a few days later. We had a great time back in the States visiting our friends and family, despite the fact that I completely lost my voice due to strep. Hopefully I didn't get anyone sick (if you did, send me a note and I will send you a 'get well' card by way of apology), as I was walking around for a few days most likely contagious, before my dad told me to go to the clinic.

Instead of heading right home to Germany after vacation, Jason headed to Texas (Jason' characterization of his first ever trip to Texas: "It is hot and flat.") for a conference/workshop and I went to Beauvais, France to sit in on a series of training sessions performed in French for my company's software. Beauvais is generally an unremarkable European city. This is my 3rd work visit there. It is a smaller sized city (about the size of Concord, NH population-wise) and has all of your standard cafes and stores that you expect. It also has a cathedral. A very tall cathedral that was never finished and has beautiful and large stained glass windows. If you ever find yourself in Beauvais, it is a must see.

Beauvais Cathedral

Jason's flight back from Texas ended up being delayed 4 hours, so he didn't end up getting back home until late in the afternoon last Saturday, so we had a bit of an abbreviated weekend. We did venture out on Sunday and explored a bit of the Vulkaneifel. Part of the area near where we lived used to be very volcanic--and is still a little volcanic. We took a few walks around some maares (volcanic crater lakes). It was very nice and there were many Germans also out for walks. One of the maares we visited had quite a swimming spot. The maares make great swimming holes, as they drop off very quickly--evidenced by the 7 meter high diving platform on the shore in the below photo. We'll need to come back here next summer.

Swimming Area with High Dive Platform

Week 16: Luebeck

This past weekend we took a road trip to the other side of Germany to visit with some friends who were competing in an autonomous sailboat competition. The competition was held in Luebeck, Germany, which is very close to Denmark and very far away from us. We split up the drive on our way out, stopping off in Dortmund to stay for the night (about 3 hours from home) before making the rest of the drive to Luebeck (about 4 hours). We hit some traffic, saw a jackknifed RV, but we made it to our friends' competition at exactly the right moment.

When we arrived, they were working frantically on getting their boat working. They had just finished a run and had found that the timing on their code was way off--they were able to finish the course on that try, but it took 5 times longer than it should have. We stayed out of the way while they got everything ship-shape (ha!). A few minutes later their boat was put out in the water and it did its thing. Flawlessly.  

The Autonomous Sailboat Completing its Run

Evidently, we brought luck with us on our long drive, as this was the only successful run our friends had during the multi-day competition. We only saw one portion of one event, where the boat had to execute a series of maneuvers relative to the buoys. They didn't win, but it was pretty cool. We were both very impressed with our friends' achievement, especially since the boat had sat over night on the bottom of the Charles about a week before.

The Boat Being Torn-Down

After the competition awards were presented, we all went out to wander around Luebeck. On our friends' recommendation, we all went to a restaurant that focused it dishes on potatoes and even had some seats outside. Very good food and very good beer. A great way to spend a late summer evening.

Group Photo: 4 Nerds

On Sunday, we hopped in our car and drove around Luebeck a bit before we headed back to Speicher and our friends headed off to their next vacation destination. We drove east of Luebeck, to get out to the Baltic Sea. Jason and I realized that we had never seen the ocean in Germany and the last time we had really been close to it was when we were in Norway a couple months ago. Odd for a couple of people who have lived walking distance to the Atlantic for the past five years. 

We bid our adieus and headed back to Speicher, arriving late on Sunday evening. We slept well. It was a very nice weekend, but we were a little bummed that we had missed Wittlich's Pigfest (or Saeubrenner). Or thought we had. In reading some posts on a base related Facebook site, I found out it wasn't over until Tuesday(!). So, for dinner on Monday night, we headed on over where we were greeted by a large pig on a stick and offered his tasty insides to eat on a Broechen. And, my, they were delicious.

Eat Up! I'm Tasty!

Week 15: The Tunnels Under Luxemburg

We spent some more time in Luxemburg this weekend, but in the capital city instead of one of the outlying towns. It was quite wet in our region of Europe, so we decided to visit more of an indoor attraction than we normally do for weekends, and visited the casements under the city.

There are two separate sites to visit. We weren't clear on that and visited the least popular first, which turned out in many ways to be the cooler of the two sites. First, there were fewer people around, so we could explore a bit easier without having lots of people in our way and second, they were darker and danker, as you can see in the photo of Jason below. It was very cool and only a little creepy. What kept the creepy factor a bit lower was that the casements are located in one of the city walls and intended for defensive purposes. If you want something to be defensive, at least in the 1600s when these were first built, you need a place to fire your cannons. As a result, as you work your way deeper into the tunnels, you find places with sunlight, which seems odd when you've spent 10 minutes walking in tunnels.

Jason in the Casements

The casements were also used during WWII as bomb shelters. Looking at them now, I think Londoners made out much better sitting the Tube than Luxemburgers did in these dank, narrow tunnels. One evidence of this is the sign shown on the wall in the photo below: "Don't forget the sand". It was how you "flushed" after doing your business--those cubicles would be the privy.

That is how you flush ("Don't forget the sand")

The second site wasn't nearly as grim, and is known as the Bock, and is located in between the two high points in the city. The Bock was also mined to prevent invading armies of the last century from making it into the city. The mines have been removed and you can go deep within the structure to the "mine gallery" and see where they used to be. There were quite a few.

The sun decided to come out as we finished up with the Bock, so we walked around the city a bit, coming across our first mime. The act had two mimes, but the portion of the video below only has the male lead. I think the performance was something about the relationship between the two mimes. There was definitely a mimed baby for a bit. And possibly the baby died. The bit below was the male trying to cheer the female up. I think. Other interpretations are welcome in the comments.

We did some more work on our projector screen this weekend, actually buying the required cloth, stretching it over the frame and painting it. In the process of stretching the cloth, the shape of the frame was altered, so it no longer fits between the two shelves. For that reason and to remove a bit of slack that emerged when I was painting, I'll need to remove some staples and restretch at least a portion. It will also need a second coat of paint. But, we did try it out with that latest episode of Torchwood and it is much better as a screen than that sheet I stole from pre-frosh weekend all those years ago...

Week 14: Lake Konstanz

Every-so-often, Jason gets a goal day. A goal day is a day off for the base when there have been no DUIs in the previous allotted time (I believe a month). Luckily, we had a little notice and after some consideration, decided to go to the Lake Konstanz area. Lonely Planet touts this as a vacation destination for many Europeans, and since many Europeans are on vacation in August, the hotels were packed. We did, though, luck into a very nice place in downtown Friedrichshaven, that had a great breakfast and clean rooms.

One of the reasons we chose this destination, was for the great biking trails that surround the lake. On Saturday we had perfect biking weather--a little overcast and warm, but not hot and we road through three countries, covering around 35-40 miles, with a nice stop for lunch. Note that is about 20% of the way around the lake. On our next trip to that area, we'll have to plan for more than one day of riding so we can make it further.


View Larger Map

Now, the best part of the ride was that we could take either the ferry or the train back to our starting point. Knowing that we didn't have to ride back, helped us ride that much further. When we arrived in Rorschach, Switzerland, the ferry was soon to arrive, so we hopped on and headed back to Friedrichshafen. On the ferry, we had some particularly nice views of the Swiss side of the lake.

Me and Switzerland

Friedrichshafen is a nice tourist town. It was completely leveled during the war, as it was the location of the Zeppelin works. It still works that angle quite heavily. There is a museum--no, Karl, we didn't go in--and airships can be found in various motifs throughout the city. Oh, you can also book a flight in an airship. We saw at least two of them while we were out biking.

Nothing Like Public Drinking from Real Glasses

There was a Kultur festival going on in Friedrichshafen the weekend we were there. There was a wide variety of performances and folks selling their wares. On our first night there, we had some street food and beer. Yay European public drinking! They had a great system, so you could eat on real plates, with real silverware and drink beer from real glasses, where you paid a deposit on each (I think it was a Euro or two for the plate and the glass) which you got back when you were done eating. We've seen similar systems at other festivals, but only for the glasses. 

And then there was this...table dancer...don't worry, it is safe for work.

And as we rode around the lake, we had a chance to see the differences between three countries--Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The biggest difference was the color of the biking signs. All three of the countries in this area speak German, so other than the changes to the signs we were following we wouldn't have noticed a difference. 

We also got to see the only wood carving of Alf that probably exists. If you ever wondered just what happened to Alf, he is currently living happily in Austria under the name Gordon Shumway. The neighborhood was suspiciously devoid of any stray cats...

Alf says "Hi!"

Weeks 12 & 13: Lots 'o Luxemburg

You can tell I am living in Germany from how I spelled Luxemburg. The French add an o before the u in burg.

We spent the last two Sunday afternoons in Luxemburg. The first Sunday there, July 24th, was a bit of a serendipitous event. Our intent was to go to Beaufort Castle, but when we arrived, they were having a "Rock the Castle" music festival, which had an admission fee. So, instead, we drove back the way we came and stopped at a pretty cool rock formation that we had passed on the way in.

A car, a rock and Jason

That was pretty neat, but we did some more driving around and found some more amazing formations, again, right next to the road. This included a few trails that went to the top of big rocks and others that went into large cracks. As someone who grew up with only a single little rock in our yard (it was between the roots of a tree and about the size of a basketball--or at least that was what stuck out of the ground), the rest being sand, I still love climbing around on rocks. (I seem to remember that I might have asked for a big rock to climb on for a birthday present at some point.)

Jason in a crack

As we were driving out of that area, known as Little Switzerland, we saw more and more cool looking places to stop, but decided we would save them for another trip to the area, as it is very close to us (about 45 minutes away). We also wanted to look into where the good bouldering spots are, as it looks like it could be quite a lot of fun to get on the side of those rocks with the right shoes on.

Now, this weekend's Luxemburg adventure was less on the naturalist side. As Jason and I are both *terrible* at meeting people, we tried forcing the issue by joining a Meetup group. We found an expat group in Luxemburg city and figured we would try hanging out with them a bit to see about meeting some folks outside of the base. The group turned out to be quite mixed--a Briton, an Amerian, a Spaniard and an Ecuadorian by way of NYC.

The destination was Echternach, which Jason and I have visited a number of times before, but this trip was specifically for the balloon festival. I have never seen a hot-air balloon up close, so though they didn't get far into the air until just after Jason and I left, I enjoyed watching them fill up the balloons and getting things floating. The highlight was getting to step inside a balloon that was being inflated. Very cool.

It was a Paulaner balloon-- unfortunately no beer inside

I would be completely remiss if I didn't also mention our activity from this Saturday. The base had it's open house, where it invites Germans to visit and check out the planes with lots of airshow like activities. While we were there, we got to see an A-10 and an F-16 fly in formation. Jason was saying that the F-16 pilot probably had a hard time matching the slower speed of the A-10.

They also had a large number of static displays of planes and plane parts. I particularly liked the view of the A-10's gun outside of its packaging. Man, that thing looks like it can pack a wallop. They had the whole plane on display as well, but the interesting parts of the plane (other than the gun) are all in the redundant design features that are far more interesting to read (or hear) about than to see in person.

A-10 Gun

Oh, and we had some fantastic food while we were at the airshow. The different groups on base each had their own booths. The one that was selling hamburgers and hotdogs and another selling ribs had the longest lines. We instead chose to eat from the Filipino booth. And it was a good decision. On a final note, Jason heard from one of his colleagues that German teens caused his group's booth to sell out of Mountain Due and Doctor Pepper. Evidently, teens are the same everywhere. 

Week 11: Aachen and Weinfeste

Our weekend revolved around two trips. The first, on Saturday, was to the Mosel river, where we rode our bikes between two towns that were each having a Weinfest (wine festival). We had some great weather and  soon after riding into Zeltingen-Rachtig we came across a small parade, where the local wine queens waved to the crowd and TWO marching bands (one before and one after the wine queens' float) took turns playing some tunes.


View Larger Map

We weren't quite expecting the parade, and didn't know where the wine fest was taking place, so we followed slowly behind, being careful to not parade without a permit. That turned out to be a good tactic, as it brought us directly to the festival ground, where we followed the bands into a tent, got a glass of wine and a beer and watched the bands and some folk dancers do their thing.

Wine and Folk Dancers! Best Saturday Ever!

After enjoying the hospitality, we rode back to Brauneburg, where we had dinner at our second wine festival of the day. This one also had a marching band, though we missed the parade. Soon after we arrived we found the food stand. Jason had a curry wurst, which was made using this amazing kitchen tool that cut a sausage into many pieces in a single swipe. I had an enormous schnizel in a broechen. It was fantastic after our bike ride.

On Sunday, we drove to Aachen, Germany. The drive there went through Belgium. If you have happened to follow any international politics, you would know that they haven't had a government in 13 months. From what we could see, there haven't been any ill effects in the countryside. The cows don't seem to mind. Anywho, Aachen is particularly famous for its cathedral, which holds the remains of Charlemagne. Unfortunately, you can't get close enough to that portion of the church when you aren't on a guided tour, but we did get to see the below, which was nice. Listening to this group helped to remind us just how perfect churches are for such music.

Aachen cathedral also has some of the most beautiful stained glass I have ever seen, as well as some incredible mosaics. So, the designation as a UNESCO World Heritage site is not based on just who is buried there. I am not nearly a good enough photographer and do not have nearly a good enough camera to do the windows or walls any justice. But do take a look at the pictures at the bottom of the Wikipedia page to get a sense of just how spectacular the place is--we will be going back there for sure.

Since we were in Aachen on Sunday, none of the stores were open, but we did do a little window shopping. Below is a picture of one of the windows. See if you can guess which of the key chains was the reason for the photo. I'll give you a hint: for two people I know, it would be a very appropriate gift.