Sundays in Germany are generally quiet affairs. The shops are all closed and, from what we can gather, Germans spend the day either out walking or inside quietly reading Goethe, as we seldom hear anything from our neighbors. Occasionally, though, towns will have Sunday markets. A few weeks ago, our little town of Speicher and the much larger nearby town of Wittlich, each had Sunday markets.
Most of them are pretty similar--you have a number of food stalls and a number of people selling various wares set up in the town square. The difference between such a market Sunday and a festival Sunday, is that the stores will also be open. We went over to Wittlich to their market first. It was a nice walk around and we poked our heads into a few of the stores, including a small mall.
We saw a few great items, first these organ grinders, who played some fun music.
And then, something that I have never seen, remote control semis. I wonder if you can use these to practice for your NETTTS courses.
The following weekend there was yet another festival. This was a more traditional festival and included a lot of farm equipment. I got to see a milking machine! I haven't seen one of those since the last Hopkinton Fair I attended. This festival was in Bitburg, home of Bitburger beer, so there was certainly beer to be had. (For you X-Men fans, it was the beer Magnito ordered in Argentina in X-Men: First Class.) It was a chilly afternoon, so we only had the one, before working our way home.
Once home, Jason realized it was time for the St. Patrick's Day parade in Southie. And, after a quick search, he found out he could watch it streaming on the web. With commercials! I have to say, after being away from the northeast for the past year and hearing mostly Southern (on-base) and German (coworkers) accents, it was a bit jarring to hear those broad As and missing Rs. My, you folks talk funny. :)
Jason, enjoying the Parade as St. Patrick intended: with a beer
As the weather improves, we are getting more excited about getting out and about. With all the castles we have seen in the past year, one may think that we are running low on options--you would be wrong! We decided to take a drive out to the Rhine, and check out some of the castles in the vicinity.
One of the great things about driving on the back roads here in Germany is that we'll be driving along and one of us will go "Woh! Look at that castle!" And on this trip out, we had just such an experience in Kastellaun. Jason, who was driving, was the one who noticed the ruined castle up on the hillside. We stopped, parked and then walked up the hill to the castle.
As with many of the castles in Germany, this one was a ruin and had only a couple walls and a turret remaining. While we were up on the hill admiring the castle remains, we ran into a wedding that was happening in the restaurant near the castle. We even got to see a Champagne cork fly and shared a smile with the opener of the bottle. Unfortunately, we were not invited to the festivities (nor were we really dressed for them), so we walked back into town and enjoyed some Kaffee und Kuechen (coffee and cake) before heading back out on the road.
Kastellaun Castle Ruin
Wedding Party
Our ultimate destination was St. Goar and Burg Rheinfels, the largest castle overlooking the Rhine. The castle was also a ruin, but still had many of its walls and a substantial number of buildings left. It was very cool, with lots of rooms and areas to walk through and even some tunnels that we got to explore with a candle. It would be a great place to go back to in the summer with a picnic.
Jason and Burg Rheinfels
Instead of heading straight home from Burg Rheinfels, we drove up to Koblenz. I have spent a lot of time at the Koblenz Hauptbahnhof (main train station), as the train line I take to get to other parts of Germany for work generally requires that I change there. But, I have not seen anything else of Koblenz. Jason suggested the stop, thinking there would be a park/monument or something else interesting at the intersection of the Rhein and Mosel rivers in Koblenz. And boy, was he right.
The intersection of these rivers is known as the Deutsches Eck (German corner). Located there is an enormous statue. ENORMOUS. The statue is of German Emperor William I. I highly recommend reading the Wikipedia page I linked to above, as it gives the history of the statue and the monument. The statue that is there now is a replacement of the version that was destroyed during WWII and the Wikipedia page includes some photos of the statue that was there before and what it looked like after being destroyed.
Statue of William I at the Deutsches Eck
To give you some idea of scale, the picture below shows Jason standing next to a carved eagle which takes up only the lower half of the lower wall between the stairs in the picture above. The only other thing I can think of that impressed me so much by its size might be the Lincoln Memorial, but this monument may be a bit more impressive, as there is nothing else even close to its size anywhere nearby.
Jason, providing scale
We walked around the park by the monument a bit before working our way back home along the Mosel. We stopped in Cochem (star of at least one previous blog post) for dinner, enjoyed a good German meal and went on our way.
A note to all US readers! The images and videos below do not take place in your culture! And thereby do not carry the cultural baggage associated with such images in the US.
We are starting to see the beginnings of spring here in central Europe and one indication of this was Buergbrennen, a festival in Luxembourg City to mark the first Sunday in Lent and the coming of spring. The festival consists of a torchlight procession from the cliffs where most of the city sits to the valley below. In the valley is a large cross which contains, what looks like, dry Christmas trees. After a bit of ceremony, the members of the procession toss their torches into the pile of hay at the base of the cross and the whole thing goes up in a big ball of flame.
Torchlight Procession
Cross prior to Flames
Cross in full Flaming Mode
Of course, since this is central Europe, you can get a waffle or two, a beer and even soup from the stands brought in for such festivities. We found out about the festival through the ex-pat group in Luxembourg and had the chance to meet some Americans and other non-natives in the area. Despite the knowledge that this is a traditional festival for this region, I have to say, we still felt a little uncomfortable gathering around and watching a cross burn--it is amazing how deep-seated cultural identifications can be.
We had a long weekend for President's Day and decided to spend it visiting some friends in Berlin. A good friend of mine from undergrad is currently in Berlin with her husband who is a visiting researcher at the Max Plank Institute. He is spending the time working on his book, while my friend is working on finishing up her PhD. Both are history of science people with science undergrad degrees, so it made for a nice weekend of low-key occasional nerding out.
Berlin is a bit of a trek from our location in Germany. We did some investigation into plane fares, flight times and other options and decided on taking the City Night Line to get to Berlin. We had, a number of years ago, done a trip on the West Coast of the US where we booked a sleeping compartment on Amtrak for our leg from Portland to Sacramento. It was reasonably comfortable, and we figured that if it was okay on the American rails, the German version would be quite nice.
We were not disappointed. The City Night Line had a similar layout as Amtrak, with a two-story car and bunk beds, with the rooms just big enough for the two beds. Frankly, that didn't matter so much, as we had a 6 hour ride, boarding the train at 1am and arriving in Berlin at 7:30am. We were only worried about sleeping, which, I am happy to report, we did quite well.
One thing about life in Europe, is that striking can occasionally interrupt, even in a very business friendly country as Germany. We arrived in Berlin and there was a transit strike on one of the main train lines. We had been warned ahead of time, so it wasn't a big deal and we were able to quickly find a cab to take us to our friends' apartment. They were just getting up as we arrived, so we joined them in some breakfast and coffee, chatted and caught up, before figuring out what we would do for the day.
After some investigation in the guidebook, we decided on a walk around the city and visit the Dali Museum. In our walk from our friends' apartment, we walked up past a Soviet War Memorial (that statue is just as huge as it seems) and to the Brandenburg Gate. This was our first trip to Berlin, so we didn't have a very good sense yet of the historic layout of the city, but, as we found out in later museums and from reading, the Brandenburg Gate was right on the edge of the Eastern and Western sections of the city.
Brandenburg Gate
After passing through the gate, Jason found a bit of Boston, right next to the Museum: The Kennedys.
Jason contemplates ordering a "Regulah"
From the Brandenburg Gate, we walked to Potsdamer Platz, which was, 22 years ago, a no-man's land between East and West Berlin. Now it is a rather open area, with a number of buildings and an underground train terminal. It was here we found the Dali Museum. The exhibits mostly contained collections of drawings with a few sculpture pieces and the experimental film Un Chien Andalou. You can click below to watch the film yourself--a couple notes, it is silent and does not have a plot as such. Oh, and there is an eye slicing scene. Not a movie for everyone, but I enjoyed it.
The next day we spent some time at the Berlin Wall Memorial. The subway station near the memorial had a great display on the way the subway worked in the divided city of Berlin, including the various escape attempts and "ghost" stations. From what we read, it was pretty amazing, with the subway being split into two and trains being operated by the East, but through the West. As soon as the East realized that people were escaping through the tunnels, they bricked them up, where possible, and put armed guards where it wasn't.
The memorial itself was very interesting. Our guide book noted that it was the longest length of the Berlin Wall that was still standing. They also had a section that recreated the wall and the no-man's land between the East and the West. From the top of a tower, you could look down into this area and see what it would have looked like 22 years ago. Man, what a crazy time.
Recreated Section of No-Man's Land Between East and West Berlin
In the evening we went with our friends to see a movie that was part of the Berlin Film Festival. They had a selection of movies that were representative of Soviet film making. We ended up deciding on Gibel Sensazii (Loss of Sensation), which is a bizarre movie about how engineers are doomed in the evil capitalist countries. It included robots that were controlled by a saxophone. Yes. You read that right. With a saxophone. Unfortunately, I cannot find any videos to link to that show that. You'll have to keep an eye out for yourself!
On our third day in Berlin, our friends had to go into the office, as they work German schedules and did not get President's Day off. Jason and I went and did a bit of exploring, stopping by first Alexanderplatz, which was firmly in the East before reunification. Alexanderplatz was to some extent a Soviet show case, so there is some of that fantastic 1960s looking futuristic architecture that you see in Tomorrowland at Disney World. Except here, people lived and worked in it.
The iconic item in Alexanderplatz is the Fersehturm (television tower). We didn't get a chance to go up for a view, but did get a good look at it against the (mostly) blue winter sky. It is quite a sight.
Me and the Fernsehturm
Our last sight to see in Berlin was the Neues Museum. The museum was heavily damaged during the Second World War and was generally left to decay by the East until the mid-60s, when they started some restoration. The restoration stopped at reunification, but was started again a while after, with the museum finally reopening in 2009. The most notable display there is the bust of Nefertiti, which was pretty amazing to see in person. This, like the Elgin Marbles I discussed in my last post, has controversy surrounding its presence in Germany. The Egyptians would like it back and have been asking for a number of years for it. The Germans like it and want to keep it. Much like the case with the Elgin Marbles and Greece, it is unlikely it will happen any time soon, if only due to other pressing matters that are occupying the leaders of Egypt.
