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 7: The Hardware Store, Happy Mosel and Marburg

This past weekend was rather busy. On Saturday we took a trip to the hardware store. German hardware stores are just like American hardware stores, except with far fewer 2" x 4"s and more shelf toilets. Those of you who had been to our place in Providence know about our projector, which serves as our TV replacement. In Providence, we had the projector shining on the big white wall in the livingroom. In our new place, the walls are yellow and textured, and thereby don't serve as well as a projector surface.

Once I realized that, I started hatching a plan. On our last trip to IKEA we picked up two Expedit shelving units. For a few weeks we had a sloppily hung old bedsheet between the two as an interim solution. The master plan involved the trip to the hardware store, where we picked up a few 3/4" x 2-3/4" x 6' pieces of wood (of course, I am translating--they were sold in metric), a bunch of hardware and some paint. I also wanted something akin to a drop cloth, one of the old-school cloth ones made out of tightly woven cotton, but no-such-luck.

The Projector Screen: In Progress

Back home, I proceeded to build a frame out of the wood, drilled out some holes in the Expedits and, using some leftover brackets from IKEA furniture, mounted the frame between them. Jason helped me stretch the old bed sheet over the frame and hold it in place with push pins. Ta-da! We have a more workable screen for watching our movies.

I still want to get a better piece of cloth, mount it with something other than push-pins and paint the surface with the bright-white paint I bought (suggestions on how to do this and what material to use are welcome--and w0z, yes, I will write this up for IKEA hacks once I am done), but this will work well enough for the time being. Hey--we have to keep up with SG-U.

Jason, Kitted out for Biking

We also got out and about this weekend, mostly on Sunday. Sunday did not live up to its name. It rained on and off for most of it. We went out for Happy Mosel nonetheless. As I mentioned in a previous post, during Happy Mosel, the road running along the Mosel river, known as the Moselweinstrasse, is closed to cars for a 50 mile stretch. Local vendors in the towns set up wine and food tents along the road and people ride their bikes for a section or the entire way. We did only a section of about 20 miles round trip due to the rain and other commitments, but the area was beautiful between the rain drops, with vineyards stretching up the hills away from the river. You can see them a bit in Jason's photo.

On Sunday afternoon we drove out to the Marburg area to visit with--here we go--Jason's sister's husband's brother's girlfriend. She is currently finishing up her studies in Marburg for her Master's and was nice enough to show us around the city. She took us by two of the main sites, St. Elisabeth's Church and the Landgrave Castle.

The View of Marburg from the Castle

There was a service going on inside the church, so we only viewed the outside, which was very nice, Gothic architecture. The castle was high atop a hill and from there you could get a nice view of the town...and the storm clouds. What you can't see from this view is the couple behind us who, in full view of all visiting the castle, were fiercely making out, like it was going out of style. Based on his balding dome, I was surprised at the vigorousness of the activity, but I guess every so often love conquers all--even public decency.

Next weekend I am off to Chicago for a week for work. We'll see how I do with the jet-lag. If anyone starts a pool, I want the square that says I fall asleep at 7pm all week.