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.


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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.

Week 10: Basel Switzerland

A few months ago I got an email from a friend that I will paraphrase thusly:

OMG!! We r going to be traveling to EUROPE!!! and will be in Switzerland!!!!! That is in EUROPE!!! You are in EUROPE!!!!! We should totally HANG OUT!!! OMG!!! I love exclamation points!!!! and OMGs!!!!

Again, I am paraphrasing.

But, how can you refuse such an email? Especially from a college friend who lives on the west coast? So, Jason and I planned a trip to Basel, Switzerland to catch up with said friend, her husband and her fetus for an afternoon and spend the rest of the weekend hanging out in the place where the smartest people in the world live.

Basel is a very nice city. I present exhibit A below.

Jason, enjoying the sunset and European public drinking

The river splits the city in two. We stayed in 'Klein Basel' (small Basel) in an apartment I found through AirBnB (it was a small but fantastic place--if you need a place to stay in Basel, I can tell you which one it is). The main part of the city was across the river, which is where the cathedral, the Marktplatz (market square) and many shops and restaurants are located. The best thing, though, is the river.

Not only can you sit along it and drink beer, but you can also, during the day, swim in it (and in certain sections, lay naked next to it). The swimming looked particularly fun. The right way to do it, from what we read and saw, is to go buy a dry-sack from the tourist information booth in Basel, put you clothes and keys in the sack, jump in and let the current carry you down stream. We didn't have our swim suits with us and are not yet European enough to jump in naked, so this only means we will have to come back. 

Look for the heads and sacks between the boat and bridge abutment

Another main site to see in Basel is the Tinguely Museum. Tinguely made extraordinary kinetic sculptures. For those of you who have been to the MIT Museum and seen Arthur Ganson's work, Tinguely does similar stuff, but with much less precision and much more size. There was a great fountain, shown in the video, in a square in Basel. This gives you a bit of an idea of his work. It by no means exemplifies his pieces in the museum--I found them much more raw and fantastic than the fountain. There was also a very interesting collection of car-based art in the non-permanent collection area that was very good--some one had done a 3-D, full-size exploded view of a VW Bug. That was fantastic.

We caught up with the previously mentioned friend, husband and fetus on Sunday afternoon, a few hours before Jason was to head back to Speicher. We had a great time, which included, brunch, ice cream and a bit of walking around. We bid Jason adeau at the train station. I hung out a bit more, including a sunset trip across the Rhein in one of the ferry boats. A great end to a great weekend.

Said friend, fetus below her, husband behind me

Week 9: The 4th in the Eifel

Chochem Castle

In our neck of the woods, there is no better way to celebrate at 3-day weekend than with a castle! This weekend's (the 3rd in 3 weeks!) was Chochem Castle. The castle was originally built about 800 years ago, but was destroyed and rebuilt in the mid-1800's. It was interesting, as it is about the same age as oldest of the Newport Mansions (Chateau-sur-Mer, which we highly recommend) and had many similar design features (false doors to preserve symmetry, grand fireplaces, purpose-built furniture etc.). It also has a beautiful view of the Mosel, as you can see in the photos.

The castle tour was in German, but we were provided translation sheets for the main points. There were a few points, particularly with statues similar to that shown in the photo, where the tour guide would ask the group (in German) about some unexpected feature and everyone would guess, while Jason and I already knew the answer, as the surprising item was written on our sheets. On the statue, the patter was:

Tour Guide: What animal is the statue?


Someone in Group: A frog?


Tour Guide: No, it is actually a lion--you can see the paws--with a full face helmet on.

Statue at Chochem Castle

That is a very safe lion.


After our tour, we wandered through Chochem. Due to a festival, the stores in town were open (surprising, as it was Sunday), so we looked around, bought some ice cream and enjoyed the warm summer evening before heading down the river for dinner. Have I mentioned how common ice cream is? It is just like New England. Even our little town has an Eis Cafe. And the ice cream is very good, Italian style gelato. Yum!

For the 4th itself, we went to the base for Super Saber Day. As we walked around the small carnival, eating hotdogs and watching the Colonels in the dunk tank, I was reminded of Contoocook's 4th of July Strawberry Festival, where there was also a dunk tank, games for the kiddies and food. We never had an Elvis impersonator in Tooky, though. Especially one who looked a bit more like an old Roy Orbison...

The 4th on Base

The main point of a 4th of July celebration, though, is the fireworks. Since it takes forever for it to get dark around here, they didn't start until about 10:45, but they put on a good show. I have a couple videos and will upload at least one. Spoiler alert! They look like fireworks do just about everywhere else, though you can see a portion of the plane we are sitting under in the top of the frame.

We also made it out for a bike ride this weekend, heading the opposite direction on the Kyll River than we did last week. It was a very nice ride, but we rode our bikes down, then pushed our bikes back up, the very steep hill down to the river valley. We probably won't do that again--next time it will be worth the time to put the rack on the car.

Week 8 (Belated): Our First Visitor

During the last full week of June, we had our first visitor--a friend of mine from high school, we'll call him 'Karl'. He was in Europe for a few weeks for the Paris Air Show and a wedding and decided to meet up with us. I took a couple days off from work at the end of the week to hang out and the three of us (Jason, Karl and I) did some biking and some traveling around.

Burg Eltz, with Crane

The few days were primarily focused on (beyond the catching up inevitable when not seeing someone for at least five years) what Jason and I had enjoyed about the area so far, such as biking along the river and through the woods. We also went to a few sites in our area that were particularly impressive. The first was Burg Eltz, a castle located about 2 or so hours from us.

Burg Eltz, 'Karl' and Jason

It is a reasonably large castle and is currently owned by one of the three families that originally built it. Pretty amazing, as it is a 900-plus years-old. As you can see in the photos, it is built into a rock up on a hill. The tour guide described a successful siege on the castle, where the Prince of Trier came by, built a siege tower, than hung around long enough to get the castle occupants to surrender. (If there is anyone out there more knowledgeable regarding siege warfare, I would like a better explanation regarding just how building a single tower can bring down an entire castle.) 

On our way back from the castle, we stopped by the small village of Wallenborn, where there are two notable attractions: a cold water geyser (link in German) and an apiary (place where you keep a lot of bee hives). One member of our group (to remain nameless) was particularly excited regarding the shop connected to the apiary and we all purchased honey to eat with some leftover bread while watching the geyser.

The Cold Water Geyser in Action

Back to the geyser. As I mentioned, it is a cold water geyser, so, unlike Old Faithful and other geysers in Yellowstone, it is not due to steam, but the build up of other gases caught in the rock unrelated to heat. This geyser blows about every half hour and was kind enough to let us have our honey laden snacks before bursting forth. A strong sulfur smell accompanied the water, which shot up to well over 7 feet. My picture below caught it just before its peak.

It was a nice few days for me before heading off on a work-trip to the Chicago area, where I spent the last week and was reminded of the ridiculousness of O'Hare and the ease of getting a salad that is *not* completely soaked in some unknown dressing (as much as I have generally liked German cuisine, they don't know how to make a salad). Oh, and I read World War Z. Highly recommended.

Now that I have posted this about one week late, you shouldn't have too long to wait before the next post--spoiler alert! it will include another castle!

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.

Week 6: Out Climbing

Jason and I signed up a couple weeks ago with the outdoor recreation department on base for a rock climbing trip. As many of you know, we've been climbing indoors regularly over the last year or so, but this was our first trip climbing outside. Our leader, Matt, is an American, but has been living in Germany for many years. He has also been climbing for many years and so knew of a good spot (cliff? hill?) to take us for our outing. Most of the folks in the group had not climbed before, so the place that Matt took us was at more of a beginner level, named Hochstein, about 2 hours south of us and very close to the French boarder. 

Me, with very sore arms

Since Jason and I more-or-less knew what we were doing (mostly in reference to belaying), we were set up on the harder of the two climbs, with one of us belaying and the other climbing. Jason went up first, making it look easy, while I was belaying him with a Munter Hitch (also a first). The Munter Hitch is good to know in case your ATC is eaten by rabid dogs--or just falls out of your bag--so you can still climb as long as you have a locking 'beener.

Jason mastering the wall

When my turn came, it was painfully obvious that I hadn't been climbing in almost two months. I got up maybe 10 feet, when my forearms decided to cramp up. Damn. I came down, stretched a bit, then tried again, managing to get up to maybe 20 or so feet. We each tried the easier climb a bit later--the pictures are of each of us from that climb. Jason, again, made it look easy. I, on the other hand, had completely tired myself out fighting with the other climb and couldn't get past the first section. Ah, well. If we ever go back, I'll get it then.

We were climbing on sandstone cliffs. It made for some interesting features and a lot of dust. There were lots of little stones sticking out of the wall that you could use as footholds, similar to the foot chips in the climbing gym. In other ways, though, it was very different from gym climbing. The biggest was that there wasn't a marked path up the rock to follow. I found climbing very difficult because of this--you need to look at the climb very differently. It is no longer a matter of how do I get to that very specific next hold, but where on this entire wall do I go. Granted, there are specific paths up the rock that considered a certain rating, so there is some general idea of where you should go, but the options outside are much greater than in the gym. Overall, though, we had a really great time and will do it again next time it comes around as an outdoor recreation trip. At some point it would also be great to get some rope so we can set up our own top roping for a day out--and further down the road get lead certified, that will be a ways off though. (We also learned about a good indoor gym about an hour away--we'll have to get over there soon.)

We also went out for a bike ride, finding some great mountain bike trails near us. They are close enough to us to get out during the week, which should be a lot of fun during these long summer days. That reminds me--lunar eclipse this evening!

Week 5: Our Stuff Arrives!

As I alluded to in my last post, we received news late last week from the shipping company that our stuff had arrived. Yay! Our movers were swift and unpacked the crates in under 3 hours on Friday morning. We spent Friday and part of the day on both Saturday and Sunday sorting through boxes. We are pretty much done unpacking and setting up, though we need a few more small pieces of furniture and to do a couple little projects.

A few things I learned from this move:

1. Movers pack everything. The amount of RI dust that has taken up residence in Germany is high.
2. Unpacking without furniture to put the stuff on is frustrating. We took a trip to IKEA on Saturday, but there are still a few extra items that need a home.
3. To better triage what I bring with me. What am I going to do with a set of candle pin bowling balls? (Yes, Mom, I'll think about putting them in a bowl on the coffee table.)
4. Putting together furniture should never be done on an empty stomach. Trust me on this one.

(Jason notes that despite #2 and #4 above, today is our 7th anniversary and we are still together.)

All-in-all, it was a successful move, as this stack of boxes and paper can attest to. Nothing broke and everything we thought was missing so far we've found in some out of the way box previously unnoticed.

Each box that is not broken down is full of paper

On Sunday we went out on our newly arrived bikes for a ride around the countryside. We checked out a number of the small villages nearby: Beilingen, Binsfield, and Herforst, having our pack lunch in downtown Binsfield. We also scoped out the series of paths that Jason will take to the base once he starts riding his bike to work.

Our bikes in their new home: the laundry room

There are numerous biking paths (Radwege) throughout this region of Germany. Unfortunately (or...not), there are so many that I can't give you a link to a map that has an overview of this area. Here, though, is one along the River Kyll, that is very close to where we are living. There is one along every river in the area and each village has one or more paths connecting one to the other. The paths are much welcomed, as the roads between villages generally have a speed limit of 60 mph (100 kph) and 2.5 inches of Styrofoam is no match for a BMW at that speed. The only bicyclists you'll see on those roads are the guys in the full kit and on the track-style bikes. I have a feeling they get up close to 60 on a nice, downhill straight-away.

From our cursory inspection of the area Radwege, and other biking options, we are convinced. We are particularly looking forward to Happy Mosel, where they close down the road between Koblenz and Trier, as well as other future biking adventures.